Datasets:

alexchen4ai

/

test_pretrained_train_test_split

like 0

A Reference Resource List Compiled by Emerson Library 2010 (2011?) dietary guidelines. (2011, March). Food Processing, 72 (3), 22-27. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines were released on January 31, 2011. This article highlights the alterations in the final recommendations, which changed little from the 2005 Guidelines. This new set of Guidelines acknowledged obesity as the primary health issue in the U.S. Other areas of concern include sodium intake, solid fats and added sugar intake, consumption of refined grains, oversized portions, and insufficient fruits and vegetables. Includes a chart of new product launches with low-/no-/reduced- sodium claims (2007-2010). Another chart from the Institute of Food Technologists identify "what consumers need more of" (whole grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, oils) and "what consumers need less of" (solid fats, added sugars, refined grains, sodium and saturated fats). Heidolphe, B.B.; Ray, D.K.; Roller, S.; Koehler, P.; Weber, J.; Slocum, S.; Noort, M.W.J. (2011, January/February). Looking for my lost shaker replacer: Flavor, function and future. Cereal Foods World, 56( 1), 5-19. is an overview of the AACC International Annual Meeting's Hot Topic Session on salt replacers, including emerging research and legislation. While consumers are aware that excessive salt is unhealthy, the public remains confused about healthy intake levels and which foods are high-sodium. Over 70% do not know the daily recommended intake. This article provides a review of the research which links dietary sodium and cardiovascular disease. While these studies have reached different conclusions, it is commonly held that the health benefits of a reduced-sodium diet include "fewer strokes, cardiovascular disease events, and deaths, as well as substantially reduced health care costs." As health organizations become increasingly concerned about sodium intake, many governments are looking to enact public health policies and regulations which minimize these risks. This article looks at the direction these policies are taking in various counties. Other topics include: sodium functionality in bakery applications, sodium chloride reduction, and improved sensory profile of sodium-reduced foods. The following charts are included: Percent of U.S. primary grocery shoppers saying they wish to eliminate or reduce sodium in their diets; Sodium in tomato products; Survey response to the question "Which of the following information do you use on the Nutritional Fact Panel;" Sodium physiology, blood pressure; Estimated mean daily sodium and potassium intakes by age/sex group, 2005-2006; Sources of sodium in the diet; Percentage of persons 2 years of age or more exceeding the tolerable upper intake level for sodium from foods; Number of new food products bearing nutrient claims, 1988-1997; Flavor profile of wheat breads containing 0, 0.7, 1.5, and 2.0% salt; Threshold values for sodium chloride in bread crumbs, in water extracts of bread crumb and in water; Binding of sodium to wheat proteins as determined by a magnetic beads assay (MB) and by ion selective electrodes (ISE); Common sodium-containing compounds and their function in food; and Sensory contrast- saltiness enhancement increases with contrast. Philips, D. (2011, June 21). Researchers target sodium reduction in cheese. Food Business News, 7 (9), 43, 48. sodium levels in cheese is challenging due to the many types and uses of cheese. This challenge has led to an increase in recent research in the area of sodium reduction in cheese. Research at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research focuses on reducing the sodium level of cheese by as much as 25% . The increased emphasis of this topic has led the formation of a best practices task force in was formed in December 2010. The task force , composed of representatives from 17 cheese companies , was formed to focus on key factors that need to be considered when reducing sodium content in cheese. The task force identified three challenges: taste and functionality, updating process controls and how to educate customers. Includes comments from Mark Johnson, W.C.D.R senior scientist; Gregory Miller, president of the Dairy Research Institute of the National Dairy Council, and Erin Price, core marketing director at Sargeto Roberts, W. (2011, April). Cut the salt. Prepared Food, 180 (4), 13. As high sodium intake increased the risk of stroke, heart attacks and kidney disease, the American Heart Association has issued a call to action to reduce the levels of sodium in the American diet. The majority of Americans consume more than double the daily recommended levels, putting the national health at risk. Includes a chart entitles "So-so-sodium: One-day intake from all dietary sources in mg/day" broken down by age group and food type (table salt, tap water, supplements). Stanley. A little common sense goes a long way. (March/April 2010) Cereal Foods World. (55) 2:111-112. believes there is an information disconnect between the scientific community and the public. The nontechnical media often steps in as interpreter and ends up skewing the message. The author states that the drive to reduce sodium and saturated fat in foods is a result of this hyped up interpretation of scientific data. The author states "we need to get some common sense into the current diet and health debates." sodium, not flavor. (April 2010) Food Technology. (64) 4:16. Profile of Sargento Foods' new line of Reduced Sodium cheese, which drops sodium by 25%. Core Marketing Director, Chris Groom states that, We only wanted to launch the line if we could still provide the great-tasting natural cheese that consumers lobe, which this line does successfully. Reducing sodium. (July 2010) Food Product Design. (20) 7:84-98. Packaged Facts, low- or no-sodium/salt products reached $22 billion in the U.S. in 2009. A HealthFocus International study discovered the following percentage of consumers: express concern about sodium intake (65%); do not know the recommended intake levels (79%); check sodium content (29%); reduce salt at the table (55%); believe sea salt is healthier alternative (78%). This article discusses proposed salt-reduction regulations, salt's functional role in food and sodium-reduction solutions. Discusses the following ingredients: yeast extracts, flavor enhancers, MSG, HVP, dried plum ingredients, unami enhancers, and potassium chloride stimulates. Katz, Barbara & Williams, Lu Ann. Salt reduction gains momentum. (May 2010) Food Technology. (64) 5:24-32. the public campaign to reduce sodium in processed foods, including the National Salt Reduction Initiative, whose mission is to cut the salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25% in 5 years. 80% of the salt in American's diets come from processed foods. According to the American Heart Association, the death rate from high blood pressure has increased 19% between 1996-2006. Nearly one-third of Americans have high blood pressure, with 76% of them unaware their condition. Includes a summary of voluntary industry initiatives to reduce sodium, including: Kraft Foods, Unilever, and Kellogg. In the global market, the U.S. accounted for one-third of low-sodium product launches. The annual low sodium market is worth $12 billion. Includes a summary of the HealhFocus International's (HFI) survey on consumer attitudes on salt in food, revealing that 65% are somewhat concerned about sodium content. Yet 79% of survey participants were unaware of the recommended daily intake of sodium. 55% of consumers believe that sodium products taste better than earlier low-sodium products. According to Innova Market Insights, 3,000 low-sodium products were launched globally (double the 2006 level). Discusses the baking industry in the Netherlands, whose major bakeries made a commitment to reduce sodium. Includes the following charts: Number of product launches claiming low sodium by top 10 countries; U.S. shopper knowledge of recommended daily allowance of sodium. Ellen. Strategies for reducing sodium in the U.S. (May 2010) Food Technology. Overview of a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) entitled "Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States." As high sodium levels are linked to hypertension, heart disease, and stroke, the IOM recommends that the F.D.A. modify salt's GRAS status and set limits of use as a food additive. Yet, salt affects flavor, shelf life, food safety and has technical uses. Food companies voluntarily reducing sodium levels include Campbell Soup Co., Kraft Foods and Bumble Bee Foods. Includes the following charts: Trends in mean daily sodium intake from food for three gender/age groups, 1971-1974 to 2003-2006; Tracking salt concerns vs reduced sodium product consumption. Boosting benefits. (April 2010) Baking Management (14) 4:8, 10. conscious consumers are looking for nutritious bread products that are made with whole grains, are lower in calorie, lower in sodium, high in fiber and are portion controlled. Perspectives on the category are provided from Janice Anderson, vice president of marketing, Flowers Foods; Tim Zimmer, vice president of Sara Lee Fresh Bakery, and Dough Radi, vice president of marketing at Rudi's Organic Bakery. Includes a table with dollar and unit sales of the top 10 brands of fresh bread for the 52 weeks ending February 21, 2010, and a graph showing the market share of the top 10 brands. Private label brands hold the largest market share with 26.5 percent of sales in the category. Malovany, Dan. Back to the drawing board. June 2010). Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery (99) 6: 38-40, During the last year the economy as affected the cookie and cracker segments of the bakery market. Cookie manufacturers reduced the number of new products introduced in the category to 462 in 2009 a decline of 38% percent from the previous year. New product introductions in the cracker category also fell but only slightly to 223 in 2009 from 239 in 2008. Article includes tables with dollar sales (in millions), % change vs. pervious year, dollar share, unit sales (in millions), and unit sales for the top ten brands of cookies and top ten brands of crackers. Key trends in the cookie and cracker categories are healthier products that are low in sodium, lower in sugar and have been reformulated with healthier fat or oils along with items being more convenient Data for the tables were obtained from SymphonyIRI Group for the 52 weeks ending March 21, 2010. Perspectives on current trends in the category are provided from Cara Figgins, vice president and co-owner of PARTNERS, a tasteful choice company; Wally Amos, chief executive officers of Chip & Cookie LLC; Harry Duffin, vice president of dales for Gourmet Cookies; Laura Kuykendall, senior marketing manager for Glutino Food Group; Joy Page, chief executive officer of WOW Baking Co.; Jill Brack, owner of Glow Gluten Free, and Jerry Bigam, president of Kinnikinnick Foods Inc. Savory sensations. (April 2010) Prepared Foods. (179) 4:23-32. New ideas for savory flavors, including fruits and vegetables, peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, miso and unami. Discusses labeling, reducing sodium, applications and ingredient ideas. Includes a chart of flavors appearing in new foods launched in North America (2007-2009) from Mintel. Includes an overview of responses to an e-survey by Prepared Foods' Savory Survey. According to this survey, 52% of respondents responded that savory flavors could replace salt "to a great salty. (February 2010) Prepared Foods. in food are gaining more public criticism, as many Americans far exceed the recommended daily intake of sodium. The National Salt Reduction Initiative, made up of state and health organizations, is seeking to reduce the average American salt intake by 20% by 2015. The group seeks to cut sodium levels in peanut butter by 20%, canned vegetables 40%, breakfast cereals 40%, breads 25%, cold cuts 25%, and salad dressing 30%. PepsiCo to reduce sugar, sodium. (May 2010) Food Technology. (64) 5:13. that PepsiCo Inc. has began a new business initiative called "Performance with Purpose'" which seeks to reduce added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat in all of its food and beverage products. This initiative plans to accomplish the following: increase use of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and low-fat dairy; reduce sodium by 25% by 2015; reduce added sugar by 15% by 2020; end direct selling of full-sugar soft drinks to schools by 2012; reduce packaging weight by 2012; increase employee health and safety. initiative targets sodium reduction. (January 29, 2010). Food Business News (5) 24: 1, Salt Reduction Initiative has been introduced by Health Department officials in New York City. The initiative proposes to reduce the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant foods by as much as 25 percent over a period of five years. Provides a table with the sales-weighted mean along with proposed targets for 2012 and 2014 form various packaged foods including bread and rolls, tortilla and wraps, cookies, crackers, French toast, pancakes, and waffles, cold cuts, pepperoni and dry salami, cooked sausage, hot dogs, bacon, undercooked whole muscle meet and poultry, processed cheese, margarine and other spreads, salted butter, salad dressing, flavored chips, puffed corn snacks, popcorn, pretzels and snack mixes, canned soup, dry soup, frozen, refrigerated pizza, canned chili, pasta and has, and seasoned pasta, grain mixes. Reaction to the purposed initiative is included from Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner; Chor-San Khoo, vice-president of global nutrition and health for the Campbell Soup Co. ; Morton Satin, director of technical and regulatory affairs for the Salt Institute and Sue Hensley, senior vice-president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association. sodium by restricting salt. (April 2010) Food Processing. (71) 4:14. has restructured the crystals in salt to allow for more salt to dissolve on the tongue. This allows less salt in products with no compromise to taste. PepsiCo has pledged to lower sodium by 25% by the Pass (up) the salt. (May 2010) Prepared Foods. (179) 5:67-73. Heart, Lung and Blood Institute reports that a 50% reduction in sodium is estimated to be able to prevent 150,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease annually. Discusses recommendations from the FDA, the American Heart Association, and the National Salt Initiative. As a growing number of consumers demand reduced sodium foods, manufacturers are developing innovative flavor enhancers to improve the taste of low-sodium products. "By heightening a unami flavor profile with ingredients, such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), inosine monophosphate (IMP), guanosine monophosphate (GMP), the apparent saltiness of a food is increased, without increasing sodium levels." Discusses clean-label salt replacement ingredients, with high unami flavor, including: tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, meat products, broths and soybeans. Discusses formulation challenges for Meal planning. (March 2010) Prepared Foods. (179) 3:41-48. in new meal/meal centers dropped 25% in 2009. This article discusses the following meal trends- ethnic food, beverage crossover, low sodium and all-natural products. Mintel forecasts that ethnic food sales will grow 20% from 2010-2014. As more than 70% of Americans exceed the daily recommended allowance for sodium, nation-wide initiatives have developed to cut sodium content in processed foods. The National Salt Reduction Initiative seeks to lower the average Americans salt intake by 20% in the next five years. Includes the following charts: So It Says- Top 15 claims in the U.S. across the meal/meal center category; Making Meals- Meal introductions (2005-2009). Salty banter. (June 2010) Prepared Foods. (179) 6:9. editorial discusses various salt- and sodium-reduction efforts, including the National Salt Reduction Initiative (NSRI). Other issues include consumer acceptance of low-sodium products and marketing strategies. Rosanoff, Andrea & Clemens, Roger. Managing magnesium in a sodium-dominant era. (June 2010) Food Technology. (64) 6:21. diet is seriously lacking in magnesium and potassium, while sodium content has skyrocketed. These mineral imbalances can lead to cardiovascular problems. "Balancing the sodium with more potassium and magnesium may be the prudent approach to maintain long-term, healthy sodium-potassium-magnesium relationships." Dietary sources of potassium include: reduced-fat milk, coffee, orange juice, chicken, and beef. Sources of magnesium include fruits, vegetables and whole grains. According to the USDA, "virtually none of the American population consumes an adequate level of whole grains." Refined flours are 70% lower in potassium and 80% lower in magnesium than whole wheat counterparts. reformulates some breads with no HFCS, lower sodium. (August 10, 2010). Milling & Baking News. Sara Lee Corp. has reformulated its Soft & Smooth Whole Grain White Bread and Soft & Smooth 100% Whole Wheat varieties of bread. The newly reformulated products do not contain high-fructose corn syrup and have a reduction in the Salt regulation and international trade. (June 2010) Food Technology. (64) 6:172. by IFT member Morton Satin discusses the World Trade Organization's (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Discusses the proposal to remove the GRAS status of salt and the potential results on international food trade under provisions of TBT and SPS agreements. Ahead of School Pizza Sodium Reduction Goal. (July 27, 2010) Milling & Baking News. (89) 11: 9. Schwan's Food Service Inc., plans to reduce the sodium content of its Big Daddy's brand of pizza by 15% to 25%. The Big Daddy's brand is one-third of Schwan's school pizza business. According to the National School Lunch Program Schwan's Foods Services Inc., is the largest supplier to the program. Bob. Get well soon. (September 2010) Food Processing. (71) 9:48-55. to Information Resources Inc. (IRI), healthy snacks account for 37% of the snack food market, growing 8% from 2005-2009. With 74% of consumers trying to "eat healthier," top wellness trends include low-/no-fat, zero trans fat, whole grains, and reduced sugar/calories/sodium. IRI has tracked the growth of the following health claims: grain-related (25%), low fat (16%), low sodium (16%), and low calorie (3%). This article discusses the role that twin-screw extruder technology are having on the healthy snack market, including the importance of contract manufacturers. Includes a side bar on twin-screw basics and one on reduced-sodium Desalting the food grid. (August 2010) Food Technology. (64) 8:44-50. sodium intake is linked to elevated blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. The majority of Americans consume significantly more sodium than is recommended, with 70% of all sodium intake coming from prepared foods and restaurant meals. While salt does play an important role in food processing and food safety, many companies have committed to gradually reducing the amount of sodium they use, including Campbell Soup Co., General Mills, Bumble Bee Foods, and Kellogg Co. This article discusses the merits and challenges of utilizing sea salt, herbs and spices, potassium chloride and taste enhancers. Includes a chart of sources of sodium in processed foods. Challenges of lowering sodium. (March 2010) Food Processing. (71) 3:50-54. the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans consume 50% more than the daily recommended intake of sodium. Only 29% of Americans consistently check sodium levels in their food, and 79% do not know the daily recommended intake. However, the reduction of sodium can have adverse effects to food safety and product stability. Companies that have taken measures to reduce sodium in processed food include: ConAgra, Campbell Soup, General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever. Discusses ingredient innovations to aid in reducing sodium. Diane. Frito-Lays lightly salted portfolio expands. (July 2010) Food Processing. (71) 7:17. Frito-Lay's new Lightly Salted versions of the popular Fritos and Ruffles potato chips, which reduce sodium by 50%. Diane. Sargento lowers the sodium. (May 2010) Food Processing. (71) 5:19. Inc. has introduced a line of six reduced sodium cheeses, which decreases sodium by 25%. Donna. Sodium reform. (October 2009) Food Product Design. (19) 10:60-72. Due to the increased risks of hypertension and heart disease, experts believe that people should limit sodium consumption to 2,300 m.g. Includes salt statistics from Mintel's Global New Product Database, which reports an 115% increase of products containing low-, no- or reduced-sodium claims (2005-2008). Discusses the following topics: labeling, salt replacers, salt substitutes, flavor enhancement systems, and sodium acid sulfate. Also discusses selecting the best sodium reduction method for the following types of foods: chemically leavened sweets, biscuits, muffins, processed meats, and processed cheese. "Calcium acid pyrophosphate can directly reduce the sodium of such baked goods by as much as 25%, depending on what sodium-based leavening acid is replaced." Maria. Too much salt! (May 2009) Prepared Foods. (178) 5:63. The amount of sodium in processed foods is causing growing concern. The American Medical Association is asking the for the following measures, "50% reduction in the amount of sodium in processed and restaurant meals, and it is also asking the Food and Drug Administration to improve sodium labels." Denny's has taken steps to reduce the sodium content of several menu items, especially foods geared towards children. Other companies voluntarily reducing sodium include: Burger King, Yum! Brands and Au Bon Pain. T. Regulatory concerns and issues on the rise in 2009. (November/December 2009) Cereal Foods World. (54) 6:253-255. discusses several controversial ingredients and their regulations, including: acrylamide, potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide, diacetyl, sodium and natural product claims. Teresa. Escalations in the salt debate. (May 2009) Food Product Design. (19) 5:16. for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a study which showed that the current recommended sodium levels are too high for the vast majority of American, which fit into a higher risk bracket. Middle-aged, the elderly, blacks and people with hypertension should only consume 1,500 mg daily, as opposed to the current 2,300 mg recommendation. Discusses how the food industry is being criticized for its role, as more than 75% of sodium intake comes from processed foods. An initiative to cut sodium levels in processed foods is growing among local health department, medical associations, and regulatory agencies. Sodium: A dash of reality. (October 2009) Food Product Design. (19) 10:16. recommended daily allowance for sodium is 2,300 mg, which the average American exceeds, consuming from 3,000 to 4,500 mg daily. However, 60% of Americans are concerned about the levels of sodium in their food. In fact, 46% of consumers say the feature they are most likely to check on a food label is sodium content. This article questions whether government regulations are imminent, if food manufacturers do not cut sodium levels in processed foods voluntarily. . Keep flavor, enhance product image while reducing sodium. (April 28, 2009) Food Business News. (5) 5: 36-39. The two main strategies to deal with growing pressure to reduce sodium in processed foods include taste substitutes and sea salt replacements. Cost is a substantial issue as the new technology is more expensive. Some replacement options include potassium chloride, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Sea salt has a healthier image than synthetic chemical replacements as a means to reduce sodium content. According to Innova New Products Database, 800 new sea-salt products were launched in 2007, an annual increase Shaking out sodium replacement facts. (July 2009) Food Product Design. (19) 7:19-22. of Americans consume well above the recommended daily limit of 2,300 mg of sodium. "Recent estimations suggest that one out of three adults in the United States has high blood pressure." The leading cause of death globally is cardiovascular disease (CVD), which high blood pressure is a leading risk factor (49%). The following salt substitutes are examined: potassium chloride, potassium bicarbonate, magnesium salts, low-sodium salt, and the flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG). Murphy, Joan & Healy, Amber. Validity of new study on sodium consumption debated. (September 21, 2009) Food Chemical News. (51) 29:26-27. the Rand Corporation's study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion by the Salt Institute, which argues the validity of the blood pressure shift assumptions in the Karen. Dough structure okay with lower salt. (October 2009) Food Technology. (October 2009) Food Technology. A study at the University College Cork in Ireland has found acceptable bread characteristics when they reduced the amount of salt in dough. The full study "Fundamental Studies on the Reduction of Salt on Dough and Bread Characteristics" is published in Food Research International (August 2009). Karen. Hold the salt. (October 2009) Food Technology. (63) 10:10. that half of Americans are monitoring their salt intake, with low-, no-, or reduced-sodium claims increasing 115% from 2005 to 2008. Includes statistics on methods consumers are using to reduce sodium in their diet. Karen. Soy sauce aids sodium reduction. (August 2009) Food Technology. (63) 8:14. criticism builds about the amount of sodium in food, researchers at Wageningen University and Kikkoman Europe has studied the possibility of using soy sauce as a salt replacement in salad dressings, soup, and stir-fried pork. The study has been published in the Journal of Food Science. reasons to be wary of hidden salt. (May 2009) Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. A new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 70% of Americans should reduce their daily sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams. The CDC describes the following groups as potentially sodium sensitive: people with hypertension, people over 40, and African-Americans (age 20-39). The American Heart Association warns that hypertension increases the risks of heart disease and stroke. Evaluations by the non-profit group Consumers Union found surprisingly high levels of sodium in foods not considered "salty." Even food advertised as healthy, such as reduced-fat, could have high sodium levels. Provides tips on reducing the "hidden" salt in one's Reduce sodium in baked goods. (April 28, 2009) Food Business News. (5) 5:39. how ingredient suppliers are helping manufacturers reduce sodium in baked goods. Profiles include: Fleischmann's Yeast's AB Mauri Low Sodium and AB Mauri Sodium Free Baking Powder options; ICL Performance Products' Levona leavening agents; Innophos Cal-Rise. Beyond decreasing or eliminating sodium levels, the products also add substantial calcium to maintaining flavor. (September 2009) Food Technology. (63) 9:14. Campbell's tomato soup now has 32% less sodium, while maintaining the taste America loves. Campbell's tomato soup is on the list of the top ten grocery items purchased. Though extensive research, Campbell's found that 90% of those surveyed would buy the reduced sodium version of the soup. of consumers who consider an attribute very important when looking at the nutritional label of ingredients of the foods they purchase. (January 201). Food Technology. (64) 1: 18-27. specific health attributes and the change in consumers perceptions from 2008-2009. From Food Marketing Institute. Includes the following: trans fat (54-58), saturated fat (49-56), fat content (53-55), calories (46-49), salt/sodium (47-47), sugar/artificial sweeteners (42-47), whole grains (44-46), cholesterol (41-44), chemical additives (37-44), fiber (37-39), protein (31-39), carbohydrates (32-38), vitamins/minerals (34-38), preservatives (28-34), serving size (33-32), allergens (20-22), glycemic index (16-17), probiotic/prebiotic (16-14), gluten (13-14). Campbell lowers sodium in iconic tomato soup. (November 2009) Food Processing iconic soup, Campbell's Tomato Soup has reduced sodium levels by 32% by substituting sea salt. The company has conducted extensive market research, including taste tests from all 50 states. "Nine out of 10 people said they would buy Campbell's tomato soup as much or more often after tasting the new formulation." The soup contains 480 mg of sodium, the level designated as safe by the U.S. government. Demonizing salt. (September 2009) Food Processing. (70) 9:22-27. Americans consume roughly 50% more than the total daily recommended level of sodium, the food industry is increasingly pressured to reduce the levels of sodium in processed foods. The functions of salt in processed food include: "it serves as a preservative, inhibits the growth of bacteria, regulates fermentation, enhances color, texture, and mouthfeel and helps counter bitter tastes." Discusses the history of sodium reduction in the food industry. Profiles the following salt solutions: Cargill's SaltWise, Morton's Lite Salt, Wixon Inc's KCLean Salt, Danisco's Grinsted Salt Pro, Wild Flavor's SaltTrim, and Kikkoman's Less Sodium Soy Sauce. Discuses the following companies' reduced salt initiatives: Hirzel Canning Co. & Farms, First Campbell Soup Co., General Mills Progresso brand, and ConAgra Foods. Includes graph of "Sources of Sodium" including: home cooking (5%), salting (6%), natural (12%), and processed/restaurant food sodium reduction efforts. (April 28, 2009) Food Business News. (5) 5:1, 35-36. that Unilever will begin an initiative to reduce sodium in their processed food and beverage products. This effort will affect 22,000 products, which will be reformulated by the end of 2010. The company hopes to create further reductions by 2015. Research has linked sodium with high blood pressure, with experts recommending a daily intake of only 2,400 mg of sodium. On average, Americans consume almost double this amount, as "approximately 75% of total salt intake comes from processed foods such as bread, cheese, meat, sauces and soups. updated July 7, 2011 obtain sources for reprints of articles cited

<urn:uuid:6bc50a28-2a4d-4633-91e4-bbdddbacb96f>

Carl Klinkenborg, right, and his wife Gigha kiss during their wedding ceremony as people gather to celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge in west England, early Sunday, June 21, 2009. The monument attracted some 35 thousand people to mark the longest day of the year when the sunrise was expected at 4:58 am under the cloudy sky. (AP Photo/Akira Suemori) STONEHENGE, England – Pagans and partygoers drummed, danced or gyrated in hula hoops to stay awake through the night, as more than 35,000 people greeted the summer solstice Sunday at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge. Despite fears of trouble because of the record-sized crowd, police said the annual party at the mysterious monument was mostly peaceful. "It's the most magical place on the planet," said antique salesman Frank Somers, 43, dressed in the robes of his Druid faith. "Inside when you touch the stones you feel a warmth like you're touching a tree, not a stone. There's a genuine love, you feel called to it," he said. The prehistoric monument in southern England is the site of an annual night-long party — or religious ceremony, depending on perspective — marking the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Warm weather and the fact that this year's solstice fell on a weekend helped draw a record crowd. Camera flashes bounced off the stones through the night until patchy rays of sunlight peeked through the clouds at 4:58 a.m. BST (0358GMT). A weak cheer went up as dawn broke over the Heel Stone, a pockmarked pillar at the edge of the stone circle that is aligned with the rising sun. Stonehenge, which sits on Salisbury Plain about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of London, is one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions, visited by more than 750,000 people a year. It was built in three phases between 3,000 B.C. and 1,600 B.C. Mystery surrounds the monument's original purpose. Some theories hold that the stone circle was a grave site because 350 burial mounds surround the structure. In May, archaeologists found evidence indicating that pilgrims perceived the stones to have healing powers. Some other experts assert that the structure was part of an ancient astronomical calendar. But because it was built so long ago, there is no record of why the monument was erected, said archaeologist Dave Batchelor of English Heritage. "All of that sort of stuff we don't have, so when it comes to ascribing a modern-day reason depends on the viewpoint ... that's the fascination," Batchelor said. Solstice celebrations were a highlight of the pre-Christian calendar, and in many countries bonfires, maypole dances and courtship rituals linger on as holdovers from Europe's pagan past. Libby Davy, 40, an Australian living in Brighton, southern England, was attending the solstice for the first time with friends and her 8-year-old daughter. She wore sparkling dust on her face and wrapped a monkey doll around her neck as she embraced the festive mood. "It's kind of a pilgrimage," she said. "As a sculptor, I can't help being interested in the stones — they're historic, spiritual — people went to a huge effort to put them here not anywhere else. Why here? And why this configuration? It's fascinating." The solstice is one of the few times during the year that visitors can get close enough to touch the rocks. English Heritage closed the site at the solstice after clashes between police and revelers in 1985. It began allowing full access again in 2000 and the celebrations have been largely peaceful. Police said Sunday they had made about 30 arrests for drug and public-order offenses. With problems at a minimum, the crowd reverted to a carnival atmosphere. Some revelers used hula hoops to stay awake until the sunrise; other simply clapped and danced among the stones. Gaisva Milinkeviciute, 30, a yoga instructor originally from Lithuania, came with two friends, who like many in the crowd, wore wreaths in their hair. "This place actually gives people so much energy and thoughts, things that we kind of neglect in the daily lives and wish for," Milinkeviciute said. "We can come here and make them come true."

<urn:uuid:de0bfc82-2777-4503-b576-ce8f175c821f>

Monster croc 'the BALROG' tussles with mighty Titanoboa snake You shall pass ... straight down my throat where I can digest you Pic A mighty ancient croc that battled monster snakes has been named after the mythical creature of the deep that was nearly Gandalf the Grey’s downfall – the Balrog. Titanboa constricts Anthracosuchus balrogus croc (Credit: Smithsonian Channel) Just as the Balrog rose up from the inky depths of the Mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings, Anthracosuchus balrogus was discovered deep within a mine. And its fossil was chipped out of the same layer of rock where the remains of the ferocious ancient snake Titanoboa was found. The Balrog brute was about 16 feet long and weighed in at 900 pounds when it swam the same rivers as Titanoboa 60 million years ago in the world’s oldest-known rainforest, we're told. The Balrog had an unusually blunt snout and large jaw muscles unlike the rest of its family, the dyrosaurids, which would have given it an incredibly powerful bite. “It quickly became clear that the four fossil specimens were unlike any dyrosaur species ever found,” said Alex Hastings, a post-doctoral researcher at Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg and former grad student at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Hastings co-authored a paper, published in Historical Biology, about the beast. “Everyone thinks that crocodiles are living fossils that have remained virtually unchanged for the last 250 million years. But what we’re finding in the fossil record tells a very different story.” Anthracosuchus balrogus shows the early adaptability and diversity of tropical crocodyliforms. Paper co-author and Florida museum associate curator of vertebrate palaeontology Jonathan Block said the boffins were “stunned” when they first saw it. “We couldn’t believe it had such a boxy, short skull and that it was still a dyrosaur,” he said. “It really busts the mould for these animals. It is such a completely different looking beast than we’ve seen for these crocodile-like animals.” The reptile is the third new species of ancient crocodilian unearthed from Cerrejon in Colombia, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines. Originally from Africa, these ancient crocs swam across the Atlantic to South America about 75 million years ago and somehow managed to survive the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. “This group offers clues as to how animals survive extinctions and other catastrophes,” Hastings said. “As we face climates that are warmer today, it is important to understand how animals responded in the past. This family of crocodyliforms in Cerrejon adapted and did very well despite incredible obstacles, which could speak to the ability of living crocodiles to adapt and overcome.” Despite how formidable the Balrog croc was, the giant snake Titanoboa was a much mightier beast – which is why a recent Smithsonian channel documentary showed it chowing down on the ancient dyrosaur. “Every once in a while, there was likely an encounter between Anthracosuchus and Titanoboa,” Bloch said. “Titanoboa was the largest predator around and would have tried to eat anything it could get its mouth on.” ®

<urn:uuid:06f224ba-26c3-45a0-9616-7ad614caefc5>

This graphic illustrates the travel times of tsunami after the initial earthquake, which in this case is centered just off the coast of Canada. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Hawaii, following a 7.7 magnitude earthquake off of Canada. The warning was made around 7 p.m. (HST) Saturday. The estimated arrival time is in a few hours - 10:28 p.m. Saturday in Hawaii. There is no warning in effect for Guam. According to the warning center, the tsunami could cause damage along coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii and is urging action be taken to protect lives and property. A tsunami is a series of long ocean waves. Each individual wave crest can last 5 to 15 minutes or more and extensively flood coastal areas, the warning states. The danger can continue for many hours after the initial wave as subsequent waves arrive. Tsunami wave heights cannot be predicted and the first wave may not be the largest, the warning states. The trough of a tsunami wave may temporarily expose the seafloor but the area will quickly flood again. Extremely strong and unusual nearshore currents can accompany a tsunami. Debris picked up and carried by a tsunami amplifies its destructive power. Simultaneous high tides or high surf can significantly increase the tsunami hazard.

<urn:uuid:9036956f-0a8d-4f5e-a5d0-c52bce009910>

18. What does it mean for a leader to be an ethical person? Let me state up front that ethics is not primarily about right and wrong. It is convenient to characterize it this way because it actually removes the obligation to be ethical. In other words, keep your nose clean and you are ethical. That is not how I understand ethics. My friend Tom Morris, a philosopher, writes in his book, If Aristotle Ran General Motors ... Ethics is not first and foremost about staying out of trouble. It's not primarily about avoiding problems at all. Ethics is mainly about creating strength, in an individual person, a family, a community, business relationships, and life. Starting from this perspective what then does it mean for a leader to be an ethical person? If you see yourself as an ethical person, how do your decisions reflect your ethics? How does your behavior demonstrate your ethics? How does being an ethical person create strength in an organization? Got any examples to share?

<urn:uuid:833f01ad-d7bb-40dd-99f9-b08644b24552>

Strengthening Achievement: The Bangor School Department Assessment System Bangor students continue to achieve at high levels The Bangor School Department’s effective use of assessment data has been a primary driver in the sustained high student achievement levels K-12. Long before state and federal accountability mandates, the systematic process of collecting and analyzing multiple sources of data to inform instruction and to improve the instructional program was foundational practice in each of our schools. Consistently, Bangor students outperform their peers at both the state and national level often at statistically significant levels on a variety of measures while continuing to demonstrate high levels of learning on locally designed assessments. With a matriculation rate of 88.7 percent for Bangor High School graduating seniors, with 78.1 percent pursuing post-secondary education, with Bangor earning the Standard and Poor’s Outperformer Award and with three schools recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence (Bangor High School 2001, James F. Doughty School 2010, and Fourteenth Street School 2017) by the United States Department of Education, Bangor’s core belief in the power of data to shape instruction continues to push learning for students to accelerated levels. Bangor’s multi-tiered assessment system generates meaningful data when examined in the context of learning expectations, targets, and standards. This information is invaluable to our understanding of the effectiveness of various assessment measures and the strength and capacity of our instructional program. National Assessment: Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) In accordance with Maine law, all third year high school students at Bangor High sit for the administration of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to measure college and career readiness. Bangor High School leadership along with faculty review and analyze the data including trends in the data to ensure curriculum design, instructional practice, and individualized student planning provide students with a continuous growth model for learning aligned to college and career readiness standards and consistent with high expectations of performance. National Assessment: Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) A computer-adaptive assessment measuring students’ comprehension of literature and expository texts, the SRI is administered to students in grades 4-8 as a diagnostic instrument. Results are reported for individual students in scaled scores (Lexiles) reflecting the difficulty of the passages and questions to which the student responded. State Assessment: Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) In December 2015, Maine formalized an agreement with Measured Progress for the administration in grades 3-8 of the MEA assessing student performance in mathematics, reading, and science. The MEA measures student progress in satisfying the standards defined in the Maine Learning Results (MLRs) and serves as Maine’s achievement certification of the MLRs. Administration of the MEA is required of all 4-8 public schools in the spring and schools are required to test a minimum of 95 percent of their student population. Third year high school students to certify achievement of the science standards are administered the MEA in the spring. The Bangor School Department continues to glean valued data from locally administered assessments of student learning and achievement. Supporting the emphasis on literacy development in K-5, the core literacy experience ReadyGen along with the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System provide foundational data sources to ensure purposeful literacy instruction and assessment consistent with the best practice. The implementation in 2015 of enVision Math 2.0 in K-5 stretches student development in all areas of math including reasoning and number sense and offers students a pathway to Algebra I or Pre-algebra at the middle level ensuring readiness to engage the math competencies required under Maine’s new high school diploma law effective with the Class of 2019. A variety of assessments in grades 6-12 in writing, reading, social studies, and science where students apply analytical and critical thinking to their learning reinforce Bangor’s belief in the power of a liberal arts experience for all students. Our sophisticated local assessment practices and instruments during a period of change at the state and national levels have allowed for consistent sources of data that continue to be essential in supporting and planning instructional programs.

<urn:uuid:00a1b082-ea1c-4e7a-aeac-70bc64f5ece0>

But far as these Egyptian remains lead us into unknown ages, the symbols they contain appear not to have been invented in that country, but to have been copied from those of some other people, still anterior, who dwelt on the other side of the Erythræan ocean. One of the most obvious of them is the hooded snake, which is a reptile peculiar to Click to view INDIAN TEMPLE, SHOWING THE LINGAM the south-eastern parts of Asia, but which I found represented, with great accuracy, upon the obelisc of Rameses, and have also observed frequently repeated on the Isiac Table, and other symbolical works of the Egyptians. It is also distinguishable among the sculptures in the sacred caverns of the island of Elephanta; 1 and appears frequently added, as a characteristic symbol, to many of the idols of the modern Hindoos, whose absurd tales concerning its meaning are related at length by M. Sonnerat; but they are not worth repeating. Probably we should be able to trace the connexion through many more instances, could we obtain accurate drawings of the ruins of Upper Egypt. By comparing the columns which the Egyptians formed in imitation of the Nelumbo plant, with each other, and observing their different modes of decorating them, we may discover the origin of that order of architecture which the Greeks called Corinthian, from the place of its supposed invention. We first find the plain bell, or seed-vessel, used as a capital, without any further alteration than being a little expanded at bottom, to give it stability. 2 In the next instance, the same seed-vessel is surrounded by the leaves of some other plant; 1 which is varied in different capitals according to the different meanings intended to be expressed by these additional symbols. The Greeks decorated it in the same manner, with the leaves of the acanthus, and other sorts of foliage; whilst various other symbols of their religion were introduced as ornaments on the entablature, instead of being carved upon the walls of the cell, or shafts of the columns. One of these, which occurs most frequently, is that which the architects call the honeysuckle, but which, as Sir Joseph Banks (to whom I am indebted for all that I have said concerning the Lotus) clearly showed me, must be meant for the young shoots of this plant, viewed horizontally, just when they have burst the seed-vessel, and are upon the point of falling out of it. The ornament is variously composed on different buildings; it being the practice of the Greeks to make vegetable, as well as animal monsters, by combining different symbolical plants together, and blending them into one; whence they are often extremely difficult to be discovered. But the specimen I have given, is so strongly characterised, that it cannot easily be mistaken. 2 It appears on many Greek medals with the animal symbols and personified attributes of the Deity; which first led me to imagine that it was not a mere ornament, but had some mystic meaning, as almost every decoration employed upon their sacred edifices indisputably had. The square area, over which the Lotus is spread, in the Indian monument before mentioned, was occasionally floated with water; which, by means of a forcing machine, was first thrown in a spout upon the Lingam. The pouring of water upon the sacred symbols, is a mode of worship very much practised by the Hindoos, particularly in their devotions to the Bull and the Lingam. Its meaning has been already explained, in the instance of the Greek figure of Pan, represented in the act of paying the same kind of worship to the symbol of his own procreative power. 1 The areas of the Greek temples were, in like manner, in some instances, floated with water; of which I shall soon give an example. We also find, not unfrequently, little portable temples, nearly of the same form, and of Greek workmanship: the areas of which were equally floated by means of a fountain in the middle, and which, by the figures in relief that adorn the sides, appear evidently to have been dedicated to the same worship of Priapus, or the Lingam. 2 The square area is likewise impressed upon many ancient Greek medals, sometimes divided into four, and sometimes into a greater number of compartments. 1 Antiquarians have supposed this to be merely the impression of something put under the coin, to make it receive the stroke of the die more steadily; but, besides that it is very ill adapted to this purpose, we find many coins which appear, evidently, to have received the stroke of the hammer (for striking with a balance is of late date) on the side marked with this square. But what puts the question out of all doubt, is, that impressions of exactly the same kind are found upon the little Talismans, or mystic pastes, taken out of the Egyptian Mummies, which have no impression whatever on the reverse. 2 On a little brass medal of Syracuse, we also find the asterisc of the Sun placed in the centre of the square, in the same manner as the Lingam is on the Indian monument. 3 Why this quadrangular form was adopted, in preference to any other, we have no means of discovering, from any known Click to view CELTIC TEMPLE AND GREEK MEDALS Greek or Egyptian sculptures; but from this little Indian temple, we find that the four corners were adapted to four of the subordinate deities, or personified modes of action of the great universal Generator, represented by the symbol in the middle, to which the others are represented as paying their adorations, with gestures of humility and respect. 1 What is the precise meaning of these four symbolical figures, it is scarcely possible for us to discover, from the small fragments of the mystic learning of the ancients which are now extant. That they were however intended as personified attributes, we can have no doubt; for we are taught by the venerable authority of the Bagvat Geeta, that all the subordinate deities were such, or else canonised men, which these figures evidently are not. As for the mythological tales now current in India, they throw the same degree of light upon the subject, as Ovid's Metamorphoses do on the ancient theology of Greece; that is, just enough to bewilder and perplex those who give up their attention to it. The ancient author before cited is deserving of more credit; but he has said very little upon the symbolical worship. His work, nevertheless, clearly proves that its principles were precisely the same as those of the Greeks and [paragraph continues] Egyptians, among whose remains of art or literature, we may, perhaps, find some probable analogies to aid conjecture. The elephant is, however, a new symbol in the west; the Greeks never having seen one of those animals before the expedition of Alexander, 1 although the use of ivory was familiar among them even in the days of Homer. Upon this Indian monument the head of the elephant is placed upon the body of a man with four hands, two of which are held up as prepared to strike with the instruments they bold, and the other two pointed down as in adoration of the Lingam. This figure is called Gonnis and Pollear by the modern Hindoos; but neither of these names is to be found in the Geeta, where the deity only says, that the learned behold him alike in the reverend Brahman perfected in knowledge, in the ox, and in the elephant. What peculiar attributes the elephant was meant to express, the ancient writer has not told us; but, as the characteristic properties of this animal are strength and sagacity, we may conclude that his image was intended to represent ideas somewhat similar to those which the Greeks represented by that of Minerva, who was worshipped as the goddess of force and wisdom, of war and counsel. The Indian Gonnis is indeed male, and Minerva female; but this difference of sexes, however important it may be in a physical, is of very little consequence in metaphysical beings, Minerva being, like the other Greek deities, either male or female, or both. 1 On the medals of the Ptolemies, under whom the Indian symbols became familiar to the Greeks through the commerce of Alexandria, we find her repeatedly represented with the elephant's skin upon her head, instead of a helmet; and with a countenance between male and female, such as the artist would naturally give her, when he endeavoured to blend the Greek and Indian symbols, and mould them into one. 2 Minerva is said by the Greek mythologists to have been born without a mother from the head of Jupiter, who was delivered of her by the assistance of Vulcan. This, in plain language, means no more than that she was a pure emanation of the divine mind, operating by means of the universal agent fire, and not, like others of the allegorical personages, sprung from any of the particular operations of the deity upon external matter. Hence she is said to be next in dignity to her father, and to be endowed with all his attributes; 3 for, as wisdom is the most exalted quality of the mind, and the divine mind the perfection of wisdom, all its attributes are the attributes of wisdom, under whose direction its power is always exerted. Strength and wisdom therefore, when considered as attributes of the deity, are in fact one and the same. The Greek Minerva is usually represented with the spear uplifted in her hand, in the same manner as the Indian Gonnis holds the battle-axe. 1 Both are given to denote the destroying power equally belonging to divine wisdom, as the creative or preserving. The statue of Jupiter at Labranda in Caria held in his hand the battle-axe, instead of thunder; and on the medals of Tenedos and Thyatira, we find it represented alone as the symbol of the deity, in the same manner as the thunder is upon a great variety of other medals. I am the thunderbolt, says the deity in the Bagvat Geeta; 2 and when we find this supposed engine of divine vengeance upon the medals, we must not imagine that it is meant for the weapon of the supreme god, but for the symbol of his destroying attribute. What instrument the Gonnis holds in his other hand, is not easily ascertained, it being a little injured by the carriage. In one of those pointed downwards he holds the Lotus flower, to denote that he has the direction of the passive powers of production; and in the other, a golden ring or disc, which, I shall soon show, was the symbol by which many nations of the East represented the sun. His head is drawn into a conical, or pyramidal form, and surrounded by an ornament which evidently represents flames; the Indians, as well as the Greeks, looking upon fire as the essence of all active power; whence perpetual lamps are kept burning in the holy of holies of all the great pagodas in India, as they were anciently in the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and many others both Greek and Barbarian; 1 and the incarnate god in the Bagvat Geeta says, I am the fire residing in the bodies of all things which have life. 2 Upon the forehead of the Gonnis is a crescent representing the moon, whose power over the waters of the ocean caused her to be regarded as the sovereign of the great nutritive element, and whose mild rays, being accompanied by the refreshing dews and cooling breezes of the night, made her naturally appear to the inhabitants of hot countries as the comforter and restorer of the earth. I am the moon (says the deity in the Bagvat Geeta) whose nature it is to give the quality of taste and relish, and to cherish the herbs and plants of the field. 3 The light of the sun, moon, and fire, were however all but one, and equally emanations of the supreme being. Know, says the deity in the same ancient dialogue, that the light which proceedeth from the sun, and illuminateth the world, and the light which is in the moon and in the fire, are mine. I pervade all things in nature, and guard them with my beams. 1 In the figure now under consideration a kind of pre-eminence seems to be given to the moon over the sun; proceeding probably from the Hindoos not possessing the true solar system, which must however have been known to the people from whom they learnt to calculate eclipses, which they still continue to do, though upon principles not understood by themselves. They now place the earth in the centre of the universe, as the later Greeks did, among whom we also find the same preference given to the lunar symbol; Jupiter being represented, on a medal of Antiochus VIII., with the crescent upon his head, and the asterisc of the sun in his hand. 2 In a passage of the Bagvat Geeta already cited we find the elephant and bull mentioned together as symbols of the same kind; and on a medal of Seleucus Nicator we find them united by the horns of the one being placed on the head of the other. 3 The later Greeks also sometimes employed the elephant as the universal symbol of the deity; in which sense he is represented on a medal of Antiochus VI. bearing the torch, the emblem of the universal agent, fire, in his proboscis, and the cornucopia, the result of its exertion, in his tail. 1 On another corner of the little Indian pagoda, is a figure with four heads, all of the same pointed form as that of the Gonnis. This I take to represent Brahma, to whom the Hindoos attribute four mouths, and say that with them he dictated the four Beads, or Veads, the mystic volumes of their religion. 2 The four heads are turned different ways, but exactly resemble each other. The beards have been painted black, and are sharp and pointed, like those of goats, which the Greeks gave to Pan, and his subordinate emanations, the Fauns and Satyrs. Hence I am inclined to believe, that the Brahma of the Indians is the same as the Pan of the Greeks; that is, the creative spirit of the deity transfused through matter, and acting in the four elements represented by the four heads. The Indians indeed admit of a fifth element, as the Greeks did likewise; but this is never classed with the rest, being of an ætherial and more exalted nature, and belonging peculiarly to the deity. Some call it heaven, some light, and some æther, says Plutarch. 1 The Hindoos now call it Occus, by which they seem to mean pure ætherial light or fire. 105:1 Niebuhr, voyage, vol. ii. 105:2 See Plate XIX. Fig. 6, from Norden. 106:1 See Plate XIX. Fig. 7, from Norden. 106:2 Plate XIX. Fig. 3, from the Ionian Antiquities, Ch. ii. Pl. XIII. 107:1 See Plate V. Fig. 1 107:2 See Plate XIV. from one In the collection of Mr. Townley. 108:1 See Plate XIII. Fig. 1, from one of Selinus, and Fig. 3, from one of Syracuse, belonging to me. 108:2 See Plate XIII. Fig. 2, from one in the collection of Mr. Townley. 108:3 See Plate XIII. Fig. 3. The medal is extremely common, and the quadrangular Impression is observable upon a great number of the more ancient Greek medals, generally with some symbol of the Deity in the centre. See those of Athens, Lyttus, Maronea, &c. 111:1 See Plate XII. 112:1 Pausan. lib. i. c. 12. 113:1 Αρσεν και θηλυς εφυσ. Orph. εις Αθην. 113:2 See Plate XIII. Fig. 5, engraved from one belonging to me. 113:3 Hor. lib. i. Od. 12. Callimach. εις Αθην. 114:1 See Plate XIII. Fig. II, from a medal of Seleucus I. belonging to me. 114:2 Page 86. 115:1 See Plut. de Orac. defect. 115:2 Page 113. 115:3 Page 113. 116:1 See Plut. de Orac. defect. 116:2 Plate XIII. Fig. 10, from one belonging to me. 116:3 See Plate XIII. Fig. 9, and Gesner, Num. Reg. Syr. Tab. VIII. Fig. 23. 117:1 see Plate XIII. Fig. 8, and Gesner, Num. Reg. Syr. Tab. VIII. Fig. 1. 117:2 Bagvat Geeta, Note 41.

<urn:uuid:ce7c8a0b-3536-4d58-b0e9-d44a7131bf33>

Iowa state health officials said the flu is continuing to spread fast this year following an early start to the flu season. State Epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk talked Thursday with KCCI's Eric Hanson about four key things Iowans need to do to help stop the flu: 1. Get the flu vaccine, 2. cover your mouth when you cough, 3. wash your hands regularly and 4. stay home if you are sick. Get Flu Shot: "Basically, the flu vaccine is meant to stop people getting really seriously ill and dying. And that it does quite well," said Quinlisk. She said it's important for high risk people like children and the elderly to not only get the flu shot, but also have those living around them get the shot. "If you get vaccinated today, you're going to have a little bit of immunity tomorrow, a little bit more the next day, a little bit more the next day and it will gradually build up over the next week to two weeks," said Quinlisk. Cover Mouth When Coughing "Everybody, no matter whether they're ill or not, to cover their mouth and nose when they cough and sneeze because you don't know if they have that tingling in their throat and they're coming down with something," said Quinlisk. Wash Your Hands "By keeping our hands clean, then the next time we touch our eye, we're not going to inoculate ourselves with the flu virus," said Quinlisk. "Something like a keyboard that just I'm using, Maybe one or two other people, I'm not too concerned about it. I'm going to wash my hands. I'm going to make sure everybody else around me washes their hands. This is going to be fine," said Quinlisk. "Hand washing is always the best thing. The warm water, soap, rubbing is the best," said Quinlisk.

<urn:uuid:c666972d-e11e-4ca7-9238-8dfb5f47d3cd>

PowerPoint lessons, noteguides, and more, available for teachers interested in teaching range ecology, management, natural resources and wildlife. Rangelands – Rangeland Teacher Resource Guide Includes materials for lessons on rangeland plants, animals, ecology, rangeland change, and more. Developed as a cooperative effort by the Rangeland Ecology and Management program and the Agricultural and Extension Education Department at the University of Idaho and the Idaho Rangeland Resource Commission. More resources available at the Idaho Rangeland Resource Commission’s Education Page Natural Resources – Natural Resource Teacher Resource Guide Includes materials for introductions to natural resources, fish and wildlife, ecology, and more. Developed through a cooperative endeavor between the Rangeland Ecology and Management Program (Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences-CNR) and the Ag Education & 4-H Youth Development Department (CALS) at the University of Idaho. Still looking for more? Global Rangelands has a comprehensive summary of K-12 teaching resources and curricula from the Greater Sage-Grouse-sagebrush ecosystem to Integrated Pest Management. For curricula specific to Colorado, see the recently updated Source Unit for Range and Pasture Management.

<urn:uuid:db604962-219e-4e83-995b-62613b39ed83>

From Latin: annulus - "small ring" Try this Drag either orange dot to resize the circles. The yellow area between them is an annulus. An annulus is a flat ring shaped object, much like the throw-ring shown on the right. One way to think of it is a circular disk with a circular hole in it. The outer and inner circles that define the ring are concentric (share a common center point). The dimensions of an annulus are defined by the two R2, R1 in the figure above, which are the radii of the outer ring and the inner 'hole' respectively. The area of the annulus can be found by subtracting the area of the 'hole' from the area of the overall disk. See Area of an Annulus The adjective form is 'annular'. So for example the ring on the right could be called an 'annular plastic ring'. Other circle topics Equations of a circle Angles in a circle (C) 2011 Copyright Math Open Reference. All rights reserved

<urn:uuid:c3352fb4-5d7a-4825-b71a-bf5f29e95dea>

A Brief History of the Poodle Part of the Poodles For Dummies Cheat Sheet Many people look at Poodles and think "froufrou," when in reality the Poodle was bred as a working farm dog. To understand more of the Poodle's background, here's a history of the beginnings of the breed. All dogs are descended from the wolf, which may explain why they howl at sirens and the like. The original dog was domesticated between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago. From those early beginnings, man has created over 300 breeds, from tiny Chihuahuas and Yorkshire Terriers to giant Great Danes, Irish Wolfhounds, and shaggy Newfoundlands. Each breed was developed with a specific purpose in mind, from sitting in a person's lap and being a companion, to guarding livestock and property, to retrieving fallen game. As time went by, people began expecting dogs to be able to do more than their primary tasks, because it's easier and cheaper to have one dog do many jobs than to have a separate dog for each task. The Poodle, for example, was bred to hunt and retrieve game and to have an instinct to herd livestock. Just when and where the Poodle emerged as a separate breed is hard to say. Romans carved Poodle-like dogs on tombs as early as 30 AD, and they were pictured on Greek and Roman coins, but experts don't know if those dogs died out or if they further evolved into the modern Poodle. Poodles are sometimes called "French Poodles," but the breed is generally considered German even though its actual country of origin is unclear. Dogs from Russia and France contributed to the modern Poodle, and one theory states that the Poodle's ancestors came from Portugal or Spain.

<urn:uuid:bd6fc2f7-f130-4158-8063-08f27a4fbcdb>

While there are a great many guides that teach you to solder (here is one fine example), we have found that there is a surprising lack of guides to help you with the opposite skill: How not to solder. This guide shows you some wonderful examples of how well circuits can come out when you disregard all of those other guides. Let’s get started! To begin with: Make sure that your circuit board is “generally messy.” A messy board might have leads trimmed to various lengths and/or extra little bits and blobs of solder and flux everywhere. Not only will the extra little bits of solder occasionally cause short circuits, but the disarray will help to hide other issues that might be lurking, making them nearly impossible to diagnose. Zooming in on that same example, we can find incomplete solder joints like the one close to the rubber foot. A joint like this may look like it’s making an electrical connection, when in reality it may or may not be. These kinds of joints really are the best, because they can lead to intermittent connections that usually work. Intermittent connections are also a great way to prank anyone who likes to debug electronics. Think of it as making your own Annoy-a-tron! While most of the solder joints shown here have a clean, smooth meniscus, there are also two fine examples of connections that have gaps in the solder joint. Gaps like these are essential to ensure adequate ventilation of the electronic components on the other side. Some people may tell you that joints like these may crack (or break off entirely) over time, but don’t listen to them. When soldering components from the bottom side of your circuit board, you can sometimes — if you feed enough solder into your solder joint for long enough — wick enough through the holes to form blobs of solder on the top side of the circuit board. You can see these blobs here on four pins of the chip, as well as on some of the resistor leads. These blobs are highly desirable because you can make a “trick” circuit board where all of the solder joints look good from the bottom side, but there are actually short circuits on the top side of the board. If you hone your skill well enough (or just get lucky), you may even be able to create an “invisible” short circuit between two pins of a component, fully hidden beneath the component. We’ve seen “secret” shorts like these under both chips and discrete components like capacitors and LEDs. As an added bonus, it usually takes quite a while to wick this much solder through a joint. Most soldering guides recommend that you limit the time that you heat a component to just a few brief seconds. If you ignore that to get this much solder in the joint, you may have the added outcome of overheating the component and damaging it beyond functionality. That way, even if someone were to find and remove the short circuit, the component still wouldn’t work. Expert mode! Going one step further, if you solder a given location on a circuit board for long enough or with enough pressure, you can actually delaminate the printed copper pad (trace) from the circuit board. The pad is usually a thin ring of copper around the hole with the pin that you’re trying to solder, or (on surface mount boards) simply a rectangle or oval of exposed copper that you solder to. If you can manage to remove pads from a circuit board, then you remove the ability for a component to make electrical contact with the circuit board there. Sometimes, depending on the circuit, one can manually add a repair wire to fix the board. But in other cases, tearing off just a pad or two can destroy the circuit board beyond repair. (It’s also possible to break components this way, by overheating their leads.) On single-sided circuit boards, you merely need to look at the pad once too many times to make it fall of. But on multi-layer (e.g., two-sided) circuit boards, pads tend to be resilient, so you’ve got to either heat them for quite a while or use pressure with the soldering iron to dislodge the pad. Again, this is “expert mode” territory, but the two most common techniques that we’ve seen for delaminating pads are (1) using a “cold heat” soldering iron (for which you may need to heat the joint for a very long time to get it to melt) and (2) repeatedly soldering and desoldering components at the same location. In the photo above, the pads have been torn off of the circuit board at two of the solder points (both ends of one resistor). Rather than having the solder flow down to a smooth meniscus there, the solder forms a blob that sits above a mysterious dark circle at those two points— the exposed circuit board substrate. Here’s another example of what can happen when you heat a board for long enough. The two wires (red and black) from a battery holder are coming up through wide clearance holes next to the “8×8” marking, and then are soldered back down to the VCC_IN and GND_IN locations in the “Batt. In” section. The insulation around the two wires has been melted back (almost back to the wide clearance holes) from long overheating, and the wires themselves have been frayed until there are just a couple of fine strands making all of the electrical connections. Added bonus: Stray strands like these can help to cause intermittent short circuits, when the wires get bumped. Soldering guides will often try and steer you away from making “blobby” solder joints with excess solder, but there’s clearly no good reason for this. If a little solder is good, surely more is better! Some of the blobby solder joints (like those at at the lower left) are shaped like onions grown over the integrated circuit pins, making it impossible to see how (or even, if) the joint actually contacts the circuit board. Others — like the giant gravity-defying inverse silver teardrop in the center — seem to hover in mid-air above the circuit board, deftly managing to avoid contact with the plated through-hole of the circuit board. Keeping the component leads long and using blob-style solder construction can also help you to protect your intellectual property, by obscuring your circuit design from prying eyes. Spaced along the left edge of this circuit board, you can see that there are eight LEDs wired up… or are there? By lumping the two pins for a given LED under a single blob of solder, no one will ever be certain! (Also worth noting: this technique may have some side effects on the functionality of those LEDs.) The very lowest solder joint on this circuit board is where the power and ground wires (red and black) are attached from the battery holder. Note that these two wires have been soldered together. “Shorting” the power and ground together like this is a classic technique to protect a circuit from damage due to unwanted charging or static discharge. (Note, however, that if the battery is switched on with its leads shorted together like this, the battery itself will also discharge quickly, get very hot, and possibly even explode.) Here’s another related technique: If you solder together multiple pins of your microcontroller, you can connect to all of those pins at once, ensuring that no one pin steps out of line, and that all of the pins will work together in perfect digital harmony. Got any other favorite examples of “novel” soldering techniques? Let us know in the comments or in the flickr group, and we’ll do another roundup sometime! We would like to sincerely thank the helpful individuals who kindly granted us permission to use their photos and also those who allowed us access to their boards for photography.

<urn:uuid:dcd62907-4fbe-4120-92d7-723ebc22108a>

A village head, village headman or village chief is the community leader of a village or a small town. In Brunei, village head is called ketua kampung or ketua kampong in the Malay language. It is an administrative post which leads the community of a village administrative division, the third and lowest subdivision of the country. In China, village head (simplified Chinese: 村长; traditional Chinese: 村長; pinyin: cūn zhǎng) is a local government or tribal post. The village headman is the person appointed to administer an area that is often a single village. Duties and functionsEdit The headman has several official duties in the village, and is sometimes seen as a mediator in disputes and a general “fixer” of village or individuals problems. Examples of headmanship have been observed among the Zuni, !Kung, and Mehinacu, among others. Nearby tribal leaders recognized or appointed by the Chinese were known as tusi (tu-szu; Chinese: 土司; pinyin: tǔsī; Wade–Giles: t'u3-szu1), although they could command larger areas than a single village.

<urn:uuid:5a64462e-2d21-4b8f-9c64-fa44c0bfea0a>

Big Data with Hadoop Big Data is the technology that involves the management and analysis of really large chunks of data, impossible to be processed by traditional computers. Data from Social Media, Stock Exchange, Power Grids, Search Engines etc. are some examples of Big Data. Hadoop is an open-source fault-tolerant framework that allows one to store and process data. In this course, we will learn how to work with big data using one of the most popular frameworks, Hadoop! The course will also cover Hadoop ecosystems models such as MapReduce, Hive, Pig, etc. What are the benefits of using Hadoop? Hadoop’s design principles based on performance efficiency and developer-friendliness are of great value for anybody working in the Data Science domain. Here are some of its benefits: Fast and Flexible – Data extraction, processing, data warehousing, data analysis and more could be performed quickly Why should you learn Hadoop and Big Data? (Or) Need a career advice

<urn:uuid:f029c539-287a-47ba-8f42-c69191bb6b3c>

Spectra of Gas Discharges (Gr. helios, the sun). Janssen obtained the first evidence of helium during the solar eclipse of 1868 when he detected a new line in the solar spectrum. Lockyer and Frankland suggested the name helium for the new element. In 1895 Ramsay discovered helium in the uranium mineral clevite while it was independently discovered in cleveite by the Swedish chemists Cleve and Langlet at about the same time. Rutherford and Royds in 1907 demonstrated that alpha particles are helium nuclei. Except for hydrogen, helium is the most abundant element found through out the universe. Helium is extracted from natural gas. In fact, all natural gas contains at least trace quantities of helium. It has been detected spectroscopically in great abundance, especially in the hotter stars, and it is an important component in both the proton-proton reaction and the carbon cycle, which account for the energy of the sun and stars. The fusion of hydrogen into helium provides the energy of the hydrogen bomb. The helium content of the atmosphere is about 1 part in 200,000. While it is present in various radioactive minerals as a decay product, the bulk of the Free World's supply is obtained from wells in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The only known helium extraction plants, outside the United States, in 1984 were in Eastern Europe (Poland), the USSR, and a few in India. The cost of helium fell from $2500/ft3 in 1915 to 1.5 cents /ft3 in 1940. The U.S. Bureau of Mines has set the price of Grade A helium at $37.50/1000 ft3 in 1986. Helium has the lowest melting point of any element and is widely used in cryogenic research because its boiling point is close to absolute zero. Also, the element is vital in the study of super conductivity. Using liquid helium, Kurti and co-workers and others, have succeeded in obtaining temperatures of a few microkelvins by the adiabatic demagnetization of copper nuclei. It has other peculiar properties. Helium is the only liquid that cannot be solidified by lowering the temperature. It remains liquid down to absolute zero at ordinary pressures, but it can readily be solidified by increasing the pressure. Solid 3He and 4He are unusual in that both can be changed in volume by more than 30% by applying pressure. The specific heat of helium gas is unusually high. The density of helium vapor at the normal boiling point is also very high, with the vapor expanding greatly when heated to room temperature. Containers filled with helium gas at 5 to 10 K should be treated as though they contained liquid helium due to the large increase in pressure resulting from warming the gas to room temperature. While helium normally has a 0 valence, it seems to have a weak tendency to combine with certain other elements. Means of preparing helium difluoride have been studied, and species such as HeNe and the molecular ions He+ and He++ have been investigated. Seven isotopes of helium are known: Liquid helium (He4) exists in two forms: He4I and He4II, with a sharp transition point at 2.174K. He4I (above this temperature) is a normal liquid, but He4II (below it) is unlike any other known substance. It expands on cooling; its conductivity for heat is enormous; and neither its heat conduction nor viscosity obeys normal rules. - as an inert gas shield for arc welding; - a protective gas in growing silicon and germanium crystals and producing titanium and zirconium; - as a cooling medium for nuclear reactors, and - as a gas for supersonic wind tunnels. A mixture of helium and oxygen is used as an artificial atmosphere for divers and others working under pressure. Different ratios of He/O2 are used for different depths at which the diver is operating. Helium is extensively used for filling balloons as it is a much safer gas than hydrogen. One of the recent largest uses for helium has been for pressuring liquid fuel rockets. A Saturn booster, like the type used on the Apollo lunar missions, required about 13 million ft3 of helium for a firing, plus more for checkouts. Liquid helium's use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) continues to increase as the medical profession accepts and develops new uses for the equipment. This equipment has eliminated some need for exploratory surgery by accurately diagnosing patients. Another medical application uses MRE to determine (by blood analysis) whether a patient has any form of cancer. Helium is also being used to advertise on blimps for various companies, including Goodyear. Other lifting gas applications are being developed by the Navy and Air Force to detect low-flying cruise missiles. Additionally, the Drug Enforcement Agency is using radar-equipped blimps to detect drug smugglers along the United States boarders. In addition, NASA is currently using helium-filled balloons to sample the atmosphere in Antarctica to determine what is depleting the ozone layer. Materials which become super conductive at higher temperatures than the boiling point of helium could have a major impact on the demand for helium. These less costly refrigerant materials could replace the present need to cool superconductive materials to the boiling point of helium.

<urn:uuid:c285facc-83aa-4a51-b385-25855699800f>

NIAID scientists develop novel approach for flu vaccination Scientists with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases tested the novel approach in mice and ferrets. The study found the experimental approach offered an immune response against viral strains the animals had not been immunized against. The scientists developed an experimental vaccine featuring ferritin, a protein that can self-assemble into microscopic pieces called nanoparticles. The team fused ferritin genetically with hemagglutinin, the protein found on the influenza virus' surface. What resulted was a nanoparticle with eight protruding viral spikes. The scientists used the new nanoparticle as the basis for the vaccine antigen, creating an experimental vaccine using HA from a 1999 strain of H1N1 influenza virus. The first experiment evaluated the vaccine's ability to stimulate an immune response in mice. A single dose, with and without an adjuvant, triggered an immune response comparable to two doses of the current seasonal influenza vaccine. The nanoparticle-based vaccine was active against more strains of H1N1 influenza virus than the currently licensed vaccines. The team also tested the nanoparticle-based vaccine's ability to protect ferrets from a 2007 strain of H1N1 influenza virus. The virus was not a strain the experimental vaccine was specifically designed to detect, but the immune response of the ferrets still demonstrated significantly lower influenza virus levels than those not immunized. The novel vaccine concept works by simulating antibodies that attach to the parts of the influenza virus that stay consistent across different strains. The authors said the vaccine could represent a key step going forward in the attempt to create a universal influenza vaccine to protect against most or all influenza strains without the need for annual vaccinations.

<urn:uuid:e1304588-eef5-49fc-9bb3-b13badb55457>

The daughters of Zelophehad, son of Hepher, grandson of Gilead, descendant of Machir, whose father was Manasseh, belonged to the families of Manasseh, son of Joseph. Their names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They came to Moses and stood in front of him, the priest Eleazar, the leaders, and the whole community at the entrance to the tent of meeting. They said, "Our father died in the desert. He was not a part of Korah's followers who joined forces against the LORD. He died for his own sin and left no sons. Why should our father's name be allowed to die out in his family because he had no son? Give us property among our father's relatives." So Moses brought their case to the LORD, and the LORD said to him, "Zelophehad's daughters are right. You must give them property of their own among their father's relatives. Turn their father's property over to them. "Tell the Israelites: If a man dies and leaves no sons, turn his property over to his daughters. If he has no daughters, give his property to his brothers. If he has no brothers, give his property to his uncles on his father's side of the family. If he has no uncles, give his property to the nearest relative in his family, and that relative will take possession of it. This will be a rule for the Israelites, as the LORD commanded Moses." The LORD said to Moses, "Go up into the Abarim Mountains, and take a look at the land I will give the Israelites. After you see it, you, too, will join your ancestors [in death], as your brother Aaron did. You both rebelled against my command in the Desert of Zin. You didn't show the people how holy I am when they were complaining at the oasis." (This was the oasis of Meribah at Kadesh in the Desert of Zin.) Moses said to the LORD, "LORD, you are the God who gives the breath of life to everyone. Please appoint someone over the community who will lead them in and out [of battle] so that the LORD's community will not be like sheep without a shepherd." So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua, son of Nun, a man who has the Spirit, and place your hand on him. Make him stand in front of the priest Eleazar and the whole community, and give him his instructions in their presence. Give him some of your authority so that the whole community of Israel will obey him. He will stand in front of the priest Eleazar, who will use the Urim to make decisions in the LORD's presence. At his command Joshua and the whole community of Israel will go into battle. And at his command they will return." Moses did as the LORD commanded him. He took Joshua and made him stand in front of the priest Eleazar and the whole community. Moses placed his hands on Joshua and gave him his instructions as the LORD had told him.

<urn:uuid:136550a1-ad38-49a7-a40c-91a48c7ba8a7>

What is this medicine? STREPTOMYCIN (strep toe MYE sin) is an aminoglycoside antibiotic. It is used to treat certain kinds of bacterial infections. It will not work for colds, flu, or other viral infections. What should I tell my health care provider before I take this medicine? They need to know if you have any of these conditions: - hearing problems - kidney disease - an unusual or allergic reaction to streptomycin, other aminoglycosides or medicines, sulfites, foods, dyes or preservatives - pregnant or trying to get pregnant How should I use this medicine? This medicine is for injection into a muscle. It is usually given by a health care professional in a hospital or clinic setting. If you get this medicine at home, you will be taught how to prepare and give this medicine. Use exactly as directed. Take your medicine at regular intervals. Do not take your medicine more often than directed. It is important that you put your used needles and syringes in a special sharps container. Do not put them in a trash can. If you do not have a sharps container, call your pharmacist or healthcare provider to get one. Talk to your pediatrician regarding the use of this medicine in children. While this drug may be prescribed for selected conditions, precautions do apply What if I miss a dose? If you miss a dose, take it as soon as you can. If it is almost time for your next dose, take only that dose. Do not take double or extra doses. What may interact with this medicine? Do not take this medicine with any of the following medications: - other aminoglycoside antibiotics This medicine may also interact with the following medications: - anesthesia drugs - muscle relaxers What should I watch for while using this medicine? Tell your doctor or health care professional if your symptoms do not start to get better or if they get worse. Your condition, including your hearing and lab work, will be monitored while you are taking this medicine. What side effects may I notice from receiving this medicine? Side effects that you should report to your doctor or health care professional as soon as possible: - allergic reactions like skin rash, itching or hives, swelling of the face, lips, or tongue - breathing problems - change in amount or color of urine - change in hearing - loss of balance - pain, tingling, numbness in the hands or feet - redness, blistering, peeling or loosening of the skin, including inside the mouth - unusual bleeding or bruising - unusually weak or tired Side effects that usually do not require medical attention (report to your doctor or health care professional if they continue or are bothersome): - nausea, vomiting - pain or swelling at site where injected Where should I keep my medicine? This drug is given in a hospital or clinic and will not be stored at home. Remember, keep this and all other medicines out of the reach of children, never share your medicines with others, and use this medication only for the indication prescribed.

<urn:uuid:48ed607a-f64b-4d90-b2cc-7d2dac2e2720>

2. Impact- a big change that will affect people 3. Legacy- what a person leaves behind after they do something 4. Polytheism- belief in more than one god 5. Astrolabe- an instrument used to make measurements of the position of celestial bodies 6. Pulley block-a block or casing in which one or more pulleys are mounted. 7. Wood screw-a tapering metal screw with a sharp point. 8. Casting-an object made by pouring molten metal or other material into a mold.

<urn:uuid:72161136-e1fb-4d9b-907c-8694052ebdda>

NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising. Wednesday, August 27, 2014 Chicken pox vaccine We had our chicken pox vaccination in May 2007. They asked us to take the second set of vaccines 2 months later. Why do we have to take the chicken pox vaccines over 2 sessions? Does this mean only if we take our 2nd set of shots the vaccination is complete? We are going on a trip to India next month so I just wanted to know if we have to take the second vaccine in order for us to be safe. Please advise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization and Prophylaxis (ACIP) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) now recommend a booster dose of the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine. Over several decades of experience with the vaccine, immunity to chicken pox disease has been found to decrease significantly in a number of teens and young adults who received the vaccine as young children. This has made it easy for them to get chicken pox during the years when it makes a person sicker. Your doctor is doing the right thing by advising you to get the best protection against illness with the chicken pox virus by receiving two doses of the vaccine at least 2 months apart. Have a wonderful trip and stay healthy. Mary M Gottesman, PhD, RN, CPNP, FAAN Professor of Clinical Nursing College of Nursing The Ohio State University

<urn:uuid:14fca936-0239-4868-aaf1-6fa2bb0317d7>

Promotion and Retention of Students with Disabilities May students with disabilities be retained? Yes, students with disabilities may be retained; however, careful consideration in the development, implementation, and revision of the student’s individualized education program (IEP) should prevent student failure in most cases. “Research indicates that neither grade retention nor social promotion (the practice of promoting students with their same age-peers although they have not mastered current grade level content) is likely to enhance a child’s learning. Research and common sense both indicate that simply having a child repeat a grade is unlikely to address the problems a child is experiencing.” Do local governing board-adopted standards for promotion apply to students with disabilities? Local governing board adopted standards for promotion apply to students with disabilities; however, IEP teams should consider whether the student’s disability adversely impacts the student’s potential for learning or rate of learning. If so, the IEP teams should consider whether accommodations or curricular modifications can minimize this impact. Are individualized promotion standards determined by the location where services are provided to students with disabilities? No, for example, a student with significant disabilities who spends all or most of the instructional day in general education classrooms learning social or communication skills may have individualized promotion standards. Yet, a student with emotional or behavioral disabilities who spends most or part of the instructional day in a more restrictive environment may be held to the regular promotion standards. What if a student with a disability fails to meet board-adopted or individualized promotion standards? If a student with a disability fails to meet board-adopted or individualized promotion standards, the IEP team should reconvene immediately to consider the following: - Is the current IEP for the student's academic, linguistic, social, emotional, and behavioral needs appropriate? - Is the manner of assessment appropriate, including accommodations and modifications identified in the IEP? - Were all the services required by the student to make progress in the general education curriculum appropriately identified in the student's IEP? - Were the linguistic needs of English Learners appropriately identified? - Did the student receive all the services identified in the IEP? - Was the assessment conducted consistent with the IEP? - Was the student's promotion standard appropriate and clarified in the IEP? What if the IEP was written to consider the student’s individualized needs, but the student still failed to meet the promotion standards? If the questions in item #5 above were answered positively, but the student still failed to meet the promotion standards, then the student should participate in intensive supplemental instruction developed by the local board pursuant to Education Code 37252.2 – 37252.8. The IEP team should document all the supports and related services the student will need to benefit from supplemental instruction. If after intensive supplemental instruction, the student still does not meet the board-adopted or individualized promotion standards, an IEP meeting should be held to develop an appropriate plan to support student progress. If the questions in item #4 were answered in the negative, the IEP team should determine why such supports were not provided, develop an alternate plan, amend the IEP, provide intensive supplemental instruction, and consider not retaining the student because the district did not provide the supports and services necessary for the student to benefit from the educational program. May students with disabilities participate in intensive supplemental instruction pursuant to Education Code 37252.2 – 37252.8 and Extended School Year (ESY) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) simultaneously? Yes, a student may participate in the two programs simultaneously, but only if the need for supplemental instruction is documented in the student’s IEP. In order to receive both services, ESY and supplemental instruction, the IEP must reflect that the student needs to participate in an intensive supplemental instruction program as part of the ESY services necessary for the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE). In other words, the student is receiving supplemental instruction in order to meet the standards-based goals of the IEP, and special education and related services will be provided in order for the student to benefit from that instruction. Where can more detailed information on pupil promotion and retention and related supplemental instruction be found? Detailed information on pupil promotion and retention and related supplemental instruction can be found on the CDE Pupil Promotion & Retention Web page. Grades, Report Cards, and Transcripts for Students with Disabilities Should a student’s grade reflect that accommodations have been made for that student to access the general education curriculum? No. A student’s grade should not reflect that accommodations have been made. Accommodations provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in the general education curriculum. An accommodation is a change in the course, standard, test preparation, location, timing, scheduling, expectation, student response, or other attributes that provides access for a student with a disability to participate in a course, standard or test, and it does not fundamentally alter or lower the standard or expectation of the course, standard or test. May a student’s grade reflect that modifications have been made for that student to access the general education curriculum? Yes. If modifications have been made to the curriculum of any course, it is important that the student’s grade reflect the student’s achievement in the modified curriculum, as long as modified grades are available to all students. However, any modifications to programming, instruction, and grading must be documented in the student’s IEP and be directly related to the student’s disability. To automatically give modified grades to all special education students would be discriminatory and potentially violate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. A modification is a change in the course, standard, test preparation, location, timing, scheduling, expectation, student response, or other attribute that provides access for a student with a disability to participate in a course, standard or test, and it does fundamentally alter or lower the standard or expectation of the course, standard or test. May some type of symbol or code be used on a student’s report card to indicate that the student has had a modified curriculum in the general education classroom? Yes. A symbol or code may be used on a student’s report card to indicate that the student has had a modified curriculum in the general education classroom. However, this type of coding should not be used solely for students with disabilities. A policy should be developed that applies to all students. May pass/fail grades be used for students with disabilities in the general education classroom? Yes. A student with disabilities may be given a pass/fail grade as long as participation in this grading system is voluntary and is available to all students. In addition, the grading system must meet the student’s special needs and must be documented in the IEP. May a student’s transcript indicate that the student participated in a modified curriculum? Yes. The purpose of the transcript is to present an accurate picture of a student’s coursework. If the curriculum content has been modified, the transcript may reflect that modification through some type of symbol or code that indicates that the student received modified grades or completed work at a lower grade level. The explanation of the symbol or code can not indicate that the student has a disability or that the student is in special education. Anderson, Gabrielle E., Whipple, Angela D., & Jimerson, Shane R. (2002). Grade Retention – Achievement and Mental Health Outcomes (PDF). National Association of School Psychologists. Eggert, Dean B. (2001). Grading Students with Educational Disabilities (PDF). New Hampshire: Wadleigh, Starr & Peters, P.L.L.C. Freedman, Miriam Kurtzig, M.A., J. D. (2008). Grades, Report Cards, etc….and the Law. Boston: School Law 1 2 3. Iowa Department of Education, Bureau of Children, Family and Community Services (1999). Grades, Diplomas and Transcripts for Students with Disabilities. National Association of School Psychologists. Jimerson, Shane R. PhD, NCSP and Sarah M. Woehr, & Amber M. Kaufman, MA (2007). Grade Retention and Promotion: Information for Parents. (PDF; 2MB) Quenemoen, R.F., Lehr, C.A., Thurlow, M. L., Thompson, S. J., & Bolt, S. (2000). Social Promotion and Students with Disabilities: Issues and Challenges in Developing State Policies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes Salend, Spencer J. & Duhaney, Laurel M. Garrick (2002). Grading Students in Inclusive Settings. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 34(3) 8-15. Stump, Colleen Shea (2001). Grade Retention: The Great Debate. San Francisco: Great Schools, INC. Thompson, Charles L. & Cunningham, Elizabeth K. (2000). Retention and Social Promotion: Research and Implications for Policy. ERIC Digest.

<urn:uuid:db8212d1-15a8-4720-a7e3-7eef384285c5>

What is the mind? July 19, 2009 What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? This video from Google Personal Growth Series features Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., discussing these questions in an hour-long talk. Dr. Siegel is an associate professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine, a well- known researcher in this field, and the author of several very good books on this subject- The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience (1999), Parenting From the Inside Out (co-author)(2003), and The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being (2007). He also discusses Mindsight, a learnable skill to increase increase perception and strengthen the mind- i.e., increase empathy and/or reduce ADD. I have read his books and attended several of his presentations and have always found him to be clear and engaging. Although an hour in length, this talk is accessible and informative and worth the time to watch.

<urn:uuid:0c017233-05e7-462b-93eb-87d2c197442b>

- Project details - Our milestones Diarrhea and pneumonia are major causes of death among newborns and young children worldwide. Diarrheal diseases are the third-leading killer of children under age 5. Pneumonia is responsible for more than one in five child deaths and is the largest vaccine-preventable killer of children, according to GAVI, an international organization dedicated to improving children’s access to vaccines. These deaths could be prevented – both diarrhea and pneumonia can be treated with low-cost antibiotics and low-tech care. Although Egypt has made significant progress in reducing child mortality rates, pneumonia, accidents, and diarrhea are the leading causes of death among children ages 1 to 4 in the country. In some rural areas, health care is of poor quality or is too far away for families to access. Some women don’t seek care during pregnancy and childbirth or fail to follow medical advice. Families may not have information about health, hygiene and nutrition, especially with regards to preventing pneumonia and diarrhea. Raising $10,000 will enable Save the Children to bring direct care to 4,600 children under age 5 in poor rural villages in Egypt’s Abnoub District of the Assiut Governorate. We know that many children in the district suffer from pneumonia, diarrhea, eye and skin diseases, parasitic worms and anemia. We will reach them though 46 mobile health caravans, whose teams of doctors and nurses will travel to rural villages to provide medical checkups and basic care. Each caravan will enable our medical team to treat approximately 100 children. The team will also educate parents and caregivers about keeping children healthy. Medicines are provided free of charge to the families who bring their children for check-ups and treatment. Health caravans are effective because they integrate service delivery and health education. They reach remote and under-developed places. They are welcomed and accepted by the families that they serve. A lot can happen in just a few days. Stay up-to-date with our project and progress here.

<urn:uuid:e7746275-7007-4f54-b191-fa38d10e5d8b>

Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) What it is: How it works (Example): EURIBOR is sponsored by the European Banking Federation which represents some 5,000 banks and by the Financial Markets Association. With the introduction of the Euro in 1999, European banks realized the need for a new interbank reference rate within the European Union. To answer this need, the EURIBOR was adopted as the benchmark rate for the large Euro money market. EURIBOR is also the underlying rate for many derivatives, both over-the-counter and exchange-traded.

<urn:uuid:574781ef-83e6-47cb-ac2d-dcc0e9be38c7>

1 Answer | Add Yours To answer this question, we must first disect it as a normal calculus question and determine for what is being asked in the problem. We need to find a way to minimize the distance between the curve and the point. To do this, we need to find a function that describes the distance between the points on the curve and the point given in the problem. To do this, we need to use the distance formula:` ` `d(x,y) = sqrt((3-x)^2 + (4-y)^2)` Now, we can substitute `x^2` for `y` in the problem, and then simplify the expression: `d(x) = sqrt((3-x)^2 + (4-x^2)^2)` `d(x) = sqrt(9-6x+x^2 + 16 - 8x^2 + x^4)` `d(x) = sqrt(x^4 - 7x^2 - 6x + 25)` Unfortunately, this expression does not appear to be a simple squared polynomial; we'll just need to leave it as it is. Now, we must minimize the expression. Of course, every time you say "minimize" or "maximize," you should think "derivative." So, we will now take the derivative of the function. Keep in mind, we must use the chain rule! To find any minima or maxima, we must now find where this derivative becomes equivalent to zero: `d'(x) = (2x^3-7x-3)/sqrt(x^4-7x^2-6x+25) = 0` This function can only be equal to zero if the numerator is equal to zero, too. So, we will find the zeros for the numerator. Unfortunately, the zeros for the numerator are all irrational, but they can be listed here: `x = -1.60, -0.46, 2.06` If you have a graphing calculator, you can intuitively narrow down the point search further. Remember that this is a graph of the derivative! You can tell what the slopes are based on the graph. If the slope is negative, then `d(x)` is decreasing. Likewise, if the slope is positive, `d(x)` is increasing. Therefore, local minima will be found where the zeros of our derivative have negative values for local `x` less than the root of the derivative and positive values for local `x` greater than the root of the derivative. We can reduce our candidates for minimum distance, then, down to the following two `x`-values: `x = -1.60, 2.06` Now, to finish the problem, we simply plug these two values back into the original distance function to see which gives us the lesser value: `d(-1.60) = sqrt((-1.60)^4 -7(-1.60)^2-6(-1.60)+25) = 4.82` `d(2.06) = sqrt((2.06)^4 - 7(2.06)^2-6(2.06)+25) = 0.97` Thus, we have our result: the minimum distance is found at the `x`-value of 2.06. Per the original question in the problem, we must now find the associated `y`-value to find the closest point. We simply evaluate the given function to find it: `y = x^2 = 2.06^2 = 4.24` Thus, we have our closest point: (2.06, 4.24) To confirm, let's examine a graph of the function, point, and our solution: It looks like we have the correct answer! We’ve answered 288,278 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question

<urn:uuid:a5d7448b-1c88-47b5-8bd0-3815fb50e1b7>

Nowadays, lots of businesses are moving some of their responsibilities, in-house functions, activities and processes to other service providers. This technique is called outsourcing and it has gained so much popularity due to the many benefits it can provide to business organizations. Outsourcing takes place when contract agreements are made and sealed with another party who assumes the other responsibilities of the company. These responsibilities and processes include human resources, customer service, production processes, key asset management, quality control and other functions. This arrangement can be temporary or permanent depending on the needs of the company. This can be done to bridge some gaps, to improve production and to get better systems at a more affordable cost. Usually, business aspects or functions that are outsourced include information technology, marketing research, legal services, facility management, human resources, accounting & payroll, manufacturing and customer call centers. Why do businessmen and entrepreneurs outsource? Reducing the company’s overhead costs is the most common reason why businesses are after low-cost sourcing. The transfer of non-core jobs also allows companies to focus on their more important tasks. Another factor that encourages organizations to outsource is the cost savings. Usually, employers spend large amounts of money on providing work spaces, compensation for employees and other technology and human-related purposes. Outsourcing also provides a way for businesses to accomplish efficient operations. This strategy is particularly beneficial if it is provided by parties with specific specialties. This will result to faster and higher quality turnaround time to produce services and products. However, outsourcing also has some downsides that business owners need to know. This technique could mean employee layoffs and job losses. It can also cause negative customer service issues if the services are outsourced to an unreliable or incompetent provider. If you are a purchasing manager and you are aware of the benefits and downsides of this technique, would you still pursue it? Nowadays, sourcing decisions are increasingly being influenced by ethical, labor, environment and even political considerations. This is clearly shown in the US presidential election where procurement strategies have been strangely caught up. But while politicians focus on employment issues, companies are more concerned over the fact that the suppliers or manufacturers’ location is an intricate evaluation of risk, lead-time and cost. Procurement strategies are becoming more refined and are often differentiated or divided based on the complexity and product. Although outsourcing has some downsides that one needs to carefully weigh before actually venturing into this kind of industry, it cannot be avoided that low labor costs is the most common driving cause behind this strategy. If a purchasing manager thinks that low-cost sourcing is the best way to ensure the growth of the business, then he should pursue it. But if he thinks that this will not give positive results to the company, it is better to carefully think about it again. To guarantee long-term economic success, companies should properly serve their clients, irrespective of whether or not they need to outsource the tasks. By focusing on emphasizing a balance between providing quality services and products to the clients and saving money, a company will have a better chance to grow and serve many faithful customers in the future. Feel that tingling in your fingers? That's the magnetic urge to contact us! Call Bellwether Sales at Fill out a form and we will get back to you See how Bellwether Software works

<urn:uuid:e6294f94-e26a-432c-b7c7-516461976d4d>

Despite the fierce desert wind and 40 degree Celsius temperature, the exhausted young woman sat with her two children outside a lean-to hut made of rattan mats, on the southern fringes of the Sahara. Azara, 25, haltingly began to tell the story of her life as a modern-day slave born into bondage, like her parents and grandparents before her. She was owned by a nomadic Tuareg tribesman who roamed the vast expanses of northern Niger. “I can’t remember any specific times that were bad; my whole past is marked with hard memories,” she told IRIN. “I had to pound millet and fetch water all the time. I worked day and night. I had to do whatever my master told me to do. It was out of the question to say no. “If I ever I refused I was beaten so hard. I tried once to resist but he beat me.” In 2003, she finally escaped. Azara is one of at least 43,000 people born into slavery in Niger, a landlocked West African country with a population of 12 million, comprising eight main ethnic groups. In 2004, the UN classed the country as the second poorest in the world. Although it has the world’s highest birth rate, average life-expectancy is just 45 years. Seventy-eight percent of the population is illiterate, according to UNICEF. Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger. When the country claimed independence from France in 1960, the practice was outlawed, in theory. It was finally criminalised - with a 30-year jail-term on conviction - in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and Nigerien human-rights group Timidria. Fearing imprisonment under the new law, a Tuareg chief who headed 19 clans in western Niger promised in late 2004 that he would release every one of the 7,000 slaves owned by his people for generations. Timidria and its partners were overjoyed. After a decade of tireless work, the first slaves ever released in Niger would be set free at a desert ceremony set for 5 March 2005, in the village of Inates, 277 km northwest of the capital, Niamey. International observers and journalists were invited to witness the historic event. Anti-Slavery International called it “exceptional” - a worldwide one-off, unlike anything seen since the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade more than a century earlier. Instead, on the day, no slaves were released. U-turns and manouevres Arissal Ag Amdague, the Tuareg chief, stood up before the assembled dignitaries, including a delegation from the Nigerien Human Rights Commission, and denied that neither he nor any of his 19 clans owned any slaves. |Chief Arissal Ag Amdague backtracked at a meeting held on 5 March, in Ates in far west Niger, on written promises he made to free all 7,000 slaves his people own in western Niger| “Slavery doesn’t exist in Inates,” he declared. "Nobody has told me they have seen slaves. If someone has slaves they must tell me.” Dozens of Nigeriens (and one Malian) in Arissal’s territory - and the region around Tahoua, 565km northeast of Niamey - had told IRIN in the days before the ceremony that they had experienced slavery. The chief himself had signed a pledge with Timidria, dated September 21 2004, entitled ‘Freeing of slaves’, which agreed to the release. There is still no clear understanding about why he changed his position so dramatically. Anti-Slavery International says it has spoken to Nigerien and international observers who witnessed Arissal and his subordinates being visited by a government delegation, led by the Nigerien Human Rights Commission, soon before the ceremony was to take place. They say the delegation intimidated the chief and his juniors into denying slavery existed. David Ould, deputy director of Anti-Slavery International, told IRIN: “We are pretty depressed the events took the turn they did. “Despite [the Niger’s Human Rights] Commission and the government making strong statements about the new law and their intention to see it enforced, they have followed this with statements that slavery does not exist in Niger, sending out a confusing message about their intentions.” Ould added “It is also very worrying to hear of the Niger government’s intimidation of the population. We are concerned it appears to be moving away from a position that slavery does exist in Niger to one of denial.” Niger’s government, which is a signatory to International Labour Organisation conventions against forced labour, adopted the new anti-slavery provisions in the country's penal code in May 2003. They came into force 12 months later. These provide for prison terms of 10 to 30 years, and fines of one million CFA francs (US $2,123), to five million CFA francs ($10,617) for people found guilty of enslavement. |Lonpo Garba (right), head of Niger's Human Rights Commission. Garba stated that slavery does not exist in Niger - contradicting estimates of more than 43,000 people in bondage| Similar penalties are applicable to “a master or his accomplice [who] has sexual relations with a woman considered a slave, or the wife of a man considered a slave”, and “to anyone found guilty of placing a woman considered a slave at the disposal of another person, with a view to having sexual relations”. Niger’s Human Rights Commissioner Lonpo Garba, who attended the 5 March ceremony, claimed there was no slavery in Niger any more. He said Arissal only agreed to a staged release in return for cash from Timidria and others; money intended to ease the former slaves’ integration into free society. “We made a survey which did not prove the existence of these 7,000 slaves there [in Inates],” Garba told IRIN. “The commission does not deny the existence of slavery in Niger in the past, but [there are] not 7,000 slaves in today’s Niger. “We deem that organising a slave release ceremony is unacceptable as it appears groundless and in contradiction with Niger’s laws” , he announced. However, the testimonies collected by IRIN, which echo earlier reports gathered by Anti-Slavery International, indicate that the practice is still widespread across the southern Sahara - in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Sudan. Azara, who escaped into the care of Timidria in late 2003, told how she was never paid for her day-long labours for her master. “We had to sleep outside unless it rained,” she said. “Our master was nomadic Tuareg so we lived in tents, moving every two months.” There have been reports of slaves having to move their master’s tents four times a day, to make sure they are always in the shade. “It was us slaves who had to fold the tents and move them,” Azara confirmed. “If it was far away we used donkeys, but if it was close we had to carry it on our head.” Another young woman, 20-year-old Tamada, fled over the border into Niger from her life of slavery in neighbouring Mali. She has two children – the first born when she was 12. |Tamada, 20, from Niger, escaped from her life of slavery in Mali. “The situation of a slave is more than I can describe. There was so much violence, verbal insults, spitting.”| “My master used to beat me so often,” she said. “When I looked after the animals, sometimes one would run off; if this happened I would be beaten. “The situation of a slave is more than I can describe. There was so much violence, verbal insults, spitting. “If we didn’t do what we were told we would be hit so hard. I was made to clear up my masters faeces. I was so afraid of him.” History of enslavement Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practised by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria. Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. Their demand for bonded labourers increased in the 19th century, when they began to settle in northern Niger and farm, according to a March 2004 report edited by Galy Kadir Abdelkader for Anti-Slavery International and Timidria. “Slaves constituted the principal labour force in warlike societies,” Abdelkader wrote. “Their numbers kept increasing and, in the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.” War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples. The trade was not driven by international demand as was seen further south in Africa, according to Abdelkader’s report, entitled 'Slavery in Niger, Historical, Legal and Contemporary Perspectives'. Otherwise slaves were bartered, kidnapped, pawned or passed on as dowry. Although French colonisers stamped out trafficking and slave markets, they refused to class bonded-workers as slaves, terming them ‘voluntary labourers’ in a 1905 survey. This fudged classification carried over into independence half a century later (Niger was proclaimed an autonomous republic in 1958, and gained full independence in 1960), when slavery was outlawed under Niger’s first constitution. However, it carried no penalty. In a bid to quell dissent amongst the powerful Tuareg – and other slave-owning tribes – the first post-colonial administrations welcomed slave masters into the government. Niger’s minister of nomadic affairs between independence and 1974 was a provincial chief, who had a powerful interest amongst his clansmen not to discuss slavery. A 1974 coup ushered in 13 years of military dictatorship under Seyni Kountché, who also brought in slave masters to chair local authorities. “Chiefs were considered not only as agents of the state, but also as judges, and especially custodians of the traditions,” said Abdelkader. “In such conditions, it is easy to understand that the ‘justiciable’ slave could not find any attentive ears, since both tradition and religion recognised and legitimised slavery, which was not sanctioned by the law.” Despite the change in the country’s penal code to criminalise the practice, human-rights groups working in Niger describe ongoing abuses. “In Niger, slavery is a real and current phenomenon that is alive today,” said Ilguiilas Weila, president of Timidria. |A slave girl in north west Niger. “I was born into slavery, my parents are also slaves..” She wears a bracelet on her ankle, a symbol of slavery.| “Masters control their slaves not only through abuse, humiliation and violence, but also through psychological control. The master indoctrinates his slaves and keeps them in complete ignorance and far away from town centres. “This indoctrination consists of separating the child from his parents from a very young age, in order to traumatise the child, so that he sees himself as an inferior person, born only to serve others and to accept the humiliation that will be inflicted on him throughout his life.” Weila, whose organisation has 300,000 members and 636 regional offices throughout Niger, explained how religion was sometimes involved: “A slave does not have a family. Left in obscurity, he is often told that God has willed this to happen, in order to cultivate a fatalistic acceptance of his being a slave. “Wherever they go, slaves are only an addition to the workforce, an accessory whose views or opinions do not count in affairs of social or political management.” There were high hopes that Arissal’s grand gesture to free all his slaves would serve as a powerful message to other slave masters that the force of the new law was being brought to bear on them. Preparations for the release took nearly a year. The vast majority of the slaves to be freed had never handled money before, they had no possessions, no concept of trade or of how to handle economic independence. |A young Nigerien slave collects water from a traditional well in far west Niger.| Overnight, they would have been handed the choice where to live, who to marry, where to work, and they would for the first time have had the right to demand payment for their labour. Supported by international donors, Timidria collected enough food, clothing and shelter to care for the first 7,000 freed for six months - enough time to sensitise them to a life making decisions for themselves. Community schools, cereal stores, seed banks, wells and health clinics were to be established. Most of the freed slaves were expected to stay where they were, but to be wage-earning employees for their former masters who had until then paid them nothing. “The biggest immediate change would have been psychological - they would no longer have had to follow orders,” Romana Cacchioli, Anti-Slavery International’s Africa programme director, told IRIN. “The slaves see themselves, as their masters have always told them they are, as no more than dogs. “The ceremony was to be symbolic, a first step towards their emancipation and restoring their human dignity. “It was the beginning of a long road.” Anti-slavery campaigners will now begin again to pressure the Niger government to search out and prosecute slave masters, as it promised to do in May 2003 when the new law was enacted. Until then, the only former slaves able to live a free life are those, like Azara and Tamada, who managed to escape. |Sabila, 15 has been repeatedly mistreated by her slave master, often being raped. She was born into slavery| Sabila – not her real name – is 15 years old, and was born into slavery. She lives with her master in a village 100 km outside the central Niger town of Tahoua. Timid and unsure of herself, she spoke to IRIN out of sight of other slaves, in a tattered mud-and-thatch hut outside her village. “My family are all slaves to my master’s family. I have to work so hard, fetching water and firewood, and other domestic work,” she said. “He forces me to sleep with him so many times. The times I have tried to refuse he beats me. This all started when I was about seven years old. “He takes me into his room, unclothes me and rapes me. It makes me so sad. I reported it to my father but he, like me, can’t do anything, because he too is a slave.” Unusually for a slave in Niger, Sabila was allowed by her master to go to school, after a teacher threatened to take him to court if he refused. “He was afraid and agreed that if I worked for him in the mornings and evenings I could go. |A metal anklet worn only by the slave-classes of Nigerien society. There are more than 43,000 slaves in Niger, and while none where the shackles commonly associated with the slave trade, these anklets serve as a powerful symbolic reminder they are classed apart.| “I have studied up to Class Five, but now he has refused to let me go any longer. "At school when the teachers taught us about slavery, they teach that it goes back to the transatlantic slave trade and that it doesn’t exist anymore. “I am too afraid to say anything.” Sabila’s master has a daughter who moved to Nigeria to marry, and he wants to take Sabila there and give her to his daughter as a gift. “When my parents found out they were not happy, and asked our master to let me stay with them. He said no, she is my slave, she must come with me. “I have refused. He is preparing to go now; I am so afraid that he will kidnap me and take me with him.” The 15-year-old’s future is unclear. “I am still living and working for him. I have been having problems with my periods, they have not been normal and I have had bad pains. “The last time I had a period was about three or four months ago. My master raped me three months ago.”

<urn:uuid:3177b13a-4f77-40be-b5d0-d9c30f7c9411>

The latest news from academia, regulators research labs and other things of interest Posted: Dec 20, 2012 Researchers print nanotechnology materials for soft robotics (Nanowerk News) University of Wollongong (UOW) researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) and the School of Chemistry have printed materials which can actuate and strain gauge. Marc in het PanhuisThe research was selected as a cover in the recent Advanced Functional Materials ("Extrusion Printing of Flexible Electrically Conducting Carbon Nanotube Networks"), one of the world's leading scientific journals in the materials science field.In their paper, ACES Chief Investigator Associate Professor Marc in het Panhuis and nanotechnology honours graduate Geoffrey Pidcock showed that gellan gum, a well-known food additive provides the optimum conditions for the printing of carbon nanotubes (CNT), a material at the forefront of developments in bio- and nanotechnology. The research demonstrated that the printing process offers great flexibility over the geometry and application of the gauge and actuating material to soft substrates such as textile and gels. Professor in het Panhuis said: "Actuators are all around us -- just think of the muscles in our body which are the best known example of actuators which we use to run, catch a wave or kick a ball." Professor in het Panhuis said that the use of gellan gum opens up possibilities for the printing of wet strain gauges and actuators for applications in soft robotics. "Monitoring actuator motion in robotics and rehabilitation applications requires 'soft' strain gauges rather than the currently used 'hard' metal or silicon strain gauges. Our work is an important developmental step towards the realisation of these concepts," he said. Source: University of Wollongong If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on reddit or StumbleUpon. Thanks! Check out these other trending stories on Nanowerk:

<urn:uuid:dd80eace-0dec-45af-8e17-c9c8b79aade8>

AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Rarely does a week go by without news of another hacking incident, whether it's Chinese hackers accused of breaking in to The New York Times' computer systems or Burger King finding its Twitter account taken over by pranksters. Security threats aren't new and have long been part of online life. But the increased attention on them makes now a good time to review ways you can protect yourself. If nothing here feels new, that's good, as it means you've been doing the things you need to do to keep your accounts safe from hackers. Although there's no way to completely eliminate threats, minimizing them will go a long way. One of the best things you can do is to make sure your password is strong. If someone's able to guess the password to your email or Facebook account, that person can post or send embarrassing things on your behalf. Someone was able to access Burger King's Twitter account recently and changed its profile picture to a McDonald's logo. If a banking or Amazon account is involved, someone could pay bills or buy iPads under your name -- with your money. What's worse, getting a password to one account is often a stepping stone to a more serious breach. Someone can use your email or Facebook account to send spam and scam messages to your friends, for instance. And because many services let you reset your password by sending an email to your address on file, someone with access to your email account can reset passwords and gain access to all sorts of things. If the compromised password is one you use for work, someone can snoop around for files on your employer's network with trade secrets or customers' credit card numbers. Here are ways you can keep your password strong to ward off that initial intrusion: -- Make your password long. The recommended minimum is eight characters, but 14 is better and 25 is even better than that. Some services have character limits on passwords, though. -- Use combinations of letters and numbers, upper and lower case and symbols such as the exclamation mark. Some services won't let you do all of that, but try to vary it as much as you can. "PaSsWoRd!43" is far better than "password43." -- Avoid words that are in dictionaries, even if you add numbers and symbols. There are programs that can crack passwords by going through databases of known words. One trick is to add numbers in the middle of a word -- as in "pas123swor456d" instead of "password123456." Another is to think of a sentence and use just the first letter of each word -- as in "tqbfjotld" for "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." -- Substitute characters. For instance, use the number zero instead of the letter O, or replace the S with a dollar sign. -- Avoid easy-to-guess words, even if they aren't in the dictionary. You shouldn't use your name, company name or hometown, for instance. Avoid pets and relatives' names, too. Likewise, avoid things that can be looked up, such as your birthday or ZIP code. But you might use that as part of a complex password. Try reversing your ZIP code or phone number and insert that into a string of letters. As a reminder, you should also avoid "password" as the password, or consecutive keys on the keyboard, such as "1234" or "qwerty." -- Never reuse passwords on other accounts -- with two exceptions. Over the years, I've managed to create hundreds of accounts. Many are for one-time use, such as when a newspaper website requires me to register to read the full story. It's OK to use simple passwords and repeat them in those types of situations, as long as the password isn't unlocking features that involve credit cards or posting on a message board. That will let you focus on keeping passwords to the more essential accounts strong. -- The other exception is to log in using a centralized sign-on service such as Facebook Connect. Hulu, for instance, gives you the option of using your Facebook username and password instead of creating a separate one for the video site. This technically isn't reusing your password, but a matter of Hulu borrowing the log-in system Facebook already has in place. The account information isn't stored with Hulu. Facebook merely tells Hulu's computers that it's you. Of course, if you do this, it's even more important to keep your Facebook password secure.

<urn:uuid:23884dbf-f2a7-4e20-bdb7-b01dce19440a>

The most difficult part of teaching World Issues is steering students away from the cynicism and apathy that often infect discussions of the world’s problems. If television is a good indicator of social mood, then this cynicism seems to be intensifying. Recently, a variety of documentary-style television shows such as Aftermath and Life After People have entertained a wide range of apocalyptic scenarios. Life After People is particularly bleak in regards to the future of our species. The show, which is currently in its second season on The History Channel, callously quantifies how quickly human accomplishments will vanish after we are gone. There are even some groups that are keen to see this future realized. Founded in 1991, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT – pronounced “vehement”) is based around the motto: “May we live long and die out”. Although this is certainly a fringe movement, its core ideas have been picked up in mainstream culture. Most notably, the 1999 box office juggernaut The Matrix sounds remarkably similar to VHMET ideology when its main antagonist compares humanity to a virus which has infected the world. Feeling that the world is too big and complex to fix and that humanity is only capable of destructive behaviour is very tempting because it is so easy. It is the misplaced idea that nothing can change that frees us from the responsibility of trying. Such a defeatist attitude, however, poses the danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is therefore the duty of both teachers and parents to endow our students with a feeling of optimism and a sense of control over their future. To my mind, the best way of doing this is to shine a light on the primary sources of the cynicism which seems so deeply embedded in our society. As with all problems, pessimism can be fully overcome only if it is completely understood. The possibility that humans may have lost control of the world became a widely discussed theme during the Industrial Revolution. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (1818) is the most famous example of the era’s growing fear that humans could become victims of their own technology. However, it is not the technology itself that is the primary object of fear in this story; it is how it came into being. What is monstrous about Frankenstein’s creation is the fact that it was assembled rather than born. The source of the monster’s murderous rage is its alienation from humanity as a result of its unnatural origin. A little over a century later, Aldous Huxley gave Shelly’s critique of industrialized society a futuristic makeover in Brave New World (1932). Like the monster in Frankenstein, people in Huxley’s futuristic dystopia are essentially industrial products. Each person is engineered on an assembly line to fulfill a specialized social task. Unlike Shelly’s monster, these assembly line citizens appear quite content with their lives. However, this is only because human inefficiencies like curiosity have been meticulously removed. They are happy only because they are too apathetic to be dissatisfied. Literary allegories about the disempowering nature of the industrial world are mirrored by one of the most influential publications of the 19th century. In certain passages of The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx sounds as if he is giving a description of the Frankenstein monster. Most notably, he describes the “alienation” felt by modern workers as a result of their fragmented existence as industrial drones. And like the monster described by Shelly three decades earlier, alienated workers will eventually turn violent. Two centuries of academic literature, and a handful of communist revolutions is pretty conclusive: when people are treated like industrial products, they become blissfully apathetic at best, and chaotically violent at worst. Even the most cursory glance at history shows that neither approach is particularly good at changing the world. Knowing this, the value of an integrated, liberal arts education becomes all the more apparent. Since the Industrial Revolution, education has unfortunately been based on an assembly-line model. To maximize efficiency, students were educated in a series of specialized subjects, and forced to pass through a number of quality control check points to ensure their readiness for the industrial work force. It should be no surprise then, that students coming out of this anachronistic approach to education felt alienated and powerless when confronted with a seemingly fragmented array of global issues. Today’s students must be taught how to transcend artificial distinctions in order to regain a sense of overarching understanding and personal agency that was forfeited in the name of specialization. As students stop seeing their world through the antiquated divisions left over from the industrial age, they realize that many problems share common solutions, and that one seemingly small action can have wide reaching implications. Education itself is one such solution. Higher rates of education have been repeatedly proven to eliminate many of the problems that plague the contemporary world, including gender inequality, economic disparity, and unsustainable population growth. Postindustrial, interdisciplinary education can change the world. It is the job of teachers today to share this optimistic fact with the next generation.

<urn:uuid:4dd915c6-341b-473d-be7a-bd006de1acad>

Washington - A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools. Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms. Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom. Last May, the school board of Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight. "Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they're running into pushback on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands," said Frank Niepold, climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually. "We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is (sizable) and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family." Against this backdrop, the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, Calif.-based watchdog group that supports the teaching of evolution through advocacy and educational materials, announced on Monday that it will launch an initiative to monitor the teaching of climate science and evaluate the sources of resistance to it. NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum. The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the NCSE. At that time, evolution - the long-tested scientific theory that varieties of life forms emerged through biological processes like natural selection and mutation - was patchily taught. Teaching standards have been developed since then, but it's unclear how widely evolution is taught, given teachers' fear of controversy. Studies show that teachers often set aside evolution for fear of a backlash. Scott worries this could happen with climate science, too. "The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the 'hecklers' veto,' " she said. "If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed." Climate change skeptics like James Taylor, environmental policy fellow at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, said the pushback in schools and legislatures reflects public frustration at being told "only one side of the global warming debate - the scientifically controversial theory that humans are creating a global warming crisis." "It is therefore not surprising that state legislatures are stepping in to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent in a manner that turns an important and ongoing scientific debate into a propaganda assault on impressionable students," Taylor said. Climatologists say man-made climate change is not scientifically controversial. Instruction on climate change is typically introduced in middle school earth science classes and in recently popular high school environmental science courses, often electives. In 2007, science teachers said their greatest challenge was making climate change fit in with their curriculum, according to a survey by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint project of NOAA and the University of Colorado at Boulder. By 2011, the biggest concern wasn't the curriculum but the controversy, said Susan Buhr, director of the education outreach arm for the institute. Resistance to the scientific consensus breaks down mostly along regional lines, Buhr said, with greater pushback in the South and in regions where "livelihoods have been built on extractive industries" of fossil fuels. Attacks on evolution come largely from conservative Christians who believe in a literal reading of the biblical creation story. Climate change denial is mostly rooted in political ideology, with foes decrying it as liberal dogma, teachers say. The NCSE's Scott said that makes it much harder to use the courts to protect climate science education. New national science standards for grades K-12 are due in December. The standards - based on a framework by the National Academy of Sciences and developed by a partnership of private industry and state governments - are expected to include climate change. But some science educators predict that could heat up local and state resistance in some areas. "You could see more states or localities challenging the topic," said Niepold, who is familiar with the NCSE initiative. "Given the polarized nature of how people take this issue, having a community organization that looks at the issue could be valuable." © 2012 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.

<urn:uuid:7c6260eb-bf29-4429-9e0a-1849d9175002>

One of my favourite Economics textbooks is Economics by J.Sloman. It is authoritative, well written and well designed. For an A - Level student it contains everything you need to know. (There are some chapters surplus to requirements, but these are generally marked) If you study Economics at University, Sloman, will remain a good guide to understanding the main principles. There are also several other A Level textbooks to choose from I particularly recommend this Economics through Diagrams textbook. Not much writing, but its good to have all the diagrams in one place. AS Economics Textbooks AS textbooks are not as common, it is not absolutely essential to buy an AS textbook, you might just buy an A Level textbook. It is also worth bearing in mind that GCSE textbooks can be very useful for AS Level. (there is little difference between GCSE and AS level economics in terms of difficulty.

<urn:uuid:7d97054a-7822-4b17-af5d-7047d81c5a47>

Warrior Maven Video Special Above: Air Force Prototypes 6th Gen Fighters-Stealth, Sensors, Weapons By Sebastien Roblin, War Is Boring When the 1950s T.V. documentary series Air Power got around to covering the opening battles of World War II, it unfortunately reinforced a popular, and entirely incorrect, notion. “The Polish air force is caught on the ground,” narrator Walter Cronkite grumbled over images of German bombers pummeling Polish installations. “The Polish air force is destroyed in three days.” That’s exactly what Nazi propaganda reported after the German conquest of Poland in 1939. But it turns out Nazi propaganda wasn’t entirely honest. Despite being badly out-classed and out-numbered three-to-one, Polish fighters shot down a large number German aircraft in the chaotic early days of the conflict. Warsaw’s air arm resisted effectively for nearly a week — and, at reduced capacity, continued fighting for more than two weeks. That’s a Hell of a lot more than three days. The German Luftwaffe certainly made an effort to destroy Polish aviation on the ground — but the stubborn Poles refused to just roll over. In 1939, the Polish air force relied entirely on domestically-produced aircraft but devoted just $2 in funding per capita to air power, compared to the $100 per capita Germany allocated. Conceived primarily to support the army on the ground, the air force had one each independent fighter and bomber brigade and spread out the rest of its aircraft in mixed detachments assigned to ground formations. There were 445 aircraft in combat units, with additional aircraft in reserve or training units. Not a huge number. But the Polish air arm did boast a strong pilot training program. In 1939, the German Luftwaffe was unquestionably the most advanced air force the world. The main formations assigned to the invasion of Poland, Luftlotte 1 and 4, counted 1,302 aircraft between them. The Luftwaffe’s frontline fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf.109, could sprint at 354 miles per hour and was armed with twin 20-millimeter cannons and machine guns. Supporting the Bf.109 was the new, twin-engine Bf.110 fighter-bomber, which could reach a speed of 348 miles per hour and was even more heavily armed than the Bf.109 was, but was a clumsy dogfighter The mainstay of the Polish air force was its 132 gull-wing PZL P.11s, which were state-of-the art monoplanes — in 1931. By 1939, the P.11 was several generations behind. Armed with just two machine guns, the P.11 was more than 100 miles per hour slower than the 109 was. Warsaw’s air arm also fielded 30 even older P.7 fighters. As war grew imminent, the Poles tried to acquire more-advanced Hawker Hurricane and MS.406 fighters from England and France, respectively — but at the outbreak of conflict, these were awaiting shipment and assembly through Romania, nominally a Polish ally. The Luftwaffe deployed Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers for ground support. Though slow-moving and vulnerable, Stukas had already earned a reputation in the Spanish Civil War for the terrible howl of their sirens as they executed precision bombing attacks at near-vertical angles. Finally, two twin-engine medium bombers — the older, pencil-thin Do-17 and the heavy-lifting He-111, famous for its all-glass nose — bombed cities and military installations during the Polish campaign. The Polish bomber force was not as obsolete as the fighters were. Warsaw’s 120 P.23 Karas strike planes were only slightly inferior to the German Stukas, while the 36 twin-engine P.37 Łos light bombers in the bomber brigade were modern designs capable of attaining 280 miles per hour. The Polish air force also employed hundreds of light RWD and PWS-26 liaison aircraft to help army commanders communicate and spy on enemy troop movements. The P.37 was a modern light bomber capable of carrying three-ton bomb loads at relatively high speeds. Photo via Wikipedia Battle of the secret bases As Germany launched its unprovoked invasion early in the morning on Sept. 1, 1939, it made possibly the first attempt to wipe out an opposing air force on the ground by surprise attack — a strategy most famously executed by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. The Poles were not surprised. Tensions had been high enough that Polish air force units had mobilized a full week before the war. As hostilities broke out, the Polish squadrons relocated to a network of secret satellite airfields. They proceeded to launch hit-and-run attacks on German aircraft and tanks from their hidden bases. The conflict nonetheless began inauspiciously for Polish aviation, when at 4:45 in the morning, a German Stuka shot down Capt. Mieczyslaw Medwecki of the 2nd Krakow Air Regiment as he was taking off in his P.11. It was the first aerial victory of World War II. In revenge, Medwecki’s wingman, Lt. Wladek Gnys, shot down two Do-17s — the first Allied kills. The German air force did happen upon a few of the bases by chance. For example, on Sept. 2 prowling Bf.109s discovered a camouflaged airfield near Lodz and strafed several aircraft on the ground, setting fuel stores ablaze. The crude state of the landing strips also led to high numbers of accidents and crash landings, accounting for the loss of 20 P.23s. Still, the satellite airfields allowed the majority of Polish combat aircraft to escape destruction on the ground. The Luftwaffe’s anti-airfield campaign did boast a few successes. The Germans hit the airfield in Rakowice on Sept. 1, destroying 28 aircraft — almost all of them outdated airframes no longer in service. On Sept. 3, the Germans hit the P.37 base at Malaszewicze three times, burning down its hangars and most of the bombers belonging to the resident training units. On Sept. 5, Bf.109s destroyed three P.11s attempting to take off and another two in the air near the aerodrome at Widzew. Stukas over Poland in 1939. Photo via Wikipedia Battle over Warsaw Large fleets of German bombers pounded Warsaw from the first day of the invasion. The Polish fighter brigade was airborne by dawn, and even managed to chase away a force of 80 He-111s heading for the capital city, shooting down six or seven German aircraft at the cost of four P.11s. Though the German Bf.109 and Bf.110 escorts completely outclassed the P.11s, the Poles were still able to break through to the bombers. Polish colonel Leopold Pamula, after shooting down two aircraft, even rammed his P.11 into a third German plane before bailing out, pioneering a tactic later adopted by Soviet pilots. The Polish reputation for chivalry was on display as Warsaw’s pilots refrained from shooting the parachutes of downed Germans. A Polish lieutenant named Skalski, after forcing down a German Hs.123 bomber, even landed nearby to make sure his wounded opponent got medical treatment. The Germans did not reciprocate, however, machine-gunning several parachuting Poles. On the first day alone, the Polish air force claimed 25 aircraft shot down for the loss of 10 of its own. The next day, the P.11s of the Pomeranian detachments pounced on a squadron of 16 Do-17s and destroyed nine for no loss. Polish air force P.11s. Photo via Wikipedia Poles versus Panzers Meanwhile, the P.23s and P.37s of the Polish air force concentrated on hammering the columns of German Panzer tanks that had pierced the Polish army’s defenses and were rapidly overrunning the country. Flying at low altitudes, the bombers suffered heavy losses from German fighters and anti-aircraft guns — and even flak from Polish troops, who assumed all overhead aircraft were German. Several sources suggest that Polish bombers accounted for the majority of the 600 German tanks Warsaw’s forces knocked out in the campaign. What is certain is that the XVI Panzer Corp’s advance stalled for two days at Radomsko while under attack by P.23s, and at Czestochowa the 4th Panzer Division was pounded repeatedly by P.37s, losing 28 percent of its strength, by its own account. In response, the German army begged the Luftwaffe to provide more air cover. In the first six days of battle, the Polish air force shot down 105 aircraft for the loss of 79 and dropped 200,000 pounds of bombs. But as German tank columns advanced deeply into Poland, Polish units had no choice but to evacuate one base after another. Soon they were suffering major shortages in fuel and spare parts, to the point that they could only send small numbers of aircraft into the air at a time. The greater concentrations of grounded Polish aircraft — with fewer available to defend the skies — made German airfield attacks more effective. On Sept. 13 Bf.109s discovered another secret airfield at Hutniki. The Germans shot down four P.23s and strafed several P.37s on the ground. On Sept. 10, Gen. Tadeusz Kutrzeba led the Poznan Army in a major counterattack at the Bzura river that sent the Germans reeling. Hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers came to the rescue of the retreating Wehrmacht. Polish P.23s and P.37s flew in support of the ground attack, while the Poznan Army’s own fighters provided air cover, shooting down 32 aircraft over the course of the campaign. But the Luftwaffe’s massive intervention reversed the tide of battle. Still, the Poles were planning to mount a rearguard defense on the Romanian border while they awaited a shipment of modern fighters from England and France. But on Sept. 17, the Polish air force scored its last two victories of the war — a Do-17 and Soviet fighter. The Soviet Union had just formed a pact with the Nazis and invaded Poland from the east in order to secure its share of the spoils. Realizing their cause was doomed, most of the remainder of the Polish air force — more than 150 aircraft — fled to Romania along with the Polish government. The Romanians arrested the Polish pilots and impounded their planes, along with the aircraft sent by England and France. The Romanian government had sensed which direction the wind was blowing, and broke its alliance with Poland. Nonetheless, hundreds of pilots managed to escape to France and England and served in those countries’ air forces. The Polish pilots of 303 Squadron, given more modern Hurricane fighters, played a vital role in defending England during the Battle of Britain, shooting down 203 German aircraft for the loss of 29 pilots killed. By the end of the war, more than 19,000 Poles had served in Allied air units. The last P.11. Photo by the author The end of the beginning The siege of Warsaw lasted two more weeks following the government’s flight into Romania. On Sept. 26, a Polish agent stole an interned PZL P.46 prototype in Romania and flew to Warsaw, delivering the exiled Polish government’s order to begin preparing an underground resistance movement. The Polish air force’s last combat mission — a recon flight by two PWS observation planes — took place on Oct. 4, 1939. The pilots tossed grenades and fired small arms at German infantry. Nazi propaganda exaggerated the extent of an already crushing victory. Despite flying outdated planes, despite being outnumbered and surrounded, the Polish air force was not destroyed on the ground — and managed to give as good as it got … for weeks. Many of its pilots escaped and went on to continue shooting down Luftwaffe aircraft for rest of the war. The sacrifice of those Polish aviators is commemorated by a monument at the Polish air force museum in the beautiful fortified city of Krakow, along with the last surviving P.11 fighter. More Weapons and Technology -WARRIOR MAVEN (CLICK HERE)--

<urn:uuid:96e8f4db-e8ba-4e2e-a942-ebc40754d553>

Find content from Thinkfinity Partners using a visual bookmarking and sharing tool. Home › Results from ReadWriteThink 1-1 of 1 Results from ReadWriteThink - Classroom Resources | Grades 3 – 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing Trading Card Creator This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a variety of topics such as a character in a book, a person or place from history, or even a physical object. An excellent tool to for summarizing or as a prewriting exercise for original stories.

<urn:uuid:fd6ed802-e660-4294-9599-1858a0777366>

Simplifying Square Roots Lesson 3 of 6 Objective: SWBAT simplify square root expressions. Students will understand how the square root of a number is related to the dimensions of a square. Present the warm-up problem (5 minutes). The warm-up problem for this lesson (found in the presentation MTPGeometry_Lesson6_0_7.pptx) asks students to simplify a square root by factoring perfect squares out of the radicand. This warm-up activity is intended as a formative assessment. I begin every lesson by displaying a warm-up problem on the front board using an overhead projector. This is a classroom routine, so students already know what to do. Students get whiteboards, rags, and markers when they arrive in class, and arrange their desks in pinwheels. Warm-up problems must be completed within the time limit (5 minutes). Teams earn points only if every team member has the same answer (or equivalent answers) and all members show their work. I want students to work together while reviewing simple skills. This warm-up routine has been fairly effective. I often observe students coaching their peers so that the team can earn points. While students do sometimes copy their team-mates, I know that at least they are copying the entire procedure as modeled by another student. Complete administrative tasks (during the warm-up). While students complete the warm-up problem, I take attendance and circulate around the classroom noting who does not have their homework or their materials. Before students begin the warm-up problem, they put their homework and one of their required materials (textbook, planner, pencil, or course notebook—a different item chosen at random each lesson) where I can see them. Teams earn the maximum points each lesson only if every member of the team is punctual, prepared with both homework and materials, polite, and positive. I want to reinforce the expectation that students will come prepared in order to contribute to their team and to the class as a whole. Students can be stubbornly resistant to both extrinsic rewards (points) and peer pressure, yet I regularly see evidence that students are at least getting the message. Students chide each other for failing to come prepared, and when students who rarely complete homework do come prepared, they often proudly announce the fact to me and to their teammates. Homework Review (10 minutes). The second side (problems #2-4) of handout Homework 6-9 was assigned to be completed at the beginning of this lesson. This homework assignment is review for the unit test. Following the warm-up, I display solutions to homework problems using the document camera and overhead projector. I ask for and answer questions about the homework. Having model solutions prepared saves time when students have questions. I collect homework every other day and review one-half the assigned problems at the beginning of every lesson. Motivate the lesson (1 minute). In a previous lesson, I told my students that they must learn to simplify square roots, because many beautiful relationships involving special right triangles and trigonometry will ‘pop out’ when they work with square root expressions, but will be very hard to see if they convert the roots to decimal approximations. Also, many textbooks—as well as standardized tests—will expect students to be able to convert between different forms of a square root expression. In this lesson, I remarked that most students seemed to pick up the skill of simplifying square roots quickly when we first learned it. Since then, however, many seem confused about it. This lesson will give the students notes to study from as well as additional practice. Review learning targets and the agenda for the lesson (2 minutes). Display the agenda and learning goals for the lesson as you distribute materials for the activity. Ask students to read them over and invite questions. Lecture and Guided Practice Ask students to take notes as you review the geometric model and demonstrate methods of simplifying square roots (10 minutes). Before class, print the guided notes (MTPGeometry_Notes_6-7.docx). Make one copy for each student. Distribute the guided notes. For this lesson, complete only the front side of the guided notes (through Example 3). I give all notes in this course in the form of guided notes, which I print on goldenrod paper. I ask my students to keep all notes for the entire year, and inspect notebooks at the end of every unit. I give the notes using the mimeo board, which allows me to save what I write on the board. I try to make note-taking into a class discussion. I ask students to call out the words that I write in the blanks if they think they know them. I encourage them to ask questions. Although students would love to write on the mimeo board if I asked for a volunteer to be the class scribe, I rarely do this as it increases the time required. Five years ago, no more than a quarter of my students would use their notes on tests or quizzes, and students occasionally would simply refuse to take notes in class. Now, students regularly refer to their notes during tests, and many students tell me that they have saved all the notes I gave them in prior courses. These differences are a reflection of a changing school culture, so I can’t point to my own practices as the cause. Nevertheless, I believe that my use of guided notes has helped. My current focus is to change the purpose of class notes: from ‘telling’ students how to solve a particular type of problem to asking them to summarize the knowledge they have constructed as a class. Have students practice (15 minutes). The practice activity is intended to be completed using individual white boards. The problem set (found in the presentation MTPGeometry_Lesson6_0_7.pptx) is displayed using the document projector. Problems are presented in pairs, allowing students to work at different speeds. Students may choose to complete either the problem on the left or the problem on the right. Ask students to write the number of the problem they completed. Insist that students show their work, both to help you make corrections when necessary and so that they can explain their thinking to teammates who may need their help. Students hold their whiteboards in the air when they are finished with a problem so that you can check it. If students are working fast, they should complete both problems in each pair, but all students should concentrate on answering one problem of each pair correctly first. As students are working, circulate around the classroom. Common problems to look for: - Students may forget that the square root of a number is represented by the length of one side of a square whose area is equal to the number. This misunderstanding shows up when students are asked to write the square root in simplified form. To ensure that students have the opportunity to recognize and correct this problem, ask students to write their answer to every problem by completing the second half of each equation. - Students my write both factors of a perfect square outside the radical. This probably happens because students forget the meaning of square root and feel that they need to include all the factors of the number in their answer. Remind students that the square root of a number is represented by the length of one side of the square whose area is equal to the number. They do not have to include the length of another side of the square in their answer, because all sides of a square are the same. - Students who are confused may erase their work before you have time to come around and check it. Ask those students to concentrate on working a single problem to completion and not to be concerned with how fast others are working. Stay with a student if necessary, to give them support and ensure that they have success.

<urn:uuid:e8307dd5-4f1d-47fb-b0ec-af237e264624>

REMS is an acronym for Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy. It is an FDA initiative to deal with the risks associated with certain medications. I first encountered this new concept because one of my lectures is on the current opioid epidemic and looking at the potential risks of opioids. The FDA has an REMS section on their web site including a list of all currently approved REMS. For the purpose of this post I am going to focus on the REMS for Extended Release and Long Acting Opioids. The actual document is 42 pages long. I read it twice and really cannot see anything in the document that would detect the major problems with opioids or potentially prevent those problems. It suggests a thorough evaluation of the type than many primary care physicians no longer have the time to do. The basic elements of a complete history and physical exam, pain diagnosis and examination for addiction and psychiatric comorbidity needs to be taken in the context that substantial numbers of patients with psychiatric diagnoses are now diagnosed by a symptom checklist that is checked off in about 2 minutes. If there is any take home message from this REMs it should be that chronic pain requiring opioid therapy should be referred to a specialty center where they have the time and staff to do the required assessment. The biggest misconception here seems to be that patients are accurate reporters and they have no unconscious agenda. It leads me to question whether the FDA employs any psychiatrists. It also highlights a naive approach to medicine that suggests physicians and patients are automatons who are basically reading and completing checklists. The complete checklist suggests the diagnosis. On what planet does this happen? With regard to the population of patients with an addiction seeking treatment of chronic pain with opioids, the following graphic may apply. National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The sample size is 70,000 persons, but the conclusions in the diagram are all drawn from the survey and have the usual limitations. What the diagram shows is that most people who believe they need treatment for an addiction do not make an effort to get it. The NSDUH looks at detailed information across a number of treatment settings and reasons for not accessing treatment. I use the above diagram when I am taking with primary care physicians or residents about the situation where they are trying to determine whether or not it is safe to prescribed opioids for chronic pain. I point out that the people they are seeing in their office probably resemble the sample participants from the NSDUH. How would those evaluations of themselves affect their response to questions about addiction during their assessment? By the time people see me and they have an entirely different frame of reference. They may have had one (or several) near death experiences from overdosing on opioids. They may have become homeless and lost the support of their friends and family. They may have encountered a number of situations making the drug use problem very difficult to deny. The people receiving the REMS evaluation from their physicians will almost always be similar to the NSDUH sample. The implication is that these folks won't be "honest" with their physician, but the problem is much more than an honesty problem. Anyone with an addiction has lost their capacity to fully recognize the nature and severity of the problem. Their responses are based on a number of biased decision-making processes that continue the addiction. The primary care physician is in the impossible position of needing to be a lie detector with a person who may not feel like they are lying. It is another operation of the great unconscious but in this case one that is unrecognizably biased by addiction. The response to opioids is the first clue that there may be a problem. People disposed to addiction have a striking response to opioids. The described an intense euphorigenic effect. In contrast to the usual ideas that opioids are sedating many will feel much more energetic and productive. A distinct feeling that a hoped for potential has finally been realized with the expected boost in confidence is often a third feature that is extremely reinforcing. These are generally the opioid response features that place a person at high risk for opioid addiction. The unconscious aspects of drug addiction are described in a number of ways. Sellman describes it as compulsive drug seeking being initiated outside of consciousness. Koob talks about the process going from an initial process of an impulse control disorder involving positive reinforcement to compulsive activity that is driven by the negative reinforcement of avoiding withdrawal phenomena. Most people are not conscious of that process unless it it reviewed with them in detail. Another unconscious aspect of addiction is cravings. Cravings can vary from a spontaneous intense urge to use a drug to an urge associated with sensory phenomena that occurs after exposure to a drug cue like seeing people use the drug on television. Whether the craving is cue-induced or spontaneous they represent a drug induced change in a person's conscious state that can be present long after there has been exposure to a drug. A risk management strategy to identify problems with opioid prescriptions needs to incorporate a strategy that takes these features into account. Information about limiting access to prescription opioids and destroying unused opioids is certainly a useful public health strategy but it does nothing for a person who has a strongly reinforcing reaction to the drug. At the minimum there needs to be education that the response to the drug is a key feature to identify addiction risk. Patients need to be educated about that as well as addictive behaviors and those anchor points need to be revisited at every physician visit where response to pain, addictive behavior, psychiatric comorbidity and functional capacity needs to be assessed. These are also the areas where the bulk of physician education needs to occur. There is also the issue of whether teaching primary care physicians is the best strategy to limit opioid overprescription. It may ultimately be the best strategy because the lessons learned could be applied to the overprescription of many drugs with similar dynamics like antibiotics, benzodiazepines, and stimulants. There is also the model of specialty referral to reduce the burden on primary care clinic. This model was popular in many states prior to the more widespread practice of prescribing opioids for chronic noncancer pain and it is the basis of the guideline for treating chronic neuropathic pain by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

<urn:uuid:e0624122-1865-4579-8df4-bade87bf5414>

During the 19th century many of our ancestors arrived in the UK from all round the world by sea. Despite how long it took to travel, people in those days moved around far more than you might think. Some came to the UK to find jobs, or to gain new skills in Britain’s booming mining, textile and manufacturing industries. Others came to study, or were passing through and decided to stay longer than planned. Sometimes people arrived in Britain to escape economic hardship or religious and political persecution in their homeland. Although people arriving in Britain weren’t legally required to register their status with the authorities until 1914, in most cases information about them was written down in the passenger list of the ship they sailed in. These were kept and indexed by the Board of Trade and you can search over 16 million records in our UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878–1960. Aside from immigrants and passengers passing through UK ports, these records include plenty of people who left the UK for a better life in countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, India or China, and later returned to visit family, or to resettle. This collection includes arrivals from all around the world, apart from European and Mediterranean ports. You’ll find plenty of interesting information about travellers and their journeys such as name, age, travel dates, ports of departure and arrival, and frequently their home town and nationality. Families travelling together were usually recorded as groups, and being able to see a list of accompanying children provides useful research clues. Some researchers are surprised by how often people they thought had left the UK for good are seen to return time and again in these records. Ancestors from overseas may also appear in the Alien Arrivals Collection 1810-11 and 1826-69. The data here is from official documents completed when passengers arrived in the UK from places like Russia, Germany, Poland and Scandinavia. There are 650,000 records to search and they include information such as name, date of arrival, ship, nationality and more. Because the Incoming Passenger Lists only begin in 1878, this collection is a great supplement to the Incoming Passenger Lists, taking your searches for traveller ancestors as far back as 1810. Some researchers love to track down the black sheep in their family trees. If you’re one of them then the Australian Convict Transportation Registers will be of great interest, as well as England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, which also includes Transportation records. In many cases, a transported convict could apply to have his wife and family brought to Australia to join him after his sentence, and records of them can be found in the Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists for New South Wales 1826–1922.

<urn:uuid:b76fd1c8-1b41-4492-9105-fba18a724a4b>

Asking all commuters to cut back on rush-hour driving reduces traffic congestion somewhat, but asking specific groups of drivers to stay off the road may work even better. The conclusion comes from a new analysis by engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, that was made possible by their ability to track traffic using commuters’ cellphone and GPS signals. This is the first large-scale traffic study to track travel using anonymous cellphone data rather than survey data or information obtained from U.S. Census Bureau travel diaries. In 2007, congestion on U.S. roads was responsible for 4.2 billion hours of additional travel time, as well as 2.8 billion gallons of fuel consumption and an accompanying increase in air pollution. The study, which appears today (Thursday, Dec. 20) in the open-access online journal Scientific Reports, demonstrates that canceling or delaying the trips of 1 percent of all drivers across a road network would reduce delays caused by congestion by only about 3 percent. But canceling the trips of 1 percent of drivers from carefully selected neighborhoods would reduce the extra travel time for all other drivers in a metropolitan area by as much as 18 percent. “This is a preliminary study that demonstrates that not all drivers are contributing uniformly to congestion,” said coauthor Alexandre Bayen, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. “Reaching out to everybody to change their time or mode of commute is thus not necessarily as efficient as reaching out to those in a particular geographic area who contribute most to bottlenecks.” He noted, however, that while the researchers’ computer modeling suggests that this strategy works, it remains for policy makers to decide whether it is practical or desirable to target specific geographic areas. San Francisco and Boston The study was performed in Boston and San Francisco, two cities with radically different commute patterns. In Boston, the freeways spread radially outward to the suburbs, with concentric rings of freeways intersecting them like a spider web. In San Francisco, the freeways encircle San Francisco Bay and are connected by six bridges. Lead researcher Marta González, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, and former MIT postdoc Pu Wang, now a professor at Central South University, used three weeks of cellphone data to obtain information about anonymous drivers’ routes and the estimated traffic volume and speed on those routes both in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area. They inferred a driver’s home neighborhood from the regularity of the route traveled and from the locations of cell towers that handled calls made between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. They combined this with information about population densities and the location and capacity of roads in the networks of these two metropolitan areas to determine which neighborhoods are the largest sources of drivers on each road segment, and which roads these drivers use to connect from home to highways and other major roadways. To double-check this method, Bayen and graduate student Timothy Hunter used a different set of data obtained from GPS sensors in taxis in the San Francisco area to compute taxis’ speed based on travel time from one location to another. From that speed of travel, they then determined congestion levels. The results produced by both methods show good agreement, Bayen said. “One of the novelties of this work is that it used two very different sources of cellphone data to complete the work: cell tower data, which is relatively inaccurate for positioning, but provides good information about people’s approximate location and routing, and GPS data, which provides very accurate positioning information, useful for precise congestion level assessment,” he said. In the San Francisco area, for example, they found that canceling trips by drivers from Dublin, Hayward, San Jose, San Rafael and parts of San Ramon would cut 14 percent from the travel time of other drivers. “This has an analogy in many other flows in networks,” González said. “Being able to detect and then release the congestion in the most affected arteries improves the functioning of the entire coronary system.” Because the new methodology requires only three types of data — population density, topological information about a road network and cellphone data — it can be used for almost any urban area. “In many cities in the developing world, traffic congestion is a major problem, and travel surveys don’t exist,” González said. “So the detailed methodology we developed for using cellphone data to accurately characterize road network use could help traffic managers control congestion and allow planners to create road networks that fit a population’s needs.” Katja Schechtner, head of the Dynamic Transportation Systems group at the Austrian Institute of Technology and a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab, is a co-author on the Scientific Reports paper with González, Wang, Bayen and Hunter. The study was funded by grants from the New England University Transportation Center, the NEC Corporation Fund, the Solomon Buchsbaum Research Fund and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Wang received funding from the Shenghua Scholar Program of Central South University. - Understanding Road Usage Patterns in Urban Areas (Scientific Reports, Dec. 20, 2012)) - Cellphone data helps pinpoint source of traffic tie-ups (MIT press release) - Alexandre Bayen’s Web site

<urn:uuid:e8f8947f-96bd-40a5-ba02-648ae1c91fcb>

Photo of a Poster Celebrating the New World Record After 17 years of work, Swiss mining engineers finally drilled through the last section of rock, between Faido and Sedrun, to complete the 57km tunnel through the base of the Gotthard mountain; creating what will become the world's longest rail tunnel. Going Down to Tunnel Entrance at Sedrun Some two hundred guests were invited to witness the final breakthrough live, deep in the belly of the Alps, while celebrations were held in a marquee on a sports field at the mountain village of Sedrun; 2,000m above where the two ends of the tunnel became one. Trains are expected to use the tunnel by 2017, reducing the travel time between Zurich and Milan to two hours and forty, instead of the four hours ten minutes the journey currently takes; but travellers in the tunnel won't get the mountain views. The Glacier Express Passes by Sedrun Around 300 trains a day will be able to travel at speeds of 250km/h (155mph), thanks to a project that has cost an estimated 9.8bn Swiss francs (about £6.4bn or $10.3bn). That may seem like a tremendous amount of money, but due to the increasing freight traffic coughing out diesel fumes in the area, the project was considered a huge saving for the environment; althought the final cost may top 12bn Swiss francs - close to 5 billion over the initial cost plan. Removing the Rock From the Mountain at Sedrun Swiss voters gave the project the go ahead in a referendum held on 27th September, 1992 - with 63.6% of the voters in favour. A year later, on 22nd September, 1993 test drilling for the tunnel started at Polmengo. Resculpturing The Alpine Landscape About 2,500 people have worked on the tunnel, that cost the lives of eight people during its construction. The End of The Road For The Gotthard Rock All photos by Michel - Photos.TravelNotes.org.

<urn:uuid:7c0c2f92-4843-4aae-9b42-013065c3d0d2>

Wrinkles indicate we are getting older but signs the brain is ageing aren’t as obvious. Many of us are living longer but not necessarily healthier. The problem is that ''people are outliving their brains'', says Richard Carmona, former surgeon-general of the US, in an interview with the Telegraph, London, According to the Alzheimer’s Australia website, there are more than 332,000 Australians living with dementia and more than 1700 new cases identified in Australia each week. We also know that changes in the brain begin to develop up to 20 or 30 years before dementia takes hold. In his book 30 Days to a Better Brain, Dr Carmona wrote: ''We actually get by with substantial loss of brain function without realising that changes have occurred.'' The good news, however, is that ''just like the rest of your body, your brain can get better''. Although the cause of Alzheimer’s is not fully understood, your genes play a ''role'' in its development. But so do your lifestyle choices. In his book, Dr Carmona said a new field called epigenetics suggests ''it is possible to alter one’s genetic destiny by changing non-genetic factors such as lifestyle choices''. And technically that’s right, said Elizabeth Coulson, associate professor at the Queensland Brain Institute.''“But it’s not as simple as suddenly drinking orange juice and turning the gene for getting Alzheimer’s off. With epigenetics there are things like smoking and possibly even exercise that do change the probability of whether different genes get turned on and off.'' A recent report titled Is the Incidence of Dementia Declining? also proposed that healthier lifestyles could reduce the risk of dementia. While there are no guarantees, diet and exercise are good for everyone at every age, said Colin Masters, executive director at the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Melbourne. But not everyone will go on to get Alzheimer’s or dementia. ''There are some people whose brains are perfectly intact even though they live to 100 or 120, so it's the rest of their bodies that disintegrate,'' Professor Masters said. ''We don't quite know how yet to identify the completely intact brains, but the incidence of Alzheimer's disease, for example, possibly decreases after the age of 90,'' he said. Despite this, many of us don’t know how to take care of our brain. Taking care of our brain Your Brain Matters is the first dementia risk reduction program in the world. Provided by Alzheimer’s Australia, the website offers five steps to brain health. - Look after your heart - Be physically active - Mentally challenge your brain - Follow a healthy diet - Enjoy social activity ''While we are living longer, we’ve come to expect that we can also live younger,'' Dr Carmona said. ''We need to have strong, agile minds that can keep up with and help maintain our strong bodies.'' Alzheimer's Australia offers support, information, education and counselling. Contact the National Dementia Helpline on 1800 100 500.

<urn:uuid:5052d4b0-6c57-4c36-99aa-5d5f55f0b5ec>

Written by one of the leading authorities on trade and finance in the early modern Atlantic world, these fourteen essays, revised and integrated for this volume, share as their common theme the development of the Atlantic economy, especially British America and the Caribbean. Topics treated range from early attempts in medieval England to measure the carrying capacity of ships, through the advent in Renaissance Italy and England of business newspapers that reported on the traffic of ships, cargoes and market prices, to the state of the economy of France over the two hundred years before the French Revolution and of the British West Indies between 1760 and 1790. Included is the story of Thomas Irving who challenged and thwarted the likes of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The chapters of this book have diverse origins. They were written over the period 1954-1984. Several (i.e., three, four, seven, and ten) were originally published in scholarly journals. Several (i.e., one, eight, nine, and eleven) are excerpts from my previous books: Soldiers of the States and Federalism: Origin, Operation and Significance. And several (i.e., two, five, and six) were written for conferences and are now published here for the first time. Despite the fact that this history suggests they are quite unrelated, these chapters do indeed center on one theme: the continuity of American federalism. In order to emphasize that theme, I have written an introduction and an initial commentary for each chapter. These commen taries, taken together, with the introduction, constitute the exposition of the theme. Some of these chapters (four, six, and ten) were written with my students, Ronald Schaps, John Lemco, and William Bast. They did much of the research and analysis so the credit for these chapters belongs to them as much as to me. Chapter five is based quite closely on William Paul Alexander's dissertation for the Ph. D. degree at the University of Rochester, 1973. Or, A Handy Book about Books which Relate to Books ; Being an Alphabetical Catalogue of the Most Important Works Descriptive of the Literature of Great Britain and America, and More Than a Few Relative to France and Germany Long celebrated as a symbol of the country's origins, Plymouth Rock no longer receives much national attention. In fact, historians now generally agree that the Pilgrims' storied landing on the Rock never actually took place_the tradition having emerged more than a century after the arrival of the Mayflower. In Memory's Nation, however, John Seelye is not interested in the factual truth of the landing. He argues that what truly gives Plymouth Rock its significance is more than two centuries of oratorical, literary, and artistic celebrations of the Pilgrims' arrival. Seelye traces how different political, religious, and social groups used the image of the Rock on behalf of their own specific causes and ideologies. Drawing on a wealth of speeches, paintings, and popular illustrations, he shows how Plymouth Rock changed in meaning over the years, beginning as a symbol of freedom evoked in patriotic sermons at the start of the Revolution and eventually becoming an icon of exclusion during the 1920s. Redwood Library and Athenæum (NEWPORT, Rhode Island) American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century is the second of three authoritative volumes of garden history by Ann Leighton. This entertaining book focuses on eightenth-century gardens and gardening. Leighton's material for the book was drawn from letters, journals, invoices, and books of men and women who were interested in the plants of the New and Old World. Throughout the book are illustrations and descriptive listings of native and new plants that were cultivated during the eighteenth century. Companion volumes by Ann Leighton Early American Gardens "For Meate or Medicine"American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century "For Comfort and Affluence"

<urn:uuid:ca4b0ec7-0a67-4d97-b1b4-eaae3e7c4da8>

Once diverse, Kashmir is now valley of Muslims SRINAGAR, INDIAN KASHMIR — Javed's parents always talk about what Kashmir used to be a land where Hindus and Muslims were friends, celebrated holidays and weddings together, ate each other's food. But Javed, a high school student here, says his parents might as well be describing life on the moon. He was 3 when a violent insurgency against Indian control tore apart the state, causing Hindus to flee by the hundreds of thousands. He has never had a Hindu teacher or friend, never tasted Hindu food. "The terrorist activities have destroyed our culture," says Javed, who prefers not to give his last name. "When the Hindu Pandits left the valley, we lost a part of ourselves." Yesterday, India announced that it will begin pulling back troops from the Pakistan border in eight to 10 days. But while politicians and diplomats search for ways to end the 13-year insurgency considering everything from state autonomy to joint control by India and Pakistan Kashmiris themselves are in the midst of a profound social change. The migration of most of the state's Hindus has turned a once-cosmopolitan society of Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists, into an Islamic monoculture. Now, experts worry that an entire generation will grow up never having experienced Kashmiriyat the thousands- year-old concept of cultural unity through diversity and in a fundamental way, India will have already lost Kashmir. "Kashmiriyat as a collective presence is either dead or dying, and to revive this sense of togetherness is the biggest challenge, a bigger challenge than fighting terrorism," says Amitabh Mattoo, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. The Hindu vacuum is felt most profoundly in the state's public and private schools, where children of Kashmir's many cultures once mingled. Before 1989, Kashmir's small but influential community of Pandits a caste of Hindus whose name means teacher occupied 20 percent of white-collar jobs. They had an especially large presence in education 60 percent of all the region's teachers were Hindus. But when the insurgency broke out in 1989, sparked by a rigged election that kept Muslim separatists out of office, posters appeared in Pandit neighborhoods accusing Hindus of collaboration with the Indian government and threatening their lives if they didn't leave the state. Pandits fled by the hundreds of thousands, some to the southern Jammu region and others to Delhi and beyond. Today, qualified Muslim teachers have replaced Pandits in public schools. But a few hundred private religious schools, some of them owned by promilitant groups such as Jamaat-e Islami, have also sprung up. Out of 900,000 students statewide, perhaps 200,000 students attend Islamic private schools full time. Even some separatist leaders say they have noticed a dramatic change in the mind-set of Kashmir's young people not necessarily because of the influence of religious schools, but because of the absence of diversity both in the classroom and outside it. "Kashmiris are religious, but they are not communal [communally exclusive], and every Muslim believes that we want the Pandits to return," says Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chief cleric of Kashmir's largest mosque and a separatist leader. "But all that is changing," he adds. "A certain sector of Kashmiri youth has gone to religion in a hard-line way." Some Kashmiris believe that tolerance starts at home, where parents can reinforce values rooted in the three liberal religions that dominate the valley, Sufi Islam, Shivaite Hinduism, and Mahayana Buddhism. "Honest to God, I feel very unfortunate that my children don't know what it is to have a Hindu teacher or a Hindu friend," says Mukhtar Ahmed, a father who spent 16 years as a photographer for the royal family in Saudi Arabia before returning to Kashmir last year. "It reminds me of Saudi Arabia. Children grow up never knowing what a Hindu is, what a Christian is, what a Sikh is. But in Kashmir, we don't believe those values as in Saudi Arabia, and the home is the first cradle of values, so we teach humanitarian values." In fact, on the streets of Srinagar and even in the villages, it's clear that Kashmir is still one of the more modern, liberal Islamic societies in Central and South Asia. Short skirts have been replaced by the loose traditional outfit called the salwar kameez, but it is still rare to see women wearing a full face-covering veil. Social mores are more liberal too. Couples cuddle up for a shikara boat ride across the expansive Dal Lake, or take long walks in the lush public gardens. Even the hundreds of religious private schools that have sprung up across the state over the past decade have relatively liberal curricula. Islamic schools in Kashmir teach the Koran in Kashmiri and English, and require students to study math, science, literature, history, and economics. Mohammad Shafi-Uri, a former state education minister recently ousted in this month's state elections, says he is hopeful that schools will be able to cultivate tolerance, even as the population grows less diverse. "Education has a tremendous liberating power. It makes you humanistic. If you talk to students at college, they may talk against the government of India, but they are secular in their outlook." At the Government Boys Higher Secondary Institute in Srinagar, Muslim students are asked to explain ideas from the Koran. Hindu students (there are still six left, out of hundreds of Muslims) discuss lessons from sacred Hindu texts. And Sikh boys talk about their holy book. Principal Syeeda Shafi says her teachers do what they can to mold tolerant, globally minded students even in a cultural vacuum. Nevertheless, the straight-talking Ms. Shafi stops short of nostalgia in talking about Kashmir's multiethnic tradition. "It was a lovely mixture of cultures," she says. "But there was a problem: The Pandits used to overestimate their own talents, and underestimated ours. Our Muslim children were neglected. "If the Muslim youth had been given chances to work in the central government offices, if they were allowed to see the outside world, maybe these problems [the insurgency] wouldn't have come up."

<urn:uuid:767e5808-7085-4f79-9545-e05087f83d5f>

The floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS) is a field-effect transistor, whose structure is similar to a conventional MOSFET. The gate of the FGMOS is electrically isolated, creating a floating node in DC, and a number of secondary gates or inputs are deposited above the floating gate (FG) and are electrically isolated from it. These inputs are only capacitively connected to the FG. Since the FG is completely surrounded by highly resistive material, the charge contained in it remains unchanged for long periods of time. Usually Fowler-Nordheim tunneling and hot-carrier injection mechanisms are used to modify the amount of charge stored in the FG. Some applications of the FGMOS are digital storage element in EPROM, EEPROM and flash memories, neuronal computational element in neural networks, analog storage element, digital potentiometers and single-transistor DACs. The first report of a floating-gate MOSFET was made by Kahng and Sze, and dates back to 1967. The first application of the FGMOS was to store digital data in EEPROM, EPROM and flash memories. However, the current interest in FGMOS circuits started from developing large-scale computations in neuromorphic systems, which are inherently analog. In 1989 Intel employed the FGMOS as an analog nonvolatile memory element in its ETANN chip, demonstrating the potential of using FGMOS devices for applications other than digital memory. Three research accomplishments laid the groundwork for much of the current FGMOS circuit development: - Thomsen and Brooke's demonstration and use of electron tunneling in a standard CMOS double-poly process allowed many researchers to investigate FGMOS circuits concepts without requiring access to specialized fabrication processes. - The νMOS, or neuron-MOS, circuit approach by Shibata and Ohmi provided the initial inspiration and framework to use capacitors for linear computations. These researchers concentrated on the FG circuit properties instead of the device properties, and used either UV light to equalize charge, or simulated FG elements by opening and closing MOSFET switches. - Carver Mead's adaptive retina gave the first example of using continuously-operating FG programming/erasing techniques, in this case UV light, as the backbone of an adaptive circuit technology. An FGMOS can be fabricated by electrically isolating the gate of a standard MOS transistor, so that there are no resistive connections to its gate. A number of secondary gates or inputs are then deposited above the floating gate (FG) and are electrically isolated from it. These inputs are only capacitively connected to the FG, since the FG is completely surrounded by highly resistive material. So, in terms of its DC operating point, the FG is a floating node. For applications where the charge of the FG needs to be modified, a pair of small extra transistors are added to each FGMOS transistor to conduct the injection and tunneling operations. The gates of every transistor are connected together; the tunneling transistor has its source, drain and bulk terminals interconnected to create a capacitive tunneling structure. The injection transistor is connected normally and specific voltages are applied to create hot carriers that are then injected via an electric field into the floating gate. FGMOS transistor for purely capacitive use can be fabricated on N or P versions. For charge modification applications, the tunneling transistor (and therefore the operating FGMOS) needs to be embedded into a well, hence the technology dictates the type of FGMOS that can be fabricated. Large signal DC The equations modeling the DC operation of the FGMOS can be derived from the equations that describe the operation of the MOS transistor used to build the FGMOS. If it is possible to determine the voltage at the FG of an FGMOS device, it is then possible to express its drain to source current using standard MOS transistor models. Therefore, to derive a set of equations that model the large signal operation of an FGMOS device, it is necessary to find the relationship between its effective input voltages and the voltage at its FG. An N-input FGMOS device has N−1 more terminals than a MOS transistor, and therefore, N+2 small signal parameters can be defined: N effective input transconductances, an output transconductance and a bulk transconductance. Respectively: where is the total capacitance seen by the floating gate. These equations show two drawbacks of the FGMOS compared with the MOS transistor: - Reduction of the input transconductance - Reduction of the output resistance Under normal conditions, a floating node in a circuit represents an error because its initial condition is unknown unless it is somehow fixed. This generates two problems: first, it is not straightforward to simulate these circuits; and second, an unknown amount of charge might stay trapped at the floating gate during the fabrication process which will result in an unknown initial condition for the FG voltage. Among the many solutions proposed for the computer simulation, one of the most promising methods is an Initial Transient Analysis (ITA) proposed by Rodriguez-Villegas, where the FGs are set to zero volts or a previously known voltage based on the measurement of the charge trapped in the FG after the fabrication process. A transient analysis is then run with the supply voltages set to their final values, letting the outputs evolve normally. The values of the FGs can then be extracted and used for posterior small-signal simulations, connecting a voltage supply with the initial FG value to the floating gate using a very-high-value inductor. The usage and applications of the FGMOS can be broadly classified in two cases. If the charge in the floating gate is not modified during the circuit usage, the operation is capacitively coupled. In the capacitively coupled regime of operation, the net charge in the floating gate is not modified. Examples of application for this regime are single transistor adders, DACs, multipliers and logic functions, variable threshold inverters, Using the FGMOS as a programmable charge element, it is commonly used for non-volatile storage such as flash, EPROM and EEPROM memory. In this context, floating-gate MOSFETs are useful because of their ability to store an electrical charge for extended periods of time without a connection to a power supply. Other applications of the FGMOS are neuronal computational element in neural networks, analog storage element and e-pots. - D. Kahng and S.M. Sze, "A floating-gate and its application to memory devices," The Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 46, no. 4, 1967, pp. 1288-1295 - M. Holler, S. Tam, H. Castro, and R. Benson, "An electrically trainable artificial neural network with 10240 'floating gate' synapses," Proceeding of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Washington, D.C., vol. II, 1989, pp. 191-196 - A. Thomsen and M.A. Brooke, "A floating-gate MOSFET with tunneling injector fabricated using a standard double-polysilicon CMOS process," IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 12, 1991, pp. 111-113 - T. Shibata and T. Ohmi, "A functional MOS transistor featuring gate-level weighted sum and threshold operations," IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 39, no. 6, 1992, pp. 1444-1455 - C.A. Mead and M. Ismail, editors, Analog VLSI Implementation of Neural Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 1989 - Rodriguez-Villegas, Esther. Low Power and Low Voltage Circuit Design with the FGMOS Transistor - D. Kahng and S.M. Sze, "A floating-gate and its application to memory devices", The Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 46, no. 6, 1967, pp. 1288–1295

<urn:uuid:7b97a64c-e991-4c88-8c7d-3d9c3936f974>

Historical Events for Year 1837 Events 1 - 48 of 48 Jan 22nd - Earthquake in southern Syria kills thousands Jan 26th - Michigan admitted as 26th US state Feb 8th - 1st VP chosen by Senate, Richard Johnson (Van Buren admin) Feb 11th - American Physiological Society organizes in Boston Feb 13th - Riot in New York due to a combination of poverty and increase in the cost of flour Feb 17th - Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality Feb 25th - 1st US electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport Mar 3rd - Congress increases Supreme Court membership from 7 to 9 Mar 3rd - US President Andrew Jackson & Congress recognizes Republic of Texas Mar 4th - Martin Van Buren inaugrated as 8th president 8th US President Martin Van Buren Mar 4th - Weekly Advocate changes its name to the Colored American Mar 4th - Chicago becomes incorporated as a city. Mar 24th - Canada gives black citizens the right to vote Apr 19th - Cheyney University forms as the Institute for Colored Youth May 3rd - The University of Athens is founded. May 9th - "Sherrod" burns in Mississippi River below Natchez Miss; 175 dies May 10th - Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels. May 25th - The Patriots of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom. May 31st - Astor Hotel opens in NYC, it later becomes the Waldorf-Astoria Jun 11th - The Broad Street Riot occurres in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between English-Americans and Irish-Americans. Jun 13th - 1st Mormon missionaries to British Isles leave Kirtland, Ohio Inventor Charles Goodyear Jun 17th - Charles Goodyear obtains his 1st rubber patent Jun 18th - Spain gets new Constitution Jun 20th - Britain issues its 1st stamp, 1 penny Queen Victoria Jun 20th - Queen Victoria at 18 ascends British throne following death of uncle King William IV. She ruled for 63 years ending in 1901 Jul 4th - Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool. Jul 13th - Queen Victoria is 1st monarch to live in present Buckingham Palace Jul 25th - The first commercial use of an electric telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London. Jul 27th - US Mint opens in Charlotte, NC Aug 5th - 1st ascent of Mt Marcy (5,344') highest in Adirondack, NY Aug 28th - Pharmacists John Lea & William Perrins manufacture Worcestershire Sauce Sep 6th - Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio goes co-ed (4 women, 30 men) Sep 21st - Charles Tiffany founded his jewelry & china stores Oct 1st - "Racer's" Hurricane (Gulf of Mexico) Oct 1st - Treaty with Winnebago Indians Oct 9th - Steamboat "Home" sinks off Okracoke NC killing 100 Oct 9th - Meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute. Oct 31st - Collision of river boat Monmouth & Trement on Miss; 300 die Nov 7th - In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy shot dead (age 34) by pro-slavery mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time. Nov 8th - Mount Holyoke Seminary in Mass-1st US college founded for women Nov 15th - Isaac Pitman introduces his shorthand system Nov 19th - Floridsdorf-Deutsch Wagram railway in Austria opens Nov 21st - Thomas Morris of Australia skips rope 22,806 times Dec 5th - Hector Berlioz' "Requiem" premieres Dec 5th - Uprising under William Lyon Mackenzie in Canada Dec 25th - Battle of Okeechobee-US forces defeat Seminole Indians Dec 29th - Canadian militia destroy Caroline, a US steamboat docked at Buffalo Dec 29th - Steam-powered threshing machine patented, Winthrop, Maine

<urn:uuid:79ed6277-a009-4b76-b0b9-c654a255ab7f>

The most common treatment for tapeworm infection is an oral medication that is toxic to the parasite. These drugs will only affect the adult tape worms, not their eggs, so it is imporatant to have a follow-up visit with your doctor to ensure you are not harboring any more parasites. See the Mayo clinic website for specific drug names and alternative treatments for more invasive infections. Getting tapeworms of your body is medical issue that must be addressed by a health professional, specifically a doctor, who will prescribe medication; however it is important to remember that tapeworms are infrequent within humans but can be common for both dogs and cats. There are things that you can do to prevent tapeworms which mostly concern food consumption. If you would like more information on prevention techniques please visit my citation. Antiparasitic drugs such as albendazole or praziquantel are given to the patient to kill the tapeworm. Click here to cancel reply. Sorry,At this time user registration is disabled. We will open registration soon! Don't have an account? Click Here to Signup © Copyright GreenAnswers.com LLC

<urn:uuid:8c8f63d1-7ea4-4b0b-b284-81b31a191bfd>

S. Renee Mitchell hopes to boost children's self-esteem with her new children's book "The Awakening of Sharyn: A Shy and Brown Supergyrl". "The book is about finding your voice," says Mitchell. "If they're going into the 1st or 2nd grade not feeling like they have that confidence, they don't really have what it takes sometimes to do the work because they already assume they aren't worthy." The book, written and illustrated by Mitchell, includes a parent workbook that attaches artwork with discussions on concepts like teacher bias, facing your fears and birth order. She says the book is more than just a "cute story". It offers the opportunity for parents to have conversations with their kids, as well as increase children's literacy. Mitchell's story focuses on a brown girl, Sharyn, who goes to school with mostly white kids who assume she's not as smart because of the color of her skin. Sharyn feels invisible because other kids see her skin and her hair but don't see her as a person beyond the stereotypes. Once she gets tired of being bullied, she finds her voice and becomes a "supergyrl". "Not a 'supergyrl' in the sense that she can fly or walk through walls but super from a strength based perspective," says Mitchell. "The things that I have inside of me right now that I exhibit like kindness, courtesy, compassion and sense of humor, all of those are superpowers we should celebrate in kids. It lets them know they can do something really great right now." The idea for the book came about when Mitchell was working with first graders at King School. She was doing a name exercise where she would have students attach a positive adjective to their names (i.e. Brave Brian or Smart Susan). Mitchell says she was giving children suggestions but some couldn't connect because they were so shy. She went home heartbroken and decided she wanted to do something. The result was a children's book. Mitchell says she can relate to Sharyn because she was a shy girl too. "I was shy to the point that if you looked at me too long I'd start crying," she says. "At the same time I felt invisible. People would overlook me unless they wanted someone to tease." Writing the book was personally healing, says Mitchell. In addition to the personal nature of the story, it is also the first thing she has illustrated as an adult. Although she used to draw when she was younger, she says it was more of her brother's interest. Whatever made drawing exciting to her was lost. "We've lost touch with our 'yay' moments as adults," says Mitchell. "I always assumed I couldn't draw. I lost that 'yay' and found it again with this project." In her efforts to empower kids, Mitchell has made paraphernalia to accompany her book, including buttons, earrings and affirming cards that say things like, "Sharyn says: Courage is my new bff". She is also in the process of recording the book for pre-readers. Mitchell hopes to bring a superhero awakening ceremony to Kwanzaa celebrations this year. During the ceremony, kids are provided capes and masks and asked to select a superpower. Once they've done that, they perform a ritual where they pose in a way that fits with their superpower and the adults gather around them to sing superhero songs. Mitchell originally performed the ceremony to coincide with the release of another book (which is now out of print) that encouraged kids to find their superpowers. She says parents would tell her that their kids would go to sleep in their capes and masks because they enjoyed the ritual so much. Although she hopes to empower Black and Brown children in particular, Mitchell says the universal message can appeal to everyone. "Even though it's a children's book I think it has a lot of relevance for adult women," she says. "It talks about facing your fear. Fear is something we all have at any age." "The Awakening of Sharyn: A Shy and Brown Supergyrl" is available www.reneemitchellspeaks.org. The book will also be available at the Kwanzaa 2012 celebration starting Dec. 26 at Matt Dishman Community Center at 6:00 p.m.

<urn:uuid:b1087a29-0380-4f20-88bc-10ad4e239ef2>

Vitamin D is a unique vitamin that most people don’t get enough of. In fact, it’s estimated that more than 40% of American adults have a vitamin D deficiency. This vitamin is made from cholesterol in your skin when it’s exposed to the sun. That’s why getting enough sunlight is very important for maintaining optimal vitamin D levels. However, too much sunlight comes with its own health risks. There’s good reason why vitamin D is called “the sunshine vitamin.” When your skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D from cholesterol. The sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) rays hit cholesterol in the skin cells, providing the energy for vitamin D synthesis to occur. Vitamin D has many roles in the body and is essential for optimal health. For example, it instructs the cells in your gut to absorb calcium and phosphorus — two minerals that are essential for maintaining strong and healthy bones. On the other hand, low vitamin D levels have been linked to serious health consequences, including: In addition, only a handful of foods contain significant amounts of vitamin D. These include cod liver oil, swordfish, salmon, canned tuna, beef liver, egg yolks and sardines. That said, you would need to eat them nearly every day to get enough vitamin D. If you do not get enough sunlight, it’s often recommended to take a supplement like cod liver oil. One tablespoon (14 grams) of cod liver oil contains more than three times the recommended daily amount of vitamin D. It’s important to note that the sun’s UVB rays cannot penetrate through windows. So, people who work next to sunny windows are still prone to vitamin D deficiency. Midday, especially during summer, is the best time to get sunlight. At noon, the sun is at its highest point, and its UVB rays are most intense. That means you need less time in the sun to make sufficient vitamin D. Many studies also show that the body is most efficient at making vitamin D at noon. The amount of exposure needed varies, for example, in the UK, 13 minutes of midday sunlight exposure during summer three times per week is enough to maintain healthy levels among Caucasian adults. Another study found that 30 minutes of midday summer sun exposure in Oslo, Norway was equivalent to consuming 10,000–20,000 IU of vitamin D. Not only is getting vitamin D around midday more efficient, but it might also be safer than getting sun later in the day. One study found that afternoon sun exposure may increase the risk of dangerous skin cancers. The color of your skin is determined by a pigment called melanin and may affect Vitamin D production. People with darker skin typically have more melanin than people with lighter skin. What’s more, their melanin pigments are also larger and darker. Melanin helps protect the skin against damage from excess sunlight. It acts as a natural sunscreen and absorbs the sun’s UV rays to help defend against sunburn and skin cancers. However, that creates a big dilemma because darker-skinned people need to spend longer in the sun than lighter-skinned people to produce the same amount of vitamin D. Studies estimate that darker-skinned people may need anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours longer to get sufficient vitamin D, compared to lighter-skinned people. This is a major reason why darker-skinned people have a higher risk of deficiency. For that reason, if you have dark skin, you may need to spend a bit more time in the sun to get your daily dose of vitamin D. Additionally, people living in areas farther away from the equator make less vitamin D in their skin. In these areas, more of the sun’s rays, especially UVB rays, are absorbed by the earth’s ozone layer. So people who live farther away from the equator usually need to spend more time in the sun to produce enough. What’s more, people who live farther from the equator may not produce any vitamin D from the sun for up to six months a year during the winter months. For example, people who live Boston, USA and Edmonton, Canada struggle to make any vitamin D from sunlight between the months of November and February. People in Norway cannot make vitamin D from sunlight between October and March. During this time of year, it’s important that they get their vitamin D from foods and supplements instead. Does Sunscreen Affect Vitamin D? People use sunscreen to protect their skin against sunburns and skin cancer, that’s because sunscreen contains chemicals that either reflect, absorb or scatter sunlight. When this happens, the skin is exposed to lower levels of harmful UV rays. However, because UVB rays are essential for making vitamin D, sunscreen could prevent the skin from producing it. In fact, some studies estimate that sunscreen of SPF 30 or more reduces vitamin D production in the body by about 95–98%. However, several studies have shown that wearing sunscreen only has a small impact on your blood levels during the summer. One possible explanation is that even though you are wearing sunscreen, staying in the sun for a longer period of time may cause enough vitamin D to be made in the skin. That said, most of these studies were conducted over a short period of time. It’s still unclear whether frequently wearing sunscreen has a long-term impact on blood vitamin D levels. While sunlight is great for vitamin D production, too much can have dangerous side effects: Sunburns – The most common harmful effect of too much sunlight. Symptoms of a sunburn include redness, swelling, pain or tenderness and blisters. Eye damage – Long-term exposure to UV light can damage the retina. This can increase the risk of eye diseases like cataracts. Aging skin – Spending too long in the sun can cause your skin to age faster. Some people develop more wrinkled, loose or leathery skin. Skin changes – Freckles, moles and other skin changes can be a side effect of excess sunlight exposure. Heat stroke – Also known as a sunstroke, this is a condition in which the body’s core temperature may rise due to too much heat or sun exposure. Skin cancer – Too much UV light is a major cause of skin cancers. Note that experts recommend reapplying sunscreen every two to three hours you spend in the sun, especially if you’re sweating or bathing. Source: By Ryan Raman, MS, RD 4/28/18. To read the entire story and see the sources click here.

<urn:uuid:33979108-1b81-4ca3-88cb-f49bb19f5144>

Meat and Sustainability We study the changes in food cultures and the global rise in meat consumption. How can we address the question of sustainable food cultures, and the global rise in meat consumption? We need to understand the cultural changes of the quite recent past. While we generally understand overall production and provision processes that have allowed high meat consumption, these processes are undergoing rapid changes through globalization and the entering of new actors. But less attention has been given to how and why meat consumption changes. What kind of meat is consumed, how is it prepared in local meals and how do people relate to meat and meat products? Recently there have been significant changes in both affluent and developing countries. These changing meat cultures are explored in the following projects: 1. Book project: Meat Read more about the project on the Norwegian website. 2. Book project: Changing Meat Cultures For most people in the industrialized world, meat has become a common part of the diet. We consume more meat than ever before while the average consumer’s knowledge of meat and meat production seems more absent than ever. Meat is increasingly becoming a contested foodstuff – for reasons of health, animal welfare and sustainability. According to the UN, as much as 18 % of the global emission of greenhouse gasses stem from livestock systems and meat production. While meat consumption has peaked in many affluent countries, there are major changes in what type of meat is consumed. Globally, meat consumption continues increasing rapidly. This increase is now driven particularly by increasing consumption in ‘the South’, often among parts of the global population that consumed little or no meat in the past. To understand how we can address the change in food cultures we need to understand the cultural changes of the quite recent past. While we have a fairly good understanding of the overall production and provision processes that have allowed high meat consumption, these processes are undergoing rapid changes through globalization and the entering of new actors, often from so-called developing countries. Furthermore, less attention has been given to how and why meat consumption changes. The type of meat consumed, the ways it is prepared in local meals and the manners in which people relate to meat and meat products have seen significant changes in both affluent and developing countries. These changing meat cultures are the starting point of this book. 3. Changing cultures of meat consumption in developing countries Read more about the project (in Spanish). 4. Book project: LIVE DIE BUY EAT Live, die, buy, eat. These four words both summarize the production of meat in the modern world, and categorize the way in which we relate to animals and meat. In the past few years, controversies around meat have arisen around industrialization and globalization of meat production, often pivoting around health, environmental problems, and animal welfare issues. Although meat increasingly figures as a problem, most consumers’ knowledge of animal husbandry and meat is more absent than ever. How is meat produced, and where? How do we consume meat, and how have our consumption habits changed? Why have these changes occurred, and what are the social and cultural consequences of these changes? This book takes the reader on an ethnographic and historical journey to rural and urban Norway, and tells the story of the dramatic changes in meat production and consumption using this one country as a case study. 5. Geographies of meatification Human diets are rapidly transforming. Geographer Tony Weis writes about ‘meatification’ as the intrinsically capitalist process whereby animal meat assumes increasing importance in consumption patterns across the world. Meatification is also crucially about changing patterns of producing and distributing food – altering agricultural practices towards animal rearing and killing as well as the cultivation of animal feed crops. Agricultural patterns are thus increasingly centering on the ‘industrial grain-oilseed-livestock complex’ with manifold consequences. These processes, however, take different shapes as they unfold in new parts of the Global South, including in rapidly meatifying middle-income countries. This project responds to the need for careful study of emergent geographies of meatification. Focusing especially on Asian countries, the project seeks to explore changing agricultural practices and the transformation of agrarian spaces, linking these processes to everyday consumption patterns and urban ‘meatscapes’, as well as large-scale processes of trade and commodity flows, international relations of food and agriculture and the power and agency of agribusiness and state actors.

<urn:uuid:5934aed5-7f42-4e10-acf0-4afd28a53c3b>

Lima beans are native to Central America and grow as an annual in northern climates. The size of the bean works well for students studying germination times and growth patterns and characteristics. Grow a lima bean in a clear bag so that students see the bean swell and the embryo emerge. The children can experience stem and leaf growth firsthand. The root system is visible, and the students can measure how fast the roots grow and see the patterns that form. Wet a paper towel, and place a lima bean in the middle. Fold the paper towel in half and then half again. Place the wrapped bean in a plastic bag, and seal the bag. The wet paper towel and sealed bag surrounds the lima bean with moisture. Secure the sandwich bag with clear packing tape, and place it in a sunny window. Keep the paper towel moist during the sprouting process with a spray bottle of water. Avoid over-saturating the paper towel because the bean may rot instead of sprout. Open the sandwich bag each day to allow air to flow. Seal the bag at the end of the day. Record the lima bean's germination time, root development, sprout time and growth rate on a chart. Include information such as hours of sunlight received, water amounts and bean comparisons. Add about 2 cups of potting soil to each sandwich bag, and moisten thoroughly. Leave the bag open, and allow the lima bean to grow out of the bag. Continue data collection, such as stem length and flowering times, to further study how a lima bean grows in a bag. Experiment with various pollination techniques, such as air-borne or hand-pollinating, to see what types of lima bean plants can be produced. Viable lima beans Clear plastic sandwich bags Clear packing tape Spray bottle of water Things You Will Need Make a planting bag for every student participating in the experiment. Compare the growing conditions of each bean to determine which bean grew best and which bean had the worse growth.

<urn:uuid:13a9888a-bf72-43e9-a41b-6a17ff57a532>

First we would like to give you brief information about geographic location of Koh Samui. The island is situated in the Gulf of Siam a very calm place which connects with South China Sea in the South-East. Due to its geographic location there can never be a tsunami like the one happened in Phuket. Same location features affect the climate of Koh Samui. Koh Samui climate is different from the other parts of Thailand. Rain Season and Hot Season are not so strongly marked. More than that, these seasons do not coincide with the same seasons in other places like Pattaya or Phuket. And please don't be upset if you have found that some months are promised to be rainy. It is not that bad. If there is going to be a storm it doesn't have to be on the whole island. It might be raining hard on one side of the island while on the other is still sunny. And the rain might end just as quickly as it started. Speaking about climate in general there are some peculiarities: - October, November and December are the least hot months. Rainfalls are more often than usual, there are waves, the sea gets rough. - January, February and March. Rains are getting rare. The sea becomes quiet and clears itself from the organic litter which has been flushed into the sea during the rainy season. - In April and May the number of cloudy days decrease, temperature is rising, the water is getting warmer. - June to September. Hot tropical sun, clear blue sky, short thunderstorms and perfectly clean water await you in that period. Note that there might be some changes in nature's timetable. There might be a very hot week in December as well as a sudden storm in July. But in general everything is as described above.

<urn:uuid:00aa170a-317b-4c3d-ad74-ef2e138ceca5>

Open thread for April… Readers will be aware of the paper by Shaun Marcott and colleagues, that they published a couple weeks ago in the journal Science. That paper sought to extend the global temperature record back over the entire Holocene period, i.e. just over 11 kyr back time, something that had not really been attempted before. The paper got a fair amount of media coverage (see e.g. this article by Justin Gillis in the New York Times). Since then, a number of accusations from the usual suspects have been leveled against the authors and their study, and most of it is characteristically misleading. We are pleased to provide the authors’ response, below. Our view is that the results of the paper will stand the test of time, particularly regarding the small global temperature variations in the Holocene. If anything, early Holocene warmth might be overestimated in this study. Update: Tamino has three excellent posts in which he shows why the Holocene reconstruction is very unlikely to be affected by possible discrepancies in the most recent (20th century) part of the record. The figure showing Holocene changes by latitude is particularly informative. The link between extreme weather events, climate change, and national security is discussed in Extreme Realities, a new episode in PBS’ series Journey To Planet Earth hosted by Matt Damon. The video features a number of extreme weather phenomena: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wild fires, and flooding. The discussion is about climate change and the consequences on the ground – or, how climate change may affect you. It is important to ask what is the story behind the assertions made in the video. What scientific support is there for the link between such extremes and climate change?

<urn:uuid:87f008ae-4023-4918-aa33-09a8d07101ab>

Links last verified on 22 08 01 All sites listed below were active on September 12, 2000. Please report any broken links - suggestions for additional links are also most welcome. Aviation History, GeneralMenu Aero Design Team Online: Wright Flyer: Wright Brothers Aeronautics - The Beginning Aeronautics, Principles of Association "Mémoire de l'Air" Aviation Firsts [Chronology of American aviation firsts] Cayley, Sir George Daedalus: The Long Odyssey from Myth to Reality Digital Library of Flight First Flight - UK First Flight - Library of Congress Flights of Inspiration Histoire de l'Aviation, L' Langley's Aerodrome - by David Dodge Octave Chanute Pages, The Royal Aeronautical Society, The "The [Royal Aeronautical] Society was founded as the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866 with 65 members by the Duke of Argyll. It became the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1918. Australia was first mentioned in 1892 when Lawrence Hargrave was experimenting with cellular kites. He was made a life member in 1897 and gave his paper on box kites in 1899. In 1919 the Institution of Aeronautical Engineers emerged." Tale of the Airplane To Fly is Everything Aviation History, Lawrence HargraveMenu Australian Kite Association Lawrence Hargrave: Australian Kiting Pioneer Balloons and BallooningMenu Rockets and RocketryMenu Cruise Missiles: a Brief History A History of Rocketry Part I: Ancient Times up to World War II A History of Rocketry [Part II]: (Post-WWII) Strategic and Tactical Missiles For a detailed essay on the history of rocketry and missiles please visit the dedicated page elsewhere on this site Kites and KitingMenu American Kite Fliers Association, The American Kite (Magazine) Australian Kite Association Australian Kite Flyers Society, The Cerf-volant Kite Les bons plans Mizt'Ailes Christophe Gronier : Kite Plans History of Kites, The History of Kites and Kite Flying Kite Collection, Japanese Kites - The KAP Site Kites in the Classroom Peter's Kite Site Power Kite Site, The - Links TMR`s Kite Site of Life League of Silent Flight of Australia ICARE Sailplanes - Scale glider, Electric Model Aeronautical Association of Australia (MAAA) Gliding and Ultralight AircraftMenu "...after the First World War, the Germans were not allowed to build planes, [...] only gliders. So their technological advance in the building of gliders began and they are still ahead today. This was the second birth of gliding thanks to German people. In 1936, during one of the darkest period in world history, gliding reached its highest level: gliding was an event in the Berlin Olympic Games. So, after the war, gliding was considered a nazi sport and was suppressed from the events of Olympic Games. One more time, a war had wounded gliding." Australian Homebuilt Sailplane Association Australian Ultralight Federation Colditz Glider, The associated sitesGliding Federation of Australia, The Introduction to AirplaneDesign: Featured Glider Designs, Tips, and Ideas SAGHT Gliding Movement: History 'Slow' and 'Park' FlyersMenu "Slowflyers fly slow. They have very large wing areas and are extremely light weight which allows for wingloadings in the one to three ounce per square foot range. Most of these models have a minimal amount of structure. [...] The basic design for slowflyers is a single surfaced highly undercambered wing with a carbon tube fuselage and balsa or carbon tail surfaces. These models are best suited for indoor flying or in early morning / late evening dead calm air conditions" Indoor Competition Classes (of aircraft) Folding Flyer: The Low Cost Radio Controlled Airplane! Free-Flight Model Airplanes Future is Electric, The High Voltage: The World of R/C Flight Hobby Club - kit and equipment supplies 'Indoor' (flight) English - French - German 'model aviation' dictionaryKolibri "Kolibri is the German name for the smallest bird "humming bird" on earth. All of our Slow Flyers have a birds/bug/insect name and since the Kolibri is mainly built from Carbon which is "Kohle" in German the name sounds funny, at least to a German because it is light weight, small, dynamic and made from Kohle" Little Bee - the ARF Slow-Flyer kit Matt's Micro Planes Penaud's Planaphore - a full size replica SAMS Aeromodeller's Handbook Slow and Park Flyers from 'Hobby Lobby' Specialist SlowFly equipment - WES Technics Stubenfliege - (lit. 'House Fly', act. 'flyer for indoor use') Tweety Bird - Flying Wing McEagle Styrofoam Glider Paper airplane - The best paper airplane in the world ! Paper Airplane Aerodynamics Paper Airplane Science

<urn:uuid:ac4c4524-a3dd-4d35-8052-14c537ac7391>

March 4, 2013 by katmcdaniel In late January, John Davis, a conservationist and explorer, began a 5,000 mile journey from Hermosillo, Mexico to Fernie, Canada. He is hiking, cycling and paddling this route to document the lives of wild animals and confirm the need for wildlife corridors in the west. Wildlife corridors are protected areas that link isolated habitats and allow animals to travel long distances, primarily for the purposes of feeding and breeding. He has already completed a similar project for the eastern side of the US. Last week Davis arrived at the border between the US and Mexico, where he was met at a walled wildlife crossing near Naco, Arizona by wildlife supporters from both countries who carried an art project celebrating the endangered jaguar and other animals. A traditional Yaqui tribal blessing was held. Some supporters wore jaguar masks and some attempted to scale the border wall to show sympathy and solidarity with the desert creatures. As he continues his trek into the western United States, Davis hopes that people will take notice of the hardship the 16 foot high steel fence creates for animals who are trying to follow their traditional pathways to food and water. In some areas, animals are dying within sight of water while trying to find a place to cross to the river. Want to read more about John Davis’s journey and the loss of animal and human life on the border? TrekWest… an Epic Journey to Save Our Wild West is About to Begin (Wildlands Network) Wildlife Supporters Gather at Border Crossing (The Sierra Vista Herald) Border fence putting Arizona Pronghorns in peril (Arizona Central) Fence in the Sky: Border Wall Cuts Through Native Land (The Native Press.com) The Border Effect (The American Prospect)

<urn:uuid:3dfdaee6-2d64-4359-9e77-40bc502a3f26>

Glove Selection: Using ANSI/ISEA 105-2016 American National Standard for Hand Protection Classification Hand protection is a necessary precaution to reduce the risk of a work related injury. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to select and require their employees to use appropriate hand protection when there are potential workplace exposures to hazards such as skin absorption of harmful substances; severe cuts or lacerations; severe abrasions; punctures; chemical or thermal burns; and harmful temperatures [29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.138(a)]. OSHA also mandates that the selection must be based on an evaluation of performance characteristics of the hand protection relative to the task(s) being performed [29 CFR 1910.138(b)]. The OSHA standard does not reference any standard that provides design or performance characteristics for hand protection. However, 29 CFR 1910 Subpart I Appendix B urges employers to know the performance characteristics of the gloves that are being considered by obtaining documentation from the supplier showing that the gloves meet “appropriate test standards for the hazards anticipated.” The American National Standards Institute / International Safety Equipment Association (ANSI/ISEA) 105-2016 American National Standard for Hand Protection Classification is the latest revision of a voluntary consensus standard first published in 1999, and revised in 2005 and 2011. This standard addresses the classification and testing of hand protection for specific performance properties related to chemical and industrial applications. It provides, or refers to, appropriate test methods and provides pass/fail criteria used by manufacturers to classify their products. End users can use this information to review the documentation received from their supplier to help verify the gloves they are considering meet their needs. When reviewing and selecting cut-resistant gloves, employers must take into account grip, as well as abrasion, cut and puncture resistance. And any other hand hazards that may be present. Cut resistance is a function of a glove’s material composition and thickness. Performance characteristics are not only affected by a material’s weight, but also by the coatings applied to the outside surface. Lighter weight styles are typically more flexible, resulting in less hand fatigue, while their heavier counterparts generally provide more cut and abrasion protection. Coated gloves enhance grip, especially on slippery surfaces. When tested in accordance with ASTM F2992-15, the glove’s cut resistance is classified as shown below: Weight (grams) needed to cut through material with 20 millimeters of blade travel Cut-resistance testing measures how well the glove will resist cutting by a sharp edge. Heavier weight indicates greater cut resistance. Puncture Resistance (Blunt Probe) When tested in accordance with the European Standard EN 388.2016, the glove’s resistance against puncture from a blunt probe is expressed as a Newton value. This is the force of the blade needed to cut through the glove material: Puncture resistance testing measures how the glove will resist puncture by a blunt pointed object. Higher puncture forces indicate a greater puncture resistance. Hypodermic Needle Puncture Resistance When tested in accordance with ASTM F2878-10, the glove’s resistance against punctures from a hypodermic needle is classified as shown below, using the puncture force of a 25-gauge hypodermic needle: Puncture-resistance testing measures how well the glove resists puncture by a sharp-edged needle. Higher puncture forces indicate a greater puncture resistance. When tested in accordance with ASTM D3389-10 or ASTM D3884-09, the glove’s abrasion resistance is classified according to the following levels, using the number of abrasion cycles to failure: Level (tested at 500-gram load) Abrasion Cycles to Fail Level (tested at 1,000-gram load) ASTM D3389-10 is used for coated gloves and the end point (failure) is the number of abrasion cycles when the film or coating is worn through. ASTM D3884-09 is used for uncoated gloves and the end point is the number of abrasion cycles when the first threat or yarn is broken. Abrasion resistance testing measures how well the glove resists loss of material from rubbing on rough surfaces. Larger numbers of cycles indicate greater abrasion resistance. When tested in accordance with ASTM F739-12, the glove’s chemical permeation is classified according to the levels shown below, using the average standard breakthrough time (for each chemical tested): Standard Breakthrough Time (minutes) Permeation resistance testing measures the rate at which chemicals pass through the material on a molecular level. Longer times indicate better chemical permeation resistance. When tested in accordance with ANSI/ISEA 105-2016 Appendix B Test Method for Chemical Degradation Resistance, the chemical degradation is classified according to the levels outlined below: Degradation resistance testing measures the effects of a chemical on a glove. In this test, the measured effect is the loss of puncture resistance. Lower percentage changes in puncture resistance indicate gloves with greater chemical degradation. The percentage change is applicable for positive and negative change. For example, if the percentage is +30% or -30%, the reported level is Level 3. Heat and Flame Protection When tested in accordance with ASTM F 1358-08, the glove’s ignition resistance and burning behavior is classified according to the levels listed below. In order to be classified at a specific level, the glove material must meet each of the criteria at that specific level. Time Exposed to Flame (seconds) After-Flame Time (seconds) |4||No ignition in either 3- or 12-second exposure period| Ignition resistance and burning behavior testing measures how easily a glove will ignite, and if ignited, how readily it will continue to burn once the flame is removed. Materials that show no ignition or longer ignition times and short after-burn times are considered to perform better. Heat Degradation Resistance When tested in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization ISO 17493:2000, the glove’s heat degradation resistance is classified according to the levels listed below: Highest temperature (°C) where no charring, ignition, melting, dripping, separation or shrinkage in excess of 5% is observed Heat degradation testing determines the exposure temperature at which a glove will show no significant heat degradation. The higher the reported temperatures, the greater the heat degradation resistance. Conductive Heat Resistance When tested in accordance with ASTM F1060-08, the glove’s conductive heat resistance is classified according to the levels listed below: Highest contact temperature (°C) at which both time-to-second degree burn is greater than or equal to 15 seconds and alarm time is greater than or equal to four seconds The alarm time is the difference between the measure time-to-second degree burn and the time-to-pain. Conductive heat resistance testing measures the insulation provided by the glove when exposed to and in contact with a hot surface. Higher temperatures indicate gloves with greater insulation. When tested in accordance with ANSI S2.73-2002 (R2007), a glove’s vibration reduction is classified as pass/fail. A glove must pass both of the following criteria: TRM 1.0 and TRH 0.6. TRM is the overall transmissibility of vibration using a spectrum called “M” [31.5 Hertz (Hz) - 200 Hz], and TRH is the overall transmissibility when using a spectrum called “H” [200 Hz - 1 kHz]. In accordance with ANSI/ISEA 105- 2016, only full-fingered gloves are to be classified as “anti-vibration.” When tested in accordance with clause 6.2 of EN 420:2009, the dexterity of a glove is classified according to the levels shown below, using the smallest diameter of the pin that can be picked up: Smallest Diameter of Pin (millimeters) Gloves are often relied upon to help prevent cuts, abrasions, punctures, burns and skin contact with chemicals. It is important to know the performance characteristics of gloves relative to the anticipated hazards. Before purchasing gloves, employers should request documentation from the supplier showing that the gloves being considered have been tested in accordance with the appropriate test standards for the anticipated hazards. It is vital that employers are aware of the different test methods in order to interpret the supplied documentation, draw accurate conclusions and select the best gloves for the tasks at hand. Typically, the ideal length of a glove can vary depending upon the task being performed and the protection required. To determine the ideal length, use a soft flexible tape measure and measure the length of your arm from the tip of the middle finger back. 29 CFR 1910.138 29 CFR 1910 Subpart I Appendix B ANSI/ISEA 105-2016 - American National Standard for Hand Protection Classification Find even more information you can use to help make informed decisions about the regulatory issues you face in your workplace every day. View all Quick Tips Technical Resources at www.grainger.com/quicktips. Think Safety. Think Grainger.® Grainger has the products and services to help keep employees safe and healthy. You'll also find a network of safety resources that help your facility stay in compliance and protect workers from hazardous situations. Count on Grainger for lockout/tagout, fall protection equipment, confined space products, safety signs, personal protective equipment (PPE), emergency response and so much more! The information contained in this publication is intended for general information purposes only and is based on information available as of the initial date of publication. No representation is made that the information or references are complete or remain current. This publication is not a substitute for review of the current applicable government regulations and standards specific to your location and business activity, and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion. Readers with specific questions should refer to the applicable standards or consult with an attorney. ©2018 W.W. Grainger, Inc.

<urn:uuid:1de83375-dc00-48b1-a3d8-ee3703079dc7>

WELL; Vital Signs: Regimens: Physical Activity and Alzheimer's Risk By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Published: May 1, 2012 Higher levels of daily physical activity are associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests. The report, in the April 24 issue of Neurology, included 716 people, average age 82, without cognitive impairment. Each wore a wrist actigraph, a device that measures movement, for about 10 days to establish his or her usual level of daily physical activity. Over the next four years, 71 of them developed Alzheimer's. The researchers found that those in the lowest 10 percent for physical activity were more than twice as likely to develop the disease as those in the highest 10 percent. The association held after controlling for age, sex, education, vascular diseases, depression and the frequency of social activities. Dr. Aron S. Buchman, the lead author, said animal studies have also found that environmental enrichment, including physical activity, protects against cognitive decline, possibly by increasing the size of blood vessels and the number of neurons in the brain. Early Alzheimer's disease itself might lead to lower physical activity, but the researchers eliminated that possible explanation because the initial level of activity was not associated with previous cognitive decline. ''We weren't measuring only exercise activity, but any activity over a 24-hour period,'' said Dr. Buchman, an associate professor of Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center. ''Even very old people who can't participate in formal exercise may be able to derive the benefit.'' This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

<urn:uuid:a73a0c25-9dd7-4a3f-90e2-5793b6d448f0>

Nella Larsen, born April 13, 1891, was one of the most popular authors of the Harlem Renaissance, and the first African American woman to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship for literature. Her work examines issues of race, sexuality, and gender, with a sincerity and understanding that, more than 100 years after she was born, are still relevant today. The daughter of immigrants, her father a black man from the West Indies, and her mother a white Danish woman, Larsen was acutely aware of race and the role it played in her life, especially after her half-sister was born. Her family was able to do something Larsen would go on to write about in depth: they could pass as white. This awareness of her racial identity, and the way it set her apart from her family, are said to play a part in Larsen going to the historically black college, Fisk University’s Normal School—at the age of 16! After only a year, Larsen went to the University of Copenhagen to learn about her maternal heritage, only to return to Fisk University’s Normal School after four years. Back in the US, Larsen studied nursing and began training in a library program, which led her to working for the New York Public Library. It was through her job that she met her future husband Elmer Imes, the second African American to earn his Ph.D. in Physics,, and who introduced her to other well-known figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White, and Langston Hughes. Imes was successful enough that Larsen was able to devote herself to her writing. She wrote short stories for a while under the pseudonym Allen Nesral (a simple anagram of Nella Larsen), before gaining a name for herself and writing her first novel, Quicksand, in 1928. The novel was about a biracial woman, Helga Crane, searching for a place where she was neither slighted for her race, or made an exotic treasure. The novel was well received and won the Harmon Foundation Prize, but it was her second novel, Passing, that solidified Larsen’s place among the greats of the Harlem Renaissance and led her to be given the Guggenheim Fellowship for Literature and Creative Writing. After she received the Guggenheim Fellowship, she spent the next six months traveling to Paris and France, where she worked on her third novel. However, it was in 1930 that things took a turn. Larsen was accused of plagiarism for her short story, “Sanctuary,” with critics sawing the story was too similar to a work by Sheila Kaye-Smith, published 8 years earlier. Although Kaye-Smith’s publishers disagreed, saying that “Sanctuary” was obviously an original work, Larsen was also in the spotlight due to a messy divorce with Imes, who had an affair with a white woman. Larsen faded from the limelight, living off her alimony payments until Imes’ death in 1941, when she started working as a nurse. Larsen remained a nurse until her death on March 30, 1964. Passing is the only novel by Larsen that I’ve read, but it’s made me want to upturn my To-Read bookshelf until I’ve devoured all of Larsen’s writings. Passing follows the lives of two women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, during the 1920s. Irene and Clare grew up together in the way that people in the same neighborhood grew up together, having nothing much in common aside from the fact that both women were biracial, having one white parent and one black parent. The novel begins with Irene receiving a letter from Clare, telling her she’s in Manhattan and wants to meet up with her again. But Irene is livid, and flashes the reader back to their first reunion, where Irene realized that what they once had in common has become taboo. Clare Kendry is passing, or going through society as if she were white. While Irene didn’t understand Clare passing: “She couldn’t … come to any conclusion about its meaning, try as she might. It was unfathomable, utterly beyond any experience or comprehension of hers”—Irene did not like Clare’s husband, an unrepentant racist who constantly talked about racial superiority of whites. Thus begins the novel, written in such an authentic voice that you feel as if you’re listening in on a conversation. The novel tackles issues of passing, of race, but also of gender and sexuality. However, because of the style of the novel, readers are left wondering, picking apart phrases to understand if they really do catch the meaning. As you watch the lives of Irene and Clare progress, Clare jealous over a connection to her past that Irene has, and Irene unhappy with Clare’s presence and her husband’s desire for a life outside the one he lives, readers are swallowed by the plot until the shocking end, leaving themselves to wonder, between careful turns of phrase, if they truly understand what they just read. Larsen never published again after the accusations of plagiarism, but in her apartment two unfinished manuscripts were found. Now she is read internationally and celebrated for her insight on the liminal spaces between the gender, racial, and sexual binaries that surrounded her. In honor of her birthday, take some time to read the words of this amazing writer, and catch a glimpse into the past that resonates startlingly well with issues of the present.

<urn:uuid:9eec4199-739f-41f3-a2e4-94f4441dfe47>

Investigate how you can work out what day of the week your birthday will be on next year, and the year after... Label this plum tree graph to make it totally magic! Find all the ways of placing the numbers 1 to 9 on a W shape, with 3 numbers on each leg, so that each set of 3 numbers has the same Can you adapt your insights so that they apply to pyramids with different sequences on the bottom layer? What if the numbers on the bottom layer go up in 2s? Or 3s? Or start at 17 and go up in 7s? Or... This spreadsheet might be useful for exploring such pyramids with four or five layers. You could adapt it to work on even larger pyramids. This problem features in Maths Trails - Generalising, one of the books in the Maths Trails series written by members of the NRICH Team and published by Cambridge University Press. For more details, please see our publications page .

<urn:uuid:f2b5c2ee-7e76-461e-8ee4-8097862d6fbb>

Guest Author - Heather Thomas Birds and trees naturally go together. As bird owners, it is tempting to harvest branches in their natural state for our feathered friends. Commercially available perches, made from natural wood such as manzanita, are wonderful additions to your birdís cage. They promote foot health and interesting surfaces for your bird to explore. While these branches are wonderful, they can also be expensive. The do-it-yourselfer can save some money while providing an interesting environment by using branches from the great outdoors. Bird Safe Wood While it may sound like there is no down side to using natural branches, some precautions must be taken to ensure your birds health and safety. Not all plants, including trees, are safe for pet birds. Some are toxic. Research every tree before you select branches for your bird. Avoid dead wood and diseased trees. Some of the most common bird-safe trees include: Ash, Apple, Birch, Elm, Grape Vine, Pine, and Poplar. Natural branches provide your bird with a healthy chewing surface. A bird can literally spend hours smoothing all the nubs and rough surfaces from a branch. This experience also allows your bird to spend time doing something that their native relatives do in the wild. It is critical that you know the source you harvest from. Pesticide free branches are essential to your birdís health. Unless you know the long history of a tree, it is better to be safe rather than sorry. Do not stop and pick up trimmed branches from along side the road and use them for your bird, especially if it is something like apple or grape vine; these two plants are often sprayed with pesticide to prevent pests from consuming their sweet fruit. As a side note, this is also a consideration when feeding your bird grapes or apples; choose organic whenever possible or remove the skin if that is more reasonable. Since there is a strong likelihood that your harvested branches have come in contact with wild birds, sanitize your branches for added protection against avian illness. Spray the branches with a solution of water and grapefruit seed extract. This powerful disinfectant has been shown to disinfect as well as bleach without the harmful effects to your bird. Different strengths of grapefruit seed extract, or GSE as itís commonly referred to, are available online or at most local health food stores. Allow branches to dry completely before placing them in your birdís cage. You can view finding clean healthy sources of natural branches as a quest to enrich your birdís life. If there is ever any concern that a branch is not pesticide free, donít take the risk with your birdís health; just stick with commercially available perches.

<urn:uuid:6a4107fb-332f-4a7a-840f-0b44c57f0723>

In his opening keynote on Evolution & The Central 6 Traits that Make Consumers Tick at the Warm Gun Design Conference in San Francisco, Geoffrey Miller described how evolutionary psychology explains why people put their possessions on display for others. Here’s my notes from his talk: - Why is there so much conspicuous display of wealth in our society? In pre-history there were no elites. We spent 35 million years as apes and only in the past 10,000 years had the money and means to show off our tastes. Yet we seem to have instincts to display wealth and taste. To show off what we have and why. What’s behind these instincts? - Evolutionary consumer psychology can help provide answers by looking at how our past shaped our ancestral selection process. This has implications for designing products as it tell us what drives consumers to buy. - Practical products: survival commodities that are useful in life like ham and blankets. Economics drive the profitability of practical products down to zero. - Pleasure premium products: associated with private vices (chocolate, porn). These are products you would be embarrassed to be caught using. As a result, they have a limited market place. - Display premium products: what you buy to show off to others. This is where the money is and where brands are dominant. Display not Consumption - People don’t buy products just to consume them. They buy them to display them. - Consumption (as in consumer) is a misleading term. While it’s true most animals spend all their time foraging for things to consume, display reaches much more deeply. Display is a highly natural instinct it pervades the animal world in mating, territory marking, and more. Display In Nature - What is display used for in nature? - Attract mates: sexual ornaments, morphological displays to advertise genetic qualities, and behavioral displays to attract mates. Evolution builds in wisdom on how to display even in small bird brains. - Deter rivals: display features keep rivals away - Impress parents: baby birds competing for food are saying they are fitter and more optimized for food. - Four principles of display: nature favors things that are conspicuous and will be registered by their intended audience. These include conspicuous: cost (size, materials, energy), precisions (typicality for the species, symmetry) creativity (novelty, utility, symbols), reputation (status, fame, brand). What People Display - What do consumers want to display about themselves? - Central six mental traits: we are driven unconsciously to display these traits to anyone who will listen: intelligence, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability, extraversion. The last five are “the big 5” personality traits. - All 6 of these traits are fundamental and ancient across all species; they are genetically heritable; stable across life & cultures; attractive to mates, friends, kin; and can be judged and measured accurately. - If you are unhappy with someone it is usually because they fall short on some of these traits. We have evolved thousands of words to describe these traits. - Intelligence: verbal, spatial, social, emotional. All of these are correlated. - Openness: novelty, fantasy, aesthetics, liberalism, globalism. Most product creators are more open then their audience. Any advertisement that feature openness will appeal to some and alienate others. Openness drives rapid acceleration of new brands. - Conscientiousness: discipline, planning, ambition, order. The ability to plan ahead. - Agreeableness: kindness, honesty, modesty, tenderness. - Extraversion: last surviving trait from Myer Briggs. Shy vs. outgoing. Get positive feedback from act of talking. Plays out in consumer world through analytics, word of mouth, etc. - Everyone in business will overestimate openness, conscientiousness, etc. as they tend to over index on these traits. How the Web is Influencing Display - The typical human process for displaying your wealth and tastes: you have talent, you display it, you get skilled employment, you earn income, you engage in conspicuous consumption, which gets you mates and friends. This is a LONG process that used to take a lifetime. - With social networking and smartphones –you can display the six central mental traits directly. You can do an end run around the traditional process (which demanded patience and investment) and jump right to attracting mates and friends. This may be partially to blame for our global recession! - What trait display norms will emerging economies adopt? China/India, etc. Will they use conspicuous consumption or emigrate to other forms of trait display? Time will tell...

<urn:uuid:4cb153ca-40c2-4010-b982-c091daf7e93b>

Dariusz Tołczyk " The Uses of Vulnerability. Literature and Ideology in Evgeniia Ginzburg's Memoir of the Gulag" Stories of Evil Literary testimonies to the twentieth century`s concentration camps, prisons, and ghettos emphasize that the desire to tell the story of these extreme historic ordeals was one of the most fundamental needs of the victims, comparable to their desire for survival itself. The thought that "no one would ever learn of their death (...) was one of the prisoners` greatest torments," Gustaw Herling-Grudziński writes in his Gulag memoir, A World Apart. Among the most devastating effects of the camps on their victims, next to dehumanizing terror, violence, and hunger, he underlines the "anxiety at the thought that [the] (...) camps have robbed millions of their victims of the one privilege accorded to every death – its publicity, and the desire which every human being subconsciously feels: to endure in the memory of others." These words of Herling-Grudziński referring to the horrors of the Gulag are echoed by many survivors of the twentieth century`s various systems of mass oppression. Describing the wall erected by the Nazis around the Warsaw Ghetto, Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, speaks about the profound anxieties of those imprisoned inside: The wall only reached to the second floor. And already from the third floor one could see the other street. We could see a merry-go-round, people, we could hear music, and we were terribly afraid that this music would drown us out and that those people would never notice a thing, that nobody in the world would notice a thing: us, the struggle, the dead... That this wall was so huge, that nothing, no message about us, would ever make it out. Witnesses to Nazi and Bolshevik camps alike emphasize that, for many prisoners, the desire to tell the story of their own ordeals and of the fate of those who (to use Solzhenitsyn`s words) "did not live to tell it" became a powerful inspiration in their own struggle for survival in camps and prisons. Many admit that in the face of this desire they came to view their own survival not as a goal in itself but rather as a condition for an even more important goal – letting the world know what happened to people behind the walls and barbed wire. Alexander Donat, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Dachau, reminisces: I felt I was a witness to a disaster and charged with the sacred mission of carrying the Ghetto`s history through the flames and barbed wire until such time as I could hurl it into the face of the world. It seemed to me that this sense of mission would give me the strength to endure everything. At the time of Donat`s ordeals at the hands of the Nazis, Evgeniia Ginzburg was a prisoner of Stalin`s arctic camps of Kolyma. She was to spend the total of eighteen years in Soviet prisons, camps, and confined settlement. "[J]ust remembering it all to record it later had been the main object of my life throughout those eighteen years," she writes. This emphasis placed by so many authors of prison camp literature on the moral importance of telling the story points to a common ethical assumption underlying this vast and diverse literary tradition. In his exploration of many types of literary testimonies to concentration camps, Tzvetan Todorov spells out this assumption. "No life is lived in vain," he writes, "if it leaves behind some trace of itself, some story that, when added to the countless stories, by which we know who we are, contributes, even in the smallest way, to making the world a more harmonious and more perfect place. This is the paradox: stories of evil can create good." But in order to tell the story of evil in hopes that it will, indeed, create good, the storyteller (witness) of the camps must respond to a challenge that distinguishes the twentieth-century totalitarian extremities from many other historic instances of mass oppression. Whereas (as Todorov puts it) "the main character of camp literature is evil," many witnesses emphasize the special nature of the peculiar kind of evil revealed in the concentration camps of totalitarian regimes. This is a kind of evil which not only destroys human beings but also corrodes the language enabling these human beings to recognize and describe it as evil. Authors of camp literature distinguish two simultaneous and interdependent types of of this assault mounted by twentieth-century totalitarian systems against the camp victims` capacity to perceive the camps through the traditional opposition of good and evil. On the physical level, extreme violence, hunger, fear, and deprivations are shown by numerous witnesses to numb the moral sensitivities of many victims. Barbara Skarga writes in her Gulag memoir: "Day by day, with hunger and work beyond one`s capacity, what seeps into our minds is acceptance of evil. We no longer know how to be morally outraged." Many writer-survivors emphasize that as a result of extreme physical deprivations in the camps a person`s capacity to be motivated by moral values crumbles. "Conditions in the camps do not permit men to remain men; that is not what camps were created for," Varlam Shalamov remarks in Kolyma Tales. Nevertheless, even those witnesses who argue that the horrors of totalitarianism expose traditional discourses of good and evil as inadequate or vacuous still appeal to their audiences` reliance on these discourses in recognizing the evil of the camps. This physical assault against victims` capacity to refer to the camp horrors in moral terms is often portrayed by survivors as accompanied by a special ideological assault. Both Nazism and Soviet Communism (at least in its Leninist and Stalinist phases) consisted of organized attempts to turn utopian rhetoric into life. Thus, the concentration camps created by these regimes in order to isolate, exploit, and (especially in the Nazi case) exterminate selected categories of people can be described in terms of "theaters of life" (and death), in which victims were expected to enact in their real lives the roles projected onto them by this utopian rhetoric. "A person`s consciousness," as Todorov puts it succinctly, "is [always] an internalization of the discourse of others; the `I` is formed by the `they.`" In the ideal world of totalitarianism, the only "they" who form the "I" (identity) of every inhabitant of this world are supposed to be the Party leaders. Similar to each other in this fundamental respect, Hitler`s and Stalin`s theaters of life differed, however, in important ways, as each of them strove to enact a different ideological script. Prisoners of Nazi camps, identified as subhuman by their masters on the basis of irreversible "biological laws," were expected to confirm this identity by their behavior in the camp. In his description of the Russian prisoners of war in Auschwitz, the camp commander, Rudolf Höss, says: "They were no longer men. They`d turned into beasts who thought only about eating." Rudolf Höss proves to be an ideal viewer in his own theater of life. He suspends his knowledge of the back-stage reality and forgets that he is, in fact, the stage manager responsible for the whole theatrical effect. Instead, he allows himself to be (as Plato puts it in the Republic) "infected with the reality" of what he sees on stage. Viewed as subhuman by their oppressors, Nazi victims were neither coerced nor lured into thinking about them as anything other than evil. The message projected by the camp regime to the victims was hardly ambiguous in this respect: the moral categories, thoughts, and feelings of the victims have no significance because, as subhumans, they would never be able to become a part of the only world in which things really mean something ― the world of the masters. The opposition of good and evil was therefore supposed to appear to the victim as meaningless when confronted by the opposition of masters and slaves, the strong and the weak. In the face of the triumphant and blatant horrors committed by the victorious masters, calling these masters and their actions evil was to be viewed by the victims themselves as nothing more than a laughable exercise in futility carried out by history`s (and nature`s) losers. The main difference, in this respect, between the Nazi camps and the Gulag is the fact that in the Gulag evil parades in the guise of goodness. Unlike the Nazi rhetoric, the official Soviet rhetoric, addressed to the prisoners, their camp masters, and the population at large, presented the Gulag as a well-meaning and successful experiment in resocializing ill-adjusted and confused individuals. According to the Marxist premise of class-based consciousness, the Bolsheviks claimed that the source of both crime and political opposition (actual or imagined by the Soviet authorities) to Bolshevism lay in a person's inability or unwillingness to free him or herself from the confusing vestiges of the pre-revolutionary bourgeois class consciousness. Therefore, eradicating crime (and political opposition) was presented as achievable through the transformation (coercive if necessary) of the old consciousness ("old man") into a new, Soviet one. Slave labor and systematic reeducation were viewed by the Bolsheviks as two mutually complementary means of this transformation. As early as 1919, Feliks Dzerzhinsky called for the transformation of the Bolshevik concentration camps of the Civil War into more systematically organized "schools of labor." Soviet propaganda developed this rhetoric on a mass scale in the late 1920s and 1930s ― the time when slave labor became a significant factor in the Soviet economy and the Gualg system expanded dramatically This rhetoric, centered around the metaphor of perekovka [reforging of people] was the only way of referring to the Gulag allowed in the Soviet world, and it was championed by Soviet propaganda abroad. Imprisonment in labor camps, according to this rhetoric, was to be viewed not as punishment (let alone oppression) but as a sign of the Soviet regime's magnanimity and its "humanitarian" mission. For example, Belomorsko-baltiiskii kanal imeni Stalina (1934), a collective "non-fiction" volume by 36 Soviet authors praising the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal by Gulag inmates, describes this mission: "We eliminate only the most stubborn and stiff-necked enemies. As for people of the old world caught opposing the new, we try to transform them." In her 1936 book praising the Gulag, Ot prestupleniia k trudu, Ida Averbakh presents the goal of perekovka [reforging] as "the transformation of the nastiest human material into worthwhile, fully useful, active, and conscientious builders of socialism." In the Gulag system of the 1930s, prisoners were not only pressured (by hunger and violence) to engage in the "voluntary competition of socialist labor" and to inform on their less-motivated fellow prisoners, but were also expected to "prove" their inner transformation by expressing their enthusiasm for communism and the Soviet authorities in internal Gulag press, theatrical performances, concerts, etc. In 1937, the year of an unprecedented wave of the Great Terror, the topic of the Gualg was muffled until the Thaw following Stalin's death. The Thaw, especially the publication of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962, briefly challenged the perekovka rhetoric, but in the mid-1960s the theme of the Gulag was muffled again and remained a taboo in official Soviet discourse until glasnost'. According to the perekovka rhetoric of the Gulag, camp inmates were presented in terms of "human material" undergoing a beneficial transformation ― a sharp contrast to the Nazi rhetoric presenting the majority of the camp population as subhuman refuse. This difference can be traced back to the ideological factors determining a person's status in each of these two systems of oppression: "race" versus "class." In contrast to the central Nazi idea of "racial characteristics," the Bolshevik concept of "class consciousness" did not imply that the identity of each human subject is unchangeable. Unlike the Nazi camps, the Gulag was not designed to directly annihilate entire categories of people but rather to exploit them and, at least in theory, transform their consciousness. Thus, in the Bolshevik rhetoric of the Gulag, a victim is not a victim but an initiate whose progress is measured by his ability to refer to his own experience in the moral language of his oppressors ― a language prohibiting him from recognizing the evil done to him. In the words of Barbara Skarga, this language replaces the real camp with "a phantom or an idea of the camp," in which there are no victors and vanquished... No, there are only the good shepherds on the one hand and, on the other, the confused sheep who should be grateful for all the care of the shepherds. There are no masters and slaves exploited beyond their capacity… There are no murderers and murdered... No, the administration of the camp plays the role of worried fathers who, broken hearted, must punish their own children... The Nazis did not conceal their hostility nor did they require their victims to declare their love for them... And so, each prisoner of the Gulag, like each Soviet citizen, enters the domain of the lie. If he dreams of surviving he must deny his own self. He must speak the same language as his oppressors, he must repeat the same slogans, the same well-known words... He can do it cynically, knowing that this is a game. But he can go too far... He can start believing in his own game, and then his fate will be truly sorrowful. Before his body is destroyed, his soul will fall. Literary witnesses to the Gulag acknowledge that resistance against this moral manipulation usually consisted of a struggle to preserve the old moral categories in which identity was anchored prior to entry into the nether world of prisons and camps. What one struggles for in the Gulag is, besides physical survival, the survival of one's ability to identify oneself morally in opposition to, and not as a part of, the system of oppression. Crucial for the moral survival of the prisoner, this ability constitutes a fundamental condition enabling a prisoner of the Gulag to become a witness. To be a witness, one must successfully resist the pressure to internalize the language of the regime; a witness who views his Gulag experience according to the moral categories imposed on him by the language of his oppressors is not a witness but part of the cover-up. A Crack in the Wooden Screen Understanding the specific nature of the moral assault of the Gulag is crucial in order to appreciate the special character of Evgeniia Ginzburg's testimony to her eighteen years spent in Stalin's prisons, camps, and confined settlement. Ginzburg's two-volume memoir, Krutoi marshrut was translated into English under two titles: Journey into the Whirlwind (vol. 1) and Within the Whirlwind (vol. 2). Ginzburg wrote the first volume during the Thaw, in response to the official critique of Stalin at the Twenty-Second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961. The Congress called upon writers to compose literary testimonies to the "period of the cult of personality." Ginzburg wrote hers with "a specific aim: to offer the manuscript to the major [Soviet] journals." She admits: "Alas, together with my hopes of publication the (...) inner editor came into being. He carped at every paragraph: 'You won't get that past the censor.' (...) All this had a considerable effect on the first part." She submitted the first volume for publication to Aleksandr Tvardovskii, the editor of Novyi Mir (the journal which had just published Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) and Boris Polevoi, the editor of Iunost'. Both editors kept the manuscript for a long time only to finally reject it (Polevoi as late as 1966), clearly for political reasons. Meanwhile the memoir had begun circulating in samizdat and in 1967 it was published abroad (Frankfurt and Milan). After this publication, Ginzburg wrote the second volume without the hopes for publication in the Soviet Union. It appeared in 1979 in Milan. Whereas most testimonies to moral resistance in the Gulag underscore the reliance of the victims on moral languages that anchored their identities before their imprisonment, Ginzburg testifies to resisting this assault despite discovering in prison that the moral language that anchored her identity before her imprisonment was, in fact, vacuous. Her experience of the Gulag is not of a successful defense of her moral identity against overwhelming pressures, but rather of a purposeful abandonment of her old moral framework of identity and the construction, almost from scratch, of a new one. She accomplishes this under conditions of extreme vulnerability, in a situation defying all reasonable expectations of success. Describing her state of mind before her arrest, Ginzburg writes: "I don't want to sound pretentious, but I must say that had I been ordered to die for the Party ― not once but three times (...) I would have obeyed without the slightest hesitation. I had not the shadow of a doubt of the rightness of the Party line." Ginzburg, a young Party activist and instructor of Marxism-Leninism in Kazan', was arrested in the purge of 1937 under false charges of "counterrevolutionary Trotskyist terrorist conspiracy." She admits that the moral discourse in which her identity was anchored before her imprisonment was essentially identical with the discourse of her would-be oppressors. So while the Soviet system of oppression tried to lure its victims into moral self-identification with the regime by presenting these victims with a fictitious prospect of their inner transformation, no such transformation was necessary in Ginzburg's case. Instead, as someone without "the shadow of a doubt in the rightness of the Party line," she was merely asked by her political superiors to reconfirm her political and moral allegiance to the Party. Wrongly accused and imprisoned, she was not pressured into abandoning a language in which her sense of moral identity was anchored. On the contrary, she was expected to make it even more solid and substantial. In the fourth chapter of Ginzburg's memoir, the chairman of the bureau of Party political control, Comrade Beilin, asks young Evgeniia (Zhenia) Ginzburg (already accused but not yet arrested) to stop clinging to her "subjective" perception that she is innocent and, instead, to recognize that it is the Party, not her, who possesses the ultimate authority to "objectively" pronounce her guilt or innocence. In the Leninist ethical world, whose sole foundation is the "class interest of the proletariat," the only entity competent to define this interest objectively at a particular time and place is the Communist Party, the ultimate repository of the collective will and wisdom of the proletariat. Lenin made this point clear on many occasions. "Our morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat," he explained. "Morality is what serves the destruction of the old exploitative society and the unification of all workers around the proletariat, which is creating the new society of Communists. We do not believe in eternal morality." Since only the Party leadership knows where the "interest of the proletariat" lies at a given moment, a person experiencing a conflict between the "subjective" feeling of innocence and the "objective" pronouncement of his or her guilt by the Party reveals that his or her class consciousness is not sufficiently mature and needs further guidance. This person should immediately admit his or her shortcoming to the Party and embrace whatever remedy the Party deems fit. At the time of Ginzburg's arrest, such confessions were commonplace. Throughout the Soviet Union, "large halls were turned into public confessionals," she writes. Although absolution was not at all easy to come by ― expressions of contrition were more often than not rejected as "inadequate" ― the torrent of confessions grew from day to day... Beating their breasts, the "guilty" would lament that they "had shown political short-sightedness" and "lack of vigilance," "compromised with dubious elements," "added grist" to this or that mill, and were tainted with "rotten liberalism." Many such phrases echoed under the vaulted roofs of public buildings. The press, too, was flooded with contrite articles by Party theorists, frightened out of their wits like rabbits and not attempting to conceal this fear. In the totalitarian world generated by the Party discourse, where the political authorities are endowed with a monopoly on moral judgment, a refusal to comply with their verdicts is in and of itself a moral transgression. The young Zhenia Ginzburg refuses to join in this "torrent of confessions" to admit her guilt despite her innocence. By refusing she in fact fails to recognize the Party's position as the supreme judge of right and wrong. By Bolshevik standards, she becomes guilty of apostasy: despite her assurances to the contrary, she lacks faith in the ideology that endows the Party leadership with ultimate moral authority. Confronted by this test of ideological consistency, Zhenia fails by the standards that, just a little earlier, she considered her own. When tested, she discovers that in fact she does have more than "the shadow of a doubt in the rightness of the Party line." What distinguishes Ginzburg's testimony from many other Gulag testimonies by Communists is that, under the extreme circumstances of prisons and camps, she does not rush back to the security of her moral identity as a Bolshevik. On the contrary, in Stalin's prison (the worst possible place for moral self-doubt), when her vulnerability, both physical and moral, is at its highest, she recognizes Bolshevik moral discourse as deficient and so allows her old identity, anchored in this discourse, to fall apart. During an interrogation, the NKVD officer, Major El'shin, hands her a list of people whom she is asked to identify as co-conspirators in a fictitious plot. She recognizes one name on the list – Kavi Nadzhimi, a Tatar writer she had seen a few times. When she refuses to incriminate anyone on the list, Major El'shin teases her: "Anxious to spare Nadzhimi? He didn't spare you," said the Major enigmatically. "That's between him and his conscience." "What are you, an Evangelist or something?" Again the Major couldn't miss the chance to display his learning, and gave me a lecture on the Marxist-Leninist view of ethics. "Honest" meant useful to the proletariat and its state. Major El'shin is quite right: words like "conscience" and "honesty" do not belong in the language of Leninist revolutionary morality, if they mean anything other than unconditional loyalty to the Party. In order to be able to use such words and not contradict herself, Zhenia must find a new language, in which she can rebuild her undermined sense of moral identity. This must be a language in which words like "conscience" and "honesty" mean more than Major El'shin suggests, a language enabling her to separate herself morally from her oppressors. This realization does not, however, directly imply that she must abandon the ideological discourse of the Party. As paradoxical as it sounds, Gulag literature abounds in examples of Bolshevik victims who manage to preserve their old identities rooted in the ideological discourse of the Party precisely in order to separate themselves morally from their Bolshevik oppressors. In order to preserve the security of their Bolshevik identities in Stalin's prisons and camps they either construct an opposition between Stalin (whom they identify as a traitor and enemy of the Party) and themselves (the "real Communists") or they call the whole matter an unfortunate mistake. Ginzburg is a superb observer of these psychological strategies at work. She relates her own anxieties and dilemmas after her arrest: A Communist held by the Gestapo ― I would have known exactly how to behave. But here? Here I had first to determine who these people were, who kept me imprisoned. Were they fascists in disguise? Or victims of some super-subtle provocation, some fantastic hoax? And how should a Communist behave 'in prison in his own country,' as Major [El'shin] had put it? But instead of following this path of thought, which enabled many of her fellow Communists to preserve their psychological and moral sense of security, Zhenia abandons it and, instead, chooses vulnerability. In the midst of Stalin's horrors, where protecting the consistency of one's moral identity is a matter of survival, she chooses to undertake a lonely search for a new and more suitable moral language, in whose domain she hopes to rebuild her moral sense of the world and self. What prompts her to embark on this path is her realization of a particular deficiency of the Party`s ideological discourse, which, in her eyes, disqualifies it as a basis for her moral identity. She realizes in prison that this discourse obscures a person`s ability to encounter the other. By encountering the other I mean, as Derek Attridge puts it, "the acknowledgment of the other human being`s uniqueness, and therefore of the impossibility of finding general rules or schemata to account fully for him or her." Not until her arrest does Zhenia realize that in the world she lived in before ― a world generated by Party discourse – she was unable to encounter people. The opening chapters of Ginzburg`s memoir present this strange, rarefied world of Zhenia`s before her arrest. Here, the only people worth noticing and mentioning in the narrative are almost exclusively Party activists who are always referred to in terms of their functions in the Party hierarchy. Peculiarly enough, even Zhenia`s husband, although one would expect him to be defined by his intimate relationship to the protagonist-narrator, is introduced in the narrative as, first and foremost, "a leading member of the Tartar Province Committee of the Party." In a telling event that opens the memoir, Zhenia is sent by her Party superiors to a textile mill in a working-class district of Kazan` in order to "enlighten" the workers about the recent assassination of Kirov, the Party chief in Leningrad. But Zhenia`s account of her meeting with the workers is of a most peculiar kind. While facing the workers she notices her surroundings, the "cotton filled sacks in the middle of the factory floor," but there is no account of the people to whom she speaks. Unlike the Party activists described in detail, these workers are faceless. They exist only on the shadowy fringes of the world illuminated by the ideological discourse radiating from the leadership of the Party. Outside this domain of light is a realm of darkness, ignorance, and evil, where everything seems obscured and suspect, and where the class enemy seems to lurk, always ready to attack. After her arrest, Zhenia realizes that preserving the security of Bolshevik moral identity in Stalin`s prison means keeping intact those boundaries between us (the Party activists) and the others (potential and actual enemies all around). One of Zhenia`s fellow prisoners, Anna, a Bolshevik, tries to find appropriate terms by which to refer to the others in the cell. One of those others is Nadezhda Derkovskaia, a member of the Social Revolutionary Party (SR) outlawed by the Bolsheviks. "You realize (...) she really is the class enemy," Anna confides to Zhenia. "Though of course, from what the schoolbooks said, I didn`t imagine them quite like that. She is really a good old soul, and dreadfully unhappy. But one mustn`t let one`s mind be swayed by pity." But at the moment Anna reveals to Zhenia her confusion between two moral responses to the other ― one prescribing hatred and the other suggesting compassion ― Zhenia is already well advanced on her journey away from the former and towards the latter. For her, this journey begins the very moment the door of the NKVD investigative prison in Kazan` shuts behind her. Descending into the underworld of the prison`s basement, she sees a row of cell doors lined up along the corridor. Behind these doors were friends of mine, Communists who had been cast down into hell before me... I had mentally prepared myself for solitary confinement. So when the door, marked `3,` opened with much cracking and grinding, and I saw the outline of a human figure inside, I took this as an unexpected gift of fate. I was not alone. This already was a blessing. Characteristically enough, the thoughts accompanying Zhenia in her descent into the prison cellars reveal the same key opposition that shaped her "encounter" (or rather the impossibility of it) with the workers in the textile mill. On the one side of this opposition are her "friends, Communists"; on the other side is a blank – an absence of human beings (the prospect of solitary confinement). In her mind, meeting another human being means meeting someone who shares her own ideological discourse and who can be classified as one of "us Communists." The wording of her greeting addressed to the unknown woman in the cell reveals that perception: "Hello, Comrade," she says. But Zhenia`s cell mate is no "Comrade." Instead, she is a mystery. Her name is Liama Shapel` and her crime is to have lived abroad, in the territory of the East Siberian Railroad sold by the Soviet government to China (enough of a crime to be charged as a Japanese agent). As the two women try to communicate in the cell, Zhenia quickly realizes that her language is useless as a tool of communication between them. "I (...) had no idea what she was talking about. It was all so far away from my small, closed world of Party intellectuals and scholars," Ginzburg writes. All of a sudden, in a face-to-face encounter with a human being from outside of the world of Party discourse, that discourse appears to Zhenia as confining, preventing her from encountering a fellow human. "When I tried to tell Liama about myself," Ginzburg writes, "I found it was utterly beyond her. With all my teacher`s training, I could not explain to this child of another world what exactly I was being accused of. All of our talk of `lack of vigilance,` `appeasement,` `rotten liberalism,` was so much Chinese to her, or rather it was sheer gibberish, for she did know quite a lot of Chinese." A professional instructor of Marxism-Leninism who, before her arrest, taught others how to view their lives through ideological discourse, Zhenia finds herself helpless trying to use this discourse to explain her own predicament. Rhetorical clichés, taken for granted as meaningful and applied to reality as all-encompassing labels, suddenly reveal their vacuity. Their incomprehensibility to Liama is not a matter of her lack of knowledge of a particular communicative code. A code can be taught and translated into another code, just as Chinese can be translated into Russian. Comparing the incomprehensibility of Bolshevik ideological language to the incomprehensibility of Chinese to a Russian fails Zhenia altogether. Unlike natural languages ― Russian, Chinese, and others ― Soviet ideological language refers to a universe derived from a series of rhetorical phantoms, whose mere existence is subject to belief rather than to verification. Therefore, this language is utterly meaningless for non-believers. Facing Liama, a non-believer unfamiliar with the ideological rhetoric, Zhenia can relate to her in two opposite ways. She may simply view Liama as some profane who should be either initiated into a higher level of consciousness or ignored. Instead Zhenia takes the opposite approach. Her failure to communicate with Liama appears to her as evidence of the inner vacuity of her own terms of communication rather than of the inadequate communicative competence of her interlocutor. And so, having disposed of her failed ideological language, Zhenia opens up to the inexhaustible reality of the human encounter with the other. Ginzburg`s descriptions of her cell symbolically reflect this breakthrough. She describes her living space: "The window of our cell was protected not only by thick bars but by a high wooden screen which left only a tiny scrap of sky to be seen above it." "It`s dark even by day," Zhenia complains to Liama. In response, Liama asks: "`Look carefully at the screen. Do you notice anything?` No, decidedly, I didn`t. Bars, boards ― the world was locked away. But, as she showed me, there was after all a minute opening in it ― a chink of light between the second and third boards." Liama not only guides Zhenia to a crack in the wooden screen, through which she will be able to see glimpses of the world outside the cell, but also helps her make an opening in the untransparent screen of her own language. It is through this opening that Zhenia becomes capable of viewing the world and other people anew, without the obfuscating impact of the ideological clichés. The motif of the cracked wooden screen is immediately echoed by the motif of the prison walls "coming to life." A prisoner in an adjacent cell keeps knocking on the wall, trying to communicate with Zhenia and Liama. Slowly, Zhenia and Liama learn the "prison alphabet," enabling them to communicate by knocking on the walls. After painstaking efforts, Zhenia establishes communications with the prisoner in the adjacent cell. This happens without her knowing who this person is. She is astonished when she learns his name: Garei Sagidullin. "Yes it was he ― Garei Sagidullin, whose name for years past had not been mentioned in Kazan' without an 'ism' tacked to it: Sagidullinism. It was the heading of a propaganda theme. 'Sagidullinism' (...) stood for the heresy of Tartar 'bourgeois nationalism.'" Placed outside of her familiar world of labels, Zhenia now encounters the very complex, often ambiguous, realities hidden behind these labels. Under the abstract noun "Sagidullinism," she now finds a concrete, living human being. What Ginzburg's autobiographical testimony illuminates here is more than a personal experience; it is a peculiar twentieth-century form of the distinction between the language of (to use Camus' famous formulation) "those who make history" and "those who suffer it." Hannah Arendt describes the most radical twentieth-century form of this timeless distinction as a division between "those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives." The most ruthless makers of twentieth-century history ― those motivated by totalitarian claims to omnipotence ― understood their primary ethical obligation not as an obligation to concrete human beings but rather to the ideological consistency of those claims. Viewed through those ideological prisms, the other appears as nothing more than a specimen of a larger abstract entity (class, race) or a locus through which this or that ideological position is reflected. As long as one deals with these abstractions and does not meet the other in a face-to-face encounter, sealing the fate of the other seems psychologically assimilable. What Zhenia realizes in Stalin's prison is that, in order to rebuild her moral sense of self, she must find a language enabling her to view the world and herself from the viewpoint of those who suffer history, rather than of those who claim to make it. Wads of Cotton and the Treasures of Our Minds Zhenia's search for a morally anchoring language leads her towards literature. She recognizes literature as a repository of discourses enabling her to acknowledge other human beings' uniqueness and to view the world from the viewpoint of history's sufferers and not its self-proclaimed makers. Having abandoned the ideological discourse of the Party, Zhenia rediscovers her Russian literary classics and employs their themes, motifs, characters, metaphors, and narrative structures as models in her efforts to reconstruct her sense of the world and self. What she draws on in particular is the Russian tradition of literature as a force subverting the oppressive social status quo. Nikolai Nekrasov's long poem Russian Women and Tolstoi's Resurrection provide her with central models in this respect. She compares herself to Nekrasov's characters of Ekaterina Trubetskaia and Maria Volkonskaia (both historical figures), wives of Decembrists, who accompanied their husbands to their punitive labor colonies in Siberia. Viewing her own fate in terms of Tolstoi's novel, she draws on a central character of Resurrection ― Maslova ― a victim of social injustice wrongly condemned to punitive labor, who, through her altruism towards fellow prisoners, experiences moral growth even under the oppressive conditions of a Siberian prison colony. By adapting these and other literary themes and motifs to her own experience, Zhenia manages to make herself part of an ethical world very different from the one her oppressors expected her to recognize as the only legitimate one. Zhenia's immersion in the language of literature not only ethically sensitizes her to other human beings by constantly challenging reductive ideological terms, but also enables her to take possession of the world symbolically through aesthetic means. By reflecting on her experience in lyrical forms (she composes and memorizes poems) Zhenia orders her world by means of poetic language ― its rhythms, sounds, correspondences. As a poet, she repeats Adam's act of possessing the world by giving each being its name. Placed in an underground punishment cell, completely dark, cold, and infested with rats, Zhenia composes a poem: Can a soul in hell be more lost? I must drink my cup to the dregs, But at least I am not alone In my calvary. A flagstone is my only cushion, But Pushkin, sitting in one corner, Sings me a song About Gurzuf at night. And, unseen by any guard, Another priceless friend Comes into my cell ― His name is Alexander Blok. "Poetry, at least, they could not take away from me!" Ginzburg writes. "They had taken my dress, my shoes and stockings, and my comb, they had left me half naked and freezing, but this it was not in their power to take away, it was and remained mine. And I should survive even this dungeon." The language of poetry and the special sensitivity it evokes are identified by Ginzburg repeatedly as a source of her spiritual survival and growth in the Gulag. She writes: Many people (...) developed a sort of mental torpor, which enabled them to contemplate with indifference the dying, those afflicted with night blindness, wandering about in the evening, with companions to guide them and stretching out trembling hands, and even hordes of bugs which crawled all over the plank beds... I felt instinctively that as long as I could be stirred to emotion by the sea breeze, by the brilliance of the stars, and by poetry, I would still be alive, however much my legs might tremble and my back bend under the load of burning stones. It was by preserving all these treasures in our minds that we should resist the onslaught of the horrors around us. But Ginzburg's memoir is not a facile glorification of literary art as a remedy for all the moral challenges of the Gulag. The special kind of sensitivity and awareness that literature awakens in her in the midst of Stalin's horrors is shown as a blessing but also as a source of a peculiar anxiety. On her first night in a new cell of Moscow's Butyrki prison, Zhenia meets a Latvian woman, named Milda, who offers her wads of cotton to put into her ears "so as not to hear, so as to get some sleep." Zhenia decides not to follow Milda's suggestion. "Rather than play an ostrich, I would see things through to the finish," Ginzburg writes. And I saw them through on that July night of the year 1937 (...) . Not one, but a multitude of screams and groans from tortured human beings burst simultaneously through the open windows of our cell... Although they were only sounds, they conjured up such a vivid picture that I felt I could see it in every detail... How long could it go on? Till three o'clock, they had told me. But surely no one could endure this longer than a minute. Yet the noise went on. After one night of listening to the noise from Butyrki torture chambers, Zhenia turns to Milda: "Give me some cotton now," I begged Milda. I stopped both my ears, then pulled over my head the prison blanket, smelling of dust and grief, and took a corner of straw pillow firmly between my teeth. It would be easier like this: I could neither hear not see. If only I could stop thinking as well! (...) I knew I should not sleep until I had repeated some poem over to myself ten or a hundred times. I chose Michelangelo's lines: Sweet it's to sleep, sweeter to be a stone. In this dread age of terror and of shame, Thrice blest is he who neither sees nor feels. Leave me then here, and trouble not my rest. Armed with poetic language, Zhenia views herself as prepared to face her prison experience including its most extreme aspects. Or, rather, she imagines herself so when she proudly refuses to "play an ostrich" and put cotton in her ears. What she discovers, however, is that the realm of experience revealed to her is a special one. As Lev Shestov put it, this realm "knows no volunteers and nobody enters it on his own will." In the face of this kind of experience Zhenia's literary sensitivities reveal their ambiguous nature. She has already discovered that poetry sensitizes her morally and opens her up towards the other. What she discovers now is the eternal tension between ethical and aesthetic impulses behind literary art. For poetry can also function as a psychological device distancing her ethically from the other when her own emotional survival is at stake. In the underground punishment cell of the Iaroslavl' prison, Zhenia hears, once again, someone's desperate screams. This time it is a woman, an Italian Communist, incarcerated in another punishment cell close by. Ginzburg reminisces: I prayed, as Pushkin once did, "Please God, may I not go mad! Rather grant me prison, poverty or death." The first sign of approaching madness must surely be the urge to scream like that on a single continuous note. I must conquer it and preserve the balance of my mind by giving it something to do. So I began again to recite verses to myself. I composed more of my own and said them over and over so as not to forget them, and above all not to hear that cry. In this description, poetry replaces the wads of cotton as it muffles the cries of another human being whom Zhenia cannot help. If the frustration caused by one's inability to respond in any practical way to the sufferings of another is a deep blow to one's emotional stability, poetry is shown here as a tranquilizer alleviating this blow. It works as a technique of both emotional and moral detachment. This detachment can, however, be viewed as the source of a moral ambiguity of its own. Tadeusz Borowski in his Auschwitz stories dwells on this issue and shows its extreme forms. His narrator, an Auschwitz prisoner assigned to the much-coveted job of hospital orderly, describes his routine experience of watching columns of people led to gas chambers. "[T]he people were walking," he says. "Women, men, children... On warm evenings I sat at the barracks door reading Mon Frere Yves by Pierre Loti ― while the procession continued on and on." Borowski's narrator, exposed day after day to horrors defying anyone's moral vocabulary, occupies his mind with literature. His account, unlike Ginzburg's, is conspicuously devoid of dramatic tones. The intensity of evil to which he is exposed leaves him no option of remaining morally sensitive and preserving his sanity at the same time. For him, literature and art are useful sources of moral detachment because they teach him how to replace ethical sensitivities with aesthetic ones. Hence he can look at a crowd of people waiting to be taken to the gas chamber and view them as aesthetic objects. "People were emerging from cattle cars and walking in the direction of the wood," he says. "All I could see from where I stood were bright splashes of color. The women, it seemed, were already wearing summer dresses: it was the first time this season. The men had taken off their coats, and their white shirts stood out sharply against the green of the trees." The physical distance that separates Borowski's narrator from the people on the Auschwitz ramp, and which makes him see only "splashes of color," emphasizes the moral distance which can be achieved by focusing on the aesthetic side of the experience. In aesthetic terms, people on the Auschwitz ramp are just elements of a visual composition of shapes and colors. As elements of this composition they are aesthetically equivalent to its other elements ― the trees, the sky, and any other objects within the narrator's view. In this way, the aesthetic side of the experience can serve as a muffler for its ethical aspects. Solzhenitsyn, too, acknowledges this ambiguity. He illuminates it in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich through the character of Tsezar Markovich, a Moscow filmmaker imprisoned in a labor camp. Tsezar, an educated and artistically inclined man forced to live in the camp among peasants and workers, manages to avoid the grueling labor by performing administrative jobs. He regularly receives ample food parcels, and so does not have to share with others the tormenting experience of hunger. Embroiled in a discussion with another Moscow intellectual about Sergei Eisenstein's cinematic art, in the midst of hungry crowds of their fellow prisoners, Tsezar manages to remain oblivious to the constant presence of miserable people, who are neither capable of sharing his intellectual discourse nor invited to share his food supplies. Tsezar Markovich is too preoccupied with matters of aesthetics to acknowledge the ethical challenges stemming from the presence of his hungry and miserable fellow prisoners. Does this tension between aesthetic and ethical preoccupations of art show that Ginzburg's recognition of literature as a source of her moral resistance is, in fact, only a naive wish? Ginzburg's answer is: on the contrary. What might seem to be a chief weakness of literary art in this respect, a sign of its vulnerability, for Ginzburg represents its strength. One can remain open to the infinity of human encounters only if one is constantly aware that the terms one projects upon the other are always imperfect, tentative, incomplete. Literature is founded on such awareness. Its ceaseless efforts at reconciling, solving, or ignoring the tension between aesthetic and ethical aspects of human experience are always tentative. What they produce is not the definitive answer but an infinitely growing repository of genres, subgenres, and individual artistic idioms, none more definitive than another. Whenever literature fails to acknowledge its inner tensions and inconsequentialities, its own open-endedness, it tends to become utopian: it aims at making order, once and for all, out of the unruly human world of inexhaustible encounters. This order, when motivated by aesthetics, can obscure the ethical dimensions of its human subject matter. When motivated by ethical purposes at the expense of forsaking literature's inherent aesthetic preoccupations, it comes dangerously close to ideology. For Ginzburg, liberation from the ideological language of dogmas (the idiom of the twentieth-century's totalitarian masters) does not mean internalizing another language of dogmas. Literature gives her a language by which she can recognize her own perception of the other as always incomplete. Thus she oscillates between the irreducible nature of each encounter and the classifying tendencies of language itself. Remaining always open to the inexhaustible world of human encounters in Stalin's prisons and camps exposes her to perpetual risk and vulnerability. But this risk and vulnerability keep open for her the possibility of discovery ― the prospect of staying alive as a human being. It is because of this inherent open-endedness of moral perspective that literature, with its eternal tension between aesthetic and ethical commitments, is, in the view of Evgeniia Ginzburg, ethically superior to any ostensibly ethically motivated ideology. Only when aware of the incomplete and tentative nature of the terms one projects on others can one hesitate, reverse, and correct oneself before it is too late. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, A World Apart, trans. Andrzej Ciołkosz (New York: Penguin, 1996), pp. 150-151. Hanna Krall, The Subtenant. To Outwit God, trans. Joanna Stasinska Weschler and Lawrence Weschler (Evanston: Nothwestern University Press, 1992), pp. 136-137. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, trans. Thomas P. Whitney (New York: Westview, 1991), dedication. Alexander Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), p. 183. Eugenia Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind, trans. Ian Boland (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), p. 417. Tzvetan Todorov, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps trans. Arthur Denner and Abigail Pollak (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996), p. 96. Barbara Skarga (Wiktoria Kraśniewska), Po wyzwoleniu, 1948-1956 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1985), p. 52. Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, trans. John Glad (New York: Norton, 1980), p. 56. Todorov, Facing the Extreme, p. 104. Rudolf Höss, Le commendant d`Auschwitz parle (Paris: Maspero, 1979), p. 160. Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 1, 1958, pp. 6-11. In 1929, the Soviet leadership ordered turning all prisoners sentenced to more than three years of incarceration into slave laborers, and sending them to especially difficult and dangerous locations. See "Materiialy ob ispol'zovanii truda ugolovno-zakliuchennykh" (Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, F.393 Op. 1, Eg. Khr. 285, L. 31). See Maksim Gorkii, "Solovki" (1929) in Gorkii, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 17 (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1952); Maksim Gorkii, Leopold Averbakh, and Semen Firin (editors), Belomorsko-baltiiskii kanal imeni Stalina: Istoriia stroitel'stva (Moscow: OGIZ, 1934) (the book was published in an altered English-language version as Belomor: An Account of the Construction of the New Canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea [New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1935]); Andrei Vyshinskii (editor), Ot tiurem k vospitatel'nym uchrezhdeniiam (Moscow:NKIu SSSR, 1934); Nikolai Pogodin, Aristokraty (Moscow: OGIZ 1935); Ida Averbakh, Ot prestupleniia k trudu (Moscow:OGIZ 1936). Gorkii, Averbakh, and Firin (editors), Belomorsko-baltiiskii kanal imeni Stalina: Istoriia stroitel'stva, p. 25. Averbakh, Ot prestupleniia k trudu, quoted from Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, trans. Thomas P. Whitney (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), vol. 2, p. 104. See A. Gorcheva, Pressa Gulaga (1918-1955) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1996). For secondary literature on the Soviet rhetoric of the Gulag see: Mikhail Geller, Kontsentratsionnyi mir i sovetskaia literatura (London: Overseas Publications Interchange, 1974); Cynthia Ruder, Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998); Dariusz Tolczyk, See No Evil: Literary Cover-Ups and Discoveries of the Soviet Camp Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), Leona Toker, Return from the Archipelago: Narratives of Gulag Survivors (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). Barbara Skarga (Wiktoria Kraśniewska), Po wyzwoleniu (1944-56), pp. 84-87. Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind trans. Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967) and Eugenia Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind, trans. Ian Boland (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981). Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind, p. 419. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, p. 4. Cited in Andrei Sinyavsky, Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1990), p. 120. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, p. 11. Ibid., pp. 84-85. See Franciszek Olechnowicz, Prawda o Sowietach (wrażenia z siedmioletniego pobytu w więzieniach sowieckich, r. 1927-1933) (Warszawa, 1937); Georgii Shelest, "Kolymskie zapisi," in Znamia, no. 9 (1964) pp. 164-180; Iurii Piliar, "Liudi ostaiutsia liud'mi, " in Iunost', no. 6, 7, 8 (1963) and 3, 4, 5 (1964); Boris D'iakov, "Povest' o perezhitom," in Oktiabr', no. 7 (1964) pp. 50-142; Andriei Aldan-Semenov, "Barel'ef na skale," in Moskva, no. 7 (1964) pp. 68-154; Matylda Temkin, W sowieckim łagrze. Wspomnienia komunistki (Warszawa: NOW, 1989); Mikhail Geller, Kontsentratsionnyi mir i sovetskaia literatura (London: Overseas Publications Interchange, 1974); Tolczyk, See No Evil. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, p. 74. Derek Attridge, "Innovation, Literature, Ethics: Relating to the Other," PMLA, January 1999, p. 24. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, p. 3. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 54. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid., pp. 57-58. Ibid., p. 72. Cited in Terrence Des Pres, "The Heroism of Survival," in John B. Dunlop, Richard Haugh and Alexis Klimoff (eds.) Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn: Critical Essays and Documentary Materials (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1978), p. 48. Ginzburg often admits stylizing her own self-image in the Gulag by comparing herself to literary and historical models (especially those reflected by Romantic culture), such as Charlotte de Corday, Mary Queen of Scotts, Madame Desmoulins. For detailed commentary on these literary and historical inspirations of Ginzburg see Barbara Bolibok, The Plural Self: The Aesthetics of Identity in Maria Dàbrowska's "Dzienniki" and Evgeniia Ginzburg's "Krutoi marshrut" Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1996. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, pp. 220. Ibid., p. 221. Ibid., p. 343. Ibid., pp. 161-162. Ibid., p. 162. See Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, "Problemat ˝uka. O światłocieniach zła Cezarego Wodzińskiego," Gazeta Wyborcza, 15-16 May, 1999, p. 18. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, pp. 222-223. Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen and Other Stories, trans. Barbara Veder (New York: Viking, 1967), p. 84. Ibid., pp. 83-84. A similar situation is presented in Czeslaw Milosz's poetic description of a ferris wheel set up near a wall of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Ghetto uprising. (See "Campo dei Fiori" in Czeslaw Milosz, The Collected Poems 1931-1987 [New York: Ecco Press, 1988], p. 33.) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich trans. H. T. Willets (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991), pp. 83-87.

<urn:uuid:5ec6f390-beaf-42fc-b2f2-b0aa91b35d3b>

National Park Service Mission ...to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti National Recreation Area Outreach Education is committed to: Creating an awareness and fostering an appreciation for the mission of the National Park Service and the natural, cultural, and historic resources of Curecanti National Recreation Area and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. EDUCATION LESSON PLAN Curriculum enhancing activities designed to complement national and state content standards across a variety of disciplines. Title: Black Canyon Habitats (Field Trip) Grade level: First Grade Time length: 2-4 hours, depending on number of students Subject areas: Science, Reading and Writing, Visual Arts, Physical Education Teacher: 2-4 NPS Education Specialists plus classroom teachers and chaperones (1 adult per 7students) Colorado Content Standards: Science: (1) Students understand the processes of scientific investigation and design, conduct, communicate about, and evaluate such investigations. (3.1) Students know and understand the characteristics of living things, the diversity of life, and how living things interact with each other and with their environment. (5) Students know and understand interrelationships among science, technology, and human activity and how they can affect the world. Reading and Writing: (1) Students read and understand a variety of materials. (2) Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences. Visual Arts: (2) Students know and apply elements of art, principles of design, and sensory and expressive features of visual arts.Physical Education: (1) Students demonstrate competent skills in variety of physical activities and sports. Theme: Black Canyon is home to many kinds of plants and animals. Sometimes we see them, sometimes we don’t. Each plant and animal is important and helps others survive. NPS focus: Public Law 39-535 (Organic Act), Public Law 95-250 (Redwood National Park Expansion Act), Vail Agenda Education Committee Report (Strategic Goal #2; Action Plan 16)and (Strategic Goal #3; Action Plan 52,62), Curecanti and Black Canyon Themes: Natural Resources/Wildlife Environmental concepts: Everything is connected to everything else (interrelationships). Everything must fit how and where it lives (adaptations). Materials: video; Who Goes There animal clues (bird nest, track, scat, feather, etc.); National Park Service ranger booklet; paper and pencils; clipboards; toilet paper rolls (1 per student); markers; double-sided tape; ranger clothes and hat x 2 (one set for child, one set for ranger); I. INSTRUCTIONAL OUTCOMES Knowledge level: Students will be able to list the different components of a habitat. Students will be able to name three animals that live at the Black Canyon. Students will be able to describe how plants are used by people and by animals. Students will be able to tell their families and friends about national park rangers and list three of their jobs. Comprehension level: Students will be able to point out various components of the habitat for specific animals at the Black Canyon. II. ANTICIPATORY SET Rangers will meet the school bus at the South Rim visitor center. Ranger should board the bus (or if it’s not too busy, have the kids get off the bus and gather together inside or outside) and provide an enthusiastic WELCOME to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Explain why this national park is very important (special canyon and rock formations, home to many plants and animals, wilderness area below the canyon rim). Touch on main rules, incorporating Leave No Trace (leave what you find-don’t pick plants or take anything home; put garbage in the cans; respect the animals, plants, and other visitors; no running, walk on trails unless told otherwise). Explain that we’ll divide into four groups, and each group will get to rotate through four “centers.” Briefly explain the activity that they’ll do at each center. III. TEACHING PROCEDURE/METHODOLOGY Location: hike from South Rim Visitor Center (VC) on Oak Flat trail toward the rock outcropping and back to VC Leader: 1-2 Rangers Activity: Habitat Hike During this activity, the students will follow a ranger on a scavenger hunt hike focusing on local animals and their habitats. At the beginning, the ranger will show “clues” that animals have left behind, such as feathers, fur, scat, bones, antlers, etc. Students can use their powers of investigation to determine which animal left each clue behind. Briefly discuss the components of a habitat. Each student will receive a worksheet and a crayon. The worksheet is divided into four sections, each devoted to one animal: bird, fox, insect, and squirrel. Students will follow the ranger along the trail, looking for objects that these animals need to survive (food, water, shelter, space). Look for clues the animals have left behind, as well. If you find one of the objects, show the ranger. Then circle it on your paper. If you find all the things an animal needs to survive, then that animal probably lives here! If there is time remaining at the end of this activity, students can color their pictures at the visitor center. Location: back porch of VC Leader: 1 Ranger Activity: Ranger Rules The job of a National Park Service Ranger will be highlighted in various ways at this station. First, gather the students in a circle on the back porch of the visitor center. Ask them what they imagine a National Park Service Ranger does. Some probable answers will be: take care of the animals; protect the plants; help visitors; fight forest fires; etc. Engage the students in dialogue for a few moments, and then read aloud the Park Ranger coloring book, which describes the duties of a park ranger. Provide paper, pencils, and crayons to the students, and encourage them to write a story (a few sentences) about themselves as a ranger, or draw themselves doing the job of a ranger. Choose two volunteers to dress up as a ranger, as fast as they can. The winner competes against the ranger in a timed race (clothing items=vest, shirt, pants, boots, hat, windbreaker, etc.). If there’s time, lead a short walk down to the Gunnison Point overlook, having each student pretend that they’re a park ranger. LUNCH BREAK – all students travel via school bus to Warner Point picnic area and eat lunch (30 minutes). Provide time for students to release some of their energy by doing a guided game that involves lots of movement and silliness. Afterwards, all students and teachers return to VC. Location: other side of VC parking lot, Rim Rock Trail (or switch locations with station 2) Leader: 1 Ranger Activity: Plant Scopes The ranger will lead a short discussion about plants, encouraging students to name some different types of plants (trees, bushes, flowers, mosses, show examples or pictures of each). Ask students why plants are useful, and let them discuss this question for a couple of minutes. (Take notice if they mention human uses or animal uses.) Ranger will hold up various objects for the students to see (pg 36 PLT) like a small branch, pencil, wooden toy, paper, etc. and ask where each one comes from (trees!). Talk a little bit more about how humans use trees and other plants. Ask the students if they think that animals use plants, too. Discuss the uses/benefits of plants that the students mention, and show pictures of animals using plants-beaver dam, beaver chewing branch, butterfly on flower, deer scraping antlers, bird nest in tree, bird or squirrel in hollow tree/log, etc. After the discussion, have the students make a tree telescope (pg. 71 PLT) using a toilet paper roll and decorating it with markers, double sided tape, leaves, twigs, and their creativity. Next, have the students kneel down in their own space and use their scopes to look for examples of animals using plants (insect galls, chewed leaf, scat, etc.) Gather briefly and allow a time for students to share their discoveries (either through words or by showing the actual discovery). Ranger should conclude by emphasizing the importance of plants for both people and animals, and that plants and animals are interdependent. Flowers depend on insects for pollination, trees depend on animals to eat their seeds and deposit them elsewhere, animals rely on plants as a source of food, etc. Location: South Rim VC Leader: VC personnel or a classroom teacher Activity: In the VC theater, show an educational video which ties together wildlife, plants, and habitats. Leader should have each student sit in a chair, keep their hands to themselves, and quietly watch the movie. Introduce the movie briefly and encourage the students to pay attention to the ways that the plants and animals interact. After the movie, have the students remain seated and ask some review questions to determine what the students learned. Have the students line up and quietly exit the VC, or if there’s time, students may be allowed to look at the exhibits (must be supervised). Movie possibilities: prairie dog movie, CO endangered species, etc. IV. CHECK FOR STUDENT UNDERSTANDING Ask several review questions after completion of each station. V. GUIDED PRACTICE See section III. VI. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE Students should be encouraged to use their plant scopes at home to search for plant/animal interactions. They can look for wildlife and habitats around their home, and make a list of each animal they see and what they think it needs to survive. Gather all the students on the bus, divide bus into 2 teams and ask several review questions. Show students the Jr. Ranger booklet and badge and tell them that they can earn their badge if they return another day and fill out the booklet. Thank the students for visiting the Black Canyon and tell them that we hope they will bring their families to visit someday soon. Give a program evaluation to the teacher. Indicate what you judge to have been the strengths of the lesson, what changes you made during the lesson and what changes you would make if you were to teach the unit again. IX. REFERENCES CITED X. RELATED WWW SITES

<urn:uuid:f1758ac4-e1f2-4dce-9bf0-581b58111ead>

Location of Huntley, Montana |• Total||1.3 sq mi (3.3 km2)| |• Land||1.3 sq mi (3.3 km2)| |• Water||0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2)| |Elevation||3,022 ft (921 m)| |• Density||319.2/sq mi (123.2/km2)| |Time zone||Mountain (MST) (UTC-7)| |• Summer (DST)||MDT (UTC-6)| |GNIS feature ID||0772643| Huntley is a census-designated place (CDP) in Yellowstone County, Montana, United States. The population was 411 at the 2000 census. Huntley lent its name to the Huntley Project, a federal irrigation project that began delivering water to the arid district in 1907. Today, Huntley is an eastern suburb of Billings and is located east of Shepherd and west of Worden. This settlement in arid Crow Indian country was named for S.O. Huntley, a partner in the stagecoach firm of Clark & Huntley. It was located at the head of navigation on the Yellowstone River. The first steamboat, the packet Josephine, arrived June 6, 1875, but river trade was infrequent. A U.S. post office was established in March 1878. The 1880 Census found only 37 people living in Huntley. Surveying for a railroad led to the so-called "Baker Battle" between Sioux Indians and Army engineers in 1872. The Northern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1882, connecting the town to the new city of Billings. Three years later the town called "Huntley Station" had two stores, a hotel, and a blacksmith. German immigrants were prominent among the new settlers, who established Lutheran and German Methodist churches. In 1905 the United States Bureau of Reclamation began an irrigation project, called the Huntley Project, on lands that had been part of the Crow Indian Reservation until 1904. The town of Huntley was incorporated into the project along with the new railroad towns of Ballantine, Worden, and Pompey's Pillar, all founded in 1907. During the Yellowstone Flood of 1937, the damage to Huntley was more extensive, percentage-wise, than in any other community in the region. Much of the original town of Huntley was destroyed and significant portions of the land it occupied was claimed or compromised by the Yellowstone River. The flood damage included washing away the suspension bridge that allowed adjacent Highway 312 to cross the river. After the flood, the site of the town was relocated from the north side of the river to the higher elevation on the south bank. Huntley is located at (45.899722, -108.304491). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km2), all of it land. As of the census of 2000, there were 411 people, 160 households, and 108 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 319.2 people per square mile (123.0/km²). There were 164 housing units at an average density of 127.4 per square mile (49.1/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 97.32% White, 0.24% Native American, 0.24% Asian, 2.19% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.16% of the population. There were 160 households out of which 39.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.8% were married couples living together, 9.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.9% were non-families. 26.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.13. In the CDP the population was spread out with 32.1% under the age of 18, 3.4% from 18 to 24, 29.4% from 25 to 44, 22.4% from 45 to 64, and 12.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 99.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.9 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $36,125, and the median income for a family was $36,750. Males had a median income of $31,250 versus $21,875 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $13,913. About 12.9% of families and 11.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.4% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over. - Richard R. "Dick" Jones (1910–2008), a trucking executive and Wyoming Republican politician - Monica Lindeen, former member of the Montana House of Representatives - Bureau of Reclamation - Huntley Project - Huntley Project Museum of Irrigated Agriculture - Yellowstone County Towns, Train Stations & Post Offices, rootsweb.com

<urn:uuid:ec8c6a66-4402-4879-b40b-eebe54ef35a1>

TORONTO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- It may be the best time of the year for many, but for some, the holidays are the most depressing time of the year, Canadian researchers say. Colleen Carney, a sleep and depression expert and psychology professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, says when people feel down, they often avoid being around others, which increases the likelihood their depression will worsen. Instead, she says, be sure to be around people this holiday season, but don't put up with acquaintances, friends or family members who make you feel badly. Instead, limit the amount of time spent with those who tend to have negative attitudes and surround yourself with close friends who can offer you lots of support and understanding. For those who can't sleep, Carney says not being able to sleep might be a cue to take better care of yourself. If an all-day family marathon produces dread and remorse, consider a change -- reduce the time spent visiting, reduce expectations, or make an appearance and then leave and do something you enjoy. Excess food or alcoholic beverages can make a person feel uncomfortable, sluggish, or even guilty, leading to more depression. Caffeine, alcohol and foods that produce an upset stomach or acid reflux/heartburn could interfere with sleep, while alcohol or caffeine could affect mood and sleep patterns as well, Carney says. Feeling depressed or unable to derive pleasure from activities for more than two weeks might be more than just the holiday blues, so talk to your doctor about whether you are suffering from clinical depression, Carney suggests.

<urn:uuid:bb584bec-95e9-42a8-b8d9-c21ea4fb2c4e>

Why Localization important Localization is the process of adapting, translating and customizing a product for a specific locale or cultural conventions. Localization distinguishes a good web front end from a truly successful one. Today English is a priority language to be learning to use computers. Having Localization we can gain benefits such as, no need to local users to learn English first, Reduce amount of training and localization brings additional value. To improve localization community of volunteers needs to get together and first establish a guiding set of terms to guarantee accurate and consistent translation. Community is the strongest part for an Open Source project. Translation process can be improved by making sure that efforts in translations are consistent and structured. So the lots of local users can enjoy KnitWeb and hopefully become a part of the community. How Localization work on KnitWeb .properties files (en.properties, ge.properties): These files contain the translations of strings used in the KnitWeb. Each line is the translation of a single string in “name=value” format; name is an identifier for this string, It is used to map the string; value is the translation of the string in particular language. locales.ini : locales.ini includes which is the default language in case app does not support current language, what type of other locales KnitWeb supports and the location of the each translated file.

<urn:uuid:c83bd015-58fc-4ae3-9c47-9cd96c253997>

Author: Salvatore Babones . Income inequality is a major barrier to economic growth, according to a new 200-page report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The 2012 UNCTAD Trade & Development Report concludes that "reducing inequality through fiscal and incomes policies is key for growth and development." Unfortunately, Latvia "is one of the least equal societies in Europe," according to the Latvian Economics Ministry's June 2002 Economic Development Report. In its otherwise glowing account of Latvian economic performance under its tutelage, even the IMF concurs. According to Eurostat data, Latvia is tied with Spain as the second most unequal country in the European Union (Lithuania is first). The problem with inequality, in UNCTAD's view, is that high inequality encourages employers to profit from forcing wages down rather than from pushing productivity up. When inequality is low and wages are relatively uniform across the whole economy, the most profitable firms are those with the best products and services. On the other hand, when wages differ dramatically across firms and sectors, the most profitable firms are those that are best at finding ways to employ workers at the lowest possible wages. Companies that are successful at finding low-wage formulas can outcompete companies that focus on product and service innovation. The result is a race to the bottom in wages. The UNCTAD report recommends that "as far as possible ... the wage level for similar qualifications [should be] similar throughout the economy, and ... not left to the discretion of individual firms." Low wages and high wage inequality are also found to be associated with high levels of unemployment and underemployment. Latvia is a case in point. Latvia has low wages compared to the rest of the European Union, yet unemployment continues at high levels despite extraordinarily high levels of labor emigration. The UNCTAD report, subtitled "Policies for Inclusive and Balanced Growth," finds that "policies that preserve the share of workers in national income and redistribute income through progressive taxation and public spending would improve equality as well as economic efficiency and growth." These recommendations are almost completely at odds with Latvia's national development priorities. Latvia's priorities are based on European Union policies that favor "flexible" (i.e., low-wage) labor markets, regressive taxes based on consumption, and the promotion of exports through subsidies and incentives for foreign investors. Why would the European Union advise the Latvian government to pursue policies that -- according to the evidence-based conclusions of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development -- would drive down wages, harm Latvia's economy, and exacerbate Latvia's problem of mass unemployment? Whether through coincidence or not, the policies recommended by the European Union are exactly those that would benefit major western European corporations. First, low wages benefit foreign corporations by reducing their labor costs. If those corporations operate in Latvia, they benefit directly from Latvia's low wages. Even if they don't, they still benefit indirectly by using low Latvian wages to bully their own workers into accepting lower wages. In many ways the single market in goods, sold to Europeans on the basis of economies of scale, is in reality just a mechanism for European companies to play workers in different countries against each other. Second, consumption taxes are a foreign investor's dream. Foreign corporations operating in Latvia consume very little in Latvia. They hate investment income taxes (obviously), don't like wage taxes (which drive up hiring costs), and love consumption taxes (which shift the burden of taxation to the domestic -- i.e., Latvian -- sector of the economy). They don't really care that consumption taxes fall most heavily on the (Latvian) poor. Third, investment incentives are the gravy on the goose, the icing on the cake, a free prize for doing nothing. Why should the Latvian government offer subsidies to non-Latvian businesses in order to help them out-compete Latvian businesses? Put that way, the whole idea is crazy. Yet it is official Latvian government policy to provide tax incentives, subsidize power infrastructure, and provide credit guarantees, despite the fact that foreign investment collapsed by more than 80% after the economic crisis hit in 2008. That final fact highlights the lunacy of relying on foreign investment to develop a country: foreign investors are always the first to fly. Absent the massive withdrawal of foreign investment from Latvia in 2008-2010, Latvia would have experienced a recession, not a national crisis. Admittedly, national income would have been lower from the beginning. But the cycle of boom-and-bust would have been far more mild. Latvians need hardly be reminded that Latvia is a small country. A small country may succeed for a time by riding the coattails of its larger neighbors. For Latvia, that means either kow-towing to the whims of Russian oligarchs or sheltering as a neocolonial appendage of western Europe, as I have argued previously. Big countries don't have these options simply because they're too big: no matter how much Turkey rolls out the red carpet for European companies, European investment will never have a major impact on Turkish growth rates. For a small country like Latvia, the subordination strategy can work -- for a while. Sustained economic well-being, however, depends on the success of the domestic sector, not on subsidized foreign investment or undercutting wages in other countries. For a small country, this is even more true than it is for a big country. The reason is that small countries by their very nature tend to have "leaky" economies. Policies that reduce inequality bring down the incomes of the rich while increasing the incomes of the poor. In a small country, the rich are much more likely than the poor to spend their incomes overseas. A shift in incomes from rich to poor tends to increase spending inside the borders of the country, further multiplying the effect of the original income. Progressive income taxes that focus on the richest segment of society have a similar effect. They take money out of the hands of people who are likely to spend or invest it overseas and put it instead in the hands of the government, which is almost certain to spend it at home. Consumption taxes on money spent inside a country by definition have no multiplier effect, since the funds being taxed were already being spent inside the country. Progressive income taxes, however, have very large multiplier effects. When high incomes are taxed to pay for government services, the total impact on national income is typically 3-5 times the amount of the original income taxed, due to the low multiplier for high incomes combined with the high multiplier for government spending. When it comes to money, it's best not to trust the advice of people who have a vested interest. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have strong interests in making Latvia and other developing countries profitable for multinational corporations. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has no such interest. Nor do I. Latvians must make up their own minds about their economy and their society. But if Latvia decides on a high-inequality model that caters to foreign investors, Latvians might want to look carefully at where that model came from. The answer might help them decide where it is likely to lead.

<urn:uuid:e17d061b-5f63-40de-93a4-fe505665a763>

versión impresa ISSN 0018-229X JANSEN VAN RENSBURG, Fanie (N.S.). Protest by Potchefstroom native location's residents against dominance, 1904 to 1950. Historia [online]. 2012, vol.57, n.1, pp. 22-41. ISSN 0018-229X. This article indicates the importance of a thorough study of local sources on protest action by township residents in Makweteng (earlier known as Potchefstroom's native location) against oppressive laws and policies in South Africa. Although the term 'grassroots support' only became a common one much later in South Africa's history, the study of local documents indicates the protracted broad swell of dissatisfaction among black South African citizens against legalised segregation and later apartheid. In the case of some individuals and local organisations these views articulated with protests on a national level. This article covers the period 1904 to 1950 and looks at the strenuous efforts by white authorities to dominate this township on a municipal level; the limited influence of the native advisory bodies and localised national organisations in resisting this control; and the singular abilities and contributions of Lazarus R. Muthle and James Z. Mdatyulwa in Potchefstroom's protests. It also indicates how this protest gradually helped to build the basis for encompassing resistance, including resistance of an intellectual nature, in the 1970s and 1980s. Palabras llave : Potchefstroom; native location; advisory board; apartheid; protest; Muthle; Mdatyulwa.

<urn:uuid:78b16a2f-6e02-4059-9660-9abae1b184f4>

Cultural Enrichment courses are concerned with the study of the social, intellectual, and artistic achievements of cultures; how they were produced; why they were produced; the influence of the context of the times on their production; and their consequences. One of the pivotal components of what makes us human is that we exist within historically evolving cultures that imbue our world with meaning, value and significance. Our projects, our involvements, our self understanding, our understanding of the many elements of our world are all profoundly informed by our cultures. Ideas as simple as "childhood" and "work" shift significance through history and across cultures. The horizons of meaning which are the fabric of our lives, including our perceptions, are articulated through the struggle of history, the formulation of philosophical ideas, the evolution of religions, and creations of the various arts. The Cultural Enrichment curriculum is concerned with increasing student appreciation of the significance of their relationship to the threads of culture, providing them with the tools for understanding components of culture, and engaging them in the kinds of reflective, analytic, or participatory involvement that will allow them to respond to cultures in a manner that enriches them and their overall relationship to the world. Given the above definition, the following are the criteria for cultural enrichment courses.

<urn:uuid:30a3630d-a893-47ff-a5c8-139379026ff2>

In his last days, Mussolini, the tyrant, was in the grip of anger, shame, and depression. The German armed forces that had sustained his puppet government since its creation in September 1943 were being inexorably driven out of Italy, the frontiers of his Fascist republic were shrinking daily and Mussolini was aware that German military leaders were negotiating with the Allies behind his back in neutral Switzerland. Moseley's well-researched and highly engaging tome throws light on the last twenty months of the despot's life and culminates with the dramatic capture and execution of Mussolini (and his mistress Claretta Petacci) by partisans of the Italian resistance on April 28, 1945. About Ray Moseley See more books from this Author Published June 30, 2004 by Taylor Trade Publishing. Biographies & Memoirs, History, Political & Social Sciences, War, Travel.

<urn:uuid:e48bce5b-4e3c-443e-af69-fad6aa09c149>

Steps leading to war- each step is an escalation Shardekkin Revolution- In eastern Dachath, rebel movements of the Shardekkin (an ethnic group, called the Shaudachae in the Dachae language) had long been active. After the Dachae Parliament passed the Force Acts, oppressive legislation against the Shardekkin (the Premiere of the time, Marach Bahn-Talab, has often been blamed for the Force Acts; this is mostly the product of propaganda used by Bahn-Talab’s political enemies), the violence of Shardekkin rebel groups increased. Shardekkin leader Bharm Ksukkir achieved success in inciting several rebel groups into action, jumpstarting the nascent Shardekkin Revolution. Dachae Civil War- The Revolution quickly accelerated into a bloody civil war. The nation of Dachath became split between the Shaudachath provinces in revolt(composed of the Shardekkin, along with Communist, Anarchist, and other leftist allies who joined their cause) and the Dachath government. It was a brutal affair in which tens of thousands were killed. Dachath became dominated by a military dictator, Naram Adz-Hechuth, who controlled the nation under a state of war. Dachath authorities rounded up thousands of enemy soldiers, prisoners of war, and supposed Shaudachae sympathizers and executed them. In addition to the official battles of between Dachae and Shaudachae forces, independent militias (including the Nationalist Front of Shardekkin and the Unionist Militant Alliance) battled, roamed, and raided throughout the country. The Shaudachath rebel provinces, as opposed to the Dachae dictatorship, was unstable, and divided from within by bickering groups; the Shardekkin population was for the most part a politically-conservative and religiously-orthodox group (despite their desires for independence), who were ill at ease with their leftist allies, including the radical Shardekkin Anarchist Syndicate. Trang Tung Shekkoth, leader of the Revolutionary People’s Party of Shaudachath, was during this time a largely uncontrollable demagogue, and was famous for riding through the countryside and indicting rich landlords as enemies of the state, independent of the Shaudachae government. During this time, a supporter of the Dachae government and an opponent of the Shaudachae rebellion was known as a Unionist (though Shardekkin supporters were rarely called Separatists); among Dachae, this has become a general term for a political conservative. The Tyakkorj Betrayal- The nation of Tyakk, to the east of Dachath, was now obliged to aid Shaudachath, in accordance with the secret Treaty of Miangkkurng, signed by Shardekkin rebels with the Tyakkorj government. The Tyakkorj government supported the Shardekkin largely on the grounds of the long rivalry between Tyakk and Dachath; another possibility is the desire for an allied neighbor in a region largely hostile to the Tyakkorj regime. General Tsdahkk Hwahr moved the Tyakkorj army into Shaudachath, and within weeks, it appeared that the tide was turning strongly for the Shardekkin. Victories included Chringrab and Logaz, and a spectacular victory at Mnaul. After this victory, General Hwahr recieved secret orders from Tyakkorj High Command and began to intermittently battle and eliminate Shardekkin militias; these betrayals were often explained to Shardekkin authorities as communications errors and cases of mistaken identity or friendly fire. Soon thereafter, further Tyakkorj forces moved into Shaudachath. Hwahr and his commanders sent out roving bands of war engineers to destroy telegraph wires and destroy infrastructure, and then openly turned on Shardekkin forces. General Hwahr largely held the line against the Dachae, while allowing his (arguably more cruel) commanders to tighten the noose on the Shardekkin capitol of Aspechae (Arspekeh). Within a few weeks, Tyakkorj forces had captured all of the territory of the previous rebel provinces (as well as slight gains beyond it into Dachath proper), and had executed large groups of Communists and Shardekkin in the capitol, including Lhorung Semn Srarnkeh, the newly-elected president of Shardekkin. This would come back to haunt the Tyakkorj during the occupation, when his memory would be resurrected as a symbol of defiance against oppression and a martyr of the cause of Shardekkin freedom, and, ironically, Dachae freedom as well. Ai Paitun or Srath come to aid of Dachath (Corheen and Dachath previously fought a war, so it makes no sense to have Corheen come to help first)

<urn:uuid:aed888c3-cfea-4b93-83d5-ce64a6ef2375>

Towards Brain Computer Interfaces for Recreational Activities: Piloting a Drone In Proceedings of the 15th IFIP TC13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT'15). pages 506-522. 2015. Active Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) allow people to exert voluntary control over a computer system: brain signals are captured and imagined actions (movements, concepts) are recognized after a training phase (from 10 minutes to 2 months). BCIs are confined in labs, with only a few dozen people using them outside regularly (e.g. assistance for impairments). We propose a “Co-learning BCI” (CLBCI) that reduces the amount of training and makes BCIs more suitable for recreational applications. We replicate an existing experiment where the BCI controls a drone and compare CLBCI to their Operant Conditioning (OC) protocol over three durations of practice (1 day, 1 week, 1 month). We find that OC works at 80% after a month practice, but the performance is between 60 and 70% any earlier. In a week of practice, CLBCI reaches a performance of around 75%. We conclude that CLBCI is better suited for recreational use. OC should be reserved for users for whom performance is the main concern.

<urn:uuid:3e0fdee4-78ac-4dd3-9040-9efc3c44b1a8>

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Tajik ethnic group, who share culture and history with the Iranian peoples and speak the Persian language (officially referred to as Tajiki in Tajikistan). Once part of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly-established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. Trade in commodities such as cotton and aluminium wire has contributed greatly to this steady improvement, but lack of natural resources (besides hydroelectric power and strategic location) has hampered its economic recovery. Tajikistan is the smallest nation in Central Asia by area. It is covered by mountains of the Pamir range, and more than fifty percent of the country is over 3,000 meters (approx. 10,000 ft) above sea level. The only major areas of lower land are in the north (part of the Fergana Valley), and in the southern Kofarnihon and Vakhsh river valleys, which form the Amu Darya. Dushanbe is located on the southern slopes above the Kofarnihon valley. The Amu Darya and Panj rivers mark the border with Afghanistan, and the glaciers in Tajikistan's mountains are the major source of runoff for the Aral Sea. There are over 900 rivers in Tajikistan longer than 10 kilometers. About 1% of the country's area is covered by lakes. GNU Free Documentation License Number of Species Number of bird species: 343 Fatbirder's very own checklists are now available through WebBirder * Field Guides & Bird Song For a comprehensive list of recommended titles covering Asia as a whole - please see the Asia page of Fatbirder Birds of Central Asia Birds of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan By Raffael Ayé, Manuel Schweizer & Tobias Roth with contributions from Arend Wassink, illustrated by Dave Nurney , Per Alström, Adam Bowley, Carl D'Silva, Kim Franklin, John Gale, Alan Harris, Ren Hathway, Christopher Schmidt, Brian Small, Jan Wilczur, Tim Worfolk & MartWoodcock | Christopher Helm | Paperback | Oct 2012 | 336 pages | 141 plates with colour illustrations | 14 colour photos | 5 black & white illustrations | 3 colour maps | colour distribution maps See Fatbirder Review ISBN: 9780713670387Buy this book from NHBS.com CloudBirders was created by a group of Belgian world birding enthusiasts and went live on 21st of March 2013. They provide a large and growing database of birding trip reports, complemented with extensive search, voting and statistical features. Guides & Tour Operators Local birders willing to show visiting birders around their area… Forums & Mailing Lists Birds in Russia To post to list: BirdsinRussia@yahoogroups.com List contact: BirdsinRussiaemail@example.com To subscribe to list: BirdsinRussiafirstname.lastname@example.org Information and discussion list on all aspects of biology, ecology, behaviour, number, distribution, migrations and conservation etc. of all bird species of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia (within the borders of the ex-USSR). Founder Jevgeni Shergalin. Checklist Birds of Tajikistan

<urn:uuid:56363c50-9aab-4596-aea9-bc635109ba63>

Waterfowl decoys rank among the most beautiful, evocative, and truly American forms of folk sculpture you'll find. Here, a longtime Antiques Roadshow appraiser examines their place in the market. By Nancy Druckman Waterfowl decoys and the birds they represent speak to the vast diversity of the American landscape: abundant waterways and flyways, salt marshes, open seas, and freshwater rivers that give habitat and haven to game and fish. They also attest to the creativity and diversity of the expert carvers who created them. And each bird reflects the region, water conditions, methods of hunting, and species of the region in which it was made. Collectors of folk art have been showing their appreciation of waterfowl decoys for years: The finest examples can sell for mid-six-figure prices. In January 2000, for instance, Sotheby's sold a decoy of a sleeping Canada goose by Elmer Crowell for $684,500 (see photos above and on p. 14). More recent Crowell pieces that brought six-figure prices include a black-bellied plover ($240,000) and a "turned-head" yellowlegs ($108,000) sold in May 2005. The history of decoys spans the history of American folk art as well as the history of U.S. art and culture. The earliest examples were created by Native Americans and date back 1,000 years, long before the arrival of the first white settlers. These decoys were made from sticks and skins and feathers. They could be assembled quickly to bring their avian prey within range. Above is a detail from the $684,500 Elmer Crowell goose. With the establishment of colonial settlements along the coastal areas and inland rivers of the American continent, and later into the 19th and early 20th century, hunters developed more durable and reusable decoys made from painted wood to attract live birds for both food and for sport. The heyday of waterfowl hunting, and hence decoy making, occurred in the period of time between the end of the Civil War and World War I. Advances in weaponry, as well as the development of a vast system of railroads, provided both the technical means and the ability to supply fresh game to expanding markets. Sporting clubs also proliferated after the Civil War, with gentlemen hunters traveling to private clubs solely for the pleasures of sport and camaraderie. These clubs provided employment for a burgeoning group of expert carvers. By 1895, the seemingly inexhaustible supply of game birds had been ravaged and depleted by unfettered hunting- so much so that spring shooting was prohibited in New York in that year. Later, by July 1918, the U.S. Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which completely banned the interstate sale of fowl. Above : A bidder at Sotheby's paid $22,800 (January 2005) for this 19th-century cedar eider drake. The decoy, 7¾ inches in length, is in original condition, but is missing one glass eye and shows small period repair to one side of the body. The decoys that were made within the time period of the "great hunt" have, however, endured as one of the most important and evocative forms of American vernacular sculpture. The best of these examples capture, by means of "visual shorthand," the essential character of appearance, attitude, and animation of the bird. With economy of means, each carver addressed the specifics of the species, its natural habitat, and the way in which it would be hunted. Ultimately, they created an art form of spectacular beauty and inspiration that has made an important and lasting contribution to the legacy of American art and culture. Today, decoys have enormous appeal because they're a tangible reminder of the beauty of American geography-the quiet solitude of rivers, lakes, and coastal seas, the abundance and diversity of wildlife and waterfowl, and the prowess of the hunter and the friendship of men. As remarkable art objects, decoys are stunning reductions of the birds they mimic, but, as in a great piece of abstract art, they manage to project the essential attitude and animation of the living bird. They have profound appeal today, because they make up a vast, new repository of American sculpture that is now beginning to be appreciated and pursued beyond the parameters of the traditional decoy collector, by collectors of the best of American art. Today's prices for a good example can range from $500 to $500,000 depending on rarity, condition, and maker, and of course, the condition of the collector's finances. The trending-up in the value of decoys has evolved over the past several years, and it comes from the classic conditions of supply and demand. As the appreciation of decoys as an American art form has spread, more and more collectors began chasing after a group of objects that are finite-thus more and more people are competing for fewer and fewer objects. Once the objects of desire within a defined group of collectors, decoys have broadened in appeal. The market has expanded to include enthusiasts of American folk art and academic art as well. Major auction sales across the country have drawn widespread attention and have brought recognition of decoys to a whole new group of buyers. Among the most animated and lifelike of Elmer Crowell's decoys is his plover. Few are known to exist; this one sold for $240,000 in May 2005. WHO's WHO Among DECOY MAKERS In my personal canon of master decoy makers, I would rate Elmer Crowell, Lem and Steve Ward, and Lothrop Holmes as my favorites. Crowell (1862-1952) was born on Cape Cod, spent time in his youth as a market hunter and cranberry farmer, and managed a hunting camp at Wenham Lake in Massachusetts for an affluent Boston physician. In 1912, at the age of 50, Crowell began to carve decoys and decorative pieces. In the period from 1912-1925, he created the best of the best-geese, pintails, black ducks, plovers, yellowlegs-all rendered with consummate sculptural power and subtle, almost tactile brushwork. Here's an example of the work of Lem and Steve Ward: a hen mallard (c. 1942) that sold for $27,000 at Sotheby's in January 2006. Pictured below: a ruddy turnstone crafted by Lohtrop Holmes that sold for $470,000 at a joint sale by Guyette & Schmidt and Sotheby's in 2000. Lem and Steve Ward (1895-1976, and 1896-1984) of Crisfield, Md., began their decoy business in 1926, billing themselves as "Counterfeiters in Wood." Steve was the carver and Lem the painter; together they created a group of working decoys (that are gunned and hunted over) of strong, pliant sculptural forms enlivened with patterns of brilliant paint. Lothrop Holmes (1824-1899) was born into a family of shipbuilders in Kingston, Mass. His small output of decoys was made essentially for his own use as a hunter. The mergansers, ruddy turnstones, yellowlegs, dowitchers, and plovers reflect the varieties of shorebirds and game that populated the windblown waterways of New England until the latter decades of the 19th century. Holmes' work is prized for its pronounced elegant abstractions and the abstract power of the paint that underlines the simple shapes. As with all examples of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder-given the caveats of authenticity and integrity of condition. Where to find great examples of decoys? Over the past several years, important private collections belonging to famous collectors have been dispersed through such auction houses as Guyette & Schmidt (which specializes in decoys) and Sotheby’s, Skinner, and Christie’s. There are also dealers across the nation who specialize in decoys, plus a number of regional shows. (See Decoy Magazine’s Web site, listed below under “Publications,” for a show calendar.) AUCTIONEERS, APPRAISERS, & DEALERS Nancy Druckman is senior vice president and director of the American Folk Art Department at Sotheby's in New York. She's also an active supporter of the American Folk Art Museum in New York and has been an Antiques Roadshow appraiser since 1996.

<urn:uuid:bf9c141a-eff1-443f-8039-4e36f5f719c3>

Two proteins that control how cells break down glucose play a key role in forming human stem cells, University of Washington researchers have found. The finding has implications for future work in both regenerative medicine and cancer therapy. A report on this research appears online March 20 in the CELL journal Stem Cell. The paper's lead authors are Julie Mathieu, a postdoctoral fellow at the UW, and Wenyu Zhou, a former graduate student at UW and now a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. Hannele Ruohola-Baker, UW professor of biochemistry, is the paper's senior author. The researchers changed mature human cells to an earlier stem cell-like state by inserting genes for four proteins. This technique is called reprogramming. These reprogrammed cells have the extraordinary ability to develop into any type of cell in the human body, a capacity called pluripotency. It is hoped that pluripotent stem cells, created from a person's mature cells, will one day be used to form new tissues and organs to repair and replace those damaged by injury and disease. During reprogramming, the cells change gears. They shut down the metabolic pathway for generating energy from glucose. This pathway requires the presence of oxygen in mitochondria, the cell's powerhouses. The cells then shift over to the glycolytic pathway that generates less energy but does not require the presence of oxygen. This shift may take place because, in nature, embryonic and tissue stem cells often must survive in low-oxygen conditions. This transition to a glycolytic state is of particular interest to cancer researchers as well. In many ways, cancer cells resemble stem cells. When normal cells transition into cancer cells, they, too, go through a phase when they change to a glycolytic pathway for energy production. UW researchers looked at the function of two proteins: hypoxia-induced factor 1α and 2α, or HIF1α and HIF2α. The ability of these proteins to affect the regulation of a number of genes allows them to dramatically alter a cell's behavior. The researchers showed, through loss-of-function analysis, that each protein, HIF1α as well as HIF2α, is required to generate stem cells through reprogramming. To tease out the impact of HIF1α and 2α in more detail, the researchers stabilized the proteins in an active form and tested what each protein could do alone. They found that when HIF1α was stabilized, the cells went into the glycolytic state and produced more induced pluripotent stem cells than normal. However, when the scientists activated only HIF2α, the cells failed to develop into stem cells. "This was a big surprise," said Mathieu. "These proteins are very similar, but HIF1α gives you lots of stem cells; HIF2α, none." If stabilized together, HIF2α won the battle and stopped all stem cell formation. Further investigation found that HIF2α does indeed promote the shift to glycolysis in an early stage of the cells' reprogramming, but if it persists too long has it has the opposite effect. It ends up blocking the progression to the stem cell state. "HIF2α is like Darth Vader, originally a Jedi who falls to the dark side," said Ruohola-Baker. "HIF1α, the good guy, is beneficial for reprogramming throughout the process. HIF2α, if not eliminated, turns bad in the middle and represses pluripotency." HIF2α does this in part by upregulating the production of another protein, called TRAIL, an acronym for TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand. Among its several talents, this protein causes tumor cells to self-destruct. Zhou said the findings suggest that others in this protein family may be playing alternating "good guy/bad guy" roles during stem cell development. "It is intriguing that HIF2α has the capacity to both promote and repress pluripotency, doing so at different stages in cellular reprogramming," she said. The findings have several implications for stem cell research, said Mathieu. First, it may be possible to use HIF1α to greatly increase the number of stem cells in a culture, Second, it may be possible to induce stem cell formation with HIF proteins alone or in combination with other stimulating factors, This would eliminate the need to insert genes to kick off reprogramming. The findings may also have important implications for cancer research, Ruohola-Baker added: Both HIF1α and 2α play an important role in transforming normal cells into the cancer stem cells from which tumors grow. In fact, the presence of activated HIF1α is a marker for aggressive disease. Ruohola-Baker said that it might be possible to interfere with cancer development by either blocking the effect of HIF1α in malignant cells early on or by stimulating the effect of HIF2 at a later stage. The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington - Health Sciences/UW News, Community Relations & Marketing. The original item was written by Michael McCarthy. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Cite This Page:

<urn:uuid:6d20ec88-5a27-48d8-89de-8f0cfbda4cda>

In response to the question about the plaster sculpture lesson - - - My grade 8 students are doing a non objective, subtractive sculpture for a specific place. They will use plaster blocks made by pouring plaster into lunchroom sized milk cartons. I start the lesson by presenting the kids with 50 or so laminated magazine photos of "public places." We talk about public art and look at a power point presentation of some of the public art sculpture in our city. We identify sculpture that enhances the environment and some that does not. A commissioned sculpture in front of our Central Library has caused much controversy. We talk about the pros and cons of this work of art. We talk about material used for sculpture indoors and out. We talk about what it means when a work of art is commissioned. Each student selects a laminated photo of a special place for which he/she will design a maquette for a non objective, "site specific" sculpture. Students are encouraged to begin by eliminating the boxy "milk carton look" of their form. They may choose to use the electric drill, with a large bit, to drill one hole, after putting much thought into where it should go. We use a variety off kitchen tools for carving, but the favorite is a tool I made using the metal straps used to bind bundles of lumber. I cut a diagonal end and wrapped the handle with duct tape. Completed sculpture will be displayed with the photo of the special place for which it was designed. We usually have terrific critiques of these

<urn:uuid:e29bce7c-47a1-40b5-8e13-f848d113cba4>

Human-Environment Interaction: The Aral Sea In this Aral Sea instructional activity, students complete a graphic organizer about life in Siberia, fill in a chart about the causes and effects of losing the Aral Sea, and answer two questions about a map (in the text). 20 Views 13 Downloads Introduction to World of Geography Test Assess your learners on the five themes of geography and the most important key terms and concepts from an introductory geography unit. Here you'll find an assessment with 15 fill-in-the-blank and 14 multiple-choice questions, sections... 6th - 8th Social Studies & History CCSS: Adaptable Sustainability Initiatives in New York State How are New Yorkers adopting new "green" technologies and policies to lessen their environmental impact? Through an online interactive game and several educational video clips, this resouce offers a unique approach to learning about... 9th - 12th Science CCSS: Adaptable Human Impacts on Major Rivers of the World Students explore motivations behind human intervention in the stream flow of selected rivers, infer kinds of interventions and their results, and evaluate level of success of such interventions of stream flow as well as environmental... 6th - 8th Social Studies & History Natural Disasters and the Five Themes of Geography Have your class do research on natural disasters and create a presentation using this resource. In completing this activity, learners apply the five geography themes to their research. They write a paper describing their results. It's a... 7th - 8th Social Studies & History

<urn:uuid:f5302bc9-c09b-4622-85aa-68daa09f2d49>

16/07/2008 - Government support of biofuel production in OECD countries is costly, has a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security, and has a significant impact on world crop prices, according to a new study of policies to promote greater production and use of biofuel in OECD countries. OECD’s Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies says biofuels are currently highly dependent on public funding to be viable. In the US, Canada and the European Union government support for the supply and use of biofuels is expected to rise to around USD 25 billion per year by 2015 from about USD 11 billion in 2006. The report estimates that biofuel support costs between USD 960 to USD 1700 per tonne of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide equivalent) saved. Support policies include budgetary measures, either as tax concessions or direct financial support for biofuel producers, retailers or users. Blending or use mandates require that biofuels represent a minimum share of the transport fuel market and result in increased fuel costs to consumers due to the higher production costs of biofuels. Trade restrictions, mainly in the form of import tariffs, protect the domestic industry from foreign competitors but impose a cost burdon on domestic biofuel users and limit development prospects for alternative suppliers. The report calls on governments to refocus policies to encourage lower energy consumption, particularly in the transport sector. It also calls for more open markets in biofuels and feedstocks in order to improve efficiency and lower costs. The report recommends a clear focus on alternative fuels that maximise the reduction of fossil fuel useage and greenhouse gas emissions. Further, research to accelerate development of second generation biofuels that do not require commodity feedstocks is suggested. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a primary reason for current biofuel policies but the savings are limited. Ethanol from sugar cane - the main feedstock used in Brazil – reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent compared to fossil fuels. But emission reductions are much smaller from biofuels based on feedstocks used in Europe and North America. Biofuels produced from wheat, sugar beet or vegetable oil rarely provide emission savings of more than 30 to 60 percent while savings from corn (maize) based ethanol are generally less than 30 percent. Overall, the continuation of current biofuel support policies would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport fuel by no more than 0.8 percent by 2015. The impact of current biofuel policies on world crop prices, largely through increased demand for cereals and vegetable oils, is significant but should not be overestimated. Current biofuel support measures alone are estimated to increase average wheat prices by about 5 percent, maize by around 7 percent and vegetable oil by about 19 percent over the next 10 years. Taking into account the 2007 US Energy Independence and Security Act and the proposed EU Directive for Renewable Energy, 13 percent of world coarse grain production and 20 percent of world vegetable oil production could shift to biofuel production in the next 10 years, up from 8 percent and 9 percent in 2007, respectively. OECD’s Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies can be downloaded here www.oecd.org/tad/bioenergy. You may also wish to consult the Powerpoint presentation. For further information journalists are invited to contact Martin von Lampe of OECD’s Trade and Agriculture Directorate (martin.vonlampe @ oecd.org) or OECD’s Media Division (tel: + 33 14524 9700).

<urn:uuid:fa459065-442d-4082-8d09-18ef3520eefb>

Our Assessment Methods When cells become imbalanced, conditions are ripe for infection, illness or chronic disease to begin; when cells are rebalanced, conditions are primed for healing and a return to health. Before we begin to attempt corrective processes, it is important to understand the burden of toxicity. Many layers of toxins can build up before symptoms develop. Since the initial levels at which the body responds tends to be energetic, many of the energetic screening mechanisms provide lots of early warning information. This means that the screening that we do identifies potential problems before they surface and become serious. Methods of Evaluating Body Imbalance Using a combination of assessment methods as well as a full range of standard laboratory tests we obtain a comprehensive profile of each person. It is important to understand the real meaning of symptoms and not to suppress them as this may lead to a worsening of the illness.

<urn:uuid:81750a65-0a81-4e11-b81b-72e957f8c4df>

Diffusion and Resistivity The infinite, homogeneous plasmas assumed in the previous chapter for the equilibrium conditions are, of course, highly idealized. Any realistic plasma will have a density gradient, and the plasma will tend to diffuse toward regions of low density. The central problem in controlled thermonuclear reactions is to impede the rate of diffusion by using a magnetic field. Before tackling the magnetic field problem, however, we shall consider the case of diffusion in the absence of magnetic fields. A further simplification results if we assume that the plasma is weakly ionized, so that charge particles collide primarily with neutral atoms rather than with one another. The case of a fully ionized plasma is deferred to a later section, since it results in a nonlinear equation for which there are few simple illustrative solutions. In any case, partially ionized gases are not rare: High-pressure arcs and ionospheric plasmas fall into this category, and most of the early work on gas discharges involved fractional ionizations between 10−3 and 10−6, when collisions with neutral atoms are dominant. KeywordsDensity Profile Neutral Atom Plasma Column Ambipolar Diffusion Confinement Time Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

<urn:uuid:97081316-127b-4523-9066-1d1043c56358>

The next Bank Holiday in England and Wales isn't due until the Easter weekend. This year, Easter falls on the final weekend on March, with Easter Sunday being on March 27. Good Friday will fall on Friday, March 25 and the bank Holiday Monday, known as Easter Monday will be on March 28. Why does Easter change every year? Easter and the holidays related to it, including Shrove Tuesday and Lent, are movable feasts because they do not fall on the same date every year. The lunar calendar determines the date of Easter. Because of this, Easter usually falls on the first Sunday after the full or after March 21. Why do we celebrate Easter? Easter is a Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is described in the New Testament as having happened three days after his crucifixion on Good Friday.

<urn:uuid:4000b4dd-f5e8-4927-899b-946c8d3d75f3>

The Office of Educational Technology (OET) provides leadership and assistance to schools and districts regarding the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the teaching and learning process; and also provides leadership, assistance, and guidance in the effective use of virtual, online, and distance learning. Information is collected and disseminated on the use of Information and Communication Technologies in education, such as annual technology surveys, online professional development, virtual schools, technology planning, library media services, Internet safety, and the federal E-Rate program, based on current trends, research, and funding opportunities. OET also manages the NH Educators Online (NHEON) Web resources and the NH e-Learning for Educators project (OPEN NH). The office also administers the distribution and evaluation of the US DoE Enhancing Education through Technology (ESEA Title II-D) program. The office is also coordinates district and state preparedness for online assessment as Tech Readiness liaison on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium NH Team. School and Educator Support and Services NH Educators Online (NHEON.org) The concept of the NH Educators Online site was first explored by a steering committee composed of New Hampshire teachers, librarians, and technology coordinators. NHEON.org has been online since the summer of 1999. The site hosts a number of resources and information about projects, programs, and other digital resources from the Office of Educational Technology. The site is continuously under improvement, as resources become available and the online needs of New Hampshire educators evolve. ET News Listserv and Blog Subscribe to the ETNews listserv for the latest news from the Office of Educational Technology on ed tech grants, online learning, OPEN NH session updates, new digital tools, research, and more. For all this and local, national, and worldwide news on digital learning and educational technology, follow the ET News blog. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Literacy The Minimum Standards for School Approval, Ed 306.42, contain the minimum requirements districts must use in order to establish an ICT Literacy program for all students in grades K through 12. The standards require districts provide all K-12 students with opportunities to use and learn about a wide variety of digital tools through an integrated approach, in which the learning of content standards is enhanced through the use of information and communication technologies. The Office of Educational Technology reviews and supports districts and schools as they enhance and update their ICT Literacy Programs. The NH ICT Literacy Standards are based on the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), which are developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). For more informaiton, visit the ICT Literacy Toolkit on NHEON.org. NH e-Learning for Educators (OPEN NH) The NH e-Learning for Educators initiative offers online professional development courses as well as online facilitator and developer training through OPEN NH. OPEN NH uses Moodle to deliver a growing and cost-effective statewide online professional development system geared to support school or district needs. We do this by selecting and training facilitators, designing online courses specifically designed to meet the needs of NH schools and educators, and researching effective online professional development. OPEN NH courses use a 7 week discussion-based model. A 1 week orientation unit, light in content, is followed by 6 weeks of heavier content review and discussion. The course content is 100% online and no additional materials are required. Each unit consists of readings and participation in discussions. An authentic course project is developed throughout the 7 weeks of the course which you can use in your classroom or school. There is an expectation that approximately 4-5 hours each week will be committed to participation the course. Following successful completion of the course, you will earn a Certificate of Completion for 35 contact hours of professional development. OPEN NH also offers low cost self paced tutorials which are non facilitated. Professional development hours earned depends on the individual tutorial. Online Learning in New Hampshire There are a variety of resources and links, from helpful hints on finding an online school or program to the latest research findings about online learning on the Online Learning NH site. We hope to provide students, parents, teachers, and administrators with the information they need to make informed decisions concerning K-12 online learning opportunities available to the students and teachers of New Hampshire. Smarter Balanced Assessment New Hampshire Technology Readiness Coordination The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), in collaboration with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium, has developed a Technology Readiness Tool to support districts with planning for technology as they transition to next-generation assessments to be launched beginning in 2014. This new open source tool assesses current capacity and compares that to the technology that will be needed to administer the new online assessments in four areas-devices, device to tester ratio, network infrastructure, and staff and personnel. There will be a series of six data collection windows in which the tool will be open for updating of informaiton. The goal of the first data collection window is to collect easily-accessible baseline data. Data collection will occur once each spring and fall through 2014. All districts in New Hampshire will be requested to use the tool to assess technology readiness during each window. The data collected and reports provided by this tool will be valuable in developing district technology plans in future planning cycles. Implementing Online Assessments: Pathways to Success is a website that chronicles states’ experiences with implementing their online assessments. Delaware, Idaho, North Carolina and Virginia case studies tell the state’s history with online assessments, the evolution of their infrastructure, their approach to training and communication with districts, and an in-depth look at what it took for a district to implement online assessments. States have also shared the tools and materials - such as training agendas, technology checklists, and sample letters - that led to their success. The site is hosted by the State Educational Technology Director's Association (SETDA). Visit the website, use the materials, and participate in discussions about your experience with the transition. E-Rate Program Information for Schools and Libraries The Federal Communications Commission's E-Rate Program is the nation's largest educational technology program, connecting schools and libraries to broadband internet services. The E-Rate page on NHEON.org is designed to help New Hampshire schools understand the purpose, scope, and application process of the federal universal service fund, commonly referred to as “e-Rate.” Here you will find links to resources in New Hampshire and to the Schools & Libraries Division (SLD) website. School District Technology Planning The Office of Educational Technology supports districts as they prepare and implement their district technology plans. Technology Plans are requried for E-rate Priority 2 Services and Title IID project funding. They are used to document the district ICT Literacy program, as well as for technology budgeting purposes. Technology plans are reviewed and approved by the Office of Educational Technology, in collaboration with a volunteer network of Technology Educators. To learn more about the program, visit and join the Technology Planning Collaboration Ring from the NH Digital Resources Consortium. Domain Name Server and Web Address Updates Requests from districts to change their Domain Name Server, or update their web address are submitted to the Office of Educational Technology for processing through the Department of Information Technology. The request is made via email. The Request Form template and complete instructions are given on the Name Server Requests page under the Office of Educational Technology on NHEON.org. Title II Part D: Enhancing Education Through Technology With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, a program was established within Title II Part D to provide federal funding to schools for educational technology. This program is called Enhancing Education Through Technology (E2T2). Until July 2006, federal guidelines required distribution of the funds through both a competitive and a formula driven process. Formula awards were based on Title I allocations. After July 2006, because of changes in the law and a nearly 50% reduction in federal funding to the program, states were allowed to issue all of the funds on a competitive basis starting with the 2006-07 awards. Districts are still allowed to use the federal transferability provisions to transfer funds from other Title programs in order to use such funds for activities allowable under Title IID. All awards must be used in accordance with the New Hampshire State Educational Technology Plan. The State and District Technology Plan format and review process is currently being redesigned and streamlined for greater effectiveness and impact on student achievement. Note: The Title IID Program is currently suspended, with a zero budget. Districts can still transfer funds from other Title programs into Title IID. Funds transferred into Title IID are subject to the federal requirements for the Title IID Program. For more information, see the Transferring Funds into Title IID information on NHEON.org. Spotlight on Digital Literacy David Hobbs was recently awarded the Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical for the 2012-2013 school year. His project will be geared around digital learning and digital literacy around the state. His intent is to create a blog that shares/ celebrates/ explores what New Hampshire teachers are doing right now to promote 21st century reading and writing skills. He will be traveling around NH to feature what is going on in classrooms with respect to digital learning and literacy. He will be featuring tools, interviews, curriculum, success stories etc. His hope is to provide realistic scenarios for rural and urban teachers, supplemented with a practical focus on the use of interactive media tools at the classroom level. His site (http://digitalliteracynh.org/) will provide an excellent forum for professional development for teachers and districts. More information about the Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical can be found on the NH Charatable Foundation Web site. Resources for Educational Technology and Online Learning |Office of Educational Technology Initiatives||NCLB Title II-D Program| |New Hampshire Educators Online (NHEON)||US DoE e-Rate Program| |NH e-Learning for Educators / OPEN NH||District Technology Plan Guidance/Toolkit| |Online Learning NH||ICT Literacy Standards and Toolkit (ED 306.42)| |US DoE ConnectEd Initiative||ICT Literacy DOE Technical Advisory #2 (2006)| |NH Digital Resources Consortium||Governor's Task Force on STEM| |NH Esri State GIS Partnership||Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium| |NH Application for SketchUp Pro district license||Smarter Balanced Assessment Technology Readiness| |NH eRate Consortium||Smarter Balanced Assessment in NH| |NH Partnerships and Projects (NHEON)||Implementing Online Assessments: Pathways to Success| |State Edcuational Technology Directors Association (SETDA)||International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL)| Contact the Office of Educational Technology Educational Technology & Online Learning Specialist Subscribe to the ETNews listserv for the latest on ed tech grants, online learning, OPEN NH session updates, new digital tools, research, and more. Follow the ET News blog for all this and more

<urn:uuid:42ffb6b8-6c22-4575-9f18-0c2fe4128978>

Discoveries provide evidence of a celestial procession at Stonehenge Archaeologists led by the University of Birmingham with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection have discovered evidence of two huge pits positioned on celestial alignment at Stonehenge. Shedding new light on the significant association of the monument with the sun, these pits may have contained tall stones, wooden posts or even fires to mark its rising and setting and could have defined a processional route used by agriculturalists to celebrate the passage of the sun across the sky at the summer solstice. Positioned within the Cursus pathway, the pits are on alignment towards midsummer sunrise and sunset when viewed from the Heel Stone, the enigmatic stone standing just outside the entrance to Stonehenge. For the first time, this discovery may directly link the rituals and celestial phenomena at Stonehenge to activities within the Cursus. The international archaeological survey team, led by the University of Birmingham’s IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre (VISTA), with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna (LBI ArchPro) have also discovered a previously unknown gap in the middle of the northern side of the Cursus, which may have provided the main entrance and exit point for processions that took place within the pathway. Stretching from west to east, the Cursus is an immense linear enclosure, 100 metres wide and two and a half kilometres across, north of Stonehenge. Professor Vince Gaffney, archaeologist and project leader from the IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre at the University of Birmingham, explains: “This is the first time we have seen anything quite like this at Stonehenge and it provides a more sophisticated insight into how rituals may have taken place within the Cursus and the wider landscape. These exciting finds indicate that even though Stonehenge was ultimately the most important monument in the landscape, it may at times not have been the only, or most important, ritual focus and the area of Stonehenge may have become significant as a sacred site at a much earlier date. “Other activities were carried out at other ceremonial sites only a short distance away. The results from this new survey help us to appreciate just how complex these activities were and how intimate these societies were with the natural world. The perimeter of the Cursus may well have defined a route guiding ceremonial processions which took place on the longest day of the year.” Archaeologists have understood for a long time that Stonehenge was designed to mark astronomical events, built by farming societies whose everyday concerns with growing crops linked their daily lives to the passage of the seasons and in particular the sun, on which their livelihoods depended. This new evidence raises exciting questions about how complex rituals within the Stonehenge landscape were conducted and how processions along or around the Cursus were organised at the time Stonehenge was in use. Professor Gaffney adds: “It now seems likely that other ceremonial monuments in the surrounding landscape were directly articulated with rituals at Stonehenge. It is possible that processions within the Cursus moved from the eastern pit at sunrise, continuing eastwards along the Cursus and, following the path of the sun overhead, and perhaps back to the west, reaching the western pit at sunset to mark the longest day of the year. Observers of the ceremony would have been positioned at the Heel Stone, of which the two pits are aligned.” Dr Henry Chapman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Visualisation observes: “If you measure the walking distance between the two pits, the procession would reach exactly half-way at midday, when the sun would be directly on top of Stonehenge. This is more than just a coincidence, indicating that the exact length of the Cursus and the positioning of the pits are of significance.” Stonehenge, while certainly the most important monument in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape, was surrounded by a dense concentration of other sacred sites, some of which were already ancient when Stonehenge itself was built. The team has also revealed a new horseshoe arrangement of large pits north-east of Stonehenge which may have also contained posts and, together with the henge-like monument discovered last year and a number of other small monuments, may have functioned as minor shrines, perhaps serving specific communities visiting the ceremonial centre. Paul Garwood, Lecturer in Prehistory at the University of Birmingham, comments: “Our knowledge of the ancient landscapes that once existed around Stonehenge is growing dramatically as we examine the new geophysical survey results. We can see in rich detail not only new monuments, but entire landscapes of past human activity, over thousands of years, preserved in sub-surface features such as pits and ditches. This project is establishing a completely new framework for studying the Stonehenge landscape.” These new discoveries have come to light as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, which began in summer 2010 as the world’s biggest-ever virtual excavation using the latest geophysical imaging techniques to reveal and visually recreate the extraordinary prehistoric landscape surrounding Stonehenge. Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, adds: “The LBI provides the best academics, technicians and young researchers in a team of 20 people and uses multiple systems designed for use on projects where the scale of work was previously unachievable. The use of non-invasive technologies provides information for virtual archaeologies that can be disseminated to the public via the web, iPad or mobile phone.” Dr Christopher Gaffney, lecturer in Archaeological Geophysics at the University of Bradford, concludes: “Building on our work from last year we have added even more techniques and instruments to study this remarkable landscape. It is clear that one technique is not adequate to study the complexity of the monuments and landscape surrounding our most important archaeological monument and the battery of techniques used here has significantly increased the certainty of our interpretation.” Professor Vince Gaffney explains further in his podflash (MP3 - 10MB). Notes to editors 1. The new discoveries were made as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, a study which is using multiple geophysical imaging techniques to visually recreate the iconic prehistoric monument and its surroundings. To do this it has brought together the most sophisticated geophysics team ever to be engaged in a single archaeological project in Britain, working alongside specialists in British prehistory and landscape archaeology. 2. The project is led by the University of Birmingham’s IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre (VISTA) (http://www.vista.bham.ac.uk/iaa_VISTA_SPLASH.htm) and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna. British partners are Birmingham, the Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bradford, and the Department of Earth Science at the University of St Andrews. European partners include Austria, Germany, Norway and Sweden. 3. The project is supported by the landowner, the National Trust, and assisted by English Heritage. 4. The IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre (VISTA) is a division of the Institute for Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham. VISTA supports academic research and application development for spatial analysis, visualisation and imaging using state-of-the-art technology in one of the best-equipped archaeological visualisation laboratories in Europe. VISTA is involved in projects across the world and staff use the unparalleled opportunities provided for VISTA for research, postgraduate and professional training in archaeology, the humanities and associated sciences. Its director is Professor Vince Gaffney. 5. The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (www.archpro.lbg.ac.at) is a research institute of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (www.lbg.ac.at) and was founded in 2010. The institute carries out its research activities together with several international partner organisations and aims to create a network of archaeological scientists supporting interdisciplinary research programmes for the development of large scale, efficient, non-invasive technologies for the discovery, documentation, visualisation and interpretation of Europe's archaeological heritage. The lead partners of the institute based in Vienna, are the University of Vienna (A), the Vienna University of Technology (A), the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (A), the Province of Lower Austria (A), Airborne Technologies (A), RGZM-Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz (D), RAÄ-Swedish National Heritage Board (S); IBM VISTA-University of Birmingham (GB) and NIKU-Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (N). Its director is Professor Wolfgang Neubauer. 6. The Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bradford uniquely integrates archaeological sciences, geography, environmental sciences, biological anthropology and forensic sciences in a single profoundly multidisciplinary department bridging the sciences and humanities. For more information Please contact Amy Cory, University of Birmingham Press Office, tel: 0121 414 6029 / 07789 921163 / 07789 921164 or email@example.com.

<urn:uuid:3366a5b9-8850-43ef-9f58-aedf955c4b9b>

During the Age of Exploration, Native American tribes fell victim to European conquerors seeking legendary cities made of gold and other riches, attempts that were often made in vain. And yet of all the empires that were conquered across the continent, the one that continues to be most intimately associated with legends of gold and hidden riches is the Inca Empire. The Inca Empire, which flourished in modern-day Peru and along the west coast of South America, was the largest Native American empire in pre-Columbian America until Pizarro and the Spanish conquistadors conquered them in the 16th century. What ultimately sealed their doom was the rumor that huge amounts of gold were available in regions south of the Andes Mountains. Though the Spanish physically conquered them in quick fashion, the culture and legacy of the Inca Empire has continued to endure throughout the centuries in both Europe and South America, due in no small part to the fact they were one of the most advanced and sophisticated cultures on the continent. Like the Aztecs, the Spanish burned much of the Inca's extant writings, but it is estimated that as many as 35 million people once fell under their banner, and the empire's administrative skills were so sharp that they kept accurate census records. Their religion, organization, and laws were also effectively centralized and tied to the rulers of the empire, and their military mobilization would have made the ancient Spartans proud. After the Spanish conquest, several rebellions in the area attempted to reestablish the proud Inca Empire over the next two centuries, all while famous Europeans like Voltaire glorified the Inca Empire in optimistic artistic portrayals. ©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

<urn:uuid:4026d599-93b8-45a9-b84f-d71b3e897d9a>

George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). - Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last. - On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Westward the star of empire takes its way", Epigraph to Bancroft's History of the United States; "What worlds in the yet unformed Occident / May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?", Samuel Daniel, Musophilus (1599), Stanza 163. - Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old. - Can Love be controlled by Advice?, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). - [Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. - Siris (1744), paragraph 217. Compare: "Cups / That cheer but not inebriate", William Cowper, The Task, book iv, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). - I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle. - Said by Philonous (Berkeley) to Hylas in the opening of dialog 1 with reference to the recent surge philosophic endeavors (Locke, Newton, et al) that seemed to lead to skepticism about the existence of the world - That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see any thing absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion. - Philonous to Hylas. - Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind? - Philonous to Hylas. - Seeing therefore they are both [heat and pain] immediately perceived at the same time, and the fire affects you only with one simple, or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately perceived, and the pain;and consequently, that the intense heat immediately perceived, is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain. - Philonous to Hylas. - Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever? - Philonous to Hylas. Hylas replies with, "So it seems". Quotes about Berkeley - When discussing how Berkeley's philosophy appeared to be self-evidently false, but impossible to refute, Dr. Johnson kicked out at a nearby stone, exclaiming "I refute it thus!" - James Boswell, in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol. I. - Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, James, Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme. - When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it — 'twas no matter what he said. - When men follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images, presented by the senses, to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion, that the one are nothing but representations of the other. ...This argument is drawn from Dr. Berkeley; and indeed most of the writings of that very ingenious author form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics as well as against the atheists and free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism. - There once was a man who said, 'God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no one about in the Quad.' - Ronald Knox, quoted in The Complete Limerick Book (1924). - Berkeley, after abolishing matter, is only saved from complete subjectivism by a use of God which most subsequent philosophers have regarded as illegitimate. - George Berkeley … is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter—a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God. - Berkeley advances valid arguments in favour of a certain important conclusion, though not quite in favour of the conclusion that he thinks he is proving. He thinks he is proving that all reality is mental; what he is proving is that we perceive qualities, not things, and that qualities are relative to the percipient. - Berkeley’s argument consists of two parts. On the one hand, he argues that we do not perceive material things, but only colours, sounds, etc., and that these are “mental” or “in the mind.” His reasoning is completely cogent as to the first point, but as to the second it suffers from the absence of any definition of the word “mental.” He relics, in fact, upon the received view that everything must be either material or mental, and that nothing is both. - Berkeley discusses the view that we must distinguish the act of perceiving from the object perceived, and that the former is mental while the latter is not. His argument against this view is obscure, and necessarily so, since, for one who believes in mental substance, as Berkeley does, there is no valid means of refuting it. He says: “That any immediate object of the senses should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to all minds, is in itself an evident contradiction.” There is here a fallacy, analogous to the following: “It is impossible for a nephew to exist without an uncle; now Mr. A is a nephew; therefore it is logically necessary for Mr. A to have an uncle.” It is, of course, logically necessary given that Mr. A is a nephew, but not from anything to be discovered by analysis of Mr. A. So, if something is an object of the senses, some mind is concerned with it; but it does not follow that the same thing could not have existed without being an object of the senses. - Schematically, the argument is as follows. Berkeley says: “Sensible objects must be sensible. A is a sensible object. Therefore A must be sensible.” But if “must” indicates logical necessity, the argument is only valid if A must be a sensible object. The argument does not prove that, from the properties of A other than its being sensible, it can be deduced that A is sensible. It does not prove, for example, that colours intrinsically indistinguishable from those that we see may not exist unseen. We may believe on physiological grounds that this does not occur, but such grounds are empirical; so far as logic is concerned, there is no reason why there should not be colours where there is no eye or brain. - I come now to Berkeley’s empirical arguments. To begin with, it is a sign of weakness to combine empirical and logical arguments, for the latter, if valid, make the former superfluous. [Footnote: E.g., "I was not drunk last night. I had only had two glasses; besides, it is well known that I am a teetotaller."] If I am contending that a square cannot be round, I shall not appeal to the fact that no Square in any known city is round. But as we have rejected the logical arguments, it becomes necessary to consider the empirical arguments on their merits. - In the second Dialogue Philonous sums up the discussion, so far as it has gone, in the words: “Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas.” He ought not, of course, to make an exception for spirits, since it is just as impossible to know spirit as to know matter. The arguments, in fact, are almost identical in both cases. - Berkeley, as we have seen, thinks that there are logical reasons proving that only minds and mental events can exist. This view, on other grounds, is also held by Hegel and his followers. I believe this to be a complete mistake. Such a statement as “there was a time before life existed on this planet,” whether true or false, cannot be condemned on grounds of logic, any more than “there are multiplication sums which no one will have ever worked out.” To be observed, or to be a percept, is merely to have effects of certain kinds, and there is no logical reason why all events should have effects of these kinds. - Berkeley was... the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism. - Arthur Schopenhauer, in Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy". - Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind — which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737. - Sydney Smith, in Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1850), Introduction. - And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream, That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem, Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme; - W.B. Yeats, from 'Blood and the Moon' in The Winding Stair (1929).

<urn:uuid:34f65f7d-34bd-4def-b138-e687da3314c5>

Shannen Koostachin of Attawapiskat First Nation was a young activist just trying to get a school in her community. Despite the high standard of living enjoyed by many Canadians, indigenous children have been forced through toxic and subpar educational systems for decades. Koostachin spoke out and organized with other youth for "safe and comfy" schools. She started the largest movement by children for children in Canada. Toxicity at school In 1976 J.R. Nakogee School was built for primary students in Attawapiskat. It contained kids from grade one to eight. More Cree families started to live year-round on the reserve because of the school. 400 children attended the new school. Only a few years after it opened in 1979, 30 000 gallons of oil leaked into the soil near the school from underground pipes. This was the largest spill in the history of Nothern Ontario. Despite finding evidence of oil and noxious fumes in classrooms throughout the early 1980s along with multiple complaints from teachers and students experiencing headaches, vomiting and nausea the Canadian government refused to listen. Aboriginal Affairs and Nothern Development Canada (AANDC) hired independent consultants to survey the contamination of the school. Their report had a clear recommendation: immediate clean up measures to tackle the spill. INAC took no further action, leaving the children and educators at the school to become seriously ill. As the fuel continued to leak, the school became a cap keeping containments from reaching the rest of the community. In the 1990s, Venzia Secondary School was built. It was the first high school ever built in the community. Even after another assessment is conducted on J.R. Nakogee School by AANDC consultants in 1995, the government ignored the problem for five years before finally declaring the school unsafe and shutting it down. When the school was closed, it was so toxic it had to be demolished. Once destroyed, all of the chemical fumes that the school contained were openly released into the community. Residents were subjected to gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory illnesses and rashes because of the bezene-laden environment. Government officials are still dragging their feet in dealing with the oil spill that happened more than thirty years ago. The residents and children of Attawapiskat have been promised a fully functioning and safe school since 2000. AANDC's "temporary" solution to the toxic elementary school was funding portable classrooms on top of J.R. Nekogee School's old playground. They are still being used today. Years of wear have made the portable units crack. Many doors don't close properly on the portables or their heating system is broken. Many young children have to wear their coats to class. Transferring students from one classroom to another means braving Artic temperatures and consumes class time. In 2000 then AANDC Minister Bob Nault promised residents a decent school without ever taking action. Minister Andy Scott, Minister Jim Prentice and Minister Chuck Strahl all made similar commitments while never breaking ground. Shannen Koostachin started campaigning for a real school in her community when she was only 13 years old. She started writing letters to the provincial and federal government, demanding an education equal to that of any other Canadian child. Other youth in her school became involved and they heard promises broken by politicians over and over. In 2008, Minister Chuck Strahl wrote back and told Koostachin that the government didn't have the money for a new school. Koostachin and her grade eight peers cancelled their class field trip to Niagara Falls and instead sent a handful of students from their class to lobby in Ottawa. When she met with Minister Strahl, Koostachin said she would not give up fighting for safe schools for Attawapiskat youth. She continued to speak out through participating in human rights conferences, speaking to other schools and passionately discussing her dream of a "comfy" place to learn across the country. Koostachin was a born leader. She spoke at the United Nations about the denial of her right to education and was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize as the ambassador for the kids in Attawapiskat. Thanks to her efforts, Minister Strahl agreed to fund a school. In 2010, while travelling the 600 kilometres it took for her to get to school, Koostachin was killed in a car accident. Her fight lives on through the Shannen's Dream campaign. Some politicans did hear Shannen's dream. NDP MP Charlie Angus reintroduced her dream as Motion 201 in September 2011. On February 27, 2012 the House of Commons voted unanimously in its favour. As a result, there was a renewed commitment from AANDC to construct a school in the community with a promise of new political oversight. Despite extensive research on the construction of a school in Attawapiskat, only $275 million over the course of three years was alloted to reconstructing the school and educational programs within it with no ground broken yet. This amount is not enough to implement meaningful change to an educational system that has been broken for generations. Attawapiskat is still waiting for Shannen's Dream to become a reality. Thank you for reading this story… More people are reading rabble.ca than ever and unlike many news organizations, we have never put up a paywall – at rabble we’ve always believed in making our reporting and analysis free to all, while striving to make it sustainable as well. Media isn’t free to produce. rabble’s total budget is likely less than what big corporate media spend on photocopying (we kid you not!) and we do not have any major foundation, sponsor or angel investor. Our main supporters are people and organizations -- like you. This is why we need your help. You are what keep us sustainable. rabble.ca has staked its existence on you. We live or die on community support -- your support! We get hundreds of thousands of visitors and we believe in them. We believe in you. We believe people will put in what they can for the greater good. We call that sustainable. So what is the easy answer for us? Depend on a community of visitors who care passionately about media that amplifies the voices of people struggling for change and justice. It really is that simple. When the people who visit rabble care enough to contribute a bit then it works for everyone. And so we’re asking you if you could make a donation, right now, to help us carry forward on our mission. Make a donation today.

<urn:uuid:9474a19e-3322-47ad-b8e5-7a88d96cbc5f>

In many parts of the world, the subject of violence against women is taboo. The violence is often also surrounded by prejudices and myths. Below are some of the most common arguments you might come up against once you have decided to work towards making the world a better place by showing people that violence against women exists. None of the arguments below is an acceptable reason for not getting involved in the work to stop violence against women in the world. 1) “Many more men than women are killed.” How can this be an argument for not trying to end the violence which kills women? It is like saying we should not try to cure one disease because there is another which kills more people. Yes, it is true that more men than women are murdered. But the violence which kills women is special, for a number of reasons. Women are often killed in their own home by someone they love or have loved; someone they have trusted and liked. One common motive is that they want to leave their husband, who will then lose the control he has had, or who is afraid of losing the control. Many women are murdered when they decide to leave a relationship. The problem with violence against women in the home is that it has often been considered to be a private matter, but it is extremely damaging for the children who grow up with the violence. That is why we have to discuss violence against women as a separate problem if we want to put an end to it. 2) “The way in which different cultures view marriage and gender roles does not concern outsiders.” According to international humanitarian law, the state has a responsibility to prevent, obstruct and punish all violations of human rights. Violence against women is not considered to be a private matter. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Convention on the Abolition of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted in 1979. In 1993 the General Assembly of the UN adopted the Declaration on the Abolition of Discrimination Against Women. The Declaration states, among other things, that violence against women shall be made a criminal offence, that women who have been subjected to violence shall be entitled to support and care, and that resources shall be made available for research into violence in the home. Violence in the home has far-reaching consequences and the economic costs to society are enormous. It is therefore a matter which concerns us all. 3) “No doubt she had provoked him.” Provocation is rarely, if ever, used as an excuse for other types of crime and it is not accepted by the courts as an excuse for criminal behaviour. A man who has been the victim of aggressive behaviour by another man in a pub does not have the right to strike out. In many cases of violence against women the assault has not even been preceded by an argument. 4) “If you go around dressed like that you’ve only yourself to blame if you’re raped.” So if you go around wearing an expensive watch you’ve only got yourself to blame if you’re robbed? Men are not some kind of pre-historic creatures controlled by their impulses and unable to control their behaviour. They are human beings, and human beings choose their actions. 5) “It is only foreigners/Muslims/alcoholics/drug addicts/mentally ill people who beat women.” Violence against women occurs in all groups in society, in all countries and in all religions and life philosophies. No religion or culture advocates violence against women. 6) “Men are violent by nature; they can’t help it, it’s just the way they are.” Both men and women can be violent and non-violent. But there is a greater acceptance, and sometime even an idealisation, of men’s use of violence. Male activities often involve the use of violence and exercise of power. This is a perception which can be changed. 7) “Certain women are drawn to violent men and they have to accept responsibility for that.” There is no research to show that women who have been subjected to violence belong to a specific group or have a particular type of personality. The abuse can affect anyone. There are, however, circumstances which make certain groups of women more vulnerable and more likely to be exposed to violence. Two of the risk factors are a woman’s ability to support herself and whether the society around her is violent. 8) “We don’t have a problem with violence and rape in our country. We have good legislation. ” Violence against women is a global problem. It was not until modern times that some countries made it illegal for a man to beat and rape his wife. In 1965 Sweden became the first country in the world to introduce legislation on rape within marriage. Since then many other countries have followed. This does not mean that the violence against women has stopped, not even in Sweden, the country that led the way. The laws are still difficult to apply, since the violence usually takes place in the home without any witnesses. If there are no documented injuries, then it is word against word, in which case the crime investigations are usually closed. Only 25 per cent of all reported crimes of assault against women by a man close to her actually lead to prosecution. (However, most of the prosecutions lead to a conviction.) When it comes to rape, around ten per cent of the reported rapes lead to prosecution; and there is reason to believe that only ten per cent of all rapes are actually reported. 9) “Women beat their husbands as often as men beat women.” No, this is not true. Even taking into account that the number of unrecorded cases of women’s violence against men is in all probability high, all the research shows that the number of women assaulted by men is many times greater than the other way round. When men are assaulted, it is almost always by other men. 10) “What people do in their own homes is their business, no-one else’s.” Is it? If so, where does the line go? If someone becomes unconscious? Or suffers life-threatening injuries? When there are children in the home? All children who are subjected to, or experience, violence in the home suffer. We do not know yet how serious the damage will be in the long term since children rarely talk about the violence unless an adult asks them. But we do know that children who do not have the opportunity to talk about it suffer more than those who have someone to talk to. Assault is a criminal act, not a private matter. If you hear a crime being committed you have a responsibility to show you care and contact the police. 11) “If it was that bad she would have left a long time ago.” All the research shows that the worse it gets, the smaller her chances of leaving the man. At first she believes it will be alright, it will pass, get better. That sense of hope increasingly becomes a feeling of resignation, self-contempt and apathy. As long as she had the energy she was hopeful and naïve. When the hope has died it is often too late. Then the man becomes repentant and considerate between the outbursts. And in many countries it is not even possible for a woman to leave an abusive husband. Without money of her own and without the support of those around her the woman is forced to remain in an abusive relationship, whatever she wishes she could do. 12) “Men beat their wives because they’re jealous.” Jealousy is a strong risk factor when it comes to being subjected to violence and it can be an important warning signal that something is not right. However, in most countries or according to international humanitarian law, jealousy is not an accepted excuse for violence. Jealousy often leads to attempts to control a partner and in most cases that control goes beyond the normal limits. The woman is not allowed to travel in a car with another man, or to leave the house, or even to go to the shops to buy food. 13) “Women make false police reports because they want revenge.” That no doubt happens from time to time, but the opposite – that the woman does not report or talk about it at all – is much more common. Why would anyone wish to put themselves through an exhausting legal process in order to gain revenge? The majority of reported cases of violence in the home are not, in fact, prosecuted so the risk of a false accusation leading to a conviction is minimal. 14) “Men who beat their wives were themselves beaten as children or saw their mothers being beaten.” This is sometimes true, but childhood experiences are not the most common denominator for men who assault women. One common feature, however, is their view of women, the perception that men are superior to women and that women are expected to obey. And women who were beaten as children rarely beat their husbands. 15) “Violence does not occur in LGBT relationships.” Violence occurs in all types of partner relationships, irrespective of the parties’ sexuality and gender identity. A woman can be raped by her girlfriend, a man beaten by his husband and a transgender woman threatened by her boyfriend. When violence occurs in an LGBT relationship, circumstances such as homophobia and transphobia can mean that the couple are already more isolated and more dependent on each other. It may be the case that one or both persons in the relationship has little or no contact with their family and that many of their friends are friends of both parties.

<urn:uuid:d6f94c12-46b9-416c-8ef8-fdbe9a8d7488>

Use "?" for one missing letter: pu?zle. Use "*" for any number of letters: p*zle. Or combine: cros?w*d Select number of letters in the word, enter letters you have, and find words! General Crossword Questions for “horseman” He's taken aback - by centaur? Warning apparatus without same adaptation for rider The Headless Horseman is a fictional character from the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by American author Washington Irving. The Horseman was a Hessian of unknown rank, one of many such hired to suppress the American Revolutionary War. — “Headless Horseman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, en.wikipedia.org The Bronze Horseman. The Bronze Horseman (Russian: Медный всадник, literally "The Copper Horseman") is an equestrian statue of Peter the Great by Étienne Maurice Falconet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The statue came to be known as the Bronze Horseman because of the great influence of the poem. — “Bronze Horseman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, en.wikipedia.org The other three horsemen represent evil, destructive forces, and given the unified way in which all four are introduced and described, it may be most likely that the first horseman is correspondingly evil. The German Stuttgarter Erklärungsbibel casts him as civil war and internal strife. — “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Wikipedia, the free”, en.wikipedia.org As they spoke, the white-haired horseman and his followers came thundering from above, and almost at the same moment a dark string of men ran shouting along the sea-front. — “The Man who was Thursday” by GK Chesterton On the evening of the twenty-fifth, as they were entering Arras, and as d'Artagnan was dismounting at the inn of the Golden Harrow to drink a glass of wine, a horseman came out of the post yard, where he had just had a relay, started off at a gallop, and with a fresh horse took the road to Paris. — “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas He was within three yards of the horseman now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr. — “Middlemarch” by George Eliot Dantes employed it in manoeuvring his yacht round the island, studying it as a skilful horseman would the animal he destined for some important service, till at the end of that time he was perfectly conversant with its good and bad qualities. — “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. — “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. — “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

<urn:uuid:5088da39-5462-4f00-95a6-1e165d92d761>

Is it healthier to eat cooked or uncooked vegetables? Cooked, generally. While heat can destroy some vitamins, cooking breaks down plant cell walls, making important compounds more available to the body. Carrots cooked until tender-crisp deliver more beta-carotene than raw ones. And heat-processed tomatoes (like tomato paste) provide much more of the cancer-fighter lycopene than fresh tomatoes. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, and potatoes are also more nutritious when cooked. Just don't overdo it. High temperatures and long cooking times ultimately reduce the nutritive value of all foods. --Delia Hammock, M.S., R.D., and Samantha Buckanoff, M.S., R.D.

<urn:uuid:736d788e-6bdd-41b6-86ab-5a0a7b0cb157>

This week, Congress held its first hearing on the landmark IPCC report on climate change. That report concluded that global warming is “unequivocal” and human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950. During the hearing, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — one of the 87 percent of congressional Republicans who do not believe in man-made global warming — questioned the authors of the report about a period of dramatic climate change that occured 55 million years ago. “We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?’ Presumably, Rohrabacher was referencing a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Then, as in now, “sharp rises in temperature were initiated and driven by large spikes in greenhouse gases. … It took over 100K years for the ocean, atmosphere, and temperatures to return to their previous state. The result was a mass extinction event that took millions of years to recover from.” But scientists believe that massive methane releases from the ocean floors — not dinosaur farts — were the cause. In sharp contrast to Rohrabacher, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivered an opening statement recommending mandatory caps on global warming pollution and calling out conservatives for rejecting science. “For twelve years, the leadership in the House of Representatives stifled all discussion and debate of global warming. That long rejection of reality is over, to the relief of Members on both sides of the aisle.” ROHRBACHER: So, whether or not how dramatic this change will be, or is, what it’s caused by, are things that honest people, I think, can disagree with, and I really personally, having been a journalist, the first thing I was always cautioned by when someone was claiming, well, everybody is on my side, or everybody says this, or there is a total consensus, almost always when people said that to me over my years as a journalist, it wasn’t true. It was that there were honest people who disagreed and significant disagreement on such issues. We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows? We do know the CO2 in the past had its time when it was greater as well. And what happened when the CO2 was greater since then and now? There have been many cycles of up and down warming. So with that said, I think that we’ve had a great discussion today.

<urn:uuid:61c5a49f-595a-4fb7-9749-595cc8187469>

Opossums have cat-sized bodies with the tail usually shorter than the combined length of head and body. The body can be gray, black, reddish, rarely white. The head is whitish with darker body color, ears are black or black with paler tips. Lower legs are black with feet and toes being black and white. Location: Conservation Education Programs The opossum's range includes the west coast of the United States, southern Canada to northern Costa Rica, the Great Plains of the United States to the eastern coast, the east and west areas of Mexico, but not the central. Their home range is 31-96 acres. Opossums inhabit grasslands to forest-also farms, towns and cities. Gestation is approximately 13 days. Opossums can have up to 56 born with only 1-15 attaching to mammae. Usually about 7. In fear, Opossums may “play dead” for up to 4 hours on their side with eyes and mouth open, tongue hanging out, emitting both a green fluid from anus and a putrid odor. This opossum does not hibernate. Opossum females carry the young for approximately 2 weeks before they are born. The newborn must crawl to a nipple. The nipple swells and the baby will stay on it for approximately 2 months. At about 3 months the babies emerge from the pouch. Depends on location and season: fruit, insects, small vertebrates, carrion, garbage. Low-cal cat food - fish, vegetables, fruit.

<urn:uuid:a38e3a25-5bae-4df6-bee6-cfb949c234c1>

OVERVIEW: What every practitioner needs to know Are you sure your patient has erythema nodosum? What are the typical findings for this disease? Typical Findings for Erythema Nodosum in Children The key features of erythema nodosum (EN) typically include sudden onset of bilateral, 1-5 cm tender, erythematous, subcutaneous nodules arising in crops, most commonly on the pretibial areas. In children, lesions can also be found less commonly on the knees, ankles, extensor aspects of arms, face neck, anterior thighs, and trunk. Lesions are rarely found on the palms and soles although they appear to be more often encountered there in children (Figure 1 and Figure 2). After a few days, lesions may develop a brownish red or purple bruise-like appearance ( Figure 3). The eruption usually lasts 3-6 weeks and lesions do not ulcerate or leave scars. Lesions may be accompanied by fever of 38-39 °C , arthralgias, cough, diarrhea, and malaise. Joint pains may precede, coincide, or follow the eruption in as many as 90% of cases. In contrast to adults, arthralgias are found less commonly in children and appear to be related to associated underlying diseases. EN has a much shorter duration in children, and fever is an accompanying manifestation in fewer than half of the cases. Although EN can be associated with a wide variety of systemic disorders, despite investigation, no underlying cause is found in most pediatric patients. What other disease/condition shares some of these symptoms? Although diagnosis is not usually difficult, other conditions that can mimic EN include the following: Cellulitis: often unilateral with prominent inflammatory symptoms Deep fungal infections: for example, sporotrichosis or Majocchi granuloma Insect bites: itching can be a major clue Cutaneous forms of periarteritis nodosa Eccrine hidradenitis: can be confused with this disorder if lesions are on palms and soles Battered child syndrome: important to note distribution Cold-induced panniculitis: classically involves the face and upper limbs, evolving into depressed scars Lupus panniculitis: commonly involves upper limbs and generally heals with atrophic scars Deep granuloma annulare: lesions are deep subcutaneous nodules with little to no modification of overlying skin Henoch-Schönlein purpura: palpable purpura and associated extracutaneous findings may be helpful for diagnosis When lesions are few in number, are of longer duration, and are located in sites that are not the most common, EN can be difficult to distinguish from other forms of panniculitis, including erythema induratum and pancreatic panniculitis. Erythema induratum tends to occur on the posterior aspect of the lower legs and may ulcerate. Pancreatic panniculitis may also ulcerate and is more likely to be accompanied by arthritis and serositis and is associated with elevated serum lipase and amylase levels. A clinical clue to the diagnosis is the predictable change in color over time from red to purple to yellow-green, resulting in bruise-like changes (Figure 3). When the diagnosis is in doubt, a skin biopsy can aid in diagnosis. What caused this disease to develop at this time? Etiologic causes of erythema nodosum Most pediatric cases are idiopathic (up to 40%) and no underlying cause is found despite investigation. Although there are numerous causes, the most common in pediatric patients is β-hemolytic streptococcal infection, especially pharyngitis, followed by gastrointestinal infections, particularly Yersinia enterocolitica. The cutaneous lesions generally appear 2-3 weeks after the throat infection. Infections generally account for one third or more of the cases. Common infections: β-hemolytic streptococcal infections, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, upper respiratory viruses (Epstein-Barr virus), coccidiomycosis in endemic areas, tuberculosis, Less common infections: hepatitis B; brucellosis; meningococcosis; neisserial infection; cat-scratch disease; infection with HIV, Chlamydia, Campylobacter, Shigella;blastomycosis; histoplasmosis; sporotrichosis; syphilis; pertussis; Escherichia coli infection; leprosy; parvovirus Inflammatory conditions: Sarcoidosis, inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn disease has a stronger association than does ulcerative colitis), Behçet disease, Sweet syndrome Medications: Many medications have been implicated as a cause of EN, but the most common associated with EN in children include oral contraceptives, macrolide antibiotics, sulfonamides, and penicillin. Rare causes: EN has been described in a girl with tinea capitis caused by Trichophyton mentagrophytes. Leukemia masquerading as EN is exceptional but may be diagnosed with biopsy. Recently, there has been an extremely rare case of EN with acute myeloid leukemia. Although drugs and chronic conditions (i.e., sarcoidosis, autoimmune conditions, and inflammatory bowel disease) account for most of the adults cases, these are less often implicated in the pediatric population. The presence of EN in patients with coccidiomycosis suggests a positive prognostic sign with a decreased risk of dissemination. This is in contrast to a worse prognosis in children with primary tuberculosis who present with lesions of EN. How to make the diagnosis of erythema nodosum EN is generally diagnosed with history and physical examination, as it has a characteristic clinical picture. A clinical clue to diagnosis is the predictable evolution in color over time resulting in bruise-like changes (Figure 3). If needed, skin punch biopsy can help confirm the diagnosis. It is usually needed only when patients have an atypical presentation or protracted course. Histologically, erythema nodosum is the prototypical septal panniculitis. Early lesions show edematous septa and mild lymphocytic infiltrates. Neutrophils may predominate in early lesions (Figure 4). Miescher microgranulomas are a pathognomonic feature seen in early lesions. These microgranulomas are small collections of histiocytes found within the septa or at the septa/lobule interface that tend to surround neutrophils or small cleft-like spaces. As lesions progess, the septa become widened and contain a mixed partly granulomatous infiltrate (Figure 5). What laboratory studies should you request to help confirm the diagnosis? How should you interpret the results? Suggested laboratory testing that may aid in elucidating underlying systemic causes Complete blood count with differential (white blood cell count is normal or only slightly increased) Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (correlated more with EN rather than with the underlying disease) C-Reactive protein determination (correlated more with EN rather than with the underlying disease) Liver function tests Chest radiography to rule out pulmonary diseases Pregnancy test if applicable Antistreptolysin O (ASO) titer A high ASO titer usually is seen in cases associated with streptococcal infections. A significant change, at least 30%, in ASO titer in two consecutive tests performed in a 2- to 4-week interval usually indicates a recent streptococcal infection. In children, the elevation of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate correlates significantly with the number of cutaneous lesions and is often very high, returning to normal when the eruption fades. The remainder of testing should be directed based on suspicion for underlying causes. Stepwise approach to patient suspected of having erythema nodosum Careful review of all medications (prescription and nonprescription) is essential, especially asking about oral contraceptives. Careful history taking regarding previous diseases, foreign travel, pets, and hobbies, as well as familial cases is carried out. Screening for streptococcal infections by throat culture or ASO titer is recommended even in asymptomatic individuals. A positive intradermal test to streptococcal antigen is often found in patients with EN secondary to streptococcal infections. It is important to keep in mind that when cutaneous nodules develop, the cultures of routine throat swabs usually do not detect microorganisms, thus necessitating obtaining ASO titers. Cough or upper respiratory symptoms warrant obtaining Mycoplasma pneumoniae antibody titers. Repeat testing in 10 days to look for a seroconversion or fivefold rise of titers. Stool for culture and serum Yersinia titers should be obtained in patients with diarrhea, based on history. Consider stool culture for Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Shigella. When the cause is doubtful, a sample of blood should be serologically investigated based on the bacterial, viral, fungal, or protozoal infections that are more prevalent in the area. Consider purified protein derivative testing in children with risk factors, although tuberculosis is a rare cause of EN in children. Additional testing that may be considered based on suspicion includes rheumatoid factor and alpha-2 globulin. If you are able to confirm that the patient has erythema nodosum, what treatment should be initiated? Management is directed at identification and treatment of the underlying cause if one can be identified. The condition is generally self-limited in idiopathic cases. Pain, inflammation, or arthralgias can be treated with strict bed rest, elevation of legs, and restriction of physical activity until resolution of lesions (a few weeks). These efforts can help prevent exacerbations. Salicylates and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen or naproxen can also be used to alleviate symptoms. If needed, small volumes (0.1 mL) of intralesional corticosteroids (intralesional triamcinolone acetonide in a dosage of 5 mg/mL) can be injected into the center of the nodule and frequently leads to rapid involution of individual lesions. If lesions become persistent or recurrent, oral corticosteroids may be beneficial. A dose of 0.5 mg/kg of prednisone per day for a period of 1-2 months had variable success in one pediatric case series. There have been case reports of the use of etanercept and infliximab in adults with chronic or recurrent cases of EN. These treatments have not been reported in children with EN. Other treatments more commonly used in adults include potassium iodide, colchicine, hydroxychloroquine, cyclosporin A, and thalidomide. Mainly these treatment modalities are targeted at treating the underlying systemic cause. What are the adverse effects associated with each treatment option? NSAIDS should be avoided in the treatment of EN associated with inflammatory bowel disease, as it may trigger a flare of the bowel disease or compromise maintenance therapy. Gastrointestinal effects are one of the most common adverse effects of NSAIDS and include dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, and bleeding. Other potential adverse effects include, but are not limited to, nephrotoxicity, hepatoxicity, and skin reactions such as toxic epidermal necrolysis, and Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Salicylates should be used with caution in children, given the link to Reye syndrome. Adverse effects from salicylate toxicity include nausea, vomiting, confusion, dizziness, psychosis, stupor, coma, death, hypoglycemia, and tinnitus. Before oral steroids are administered, an underlying infection should be excluded. Prolonged oral corticosteroids (>4 weeks) can cause multiple adverse effects, including suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, growth suppression in children, hypertension, hyperglycemia, behavior and personality changes, delayed wound healing, hypertrichosis, glaucoma, increased risk of infections, alterations in appetite and sleep, and ocular effects. Routine H2-receptor antagonists or proton pump inhibitors are of value to prevent or ameliorate the frequency of gastrointestinal complaints in children. Patients must be cautioned that intralesional steroids may cause atrophy of the skin. EN tends to resolve spontaneously over 3-4 weeks and the course is generally benign. More severe cases resolve over 6 weeks. Lesions heal without scarring, atrophy, or ulceration. Recrudescences may appear over a period of weeks to months, but attacks are seldom recurrent. In 10% of patients who have recurring disease, these recurrences are frequently associated with repeated streptococcal infection. EN is considered to be a delayed hypersensitivity response to a variety of antigenic stimuli, including infections, medications, pregnancy, and inflammatory and malignant disease. EN is the most common type of panniculitis is all ages. Its peak incidence is between 20 and 30 years of age, with a smaller peak in adolescence, particularly in children older than 10 years of age. Although there is a clear female predominance in adults with EN, during childhood, girls are affected only slightly more than boys, and most studies and reviews report an equal sex incidence. It is rare in children younger than the age of 2 years. The greatest incidence is seen in the spring and fall. Although seen in the summer, it is less common during that season. In the past, tuberculosis was the most common cause associated with EN. In the United States and Europe, β-hemolytic streptococcal infection is now the most common inciting agent. In cases of EN with undefined causes, it is often reported that a respiratory tract infection occurred before skin manifestations. Racial and geographic differences of incidence vary depending on the prevalence of diseases that are causative factors. In areas where certain causes of EN are prevalent (e.g., Coccidioides immitis, Behçet disease), EN may be seen in greater numbers EN has long been considered a hypersensitivity response to a wide variety of inciting factors. The large variability of potential antigenic triggers that can induce EN suggests that this disorder is a cutaneous reactive process. A delayed type of hypersensitivity reaction is suggested based on histopathologic features and despite the fact that direct immunofluorescence studies have shown the very occasional finding of immunoglobulin/immunoreactant deposits in the blood vessel walls of the septa in the subcutaneous fat, an immune complex–mediated vasculitis is not considered likely. It is probable that EN represents a nonspecific hypersensitivity reaction that involves a delayed type of hypersensitivity mechanism in addition to a type 3 component. Neutrophils are numerous in early lesions and produce reactive oxygen intermediates; these intermediates are suspected to provoke inflammation and tissue damage. Regardless of the exact mechanism, a wide variety of triggering factors has been linked to erythema nodosum. The reason that the anterior aspects of the legs are so susceptible for lesions is unknown. Some authors have proposed that there is no other site on the skin surface that has a combination of a relatively sparse arterial supply associated with a venous system subject to gravitational effects and cooling as well as a lymphatic system that is hardly efficient enough to meet the requirements of any increase in fluid load. In addition, the skin in this location has no mechanical stimulus and no underlying muscle pump; this area receives little in the way of massage. What complications might you expect from the disease or treatment of the disease? The complications associated with EN are those expected from the underlying systemic disease that may be the cause. In most idiopathic causes, EN resolves spontaneously with no serious sequelae. What is the evidence? Below are listed the texbooks, clinical studies, case reports and reviews of erythema nodosum in the literature. These are some of the most relevant studies and references because they focus on EN and its management in the pediatric population. Morin, D, Zini, R, Urien, S. “Labelling of rat brain beta-adrenoceptors: (3H)CGP-12177 or (125I) iodocyanopindolol?”. J Recept Res. vol. 12. 1992. pp. 369-87. Requena, L, Yus, ES. “Erythema nodosum”. Dermatol Clin. vol. 26. 2008. pp. 425-38. Modgil, G, Bridges, S. “Erythema nodosum associated with Shigella colitis in a 7-year-old boy”. Int J Infect Dis. vol. 11. 2007. pp. 556-7. Polcari, IC, Stein, SL. “Panniculitis in childhood”. Dermatol Ther. vol. 23. 2010. pp. 356-67. Kakourou, T, Drosatou, P, Psychou, F. “Erythema nodosum in children: a prospective study”. J Am Acad Dermatol. vol. 44. 2001. pp. 17-21. Hassink, RI, Pasquinelli-Egli, CE, Jacomella, V. “Conditions currently associated with erythema nodosum in Swiss children”. Eur J Pediatr. vol. 156. 1997. pp. 851-3. Labbé, L, Perel, Y, Maleville, J, Taïb, A. “Erythema nodosum in children: a study of 27 patients”. Pediatr Dermatol. vol. 13. 1996. pp. 447-50. Yi, SW, Kim, EH, Kang, HY. “Erythema nodosum: clinicopathologic correlations and their use in differential diagnosis”. Yonsei Med J. vol. 48. 2007. pp. 601-8. Garty, BZ, Poznanski, O. “Erythema nodosum in Israeli children”. Isr Med Assoc J. vol. 2. 2000. pp. 145-6. Moraes, A, Soares, PM, Zapata, AL. “Panniculitis in childhood and adolescence”. Pediatr Int. vol. 48. 2006. pp. 48-53. Bassi, N, Kersey, P. “Erythema nodosum complicating a case of kerion celsi of the scalp due to Trichophyton mentagrophytes”. Clin Exp Dermatol. vol. 34. 2009. pp. 621-2. La Spina, M, Russo, G. “Presentation of childhood acute myeloid leukemia with erythema nodosum”. J Clin Oncol. vol. 25. 2007. pp. 4011-2. Cenqiz, AB, Kara, A, Kanra, G. “Erythema nodosum in childhood: evaluation of ten patients”. Turk J Pediatr. vol. 48. 2006. pp. 38-42. Boyd, AS. “Etanercept treatment of erythema nodosum”. Skinmed. vol. 6. 2007. pp. 197-9. Clayton, TH, Walker, BP, Stables, GI. “Treatment of chronic erythema nodosum with infliximab”. Clin Exp Dermatol. vol. 31. 2006. pp. 823-4. “Aetiology of erythema nodosum in children. A study by a group of paediatricians”. Lancet. vol. 2. 1961. pp. 14-6. Bolognia, JL, Jorizzo, JL, Rapini, RP. Dermatology. 2003. Wolverton, SE. “Comprehensive Dermatologic Drug Therapy”. 2007. Paller, AS, Mancini, AJ. “Hurwitz Clinical Pediatric Dermatology: A Textbook of Skin Disorders of Childhood and Adolescents”. 2006. McKee, PH, Calonje, E, Granter, SR. “Pathology of the Skin with Clinical Correlations”. 2005. Copyright © 2017, 2013 Decision Support in Medicine, LLC. All rights reserved. No sponsor or advertiser has participated in, approved or paid for the content provided by Decision Support in Medicine LLC. The Licensed Content is the property of and copyrighted by DSM. - OVERVIEW: What every practitioner needs to know - Are you sure your patient has erythema nodosum? What are the typical findings for this disease? - What other disease/condition shares some of these symptoms? - What caused this disease to develop at this time? - What laboratory studies should you request to help confirm the diagnosis? How should you interpret the results? - If you are able to confirm that the patient has erythema nodosum, what treatment should be initiated? - What are the adverse effects associated with each treatment option? - What complications might you expect from the disease or treatment of the disease? - What is the evidence?

<urn:uuid:9210a513-27a2-4c15-a768-6a17a6e0f799>

|Home A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z| |Home C Carrots: Health Benefits of Carrots| The Health Benefits of Carrots One of the health benefits of carrots is well known: the carrot is rich in beta-carotene, which the body stores and converts to vitamin A as it is needed. Vitamin A deficiency leads to poor vision; thus, the age-old parental advice concerning the benefits of carrots to good vision can be scientifically supported. The many components (sometimes referred to as flavonoids) that cause fruits and vegetables to have different colors are believed to be important to human health. The compound that makes carrots and other vegetables orange is called "carotene", named aptly after the carrot. The overall importance of these individual compounds to human health is a matter of some debate. In other words, the health benefits of carrots may not be associated with one single compound, but with the numerous vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and dietary fiber that it contains. For many years scientists have isolated these individual components and studied their effects on human diseases in laboratory test tubes and animal models, as well as in clinical trials, which involve humans. The hope was that the benefits of carrots and other fruits and vegetables could be obtained by taking a "pill". Researchers have now shown that in many instances synthetic and isolated compounds can have toxic effects on the human body. This seems contradictory to the known health benefits of carrots and other fruits and vegetables, but it is likely that all of the different compounds found in a healthy diet work together. In addition, dietary sources of these isolated compounds do not exhibit any toxic effects in the test-tube or in human beings. As an example, some of the first supplements that came on the market contained a synthesized version of vitamin A derived from animal sources. Fish liver oils contain this form of vitamin A. It has been shown that too much vitamin A can be harmful or fatal. Thus, people taking large doses of pre-formed vitamin A, hoping to improve night vision or to obtain other benefits, have been the victims of what is called "vitamin A toxicity". This form of vitamin A is also suspected to contribute to osteoporosis, even at non-toxic levels. Beta-carotene, on the other hand, is stored in the body and converted to vitamin A on an "as-needed" basis, so there is no risk of vitamin A toxicity to counter the health benefits of carrots in the diet. Excessive consumption of beta-carotene or carrots can lead to a condition called "carotenosis", characterized by an orange tint to the skin. Otherwise, the condition is not dangerous. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant, which means that it counters the damaging effects of oxygen on the cells of the body. Various antioxidants have been evaluated as cancer preventatives, since damage to the cells by oxygen and other chemicals can lead to the formation of cancerous tumors. Many of the health benefits of carrots and other vegetables in the diet are related to the possibility of a reduced risk of cancer. The American Cancer Society recommends a diet rich in a variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains to obtain the most benefits. Researchers aware of a relationship between carotene-rich fruits and vegetables and a lower incidence of lung cancer have attempted to reproduce the effect of using beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin E and other supplements. The conclusion of these studies was surprising. Rather than reducing the growth of the cancer, these isolated compounds appeared to increase both the rate of growth and increase the risk of mortality from the lung cancers. The American Cancer Society has called for a warning to be placed on supplements containing these isolated compounds. A better option for people who want the health benefits of carrots in capsule form is found in whole food supplements. These whole food supplements -- Juice Plus+® being one of the most popular -- are manufactured by dehydrating and concentrating the whole food, whether it is fruits, vegetables or whole grains. About The Author: Glossary References Links Contact

<urn:uuid:301bcf27-6eed-4b1e-ba7c-8dafa6628f7d>

Lagos, the sixth largest and one of the fastest growing cities in the world, is struggling with unreliable public transportation. Buses, of poor quality and run mostly by individual bus operators, are vital part of Lagos’ transportation network, with close to sixteen million bus trips made daily in the city. The streets are teeming with over 75,000 minibuses known to locals as danfos (minibuses carrying 8 to 25 passengers) and molues (larger minibuses with a passenger capacity of 30 to 50). Traffic congestion is rife and public transport costs to users constitute over 20 percent of disposable income. The lack of planning and management capacity contributed to the poor level of urban transport services. Improving the capacity of the public transport system to cope with the population growth is clearly of critical importance for Lagos. As a result, the Lagos Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) was created in 2002 with the mission to “transform the state transport system by facilitating an enabling environment.” The Lagos Urban Transport Project (LUTP) was designed with the objective to enhance the efficiency of the transport network in such a way that it contributes measurably to poverty reduction, and to sustainably improve the sector management capacity. The project draws from best practice in Bogota (Colombia) and Curitiba (Brazil), and adapts the concept of Bus Rapid Transit to African context. The BRT is a bus-based mass transit system that delivers fast, comfortable and cost-effective service. Through the provision of exclusive right-of-way lanes and excellence in customer service, BRT essentially emulates the performance and amenity characteristics of a modern rail-based transit system, but at a fraction of the cost. So far, the project has yielded improved institutional capacity for urban transport management and provided benefits of new bus system in record time. It has demonstrated and confirmed the strategic role of public transportation in a mega city and the critical role of commitment and leadership at the highest levels of government. - Time and money spent by poor households on travel was reduced from 90 minutes and Naira 150 in 2003, to 23 minutes and Naira 100 by June 2009 - Money spent by poor households on public transportation as a share of income was reduced from 17 percent in 2003 to 11 percent by June 2009 - Average pilot bus route waiting time at terminal was reduced from 20 minutes in 2003 to 10 minutes by June 2009 - All internal procedural manuals of LAMATA were established and LAMATA fully operational - The Bus Rapid Transit system was completed in less than 15 months from conception to implementation. The BRT system, launched in March 2008, is the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, and is the first example of a comprehensive and an integrated approach to improving public transportation. - BRT system has created direct employment for more than 1,000 people, mostly graduates; and indirect employment to more than 500,000 people in the state. - Preliminary studies suggest that thus far, more than 200,000 commuters use the BRT system, which exceeds expected usage by 100 percent. BRT passengers also enjoy a 30 percent reduction in average fare costs (from 140 Naira in the past to 100 Naira currently) despite the 100 percent rise in fuel costs since commencement. Commuters also enjoy a 40 percent reduction in journey time, cut average waiting time by 35 percent, and experience a welcomed absence of exposure to robbery on public transport. This has been made possible by introducing discipline in operations (route franchising), an increase in average speed (from less than 15 km/hour to 25 km/hour), and creating an enabling environment (investing in infrastructure needs). - The bus operations (both capital and operating costs) are fully financed by the bus operators at a fare which is almost 30 percent lower than the existing fare for danfos and molues. - Evaluation has declared the BRT system a success, defining the critical success factors as being: significant and consistent political commitment, the presence and abilities of a strategic public transport authority in LAMATA, scheme definition that concentrates on essential user needs and deliverability within a budget and program, the work undertaken to engage key stakeholders and ensure that those that benefit are multiple, a community engagement program that has ensured that BRT-Lite is seen as a community project created, owned and used by Lagotians. The project cost was US$130 million, of which $100 million was provided by IDA and the Nigerian government. In 2007, the Board approved US$50 million additional financing to the project, so to cover the financing gap resulting from unanticipated cost overrun and to scale up the bus services enhancement component. IDA was able to draw on its international experience in helping to design and introduce a successful model of Bus Rapid Transit. It drew from best practice in Bogota (Colombia) and Curitiba (Brazil), and adapted the concept of Bus Rapid Transit to African context. The study was conducted in close partnership with a number of government agencies, including the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the National Planning Commission. The National Planning Commission also played a crucial role in organizing the dissemination of the report. Other development partners were not directly involved in the study. Toward the Future The visibility created by the 22 km BRT-Lite corridor has produced substantial demand for additional mass transit service to be developed in the Lagos metropolitan area. The World Bank, joined by the “Agence Française de Développement” (AFD) is currently working with its partner LAMATA to prepare a new project (LUTP 2) to help meet some of this demand, at a total cost of about $350 million. This project was delivered at very low cost per kilometer as compared to BRT projects in other parts of the world (about US$2 million/km as compared to US$5-$10 million in similar schemes in others parts of the world). As such, it could be of interest for replicating along other corridors and low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

<urn:uuid:6fc855f2-7d64-41cc-a1f8-476b9c255028>

- Shopping Bag ( 0 items ) Children's LiteratureThe colorful cover of this book places Delfina the Dolphin face to face with a fish. The inviting artwork pulls readers inside, where Delfina imagines what it would be like if she were a different creature. She imagines being a fish, turtle, shark, manatee, bird, and an octopus. The text presents a ton of interesting facts about these creatures, and the author cleverly makes comparisons between the characteristics of dolphins and the others. How they breathe, smell, and keep warm are but a few of the comparisons made. Bright, realistic illustrations add flavor. In one, a cut-away view of Delfina's skeletal make-up has extra appeal. The lesson that it is fun and okay to use imaginations comes across well. Back matter consists of extra dolphin facts and an activity that allows for creating dolphin adaptations. More information about the publisher's books and links can be found at www.SylvanDellPublishing.com. The all-encompassing format allows teachers and librarians to use this book for a variety of classroom lessons. The text is a fun read, engaging, and well structured. Readers can pick it up, crack open the cover, and enjoy. 2006, Sylvan Dell Publishing, Ages 4 to 8. —Nancy Garhan Attebury

<urn:uuid:f70e440f-2053-4553-9333-c1c8c456d4d5>

Click here to view those resources : Parents’ Self-Improvement | Millions of Stories. Have you lately been in a situation you wanted to change? A boring party maybe? Being nervous about a presentation you need to do in few minutes? Or the fear of going to swim in the ocean maybe? You can change this quickly… Read on to know how! Yesterday, I read to my son the story “The Dinofours, It’s Beach Day!” by Steven Metzger and Hans Wilhelm. It stroked me how similar it is to something I learned and applied recently in my own life, that is : I can always and quickly change the way I perceive any situation. It is my own and sole decision to change it or to not change it. Isn’t that powerful? It’s easy! Read on to know how… “The Dinofours are going to the beach for the very first time. They are all excited but somewhat afraid also to go swimming in the immense ocean. Everyone in the class is saying that Tara will for sure go first because she is never afraid of anything. However, it turned out that Tara is afraid of the ocean! She finds herself very small compared to the big ocean and do not want to go swimming in there. While everyone else ends up going, Tara stays alone on the beach, playing in the sand, looking at others having fun. After a while, she starts thinking of a few occasions in her life where she has been brave and courageous. She found an example, then 2, then more and more and more! She begins to feel better, to think that after all, she can also go and have fun with her friends in the ocean! She says in herself ; “I’m courageous, I can swim in the ocean!”, then she wakes up, starts walking through the water, put a feet in, then go deeper and start swimming! She become very proud of her and have lots of fun with her friends!” When you think of it, nothing around Tara has changed in this story from the beginning to the end. The ocean is the same, not better, not worst, her friends were and are still swimming and having fun. What changed then to make Tara decides that she was now able to go? Only her thoughts have changed. Only the way she decided to see the situation has changed. That actually made a huge difference on how she was able to approach and overcome her fears. This can be applied not only to fears but to any situation you would like to change. Just start thinking on how you want to feel rather than focusing on how you feel now. Start feeling how you want to feel, amplify it by speaking to yourself like Tara did. That’s the key! Think “I’m courageous!” instead of “I’m afraid!”. By applying this simple technique myself, I’ve been able to turn a boring office Christmas party into one of the best party I ever had. I have been able to do an excellent presentation in which I felt confident and in complete control. By teaching this technique to my daughter, she has been able to improve drastically how loud she speaks in front of her class. She has been able to control her pain once she hurt herself very bad while doing bicycle. And there is so many other examples… it’s just unbelievable how simple and effective this technique is. Give it a try yourself… when you do not like a situation you are in, start thinking on how you want to feel about it instead. Tell it to yourself like Tara : “I’m courageous, I can swim in the ocean!”. Convince yourself about it. You won’t believe how easy it is and how much of a difference it makes. As of today, I got 3 stories in my bank to tell to the children I will meet all around the world! Any other suggestions to offer? What are the best stories you ever read to your children? Or the best stories you remember from your childhood? Share them with us! By the way… we’re still accepting candidates to read stories in all continents of the world! “The Scaredy Squirrel is a squirrel which always stay in its tree. Always, always. It is simply too afraid of the unknown to go down. He is scared of tarantulas, bacteria, sharks, bees, aliens and a few more things. Everyday, it follows the same routine. It wakes up, looks around, eats a nut, looks around, eats a nut, looks around and go to sleep. Same thing every single day. With its emergency kit and evacuation plan, It is all prepared for every single dangerous event that can happen. One day however, it sees a bee! A killer bee! Right away it panics and let fall down its emergency kit. Nothing happens as planned! So he jumps down to try to catch its kit, but… mistake! The parachute is inside the kit! …then, something unexpected happen. (here I won’t tell what exactly to leave some suspense. 😉 ). Since then, the Scaredy Squirrel learned that the “unknown” is not that terrifying after all. He even got to change its routine in order to “jump in the unknown” everyday.” When I read this story to my little boy, it made me think of myself. What would happen if I would step out of my regular routine, jump into new challenges or activities? Sometimes, we’re afraid of moving only by fear of the unknown. If we stop 2 minutes, look back and try to remember what happened the last few times we jumped or were forced to jump in the unknown, was it for the best or for the worst? Most of the time we would realize it was for the best. The first few moments may have been difficult, the time needed to adapt, but then, in most cases, we wouldn’t want to go back. Follow your dreams, your instincts, even if that means “jumping in the unknown”… that can only be for the best! Back to the story… How about you? Have you ever read a story to your child, which in fact made you think of your own behavior? If so, share it with us here. By the way, check out my new Pinterest board which shows “My Favorite Kindergarten stories”!

<urn:uuid:3b5ac3f1-1dd7-4ec9-86e5-dc16ea801efd>

Welcome to biology-online.org! Please login to access all site features. Create account. Log me on automatically each visit | Page history | Printable version a nucleus located in the middle hypothalamus in the most ventral part of the third ventricle near the entrance of the infundibular recess. Its small cells are in close contact with the ependyma. Please contribute to this project, if you have more information about this term feel free to edit this page This page was last modified 21:16, 3 October 2005. This page has been accessed 877 times. What links here | Related changes | Permanent link © Biology-Online.org. All Rights Reserved. Register | Login | About Us | Contact Us | Link to Us | Disclaimer & Privacy | Powered by CASPION

<urn:uuid:e13a363b-0fc2-439a-9d54-13d2369d56e5>

From the unpublished manuscript, Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and Holston Rivers, pages 202-204. The most puzzling enigma in this study of the Virginia frontier has been in trying to unravel the slaying of Henry Hamlin's wives. Hamlin was twice married, both wives were named Mary, both killed by Indians, and I have been unable to find any official record or document that gives the exact date of the slaying of either. L. P. Summers, History of Southwest Virginia, page 365, states: In 1781 the Indians visited the home of Henry Hamlin on Clinch River near Castlewood, and Mrs. Hamlin defended her home with a musket that wouldn't shoot, and again in the spring of 1782, they again visited the home, killing Mrs. Hamlin and all her children, except one little boy who was carried away into captivity. In the above paragraph Summers is speaking of the first Mrs. Hamlin, who family tradition says was, before marriage, Mary Dickenson. I doubt that she was killed in the spring of 1782, and all her family was not destroyed. Certainly Champ and John Hamlin, her sons, were not. John Hamlin was born June 30, 1782. (1) I am rather inclined to believe that this Mary Hamlin was killed in 1783, during the attack on the fort at Hamlin's Mill in Castlewood. (2) Henry Hamlin lived in upper Castlewood until sometime after the slaying of his first wife. Henry Hamlin married as his second wife, Mary, the daughter of Joseph Blackmore. This Mary had been married to Jessee Adams, who along, with ten of their children was killed by the Indians on Stock Creek in 1782. Certainly it was after this date that Henry Hamlin married her, and therefore Champ and John Hamlin could not have been her children. After leaving Castlewood Henry Hamlin lived for a while in Powell Valley and in 1788, (3) was living in Rye Cove in what is now Scott Co., VA. In his pension claim for Revolutionary service filed in Floyd Co., KY, James Fraley states: About the same time (that Thomas Osborne was killed in 1790), or a few weeks after, they (Indians) killed Mary Hamlin, wife of Henry Hamlin. In this statement James Fraley is certainly referring to the second Mary Hamlin. R. M. Addington, History of Scott County, page 92, reads: The records and traditions preserved by the descendants of Henry Hamlin state that he was born March 25, 1740; that on coming to Southwest Virginia, he married a Miss Dickenson; that four sons, Francis, Charles, Champ and John, were born to this marriage; that Mrs. Henry Hamlin was killed by the Indians at Fort Blackmore, August 17, 1790; that at the same time, Champ, then a boy of ten years of age, was captured and carried west, but eventually was transported into Canada, where he was ransomed by a French trader and taken to Quebec, from which place he was sent by boat to Norfolk, and that from Norfolk he made his way back to his home near Ft. Blackmore; that two of the boys Charles and John, were saved from the Indians by a Negro slave, a giant in stature and weighing three hundred and fifty pounds; that for this act the slave was given his freedom and a small farm some six miles south of Jonesville; that Henry Hamlin died at Fort Blackmore in August, 1815. (J. S. Hamlin's letter, May 19, 1918.) The above paragraph is referring to the children of the first Mary Hamlin, but the date of her death is that of the second Mary. It is doubtful if the second Mary had children from her marriage to Henry Hamlin. She was the widow of Jessee Adams, as previously stated, an had twelve children by him, ten of which were slain along with Adams in 1782. She also had a daughter, Cynthia Chadwell, which must have been by a marriage previous to her marriage with Jessee Adams. To have been the mother of thirteen children prior to 1782, she certainly must have been well up in years when she married Henry Hamlin. Henry Hamlin first settled on the north side of Clinch River in upper Castlewood in 1769. He lived here until after his first wife was killed in the early 1780s. He witnessed the probation of the will of James Coyle, who lived just east of the village of Blackford in Upper Russell County, on the 15th of August 1780, as did his brother, Daniel Hamlin. He most likely moved from this area sometime between 1783 and 1786. (1) Lee Co., VA Death Register, page 5, line 16. (2) See Letter of Capt. Daniel Smith, page 121, this MSS. (3) Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, page 442

<urn:uuid:d27b4229-8cfd-4495-8932-26361353a5b1>

Information Exchange & Partnerships The Climate Action Branch is dedicated to working with internal and external partners, both within California and nationally to ensure we stay at the forefront of climate research and projects. Our broad range of partners includes: The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) organized a climate change peer-exchange with representatives from Washington, Oregon and California DOTs to discuss climate change issues for the West Coast. The three states shared lessons learned, and discussed the development of common approaches for climate change adaptation. The three states continue to work together on climate change issues affecting the West Coast. California Climate Action Team (CAT) Caltrans is a member of the California State Agency Climate Action Team. The CATs mission is to coordinate statewide efforts to implement global warming emission reduction programs, and implement the state’s Climate Adaptation Strategy. The CAT is subdivided into nine working groups, and Caltrans is a member of the Coastal and Ocean Climate Adaptation Team (CO-CAT), the Land Use and Infrastructure Working Group (CCLU-In), the Research Working Group, and the State Government Working Group. Ocean Protection Council Sea-Level Rise Guidance and Resolution The Coastal Ocean Climate Action Team (CO-CAT) established the sea level risk task force of the Coastal and Ocean Working Group to develop sea level rise scenarios for the state while awaiting the results of the National Academies of Sciences study. The scenarios were developed in a document jointly prepared by 16 state agencies titled: Sea Level Rise Task Force Interim Guidance Document. In addition to the interim guidance document, the Ocean Protection Council prepared a resolution on sea-level rise. On March 11, 2011 both documents were presented to the Ocean Protection Council Board and adopted. The Climate Registry is the leading voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) registry in North America. The Registry provides tools and guidance for organizations to measure their GHG emissions. Caltrans gained the prestigious title of Climate Action Leader, in 2007 when the Department reported emissions and had them third party verified. As a member, Caltran's continues to annually calculate greenhouse gas emissions produced by Department facilities and operations. Caltrans Climate Change Workgroup The Climate Change Branch organized an internal workgroup comprised of various Divisions to discuss climate change issues important to the Department. The Climate Change Workgroup acts as the clearinghouse for climate change policy and a decision-making forum to discuss climate change issues that could effect the Department.

<urn:uuid:4fe88426-99e0-4997-bea2-6fb38ab6465e>

Global warming kicks into high gear Down Under By Bob Berwyn FRISCO — The New Year is barely a week old, but extreme weather continues, this time in the Southern hemisphere, where parts of Australia reached unprecedented high temperatures, in some cases ranging upward of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. For the sake of comparison, Death Valley reported a reading of 136 degrees way back in July, 1913. Temperatures during the recent Australian heatwave were so warm that the country’s meteorology bureau added a new color to its temperature-scale map — bright purple, designating readings of warmer than 50 degrees Celsius (129 Fahrenheit). Read the latest update from the bureau here. If you think I’m kidding, guess again. Here’s part of the statement from the World Meteorological Organization: “Large parts of central and southern Australia are currently under the influence of a persistent and widespread heat wave event, leading to a number of new temperature maximums. The Bureau of Meteorology expects further significant records to be set. The heat wave, which is pushing the limits of previous temperature extremes, has required an adjustment of the scale used to represent forecast temperatures with new colours representing 50-52°C and 52-54°C.” At about the same time, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center made the formal announcement that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the contiguous 48 states, beating the previous 1998 record by a full degree. The predictable voices of global warming deniers will once again chime in to say that a single weather event can’t be attributed to climate change and global warming, but just ask yourself, how hot does it have to get? Yet another sign: The start of the Australian monsoon season was delayed, which exacerbated the heatwave and associated wave of wildfires. And just in the past few weeks, researchers have offered yet more evidence that global warming will significantly delay the onset of monsoonal patterns all around the world. The recent record highs are the culmination of a long stretch of warm weather, as the country experienced its warmest spring to summer season (September to December), with temperatures running 1.61 degrees Celsius above average. The start of the current heat wave event traces back to late December 2012, and all states and territories have seen unusually hot temperatures with many site records approached or exceeded across southern and central Australia. The current heatwave event commenced with a build up of extreme heat in the southwest of Western Australia from 25-30 December 2012 as a high in the Bight and a trough near the west coast directed hot easterly winds over the area. Particularly hot conditions were observed on the 30th, with Cape Naturaliste observing 37.7 degrees Celsius, its hottest December day in 56 years of record. Not only has the heatwave been long-lasting, it’s also covered an exceptionally large area, resulting in a new national average temperature record. Through Jan. 7, the national area-average for each of the first 7 days of 2013 has been in the top 20 hottest days on record, with Jan. 6 the fifth-hottest on record and the first time 6 consecutive days over 39 degrees Celsius has ever been recorded for Australia. Filed under: climate and weather, global warming, world news Tagged: | Australia, Australia heatwave, Australia temperature records, Bureau of Meteorology, climate change, global warming, World Meteorological Organization

<urn:uuid:992d4179-d8d7-4229-99e8-b0edc79c47d2>

Nipkow Scanning Disk Build Yourself a Nipkow Scanning Disk |This method of making your own scanning disk was first described in 1928 |Although patented in 1884, it wasn't until some 40 to 50 years later that it finally came into significant use. By then it had developed into lens and mirror types, multiple spirals and some even with color filters over the holes. Other users bent the edge of the movies, all of the scanning holes were located on the same radius. The point being that the Nipkow disk was produced in many varieties, but by far, the original design was the most common. And for the experimenter, it was and still is the most popular. However, keep in mind that the scanning disks are an important part of the optical systems that will be dissecting or reconstituting the image in your camera and receiver. The quality of your scanning disks has a strong bearing on the final appearance of the image you actually achieve. Building your own disks is acceptable if you are willing to "just get by". But if you want to see images on your system of the same quality as those experimenters that used Jenkins or Sanabria parts, you need to use precision made parts. I have these parts available for you at prices that are actually lower than their cost in the depression years, considering inflation since those times. Check them out. |For your first attempt at making your own Nipkow disk, you might consider using cardboard about .032 thick, enerally obtainable from artist supply shops. A twelve inch diameter disk is a good size to begin with and by scanning holes this disk will have. For now let's say that this disk will have 24 holes. The holes will need to be equally spaced in angle around the disk. A circle is usually divided into 360 parts or degrees. By dividing 360 by the number of holes, you will know that the angle between holes in this case is 15 degrees. If you have limited tools, the easiest way to locate and mark the angular location of each hole is to use a straight edge and pencil. Divide the circle into two equal parts. Next, divide and mark each of the two halves into two equal quarters and then into eighths. Finally, divide each eighth into three parts. You now have the circle divided into 24 equal segments and the line between each segment is the angular location of each scanning hole. This 12 inch disk will provide an image that is approximately 1.5 inches square, horizontally scanned when viewed at the 12 o'clock position on the disk. When viewed at the 3 o'clock position the image appears vertically scanned. The scanning holes will be .063 inches in diameter and if you are using cardboard, a drill bit, large needle or even a nail will do. With other materials, a 1/16" drill bit should be used. No matter what material, a light center punch mark is advised at each hole location, prior to drilling. The first hole of the 24 holes in the spiral will be located on any one of the lines and .25 inches in from the outer edge of the disk. The second hole is located on the next line, 1/16 inch nearer the center of the disk. Each hole, as you move around the disk, is 1/16 inch nearer the center, in respect to the previous hole.The final step is to drill the center hole for the motor shaft and hub. It is important that it be in the exact center, so careful drilling is in order. Another method for locating the holes, once the disk is divided into equal segments, is to place a non-rotating peg of a certain diameter in the center of the disk (in this case, just under .5 inches in diameter), and tie a marker or stylus with a short length of piano wire or cord to the center peg. As you move the marker around the disk, the cord wraps onto the peg, pulling the marker inward the proper amount as it goes. As the marker crosses each line, you can mark the spot for the hole. Finally, for appearance sake, a light coating of a flat black spray paint will give your work a more professional look. Except for mounting, your disk is ready. Good Luck. All rights reserved.

<urn:uuid:a2536a63-13f3-490c-9528-ddfcad23223d>

3. Ask questions, address concerns, and provide guidance about how your toddler is: Eating.Feed your toddler three meals and two or three scheduled nutritious snacks a day. Growth slows in the second year so don't be surprised if your child's appetite decreases. Your child can drink from a cup and use a spoon but probably prefers to finger-feed. Peeing and pooping. You may notice your child's diapers are dryer for longer periods, but most children do better with toilet training when they're a little bit older, usually between 2 and 3 years. Let your doctor know if your child has diarrhea, is constipated, or has poop that's hard to pass. Sleeping. There's a wide range of normal, but generally toddlers need about 11-13 hours of sleep a day, including one or two daytime naps. By 18 months, most toddlers have given up their morning nap. Developing. By 18 months, it's common for many toddlers to: 4. Perform a physical exam with your child undressed. This will include an eye exam, tooth exam, listening to the heart and lungs, and paying attention to your toddler's motor skills and behavior. 5. Update immunizations.Immunizations can protect kids from serious childhood illnesses, so it's important that your child receive them on time. Immunization schedules can vary from office to office, so talk to your doctor about what to expect. Here are some things to keep in mind until your next routine visit at 2 years: Give your child whole milk (not low-fat or skim milk) until 2 years of age. Serve milk and juice in a cup and limit juice to no more than 4 ounces (120 ml) a day. Food "jags" are common during the toddler years. Even if your child seems to get stuck on one food, continue serving a variety of foods. Let your child decide what to eat and when he or she has had enough. Toddlers learn best by interacting with people and exploring their environment. Make time to talk, read, and play with your child every day. TV viewing (or other screen time, including computers) can interfere with the brain development of young children. Therefore, TV is not recommended for those under 2 years old. Protect your child from gun injuries by not keeping a gun in the home. If you do have a gun, keep it unloaded and locked away. Ammunition should be locked up separately. Make sure kids cannot access the keys. These checkup sheets are consistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)/Bright Futures guidelines.

<urn:uuid:22e796e8-47d3-4b68-97da-6e8ccee95fa7>