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The pleura are two thin, moist membranes around the lungs. The inner layer is attached to the lungs. The outer layer is attached to the ribs. Pleural effusion is the buildup of excess fluid in the space between the pleura. The fluid can prevent the lungs from fully opening. This can make it difficult to catch your breath. Pleural effusion may be transudative or exudative based on the cause. Treatment of pleural effusion depends on the condition causing the effusion. Effusion is usually caused by disease or injury. Transudative effusion may be caused by: Exudative effusion may be caused by: Factors that increase your chance of getting pleural effusion include: - Having conditions or diseases listed above - Certain medications such as: - Nitrofurantoin (Macrodantin, Furadantin, Macrobid) - Methysergide (Sansert) - Bromocriptine (Parlodel) - Procarbazine (Matulane) - Amiodarone (Cordarone) - Chest injury or trauma - Radiation therapy Surgery, especially involving: - Organ transplantation Some types of pleural effusion do not cause symptoms. Others cause a variety of symptoms, including: - Shortness of breath - Chest pain - Stomach discomfort - Coughing up blood - Shallow breathing - Rapid pulse or breathing rate - Weight loss - Fever, chills, or sweating These symptoms may be caused by many other conditions. Let your doctor know if you have any of these symptoms. The doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. This may include listening to or tapping on your chest. Lung function tests will test your ability to move air in and out of your lungs. Images of your lungs may be taken with: Your doctor may take samples of the fluid or pleura tissue for testing. This may be done with: Treatment is usually aimed at treating the underlying cause. This may include medications or surgery. Your doctor may take a "watchful waiting" approach if your symptoms are minor. You will be monitored until the effusion is gone. To Support Breathing If you are having trouble breathing, your doctor may recommend: - Breathing treatments—inhaling medication directly to lungs - Oxygen therapy Drain the Pleural Effusion The pleural effusion may be drained by: - Therapeutic thoracentesis —a needle is inserted into the area to withdraw excess fluid. - Tube thoracostomy—a tube is placed in the side of your chest to allow fluid to drain. It will be left in place for several days. Seal the Pleural Layers The doctor may recommend chemical pleurodesis. During this procedure, talc powder or an irritating chemical is injected into the pleural space. This will permanently seal the two layers of the pleura together. The seal may help prevent further fluid buildup. Radiation therapy may also be used to seal the pleura. In severe cases, surgery may be needed. Some of the pleura will be removed during surgery. Suregery options may include: - Thoracotomy—traditional, open chest procedure - Video-assisted thorascopic surgery (VATS)—minimally-invasive surgery that only requires small keyhole size incisions Prompt treatment for any condition that may lead to effusion is the best way to prevent pleural effusion. - Reviewer: Brian Randall, MD - Review Date: 02/2013 - - Update Date: 03/05/2013 -

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"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field." Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:02:10 +0100 From: Cornelia Tschichold <Cornelia.Tschichold@unine.ch> Subject: World Englishes AUTHORS: Melchers, Gunnel; Shaw, Philip TITLE: World Englishes SERIES: The English Language Series PUBLISHER: Arnold YEAR: 2003 Cornelia Tschichold, Institute of English, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland INTRODUCTION This book is a recent addition to the growing number of textbooks on varieties of English around the world. In the preface, the two authors, both from Stockholm University, describe the intended audience of the book as readers familiar with the basics of linguistics and phonetics, thus typically undergraduate students after their first year at a department of English, with English either as their native or a second or foreign language. The book has an accompanying CD, which is sold separately and therefore does not figure in this review. SYNOPSIS Chapter 1 is a very short chapter on the history of English from 450 to the beginnings of Modern English. The development of the language is illustrated mainly through the most accessible aspect, its loanwords. Chapter 2 covers the more recent history of English, when the language spread around the globe, first to the so- called 'inner circle' countries, later to the 'outer circle' and finally to the 'expanding circle'. This three- circle model by Kachru is adopted as the organizing principle for the book. The chapter also introduces the distinction often made between English as a second and English as a foreign language, while drawing attention to the problems of terminology and those of differing political viewpoints involved. Chapter 3 discusses basic terms in language variation and provides the framework for the classification and description of the many varieties discussed in chapters 4 to 6. The authors divide variation into the areas of spelling, phonology, grammar and lexicon, and give a brief overview of the main types of variation in each area. For the description of phonology, Wells' standard lexical sets are introduced. The section on rhythm and intonation explains the concept of stress-times vs. syllable-timed rhythm and mentions high-rising terminals as the most striking phenomena in the area of intonation. The sections on lexis and on the historical origin of varieties introduce a large number of technical terms such as 'heteronymy' or 'substratum'. Other dimensions of classification mentioned include the political stance of some of the more prominent authors in the field, the degree of standardization for varieties and for texts, and the position of a country in the three-circle model. Chapter 4 portrays the inner circle varieties of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Liberia and the Caribbean. With some exceptions, each of these sections follows the pattern of first giving a brief overview of geography and population, then an account of the general linguistic situation, before the variety itself is described in terms of spelling, phonology, grammar and lexicon. Where appropriate, important internal varieties are briefly touched on as well, such as the main differences between Southern and Northern dialects in England, the two ethnic varieties African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Chicano English in the USA, and Aboriginal English in Australia. Chapter 5 opens with a discussion of the political questions of language prestige and then tries to identify some common linguistic features of the varieties spoken in these countries. Among the features mentioned are consonant cluster and vowel system simplifications, a trend away from clearly stress-timed rhythm, and more syntactic variety. The countries in this chapter are then discussed in geographical groups, following a similar pattern to that in chapter 4, but giving rather more historical background and extra sections on style and pragmatics. The first variety is South Asian English, with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as its main countries. The second major variety is African English, with South Africa making a second appearance due to its higher number of speakers who have English as a second language. Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore are dealt with in the group of countries where South East Asian English is spoken. The last section in this chapter very briefly deals with a number of countries with a colonial past: Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, the Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Guam in the Pacific, without however giving linguistic descriptions of the English spoken there. Chapter 6 abandons the geographical perspective in favour of the functions English can be seen to have taken over in the expanding circle from the 18th century onwards. Among the domains where English is making inroads the authors mention global politics and economy, tourism, the education system, the mass media and popular culture, advertising and subcultures. On the more strictly linguistic level, the authors see no trend toward standardization, and argue instead that speakers of lingua franca English need a high communicative competence for dealing with the mixture of non-standard features and the large amount of pragmatic variation found in much intercultural communication. The authors then briefly consider the influence of English on the local languages and the choices involved in choosing a variety of English for education. In Chapter 7, Melchers and Shaw take a look at the likely developments in the near future and identify US power, globalization and information technology as the most important factors favouring the further spread of English across the globe. They posit that the high visibility of unedited English found in computer-mediated communication could have a destandardizing effect on international English, but that the still considerable influence of the school systems might counterbalance this trend. Finally, Appendix 1 gives a list of the speakers on the accompanying CD, and Appendix 2 contains a number of pre- and post-reading questions for each chapter. CRITICAL EVALUATION Everyone teaching a course on the varieties of English around the world probably has their own idea of what the ideal textbook for such a course should cover. One of the authors has taught just such a course for many years, and the book under review is proof of this. Many sections read more like lightly edited lecture notes than a textbook meant to be studied by undergraduate students. The authors include a number of anecdotes in the text, a feature that often works well in class, but much less well in a textbook, and they have the rather irritating habit of writing one-sentence paragraphs, something which many university teachers try to eradicate from their students' essays. It is clear that balancing the content of such a short book is a difficult task, and the authors should be praised for trying to combine most of the relevant sociolinguistic aspects with a large number of linguistic descriptions of individual varieties in a relatively small book. Apart from the style, most of my criticism therefore relates to details of content. A number of sections in the book seem to be the result of compromises of various kinds: One might argue, for example, about the usefulness of a very short chapter on the roots of English, or whether such a a book is the best place for contemplating the influence of English on other languages via borrowing. Possibly these pages might have been put to better use. One of my quibbles concerns the notoriously difficult problem of the translations or glosses, which have not received the necessary attention to detail. Dialectal variation is illustrated with a Geordie poem ("A hev gorra bairn / an a hev gorra wife / an a cannit see me bairn or wife / workin in the night"), where the word 'gorra' is claimed to stand for the local pronunciation of 'got to' (p.13). Generally, the maps in the book are often not very useful as they do not show all areas mentioned in the text and do not distinguish between cities and provinces. To give just one example, among the dialects of England discussed in the text are those of Leeds, Derby, West Wirral and Norwich, but only Leeds can be found on one of the maps. One might also wonder about the necessity of listing statistics on area, population and capital for the countries discussed, given that such data can easily be found elsewhere and is of questionable relevance in this context. Within the descriptions of the individual varieties, spelling, a very accessible aspect, is not systematically commented on, e.g. South Asian English is said to be "spelt in the British style", but British English does not have a section on spelling. In the more extensive section on phonology most of the comparisons of the lexical sets are clearly useful and could have been extended, e.g. it would have been interesting to see the Australian vowels compared not just to RP, but also to American English vowels. In addition to the concept of lexical sets, much of the data used by the authors comes from Wells as well, which often seems a needless repetition, especially where even the examples are taken straight from Wells (1982), a study in three volumes based on data which is now more than a generation old. On the other hand, a number of sections (Liberian English and AAVE, Caribbean English) are so short, they seem more like appetizers than any kind of solid information. In the sections on the lexicon, the authors' use of the word 'tautonym' to refer to words having different meanings in different varieties seems somewhat idiosyncratic. The references given in the book are not consistently placed in the further-reading sections, but appear either there (sometimes with comment, sometimes without; sometimes with full bibliographic details, sometimes as author plus year only) or embedded in the text. Sharp (2001) is referred to, but missing in the references. Appendix 2 contains a number of pre- and post-reading questions, which - according to the preface - are meant to remind readers of what they know and to check their new knowledge. This generally is a good idea, but one would expect the pre- reading questions to be clearly easier than the post- reading questions. Some questions sound more like activation questions for a seminar group than questions meant to check on the reader's knowledge. Comparing the book under review to other books on the market that might be considered as textbooks for courses on world Englishes, one could mention Trudgill and Hannah (1994), a book that gives considerably more linguistic detail on the varieties discussed, but devotes only very little room to varieties in the expanding circle (an aspect which is of much interest to students in potentially expanding-circle countries in Europe) and does not cover the sociolinguistic and political perspectives. The latter aspect can be found in Crystal (1997) to a certain extent, or more thoroughly in Brutt-Griffler (2002). Crystal (1995) provides an widely available source for maps, statistics and historical background. Bauer (2002) is mostly limited to varieties of the inner circle. Jenkins (2003) is very useful as an overview for the debate on the sociolinguistic and political aspects, but does not give linguistic descriptions. Cheshire (1991) and Allerton et al (2002) finally are edited collections of papers that provide accessible further reading on a range of subtopics on world Englishes. Writing a relatively short textbook of such a scope is a very big bite to chew, and while I would like to congratulate the authors on their choice of content, I wish they had chosen a different style for the book and spent more time on revision and ensuring internal consistency. REFERENCES Allerton, D.J., Skandera, P. and Tschichold, C., eds. (2002). Perspectives on English as a World Language. Basel: Schwabe. Bauer, L. (2002). An Introduction to International Varieties of English. Edinburgh University Press. Brutt-Griffler, J. (2002). World English: A Study of its Development. Multilingual Matters. Cheshire, J., ed. (1991). English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge UP. Crystal, D. (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge UP. Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global Language. Cambridge University Press. Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A resource book for students. Routledge. Trudgill, P. & J. Hannah (1994, 3rd ed.). International English: A guide to the varieties of standard English. Arnold. Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English, vols I - III. Cambridge University Press. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: ABOUT THE REVIEWER Cornelia Tschichold teaches English linguistics at Neuchâtel University. While her research interests focus on English phraseology, computational lexicography and computer-assisted language learning, she teaches a wide range of courses in English linguistics, including courses on sociolinguistics, the history of English, and varieties of English around the world.

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Mambila Tribe: Ethnological Report of C K (p85) Ethnology - the Mambila tribe As Mr Meek, on account of illness, spent only 10 days investigating this tribe, I make bold to offer a few minor additions to his - I was able to verify the account of the Moon Rites (vide MTS I 547-8) which is correct in every detail except that they are still practised at Mbanga. The Mbanga people in addition, unlike the rest of the Mambila, worship the sun but to a lesser degree. The moon is their paramount god and they do not recognize the supreme being "Nama" or "Chang". The sun rites are observed every day at sunset when the Elders pray each man holding the sacred grass in his hand. Their word for Sun is "Lo" and for moon "Wil". - Generally I have found the supreme being "Nama" is identified with the earth. For the people say they are buried in the earth and their spirits abide therein. - One or two villages have idols. At Ntem it is a piece of wood carved to represent a man "Shuga" and is kept in the sacred - The sacred grass So or Jiro invariably contains the eye of a cow and the process of divination or swearing oaths is often accompanied by a kind of cymbal. - The harvest rites performed at Vokide in November are of interest. Here the village Heal is not the priest but an old woman is designated priestess. Behind the Chief's house is a pit kept covered by a large stone. The people celebrate the coming event by dancing for 7 days. On the eighth day the priestess goes to the pit alone the people sitting at a distance. She removes the stone and looks into the pit. If she sees vapour rising and young seedlings of corn sprouting she stands up and laughs for this portends a good harvest; whereat all the people join in laughing. They then dance and drink beer for another 7 days. Should the priestess see no vapour or seedlings she cries and all lament. No one is allowed to look into the pit except the priestess. Divination of crime is however performed by the village head. In marriage by exchange if one couple has no children, it is customary for the other couple to share their children with them. That is to say if one couple has four children two of them would be given to the childless couple. At Mbanga and Mbang apart from marriage by exchange they have a system of marriage which might be termed marriage by labour. Should a woman have no brother and a man, having no sister, wished to marry her he goes to her farm and works it for her one year and provided her with beer. At the end of the year she goes to his house. No bride money is given but if a son is born, when he grows up, he works on his grandmother's farm for a year. They have no marriage by purchase. After death the body is opened and the whole of the internal organs examined for signs of witchcraft. I was unable to substantiate Mr Meek's statement that only the heart is examined (v.para.1,p551,Tribal Studies I). In fact at Mbang they go so far as to make incisions on the inside of the elbows and behind the knees and examine the veins and tendons and also sever the head completely. - At Mbaso and Gubin the body is placed in a sitting posture in the grave. Elsewhere the corpse is laid on its right side with the head to the west and the feet to the east. In some instances a woman is lain on her left side. - As a rule, the period of mourning is one year. Note. On the whole the Village Heads have unusually good authority over their people and I think the reason may be found in the fact that they are also the priests and therefore held in respect. Sgd H.J.Gill, A.D.O. (dated 8 xi 1931). Notes on Dr Meek's Report (page numbers refer to Tribal Studies, Vol.I) Intermarriage between hamlets: Addendum I/ to this report, omitted here: hdg/gives the result of analysing the marriages of three 533-4. "Mwandi" (sun) is commonly used by the Northern as well as the Southern Mambila. Tagbo, Lagubi, Tongbo (Lagbo, on p560): Bo is apparently a termination denoting a group of people, as in Jabu, Gembu etc. Lak is the name used in Torbi dialect for Gembu, Tong is the name used in the Kabri dialect for Gembu, and is also used for certain hamlets now under Kabri. It means apparently also "rive confluence". Lagubi must be "Lak-Gubin" (Gubin being a neighbouring village to Gembu). I obtained no confirmation of the use of any of these words for a sub-tribal group of villages. Mambila groups in Bamenda Div.: The hamlets mentioned are in Tikar country. Blacksmiths: Dr Meek's description of the smiths as a race apart applies to the blacksmiths of the northern /F88/ corner - Kuma, Gikau and Jabu, but not to those of the Southern Mambila-Kabri and Vokkude - who speak the ordinary dialects and have the same customs as their neighbours. Exagamous kindreds. The only instances of a kindred which has divided itself between two village-chiefs are, I believe, the Chiefs of Gubin and Tem, and the kindred of Mbu, which is split between Wa and Gembu. In both, the exogamous principle is breaking down. On the other hand, all villages and many hamlets contain a plurality of kindreds and endogamous marriage is therefore found in nearly every hamlet (cf Note 1, above). The figures show that intermarriage between hamlets of the same village and between hamlets of different villages[CS1] is almost exactly in proportion to the distance between the hamlets concerned. Insofar as there is anywhere a tendency to obtain wives from a particular village it is from a friendly village, not as Mr Meek suggested from a hostile one. Instances are Gembu-Mbanga, old enemies who refrain from intermarriage, and Tamnya-Vokkude-Mbange, old friends who practise it. Wartime confederations: the groups Mverrep, San and Mbar were not invariable members of the confederacy of Gembu-Wa-Tep, but had connections also with Warwar. Social system (general): Dr Meek states, "The whole Mambila system is based on a dual form of marriage, "that is, on the one hand they had a true patrilineal marriage by bride-price, and he refuses to accept Capt. Izard's view that "Formerly there was no other form of marriage than that by exchange". It is possible that the two views may to some degree be reconcilable. Dr Meek's statement is true of the northern villages, the only ones he was able to visit. /F89/ In the southern ones, on the other hand, it seems to be beyond doubt that until recently there was no true marriage by bride-price: in its place were practices which appear to be stages in the development of a bride-price system and away from an exchange system. In the first place, a man who had no female relative to offer as an exchange could indulge in secret fornication. The girl's parents would not object, since any children born would belong to them and would moreover enhance their daughter's worth for exchange. Of this stage of development, if it is a "stage", I came across one example only. The next stage is licensed concubinage: the man is accepted at the girl's parents' house and at frequent intervals stays there for some days, working on their farms as well as his own. The girl would, however, never come as wife to his house. A third stage is described by Mr Gill /v. supra, para2, F86/. This stage is clearly marriage, in however "futile" a form, not mere concubinage, and the next step to it is true bride-price marriage. I was informed that, sometimes at least, male children would belong to the father and only female to the mother. Such a distribution is contrary to the known Mambila principles and it may be merely that an act of grace has by repetition become a custom. /But certainly incredible nowhere that exchange prevails: it is the females who are at a premium (in Bauchi it has been reported that a daughter's "illegitimate" daughter may be exchanged for a girl who can be exchanged in turn for a wife for any member of the family): under the same system, one is obliged to provide a male with a female to exchange for a wife; and permitting an unmarried father custody of his male children would probably depend rather on the existing ratio of unmarried males to unmarried females in the mother's compound, or on the desire of senior males to take additional wives, perhaps. Hdg/ As the conclusion to be drawn from all this it is suggested that the dual form of marriage, while so long-standing in the Northern villages as to be fundamental to the social system, was not a primeval and unchangeable custom, but only a compromise evolved - as the result of a fight against the unsatisfactory features of exchange marriage - from an earlier system in which no other form of marriage existed. Pp539-40. Exchange marriage: Certain practices were noted among the Southern Villages which Dr Meek does not actually mention: (a) A woman who is a proved child-bearer is (or was) sometimes exchanged for another woman plus money, or rather plus hoes, which were formerly the only currency; (b) a woman may be exchanged for the refusal of a girl, or, on the principle of the bird in the hand, of two girls; (c) re-exchange is regular during the negotiations for a marriage, and a long chain of exchanges of brides and prospective brides may be set up, but once marriage is consummated the wife is not again exchanged. Bride-price: The majority of men state that their wives were obtained by purchase, not exchange, and it looks as though a system of bride-price of the common (Moslem) type (i.e. where the father, not the mother, has custody of the children) is coming into existence. For instance, it was said at Gembu that exchange had been rare for over 30 years, yet al the families were undoubtedly patrilocal. Possibly the patrilocal bride-price system is an extension of the marriage with a purchased slave which Dr Meek mentions. It was evidently common in the past and is probably so now, for a girl married by bride-price, if she had borne no children within a year or two, to be reclaimed by the parents and given in exchange elsewhere. Custody of children: Enquiries went to show that the vast majority of children now reside in the father's house, despite the fact that their parents are alleged to be married under the bride-price system, which should imply maternal custody. /F91/ Whatever the truth of this and whatever the allowances to be made for falsehood, it seems clear that the dual social system described by Meek is rapidly breaking down, partly from natural causes and partly from the Administrative Order regarding exchanges, not as in some cases elsewhere from inadvertent action by the Courts. /Unable to trace this order; ref. to "inadvertent action" obscure. Change of married status: It was not unknown for a man to contract a marriage by bride-price or its equivalent, and later, if opportunity offered, to effect an exchange and obtain his same wife "genuinely". In such an instance children born prior to the exchange remained with the mother's family, while those born subsequently naturally belonged to the father. The instance quoted by Dr Meek, where a husband gave his sister into slavery to save the skin of the wife's uncle, illustrates the same principle, and I believe that between the words "all children begotten by her(sic)" and "would become his", the word "subsequently" is implied. Redemption from slavery: In the only instance which came up, a man had been sent to slavery as a child to redeem his father's mother (the father having married by exchange, the grandmother apparently by purchase). No case of self-redemption was noted. Inheritance of wives: both levirates are practised throughout the tribe, but inheritance of widows either by or from a son or sister's son, mentioned by Meek, is not practised in the Southern villages. Inheritance of chieftainship: The Chiefs of Wa and Tep (whose appointments date from German times) and probably certain others are /F92/ sons of purchase marriages. 543-4. Illicit sexual relations: It should be noted that a Mambila man seldom marries before 25 and a girl before at least 20. Unmarried adults of both sexes occupy regularly the same sleeping-hut as a married couple. Relationship terms: Most of the terms quoted by Mr Meek are unknown in the Central and Southern villages. Pp546-7. Moon worship: the new-moon rites continue at Mbanga, one Taro from the hamlet of Fu being the priest. The day after the performance of these rites is a public holiday. The rites described by Dr Meek as performed at the waning of the moon have evidently Ordeal: The sole oath or ordeal which the tribe now admits to practising when questioned by an Administrative Officer is that on the Kuru gong, or Yong, which is enjoined by the Native Court (mentioned on p555). Ngubsho: This charm (not to be confused with Ngu, a witch-testing concoction imported by itinerant quacks from the Tikar tribe) does not seem to be known in the Southern hamlets. In an alternative way of preparation the cock's head is impaled up on the stick. Festivals: Every kindred has its "Sabbath" which is the market day and comes at ten-day intervals - five days in Mbang and the Kaka villages. Not infrequently the market hasceased to function, but its name and date persist (v. infra). There are four chief seasonal festivals, as shown in the list below, which is taken from Titon but applies widely: (1) Kati (chief festival, sowing of corn), (2) Gevur (ripening of maize / first or second? in general, maize ripens twice throughout this area. Hdg/), (3) Kip (harvest-time, celebrated by both sexes; Nyoti is particular for women),(4) Nyingwan (harvest-thanksgiving when the crops are gathered). Kundu is the name given for burial feasts. Burial: the custom of burying a chief under one of his granaries and hanging his gown and fez on it is by no means invariable: some have been outside their hamlet in a grove. Blood-brotherhood: Though individual blood-brotherhood rites are not now practised, they are not unknown to the Southern Mambila, and in instances where a pair of hamlets is forbidden by custom to intermarry a long-standing blod-brotherhood may be given as the reason. Diga (Mbamga) and Kila (Vokkude), Koshin (Mbanga) and Mbarr are such pairs. Circumcision: Sometimes postponed till after puberty. No reason was suggested except that the boy might have been frightened to undergo the operation earlier. House-building: As Meek says, houses made of a frame of reeds (tolergrass) are usual in the northerly villages, and houses of the "lath and plaster" type in the center and south, but it is not correct to say that short thatch invariably goes with a framework hut and long with the latter. Granaries: Each wife and adult son has his own granary, the usual practice being that their corn is put to current use, while that in the master's store is kept for reserve and tax-paying. Family group: Although in almost every hill-top group of compounds there is a nucleus of two or three compounds of close relations, there is almost invariably also a number of compounds belonging to persons who admit no close relationship. Ownership of bamboo palms: Gullies containing the bamboo-palm belong as a rule to the hamlet as a whole, not to a special household or family in the narrower sense. Dancing floor: In the northern group of villages the center of the beaten dancing-circle is invariably (?) occupied by a "coral" tree (Minjiriya, Erythrina senagalensis-Dalziel) growing out from a mud platform. It may be noted that the Minjiriya is revered also by the Kaka of Bamenda. Names of the villages and hamlets: The naming of a village after a previous chief is, I believe, purely a Fulani_German innovation. The Mambila, unless speaking to a stranger, uses the kindred - or place-name (which are one) or occasionally the name of the existing chief. The following are "village" names of Fulani use only and derive from a chief of the period 1890-1910: Titon, Vokkude (nickname), Tamnya, Gembu, Wa, Tem. Most of the remaining hamlets and villages are known abroad by their Mambila kindred-names or a corruption of it, though Kabri among others seems to be a pre-Mambila Weapons' hoes: Spears are made by the blacksmiths of Kabri and Vokkude who are true Mambila or at least very long-standing immigrants. Hoes, on the other hand, are made only by the blacksmiths of Kuma and Gikau, close to Nayo Daga, who are distinct from the Mambila proper. It is curious if the Mambila with their highly distinctive shields have, as Dr Meek suggests, been spear-bearers for only a short time, and one would like to hear in more detail the evidence on which he bases hiw view. F96/ Musical instruments: a curious instrument is used by men to accompany their "crooning". This is a plucking instrument, like a guitar without a handle, of which the sounding medium is a series of springy splinters instead of strings. Personal appearance: clothes are now worn by a few women in the northern villages; in the south they are still nude. Some of these follow the Kaka fashion of piercing the nose or ear and inserting a fragment of straw. The chipping of teeth is common, but is a fahsion only, not obligatory. Markets: The market day is the holy day, coming roung every ten days except in Mbang village, where the five-day Kaka week is kept. Sgd D A Percival, 1 xi 35.

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Ask Dr. Math High School Archive Dr. Math Home || Middle School || High School || Dr. Math FAQ See also the Dr. Math FAQ: Browse High School History/Biography Stars indicate particularly interesting answers or good places to begin browsing. - The Welsh Vigesimal Number System [02/17/2003] What can you tell me about the Welsh version of the Vigesimal Number - What If There Was No Zero? [10/21/2003] Why did it take so long to discover zero? Why did early civilizations not need zero? How would math as we know it be different if there was - What is a Sign? [04/21/2003] Can you do anything in math without signs? - What is Menelaus' Theorem? [11/15/1998] Proof of Menelaus' Theorem, and discussion of its converse and Desargues' - What was Fermat's Last Theorem? [07/23/1997] I wonder if you might take the time to explain Fermat's Last Theorem. I am an undergraduate in mathematics, so an easy answer would be perfect. - When Do We Need to Know Roman Numerals? [08/26/2003] I have a student who does not see how learning Roman numerals will benefit her. What advice can you give her to make this learning experience more relevant to her life and needs? - Where did Fahrenheit and Celsius Come From? [07/26/1997] How did scientists figure out the relation between two numbers that mean the same thing, e.g. 0 deg C and 32 deg F? - Where did Pi come from? [12/2/1994] We are an adult high school and we were wondering if you could answer our question. Where did the word pi come from, and how did someone determine it was equal to 3.14? - Where does pi come from? [1/13/1995] I was wondering how exactly the math notation pi was derived, and whoever derived it, why did he make up that symbol for pi? - Where does sine come from? [1/6/1995] Who was the inventor of Sine? And when did he/she discover it? Also, how did he/she do it? - Who Invented Algebra? [06/07/2004] Who invented Algebra? - Who Invented Binary? [05/07/2000] Who invented the binary system of numbers and when was it developed? - Who was Hero (or Heron)? [11/12/1997] I have been trying to find information on the Greek mathematician Hero. - Why Are the Numbers on a Dartboard Where They Are? [03/09/2004] The way that the numbers 1 to 20 are arranged on a standard dart board at first seems to be random, but are they placed in such a way as to encourage accuracy, i.e., so that missing a high number results in hitting a low number? - Why b for Intercept? [10/16/2003] In the slope-intercept formula, y = mx + b, why is 'b' used to represent the y-intercept? - Why Does 1+1=2? [2/28/1995] Nobody that I ask has been able to answer that question with an explanation. Notice the word WHY, not HOW. - Why Do We Need to Study Rational Numbers? [04/22/2008] My students want to know why they need to know what rational numbers are and what use they have in the real world. - Why Is a Circle 360 Degrees? [07/01/1998] Why is a circle defined as 360 degrees? - Why m for slope? [11/9/1994] My class wants me to ask you why the letter m was selected to represent - Why Straightedge and Compass Only? [10/02/2002] My geometry students want to know why constructions can only be done using a straightedge and a compass. - Why x and y? [11/30/1994] Can Dr. Math tell me where we get x and y? - Women in Mathematics [3/6/1996] Would someone answer questions from eleventh grade girls about being a - You Can't Trisect an Angle [7/16/1996] Who proved you can't trisect an angle? Search the Dr. Math Library: © 1994-2013 Drexel University. All rights reserved. Home || The Math Library || Quick Reference || Search || Help The Math Forum is a research and educational enterprise of the Drexel University School of Education.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Ten international drug companies are to team up with scientists from 11 European countries to create a bank of stem cells for a project aimed at speeding up the development of new medicines. StemBANCC, coordinated by Swiss drugmaker Roche and managed by scientists at Oxford University, aims to use so-called human-induced pluripotent stem cells - derived from people with hard-to-treat conditions - as research tools. Martin Graf from Roche, who is coordinating the project, said the goal was to generate 1,500 induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from 500 patients that can then be used by researchers around the world to study a range of diseases, including diabetes and dementia. In recent years, researchers have developed a way of reprogramming ordinary adult cells taken from skin or blood, for example, to create stem cells that can be used to generate any type of cell. These induced pluripotent stem cells can offer a supply of different kinds of human cell such as cardiomyocytes, or heart cells, and neurons or nerve cells that can be used for a broad range of laboratory tests in early stage drug development. The research that resulted in the creation of the first induced pluripotent stem cells was a significant breakthrough which won the scientists behind it - John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka - this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine. Graf and Zameel Cader of Oxford University, who announced the project in London, said the raw material for the project would be largely skin and blood samples taken from patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes. The research will focus mainly on these conditions as well as peripheral nervous system disorders such as chronic and neuropathic pain, central nervous system disorders such as dementia, and neurodysfunctional conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Cader said that because the stem bank's cell lines will be derived directly from real patients, they will include genes that may be the culprits in causing the development of diseases - making them useful for early testing of the efficacy and toxicity of potential new medicines. "This is essentially what is so transformative about stem cell technology - for the first time you can get at the cells that are relevant from the patients with the conditions," he said. "That is what is so exciting about it." The project is a public-private partnership backed by the European Union's Innovation Medicines Initiative and is half funded by the drug industry and half by the EU. Other drugmakers involved are Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck KgaA, Novo Nordisk, Orion , Pfizer and Sanofi. (Editing by Dan Lalor)

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The Growing Child: 7 to 9 Months While all babies may grow at a different rate, the following indicates the average for boys and girls 7 to 9 months of age: - Weight: average gain of 1 pound each month; boys usually weigh about 1/2 pound more than girls; two-and-a-half times the birthweight by 8 months - Height: average growth of about 1/2 inch each month - Head size: average growth of about 1/4 inch each month Babies are rapidly developing their physical abilities at this age. They become mobile for the first time and safety in the home becomes an important issue. While babies may progress at different rates, the following are some of the common milestones your baby may reach in this age group: - Rolls over easily from front to back and back to front - Sits leaning forward on hands at first, then unsupported - Bounces when supported to stand - Gets on hands and feet and rocks back and forth - May creep, scoot, crawl--backwards first, then forward - Begins to pull up to stand - Reaches for and grasps objects using whole hand - Bangs toy on table - Can hold an object in each hand - May hold a bottle - Plays peek-a-boo - Grasps object with thumb and finger by 8 to 9 months - Begins teething, usually starting with the two center front teeth in the lower jaw, then the two center front teeth in the upper jaw - Learns to drink from cup - Puts everything into mouth - Naps are usually twice, sometimes three times a day, for one to two hours each (on average) - May begin to awaken during the night and cry It is very exciting for parents to watch their babies become social beings that can interact with others. While every baby develops speech at his or her own rate, the following are some of the common milestones in this age group: - Makes two syllable sounds (ma-ma, da-da) - Makes several different vowel sounds, especially "o" and "u" - Repeats tones or sounds made by others A baby's awareness of people and surroundings increases during this time. While babies may progress at different rates, the following are some of the common milestones in this age group: - Responds to own name and "no" - Pays attention to conversation - Appears to understand some words (i.e., eat) - Prefers mother over others - Enjoys seeing self in mirror - Responds to changes in emotions of others - Is afraid of strangers - Shows interest in and dislike of foods - Makes attention-getting sounds such as a cough or snort - Begins to understand object permanence and can uncover a toy after seeing it covered - May follow one-step commands with a sign to demonstrate (i.e., "get the ball" while parent points to ball) Consider the following as ways to foster the emotional security of your baby: - Give your baby safe toys that make noises when shaken or hit. - Play in front of a mirror, calling your baby by name and pointing to your baby's reflection in the mirror. - When talking to your baby, pause and wait for him or her to respond just as when talking with an adult. - Play pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo. - Name common objects when shown to your baby. - Make a variety of sounds with your mouth and tone of voice. - Repeat and expand the sounds your baby makes, such as "ma-ma" when he or she says "ma." - Show picture books and read stories to your baby every day. - Give your baby toys with objects or knobs to push, poke, or turn. - Give your baby toys that stack or nest and show him or her how they work. - Build a tower with your baby and show him or her how to knock it down. - Establish a routine for bath and bedtime. - Offer a cup.

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Osteoarthritis is usually diagnosed after your doctor has taken a careful history of your symptoms. A physical exam will be done. There are no definitive lab blood tests to make an absolute diagnosis of osteoarthritis. Certain tests, specifically x-rays of the joint, may confirm your doctor’s impression that you have developed osteoarthritis. X-ray examination of an affected joint —A joint with osteoarthritis will have lost some of the normal space that exists between the bones. This space is called the joint space. This joint space is made up of articular cartilage, which becomes thin. There may be tiny new bits of bone (bone spurs) visible at the end of the bones. Other signs of joint and bone deterioration may also be present. X-rays , however, may not show very much in the earlier stages of osteoarthritis, even when you are clearly experiencing symptoms. Arthrocentesis —Using a thin needle, your doctor may remove a small amount of joint fluid from an affected joint. The fluid can be examined in a lab to make sure that no other disorder is causing your symptoms (such as rheumatoid arthritis , gout , infection). Blood tests —Blood tests may be done to make sure that no other disorder is responsible for your symptoms (such as rheumatoid arthritis or other autoimmune diseases that include forms of arthritis). Researchers are also looking at whether the presence of certain substances in the blood might indicate osteoarthritis and help predict the severity of the condition. These substances include breakdown products of hyaluronic acid (a substance that lubricates joints) and a liver product called C-reactive protein. - Reviewer: Rosalyn Carson-DeWitt, MD - Review Date: 09/2011 - - Update Date: 09/01/2011 -

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"Mouchan" Mouchan by mke1963 Mouchan Travel Guide: 2 reviews and 4 photos The small village of Mouchan is unusual in this part of the world for being down in the valley by a river - the Osse. Most villages are old and are therefore built up on the ridges and hilltops. Fourcès is another exception, but probably also, like Mouchan, a more recent village. "Recent" here means that it was built after the Dark Ages around the 10th Century. Building on higher ground was not just a defensive decision; the rivers were prone to flood badly and regularly. The Osse and the Gélise remain particularly prone to flooding, and Mouchan is still at risk. Those keen to paddle in the warm rivers of the Osse should be aware that upstream reservoirs can occasionally discharge water and the water level can rise quickly. As the rivers here do not rise in the Pyrenees, there are no hydro-electric schemes upstream, so these rivers in northern Gers are not at risk of significant discharges, it would be wise to be careful with small children. Mouchan is best known for its Romanesque church, which is the earliest known church with Gothic features, so is well-known in the architectural world. However, Mouchan is more than just one church. It has the traces of an ancient water-mill, the remains of the old fosse, and other interesting little vignettes of rural French architecture. It's also a pleasant village and starting pointing for great walks up and down the Osse valley and into the vineyards on the ridges around Cassaigne to the south. The origins of the name are unknown, although there are local theories that it is derived from the Latin personal name Muscius. Given its location in the valley, this seems unlikely although Mouchan is on a Roman road. The remains of a Roman villa have been found nearby, but then what self-respecting Tenareze village doesn't have its crop of substantial Roman remains? In particular the area around Gelleneuve (south of Mouchan, alongside the Osse) has provided rich Roman relics. Others have suggested that the name started as Muysano ("more clean"), then Meysano, Moissan and finally Mouchan. However, earlier it was known as Valaque (and note that the hamlet nearby is still called Balagué. In the 10th Century, the Benedictine order built a priory which, from 1264 onwards came under the protection of the church of Saint-Orens in Auch. This parish was the very furthest northern limit of the land of the archbishop of Auch. As often happened, the village first started from a clustering of houses and farms around the church, which was dedicated to Saint-Austrégésile (as is the church in the village of Vopillon across and down the valley a little). This saint, who died in 624, is a Gascon favourite, having already become the patron saint of Auch and Nogaro. Staint-Austrégésile was before his canonisation, the bishop of Bourges. In 1062, his relics were brought to Nogaro for the consecration of the basilica. The development of the Chemin de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle led to Mouchan's priory becoming a deanery in 1080, with its adoption by the Order of Cluny, and the number of monks grew steadily. Over time, a pallisade and probably later stone walls were erected with a fosse to protect the settlement. The fighting in the Hundred Years Wars made the area unsafe. In 1368, the Prince of Wales destroyed the church, and even afterwards, for many centuries, this was still really a frontier area subject to marauding groups. By the 16th Century, the population might have expected more stability, but in 1589 Montgomery's Protestant troops badly damaged the little church and destroyed the priory. Two generations later, the Black Death killed most of the population. The vilage cemetary wasn't big enough for all the bodies, and many had to buried at la Bourdette, well away from the village to the west. In 1708, the Comte de Mouchan died in the Battle of Tortosa in eastern Spain while fighting for the Duc d'Anjou, grand-son of Louis XIV. He was not Mouchan's first noble son though; Cardinal Jean III de Bilhelm Lagraulas, Archbishop of Lombez was an ambassador for Louis XI and Charles VI. Little changed over the centuries until mayor Joseph-Bernard Faget started building in the 19th Century: a school, a cemetery, the mairie, and, intriguingly, the long avenue lined by lime trees between the church and the mairie. However, this last village enhancement caused a furore as it would cut right through the curate's garden. After some wonderful protests, typical of French local politics, the curate stormed out of the village, never to return. The end of the 19th Century and early 20th Century brought the same sadnesses and tragedies to Mouchan as to almost every other rural community in southern France: devastation of the vines by disease, two World Wars, the amalgamation and mechanisation of farms leading to job losses, and then the inevitable outward migration. It took Spanish, Italian and latterly northern French and Belgian immigration to stem the flow. Before the First World War, there were a number of shops and a Post Office: now there are none. The effect continues today: in 1988, there were 33 farms, now only 16; then there were 454 head of cattle, now (2000) just 75. Condom is just 8km to the east, and Larressingle 3km north. To the east is Gondrin, which can be reached across the valley on foot. Don't miss the hamlet of Vopillon which is across the valley to the north-west. - Pros:Tranquility; the church; the river - Cons:No shops or places to have a drink - In a nutshell:Mouchan is peaceful, but so are most of the villages in this tranquil part of the world. This fabulous church is one of the wonders of Gascony. Built in the 11th Century, with stone from quarry at Ramounet... more travel advice mke1963's Related Pages Mouchan Travel Guide Badges & Stats in Mouchan - 2 Reviews - 4 Photos - 0 Forum posts - 0 Comments - See All Stats - See All Badges (22) Have you been to Mouchan?Share Your Travels Latest Activity in Mouchan Photos in MouchanSee All Photos (4) Top 10 Pages - Top 5 Page for this destination Beijing Intro, 153 reviews, 126 photos, 2 travelogues - Zhangjiajie Intro, 29 reviews, 107 photos, 1 travelogue - Top 5 Page for this destination Harbin Intro, 49 reviews, 60 photos, 2 travelogues - Seoul Intro, 57 reviews, 35 photos - Top 5 Page for this destination Lanzhou Intro, 27 reviews, 62 photos, 2 travelogues - Jiayuguan Intro, 36 reviews, 47 photos - Top 5 Page for this destination Chengdu Intro, 19 reviews, 62 photos - Graaff-Reinet Intro, 25 reviews, 49 photos - Top 5 Page for this destination Dunhuang Intro, 21 reviews, 43 photos, 2 travelogues - Top 5 Page for this destination Suwon Intro, 24 reviews, 37 photos

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(ARA) - Traditionally, the term “war zone” elicits images of tanks, gunfire and military personnel. However, as technology evolves, so do the weapons associated with the art of warfare. Most recently, the battleground has moved online, with the introduction of a new computer malware threat known as “Flame.” Flame steals information from e-operations of certain nation states – making it a vital threat to both governments and military units. Based on the way Flame works, it can be classified as a “cyber weapon,” according to Kaspersky Lab, a Russian anti-virus firm. Web attacks cost businesses $114 billion each year, according to a 2011 study conducted by Symantec. And as more business, government and military institutions store classified information online, the probability of an attempted attack by these new forms of cyber-weaponry increases. Given the likelihood for future security breaches, the need for professionals with the skills required to protect those at risk for such forms of online espionage is amplifying. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook reports that by the year 2020, demand for cyber security experts will increase by 28 percent. Much like the way the military and police serve and protect our country and its citizens, cyber security experts play a crucial role in protecting an institution’s network and information from attacks. These professionals, known as computer forensics experts, also analyze the electronic evidence, and in some cases identify and serve as expert witnesses to help prosecute the criminals responsible. Bachelor’s degree programs such as computer information systems (CIS) help prepare students for this role. Many programs allow students to concentrate their studies in a variety of cyber security specialties. For example, students focusing on computer forensics will learn the skills necessary to handle the electronic evidence of criminal cases and how to identify and prosecute criminals. At DeVry University, students enrolled in the Computer Information Systems bachelor’s degree program can pursue a cyber security specialization in computer forensics that allows them to gain understanding of the diversity of computer crime, and the laws and principals concerned with computer forensics and electronic evidence. They also learn how to discover data that resides in a computer system, and how to recover deleted, encrypted or damaged file information. “Technical knowledge is only one piece of the skillset puzzle for cyber security practitioners,” says Dr. Ahmed Naumaan, national dean for the College of Engineering & Information Sciences at DeVry University. “Creativity and the ability to think outside the box play a pertinent role, as those in this field must be able to take on the mindset of the hackers they protect against.” The many forms of online assault will continue to evolve. As governments, businesses and other institutions increasingly become targets of online warfare, the demand for those armed with the competencies to successfully defend against them will grow.

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What do we really know about creativity? Very little. We know that creative genius is not the same thing as intelligence. In fact, beyond a certain minimum IQ threshold – about one standard deviation above average, or an IQ of 115 – there is no correlation at all between intelligence and creativity. We know that creativity is empirically correlated with mood-swing disorders. A couple of decades ago, Harvard researchers found that people showing ‘exceptional creativity’ – which they put at fewer than 1 per cent of the population – were more likely to suffer from manic-depression or to be near relatives of manic-depressives. As for the psychological mechanisms behind creative genius, those remain pretty much a mystery. About the only point generally agreed on is that, as Pinker put it, ‘Geniuses are wonks.’ They work hard; they immerse themselves in their genre.Could this immersion have something to do with stocking the memory? As an instructive case of creative genius, consider the French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who died in 1912. Poincaré’s genius was distinctive in that it embraced nearly the whole of mathematics, from pure (number theory) to applied (celestial mechanics). Along with his German coeval David Hilbert, Poincaré was the last of the universalists. His powers of intuition enabled him to see deep connections between seemingly remote branches of mathematics. He virtually created the modern field of topology, framing the ‘Poincaré conjecture’ for future generations to grapple with, and he beat Einstein to the mathematics of special relativity. Unlike many geniuses, Poincaré was a man of great practical prowess; as a young engineer he conducted on-the-spot diagnoses of mining disasters. He was also a lovely prose stylist who wrote bestselling works on the philosophy of science; he is the only mathematician ever inducted into the literary section of the Institut de France. What makes Poincaré such a compelling case is that his breakthroughs tended to come in moments of sudden illumination. One of the most remarkable of these was described in his essay ‘Mathematical Creation’. Poincaré had been struggling for some weeks with a deep issue in pure mathematics when he was obliged, in his capacity as mine inspector, to make a geological excursion. ‘The changes of travel made me forget my mathematical work,’ he recounted. Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go some place or other. At the moment I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry. I did not verify the idea; I should not have had time, as, upon taking my seat in the omnibus, I went on with a conversation already commenced, but I felt a perfect certainty. On my return to Caen, for conscience’s sake, I verified the result at my leisure. How to account for the full-blown epiphany that struck Poincaré in the instant that his foot touched the step of the bus? His own conjecture was that it had arisen from unconscious activity in his memory. ‘The role of this unconscious work in mathematical invention appears to me incontestable,’ he wrote. ‘These sudden inspirations … never happen except after some days of voluntary effort which has appeared absolutely fruitless.’ The seemingly fruitless effort fills the memory banks with mathematical ideas – ideas that then become ‘mobilised atoms’ in the unconscious, arranging and rearranging themselves in endless combinations, until finally the ‘most beautiful’ of them makes it through a ‘delicate sieve’ into full consciousness, where it will then be refined and proved. Poincaré was a modest man, not least about his memory, which he called ‘not bad’ in the essay. In fact, it was prodigious. ‘In retention and recall he exceeded even the fabulous Euler,’ one biographer declared. (Euler, the most prolific mathematician of all – the constant e takes his initial – was reputedly able to recite the Aeneid from memory.) Poincaré read with incredible speed, and his spatial memory was such that he could remember the exact page and line of a book where any particular statement had been made. His auditory memory was just as well developed, perhaps owing to his poor eyesight. In school, he was able to sit back and absorb lectures without taking notes despite being unable to see the blackboard. It is the connection between memory and creativity, perhaps, which should make us most wary of the web. ‘As our use of the web makes it harder for us to lock information into our biological memory, we’re forced to rely more and more on the net’s capacious and easily searchable artificial memory,’ Carr observes. But conscious manipulation of externally stored information is not enough to yield the deepest of creative breakthroughs: this is what the example of Poincaré suggests. Human memory, unlike machine memory, is dynamic. Through some process we only crudely understand – Poincaré himself saw it as the collision and locking together of ideas into stable combinations – novel patterns are unconsciously detected, novel analogies discovered. And this is the process that Google, by seducing us into using it as a memory prosthesis, threatens to subvert.

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This function unlocks a region in an open file. Unlocking a region enables other processes to access the region. BOOL UnlockFileEx( HANDLE hFile, DWORD dwReserved, DWORD nNumberOfBytesToLockLow, DWORD nNumberOfBytesToLockHigh, LPOVERLAPPED lpOverlapped ); [in] Handle to a file that contains a region locked by the LockFileEx function. The file handle must have been created with the GENERIC_READ or GENERIC_WRITE access right. Reserved. Set to zero. [in] Low-order portion of the length of the byte range to unlock. [in] High-order portion of the length of the byte range to unlock. [in] Pointer to an OVERLAPPED structure that is used with the unlock request. This structure contains the file offset of the beginning of the unlock range. Nonzero indicates success. Zero indicates failure. For extended error information, call GetLastError. Unlocking a region of a file releases a previously acquired lock on the file. The region to unlock must correspond exactly to an existing locked region. Two adjacent regions of a file cannot be locked separately and then unlocked using a single region that spans both locked regions. If a process terminates with a portion of a file locked or closes a file that has outstanding locks, the locks are unlocked by the OS. However, the time it takes for the OS to unlock these locks depends upon available system resources. Therefore, explicitly unlock all locked files when a process ends. Otherwise, access to these files can be denied if the OS has not yet unlocked them.

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Specifies the axis type for the X and Y-axes of a Series. Assembly: System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization (in System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.dll) The enumeration represents the axis type used for the X and Y-axes of a Series. A Series is plotted using two axes, with the exception of pie and doughnut charts. This enumeration is used in conjunction with the XAxisType and YAxisType properties to set the axes used for plotting the associated data points of the series. For all charts except for bar, stacked bar, pie and doughnut types, the primary and secondary axes are as follows: Bottom horizontal axis. Top horizontal axis. Left vertical axis. Right vertical axis. Bar and stacked bar charts have their axes rotated 90 degrees clockwise. For example, the primary X-axis for these two charts is the left-vertical axis.

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Tenaim: The Conditions of Marriage Contemporary couples are reinterpreting an old ceremony that set the financial and logistical arrangements for an upcoming marriage The author provides a historical context for the Jewish tradition of tenaim where the families of prospective bride and groom would meet to set primarily financial and logistical "conditions" for an upcoming marriage; in a small number of communities, tenaim are still practiced this way. In the spirit of the contemporary trend toward developing new Jewish ceremonies, the author then describes how a modern "tenaim" ceremony might work. The contemporary version is, for all practical purposes, a new ceremony based broadly on the notion that certain "conditions," albeit primarily personal ones, are set in anticipation of the upcoming marriage. Excerpted with permission from The New Jewish Wedding (Simon & Schuster, Inc.). The decision to marry is one of life's momentous choices. Some couples have made it the occasion for a celebration based on the Ashkenazic custom of tenaim--literally, the "conditions" of the marriage. Every engagement announces that two people are changing their status; the public declaration of their decision instantly designates them bride and groom. Tenaim kicks off the season of the wedding, officially and Jewishly. An Old Ceremony From the 12th to the early 19th century, tenaim announced that two families had come to terms on a match between their children. The document setting out their agreement, also called tenaim, would include the dowry and other financial arrangements, the date and time of the huppah [the actual wedding ceremony], and a knas, or penalty, if either party backed out of the deal. After the document was signed and read aloud by an esteemed guest, a piece of crockery was smashed. The origins of this practice are not clear; the most common interpretation is that a shattered dish recalls the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and it is taken to demonstrate that a broken engagement cannot be mended. The broken dish also anticipates the shattered glass that ends the wedding ceremony. In some communities it was customary for all the guests to bring some old piece of crockery to smash on the floor. There is also a tradition that the mothers-in-law-to-be break the plate--a symbolic rending of mother-child ties and an acknowledgment that soon their children will be feeding each other. After the plate breaking, the party began. Possibilities for Celebration of Tenaim Today Tenaim is not required by Jewish law, and as family-arranged weddings became a thing of the past, the ceremony lost much of its meaning and popularity. The signing of traditional tenaim remains a vestigial practice in some Jewish communities, where the agreement to marry is signed on the day of the wedding itself. Modern reinterpretations of the tenaim return the ceremony to its original, anticipatory celebration some months in advance.

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Heaven and Hope The Wilderness Society 2010-2011, “Heaven and Hope” written by Jeff Rennicke The lands that belong to all Americans have long provided wilderness, recreation, and heavenly scenery. Now, scientists say, protecting them just might hold our best hope of saving the planet. “As confusing as these numbers seem, one number is increasingly clear, says Harvey Locke of The WILD Foundation: 50 percent. For decades, according to Locke, conservationists pushed for protection of 10 to 12 percent of the Earth as a “politically acceptable” goal. “When those other targets were set they were bold and visionary,” he says, “but the world has changed and those…targets no longer conform to what we’ve come to understand scientifically nor to the current very serious conditions that exist around the world for nature.” His ambitious goal is the target of a new program called “Nature Needs Half,” which seeks the designation of at least 50 percent of the world’s terrestrial surface to a level defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That would require the protection of some tribal, corporate, and private lands, yet its success will depend mostly on the protection of our cherished public lands.

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Gold has been known since prehistory. The symbol is derived from Latin aurum (gold). AuI 9.2 eV, AuII 20.5 eV, AuIII 30.0 eV. Absorption lines of AuI In the sun, the equivalent width of AuI 3122(1) is 0.005. Behavior in non-normal stars The probable detection of Au I was announced by Jaschek and Malaroda (1970) in one Ap star of the Cr-Eu-Sr subgroup. Fuhrmann (1989) detected Au through the ultimate line of Au II at 1740(2) in several Bp stars of the Si and Ap stars of the Cr-Eu-Sr subgroups. The presence of Au seems to be associated with that of platinum and mercury. Au has one stable isotope, Au197 and 20 short-lived isotopes and isomers. Au can only be produced by the r process. Published in "The Behavior of Chemical Elements in Stars", Carlos Jaschek and Mercedes Jaschek, 1995, Cambridge University Press.

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Both devices rely on injectable solutions of radiopharmaceuticals, which are drugs that are labeled with radioactive isotopes. As the solution circulates throughout the body, it tends to accumulate in malignant cells. The congregated radiopharmaceuticals emit gamma-rays, which are sensed as light by the devices and then converted into electronic signals that can be rendered as a visible image. "What we will be looking to do is develop minimally invasive instrumentation," Keppel says. "We want to be able to locate and diagnose cancers more effectively. Everything coming out of the Center, at least in the immediate future, will be focused on finding better ways to locate or image those radiopharmaceuticals." Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk will be joining with CAMI to establish a graduate program in medical physics. It will be the first such program in Virginia, and the first in the country at an historically black college. Any devices resulting from the collaboration will be evaluated both nationally and in clinical programs conducted at Tidewater-area hospitals. Keppel is in the process of writing proposals that would fund Center personnel in medical physics, engineering and applied technology. In addition to five students and two part-time administrative assistants, Keppel expects up to 10 individuals from Hampton University, the Lab, and EVMS to staff CAMI. "We pool expertise in one place and we get the word out," she says. "The idea is to become an international resource for medical physics and to invite physicians, companies and patient advocacy groups to partner with us." Groundbreaking for a new CAMI research facility on campus at Hampton University is scheduled for later this spring. When complete in 2003, the Center will enclose 12,000 square feet in two stories, housing primarily research labs Contact: Linda Ware DOE/Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

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This week marks the anniversary of the first time a human, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, went into space. It's also the anniversary of the inaugural launch of NASA's space shuttle program. We've assembled a slideshow representing some of the spacecraft used for manned space travel in the past, present, and future. Seen here is Gagarin before he took off on his 108-minute orbit around the Earth, an event that shocked the world and accelerated the space race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. April 14, 2012 3:59 AM PDT Photo by: NASA | Caption by: Martin LaMonica Conversation powered by Livefyre

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Using voting records, the researchers found out political party affiliation for 35 of the men and 47 of the women in that study. Political parties aren't a perfect match with ideology, but they come very close, the researchers wrote Feb. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE. Most Democrats hold liberal values, while most Republicans hold conservative values. Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward. Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. While their brain activity differed, the two groups' behaviors were identical, the study found. Schreiber and his colleagues can't say whether the functional brain differences nudge people toward a particular ideology or not. The brain changes based on how it is used, so it is possible that acting in a partisan way prompts the differences. The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. This article originally appeared on LiveScience.com. More From LiveScience.com:

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It's a look that's been painted and photographed untold times: a mother gazing deep into her infant's eyes while the two smile and kiss. Psychologists believe this interplay helps a child's emotional and cognitive development. The behavior was thought to exist only in humans and to a lesser extent in our closest kin, chimpanzees. Now, scientists have discovered similarly intense shared gazing and facial expressions in monkeys. And that means, the researchers say, that this kind of maternal communication dates back at least 30 million years. Although scientists have studied rhesus macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatto) in the lab and field for more than 50 years, they missed this key behavior. "Previous researchers were looking more at what happens when a mother and infant are separated," says Pier Francesco Ferrari, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy, not what happens when they're together. But plenty occurs between the two, as Ferrari and his team observed. In a semi-free-range environment at the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, the scientists filmed 14 mother-and-infant pairs during the first 2 months of the youngsters' lives, beginning when the infants were a few hours old. The team watched each pair one to three times a day for 15 minute sessions while they were awake. Infants sleep 50% to 75% of the time, which may be another reason the emotional gazing was previously missed. As the macaque mothers looked into their babies' eyes, they "actively searched for the infants' gaze and tried to engage their babies," says Ferrari. For instance, a mother might hold her baby's head and pull the child's face toward her own or bounce her own head up and down, all while gazing directly into the infant's eyes. Other times, mothers would smack their lips in an exaggerated manner and kiss their babies' faces--reminiscent of the way human mothers get their infants' attention. The infants often responded by imitating their mothers' lip-smacks or using lip-smacks of their own to get her attention, the team reports today in Current Biology. As in humans, these actions are likely important in the baby rhesus macaque's emotional development, says Ferrari. Unlike in humans, however, the shared behaviors begin to disappear in macaques after the first month as the babies become more independent. Please download the latest version of the free Flash plug-in. "It's a very interesting study of a neglected, or misjudged, topic," says Frans de Waal, a primatologist at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. It demonstrates that "the true observer can still discover things no one knows about" even in species that have been extensively studied, he says. Because rhesus macaques are born with the capacity to communicate, Ferrari says, “We can now explore the roots of interpersonal communication, maybe even the mutual appreciation of others' intentions and emotions."

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Floaters are deposits of various size, shape, consistency, refractive index, and motility within the eye’s vitreous humour, which is normally transparent. At a young age the vitreous is perfectly transparent but, during life, imperfections gradually develop. The common type of floater, which is present in most people’s eyes, is due to degenerative changes of the vitreous humour. The perception of floaters is known as myodesopsia. Floaters are visible because of the shadows they cast on the retina or their refraction of the light that passes through them, and can appear alone or together with several others in one’s field of vision. They may appear as spots, threads, or fragments of cobwebs, which float slowly before the observer’s eyes. Since these objects exist within the eye itself, they are not optical illusions but are entoptic phenomena. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS POST MY WHOLE LIFE

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Adult survival rates of Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis), Common Guillemot (Uria aalge), Razorbill (Alca torda), Puffin (Fratercula arctica) and Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) on the Isle of May 1986-96 Harris, M. P.; Wanless, S.; Rothery, P.. 2000 Adult survival rates of Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis), Common Guillemot (Uria aalge), Razorbill (Alca torda), Puffin (Fratercula arctica) and Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) on the Isle of May 1986-96. Atlantic Seabirds, 2. 133-150.Full text not available from this repository. On the Isle of May between 1986 and 1996, the average adult survival of Shags Phalacrocorax aristotelis was 82.1%, Common Guillemots Uria aalge 95.2%, Razorbills Alca torda 90.5%, Puffins Fratercula arctica 91.6% and Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla 88.2%. Shags, Razorbills and Puffins all had a single year of exceptionally low survival but these years did not coincide. In contrast, Kittiwake survival declined significantly over the period and there was evidence that substantial non-breeding occurred in several years. Breeding success of Kittiwakes also declined, which gives rise to concern for its future status. Given a high enough level of resighting, return rates (the proportion of birds known to be alive one year that were seen the next year) on a year-by-year basis provide a reasonable indication of relative changes in adult survival. |Programmes:||CEH Programmes pre-2009 publications > Other| |CEH Sections:||_ Biodiversity & Population Processes| |Additional Keywords:||Shag, Phalacrocorax aristotelis, Common Guillemot, Uria aalge, Razorbill, Alca torda, Puffin, Fratercula arctica, Kittiwake, Rissa tridactyla| |NORA Subject Terms:||Zoology| |Date made live:||08 Dec 2008 21:30| Actions (login required)

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These two group activities use mathematical reasoning - one is numerical, one geometric. EWWNP means Exploring Wild and Wonderful Number Patterns Created by Yourself! Investigate what happens if we create number patterns using some simple rules. Place this "worm" on the 100 square and find the total of the four squares it covers. Keeping its head in the same place, what other totals can you make?

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Mutualism is very common: the classic example is the relationship pollinators and their plants. Around 70% of land plants require other species to help them reproduce via pollination. Often, the pollinators, like bees and wasps, gain food from the plant while the plant benefits by getting to mix its genes with other plants - a clear win-win for both. But both have to give up something, too, and whenever there is a cost to a relationship, both sides have good reason to cheat. When I say cheat, I mean a species not keeping up their half of the deal. A species would gain something if they could maintain the positive benefits provided by another other species without having to expend whatever cost is associated with their side of the mutualistic bargain. A plant would benefit, for example, if it could attract its pollinators without having to make nectar or pretty flowers to attract them. So how is mutualism maintained when there is strong evolutionary pressure to cheat? In some cases, it's by nature of the relationship. In the example above, it's simply hard for the plant to cheat because skimping on the goods directly affects how the other side acts - no nectar-laden flowers, no reason for a bee or other bug to stop and get covered in pollen. But some mutualist relationships are easier to cheat on - take the case of fig wasps. Fig wasps are wasps that lay their eggs in fig flowers. As these flowers turn into fruits, the wasp larvae are protected and fed by the fig, costing the tree resources. This relationship looks parasitic at first glance: the wasp gets healthy babies while the fig gets its fruit ruined. But the wasp has a promise it must keep to the tree: when it lays its eggs, it has to pollinate flowers so the tree can produce seeds. There are actually two kinds of fig wasps: one that pollinates passively and one that pollinates actively. The passive pollinators collect pollen on their extremities and, while climbing around to deposit eggs, pollinate the trees' flowers without even thinking about it. Passively pollinating wasps do not expend extra energy to pollinate, and they cannot easily avoid carrying pollen, so there's no real way or reason for them to cheat. David Attenborough explains their relationship rather nicely: The active pollinators are much more deliberate about things: female wasps specifically collect pollen in specialized pouches (see R) and deposit it on another tree's flowers by choice when they lay their eggs. Active pollinators don't have to pollinate, per se - they can, and do sometimes, flit around without collecting pollen and bring it to another tree. After all, it costs the wasp time and energy to go about collecting and lugging around pollen, so why bother if they don't have to? Instead, the female wasps just infect flowers with wasp eggs, acting more like a parasite than a mutualist. Clearly, there's an easy, good reason for the wasp to short-change the tree. But, if there's good reason for the wasps to cheat, there is equally good reason for the trees to catch them, evolutionarily speaking. Having a cheating wasps' young growing in its fruit does the tree no good whatsoever. But can the trees spot cheaters and somehow punish them for it? That's the question that biologists K. Charlotte Jandér and Edward Allen Herre wanted to answer. To find out, they carefully watched six different species of figs, four that had active pollinating wasps and two that had passive pollinating wasps. They wanted to see if the actively-pollinated trees somehow reacted differently to loyal wasps who pollinated like they're supposed to and cheaters. Since it's hard to tell if a wasp is doing its job, instead, the researchers intentionally manipulated the wasps. For each fig tree–pollinator species-pair, they experimentally produced pollen-carrying and artificially pollen-free wasps, which, because they had no pollen, played the role of cheaters. They then waited to see how well the cheaters larvae survived. They found that the passively pollinated figs had no system in place to protect against cheaters - which is exactly what you'd expect, since it's basically impossible for a passive-pollinating wasp to get around on the flowers without pollinating, meaning that cheating is not likely. The actively pollinated figs, on the other hand, all punished cheaters. First off, the figs carrying cheater offspring were aborted more frequently. When a fig aborts a larvae-containing fruit, it kills all of the larvae inside. One active species only kept around 3% of the number of figs that the passive pollinated species did. But to punish them even more, the fig also manipulated the conditions within the growing fruits which contained cheating larvae - per fruit, fewer cheater adults emerged than non-cheating ones. In one species of fig, almost no cheaters survived to adulthood - just 5% of the number that emerged from passively pollinated figs. How exactly the fig changes the condition of the fruit to harm the growing larvae isn't yet known. This made the scientists wonder how common cheaters were in the wild, and whether the species that strongly reacted to cheating were plagued by more cheaters. As expected, they didn't find any pollen-free passive pollinating wasps, but they did find active pollinating ones that weren't carrying the goods. They also found that the species that cheated the most lived on the fig tree that punished them the least. These data strongly support consistent coevolution between the fig wasps and their trees. If the tree doesn't catch cheaters, the wasps exploit their longtime friends, and since cheating isn't punished, cheating young grow up and continue cheating, leading to high frequencies of cheaters. This rapidly degrades their relationship from mutualism to parasite-host. However, if the trees respond by culling free-riders, they reduce the number of wasps inclined to cheat and maintain the true mutualism that the two have had for around 80 million years. Mutualism is often portrayed as "playing nice", a beautiful harmony between species. Just listen to how the relationship between active pollinating fig wasps and their trees is portrayed in this PBS special: How sweet. Too bad it's totally not true. Just like the arms races between predator and prey or parasite and host, mutualist species constantly adapt to try get the upper hand in their relationship. There is still a battle going on between even the best of friends to gain an evolutionary advantage, and just like other interactions, mutualists have to constantly evolve to maintain the status quo. Jander, K., & Herre, E. (2010). Host sanctions and pollinator cheating in the fig tree-fig wasp mutualism Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.2157

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Two fishing cats born at National Zoo9:02 am - 06/16/2012 Looks like the National Zoo has two new young additions! Twin fishing cats were born May 18, marking an important milestone for the endangered species. The twin kittens were the first-ever fishing cats to be bred and produced in the D.C. area — making future breeding possibilities a more tangible option. Just 27 of out of 30 fishing cats in North America are considered reproductively viable. The fishing cat population has decreased 50 percent over the past 18 years due to poaching in Southeast Asia, and scientists are working hard to help this endangered species thrive in the future. Named for their hunting technique, fishing cats tend to find the majority of their diet living in water. These kittens are going through procedures most human babies experience after birth — physical examinations and vaccinations. They are being closely monitored by specialized scientists. They will make their first public appearance late this summer, but their father, 2-year-old Lek, can be seen now on the National Zoo’s Asia trail. Their mother, Electra, has heightened maternal instincts and doesn’t let the twins go too far. Apparently the zoo originally planned to pair Electra with another male, but the original pair showed no interest in each other. When Electra met Lek, they instantly showed their affection by nuzzling and grooming each other. The match made in heaven is definitely a step in the right direction toward saving another endangered species, as these cute young kittens show.

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Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.

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noun (plural analyses /-siːz/) - the process of separating something into its constituent elements: the procedure is often more accurately described as one of synthesis rather than analysisOften contrasted with synthesis. - 2short for psychoanalysis.other schools of analysis have evolved out of the original disciplines established by Freud late 16th century: via medieval Latin from Greek analusis, from analuein 'unloose', from ana- 'up' + luein 'loosen' Make the plural of analysis by changing the -is ending to -es: (analyses).

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Donald W. Pfaff |Donald W. Pfaff, PhD| Donald W. Pfaff, Ph.D., professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, is a brain scientist who uses neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological methods to study the cellular mechanisms by which the brain controls behavior. His laboratory’s research has proceeded through four steps to demonstrate how steroid hormone effects on nerve cells can direct natural, instinctive behaviors. First, Pfaff is known for discovering exact cellular targets for steroid hormones in the brain. A system of hypothalamic and limbic forebrain neurons with sex hormone receptors, discovered in rodents, was later found to be present in species ranging from fish through primates. This hormone-sensitive system apparently is a general feature of the vertebrate brain. His lab recently found that “knocking out” the gene for the estrogen receptor in animals prevents female reproductive behavior. Surprisingly, that single gene deletion resulted both in masculinizing female animals and, counterintuitively, feminizing males’ behavior. Secondly, his lab at Rockefeller then worked out the neural circuitry for hormone-dependent female reproductive behavior, the first behavior circuit elucidated for any mammal. Third, he and his colleagues demonstrated several genes that are “turned on” by estrogens in the forebrain. Fourth, in turn, their gene products facilitate reproductive behavior. For example, the induction of one of them, the gene for the progesterone receptor, showed that the hormone estrogen could turn on another transcription factor important, in turn, for behavioral control. Regulated gene expression in the brain participates in the control of behavior. Taken together, these four advances proved that specific chemicals acting in specific parts of the brain could determine individual behavioral responses. While two genetic transcription factors, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor, cooperate with each other to promote reproductive behavior, another transcription factor, thyroid hormone receptor, actually interferes with estrogenic actions. Seasonal environmental changes, raising thyroid hormone levels, can block reproductive behaviors when they would be biologically inappropriate. In an experiment that lent support to the concept of the “unity of the body,” Pfaff found that the nervous system protein GnRH promotes reproductive behavior as well as directing the pituitary to stimulate the ovaries and testes. This action of GnRH renders instinctive behaviors congruent with the physiology of reproductive organs elsewhere in the body Pfaff’s lab subsequently discovered that GnRH-producing neurons are not actually born in the brain as other neurons are. Instead, during embryonic development, they are born in the olfactory epithelium. Once born, they migrate up the nose and into the forebrain. In humans, interruption of that migration, especially in men, causes a state in which the body does not produce adequate amounts of the sex hormone testosterone. This hypogonadal state is associated with a loss of libido. In 2003, Pfaff received an NIH MERIT Award for the study of generalized arousal, responsible for activating all behavioral responses.. His team formulated the first operational definition of nervous system arousal, enabling scientists to measure arousal quantitatively in laboratory animals, as well as in human beings. In humans, deficits in arousal contribute to such cognitive problems as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and Alzheimer's disease. Erosion of arousal also may account for some of the mental difficulties that people face as they age. Understanding generalized arousal may help scientists develop pharmacological methods to enhance alertness during the day and sleep at night. Analyzing the mechanisms of arousal may also lead to a more precise anesthesiology. Pfaff has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of how the administration of sex hormones can affect health. Pfaff’s lab recently showed that giving hormone doses in pulses, rather than as a steady exposure, may maximize the benefits and limit the side effects now associated with hormone therapies. By giving estrogen replacement to the rats, the scientists studied the actions of the hormone at the level of the brain cell's protective outer membrane, and inside the nucleus where the cell's DNA is housed. They found that both the membrane and the DNA pathways are crucial, with one facilitating the other, in triggering hormone-dependent gene expression and female mating behavior. By limiting the estrogen exposure of to short pulses, the total dose can be kept much smaller than with steady delivery, and therefore some of the negative effects will be reduced. Born in Rochester, N.Y., on December 9, 1939, he received the A.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1961 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965. He held a National Merit Scholarship, Harvard National Scholarship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, MIT President's Award Fellowship, National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Fellowship and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Pfaff joined The Rockefeller University in 1966 as a postdoctoral fellow. He was named assistant professor in 1969, associate professor in 1971, granted tenure in 1973 and promoted to full professor in 1978. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also is a member of several scientific organizations related to studies of the central nervous system. He is the author of Estrogens and Brain Function (Springer, 1980), Drive: Neurobiological and Molecular Mechanisms of Sexual Motivation (MIT Press, 1999), Brain Arousal and Information Theory (Harvard University Press, 2005) and The Neuroscience of Fair Play: Why We (Usually) Follow the Golden Rule (Dana Press, 2007). He has edited The Physiological Bases of Motivation (1982), Ethical Questions in Brain and Behavior (1984), Genetic Influences on the Nervous System (CRC Press, 1999) and Hormones, Brain and Behavior (5 volumes, Academic Press, 2002). He also is on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. Pfaff and his first wife, the poet Stephanie Strickland, have three children: Robin (Palo Alto, Calif.), Alexander (New York, N.Y.) and Douglas (New York, N.Y.).

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Tiruvellore Thattai Krishnamachariar (1899–1974) was the Indian Finance Minister from 1956–1958 and from 1964-1966. Krishnamachariar, who was born into a Tamil Iyengar Brahmin family graduated from Madras Christian College (MCC) and was a visiting professor to the department of economics at MCC. He resigned from the position twice. He was popularly known as TTK.He was also a member of drafting committee,and entrepreneur and congress leader Krishnamachari was one among the founders of modern India. He was instrumental in building the basic economic and industrial infrastructure of the country and also left his mark on the Indian Constitution as a member of the Drafting Committee. Krishnamachari began his life as a businessman and went on to lay the foundation of the hugely successful firm TT Krishnamachari & Co. in 1928, in Chennai, which is now known as the TTK Group . By the mid-thirties, when the company was well established, Krishnamachari decided to turn his attention to politics. He was initially elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly as an independent member, and later joined the Congress. In 1946, he was made a member of the Constituent Assembly at the Centre. From 1952 to 1965, he served the country twice as a Central Minister. He was the first Minister for Commerce and Industry and then Finance Minister. He also remained in charge of the Steel Ministry for quite some time. He became Minister again in 1962, first without... Read More

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Invasion of Privacy The right of privacy is a common-law (court-made) cause of action that is a fairly new legal development. The U.S. Constitution contains no direct references to the right of privacy. There are few statutes that affect privacy and most invasion of privacy lawsuits that publishers may face are of the common-law type. An action for invasion of privacy is actually comprised of four distinct torts (legal wrongs). These are: intrusion upon seclusion; appropriation of name or likeness; publicity given to private life; and publicity placing the person in a false light. Each separate cause of action is addressed below. Note: to sue successfully for invasion of privacy, a plaintiff only has to prove one of the four torts, not all of the four torts. The right of privacy competes with the freedom of the press as well as the interest of the public in the free dissemination of news and information, and these permanent public interests must be considered when placing the necessary limitations upon the right of privacy. Pennsylvania courts have held that an action based on such right must not become a vehicle for establishment of a judicial censorship of the press. Back to top. Intrusion Upon Seclusion One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. To be liable for intrusion upon seclusion, the plaintiff must prove the following elements: 1. Invasion of a secluded place or privacy: the Defendant (the offender) must invade the Plaintiff's (the person suing) personal or private space. The definition of this invasion is very broad. Invasion may be: by physical intrusion into a place where the plaintiff has secluded himself. by use of the defendant's senses to oversee or overhear the plaintiff's private affairs (such as eavesdropping or spying with a telescope), or some other form of investigation or examination into plaintiff's private concerns (such as illegally obtaining someone's credit report). 2. Objectionable intrusion: the intrusion must be of a type that would be highly offensive to the ordinary reasonable person. 3. Invasion of private affairs or matters: the interference with the plaintiff's privacy must be substantial (however, if the event reported occurs in public, there is no expectation of privacy). Examples of intrusion upon privacy include placing microphones or cameras in someone's bedroom or hacking into their computer. However, where the information that is reported pertains to the public interest as well as a party's private interest, that individual's right of privacy will be weighed against the public interest. If the event being reported is in the public interest (a newsworthy event), it will, in all likelihood, be immune to an invasion of privacy lawsuit. An example of this would be a car accident. Although it involves the personal affairs of a few people (or even only one person), the accident is reportable because it is a newsworthy event. Therefore, a person cannot sue a newspaper for invasion of privacy over a story about a car accident that includes the driver's name. Photographs taken in public are also not violative of one's privacy. Back to top. Appropriation of Name or Likeness Appropriation of name or likeness occurs when someone appropriates the name or likeness of another for their own use or benefit. Action for misappropriation of right of publicity protects against commercial loss caused by appropriation of an individual's personality for commercial exploitation. It gives the individual exclusive right to control the commercial value of his or her name and likeness to prevent others from exploiting that value without permission. It is similar to a trademark action with the person's likeness, rather than the trademark, being the subject of the protection. Courts have denied plaintiffs lawsuits unless there is a finding that the defendant obtains an economic benefit from using the plaintiff's name. Additionally, the courts are unlikely to find that there has been an appropriation of the plaintiff's likeness unless the unauthorized use was part of an advertisement or a promotion. If such an appropriation is for a newsworthy event, the person's right to privacy is not violated. An example of this is if a photograph of someone patronizing a new restaurant is published as part of a story publicizing the opening of the restaurant. The patron cannot sue the newspaper for appropriation of name or likeness because the photograph is being used for a newsworthy event. However, if a store is using someone's picture to advertise a new line of clothes, and they have not received permission from that person to use the picture, that person's likeness has been wrongly appropriated. Back to top. Publicity Given to Private Life One who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that: 1. would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and 2. is not of legitimate concern to the public. The main determination in a publicity given to private life lawsuit is whether the matter being publicized is public or private. If the matter is one of public concern, there is no invasion of privacy. First Amendment rights protect the publication of items of legitimate public interest. However, if the matter is not one of public concern, and it is one that people would find offensive, there is an invasion of privacy. An example of publicity given to private life would be publicizing the fact that your neighbor has failed to pay his credit card bill for three months. Sometimes there is difficulty in determining whether something really is of legitimate public concern. Courts have held that a claim that a person violated the law is relevant and newsworthy, even though it was latter proven that the substance of the complaint was false. The example of a drunk-driving one-car accident is also illustrates this point. Although the driver may have an interest in keeping the fact that he was driving while intoxicated private, the accident occurred in public and is a newsworthy event. The public's interest in knowing about the accident outweighs the driver's interest in keeping the accident private. Additionally, matters that are of public record are not protected. If a journalist publishes a story disclosing facts that were obtained from a police press release or a court opinion, the matter is of public record and no lawsuit for publicity given to private life will be successful. Public figures (those persons who, by their accomplishments or place in life, give the public a legitimate interest in their affairs, such as politicians, professional athletes, and even personal injury claimants) face a somewhat lessened right to privacy because more of their actions are of legitimate public concern than they would be if the public figure were an ordinary person. Because of this lessened expectancy of privacy, a newspaper can publish a biography of a public figure without fear of being sued for invasion of privacy. No permission is needed to do such a story. Additionally, the newspaper can include some facts that would otherwise be an invasion of privacy for a person who is not a public figure. Care must be taken that these otherwise private facts are within the scope of the story. Examples of these facts would be a public figure's familial background, associates, or specific events in their life that shape them into the person that they are, or that shed light as to their guilt or innocence. Public figures (those persons who, by their accomplishments or place in life, give the public a legitimate interest in their affairs, such as politicians, professional athletes, and even personal injury claimants) face a somewhat lessened right to privacy because more of their actions are of legitimate public concern than they would be if the public figure were an ordinary person. Because of this lessened expectancy of privacy, a newspaper can publish a biography of a public figure without fear of being sued for invasion of privacy. No permission is needed to do such a story. Additionally, the newspaper can include some facts that would otherwise be an invasion of privacy for a person who is not a public figure. Care must be taken that these otherwise private facts are within the scope of the story. Examples of these facts would be a public figure's familial background, associates, or specific events in their life that shape them into the person that they are, or that shed light as to their guilt or innocence. Back to top. Publicity Placing the Person in a False Light One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy if the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Examples include a newspaper publishing an innocent person's picture as part of a story about convicted felons or including reporting that someone was involved in a domestic dispute when, in fact, there was no such dispute. Publicly placing a person in a false light also includes falsely stating someone's views, such as saying that someone is a member of the Ku Klux Klan. An important exception is when the published matter is in the public interest (newsworthy), such as an item dealing with an accident or the background of a candidate for public office. When the published matter is in the public interest, the plaintiff must show that the publisher acted with malice (that they either had a reckless disregard for the truth or they knew the report was false but published it anyway). For example, if a newspaper published a story reporting that a candidate for mayor embezzled money from his previous employer, but never attempted to verify the accuracy of the information, the newspaper can be held liable for publicly placing the candidate in a false light. It is important to keep in mind that malice can be found if the information published is without probable cause or the newspaper never checked for truth by the means at hand. For more information about malice, see:Libel Back to top. Special Notes on Invasion of Privacy For a successful lawsuit, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant's actions caused his or her privacy to be invaded. Therefore, the newspaper cannot be sued for invasion of privacy if a newspaper publishes a story based upon a report that was made by someone who invaded the plaintiff's privacy. Note: the newspaper may be held responsible if the newspaper encourages someone to invade the plaintiff's privacy. Additionally, in some invasion of privacy cases, the newspaper may also be held liable for libel. Unlike libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy. Only the plaintiff holds the right to privacy. It is a personal right. It does not survive the plaintiff (the defendant cannot be sued for invasion of privacy actions that occur after the death of the person whose privacy was invaded), nor can it be asserted on behalf of family members. Invasion of privacy lawsuits cannot be brought by, or on behalf of, corporations. Successful plaintiffs may recover damages for harm to their interest in privacy, mental/emotional distress, and special damages caused by the invasion of privacy. Back to top.

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This site is used for testing new functionality and bug fixes. Things may not always work the way you expect. For the production site, please go to http://www.pdb.org Looking at Structures: Dealing with Coordinates The primary information stored in the PDB archive consists of coordinate files for biological molecules. These files list the atoms in each protein, and their 3D location in space. These files are available in several formats (PDB, mmCIF, XML). A typical PDB formatted file includes a large "header" section of text that summarizes the protein, citation information, and the details of the structure solution, followed by the sequence and a long list of the atoms and their coordinates. The archive also contains the experimental observations that are used to determine these atomic coordinates. When you start exploring the structures in the PDB archive, you will need to know a few things about coordinate files. Major topics are included here. ATOMs and HETATMs A typical PDB format file will contain atomic coordinates for a diverse collection of proteins, small molecules, ions and water. Each atom is entered as a line of information that starts with a keyword: either ATOM or HETATM. By tradition, the ATOM keyword is used to identify proteins or nucleic acid atoms, and keyword HETATM is used to identify atoms in small molecules. Following this keyword, there is a list of information about the atom, including its name, its number in the file, the name and number of the residue it belongs to, one letter to specify the chain (in oligomeric proteins), its x, y, and z coordinates, and an occupancy and temperature factor (described in more detail below). This information gives you a lot of control when exploring the structure. For instance, most molecular graphics programs enable you to color identified portions of the molecule selectively--for example, to pick out all of the carbon atoms and color them green, or to pick one particular amino acid and highlight it. The left image shows myoglobin (PDB entry 1mbo) using the default representation in MBT Protein Workshop. It shows a ribbon diagram for the protein, and ball-and-stick for the small molecules. In the right image, we have changed the representation to show all atoms, using the information in each atom record to color the molecules differently. This clearly shows the heme group in bright red, and a bound oxygen molecule in turquoise. Tip: By default, many molecular graphics programs do not display the water positions in a PDB file, even though they are often important to the function and interaction of biological molecules. Most of these programs have a way to display them, if you use their methods for atom selection. Chains and Models Biological molecules are hierarchical, building from atoms to residues to chains to assemblies. Coordinate files contain ways to organize and specify molecules at all of these levels. As described above, the atom names and residue information are included in each atom record. The higher-order information is identified by keywords that separate blocks of atom records, such as TER and MODEL. Protein and nucleic acid chains are specified by the TER keyword, as well as a one-letter designation in the coordinate records. The chains are included one after another in the file, separated by a TER record to indicate that the chains are not physically connected to each other. Most molecular graphics programs look for this TER record so that they don't draw a bond to connect different chains. PDB format files use the MODEL keyword to indicate multiple molecules in a single file. This was initially created to archive coordinate sets that include several different models of the same structure, like the structural ensembles obtained in NMR analysis. When you view these files, you will see dozens of similar molecules all superimposed. The MODEL keyword is now also used in biological assembly files to separate the many symmetrical copies of the molecule that are generated from the asymmetric unit (For more information, see the tutorial on biological assemblies). Two useful coloring schemes allow you to explore the different chains in any given PDB file. First, you may color each chain differently to show the packing of different chains in the molecule as shown in the bottom image. Then, you can color each chain using a rainbow of colors from one end of the chain to the other to highlight its folding characteristics as shown at the top. Both of these methods are available in most molecular graphics programs. The molecule shown here is hemolysin from PDB entry 7ahl. If we were able to hold an atom rigidly fixed in one place, we could observe its distribution of electrons in an ideal situation. The image would be dense towards the center with the density falling off further from the nucleus. When you look at experimental electron density distributions, however, the electrons usually have a wider distribution than this ideal. This may be due to vibration of the atoms, or differences between the many different molecules in the crystal lattice. The observed electron density will include an average of all these small motions, yielding a slightly smeared image of the molecule. These motions, and the resultant smearing of the electron density, are incorporated into the atomic model by a B-value or temperature factor. The amount of smearing is proportional to the magnitude of the B-value. Values under 10 create a model of the atom that is very sharp, indicating that the atom is not moving much and is in the same position in all of the molecules in the crystal. Values greater than 50 or so indicate that the atom is moving so much that it can barely been seen. This is often the case for atoms at the surface of proteins, where long sidechains are free to wag in the surrounding water. The example shown is from a myoglobin structure solved at a 2.0 Å resolution (PDB entry 1mbi). Two histidine amino acids are shown. On the left is HIS93, which coordinates with the iron atom and thus, is held firmly in place. It has B-values in the range of 15-20 -- notice how the contours nicely surround the whole amino acid, revealing a sharp electron density. On the right is HIS81, which is exposed on the surface of the protein and has higher B-values in the range of 22-74. Notice how the contours enclose a smaller space, showing a smaller region with high electron density for this amino acid because the overall electron density is weakly smeared in the space around the contours. These pictures are created using the Astex viewer, which is available on the Structure Summary page for this PDB entry (just click the "EDS" link in the "Experimental Method" section). The picture shows the whole molecule, with the atoms colored by the temperature factors. High values, indicating lots of motion, are in red and yellow, and low values are in blue. Notice that the interior of the protein has low B-values and the amino acids on the surface have higher values. You can click on the picture for an interactive Jmol view. Tip: Temperature factors are a measure of our confidence in the location of each atom. If you find an atom on the surface of a protein with a high temperature factor, keep in mind that this atom is probably moving a lot, and that the coordinates specified in the PDB file are only one possible snapshot of its location. Occupancy and Multiple Conformations Macromolecular crystals are composed of many individual molecules packed into a symmetrical arrangement. In some crystals, there are slight differences between each of these molecules. For instance, a sidechain on the surface may wag back and forth between several conformations, or a substrate may bind in two orientations in an active site, or a metal ion may be bound to only a few of the molecules. When researchers build the atomic model of these portions, they can use the occupancy to estimate the amount of each conformation that is observed in the crystal. For most atoms, the occupancy is given a value of 1, indicating that the atom is found in all of the molecules in the same place in the crystal. However, if a metal ion binds to only half of the molecules in the crystal, the researcher will see a weak image of the ion in the electron density map, and can assign an occupancy of 0.5 in the PDB structure file for this atom. Occupancies are also commonly used to identify sidechains or ligands that are observed in multiple conformations. The occupancy value is used to indicate the fraction of molecules that have each of the conformations. Two (or more) atom records are included for each atom, with occupancies like 0.5 and 0.5, or 0.4 and 0.6, or other fractional occupancies that sum to a total of 1. The two images shown are taken from the high-resolution structure of myoglobin in entry 1a6m: glutamine 8 is on the left, and tyrosine 151 on the right. In both cases, the depositors interpreted the experimental data as showing two conformations of the amino acid, with occupancies of 0.57 and 0.43 for the glutamine, and 0.5 for each of the tyrosine conformations. The blue contours surround the regions with high electron density, and the atomic model is shown in sticks. These pictures are created using the Astex viewer, which is available on the Structure Summary page for this PDB entry (just click the "EDS" link in the "Experimental Method" section). The picture below of the whole myoglobin molecule is shown with all of the amino acids that have two conformations in the file. You can click on the picture for an interactive Jmol version. Tip: When dealing with PDB entries with multiple coordinates, you often need to pay close attention. It is not always possible to select just the "A" conformations and throw away the "B" conformations. You need to look carefully in each case and make sure that there are not any bad contacts between mobile sidechains.

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Thinking and Reasoning 2 (1):33 – 49 (1996) |Abstract||We postulate the Testing Principle : that individuals ''act like statisticians'' when they face uncertainty in a decision problem, ranking alternatives to the extent that available evidence allows. The Testing Principle implies that completeness of preferences, rather than the sure-thing principle , is violated in the Ellsberg Paradox. In the experiment, subjects chose between risky and uncertain acts in modified Ellsberg-type urn problems, with sample information about the uncertain urn. Our results show, consistent with the Testing Principle, that the uncertain urn is chosen more often when the sample size is larger, holding constant a measure of ambiguity (proportion of balls of unknown colour in the urn). The Testing Principle rationalises the Ellsberg Paradox. Behaviour consistent with the principle leads to a reduction in Ellsberg-type violations as the statistical quality of sample information is improved, holding ambiguity constant. The Testing Principle also provides a normative rationale for the Ellsberg paradox that is consistent with procedural rationality.| |Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)| |Through your library||Configure| Similar books and articles Edward E. Schlee (1997). The Sure Thing Principle and the Value of Information. Theory and Decision 42 (1):21-36. Ronald N. Giere (1970). An Orthodox Statistical Resolution of the Paradox of Confirmation. Philosophy of Science 37 (3):354-362. Patrick Maher (1999). Inductive Logic and the Ravens Paradox. Philosophy of Science 66 (1):50-70. Horacio Arlo-Costa & Jeffrey Helzner, Iterated Random Selection as Intermediate Between Risk and Uncertainty. Jeffrey Helzner (2009). On the Application of Multiattribute Utility Theory to Models of Choice. Theory and Decision 66 (4):301-315. Katie Steele (2007). Distinguishing Indeterminate Belief From “Risk-Averse” Preferences. Synthese 158 (2):189 - 205. Horacio Arló-Costa & Jeffrey Helzner (2010). Ambiguity Aversion: The Explanatory Power of Indeterminate Probabilities. Synthese 172 (1). Jürgen Eichberger & David Kelsey (1999). E-Capacities and the Ellsberg Paradox. Theory and Decision 46 (2):107-138. Prasanta S. Bandyopadhayay (1994). In Search of a Pointless Decision Principle. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994:260 - 269. Added to index2009-02-11 Total downloads29 ( #42,416 of 549,122 ) Recent downloads (6 months)0 How can I increase my downloads?

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Industrial pipe systems are inaccessible and narrow. The pipes can be vertical and have junctions. Just as challenging, leakage points in the water system must be located, the condition of oil and gas pipelines must be checked and ventilation systems need to be cleaned. In the main, today’s robots are not that clever. They cannot climb or navigate in vertical pipes – and very few have active joints. Cybernetics and optical measurement scientists at SINTEF are working on a solution. Navigation by light and image With experience and knowledge acquired with snake robots Anna Konda and AiKo as a starting point, a team is now developing an intelligent pipe inspection robot on wheels that will be able to climb, navigate intersections and at any given time know its location in the pipe system. The inspection robot will be able to move in pipes of various diameters, right down to 20 cm. Cybernetics scientists are developing the propulsion system while a team of optics scientists is working on the new robot’s visual system. “We are currently developing the vision system than will enable the robot to navigate,” says Jens Thielemann at SINTEF ICT. “In the meantime, we are using the lego robot Mindstormer to collect the data to train the vision system. This lego robot has a camera attached and moves around the pipe following a pre-programmed map. The next step will be to utilise the vision system as input to control the actual snake robot we are going to develop.” The camera that will provide the new robot’s vision is an off the shelf time-of-flight camera that provides a bathymetric chart of the pipe system using inflected light. “Combined with our algorithms, the robot will be able to navigate and move forward on its own,” says Thielemann. “The robot knows when a left or right turn is approaching and also contains a built-in path description detailing what tasks it should carry out in different situations. Functions as a train “Given our previous work on snake robots, we have become good at controlling mechanisms that are linked,” says SINTEF cybernetics scientist Erik Kyrkjebø. “We now want to develop a robot with 10-11 joint modules, each with an identical pair of wheels cast in plastic. The weight must be well distributed between the joints. For example, can we put the camera and accelerator motor in two different joint modules? The robot will function as a train when operating horizontally. Such robots already exist, but we want to develop a robot that can climb too.” The scientists have designed several versions of the pipe inspection robot and have tested different solutions in order to make the new robot both mobile and compact. They have now come up with a design they have faith in. When the robot enters a vertical pipe, it lifts its head in the pipe and meets the pipe wall. It can then either move sideways with its abdomen against the pipe and twist itself upwards or it can topple backwards, attach itself to the pipe wall, in the same way as we would put our feet against a shaft wall to hold on, and then roll upwards. The scientists emphasise that the project is at the design stage. In June, two of the 11 joint modules will be tested to verify the concept and they hope to demonstrate a prototype model by the end of the year. This comprises just phase one of an industrial development, but the enthusiastic scientists are confident of succeeding in the foreseeable future. The final version of the robot will be constructed of aluminium and is planned to be 1.5 m long. Source: Aase Dragland Explore further: NASA: Austin, calling Austin. 3-D pizzas to go

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A schematic of a blind quantum computer that could protect user's privacy. Image credit: Phillip Walther et al./Vienna University. Researchers worry that if quantum computers are realized in the next few years, only a few specialized facilities will be able to host them. This may leave users' privacy vulnerable. To combat this worry, scientists have proposed a "blind" quantum computer that uses polarization-entangled photonic qubits.

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This summer, Mount Diablo Unified School District's governing board will make sure district policies on bullying comply with state legislation known as Seth's Law, which went into effect on July 1. Named for Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old in Tehachapi, Calif. who hanged himself in 2010 after being bullied for being gay, AB 9 requires public schools to have clear rules about preventing and punishing bullying. Here's the definition of bullying Mt. Diablo Unified staff shared with the school board in June: No student or group of students shall through physical, written, verbal, or other means harass, sexually harass, threaten, intimidate, cyberbully, cause bodily injury to, or commit hate violence against any other student or school personnel. Unwilling to force new costs on cash-strapped school districts, state lawmakers nixed language in the original bill that would have required staff to attend trainings on bullying. It falls on the California Department of Education to make sure school districts are following the new law, but with resources scarce, it will likely be difficult for the CDE to do much in the way of enforcement. That means administrators, teachers, parents and students will ultimately be responsible for addressing the problem of bullying in individual schools. What do you think about the culture in Pleasant Hill's secondary schools? Does school staff take bullying seriously? Do gay and lesbian students feel respected and safe? Tell us in the comments below.Suspensions for bullying, violence, intimidation or sexual harassment in 2010-2011 Total suspensions in 2010-2011 57 113 Source: California Department of Education During the 2010-2011 school year, researchers for the California Healthy Kids Survey asked around 5,600 secondary students in Mount Diablo Unified how they feel about their schools. The findings below are from the questions related to bullying.Mean rumors spread about you 2 or more times Sexual comments or jokes directed at you 2 or more times Been made fun of for the way you look or talk 2 or more times 7th Graders 23 percent 28 percent 27 percent 9th Graders 33 percent 34 percent 25 percent 11th Graders 20 percent 36 percent 24 percent Been pushed shoved or hit 2 or more times Been afraid of being beaten up 2 or more times Been in a physical fight 2 or more times 7th Graders 24 percent 12 percent 12 percent 9th Graders 15 percent 9 percent 9 percent 11th Graders 9 percent 7 percent 8 percent Source: California Healthy Kids Survey, 2010-2011 Want Pleasant Hill news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our newsletter.

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Railroads and ferries brought prosperity |A. B. Safford Memorial Museum in Cairo, Illinois, built in 1883| Cairo, Illinois, is at the extreme southern tip of Illinois, at the point where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers converge. I always have mixed feelings as I drive through Cairo (pronounced "Kay-roh".) Sadly, the town has endured a long period of hard times and population loss. In the business district, empty lots suggest that many deteriorated buildings have been bulldozed and hauled away. Some old buildings, still standing, are candidates for the next demolition list. |I'm not sure if this church is in use.| Cairo became an important railroad hub after the Civil War, and the town enjoyed several decades of great prosperity. Train cars (and other vehicles) were ferried across the rivers, and the ferry business was as important to local fortunes as the railroad and river-shipping businesses. |The Riverlore in Cairo, Illinois| Then in 1889, the Illinois Central Railroad completed the Cairo Rail Bridge across the Ohio River (image, another image). It was a masterpiece of engineering. The metal bridge itself was nearly 2 miles long and the entire structure including the wooden approaches was almost 4 miles long. Freight from Chicago could travel directly to New Orleans via the Cairo Rail Bridge -- a revolution in rail shipping, but a blow to Cairo. |More mansions in Cairo| Vehicles traveling in the Cairo area still used the ferries until two highway bridges were built -- the Mississippi River bridge (leading to Missouri) in 1929, and the Ohio River bridge (leading to Kentucky) in 1937. The bridges and roads connected a short distance south of Cairo, so travelers could quickly cross both rivers without even entering town. The loss of the railroad and ferry industries was significant, but it alone did not kill the town. By the early 1900s, other serious problems (racism, corruption, violence, crime) were well-established in Cairo. Over the next century, these evils had a slow-but-deadly effect on the town. You can read about the darker side of Cairo's history at "Cairo, Illinois, Death by Racism." |Overgrowth and disrepair, too!| A photo I took inside the Customs House some years ago Seen at Wickliffe, Kentucky |Ohio River bridge, just south of Cairo|

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This page is being updated... | Finedust | House dust mites and especially their pellets are held responsible for certain allergies and asthma. What is known ? Claims that carpets were breeding grounds for dust mites have proven false. In carpets, dust mites can easily be kept under control with regular ventilation and proper cleaning. Carpet is not the ideal habitat for mites. Carpet prevents the allergic material from being released into the atmosphere by holding the fine allergen particles in the pile until next vacuuming. Hard surfaces, on the contrary, allow the allergens to become easily airborne with the slightest draught or vibration. Thus, carpet improves the quality of life of allergic persons. It is not the floor covering, but the temperature and humidity that make the difference. The map on the next page shows that conditions in northern Europe do not favour mite growth, and yet, that’s where carpet has been considered wrongly a problem. In southern countries mites do survive, even on hard floors and tiles. Despite this, no problems have been reported. (Source: Bronswijk J.E.M.H. van, Schober G. Geoklimatische Verteilung von Innenraumallergenen. In: Jorde W., Schata M., eds. Mönchengladbacher Allergieseminar Band 5. Innenraumallergene. Dustri-Verlag, München-Deisenhofen. 1993: 69-84.) Distribution of mites in houses of mite-allergic patients Bedding offers ideal living conditions for dust mites, because they are not dependant upon the relative humidity of the bedroom itself: bedding is warm, dark, and damp after sleep and contains discarded skin scales. Dust mite allergen in mattresses can be 1.5 times greater than in dust from bedrooms placed carpet. Dust mites are almost not found in offices. In a study comparing carpets in 27 randomly selected offices with 30 bedrooms in homes, mite allergen levels were found to be 0.32 μ/g in offices vs. 18.4 μ/g in bedrooms. It was concluded that mite exposure in offices does not seem to be a risk for neither allergic (atopic) nor for non-allergic (non-atopic) employees. (Source: V. Freund, F.Lieutier-Colas, M. Ott, A.Vrot, G. Pauli, F. De Blay H pitaux universitaires de Strasbourg, France 2002)

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Individual differences | Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology | It is caused by the presence of three — instead of two — chromosomes 18 in a fetus or baby's cells. The additional chromosome usually occurs before conception. A healthy egg or sperm cell contains 23 individual chromosomes - one to contribute to each of the 23 pairs of chromosomes needed to form a normal cell with 46 chromosomes. Numerical errors arise at either of the two meiotic divisions and cause the failure of segregation of a chromosome into the daughter cells (non-disjunction). This results in an extra chromosome making the haploid number 24 rather than 23. Fertilization of these eggs or sperm that contain an extra chromosome results in trisomy, or three copies of a chromosome rather than two. It is this extra genetic information that causes all the abnormalities characteristic of individuals with Edwards Syndrome. As each and every cell in their body contains extra information, the ability to grow and develop appropriately is delayed or impaired. This results in characteristic physical abnormalities such as low birth weight; a small, abnormally shaped head; small jaw; small mouth; low-set ears; and clenched fists with overlapping fingers. Babies with Edwards syndrome also have heart defects, and other organ malformations such that most systems of the body are affected. Edwards Syndrome also results in significant developmental delays. For this reason a full-term Edwards syndrome baby may well exhibit the breathing and feeding difficulties of a premature baby. Given the assistance offered to premature babies, some of these infants are able to overcome these initial difficulties, but most eventually succumb. The survival rate for Edwards Syndrome is very low. About half die in utero. Of liveborn infants, only 50% live to 2 months, and only 5 - 10% will survive their first year of life. Major causes of death include apnea and heart abnormalities. It is impossible to predict the exact prognosis of an Edwards Syndrome child during pregnancy or the neonatal period. As major medical interventions are routinely withheld from these children, it is also difficult to determine what the survival rate or prognosis would be for the condition if they were treated with the same aggressiveness as their genetically normal peers. They are typically severely to profoundly developmentally delayed. The rate of occurrence for Edwards Syndrome is ~ 1:3000 conceptions and 1:6000 live births, as 50% of those diagnosed prenatally with the condition will not survive the prenatal period. Although women in their 20's and 30's may conceive Edwards Syndrome babies, there is an increased risk of conceiving a child with Edwards Syndrome as a woman's age increases. A small percentage of cases occur when only some of the body's cells have an extra copy of chromosome 18, resulting in a mixed population of cells with a differing number of chromosomes. Such cases are sometimes called mosaic Edwards syndrome. Very rarely, a piece of chromosome 18 becomes attached to another chromosome (translocated) before or after conception. Affected people have two copies of chromosome 18, plus extra material from chromosome 18 attached to another chromosome. With a translocation, the person has a partial trisomy for chromosome 18 and the abnormalities are often less than for the typical Edwards syndrome. Features and characteristicsEdit Symptoms and findings may be extremely variable from case to case. However, in many affected infants, the following may be found: - Growth deficiency - Feeding difficulties - Breathing difficulties - Developmental delays - Mental retardation - Undescended testicles in males - Prominent back portion of the head - Small head (microcephaly) - Low-set, malformed ears - Abnormally small jaw (micrognathia) - Small mouth - Cleft lip/palate - Upturned nose - Narrow eyelid folds (palpebral fissures) - Widely-spaced eyes (ocular hypertelorism) - Dropping of the upper eyelids (ptosis) - Overlapped, flexed fingers - Underdeveloped or absent thumbs - Underdeveloped nails - Absent radius - Webbing of the second and third toes - Clubfeet or Rocker bottom feet - Small pelvis with limited movements of the hips - Short breastbone - Kidney malformations - Structural heart defects at birth (i.e., ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus) - Stenson, Carol M. (1999). Trisomy 18: A Guidebook for Families. University of Nebraska Medical Center. ISBN 1-889843-29-6. - Barnes, Ann M. (2000). Care of the infant and child with trisomy 18 or 13: medical problems, reported treatments and milestones. University of Nebraska Medical Center. ISBN 1-889843-58-X. - Trisomy 18 Support Foundation - Support Organisation For Trisomy 18, 13, and Related Disorders (SOFT) - The Chromosome 18 Registry & Research Society - Who Named It synd/3438

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Scientific Investigations Report 2005-5232 The carbonate-rock aquifer of the Great Basin is named for the thick sequence of Paleozoic limestone and dolomite with lesser amounts of shale, sandstone, and quartzite. It lies primarily in the eastern half of the Great Basin and includes areas of eastern Nevada and western Utah as well as the Death Valley area of California and small parts of Arizona and Idaho. The carbonate-rock aquifer is contained within the Basin and Range Principal Aquifer, one of 16 principal aquifers selected for study by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water- Quality Assessment Program. Water samples from 30 ground-water sites (20 in Nevada and 10 in Utah) were collected in the summer of 2003 and analyzed for major anions and cations, nutrients, trace elements, dissolved organic carbon, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pesticides, radon, and microbiology. Water samples from selected sites also were analyzed for the isotopes oxygen-18, deuterium, and tritium to determine recharge sources and the occurrence of water recharged since the early 1950s. Primary drinking-water standards were exceeded for several inorganic constituents in 30 water samples from the carbonate-rock aquifer. The maximum contaminant level was exceeded for concentrations of dissolved antimony (6 μg/L) in one sample, arsenic (10 μg/L) in eleven samples, and thallium (2 μg/L) in one sample. Secondary drinking-water regulations were exceeded for several inorganic constituents in water samples: chloride (250 mg/L) in five samples, fluoride (2 mg/L) in two samples, iron (0.3 mg/L) in four samples, manganese (0.05 mg/L) in one sample, sulfate (250 mg/L) in three samples, and total dissolved solids (500 mg/L) in seven samples. Six different pesticides or metabolites were detected at very low concentrations in the 30 water samples. The lack of VOC detections in water sampled from most of the sites is evidence thatVOCs are not common in the carbonate-rock aquifer. Arsenic values for water range from 0.7 to 45.7 μg/L, with a median value of 9.6 μg/L. Factors affecting arsenic concentration in the carbonate-rock aquifer in addition to geothermal heating are its natural occurrence in the aquifer material and time of travel along the flow path. Most of the chemical analyses, especially for VOCs and nutrients, indicate little, if any, effect of overlying land-use patterns on ground-water quality. The water quality in recharge areas for the aquifer where human activities are more intense may be affected by urban and/or agricultural land uses as evidenced by pesticide detections. The proximity of the carbonate-rock aquifer at these sites to the land surface and the potential for local recharge to occur through the fractured rock likely results in the occurrence of these and other land-surface related contaminants in the ground water. Water from sites sampled near outcrops of carbonate-rock aquifer likely has a much shorter residence time resulting in a potential for detection of anthropogenic or land-surface related compounds. Sites located in discharge areas of the flow systems or wells that are completed at a great depth below the land surface generally show no effects of land-use activities on water quality. Flow times within the carbonate-rock aquifer, away from recharge areas, are on the order of thousands of years, so any contaminants introduced at the land surface that will not degrade along the flow path have not reached the sampled sites in these areas. First posted February, 2006 Part or all of this report is presented in Portable Document Format (PDF); the latest version of Adobe Reader or similar software is required to view it. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, free of charge. Schaefer, D.H., Thiros, S.A., and Rosen, M.R., 2005, Ground-water quality in the carbonate-rock aquifer of the Great Basin, Nevada and Utah, 2003: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2005-5232, 41 p. Description of Study Area Study Design and Methods Appendix 1. Water-quality constituents analyzed in ground-water samples from wells and springs in the carbonate-rock aquifer, Nevada and Utah

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Coastal and Marine Geology Program The Swinomish Channel in La Conner, Washington. Inset shows U.S. Geological Survey instrument tripod used to measure circulation and water-column properties. (Photographs by E. Grossman and A. Stevens, U.S. Geological Survey.) Time-series and spatial measurements of nearshore hydrodynamic processes and water properties were made in the Swinomish Channel to quantify the net direction and rates of surface water transport that influence habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon along their primary migratory corridor between the Skagit River and Padilla Bay in northern Puget Sound, Washington. During the spring outmigration of Skagit River Chinook between March and June 2007, currents measured with fixed acoustic doppler current profilers (ADCP) at the south and north end of the Swinomish Channel and with roving ADCP revealed that the currents are highly asymmetric with a dominant flow to the north (toward Padilla Bay). Maximum surface current velocities reached 1.5 m/s and were generally uniform across the channel near McGlinn Island Causeway. Transport times for surface water to travel the 11 km from the southern end of Swinomish Channel at McGlinn Island to Padilla Bay ranged from 2.1 hours to 5.5 days. The mean travel time was ~1 day, while 17 percent of the time, transport of water and passive particles occurred within 3.75 hours. Surface water in the Swinomish Channel during this time was generally very saline 20-27 psu, except south of the Rainbow Bridge in the town of La Conner where it ranged 0-15 psu depending on tide and Skagit River discharge. This salinity regime restricts suitable low salinity (<15-20 psu) surface waters for fry Chinook salmon to the southernmost 2 km of the channel. The mean change in salinity along the channel was 10-13 psu. The high northward current velocities have the capacity to transport Chinook fry into less suitable, high-salinity waters toward Padilla Bay within hours. The rapid transport times of 2.1 to 3.75 hours between McGlinn Island and Padilla Bay that occur 17 percent of the time, are considerably less than the time considered adequate for juvenile Chinook to acclimate and produce a temporal salinity gradient for pre-smolt salmon that can exceed 4 psu/hour during high northward current flow. Download this report as a 97-page PDF file (sir2007-5120.pdf; 14.2 MB). For questions about the content of this report, contact Eric Grossman Suggested citation and version history Download a copy of the latest version of Adobe Reader for free. PDF help | Publications main page | | Western Scientific Investigations Reports | | Geography | Coastal and Marine Geology |

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Ten thousand people were killed and 10 to 15 million left homeless when a cyclone slammed into India's eastern coastal state of Orissa in October 1999. In the aftermath, CARE and the Catholic Relief Society distributed a high-nutrition mixture of corn and soy meal provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development to thousands of hungry storm victims. Oddly, this humanitarian act elicited cries of outrage. "We call on the government of India and the state government of Orissa to immediately withdraw the corn-soya blend from distribution," said Vandana Shiva, director of the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. "The U.S. has been using the Orissa victims as guinea pigs for GM [genetically modified] products which have been rejected by consumers in the North, especially Europe." Shiva's organization had sent a sample of the food to a lab in the U.S. for testing to see if it contained any of the genetically improved corn and soy bean varieties grown by tens of thousands of farmers in the United States. Not surprisingly, it did. "Vandana Shiva would rather have her people in India starve than eat bioengineered food," says C.S. Prakash, a professor of plant molecular genetics at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, observes: "To accuse the U.S. of sending genetically modified food to Orissa in order to use the people there as guinea pigs is not only wrong; it is stupid. Worse than rhetoric, it's false. After all, the U.S. doesn't need to use Indians as guinea pigs, since millions of Americans have been eating genetically modified food for years now with no ill effects." Shiva not only opposes the food aid but is also against "golden rice," a crop that could prevent blindness in half a million to 3 million poor children a year and alleviate vitamin A deficiency in some 250 million people in the developing world. By inserting three genes, two from daffodils and one from a bacterium, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology created a variety of rice that produces the nutrient beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A. Agronomists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines plan to crossbreed the variety, called "golden rice" because of the color produced by the beta-carotene, with well-adapted local varieties and distribute the resulting plants to farmers all over the developing world. Last June, at a Capitol Hill seminar on biotechnology sponsored by the Congressional Hunger Center, Shiva airily dismissed golden rice by claiming that "just in the state of Bengal 150 greens which are rich in vitamin A are eaten and grown by the women." A visibly angry Martina McGloughlin, director of the biotechnology program at the University of California at Davis, said "Dr. Shiva's response reminds me of... Marie Antoinette, [who] suggested the peasants eat cake if they didn't have access to bread." Alexander Avery of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues noted that nutritionists at UNICEF doubted it was physically possible to get enough vitamin A from the greens Shiva was recommending. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that poor women living in shanties in the heart of Calcutta could grow greens to feed their children. The apparent willingness of biotechnology's opponents to sacrifice people for their cause disturbs scientists who are trying to help the world's poor. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last February, Ismail Serageldin, the director of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, posed a challenge: "I ask opponents of biotechnology, do you want 2 to 3 million children a year to go blind and 1 million to die of vitamin A deficiency, just because you object to the way golden rice was created?" Vandana Shiva is not alone in her disdain for biotechnology's potential to help the poor. Mae-Wan Ho, a reader in biology at London's Open University who advises another activist group, the Third World Network, also opposes golden rice. And according to a New York Times report on a biotechnology meeting held last March by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Benedikt Haerlin, head of Greenpeace's European anti-biotech campaign, "dismissed the importance of saving African and Asian lives at the risk of spreading a new science that he considered untested." Shiva, Ho, and Haerlin are leaders in a growing global war against crop biotechnology, sometimes called "green biotech" (to distinguish it from medical biotechnology, known as "red biotech"). Gangs of anti-biotech vandals with cute monikers such as Cropatistas and Seeds of Resistance have ripped up scores of research plots in Europe and the U.S. The so-called Earth Liberation Front burned down a crop biotech lab at Michigan State University on New Year's Eve in 1999, destroying years of work and causing $400,000 in property damage. (See "Crop Busters," January.) Anti-biotech lobbying groups have proliferated faster than bacteria in an agar-filled petri dish: In addition to Shiva's organization, the Third World Network, and Greenpeace, they include the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Institute of Science in Society, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, the Ralph Nader-founded Public Citizen, the Council for Responsible Genetics, the Institute for Food and Development Policy, and that venerable fount of biotech misinformation, Jeremy Rifkin's Foundation on Economic Trends. The left hasn't been this energized since the Vietnam War. But if the anti-biotech movement is successful, its victims will include the downtrodden people on whose behalf it claims to speak. "We're in a war," said an activist at a protesters' gathering during the November 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. "We're going to bury this first wave of biotech." He summed up the basic strategy pretty clearly: "The first battle is labeling. The second battle is banning it." Later that week, during a standing-room-only "biosafety seminar" in the basement of a Seattle Methodist church, the ubiquitous Mae-Wan Ho declared, "This warfare against nature must end once and for all." Michael Fox, a vegetarian "bioethicist" from the Humane Society of the United States, sneered: "We are very clever little simians, aren't we? Manipulating the bases of life and thinking we're little gods." He added, "The only acceptable application of genetic engineering is to develop a genetically engineered form of birth control for our own species." This creepy declaration garnered rapturous applause from the assembled activists. Despite its unattractive side, the global campaign against green biotech has had notable successes in recent years. Several leading food companies, including Gerber and Frito-Lay, have been cowed into declaring that they will not use genetically improved crops to make their products. Since 1997, the European Union has all but outlawed the growing and importing of biotech crops and food. Last May some 60 countries signed the Biosafety Protocol, which mandates special labels for biotech foods and requires strict notification, documentation, and risk assessment procedures for biotech crops. Activists have launched a "Five-Year Freeze" campaign that calls for a worldwide moratorium on planting genetically enhanced crops. For a while, it looked like the United States might resist the growing hysteria, but in December 1999 the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was reviewing its approvals of biotech corn crops, implying that it might ban the crops in the future. Last May the Food and Drug Administration, which until now has evaluated biotech foods solely on their objective characteristics, not on the basis of how they were produced, said it would formulate special rules for reviewing and approving products with genetically modified ingredients. U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a bill that would require warning labels on all biotech foods. In October, news that a genetically modified corn variety called StarLink that was approved only for animal feed had been inadvertently used in two brands of taco shells prompted recalls, front-page headlines, and anxious recriminations. Lost in the furor was the fact that there was little reason to believe the corn was unsafe for human consumption-only an implausible, unsubstantiated fear that it might cause allergic reactions. Even Aventis, the company which produced StarLink, agreed that it was a serious mistake to have accepted the EPA's approval for animal use only. Most proponents favor approving biotech crops only if they are determined to be safe for human consumption. To decide whether the uproar over green biotech is justified, you need to know a bit about how it works. Biologists and crop breeders can now select a specific useful gene from one species and splice it into an unrelated species. Previously plant breeders were limited to introducing new genes through the time-consuming and inexact art of crossbreeding species that were fairly close relatives. For each cross, thousands of unwanted genes would be introduced into a crop species. Years of "backcrossing"-breeding each new generation of hybrids with the original commercial variety over several generations-were needed to eliminate these unwanted genes so that only the useful genes and characteristics remained. The new methods are far more precise and efficient. The plants they produce are variously described as "transgenic," "genetically modified," or "genetically engineered." Plant breeders using biotechnology have accomplished a great deal in only a few years. For example, they have created a class of highly successful insect-resistant crops by incorporating toxin genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Farmers have sprayed B.t. spores on crops as an effective insecticide for decades. Now, thanks to some clever biotechnology, breeders have produced varieties of corn, cotton, and potatoes that make their own insecticide. B.t. is toxic largely to destructive caterpillars such as the European corn borer and the cotton bollworm; it is not harmful to birds, fish, mammals, or people.

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researchers, science writers, editors, translators, illustrators, publishers Services and support for research-based communication in all languages and media. Join groups to meet people with related interests. Publish science! Thanks to Editage and Medlist International for practical support and advice. Click here for the Research Cooperative MOBILE format This page provides links to information about postal codes, local place names and gazetteers, and other sources of geographical information that may help our members locate each other and communicate. The International Organization for Standardization displays a list of 248 official short names for countries, together with short identification codes for each country. The World Gazetteer created by Stefan Helders is a rich source of information on places and geographical data. Maps of Net is a huge aggregation site for maps of the world, with a comprehensive destination gazetteer. The AuthaGraph world map shows the true areas of ocean and land in a rectangular layout. Freesurfing.com has assembled a great range of information on postcodes, zipcodes, and postal systems generally, and covers all regions of the world. (Long Bay, NZ) Last updated by Peter J. Matthews Mar 11, 2012.

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Microsoft Windows is a series of popular proprietary operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November, 1985, as an add-on to MS-DOS. This was in response to Apple Computer's computer system, the Apple Macintosh, which used a graphical user interface (GUI). Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world personal computer market with market analysts like IDC estimating that Windows has around 90% of the client operating system market. All recent versions of Windows are fully-fledged operating systems. Tools and Libraries - Curses library - List of C Development enviroments on the Game Programming Wiki - LibSDL, Simple DirectMedia Layer - 'Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003' free, from Microsoft themselves.

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The stated mission of Sage is to be viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab. Sage’s predecessors, known as HECKE and Manin, came about because William Stein needed to write them as part of his research in number theory. Started by William in 2005 during his time at Harvard University, Sage combines best-of-breed free open source mathematics software, packaging and unifying them through a common interface. Many researchers in number theory, including William himself, use this common interface to build upon and extend the functionalities of underlying packages for number theory research. Such software packages include Givaro, MPIR, NTL, Pari/GP, and many others too numerous to list here. Students, teachers, professors, researchers throughout the world use Sage because they require a comprehensive free open source mathematics package that offers symbolic and numerical computation. Most of the time, people are happy with what Sage has to offer. As is common throughout the free open source software (FOSS) world, many people often identify cases where Sage lacks certain mathematics functionalities that they require. And so they delve into the underlying source code that comprises Sage in order to extend it for their purposes, or expose functionalities of underlying packages shipped with Sage in order to use their favourite mathematics software packages from within Sage. The Sage-Combinat team is comprised of researchers in algebraic combinatorics. The team’s stated mission is to improve Sage as an extensible toolbox for computer exploration in algebraic combinatorics, and foster code sharing between researchers in this area. For detailed information about why Sage exists, see William’s personal mathematics software biography. In the first few years of Sage’s existence, the project was called “SAGE”. This acronym stood for “Software for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation”. Starting around 2007 and early 2008, the name “Sage” was widely adopted. Think of “Sage” as a name for a free open source mathematics software project, just as “Python” is a name for a free open source general purpose programming language. Whenever possible, please use the name “Sage” instead of “SAGE” to avoid confusing the Sage project with a computer project called SAGE. You pronounce “Sage” similar to how you would pronounce “sage” which refers to a wise person, or “sage” which refers to a plant. Some people pronounce “Sage” as “sarge”, similar to how you would pronounce Debian Sarge. However you pronounce “Sage”, please do not confuse the Sage project with an accounting software by the same name. Sage is a volunteer based project. Its success is due to the voluntary effort of a large international team of students, teachers, professors, researchers, software engineers, and people working in diverse areas of mathematics, science, engineering, software development, and all levels of education. The development of Sage has benefited from the financial support of numerous institutions, and the previous and ongoing work of many authors of included components. A list of direct contributors can be found on the Sage Development Map and the history of changes can be found in the high-level changelog. Refer to the acknowledgment page of the Sage website for an up-to-date list of financial and infrastructure supporters, mirror network hosting providers, and indirect contributors. A standard rule in the mathematics community is that everything is laid open for inspection. The Sage project believes that not doing the same for mathematics software is at best a gesture of impoliteness and rudeness, and at worst a violation against standard scientific practices. An underlying philosophical principle of Sage is to apply the system of open exchange and peer review that characterizes scientific communication to the development of mathematics software. Neither the Sage project nor the Sage Development Team make any claims to being the original proponents of this principle. The development model of Sage is largely inspired by the free software movement as spearheaded by the Free Software Foundation, and by the open source movement. One source of inspiration from within the mathematics community is Joachim Neubüser as expressed in the paper and in particular the following quotation from his paper: You can read Sylow's Theorem and its proof in Huppert's book in the library without even buying the book and then you can use Sylow's Theorem for the rest of your life free of charge, but...for many computer algebra systems license fees have to be paid regularly for the total time of their use. In order to protect what you pay for, you do not get the source, but only an executable, i.e. a black box. You can press buttons and you get answers in the same way as you get the bright pictures from your television set but you cannot control how they were made in either case. With this situation two of the most basic rules of conduct in mathematics are violated: In mathematics information is passed on free of charge and everything is laid open for checking. Not applying these rules to computer algebra systems that are made for mathematical research...means moving in a most undesirable direction. Most important: Can we expect somebody to believe a result of a program that he is not allowed to see? Moreover: Do we really want to charge colleagues in Moldava several years of their salary for a computer algebra system? Similar sentiments were also expressed by Andrei Okounkov as can be found in in particular the following quotation: Computers are no more a threat to mathematicians than food processors are a threat to cooks. As mathematics gets more and more complex while the pace of our lives accelerates, we must delegate as much as we can to machines. And I mean both numeric and symbolic work. Some people can manage without dishwashers, but I think proofs come out a lot cleaner when routine work is automated. This brings up many issues. I am not an expert, but I think we need a symbolic standard to make computer manipulations easier to document and verify. And with all due respect to the free market, perhaps we should not be dependent on commercial software here. An open-source project could, perhaps, find better answers to the obvious problems such as availability, bugs, backward compatibility, platform independence, standard libraries, etc. One can learn from the success of TeX and more specialized software like Macaulay2. I do hope that funding agencies are looking into this. Sage was not written from scratch. Most of its underlying mathematics functionalities are made possible through FOSS projects such as An up-to-date list can be found on the page for the standard packages repository. The principle programming languages of Sage are Python and Cython. Python is the primary programming and interfacing language, while Cython is the primary language for optimizing critical functionalities and interfacing with C libraries and C extensions for Python. Sage integrates over 90 FOSS packages into a common interface. On top of these packages is the Sage library, which consists of over 700,000 lines of new Python and Cython code. See ohloh.net for source code analysis of the latest stable Sage release. The following is an incomplete list of institutions and projects that use Sage. If any institution or project is missing, please let us know by reporting to the sage-devel mailing list. Sage has two very active email lists: There is also a very active IRC channels: #sage-devel on freenode. Many developers also actively blog and also post other Sage-related tutorials and talks. See http://www.sagemath.org/help.html for a listing of these resources. This topic has been discussed over and over again. So before you resume the discussion, ensure you have read and understood the arguments below. Sage is a distribution of over 90 FOSS packages for symbolic, numerical, and scientific computation. In general, the combinatorial explosion of configurations to debug is way too large. It is next to impossible to find any Linux distribution (e.g. Arch, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, Ubuntu) where the version numbers of packages that Sage depends on even remotely match. The majority of people who contribute to Sage do so in their free time. These are people who hold day jobs that are not directly related to computer programming or software development. It is next to impossible for anyone to track down the correct versions of packages, configure and compile them on Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, or Windows, just so that they could start using Sage or start working on their first contribution to Sage. While the Sage project aims to be useful to as wide an audience as possible, we believe that Sage first needs to be as easy as possible to install by anyone with any level of computer experience. If you want to help Sage realize this goal, please email the sage-devel mailing list. Any software package contains bug. With something as complex as Sage, neither the Sage community nor the Sage Development Team make any claims that Sage is free of bugs. To do so would be an act of dishonesty. A Sage release cycle usually lasts for about 3 to 4 weeks. Each release cycle is usually chaired by a single release manager who looks after the Sage merge tree for the duration of the release cycle. During that time, the release manager often needs to devote the equivalent of full-time work to quality management and actively interacts with an international community of Sage users, developers, and potential contributors. There have been a number of cases where two Sage contributors paired up to be the release managers for a Sage release cycle. However, it is often the case that few people have the equivalent of 3 weeks’ worth of free time to devote to release management. If you want to help out with release management, please subscribe to the sage-release mailing list. Since the beginning of the Sage project, Sage contributors have tried to listen and think about what would increase the chances that serious potential contributors would actually contribute. What encourages one contributor can discourage another, so tradeoffs need to be made. To decide that a stabilization release would merge patches with bug fixes, and only fix bugs, would likely discourage someone from contributing when they have been told in advance that their positively reviewed patches will not be merged. The Sage community believes in the principle of “release early, release often”. How the Sage project is organized and run differ greatly from that of a commercial software company. Contributors are all volunteers and this changes the dynamic of the project dramatically from what it would be if Sage were a commercial development effort with all developers being full-time employees. To download the Sage standard documentation in HTML or PDF formats, visit the Help and Support page on the Sage website. Each release of Sage comes with the full documentation that makes up the Sage standard documentation. If you have downloaded a binary Sage release, the HTML version of the corresponding documentation comes pre-built and can be found under the directory SAGE_ROOT/devel/sage-main/doc/output/html/. During the compilation of Sage from source, the HTML version of the documentation is also built in the process. To build the HTML version of the documentation, issue the following command from SAGE_ROOT: $ ./sage -docbuild --no-pdf-links all html Building the PDF version requires that your system has a working LaTeX installation. To build the PDF version of the documentation, issue the following command from SAGE_ROOT: $ ./sage -docbuild all pdf For more command line options, refer to the output of any of the following commands: $ ./sage -help $ ./sage -advanced

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Our cells generate most of the energy they need in tiny structures inside them called mitochondria, which can be thought of as the cells' powerhouses. Mitochondria have their own DNA, independent of the cell's nuclear genome, which is compelling similar to the DNA of bacterial genomes. What this suggests is that many thousands of years ago, mitochondria were not just components of our cells, but were in fact unicellular organisms in their own right. According to this hypothesis – the endosymbiotic theory – mitochondria (and possibly some other organelles) originated as free-living bacteria which later became incorporated inside other cells in a symbiotic relationship. Like man-made powerhouses, mitochondria produce hazardous by-products as well as useful energy. They are the main source of free radicals in the body – hugely reactive particles which cause damage to all cellular components through oxidative stress. They attack the first thing they come across, which is usually the mitochondrion itself. This hazardous environment has put the genes located in the mitochondrion at risk of mutational damage, and over many years of evolutionary pressure the mitochondrial DNA has gradually moved into the cell's nucleus, where it is comparatively well-protected from the deleterious effects of free-radicals alongside all of the cell's other DNA. This is called allotopic expression, and it has moved all but thirteen of the mitochondrion's full complement of at least one thousand genetic instructions for proteins into the 'bomb-shelter' of the nucleus. However, the remaining thirteen genes in the mitochondrion itself are subject to the ravages of free-radicals, and are likely to mutate. Mutated mitochondria, as Aubrey de Grey has identified, may indirectly accelerate many aspects of ageing, not least when their mutation causes them to no longer produce the required energy for the cell, in turn impairing the cell's functionality. In order to combat the down-stream ageing damage as a consequence of mitochondrial mutation, de Grey believes that the mitochondrial DNA damage itself needs to be repaired or rendered harmless. His characteristically bold solution to this problem is to put the mutations themselves beyond use by creating backup copies of the remaining mitochondrial genetic material and storing them in the safety of the cell's nucleus. Allotopically expressed here, like the rest of the mitochondrial DNA, any deletions in the mitochondrial DNA can be safely overwritten by the backup master copy, which is much less likely to mutate hidden away from the constant bombardment of free radicals. There are several difficulties to this solution, not least the fact that the remaining proteins are extremely hydrophobic and so don't 'want' to be moved at all, and additionally the code disparity between the language of the mitochondrial DNA and the nuclear DNA which makes a simple transplantation without translation impossible. Even if this engineered solution to the problem proves impracticable, at the very least the theory is sound. If we can devise a way systematically defend our mitochondria from their own waste products, we will drastically reduce the number of harmful free radicals exported throughout our bodies, thereby reducing preventing a lot of the damage that distinguishes the young from the old, extending and improving the quality of our lives as a result. Dr Aubrey de Grey, a gerontologist from Cambridge, believes that ageing is a disease that can be cured. Like man-made machines, de Grey sees the human body as a system which ages as the result of the accumulation of various types of damage. And like machines, de Grey argues that this damage can be periodically repaired, potentially leading to an indefinite extension of the system's functional life. De Grey believes that just as a mechanic doesn't need to understand precisely how the corrosive processes of iron oxidation degrades an exhaust manifold beyond utility in order to successfully repair the damage, so we can design therapies that combat human ageing without understanding the processes that interact to contribute to our ageing. All we have to do is understand the damage itself. De Grey is confident that he has identified future technologies that can comprehensively remove the molecular and cellular lesions that degrade our health over time, technologies which will one day overcome ageing once and for all. In order to pursue the active development and systematic testing of these technologies, de Grey has made it part of his mission to break the 'pro-ageing trance' that he sees as a widespread barrier to raising the funding and stimulating the research necessary to successfully combat ageing. De Grey defines this trance as a psychological strategy that people use to cope with ageing, fuelled from the incorrect belief that ageing is forever unavoidable. This trance is coupled with the general wisdom that anti-ageing therapies can only stretch out the years of debilitation and disease which accompany the end of most lifetimes. De Grey contends that by repairing the pathologies of ageing we will in fact be able to eliminate this period completely, postponing it with new treatments for indefinitely longer time periods so that no-one ever catches up with the damage caused by their ageing. To get over our collective 'trance' it is worth realising that this meme has made perfect psychological sense until very recently. Given the traditional assumption that ageing cannot be countered, delayed or reversed, it has paid to make peace with such a seemingly immutable fact, rather than wasting one's life preoccupied with worrying about it. If we follow de Grey's rationale that the body is a machine that can be repaired and restored, we have to accept that there are potential technologies that can effectively combat ageing, and thus the trance can no longer be rationally maintained. Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences which cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage and potentially cancerous breakages and fusings. They act as disposable buffers, much as the plastic aglets at the end of shoelaces prevent fraying. Each time a cell divides, the telomores get shorter as DNA sequences are lost from the end. When telomeres reach a certain critical length, the cell is unable to make new copies of itself, and so organs and tissues that depend on continued cell replication begin to senesce. The shortening of telomeres plays a large part in ageing (although not necessarily a causal one), and so advocates of life extension are exploring the possibility of lengthening telomeres in certain cells by searching for ways to selectively activate the enzyme telomerase, which maintains telemore length by the adding newly synthesized DNA code to their ends. If we could induce certain parts of our bodies to express more telomerase, the theory goes, we will be able to live longer, healthier lives, slowing down the decline of ageing. Every moment we're fighting a losing battle against our telomeric shortening; at conception our telomeres consist of roughly 15,000 DNA base pairs, shrinking to 10,000 at birth when the telomerase gene becomes largely deactivated. Without the maintenance work of the enzyme our telomeres reduce in length at a rate of about 50 base pairs a year. When some telomeres drop below 5,000 base pairs, their cells lose the ability to divide, becoming unable to perform the work they were designed to carry out, and in some cases also releasing chemicals that are harmful to neighbouring cells. Some particularly prominent cell-types that are affected by the replicative shortening of telomeres include the endothelial cells lining blood vessels leading to the heart, and the cells that make the myelin sheath that protects our brain's neurons. Both brain health and heart health are bound to some degree to the fate of cells with a telomeric fuse. The correlation between telomere length and biological ageing has motivated a hope that one day we will be able to prevent and perhaps reverse the effects of replicative senescence by optimally controlling the action of telomerase. The complexity of synthesizing proteins for specific purposes is so great that predicting the amino acid sequences necessary to generate desired behaviour is a huge challenge. Mutations far away from the protein’s active site can influence its function, and the smallest of changes in the structure of an enzyme can have a large impact on its catalytic efficacy – a key concern for engineers creating proteins for industrial applications. Even for a small protein of only 100 amino acids long there are more possible sequences than there are atoms in the universe. What this means is that an exhaustive search through the space of all possible proteins for the fittest protein for a particular purpose is essentially unachievable, just as a complete search through all possible chess games to decide the absolutely optimal next move is computationally impractical. This is true both for scientists and for nature. This means that even though evolution has been searching the space of all possible proteins for billions of years for solutions to survival, it has in fact explored only a minute corner of all possible variations. All evolved solutions are likely to be 'good enough' rather than the absolute optimum – it just so happens that the ones already 'discovered' are sufficient to create and maintain the diversity and richness of life on planet earth. New ways of efficiently searching this vast space of possible sequences will reveal proteins with properties that have never before existed in the natural world, and which will hopefully provide answers to many of our most pressing problems. Directed evolution not only provides a faster way of searching this space than many other methods, but it also leaves a complete 'fossil record' of the evolutionary changes that went into evolving a specific protein, providing data on the intermediate stages which will offer insight after detailed study into the relationship between protein sequence and function. Unlike natural evolution, directed evolution can also explore sequences which aren't directly biologically relevant to a single organism's survival, providing a library of industrially relevant proteins, and perhaps one day creating bacteria capable of answering worldwide problems caused by pollution and fossil fuel shortage. Neo-evolution is factorially faster than normal evolutionary processes. Our genetically engineered organisms have already neo-evolved – shortcutting traditional evolution to produce desirable results without the costly time-delay of selection over hundreds or thousands of generations. Higher-yielding and insecticide-resistant crops have been engineered through the painstaking modification of individual genes, achieving better results than years of selective breeding in a fraction of the time. Genetic engineering of humans, both embryonic and those already alive, will perhaps one day bring the benefits of this new type of evolution to our bodies. At the moment, we simply do not understand how DNA sequences encode useful functions, and so genetic engineering remains a tremendously costly and laborious process. It cost $25 million and took 150 person-years to engineer just a dozen genes in yeast to cause it to produce an antimalarial drug, and commercial production has yet to begin. The amount of time and money required to effect a beneficial result through genetic engineering – even if it involves relatively simple changes to only a dozen genes – is so costly that the transformative idea of neo-evolved humans has been kept at a safe distance. But there are other ways to neo-evolve that might make the possibility of too-good-to-miss genetic enhancements in humans a reality before long. Earlier this year, for instance, the National Academy of Engineering awarded its Draper Prize to Francis Arnold and Willem Stemmer for their independent work towards 'directed evolution', a technique which harnesses the power of traditional evolution in a highly optimized environment to accelerate the evolution of desirable proteins with properties not found in nature. Rather than attempt to manually code the strings of individual DNA letters necessary to effect a particular trait, directed evolution and its associated 'evolution machines' take a prototype 'parent' gene, create a library of genetic variants from it and apply selection pressures to screen for the strains that produce the desired trait, iterating this process with the best of each batch until the strongest remain. This was first evidenced in 2009, when geneticist Harris Wang used directed evolution to create new proteins in E. coli bacteria that would produce more of the pigment that makes tomatoes red than was previously possible. To achieve this genetic modification without manually fine-tuning each gene, Wang synthesized 50,000 DNA strands which contained modified sequences of genes that produce the pigment, and multiplied them in his evolution machine. After repeating the process 35 times with the results of each cycle fed into the next, he produced some 15 billion new strains, each with a different combination of mutations in the target pigment-producing genes. Of these new strains, some produced up to five times as much pigment as the original strain, more than the entire biosynthesis industry had ever achieved. The process took days rather than years. There are three distinct possibilities for how technological and medical advancement will impact future human evolution. The first contingency is that the human species will undergo no further natural selection, because we may have already advanced to a position of evolutionary equipoise, where our technologies have artificially preserved genes that would otherwise have been removed by natural selection; evolution no longer has a chance to select. As a species we already control our environment to such an extent that traditional evolutionary pressures have been functionally alleviated – we adapt the environment to us rather than the other way around. Indeed, local mobility and international migration allow populations to genetically integrate to such a degree that the isolation necessary for evolution to take place may in fact already no longer possible. The second possibility is that we will continue to evolve in the traditional way, through inexorable selection pressures exerted by the natural environment. The isolation necessary to allow the impact of any environmental changes to be selected for in the population will now be on the planetary scale, enabled by colonization of distant space. The third possibility is that we will evolve in an entirely new way, guided not by unconscious natural forces but by our own conscious design decisions. In this neo-evolution we would use genetic engineering to eliminate diseases like diabetes, protect against strokes and reduce the risks of cancer. We would be compressing a natural process which takes hundreds of thousands of years into single generations, making evolutionarily advantageous adjustments ourselves. From an economic perspective, cheating is a simple cost-benefit analysis, where the probability of being caught and the severity of punishment must be weighed against how much stands to be gained from cheating. Behavioural economist Dan Ariely has conducted experimental studies to test whether there are predictable thresholds for this balance, and how they can be influenced. In one study, Ariely gave participants twenty maths problems with only five minutes to solve them. At the end of the time period, Ariely paid each participant one dollar for each correctly answered question; on average people solved four questions and so received four dollars. Ariely tempted some members of the study to cheat, by asking them to shred their paper, keep the pieces and tell him how many questions they answered correctly. Now the average number of questions solved went up to seven; and it wasn't because a few people cheated a lot, but rather that everyone cheated a little. Hypothesizing that we each have a “personal fudge factor”, a point at which we can still feel good about ourselves despite having cheated, Ariely ran another experiment to examine how malleable this standard was. Before tempting participants to cheat, Ariely asked them to recall either ten books they read at school or to recall The Ten Commandments. Those who had tried to recall the Commandments – and nobody in the sample managed to get them all – did not cheat at all when given the opportunity, even those that could hardly remember any of the Commandments. When self-declared atheists were asked to swear on the Bible before being tempted to cheat in the task, they did not cheat at all. Cheating was also completely eradicated by asking students to sign a statement to the effect that they understood that the survey falls under the “MIT Honor Code”, despite MIT having no such code. In an additional variant of the same experiment, Ariely tried to increase the fudge-factor and to encourage cheating. A third of particpants were told to hand back their results paper to the experimenters, a third were told to shred it and ask for X number of dollars for X completed questions, and a third were told to shred their results and ask for X tokens. For this last group, tokens were handed out, and the participants would walk a few paces to the side and exchange their tokens for dollars. This short disconnect between cash and token encouraged cheating rates to double in this last group. Putting these results in a social context, Ariely ran yet another variant of the experiment, to see how people would react when they saw examples of other people cheating in their group. Subjects were given envelopes filled with money, and at the end of the experiment they were told to pay back money for the questions that they did not complete. An actor was planted in the group, without the knowledge of the other participants. After thirty seconds the actor stood up and announced that he had finished all of the questions. He was told that the experiment was completed for him, and that he could go home (i.e. keeping the contents of the envelope). Depending on whether he was wearing a shirt identifying him as from the same university as the rest of the students in the test or not, cheating went either up or down respectively. Carnegie Mellon students would cheat more if he was identified as a Carnegie Mellon student, whilst cheating would decrease if he was identified by a University of Pittsburgh shirt. Ariely's results show that the probability of getting caught doesn't influence the rate of cheating so much as the norms for cheating influence behaviour: if people in your own group cheat, you are more likely to cheat as well. If a person from outside of your group cheats, the personal fudge factor increases, and the likelihood of cheating drops, just as it did with the Ten Commandments experiment, reminding people of their own morality. The stock market combines a worrying cocktail of features from these experiments. It deals with 'tokens', stocks and derivatives and not 'real' money. Stocks are many steps removed from real money, and for long portions of time. This encourages cheating. Any enclaves of cheating will be reinforced by people mirroring the behaviours of those around them, and this is precisely what happened in the Enron scandal. Here is a syllogism that is deeply embedded in Western society. Welfare is maximized by maximizing individual freedom. Individual freedom is maximized by maximizing choice. Welfare increases with more choice. Supermarkets are an embodiment of this belief. They are symbols of affluence and empowerment conferred through their superabundance of choice. The range of products they offer is dizzying. So disorientingly so, in fact, that too many options have paralyzing effects, making it very difficult to choose at all – a fact that completely undermines the belief that maximizing choice has unqualified beneficial effects. If we finally do manage to make a decision and overcome this paralytic effect, too much choice diminishes the satisfaction that can be gained compared with choices made between fewer options. This is because if the choice you make leaves you feeling dissatisfied in any way it is easy to simulate the myriad of other choices that could have been better. These imagined alternatives, conjured from the myriad real alternatives, can induce regret which dilutes the satisfaction from your choice, even if it was a good one. The wider the range of options, the easier it becomes to regret even the smallest disappointment in your decision. A wider range of choice also makes it easier to imagine the attractive features of the alternatives that have been rejected, once more diminishing the sense of satisfaction with the chosen alternative. This phenomenon is known as the opportunity cost, the sacrificial loss of other opportunities when a choice is made: choosing to do one thing is choosing not to do many other things. Many of these other choices will have attractive features which will make whatever you have chosen less attractive, no matter how good it really is. The maximization of choice leads to an escalation of expectations, where the best that can ever be hoped for is that a decision meets expectations. In a world of extremely limited choice, pleasant surprises are possible. In a world of unlimited choice, perfection becomes the expectation: you could always have made a better choice. When there is only one choice on offer, the responsibility for the outcome of that 'choice' is outside of your control, and so any disappointment resulting from that decision can safely be blamed on external factors. But when you have to choose between hundreds of options it becomes much easier to blame oneself if anything is less than perfect. It is perhaps no coincidence that as choice has proliferated and standards have risen in the past few generations, so has the incidence of clinical depression and suicide. What this means is that there is a critical level of choice. Some societies have too much, others patently too little. At the point at which there is too much choice in a critical proportion of our lives, our welfare is no longer improved. Too much choice is paralytic and dissatisfying, and too little is impoverishing. We don't want perfect freedom and nor do we want the absence of it; somewhere there is an optimal threshold, and affluent, materialist societies have probably already passed it. Our uniquely large pre-frontal cortex enables us to simulate experiences, allowing us to compare potential futures and make judgements based on these simulations. The difficulty in deciding which of several simulations we prefer arises because we are surprisingly poor at analyzing what makes us happy. Seemingly obvious questions such as 'would you prefer to become paraplegic or win the lottery?' are obscured by the extraordinary fact that one year after each event, both groups report being equally happy with their lives. A preference for one alternative over another can be measured in its ability to confer happiness, and, contrary to all of our impulses, there can be no rational preference in this example when considered over a sufficiently long time-period, as there is no reported qualitative difference between the two levels of happiness after a single year. This is a result of the impact bias, the tendency of our emotional simulator to overestimate the intensity of future emotional states, making you believe that the difference in two outcomes is greater than it really is. In short, things that we would unthinkingly consider important, like getting a promotion or not, passing an exam, or not or gaining or losing a romantic partner, frequently have far less impact, of a much lower intensity and a much lower duration than we expect them to have. Indeed, in an astonishing study published in 1996, it was found that even major life traumas had no effect on subjective well-being (with very few exceptions) if they had not occurred in the past three months 1. The reason for this remarkable ability is that our views of the world change to make us feel better about whatever environment we find ourselves in over a period of time. Everything is relative, and we make happiness where we would otherwise believe there to be none. To truncate a well-known quotation from Milton, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell”. Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, calls this 'synthesizing happiness'. Synthetic happiness differs from 'natural' happiness in that natural happiness is what we feel when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we (eventually) feel when we don't get what we wanted. The mistake we make is believing that synthetic happiness is inferior to natural happiness. This mistake is perpetuated by a society driven by an economic system which relies on people believing that getting what you want makes you happier than not getting what you want ever could. We can resist this falsehood by remembering that we possess within ourselves the ability to synthesize the commodity that we always pursue, and that we consistently overrate the emotional differences between two choices. - 1. Suh, Eunkook, Ed Diener, and Frank Fujita. "Events and Subjective Well-being: Only Recent Events Matter." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70.5 (1996): 1091-102. Print. Optical illusions are a visual proof of a built-in irrationality in the way we reason. In some illusions we can be shown two lines of equal lengths and yet perceive one to be longer than the other. Even when we see visual proof that the lines are in fact of equal length, it's impossible to overcome the sense that the lines are different – it's as if we cannot learn to override our intuitions. In the case of optical illusions, our intuition is fooled in a repeatable, predictable fashion, and there is not much we can do about it without modifying the illusion itself, either by measuring it or by obscuring some part of it. Dan Ariely, a behavioural psychologist currently teaching at Duke University, reminds us that optical illusions are a big deal. Vision is one of the best things that we do – we are evolutionarily designed to be good at it, and a large part of our brain is dedicated to being good at it, larger than is dedicated to anything else. The fact that we make such consistent mistakes, and are repeatedly fooled by optical illusions should be troubling. If we make mistakes in vision, what kind of mistakes will we make in those things that we have no evolutionary reason to be any good at? In new and elaborate environments like financial markets, we don't have a specialized part of the brain to help us, and we don't have a convenient visual illustration with which to easily demonstrate the mistakes we make. Is our sense of our decision making abilities ever consistently compromised? Ariely suggests that we are victims of decision making illusions in much the same way we are victims of optical illusions. When answering a survey, for instance, we feel like we are making our own decisions, but many of those decisions in fact lie with the person who designed the form. This is strikingly shown by the disparity in the percentage of people in different European countries who indicated that they would be interested in donating their organs after death, as illustrated by a 2004 paper by Eric Johnson and Daniel Goldstein. Consent rates in France, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, France and Austria were over 99%, whilst the UK, Germany and Denmark all had rates of below 20%. This huge difference didn't arise due to strong cultural differences, but through a simple difference in the way the question on the form was presented. In countries with a low consent rate, the question was as an opt-in choice, as in 'Check the box if you wish to participate in the organ donor programme'. People didn't check the box, leaving the form in its 'default' state. Those presented with the inverse question, an explicit opt-out rather than explicit opt-in, also left the box unchecked. Both groups tended to accept whatever the form tacitly suggested the default position was. The two types of forms created strongly separated groups of consenting donors and non-consenting donors across the countries, separated by nearly 60% as a direct result of how the question was phrased. This is just one example of how we can reliably be led into making a choice that isn't a choice at all, suggesting that our awareness of our own cognitive abilities isn't quite as complete as perhaps we would like. Recognizing this in-built limitation like Laurie Santos, Ariely stresses that the more we understand these cognitive limitations, the better we will be able to design and ameliorate our world.

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Algebraic reasoning in grades two through five: Effects of teacher practices, characteristics and professional development Algebra is a gatekeeper (Moses & Cobb, 2001). Long before students enter an Algebra I course in the high school, the foundations for algebra are being developed in elementary school through algebraic reasoning. Research (Rowan, Chiang, and Miller, 1997) confirms a direct correlation ( r=.03, p=.05) between teachers' content knowledge and student achievement in the learning and understanding of mathematics. The need for teachers to be well equipped to develop students' algebraic reason is apparent (Lambdin, 1999, Ma, 2000).^ This study explores how teachers' practices, characteristics, and professional development relate to student achievement and; thereby, gain greater understanding and awareness of the role algebraic reasoning performs in teaching and learning at the elementary school level. The following two research questions directed this study: (1) To what extent and in what manner can variation in student achievement on problems involving algebraic reasoning be explained by teacher practices, characteristics and professional development? (2) What teaching practices focused on algebraic reasoning have the greatest impact on student achievement?^ This study utilized a mixed method research design that examined classroom practices of Grades 2-6 elementary teachers, N=62, and their N=1550 students in 17 urban and suburban schools in Rhode Island. Data were gathered through a participant questionnaire utilizing a 1-5 point Likert-scale survey instrument developed by the researcher. Following the collection of the data, focus groups, n=18, were conducted with volunteer participants. The qualitative data obtained from the focus groups were analyzed by generating themes and patterns to describe the findings. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percents, and means) were computed for each variable. Multiple regression analysis was use to determine the magnitude of the relationship between teaching practices and professional development related to student achievement.^ The findings of the study revealed the variables, teaching practices and professional development, used to calculate multiple regression (r=.055, p=.70) were not found to be significantly related. In addition, current professional development on algebraic reasoning is not meeting the needs of the teachers and the connections between teacher knowledge/practices and algebra content require strengthening. The findings emanated from the focus groups and from the open ended questions on the questionnaire suggested teachers are not equipped to teach algebraic reasoning. These findings have recently been collaborated in the National Math Panel Advisory Panel (2008) report. Recommendation are made as well as suggestions for additional future research specific to professional development and algebraic reasoning.^ Education, Mathematics|Education, Elementary Judith A Lundsten, "Algebraic reasoning in grades two through five: Effects of teacher practices, characteristics and professional development" (January 1, 2008). Dissertation & Theses Collection.

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By David Houle, Special to CNN Editor’s note: David Houle is a futurist and author of the blog Evolution Shift. He is the author of “The Shift Age”, "Shift Ed: A Call to Action for Transforming K-12 Education" and "Entering the Shift Age." He has been a contributor to Oprah.com. Houle is futurist-in- residence at the Ringling College of Art + Design in Sarasota, Florida. (CNN) - When people find out that I am a futurist, they ask me what that means. In speaking and writing, I act as a catalyst to get people, the market and the world to think about the future, then facilitate a conversation about it. There’s one area that’s desperately in need of that conversation: education. In the next decade, there will be more transformation at all levels of education than in any 10-, 20-, or perhaps 50-year period in history. Generational forces at play will accelerate these changes. The aging baby boomers - who I call the “bridge generation,” as they have bridged education from the middle of the 20th century to now - are retiring in ever increasing numbers. They have held on to the legacy thinking about education, remembering how they were taught. Their retirement opens up the discussion about transformation. At the same time, we have the rising digital natives as the students of tomorrow. This generation, born since 1997, is the first that was likely to grow up with a computer in the house, high-speed Internet, parents with cell phones and often a touch screen app phone as their first phone. They are the first generation of the 21th century with no memory of the 20th. They are the first generation born into the information-overloaded world; for them, that’s simply the way it is. The digital natives are different than prior generations and need new models for education. Let’s take a quick look for all levels of education to see what some major transformations will be: A child born in 2009 is one of the younger digital natives. In upper-middle class households, they are the first children for whom all content can be found on screens. They are using touch screen and other interactive computing devices starting as early as 2, and therefore walk into the first day of preschool or nursery school with a level of digital skills. This will spark greater use of digital devices and interactive learning at this first level of education. Classrooms will increasingly have interactive touch screen devices. Neuroscience is in a golden age. We have discovered more about the working of the brain and for the sake of this level of education the development of a child’s brain in the past 20 years than in all time prior. It will become clear that, to the degree that we can bring this knowledge into pre-K education, we can more fully develop the minds and learning of young children. The elevation and integration of digital interactivity is soaring in K-12 education. School districts are setting up cloud computing to provide always-available information for always-connected education communities. Schools that used to make students turn off cellular devices during the school day are allowing them to remain on and become an integral part of the classroom education. If all of the world’s knowledge and information are just a few keystrokes away, why make the classroom the only unconnected place students experience? Self-directed learning - the interaction of the student with learning courses on a computer - will accelerate education and provide more students with the opportunity to learn at a challenging pace. Connectivity will bring the world ever more into the classroom and will allow for the grammar school and the high school to be more involved in the local community and the larger global community. Higher education is approaching bubble status. The costs have risen rapidly, beyond the ability of most families to pay. Debt is being taken on at unprecedented levels and in an economic climate that is not providing the high-paying jobs necessary for that debt to be retired. At the same time, employers complain of a skills gap: the inability to hire employees with the skills needed to perform these new technologically demanding jobs. Given these challenges, I can see three major changes coming to higher education during the next decade: First, there will be a dual level of degree granted. The traditional path, costing more than $100,000 with four years of being on campus, will continue. The nontraditional one, perhaps initially a certificate rather than degree program, will cost perhaps $10,000 to $20,000 and will rely on the taking of video and online courses and the passing of exams. This will allow the student a financially viable choice, the university with a new revenue stream and the employer with a comparative choice for hiring. It will also open up higher education to a vastly greater number of people, young and old. Second, this comparative choice will drive the educational institutions to increase efficiency, adaptability and relevancy to the standard degree. The university model is centuries old and in need of transformation. This is about to happen. Third, the two-year associate degree from a community college will become more exalted. This will provide trained job applicants who are less worried about being educated and more concerned with up-to-date training that will provide immediate employment. Everyone does not need or should go to college. The 14-year education will become more respected as our society becomes ever more technologically based. We’re already beginning to see some of these changes, in the rise of MOOCs - massive open online courses - and the integration of tablet technology and cloud computing in the classroom. In the past two years, I have met dozens of superintendents who are creating fundamental change at the local level. Such local leadership will increase dramatically in the coming year, while, in higher ed, the consumption of high quality MOOCs will double. The year 2013 will bring about the first steps in a transformation that, by 2020, will leave education at all levels profoundly different from it is today. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Houle.

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I’ve been looking for a good, easy to read document outlining the latest climate science research and putting it in context for Copenhagen and I think I’ve found it. Today in Sydney, the Climate Change Research Centre, a unit of the University of New South Wales, released The Copenhagen Diagnosis. It’s free to download or view online in a nice rich text format so credit to the centre for making it accessible in multiple attractive formats. But most praise has to be reserved for the 26 contributing authors who have laid out the science to make it easy to understand for a layman like myself. Chapters cover aspects of climate science including “the atmosphere”, “permafrost and hydrates” and “global sea level”. Throughout are scattered common questions about climate change and answers designed to clear up confusion. An example: “Are we just in a natural warming phase, recovering from the ‘little ice age?‘. The document, once pictures and the reference section is including is a slim 50 pages. If you want something to get yourself up to speed on the science ahead of Copenhagen this could well be the document to download. Its even better if you have a colleague willing to run across the road and get it bound for you as I have! The executive summary of the Copenhagen Diagnosis, which I’ve excerpted below gives the basics you need to know if even 50 pages is too much to handle as we head into the highly-stressful (for everyone other than academics) end of year period. The diplomats and politicians soon to board flights to Denmark could do worse than slip a copy of The Copenhagen Diagnosis into their cabin luggage. The most significant recent climate change findings are: Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming. Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend. Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990. Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models. Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets. Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries. Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice-sheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (’tipping points’) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized. The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society — with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases — needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

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A federal program designed to help metropolitan public health agencies prepare to deliver essential medicines to the public after a large-scale bioterror attack or natural disease outbreak has succeeded in improving the level of readiness, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Researchers found that the federal Cities Readiness Initiative, a program active in 72 metropolitan areas, appears to have improved agencies’ ability to rapidly and widely dispense life-saving medications and other medical supplies in the event of a large-scale bioterror attack or a naturally occurring infectious disease outbreak. The study from RAND Health concludes there is merit in extending the program so the impact can be further monitored, although the analysis did not assess the cost-effectiveness of the effort or compare it to other public health priorities. “The Cities Readiness Initiative has helped agencies in the nation’s most-populous regions become better able to dispense life-saving medication following a bioterrorism event or after an infectious disease outbreak,” said Henry Willis, the study’s lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. Researchers concluded that a key reason the Cities Readiness Initiative has helped promote improvements has been its focus on a single scenario with a well-defined numeric goal and the technical assistance it has provided to public health officials. Researchers say the initiative has helped increase the number of local public health staff members working on medication dispensing planning, strengthened partnerships between public health officials and local first-responder agencies, and helped pay for new equipment such as mobile drug dispensing units. Other public health improvements fostered by the Cities Readiness Initiative are the development of more-detailed plans for medication dispensing, including creation of new strategies that rely less on medically trained staff and take greater advantage of nontraditional venues such as hotels, resorts, churches as well as drive-through dispensing in parking lots and fairgrounds. The Cities Readiness Initiative was created in 2004 to improve the ability of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions to provide life-saving medications in the event of a large-scale bioterror attack or naturally occurring disease outbreak. The program has spent about $300 million on efforts thus far. Administered by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the program helps jurisdictions improve their ability to provide antibiotics and other life-saving medications to 100 percent of a region’s population within 48 hours of a large-scale anthrax attack or large-scale infectious disease emergency. The 72 regions that have received funding account for about 57 percent of the nation’s population. RAND researchers conducted their study by reviewing plans and technical surveys completed by agencies that assessed capabilities in 12 functional areas (e.g., distribution of medication, dispensing of antibiotics), as well as conducting in-depth interviews with officials from nine regions. Researchers say that the program should be evaluated again after two to three years to see whether jurisdictions continue to make progress and to examine whether the program should be revised. Future evaluations could be extended to include an assessment of public health risks and the cost-effectiveness of public health programs.

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A Queen’s University study of fruit flies that may revolutionize the way birth defects are studied has identified the genes affected by a widely prescribed drug known to cause birth defects. Methotrexate (MTX), a popular cancer-fighting drug also used to treat psoriasis, ectopic pregnancies, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, lasts a long time in the body and causes birth defects in children from women who have it in their systems. The study of the drug’s effect on fruit flies has allowed Queen’s researchers including graduate student Joslynn Affleck to identify the genes on which the drug acts. “We hope that through this model system we can provide insight into mammalian birth defects, which may be expected to increase in frequency in the future, due to the recent elevated use of MTX,” says Affleck. Many of the genes found to be affected by MTX are involved in cell cycle regulation, signal transduction, transport, defense response, transcription, or various aspects of metabolism. “This study shows that MTX treatment has multiple targets,” says Affleck. “And this provides us with a novel invertebrate model for the study of drugs that cause birth defects.” The findings are set to be published by Toxicological Sciences in the New Year. “This is not a journal in the habit of publishing insect studies,” notes biologist Dr. Virginia Walker, who co-authored the study. “The neat thing about this work is that fruit flies treated with this drug show ‘birth defects’ that are hauntingly similar to birth defects in human babies. Babies have bent limbs, tufts of hair and bulging eyes and the fruit flies have bent legs (and wings), tufts of bristles and rough eyes.” While identifying this gene array is significant in its own right, the successful use of fruit flies in this kind of study is a revelation to the researchers who view it as an efficient model for the initial testing of “rescue” therapies to try to prevent birth defects. Scientists can study the effect of the drug on the genes of as many as three generations of fruit flies in a month using readily available scientific tools, speeding up study times while keeping costs low. “It also adds to the growing list of roles fruit flies can take,” says Walker. Fruit flies are already used as models for aging, neural disease and cancer. From Queens University

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Student Learning Outcomes Students who complete the French Program will be able to: - Communicate in a meaningful context in French. - Analyze the nature of language through comparisons of the French language and their own. - Demonstrate knowledge of and sensitivity to aspects of behavior, attitudes, and customs of France and other French speaking countries. - Connect with the global community through study and acquisition of the French language.

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Four years ago, LAMP (Linux OS, Apache Web server, MySQL database and Perl, Python and PHP languages) was the open stack of choice, especially for Web servers. In the early part of the decade, when MySQL started promoting LAMP to boost its own visibility as the M in the stack, the acronym grew in popularity. Today, however, LAMP is like an illuminated sign with only the A still visible. While the existence of an all-open source application stack remains helpful, there are so many choices beyond the original group that the LAMP acronym has fallen into disuse, analysts say. Even Linux is not sacrosanct, with companies occasionally substituting Windows in an otherwise all-open source stack; the Apache Web server is the only LAMP component whose position remains undisputed, observers say. "It's never been a specific acronym," said Mark Driver, at research vice president at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.. "LAMP always represented the idea of an open stack. It shouldn't be taken too literally." Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director of Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group, agreed. "LAMP stands for completely open source," she said. "And it's simpler, lighter-weight programming than Java or .NET, and it's nice for Web sites." Indeed, with the P, LAMP's clarity began eroding. Initially, the P stood for Perl, the most popular language for creating Web pages. But it was later joined by PHP, which is easier to write because the program runs inside Web pages rather than on a server. Though PHP has in turn has created an "epidemic of security issues," according to Ed Sawicki, a veteran IT consultant based in Portland, Ore. Now Python is more popular, but programmers use Ruby and LISP, he said. As for databases, MySQL may be the most popular open source choice, with simplicity and speed in its favor, Sawicki said. Still, Postgres is better at more complex functions; so some companies use both databases, he said. The Ruby language on the Rails framework is generally safer than PHP and Python, whereas Python is more complex, and typically used by programmers who are aware of potential security pitfalls, she said. "The beauty of LAMP is that it's an a la carte technology," added Driver. "And it's light years ahead of where it was two years ago."

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In information technology, a repository (pronounced ree-PAHZ-ih-tor-i) is a central place in which an aggregation of data is kept and maintained in an organized way, usually in computer storage. The term is from the Latin repositorium, a vessel or chamber in which things can be placed, and it can mean a place where things are collected. Depending on how the term is used, a repository may be directly accessible to users or may be a place from which specific databases, files, or documents are obtained for further relocation or distribution in a network. A repository may be just the aggregation of data itself into some accessible place of storage or it may also imply some ability to selectively extract data. Related terms are data warehouse and data mining.

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- Why are these threats possible? Because computers are little more than tools. The term "computer" is very descriptive despite all of the abstraction that we attempt to layer on top of them; it is a device that "computes", plain and simple. Whether, at any given nanosecond, it is computing the color of a pixel in a UI, the address of data in its memory, etc, it is no more or less than an incredibly fast binary calculator hooked up to a lot of peripheral components that provide inputs to and outputs from the basic programming the CPU is currently churning its way through. Given that, the question of "why" has a simple answer; tools can be used for good or ill. Hammers can pound nails or skulls. Saws can cut wood or flesh. And computers can sequence DNA to find the cure for cancer, or steal your bank account information. - Why doesn't the computer just do the things it is supposed to? It does. It does exactly what it is told to do by the program that it is currently executing. The problem is that the program the computer is currently executing isn't necessarily something you told it to execute explicitly by the stroke of a key or the click of a mouse. For a very long time now, we've used multiple layers of software (and hardware) to allow for modularity; any computer can have any hardware plugged into it, and run any program to work with it (at least that's the theory). More recently we have invented layers to allow a computer to juggle many programs at once. These layers of abstraction such as the OS, virtual machines, daemons (services), etc, which hide what the computer is really doing on any given clock, can be manipulated by an attacker to run software without your conscious knowledge. - Why do some people write malware, instead of programs with a constructive purpose beyond doing damage and violating the law? ...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. - Alfred Pennyworth, The Dark Knight For most "black hats", the mayhem they cause is fun, it's entertaining, the same way you or I would enjoy a video game in a completely sandboxed environment. They, however, are doing things in the real world. Same layer of digital separation between you and the consequences of your actions, with the added thrill of knowing it's real. - Does computer insecurity exist because of the nature of computers? To a point, yes. Computers are powerful, but they are extremely dumb. They require humans to do their thinking for them, to design them in a way that is difficult to subvert, to program them in a way that is difficult to subvert, and to use them in a way that is difficult to subvert. The inherent difficulty of this is similar to the inherent difficulty (maybe the impossibility) of designing a "completely foolproof system": A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. - Douglas Adams In both cases, you're very simply trying to pre-emptively outsmart someone willing to spend a lot of time and effort finding a way to misuse what you're designing once the finished product has left your hands. You effectively have to come up with the same ideas that the other person would have, and incorporate mechanisms to defeat that line of thinking. The more complex the system is internally, the more of those ideas become possible, and the less likely you are to have thought of everything. The more you put in place to prevent misuse, the more complexity you add. It's a vicious cycle.

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Saturday, February 2, 2013 Tuesday, January 29, 2013 A story plan is the first step in writing fiction. A story plan will be a sketch and is for planning purposes. One way to get started is to think of a real incident that you or someone you know has experienced. Base your story plan on that incident, but change anything you wish if it makes your story more interesting or exciting. Consider the following elements when you begin your story plan. You can skip around if you wish, but be sure to complete all the steps below. Decide on the characters. Name the characters and describe their role in the story and their relationship to one another. For example: Marie Martin, heroine, secretary to the president of the bank. (If you are not ready to use names, just use descriptions: librarian, doctor, etc.) Choose a setting. Decide when and where the events will take place. Be as specific as you can because that will help you when you begin your research. (For example: the South in the 60’s vs. Birmingham, Alabama in 1965.) Decide on the main conflict in the story. What is the problem that your main character faces when the story begins? (For example: Marie Martin has been accused of stealing money from the bank?) Decide on a series of events in the plot. Briefly describe what happens in a few sentences. (You can add to these, subtract from these, and rearrange these later.) Determine the climax of the story. Describe the moment in the story after which nothing will be the same. Determine the resolution of the story. What happens at the very end when the loose ends are tied up? (Some writers determine the ending first and work backwards from there.) Here's hoping 2013 is off to a great start!

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Before people learned to make glass, they had found two forms of natural glass. When lightning strikes sand, the heat sometimes fuses the sand into long, slender glass tubes called fulgurites, which are commonly called petrified lightning. The terrific heat of a volcanic eruption also sometimes fuses rocks and sand into a glass called obsidian. In the early times, people would shape obsidian into knives, arrowheads, jewelry, and money. We do not know exactly when, where, or how people first learned to make glass. It is generally believed that the first manufactured glass was in the form of a glaze on ceramic vessels, about 3000 B.C. The first glass vessels were produced about 1500 B.C. in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The glass industry was extremely successful for the next 300 years, and then declined. It was revived in Mesopotamia in the 700′s B.C. and in Egypt in the 500′s B.C. For the next 500 years, Egypt, Syria, and the other countries along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea were glassmaking centers. Early glassmaking was slow and costly, and it required hard work. Glass blowing and glass pressing were unknown, furnaces were small, the clay pots were of poor quality, and the heat was hardly sufficient for melting. But glassmakers eventually learned how to make colored glass jewelry, cosmetics cases, and tiny jugs and jars. People who could afford them—the priests and the ruling classes—considered glass objects as valuable as jewels. Soon merchants learned that wines, honey, and oils could be carried and preserved far better in glass than in wood or clay containers. The blowpipe was invented about 30 B.C., probably along the eastern Mediterranean coast. This invention made glass production easier, faster, and cheaper. As a result, glass became available to the common people for the first time. Glass manufacture became important in all countries under Roman rule. In fact, the first four centuries of the Christian Era may justly be called the First Golden Age of Glass. The glassmakers of this time knew how to make a transparent glass, and they did offhand glass blowing, painting, and gilding (application of gold leaf). They knew how to build up layers of glass of different colors and then cut out designs in high relief. The celebrated Portland vase, which was probably made in Rome about the beginning of the Christian Era, is an excellent example of this art. This vase is considered one of the most valuable glass art objects in the world. In the 1500′s, the Dutch developed ways to make custom eyeglasses as well as lenses which led to the first microscopes and telescopes. The first glass factory in the United States was built in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. The venture failed within a year because of a famine that took the lives of many colonists. The Jamestown colonists tried glassmaking again in 1621, but an Indian attack in 1622 and the scarcity of workers ended this attempt in 1624. The industry was reestablished in America in 1739, when Caspar Wistar built a glassmaking plant in what is now Salem County, New Jersey. This plant operated until 1780. In 1903, the first fully automated glass bottle making machine was used in Toledo, Ohio. Glass has been a major part in many revolutionary inventions. Had it not been for glass, we could be living in a World with no thermometers, televisions or light bulbs. Cool Info About Glass A process called “vitrification” can turn Nuclear waste into Hard glass blocks for long-term storage. Glass takes 1,000,000 years to decompose. Glass never wears out-it can be recycled forever. Glass recycling saves resources-each ton of recycled glass replaces 1.2 tons of raw material (sand, limestone and soda ash). Glass: a transparent inorganic material produced by combining silica sand with burnt lime or limestone and soda ash. Silica sand: a pure form of silicon dioxide that is the most common ingredient in glass manufacturing. Soda ash: also known as sodium oxide, this is an ingredient in glass manufacturing. It helps sand melt at a lower temperature. Glasphalt: similar to asphalt, but it contains ground glass instead of gravel. Limestone: a type of rock that is blended with soda ash in glass manufacturing to stabilize the glass so it will not dissolve in water. When the Model T Ford car was first introduced, the glass windscreen was an optional extra. Bulletproof glass is made of several layers called laminating. In between the glass is a polycarbonate material that absorbs the energy of what has been fired at it. The thicker the glass, the higher impact it can withstand. There is even one-way bulletproof glass enabling the target victim to shoot back. If glass had not been invented, windows would not have come about so what would your PC operating system be called? What is Glass? Glass is not a crystalline solid, but a random jumble of molecules. Because of its random structure it does not have a clear melting temperature and there is no temperature where it can be said to be definitely solid. Instead, it gradually becomes harder as it cools. Historians have pointed out that the glass in some centuries-old windows is thicker at the bottom, as if the glass had slumped over the years. Scientists still debate whether room-temperature glass is a solid or some other state of matter. But according to one study, to see the flow of cool glass we would have to wait ten billion times the age of the universe. So those ancient windows are thicker at the bottom because they were made that way, not because of any later flowing of the glass.

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Hugh Pickens writes writes "Until recently, geothermal power systems have exploited only resources where naturally occurring heat, water, and rock permeability are sufficient to allow energy extraction but now geothermal energy developers plan use a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of the dormant Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Oregon in an effort to use the earth's heat to generate power. "We know the heat is there," says Susan Petty, president of AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle. "The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic." Since natural cracks and pores do not allow economic flow rates, the permeability of the volcanic rock can be enhanced with EGS by pumping high-pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing. Then cold water is pumped down production wells into the reservoir, and the steam is drawn out. Natural geothermal resources only account for about 0.3 percent of U.S. electricity production, but a 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report projected EGS could bump that to 10 percent within 50 years, at prices competitive with fossil-fuels. "The important question we need to answer now," says USGS geophysicist Colin Williams, "is how geothermal fits into the renewable energy picture, and how EGS fits. How much it is going to cost, and how much is available.""

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Daily Planner for Your Preschooler - Friday, 22 April 2011 - How to Start Planning - Teaching Kids to Organize - Organizing Familiy Activities - Organizational Charts Magnetic Photo Calendar - This is a planner for pre-readers. - Take pictures of places you go on a regular basis and pictures of activities you do around the house; reading books, playing, cleaning, lunch, etc. - Cut out the pages of a brag book. - Insert one picture into each page and glue a magnet on the back. - Each day, place the pictures of the day's activities in order on your refrigerator for your child to refer to throughout the day.

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Here are the penultimate penguins: Jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus) and Galapagos penguin (S. mendiculus). The Jackass penguin is also known as the black-footed penguin, or the African penguin. Penguins, in Africa? Are you bonkers? What’s next, polar bears in the Sahara? No, don’t be silly. There is a cold-water current responsible for this bird’s distribution, the Benguela Current, bringing nutrient-rich cold water from the Southern Ocean to the south-west Atlantic via South Africa and Namibia. The Galapagos penguin is the most northerly species of penguin, it is even found at the Equator! This is even more crazy than the idea of an African penguin. Why would a classically cold-climate bird be found in the Tropics? The answer also lies in the ocean currents: cold waters from the Antarctic flow up the Pacific coast of South America towards the Galapagos Islands, bringing nutrients. This current, the so-called Humboldt Current, also gives its name to another species of penguin from the coast of South America, covered in the next post. As a result of warmer air temperatures, the penguins of Galapagos, south Africa and other places are smaller. Other than the little blue penguin of Australia and New Zealand, the four penguins of the genus Spheniscus are the smallest. Spheniscus demersus (Linnaeus, 1758) Adult Jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus) Distribution: southern Africa from 24o38’S to 33o50’S; vagrant to other parts of Africa. Size: 70 cm (27½”); males and females weigh 2.4-4.2 kg (5 lb 5 oz – 9 lb 9 oz), with males larger than females. Habitat: breeds on Benguela Current influenced coasts, in burrows with suitable substrate or using bushes and boulders as shelter. Diet: small fish, cephalopods (such as squid), crustaceans and polychaete worms. Etymology: Spheniscus = “little wedge” in Greek; demersus = “diving” in Latin. Immature Jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus) Spheniscus mendiculus Sundevall, 1871 Adult Galapagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) Distribution: restricted to the Galapagos Islands; breeds on Fernandina and Isabela, and maybe on Bartholomew and Santiago Islands; non-breeding range extends to other islands of the archipelago. Size: 53 cm (21”); the smallest Spheniscus penguin; males weigh 1.7-2.6 kg (3 lb 11 oz – 5 lb 11 oz); females weigh 1.7-2.5 kg (3 lb 11 oz – 5½ lb). Habitat: low-lying volcanic coastal desert. Diet: fish (such as mullet and sardine) and crustaceans (such as krill). Etymology: Spheniscus = as S. demersus; mendiculus = “little beggar” in Latin. Immature Galapagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) Oh, and while we're on the topic of Galapagos... if you're in London for the next few months, make sure you visit the new exhibition at the Natural History Museum, Darwin: The Big Idea. There is a stuffed Galapagos penguin there, as well as numerous other animals and plants from the archipelago, and two live animals: Charlie the green iguana (Iguana iguana) and Sumo the Argentine horned frog (Ceratophrys ornata). Not to mention a lot of original material from Charles Robert Darwin's epic voyage that first sparked his theory of evolution by natural selection.

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- Дигар роҳҳоимаврди истифода Вашингтон Ҳавзаи Колумбия, Шаблон:Иёлоти Мутаҳида Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The state is named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. As of the 2000 census, the state population was approximately 5.9 million and the state work force numbered about 3.1 million. Residents are called "Washingtonians" (emphasis on the third syllable, pronounced as tone). It should not be confused with Washington, D.C., the nation's capital city. To avoid confusion, the city is often called simply D.C. and the state is often called Washington state. Washington is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west; Oregon to the south (the Columbia River forming most of this border); Idaho to the east and British Columbia, Canada to the north. It is famous for scenery of breathtaking beauty and sharp contrasts. High mountains rise above evergreen forests and sparkling coastal waters. Its coastal location and Puget Sound harbors give it a leading role in trade with Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Rim. Puget Sound's many islands are served by the largest ferry fleet in the United States. Washington is a land of contrasts. The deep forests of the Olympic Peninsula are among the rainiest places in the world and the only rainforests (such as the Hoh Rain Forest) in the continental United States, but the flat semi-desert that lies east of the Cascade Range stretches for long distances without a single tree. Snow-covered peaks tower above the foothills and lowlands around them. Mount Rainier, the highest mountain in the state, appears to "float" on the horizon southeast of Seattle and Tacoma on clear days. The eastern side of the state can be divided into two regions: the Okanogan Highlands and the Columbia River Basin. Areas under the management of the National Park Service include: - Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve near Coupeville - Fort Vancouver National Historic Site at Vancouver - Klondike Gold Rush Seattle Unit National Historical Park in Seattle - Lake Chelan National Recreation Area near Stehekin - Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area along the Columbia River - Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail - Mount Rainier National Park - Nez Perce National Historical Park - North Cascades National Park near Marblemount - Olympic National Park at Port Angeles - Ross Lake National Recreation Area at Newhalem - San Juan Island National Historical Park in Friday Harbor - Whitman Mission National Historic Site at Walla Walla Geographical features [вироиш] - Puget Sound - San Juan Islands - Columbia River - Snake River - Yakima River - Cascade Range - Olympic Mountains Шаблон:Details Prior to the arrival of explorers from Europe, this region of the Pacific Coast had many established tribes of Native Americans, each with its own unique culture. Today, they are most notable for their totem poles and their ornately carved canoes and masks. Prominent among their industries were salmon fishing and whale hunting. In the east, nomadic tribes traveled the land and missionaries such as the Whitmans settled there. The first European record of a landing on the Washington coast was by Spanish Captain Don Bruno de Heceta in 1775, on board the Santiago, part of a two-ship flotilla with the Sonora. They claimed all the coastal lands up to the Russian possessions in the north for Spain. In 1778, British explorer Captain James Cook sighted Cape Flattery, at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but the straits would not be explored until 1789, by Captain Charles W. Barkley. Further explorations of the straits were performed by Spanish explorers Manuel Quimper in 1790 and Francisco de Eliza in 1791, then by British Captain George Vancouver in 1792. The Spanish Nootka Convention of 1790 opened the northwest territory to explorers and trappers from other nations, most notably Britain and then the United States. Captain Robert Gray (for whom Grays Harbor county is named) then discovered the mouth of the Columbia River. He named the river after his ship, the Columbia. Beginning in 1792, Gray established trade in sea otter pelts. The Lewis and Clark expedition entered the state on October 10, 1805. In 1819, Spain ceded their original claims to this territory to the United States. This began a period of disputed joint-occupancy by Britain and the U.S. that lasted until June 15, 1846, when Britain ceded their claims to this land with the Treaty of Oregon. Because of the overland migration along the Oregon Trail, many settlers wandered north to what is now Washington and settled the Puget Sound area. The first settlement was New Market (now known as Tumwater) in 1846. In 1853, Washington Territory was formed from part of Oregon Territory. Early prominent industries in the state included agriculture and lumber. In eastern Washington, the Yakima Valley became known for its apple orchards, while the growth of wheat using dry-farming techniques became particularly productive. The heavy rainfall to the west of the Cascade Range produced dense forests, and the ports along Puget Sound prospered from the manufacturing and shipping of lumber products, particularly the Douglas fir. Other industries that developed in the state include fishing, salmon canning and mining. By the turn of the 20th century, Washington was of dangerous repute in the minds of many Americans. Indisputably as "wild" as the rest of the American Old West, the public image of Washington merely replaced cowboys with lumberjacks, and desert with forestland. One city in particular, Aberdeen, had the distinction of being "the roughest town west of the Mississippi" because of excessive gambling, violence, extreme drug use and prostitution (the city itself changed very little over the years and remained off-limits to military personnel well into the early 1980s). For a long period, Tacoma was noted for its large smelters where gold, silver, copper and lead ores were treated. Seattle was the primary port for trade with Alaska and the rest of the country, and for a time it possessed a large ship-building industry. The region around eastern Puget Sound developed heavy industry during the period including World War I and World War II, and the Boeing company became an established icon in the area. During the Great Depression, a series of hydroelectric dams were constructed along the Columbia river as part of a project to increase the production of electricity. This culminated in 1941 with the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest dam in the United States. During World War II, the Puget Sound area became a focus for war industries, with the Boeing Company producing many of the nation's heavy bombers and ports in Seattle, Bremerton, and Tacoma were available for the manufacture of warships. Seattle was the point of departure for many soldiers in the Pacific, a number of which were quartered at Golden Gardens Park. In eastern Washington, the Hanford Works atomic energy plant was opened in 1943 and played a major role in the construction of the nation's atomic bombs. On May 18, 1980, following a period of heavy tremors and eruptions, the northeast face of Mount St. Helens exploded outward, destroying a large part of the top of the volcano. This eruption flattened the forests, killed 57 people, flooded the Columbia River and its tributaries with ash and mud, and blanketed large parts of Washington in ash, making day look like night. According to the U.S. Census as of 2005, Washington has an estimated population of 6,287,759, which is an increase of 80,713, or 1.3%, from the prior year and an increase of 393,619, or 6.7%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 180,160 people (that is 418,055 births minus 237,895 deaths) and an increase from net migration of 215,216 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 134,242 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 80,974 people. As of 2004, Washington's population included 631,500 foreign-born (10.3% of the state population), and an estimated 100,000 illegal aliens (1.6% of state population). Race and ancestry [вироиш] The racial/ethnic makeup of the state: - 77.0% White, not of Hispanic ancestry - 8.0% Hispanic of any race - 6.3% Asian - 4.0% Two or more races - 3.0% Black - 1.6% Native American There are many migrant Mexican farm workers living in the southeast-central part of the state. Wahkiakum County, as well as most counties in the state, has many residents of Scandinavian origin. Washington has the fifth largest Asian population of any state, with Chinese and Fillipino being the largest groups. 6.7% of Washington's population was reported as under 5, 25.7% under 18, and 11.2% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 50.2% of the population. The religious affiliations of Washington's population are: - Christian – 66% - Other Religions – 2% - Non-Religious – 27% As with many other Western states, the percentage of Washington's population identifying themselves as "non-religious" is higher than the national average. The percentage of non-religious people in Washington is the highest of any state. The 2004 total gross state product for Washington was $262 billion, placing it 14th in the nation. The per capita income was $33,332. Significant business within the state include the design and manufacture of jet aircraft (Boeing), computer software development (Microsoft, Amazon.com, Nintendo of America), electronics, biotechnology, aluminum production, lumber and wood products, mining, and tourism. The state has significant amounts of hydroelectric power generation. Significant amounts of trade with Asia pass through the ports of the Puget Sound. See list of United States companies by state. The state of Washington is one of only seven states that does not levy a personal income tax. Neither does the state collect a corporate income tax. However, Washington businesses are responsible for various other state levies. Washington's state sales tax is 7.9 percent, and it applies to services as well as products. Most foods are exempt from sales tax; however, prepared foods, dietary supplements and soft drinks remain taxable. The combined state and local retail sales tax rates increase the taxes paid by consumers, depending on the variable local sales tax rates, generally between 8 and 9 percent. An excise tax applies to certain select products such as gasoline, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages. Property tax was the first tax levied in the state of Washington and its collection accounts for about 30 percent of Washington's total state and local revenue. It continues to be the most important revenue source for public schools, fire protection, library, park and recreation, and other special purpose districts. All real and personal property is subject to tax unless specifically exempted by law. Personal property also is taxed, although most personal property owned by individuals is exempt. Personal property tax applies to personal property used when conducting business or to other personal property not exempt by law. All property taxes are paid to the county treasurer's office where the property is located. Washington does not impose a tax on intangible assets such as bank accounts, stocks or bonds. Neither does the state assess any tax on retirement income earned and received from another state. Washington does not collect inheritance taxes; however, the estate tax is decoupled from the federal estate tax laws, and therefore the state imposes its own estate tax. For 2003, the total value of Washington's agricultural products was $5.79 billion, the 11th highest in the country. The total value of its crops was $3.8 billion, the 7th highest. The total value of its livestock and specialty products was $1.5 billion, the 26th highest. In 2004, Washington ranked first in the nation in production of red raspberries (90.0% of total U.S. production), wrinkled seed peas (80.6%), hops (75.0%), spearmint oil (73.6%), apples (58.1%), sweet cherries (47.3%), pears (42.6%), peppermint oil (40.3%), Concord grapes (39.3%), carrots for processing (36.8%), and Niagara grapes (31.6%). Washington also ranked second in the nation in production of lentils, fall potatoes, dry edible peas, apricots, grapes (all varieties taken together), asparagus (over a third of the nation's production), sweet corn for processing, and green peas for processing; third in tart cherries, prunes and plums, and dry summer onions; fourth in barley and trout; and fifth in wheat, cranberries, and strawberries. Washington has an extensive system of state highways, called State Routes, as well as the third-largest ferry system in the world. There are 140 public airfields in Washington, including 16 state airports owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation. Boeing Field in Seattle is the busiest airport by numbers of planes in the world. The unique geography of Washington presents exceptional transportation needs. There are extensive waterways in the midst of Washington's largest cites, including Seattle, Bellevue, Tacoma and Olympia. The state highways incorporate an extensive network of bridges and the largest ferry system in the United States to serve transpiration needs in the Puget Sound area. Washington's marine highway constitutes a fleet of twenty-eight ferries that navigate Puget Sound and its inland waterways to 20 different ports of call. Washington is home for the five longest floating bridges in the world: the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge and Homer M. Hadley Bridge over Lake Washington, and the Hood Canal Bridge connecting the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas. The Cascade Mountain Range also provides unique transportation challenges. Washington operates and maintains 7 major mountain passes and 8 minor passes. During winter months these passes are plowed, sanded, and kept safe with avalanche control. Not all are able to stay open through the winter. The North Cascades Highway on State Route 20 closes every year. Because of the extraordinary amount of snowfall and frequency of avalanches the highway is not safe in the winter months. Law and government [вироиш] Washington has 49 Legislative Districts, and elects one senator and two house members from each district. The majority party is the Democratic Party. Washington state senators and representatives are elected for four year and two year terms, respectively. There are no term limits. The Washington Supreme Court is the highest court in the judiciary of the state of Washington. Nine justices serve on the bench, and are elected at large. The U.S. Congress [вироиш] Washington representatives in the United States House of Representatives are Jay Inslee (D-1), Richard Ray (Rick) Larsen (D-2), Brian Baird (D-3), Richard Norman "Doc" Hastings (R-4), Cathy McMorris (R-5), Norm Dicks (D-6), Jim McDermott (D-7), David Reichert (R-8), and Adam Smith (D-9). State elected officials [вироиш] - Christine Gregoire, Governor (D) - Brad Owen, Lieutenant Governor (D) - Sam Reed, Secretary of State (R) - Rob McKenna, Attorney General (R) - Mike Murphy, Treasurer (D) - Brian Sonntag, Auditor (D) - Terry Bergeson, Superintendent of Public Instruction (non partisan office) - Doug Sutherland,Commissioner of Public Lands (R) - Mike Kreidler, Insurance Commissioner (D) - Washington Legislature - Currently the Democratic Party is in control of both the House and the Senate. The state has been thought of as politically divided by the Cascade Mountains, with Western Washington being liberal (particularly greater Seattle) and Eastern Washington being conservative. Since the population is larger in the west, the Democrats usually fare better statewide. Washington has voted for the Democratic candidate in presidential elections recently in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004. It was considered a key swing state in 1968 and 2000. In 1968, it was the only Western state to give its electoral votes to Hubert Humphrey. While the Democratic Party has long dominated Washington, the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election was among the closest races in United States election history. The initial count as well as the first recount, conducted by machine, both showed Dino Rossi, the Republican candidate, winning the election. A second recount was done by hand, overturning the initial results when it resulted in a lead for Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate, of 129 votes, or 0.0045% of those cast. As this second recount was the last allowed for by Washington election law, Gregoire was inaugurated on 12 January 2005. The subsequent court battles raged for months after the election, but ultimately ended with Gregoire retaining her office. The final official count left Gregoire ahead by 133 votes. Washington has the distinction for being the first and so far only state to elect women to all three major statewide offices (state governor and two U.S. Senate seats) at the same time. On January 30, 2006 Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law legislation making Washington the 17th state in the nation to protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in housing, lending, and employment, and the 7th state in the nation to offer these protections to transgendered people. Initiative activist Tim Eyman filed a referendum that same day, seeking to put the issue before the state's voters. Despite a push from conservative churches across the state to gather signatures on what were dubbed "Referendum Sundays," Eyman was only able to gather 105,103 signatures, more than 7,000 signatures short of the minimum. As a result, the law went into effect on June 7, 2006. See also List of Washington Governors Important cities and towns [вироиш] - Spokane Valley - Federal Way Colleges and universities [вироиш] - Central Washington University - Eastern Washington University - The Evergreen State College - University of Washington - Washington State University - Western Washington University Community colleges [вироиш] Professional sports teams [вироиш] Miscellaneous topics [вироиш] State symbols [вироиш] See also [вироиш] - Washington state congressional delegates - Capital punishment in Washington - List of hospitals in Washington - List of Washington state prisons - List of Washington state forests - List of radio stations in Washington - List of television stations in Washington - List of Washington county name etymologies - List of colleges and universities in Washington - List of school districts in Washington - List of ZIP Codes in Washington - List of high schools in Washington - List of U.S. Wilderness Areas in Washington - The Washington Medal of Merit - Scouting in Washington - Washington State Park System - Music of Washington - List of people from Washington - List of United States companies by state Political activism [вироиш]

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Here are two cartoons from Jay Hosler (blog), biologist and author/illustrator of The Sandwalk Adventures: An Adventure in Evolution Told in Five Chapters and author of the forthcoming Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth (cover art below): Visual representation in science is the study of how images can inform an understanding of scientific practice and the production and dissemination of knowledge. There will be at least two worskshops on this topic in the next year (here and here). The description of one describes images as “occupy[ing] a special place… for their power to encapsulate scientific knowledge, their capacity to communicate to various publics, and their flexibility in the production of meanings by the interaction of producers and users.” For this month’s edition of the history of science blog carnival, The Giant’s Shoulders and it’s theme of visuals and representations in science, I thought I’d share some information about Darwin and evolution in cartoons and caricatures. Jonathan Smith looked at visual representation within Darwin’s various books in his 2006 book Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture) (you can read the first chapter as a pdf). One could look at Darwin portraiture and photography, maybe Janet Browne has, and how specific images have been used to push a particular way of looking at Darwin. The Darwin year saw many books looking at Darwin and his impact on art. Constance Clark’s 2001 article in The Journal of American History, “Evolution for John Doe: Pictures, the Public, and the Scopes Trial Debate,” is about the “role of visual images of evolutionary ideas published during the [Scopes]debate.” And Heather Brink-Roby’s article “Natural Representation: Diagram and Text in Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species,” in Victorian Studies, looks at how Darwin used diagram and text “not simply to argue for, but also as evidence of, his theory.” Also, analyses of the March of Progress imagery of evolution and other representations (like trees of life) would fit into visual representations (see here and here, and of course Gould’s Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, specifically chapter 1, “Iconography of an Expectation”). Where do political cartoons and caricatures fit into this? Surely, such images were avenues of knowledge for the public, and how a cartoon represented Darwin or evolution (anti-evolution, pro-evolution, etc.) had an impact on the viewer, and evolution was used as a means to comment on society and culture or whatever was in the news. I know of at least two historians of science who have published on the topic: Browne, Janet. “Darwin in Caricature: A Study in the Popularisation and Dissemination of Evolution.”Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145:4 (December 2001): 496-509. (also, see my post 19th-Century Caricature Prints with Tyndall, Darwin caricatures at The Primate Diaries, and Darwin caricatures at Genomicron) Davis, Edward B. “Fundamentalist Cartoons, Modern Pamphlets, and the Religious Image of Science in the Scopes Era.” In Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America, edited by Charles Lloyd Cohen and Paul S. Boyer, 175-98. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Davis presented at the History of Science Society meeting in 2009 on “Demonizing Evolution,” sharing some of the fundamentalist cartoons. Since Google Books won’t let me see the cartoons in the article, I’m not sure if those in his talk are the same as those in his article, but I will share a few from his talk: These cartoons in the era of the Scopes trial present evolution as: dangerous to one’s faith (learning about and accepting evolution will creep into one’s religious life), “modern” education is cheating on God and the Bible; evolution is anti-religion; evolution is sacred and religious itself; the theory of evolution is collapsing, full of speculation and not fact-based. Much of these claims are still used today, by many creationists and intelligent design proponents who spend more time trying to discredit evolution than convincing us that their view is scientific. Such cartoons and anti-evolution pamphlets, according to Davis, “provide new insights into the intense debate about the meaning of science and the nature of religion that took place among American Protestants in the 1920s. From popular publications such as these, we see just how the fundamentalists and the modernists both attempted to influence public opnion about the religious image of science in the decade of the Scopes trial” (193). There is a wonderful resource for political cartoons that do the opposite of demonizing evolution. Historian of science Joe Cain has brought to our attention the ephemeral journal Evolution: A Journal of Nature, which ran from 1927 through 1938, 21 issue in all, and he provides a publication history for it in a 2003 article for Archives of Natural History. Evolution was “a monthly platform for pro-evolutionist perspectives and as a device for rebutting anti-evolutionists. It also aimed to bolster the resolve of teachers caught in the centre of curriculum debates.” Its purpose was laid out in the first issue: ”This magazine will help bridge that gap by furnishing a forum in which science itself can speak in popular language without fear of the restraints with which fundamentalists are seeking to shackle them.” Among the articles within Evolution were scores of political cartoons. Cain has made all the issues available (also available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library) and a page with some of the cartoons. Here are a few: Unfortunately, Evolution was not a great success (hence, only 21 issues). By its 12th issue, the journal touted its 5,000 subscribers, and provided a list of how many by state. Interestingly, it had the most subscribers in New York City (675), California (551), New York State (494), Illinois (486), and Ohio (299). A few others in the 100-200 range (including Pennsylvania), and the rest under 100, including all states in the South. I will also point out another website, put togteher by Mark Aldrich, called Cartooning Evolution, 1861-1925, broken up into Darwin and Evolution, Evolution as Social Comment, Victorian Science, Fundamentalist Publications, The Scopes Trial: Northern Newspapers, The Scopes Trial: National Magazines, and The Scopes Trial: Southern Newspapers. Here’s a sampling, but be sure to check out the website itself, there are many more. Enjoy: In my previous post I shared a link to NCSE’s images of an intelligent design vs. evolution from the banana-toting, Darwin-bashing creationist Ray Comfort. Here’s one of the images, showing a card from the game that uses this quote: “Scientists conced that their most cherished theories are based on embarassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exst in the fossil record.” A citation is given, that’s a good step: Time magazine, November 7, 1977. So, what is this quote in reference to? What’s the context. The quote comes from an article titled “Puzzling Out Man’s Ascent” (all online, thanks Rob Igo, for the link) and here is where it falls: These developments, probably more than any others, hastened the differentiation between man and earlier hominids. Explains Anthropologist Charles Kimberlin (“Bob”) Brain of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa: “Meat eating and hunting were important factors. If you remained a vegetarian, the necessity for culture was not nearly as great.” Richard Leakey too believes that hunting helped to make emerging man a social creature. Says he: “The hominids that thrived best were those able to restrain their immediate impulses and manipulate the impulses of others into cooperative efforts. They were the vanguard of the human race.” Still, doubts about the sequence of man’s emergence remain. Scientists concede that even their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments, and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record. Anthropologists, ruefully says Alan Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, “are like the blind men looking at the elephant, each sampling only a small part of the total reality.” His colleagues agree that the picture of man’s origins is far from complete. Perhaps no one is trying harder to fill in the blanks than Richard Leakey. Picking up where his father Louis left off at his death in 1972, Richard—with his Lake Turkana discoveries —has already moved to the forefront of modern anthropology. Now he is reaching out to coordinate research throughout East Africa and taking the lead in sorting and assembling the thousands of fragments of evidence that may someday reveal the secrets of man’s origins. Oh, the article discusses human evolution, not evolution of life on earth generally. Gee, Ray, do you think you could have clarified that? And, it’s not like any work in paleoanthropology has occurred over the last three decades. Beware, quote-mining occurs in games, too! More important, do I have to give up my brain? National Library of Australia: Books and their owners: a tiny link with the past: Joseph Dalton Hooker (who features in Creation) was most certainly not a beetle-collecting vicar, but a distinguished scientist in his own right. A tiny link with him surfaced in the NLA collections recently. Hooker was Darwin’s lifelong friend and confidant, and encouraged him to publish his Origin of Species. Hooker himself had a fascinating life, travelling on scientific expeditions to the Antarctic, the Himalayas, India, the Middle East and the US western states. He became director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, writing and publishing until well into his 90s. He died in 1911 at the age 0f 94. petri dish: a child’s-eye view of charles darwin: This isn’t a perspective on the history of science with which I’m particularly comfortable, as it draws a veil over the hard work of how scientific knowledge emerges, is debated, and then rendered authoritative in a dynamic interplay along many dimensions. And it does, again, tend to make for a “safe” presentation of Darwin and science, rehabilitating him, perhaps, from invidious perspectives that have convinced many that the word “Darwin” is synonymous with hidden agendas that aim to hijack scientific thought for the purpose of destroying faith in God on dishonest pretenses. A depiction of a robust and engagingly curious young Charles who is almost a blank slate, aside from his fondness for be[e]tles — indeed, who is an orthodox believer at the start of the voyage — as an alert conduit for Nature’s empirical truth is hard to square with a vision of a sinister and conniving Darwin out to dupe the devout as the devil’s chaplain. There’s an undertone of scientific apotheosis that I’m not eager to pass along with lessons on evolution if that’s what comes along with a child’s-eye view of Charles Darwin. Guardian Science Blog: The Beagle, the astronaut and a party in Brazil put the awe back into science: “Space stations, square riggers and marine biology: science does not get more exciting than this, and we need to get the inquiring young minds of today excited by science,” Barratt said. “The ISS circling the world while a scientific square rigger with Beagle’s pedigree rounds Cape Horn, making new discoveries at sea and on land, streaming footage back to labs and classrooms will be a great way to welcome young minds into the excitement and adventure of science.” Darwin would have been proud. Chronicle Herald: Thomas creates wonderful world, characters in pre-Darwin Britain: One of Thomas’s greatest strengths in the novel is her ability to make us see the world from the eyes of people who do not know the concept of evolution — Anning’s astounding fossil finds were made years before Darwin’s ideas were published. The ideas of intellectuals and peasants alike were contained within a framework of theology and limited science. It was not until 12 years after Anning’s premature death, at the age of 47, that Darwin published On The Origin of Species in 1859. So the world in which Mary found the ammonites and “bezoars,” which she sold to wealthy tourists visiting her hometown of Lyme Regis, England, was one in which there was not an extensive scientific understanding or explanation for the fossils. The 27th edition of Carnival of Evolution has just been posted at 360 Skeptic. Click here to get yer fill. A recap from io9 of the recent Futurama episode – “A Clockwork Origin” – dealing with evolution can be read here: “A Clockwork Origin” had it all – the Professor was crotchety and insane in his devotion to science, robots literally took over a world, an orangutan in a snappy vest disproved evolution, Zoidberg attempted to be a father, limbs got cut off, and it all ended with a trial. If that isn’t classic Futurama, I don’t know what is. Casey Luskin of The Discovery Institute stated that some artwork depicting Darwin with endless forms of life for Nature‘s “15 Evolutionary Gems” (2009, PDF) “shows a picture of a smiling young Darwin with animals flocking about him (lizards, birds, monkeys, flowers, sponges, turtles, etc.), much like the pictures of Jesus posing with lions and lambs on some cheesy religious tract.” The art itself: Jack Scanlan over at Homologous Legs therefore had an idea: Casey’s reactionary labeling of this image as a “Darwinist” religious icon is absurd, and deserves something just as absurd to mock it… grab any one of the many non-copyrighted images of Darwin out there and add some text that conveys a satirical representation of the idea that Darwin is a religious figure who is worshiped by biologists as Christians worship Jesus. Be as creative and hilarious as you can. He has added several contributions in his post. Here is my mine, using a picture of I took in Cambridge, England of a stained-glass depiction of Darwin in the hall of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge; William Paley is to the left of Darwin: For more on Luskin’s attack on Nature, watch this: I’ve noticed in my Google Reader recently the following ads: Evolution really did happen, living things really do have a common ancestor, and the earth really is 4.5 billion years old. But the way evolution really works has little in common with Darwin’s theory. Darwinism is in deep trouble and it’s too late save it. It’s no different than the Berlin Wall in 1986, Enron in 2000 or the US financial markets 3 years ago: It’s a bubble propped up by academic theorists, atheist zealots, politics and shell games – not hard science. All that needs to happen is for the right 3-5 scientists to step forward and expose the evolution industry for what it is…. and it’s not a question of “IF”, it’s only a question of WHEN. Darwinism has about 2-5 years left. And when the !@#$ hits the, fan it’s it’s gonna be quite a spectacle. But that’s not the important part! The real crime is that the “evolutionists” never bothered to tell you how evolution REALLY works. The evolutionary process is neither random nor accident. It’s purposeful, it’s pre-programmed, it’s so ingenious and elegant it takes your breath away. Then I came home, and I noticed an outrageous banner ad at a creationist blog proclaiming: “2013: Darwinism Falls.” Ugh. I understand that there are people who think (mistakenly) that there’s a big crisis in evolutionary biology and it’s going to collapse, but I’ve never encountered anyone arrogant enough to set a date. So I clicked on the ad, and it was pretty sad. It’s some site run by an engineer. What is it with engineers? Why is it the most arrogant and vitriolic antievolutionists are engineers? I don’t know, but here’s a prediction for you, Mr. 2013-Darwin-Falls: It ain’t gonna happen. I was just there at Evolution 2010 (unlike you), and I’ve been to many of their past conferences (also unlike you). They’re doing fine. They’re plugging right along. There’s lots of excitement. Lots of research funding. Thousands of researchers. They’re not going anywhere. So unless Jesus Christ returns bodily to rule the earth in the next three years, 2013 will see evolutionary biology continuing to enjoy the same cultural power they have now. Silly, ignorant creationist propaganda: Via Christian Nightmares. Michael Ruse makes the claim for The Huffington Post. Read Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler: Rethinking the ‘Links’ (7 June 2010). When in Yosemite National Park last week, Patrick saw this sign for a John Muir program and asked, “Is this Darwin?” Hat-tip to PZ. Lifted from Pharyngula: 14 (+ 1) Reasons Why Creationists Are More Intelligently Designed Than Evolutionists 1. “Creationism” comes before “evolution” in the dictionary. 2. Radiometric dating has determined that Kirk Cameron is between 6,000 – 10,000 years old. 3. The banana has obviously been perfectly designed by a designer for eating and for using in other creative, non-edible ways. 4. Where the hell are those transitional species, like flying squirrels, for example? 5. If we evolved from monkeys, why don’t we look more like the Planet of the Apes chimps? 6. Ben Stein offers a perfect example of irreducible complexity “wherein the removal of any one of the parts [such as dying brain cells] causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” 7. Especially when filled with animal crackers, my Noah’s Ark cookie jar is an exact replica of the real deal as depicted in my illustrated Bible. 8. Evolution violates the second, third, fourth, and any future laws of thermodynamics that science types can dream up. 9. If the earth were actually billions of years old, all the water from the Genesis flood, which currently covers three-fourths of the Earth’s surface, would have disappeared down the drain by now. 10. After supposedly “millions of years,” tetrapods haven’t evolved into pentapods. 11. Evolution is only a theory, like the theory of the Scottish origin of rap music. 12. There are well known, professionally published scientists who believe in God and who think dogs can telepathically communicate with humans. 13. If you leave bread, peanut butter, and Fluff on a counter long enough, does it eventually evolve into a Fluffernutter sandwich? Not likely. 14. Contrary to claims by Darwinists, Ann Coulter is not a transitional fossil. 15. If creationism isn’t a valid alternative theory, then what are we going to do with all that crap in the Creation Museum? Paul Sivitz, a PhD student in my history department (he, too, just passed his orals – congrats, Paul!), thinks he’s so funny with his little fake news pieces poking fun at his fellow historians or historians-in-the-making. I am the subject of his latest: Darwin Draft Manuscript Found –LONDON– While cleaning out a storage closet, workers at London’s Natural History Museum discovered a handwritten draft of a book chapter by Charles Darwin. The project, evidently never completed, seems to have been written long before any of the scientist’s other work. Several pages of notes found with the manuscript describe Darwin’s theory of evolutionary astrology. The book chapter, titled “Origin of Pisces” is full of ideas that had already been debunked by astrological scholars decades earlier. Michael Barton, a noted Darwin expert, was in London at the time doing research for his book, The Meaningless Charles Darwin, said of the manuscript, “This is even more important to uncovering the unknown parts of Darwin’s life than the discovery of the taxidermy of Darwin’s bulldog, which he had put to sleep after it bit Alfred Russel Wallace on the leg.” In the United States, Jerry Jessee, one of Barton’s fellow graduate students at Montana State University, commented on his colleague’s book project. Said Jessee, “Barton’s plan to tell us everything we don’t need to know about Darwin is workable, although somewhat misguided.” Har dee har, Paul. I saw this on the Facebook group, We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June. Although “believe” should read “accept.” You definitely aren’t “smart enough.” From Flickr user peterwr: “Fridge magnet found in Ludlow tourist information centre.”

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Entergy ponders nuclear future When the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated much of northern Japan on March 11, it was a human catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportion. But it was the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that potentially had the greatest implications for the United States and power companies including Entergy that generate significant electricity with nuclear power. Although the situation in Japan has not yet been stabilized, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there is no evidence that overheating during the last month has resulted in any melting of the reactor vessels or their containment structures. The New York Times reported April 5 that federal officials believe the plant is unlikely to suffer a complete meltdown, in which uranium fuel gets so hot that it melts through the bottom of the reactor and containment vessels, spewing high-level radiation into the plant’s underlying foundation. If that assessment is correct, then significant additional releases of radioactivity into the environment will be limited. This is good news for northern Japan – and other regions around the globe where people live near nuclear plants that produce the power they consume. The probability that a particular reactor core at a U.S. nuclear power plant will be damaged as a result of a blackout ranges from 6.5 in 100,000 to less than one in a million, according to a 2003 analysis by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Compared to many more mundane technologies, such as cars and airplanes, nuclear power facilities are quite safe. For the past half century, we have assumed they are safe enough,” said Larry M. Elkin, president of Palisades Hudson Financial Group and a former editor and reporter for the Associated Press. “The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex demands that we rethink what ‘safe enough’ means,” he asserted in a piece titled “Japan Shows Us It Can Happen Here.” Elkin said American scientists believe U.S. power plants have almost no chance of experiencing the kind of earthquake and tsunami damage that the Japanese plants sustained, but insisted, “The question we need to consider is not whether similar earthquakes and tsunamis can happen here; it is whether a plant could, for any combination of reasons, simultaneously suffer a failure of its outside electrical supply and its onsite backups.” For residents of Southeast Texas, the threat seems more remote. The closest nuclear plant to the area is 160 miles to the west at the South Texas Project, outside of Bay City in Matagorda County southwest of Houston. More relevant to our area is the River Bend Station nuclear power plant in Louisiana, 186 miles to the east, just north of Baton Rouge. It is owned by Entergy – and is a major source of electricity in the Golden Triangle and beyond. “Roughly 20 percent of the power Entergy supplies to Texas comes from River Bend Station in St. Francisville, La.,” said Mike Bowling, communications manager for Entergy Nuclear. Entergy is a utility giant, a Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of more than $10 billion in 2009 and about 15,000 employees. Entergy is also the second-largest nuclear generator of electricity in the U.S. after Exelon Corporation, operating a total of 12 nuclear units at 10 plants including River Bend, Waterford near New Orleans and Grand Gulf near Port Gibson, Miss. Bowling sought to allay fears aroused by nonstop coverage of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis on cable news outlets, where the name of Entergy was repeatedly invoked as a prominent American nuclear operator. “Nuclear plants in the U.S. are designed and built to withstand threats specific to their location, including earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters,” said Bowling.“Federal regulators will grant a license only if the plant is built above and beyond any credible natural or man-made threat,” he added. “The NRC requires all safety-significant structures, systems and components in nuclear plants to be able to withstand the most severe natural phenomena historically reported for each plant’s surrounding area, plus a significant margin for error.” It was not damage from the quake or tsunami that threatened to destroy the Daiichi plant but a loss of power that shut down the cooling system.Entergy Nuclear believes they have made such an occurrence in their plants highly unlikely. “Systems are designed with multiple contingent backup systems to provide greater safety margins in our ability to keep cooling water in the reactor and spent fuel pool,” said Bowling. “Various emergency diesel generators at Entergy plants are located within hardened structures and at elevations designed to protect the emergency diesel generators from the sites’ design-basis environmental disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and flooding.” These redundancies give the utility a high degree of confidence. “A nuclear plant can maintain a shutdown condition isolated from the bulk power transmission system indefinitely,” asserted Bowling, who noted, “During Katrina, Entergy’s Waterford 3 plant shut down safely in anticipation of the hurricane’s landfall. Although the electric grid was down for five days, plant systems ran safely on diesel generators stored in reinforced concrete bunkers until power was restored.” One irony on the American nuclear landscape is that many nuclear plants are not operated today by the company that originally constructed them. “River Bend Station, which now supplies power to Texas, originally began operation in 1986 and was owned by Gulf States Utilities Inc. Entergy announced plans to acquire Gulf States Utilities in 1992 and completed the merger in 1993,” said Bowling. What the Japanese crisis means for the nuclear industry in this country is less clear. A long-planned addition of two nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project has been indefinitely put on hold, with partners CPS Energy and NRG reportedly having a difficult time finding new investors and selling the 2,700 megawatts the new units would produce, in part because of the reduced demand for power and the persistent low price of natural gas. Suggestions that this failure to attract new investors means Wall Street wants nothing to do with nuclear plants were rejected by Bowling. “I wouldn’t say that this is a fair characterization,” he said. “There is no question that the United States hasn’t built new reactors in decades, and it will take new plants being built on time and on budget to assure Wall Street that new nuclear build is a good plan financially.” Elkin also cautioned against a rush to judgment on these financial questions. In an interview with the Business Journal, he said, “I don’t know that anybody’s nuclear business is booming – and certainly what has gone on in Japan in the last month hasn’t helped – but it’s a little early to say what the long-term fallout is going to be in the industry.” The bottom line for the financial markets, of course, is money. “As long as there is a market for these kind of securities, I don’t think it’s a fair statement to say that Wall Street isn’t interested in the industry. General Electric is a major player in nuclear power, and they certainly have a following on Wall Street,” he said. The fact is this nuclear construction moratorium was already ending before the recent events in Japan. “Note that plants are being built overseas at rapid rates,” said Bowling. “Here in the United States, loan guarantees – not loans or grants, but the ability to receive limited loans with the backing of the federal government – are helping to jump start the build process. Companies like Southern have already broken ground for new reactor preparation, in Southern’s case, at the Vogtle site in Georgia.” So what is Entergy’s corporate strategy going forward in terms of the kind of plants the company will construct? “Entergy has made no commitment to build new nuclear plants, but the company does want to keep options open for meeting future energy needs,” said Bowling, who indicated any new nuclear plants are likely to be built on existing sites. “Entergy has construction and operating license applications for both River Bend Station in Louisiana and Grand Gulf in Mississippi on file with federal regulators, but work on both applications was temporarily suspended in 2009 after Entergy was unable to reach a business agreement for deploying a new reactor with potential vendor GE-Hitachi,” he said. But Elkin, the AP editor turned financial advisor, offered a darker assessment of the American nuclear future. “What happened in Japan proved that safety measures there were unacceptably weak. Our plants run similar risks, and we ought to acknowledge that our safety measures are equally unacceptable. A 6.5 in 100,000 risk is low, but when it comes to radioactive materials, it is too high, especially given the margin of error in our own ability to estimate such risks,” he said. Bowling takes sharp exception to such declarations. “Entergy knows that we can operate each of our plants safely, regardless of its location,” he said. “We believe very strongly in nuclear power and in the health and safety of the public near them. Entergy would not operate units that it did not believe were safe. The nuclear power industry will learn from this event and will redesign our facilities as needed to make them safer in the future.” Originally Published in the April 2011 issue of The Beaumont Business Journal

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The Humanity Project offers a variety of programs for both kids and adults. These programs put our mission into practice through real-world action: Anti-bullying Through The Arts — This is the Humanity Project’s all-original anti-bullying program for grades K – 5. This program begins with a live 40-minute assembly that includes a positive rap song, roleplaying, stories and a music video – all created and produced by the Humanity Project. The program continues with follow-up classroom materials and, when requested, classroom visits. Pre/post testing to date has shown the program is highly effective. How This Serves Our Mission: We teach bystander students that bullying hurts everyone in school, not only the bullied students, and that action by everyone is needed to help stop bullying. Bystanders learn the value to themselves and others of action for the greater good. Our program connects bystanders with bullied students and shows those bystanders how to cooperate with the bullied students to end the bullying behavior. Also see the Humanity Project’s free “Anti-bullying Advice For Parents” on this website: http://www.thehumanityproject.com/programs/anti-bullying-advice-for-parents And read our article “Stopping Violence In Schools” by Humanity Project Board of Directors’ Vice President, Dr. Laura Finley, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University: http://thehumanityproject.com/programs/finley/ Read Dr. Finley’s article for the Humanity Project on the relationship between school bullying and crime: “Bully Today, Criminal Tomorrow”: http://thehumanityproject.com/programs/bully-today-criminal-tomorrow/ “I Care!” Teen Driver Safety – The newest Humanity Project program, “I Care!” was created by talented high school authors working under the guidance of the Humanity Project. They wrote a book called, “I Care! Best Friends Helping Best Friends Stay Alive” and this innovative teen-to-teen creation forms the foundation of our program. “I Care!” uses all-original poetry, quizzes, stories, photos, graphics, even a comic book as a fun but powerful way to communicate memorable lessons about safe driving. But then the program asks students to share this book with their three best friends, who must pledge to drive with more concentration and cooperation — not out of fear but rather out of friendship. The message is simple: “Don’t drive safely for yourself. Do it for your best friends, who want to keep you in one piece because they care about you.” The “I Care!” program will include a dedicated Facebook page, a text message campaign, videos and more. How This Serves Our Mission: The program relies on social connections and positive peer pressure as methods to encourage safe teen driving instead of the usual ineffective scare tactics. It emphasizes cooperation among friends as well as cooperation on the roads. “I Care!” is all about helping young drivers to feel connected to other people and to respect those relationships by practicing sensible driving habits. Download the complete “I Care!” book for free as well as additional copies of the “I Care!” pledge form: http://thehumanityproject.com/programs/i-care Shared Value For Adults — This original, empirically based program teaches the Humanity Project’s core message in practical ways to adults. Drawing on psychological realities anyone can recognize in their own lives, we show Humanity Project members how they can help other individuals during daily life in ways that also serve their own best interests. A win-win approach to living. How This Serves Our Mission: We teach adults sensible, doable methods to incorporate the empirically based ideas of shared value in their everyday world. This allows them to apply cooperation and social connection to improve life for themselves, other individuals and society. Also read our article that explains more about this, “What Can Shared Value Do For Me?”: http://thehumanityproject.com/programs/sharedvalue At-risk Reading & Writing — This is another all-original program for young people, teaching at-risk readers new skills through helping them to write their own short stories and poetry. This series of workshops for middle school students resulted in the creation of a new booklet for the Humanity Project anti-bullying program, authored by kids for kids. The booklet is called, “I Was A Bully … But I Stopped” and is provided to each teacher at every school visited by the Humanity Project’s Anti-bullying Through The Arts program. How This Serves Our Mission: We teach at-risk students how writing a booklet that helps others also can help them better learn to read and write. At the same time, the booklet provides valuable follow-up lessons for teachers to reinforce our anti-bullying concepts in the elementary schools. “PeacePage” and Blog Exchange – The Humanity Project partnered with our member, Haikaa Yamamoto of the Work of Art Global Project, to create the PeacePage. It is a collaboration with nonprofits and individuals from every continent, including Antarctica, all contributing photographs that powerfully express our common humanity — the deep feelings and other characteristics all humans share. And our monthly blog and photo exchange with the Egyptian Association for Educational Resources tries to show Middle East readers the human face of Americans working to help others as well as to show our American readers the same thing about humanitarians in that part of the world. How This Serves Our Mission: We help online visitors to PeacePage and our blogs to recognize that underneath our relatively superficial differences, human beings truly are all the same at a fundamental level. People have much more in common than anything that divides us. In turn, that understanding contributes to the cooperation and social connection that can help more of us to work together toward the greater good of humanity. Also visit our PeacePage: www.thehumanityproject.com/peacepage “The Cool Factor: Yes, You Can Attract More After-school Teens To Your Program” — Developed at the request of Children’s Services Council of Broward County, the Humanity Project offers an original three-and-a-half hour workshop for other nonprofit groups and educational organizations about how to appeal to today’s teenagers. The workshop draws on our founder’s experience as author of 23 books as well as plays, blogs and programs for young people. How This Serves Our Mission: We show those who create programs for young people how they can think outside-the-box to better appeal to teens while also building a program that better serves their organization’s needs – a win-win for everyone involved. For the Near Future thp4kids.com — This new bilingual website (The Humanity Project 4 Kids) will teach basic human values such as respect for others, respect for self, awareness of our hidden individual potential, persistence in pursuit of major goals and more. In both Spanish and English, thp4kids.com will introduce and reinforce these ideas through truly innovative interactive techniques aimed at children from ages 8-14. How This Serves Our Mission: This frequently updated website will express some of shared value’s key concepts in ways that will attract young people.

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Modern Wallace Medium Weight Tartan. In the 12th century Richard Wallace obtained lands at Riccarton, Ayrshire, and his son, Henry, later acquired lands in Renfrewshire. From Henry descended Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie who was the father of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish Patriot. The Wallaces refused to do homage to Edward I of England and Sir William, who led a band of patriots, harried the English, and his constant raids on their fortresses made them hate and fear him. His bravery and leadership inspired others to support his struggle for Scottish independence. He was betrayed to the English and taken to London, where he was executed in 1305.

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The TCBH! Climate Change Report: A Palm Tree Grows Outside Philadelphia I went out today and checked on my palm tree. It’s a small thing: the trunk is only about a foot from the ground, with the palmate fronds spreading out from the upper part. New fronds appear as compressed blades sticking up from the center. They have a kind of fuzz on them, like the lanugo on a newborn baby. What makes my little palm unusual is it sits in my front yard in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles north of the edge of Philadelphia. It’s clearly not a native species to this area, but it is doing surprisingly well. Although we’ve had a number of nights now when the temperature dropped below freezing, including two when it dropped to about 26 degrees, the fronds are still bright green, and the shoots have continued to grow. While the palm is pretty, and striking in its own way, standing out against the backdrop of deciduous trees that have finally shed all their leaves for the winter, it is also a little disturbing -- a harbinger of an enormous climate change that is taking place in front of my eyes. I have good reason to believe that this little tree is going to survive our Philadelphia winter (which last year never went below 25 degrees, and then only for such short periods of time that the ground never froze below about an inch or two of soil), and that it will continue to grow where I planted it, perhaps becoming the first palm in Pennsylvania. As I write this, negotiators are meeting in Doha, Qatar, supposedly to negotiate a treaty that will lead to serious efforts by the nations of the world to finally start reducing the release of more carbon into the earth’s already overloaded atmosphere. We hear from UN researchers that the global emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere have risen by 54% between 1990 and 2011, and that by the end of this year, that number will be 58%. They were supposed to be going down over that period. Meanwhile, the evidence that all this carbon is starting to have a snowball effect on global warming. Ice caps in both the Arctic and the Antarctic are melting, and at a faster rate than anyone was predicting even five years ago. The oceans, both as a result of that melting, and thanks to the expansion of the water itself as it warms, are showing a measurable rise, which was one of the reasons for the extraordinary damage done to New York City and the surrounding shorelines by the recent late-season super-storm Hurricane Sandy. A similar superstorm, with winds up to almost 200 mph, located further south than ever recorded in the Pacific, just tore through Mindanao in the southern Philippines. (Both storms were powered by a historically unprecedented rise in ocean surface temperatures.)

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By Dr. Paul O’Reilly Note: Dr. O’Reilly is a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College as well the vice president for development. The following text is the transcript of a lecture he presented on August 26, 2011, as part of the the St. Vincent de Paul Lecture and Concert Series , endowed by Barbara and Paul Henkels. It might seem strange that I should stand in front of you this evening to speak about Catholic liberal education. It could be especially odd because I intend to consider whether there can be such a thing as Catholic liberal education. Why should that be an issue for us? Is it not obvious that there is such a thing as Catholic liberal education? Surely Thomas Aquinas College gives testimony to its existence. Our founding document, the Blue Book, is entitled A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education . Just why would I waste your time asking about the possibility of something that so obviously exists? Now I take it as obvious that there can be Catholic carpenters and plumbers, there can be Catholic tennis players and golfers, and there can be Catholic poets and teachers. However, let us consider what it means to say that this man is a Catholic plumber, or that this woman is a Catholic tennis player. Surely we must mean that the plumber happens to be Catholic, or maybe better, the Catholic happens to be a plumber, and it is coincidental that the Catholic woman is a tennis player. There is not a particularly Catholic way of installing a sink. The plumber could install it well or badly, but how would he install it in a Catholic way? The Catholic is called to be honest and forthright, but that does not mean it is inappropriate for the Catholic tennis player to use the backhand during a game. Isn’t it clear that the relationship between plumbing and Catholicism, or tennis and the Catholic faith, is coincidental? You might prefer to play tennis with a Catholic, but that is, perhaps, because of the conscientious behavior displayed on the court. If we consider the parts of liberal education, especially the liberal arts themselves (the quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy; and the trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric) does it really seem to be the case that if we add Catholic to any one of the parts the nature of the discipline changes? That is, is there a Catholic geometry? Is there a peculiar geometrical truth that could be called Catholic? Or is there a particularly Catholic way of proving some geometrical proposition? As with the example of the plumber, isn’t it the case that Catholicism does not make geometry into a different kind of activity? The term “Catholic geometrician” names someone who just happens to be both a Catholic and a geometer. It is not like the case of “rational” when added to animal. “Rational animal” names a specific kind of animal, one that is not a brute. So “rational” does not just describe an animal that happens to be rational, “rational animal” actually defines a different kind of animal. But “Catholic geometer” does not seem to do the same, for there is no kind of geometry that is particularly Catholic. What we have just said about Geometry also applies to Arithmetic, and Astronomy, to grammar and logic, and the remaining liberal arts. The basic point so far is that if the parts of liberal education are not called Catholic properly, then how could the whole, composed of these parts, be called Catholic in any other way than an education that happens to be acquired by Catholics? However it should be pointed out that a liberal education is not just the education in the liberal arts. Liberal education is the education that is sought for its own sake, and so it is suitable for the free man. As a consequence, this education is primarily speculative, that is, it is sought because it is good to know, and not because of some practical purpose. Liberal education, then, would include philosophy and theology, in addition to the liberal arts. Surely philosophy and theology can be specifically Catholic. And if they are Catholic then a Catholic liberal education could simply be an education informed by philosophy and theology, both of which have a Catholic character. This point has merit. There is a considerable difference between geometry, for example, and philosophy. Geometry is about points, lines, figures, and magnitudes generally. These kinds of objects are not specifically Catholic, so is it a surprise that that there is not a properly Catholic geometry? Philosophy, on the other hand, considers the nature of man, the universe, and all sorts of things that have direct bearing on the Catholic faith. The philosopher might well consider whether there is evidence that God exists; he might wonder what constitutes freedom of the will. He should consider if it is the case that matter is the most fundamental cause of things, or think about whether the soul survives death. These issues directly pertain to the faith also. So if philosophy considers these matters correctly, wouldn’t it be appropriate to call such philosophy Catholic? Now the knowledge proper to the philosopher begins with the evidence that he derives from experience and common considerations, not from the teachings of the Church. If the philosopher does not begin his thinking according to the lights of human reason, can he really be said to proceed philosophically? Are not the claims of faith, however meritorious they are, out of place in a rational and open pursuit of knowledge? Maybe Catholicism could be a kind of extrinsic guide, but does it make sense to speak about Catholic philosophy as if it was a particular kind of thinking? I would like to add to this point by considering a text from John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio. In particular, I want to concentrate on the common English translation of this encyclical. Here is the passage: The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others. The underlying reason for this reluctance is that, even when it engages theology, philosophy must remain faithful to its own principles and methods. (FR #49) Later John Paul II goes on to say: “philosophy must obey its own rules and be based upon its own principles” (FR #79). One last text from the same encyclical: the designation “Christian Philosophy …in no way intends to suggest that there is an official philosophy of the Church, since the faith as such is not a philosophy” (FR 376). So it seems pretty clear that to the extent that natural reason is to respect its own principles and methods, philosophy cannot be specifically Catholic. In short, faith begins in belief, whereas philosophy proceeds from natural evidence. No doubt Catholicism would enlighten the kind of life the philosopher should live; it might also encourage him to pursue certain questions, and sustain him in times of difficulty, but it does not appear to be appropriate to call philosophy Catholic. If this is the case, then the fact that a liberal education includes philosophy is not sufficient to call that education properly Catholic. Maybe it is obvious that theology, one part of a truly liberal education, would be defined by Catholicism. Perhaps one could argue that theology is the most important part of a liberal education. It studies the most important object — God Himself — and perhaps the other parts of a liberal education are insignificant before the knowledge of the divine majesty. Here we might find a reason for calling all of a liberal education Catholic if theology is included as one of its parts. After all if the most important part of something has a certain character, then the whole can be described by that characteristic. Much like you might call a man odd if he displays odd behavior. His hands and feet may not be odd, but you call the whole man odd because a significant part of him is odd. Is this why we could call a liberal education Catholic, because its most significant part, theology, is Catholic? Not so fast. Consider how we study and discuss theology at Thomas Aquinas College. Does it make a difference if a student is Catholic or Protestant, Jewish, or a non-believer? In Freshman theology students are encouraged to consider the evidence in the text of Scripture itself, not to bring in the Catechism. And in sophomore theology doesn’t the class depend on the argument that St. Augustine makes, and the evidence he provides, not what this or that student believes? Finally, in junior and senior theology, what is most remarkable is how argumentative, that is, how rational St. Thomas’ procedure is. As long as one concedes the principles that, no doubt, St. Thomas believes, any student can follow the argument. So even if in itself theology is properly Catholic, one can grasp the argument of the theologian without sharing his belief. So, the conclusion of all we have said so far is that Catholic liberal education does not appear to be one kind of thing. It seems to be more like our previous example of a Catholic plumber — a man who just happens to be Catholic is also a plumber. So is this how we are to understand Catholic liberal education: the education that people who happen to be Catholic take part in? What if this is the case, what if all that can be said is that Catholic liberal education is an education that Catholics take part in, or one in which there are additional Catholic elements, the sacraments and Catholic practices, and that’s all there is to it? Well if Catholicism is only incidentally related to the educational program, then it is not essential to the program. On that account it may be nice to have, but it makes no more of a difference to the educational program itself than does the food service. It is crucial, then, for us to determine just what makes a liberal education properly Catholic. To begin, let me note, and briefly defend, two presuppositions, or principles of education. The first presupposition is about the whole of education, the second is about the parts of an education. 1) Education has as its end a knowledge of the truth. Now that does not mean a full and precise knowledge of the truth, but if there is no reference to truth at all in the education one receives it is not an education properly speaking. 2) The second presupposition, very closely related to the first, is that without an integrated program of studies, that is, if the parts of the program of studies do not form a coherent whole, an education will fall short of its principal aim of attaining the truth. The first supposition I will briefly defend by considering the alternative. That is, what if education is not about the truth? Quite frankly, this is the view at most colleges and universities. In those institutions a student will come to class to hear what his professor thinks about some matter, or he will read and write about his opinions about a particular issue, but to what end? In general, the position that seems to predominate is that education is either to learn what people think about this or that subject, or that education is designed to prepare the student to find a job. The mind is not raised to something higher, some unchanging truth which perfects reason just by being known. If one gives up the search for truth, one abandons the effort to understand the way things are. Without some serious resolution one will become a humanist, not an educated man. That is, if you are content simply to appreciate different positions, you might be fun to talk to at a cocktail party, but you will not know anything. You would be familiar with who thinks what, but you would be unable to make judgments about the way things are. The second supposition that I will consider is, as I said, concerning the parts of an education and it is closely related to the previous supposition. If a student studies many disciplines without integration, that is, if he thinks about science apart from theology, or mathematics independently of philosophy, he will not have a unified view about what is. He could easily tend to a kind of skepticism, because whatever he knows in natural science is not brought to bear upon his understanding of ethics, for example. Or what is understood as a theological doctrine, would not be thought of as a guide to thinking rightly in some other discipline. Without an effort to resolve these differences, the mind is left on its own to wander according to its own inclinations and guesses. This is a problem for us at the College as well as for other academic institutions. In our own curriculum we study the great books throughout the program. In these books there is more disagreement than agreement. And the disagreements are often about first principles, and notions so basic, that it is impossible that the authors be reconciled except in the vaguest of ways. In fact, often an attempt to reconcile these contrary positions would do violence to the views of the authors themselves. So how should we deal with the basic disagreements that we find in our own program? In the face of contrary positions, and basic disagreements, the mind will be at sea. There are at least three ways to react to fundamental disagreements among the wise. 1) A good approach to the conflicting positions found in the great books is to realize that if the wise have disagreements, the matter must be difficult to know. That realization should prompt you to try harder to see where the truth is. 2) These contrary positions could cause you to despair of any genuine intellectual advance, so you become either a skeptic, or uninterested in the examined life. 3) Perhaps the worst reaction to the differing positions that have been considered over the centuries is to make the positions themselves the object of study. In that case, the search is no longer for the truth; instead the object of study becomes the opinions of men. It should be granted, then, that an education properly so called must have as its end to come to know what is true. And since there are many disciplines and many great minds studied in any educational program, there must be some order and resolution in the curriculum if the truth is to be received. Now the principal way that the truth is to be made known is by an unfailing guide. That is one way in which Catholic liberal education is education in the strictest sense. Cardinal Newman makes this point succinctly in the beginning of the book: The Idea of a University. He points out that a university is a place to seek universal knowledge, and that “it cannot fulfill its object duly … without the Church’s assistance … the Church is necessary for its integrity” (p.xxxvii, 1966 edition). Pope John Paul II quotes this same remark of Cardinal Newman in his Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The Holy Father then adds: “It is the office (officium) of the Catholic University to devote itself, without condition, to the cause of truth.” He goes on to say that: “the Catholic University bears itself (inclines) towards every truth according as they are joined to the Supreme Truth, that is to God” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #4). So these preliminary remarks suggest a strategy for the rest of this lecture. If we are to understand how a liberal education can be Catholic, we should first consider the end of education, that is truth, and then treat how the parts of truth are integrated. The words “true” or “truth” can be used in a number of different ways. Perhaps the most common use of the term is when we say something such as: “I think what you say is true.” Or, “what you say is the truth.” In this sense of the word, a claim has been made, in the form of a sentence, and one judges that what that sentence expresses conforms to the way things are. The thought expressed in the sentence, then, is true. Also, a building can be described as being “true” to the architect’s original vision. This sense of “true” does not appear to refer to a statement. Another sense of the word “true” is found when we speak of someone as a “true” friend, or a “true” patriot. This use of the word “true” also does not seem to refer to the truth of a statement. Aristotle, speaking about the first and most obvious sense of true, says that “falsity and truth are not in things …but in though” (Metaphysics, VI, ch. 4, 1027b26). He goes on to make a qualification. Not everything that is in the mind would be called truth: “with regard to simple concepts and ‘whats’ falsity and truth do not exist even in thought.” If I think about what a dog is, for example, to the extent that I am just doing that, I have yet to attain to the notion of truth. If I say, or think, “dog,” I have yet to make a claim about it. “Dog: true or false?” That is an absurd question. So we begin by noting two things: 1) the true, in the first sense of the word, is not in things but it is in the mind; 2) and the true is in the mind when some judgment is made, and normally that judgment is expressed in a sentence. This, according to our own experience of knowing, is the most obvious sense of truth. A third thing follows from what I have just said. Although the true is in the mind, it is not the mind that principally causes the truth. If I make the statement that a centaur is a long-lived animal, that statement is false, for there is no such thing as a centaur. So although, in the most common use of the word “truth,” the truth is found in the mind and not in things, it is the reality of a thing that causes truth. Another way of putting this is that a thing’s being is a cause of any true statement made about it. A statement is not true just because I make it; man is not the measure of things. No, a statement is only true if what is said corresponds to some reality, some existing thing. As St. Thomas puts it: “…the being of a thing is the cause of the true estimation (or judgment) which the mind has about something. For the true and the false are not in things, but in the mind…” (In Metaphysicorum, II, l.2, #298). From what we have just said, we can understand the traditional account of the true as a conformity, or adequation, of the mind to things. As St. Thomas puts it: “A thing is not called true except according as it is adequated (or conformed) to an intellect, whence secondarily (per posterius) the true is found in things, primarily (per prius) however it is found in the intellect” (De Veritate, 1, a.2). Note, however, what St. Thomas says here: although the true, in the primary sense, is found in the mind, a thing can be said to be true in a secondary sense if that thing conforms to an intellect. I think what this means is that if one considers the intellect one can see that it can know things simply for their own sake; that is, one can have a kind of speculative knowledge, but also the intellect thinks about things that can be made. The architect obviously thinks about the design of a house. When that house is built, presuming it is built according to his plan, then the house can be said to conform to what he had in mind. The house then can be called true, because it conforms to what the architect had in his mind. A brief qualification about what I have just claimed: I do not intend to say that the practical intellect is the only measure of the things that it produces. So when it is claimed that the true is in the mind first, it does not mean that the human mind is the sole or primary measure of the truth. A thing can be called true to the intention of the maker and still be called false in another sense. Counterfeit money is still not true currency even though it conforms to the mind of the counterfeiter. Much like the way “faux” pearls are called false because they have a tendency to make you think they are something they are not, that is, they are false pearls because one could easily think they are real ones. This suggests to me that there are more senses of the word “true” than the two that I have outlined, but I am going to limit my consideration to these two senses. So in addition to the primary sense of truth, there is this secondary sense that, as long as what is in the mind is some art or perfection, then there will be found in the mind of the maker a cause of the truth of the thing produced. Having made this qualification , I want to concentrate on the way man’s mind is related to things in the two basic ways I have pointed out, and this gives rise to two fundamental meanings of “truth.” Now there is a significant difference in the way that a thing is related to the speculative intellect and how something relates to the practical intellect. The practical intellect, or more particularly, the art in the mind of the architect, for example, is a measure of what it produces. That is, the musical piece, to take another example, is said to be true according as it conforms to the musical principles the composer has in mind. The speculative intellect is said to have the truth according as it conforms itself to things. That is, the true judgment is one which has its basis in the way things are. So, we can see that practical thinking measures, or determines, the thing that is produced; whereas things are what measure or determine the true judgment of speculative thinking. For the practical intellect, the art in the mind of the composer, for example, causes the thing that it produces, and so the product is called true since the effect corresponds to the cause. But the speculative intellect only attains truth if its knowledge is caused by things, that is, the mind receives things as they are, not as it wants them to be, or imagines them, or has been accustomed to think of them. St. Thomas gives a nice summary of the relation of the human intellect to things: The knowledge of the human intellect is in some way caused by things: hence what follows is that knowable things are the measure of human knowledge, since the intellect judges [what is] true by bearing on things, and not the converse [that is, not by the intellect determining things] (S.C.G. I, 62, #512) So the human mind, to the extent that it attains or receives the truth, is determined or measured by things. When the human mind is a principle of something made, then that thing can be called true according as it conforms to the maker’s intention. Here is how St. Thomas puts it: [A]mong created things truth is found in things and in the mind (intellectu) … in the mind according as the understanding that it has conforms (adaequatur) to things; in things [truth is found] according as they imitate the divine intellect, which is their measure, as art is the measure of all artifacts. The comparison between the artist and the Creator is worth noting. The artifact that the artist produces is determined by the art that he has in his mind, his mind is not conformed to it, since it is what is in his mind that has given rise to his product. The mind of God is not measured, not determined, not caused by things. Rather, the divine intellect determines things in a way like the art in the mind of the architect or composer determines the building or musical piece. Earlier we noted that the building designed by the architect can be called true since it conforms to the plan that he had in mind. Similarly, every natural thing conforms to the ideas in the mind of God. St. Thomas puts it this way: The divine intellect by its own knowledge is the cause of things. Hence it is necessary that His science is the measure of things: as art is the measure of artifacts. (SCG, I, 61, #512) A consequence of this is that truth would not be caused in the mind of God by the things He has produced, but the converse, that those things would be said not only to be, but to be true, according as they conform to the divine intellect. St. Thomas summarizes quite nicely the main distinctions I have been trying to make. The very notion of truth implies a conformity of a thing to an intellect. However the intellect is compared to things in a twofold way: as the measure of existing things, [that is] the intellect which causes things; another intellect is measured by things, [that is] the intellect whose knowledge is caused by things. Therefore there is not truth in the divine intellect because it is conformed (adequated) to things, but because things are conformed to the divine intellect. (Commentary on St. John, L.18, l. 11) The Gospel of St. John allows us to speak more fully on this matter. For in that Gospel the creation of heaven and earth is described in such a way as to make clear that all things owe their existence to God, that is, they exist and are the kind of things they are, because God said “let them be.” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made. All things were made through the Word. The Word is the expression of the Father. He is what proceeds from the Father, as a concept from the Father. God’s act of creation is described as due to the Father bringing forth His Word, and that Word is that through which all things are made. As a consequence the being of all things is due to the divine intellect. Clearly the truth in the divine intellect is not due to things, but all things are and are true because of the mind of God. Furthermore, since the divine intellect produces its concept or Word, by which all things are made, that Word can be called the truth. For, as we have previously argued, the first meaning of truth is what is brought forth by the mind in conformity to what it thinks about. Since the Word is brought forth by the Father, and is in perfect conformity to the Father, the Word is appropriately called the Truth. St. Thomas puts it this way: And so it is that the uncreated truth of the divine intellect is appropriated to the Son, who is the conception itself of the divine intellect and the Word of God. For truth follows a conception of the intellect. (Commentary on St. John, L.18, l. 11) Earlier in the Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, St Thomas says: Truth belongs properly (per se) to Him (Christ) because He is the Word. For truth is nothing other than the conformity of a thing to the intellect, and this comes about when the intellect conceives a thing as it is. Therefore, the truth of our intellect belongs to our word, which is its conception. But although our word is true, it is not truth itself, since it is not through itself, but it is conformed to the thing conceived. Now the truth of the divine intellect belongs to the Word of God. But because the Word of God is true of itself, since it is not measured by things, but things are true insofar as they come near to a likeness of Him, and so it is that the Word of God is truth itself. And because no one can know the truth unless he adheres to the truth, it is necessary that everyone who desires to know the truth adhere to this Word. ( In John, L. 14, lec.2) Here we have a fundamental distinction. “The Word of God is true of itself, since it is not measured by things.” So unlike the human mind which comes to the truth by conforming itself to things, God contains all truth because things conform to Him. So how are we to reach the fullness of truth? By knowing God. A consequence of what we have said is that since God possesses the whole of truth, and every other truth depends on Him and points to Him. He alone is the teacher without qualification. As St. Thomas explains, God is first and properly a teacher because He has doctrine from Himself. (Just as God is first and properly a father because He is the begetter of another in virtue of Himself, whereas all other fathers are so called because of the existence and power that they have received from God.) Any lesser truth directs the mind to the fullness of truths and, therefore, the knowledge of all truths is not fully had until they are seen in their relation to the source of truth. When Jesus speaks about the truth He identifies it with Himself, and he indicates that it is what makes us free. Knowing the truth, which is found in God essentially, and the Word personally, is what makes us free. And since the end of a liberal education is to know the truth, which enables one to live the life of a free man, it follows that the fullness of liberal education is found in a program of studies under the inspiration of the church Christ established while He was on earth to guard His truth. That is, a Catholic liberal education is the fullness, or perfection, of a liberal education. It is not merely an education for Catholics, nor an education with Catholic customs and practices added on. No, a Catholic liberal education is the perfection of an education ordered towards the truth. It is Catholic through and through, in its principles, methods, and ends; and Catholicism affects all the parts of such an education however humble they are. John Paul II indicates as much in Ex Corde Ecclesiae: [A] Catholic university is completely dedicated to the research of all aspects of truth in their essential connection with the supreme Truth, who is God. It does this without fear but rather with enthusiasm, dedicating itself to every path of knowledge, aware of being preceded by Him who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Let us return then to some of the difficulties raised at the beginning of this lecture. The phrase “Catholic liberal education” is not like “Catholic plumber” for in the case of the plumber it makes no essential difference to his activity that he is Catholic. This is not the case with a Catholic liberal education. Catholicism makes all the difference in such an education, for it orders that education from beginning to end. It defines the kind of education it is, and it perfects all the natural parts of the program of studies by ordering them to the supreme Truth. Mr. Mark Berquist, one of the founders of Thomas Aquinas College, says much more precisely what I am trying to get at. When one finds a Catholic school with a Great Books curriculum, one is inclined to suppose that Catholic belief is incidental to its educational program, and that (at most) it modifies but does not determine that program... Catholicism, it seems, makes a difference, but not an educational difference….[Not so.] The intellectual tradition of the Catholic Church orders the study of all such truth about reality — a truth of which it speaks with confidence, from the word of God it receives in faith. (“Catholic Education and the Great Books”) The parts of a Catholic liberal education are not equally, nor all obviously, Catholic in the way that theology is Catholic. Theology is Catholic because it proceeds from principles that are divinely revealed and that are handed down to us by the Church. The other parts of a Catholic liberal education are more or less informed by these principles, or are more or less helpful in making known the meaning of Catholic doctrine, and they are more or less intimately ordered to theology. Catholic theology is most fully and perfectly a Catholic discipline, philosophy is less so, and still less the other disciplines, until one arrives at disciplines only slightly under the light of Catholic learning, such as geometry. This point should not be surprising. If one considers living things, for example, it is the higher animals that are more fully and more obviously alive. It is more difficult to see the life in the lowest forms of animals and plants. Or, to take another example, it is quite evident that human beings act for a purpose, but it is harder to see that purposeful activity in some other animals, and still more difficult to see this purpose in the activity of some plants and in the inanimate world. So too the higher disciplines are more obviously Catholic because they have some bearing, directly or indirectly, on Catholic doctrine, or they help to elucidate Catholic teaching and ends. This is much less evident in, say, the mathematical disciplines. This point Mr. Berquist made in the passage I just quoted. He said: “the intellectual tradition of the Catholic Church … orders the study of all truth about reality — a truth of which it speaks with confidence, from the word of God it receives in faith.” The following example might be helpful. The use of the word “Catholic” in the phrase “Catholic liberal education” is like the use of “Catholic” when we speak of “Catholic marriage.” It is obvious that “Catholic tennis player” simply names a Catholic who happens to play tennis. Catholic marriage, on the other hand, does not just mean the marriage between Catholics. For Catholicism makes a real difference to the marriage itself. God is the author of marriage, and He has ordered marriage towards Catholic ends. As Pope Leo XIII puts it: “By the command of Christ, [marriage] looks not only to the propagation of the human race, but to the bringing forth of children for the Church” (Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae, #10). So the natural end of marriage is perfected by this spiritual end, and because the natural end is ordered to and perfected by the spiritual end, the relation between marriage and Catholicism is not by chance. As Leo XIII explains, “…there abides in [marriage] something holy and religious; not extraneous, but innate; not derived from men, but implanted by nature” (#19). Catholic marriage, then, is not simply the marriage between Catholics, but an institution ordered to the ends of the Faith. Hence, it is the perfection of marriage. So, too, Catholic Liberal Education is not just an education with Catholic trappings, no, the very education is essentially Catholic. It does not seem to me to be good enough to say that the parts of a Catholic education are called Catholic because of something extrinsic or because of something accidental to them. I think it is better to say, even in the hardest cases such as geometry and the other mathematical disciplines, that they acquire a Catholic character insofar as they are parts of a Catholic education. Of course, it would be strange to say that geometry is Catholic in the way theology is. No geometrical argument begins with principles held by faith. But insofar as any part of a Catholic liberal education is ordered to knowing the fullness of truth, then, that part, even if it is geometry, has a Catholic character as a lesser truth ordered to the fullness of truth. That is, geometrical truth is ordered to the truth about God as the natural end of marriage is ordered to, and perfected in, the spiritual end of Catholic marriage. I know that is still vague, but I will leave it at that until someone pushes me to say more during the discussion period. How is there a Catholic philosophy? In one sense of the word there is only one philosophy. As Aristotle puts it, “it is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth, for the end of theoretical knowledge is truth” (Metaphysics, II, ch. 1, 993b19). With this meaning of the word “philosophy,” there would not be many philosophies, because there is either truth or falsehood. So it would not be necessary to ask is this philosophy Catholic? For by definition the truth attained by the human mind, the philosophical truths, would not contradict the truth revealed by God through the Church. As Pope Leo XIII puts it in Aeterni Patris: Those, therefore, who to the study of philosophy unite obedience to the Christian faith are philosophers indeed; for the splendor of the divine truths, received into the mind, helps the understanding, and not only detracts in nowise from its dignity, but adds greatly to its nobility, keenness, and stability. (p.9) In another sense of the word “philosophy,” any natural effort to know the world around us can be called philosophy and be defined by its principles and methods. In this sense of “philosophy,” there are as many philosophies as there are distinct approaches to understanding the world, that is, distinct principles and methods of inquiry. The philosophy of Descartes would differ then from that of Aristotle. And to the extent that Descartes appears to hold that the soul and body are distinct substances, and he seems to hold a curious view about what substance and accidents are, to that extent Cartesian philosophy would not be a Catholic Philosophy, even though Descartes was a Catholic. In Fides et Ratio, John Paul II seems to use this sense of the word “philosophy.” He distinguishes philosophies by their principles and methods. However, that still makes the passage I quoted earlier curious: “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others.” How are we to understand this passage in light of centuries of papal teaching extolling the philosophy of St. Thomas? For example, Pope Pius XI: We consider that Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the common or universal doctor of the Church; for the Church has adopted his philosophy for her own, as innumerable documents of every kind attest. (Studiorum Ducem #11) The first thing to note about the quotation from Fides et Ratio is that John Paul II refers to a text from Pius XII’s Humani Generis. In that passage Pius XII considers the Church’s relationship to philosophy: “[T]he Church cannot be bound to any philosophical system which exists for a brief period of time…” He then goes on to say that only those things composed from common consent of Catholic Doctors are not based on a weak foundation because they are “supported by principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things.” Clearly Pius XII is warning the faithful about basing their judgments on philosophical fads, among which he includes “idealism” and “existentialism,” for these “systems” incline one to “dogmatic relativism.” It is important to note that John Paul II’s remarks, generally translated as: “the Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others” is to be understood in terms of the text from Pius XII that he refers us to. A sign of this is that later in the same encyclical he speaks about the “incomparable value of the philosophy of St. Thomas …[and that] the thought of the Angelic Doctor seems …the best way to recover the practice of a philosophy consonant with the demands of faith” (F +R #57). One last point, if one looks to the Latin text of Fides et Ratio, it becomes clear that the passage I have been quoting is very loosely translated, and, as a result, might give a false impression. As literally as I can put it, the passage should be rendered as follows: The Church does not hold forth her very own philosophy, nor does she have preference for one to the detriment of others. What the Holy Father is saying, then, is that the Church urges the faithful to seek for truth wherever it can be found. She is not bound to this or that philosophy, especially not to philosophies that are popular and so could be a fad. The Church does not reject truth found in any particular philosophical school, but she also has a longstanding endorsement of the perennial philosophy found in St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching. So there is a Catholic philosophy, a philosophy that is a handmaid to the truth revealed by God, and taught by His church. That philosophy is one in the sense that the truth is one, and to the extent that one thinks of philosophies distinguished by their principles and methods it is found principally in the teaching of St. Thomas. Can one study theology apart from Catholicism? Recall one of the presuppositions of this lecture: education is ordered to knowing the truth. As a result, if we consider someone who engages the arguments in theology, but who has not accepted the principles of the theological arguments, those principles that must be held by faith, then he has not fully attained the science of theology. No doubt one can become aware of an argument without accepting the principles upon which that argument is based. However without a grasp of the principles one has not been led to a new truth. Instead one has engaged in a logical exercise, something like a hypothetical consideration, without coming to grasp a new truth. Therefore, without accepting the principles of a theological argument, which admittedly are held by faith, one cannot have the science of theology, and so there is no theological education strictly speaking. Without holding the principles of theology one would be like someone who follows an argument in astronomy but who is ignorant of the geometrical principles upon which the astronomical argument depends. So theology is unique because the truth of its principles is not seen by the human mind, but grasped in the light of faith. Without faith there is no science of theology. Let me turn briefly to a kind of practical corollary to the thesis of this lecture. As the Psalmist says, “Teach me thy way, O Lord, that I may walk in thy truth” (86:11). If a man wants to grow in the truth not only will he pursue a program of studies that is ordered to the truth, but he will also live a life that is suitable to that pursuit. Jesus has told us that He is the way, the truth, and the life. The order here is noteworthy. Jesus tells us that He is the way before He tells us that He is the truth. That is, He is the path towards the truth, and the truth is what will give us life, not only an examined life, but life everlasting. In order to receive the truth that we are pursuing, we must follow the path that Jesus points out to us. If He is the way, then we have to imitate Him if we hope to arrive at the truth. Obviously we imitate Him by becoming good. So a life of virtue is the path to the truth. The virtues I am talking about are both virtues proper to the intellectual life, such as docility, studiousness, and perseverance, but also moral virtues such as temperance and patience. All these virtues are on the path towards the truth. So if Jesus is the truth to which all other truths are ordered, then the truth will be found not only in study, but also in a life of virtue, and even more so in a sacramental life that unites us more closely to the one who is Truth, especially in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus fully present to us, and, as we have argued, He is truth itself. So how will we succeed in this program? It all begins with us on our knees, continues in the classroom and in a life of study, and culminates in the sacraments. That is a truly Catholic, truly liberal education, because it is an ordered whole: a Catholic liberal education. I would like to conclude by quoting Archbishop José H. Gomez. He addressed the seniors at our last graduation mass in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel with the following words: Jesus is the Logos, the divine Reason through whom the universe is created. He is the Truth and Wisdom of God. In Him we find not only the unity of knowledge, but we also find the fundamental harmony of faith and reason.

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The year is 1565. On the island of Malta, 600 Knights of St. John, commanding a force of some 8000 men, prepare to defend their island fortress from attack. These same Catholic Knights had been driven from their previous stronghold, the Isle of Rhodes, in 1522, by the Ottoman Turks. Under Suleyman the Magnificent, the Moslems were pressing hard across Arabia, Syria, Iraq, into Egypt and northern Africa, and had established a strong foothold on the north coast of the Black Sea, the gateway to all of Europe itself. In 1526, the Hungarians had been defeated at the Battle of Mohacs, and only the Austrian Habsburgs now stood in the way of the Moslem advance. Vienna came under attack in 1529, but the Moslems were unable to take the capital, and their over-extended campaign failed. Now, the Turks had raised a fleet of 181 ships, carrying some 30,000 soldiers, and Malta was the prize they sought. Their goal was to plunder and sweep all the ships of Christian Europe from the Mediterranean. Then, in control of the sea lanes and trade routes, with their naval and economic power supreme, all of Europe would be set to fall before them. Our Lord and Our Lady, top left, blessing the Catholic fleet at Lepanto For more pictures, click here The Turkish fleet appeared off the coast of Malta, and laid siege to the island. All through the summer of 1565 the contest for Malta raged. In the end, the Knights of St. John (Knights of Malta) were victorious, and the Turks were forced to withdraw in defeat. It did not, however, end the threat from the Ottoman Turks. In 1566, Pius V ascended to the Chair of St. Peter in Rome. Pius V was a Dominican Monk with a reputation for piety and austerity. A teacher of philosophy and theology for 16 years, unlike some previous Popes, he was a humble man who continued to lead the ascetic life of a simple monk even after becoming Pope. Pius V was also very serious about defending Christendom against the Ottoman Turks. He knew they were not just going to go away and leave Europe in peace. Vienna and the eastern borders continued to be threatened by Moslem military power and incursions, and the Papal States themselves could soon be at risk. Cyprus came under attack again in 1570. Seeing the increasing danger to Christendom, Pius V called on "The Holy League," consisting of the Papal States, Spain, Genoa, Venice, and the Knights of Malta, to address the Moslem threat. A Christian naval fleet was assembled under the overall command of Admiral Don John of Austria. Although young (in his twenties), Don John was a capable naval commander. The Spaniards were led by Santa Cruz, the Genoese by Andrea Doria, and the Venetians commanded by Agostin Barbarigo and Sebastian Veniero. The fleet under Don John's command was some 300 ships strong, with over 100 ships and 30,000 men being supplied by Philip II of Spain alone. The Pope personally outfitted and supplied 12 Papal galleys, and provided funding for many of the others as well. The Venetian contingent was around 100 ships, manned in part by additional Spanish soldiers. In the Venetian fleet were six galleasses. Heavier, broader, and much slower than conventional galleys, they were nonetheless technologically advanced - the heavy gun platforms and battleships of their day. All total, over 50,000 men served the fleet as rowers, and another 30,000 were fighting soldiers. Don Juan of Austria, Chief Commander of the Holy League's fleet, inflicted the largest naval defeat on the Muslims in History In September of 1571, Don John moved the Catholic fleet east to intercept the Turks at Corfu, but the Turks had already landed, terrorized the population, and then moved on. While anchored off the coast of Cephalonia, news reached Don John that the Christian stronghold at Famagusta on Cyprus had fallen to the Turks, with all prisoners being tortured and then executed by the Moslems. Don John then pulled up anchor and moved to engage the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the southern coast of Greece. The Turkish fleet, some 330 ships strong, under the command of Ali Pasha, had been reinforced by Uluch Ali, the Bey of Algiers, and head of the notorious band of Moslem corsairs (pirates) that had long terrorized Catholic ships in the Mediterranean. On the night of October 6, with a favorable wind behind him, Ali Pasha moved his fleet westward toward the mouth of the Gulf of Patras to intercept the approaching ships of the Holy League. The clash that was to come would be the largest naval engagement since the Battle of Actium in 30 B.C. At dawn, on October 7, 1571, the two fleets met. Don Juan split his fleet into three sections: on the left (north), the Venetians under Agostin Barbarigo; on the right (south), Andrea Doria led the Genoese and Papal galleys; in the center, Don John commanded his flagship and galleys. Santa Cruz, with a force of 35 Spanish and Venetian ships, was held in reserve. He ordered his captains not to fire until “close enough to be splattered with Moslem blood.” The iron rams were removed from the Christian ships, as the plan was for boarding and close quarter fighting. Two of the large Venetian galleasses were towed into position in front of each of the three Christian divisions. Don Juan of Austria in battle, at the bow of the ship, painted by Juan Luna y Novicio Ali Pasha's fleet approached in a giant crescent formation, and seeing the opposing fleet, he also ordered his fleet split into three divisions. Ali Pasha himself took up the middle position opposite Don John, and charged forward to engage Don John's ships. The Venetian galleasses opened fire, and almost immediately eight Moslem ships were hit and began to sink. The Catholic galleys, their decks filled with soldiers, opened fire with arquebuses (1) and crossbows as the Moslem ships drew alongside. Ali Pasha's men attempted to board the Catholic ships, but the Spanish soldiers were experienced and well disciplined. Attack after attack was beaten back with deadly shots from their crossbows and arquebuses. Don John ordered the ship of Ali Pasha to be boarded and taken. Two times the boarding attack of the Spanish soldiers was beaten back, but on the third attempt they swarmed over the deck, now awash in blood, and took the ship. Ali Pasha was captured and beheaded on the spot (against the wishes of Don John), and the Battle Flag of the Ottoman Fleet came down off the mainmast. The head of the Turkish admiral was spitted on a long pike and raised on high for all the enemy ships to see. The Turkish attack in the center collapsed, and Don John sent his ships in pursuit of the retreating Turks, and also turned to aid in the battles raging on his flanks. Fresco of the Lepanto battle plan by Antonio Danti On the Catholic right, Uluch Ali and his pirates had broken through Doria's lines and managed to capture the flagship of the Knights of St. John. Santa Cruz, seeing what had happened, came up to the rescue, and Uluch Ali was forced to abandon his prize. The Genoese were in a fight for their lives with the remainder of Uluch Ali's ships, but after Don John had broken the enemy fleet in the center, he turned and came to the aid of the Genoese. The Algerian corsairs were finally overcome, and fled for their lives in full retreat. Admiral Mahomet Sirocco, commanding the Turkish right (on the Catholic left), sailed close to the rocks and shallows on the northern shore of the gulf and was able to outflank Barbarigo's Venetian galleys. Barbarigo's flagship was surrounded by eight enemy galleys, and the Catholic Admiral fell dead from Turkish arrows. His flagship was taken for a time, but aid finally arrived, and Sirocco's flagship galley was sunk. The Turkish admiral was yanked out of the water, and, like Ali Pasha, killed right on the spot. The engagement lasted, all total, around four to five hours. When it was all over, 8,000 men who had sailed with Don John were dead and another 16,000 wounded. The Turks and Uluch Ali's corsairs had over 25,000 dead, and untold thousands more wounded and captured. Over 12,000 Catholic galley slaves had also been rescued from the Moslems. The Venetian galleasses had taken a heavy toll on the Turkish fleet. It was a major victory for the Holy League and Christendom. At dawn, on October 7, 1571, as recorded in the Vatican Archives, Pope Pius V, accompanied by a group of the faithful, entered the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to pray the Rosary and ask Our Lady to intercede for a Catholic victory. The prayers continued in Rome as the Catholic and Moslem fleets battled far away in the Gulf of Lepanto. Later in the day, the Pope is said to have suddenly interrupted his business with some Cardinals, and looking up, cried out, Saints Peter, Roch, Justine and Mark ask Our Lady for the Catholic fleet - Paolo Veronese "A truce to business! Our great task at present is to thank God for the victory which He has just given the Catholic army." The Pope, of course, had no way of knowing that the battle was taking place and being decided on that very day. (No cell phones in 1571!) When news of the victory finally reached Europe, church bells rang out in cities all across the continent. The Battle of Lepanto was a decisive victory, with only 40 of the over 300 Moslem ships surviving the engagement. The Turkish force of some 75,000 men was in ruins. The battle, although a great victory for Catholic Europe, did not end the threat of invasion, or completely break the power of the Ottoman Turks. More naval and land battles would follow in the years to come, and Vienna itself would come under attack again, and yet again. Today, the long clash between Christendom and Islam is still evident in the political and ethnic geography of Europe, Africa, Byzantium, and north into Russia. The battle also extends, in varying degrees, throughout the Near and Far East, and the Islands of the Pacific as well. Many Christian knights, soldiers, and sailors have died defending Christendom against the onslaughts of Islam down through the centuries. Today, the borders of many European countries, Canada, and the United States are practically wide open, and the old enemy is invited to come in and make himself at home. And many 'Christians' in the West are just too busy enjoying their material prosperity to be bothered with unpleasant history. But the enemy has not forgotten history. He remembers it all too well, and he is still deadly serious about his religion. His goal over the years has not changed in the slightest, and he is very patient. The enemy within is now smiling, just biding his time. And long dead Christian knights, our ancestors in the Faith, are probably turning over in their graves right about now, trying desperately to shout out a warning. The final chapter, it seems, has yet to be written... The Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571 History | Home | Books | CDs | Search | Contact Us | Donate ©2002-2013 Tradition in Action, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Published on Monday, April 09, 2012 02:34 Written by Los Angeles TravelingMom Fields of gold and orange poppies swaying in the breeze are a spectacular sight in spring when California’s landscape blooms with a mosaic of colorful wildflowers and shrubs. Winter rains determine the intensity and duration of wildflowers such as poppies, lupine, cream cups and towering ocotillos. Round up the kids, pack a picnic and bring your camera. Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve Masses of poppies grow in this western Mojave Desert 15 miles west of Lancaster, a stone’s throw from Los Angeles. Other wildflowers include owl’s clover, goldfields, and the scented grape soda lupine found along the Tehachapi Vista Trail. Singing meadow larks and hawks break the silence of the quiet countryside. During the wildflower season, the nearby Jane S. Pinheiro Interpretive Center shows a short video, and offers free guided tours. Shaded picnic tables available. Seven miles west of the Poppy Reserve is the Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park, where a native Joshua Tree and Juniper Woodland are among the last standing in this habitat that once spread across the Antelope Valley. http://www.parks.ca.gov.Joshua Tree National Park A variety of flowers at different elevations brighten the park’s two deserts – the higher Mojave Desert and lower Colorado Desert. Wildflowers usually begin blooming in the lower elevations of the Pinto Basin and along the park’s south boundary around February, and at higher elevations in March and April. Where there are clusters of rocks, expect plenty of wildflowers. Seen throughout the park is the desert dandelion, a hearty flower that forms brilliant patches of gold across the landscape. The flowers are yellow and some have a red dot in the center. Look carefully, you may even see a desert tortoise snacking on one! For flower updates, call the Joshua Tree National Park 760-367-5500 or visit www.nps.gov/jotr .Anza-Borrego Desert State Park California’s largest state park, encompassing more than 600,000 acres, has one of the most spectacular wildflower displays in the west. Here you’ll find a kaleidoscope of flowers from tiny bursts of color and gold poppies to towering ocotillos sprouting fiery spines of scarlet blossoms. The canyons west of Borrego Springs usually have a pageant of wildflowers and colorful clumps of beavertail cactus that sprout hot pink flowers. At Desert Gardens, five miles north of the visitor center, park along the road and explore desert dandelion and desert pincushion blanketing the washes. For information, call the Wildflower Hotline at 760-767-4684 or visit http://www.parks.ca.gov. FYI: California Overland (www.californiaoverland.com) offers Wildflower Adventure Tours aboard open-air vehicles into Anza-Borrego Desert’s palm oases and canyons through early April.Santa Monica Mountains An easy jaunt from the city is Franklin Canyon Park, where peaceful trails meander through fields of blue and white flowers, poppies, sticky leaf monkey flowers, canyon sunflowers and purple nightshade. http://www.lamountains.com.Public gardens and nature centers For more travel stories, follow Mimi on Twitter @mimitravelz. - Situated on 22 acres, the Theodore Payne Foundation operates a California native plant nursery and offers classes but is also popular for its Wildflower Hill. A short walk leads to buckwheat, sage brush, white sage, sugarbrush, sticky monkey leaf flower, elegant clarkia, gilia and showy penstemon. For 30 years the nonprofit organization has provided a wildflower hotline for the latest flora blooms at 818-768-3533. The website’s Wildflower Hill link provides detailed monthly reports. Amenities: Picnic tables in the sycamore grove, restrooms. Located at 10459 Tuxford St. Sun Valley; www.theodorepayne.org. - Eaton Canyon Natural Area has trails brimming with black sage, honeysuckle and yellow pincushion. 1750 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena; http://www.ecnca.org/. - Placerita Canyon Nature Center: There’s usually a good showing of elderberries, golden currant and large bush poppy on the two-mile (one way) Canyon Trail. 19152 Placerita Canyon Road, Newhall; www.placerita.org. - Among Descanso Gardens’ many themed areas is the eight-acre California Garden, featuring native plants and the showy matilija poppy. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada-Flintridge; www.descansogardens.org. - Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden: Free admission third Tuesday of the month; 302 North Baldwin Ave., Arcadia; www.arboretum.org. - The Huntington: Free the first Thursday of every month with advance tickets; 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; www.huntington.org.

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If your child frequently gets colds, sinus infections and laryngitis you may have considered having his or her adenoids removed to see if the infections would lesson. A new study from the Netherlands says you might want to rethink that. According to Chantal Boonacker, who led the research team at the University Medical Center Utrecht, waiting has no bad consequences. The watchful waiting approach seems to be as effective as surgery. Adenoids are tissue that sit in the back of the nasal cavity and are above the roof of the mouth. You can see your tonsils when you look in the mirror and open your mouth, but you can't see your adenoids. Their purpose is to help fight infection in children and usually shrink and disappear by adulthood. Sometimes the tissue becomes enlarged. A surgery called an adenoidectomy may be performed in children with a chronic cough and cold. The study suggests that in children with respiratory problems, delaying the surgery may be a smart financial and medical decision. The research included 111 children, age one to six, who'd had an average of nine or ten respiratory infections - including colds and sinus infections - in the past year. Half of them were randomly chosen to have an adenoidectomy right away and the rest were assigned to a watchful waiting strategy over the next two years. In a report released in 2011, the study team found no difference in future respiratory infections or ear problems in kids who did or didn't have immediate adenoidectomy. Of the 57 kids initially allocated to watchful waiting, 23 went on to have their adenoids removed. Researchers also looked into the expense of the two medical approaches. Boonacker and her colleagues found that once surgery, drugs, doctors' appointments and family expenses were considered, immediate adenoidectomy was about one and a half times more expensive than waiting - at an average of $1,995 versus $1,216. The cost may be different in the U.S. There are other reasons a child may undergo an adenoidectomy, such as ear infections or airway obstruction. Boonacker cautioned that the financial and clinical findings might not apply in those cases. Many U.S. physicians prefer the watchful waiting approach before having a child undergo surgery when possible. The typical treatment for children with breathing problems would include antibiotics for infection or topical nasal steroids for allergies. In another study published alongside the new report, researchers from Montreal Children's Hospital in Canada found African American kids were at higher risk of having major respiratory complications after removal of their adenoids and tonsils. Boonacker said that in general, complication rates tied to adenoidectomy are low. The procedure typically lasts about 30 minutes and doesn't require an overnight stay. Boonacker would like parents to know about the study's findings to help them make good treatment choices if their child is battling recurring coughs and colds. "This decision can now be based on careful consideration of anticipated benefits and risks, personal preference and costs," she said. The study was published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

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When Madison Minton was six months old, her parents noticed that her breathing was frequently labored. Now in second grade, the child is on eight medications for asthma and other pulmonary ailments. “Madison’s situation is typical,” says Deborah Payne, Energy and Health Coordinator of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation. “People in Eastern Kentucky often don’t have the financial capacity to move away so they live with the consequences of being downwind of a coal processing plant. This means that Madison is exposed to high quantities of dust every single day.” Payne calls coal mining “one piece of the birth defect puzzle” and says that at every stage, coal is problematic, from its extraction, to its processing, transport, and eventual burning. “At each step there are negative health consequences for adults, children, and fetal life,” she continues. And it’s gotten worse. As mountaintop removal [MTR] has horned-in on underground mining, the health maladies of residents of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and southwest West Virginia—Appalachia—have begun to pile up. Here’s why. MTR requires the use of explosives to reach coal streams, a process that makes it even more perilous than underground mining. According to Physicians for Social Responsibility [PSR], MTR blasts release selenium, iron, and aluminum into the air. Selenium is particularly hazardous, PSR says, because it accumulates in tissue where it can cause circulatory, kidney, liver, and nerve damage. But that’s not all: Later, chemically treated liquids are used to wash the coal and, more often than not, this brew ends up in groundwater. Even more frightening, a group called Appalachian Mountain Advocates estimates that when the time comes to turn coal into electricity, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury -- in the form of coal ash -- gets spewed into the oxygen we breathe and the water we drink. Not surpringly, this hasn’t fazed the coal companies. In fact, by all accounts, MTR has been a boon for them, allowing the removal of two-and-a-half times more coal per hour than traditional underground mining. Already, the rush to extract -- four million tons a year is taken from each coal-rich county -- has cleared nearly 2200 square miles of forests, reduced 470 mountain summits to rubble, buried 2000 miles of streams, and damaged the ecosystems needed by fish and wildlife. Still, it is the human toll that is causing the lion’s share of brow furrowing. A first-of-its-kind study released in June 1011 -- “The Association Between Mountaintop Mining and Birth Defects Among Live Births in Appalachia, 1996-2003” -- brought six scientists together to analyze more than 1.8 million hospital birth records for the central portion of the region. Their findings should jolt both advocates of reproductive justice and those who purport to support the right to life. Indeed, the scientists were cautious, recognizing that most birth defects come from a mix of genetic and environmental factors. Nonetheless, in areas where MTR is used, health abnormalities -- including spina bifida, heart, lung, and genital malformations, cleft palate, hydrocephalus, and club feet -- greatly exceeded defects in non-MTR areas: 235 per 10,000 versus 144. The study also found that living in an area with mountaintop removal increases the chance of having a child with a circulatory defect by 181 percent. Adults, researchers say, also suffer. Numerous health surveys have confirmed that adults living in areas where there is mountaintop removal have significantly more illnesses than others of comparable age -- with high rates of diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, asthma, liver disease, hypertension, heart problems, and kidney failure. Factor in poverty -- which affects nearly a third of Appalachia’s residents -- and it’s hard not to despair. Despite these realities, scientists say that they still have a lot to learn about the risks associated with MTR. “We have not yet investigated the health of pregnant women,” says Dr. Michael Hendryx, Director of the West Virginia Rural Health Research Center. “We know that at certain times during pregnancy there is a greater risk of toxins passing through the placenta. That has to be studied. Throughout Appalachia we hear stories about kids developing cancer at early ages, having asthma and other serious respiratory symptoms, getting frequent rashes and skin blisters. We also hear about kids with digestive and dental problems, kids losing their adult teeth while they’re teenagers. If they drink water from a well that water is usually not treated and we suspect that it is tainted by chemicals that come off a mining site and then rot their teeth. Other people have different kinds of air-related problems. In some places people have to wipe a thick layer of coal dust-- it comes from the processing plants--off their furniture every day or two. The health problems vary depending on what people are exposed to -- but they need to be documented and then analyzed.” That said, some facts are incontrovertible: For one, coal-mining communities experience significantly more birth defects than communities where mining doesn’t occur. Secondly, adults living in MTR districts are, on average, sicker than adults who live elsewhere. So what to do? Coal is currently responsible for generating almost half of the electricity used in the US, something that is unlikely to change unless viable alternatives are developed. At the same time, the companies that see coal as a cheap and abundant fossil fuel need to be reminded that here is nothing cheap about human health. When I was a kid my grandmother frequently repeated a phrase that I found ridiculous: “If you have your health, you have everything.” Who would have imagined that, years later, that truism would resonate.

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Part of twisted.internet.protocol View Source View In Hierarchy Implements interfaces: twisted.internet.interfaces.IConsumer |Method||write||The producer will write data by calling this method.| |Method||registerProducer||Register to receive data from a producer.| |Method||unregisterProducer||Stop consuming data from a producer, without disconnecting.| Inherited from Adapter: |Method||__init__||Set my 'original' attribute to be the object I am adapting.| |Method||__conform__||I forward __conform__ to self.original if it has it, otherwise I simply return None.| |Method||isuper||Forward isuper to self.original| Register to receive data from a producer. This sets self to be a consumer for a producer. When this object runs out of data (as when a send(2) call on a socket succeeds in moving the last data from a userspace buffer into a kernelspace buffer), it will ask the producer to resumeProducing(). resumeProducing will be called once each time data pauseProducingwill be called whenever the write buffer fills up and resumeProducingwill only be called when it empties. |Parameters||producer|| (type: |

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Classifying Critical Points So let’s say we’ve got a critical point of a multivariable function . That is, a point where the differential vanishes. We want something like the second derivative test that might tell us more about the behavior of the function near that point, and to identify (some) local maxima and minima. We’ll assume here that is twice continuously differentiable in some region around . The analogue of the second derivative for multivariable functions is the second differential . This function assigns to every point a bilinear function of two displacement vectors and , and it measures the rate at which the directional derivative in the direction of is changing as we move in the direction of . That is, If we choose coordinates on given by an orthonormal basis , we can write the second differential in terms of coordinates This matrix is often called the “Hessian” of at the point . As I said above, this is a bilinear form. Further, Clairaut’s theorem tells us that it’s a symmetric form. Then the spectral theorem tells us that we can find an orthonormal basis with respect to which the Hessian is actually diagonal, and the diagonal entries are the eigenvalues of the matrix. So let’s go back and assume we’re working with such a basis. This means that our second partial derivatives are particularly simple. We find that for we have and for , the second partial derivative is an eigenvalue which we can assume (without loss of generality) are nondecreasing. That is, . Now, if all of these eigenvalues are positive at a critical point , then the Hessian is positive-definite. That is, given any direction we have . On the other hand, if all of the eigenvalues are negative, the Hessian is negative definite; given any direction we have . In the former case, we’ll find that has a local minimum in a neighborhood of , and in the latter case we’ll find that has a local maximum there. If some eigenvalues are negative and others are positive, then the function has a mixed behavior at we’ll call a “saddle” (sketch the graph of near to see why). And if any eigenvalues are zero, all sorts of weird things can happen, though at least if we can find one positive and one negative eigenvalue we know that the critical point can’t be a local extremum. We remember that the determinant of a diagonal matrix is the product of its eigenvalues, so if the determinant of the Hessian is nonzero then either we have a local maximum, we have a local minimum, or we have some form of well-behaved saddle. These behaviors we call “generic” critical points, since if we “wiggle” the function a bit (while maintaining a critical point at ) the Hessian determinant will stay nonzero. If the Hessian determinant is zero, wiggling the function a little will make it nonzero, and so this sort of critical point is not generic. This is the sort of unstable situation analogous to a failure of the second derivative test. Unfortunately, the analogy doesn’t extent, in that the sign of the Hessian determinant isn’t instantly meaningful. In two dimensions a positive determinant means both eigenvalues have the same sign — denoting a local maximum or a local minimum — while a negative determinant denotes eigenvalues of different signs — denoting a saddle. This much is included in multivariable calculus courses, although usually without a clear explanation why it works. So, given a direction vector so that , then since is in , there will be some neighborhood of so that for all . In particular, there will be some range of so that . For any such point we can use Taylor’s theorem with to tell us that for some . And from this we see that for every so that . A similar argument shows that if then for any near in the direction of . Now if the Hessian is positive-definite then every direction from gives us , and so every point near satisfies . If the Hessian is negative-definite, then every point near satisfies . And if the Hessian has both positive and negative eigenvalues then within any neighborhood we can find some directions in which and some in which .

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The humble Grape (pl. Grapes, adj Grape-like, Grape-ish, Grape-esque) is a small, succulent fruit famous for being the primary ingredient in most wines, beers and spirits, and also enjoys the distinction of being the only known vertibrate fruit. It comes in three basic flavours: white, purpley, and wrath. Grapes are also known to be the most flirtacious of all fruits, forming hybrid babies with other foods, leading to children that nobody really likes. Because of this, the grape family is very large. Some well-known distant relatives are the Grapefruit, Grapenut, Grapeshot, Tentacle Grape, The Grape White Shark, The Grape Wall of China, and Kevin Bacon. Currently the Grape Family is very influential, owning large parts of the French Countryside, where they form countless offspring to use in their cannabalistic wine. A grape once killed my father, so I adopted a new one. We set up grape defenses (land mines, machine guns, Nancy Pelosi, the standard) and were never bothered again. edit How is am, the grape? Glad you asked. Grapes grow on trees, where they are harvested by French peasants and trained monkeys (who are also French), who knock the grapes out of the trees with long sticks. The grapes are then de-spined obliterated and bottled, then depending on the size and quality of the grape, are sent to an appropriate alcoholic beverage factory. The most juiciest, purpliest grapes are made into wine, whereas the scraggliest runty ones go to the white cider distillery. The now drinkable grapes are consumed by the buyer. The grapes which are not worthy to be drunk are poured on French blouses to freshen them up. Some people will tell you that Grapes grow off of vines, but this is simply a cruel stereotype that emerged in the era of segregation. They do, in fact, grow off of trees. edit Grape Apes The enigma of this spined fruit made it an obvious potential candidate for fulfilling man's ageless dream of crossing small fruit with primates. Swiss scientists managed to successfully splice grape DNA with that of the greater mountain gorilla in the year of our Lord 1992, using test tubes and stuff like that. The experiment was a great success with Dr Herzkoff Bork, the head geneticist on the project, declaring Grape Apes to be "the juiciest and purpleyest monkeys I ever ate". The Grape Family was reluctant at first to include this test-tube relative into their ranks, but after many wacky hijinx together thwarting Baron Von Hatekill's evil plans and saving christmas, they've become fast friends. Baron Von Hatekill, however, was not amused, and has since sworn to "Destroy those meddling Grapes!". edit Grape Nuts The grape is a fruit, I already said that, but in 1974 the grape was temporarily reclassified as a nut by the FDA, in order to support the Vietnam war effort. This is because nuts are harder than fruits and don't go rotten as quickly, making them much more suitable for intercontinental transportation and thereby much easier to deliver to desperate grape-less troops on the front lines. When the war was over, grapes were reclassified as fruit again. This specific relative of the Grape Family was welcomed into the family with open arms. They at first were a model citizen, getting amazing grades in high school, helping old Grapes across the street, and generally being nice. However, they were never the same after Vietnam. They lost an arm, en eye, and, most importantly, they lost hope. They suffered alienation after returning, and, not able to get a job, turned to alchohol and drugs to sate their foracious apetite for adventures that had long since died. Yes, things looked grim for Grape Nut. However, through many power ballads and years of withdrawl, they managed to pull through and become a model Grape again. In 1999, Grape Nut released a solo album thanking his friends and family for standing by him. edit Health Risks Consumption of red grapes has been linked with a degenerative nerve disease colloquially known as "Red Grape Disease". Recent studies have shown that eating a mere handful of red grapes a day can greatly increase the risk of developing red grape disease. Like many seedless vertibrates, the red grape contains a spine, but no seeds. Recent studies suggest that red grape disease may be caused by the reproductive process of red grapes, a phenomenon which red grape expert Dr. Roger Lodge describes as "a confusing and terrible process that, frankly, scares the hell out of me". Many accidents related to grapes can be attributed to the little-known but well-established fact that at least one grape in every bunch is evil and/or vengeful. edit The Grape in Popular Culture In the 1975 blockbuster Jaws, Cap'n Quint initially believes the titular great white shark to be "some kind of giant grape". It has been noted that people of the African descent are naturally attracted to grape flavored products such as purple drink. In the Seinfeld episode The Jockstrap, Jerry and George compete to see who can go the longest without shaving. Jerry wins by default when George chokes to death on a grape. John Williams is a famous grape aficionado, and frequently attends film premieres with his face painted purple to show his love for the fruit. Rosie O'Donnell, a revered grape lover, Once threw a ten hour long "I'm Ape For Grape" parade in which he "dressed" as a large gorilla in full Greek toga regalia, being fed bunches of grapes in a golden bath tub by lesbian slaves wearing Ann Coulter masks. The party was said to be the most vile monstrosity and abuse of power ever known to man and even made your mom run crying into the arms of evil sex villain, Tila Tequila. It lasted from 11 PM to 9 AM from June 13th to 14th 2008. |Commonly Mistaken for Fruit|

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PowerPoint, and other presentation tools like it, is either the blessing or bane of most professors' daily work. As a tool to project content, it has often been misused by presenters in a hurry or too uninformed of its features to use it properly. On the other hand, it can be very successful when used well. PowerPoint has its detractors, though. Every article that I reviewed for this blog posting referenced Edward Tufte's 2003 article on the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, and talked about his great dislike for bullet points, linear presentations, and simplistic presentations. Tufte even called PowerPoint "content vacuous". There are other PowerPoint detractors in addition to Tufte. David Brier and Kaye Vickery, in a 2009 articled titled "Perception and Use of PowerPoint at Library Instruction Conferences" (References & User Services Quarterly) listed their 5 top characteristics of bad PowerPoint presentations: 1. Speaker reads slides to audience 2. Overuse of text on slide 3. Slides use full sentences and paragraphs instead of bullet points 4. Text is too small to be read 5. Slides are hard to see because of color choices Many of us have sat through PowerPoint presentations that were difficult to endure, for these reasons and many more. But PowerPoint, used well, can be quite effective in transmitting important content to listeners. Patricia Nemec and Anne Sullivan Soydan, in the 2008 Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal (The Medium Isn't the Message), write that PowerPoint has two main functions. First, it is a visual aide supplemented by a spoken lecture, and second, it is a set of trainer notes that are a useful organizer and pacing tool. Not only is PowerPoint good as a tool for presenters, it also can help listeners learn and remember better. Jo Mackiewicz, in her 2009 article Comparing PowerPoint Experts' and University Students' Opinions About PowerPoint Presentations (Journal of Technical Writing and Communication), associates Dual Coding Theory with PowerPoint, saying that PowerPoint is uniquely positioned to offer both verbal and visual content, thus activating both processing systems and enhancing memory. So if PowerPoint can be used well, how can we become better designers and presenters? One of the greatest minds on the correct use of PowerPoint is Jean-Luc Doumont. In his 2009 book, Trees, Maps, and Theorems: Effective Communication for Rational Minds, he spells out clearly how to design and present excellent PowerPoint presentations. I will borrow liberally from his work as I explain how to both design and organize slides and deliver presentations. Good PowerPoint Slide Organization Jean Luc Doumont says that presentations should answer five questions -- what, when, why, who, and where. With a focus on the audience, presenters should be concentrating on what the listeners will be able to do after attending the presentation, not on the next slide. Doumont recommends this slide organization -- title, attention- getter, preview slide, content, transition, content, conclusion, questions. The title slide should do just that -- state the title and author's name. Quickly following, the attention-getter slide is the one that really makes the very first impression on listeners and, obviously, gets their attention. Using a statement, question, anecdote, analogy, or visual, Doumont says that it also serves as an advance organizer, telling the listeners quickly what to expect from the presentation topic and getting them ready to learn. The preview slide is very important; this contains the "table of contents" or outline of the presentation. This tells listeners how long the presentation will be and how many sections it will include. The preview slide can also be used again as a transition slide throughout the presentation; whenever a new section is begun, show the preview slide with the completed sections grayed out. This offers listeners a visual indicator of progress and tells them what is left in the presentation. The conclusion slide should concisely sum up the presentation, and the questions slide need not say "Questions" -- it could just contain an organizational logo, or some other symbol, and the presenter can just ask for questions. Effective Slide Design Doumont correctly says that poorly-designed slides reflect upon the speaker and compete with the speaker for the audience's attention. Many times we place too much text on the slide, and then the listener cannot both read and listen to the text read out loud at the same time (Dual Coding again -- confusion of processing systems.) Doumont says that if you aren't going to mention it, don't put it on your slide. He says speakers make three common mistakes: 1. Creating slides for themselves as memory aides with often cryptic text 2. Making slides to double as a written report 3. Copying text to slides without adapting it to slide format Doumont says that opening sentences like "Hello My Name Is" or "I am going to talk about fail to appeal to the audience because they lack a compelling purpose and are not motivating. Instead, he says to start with a rationale and tell listeners immediately about the purpose of the presentation. He says that listeners want to know why they should listen at all, and thus we should tell them -- and that we should talk about the topic (The system has three advantages...), and not about the speaker (I will present three advantages...). Doumont recommends standing either to the left or right of the screen, whatever works with your right or left hand or how you have to advance the slides. Face the audience with shoulders, hips, and feet, and point to the slide with the hand closest to the screen. Project your voice to the back of the room, and elaborate on the slide, never reading the text to listeners who can read it themselves. Maintain eye contact with listeners as you speak. This means you should know your presentation material well enough that you don't have to look each time you make a slide transition -- slides should not be used as visual prompts. When you make a transition to a new section, use the preview slide, but don't read it; let it visually tell the listener what's been done and what's next. At the closing, sum up the presentation both visually and verbally, and then you're ready for questions. PowerPoint is like many tools -- it is what you make of it. By following these guidelines, you can make a credible, successful presentation that will be listened to and remembered. You don't have to be an advanced PowerPoint user to use it well -- just one who follows good, solid guidelines and who cares more about what the listeners should get from the presentation than just getting through all the slides.

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By Mike Stark, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY Hey, Great Salt Lake: Your shoreline is showing. All summer and into the fall, warm temperatures kept evaporation humming, drawing down the lake to near-record low levels and exposing more shore than normal. But the shrinking appears finally to have stopped. Wallace Gwynn, of the Utah Geological Survey, says the current lake level — measured at 4,194 feet above sea level — seems to have bottomed out about 6 feet below normal. "I don't think we're going to go a lot lower than this," Gwynn said. The lake hasn't been this low since the early 1970s. Some speculated it might slip past the record low of 4,191.35 feet set in 1963. But cooler temperatures this fall are finally bringing the shrinking to a stop. That's welcome news to boaters driven away by shallow waters. "Six years ago, when I arrived as park manager, we had 70 sailboats in the marina," said Ron Taylor, who runs Antelope Island State Park in the southern part of the lake. "Now we have two." The lake has a reputation for being cyclical fluctuations, rising and falling at the whims of temperature, rainfall and other factors. In the 1960s and 1970s, many worried the lake would completely dry up. In the 1980s, more than $60 million was spent on gigantic pumps, which for two years funneled water into the desert west of the lake after severe floods along the shoreline. By 2002 and 2003, the lake shrank again to levels not seen in years. Like many lakes, the Great Salt Lake collects water from mountain rain and snow. But, unlike most, the Great Salt Lake has no drain and relies on evaporation to help regulate its levels. "It's pretty predictable," Taylor said. Not only was the evaporation spurred on by warmer temperatures during the summer but much of the runoff found its way into the soil before it ever reached the lake. When the year started, there wasn't much moisture in the first 2 feet of soil in some places around the lake, Gwynn said. That soil acts as a sponge for water that runs on top of it. "If we're trying to fill up the first 2 feet, that takes a lot of water," Gwynn said. There's another factor at play, too, said Dan Bedford, an associate geography professor at Weber State University who studies the lake: A portion of the fresh water that used to flow to the lake is now diverted for human uses. Scientists roughly estimate that the Great Salt Lake is typically about 5 feet lower than it would be if received all of the naturally flowing water, Bedford said. With another million or so people expected to arrive along the Wasatch Front — the urban area in the north-central part of Utah — in the coming decades, that strain on the lake's water supply is expected to deepen. That's not to mention predictions of warmer temperatures and longer droughts for portions of the West, including Utah. "The trend certainly suggests there's likely to be less water available for the lake in the future unless we're careful about it," Bedford said. Lower lake levels affect more than boaters and the brine shrimp industry, which scoops the tiny creatures out of the water for sale as fish food and other products. Exposed shorelines offer easier access for predators such as foxes and coyotes to reach island bird populations, Bedford said. Lake levels also play an important role in the wetlands around the lake that provide habitat for millions of birds each year. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

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The debate over the military's women in combat exclusion was reignited by a 2011 government study calling for more diversity in the armed services. Allowing women in combat positions would be a reversal of a Pentagon policy adopted in 1994. The Military Leadership Diversity Commission advocated for the military to end its policy restriction on women in combat after finding white males make up a disproportionate share of the upper echelons of the armed services. The report described the policy as an "institutional barrier" to women that "can affect their ability to reach the senior leadership ranks, particularly in the officer corps." Panel Advocates Women in Combat White males accounted for 77 percent of the senior officers on active duty in 2008, according to the commission. The percentage of white males far outpaced the portion of black officers active duty, who accounted for 8 percent, Hispanics, who made up 5 percent, and Asians, who made up 4 percent. In addition, the commission reported, women held only 16 percent of senior office positions. "The armed forces have not yet succeeded in developing a continuing stream of leaders who are as diverse as the nation they serve," the commission wrote. "Racial/ethnic minorities and women still lag behind non-Hispanic white men in terms of representative percentage of military leadership positions held." Why Males Dominate Military Brass The Diversity Commission suggested one reason white males have dominated the ranks of military brass is that the armed services do not do an adequate job of educating servicemen and servicewomen about the promotion process early in their careers. "Multiple occasions for preparation can help servicemembers recognize career-enhancing opportunities and make choices that further their professional and personal goals," the commission advocated. A more obvious reason white males make up such a large portion of active-duty officers is the ban on women in combat, which the commission recommends putting to an end. "The services must remove institutional barriers in order to open traditionally closed doors, especially those relating to assignments -- both the initial career field assignment and subsequent assignments to key positions," the report said. "An important step in this direction is that DoD (Department of Defense) and the services eliminate combat exclusion policies for women ..." About the Ban on Women in Combat The 1994 ban on women in combat directs that "women shall be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground." The policy states that "direct ground combat takes place well forward on the battlefield."

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« Back to Pet Talk Cancer and Your Pets: What You Need to Know Almost everyone has known a friend or loved one who has been affected by cancer. While cancer in humans is definitely prevalent, our pets are also afflicted with this disease. According to Dr. Heather Wilson, assistant professor of oncology at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, 50 percent of all dogs and 30 percent of all cats over the age of 10 will be diagnosed with some form of Types of cancers most common in dogs include: lymphoma (tumor of the lymph nodes), mast cell tumors (skin tumors), and osteosarcoma (tumor of the bones). Some common types of cancer in cats are: lymphoma, squamous cell carcinoma (which affects the head, neck and mouth), and vaccine associated sarcomas. "Cats are not nearly as prone to cancer as dogs, but one of the most common cancers in cats comes from vaccine injection sites," notes Wilson. "While you can pick and choose some vaccinations, rabies vaccinations are required by law. However, there is a non-adjuvanted rabies vaccine for cats that is less irritating, thus less likely to cause cancer and is available at most The type of cancer your pet has can also be closely associated with its breed. In dogs, lymphoma is most common in Golden Retrievers, Boxers, and Labs. Mast cell tumors are common in dogs with short noses such as boxers, pugs, and bulldogs. Large breed dogs such as Rottweilers and Great Danes are more prone to "There is very little distinction across breeds when it comes to cancer in cats," states Wilson. "However, cancer most commonly affects the Siamese breed of cats." Once your veterinarian has diagnosed your pet with cancer you will then want to find a veterinary oncologist in your area that specializes in your pet's specific cancer. "There are veterinary oncologists that specialize in medical oncology and radiation oncology. There are also surgeons that specialize in surgical oncology," explains Wilson. "The best way to find a medical oncologist in your area is to go to the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) website at Treatment options range from chemotherapy, surgery, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy and are administered depending on the type and severity of the cancer. "Chemotherapy is the number one treatment option for animals with lymphoma," says Wilson."While cure rates in dogs vary greatly with the type of cancer, overall response rates for dogs with lymphoma treated with the CHOP chemotherapy protocol (a multidrug protocol given weekly over 19 weeks) is greater than 80 Response rates for dogs with mast cell tumors varies depending on the grade, but with complete surgical excision plus radiation for low grade tumors the control rates is often greater than 80 percent at three years. "Unfortunately, the majority of dogs with osteosarcoma and metastatic disease do not achieve a cure," states Wilson. "Also, most cancers in cats are also very hard to cure. When we do achieve remission in cats with vaccine associated sarcomas, they often live 18-24 months before they have a recurrence." Cost is another important thing to consider when deciding on the treatment of an animal for cancer. While costs range widely, the average cost for a surgery is $2,000-$3000; Chemotherapy regimen is $1,200-$3,000, and radiation averages $3,000. "As cost is prohibitive to some families, a good option may be to enter your pet into a clinical trial if possible," notes Wilson. "Many of these trials have a financial incentive such as a free treatment regimen, and they also help with future research for both veterinary and human oncology." For more information on clinical trials at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine, go to vetmed.tamu.edu/clinical-trials. While cancer in pets can be extremely stressful for owners, the good news is that with the amount of resources and specialists that are now available to treat cancer in pets, owners now have the power to make informed and responsible decisions to get their beloved pets through this illness. About Pet Talk Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the Web at http://tamunews.tamu.edu/. Suggestions for future topics may be directed to email@example.com Angela G. Clendenin Director, Communications & Public Relations Ofc - (979) 862-2675 Cell - (979) 739-5718 ↑ Back to Top « Back to Pet Talk

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Pope lived during a period of intense and varied scientific activities — the development of the microscope, and Newton's formulation of a theory explaining the gravitational basis of the universe, for example — which revealed a great deal about the nature of things: for Pope, these discoveries seemed to provide scientific corroboration for a crucially important concept which he expressed in various ways, but which can be expressed as the fundamentally conservative notion that the physical universe itself, and man's place in it, are aspects of an orderly Divine scheme of things which, though it is too vast for the merely human intellect to comprehend, is nevertheless both majestic and meaningful. Pope's acceptance of this concept, and the ways in which he managed to incorporate it into his work, are revealing: contemporary scientific discoveries, that is, seemed to him to provide acceptable answers to questions which had previously been matters of religious faith or philosophical belief. With what questions does he seem to have concerned himself most? Much more so than darker and more sceptical figures like Swift or Johnson (who were in any case much more dubious about the validity of the very notion of scientific "progress") Pope seems to have regarded contemporary scientific and technological advances — those, at any rate, which could be incorporated into his belief-system — as being somehow reassuring. Incorporated in the Victorian Web July 2000

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Barbara Heath Land Race – 2012 By the time Barbara Heath visited Horsham, the town and the surrounding Wimmera District of Western Victoria were in the process of recovering from a decade-long drought. To inform her work, which was initially to address issues of drought, Heath held a number of planned and fortuitous conversations with the assistance of Horsham Regional Art Gallery staff, which came to focus on the changes in agricultural practices in the area. The list of people with whom Heath consulted is lengthy, but Dr Bob Redden, curator Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection of the Grains Innovation Park became her main contact. In an email of August 2011, Dr Redden wrote to Heath: ‘Now with unprecedented population levels and growth, there is a risk of disconnect and taking food supply for granted, even with climate change. Humans will need to change if they wish to continue their increasing diverse interests, but will need to prioritise agricultural research, better understanding our available genetic resources, plant growth and development, and imaginative paths to harnessing science and truly earn the title ‘Homo sapiens’. Land race is a direct response to the urgency of maintaining biodiversity. Agriculture today requires economies of scale that change the social landscape and limit population diversity. This results in the erasure of many small communities, loss of connection to the past and cultural loss. Dr Redden explained his department’s work to ensure plant gene diversity by sourcing and saving seed from land race crops. ‘Land race’ is the term used to describe heritage seed varieties now being displaced by International Seed Uniformity Standards. Heath’s Land Race series shows distinct levels, from biodiversity in the soils to the patterns of farming practices above. Each Land Race also features a remnant plant species that reaches up and through the tractor track patterns: briar, apple and aloe. There are numerous hero shots (one above) and details prepared (below), we will wait for the show to get under way and publicise a little later. The preliminary research is in an earlier blog post – click here. 2 Responses »

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In June every year, the US celebrates Father’s Day to honor fathers, who take care of their families and contribute so much for their growth. Father’s Day was first celebrated in 1910 in Spokane, Washington, after the prevailing efforts of a young girl named Sonora Dodd. Sonora was raised by her father alone after her mother died. When Sonora heard a sermon on Mother’s Day, this young girl thought fathers too deserve to be recognized for their efforts and that a day should be declared as Father’s Day in their honor. So, it all started because one little girl thought, it is important to celebrate fathers efforts and spread across the world. Fathers contribute so much in the lives of their children and family. With guidance from father, young kids learn to gain strength in facing the world to reach their best. Sometimes it may be difficult to appreciate father’s role in raising a family, how despite working so hard and not keeping much to himself, an ordinary father gives rise to such great sons and daughters? What a great father Karam Chand Gandhi must have been to present the nation and the world, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who become the Father of the Nation? He was a loving father when the child was unable to grasp right from wrong, he made him realize what truth is and elevated him to reach the heights of humanity. Fathers of empathy with their willingness to train their children, guide them, mentor them and pay the ultimate price till the end, of breathing the last breath and reaching Him. When the baby is taking its first steps, father is elated, and when the baby utters the first words, dada or papa or nana or baaba, father’s happiness has no bounds. It is a great thing to be a father, because that is when they see their own creation in flesh and blood and love them immensely. Sometimes, it is also the child that teaches a mom or a dad. When the darling child is sleeping in the arms of its papa, it will be too difficult for the father to remove them off of their chest and rest them on the bed or crib. They wait until the child is so sound asleep that it will not wake up and get disturbed. Child teaches them to be patient and more understanding of the needs of their offspring. When a child is ill with fever or wheezing, fathers rush them to the doctor, give them needed care and may just carry them in arms all night long, without the worrying about having to attend meetings the next day or teach or attend the office or design bridges and have them constructed or do whatever that they do for their living. He does all this and also takes care of the home. When the mom is ill, it is once again father to the rescue, in single families. He kneads flour, makes bread, cooks meals, makes the home spic and span, and yet he attends to his work without even so much as a complaint, especially when the kids are young. This kind father does not remain young and able all the while. He, the invincible hero in the eyes of his kids, does grow old. He reaches his time, and kids should remember, it is not always possible for the dad to be active and alert as always. He might grow old, unable to recognize even his own kids, and may become dependent on others for every little thing. Like a cycle, life goes on and the grand child develops a bond with the grand dad, and reaches a full circle. I remember listening to my dad when he spoke, “talking to others is like a penance”. It is not right to raise voice and lose temper with parents, especially to mom. If one cannot control their temper because the other person is testing their nerves, they have to remember their temper should not be affected by others but by their own thinking. One can control their own thinking and not lose balance, because it is ones own attitude that one can control. He would always tell us the saying from Swamy Dayanand Saraswathi ji, “Satyam bruyath, Priyam bruyath; Na bruyath satyam apriyam”. When I think about talking in a pleasing manner, as the sayings of the Swamy Dayanand Saraswathi ji, I recall in May 2012, there was a special visit by a very well known singer to Houston, TX, Dr. Ghazal Srinivas. He presented Houstonians with his melodious music that was almost divine in nature. Dr. Ghazal Srinivas garu was singing with a message, “Devalayo Rakshati, Rakshitah,” meaning ‘Temples protect, when protected’. He sang many compositions about the theme, but the best part of it was the song about Dad. Dad is not given his due love either in families or in culture and society, mother taking that place! However, dad’s place is irreplaceable especially in guiding and making the children socially responsible and raising them as good citizens. When a dad is raising the baby into the air and holding it, he is not only raising the baby but also raising it above himself, so he can be a greater person than himself. When Dr. Ghazal Srinivas was singing this song, I was so much touched that one of the member from the audience asked me if I remembered my dad. I said, “yes indeed”. It was just this year in February that my father reached the Divine Father, and until I heard that song, I never realized that when the parents are raising the child into the air and holding them, it is because they want to see their child in higher position than themselves. It was an eye opener regarding the sentiments about father. The amount of happines Dr. Ghazal Srinivas was showing was greatest when he let his daughter take the stage and present us with her melody. He is a proud father, training his daughter to reach heights with a sound foundation of classical music. He stands tall as an exemplar to this society. Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, who are doing their best! - Uma Pochampally

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MIT professor’s book digs into the eclectic, textually linked reading choices of people in medieval London. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Following the 1997 creation of the first laser to emit pulsed beams of atoms, MIT researchers report in the May 16 online version of Science that they have now made a continuous source of coherent atoms. This work paves the way for a laser that emits a continuous stream of atoms. MIT physicists led by physics professor Wolfgang Ketterle (who shared the 2001 Nobel prize in physics) created the first atom laser. A long-sought goal in physics, the atom laser emitted atoms, similar in concept to the way an optical laser emits light. "I am amazed at the rapid progress in the field," Ketterle said. "A continuous source of Bose-Einstein condensate is just one of many recent advances." Because the atom laser operates in an ultra-high vacuum, it may never be as ubiquitous as optical lasers. But, like its predecessor, the pulsed atom laser, a continuous-stream atom laser may someday be used for a variety of applications in fundamental physics. It could be used to directly deposit atoms onto computer chips, and improve the precision and accuracy of atomic clocks and gyroscopes. It could aid in precision measurements of fundamental constants, atom optics and interferometry. A continuous stream laser could do all of these things better than a pulsed atomic laser, said co-author Ananth P. Chikkatur , a physics graduate student at MIT. "Similar to the optical laser revolution, a continuous stream atom laser might be useful for more things than a pulsed laser," he said. In addition to Ketterle and Chikkatur, authors include MIT graduate students Yong-Il Shin and Aaron E. Leanhardt; David F. Kielpinski, postdoctoral fellow in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE); physics senior Edem Tsikata; MIT affiliate Todd L. Gustavson; and David E. Pritchard, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and a member of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms and the RLE. A NEW FORM OF MATTER An important step toward the first atom laser was the creation of a new form of matter - the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). BEC forms at temperatures around one millionth of a degree Kelvin, a million times colder than interstellar space. Ketterle's group had developed novel cooling techniques that were key to the observation of BEC in 1995, first by a group at the University of Colorado at Boulder, then a few months later by Ketterle at MIT. It was for this achievement that researchers from both institutions were honored with the Nobel prize last year. Ketterle and his research team managed to merge a bunch of atoms into what he calls a single matter-wave, and then used fluctuating magnetic fields to shape the matter-wave into a beam much like a laser. To test the coherence of a BEC, the researchers generated two separate matter-waves, made them overlap and photographed a so-called "interference pattern" that only can be created by coherent waves. The researchers then had proof that they had created the first atom laser. Since 1995, all atom lasers and BEC have been produced in a pulsed manner, emitting individual pulses of atoms several times per minute. Until now, little progress has been made toward a continuous BEC source. While it took about six months to create a continuous optical laser after the first pulsed optical laser was produced in 1960, the much more technically challenging continuous source of coherent atoms has taken seven years since Ketterle and colleagues first observed BEC in 1995. A NEW CHALLENGE Creating a continuous BEC source involved three steps: building a chamber where the condensate could be stored in an optical trap, moving the fresh condensate and merging the new condensate with the existing condensate stored in the optical trap. (The same researchers first developed an optical trap for BECs in 1998.) The researchers built an apparatus containing two vacuum chambers: a production chamber where the condensate is produced and a "science chamber" around 30 centimeters away, where the condensate is stored. The condensate in the science chamber had to be protected from laser light, which was necessary to produce a fresh condensate, and also from hot atoms. This required great precision, because a single laser-cooled atom has enough energy to knock thousands of atoms out of the condensate. In addition, they used an optical trap as the reservoir trap, which is insensitive to the magnetic fields used for cooling atoms into a BEC. The researchers also needed to figure out how to move the fresh condensate - chilled to astronomically low temperatures - from the production chamber to the science chamber without heating them up. This was accomplished using optical tweezers - a focused laser light beam that traps the condensate. Finally, to merge the new condensate with the existing condensate in the science chamber, they moved the new condensate in the tweezers into the science chamber by merging the condensates together. A BUCKET OF ATOMS If the pulsed atom laser is like a faucet that drips, Chikkatur says the new innovations create a sort of bucket that collects the drips without wasting or changing the condensate too dramatically by heating it. This way, a reservoir of condensate is always on hand to replenish an atom laser. The condensate pulses are like a dripping faucet, where the drops are analogous to the pulsed BEC production. "We have now implemented a bucket (our reservoir trap), where we collect these drips to have continuous source of water (BEC)," Chikkatur said. "Although we did not demonstrate this, if we poke a hole in this bucket, we will have a steady stream of water. This hole would be an outcoupling technique from which we can produce a continuous atom laser output. "The big achievement here is that we have invented the bucket, which can store atoms continuously and also makes sure that the drips of water do not cause a lot of splashing (heating of BECs)," he said. The next step would be to improve the number of atoms in the source, perhaps by implementing a large-volume optical trap. Another important step would be to demonstrate a phase-coherent condensate merger using a matter wave amplification technique pioneered by the MIT group and a group in Japan, he said. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, the Packard Foundation and NASA.

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Nova Scotia is one of Canada’s three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province of the four in Atlantic Canada. Located almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of 55,284 square kilometres (21,300 sq mi), including Cape Breton and some 3,800 coastal islands. As of 2011, the population was 921,727, making Nova Scotia the second-most-densely populated province in Canada. Nova Scotia was already home to the Mi’kmaq people when French colonists established Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the first permanent European settlement in North America north of Florida in 1605. Almost one hundred and fifty years later, the first English and German settlers arrived with the founding of Halifax (1749). The first Scottish migration was on the Hector (1773) and then the first Black migration happened after the American Revolution (1783). Despite the diversity of the cultural heritage of Nova Scotia, much of the twentieth-century tourism efforts focused primarily on all things Scottish. Many recent tourism efforts embrace and showcase Nova Scotia’s diversity. In 1867 Nova Scotia was one of the three founding provinces of the Canadian Confederation.

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Forth Lesson 0 Why Bother? Forth is weird compared to most popular computer languages. Until you learn how, it is hard to read because it is not based on the syntax of algebraic expressions. But it is worth learning because a running Forth system gives you an extraordinary degree of low-level control over the system. Unlike most other programming environments that put up walls to hide or block access to "unauthorized" things, Forth makes it easy to get at anything, at any level from low to high. Forth syntax Here is syntactically-valid line of Forth code: this is a test 123 456 Don't try to guess what it does; in fact it doesn't necessarily actually work, because some of the symbols might not be defined. But it is syntactically valid. It consists of 6 words, "this" "is" "a" "test" "123" "456". Words are separated by white space - spaces, tabs, and newlines. In most cases, spaces and newlines are the same. Another syntactically valid line: asdf foo jello @W#$%^,T/%$ 1a2qw2 gibbet That's 6 words. One of them is pretty strange, consisting mostly of punctuation, but it is a word nevertheless. Any string of printing characters is a word, though most Forth implementations limit valid word names to 31 or fewer characters. Left to right execution The Forth interpreter is very simple. It parses the next word (i.e. it skips whitespace, then collects characters until it sees another whitespace character) and executes it. That is it in a nutshell. So if you are trying to understand a Forth program in detail, you have to look at each word in turn and work out what it does. That sounds simple, but it will trip you up if you insist on looking for algebra. Just go left to right, one word at a time. With practice, you will learn enough of the Forth vocabulary (the meanings of standard words) so that you can see what is going on at a glance, without having to puzzle out each individual word. It is just like learning to read - it is tedious until you get the basic vocabulary down, then it is easy. Thus endeth the lesson.

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Enology - n. :a science that deals with wine and wine making The V&E Department combines the sciences of viticulture and enology in a single research and teaching unit that encompasses all of the scientific disciplines that impact grape growing and winemaking. For over one hundred years the University of California has maintained an active and productive program in research and education in viticulture and enology. The continuing excellence of the Department has enabled California growers and vintners to develop practices that have allowed the Golden State to achieve its potential and become a premier wine-producing region. Our students are innovators. We prepare our students to advance the art and science of grape growing and winemaking The Department of Viticulture & Enology teaches students to think critically, based on an understanding of the sciences that are the foundation of grape growing and winemaking. Our programs are based on a comprehensive preparation in mathematics and statistics, chemistry and biochemistry, microbiology and plant biology. The focus of our coursework is to provide our students the underlying principles so that they can understand current practices. Our graduates learn from practicing winemakers, viticulturists, and apply their understanding to create their own styles and practices-the result is many of the finest wine...

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MAGNETITE FeFe2O4 ISOMETRIC Magnetite is a common mineral found at many localities in Wisconsin. Only localities that where the mineral is present in great abundance or as unusual material are listed here. Magnetite occurs as an accessory in most igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, where it is found as small equant, euhedral to rounded grains. It is an abundant heavy mineral in sediments and is usually the major constituent of certain metamorphosed iron formations, where it forms an important ore mineral. It is exceptionally common on Wisconsin's iron ranges, such as at Black River Falls, the Gogebic Range in Iron County and in Florence County. Magnetite may also form in high-temperature hydrothermal veins in association with ore minerals such as pyrrhotite, sphalerite and galena. Magnetite octahedral crystal in talc schist, Jackson County Iron Mine, near Black River Falls, WI. Crystals is about 5 mm across. ASHLAND COUNTY - Abundant constituent of the iron formation in the Gogebic Range from Mineral Lake to Hurley where it is found as small crystals and masses intergrown with siderite, chamosite, stilpomelane, ferrodolomite, chlorite, calcite and quartz. Magnetite is also in actinolite schists associated with the iron formation where it forms small crystals, masses and clusters. (Van Hise and Irving, 1892; Huber, 1959; USGS, 1976) Outcrops occur along Ballou Creek (NW NE Sec. 11 T.44N. R.2W). where magnetite occurs with quartz, grunerite, siderite and minnesotaite. Also in outcrop on the west side of Hwy. 13 near Mellen (SE NW Sec. 13 T.44N. R.3W.) where it occurs with grunerite, tremolite, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene and talc. Also in Penokee Gap (NW NW Sec. 14 T.44N. R.3W.) on the west side of Bad River where it occurs with quartz, actinolite, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene. (Laybourn, 1979). - Magnetite is a major component of the ore at the Berkshire Mine, (SW 1/4 SW 1/4 SE 1/4 Sec. 9 T.44N. R.2W) near Mellen. Associated minerals are quartz, talc, dolomite, grunerite and almandine - (Mudrey, 1979, Laybourn, 1979). - Small octahedra of magnetite are found in slatey layers of the Palms Formation west of the Tyler Forks River. Mudrey (1979) suggests this is due to contact metamorphic effects from the Mellen gabbro. - With specular hematite and chert at Michigan Mine, 20 km. NE of Butternut, N.42N. R.1E. (USGS, 1976). - At Hanna Mining Co. Test Pit in SW SE Sec. 18 T.44N. R.4W. with clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene and abundant grunerite (Laybourne, 1979). - Near Mineral Lake Lookout Tower (NE NE Sec. 24 T.44N. R.4W.) with grunerite, actinolite, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene and tremolite. (Laybourne, 1979). - In SE NE Sec. 14 T.44N. R.4W. 20 km. west of Mellen, in hornfels with fayalite, pigeonite, grunerite and quartz. (Laybourn, 1979). - Magnetite and ilmenite make up nearly 60% of the rock in drill core through gabbroic rocks near Clam Lake in T.43N. R.4W. (Dugan and Ervin, 1977). CLARK COUNTY: Magnetite occurs with quartz in "thin discontinuous" iron formation found in scattered outcrops about 5 km. south of Neillsville (Dutton and Bradley, 1970). FLORENCE COUNTY: Massive magnetite associated with stilpomelane is found with sideritic carbonate and pyritic chert on the dump from the Dunkel exploration shaft and adit in sec. 25 T.40N. R.17E. (Dutton, 1971) - Magnetite crystals, partly to completely replaced by hematite ("martite"), occurs in quartzite in the Michigamme Slate in outcrop and small pits in Sec. 31 and 32 T.40N. R.18E. near Commonwealth. The magnetite is associated with iron silicates, garnet, chlorite and tourmaline. (Dutton, 1971). - Small magnetite crystals in a grunerite-quartz iron formation within the Michigamme slate is found at SW 1/4 NE 1/4 Sec. 28 T.39N. R.18E. (Dutton, 1971). - Magnetite-grunerite-stilpnomelane-garnet assemblages outcrop in the W 1/2 Sec. 26 and in Sec. 35 and 36 T.40N. R.17E. (Dutton, 1971). - Euhedral xls. about 1 mm across are abundant in the Riverton iron formation in Sec. 26, 27, 34 and 35 T.40N. R.17E. (Dutton, 1971). IRON COUNTY Magnetite is abundant in the iron formation in the Gogebic Range from Upson to Hurley where it is found as small crystals and masses intergrown with siderite, ferrodolomite, chlorite, calcite and quartz. It is also a component of the actinolite schists with the iron formation, where is forms small crystals, masses and clusters intergrown with actinolite and other iron silicates. (Van Hise and Irving, 1892) (Huber, 1959). - Found as small octahedral xls. in chloritic slate in sec. 1 T.45N. R.1E. (Van Hise and Irving, 1892). - Magnetite-rich iron formation occurs in the Potato River section (SE SE Sec. 19 T.45N. R.1E.) associated with minnesotaite and stilpnomelane (Laybourne, 1979). - Found as crystals in ore vugs at the Montreal Mine, Montreal. (Laybourne, 1979). - Fine-grained laminated rocks with magnetite, siderite, chlorite, minnesotaite, stilpnomelane, specular hematite and quartz are found along the gorge of Tyler Fork (SE 1/4 NE 1/4 Sec. 33 T.45N. R.1W.) (Van Hise and Irving, 1892, Laybourn, 1979). - Magnetite occurs with hematite and siderite in the banded iron formation in the Pine Lake area, T.44N. R.3E. (U.S.G.S., 1976). - Magnetite and grunerite occur at the Ford and Lucas Whitside exploration near Butternut in sec. 2 and 4 T.41N. R.1E. (Dutton and Bradley, 1970). JACKSON COUNTY Magnetite was the major ore mineral at the Jackson County Iron Mine near Black River Falls (Sec. 15 T.21N. R.3W). It is found as small octahedra and masses associated with quartz, cummingtonite, grunerite, ferroactinolite, biotite, hastingsite, hedenburgite and garnet. (Jones, 1978). It also occurs as euhedral octahedra up to 1 cm. in diameter in talc schist. Magnetite partly converted to hematite ("martite") occurs in iron formation on several mounds near Black River Falls. Some examples are in NE sec. 12 and SW SE sec. 11 T.21N. R.4W. (Klemic and Ohlson, 1973). MARATHON COUNTY: Magnetite may form up to 10% of some quartz syenite bodies in outcrops and roadcuts near the Employer's Mutual Insurance Co. offices (NW SE sec. 27 T.29N. R.7E. , accounting for a magnetic anomaly there. (LaBerge and Myers, 1983). - Coarse magnetite octahedra occur locally in the nepheline syenite of the core zone of the Stettin Pluton, with K feldspar, fluorite, zircon, apatite, and a variety of amphiboles and pyroxenes. (LaBerge and Myers, 1983). MARINETTE COUNTY: Magnetite forms up to 10% of the iron formation at the Duval massive sulfide deposit Sec. 2 and 3 T.35N. R.18E. and Sec. 28 T.36N. R18E. Here it is associated with grunerite, pyrrhotite and stilpnomelane. (Hollister and Cummings, 1982). - Described as large crystals with serpentine and carbonates in Sec. 21 and 22 T.37N. R.21E. , near Pembine (Sims et. al. 1984). ONEIDA COUNTY - Magnetite is a minor component of the Pelican River massive sulfide deposit east of Rhinelander in Sec. 29 T.36N. R.9E., here it formed during metamorphism of the body. (Mudrey, 1979). POLK COUNTY - Magnetite is a widespread but minor component of the Keweenawan volcanic rocks exposed throughout the county. - Magnetite is found in masses with gabbroic lenses in the thick lava flow exposed in the north quarry of the Dresser Trap Rock Quarry NW 1/4 Sec. 5 and NE 1/4 Sec. 6 T.33N. R.18W. Some lodestone present affects instruments lowered down drill holes in the quarry, causing them to stick to the sides of the holes. (Cordua, 1989b). SAWYER COUNTY: Titaniferous magnetite is abundant in gabbro and troctolite in the Round Lake Intrusive east of Hayward (T.41N. R.8W.). The pluton is only poorly exposed. The magnetite occurs with olivine, plagioclase, augite and apatite (Stuhr and Cameron, 1976). WAUPACA COUNTY: Magnetite was reported as small crystals in road cuts in pegmatite cutting granite along County G near Keller Lake., NE of Big Falls. (Tom Buchholz, 2002, pers. com.) WOOD COUNTY - Magnetite octahedra occur in talc schist and chlorite schist at the Trowbridge Mine, North of Milladore (SW NW Sec. 11 T.25N. R.5E.) (U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1963, Crowns, 1976). - Magnetite octahedra occur in talc, chlorite, and tremolite schists at the Something Mine (old Czaikowski property) N. of Milladore in the NE SW Sec. 15 T.25N. R.5E. (U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1963, Crowns, 1976). - Tiny euhedral to rounded octahedra of magnetite occur in calcite veins and serpentine country rock in excavations on Tower Hill, north of Rudolph. (Buchholz, 1994, pers. comm.). Return to Wisconsin Mineral List

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One of the most significant fault lines in Western culture opened up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when what we now know as the “modern” world separated itself from the classical and medieval world. The thinking of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Newton, Jefferson, and many others represented a sea change in the way Western people looked at practically everything. In almost every telling of the story, this development is presented as an unmitigated good. I rather emphatically do not subscribe to this interpretation. It would be foolish indeed not to see that tremendous advances, especially in the arenas of science and politics, took place because of the modern turn, but it would be even more foolish to hold that modernity did not represent, in many other ways, a severe declension from what came before. This decline is particularly apparent in the areas of the arts and ethics, and I believe that there is an important similarity in the manner in which those two disciplines went bad in the modern period. In his classic text After Virtue , the philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre lamented, not so much the immorality that runs rampant in our contemporary society, but something more fundamental and in the long run more dangerous; namely, that we are no longer even capable of having a real argument about moral matters. The assumptions that once undergirded any coherent conversation about ethics, he said, are no longer taken for granted or universally shared. The result is that, in regard to questions of what is right and wrong, we simply talk past one another, or more often, scream at each other. In his masterpiece Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh implicitly lays out a program of evangelization that has particular relevance to our time. “Brideshead” refers, of course, to a great manor house owned by a fabulously wealthy Catholic family in the England of the 1920’s. In the complex semiotic schema of Waugh’s novel, the mansion functions as a symbol of the Catholic Church, which St. Paul had referred to as the “bride of Christ.” Just in advance of Christmas, the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit appeared. As I and many other commentators have pointed out, Tolkien’s great story, like its more substantive successor The Lord of the Rings , is replete with Catholic themes. On Christmas day itself, another film adaptation of a well-known book debuted, namely Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables . Though Hugo had a less than perfectly benign view of the Catholic Church, his masterpiece is, from beginning to end, conditioned by a profoundly Christian worldview. It is most important that, amidst all of the “Les Miz” hoopla, the spiritual heart of Hugo’s narrative not be lost. Like Star Wars , The Divine Comedy , and Moby Dick , J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is the story of a hero's journey. This helps to explain, of course, why, like those other narratives, it has proved so perennially compelling.

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Definitely Probably One Definitely Probably One: A Generation Comes of Age Under China's One-Child Policy Had China not imposed its controversial but effective one-child policy a quarter-century ago, its population today would be larger than it presently is by 300 million-roughly the whole population of the United States today, or of the entire world around the time of Genghis Khan. The Chinese population-control policy of one child per family is 25 years old this year. A generation has come of age under the plan, which is the official expression of the Chinese quest to achieve zero population growth. China's adoption of the one-child policy has avoided some 300 million births during its tenure; without it, the Chinese population would currently be roughly 1.6 billion-the number at which the country hopes to stabilize its population around 2050. Many experts agree that it is also the maximum number that China's resources and carrying capacity can support. Standing now at a pivotal anniversary of the strategy, China is asking itself, Where to from here? China's struggle with population has long been linked to the politics of national survival. China scholar Thomas Scharping has written that contradictory threads of historical consciousness have struggled to mold Chinese attitudes towards population issues. China possesses a "deeply ingrained notion of dynastic cycles" that casts large populations as "a symbol of prosperity, power, and the ability to cope with outside threat." At the same time, though, "historical memory has also interpreted a large population as an omen of approaching crisis and downfall." It was not until economic and development issues re-emerged as priorities in post-Mao Zedong's China that the impetus toward the one-child policy began to build rapidly. During Mao's rule population control was often seen as inhibiting the potential of a large population, but in the years following his death it became apparent that China's population presented itself as more of a liability than an asset. Policymakers eager to reverse the country's backwardness saw population control as necessary to ensure improved economic performance. (In 1982, China's per-capita GDP stood at US$218, according to the World Bank. The U.S. per-capita GDP, by way of comparison, was about $14,000.) The campaign bore fruit when Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng, along with the State Council, including senior leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, decided on demographic targets that would curb the nation's high fertility rates. In 1979 the government announced that population growth must be lowered to a rate of natural increase of 0.5 percent per year by 1985. In fact, it took almost 20 years to reach a rate of 1 percent per year. (The overestimating was in part due to the lack of appropriate census data in 1979; it had been 15 years since the last population count and even then the numbers provided only a crude overview of the country's demography.) Nevertheless the Chinese government knew that promoting birth-planning policies was the only way to manifest their dedication and responsibility for future generations. In 1982 a new census was taken, allowing for more detailed planning. The government then affirmed the target of 1.2 billion Chinese for the year 2000. Demographers, however, were skeptical, predicting a resurgence in fertility levels at the turn of the century. The promotion of such ambitious population plans went hand in hand with the need for modernization. Though vast and rich in resources, China's quantitative advantages shrink when viewed from the per-capita perspective, and the heavy burden placed on its resources by China's sheer numbers dictates that population planning remain high on the national agenda. The government has also stressed the correlation between population control and the improved health and education of its citizens, as well as the ability to feed and employ them. In September 2003, the Chinese magazine Qiushi noted that "since population has always been at the core of sustainable development, it is precisely the growth of population and its demands that have led to the depletion of resources and the degradation of the environment. The reduction in birth rate, the changes in the population age structure, especially the improvement in the quality of the population, can effectively control and relieve the pressure on our nation's environment and resources and strengthen our nation's capability to sustain development." The Reach of the One-Child Policy Despite the sense of urgency, the implementation of such a large-scale family planning program proved difficult to control, especially as directives and regulations were passed on to lower levels. In 1981, the State Council's Leading Group for Birth Planning was transformed into the State Population and Family Planning Commission. This allowed for the establishment of organizational arrangements to help turn the one-child campaign into a professional state family planning mechanism. Birth-planning bureaus were set up in all counties to manage the directives handed down from the central government. Documentation on how the policy was implemented and received by the population varies from area to area. There are accounts of heavy sanctions for non-compliance, including the doubling of health insurance and long-term income deductions as well as forced abortions and sterilizations. Peasant families offered the most significant opposition; rural families with only one daughter often insisted that they be given the right to have a second child, in hopes of producing a son. On the other hand, in some regions married couples submitted written commitments to the birth-planning bureaus stating they would respect the one-child policy. Despite this variation, it is commonly accepted that preferential treatment in public services (education, health, and housing) was normally given to one-child families. Parents abiding by the one-child policy often obtained monthly bonuses, usually paid until the child reached the age of 14. Especially in urban areas it has become commonplace for couples to willingly limit themselves to one child. Cities like Shanghai have recently eased the restrictions so that divorcees who remarry may have a second child, but there, as well as in Beijing and elsewhere, a second child is considered a luxury for many middle-class couples. In addition to the cost of food and clothing, educational expenses weigh heavily: As in many other countries, parents' desire to boost their children's odds of entering the top universities dictates the best available education from the beginning-and that is not cheap. The end of free schooling in China-another recent landmark-may prove to be an even more effective tool for restricting population growth than any family planning policy. Interestingly, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has reported that Chinese students who manage to obtain a university education abroad often marry foreigners and end up having more than one child; when they return to China with a foreign spouse and passport they are exempt from the one-child policy. There are other exceptions as well-it is rumored that couples in which both members are only children will be permitted to have two children of their own, for instance-and it is clear that during the policy's existence it has not been applied even-handedly to all. Chinese national minorities have consistently been subject to less restrictive birth planning. There also appears to have been a greater concentration of family planning efforts in urban centers than in rural areas. By early 1980, policy demanded that 95 percent of urban women and 90 percent of rural women be allowed only one child. In the December 1982 revision of the Chinese constitution, the commitment to population control was strengthened by including birth planning among citizens' responsibilities as well as among the tasks of lower level civil administrators. It is a common belief among many Chinese scholars who support the one-child policy that if population is not effectively controlled the pressures it imposes on the environment will not be relieved even if the economy grows. More Services, Fewer Sanctions Over time, Chinese population policy appears to have evolved toward a more service-based approach consistent with the consensus developed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. According to Ru Xiao-mei of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, "We are no longer preaching population control. Instead, we are emphasizing quality of care and better meeting the needs of clients." Family planning clinics across the country are giving women and men wider access to contraceptive methods, including condoms and birth-control pills, thereby going beyond the more traditional use of intrauterine devices and/or sterilization after the birth of the first child. The Commission is also banking on the improved use of counseling to help keep fertility rates down. Within China, one of the most prevalent criticisms of the one-child policy has been its implications for social security, particularly old-age support. One leading scholar envisions a scenario in which one grandchild must support two parents and four grandparents (the 4-2-1 constellation). This development is a grave concern for Chinese policymakers (as in other countries where aging populations stand to place a heavy burden on social security infrastructures as well as the generations now working to support them). A related concern, especially in rural China where there is a lack of appropriate pension systems and among families whose only child is a daughter, is that it is sons who have traditionally supported parents in old age. The one-child policy and the preference for sons has also widened the ratio of males to females, raising alarms as the first children born into the one-child generation approach marriage age. The disparity is aggravated by modern ultrasound technology, which enables couples to abort female fetuses in hopes that the next pregnancy produces a son; although this practice is illegal, it remains in use. The 2000 census put the sex ratio at 117 boys to 100 girls, and according to The Guardian newspaper, China may have as many as 40 million single men by 2020. (There are several countries where the disparity is even greater. The UN Population Fund reports that countries such as Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates have male-to-female ratios ranging between 116:100 and 186:100.) However, the traditional Chinese preference for sons may be on the decline. Dr. Zhang Rong Zhou of the Shanghai Population Information Center has argued that the preference for boys is weakening among the younger generation, in Shanghai at least, in part because girls cost less and are easier to raise. The sex ratio in Shanghai accordingly stands at 105 boys to every 100 girls, which is the international average. Shanghai has distinguished itself over the past 25 years as one of the first urban centers to adopt the one-child policy, and it promises to be a pioneer in gradually relaxing the restrictions in the years to come. Shanghai was the first region in China to have negative fertility growth; 2000 census data indicated that the rate of natural increase was -0.9 per 1,000. A major concern remains that as the birth rate drops a smaller pool of young workers will be left to support a large population of retirees. Shanghai's decision to allow divorced Chinese who remarry to have a second child is taking advantage of the central government's policy, which lets local governments decide how to apply the one-child rule. Although Shanghai has devoted much effort to implementing the one-child policy over the past 25 years, the city is now allowing qualifying couples to explore the luxury of having a second child. This is a response to rising incomes (GDP has grown about 7 percent per year over the past 20 years) and divorce rates. As noted above, however, many couples, although often better off then their parents, remain hesitant to have more than one child because of the expense. The first generation of only children in China is approaching parenthood accustomed to a level of economic wealth and spending power-and thus often to lifestyles-that previous generations could not even have imagined. However, China also faces a rapidly aging population. In the larger scheme of things, this may be the true test of the government's ability to provide for its citizens. The fate of China's family planning strategy-in a context in which social security is no longer provided by family members alone but by a network of government and/or private services-may be decided by the tension between the cost of children and the cost of the elderly. There seems little doubt, however, that family planning will be a key element of Chinese policymaking for many years to come. Claudia Meulenberg, a former Worldwatch intern, received her master's degree from the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in May and now works at the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution at The Hague in her home country of the Netherlands. References and readings for each article are available at www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/.

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|First Detailed Look at RNA Dicer| Scientists have gotten their first detailed look at the molecular structure of an enzyme that Nature has been using for eons to help silence unwanted genetic messages. A team of researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California, Berkeley, used x-ray crystallography at ALS Beamlines 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 to determine the crystal structure of Dicer, an enzyme that plays a critical role in a process known as RNA interference. The Dicer enzyme is able to snip a double-stranded form of RNA into segments that can attach themselves to genes and block their activity. With this crystal structure, the researchers learned that Dicer serves as a molecular ruler, with a clamp at one end and a cleaver at the other end a set distance away, that produces RNA fragments of an ideal size for gene-silencing. RNA—ribonucleic acid—has long been known as a multipurpose biological workhorse, responsible for carrying DNA's genetic messages out from the nucleus of a living cell and using those messages to make specific proteins in a cell's cytoplasm. In 1998, however, scientists discovered that RNA can also block the synthesis of proteins from some of those genetic messages. This gene-silencing process is called RNA interference and it starts when a double-stranded segment of RNA (dsRNA) encounters the enzyme Dicer. Dicer cleaves dsRNA into smaller fragments called short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs). Dicer then helps load these fragments into a large multiprotein complex called RISC, for RNA-Induced Silencing Complex. RISC can seek out and capture messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules (the RNA that encodes the message of a gene) with a base sequence complementary to that of its siRNA or miRNA. This serves to either destroy the genetic message carried by the mRNA outright or else block the subsequent synthesis of a protein. Until now, it has not been known how Dicer is able to recognize dsRNA and cleave those molecules into products with lengths that are exactly what is needed to silence specific genes. The Berkeley researchers were able to purify and crystallize a Dicer enzyme from Giardia intestinalis, a one-celled microscopic parasite that can infect the intestines of humans and animals. This Dicer enzyme in Giardia is identical to the core of a Dicer enzyme in higher eukaryotes, including humans, that cleaves dsRNA into lengths of about 25 bases. In this work, the researchers describe a front view of the structure as looking like an axe. On the handle end there is a domain that is known to bind to small RNA products, and on the blade end there is a domain that is able to cleave RNA. Between the clamp and the cleaver is a flat-surfaced region that carries a positive electrical charge. The researchers propose that this flat region binds to the negatively charged dsRNA like biological Velcro, enabling Dicer to measure out and snip specified lengths of siRNA. When you put the clamp, the flat area, and the cleaver together, you get a pretty good idea as to how Dicer works. The research team is now using this structural model to design experiments that might reveal what triggers Dicer into action. In addition, one size does not fit all for Dicer: different forms of the Dicer enzyme are known to produce different lengths of siRNA, ranging from 21 to 30 base pairs in length or longer. Having identified the flat-surfaced positively charged region in Dicer as the "ruler" portion of the enzyme, the researchers speculate that it may be possible to alter the length of a long connector helix within this domain to change the lengths of the resulting siRNA products. The researchers would like to see what happens when you take a natural Dicer and change the length of its helix. Research conducted by I.J. MacRae and K. Zhou (University of California, Berkeley, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute); F. Li, A. Repic, A.N. Brooks, and W.Z. Cande (University of California, Berkeley); P.D. Adams (Berkeley Lab); and J.A. Doudna (University of California, Berkeley, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Berkeley Lab). Research funding: National Institutes of Health. Operation of the ALS is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Publication about this research: I.J. MacRae, K. Zhou, F. Li, A. Repic, A.N. Brooks, W.Z. Cande, P.D. Adams, and J.A. Doudna, "Structural basis for double-stranded RNA processing by dicer," Science311, 195 (2006).

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Tonight will be one of the best chances to see comet Panstarrs as it passes 28 million miles from the sun and over 100 million miles from earth. Despite the distance, if you are patient and find a good spot to view after sunset, you should be able to see Panstarrs near the horizon just after sunset at 6:55 tonight. To the unaided eye, it may look like a fuzzy star, but if you have a set of binoculars, you should be able to make out the tail. Here is a graph showing the position of Panstarrs during the coming week. Chart courtesy: Space.com On the weather side of things, skies will be clear tonight at 6:55 p.m. sunset, but we will be dodging clouds on Wednesday – Friday. Still, opportunities will appear to see the comet if you are lucky and your timing is good. Remember, DO NOT use your binoculars until the sun is completely below the horizon…your eyes can be seriously damaged if you look at or near the sun. Image courtesy: Space.com In case you were wondering how Panstarrs got its name, here is the explanation from www.space.com: " Comet Pan-STARRS, which has the official designation C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), was discovered in June 2011 by astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (or PANSTARRS) telescope in Hawaii. The comet made its way into the inner solar system from the Oort cloud — a group of icy bodies orbiting the sun in a region that extends from just beyond the orbit of Neptune out to a distance of 93 trillion miles." If you don't get to see Panstarrs, you'll have another chance to see comet Oort Cloud in late November. This comet promises to be one of the brightest in at least 30 years. We'll have more on that on the blog closer to November. In the meantime, bundle up, get your binoculars and head out tonight to see Panstarrs. If you are able to photograph it, you can share your pictures here on 14news.com or on the 14News Facebook page or the 14First Alert Facebook page. 1115 Mt. Auburn Road Closed Captioning Contact:

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Paradnaja lestnitza doma Tolstykh Overview and History Odessa is the largest city on the coastline of the Black Sea and was once the third largest city in Russia, after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Her nicknames are "the Pearl of the Black Sea", "Odessa Mama" and "Southern Palmira." The name probably comes from the earliest recorded inhabitants, a Greek colony called Odessos which disappeared around the fourth century AD. Here's a lightning overview of Odessa's rulers, from the beginning. First there were the ancient Greeks, then miscellaneous nomadic tribes, the Golden Horde of Mongolia, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the U.S.S.R, and finally Ukrainian independence in 1991. The founding of the first city in this location dates to 1240 AD and is credited to a Turkish Tatar named Hacibey Khan. Its name at that time was Khadjibey. The first fortress was built in the fourteenth century, when Odessa was already becoming a major trading center. The fortress served to protect the harbor. Khadjibey became part of the Ottoman Empire in the early sixteenth century. Its fortress was rebuilt by the Ottomans and named Yeni Dunya, around 1764 AD. The eighteenth century saw Odessa change hands from Turkish to Russian control. Russia captured Odessa in 1789 under the command of Jose de Ribas, a Spaniard who became a Russian admiral and played a major part in the victory. Jose de Ribas gets the credit for founding the modern city of Odessa -- his name is remembered in the most prominent street through the heart of Odessa -- Deribasovskaya Street. In the treaty of Jassy in 1792, Turkey gave over control of a wide swath of land encompassing modern-day Ukraine and Odessa. The city was rebuilt to be a fort, commercial port and naval base. During the nineteenth century Odessa attracted immigrants from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia and all over Europe, enjoying its status as a free port. Odessa was bombed by British and French weaponry during the Crimean War of the 1850's. After the destruction was repaired, a railroad joined Odessa to Kiev in 1866 and the city rapidly developed as the main export center for grain production. It became a center of Ukranian nationalism at the turn of the 20th century and in 1905 Odessa was the scene of a worker's uprising, led by sailors from the battleship Potemkin. During the uprising hundreds of citizens were murdered on the staircase that has come to be called "the Potemkin Steps." During WWI Odessa was bombarded by the Turkish fleet and after the Bolshevik Revolution the city was occupied by the Central Powers, the French and the Red Army. In 1922 Odessa was unified with the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic. There was terrible suffering in the famine which took place after the Russian revolution in 1921. Odessa was taken by German forces in 1941, and almost 300,00 civilians were killed. It remained under Romanian administration during WWII until its liberation by the Soviet Army in 1944. The city went through another rapid growth period after WWII, with industries of ship-building, oil refineries and chemical processing. The city became part of newly-independent Ukraine in 1991 after the fall of communism. By air, the International Airport of Odessa is where you'll arrive and it's linked to the city by buses. Passenger ships from Istanbul, Haifa and Varna connect with the port. The Marine terminal is at the bottom of the Potemkin steps. When you get to the top you'll be greeted by the Duke of Richelieu, one of the city's founding fathers. This staircase also forms an optical illusion; looking down from the top, the steps are invisible and the side walls of the staircase appear to run parallel. Don't be fooled. The main railway station is in the southern part of the city and it's connected with trams and buses, as usual, to get you around. People and Culture Things to do, Recommendations The Opera House is the oldest and most famous in Odessa, built in 1810 with rich decorative rococo style. Here's a look at the Opera Theater at night. The Palais-Royal is adjoined to the Opera Theater and is also worth a trip to see. On the "must-see" list, Deribasovskaya Street is the very heart of Odessa. Its unique character lasted even when adherence to Soviet-design styles was strictly promoted -- so here you can find amazing architecture, outdoor cafes and restaurants, cobblestone streets and no vehicle traffic. Here's a look in the Passage shopping mall and hotel in the city center, a cool place to walk around. Visit the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, the largest Orthodox Church in the city. It's been newly reconstructed after its destruction by Bolsheviks in the 1930's. Architectural curiosities: go and find the one-wall building when you run out of things to do. This would be first on my list, actually. Here's another mixup of architectural styles to have a look at. Finally, go and visit Empress Ekaterina, one of the main founders the city, at her monument. Text by Steve Smith.

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[Author's note: Although I am employed by the Japanese American National Museum, this article should not be construed as coming from the National Museum. Instead, this article is my personal opinion and should be taken as such.] Over the last month, I have posted articles about my grandfather and what happened to him during the Second World War. Much of my grandfather’s story was not unique. Approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans were illegally incarcerated during the war, their only crime was looking like the enemy. The majority of those incarcerated were American citizens. When most people refer to where the Japanese American were held, they use the term: internment camp. But the term is not only inaccurate but also hides what they really were: concentration camps. Before you get angry or offended, let me explain. According to the Merrian Webster dictionary, a concentration camp is “a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained or confined.” The definition of a concentration camp describes exactly what happened to the Japanese Americans during WWII, where they were political prisoners confined in a camp. One of the reasons people are reluctant to use the term is because they don’t want to imply what happened in the United States was similar to what happened to Jews and others in Europe. But I believe what happened in Europe was not a concentration camp but much much worse. A more accurate term would be “death camp,” because the main purpose of the European camps was to torture and kill its prisoners. In the book, Common Ground: the Japanese American National Museum and the Culture of Collaborations, the Museum curators addressed this debate: A “concentration camp” is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they committed, but simply because of who they are. Although many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history, the term “concentration camp” was first used at the turn of the century in the Spanish American and Boer Wars. During World War II, America’s concentration camps were clearly distinguishable from Nazi Germany’s. Nazi camps were places of torture, barbarous medical experiments and summary executions: some were extermination centers with gas chambers. Six million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust. Many others, including Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals and political dissidents were also victims of the Nazi concentration camps. In recent years, concentration camps have existed in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia and Bosnia. Despite differences, all had one thing in common: the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen. It should be noted that United States government and military officials (including the President) often referred to these places as concentration camps. It is also important to note that not all Japanese Americans agree with the use of the term. Some Japanese Americans would prefer to use the government terminology. Although I disagree with them, it is their right to do so. If concentration camps is the historically most accurate term, is saying interment camp wrong? Yes, because internment camp is a euphemism. According to the Merrian Webster dictionary, a euphemism is “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.” A good example of a euphemism is saying someone was “eliminated” versus “killed.” Think it doesn’t make a difference? What images are evoked when you hear concentration camp versus when you hear internment camp? Internment seems benign at worst while concentration camp is always construed negatively. That difference is intentional. Mako Nakagawa, a former teacher and Japanese American activist, spoke about the negative effects of the euphemism on the general perception of the World War II experiences of Japanese Americans in an interview with the Nichi Bei, a Japanese American newspaper: Government-created euphemistic language led to some people actually believing that the Japanese Americans were being protected and even pampered in the camps. The use of inaccurate terms can, and too often does, distort facts into outright fantasies. The old adage that “sticks and stones may break bones/But words will never hurt” is not true. Words have power. They can create and they can destroy. Every time I write anything, whether it’s a screenplay, blog, or email, I remember the following quote from Pearl Strachan to remind myself how important my words can be: “Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.” Internment camp wasn’t the only euphemism. Here is a short list of some of the other more egregious ones: This last one is so unbelievable (and not very well known), I feel it is important to expand on it a little. In the evacuation order, it states: All Japanese persons, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above designated area by 12:00 o’clock noon Tuesday, April 7, 1942. If an alien is someone who is not a citizen, a non-alien is a citizen. But they couldn’t say, “All Japanese person, both citizen and non-citizen will be evacuated” because it would be too obviously unconstitutional. But if we say non-alien most people wouldn’t give it a second thought. Hiding the truth of what happened behind euphemistic language doesn’t allow us as a country to learn from our mistake and make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s why when people ask me about my family’s experience in World War II, I always make sure to start by saying that they were incarcerated for almost six years in America’s concentration camps. If you want to learn more, I recommend reading Words Can Lie or Clarify: Terminology of the World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans by Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga. (Aiko was one of the people responsible for proving that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was not based on a military necessity but racism.) Finally, Mako Nakagawa will be speaking at the Japanese American National Museum on August 27, 2011 at 2pm. She will discuss euphemisms and the importance of using accurate terminology.

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Coming soon! Nanotech on your desktop Within 15 years, desktop nanofactories could pump out anything from a new car to a novel nanoweapon, says a technology commentator. And he warns that society needs to start preparing for this brave new world. Mike Treder from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) in New York says advanced nanotechnology, like these nanofactories, could help solve world poverty but it could also wreak economic and social chaos. "It's the biggest challenge we've ever faced as a species," says Treder, who has been addressing scientists in Australia this week. CRN is a non-profit organisation advised among others by the so-called father of nanotechnology, Dr Eric Drexler. The organisation says it aims to raise awareness about the benefits and dangers of molecular manufacturing, the precise assembly of products atom-by-atom. While molecular manufacturing is not yet a reality, Treder says researchers are already working on building molecular-scale machines that could eventually move atoms around to make products. And he says that in less than 15 years, nanoscale factories could be making consumer products from cups and chairs to cars and house bricks. Raw materials like carbon would be pumped into the nanofactory, where atoms would be rearranged to make products according to programs downloaded from the internet, says Treder. Treder says such desktop nanofactories could help reduce poverty and starvation in developing nations, and provide tremendous medical benefits. But society needs to guard against its potential risks. In particular, he says CRN is concerned that these desktop nanofactories would lead to a nano "arms race" in which hard-to-detect nanoweapons could be designed, manufactured and tested much quicker than they are today. "Imagine a suitcase filled with billions of toxin-carrying flying robots that could be released anywhere to target a population," he says. "You could make a suitcase full of these things overnight for a few dollars." The mass production of consumer goods by private desktop factories could also trigger social chaos due to economic disruption, says Treder. "If I can make my own car at home for a couple of hundred dollars with a design downloaded from the internet that means I'm not a customer of the auto dealer down the road." Waste from such easy manufacturing, or nanolitter, is another issue that needs to be thought about, he says. As is the prospect of nanospam. "If someone could send you a product online that you don't want but they just make it pump out of your nanofactory, how are we going to prevent that?" Experts are generally sceptical that desktop factories could exist so soon but welcome Treder's discussion of impacts of nanotechnology on society. Dr Peter Binks of Nanotechnology Victoria, a sponsor for Treder's tour, says his organisation does not "yet buy into the idea" of the desktop factory. "But we don't dismiss it either," he says. "We think there are a large number of technical hurdles to be overcome." William Price, professor of nanotechnology at the University of Western Sydney says desktop factories may be possible but technical issues will mean this will not be within 15 years. Professor Chennupati Jagadish of the Australian Research Council Nanotechnology Network, which is also a sponsor for the tour, thinks Treder's views are imaginative and futuristic. "Expecting those sorts of machines in 15 years is probably too optimistic," he says, estimating they would be more like 30 or 40 years away, if at all. And it's this challenge that makes Professor Ned Seeman, of New York University, who is involved in self-assembling arrays of DNA machines, sceptical of Treder's claims. "I think this suggestion is wildly optimistic," he says. "Most of the basic principles have not been demonstrated, much less in a 'desktop' context." But even he is not willing to rule the technology out completely. "One hundred years from now anything is possible."

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Australian Bureau of Statistics 4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, 2004 Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 15/06/2004 |Page tools: Print Page Print All RSS Search this Product| NATIONAL AND STATE SUMMARY TABLES HOUSING DATA SOURCES AND DEFINITIONS An estimated 99,900 people were homeless on Census Night 2001. Homeless people are among the most marginalised people in Australia and their profile has changed in recent years from that of older, lone men to include more women, youth and families. This article summarises data and analysis from the Australian Census Analytic Program report Counting the Homeless (ABS cat. no. 2050.0) by Chris Chamberlain and David MacKenzie. It estimates the numbers of homeless people in Australia in 2001 and discusses their characteristics. The proportion of homeowners or purchasers among younger age groups has diminished between 1986 and 2001. This may be related to economic conditions, a delaying effect due to our changing society, or personal choices. The increasing price of housing is also examined in this article, aswell as the relationship between the size of first home loans and average earnings. HOUSING AND LIFESTYLE The number of people living in four or more storey apartment blocks increased at a much faster rate than the overall Australian population between 1981 and 2001. This article compares the socio-demographic characteristics of high rise residents with those of people living in separate houses, and discusses some ways in which the high rise residential population has changed over the last two decades. This page last updated 10 April 2007 Unless otherwise noted, content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia Licence together with any terms, conditions and exclusions as set out in the website Copyright notice. For permission to do anything beyond the scope of this licence and copyright terms contact us.

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located in Jiangxi Province is the largest freshwater Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and... A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,... Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture... It has a surface area of 3,585 km², a volume of 25 km³ and an average depth of eight meters. The lake provides a habitat for half a million migratory birds, and is a favorite destination for birding. It is fed by the Gan, Xin, and Xiu Xiu is a Chinese language web site for online shopping, operated in the People's Republic of China.Founded by Mr. Ji Wenhong and Mr. Jin Huang in March 2008, it's a vertical e-commerce company, offering middle to luxury brand name fashion products - clothing, shoes, bags, ornaments, cosmetics and... rivers, which connect to the Yangtse through a channel. During the winter, the lake becomes home to a large number of migrating Siberian crane The Siberian Crane also known as the Siberian White Crane or the Snow Crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes... s, up to 90% of which spend the winter there. Historically, although Poyang Lake has also been called Pengli Marsh (彭蠡澤) they are not the same. Before the Han Dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang... , the Yangtze followed a more northerly course through what is now Lake Longgan (龍感湖) whilst Pengli Marsh formed the lower reaches of the Gan River. The area that is now Poyang Lake was a plain along the Gan River. Around AD 400, the Yangtze River switched to a more southerly course, causing the Gan River to back up and form Lake Poyang. The backing up of the Gan River drowned Poyang County Poyang County is a county under the administration of Shangrao city in Jiangxi Province of the People's Republic of China. It is located on the eastern side of Lake Poyang.... and Haihun County, forcing a mass migration to Wucheng Township in what is now Yongxiu County Yongxiu County is a county under Jiujiang City in Jiangxi Province, China. The total area is square kilometre, and the population is as of 200?.-External links:... . Wucheng thus became one of the great ancient townships of Jiangxi Province. This migration gave birth to the phrase, "Drowning Haihun County gives rise to Wucheng Township"「淹了海昏縣，出了吳城鎮」. Lake Poyang reached its greatest size during the Tang Dynasty The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire... , when its area reached 6000 km². There has been a fishing ban in place since 2002. In 2007 fears were expressed that China's finless porpoise The finless porpoise is one of six porpoise species. In the waters around Japan, at the northern end of its range, it is known as the sunameri . A freshwater population found in the Yangtze River in China is known locally as the jiangzhu or "river pig". There is a degree of taxonomic uncertainty... , known locally as the jiangzhu ("river pig"), a native of the lake, might follow the baiji Baiji may refer to:* The Baiji or Yangtze River Dolphin * Baiji, Iraq, a city of northern Iraq.* "Baiji" is the pinyin Romanization for Baekje.... , the Yangtze river dolphin, into extinction. Calls have been made for action to be taken to save the porpoise, of which there are about 1,400 left living, with between 700 and 900 in the Yangtze, with about another 500 in Poyang and Dongting Lakes. 2007 population levels are less than half the 1997 levels, and the population is dropping at a rate of 7.3 per cent per year. Sand dredging has become a mainstay of local economic development in the last few years, and is an important source of revenue in the region that borders Poyang Lake. But at the same time, high-density dredging projects have been the principal cause of the death of the local wildlife population. Dredging makes the waters of the lake muddier, and the porpoises cannot see as far as they once could, and have to rely on their highly-developed sonar systems to avoid obstacles and look for food. Large ships enter and leave the lake at the rate of two a minute and such a high density of shipping means the porpoises have difficulty hearing their food, and also cannot swim freely from one bank to the other. In 1363, the Battle of Lake Poyang The naval battle of Lake Poyang took place 30 August – 4 October AD 1363 and was one of the final battles fought in the fall of China's Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty... took place there, and it is claimed to be the largest naval battle in history The title of "largest naval battle in history" is disputed between adherents of criteria which include the numbers of personnel and/or vessels involved in the battle, and the total tonnage of the vessels involved... The lake has also been described as the "Chinese Bermuda Triangle". Many ships have disappeared while sailing in it. On 16 April 1945, a Japanese troop ship vanished without a trace with 200 sailors.

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AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to millions of articles from top publications available through your library. Over the years, countless scholarly works have been written about the African-American experience. In addition to examining the African-American's place in American history, some scholars have taken special interest in the black family, black youth, and black urban life (Billingsley, 1968; Frazier, 1939; Glasgow, 1980; Glick & Mills, 1974; Gutman, 1976; Hill, 1973; Moynihan, 1965; Wilson, 1987). As early as 1908, W. E. B. DuBois wrote The Negro American Family and, years before that, described black life in the city of Philadelphia (1899). Since that time, except for that of a handful of scholars, interest in these subjects has waxed and waned, invariably increasing after incidents of urban unrest and turmoil such as the riots of the 1960s. The most recent riot, occurring in Los Angeles in May 1992, and escalating incidences of senseless urban violence have combined to renew scholarly, as well as public, concern for discovering why such events occur. One has only to look at statistical data compiled and interpreted in book form (Hacker, 1992) or data directly from the U.S. Bureau of the Census or from other government agencies to see why there might be unrest, despair, and even a sense of hopelessness in the black urban ghetto in general and among black young adults in particular. It is clear that these young people have much to contend with and have fewer and fewer tools to overcome the obstacles before them, obstacles that have the power to defeat them even before they are out of infancy. These are forces that weaken the black family, that undermine education, and that glorify violence. The 1990 census report indicates that African-Americans make up 11.9 percent of the total population of this country, yet they disproportionately contribute to statistics which, when translated, portray the face of ongoing human tragedy. To begin with, almost two-thirds of all black babies are now born outside marriage. This means that a large percentage of black families are headed by females. In fact, 56.2 percent of all black families are headed by women and 55.1 percent of these women have never been married (Hacker, 1992, pp. 67-74). More disturbing is the tendency of black teenagers to begin sexual activity at a relatively early age. It is estimated that, by age fifteen, 68.6 percent of black teenagers have engaged in sexual intercourse. The results of this activity are that some 40.7 percent of all black teenage girls become pregnant by age eighteen. Some 99.3 percent of these girls elect to keep and raise their babies (p. 76). Many of these girls live in multigenerational households with a mother, other children, and the daughter's children (p. 72). Perhaps the most devastating statistics have to do with the effect these lifestyle patterns have on the way many of these black families live. Fifty-six percent of black single parent families have incomes less than the poverty level of $10,530 for a family of three. In fact, 39.8 percent of families receiving federally sponsored Aid for Dependent Children (AFDC) are black. This means that they are, because of income, relegated, for the most part, to substandard housing, inadequate health care, and inferior schools. The litany continues, but the statistics concerning black men are particularly disturbing. Nationwide, 500,000 black men are serving time in 'ails and prisons for criminal offenses. More than 1 million have criminal records (p. 74). Violent death now accounts for more deaths among young black men than other cause. If a black man is fifteen to twenty-five years old, he is 3.25 times more likely to die than his black female counterpart. What is most dismaying is that the leading cause of death among black men in this age group is gunshot wounds (Hacker, 1992, p. 75). Historically, African-Americans have, in very large numbers, been poor. In 1990, they made up 10.1 percent of the work force but received only 7.8 percent of all earnings. In that same year, the median income for all black families was $21,423 as compared with $36,915 for all white families. In 1990, 37 percent of all black families earned less than $15,000 a year, and 44.8 percent of all black children lived below the poverty line (Hacker, 1992, pp. 98-99). Even with added education, there still remains an income disparity between blacks and whites. With a high school diploma, black men earn approximately $797 for every $1,000 earned by a white man with the same diploma. With a college degree, black men earn only $798 compared with the $1,000 earned by their white counterparts. Black women, on the other hand, are much closer to achieving parity with the earnings of white women at every educational level (Hacker, 1992, p. 95). The majority of poor African-Americans live in the central cities of this country, and 70 percent are concentrated in low income neighborhoods. Here, it is difficult to find work or to get to the place of employment even if one is fortunate enough to have a job. With few factory jobs available--the mainstay of the black working class--unemployment remains high. The unemployment rate among blacks since 1974 has been in double digit figures. In 1983, it was at a high of 20 percent and has consistently remained twice that of the white unemployed (Hacker, 1992, pp. 102-03). In the area of education, 63.3 percent of all black school-age children still attend segregated schools (Hacker, 1992, p. 162). This statistic reflects not only school segregation but housing segregation as well since blacks tend to be concentrated in predominantly black neighborhoods. Looking more closely at black school attendance patterns on a state by state basis, Illinois tops the list of segregated schools, with 83.2 percent of its black students attending segregated classes. New York is not too far behind, with 80.8 percent attending segregated schools, followed closely by Mississippi, with an 80.3 percentage, rate (p. 163). To …

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Community Based Adaptation The IFAD adaptive approach to participatory mapping: Design and delivery of participatory mapping projectsSubmitted by c.baldin on Fri, 2013-01-25 20:00 This document reports on an adaptive approach to designing and implementing participatory mapping initiatives within IFAD-supported projects. The adaptive UNDP/GEF supported CBA Community Based Adaptation Project Pilot Sites: Onamulunga School Garden ProjectSubmitted by andrea on Mon, 2011-09-26 07:09 The Community-Based Adaptation Programme (CBA) is a five-year United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) global initiative funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). UNDP works with a number of partners including the United Nations Volunteers and the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP). Initial CBA investments have been made in 20 communities in the northern parts of Namibia (i.e. Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and Kavango Regions). Climate models suggest that these areas are particularly vulnerable and face significant climate change risks, both at present and in future. To facilitate uptake of CBA strategies the Onamulunga Combined School project is focused on integrating adaptation to climate change into school curriculum. The pilot programme at Onamulunga Combined School in the Oshikoto region involves training grade 9 and 10students in adaptation farming methods such as conservation tilling, water harvesting, and micro-drip irrigation and planting drought resistant crops. These methods are subsequently taken up by the students’ native communities. This project directly contributes towards Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2 and 7 and, through a special focus on the inclusion of young women and girls, to MDG 3.The project also indirectly contributes to the realization of other MDGs. There are various Community Based Adaptation projects in Namibia. The particular project discussed here is implemented by an NGO called Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES) that applies CBA measures through self-help groups. At the Onamulunga Combined School in the Oshikoto region, grade 9 and 10 students receive practical lessons in how to implement improved farming methods for a future affected by climate change. Results and Learning: According to a recent field visit by an independent assessor, the Onamulunga Garden project has achieved many of the intended results. Various sites at the school have been prepared for crop agriculture using the latest conservation tilling methods for dry land crops and micro-drip irrigation for vegetables. The project coordinator is Agriculture and Life Science teacher, Johannes Nelongo, who has provided inspirational leadership for 87 grade 9 and 10 students to put the theory they learn in the classroom in practice in the field, growing maize, sunflowers, cow peas, spinach, carrots, onions and other vegetables.They apply conservation furrowing and ripping, water saving techniques, mulching, application of organic and chemical fertilising, crop rotation and alternative growing methods. As such, the project provides learners with practical adaptation techniques. “Practical exercises make it easier for learners to interpret theoretical information. It thus gives them wisdom and insight and teaches them how to apply these methods at home,” says Nelongo.[Refer to the attached document for further details.] The project has built adaptive capacity for almost ninety learners, with the intention that they take these skills forward and apply them in the decades to come. Already a multiplier effect is noticeable in the children and teachers’ home communities. The project focuses on establishing a strong foundation for the application of adaptation mechanisms in farming practices rather than creating dependency through aid. “Because the programme demonstrates tangible benefits for the communities involved, it is sustainable,” says Marie Johansson from CES. “It will continue even if donor support stops tomorrow. It is important to start with educating kids. Young people, especially girls, pick the skills up quickly. From there on it is easier to integrate the community. Later on, many kids will migrate to urban areas and unfortunately fall in the trap of unemployment. But with the skills they learn here, there is an alternative way to make a living off the two hectares or so near their homestead. In this way even small farmers can become commercial farmers.” The project has been so successful that it has grabbed the attention of other schools. Four nearby schools are interested and have been invited to participate. As such, Onamulunga can become a centre of learning for the community. This is compounded by the multiplier effect already mentioned, with children introducing the new methods to their parents and villagers coming to the school to see the improved cropping system with their own eyes. “As a school we need to involve communities and share the skills and knowledge that we have,” says Onamulunga principal Immanuel Namupolo. “Now the community helps us to look after the project when the school is closed. We also give parents our surplus maize, so they can sell it. In doing so, the project reaches out to parents. We give them a role to play, so that they are involved in the process of adaptation.”The experiment teaches children to adapt to a situation where fertile land and water are becoming increasingly scarce resources. But the initiative also has a wider effect within the surrounding communities, with children applying their newly acquired skills in the household farm setting. Enthused by the Onamulunga success story, parents and teachers have also started their own gardens. “The proceeds from the garden save people a lot of money. Sometimes you don’t even have to go to the market for a whole month,” one teacher remarks. Implementing Agency and Partnering Organizations:Onamulunga Combined School; Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES). Other stakeholders include: the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Namibia Agronomic Board, GEF through its Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA) programme, UNDP; Small Grants Programme and all its delivery partners. The Community-Based Adaptation Programme (CBA) is a five-year United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) global initiative funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). UNDP works with a number of partners including the United Nations Volunteers and the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP). Initial CBA investments have been made in 20 communities in the northern parts of Namibia (i.e. Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and Kavango Regions). Climate models suggest that these areas are particularly vulnerable and face significant climate change risks, both at present and in future. There are various Community Based Adaptation projects in Namibia. The particular project discussed here is implemented by an NGO called Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES) that applies CBA measures through self-help groups. At the Onamulunga Combined School in the Oshikoto region, grade 9 and 10 students receive practical lessons in how to implement improved farming methods for a future affected by climate change. Through equipping the students with relevant agricultural adaptation skills, the pilot programme is designed to sow the seeds for uptake and wider spread of adaptation measures throughout the community. - Outcome 1: Enhanced adaptive capacity allows communities to reduce their vulnerability to adverse impacts of future climate hazards. - Outcome 2: National policies and programmes promote replication of best practices derived from CBA projects. - Outcome 3: Cooperation among member countries promotes innovation in adaptation to climate change including variability. Project Status:Under Implementation Primary Beneficiaries:Major stakeholders are: the Onamulunga Combined School; Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES). Primary beneficiaries are the grade 9 and 10 students, their families and the communities living within the pilot areas, as well as other schools in the wider area. UNDP/GEF supported CBA Community Based Adaptation Project Pilot Sites: University of Namibia – Ogongo Campus: The Sweet-stem Sorghum ResearchSubmitted by andrea on Mon, 2011-09-26 06:42 The Community-Based Adaptation Programme (CBA) is a five-year United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) global initiative funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). UNDP works with a number of partners including the United Nations Volunteers and the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP). Initial CBA investments have been made in 20 communities in the northern parts of Namibia (i.e. Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and Kavango Regions). Climate models suggest these areas are particularly vulnerable and face significant climate change risks,both at present and in future. To facilitate uptake of CBA strategies, one project focuses on research into sweet-stem sorghum varieties that are better suited to altered climatic conditions. The purpose is to cultivate one variety that is not only stronger, but also presents the ideal mix of multi-purpose applications, such as food, fodder/silage and sugar extract for ethanol (biofuel). The project pursues multifaceted objectives of food security, environmental sustainability and universal education. These objectives address the three Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 1, 2, and 7. Now entering its final stage, the researchers are focusing on three remaining sorghum varieties. One successful variety will be commercially distributed in the SGP-CBA pilot areas in Namibia. There are various Community Based Adaptation (CBA) projects in Namibia. The particular project discussed here uses a non-governmental organisation called Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions to implement CBA measures through self-help groups. Results and Learning: According to a recent field visit by an independent documenter, the research into sweet-stem sorghum varieties at the Ogongo Campus achieved numerous intended results. On one tenth of a hectare, eight sweet-stem sorghum varieties were grown to select one variety that has the optimal balance of grain, bio-mass and sugar content. The research established that not all varieties were suitable for uptake as multi-purpose crop. Yet, the trial delivered three varieties with a promising combination of grain, biomass and sugar, and also endurance to withstand heavy rain. These three varieties were part of an on-farm trial, specifically focusing on the successful delivery of silage. The farmers involved received training at the University of Namibia (UNAM) on how to farm these varieties. Subsequently, the farmers would produce silage and feed a control group of goats to test results. This trial, however, failed because of this year’s extreme floods. However, the three varieties will be tested further and will form part of new on-farm trials. Ultimately, one crop variety will be selected for distribution within the SGP-CBA and the wider northern area of Namibia, to plant at the household level. This crop will make a simple, but significant contribution towards food security, poverty alleviation and a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The different purposes of the crop are: food, fodder for livestock, chicken feed, and silage for the dry season and sugar extract for ethanol/biofuel. Another possible use for the sugar extract is in fruit juices. The project demonstrates a need for training of farmers in processing for these different applications.[Refer to the attached document for full Results and Learning.] The results will be sustainable once the best variety is selected. First, future trials and subsequent cultivation of such a variety will provide evidence to support the hypothesis that multi-purpose crops can augment household income and sustainability on various levels and strengthen the climate change response, as well as other national development objectives. Once successfully tested, the small-scale farmers will continue to plant or cultivate the best variety. [Refer to the attached document for further details.] Replicability is ensured by distributing the seeds of the successful variety across the Northern regions for free, and subsequently at a subsidized price. The research also ties in with an Africa-wide trial including countries like Zambia and Kenya. It could, therefore be replicated in other areas or on other crops. Multi-disciplinary cooperation through ICRISAT, which is kept abreast of developments in Ogongo, will aid this purpose. ICRISAT currently looks at multiplying the seeds of multi-purpose crops so that they do not become hybrid and infertile. Namibia, as an advanced country, has the potential to serve as a replication model. The results of the trial can be shared with countries with similar climatic conditions, which could duplicate the outcomes. Finally increased yields and income could facilitate further cultivation and initiate the long-awaited ‘green revolution’ in Africa. An agreement over REDD Plus could further enhance agro forestry. The African Drought Risk and Development Network (ADDN) is a region-wide network for advocacy, capacity building and peer learning. It was initiated by the United Nations Development Programme Drylands Development Centre (UNDP-DDC) and UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) in 2005 with the aim to promote applied discussion and policy dialogue on key issues linking drought risk and development in Africa. Integrating climate change risks into water and flood management by vulnerable mountainous communities in the Greater Caucasus region of Azerbaijan Implementing Agency and Partnering Organizations:Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources To reduce vulnerability of the communities of the Greater Caucasus region of Azerbaijan to water stress and hazards by improved water and flood management. Windhoek, Namibia: As climate change becomes more eminent, it is the vulnerable who are most affected. One of the worst affected areas is Namibia - the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change projections for Namibia forecast increased aridity and variable rainfall. Implementing Agency and Partnering Organizations:UNHCR UNHCR and its partners, including the Chad government, are addressing the effects of climate change with programmes aimed at better management of dwindling water resources and at holding back desertification by planting trees in one of the driest and hottest countries on earth. Senior Information Officer Phone: +41 22 739 86 57 Mobile: +41 79 200 76 17 Project Status:Under implementation Adapting national and transboundary water resource management in Swaziland to manage expected climate changeSubmitted by JulianneBG on Wed, 2010-06-23 05:17 Implementing Agency and Partnering Organizations: The goal of the project is to ensure that national and transboundary water resources management is adapted to the expected impact of climate change. The objective of the project is to promote the implementation of national and transboundary integrated water resource management that is sustainable and equitable given expected climate change. **1.** Promoting informed and inclusive national dialogue around water needs vulnerability to climate change and water allocation in Swaziland among productive and domestic uses. **2.** Integrating climate risk management into the implementation of national policies and relevant to integrated water resource management. **3.** Informed negotiations on trans-boundary water resources management. **1.1** Information on community views on water needs and vulnerabilities to climate change. **1.2** Information dissemination to raise community awareness regarding climate change impacts and adaptation measures. **1.3** Policy analysis regarding climate change impacts on water and agriculture sectors. **1.4** National platform to discuss bottom-up and top-down analysis. **1.5** National policy dialogues to promote adoption of National Water Policy draft. **1.6** Knowledge products for policy makers to promote response options in water and agriculture sectors. **1.7** Partnership between MET Service and policy makers. **2.1** Guidelines and tools designed to take into account climate change. **2.2** Investment plans implemented by Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy and Ministry of Agriculture adjusted to take climate change risks into account. **3.1** Swaziland delegations to trans-boundary water resources management negotiations briefed on implications of climate change. **3.2** Dissemination of knowledge products on climate change impacts on trans-boundary water resources management and water allocation. Regional Technical Advisor +27 12 354 8125 Implementing Agency and Partnering Organizations: Apart from relatively frequent earthquakes, Turkey is vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, increasing water stress in parts of the country, and land degradation. Economic losses from flooding and landslides as a proportion of GDP have historically been among the highest in Turkey compared to other countries in Europe and CIS. Landslides and floods have accounted for 25% and 10%, respectively, of Turkey’s natural disasters over the last 25 years. This joint program's core objective is to develop national capacities to manage climate change risks. This will be achieved through mainstreaming climate change issues into 1) national development framework, 2) local pilot actions, and 3) the UN country programmatic framework. In pursuant of the core objective, the joint program will achieve the following outcomes: **Outcome 1.** Mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the national development framework. The project will target the key strategic planning frameworks to mainstream climate change adaptation. Turkey’s development plan and rural development strategies will be screened and revised to integrate adaptation needs. The screening process will help the national stakeholders to better understand the current and future climate change risks and their implications for economic, human and social development. The project will also initiate legislative and procedural changes to mainstream climate change risks into development and regional planning. A new and revised legal framework will be developed to introduce clear rules and procedures for a mainstreaming routine. National authorities are in full agreement with these proposals. **Outcome 2.** Developing institutional capacity for climate risk management. Under this outcome, the program will work with the relevant national and regional institutions to enhance their in-house knowledge and response capacity to effectively manage climate risks in Turkey. The program will specifically target the Regional Development Agency, which has been established to plan and undertake regional development activities, as well as develop the technical capacity of relevant research, monitoring and observing entities for systematic observations and early warning systems. The data generation will be systematized and harmonized across the responsible agencies for improved response capabilities. By building on the First National Communication preparation to UNFCCC, the program will build on and further enhance current technical knowledge and capacity for policy relevant vulnerability assessment. **Outcome 3.** Developing capacity for community based adaptation in a pilot river basin. The program will pilot climate change adaptation approaches by introducing the principles of Community Based Adaptation (CBA) in the context of agricultural practices, water management, food security, climate change related disaster risk management, particularly drought management, coastal development, natural resources management, data and information management. CBA approaches will be established as important elements of vulnerability reduction and disaster management strategies. CBA will build on and further develop local capacities and knowledge, including through better data and information management, to cope with climate risks and variability. CBA options will be instrumental not only in formulating local coping and adaptation strategies, but also in situating them within wider development planning and debates by empowering local communities through their increased participation in local planning and decision making. By applying participatory methods, the program will bring together key stakeholders at the local level (planners and decision makers, developers and investors, local communities and most vulnerable groups) in the framework of public private partnership (PPP) to mobilize commitments and local resources in financing adaptation measures. **Outcome 4.** Mainstreaming climate risk reduction into the UN programming framework. Under this outcome, the program will establish the guiding principles as well as develop the technical guidelines for integrating climate change concerns into the “One UN” programming. This will be done by using the UNDAF as the programmatic platform for mainstreaming adaptation within the UN system. This approach will ensure the “climate proofing” of all multi-agency development assistance that is targeted to achieving the MDGs. Tel: +90 312 454 1192 Fax: +90 312 496 1463 Regional Project Coordinator Tel: +90 312 454 1086 Fax: +90 312 496 1463 Finance and Administrative Officer Tel: +90 312 454 1181 Fax: +90 312 496 1463 Tel: +90 312 454 1056 Fax: +90 312 496 1463

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Cholesterol test results; LDL test results; VLDL test results; HDL test results Cholesterol is a soft, wax-like substance found in all parts of the body. Your body needs a little bit of cholesterol to work properly. But too much cholesterol can clog your arteries and lead to heart disease. Some cholesterol is considered good and some is considered bad. Different blood tests can be done to individually measure each type of cholesterol. A total cholesterol test measures all types of cholesterol in your blood. The results of this test tells your doctor whether your cholesterol is too high. Best: lower than 200 Borderline high: 200 - 239 High: 240 and higher If your total cholesterol levels are high, your doctor will want to know your LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol levels before deciding whether you need treatment. Knowing your LDL and HDL cholesterol levels will also help guide your doctor to choose the best drug for you. LDL (Bad) Cholesterol LDL stands for low-density lipoprotein. It's also sometimes called "bad" cholesterol. Lipoproteins are made of fat and protein. They carry cholesterol, triglycerides, and other fats, called lipids, in the blood to various parts of the body. LDL can clog your arteries. Your LDL level is what doctors watch most closely. You want your LDL to be low. Too much LDL, commonly called "bad cholesterol," is linked to cardiovascular disease. If it gets too high, you will need treatment. A healthy LDL level is one that falls in the best or near-best range. Best: Less than 100 mg/dL (less than 70 mg/dL for persons with a history of heart disease or those at very high risk) Near Best: 100 - 129 mg/dL Borderline High: 130 - 159 mg/dL High: 160 - 189 mg/dL Very High: 190 mg/dL and higher HDL (Good) Cholesterol HDL stands for high-density lipoprotein. It's also sometimes called "good" cholesterol. Lipoproteins are made of fat and protein. They carry cholesterol, triglycerides, and other fats, called lipids, in the blood from other parts of your body to your liver. You want your HDL cholesterol to be high. Studies of both men and women have shown that the higher your HDL, the lower your risk of coronary artery disease. This is why HDL is sometimes referred to as "good" cholesterol. A healthy HDL level should be as follows: Men: above 40 mg/dL Women: above 50 mg/dL An HDL 60 mg/dL or above helps protect against heart disease. Exercise helps raise your HDL cholesterol. VLDL (Bad) Cholesterol VLDL stands for very low density lipoprotein. There are three major types of lipoproteins. VLDL contains the highest amount of triglycerides. VLDL is considered a type of bad cholesterol, because it helps cholesterol build up on the walls of arteries. A normal VLDL cholesterol level is between 5 and 40 mg/dL. Sometimes, your cholesterol levels may be low enough that your doctor will not ask you to change your diet or take any medications. When your levels are high, your doctor must consider other factors before deciding whether your cholesterol levels are a concern and need treatment. Gennest J, Libby P. Lipoprotein disorders and cardiovascular disease. In: Bonow RO, Mann DL, Zipes DP, Libby P, eds. Braunwald’s Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 47. A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc., Editorial Team: David Zieve, MD, MHA, and Bethanne Black.

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One Deed Reflects On Another The Torah describes how the people eagerly came to donate their prized possessions towards the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). "The men came with the women; everyone whose heart motivated him brought bracelets, nose-rings, body ornaments - all sorts of gold ornaments - every man who raised up an offering of gold to God." (1) The commentaries discuss the meaning of the phrase, "the men came with the women". Rabbeinu Bechaye explains that the women in fact came first to donate their jewelry, and the men only came after them. This, he explains, demonstrates their righteousness in and of itself but it also reflects positively on an earlier incident involving jewelry - that of the Golden Calf. When the men demanded that Aaron make for them a statue, he told them to remove the women's jewelry. However, the women refused to give over their jewelry so the men took their own gold and gave that towards the building of the Calf. From the incident of the Golden Calf alone, it is unclear why the women refused to give their jewelry. It was possible that their main motivation was their natural attachment to their jewelry, as opposed to the pure motivation of refusal to be involved with the sin of the Golden Calf. However, in Vayakhel we see that the women were very willing to donate their jewelry towards the elevated purpose of the building of the Mishkan. This retroactively teaches us about the reason that they did not give their jewelry at the Golden Calf. It was not because of their attachment to gold and silver, because that did not prevent the women from parting with them for the sake of the Mishkan. Rather, their refusal to give towards the Golden Calf emanated from leshem Shamayim (pure) motives - they wanted no part in that terrible sin.(2) Rav Avraham Pam derives a very important concept from this explanation. It is known in Hebrew as 'Maasim shel adam mochichim zeh et zeh'. This means that the actions of a person in one area can reveal something about his actions in another area. In this case, the women's willingness to part with their jewelry for the Mishkan revealed their pure intentions when refusing to do so for the Golden Calf. We see another example of this concept with regards to one of the names given to the Third meal that is eaten on Shabbos: Shalosh Seudas - this literally means, 'three meals'. This is a very strange name to give the third meal, it would be more appropriate to only use its other name - seudah shelishis. Why is this meal also known as 'three meals'? The answer is that the way a person conducts himself at the third meal reflects retroactively on his intentions during the first two Shabbat meals. There are two possible reasons as to why a person would eat well at the first two Shabbat meals: It could be because of his pure desire to honor the Shabbat by eating delicious food, or it could emanate from his hunger and desire to eat well, because both those meals come at a time when a person is normally hungry and ready to eat well. However, the third meal comes quite soon after Shabbat lunch, therefore a person's natural hunger will not be high. If he refrains from eating at the third meal despite the fact that it is a mitzvah to eat then, he retroactively shows that his main kavannah (intention) for the first two meals was to fill his stomach more than honor the Shabbat! If, however, he does partake in a delicious meal he demonstrates that his intentions are for the honor of Shabbat, for if it were not Shabbat he would otherwise eat far less or nothing at all. Accordingly, by eating the third meal he retroactively demonstrates his intent for the first two, and at this point it is clear that he ate ALL THREE MEALS with pure intentions. Therefore, the third meal merits the name, 'three meals' because, for one who eats the third meal, it is considered as if he ate all three meals with pure intent.(3) This concept of 'Maasim shel adam mochichim zeh es zeh' is of great importance because it is a very effective mechanism in judging the consistency of people's actions. This idea is brought out by the Beis HaLevi, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik,(4) on Vayigash. When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers he asked them the question; "is my father still alive?" (5) When the brothers heard this, they were completely speechless and disconcerted. The Midrash compares Joseph's revelation to his brothers to that of the Day of Judgment. It says that if the brothers could not answer Joseph who was younger than them, then all the more so when God (so to speak) comes and rebukes us, we will be left speechless.(6) The commentaries ask; what exactly is the comparison between Joseph's revelation to the brothers and the Day of Judgment. The Beis HaLevi answers by first explaining Joseph's question about whether his father was alive - it was very clear from the events up to this time that Jacob was still alive! He answers that Joseph was in truth giving them a veiled rebuke. Yehuda had just spent a great deal of time arguing that Joseph should not take Benjamin as a slave because it would destroy Jacob. By bringing up the well-being of Jacob, Joseph was alluding to them that their purported concern for their father did not seem to be consistent with their actions in selling Joseph so many years earlier. At that time, they had shown no concern for the pain that their father would feel al the loss of his beloved son. In this way, the brothers had contradicted their own arguments through their very actions! The Beis HaLevi then explains the similarity of Joseph's 'rebuke' to that of the Day of Judgment. On that awesome day each person will be asked about his various actions, including his sins and failure to keep mitzvot properly. He may have excuses however, these excuses will then be scrutinized by his other actions in that same area. For example, a person might justify his failure to give sufficient money to charity on the basis that he was lacking in his own livelihood. However, his spending in other areas will then be examined - if it becomes clear that in other areas he was all too willing and able to spend large amounts of money, then he himself has ruined his own justification for failing to give charity! In this vein, his actions in spending money for his own enjoyment reflects badly on his spending of money for the mitzvah of giving charity. In this vein, the Chaftez Chaim once berated a wealthy man for giving insufficient funds to charity. The man answered that he did indeed give away a significant amount. The Chafetz Chaim then worked out the amount of money he gave to charity and compared it to his expenses on his own luxuries. It came out that the man spent more money on his drapery alone than on all the charity that he gave! We have discussed the concept of 'Maasim shel adam mochichim zeh et zeh' and seen its great significance in the process of judgment. The obvious lesson to be derived from this concept, is that it is essential that a person analyze the consistency of his actions. For example, a person who claims that he does not have enough time to learn will have to justify his failure to learn on the Day of Judgment. If it becomes clear that he did have enough time for many other types of activities then his claim that he did not have enough time to learn will be put in serious jeopardy. His actions in other areas show that in truth it wasn't because he did not have enough time to learn rather that it was a very low priority in his list of importance. It would be much less disconcerting if we can make our own self-analysis of such inconsistencies and fix them before the Day of Judgment. May we all merit to achieve consistency in all our actions. 1. Shemot, 35:22. 2. Rabbeinu Bechaye, Shemot, 35:22. 3. Heard from Rav Yisroel Reisman. 4. He was the father of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, and grandfather of the Brisker Rav, Rav Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik. 5. Bereishit, 45:3. 6. Bereishit Rabbah, 93:10.

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Ki Tisa(Exodus 30:11-34:35) Two Types of Religious Encounter Framing the epic events of this week's Torah portion are two objects - the two sets of tablets, the first given before, the second after, the sin of the Golden Calf. Of the first, we read: The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. These were perhaps the holiest object in history: from beginning to end, the work of God. Yet within hours they lay shattered, broken by Moses when he saw the calf and the Israelites dancing around it. The second tablets, brought down by Moses on the tenth of Tishri, were the result of his prolonged plea to God to forgive the people. This is the historic event that lies behind Yom Kippur (tenth of Tishri), the day marked in perpetuity as a time of favour, forgiveness and reconciliation between God and the Jewish people. The second tablets were different in one respect. They were not wholly the work of God: Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Hence the paradox: the first tablets, made by God, did not remain intact. The second tablets, the joint work of God and Moses, did. Surely the opposite should have been true: the greater the holiness, the more eternal. Why was the more holy object broken while the less holy stayed whole? This is not, as it might seem, a question specific to the tablets. It is, in fact, a powerful example of a fundamental principle in Jewish spirituality. The Jewish mystics distinguished between two types of Divine-human encounter. They called them itaruta de-l'eylah and itaruta deletata, respectively "an awakening from above" and "an awakening from below." The first is initiated by God, the second by mankind. An "awakening from above" is spectacular, supernatural, an event that bursts through the chains of causality that at other times bind the natural world. An "awakening from below" has no such grandeur. It is a gesture that is human, all too human. Yet there is another difference between them, in the opposite direction. An "awakening from above" may change nature, but it does not, in and of itself, change human nature. In it, no human effort has been expended. Those to whom it happens are passive. While it lasts, it is overwhelming; but only while it lasts. Thereafter, people revert to what they were. An "awakening from below", by contrast, leaves a permanent mark. Because human beings have taken the initiative, something in them changes. Their horizons of possibility have been expanded. They now know they are capable of great things, and because they did so once, they are aware that they can do so again. An awakening from above temporarily transforms the external world; an awakening from below permanently transforms our internal world. The first changes the universe; the second changes us. Two Examples. The first: Before and after the division of the Red Sea, the Israelites were confronted by enemies: before, by the Egyptians, after by the Amalekites. The difference is total. Before the Red Sea, the Israelites were commanded to do nothing: Stand still and you will see the deliverance God will bring you today ... God will fight for you; you need only be still. (14:13-14). Facing the Amalekites, however, the Israelites themselves had to fight: Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose men and go out and fight the Amalekites (17:9). The first was an "awakening from above", the second an "awakening from below." The difference was palpable. Within three days after the division of the Sea, the greatest of all miracles, the Israelites began complaining again (no water, no food). But after the war against the Amalekites, the Israelites never again complained when facing conflict (the sole exception - when the spies returned and the people lost heart - was when they relied on hearsay testimony, not on the immediate prospect of battle itself). The battles fought for us do not change us; the battles we fight, do. The second example: Mount Sinai and the Tabernacle. The Torah speaks about these two revelations of "God's glory" in almost identical terms: The glory of God settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day God called to Moses from within the cloud. Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of God filled the tabernacle. The difference between them was that the sanctity of Mount Sinai was momentary, while that of the tabernacle was permanent (at least, until the Temple was built, centuries later). The revelation at Sinai was an "awakening from above". It was initiated by God. So overwhelming was it that the people said to Moses, "Let God not speak to us any more, for if He does, we will die" (20:16). By contrast, the tabernacle involved human labour. The Israelites made it; they prepared the structured space the Divine presence would eventually fill. Forty days after the revelation at Sinai, the Israelites made a Golden Calf. But after constructing the sanctuary they made no more idols - at least until they entered the land. That is the difference between the things that are done for us and the things we have a share in doing ourselves. The former change us for a moment, the latter for a lifetime. There was one other difference between the first tablets and the second. According to tradition, when Moses was given the first tablets, he was given only Torah shebikhtav, the "written Torah". At the time of the second tablets, he was given Torah she-be'al peh, the Oral Torah as well: "R. Jochanan said: God made a covenant with Israel only for the sake of the Oral Law, as it says : "For by the mouth of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel" (Ex. 34:27). The difference between the Written and Oral Torah is profound. The first is the word of God, with no human contribution. The second is a partnership - the word of God as interpreted by the mind of man. The following are two of several remarkable passages to this effect: R. Judah said in the name of Shmuel: Three thousand traditional laws were forgotten during the period of mourning for Moses. They said to Joshua: "Ask" (through ruach hakodesh, the holy spirit). Joshua replied, "It is not in heaven." They said to Samuel, "Ask." He replied, "These are the commandments - implying that no prophet has the right to introduce anything new." (B.T. Temurah 16a) "If a thousand prophets of the stature of Elijah and Elisha were to give one interpretation of a verse, and one thousand and one sages were to offer a different interpretation, we follow the majority: the law is in accordance with the thousand-and-one sages and not in accordance with the thousand prophets." (Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishneh, Introduction) Any attempt to reduce the Oral Torah to the Written - by relying on prophecy or Divine communication - mistakes its essential nature as the collaborative partnership between God and man, where revelation meets interpretation. Thus, the difference between the two precisely mirrors that between the first and second tablets. The first were Divine, the second the result of Divine-human collaboration. This helps us understand a glorious ambiguity. The Torah says that at Sinai the Israelites heard a "great voice velo yasaf" (Deut. 5:18). Two contradictory interpretations are given of this phrase. One reads it as "a great voice that was never heard again", the other as "a great voice that did not cease" - i.e. a voice that was always heard again. Both are true. The first refers to the Written Torah, given once and never to be repeated. The second applies to the Oral Torah, whose study has never ceased. It also helps us understand why it was only after the second tablets, not the first, that "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in his hands, he was unaware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with God" (34:29). Receiving the first tablets, Moses was passive. Therefore, nothing in him changed. For the second, he was active. He had a share in the making. He carved the stone on which the words were to be engraved. That is why he became a different person. His face shone. In Judaism, the natural is greater than the supernatural in the sense that an "awakening from below" is more powerful in transforming us, and longer-lasting in its effects, than is an "awakening from above." That was why the second tablets survived intact while the first did not. Divine intervention changes nature, but it is human initiative - our approach to God - that changes us.

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LABELING AND RATING SYSTEMS An Interpretation of the LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS Libraries do not advocate the ideas found in their collections or in resources accessible through the library. The presence of books and other resources in a library does not indicate endorsement of their contents by the library. Likewise, providing access to digital information does not indicate endorsement or approval of that information by the library. Labeling and rating systems present distinct challenges to these intellectual freedom principles. Labels on library materials may be viewpoint-neutral directional aids designed to save the time of users, or they may be attempts to prejudice or discourage users or restrict their access to materials. When labeling is an attempt to prejudice attitudes, it is a censor’s tool. The American Library Association opposes labeling as a means of predisposing people’s attitudes toward library materials. Prejudicial labels are designed to restrict access, based on a value judgment that the content, language, or themes of the material, or the background or views of the creator(s) of the material, render it inappropriate or offensive for all or certain groups of users. The prejudicial label is used to warn, discourage, or prohibit users or certain groups of users from accessing the material. Such labels sometimes are used to place materials in restricted locations where access depends on staff intervention. Viewpoint-neutral directional aids facilitate access by making it easier for users to locate materials. The materials are housed on open shelves and are equally accessible to all users, who may choose to consult or ignore the directional aids at their own discretion. Directional aids can have the effect of prejudicial labels when their implementation becomes proscriptive rather than descriptive. When directional aids are used to forbid access or to suggest moral or doctrinal endorsement, the effect is the same as prejudicial labeling. Many organizations use rating systems as a means of advising either their members or the general public regarding the organizations’ opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate age for use of certain books, films, recordings, Web sites, games, or other materials. The adoption, enforcement, or endorsement of any of these rating systems by a library violates the Library Bill of Rights. When requested, librarians should provide information about rating systems equitably, regardless of viewpoint. Adopting such systems into law or library policy may be unconstitutional. If labeling or rating systems are mandated by law, the library should seek legal advice regarding the law’s applicability to library operations. Libraries sometimes acquire resources that include ratings as part of their packaging. Librarians should not endorse the inclusion of such rating systems; however, removing or destroying the ratings—if placed there by, or with permission of, the copyright holder—could constitute expurgation. In addition, the inclusion of ratings on bibliographic records in library catalogs is a violation of the Library Bill of Rights. Prejudicial labeling and ratings presuppose the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is appropriate or inappropriate for others. They presuppose that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. The American Library Association affirms the rights of individuals to form their own opinions about resources they choose to read or view. Adopted July 13, 1951, by the ALA Council; amended June 25, 1971; July 1, 1981; June 26,1990; January 19, 2005; July 15, 2009.

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Although Tunisia has enacted several laws pertaining to environmental protection, enforcement of environmental legislation has not been consistent until recently, due both to the lack of staff and resources. In addition, the legal instruments available in the past were not highly effective. The creation of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPE) in 1988, however, led to the development of a National Action Plan for the Environment (NAPE), which attempts to draw together existing environmental legislation and programs and to provide a strategy for natural resource conservation, pollution control and land-use management. To that end, article 8 of Air Pollution and Noise Emissions Law No. 88-91 dictates that any industrial, agricultural or commercial establishment as well as any individual or corporate entity carrying out activity that may cause pollution to the environment, is obliged to eliminate or to reduce discharges and, eventually, to recycle rejected matter. The ANPE may initiate legal proceedings against violators or reach a compromise with the polluting entity. Legislation pertaining to environmental protection includes the Wildlife Protection Law No. 88-20; the Water Pollution Law No. 75-16; and the Marine Pollution Law No. 75-16. In addition, Tunisia is a member of ISO. In June, 1997, the Technical Committee for the Elaboration of Standards adopted the ISO 14,000 Series relating to industrial atmospheric emission standards. Tunisia has entered into several international conventions and agreements dealing with environmental problems and aspects, including: - Convention of the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons, and on Their Destruction; - Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; - Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution; - Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water; and - International Convention Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Oil Pollution Casualties.

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