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Endotoxin is a part of the cell wall of common bacteria in the environment. The authors note that inhaled endotoxin produces a marked inflammatory response in the lungs, and it may cause the airways of people with asthma to constrict. In previous studies, endotoxin has been shown to enhance the inflammatory effect of diesel exhaust particulate, inhaled highway aerosols and ozone in the lungs of experimental animals. "There's experimental literature that shows both allergens and endotoxin interact with air pollution and increase the effect of each other," says McConnell. "But there's been very little study to see if these experiments have relevance for the general population of children with asthma." McConnell cautioned that much more study is needed to specify why, exactly, children with asthma living in homes with dogs had an enhanced response to air pollution. "There are other possible explanations for the findings," he says, "and actual measurements of home allergen and endotoxin, in addition to air pollution, would be important to evaluate further our hypothesis. It could also be that something only indirectly related to dogs could explain these results, for example that kids with dogs exercise outside more so they have more exposure to air pollution."

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Just the other day, I read yet another article about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle. I was sitting while I read it. Don't judge. Obviously, being active is good for our health, but what if it was good for our gadget's battery life? A concept device from design studen Toby Blake uses movement to power up your phone. The Kinetic Charger is a colorful little clip-on that uses a technique called reverse electrowetting to turn mechanical movement into electricity. Essentially,a microfluidic device pushes nano-droplets of liquid through channels embedded in a thin film. The movement of the droplets through the film produces an electrical current. This same process was used in a pair of electricity-generating shoes we covered last year. The charger can store up to 4 watts of generated energy. And when one device is connected to another, the charging capacity doubles. Phones and other electronic devices connect to the charger through a USB cable. It's a tiny package, but it packs alot of tech. Too bad it's just a concept for now. Until then, put your charger on the other side of the room, at least that forces you to get up and walk. Credit: Toby Blake

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In the past week, he added, blocks of rock have been falling from the tip of the fin at about the same rate as it is growing at the base. "This is not a lasting feature. It's important to recognize that," said Carolyn Driedger, a hydrologist and outreach coordinator at the Cascades Volcano Observatory. The USGS scientists say these features typically last for weeks to several months. Nobody knows for sure when the current fin will collapse or be shoved aside. The fin, which is steadily pushing other parts of the growing dome toward the west, has a smooth surface on the leading edge and is rough and crumbly on its sides. "The reason for that highly smooth surface is because [magma] comes out at an angle, and the rock is literally getting ground against the walls of the vent," Driedger said. "It's like a rock in a rock-tumbler being ground, smoothed, and polished." The magma at Mount St. Helens, Driedger adds, is stiff and viscous, not like the runny lava flows seen in the Hawaiian Islands. She likened the flow to toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube and making "a splat on the Earth's surface." Eventually, the growth and crumbling of these rock features might restore the conical peak of Mount St. Helens, which was blown off in the volcano's catastrophic 1980 eruption (wallpaper: Mount St. Helens before and after). "This is how mountains build themselves," Driedger said. "It's not necessarily in a phantasmagorical, big, flashy-red-in-the-sky eruption, but by very gentle extrusions that can go on for years at a time." According to Dzurisin, Mount St. Helens has built very large domes over extended periods of time throughout its geologic history. Before this bout of dome building, the mountain's north flank grew for years to decades during the first half of the 19th century, he said. "All indications are we are now in a period of sustained, mostly nonexplosive dome growth," he said. "Not to say it couldn't change, but all indications are things are pretty stable." Free Email News Updates Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample). SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

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Readers ask: Will radiation from the Japan quake and tsunami affect the Hawaiian Islands by May 2011? Should we cancel trips to Hawaii for our families? Science answers: You don't need to cancel your trip to Hawaii. Any released material must travel over 6000 kilometers to reach the Hawaiian Islands. The prevailing winds are indeed heading east over the Pacific from Japan, but the vast majority of radioactive material will rain down into the ocean within a few hundred kilometers of the nuclear plant. Which isn't to say that radiation won't be detectable in Hawaii. After all, this is what makes radioisotopes so useful for biological research: They are detectable in even the most minuscule (and safe) amounts. A trace amount of radioactive xenon-133 has already arrived in California at a level one-millionth the dose received from natural sources like bricks. Only gases such as xenon are likely to make it that far, and only at such highly dilute concentrations. For the less volatile radioisotopes to travel, they must ride on particles that are heavier than air. Gravity will take care of those. In an address from the White House, President Barack Obama reassured residents of Hawaii and the U.S. west coast that no precautions are needed. But there's no harm in keeping an eye on the radiation info page maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Sonoma County Department of Health Services has determined that a pet cat in the Glen Ellen area had rabies, the first domestic animal in the county to test positive since the 1990′s. The cat, which was unvaccinated, was taken to a veterinarian Monday for strange and aggressive behavior. The cat’s owners have received post-exposure preventative care. Animal Care and Control visited the neighborhood where the cat lived and notified neighbors of a possible risk of exposure to rabies if they had any contact with the cat. Both people and pets were evaluated for risk of exposure and referred appropriately for care. “This incident serves as an important reminder that rabies is still present in our animal populations, and sporadic cases in domestic animals can still occur,” said Karen Holbrook, deputy health officer. Rabies is not increasing in Sonoma County, and no human cases have occurred in recent years in the County, Holbrook said. Bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes are most often affected in California, but all mammals can become infected. People should not pet or touch wild animals, including feral cats. Vaccination of pets is essential to protect their health and their owner’s health as well. State law requires vaccination of all dogs and it is strongly recommended that cats also be vaccinated. “The importance of vaccinating cats can be seen from this episode,” Holbrook stated. “If your pet is not current in its rabies vaccinations and encounters a rabid animal it will be recommended to be euthanized. VIP PetCare will offer $5 canine and feline rabies vaccinations for the next three weeks at each of its Community Veterinary Clinics in Sonoma County. See Theanimalshelter.org for clinic times and locations.

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From 1989 to 1991, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released 50 falcons at locations in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Muscatine through its Wildlife Diversity program. Young, 38 day-old falcon eyases that could feed themselves but not yet fly were placed in release structures or hack boxes. They were fed so not to imprint upon people and released at 42 to 44 days old when their flight feathers were ready. In 1993, the American Enterprise building at 601 6th Ave. in Des Moines welcomed Iowa’s first pair of nesting falcons – each released in 1990 – a male from Cedar Rapids and a female from Kansas City, Mo. Since then, this site has had three separate females and two males that produced 49 offspring. Falcon nesting in Iowa has grown incrementally from 1993 to 17 known nesting pairs around the state. Last year, 15 nesting pairs fledged 34 young.

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How cool is this? It’s an asteroid with an identity crisis. Just like the press release (linked below) says, an asteroid normally appears as a point of light. Not P/2013 P5, this thing is very comet-like in that it has a tail. In fact it has six tails!? Six Tails? Wait, comets are ice and asteroids are rock. How does that happen? Careful modeling by team member Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Lindau, Germany, showed that the tails could have been formed by a series of impulsive dust-ejection events. She calculated that the first ejection event occurred on April 15 and the last one on Sept. 4. The rest sequentially erupted on July 18, July 24, Aug. 8, and Aug. 26. Radiation pressure from the Sun smears out the dust into streamers. The asteroid could possibly have been spun up if the pressure of sunlight exerted a torque on the body. If the asteroid’s spin rate became fast enough, Jewitt said, the asteroid’s weak gravity would no longer be able to hold it together. Dust might avalanche downslope towards the equator, and maybe shatter and fall off, eventually drifting into space to make a tail. So far, only a small fraction of the main mass, perhaps 100 to 1,000 tons of dust, has been lost. The 700-foot-radius nucleus is thousands of times more massive. Follow-on observations may show if the dust leaves the asteroid in the equatorial plane, and this would be pretty strong evidence for a rotational breakup. Astronomers will also try to measure the asteroid’s true spin rate.

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Awareness of the potential of quality teaching (or teacher excellence in content, knowledge and pedagogy) to impact upon student achievement is an outcome of recent school-effectiveness research. This research has extended the understanding of the conception of 'teacher' beyond surface factual learning to that of induction into learning of intellectual depth, which engages the more sophisticated skills of 'communicative capacity' and 'self-reflection'. Habermas provides a conceptual framework for this expanded notion through the awareness that knowing extends beyond factual knowledge to the challenge of 'communicative knowledge' and 'self-reflectivity'. Quality teaching alerts educators to the potential of the role of explicit teaching in values education and, in turn, the capacity of values education to complement and even enhance the learning goals implicit in quality teaching. By this is meant that values education has potential to remind individuals and systems that it is the affective and relational aspects of teaching that ultimately give it its power and positive effect. Data from the Australian Government's Values Education Good Practice Schools project are offered as evidential support for this hypothesis. Journal of Moral Education Vol. 37, Issue 1, p. 1-16 This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Moral Education Vol. 37, Issue 1, p. 1-16. Journal of Moral Education is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0305-7240&volume=37&issue=1&spage=1

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A circle touches the lines OA, OB and AB where OA and OB are perpendicular. Show that the diameter of the circle is equal to the perimeter of the triangle Explore when it is possible to construct a circle which just touches all four sides of a quadrilateral. A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15 and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle? The centre of the larger circle is at the midpoint of one side of an equilateral triangle and the circle touches the other two sides of the triangle. A smaller circle touches the larger circle and. . . . Two tangents are drawn to the other circle from the centres of a pair of circles. What can you say about the chords cut off by these tangents. Be patient - this problem may be slow to load. A circle has centre O and angle POR = angle QOR. Construct tangents at P and Q meeting at T. Draw a circle with diameter OT. Do P and Q lie inside, or on, or outside this circle? A bicycle passes along a path and leaves some tracks. Is it possible to say which track was made by the front wheel and which by the back wheel? Triangle ABC is equilateral. D, the midpoint of BC, is the centre of the semi-circle whose radius is R which touches AB and AC, as well as a smaller circle with radius r which also touches AB and AC. . . . An observer is on top of a lighthouse. How far from the foot of the lighthouse is the horizon that the observer can see?

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You are here TECHsex USA: Youth sexuality and reproductive health This white paper discusses the sexuality and reproductive health of youth in the digital age. According to the report, youth, ages 13-24, use technology as a means of exploring health related issues and well-being. It include technology usage patterns and practical recommendations for working with youth to increase sexual health and literacy.

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People of Northwest Public Radio Wed January 15, 2014 Researchers Detect and 'Count' Fish From Just A Glass Of Water Originally published on Wed January 15, 2014 4:55 pm It's not something we often think about, but as we go about daily life, we're constantly shedding little flakes of skin. So are animals and fish. This fact now makes it possible to estimate which species are most plentiful in a lake or bay. And University of Washington professor Ryan Kelly is jazzed about it. "This is about the coolest project I have been involved in," he says. That's because Kelly's research team could detect and count with just a glass of seawater the species of fish swimming around nearby. Kelly says "every living thing is" constantly sloughing off DNA into the environment. Now improved sensitivity of instruments along with the falling cost of DNA sequencing make it feasible to ID many or all of the fragments in a scoop of water. "What we are doing is building a tool so that you can go out into the world and much more quickly find out about the living resources that are living nearby," explains Kelly. Kelly says this has the potential to make surveys for endangered species easier. The greatest value could come from simplifying fisheries counts and management. First though, the researchers have to further validate the technique in open water where you have to contend with dynamic currents and mixing. The details are newly published in the journal PLOS One. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation funded this research.

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T3: Anatomy of a Fall From the moment when video of the Towers’ collapse appeared, conspiracy theorists began to speculate that the buildings had been brought down by explosives. Using as evidence the puffs of dust and debris that shot out of the buildings’ sides and the speed at which the structures fell, truthers saw a secret government demolition plot (see also “Building 7”). The Towers failed, however, not because of C-4 or any other explosive but because of “total progressive collapse,” an engineering phenomenon first identified in the late sixties after the partial destruction of a 22-story apartment complex in East London. A gas explosion on the eighteenth floor damaged a load-bearing support, causing the top four floors to fall, crushing the ones beneath. In total progressive collapse, a structure incurs extreme localized damage, and significant elements of the building are weakened. If the damage is not contained, structures elsewhere in the building give way and cause a catastrophic failure. In the case of the North and South Towers [T3], the buildings’ design called for the core columns, through a series of steel floor trusses and concrete blocks, to support the load of the floors. On September 11, the impact of the aircraft blasted off the spray-on fireproofing that had been applied to the buildings’ core columns; 128,000 pounds of burning, loose fuel began superheating them to temperatures up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Although the steel didn’t melt, it greatly softened, and buckled; as the floors began to sag, the exterior columns were pulled inward. The combination of gravity and the downward kinetic force of the higher floors caused the floors below to successively collapse (causing the puffs of dust and debris) until they hit the ground. The top floors then collapsed on top of the already-reduced-to-rubble pile, causing further wreckage. Seismograph readings taken by Columbia University indicate two events registering 2.1 and 2.3 on the Richter scale—one for each building’s collapse. The spikes started small and then grew as the buildings toppled, evidence that contradicts claims of an explosion: If the Towers’ collapse had been a controlled demolition, the spikes would have been sharper and more sudden.

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Here you will find primary sources that will capture your students' attention. The following themes, commonly taught in social studies and history classes, are designed for the potential to help your students - raise questions and make observations; - compare and contrast sources; - reconstruct conflicting perspectives; and - bring historical contexts and understandings to life in their own minds. Photographs, advertisements, and other materials depicting Progressive Era assimilation efforts, consistency and change in women's roles, and the cultural significance of cleanliness. Illustrations, photographs, and texts revealing relationships among real children's work, perceptions of childhood, new programs for children, and the child labor debate. House plans and other evidence of women's visions for their homes, economy, and society, and of the effects of industrialization on domestic work and domestic architecture. Manuscripts, photographs, courses of study, and other sources describing consistency and change over time in natural science activities thought suitable for female amateurs, students, teachers, and workers. Photographs, maps, graphs, texts, and illustrations that trace the shifting boundaries between new immigrant and other "alien" groups, and between these and the "native white" population.

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You can change the size of an entire SmartArt graphic, or of individual shapes within a SmartArt graphic. If you want to change the size of another type of object, see Change the size of a picture, shape, text box, or WordArt. To use Autofit to automatically resize text in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, see Manage text in a placeholder by using AutoFit. You can't use Autofit in SmartArt graphics. In this article Overview of resizing SmartArt graphics, shapes, and text When you change the size of an individual shape in a SmartArt graphic, the remaining shapes may adjust their sizes and positions, depending upon the layout of your SmartArt graphic and the amount of available space. In some cases, only the individual shape that you resize will change. In others cases, corresponding shapes will change their size as well. When you resize a shape that contains text, the text automatically resizes to fit. However, if another shape at the same level in that SmartArt graphic does not have room to display larger text, the text size will remain the same for all shapes at that level. Also, if you have previously customized the text size in any shape, then the text in that shape will not resize. If the text no longer fits inside the shape, see Text appears outside the borders of a shape in my SmartArt graphic. For example, the following SmartArt graphic has three similarly sized shapes. If you add more text to the first shape, and then make that shape smaller, the other two shapes decrease slightly in size and the text size decreases in all three shapes. If you now make the third shape larger, the text size does not increase in any of the shapes, because the first shape is already full of text that cannot be any larger without overflowing the available space. If you make the first shape larger, however, the text in that shape then has room to expand, and so the text size in the other two shapes also increases. However, if one or more shapes in your SmartArt graphic contains text that is much smaller than the free space in the shape allows (such as in the third shape above), you can manually change the text size by selecting the text in the shape, and then selecting the font options that you want in the Font group on the Home tab. As a general rule, if typing more text in the shape increases the shape size, then increasing the text size will also increase the shape size. Conversely, if deleting text from the shape decreases the shape size, then decreasing the text size will also decrease the shape size. However, increasing or decreasing the text size does not automatically change the shape size for all shapes, depending on the SmartArt graphic layout that you choose. Also, depending on the layout for the SmartArt graphic that you choose, when you change the size of an entire SmartArt graphic, shapes within the SmartArt graphic will either scale proportionally or adjust to optimize spacing and flow. Resizing associated shapes Associated shapes are shapes that are combined to make up a larger shape. Your SmartArt graphic will usually contain several of these larger shapes. If you select all of the associated shapes in an SmartArt graphic (such as those in the Bending Picture Accent List layout in the List type) and then resize them, your SmartArt graphic may look distorted. In the example below, all of the associated shapes in a larger shape are selected. If you want to resize only one of the associated shapes, such as the small circular shape (the picture placeholder with the sun and mountains), be sure to select only that shape. If you want to resize the entire larger shape, select all of the associated shapes, as shown below. Top of Page Resize a single shape - Click the shape that you want to resize. To resize multiple shapes, click the first shape, and then press and hold CTRL while you click the additional shapes. - Under SmartArt Tools, on the Format tab, in the Shapes group, do one of the following: - To make the shape bigger, click Larger. - To make the shape smaller, click Smaller. Important Any geometry, color, style, size, position, and effects changes previously made to that shape and to all other shapes in the same SmartArt graphic will be lost. - If you change to another layout for a SmartArt graphic, any size, position, rotation, mirroring, direction (left to right or right to left), and shape geometry changes made previously may not transfer to the new layout. However, if you switch back to the original layout before you save and close your 2007 Microsoft Office system document, all of your customizations reappear in the original layout. Some customizations are not transferred because they might not look good in the new layout. Top of Page Resize an entire SmartArt graphic - Click the SmartArt graphic that you want to resize. - Point to a sizing handle on the SmartArt graphic border, and when the pointer becomes a , drag the handle to make the SmartArt graphic larger or smaller. Tip You can also move an entire SmartArt graphic. Top of Page Give two SmartArt graphics the same size and position in their slides Applies only to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Before you begin, you should create two SmartArt graphics on different slides. - Resize the first SmartArt graphic to make it the size that you want. - Right-click the first SmartArt graphic, and then click Size and Position on the shortcut menu (shortcut menu: A menu that shows a list of commands relevant to a particular item. To display a shortcut menu, right-click an item or press SHIFT+F10.). - On the Size tab, in the Size and rotate area, make a note of the values in the Height and Width boxes. - On the Position tab, make a note of the values in the Horizontal and Vertical boxes. - Click Close. - Right-click the second SmartArt graphic, and then click Size and Position. - On the Size and Position tabs, enter the size and position values that you made a note of from the first SmartArt graphic. - Click Close. Top of Page

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For more information, visit the Ohio Department of Aging web site at: and Ohio State University Extension's "Aging in Ohio" web site at: http://www.hec.ohio-state.edu/famlife/aging/index.htm Shirley VanDyke, Education Consultant, Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging Isn't it ironic that the idea of having birthdays appeals to most everyone, but the idea of getting older doesn't appeal to nearly as many people? Birthdays are truly a celebration of life. However, straining to see through the nearsighted eyes of a youth oriented society, many Americans tend to consider every birthday past 29 as a forerunner for loss. Growing older does offer challenges, but it also provides rewards. To assist in dispelling negative stereotypes of aging, we may need to be reminded of the positive aspects of aging. You Are Wiser: It has been said that there is a mysterious ingredient that occasionally accompanies aging--wisdom. This must be qualified by the fact that aging is a process of becoming more of what we have been. Hopefully, we have learned how to live what we have learned. The first 40 years of life give us the text, the next 40 years supply the commentary. You Are Mellow: Coping skills have become better. We are more tolerant of the little aggravations of life. We have learned that it is better to take things in stride. This can bring about a reduction in anger, anxiety, and impulsiveness. It is better to be kind than to be right. You Are Confident: Later years can be a time to enjoy the benefits of experience from the life that has been lived. Many people get satisfaction and security out of reflecting on their accomplishments and realizing they have something to offer others. You Are Your Own Person: Generally, you don't experience an identity crisis. You know who you are, and you know what you like and don't like. You don't take rejection as personal. It can be liberating to realize the way people treat us is often a reflection of their own insecurities. You Become a Grandparent: Grandchildren can remind us that we need to nourish the child that is within each of us. Grandchildren provide us with an opportunity to be curious, to be excited about life, and to be playful. As Michael Prichard says, "You don't stop playing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop playing." Your World Broadens: By fostering friendships and making new ones, there can be a network of old friends and new friends as well as the extended family. It is rewarding to reach out to others and to stay involved in life. You Are More Motivated: There is an increased awareness of how precious time is and a desire to use it more wisely. There is time for pursuing a variety of interests--such as lifelong learning, leisure activities, and volunteerism. Vital absorbing interests can promote good health and extend life. Aging may be inevitable, but disease and disability are not. We're not getting older, we're getting better. Administration on Aging: www.aoa.gov/elderpage National Institute on Aging: www.nih.gov/nia Click here for PDF version of this Fact Sheet. All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status. Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Adm. and Director, OSU Extension. TDD No. 800-589-8292 (Ohio only) or 614-292-6181

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Python vs Ruby Deathmatch! We are hoping to teach people to code as part of the archive project, because we need a lot of help, and also because this way we hope people will be able to take these spiffy coding skills and do more fun projects for fandom in future. If you can write an HTML page with a bit of CSS, if you have figured out Photoshop or Premiere or VirtualDub, if you can make a custom LJ layout or muck with an S2 style, if you have ever installed, you can learn this stuff, and we hope to get you to try this. If you have some coding experience but do not consider yourself a regular coder, by all means give it a shot. Just let us know know about your background when you email the results to us. As step one in our master plan, we need some reasonably tech-savvy people who are NOT programmers to help us figure out which programming language, Ruby or Python, is more user-friendly for brand-new coders. We would be especially grateful for anyone to try this out who has any kind of physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities, so we can make sure we don't pick something hard to use for anyone with these problems. Here is how it works: 1) Flip a coin. Heads you start with Ruby, tails you start with Python. 2) Go to one of the following two pages, which are the "getting started" pages. Getting Started with Ruby Getting Started with Python 3) Check your watch when you load the page. Follow the instructions to install the programming language. Check your watch again and see how long it took you. 4) Repeat for the other language. When you are done, please note down for us: - what operating system you have - how long it took you to do the whole install for each - which set of instructions you liked better and which one you found easier - if you ran into problems and got annoyed and gave up on one or the other or both, PLEASE let us know that! Okay, that is the easy part. Now we get to the exciting part. 5) Write a program! Your program will be a Choose Your Own Adventure story of the epic love/hate between Python and Ruby, two programming languages struggling for domination in the cruel world of Silicon Valley! We want you to create, using the tutorials listed below, a program that will print out something that looks like this: THE THRILLING TALE Python and Ruby meet in a dark alleyway. What happens? 1) They fight! 2) They kiss! And then whoever is running the program types in either "1" or "2" and the story continues with another choice: For example, if you choose 1, you get: Python and Ruby do battle in the alleyway! Who wins? If you choose 2, you get: Ruby is victorious! Python weeps bitter tears and plots revenge. and that is it (although feel free to make this a much more exciting story). We have provided two tutorials for non-programmers below, one for Python and one for Ruby. The trick is that we would like you to try writing this program with no help from any programmers or coders. DO feel free to help each other out in the comments, ask your flist for help (as long as you say "no coders answer!"), or to Google for other help or ideas--in fact, if you find a different tutorial or book out there which you think is better than the ones below, we really want to hear about it. Ruby Tutorial (You won't need anything past the section called "Flow Control".) Python Tutorial (You won't need anything past the section called "Decisions".) 6) Tell us how it went, and which of the two languages you liked best. If you weren't able to get the program running in a reasonable amount of time, that is itself useful information for us! If you don't have time to do it in both programs, just do it in the one that won your coin toss. 7) Email your results to email@example.com. Please put "Python vs Ruby" in the subject line! 8) Deadline for results is 11:59PM GMT on Friday, October 19th, 2007. Comments will be left unscreened on this post for discussion purposes.

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Yoga, derived from a Sanskrit word, is a set of disciplines, bordering along the lines of physical, mental and spiritual activities, or exercises, having an overall effect of good health and mind on the body. It had originated in ancient India. It forms one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. There are numerous renditions of yoga in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. In the most literal sense, the word ‘yoga’ in Sanskrit means ‘to unite’, or ‘to attach’. The union of the mind, body and the soul, through different postures of the body is what is described as Yoga. In the ancient days, it was practiced as an art, of mind purification and for attaining higher levels of enlightenment. Yoga is performed and practiced in today’s world for achieving better health, reducing stress and achieving mental peace. The Future of Indian BPO companies-2012 and Beyond http://outsourceportfolio.com/the-future-of-indian-bpo-companies-2012-and-beyond/ Can offshore outsource vendors offer innovative solutions? http://tinyurl.com/7ud8gqg Outsourcing Dispute: Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution Mechanism http://tinyurl.com/6rvjea9 In India, Chhattisgarh is a popular destination for tourists to see the lifestyle and culture of various tribes that go back several thousand years without much change While researching on Goan cuisine, I read many articles that pegged vindaloo prepared with ghost pepper as one of the ‘ten spiciest dishes in the world Reading Accenture extends application outsourcing contract with RSA | Outsour on http://wibi.us/bdArHo

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The dinosaurs I first met were terrors that thrived in a warm, swampy world. Books and films presented them as little more than gaudy lizards and crocodiles that had ballooned to immense sizes thanks to glandular imbalances – actually proposed as a reason for dinosaur evolution and extinction – who frittered away their days wallowing in Mesozoic muck. The fact that the books in my local libraries were out of date kept this imagery alive far past its sell-by date, well into the late 80s, but every restoration or movie I had ever seen was clear that dinosaurs inhabited a warmer world where the only two seasons were wet and dry. Even dinosaurs that ventured close to the cooler poles were supposed to be itinerants that made the most of vegetation’s summer abundance before tromping their way back to warmer latitudes. The Mesozoic was an endless summer dominated by monsters. But Fantasia-esque scenes of dinosaurs restricted to algae-choked lakes and steaming rainforests too tightly constrain the wonderful variability of the animals themselves. Non-avian dinosaurs dominated the planet for over 160 million years (their avian descendants carry on their legacy to this day), and undoubtedly occupied a variety of ecosystems – from dense forests to deserts, from floodplains to chilly polar habitats where dinosaurs may have strode through the snow. Contrary to the humid prehistoric visions I saw as a kid, discoveries near both poles have shown that some dinosaurs lived full-time in cool habitats which were dark for much of the year. One of these dinosaurs, hailing from the southern reaches of the Cretaceous world, was Leaellynasaura amicagraphica. Compared to the various and sundry other dinosaurs paleontologists have dug up, Leaellynasaura was not particularly impressive or imposing. The dinosaur was a svelte, bipedal herbivore that reached about six feet in length and belonged to the ornithopod tribe of ornithischian dinosaurs. (Exactly what kind of ornithopod Leaellynasaura was remains a matter of dispute. For the moment, the dinosaur is considered to be an archaic cousin of the iguanodontians, but the relationships of many such small “hypsilophodontids” need revision.) What makes Leaellynasaura special is its ecological context. Described by Tom Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich in 1989 from fossils found in Australia’s Dinosaur Cove, Leaellynasaura roamed the southern continent around 118 to 110 million years ago. At this time, Dinosaur Cove fell within the Antarctic Circle. Based on the Early Cretaceous position of the site and geological clues, Leaellynasaura lived in a place with prolonged periods of light and dark, with temperatures between 21°F and 50°F. How did Leaellynasaura cope with these conditions? Paleontologists continue to debate the intricacies of dinosaur physiology, and it’s hard to say what allowed polar dinosaurs to live in habitats so different from similar forms found elsewhere. Still, the microscopic structure of bone contains records of dinosaurian growth, and might provide some indication of how Leaellynasaura coped with cold conditions. In a PLoS One study published last year, Holly Woodward and colleagues reported that Early Cretaceous “hypsilophodontid” bones from Victoria, Australia showed signs of a rapid, three-year growth spurt followed by a slower approach to skeletal maturity. The assessments of age were made on the basis of Lines of Arrested Growth, a brief cessation in growth often tied to harsh environmental conditions. Strangely, the researchers found that the growth patterns in southern “hypsilophodontid” bones were very similar to those of similar dinosaurs found in the interior of Cretaceous North America. The polar dinosaurs did not show any special changes in growth related to their habitat. As Woodward and coauthors noted, maybe this is because the general dinosaur growth profile allowed these animals to successfully exploit a variety of habitats. Like other dinosaurs, Leaellynasaura grew up fast to escape problems with regulating body temperature and environmental stress, and, once big enough, was able to suspend growth during tough times. The secret to dinosaur success might have been a flexible growth profile that was just as well-suited to warm habitats as cold ones. This doesn’t mean that Leaellynasaura entirely lacked adaptations to its polar environment, though. Histology can only take us so far, Woodward and collaborators pointed out, and a 2009 study by Tony Martin suggested that the little ornithopods might have burrowed to avoid extreme temperatures. Martin reported three burrows in the Early Cretaceous rock of Victoria, Australia that were probably made by dinosaurs similar to Leaellynasaura. In fact, the identification of these burrows was at least partly based on the prior discovery of burrows definitely created by the small ornithopod Oryctodromeus cubicularis from the Late Cretaceous of Montana. Frustratingly, unlike some of the dens in Montana, the bones of the burrowing dinosaurs have not been found in the southern trace fossils. Perhaps a lucky paleontologist will someday stumble across such a find. And, as Martin noted, we don’t know whether these dinosaurs added plant material to insulate their burrows, had accessory body coverings to keep them warm, or huddled together for warmth. We can only test these ideas against what has yet been found in the rock, and what future generations of paleontologists will dig up. Still, Martin’s hypotheses remind me of John Conway’s squee-inducing restoration of Leaellynasaura. Covered in coats of simple fuzz, these dinosaurs may have foraged together in the snowy dark of the southern Cretaceous. Such a view is speculative, sure, but why should it be impossible? Dinosaurs were stranger than we could have ever supposed. Conway’s work is a testament to that realization. Indeed, Leaellynasaura was not the biggest dinosaur, the scariest, or worthy of any of the other vaunted Mesozoic superlatives, but this meek creature has helped us imagine something that would have been deemed too fantastic to be true a few decades ago – snowbound dinosaurs. Previous entries in the Dinosaur Alphabet series: K is for Kileskus J is for Juravenator A-I at Dinosaur Tracking. Martin, A. 2009. Dinosaur burrows in the Otway Group (Albian) of Victoria, Australia, and their relation to Cretaceous polar environments. Cretaceous Research. 30: 1223–1237 Woodward, H., Rich, T., Chinsamy, A., Vickers-Rich, P. 2011. Growth Dynamics of Australia’s Polar Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 6, 8: e23339. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023339

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This crescent view of Earth's Moon in infrared wavelengths comes from a camera test by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on its way to Mars. The mission's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera took the image on Sept. 8, 2005, while at a distance of about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from the Moon. The dark feature on the right is Mare Crisium. From that distance, the Moon would appear as a star-like point of light to the unaided eye. The test verified the camera's focusing capability and provided an opportunity for calibration. The spacecraft's Context Camera and Optical Navigation Camera also performed as expected during the test. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on Aug. 12, 2005, is on course to reach Mars on March 10, 2006. After gradually adjusting the shape of its orbit for half a year, it will begin its primary science phase in November 2006. From the mission's planned science orbit about 300 kilometers (186 miles) above the surface of Mars, the high resolution camera will be able to discern features as small as one meter or yard across.

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A University of Adelaide researcher is dispelling misconceptions about heritage by demonstrating how heritage-listed buildings can be conserved through sustainable adaptive re-use. Speaking during Australian Heritage Week (12-21 April) and in the lead up to World Heritage Day (18 April), Architecture PhD student Carolyn Wigg said old and new buildings can co-exist, and lead to innovative and sustainable built environments. "Today there is a more mature view that heritage is interwoven into the fabric of our urban and rural areas, telling the unique story of our past and who we are as a society," Ms Wigg said. "Despite this recognition, there are still polarised opinions on heritage and development with perceptions that they are mutually exclusive, that a heritage listing places a 'glass dome' over an urban area, and that listed heritage places will be 'frozen' in time." Ms Wigg's research builds on her previous study which investigated a number of revived heritage buildings in Adelaide, including Beaumont House, the University of Adelaide Observatory, and the former Stock Exchange, Bickford's Warehouse and AMP building. "This study found there is a strong argument for the retention of existing buildings that are structurally sound and have not outlived their useful economic life, and where retention can be justified in terms of the economic, environmental and social benefits," Ms Wigg said. Ms Wigg's research will also address the practical challenges in the application of current building codes and planning laws to the redevelopment of heritage listed buildings. "There is no 'one size fits all' approach to adaptive re-use. The best approach should be determined by the building's design and future occupancy," she said. "Heritage conservation is a dynamic process that needs proactive ongoing management and re-evaluation, rather than being a static 'register' of significant buildings. "The cultural significance of a building is assessed at one point in time, usually when the building is included on a heritage register. But, as history does not stand still, it's important that we continue to re-evaluate our heritage buildings and urban areas so they will have relevance for future generations." Explore further: Earlier Stone Age artifacts found in Northern Cape of South Africa

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The research that brought to light the fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia, has topped Science's list of this year's most significant scientific breakthroughs. The monumental find predates "Lucy," -- previously the most ancient partial skeleton of a hominid on record -- by more than one million years, and it inches researchers ever-closer to the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees. Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, recognize the Ardipithecus ramidus fossils, including the partial skeleton named "Ardi," as 2009's Breakthrough of the Year. They also identify nine other important scientific accomplishments from this past year in a top ten list, appearing in a special news feature in the journal's 18 December 2009 issue. The Ardipithecus research "changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations, who carefully analyzed 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants," said Dr. Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, in a related editorial. Back in October, an international team of scientists offered this first comprehensive, peer-reviewed description of Ardipithecus. This research appeared in a special issue of Science, published on 2 October 2009. Until then, the fossil record contained only scant evidence of other hominids older than "Lucy." After analyzing the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands, feet, and other bones, they determined that Ardipithecus possessed a mix of "primitive" traits, shared with its predecessors—the apes of the Miocene epoch—and "derived" traits, which it shared exclusively with later hominids. However, many of its traits do not appear in modern-day African apes. One surprising conclusion, therefore, is that it is likely that the African apes have evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor, which thus makes living chimpanzees and gorillas poor models for the last common ancestor and for understanding our own evolution since that time. The first Ardipithecus fossils were actually dug up in 1994, but the team of researchers responsible for their discovery was careful not to rush the findings to the public. Instead, more than a decade of detailed analysis and documentation followed, as the experts sent their fossils to various laboratories around the world for evaluation. This collaborative, international effort to study "Ardi" and her environment represents a major scientific landmark of both discovery and analysis. Science's list of the nine other groundbreaking achievements from 2009 follows: Pulsars Detected by Fermi: NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope helped to identify previously unknown pulsars—highly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars—and shed light onto their unique gamma-ray emissions. Rapamycin: Researchers found that tinkering with a key signaling pathway produces life-extending benefits in mice—the first such result ever achieved in mammals. The discovery was particularly remarkable because the treatment did not start until the mice were middle-aged. Graphene: In a string of rapid-fire advances, materials scientists probed the properties of graphene—highly conductive sheets of carbon atoms—and started fashioning the material into experimental electronic devices. Plant ABA Receptors: Solving the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide and aiding biofuel production on marginal lands. LCLS at SLAC: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory unveiled the world's first x-ray laser, a powerful research tool capable of taking snapshots of chemical reactions in progress, altering the electronic structures of materials, and myriad other experiments spanning a wide range of scientific fields. Gene Therapy Comeback: European and U.S. researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder by developing new strategies involving gene therapy. Monopoles: In an experimental coup, physicists working with strange crystalline materials called spin ices created magnetic ripples that model the predicted behavior of "magnetic monopoles," or fundamental particles with only one magnetic pole. LCROSS Finds Water on the Moon: In October, sensors aboard a NASA spacecraft detected water vapor and ice in the debris from a spent rocket stage that researchers deliberately crashed near the south pole of the Moon. Hubble Repair: In May, a nearly flawless final repair mission by space-shuttle astronauts gave the Hubble Space Telescope sharper vision and a new lease on life, resulting in its most spectacular images yet. Areas to Watch: Science's predictions for hot science topics in 2010 include cancer cell metabolism, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, exome sequencing and disease, pluripotent stem cells for neuropsychiatric disease, and the future of human space flight. The special news feature will also revisit last year's Breakdown of the Year—the financial meltdown—and explore the effects of this year's Virus of the Year—H1N1 flu—on scientific research and collaborations. Explore further: Sniffing out a partner at a London pheromone party More information: On the afternoon of Thursday, December 17, the Breakthrough of the Year articles, plus a related editorial by Bruce Alberts, Science's editor-in-chief, and related multimedia will be available at www.sciencemag.org/btoy2009/ .

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(PhysOrg.com) -- This Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar interferogram over the Kenyan section of the Great Rift Valley shows small surface displacements that are not visible to the naked eye of the Longonot (front right). In the background is Suswa volcano, which was not deforming at this time. A group of scientists employed the technique known as SAR Interferometry (InSAR) - a sophisticated version of 'spot the difference' - on over a decade worth of radar images from ESA’s Envisat and ERS satellites to study volcanic activity in the Great Rift Valley, which extends through Africa from Mozambique to Djibouti. Using InSAR has allowed the group, headed by Dr. Juliet Biggs, to detect the smallest (<1 cm) of surface displacements at a very high resolution and ascertain signs of activity in six volcanoes in Kenya and Ethiopia. From 1997 - 2000 they discovered that the volcanoes at Suswa and Menengai (not visible) subsided 2 - 5 cm, and between 2004 and 2006 the Longonot Volcano experienced uplift of around 9 cm (pictured). The proximity of these volcanoes to a major metropolitan area poses a challenge in terms of a large eruption; several are located close to the capital cities Nairobi and Addis Ababa. The study also provides insight as to the geothermal potential of the region. Both countries are actively building geothermal plants to generate a renewable, environmentally-friendly form of energy. InSAR involves combining two or more radar images of the same ground location in such a way that very precise measurements - down to a scale of a few millimetres - can be made of any ground motion taking place between image acquisitions. Interferogram images appear as rainbow-coloured interference patterns. A complete set of coloured bands, called 'fringes', represents ground movement relative to the spacecraft of half a wavelength, which is 2.8 cm in the case of Envisat's ASAR. Dr Biggs is part of ESA’s post-doc student network. ESA is funding a two-year project at the University of Oxford for her to map the pattern of volcanic activity and active faulting along the entire East African Rift. Explore further: Synchronization of North Atlantic, North Pacific preceded abrupt warming, end of ice age

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Modeling plant metabolism to optimize oil productionJuly 26th, 2011 in Biology / Biotechnology Developing embryos after being excised from a growing rapeseed plant. The embryos accumulate seed oils which represent the most energy-dense form of biologically stored sunlight, and have great potential as renewable resources for fuel and industrial chemicals. (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a computational model for analyzing the metabolic processes in rapeseed plants -- particularly those related to the production of oils in their seeds. Their goal is to find ways to optimize the production of plant oils that have widespread potential as renewable resources for fuel and industrial chemicals. The model, described in two featured articles in the August 1, 2011, issue of the Plant Journal (now available online*), may help to identify ways to maximize the conversion of carbon to biomass to improve the production of plant-derived biofuels. To make efficient use of all that plants have to offer in terms of alternative energy, replacing petrochemicals in industrial processes, and even nutrition, its essential that we understand their metabolic processes and the factors that influence their composition, said Brookhaven biologist Jorg Schwender, who led the development of the model with postdoctoral research associate Jordan Hay. In the case of plant oils, the scientists attention is focused on seeds, where oils are formed and accumulated during development. This oil represents the most energy-dense form of biologically stored sunlight, and its production is controlled, in part, by the metabolic processes within developing seeds, Schwender said. One way to study these metabolic pathways is to track the uptake and allotment of a form of carbon known as carbon-13 as it is incorporated into plant oil precursors and the oils themselves. But this method has limits in the analysis of large-scale metabolic networks such as those involved in apportioning nutrients under variable physiological conditions. Its like trying to assess traffic flow on roads in the United States by measuring traffic flow only on the major highways, Schwender said. To address these more complex situations, the Brookhaven team constructed a computational model of a large-scale metabolic network of developing rapeseed (Brassica napus) embryos, based on information mined from biochemical literature, databases, and prior experimental results that set limits on certain variables. The model includes 572 biochemical reactions that play a role in the seeds central metabolism and/or seed oil production, and incorporates information on how those reactions are grouped together and interact. The scientists first tested the validity of the model by comparing it to experimental results from carbon-tracing studies for a relatively simple reaction network the big-picture view of the metabolic pathways analogous to the traffic on U.S. highways. At that big-picture level, results from the two methods were largely consistent, providing validation for both the computer model and the experimental technique, while identifying a few exceptions that merit further exploration. The scientists then used the model to simulate more complicated metabolic processes under varying conditions for example, changes in oil production or the formation of oil precursors in response to changes in available nutrients (such as different sources of carbon and nitrogen), light conditions, and other variables. This large-scale model is a much more realistic network, like a map that represents almost every street, Schwender said, with computational simulations to predict whats going on. Continuing the traffic analogy, he said, We can now try to simulate the effect of road blocks or where to add new roads to most effectively eliminate traffic congestion. The model also allows the researchers to assess the potential effects of genetic modifications (for example, inactivating particular genes that play a role in plant metabolism) in a simulated environment. These simulated knock-out experiments gave detailed insights into the potential function of alternative metabolic pathways for example, those leading to the formation of precursors to plant oils, and those related to how plants respond to different sources of nitrogen. The model has helped us construct a fairly comprehensive overview of the many possible alternative routes involved in oil formation in rapeseed, and categorize particular reactions and pathways according to the efficiency by which the organism converts sugars into oils. So at this stage, we can enumerate, better than before, which genes and reactions are necessary for oil formation, and which make oil production most effective, Schwender said. The researchers emphasize that experimentation will still be essential to further elucidating the factors that can improve plant oil production. Any kind of model is a largely simplified representation of processes that occur in a living plant, Schwender said. But it provides a way to rapidly assess the relative importance of multiple variables and further refine experimental studies. In fact, we see our model and experimental methods such as carbon tracing as complementary ways to improve our understanding of plants metabolic pathways. The scientists are already incorporating information from this study that will further refine the model to increase its predictive power, as well as ways to extend and adapt it for use in studying other plant systems. Scientific paper: Metabolic network reconstruction and flux variability analysis of storage synthesis in developing oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) embryos Provided by Brookhaven National Laboratory "Modeling plant metabolism to optimize oil production." July 26th, 2011. http://phys.org/news/2011-07-metabolism-optimize-oil-production.html

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Long wires are real macroscopic bodies, kilometers of superconducting wires are used at the LHC of CERN and the currents can be described by quantum mechanical equations. Crystals also can be described by quantum mechanical equations, and can be quite large, maybe not as large as a table. Superfluids too are in the realm of macroscopic quantum mechanics. The difference with a random object, like a table, is that the individual wave functions of the microcosm of molecules and atoms that compose them are incoherent with each other. Coherence means that all the phases of the probability wave functions of the ~10^23 molecules per mole composing them are lost statistically, in contrast with the examples of coherence above. That is why we use the density matrix to describe the behavior of such systems. So the random bodies that surround us cannot be described by one wave function in the sense of a solution of one quantum mechanical equation, except when careful conditions are met as in the examples above. Edit in response to comment: "Coherence means that all ... " Could you please elaborate more on this, maybe with the help of math? Any wave solution will have a constant angle phi as a phase with another wave solution. These phases are what define interference and beat patterns in waves.Coherence means that the phases are known. The square of the quantum mechanical wave solution is the probability to find the particle at that (x,y,z,t) and the interferences patterns when the phases are fixed are also probability functions. And you say that superconducting wires are described by usual QM, Not usual QM, it is a special solution within the quantum mechanical theory, from the link: Since the discovery of superconductivity, great efforts have been devoted to finding out how and why it works. During the 1950s, theoretical condensed matter physicists arrived at a solid understanding of "conventional" superconductivity, through a pair of remarkable and important theories: the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory (1950) and the microscopic BCS theory (1957). Generalizations of these theories form the basis for understanding the closely related phenomenon of superfluidity, because they fall into the Lambda transition universality class, but the extent to which similar generalizations can be applied to unconventional superconductors as well is still controversial. The four-dimensional extension of the Ginzburg-Landau theory, the Coleman-Weinberg model, is important in quantum field theory and cosmology. Superfluidity of helium and superconductivity both are macroscopic quantum phenomena. and the link has further references. hence their wave functions belongs to a kind of tensor product of state spaces of constituting free atoms. If you read up on superconductivity you will see that it is not what you assume. from the link: The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a condensation of Cooper pairs into a boson-like state. The theory is also used in nuclear physics to describe the pairing interaction between nucleons in an atomic nucleus. But what happens when the temperature rises? the cooper pairs break up with higher temperatures and incoherence reigns.

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I'm not sure all the details of the Solar System formation are understood, but the general principles are well established. The dust cloud from which the Solar System formed was probably roughly homogenous. However once the Sun began to form, the dust cloud around it rapidly became differentiated. The heavier non-volatile elements stayed near the Sun while the lighter more volatile elements were blown outwards. That's why the inner planets are rocky while the outer planets are gaseous or icy. Incidentally, the water on Earth probably came from comets after Earth was formed, though views are mixed on this subject. The dust cloud was probably formed by supernovae of Population II stars, and you're correct that these would have left remnants of some form. However dust clouds are big, and were even bigger when first formed. The nebulae where we see star formation have had time to contract and become more dense since the supernovae that formed them. In addition, it's been (at least) 4.5 billion years since the last nearby supernova. There has been plenty of time for the supernovae remnants to wander around, so it's no surprise we don't have one next door. Having said that, I've never seen an estimate for the density of Population II supernovae remnants, and I'd be interested to know if there's a firm number for this.

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All big rockets are burning either gas or fluid to create thrust. While this is so, I have filled up a plastic bottle with air at high pressure, and it can go long distances by blowing the pressurised air at reverse direction. If my bottle can do this without using any fire, why don't rockets just use air? How is the effect of combustion in thrust? What the rocket does is holds the propellant in a lower-pressure, easier to store form, with higher energy density. Basically you have a lot of that kinetic energy you'll need in the form of chemical energy. Then you can pipe that fuel to the combustion chamber and ignite it there. At that point all that chemical energy is released in the form of expanding gases and heat. So, instead of having a very heavy container holding all that hot pressurized gas, you just have a smaller container holding your fuel.

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Sunday, February 3, 2013 How Gaming Got Its Dice Wargamers constantly reach for greater heights of realism in their simulations, and by the mid-1960s, they increasingly relied on actual military statistics to model their combat. Perhaps the most influential example of this trend is Michael J. Korns's book Modern War in Miniature (1966), a WWII-setting wargame which offers little by way of system other than tables aggregating real-world weapon behavior. Korns reduced these statistics to percentile probabilities: for example, a particular rifle might have a 70% chance to hit a target 200 yards away. But how to resolve those odds during play? There is no intuitive way to extract percentile results from rolling a small number of d6s, but Korns provided an appendix that gave the closest approximation, roughly 5% increments: This was not the first time that the use of 20-sided dice for wargaming had been proposed: Lenard Lafoka wrote an article late in 1968 that described the potential applicability of the icosahedron to wargames, but since readers would have no means of procuring one, Lakofka actually provided instructions on how to construct a 20-sided die out of wood or cardboard. The dice discussed in Wargamer's Newsletter in the early 1970s were available only from Japan or Britain, and for Americans ordering from either was a costly and lengthy proposition. Don Lowry, the publisher of Tractics, couldn't rely on an expensive and slow source for supplying the needs of his customers. The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons made far less use of polyhedral dice aside from the d20 than later editions; the d4, d8 and d12 make only very rare appearances. Nonetheless, polyhedral dice quickly became a signature feature of D&D. They were moreover an early stumbling block when demand for the game was high: one could easily photocopy rules, but not dice. TSR continued to resell the Creative Publications dice, but at a considerable mark-up: initially $1.75, then $2.50, then $3.00. Many gamers therefore experimented with alternative methods for generating numbers, reminsicent of the Korns table above. Others eventually found the source of the dice and ordered directly from Creative Publications. By the 1980s, TSR had sufficient sales to strike aggressive wholesaler agreements, and it was only then that they augmented their sets of Platonic solid dice with a newcomer: the d10. In the years since, mad scientists like Lou Zocchi have produced all sorts of unusual dice, some more practical than others. Today, we can't imagine polyhedral dice without thinking of gaming, but their association with games is the sort of happy historical accident that frequently accompanies success.

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Young designer gives diseased trees new lease of life 31 May 2013 Wood otherwise bound for the bin is being put to good use as furniture Wood from diseased trees that would otherwise go to waste is being put to good use by a designer from Brighton. It may be ash trees making the headlines in recent times with the outbreak of ash dieback across the UK in 2012, but Dutch elm disease, which killed 25 million mature trees in Britain during the 1970s and 80s, is still having an impact today. Recent 3D design graduate Sheldon Stansfield has been working with diseased elm wood for the past year, making unique pieces of furniture. She lives and works in Brighton, home to the national elm collection, the largest collection of elms in the UK, which currently stands at over 17,000 trees. “The arboricultural service of Brighton & Hove City Council monitor trees very carefully to ensure that diseases don’t spread,” says Stansfield. “They do what they can to keep the disease at bay, like selectively pruning the trees when they spot signs of infection, but unfortunately they also have to be regularly felled.” Once felled, the trees are sent to be burned or chipped. “It’s a huge waste of wood,” said Stansfield. “But it’s important that they do fell them – if it didn’t happen, the disease would spread and be more rife. “Through researching this area I learned how the elm is going to waste and thought ‘Why not put it to good use?’. The UK imports a lot of wood and I’m trying to make people more aware that there’s an abundance of resources right on our doorstep. “I’ve always been interested in native materials and industries and these are often really important in shaping the physical and cultural make-up of our land. However, lots of them are overlooked and because of that, they end up lacking value. My work is about the importance of being resourceful, using what is locally available and about appreciating and celebrating the natural resources that we have.” Stansfield’s collection of diseased wood furniture, called Native Provenance, features a bench carved from a single trunk of an elm tree and a chair that has been scorched to represent the practice of burning diseased elms. If you enjoyed this article, please consider making a donation Donating helps us keep reporting on positive news

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WILLSBORO — For those tending vegetable gardens in the North Country, tomatoes are most likely the most common and treasured crop. They can also be beset with problems. Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), in conjunction with the Baker Research Farm in Willsboro, has been at the forefront in developing new varieties, preserving and promoting heritage assortments and finding ways to combat molds and other problems that plague the juicy fruits. VALUED CROP STATEWIDE According to CCE, “In 2013, Empire State farmers planted 2,900 acres of tomatoes for an estimated value of $32.4 million. Most field production is devoted to determinate cultivars with plastic mulch, drip irrigation and stake-and-weave trellises essential production elements for early and quality yields." Determinate tomatoes, also called bush tomatoes, grow to a compact height, approximately four feet. They stop growing when fruit sets on the top bud, ripen all their crop at or near the same time usually over a two-week period, and then they die. Indeterminate varieties, or vining tomatoes, produce fruit all season until killed by frost and can reach heights of 10 feet. Greenhouse and high-tunnel production is on the rise in New York with structures of less than one tenth to in excess of 40 acres under protection. High tunnel is a fairly large, semi-circular tent-like plastic covering. Indeterminate, greenhouse lines, as well as heirloom varieties, are grown under protected cultivation. Tomatoes are a popular crop with New York fresh market vegetable farmers due to high demand and fair prices. The Cornell Vegetable Program conducts a number of research projects each year addressing improved tomato production. “A lot of people want the heirloom varieties, and many don’t want to try the new ones as they claim they don’t taste as good,” said Amy Ivy, Cornell Extension educator. She then had attendees at a workshop at the Baker Farm taste approximately 10 varieties, which in addition to the heirloom varieties had names like Primo Red, Red Deuce, Clermon, Geronimo and Rebelski. Several of the aforementioned varieties are intended for greenhouse production, and thus are not as common as the garden varieties such as Beefsteak. COVERED CULTIVATION POPULAR Judson Reid, a state vegetable specialist from Cornell Cooperative Extension, provided insight about high-tunnel agriculture, more specifically growing tomatoes in these structures. High tunnel and greenhouse agriculture can be more profitable due to higher yields, generally 20 pounds per plant but as much as 30 pounds have been recorded. There is also the ability to plant earlier and extend into the fall due to more moderate temperatures. However, once mold or other pathogens have been introduced on a few plants, the rest are more susceptible in the semi-enclosed environment. “A challenge to tomato growers is how to prune. It takes a lot of attention. You don’t just prune once. Pruning also allows more nutrients to go to the tomatoes and allows for better air flow between plants. It’s primarily a job you have to stay ahead of,” Reid said. Determining which variety to produce for sale is generally determined by customer preferences. How tomatoes look is more likely to attract more business, especially in the supermarkets. At farm stands and farmers markets, the consumer can be given a sample to taste. “What we are trying to produce are disease-resistant plants, but they are not always the best tasting,” Reid explained. The workshop terminated at the Carriage House Garden Center in Willsboro to allow for Michael McCauliffe to discuss a variety of problems he has been having growing tomatoes. To counteract leaf mold, McCauliffe showed off his plants in which the leaves were coated with copper hydroxide. Email Alvin Reiner at: email@example.com

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Individual differences | Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology | Sexual orientation refers to the sex, sexes, gender or genders, to which a person is attracted and which form the focus of a person's amorous or erotic desires, fantasies, and spontaneous feelings. The alternative terms sexual preference and sexual inclination have similar meanings. Clinicians and those who believe sexuality is fixed early in life tend to use the former term; those believing sexuality is fluid and reflects preference and choice tend towards the latter terms. The alternative term sexual preference encompasses heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual desire. It was used in the 20th century by gay rights advocates who sought to promote the view that each person should have the right to seek out the partner they prefer, whether of the opposite sex, the same sex, or both sexes. Later, gay rights advocates preferred the term sexual orientation to avoid the connotation that homosexuality and heterosexuality were matters of "preference" or lifestyle choices, since they viewed them as inherent and unchangeable (Since it became commonly, yet not universally, believed among them that homosexuality was something one is born with). "Sexual orientation" is the term recommended by the Associated Press stylebook when used in print. Typically a person may be identified as primarily heterosexual (the focus is primarily people of the opposite sex), homosexual (people of the same sex), bisexual (potentially both or either sexes), or asexual (no sexual desire for either sex). (But compare Homosexuality and transgender for a discussion on the use of homo- and heterosexual when referring to transgender or intersex people.) The term sexual orientation may also refer to the "identity" of a person, either by choice or as an expression of an inner attribute. These categories are also used to describe sexual behavior, which may depart from an individual's chosen identity or spontaneous desires. ”Sexual orientation“ is also a legal term that has a meaning developed through case law that is separate from the meaning used in other fields. It is the most common term used in laws that prohibit discrimination based on homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality. Classifying sexual orientations Edit People are typically classified as heterosexual if their sexual focus is primarily people of the opposite sex/gender to their own, homosexual if it is people of the same sex/gender, and bisexual if it is both men and women. The less formal terms "straight", "gay", and "lesbian" are more commonly used by people to describe themselves and their friends and family, or to emphasize sexual orientation as a social identity. The terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" were popularized by the discipline of sexology, and are sometimes considered to have a clinical or even pathological tone when used outside of a scientific setting. The term asexual can be used to describe people with no sexual interest at all, or those who have a sex drive, but not sexual attraction. The term celibacy or sexual abstinence is for a those who are not sexually active. Asexuality and celibacy are not compatible terms, as celibacy implies a deliberate effort to refrain from one's desire for sex. Autosexuality can be considered an orientation with a sexual focus on oneself. Monosexuality, a sexual orientation to only one sex/gender, is sometimes used to contrast with bisexuality. The terms heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, monosexual, asexual and autosexual can all be used to describe phenomena unrelated to sexual orientation, for instance in phrases like "a homosexual act". New terms Edit Following from the 1960s and 1970s sexual revolution in the West, there has been an explosion of open discourse on sexuality by sexual minorities. Since the 1990s, many new terms have been devised by people who find the broad terms "straight", "gay" and "bi" inadequate. Such terms are commonly found on Internet forums, in personal ads, or in literature written by members of sexual minorities, but are rare in the scientific literature. For example, the term pansexuality can describe an individual's attraction which is not based on gender, and can include attraction to transgender and intersex people who may not fit clearly into a binary gender system. Other terms include "fluid" (used by those who don't want to be restricted by a more-specific label); "homoflexible" (for people who consider themselves predominantly homosexual but occasionally open to opposite-sex sexuality) or its complement "heteroflexible"; and "sapiosexual" (attraction to someone's mind as much as their body). Some people use the word queer as an umbrella term to describe any non-normative sexualities and gender expressions, especially homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and intersexuality, but also sometimes BDSM, fetishism, prostitution, and polyamory. However, the word can still be considered a slur. Various paraphilias may be seen as a kind of sexual orientation, although they are usually considered orthogonal (unrelated) to the gender-based categories of sexual orientation, and are seen as existing in addition to such orientations. However, some paraphilias may be a more significant focus of an individual's sexuality than the gender of partners. Such paraphilias may include sexual fetishes, sexual exhibitionism, and sexual attraction to animals (zoophilia). This is not true, however, in the case of pedophilia, in which, while some may report attraction to prepubertal individuals of both sexes, there is almost always a preference for males or females. Extensions of the termEdit Hani Miletski, a sexologist and author, argued in a "monumental" and "pioneering" reference work and analysis combined with fresh research, that zoosexuality should properly be understood as a sexual orientation, rather than being confused with 'zoophilia' (a paraphilia). Miletski concludes that all three criteria for a sexual orientation proposed by Francoeur (1991)–affectional orientation, sexual fantasy orientation, and erotic orientation–as well as reciprocity of emotion, are met by zoosexuals. This view is supported by Beetz (2002), Donofrio (1996), and others. Beetz adds that zoosexual bonding is "experienced and not chosen" and does not function as a "surrogate", also citing Masters (1962) observations that other than in violent scenarios, animals have often appeared to thrive in relationships with humans. Measuring an individual's sexual orientationEdit Sexual orientation is difficult to measure accurately, for several reasons. In many cultures, there is strong social pressure to self-identify as heterosexual, and thus a person who is not exclusively heterosexual may feel afraid to report their sexual orientation accurately. The question of sexual orientation may inspire strong emotions that interfere with accurate reporting. Finally, some people are not certain of their own sexual orientation, making it more difficult for another person to determine it. Markers of sexual orientation include self-labelling, actual sexual behaviour, sexual fantasy, and a pattern of erotic arousal – a "pattern" being most accurately identified when genital engorgement with blood is measured in response to homoerotic material with penile plethysmography or vaginal photoplethysmography . From at least the late-19th century in Europe, there was speculation that the range of human sexual orientations looked more like a continuum than two or three discrete categories. 28-year-old Berlin sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld published a scheme in 1896 that measured the strength of an individual's sexual desire on two independent 10-point scales, A (homosexual) and B (heterosexual). A heterosexual individual may be A0, B5; a bisexual may be A3, B9; An asexual would be A0, B0; and someone with an intense attraction to both sexes would be A9, B9. - "Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. - While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history... An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life.... A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist." The Kinsey scale measures sexual orientation from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with an additional category, X, for those with no sexual attraction to either women or men. Unlike Hirschfeld's scale, the Kinsey scale is one-dimensional. Simon LeVay writes, "it suggests (although Kinsey did not actually believe this) that every person has the same fixed endowment of sexual energy, which he or she then divides up between same-sex and opposite-sex attraction in a ratio indicative of his or her own sexual orientation." In his 1985 book The Bisexual Option, Fritz Klein developed a scale to test his theory that sexual orientation is a "dynamic, multi-variable process" — dynamic in that it may change over time, and multi-variable in that it is composed of various elements, both sexual and non-sexual. Klein took into account sexual attraction, sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, emotional and social partners, lifestyle, and self-identification. Each of these variables was measured for the person's past, present, and ideal. Desire, behavior and identityEdit Researchers have variously measured an individual's sexual orientation by asking them how they identify; by ascertaining their sexual attractions; and/or by reporting their sexual behaviour. An individual may be placed in differing categories by these three measures. For example, a married person may identify as straight, but have only homosexual desire; if they are having sex with same-sex partners as well as their spouse, they would also be classified as bisexual by their behaviour. When classifying sexual orientation by behaviour, frequency of contact with either sex may a factor, whether group sex is admissible as an instance, and whether the occurrence of orgasm, as well as its frequency in terms of total encounters, has any bearing. When classifying by desire, controversial topics include the breadth of attraction to both genders, what "intensity" of attraction is admissible, and whether self-reporting should be solely trusted or whether there should be any manner of "objective" measure. Some newer terminology consciously differentiates between these three aspects. For example, men who have sex with men, or "MSM", describes behavior only. Same-sex attraction describes only feelings and desires. Some examples may help clarify the distinctions between desire, identity, and behavior: - People of any sexual orientation may choose sexual abstinence, suppressing or ignoring any desires they may have. - Some people who feel homosexual desire may engage in heterosexual behavior and even heterosexual marriage for a number of reasons, whether cultural or religious beliefs, or through fear of discrimination should they "come out". - Some bisexual people have only one sexual or romantic partner at a time, and sometimes happen to have sexual and romantic partners from one only gender throughout their entire lives, despite attraction to some people of both sexes. - People with heterosexual attractions may nonetheless have homosexual encounters whether by self-initiation, with initiation by the other party, with multiple simultaneous partners, through acts of deception, or due to absence of an available partner of the opposite gender (see e.g. prison sex) or other unusual social circumstances. (See: situational sexual behavior.) - A minority of people who self-identify as heterosexual or homosexual actually feel attracted to and engage in sexual behavior with people of both genders. Sexual orientation and gender identityEdit The earliest writers on sexual orientation usually understood it to be intrinsically linked to sex. For example, it was thought that a typical female-bodied person who is attracted to women would have masculine attributes, and vice versa. This understanding was shared by most of the significant theorists of sexual orientation from the mid-19th to early 20th century, such as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, as well as many gender variant homosexual people themselves. However, this understanding of homosexuality as sexual inversion was disputed at the time, and through the second half of the 20th century, gender identity came to be increasingly seen as a phenomenon distinct from sexual orientation. Transgender and cisgender people may be attracted to men, women, or both, although the prevalence of different sexual orientations is quite different in these two populations (see sexual orientation of transwomen). An individual homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual person may be masculine, feminine, or androgynous, and in addition, many members and supporters of lesbian and gay communities now see the "gender-conforming heterosexual" and the "gender-nonconforming homosexual" as negative stereotypes. However, studies by J Michael Bailey and KJ Zucher have purported to find that a majority of gay men and lesbians report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years. A definitional problem arises with the terms "homosexual" and "heterosexual" when either the subject or object of desire is transgender or intersex. Is a transwoman who is attracted to other women a lesbian? What about her female partner? The majority of transgender people today would describe this relationship as lesbian, but scientists (especially in the past) have tended to characterise it as heterosexual, interpreting the sex of the transwoman as male, and basing the definition of sexual orientation on biological sex rather than social gender. Others would interpret the sexual orientation differently depending on whether the transwoman is "pre-operative" or "post-operative". Difficulties in making these judgements can be seen, for example, in debates about whether female-attracted transmen are a part of the lesbian community. (See Homosexuality and transgender) For these reasons, the terms gynephilia and androphilia are occasionally (but increasingly) used when referring to the sexual orientation of transgender and intersex people (and occasionally, cisgender people), because rather than focusing on the sex or gender of the subject, they only describe that of the object of their attraction. The third common term that describes sexual orientation, bisexuality, makes no claim about the subject's sex or gender identity. (See also Pansexuality) Sexual orientation is further complicated by more recent non-binary understandings of both sex (male, female, or intersex) and gender (man, woman, transgender, third gender, or gender variant). Sociologist Paula Rodriguez Rust (2000) argues for a more multifaceted definition of sexual orientation: "...Most alternative models of sexuality...define sexual orientation in terms of dichotomous biological sex or gender.... Most theorists would not eliminate the reference to sex or gender, but instead advocate incorporating more complex nonbinary concepts of sex or gender, more complex relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality, and/or additional nongendered dimensions into models of sexuality." Demographics of sexual orientationEdit Main article: Demographics of sexual orientation The multiple aspects of sexual orientation and the boundary-drawing problems already described create methodological challenges for the study of the demographics of sexual orientation. Determining the frequency of various sexual orientations in real-world populations is difficult and controversial. In the oft-cited and oft-criticized Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), by Alfred C. Kinsey et. al., people were asked to rate themselves on a scale from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual. Kinsey reported that when the individuals' behavior as well as their identity are analyzed, most people appeared to be at least somewhat bisexual - i.e., most people have some attraction to either sex, although usually one sex is preferred. According to Kinsey, only a minority (5-10%) can be considered fully heterosexual or homosexual. Conversely, only an even smaller minority can be considered fully bisexual (with an equal attraction to both sexes). Kinsey's methods have been criticized as flawed, particularly with regard to the randomness of his sample population, which included a large number of prison inmates. Nevertheless, Paul Gebhard, subsequent director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, reexamined the data in the Kinsey Reports and concluded that accounting for major statistical objections barely affected the results. Most modern scientific surveys find that the majority of people report a mostly heterosexual orientation. However, the relative percentage of the population that reports a homosexual orientation varies with differing methodologies and selection criteria. Most of these statistical findings are in the range of 2.8 to 9% of males, and 1 to 5% of females for the United States — this figure can be as high as 12% for some large cities and as low as 1% percent for rural areas). In gay villages such as The Castro in San Francisco, California, the concentration of self-identified homosexual people can exceed 40%. Almost all of these studies have found that homosexual males occur roughly at twice the rate of homosexual females. Estimates for the percentage of the population that identify as bisexual vary widely based on the type of questions asked. Some studies only consider a person bisexual if they are nearly equally attracted to both sexes, and others consider a person bisexual if they are at all attracted to the same sex (for otherwise mostly heterosexual persons) or to the opposite sex (for otherwise mostly homosexual persons). A very small percentage of people are not sexually attracted to anyone (asexuality). Causes and malleability of sexual orientationEdit Considerable debate continues over what biological and/or psychological variables produce sexual orientation in humans, such as genes and the exposure of certain levels of hormones to fetuses. A dialog remains in progress on whether that orientation is discretionary, largely derived from the theologies of Christianity and Islam. Freud and many others, particularly in psychoanalytic traditions, speculate that formative childhood experiences (a.k.a.. nurture) help produced sexual orientation. Most specialists follow the general conclusion of Alfred Kinsey regarding the sexual continuum, according to which a minority of humans are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and that the majority are bisexual, that is, that the norm is to experience a mixture homoerotic and heteroerotic feelings, each kind to a different degree. Interestingly, Kinsey himself—along with current "queer"activist groups—focus on the historicity and personal fluidity of sexual orientation. Kinsey's studies consistently showed sexual orientation as something that evolves in many directions over a person's lifetime. ”Sexual orientation“ is also a legal term. It is commonly used in anti-discrimination legislation that prohibits discrimination based on homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality. Sexual orientation and mental healthEdit There are at least two possible questions that can be asked about this topic: first, can people with certain sexual orientations be considered to have a mental illness, simply by virtue of their sexual orientation? Second, is there a correlation and/or a causal relationship between certain sexual orientations and any types of mental illness? Sexual orientation as mental illness Edit Clinically, heterosexual acts are considered most common in today's cultures (statistically most likely), but the concept of "normal" and "abnormal" with its connotations of sickness or moral judgment are no longer considered valid by most medical professionals. Some groups, often for religious reasons, maintain that homosexuals as such do not exist and that homosexuality is actually an unnatural choice, illness or addiction. Many of these groups support reparative therapy to end homosexual desire or repress its physical expression. They may also advocate stricter laws to prevent homosexual activity and the public recognition of homosexual relationships. One major advocate of this line of thought is the American National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which rejects the consensus of the major psychological associations in removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in 1973. In 1998, the American Psychological Association stated that the psychological profession's view on homosexuality and mental health was, "the reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable." Relationship between sexual orientation and mental illness Edit The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported in its January 2001 issue — citing a government-sponsored study of 5,998 adults in the Netherlands aged 18 to 64 — that "psychiatric disorders were more prevalent among homosexually active people compared with heterosexually active people. ...The findings support the assumption that people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders." The study asserted that "the Dutch social climate toward homosexuality has long been and remains considerably more tolerant" than in other countries. The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association agreed in an article published July 18, 2002 by GayWired.com: "Depression and anxiety appear to affect gay men at a higher rate than in the general population. The likelihood of depression or anxiety may be greater, and the problem may be more severe for those men who remain in the closet or who do not have adequate social supports. Adolescents and young adults may be at particularly high risk of suicide because of these concerns. Culturally sensitive mental health services targeted specifically at gay men may be more effective in the prevention, early detection, and treatment of these conditions." GLMA also reported a higher prevalence of substance abuse. "Gay men use substances at a higher rate than the general population...includ(ing) a number of substances ranging from amyl nitrate ('poppers'), to marijuana, Ecstasy, and amphetamines." In the same article, GLMA also reported "it is still thought that gay men have higher rates of alcohol dependence and abuse than straight men" and that "recent studies seem to support the notion that gay men use tobacco at much higher rates than straight men." The American Psychological Association has found that such differences are the result of the sense of alienation felt by many gay people. [How to reference and link to summary or text] Morality, religion, and choiceEdit Ongoing debate about the morality of same-sex relations often references beliefs about whether sexual orientation is a choice or a fixed attribute. There are several different views on the subject, the major ones of which are: - Sexual orientation is a preference, like any other lifestyle choice. People can be influenced in this choice, as in any other, by their peers, by media exposure, and by society in general, but the responsibility for making the choice is personal. (This view is frequently accompanied by a belief that choosing homosexuality is immoral or undesirable and should be discouraged. However, some who hold this view also believe that homosexuality can be an addictive behavior, like substance abuse, and difficult to stop; and still others believe that this presumed choice to engage in a "gay lifestyle" is morally neutral or even beneficial.) - Sexual orientation is fixed early in life. People should seek romantic and sexual relationships with people of whatever gender they desire. Discrimination against such sexual minorities is immoral. - Sexual orientation is fixed early in life, but homosexuality is immoral. People who have homosexual feelings should be discouraged from acting on them, and should live in celibacy, in opposite-sex relationships, or should attempt to develop heterosexual feelings (see ex-gay for a discussion on this movement). - Sexual orientation is biologically predetermined. - Sexual orientation is not fixed; however it changes, not by acts of choice or will, but through factors beyond a person's voluntary control. - Sexual orientation is an illusory social construct. People should stop worrying about it and simply allow others and themselves to love whomever they please. There is a strong correlation between belief in choice and disapproval of homosexuality. (Whether or not there is a causal relationship in either direction is a matter of debate.) A 2003 Pew Research phone survey of Americans reported that about 50% of people who think sexual orientation is fixed at birth support same-sex marriage, compared to about 20% of people who think it is a preference. The Pew report shows acceptance of homosexuality increasing over the past 30 years, and that young people have greater acceptance than older Americans. Likewise, religious affiliation and beliefs correlate strongly with beliefs about sexual orientation. 60% of "secular" Americans, 46% of white Catholics, 43% of white mainline Protestants, 27% of black Protestants, and 20% of evangelical Protestants expressed a favorable opinion of gay men in the Pew survey. 66% of "secular" Americans, 54% of white Catholics, 50% of white mainline Protestants, 26% of black Protestants, and 23% of evangelical Protestants replied that sexual orientation could not be changed. Religious beliefs were the most common reason given for disapproval of same-sex marriage. Individual religious sects vary widely in their views on sexual orientation, from acceptance of people of all orientations, to advocating of the death penalty for homosexual and heterosexual people who violate certain other norms. For more information, see: - Homosexuality and morality - Societal attitudes towards homosexuality - Religion and homosexuality - Sexual morality Sexual orientation as a constructionEdit Because sexual orientation is complex and multi-dimensional, some academics and researchers (especially in Queer studies) have argued that sexual orientation is a completely historical and social construction. In 1976 the historian Michel Foucault argued that homosexuality as a concept did not exist as such in the 18th century; that people instead spoke of "sodomy" (which involved specific sexual acts regardless of the sex of the actors) as a crime that was often ignored but sometimes punished severely (see sodomy law). He further argued that it was in the 19th century that homosexuality came into existence as practitioners of emerging sciences and arts sought to classify and analyze different forms of sexuality. Finally, Foucault argues that it was this emerging discourse that allowed some to claim that homosexuality as a human identity. Foucault's suggestions about Western sexuality led other historians and anthropologists to abandon the 19th century project of classifying different forms of sexual behavior or sexual orientation to a new project that asks "what is sexuality and how do people in different places and at different times understand their bodies and desires?" For example, they have argued that the famous case of some Melanesian societies in which adult men and pre-pubescent and adolescent boys engage in oral sex is not comparable to similar acts in the United States or Europe; that Melanesians do not understand or explain such acts in terms of sexual desire or as a sexual behavior, and that it in fact reflects a culture with a very different notion of sex, sexuality, and gender. Some historians have made similar claims about homosexuality in ancient Greece; that behaviors that appear to be homosexual in modern Western societies may have been understood by ancient Greeks in entirely different ways. At stake in these new views are two different points. One is the claim that human sexuality is extraordinarily plastic, and that specific notions about the body and sexuality are socially constructed. The other is the fundamentally anthropological claim of cultural relativism: that human behavior should be interpreted in the context of its cultural environment, and that the language of one culture is often inappropriate for describing practices or beliefs in another culture. A number of contemporary scholars who have come to reject Foucault's specific arguments about Western sexuality nevertheless have accepted these basic theoretical and methodological points. Critics of the strong social constructionism view generally hold that Foucault's ideas are out-dated and have been proven inaccurate by means of scientific inquiry and further historical exploration of sexuality in cultures. For example, the notion of sexual orientation being a human construct is seen to contradict current mainstream scientific findings that those of different orientations are anatomically distinct from each other and that is why they have their own separate attractions, i.e., a man who exclusively loved other men in ancient Greece is biologically homosexual, since certain physical body parts are different in homosexuals when compared to heterosexuals, just as a man who identifies as gay in modern times is the same scientifically speaking. These medical findings however are not uncontroversial themselves. Sexuality historians in modern times are increasingly abandoning the construction view. Louis Crompton has argued that if Focault were still alive today he would revise his thesis in light of the scientific factors found largely after his death and due to recently studied historical documents that shed light on exclusive homosexuality. For example, during Focault's time it was largely thought that all ancient Greek men practiced bisexuality in the institution of pederasty, however greater scholarship on the subject shows that, indeed, a minority of Greek males never married and continued to have sex exclusively with other men of their own age. And other findings include that during the Middle Ages in Europe when sodomy was harshly prosecuted sub-cultures developed of men who loved other men and often these men identified with each other in a community, something analogous to the modern gay identity. For more information, see: - Affectional orientation - Ascribed characteristics (for a more general look at the morality of innate vs. non-innate characteristics) - Gender identity - Gender identity disorder - Homosexuality in animals - Homosexuality (attitudes toward) - Sexual attitudes - Sexual orientation and military service - Social aspects of clothing - ↑ Beetz (2002) section 5.2.25: "One of the most monumental and recent studies on human-animal sexual contact was conducted by Miletski in 1999" - ↑ vern Bullough, cited in zoosexuality - ↑ Miletski, Hani: "The findings of this question... clearly indicate that different people have different levels of sexual inclination toward animals. "Is there a sexual orientation toward nonhuman animals?" — yes, so it appears...it very clearly shows that some people...have feelings of love and affection for their animals, have sexual fantasies about them, and admit they are sexually attracted to them. Sexual orientation, as we know it, can be fluid and changing with time and circumstances...We can place people on all levels of the Kinsey scale, even when we apply this scale to sexual orientation toward animals. It is logical to assume that the majority of the human race will be placed around the zero point of this Kinsey-like scale...but the current study shows that there are some humans whose place on this Kinsey-like scale is definitely not zero. In fact, there are some...individuals whose place on this scale would be the other extreme (6=sexual inclination exclusively with animals)." (Miletski ch.13 pp.171-172, website) - ↑ Love, Sex and Violence with Animals (2002) - ↑ Wilson, G. and Rahman, Q., (2005). Born Gay. London: Peter Owen Publishers, p21 - ↑ Hirschfeld, Magnus, 1896. Sappho und Socrates, Wie erklärt sich die Liebe der Männer & und Frauen zu Personen des eigenen Geschlechts? (Sappho and Socrates, How Can One Explain the Love of Men and Women for Individuals of Their Own Sex?) - ↑ A.C. Kinsey, W.B. Pomeroy, C.E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, (pp. 639, 656). Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 1948). ISBN 0-253-33412-8 . - ↑ LeVay, Simon, 1996. Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-62119-3 . - ↑ Klein, F., Barry Sepekoff, Timothy J. Wolf. Sexual Orientation: a Multi-Variable Dynamic Process, in Klein, Fritz and Timothy J. Wolf, ed., 'Two Lives to Lead; Bisexuality in Men and Women', New York: Harrington Park Press, Inc., 1985, p. 38. (Also published as Bisexualities: Theory and Research, by Haworth Press, 1985.) Klein Sexual Orientation Grid online - ↑ Minton, H. L. (1986). Femininity in men and masculinity in women: American psychiatry and psychology portray homosexuality in the 1930's, Journal of Homosexuality, 13(1), 1-21. *Terry, J. (1999). An American obsession: Science, medicine, and homosexuality in modern society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press - ↑ Bailey, J.M., Zucker, K.J. (1995), Childhood sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation: a conceptual analysis and quantitative review. Developmental Psychology 31(1):43 - ↑ Rodriguez Rust, Paula C. Bisexuality: A contemporary paradox for women, Journal of Social Issues, Vol 56(2), Summer 2000. Special Issue: Women's sexualities: New perspectives on sexual orientation and gender. pp. 205-221. article online Also published in: Rodriguez Rust, Paula C. Bisexuality in the United States: A Social Science Reader. Columbia University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-231-10227-5 - ↑ James Alm, M. V. Lee Badgett, Leslie A. Whittington, Wedding Bell Blues: The Income Tax Consequences of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage, page 24. (1998) PDF link - ↑ Theo G. M. Sandfort, Ron de Graaf, Rob V. Bijl, Paul Schnabel, Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings From the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS), Archives of General Psychiatry. 2001;58:85-91.article online - ↑ Anne Petrov, 10 Things Gay Men Need to Know, published online at gaywired.com - ↑ The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Religious Beliefs Underpin Opposition to Homosexuality; Republicans Unified, Democrats Split on Gay Marriage. November 18, 2003. . Also available from The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: - Sell, Randall L. (Dec 1997). Defining and measuring sexual orientation: a review. Archives of Sexual Behavior 26(6) 643-658. (excerpt) - Gil Brum, Larry McKane, and Gerry Karp. Biology -- Exploring Life, 2nd edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1994. p. 663. (About INAH-3.) - Dynes, Wayne (ed.) "Encyclopedia of Homosexuality." New York and London, Garland Publishing, 1990. - American Psychological Association:Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality - Magnus Hirschfeld Archive of Sexology at the Humboldt University in Berlin - GLBTQ.com: Etiology - Is sexual orientation determined at birth? - Survivor bashing - bias motivated hate crimes - A law lecture (mp3) on sexual orientation and U.S. constitutional law |This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).|

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Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a combination of ailments (a syndrome) associated with an individual's place of work (office building) or residence. A 1984 World Health Organization report into the syndrome suggested up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may be linked to symptoms of SBS. Most of the sick building syndrome is related to poor indoor air quality. Sick building causes are frequently pinned down to flaws in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Other causes have been attributed to contaminants produced by outgassing of some types of building materials, volatile organic compounds (VOC), molds (see mold health issues), improper exhaust ventilation of ozone (byproduct of some office machinery), light industrial chemicals used within, or lack of adequate fresh-air intake/air filtration. Symptoms are often dealt with after-the-fact by boosting the overall turn-over rate of fresh air exchange with the outside air, but the new green building design goal should be able to avoid most of the SBS problem sources in the first place, minimize the ongoing use of VOC cleaning compounds, and eliminate conditions that encourage allergenic, potentially-deadly mold growth. Building occupants complain of a variety of symptoms such as sensory irritation of the eyes, nose, throat, fatigue, neurotoxic or general health problems; skin irritation, nonspecific hypersensitivity reactions, and odor and taste sensations. Several sick occupants may report individual symptoms which do not appear to be connected. The key to discovery is the increased incidence of illnesses in general with onset or exacerbation within a fairly close time frame - usually within a period of weeks. In most cases, SBS symptoms will be relieved soon after the occupants leave the particular room or zone. However, there can be lingering effects of various neurotoxins, which may not clear up when the occupant leaves the building. Particularly in sensitive individuals there can be long-term health effects. The causes of Sick Building Syndrome can be attributed to inadequate ventilation, chemical contaminants from indoor or outdoor sources, as well as biological contaminants. Many volatile organic compounds, which are considered chemical contaminants, can cause acute effects on the occupants of a building. "Bacteria, molds, pollen, and viruses are types of biological contaminants," and can all cause SBS. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recently revised its ventilation standard to provide a minimum of 15 cfm of outdoor air per person (20 cfm/person in office spaces). In addition, pollution from outdoors such as motor vehicle exhaust, can contribute to SBS. - Roof shingle cleaning non pressure removal of algae, mold & Gloeocapsa magma. - Pollutant source removal or modification to storage of sources. - Replacement of water-stained ceiling tiles and carpeting. - Use paints, adhesives, solvents, and pesticides in well-ventilated areas, and use of these pollutant sources during periods of non-occupancy. - Increase the number of air exchanges, The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Engineers recommend a minimum of 8.4 air exchanges per 24 hour period. - Proper and frequent maintenance of HVAC systems - UV-C light in the HVAC plenum - Regular vacuuming with a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner to collect and retain 99.97% of particles down to and including 0.3 micrometres There might be a gender difference in reporting rates of sick building syndrome because women tend to report more symptoms than men. Along with this, there have been studies where they found that women have a more responsive immune system and are more prone to mucosal dryness and facial erythema. Also, women are alleged by some to be more exposed to indoor environmental factors, because they have a tendency to have more clerical work where they are exposed to unique office equipment and materials (example: blueprint machines), whereas men have jobs based outside of offices. - ↑ Sick Building Syndrome. United States Environmental Protection Agency. URL accessed on 2009-02-19. - ↑ Mold and Mildew PDF file. National Institute of Environmental Health Science. URL accessed on 2009-02-19. - ↑ Godish, Thad (2001). Indoor Environmental Quality. New York: CRC Press. pp. 196-197. ISBN 1566704022 - ↑ "Sick Building Syndrome." National Safety Council. (2009) Retrieved April 27, 2009. - ↑ http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/sbs.html - ↑ Godish, Thad (2001). Indoor Environmental quality. New York: CRC Press. pp. 196-197. ISBN 1566704022 - Martín-Gil J, Yanguas MC, San José JF, Rey-Martínez and Martín-Gil FJ. "Outcomes of research into a sick hospital". Hospital Management International, 1997, pp 80–82. Sterling Publications Limited. - Murphy, Michelle. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Duke University Press, 2006). ISBN 978-0-8223-3671-6. - Research Committee Report on Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome Caused by Exposure to the Interior Environment of Water-Damaged Buildings (PDF) |This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).|

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|Home | About | Journals | Submit | Contact Us | Français| Cigarette smoking is a well-known risk factor in many diseases, including various kinds of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Many studies have also reported the unfavorable effects of smoking for diabetes mellitus. Smoking increases the risk of developing diabetes, and aggravates the micro- and macro-vascular complications of diabetes mellitus. Smoking is associated with insulin resistance, inflammation and dyslipidemia, but the exact mechanisms through which smoking influences diabetes mellitus are not clear. However, smoking cessation is one of the important targets for diabetes control and the prevention diabetic complications. Smoking is one of the modifiable risk factors for many chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease, asthma, and diabetes. However, the adverse effects of smoking on diabetes have been generally under recognized. In the guidelines from the Korean Diabetes Association, smoking cessation is recommended as one of the most important steps in preventing the cardiovascular complications of diabetes . Many studies have shown that the adverse effects of smoking on diabetes mellitus are not only diabetic macrovascular complications but the causal nature of its association with diabetes and the progression of diabetic microvascular complications has yet to be explored. Although smoking is known to decrease body weight, it is associated with central obesity . Smoking also increases inflammation and oxidative stress , to directly damage β-cell function and to impair endothelial function . The prevalence of smoking in Korean men is near 50%, which is the highest smoking rate in the Western Pacific region. In addition to obesity, the high prevalence of smoking is one of the major health problems for Korea's public health. This review is about the various smoking effects on diabetes mellitus, diabetic complications, and diabetic incidence. Understanding the hazardous effects of smoking on diabetes mellitus may lead to more emphasis on smoking prevention and smoking cessation as important strategies in the management of diabetes mellitus. There is much evidence that smoking increases the risk of diabetes. Several cohort studies in Korea have reported that smoking was associated with an increased risk for the development of diabetes. Cho et al. followed 4,041 men for 4 years in rural and urban settings in Korea, and found that past and current smokers had a significantly increased risk for type 2 diabetes, and the risk increased with the number of cigarettes smoked. Another study reported a 14-year-long prospective cohort study, in which the risk of diabetes among men and women who smoked 20 cigarettes or more per day was 1.55 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.51 to 1.60) compared to those who never smoked . A Japanese study reported similar results of a positive correlation between cigarette consumption and risk for diabetes . The health professionals' follow-up study demonstrated that the risk for diabetes among men who smoked ≥25 cigarettes per day was 1.94 (95% CI, 1.25 to 3.03) . Another British study showed the risk for diabetes in smoking men was around 1.7, after adjusting for confounding factors, such as age, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol intake, social class, and antihypertensive treatment . There have been few studies on the effect of smoking on the risk of diabetes in women as generally the prevalence of smoking is lower in women than men. However, the results from the Nurses' Health Study in the United States (114,247 women, 1,227,589 person-years follow-up) showed that the risk for diabetes in smokers was 1.42 after adjustment for other risk factors . The same cohort was followed for 16 years, and a new analysis was performed. The predictable risk factors for diabetes were overweight and obesity, as in men, low physical activity, a poor diet, current smoking, and abstinence from alcohol were all independently associated with the risk for diabetes. The adjusted risk for diabetes in smokers was 1.4 compared with non-smokers . The exact mechanism for why smoking increases the risk of diabetes and deteriorates glucose homeostasis has not been fully elucidated, but the available evidence shows that smoking increases insulin resistance. In healthy young men, acute smoking showed an increased insulin resistance . Smokers had a significantly increased homeostatic model assessment insulin resistance index an hour after smoking . The smoking reduced insulin mediated glucose uptake by 10% to 40% in men who smoked compared with non-smoking men [15,16]. In type 2 diabetic subjects, insulin and C-peptide responses to oral glucose load were significantly higher in smokers than non-smokers and the insulin resistance, as determined by the euglycemic clamp technique, was positively correlated in a dose dependent manner . Thus smoking induced insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes, as well as healthy subjects. In addition to increased insulin resistance, smoking also showed dyslipidemia prone to atherosclerosis. Smokers had higher fasting triglycerides and lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and an increased proportion of small dense low density lipoprotein particles. Fibrinogen levels and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 activity were also elevated in smokers . In terms of glucose homeostasis, smoking has a negative effect on glucose control. In a population-based prospective study, cigarette smoking was positively associated in a dose dependent manner with elevated HbA1c after adjustment for possible confounding by dietary variables . This finding was also reported in patients with diabetes in Sweden; smoking type 1 and type 2 patients had a higher mean HbA1c but a lower mean body mass index than non-smokers . The smoking effects on microvascular diabetes complications vary across reports. Generally, several studies have shown that smoking has an adverse effect on diabetic nephropathy, but the influence of smoking independently with glucose control, on retinopathy and neuropathy are unclear. Several studies have demonstrated that smoking promotes diabetic microalbuminuria and exacerbates diabetic nephropathy. In the study by Biesenbach et al. , a 13-year follow-up study, the progression of nephropathy was clearly increased in smokers. The authors showed that smoking was a risk factor for diabetic kidney disease, independent of age, sex, and duration of diabetes and HbA1c levels. The association of smoking and diabetic retinopathy has not been clear. It was reported that retinopathy has been associated with glycemic control and not smoking state . Some studies have reported no association with smoking and retinopathy in type 2 diabetes [24,25]. The United Kingdom Prospective Diabetic (UKPD) study to determine risk factors related to the incidence and progression of diabetic retinopathy followed patients over 6 years from diagnosis. The development of retinopathy was associated with glycemia and higher blood pressure, but not smoking . Thus in type 2 patients, the effects of smoking on diabetic retinopathy has not been as clear as with nephropathy. There are few studies about smoking and diabetic neuropathy. Smoking may affect diabetic neuropathy differently according to the type of diabetes . In type 2 diabetic patients, smoking was not a risk factor in the presence of polyneuropathy or sensory neuropathy as diagnosed by symptom and sign [27,28]. It was reported that there was no relationship between current or previous levels of smoking and the severity and duration of chronic painful neuropathy . But in the study by Tamer et al. , while smoking was not associated with neuropathic complaints, using electromyography-supported neuropathy examination there were significant relationships with smoking, as well as HbA1c. Therefore, more studies are needed to evaluate the association between smoking and neuropathy. Smoking has been shown to be a significant risk factor for all-cause mortality, and for mortality due to CVD and coronary heart disease (CHD) in diabetics. Smokers die on average 8 to 10 years younger than non-smokers, as age is entered into most multi-regression analysis. Smoking is a major risk factor for CVD in non-diabetic subjects, as well as diabetic subjects. In an 8-year prospective study, smoking was significantly associated with an increased risk for CHD in diabetic patients . The UKPD study clearly showed that smoking was a significant and independent risk factor for CHD in type 2 diabetic patients . In the Nurses' Health Study, in women with type 2 diabetes, it was demonstrated that cigarette smoking was associated in a dose-dependent manner with an increased mortality and CHD. Compared with never-smokers, the relative risks for CHD were 1.66 for current smokers of 1 to 14 cigarette per day, and 2.68 for current smokers of 15 or more cigarettes per day [33,34]. Recently, a meta-analysis in the Asia-Pacific region, in men with diabetes, the hazard ratio comparing current smokers with non-smokers was 1.42 for CHD. In Asia, where there are high rates of smoking, and a rapidly increasing prevalence of diabetes, the author concluded that cigarette cessation strategies there were huge benefits in terms of reducing the burden of CVD in men with diabetes . Smoking also increases the risk of stroke in patients with diabetes, but may not be as strong as CHD. In the UKPD study, mathematical models were developed to estimate the risk of stroke, and the variables were smoking, duration of diabetes, age, sex, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, and presence of arterial fibrillation . In a study using the general practice research database in the United Kingdom, smoking was an additional risk factor for stroke in type 2 diabetic patients . Another 4-year prospective study, also showed that smoking and HbA1c were predictors of stroke among the type 2 diabetic patients without a history of a previous stroke . The relative risk of smoking for stroke has not been as high as that for CHD. In the Nurses' Health Study, in smokers who smoked 1 to 14 cigarette per day, the risk was significant for CHD but not for stroke. In those who smoked 15 cigarettes or more per day, the relative risk for CHD and stroke were 2.68 and 1.84, respectively . Similar trends were shown in a Swedish study, in which the relative risk of smoking was higher in myocardial infarction (2.33) than for stroke (1.12) in 30 to 59 year-old patients . There have been many studies showing that smoking has harmful effects on patients with diabetes. Smoking increases diabetic incidence and aggravates glucose homeostasis and chronic diabetic complications. In microvascular complications, the onset and progression of diabetic nephropathy is highly associated with smoking. In macrovascular complications, smoking is associated with a 2 to 3 times higher incidence of CHD and mortality. However, smoking prevention and smoking cessation may not be emphasized enough in diabetic clinics. Thus, educating patients on the importance of not smoking and engaging in smoking cessation programs are important strategies for the management of diabetes. No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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|Abstract:||INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: Prince William Forest Park is situated at the northeastern end of the Virginia Gold-Pyrite belt northwest of the town of Dumfries, VA. The U. S. Marine Corps Reservation at Quantico borders the park on the west and south, and occupies part of the same watershed. Two abandoned mines are found within the park: the Cabin Branch pyrite mine, a historic source of acid mine drainage, and the Greenwood gold mine, a source of mercury contamination. Both are within the watershed of Quantico Creek (Fig.1). The Cabin Branch mine (also known as the Dumfries mine) lies about 2.4 km northwest of the town of Dumfries. It exploited a 300 meter-long, lens-shaped body of massive sulfide ore hosted by metamorphosed volcanic rocks; during its history over 200,000 tons of ore were extracted and processed locally. The site became part of the National Capitol Region of the National Park Service in 1940 and is currently managed by the National Park Service. In 1995 the National Park Service, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy reclaimed the Cabin Branch site. The Virginia Gold-Pyrite belt, also known as the central Virginia volcanic-plutonic belt, is host to numerous abandoned metal mines (Pavlides and others, 1982), including the Cabin Branch deposit. The belt itself extends from its northern terminus near Cabin Branch, about 50 km south of Washington, D.C., approximately 175 km to the southwest into central Virginia. It is underlain by metamorphosed volcanic and clastic (non-carbonate) sedimentary rocks, originally deposited approximately 460 million years ago during the Ordovician Period (Horton and others, 1998). Three kinds of deposits are found in the belt: volcanic-associated massive sulfide deposits, low-sulfide quartz-gold vein deposits, and gold placer deposits. The massive sulfide deposits such as Cabin Branch were historically mined for their sulfur, copper, zinc, and lead contents, but also yielded byproduct gold and silver. The environmental impact of massive sulfide deposits can be substantial. These deposits are characterized by high concentrations of heavy-metal sulfide minerals, hosted by silicate rocks. Thus, weathering of these deposits and their mine wastes has the potential to generate heavy-metal laden sulfuric acid that can have negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems. In addition, lead associated with solid mine wastes has the potential for human health impacts through ingestion. The heavy metals that are encountered in these deposits and are most likely to cause environmental impacts include copper, zinc, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. In addition, the weathering of pyrite releases large amounts of iron, and the acid generated attacks the country rocks and causes the release of large amounts of aluminum, which also can severely impact aquatic ecosystems. A reclamation attempt was made at the site in 1995, including construction of storm-water diversion trenches around the abandoned mine area, grading tailings away from the stream bank, addition of pulverized limestone and topsoil, and revegetation. The post-reclamation chemistry of shallow groundwaters (<3 meters deep) shows a neutral pH on the southwestern bank of the stream but pH of 4.1 to 4.5 on the northeastern bank. The dominant ions are Fe2+ and SO42- (Seal, Haffner, Meier, and Pollio, 1999) A ground electromagnetic survey was conducted over the site in 1999 as part of a wider study ( Seal, Haffner, and Meier, 1998a,b, 1999). It was hoped that a 3-D map of the soil conductivity derived from the survey could provide insight into the distribution of the mobilized sulfides present under the ground. This study was conducted in cooperation with the National Park Service

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The Functions of Art in Conveying the Meanings to Audience (Case Study: Some Selected Images from the Earthquake of Bam, 2003) 1Faculty of Art, University of Tarbiat Modares, Tehran, Iran Art, depending on its properties, has an expressive language and if a concept accompanies it, or being said in an artistic language, it would be eternal, too. A review of the literature shows that the artworks, directly or indirectly, reflect the philosophy and idea of the artist, by which he has created the work. Thus any art piece has a negative or positive message to his audience and would affect him in one of these two trends. The Educational outcomes of these two approaches, has a long term and strange effect on the audience. The Article in addition of analyzing these approaches in photos of the Bam earthquake, analyses the orientation of artworks being produced after that and its impact on the audience. The research results show that the art can have wide conceptual effects on the audience. The analyzed samples indicate that some of the images emphasizing the positive implications from devastations of the earthquake, associations hope and mobility to audience. On the other hand, some of the images by showing negative concepts associate despair and hopelessness. The dual and also significant impact of art works shows that during the natural disasters and damages, we can use it as a factor in improving the situation and helping injured victims. At a glance: Figures Keywords: the function of art, art and conveying information, artwork American Journal of Educational Research, 2014 2 (2), Received October 27, 2013; Revised November 30, 2013; Accepted February 09, 2014Copyright: © 2014 Science and Education Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Cite this article: - Mahdavinejad, Mohamadjavad, et al. "The Functions of Art in Conveying the Meanings to Audience (Case Study: Some Selected Images from the Earthquake of Bam, 2003)." American Journal of Educational Research 2.2 (2014): 66-72. - Mahdavinejad, M. , Afzali, K. , Ahmadi, A. , Noruz, M. , & Amin, A. (2014). The Functions of Art in Conveying the Meanings to Audience (Case Study: Some Selected Images from the Earthquake of Bam, 2003). American Journal of Educational Research, 2(2), 66-72. - Mahdavinejad, Mohamadjavad, Kowsar Afzali, Akram Ahmadi, Mahsa Noruz, and Arash Amin. "The Functions of Art in Conveying the Meanings to Audience (Case Study: Some Selected Images from the Earthquake of Bam, 2003)." American Journal of Educational Research 2, no. 2 (2014): 66-72. |Import into BibTeX||Import into EndNote||Import into RefMan||Import into RefWorks| The city of Bam is located in the eastern of Kerman province and southwest edge of the Loot desert. At dawn (5:20) on 26th of December 2003 a strong earthquake centered near the town, with the intensity equal to 3/6 Richter, destroyed city and killed half of the residents. After the disaster many artists focused to reflect the event. Some of the artists have always looked at the problems beyond feelings and emotions, and a little higher than pain, sorrow or sadness. They have tried to survive hope between disaster victims and to change their sight from destruction and distress to prosperity and life expectancy. They want to spread the positive and effective vision in the society, and another group has shown the incident without considering the effective language of art. One of these impressive arts is photography which has always been so important in capturing the interesting moments of people’s life. “Photography is the language of silence and a photo makes hidden sides of the places and events to be appeared” . Donna Stein says in the introduction of his book: “Photography which is pioneer in the modern visual communication, has a great impact on our Ideology and has changed what we see. Good photos increase our ability to view the world that was previously unknown and unclear. The photographs sometimes in relation with anthropology lead us to understand some part of people’s life much more better than any oral descriptions and expression”. An ethnographer photographer pays attention to the most delicate scenes of people’s life, that may had been far from many of the researchers view. Camera is hunter of the scenes, quieter of the views and finder of the critical points in people’s life” . In fact, the ethnographer photographer captures the subjects with special intelligence and delicate in order to have a message to his audience. By this way the messages transfer to audience with a direct or indirect expression. The photo as an artwork is intermediary between artist and audience and would change into a group experience. The artist is aware of his duty and responsibility. He knows that he should express anything that keeps the values and believes of people alive. Therefore, with his special artistic talent makes the ideology of the society involved in his work. The artist which is a compassionate one and is present among the people inspires from nature and its secrets and leads the eyes and minds of the audience toward the sky and the spiritual worlds. He provides a special spiritual atmosphere for the people and feeling of brotherhood to each other. In this way an artwork is a present world in front of the audience’s world, which has their hidden and clear reactions which take place according to their belief in common values. Plato and Tolstoy believe that the kind of art which the audience faces to is effective on his humanity belief. Long watching at the artwork, permanently seeing the works that there are special moral and ontological believes in them, and even the color or music, convey this items to audience. The artwork and its creator are different in their reactions to artworks and the shape of this reaction . Unfortunately the role and base of art in conveying the indirect implications have not been specialized seriously yet and we have not enough documents in this case. 2. Question and Methodology2.1. Research Purpose 1. Reuderstanding the direct and indirect messages in photography and Explainingits mechanism of transmission to the audience. 2. Understanding approaches of artists in photos that related to bam earthquake event and analyzing their effect on the audience. 3. Giving Suggestion and strategies to improving the effective role of artists in conveying indirect concepts to audience.2.2. Research Questions 1. How direct and indirect message Transmits to audience? 2. What are the approaches of photographers to transmit message to the audience in the bam earthquake experience, 2003? 3. What strategies can be offered to audience to improve the effective role of artists for conveying the concept?2.3. Methodology and Select Samples Research method is content analyses. Selecting the cases is from the list of photographers who worked in this field and 50 photos is randomly selected. 3. Art and Convey the Artistic Concepts Language is a communication tool that helps people not to be alone and communicate with each other, to understand each other and make mental relation to each other by the similar symbols and work coordinate. So language is a correlation factor which would be more or less strong based on that we use gestures language, or words language. When art is a language, it would be a tool for social correlation, too. And in addition because we aren’t dealing with a system of symbols and ideas, and we have to deal with a system of emotional symbols. The correlation that is created by these institutions would be closer than the one which is created by the expressed words . Language, is the most perfect manifestation of human life and art, is the most eminent pinnacle of human’s life. Artistic language and standard language mean the language that is a tool for expressing human feelings and emotions in communities and both are expressive. It means they are the same in transferring emotions, feelings and human’s needs . So visual arts and especially photographs can communicate the audience of works during various events, and to have great effect in conveying direct and indirect concepts. Christopher Kadvl says about the nature of art: “art changes content of human emotional consciousness, to be able to have more conscious and deeper react to the world. This penetration to inner reality, affects the hearts of human beings and this common sense reaches the entire community to a new level of empathy, understanding and compassion among human beings” . The long experience of human in the process of history, suggests that speaking with the language of art is immortal and eternal, and would transfer and introduce to future generations pristinely and purely .So when art goes from community to person, it is a kind of regularizing to enthusiasm of humanity, and when he goes toward the society, it is opposite. It is here that we face to influence of art on political life and we can interpreted This to relation between artist, artwork, audience and community that most of the theorists have emphasized on that. Today, in over the world the effect of art is known on the human’s psyche. Culture of loving art and artistic expression is attended since the young age and it is trying that human get more familiar with the art to avoid the social and psychosocial trauma. We use art to cure most of the distresses and even identify social and personal mental problem. In some cases, to influence the world public opinions, we use art intelligently and we can conclude that art mingled with the human nature . Artist is the source of art. If he doesn’t create an artwork we can’t name him source of the art and this statement is extremely clear and stable. Because it’s imagination causes to admit. The artwork is like a defective that shows its most important factors with actualizing the art object significantly. The artwork is the best sample that is provided possibility realization of beauty by the artist .The artist even to create his most privacy work follows the social, moral, emotional and political developments or gives the perception of these developments to future. Using his skills and plenteous talents, the artist tries to create a concept, Sense, message nicely and has a mastery sense to the work that he is creating and does it consciously . It means that without creating a common sense which begins from a subscription in value principles. It is not possible to change audience’s world and to induct new impacts, unless the artwork would be able to create a new interest and trend in viewer or audience . Understanding the relationship between the artist (identified or anonymous) and audience (the people) is important to study the artwork, and that is why we can see a successful process between art and social life. On one hand, the process of mental activity based on social experience means the whole concept of individual creativity in the creator at the time of aesthetical invention. It places a message or concept with a common and familiar code in a physical framework, and puts it in front of the audience in an appropriate context. On the other hand, if the process of shaping and demonstrating the art piece is reach enough in the community, decoding takes place by the audience. Using nonverbal codes, he transferees his understanding to the artist. The Artist corrects his ideas and imaginations according to the reaction of the audience. So, the positive feedback from the creator of this process is communicative and a mutual conversation takes place between the artist and audience. The understanding of audience through his recipient depends on his deep beliefs and can lead to a Performance based on effect and impression. Hans Robert Jauss in his theory “The Aesthetic of Reception” has emphasized on the relation between Artist, work and audience and believes that the artwork is a base for having relationship with audiences. W. In garden also believes that the work is just a set of plans and general directions that audience should realize them. To do this audience enters previously certain knowledge in the work and it has not any inconsistency with the necessity of understanding audience by creator. This knowledge is necessary to cause using familiar elements in sharing messages in order to reach the result, which is the communication through the artwork . And the artist with knowing the audiences selects his approaches to conveying concept in his work and thus he can communicate with the audience And would give his intended message to society. 4. Theoretical Framework Art is born from Thinking, pondering and fine feeling and has the best effect on human. The messages that have used effective artistic practices have been more successful. Tolstoy defines a kind of art that its goal is to communicate with audience and says: “The artist has a goal and that is transferring feeling that the artist has experienced and tested to human.” Art should feels an inner necessity for the emotion transmits . Therefore we can identify a tendency among the artists that its purpose is to convey meaning to the audience and influencing him. We are speaking about the arts that have an educative an principal role in community. In fact the artist offers two types of messages to audience with his work. The message which is inherently positive and always has effective and desirable effects on the audience and the other is a negative message that would have unpleasant effects on the audience. In other words in the cases of difficulties and hardships such as the Bam earthquake Art can plays two types of roles, positive role and negative role. And the attitude of the artist can make the society weak or strong in dealing with problems. The artist can encourage society to achieve a bright future more rapidly with his positive attitude or by his negative attitude and the meanings which expresses directly or indirectly in his work, brings disappointment in society. So here the artist must be aware of the social context of his artworks. Artworks transmit particular messages or feelings which call the viewers sometimes apparently unconscious and indirect, and sometimes consciously and directly. Selecting the pictures correctly, we can note indirect training like advice, Warning, and stressed out, giving reasons, encourage and motivating and etc in addition to direct teaching; that all can be helpful, in promoting the spiritual dimensions. So images are a factor to impress social-cultural behaviors and values . Do we have allowed to ignore the audience and show him whatever we want, or we should choose? We can acknowledge That general criteria to measure the Katarsys definitions, is its coincident in creating the sense of peace in audience’s group, That comes into existence from the impact and induction of artwork. Creating the calm is when doing the work according to acceptable values. This principle can be true for all people, because everyone is mostly aware of his acts and impacts than the accepted values in its good kind. Does advising sentences can influence the audience, or it is better to induce him the message indirectly? Kraysl believes that although media cannot be successful in how we think, but it is successful in what the audience thinks to . Some people are convinced more difficult, because the audiences and listeners of the message are not the same. Audiences based on their mental pre-assuming will be exposed to the message. A successful message is what they’re not any previous opposition to that or its similar messages, in the mind of the audience. When people face to a message that it is against their beliefs, they tend to distort its meaning, or create opposite reasons immediately. Thus audiences are able to avoid change their opinion . Based on the mentioned facts, the way we watch the effect of artwork has the same fate in the audience. This is the problem that this text tries to study. There is a question and concern for any artist who is the owner and creator of an artwork and finishes the artwork by his mental and emotional frame, if his artwork can convey his feelings and thought to audience? Perhaps this question is important For all artists because the artist becomes so happy and exited if his audience is shared in his sense. The artist is successful when is able to create effect and reaction in his audience. Creating the desired reaction and effect in the audience, is very important that almost carries the hidden purpose of the artist . The same purpose in all the artworks is to create an effect in audience or artist himself, either individual or collective. Now what is this effect and impression, and how it should be achieved? How should we know about it? And what features should this interaction have? . These are the topics that have been expressed for the first time by the Greek philosopher and critic, Aristotle in his book, “The Techniques of Poetry” with details. Table 1. Positive and negative messages in the artworks and examples of the seconcepts in the images from Bam earthquake (Source: authors) In critical times Such as earthquakes an artist has to understand how to put the meaning in an artwork in order to convey the most amount of messages. Such an issue causes the audience enjoys the work (even undesirable) and admire it or to have an opposite effect on him. Here the important thing is that a message is conveyed correctly and beautifully, when it is marked perfectly. In table number 1, some cases of these positive or negative messages and their examples are mentioned to see and understand the relation between artist, artwork and audience. In table number 2, the evoked Messages in audience’s minds are gathered from 50 samples of earthquake is listed that are classified in positive and negative categories. It should be noticed that each one of these messages and attitudes have been studied individually for each of the images, which has been shown In Table 3. Table 2. Indirect implications (Positive and negative messages) In 50 photographed samples of Bam earthquake (Source: authors) Table 3. Sample Questionnaire has been completed From Positive and negative messages from image 1 (Source: authors) 5. Analysis of Samples Natural disasters, human violence, wars and etc are the events that always have been attend by the artists. During crises and events photographer Have captured Images that would never vanish from the visual memory of the society, And even in some cases, these pictures have had significant impacts on society and can remember some concepts of the event for audience always and in any time. In other words, through millions of photos which record from thousands of accidents or incidents in the world, few photos get persistent In pictorial history of a society and it depends on the level of intelligence, special look, speed of photographer and also the message of subject. Bam earthquake in 2003 was so considered by the artists and especially photographers, because of The high rate of human toll, financial and cultural damages. And consequently many visual documents were collected. Hundreds of photographers were involved in this tragic event and prepared hundreds of thousands images about it but among these few pure photos noticed, that these photos through messages they had could Have positive or negative effects on audience. Here two different views is analyzed. In both approaches artists are as the narrator of a story because of direct deal. Both have spoken from an event and both are intended to describe one event. But two different views can be concluded from this photo. That in an event which of the views is prefers? To do this study, 50 photos are selected and each one has been commented according to mentioned words in theoretical principles. Considering that name of the work could have effect on commenting, it is avoided in the subtitle of images so that the audience expresses just his personal deduction. It is noted that these implications have not been far from the view of a photographer, such as the picture number 2 and 4, which the photographers of these pictures have had positive and negative attitudes respectively, and audience has had the same presumption from these three pictures. In this section between 50 gathered photos of Bam earthquake, 6 photos (3 photos with positive attitude and 3 with negative attitude) are examined. The first image (Image 1) shows a devastated And haunted area in which a person is trying to reconstructs and repairing on top of a pole. It is full of determination and volition of rebuilding the life. Another photo Indicates the artistic and elegant view of the photographer that has taken it with a different view from the tragic atmosphere of the earthquake (Picture 2). The first plan of this photo is a person with wretched but solid and firm hands, who is planting a beautiful flower in a dead and inexistence soil, as a sign of life and reconstruction and a Row of people in the bright background of the picture who are working and trying to bring order to the current situation is a symbol of empathy and activity and excitement. And on the other hand the look of a working man with a curved back to glittery skyline is a sign of hope to a bright and uncertain future. What can be said about this photo is Level of intelligence, right angle, selecting the right lens and good frame and photographer’s speed that has captured this memorable moment and seeing it in any situation would have a desirable impact on the audience. Once again, it can be seen that the positive and smart attitude of the photographer in this photo (Image 3) is well reflected. The photographer has documented confluence of two views with a pleasant smile among the extensive damages and the ruins of the city. Another photo (picture 4) is a Father’s picture who carries out his two died sons as he would never want to bury them. Photographer had been able to record a historical tragedy with this photo forever. In this photo there are not any traces of life stream, and you think that life is finished and the father cannot walk. Although the artist has tried to make this pure moment persistent, but the sad sense of photo can have an undesirable effect of audiences. Death and inexistence, horror and a mourning city are some of the meanings that associate in the mind of audiences, by looking at this photo (picture 5). A destroyed city, the white and black colors which have made the mourning and sad space of the city more badly, are all the elements which have arranged in a exaggerated mode to show a scene of an earthquake. And the last one (picture 6) is a picture of a poor kid which has slept in a ruined, vacant of people and dusty space. Solitude and fatigue, seclusion and unsociability is clearly seen in this picture. The diagram shows the amount of positive or negative attitude in 50 gathered samples of Bam earthquake. Some of the pictures have one meaning (positive or negative) and some other carry several meanings. As it is seen in the diagram, in the visual samples, the positive messages such as satisfaction, attractiveness, empathy, pride, activities and movement, life, determination, hope and longing (which are shown in dark color in the diagram), had in order 30%, 10%, 70%, 21%, 30%, 78%, 50% and 70% in conveying the meanings. And also the negative messages such as pain, destruction, shame, sadness, isolation, loneliness, death and destruction, fear and despair, show in order the scores of 33%, 60%, 11%, 44%, 20%, 35%, 11% and 20%. analyses of the data in 50 cases show that most of the photographers have attended to positive messages more than negative ones. The outcomes of the test shows that the meanings such as life and living with 78%, hope, enthusiasm and empathy both with 70% had the most score in positive attitudes in conveying these indirect meanings. As you see the positive meanings and messages have been more in these photos and it shows that the artists are completely aware of the effects of art and try to distribute the positive attitude in such positions by expressing the messages such as life, empathy and construction, operations and excitement and other effective messages. The art is the instrument of communicating with other people that in addition to direct contact provides the indirect and conceptual communication between humans, too. Different purposes can be proposed, that one of them is the role, value and ability of art in communicating between the artists and the community. Here, the important fact is the power of the artist to affect the community through his artistic expression. And this gets more important in critical time. In fact, this is a great and deniable duty of the artists to put foot in this way when a disaster is happened and to struggle to express the values which promote the awareness, beauty and unity. And so the artists in the disasters such as earthquake can play an important and fundamental role by inducting the positive concepts and introducing the beauties and goodness through the understandable and familiar words and languages to all. Art is necessary to the happiness of the people and community. Because it joins the people with a common sense. The tests had Substantial points that by using them in the process of conveying information indirectly through art can be very useful and helpful. The wonderful fact is that, results show that the positive messages have understood through the words such as: Life, empathy, hope and longing. In other words the artworks that are associated to positive attitudes somehow would remind hope and continuation of life. The concepts that can be use in conveyance the indirect and values-based concepts. So it is recommended to pay special attention in creating the artworks. And that is clear that it would have greater effect on the audience then. In religious facts it is strongly emphasized on collectivism and inviting the believers to work as a team (empathy, and determination). So it is important that in creating the artworks or the works that are designed and created to promote positive attitude in the critical positions, we pay attention in this fact that and the tests show that most of the artist are aware of this fact and try to convey them to their audiences. The achievements of the research show that art can have wide conceptual effects on the audience. The analyzed samples indicate that some of the pictures by emphasizing on positive meanings from the destructions of the earthquake bring hope and movement to the audience. And on the other hand some of the pictures, showing the negative concepts associate Spirit of despair. The two sided and also important effect of the artworks requires that in the case of natural disasters, to be used as an effective fact to improve the situations and to help the victims. |||Anasori, Jaber, Artistical Anthropology and Psychology, Espark Publication, 1989.| |||Mahdavinejad, Mohammadjavad, The World Architectural Theories, Jahad Publication Ltd–University of Tehran, 2009.| |||Bastied, Roje, Art and Society, Translator, Ghaffar Hosseini, First Printing Tehran, Toos publications, 1996.| |||Norouzitalab, Alireza, 2010, An Inquest in The Morphology of Artistic Work and Getting Mean, Bagh-e-Nazar, No. 14, pp. 69-86.| |||Kadvel, Christopher, About Literature and the Art, translator: Mehdi Asgharzadegan, Negah Publications, 2004.| |||Hakim, Abdolrasoul, the role of art in education, master’s thesis, Department of Culture and Education, The Center of Art University, 1988.| |||Mahdavinejad, Mohammadjavad and Afzali, Kowsar, 2011, The Role of Art in Spiritual Education, Research Institute of Education Studies, No. 108, pp. 91-107.| |||Norouzitalab, Alireza, 2008, Formal theory, The Base of Criticism, Interpretation and understanding the artistic works, pp. 69-88.| |||Zarezadeh, Fahimeh and Rahbarnia, Z., Cooperative Interaction Between Creators and Audiences of Mourn Palm, The Analytic-Research Quarterly of Islamic Art Studies, No. XI, 2002, pp. 43-58.| |||Tolstoy, Leo, What is the Art? Translator Dahgan Kaveh Tehran, Amir Kabir Publications, 1985.| |||Afzali, Kowsar. Explaining the Iranian-Islamic Patterns in Teaching the Basics of Visual Arts, 2012.| |||Kraysel, Andrew, Understanding Radio, Translator Essam Masoumeh. Tehran: Research and Development of sound, 2002.| |||Kia, Ali Asghar and Saedi, Rahman, Basic Relation of Advertisement and Satisfaction, Iran Newspaper, 2004.| |||Zaryabi, Hassan, Concept of Kartasys and Refinding It in The Classical, realism and Present century, 1996.| |||URL 1: (http://www.tebyan.net) (2012-11-05).|

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Open-File Report 2006-1337 U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Open-File Report 2006-1337 By Eric V. Regehr and Steven C. Amstrup, U.S. Geological Survey; and Ian Stirling, Canadian Wildlife Service Polar bears depend entirely on sea ice for survival. In recent years, a warming climate has caused major changes in the Arctic sea ice environment, leading to concerns regarding the status of polar bear populations. Here we present findings from long-term studies of polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea (SBS) region of the U.S. and Canada, which are relevant to these concerns. We applied open population capture-recapture models to data collected from 2001 to 2006, and estimated there were 1,526 (95% CI = 1,211; 1,841) polar bears in the SBS region in 2006. The number of polar bears in this region was previously estimated to be approximately 1,800. Because precision of earlier estimates was low, our current estimate of population size and the earlier ones cannot be statistically differentiated. For the 2001–06 period, the best fitting capture-recapture model provided estimates of total apparent survival of 0.43 for cubs of the year (COYs), and 0.92 for all polar bears older than COYs. Because the survival rates for older polar bears included multiple sex and age strata, they could not be compared to previous estimates. Survival rates for COYs, however, were significantly lower than estimates derived in earlier studies (P = 0.03). The lower survival of COYs was corroborated by a comparison of the number of COYs per adult female for periods before (1967–89) and after (1990–2006) the winter of 1989–90, when warming temperatures and altered atmospheric circulation caused an abrupt change in sea ice conditions in the Arctic basin. In the latter period, there were significantly more COYs per adult female in the spring (P = 0.02), and significantly fewer COYs per adult female in the autumn (P < 0.001). Apparently, cub production was higher in the latter period, but fewer cubs survived beyond the first 6 months of life. Parallel with declining survival, skull measurements suggested that COYs captured from 1990 to 2006 were smaller than those captured before 1990. Similarly, both skull measurements and body weights suggested that adult males captured from 1990 to 2006 were smaller than those captured before 1990. The smaller stature of males was especially notable because it corresponded with a higher mean age of adult males. Male polar bears continue to grow into their teens, and if adequately nourished, the older males captured in the latter period should have been larger than those captured earlier. In western Hudson Bay, Canada, a significant decline in population size was preceded by observed declines in cub survival and physical stature. The evidence of declining recruitment and body size reported here, therefore, suggests vigilance regarding the future of polar bears in the SBS region. Appendix A. Description of Sex Composition, Age Composition, and Other Summary Statistics for Polar Bears Captured in the Southern Beaufort Sea, 2001-06 Appendix B. Description of Model Notation, and the Model Selection Table for Cormack-Jolly-Seber (CJS) Models Fitted to Capture-Recapture Data for Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea, 2001-06 Appendix C. Secondary Capture-Recapture Analysis to Investigate a posteriori Hypotheses Appendix D. Statistical Properties of Parameter Estimates and the Model Selection Process This report is available online in Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, it is available for free download from Adobe Systems Incorporated. Download the report (PDF, 616 KB) Document Accessibility: Adobe Systems Incorporated has information about PDFs and the visually impaired. This information provides tools to help make PDF files accessible. These tools convert Adobe PDF documents into HTML or ASCII text, which then can be read by a number of common screen-reading programs that synthesize text as audible speech. In addition, an accessible version of Acrobat Reader 5.0 for Windows (English only), which contains support for screen readers, is available. These tools and the accessible reader may be obtained free from Adobe at Adobe Access.

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~550 B.C. he began to conquer several neighboring kingdoms ~he was a military genius ~he led his army from victory to victory between 550 and 539 B.C. ~in time, he controlled an empire that spanned 2,000 miles from the Indus River in the east to Anatolia in the west ~Cambyses' successor, a noble of the ruling dynasty, had begun his career as a member of the king's bodyguard ~An elite group of Persian soldiers, the ten thousand immortals, helped Darius seize the throne around 522 B.C. ~he spent the first 3 years putting down revolts ~he brought peace and stability to the empire ~he was a great warrior, but his genius lay in administration ~a Persian prophet, lived around 600 B.C. taught that the earth is a battleground where a great struggle if fought between the spirit of good and the spirit of evil How has Zoroaster's teaching been connected to monotheistic faiths? Because he teaches the belief in one God. ~dreamed of taking control of Greece and then moving against Persia to seize its vast wealth ~hoped to avenge the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. ~in 359 B.C. he became the king of Macedonia ~he quickly proved to be a brilliant general and a ruthless politician ~at his daughter's wedding in 336 B.C. he was stabbed to death Alexander the Great ~son of Philip ~proclaimed himself king after his father's death ~was only 20 years old ~he had learned science, geography, and literature ~he had learned to ride a horse, use weapons, and command troops at a young age Why did Greeks look down on Macedonians? Because they didn't have any great philosophers, sculptors, or writers Describe Alexander's strategy at the Granicus River. Instead of waiting for the Persians to make the first move, Alexander ordered his cavalry to attack Describe what happened in at Gaugamela? The two armies met at Gaugamela. Alexander launched a massive phalanx attack followed by a cavalry charge. By 326 BC, how far and for how long had Alexander's army been fighting? They had been fighting for 11 years and had marched more than 11,000 miles -in Teotihuacán, Central America -the city's most valuable trade item -a green or black volcanic glass -found in the Valley of Mexico -used to make razor-sharp weapons -around 900, the Toltec's rose to power -they ruled over the next 3 centuries, ruled over the heart of Mexico from their capital of Tula -built pyramids and temples -carved tall pillars in the shape of armed warriors -were an extremely warlike people whose empire was based on conquest. They worshiped a fierce war god who demanded blood and human sacrifice from his followers -in 1428, the Aztecs joined with two other city-states, Texcoco and Tlacopan -this alliance became the leading power in the Valley of Mexico and soon gained control over neighboring regions -by the early 1500s, they controlled a vast empire that covered some 80,000 square miles stretching from central Mexico to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and south into Oaxaca -it was divided into 38 provinces and had an estimated pop. between 5 and 15 million people -they generally exercised loose control over the empire, often letting local rulers govern their own regions -in 1502 he was crowned emperor -under his rule, the Aztec Empire began to weaken -Aztecs had been demanding tribute and sacrificial victims from the provinces under their control -now, with the population of Tenochitilán growing ever greater, he called for even more tribute and sacrifice -over time, he tried to lessen the pressure on the provinces, he reduced the demand for tribute payment by cutting the number of officials in the Aztec government people who settled in the alley and developed advanced civilizations that controlled much of the area a different god that the Topiltzin tried to convince people to worship; also known as the Feathered Serpent How do historians think that the city collapsed? Either from an invasion by outside forces or conflict among the city's ruling classes Describe where Aztec wealth came from? Their wealth came from gold, maize, cacao beans, cotton, jade, and other products Describe the marketplace (Tlatelolco) of Tenochtitlan. it had a great deal of local agricultural produce on display including avocados, beans, chili peppers, corn, squash, and tomatoes Describe how the sun was the center of their religious practices. the sun god was the most important one. He made the sun rise and set everyday Describe how much sacrifice played into their battlefield strategy. they made sure that they took their opponents alive in battle so they could use them for sacrifice ~by the 1700s it was a kingdom ~its rulers were growing rich by taxing the goods that traders carried through their territory ~by the year 800, Ghana had become an empire ~eventually, Ghana's rulers converted to Islam ~although the Almoravids eventually withdrew from Ghana, the war had badly disrupted the gold-salt trade and Ghana never regained its power ~emerged around 1235 ~its founders were Mande-speaking people, who lived south of Ghana ~it's wealth was built on gold ~as Ghana remained weak, people who had been under its control began to act independently and minders found new gold deposits farther east ~this caused the most important trade routs to shift eastward, which made a new group of people -the people of Mali- wealthy ~Mali's first great leader ~came to power by crushing a cruel, unpopular leader ~through a series of military victories, he took over the kingdom of Ghana and the trading cities of Kumbi and Walta; a period of peace and prosperity followed ~he proved to be as great a leader in peace as he had been in war; he put able administrators in charge of Mali's finances, defense, and foreign affairs ~he promoted agriculture and reestablished the gold-salt trade ~he may have been Sundiata's grandnephew; ruled from about 1312 to 1332 ~he was a skilled military leader who exercised royal control over the gold-salt trade and put down every rebellion ~his 100,000-man army kept order and protected Mali from attack ~under his rule, the empire expanded to roughly twice the size of the Ghana empire ~to govern his far-reaching empire, he divided it into provinces and appointed governors, who ruled failry and efficiently ~in 1352, one of Mansa Musa's successors prepared to receive a traveler and historian ~a native of Tangier in North Africa, had traveled for 27 years visiting most of the countries in the Islamic world ~after leaving the royal palace, he visited Timbuktu and other cities in Mali ~he found he could travel without fear of crime ~he left Mali in 1353 ~as Mali declined in the 1400s, people who had been under its control began to break away ~they were one of these people, people to the east ~they built up an army and extended their territory to the large bend in the Niger river near Gao ~they gained control of the all-important trade routs ~they had 2 extraordinary rulers, both of whom were Muslims ~were a group of people named after the language they spoke ~the city-states of the Hausa people first emerged between the years 1000 and 1200 in the savanna area east of Mali and Songhai in what today is northern Nigeria ~Songhai briefly ruled the Hausa city-states, but they soon regained their independence ~all the Hausa city-states had similar forms of government; rulers held great power over their subjects, but ministers and other officials acted to check this power ~the constant fighting among city-states prevented any one of them from building a Hausa empire ~all of the people spoke a common language ~Yoruba kings served as the most important religious and political leaders in their kingdoms ~all Yoruba chiefs traced their descent from the first ruler of Ife ~Ife and Oyo were the two largest Yoruba kingdoms. ~Ife, developed by 1100, was the most powerful Yoruba kingdom until the late 1600s, when Oyo became the most prosperous ~to the south and west of Ife, near the delta of the Niger River is this kingdom ~the people of Benin made their homes in the forest ~the first kings of Benin date form the 1200s ~the oba, or ruler, of Benin based his right to rule on claims of descent from the fist king of Ife ~in the 1400s, the oba named Ewuare made Benin into a major West African state by building a powerful army Why couldn't pack animals travel very far in West Africa? because of harsh desert conditions, and because of no rest and water Describe how the Ghanaian king ruled his kingdom in 800. he controlled trade and commanded a large army, he could demand taxes and gifts from the chiefs of surrounding lands What three titles did the Ghanaian ruler possess? religious leader, chief judge, and military commander How was Sundiata a great leader in "peace as he had been in war?" because he took over the kingdom of Ghana and the trading cities of Kumbi and Walata In terms of military technology, explain the advancements of 9th century, 1304 and 1591. a gun was built that shot arrows; gunpowder and cannons; swords and spears ~in different parts of Japan, people honored thousands of local gods ~their varied customs and beliefs eventually combinded to form Japan's earliest religion ~Shinto was based on respect for the forces of nature and on the worship of ancestors ~the worshipers believed in kami, divine spirits that dwelled in nature ~any unusual or especially beautiful tree, rock, waterfall, or mountain was considered the home of a kami ~by the A.D. 400s, the Yamato clan had established itself as the leading clan ~they claimed to be descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu ~by the 7th century, the Yamato chiefs called themselves the emperors of Japan ~the early emperors did not control the entire country, or even much of it, but the Japanese gradually accepted the idea of an emperor ~Japan had both an emperor who served as a figurehead and a ruling power who reigned behind the throne; this dual structure became an enduring characteristic of Japanese government ~since wars between rival lords were commonplace, each lord surrounded himself with a bodyguard of loyal warriors called samurai ~samurai means "one who serves" ~they lived according to a demanding code of behavior called Bushido or "the way of the warrior" ~they were expected to show reckless courage, reverence for the gods, fairness and generosity toward those weaker than himself ~dying an honorable death was judged more important than living a long life Explain the etymology of the name Japan. Comes from the Chinese word ri-ben, which means "origin of the sun" or "land of the rising sun" Explain how Shinto and Buddhism "merged" in the 10th century Japan. Some Buddhist rituals became Shinto rituals, and some Shinto gods and goddesses were worshiped in Buddhist temples Why did Japan not adopt the Chinese civil service system? Prince Shotoku planned a strong central government like that of the Tang rulers. He also tried to introduce China's civil-service system. However, this attempt failed. In Japan, noble birth remained the key to winning a powerful position. How did noble "rules dictate every aspect of court life" in medieval Japan? [Include discussion of weaponry and wardrobe.] Gentlemen and ladies of the court filled their days with elaborate ritual and artistic pursuits. Rules dictated every aspect of court life- the length of swords, the color of official robes, and forms of address, even the number of skirts a woman wore. Etiquette was also extremely important. Laughing aloud in public was frowned upon. St. Francis of Assisi ~founded another order of friars, the Franciscans ~he treated all creatures, including animals, as if they were his spiritual brothers and sisters ~in 1212, a woman named Clare and her friend Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan order for women ~It was known as the Poor Clares ~in the early 1100s, this new style of architecture evolved throughout medieval Europe ~the term Gothic comes from a Germanic tribe named the Goths ~unlike the heavy, gloomy Romanesque bu9ldings, Gothic cathedrals thrust upward as if reaching toward heaven ~light streamed in through huge stained glass windows; other arts of the medieval world were evident around or in the Gothic cathedral- sculpture, wood-carvings and stained glass windows ~All of these elements were meant to inspire the worshiper with the magnificence of God ~they gained control of the Holy Land ~over the next 300 years, a number of such Crusades were launched ~the crusades had economic, social, and political goals as well as religious motives ~kings and the Church both saw the Crusades as an opportunity to get rid of quarrelsome knights who fought each other ~to a Kurdish warrior and Muslim leader ~the Crusaders' states were extremely vulnerable to Muslim counterattack ~in 1144, Edessa was reconquered by the Turks ~The Second Crusade was organized to recapture the city ~But its armies straggled home in defeat; in 1187, Europeans were shocked to learn that Jerusalem itself had fallen to a Kurdish warrior and Muslim leader Richard the Lion-Hearted ~The Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem was led by three of Europe's most powerful monarchs. ~Philip II of France, German emperor Frederick I, and Richard ~he was an English king ~he was left to lead the Crusaders in an attempt to regain the Holy Land from Saladin ~he was a brilliant warrior ~took place in 1212 ~in two different movements, thousands of children set out to conquer Jerusalem ~one group in France was led by 12-year-old Stephen of Cloyes ~an estimated 30,000 children under 18 joined him ~in Germany, Nicholas of Cologne gathered about 20,000 children and young adults the style between 800 and 1100; had round arches and a heavy foot held up by thick walls and pillars Why would the Catholic Church be alarmed at frustrated with so many priests marrying? Because it was against Church rulings What was the difference between a friar and a monk? Like monks, friars took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; unlike monks, friars did not live apart from the world in monasteries; friars owned nothing and lived by begging Explain the social, economic, political and religious goals of the Crusades. in the later Crusades, merchants profited by making cash loans to finance the journey; according to the pop, those who died on Crusade were assured of a place in heaven Where in Europe were the Crusaders from? France, Bohemians, Germans, Englishmen, Scots, Italians, and Spaniards What was the effect of the Crusades on European merchants? Expanded trade between Europe and Southwest Asia

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hardly news by now that digital technologies have made available an abundance of information and knowledge on the Internet and the Web. technologies have created a global digital infrastructure, which, in turn, has become the basis for a new information economy, whose most obvious feature is the abundance of free or low-cost information and knowledge. With few exceptions, I have usually found a needed piece of information, skill or knowhow — if it is public knowledge — on Wikipedia, YouTube, a blog, a Web site, or a mailing list somewhere. The Internet search results below illustrate the extent of the abundance (search done on Feb. 28, 2011; Oct. 2010 hits are in parentheses). The first few hundred hits are usually more than enough for number of disturbing issues persist, including problems of inappropriate content, unaffordability, exclusion, embedded value systems, toxic production But those who are looking for information abundance will definitely find it on the Internet. To turn this wealth of information into wisdom though, users have to carefully pick true from false, grain from chaff. But this also holds true even under information scarcity. it has become a dominant feature of our time, information abundance is forcing a deeper look at the concept itself. One of the most fundamental assumptions in economics is scarcity. This, in effect, assumes away abundance. Thus, most mainstream economists have few concepts that explain it. They have no equations that describe it. Confronted with abundance, they fall back on inadequate theories based on scarcity. the growth of the information economy, however, it is now imperative to deal with the phenomenon of abundance. Wellspring of information abundance: the human urge to communicate of a bottle. You can bottle water, food, air and most other goods for sale. If you use up the bottle's content, it's gone. That's scarcity. But drinking from a bottle of ideas will never use up the contents of the bottle. That's of a curious child. It will touch, smell, taste, look at and listen to almost anything. And once it learns to talk, anything and everything bottled up in its mind will come out, because the child has an innate urge to absorb information and to communicate information. It is, in fact, a universal human urge. For the child in all of us, the Internet offers a huge collection of bottled ideas. And we can all drink from each bottle without using up its contents. That is why we have information abundance. goods become abundant because ideas grow — not diminish — with sharing. As Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Its peculiar character … is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine…." With a marginal cost of almost zero enabling the reproduction of exact copies over any number of generations, the cost has become "too cheap to matter," as Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson puts it. it does seem that "information wants to be free". Something is driving it to multiply. This driving force, I suggest, is the human urge to acquire and exchange knowledge. We did so when it cost much. We will certainly do so even more, now that sharing costs practically nothing. the Internet, we can fully express the primal human urge to communicate. This is why we have information abundance. Wellspring of ecological abundance: the biological urge to reproduce of DNA. They are also like bottled ideas. Nature bottled these ideas into genes, cells, organisms and species, and built in a reproductive urge in every living organism to spread one's DNA, to reproduce one's own kind. is why nature — and if we do it right, agriculture too — can also keep on giving us its bounty, without using itself up. abundance is hard to miss: bacteria can double their numbers every half hour; some plants release a million pollen in a single day; a fish can release one to ten million eggs in one breeding season; one rice grain can produce a thousand grains within a planting season. In seas, lakes, swamps, grasslands, forests, and other ecosystems — abundant life blooms. Where they do not anymore do so, something must have upset the natural abundance. Even such damaged ecosystems, if left alone, soon teem with life again. abundance in nature can last indefinitely, it does not grow without limit. As species multiply, they soon settle into balance with other species and the natural environment. The food chain of plants, herbivores, carnivores and other predators, and decomposers such as arthropods, fungi and bacteria becomes webs of material and energy cycles and exchanges, highly-productive ecosystems that provide us perpetual streams of natural income – new soil, clean air, food, materials for clothes and houses, medicine, fuel, industrial inputs, a thousand other goods and services and psychic rewards too. comes from these inner logic of sharing in humans and reproduction in living Other wellsprings of abundance can also come from the massive bulk of water, carbon, iron, silicon and other minerals on Earth as well as energy from the sun. Earth's non-renewable mineral abundance must be managed differently from renewable solar energy. oil production peaks, for instance, cheap abundant oil will soon come to an Peak oil should teach us an unforgettable lesson in abundance management. Those who miss the lesson will go for more coal, nuclear power and agrofuels. Those who get it will shift to clean renewables, energy efficiency and energy conservation, that will result in planned energy "descent". Transition towns are already leading the way. energy makes possible other abundant energy sources such as water, wind and wood. In 2009, renewables supplied 25% of total world energy capacity, thanks in part to China's surging interest in biogas, wind power and photovoltaics. Germany, too. Hydrogen from water also promises another abundant energy source. is one more wellspring of abundance: the webs of positive human relationships - acquaintances, friendships, family, community – which generate feelings of peace, contentment, love, happiness and other psychic rewards which defy of these wellsprings of abundance creates an archetype — a distinct category – of abundance: information, biological, bulk, psychic, and others. Creating cascades of abundance do not learn to recognize or to tap these archetypes when we come across them, we can become poor by default. People with access to land often stay poor simply because they have forgotten how to tap and build on the abundance that nature lays at their feet, or the wealth of knowledge humanity has accumulated All of us must learn again to recognize abundance when it happens, to tap existing abundance, and to make it last indefinitely. tapping existing abundance and making it last indefinitely, we can learn to recognize the conditions that generate each archetype, so that we can subsequently create cascades of new abundance. To cite examples: the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) improves yields dramatically; permaculture creates through conscious design a self-regenerating "forest" of food and cash crops; remineralization rejuvenates our soils; biodynamic farming taps distant forces to raise the quantity and quality of farm produce. are made from semiconducting silicon, the elemental basis of the digital revolution. Six-thousand-dollar LCD projectors 10 year ago now cost less than a thousand. If photovoltaics follow similar plunging price trends as other digital goods, then we can create more cascades of new solar-based abundance and bring in a Solar Age. the Internet, the original protocols have spawned cascades of abundance. First came mailing lists, download sites and home pages; then the search engines; other innovations followed, such as blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, and social networking portals, with no end in sight. cascades of abundance is hardest in the industrial sector because its substantial material and energy needs (and wastes) tend to disrupt ecological systems. If industrial processes could be turned into closed material loops fuelled by renewables, this may yet provide the key to cascading industrial get better at building balanced ecologies of agriculture, industrial and information abundance, our communities will enjoy even more continuing streams of goods, services, psychic rewards and other benefits. Abundance creates commons have identified several archetypes of abundance. All these archetypes have societies learned early on to deal with abundance – including temporary ones - from forests, rivers, and other hunting and gathering areas by managing them as commons. Taken for granted for a long time, the oceans, the atmosphere, and other global commons are just getting due attention. Likewise, the creative commons of information, knowledge and culture are now getting renewed attention with the rise of the Internet which, by the way, has become a great showcase of both the concepts of commons and abundance (and their problems, too). and governments are also public spaces. Therefore, rather than dismiss them outright as completely anathema to the commons, should we not try to reorient them, to be managed as commons? (After all, public markets and village meetings still show features characteristic of commons. Perhaps, we should see the failures of markets and governments – the financial bubbles in the West or the communist collapse in the East, for instance – as the real tragedies of the commons, from which valuable lessons can be drawn.) abundance creates commons, the pooling of resources in common is not the only mindset that abundance spawns. Abundance in fact spawns two contrary mindsets: holding its source in common is great for the whole commuity and for future generations, but monopolizing it is great for private profit-making. Two contrary mindsets: commons or two mindsets are engaged in a contest for our minds. Which mindset will ultimately win this contest is by no means clear. example in agriculture is the contest between — one — farmers who share commonly-held seed varieties among themselves, versus — two — multinationals who extract monopoly rents from their hybridized or genetically-engineered proprietary seeds through plant variety protection, patents, and the the industries of the West, very little is commonly-held now. One — the corporate mindset holds sway. Curiously, however, the world's main source of industrial abundance today is China, which boasts of a huge but less dominant State sector — two — in precarious balance with a growing corporate sector, under the Communist party's schizophrenic ideology of "market socialism." the information economy, user movements — one — for copyright and patent exemptions, open access, free software and other forms of non-exclusivity have made big inroads in building commons of information techniques, tools and content for sharing. However — two — corporations and governments are trying to stem the tide of sharing by tightening enforcement of intellectual property rights and through agreements like the GATT/WTO and the two mindsets are contesting control over abundance: one is commons and two, monopoly. There are three mindsets, actually, whose dynamics are shaping the economies of the 21st century. The third mindset is competition. main carriers of the monopoly mindset are business firms organized as corporations. Corporations are also driven by an urge, but one that is different from the human urge to communicate, and the biological urge to reproduce. urge our legal systems put into these business automata was a single urge — the urge to seek profits. This one-track mind has made them take over commonly-held sources of abundance — from seeds, to land, to knowledge — and turn these into monopolies because it is profitable to do so. What they could not take over, they have undermined or sabotaged, to create artificial scarcity. Corporations have destroyed the fertility of our soils, substituting commercial synthetics in their place; they have stopped the natural flow of mothers' milk in favor of commercial formula; they have bought out independent seed companies, to force-feed us with genetically-modified toxic foods, all in pursuit of profit. They have become, in Hoeschele's words, "scarcity-generating institutions". Corporations have become the dominant life form on Earth unfortunate that corporations came in before Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. In the 1950s, when robots were mostly figments of imagination of science fiction writers, Asimov wrote the novel, I Robot, where he laid down the three laws, to ensure that intelligent, man-made automata did not take over the world and enslave humankind. First Law was: "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." The Second Law: "A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law." The third law is about self-preservation, as long as it did not conflict with the First or Second Laws. would be much better off today if all corporations — which, like robots, are man-made automata — were constrained by these laws. But when we granted legal personhood to corporations, turning them into a de facto man-made species of business automata, we built into them not the three laws for automata but the single urge to seek profits. Corporations have since confirmed the science fictionists' worst fears about runaway automata. have become super-aggressive players in our political, economic, and social worlds. Beating us in our own game, they have taken over governments, economies, and media. Having become masters in domesticating Homo sapiens, they now house, feed, train and employ tamed humans to serve as their workhorses, pack mules, milking cows, watchdogs, stool pigeons and smart asses. corporations are now the dominant species on Earth. They routinely ignore human orders, injure human beings and foul up ecosystems in violation of laws for automata. These man-made mammoths now occupy the top of the food chain. They have become the greatest threat to our well-being and the survival of many species on this planet, now in the throes of a great wave of extinctions. our conscious mind, unique intelligence, and creative powers, Homo sapiens, says a new story of creation, is the Universe's own way of looking at itself, of appreciating its own beauty, origins, evolution and the grandeur of it all. Thus we carry a huge burden of responsibility not only to the living world, but to the whole cosmos as well. facing up to this responsibility, three fundamental and interrelated challenges in the twenty-first century confront us: we must reacquire a species consciousness as Homo sapiens. We need to think as a species and to reestablish our intimate connections with other species and the rest of the natural world. we must free ourselves from corporate control. We must learn to keep ourselves healthy through the right food and natural environment. We must learn to raise and educate our young under a new mindset. And we must learn to do all these without depending on corporations, relying instead on each other and on sources of abundance we ourselves can build, maintain and hold in common. we must reestablish control over corporations. This involves reprogramming them to obey Asimov's three laws for automata or their equivalent. It also involves - as we did against big prehistoric predators – hunting down disobedient corporations and disbanding, bankrupting or otherwise driving them to the powers of corporations today, these are daunting tasks indeed. But we have no choice, if we want to reclaim our role as stewards of the natural world and masters of our own creations. In my book Towards a Political Economy of Information (Foundation for Nationalist Studies, Quezon City: 2004), I discuss in detail many of the critical issues raised about the Internet and the technologies that built it. For the full text of the book, go here. One definition of economics says, "Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources (Mankiw, 2001, p.4)," as cited in Backhouse, Roger and Steven Medema. "On the Definition of Economics". Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 23 No. 1 (Winter 2009). pp. 221-233. The authors discuss in detail the place of scarcity in the definition of economics. The full quote (see here) is: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." Anderson, Chris. Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Random House Business Books, London: 2009. pp. Brand, Stewart. The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT. Viking, New York: 1987. p. 202. On the next line, Brand also wrote "information wants to be expensive", which shows that he saw the whole picture. See the assertion below about abundance spawning two opposite mindsets. See Leggett, Jeremy. The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Coming Global Financial Catastrophe. Random House, New York: 2005. Hopkins, Rob. The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Green Books, Devon: 2008. p.50. It is painful to see some rural folks sell their coconuts, sweet potatoes and leafy vegetables – all very healthy foods – in the market and then treat their children to junk foods such as French fries, burgers and Coca-Cola, or to raze edible or medicinal "weeds" to clean their backyards or maintain their monocrops. See Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designers' Manual. The Deccan Development Society & Permaculture - India, Hyderabad: October, 1990. For these and other solutions, see Tompkins, Peter and Christopher Bird. Secrets of the Soil: New Solutions for Restoring Our Planet. Rupa & Co., New Delhi: 1989. See Hoeschele, Wolfgang. "Research agenda for a green economics of abundance". International Journal of Green Economics. Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008). pp. 29-44. A Zeroth Law was later added: "A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." The First Law ("A robot may not injure a human being…") is in fact consistent with the economist's definition of efficiency, which is to make at least one person better off, without making anyone else worse off. Excellent readings on corporate power and anti-social behavior include Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World. Kumarian Press Inc., Connecticut and Berrett-Kohler Publishers, San Francisco: 1995 and Bakan, Joel. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. Penguin, Toronto: 2004, including the latter's documentary film version. See also my piece "Prehistoric peoples could kill mammoths: how about corporations?" Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. HarperCollins: 1994. Image by takomabibelot, courtesy of Creative Commons license.

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In 1852, the Memphis-Charleston Railroad was constructed through Germantown. Built in 1868, the original depot quickly became a center for the Germantown community. In 1948, the depot burned and was rebuilt using many of its original timbers. By 1948, the depot was no longer officially in use, and the Southern Railroad leased it to the city. The depot and the surrounding area were restored and dedicated as Depot Square in July 1986. This picture is from July 10, 1929, when a replica of the first Memphis and Charleston Railroad train was met by the Mayor and citizens. Source: A Walking Tour of the Old Germantown District

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The relative dearth of timing noise for the older pulsars is a very important finding. It implies that, presently, the measurement precision depends primarily on the particular hardware constraints of the observing system. Consequently, a large effort in hardware development is presently being made to improve the precision of these observations using, in particular, coherent dedispersion outlined in Section 4.1. Much progress in this area has been made by groups at Princeton , Berkeley , Jodrell Bank , UBC , Swinburne and ATNF . From high quality observations spanning over a decade [274, 275, 155], these groups have demonstrated that the timing stability of millisecond pulsars over such time-scales is comparable to terrestrial atomic clocks. This phenomenal stability is demonstrated in Figure 24 which shows , a parameter closely resembling the Allan variance used by the clock community to estimate the stability of atomic clocks [308, 1]. Both PSRs B1937+21 and B1855+09 seem to be limited by a power law component which produces a minimum in after and respectively. This is most likely a result of a small amount of intrinsic timing noise . Although the baseline for the bright millisecond pulsar J04374715 is shorter, its is already an order of magnitude smaller than the other two pulsars or the atomic clocks. Timing observations of an array of millisecond pulsars in the context of detecting gravitational waves from the Big Bang are discussed further in Section 4.5.3. © Max Planck Society and the author(s)

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Many readers / blogging friends thought I have travelled everywhere. The truth is that the more you travelled, the more you realize that there are many places that you haven’t visited. HuangShan in China is a place where I have never visited. My classmate in Chinese Calligraphy, Mr. Chung Kwok Fan, was there just last week. The photos he showed us were some of the best I have ever seen of HuangShan. Basically, he was several thousand feet above sea level and viewing down the clouds and mountains below him. It was just like a Chinese painting! Not just any painting, but a painting by a master. The view is just surreal. Mr. Chung has kindly agreed to my posting of this great photo. Do you think this image warrant submitting to the National Geographic? For those who would like to know more about HuangShan, below is an introduction from Wikipedia: Huangshan ( literally: “Yellow Mountain”), is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. The range is composed of material that was uplifted from an ancient sea during the Mesozoic era, 100 million years ago. The mountains themselves were carved by glaciers during the Quaternary. Vegetation on the range is thickest below 1,100 meters (3,600 ft), with trees growing up to the treeline at 1,800 meters (5,900 ft). The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly shaped granite peaks, Huangshan Pine trees, and views of the clouds from above. Huangshan is a frequent subject of traditional Chinese paintings and literature, as well as modern photography. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of China’s major tourist destinations.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Operation Paperclip (also credited as Project Paperclip) was the code name under which the U.S. intelligence and military services extracted German scientists from Nazi Germany, during and after the final stages of World War II. In 1945 the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. |Real conspiracies: Operation Paperclip, which assimilated Nazis into the U.S. establishment, shows the antecedents for labeling people of conscience enemies of the state - Viewpoint| One way a government mobilizes support for morally dubious actions is to make those actions sound like the right thing to do. Decisions made for other reasons entirely, for reasons of strategy, say, or economic advantage, are cloaked in religious rhetoric, and when our leaders claim the moral high ground, we the people want to believe them. Recent caricatures show how Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Christian crusaders like George W. Bush use nearly identical rhetoric to justify their actions. Both abuse their religious traditions to manipulate believers in those traditions. Those who worry about such things are often pained because the desire to believe and follow our leaders is twisted, that desire being contradicted by obvious discrepancies in what our leaders are doing rather than saying. This gets a person with a strong conscience into a real pickle. The simple fact is, any person willing to act on the convictions of a strong conscience is as much an enemy of the state as an avowed terrorist because he or she will not accept the designer lies of the state as the motivation for its morally dubious actions. Perhaps this is illustrated best with a historical example. Let's use Operation Paperclip. The United States and its Western European allies agreed after World War II to deny immigration rights and work opportunities to Nazis with scientific and technological expertise who were more than trivially connected to the Third Reich. Those who joined the party before 1933 or advanced in the SA (Brown Shirts) or the SS or were identified by credible witnesses as participating in atrocities were included in that category. Contradictions arose, however, after the war. Denying German scientific expertise to the Soviets and using it ourselves became primary motivations for wanting those Germans here, working for us. Over time the need for German proficiency in aerospace design, lasers and other advanced research superseded moral concerns for what they had done during the war. Operation Paperclip was the name of the project that assimilated Nazi scientists into the American establishment by obscuring their histories and short-circuiting efforts to bring their true stories to light. The project was led by officers in the U.S. Army Although the program officially ended in September 1947, those officers and others carried out a conspiracy until the mid-'50s that bypassed both law and presidential directive to keep Paperclip going. Neither Truman nor Eisenhower were informed that their instructions were ignored, and if there is a lesson to be learned from Operation Paperclip, it is that, as Elie Wiesel said of the Holocaust, the world can get away with it. Please note: Those who documented Operation Paperclip are not "conspiracy theorists." They are journalists and scholars who described a genuine conspiracy. Fast forward 50 years. When Total Information Awareness--the effort to mine and correlate vast amounts of data about Americans and non-Americans alike--became public knowledge, it was assailed for further eroding civil liberties already undermined by the Patriot Act, rights previously guaranteed by the Constitution. Asked at a news conference about Total Information Awareness, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld laughed and said, well then we'll change the name and do it anyway. Rumsfeld was just stating the obvious. Data mining has long been an important area of research for the intelligence establishment. The ability to filter out irrelevant data and align the many signals transmitted by our daily transactions into profiles with predictive value has been pursued for a long time. Rumsfeld was just saying, OK, if there's a problem with the name, we'll change the name and do it secretly. It's the combination of eradicating rights guaranteed by the Constitution such as habeas corpus and modern technologies that enable the national security state to know and anticipate the tendencies of the souls of its citizenry, all in the name of counterterrorism, that makes us nervous. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a literal description of what our leadership is doing Back in the early days of Paperclip, when those with consciences and/or memories of Nazi atrocities tried to stop the steamroller, they were accused of being communist agents or sympathizers or useful idiots who did not know they were manipulated by the Communist Party. Real enemies during the Cold War became the justification for labeling persons of conscience enemies too, a strategy that was canny and intentional. Today real terrorists are the justification for targeting persons of conscience as if they are enemies not only of America but of the American Empire too. "Even before 9/11, U.S. armed services professionals were engaged in operations in 150 countries a year," noted Robert Kaplan approvingly in the 2003 Pitcairn Trust Lecture on World Affairs. "It is already a cliche to say that by any historical standard the United States is more an empire, especially a military one, than many care to acknowledge." Kaplan goes on to advocate the efficient use of covert action to overthrow regimes and destabilize enemies of the empire. "The U.S. had 550,000 troops in Vietnam but didn't accomplish much," he observes, contrasting that effort with the successful appropriation of rightwing groups in El Salvador with only special forces miners on the ground. That, he suggests, is the model for the future. I discussed this with two neighbors yesterday on a sunny lawn with autumn flowers in bloom. One said she was concerned for what had happened to the America she knew. The other said she was too busy with her job and taking care of her children to do much about it. Both felt helpless to do anything anyway, and that's the intention. Those feelings of helplessness are typical, I would guess, but there was something else in the conversation. "You'd better be careful," one warned. "You're probably on the list." Now, that's relatively new. The belief that there is a list, the belief that with technological advances we can be tracked, databased and identified as enemies, the belief that we are so tracked, that the information will be used against us, that's new. Among middle-aged Midwest conservative people, that's new. Those beliefs, intermittently reinforced by stories of police or FBI questioning innocent people for speaking aloud their objections to empire, is one means of control of mainstream citizens who "want to believe the American myth," as one put it, while evidence accumulates that the high moral ground is one more means for keeping us acquiescent and compliant. It was warm on the lawn among those flowers, yet soon enough, shorn of our real history, shorn of constitutional rights, we'll be shivering like sheep in the first chill breeze of autumn. One could do worse than revisit Paperclip and other forgotten events, the real antecedents of our current situation, One could do worse than refuse to surrender to denial or design. Richard Thieme speaks, writes and consults on the human dimensions of life and work, the impact of technology, and "life on the edge." He has written for Information Security Magazine, Salon, Forbes and the Village Voice. COPYRIGHT 2003 National Catholic Reporter COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group Encyclopedia of Science - History of Rocketry Code-name of the American scheme to detain top German scientists at the end of World War II and relocate them to the United States; it was originally called Operation Overcast. The scientists included Wernher von Braun and more than 100 of his colleagues who had worked on the V-2 and other "V" weapons. These personnel and the hardware that came with them formed the backbone of the future American space program. The origins of Paperclip In May 1945, after the fall of the Nazi regime, Russian soldiers secured the German atomic research laboratories at the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the suburbs of Berlin, giving Stalin the foundations of what would become a vast Soviet nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile, US forces removed V-2 missiles from the labyrinthine Nordhausen complex, built under the Harz Mountains in central Germany, just before the Soviets took over the factory, in what would become their area of occupation. And the team which had built the V-2, led by von Braun, also fell into American hands. Shortly afterward Major-General Hugh Knerr, deputy commander of the US Air Force in Europe, wrote: "Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research. If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited." Thus began Operation Paperclip, the exercise that saw von Braun and more than 700 others spirited out of Germany from under the noses of the United State's allies. Its aim was simple: "To exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union." President Truman authorized Paperclip in August 1945 and, on November 18, the first Germans reached America. Truman, however, had insisted that anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism militarism" be excluded. Under this criterion even von Braun himself would have been ineligible to serve the US. A member of numerous Nazi organizations, he also held rank in the SS. Among his senior associates were Arthur Rudolph, chief operations director at Nordhausen, where 20,000 slave laborers died producing V-2s; Kurt Debus, a rocket launch specialist and SS officer whose report stated: "He should be interned as a menace to the security of the Allied Forces;" and Hubertus Strughold, later called "the father of space medicine," whose subordinates had conducted human experiments at Dachau and Auschwitz, where inmates were frozen and put into low-pressure chambers, sometimes until they died. All of these men were cleared to work for the US, their alleged crimes covered up and their backgrounds glossed over by a military which saw winning the Cold War as its all-consuming priority. Having been transferred to their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, a large Army installation just north of El Paso, the German scientists and engineers were given the job of training military, industrial, and university personnel in the intricacies of rockets and guided missiles and helping refurbish, assemble, and launch a number of V-2s that had been shipped from Germany to the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. by Lieutenant Colonel William L. Howard NewsMine : coldwar imperialism : operation paperclip.txt By February 1945, the Allied offensive in Europe was striking toward the heart of Germany. On January 27, 1945, with the Russian forces closing in on Berlin, the first refugee caravans had reached the outskirts of Berlin with stories of the brutal behavior of the Red Army, and a wave of terror swept through the city. Many citizens, however, still had faith in Goebbels' promise that wonder weapons would save Germany at the last moment. By then, V-2s, developed at the experimental rocket station in Peenemunde under the leadership of 34-year-old Dr. Wernher von Braun, were causing havoc in London, Antwerp and Liege. One of the men responsible for creating these Wunderwaffen (miracle weapons), General-Major Walter Dornberger, was holding a conference in Berlin. He had just been entrusted with the job of producing a missile that would unerringly destroy and plane attempting to attack Germany. The 10 members of "Working Staff Dornberger," after reviewing the many experiments made in this field--from nonguided anti-aircraft rockets to remote-controlled missiles for launching from ground or air--concluded that their only chance for success was to concentrate on a few projects. They agreed to retain only four guided anti-aircraft rockets. Meanwhile, in Peenemunde, at the mouth of the Oder, Dr. von Braun, the technical director of the rocket station, was holding a secret meeting with his chief assistants. Together they had developed the A-4, a rocket they regarded as the first step to space flight. But Hitler saw it as a long-range weapon, and Goebbels had renamed it the V-2, Vengeance Weapon-2. Dr. von Braun explained to his assistants that he had called the meeting because of conflicting orders received that day--both from SS officials. SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Hans Kammler, named special commissioner of the project by Himmler, had sent a teletype directing that the rocketeers be moved to central Germany, while Himmler himself, as commander of Army Group Vistula, had dispatched a message ordering all of Dr. von Braun's engineers to join the Vokssturm, the Peoples' Army, so that they could help defend the area from the approaching Red Army. "Germany has lost the war," Dr. von Braun continued, "but let us not forget that it was our team that first succeeded in reaching outer space. . . . We have suffered many hardships because of our faith in the great peacetime future of the rocket. Now we have an obligation. Each of the conquering powers will want our knowledge. The question we must answer is: To what country shall we entrust our heritage?" A suggestion that they stay and turn themselves over to the Russians was emphatically rejected; they finally voted unanimously to surrender to the United States Army. The first step was to obey Dr. Kammler's order and evacuate to the west. There was no time to lose; preparations for the move would take more than two weeks., and they could already hear the faint rumble of Zhukov's artillery to the south. In mid-November 1944, American and British forces had entered Germany and were approaching the Rhine River. By March 9, 1945, American forces had succeeded in seizing the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen and had established a bridgehead on the east bank. Twelve supersonic V-2s were launched toward the bridge from Holland. They landed in a scattered pattern, with only one causing any appreciable damage with it hit a house 300 yards east of the bridge, killing three Americans. Dr. von Braun, who was recovering at Nordhausen from a serious automobile accident--his torso and left arm were still encased in a huge cast--heard a report on Easter Sunday that American tanks were only a few miles to the south. He was afraid the SS would follow the Fuhrer's "scortched earth" policy and destroy the tons of precious V-2 documents and blueprints. Dr. von Braun instructed his personal aide, Dieter Huzel, and Bernhard Tessmann, chief designer of the Peenemunde test facilities, to hid the documents in a safe place. It took three Opel trucks to carry the 14 tons of papers. The little convoy headed north on April 3 toward the nearby Harz Mountains. By the end of the day Tessmann and Huzel found an abandoned iron mine in the isolated village of Dornten. Thirty-six hours later, all of the documents had been hauled by a small locomotive into the heart of the mine and hand-carried into the powder magazine. On April 10, work in the underground V-2 factory at Nordhausen stopped. The rocket specialists, engineers and workers--4,500 of them--scattered to their homes, and the slave workers were returned to the nearby concentration camp. The next morning, April 11, Task Force Welborn of the 3rd Armored Division approached Nordhausen from the north as Task Force Lovelady came in from the south. Both commanders had been alerted by Intelligence to "expect something a little unusual in the Nordhausen area." They thought at first this meant the town's concentration camp, containing about 5,000 decayed bodies. But several miles northwest of Nordhausen, in the foothills of the Harz, they ran into other prisoners in dirty striped pajamas who told them there was "something fantastic" inside the mountain. The two commanders peered into a large tunnel and saw freight cars and trucks loaded with long, slender finned missiles. With Major William Castille, the combat command's intelligence officer, they walked into the bowels of the mountain, where they found a complex factory. V-1 and V-2 parts were laid out in orderly rows, and precision machinery stood in perfect working order. When Colonel Holgar Toftoy, Chief of Ordnance Technical Intelligence in Paris, learned of the amazing find, he began organizing "Special Mission V-2." Its job was to evacuate 100 complete V-2s and ship them to White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. Dr. Wernher von Braun and his leading V-2 scientists voluntarily surrendered to the U.S. 44th Division. Almost as important was the recovery of the 14 tons of V-2 documents hidden by Tessman and Huzel in the Dornten iron mine. Despite a slow start, Colonel Toftoy's "Special Mission V-2," led by Major James Hamill, also succeeded in its mission. One hundred complete V-2s were evacuated only hours before the Russians occupied the area. Major Hamill had been ordered to remove the rockets "without making it obvious that we had looted the place," yet, curiously, was not told that Nordhausen would be in the Soviet zone. Consequently, it never occurred to him to destroy the remaining rockets. By April 19, 1945, the Russian high command announced that the Russian drive on Berlin had begun. By April 28, elements of the First United States Army had linked up with the Russians at Torgau. In Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30 and Admiral Doenitz was placed in charge. German forces surrendered on May 7, and victory in Europe was declared. Shortly after VE Day, Magnus von Braun, brother of Professor von Braun, was sent as an emissary to contact the American authorities and inform them that a large number of the Peenemunde scientists and technicians, who had scattered to the four winds after the collapse of the Nazi regime, were living in small villages throughout the Alps. This was the beginning of "Operation Overcast" which was renamed Operation Paperclip. The American authorities, realizing the progress that had been made by German scientists in the field of guided missiles, saw a chance to gain from their experience and start not from scratch but from the Germans left off. Approximately 150 of the best scientists and technicians were rounded up and, after preliminary interrogation and background investigations by U.S. intelligence agencies, were offered five-year contracts to come to the United States and work for the U.S. Army. In turn, we promised to provide housing for their families, who had to remain Germany until arrangements could be made to bring them to the United States. The first group of seven guided-missile scientists signed by contract under Operation Paperclip arrived at Fort Strong, New York, September 20, 1945, and from there were taken to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Here, in the tightly guarded Industrial Area, in the midst of secret military developments of all kinds, but always with a GI escort, these scientists carried on the work began at Peenemunde. The research at Aberdeen was concerned with the processing of German guided-missile documents captured by U.S. military forces. Here, these men scanned thousands of documents, all of the stamped "GEHEIM," the equivalent of "SECRET." It is impossible to estimate the amount of time and money saved by having these scientists and technicians available to assist us in segregating, cataloging, evaluating and translating more than 40 tons of documents. The purpose of the project at Aberdeen was to provide Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Proving Ground, where an additional 120 German scientists and technicians were working of the development and testing of guided missiles, with documents or translations thereof. Operation Paperclip came to a fitting conclusion with the naturalization of the first group of more than 50 German scientists and technicians on November 11, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama. A 1947 photo of the German team at Fort Bliss, Texas. Dr. von Braun, inset, is in the front row, seventh from right. Posted October 7, 199 |CIA Use of Nazi Research| The following are not all Nazi war criminals hired to work for the U.S. though several are. All of them worked with such, and/or worked at similar unethical experiments. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. Ex head CIA Chemical Biological Warfare program. Testified in congressional hearings about developing a system of running a pipe under a target's door to deliver incapacitating, poisonous or suggestibility Dr. Ray Teichler. Gottlieb's assistant, and CIA liason aty Edgewood Arsenal. Assistant to Edgewood Medical Laboratories division of human experimentation director. Karl Tauboeck. Nazi scientist constulting for the CIA. Friedrich Hoffman. Nazi scientist consulting for the CIA. Otto Ambrose. Worked for J. Peter Grace. Dr. Albert Klingman. Participated in joint CIA/Army program at Edgewood, got prison inmates for these experiments; also had a climatic control chamber. Edgewood Arsenal. Run by U.S. Army Chemical Corps, which had acquired 8 Nazi scientists. Dr. Robley Evans. Radiation in WW II, using some data from ongoing Nazi radiation experiments on humans, mostly by Dr. Boris Rajewski. Asked for conscientious objectors to be sent to him for this. Dr. Boris Rajewski. Nazi radiation experimentor. Gerhard Schubert. Nazi radiation experimentor, brought to Hermann Daenzer. Nazi radiation experimentor, brought to Wolfgang Luther. Nazi radiation experimentor, brought to Dieter Strang. Nazi radiation experimentor, brought to Arthur Demnitz. Nazi radiation experimentor, brought to Dr. Robert Stone. Also requested and used Nazi data incl. Rajewski's report, later with Dr. Evans on the Nuclear Energy Propulsion for Airplanes Advisory Committee which tried to bring Rajewski to the U.S. Evans and Stone did classified radiation weapon development research for the AEC and military. Evans secretly a CIA consultant for their project to use radiation as a means of killing just one person. Col. Boris Pash. Started CIA radiation warfare research, had made CIA assassination teams from Nazi recruits, directed the Alsos Mission to locate and whitewash useful Nazi war criminals, and siezed 70,000 tons of uranium ore Dr. Webb Haymaker. Co-authored a book with Nazi scientist Hubertus Strughold. Co-developed Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) from CIA ideas to use radiation to affect brain centers. They consulted with him on this. Boron is injected, and a neutron beam aimed at it in the brain, causing a "tiny nucear explosion." NO CURES, most patients died. Dr. William Swee. Co-developed BNCT. Worked in 1933 and 1934 in Nazi Germany, observed sterilization of unwitting epileptics by aiming radiation at their genitals from under a desk they were told to sit at, yet though he called this "outrageous behavior," he never revealed this to war crimes investigators. And if you think that the all-wise CIA must be excuseable as being privy to knowledge or having special competence we do not, consider this: "Think of it: thirty billion dollars a year goes to an intelligence establishment that cannot hire one spy in the south end of Mogadishu to pinpoint the location of a famous warlord who gives press interviews and broadcasts radio statements of defiance. Somalia has exposed the weakness of U.S. defense intelligence." - William Safire, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 7, 1993 p. A29. End of File. Code-name of the American scheme to detain top German scientists at the end of World War II and relocate them to the United States; it was originally called Operation Overcast. The scientists included Wernher von Braun and more than 100 of his colleagues who had worked on the V-2 and other "V" weapons. These personnel and the hardware that came with them formed the backbone of the future American space program. |Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (Hardcover)| by Linda Hunt (Author) |Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (Hardcover)| by Christopher Simpson (Author) |Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and The Swiss Banks (Paperback)| by Mark Aarons (Author), John Loftus (Author) |salon.com > News May 3, 2000| Our Nazi allies A German amateur investigator finds information on the U.S. government's friendly dealings with war criminals. Meanwhile, the FBI and CIA guard their records. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Ken Silverstein Dieter Maier, an amateur investigator working from his home on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, has uncanny luck finding out about U.S. ties to the Nazis. For the past 20 years, Maier has been filing a steady stream of requests for information to a variety of U.S. government agencies, largely for the existential pleasure of historical inquiry, and also out of a fear of a rebirth of Nazism, fascism and racism in Germany. The more he knows about the past, he says, the better prepared he is to deal with the future and present. What is most startling about Maier's success, however, is that he appears to have had an easier time finding information on U.S. collaboration with Nazis after World War II than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same controversial data. Maier, through Freedom of Information Act requests, has unearthed new information on characters like Karl Heinz-Priester, one of the most prominent postwar neo-Nazi leaders. According to "The Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right," Priester, a former Waffen SS liaison officer, helped found the National Democratic Reich Party in 1949. After being expelled for his dictatorial tendencies, Priester set up the equally virulent German Social Movement and became a leading player in the international fascist movement. Maier received files from U.S. Army Intelligence that show that Priester was on the U.S. payroll as an informant, a fact never before reported. Priester was terminated as a U.S. spy in 1959 when it was deemed that his usefulness was falling off, or as it was put on his file card: "Subject's services no longer needed. Production and performance poor." (The FOIA is, unfortunately, a hit-and-miss proposition. I also filed a request on Priester, and was sent, among other things, the identical file card -- with the notations identifying Priester as a U.S. agent blacked out.) That U.S. officials collaborated with Nazis after World War II is, of course, well known. Just one day after Germany's surrender, on May 10, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to arrest all suspected war criminals, though advising him "to make such exceptions as you deem advisable for intelligence and other military reasons." In other words, cut deals with war criminals who could be usefully employed by U.S. intelligence. Over the years, the United States found a spot on the payroll for thousands of former Nazis, especially as part of intelligence gathering operations aimed at the Soviet Union, our wartime ally but soon-to-be mortal foe. Not much has been learned about these programs since, with successes such as Maier's rare. But that was supposed to change in the fall of 1998, when Congress passed the little-noticed Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. It requires government agencies to turn over to the National Archives all files relating to Nazi looting and war crimes, including documents that detail American ties to Nazi war criminals. "The former Soviet Union has opened its archives. Eastern European countries have done so; even Argentina has begun to open its files on Nazis. Why are ours still closed?" asked former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-N.Y., at the time. Holtzman is now a member of the Interagency Working Group, which Congress established to oversee implementation of the NWCDA. Federal agencies are to comply with the law by January 2002, but it's unlikely this timetable will be met. Up to 10 million pages are expected to be released, but only 1 million pages, many of them innocuous, have thus far been declassified. There are some logical reasons for the delay. The job is enormous, and of course involves the review of tons of paper held by numerous government agencies. Meanwhile, Congress failed to appropriate enough funding to implement the NWCDA and then cut declassification budgets sharply last year. (In the case of the Defense Department, they were cut by about half, to $100 million.) Still, there are no encouraging precedents for this degree of disclosure. "From the end of World War II to Vietnam to Iran-Contra -- you name it and [the CIA] lied about it," says Christopher Simpson, author of "Blowback," the definitive book so far on U.S. collaboration with the Nazis. Holtzman is optimistic the files will ultimately be released. But, "There's a long history of concealing these files," she says. "The impulse to open them up is not in the genes." The FBI finally turned over seven boxes of largely insignificant material to the National Archives in January, one day before it met with the IWG to discuss the bureau's general lack of progress. Army Intelligence, a prime repository of Nazi material, also has been slow to turn over its holdings. The Army has individual files on some 20,000 Nazi-related figures, but thus far has released only about 450. The CIA, whose records are most eagerly anticipated by researchers and historians, has long promised to turn over its files. In 1992, the agency said it would review and voluntarily provide Nazi-related files, no matter how embarrassing. No disclosures followed. Between 1996 and 1999, Under Secretary of State Stuart Eisenstadt pressed the CIA to release material regarding looted Jewish assets. This was when the topic gained international attention with the disclosures about gold stolen by the Nazis that eventually wound up in Swiss banks. "All we could pry loose were a few files and that was with the State Department leaning on them," recalls one person familiar with the process. Thus far, the CIA has not turned over a single piece of paper to the National Archives, a record of noncompliance matched only by the National Security Agency. Ken Levit, special counsel to the CIA and the agency's representative on the disclosure act, says 1 million OSS (the agency that preceded the CIA) files remain classified and are currently under review to determine if they are "relevant" enough to disclose. He predicts the CIA will turn over 6,000 pages of OSS files this week and several thousand more in the weeks to come. "The act is a big priority for us," Levit says. However, Levit could not guarantee that the CIA will turn over a single page of its own files. "There will likely be other [declassification of material], but there it's hard to predict," he says. In the past, some disclosures have been extremely humiliating, such as the news that America's most notorious Nazi "asset" was Klaus Barbie, an SS man and Gestapo officer recruited by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) in 1947. The French, who wanted to try Barbie for such war crimes as sending Jewish children to Auschwitz and ordering the murder of resistance leader Jean Moulin, learned that he was being sheltered by the CIC. When Paris demanded that he be turned over, the U.S. Army helped Barbie flee to South America on a clandestine "ratline." (In 1983, the Bolivian government extradited Barbie to France, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity and died in prison.) There was also Reinhard Gehlen, the Gestapo general who oversaw military intelligence programs throughout Eastern Europe for Hitler. Gehlen, who got his start by extracting information from Russian POWs who were systematically starved to death following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, surrendered to U.S. troops in 1945. He offered to provide intelligence on Russia in return for light treatment at the hands of the Allies, and was flown to Washington (disguised as an American general) for interrogation and training. In the summer of 1946 -- when the policy of de-Nazification was already being supplanted by one of anti-communism -- he was sent back to Germany to set up the country's new intelligence agency. In "Blowback," Simpson estimates that the United States spent some $200 million and employed at least 4,000 people to construct the Gehlen Org over the next decade. Simpson says that among the most important CIA files still classified are ones concerning Otto von Bolschwing, who as an SS officer served on Adolf Eichmann's staff and was one of the chief masterminds behind the plan to exterminate the Jews. In 1941, he was the top SS officer in Bucharest, Romania, and instigated a pogrom in the city during which hundreds of people were murdered. Some of those killed were hung on meat hooks at a meat-packing plant, had their throats cut, and then were branded "kosher meat" with red-hot irons. Von Bolschwing was recruited by U.S. intelligence at the end of the war and assigned to the Gehlen Org. In 1954, the CIA brought him to the United States. Since as a Nazi criminal he was ineligible to reside here, the agency provided the INS with a letter saying it had conducted a full investigation of him and had found no derogatory information. Von Bolschwing was discovered to be living in California in the 1970s, prompting Justice Department proceedings to deport him. In the end, he was stripped of his citizenship but allowed to remain in the country due to his age and the fact that he was suffering from a degenerative brain disease. He died in a California nursing home. The CIA has always claimed, quite implausibly, that it didn't know von Bolschwing was a war criminal. But so far it has given no sign that it will turn over his file. Maier's research offers other hints at information still hidden in agencies' files. Consider what he discovered about SS officer Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny, one of Hitler's most rabid followers and a man whose files should certainly be released under the NWCDA. In 1943, Skorzeny led a commando raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from an Allied prison. The following year, he kidnapped Hungarian Regent Mikl�s Horthy, who was planning to sign a peace agreement with the Russians. Such exploits led the Allied press to dub Skorzeny "the most dangerous man in Europe." In 1948, Skorzeny escaped from an American POW camp. He moved to Spain and became intimately involved in postwar neo-Nazi movements, and is suspected of involvement in the disposition of looted assets. According to several published accounts, including one by former U.S. intelligence agent Miles Copeland, Skorzeny, who died in 1975, helped the CIA train the Egyptian security services in the 1950s. Other than a few bland pages from the Treasury Department, government agencies have turned over nothing on Skorzeny under the NWCDA. Meanwhile, Maier has uncovered a 1951 Air Force memo that details a meeting in Spain that year between Skorzeny and an unnamed American intelligence agent. The meeting occurred while Skorzeny was a fugitive on a U.S. arrest warrant, and hunted by German authorities for possible prosecution on war crimes charges. The U.S. agent was clearly on good terms with Skorzeny -- "Customary greeting is not unlike being welcomed by a huge bear or engulfed by a Saint Bernard dog," reads his account. The agent seems to have been no fan, though, of Scarface's wife, Countess Ilsa von Finkelstein. During the conversation, Skorzeny complained that the U.S. Treasury had frozen the profits from the sale of his war memoirs. Reads the memo: "Commenting on this particular point, his wife displayed her rare appearing sense of humor: 'Good God, do you realize that by our money going to the U.S. Treasury, Rolf [Skorzeny's alias] is actually paying for re-arming the French!'" The memo contains repeated references to Skorzeny's desire to aid America in the fight against communism (though he feared "a loss of face in his [Nazi] followers" should he openly collaborate with the U.S.). "His primary interest appears to be to find some kind of position for himself relative to the only trade he knows -- soldiering," the agent reported. "He champions the cause of those nationals of other countries who fought with the German allies against the Russians and who are now held in prison, and plunks for the creation of the nucleus of a German Commando Cadre in Spain about which could be formed a new German army to combat the Russians." Skorzeny apparently had knowledge of a number of wanted war criminals, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hitler's most decorated airman. Skorzeny indicated to the American agent that he had met with Rudel -- who at the time had found refuge in dictator Juan Peron's Argentina -- on a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Rudel, Skorzeny said, was bitter toward his former enemies "inasmuch as he was tried as a war criminal and convicted, [and] he cannot legally return to Germany." However, Skorzeny reported that Rudel had returned several times to Germany "in the black" and was "anxious to be on the side of the United States if given the opportunity." The memo closed by saying that the reporting officer "sees Skorzeny frequently and has succeeded in winning his confidence completely, but it is felt that this source has scarcely been scratched when one considers the wealth of information he possesses. Skorzeny will continue to be watched and pertinent information forwarded when available." The primary disclosures under the NWCDA so far are found in thousands of pages released by the Army concerning the little known Field Intelligence Agency Technical. That agency's goal was to ensure that the Allies received ample payment from Germany for war damages. Since Germany was devastated by war's end, it was clear that such reparations would need to take the form of "ideas, formulae, processes, and know-how� concerning German scientific and industrial technology," as one Army memo put it. Hence, FIAT investigators scoured Germany looking for anything that might be suitable war compensation. German scientists themselves were primary targets of FIAT investigators, whose job included finding suitable candidates for a top-secret program called "Overcast." As Simpson reported in "Blowback," the Joint Chiefs of Staff initiated that program in July 1945 to, according to a military memo, "exploit chosen rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use." Overcast evolved into Operation Paperclip, through which the U.S. secretly brought over hundreds of Nazi scientists to work in American military and industrial labs. All of this was done in the strictest secrecy. A March 1947 military memo I discovered in the documents reads: "Every effort will be made to prevent this operation from being publicized. All communications concerning the movement will refer to the [scientists] as 'German civilians.' No interrogation or interviews by the press or other persons not directly concerned with the movement will be permitted." Nor did the Army want word of such programs to leak out in Germany. A 1946 memo written by U.S. Brig. Gen. G.K. Gailey said his office "appreciates fully the technical value of Overcast and similar projects. It also appreciates that these scientists can execute the maximum of creative and recreative work when they know that their dependents are comfortable, and their property safeguarded." Nonetheless, Gailey felt it prudent to keep such programs unknown to the general German populace, who might resent perks offered to scientists, such as extra rations and fuel. "The moral effect on the other citizens and the lessening of respect for Military Government and the local German government, as organizations of special privileges, will do much to lessen the value of the instruction of true democracy which we are endeavoring to fost[er]," he wrote. FIAT investigators screened German scientists, supposedly to ensure that no war criminals were brought to the United States. Instead, Nazi Party members and collaborators had their records cleaned up in order to justify their immigration to America. Paperclip's most famous beneficiary was Wernher von Braun, an SS officer who helped develop the V-2 rockets for Hitler and later went to work for NASA, ultimately rising to the post of deputy assistant director of planning. (Harvard mathematics professor and musician Tom Lehrer satirized von Braun in a song named after him: "Don't say that he's hypocritical," Lehrer sang, "say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.") The case of Paperclip recruit Wilhelm Eitel is discussed in great detail in the FIAT files. Eitel joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and during the war worked at the strategically important Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. FIAT had a wealth of negative material on Eitel, including numerous sworn statements from people who said he had "embraced the cause of Nazism even before the [Nazis] assumed governmental power in Germany." One person said Eitel was a member of the dreaded "Brown Shirts" and tried to foster Nazi ideas at the institute. Eitel was also said to have worked with Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick -- who was hanged at Nuremberg -- to fire Jewish scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1933. This was at a time, according to one government memo, when Nazi policies "had not as yet been formulated by law in Germany and when other colleges and universities still attempted to protect their scholars who were persona non grata with the regime." The FIAT records reveal damning personal information on Eitel as well: He sought to flee Berlin at the end of the war with his wife's sister, with whom he was having an affair, prompting his wife to hang herself. U.S. Army Intelligence initially deemed Eitel to be a "security threat," but it was soon determined that his past should be overlooked due to his "preeminence in his field ... and potential value to possible enemies of the United States." Just as importantly, one FIAT examiner wrote in another memo, Eitel was "most collaborative and anxious to help." Hence, FIAT orchestrated a whitewash. The agency determined that Eitel was an "ardent Nazi, but by no means a vicious one," and therefore worthy of U.S. sponsorship. "Since Dr. Eitel and his people are without means of support we might have to arrange some way to assist in paying him something or getting food to him," one memo reads. "He is in a very bad way now and if we do not act at once it may be too late." Soon the Army intervened with German occupation authorities to get Eitel off the rock pile where he was required to work one day a week, then set him up translating scientific material, work for which he was generously compensated. In 1946, FIAT brought Eitel to Tennessee, where he worked in a Navy lab. The government even paid to have a grand piano shipped in for his daughter. But the FIAT papers have been the highlight of generally uninteresting documents released so far. And the slow pace of compliance has clearly produced some frustration. The IWG has held a series of meetings with the CIA, the FBI and the Army during the last two months, to try to get officials at those agencies to speed up their efforts. Simpson, for one, says that the ultimate question of compliance with the NWCDA may be settled in the courts or in a political showdown with Congress. And while members of the IWG with whom I spoke are not openly critical of the performance of intelligence agencies (though they also must surely fear alienating them by saying so), one senses they are not entirely satisfied with the record to date. When asked, Michael Kurtz, chair of the IWG and assistant archivist of the United States, is careful with his words. "A healthy degree of skepticism is warranted," he says. "How much material gets declassified remains to be seen." salon.com | May 3, 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Ken Silverstein is a contributing editor for Harper's magazine. His book "Private Warriors," a look at the post-Cold War arms trade, will be published in May. A grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism helped fund the reporting for this story. |The Bushes and Hitler's Appeasement| By Robert Parry May 18, 2008 The irony of George W. Bush going before the Knesset and mocking the late Sen. William Borah for expressing surprise at Adolf Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland is that Bush’s own family played a much bigger role assisting the Nazis. If Borah, an isolationist Republican from Idaho, sounded naïve saying “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided,” then what should be said about Bush’s grandfather and other members of his family providing banking and industrial assistance to the Nazis as they built their war machine in the 1930s? The archival evidence is now clear that Prescott Bush, the president’s grandfather, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from and collaborated with key financial backers of Nazi Germany. That business relationship continued after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and even after Germany declared war on the United States following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It stopped only when the U.S. government seized assets of Bush-connected companies in late 1942 under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.” So, perhaps instead of holding up Sen. Borah to ridicule, Bush might have acknowledged in his May 15 speech that his forebears also were blind to the dangers of Hitler. Bush might have noted that his family’s wealth, which fueled his own political rise, was partly derived from Nazi collaboration and possibly from slave labor provided by Auschwitz and other concentration camps. A more honest speech before the Knesset – on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding – might have contained an apology to the Jewish people from a leading son of the Bush family for letting its greed contribute to Nazi power and to the horrors of the Holocaust. Instead, there was just the jab at Sen. Borah, who died in 1940. President Bush apparently saw no reason to remind the world of a dark chapter from the family history. After all, those ugly facts mostly disappeared from public consciousness soon after World War II. Protected by layers of well-connected friends, Prescott Bush brushed aside the Nazi scandal and won a U.S. Senate seat from Connecticut, which enabled him to start laying the foundation for the family’s political dynasty. In recent years, however, the archival records from the pre-war era have been assembled, drawing from the Harriman family papers at the Library of Congress, documents at the National Archives, and records from war-crimes trials after Germany’s surrender. Managers for the Powerful One can trace the origins of this story back more than a century to the emergence of Samuel Bush, George W. Bush’s great-grandfather, as a key manager for a set of powerful American business families, including the Rockefellers and the Harrimans. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Family Chronicles: The Patriarchs.”] That chapter took an important turn in 1919 when investment banker George Herbert Walker teamed up with Averell Harriman, scion to a railroad fortune, to found a new investment banking firm, W.A. Harriman Company. The Harriman firm was backed by the Rockefellers’ National City Bank and the Morgan family’s Guaranty Trust. The English-educated Walker assisted in assembling the Harriman family’s overseas business investments. In 1921, Walker’s favorite daughter, Dorothy, married Samuel Bush’s son Prescott, a Yale graduate and a member of the school’s exclusive Skull and Bones society. Handsome and athletic, admired for his golf and tennis skills, Prescott Bush was a young man with the easy grace of someone born into the comfortable yet competitive world of upper-crust contacts. Three years later, Dorothy gave birth to George Herbert Walker Bush in Milton, Massachusetts. Lifted by the financial boom of the 1920s, Prescott and Dorothy Bush were on the rise. By 1926, George Herbert Walker had brought his son-in-law in on a piece of the Harriman action, hiring him as a vice president in the Harriman banking firm. By the mid-Thirties, Prescott Bush had become a managing partner at the merged firm of Brown Brothers Harriman. The archival records also show that Brown Brothers Harriman served as the U.S. financial service arm for German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, an early funder of the Nazi Party. Thyssen, an admirer of Adolf Hitler since the 1920s, joined the Nazi Party in 1931 when it was still a fringe organization. He helped bail the struggling party out with financial help, even providing its headquarters building in Munich. Meanwhile, Averell Harriman had launched the Hamburg-Amerika line of steamships to facilitate the bank’s dealings with Germany, and made Prescott Bush a director. The ships delivered fuel, steel, coal, gold and money to Germany as Hitler was consolidating his power and building his war machine. Other evidence shows that Prescott Bush served as the director of the Union Banking Corp. of New York, which represented Thyssen’s interests in the United States and was owned by a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. As a steel magnate, Thyssen was amassing a fortune as Hitler rearmed Germany. Documents also linked Bush to Thyssen’s Consolidated Silesian Steel Company, which was based in mineral-rich Silesia on the German-Polish border and exploited slave labor from Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. But records at the National Archives do not spell out exactly when Bush’s connection ended or what he knew about the business details. In 1941, Thyssen had a falling out with Hitler and fled to France where he was captured. Much of Thyssen’s empire went under the direct control of the Nazis, but even that did not shatter the business ties that existed with Prescott Bush and Harriman’s bank. It wasn’t until August 1942 that newspaper stories disclosed the secretive ties between Union Banking Corp. and Nazi Germany. After an investigation, the U.S. government seized the property of the Hamburg-Amerika line and moved against affiliates of the Union Banking Corp. In November 1942, the government seized the assets of the Silesian-American Corp. [For more details, see an investigative report by the U.K. Guardian, Sept. 25, 2004.] No Kiss of Death For most public figures, allegations of trading with the enemy would have been a political kiss of death, but the disclosures barely left a lipstick smudge on Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush and other business associates implicated in the Nazi business dealings. “Politically, the significance of these dealings – the great surprise – is that none of it seemed to matter much over the next decade or so,” wrote Kevin Phillips in American Dynasty. “A few questions would be raised, but Democrat Averell Harriman would not be stopped from becoming federal mutual security administrator in 1951 or winning election as governor of New York in 1954. … Nor would Republican Prescott Bush (who was elected senator from Connecticut in 1952) and his presidential descendants be hurt in any of their future elections.” Indeed, the quick dissipation of the Nazi financial scandal was only a portent of the Bush family’s future. Unlike politicians of lower classes, the Bushes seemed to travel in a bubble impervious to accusations of impropriety, since the Eastern Establishment doesn’t like to think badly of its own. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.] To this day – as President Bush showed by mocking the long-forgotten Sen. Borah and then wielding the Nazi “appeasement” club against Barack Obama and other Democrats – the assumption remains that the bubble will continue to protect the Bush family name. However, the evidence from dusty archives suggests that the Bush family went way beyond appeasement of Adolf Hitler to aiding and abetting the Nazis. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com. |How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power| Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president * Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington * The Guardian, * Saturday September 25 2004 About this article This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday September 25 2004 . It was last updated at 23:59 on September 24 2004. George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism. His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy. The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty. Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election. While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war. Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world. Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942. Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland. The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen. The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized. The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes. A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942 stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country's war effort". Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself. Like his son, George, and grandson, George W, he went to Yale where he was, again like his descendants, a member of the secretive and influential Skull and Bones student society. He was an artillery captain in the first world war and married Dorothy Walker, the daughter of George Herbert Walker, in 1921. In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone into banking. One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125. The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family. August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again. By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam. By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war. Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions. In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war. There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation. There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper. Erwin May, a treasury attache and officer for the department of investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business. The first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush and the other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC but merely held them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely, no one seemed to know who owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including UBC's president. May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of the Dutch bank. Mr Cornelis [sic] Lievense, president of UBC, claims no knowledge as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes it possible that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen, may own a substantial interest." May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest egg for the Nazi leaders but went on to describe a network of companies spreading out from UBC across Europe, America and Canada, and how money from voor Handel travelled to these companies through UBC. By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being the managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of the August Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's Union Steel Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's steel and coal mine empire in Germany. Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of APC recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones named the directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott Bush's name, and wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named individuals, however, solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel, Rotterdam, Holland, which is owned by one or more of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore set out are therefore beneficially owned and help for the interests of enemy nationals, and are vestible by the APC," according to the memo from the National Archives seen by the Guardian. Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated for the benefit of the government, but instead UBC was maintained intact and eventually returned to the American shareholders after the war. Some claim that Bush sold his share in UBC after the war for $1.5m - a huge amount of money at the time - but there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise to power. The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz. Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company. Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labour from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest. The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability attaching to the American directors." But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not clear. "SAC held coal mines and definitely owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935, but when SAC was vested there was no trace of CSSC. All concrete evidence of its ownership disappears after 1935 and there are only a few traces in 1938 and 1939," says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and author whose book, America and the Holocaust, is published next month. Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion, but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging to the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to at least sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought some out, but not others. The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war. Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty". Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors, said: "President Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature from the treaty [that founded the court] not only to protect Americans, but also to protect himself and his family." Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by international law, which does hold governments accountable for their actions. He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place. In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman of the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans were aware of what was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed the camp. The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their case. A ruling is expected within a month. The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented." The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director. Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to pay compensation." The US government and the Bush family deny all the claims against them. In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about to be published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business history. The author of the second book, to be published next year, John Loftus, is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in the 70s. Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his living as a security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus is working on a novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered on Bush. Loftus stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in was just what many other American and British businessmen were doing at the time. "You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us today?" he said. "This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg. "The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the Nazis, for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At various times, the Bush family has tried to spin it, saying they were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis took over Holland that they realised that now the Nazis controlled the apparent company and that is why the Bush supporters claim when the war was over they got their money back. Both the American treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations in Europe completely bely that, it's absolute horseshit. They always knew who the ultimate beneficiaries were." "There is no one left alive who could be prosecuted but they did get away with it," said Loftus. "As a former federal prosecutor, I would make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and Averill Harriman [to be prosecuted] for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany." Loftus said Prescott Bush must have been aware of what was happening in Germany at the time. "My take on him was that he was a not terribly successful in-law who did what Herbert Walker told him to. Walker and Harriman were the two evil geniuses, they didn't care about the Nazis any more than they cared about their investments with the Bolsheviks." What is also at issue is how much money Bush made from his involvement. His supporters suggest that he had one token share. Loftus disputes this, citing sources in "the banking and intelligence communities" and suggesting that the Bush family, through George Herbert Walker and Prescott, got $1.5m out of the involvement. There is, however, no paper trail to this sum. The third person going into print on the subject is John Buchanan, 54, a Miami-based magazine journalist who started examining the files while working on a screenplay. Last year, Buchanan published his findings in the venerable but small-circulation New Hampshire Gazette under the headline "Documents in National Archives Prove George Bush's Grandfather Traded With the Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor". He expands on this in his book to be published next month - Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media and the Religious Right. In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that "the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes". Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails, suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the truth". Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned. Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to publicise his findings. The charges were dropped last month. Buchanan said he regretted his behaviour had damaged his credibility but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story. Both Loftus and Schweitzer say Buchanan has come up with previously undisclosed documentation. The Bush family have largely responded with no comment to any reference to Prescott Bush. Brown Brothers Harriman also declined to comment. The Bush family recently approved a flattering biography of Prescott Bush entitled Duty, Honour, Country by Mickey Herskowitz. The publishers, Rutledge Hill Press, promised the book would "deal honestly with Prescott Bush's alleged business relationships with Nazi industrialists and other accusations". In fact, the allegations are dealt with in less than two pages. The book refers to the Herald-Tribune story by saying that "a person of less established ethics would have panicked ... Bush and his partners at Brown Brothers Harriman informed the government regulators that the account, opened in the late 1930s, was 'an unpaid courtesy for a client' ... Prescott Bush acted quickly and openly on behalf of the firm, served well by a reputation that had never been compromised. He made available all records and all documents. Viewed six decades later in the era of serial corporate scandals and shattered careers, he received what can be viewed as the ultimate clean bill." The Prescott Bush story has been condemned by both conservatives and some liberals as having nothing to do with the current president. It has also been suggested that Prescott Bush had little to do with Averill Harriman and that the two men opposed each other politically. However, documents from the Harriman papers include a flattering wartime profile of Harriman in the New York Journal American and next to it in the files is a letter to the financial editor of that paper from Prescott Bush congratulating the paper for running the profile. He added that Harriman's "performance and his whole attitude has been a source of inspiration and pride to his partners and his friends". The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumours about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser." However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail. More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some people, war can be a profitable business. |U.S. deports former Nazi executioner| Wisconsin man admits to participating in slaughter of 42,000 Jewish men, women, children Posted: June 16, 2008 10:00 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily Josias Kumpf (courtesy photo/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) An 83-year-old former Nazi SS guard accused of murdering Jews in a mass execution of more than 40,000 people will be removed from the United States. The Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, upheld an order of deportation for Josias Kumpf due to his involvement in Nazi persecutions during World War II, the Department of Justice announced. Kump, born in Serbia and currently a resident of Racine, Wis., admitted to serving as a former armed SS guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany and another labor camp in Poland. Chicago immigration judge Jennie Giambastiani ordered that Kumpf be returned to Germany, Austria or Serbia after the elderly man disclosed his personal history as an SS Death's Head guard in Germany, France and Poland. "Josias Kumpf participated in a 1943 Nazi operation that resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims. His culpability in this atrocity does not diminish with the passage of time," acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said. "The BIA's ruling bolsters the Department's continuing efforts to ensure that those who took part in the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust are not allowed to enjoy the privileges and freedom the United States offers its citizens." The Death's Head battalions of the SS were considered to be Adolf Hitler's elite units, committing what have been described as some of the most diabolic crimes in history. The men were deployed when acts of extreme brutality were ordered at Nazi extermination camps. They were subservient to Hitler and were his personal agents for carrying out acts of genocide. The battalions were named Death's Head after the skull patch on the right collars of their uniforms. Kumpf joined the Nazi camp in Germany in October 1942 and remained there until he became stationed at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland. He confessed to contributing to the 1943 "Aktion Erntefest," or "Operation Harvest Festival," a two-day operation in which 42,000 Jewish men, women and children were exterminated at three Poland concentration camps. The man admitted to having stood guard while 8,000 prisoners, 400 of whom were children, were exterminated in Trawniki pits. Kumpf told officials he was tasked with locating sufferers who were "halfway alive" or "convulsing" and shooting victims who attempted to flee. Adolf Hitler (left) salutes members of his Nazi SS guard Kumpf left Austria and came to the U.S. in 1956, becoming a citizen in 1964. The Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin began filing paperwork to denaturalize Kumpf in 2003 and revoked his citizenship in 2005. OSI then coordinated a removal action with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The OSI has been tasked with identifying, investigating and removing Nazi criminals who currently live in the United States. It began its "Watch List" program in 1979, coordinated in conjunction with efforts by the Department of Homeland Security, and has effectively prosecuted 107 perpetrators and prevented 180 war criminals from entering the country. OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum issued a public statement about the decision to remove the former Nazi guard from the U.S.: "The BIA's decision to uphold the removal order ensures that Josias Kumpf, who participated in the perpetration of one of the most infamous crimes of the Holocaust, will not be allowed to continue enjoying the privilege of residence in the United States – a nation in which so many victims who somehow survived the horrors of Nazi inhumanity found refuge. " |Kumpf, who is now 83, says he was taken from his home in Yugoslavia as a 17-year-old and forced to serve as a guard. He insists he did not take part in any atrocities.| |Code Name Artichoke: The CIA’s Secret Experiments on Humans| Frank Olson (July 17, 1910 – November 28, 1953) was a U.S. Army scientist who died under mysterious circumstances while undertaking secret research with the U.S. Army. Olson's death was initially ruled a suicide, but this verdict has been disputed. A chemist with the Army's top secret Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. His specific research in the Army is unknown, but he was involved in biological weapons research and experimented with mind control drugs. In 1953, as Deputy Acting Head of Special Operations for the CIA, Olson associated with William Sargant, investigating the use of psychoactive drugs at Britain's Biological Warfare Centre at Porton Down. MKULTRA and Olson's death According to the government's version of events, as part of the MKULTRA mind control experiments, Olson was dosed with LSD without his knowledge, subsequently suffering severe paranoia and a nervous breakdown. The CIA sent him to New York to see one of their psychiatrists, who recommended that Olson be placed into a mental institution for recovery. On his last night in Manhattan, Olson purportedly threw himself out his tenth-floor hotel room window, dying on impact. His family had no idea of the details of the accident until the Rockefeller Commission started uncovering some of the CIA's MKULTRA activities. In 1975, the government admitted that Olson had been dosed with LSD without his knowledge. The government offered his family an out of court settlement of $750,000, which they accepted. In 1994, Eric Olson had his father's body exhumed. The forensic scientist in charge of the examination, George Washington University professor James E. Starrs, determined that Olson had suffered some form of blunt force trauma prior to falling out of the window, and called the evidence "rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide". Based on his findings, in 1996 the Manhattan district attorney opened a homicide investigation into Olson's death, but was unable to find enough evidence to bring charges. The Frank Olson Project Documentary: Project Artichoke |Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says| By ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: November 13, 2010 Dr. Josef Mengele in 1956. C.H. Pete Copeland/Plain Dealer, via Associated Press John Demjanjuk in 2006. The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible. The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis. Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations. The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said. The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials. The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times. The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were. More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year. In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolph Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans “to purge Germany of the Jews” and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or “explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances,” the report said. The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72. The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.) The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.” Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says. Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of “the depth of the government’s commitment to the Nazi prosecution program,” according to internal memos. The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found. In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.” (After the case was dismissed, radical Jewish groups urged violence against Mr. Soobzokov, and he was killed in 1985 by a bomb at his home in Paterson, N.J. ) The secrecy surrounding the Justice Department’s handling of the report could pose a political dilemma for President Obama because of his pledge to run the most transparent administration in history. Mr. Obama chose the Justice Department to coordinate the opening of government records. The Nazi-hunting report was the brainchild of Mark Richard, a senior Justice Department lawyer. In 1999, he persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to begin a detailed look at what he saw as a critical piece of history, and he assigned a career prosecutor, Judith Feigin, to the job. After Mr. Richard edited the final version in 2006, he urged senior officials to make it public but was rebuffed, colleagues said. When Mr. Richard became ill with cancer, he told a gathering of friends and family that the report’s publication was one of three things he hoped to see before he died, the colleagues said. He died in June 2009, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke at his funeral. “I spoke to him the week before he died, and he was still trying to get it released,” Ms. Feigin said. “It broke his heart.” After Mr. Richard’s death, David Sobel, a Washington lawyer, and the National Security Archive sued for the report’s release under the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department initially fought the lawsuit, but finally gave Mr. Sobel a partial copy — with more than 1,000 passages and references deleted based on exemptions for privacy and internal deliberations. Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is committed to transparency, and that redactions are made by experienced lawyers. The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found “a smoking gun” in 1997 establishing with “definitive proof” that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland’s culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue. Another section describes as “a hideous failure” a series of meetings in 2000 that United States officials held with Latvian officials to pressure them to pursue suspected Nazis. That passage is also deleted. So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead. The chapter on Dr. Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazis to escape prosecution, details the O.S.I.’s elaborate efforts in the mid-1980s to determine whether he had fled to the United States and might still be alive. It describes how investigators used letters and diaries apparently written by Dr. Mengele in the 1970s, along with German dental records and Munich phone books, to follow his trail. After the development of DNA tests, the piece of scalp, which had been turned over by the Brazilian authorities, proved to be a critical piece of evidence in establishing that Dr. Mengele had fled to Brazil and had died there in about 1979 without ever entering the United States, the report said. The edited report deletes references to Dr. Mengele’s scalp on privacy grounds. Even documents that have long been available to the public are omitted, including court decisions, Congressional testimony and front-page newspaper articles from the 1970s. A chapter on the O.S.I.’s most publicized failure — the case against John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker who was mistakenly identified as Treblinka’s Ivan the Terrible — deletes dozens of details, including part of a 1993 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that raised ethics accusations against Justice Department officials. That section also omits a passage disclosing that Latvian émigrés sympathetic to Mr. Demjanjuk secretly arranged for the O.S.I.’s trash to be delivered to them each day from 1985 to 1987. The émigrés rifled through the garbage to find classified documents that could help Mr. Demjanjuk, who is currently standing trial in Munich on separate war crimes charges. Ms. Feigin said she was baffled by the Justice Department’s attempt to keep a central part of its history secret for so long. “It’s an amazing story,” she said, “that needs to be told.”

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Technology-Based Game Changers The critical value of water was especially apparent in 2012 as America faced one of the most serious droughts in its history: crops withered, barges on the Mississippi were grounded and power plant cooling towers were put at risk. These were just some of the impacts of a compromised water supply. With the increasing impacts of climate change, water conservation will become even more vital in the coming years. Most of us know there’s a lot we can do to reduce our personal water footprint, whether it’s plugging leaks, taking shorter showers, eating meatless meals on a regular basis, etc. But engineers are helping us use less, too, by designing appliances that sip, rather than gulp, When you consider that the average U.S. household uses 400 gallons of water per day and that much of it goes unused down the drain, it might make you wonder how much is consumed by an industry that exists to feed, shower and shelter many people: the hotel industry. Enter British-based company Xeros’ ultra low water cleaning system, which uses 70-90% less water than conventional machines through the use of polymer bead technology. While a front-loading washer uses about 40 gallons of water, a Xeros washing machine cuts water use significantly. The recyclable cleaning beads can be used hundreds of times before they need to be replaced, and they never go down the drain. The cleaning power of the beads also means reduced temperature and less detergent, resulting in less energy and less chemicals used to clean dirty linens and clothing. To see how this technology works, watch this time-lapse video that shows the wash cycle from start to finish. Xeros currently provides its system to in-house laundry operations for the hotel and lodging industry, as well as retail dry cleaners. The Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia recently started using Xeros machines to launder their guest room and dining room linens and bath towels using less water, less chemicals and less energy. According to David Eisenman, General Manager for the Hyatt Regency Reston, the property is looking forward to reducing its utility consumption and carbon footprint. Saving water in other ways saves hotels money, too. The Proximity Hotel in North Carolina, for instance, saved two million gallons of water and $14,000 in water bills in one year just by installing high-efficiency plumbing fixtures. The cost of these fixtures was $7,000, producing a payback on the hotel’s investment in only six months. Developing technology solutions that create these kinds of environmental advantages has earned the company kudos. Xeros won the prestigious “Best Technological Breakthrough” category in the 2011 Climate Week Awards, sponsored by the U.K. government, and WWF in the U.K. called Xeros a global “Green Game-Changer” in the realm of “consumer goods and services innovations.” If you think ultra-low water cleaning would be perfect for your resource-conscious lifestyle, you’ll be pleased to know that Xeros plans to offer their machines to individual consumers down the road. For more information on why EarthShare and Xeros are promoting conservation and environmental stewardship together, visit our water issues resource section. If you would like to stay in touch with Xeros so you’ll be among the first to know when they’ll be debuting their technology for home use, connect with them on Facebook and Twitter.

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Snow in August Space Science News home Snow in August Bonnie surprises hurricane team on second flight into the eye Aug. 25, 1998: (This is the ninth in a series of stories covering the ongoing CAMEX mission to hunt hurricane data in a way not done since the 50s. Other stories are linked in below.) Weather researchers taking part in NASA's CAMEX-3 hurricane study found Monday that Hurricane Bonnie is still not a classic storm, and is full of surprises - including snow in the middle of August. An armada of five aircraft took part in the second flight into Bonnie as the hurricane continued northwest at less than 16 km/h (10 mph). Joining the NASA ER-2 high-altitude jet and the converted NASA DC-8 airliner, NOAA increased its study team to two WP-3D Orion turboprop airplanes and the U.S. Air Force added a C-130 Hercules cargo plane to measure the season's first hurricane. The NASA airplanes left their staging point at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., for the eight-hour mission at 3:30 p.m. EDT, returning at 11:30 p.m. EDT. |What looks like abstract art at right is a detailed microwave image of water - as rain and as ice - distributed along a strip 40 by 160 km (25 x 100 mi) inside Hurricane Bonnie (click for image showing four data strips at different frequencies). It was made Sunday by the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) aboard the high-altitude ER-2. Every object emits a little bit of radiation; the frequency depends on the temperature and other factors. AMPR is tuned to microwaves - at 10.7, 19.35, 37.1, and 85.5 gigahertz (GHz) - unique to water. By scanning the scene below the ER-2, AMPR produces images of water distribution in the atmosphere. AMPR is similar to instruments aboard polar-orbit weather satellites and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). In observing Bonnie, AMPR shows convection and storm intensity, eye wall structures, rain distribution. During landfall, it will be able to map changes in convection and show the relationship of electrification to signal storm intensity changes. More information on AMPR is available on its page at the CAMEX-3 web site and at the AMPR home page.| Click on the picture to go to an animated infrared view of Bonnie! Mission Scientist Robbie Hood from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., stressed that the nation's weather researchers will greatly benefit from the large body of information being collected at one time at distinct levels of a single hurricane. The ER-2 aircraft flew up to an altitude of 21 km (69,000 ft), the DC-8 at 10.6 km (35,000 ft), with the NOAA Orions at 4.6 and 1.5 km (15,000 and 5,000 ft), and the Air Force Hercules in the storm at 3 km (10,000 ft). "We could all communicate and know what parts of the storm we were studying, our timing was perfect," she said. The collection of aircraft made six passes through the hurricane. "The NOAA and Air Force aircraft really helped the study because we had a better idea of what was happening below us," she added. Left: A GOES-8 image this morning depicts Bonnie's strength by showing cold areas (growing colder from blue to yellow to red) which indicate where clouds are highest in the atmosphere. "I saw a large, domed cloud that looked like a mini-hurricane swirling out of the top of Bonnie about 70 miles (112 km) north of the eye at about 55,000 feet (16.8 km)," Broda said. "These storms are usually very symmetrical, but Bonnie is nothing like what we would expect," said Texas A&M University weather scientist Ed Zipser. While hurricanes normally display a pattern of wind flow that pulls winds in at the base of the hurricane, up through the eye, and out at the top of the storm, Bonnie apparently doesn't work that way. "We found winds coming into the hurricane from the southwest at 40-50 knots (74-93 km/h) at our altitude, and winds and moisture being pumped out of the chimney that Ken saw flowing to the Northwest. As we flew to the boundary of the winds, the moisture blown out through the chimney turned to snow and fell into the DC-8 flight path - this was very spectacular," Zipser said. Instruments also recorded wind shear along the wind flow boundary. Evidence remained of the possible restructuring of the hurricane center as the eye remained lopsided on the east and north sides of the storm. Just trying to locate the eye produced more of a bumpy ride for the researchers Monday, according to DC-8 pilots Gordon Fullerton (left) and Dick Ewers (right). In addition, DC-8 instruments recorded 117 km/h (63-knot) winds at 10.6 km (35,000 feet), a wind speed not considered usual, and an Orion recorded 222 km/h (120-knot)winds on the northeast side of the storm, 93 km (50 nmi) from the center. (photo credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA) Note: More details are available in the NASA press release describing CAMEX-3. Check back as hurricane season progresses. We will post science updates as the campaign develops. PIX: High resolution scans of 35mm camera photos from the CAMEX-3 campaign are available from Public Affairs Office at NASA headquarters. Please call the NASA Headquarters Photo Department at 202-358-1900, or contact Bill Ingalls at firstname.lastname@example.org. CAMEX Series Headlines Overview CAMEX story , describes the program in detail. NCAR has an extensive writeup on the GPS dropsondes used in CAMEX-3 and other atmospheric campaigns. A new study - not related to CAMEX-3 - by the Arizona State University suggests a link between hurricanes in the northwest Atlantic and air pollution. CAMEX-3 - the third Convection and Moisture Experiment - is an interagency project to measure hurricane dynamics at high altitude, a method never employed before over Atlantic storms. From this, scientists hope to understand better how hurricanes are powered and to improve the tools they use to predict hurricane intensity. An overview story (Aug. 12, 1998) describes the program in detail. The study is part of NASA's Earth Science enterprise to better understand the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. Measuring distance and speed: Because meteorology and aeronautics first used modified nautical charts, their data bases are in nautical miles and knots (nautical miles per hour). In these stories, we use Standard International ("metric") units first, and give more familiar measurements in English units and the original measurements in nautical units. - Standard International Units: - km - kilometer (1 km = 0.62 smi = 0.54 nmi) - km/h - kilometers per hour - English (or US) units: - mi, or smi - miles (statute miles; 1 smi = 0.87 nmi = 1.61 km) mph - (statute) miles per hour - Nautical units: - nmi - nautical miles (1 nmi = 1.15 smi= 1.85 km) - kts - knots (nautical miles per hour)

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Responsive Design is a User Interface (UI) design term that originated for website design. In fact, in most cases it is still referred to as Responsive Web Design. Here is Wikipedia’s definition (paraphrased for brevity): Responsive Web Design (RWD) essentially indicates that a web site is crafted to use Cascading Style Sheets 3 media queries, with fluid proportion-based grids, to adapt the layout to the viewing environment, and probably also use flexible images. As a result, users across a broad range of devices and browsers will have access to a single source of content, laid out so as to be easy to read and navigate with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling. In the current environment, especially with the advent of web apps, as opposed to web pages, and more so, with the blurring of the lines between web apps and mobile apps, Responsive Design is extending beyond the web. In the good old days, we had pretty much standard user interfaces – a fixed resolution screen, which displayed graphics in a fixed space. (In the really good old days, we had green characters on a screen with fixed number of characters per line!). With the advent of Windows based OSes came the first instance of the need for UI design. As people discovered window resizing, UI designers began taking that into consideration. In my opinion, that was when responsive design was born, but all it involved was adding appropriate scroll bars to the windows, as and when needed. In today’s world, we have mobile and tablet devices with all possible resolutions, form factors and the ability to change the devices orientation, mid-use. Users no longer accept apps that don’t adjust themselves to their devices current form factor and orientation. The second big factor driving the need for responsive design is the fact that not everyone upgrades to the latest devices and versions of browsers/apps. This requires designers to design apps (mobile or web or even web pages) to handle older devices and browsers. This aspect of Responsive Design is referred to as Progressive Enhancement. Again from Wikipedia: Progressive enhancement uses web technologies in a layered fashion that allows everyone to access the basic content and functionality of a web page, using any browser or Internet connection, while also providing an enhanced version of the page to those with more advanced browser software or better bandwidth. I will give examples, with screenshots highlighting Responsive Design in a later post. Do you have any good (or bad) examples of responsive design? Leave a comment below…

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Delmarva's hidden wetlands Whale wallows, which are also referred to as Delmarva bays, kettles, sinks, or vernal pools, exist as part of a chain of wallows that extends in an arc from New Jersey to Georgia. Practically invisible for much of the year, these depressions in the landscape, ranging up to 25 acres in size and found throughout the Delmarva peninsula, become a haven for a diversity of wildlife in the spring when rain and snow melt fill the wallows with water. Suddenly, the whale wallows are filled with life and provide a habitat for many endangered and threatened amphibians. Amphibians like the carpenter frog and the eastern tiger salamander thrive at these pools because there are no fish to prey on their eggs. Over 2,000 of these water-filled potholes may exist on the Bay's Eastern Shore. And many are more than 15,000 years old. Many stories account for the formation of these whale wallow wetlands. An old version, one that explains the name "whale wallows," tells the story of primeval whales that got stranded when the sea level resided. Unable to move, the animals wallowed in these areas, creating the depressions in the sand. Other explanations for the wallows vary from meteorites to the melting of large clumps of ice after the last ice age. No matter how they are formed, the whale wallows are part of an extensive wetland ecosystem that creates a much needed habitat for amphibians like the carpenter frog and the eastern tiger salamander. Because the wallows are pretty much invisible for a large part of the year, some have accidentally been drained, built upon, or even paved over without anyone knowing that a prime habitat for amphibians was lost. Recent government programs, however, are providing better protection for these whale wallows and the animals and plants that depend on them. References and further reading Delmarva Bays: Natural Enigmas An article about the whale wallows by Dorcas Coleman, Natural Resource, Spring 2001.

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HPCU provides educational materials on high performance computing. The Intel Software Network provides courseware about multicore systems. PRACE is a European organization for HPC in Europe. The Top500 list is published biannually and consists of the 500 most powerful computers in the world as measured by performance on the LINPACK benchmark. Supercomputing in Plain English provides workshops that explain various supercomputing concepts. LLNL provides online training materials on several HPC topics. From SC09, this page has workshops on parallel programming and cluster computing. From SC08, this page has workshops on parallel programming and cluster computing. From SC09, this page has workshops on computational thinking. Intel HPC Courseware includes courseware on a wide variety of HPC-related topics. Google is a search engine that indexes much of the Internet. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that has numerous user-created articles on a myriad of topics. This site provides definitions of many specialized terms associated with algorithms and data structures. Wolfram Alpha is a knowledge and mathematics information engine. How to Be a Programmer teaches basics of programming and how to be a programmer. Software Carpentry introduces basic programming practices.

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View Sample Pages These motivating take-home practice pages save instructional time and ensure that students acquire 200 new vocabulary words they’ll encounter in their academic reading. Designed for independent practice, each reproducible packet presents 10 high-utility words in a fun-filled theme, such as “Olympic Gold,” “Rainforest Expedition,” and “Going Green.” Students learn the words by using them repeatedly in the word games and activities included in the packet. Teachers can use the packets flexibly and check students’ work over the course of one or more weeks. 96 pages. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader® software, version 4.0 or higher, to view and print the sample page above. Get Adobe Reader®

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An infinite continued fraction is an expression of the form As an example, one can show that the infinite continued fraction expansion with the Ni and the Di all equal to 1 produces 1/φ, where φ is the golden ratio (described in section 1.2.2). One way to approximate an infinite continued fraction is to truncate the expansion after a given number of terms. Such a truncation — a so-called k-term finite continued fraction — has the form dare procedures of one argument (the term index i) that return the Ni and Di of the terms of the continued fraction. Define a procedure cont-fracsuch that evaluating (cont-frac n d k)computes the value of the k-term finite continued fraction. Check your procedure by approximating 1/φ using (cont-frac (lambda (i) 1.0) (lambda (i) 1.0) k) for successive values of k. How large must you make kin order to get an approximation that is accurate to 4 decimal places? cont-fracprocedure generates a recursive process, write one that generates an iterative process. If it generates an iterative process, write one that generates a recursive process.

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Assignment Part I: Read and respond to ten editorials. These editorials should be written by recognized, syndicated columnists, not letters to the editor or local news stories. Each entry must include a copy of the editorial and the following bibliographical information: title of the editorial, author, name of newspaper or publication, date of publication, and page number (if applicable). Below you will find a list of possible publications in which you may look for editorials. This list is a small representation of the columnists you will find available to you, so please don’t limit yourself to just these publications: The New York Times Slate.com Newsweek The Washington Post Huffingtonpost.com The Ledger The Miami Herald The Tampa Tribune USA Today You will complete the same five basic tasks for each editorial: 1. Circle each word in the editorial that you don’t know. On your journal entry, list the words and define them. (Note: This can apply to words that you have never seen before, or words you have seen but aren’t sure of their definition the way they are being used. If you’re not sure, circle it and look it up!) 2. Identify the author’s assertion. The purpose of an editorial is to present a viewpoint on a particular topic—that’s what makes it different from a regular news story that just presents information. 3. List the points the author makes to support his or her assertion. 4. What writing techniques does the author use? Techniques might be figurative language, humor, tone, rhetorical questions, symbolism, imagery, and many others. You’ve learned about the functions of language in your past English classes, now it’s time to put that knowledge to work! 5. Do you agree or disagree with the author’s assertion? Why or why not? This response should be at least a paragraph in length. Part II: Novel & Reading Journal In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote Directions: For each of the following sections, write a thorough summary, including main plot points, character development, important themes, etc. As each section is fairly lengthy (50 pages or more), your summaries should be a minimum of one page in length to accommodate the scope of the narrative. After completing the summaries, answer the accompanying questions using complete sentences. Please type all responses where possible. Handwritten responses should be completed on a separate sheet of paper, in black pen, on one side of the paper only. Section 1: “The Last to See them Alive” 1. In the first paragraph, why does Capote use a simile comparing the grain elevators to Greek temples? 2. What is the purpose of ending the first section of the text with “and as strangers”? What details are discussed and why? 3. According to the text, what is Mr. Clutter’s only reason for “disquiet” in his life? 4. What aspect of River Valley Farm is Mr. Clutter’s pride and joy? 5. How do the narrative voice and sentence structure change when the story shifts from descriptions of the Clutter family to descriptions of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith? 6. How do the comparisons between Perry’s physique and the images of weightlifters help establish Perry’s physical challenges? 7. What is the purpose of introducing the Ashida family and their relationship to the Clutters? 8. What do the Holcomb citizens mean when they describe Kenyon as a boy who “lives in a world of his own”? 9. What is the biggest challenge to the relationship between Dick and Willie-Jay? 10. What is the primary motivation behind Perry’s decision to meet with Dick and become a part of the big “score”? 11. What is the effect of continually switching narrative perspectives between the Clutters and Dick and Perry? 12. As the Holcomb community gathers at Hartman’s Café, what is the initial speculation about the killer or killers? 13. How does initial speculation about the murders change the atmosphere within the Holcomb community? Section 2: “Persons Unknown” 1. How does the language in the first pages of Section 2 differ from that of a traditional fiction narrative? (Pay special attention to the discussion of the investigation and the author’s selection of detail in these early pages of the section.) 2. What effect is achieved through the simile that compares Dick’s confidence to a “kite that needed reeling in”? 3. What detail does Susan Kidwell find most disturbing about her visit to the funeral home? Why? 4. What conclusion does Al Dewey draw about the murders when he studies the crime scene photos once again? What leads him to this conclusion? 5. What does Perry’s behavior at the beach and swimming pool reveal about his character? 6. What is Capone’s purpose in including the lengthy letter written by Perry’s father? What theme does the letter reinforce? 7. How are the police investigators able to determine the order in which the Clutter family members were murdered? 8. How are Dick and Perry planning to return to the United States? What does their plan reveal about their state of mind following the Clutter murders? Section 3: “Answer” 1. What event in the opening pages of Section 3, “Answer,” turns the investigation around? 2. What is the purpose in Dick’s father’s proposal that Dick “wasn’t the same boy” after he injured his head in a car accident? 3. According to Mr. Hickock, what was unusual about Dick when he returned from his alleged trip to Fort Scott? Why are his observations significant? 4. What does the nickname Perry has given himself reveal about his character and self-image? 5. According to Mrs. Johnson, what paradox exists about Perry’s character? 6. How is investigator Dewey able to conceal a possible breakthrough in the case from the general public? Why does he consider it to be so important to keep new details of the case hidden? 7. Why is Perry disturbed by a newspaper account he reads when he and Dicks arrive in Miami, Florida? 8. What is Perry’s tone/attitude when he is being interrogated by police after being apprehended in Las Vegas? 9. According to Perry, what is his only regret about the night of the murders? Section 4: “The Corner” 1. What is Mrs. Meier’s first impression of Perry Smith? What particular details does she notice about them, and how do they contrast with what her husband tells her about the crime scene? 2. What changes does Perry want to make to his initial statement to police? What is his motivation for making the changes? What does this suggest about his character? 3. What is significant about Perry’s reaction to the letter written by Don Cullivan? 4. What is significant about the big yellow bird? 5. According to Dick’s written statement composed in prison for his psychiatrist, what ultimately was Dick’s motivation for invading the Clutter place? 6. For what purpose does Capote include Dr. Jones’ lengthy report, even though it was not admitted into evidence during the trial? 7. Why does Perry go on a hunger strike? Why does he eventually change his mind and end his hunger strike? 8. What strategy does Dick pursue in order to appeal his conviction? 9. What effect is achieved by the alliteration in the closing sentence? · Your entries should be either typed or neatly handwritten in blue or black ink. · All margins must be one inch · Typed papers must use Times New Roman 12 point font. · Handwritten assignments should have writing on one side of the page only. · Each entry should be made on a separate sheet of paper. · Bibliographical information should appear at the top of the page. · Each editorial journal entry should include a printed copy of the editorial. · Your assignment should be placed in a 3-prong folder or small 3-ring binder. Loose leaf papers will not be accepted.

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For many centuries Christmas Day worshippers have been hearing these words as their New Testament reading: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all” (Titus 2:11). Grace, everyone used to know, is foundational to the Christian Gospel. But this Christmas I’m noticing the surprising version of grace in Les Miserables, already seen by 60 million people as a musical and now as a film. Victor Hugo’s novel may be seen as a story of grace transforming in the life of the common man Jean Valjean and grace rejected in the life of the rigid functionary Javert. As the story begins, Jean Valjean is being released from 19 winters of imprisonment for having stolen some bread to save his sister’s son from starving. But in the eyes of Javert, Valjean will always be a thief, which is his nature, because he has not learned the meaning of the law. Crushed under this ideological overlay, Valjean sees himself as a slave of the law — in a way remarkably similar to that of St. Paul, who makes grace and law antithetical. The chorus confirms it: “Look down, you will always be a slave.” In his first job after prison, Valjean is deliberately underpaid. When he objects, the boss says: “Why should you get the same as honest men like me?” (Jesus once told a parable about laborers in a vineyard to open people’s eyes to grace.) Valjean concludes that society has closed every door to him. When he is refused lodging, the innkeeper says: “We’re law-abiding people here. Thanks be to God.” The conservative identification with the law is commonly made in alliance with God, while Victor Hugo seems to understand that the Christian vision identifies grace, not law, with God. When Valjean finds himself at the door of a rectory, his last chance at lodging, the Catholic bishop welcomes him and we unexpectedly encounter a cleric who epitomizes grace: Come in, Sir, for you are weary And the night is cold out there. Though our lives are very humble What we have, we have to share. There is wine here to revive you, There is bread to make you strong, There's a bed to rest till morning, Rest from pain, and rest from wrong. Accepting the bishop’s hospitality, Valjean soon enough mocks him as an old fool and steals the silver. When he is caught and charged with a theft that will send him back to prison for life, the bishop protests that in fact he has made a gift of the church’s silver to this man. Turning to Valjean, the bishop astonishes him by saying that in his haste he left behind the most valuable of the gifts given him — the church’s precious silver candlesticks. The bishop wonders if unexpected grace might turn Valjean’s life around: But remember this, my brother See in this some higher plan You must use this precious silver To become an honest man By the witness of the martyrs By the Passion and the Blood God has raised you out of darkness I have bought your soul for God! Valjean gets it. He accepts a grace beyond understanding. The bishop touched his soul and taught him love, called him a brother, claimed his life for God. Can such things be? Valjean had come to hate the world which hated him, turning his heart to stone. As a moral void was closing in, Valjean accepts grace as the new story of his life. He goes on to become a factory manager, then the mayor. Witnessing the suffering of the poor, he sees that in God’s name his life task has just begun. When Javert wants to arrest the hapless Fantine, Valjean intervenes: “She needs a doctor not a jail.” When Javert intends to put away for life a man he thinks is Valjean, Valjean has a crisis in his new identity and wonders “Who am I?” His new life requires the truth. When Fantine lies dying, Valjean offers to become the guardian and then father of her daughter Cosette. Whence all this goodness? My soul belongs to God, I know I made that bargain long ago He gave me hope, when hope was gone He gave me strength to journey on. When student revolution is in the offing, Valjean goes to their side because embracing justice as one born of grace is his new vocation. Because he has discovered that “to love another person is to see the face of God,” he joins his story to the story of the downtrodden: Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people Who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart Echoes the beating of the drums There is a life about to start When tomorrow comes! By contrast, Javert speaks for all self-made men who believe in the infallibility of the economic order and of the law that sanctifies it. Who know they deserve their fortune, who are quick to judge, who are suspicious of mercy, who enforce the arrangements that keep people in their proper place. Javert experiences no need of grace and cannot accept it. When he hears oppressed workers singing, “At the end of the day you're another day older. And that's all you can say for the life of the poor;" when he cannot see how “the righteous hurry past and don’t hear the little ones crying;" when Fantine sings her show-stopper, “I dreamed that God would be forgiving,” Javert has heard it all before and it cannot penetrate his righteous certainty: I have heard such protestations Every day for twenty years Let's have no more explanations Save your breath and save your tears Honest work, just reward, That's the way to please the Lord. As the student revolution begins, Javert attempts to infiltrate it, and is discovered. The students intend to kill him as a traitor to their cause, but accept Valjean’s offer to see to his fate. When Valjean pretends to be executing Javert but in fact sets him free, when it is clear that this is not a quid pro quo on behalf of Valjean’s own freedom, Javert faces a crisis in his own self-understanding. He has devoted his life to an unjust order that denigrates the poor and congratulates the fortunate. He realizes that people with his commitments cannot change their views. He cannot understand or accept the grace Valjean offers, musing to himself, 'What sort of devil catches someone in a trap and then sets them free? Vengeance was Valjeans,' but he gave me back my life.' Ultimately, Javert must reject grace, perhaps honorably if also pathetically, because he sees that it is incompatible with the worldview to which he has devoted his life. Damned if he will yield at the end of the chase. “I am the law and the Law is not mocked. I’ll spit his pity right back in his face. There is nothing on earth that we share. It is either Valjean or Javert.” To accept mercy, to acknowledge need would be to admit that we all must live by grace and accept its dominion, and that Javert will not do. Grace would be hell, a betrayal of all he has stood for. It is too late to doubt his firm assumptions. Instead he escapes the world where grace is necessary. Donald Heinz is professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Chico and a Lutheran minister.

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Mars Express Radar To Be Deployed 2 May 2005 (Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Guy Webster (818) 354-6278 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Dolores Beasley (202) 358-1753 NASA Headquarters, Washington PRESS RELEASE:? 2005-068??????????????????? May 2, 2005 MARS EXPRESS RADAR TO BE DEPLOYED The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter will soon deploy its radar instrument for the first time.? The instrument is designed to look below the surface of Mars for different layers of material, most notably water. Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (Marsis) instrument will complement the orbiter's study of the planet's atmosphere and surface. The instrument was funded by NASA and the Italian Space Agency and developed by the University of Rome, Italy, in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The instrument's co-principal investigator, Dr. Jeffrey Plaut of JPL said, "We look forward to the start of the Marsis experiment, and to becoming full partners in the mission of discovery that is Mars Express. The radar gives us two ways to explore the fate of the water that once flowed on the surface of Mars. We will probe beneath the surface for evidence of frozen or liquid reservoirs, and we will study the outer fringes of Mars' atmosphere, where the planet may have lost its water to space." The deployment of the three radar booms will take place in three phases, in a window spanning from May 2 to 12. These operations will be initiated and monitored from the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Each boom will be deployed separately, with the two 20- meter-long (66-foot-long) dipole booms to be unfurled first and the 7-meter (23-foot) monopole boom to follow a few days later. Before each deployment, the spacecraft will be placed in a 'robust' attitude control mode, which will allow it to tumble freely while the boom extends before regaining standard pointing to the Sun and Earth. The result of each deployment can be assessed only after a series of tests, each taking a few days. After the deployment of the three booms, European Space Agency engineers will start the analysis of the complete behavior of the satellite to be able to confirm the overall success of the operation. The current schedule is subject to change, due to the timing and nature of the complex series of operations. Once deployment is complete, the Marsis instrument will undergo three weeks of commissioning before the start of actual science investigations. This timing coincides with the spacecraft's orbit reaching a favorable position to examine one of the prime targets for radar observations. JPL's Richard Horttor, project manager for NASA's roles in the Mars Express mission, said, "The first data from the radar next month will signal the success of an innovative international partnership." Italy provided the instrument's digital processing system and integrated the parts. The University of Iowa, Iowa City, built the transmitter for the instrument, JPL built the receiver and Astro Aerospace, Carpinteria, Calif., built the antenna. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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Spinal Cord Injury Spinal-cord injuries result from external trauma causing damage to the cord. The following symptoms vary, depending on the site and extent of the spinal-cord damage: - Loss of movement and sensation in affected arms or legs. - Loss of urinary and bowel control. - Loss of normal blood pressure. - Loss of body-temperature control. - Impaired sexual function Spinal Cord Injury patients are classified on their level of spine injury.

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There is a plant, called Welwitschia mirabilis (mirabilis being Latin for marvelous), found only one place on earth, in a desert in Namibia. When you finally get to see one, sits apart. It’s very alone. All its relatives, its cousins, nieces, nephews have died away. It is the last remaining plant in its genus, the last in its family, the last in its order. “No other organism on earth can lay such a claim to being ‘one of its kind,’ ” writes biologist Richard Fortey.

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Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of visuals in order to create an illusion of movement or change. The elements of animation are typically images or mathematical renderings. Animation effects can be 2D or 3D. Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of static images and/or objects to create an illusion of movement. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods. This type of presentation is usually accomplished with a camera and a projector or a computer viewing screen which can rapidly cycle through images in a sequence. Animation can be made with either hand rendered art, computer generated imagery, or three-dimensional objects, e.g., puppets or clay figures, or a combination of techniques. The position of each object in any particular image relates to the position of that object in the previous and following images so that the objects each appear to fluidly move independently of one another. The viewing device displays these images in rapid succession, usually 24, 25, or 30 frames per second.

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There are only two worlds in the solar system where rain falls on a solid surface, carving riverbeds and filling broad, dark lakes. One of them is Earth. The other is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. But there’s one big difference between them: temperature. Titan is more than 300 degrees colder than Earth is, so the liquid that falls from its skies and fills its lakes is not water, but methane. Titan is the second-largest moon in all the solar system — about as big as the planet Mercury. But it ranks second to none in the “intriguing” category. For one thing, it’s the only moon with a thick atmosphere — more than half again as thick as Earth’s. And like Earth, the atmosphere supports a cycle of rainfall and evaporation. It’s not yet clear whether the rainfall takes the form of a steady drizzle or periodic showers. The rains fill lakes near Titan’s poles, but just how that works is also unclear. It could be that the lakes remain at least partially full year-round, and the rains just top them off. Or a more likely scenario is that the lakes dry up during summertime and refill during winter. Perhaps most intriguing of all, Titan contains many of the organic building blocks for life — not just methane, but many of the other compounds from which life arose here on Earth. So Titan may well be a chilly version of a very early Earth — a world with all the ingredients for life. We’ll have more about Titan tomorrow. Script by Damond Benningfield, Copyright 2012 For more skywatching tips, astronomy news, and much more, read StarDate magazine.

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When a tragedy happens, our tendency is to stay glued to the TV or media sources for the latest and up-to-date information. We are trying to make sense out of the senselessness. Trying to understand how something like this could happen and put some details around incomprehensible and horrific events. As adults with fully formed brains, we are able to contextualize the events in a timeline that helps insulate us from what we call secondary traumatization. Subconsciously (or sometimes consciously) we remind ourselves that we are safe, that this kind of thing happens rarely, or that we believe in the good of most people to help or rescue if there was a problem. However, children are not developmentally able to do that. Often their sense of impending doom increases as they see the media coverage over and over. They may sense that the events are happening repeatedly or that there are many “bad-guys” out to get them. They feel vulnerable and overwhelmed. It’s important to note that pre-verbal and early-verbal kids will probably not have the vocabulary to use to ask to be reassured or to get more information. It’s important for parents and care-givers to remind children that there are a lot of people in the world who are working hard to make sure they are safe. - Get visual. You might use some kind of visual picture to represent all the schools that were safe the day that Sandy Hook was not. Find something you have around the house to visually represent for your kids the many schools that were safe - Legos or craft beads. Talk about how many are in the safe pile compared to the single bead in the unsafe pile. - Put a name with the face. Does your child’s school have a police officer or security guard? Introduce your child to the officer (maybe take a picture of the two of them together). It helps make the concept of safety understandable when there is a name and a face to put with it. - Get back to your routine. Limit your child’s access to media and get back to doing what they are accustomed to doing – playing, going to school, spending time with friends, etc. These are just some general thoughts, your child and family are unique and everyone needs something different to prevent getting stuck in grief. If you notice that your child is experiencing distress or acting out, they might need some more help. Read more about helping your children cope at: www.growcounseling.com

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Asking open-ended questions is a great way to actively involve your child in a good children’s book. What is an open-ended question? Glad you asked. There are two types of questions: • Open-ended questions • Closed-ended questions Open-ended questions cannot be answered with one word answers such as “yes” or “no”. • Why do you think the bear is feeling grumpy? • How did the frog end up on top of the man’s head? Open-ended questions often begin with: The opposite of open-ended questions are closed-ended questions. Closed-ended questions can be answered with one or two word answers such as “yes” or “no”. • Do you like ice-cream? Answer: Yes/No • Do you want an apple? Answer: Yes/No Closed-ended questions often begin with: • Did you …? • When …? • Do you want to …? • Will you …? • Have you …? Why Are Open-Ended Questions Better Than Closed-Ended Questions? Open-ended questions encourage children to: • use language. Instead of just answering ‘yes’ or ‘no (answers closed-ended questions often prompt)’, children need to give fuller answers that draw on a wider range of vocabulary. Hint: encourage children to use whole sentences when answering rather than just fragments or phrases. • think about their answers and give details to reasonably answer the question. • elaborate with details, express thoughts or offer an opinion • be creative • think of new ideas • use imagination • give more information • problem-solve and use cognitive (intellectual) skills. Children must search for vocabulary and form sentences which conveys thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc. rather than simply answering “yes” or “no” • build relationships. Children become more invested in the conversation when they have to actively engage in it with full sentences. They are able to relate something of meaning and respond to the person/people with whom they are communicating. In this way, open-ended questions be used to positively build and deepen relationships. In contract to open-ended questions, closed-ended questions limit answers to one or two words and don’t allow for extra information, opinions, thoughts or the expansion of ideas and concepts. Closed-ended questions do not require the child actively engage in the conversation as they can remain disassociated. They do not have to give an opinion, explain thoughts, offer ideas. In reality, the thinking behind answering closed-ended questions needn’t be in-depth or take any great effort. Open-Ended Questions & Children’s Self-Esteem When children are asked open-ended questions, it shows them that their opinions, ideas, thought, feelings, etc, matter. After all, if you didn’t want to know, you wouldn’t ask. Therefore, asking open-ended questions says to a child that their contribution matters. You want to know what they think. You value their opinion. You are genuinely interested in their ideas. All of this goes to strengthening your child’s positive self-esteem and self-image, as well as strengthening your relationship with your child. Using Open-Ended Questions Together With Books • Start with the cover. Ask, “What do you think this story will be about?” Clues can be drawn from the illustration on the cover along with the title. This question involves the intellectual skills of prediction. • As you read through the book, ask questions. Sometimes I find it more productive to do this on the second reading of the book – especially if it’s a picture book that really has captured my child’s imagination. A child can sometimes become frustrated with the stopping and starting as all she/he wants to do is find out what happens next. How will the problem be solved? What will happen to the character? Will he make it out of this looming disaster okay? Once the first reading of the picture book has been completed, the urgency has passed as the questions have been resolved. However, this is where the opportunity arises to revisit and relook at the story, expanding on ideas, thoughts, opinions and reasonings. Great questions to ask on the second reading may include: Why do you think ….? What is happening ….? Why is the …? • Ask questions which help your child relate the story to their own life and experiences. For example, What would happen if …… came to your house? What would happen if ….. the fly landed on your birthday cake? Using Open-Ended Questions With Closed-Ended Questions Sometimes, it’s helpful to combine open end questions and closed questions together. For example, if you’re reading a book about a boy at the zoo, you could ask: • Closed-ended question: Have you ever been to the zoo? • Open-ended question: “What happened when you went there?” Or “What did you enjoy the most about going to the zoo?” • Closed-ended question: “Which animal did you like the most?” • Open-ended question: “Why did you like the … (giraffes)… the most?” “What did they do when you were watching them?” In these examples, the closed-ended questions are used to establish facts upon which the open-ended questions can be used to expand the conversation with more information, details, thoughts, opinions, etc. An Example of How to Use Open-Ended Questions With Books We’ve created a list of possible open-ended questions which can be used with the children’s picture book, “Gotcha”, which was written by Gail Jorgensen and illustrated by Kerry Argent. Try writing your own list of open-ended questions relating to one of your favourite books. Try them out with your child. A word of warning: open-ended questions are designed to make your child think and use language more fully. However, there’s an added bonus. Coming up with these questions will also make you think! In general, we use a lot more closed-ended questions than open-ended questions in our daily conversations unless we purposefully set out to use the latter more often. You may be surprised how many closed-ended questions you use each day. Have fun creating open-ended questions in your conversations today. It’s very rewarding!

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Posted on April 5, 2014 by Bob Berwyn Study offers new insight into long-distance avian migration. ‘We think that these behaviors represent a previously unknown cognitive ability …’ FRISCO — Some migrating birds may be able to sense weather patterns on a hemispheric scale, helping them optimally time their nonstop transoceanic flights. Bar-tailed godwits, the ultra-marathon champions of migration, breed in Alaska and spend winters in New Zealand and a recent U.S. Geological Survey-led study suggests that these birds can sense broad weather patterns. Careful monitoring of the birds suggest they time their departure to match the best possible atmospheric wind conditions possible within a two-week window. Remarkably, not only were the conditions optimal for take-off, but they almost always provided the best possible conditions for the birds’ entire flights, as far as 7,000 miles in eight days between Alaska and New Zealand. Filed under: biodiversity, Environment | Tagged: bar-tailed godwits, Birds, Environment, migration, weather | 2 Comments » Posted on November 13, 2013 by Bob Berwyn Broad-tailed hummingbirds may have a hard time finding food during the short breeding season as temperatures in the Colorado Rocky Mountains continue to warm steadily. bberwyn photo. Earlier nesting and breeding observed in some species By Summit Voice FRISCO — Some birds are nesting and hatching earlier because of steadily increasing global temperatures, and that may be driving earlier migration in some species according to scientists with the University of East Anglia. Changes in migration timing has already been linked with a biological disconnect between some species and their primary food sources, for example hummingbirds that fly to the southern Rocky Mountains, as well as purple martins that fly from South America to eastern North America. Both species arrival is increasingly out of synch with key food sources. “We have known that birds are migrating earlier and earlier each year … particularly those that migrate over shorter distances,” said Lead researcher Dr. Jenny Gill from UEA’s school of Biological Sciences. “But the reason why has puzzled bird experts for years. It’s a particularly important question because the species which are not migrating earlier are declining in numbers.” Continue reading Filed under: biodiversity, climate and weather, Environment, global warming, Iceland | Tagged: Birds, Environment, global warming, migration, phenology | 2 Comments » Posted on October 23, 2012 by Bob Berwyn Pronghorn antelope foraging in sagebrush habitat near Gunnison Colorado. Photo courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife. GOCO, feds and state pitch in on major conservation deal By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — A new conservation easement on the 15,000-acre Tuttle Ranch in Moffat County will help protect important wildlife habitat and winter range while allowing ranching operations to continue. The ranch encompasses sagebrush steppe, foothills grassland and pinyon-juniper woodlands, with habitat for greater sage-grouse and critical winter range for elk, mule deer and pronghorn. The conservation easement was purchased from the RSH Land Company LLC, with a combination of funds from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and lottery-funded Great Outdoors Colorado. Continue reading Filed under: Colorado, Colorado Division of Wildlife, Colorado State Parks, Environment, wildlife | Tagged: big game, biodiversity, Colorado, Conservation easement, migration, wildlife | Leave a comment » Posted on October 30, 2011 by Bob Berwyn Transient killer whales near Unimak Island, eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska. PHOTO COURTESY NOAA. NOAA researchers document unusual long-distance killer whale migration By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — Killer whales from Antarctic waters may be making long-distance treks to warmer water as a type of marine mammal spa treatment, shedding skin that’s covered with diatoms and algae. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers tagged a dozen killer whales in Antarctic waters and tracked five that showed consistent movement to subtropical waters. Some of the orcas made the 5,000-mile round trip to southern Brazil in just 42 days, returning to Antarctica immediately. The researchers, who published their findings in the science journal Biology Letters, This was the first long distance migration ever reported for killer whales. Continue reading Filed under: biodiversity, Environment, Marine biology, Summit County news, wildlife | Tagged: Antarctica, Killer whale, migration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Orcas | 1 Comment »

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|Collection Frameworks||Callback Frameworks| Object COBOL has a mechanism by which you can send messages to intrinsic data. This chapter explains how you can send messages to the types of intrinsic data supported by the Class Library, and how you can write classes to support other types. The Object COBOL Class Library includes a set of classes corresponding to some of COBOL's intrinsic data types. Objects from these classes correspond to COBOL data items. This enables you to store and manipulate intrinsic data in object-oriented ways. The intrinsic data mechanism is used by the collection classes to store intrinsic data without creating objects for every item of intrinsic data in the collection. You can think of intrinsic data as being static objects whose data is allocated by the Compiler at compile time; all other objects in Micro Focus Object COBOL are dynamic and their data is allocated at run-time. The three COBOL data types supported by the Class Library are: You can use the intrinsic data classes in several different ways: The supplied intrinsic classes are only capable of storing data of preset length. If you want to use them for intrinsic data of any other length, you must first clone the class, creating a new class for the length of data you require. There are three classes for representing intrinsic data: COBOLPICX can store data one byte in length; COBOLCOMP5 and COBOLCOMPX can store data four bytes in length. To store different length data you need to clone the class for a different length. To do this, send the message "newClass" to one of the intrinsic data classes, supplying the length as a parameter. It returns a class capable of storing data of the length given with the "newClass" method. move 6 to aLength invoke cobolPICX "newClass" using aLength returning aNewPicXClass where the parameters are : |aLength||Declared as a PIC X(4) COMP-5.| |aNewPicXClass||Declared as an OBJECT REFERENCE. You can use cloned classes as templates for INVOKE...AS, and for creating collections of intrinsic values. You can also create instances of intrinsic classes using the "new" method. You can send a message to COBOL intrinsic data by using INVOKE...AS. 01 aNumber pic x(6) comp-5 01 comp5Length6 object reference. ... invoke aNumber as comp5Length6 "hash" returning aHashValue In the example above, COMP5LENGTH6 is a cloned class for COMP-5 items of length 6. See the section Cloning an Intrinsic Data Class for an explanation of how to clone classes. The effect is that the "hash" message is sent to a static object which has the instance data in intrinsic data item ANUMBER. Just as with any object, if the instance doesn't understand the message, it is passed up the inheritance chain to its superclasses. If you want to use a type of intrinsic data not supported by any of the classes in the Class Library, you can create your own new intrinsic class. You do this by writing a class which inherits from Intrinsic, with data. The next two sections deal with the code you need to write for the: The class initialization code for your intrinsic class must set a default size in bytes for the data to be represented by instances, and put it in data item STORAGEREQUIREMENTS. This is declared in Intrinsic as follows: 01 storageRequirements pic x(4) comp-5. The class cloning mechanism enables users of your intrinsic class to handle data of different lengths. You must also code the following class methods: Returns the object handle to this class object. Returns the maximum number of bytes allowable for this type of intrinsic data. For example, a COMP-X data item can't be more than eight bytes long, so the "maximumSize" method in the COBOLCOMPX class returns eight. Code the method interface for "baseClass" like this: method-id. "baseClass" linkage-section. 01 lnkHandle object reference. procedure division returning lnkHandle. * Substitute the class-id of your class for * nameOfThisClass in the following statement. set lnkHandle to nameOfThisClass exit method. end method "baseClass" The "baseClass" method returns the object handle of the named class, rather than SELF, so that the correct handle is returned for the baseClass even when the message is sent to a clone of your intrinsic class. Code the method interface for "maximumSize" like this: method-id. "maximumSize". linkage-section. 01 lnkSize pic x(4) comp-x. procedure division returning lnkSize. * Code to return the maximum allowable size. exit method. end method "maximumSize". You must code comparison methods for instances of an intrinsic class, for use by the Collection class. There are two separate methods for each type of comparison; one compares this intrinsic object to another object, the other compares it to a value. You need to provide the following methods for comparing intrinsic objects: These are the methods for comparing objects with intrinsic data items: The value of an intrinsic instance is held in an inherited instance data item, INSTANCEDATA. This is declared as: 01 instanceData pic x. Although it is only declared as a single byte in length, it always references a memory area of the correct length for your intrinsic data. To get at the data in it, use reference modification. For instance, to see the first four bytes of instance data, you can refer to: Code the method interface to any of the object comparison methods as follows: method-id. "equal". linkage section. 01 lnkBoolean pic x comp-x. 03 isTrue value 1. 03 isFalse value 0. 01 lnkIntrinsic object reference. procedure division using lnkIntrinsic returning lnkBoolean. * Code to compare the value in lnkIntrinsic to * the value in this instance. Set isTrue if * the result of the comparison is true, otherwise * set isFalse. exit method. end method "equal". Code the interface to any of the intrinsic data comparison methods as follows: method-id. "equalByLengthValue". linkage section. 01 lnkBoolean pic x comp-x. 03 isTrue value 1. 03 isFalse value 0. 01 lnkLength pic x(4) comp-x. 01 lnkValue pic x occurs 1 to maxSize procedure division using lnkLength lnkValue returning lnkBoolean. * Code to compare the value in lnkValue to * the value in this instance. Set isTrue if * the result of the comparison is true, otherwise * set isFalse. exit method. end method "equalByLengthValue". Copyright © 1999 MERANT International Limited. All rights reserved. This document and the proprietary marks and names used herein are protected by international law. |Collection Frameworks||Callback Frameworks|

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Pre-Incan people cultivated the fruit as far back as 2,500 BC. More recently, Mark Twain said that the Cherimoya was “deliciousness itself”. Perhaps that’s why the fruit doesn’t last that long in the market even though it is very expensive. Oh yea, the fruit also looks really cool. - The fruit itself ranges in size from 8 in to 12 in in length. Better size and number of fruit is obtained with hand pollination or planting another cherimoya nearby. - The outer surface of the fruit may be bumpy or flat with large fingerprint like markings. - The thin skin is green and the flesh is white with hard black seeds. The black seeds are inedible/toxic. The Cherimoya fruit texture is similar to custard, but it is also juicy. Overall it is sweet with mild acid overtones. Cherimoya fruit is a wonderful mix of flavors in one fruit; banana, passion fruit, pineapple and papaya. When chilled, its flavor is somewhat similar to ice cream. - The main season is October to May. - Buy or pick the fruit when the skin is turning slightly lighter in color but the fruit is still hard. - Allow to ripen in a dark area at room temp for a few days until it feels lightly soft to touch. Ripening and softness is similar to an avocado. - The tree starts to fruit when around 4 years old. - It is a fast-growing tree, and can reach 30+ feet in height. However, it is easily trained with pruning in the dormant season. The wood is brittle so pruning also helps the tree to support the heavy fruit. Young plants need staking. - Green leaves with a prominent light green central vein. - Briefly deciduous; loosing leaves for a short time in late winter/early spring. - The flowers are green and easily missed on casual inspection. The tree is said to be able to tolerate a wide range of soil types but prefers well draining fertile soil with neutral to slightly acidic pH. Bi-weekly irrigation in the growing season (April to January) The plant is prone to root rot with prolonged moist conditions. The trees also dont seem to like the dry air of the desert where the leaves are easily damaged by dry Santa Ana winds. Overall, the plant appreciates a slope for drainage and cooler marine air. Most of the US crop is grown in coastal and coastal-foothill areas of Southern California. Balanced fertilizer 1x in midwinter, and then again every three months throughout the growing season. Mature trees are said to require 4 ounces of actual nitrogen per inch of trunk diameter per year. - It is a subtropical plant native to northwest parts of South America and traditionally grown in cool mountain altitudes at the equator. The plant can withstand a light frost but not much more than that. Like other deciduous trees they need a chilling period (40-100 hrs at 45 F). - For more information about the lowest temperatures that you can expect in your area, check out my article “Climate Zones: What can I grow in my yard?” - The main pests in California are mealybugs and snails. However, I did get a rather bad scale infection this last dormant season. It seems that ants were an accessory to this infestation. Tanglefoot on masking tape around the trunk helps keep the ants away that bring in the mealybugs and scale. - I have also read that you shouldn’t plant this tree in old vegetable gardens, near tomatoes, eggplant or asters because Cherimoya are susceptible to the same soil diseases. Cherimoyas are also susceptible to Armillaria (Oak Root Fungus) and Verticillium. - Squirrels have also discovered the fruit. Therefore, I keep a close eye on the fruit and pick them a little early because I dont like to share with my rodent neighbors. - Cherimoya fruit tastes great any way you serve it, but it is best when chilled. - It is often added to desserts. - Some make ice cream out of it. - Note: the Cherimoya fruit seeds are toxic, so don’t go putting this in a blender before taking the seeds out.

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BAER (brainstem auditory evoked response) is a diagnostic test for hearing whereby a dog is fitted with a sound source in the form of earphones with foam inserts that extend into the ear. The device emits a sound and the response is detected by tiny electrodes that have been placed at specific sites on the dog’s head and shoulders. The BAER detects electrical activity in the cochlea of the ear as well as in the auditory pathways of the brain, much like an EKG detects electrical activity in the heart. The resulting waveform definitively shows the extent and degree of a dog’s hearing loss and is used to evaluate a dog’s hearing status. The procedure is painless, but occasionally dogs will object to wearing earphones and being lightly restrained; in extreme cases they are muzzled or sedated, though this is rarely necessary. Results are available on the spot. While curious pet owners sometimes seek confirmation of a hunch that their dog is deaf, BAER testing is used routinely by breeders, primarily those whose breeds are susceptible to congenital deafness. Coat-color-related deafness is associated with some white-coated and merle breeds, such as Dalmatians and Australian Shepherds. (To find out which breeds are most affected, see Louisiana State University’s Dr. George M. Strain’s comprehensive list.) Inside the ear, the organ of Corti includes a layer of cells, the stria vascularis. The job of these cells is to secrete a factor that keeps hair cells healthy within the ear. If the stria vascularis cells are not pigmented, they are defective and lead to hair cell death within a puppy’s first few weeks, resulting in deafness. Unfortunately, this takes place in the inner ear and is, therefore, not visible to the eye; often, it is not obvious that a puppy is deaf. Deaf puppies may play harder than their littermates (because they cannot hear the yelps they inflict); also they may be hard to wake, or be seen to be following cues from the other puppies. Hunches must be confirmed with BAER testing. Those who train working dogs also utilize BAER testing. These dogs need to be able to hear in both ears in order to localize the source of a sound. A dog can be unilaterally deaf (deaf in one ear), so that he can still hear but cannot tell where the sound is coming from. Others whose dogs experience chronic ear infections may seek BAER testing to find out how much hearing loss their dog might have experienced as a result of infection. BAER testing is also used to aid in the diagnosis of more serious medical conditions, such as vestibular (inner ear) disease or brain tumors. BAER testing can be done only at one of the centers that specialize in the test. (Click here for a list of BAER testing sites.) However, BAER testing is occasionally available at “health clinics” at major dog shows.

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Tool Module: Brodmann's Cortical Areas the brains of all vertebrate animals, the nerve cells of the cortex are characteristically organized into parallel layers at the brain's surface. At least one of these layers comprises pyramidal neurons with long apical dendrites that extend upward to the layer closest to the surface. This layer generally contains no cell bodies and consists chiefly of nerve fibres, dendrites and axons. Golgi's stain, developed in the early 20th century, was one of the first methods that enabled scientists to view the neurons of the cortex. Source: J. Batty Tuke, The Insanity of Over-Exertion of the Brain, Edinburgh, 1894. parts of the cortex that are of very ancient origin, such as the hippocampus, contain only a single layer of cells. Others, such as the olfactory cortex, contain two layers. But the most elaborate cortex, the neocortex, contains at least six well defined main layers, which are often divided into sublayers. In the course of evolution, the neocortex appeared only with the mammals. In humans and other primates, the neocortex is so dominant that the term "cortex" is often used to refer to the neocortex alone. The cellular architecture differs sufficiently from one part of the neocortex to another to be used as a criterion for defining cortical areas that are functionally distinct. That is what the German anatomist Korbinian Brodmann did in the early 20th century, when he developed a map of the brain based on the differences in the cellular architecture of the various parts of the cortex. Brodmann assigned each part of the cortex that had the same cellular architecture a number from 1 to 52. whose accuracy has been confirmed many times since, was that a particular anatomical structure corresponded to a particular function. For example, Brodmann's area 17, which receives information from a nucleus of the thalamus that is connected to the retina, turns out to correspond precisely to the primary visual cortex. And Brodmann's area 4, from which the axons of the large pyramidal cells project to the motor neurons of the spinal cord, corresponds broadly to the motor cortex.

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Sendler led about 20 helpers who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety between 1940 and 1943, placing them in Polish families, convents or orphanages. She wrote the children's names on slips of paper and buried them in jars in a neighbor's yard as a record that could help locate their parents after the war. The Nazis arrested her in 1943, but she refused — despite repeated torture — to reveal their names. Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members.A true hero. Yad Vashem honored Ms. Sendler in 1965 and Poland's Commie government allowed her to travel to Israel to receive a medal from the Museum in 1983.

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One of the challenges facing the Fathers of the early Church was the need to attend to and communicate matters divine while relating and adapting to matters mundane. Following the Christological and Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century, the Fathers came more and more to find a need to express fundamental truths about mankind in relation to God. The Incarnation itself, while revealing the Godhead as a set of relations among the three divine Persons, also led to the need to define just what it means to be human. As Jaroslav Pelikan notes, The definition of “human” was a part of the presupposition of christological doctrine, and that in at least three ways: the understanding of the human condition and its need for salvation; the definition of the human nature of Christ; and the picture of a human race redeemed and transformed by his coming. Ultimately, the Fathers addressed what it meant to be created human in the image of God, how mankind fell from its original state in disobedience, and how God chose to respond graciously to mankind’s disobedience. By necessity, the Christological question raises an additional question of what it means to be human and how man as a created being relates to the Creator of all. The starting point for Christian anthropology is Genesis 1:26, in which God says, “‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness[.]’” While God is purely incorporeal, man is both material and immaterial, either in a dualistic sense (body and soul) or even a triadic sense (body, soul, and spirit). St. Paul seems to at times support the former (1 Corinthians 2:13) and at other times, the latter (Thessalonians 5:23). In both psychologies, it is the immaterial aspect (either soul or spirit) that accounts for the spiritual and intellectual activities of man. Some early Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, incorporating Platonic and Stoic influences, chose the dualistic view. However, along with Origen in the minority, Clement accepted the Greek notion of a pre-existent soul. Other Fathers, such as Tatian, chose the triadic formula. Likewise, some Fathers like Origen diverged from the main in their thought concerning bodily resurrection. In addition, the Fathers held divergent positions on the natural immortality of the soul, some such as St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen (influenced by middle Platonism) holding that the soul was naturally immortal, while others such as St. Irenaeus, Tatian, and St. Basil held, in St. Irenaeus’ words, that “the soul itself is not life, but participates in the life conferred upon it by God” and continue to exist solely through God’s grace and will. The existence of an immortal soul (whether naturally so or not) and mankind’s fashioning in the image of God imply a similitude between man’s and God’s incorporeal existence (man’s by creation and God’s by essence). As St. Ambrose notes, “And what is God, flesh or spirit? Certainly not flesh, He is spirit, to which flesh can have no likeness; for spirit is incorporeal and invisible, while flesh is bounded and seen.” Christological doctrine ratified at Chalcedon had asserted that Christ possessed a rational human nature (in addition to His divine nature). This rational nature (either endowed through spirit or soul depending on the psychology) reflected this image of God. The Fathers, affirming this aspect of man’s rational nature, insisted that to reflect truly the image of God, man must be made free. The Fathers stressed personal freedom in the face of Gnostic, Stoic, and Manichean claims to the contrary. In that freedom, we can choose life or death. In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, “That some are saved and some perish depends rather upon the deliberate choice of those who hear the word.” While the doctrine of original sin was still in its formative stages, the Fathers still held a vague notion of original justice—a sense that Adam and Eve enjoyed certain supernatural and possibly some preternatural gifts prior to the Fall. Among the supernatural gifts, of course, would be grace, which was restored to us by Christ’s redeeming act. However, other gifts, the preternatural ones (for example, freedom from suffering or illness), would only return to us after the resurrection. Yet we see the seed of the doctrine of original sin in the early Fathers. St. Irenaeus in Against Heresies sets up Adam as the figure of fallen mankind: “Indeed, through the first Adam, we offended God by not observing His command.” According to Athanasius, by disobedience men “‘became the cause of their own corruption and death.’” Other beliefs and practices of the early Church also strongly influenced the development of the doctrine of original sin. Cyprian and other Fathers mention the practice of infant baptism in relation to a notion of original sin, and Sts. Ambrose and Augustine after him would flesh out this doctrine. And finally, the doctrine of the virgin birth also pointed to the idea that some corporate fault had been passed down through Adam. Concerning these two elements, Jaroslav Pelikan notes, “[G]iven their increasingly secure place in cultus and confession, they became the premises from which conclusions could be drawn about the fall and original sin.” St. Augustine would later build on these themes to develop our current understanding. While our fall came about by our own free will and disobedience, our redemption came about by God’s response. St.Irenaeus identified Adam as the origin of sin and the figure of sinful man. In the Incarnation, St. Irenaeus sees the undoing of our disobedience. His doctrine of recapitulation, which he taught in response to the Gnostic teaching of self-redemption, posited the notion that Christ is a second Adam: “The disobedience of the first Adam was undone through the complete obedience of the second, so that many could be justified and attain salvation.” In this recapitulation, Christ restores the damage done through sin. In His saving work, Christ becomes our example, and in fact, the exemplar of the mature Christian and prototype of the image of God. For St. Athanasius, the Incarnation divinizes human nature and raises it up to God, making us adopted sons and daughters of God. The supernatural grace to which we are redeemed in Christ’s saving work brings us salvation from sin and its effects and heals us. It instills in us the life of the Holy Spirit and allows the indwelling of the Trinity. Baptism plays an important part in the imparting of grace. St. Clement of Alexandria outlines the effects of grace imparted through this rebirth in Christ: “Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal.” God’s grace, then, not only redeems us from past faults but helps us to rise up to Him and to become perfected. While Gnostic, Stoic, and Manichean thought all limited or nullified human responsibility and freedom, the Fathers stressed that through grace and redemption we could be free from sin and its effects. While the pagans proposed inevitability, the Church proposed true liberty. While we were enslaved through sin, faith in Christ and the grace it brings restored our original liberty. In liberty, there is sometimes an overabundance of choice. Fathers held various positions concerning sexuality, marriage, and virginity, some of which were heavily influenced by anti-materialist views of the Platonists and Stoics. An element of the early thinking about the virgin birth was that sexual intercourse lacked holiness. Even St. Paul recommends marriage as recourse for human weakness in 1 Corinthians and indicates the suitability of celibacy for Christians. St. Augustine highlights this view in his own writings about marriage: “Marriage has also this advantage, that the carnal or youthful incontinence, even if it is defiling, is turned to the honorable talk of propagating offspring, so that marital intercourse makes something good out of an evil appetite.” In large, marriage was still considered a good (though perhaps not the highest good for the Christian in pursuing holiness). Nonetheless, virginity was highly prized by the Fathers, so long as it was a matter of choice. In addition to the personal nature of sin, the Fathers also recognized its communal aspect. In the growing awareness of the sacramental nature of the Church, the Fathers saw the Church and its rites as elements of sanctification—divinely instituted means of grace. One rite that arose early in the life of the Church was penance, or what we now call the Sacrament of Reconciliation. While private confession had always been a practice of the Church, some public act of penance could be required for reconciliation. Early Christians recognized that sin harmed the entire community, so reconciliation needed to be made with both God and the Church. Again, there were varying beliefs concerning who was allowed to be reconciled. Some Fathers (for example, Hippolytus and Tertullian) believed in a very restrictive view of reconciliation, demanding the absolute holiness of its members. Cyprian insisted that, at very least, priests must be holy for the efficacy of Christian rites. However, the Church ultimately sided with the view of Pope Callistus, who cited the Genesis account of Noah’s ark (carrying both clean and unclean animals) as well as the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew to symbolize the presence of both sinners and saints in the Church. Certainly, though God demands justice, His mercy shines through in the saving work of His Son. St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, would later flesh out the Church’s understanding of original sin and grace, and in his exhaustive treatment of the teachings of the early Church. At the end of the fourth century, the Church had come more and more to represent the unity of spirit and simultaneous diversity of expression that we see today. 1 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: The Christian Tradition, Vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971), 284. 2 Rev. Douglas Mosey, “Patristics: Lecture 4,” International Catholic University, (Catholic Educational Television, Inc., 2006), 2. 3 Pelikan, 46–48. 4 Ibid, 51. 5 Ibid, 48. 6 Mosey, 2. 7 Pelikan, 47–48. 8 Ibid, 51, also Mosey, 2. 9 William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1979), 35. 10 Pelikan, 51. 11 Jurgens, Vol. 2, 167. 12 Rev. Douglas Mosey, “Patristics: Lecture 2,” International Catholic University, (Catholic Educational Television, Inc., 2006), 6–7. 13 Mosey, 3. Also, Pelikan, 283. 14 Jurgens, Vol. 2, 55. 15 Mosey, 5. 16 William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 1, (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1970), 101. 17 Pelikan, 285. 18 Mosey, 4. 19 Pelikan, 286–291. 20 Ibid, 286. 21 Mosey, 4. 22 Ibid, 5. 23 Pelikan, 144. 24 Ibid, 145. 25 Mosey, 6. 26 Ibid, 7. 27 Pelikan, 164. 28 Mosey, 3. 29 Ibid, 8. 30 Ibid, 2. 31 Jurgens, Vol. 3, 70. 32 Mosey, 4. 33 Jurgens, Vol. 2, 44. 34 Jurgens, Vol. 3, 71. 35 Pelikan, 156. 36 Mosey, 11. 37 Pelikan, 157. 38 Ibid, 158–159. 39 Mosey, 7. 40 Jurgens, Vol. 3, 1.

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2. RELATIVE TIME; Time with reference to succession The Present Time. [Antonyms: different time.] [Nouns] the present time, the present, the present day, the present moment, the present juncture, the present occasion; the times, the existing time, the time being; today, these days, nowadays, our times, modern times, the twenty-first century, the new millennium; nonce, crisis, epoch, day, hour. age, time of life. [Adverbs] at this time, at this moment [more]; at the present time; now, at present; at hand. at this time of day, today, nowadays; already; even now, but now, just now; on the present occasion; for the time being, for the nonce; pro hac vice; on the nail, on the spot; on the spur of the moment, until now; to this day, to the present day.

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One of the lost elements of history is how new the idea of the filibuster as a routine supermajority requirement is. David Mayhew, the Yale political scientist, published an excellent article on this subject back in 2003 (so you can hardly say he was motivated by Democratic partisanship) called “Supermajority Rule in the U.S. Senate”. His argument is basically that while filibustering was always possible, it was also sharply constrained by tradition. After all, a lot of things are possible in our system. To the best of my understanding, nothing is stopping Rahm Emannuel from sauntering onto the floor of the Senate, murdering Republicans from states with Democratic governors in cold blood, having them replaced by new Democrats, and then getting a pardon from Barack Obama. But that would obviously be a sharp break with the traditions of our government! And filibustering was, historically, an extraordinary measure. It was traditional for it to be used by Dixiecrats to entrench white supremacy, but not for any other purpose, and thus could be understood as part of the corrupt bargain by which white America reunited after the civil war. But as Mayhew points out in other contexts—his detailed case study is FDR’s court-packing bill—nobody said they needed 40 votes to block leadership-supported measures, they said they needed fifty votes. Today Ezra Klein offers a great historical find from a later era illustrating the point. Yale senior David Brockman found the following letter, from LBJ’s senate liason Mike Manatos to Larry O’Brien, one of LBJ’s key political aides. Its about the implications of the ’64 senate results for Medicare: Of the 49 votes cast on behalf of Medicare (Gore amendment) on September 2, 1964, we lost two supporters in the last election — Senators Keating and Salinger. However, we picked up five new supporters — Senators Bass, Harris, Kennedy (Robt.), Montoya, and Tydings. We also had three supporters who missed the vote this year — Senators Bayh, Hartke, and Kennedy (Ted). Thus if all our supporters are present and voting we would win by a vote of 55 to 45. There’s no indication that at that time you needed 60 votes to pass bills. On a non-civil rights topic, party discipline was taken for granted on procedural motions. You’ve seen an evolution since then, just as you’ve seen an evolution of the “hold” from a senatorial courtesy to a hardball political tactic. And I think the reason is the same. When you have any kind of tradition-constrained procedural gimmick, there are always going to be examples of using it that exist near the borders of tradition. That generates ill-will, which generates further border-pushing. If you look, for example, at the escalating obstruction of federal court nominees over the past 20 years you can see that we’re heading toward a dynamic where District and Circuit courts are going to be severely understaffed. And we’re still waiting for the day when a major SCOTUS filibuster leaves the court unable to function.

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Christianity continues to hold out a solution to what a culture continues to deny. In the video above, we see various portraits of people holding signs that reveal something about their character. They are, in some sense, marked by their actions and attitudes. The Scriptures describe God’s plan in terms of God’s character, His shalom, to borrow the Hebrew term, which refers to His peace, His goodness, and His great desire for the wholeness of the created world, including you and me. And yet we’re so very broken. We don’t have that wholeness. Sin is, according to one author, the “vandalism of God’s shalom.” God’s shalom was most fully violated in the breakdown of God’s image. Adam bore that image, but ruined it. All of Adam’s sons and daughters are now forced to bear the weight of that broken image. So Scripture offers us so many different metaphors for what’s happened. The Hebrew texts describe it in terms of rebellion (pesha), infidelity (meshubah), trespass (ma’al),transgression (‘abar, parabaino), becoming dirty (tum’ah), wandering (‘avon), failure (chatta’t), and disloyalty (beged). The Greek texts describe it in terms of a fall (paraptoma), being unjust, unrighteous (adikeo), rebellious (asebeo), defeat (etao), ignorance (agnoeo), and missing the mark (hamartia). What’s happened in our world is that we moved away from these understandings. In his book Whatever Became of Sin?, the writer Karl Menninger observes the way that sin has been redefined in western culture: (1) Originally, sin was defined by violation of God’s standards as revealed in the text of scripture. Western culture built its laws and ethical foundations around the character of God. (2) As time progressed, the law courts began to be seen as the embodiment of morality. Yet still, within this system, shame existed for the individual for violating an unchanging standard. Punishments in colonial times and beyond included such things as the stockades, where criminals would be publicly shamed for their crimes. (3) As time went further, sin began to be seen more and more through the lens of psychology. Sin was not a violation of an absolute standard, but the result of aberrant psychological patterns and maladaptive behavior. We are not sinful people, we are diseased. We no longer need to point to the curse of Eden, but instead at unhappy childhoods and past traumas that have shaped our psyche into the twistedness that they now have become. (4) Finally, sin has begun to be seen through a sociological lens. It’s not even the individual’s psychology that makes man sinful: it is the shaping of an entire community. It is not unusual, after tragedies such as that of Columbine or Virginia Tech, to hear public officials make statements such as ‘We are all to blame.’ The message is clear: the family, neighborhood and society in which you are raised has a large bearing on your moral development. THE TEST IN THE GARDEN Luke’s gospel is deeply concerned with situating Jesus in the context of secular history. The stories of Jesus’ birth are embedded right in the center of a hostile political environment, and in an era where whole families had become divided by sectarian religious beliefs. When we first meet the adult Jesus, it is at His baptism. John the Baptizer was His cousin. He’d grown up as a preacher’s kid, but at some time or another he’d moved to the “wilderness,” some sort of Palestinian desert. So we can imagine people took notice when he finally returned, looking like Grizzly Adams but with a mouth like a rock star. He preached a message of repentance and justice. So Jesus was baptized by His weird cousin – and it was here that the Spirit descended “like a dove,” and the Father said, “this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the first time in Jesus’ adult life that He is called “the Son of God,” connecting Jesus to the prophecies about His miraculous birth. But then Luke does something odd: He gives us Jesus’ family tree. Which wasn’t uncommon for writings of that era; it’s just odd to find it right smack in the middle of the story like this. But if you read all the way through, you find that John traces Jesus all the way back to the very beginning, to Adam, who is also called “a son of God.” Which means that we have two “sons of God:” Adam and Jesus. Adam was tempted in the garden by Satan. In the next section, Jesus enters the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Both lived in the shadow of a tree: for Adam it was the tree of knowledge, for Jesus it was the cross. The whole point is this: where Adam failed, where we fail, Jesus is victorious. And His victory can be our victory. The point of this story is not that if we “try harder” we can do what Jesus did. The point is that we can’t do what Jesus did unless we trust in what Jesus achieved through His death on the cross. And the most beautiful thing of all is this: when we trust in Him, God sees us the same way He views His Son; the Bible even uses the word “adoption”(Romans 8:15). Which means because of what Jesus did in the wilderness and on the cross, we can hear God say to us: “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” WHAT IT MEANS Of course we know that “sin” is an archaic word that means nothing to a culture shaped by the sophistication of charismatic authority structures and rational thought. But that seems awfully academic. Especially to the faces in the video. Could it be that we each know that we’ve been marked in some way? See, in this life you will be marked by one of three things: (1) What I’ve done (2) What others have done to me (3) What Jesus has done for me. Jesus achieved victory in a Garden where you only achieved failure. The image of God that was broken by Adam – and us – was restored by Jesus, the second Adam: “You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself…” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, III.14) Tomorrow, we’ll look deeper at the actual showdown between the Son of God and Satan.

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Twenty-three states in Colombia have been placed on orange or red alert, as torrential downpours marking the start of the regional rainy season hit communities throughout the country. According to the national agency for disaster management, some 7,267 families in 174 municipalities have been affected by heavy rains since March. The resulting floods and landslides have been most heavily concentrated in Colombia’s Pacific, Amazon, and Andean regions, and have caused at least seven deaths during the same timeframe. Since March alone, there have been 286 severe weather events registered throughout the country, according to RCN Radio. In one of the more prominent cases, the capital of the southwestern state of Caqueta flooded last week, damaging the property of 450 families in 15 neighborhoods, according to the agency for disaster management. In other areas, the effects were likely aggravated by a protracted drought that preceded the start of the rainy season and left the soil dry and loose. Colombia’s institute of hydrology, meteorology, and environmental studies has declared that the probability of the weather phenomena “El Niño” striking the country in July, August, and September of this year is 68% and that the climax of El Niño will occur with 79% probability in the months of October, November, and December. El Niño is a weather phenomena caused by rising sea surface temperatures off Colombia’s Pacific coast. In Colombia, the effects are massive floods, causing severe flooding in some areas — as was the case in early 2011 — and droughts in others. The director for the national agency for disaster management, Carlos Ivan Marquez, said his agency is working with regional governors to address the emergency in the southern state of Putumayo and to develop contingency plans for the state of Caqueta. The agency advises citizens to beware of high risk areas for flooding and landslides and to begin collecting the most rainwater possible, considering that the region is approaching the dry season of El Niño. Last December, the agency made similar warnings ahead of the three-month drought that devastated the north, east, and northeast of the country. Local authorities largely failed to take the appropriate precautionary measures, however, a factor that contributed to the ensuing damage. The agency for disaster management has approved financial assistance for three departments. Atlantico, Choco, and Magdalena will be receiving close to $370,000 in the form of food and kitchen material, building material, and night kits. Other similar emergency measures are currently being considered. Colombia as a whole stands relatively ill-prepared to face extreme weather events, with its limited national infrastructure encumbering emergency response and a lack of institutional resources devoted to precautionary environmental measures. A 2007 World Bank report estimated that the country spends almost 4% of its annual GDP because of poor environmental planning. - Aumenta notablemente la probabilidad de inicio de un fenomeno ‘El Nino’ a mediados de 2014 (IDEAM) - Monitoreo de emergencias en el país tras las lluvias registradas en el territorio nacional (Gestion del Riesgo) - El país permanece en alerta por temporada de lluvias (RCN Radio) - Lluvias dejan siete muertos y 23 departamentos en alerta naranja (Vanguardia) The post Torrential rains have killed 7 in Colombia; 23 states on high alert appeared first on Colombia News | Colombia Reports.

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This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms. The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right. You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.close box Summary phylogenetic hypothesis based on the combined analysis of morphological, breeding, and mitochondrial DNA characters (Bertelli and Giannini, 2005). All genera are clearly reciprocally monophyletic, however the root of the penguin tree is still unclear. The Snares Penguin, Eudyptes robustus, is now considered conspecific with the Fjordland Penguin, Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, and the Royal Penguin, Eudyptes schlegeli, is now considered conspecific with the Macaroni Penguin, Eudyptes chrysolophus (Christidis & Boles 2008). Baker, A. J., S. L. Pereira, O. P. Haddrath, and K.-A. Edge. 2006. Multiple gene evidence for expansion of extant penguins out of Antarctica due to global cooling. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273(1582):11-17. Bertelli, S., and N. P. Giannini. 2005. A phylogeny of extant penguins (Aves: Sphenisciformes) combining morphology and mitochondrial sequences. Cladistics 21: 209-239. Christidis, L. and W. Boles. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia. Clarke, J. A., E. B. Olivero, and P. Puerta. 2003. Description of the earliest fossil penguin from South America and first Paleogene vertebrate locality of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. American Museum Novitates 3423:1-18. Dann, P., I. Norman, and P. Reilly, eds. 1995. The Penguins: Ecology and Management. Surrey Beatty & Sons, Sydney. Davis, L. S. and J. Darby, eds. 1990. Penguin Biology. Academic Press, San Diego. Giannini, N. P., and S. Bertelli. 2004. Phylogeny of extant penguins based on integumentary and breeding characters. The Auk 121: 422-434. Gill, F. and M. Wright. 2006. Birds of the World: Recommended English Names. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Grant, W. S., D. C. Duffy, and R. W. Leslie. 1994. Allozyme phylogeny of Spheniscus penguins. The Auk 111: 716-270. Marchant, S. and P. J. Higgins, eds. 1990. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Vol 1. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Müller-Schwarze, D. 1984. The behavior of penguins: adapted to ice and tropics. State University of New York Press, Albany. Nelson, J. B. 2006. Pelicans, Cormorants, and Their Relatives: The Pelecaniformes. Bird Families of the World. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York. O’Hara, R. J. 1989. An estimate of the phylogeny of the living penguins (Aves: Spheniscidae). Am. Zool. 29, 11A. Raikow, R. J., L. Bicanovsky, and A. H. Bledsoe. 1988. Forelimb joint mobility and the evolution of wing-propelled diving in birds. Auk 105:446-451. Reilly, P. 1994. Penguins of the World. Oxford University Press. Schreiweis, D. O. 1982. A comparative study of the appendicular musculature of penguins (Aves: Sphenisciformes). Smithsonian Contrib. Zool. 341:1-46. Simpson, G. G. 1946. Fossil Penguins. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 87, 1–100. Simpson, G. G. 1972. Conspectus of Patagonian fossil penguins. Am. Mus. Nov. 2488, 1–37. Simpson, G. G. 1976. Penguins: Past and Present, Here and There. Yale University Press, New Haven. Stonehouse, B. 1975. The biology of penguins. University Park Press, Baltimore. Williams, T. D. 1995. The Penguins. Oxford University Press, New York. Woehler, E. J. 1993. The Distribution and Abundance of Antarctic and Subantarctic Penguins. University Printing Services, Cambridge. Zusi, R. L. 1975. An interpretation of skull structure in penguins. In: Stonehouse, B. (Ed.), The Biology of Penguins. University Park Press, Baltimore, MD, pp. 59–84. - International Penguin Conservation Work Group - Antarctica: Valued, Protected, Understood: Penguins. Australian Government Antarctic Division. - Order Sphenisciformes. Animal Diversity Web. - Penguins InfoBook. SeaWorld/Busch Gardens. - Adaptation. The Case of Penguins. Visionlearning. - New Zealand Penguins - Falklands Penguins - Nature: The World of Penguins. PBS. - KidZone: Penguins - Penguins Around the World - Pete & Barb's Penguin Pages Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Joseph W. Brown at Page copyright © 2005 Joseph W. Brown Page: Tree of Life Sphenisciformes. Spheniscidae. Penguins. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies. - First online 15 December 2005 - Content changed 22 August 2008 Citing this page: Tree of Life Web Project. 2008. Sphenisciformes. Spheniscidae. Penguins. Version 22 August 2008 (temporary). http://tolweb.org/Spheniscidae/26387/2008.08.22 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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Kerguelen's Cabbage (Pringlea antiscorbutica), old plant, Peninsula Rallier du Baty, Kerguelen Islands: photo by Denis Barthel, 1983; image by B. navez, 2008 The Island of Desolation: Cook's Third Voyage, aboard the Resolution in the southern ocean, December 1776 The land first seen was an islet, Kerguelen's Isle de Croy, off the north-west point of the main island, one of a small group so lying. Cook hauled off round this group, just weathering the high rock he called Bligh's Cap (now Ilot du Rendez-vous). In the afternoon, with a clearer air, the main shore was in view, an extremely indented one; within its northern promontory lay a promising harbour, which Bligh reported on favourably; and the next day the ships worked up inside almost to the sandy beach at the head. He called the place Christmas Harbour. It was Kerguelen's Baie de l'Oiseau, and retains this name; but Cook, with the sketchy chart he had had, and altogether ignorant of Kerguelen's second voyage, may be excused for making some wrong identifications, and even for being surprised at finding himself preceded here. There was plenty of water -- the whole country was running with it -- but not a tree or a shrub or a piece of driftwood; plenty of penguins, innumerable other sea-birds, and seals whose lack of sophistication made it easy to club them for their oil; a little grass for the cattle; few fish; so really the harbour's promise was a little illusory, except for shelter. The men, however, were given a day off for a Christmas celebration, and one of them brought back a bottle he had found attached to a rock on the north side. It contained a Latin inscription on parchment recording French visits to the country in 1772 and 1773 (though the French officer who left this record did not land until January 1774). Cook had a new inscription put on the other side -- Naves Resolution & Discovery de Rege Magnae Britanniae Decembris 1776 -- and returned it to the bottle with a silver twopenny piece, built a pile of stones on a little rise and put the bottle inside; displayed the British flag and gave the place the name he chose. Whether that signified the 'ridiculous' act of taking possession, as the philosophic Anderson feared it did, we are left to guess. Kerguelen's Cabbage (Pringlea antiscorbutica), Peninsula Rallier du Baty, Kerguelen Islands: photo by B. navez, 18 August 2005 So on the afternoon of that day, 28 December, he went on to the high cape that guarded the harbour in the north, to get a view of the coast. Fog hid all, except the higher land within, quite naked and desolate, and some snow-covered hills to the south. Next morning he left the harbour, and fortunately the fog cleared, the sea was still. There followed two days of such intense coastal observation that at the end of his close-packed pages one realises with difficulty that this is the harvest of two days indeed, and not a week. On the whole this observation of a tortuous shore was accurate, and the greater number of the names Cook gave have survived; and glad we are to find not merely those of royalty and naval personages, not merely the inevitable Sandwich, laid upon the ocean from one end to the other, but 'Point Pringle after my good friend Sir John Pringle Precedent of the Royal Society'. At the end of a day of clearing forelands, islets, rocks, shoals, and even threading the channels between the great beds of kelp, with the lead going all the while, with fog threatening again, the ships put into a small harbour which gave snug enough shelter for the night -- Port Palliser. Cook climbed a hill as usual for the view -- daylight was long -- Gore looked at the land, the masters sounded. Barrenness and desolation again, nothing for cattle, only water, seals, and sea birds for men. So to sea again, and the sight of a lower, more level, less indented piece of country, backed by rocky mountains topped by snow, until Cook had in sight what he was persuaded must be the most southerly point of the land; as night came on a south-west swell added to his conviction that there was no more in that direction, and the wind shifting to the same quarter he stood away from the coast eastwards. Captain James Cook's map of Kerguelen's Land, or Island of Desolation: from Cook's Expedition of 1784 (National Library of Australia) Well: he must summarise his impressions, geographically. The first discoverers, 'with some reason', had imagined the country to be a the projection of a southern continent; 'the English' had since proved that no such continent existed. The country, then, was an island; if any further proof of its limited extent were needed, that could be found in Furneaux's track in 1773, for he had passed it only about seventeen leagues off Cook's most southerly cape and seen nothing. So in latitude it could not much exceed one degree and a quarter -- a remarkably accurate estimate. As to the longitude of its western end he could not say, but it could not stretch as far as 65 degrees E; for he had searched to that point in 1773. And a name? 'Kerguelen's Land', or Kerguelen Island, was not the name he gave: 'from its stirility' he would call it the Island of Desolation. For its natural history he would fall back on Anderson, who had made good use of his four days at Christmas Harbour, and wrote on soil and rocks, the Kerguelen cabbage that he called Pringlea -- he too celebrating the President -- the few other small plants and mosses; three different penguins, clearly described; shags, ducks, albatrosses, three different penguins; an uninviting fish; the fur seal. What could be eaten was eaten. When the captain looked at his own stock, he could feel even less joy. The young bulls, one of the heifers, the rams, most of the goats, bought at at the Cape had died. The islands, it was plain, could not be easily supplied. The animals that were left still ate. Whatever the feelings of animals, there was some relief for men in leaving 'this Cold Blustering Wet Country' (the words of Gore), and 'the Melancholy Croaking of Innumerable Penguins' (the words of Edgar), and steering a course for New Zealand. J. C. Beaglehole: The Life of Captain James Cook, 1974: from Chapter XX, England to New Zealand Again Topographical map of the submerged Kerguelen micro-continent, formed c. 110 million years ago from a series of large volcanic eruptions; the red patch below the suboceanic Kerguelen plateau is the continent of Antarctica. Much of the plateau was above sea level for three periods between 100 million years ago and 20 million years ago. The so-called Kerguelen microcontinent may have been covered by dense conifer forest in the mid-Cretaceous period. It finally sank 20 million years ago and is now 1–2 km (0.62–1.2 mi) below sea level. The presence of sedimentary rocks similar to those found in India and Australia suggests the landmasses were once connected: image by Wiz9999, 10 May 2007 (NOAA) Southern Elephant Seals (Mirounga leonina), young, moulting, northern shore of Kerguelen Islands: photo by B. navez, 21 August 2005 Light-mantled Albatross (Phoebetria palpebrata), Peninsula Rallier du Baty, Kerguelen Islands: photo by Dimitri Damasceno, 20 September 2004 Rockhopper Penguins (Eudyptes chrysocome), Kerguelen Islands: photo by B. navez, 1983/2005 Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina), male, northern shore of Kerguelen Islands: photo by B. navez, 1999

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John M. “Jack” Dogans/Dougans John M. “Jack” Dogans was the only free black in Page County to leave a record of his wartime experience as a Unionist through his Southern Loyalist claim. As one who vocalized his interests in the Union and the hope that its success would result in the freedom for all slaves, Dogan’s life was regularly threatened. In one of the documented incidents, Dogans heard from “old Mr. John Smith” that a party of men said that they meant to “kill that damn nigger [Dogans] down at the furnace.” Following the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, when local merchant David E. Almond assembled several “free negroes” to serve as teamsters with the Confederate army, Dogans was pressed into the service. When Dogans voiced his opinion over the matter, Sheriff Benjamin F. Grayson told him simply that “we’ll shoot you if you don’t go.” After driving a wagon for about sixty days, Dogans returned to Page County and continued to support the Union troops who occupied the county for the balance of the war. Dogans is listed as Dugans in the 1860 Page County census as a forty-one year old mulatto with $45 in real estate. Dogans’ Southern Loyalist Claim was the only claim filed by a former free black in Page County, and was approved by the claims commission.

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I recalled reading from somewhere that arthritis can be caused by high acidity in the body. I knew that acidity has something to do with our pH level but I never really paid much attention to it. In fact, I am not even aware of the implication of the pH level indicated in my medical test reports. So I embarked on a research to gain more understanding and I found that an imbalanced pH can actually affect our health. I got even more interested when I read that an imbalanced pH not only can cause arthritis but osteoporosis, kidney ailments and a host of other diseases. According to Wellness Watchers MD, pH imbalances can cause accelerated aging, demineralization, fatigue, impaired enzyme activity, inflammation which leads to inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and organ damage. It can also cause proliferation of harmful microorganisms which can lead to cancer. I find it interesting that pH imbalances can cause inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. Could this mean the same as what was suggested by Stanford University School of Medicine's study that "osteoarthritis is in great part driven by low-grade inflammatory processes"? (see post on OA still exist after TKR?). If this is the case, I wonder why there is a lack of awareness on the importance of pH balance. So what is a pH balance? pH stands for potential of hydrogen and it is a balance between acidity and alkalinity in our body which is referred as Acid-Base Balance. It is not easy to create a normal pH balance in our body due to all the acid-forming foods in our diet, exposure to toxins and high stress levels. As a result, many people suffer from over-acidification. A high alkaline level means that there is excessively low acidity in the body. However, most people with imbalance are usually too acidic and this has been claimed to cause many degenerative diseases. But too much of alkalinity is also not a good thing as it can lead to other serious health problems. Therefore, we need to have a healthy pH balance to ensure proper function of organs. The level of pH is measured on a scale of zero to 14. The lower the pH, the more acidic. The higher the pH, the more alkaline. The neutral pH is 7 and 7.4 is considered to be a healthy pH level which is slightly alkaline. The pH in our blood is the most important in order to ensure proper body functions. However, to measure the pH of blood is not so convenient as we need to visit our doctor to get our blood drawn to do a venous plasma pH test. So an alternative is to test our saliva and urine pH as it is very convenient. It may not be as accurate as the blood pH test but it is a good indication. This can be done with pH test strips or digital pH meters which can be purchased from pharmacies. It is best to do the test upon waking up in the morning and before taking our breakfast. Do this for several days to get an average result. If the test is done at other time of the day, it should be at least two to three hours after eating a meal. Ideally, we should try to achieve a more balanced pH in our body by consuming more Alkaline Food which includes most fresh fruits and green vegetables. Dairy foods, meat, bread, chocolate, alcohol, carbonated drinks, certain teas and coffee are very acidic. As an alternative, drinking alkaline water will help to increase our pH level. Water accounts for up to 75% of our body thus, the fluid intake greatly affects the pH of our body. Unfortunately, most of the water we consume are acidic. Therefore, drinking alkaline water will help to balance the pH level. Alkaline water has a pH value between 9 and 11 on the pH scale so it is very effective for developing an ideal pH of 7.4. Now how do we get alkaline water? Well, there are so many alkaline water dispenser machines in the market being sold at thousands of dollars. Not many of us can afford this. So the most inexpensive way is to drink lemon water. Lemon has a pH level of 9 and it contain many substances - notably citric acid, calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, bioflavonoids, pectin and limonene that promote immunity and fight infection. Lemons have been shown to be helpful for reducing some of the symptoms of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. They are acidic in its basic state but because of its very low sugar content and high alkaline mineral content, lemons actually have an alkalising effect on the body. Therefore, it helps to raise the alkalinity level in our body. We can squeeze half a lemon into one cup of water or squeeze one whole lemon into a bottle of water. Now because lemon is still acidic before it enters into our body, we should rinse our mouth after drinking lemon water so that it does not corrode our teeth. Another inexpensive alkaline water which I read about is baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). Yes, we all know that baking soda is used in baking cakes and a lot of other purposes. It has been a home remedy for a long time. Baking soda is actually Sodium Bicarbonate which can be used as an antacid. That's why it can be dissolved in water to relief heartburn, acid reflux and indigestion. When dissolved in water, baking soda has almost the same pH as alkaline water. Its true because I have tested it. The common recommendation to increase alkalinity is 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water to be taken on an empty stomach preferably once in the morning and once before bedtime. Baking soda should not be taken immediately after eating as it may interfere with digestion. When baking soda is mixed with water, there is carbonation so make sure that the solution settles down and is completely dissolved before drinking. It is advisable not to overuse baking soda. Lemon juice and baking soda can be combined to create a pH of 7 which can help to reduce acidity and neutralize the sodium in baking soda. The common recommended amount is 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water. It has a neutral flavor so its easy to drink. In summary, I feel that besides drinking lots of water and regular exercise (see Water & Arthritis post), a healthy pH balance is another important factor to maintain good health. Deep breathing exercise is another good thing to do in order to increase oxygen in our body. Basically, these are simple things that we can do to improve our health without burning holes in our pockets. Note: Since baking soda contain sodium and is considered as medicine, you need to consult a doctor before using it especially if you take medicines and have certain health conditions. |pH Test Strips| During my research, I came across interesting claims that baking soda can cure cancer and improve kidney function. Here are some links for you to check out.

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Historical Map: Rapid Transit Plan by the City of Seattle, 1920 Here’s an interesting map that shows a plan for rapid transit that city engineers envisioned for Seattle way back in 1920, almost 100 years ago! The map shows a subway running beneath Third Avenue from Virginia to Yesler, coming to the surface near the railroad stations – essentially the route followed by the present-day Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Trains going up to Capitol Hill would follow a line up Pine Street that would be alternately underground and elevated, ending at 15th Avenue East. An elevated line would serve Pigeon Point in West Seattle, while surface rapid transit would connect with the existing streetcar service at stations in Fremont, lower Queen Anne, and the University District. Source: Seattle Municipal Archives/Flickr Submission – Fantasy Map: Pacific Northwest (USA and Canada) Regional Rail Submitted by opspe, who says: This is my concept for what an integrated regional inter-city rail network in the Northwest could look like, if things had developed that way. All there is now (regionally) is Cascades, which I ride all the time, but it’s still rather limited. I decided to include the local commuter rail lines (WES, Sounder, WCE) too. I also decided to beef up CalTrans a bit - they don’t actually serve Redding, although it’s in discussion. I sort of based the concept on the National Rail network in the UK, although things had to be scaled up a bit. The area shown is about 2.5 times the size of the UK, after all. I decided to include the main communities the lines pass through, rather than have a ton of whistle stops. To me that makes it feel more…functional, for lack of a better word - more like a proper, seamless system. That being said, I think the scale belies the vastness of the region, so if I were to make smaller-scale maps for individual routes, I would probably include “whistle-stop sections” along the route. But that’s TMI for an overview. The routes are all current rail lines, in various states of freight usage or disrepair. I think the section between Juntura and Burns has been scrubbed entirely, but the grade is still there. There are several other minor infrastructure adjustments that would be needed too (downtown Hillsboro comes to mind). As far as design goes, it seemed best to include some stylized geographical accuracy rather than have it be too rectilinear. I tried to make the route names somewhat geographic, but I also numbered them for clarity. Route 1 (CascadesExpress) I had imagined as being a high-speed line, as opposed to the more local routes 2 and 3. Together they replace Amtrak Cascades (but keep the name for continuity). Tumblr and/or Dropbox will likely crush the resolution, but the idea is that it’s supposed to be a big map, such as you would find mounted inside a station, or as a PDF online. I’m curious what you think of it. Transit Maps says: Overall, this is a fine effort, which could just use a little polishing here and there to make it a quite excellent fantasy map. A couple of areas stand out to me for potential improvements: First, the insets at the top, right and bottom of the map – all for just a few stations each – really make it look like you just ran out of room and didn’t want to go back and rework things. There’s lots of room on a map this big to tighten things up and make everything fit without insets. Even bringing all your stations just a tiny bit closer together across the entire map can create a surprising amount of extra space. For mine, insets should only be used when the complexity of the system at that point can’t reasonably be shown any other way: the inset of the Loop on the official Chicago “L” map stands as a good example of this. Secondly, you could work a little more on stylizing and simplifying your coastline and rivers. The San Juan Islands look particularly blocky to me, and I think the Columbia River would look so much nicer if it had sweeping curves as it changed direction, rather than the harsh angles you currently have. Remember, the style of your background should complement your route lines, not draw attention away from them. I also think the thick black border around your legend is a little heavy handed, but that’s a very minor thing. One thing on the operational aspect of your system (which I don’t normally comment on too much, preferring just to focus on the technical and aesthetic qualities of the map)… I’m not sure any regional/commuter rail system would ever run a route one way up one side of a river and the other direction on the opposite bank like you’ve done with Line 12 in British Columbia. It’s just not at all practical for users! Imagine if I live in Agassiz, and I commute to Vancouver each day: I drive my car to Agassiz station and catch the train. Coming home, I can only return to Chilliwack, which is nowhere near where I left my car. Maybe there are shuttle buses between the two stations, but that just seems incredibly inefficient. I would suggest that most regional rail systems would have one route along the side of the river that serves the most people, or maybe – just maybe! – they’d split the service (but halve the frequency) in both directions on both sides of the river. I talked about Sound Transit’s station icons in this review of the Link map that’s found in ST’s timetable book back in December 2012. Like you, I’m not particularly impressed by them. I think they’re overly detailed and they reproduce terribly at small sizes. They’re even kind of hard to make out on the strip maps on trains — becoming vague, blobby shapes — which is really not a good thing for an icon. It’s kind of funny that in the questionnaire you reference above, Sound Transit uses Lance Wyman’s gorgeous Mexico City Metro icons as a point of reference, because they’re the absolute opposite of the Seattle icons — bold and simple, with each one being immediately visually distinctive from another. However, icons are here to stay, as they’re mandated by Washington state law. From RCW 81.112.190 - Requirements for Signage: The signage [for any light-rail system in Washington state] must also use distinguishing symbols or pictograms developed by the authority as a means to identify stations and may identify points of interest along the corridor for persons who use languages that are not Roman-alphabet based. Seeing as Seattle is stuck with icons, you might as well try and get the best ones you can. If you like in Seattle and have an opinion, then you should take the survey — here’s a proper link to it. Historical Map: Aerial View of the Puget Sound Area, Washington, c. 1940 An old postcard showing a colorised aerial photo of Seattle and the Puget Sound. Points of interest and the ferry routes of the era (pre-Washington State Ferries, which only commenced service in 1951) have then been added to the image. It’s these ferry routes which allow us to date this charming postcard to somewhere between 1935 and 1942. The little Fletcher Bay to Brownsville ferry route (centre left on the photo) only operated between 1924 and 1942, while the Colman Dock (Seattle) to Manchester route only ran after 1935, when the old eastern terminus dock at Alki Point washed out. Historical Map: Kroll’s Standard Map of Seattle, 1914 As Seattle continues with its expansion of light rail (East Link, University Link) and streetcar (Capitol Hill streetcar), here’s a look back at the city 99 years ago. This isn’t a transit map per se — rather, it’s a map of the city that also happens to show the transit network in no uncertain terms. The thick dark lines that traverse the city like veins are all streetcars, cable cars and interurban trains. Main line trains are shown by more conventional “railway line” ticked strokes — these travel to King Street Station (still in use by Amtrak and Sounder trains today) and the adjacent Union Station, which now houses the offices for Sound Transit. View a full-size version of the map here. (Source: Rob Ketcherside/Flickr) Unofficial Map: Crosscut’s Seattle Link Light Rail Strip Map Crosscut, a non-profit news website centered on Washington State’s Puget Sound Region, has been talking about Link light rail’s signage for a while now. Their point about the minimal directional signage at SeaTac Airport to guide you to the train is valid, but their problem with Link’s own in-car strip map is less well founded. They recently called for new designs as part of a competition, but unfortunately didn’t receive any. So they took it upon themselves to design one, and came up with the map at the bottom of the image above. They seem to think it successful, but I have to disagree in just about every respect. The main problem with their redesign is that it doesn’t take into account where the map is to be used. It’s meant to sit above the door of a light rail carriage, which means it’s around six-and-a-half feet off the ground. Unless you’re very tall, you’re never going to get closer than about a foot to it. The train will often be crowded, and that means you may have to read it from even further away than that, while the train is moving. Simplicity, large type and ease of use are paramount. I chose the image above because it simulates those typical viewing conditions. The top image shows the current strip map, the bottom one is a hastily composited version of the Crosscut map onto the same picture. At the same viewing distance, almost all of the extra information Crosscut has included is absolutely impossible to read, and even the station names are smaller. The huge lists of every bus route that connects with Link are useless, as are the points of interest listed at each station. If bus routes had to be included on a map like this, I would advocate that only frequent or rapid routes be shown. The twists and turns in the route line on the Crosscut map make the one really vital piece of information that a traveller needs to know — how many stops until I get off? — that much harder to find. It’s much easier to visually scan along a straight line than a bent one. A straight line also acts as a subtle guarantee of directness and speed, while a bent one implies a circuitous and longer trip. Yes, it’s propaganda (and sometimes close to a lie), but that’s one of the reasons that route lines are straightened out. Crosscut also mention (but don’t show) the possibility of adding QR codes to the map for further information, but really — who’s going to hold their smart phone up to a map mounted above the door to scan a QR code? The one part of the Crosscut map that I agree with — the deletion of the awful “Constellation” icons — may not even be possible. I seem to recall being told that their inclusion was mandatory as a visual aid for illiterate transit users. Packing an in-car strip map with all this extraneous information is poor information design, and would be much better left to a unified system of system maps, locality maps, and wayfinding signage. Which already exists at most Link stations. (Source for original “before” photo: Alex Abboud/Flickr) Submission: Official Map, Seattle Central Link Light Rail Submitted by Joshua Fan, who says: This is an official map of Seattle’s Central Link light rail line, which opened in 2009. It appears in the official guide of all of Sound Transit’s services, which can be found in this PDF on the Sound Transit website (this map is on page 22). Frankly, I am quite disappointed in this map: it tries to both diagrammatic and geographical, but fails on both counts (which is a common mistake that you have pointed out on several previously-reviewed maps). Between stations, the map attempts to portray a semblance of geography on the line between stations, but the distances are incorrect: for example, the downtown stations at the north end are much farther apart on this map than they are in reality. The depiction of water is even worse: the map shows a lot of details in the shoreline, suggesting that it reflects the actual geography, but however the shape of the shoreline in the map is a really ugly distortion of the reality. I am curious about what you think about it! Transit Maps says: The problem with this map is that it’s trying way too hard to make Seattle’s single line of light rail look more impressive than it really is. So it (unnecessarily) shows a lot of the twists and turns in the route and some pseudo-geographic coastline, and adds some optimistic information about the time it takes to get between key stations. It’s not the worst map out there, but it’s really pretty dull. Once North Link and East Link get added to the equation, things should start looking a little more exciting. If I was drawing this map, I’d keep the big turns in the line: the kink eastward through Tukwila which then turns north to Rainier Beach, and the Beacon Hill tunnel: the rest, I’d straighten out completely. The weird kink south of Rainier Beach is totally extraneous on a map like this. My main problem with the Seattle map will always be the icons used to mark each of the stations. Not only do they reproduce horribly at smaller sizes — like on this printed map — but the rationale behind them is the worst type of retroactive design-speak. For those who don’t know, the idea is that “points of interest” near the station are plotted as “stars”, and from these stars, “constellations” created as the station icons. Conveniently, the points of interest always seem to fall just where required in order for something relevant to be designed for each station. Some very selective choosing of those “interesting” places, I think. Here’s a link to a PDF that tells you more about the Constellations for those who are interested. Where Am I Again? A marked-up map sitting on my desk of transit projects in Seattle somehow ends up looking uncannily like the New York subway map. Unofficial Future Map: Seattle East Link Light Rail (Segment A) Hey, I got to make a transit map for work! This base map will eventually show all the issues (and solutions) that my company has identified for this part of the corridor, but I can’t show you that part, just the map itself. These “issues maps” are usually created from GIS data overlaid on a low-quality aerial photo, so it’s definitely nice to break the mould and create something more visually compelling and stylish. Using 30- and 60-degree angles instead of the usual 45 degrees: this is one of those rare occasions where it’s actually more appropriate.

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AN American researcher on the trail of long-lost Atlantis says he will lead an expedition next year to prove the mythological civilisation lies in the watery deep between Cyprus and Syria. Robert Sarmast believes Atlantis did exist and that his quest is not a wild goose chase inspired by the ramblings of an ancient Greek philosopher thousands of years ago. "All the evidence points here. This is where civilisation started," he said in Cyprus today. Sarmast lives in Los Angeles. Plato suggested that the civilisation of Atlantis was destroyed in a deluge around 11,500 years ago. The Mediterranean island of Cyprus is its pinnacle, says Sarmast. Sarmast, an architect, says he has found evidence suggesting man-made structures on an initial expedition some 80 km off the south-east coast of Cyprus in November 2004. The outlines of what he says is a long wall which forms a right angle were detected by sonars, scanners which use sound pulses to map the sea bed. He plans to return to the site for a closer look by May, 2006 with remote operated vehicles which will attempt to blast away sediment on a selected site lying 1.5 km below sea level. "There is not one scientist in the world who can explain these formations as natural ones," said Sarmast, who said he had clinched a contract with a Hollywood production house to produce a two hour documentary next year. According to Plato, Atlantis was an island where an advanced civilisation developed some 11,500 years ago. Some also believe it to be Garden of Eden, where mankind fell from God's Grace. Theories abound to why it disappeared, from Atlantis being hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster - an event which is accounted in many of the world's varied ancient civilisations, to being destroyed by the wrath of Zeus because it became too powerful. It is invariably placed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Greek island of Santorini, Spain's Azores and even farther afield in the South China Sea. But the sceptics suggest Atlantis never existed anywhere but in Plato's long decayed brain. The Australian

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|University of California, Berkeley| |Directory News Site Map Home| California Moss eFlora |Jan 1 2013 ·| Blindia is a strictly epipetric moss that ranges from alpine sites to near sea level in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon (it would not be unreasonable to look for cryptic divergence between lowland and montane populations). Blindia closely resembles a Dicranum both in gross morphology (acrocarpous moss with smooth median cells and subulate leaves), and in microscopic features (strongly demarcated and inflated alar regions). Familiarity with the single local species of this genus involves a recognition of its small size relative to Dicranum as well as the silky look provided by the regularly arranged, narrowly subulate leaves. The rust-red to russet coloration of the rather glossy plants provides an additional signal character. Blindia is encountered on boulders in the splash zone of creeks and rivers, rock walls of waterfalls, or on rock surfaces wet by snow melt. see Keys to Dicranum, Kiaeria Etc. Blindia acuta (Hedwig) Bruch & W. P. Schimper Copyright © 2013 Regents of the University of California We encourage links to these pages, but the content may not be downloaded for reposting, repackaging, redistributing, or sale in any form, without written permission from the University and Jepson Herbaria.

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Population: Maine ranks 41st out of 50 states when it comes to population with 1,328,188 residents (according to 2011 census data) Size: 39th largest state by area Largest City: Portland The northernmost and easternmost state on the East Coast, Maine is the first place in the United States to see the sunrise. Once part of Massachusetts, Maine became a state in 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise. Maine's nickname "Vacationland" stems from the fact that the state, particularly the coast, which is very popular with summer tourists. The world famous Maine lobsters are harvested in the Atlantic Ocean all along the coast, but particularly on the Midcoast. There is a frontier, rural feeling to Maine and the state is known for the beauty of its wilderness. Acadia National Park, one of the most popular parks in the National Park Service, attracts more than two million visitors per year. The terminus of the Appalachian Trail is also in Maine. Maps of Maine Top Attractions/Things to Do in Portland, Maine Top Attractions/Things to Do in Maine Books About Maine A list of suggestions for travel books and websites about Maine. This article also has links to fiction books set in Maine.

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Note: MTSS is the new terminology for RTI - it stands for Multi-Tiered System of Support. The next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) will use the MTSS terminology instead of RTI. School-wide positive behavior intervention and supports (SW-PBIS) is a system of tools and strategies for defining, teaching, and acknowledging appropriate behavior. It is a framework for creating customized school systems that support student outcomes and academic success. SW-PBIS is for the whole school, it is preventative, and it changes the paradigm of focus from negative behaviors and exchanges to positive expectations and interactions. There are four main elements in SW-PBIS: - Data-based decision making, which is the corner stone of the behavior problem-solving process - Customized practices to support student behavior, such as defining and teaching appropriate behavior - Creation of systems to support educators in the school, such as school-wide behavioral expectations and indicators - These combine to enable school-wide outcomes, which promote social proficiency and academic success School-wide means that educators support appropriate behavior in classroom and non-classroom (bathrooms, assemblies, hallways) contexts. This support happens along a continuum from Tier 1 for all students and Tier 2 for a small group of students to Tier 3 for individual students. The goal is to create an environment that sets up ALL students for success. An important aspect of SW-PBIS is the understanding that appropriate behavior and social competence is a skill that requires direct teaching to students just like math and reading. There is no assumption, in SW-PBIS, that students will learn social behavior automatically or pick it up as they go through life. This critical feature in SW-PBIS leads to its effectiveness (a short video of SW-PBIS success). For more information: School-wide PBIS - a more in depth introduction to SW-PBIS Is School-wide Positive Behavior Support an Evidence-based Practice - information about the evidence-base and effectiveness of SW-PBIS

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Protocols have been developed to promote dissolution of canine and feline struvite uroliths, the dissolution of canine ammonium urate and cystine uroliths, and the prevention of all major types of canine and feline uroliths. However, because the underlying causes of different types of uroliths vary, medical protocols that promote their dissolution and prevention vary. The objective of the first article in this two-part series is to summarize diagnostic caveats derived from our experience with medical management of urolithiasis during the past 25 years. When the diagnosis of the underlying causes of urolith formation becomes the rule rather than the exception, therapeutic failures will become the exception rather than the rule. Therapeutic caveats will follow in next month's Diagnotes. 1. Uroliths are always the sequela of one or more underlying inherited, congenital, and/or acquired disorders. Therefore, detection of uroliths should not be accepted as an endpoint of diagnostic investigation. 2. Although some types of uroliths occur with greater frequency in some species and breeds, breed predisposition should not be used as primary criteria for diagnosis of the mineral composition of uroliths. For example, of 9,541 uroliths formed by Dalmatian dogs and submitted to the Minnesota Urolith Center, 9,095 were composed of urates. However, 185 were of mixed composition, 155 were compound stones, 43 were struvite, 21 were composed of calcium oxalate, four were composed of silica, three were composed of cystine and three were composed of calcium phosphate. 3. Urocystoliths and urethroliths that occur in immature dogs and cats are usually composed of struvite caused by infections with urease producing microbes (especially staphylococci). Metabolic uroliths (such as calcium oxalate and cystine uroliths) are uncommonly encountered in immature patients. Two notable exceptions to this generality are the formation of ammonium urate uroliths in dogs with portovascular anomalies, and formation of cystine uroliths by Newfoundlands. 4. Most feline nephroliths are composed of calcium salts (calcium oxalate or calcium phosphate). Calcium containing nephroliths are being recognized with increased frequency in cats with chronic renal failure. Only about 5 percent of feline nephroliths 5. Palpation of the urethra (including palpation per rectum) should routinely be performed in patients suspected of having 6. Most (~90 percent) urocystoliths in cats cannot be detected by abdominal palpation. Radiographic or ultrasonographic evaluation of the urinary tract is required to detect them consistently. 7. It may be impossible to palpate urocystoliths in a patient with a distended or overdistended urinary bladder. The urinary bladder should be palpated after urine has been eliminated by (depending on circumstances) voiding, manual compression, cystocentesis 8. Detection of crystals in urine is proof that the urine sample is oversaturated with crystallogenic substances. However, in vitro oversaturation may occur in addition to, or instead of, in vivo events. Therefore, care must be used not to over-interpret the significance of crystalluria. In vitro crystal formation may have no clinical relevance to in vivo formation of crystals. 9. Change in temperature associated with preservation of urine by refrigeration is a common cause of in vitro crystalluria. Therefore, presence of crystals in stored samples should be validated by reevaluation of fresh urine. 10. In vitro changes in urine pH also cause changes in crystalluria. When substantial time is expected to lapse between the urine collection and urine analysis, urine pH values should be obtained immediately following collection and again at the time of the analysis. Differences between the two pH values suggest that in-vitro changes have occurred, and should be considered when interpreting the significance of crystalluria. This is especially important when sending samples to diagnostic laboratories. 11. Urine pH values obtained by strips (colorimetric dyes) may vary by as much as 0.5 unit on either side of the observed value. This variation is associated with logarithmic changes in hydrogen ion concentration. Therefore, when precise urine pH values are needed, they should be obtained with the aid of a portable pH meter. 12. Urine samples collected and submitted by clients are often unreliable because unknown variables including contamination, temperature and length of storage, and changes in urine pH may result in formation or dissolution of crystals after sample 13. Consider the patient's diet when interpreting the significance of crystalluria because crystalluria may also be influenced by diet (including water intake). Dietary influence on crystalluria is of diagnostic importance because urine crystal formation that occurs while patients are consuming hospital diets may be dissimilar to urine crystal formation that occurs when patients are consuming diets fed at home. 14. Struvite crystals are often observed when urine pH is slightly acid (6.5) or alkaline. They are unlikely to be observed when urine pH is - 6.3. 15. Urine sediment should be observed for a tendency of crystal aggregation in addition to crystal type. Crystals that aggregate in vivo represent a greater risk for urolith formation than single crystals. 16. Detection of unusual crystals in the urine of patients receiving medications should prompt consideration that they may be drug metabolites. Drug associated crystalluria in dogs and cats includes sulfadiazine and its metabolites. 17. Characterization of amorphous (i.e. without shape) crystals is especially difficult. Calcium phosphate may form amorphous crystals in alkaline urine; ammonium urate and xanthine may form amorphous crystals in acid urine. Other types of crystals may also be amorphous. Addition of 10 percent acetic acid usually results in dissolution of calcium phosphate crystals and often results in formation of characteristic diamond or rhomboid shaped uric acid crystals from amorphous urate crystals.

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Tectonic Map of North Pole Image courtesy Brian Montgomery, NASA GSFC; data by Paul Lowman and Jacob Yates, NASA GSFC This tectonic relief map of the north pole is the result of new satellite-based technologies which are being used to analyze tectonic activity in the Earth's crust. These maps, known as Digital Tectonic Activity Maps (DTAMs), synoptically depict the architecture of the Earth's crust including current and past tectonic activity. This is significant because it permits researchers to view broad zones of activity over the entire surface of the Earth, rather than focusing on single boundary features. By looking at these "big pictures," scientists can possibly identify regions of activity which were not previously recognized or mapped using traditional methods. For more information, see: DTAM web site Putting Earthquakes in Their Place

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Chagas disease, an insect-borne parasitic disease, is common in Central and South America, with more than 8 million people affected by the illness and over 23,000 deaths from it annually. While commonplace in Latin America, Chagas disease is widely unheard of in the United States — until now. A report from the Center of Disease Control (CDC) warns the public that uncommonly warm weather is encouraging a migration northward of kissing bugs, the insect responsible for transmitting Chagas disease. Though the disease can be asymptomatic and stay dormant for years, there are a few signs to be aware of: - Swelling of one eye - Swollen, red area around the bite - Digestive issues - Abdominal pain - Enlarged liver - Enlarged spleen - Rapid or irregular heartbeat - Swollen lymph nodes Caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T.cruzi), Chagas disease affects a suspected 300,000 people in the United States, though only 7 cases were reported last year. The low incidence of reporting is likely related to how the disease mimics other, less serious issues, and is often without symptoms. People with the highest risks for Chagas disease include: - People living in poverty - People who have received a blood transfusion from an infected donor - Individuals living in huts, thatched buildings, or poorly constructed buildings - People living in or who recently visited Central or South America Back in 1835, Charles Darwin was on a trip to Argentina when he recorded a bite from what he described as a great, wingless, black bug. Darwin wrote of the creepy the sensation of the bugs crawling on his arm, and how the insects were thin before they took their blood meal. According to researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Darwin was likely the victim of kissing bug bites, and while he officially died from heart issues (as many Chagas disease victims do too), it’s entirely possible the condition was aggravated by Chagas disease. A major reason why Chagas disease hasn’t taken firm root yet in the United States is because of the higher building standards in the country. Kissing bugs are fairly large, and they are less likely to get inside homes that are fortified against the elements. The species of kissing bug in the United States is also not the same as the species in Central America carrying the disease, but with warmer weather on the horizon, a suspected influx of the critters puts more families — and pets — at risk. Prevention of Chagas disease: - Good hygiene: T.cruzi can spread through contamination. The bugs which carry the parasite like to hide from daylight, spending their time in the folds of clothing, bedding, and in the dark areas of a home. Keeping linens clean, and washing the bugs off the skin is vital to infestation control - Bathe your pets: Dogs and cats can also carry Chagas disease. This makes their fur and bedding prime locations for kissing bugs to hide. - Home improvements: Kissing bugs are too large to fit through the average screen on a window. Homes that are most susceptible to infestation are those in a poor state of repair. Making small changes, like installing screens on windows and doors, can mean keeping the parasites at bay. - Insecticides: Just as a homeowner can spray for ants, there are insecticide sprays on the market for kissing bugs. Always use with caution around homes with pets and children. - Natural predators: There are animals out in nature that will eat kissing bugs. Snakes, lizards, and potato bugs are predators to the Chagas-carrying insects. Despite the all-natural appeal of using animals against animals, sometimes the snakes, lizards, and other predators can be just as much of a pest around the home. There is little doubt Chagas disease is moving into the United States. Research involving kissing bugs in Arizona and California revealed 38 percent of the tested bugs had recently fed on human blood. Fifty percent of the specimens tested carried the parasite responsible for Chagas disease. - Could Chagas disease be the next HIV? A new report on Chagas disease from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas compares the disease to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, during the first few years of that epidemic. Both diseases are chronic, have a long incubation period, require prolonged treatment, have no definite cure, and affect most the people living in poverty. “Stark similarities exist between today’s global Chagas disease epidemic and the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” wrote the study authors. “This translates into a humanitarian catastrophe for the poorest people in the Americas and elsewhere. This perceptible health disparity demands urgent attention by global health policy makers to prioritize.” Though similar to HIV, Chagas disease is not sexually transmitted, nor does it affect the immune system. Instead, the kissing bug illness causes inflammation of the heart and digestive organs, and can cause irregular heartbeat or heart failure. Experts are pressing for a comprehensive prevention and control strategy including periodical blood screenings, outreach, intervention, education and more research. With homes more frequently being built in remote areas, and with unnaturally warm weather, Chagas disease is considered an emerging illness in the United States and should be watched carefully.

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Without the climate policies called for in President Obama's second-term agenda, the United States would fail to meet a national goal of curbing greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, the State Department said in a report. Emissions will fall 5.3 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 based on projections that account for policies in place by September 2012, according to the report, which was completed as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "We know we must do more, and believe me, we are," said Secretary of State John Kerry. "President Obama's climate action plan will keep the United States on track to reach our goal." The U.S., with Obama's recent emphasis on climate, is attempting to position itself as a leader ahead of international negotiations in 2015 in Paris. Nations there will try to secure a treaty to cut emissions enough by 2020 to avert a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century — a goal that climate scientists warn is slipping away. Still, implementation of the U.S. rules could become tricky. They'll undoubtedly face legal challenges, and some climate experts are concerned political sensitivities might take some of the bite out of the rules. Structurally, though, changes in the energy arena are helping the U.S. cut emissions. Cheap and abundant natural gas pushed emissions to their lowest level in nearly 20 years as more power plants switched to that fuel instead of coal, which is twice as carbon-intensive. Cars are becoming more fuel efficient and will continue that trend as automakers work toward new standards finalized in August 2012 that require cars to get 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Solar panel prices also have come crashing down, and the wind industry, with the help of a 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit, installed a record 13.1 gigawatts of capacity in 2012. As such, emissions have fallen 6.5 percent below 2005 levels, the report said. The industrial sector saw the biggest decline, at 11.2 percent, followed by 10 percent for electricity, 8 percent for transportation, 7.3 percent for residential and 6.5 percent for commercial users. But they will rise "gradually" between 2011 and 2020, owing to a 26 percent population increase and a 69 percent bump in gross domestic product through 2030, the report said. One area for improvement is wider and more rapid adoption of technology that emits fewer greenhouse gases, the report noted. Gains in areas such as energy efficiency could tamp down demand even as the population grows, it noted. Short of that, further regulatory measures could be in the offing. For example, the report identified energy-related carbon dioxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons — a short-lived, highly potent heat-trapping gas used in refrigerants — as areas of potential reductions. The Obama administration is already looking to address carbon through the power plant regulations, and it's working on curtailing hydrofluorocarbons through a bilateral agreement with China. Methane, however, is a different story, as the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't directly regulate the gas. "[A]ssessing the potential achievable reductions of methane emissions in 2020 involves considerable uncertainty," said the State report, which noted several agencies are working on a coordinated strategy to address methane. Environmental groups say that's a problem -- they contend that methane leaks from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could negate the climate benefits of relying on natural gas for the nation's energy. Experts suggest a 3 percent leakage rate would erase the climate positives of natural gas. Fracking involves injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into tight rock formations to unleash hard-to-reach hydrocarbons. It's unleashed a domestic energy boom, but has also invited concerns about groundwater pollution. The oil and gas industry would likely push back against a regulatory approach, as it says that would make fracking costlier. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, for her part, said recently that the agency is constantly reviewing its methane emissions data when confronted with a Harvard University study that said methane emissions were at least 1.5 times higher than EPA estimates. "There are challenges associated with looking at regulating methane itself, but we are certainly looking at every tool available to the EPA, as the president indicated we should," she told reporters last month at a Washington event hosted by the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress.

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Washington is experiencing rapid changes in the landscape in areas where relatively constant, high-velocity winds provide the opportunity to capture wind energy through construction of wind turbines. Many of these areas, particularly in shrub-steppe regions, were formerly unsuitable for other types of land use because of remoteness or topography. For the same reasons, many of these areas provide high quality wildlife habitats including raptor migration paths, nesting areas, and wintering habitats. Technology has improved wind turbine design and placement since the 1980s when studies led by Grainger Hunt identified turbine fatalities as a serious population threat to golden eagles and other raptors near Altamont Pass, California. However, wind turbines continue to be a unique disturbance and potential source of mortality to birds and bats because turbine blades extend into flight zones, the “bread and butter” niche these animals occupy during daily hunting, movements, and migration. Rotating turbine blades constantly change orientation and speed depending on wind conditions, further increasing potential hazards. Infrastructure associated with turbines including roads and powerlines may also affect avian behavior directly because of disturbance or indirectly due to habitat loss. The most concentrated area of wind energy development in Washington is along the Columbia Gorge. This area is used by migrant and wintering raptors and a diverse nesting population including red-tailed hawks, Swainson’s hawks, golden eagles, and ferruginous hawks. Implications of turbines within home ranges of these nesting raptors raise several questions: 1) Do these birds change their home range use after turbines are built? 2) Do they, or their young, experience fatal collisions with the turbines? If so, can fatality be explained as a function of the distance of the turbines to the nest and what part do flight skill and chance play in turbine avoidance? 3) What is the long-term viability and population contribution of raptor nest territories within wind power development zones? Ultimately, the answers to these questions will help us better recommend nest buffer distances before turbine construction, and assess population impacts of expansive turbine development even on the more common raptor species. We began seeking answers to these questions in 2007 when we initiated a study in the Columbia Gorge where several wind projects were in various stages of construction. Our objectives were to: 1) test the utility of GPS telemetry in monitoring the movements and survival of adult raptors before and after turbine construction involving several wind projects; 2) quantify range use associated with existing turbines, and monitor survival and monitor nest activity and productivity of these birds; and 3) for raptors captured prior to turbine construction, evaluate pre-and post construction range use. As of 2009, three golden eagles, nine red-tailed hawks, and six Swainson’s hawks have been captured in the study. Four of these hawks are being monitored outside of the project area associated with other wind projects. Fifteen of the eighteen monitored raptors occupied territories. Eight resident birds were captured prior to turbine construction, but only three of these birds have been monitored post-construction as a result of mortality (2), unknown loss of PTT signal (1), and delayed construction (2). The remaining eight birds have been monitored after turbine construction. None of the telemetered raptors were known to have died in turbine collisions, although at least 4 red-tailed hawks, a golden eagle, and a prairie falcon were confirmed fatalities near turbines associated with these wind projects since the beginning of 2009. Eight PTTs remain active at the beginning of 2010. We are presently analyzing movement and altitude data from this work. In spring, 2010, the study will change focus to examine ferruginous hawk range use associated with wind turbines on the Washington and Oregon sides of the Columbia River in a study funded by WDFW and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. We have captured and monitored three adult ferruginous hawks as part of the pilot work for this study. The effort is half of a study part of a larger cooperative effort with the wind industry, agency, and non-governmental organizations to address concerns related to adult and juvenile ferruginous hawk ecology in wind power project areas.

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UK & World News Kangaroos 'Fainting' In Australia Heatwave Bats are said to be dropping from trees and kangaroos collapsing with exhaustion as Australia basks in a record-setting heatwave. Weather forecasters Down Under say some parts of the sparsely populated Pilbara region along the rugged northwest coast approached 50C (122F) on Thursday. The overall record high of 50.7C (123.3F) for the country was set in 1960 in Oodnadatta, South Australia state. It is expected to be broken in the next few days if current conditions continue. In the last few weeks, records many years old have been broken in northern parts of the massive country. Since December 27, records have been set at 34 locations across Australia - some by large margins. In the mining town of Narrabi in New South Wales, the new record of 47.8C (118F) exceeded the previous record by 3.6C (6.5F). The extreme temperatures come on the heels of Australia's hottest year on record in 2013, beating the previous record year of 2005, with mean temperatures 1.2C (2.2F) above the 1961-90 average. Western Australia resident Gian Tate, 60, from Emu Creek, in the Pilbara region, said she was spending all day under a fan to cope with the intense heat "We've just got to live with it; there's nothing you can do," she said. Karly Braganza, manager of climate monitoring at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said the late arrival of the monsoon in northern Australia, which has a cooling effect, is contributing to the searing heat. He said global warming was also playing a role. In Winton, famous for being one of the hottest spots in Queensland, a "large number" of parrots, kangaroos and emus have recently been found dead. Tom Upton, chief executive of Winton Shire Council, said: "That's as much to do with the extended dry as it is with the heatwave." Conservationists say at least 50,000 bats have been killed by the heat in the state's southeast. Hunters say exhausted kangaroos are staying constantly around waterholes. Brazil is also sizzling, with the heat reaching 49C (120F). Zookeepers in Rio de Janeiro have been giving animals ice pops to beat the heat. The southern hemisphere's high temperatures have come as parts of North America have been locked in a deep freeze caused by a "polar vortex'. :: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

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Is California agriculture part of our air quality problem, or is it part of the solution? This summer, the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will hold public hearings on new rules that sharply reduce air emissions from farm fumigants. These gaseous pesticides clear the soil of weeds, insects, and mold for a wide variety of crops, from carrots in Kern County to strawberries on the Ventura coast. Unfortunately, fumigants also contribute to smog. Under the federal Clean Air Act, most regulatory efforts against smog for the past two decades have focused on vehicles, gasoline, and stationary sources such as power plants and factories. But as growers have shifted to higher-value fruit and vegetable crops, they have used more fumigants. Three areas – the San Joaquin Valley, the Southeast Desert, and Ventura County – now fail to meet pesticide air goals. Last year, a federal judge ruled that DPR must put unprecedented restrictions in place by January 1, 2008. The truly daunting challenge is whether we can meet our environmental obligations and sustain a farm economy that produces more than half the fresh fruits and vegetables for our nation. Some critics of agriculture would simply ban pesticides, but reality and environmental sensibilities are far more complex. The shift to higher-value crops and more fumigant use, for example, is one side effect of a statewide real estate boom. Farmers who lease their fields have a hard time competing with land speculators. And farmers who owned land have good reason to cash out before the next commodity price downturn, drought, or flood pulls them into debt for years to come. With so much riding on every year’s crop, it’s little wonder that lenders and landowners require growers to fumigate their fields – whether they wanted to or not – to ensure profitability. DPR discovered this several years ago, as we undertook efforts to help growers develop fumigant alternatives and other least-toxic pest management strategies. In the process, we also saw many farmers grow more environmentally sustainable – finding the right, long-term balance to meet the needs of nature and people. Examples abound: Green buffer zones promote natural eco-systems and prevent runoff from orchards. Wine grape growers embrace a comprehensive manual that guides everyday activity, from vineyard management to employee and community relations. Old-fashioned practices encourage natural pest control, while cutting-edge technology uses computers to apply the smallest amount of least-toxic chemicals. Now we must do more, and California’s future landscape hangs in the balance. While DPR is absolutely committed to cleaner air and a healthier environment for all Californians, the court deadline leaves little regulatory flexibility. DPR must reduce fumigant emissions by 38 percent in the San Joaquin Valley -- and more than 50 percent in Ventura County and the Southeast Desert -- under rules that must take effect next year. Some commodity groups already fear a farm exodus. If that occurs, every ton of agricultural emissions could be multiplied tenfold by development. Strip malls, suburban tracts and street traffic create far more pollution than agriculture. Yet development provides none of the benefits of food production – unless you count the fast-and-fried take-out variety. In Ventura County, land use restrictions and local ordinances have stitched together a crazy-quilt pattern of farming, suburbia, and business that ensures air emissions and use conflicts. Even when farmland has been permanently preserved, its mere presence has become a major irritant to neighboring homes and business. Or as one local official put it, “You can’t farm and you can’t get out of farming – that’s our motto here in Ventura.” That motto could become a statewide mantra unless we develop overall environmental policies that are more cooperative and comprehensive, rather than confrontational. We must recognize that every segment of our society has some value in the overall scheme of things. Grow crops or suburbs? It’s a false choice for the environment to swap one source of smog for another that could be worse. DPR’s pesticide air strategy is consistent with Governor Schwarzenegger’s commitment to clean up our air and take action against global warming. At the same time, the Governor has rightly insisted that environmental and economic priorities must co-exist and should complement each other. In our case, this means stressing low-emission pesticide air applications for now, and more creative alternatives for the future. Last month, DPR held a two-day air emissions symposium in Sacramento that brought together agricultural and environmental stakeholders, government agencies, and academic authorities to discuss research needs. At the national level, such research has lagged for two reasons. First, other agricultural states have not yet felt pressure from the Clean Air Act. Second, there was a lack of national leadership on global warming until Governor Schwarzenegger filled that void. Now that we are beginning to see a change in the political climate, state and federal agencies need to pool their resources and join the private sector to make up for lost time in dealing with agricultural air emissions. Meanwhile, we’re already working with one commodity group on a transition away from fumigants. This biological solution could also make thousands of acres of fallow farmland productive once again. On another front, we’re exploring partnerships with private foundations that want to fund new research that can assure agriculture’s future. Certainly, it would be easier for DPR to cite our legal directives, shrug our shoulders, and ignore the consequences for agriculture. But to create a California that is truly a model of progress and diversity for the rest of the nation, we need an environment – natural and economic – that serves and sustains us for generations to come. Change is in the air, and we will adapt to it.

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In computer processing, if a processor changes the value of an operand and then, at a subsequent time, fetches the operand and obtains the old rather than the new value of the operand, then it is said to have seen stale data. On a uniprocessor, stale data cannot be tolerated. It would mean that the processor violated fundamental expectations about its own behavior. On shared memory multiprocessors, however, it is considered acceptable for machines to generate stale data on operands shared between processes. For such operands, the expectation is that programs will take precautions ( atomic instructions or critical section routine ) to prevent stale data from being seen.

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Tail: 1-3 ft. long Weight: 19-27 lbs. Coloration: Black body; glossy black fur; mantle at sides of body and tail tassel, white. The face has no fur, and is surrounded by a white brow and full beard as seen here. The outside of their thigh has a distict patch of white. The younger colobus monkey does not have this coloration, instead they are pure white for the first few weeks. Digestive System: They have complex stomachs, containing two subregions Interesting characteristics: The colobus monkey only has four digits, the thumb has been replaced by a phalangeal tubercle that has a nail on it. It is believed that this is an adaptation for quicker movements through the trees. They have a prognathous skull, which means the lower jaw projects out farther than the upper jaw.

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embryonic stem cells grown at the University of Wisconsin-Madison randomly changed into cell types found in the them stem cells free But even before the cash spigot opens, the government may close it -- or even try to limit research on human embryonic stem cells, the more promising and controversial type of stem cell. The stakes are huge. Stem cells can transform themselves into literally any cell in the body. They could be more important to medicine than impact wrenches to a grease monkey. Once controlled and fathomed, stem cells could make drugs seem as antiquated as horseless carriages. Here's the revolutionary idea in its simplest terms: Today's medicine tries to support or treat injured tissues and organs. Stem cells might simply replace them. Rather than giving insulin to diabetics, we'd give them new cells to make insulin as needed. To get more mileage from our motor metaphor, we would quit fixing leaky fuel-pump gaskets and simply bolt down a shiny new pump. While most uses of stem cells are highly experimental, they are already used in cancer treatment. After tumors and the patient's bone marrow are both killed by anti-cancer drugs, blood stem cells are squirted into the marrow, where they get a long-term lease and make the whole shmear of blood-cell types. do research into can-do cells We are talking major, menacing diseases that kill and disable millions of people each year. Some of these diseases can be prevented or treated. None can be cured. But before you buy 100 shares of a stem cell conglomerate, remember that these uses remain theoretical. Beyond the ticklish biological problems, research in the United States has confronted a political and ethical quagmire. To some people, taking stem cells from a fetus or embryo amounts to unethical exploitation of human life, and healing one life does not justify destroying another. "We have called on the new administration to make absolutely sure that no destructive stem cell research on embryos is done in this country, regardless of the source of funding," Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, told The New York Times (see "Transition in Washington..." in the bibliography). During his campaign, George W. Bush said he opposed federal financing of "experimentation on embryonic stem cells that require live human embryos to be discarded or destroyed." research = no cure... In late February, 80 Nobel prize-winners wrote the President to support stem cell research. In 1995, Congress banned federal funding for destructive research into human embryos -- the source of the most promising type of stem cells. Last fall, the National Institute of Health issued guidelines allowing funding of research on cells from embryos that otherwise would be discarded. Those guidelines are under review by the Bush Administration, whose Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, supported stem-cell research while governor of Wisconsin. The ethical, political and scientific debates hinge on two distinctions. Second, the source of the cells: Despite the federal restrictions, exciting news about these versatile cells continues to roll down the road. Scientists recently announced that blood stem cells, a type of adult stem cell, form cells that look suspiciously like neurons -- brain cells. And on Feb. 24, Reuters reported that California scientists had used human stem cells to create human neurons in mouse brains. What is the potential of the two flavors of stem cells? How could they help treat one particularly nasty brain disease? Stem the tide! Here's The Why Files Guide to Stem Cells! are 1 2 3 4 pages in this feature. Bibliography | Credits | Feedback | Search

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History of the courts Articles on Wisconsin legal history "Will her thoughts be wrapped up in happiness?" Wisconsin women's struggle for property rights Written by Joseph A. Ranney, Attorney at Law Phone: (608) 283-5612 When Wisconsin became a state in 1848, women were idealized but also condescended to. They were praised as nurturers of the family and preservers of the noble side of human nature, yet for those very reasons they were regarded as unfit to compete with men in the world of commerce and politics. Because of these views, Wisconsin women had to struggle long and hard to gain economic rights close to those which men enjoyed. In 1848, the law of most states gave husbands absolute control over their wives' property. The law viewed women as mere appendages of their husbands. Wisconsin was a little ahead of its time, but not much. In 1850 the Legislature passed a law giving married women control over their own property. However, it did so not to protect women, but rather to protect their husbands by insuring that a husband's creditors could not take the wife's property to pay his debts. Opponents of the law fretted that the law would destroy the family. One opponent asked: If a wife is allowed to control her property, "will her welfare, and feelings and thoughts, and interests be all wrapped up in her husband's happiness, as they now are?" Supporters defended the law in equally conservative terms: Sir, I hope that every member upon this floor will reflect for one moment upon the character and true worth of that class of poor, helpless females that will be benefitted by the law. Who believes that the law will make a fiend of a worthy wife? No one believes it; it is all humbug. For true merit the female sex stand much higher than the male. They know but little of the low, truckling and vacillating demagogism that pervades the male portion of creation, and in that particular their ignorance is a jewel. After the property rights law went into effect in 1850, the courts interpreted it very narrowly and women had to fight hard to preserve their gains. Women could not make wills disposing of their property until 1859, and they did not gain full control over their own wages until 1872. As late as 1892, the Wisconsin Supreme Court continued to send a message that it would fight to preserve the traditional view of women as fragile creatures who needed economic protection, not economic rights. It decided that any woman who invested her property in a family business with her husband surrendered all control over her investment to the husband. The court believed that destroying the husband's authority would destroy the family. In 1890, the court also approved the double standard of sexual conduct for women and men when it held a husband could sue a wife's paramour for interfering with the marriage but the wife could not sue the husband's lover. Justice Silas Pinney explained: With the husband the case is different. He is exposed to the temptations of the world, which easily withdraw him from her society, or cause him to desert or abandon her. The wife had reason to expect all these things when she entered the marriage relation. For these reasons, actions by the wife for the loss of his society would be numberless. The Legislature, taking a more advanced view, soon passed a law overturning this decision. But it would be another 30 years until Wisconsin women obtained laws truly giving them the same legal rights as men. Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's alone. Distributed as a public service by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in honor of the state's sesquicentennial.

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The cookbook is a place for community contributions of recipes, howtos and examples. Complete documentation and tutorials for matplotlib can be found at matplotlib's webpage Sigmoidal Functions - plotting simple functions Multiline Plots - how to plot multiple lines over one another Bar Charts - how to make a bar chart Common Errors - Compilation of common errors that can cause erroneous behavior. Check before emailing mailing lists. /Animations - how to animate your figures. Multicolored Line - different colors for different parts of a line Shaded Regions - how to plot grey shaded regions using transparency. /Arrows - how to plot arrows Unfilled Histograms - how to plot histograms that are un-filled and don't look like bar charts. Cookbook/Histograms - 2D histograms with variable bin width. Custom Log Plot Labels - plotting log plots with custom tick labels that are formatted as integer numbers rather than exponents as is the default. Thick Axes - how to make thick axes lines and bold fonts. /Maps - how to plot data on map projections Plotting values with masked arrays - How to plot only selected values of an array, because some values are meaningless (detector malfunction), out of range, etc. etc. /Transformations - Using transformations to convert between different coordinate systems. TreeMap - classic treemap style plots /Legend - Adding a legend to your plot Hinton Diagrams - A way of visualizing weight matrices Pseudo Color Plots Loading a colormap dynamically - How to load a color map from a GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) file. Show colormaps - Small script to display all of the Matplotlib colormaps, and an exampleshowing how to create a new one. Converting a matrix to a raster image - A replacement for scipy's imsave command Gridding irregularly spaced data - how to grid scattered data points in order to make a contour or image plot. Plotting Images with Special Values - how to plot an image with special values mapped to specific colors, e.g. missing values or data extrema Transformations on Colormaps - how to apply a function to the look up table of a colormap and turn it into another one. Using TeX - formatting matplotlib text with LaTeX LaTeX Examples - Complete examples for generating publication quality figures using LaTeX. NOTE: Experimental work has been going on to integrate 3D plotting functionality into matplotlib. Please see the related mplot3d documentation or take a look at matplotlib gallery for example 3D plots. For a more sophisticated 3D visualization and plotting interface, you can try Mayavi which is actively maintained and features an 'mlab' interface similar to matplotlib's 'pylab'. 3D plots - Simple 3D plots using matplotlibs built-in 3D functions (which were originally provided by John Porter's mplot3d add-on module). VTK Integration - How to import plots into VTK. Embedding Plots in Apps WxMpl - Python module for integrating matplotlib into wxPython GUIs. Cookbook/Matplotlib/ScrollingPlot - Demonstrates how to control a matplotlib plot embedded in a wxPython application with scrollbars. Load and display an image - shows a simple way to import a PNG image to a numpy array Interactive Plotting - Adding mouse interaction to identify data annotations. Qt with IPython and Designer - How to design a GUI using Qt's Designer tool using Matplotlib widgets, and that can be interactively controlled from the IPython command line. Compiling Matplotlib on Solaris 10 - how to compile the thing on Solaris 10, using gcc/g++ Using MatPlotLib in a CGI script - steps needed to be able to use matplotlib from a python cgi script Making Dynamic Charts for your Webpage - Complete CGI script example. matplotlib without GUI by Andrew Dalke. Andrew Straw's Apt Repository - Bleeding edge deb packages for Debian, Ubuntu (also has packages for numpy/scipy etc.). Adjusting Image Size - a brief discussion of how to adjust the size of figures -- for printing, web, etc. Deleting An Existing Data Series - a quick example showing how to remove one data series from an already existing plot. Embedding in Django - example on how to use matplotlib with Django. timeseries scikit - The documentation contains a section on plotting TimeSeries objects using matplotlib /TreeMap - A compact way of showing weighted tree information. Multiple Subplots with One Axis Label - how to use one centered label to annotate several subplots Multiple Y-axis - How to plot different variables on the same plot but different Y-Axis (one left and one right) Creating video of 3D graph plotting using matplotlib and mencoder by Ilya Zakreuski

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ADA and Bookmobiles Q. Are there wheelchair accessibility requirements for bookmobiles? If so, what are they? A. There are two facets to the answer to this question. The first is: is physical accessibility required? The second is: if physical accessibility is required, what are the parameters? In answer to the first question, the Department of Justice has published ADA Guide for Small Towns. It maps out some key examples. If your small town has a small historic town library built before the days of ADA-- The town library is a historic structure that is listed on the State historic register. The two entrances to the facility each have four steps and no accessible entrance is provided. The town consults with an architect to determine if an accessible entrance can be provided and is told that a ramp or lift cannot be added to either entrance without a significant change to the exterior of the building. After reviewing the ADA requirements, the town learns that qualified historic buildings and facilities are not required to take any action that would threaten or destroy the historic significance of a historic property. The State historic preservation office is consulted and it determines that the exterior cannot be modified. Because physical modifications to the entrances cannot be made, the town changes its policies and provides access to the library services in an "alternate manner" upon request. Library staff are trained to take requests over the telephone, to look up information for individuals with disabilities who cannot use the library, to provide information over the telephone, and to provide curbside service for books and library publications or to mail items to individuals upon request. Library staff may also meet with an individual in another accessible location when the telephone service is not effective. The library publicizes a telephone number for requesting these alternate services in its publications and announcements. One "alternate manner" in serving those patrons can be using bookmobiles that come to the library user instead of vice versa. Speaking specifically to library services, the ADA Guide states-- Library services are an example of programs and services offered by many towns. If a library facility or building is not accessible, these services may be offered in a different accessible library facility, in another accessible facility nearby, or in an alternate manner. Some towns with only one library may prefer to modify the entrance to the library and other key elements to provide access. Others that may have a facility that is difficult to make accessible or lack the resources to make essential physical changes may choose to offer the programs and services in an alternate accessible location. What is important is that the same services be available to individuals with disabilities as are offered to others such as doing research, using the card catalog or cataloging device, reading or reviewing items usually held in reserve or special collections, and returning loaned items. The ADA Guide shows an example of an older, smaller bookmobile, explaining, "A drawing of an older bookmobile parked in a parking lot with a person using a scooter approaching the side door. The entry door has steps and no ramp. A call button, located on the side of the bookmobile, is pushed to call the staff person to the door to provide service." There are newer, larger bookmobiles that are ADA compliant and include lifts for disabled patrons.

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Dealing with Russia: A Way Forward Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has been the subject of many editorials and op eds. However, there has not been enough analysis as to why relations with Russia have reached this impasse nor lessons learned on how to manage relations with Russia going forward. With the fall of the USSR in 1991, the US and EU sought through economic and technical assistance to guide Russia toward democracy, civil society and the rule of law. Integration into the post-Cold War European security framework would be accomplished through agreements which committed Russia to respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of European states. Russia, in its initial weakened condition, accepted this approach in the 1990’s as it sought to become a “normal “country. Later, as the economy improved and state structures established, Russia objected to the Western “cookie cutter approach” to development which it viewed as interference in internal affairs and strenuously criticized alleged Western antagonism to Russian security and foreign affairs concerns, particularly NATO expansion and Kosovo. In retrospect, the 2008 Georgia/Russia war was Russia’s signal that the balance of power had changed and that Russia was no longer bound by the West’s post- Cold War system. Ukraine and the Crimean annexation were confirmation of this. The West was slow to recognize these changes in Russia and held the idea that cooperation was possible in areas of common interest; otherwise, there would simply be agreement to disagree. Compounding the problem was a lack of regular policy level consultations which might have shed light on the differences and forged better working relationships. Russians argue that Russian geography, history and culture are unique and that Russia must forge its own path. The Russian Empire took centuries to create, the result of expansion spurred by conquest. The loss of empire with the collapse of the USSR was a huge psychological blow as territories intimately linked to Russia’s culture and history, such as Ukraine (Crimea) and Georgia became independent states. The idea of restoring lost territories and Russian pride has now become a substitute for the discredited Soviet ideology and a raison d’etre for a Russia still struggling to identify its national purpose. The EU and the values it projects are also the result of history. Two world wars convinced Europe that their bloody history required a new approach based on international law, respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and peaceful settlement of disputes. Europe thus sought broader ties with Russia in the hope of creating a free and undivided Europe. This in turn led to Europe’s growing dependency on Russia for oil and gas supplies and its reluctance to react strongly to Russia’s recent aggressions lest it endanger trade ties with Russia. Basic Systemic Differences Russia today is not the Soviet Union as citizens enjoy more rights and personal freedoms. It is, however, not a democracy. The system is authoritarian centered on the powerful presidency of Vladimir Putin. The foundations of the regime are the security forces—intelligence, military and law enforcement –which enforce Putin’s rule through control of the press and media and suppression of public demonstrations against him. Russia’s leaders increasingly rely on anti-Western propaganda, and nationalistic and xenophobic themes to bolster their power base. The invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea have been very popular at home and have heightened national pride. EU member states are functioning democracies. The EU Partnership Program was designed to provide a variety of trade and economic benefits to former Soviet countries, including Ukraine, in exchange for political and economic reforms. It relied heavily on the allure of democracy and access to EU Single Market, but was not backed up with sufficient economic resources and political will when Moscow first bought off the previous Yanukovych government in Ukraine, then seized Crimea following the ouster of Yanukovych and now uses separatism in Eastern Ukraine to weaken the new government in Kiev and influence their foreign policy choices. The Relationship Going Forward Important common interests with Russia remain-- preventing the spread of WMD, anti-terrorism, peaceful development of the Arctic-- but the present gulf between the West and Russia is large. Russia has now demonstrated that it is a revisionist state willing to use military force to change international borders. Further complicating the situation is Putin’s averring that the West is in moral decay, its economic model is failing and that Russia is the true protector of traditional values. All of this has raised Putin’s popularity to new heights and shut off the voices of the democratic opposition. The West has been on the defensive as Putin’s willingness to take risks has caught it off-guard. Economic sanctions are the chosen Western counter force and they are having an impact. But, given their limited targets and the inability to agree on sectoral sanctions, these measures are not sufficient to meet the challenge; a more comprehensive strategy is necessary. Several factors, however, must be kept in mind. Russia is not a global challenge. It is a regional revisionist force but the example it sets of revising borders by force is a danger to the rest of the world. Russia has serious internal issues--stagnating economy, health and demographic problems, uncertain future markets for its oil and gas, increasingly expensive and difficult development of new energy sources with consequent need for foreign investment, an unrelenting Islamic insurgency in the Russian North Caucasus, and a serious brain drain and capital outflow situation. As these factors and the costs of Russia’s expansionism begin to mount, Putin’s standing and the popularity of his extreme nationalistic approach could begin to wane. But, it cannot be ignored that Russia is and will remain a key factor in the fate of Ukraine and no lasting solution will be found without it. What is to be done? Change in Russian policy will take time and the West needs to be firm and patient while remaining open to dialog with Moscow. Over the near term, sanctions must be maintained and strengthened if Russia does not change course. The next step is sectoral sanctions which would impact Russia’s financial and trade relations (energy exports) to the West. Europe must accept that its dependence on Russian gas is dangerous and needs to start making alternative supply arrangements, including LNG imports from the US if it can liberalize its gas export regulations. Worried allies in the Baltics and East Europe must also be reassured through appropriate NATO steps. More emphasis must be put on Ukraine to resolve the crisis. The May 25 presidential elections should go forward and hopefully produce a mandate for economic reform, democracy and anti-corruption. The dominance of oligarchs in Ukrainian politics, unfortunately, is a fact and only a strong popular mandate for change may move the process along. The new government must also receive the aid resources from the US and EU necessary to accomplish the task. It will have to deal with Russia but must be buttressed by Western political and financial support to balance the playing field. There must be increased support for Russia’s other neighbors that feel threatened and want to pursue closer ties to the West. In the first instance this means Georgia and Moldova which are still intent on signing partnership and trade agreements with the EU. Belarus and Kazakhstan, both closer to Russia, were unnerved by the Crimea annexation. Ironically, President Lukashenko in Belarus has raised his popularity by portraying himself as the defender of Belarusian independence and stating that his country would fight if invaded. Belarus and Kazakhstan will likely sign onto Putin’s Eurasian Customs Union but will be looking for support to balance Moscow. More effective public diplomacy will be needed to counter the Putin propaganda onslaught against the West. This means expanding Russian language information flows and quality radio and television programming through standard techniques as well as the internet to reach audiences in Russia. One target must be to shed light for Russian audiences on the massive corruption at high levels in Russia and the abuses by the security forces. Finally, the West must encourage Russians to engage with the international community through student and other exchanges, travel and study in the West. Russians need more, not less exposure to the outside world. In sum, the West needs to employ a containment strategy “light” that aims to strengthen Ukraine and its neighbors, broadens the horizons of the Russian people and allows for the resumption of diplomacy through a resumed Geneva process aimed at the restoration of international order which ensures a sovereign and independent Ukraine.

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Here are solutions to some common problems with installing or uninstalling programs. For general information about installing and uninstalling programs, see Install a program and Uninstall or change a program. Most programs written for Windows XP also work in this version of Windows, but some older programs might run poorly or not run at all. If an older program doesn't run correctly or doesn't install, start the Program Compatibility Wizard, which simulates an earlier version of Windows. You can run the wizard on the setup program itself if the program doesn't install, or you can run the wizard on the program if it installs but doesn't run correctly. For more information, see Make older programs run in this version of Windows. If you are trying to install, right-click the installation icon for the program, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. If the program installs but does not run, right-click the program icon, click Properties, click the Compatibility tab, select the Run this program as an administrator check box, and then try to run the program. Try downloading the program's installation file to your computer first, and then running it from your computer, rather than running it from the Internet. For more information, see Downloading files from the Internet: frequently asked questions You can usually choose the location of the folder during the setup process. You might decide to change the default location if you have created multiple partitions on your hard disk and want to store programs on a specific partition. We don't recommend moving program files after they have been installed; if you have moved program files, you might need to reinstall the program to make it work correctly. Access to certain Windows programs can be controlled by using Windows Features in Control Panel. For more information, see Turn Windows features on or off. If the program does not begin installing, browse to the program's setup file (usually called Setup.exe or Install.exe) and double-click the icon to start the installation. Only programs that were written for Windows will appear in Programs and Features. If you don't see the program listed and you want to uninstall the program, check the information that came with your program, or go to the manufacturer's website. Most programs install themselves in the C:\Program Files folder. Check this folder because some programs also include an uninstall program that you can try. If the program doesn't uninstall completely the first time, sometimes running the uninstall program a second time will succeed. If that doesn't work, try uninstalling the program while Windows is running in Safe mode. For more information, search help for "safe mode." If you installed the program recently, you can try using System Restore to return your computer's system files to an earlier date before you installed the program. For more information, search Help for "system restore." Some programs that appear in Programs and Features can, in addition to being installed or uninstalled, be changed or repaired. By clicking Change, Repair, or Change/Repair (depending on the button displayed), you can install or uninstall optional features of the program. Not all programs use the Change buttons; many only offer Uninstall. For general information, see Installing and reinstalling Windows. If you encounter problems during installation, see Troubleshoot Windows installation problems. No, but you can reinstall your previous operating system, which then replaces Windows Vista. To reinstall your old operating system, you must have the original installation disc. Back up your programs and files, insert the installation disc into your computer, and then reinstall the old operating system. To regain the hard disk space used by Windows Vista, reformat the disk during the reinstallation process. After reinstalling your previous operating system, reinstall your programs and files. For information about activation and product keys, see Activating Windows: frequently asked questions. Use automatic updating to ensure that Windows stays up to date with the latest fixes from Microsoft, including driver updates. For more information, see Install Windows updates. No, but if you have installed a different web browser, you can use that one instead. Most browsers display a message asking if you want to use that browser as a default. For more information, see Change which programs Windows uses by default. For more information about add-ons, see Internet Explorer add-ons: frequently asked questions Some media players offer to be the default player for all types of file formats they are capable of playing. Usually, you can select the formats the player plays by default from within the player itself. You can also change program defaults and set file associations for programs from within Windows. For more information, see Change which programs Windows uses by default. Hardware devices require drivers to function properly. Windows includes drivers for many devices, but you might need to install a specific driver for your device. For more information, see Tips for fixing common driver problems. Your program might be incompatible with this version of Windows. Check the information that came with your computer, or go to the manufacturer's website to see if there is an updated version of the program.

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ADOPT AN OWL An owl is a member of any of 222 currently known species of solitary, mainly nocturnal birds of prey in the order Strigiformes. Owls mostly hunt small mammals, insects, and other birds, though a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found on all continents of the Earth except Antarctica, most of Greenland, and some remote islands. Though owls are typically solitary, the literary collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament. Owls are classified in two families: the typical owls, Strigidae, and the barn owls, Tytonidae. Owls have large forward-facing eyes and ears, a hawk-like beak, and usually a conspicuous circle of feathers around each eye called a facial disc. Although owls have binocular vision, their large eyes are fixed in their sockets, and they must turn their entire head to change views. Owls are far-sighted, and are unable to clearly see anything within a few inches of their eyes. Their far vision, particularly in low light, is incredibly good, and they can turn their head 180 degrees around. Many owls can also hunt by sound in total darkness. Different species of owls make different sounds, one of which is the widely recognizable, drawn-out "hoo" sound. The facial disc helps to funnel the sound of prey to their ears, which are widely spaced. In some species, they are placed asymmetrically, for better directional location. Despite their appearance, owls are more closely related to the nightjars (Caprimulgiformes) than to the diurnal predators in the order Falconiformes. Some taxonomists place the nightjars in the same order as owls, as in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy . Owls' powerful clawed feet and sharp beak enable them to tear their prey to pieces before eating, although most items are swallowed whole. Their muffled wings and dull feathers allow them to fly practically silent and unseen. Scientists studying the diets of owls are helped by their habit of disgorging the indigestible parts of their prey (bones, scales, fur, etc.) in the form of pellets. These "owl pellets" are often sold by companies to schools to be dissected by students as a lesson in biology and ecology, because they are plentiful and easy to interpret. Owl eggs are white and almost spherical, and range in number from a few to a dozen dependent on species. Their nests are crudely built and may be in trees, underground burrows or barns and caves. Most owls are nocturnal, but several, including the pygmy owls (Glaucidium), are crepuscular, or twilight active, hunting mainly at dawn and dusk. A few owls, such as the Burrowing Owl (Speotyto cunicularia) and the Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus), are also active during the day. The smallest owls include the pygmy owls, some of which are only 13 cm (5.1 in) long, have a 32-cm (12.6-in) wingspan, and weigh only 50 g (1.76 oz). The largest owls are the eagle owls, the Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo bubo and Verreaux's Eagle Owl B. lacteus, which may reach 71 cm (28 in) long, have a wingspan of just over 2 m (6.6 ft), and weigh about 4 kg (almost 9 lb). In many parts of the world, owls have been associated with death and misfortune, likely due to their nocturnal activity and common screeching call. However, owls have also been associated with wisdom and prosperity as a result of frequently being companion animals for goddesses. Ancient Egyptians used a representation of an owl for their hieroglyph for the sound m, although they would often draw this hieroglyph with its legs broken to keep this bird of prey from coming to life. In the culture of the Native American Hopi nation, taboos surround owls, as they are closely associated with evil sorcery. The possession of owl feathers is considered an indication of witchcraft. The Aztecs and Mayans, along with other natives of Mesoamerica, considered the Owl a symbol of death and destruction. In fact, the Aztec god of death, Mictlantecuhtli, was often depicted with owls. There is a saying in Spanish that still exists today: cuando el tecolote canta, el indio se muere ("when the owl cries/sings, the Indian dies"). In Japanese culture, owls were seen as either negative and positive symbols depending on species. Eagle Owls were seen as divine messengers of the gods while Barn or Horned owls were perceived as demonic figures. In Indian culture, a white owl is considered a companion of the goddess of wealth, and therefore a harbinger of prosperity. The owl has been adapted as an emblem to reflect its implications of wisdom (Wise old owl) by a revered military institution in India known as the Defence Service Staff College. In colloquial use, however, it is commonly used to refer to stupidity. In the ancient region of Akkadia (located in present-day Iraq), the goddess Lilith is thought to have been associated with owls as well. However, prior to the rise of Islam, owls were considered evil omens and bad luck in most Middle Eastern pagan traditions. In modern times, although such superstitions are less prevalent, owls are still popularly considered "evil" because of their fierce, horrific appearance. In Greek mythology, the owl, and specifically the Little Owl, was often associated with the Greek goddess Athena, a bird goddess who often assumed the form of an owl. Athena was also the goddess of wisdom, the Arts, and skills, and as a result, owls also became symbols of teaching and of institutions of learning, being included in the crest of arms of many universities. In the Western world, owls continue to be traditionally associated with wisdom. The Romans, in addition to having borrowed the Greek associations of the owl, also considered owls to be funerary birds, due to their nocturnal activity and often having their nests in inaccessible places. As a result, seeing an owl in the daytime was considered a bad omen. The vampiric strix of Roman mythology was in part based on the owl. Likewise, in Romanian culture, the mournful call of an owl is thought to predict the death of somebody living in the neighbourhood. Such superstitions caused a minor disturbance when an owl showed up at Romanian President's residence, Cotroceni Palace. Barn owls (family Tytonidae) are one of the two generally accepted families of owls, the other being the typical owls, Strigidae. They are medium to large sized owls with large heads and characteristic heart-shaped faces. They have long strong legs with powerful talons. The barn owls comprise two sub-families: the Tytoninae or Tyto owls (including the Common Barn Owl) and the Phodilinae or bay-owls. The fossil record of the barn owls goes back to the Eocene, with the family eventually losing ground to the true owls after the radiation of rodents and owls during the Neogene epoch . Two sub-families are only known from the fossil record, the Necrobyinae and the Selenornithinae. The barn owls are a wide ranging family, absent only from northern North America, Saharan Africa and large areas of Asia. They live in a wide range of habitats from deserts to forests, and from temperate latitudes to the tropics. The majority of the 16 recognized species of barn owls are poorly known, some, like the Madagascar Red Owl, have barely been seen or studied since their discovery, in contrast to the Common Barn Owl, which is one of the best known owl species in the world. However, some sub-species of the Common Barn Owl possible deserve to be a species, and are very poorly known. 5 species of barn owl are threatened, and some island species have gone extinct (like the species Tyto letocarti, known from the fossil record of New Caledonia). The barn owls are mostly nocturnal, and generally non-migratory, living in pairs or singly. The barn owls main characteristic is the heart-shaped facial disc, formed by stiff feathers which serve to amplify and locate the source of sounds when hunting. Further adaptations in the wing feathers eliminate sound caused by flying, aiding both the hearing of the owl listening for hidden prey and keeping the prey unaware of the owl. Barn owls overall are darker on the back than the front, usually an orange-brown colour, the front being a paler version of the back or mottled, although there is considerable variation even amongst species. The bay owls closely resemble the Tyto owls but have a divided facial disc, and tend to be smaller. Typical owls (family Strigidae) are one of the two generally accepted families of owls, the other being the barn owls.

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Fish for food security and better health Fish, as a source of “rich food for poor people”, can play an important role in improving food security and nutritional status. Fish are an excellent source of high-quality protein and other nutrients vital to good health, including iron, calcium, potassium, vitamin A, and iodine. Fish contains fatty acids that aid fetal brain development and cognitive abilities critical for effective learning. Also, the nutritional benefits of fish lower the risk of low birth weight in infants, a major factor in infant mortality. Women who consume fish regularly as part of their diets enjoy better health and produce stronger babies. Better nutrition through fish consumption resulting from aquaculture can help people living with HIV better cope with the infection. Commercial small-scale fisherfolk in Africa have a particularly high rate of HIV infection, caused by a higher risk of exposure to the virus resulting from complex patterns of behaviour that WorldFish and partners are researching in order to devise interventions. WorldFish is working to mitigate the effects of this HIV epidemic through both its global small-scale fisheries and aquaculture initiatives. Relevant to this story Article: Fish and Food Security in Africa Fish, another weapon in the battle against HIV/AIDS Project confirms that small fisheries make big contributions to welfare

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Last Census - 2004 Syria, a Middle Eastern country, has a population that's difficult to determine due to said instability. Approximately 5,000 flee Syria every day. In 2012, the country had a population estimated at 22,530,746, although this number had dropped to an estimated population of 22,457,336 as of September 2013. Today, it is estimated to have 22,087,048. Just recently, Syria was considered a rapidly growing country in the area, growing over 2% in 2009, and growing from just 6 million in 1971 to its current population of 22 million. Syria Population 2014 Syria's population is comprised of many refugees from other countries. In 2012, it was estimated that 1.8 million refugees in the country were from Iraq, most of whom were displaced during the Iraq war. Syria has also been home to large groups of Palestinians (540,000) and Armenians (130,000). Of course, that's now in the past, as Syria has been in a great deal of turmoil and its population is now tumbling out of control. While Syria's population is currently 22,087,048 (April 2014), this is dropping every day. The United Nations reports that 5,000 people flee Syria every day, and 28% of its population has now been driven from their homes. There are now 2 million Syrians who have fled, and 4.25 million who have been displaced but stay in the country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) predicts 10.25 million Syrians will need aid by the end of 2014, which is equal to 46% of Syria's total nation. There are now 2 million refugees from the country in nearby countries. 110,000 are in Egypt, 168,000 are in Iraq, 515,000 in Jordan, 716,000 in Lebanon and 460,000 in Turkey. Largest cities in Syria The largest city in Syria is not its capital Damascus, but Aleppo, which is situated in the North East of the country. Aleppo's population was recorded at 2,132,000 in 2004, although it has dropped dramatically since, given the civil war and millions fleeing the country. As the country is embroiled in a war, estimates on city populations are unavailable. Although 80% Muslim, it is also home to one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East. According to the latest estimates, approximately 12%of the city's inhabitants are Christian. Damascus is the second largest city in Syria, with a population of 1,711,000 (estimate, 2009). It holds the record as the oldest continually inhabited city in the world – there is evidence of human habitation in Damascus dating back to 9,000BC. Syria is urbanizing rapidly. It is estimated that in 2010, 56% of the people in Syria lived in an urban environment, and this number is increasing by more than 2% per year. Syria is a largely Islamic country; according to the latest data from 2007, 87% of the country's population was Muslim. Broken down, around 74% are Sunni and around 13% are Shia. There are approximately 2 million Alawi in Syria today, and representatives of this group dominate Syrian politics and the Syrian military. Syria's current President, Bashar al-Assad, is an Alawi Shia. The other two major religious groups in Syria are Christian (around 9% of the population) and Druze (3%). The largest ethnic group (approximately 90%) in Syria is Arab, mostly classified as Levantine. Other major groups in Syria are Kurds (2 million), Syrian Turkmen (0.75-1.5 million) and Assyrians (0.9 to 1.2 million). The Current State of Syria Syria's bloody civil war has done substantial damage already, and the country is in ruins, in many ways. Civilian neighborhoods have been bombed, sniper fighting and street fights have taken over and there is no end in sight. In mid-2012, rebels moved into Alebbo, the largest city in Syria, and 2/3 of the city was seized within weeks. Now, regime and rebels are locked in warfare, and the city crumbles. After two years of combat, almost 100,000 have been killed. Hafez al-Assad's Alwaites regime represents just one eighth of the country, and the Sunni Muslims (who make up 75% of the country's population) make up the resistance. The UN estimates that 5,000 Syrians flee the country every day, and 4.25 million people are homeless and displaced in the country. It's estimated that 52% of the refugee population is under the age of 18, and the refugees and displaced now equal 28% of the total population of more than 22 million. Syria's Future Population While 5.2 million refugees are expected to be registered as refugees by the end of 2014, the with another 6.5 million internally displaced by December 2014. In 2010, Syria was dealing with a surging population, but this has dramatically reversed. Last year, the population growth rate was -0.8%, but this has dropped much further. The number of refugees alone will top 5 million by just 2015, according to the UN, which means that Syria's population will be just 17 million in two short years. This drop does not include any further deaths from the country's civil war, which will only drive the population down past this point.

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Is this unusual or just a bad winter? One study suggests that climate change has altered the jet stream creating a situation where weather patterns are stagnating over the U.S. - The east coast still is recovering from a Nor'easter that dumped heavy amounts of snow across the region (click here for a photo gallery from New Jersey Patches). - January 2014, for example, was the third snowiest month in Chicago's history, with 33.7 inches falling. - Atlanta was hit with a severe winter storm this week which came on the heels of a January storm that paralyzed much of the Atlanta metro area. - The ice coverage of the Great Lakes has been rising rapidly, leading to spectacular photos. Lake Michigan is 80 percent ice covered and could challenge the record of 93.1 percent set in 1977. The BBC reported that as the jet stream slows, it has begun taking a longer, more meandering path. Consequently, weather patterns tend to become "stuck over areas" and cold weather is driven further south while warm weather is driven further north. However, other scientists have disputed the notion that climate change is to blame for shifting the jet stream. The Daily Mail quoted climate professor Mat Collins as saying "There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge." What do you think? Let us know your views in comments.

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When presented with a severe problem or life event like the loss of a child, a bitter divorce or the diagnosis of a chronic illness some people get stuck in reacting to the event and other people manage to overcome the tragedy and have productive, satisfying lives. The difference seems to be what we label resilience. Both groups look pretty much the same initially. We know that the process of mourning feeling of grief, numbness, denial, and dissociation seem universal. Those who progress through the stages of mourning have certain characteristics in common. They have at least the A’s— Attitude, attribution and action. Sometimes called optimism, it is the persistent belief that, bad as things are and bleak as the future looks, life in general is still good. Things may never recover entirely but things can get better. Sometimes the belief is tied to a religious faith. They believe that their efforts have an effect both when they succeed and when they fail. They know they are not completely in control of problems but have faith that they can have at least some influence on what is happening. These people plan and take action. Years ago a group of army recruits got lost in the Alps just before massive blizzards were predicted. An experienced sergeant broke his leg and had to be evacuated by helicopter. The blizzards set in and it was weeks before search parties could begin the search. Expecting to find few or no survivors the searcher found the entire group together and in good spirits. The survivors explained that one of the recruits found a map of the mountains in his pocket. Together the men decided where they were and the route to take to get out of the mountains. Back in camp an officer examined the map and found it was for the Pyrenees Mountains not the Alps. The soldiers developed a plan and took action that could not work. And it saved their lives. Another characteristic of resilient people is that are self accepting. They are anti-perfectionists. They learn and improve skills over time but they don’t expect to be perfect the first time. They have enough confidence to understand that mistakes are expected and they provide lessons to learn. The opposite of all or nothing thinking. They manage the powerful emotions of the difficult situation without getting frozen by fear or depression. Usually resilient people have strong relationships with family members, friends and others where they feel free to express the full rage of emotions they experience about the crisis. They don’t need to put up a false front and pretend to be brave when they feel like quivering Jell-O. Relationships of that quality develop only when both parties are willing to put aside their needs at times to be loving and supportive, so resilient people also offer reassurance and help to others. Who do you know who is resilient?

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Most Active Stories - Crashed Air Force drone was flying with gear that couldn't handle cold - Empire Brewing Company says new brewery will create distinctive craft beers - Schumer hopes federal funds will help local brewpub expand - Teachers union not ready to reverse no confidence vote in education commissioner - Small group protests possibility of housing Central American immigrants in Syraucse Unpredictability of flu season should be motivation to get shot Every year at this time, public health officials encourage Americans to get a flu vaccine, but the majority of people choose not to have a flu shot. Lorraine Rapp and Linda Lowen, hosts of WRVO's health and wellness show Take Care, recently spoke with Dr. Joseph Bresee of the Centers for Disease Control about how the vaccine works to prevent the flu, and why the CDC recommends it. Lorraine Rapp: What sort of flu season is expected this year? Dr. Joseph Bresee: Well you never actually know. One thing we know about flu is that it’s unpredictable each year. So some years, we’ll have mild years, some years we’ll have severe years, and you can’t really predict it. That’s why we have everybody get vaccinated before flu season starts, because once it starts, it’ll be severe or mild, but you really don’t know ahead of time. Linda Lowen: What are the factors that will influence whether a flu season is severe or mild? Dr. Bresee: I think that some of the things that clearly affect how severe a season’s going to be are the types of viruses that circulate, some flu seasons tend to cause more disease and deaths than other flu viruses. The attack rate by age-- viruses that attack older people tend to result in more hospitalizations and deaths than viruses that tend to affect younger people for instance. But a lot of the things that affect how severe or mild a flu season is going to be are really hard to predict. Lorraine: How does the flu shot work to prevent, or help them prevent getting the flu? Dr. Bresee: To start with, remember that there are two types of flu vaccines. One is an injectable vaccine, the sort of classic vaccine you inject into somebody’s arm, and the other is a live vaccine, which you spray up somebody’s nose. The injectable vaccine, the way it works, is you inject pieces of a flu virus, usually the outer coating of the virus, and what that does, it allows the body’s immune system to detect the virus and the proteins of the virus, and develop antibodies against them. So once you have those antibodies, when you’re infected later in the season with a real flu virus, you already have antibodies against that very flu virus that can act quickly to rid yourself of the disease or give yourself a milder illness than you otherwise would have. The live vaccine works a little differently. It’s live, so it actually grows like a real flu virus, but its weakened flu virus. And so, it doesn’t cause disease, but because it grows in your nose and your throat, it allows your body to develop a very robust immune response to it, just like it would to a natural infection to flu. Lorraine: How long between injection, or how long in between the nasal spray, and somebody’s ability to fight off the flu should they be exposed? Dr. Bresee: It really does take about two weeks. And this is important because as we think about when to vaccinate people, we want to make sure that people get vaccinated early enough in the fall, before flu hits their community, so they develop good protection before they experience flu in the wild. Linda: So when does flu activity usually begin, and when can we expect to see it peak? Dr. Bresee: Generally speaking, we start to see activity around now, in the fall time—October and November. The peaks usually occur somewhere between January and March in the United States, and then you get a tail off into April and May. Lorraine: What percent of the population chooses to get a flu shot every year? Dr. Bresee: The most recent data we have is from last year, and last year 45 percent of the US population got a flu vaccine, and that’s an all-time high, and gratifying because it’s slightly higher than the year before and we’re trending the right way. But the other side of looking at it is that more than half the people in the United States didn’t get a flu vaccine last year, and that’s a shame, and we need to do a better job in getting people to get the vaccine. More of this interview can be heard on "Take Care," WRVO's health and wellness show Sundays at 6:30 p.m. Support for this story comes from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

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- Attorney General Wants To Send Concealed Carry Cases Out Of Court - Republican Bruce Rauner Defends His Personal Tax Bill - Trucker Asks: Are Police Above The Law? - Republican Attorney General Candidate: Pension Changes Unconstitutional - Applicants Denied Concealed Carry Licenses Will Learn Why Under New Emergency Rules Most Active Stories Fri August 16, 2013 N. America's Oldest Known Petroglyphs Discovered In Nevada Originally published on Fri August 16, 2013 5:22 pm Ancient North Americans gouged elaborate rock art into a heap of big boulders northeast of Reno, Nev., more than 10,000 years ago and perhaps 15,000 years ago. That makes the carvings the oldest known petroglyphs on the continent, according to a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Experts have known about these petroglyphs and believed they were old, but nobody knew just how old until paleoclimatologist Larry Benson used his expertise in the history of the climate of the West to date them. "I think it's really amazing that people that far back were creating such wonderful things," Benson says. The discovery is significant because the first people who lived on this continent are largely a mystery. They arrived more than 14,000 years ago, but archaeologists have found little to tell us about their culture — hardly any weavings, pottery or other handiwork. "To get something this complex this early is very, very rare," says Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History. The new discovery shows that some of the earliest North Americans were surprisingly creative artists. Benson has been interested in Native American artifacts since he was a boy hunting for arrowheads in farmers' fields in Missouri. So he was thrilled when he got a chance to check out some rock art on the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation about 10 years ago. He recalls being entranced by how "incredibly beautiful" these petroglyphs are. He saw a heap of big boulders. Nearly every surface covered with geometric patterns. Things like concentric circles, groups of diamond shapes and etchings that resemble trees. The collection of petroglyphs is larger than most others in the Southwest, and is carved deeper into the rock. "They're almost unique in the sense that the grooves have been carved down almost an inch deep in some cases," says Benson, an emeritus scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who does research for the University of Colorado and its Museum of Natural History. Just by looking at the designs, Benson thought he might know how old they were. He noticed that the symbols are much whiter than the gray rock they're carved into. He knew from his climate research that the dry area where the petroglyphs are located was once a lake, and that the white coating was probably left from the last time the rocks were submerged in water, which suggested that the petroglyphs may be older than 11,000 years "And I did know, at least from my limited knowledge, that these were probably older than the oldest dated petroglyphs in North America," he recalls. But to prove it, he needed permission from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe to sample the coatings on the rocks. It took years to get that permission, and although he did sample the rocks near the petroglyphs, he has yet to sample any of the ancient rock art. Once he dated the different coatings on the rock — the coating that the ancient people gouged into and the one that covers their artwork — he confirmed that the artwork was at least 10,000 years old and maybe 14,800 years old. The early North Americans would have created these designs during a dry period between two very wet times. Sediment cores from the lake bottom also helped him with the dating. (Along the way, he learned that the most recent wet period lasted until 10,300 years ago, and not 11,000 as experts had previously believed.) Jenkins, the University of Oregon archaeologist, had previously discovered the oldest human remains in North America in what's known as Paisley Caves in Central Oregon. There, he found little that could be considered art in his findings from their settlement 14,000 years ago. And Jenkins says that Benson's findings open the door for scientists to learn more about the people who lived on this continent long ago. Many other lakes in the West's Great Basin rose and fell thousands of years ago when the climate was making dramatic shifts. He hopes that Benson's techniques for using coatings left on rocks to date petroglyphs will be replicated elsewhere to learn how long ago ancient artists were doing their work. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: The first people who lived in North America arrived at least 14,000 years ago. They're largely a mystery. Archeologists haven't found much that tells us about their culture: hardly any weavings, pottery or other handiwork. But as NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports, a new discovery shows that some of these early North Americans were surprisingly creative artists. ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Ten years ago, Larry Benson got a chance to check out some rock art on an Indian reservation north of Reno. He was entranced. DR. LARRY BENSON: Well, these things are incredibly beautiful. They're larger than most petroglyphs in the Southwest. SHOGREN: He saw a heap of big boulders, nearly every surface covered with geometric patterns, things like concentric circles, groups of diamond shapes and tree-like symbols. BENSON: And they're almost unique in the sense that the grooves have been carved down almost an inch deep in some cases. SHOGREN: And just by looking at them, Benson thought he might know how old they were. He noticed that the symbols are much whiter than the gray rock they're carved into. Benson is a paleoclimatologist who works with the University of Colorado. He knew from his climate research that the dry area where the petroglyphs are located was once was a lake and that the white coating was probably left from the last time the rocks were submerged in water. BENSON: So this would indicate that the petroglyphs were older than 11,000 years. And I did know, at least from my limited knowledge, that these were probably then the oldest dated petroglyphs in North America. SHOGREN: But to prove it, he needed permission to take samples. That took years. Once he dated the different coatings on the rock, he confirmed that the artwork was at least 10,000 years old and maybe 15,000 years old. He published his findings in the journal of Archaeological Science. BENSON: Well, I think it's really amazing that people that far back were creating such wonderful things. SHOGREN: University of Oregon archeologist Dennis Jenkins dated the earliest known people in North America. He says it's nearly unheard of to find artwork of any kind as old as the Nevada petroglyphs. DR. DENNIS JENKINS: To get something this complex this early is very, very rare. SHOGREN: Jenkins says many other lakes in the West rose and fell thousands of years ago when the climate was making dramatic shifts. He's hoping that Benson's techniques for dating petroglyphs can be replicated elsewhere. That could help experts understand more about the people who lived on this continent long ago. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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|Ancient Greek index||History Topics Index| There are three classical problems in Greek mathematics which were extremely influential in the development of geometry. These problems were those of squaring the circle, doubling the cube and trisecting an angle. Although these are closely linked, we choose to examine them in separate articles. The present article studies the problem of trisecting an arbitrary angle. In some sense this is the least famous of the three problems. Certainly in ancient Greek times doubling of the cube was the most famous, then in more modern times the problem of squaring the circle became the more famous, especially among amateur mathematicians. The problem of trisecting an arbitrary angle, which we examine here, is the one for which I [EFR] have been sent the largest number of false proofs during my career. It is an easy task to tell that a 'proof' one has been sent 'showing' that the trisector of an arbitrary angle can be constructed using ruler and compasses must be incorrect since no such construction is possible. Of course knowing that a proof is incorrect and finding the error in it are two different matters and often the error is subtle and hard to find. There are a number of ways in which the problem of trisecting an angle differs from the other two classical Greek problems. Firstly it has no real history relating to the way that the problem first came to be studied. Secondly it is a problem of a rather different type. One cannot square any circle, nor can one double any cube. However, it is possible to trisect certain angles. For example there is a fairly straightforward method to trisect a right angle. For given the right angle CAB draw a circle to cut AB at E. Draw a second circle (with the same radius) with centre E and let it intersect the first circle at D. Then DAE is an equilateral triangle and so the angle DAE is 60° and DAC is 30°. So the angle CAB is trisected. Perhaps more surprisingly, angles such as one of 27° can be trisected - can you solve this? The problem is therefore to trisect an arbitrary angle and the aim is to make the construction using ruler and compass (which is impossible) but failing that to devise some method to trisect an arbitrary angle. Pappus in his Mathematical collection writes (see for example ):- When the ancient geometers sought to divide a given rectilinear angle into three equal parts they were at a loss for this reason. We say that there are three kinds of problem in geometry, the so-called 'plane', 'solid', and 'linear' problems. Those that can be solved with straight line and circle are properly called 'plane' problems, for the lines by which such problems are solved have their origin in a plane. Those problems that are solved by the use of one or more sections of the cone are called 'solid' problems. For it is necessary in the construction to use surfaces of solid figures, that is to say, cones. There remain the third type, the so-called 'linear' problem. For the construction in these cases curves other than those already mentioned are required, curves having a more varied and forced origin and arising from more irregular surfaces and from complex motions. Of this character are the curves discovered in the so-called 'surface loci' and numerous others even more involved ... . These curves have many wonderful properties. More recent writers have indeed considered some of them worthy of more extended treatment, and one of the curves is called 'the paradoxical curve' by Menelaus. Other curves of the same type are spirals, quadratrices, cochloids, and cissoids. ... Since problems differ in this way, the earlier geometers were not able to solve the aforementioned problem about the angle, because it is by nature solid; for they were not yet familiar with the sections of the cone, and for that reason were at a loss. Later, however, they trisected the angle by means of the conics, using in the solution the verging described below ..... We will describe the methods which were invented to solve this problem in a moment but first of all let us see why this problem arose in a natural way. Perhaps the most obvious way that one would come across the problem would be by examining a ruler and compass construction to bisect an angle. This is straightforward. Given the angle CAB then mark off equal lengths AB and AC. Complete the parallelogram CABD and draw in the diagonal AD which is then easily seen to bisect the angle CAB. The ancient Greeks would certainly have wanted to divide angles into any required ratio for once that is possible the construction of a regular polygon of any number of sides would become possible. The construction of regular polygons using ruler and compass was certainly one of the major aims of Greek mathematics and it was not until the discoveries of Gauss that further polygons were constructed with ruler and compass which the ancient Greeks had failed to find. Although it is difficult to give an accurate date as to when the problem of trisecting an angle first appeared, we do know that Hippocrates, who made the first major contribution to the problems of squaring a circle and doubling a cube, also studied the problem of trisecting an angle. There is a fairly straightforward way to trisect any angle which was known to Hippocrates. It works as follows. Given an angle CAB then draw CD perpendicular to AB to cut it at D. Complete the rectangle CDAF. Extend FC to E and let AE be drawn to cut CD at H. Have the point E chosen so that HE = 2AC. Now angle EAB is 1/3 of angle CAB. To see this let G be the midpoint of HE so that HG = GE = AC. Since ECH is a right angle, CG = HG = GE. Now angle EAB = angle CEA = angle ECG. Also since AC = CG we have angle CAG = angle CGA. But angle CGA = angle GEC + angle ECG = 2 × CEG = 2 ×EAB as required. Now one of the reasons why the problem of trisecting an angle seems to have attracted less in the way of reported solutions by the best ancient Greek mathematicians is that the construction above, although not possible with an unmarked straight edge and compass, is nevertheless easy to carry out in practice. A mechanical type of solution is easily found. Just mark off a length of 2 ×AC at the right hand end of the ruler and then slide the ruler with one mark on CD, the other on FC extended until the ruler defines a line passing through A. The trisector has then been found by a fairly easy mechanical process. So as a practical problem there was little left to do although the Greeks still were not satisfied in general with mechanical solutions from a purely mathematical point of view they did not find them. As Plato said:- In proceeding in [a mechanical] way, did not one lose irredeemably the best of geometry... There is another mechanical solution given by Archimedes. Well we should qualify this is little and say that this method is given in the Arabic work called the Book of Lemmas which is attributed to Archimedes. Now certainly this work is not just a translation of a work of Archimedes since Archimedes is quoted several times in the work in a way that is quite impossible for someone to refer to themselves. However, most historians of mathematics believe that many of the results given in the Book of Lemmas are indeed due to Archimedes and the result given on trisecting an angle is so much in the spirit of the work On spirals that it is widely accepted that this method is indeed due to Archimedes. The construction proceeds as follows. Given an angle CAB draw a circle with centre A so that AC and AB are radii of the circle. From C draw a line to cut BA produced at E. Have this line cut the circle at F and have the property that EF is equal to the radius of the circle. Again this can be done in a mechanical way by marking a length equal to the radius of the circle on the ruler and moving it keeping one mark on BA produced and having the second mark on the circle. Move the ruler keeping one mark on the line and the other on the circle until the ruler passes through C. Then the line EC is constructed. Finally draw from A the radius AX of the circle with AX parallel to EC. Then AX trisects angle CAB. This is rather easy to see. Angle XAC = angle ACF = angle CFA = angle FEA + angle FAE = 2 × angle FEA = 2 × angle XAB. Nicomedes lived at about the same time as Archimedes (in the second century BC) and he produced his famous conchoid curve. In fact this curve was invented by Nicomedes precisely to formalise the process which we have described of rotating a ruler keeping a point on a line. The ruler has a fixed distance marked on it and one mark is kept on a given line while the other traces the conchoid curve. The construction is explained in more detail in Nicomedes' biography in this archive. Now this is exactly the curve needed to solve both versions of trisection of an angle given above and Nicomedes solved the problem with his curve. However, in practice the method of moving a ruler until the required configuration was found was on the whole much easier than drawing the conchoid so Nicomedes method was more of theoretical rather than practical interest. Heath writes in :- Pappus tells us that in practice the conchoid was not always actually drawn but that some, for greater convenience, moved a ruler about the fixed point until by trial the intercept was found to be equal to the given length. Pappus tell us about the conchoid of Nicomedes in his Mathematical collection (see for example). In the same work Pappus writes about how the problem of trisecting an angle was solved by Apollonius using conics. Pappus gives two solutions which both involve the drawing of a hyperbola. The first shows that if AB is a fixed line then locus of a point P such that 2 × angle PAB = angle PBA is a hyperbola. The hyperbola has eccentricity 2, focus B and directrix the perpendicular bisector of AB. The hyperbola is given in the left of the two diagrams. The right of the two diagrams shows how this hyperbola can be used to trisect the angle AOB. With O as centre draw a circle through A and B. Then construct the parabola with eccentricity 2, focus B and directrix the perpendicular bisector of AB. Let it cut the circle at P. Then PO trisects the angle AOB. To see this we need to note that, from the property of the hyperbola described above, 2 × angle PAB = angle PBA. But 2 × angle PAB = angle POB, and 2 × angle PBA = angle POA (angle at centre of a circle is twice the angle at the circumference standing on the same arc). Hence 2 × angle POB = angle POA as required. Heath comments on how this passage in Pappus is interesting with regard to the Greek development of conics. He writes :- The passage from Pappus from which this solution is taken is remarkable as being one of three passages in Greek mathematical works still extant ... which refers to the focus-and-directrix property of conics. These constructions described by Pappus show how the Greeks 'improved' their solutions to the problem of trisecting an angle. From a mechanical solution they had progressed to a solution involving conic sections. They could never progress to plane solutions since we know that such are impossible. The proof of the impossibility had to await the mathematics of the 19th century. The final pieces of the argument were put together by Pierre Wantzel. In 1837 Wantzel published proofs in Liouville's Journal of:- ... the means of ascertaining whether a geometric problem can be solved with ruler and compasses. Gauss had stated that the problems of doubling a cube and trisecting an angle could not be solved with ruler and compasses but he gave no proofs. In this 1837 paper Wantzel was the first to prove these results. Improved proofs were later given by Charles Sturm but he did not publish them. References (5 books/articles) Other Web sites: Astroseti (A Spanish translation of this article) Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson |History Topics Index||Ancient Greek index| |Main index||Biographies Index |Famous curves index||Birthplace Maps |Mathematicians of the day||Anniversaries for the year |Search Form|| Societies, honours, etc The URL of this page is:

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