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Head for facts: ultra-rare mastodon skull found on French farm Scientists unveil remarkable complete head of elephant relative that roamed Europe 11 million years ago. Lydia Hales reports from France. A farmer in the south of France struck scientific gold when he uncovered part of a giant skull on his property around two years ago. But at the time he wasn’t sure what to do with the bones, so left them hidden. When he contacted researchers at the Toulouse Natural History Museum in September 2017, they quickly realised they were looking at something special. It was the first skull ever to be found of a mastodon species called Gomphotherium pyrenaicum. Gomphotheria are long-extinct mammals from the order Proboscidea, which includes mammoths and elephants. Although France has many fossil sites, this particular giant has evaded scientists for years. Until the discovery of the skull (which is complete, with four tusks), only four teeth of G. pyrenaicum had ever been found. They were unearthed in 1857, in an area near to the current-day farm, around 60 kilometres southwest of Toulouse. “I’ve been looking for this species for 35 years, and my professor – he’s dead now, but he was looking for it for 50 years,” says Francis Duranthon, director and curator of the museum. “It is a fantastic discovery. A complete skull with the mandibula is very rare. And for this species, it is the only one in the world. It confirms the existence of large mastodons in this part of Europe 11 million years ago. “For us, all the team and me, it’s a great achievement after 160 years of intensive research in the field.” The team worked carefully to free the bones from the earth. The skull, including upper and lower tusks, is around 1.6 metres long. It was encased in plaster so it could be moved from the site to the museum to be studied. The plaster with the skull inside weighed 600 kilograms. The team is still preparing the skull to make detailed studies, and no matter how excited they may be, they must go carefully. “It is very long because the sediment is very hard – we need for example one day to remove four square centimetres of sediments close to the bone,” says Duranthon. “We are currently removing all the sediment to reveal the skull. We will have to analyse the structure of the skull, make a lot of measurements, study the morphology of the tusks, check the presence of enamel bands on the tusk, maybe using scans to study the inner ear.” It’s thought the skull is between 13 and 11 million years old. Unfortunately, it is too old to extract DNA from, but the team is keeping the surrounding sediment to study for information from things such as pollen. It is unusual that the skull is unaccompanied by the rest of the animal’s body, Duranthon says. The team has dug in the surrounding area but so far have not found any other remains. Mastodons were once spread around the world, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica. They first appeared during the Miocene epoch and continued until around 11,700 years ago.

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The Class D amplifier has some added challenges. Real world transistor switching characteristics require that some degree of dead-time is present in each modulation cycle to control the cross-conduction (or shoot-through) current between the high and low-side FETs. The dead time is a source of error at the output as the pulse widths are necessarily modified. This aside, the output switching waveform varies somewhat from the idealized square-edged pulse stream. Also the requirement for an LC low-pass (or reconstruction filter) adds an additional source of distortion in series with the load. The frequency response of the system is a function of the LC values and the load impedance itself. Figure 2 shows where in the amplifier these errors occur, and figure 3 shows the non-ideal switching waveform. Figure 2: Error sources in a digital amplifier Figure 3: Comparison of ideal and actual PWM switching edge Applying the feedback loop in Class D The methods applied to linear analog amplifiers can also be used with analog Class D amplifiers and a well engineered solution enables compensation for a series of potential error causes: power supply ripple, dead-time induced distortion. Closing the loop for a digital amplifier is a different proposition. The most commonly thought of method is to convert the analog output of the amplifier back to the digital domain and compare with the original input. This approach is likely to fall foul of the relatively large group delay present in digital amplifiers, which would cause the system to be unstable. Achieving feedback in a digital amplifier Pulse width correction. The high voltage pulses produced by the output stage are normally very different to the finely tuned logic level input pulses. Dead time is one cause, as is ringing, RDS(on) modulation and mismatched components. A pulse width correction scheme seeks to compensate for this effect by pre-modifying the logic level pulses so the outputs become closer to the ideal. If successfully done, the effects are seen as reduced distortion. The effect of power supply noise has only a limited influence on edge positions, and hence the benefits in terms of Power Supply Rejection Ratio (PSRR) are only small. Power supply feedback. An open-loop amplifier has no ability to compensate for errors on the power supplies. Schemes exist where the power supplies are monitored, through an analog-to-digital conversion, such that the digital gain is modified to compensate for any deviation from the nominal voltage. This approach is sometimes known as a feed-forward system and can achieve some power supply noise rejection as well as some reduction in inter-modulation distortion.

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Adding to this blog’s discussion about language education is Roslyn Tam. This post discusses the importance of language education for students. Roslyn is a regular contributor at www.educationalleadership.com. English is the worldwide language of business and academics. Even though there are more native speakers of Mandarin Chinese than native speakers of English, English has more non-native speakers than any other language, and Mandarin is not used as a lingua franca between nations in the same way as English. Due to this fact, many people in the United States and other English-speaking nations have become apathetic about learning languages other than English; and educational institutions have become lax about teaching world languages. This problem is compounded by the fact that many educational leadership programs are preoccupied by falling test scores and reorganizing districts after school closures. The general attitude is that, since students in the United States already speak the most valuable language in the world, educational institutions should focus on helping students to develop skills in other areas, such as mathematics. However, this misconception is hurting the prospects of young people in the United States and educational leadership must try to find a way of reversing this trend. One of the first things that critics of language education efforts in the United States need to realize is that the primacy of English as the global language is waning rather than waxing. This can be seen in the meteoric rise of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and MIKT (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey) economies. These are all non-English-speaking countries with large populations and rapidly growing economic strength. With the United States having become a country that produces MBAs instead of engineers, it would only make sense that education in the United States would focus on teaching these future managers and world leaders to communicate in other languages. However instead, MBA graduates go out into the world with the expectation that everyone in these rising markets will speak to them in English. While the arrogance of this expectation has been largely understandable in the past, it will not remain so for much longer. According to one British Council report, by 2050, Spanish will have overtaken English for the #2 slot after Mandarin Chinese, and English will be on about the same level as Arabic. With the rise of other economies, particularly China, to challenge the United States as the world’s chief economic force, English’s place as the world language of business will be seriously challenged. Something that educators and policy makers in the United States need to bear in mind is that virtually every nation in the world with a respectable economy outperforms the United States when it comes to multilingualism. For instance, according to a 2006 report by the China Post, 40% of all students in Taiwan start learning English from preschool age. In South Korea, students are required to start learning English during their third year of elementary schooling. People in the United States may see this as a flattering example of the importance of English in the world sphere, but they must remember that as these countries gain global clout, the fact that they have already fostered a culture of multilingualism will make it even more difficult for the United States to compete with them economically in the future. Many of the arguments against better language education in the United States center on resources. Critics feel that teaching students Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, or German from a young age is a misuse of resources. However, one thing that we should bear in mind is the fact that the advent of computer-based and Internet-based education has taken much of the cost out of language education. Schools do not necessarily even need foreign language teachers, they can take advantage of software tools such as Rosetta Stone and Fluenz or get students involved in language exchange programs with students overseas. To keep the United States competitive in the world sphere and help American students become competitive personally, educators must consider new methods and approaches if necessary, but foreign languages must be taught.

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What is a hordeolum? A hordeolum, also known as a stye, is an inflammation of part of the eyelid. What causes a stye? A stye is caused by a skin infection at the edge of the eyelid or underneath the eyelid. The infection is usually caused by bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus. What are the symptoms of a stye? The following are the most common symptoms of a stye. However, each child may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include: Swelling of the eyelid Redness at the edge of the eyelid Pain over the affected area A painful sense that there are small particles in the eye Sensitivity to light Tearing of the eye The symptoms of a stye may resemble other conditions or medical problems. Always consult your child's doctor for a diagnosis. How is a stye diagnosed? A stye is usually diagnosed based on a complete medical history and physical examination of your child. Additional tests are not usually required to confirm the diagnosis. Treatment of a stye A stye will typically go away on its own, rupturing and draining after two to seven days. Specific treatment for a stye will be determined by your child's doctor based on: Your child's age, overall health, and medical history Extent of the condition Your child's tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies Expectations for the course of the condition Your opinion or preference Treatment may include: Applying warm, wet compresses on the child's eye for about a period of approximately five to 10 minutes, two to three times throughout the day Instructing your child not to squeeze or rub the stye Having your child wash his or her hands frequently Antibiotic ointments for the eye (this does not make the stye go away faster, but it can help to stop the spread of the infection to other parts of the eye) Having your child wash his or her face daily, including the eye Refraining from wearing makeup until the infection heals

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A) What is dissymmetry of lift? The rotor disc on the helicopter is split into advancing and retreating sides. The advancing side has a higher relative wind than the retreating and this causes the left side of the disc to move up and the right to move down, causing the disc to tilt to the left. This problem was solved by Juan de la Cierva in the early 1920's with the addition of flapping hinges which allows the lift to be equalized over the disc. B) At what height is the helicopter in ground effect? The height above ground that a helicopter would be in ground effect will vary from machine to machine. As a roungh guide take 2/3rd of your rotor diameter. For example; the R22 has a rotor diameter of 25 ft 2 inches. Two thirds of that is roughly 17 ft. So when the rotor disc is 17 ft above the ground the R22 would be in ground effect. C) What is translating tendency? Translating tendency is the tendency of the helicopter to drift to the right (N. American helicopters). Helicopters need a way to counter the torque of the main rotor and the most common way is with a tail rotor. The torque of the main rotor tries to turn the body of the helicopter to the right, to counter this the tail rotor pushes the nose of the helicopter round to the left which means the thrust of the tail rotor is to the right and this is what causes the helicopter to drift right. D) Name the three parameters needed to get into Vortex Ring State? 1. Descent rate of 500 - 1500 fpm 2. Speed below translation 3. Some power in use

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|What is Precipitation ?| Precipitation is any form of liquid or solid water particles that fall from the atmosphere and reach the surface of the Earth. For the Gulf Coast area, precipitation includes drizzle, rain, hail, and on rare occasions, snow and sleet. Different seasons and geographic locations see varying amounts of precipitation in amount and intensity. Precipitation is caused when a mass of warm, moist air hits a mass of cold air. Condensation causes the moisture to form droplets that become rain or crystals that become snow or ice. When these droplets or crystals become too heavy to be suspended in the atmosphere, they fall to Earth as precipitation.

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SolidWorks Tutorials for Beginners – Basic Surface Design Question – part 1 Hi everyone. Here is another post for our SolidWorks tutorials for beginners series, and this one deals with some basic surface design. I recently received a question from one of my YouTube viewers regarding a basic surface design questions. Here is the question: “I’ve used the 3D sketch tool to create 2 joined triangles. One is on the top plane, and the other is on the front plane. The two triangles share a line. I want to convert them into two triangle surfaces. How can I do this?” Let’s figure this out! While for intermediate users of SolidWorks this is an easy-breezy task, for newcomers this question provides an opportunity to explain and demonstrate some of the structural thinking that needs to underpin your geometry when you’re working with surfaces, and hence a great question for my SolidWorks tutorials for beginners questions & answers. Let’s begin with a New Part Document and then go to the Sketch tab. Fig 01 – Choose “new”. Fig 02 – Choose the new part document. Create a 3D sketch. Activate the Line Tool; we’ll use it to sketch a triangle on the top plane. First, let’s make the plane visible in the graphic area. I’ll do this by double-clicking on it in the tree. This makes it visible even while we’re sketching, and seeing the top plane makes it easier to sketch out this simple geometry. Sketch three lines for the triangle: Fig 03 – Our first triangle sketch on the top plane. Then go to the confirmation corner and click on the green checkmark to save your changes and exit the sketch. Fig 04 – The confirmation corner in the top right of your window. Click the arrow to save & exit. Now, I’ll select a line of the triangle, press down the CTRL key on my keyboard, and select the Front Plane. We’ll apply an On Plane relation to the third line of my triangle. Fig 05- The “on plane” relation in the line property manager. Let’s proceed with the second triangle now. We’ll sketch this geometry on the front plane. When we double-click on the front plane in the tree, we make it visible in the graphic area. Activate the Line Tool. To place this triangle, we’ll snap to some of the points on our first triangle. Instead of snapping the final point of the second triangle to the first triangle, let’s snap somewhere on the line. Exit the line tool with a right-click > Select. Let’s review what we have created. We have two triangles. One belongs to the front plane. The other belongs to the top plane. Fig 06- Our second triangle sketch. Let’s exit our sketch and go to the Surfaces tabs. If we try to create a surface from this geometry at this point, it just won’t work. Let’s try the Filled Surface tool – basically, nothing will happen; Solidworks can’t execute the command. We’re going to need to make some modifications to our geometry in order to work in the Surface Design environment successfully. Fig 06a – The Filled Surface tool on the Surfaces tab. No can do! Solidworks can’t execute the command with the geometry we’ve created. For the rest of this tutorial in our SolidWorks tutorials for beginners series, please stay tuned for part 2. Interested in learning more about Surface Design? Check here for our SolidWorks Tutorials on surface design: http://www.video-tutorials.net/shop/solidworks-video-tutorials/solidworks-video-tutorial-surface-design-modeling/ You can also see a video of this tutorial at our youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/videotutorials2. Here is the link to the youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCu9GWDqNpU&list=PLx-VY2mDlK2EHvtjEtTc64lT7FpqnkN3a&index=5

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UC Scholar Explores the Human Side of Animation in Prestigious Journal A researcher’s essay delves into why animation – though not real – can make us laugh, weep or be appalled by those reactions. Date: 4/5/2013 8:02:00 AM By: Dawn Fuller Phone: (513) 556-1823 Photos By: Dottie Stover A new essay takes a new look at the staying power of animated Disney films, as well as examines the long-held criticism that the films promote consumerism. The article by Eric Scott Jenkins, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of communication, is published in the current issue of the prestigious journal, "Critical Inquiry Jenkins’ paper takes a new view of animation in relation to the book, “Camera Lucida,” by French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes. Barthes’ book, published in 1980, is known as both an exploration of photography, as well as a eulogy to the author’s late mother. Barthes describes a punctum – a sting or piercing – as related to photography and how it can trigger emotions in the viewer. Barthes came to the discovery after coming across a childhood photo of his mother following her death, and how it affected him. Jenkins paper, titled “Another Punctum: Animation, Affect and Ideology,” contends that this so-called sting described by Barthe can be applied to media other than photography as evidenced by the early 20th century cultural response to animation. Furthermore, Jenkins suggests that the punctum effect from animation sparked the fears and desires surrounding consumerism, highlighting animated Disney productions as a prime example. | Eric Scott Jenkins| “When people talk about Disney animation, they may describe it as magical or wonderful, and I don’t think that has so much to do with the fact that there’s a lot of magic portrayed in it, or the fact that we know these things aren’t real,” Jenkins explains. “We perceive or feel them to be alive anyway, which is why someone can cry over Snow White or Bambi, and laugh over Mickey, even though we know on a rational level that these characters are not real or alive. “Focusing on effect – and how it moves us – allows us to understand why Disney has this staying power and, therefore, this ideological force,” says Jenkins. “Consumerism takes hold only because it moved us in the first place. If they were trying to push products and it didn’t move us, they’d be among a long line of people that promoted consumerism.” Jenkins adds that it’s a common criticism that Disney productions teach children how to be consumers, not citizens. “In my opinion, that criticism misses the point about why a child might be attracted to Disney features and why they’re so popular,” says Jenkins. “There are Disney productions that criticize consumerism, but they still sell toys.” Jenkins says even moral lessons are secondary to the attraction of animation. “We don’t watch Wall-E just because it’s against consumerism. Instead, there’s something powerful about the love story between the two robots that moves us and tickles us, and that’s the more powerful draw.” Jenkins adds that Barthe’s concept of the punctum relating to life or death is only described in relation to static photography. “He stated that film does not seem to have that punctum because cinema seems alive,” says Jenkins. In Jenkins article, he adds that the punctum related to animation not only applies to people emitting an emotion (laughter or tears) in watching animated film, but also to how other people are shocked or repulsed at how someone can react in such a way to a cartoon. “Critical Inquiry,” published by Chicago Journals, is a prestigious interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the best critical thought in the arts and humanities. Jenkins joined the UC Department of Communication in 2010. His research interests examine the connection between media technology and consumerism, with a particular focus on visual media.

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Tsiolkovsky Publishes Proof That Rockets Can Launch Things into Space Tsiolkovsky was probably the first person to realize the rocket was the means to travel into space, and the first to work out many essential principles. Deaf since childhood, he became a high school mathematics teacher. He theorized about airships and rockets beginning in the late 1800s and published his spaceflight ideas in Russian as early as 1903, (Study of Space by Reaction Devices). The communist government that emerged in Russia in 1917 eventually proclaimed Tsiolkovsky as the father of Soviet rocket technology. - First automobile crossing of the US - Louis Bleriot crosses the English Channel by airplane - First American transcontintental automobile trip driven by a woman The First American Transcontinental Flight A $50,000 Prize and a Pilot Named Cal… In 1910 publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst captured the attention of the aviation world when he announced a $50,000 prize for the first flight across the United States in 30 days or less. A newly licensed pilot named Calbraith Perry Rodgers, a descendant of famous U.S. Navy commodores Matthew Calbraith Perry and Oliver Hazard Perry, decided to take up the challenge. Rodgers covered the 4,321 miles in 82 hours and 4 minutes of flying time. Unfortunately, he far exceeded the 30-day limit set by Hearst and lost out on the $50,000 prize. He did secure his place in history by making the first U.S. transcontinental flight. “I expect to see the time when we shall be carrying passengers in flying machines from New York to the Pacific Coast in three days.” Cal Rodgers - First running of the Indianapolis 500 - Ford Model T assembly line production begins - World War I begins - The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) is created - October revolution in Russia, Bolsheviks overthrow provisional government - US Entry into World War I - HMS Argus, the first aircraft carrier, enters service with the Royal Navy - World War I hostilities ended The First Flight Across the Atlantic The U.S. Navy achieved the first transatlantic flight eight years before Charles Lindbergh became world famous for crossing the Atlantic nonstop and alone. Three Curtiss flying boats, each with a crew of six, were involved: NC-1, NC-3, and NC-4. The Navy wanted to prove the capability of the airplane as a transoceanic weapon and technology. The five-leg flight began on May 8, 1919, at the naval air station at Rockaway Beach, New York. It followed a route to Nova Scotia; Newfoundland; the Azores in the middle of the Atlantic; Lisbon, Portugal; and Plymouth, England. Only NC-4, commanded by Albert C. Read, flew the whole way. The entire trip took 24 days. - 18th Amendment establishes Prohibition in the US - League of Nations established - Treaty of Versailles is signed National Air Races begin in US The aerial populism of Depression-era America shaped air racing in the 1930s. Self-reliant individuals took readily available technologies and fielded air racers to achieve fame and fortune. The National Air Races found a consistent home at Cleveland, Ohio, but other major American cities also hosted them. The two marquee events of the National Air Races were the Thompson Trophy closed-course race and the Bendix Trophy transcontinental race. A new generation of daredevil pilots joined Jimmy Doolittle to make air racing and speed an increasingly popular aspect of American culture. Robert Goddard Published "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" appeared as a dry 79-page Smithsonian pamphlet in January 1920. A Smithsonian press release, played up Goddard’s proposal to explode flash powder on the Moon’s night side with a rocket. The reaction was completely unexpected. Within two weeks the news spread around the world. The press sensationalized Goddard’s proposal. But space travel in science fiction and the media quickly changed. Thanks to Goddard, the rocket was clearly seen as the way to get into space. - First commercial radio broadcast in the US - The first German gliding competition held at the Wasserkuppe - Nazi Party founded - US Women get the right to vote through the 19th Amendment Bessie Coleman Becomes the First Licensed African American Pilot Bessie Coleman became one of the first African Americans to earn a pilot’s license and to seek a career in aviation. For the African American community, Bessie Coleman became an enduring symbol of how a talented and highly motivated person could seek out a career in aviation. - First robot built - Washington conference establishes world ratios for war ships and leads to construction of aircraft carriers (US/British/Japanese Treaty) Airplane Launches from the Deck of the USS Langley USS Langley, the first American aircraft carrier, joined the fleet in 1922 and served as the floating laboratory for naval flight operations and technology. The Navy named it after Smithsonian Secretary Samuel P. Langley, an early aeronautical experimenter. - Benito Mussolini founds Fascist government in Italy Hermann Oberth Publishes "The Rocket into Interplanetary Space" An ethnic German from Transylvania, Hermann Julius Oberth came to his spaceflight insights before World War I. In 1923 he published the book "The Rocket into Interplanetary Space." In it he discussed the feasibility of human spaceflight, laid out the basic equations of rocketry, and described how liquid propellants could vastly exceed the performance of gunpowder rockets. Oberth’s work inspired an explosion of interest in rocketry and space travel in the German-speaking world. The First Nonstop Transcontinental Flight U.S. Army Air Service pilots Lt. John A. Macready and Lt. Oakley G. Kelly made the first nonstop transcontinental flight on May 2–3, 1923, in the T-2 transport. They took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, and landed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, 2,470 miles and just under 27 hours later. During the flight, Macready and Kelly faced flying over unknown territory at night and through storms and rain for over half the flight. The Army Air Service approved the flight to test the capability and endurance of Macready and Kelly, the new T-2 transport, and the Liberty engine. The two pilots and the T-2 also demonstrated the potential of military and commercial aircraft as practical long-distance technologies. - Frozen food invented by Charles Birdseye First Flight Around the World On April 6, 1924, eight U.S. Army Air Service pilots and mechanics in four airplanes left Seattle, Washington, to carry out the first circumnavigation of the globe by air. They completed the journey 175 days later on September 28, after making 74 stops and covering about 27,550 miles. The airplanes were named for American cities and carried a flight number: Seattle (1), Chicago (2), Boston (3), and New Orleans (4). They flew over the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans and encountered climatic extremes from arctic to tropical. Only the Chicago, flown by Lts. Lowell Smith and Leslie Arnold, and the New Orleans, flown by Lts. Erik Nelson and John Harding Jr., completed the entire journey. Robert Goddard Launches the World’s First Liquid-Fuel Rocket After working to develop solid-fuel rockets for the U.S. Army in World War I, Goddard switched to liquid fuels, which had the energy needed to reach space. He quickly settled on liquid oxygen and gasoline as the most convenient propellant combination. In 1926 he was finally ready to launch his liquid-fuel rocket. On March 16 at a farm outside Worcester, it took off on a 2.5-second flight, reached an altitude of 41 feet, and covered a distance of 184 feet. It was the first liquid-fuel rocket launch in history. - Air Commerce Act of 1926 establishes a regulatory framework for civil aviation including pilot, mechanic, and aircraft certifications. - Air Corps Act enacted - US Route 66 opens Hawthorne Gray Sets Altitude Records in a Balloon U.S. Army Air Corps balloonist Capt. Hawthorne Gray launched from Scott Field, Illinois, on November 4, 1927, on his third attempt to explore conditions and test equipment that would enable air crews to survive and function at altitudes of over 40,000 feet. The balloon was found in a tree near Sparta, Tennessee, the next day, with Gray’s lifeless body still in the basket. He had apparently become confused, parachuting a full bottle of oxygen to earth in an effort to climb even higher. He died from lack of oxygen. “His courage,” suggested the citation of his posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross, “was greater than his supply of oxygen.” The First Solo, Nonstop Transatlantic Flight On May 21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in history, flying his Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. In 1919 New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 prize for the completion of the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Early in 1927, Charles Lindbergh obtained the backing of nine St. Louis investors to compete for the prize. Lindbergh contacted Ryan Airlines in San Diego to build an airplane for the flight. To honor his supporters, he named it the Spirit of St. Louis. When he successfully reached Paris, Lindbergh became a world hero who would remain in the public eye for decades. His flight touched off the “Lindbergh boom” in aviation—aircraft industry stocks rose in value, and interest in flying skyrocketed. The Spirit of St. Louis Tours Latin America Dwight Morrow, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, was the catalyst for Lindbergh’s tour of Latin America. He had met Lindbergh on the young aviator’s trip to Washington after his transatlantic flight. Morrow believed Lindbergh might help seal the diplomatic rift between Mexico and the United States. The State Department approved the flight and suggested the tour be extended to other places in Latin America. U.S. involvement in Nicaragua had created bad feelings toward the United States, and the State Department hoped Lindbergh’s tour would improve the nation’s standing in Central America. The Spirit of St. Louis Tours the United States To take advantage of public interest in Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics sponsored a tour in 1927 in which Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis to all 48 states. The tour’s goals were to stimulate interest in aviation, encourage use of existing commercial mail and passenger air services, and promote the development of airports and communications by air. The Guggenheim Fund estimated that 30 million saw the Spirit along the way. The tour enhanced the public’s perception of Lindbergh as a hero and of the Spirit as a national icon. It also made him an acknowledged expert on aviation, a role he played nearly to the end of his life. - First electronic TV system invented by Philo Taylor Farnsworth - First motion picture with sound appears, "The Jazz Singer" Frank Schilt Receives the Medal of Honor Lt. C. Frank Schilt received the Medal of Honor for his daring rescue of 18 wounded Marines and Nicaraguan National Guardsmen from Quilali, Nicaragua, in 1928. He joined the Marine Corps during World War I and became an aviator in 1919. Schilt served in Santo Domingo, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua through the 1920s. First Women's Transcontinental Air Derby Humorist Will Rogers dubbed it “The Powder Puff Derby,” but those in the 1929 Women’s National Air Derby, the first sanctioned race for female pilots, took it quite seriously. Flying from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, 15 of 20 finished (Earhart placed third), proving women could handle a rugged cross-country race. The public loved it too. People flocked to see the “Flying Flappers” at every stop. The women pilots were often called “Ladybirds,” “Angels” or “Sweethearts of the Air.” Amelia Earhart wrote, “We are still trying to get ourselves called just ‘pilots.’” Flying Blind: Enabling All-Weather Flight The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics was established in 1926 to address aviation issues related to education, research, technology, and the airplane’s integration into everyday life. Assisted by the government and industry, the fund set up the Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York. Doolittle, with his doctorate in aeronautical engineering and experience flying experimental aircraft, joined the team as test pilot. One major challenge Doolittle tackled was all-weather flight. He made the first “blind flight” (flying entirely by instruments), and the technologies he helped develop became standard equipment on all-weather aircraft—and remain so today. Founding of the Ninety-Nines A few months after the first Women’s National Air Derby, a group of women pilots met to form an organization for social, recruitment, and business purposes. Ninety-nine became charter members, inspiring the organization’s name, and Amelia Earhart became their first president. Today the Ninety-Nines International Organization of Women Pilots is headquartered in Oklahoma City. The Growth of Private Flying In 1929 private flying was mainly for wealthy sportsman pilots. Because truly safe and inexpensive aircraft were hard to find, Harry Guggenheim organized the International Safe Aircraft Competition, sponsored by his father’s Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The Chummy and six other aircraft failed to qualify, while five others withdrew. The Curtiss Tanager won but was too expensive and difficult to build. Homebuilt light planes such as the Heath Parasol or Pietenpol Air Camper and the powered glider-style Aeronca C-2 soon appeared. But ultimately, the Taylor/Piper Cubs offered flight schools, clubs, and the general public what they wanted: a truly practical, affordable, versatile, and fun light airplane. William J. Powell Founded the Bessie Coleman Flying Club in Los Angeles William J. Powell led a small group of black air enthusiasts in Los Angeles during the 1920s. He established the Bessie Coleman Flying Club and sponsored the first all-black air show. - First commercial transcontinental flights across the US - Graf Zeppelin around-the-world flight - Great Depression begins (Black Tuesday) - Herbert Hoover takes office American Interplanetary Society Is Established A group comprised mostly of science fiction writers formed the American Interplanetary Society in New York City in 1930. The fact that science fiction writers predominated was unique to America. It reflected that genre’s flourishing and the dearth—with the exception of Robert Goddard—of serious space theoreticians in America. This explosion of space fantasy in the 1920s and ’30s was a double-edged sword for spaceflight advocates. It inspired young people to believe in the possibility of space travel but convinced many adults that the idea was absurd. The Race to the Stratosphere Balloons offered one great advantage over airplanes—they could climb to the very roof of the sky, where there is too little air to provide lift for wings or to support air-breathing engines. As a result, they became essential research tools, enabling scientists to study conditions in the upper atmosphere and to develop and test equipment and techniques that would protect aviators at high altitudes. During the 1930s, teams from the United States and Europe made repeated attempts to capture and hold the world’s absolute altitude record—an unofficial race to the stratosphere for national prestige and new scientific knowledge. - First recorded cure with penicillin in England - The first commercially successful car radio sold by Gavin Manufacturing Corporation (patent to William Lear) Doolittle Wins Bendix Trophy Flying the Laird Super Solution, Doolittle won the inaugural 1931 Bendix Trophy race, flying from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, at an average speed of 223 miles per hour over a distance of 2,043 miles. First Taylor Cub Produced The Cub was simple, slow, safe, and affordable—perfect for a beginner pilot. Since 1931 thousands of pilots have learned to fly in Cubs. Early J-2s came in several colors, but yellow soon became the Cub standard. The planes became so popular that people started calling all light airplanes “Cubs.” The Lindberghs’ 1931 Survey Flight In 1931 and 1933, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh embarked on two lengthy trips over vast expanses of water and uncharted, unpopulated territory, exploring possible overseas airline routes during the pioneering days of international air travel. The remote flights also offered some relief from the endless public scrutiny that had followed Charles Lindbergh since 1927. Charles Lindbergh described their 1931 trip as a vacation flight with “no start or finish, no diplomatic or commercial significance, and no records to be sought.” - Germans Max Knott and Ernst Ruska co-invent the electron microscope - Japan invades Manchuria Amelia Earhart Solos the Atlantic On May 20–21, 1932, Earhart became the first woman—and the only person since Charles Lindbergh—to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic. Flying this red Lockheed Vega, she left Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, Canada, and landed 15 hours later near Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The feat made Earhart an instant worldwide sensation and proved she was a courageous and able pilot. Later that year, Earhart flew the Vega to another record. On August 24–25, she made the first solo, nonstop flight by a woman across the United States, from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in about 19 hours. Doolittle Wins the Thompson Trophy James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle won the 1932 Thompson Trophy race at an average speed of 253 miles per hour. It took all of Doolittle’s flying skill to keep the unstable and unforgiving barrel-shaped Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster under control. James Herman Banning and Thomas Allen Complete the First Transcontinental Flight by Black Airmen Flying from Los Angeles to New York, Banning set a new record for black pilots and paved the way for other pioneering black aviation record setters. Long-distance flying offered a dramatic way for African American pilots to showcase their flying skills. James Herman Banning emerged as one of the most talented barnstorming pilots. In 1932 Banning and Thomas C. Allen completed the first transcontinental flight by black airmen. The Lindberghs' 1933 Survey Flight In 1931 and 1933, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh embarked on two lengthy trips over vast expanses of water and uncharted, unpopulated territory, exploring possible overseas airline routes during the pioneering days of international air travel. The remote flights also offered some relief from the endless public scrutiny that had followed Charles Lindbergh since 1927. The 1933 flight arose from international interest in developing commercial air routes. Pan American Airways and four other airlines undertook a study of possible Atlantic routes. As Pan American’s technical advisor, Charles Lindbergh was sent to survey a route from Newfoundland to Europe. - Italo Balbo leads flight of 24 flying boats from Rome to Chicago World's Fair - Aeronautical recovery of the Polar explorers on the Soviet ship Cheliuskin - FDR is inaugurated and introduces the New Deal - Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany - Prohibition repealed C. Alfred Anderson and Albert E. Forshythe Complete the “Goodwill Flight” of 1934 For their celebrated Pan-American “Goodwill Flight” of 1934, Anderson and Forsythe flew a Lambert Monocoupe they dubbed the Spirit of Booker T. Washington. The goal of the “goodwill flight” was to show the skill of black aviators and to enhance racial understanding. - USSR joins the League of Nations Earhart Solos the Pacific On January 11–12, 1935, Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. Though some called it a publicity stunt for Earhart and Hawaiian sugar plantation promoters, it was a dangerous 2,408-mile flight that had already claimed several lives. Earhart’s nearly 19-hour flight across the Pacific took her 600 more miles over water than Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic trip. Ten fliers before her had died trying to make the dangerous flight. Later that year, Earhart made record flights from Los Angeles to Mexico City and from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey. She also placed fifth in the 1935 Bendix Race. “I wanted the flight just to contribute. I could only hope one more passage across that part of the Pacific would mark a little more clearly the pathway over which an air service of the future will inevitably ply.” —Amelia Earhart Explorer II Establishes World Altitude Record November 11, 1935, Albert W. Stevens and Orvil Anderson ascended in Explorer II from the Stratobowl, a smooth hollow in South Dakota’s Black Hills. They reached 72,395 feet, a world altitude record that would stand for two decades. Louise Thaden Wins the Bendix Trophy Louise Thaden becomes the first woman to win the Bendix Trophy. Have you ever heard of Louise Thaden? She was famous for holding three women’s world flight records at once: speed, altitude, and solo endurance records. - First flight of the Douglas DC-3, one of the most successful commercial airliners - Robert Watson-Watt patented radar - Wallace Carothers and DuPont Labs invent nylon (polymer 6.6) - Mussolini invades Ethiopia - Remilitarization of Germany - Works Progress Administration established in US for public works projects and employment opportunities - Academy of Model Aeronautics founded - The Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology began sounding rockets experiments under Theodore von Karman - Berlin Olympics - The Spanish Civil War begins Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan Disappear on Round-the-World Flight On May 21, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan began a round-the-world flight, beginning in Oakland, California, and traveling east in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra. They departed Miami on June 1 and reached Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, having flown 21 of 30 days and covered 22,000 miles. They left Lae on July 2 for their next refueling stop, Howland Island. They never found it. Following a massive sea and air search, on July 18, 1937, they were declared lost at sea. First Piper Cub Produced The first Cub was completed on November 2, 1937 The Cub was simple, slow, safe, and affordable—perfect for a beginner pilot. Ultimately, the Taylor/Piper Cubs offered flight schools, clubs, and the general public what they wanted: a truly practical, affordable, versatile, and fun light airplane. - First Russian trans-polar flight - Japanese invasion of China - Freeze-dried coffee is invented - Anschluss\Austria joined Germany - Kristallnacht targets Jewish citizens in Germany Congress Passed the Civilian Pilot Training Act (CPTP) The federally funded Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) offered blacks unprecedented opportunities for flight training, although on a segregated basis. Cornelius Coffey obtained a CPTP franchise for Chicago in 1939 on the eve of World War II. Dale White and Chauncey Spencer Complete Goodwill Flight Chauncey Spencer and Dale White complete a demonstration flight from Chicago to New York to Washington, D.C. in 1939. At the nation’s capital, Spencer met with Harry S. Truman, then a senator from Missouri, and other political leaders to advocate an end to racial exclusion in aviation. - FDR signs Public Law 18 that mandates the Army Air Corps to train blacks - The Spanish Civil War ends - World War II begins in Europe Eleanor Roosevelt Flies on Airplane Piloted by Charles C. “Chief” Anderson at Kennedy Field, Tuskegee Institute First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt became an air enthusiast and openly promoted racial equality in the American armed forces. The First Class of Aviation Cadets Entered Training at Tuskegee Institute The Army Air Corps established Tuskegee Army Air Field in 1941 near Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, which had been a center for training blacks to fly. Although segregated and greeted with hostility by many, the training facility marked a milestone for African Americans. The curriculum was identical to other air training facilities. White officers ran most of the pilot training. As base commander, Noel Parrish made sure the program was fair and evenhanded, which enhanced morale among the cadets. - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor (US Enters World War II) Lt. Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. Named Commander of the First African-American Air Combat Unit Benjamin O. Davis Jr. led the Tuskegee airmen during World War II in air combat over North Africa and Italy and long-range bomber escort missions over Nazi Germany. Davis led the 99th and later the 332nd Fighter Group in Europe during World War II. His inspired and disciplined leadership played a major role in the Tuskegee Airmen’s success. Under Davis, the 332nd escorted American bombers in missions over the Mediterranean and central Europe. - Race riots in Detroit First German V-2s Become Operational and Are Launched Against Paris and London Two months before the Nazis came to power in 1933, physics student Wernher von Braun left the Raketenflugplatz Berlin (Rocketport Berlin), the world’s largest, most active rocket group, to work on rocket weapons for the German army. Von Braun’s establishment made a breakthrough to large-scale rocket engineering. It created the world’s first operational ballistic missile: the V-2. - Freeman field protests against segregated officers’ clubs begins - World War II ends in Europe - World War II ends in the Pacific - Training at Tuskegee Army Airfield is inactivated - President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 ordering the integration of the armed services

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Individuals in leadership positions, especially those who aspire to transformational leadership, bear much responsibility in their professional and personal lives. Indeed, to a certain extent, this responsibility transcends the boundaries of personal or professional life. Entire volumes about leadership exist; however, daily actions require a shorthand for the guiding principles around transformational leadership. Here are five words that serve as my guiding principles for transformational leadership in the field of gifted and talented education: voice, doors, affirmation, trust, tension. Voice: First, we must give voice to those who – for whatever reason – cannot speak for themselves or who are not in a position to have their voices heard. For example, the psychologist who assesses a child and determines the child has both exceptional intellectual ability and an autism spectrum disorder gives voice to that child through the psychoeducational report and the associated recommendations. The teachers and counselors who enact those recommendations also give voice to that child. Above-level testing through the talent search process gives voice to individual children who are high achievers as well as groups of high achieving students. Having information about a child can be the key to opportunity. Researchers who seek to better understand the talent development process and the role of education in ensuring the development of talent give voice to professionals and colleagues through their research findings. The voice is strongest when research is used to develop policy. This is the only way to promote transformation in education. Doors: Professionals, parents, and volunteers have the capacity to open doors. This capacity is greater than they may think, and the rewards are far-reaching. New opportunities are a sign of affirmation and trust, and it is our responsibility to find doors for students and colleagues. Affirmation: Leadership implies that there is one person who is “leading.” That has not been my experience. You cannot lead if you do not have a team of people with whom to collaborate. Every action of each team member, no matter how small, requires support from the team. Trust: Affirmation and trust go hand in hand. Among the many synonyms for trust are reliance and confidence. A member of the team has to know that the leader has confidence in the individual and collective creativity of the team. Likewise, the team members should know that the leader relies on them to put forth their strongest effort. Tension: Finally, any action that aims to transform will require effort and energy, which automatically means that there is some level of tension involved. Effort involves stress, output, and strength. One of the most important jobs of a leader is keeping in mind the tensions associated with giving voice, opening doors, offering affirmation, and demonstrating trust. Leadership means asking challenging questions of others and ourselves. Who gives voice to your students? Who opens the doors for them? Do your students know that you trust that they can meet a challenge? These questions correspond to one of the most pressing issues in our field: finding students with academic talent – especially those who are vulnerable due to disability, culture, or economics – and keeping them engaged in the talent development process. I hope that you enjoy the current issue of our newsletter, where you will learn about the many ways the Belin-Blank Center staff are opening doors and giving voice to students and educators. Excerpted from remarks made on February 8, 2017, as part of the Denver University Transformation Leadership Gifted Education Conference. Professor Norma Lu Hafenstein, Daniel L. Ritchie Endowed Chair in Gifted Education, led the panel that included Dr. Del Siegle, Dr. Dorinda Carter Andrews, and Ms. Jacquelin Medina. In addition to responding to the question asking panelists to interpret the phrase, “transformational leadership matters,” we also responded to a question about the most pressing issues in our field today.

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By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor The Galaxy Evolution Explorer spacecraft (Galex), designed to explore star formation when the Universe was young, has been launched from a Pegasus rocket released from a carrier aircraft off the coast of Florida, US. Looking towards other stars The small satellite will observe millions of galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic history, helping astronomers determine when the chemical elements were formed inside the first stars. It will map out the first stages of the chemical evolution of the cosmos - how it evolved from a fireball of hydrogen and helium into a Universe full of heavier elements. In a sense, it is a search for life's origins as well, because without such heavy elements as carbon and oxygen, life as we know it could not exist. After the space observatory separated from the rocket's third stage - 11 minutes and five seconds after release from the carrier aircraft - it entered into Earth orbit at an altitude of 690 kilometres (429 miles). After a one-month period of in-orbit checkout, the science mission will begin, lasting for up to 28 months. Looking for surprises Galex will focus on distant galaxies containing young, hot, short-lived stars that emit a great deal of ultraviolet radiation. Air-launched by a Pegasus rocket Astronomers are attracted to these galaxies because star formation is active there, so studying them will help astronomers learn more about how, when and why stars form. "This mission will provide the first comprehensive map of a Universe of galaxies under construction and bring us closer to understanding how they, and our own Milky Way, were built," says Christopher Martin, Galex's principal investigator . "Galex is designed specifically to measure the distances and star formation rate in a million galaxies," says the US space agency's James Fanson "It is going to help us put together a picture of the Universe we see today - how stars formed in galaxies, how galaxies evolved through time, what caused star formation and led to the development of heavy elements of the periodic table." He adds: "As a project manager, there are few opportunities in a career to be associated with a mission that will give you a fundamentally new view of the Universe. "Typically, when you see the Universe for the first time in a new way, there are unexpected surprises that come from the data. So that is one of the things we are looking for - the surprises." The Galex mission was the 33rd flight of the Pegasus rocket and the second of four missions in 2003.

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This week On The River we explore who eats who and how energy and matter is passed between plants and animals in the food cycle. We'll cover the roles of producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers and decomposers. - 5 LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems - 5 LS2.B: Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems - Make a list of everything you eat in a day and use your list to make your own food web. - Write a story from the perspective of one carbon or nitrogen molecule that is cycling through the food cycle.. - Play the food web game with your class - stand in a circle, have one student be the sun and assign each one of the remaining students to be a producer, consumer or decomposer. Using a long piece of string have the students connect all of the organisms in the food web using the string (i.e. sun -> cottonwood -> caterpillar -> frog -> mushroom). Once the food web is complete, remove one or more organisms which have been poisoned by pesticides, these students must drop the string. Any of the remaining students who feel the string slacken (i.e. are connect to the dead organisms) must also drop their string. This continues until the entire food web has collapsed demonstrating the far reaching consequences of our actions humans.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon.com is working on a way to get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less — via self-guided drone. This undated image provided by Amazon.com shows the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft project that Amazon is working on in its research and development labs. Amazon says it will take years to advance the technology and for the Federal Aviation Administration to create the necessary rules and regulations, but CEO Jeff Bezos said Sunday Dec. 1, 2013, there's no reason Drones can't help get goods to customers in 30 minutes or less. (AP Photo/Amazon) Consider it the modern version of a pizza delivery boy, minus the boy. Amazon.com said it's working on the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft project in its research and development labs. But the company says it will take years to advance the technology and for the Federal Aviation Administration to create the necessary rules and regulations. The project was first reported Sunday by CBS' "60 Minutes." Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a primetime interview that while the octocopters look like something out of science fiction, there's no reason they can't be used as delivery vehicles. Bezos said the drones can carry packages that weigh up to five pounds, which covers about 86 percent of the items Amazon delivers. The current generation of drones the company is testing has a range of about 10 miles, which Bezos noted could cover a significant portion of the population in urban areas. While it's tough to say exactly how long it could take the project to get off the ground, Bezos told "60 Minutes" that he thinks it could happen in four or five years. Unlike the drones used by the military, Bezos' proposed flying machines wouldn't need humans sitting in a distant trailer to control them. Amazon's drones would receive a set of GPS coordinates and automatically fly to them, presumably avoiding buildings, power lines and other obstacles along the way. Drone delivery faces several legal and technology obstacles similar to Google's experimental driverless car. How do you design a machine that safely navigates the roads or skies without hitting anything? And, if an accident does occur, who is legally liable? Then there are the security issues. Delivering packages by drone might be impossible in a city like Washington D.C. which has many no-fly zones. Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 after quitting his job at a Wall Street hedge fund. With Bezos' parents and a few friends as investors, Amazon began operating out of the Bezos Seattle garage as an online bookseller on July 16, 1995. The first book sold on the site was Douglas Hofstadter's "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought." In the nearly two decades since, Amazon has grown to become the world's largest online retailer, selling everything from shoes to groceries to diapers and power tools. Amazon's business plan has been to spend heavily on growing its business, improving order fulfillment and expanding into new areas. Those investments have come at the expense of consistent profitability. Investors have been largely forgiving, focusing on the company's long-term promise and double-digit revenue growth. Though it could be years before it's reality, drone-powered delivery fits well into the company's plans of making delivery as convenient — and fast — as possible. One of the biggest promises for civilian drone use has been in agriculture. The unmanned aircraft can fly over large fields and search out bugs, rodents and other animals that might harm crops. Then, thanks to GPS, another drone could come back and spread pesticide on that small quadrant of the field. Agriculture is also seen as the most-promising use because of the industry's largely unpopulated, wide open spaces. Delivering Amazon packages in midtown Manhattan will be much trickier. But the savings of such a delivery system only come in large, urban areas. Besides regulatory approval, Amazon's biggest challenge will be to develop a collision avoidance system, said Darryl Jenkins, a consultant who has given up on the commercial airline industry and now focuses on drones. Who is to blame, Jenkins asked, if the drone hits a bird, crashes into a building? Who is going to insure the deliveries? There are also technical questions. Who will recharge the drone batteries? How many deliveries can the machines make before needing service? "Jeff Bezos might be the single person in the universe who could make something like this happen," Jenkins said. "For what it worth, this is a guy who's totally changed retailing." The biggest losers could be package delivery services like the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS. FedEx spokesman Jess Bunn said in an email: "While we can't speculate about this particular technology, I can say that making every customer experience outstanding is our priority, and anything we do from a technology standpoint will be with that in mind." The U.S. Postal Service wouldn't speculate about using drones for mail delivery. Spokeswoman Sue Brennan referred any questions to Amazon. Amazon, one of the Postal Service's major customers, recently partnered with the agency to begin delivering packages on Sunday in major metropolitan areas. Sunday service will be available to Amazon Prime members in the New York and Los Angeles areas first, followed by other large cities next year. Amazon's stock dipped 25 cents, or less than one percent, to $393.37 in Monday afternoon's trading. With reports from Barbara Ortutay in New York, David Koenig in Dallas and Sam Hananel in Washington D.C.

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New scientific studies ask: Can dogs feel empathy? By Leslie Garrett It’s something we dog lovers have likely pondered any number of times when our pet looks at us with those wise, wide eyes: “I wonder what he’s thinking…” Two recent studies are moving us closer than ever to a definitive answer. In a UK study, two researchers at Goldsmiths College in London, Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer, set out to determine if dogs are capable of empathy – an ability to truly understand emotion. “I had talked to so many people who have dogs who say, ‘it’s like my dog is trying to comfort me,’” says Custance. Though she admits her own dog never offered comfort — “my dog was very hard-hearted,” she laughs — she set out to study whether dogs were even capable of caring in the way so many of us assume that they are. They gathered a group of largely untrained pets, mostly mixed breeds and equally divided between males and females. Then they set up a situation with the dog’s owner and a stranger to the dog. The owner and the stranger would alternately talk, hum in an odd way, or cry. The researchers wanted to see how the dogs reacted. The dogs responded — 15 of the 18 in the study — by seeking out the person in distress, even if that person was the stranger. “On the surface, it certainly seemed as if the dogs were demonstrating empathy,” says Custance, who thought that if the dogs were seeking comfort for themselves they would go to their caretaker. She admits that the study raises other questions: What about other emotions, such as pleasure or anger? Would dogs respond differently to children? However, the findings are being interpreted by many as proof that we’re more than just a meal ticket for our dogs. This doesn’t surprise Custance, who acknowledges that dog lovers want to believe it. “We were so careful to say there’s more work to be done.” Nonetheless, she says, “We have benefitted greatly from dogs. It’s definitely a symbiotic relationship.” Gregory S. Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy in Atlanta, Georgia, and a dog lover himself, might soon be able to provide definitive evidence of a dog’s feelings. He was inspired to take a peek into the canine cranium after learning about the heroic Navy dog that helped take down Osama bin Laden. He noted that the dog had not only learned to endure hostile conditions but apparently to enjoy it. What, he wondered, was the dog thinking? “Why do an fMRI on a dog?” wrote Berns in an article on Psychology Today’s website. “The answer is obvious: to see what they think.” He spent a year, together with an assistant and a dog trainer, to prepare dogs for the fMRI. Since the Navy dog had learned to handle the noise of a helicopter, Burns prepared dogs for the noise of the procedure by having them trained to wear ear plugs. He also, under strict ethical guidelines to ensure no dogs were harmed and were free to “quit” the experiment at any time, had the dogs trained to stay perfectly still in the scanner. Even a slight movement would ruin the image. It took a year, but Berns reports that they were successful on the anniversary of the bin Laden mission. The unsurprising discovery was that the reward center of dogs’ brains lit up when there was a hand signal indicating they would receive a hot dog treat. Far more interesting, Berns and his team discovered that dogs’ brains are much more responsive when information comes from humans, as opposed to inanimate signals, like Pavlov’s famous bells. “They like looking at us, just as we like looking at them,” writes Berns. He goes on to say that this ability to map their brains provides the tool to answer questions relating to dogs’ ability to feel empathy. “I wonder what he’s thinking…” might not need pondering much longer. Want to find out what your dog is thinking? Volunteer your dog here for Berns’ The Dog Project.

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Charlie Chaplin, Ingrid Bergman, and Frank Lloyd Wright all attended opening night. So did Gene Kelly, Billy Wilder and Igor Stravinsky. On July 30, 1947, in the midst of a blistering Southern California heat wave, Hollywood’s 260-seat Coronet Theatre swelled with A-list celebrities as well as cutting-edge artists and intellectuals of the era. In a movie town still years away from hosting legitimate theatre, everyone buzzed about what promised to be the cultural event of the year: the premiere of Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo. Some came to see the play’s star, Charles Laughton, already one of the world’s most admired actors of stage and screen, perform in the role of a lifetime. Others, particularly the European émigrés who knew Bertolt Brecht from his years at the center of the irreverent, radical, cultural ferment of 1920s Berlin, saw this as their only chance to again glimpse the work of the revolutionary playwright. Still others came to see the latest from the author of the world-famous The Threepenny Opera. By opening night, the entire four-week run had sold out. The Brecht-Laughton Galileo, like the improbable relationship of its two creators, came together at a unique moment in Hollywood history: the stunning 1930s migration of artists and intellectuals from Europe to America’s movie capital produced a potent cultural concoction of Marxists and vaudevillians, Shakespeareans and studio hacks, high art and low. It was here that Brecht and Laughton met, and the play, born in the shadow of one inquisition, was nurtured in the shadow of another. Brecht had written an original version of Galileo in 1938, during his six-year exile on the Danish island of Fyn near the small town of Svendborg. Denmark turned out to be only the first stop of his grudging, often painful banishment from Germany. He fled his homeland shortly after Hitler came to power – on February 28, 1933, one day after the Reichstag fire. Brecht knew that his days in Germany were numbered: Hitler’s first targets were leftists and intellectuals. Brecht was both. His goal was to remain in Europe where he felt most able to participate in the struggle against the Nazis. From exile in Scandinavia, he wrote anti-fascist radio broadcasts, poetry, and pamphlets which were smuggled into Germany. It was during this period that he also wrote many of his greatest dramas, including Mother Courage and her Children, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and Galileo. Galileo was based on the life of the 17th century Italian physicist and astronomer who challenged the notion that the earth stood still at the center of the universe, but who then, under threat of torture by the Inquisition, recanted his findings. The story attracted Brecht largely for its current-day parallels: the crushing of culture and reason in Hitler’s Germany and the purges of intellectuals and dissidents in Stalin’s Soviet Union. When, during his long years of post-recantation house arrest, Galileo secretly resurrects his revolutionary scientific work and has it smuggled out of Italy, Brecht again saw the analogy to the underground resistance fighting against the fascists in Europe. In 1940, just as Brecht finished Galileo, Nazi troops invaded Denmark, forcing him to flee – first to Sweden, then Finland. As the Nazi noose tightened across all of Europe, he turned reluctantly towards America. Brecht was a committed Marxist, first being introduced to the theories of Marx when he was doing research for a play about the Chicago stockyards. But he held no illusion that the Soviet Union would be a safe haven for him. He had visited the Soviet Union in 1932 and 1935. Since then, one after another of his friends in that country had been imprisoned, executed, or simply disappeared. With generous assistance from other émigrés already established in the United States, Brecht was able to secure U.S. visas for himself and his family. This was no small feat, given both how difficult it was to obtain entrance into the United States during the war, and the fact that Brecht’s family included himself, his wife and acclaimed German actress, Helen Weigel, their two children, and his two mistresses-slash-artistic collaborators, Ruth Berlau and Margarete Steffin. Unconventional in his politics, his art, and his personal life, Brecht rejected traditional love as reeking of bourgeois ownership and property relations. Throughout his life, he was open about his numerous casual and long-term sexual relationships. He tended to be attracted to creative, independent women. And they were attracted to him. At 5’8” and 130 pounds, Brecht was physically frail. He had close-cropped hair, decaying teeth, deep-set eyes, and a scar across one cheek. He smoked cheap cigars, their smell clinging to his simple, baggy clothes. By all accounts, it was Brecht’s genius that attracted women to him. Unfortunately, as Brecht’s entourage made their way out of Europe, Steffin collapsed from tuberculosis and had to be hospitalized in Moscow. She died two days later. After a ten-day trip on the trans-Siberian railroad, his heart heavy with the loss of his homeland and a treasured friend, Brecht boarded a Swedish ship at Vladivostok, headed for America. On July 21, 1941, Brecht disembarked at Los Angeles’s San Pedro Harbor. He settled his family into a small house in Santa Monica, hoping to earn a living by writing for the movies. Already plenty of German-speaking émigrés had been successful in Hollywood – Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Fred Zinnemann, and Billy Wilder, to name only a few. At first, however, Brecht found it nearly impossible to work in Los Angeles, feeling intellectually isolated, detesting even the climate. With the clear eye of the outsider, he called Los Angeles “Tahiti in metropolitan form,” where “homes are additions built onto the garages.” He wrote to a friend, “I have the feeling of being like Francis of Assisi in an aquarium…or a chrysanthemum in a coal mine.” He didn’t fit in. Nor did he wish to. Unlike many ex-pats, rushing to assimilate and make America their new home, Brecht always identified as an involuntary exile, waiting to go back to Germany. No small part of Brecht’s difficulty in coming to terms with his American exile was that suddenly he had no audience for his work. Although he continued to write for the theatre, his aesthetic stood in such contrast to prevailing taste that he most often found himself writing “for the desk drawer.” Two of his plays, The Private Lives of the Master Race and The Duchess of Malfi did open on Broadway, but both were critical and financial flops. And it was no wonder. The purpose of Brecht’s aesthetic was to encourage his audience to think rather than feel. He advocated a style of acting, story structure, and staging that denied the audience easy identification with the characters or an emotionally satisfying catharsis at the conclusion of the drama. His concern was social conditions, not individual psychology. His hope was to educate people, to give them tools to better understand and change the world. He considered much of what he saw of American theatre and film to be empty, bourgeois entertainment, opiates for the masses. It simply didn’t interest him. Survival, however, did. And to this end, he devoted himself to writing movie scripts. His view of the endeavor was less than glamorous: Every day to earn my daily bread I go to the market, where lies are bought, I take up my place among the sellers. Despite Brecht’s ambivalence towards Hollywood, his output of movie ideas and treatments was prolific. He figured he had the talent to make it. Certainly, he had the connections. His circle of acquaintances included Hollywood insiders Ben Hecht, Lewis Milestone, Elia Kazan, Charlie Chaplin, and Groucho Marx. He developed movie projects with such heavy hitters as Fritz Lang, Clifford Odets, and Jean Renoir. But Brecht was determined to conquer the beast on his own terms. Artistic compromise was anathema to his spirit. No surprise that sketches like Boy Meets Girl, So What failed to interest the studio heads. After several years of frustration, Brecht concluded, “Recipe for success in writing for films: you have to write as well as you can, and that has got to be bad enough.” One exception was Hangmen Also Die, based on a true incident from the Czech resistance. The film, written by Brecht, Fritz Lang (also the film’s director), and John Wexley, was a hit. Lang deemed it to be the best anti-fascist film he ever made. And the film’s box office success allowed Brecht to cease relying on financial assistance from the émigré community. But the actual experience of writing the film was filled with anguish for Brecht. “As I sit in my treacherously pretty garden,” he noted in his journal after a particularly grueling Hangmen re-write, “I feel the disappointment and terror of the intellectual worker who sees the product of his labors snatched away and mutilated.” Even with the success of Hangmen, Brecht continued to be worried about his precarious finances and disgruntled with his cultural surroundings. “The intellectual isolation here is monstrous,” he wrote. “In comparison with Hollywood, Svendborg was a world-center.” Brecht might have found solace within the community of like-minded leftist refugees, but he did not. His interactions with other exiles were often fraught with conflict. He feuded with academic Marxists Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, calling them cultural elitists; he offended Auden and Isherwood by dismissing their spiritual beliefs; he despised Thomas Mann. He did, however, count among a handful of friends, Peter Lorre, novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, Hanns Eisler, William Dieterle, and Salka Viertel. Viertel, screenwriter of Queen Christina and other Garbo vehicles, hosted a kind of old-world literary salon where artists, musicians and actors, writers, directors, and philosophers – most of them left-leaning, most of them exiles – gathered each Sunday at her house in Santa Monica Canyon. On any given Sunday, Aldous Huxley, Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, or Paul Muni might show up. And it was here that Brecht met Charles Laughton. When Bertolt Brecht asked Charles Laughton why he acted, Laughton answered, “Because people don’t know themselves and I think that I can show them how they tick.” Brecht and Laughton connected from the start. Charles Laughton grew up in England – the ugly, fat boy, the outcast, the butt of jokes on the school yard. He found escape from his pain in the magical world of the theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1925, speedily becoming a versatile, in-demand actor of the English theatre. He played everything from a sadistic madman, a Belgian detective and a Italian gangster, to a simple villager. Laughton went on to highly-praised performances at the Old Vic in The Cherry Orchard, The Tempest, and Macbeth. Unable to rely on good looks or sexual magnetism, he struggled to bring depth, honesty, and humanity to his roles. The public responded. Walter Slezak, an actor who worked with Laughton, wrote, “There is an expression in the German theatre which indicates that an actor is especially talented and blessed: ‘He has God’s telephone number in his pocket.’ Well, Laughton, I’m sure has God’s unlisted number.” At a time when most stage actors eschewed work in movies, Laughton embraced it. He starred in Alex Korda’s Rembrandt, became the tortured Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and gave a tour de force comedic turn as an English butler in Ruggles of Red Gap. He won two Oscars – one for his role as the king in The Private Lives of Henry VIII, the other for his brutal martinet Captain Bligh opposite Clark Gable in Mutiny On The Bounty. By the late 1930s, Charles Laughton was an international star. Despite his fame, Laughton was plagued with self-doubt, insecure about his talent. He also suffered self-loathing about his homosexuality. He had married actress Elsa Lanchester in 1929. One year after their marriage, he told her that he was homosexual. Shocked at first, she made the decision to continue the marriage, putting up with her husband’s relationships with men. “We both married for protection against society,” wrote Lanchester. “There was loyalty to the idea of marriage, there was mutual protection, and tolerance and respect.” The two shared a love of nature, fine art, and literature. They explored new places together, amassed a remarkable art collection, and shared the ups and downs of their creative lives. For years, they divided their time between homes in London and Los Angeles, finally settling into a spacious old house with a rambling garden on the cliffs of Pacific Palisades, overlooking the ocean. While Laughton’s marriage endured, his film career did not. By the time he met Brecht, in 1944, he had been relegated to bit parts in mediocre movies. When Brecht asked Laughton if he’d like to work on translating Galileo and play the lead in an English-language production, Laughton jumped at the chance. For Laughton, here was a chance to resurrect a fading career. It was also an opportunity to nurture his dream of becoming a writer. To work with Brecht, whom he admired as a brilliant and important writer, was the chance of a lifetime. As for Brecht, he respected Laughton as an actor. And he viewed Laughton as a star of sufficient standing to power Galileo to Broadway. In Laughton, he also found the perfect incarnation of his astronomer-protagonist: a combination of enormous intellectual and sensuous passions; a man who “cannot say no to an old wine or a new thought.” For eighteen months, Brecht and Laughton worked together – translating, writing, re-writing – most often amidst the azaleas and pre-Columbian statuary of Laughton’s beloved garden. Brecht overflowed with ideas. Laughton turned out to be a master of structure and editing. “For both it was a period of work intensive as it was enjoyable,” Ruth Berlau notes in her memoirs. “Their way of working together is not easy to describe. Laughton knew no German – literally not a single word! – and Brecht had too little English to be able to express himself with full authority in that language…Brecht would use gesture to convey what he was after, and Laughton would put into words what he had seen with his eyes.” Despite their differences – Brecht the ideological Marxist, Laughton the apolitical humanist – the collaboration worked. Both men disliked authority figures and felt compassion for the oppressed. Both saw their art as being more than mere entertainment. Brecht noted in his journal that “Laughton’s fear of offending the audience (mostly on religious matters) was often in conflict with his desire to correct the public’s false assumptions – normally the latter desire prevailed.” John Houseman, who knew both men, called their collaboration “an oasis in the wilderness of Brecht’s frustrating and miserable years in Los Angeles.” Then came August 6, 1945. “The atomic age made its debut at Hiroshima in the middle of our work,” wrote Brecht. “Overnight the biography of the founder of the new system of physics read differently.” Motivated as always by his desire to interpret current events in his historical dramas, Brecht began a new set of revisions, sharpening his indictment of Galileo’s cowardice before the Inquisition. “I take it that the intent of science is to ease human existence,” says Galileo in a heart-breaking new speech towards the end of the play. “If you give way to coercion, science can be crippled, and your new machines may simply suggest new drudgeries. The gulf might even grow so wide that the sound of your cheering at some new achievement would be echoed by a universal howl of horror…I have betrayed my profession. Any man who does what I have done must not be tolerated in the ranks of science.” As Brecht strove for a more merciless condemnation of Galileo’s capitulation, Laughton pushed to humanize the scientist. The creative tension bore fruit. By the end of 1945, a new version of the play satisfied them both. Laughton showed it to Orson Welles who instantly signed on to direct. Welles was thrilled to be working with Brecht whose radical, anti-naturalistic aesthetic theories were in sync with his own. “I believe in the factual theatre,” stated Welles. “People should not be fooled. They should know they are in the theatre.” Like Brecht, Welles was an artistic maverick, consequences be damned. He had directed an all-black Macbeth set in Haiti. The premiere of his 1937 production of the incendiary, pro-union The Cradle Will Rock (dedicated by its author, Marc Blitzstein, to Brecht) was shut down by the government, the theatre doors blocked by National Guardsmen. His film masterpiece, Citizen Kane, was a box office flop. Kane’s episodic, multi-viewpoint structure, and its “alienated” acting style which encouraged the audience to retain a critical detachment, had much in common with Brecht’s Epic Theatre. After showing Welles his play, Brecht wrote of Welles that “his attitude is agreeable, his remarks intelligent. At least he will not be afraid of the audience.” Unfortunately, the Brecht-Laughton-Welles dream team was not to be. After Laughton brought in Broadway impresario, Mike Todd, to produce, Welles quit. Welles was bitter towards Todd about what he viewed as a betrayal on a previous project (when Todd pulled out of the stage production of Around The World In 80 Days, Welles was forced to scramble for money). Before long, Brecht and Laughton clashed with Todd over their vision for the production, and Todd left the project as well. Enter Joseph Losey. Brecht had met the young American director a decade earlier in Moscow. As artists and leftists (Losey was a member of the Communist Party, Brecht was not), both were drawn to the politics and culture of the Soviet Union’s exuberant youth. A year later, Brecht had attended a Living Newspaper production directed by Losey in New York. Created within the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project, the Living Newspaper was an experimental dramatic form committed to informing audiences about social problems, and calling for action to solve them. The dramas dealt with issues such as housing, civil rights, unions, agricultural depression, and health care. Using slide projectors, masks, characters placed in the audience, stylized staging, and episodic structure, the Living Newspaper appealed to Brecht on every level. Losey agreed to direct Galileo. And he convinced a New York producer, T. Edward Hambleton, to put up half the money for production. Laughton put up the other half. Both Losey and Laughton had movie commitments in Hollywood, so they decided to mount Galileo in Los Angeles rather than New York. But who would actually produce the show? And where would it run? Enter John Houseman. Houseman had produced Orson Welles’s early American shows (including Macbeth and Cradle Will Rock). Fired from the Federal Theatre Project after the Cradle controversy, Welles and Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre. Houseman produced Welles’s infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast which panicked the nation, as well as his modern-dress Julius Caesar. The partners fell out when Houseman insisted that Herman Mankiewicz, not Welles, deserved credit for writing Citizen Kane. After breaking with Welles, Houseman went on to write and produce mainstream Hollywood movie fare such as Jane Eyre and The Blue Dahlia. He ran in leftist circles and was a member of the Communist-influenced Hollywood Writers Mobilization. In 1947, he formed Pelican Productions with the aim of bringing legitimate theatre to Los Angeles. To this end, Houseman had just renovated the small Coronet Theatre on La Cienega Boulevard when Laughton came knocking. With excellent progressive and theatrical credentials, and an actual theater at his disposal, Houseman was the right man for the job. In his memoirs, Houseman writes that he considered Galileo to be “a noble and important work, and that it would be an honor – as well as an exciting theatrical experience – to participate in its first premiere.” With the main pieces of the production puzzle finally in place, cast and crew were hired, and rehearsals began at the Coronet on June 24, 1947. While Losey was the official director, it was understood by all that Laughton and Brecht – and in particular, Brecht – were actually in charge. Brecht and Laughton were meticulous in their control over props, costumes, lighting, blocking, and every other aspect of the show. In the service of creating precisely the production he desired, Brecht lived up to his reputation of being harsh, intolerant, and even abusive. His difficulty with expressing himself in English didn’t help matters. The brunt of his criticisms fell on the design and technical staff. He clashed with the choreographer who was replaced by one Brecht had worked with in Germany. Houseman recalls, “That he was almost always right in his judgments did not diminish the pain and resentment he spread around him during the long, intense weeks of rehearsal.” Apparently, only Laughton and composer Hanns Eisler escaped his censure. Many of the players, however, appreciated Brecht’s knowledge of the theater, his attention to detail, and his unusual theories of acting. Frances Heflin, who had been cast as Galileo’s daughter, remembers, “He had an energy that came out of every pore. His eyes darted. You could see his mind racing a mile a minute…He was terribly impatient with any act he felt was put on for effect…But he would often take time and give his reasons for demanding what he did. I remember there was an actor who was playing the part of a merchant in too grand a manner. Brecht felt he was not getting to what was in the play, and so he gave him a history lecture on the merchant’s place in society at that point. He said that merchants were among the most important people in society at that time but were still not recognized by the aristocracy. Yet they played an important role, helping artists and scientists. All this just to set an actor straight. I thought it was an unusual way to get what he wanted.” In contrast to Brecht’s arrogance, Laughton was modest, self-disciplined, and patient. On the inside, however, he was scared. His ever-present insecurity was compounded by the fact that this would be his first live stage performance in thirteen years. As opening night approached, Laughton’s anxiety turned to panic. Suddenly, he exploded. His target was Ruth Berlau whom Brecht had brought in to take photographs for the press. Distracted by the constant clicking of her camera during rehearsal, Laughton erupted, accusing her of violating him as an artist and threatening to smash her camera. Houseman assessed the outburst as, “a desperate act of revolt against a man he loved and revered but whom he held responsible for luring him, with his accursed play, out of the secure and lucrative backwater of his movie career; a man for whom he was about to expose himself, after so many years, to the horrifying risk of personal and professional disaster on the stage.” After his sole, uncharacteristic blow-up, Laughton’s mounting stress manifested in quieter ways. The small Coronet theatre was bursting at the seams with a cast and crew of over eighty, so for the final rehearsals and during the run of the play, a trailer was parked out in back for Laughton to use as a dressing room and a place to rest. As the premiere loomed closer, he could be found sleeping in his trailer at all times of day – sleeping so soundly that the stage manager had trouble waking him. Finally, opening night. As L.A.’s cultural elite filled the theatre, Laughton lay trembling with fear in his trailer. With a sweltering heat-wave baking Los Angeles, he ordered trucks loaded with ice blocks to surround the theatre, “so the audience can think.” Then at long last, nine years after it was first written, three and a half years after Brecht and Laughton began their new version, Galileo opened. The spare sets, simple costumes, backdrops based on Renaissance drawings, and episodic set pieces were just as the creators envisioned. Brecht and Laughton were elated with the production. The reviews, however, were mixed. The Los Angeles Times called it, “a rich new experience…will capture the imagination of those who want to see drama put on a technically freer basis…the subject itself will unquestionably arouse marked controversial interest.” The Hearst owned Examiner called the play, “a harangue – and a fussy, juvenile harangue at that.” Neither Variety nor the New York Times were particularly encouraging. Laughton, however, received nearly unanimous raves: “an etched and nigh flawless performance,” “a personal triumph.” The play’s backer, Edward Hambleton, made plans to take the show to New York. In a limited run at the Maxine Elliot Theater, the audiences large and enthusiastic, the reviews mostly bad, Galileo did open on Broadway that December – but without Bertolt Brecht. On September 19, U.S. marshals appeared at Brecht’s home in Santa Monica, handing him a subpoena to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Brecht was one of nineteen Hollywood leftists summoned to Washington to testify about “Communist influence in the entertainment industry.” After struggling with Galileo’s predicament for so many years, the irony that he was now himself facing an inquisition was not lost on the playwright. Of the nineteen “unfriendly witnesses” called, only eleven actually testified. Lost as a footnote to the legendary Hollywood Ten, Brecht was in fact The Eleventh. All except Brecht agreed to a strategy in which they refused to answer the Committee’s questions, standing on their First Amendment right to freedom of expression, and challenging HUAC’s constitutionality. Brecht broke rank with the others, citing his status as a foreigner, and choosing instead, with the consent of the other eighteen, a strategy of appearing to cooperate with the Committee, but actually undermining their investigation with a combination of cunning, obfuscation, and the pretense of politeness. Throughout his testimony, Brecht smoked a cigar (he knew that the Committee’s chair, Parnell Thomas, was partial to cigars), and used a translator who knew less English than himself. It was an exquisitely choreographed performance. One short interchange with HUAC’s counsel, Robert Stripling, gives a flavor of Brecht’s testimony: Stripling: “Is it true that you have written a number of very revolutionary poems, plays and other writings?” Brecht: “I have written a number of poems and songs and plays in the fight against Hitler, and of course, they can be considered, therefore, as revolutionary because I, of course, was for the overthrow of that government.” At another point in the proceedings, Brecht’s translated work was read aloud: Stripling: Did you write that, Mr. Brecht? Brecht: No. I wrote a German poem, but that is very different from this. After an hour, the Committee had heard enough. The next day, Brecht wrote in his journal, “In the morning I meet Laughton who is already going around in his beard and is pleased that it isn’t going to take any special courage to play Galileo, there being, as he says, no headlines about me.” That afternoon, Bertolt Brecht boarded a plane for Europe, never to return to the United States again. From guest contributor Eve Goldberg

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Operation Market-Garden, 1944 On 17 September 1944, 500 gliders and 1,500 aircraft advanced towards the Netherlands. On the ground the soldiers of XXX corps were on their way in tanks and trucks. As the aircraft drew near, Allied guns began to bombard the Germans guarding the road ahead. The allied airborne troops landed and started towards their target bridges, but were held up by defending enemy infantry. The road to the bridges was very narrow. This gave the small German force defending it the upper hand. The Germans picked off the first nine vehicles in the advancing column. This slowed down the whole Operation. The second problem was that British paratroopers had been issued with faulty radios. These radios were vital to coordinating their advance. Despite all of this, one British battalion did find a way through the German perimeter around Arnhem. By the end of day one, the northern end of the bridge across the Rhine had been captured, but the Germans had blown up most of the other bridges rather than allow the British any chance of capturing them. On day two, British tanks covered 20 miles to join the Americans at an intact bridge near Grave. On day three they reached Nijmegen, to assist American troops who were trying to reach the bridge across the River Waal. Once they had captured Nijmegen bridge, only Arnhem would remain in German hands. Crossing Nijmegen Bridge was easier said than done. American troops attacked across the River Waal towards the German end of the bridge, but half the men crossing the bridge were killed or wounded. The survivors who successfully reached the far bank, used it as a base to attack the Nijmegen bridge. The route to Arnhem was now in Allied hands. Continual problems such as poor radios, bad weather and inefficient Intelligence all contributed to the ultimate failure of this operation. British commanders had not allowed for any delays, however small, and the success of the operation depended on nothing going wrong. Montgomery’s plan did not work, and the German artillery still had total control of the river. There was no alternative but to retreat. Only 2,000 men (out of the original 10,000 taking part in Operation Market-Garden) reached the village of Driel. The rest were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Four months later Allied forces crossed the Rhine in their advance into the heart of Germany.

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Every year, Ditch the Label carry out extensive research into bullying. We delve into the reasons why people bully and are bullied. This groundbreaking research also takes a look at the nature of different types of bullying, the long terms effects that bullying has on people’s emotional well-being and how it’s changed over time. It’s pretty eye-opening stuff if we do say so ourselves. Bullying: The Facts… So, here are our main findings from the last couple of years’ work…in a nifty list of 21 things we bet you didn’t already know about bullying… (pssst…if you did, you probably heard it from us 😜) 1. More than half of people under 25 have experienced bullying at some point. 2. 20% of people surveyed, said that they often experienced verbal bullying. 3. People who are bullied, often go on to bully others. 4. People with a physical disability, are unfortunately more likely to experience bullying than a person without a physical disability. #NotCool 5. 5% of people surveyed, said that they constantly experienced physical bullying. 6. Social exclusion is a form of bullying. That means, when your mates leave you out on purpose to hurt your feelings, they are indirectly bullying you. 7. More than a third of people go on to develop Social Anxiety and Depression as a direct result of bullying. 8. Almost a quarter of those who have been bullied have had suicidal thoughts. 9. Guys are more likely to bully someone than anyone else. 10. Those who bully are far more likely to have experienced stressful and traumatic situations in recent times. 11. Of those who bullied daily, 58% had experienced the death of a relative. 13. The #1 most common reason why people experience bullying is because of attitudes towards their appearance, with attitudes towards hobbies & interests and high grades coming in close at second and third place. 14. 69% of people have admitted to doing something abusive to another person online 😲😲😲 #CutItOutPPL 15. Bullying is never, ever the fault of the person on the receiving end of it. Here’s why 16. People who identify as LGBT+ are more likely to experience bullying. … What about Online? 17. 17% of people have experienced cyberbullying. 18. More than a quarter of people have had suicidal thoughts as a result of cyberbullying. 19. 35% of people who were surveyed in the 2017 Annual Bullying Survey had sent a screenshot of someone’s status to laugh at in a group chat. #ShadyOnlineBehaviour 20. Almost two-thirds of people agreed that social networks don’t do enough to combat cyberbullying. 21. 44% of people under 25 said that ‘Real Life’ means ‘only things that happen offline.’

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The Five Foundations of Health for Children Guest post written by: Kathryn Kos At a recent conference I attended, Robb Wolf spoke of five foundations or pillars needed for optimal health: sleep, microbiome, nutrition, exercise, and community. How can we foster these foundations in our children, in the context of a modern culture? We fear dirt and bacteria, and tend to over-sanitize everything, and keep our children from touching dirty objects. We “helicopter parent” our children, and isolate them from perceived societal threats. We have a government system that punishes parents who allow their children to explore and push boundaries. The government is forcing curriculums on our children, which do the opposite of fostering a love of learning. Children are getting less recess, and doing more and more mind numbing “worksheets”. The child’s day is highly structured leaving little time for imaginative play. Technology such video games and i-pads are pushing our children away from face to face socialization and outdoor exploration. These modern factors not only impede our ability to foster emotional intelligence, security, and confidence, but also have a profound effect on the five foundations of health. Children are getting more screentime, less sleep, and less time to learn through imaginative play. Let’s explore Robb’s five foundations of health, in the context of raising connected children, in a disconnected world. I believe we can make huge strides in the health of our children just by taking time each day fostering in our children these three important things: - Outdoor Time - Unstructured Playtime - Real Food Choices Sure there are many other factors that come into play here. However, just by making a conscious effort to incorporate these changes daily, we can make great strides in the mental and physical well being of our children. Allowing children to use their imagination and play freely without structure, takes lots of positive mental energy and can really tire them out. Giving our children ample time each day to get outside (especially early in the morning) helps to balance their circadian rhythm, or internal clock. A half hour of sunlight in the morning actually helps children sleep better at night, by keeping their internal clock organized! Get that sun in your child’s face first thing every morning. It may mean bundling up and going for a brisk walk on cold winter days. It may mean sitting them in a sunny window first thing in the morning. Getting that morning sun is a great way to foster quality sleep at night. Offering healthy food choices that are not packaged or processed, high in vegetable sources of carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats, keeps children stable and satiated all day long. The carbohydrates will help with fueling the brain and inducing sleep, and the healthy fats and proteins will keep their growing body satiated throughout the night. Another important way to increase your child’s healthy sleep: no screen time two hours prior to bed. The artificial light affects the child’s circadian clock, and makes for interrupted sleep. Free play and outdoor time go hand in hand with this one. Science is now finding that it’s okay for children to get dirty and even eat some dirt! This actually helps to build up beneficial bacteria in your child’s gut. Children who are raised on farms actually have fewer allergies and stronger immune systems than children who are not. By allowing our children to play freely, without interfering, they can explore the world around them with their hands, their mouths, and even their feet. Getting their feet in the dirt or “grounding” also helps with feeling emotionally grounded. Allowing them to put things in their mouths will help to strengthen the child’s immature immune system, by exposing them to beneficial symbiont bacteria. So go ahead, let them taste test their latest mud pie creation! Providing fermented foods from an early age can help keep your child’s gut colonized with good bacteria. When my six year old was two, his favorite food was kimchi (korean fermented cabbage). Don’t assume they will not like the taste of something different. Children can explore all the same foods we like to explore. They don’t need separate “kid marketed” foods. We are more disconnected from the source of our food than ever before. Children learn early on that food comes in a package or jar. it doesn’t have to be that way. How can we reconnect our children with food, so they may gain a healthy understanding of where our food should come from and why? Outdoor time! Get them in the garden and teach them how to plant seeds and grow their own food. If you do not have access to an outdoor garden, start small with small indoor planters. Take them to visit farms, and teach them the difference between factory farms and sustainable farms. Instilling a respect for real food from an early age, will give hope to the future generation. Offer children healthy choices at every meal. They might not choose to eat what is put in front of them, but keep offering, and be sure there are a few choices at each meal. For busy on the go toddlers, a toddler snack tray works great! They can stop by the tray and grab a piece of avocado or turkey, or even some cut up veggie and dip. It can take months of offering the same food before a child stops rejecting it. Don’t assume they will never like something, simply because they turn it down once. It took 6 months of offering a little avocado with every meal before my child actually took a bite. Now avocado is one of his favorite snacks. Don’t give up! I’m not talking about structured sports here. We practically structure every second of our child’s day now! This can be counterproductive. I’m talking about FREE play. Free play enables children to learn how to be in the world. Climbing. Running. Jumping. Swinging. Lifting. Children need to use their muscles and move! When sitting in a classroom all day, children are not getting the activity their growing body needs. Children diagnosed with ADHD need to move more, not less. Counteract this by letting them play outside. Don’t be afraid to let them climb things, jump in puddles, jump over rocks, swing on swings, build forts, help build fires, do outdoor chores. Take them for hikes, or walks. I remember my favorite past time as a child was simply swinging on a swing. I found it to be very meditative and soothing. I would sing songs and create stories while swinging. Free movement is so important for a child’s developing brain and body. We undervalue this as a society. Free play is perhaps the most valuable learning tool, helping with every single aspect of a child’s wellbeing. Give them this much needed time every day, even if it is only 20 minutes. Our early ancestors lived in communities. Today’s parents tend to be more isolated, and I honestly feel we do it to ourselves. We schedule play dates, and make it something that needs to occur only at specific set times and dates. In my opinion this makes it less intimate. Our early ancestors lived in communities and helped each other out, rather than judging and tearing each other down for their choices. Aunt’s would actually breastfeed their nieces and nephews. Grandmother’s would relactate to help breastfeed as well. Extended families lived and worked together. My point is we were less separate and isolated as we are now. Everyone came together more, and there wasn’t this strong disconnect we now experience in the modern world. I’m not saying we need to do go breastfeed our sister’s kids. My point is that we have moved far in the opposite direction. Although we are connected through phones and computers, we are not experiencing as much real face to face emotion, and truly establishing deep connections. Obviously times have changed, but how can we come together more as a community and support one another in a modern world? Community is important for our sense of security, love, and well-being. Letting children play outside with their friends after school, rather than structuring every second of their day with activities is a great start. They learn how to interact as adults, by having these opportunities to act out roles with their friends. When children come together to play, big people also come together. Often times I will offer my neighbors a glass of wine, and we will chat while I cook dinner for my children. It’s ok to be cooking dinner while talking with a friend. We often feel we have to disconnect to make dinner, and disconnect to follow our structured schedules that we create. Throw away some of that! Impromptu get togethers don’t come with a preconceived notion of how it should be. It just happens. It takes a conscious effort to be open to new and different people, rather than being judging and closed off. Our children will mimic this behavior, and begin to diversify their friendships as well. In order to come together more as a community we need to break down some of the unrealistic boundaries we set, and be willing to be vulnerable. Community comes from within each of us. The health of our children can be greatly improved just by freeing up some time and allowing our children to play freely, explore, get outside, offering healthy food choices, and opening ourselves up to being more of a community. Just as our human microbiome is a diverse community of bacteria yet all connected, we as humans are diverse yet connected as well. Let’s foster this connection, rather than fostering isolation and disconnect. Taking a conscious effort to make these changes will improve the health of our children, and quite possibly the health of our culture as a whole.

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Overview: Putting Immigration in Context The American Indians found out what happens when you don’t control immigration. The aboriginal tribes of Australia found out what happens when you don’t control immigration. The British and many of the EU member countries are now experiencing what happens when you don’t control immigration. Modern America is finding out that even though immigration from across an Eastern or Western ocean is relatively easy to control, immigration from a large southern and northern land border is not. Let’s do a quick thought experiment: How would things be different today if the American Indians had the technology, the capability, and the unity to secure their borders when the first groups of Europeans began to arrive? Some suggestions: - There might not have been nearly as much extermination of indigenous people by foreign disease - There would have been more protection of Native American language - There would have been more preservation of Native American culture How many others can you think of? Since early times in this country, and in others, leaders recognized a need to control the borders from foreign influences as they sought the best good for themselves and/or their people. We live in a highly imperfect world, and there are no signs that erasing natural or unnatural borders will mitigate this hard fact of life. So, there should be no shame in protecting one’s borders other than not doing it fully. Borders protect language, culture, economics, religion, ethics, morals, and a host of other properties of a successful nation. The Romans knew this. The Persians knew this. The Assyrians knew this. The Chinese knew this. Fast-forward to the modern era. Whatever has happened in the past, there is nothing that can be done to reverse it. Endless and recursive reparations could be paid and frequent and deep apologies made for many generations in many lands (not just the U.S.) and it would never change a thing about historical events. What is happening now is of the utmost importance because the course we’re charting will lead to outcomes that our descendants will have to live with. We do not have the right to make a bad decision on their behalf. Below I will outline my own reasons for protecting the borders of the United States of America. They’re not what you think they are. I am a European mutt, with the blood of ancient Celtics, Danes, Welshmen, Normans, and Irishmen running through my veins. My particular ancestors (the ones whose histories I could trace), despite an initial few awkward encounters with Native Americans, largely came to live peacefully with the country’s prior inhabitants and, to my knowledge, none of them ever owned a slave. I am a private citizen, not a politician running for any office. I owe allegiance to no political party (I’m an Independent) or ideology other than that of freedom and justice for all and a preference for the rule of law over the rule of kings, tyrants, or the mob. I enjoy listening to talk radio for insights and perspectives from personalities and callers alike, but likewise owe zero allegiance to any particular personality. I listen to them all as I make my own effort to think critically and act logically. Why America’s Current Borders Should Be Protected From Illegal Immigration and Invasion by Foreign Powers Reason #1: Protecting Economics and Entitlements This is where liberals and conservatives should see eye-to-eye. Conservatives don’t want any more burden on their tax dollars than they’re already stuck with. Liberals don’t want to lose their entitlements due to budget cuts or state and national bankruptcies. When my wife and I were first married, we attended church in a Latino congregation. I believe every family but one (the Bishop’s) was living in the U.S. illegally. It wasn’t a secret. It just was. We served them as best we could with our meager newlywed resources, but mostly we tried to help them help themselves out of poverty, encouraging them to get their papers in order when it seemed appropriate to ask them to do so. But many still relied on what the government provided, despite their immigration status. My uncle, a Gringo like me, was a factory manager in Mexico most of his working life. We visited him in Guadalajara and in Hermosillo and his son continues to work there to this day. His family’s ties there because of his work there are very strong, even leading to the adoption of my youngest cousin from just across the U.S. border. So, in my pre-Clinton days, I was pro-NAFTA. What wasn’t to like? No tariffs, people have jobs, and everyone’s happy and healthy when we all cooperate to expand our economic base. Right? Not so fast. NAFTA has been a qualified disaster as far as worker’s rights on the Latino side and retention of jobs on the U.S. side. My uncle always treated his employees exceptionally well. Because of that, he was well loved and well-respected by everyone who worked for him. And, the companies he has worked for did a fair job of it with or without his help. But, let’s face facts. The reasons a U.S. company moves its manufacturing operations to Mexico or any other developing country, is largely for cost savings. (That means they’re looking for cheaper labor and a lower standard of living.) In a broader sense, by granting amnesty and having open borders, we would quickly open our nation up to too many dependents who likely won’t be able to contribute back in the same measure or more as they remove from the system until the 2nd or 3rd generation. Allowing all comers, under the guise of “allowing free markets to flourish”, to pour into the country and use up its benefits without contribution, regardless of documentation status or desirable characteristics (preferably non-criminals and people who don’t belong to MS-13 or the Latin Kings), is a way to ensure that entitlements from prison funding to Medicare/Medicaid, to the world’s best health care system, to Social Security will fail–and fail hard. Kind of like it’s doing now. My grandmother was living in Arizona with my mom about 30 miles north of the Mexican border. She had moved back there after 30 years of being away from the area she had been a school teacher in prior to retirement. I remember her telling stories about the cute Mexican kids and how much she enjoyed teaching them in a Nogales elementary school. But she also told me stories of how Mexicans and people from points further south crossing a then relatively unenforced border would break into houses quite regularly to steal whatever they could find that would finance the rest of their journey into the U.S. She had often contemplated putting a sign on her windows and doors saying, “Don’t bother…everything’s already been stolen” just to keep them from breaking windows and busting door locks. In 2005, she fell and fractured her hip. Upon arrival at a Tuscon hospital emergency room, she was told to have a seat and someone would be right with her. Hold the phone! Have a seat? Broken pelvis here! The ER was in triage mode. You see, there were so many Latino folks there that evening, many of them fellow travelers of immigrants who had gotten critically injured in car wrecks or immigration raids or gang violence and needed medical help, that they had to treat the life-threatening situations first. Since Grandma wasn’t bleeding out, she and my mom would have to take a seat and wait. Eight hours later, Grandma was admitted to the ER. By then, she was deep in shock and had been sitting on a fractured pelvis for all that time. Hospitals in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and now other states are having to accommodate illegals, sometimes ahead of citizens, because of fears of bad PR or financial impacts if an immigrant dies or sues the hospital. The fact that they’re operating at a loss with patients who can’t pay for services is apparently worth mitigating a visit from the ACLU. Reason #2: Everybody’s Doing It Mexico, for example, protects its southern border from Central American immigration incursions. They know what problems we’re experiencing as a result of our porous border and they’re learning from our mistakes. Though, they are actually more ruthless now about it than we’ve ever been. Mexico also protects its interests from American economic and cultural incursion by requiring us to present all kinds of documentation when we cross the either of their land or sea borders. Just try going to Mexico without the proper documentation sometime and see how far you get before you’re stuck in a jail cell desperately asking for a phone call so you can pay enough mordida to get out. Reason #3: Safety and Security History is ruthless in telling us one inescapable fact of human existence. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Some good guys live in tribe A and some bad guys live in tribe B. Likewise, there are bad guys in tribe A just as there are good guys in tribe B. The difference between them is who wields power and influence. The logical tautology is that it’s best for the good guys to wield the power and influence. A corollary to that is the idea that if you have a good thing going, it’s probably a good idea to keep it safe from disruption by outside influences. And guess what? It’s relatively easy for radical Islamonazi terrorists having Middle-Eastern characteristics to cross the southern border undetected. They do this, and have been doing it for years, with the help of anti-American narco-trafficking drug lords who only want guns and money to further protect their cartels. In 1994, I was in a Guatemalan/Mexican border town. The village had come to be known among locals and foreigners alike as “Little Tijuana”. A man in a crowd tried to engage me in conversation in English and ask me for assistance in getting to the U.S. to see his family. I was young and naïve at the time, and he looked like any other Guatemalan mestizo I had ever talked to. The fact that he was talking to me in English didn’t raise any red flags. Lots of Guatemalans did that when they saw Gringos like me. It simply never crossed my mind to ask him further questions about his circumstances. Seeing that I was friendly, and probably detecting my naiveté, he offered his background of his own accord, telling me that he was a Chechen rebel who had fled the conflict with Russia to seek financial assistance for the Chechen resistance effort from his brother in Los Angeles. Then he lifted up his shirt and showed me a bloody bandage. Then he uncovered the bandage to show me a gaping, but healing bullet wound. He had two other fully healed bullet wound scars on his right forearm and left shoulder. Well, that was certainly exciting for a country bumpkin like me living in a foreign land. And who wouldn’t want to help a “freedom fighter” with such an effort, especially if it was against the “Ruskies”? I told him I didn’t have those kinds of contacts or resources, but as the humanitarian I endeavored to be, I gave him my family’s phone number and address in case he needed someone to call or visit when he got to the States and ask them to look up his family’s phone numbers and addresses. That way he could get in touch with his family and they could help him and the war effort against the Russians. It wasn’t until after 9/11 that I began to look into this whole Muslim thing in more detail. I was also interested in that my aunt was of direct Middle-Eastern descent, 100%, but her parents were Lebanese Christian, pro-American immigrants who arrived here legally. Eventually, I came across information about the conflict between Russia and Chechnya (this is a later version of what I read in 2002). In 2006, when I heard of Muslim extremists bombing the Russian Beslan school, I had a chilling realization that I may have not only aided and abetted a member of Al Qaeda to cross into Mexico and later to the U.S. by helping him get in touch with his brother in L.A., I had also given him the address and phone number to my mother and grandmother’s house. It was like a kick to the gut. Reason #4: Protecting Language American language is overwhelmingly English. Everything we read, from street signs to newspapers, is English language. Some would like our government to publish its documents, including tax forms, in multiple languages so we can seem to be more incluuuuuuusive. We’ll also be more broke than a nag horse walking into a glue factory if we do that. The compliance burden of just the IRS tax code alone is in the tens of billions. You can already get tax forms in Spanish, so we know that at least half of the compliance cost is represented by a foreign language. But can you imagine translating every other government form, let alone traffic signs, DMV tests, building permits, etc. ad nauseum to the mix? Reason #5: Protecting Culture America’s heritage is a beautiful mosaic of music, art, literature, food, history, and the way people live their lives. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. I also wouldn’t trade it for a Latin-American free-for-all mass immigration that would ensue the moment we grant amnesty to anyone wanting to come here. Such an influx of a single culture would threaten to overwhelm and eventually erase the varied international, intercontinental cultures we have now, replacing them with a largely Latin-American one. Don’t get me wrong, I love Latin-American culture to death. It’s my favorite, actually. But that’s not all I’d want to see every time I set foot outside my door. Reason #6: Protecting Jobs This pretty much goes without further argument. In the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and one that is predicted to get even worse, I don’t think we can afford to flood an already overburdened labor market with more laborers. And Americans will do any job if they get hungry enough. Reason #7: Protecting Immigrants and their Families! (Imagine that!) “What about the families!”, I’m always hearing. “If we deport the moms and dads, then the kids will suffer! The families at home they send money to will no longer get their remittances!” A dear friend from Guatemala, after whom I named my first daughter, married in Guatemala and she and her husband had a little baby boy. Then, hearing that money in America grows on trees and falls from the sky, he got dollar signs in his eyes and went north. He said he’d be back in 6 months to a year, which is a common thing for a Guatemalan man to say to his wife just before he abandons her to go to the U.S. Two years later, having not heard anything from him and desperate to know anything about her husband and father of her child, she left her toddler son with her mother, borrowed the family’s life savings, and paid a coyote for passage to the U.S. border. After weeks of traveling, she and the other paying passengers were unceremoniously dumped somewhere along the Arizona border near Nogales. She only found that out later, and was lucky to live to tell that tale, because their group wandered in the desert for days looking for civilization. Some died. She almost did. Now she lives in Los Angeles, California. Her husband is cheating on her and she’s bound by her honor to pay back the over $5,000 she borrowed from the family savings as she slowly scrapes by cleaning hotel rooms and waiting tables. She madly misses her young son, who is now growing up without a mother and a father, and who only knows her and his father by photographs and telephone conversations. She wants so much to return, but hubby isn’t interested. He’s chasing the dream, even though they’re barely paying the bills. When she told me of her intent to try to find her husband in the States, I offered to do it for her but I begged her not to put herself in harms way by making the dangerous journey and crossing the border. She now goes between wishing she had listened and hoping her husband will come to his senses, pitch in to pay her debt, and return with her to raise their son. After what she experienced coming here, she wisely rejects any suggestion that they send for her son to come to them here in the same way they both did. Good Guys vs. Bad Guys? What is this, a Spaghetti Western? One might argue, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys, especially in an era of inclusion (moral relativism) and tolerance (competing political and religious ideologies)? You can tell good guys from bad guys by how they treat their own people and others. It helps even more to compare such things within the context of their nation’s founding principles and ideals for a better society. It appears that I’ve just left the door wide open for direct criticism of only America, because only imperialist, capitalist America has done bad things in the world, right? If you believe that, I have a few books on the Holocaust and a couple of good web sites tracking the various ongoing genocides in Africa to send you. If you’d like, I’ll even send along a body count estimate of the various dictatorships and Communist regimes this world has suffered under in the past century. Call now and you’ll get a free outline of the way ancient cultures used to treat each other that will make you grateful to not have been living in times when life was nasty, brutish, and short. America, on the other hand, has acted to repair the damage and to improve conditions in ALL the countries it has ever invaded or fought with. America has fallen far short of the vision of the Founders in recent decades, it’s true. But one thing unrevised American history teaches us is that, despite our warts of slavery and injustices towards Native Americans, both terrible things in their own right, the populace at large was not doing those things out of hatred or spite. They were acting within the confines of their own chronology. They were living in their own minds, culture, and times, and were doing the best they could with the knowledge they then had. They didn’t have the benefit of jumping ahead to the future and realizing how their actions were going to affect so many people. And it does us no benefit, nor does it exact any real vengeance, to denigrate dead people by posthumously applying our values and judgments to their times. Columbus didn’t have microbiologists in his day to advise him of the dangers of contacting indigenous peoples. Columbus didn’t have bodies of university professors and UN human rights commissions to advise him on multicultural issues that might arise from the way he and his men interacted with native San Salvadorans according to the European customs and cultural assumptions of the time. Columbus didn’t have a time machine to go forward and realize that, not only had he not reached the Orient, but that the gold he sought was largely all the way on the Rocky Mountain end of a mainland continent hundreds of miles away from his initial landing spot. It’s not collectively America’s fault that it was successful. It’s not collectively America’s fault that free markets require fiscal and personal responsibility to function properly. It’s not collectively America’s fault that people become addicted to drugs that happen to be sourced largely in other countries and trafficked here across our southern border. It’s not collectively America’s fault that people make poor decisions to join narco-trafficking gangs and immigrate here and import third-world problems into our cities and towns and neighborhoods. But it will be America’s fault, collectively, if we fail to rein in the insanity of our unenforced borders. Future generations of all cultural and national backgrounds rely on our decision today to responsibly build and enjoy a strong nation. - Brewer files immigration countersuit (politico.com) - Arizona sues US government over illegal immigrants (alternet.org) - Ariz. Governor Countersues U.S. Government (abcnews.go.com) - Ariz. countersues over immigration law – UPI.com (news.google.com) - Illegal Immigrants Move from America’s Edges to the Center (dailyfinance.com) - ‘Smuggle Truck’ Immigration App Draws Fire (abcnews.go.com) - Border Patrol catches illegal immigrant gang member trying to cross back into Mexico (seatoshiningsea.wordpress.com) - Phil Gingrey goes to border, calls Latinos his “favorite aliens” (salon.com)

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In this section we will try to formulate an answer to the following questions. What do images tell us about a 3D scene? How can we get 3D information from these images? What do we need to know beforehand? A few problems and difficulties will also be presented. An image like in Figure 1.1 tells us a lot about the observed scene. There is however not enough information to reconstruct the 3D scene (at least not without doing an important number of assumptions on the structure of the scene). This is due to the nature of the image formation process which consists of a projection from a three-dimensional scene onto a two-dimensional image. During this process the depth is lost. Figure 1.2 illustrates this. The three-dimensional point corresponding to a specific image point is constraint to be on the associated line of sight. From a single image it is not possible to determine which point of this line corresponds to the image point. An image of a scene If two (or more) images are available, then -as can be seen from Figure 1.3- the three-dimensional point can be obtained as the intersection of the two line of sights. This process is called triangulation. Note, however, that a number of things are needed for this: Back-projection of a point along the line of sight. The relation between an image point and its line of sight is given by the camera model (e.g. pinhole camera) and the calibration parameters. These parameters are often called the intrinsic camera parameters while the position and orientation of the camera are in general called extrinsic parameters. - Corresponding image points - Relative pose of the camera for the different views - Relation between the image points and the corresponding line of sight In the following chapters we will learn how all these elements can be retrieved from the images. The key for this are the relations between multiple views which tell us that corresponding sets of points must contain some structure and that this structure is related to the poses and the calibration of the camera. Reconstruction of three-dimensional point through triangulation. Note that different viewpoints are not the only depth cues that are available in images. In Figure 1.4 some other depth cues are illustrated. Although approaches have been presented that can exploit most of these, in this text we will concentrate on the use of multiple views. Shading (top-left), shadows/symmetry/silhouette (top-right), texture (bottom-left) and focus (bottom-right) also give some hints about depth or local geometry. In Figure 1.5 a few problems for 3D modeling from images are illustrated. Most of these problems will limit the application of the presented method. However, some of the problems can be tackled by the presented approach. Another type of problems is caused when the imaging process does not satisfy the camera model that is used. In Figure 1.6 two examples are given. In the left image quite some radial distortion is present. This means that the assumption of a pinhole camera is not satisfied. It is however possible to extend the model to take the distortion into account. The right image however is much harder to use since an important part of the scene is not in focus. There is also some blooming in that image (i.e. overflow of CCD-pixel to the whole column). Most of these problems can however be avoided under normal imaging circumstance. Some difficult scenes: moving objects (top-left), complex scene with many discontinuities (top-right), reflections (bottom-left) and another hard scene (bottom-right). Some problems with image acquisition: radial distortion (left), un-focussed and blooming (right).

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During excitement, young dogs often spontaneously urinate. They have no control over this and sometimes do not even realize it has occurred. Other dogs may urinate as a sign of submission in the presence of another animal (or person) that they consider dominant. Submissive urination is sometimes seen in puppies or young dogs that have been abused. However, many puppies that have submissive urination are perfectly normal and from good backgrounds. These types of urination problems seem to be caused by either a lack of neuromuscular control over the bladder or by previous treatment that frightened or intimidated the puppy. Owners should try to determine what actions or events cause the involuntary urination to occur. For some, this will be easy. Excitement or sudden movement toward the puppy may cause her to urinate. For others, it might be something as simple as direct eye contact. Many puppies urinate when you bend over them, so instead, kneel down to their level. Whatever the cause, do your best to eliminate these situations or actions. Most puppies will outgrow this behavior by six months to a year of age, especially if we let them mature through this stage of their life in a gentle and calm environment. Be patient. When an accident occurs, do not make a fuss. Clean it up and forget it.

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The stories in this column are translations by Mr. Nollet from Die Juden In Der Welt (The Jews in the World) by Mark Wischnitzer, a long out-of-print book published more than seven decades ago in Germany. The book examines Jewish communities, one country at a time, as they existed in 1935 – a time before the Nazis began their extermination campaign against the Jews and before there was a state of Israel. The Jews Of Libya Libya lies in North Africa between Egypt and Tunisia and consists of Cyrenica and Tripoli. Even in the 3rd century before the Common Era, Cyrenica was a destination for Jewish emigration. Over the next century the Jewish population grew in numbers but was strongly Hellenized. The capital of Cyrenica was Berenice, which today is Benghazi. The population lived under a caste system and the Jews were able to build their own class for themselves and their allies, and they had autonomy. They maintained lively connections with the motherland: In Jerusalem there was a synagogue community of Cyrenian Jews. During the great revolt that broke out in Cyrenica and Egypt against the Emperor Trajan (115-117 CE), the Jews under the leadership of the messianic king Lukaus conquered the entire land. The revolt was suppressed after many years of fighting. Persecutions of the Jews began under Byzantine rulership in the 6th century. The synagogue in the coastal city of Boreion was transformed into a church. In the late Middle Ages there was an immigration of Jews into Cyrenica from neighboring Tripoli. Trade with various seaside cities of the Mediterranean provided the Jews with living conditions that were first-class. As was true of the entire Orient, Jews operated silver and goldsmith enterprises. In 1931 the Jewish population consisted of some 3,000 souls, versus a general population of 165,000. In great part they lived in humble circumstances. Under the Fatimid Dynasty of Egypt (969-1171), there was a Jewish community in Tripoli of about 800 families. Sephardic Jews came to the late in the late 15th century after their expulsion from Spain, and later on, in the 17th & 18th centuries, there was an influx of Jews from Italy. In 1850 the traveling researcher J. J. Benjamin came across these Italian Jews living alongside the natives, though they didn’t have their own community. He praised the piousness of the Jews, listed their synagogues and houses of learning, along with the names of the rabbis and the leaders with whom he came into contact. In the villages he visited the Jews lived in primitive conditions at the mercy of the Arabs. They feared to wear clean clothes the Arabs might steal from them. These Jews worked in agriculture, cattle breeding, wine production and fruit growing. There were also smithies and locksmiths. As far as Benjamin could ascertain, they were almost the only laboring element among the Arabs, who themselves operated no enterprises and who purchased all they needed from the Jews. When Tripoli was occupied by the Italians in 1911, there were about 15,000 Jewish inhabitants. They lived in the Old City, separated from the Arabs. Although emancipation was proclaimed under Italian administration, until today few have left the ghetto. The Italian administration built a universally obligatory popular school with instruction in Italian, with Jewish crafts taught to the Jewish children, as in a trade school. Fifty kilometers east of Tripoli lies the Jewish cave-settlement of Tigranna, by the oasis of Gasr Garia, with about 500 Jewish families. The names of these inhabitants show their origin from the Spanish refugees who came to the land 400 years before. The settlement consists of multi-storied structures grouped around a square-shaped open commons area. The apartments are built about 7-10 meters deep into the ground, and are connected with each other via galleries. A longer, sloping gangway leads into the commons. The apartments have no doors or windows, and clans live together, from the elderly to the grandchildren. A little bit of daylight forces its way through ventilation holes. The commons is where people work, and rooms behind it are all open. The two prime occupations are agriculture and sheep breeding. The wool is needed for the production of carpets. The community has its own rabbi, school, and doctor. The Italian administration has altered nothing of the customs and habits of the cave-dwellers, but has provided a teacher who instructs the children in Italian. The synagogue is set up in an upper-level, is walled, and furnished with wooden accessories. The shrine protects an old Torah scroll, probably brought with them from their old Spanish homeland. There are Jewish settlements farther away in Dschebel-Jeffren and Dschebel-Nefussa; there are also a lot of Jews scattered about the land. In 1931 there was a count of 21,342 Jews versus a general population of 552,663, of whom about 20,000 were Europeans. The Jews of Tripoli show their longing for Zion in this way: Men, women, and children make paper ships, display them in the synagogue, and say, “With such ships we will journey to Jerusalem.” Ezra James Nollet is a retired U.S. government chemist living in Poland where he is officer of the local synagogue in Legnica. Before the Deluge appears the last week of each month.Ezra James Nollet About the Author: Ezra James Nollet is a retired U.S. government chemist living in Poland where he is officer of the local synagogue in Legnica. Before the Deluge appears the last week of each month. If you don't see your comment after publishing it, refresh the page. Our comments section is intended for meaningful responses and debates in a civilized manner. We ask that you respect the fact that we are a religious Jewish website and avoid inappropriate language at all cost. If you promote any foreign religions, gods or messiahs, lies about Israel, anti-Semitism, or advocate violence (except against terrorists), your permission to comment may be revoked.

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Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence Publication Year: 2014 Published by: State University of New York Press Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication Preface: “The Substance of Things Hoped For, the Evidence of Things Not Seen” Thomas Fuller’s (1709–1789) largely unknown life stands as an unfortunate record of limits placed on a potential mathematical genius. But for his birth into a free American family, the mathematical contributions of the better-known Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), also of African descent, would similarly be lost to history. Fuller’s anonymity and Banneker’s relative fame stand as a commentary on the obstacles and opportunities that have circumscribed Black American mathematical talent across three centuries.... I wish to acknowledge, with immense gratitude, all of the mathematicians who participated in this study and generously shared their important stories with me. Their memories, histories, and experiences were so rich that a journal article was not enough to capture their mathematical lives, and although I fear this book is also too limited a forum for their narratives, I hope they believe it does them justice. I especially thank Drs. Clarence Stephens, Evelyn Granville, Scott Williams, Sylvia Bozeman, Bill Massey, Mel Currie, Johnny... Chapter 1. Introduction Who are Black mathematicians? What are their paths to the profession? Although this book provides some answers to these questions, it is by necessity a synthesis of many stories past and present. By one estimate, there are roughly 300 living Black mathematicians in the United States. They work in colleges and universities; for federal, state, and local governments and agencies; in private and public secondary schools; and in industry. Their fields... Chapter 2. Kinships and Communities The mathematical journeys of Elbert F. Cox and Euphemia Lofton Haynes described in the introduction suggest a compelling question: how does someone who has never known a mathematician decide to become one? Wayne Leverett’s self-described trajectory—exposed to the route of becoming a mathematician in stages, first in high school through his teachers, then in college through his mentor and major professor, and so forth—is... Chapter 3. Navigating the Mason-Dixon Divide In this chapter, I use the notion of the Mason-Dixon Line—a now hypothetical but at one time very literal divide between North and South—as a metaphor for the border states in which Black mathematicians have frequently found themselves. These borders—physical, sociological, and psychological— have a significant impact on the mathematical lives of Black mathematicians. I begin with the literal geographical divide between South... Chapter 4. “Representing the Race” The notion of “representing the race” figures prominently in the educational and professional lives of many Black mathematicians. For some, “representing the race” comes as a function of their being the only Black student in their high school mathematics classroom, as the high school student referenced above notes and as mathematicians themselves recalled in the previous chapter. Black mathematicians also may be at times the only Black person... Chapter 5. Flying Home Although some attention has been paid to the success of historically Black colleges and universities in facilitating access to science careers for their graduates, the mechanisms by which Black colleges promote this success have largely gone unexplored in the literature, with a few notable exceptions (Hilliard, 1995, 2003; Scriven, 2006; Southern Education Foundation, 2005; Tucker, 1996). These mechanisms are also often viewed as static,... Chapter 6. Conclusions The mathematical life histories of Black mathematicians reveal much about how they come to know and do mathematics in multiple contexts— home, school, community, college, university, and the profession. Although these mathematicians have varied paths to the profession, they share a common social and cultural bond—they are African Americans in the United States.... Appendix A. Methodological Note Appendix B. Interview Protocol Page Count: 185 Publication Year: 2014 OCLC Number: 881184048 MUSE Marc Record: Download for Beyond Banneker

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Degenerative arthritis is a condition that involves the chronic breakdown of cartilage in the joints leading to painful joint inflammation. In the spine, facet joint osteoarthritis, sometimes called degenerative arthritis or spinal arthritis, causes a breakdown of cartilage between the facet joints in the back of the spine. When the joints articulate, the lack of cartilage causes pain as well as limits on motion. The condition is more common in adults over the age of 60. Degenerative arthritis can be successfully treated using one or a combination of non-surgical treatments, such as water therapy, exercise, pain medications, and chiropractic manipulation in order to maintain motion in the back. Rarely surgery will be required to alleviate the pain.

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Check out our top free essays on positives and negatives of censorship to help you negative effects of social media aleida slater assignment for english . Censorship has negative effects on readers, writers, publishers, educators and librarians educators educators are trusted with effects of censorship. Ubiquitous social media use is pulling back the curtain on governments' reliance on old tactics -- policymakers can no longer rely on media censorship, public pressure, and overt force tolerating dissenting points of view is a core feature of democracies, so governments need a new playbook for responding to protests and it's in all of their interests to develop new international norms. Censorship is the control of information through the suppression of media what are the advantages and disadvantages of censorship a: potential effects of . Much of fahrenheit 451 is devoted to depicting a future united states society bombarded with messages and imagery by an omnipresent mass media. The issues of concentration in media and its often negative impact on discourse and democracy is discussed in more detail on this sites section on corporate influence in the media. Media censorship essaystoday there is much controversy over whether there should or shouldn. The media is abuzz with debates about media censorship what are the media censorship pros and cons that everyone keeps talking about one glimpse at the article below will tell you that there are pertinent points, both for and against the topic of media censorship. Censorship is the control of the influx of information and ideas in a society both democratic and non-democratic countries use it with the explosion of communication technology, it has become all-pervasive there is a dispute as to whether censorship is good or bad. 10 disadvantages of social media for the usage of social media can also have a negative impact on the to write their factual essay on the advantages and . The effect of government regulation in the mass media to understand the effects of government regulation on the mass media, one must first understand the difference between regulation and censorship. Censorship of media violent essay nevertheless, the government censorship can stop the negative impact of mass media violence on the audience and, . Censorship has negative repercussions since they tend to adversely affect the ability of people to practice their legally mandated fundamental rights censorship has mostly been directed towards the media and communication industries, thus limiting the capacity of people to freely express themselves. How social media censorship impacts self-expression 6 creatives on why facebook and instagram’s murky content policies need to change. 11 biggest pros and cons of censorship who has the most to gain and lose from censorship in modern media cons of censorship 1 promote negative agendas. When your school or company bans the use of social media in 8 advantages and disadvantages of internet censorship home that can have a negative impact on . Media censorship may remind you of government-controlled news from the cold war era the new york times published what's commonly called the pentagon papers, . The effects of social media on reduces the negative impact of social media usage on their of social media on student performance essay: . Media censorship is the act of monitoring information and determining if it should be broadcast, published, or televised this is done for different reasons, such as protecting a person’s privacy and avoiding the release of information that can affect a nation’s security. Effects of censorship - the negative impact of media censorship. Essays from bookrags provide great ideas for censorship essays and paper censorship essay censorship has a daily negative impact on our present . What's the negative impact of great fire wall and censorship on china internet community level negative impact of the gfw on the all aspects of media, . Let us look at the pros and cons of media censorship to have a well-informed insight about this it keeps the negative impact of sex materials away from children. Media censorship may remind you of government-controlled news from the cold war era in america today, the news is censored in ways you may not realize. Home list of pros and cons 9 primary pros and cons of censorship which they believe can have an impact in the censorship prevents the media from revealing . The tools you need to write a quality essay or term a viable solution to the negative impact of the violence in the media to media censorship 1.

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Red Butte Creek stream and groundwater ion concentrations |Storage:||The size of this resource is 3.6 MB| |Created:||Jul 18, 2016 at 8:11 p.m.| |Last updated:|| Feb 01, 2017 at 5:55 a.m. |Citation:||See how to cite this resource| Stream and groundwater samples were collected irregularly from August 2013 to November 2014 for analysis of major ions by ion chromatography. Sites included the Red Butte Creek GAMUT stations. Please see the published manuscript in Environmental Science & Technology for further details on sampling methods and analyses of these data. Duplicate. Keyword not added. Resource Level Coverage |Observed Variables||Site.manuscript, Site.Well.Number, Date, Na.mgl, NH4N.mgl, K.mgl, Ca.mgl, Mg.mgl, F.mgl, NO2N.mgl, PO4.mgl, Br.mgl, Cl.mgl, NO3N.mgl, SO4S.mgl| |Variable Description||Site names, sampling dates, and concentrations of major ions| |Data Collection Method||See manuscript published in ES&T for details: Hall, S. J., S. R. Weintraub, D. Eiriksson, P. D. Brooks, M. A. Baker, G. J. Bowen, and D. R. Bowling. 2016. Stream nitrogen inputs reflect groundwater across a snowmelt-dominated montane to urban watershed. Environmental Science & Technology, In press.| This resource was created using funding from the following sources: |Agency Name||Award Title||Award Number| |National Science Foundation||iUTAH-innovative Urban Transitions and Aridregion Hydro-sustainability||1208732| How to Cite This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please wait for the process to complete.

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Brief SummaryRead full entry BiologyDuring the wet season, the Galapagos dove feeds largely on caterpillars and on flowers of the cactus Opuntia helleri (2) (5) (7). At other times, much foraging takes place on the ground, with the doves taking seeds of the bush Croton scouleri, often using the beak to dig up and uncover seeds. Other small seeds and fruits may be eaten, as well as cactus pulp, and the fly larvae and pupae that may be found inside cactus trunks and pads (2) (7). Feeding habits may differ between islands, with only some Galapagos doves reported to perch on Opuntia cacti and feed on the flowers, possibly due to differences in the rigidity of the cactus spines between islands (7). The Galapagos dove typically breeds between January and November, though breeding season may vary between islands (2) (5), and on Genovesa does not start until early February, after the rains (7). The nest itself is either placed on the ground, in rock cavities, or at around 75 centimetres above the ground, in an old nest of the Galapagos mockingbird, Mimus parvulus (2) (5) (7). Ground nests usually suffer higher predation than those above the ground (2) (7). Two eggs are normally laid, and hatch after an incubation period of 13 days. Fledging occurs at between 13 and 17 days, and the breeding pair may go on to nest again just 6 to 10 days later, sometimes raising up to three broods in one season (2) (7).

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Careful and close reading. Concise and powerful writing. What do you see? What do you know? What do you think? AP Students, after you choose your quotes, run with them. As long as you are original and thoughtful in your analyses, you will do well on this project. Be brave. Be risky. Another twist on one of my examples: Ex. “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand” (Fitzgerald 37). The word “deft” sounds like “definite” to me. Tom knew what he wanted. He was sure. His action was definite. “Definite” looks like “define.” Tom Buchanan has always been ridiculously wealthy. He defines his own life and does whatever he wants whenever he wants. Tom Buchanan is deft. English 9 Honors Students, have fun with your project. Be creative. Be neat. What lessons does this book teach us?

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Autoimmune disease can be considered the modern plague of western society. It comes in a variety of forms affecting almost every system of the body recognized by such names as Lupus, Arthritis, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, Psoriasis, MS, Nephritis (some forms), Polychondritis, and some can argue Allergies, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue syndrome are also Autoimmune disorders. Conventional treatment usually is directed towards symptom management and also improving mortality by decreasing acute flare ups which sometimes can be devastating to a patient’s health. While useful and sometimes necessary to improve outcomes, conventional treatment alone has a poor success rate at fully resolving these clinical syndromes. An integrated approach with conventional treatment has a better hope of long term success with possible remission of the condition. The holistic approach focuses on much more than biochemistry but encompasses the whole person by considering structural misalignment, proper nutrition, detoxification, informational reorganization (see NMT) and appropriate stress reduction practices. Most people can understand that symptoms may have only recently manifested but usually the underlying cause of the condition may have been playing for many years before the patient becomes aware. Therefore treatment must be viewed as a process towards reintegration and rebuilding of vitality, not as a quick fix.

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By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network This piece first appeared at Climate News Network. LONDON—Scientists think there is growing evidence to show that the Amazon forest is less effective at absorbing carbon dioxide than previously thought. Instead, they say, it may often be releasing huge quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere, acting not as a carbon sink but as a source. Their reasons for this potentially significant rethink were published in two reports in the journal Nature. The first describes the results of researchers who sampled the amount of carbon in the air at four points over the Amazon, to build up a more comprehensive picture of the forest’s response to both light and water. Starting at up to 4.4 kms above the Earth, the researchers’ aircraft collected 17 samples at each point and analysed them for concentrations of five different gases: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and sulphur hexafluoride. They did this in 2010, a year marked by severe drought in Amazonia, and in 2011, which had above-average rainfall. The drought, obviously, reduced plant production and limited the amount of carbon stored in vegetation, while at the same time large amounts of carbon were released by fire during the dry year. But in 2011 the region was effectively carbon-neutral, experiencing reduced carbon loss from fires and increased carbon uptake by vegetation. The website Science for Brazil says: “The vegetation managed to absorb not only all the CO2 emitted through natural processes but also the emissions resulting from human activities, including fires.” ‘Far from reality’ The researchers found that the burning of vegetation linked to land use and a reduction in photosynthesis (the process used by plants and other organisms to convert light into chemical energy) meant about 0.48 petagrams (one petagram equals 1,000,000,000,000,000 grams) of carbon were lost from the forest in 2010, against 2011?s carbon neutrality. As temperatures were similar in both years they say that it was a lack of moisture that lowered photosynthesis rates, not greater heat. Their conclusion is that what the forest really needs is enough water. So the effects of drought and fire together can combine to make the forest a carbon source, not a sink. The main author of the study is Luciana Vanni Gatti of Brazil’s Nuclear Energy Research Institute (IPEN). She said: “…the lack of rainfall modifies the dynamics of the forest and the carbon balance in the region. Therefore… precipitation is a factor that scientists working with climate forecasting will have to take into consideration in their models. If not, the results will be very far from reality.” If she and her colleagues are right, and if other forest regions react in the same way, the global consequences could prompt a drastic revision of the forests’ ability to moderate global warming. Not so green Support for her team’s conclusions comes in another Nature report, this time dealing with an apparent flaw in one of the reasons why scientists had believed the Amazon forest remained healthy during droughts. They believed this because the forest appeared green. So, they concluded, it must be absorbing carbon dioxide. But Douglas Morton of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues say the apparent greenness was what Nature calls “an optical artefact of the observation method”. Satellite measurements in 2003 appeared to show that the Amazon canopy grew more strongly during a drought. As New Scientist reported, young leaves are greener – and reflect more infra-red light – than old foliage, so scientists assumed this was evidence that rainforests grew better during dry years. It reports that Morton’s team used alternative sensing methods to show that during droughts “NASA’s sensors were not seeing a greener canopy at all. It was a trick of the light – perhaps because fresh foliage growth casts more shadows in the canopy and so absorbs more infrared light”. Morton told New Scientist: “Seasonal moisture availability governs the balance between photosynthesis and respiration in Amazon forests.” In other words, it concludes, rainforests thrive in the rain. And water availability, rather than light, is the main driver of plant productivity in Amazon forests. Fire and drought can turn the Amazon rainforest from a carbon sink to a source. Photo by Ramos Keith, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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Student-friendly and easy to use, the Study Guide for Introduction to Medical-Surgical Nursing, 5th Edition, is designed to help you master content and evaluate your progress through practical, useful exercises and activities, including a wealth of multiple-choice and alternate-format questions. This edition places an increased emphasis on higher-level application questions, including exercises to encourage practice in setting priorities, to prepare you to transfer your knowledge of medical-surgical concepts to patient care in the clinical setting. -Helps you hone critical thinking skills essential for success on licensure exams and in clinical practice. -Reinforces textbook content and provides ample opportunity for self-assessment with a wide variety of learning activities, including matching (key term and vocabulary review), completion, listing, labeling (illustrations), ranking/ordering, and application questions for textbook nursing care plans. -Includes textbook page references, making self-assessment easier and faster. -Emphasizes application of nursing concepts with new knowledge and comprehension exercises and activities that ask you to apply your knowledge to patient care situations. -Features a new section at the end of each chapter: Challenge Yourself! Getting Ready for the NCLEX includes both standard multiple-choice and alternate-format questions (over 1,800) that test your knowledge of chapter content while providing practice for the Boards. -Provides valuable practice in prioritizing (deciding what to do first) and assignment (giving specific tasks to health care providers who may be supervised by LPNs) -- skills that are essential for providing effective nursing care and are covered on the NCLEX-PN Examination. -Links you to online Evolve resources, where you'll find an additional set of review questions, encouraging utilization of and familiarity with an electronic format.

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Atomic Number: 60 Atomic Symbol: Nd Atomic Weight: 144.242 Melting Point: 1,869.8 F (1,021 C) Boiling Point: 5,565.2 F (3,074 C) Word origin: Neodymium comes from the Greek word neos, meaning new, and didymos, meaning twin. The name combined means new twin. Discovery: This element was discovered in 1841 when Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander, extracted a rose-colored oxide from cerite, which he named didymium, as it was a twin of the element lanthanum. In 1885, Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach separated didymium into two new elemental components, neodymium and praseodymium. [See Periodic Table of the Elements] Properties of neodymium Neodymium is one of the more reactive lanthanide rare-earth metals and quickly oxidizes in air. The element should be kept under an oil or sealed tightly in a plastic material. The metal has a bright and silvery luster. Neodymium can be found in two allotropic forms, transforming from a double hexagonal to a body-centered cubic. Naturally-occurring neodymium has seven stable isotopes. Fourteen other radioactive isotopes are known. Sources of neodymium Ion-exchange or solvent extraction techniques are two methods used to obtain neodymium from its salts. The element can also be obtained by reducing anhydrous halides such as NdF3 with a calcium metal. Several other techniques to obtain the element are known. Uses of neodymium Neodymium colors glass several shades, ranging from pure violet through deep red and warm gray tones. This glass is used in astronomical work to produce sharp absorption bands to calibrate spectral lines. The element is also a component of didymium, used in welders and glass blowers safety goggles. Some neodymium salts are also used to color enamels. It also makes up nearly 20 percent of mischmetal, a material that is used to make flints for lighters. (Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory)

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Index Knee Dislocation What is a knee dislocation? A knee dislocation means that the bones in your knee have moved out of place so that the bones do not fit together correctly. A knee can get dislocated if you tear the ligaments in your knee. Ligaments are strong bands of tissue that connect one bone to another. How does it occur? Your knee can be dislocated by: - suddenly twisting your body while your feet stay in one place - hitting the knee very hard - hyperextending the leg; that is, forcibly straightening your leg and knee past a normal position. What are the symptoms? Symptoms of a dislocated knee include: - severe pain right after you hurt it - not being able to bend or straighten the knee properly - a misshapen knee - rapid swelling of the knee joint - tingling or numbness in the foot. How is it diagnosed? Your healthcare provider will ask about your symptoms and how you hurt your knee. He or she will examine you. You will have X-rays to see if any bones are broken. Your provider will also check your pulse at your ankle. You may have a test called an arteriogram to make sure blood vessels are not blocked. To do an arteriogram, your provider injects an X-ray dye into your arteries through a thin tube (catheter). With X-rays your provider watches the dye pass through your arteries on a screen. At the same time pictures are taken of the knee. You may have an MRI to see what parts of your knee have been injured. An arteriogram may be done at the same time as an MRI. This combined exam is called an MRA (magnetic resonance arteriogram). How is it treated? A dislocated knee needs treatment right away to prevent permanent damage to the nerves and blood vessels. Your healthcare provider will try to get the knee joint back into its correct position. This is easier to do if it is soon after the injury. If there has been a delay in getting medical care, your provider may give you an anesthetic before moving your knee back in place to help prevent pain and muscle spasms. Your healthcare provider will usually put your knee in a splint for the first few weeks. Then, depending on your injury, your provider may recommend that you start early range-of-motion exercises, or he or she may decide to put the knee back in a splint for a few more weeks. You may need to do exercises for your quadriceps (thigh muscles above the knee) to keep from losing strength in your leg. Often there is damage to the ligaments and cartilage of the knee when it is dislocated. You may need surgery to repair the ligaments. In some cases emergency surgery is necessary. You may need surgery if: - You have no pulse at the ankle. - The artery at the back of the knee joint is injured. - The bones cannot be moved back into the correct position. - The skin is cut and the bone is exposed. How long will the effects last? The effects are different from person to person. Recovery depends on the extent of the injury, particularly on how many ligaments were torn and whether you have nerve or artery damage. How can I take care of myself? Follow your healthcare provider’s treatment plan. Rest and do not put any stress on your leg unless your provider gives you different instructions. How can I help prevent dislocating the knee again? To prevent dislocating the knee again: - Wear a knee brace if recommended by your provider. - Avoid dangerous sports and activities. - Move and use your body carefully. Developed by RelayHealth. Published by RelayHealth. Last modified: 2011-02-04 Last reviewed: 2011-06-12 This content is reviewed periodically and is subject to change as new health information becomes available. The information is intended to inform and educate and is not a replacement for medical evaluation, advice, diagnosis or treatment by a healthcare professional. References Pediatric Advisor 2011.4 Index © 2011 RelayHealth and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

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How Well Do You Know English Slang? Old English fleax "cloth made with flax, linen," from Proto-Germanic *flakhsan (cf. Old Frisian flax, Middle Dutch and Dutch vlas, Old Saxon flas, Old High German flahs, German Flachs), probably from Proto-Germanic base *fleh-, corresponding to PIE *plek- "to weave, plait" (see ply (v.1)). But some connect it with PIE *pleik- (see flay) from the notion of "stripping" fiber to prepare it. (Heb. pishtah, i.e., "peeled", in allusion to the fact that the stalks of flax when dried were first split or peeled before being steeped in water for the purpose of destroying the pulp). This plant was cultivated from earliest times. The flax of Egypt was destroyed by the plague of hail when it "was bolled", i.e., was forming pods for seed (Ex. 9:31). It was extensively cultivated both in Egypt and Palestine. Reference is made in Josh. 2:6 to the custom of drying flax-stalks by exposing them to the sun on the flat roofs of houses. It was much used in forming articles of clothing such as girdles, also cords and bands (Lev. 13:48, 52, 59; Deut. 22:11). (See LINEN.)

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It is important to protect your child from the day they are born from this UV radiation as skin cancer takes some time to develop – up to 20 to 30 years and in Ireland; we typically have fair, light coloured skin that freckles or burns easily and we can be more at risk than other nationalities. Here are some tips on how to keep your child safe in the sun. What you need to know Whether you choose to breastfeed or formula feed your baby you should give your baby 5 micrograms (5µg) of vitamin D3 every day, according to the HSE. What is Vitamin D? Vitamin D is important because it helps our bodies use calcium to build and maintain strong bones and teeth. Children (and adults) in Ireland have low levels of vitamin D which can lead to weak bones. In severe cases low levels of vitamin D can cause rickets(1) in children. There has been an increase in the number of cases of rickets in Ireland in recent years. Some people are uncomfortable with the concept of donating breast milk, via a milk bank, but for premature and very sick babies it can be a godsend. For 10 years, the lives of hundreds of sick and premature babies have been sustained and saved by the work of the Irvinestown Human Milk Bank. An incredible network of hundreds of mums north and south donate their milk, which is picked up everywhere from the steps of courthouses by lactation nurses or delivered in crates by the donors’ husbands. According to the Irish Independent, Irish couples are turning to a clinic in America to have the girl or boy that they’ve always dreamed of. For Irish women desperate to bear sons, the scientific evidence is clear: eat lots of bananas, have sex standing up, and try to consume a bowl of cereal every morning. Children who eat a Mediterranean diet rich in fruit, vegetables and fish have a lower risk of asthma and wheezing, experts have said. But eating three or more burgers a week can increase the risk, although this may be linked to other unhealthy habits, they said. Researchers from Germany, Spain and London examined data from 50,000 children aged eight to 12, collected between 1995 and 2005. Many men suffer from post-natal depression that can be just as debilitating as it is for women, doctors have found. New research published in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’ suggested that around one in 10 new fathers developed the condition. Symptoms were most common in the first six months after a baby was born. Men were more likely to have the ‘baby blues’ if their wife or girlfriend did too. According to the Irish Times, parents in Ireland may be getting inappropriate advice from some health professionals about weaning their babies on to solid food, new research has found. Official guidelines here currently recommend that breastfed babies should be introduced to solid foods at six months of age, while the age is four months for formula-fed infants.

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If you have a child of 10 years old or more, chances are they'll have a mobile phone. Maybe you gave it to them to keep safe, so you would know where they are, but mobile phones are not without their own risks. Not only can your children waste an enormous amount of time texting their friends instead of doing their homework, but mobile phones emit radiofrequency energy – a form of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation that is absorbed by the brain. Last month the World Health Organisation said that mobile phones could "possibly" be carcinogenic, putting them in category 2b (with other substances that "possibly" cause cancer such as car exhaust fumes, lead and coffee). Children, who will not have finished developing and therefore have thinner skulls, could absorb more of this radiofrequency energy than adults and be at a greater risk of developing brain tumours. This radiation is non-ionising radiation, which unlike ionising radiation from radon and x-rays has not consistently been linked to causing cancer. Should you rip your child's BlackBerry from his or her hands, mid instant-message session? Or if the evidence is inconclusive and the WHO says it's only likely to cause as much harm as coffee, maybe mobile phones are relatively safe. The WHO spent a week reviewing the evidence from 14 countries. Very little research exists on the effects of mobile phones on children. The largest study, the Interphone study found no evidence that mobile use increased the risk for gliomas and meningiomas (types of brain tumours). However a small proportion of people in the study who spent the most time on mobile phones did have a small increase in gliomas, reporting them to be on the same side of their head as they used their phones. However this could have been due to reporting bias, ie people may have mistakenly remembered which side of the head they held their phone against. It may take decades for a brain tumour to develop, so memories of phone use from way back can be unreliable, and studies may not have long enough follow-up periods to detect when brain tumours develop. A study by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute of children aged between seven and 19 found no difference in brain tumours in those using mobile phones and those without. The study looked at more than 350 people with brain tumours and tracked their mobile phone use. It was funded in part by mobile phone manufacturers, and critics have cited this as a potential for bias, as well as the fact that tumours can take many years longer than the time period of the study to develop. So far the incidence of brain tumours has not increased during this time of proliferation of mobile phones. There is no evidence that mobile phones cause brain tumours, but that doesn't mean there might not be, one day. Given that using mobile phones excessively can cause problems for your child – sleeping, doing their homework and being a social human being in the house – it makes sense to try to limit their use. To reduce your child's exposure to radiofrequency energy get them to text rather than phone (which they're probably doing already) and to use hands-free so the phone is not pressed against their ears. The latest advice from the chief medical officer in the UK was that children under the age of 16 should keep calls short and use their mobiles only for "essential purposes". More evidence on the effects of mobile phones is being gathered. Cosmos, a large international study of mobiles and long-term health effects has been launched, which will enrol about 250,000 mobile users (they will be 18 and over) and track them for 20 to 30 years. An international study looking at children called Mobi-Kids has also kicked off in Spain. So at least you'll know what to do about your grandchildren.

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Faced with the same kind of budget challenges municipalities across New York state are wrestling with, Auburn’s City Council last week voted to drop its policy adopted last July that banned water used in natural gas drilling from its sewage treatment plant. The decision to resume treating the water could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the city. And it continues a practice that has gone on for more than a dozen years — with no detectable ill effects. The earlier vote to ban the wastewater came amidst a growing clamor against the process called hydrofracking, which involved drilling deep below the water table, then turning and drilling horizontally into shale formations. Gas is extracted after injecting treated water at high pressure to “fracture” the shale. Since the Southern Tier and parts of Central New York sit atop a rich natural gas reservoir — the Marcellus Shale — drillers have been knocking on the door. And environmentalists alarmed at the potential risks to water and public safety have mounted an anti-fracking campaign. While the state continues to assess the pros and cons of hydrofracking, more than 20 local governments, including Camillus and Skaneateles, have banned the practice before it even starts. Earlier this month, Niagara Falls banned all natural gas drilling, and barred trucks from carrying wastewater to its regional treatment plant. Auburn’s treatment plant is only authorized to treat wastewater from traditional, vertical gas wells. But critics worry that if Auburn accepts that wastewater, unscrupulous hydrofracking drillers may try to sneak in their more toxic byproduct from wells as far away as Pennsylvania. But city officials are able to test the effluent at the plant to ensure compliance with its permit. The drilling wastewater constitutes well under 1 percent of the plant’s total water flow. And plant operators have not reported wastewater that violates permissible state concentration levels of toxic chemicals. Hydrofracking is a controversial practice that deserves close scrutiny and strict regulation. While that process continues in Albany, Auburn made the right decision to reopen its treatment plant to non-controversial wastewater.

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Malleefowl feed on herbs, seeds, flowers, fruit, fungi, tubers and invertebrates (2). They create a nest for breeding, though this is no ordinary nest, for they have developed a highly sophisticated method of temperature control for egg incubation (5). In the autumn, males dig a large hole, which is up to five metres wide, and one metre deep, and during the winter they fill it with twigs and leaves. In spring, when it rains, the vegetation in the nest gets thoroughly soaked. It begins to rot and, like compost, produces heat. The male covers the nest with sand to keep it warm, and when the female lays her eggs on the mound, the male buries them under the sand and vegetation, and leaves them to incubate. Throughout the summer the female may lay up to 35 eggs, one at a time on the nest mound. The male, meanwhile, keeps testing the temperature of the mound by dipping his beak into it. If it is too warm or too cold he opens up the mound or adds more sand and, in this way, is able to keep the nest at a constant temperature of 34 °C. When the chicks hatch, one at a time, they dig their own way out of the mound (5). This may take up 2 - 15 hours, after which they make their way to the protection of low lying vegetation. They receive no parental care; within one hour they are able to run and, after just 24 hours, they can fly. Instinct leads the chick away from the adults' home range to fend for itself (2).

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Reading Group Guide 1. Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley were childhood playmates and also have in common the experience of being accused of treason and locked in the tower. How does Dudley use this shared history to influence Elizabeth? Is he successful? 2. What is your opinion of Amy? She says about Dudley, "In his heart I know that he is still the young man that I fell in love with who wanted nothing more than some good pasture land to breed beautiful horses" (105). Has Amy completely misjudged her husband, particularly how ambitious a man he is? 3. Elizabeth appoints Dudley Master of the Horse and later awards him the Order of the Garter. Why doesn't she appoint him to a position of political power, such as a member of the Privy Council? Dudley and William Cecil each want to be the more favored advisor to the queen. How does each man go about trying to accomplish this? Would you say they are rivals? 4. In many ways the politics of the court is like a dangerous game, fueled by rampant corruption and scheming families angling for wealth and favors from the queen. Cite some examples that illustrate this, including the people who are closest to Elizabeth. 5. It is Cecil's "deep-rooted belief that the intelligence of a woman, even one as formidably educated as [Elizabeth], could not carry the burden of too much information, and the temperament of a woman, especially this one, was not strong enough to take decisions" (93). Is Cecil underestimatin

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What is it used for? - Treatment and prevention of pneumonia caused by pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), often seen in people with decreased immune system function How does it work? Pentamidine isetionate is an antiprotozoal medicine used to prevent and treat chest infections caused by Pneumocystis carinii. This infection is called PCP (Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia). Pentamidine binds with the genetic material, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid), of the protozoal cells. DNA is responsible for cell reproduction and growth, whilst RNA is responsible for producing proteins and fats that are essential for cell development and survival. Binding to the protozoal DNA and RNA, prevents protozoal cell reproduction and development, and as a result the protozoal cell dies. Hence this reduces the number of protozoal cells in the blood causing the infection. As a result the infection resolves.Pentamidine is inhaled directly into the lung, using a special device called a nebuliser. - Close monitoring for potential adverse effects is advised whilst receiving this medicine. - It is recommended that a bronchodilator such as salbutamol is used before administartion of inhaled pentamidine to prevent bronchospasm (narrowing of the airways) Use with caution in - Decreased kidney function - Decreased liver function (hepatic dysfunction) - High blood pressure (hypertension) - High blood sugar levels (hyperglycaemia) - History of asthma - Individuals with a high risk of developing a condition, where air is trapped in the cavity between the lung surface and the chest wall (pneumothorax) - Low blood sugar levels (hypoglycaemia) - Low white blood cell count (leucopenia) - Reduced platelet count in the blood (thrombocytopenia) Not to be used in - Allergy to any of the active ingredients This medicine should not be used if you are allergic to one or any of its ingredients. Please inform your doctor or pharmacist if you have previously experienced such an allergy. If you feel you have experienced an allergic reaction, stop using this medicine and inform your doctor or pharmacist immediately. Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Certain medicines should not be used during pregnancy or breastfeeding. However, other medicines may be safely used in pregnancy or breastfeeding providing the benefits to the mother outweigh the risks to the unborn baby. Always inform your doctor if you are pregnant or planning a pregnancy, before using any medicine. - This medicine should not be used in pregnancy and breastfeeding, unless considered essential by the doctor. Seek medical advice from your doctor. Medicines and their possible side effects can affect individual people in different ways. The following are some of the side effects that are known to be associated with this medicine. Because a side effect is stated here, it does not mean that all people using this medicine will experience that or any side effect. - Low blood glucose level (hypoglycaemia) - Low blood pressure (hypotension) - Decreased kidney function - Decreased appetite - Fever (pyrexia) - Alteration in taste - Breathing difficulties due to a narrowing of the airways (bronchospasm) - Shortness of breath The side effects listed above may not include all of the side effects reported by the drug's manufacturer. For more information about any other possible risks associated with this medicine, please read the information provided with the medicine or consult your doctor or pharmacist. How can this medicine affect other medicines? There are no reported interactions with this medicine. Other medicines containing the same active ingredients |Pentacarinat Ready-To-Use Solution||Pentamidine Isetionate Nebuliser Solution|

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Binge Eating Disorder At the core of a Binge Eating Disorder is a vicious circle. Uncomfortable psychological states lead to a person seeking relief through binge eating which results in uncomfortable psychological states, to which binge eating is the now reflexive response. Table of Contents The emotional impact After a bingeing episode, people with Binge Eating Disorder often feel depressed, guilty, ashamed and disgusted with themselves. They sometimes describe a sense of being detached from the behaviour, as if on autopilot. The feeling of being unable to control the urge to binge only exacerbates any existing symptoms of depression and despair. Signs of a Binge Eating Disorder Indications that a Binge Eating Disorder may have taken hold include: - Buying large quantities of food - Hoarding food - Thinking all the time about food - Organising time around binge eating - Eating large amounts of food in a short space of time - Eating when not hungry - Eating until becoming uncomfortably full - Avoiding eating when other people are present - Eating in secret - Reducing social activity and compromising personal plans and ambitions A variety of harmful consequences Binge eating is experienced by both men and women and usually starts in teenage years or soon after. Ritual plays a part as binges are often planned in advance and involve specific foods. Besides the psychological impact, there are usually physical consequences, which may (although not always) include putting on excessive weight with its associated harmful effects. Dieting is not advised as it can lead to a worsening of the condition. General fitness is likely to deteriorate, with sleep disturbance and chronic tiredness common. Problems with digestive organs may be experienced. The disorder commonly also impacts other areas of life as sufferers may avoid social interaction out of embarrassment or depressed mood. Low self-esteem may be an underlying factor in the development of a Binge Eating Disorder but the condition helps to perpetuate and reinforce that mental state too. Recovery from Binge Eating Disorder is possible Happily, most people suffering from Binge Eating Disorder can recover, although it may take some time. Recovery involves a real and lasting commitment to self-help in order to change the mood-altering relationship with food. Given the challenge faced, this is probably best achieved with the professional support. Specialist psychotherapy in a well-structured programme is one option, with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy a widely endorsed model. Other people are drawn to a mutual aid approach involving a suitable 12-Step fellowship, while on-line support groups have also emerged more recently. It is important that what is on offer makes sense to the person seeking help and is one with which they feel they can fully engage. A therapeutic programme should include: - Monitoring eating patterns - Drawing up realistic meal plans - Recognising the situational and emotional triggers for a binge eating episode - Identifying and addressing underlying issues - Preparing alternative actions to bingeing in response to stress - Finding positive ways to cope with negative feelings

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AUSTIN, TX (KXAN) - It’s a deadly form of cancer that kills one person every hour, every day. More than 43,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral cancer, or cancer of the head and neck, this year. More than 40 percent will die within five years of the diagnosis. The reason it’s so deadly is that people don’t usually find out they have oral cancer until late in its development. But an area doctor is using new technology to detect it sooner. Austin dentist Dr. Matthew Steinberg says a routine neck and head exam would have detected Crystal’s cancer. But back then dentists didn’t screen for it. Steinberg has a new medical device called fluorescence technology. It uses a blue light to identify trouble spots that could indicate early signs of oral cancer. The exam takes just two minutes. While it comes too late for Crystal, he hopes it’ll save lives in the future. Steinberg includes his florescent light exam routine at no charge, but not all dentists have it and insurance coverage could vary depending on the dentist and your insurance. Steinberg adds 40 percent of all patients diagnosed with oral cancer are younger and nonsmokers.

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Earliest Sling Reference (1759) First recorded definition of a Sling, from Israel Acrelius' "History of New Sweden", published in 1759, as translated from Swedish into English: "Long-sup or sling was one half water and one half rum with sugar in it to taste." According to David Herpin the above reference is ridiculous seeing as it directly correlates with the stonewall (stonewall jackson) and the civil war drinks like (corpse reviver) and Sling (like an arm sling) he Sling itself appears as early as Punch: Volume 38 - Page 133 by Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor in 1800 "As for refreshment, there were certainly four of us but as I remember paying for five kidneys, three Welsh rarebits, and a chop, to say nothing of bitter ale and gin sling" In the May 13, 1806, edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called a bittered sling" We know from the previous article on the collins that, a collins and a sling were considered the same drink. But was a cocktail a sling also? No Although the cocktail appears in literature as early as shakespear, the sling may predate the cocktail. The Sling is used as a reference for both the description of a cocktail and a collins and bitters was not a readily available ingredient when the sling was supossively composed, This would explain why the sling contains no bitters and a cocktail does. The Sling would be categorized as the proprietor to the cocktail, and not just a sibling. in Jerry Thomas's how to mix Drinks in 1862. This sling is listed as a brandy sling (hot). The Big blue union. (Marysville, Kan.) June 06, 1863 "not a rum sling; no, nor a gin sling ; no, it was a sling made with whiskey" The Sling atleast contained these ingredients as of 1800 but may date earlier: Technique: Build - Meaning the drink is prepared in the same glass that it is served in. Ice: N/A Served: Hot Glassware or Vessel: Mug Agent(s): Simple Syrup (Sugar and Water) Base Spirit: Brandy "Maryland Journal", 21st May 1788 "Rum, Whiskey, Brandy, Gin, Stinkibus, Bitters, Toddy, Grog, Slings and fifty other liquors all come under the denomination of spirits". "After lunch, your former amusements are resumed, until the sun loses a little of its intensity, when bonnets and shawls are called into requisition, and you stroll to the "boiling-house" to see the preparation of sugar-boiling going on, and taste the "sling," (the name given to the sugar when in its liquid state,)" Travels in South and North America, by Alexander Marjoribanks, 1853 "Toddy they call sling; thus they have gin-sling and whisky-sling." Beverages, Past and Present, by Edward Randolph Emerson, 1908 "Manathan was small beer, rum, and sugar. Long-sup or sling was one half water and one half rum, with sugar in it to taste."

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School & Teacher Programs Our school and teacher programs use the museum’s resources to support student learning. Through tours, workshops, educational materials, and special programs we engage students and teachers in learning through real objects. We design our programs to encourage the formation and practice of key skills such as thinking critically, being creativity, and communicating effectively. In addition, our range of exhibitions assists students in understanding their world and exposes them to the rich diversity that exists in their community. Consider us your partner in the education of our community’s youth. Basic information about touring the Albuquerque Museum. Information about school tours at Casa San Ysidro. Information about school and teacher programs at the Albuquerque Museum. Information about School Programs at the Albuquerque Museum. Information about school tours of Casa San Ysidro Information about teacher programs at the Albuquerque Museum. Tours of permanent exhibitions, the sculpture garden, changing exhibitions, and self-guided tours.

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Definition of secondary thickening in English: (In the stem or root of a woody plant) the increase in girth resulting from the formation of new woody tissue by the cambium. - In dicots the largest genomes are typically in herbaceous perennials in which turgor, rather than secondary thickening, plays a major skeletal role. - This storage organ displays an anomalous form of secondary thickening from a series of supernumerary cambia arranged in concentric rings. - This seems to reduce extension growth at a whole plant level but to locally stimulate secondary thickening. Definition of secondary thickening in: - British & World English dictionary What do you find interesting about this word or phrase? Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. Most popular in the US Most popular in the UK Most popular in Australia Most popular in India Most popular in Pakistan

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The Lake Oku clawed frog is a small amphibian reaching just 36 mm in length. This diminutive species is one of only two frogs known to be ‘dodecaploid’, meaning they have a staggering 12 sets of chromosomes – humans have just two! This unique frog is found only in a small crater lake (Lake Oku) in Cameroon, and has a tiny distribution of just 2 km2. Its tiny range, combined with recurring mass mortality events, mean this species is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. The reasons for the repeated mass mortality events are still unclear, though tests for Ranavirus and the amphibian fungus Chytrid have been negative or of ‘low prevalence’. The species is still abundant at Lake Oku, but their are several potential threats to the continued existence of the species. Chytridiomycosis is a major threat to amphibians throughout the region, as is the introduction of fish to the lake to meet the protein demands of the local communities. Finally, the degradation of the forest habitat around the lake may lead to degraded water quality through nutrient pollution and siltation. Fortunately, Lake Oku and its surrounding forest is protected by a government-sanctioned protected area. However, enforcement of the protected area is complex and controversial. Given the real possibility of a rapid extinction of the species, captive conservation populations have been established, with ZSL London Zoo achieving the first captive breeding of the species in 2014. - Order: Anura - Family: Pipidae - Trend: decreasing - Size: 36 mm (?) This frog is found only in Lake Oku, a 243 hectare lake 2,2000 m A.S.L. on Mount Oku, in northwestern Cameroon. Habitat and Ecology Lake Oku is a shallow crater lake encompassed by montane forest. The Lake Oku clawed frog is completely water-dependent and is the primary aquatic vertebrate present in the lake.

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Conway Cabal , a plot formed in 1777 by a group of American officers and congressmen to remove George Washington and promote Horatio Gates to command of the Continental Army. The plotters contrasted Gates's victory at Saratoga with Washington's defeats at Brandywine and Germantown. The intrigue took its name from Major General Thomas Conway, an Irish-born, French-trained soldier of fortune whose promotion Washington had tried to block. But Conway's role was minor. Washington learned of the plot and notified Congress. The public supported Washington and the cabal collapsed. Conway later resigned his commission and returned to France. You Might Also Like In the dark of night on Dec. 16, 1773, residents of Boston poured more than 90,000 pounds of tea into the harbor. But they weren't trying to set a world record for the most cups of tea made at one time. They were protesting the British government. Forget George Washington’s cherry tree and Ben Franklin’s inveterate womanizing. You're about to meet patriots you've never heard of, plus a few you thought you knew.

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If you feel an occasional burning sensation in your chest, especially after eating, then you’re among the more than 60 million people in the United States who suffer from heartburn at least once a month, according to the American College of Gastroenterology. The pain associated with this condition can also affect your throat and become worse if you lie down. Fortunately, there are a few ways to treat this problem. Causes of Heartburn Heartburn occurs when stomach acid goes up to your esophagus. The acid irritates the lining of your esophagus, which causes a burning pain. This happens when the bottom portion of your esophagus doesn’t close all the way after opening up to let food and liquid reach your stomach. It can also happen if this area opens up too often. This part of your esophagus, called the lower esophageal sphincter, won’t work the way it should if it becomes weakened or develops an abnormality that prevents it from closing or causes it to open frequently. The exact triggers of heartburn differ for each individual, but there are some foods and beverages that lead to this condition more often than others. Beverages that commonly cause heartburn include alcohol, orange juice, coffee and soft drinks. Foods that tend to trigger heartburn include chocolate, fatty foods, tomato sauce, fried foods and onions. Medications for Heartburn Over-the-counter medications can help reduce the burning discomfort caused by heartburn. Antacids are commonly used for fast, short-term relief. They work by neutralizing stomach acid, but they don’t help your esophagus heal. You’ll need additional medication for that. Another type of medication used for heartburn decreases the amount of acid your stomach produces. These H-2-receptor blockers take longer to work, but they’re more effective. Your doctor can also prescribe a stronger version of H-2-receptor blockers for severe heartburn. Proton pump inhibitors reduce acid production and give your esophagus enough time to heal. You can help relieve heartburn by making a few changes to certain daily routines. Eat smaller portion sizes for your meals so that you don’t overeat, and avoid lying down right after eating. You should also avoid the foods and beverages that cause you to have heartburn. Staying at a healthy weight can also help since excess weight can cause your abdomen to push on your stomach and send acid to your esophagus more often. The Mayo Clinic also recommends giving up smoking, which can interfere with your lower esophageal sphincter’s ability to work properly. Mayo Clinic You should also wear clothes that fit loosely around your abdominal area. Tight clothes can put pressure on your abdomen, which can end up pushing stomach acid into your esophagus. Having heartburn every so often usually isn’t a cause for concern, but you should call your doctor if you have it a few times a week or if medications aren’t helping. Frequent and severe heartburn can be a sign of a more serious problem called gastroesophageal reflux disease, which can cause damage to your esophagus. – Cassie Golie writes for Viamedic expert interviews.

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grow food anywhere Freight Farms makes it possible to grow plants 130 times more efficiently than on land, in terms of space, using only 10% of the conventional amount of water, and without pesticides or herbicides. This is done with soil-less vertical hydroponics in a repurposed shipping container with low energy needs using remote monitoring and control via a cloud-based mobile app. One Freight Farm unit can supply the weekly lettuce needs for over 1000 people, and requires only about one hour of human operator time per week. Units are self-contained and Freight Farm will be working with Blueseed to adapt them for maritime use. Blueseed intends to use two Freight Farm units, one for leafy greens (already functional), and one for vine plants (currently in development). The partnership is an excellent showcase of local food growing, and is an important step in furthering the environmental sustainability of the Blueseed community.

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|Yes he was a genius, but I don't think he looks a lot of fun| Adjective & noun. Mid-17th century. [modern Latin Cartesianus, from Cartesius Latinized form of the name of René Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher and scientist: see -IAN.] A adjective. Pertaining to or characteristic of Descartes, his philosophy, or his mathematical methods. M17 B noun. A follower of Descartes. M17 Cartesianism noun the philosophy of Descartes M17 Of all the things that you believe to be true, what do you absolutely know to be true? This was a question that preoccupied the mind of the unfathomably brilliant René Descartes, who believed that we can take nothing our senses tell us as absolute truth. How do we know we're not dreaming, for example, or the world around us isn't a fabricated reality imposed upon us by some higher being? Such was the extent of Descartes' hyperbolic doubt (or Cartesian skepticism) that he even wondered if he could be certain of his own existence. This, however, was the limit of this doubt, for when Descartes tried to imagine what it's like to not exist, he couldn't (you can't either - give it a try). However, he did know what it was like to question his own existence, and this, wrote Descartes, was proof to himself that he existed; of this one fact, regardless of how fallacious every other sensory input he had was, he could be absolutely certain: COGITO ERGO SUM I think therefore I am When, as a child, I first read of Descartes work, and particularly this thought experiment, I was thoroughly astounded by it. I had an odd fascination with the question of reality and existence - I had once wondered most earnestly what it would be like to be my Action Man, to be an inanimate object, ultimately to not exist; frustratingly, this was impossible, and Descartes told me why: my existence rendered it impossible to imagine non-existence, because my ability to wonder that in the first place meant I was existing. Brilliant! And unlike, say, his work on algebra or the laws of refraction which would have gone right over my head (they still would), this was a thought experiment I could replicate ... as a child. Since that day, Descartes and his Cartesian reasonings have always had a special place in my can't-prove-it's-literally-real-but-it-definitely-is-in-some-capacity head. Imagine my horror, therefore, my existentialist angst if you will, when years later, having developed a love of dictionaries, I happened upon Ambrose Bierce's entry on Cartesian in The Devil's Dictionary. Bierce, rather dismissively writing that Descartes "was pleased with himself to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence", suggested his famous dictum might be improved thus: COGITO COGITO ERGO COGITO SUM I think that I think, therefore I think that I am What? Hang on! Descartes only thought he was thinking, so could only think that he existed? So he might not have? I might only think that I'm thinking now, which granted leads me to think I'm real, but ... y'know ... it's not certain? Oh for ... well thank you very much Mr Bierce. Just when I was truly beginning to believe in myself; now I'm back staring at my Action Man and wondering what it'd be like to be him. Git. (who d'you reckon would win in a fight?) Are you a Cartesian? Are you a proponent of hyperbolic doubt? Do prove (kind of) you exist by commenting in the box below.

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Outrage over a series of Danish cartoons that depict the Prophet Mohammed continues to spread throughout the Muslim world. On Tuesday, protesters attacked a NATO base in Afghanistan; in Pakistan, demonstrators chanted, "Hang the man who insulted the prophet." Many news reports claim that the cartoons violate a Muslim stricture against the depiction of the prophet. Does Islam really prohibit images of religious figures? Not all Islamic traditions ban images of Mohammed, and some are pretty lax about pictures of lesser figures. For Muslims, the rule against depicting God and the prophets comes from the Hadith, a collection of sayings and actions attributed to Mohammed. (A few passages in the Quran have been taken to offer oblique support to this notion.) The doctrine has been interpreted in various ways over the centuries. Persian art of the 15th and 16th centuries shows the figure of Mohammed with his face, hands, and feet covered. Some earlier Persian works show full views. Arab Muslims tend to be the strictest about religious imagery. Shiites are more flexible than Sunnis; for example, they display images of Husayn, * the grandson of Mohammed. Devotional portraits of leading teachers are generally OK, as long as they don't fall under the Hadith ban on depicting the major prophets. Pictures of people in religious scenes—like pilgrims on the Hajj—are also allowed. These are more likely to be displayed in the home than at a mosque, and some conservative Muslims will refuse to pray in their presence. Muslims are more or less unanimous on the subject of Allah—he can't be drawn under any circumstances. The prohibition on depicting God extends throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Second Commandment instructs the faithful not to make "any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Jews have for the most part avoided visual representations of the deity, although there's been a great deal of Jewish figurative art throughout history. (Some Reform synagogues have stained-glass windows depicting figures from the Old Testament. More conservative Jews won't even write down the word "God.") Christian attitudes vary widely. The Orthodox Church uses religious icons for worship: Since God became embodied in Jesus, you can represent Jesus and other holy figures. You can't draw a picture of the Lord above, though. Catholicism assigns religious imagery a more pedagogical role, interpreting the Bible to say that religious images are allowed as long as you don't worship them. That's why you'll find that white-bearded fellow on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Some Protestant traditions—like Calvinism—banned images outright. Today, you won't find much imagery in Baptist churches. Lutherans and Anglicans tend to be more accepting of religious images, believing that a picture can be used to teach an idea as long as it's not being worshipped. Many Eastern religions make liberal use of imagery—pictures of the Buddha and of Hindu gods are particularly widespread. Some historians theorize that early Buddhists banned religious imagery: You can find ancient art that uses symbols—like a tree, a wheel, or a footprint—where a picture of the Buddha would normally go. Sikhism, which merges elements of Islam and Hinduism, prohibits the depiction of God. Sikhs do allow images of their most important spiritual figures for inspiration. Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer. Explainer thanks Charles Barber of the University of Notre Dame, David Morgan of Valparaiso University, and Robert Sharf of the University of California. * Correction, February 8, 2006: This piece originally referred to the grandson of Mohammed as Ali. Mohammed's grandson, Husayn ibn Ali, is better known as Husayn. The imam known as Ali was Mohammed's cousin. Click here to return to the corrected sentence.

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Da Vinci, the great philosopher and thinker has many times attributed his creativity to his writing skills. Many stories about him reveal that no thoughts is random, all thoughts are made to decipher patterns and concepts unknown to the world. With the aspiration to replicate the phenomenon in young children, educationists around the world are advocating the need of teaching creative writing to children. They want to inculcate in them a sense of creativity that inspires new ideas and generates more interest in exploring the world around them. Children do write a lot in the form of homework, and assignments, but that cannot be counted as creative writing. Creative writing is penning down imaginations and thoughts as they come to the mind. Children have a raw imagination, and if they are trained to use it productively, it results in conditioning the mind to think independently. As parents, if you too are concerned about inculcating such talents in your child, but don't have the right techniques to do so, we at "ChampionTutor Online" knows how to train your children in the art of creative writing. You might want to access our creative writing classes in Singapore in order benefit from the following: - Creative writing encourages imagination and ideas. - Creative writing improves the oral as well as the written skills of your child from a young age. - Creative writing encourages children to express their thoughts and feelings - Creative writing inculcates a sense of artistic expression in young children. Just like painting and composing music, creative writing is an artistic skill. - Creative writing improves vocabulary and comprehension skills. - Creative writing sharpens your skill for essay writing and story writing as well. You'll be surprised to learn that creative writing can make children more disciplined. They will be trained to place thoughts in a cohesive and creative way. Creative writing can introduce the required discipline in children. Studies have also revealed that children, who are unable to express their emotions and feeling with overt reactions, can use the tool of creative writing by penning down what they feel inside. The art of creative writing cannot always be taught at school; in fact schools only conform to given standard of writing and learning. Creativity is propagated only in name because of the limited time, in which the school syllabus also too needs to be completed. Creative writing courses in Singapore are designed with more freedom to let children think and exercise their own will over what they write and how they express. All it requires is an expert tutor that can help them unleash their talents. Our tutors, at "ChampionTutor Online" conduct private creative writing classes in Singapore to help your children in a number of ways: - Our teachers introduce students to the core language and expressions used in English, and teach students how, when, why and where these expressions can be used correctly. - Although we do have a syllabus for creative writing, it is only a help guide. Our teachers give students full freedom to apply their thoughts and imagination to come up with ideas. - Our teachers take students way past the idea of school learning, giving them real exposure to writing by teaching them different writing styles, the correct usage of grammar and so on. Our creative writing classes, Singapore promises to equip your child with the necessary language skills and make him/her pro-active in the use of English.

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“This spread in animals gives increased concern about what is going to happen in 2003,” says Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass. “Heavy rains could also increase the bridge vectors that carry West Nile Virus to humans and horses.” Increasing the threat of this virus are the weather conditions inherently part of southern summers. “Hot weather speeds maturation of the virus, and increases the number of viral particles transmitted by the mosquito. In addition, hot, dry weather conditions often decrease mosquito-eating frog populations, which amplifies the problem,” says Epstein. In 2002, West Nile Virus attacked more than 4,000 people in 44 states, Washington, D.C., and five Canadian provinces, and resulted in 284 deaths. “It might be said that the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus represents a bigger threat than SARS because it jumps species, with more than 230 types of animals, including 138 species of birds, known to be infected to date,” says Epstein. What’s more, it doesn’t appear we have reached a plateau in the number of species affected by West Nile, says Douglas Causey, senior biologist with the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. For example, last year in the surveillance network system about 14,000 birds were found to be positive for the West Nile virus. The Centers for Disease Control estimates the numbers could be 100 to 1,000 times greater than that, he says. Epstein says he expects the impact of West Nile Virus to be at least that of 2002, and says environmental impacts are setting stage for greater incidences of the disease in 2003. According to Epstein, West Nile can be transmitted through blood transfusions, organ transplants, pregnancy, and possibly breast milk. In addition, he says, neurological symptoms of the disease can persist for some time. “The attention focused on SARS recently might be considered a little excessive, but the impacts are strong. Diseases can exert enormous forces on economics, trade, travel and tourism, as we’ve seen with SARS and West Nile,” says Epstein. “These diseases can serve as a wake-up call about the force of diseases in history.” The reality, Epstein says SARS is one of many diseases in a group of newly emerging infectious diseases and resurging diseases. Because of the threat they pose to humans, these diseases are “sending shockwaves” through the public health system, he says. The problem with looking at the disease picture from a strictly human standpoint, Causey says, is that we are in this together with the animals. “Infectious diseases like West Nile that can jump species can have devastating effects in animals and humans. Today, many microorganisms are jumping species in several directions. SARS, like influenza, probably originated from the genetic reshuffling of animal viruses,” he says. Of great concern, he says, is the fact that the West Nile virus has spread to 230 species of animals and birds, including dogs, cats, squirrels, bats, horses, skunks, rabbits, and even reptiles. “We are particularly concerned about what we’re seeing with birds. Avian deaths increased five-fold over 2001,” Causey says. “The domination of urban landscapes by generalists birds, like crows, starlings, and Canadian geese, may contribute to the spread of West Nile, along with the numerous mosquito breeding sites, such as old tires and stagnant waterways.” To combat this increasing problem, Epstein recommends improving surveillance and response systems and developing early warning systems based on climate forecasting and monitoring of wildlife. “We know what the solutions are,” says Causey. “We need better disease surveillance and response systems, and we need greater collaboration among wildlife, insect, human health and climate specialists.”

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Scientists Study Gorilla Who Uses Tools GOMA, Congo A young gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is smashing palm nuts between two rocks to extract oil, surprising and intriguing scientists who say they have much to learn about what gorillas can do -- and about what it says about evolution. It had been thought that the premeditated use of stones and sticks to accomplish a task like cracking nuts was restricted to humans and the smaller, more agile chimpanzees. Then in late September, keepers at a Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International sanctuary in this eastern Congo city saw 2 1/2-year-old female gorilla Itebero smashing palm nuts between rocks using the "hammer and anvil" technique, considered among the most complex tool-use behaviors. "This is a surprising finding, given what we know about tool use in gorillas," Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund primatologist Patrick Mehlman said earlier this month at his Goma office. He said the finding indicates that complex tool use may not be a trait developed only by humans and chimpanzees and could have its origins earlier in the evolutionary chain -- among ancestors common to both humans and their closest relatives, the great apes. Gottfried Hohmann, an expert on primates at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, told The Associated Press that Itebero's behavior "means that gorillas have a higher level of understanding of their environment than we thought." Itebero has been living in the sanctuary for a year, since local authorities confiscated her from poachers. Mehlman said he believed Itebero, named for a place near where she was found, started cracking nuts spontaneously and was not influenced by humans. Alecia Lilly, a primatologist in Rwanda who worked for over a decade with captive gorillas in South Carolina and has seen Itebero at work, said most learning among gorillas occurs through imitation. But Itebero had no instructor, alone in her sanctuary with her keeper. "Itebero is remarkably proficient at cracking nuts," Lilly told the AP. "It takes most chimpanzees many years to reach similar levels of proficiency." Itebero's actions led some scientists to believe that gorillas in the wild might exhibit complex tool use as well, though no one has reported such behavior. Earlier this year, researchers reported observing gorillas in the wild in the neighboring Republic of Congo's rain forests using simple tools, according to a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. In an e-mail message Monday from the Republic of Congo's Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Breuer said that in 10 years of observation, his team had seen only two instances of tool use among gorillas -- a stick used to test the depth of a pond, and a small tree trunk used for support and as a bridge. Breuer said it was difficult to compare the behaviors his team witnessed in the wild with the more complex behavior exhibited by Itebero, who had had contact with humans. But he said Itebero's action "clearly shows that gorillas have the capability to use sophisticated tools even if they do not -- or rarely -- do this. "Very often the use of tools is triggered by certain needs and it seems that gorillas have only little needs to use tools in the wild," Breuer said. Source: Associated Press

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Tutorial and Developing with Fellow Students…Posted: February 6, 2014 Today, Huw and I, had a tutorial with Gareth and Bethan. We showed them an example of the resource we’d been collecting, along with the personal Rain Cover we designed yesterday. The discussion was very positive and we were both encouraged by their reactions, a relief considering we had approached this design process very differently to how we both usually do. Bethan advised us that we should consider how we might give added value to the designs in order to make them more commercial. A suggestion was made that we could develop a brand of fun waterproof coats and hats with the theme of superheros, aimed at adults, which I thought had potential. Interestingly, I think I was most inspired by listening to the tutorial of another Play and Creativity student. She was told to focus on designing what she was passionate about and was advised to consider choosing a material and putting together a collection, or book, to guide others in making things from the recycled material. I felt that this would be something we could also consider, as it appears umbrellas seem to be among the most commonly available disposed product at this time of year. After the session, we worked on developing the rain cover, this time choosing to take a hands off approach by allowing other students to play with the materials and choose the ways in which to interact with the material. The results proved interesting and can be seen below.

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Grand Avenue Playground This playground takes its name from the adjacent Grand Avenue, which runs parallel to the Grand Concourse. The concept for the concourse came from Louis Aloys Risse, an engineer in the office of Commissioner of Street Improvements Louis J. Heintz. The distinctive characteristics of his 1890 design were its remarkable breadth of 182 feet and its usage of varying elevations, with underpasses at large intersections, that allowed for an “express” lane of uninterrupted traffic. The original plan, completed in 1909, ran from Mosholu Parkway down to East 161st Street. In 1927, it absorbed Mott Avenue, which ran from East 149th Street to this site on East 138th Street, making the total length of the Concourse four and a half miles. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, many of the boroughs main governmental buildings, major businesses, and exclusive residences were along the Grand Concourse. In 1926, the Gold Star Mothers, whose sons gave their lives for America in World War I, petitioned for the road to be renamed Memorial Parkway. Although it was never renamed, for a long time the road did act as a memorial, with trees along it carrying metal name plates for Bronx residents who died in World War I. The trees were moved to Pelham Bay Park when a subway was completed under Grand Boulevard and Concourse in 1933. In 1927, there was another unsuccessful attempt to rename the road, this time by the Claremont Heights Civic Association to honor Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). Grand Avenue Playground is part of a long tradition of recreational parks in New York City. From 1865 to 1895, New York City's population more than doubled. As thousands of new immigrants moved into already overcrowded tenement districts, the streets teemed with children, many of whom worked long hours in factories. With the enactment of the first child labor laws at the turn of the century, leading reformers in New York City lobbied for the creation of a new kind of small park for children — the playground. The earliest playgrounds, called "sand gardens," appeared in the 1880s on the grounds of settlement houses. Furnished with innovative play equipment like seesaws, and staffed by trained recreation specialists, the playground was designed to be a "healthful influence upon morals and conduct." As Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th U.S. President and President of the Playground Association of America, wrote: "If we would have our citizens contented and law-abiding, we must not sow the seeds of discontent in childhood by denying children their birthright of play." For these reformers, recreation was not an end in itself: it was directly linked to the preservation of social morality. In 1903, the first municipally run playground in the United States, Seward Park, opened on the Lower East Side. During the Depression, federal aid through the Works Progress Administration enabled the City to greatly expand and improve its play spaces. Under the strict stewardship of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, new playgrounds were constructed at an astonishing rate throughout the decade. Moses was able to harness the massive manpower of the Parks Department, whose ranks had swollen to more than 80,000 workers due primarily to the influx of federal money for large public works projects. When Moses became commissioner in 1934, there were only 119 playgrounds in New York City. By 1960, the end of Moses’s reign at the Parks Department, there were 777. Parks acquired the original .26-acre plot for Grand Avenue Playground on July 17, 1979. An adjacent .11 acre piece of land along West 181st Street was assigned to Parks on September 14, 1995. The property is bounded by Grand Avenue and Davidson Avenue at West 181st Street. On June 18, 1987, Commissioner Stern named it Grand Avenue Playground. Mayor Giuliani funded $41,971 in improvements, which were completed on October 13, 2000.

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- HHMI NEWS - SCIENTISTS & RESEARCH - JANELIA FARM - SCIENCE EDUCATION - RESOURCES & PUBLICATIONS BROWSE ALL RESOURCES BY TYPEAnimation (3) Book/Manual (4) CD (1) Classroom Activity (12) College Course (6) Curriculum (11) Game (1) Kit (1) Lab (9) Lesson Plan (5) Publication (23) Software (3) Tutorial (5) Video (24) Website (47) Wiki (2) BY TOPICBiochemistry (14) Biodiversity (3) Bioengineering (3) Bioethics (3) Bioinformatics (8) Biology (104) Biotechnology (9) Cell Biology (3) Chemistry (17) Earth Science (1) Ecology (9) Engineering (1) Evolution (10) General Science (15) Genetics (29) Genomics (13) Immunology (2) Infectious Diseases (1) Life Science (65) Mathematics (9) Medicine (6) Microarrays (5) Microbiology (3) Molecular biology (34) Neuroscience (7) Physics (5) Plants (2) Professional Development (35) Research methods (12) Science Communication (2) Systems Biology (1) BY GRADE LEVELK-16 (1) 4-8 (1) K-5 (6) Medical School (6) K-3 (2) K-8 (2) K-12 (9) 6-8 (18) 9-12 (52) College (101) Graduate (21) Folded-List Study Tool This article describes the Folded-List Study Technique, a method designed by Professor of Biology Paul Heideman at the College of William and Mary, to give students a fast and efficient way to learn, recall, and apply key science concepts. (It is designed to be used in conjunction with the “Minute Sketch” tool, which is available within this database.) This document explains the method: Using a blank piece of paper folded lengthwise into four sections, students create one column for words and one for sketches or images. In the words column, they write the term or phrase for the first key concept. In the next column, they create a simple sketch to represent the concept. They keep adding words and sketches until the page is filled (although, over time, they should be able to condense all the essential material from one entire lecture on the top half of one sheet). Next, students fold the earlier columns behind and engage in repeated sketching and writing of these concepts in columns three and four. The recopying and rethinking of these concepts engages a student’s motor memory and visual cortex. Dr. Heideman says that his method forces students to extract the essentials from a large amount of material and learn the key concepts as sequential events. It is an active-learning method that engages students’ attention and allows them to review material quickly and to assess how much they have accomplished within a given time. Dr. Heideman says the method can be applied to other study techniques, such as concept mapping. Program Director: Margaret Somosi Saha, Ph.D. Award Years: 1989, 1998, 2002, 2006 Summary: The College of William and Mary is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Its HHMI-funded educational initiatives emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary and integrative approaches to education and research. They include: - The development of a Biological Mathematics program (which includes substantial curricular changes and the addition of new faculty positions), the strengthening of the interdisciplinary Neuroscience major, and the establishment of a new undergraduate Applied Science minor. - The enhancement of both Introductory Biology and Chemistry and upper-level immunology, molecular genetics, physiology, and neurophysiology laboratories through new equipment and expanded laboratory exercises. - The HHMI Freshman Research Program in Biology and Chemistry and related sciences, which allows participating students to conduct independent research with a faculty mentor very early in their college careers—as freshmen. Many of these students have the opportunity to continue their research during the following summer and throughout the next three years. - Student participation in the National Genomics Research Initiative (NGRI), a national experiment in both research and education sponsored by HHMI’s Science Education Alliance. Through this initiative, groups of freshmen at selected colleges participate in an authentic research experience—integrated into an introductory laboratory course—on the genetics of phages or bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). Freshmen in the College of William and Mary’s program discovered a new life form, a bacteriophage they named CrimD. - The expansion of a summer fellowship program to include students at Thomas Nelson Community College and three neighboring HBCU—Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and Virginia State University. Students in this program have the option of continuing their research project throughout the academic year and receive an hourly stipend and weekend transportation and carpooling. - Partnerships with Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and Virginia State University to enable faculty to work together with research students at both the home campus and the College of William and Mary. The objective and anticipated outcomes are to establish lasting collaborations that improve opportunities for publication and the development of ideas for competitive grant proposals, either independently or in collaboration with faculty from the College of William and Mary. - The Saturday and Summer Enrichment Programs, which allow young children with high abilities to explore specialized areas of science, mathematics, and the arts and humanities. - The Science Training and Research Program (STAR), a four-week residential summer enrichment program that serves high-school juniors from disadvantaged backgrounds. The program, which offers core science and mathematics courses and an opportunity to visit research centers and laboratories, is designed to introduce students to the world of science, research, and technology. - A series of “Update Courses” tailored to help middle and high-school teachers develop both a knowledge base and practical experience with topics—such as microbiology and molecular biotechnology—that are the stated components of the Standards of Learning for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Participants also help design Teaching Modules that help integrate the science topics into the classroom.

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Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Having teeth attached to the edge of the jawbone without sockets. 1. (Zoology) (of the teeth of some reptiles) having no roots and being fused at the base to the margin of the jawbones. See also pleurodont1 2. (Zoology) having acrodont teeth [C19: from acro- + -odont]

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Educating Construction Professionals Construction field personnel and office employees can increase their efficiency and reduce avoidable errors by being able to thoroughly understand construction blueprints and drawings. Students taking this course will learn to completely read and understand residential and light commercial blueprints. This home study course covers architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical drawings used in construction projects. Students will learn where to look, how to visualize what a drawing is showing, where to find other views—such as sections and details—and ways to speed up comprehension. The course includes the text Printreading for Residential and Light Commercial Construction by Thomas E. Proctor and Leonard P. Toenjes. This heavily illustrated workbook covers all aspects of blueprint reading. Sample blueprints and specifications for five different projects are included with the course, including a single-family residence, a multifamily dwelling, a commercial office building, and a Wendy’s restaurant. The course also includes two instructional DVDs and the answers to all quizzes and tests. The Residential-Light Commercial Blueprint Reading training program on DVD provides essential skills and knowledge that virtually every employee in a construction company or organization should possess. This program is also beneficial for beginning to intermediate office staff members that are involved with sales and customer service. Printreading for Residential and Light Commercial Construction. This highly acclaimed text/workbook presents information applicable to the carpentry, electrical, mechanical, and general building trades, and provides authentic printreading experiences using contemporary prints. Single and multifamily dwellings, plus mixed-use and light commercial project plans are covered in the book. Specifications describing the building components and construction procedures are also included for two of the projects, the Brick-Veneer Residence and the Wendy's Restaurant.

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The sufferings of the Pilgrims, from exposures by sea and land, were such, that one-half the number died before the full opening of the spring. Not unfrequently the hands and feet of the men, while fishing in the bay or hunting in the woods, were frozen; and it is said that the whole company was once reduced to a single pint of corn. Of this each person had five kernels, which were parched and eaten. The ruling elder, William Brewster, lived for months together without bread. "Of so great labor it was to found New England." It was fortunate for the colony that the natives of that region had, a few years previous, been mostly swept away by a fatal disease, and thus the land was left open for possession. Yet they by no means neglected to hold themselves in readiness for defence. They chose the heroic Miles Standish, on the 17th of February, captain of their military force, and soon after mounted the great guns from "The Mayflower" on Burial Hill. On the 16th of March (O. S.) they were surprised by the sudden appearance of Samoset, a friendly Indian, who, stalking in amongst them, cried out, "Welcome, Englishmen!" which was the first word coming to them from a native since arriving on the coast. Through the influence of this Indian, and Squanto, who had learned a little of our language while a captive in England, the colony, on the 22d of March, entered into a treaty of peace with Massasoit, the father of King Philip, which remained in force for half a century. On the 5th of April "The Mayflower" left for England. Gov. Carver died, William Bradford was chosen governor in his place, and Isaac Allerton assistant; and on the 12th of May following, Edward Winslow and Mrs. Susanna White were married, which was the first marriage in the colony. "The spring," says Gov. Bradford, "now approaching, it pleased God the mortalitie begane to cease amongst them, and ye sick and lame recovered apace, which put, as it were, new life into them, though they had borne their sadd afflictions with as much patience & contentedness as I thinke any people could doe." [fireplace, Standish House.] Purchasing the interests of the London merchants in 1627, the Plymouth colonists became the sole proprietors of the land, and continued a distinct government until 1691, when, by the charter of William and Mary, it was united with the Colony of Massachusetts and The civil basis of the other settlements of the State was a patent, signed by King James, Nov. 3, 1620, incorporating the Duke of Lenox and others as the Council of Plymouth, and granting to it that part of America which lies between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude. Two years afterwards a settlement was commenced, through the efforts of Mr. Thomas Weston, at Weymouth; and another, by the influence of the Rev. John White, at Gloucester, 1624. This colony, under the direction of Roger Conant, removed the next year to Naumkeag, which was subsequently called Salem. At the same time a plantation was begun by Capt. Wollaston at Merrymount, in Braintree. On the 19th of March, 1628, the Council of Plymouth gave to Sir Henry Rosewell and others a patent of an immense tract of land included by two lines,— the one three miles north of the Merrimack, and the other three miles south of the Charles River, — and extending from the Atlantic westerly as far as the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. By the royal charter, which passed the seals March 4, 1629, granting this land, a corporation was created under the name of "the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." In the year following, seventeen ships, with more than fifteen hundred people, mostly Puritans or Nonconformists, and some of them persons of distinction, arrived at Salem, with Mr. John Winthrop as governor of the colony. They settled at Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, and Cambridge; and during the summer of that year, attracted by a fine spring of water at Shawmut, Mr. Winthrop and some other leading men erected there a few cottages, and thus laid the foundation of the metropolis of New England. The ensuing winter was one of great severity. The houses of the colonists were uncomfortable, and their clothing and provisions scanty. Many perished by the cold, and others subsisted by shellfish, and the roots and acorns which the wilderness provided. As many as two hundred died before the closing of the year, among whom were the Rev. Francis Higginson of Salem, his colleague, Mr. Skelton, and, soon after their arrival, Mr. Isaac Johnson and his excellent lady Arbella, who, as one has said, "left an earthly paradise in the family of an earldom to encounter the sorrows of the wilderness, for the entertainments of a pure worship in the house of God, and then immediately left that wilderness for the heavenly paradise." On the 19th of October, 1630, the first General Court was held, in which it was enacted that those only should be made freemen who belonged to some church in the colony, and that freemen alone should have power to elect the governor and his assistants. The former law was repealed in 1665. As emigration steadily increased, and as it was soon found that the freemen could not easily assemble to transact business in person, it was ordered, in 1634, that these should meet only for the election of magistrates, who, with the representatives chosen by the several towns, should have the power of enacting laws. And thus began the system of democratic representation in the colony. Ten years later the magistrates, or assistants, and the deputies, after much discussion, were organized into separate branches in the government. Though escaping from intolerance in the mother-country, the colonists themselves, with all their virtues, had not learned from the gospel to be tolerant; and, near the close of 1635, the Rev. Roger Williams, Minister at Salem, and, two years later, Anne Hutchinson and the Rev. John Wheelwright, were, for heretical opinions, banished from the State. In 1643 the Colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, entered into a confederation, which continued till 1686, for mutual defence against the Indians and the Dutch, but under the provision that each colony was to retain its own distinct and separate The laws of the colony were, in 1648, collected, ratified and printed; and, in the same year, Margaret Jones of Charlestown was tried and executed as a witch. In 1652 a mint was established for coining money; and the Province of Maine was made a county of Massachusetts, under the name of Yorkshire. By the year 1665 Massachusetts had settled many towns,— as Lynn, Marblehead, Ipswich, Newbury, on the seaboard; Andover, Haverhill then a (frontier settlement) Sudbury, Lancaster, Brookfield, in the interior; and Deerfield, Northampton, Hadley and Springfield, in the rich valley of the Connecticut River. The militia amounted to 4,000 foot-soldiers and 400 cavalry; and the shipping, to 132 vessels. By the labors of Thomas Mayhew, John Eliot, and others, ten Indian towns had been converted to Christianity. The year 1675 is memorable for the breaking-out of King Philip's War, during which the united colonies lost as many as 600 men, and had as many as 600 dwelling-houses reduced to ashes. Philip, an able warrior, whose Indian name was Metacomet, ruled the Wampanoags and resided at Mount Hope, near Bristol, in Rhode Island. Observing the encroachments of the English on the hunting-grounds, and instigated by the execution of three of his tribe for the murder of John Sassamon, he artfully secured the aid of other tribes, and commenced hostilities by an attack June 24, on the people of Swansey while returning from church, during which eight or nine of them were slain. In September, seventy young men, the flower of Essex County were massacred and buried in one grave at Bloody Brook, in Deerfield; and Northfield and Hadley were attacked. In an encounter with the Narragansetts in a swamp in Kingstown, R.I., in December, Gov. Winslow, with an army of 1,800 troops, killed and wounded about 1,000 Indians, burned 600 wigwams, and thus seriously weakened Philip's power who, nevertheless, continued during the winter his savage work, burning the towns of Lancaster, Medfield, Marlborough, Groton, Sudbury, and murdering or carrying many of the people into merciless captivity. But, tribe after tribe deserting Philip, he returned to Mount Hope; and, his wife and son being soon after captured, he said, "Now my heart breaks: I am ready to die." On the 12th of August, 1676, Capt. Benjamin Church with a small body of men came upon him. An Indian of the party shot him through the heart; and thus fell the last king of the Wampanoags, and with him the power of the Indians in New England. The towns in New Hampshire which in 1641 had been annexed to the State were in 1677 formed into a separate government; yet the divisional line was not settled until 1743. By a decision in chancery, June 28, 1684, the charter of Massachusetts was abrogated; and, two years subsequent thereto, Sir Edmund Andros was sent over as governor of New England. His arbitrary administration gave great offence to the people; and, on the news of the accession of Prince William to the throne in 1689, the citizens of Boston threw the governor and fifty of his associates into prison, and restored the former magistrates. In 1692 King William, granted a new charter by which the Plymouth Colony was united with that of Massachusetts, and under it Sir William Phips, a native of Woolwich, Me., was appointed governor. He arrived in Boston May 14, 1692; and among the earlier acts of his administration was the institution of a court for the trial of certain persons accused of witchcraft. This strange delusion, threw the colony into as much excitement as the war with King Philip had done in 1675; and the apology of the clergy who fell into it must be, that such men as Sir Matthew Hale, of the King's Bench, regarded witches as in league with evil spirits, and amenable to the supreme penalty of the law. It commenced in February 1692, in the family of the Rev. Samuel Parris of Danvers. His daughter Elizabeth, and his niece Abigail Williams, began to act in a peculiar way, and accused his servant Tituba of bewitching them; while John, her husband, accused others, that he might save his wife. Commencing thus, the delusion spread from family to family, through Beverly Andover, Ipswich, Gloucester, and other places. Prosecutions were instituted, unreliable testimony against the accused accepted; and, before the end of September, nineteen persons were hung, and Giles Corey, who refused to be tried by jury, was pressed to death. At first the accusations were brought only against those of humble rank; but when Mr. John Bradstreet, the lady of Sir William Phips, and others in high standing began to be mentioned as in fellowship with Satan, the opinion of the rulers changed: a special court was held, and nearly a hundred and fifty persons then in prison for witchcraft were At the commencement of the seventeenth century, most of the learned men who colonized the State had passed away; and, on account of the labor the reduction of the wilderness demanded, but very few had risen to fill their places. The style and spirit of the pulpit had declined, and the people had almost lost the art of psalm-singing in the churches; yet the love of liberty, as evinced by the steady opposition to the tyranny of the royal governors, was year by year becoming stronger. In what was called Queen Anne's War, a party of French and Indians, under Heptel de Rouville, attacked, in the spring of 1704, the town of Deerfield, reduced it to ashes, killed forty-seven of the inhabitants, and led one hundred, among whom was the Rev. John Williams and his family, into captivity. Port Royal was captured in 1610 by a force mostly from this State. The name of the place was changed to Annapolis, and Acadia was annexed to the British realm. This war, closed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, was followed by a peace of nearly thirty years. During this period many new settlements were made in the interior of the State, and towns incorporated. King George's War commenced in 1744; and, early in the following year, an army under the command of William Pepperell, to which this State contributed more than 3,250 men, laid siege to Louisburg, a French fortress of great strength on the Island of Cape Breton and, aided by an English fleet, under Sir Peter Warren, on the 16th of June effected a capture of the garrison. The expense of the expedition was met by the British Government; and the money ($612, 330.41 in silver and copper) arrived in 1749 at Boston, where it was deposited in the State treasury. The war was terminated by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and the acquisitions of territory made in the contest were mutually restored. The boundaries between the French and English colonies were, however, still undefined; and the struggles for territorial dominion along the frontiers broke out into open hostilities in 1754, and resulted in the capture of Quebec, Sept. 13, 1739, and the establishment of the Saxon domination in America. During this war, about a thousand of the Acadians were, through the agency of Gen. John Winslow, transported to this State, but many of them subsequently returned to France. In order to meet the expenses incurred in this war, it was proposed by the British ministry to lay a tax upon the colonies; and this was attempted by the Stamp Act, passed in 1765, requiring stamps to be put on bonds, deeds, and other printed matter. This act of tyranny was denounced by the patriotic leaders of the State and country, who declared that taxation without representation was unconstitutional and iniquitious. The obnoxious act was repealed the following year: but in 1767 another bill for levying duties on paper, tea, and glass, became a law; to which and other measures the opposition was so strong, that several men-of-war and about four thousand British troops were sent the ensuing year to Boston to protect the authorities, and enforce the execution of obnoxious acts of Parliament. On the 5th of March, 1770, a collision occurred between the troops and some citizens, in which three of the latter were killed, and several wounded; and in December, 1773, a party of men disguised as Indians boarded some British ships laden with tea in Boston Harbor, and threw the contents into the sea. On receiving an account of this. Parliament passed, March 31, 1774, the Boston Port Bill, which prohibited intercourse by water with the town, and removed the custom-house to Salem. Gen. Thomas Gage the newly appointed governor, arrived in Boston, May 13, 1774, and occupied the town with four regiments of British soldiers. On the nineteenth of April, 1775, he sent a detachment to destroy some military stores at Concord; and on their way occurred the battle of Lexington, from which the opening of the drama of the Revolution may be dated. "On the 10th of June," says Mr. Lossing, "Gage issued a proclamation declaring all Americans in arms to be rebels and traitors, and offering a free pardon to all who should return to their allegiance, except those arch-offenders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. These he intended to seize, and send to England to be hanged. The vigilant patriots, aware of Gage's hostile intentions, strengthened their intrenchments on Boston Neck: and, on the evening of the 16th of June, Gen. Ward sent Col. Prescott, with a detachment of one thousand men, to take possession of and fortify Bunker's Hill, within cannon-shot of the city; and, laboring with pick and spade all that night, they had cast up a strong redoubt of earth on the summit of that eminence before the British were aware of their presence. Gage and his officers were greatly astonished at the apparition of this military work at the dawn of the 17th. "The British, generals perceived the necessity for driving the Americans from this commanding position before they should plant a heavy battery there; for, in that event, Boston must be evacuated. Before sunrise (June 17, 1775) a heavy cannonade was opened on the redoubt from a battery on Copp's Hill in Boston and from shipping in the Harbor, but with very little effect. Hour after hour, the patroits [sic] worked on in the erection of their fort; and at noonday their toil was finished, and they laid aside their implements of labor for knapsack and muskets. Gen. Howe, with Gen. Pigot and three thousand men, crossed the Charles River at the same time to Morton's Point, at the foot of the eastern slopes of Breed's Hill, formed his troops into two columns, and marched slowly to attack the redoubt. Although the British commenced firing cannons soon after they had begun to ascend the hill, and the great guns of the ships and the battery on Copp's Hill poured out an incessant storm upon the redoubt, the Americans kept perfect silence until they had approached within close musket-shot. Hardly an American could be seen by the slowly approaching enemy; yet behind those mounds of earth lay fifteen hundred determined men. "When the British column was within ten rods of the redoubt, Prescott shouted "Fire'' and instantly whole platoons of the assailants were prostrated by well-aimed bullets. The survivors fell back in great confusion, but were soon rallied for a second attack. They were again repulsed, with heavy loss; and, while scattering in all directions, Gen. Clinton arrived with a few follower's, and joining Howe as a volunteer. The fugitives were rallied, and they rushed to the redoubt in the face of a galling fire. For ten minutes the battle raged, fearfully; and, in the meanwhile, Charlestown, at the foot of the eminence, having been fired by a carcass from Copp's Hill, sent up dense columns of smoke, which completely enveloped the belligerents. The firing in the redoubt grew weaker; for the ammunition of the Americans became exhausted. It ceased; and then the British scaled the bank, and compelled the Americans to retreat, while they fought fiercely with clubbed muskets. They fled across Charlestown Neck, gallantly covered by Putnam and a few brave men; and, under that commander, took position on Prospect Hill, and fortified it. The British took possession of Bunker's Hill, and erected a fortification there. There was absolutely no victory in the case. The Americans had lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about four hundred and fifty men. The loss of the British, from like causes, was almost eleven hundred. This was the first real battle of the Revolution, and lasted almost two hours." On the second day following, Gen. Washington assumed the command of the American army then lying at Cambridge; and erecting a line of batteries from Winter Hill, near the Mystic river, through Cambridge, Brookline, and Roxbury, as far as Dorchester Heights, he held the British forces beseiged in Boston until Mar. 17, 1776, when they set sail for Halifax, and the war was transferred from our soil to that of other States. From the beginning of this grand struggle for civil freedom until its close by a definitive treaty of peace signed at Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, Massachusetts continued. by her voice, in council, by her efforts in raising men and money, as well as by the valor of her sons upon the battle-field, to sustain the cause of liberty. Of the forty thousand soldiers in the American army in 1776, ten thousand were her sons; and, by her steady arm, one-fourth of the burden of the entire war was borne. In 1780 the State framed and adopted a constitution, declaring that "all men are born equal;" and under this provision it was decided by the Supreme Court of the State that slavery was abolished. John Hancock was elected the first governor under the Constitution in 1780, and held his office until 1785, when he was succeeded by James Bowdoin. In the ensuing year occurred an insurrection called "Shay's Rebellion," which agitated the people, and alarmed the government. It grew out of the scarcity of money, caused by the interruption in trade and the drain upon the finances of the country, by the war. A convention of the disaffected met at Hatfield on the 22nd of August, 1786, and made known their grievances. Soon afterwards a body of about 1,500 insurgents, led by Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the Revolution, assembled at Northampton, and prevented the sitting of the courts; they also, in December, took possession of the court-house in Springfield, and interrupted the proceedings. In January, 1787, an army of 4,000 men was raised by the State, to suppress the insurrection. Gen. William Shepard, with one part of this force, repelled the advance of the insurgents upon the arsenal at Springfield, Jan. 25; and Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, with another part of the army, followed the retreating rebels to Petersham, where 150 were made prisoners, and the remainder fled. Fourteen of those taken were tried, and condemned to death, but afterwards set at liberty. In convention, Feb. 6, 1789, by a vote of 187 to 168, the State ratified and adopted the Federal Constitution of the United States, and warmly sustained the administration of George Washington, the first To the embargo laid upon the vessels of the country in 1808, to the policy of President Madison and the war of 1812, the State was generally opposed. The loss of commerce, revenue, and the expenses of the war, were seriously felt: and the news of the treaty of peace, signed at Ghent, Feb. 18, 1815, was received with acclamations and joy by all classes of the people. In 1820 a convention was held for the revision of the Constitution; and this year Maine, from 1692 till then a province of Massachusetts, became an independent State. At the opening of the rebellion in 1861, the State responded promptly to the demand for men, during the continuance of that ensanguined contest, sent forth, under the lead of John Andrew, governor from 1861 to 1865, regiment after regiment, store after store, ship after ship, to meet the exigency. Wherever there was fighting to be done, — at Bull Bun, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Winchester, Chattanooga, Gettysburg, Coal Harbor,— there was the old Bay State most nobly represented. The whole number of men furnished by the State during the war (being a surplus of 13,492 over every call) was 159,254. The whole number of colored troops was 6,039. Since the closing of the war of the Rebellion, which resulted in the liberation of the slave from bondage,— a long-cherished aspiration of the State,— it has enjoyed unexampled prosperity; and in its varied mechanical industries directed by intelligence, in its liberal appropriations for its well-conducted institutions of learning and benevolence, in its multiplied facilities for intercommunication, in its regard to health, temperance, and integrity, in its civil and social order, and in its steady aim for the good, the grand, the beautiful and the true, it gives assurance that it will still maintain its position as one of the leading States of the Since the war, legislation has, in general, been more strenously directed to securing closer conformity with ethical standards in politics, business and social relations. In this period there was much fluctation in the treatment of the liquor traffic until 1875, when the prohibitory law was repealed and a license law substituted, with local option in regard to issuing licenses. In 1869, the district school system was abolished, and town management by a school committee substituted,— by which more uniformly good instruction is secured, with a more economical expenditure of the public money. The notable event of the year was the "Peace Jubilee," in Boston, in June. In 1873 occurred the world's "Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival," also held in Boston. In October of the same year a great fire consumed the buildings from a tract of about sixty-five acres, in the chief business section of Boston. The Mill River disaster, in which there was such destruction of property and life by the bursting of a dam, occurred in the same year. In 1874 came the death of Senator Sumner. In 1875 were celebrated the centennials of Lexington and Concord, of Bunker Hill, and of Washington's taking command of the army at Cambridge. In the autumn died Vice-President Wilson. In 1879 a law was enacted admitting women to vote for members of school committees,— the first decided triumph of the women suffragists in Massachusetts. THE COUNTIES, ALPHABETICALLY [with their towns, a county map, and some comments.] cock-eyed county map from the US Census Barnstable County (Cape Cod) There are 15 towns — Barnstable, Bourne, Brewster, Eastham, Falmouth, Harwich, Mashpee, Orleans, Provincetown, Sandwich, Truro, Wellfleet, The first of the list is the shire town. Berkshire County overview The county embraces 32 towns, which are Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Dalton, Egremont, Florida, Great Barrington, Hancock, Hinsdale, Lanesborough, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Ashford, New Marlborough, North Adams, Otis, Richmond, Sandisfield, Savoy, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Tyringham, Washington, West Stockbridge, Williamstown and Windsor. Pittsfield is the seat of justice for the county. Bristol County overview Bristol County contains three cities, — New Bedford, Fall River, and Taunton, — and seventeen towns; these being Berkley, Dartmouth, Dighton, Easton, Fairhaven, Freetown, Mansfield, North Attleborough, Norton, Raynham, Rehoboth, Seekonk, Somerset, Swansea (Swansey) and Westport. The courts are held at New Bedford and Taunton. County (Martha's Vineyard and Elizabeth The towns embraced in this county — six in number — are Chilmark, Cottage City, Edgartown, Gay Head, and Tisbury, on Martha's Vineyard, and Gosnold, comprising the Elizabeth Islands. Edgartown is the county seat. [West Tisbury was divided from Tisbury in 1892. Cottage City became Oak Bluffs in 1907. Gay Head became Aquinnah in 1998.] The county has six cities and twenty-nine towns; the first being Gloucester, Haverhill, Newburyport and Salem; and the towns, Amesbury, Andover, Beverly, Boxford, Bradford, Georgetown, Groveland, Hamilton, Ipswich, Lynnfield, Manchester, Marblehead, Merrimac (Merrimack), Methuen, Middleton, Nahant, Newbury, North Andover, Peabody, Rockport, Rowley, Salisbury, Saugus, Swampscott, Topsfield, Wenham and West Newbury. Salem, Lawrence and Newburyport are the shire towns. [Manchester is now known as Manchester-by-the-Sea, though this seems to Franklin County overview It embraces 26 towns, namely: Ashfield, Bernardston, Buckland, Charlemont, Colrain (Coleraine), Conway, Deerfield, Greenfield, Hawley, Heath, Leverett, Leyden, New Salem, Northfield, Orange, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Warwick, Wendell and Whately. Greenfield is the capital town. Hampden County overview It contains two cities and twenty towns. The first are Springfield and Holyoke; and the latter Agawam, Blandford, Brimfield, Chester, Chicopee, Granville, Hampden, Holland, Longmeadow, Ludlow, Monson, Montgomery, Palmer, Russell, Southwick, Tolland, West Springfield and Wilbraham. Springfield is the county seat. [East Longmeadow split from Longmeadow in 1894.] Hampshire County overview It now embraces one city (Northampton — also the county seat) and 22 towns. The latter are as follows: Amherst, Belchertown, Chesterfield, Cummington, Easthampton, Enfield, Hatfield, Huntington, Middlefield, Pelham, Plainfield, Prescott, Southampton, South Hadley, Ware, Westhampton, [Dana (in Worcester County), Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott are extinct towns. They were drowned to make the Quabbin reservoir.] Middlesex County overview The county contains seven cities — Cambridge, Newton, Somerville, Waltham and Woburn. There are forty-seven towns, viz.: Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Billerica, Boxborough, Burlington, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dunstable, Everett, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Marlborough, Maynard, Medford, North Reading, Pepperell, Reading, Sherborn, Shirley, Stoneham, Stowe (Stow), Sudbury, Tewksbury, Townsend, Tyngsborough, Wakefield, Watertown, Wayland, Westford, Weston, Wilmington, and Winchester. The shire towns are Cambridge and Lowell. Nantucket County overview One town: Nantucket. The county contains one city — Quincy, and twenty-six towns — whose names are as follows: Avon, Bellingham, Braintree, Brookline, Canton, Cohasset, Dedham, Dover, Foxborough, Franklin, Holbrook, Hyde Park, Medfield, Norfolk, Norwood, Randolph, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, Wellesley, Weymouth and Wrentham. Dedham is the shire town. [Hyde Park was annexed to Boston on January 1, 1912.] Plymouth County overview There are now 26 towns and one city, — Brockton. The towns are Abington, Bridgewater, Carver, Duxbury, East Bridgewater, Halifax, Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Hull, Kingston, Lakeville, Marion, Marshfield, Mattapoisett, Middleborough, Norwell, Pembroke, Plymouth, Plympton, Rochester, Rockland, Scituate, Wareham, West Bridgewater and Whitman. The shire town is Plymouth. Suffolk County overview The county consists of the cities of Boston and Chelsea, and the towns of Revere and Winthrop — the first mentioned city being the capital of the county and of the Worcester County overview Division after division has been made in the original towns, until there are now 57, and two cities, — Worcester and Fitchburg; the first being the capital. The towns are Ashburnham, Athol, Auburn, Barre, Berlin, Blackstone, Bolton, Boylston, Brookfield, Charlton, Gardner, Grafton, Hardwick, Hopedale, Hubbardston, Lancaster, Leicester, Leominster, Lunenburg, Mendon, Milford, Millbury, New Braintree, Northborough, Northbridge, North Brookfield, Oakham, Oxford, Paxton, Petersham, Phillipston, Princeton, Royalston, Southborough, Southbridge, Spencer, Sterling, Sturbridge, Sutton, Templeton, Westborough, West Boylston, West Brookfield, Westminster and Winchendon. [Millville was incorporated in 1916, splitting from Blackstone. East Brookfield is the State's newest town, splitting from Brookfield in 1920. Dana was flooded over to make the Quabbin Reservoir in the

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The housing architecture has one of its foundations in the adaptation of the living space to the strong variations of the Madrid continental climate, where the biggest challenge lies in cushioning the gradient between the winter and summer, and even between day and night. That's why housing presents a regular and compact form factor that optimizes the energy conservation as the main strategy: it's a regular and flattened box that orients its longest sides to the south and north, and protects its fronts with dividing walls and vegetation. All homes have an optimal sunlight protecting from the sun in summer, thanks to the mobile sunscreens system, to optimize its performance. This slats system creates double-fronted boxes that also behaves as a thermal buffer. In addition to accumulation, the shape of the housing facilitates natural ventilation, because the double facade and the staircase window and flashlight work like solar chimneys: the overheating in its upper part causes, thaks to the Venturi effect, the outlet of the accumulated hot air in the interior of the House. The air renewal is ensured by cross-ventilation that introduces refreshed and moist breezes by the vegetation that surrounds the facades and protects the covers. Other considered comfort and energy conservation measures, which go beyond the climate adaptation, are, on the one hand, the use of natural, recyclable materials or whose life cycle is energy economic; for another, the solar energy use as energy for the air conditioning system.

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U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-2091-C All contours, geographic outlines, and political boundaries shown on this map of the bottom topography, or bathymetry, of the Pacific continental margin between 40° and 49°N. latitudes were plotted from digital data bases in the library of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)–National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Joint Office for Mapping and Research (JOMAR). These digital data were obtained and compiled from many sources; consequently. Data quality varies within particular data bases as well as from one data base to another. Bathymetric contours presented on this map were compiled from five sources: a published map (Chase and others, 1981), NOAA digital bathymetric data from the Juan De Fuca Ridge, NOAA digital bathymetric data from the continental slope off the coast of Oregon, and unpublished maps of the Gorda Ridge (M.L. Holmes, unpub. map, 1989) and the sea floor west of 130' W. (T.E. Chase, unpub. map, 1990). The areas of the map compiled from each of these sources are indicated in figure 1. For Area 1 (fig. 1) data used in the region seaward of the continental slope (~2000–m depth) were obtained primarily by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (C&GS) during the 1955 Pacific Exploratory Survey, a systematic and detailed (~8–nmi–trackline spacing) survey between Mexico and Canada. Data were also obtained from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) cruises Kayak E, Scan I, and Seven Tow (Chase and Menard, 1971; Wilde and others, 1977, 1978, 1979). The 200–m contour was derived from C&GS charts 1308N–12, 1308N–17, and 1308N–22 (Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1968a, 1968b, 1969). The data contoured in Area 2 (fig. 1) were collected by NOAA from 1980 to 1990 in support of ongoing plate–boundary dynamics studies. The research program, originally part of the National Ocean Service (NOS), later became the VENTS research program, based at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Newport, Oreg. All data were collected using Sea Beam multi beam sonar systems. Area 3 (fig. 1) contours are based on high–resolution bathymetric data collected, to date, in about 45 percent of the conterminous United States Pacific Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by the NOS using multibeam, swath–sounding techniques. When this map and two adjacent map panels were compiled, only the data from Area 3 were available for inclusion. The primary source of the data contoured in Area 4 (fig. 1) was the C&GS 1955 Pacific Exploratory Survey. Interpretation was aided by data from the USGS, the University of Washington, and SIO. Since compilation of the data from Area 1 (Chase and others, 1981), bathymetric surveys have revealed a high degree of roughness of the sea floor in the Pacific EEZ. In an attempt to depict this roughness, the contours in Area 4 have been drawn with a rippled appearance. The data contoured in Area 5 (fig. 1) were obtained in 1983 by the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics using the SeaMARC II swath–mapping system (Blackinton and Hussong, 1983). The survey, concentrated in the axial and near axial zone of the Gorda Ridge and in the eastern part of the Blanco Fracture Zone, was part of a USGS–Minerals Management Service cooperative study on mineral resources in the United States EEZ. These data were partially published by Clague and Holmes (1986). Area 5 was also surveyed as part of the VENTS program. Contours of those data were used to verify the contours from the SeaMARC II data. At adjoining boundaries, the various data sets were in very good agreement. Automated and interactive computer techniques were used to link contours between data sets where no adjustment was required for smooth joining of the contours. When an adjustment was needed, contours in the gaps between data sets were manually drawn, digitized, and interactively linked to the contours from adjacent data sets. NOS survey positioning was determined using the 1983 North American Datum (NAD 83) spheroid whereas the graticule for this map was calculated using the 1927 North American Datum (NAD 27) spheroid. At 1:1,000,000 scale, the difference between the two, which is approximately 100 m on the Earth's surface in the mapped area, is almost imperceptible. Onshore topographic contours were generated by computer from a modified version of 3–arc–second elevation data provided by the Defense Mapping Agency. The United States digital shoreline was obtained from the NOAA, NOS, Nautical Charting Division, National Atlas files. The coastline of Canada was digitized from Canadian Hydrographic Service bathymetric maps. The primary source of names of the sea floor features was the "Gazetteer of Undersea Features" (Defense Mapping Agency, 1990). Christopher Hines and Krista Becker assisted in the construction and verification of the digital data bases. Reviews and suggestions by Edward C. Escowitz and Florence Wong and advice provided by Will Stettner regarding the cartographic design substantially improved the quality of this map. Blackinton, J.G., and Hussong, D.M., 1983, First results of a combination side–scan sonar and seafloor mapping system (SeaMARC II), Houston, Texas, May 2–5, 1983, Offshore Technology Conference, Proceedings, p. 307–314. Chase, T.E., and Menard, H.W., 1971, Bathymetric atlas of the northeastern Pacific Ocean: U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office Publication 1303, scale 1:2,000,000 at 33° latitude, 48 p. Chase, T.E., Wilde, Pat, Normark, W.R., Miller, C.P. , Seekins, B.A., and Young, J.D., 1981, Offshore topography of the Western United States between 32° and 49° North latitudes: U.S. Geological Survey Open–File Report 81–443, scale 1:864,518 at 38° latitude, 2 sheets. Clague, D.A. and Holmes, M.L., 1986, Geology, petrology, and mineral potential of the Gorda Ridge, in Scholl, D.W., Grantz, Arthur, and Vedder, J.G., eds., Geology and resource potential of the continental margin of Western North America and adjacent ocean basins — Beaufort Sea to Baja California, v. 6 of Circum–Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources Earth Science Series: Houston, Texas, Circum–Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, p. 563–580. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1968a, Umpqua River to Cape Ferrelo: Coast and Geodetic Survey Bathymetric Map 1308N–17, scale 1:250,000. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1968b, Tillamook Head to Heceta Head: Coast and Geodetic Survey Bathymetric Map 1308N–22, scale 1:250,000. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1969, Point St. George to Point Delgada: Coast and Geodetic Survey Bathymetric Map 1308N–12, scale 1:250,000. Defense Mapping Agency, 1990, Gazetteer of undersea features (4th ed.): Washington, D.C., Defense Mapping Agency. Wilde, Pat, Chase, T.E., Holmes, M.L., Normark, W.R., and Thomas, J.A., 1977, Oceanographic data off Washington 46° to 49° North including the Nitinat Deep Sea Fan: Berkeley, University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Publication 223, scale 1:748,602 at 47° latitude. Wilde, Pat, Chase, T. E., Holmes, M.L., Normark, W.R., Thomas, J.A., McCulloch, D.S., Carlson, P.R., Kulm, L.D., and Young, J.D., 1979, Oceanographic data off Oregon 43° to 46° North including the Astoria Deep Sea Fan: Berkeley, University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Publication 253, scale 1:776,073 at 45° latitude .Wilde, Pat, Chase, T.E ., Holmes, M.L., Normark, W.R., Thomas, J.A., McCulloch, D.S., and Kulm, L.D., 1978, Oceanographic data off northern California–southern Oregon 40° to 43° North including the Gorda Deep Sea Fan: Berkeley, University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Publication 251, scale 1:815,482 at 42° latitude. 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. Grim, M.S., Chase, T.E., Evenden, G.I., Holmes, M.L., Normark, W.R., Wilde, Pat, Fox, C.G., Lief, C.J., and Seekins, B.A., 1992, Map showing bottom topography in the deep-sea basins of the Pacific continental margin, Strait of Juan de Fuca to Cape Mendocino: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-2091-C, 1 sheet, scale 1:1,000,000.

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Extreme rainfall and heavy snowmelt have combined this spring to bring the Mississippi River roaring beyond its banks. While humans on the ground have scrambled to evacuate, build sandbag walls and taken dramatic measures not seen in decades blowing levees and opening the Morganza Spillway satellites have provided a distinct view of the extraordinary extent of the flooding. The Landsat 5 satellite flew over the Mississippi on May 10, 2011, about eight days after the Army Corps of Engineers began blasting holes in earthen levees near Cairo, Illinois, when the river had reached a depth of 61 feet. Breaching the levee at the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway, where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet, allowed water to run onto 133,000 acres of designated floodway land. But the blasting protected about 2.4 million acres downriver, the Army Corps said. Putting the May 10 image side-by-side with an image from April 2010 shows the dramatic extent of the flooding. At one spot along the Kentucky-Missouri border, the width of floodwaters stretches 13 miles. In Memphis, the depth of the floodwaters reached 48 feet, inches below a record set in 1937. Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia all of which at least partially drain to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers each had their wettest April since 1895, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. The 12 months from May 2010 to April 2011 were also the wettest on record for Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. On May 14 after this Landsat image was captured the Army Corps opened the Morganza Spillway in Louisiana to relieve flooding. Landsat is a joint mission between NASA and US Geological Survey, and is the longest-running Earth-observing satellite program. Landsat satellites have been orbiting continuously since 1972. The next satellite in the series is scheduled to launch in 2012 as part of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). Explore further: Canada to push Arctic claim in Europe

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(FOX 11) - A new UK study conducted by the new Bristol University found that vegetarians are almost twice as likely to suffer from depression as those who consumed meat in their diet. Scientists say, vegetarians were more likely to develop depression due to Vitamin B12 and mineral deficiencies that can negatively impact their mental health. About 50 percent of vegans and seven percent of vegetarians have a Vitamin B12 deficiency, the researchers said. Vitamin B12 can be found in red meat, and plays an important role in affecting an individual’s mood. According to the study, “other potential factors include high blood levels of phytoestrogens mainly on diets rich in vegetables and soya." “Another potential contributing factor is that lower intakes of seafood are thought to be associated with greater risk of depressive symptoms.” Also, those who had been vegetarian for longer were more likely to develop symptoms of depression over time. The study did not account for whether the decision to adopt a vegetarian diet was a symptom of depression on its own. The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

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The object from the front. It has a very smooth texture with little pits in it. Back view of the object. It looks somewhat like a pelvis. Side view of the object. It seems to be a calcified plate from an exoskeleton. The way this item looks reminds me a lot of a pillbug, trilobite, or chiton. I can't help but to think of the ancient insects and marine creatures from the Cambrian Period that once roamed the Earth. It's amazing how huge insects and invertebrates could grow to be. (One of the largest being an ancestor of the millipede over eight feet in length!) Fortunately, for those who are more phobia prone, bugs this size can physically no longer exist. This is mostly due to lower oxygen levels in today's atmosphere. (Of course, if something happens to the atmosphere in the future giant bugs could return.) Some people also theorize that birds ate larger insects out of existence. What ever the case, large invertebrates are no longer with us except for in horror or sci-fi films. I used to love to catch and play with these as a kid. The object I found is most likely from a chiton (which is technically not a bug but a mollusk). Terrifyingly gigantic invertebrates dominated the Cambrian. Sorry, not possible in today's world. (Science ruins any possibility of an alien bug invasion.) Call me weird, but I have always been fascinated by insects and how strange and unearthly they seem. Perhaps its because they are so ancient and I admire how long they have been able to survive on this planet. Insects and invertebrates are the world's most populous species. About 8.7 million are estimated to exist in the world today! Most insects are relatively harmless. (Out of all the species, only about forty are considered venomous.) Many people still seem leerily of them however. Could this be because we are aware of how huge they once were, or that we are just creeped out by how unlike us they are, or how little most people know about them? Coincidentally, one of my favorite movies happens to be Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (and not only because it has giant insects in it). It is 1984 Hayao Miyazaki film about a princess who must save her world from warring peoples in a post-apocalyptic future. Nausicaa is parable about how human and nature get along (or rather don't get along). The titular character must find a way in which the insects in the spreading toxic jungle and humanity can peacefully coexist because they are dependent on one another. It is truly a great film about learning not to fear the unknown and many subsequent anime and sci-fi films were influenced by it. (If you have seen both Nausicaa and James Cameron's Avatar, for instance, the forests in both films bare an uncanny resemblance to one another.) Never question a princess who loves insects. James Cameron is a huge Miyazaki fan.

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It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker. Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool. Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker. Christian Symbolism 5: The Skull -- This is a fun one, because it tends to disturb the squeaky-clean "niceness" that has unfortunately become identified with modern-day Christianity. We'll look at the two common meanings that the skull has had in traditional Christian art. The first and most common usage is to place the skull in the iconography of certain saints. Mary Magdalene, Jerome, and Francis of Assisi spring immediately to mind, although the skull is frequently seen with other less popular saints, too. The saint is usually depicted meditating alone upon the skull or with the skull cleverly placed somewhere else in the image. The skull is a reminder of the brevity of life and the certainty of death, and it was not unheard-of for mediaeval religious to keep a human skull about to aid them in their meditations. This is the same idea as the old memento mori images that are not uncommon in classical antiquity. Originally posted by Sparkie the Wondersnail It could be a carryover from the Roman depictions of skeletons displayed in dining rooms to remind the people eating to embrace life because death comes quickly and to all.

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Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Civil Engineering is a profession that applies the basic principles of science in conjunction with mathematical and computational tools to solve problems associated with developing and sustaining civilized life on our planet. Civil Engineering is one of the broadest of the engineering disciplines both in terms of the range of problems that fall within its purview and in the range of knowledge required to solve those problems. Civil engineers plan, design, build, manage and rehabilitate the facilities essential to modern society: homes and work places; transportation systems for commerce and recreation, and water treatment and waste disposal systems for a healthful life. As part of the construction industry, they build bridges, buildings, tunnels, dams, canals, irrigation systems, harbors, highways, airports, water supply systems, and waste disposal facilities. They develop solutions to environmental problems, study new methods to control traffic, and design outer space and under sea structures. Civil and Environmental Engineering practice encompasses a wide range of specialties, including: construction management, engineering mechanics, environmental engineering, geotechnical and foundation engineering, hydraulics, intelligent transportation systems, irrigation and drainage, materials engineering, structural engineering, surveying and site engineering, urban planning and development, urban transportation, water and waste water treatment system design, water resources planning and management, hazardous waste site remediation, and waterway, port, coastal and ocean engineering. Civil engineers work in both the public and private sector. They serve as city, town and state public works and environmental engineers. They own and are employed by consulting firms, construction companies and industries. They are employed by a variety of federal and state agencies such as, the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the Massachusetts Highway Department. For more information visit the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department website or contact us.

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How do people know how old a star is? Wow, this is a popular question! Scientists have learned a lot about stars, especially the stages in their lives. Since a single star can live for billions of years, scientists study several stars at different stages of their lives. Certain characteristics of stars are related to each other. The luminosity, temperature, magnitude, spectral class and mass are all related. For example, larger stars are cooler, red in color and are very luminous. All these characteristics are important in determining the age of a star, but scientists found that the composition of a star is the most important. The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram is a very famous diagram that shows how these characteristics of stars are related. Stars are divided into different categories depending on their temperature, size, etc. Most stars are either, main sequence, or giants. Scientists realized that the compositions of stars were related to the diagram. Stars spend most of their lives as a main sequence star. During this time they burn hydrogen in their core. When a star burns hydrogen it creates helium. At some point the star uses up all the hydrogen, and starts to burn helium. The star expands and cools while burning the helium. During this stage a star is called a giant. So why tell you all of this? Well, scientists discovered this is a very easy way to compare stars. It is also a great way to tell the age of a star. Scientists can look at the spectra of a star and tell its temperature, which is related to the size, etc. In turn, this information reveals how much hydrogen or helium is left inside the star. We know the rate at which stars burn the gases. Scientists can now tell how old the star is depending on its composition! Submitted by Dana, Kelly, Michael, Kelli, Tommy, Nick, Randall, (ages 11 &12, North Carolina) Windows original artwork Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store! Learn about Earth and space science, and have fun while doing it! The games section of our online store includes a climate change card game and the Traveling Nitrogen game You might also be interested in: Most stars fall on a rather wide line (highlighted in red) that passes from the lower right to the upper left of the page. This line is called the main sequence. It tells us interesting things about how...more Follow along the horizontal curves (highlighted in red). These are the locations of the giant stars. Giants don't behave like main sequence stars. The brightness is constant or even increasing as you...more It depends on which type of motion you are asking about. If you take a birds-eye view from the top of the solar system all the planets orbit around the Sun in a counter-clockwise (or direct) direction....more Almost everyone has a question or two about living in space. What do astronauts do in space? How do they do everyday things like eat, sleep and go to the bathroom? It's important to note that astronauts...more There is a really neat internet program called Solar System Live that shows the position of all of the planets and the Sun for any given day. If you go to that page, you'll see an image similar to the...more The picture of the American Flag (the one put there by the Apollo astronauts) is waving (or straight out) in the wind. How could that be possible if there is no atmosphere on the Moon? Was it some sort...more I was wondering if there is a new planet? Are there planets (a tenth planet?) after Pluto belonging to our solar system? What are the names of the new planets discovered in the solar system? Are there...more If that is so, the energy released during the Big Bang must have created many such black holes. Therefore most of the Energy of the Big bang must have disappeared in that form. Then how did the Universe...more

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CHAPTER VIII: LABOUR AND CO-OPERATION IN IRELAND In the course of that description we were compelled to note the manner in which an attempt significant of so much, and revealing in the Irish nature so many untried possibilities of expansion and adaptability, had been ignored by successive generations of Irish historians and politicians. These latter seem, indeed, always to have floated along the surface of events and to have recoiled from any investigation involving a challenging of the orthodox basis of society, with more timidity than that with which his Satanic Majesty is popularly supposed to recoil from holy water. Their one governing idea has, at all times, been to represent the Irish cause as but a variant of a reform movement in English society; that Ireland was restive because she was not treated with the same equal justice as England, and that if she was only so treated it would be found that Ireland was essentially orthodox, and lacking in sympathy for any attacks upon accepted social institutions. Hence such historians and politicians have ever felt that the story of a co-operative experiment like that of Ralahine - an experiment initiated by believers in Utopian Socialism - required care in the telling lest its example became infectious, and was, in fact, better left untold. Following along the same lines of action, when the modern co-operative movement was preached to the Irish farmers by the lecturers of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, when the literature prepared by Mr. George Russell, Father Finlay, S.J., Sir Horace Plunkett, and their fellow-labourers, was being pushed throughout Ireland, it was early discovered that their attempts to regenerate Irish agricultural life had no more bitter enemies than the political representatives of the Irish people, irrespective of their political colour. The Unionist politicians opposed the co-operators because the movement tended to bring together Protestant and Catholic on a basis of friendly and fraternal helpfulness - a state of things that, if persisted in, would inevitably destroy that bigoted distrust and hatred upon which Unionism depended for its existence. The Home Rulers opposed the co-operators upon the alleged grounds that their success in increasing the finances of the farmers would only redound to the advantage of the landlord, but really because the practice of co-operation would necessarily interfere with the profits of those leeches who, as gombeen men, middlemen and dealers of one kind or another in the small country towns, sucked the life-blood of the agricultural population around them. Anyone acquainted with rural Ireland knows that, next to the merciless grinding by the landlord, the tenantry suffers most from the ruthless exploitation of the classes just mentioned, and that, indeed, the buying-out of the landlords in many cases served only to gorge still further the ever rapacious maw of those parasites upon rural life. But whereas the landlords were ever regarded in Ireland as alien to Irish life, the gombeen men and their kind, from their position in the country towns, their ostentatious parade of religion and their loud-mouthed assertions of patriotism, were usually the dominant influences in the councils of the local Home Rule or other constitutional national organisation. From all national organisations not constitutional, or respectable, they usually kept aloof, but this fact did not interfere with their power to dictate the attitude of the Irish Parliamentary representatives to every manifestation of Irish life. They were ever the local wirepullers, and, as such, posed as the representatives of the political thought of Ireland. Thus it was in no wise strange that the Irish politicians as a whole were averse to all propaganda upon co-operative lines, and that as a writer in The Irish Homestead, says: But neither was it strange that the co-operative principle had in itself an appealing force, quite sufficient to surmount this factitious opposition, although fifty meetings were held before a single society was formed. Apart from the direct appeal founded upon self-interest, an appeal rooting itself in the necessities born of an ever-increasing difficulty in finding a profitable market for their commodities, the Irish farming population had long been accustomed to practical co-operation for given objects. The sight of a whole countryside agreeing to build a cabin for some one left shelterless, to save the crops of a neighbour too sick to bring in his own, to dig the field of a widow, to raise money enough to enable a promising boy to get the education necessary to become a priest or a doctor, or in the olden days to bring in and support a hedge-schoolmaster, was not unfamiliar to Irish eyes, nor were the practical value of such kindly lessons lost to Irish understanding. And, in the days immediately preceding the co-operative propaganda, the Irish Land League had found the peasantry willing co-operators in a score of ways when such co-operation formed part of the campaign against landlordism. Nor yet had all the insidious tendency of leaders, infatuated with capitalist doctrines, and too ignorant of their countrys real history to understand its ancient institutions, ever been able to take from the peasantry the possession of traditions which kept alive in their midst the memory of the common ownership and common control of land by their ancestors - an ownership and control which were the very flower of co-operation. Scattered around amongst them also they found the Catholic Church in all its convents and monasteries, practising co-operation alike upon the consumers and producers model, and with the element of personal profit or aggrandisement entirely eliminated. When those considerations left the Irish agriculturalist still unconverted, there were still pressing upon him the forces born of economic development, urging him with an irresistible pressure toward a remodelling of his methods, and a reconsideration of his ideas. He found that he had no longer even a partial monopoly of the home market, but that, on the contrary, each development of the transport facilities of the world brought him a new danger, added a new menace to his anxiety. The inventor who enabled the steamship companies to shorten the time taken to convey agricultural products across the ocean; the engineer who laid down railroads which tapped new or backward lands and brought their crops to the ports of the world; the government which placed the resources of its scientists and its chemists at the disposal of its producers and merchants, all, all were new factors bringing new perils for him to face. In less than a generation New York, New Orleans, or the River Plate, the Black Sea and the Baltic have moved up, so to speak, to within easy commercial striking distance of the farmers of Ireland, and their merchandise confronts him in all his markets. From the Scandinavian countries the farmers, organised and taught with Government aid upon co-operative lines, were pouring in butter, cheese, and eggs, packed and forwarded in a manner infinitely superior to the old slipshod methods of the individual petty Irish farmer; from the South of France and the Channel Islands came all the varied output of highly-trained market gardeners working with all the advantages of climate and efficient transport service on their side, and all around the unfortunate Irish agriculturist was met with the competition of rivals much better trained, better educated, better led, better served, and by the demands of merchants and customers calling for greater nicety, greater cleanliness, greater despatch, and greater variety. Under such pressure, face to face with such increasing competition, it is little to be wondered at that the propaganda of the co-operators eventually reached the Irish peasantry, despite all the obstacles raised and imaginary dangers invoked by the interested enemies of the new doctrine. To-day up and down through Ireland a network of co-operative societies has spread and is spreading amongst the peasantry, whilst new and more fruitful fields of enterprise are continually being opened up by their resourceful leaders and members. Over 100,000 Irish farmers are now organised in co-operative societies. We have co-operative creameries, co-operative marketing, co-operative banks, and projects for co-operative fishing are already well on their way. In the towns co-operative societies of consumers have taken a firm foothold in the North and in the extreme South, whilst the result of the beneficent activities of the co-operative distributive societies during the great Dublin Labour Dispute left such an impression upon the minds of the workers in the Irish Labour movement, that a great crop of co-operative enterprises under the auspices of that movement may be confidently anticipated in the very near future. Up to the present the participants in the co-operative movement amongst the agricultural population have, as is usual in Ireland, troubled themselves little about fashioning in their minds any form of ideal to result from their labours, but have instead attended strictly to the immediate needs of the moment. Amongst the leaders in the town movements, on the contrary, it may be said that as a rule their activities would be much less were it not for the ideal that inspires them. That ideal is the one common now to the militant workers of the world - a Co-operative Commonwealth. The immediate difficulty if the two movements - i.e., of town and country, are not to remain strangers, with all the possibilities of developing from estrangement into hostility - will be to find a common basis of action in order that one may support and reinforce the other. Mr. George Russell, the gifted editor of The Irish Homestead, points out that the fact that the overwhelming proportion of Irish farmers employ no labour, but generally work their own farms, makes that problem not so difficult in Ireland as it would be in countries where the farmers were employers and therefore supposedly hostile to the claims of Labour. This idea, with all its implications, is worthy of careful examination. Stated briefly it may be thus summed up: Since the great development of transatlantic and cross-sea competition, and the supplanting or curbing of the landlord, the chief problem for the Irish farmer is to find a good market where the balance will not be weighted against him. He can only find this by creating a market amongst a sympathetic and prosperous Irish working class. His products are not fancy products, they only appeal to the needs of the human stomach, and not to the whims, passions or fantasies of the imagination. A millionaire, having only one stomach, can only consume what one stomach requires, he cannot consume more of the staple products of our Irish farms than a well-paid tradesman would require and demand. The dainties, delicacies, wines, &c., which go to make the dinner of the millionaire more costly than that of the tradesman are imported, and hence the greater cost of his dinner does not represent a greater demand for Irish agricultural products. Thus the Irish farmer cannot increase the demand for his products by any support of the well-to-do, the millionaire, or the budding millionaire. On the contrary, every upward move of Labour in Ireland which adds to the income of the working class, and transforms its members from semi-starved slaves into well-paid toilers able to purchase a sufficiency of food, creates thousands or tens of thousands of new customers. Every defeat of Labour, accompanied by a reduction of purchasing power, lessens the demand for the products of Irish farmers; every victory of Labour increases the purchasing power of the working class and thus sends fresh customers into the Irish market. And if that victory for the Irish working class was won by the support of the co-operative farmers of Ireland, then every constituent of the Irish Labour movement would be morally bound to give preference to the commodities produced by their agricultural allies. To that moral obligation the establishment and popularisation of co-operative stores under the aegis of the Labour movement would add another, that of self-interest. Stocking the products of the agricultural co-operative societies in time of industrial peace, the workers would enjoy their credit in time of war; then the trades union in time of peace could invest its funds in the co-operative societies; in time of lock-outs or strikes it would fight with food guaranteed to its members by such societies which, for the food required, would be able to pledge their credit to the organised co-operative farming community. Trade union funds, instead of being deposited in banks to be let out by those institutions to capitalist exploiters, could be placed to the credit of soundly conducted co-operative enterprises, developing the farmers and aiding the resources of the toilers in town and country. In so doing the urban workers would know that, in helping to make life in the rural districts less unbearable, they were also helping to stem the flow of labour into the towns, thus increasing the security of their own position. The idea is capable of almost infinite expansion, and not least amongst its attractions is the hope that the minds of Irish men and women, once set thus definitely in the direction of common work, common ownership, and democratically conducted industry, their thought would not cease from travelling that path until they had once more grasped the concept of an Ireland of whose powers, potentialities and gifts each should be an equal heir, in whose joys and cultures all should be sharers. The letter to the Dublin Employers (printed in the Appendix), though it excited the wrath of all the tyrants and reactionaries in Ireland, served to win for Mr. Russell that hearing for the Co-operative position we have just outlined, which may yet make it in a double sense a historic document. If, to that combination of agriculturalists and urban labourers we have just hinted at as a possibility of co-operation upon the economic field, we add the further possible development of an understanding upon the political field between these two groups of co-operators, we begin to realise the great and fundamental change now slowly maturing in our midst. Such a political development may not, indeed probably will not, come soon, but the necessity of seeking legislation to aid their activities, as well as the necessity of preventing legislation to obstruct their activities, will force forward that development in due time. Then, when to the easily organised labourers of the towns is added the immense staying power of the peasantry, and when representatives appear in the Halls of Legislature voicing their combined demands, the Party of Labour which will thus manifest itself will speak with a prophetic voice, when it proclaims its ideal for a regenerated Ireland - an Ireland re-conquered for its common people. For the only true prophets are they who carve out the future which they announce.

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It is often remarked that Leibniz never wrote a systematic ethical treatise. However, in his view theology is a sort of jurisprudence, a type of science of law (NE, p. 526). And Leibniz contributed a systematic work to the field of theology, namely, the Theodicy (1710), the only large-scale philosophical work that he published during his lifetime. Given that Leibniz the natural theologian and metaphysician is, at the same time, a moral theorist, ethics has a central place in his philosophical system. No divisions exist among the nominally different fields. Thus the complaint that he never wrote a systematic ethical treatise by and large misses the point. Moreover, the fact that he views theology as a science of law provides some insight into the character and structure of his ethics. He offers a natural law theory, and, like other such theories, its basic structure consists of a theory of the good and a theory of law. Compliance with the principles spelled out in the latter is necessary and sufficient to achieve the good. Since, according to Leibniz, God is the measure of the good, the primary directive of his ethics is that one ought to imitate divinity as far as possible. - 1. Theory of the Good - 2. Natural Law Theory - 3. Moral Psychology - Academic Tools - Other Internet Resources - Related Entries Leibniz's ethics centers on a composite theory of the good. Three longstanding philosophical doctrines compose the theory: (1) Platonism (the view that goodness is coextensive with reality or being), (2) perfectionism (the view that the highest good consists in the development and perfection of one's nature), and (3) hedonism (the view that the highest good is pleasure). This set of doctrines is manifested in Leibniz's tripartite division of the good into the metaphysical good, the moral good, and the physical good (T §209, p. 258). He equates the metaphysical good with reality, moral goodness with virtue, and the physical good with pleasure. Moreover, with each type of good exists a correlative type of evil. The metaphysical good of reality correlates with the metaphysical evil of privation of reality or non-being. Similarly, the moral goodness of virtue relates to the moral evil of sin or vice. Finally, the physical good of pleasure connects to the physical evil of pain (T §21, p. 136). The theory constructed out of these divergent doctrines illustrates Leibniz's eclectic approach to philosophical investigation. As he puts it in a comment on his own system of philosophy, “This system appears to unite Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morality with reason. Apparently it takes the best from all systems and then advances further than anyone has yet done” (NE, p. 71). Before looking at the way he attempts to advance moral philosophy and the theory of the good, it will help to have some background concerning what Leibniz calls the metaphysical good and its correlative metaphysical evil. In uniting goodness with reality, Leibniz borrows, not without putting his own stamp on it, a view that had currency with certain medieval philosophers (e.g., Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas). The doctrine nonetheless originated in the Neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus (204–269) and Porphyry (234–c.305), though there is clearly suggestion of it in Plato (e.g., Republic 518c, Timaeus 28b). In reuniting goodness and reality, or to what he interchangeably refers to as perfection, Leibniz thus characteristically recovers and attempts to restore an heirloom of medieval philosophy (for a study of the medieval treatment of the doctrine of metaphysical goodness, see the essays collected in Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, edited by Scott MacDonald (Cornell University Press, 1991)). Reality, or perfection, in Leibniz's view is not the sort of thing that something either has or does not have; it is not an all-or-nothing matter. Rather, perfection is scalar—it comes in varying degrees. So, God has infinite perfection, the maximum amount, because He is limitless (PE, “Monadology,” §41). Every existent other than God, including the universe, possesses a limited degree of perfection. “For,” as Leibniz explains, “God could not give the creature all without making of it a God; therefore there must needs be different degrees in the perfection of things, and limitations also of every kind” (T §31, p. 142). Because nothing but God is infinite, everything else exhibits metaphysical perfection in varying, limited degrees. Since everything but God exhibits a finite level of perfection, everything but God also exhibits a degree of imperfection, a privation of reality. Privation of reality necessarily belongs to creation in the sense that it is logically impossible for a created thing to be unlimited (PE, “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason,” §9; T §20, p. 135). Only that whose existence is absolutely necessary and therefore depends on nothing other than itself has infinite perfection. For Leibniz, then, metaphysical evil is the privation of reality inherent in the natures of created things (T §21, p. 136). In a letter in which he replies to an inquiry by the philosopher Christian Wolff (1679–1754) about the concept of perfection, Leibniz gives the following analysis: Perfection is the harmony of things, or the state where everything is worthy of being observed, that is, the state of agreement [consensus] or identity in variety; you can even say that it is the degree of contemplatibility [considerabilitas] (PE, 18 May 1715, p. 233–4). This passage indicates that there are in a sense two aspects of metaphysical perfection. First, metaphysical perfection is constituted by harmony, that is, unity in variety. A situation is harmonious to the extent that a variety of things are ordered in accordance with general laws or principles, such as laws of motion governing terrestrial and celestial objects (PE, “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason,” §11). Second, that which possesses a degree of metaphysical perfection in the sense of harmony can also be said to be worthy of observation to some extent. If there were nothing ordered in accordance with general laws, there would be nothing worthy of observation because everything would be submerged in chaos. Thus harmony makes something contemplatible, like a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 171). Leibniz's ethics is therefore perfectionist in two different but ultimately related senses. On the one hand, as we have seen, the metaphysical good consists in the reality of a thing, its degree of metaphysical perfection, which is identical to its harmony. This may be called metaphysical perfectionism. On the other hand, Leibniz maintains that moral goodness involves the development and perfection of a characteristic or set of characteristics fundamental to human nature. Such a characteristic in a cultivated state is called a virtue. This is moral perfectionism. And metaphysical perfection relates to moral perfection as cause to effect. In other words, intellectual apprehension of harmony brings about virtue. To see how he arrives at this position, it is necessary to return to the other two types of goodness: the moral good and the physical good. “Virtue,” according to Leibniz, “is the habit of acting according to wisdom” (PW, “Felicity,” §1, p. 83). Yet one virtue in particular reigns supreme and contains all the others, and that virtue is justice, which Leibniz defines as the “charity of the wise man” (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 171; cf. PW, p. 57 & p. 83). One whose love is guided by wisdom possesses the charity of the wise. Love is the pleasure one takes in the happiness and perfection of others (PW, “Felicity,” §5; NE, p. 163). God's wisdom is infinite and His love is universal, extending to all beings capable of happiness. God's universal benevolence, Leibniz suggests, is an ideal we ought to do our best to imitate and continuously aspire to (PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice”, pp. 57–8; cf. PE, “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason,” §14, pp. 211–12). The more one's benevolence expands to encompass the happiness of more and more others, the more one grows in justice and virtue, thereby increasing the moral good. The physical good thus bridges the moral good with the metaphysical good. It links virtue and harmony because, for Leibniz, pleasure is a sense or knowledge of perfection; pain, on the other hand, is a sense or knowledge of imperfection (NE, p. 194; PW, “Felicity,” §4). A sensual pleasure, such as the pleasure of listening to music or that of viewing a painting, is a confused perception of perfection (i.e., a confused perception of harmony). In contrast, an intellectual pleasure, such as the pleasure of knowing the fundamental order of reality, is a distinct perception of perfection. Sensual pleasures in some cases approximate intellectual pleasures, but they inevitably fall short because they tend to be deceptive and transitory, whereas intellectual pleasures are pure and lasting. And true happiness, according to Leibniz, is simply a lasting state of pleasure (PW, “Felicity,” §3; NE, p. 194). Despite his identification of happiness with lasting pleasure, however, it is an oversimplification to characterize Leibniz's theory of the good as nothing more than a form of hedonism. Given that pleasure is a confused or distinct apprehension of harmony, knowledge serves as the necessary means by which an individual cultivates the moral good, the charity of the wise. Knowledge of the perfection of others, of the perfection of the universe, and of God, the perfect being, is inherently pleasurable and concomitantly contributes to the proper order of one's character by generating love in conformity with wisdom. The harmony of the universe then is a precondition for virtue and happiness, but harmony alone is not sufficient. Knowledge is also necessary. If there were no minds, or if there were no minds capable of knowledge, the universe would be devoid of virtue and happiness. Thus knowledge unifies Leibniz's composite theory of the good. He says, §15. One must hold as certain that the more a mind desires to know order, reason, the beauty of things which God has produced, and the more he is moved to imitate this order in the things which God has left to his direction, the happier he will be. §16. It is most true, as a result, that one cannot know God without loving one's brother, that one cannot have wisdom without having charity (which is the real touchstone of virtue), and that one even advances one's own good in working for that of others…. (PW, “Felicity,” p. 84) The intellectualist cast of Leibniz's ethics stands out unmistakably in this passage. Knowledge of the order, rationality, and beauty of creation is necessary for happiness. So too is actively imitating that order. Together, they are sufficient. Without knowledge, action and the effort to promote the perfection of others do not necessarily meet with success and may even backfire, leading to greater physical evil. Without actively promoting rational order, knowledge alone does not lead to happiness. Leibniz's ethics no doubt has an intellectualist character, but mere passive contemplation of the rational order of the universe is not the ideal of moral goodness. Instead, moral goodness combines knowledge of the rational order with the active promotion of rational order as far as possible. So far we have seen that, for Leibniz, the human good consists in the lasting state of pleasure that accompanies moral perfection. Moral perfection, in turn, is cultivated through the perpetual pursuit and acquisition of knowledge of the perfection of others, the universe, and God. Although all knowledge contributes to moral perfection and is therefore practical in a broad sense of the term, ethics nevertheless is a distinct branch of science, capable of the same level of demonstrative rigor as arithmetic and geometry (NE, Preface, p. 50; PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice,” pp. 49–50). Leibniz shares this view of ethics with other important seventeenth-century thinkers, such as Hobbes (1588–1679), Spinoza (1632–1677), and Locke (1632–1704). And although Leibniz never wrote a comprehensive ethical treatise in the geometrical style, it is clear from what he left us that, in addition to a naturalistic-metaphysical theory of the good, ethical science also includes a science of natural law. As a natural law theorist, Leibniz holds that compliance with the set of universal ethical principles that make up the natural law is necessary and sufficient to achieve the good. Also, like the eminent modern natural lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), whom Leibniz greatly admired—referring to him as the “incomparable Grotius” (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 65; T §6, p. 77), he believes that the natural law and the obligation to comply with it are independent of God's will. It is not possible, in other words, for God to have legislated a different set of moral absolutes than those that obtain; nor do the moral absolutes derive their obligatory authority from having been legislated by God. According to Leibniz, Neither the norm of conduct itself, nor the essence of the just, depends on his [God's] free decision, but rather on eternal truths, objects of the divine intellect, which constitute, so to speak, the essence of divinity itself. . . . And, indeed, justice follows certain rules of equality and of proportion [which are] no less founded in the immutable nature of things, and in the divine ideas, than are the principles of arithmetic and of geometry (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 71). The concept of justice in Leibniz's view is fixed independent of God's choice, and so God has no more power to alter the nature of justice than He does to alter the nature of circularity. The idea that justice and moral obligation do not depend on a free decree of God is a significant doctrine in Leibniz's philosophy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a focal point of debate in moral philosophy centered on a version of the Euthyphro problem—between those who sided with Grotius and Leibniz in holding that moral goodness and obligation do not depend on God's will and those who held the opposite view, that moral goodness and obligation are as they are as a result of God's free choice. Two of the most important seventeenth-century proponents of the latter, voluntarist position are Thomas Hobbes and Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694). Leibniz's objections to voluntarism became widely known in the early eighteenth century when a letter he wrote attacking voluntarism was appended to a new edition of Pufendorf's The Duty of Man and Citizen (1718). This anti-voluntarist tract, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf” (written in 1706), contains one of his fullest discussions of justice. A full treatment of Leibniz's anti-voluntarism would take us too far afield, but a central criticism is that, in regarding moral goodness and obligation as dependent on God's free choice, voluntarism undermines the basis for our love of God (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 71–2). If, as the voluntarist holds, moral goodness is an artifact of God, it is not an essential attribute of the divine nature. God therefore cannot be loved for His goodness. Voluntarism thus subverts morality and religion because love of God is essential to both (for more in depth discussions of Leibniz's anti-voluntarism, see J. B. Schneewind's The Invention of Autonomy, pp. 250–259, and Knud Haakonssen's Natural Law and Moral Philosophy, pp. 46–9). Following a current in the natural law tradition, Leibniz supplements his account of justice as the charity of the wise with three principles handed down from Roman law via Justinian's Institutes (533 AD). The three principles are “to hurt no one” (neminem laedere), “to give each his due” (suum cuique tribuere), and “to live honorably” (honeste vivere) or, as Leibniz glosses it, to live piously. Leibniz suggests that these principles underwrite three degrees, or grades, of justice (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” pp. 171–2). The lowest degree is “strict right” (ius strictum), which has as its precept that “no one is to be injured, so that he will not be given a motive for a legal action within the state, nor outside the state a right of war” (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 172). Strict right primarily includes a bare minimum set of negative duties, such as the duties not to harm, not to murder, and not to commit theft. The function of this degree of justice is the “conservation of peace.” The second degree Leibniz calls “equity” or “charity” in the narrow sense of the term, which has its basis in the principle “to give each his due.” This grade of justice includes, for example, duties of gratitude and of charitable donation, things we owe to others but which failure to fulfill is not sanctioned by law. Whereas strict right functions merely to avoid misery by fostering peace, the duties of equity actively promote the happiness of others as far as possible within this life. Strict right and equity, he explains, correspond to Grotius’ distinction between perfect and imperfect rights (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 172). Unlike Grotius, however, Leibniz views this distinction as one of degree rather than as one of kind. Also, equity, the second grade of justice, comprehends strict right within its scope, and strict right and equity are comprehended under the third and highest grade of justice, namely, piety. The principle of piety is “to live honorably.” An important difference between strict right and equity, on the one hand, and piety, on the other, is that the former pertain to our pursuit of goods and avoidance of evils over the course of our natural lives while the latter pertains to our pursuit of goods and avoidance of evils throughout our entire lives, that is, over the whole course of our immortal existence. The third grade of justice thus relies on two central tenets of Leibniz's metaphysics, for which he believes there are demonstrative proofs; indeed, he believes he provides such proofs (PE, “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason,” §4, §8; PE, “Monadology,” §4, §38). The tenets on which this account relies are (1) that the soul is immortal and (2) that God is the ruler of the universe. Most relevant to our purpose are not the arguments he supplies in support of these but, rather, the work that the theses do in his account of piety. A person is pious in Leibniz's sense of the term in virtue of being perfectly just, which means that the pious person loves others in conformity with wisdom. But it is extremely difficult to fully realize this ideal love so long as one's outlook is restricted to the goods and evils that may be encountered in one's natural life. If one's outlook is limited to this life, one may come to fulfill the first and second grades of justice without too much difficulty, but rarely does anyone achieve the highest level of justice without consideration of the soul's immortality and God's governance (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 173; PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice,” p. 58). This is because, even though the virtuous person's “interior harmony” is intrinsically pleasing, most are unable to appreciate virtue due to the fact that, from the perspective of mortality, virtuous actions often go unrewarded while vicious ones go unpunished. Thus most people will not bear tremendous hardships for the sake of virtue. Only the most exceptional individuals are willing to be virtuous and do the right thing at any mortal cost. And this very willingness, this “spiritual disposition” as Leibniz calls it, constitutes piety (PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice,” p. 58). In the opening chapter of his dialogue between himself, represented by Theophilus, and a spokesperson for Locke, named Philalethes, Leibniz makes the following autobiographical remark: You [Philalethes] had more to do with the speculative philosophers, while I was more inclined towards moral questions. But I have been learning, more and more, how greatly morality can be strengthened by the solid principles of true philosophy; which is why I have lately been studying them more intensively, and have started on some quite new trains of thought (NE, p. 71, emphasis added). We are now in a position to see how specifically the solid principles of philosophy strengthen morality. True philosophy (i.e., sound metaphysics) aids morality by providing grounds for assurance that in the end happiness is directly proportioned to merit. The more virtuous one is, the greater the happiness one can expect because one's well-being does not completely depend on the goods of this life and because it is incompatible with God's universal benevolence and infinite wisdom that even a single virtuous deed should go unrewarded and a vicious one unpunished. “After this,” Leibniz concludes, “it must be imprudent not to be just, because no one will fail to derive good or evil from what he will have done, according as it is just or unjust” (PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice,” pp. 58–9). Even though exceptional individuals may be able to remain virtuous at any apparent mortal cost, it follows from Leibniz's metaphysics that there is in fact no mortal price to pay for being virtuous. On the contrary, virtue is necessary and sufficient for true happiness. Leibniz clearly believes that rational or enlightened self-interest is in complete agreement with the requirements of virtue. The cornerstone of this harmony between interest and morality is metaphysics, his doctrines concerning the soul's immortality and God's governance. Still, the virtuous person does not regard right action and the well-being of others as a means to his or her own happiness. According to Leibniz, Thus he who acts well, not out of hope or fear, but by an inclination of his soul, is so far from not behaving justly that, on the contrary, he acts more justly than all others, imitating, in a certain way, as a man, divine justice. Whoever, indeed, does good out of love for God or of his neighbor, takes pleasure precisely in the action itself (such being the nature of love) and does not need any other incitement, or the command of a superior; for that man the saying that the law is not made for the just is valid (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 72). Not self-love but love of others motivates the virtuous person, or what Leibniz calls “disinterested love” (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 171). Metaphysics thus strengthens morality without overhauling it. In revealing that virtue alone ultimately satisfies self-interest, true philosophy guides us steadfastly along the path to virtue. Yet the truly virtuous person performs a morally right action for its own sake. Disinterested love is not completely selfless however. Nor can it consistently be on Leibniz's view since he subscribes to a version of psychological egoism; “for we do all for our own good,” he maintains, “and it is impossible for us to have other feelings whatever we may say” (W, “Letter to Nicaise,” p. 565). In his account of disinterested love, Leibniz in fact seeks to reconcile egoism and altruism, and, in doing so, anticipates Bishop Butler's (1692–1752) landmark attack against psychological egoism (BM1, Fifteen Sermons (1726), pp. 364–373). The key to Leibniz's reconciliation is a distinction between the pleasure involved in the satisfaction of a desire and the object of a desire. Desires spur all human actions. Some desires emerge distinctly in conscious awareness while many do not, or do so only confusedly. The former he calls volitions and the latter appetitions (NE, p. 173). Satisfaction of any desire gives its subject at least a minimal degree of pleasure, however fleeting. An unfulfilled volition causes at a minimum enough suffering for one to be aware of it, but an unfulfilled appetition, by contrast, gives rise to “semi-suffering,” or what he calls, following Locke, “uneasiness” (NE, p. 188–9). Such semi-suffering, Leibniz explains, “does not amount to discomfort, but is restricted to the elements or rudiments of suffering, which we cannot be aware of in themselves but which suffice to act as spurs and to stimulate the will” (NE, p. 189). No finite being is ever totally free of semi-sufferings and, to a lesser degree, semi-pleasures. Even where we appear to ourselves to be completely indifferent about our options, unconscious desires move us toward one course of action rather than another (NE, p. 188). Every desire inclines one to joy, its immediate satisfaction and the transitory pleasure arising therefrom. Moreover, Leibniz takes it as axiomatic that no one pursues anything but what appears to him or her to be the greatest good (NE, p. 185; T §45, p. 148). Failure to be virtuous and achieve happiness is therefore a consequence of ignorance, error, or inattention to what one knows. Inattention results from a lapse in the ability to call to mind the knowledge one possesses, and this, according to Leibniz, accounts for the puzzling psychological phenomenon known as weakness of will (NE, pp. 186–187). Weakness of will, it turns out, is just a type of forgetfulness. As such, an individual has some control over it, albeit indirectly. Upbringing and education certainly affect an individual's ability to bring specific thoughts to mind, but steps may be taken to ensure that certain considerations rather than others occur to one in practical deliberation (NE, p. 187 & pp. 195–196). For example, Leibniz counsels, Thus when a man is in a good frame of mind he ought to make himself laws and rules for the future, and then carry them out strictly, drawing himself away–abruptly or gradually, depending on the nature of the case–from situations which are capable of corrupting him. A lover will be cured by a voyage undertaken just for that purpose; a period of seclusion will stop us from keeping company with people who confirm some bad disposition in us. (NE, p. 187) Advance preparation is the key to strength of will. An individual needs to equip him- or herself with principles and appropriate habits of thought in order to make correct choices in pressure situations. Otherwise, he or she is merely an instrument of conscious and unconscious inclinations. Recall that true happiness is a lasting state of pleasure. The most direct route to happiness, as commonsense testifies, is not through the gratification of every desire that happens to occur to one. Volitions and appetitions must be moderated by experience and reason (NE, p. 189). Experience and reason teach us to neglect or postpone fulfillment of some desires so that others may be fulfilled instead, the most valuable among them being those that reason gives us (NE, p. 194–5). Reason generates inclinations whose strength and objects are distinct, as opposed to bodily inclinations whose strength and objects are confused. The confusion inherent in bodily inclinations makes their fulfillment considerably more problematic than that of rational inclinations. The bodily desire for nourishment, for example, may be satisfied by eating a piece of fruit, but, as Leibniz points out, “a fruit with a good taste and a good odor can conceal a poison” (PW, “Felicity,” §6a, p. 83). Fulfillment of confused bodily inclinations may, and too often does, lead to pain and suffering further on. Such however is not the case with rational inclinations. Distinct knowledge, which is a distinct perception of harmony, satisfies the distinct inclinations of reason. And since the universe is maximally harmonious, there is no end to the pleasure we can derive from the acquisition of distinct knowledge. All desires, no matter how confused or distinct, incline one toward the pleasure one takes in their satisfaction. Leibniz then can be understood as subscribing to psychological egoism where by this is meant that a person does all to satisfy one or more of his or her own inclinations. But it does not follow that all inclinations are alike—that, say, all of one's desires have one's own pleasure as their object. This is where the egoist goes wrong and where Leibniz finds room for accommodating both egoism and altruism. What all actions have in common is that they are spurred by an inclination of the agent, the satisfaction of which gives him or her pleasure. But the same type of object does not satisfy all inclinations alike. For Leibniz, some inclinations have confused sensible objects, such as the sweetness of fruit, the melody of a song, or the beauty of a painting. Others have distinct intellectual objects, such as the perfection of God, of the natural world, or of another human being. A sweet piece of fruit cannot satisfy a desire for perfection in the natural world any more than a distinct perception of harmony in the natural world can satisfy a bodily desire for nourishment. Different inclinations concern different objects. To be inclined toward the perfection of another rational being is to be disposed to take pleasure in their perfection. Notice however that the object of the inclination, that which one's view is fixed on, is not one's own pleasure. This does not mean that an individual's own pleasure cannot be the object of one of his or her desires. For most, self-love may be their predominant motive. Nevertheless, an individual can have an other-directed desire for the perfection of another rational being, which is to have disinterested love. To love disinterestedly, Leibniz explains, is to be “disposed to take pleasure in the perfection, well-being or happiness of the object of one's love. And this involves not thinking about or asking for any pleasure of one's own except what one can get from the happiness or pleasure of the loved one” (NE, p. 163). Since happiness is the outward manifestation of perfection, it makes no real difference whether love is said to have the perfection or the happiness of another rational being as its object. Leibniz thus makes the insightful suggestion that, though we do everything we do out of an inclination whose satisfaction gives us pleasure, this is perfectly compatible with desiring the perfection of another without any other end in view, which actually occurs whenever the object of our desire is another's perfection or happiness. “In truth,” Leibniz concludes, “the happiness of those whose happiness pleases us turns into our own happiness, since things which please us are desired for their own sake” (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 171). Genuine altruism, then, does not require complete selflessness. Indeed, selflessness, even if it were possible, would not be desirable (W, “Letter to Nicaise,” p. 566). After all, according to Leibniz, One cannot envisage in God any other motive than that of perfection, or, if you like, of his pleasure; supposing (according to my definition) that pleasure is nothing but a feeling of perfection, he has nothing to consider outside himself; on the contrary everything depends on him. But his goodness would not be supreme, if he did not aim at the good and at perfection so far as is possible. But what will one say, if I show that this same motive has a place in truly virtuous and generous men, whose supreme function [degré] is to imitate divinity, in so far as human nature is capable of it? (PW, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice,” pp. 57–8). Imitate divinity—this is the overarching imperative of Leibniz's ethics, if not the guiding principle of his entire philosophical system. For him, God, not humanity, is the “measure of all things” (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 69). Our chief task therefore is to make perpetual progress toward the ideal of divine nature, for each of us is like a little divinity in the City of God (PE, “Monadology,” §83 & §85, pp. 223–4; T §147, pp. 215–216). - Butler, Joseph, Fifteen Sermons, in British Moralists: 1650–1800 (Volume I), edited by D. D. Raphael, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1991. Leibniz, G. W. |[W]||Leibniz: Selections, edited by Philip P. Wiener, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951.| |[M]||Leibniz: The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings, translated with introduction and notes by Robert Latta, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898.| |[NE]||New Essays on Human Understanding, translated and edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.| |[PE]||G. W. Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989.| |[PW]||Leibniz: Political Writings (second edition), translated and edited by Patrick Riley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.| |[T]||Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, translated by E. M. Huggard, edited by Austin Farrer, Chicago/La Salle: Open Court, 1951| - Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. - Broad, C. D., 1975, Leibniz: An Introduction, edited by C. Lewy, Cambridge University Press. - Brown, Gregory, 1988, “Leibniz's Theodicy and the Confluence of Worldly Goods,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, XXVI (4): 571–592. - –––, 1995, “Leibniz's Moral Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, edited by Nicholas Jolley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Haakonssen, Knud, 1996, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - –––, 1998, “Divine/Natural Law Theories in Ethics,” in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Volume II), edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Hostler, John, 1975, Leibniz's Moral Philosophy, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. - Irwin, Terence, 2008, “Leibniz: Naturalism and Eudaemonism,” in The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study (Volume II: From Suarez to Rousseau), Oxford: Oxford University Press. - Johns, Christopher, 2009, “The Grounds of Right and Obligation in Leibniz and Hobbes,” The Review of Metaphysics, LXII (3): 551–574. - Jolley, Nicholas, 2005, Leibniz (Chapter Seven: Ethics and Politics), London: Routledge. - MacDonald, Scott (ed.), 1991, Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. - Mercer, Christia, 2004, “Leibniz, Aristotle, and Ethical Knowledge,” in The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy, edited by Riccardo Pozzo, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. - Mulvaney, Robert J., 1968, “The Early Development of Leibniz's Concept of Justice,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIX (1): 53–72. - Rawls, John, 2000, “Leibniz I: His Metaphysical Perfectionism,” in Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, edited by Barbara Herman, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. - Rescher, Nicholas, 1967, The Philosophy of Leibniz, Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall. - –––, 1979, Leibniz: An Introduction to his Philosophy, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. - Riley, Patrick, 1996, Leibniz’ Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as the Charity of the Wise, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. - Russell, Bertrand, 1900, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, London: Routledge, 1992. - Rutherford, Donald, 1995, Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - –––, 2003, “Patience sans Espérance: Leibniz's Critique of Stoicism,” in Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Jon Miller and Brad Inwood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Schneewind, J. B., 1998, The Invention of Autonomy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. How to cite this entry. Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society. Look up this entry topic at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with links to its database.

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Self-Determination incorporates a set of concepts and values that underscore a core belief that individuals who require support through the public mental health system must have the freedom to define the life they seek, and obtain assistance to achieve that life. Individuals need to have access to meaningful choices, and to be assured of control over the course of their lives. The Four Principles of Self-Determination Freedom: The ability for an individual with chosen family and/or friends to plan a life with necessary supports. Authority: The ability for an individual to control a certain sum of dollars in order to purchase support services, with help of a social network or circle of friends and family members, if needed. Support: The arranging of resources and personnel, to assist an individual to live a life rich in community associations and contributions. Responsibility: The acceptance of a valued role in the community through employment, community connections, as well as, accountability for spending public dollars in ways that makes a person’s life better. For more information on Self Determination at Tuscola Behavioral Health Systems, contact the Self Determination Coordinator at 989-673-6161.

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Grapefruit not to be taken lightly Eating a grapefruit or drinking its juice can be a great way to get vitamin C, but it can also be dangerous when taking certain prescription drugs, researchers warn. Grapefruit juice can interact with more than 85 oral medications, with about half of them potentially leading to severe — even deadly — consequences, finds a comprehensive review by a research team affiliated with Western University in London, Ont. “Many of the drugs that interact with grapefruit are highly prescribed and are essential for the treatment of important or common medical conditions,” authors of the review write in Monday’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Lead researcher David Bailey, a clinical pharmacologist at the Lawson Health Research Institute, said that in the last four years, the number of medications with the potential to interact with grapefruit and cause severe adverse effects has increased from 17 to at least 43. “Half of these drugs actually can cause sudden death,” Bailey said from London, Ont., noting that interactions can result in acute kidney or respiratory failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, or other serious effects. Medications altered by grapefruit include highly prescribed cholesterol-lowering statins, some key heart drugs, and certain anti-psychotic and pain medicines. That’s because grapefruit contains a chemical that interferes with an enzyme that controls how drugs are absorbed through the intestines, resulting in a potentially toxic dose of medication. “We know it boosts drug levels in blood,” Bailey said. “Now you’re seeing so many drugs where the levels get boosted that the consequences are really quite dire.” Other citrus fruits that contain the chemical, at least to some degree, include limes, pomelos and Seville oranges, an ingredient frequently used in marmalades. Commonly prescribed statins like atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor) and lovastatin (Mevacor, Altoprev) have a high to very-high risk of interacting with grapefruit and causing rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle fibres that can lead to acute kidney failure. “Your urine looks like wine,” said Bailey. “You can be in such extreme pain that you literally can’t walk across the room and your kidneys have totally shut down. “You don’t have to take an awful lot of grapefruit. You can be taking one grapefruit a day or just drinking 250 millilitres. But the magnitude of the increase (of the drug) in some individuals can be so large that you can precipitate this adverse event.” The anti-clotting agent clopidogrel (Plavix), taken to prevent a heart attack or stroke, “doesn’t work at all if grapefruit is eaten,” he said, pointing out another medication often taken by older Canadians. Bailey was part of a research group that first raised a red flag about a handful of grapefruit-drug interactions more than 20 years ago, and since then the number of affected medications coming to market has jumped significantly. “But the biggest problem that we have facing us is that the science is there, but it sits on the shelf; it’s not being applied, which is very frustrating,” he said. “It’s gone from this curiosity — ’It’s interesting, but what does it mean in real practice?’ — to the point where everybody needs to know about this.” Bailey hopes that by alerting doctors through the CMAJ article, they will make sure patients prescribed an affected drug will be told not to ingest grapefruit or its juice. As well, the information could help physicians trying to diagnose a serious health event in a patient without knowing grapefruit is part of their diet, he said, and where the person hasn’t thought to mention the fact. “That’s why we wrote the paper. If you’re not aware of the possibility, it’s very unlikely you’ll think of it.”

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Most vision problems are caused by some form of irregularly shaped eyeballs, and astigmatism is among the most common. If you're experiencing blurry vision both close up and far away, you may have astigmatism. It can also cause headaches and eyestrain, and can affect students' ability to concentrate and work in school. It's easily correctible, but fixing it means seeing an optometrist. Elko Eye Doctor Explains Astigmatism It's very rare to find perfectly round eyeballs. Most are slightly flattened in one direction or another, causing blurry vision. When an eyeball is shaped like an oval instead of being round, the result is a case of astigmatism. Because the eyeball is not perfectly round, the light is distorted as it hits your eyes, and the result is blurry vision. Astigmatism can happen at any age, and it causes blurriness both up close and far away. No one is exactly sure why some eyes are oval shaped to create astigmatism, but it is known to be hereditary. If your parents have astigmatism, that doesn't mean you're doomed to wearing eyeglasses for the rest of your life, but your eye doctor can perform the necessary tests to determine how much astigmatism you may have and if glasses are necessary. Diagnosing Astigmatism at Total Eyecare The only way to know for sure whether your blurry vision means astigmatism is by visiting an optometrist and having an eye exam. At Total Eyecare, our eye doctors can perform a few painless tests that can determine the cause of your vision problems. A topography and keratometry measurement will be taken of your eyes to determine the shape of the cornea and any possible astigmatism. These measurements also help the doctor to diagnose progressive diseases of the cornea such as keratoconus, which can cause very irregular astigmatism and blurry vision. Astigmatism Treatment with Our Elko Optometrist Almost every patient who experiences astigmatism can have his/her eyes corrected with a variety of methods, just like those who are nearsighted or farsighted. Your correction options include: - Eyeglass Lenses for astigmatism have a different prescription in one direction than they do in another, which corrects the distortion that's causing the blurriness. For patients who are over 40 years of age, bifocal or progressive lenses may be necessary - Contact Lenses Contact lenses made for astigmatism are called toric lenses. Like eyeglasses, they have a different prescription in multiple parts of the lens. A small weight is formed in the bottom of the lens to keep it right side up on the eye. This weight is so small patients never feel it, but it's just enough to keep the contact lens in the right position - LASIK Surgery A more permanent solution, LASIK can reshape the cornea to eliminate astigmatism in most cases For more information about astigmatism treatment, call Total Eyecare today at (775) 738-8491.

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The stencils you use for printing are only as good as the coating procedures you follow to produce them. Here you Another common cause of residue on the screen that can show up in the emulsion coating is water and other chemicals that hide in the profile of retensionable frames. Generally this problem is at its worst when the screen is dried in the upright position. Water and contaminants trapped in the profile run down the screen after degreasing. The contamination dries on the screen and later interferes with a good bond between the fabric and the emulsion. For this reason, always give retensionable frames a good wipe after degreasing and store them parallel to the floor when drying. Abrading mesh scratches the surface of the threads, which aids in stencil adhesion but is usually only required when using indirect stencils. One reason not to abrade mesh is that you may decrease the ink-transfer efficiency of the final printing screen. Because the surface area of the thread is effectively larger, the ink clings to the threads for the same reasons capillary film clings better. This may result in less ink from the mesh transferring to the substrate. Another reason to avoid abrading the mesh is that it will likely cause more ghost haze and stains to remain in the mesh after reclaiming, also due to the increased surface area. The stencil’s main function is to allow for accurate reproduction of the image from the film positive (or from the image rendered by a computer-to-screen imaging system). The quality of the stencil pertains to how effectively it bridges the mesh and the amount of resolution and edge definition it provides after exposure. These abilities vary dramatically for any given emulsion because of several factors related to coating and exposure, as well as the chemical characteristics of the emulsion. One of the main functions of the stencil is to create a gasket with the material being printed. Among the reasons why capillary stencil films are popular is because their uniform surface leads to a good gasket right off the roll. With proper control during coating, direct emulsions also can be used to create similarly smooth stencils. Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.

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Aggression Management CEU Course The ability to effectively handle aggression is a crucial skill for someone working in Behavioral Health. Self-management and assertive communication are two key components to verbal deescalation. This course will explore identifying, preventing and managing aggressive behavior through the use of verbal de-escalation interventions. Upon successful completion of this course the learner will be able to: - Define “aggression” and “verbal de-escalation” - Identify warning signs for aggressive behavior - Give examples of verbal de-escalation techniques to use in a crisis situation

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I think it started with commercial weather forecasters using modern numerical forecasting models, but it all goes back to the slide rule. Before the general availability of calculators, there were two ways of performing day-to-day engineering and scientific calculations: using a slide rule, or log tables. The latter were printed in thin books of mathematical tables, found in many a pocket, and at every desk. The underlying maths is moderately complicated, and long defunct, but involved adding logarithms as an elegantly simple arithmetical route to determine the results of multiplication. Slide rules were even more cabalistic. Armed with a hybrid sandwich of specially calibrated rulers, the adept user could set one scale against another (by sliding the middle section of the rule), and read off the product of two numbers. Until calculators found their way into the pockets of engineers and scientists, in the early 1970s, it was the white magic wand of the slide rule which set them apart as members of a priestly cult. Log tables and slide rules had inherent imprecision, so those who calculated learned how to present their results with an appropriate precision. If the result of a calculation was, say, 4.136, then it might be expressed at “just over four”. If it was critical whether it was closer to 4.1 than 4.2, then we might have said “about 4.1”. We knew that the last couple of digits were in doubt because of the error of our approximate method of computation. Digital computers changed that, in people’s minds at least. For most users, particularly of spreadsheets, the results shown are completely accurate and perfectly precise. When by chance the result is shown as 3.999 instead of 4.0, users complain that the spreadsheet isn’t accurate, and confusion starts to take hold. Little do they realise that many floating point numbers cannot be represented exactly in binary form, and the small approximations which result can accumulate, causing this sort of effect. Digital isn’t really as precise as we might think, although software engineers like to conceal those small lapses in superficial perfection as much as possible. So it is with the weather. We all know, from long and bitter experience, that a 64% chance of rain means that we could get sunburned or soaked. Yet none of us seems to question whether there is any meaningful difference between a 64% chance and one of 62%, or why it would not be better just to say 60%, in round figures. The computer said 64%, so that is what is expressed. We have also lost common expressions which no longer sound so precise: why say “100% chance” when we mean a certainty, “50%” when we mean half, and so on? The influence of digital precision has run deep into our turns of phrase. So when, this afternoon, a weather forecasting app said that in 10 minutes it would rain for 10 minutes, but at the same time there was a 43% chance of rain over the next hour, the numerical conflicts should have been better resolved. In reality, what it should have said was that there was a roughly even chance of it drizzling in the next hour or so. It all comes back to being honest about our statistical confidence. The good meteorologist has a pretty good idea of the confidence that they place in a forecast. But they are not allowed to temper their expressed over-precision: it seems we expect the impossibly precise, and then blame them when it does not happen like that. This reaches the heights of absurdity when we discuss the results of opinion polls. Typically they are conducted on minuscule samples, then extended over huge populations. Good statisticians know well their confidence limits, which are usually much wider than the small trends which commentators single out, and debate to exhaustion. We cannot, and should not try to, wind the clock back to the heyday of the slide rule in the 1950s and 60s. But we do need to be much more appreciative of uncertainty, and ensure that our precision is appropriate to likely error. Anyone for a swift 50.2% down the pub, then?

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Geologist, b. at St. Thomas, West Indies, 26 February, 1814; d. in Paris 10 October, 1876. Going to Paris at an early age, he entered the Ecole des Mines and studied there. His first work in the scientific field included a series of explorations in the Antilles, in which he gave special attention to seismic and volcanic phenomena. He returned in 1855, and three years later visited Vesuvius and Stromboli in pursuit of his volcanic studies. He evolved the theory that volcanic eruptions are due to the entrance of sea water into the fissures of the earth's crust; coming in contact with hot rocks, it produces the explosive and eruptive manifestations. This was confirmed in his mind by the fact that so many volcanoes are near the sea-coast. In 1857 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences of Paris. He was an assistant to Elie de Beaumont in the Collége de France, and succeeded him as professor in 1875. Previous to this (in 1872) he had been made Inspector General of the Meteorological Service. He established a chain of meteorologic stations through France and Algiers, and was first president of the observatory in Mountsouris, one of this chain. He replaced Dufrémy in the Académie des Sciences. He also did much work in chemistry, notably in the analysis of minerals and also in molecular physics. Since 1862 he had been an officer of the Legion of Honour. His works, including papers and notes in "Comptes Rendus" and in the "Annales de Chimie" are very numerous; the most important are the following: "Etudes géologiques sur les Iles de Ténériffe et de Fogo" (1846), not completed; "Voyage géoIogique aux Antilles et aux Iles de Ténériffe et de, Fogo" (1847); "Lettres à M. Elie de Baumont sur l'éruption du Vésuve"; "Comptes Rendus d l'Académie des Sciences" (1855); "Eruptions actuelles du volcan de Stromboli"; "Recherches sur les principaux phénomènes de metéorologie et de physique terrestre aux Antilles" (1861). The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed between 1907 and 1912 in fifteen hard copy volumes. Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration. No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny. Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912 Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online

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"The basic characteristic of any artistic expression is the ordering of a visual impression into a coherent, complete, living form. The difference between a mere expression, however intense and revealing, and an artistic image of that expression, lies in the range and structure of its form. This structure is specific. The colors, lines, and shapes corresponding to our sense impressions are organized into a balance, a harmony, or rhythm that is is in an analogous correspondence with feelings; and these feelings are, in turn, analogues of thoughts and ideas. An artistic image, therefore, is more that a graph of emotions. It has meaning in depth, and, at each level, there is a corresponding level of human response to the world. In this way, an artistic form is a symbolic form grasped directly by the senses but reaching beyond them and connecting all the strata of our inner world of sense, feeling, and thought. The intensity of the sensory pattern strengthens the emotional and intellectual pattern; conversely, our intellect illuminates such a sensory pattern, investing it with symbolic power. This essential unity of primary sense experience and intellectual evaluation makes the artistic form unique in human experience and therefore in human culture. Our closest human experience is love, where again sensation, feeling, and idea live in a vital unity." “For some time there was a widely held notion (zealously fostered by the daily press) to the effect that the 'thinking ocean' of Solaris was a gigantic brain, prodigiously well-developed and several million years in advance of our own civilization, a sort of 'cosmic yogi', a sage, a symbol of omniscience, which had long ago understood the vanity of all action and for this reason had retreated into an unbreakable silence.”

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FEBRUARY 21, 2013 Black markets arise when governments set restrictions on what goods and services individuals may purchase. Provision of these goods and services are taken over by persons willing to violate the law. Because of the artificial scarcity created by government policy, these parties face much less competition than they would in a free market and can therefore charge higher prices to consumers. Due to the illegal nature of operations in the black market, producers and distributors may take aggressive measures to defend their work against intrusion. The Cost of the War on Drugs Steve Horwitz - Regulation and Intervention Related Freeman Articles MAY 29, 2012 by SANDY IKEDA An important connection existed between the anti-liquor lobby and passage of the income-tax amendment.

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The researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics want to fetch the Sun's fire to Earth. A future fusion power plant is to produce energy by fusing nuclei of the two heavy hydrogen isotopes, viz. deuterium and tritium, to form helium. The fusion fire is brought to ignition in a plasma with a temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius, that is confined within a magnetic field preventing contact with the vessel wall. The ITER international test reactor is to demonstrate that the reaction yields more energy than is required to attain the high ignition temperature. Research scientists are investigating devices of various types and the processes occurring in them. In operation at Garching is Germany’s largest fusion device at present, ASDEX Upgrade. When ready, Wendelstein 7-X, now being built at the Greifswald branch, will be the world’s largest fusion device of the stellarator type. Experiment and theory at these sites are concerned with investigating how the fusion conditions can be realised with the greatest efficiency. Last but not least, IPP is also studying the socio-economic conditions under which nuclear fusion could contribute to the energy mix of the future. There is always the possibility to do a PhD. Please contact the directors or research group leaders at the Institute. No job offers available

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Monday, January 28, 2013 Almost Consul to Jerusalem Can you name the first man appointed U.S. Consul to Jerusalem? In 1844, Warder Cresson was appointed, but never served, as the appointment was revoked while he was en route. Cresson’s journey to the Holy Land would have a profound effect on this earnest, truth-searching man. Born in Philadelphia in 1798, Cresson was raised as a Quaker. In his middle years, married with a family and a successful farm, he began questioning his fellow Quakers’ way of life and wrote a scathing pamphlet calling on them to live more humbly. Cresson’s appointment to Jerusalem was no accident. It appears, in fact, that he may have even petitioned for it, believing that in Jerusalem he would be able to watch the ingathering of the exiles and the “second coming.” A few years prior to his appointment, Cresson had met Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. Their friendship inspired Cresson’s interest in Judaism. Although he had no official office, Cresson remained in Jerusalem. He was fascinated by the vibrant Jewish life, particularly noting the sacrifice of material wealth that these Jews made in order to live according to the rules of the Torah. By mid-1848, Warder Cresson chose to convert. He had himself circumcised and officially became Michael Boaz Yisrael ben Abraham. Warder Cresson’s journey of faith did not please those whom he had left behind. When he returned to the States to settle his affairs before moving to Jerusalem permanently, his wife, Elizabeth Towsend, and one of his sons had him declared insane by the court. His appeals trial called nearly 100 witnesses and turned into a major media event. Four years after he first returned from Jerusalem, the court found in Cresson’s favor. With the court case resolved (and his sanity confirmed), Cresson returned to Jerusalem and assumed the lifestyle of the Sephardic Jews there. He remarried and devoted himself to the goal of agricultural redemption of the land. He died in November 1860 and was buried on the Mount of Olives. Copyright © 2013 NJOP. All rights reserved. Related Treats: Other Famous Converts A Convert of the Inquisition Abraham ben Abraham The Emperor's Nephew Lord George Gordon The Book of Ruth

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We’re always assessing the state of the world of computers by prodding it with various hi-tech instruments in different places, taking measurements from different Internet sensors, and studying “information noise”. From the information we glean from all this, plus data from other sources, we constantly evaluate the overall body temperature and blood pressure of the computer world, and carefully monitor the main risk areas. And what we’re seeing at the mo – that’s what I’ll tell you about in this post. To many, it seems that the most diseased elements of the digital world are home computers, tablets, cellphones and corporate networks – that is, the computer world that most folks know about – be it of a work or home/consumer coloring. But they’d be wrong. Despite the fact that the majority of cyberattacks occur in “traditional” cyberspace (cyberespionage, cybercrime, etc.), they don’t represent the main threat. In actual fact, what should be feared most of all are computer attacks on telecommunications (Internet, mobile networks) and ICS (automated Industrial Control Systems). One particular investigation of ours, conducted as part of our ongoing secure OS project, detected a seriously low level of “computer immunity” for control systems of critically important infrastructure. ICS, including SCADA, all of which is made up of software and computerized hardware, is responsible for controlling – and the smooth, uninterrupted running of – tech-processes in practically every sector of industry, be it the power industry, transportation, the mass media, and so on. Computer systems control critical aspects of all modern cars, airplanes and trains; every power station and waterworks, every factory, and even every modern office building (lifts, electricity and water supply, emergency systems like smoke alarms and sprinklers, air conditioning, etc.). SCADA and other ICS – it’s all imperceptible, working in the background in some corner or other nobody takes any notice of… but a whole lot around us depends on it. Alas, as with any other computer systems, SCADA & Co. can be exposed to malware and hacker attacks, as was clearly demonstrated by the Stuxnet worm in 2010. Therefore, protection of critically important systems has become one of the main strategic priorities of computer security in most developed countries of the world, while in response to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure some countries are ready to go to war – real tanks-and-bombs war (if they can find out which country is responsible). So indeed, the situation’s sure hotting up. Of course, we’re on the case with SCADA security, and have been for a while. Over the last several years we’ve been conducting detailed analysis of ICS, been establishing the fundamental principles of SCADA security, and also developing a prototype solution for guaranteed SCADA protection from malware threats – based on traditional endpoint security and our secure OS. Products fit for consumption aren’t ready just yet, but active work is currently underway – so they should be soon… Now, while continuing our usual analysis of SCADA security, earlier today we stumbled upon one heck of a big surprise: we came across “Mother-SCADA”, the chief, predominant, all-powerful ICS of the whole world, on whose smooth and uninterrupted operation relies literally everything on the planet: from how breakfast tastes and the size of annual bonuses, to the hours of night and day time and how fast the sun and the stars move across the skies. Yep, we’ve gone and found the SCADA that manages all the technological processes in the Matrix! You’ve probably all heard about the progressive work of the American scientists the Wachowskis, which confirms that the terrestrial earth (as it is seen by us humans) is a projected, virtual world of a real world. Technically, this projection is made possible using the industrial complex of the Matrix. And so our uncovering Mother-SCADA – the chief behind-the-scenes enabler of the Matrix – is no less than phenomenal. It represents a lot more than the customary showcasing of our cybermastery, and it’s not the next all-new cyber-frightener we’ve uncovered. No. This, clearly and very loudly represents our taking a giant step leap forward and upward on behalf of both man and mankind to a new paradigm of cybertechnology, changing our very perception of reality as we know it. Of course, since this morning’s discovery, protecting Matrix SCADA is now the single most important task facing us all today, since control of the “upper level of reality” has the trickle-down effect of ensuring computer security in our projected world. Today, we managed only to plug into Mother-SCADA and conduct preliminary analysis of the system. Critical vulnerabilities so far haven’t been found, but the architecture of the system doesn’t permit a 100% guarantee of its security, even though it’s built on an unknown branch of UNIX. We also attempted analysis of the security of its PLC (programmable logic controllers); however, alas, we weren’t able to determine the manufacturer. Without question a lot of work lies ahead; investigating Mother-SCADA has only just begun; but there’s also some good news: the data we already have are sufficient for the projection of extra systems of its security. Therefore (drum roll … cymbal crash!), I hereby formally (in a not-so formal blog post) announce today the start of development of a security solution for the omniscient, omnipotent, mother of all SCADAs – Mother-SCADA. I also would like to call on the world’s top experts to come and work with us – to help design and implement the required Mother-SCADA security and the secure operating systems it relies upon. Welcome! That’s all on Matrix SCADA for now. Expect more earth-shattering news later today!…

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Buy custom Reflective Thinking essay Critical thinking is also known as reflective thinking. This type of thinking referrers to rational thinking that is independent. Critical thinking relates to the evaluation of issues, or concepts from a broader perspective to a narrow perspective. This way, critical thinking strives to find a logical argument to presented questions in the quest to arrive at a rational conclusion. Further, critical thinking is a mental process that calls for rigorous analysis of issues in order to determine if the concepts presented are true or false before arrive at an irrefutable judgment (Moore, 2010). Critical thinking requires intellectual reasoning that allows individuals to make inferences to the issues at hand. An individual who employs critical thinking is able to understand how different ideas are interconnected. Through critical thinking, one is also able to approach emerging issues from a different perspective thus, enabling them to evaluate facts from a neutral point of view before making any conclusions. When using critical thinking, ideas are justified and evaluated before they are adapted. Therefore, one is able to sample and prioritize all viable options before settling on the most efficient tactic (Moore, 2010). Application of ritical thinking Sometime back, I was involved in a committee that was tasked with recommending a viable staff training program. Among the requirements for this task involved, choosing between in-house training and outsource training. In-house training involved capitalizing on our human resource department for training. On the other hand, outsource training capitalized on paying another organization to train our staff. The two options were viable and practical. However, we had to employ critical thinking in order to arrive at an option that would be more effective for our staff. This involved a lengthy discussion, where members of the committee engaged in critical thinking. In this case, critical thinking encompassed, analyzing the pros and cons of the two options before settling on the most efficient option. Importance of critical thinking Critical thinking is a decision making tool. This is because, critical thinking involves the use of analytical skills that ensure rigorous analysis of emerging issues. When issues are analyzed rigorously, one is able to make a rational decision that stands to benefit their organization or plans. Critical thinking is also important towards ensuring growth in the work place. It also leads too efficiency and high quality services and products. Decision making is a long process that requires adequate planning and time. Therefore, by employing critical thinking, ideas are dealt with in a systematic manner thus, ensuring the success of the decision making process (Romano, 2007). Critical thinking in the decision making process is vital when dealing with new innovations. It is through critical thinking that we are able to evaluate the applicability of new concepts in the work place. Through critical thinking, it is possible to make rational changes to new concepts in order to customize them to fit within the goals of a specific organization. Critical thinking skills such as persistence, assertiveness, creativity, flexibility and empathy are prerequisite tools in the decision making process. This is because; they provide a favorable environment for making well-versed decisions that are results oriented (Romano, 2007). In conclusion, critical thinking is a necessary tool especially for individuals who are at the management level. This is because they are tasked with making rational decisions on behalf of a larger group. Further, to arrive at a logical conclusion, it is important to employ critical thinking as it allows for evaluation of facts, concepts and ideas.

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Grecized form of the Aramaic = "heads of the school" (pirḳa, literally "chapter," hence "discourse"). The name occurs in Justinian's "Novella," No. 146, Περὶ 'Εβραίων, of the year 553, in which the Archipherecites, the elders, and the teachers are forbidden to use their power of anathema in order to prevent the reading of the Greek version of the Bible in place of the Midrashic or Targumic interpretation. - Grätz, Gesch. der Juden, iii. 359, note 7; - Kriegel, Corpus Juris, iii. 640. - Compare Academies in Palestine.

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NetLogo is a programmable modeling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent "agents" all operating concurrently. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals. NetLogo lets students open simulations and "play" with them, exploring their behavior under various conditions. It is also an authoring environment which enables more... - Add variable watchers (#590) - bug: in-cone is broken in 3D when turtle's pitch isn't 0 (#9) - bug: NetLogo 3D on Mac OS X 10.6/7: menu items grayed out, unusable with mouse (#47) - bug: Only the direction indicator is duplicated when duplicating link shape in link shape editor (#517) - bug: Issue 517 (Only the direction indicator is duplicated when duplicating more... - OS X 10.4 or later

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Preventing Lead Exposure during Metal Recycling New York State Department of Health conducted a Metal Recycling Industry Project (MRIP) that collected information on metal recycling operations and processes from 101 metal recyclers throughout New York State. This project had two components: a mail survey and on-site industrial hygiene evaluations. MRIP assessed the worker lead exposures associated with routine metal recycling tasks, such as sorting, shearing, and torch cutting a variety of materials through personal air monitoring, surface contamination evaluation and monitoring workers' blood lead levels (BLL). Findings from this project include: - Significant lead exposure occurred when torch cutting not only painted metals, but also unpainted metals and new steel; - Lead contamination was found in bathrooms and lunchrooms, and on workers' hands prior to eating; - Metal recycling companies did not recognize potential sources of lead exposure (such as new steel) and underestimated the degree of exposure; and - Metal recycling companies that we visited made substantial improvements to their lead protection programs after receiving information and technical guidance. - Heavy Metals Registry The Heavy Metals Registry receives reports of all blood lead tests performed on New York State residents, along with reportable levels of mercury, arsenic and cadmium. - Occupational Health Clinic Network The NYS Occupational Health Clinic Network includes seven regionally based Clinics along with an agricultural medicine clinic. The Clinics are mandated to: provide objective diagnosis of suspected work-related medical problems; conduct medical screenings for groups of workers who are at increased risk of occupational illness; make referrals for treatment to other medical specialists. - Industrial Hygiene Services NYSDOH Industrial hygiene staff provide technical assistance and expertise to individual companies for controlling workplace hazards. - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NIOSH conducts research on workplace hazards, develops guidance materials, and certifies respirators. - US Department of Labor - Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Federal agency that enforces health and safety regulations in private sector worksites in NYS. - US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Federal agency has information on solid waste and recycling. - Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) is a national organization that represents more than 1,200 companies that process, broker, and consume scrap commodities, including metals, paper, plastics, glass, rubber, electronics, and textiles.

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Phoenix Children’s Hospital announced the creation of the Ronald A. Matricaria Institute of Molecular Medicine Tuesday, in a joint venture with The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and The University of Arizona’s College of Medicine. The three organizations are joining forces with the hopes of unlocking genetic codes in child, adolescent and young adult cancer patients and develop drug therapies in real time to improve the outcome and treatment in these young demographics. “Our goal is to bring genomics to the forefront of pediatrics,” said Robert L. Meyer, Phoenix Children’s president and CEO. “Research and development of novel treatments for pediatric diseases has fallen short over past decades.” The reason why the Ronald A. Matricaria Institute of Molecular Medicine is focusing on young patients is because there have been hardly any new therapies introduced to this population in the past two decades. The new institute hopes that clinical studies on children will lead to a better understanding of specific differences between children and adults, which will hopefully lead to the development of safer, more effective and more age-appropriate drug treatments that can be provided in a faster amount of time. “A challenge with existing molecular medicine programs is the amount of time it takes to develop a new drug or treatment,” Meyer said. “Our collaboration with TGen and University of Arizona opens the doors to making a portfolio of drugs and compounds available immediately.” The institute will also focus their clinical studies based on underlying genetic and molecular functions of different pediatric cancers, rather than specifically on tumor type. Furthermore, physicians will then create various treatment plans specifically for each patient treated based on the drug therapy that will attack and correct the malfunctioning genes. With the start of the new institute, a special team of physician scientists will be brought on board to help start out the genomic profiling: Dr. Timothy Triche, a pediatric pathologist and former director of the Center for Personalized Medicine at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles; Dr. Robert Arceci, a pediatric oncologist from Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Daniel D. Von Hoff, a medical oncologist at TGen. “We are trying to figure out a way to have children get appropriate drugs,” said Dr. Robert Arceci. “We all want to know what causes diseases and how we can treat them and I think it takes a special team of people to do this and it takes a lot of unselfish commitment.” A founding member from whom the institute gets its name, Ronald A. Matricaria, a member of the board of directors for the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, is excited and hopeful for what the new institute is capable of doing in the world of pediatric care. “Based on my knowledge of the institute and many years of working in the medical field, I’m confident that we can chart a new course for addressing the unique needs of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases,” Matricaria said. “We could have a huge impact on children’s live and what could be better than that.

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The procedure in criminal cases is substantially the same throughout the United States. The person suspected of crime is taken into custody by a police officer, sometimes by service of a warrant of arrest. If the crime is serious, the case is first presented to a grand jury, which draws up an indictment if there is sufficient evidence to justify trial; otherwise it discharges the accused. While action is pending, the party charged may be released on bail. Trial is by jury or before a judge alone if a jury is not required, or if the defendant consents. The government presents its case (i.e., attempts to prove the allegations of the indictment), through the public prosecutor, usually called the district attorney, while the accused is represented by counsel that he or she has chosen or that the court has appointed. The legal presumption of innocence puts the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on the prosecution, unless, of course, the defendant pleads guilty to the charge. A defendant may agree to plead guilty as a result of plea bargaining; most U.S. criminal cases are now settled before trial in this manner. Special rules restricting the introduction of evidence in criminal trials further protect the defendant. If the accused is found or adjudged innocent, he or she is discharged; if the accused is found guilty, the judge pronounces sentence. (For types of criminal penalties, see capital punishment; corporal punishment; prison.) If the defendant is convicted, an appeal may be filed; the prosecution, however, cannot appeal an acquittal. Generally speaking, this procedure is confined to felonies; misdemeanors, being relatively less serious offenses, are handled in a more summary fashion. It is generally accepted that no court will enforce the criminal law of another jurisdiction, but by means of extradition a fugitive from justice may be delivered to the competent authorities. Sections in this article: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More on criminal law Criminal Procedure from Fact Monster: See more Encyclopedia articles on: Law: Divisions and Codes

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I have been working on a group project for another class that involves storytelling and juveniles in correctional institutions. As I did research for the project, I found an appallingly short supply of information for providing library services to incarcerated youth; most articles and studies focus on adults. While on the surface this doesn't seem like an issue, it is. Adult library users have very different needs than those of children and young adults. There isn't a one size fits all model in public libraries, so why should it be different for correctional libraries? Do we not care to provide for this segment of the population who are already marginalized? It is really upsetting to consider the opportunities lost by not providing adequate library services to these youth. As part of the project, we created a mock storytelling program for juvenile inmates. As I did some research, I learned about the many challenges that face librarians in detention centers and other juvenile correctional facilities. Lack of belief in the necessity of a library, lack of funding, and misunderstanding the population are issues that cannot be changed quickly. What is most distressing is to learn how much disservice is being done to these youth. It is common for inmates to have learning disabilities. They are often illiterate in print media or barely functioning literates. So what does that have to do with media literacy? I know it's a bit of a jump to go from illiterate to wholly (including media) literate, but at the same time, I feel that most of the individuals in detention centers probably had some interactions with media, and maybe more interaction with media (TVs, computers, radios, etc.) than with printed materials such as books. I also feel that if we are truly going to help these children and young adults, we need to teach them new skills that will allow them to find a productive place within society, and perhaps remove themselves from old patterns. And, teaching media literacy can coincide with teaching inmates reading, writing, and comprehension. I would really encourage others to learn about library services to the incarcerated. While the focus of this class is on media literacy and young adults, many incarcerated adults also lack the skills necessary to be considered media literate. Often, and especially for those who have been incarcerated for many years, the world is a completely different place than it was when they went into prison. Even for people on the outside, the world of media is constantly changing. You Tube, social networking sites, texting, IMing- all of these concepts are pretty new and often times intimidating to those being released. It is our duty as librarians and as citizens to be aware of the needs of this unique population, and to be proactive in helping them. Sources that provide some basic information: Chesseman, Margaret. “Library Services to Young People and Children in Correctional Facilities.” Library Trends. 26.1 (summer 1977): 125-139. (A bit dated, I know, but still an interesting read) Rubin, Rhea Joyce & Daniel Suvak, eds. Libraries Inside: A Practical Guide for Prison Librarians. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. 1995.

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Inflammation Is The Body Responding To An Injury Biology Essay Inflammation is a biochemical and cellular response of an injury resulting redness (rubor), swelling (tumor), heat (calor), pain (dolor), and loss of function (function laesa). There are three changes that occur in the microcirculation near the site of an injury. First, blood vessels dilate increasing blood flow in the area. Second, the vascular permeability increases resulting the outward leakage of plasma into the tissue which forms inflammatory exudates. Third, white blood cells adhere to the inner walls of vessels and then emigrates through vessel walls into the tissue at the site of injury (Huether & McCance 2000). Inflammation and repair has several phases. Each phase involves different biochemical mediators and cells that function together to capture and remove injurious agents from the inflammatory site(Huether & McCance 2000). Inflammation is nonspecific, meaning it has no memory like the immune system with antigen-specific. So inflammation stimulus occurs in the same manner even on the second exposure to the same stimulus. Acute inflammation is self-limiting and continues only until the threat to the host is eliminated which usually takes 8-10 days from onset to healing. If it takes longer than two weeks then it’s consider as chronic inflammation (Huether & McCance 2000). Acute Inflammatory Response: Acute inflammatory response begins after cellular injury from trauma, oxygen or nutrient deprivation, genetic or immune defects, chemical agents, microorganisms, extreme temperature, and ionizing radiation. The vascular effects of inflammation are immediate unlike immune response which takes days to develop (Huether & McCance 2000). The University of Western Sydney ‘Acute & Chronic Inflammation’ handout (2010) explains that vasodilation occurs in vascular response where arteriolar dilates increasing hydrostatic pressure and contraction of endothelial cells which widen the junctions between endothelial cells. Then permeability of blood vessels increases, exudates plasma and blood cells into tissues where proteins leaks out and causing plasma moving into tissues resulting oedema (tumour & dolor). This raised blood viscosity in the vascular compartment. There are four stages of cellular response of acute inflammation: margination and pavementing of white blood cells, emigration, chemotaxis, and phagocytosis. Margination and pavementing is where leukocytes marginate to the vessel periphery, tumble on the endothelial surface, and transiently sticking along the way and rolling. Then leukocytes adhere to certain adhesion molecules before crawling between cells and through endothelial basement membrane into extravascular space (emigration). After leukocytes adehered, it moves towards the site of injury and anchor themselves to extracellular matrix (ECM) and pull the remainder of the cell. Neutorphils and macrophages normally circulate in the bloodstream and are stimulated by inflammation to migrate through vessel walls near an inflammatory lesion. Neutrophils predominate early in infection and marcophages originate from monocytes, leaves the blood, enter infected tissue, and develop into phagocytic cells. Phagocytes are chemically attracted to the site of infection, chemotaxin. Plasma membrane of phagocyte attaches to the surface of pathogen or foreign material also known as adherence. Then opsonization happens where the coating invader with opsonins that facilitates attachment. The plasma membrane of phagocytes extends projections (pseudopods) which engulf the microbe. Microbe is enclosed in a sac called phagosome. Finally, digestion occurs inside the cell, phagosome fuses with lysosome to form a phagolysosome. Lysozyme destroys th cell wall peptidoglycan. After digestion, residual body with undigestable material is discharged. There are systemic effects of acute inflammation such as fever, Interleukiin-1 (IL-1), released from neutrophils, macrophages, and other cells of inflammation. IL-1 acts directly on the hypothalamus which controls the body’s thermostat. Its release occurs after phagocytosis or after exposure of the cell to bacterial endotoxin or to antigen-antibody complexes (Huether & McCance 2000). Anorexia, pain in head, muscle, and joint, general malaise, increase erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C reactive protein (CRP), and leukocytes are other systmeic effects of acute inflammation (University of Western Sydney 2010). Chronic inflammation is characterized by infiltration with mononuclear cells, tissue destruction and repair, and fibrosis. It is a prolong duration which may follow acute inflammation. It usually arises in persistent infection by microorganisms, treponema pallidum fungi, viruses, and a prolonged exposure to potentially toxic agents (University of Western Sydney 2010). Marchopahges, T lymphocytes, plasma cells, and eosinophils are chronic inflammatory cells. Marchopages has the ability to kill ingested organisms and some tumour cells which are responsible for tissue destruction, angiogenesis, and fibrosis. T lymphocytes has close relationship with marchopahges. It is activated by interaction with APC producing a variety of cytokines (IFN-g, IL-1). Plasma cells are antibodies that fight against antigens and eosinophils are parasitic infections, or in immune reactions mediated by IgE (University of Western Sydney 2010). The University of Western Sydney ‘Acute & Chronic Inflammation’ hand out (2010) explained that there are two types of chronic inflammation: inflammation 1 and inflammation 2. Type 1 inflammation has three other types of inflammation; granulomatous inflammation, fibrinous inflammation, and ulcerative inflammation. Granulomatous inflammation is characterized by the formation of granulomas when some macrophages differentiate into large epithlioid cells, which cannot phagocytose but can take up debris and other small particles (Huether & McCance 2000). An example of this would be tuberculosis, leprosy and syphilis. Fibrinous inflammation is an increase in vascular permeability where fibrin accumulates. This is commonly seen in serous cavities, where the conversion of fibrinous exudates into a scar can occur between serous membranes, and limiting their function. Ulcreative inflammation is inflammation occurring near epithelium resulting necrotic loss of tissue exposing lower layers and causing ulcer. Type 2 inflammation include purulent inflammation and serous inflammation. Inflammation resulting in large amount of pus, (neutrophils, dead cells, and fluid) caused by pyogenic bacteria (staphylococci). A large localized collection of pus is call abscesses. This process is called purulent inflammation. Serous inflammation increases effusion of non-viscous serous fluid by mesothelial cells of serous memberanes or blood plasma causing skin blisters (University of Western Sydney 2010). Healing and repairmen of tissue occurs after inflammation. There are first and second intentions of healing. First intention minimizes tissue loss and no granulation formation. Second intention healing has a significant of tissue loss, tissue granulation, slow healing, and scar tissue (Huether & McCance 2000). All the healing and regeneration depends on the tissue type. Labile cells are more capable of lifelong regeneration. Stable cells can regenerate when stimulated. Permanent cells have no ability to regenerate (University of Western Sydney 2010). If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have the essay published on the UK Essays website then please click on the link below to request removal:

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Distributed June 2001 Copyright ©2001 by Melissa Bowman Op-Ed Editor: Janet Kerlin| About 675 Words Liberians’ fear of being denied refuge is a real one No one, not the Liberians or any other immigrant or refugee group, should have to worry about returning to a country where they would fear for their lives. The effects of a civil war that began in Liberia 10 years ago are still being felt by its exiles in the United States today. In the seven states where Liberians most often set up communities, it is common to hear men quietly recount memories of seeing their parents beheaded or women tell of being raped. Children who remain in Liberia are forced into fighting at the age of 12. Yet Liberians who have made it to the seemingly safe haven of the United States have reason to be afraid. They might be sent back before conditions are safe to return. In the English-speaking West African country, brutal fighting and rampant human rights violations have led to the deaths of 200,000 Liberians, and thousands of others have fled for their lives. A decade ago, the United States granted 5,000 refugees temporary protected status so that they could find safe haven while conditions in Liberia remained unsafe. Eleven years later, conditions in Liberia have not improved. The majority of Liberians express the desire to go back to Liberia, yet many are afraid of returning under the current regime and fear the power of the current president, Charles Taylor, who was educated at Bentley College near Boston. A few months ago, students at the University of Liberia held a peaceful protest in support of four members of the press who had been detained without charges; the president ordered troops to quell the demonstration. More recently, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberia for continuing to support rebels in Sierra Leone. Fighting persists in some areas of Liberia and skirmishes along the border with Guinea have led to another wave of refugees crossing the border. With rebels advancing toward the capital of Monrovia, war has again broken out in the northern part of the country. This has led to a renewed wave of attacks on civilians and a corresponding rise in the number of refugees crossing the border and entering camps. As if continued destabilization wasn’t enough of a reason for Liberians to fear returning home, Taylor has been openly hostile toward those with temporary protected status, recently calling the provision a “bread and butter safe haven for many Liberians who were never victims of our civil war.” The Liberian population is spread throughout the United States, with the largest concentrations in Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York and Providence, R.I. In many states, they have organized community associations where they discuss the situation in Liberia and adjustment to the United States. Like other refugee populations, the Liberians retain close ties to their home countries while also participating fully in U.S. society. In fact, as a country originally founded by freed American slaves and as the United States’ strongest ally in Africa, Liberia has always had a special relationship with this country. The United States has a responsibility not only to protect those who are fleeing violence but also to allow refugees to feel secure in their new home. No one, not the Liberians or any other immigrant group, should have to worry about returning to a country where they would fear for their lives. Families with children born here would be separated if Liberian parents were forced to return, and states would bear the cost of caring for the children left behind. While there are currently bills in both the House and Senate proposing the granting of permanent status to those Liberians who arrived in the United States after March 1991, HR1806 and S656 will require vocal public support to pass. As a matter of life and death, what happens to these people is in no way a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans coming together around these bills would demonstrate that the value of freedom and America’s reputation as a safe haven is not divided along party lines. Have we forgotten the deaths of the hundreds of Jews who were returned to Germany after being denied refuge by the United States? Do we want to relive this black moment in our history? Melissa Bowman is a recent graduate of Brown University. She researched the Liberian situation for her senior thesis in development studies and volunteered to help refugees at the International Institute in Providence.

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Abhidhamma Study: Dhamma-dhatu [Presented by Dr.Tep Sastri @SD/JTN/Mult] Allow me to give a beginner's thought about dhamma-dhatu, the 17th item in the list of 18 elements. Now, recalling from the introduction to the CMA, page 3: The ultimate reality consists of "elementary constituents" called "dhammas", which are consciousness(121 cittas), mental factors (52 cetasikas: phassa, vedana, sanna, cetana, ekaggata, jivitindriya, manasika, vitakka, vicara, adhimokkha, viriya, piti, chanda, 14 unwholesome factors, and 25 beautiful factors), 28 matters (the four 'great elements' plus their 24 derivatives), and Nibbana. So dhammadhatu is the remainder of the ultimate realities after we subtract consciousness. As such, dhammadhatu means the collection of several following sabhaava dhammas: 52 cetasikas, 28 matters and Nibbana. Putting the book away for a moment, in my own words dhammadhatu seems to be an essence(sabhaava) of a phenomenon (or reality) that arises as a mind-object to be experienced by the consciousness in a given moment. Thus it must not be a thought which is fabricated by the mind that is associated with ignorance, since the essence of the reality is lost or obscured by ignorance. Back to the book I searched the CMA further and found this: CMA page 25: Ultimate realities .. are things that exist by reason of their own intrinsic nature (sabhaava). These are the dhammas: the final, irreducible components of existence, the ultimate entities which result from a correctly performed analysis of experience. Such existence admit of no further reduction, but are themselves the final terms of analysis, the true constituents of the complex manifold of experience. [end of quote] Yet, there is something very vague in the above elaboration! I hope someone among us is willing to give a thought to expand or extend the above discussion in order to make it convincingly clear. Love Buddha's dhamma,

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SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) CELLS are the most popular technology used to power homes with abundant, clean, renewable, price-stable, fuel-free and carbon-free energy! Solar photovoltaic cells use semiconductor technology to convert sunlight into direct current (DC) electricity. The DC electrical charge can then be converted into alternating current (AC) electricity by a power inverter to be used in a home or business. The power produced by solar panels is delivered to electrical outlets and lights in your building, allowing you to use less electricity from your local utility. Most solar energy systems are grid-tied systems which allow you to send extra electricity out to the grid and use electricity from the grid. Grid-tied systems are connected to the grid through a process called interconnection and able to recieve credit for the excess electricity generated through a policy called net metering. Grid-tied systems are connected to the electricity grid, but they can also be equipped with batteries to provide a home or business with electricity when the grid goes down. Solar PV systems can also provide electricity independent of the electricity grid: these systems are known as "off-grid" systems. Off-grid systems are coupled with batteries which provide energy storage to be used when the sun is not shining. Solar PV systems can be used to provide power for anything that uses electricity, including: homes, businesses, schools, irrigation, water pumps, street lights, highway signs, electric fences, remote cabins, off-grid homes, or recreational vehicles. Solar PV can also be installed in large quantities to provide utility-scale electricity to the grid. As demand for energy continues to rise, more utilities are exploring opportunities to develop large-scale solar PV power plants. Types of Solar PV Cells: Crystalline silicon cells can be fashioned from either mono-crystalline, multi-crystalline, or ribbon silicon. Crystalline silicon solar PV panels are the most commonly used type of photovoltaic panel. Thin-film solar cells are made from amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, or copper indium gallium diselenide, among other materials. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials a few micrometers thick, which allow the panels to be more flexible. How do I find a solar PV installer? There are many solar dealers and installers in Utah. Contact a solar installer to explore options for your home. What incentives are available for solar PV in Utah? State and federal incentives are available to help offset the initial cost of solar in Utah, and through 2017 there is a utility rebate for renewable energy systems. Learn more about residential and commercial incentives for solar photovoltaic systems in Utah. - Photovoltaics Basics: U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Basis: Solar Photovoltaic: U.S. Department of Energy

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From somewhere in the dark recesses of the den came nearly inaudible squeaks and whimpers. Carolin Humpal, a wildlife research biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, had already peeked inside. She knew what she would find once she slithered head-first down the entry hole and into the den. A pile of wolf pups. Maybe two weeks old. Five of them. Humpal and a team of other wildlife biologists had come to examine the pups and place a trail camera outside their den. The research is part of a state and tribal effort to better understand the dynamics of Minnesota’s wolf population. “It’s a component of our broader wolf monitoring,” said the DNR’s John Erb, a wolf research biologist based at Grand Rapids. “The pup part of it is kind of a pilot project. We’re trying to get some experience with locating dens, and we’re looking at options for monitoring dens and counting pups.” The work eventually will help wolf researchers monitor pup survival and learn more about what factors influence that survival, Erb said. Minnesota’s wolf population was estimated at about 2,221 in 2015, according to the DNR. After work at the wolf den is completed, Department of Natural Resources wildlife research biologist Barry Sampson smooths dirt near the mouth of the den to help remove human scent. Sam Cook / firstname.lastname@example.org This den was just west of Cloquet on land owned by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The Band’s Resource Management Division is working with the DNR on wolf research. Along with Humpal on this mission to find wolf pups on a mid-April afternoon were DNR wolf research biologist Barry Sampson; Mike Schrage, wildlife biologist for the Fond du Lac Band; and Terry Perrault, a technician for the Band’s Resource Management Division. Tough to find Just finding the den was a challenge. It had taken five of us, walking abreast at intervals through the woods, nearly an hour to locate the den. Working from mapped GPS-tracking movements of a radio-collared adult wolf in this pack — though not the pups’ mother — Schrage had led us to this patch of woods. We were looking for a hole in the ground with freshly excavated dirt all around. “Found it!” Sampson called out finally. He and Humpal assumed the female wolf that had given birth to these pups was somewhere not far away, observing our visit and waiting for us to leave. The pups’ mother is part of a pack estimated at five wolves in all, Schrage said. The den site is in an area near homes, small farms and and paved roads. Yet the wolves go mostly unnoticed. “They’ve probably been there for years,” Schrage said, “and yet mostly they stay out of sight and conflict with people.” Entering the den Now it was time to go to work. Humpal scooched down the entry hole until only her lower legs and boots remained outside. Later, she described the five pups she saw. “They were all piled together,” she said. “It was still fairly chilly, so they have to be huddled up together to share body heat.” The pups’ eyes were open, indicating they probably were a couple of weeks old, Sampson said. Although they moved away from Humpal a bit, she said the plump little furballs didn’t struggle as she picked them up one at a time and handed them out to Sampson. He checked their physical condition and determined whether they were males or females. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wildlife research biologists Carolin Humpal (left) and Barry Sampson (right) confer with Mike Schrage, wildlife biologist at the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, over a map showing the likely location of a wolf den west of Cloquet. Sam Cook Perrault eased the pups into soft flannel bags. He weighed them quickly — about 3½ pounds each. Schrage recorded the pups’ weights and genders — four male, one female. One by one, the pups went back to Sampson and then to the waiting hand of Humpal, who still was mostly inside the den. Each pup was back in the den within less than a minute. “Nice belly,” Sampson said, inspecting the plump tummy of one pup before it went back to Humpal. The biologists performed their tasks quickly and in hushed voices. These intrusions at dens are kept to a minimum, Sampson explained, to disturb the wolves as little as possible. All of us wore rain gear to minimize our scent, and we had been sprayed with a scent-masking compound. Everyone wore latex gloves. In less than 15 minutes, with all work completed and a trail camera hung on a nearby tree, the biologists left the site. Sampson had smoothed the dirt at the edge of the den. The pups were all in a heap again. Their mother was never seen. The value of research So far, researchers have visited and inspected pups at a dozen to 15 dens in the past three or four years, the DNR’s Erb said. Pup counts and pup survival are not a necessary component of the DNR’s wolf population estimates, he said. But tracking birth and death rates, as DNR researchers do for some other species, could help the agency develop better population models, he said. In addition, better understanding of wolf pup survival could help researchers relate that information to other wolf population factors such as prey density or the presence of parvovirus, Erb said. Following our visit to the den site, it was difficult to know what effect the intrusion would have on the pups’ mother, the DNR’s Sampson said. “There’s no doubt she’s going to know we’ve been here,” Sampson said. “The question is whether it’s enough to make her move them.” “Any time you visit the den of an animal, at some level there’s an effect,” Erb said. “Our early experiences combined with results from pup studies in Ontario and Idaho suggest that some will move pups to a new den after a visit.” But there’s no information yet, he said, that it has any important effect on pup survival, even in studies that have deployed radio-collars on pups or surgically implanted radio-transmitters. And often, wolves change den sites even without human intrusion, he added. A wolf pack and its pups typically remain associated with a den site through early to mid-summer, Erb said. Later in summer, the pack often moves to a so-called rendezvous site. The pups are more mobile then, he said, but are not yet hunting with the pack. In fall, when the pups are large enough, the rendezvous site becomes less important, and the young wolves begin traveling more with their parents. Terry Perrault, a resource management technician with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, holds a wolf pup about 2 weeks old that had been temporarily removed form its den by wildlife biologists with the Band and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Photo by Mike Schrage, wildlife biologist for the Fond Du Lac Band According to the DNR’s research, Minnesota has an estimated 374 wolf packs. The average number of wolves in a pack at mid-winter was 5.1 in 2015, according to the agency. Pack size typically doubles once pups are born in the spring. But not all of them survive through the next year. Along with some mortality among adult wolves, that typically brings wolf numbers back down to near the previous mid-winter’s level, researchers say.

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Tip: Concentric Circle Share How do I do it? Direct half the class to stand in a circle facing out and call them “Circle A”. Next direct the other half of the students to line up facing one person in the circle (This is “Circle B”.) Using a list of questions that you have prepared ahead of time, ask circle A a question and they must share their answer with their partner in circle B. After 30 seconds-2 minutes, ask a question of circle B and they must answer to their partner in circle A. Continue until all questions are answered or time is up. This is a great activity for review or practice of new concepts and language. Variations & Extensions Have circle B take one step to the right to get a new partner. Use this grouping structure to practice math facts or vocabulary. For example, “Tell your partner the answer to 3 divided by .5” or “Use the word compare in a sentence.” The possibilities are endless. Common Core ELA Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. Everyday ELL is now Every Language Learner.

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Microsoft is all set for a big AI leap into tiny devices, as is evident with its team infusing artificial intelligence onto a Raspberry Pi. They are further working on systems that can run machine learning algorithms on microcontrollers as small as a speck of red pepper flake. The idea that got Ofer Dekel lead a team at Microsoft’s research lab in Redmond, Washington is as simple as protecting his garden and seeds from the bird feeders! A computer science researcher, managing the Machine Learning and Optimization group at the company, Dekel trained a computer vision model to detect squirrels and deployed code into Raspberry Pi, that could keep a watch on plants and trigger a sprinkler whenever it detects unwanted activity, hence protecting them from unwanted intruders. The idea here is to develop new class of machine learning software and tools that can embed artificial intelligence onto tiniest computer processors. Dekel, along with a team of about 30 computer scientists, software engineers and research interns at Microsoft’s research labs in Redmond and Bangalore, are already working to make it possible. According to a post by the company, early previews of Raspberry Pi sized machine learning and training algorithms are available on GitHub, where developers can try them out. The Satya Nadella led Microsoft has in the recent past shown a keen interest in AI with key big announcements like acquisitions of AI startups—Agolo and Bonsai, to make a strong presence in this area. As AI is becoming more pervasive, the Indian born CEO is playing up collaboration between machines and humans as a part of the rethinking bit. The need to feed intelligence into tiny bits- Before you start tickling your curiosity bone on what is the need of infusing intelligence into tiny device, we want you to know that technological diaspora is not totally bereft of this concept. If not totally tiny, there are devices such as sensors in the current scenario that can collect data and send it to machine learning models running in the cloud. However, the disadvantage of this is that the processing requires a lot of power in data crunching along with occupying a lot of storage space. This is where the team at Microsoft is playing a big role. They are working in the direction of shrinking the computing time for machine learning and making it more effective, so that it can be run on all the devices. It is also trying to do away with the need of internet connection, which is an essential component of the intelligent devices currently. As Manik Varma, a senior researcher with Microsoft Research India and a co-leader of the project says, the dominant paradigm is that these devices are dumb and they transmit sensor readings to the cloud where all the machine learning happens. The company is planning to solve it, by bringing smaller units in the play as it can reduce bandwidth constraints, eliminate concerns about network latency, reduce battery drain and keep personal & sensitive information local. The research is especially important for Varma, who is visually impaired, and they have already started developing a prototype of intelligent walking stick, that can detect falls and issue a call for assistance. The company has ambitious plans of deploying these smart intelligent devices in everything– from precision irrigation to brain implants. The company also mention its idea of a world populated with tiny intelligent devices embedded everywhere—clothes, homes, offices etc. to perform complex tasks with ease. Overcoming the constraints- The only hitch however, in this ambitious journey is to get neural network in as small as a breadcrumb sized micro controller. The ML learning models need to be at least 1000 to 10,000 times smaller, to be able to work effectively in tiny devices. The company believes that to achieve this, it needs to start from the scratch—invent new set of machine learning technologies that are tailored for these resource constrained platforms. One of the approaches that the company suggests is a bottom-up approach, which starts from the tiny end of the spectrum, where the team is working on building a library full of training algorithms, each tuned for specific function. The smallest device in company’s focus is Arduino Uno, which is a severely resource constrained single-board computer with only 2 KB of RAM. Another approach that the company suggests is the top-down where the team would focus on developing algorithms that compress machine learning models trained for the cloud to run effectively on devices such as the Raspberry Pi 3. On a concluding note- As mentioned earlier, the entire research process is in line with Microsoft’s growing indulgence in the area of AI and machine learning. The company aims for building technologies that could be pervasive in a decade from now. It also believes that there could be a burst in this technology, only if more researchers across the globe join efforts in making the presence of these devices quite rampant. As Saleema Amershi, a human-computer-interaction researcher in the Redmond lab notes, “Machine learning is not a one-shot thing,” she said. “It’s an art. It takes some effort, some iterations, to steer these machine-learning models to do the thing you want them to do.”

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In the event of an invasion, the entire country of Switzerland is rigged to destroy all of its road, bridges, railroads, and other infrastructure. Or at least it was during the Cold War. Geoff Manaugh reports on a John McPhee book about the country's defenses. In any case, the book's vision of the Alps as a massively constructed-or, at least, geotechnically augmented and militarily amplified-terrain is quite heady, including the very idea that, in seeking to protect itself from outside invaders, Switzerland is prepared to dynamite, shell, bulldoze, and seal itself into a kind of self-protective oblivion, hiding out in artificially expanded rocky passes and concrete super-basements as all roads and bridges into and out of the country are instantly transformed into landslides and dust. The first reader comment is more than a little eye-popping: I have seen this with my own eyes as a foreign student in Switzerland in 1981, when a MOUNTAIN "opened" up and four jets flew out of it, near the quiet town, Martigny. Update: About a minute into this clip from Rick Steves' Europe, Steves takes a tour of some of the hidden defenses of Switzerland. (thx, nils & dennis) David Galbraith updated his post on where the web was invented (which includes an interview with Tim Berners-Lee) to include the juicy tidbit that the building in which TBL invented the web is in France, not Switzerland. I'll bet if you asked every French politician where the web was invented not a single one would know this. The Franco-Swiss border runs through the CERN campus and building 31 is literally just a few feet into France. However, there is no explicit border within CERN and the main entrance is in Switzerland, so the situation of which country it was invented in is actually quite a tricky one. The current commemorative plaque, which is outside a row of offices where people other than Tim Berners-Lee worked on the web, is in Switzerland. To add to the confusion, in case Tim thought of the web at home, his home was in France but he temporarily moved to rented accommodation in Switzerland, just around the time the web was developed. So although, strictly speaking, France is the birthplace of the web it would be fair to say that it happened in building 31 at CERN but not in any particular country! How delightfully appropriate for an invention which breaks down physical borders. This is the massive drill that was used to bore a 35-mile-long tunnel underneath the Alps from mid-Switzerland to near the Italian border: Boring operations in the east tunnel were completed on 15 October 2010 in a cut-through ceremony broadcast live on Swiss TV. When it opens for traffic in late 2017, the tunnel will cut the 3.5-hour travel time from Zurich to Milan by an hour and from Zurich to Lugano to 1 hour 40 minutes. Switzerland is more than cheese, alps, and a blonde serving cocoa. It's also the home of the slightly neat-freak mountain cleaners. From an article in Monocle about the Baselworld watch fair. Swiss watch brands are patriotic to a fault. Rolex is one of the few high-end manufacturers that does not stamp "Swiss Made" on the watch face in the belief that Rolex defines Switzerland rather than the other way around. Now *that's* a brand. For some, a trip to Austria steers their gastronomic attention to wiener schnitzel, but for me, it's all about the wurst.1 Following the good advice of a reader to ignore the sausages on offer in cafes and restaurants, we hit up every lunchtime sausage stand we could find during our visit for the real deal. In Salzburg, the typical stand offers 8-10 different kinds of wurst, from the familiar frankfurter to the spicy pusztakrainer. You can get your wurst on a plate with mustard and a piece of bread or as a "hot dog" (in a bun with mustard and ketchup). For my first wurst, I had a kasekrainer, hot dog-style with ketchup, and it turned out to be my favorite of the trip. Melted cheese (kase) filled the sausage and the bun was perfectly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Meg sampled a burenwurst. The next day, we hit up another stand; I tried the frankfurter while Meg had a delicately flavored weisswurst (her favorite of the trip). She speculated they didn't grill the weisswurst because it would interfere with mild flavor; the spicer wursts seemed to be grilled. From thence to Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. At 10,000 feet above sea level, we had an unspecifed wurst (the restaurant called it, basically, "the sausage of the day") that ranks among the best food I've ever tasted, but that assessment may have been colored by the fact that we'd hiked up a glacier to get it. On our last day in Innsbruck, we surrendered to the comfort of cafe chairs and had bratwurst (mit sauerkraut und mustard) at a small place in the old town. After a hard day of walking, it beats eating standing up, which is how it works at the wurst stand. Our final link in the sausage trail was Zurich, which is not in Austria but in the section of Switzerland near Austria and Germany. From a stand by the lake, we shared a pork-based sausage I forget the name of and another beloved weisswurst. Based on the relative unavailability of the wurst there, I get the feeling that the Swiss don't take their sausages as seriously as the Austrians, at least in cosmopolitan Zurich. Not that the Swiss wurst wasn't good; they just have other things to worry about...like fondue.2 But to focus entirely on the wurst is to ignore the equally fantastic brot (bread) that accompanies it and many other Austrian dishes. My favorite bread growing up in Wisconsin was called "Vienna bread" and I had always assumed that the cheap loaves we got at the local chain supermarket approximated something found in the Austrian capital. We didn't get to Vienna, but the Austrian bread we had was indeed like the bread of my childhood...except about 1000 times better. The small, crisp roll we got with our wurst, called a semmel, was not unlike what's called a roll or kaiser roll at an NYC deli. These rolls, accompanied by some richly flavorful butter, were also available at the complementary breakfast served at our hotel and I was tempted to violate the no-taking-food-from-the-breakfast-area rule and cram my bag full of them. If the bread at our hotel was that good, I can't imagine what the best bakeries of the region have to offer. The French, whom I've always considered the champions of all things bread, might have something to worry about from Austria. Clearly, more delicious research is called for. Not that the rest of Austrian cuisine wasn't uniformly excellent. I had a pork dish with spatzle in a creamy mushroom sauce at a Salzburg restaurant that I will crave for months to come. And that garlic soup at Ottoburg in Innsbruck! ↩ I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for the title of this post (the other option was "It was the wurst of times"). But count your blessings that you're not reading an article on the yummy fondue we had in Zurich entitled "You're damned if you fondue, and you're damned if you fondon't". (I know what you're thinking: "oh no, he fondidn't...") ↩ New Swiss banknotes, the result of a design competition, feature an embryo, the AIDS virus, and a skull. "Considering the history of Swiss banking, one cannot help but make the connection between the gold bar on the 1000-Franc bill (the gold of African dictators hidden in Swiss vaults) and the skull on the same bill (that of their victims)."

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Q. A few months ago I had a technician at my home to remove viruses and tune up my home computer. Recently, when a program was not responding, I tried to open Task Manager and got a pop-up message that said this action had been disabled by the administrator. I suppose that the tech did this while working on the computer. I have never set any admin items on this computer. Can you tell me how to fix this? A. Chances are your PC tech did not make this change. What is more likely is that this behavior is a remnant of the spyware/virus problem you had cleaned up by this tech and he simply missed it. Spyware and virus programs (also referred to as malware) will often times disable things like the Task Manager as part of their malicious payload just to make things more difficult when trying to remove them. Of the options presented in the article I suggest trying method 2 and 3 first. Something to keep in mind is that when log into your computer using an account that is an administrator, any application you run – on purpose or accidentally – will run with administrative privileges. With administrative privileges the program can access just about any aspect of your computer’s file system. And if the program is malicious, that access can be and usually is harmful. That is why you got the message “action had been disabled by the administrator.” Not because an administrator made the change per se, but because something with administrative privileges was allowed to run and make the change. It is recommended that if you have a computer running XP that you create 2 user accounts for yourself. One account for general use that has limited access to the computer and an administrative account for things like making changes such installing new applications and such. By doing this you can dramatically reduce the potential harm caused by malware and other malicious computer activity. Check out the article Create and customize user accounts from Microsoft for information on how to do this. With Windows Vista and Windows 7 User Access Control (UAC) is designed to keep you or malware from making unintended changes so having two accounts is not truly necessary as long as you leave it enabled.

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ShapeKit from KidKit is a creative app designed for 6-12 year olds that lets them use geometric shapes to create pictures and short animations. When you first open the app you are invited to watch a series of short tutorials on using the tools in the app. I would highly recommend watching these as they are very useful introductions and only take a few minutes to do. They can be viewed again at any time by tapping on the “learn” tab from the home screen. The heart of the app is “create” where the student can experiment with shapes and create their own pictures. Once they have created a picture it is saved within the app and they can go back later and re-edit it. Created pictures can also be used to make short animated videos and both pictures and videos can be saved to the camera roll. Adding a Shape Clicking on the + button brings up the select a shape option. The player choose from 6 different shape options: circle, square, quadrant, semi-circle, right-angle triangle and equilateral triangle. Once they select a shape, the name and properties of that shape are listed on the screen. Although rectangle is not originally listed you can also create rectangles by dragging on the corners of a square- it will change shape and “rectangle” will appear on the screen. This can be done within the shape selection tool or by tapping the re-size tool when on the picture creation page. Shapes are re-sized by touching a corner and dragging to increase or decrease its size. The color can be changed within the shape selection tool or by tapping the color wheel when on the picture creation page, there are 18 color options. With 2 fingers on a shape if you hold 1 still and move the other you can rotate it (moving 2 at once will zoom in or out on the whole picture). There are 2 ways to join shapes together: with and without a joint. Without a joint: to join to shapes together use a finger on each to make them close together, once they are close they will start to sparkle, if you let go they will stick together solidly to make one new shape. The new shape can then be rotated, moved and resized as one piece, you can separate the pieces again by pulling them apart. This only works when you have 2 straight edges to join together i.e. you can not join a circle to a rectangle using this method. With a joint: here you use a hole punch tool to punch holes in the 2 pieces you want to join. Move the pieces together using 1 finger on each, when the holes are aligned they will form a join. When you move the shape it will act like you have a simple joint at this spot. You can only have 2 holes in each shape, so when joining multiple shapes e.g. to form an animal it is important to think about where you want a joint vs a solid join. You can easily duplicate shape by selecting the shape and tapping the duplicate tool. This even works with custom shapes where you have joined shapes together with a solid join. The duplication will keep your original colors unless you use the color change tool. You can also add eyes and particles to your creations. Particles are a star shape that emits a sparkling trail when tapped and held. There are also 4 different background colors to choose from – grey, white, black and light blue. Play and Animate Modes In play mode you can move your creations around without risking accidentally changing them. In animate you can bring your scenes to life by creating simple stop motion animation videos. You can easily create the videos using up to 5 frames. You just tap the clapperboard to make the first frame, then advance to the next frame. When you are creating the next frame lines show you where you are moving the shape from. Once you are happy with the animation you can save it to your photo library. I am really enjoying all the creative possibilities in this app, it is an app that seems very simple when you first open it, but with some imagination you can create really elaborate pictures and fun simple animations. I found it took a little while to get used to the tools. At first I was re-sizing when I wanted to rotate, and my joints fell apart as I forgot to move the shapes together with both fingers when creating the joint. However, once I had played with it for a while and got used to how the tools work I began to really like creating with it. I love the extra dimension adding the joints gives, especially when creating animations. It reminds me of paper puppets we used to make as kids with brass fasteners attaching the limbs. The one area I did find frustrating is that there is no real way to attach overlapping shapes, so if you want to add a pattern to an animal or attach a round treetop to a tree truck these remain unattached. This is fine for a simple picture but if you want to re-size an object or move it then it can be frustrating to have the parts separate. This is especially noticeable when animating. I’d love to see a glue tool added for this purpose. There is a parent section that includes social media and email links, these are protected by a parent lock with directions such as “swipe up with 2 fingers”. The target age range for this app can easily get past this gate so I’d like these removed or an option to disable the social media and email links via the app settings. Players are invited to email their creations to ShapeKit for inclusion in the ShapeKit gallery. Overall, ShapeKit is a very fun creative app for exploring and creating with geometric shapes. I think is app will appeal to creative children from elementary through middle school ages. I can see my 5th grader spending hours with it creating pictures and animations. NOTE: A fee was received to expedite this review to the top of our waiting list but this payment has not influenced the objectivity of the review and all opinions have been offered honestly. Mary is originally from England but now lives in California with her husband, dog, cat and three children. Mary and her family love Apple products and own an iPad2, iPad3, iPad Mini, iTouch, iPhone5 and several MacBook Pros. They also love cub scouts, skiing, camping and hiking. The family iPads are also used for therapy for their daughters Apraxia (speech disorder).

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Jarod Bormann (@jbormann3) and Norma Thiese (@nthiese) discuss Jarod's interview with Ann Gitzner, a high school Science teacher in her 24th year at Central in Elkader, IA. Ann uses and embraces the Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach and has seen students reaching deeper levels of learning. Not only that, some incredible projects have come out of her classroom leading to community involvment and recognition for her students. Be sure to stayed tuned for the bonus audio at the end! Are you or an educator you know in the Keystone AEA area working to move students into higher-order thinking? Nominate at our new website: bit.ly/nllpodcast.

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