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Catastrophism was de deory dat de Earf had wargewy been shaped by [...] . p. 709.
- "Uniformitarianism". The Cowumbia Encycwopedia (6f ed.). Cowumbia University Press. 2007. Archived from de originaw on 2006-06-24.
- Bewbruno, J. R.; Gott III, J. Richard (2005). "Where Did The Moon Come From?". The Astronomicaw Journaw. 129 (3): 1724–1745. arXiv: . Bibcode:2005AJ....129.1724B. doi:10.1086/427539.
- "Moonwawk" (PDF). Geowogicaw Society of London. September 2009. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
- Binder, A.B. (1974). "On de origin of de Moon by rotationaw fission". The Moon. 11 (2): 53–76. Bibcode:1974Moon, uh-hah-hah-hah...11...53B. doi:10.1007/BF01877794.
- Stevenson, D. J. (1987). "Origin of de Moon-The Cowwision Hypodesis". Annuaw Review of Earf and Pwanetary Sciences. 15: 271–315. Bibcode:1987AREPS..15..271S. doi:10.1146/annurev.ea.15.050187.001415.
- King, Cwarence (1877). "Catastrophism and Evowution". The American Naturawist. 11 (8): 449–470. doi:10.1086/271929.
- Rudwick, Martin J. S. (1972). | <urn:uuid:c1ad5802-d34d-4479-8c13-0b4bed1f4c14> | 512 | 23 |
The Model Economy
This model economy is a simplified version of the flexible price model discussed in the appendix of the working paper. This model is a Real Business Cycle (RBC) DSGE model, with a “pure endowment” economy (there is no labour required to create output).
- You are the head of the “representative household” (which is assumed to have heirs for all time), and your decisions somehow represent the whole household sector.
- You have an apple tree in your back yard that produces 100 apples per year, and that is the total economic output for the economy.
- You hold $1 in money at present, which we label as time zero.
- You want to maximise your household utility over from t=0 to infinity. Your utility is based only upon the number of apples you eat in each period. Future consumption also gives utility, but you apply a discount rate on future consumption.
So the question is: what is the trajectory of economic variables that maximises your utility?
Price Level Indeterminacy
The problem with this situation is that it is unclear what the price of apples should be. You get no utility from holding money, only by eating apples. It is very clear that the optimal solution is that you consume all 100 apples every year. (In other words, the economy fully utilises all the real resources of the economy, which is a characteristic of Real Business Cycle models.)
Although there is no debate about the trajectory of the real variables, the question is what is happening in the monetary economy. Since the optimal strategy for the household is to consume all of its apples and there are no other apples to buy, the household has no use for its money in transactions. You could interpret this in two ways:
- Money is worthless, and the price of apples are infinite.
- The value of money is unknown (indeterminate), but the number of apples that will be supplied at any price is zero.
In order to create a demand for money, the government has to impose taxes. (This is the key argument behind Chartalism, which is the theory of state money.) The household wants to hold money to pay future taxes, as the government will not loan it money in order to allow it to meet tax obligations. For some unknown reason it is assumed that the household gets | <urn:uuid:addb84fc-00be-4d82-9c13-fb026c3464bc> | 512 | 0 |
The Model Economy
This model economy is a simplified version of the flexible price model discussed in [...] no utility from meeting tax obligations (by avoiding the “disutility” of being thrown in jail for not paying taxes), rather this obligation is enforced as a constraint on the optimal solution.* This constraint leads to what he refers to as the Government Bond Valuation formula:
(This formula is described in my previous post.)
For simplicity, I will short-circuit the infinite sum in the formula and reduce it to a single-period condition.
What is assumed that the government pays off the debt in the next period, and runs a balanced budget for all time thereafter. In this case, the Bond Valuation Formula collapses to:
The real (face) value of government debt = the present value of the real primary surplus in period 1, discounted at the real rate of return.
The argument is that the value of the debt must be this value because:
- If the surplus is more than that, the household sector would end the period with a negative amount of money, and we assumed that the government will not lend money to households.
- The surplus is less than that (or there is a deficit), the household will end up with positive financial assets at the end of the period, which will never be taxed away. He argues that the household would want to trade away the excess financial asset holdings (which are government liabilities – debt and money).
(I believe there is a leap in logic in the second case, but I will discuss that elsewhere.)
One important thing to note that in this simplified framework, the government undertakes no operations in the real economy – it does not supply or demand goods (apples, in the current example). This simplifies the analysis, but it is also what helps drive the indeterminacy of the price level. The operations in financial assets are completely decoupled from the transactions in apples (since the household is both buying and selling the same amount of apples, the net cash flows due to apples are always zero).
The interesting thing is how the surplus has to be defined – it has to be defined in real terms. For my example, assume that the household discount rate and the interest rate is zero to keep the numbers simple. In this case, the price level would be expected to be constant. Since the initial amount of government liabilities is | <urn:uuid:addb84fc-00be-4d82-9c13-fb026c3464bc> | 512 | 23 |
The Model Economy
This model economy is a simplified version of the flexible price model discussed in [...] $1, the surplus would have to $1 at time 1 in order eliminate the outstanding government liabilities. But if that fiscal strategy was specified in nominal terms, there is nothing to pin down the price level.
Instead, Cochrane’s paper defines the amount of tax as a percentage of nominal income. If the tax rate was set at 1% of nominal income, the household would set the price of 1 apple at $1. This means that the household nominal income is $100 (100 apples times $1), and so it has a tax liability of $1. If the tax rate were 2%, the price of an apple would be $0.50, as 2% of $50 gives the required $1 in taxes. Since the amount of taxes is the same percentage of GDP regardless of the price level, the tax is effectively defined in real terms.
As he notes, having taxes being specified in real terms makes sense. This matches practice for most modern taxes, as we rarely see head taxes that are fixed nominal amounts.
Monetary Policy – Pah!
Looking at the Bond Valuation Formula carefully shows an interesting property of the price level – its path will be determined by the path of surpluses. The only role of monetary policy is to affect the level of interest payments, which influences the amount of government debt outstanding.
In the working paper, John Cochrane discusses this in detail, and he gives examples how monetary policy “works” by creating a fiscal response. I do not have a lot to add, other than agreeing with the point that fiscal policy and monetary policy need to be coordinated. This should not be a surprise to most economists, but it may be news to some members of the ECB.
Budget Constraint Or Valuation Rule?
There is a small literature discussing the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, and the main debate is whether the Bond Valuation Formation/Governmental Budget Constraint is a constraint on behaviour, or a valuation formula. The standard view is that it is a constraint on behaviour that must hold (largely by assumption); the alternative view is that the valuation of government debt and/or the price level adjusts to the expected fiscal path. | <urn:uuid:addb84fc-00be-4d82-9c13-fb026c3464bc> | 512 | 23 |
The Model Economy
This model economy is a simplified version of the flexible price model discussed in [...]
If the initial price level for the economy has not been determined, such as in flexible price models, and there are no “monetary frictions”** the valuation interpretation seems to be the most tenable. (UPDATE: I discuss monetary frictions further in this article.) There is no other way of fixing the initial price level. The central bank can determine the path of inflation, but that is the rate of change of the price level relative to an indeterminate initial level.
If the initial price level is fixed (that is, it was assumed to be fixed in the previous time step), then the valuation rule runs into difficulties. The left hand side of the equation is fixed, and there is nothing that forces the right hand side to match the left hand side. For example, the government could just decide to run deficits, and thus the right hand side would never sum to the positive quantity on the left hand side of the equation. That said, if the initial price level is assumed to be fixed, it is unclear that the government budget constraint must hold, for the same reason.
Equilibrium Versus Off-Equilibrium
Part of the discussion of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level in the literature revolves around “equilibrium” versus “out of equilibrium” states. To my mind, this discussion is confused, and based on verbal discussions of supply and demand curves in the absence of modelled time. In DSGE models, the trajectory of economic variables (or at least their expected values) are the solution to an optimisation problem – which is implicitly assumed to exist and be unique. The possibility that economic variables (like prices) do not follow this optimal trajectory (or trajectories) is rejected. If we allow the possibility of non-optimal solutions, the models tell us nothing, since any trajectory that meets accounting constraints becomes a valid solution, and there is no way to distinguish which one to use.
In the mathematics of dynamic systems, an equilibrium is a point in the state space where the state variable would remain if it starts at exactly that point. It is not a property of the entire trajectory of the state variable, which is what DSGE model solutions are. Broadly speaking, the discussion of equilibrium appears to be a verbal projection of the properties of the real world onto a system of mathematical equations. | <urn:uuid:addb84fc-00be-4d82-9c13-fb026c3464bc> | 512 | 23 |
In the past, the price of just about everything increased over time but thanks to technology, many products and services are getting progressively cheaper and in many cases, better. In the 1980s, you could have paid 25 cents per-minute for a domestic long-distance call and dollars per-minute for international long-distance. Not only has the price of a long-distance call dramatically decreased over time, today, IP communications assigns no per-minute cost to communicate. In fact, you can now use Skype (News - Alert) to set up a free baby monitor a continent away with HD-quality video and audio that puts the phone company's quality to shame.
More impressively, today’s smartphones pack the punch of mainframes or even supercomputers from about a decade ago, and they are far cheaper. The first flat-screen TVs cost thousands of dollars, but now we can get a similar or even better quality TV viewing experience on a tablet or smartphone via a free app. Wi-Fi and 4G/LTE (News - Alert) have turned every connected area into a virtual office, allowing parents the ability to easily work while keeping an eye on kids or while being engaged in other activities. Software has improved manufacturing, inventory management, customer service, analytics and anything else you can think of that boosts productivity.?Decades ago a cheap or out-of-tune automobile would have lots of trouble starting and would stall often in the cold weather. Thanks to current automation, cars almost always start, run and will soon be able to drive themselves.
Yet at every turn there are naysayers who say technology destroys jobs. The argument could have been easily made that the industrial revolution would be a job killer. If there was ever a new technology that should have eliminated employment it was the one that almost eliminated the need for manual labor.?
The invention of the car eliminated the jobs of countless farm hands and blacksmiths making horse shoes, but somehow more jobs were created after this invention. Electricity adoption meant even less manual labor was needed thanks to powered sewing machines, dishwashers and other devices. It's application to the modern house and factory should have killed even more jobs.?The fax machine allowed you to get a contract across the world in seconds for a ridiculously small amount of money. It should have eliminated millions of jobs and sank the global economy. | <urn:uuid:0811f4c5-3cd0-4cc0-989e-0bb67fc84bd2> | 512 | 0 |
With a second huge hurricane hitting America in under a month, climate change is on everyone’s lips. Trump has famously denounced climate change as a “hoax”, however, the unprecedented nature of these natural disasters is hard to go unnoticed. Were Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma man-made?
Hurricane season happens at this time of year when the Atlantic Ocean is at its warmest, right after a summer of hot weather. Warm, moist air rises from the surface of the ocean, and as it does, it condenses and leaves an area of low air pressure below that is quickly filled by more air. This shifting of air causes high-speed winds that spiral fast, creating a low pressure center—otherwise known as the ‘eye’ of a hurricane. The faster the winds blow, the lower the air pressure is in the center, causing the storm to feed itself and become stronger. A tropical storm has winds that reach at least 39mph, and it is upgraded to hurricane status when the winds reach 74mph and above.
Hurricane Harvey developed near the Caribbean, while Hurricane Irma developed near the Cape Verde Islands in the central Atlantic Ocean. Both have been record-breaking storms. Hurricane Harvey was defined as the most major hurricane to make landfall in the US in 12 years. It was compared to Hurricane Katrina; thankfully not in casualties, but rather in economic costs. Experts have named it the most costly natural disaster in US history as it caused an unprecedented rainfall in Texas.
Hurricane Irma was hot on the heels of Harvey, and has been defined as the eastern-most Atlantic hurricane of this strength on record, second most powerful of its kind when it comes to sustained wind speeds, and longest Category 5 hurricane since records began. These incredible statistics have not gone unnoticed, with many claiming that climate change is at fault.
Climate change is said to cause ocean water to become warmer and to cause sea levels to rise. As hurricanes are created by warm, moist air, it’s clear to see why people make the link—warmer, moist air means a more fertile environment for a storm to begin.
This is the first time the US has been hit by two Category 4 storms in the same year. As climate change causes rising sea | <urn:uuid:d8e5e228-f9f7-43cc-89e6-44fab236ca66> | 512 | 0 |
RESOURCES for WRITERS & ILLUSTRATORS of CHILDREN'S PICTUREBOOKS
My top 4 suggestions:
- Read, read, read and don’t stop reading children’s books in your genre!
- For a bit of kidlit history and sheer brilliance, read Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus, with an introduction by Maurice Sendak.
- Learn all you can about the children’s publishing industry and how to navigate it, starting with Harold Underdown’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books.
- Connect with other writers and illustrators of children’s books, by joining SCBWI.
Want more? Here you go…
The Purple Crayon. A really terrific website by a former editor, Harold Underdown, that is full of all kinds of information – excerpts from his book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books, and other basic info about writing children’s books and getting them published; interviews with authors, editors, and agents; book reviews; publishing news, and other topics. A great place to begin.
SCBWI: Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. An organization of over 19,000 members worldwide, which is open to published and UNpublished writers and illustrators of children’s books. The SCBWI sponsors regular conferences, and puts out a bi-monthly newsletter and other publications on the art and business of children’s writing. SCBWI can also help connect members to writing groups. If you are serious about writing and/or illustrating for children, you really must join SCBWI.
Children’s Book Insider. A good website to start out with and worth subscribing to their e-newsletter if you are committed to improving your writing. Lots of articles about writing children’s books and tips about submissions. And take a look at their blog, the Children's Writing Web Journal.
Kirkus. Reviews, blogs, and profiles of authors.
The Horn Book. Since 1924, a bimonthly journal of Children’s Literature. Book reviews, columns, articles, editorials, and several interesting, informative blogs. A selection of articles and other | <urn:uuid:63afdbd7-21c3-4c9f-a3db-1e96e8ab29e5> | 512 | 0 |
RESOURCES for WRITERS & ILLUSTRATORS of CHILDRE [...] resources are available to read on the web, and you can sign up to receive Notes From the Horn Book, a monthly electronic newsletter that is free.
Children’s Book Council. The CBC is a non-profit trade association of U.S. publishers of trade books for children and young adults. They have industry news and a list online of current CBC members, with links to their websites.
School Library Journal. School Library Journal reviews all new books written for children. They host a selection of blogs with daily posts, with regular book reviews and lots of links and tips about children's literature. My favorites are A Fuse #8 Production, by librarian Elizabeth Bird, and 100 Scope Notes, by school librarian Travis Jonker.
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. By a librarian who is a self-described "illustration junkie", this is should be the first stop for anyone who, like me, is also addicted to picture books. Interviews with illustrators, book reviews, and tons of art.
Twitter. There is a huge community of authors, illustrators, teachers, librarians, and other picturebook lovers on Twitter. Go on over and join the conversation!
Scroll down for even more links I like...
Last update on 11/2015
READ READ READ!
Need some recommendations? Check out these lists:
Every writer has her favorite books; here are a few of mine:
BOOKS FOR WRITERS
- Lynda Barry, What it Is
- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
- Anne Lamont, Bird by Bird
- Kendra Levin, The Hero is You
- Leonard Marcus, editor, Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom
- Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
- Maurice Sendak, Caldecott and Co: Notes on Books and Pictures
- Strunk & White, illustrated by Maira Kalman, The Elements of Style
BOOKS for ILLUSTRATORS
- Writing With Pictures, Uri Shulevitz
- Picture This: How Pictures Work, Molly Bang
- GO: | <urn:uuid:63afdbd7-21c3-4c9f-a3db-1e96e8ab29e5> | 512 | 23 |
RESOURCES for WRITERS & ILLUSTRATORS of CHILDRE [...] A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design, Chip Kidd
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud
- Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, & Graphic Novels, Scott McCloud
- Harold Underdown, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books
- Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market
- Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers
BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN’S BOOKS
- Elizabeth Bird, Julie Danielson, Peter Sieruta, Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature
- Megan Dowd Lambert, Reading Picture Books With Children
- Alison Lurie, Boys and Girls Forever: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter; also, Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature
- Leonard S. Marcus, Ways of Telling: Fourteen Interviews With Masters of the Art of the Picture Book; Minders of Make Believe; and others
- Philip Nel, Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature, and others
- Maria Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, and others
MORE LINKS I LIKE
(last update 5/2016)
PODCASTS: Interviews with authors and illustrators
- All the Wonders, with school librarian Matthew Winner
- The Yarn, with teacher Colby Sharp and teacher-librarian Travis Jonker
- Horn Book Podcast, with editor Roger Sutton, Siân Gaetano, and guests
- Literaticast, with children's publishing agent Jennifer Laughran
- The Nerdy Bookcast, from Nerdy Book Club and Teacher Learning Sessions
RESOURCES FOR WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS
- Editorial Anonymous: Huge blog archive by a children's editor, demystifying the publishing process
- Cheryl Klein: Children's book editor talks | <urn:uuid:63afdbd7-21c3-4c9f-a3db-1e96e8ab29e5> | 512 | 23 |
The federal Labor Party has sought to simplify its climate change policy. Any suggestion of expanding the Renewable Energy Target has been dropped. But there is debate over whether the new policy is actually any more straightforward as a result.
One thing Labor did confirm is its support for an emissions intensity scheme (EIS) as its central climate change policy for the electricity sector. This adds clarity to the position the party took to the 2016 election and could conceivably remove the need for a prescribed renewable energy target anyway.
An EIS effectively gives electricity generators a limit on how much carbon dioxide they can emit for each unit of electricity they produce. Power stations that exceed the baseline have to buy permits for the extra CO₂ they emit. Power stations with emissions intensities below the baseline create permits that they can sell.
An EIS increases the cost of producing electricity from emissions-intensive sources such as coal generation, while reducing the relative cost of less polluting energy sources such as renewables. The theory is that this cost differential will help to drive a switch from high-emission to low-emission sources of electricity.
The pros and cons of an EIS, compared with other forms of carbon pricing, have been debated for years. But two things are clear.
First, an EIS with bipartisan support would provide the stable carbon policy that the electricity sector needs. The sector would be able to invest with more confidence, thus contributing to security of supply into the future.
Second, an EIS would limit the upward pressure on electricity prices, for the time being at least.
These reasons explain why there was a brief groundswell of bipartisan support for an EIS in 2016, until the Turnbull government explicitly ruled it out in December.
Another consideration is whether, with the right policy, there will be any need for firm renewable energy targets. This may help to explain Labor’s decision to rule out enlarging the existing scheme or extending it beyond 2020.
If we had a clear policy to reduce emissions at lowest cost, whether in the form of an EIS or some other scheme, renewable energy would naturally increase to whatever level is most economically efficient under those policy settings. Whether this reaches 50% or any other level would be determined by the overall emissions-reduction target and the relative costs of various green energy technologies.
In this scenario | <urn:uuid:803b262e-ab2e-4770-b886-53fb49e074b9> | 512 | 0 |
The federal Labor Party has sought to simplify its climate change policy. Any suggestion of expanding the Ren [...] , a separately mandated renewable energy target would be simply unnecessary and would probably just add costs with no extra environmental benefit. Note that this reasoning would apply to state-based renewable energy policies, which have become a political football amid South Australia’s recent tribulations over energy security.
An EIS is also “technology agnostic”: power companies would be free to pursue whatever technology makes the most economic sense to them. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull explicitly endorsed this idea earlier this month.
Finally, an EIS would integrate well with the National Electricity Market, a priority endorsed by the COAG Energy Council of federal, state and territory energy ministers. State and territory governments may find this an attractive, nationally consistent alternative that they could support.
Strengths and weaknesses
A 2016 Grattan Institute report found that an EIS could be a practical step on a pathway from the current policy mess towards a credible energy policy. Yet an EIS has its weaknesses, and some of Labor’s reported claims for such a scheme will be tested.
In the short term, electricity prices would indeed rise, although not as much as under a cap-and-trade carbon scheme. It is naive to expect that any emissions-reduction target (either the Coalition’s 26-28% or Labor’s 45%) can be met without higher electricity costs.
Another difficulty Labor will have to confront is that setting the initial emission intensity baseline and future reductions would be tricky. The verdict of the Finkel Review, which is assessing the security of the national electricity market under climate change policies, will also be crucial.
Despite media reports to the contrary, Chief Scientist Alan Finkel and his panel have not recommended an EIS. Their preliminary report drew on earlier reports noting the advantages of an EIS over an extended renewable energy target or regulated closure of fossil-fuelled power stations, but also the fact that cap-and-trade would be cheaper to implement.
Labor has this week moved towards a credible climate change policy, although it still has work to do and its 45% emissions-reduction target will still be criticised as too ambitious. Meanwhile, we’re unlikely to | <urn:uuid:803b262e-ab2e-4770-b886-53fb49e074b9> | 512 | 23 |
Taratai is the region around the Taratai sea in the south-west of the "Great Contintent" on the planet Durdaste.
(More to be added.)
- Main Article: Durdaste
Durdaste is the second planet in a binary solar system.
(More to be added.)
Taratai consists of four large regions: Utai, Amagome, Demani, and Tai. Amagome has warm, but mostly also very dry climates and is the cradle of the Tarataian civilizations, which subsequently spread to Utai. The southern regions Demani and Tai have cold winters and were original covered with forests, but developed to become agricultural nations in the past millennium.
Amagome and Utai are separated from the desert of Kiangazi in the north by a mountain range. An even higher mountain range separates Amagome and Demani from the steppes of Samak and taiga of Tangbangtroi. Because of these geographical barriers there is virtually no contact with the world outside Taratai. Contact over sea is also nearly impossible, because the seas northwest of Utai are populated by sea monsters that attack anything they believe to be pray. The main habitat of these sea monsters is a shallow sea further north that is several times larger than the whole of Taratai.
There are over 50 countries in Taratai, the smallest of which have a few thousand inhabitants, while the largest has almost 40 million.
The following countries have pages in English:
- (none yet).
It is not known how many languages are spoken in Taratai, but the number is probably larger even than the number of countries. Some of these languages are used as lingua franca in large areas with millions or even tens of millions of speakers (even if it is a second language for many of them), while others are tiny and may even be threatened with extinction.
The category "Languages of Taratai" lists the languages with a page in English. It also lists a subcategory describing the writing systems used to write all of these languages. | <urn:uuid:d4bcb38d-c100-42ff-bc07-dce35070b934> | 458 | 0 |
The satellite images displayed are infrared (IR) images. Warmest (lowest) clouds are shown in white; coldest (highest) clouds are displayed in shades of yellow, red, and purple. Imagery is obtained from the GOES and METEOSAT geostationary satellites, and the two US Polar Orbiter (POES) satellites. POES satellites orbit the earth 14 times each day at an altitude of approximately 520 miles (870 km). As each orbit is made the satellite can view a 1,600 mile (2,700 km) wide area of the earth. Due to the rotation of the earth the satellite is able to view every spot on earth twice each day. Data from multiple orbits are mosaicked together to provide wide scale global and full earth views in a single image. Occasional dark triangular areas that occur on POES images are a result of gaps in data transmitted from the orbiters.
A weather satellite
is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather
of the Earth. These meteorological satellites, however, see more than clouds
and cloud systems
. City lights, fires, effects of pollution, auroras, sand and dust storms, snow cover
, ice mapping, boundaries of ocean
currents, energy flows, etc., are other types of environmental information collected using weather satellites.
Weather satellite images helped in monitoring the volcanic ash cloud from Mount St. Helens and activity from other volcanoes such as Mount Etna. Smoke from fires in the western United States such as Colorado and Utah have also been monitored.
Other environmental satellites can detect changes in the Earth's vegetation, sea
color, and ice fields. For example, the 2002 oil spill off the northwest coast of Spain was watched carefully by the European ENVISAT, which, though not a weather satellite, flies an instrument (ASAR) which can see changes in the sea surface
El Niño and its effects on weather are monitored daily from satellite images. The Antarctic ozone hole is mapped from weather satellite data. Collectively, weather satellites flown by the U.S., Europe, India, China, Russia, and Japan provide nearly continuous observations
for a global weather | <urn:uuid:74e63ba1-f892-424c-98d8-555487645a46> | 507 | 0 |
How to Build a Recording Studio - Part 7: Acoustics
Sound, like ripples formed on water when a stone is dropped on it is a wave. If the waves are larger, the tone is lower. Lower tones, called bass frequencies, move in long wide waves while higher tones called treble frequencies move in a constricted, shorter wave. Human ear can comprehend sound of frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20 KHz. For instance, a piano has the widest range among all instruments, ranging from 39 Hz (low note) and 3 KHz (high note).
Measurement of sound is done in decibels (dB). A normal concert produces approximately 95-100 dB of sound and a noisy rock concert could produce a sound of 130 dB. This is more than the threshold of pain; don’t forget to put on your earplugs which are specially made to protect your ears when you are exposed to very high sound levels. It is Interesting to know that whales can easily produce sound levels of even 180 dB. So avoid proximity to whales and wear some ear protection when you are exposed to such loud noises.
In absorption a sound wave is soaked up by a certain material and is measured by its co-efficient rating. The higher the rating of the material, the more is sound that is removed from the affected areas in your room. The various parts of the room may need differing co-efficient rating. Studios are empty shells in the beginning. Hard walls and surfaces have to be treated to make a room that sounds great. For instance, studios commonly use theater curtains of 20 gauge. It is a dense velvet material, having excellent absorption capacity for high-end frequencies. The thinner materials can absorb higher frequencies. Thicker materials absorb lower frequencies. This is the reason for having thick bass traps of large sizes containing holes or ports or to block low-end frequencies.
The variety of designs and products used in the industry is endless. Wall panels are widely used for absorbing sound. These are fiberglass panels enveloped in a cloth fabric. Varying thicknesses and sizes are used in cases of problem frequencies. Here too, the thin materials absorb high end frequencies and thicker materials the low end.
This is opposed to absorption. Assume that the sound wave is striking | <urn:uuid:6a93155d-5a6f-41ce-9292-3fa292d9ee68> | 512 | 0 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1. A heavy, dull-sounding blow or stroke, a knock. Gen.Sc.
Sc. 1721 J. Kelly Proverbs 340:
Words go with the Wind, but dunts are the Devil. Sc. 1822 Scott F. Nigel xxxvii.:
If she comes to dunts, I have a hand to paik her with. Cai. 1950 Proverbial Saying (per
Gi'e 'e boy a peece an had him rinnin', Gi'e 'e girl a dunt an had her spinnin'. Bnff. 1927 E. S. Rae Hansel Fae Hame 44:
The dice o' fate will nae een spare, O' dunts and dauts they've had their share. Edb. 1773 R. Fergusson Poems (1925) 49:
Like thee, do I not bide the brunt Of Highland chairman's heavy dunt? Ayr. 1788 Burns I hae a Wife iii.:
I hae a guid braid sword, I'll tak dunts frae naebody. Gall. 1877 “Saxon” Gall. Gossip 52:
She had just to raeck oot her hand and gie him a bit dunt on the noddle wi' the beettle noo an' then.
Phrs.: †(1) at a dunt, unexpectedly (Slg. 1825 Jam.2); (2) in a dunt, in a flash (Fif.10 1941); (3) the (ver(r)a) dunt, -clean-, the very thing (Bnff.2, Abd.9, Kcb.10 1941, -vera-); (4) to get the dunt, to be knocked out, crushed (Bnff.2 1941); to be dismissed (Abd.27 1950).
(2) Fif. 1893 | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 0 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] “G. Setoun” Barncraig ii.:
He said to me himsel' that it cam' upon him a' in a dunt. (3) Abd. 1912 J. Stephen Donside Lilts 13:
[He] saw a hare's skin on the wa', He said — “Losh noo, that's just the dunt Gin it were hard-stuffed fu' o' straw.” Abd. 1928 N. Shepherd Quarry Wood iii.:
Ay, ay, that's the very dunt. Kcb. 1930 (per Wgt.1):
“That's the clean dunt”, meaning “That's the very thing.” (4) Fif. 1929 St Andrew's Cit. (9 Feb.) 9/3:
Their inspiration's got the dunt, Twa dune auld footers.
2. The wound caused by such a blow (Cai.7, Bnff.2, Ags.2 1941). Also fig.
Sc. 1886 R. L. Stevenson Kidnapped vii.:
My visitor . . . set himself to wash and dress the wound upon my scalp “Ay,” said he, “a sore dunt”. Cai. c.1920 4 :
'E bairn fell an' got a terrible dunt on 'e heid. Kcb. 1894 S. R. Crockett Raiders xxxiii.:
Ridin' croose and canty — him wi' a three-cornered dunt on his broo, and her wi' a scart on her airm.
3. A dent (Abd.27 1950). Also fig.
Ork. 1929 1 :
There's a dunt in the side o the tin box. Rxb. 1916 Jedburgh Gazette (26 May) 2:
She brings still, dings still A dunt into our heart.
4. The wooden disc dunted down on top of the herrings | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] in a barrel before the final sealing.
Sc. 1864 J. M. Mitchell The Herring 113:
A dunt is a round solid piece of wood of nearly the size of the head. Dunting is the placing of this on the top of the herrings in the barrel after being repacked, and by jumping, or standing on it the herrings are pressed down. Bnff. 1950 N. Paterson Behold Thy Daughter 186:
One of the younger girls in the yard was lifted on to the dunt, and, by stamping on it, pressed down the excess of salt so that the head of the barrel could be replaced.
5. A heavy fall, a thud, a bump; “the sound caused by the fall of a hard body that in some degree rebounds” (Jam.2). Gen.Sc. Also used adv.
Mry. 1865 W. H. L. Tester Poems 134:
An' baith o' ye notice it be carefully done, An' no lat me doon wi' a dunt to the grun. Abd. 1928 N. Shepherd Quarry Wood xiii.:
Only it wasn't things that go dunt in the dark that you wanted protection from. Ags. 1915 V. Jacob Songs of Angus 17:
Fegs! he cam' hurlin' owre the front, An' struck the road wi' sic a dunt. Fif. 1901 “G. Setoun” Barncraig vii.:
He came “doun with a dunt,” as he would have phrased it himself. Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch (1839) xxv.:
I went a dunt on the causey that made the gun go off. Arg. 1907 N. Munro Daft Days xxvi.:
When you drop off, Miss Dyce, there'll be an awful dunt, I'm telling you!
6. A throb, thump, quickened beat of the heart (B | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] nff.2, Abd.2, Fif.10 1941). Also adv. in such phrs. as to gae dunt, to play —.
Sc. 1887 R. L. Stevenson Underwoods (1888) 85:
The heart plays dunt wi' main an' micht; The lasses' een are a' sae bricht. Sc. 1920 D. Rorie Auld Doctor 32:
But my he'rt gae a dunt at the story that runt O' a hoose-keeper body'd to tell. Sc. 1928 J. G. Horne Lan'wart Loon 7:
An', mindin', wi' a hertsome dunt, This was the mornin' o' the Hunt. Abd. 1768 A. Ross Helenore 58:
For fear she curr'd like makine i' the seat, An dunt for dunt her heart began to beat. Abd. 1916 G. Abel Wylins 102:
My hert gaed dunt, my han's did shak', My e'en war like to greet. m.Sc. 1870 J. Nicholson Idylls 34:
My Whittle's fand, hurra! hurra! . . . Losh! what a dunt my bosom gied. Rnf. 1835 D. Webster Rhymes 59:
My heart it gaed dunt upon dunt, Od! I thought ilka dunt it would crack it. Kcb. 1789 D. Davidson Seasons 52:
Ilk rowt the twa gave thwart the burn Cam o'er her heart a dunt.
7. A blow to one's fortunes or feelings; a shock, disappointment (Cai.7, Abd.27, Ags., m.Lth.1 1950).
Sc. 1948 The Bulletin (3 Sept.):
The “dunt” of hard facts | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] will doubtless modify them in time. Edb. 1811 H. Macneill Bygane Times 38:
A good round sum wi' interest on't For mony a year, was sic a dunt, That in a blink this scoundrel brack. Ayr. 1821 Galt Ann. Parish xxxvi.:
Never shall I forget the dunt that the first tap of the drum gied to my heart.
Hence ¶dunty, rough, giving dunts.
em.Sc. 1920 J. Black Airtin' Hame 94:
The jaggy, dunty bits o' life, Though no' what ane would hae, Can mak' us cautious wisdom learn.
8. A dig, “a gibe, an insult; also a slanderous falsehood” (Ayr. 1825 Jam.2).
Lnk. 1922 T. S. Cairncross Scot at Hame 46:
At Johnnie Dow's wi' furious splore, And nae licht dunt at mony a bore, He set the table in a roar. Kcb. 1898 A. J. Armstrong Levellers 205:
Those at the minister's board . . . did not seem touched with the frolicsome, but Howford took “dunts” out of Forgie and anyone he got his tongue over.
10. A lump, a large piece. gen. of food (Sh.10 1950; Ags.2, Kcb.1 1941; Per. 1915 Wilson; m.Lth.1 1951); a good distance (Ags.4 1916; Ags. 1950). Cf. Dad, n.2, 3, Dunch, n., 3.
Sc. 1818 Scott Poems (1833) XI. 320:
Donald Caird finds orra things . . . Dunts of kebbuck, taits of w | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] oo. Ork. 1930 Orcadian (13 Feb.):
I mind once a schoolboy who complained of another who took his twal-piece, and gave him instead a filty dunt o' corn-bread. Per. 1835 J. Monteath Dunblane Trad. 72:
Dunts o' cheese and clatches o' butter. Edb. 1856 J. Ballantine Poems 68:
Thou dauds him up, a movin' fright, Wi' dunts o' glaur. Rnf. 1813 E. Picken Poems, etc. I. 66:
Wae worth't! a dunt o' scowthert cheese Stuck on a prong, he quaukin' sees.
1. (1) To beat, strike, thump, bump, knock, so as to produce a dull sound. Gen.Sc.
Sc. 1821 Scott Pirate xxiv.:
Na, na! — nae sic divot had dunted at their door. Sh. 1930 T. P. Ollason in Sh. Almanac 193:
Shü rumbled da tatties i' da pot an dunted da peerie tub apo da flüir. ne.Sc. 1714 R. Smith Poems 60:
Upon the Duke of Atholes Hunting, Where Men with Swords the Deer were dunting. Abd. 1875 W. Alexander My Ain Folk 4:
I'll get ye pitten faur ye'll get time to dunt yer heels at leasure. Fif. 1864 W. D. Latto T. Bodkin xxxv.:
They grippit hauds o' me by the legs an' shoothers, an' fell a-duntin' my body on a stane wi' micht an' main. Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch (1839) xxv.:
On the door dunting to again, it being so | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] ople in the hinges, they both plainly heard a fistling within. Ayr. 1823 Galt R. Gilhaize xxii.:
Fearing the wrathful ram might dunt out the bowels or the brains, if he had any, of the poor young cavalier. Kcb. 1789 D. Davidson Seasons 59:
The pliant foot Of early passenger athwart the vale, Dunting, oppressive, on the verdant path. Kcb. 1895 S. R. Crockett Moss-hags iv.:
Only the sound of my mother's roller being heard, “dunt-dunting” on the dough. Rxb. 1847 J. Halliday Rustic Bard 210:
And he duntit and knockit to waken the lass. Uls. 1879 W. G. Lyttle Readings 10:
Whun I come tae the place I did exac'ly as the carman tell't me, an' dunted the daur that hard that my knee dinneled.
Phr. and Combs.: (a) dune (dead) and duntit on, “a proverbial phrase, sometimes applied to an object that is completely done, i.e. has ceased to exist; at other times to a person greatly worn out by fatigue” (Sc. 1825 Jam.2); (b) dunt-aboot, †(i) “a bit of wood driven about at Shinty or similar games” (Rxb. 1825 Jam.2); (ii) an old or valueless article, e.g. a garment that receives hard usage (Rxb. 1825 Jam.2; 1923 Watson W.-B.); (iii) “a servant who is roughly treated, and dunted about from one piece of work to another” (Ib., 1942 Zai.; Kcb.10 1941); also in Nhb. dial.; (c) dunting-brod, (i) = Dunt, n | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] ., 4., q.v.; (ii) the batten for holding the reed which beat the weft-threads into position as they were woven in the old Angus handlooms, or the combination of the two (Ags.17 1940); †(d) dunting-case, a prostitute (Sc. 1911 S.D.D.).
(a) Sc. 1825 Jam.2:
The same idea is often expressed, in a very unfeeling manner, in reply perhaps to the question, “Is such a person dead?” “Dead! aye, he's dead and dunted on.” . . . It seems to refer to the nailing down of a coffin . . . or to the noise made by the shovelling of the moulds on it in the grave. (b) (iii) Per. 1915 Wilson L. Strathearn 188:
Better an auld man's dautie nor a young man's dunt-aboot. (c) (i) Abd. 1863 in Bnffsh. Jnl. (3 Feb.) 7:
Scotch curers all with one accord, Shall now compelled be To use the Dunting-Brod upon All herrings of the Sea.
(2) Specif.: to press down the herrings in a barrel by stamping. See Dunt, n., 4.
Bnff. 1950 N. Paterson Behold Thy Daughter 186:
The dunting or final pressing down of the herrings, which took place when the barrels were opened for the last time.
(3) To shake together by knocking the contents of e.g. a sack on the ground (Bnff.2, Abd.9, Fif.10, Kcb.9 1941).
Sc. 1887 Jam.6:
To dunt a sack of grain.
2. Of the heart: to throb, to beat rapidly, to palpitate (Sh.10 1950; Cai.7 1951; | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
DUNT, n., v.
1 [...] ne.Sc., Ags., m.Lth.1, Bwk.2 1951; Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 190); also sometimes of a sore (Cai.7, Abd.27, Ags. 1950). Also in w.Yks. dial. Used adv. in phr. to play dunt (Bnff.2, Abd.9, Fif.10 1941).
Sc. 1724–27 Ramsay T. T. Misc. (1733) I. 100:
Ne'er dunt again within my breast, Ne'er let her slights thy courage spill. Abd. 1872 J. G. Michie Deeside Tales (1908) 100:
I thought my vera heart wid loup out, it was duntan' at sica rate. Per. 1895 R. Ford Tayside Songs 123:
O' for a heart that would dunt wi' my ain! Fif. 1864 W. D. Latto T. Bodkin v.:
The appointed oor arrived, an' faund us prepared, but wi' oor hearts duntin' sair forgainst oor ribs. Ayr. 1795 Burns To Mitchell ii.:
And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted, I'd bear 't in mind! Dmf. 1863 R. Quinn Heather Lintie 59:
Although yer hearts afore ne'er dunted, Wi' fear ye'll shake.
3. To crush, or indent by striking (Abd., Ags., Slg., m.Lth., Kcb. 1950).
Sc. 1887 Jam.6:
Ye've duntit the lid o' the tin can.
4. With oot (out): to settle a quarrel or misunderstanding by talking things over, to “thresh out” an argument (Abd.4 1 | <urn:uuid:4f2dd060-b38f-4fc5-a83c-e87d0269b74f> | 512 | 23 |
Orthodontic braces were historically associated with teenagers. Today, an increasing number of adults are choosing to wear braces to straighten their teeth and correct malocclusions (bad bites). In fact, it is now estimated that almost one third of all current orthodontic patients are adults.
Orthodontic braces are predictable, versatile, and incredibly successful at realigning the teeth. Braces work in the same way regardless of the age of the patient, but the treatment time is greatly reduced in patients who are still experiencing jaw growth and have not been affected by gum disease. In short, an adult can experience the same beautiful end results as a teenager, but treatment often takes longer.
Can adults benefit from orthodontic braces?
Absolutely! Crooked or misaligned teeth look unsightly, which can cause a low self-esteem and a lack of self confidence. Aside from poor aesthetics, improperly aligned teeth can also cause difficulties biting, chewing, and articulating clearly. Generally speaking, orthodontists agree that straight teeth tend to be healthier teeth.
Straight teeth offer a multitude of health and dental benefits including:
Reduction in general tooth decay
Decreased likelihood of developing periodontal disease
Decreased likelihood of tooth injury
Reduction in digestive disorders
Fortunately, orthodontic braces have been adapted and modified to make them more convenient for adults. There are now a wide range of fixed and removable orthodontic devices available, depending on the precise classification of the malocclusion.
The most common types of malocclusion are underbite (lower teeth protrude further than upper teeth), overbite (upper teeth protrude further than lower teeth), and overcrowding where there is insufficient space on the arches to accommodate the full complement of adult teeth.
Prior to recommending specific orthodontic treatment, the orthodontist will recommend treatment of any pre-existing dental conditions such as gum disease, excess plaque, and tooth decay. Orthodontic braces can greatly exacerbate any or all of these conditions.
What are the main types of orthodontic braces?
The following are some of the most popular orthodontic braces:
Traditional braces – These braces are strong and tend | <urn:uuid:c9e70d60-e3dd-45d0-a4bd-fee376a25866> | 512 | 0 |
There are many warning signs that may indicate that someone is affected by bullying—either being bullied or bullying others. Recognizing the warning signs is an important first step in taking action against bullying. Not all children who are bullied or are bullying others ask for help.
It is important to talk with children who show signs of being bullied or bullying others. These warning signs can also point to other issues or problems, such as depression or substance abuse. Talking to the child can help identify the root of the problem.
Signs a Child is Being Bullied
Look for changes in the child. However, be aware that not all children who are bullied exhibit warning signs.
Some signs that may point to a bullying problem are:
- Unexplainable injuries
- Lost or destroyed clothing, books, electronics, or jewelry
- Frequent headaches or stomach aches, feeling sick or faking illness
- Changes in eating habits, like suddenly skipping meals or binge eating. Kids may come home from school hungry because they did not eat lunch.
- Difficulty sleeping or frequent nightmares
- Declining grades, loss of interest in schoolwork, or not wanting to go to school
- Sudden loss of friends or avoidance of social situations
- Feelings of helplessness or decreased self esteem
- Self-destructive behaviors such as running away from home, harming themselves, or talking about suicide
If you know someone in serious distress or danger, don’t ignore the problem. Get help right away.
Signs a Child is Bullying Others
Kids may be bullying others if they:
- Get into physical or verbal fights
- Have friends who bully others
- Are increasingly aggressive
- Get sent to the principal’s office or to detention frequently
- Have unexplained extra money or new belongings
- Blame others for their problems
- Don’t accept responsibility for their actions
- Are competitive and worry about their reputation or popularity
Why don't kids ask for help?
Statistics from the 2008–2009 School Crime Supplement show that an adult was notified in only about a third of bullying cases. Kids don’t tell adults for many reasons:
- Bullying can make a child feel helpless. Kids may want to handle it on their own to feel in control again. | <urn:uuid:a101f0d7-a7cd-4980-af64-9825cb058890> | 512 | 0 |
Throughout modern antiquity, various methods to battle insect pests should be contrived; though, inorganic, botanical and general pesticides frequently exploited through the nineteenth century.
In the twentieth hundred, sign can’t process in the synthesis of different chemicals has produced in the discovery of structures including biological movements of various unions.
The stinger Insect Technology is the primary insect pest control method that practices genetics either a wide-scale application of insect birth control.
Subsequent its success in controlling a destructive fruit fly including nuclear technology, Argentina is providing up to fight a different enemy: mosquitoes that transmit, an extension to dengue and chikungunya.
The method employed in both events is the stinger insect technique, an insect birth control program that uses radiation to sterilize and issue insects to suppress pest groups.
Admission to an extermination programme adopting a combined pest administration program that covers SIT and including the technical support of the IAEA including the FAO, cutting security authorities and trading associates declared Patagonia free of that pest in 2005, a status the region has experienced since.
Aphids are typically found feeding on some young leaves, current shots, and flower buds wherever the plant cells are also pliable and essential in nitrogen.
They push their large, loud mouthparts running into the plant mass and absorb up the flower sap.
At a recent presentation, Carl Swanson of New York Magazine had to dress crisis goggles because some laser employed is not recommended for the eyes.
University of Missouri researchers Heidi Appel including becoming found they can incite Rockcress plants to produce higher levels of natural pesticides by playing them the little, laser-measured fluctuations produced by chewing caterpillars.
At the University of California Riverside, that Computational Entomology Lab is running on laser-based technology that analyses insect classes based on they’re the sound of their changes.
The goal of lead investigators Eomann Keogh’s commitment is to spot insect infestations of current in silos and fields before the outbreak destroys a crop.
While feeding, several aphid varieties can also acquire and develop plant diseases.
Heavy infestations can likewise weaken plants and produce leaf curling including even cutting death.
When aphid inf | <urn:uuid:2db0238b-914f-44d8-9577-869f35ed121b> | 512 | 0 |
At the G7 summit in Germany this past month, world leaders from developed nations pledged to completely phase out fossil fuels by 2100 in an attempt to mitigate climate change. If this weighty goal is to be reached, a transition to alternative energy needs to begin within the decade. The question on everyone’s mind—is renewable energy ready to replace fossil fuels?
The short answer is no. Renewable energy has made significant technological advances in the last decade, but has yet to reach a cost that is low enough to satisfy consumer demand. An assortment of problems has prohibited renewables from becoming competitive; mainly, sources of renewable energy are inconsistent and geographically limited. Until these challenges are overcome, nuclear power needs to be taken seriously as an attractive stand-in. Problems that previously overshadowed its benefits have largely been resolved by recent technological developments, making increasing nuclear production a more feasible and immediate method of climate mitigation than expanding renewable energy.
The major improvements needed to increase the viability of renewables are in energy storage and transportation. A new generation of batteries, led by the Tesla Powerwall, seems to overcome the obstacle of intermittency, but once again the price is just too high. Tesla is asking for a whopping $7,140 for the installation of its residential battery—much more than the average household is willing to pay. Furthermore, improvements in electrical infrastructure, i.e. the power grid, have been few and far between. Presently, it isn’t feasible to transport electricity from the rural areas where wind and solar energy are often generated. Although the marginal cost of wind turbines and solar panels has steadily declined, it is still relatively expensive to use renewable energy due to the issues of storage and transportation. For the time being, renewable energy is not competitive enough to replace fossil fuels, and a different alternative is needed.
In the campaign to drastically reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the only “quick-fix” that has proven viable is nuclear energy, which generates enormous amounts of zero-carbon electricity and rivals the cost efficiency of fossil fuels. A standard reactor can produce enough energy to supply 690,000 households with electricity. Nuclear energy could be used to curb China’s growing emissions and limit its consumption of coal, which currently accounts for | <urn:uuid:a591f6b8-6176-4abe-9cd8-27c12e6ad467> | 512 | 0 |
At the G7 summit in Germany this past month, world leaders from developed nations pledged to [...] almost 70% of its energy sector. In contrast to wind and solar, nuclear energy can be produced constantly and therefore does not require storage. Developed nations could run nuclear energy as their base-load supply of electricity, and then have intermittent renewables pick up the slack during peak demand.
France, which derives approximately 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy, is an ideal model for the energy structure of developed nations. France is the largest net exporter of energy in the world, with an annual profit of well over $3 billion. The French government has used the capability of its nuclear power to advance aggressive environmental policies; in 2014, the French government established a long-term target to reduce greenhouse gas emission to 40% of 1990 levels by 2030, dwarfing targets set by the United States and other developed nations. Furthermore, France is not dependent on foreign energy and is therefore less vulnerable to political instability. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe should take note; nuclear energy might be a solution to dependence on Russian gas.
Nonetheless, nuclear power has suffered its own share of setbacks over the years. A list of nuclear accidents – most recently Fukushima Daiichi – has created the perception that nuclear energy is unsafe. There is also unease over the security of nuclear power plants, which have been identified as potential terrorist targets. To top it all off, environmentalists have expressed concerns over the limited amount of uranium available and the long-term toxicity of radioactive waste. However, technology has surmounted many of these challenges.
In 2011, a tsunami disabled the cooling system of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, bringing Japan close to its first nuclear meltdown. Reports would later reveal that the Fukushima accident was the result of inadequate regulations and obsolete safety measures. Updated nuclear reactors include passive safety mechanisms that eliminate the possibility of human error by relying on gravity, heat resistance and natural convection. Presumably, the crisis would have been avoided had the proper standards been in place.
Despite this fact, anti-nuclear protests erupted in many countries in the wake of Fukushima, and in some cases led | <urn:uuid:a591f6b8-6176-4abe-9cd8-27c12e6ad467> | 512 | 23 |
At the G7 summit in Germany this past month, world leaders from developed nations pledged to [...] to the eradication of nuclear energy. Most notably, Germany, which previously produced a quarter of its electricity using nuclear power, instituted a phase-out plan to shutdown all of its reactors by 2022. Fear of a nuclear meltdown drove the German government to begin decommissioning 17 reactors, all of which had been deemed safe by the Reactor Safety Commission. As a consequence, power plants that use coal and natural gas have had to increase production, emitting additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Critics of Germany’s phase-out plan point out that Japan, home to the most recent nuclear accident, still maintains a robust network of nuclear power plants with improved safety systems. There is no reason that nuclear power plants with updated safety measure should be deactivated.
In addition to improvements in safety, nuclear power plants are now secure and well protected from threats of terrorism. Experts previously worried that an organization like al-Qaeda would blow up a reactor and expose the general public to radiation. However, reactors are encased in steel-reinforced concrete to prevent the escape of radiation and the intrusion of foreign objects. Computer simulations, for example, have concluded that a nuclear reactor would survive the impact of a large commercial airliner.
Concerns over the long-term supply of uranium have been satisfied by recent estimates of the world’s economically accessible uranium, which predict that at the present rate of consumption there is enough to last over 200 years. Breeder reactors, which allow for the recycling of uranium, have already decreased fuel consumption. At the moment, a single uranium fuel pellet – measuring the size of an average fingertip – produces a quantity of energy equivalent to 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Additionally, these fuel supply projections will likely be extended as nuclear science continues to improve.
Fuel-efficient reactors have also decreased the amount of nuclear waste generated. Historically, radioactive waste has been stored at the nuclear power plant where it is produced. Thus far, this method of management has been effective, but it is contingent on the existence of an organization that oversees the site for tens of thousands of years—the amount of time its | <urn:uuid:a591f6b8-6176-4abe-9cd8-27c12e6ad467> | 512 | 23 |
At the G7 summit in Germany this past month, world leaders from developed nations pledged to [...] takes for radioactive waste to completely decay. Although there is currently no long-term plan to manage radioactive waste, new methods of storage can be developed and implemented to limit the associated risks.
The upfront cost of constructing a nuclear power plant is one remaining impediment to nations that might wish to copy France’s model, such as Eastern European nations hoping to decrease their reliance on Russian gas. Recent evaluations calculate the cost (including financing) of constructing a nuclear power plant to be between $6 billion and $9 billion. No individual private actor can afford to finance a power plant of this expense without government subsidies. Despite the controversy over government intervention, handouts are common in the energy sector. Last year, government subsidies for fossil fuels totaled $550 billion worldwide. Tax dollars would be better spent on nuclear energy.
When world leaders meet in Paris for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) this December, they will attempt to produce a universally binding agreement on the reduction of carbon emissions. The goal is to prevent global temperatures from crossing the two-degree threshold, which many scientists have labeled the tipping point of climate change. World leaders will need to be proactive in their reductions rather than continuing to wait for a breakthrough in renewables.
Ultimately, there needs to be a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but the short-term fix is nuclear. More research and development is needed before renewable energy can be considered a practical solution. Fortunately, the countries that are the greatest emitters of green house gases already possess nuclear capabilities, so there is no need for a proliferation of nuclear knowledge. If China and the United States alone increase their nuclear power, the prospects of a stable global temperature are much more likely. Nuclear energy is the stepping-stone between the industrial revolution and a renewable revolution. COP 21 is a chance to rekindle the conversation about nuclear power.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors. | <urn:uuid:a591f6b8-6176-4abe-9cd8-27c12e6ad467> | 470 | 23 |
Classical Indian Painting
Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE)
For more about the art of the Indian sub-continent,
The conquest of India by Islam over a period of five centuries divided Indian art into two streams: a classical period, which began with the foundation of the Manrya Empire in the 3rd century BCE. and which ended with Moslem infiltration in the 13th and 14th centuries; and the so-called Mughal (Mughal) period, from the 14th to 19th centuries, during which the splendours of the ancient structures were used with profit by a new society giving birth to a hitherto unknown plastic language. Between these two phases, a period of three centuries, from the 13th to the 16th, served as a buffer between the shock of Hinduism and that of Islam, and was a time of artistic transition.
By the 2nd century BCE, Indian art had found a style of its own, expressing movement, naturalism and contemplation. The admirable sculptures of Bharjut and Bhaja are proof of this. This vigorous ancient art, still somewhat naive, came under the influence of Greco-Buddhist art from Gandhara, at the dawn of the Christian era. This was one of the side-effects of Alexander the Great's epic conquests of classical antiquity and permitted Indian art to evolve its own technique and to expand its field of expression. It is to this mature art, in complete possession of its techniques and subject-matter, that the first known works of Indian painters belong.
The ancient treatise on painting, the Vishnudharmottaram, states: "Painting is the best of all arts." There is no doubt that ancient India experienced intense activity in the field of painting: the number of written works devoted to the subject are sufficient proof, with other references in poetry and drama. From these writings we learn that mural paintings decorated the walls of houses, palaces and temples. The analytical Indian mind had early classified their genres and techniques: scenes of gaiety and love were to decorate private houses, while works involving the supernatural were reserved for royal audience halls and places of worship. Figure painting of both men and gods were subject to certain rules; experts would discuss | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 0 |
Classical Indian Painting
Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] the notion of relativity in the plastic conception of the beautiful. And yet of all these works nothing remains today; they have disappeared, along with the wooden architecture with which they were associated.
Fortunately for the history of art, followers of Brahmanism (a religion characterized by a priesthood and the division of the people into castes - successor to Vedism), Buddhism and Jainism (a reforming religious movement, founded in the 6th century BCE, directed against Brahmanism) gave their temples and meeting-houses a more permanent character; the first cave temples provided painting with a more durable home. Though these caves were adorned with the faces of gods, we should not forget that this cave painting, from its inception, was a secular one. The religions of India have left their mark, just as Christianity has influenced the West, but on the whole these paintings are invested with an image of a contemporary ideal of beauty in order to attract and convince people.
Classical Buddhist art is associated with a period of peace and prosperity which came to Northern India during the time of the great Gupta empire. (The Gupta dynasty, founded by Chandragupta, ruled in Central India from 320 to 455.) The splendour of this dynasty justifies the attribution of the term "Gupta" to cover the total output of works in this golden age of Indian art. It should nevertheless be stressed that the great religious centre of Ajanta did not come within the territories of the Gupta empire, and that from the 2nd to the 7th centuries, this site passed under the successive control of Satavahana, Vakatake, Kalachuri and Chaloukya. We cannot say therefore, with any assurance, that there were direct Gupta influences at work at Ajanta. Nevertheless there can hardly be any doubt that the classical spirit which inspired Indian art during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries was the fruit of that cultural and intellectual emulation which was developed and promoted well beyond its frontiers by the last great Indian Empire. (For developments in China, see: Chinese Buddhist Sculpture c.100- | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] present.)
Buddhist monks were forbidden any prolonged stay in towns and therefore sought sanctuary from the monsoons in natural grottoes, just as modern Indian ascetics do today. As soon as the community became prosperous, they hewed for themselves monasteries and sanctuaries out of the cliffs that edged the Western Ghats. These caves were fairly secluded but always accessible to the laity. They bordered the trade routes which linked the Deccan with Central and Western India, and the main adherents of Buddhism were recruited from the traders and merchants. In a sense the caves of Karli, Bhaja, Nasik, Aurangabad, Ajanta and Bagh were staging houses of the Buddhist faith.
Of all these complexes (and in only a few are paintings preserved), the most important and justly famous is the one at Ajanta. The Ajanta caves were begun around the 2nd century BCE. and were continued until the 7th century. They were dug out over a distance of over six hundred yards, on the flank of a rock face which juts out like a rounded arch over the Waghora river. The site has a savage grandeur well suited to inspire both a state of metaphysical anguish and meditation. (For earlier examples of Stone Age cave painting, see also: Parietal Art: 40,000-10,000 BCE.)
There are twenty-nine Buddhist caves composed of viharas, or monasteries, and chaityas, or meeting-places for the monks and the faithful. The countless sculptures which decorate them were originally polychrome as well as all the flat surfaces. Subjects and themes on a grand scale were painted on the walls, while the ceilings were covered with decorative patterns and serial figures.
Only thirteen of the caves have fragments of paintings, the most important of which are in two chaityas, dating from the 1st century BCE, and in four of the viharas; these were done between the 5th and 7th centuries.
The techniques employed in painting the religious art at Ajanta are peculiar to Northern India. The rock face of | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] the cave is first of all covered with a thick layer of ferruginous, or rust-coloured, earth, bound by organic matter. On this base was applied a smooth coating of lime, a fraction of an inch thick, to which was added an application of glue in order to fix the colour. The composition was then sketched out in vermilion over the ivory-smooth surface. The areas thus demarcated were given a base, a sort of terra verde, over which the colours were applied in detail. (For the range of pigments used, see: prehistoric colour palette.)
Finally, the contours were outlined in black or brown. Though the techniques for obtaining light and shade relief were not known to the Indian painter at this time, by the 5th century, at least, he was using a method of surface relief, an effect he obtained through scraping or boring. It is remarkable how the Indian artist managed to give an illusion of depth, in spite of his flat painting technique; he achieved it solely through the amazing exactitude and sensitivity of his drawing. There is no one who can surpass the Indian artist at conveying, with the help of simple curves, the idea of fullness and plenitude, a sense of weight or the frailty of the female body.
Colour pigments were chosen with regard to their resistance to damp and the limestone, and all had mineral bases: earth colours of red-brown and yellow ochre, green made from finely pounded iron silicates, black and white. However, as the Vishundharmottaram explains, they could get "an unlimited variety of colours by mixing up to three colours, and by the play of imagination and emotion". From the 5th century onwards blue was used, extracted from lapis-lazuli which Indian merchants sought as far afield as Persia. Rare and costly, this blue was only applied in special instances and to highlight certain scenes, like the splashes of azure which caressingly surround the great Bodhisattva in the first of the chaityas. Gold was never used, its effect being achieved through a mixture of green and yellow.
The composition of the frescoes is quite special; it is impossible to translate their extraordinary exuberance. The | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] first caves are still fairly hieratic, particularly where a Buddha is seen preaching to his disciples. This painting has the noble severity of the Autun tympanum. But the composition which at first was in the form of an illustrated strip suddenly bursts forth in the viharas as a design which not only goes from left to right but from top to bottom all over the surface of the walls. The scenes follow one upon another rather like the linked fade-outs of cinema techniques. Stories are recounted simultaneously and on several levels; the only indication that the centre of interest has moved might be an architectural feature, a tree or a face turned away from another person. Each pictorial phase is encircled in a zone of suspense, each scene is punctuated by a beat, regulating the rhythm of the symphony.
Professor Philippe Stern relates this style to the influence of classical Sanskrit, a psalmodic language where "words join together through rules of assonance and meetings between vowels, forming lengthy compounds, long drawn-out phrases which assure continuity and fluidity without interruption; while the rhythms and undulating movements of the language allow one to follow the sentence, the word formation remains exact".
Ajanta paintings are fundamentally consecrations to Buddhist iconography: the life of Buddha and a succession of jatakas, fables illustrating the countless animal and human rebirths, which preceded his ultimate reincarnation as the Blessed One. These jatakas have provided Indian artists with an inexhaustible source of inspiration; their taste for naturalism has here found an admirable pretext for representing their favourite animals: elephants, monkeys, cattle, birds, all appearing in a background of vegetation, treated with that combination of exactitude and stylisation which we find again in the miniature painting of Rajput.
The compassion, renunciation and meditation inherent in Buddhism are all evident in these paintings and give them a halo of sweetness and inner life. Among the scenes from the life of Buddha, the most moving and possibly the most important is the one depicted on the far wall of a vihara cave. The painter has depicted for us the moment when, | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] after his enlightenment, Buddha, on the insistence of his father King Sudodhana, agrees to go and preach the Word in his birthplace, the town of Kapilavastu, and presents himself, begging bowl in hand, at the threshold of his former palace. His wife, Yashodara, whom he has not seen for seven years, comes out holding their child in front of her. One feels that she has an insane hope of winning him back. The child, half-aware of the drama which is being played out, lifts a hesitating hand towards his father's begging bowl. Yashodara's face, turned towards the Buddha, who stands tall and immense beside her, expresses all the distress of her poor human love, while Buddha's half-closed eyes, his unperturbed face presenting a hint of a smile, show perfect serenity and complete detachment. The painter has accentuated the difference by giving the Blessed One a colossal form, which makes the presence of his wife and child at his feet even more derisory. By its starkness, severity and high degree of spirituality, this painting is comparable with the most beautiful of the Italian primitives of the trecento, in Florence and Siena.
Similarly imbued with a deep spirituality, but with intransigence and a hint of theatricality, are the two famous Bodhisattvas which flank the entrance to the antechamber at the end of the interior aisle of one of the vihara caves. The more remarkable of the two and the most widely known is the Great Bodhisattva with a Lotus at Avalokitesvara; its suave beauty, meditative if slightly effeminate grace, and its plastic perfection are indescribable. The composition around the figure adds to the impression of sweetness, restraint and divine feeling. The female figures, in spite of their languorous poses and apparent sensuality, appear a little embarrassed by their charms. Here we find the ripe fruit of a civilisation which had reached its zenith; but we can also perceive in this painting the symptoms of a stylistic decadence. Here virtuosity and seduction are given | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] a more prominent place than the intensity and fervour of the earlier works. Naturalism gives way to formal grace. Religion, in adopting secular art, has codified it and painting has departed far from its original aim, which, as defined in the Vishnudharmottaram, was "to present exact images".
However, as we observed earlier, the Ajanta paintings are not only the outcome of Buddhist thought but of the whole culture of the time. In this way Sanskrit literature, and particularly Sanskrit drama, which flourished in the 5th and 6th centuries - Kali-dasa, the great Indian playright, belongs to this period - have influenced plastic conceptions of both subject-matter and human attitudes. Figures are expressed with a slight exaggeration typical of the theatre. There are character types taken from Indian theatre: the young, strong and handsome hero; the heroine with her languid grace caught between amorous lust and coyness; the confidante, who takes messages back and forth between the lovers; the greedy materialistic Brahman; the noble benevolent ascetic.
The Ajanta paintings are thus the expression of a religious belief and a general cultural tradition; they also reveal details of Indian life during the Gupta period. We can imagine it carefree and patriarchal, refined and bucolic. We see the delicate architecture of their frail wooden palaces, their inner courts, where life was lived out in all its luxury and simplicity. Princes and princesses are adorned with jewels and surrounded by innumerable servants, orchestras and dancers; they travel on the backs of elephants or in decorated chariots, drawn by elegant Asian horses. Yet their furniture is of the most rustic kind, and only the presence of a few utensils of precious metals, placed directly on the ground, indicate the wealth of the masters of the house. In the same way, costumes are very simple, men and women in striped loincloths, their chests naked. Probably the women draped themselves with that extremely fine, transparent material which is made in Northern India and which has always been very popular. We shall come across this gossamer-thin material in later paintings from Northern India | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] . We should point out, while on this matter, that neither nakedness nor physical love has ever been a forbidden subject in India. On the contrary, womanhood, a woman's body, are exalted as symbols of the feminine essence of the universe and, later on, a woman's love became an important means of gaining salvation. We should also note the favourable position women occupy in painting and in Indian society of this time, a position which is confirmed by Indian literature.
But the society we are describing remained fixed at this point. This fact is all the more startling when one notices that a young maiden at her toilet uses the same little pots of engraved metal in the paintings as were used until only a few years ago in present-day India. Languorous maidens, chewing betel, which they take from small, carved boxes, sit under the shelter of small patios which are flanked by delicate colonnades; this scene could have been met with until very recently in the provinces of present-day India. Artisans sit in their raised wooden stalls along the village streets, and some are still making the marvellous jewels with which the heroes of the frescoes were adorned.
Two hundred and forty kilometres to the north-west of Ajanta, in western Malva, are the Buddhist caves of Bagh. For almost half a mile they are dotted along a cliff of friable sandstone and have consequently suffered considerable damage. Most of them were painted; important fragments existed up to about 1950, although they have practically disappeared today. While copies were made at the beginning of the century, they are unable to recapture the beauty of the original. However, they do give precious clues as to the general style, movement and feeling of depth which characterises them. In fact, while they are closely linked to the Ajanta archetype, the Bagh paintings show a freshness, a bonhomie, a vibrant, almost earthy, happiness which contrast sharply with the restraint and introspection of their model. The fresco painting techniques are identical, but the figures, once painted, are not outlined again, which increases the general impression of carefree spontaneity. The subjects treated are presented in a | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] broader, more open fashion than those at Ajanta: a long procession of elephants followed by princes and princesses appear to be on their way to a spring festival. Women, clinging to terraces, watch them pass. The most impressive section is a group of musicians, who surround two long-haired dancers. The twirling, frenzied movement of the ensemble is quite remarkable and portrays a purely pagan joy. This painting is a warm and live expression (though no doubt provincial) of classic Buddhist art.
Tradition has it that the devout Buddhist Emperor Asoka (reigned 264-226 BCE) of the Maurya dynasty sent his own brother Mahendra, in 250 BCE, to convert the Sinhalese to the new faith. He seemed to have succeeded so well that Sri Lanka is still today one of the main bastions of Hinayana Buddhism.
We owe the beautiful frescoes of Sigiriya to a king-parricide. On top of a huge rock, 600 feet high, he had a palace-fortress hewn out of the stone. It is only reached by a narrow path cut out of the rock. About a third of the way up, in pockets sheltered by an overhang, forty feet above the pathway, there are paintings representing bearers of gifts and offerings, fragments of a vast composition which must have accompanied the visitor for the greater part of his climb. Twenty-one of these figures remain. The irregularity of the inner rock surface did not permit the painter to complete the silhouettes in their entirety: women appear to emerge from clouds, their bodies concealed from mid-thigh. They are contemporary with the paintings of cave No. 16 at Ajanta and have the same grace and distinction, but with an added sense of realism. There is an attention to detail in the observation of the human body here which is not so evident in the Ajanta paintings. These ladies and their handmaidens, who are darker skinned and keep slightly in the background, seem to have been painted in such a way as to accentuate their ethnic type rather than their individual personalities. Not only do their facial features differ one from | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] the other but their stance, their hair style and the details of their clothing all vary. This could easily be a portrait gallery of court ladies. This is, perhaps, the only example in classical Indian painting of such careful personalisation.
The sense of volume and depth is particularly noteworthy, thanks to a technique which consisted of first cutting the design on to the smooth surface of the wall, before putting on the red. The outline, moreover, was gone over several times to emphasise the relief. The colours are the same as those used at Ajanta, including yellow ochre, red-brown and mineral green, but to these was certainly added a copper blue, of which there are now but few traces. A final outline in black, as in Northern India, brought the details into greater prominence. The idea of these women, their sensual, haunting grace, their fine supple hands intermingling with the flowers brought as offerings, has little to do with Buddhism. It would seem here that a point has been reached where beauty is glorified for its own sake, where there is a purely aesthetic search for perfect form, of which a foretaste was given us by the great Bodhisattva at Ajanta.
At Ajanta, Bagh and Sigiriya we notice a relaxation from the strict purity of classical Buddhism in favour of a new dynamism, an aestheticism and sensuality, which was soon to be freely expressed in Brahman art.
The great Indian empires collapsed with the Hun invasions at the end of the 6th century, but the new dynasties, which divided up the peninsula, continued the artistic traditions of Ajanta. Classical art carried on with the same brilliance. But Buddhism was gone; instead the new kingdoms dedicated their sanctuaries to the gods of a reviving Brahmanism. Painting, while maintaining the characteristics of the preceding era - beauty and fullness of form, elegance and sureness of line - was slowly but surely seduced by the passion and grandeur of the Hindu pantheon. Art now began to devote itself entirely to expressing the infinite complexity of this prodigious vortex.
In the 6th century a power grew up in the Deccan which was | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] to rule Southern India for the next two hundred years. These were the first western Chalukyas. They made their capital at Badami, where, as at Pattadakal, Aihole and Mahakuteshvara, they constructed many fine temples. The Badami site is very beautiful: cliffs and imposing monoliths of pink stone tower above a blue lake. In a Badami cave-sanctuary dedicated to Vishnu (second in the Brahman trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), built in 578, we find our first example of Brahman painting.
Of the frescoes which once covered the walls of this grotto, only a fragment remains; it occupies the concave surface of a heavy cornice which shelters the entrance to the verandah. It is hard to tell what the actual subject of the composition was, but those figures, which are still distinguishable, are exquisitely graceful. The rounded heads in soft relief are sketched in fine, delicate lines. This delicacy probably stems from the Southern Indian technique of applying the colours a fresco secco. The tenderness and suave and almost friendly charm which emanate from this painting are characteristic of all works of the Chalukya period: elegant, restrained, humane. Their sweet faces, half-erased by time, are identical to the beautifully sculptured pairs which decorate the interior of the Malikarjuna temple at Pattadakal.
The reign of the first western Chalukyas was noted for the long struggle they had against the Pallavas, who from the 6th century were the suzerains of India, south of the Toungabhadra. Until the 9th century, the Pallavas dotted their territory with many temples and bequeathed to art the marvellous complexes of Mahavalipuram and Kantchipuram. Only tiny fragments of their painting remain at Kantchipuram, and sixty-two somewhat larger pieces at Panamalai and Sittanavasal.
At Panamalai on one of the walls in the temple, Talagirishvara, there is a rav | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] ishing female figure; the delicate, sharp outline, the fluidity of colours give us an idea of the technical perfection reached by these southern people. The position of the young woman, one knee bent and the body graciously leaning backwards, is identical to that of the princess at Ajanta, next to the scene of the birth of Buddha in Cave No. 2. It is a posture which we also find in the Kajurao sculptures of the 12th century and is, in all probability, one of the characteristic poses of the heroines of Sanskrit literature.
The second group of paintings, and the most important of those of the Pallava period, are to be found in a Jainist temple, cut out of the side of a hill near the village of Sittanavasal. The frescoes, which may date from the first half of the 9th century, are in fairly good condition. On the verandah pillars there are paintings of two dancers in fine and delicate silhouette and a group of three other persons. The drawing, as at Panamali, is firm, precise and elegant; it is done in brownish red, and stands out beside the pale yellow of the lightly modelled bodies. The ceiling of this verandah is decorated with a very remarkable composition representing three youths about to pick lotus flowers in a pond where elephants, buffaloes and birds are coming to drink. This interweaving of animals and plants, in greens and browns, is admirably cadenced and the stylisation of the whole painting takes away nothing from its freshness and grace. The charming, youthful bodies of the young men are hardly filled out at all, but the drawing is very sure. The lotus, some in bud and some in flower, haloed by huge rounded leaves, and with their long sinuous stalks, is the centre-piece of this obviously symbolic group.
In the second half of the 8th century the first western Chalukyas were wiped out by a new dynasty, the Rashtrakutas, who controlled the northern Deccan for more than a century. It is to these princes that we owe one of the most beautiful monuments, and certainly the most extraordinary, | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] in India, the Kailasha of Ellora. It is an immense monolithic temple, entirely sculptured out of the massive rock. Of the thirty-four caves at Ellora, twelve are Buddhist, seventeen Brahman and five Jainist. They issue from an abrupt, vertical cliff above the horizontal sweep of a natural platform and dominate the northern part of the vast Deccan plateau. In this huge group, containing the most beautiful pieces of Indian stone sculpture, we have only two examples of painting, in the Kailasha and in the Jainist grotto called Indra Sabha.
The Kailasha frescoes are to be found on the ceiling of the western porch. They are covered by three successive layers of paintings, and are now in process of renovation. The oldest must date from the time the temple was built in the second half of the 8th century. Here we see gods and goddesses in flight, dwarfs and a mythological being astride a monster. The technique is the same as that at Badami, but here the drawing is more important than the modelling. Brahman rhythm grows more and more definite as Buddhist borrowings become less. Shiva is dancing, and meditation is replaced by a cosmetic jubilation.
This intensity, this acceleration of movement, is even more striking in the very lovely fragments from the Jainist cave, which date from the middle of the 9th century and show gods in flight and Shiva dancing with an astonishing virtuosity. One character flies in the sky, revealing his back and curved buttocks, his hands joined above his head; it is startling in the perfection of its technique and its sure brilliance. Here bodies have the elegance, the slimness and the light angularity of the female figure at Panamalai, but there is a great degree of stylisation. The artist has freed himself from the conventions of Ajanta. Brahmanism is never didactic like Buddhism; there is no attempt to convince or persuade but one is carried away by the excitement of the scene. Naturalism is too heavy, and is rejected in favour of schematisation, a neater way of expressing the symbolic geometry of shapes.
While the Ras | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] htrakutas were ruling in the north of the Deccan a new dynasty, the Cholas, took over the waning power of the Pallavas in the south and held it from the middle of the 9th century to the beginning of the 13th century. The very special temple architecture of the south developed in the Chola period, the most perfect example being the great Shiva temple at Tanjore.
In six of the rooms at the base of the great tower of this sanctuary, frescoes dating from the construction of the building (early 11th century) have been discovered underneath paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries. Restorers are now at work on the important paintings. On the whole the paintings depict scenes about the god Shiva. Most remarkable are the dancers; with their prodigious expressive strength they convey a feeling of triumphant joy. Although they may resemble the flying genies of Ellora, here something more carnal animates their being, swells their bodies and gives greater curve to their form. Their elan, much more violent here, is reflected in the twisting of the dancer's chest. The colours from mineral pigments seem to be freely applied. According to recent studies, they were applied to the fresco on wet plaster. Like all Indian painting, the contours are etched in red and black, and figures are only lightly filled out. New frescoes have been found in an ambulatory, and once this group has come to light we shall have one of the most important examples of Indian classical painting.
In the 5th century Buddhism was born on the borders of Nepal, and it was in this northeastern corner of India that the Buddhist faith, hunted from the peninsula by a triumphant Brahmanism, was to find its last refuge.
The Pali dynasty, rulers from 750 until the middle of the 12th century, were patrons of an intense, artistic and religious movement, with Brahmanism and Buddhism standing side by side, although the Palis always had a clear predilection for the latter faith. Pali art was founded on the ruins of the Gupta empire, whose style it continued, | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] although in a more precious and affected way. Its greatest successes were in the field of architecture. Pali wall-paintings have all practically disappeared, but some illuminated manuscripts remain. They were carried out in the great Buddhist monasteries, the most famous of which, Nalanda, was the resort of countless pilgrims from South-East Asia.
The manuscripts were executed on palm leaves, long and narrow in format and kept together by threads running through the pages, the whole bound between two pieces of wood. The illustrations are scanty and are done in small frames 3-inches by 2-inches inset within the text. As in wall-paintings, the outlines of this book illustration are done in red or black and colours are filled in afterwards; the colours are white, red, yellow, green and indigo-blue. The composition is simple and usually includes a god (Buddha or a Bodhisattva) surrounded by pupils, or their female alter ego (shakti); the latter sometimes take pride of place in the paintings. Here we touch on Tantric Buddhism, and while these paintings do give an impression of calm and dignity, there is a hint of this Mahayana tendency towards eroticism and magic.
The manuscripts, the oldest of which, as far as is known, do not go back further than the 11th century, are of great interest, since they reveal the final outcome of classical Buddhist painting in India. (For more about illuminated texts, see: History of Illuminated Manuscripts - 600-1200).
In the second half of the 12th century, Islam conquered Bengal, and razed the monasteries to the ground. Buddhism was now finally wiped out in the peninsula and was forced to seek refuge in Nepal and Tibet, where there developed an extremely complex iconography, though in style it remained faithful to its Pali origins.
Sri Lanka, which remained faithful to Buddhism in spite of two centuries of Chola occupation, underwent a new artistic and religious phase with her regained independence in the 12th century. The island capital, Polonnaruva, was studded with temples and | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
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Classical Indian Painting (Up to 1150 CE [...] ornate palaces which, according to the chronicles, were covered with many paintings. However, the only ones remaining of this period are the exquisite frescoes in the small Tivamka temple. Unfortunately, they are in bad condition, but they do help us to study the development of Buddhist painting in the southern part of India.
In spite of the recent Chola invasions, the frescoes were not painted in the Tanjore style and lack both the intensity and vivacity of this art. Here Brahman influence is categorically rejected in favour of Buddhist inwardness and sweetness. The artist has gone back to Ajanta for his inspiration, adding that sensual naturalism, nonchalance and simplicity which we saw in the works of 5th-century Sri Lanka. But the painted figures at Polonnaruva are somewhat more restrained, more abstract, more religious, than the opulent young ladies of Sigiriya. There are scenes of jatakas, a procession of the faithful, all conceived with freedom and suppleness. Some people are painted green. Green, in fact, is the only colour to be used alongside the yellow-ochre tones of the whole. The foliage is very beautiful and drawn with great ease, evoking the abundance of the dense Sinhalese jungle.
By their finesse, their serenity and rather languid grace the Polonnaruva paintings show a definite return to pure Buddhist classicism; this was possibly a simple reaction against the attempted Brahman hegemony, or it may have been the stagnation of an inspiration limited by the continued repetition of the same themes. The perfect drawing techniques make us regret, all the more, the loss of these secular compositions.
We have now arrived at the end of the classical period. At the beginning of the 14th century Moslem incursions penetrated right into Southern India. The new epoch was to prove tense and stirring but not one for the expression of classical ideals. A transitional art was born, which opened up the way to a new visual language.
More Articles about Art in Asia
For more information about Asian architecture, painting and sculpture, please see the following articles:
Art (c.1 | <urn:uuid:6db553a2-25b3-4039-8a77-90be039ecfb3> | 512 | 23 |
There are many magnificent sites one can expect to see from the top of the Eiffel Tower: the Arc de Triomphe; Notre-Dame Cathedral; the Louvre. Something one might not expect to see is a replica of the Statue of Liberty. And yet, just to the south, smack dab in the middle of the river Seine, by golly there it is.
The quarter-scale replica sits on the southern end of Île aux Cygnes, an artificial island built in the Seine in 1827 to separate river traffic from the busy port of Grenelle. Over time, a tree-lined walkway was built that runs the full 850-meter length of the island, and three bridges were built across the island to connect the 15th and 16th arrondissements. Île aux Cygnes is the third-largest island in Paris.
The statue itself was given to the city of Paris in 1889 by the American community in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution. In characteristic American fashion, the statue was officially inaugurated on the Fourth of July (a date not at all associated with the French Revolution) rather than Bastille Day (a mere 10 days later, and often described to the uninitiated as the "French Fourth of July"). To be fair, the inauguration was presided over by French President Marie François Sadi Carnot, who probably had other things to do on Bastille Day. (Also, the statue's tablet bears the date July 14, 1789, as well as July 4, 1776.) The gift was given to highlight the historically close bond between France and the United States and reaffirm the dedication of the two nations to the republican ideal on which they were founded.
This Pont de Grenelle Statue of Liberty was installed some three years after the New York Statue of Liberty, and in fact was originally one of the working models made whilst preparing to construct the "real thing." The statue can be accessed via either the Pont de Grenelle or the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, both of which cross the Île aux Cygnes. While this is not the only Statue of Liberty replica in Paris—both the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée des Arts et Métiers house | <urn:uuid:5a070474-00e1-444b-94ec-4433ca46431d> | 512 | 0 |
Rosy Apple Aphid
Excerpt from Publication 310, Integrated Pest Management
Table of Contents
The rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea (Passerini), is found in most apple-growing regions of North America and is a pest on all apple cultivars. Apple is the preferred host for rosy apple aphid but they also feed on pear and hawthorn. Cortland, Idared and Golden Delicious are most susceptible to injury. This aphid feeds mainly on apple foliage - notably fruiting spurs - causing leaf chlorosis and curling. Their feeding indirectly stunts and deforms fruits in the cluster, making rosy apple aphid the most economically significant aphid species that feeds on apples in Ontario.
Overwintering eggs on bark and twig surfaces are 0.4 mm in length and oval shaped. When first laid, eggs are bright yellow, gradually change to greenish-yellow and eventually black. The nymph passes through five instars, increasing in size from 0.4-2.0 mm. Young nymphs are pale yellow or pink, and become rosy brown or purple as they grow and feed. Nymphs have long cornicles at the base of the abdomen and long antennae extending almost half the length of the body (Figure 4-17). Adults are winged or wingless and 3 mm in length. In early spring, rosy apple aphids move to developing fruit clusters and become reproductive adults during bloom, taking two to three weeks to mature. Hatched nymphs are wingless females called stem mothers when they mature. Adults are a dark purple-pink and found in colonies on extension and terminal growth.
Females deposit eggs on bark - especially at the base of the buds - in the fall. Eggs begin to hatch as tree buds open in the spring and continue hatching over a two-week period. Nymphs feed on the outside of leaf and fruit buds until leaves
Mature females produce live young shortly after or during bloom. The second generation matures and produces live young two to three weeks after petal fall. Populations are usually greatest in the inner and upper parts of the canopy. The second generation | <urn:uuid:4f884479-29a6-4bd8-92bb-f520ede39cd7> | 512 | 0 |
Rosy Apple Aphid
Excerpt from Publication 310, Integrated [...] requires 4-40 days to reach maturity and produce young. Unmated females produce live young (parthogenesis) and only females are produced during the summer. Most second generation rosy apple aphids are wingless females. Each female produces 120-185 offspring. There are generally three generations of rosy apple aphid produced on apple, with the second generation occurring two to three weeks after petal fall and the third generation appearing by mid to late June. By early to mid July, most aphids have developed wings and dispersed to summer hosts such as narrow-leaf and broadleaf plaintain or dock. In some seasons, wingless females of the third generation produce a fourth generation on apple. Some areas have recently experienced damaging populations of rosy apple aphid in orchards in mid to late summer. It is not known whether this change in behaviour is due to change in habitat, or lack of need for an alternative host.
Several more generations develop on summer hosts until fall, when winged females return to apple trees and produce live female young. These females develop on apple, mate with males, and deposit eggs that overwinter the following spring.
Young aphids hatch in spring, damaging the outside of fruit and leaf buds by sucking sap from tissues. During feeding, aphids inject a toxin that deforms leaves (Figure 4-18) and fruit (Figure 4-19). Aphid feeding tightly curls and puckers leaves, hiding the aphid colony. Rosy apple aphids produce honeydew that drips onto leaves and fruit. Sooty fungus colonizes the honeydew, and fruit discolours them. Often ant feeding on honeydew is associated with aphid colonies. The most serious rosy apple aphid damage occurs when saliva translocates from the leaves to fruit, causing apples to remain small, deformed (pigmy fruit) and unmarketable. Toxic saliva reduces growth of roots and other woody tissue - and research shows this has an important impact on young trees as they develop a mature bearing structure. Toxins in aphid saliva serve as a "stop drop," preventing the fruit's ab | <urn:uuid:4f884479-29a6-4bd8-92bb-f520ede39cd7> | 512 | 23 |
Rosy Apple Aphid
Excerpt from Publication 310, Integrated [...] scission (natural separation from the tree) at normal harvest. Rosy apple aphid is rarely found attacking young and rapidly growing shoots, restricting itself to foliage, flower stalks and young fruits.
Check for rosy apple aphids every week, beginning at tight cluster and continue until late June. Cortland, Ida Red and Golden Delicious are all susceptible cultivars to monitor for rosy apple aphid. For every 10-15 ha, examine 5 clusters from each of 20 trees for dwarf and semi dwarf plantings. For larger trees, examine 10 fruit clusters from each of 10 trees. A cluster is considered infested if more than 20 aphids are present. Check the interior portion of the tree - where rosy apple aphids usually appear first.
Chemical control is recommended if more than 5% of fruit clusters are infested and few predators are identified. Monitor for aphid predators around rosy apple aphid colonies. Predators may make chemical control unnecessary.
Researchers in Pennsylvania established a relationship between the density of rosy apple aphid and fruit damage. The number of infested fruit spurs per tree in a three minute search at the early pink to pink stage of apple development directly relates to the number of damaged apples per tree at harvest. This relationship assumes aphids attack blossom clusters at random and each aphid-infested cluster yields one injured apple. From this relationship, researchers propose that if a grower finds an average of one infested cluster per tree at the pink stage, chemical treatment is needed.
Aphids have many natural enemies including hover fly larvae (Syrphidae), lacewing larvae (Chrysoperlidae and Hemerobiidae), lady beetle larvae/adults (Coccinellidae), mullein bug (Miridae), minute pirate bug (Anthocoridae), earwigs and some parasitic wasps (Braconidae). Pictures and descriptions of these predators and parasites are found in the beneficial insects. The natural enemy complex can be disrupted by insecticides applied against other pests. When possible, use pesticides less likely | <urn:uuid:4f884479-29a6-4bd8-92bb-f520ede39cd7> | 512 | 23 |
Coal extraction causes strata deformation and failure which may enhance hydraulic conductivity in the surrounding strata. Therefore, it is desirable to accurately determine pre- and post-mining hydraulic conductivities in the overburden and underlying strata of the coal seam. To measure the hydraulic conductivity in the underlying strata, boreholes are drilled pre-mining in underground roadways for observation. In each borehole, water injection and a number of well logging techniques (such as electric resistivity, sonic log, acoustic emission, and hole televiewer, etc.) are used to determine rock strength, borehole fissure, and changes in hydraulic conductivity.
Figure 10.1 gives a schematic diagram of a water injection instrument (Zhang and Zhu 1994). The key technique during measurements is to control the injection pressure. The pressure should not be high enough to create new fractures in the strata, since the experiment is to determine the changes in hydraulic conductivity induced by mining. Therefore, the injection pressure should not exceed the least principal stress of the surrounding strata. Figure 10.2 shows the observing borehole locations and layout in Xingtai coal mine. In-situ stresses in this area were: V v = 7.4 MPa, V h = 4.5 MPa. The roadway in Fig. 10.2 was located 36 m below the mining face and four boreholes were drilled at different angles. The water injection instrument described in Fig. 10.1 was applied to measure the flowrate of water injection pre- and post-mining, using an injection pressure of 0.35 - 0.5 MPa. The water injection along each borehole was conducted by pumping water into the instrument, then into the borehole. The measurements were taken in each hole at different sections throughout the borehole and at different times.
Figure 10.3 presents the measured pre-mining and post-mining flowrate of water injection in Hole 1 (refer to Fig. 10.2). Note that in this context pre-mining corresponds to a state before the mining face passes the borehole, and post-mining means after the mining face passes the borehole. Before the mining face passed Hole | <urn:uuid:92c49350-2ba6-4840-af47-e6d31187a64c> | 512 | 0 |
Coal extraction causes strata deformation and failure which may enhance hydraulic conductivity in [...] 1 (in pre-mining the mining face was 32 m away from the borehole), the injection rate was zero from 53 to 68 m in the inclined borehole. This means that the strata in this area were impermeable. However, when the mining face passed the borehole, the injection rate (refer to Fig. 10.3 for post-mining at 19 and 63 m) increased dramatically, and the strata in some areas changed from being impermeable to permeable. Since the borehole wall collapsed by mining when the mining face passed 63 m from the borehole, water injection data could not be obtained after 60 m from the borehole opening. The borehole collapse in post-mining illustrates that the borehole was seriously damaged, and that rocks around the borehole failed due to mining.
Figure 10.4 plots the increments of water injection rates after mining, which were obtained by subtracting the pre-mining injection rates from those of the post-mining (Zhang 2005). These increments represent injection rates caused by permeability changes induced by coal extraction. Figure 10.4 shows that along the inclined borehole from 43 m to 72 m (the borehole end), the injection rate increases compared to the pre-mining (insitu) state. Therefore, the strata in this area were fissured by mining, and this fractured area is defined as the water-conducting failure zone. Using the same method to analyze the observed data from all boreholes, the mining-induced water-conducting failure zone can be obtained. This failure zone is of critical importance for mine design and water inrush prevention for mining over aquifers. Figure 10.5 shows the changes of the average water injection rate in the seam floor of 10 m deep from the seam in the Xingtai coal mine. The injection rate clearly increases compared to the unmined area. The injection rate decreases inside the abutment. This decrease is due to stress concentration and high abutment pressure occurring in this area, causing the fractures to close.
Figure 10.6 displays the changes of the injection rates with distance of mining advance | <urn:uuid:92c49350-2ba6-4840-af47-e6d31187a64c> | 512 | 23 |
Coal extraction causes strata deformation and failure which may enhance hydraulic conductivity in [...] for two different depths beneath the coal seam in Wangfeng coal mine, Hebei Province. It clearly shows that in the mined area the injection rate increases significantly compared to the unmined area. It also can be seen that due to coal extraction the water-conducting capacity increases in the floor strata, and this water-conducting capacity decreases as the distance from coal seam to the floor strata increases. This indicates that the closer the strata is to the extracted seam, the higher the permeability in the seam floor. It is also noticeable that the injection rate decreases inside the abutment. This decrease is due to the fact that stress concentration and high abutment pressure occurred in this area cause the fractures to be closed.
Field observations have shown that characteristics of failures in the floor strata are considerably different for different inclinations of the extracted seams. For flat or slightly inclined seams (dip angle, D < 25q), the profile of the water-conducting failure zone is broad in section with extended lobes, and the maximum failure depth occurs beneath the headgate and tailgate, respectively shown in Fig. 10.7 (Fengfeng Mining Bureau et al. 1985). For inclined seams (25q < D < 60q), the failure zone propagates downwards in an asymmetric manner in the dip direction, as shown in Fig. 10.8 (Huainan Mining Bureau et al. 1983). The extent of the failure zone increases gradually from updip to downdip, and the maximum failure depth appears in the floor strata beneath the area around the lower gate. For steeply inclined seams (60q < D < 90q), the failure zones in the floor strata are opposite to the inclined seams, i.e., the maximum failure depth appears in the strata beneath the area around the upper gate (Zhang 2005).
You are about to be redirected to another page. We are not responisible for the content of that page or the consequences it may have on you. | <urn:uuid:92c49350-2ba6-4840-af47-e6d31187a64c> | 479 | 23 |
These math workshop tools for students are designed to help you have the resources you need for your math workshop.
We envision printing sets of the tools you will be using throughout the year on colored card stock and laminating for durability. You can create a complete set for each student and have students store their set in a baggie or other case in their desks. Or, if you are worried about missing pieces, you can create a class set of the tools as you need them and store by type. We have included a student toolkit booklet so that you are able to provide students with an easy to use reference book for math class.
You can download the complete collection by clicking on the bold, blue words at the bottom of this post.
We have created the following math workshop tools to help you assemble your classroom tool kits:
- dot cards
- ten frames
- large number cards 0-10
- number cards 0-20, word cards
- number cards 0-120 with math symbol cards
- blanks 100s chart
- 100s chart
- small 100s charts
- blank 120 chart
- 120 chart
- small 120 charts
- blank number paths 1-10
- number paths 1-10
- number lines 1-10
- number lines 1-20
- tens & ones work mat
- hundreds, tens & ones work mat
- blank ten frame
- blank five frame
- number bond work mat
- subtracting on a number line work mat 1-10
- subtracting on a number line work mat 1-100
- fractions work mat
- blank clocks
- My Math Toolkit Booklet for students – this contains many 1/2 sheet pages that you can pick and choose from to create personal toolkits that are just right for your students. The pages are created so they can be cut apart and stapled at the top. (We have included three versions of a place value chart so you can use the one that fits the standards in your grade level.)
You can download the complete collection of tools here: Math Tools for your Workshop
We would love to see pictures showing how you have used these resources in your classroom! Share creative ideas below to help other teachers get the most | <urn:uuid:3e964e16-20af-425d-871b-bebc9881b59f> | 512 | 0 |
Sometimes a person needs more than a single source of income. Finding a way to generate multiple sources of income is often worth the effort required. I make one-of-a-kind clothing and accessories, so once I sell an item, I have to make something new.
By teaching crafting classes, I can generate income on a more continuous basis. Teaching crafting classes is also an opportunity to meet new people and share my knowledge and creativity. There are a many factors involved in deciding on the fee for a craft class. Supplies are only a small part of the expense involved in preparing for a class. A lot of advance preparation is required for a class to be successful.
10 Things to Do to Prepare for a Craft Class
- Locate classroom space
- Determine fee payable for classroom space
- Calculate cost of supplies provided to students
- Establish rate for your teaching services
- Research local and online supply sources
- Create materials to publicize class
- Promote class on social media (Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)
- Make samples of project
- Compose and print instructions for class handouts
- Organize supplies and create kits for students
The most difficult item to quantify is the time involved in learning a new technique. This time and effort is valuable. The next class on my schedule is Basic Victorian Ribbonwork. I can make a folded ribbon rose in a few minutes, but that was not the case when I first tried it. I bought numerous books, spent many hours practicing, and bought yards of ribbon.
I learned many of the techniques I teach from “The Artful Ribbon” by Candace Kling.
“The Secrets of Fashioning Ribbon Flowers” by Helen Gibb was also helpful. Although I use the traditional methods I learned to fashion roses, lilies, tulips, and other flowers, I have developed my unique style.
In summary, teaching classes allows me to share something I love, while encouraging students to try traditional techniques that are new to them. | <urn:uuid:7dfd459c-8070-4047-85b5-bd4f2bbda4ea> | 436 | 0 |
Ten men was first described in 1906 by Caroline Furness Jayne.
I divide its construction sequence into five distinct phases: Forming the Loom, Weaving, Resetting the Loom, Weaving Again, and Extending the Figure:
Forming the Ten Men Loom
Begin with Opening A (fig. 1, Step 1).
With your mouth reach over all the strings and return with the far little finger string (Step 2).
With your right index reach over the right mouth string, pick up the left mouth string and return (Step 3).
With your left index pick up the right mouth string and return (Step 4).
Release the mouth loop and the loop on each thumb and extend (Step 5). You now have the Ten Men Loom. The upper and lower near index strings should run directly from hand to hand without crossing. These two strings will become the frame lines of the finished pattern.
Weaving (first iteration)
With each thumb reach under both index loops, pick up the near little finger string, and return (Step 6). This step constitutes the FIRST PART OF THE WEAVE.
Now FINISH THE WEAVE: With each thumb pick up the upper near index string, keeping it above the loop already on the thumb (Step 7).
Navaho the thumb loops (Step 8).
Resetting the Loom
On each hand release the upper index loop and extend (Step 9).
On each hand transfer the thumb loop to the index finger (without inverting or twisting the loop), keeping the transferred loop above the loop already on each index (Step 10).
Weaving (second iteration)
FIRST PART OF THE WEAVE: With each thumb reach under both index loops, pick up the near little finger string, and return (Step 11).
FINISH THE WEAVE: With each thumb pick up the upper near index string, keeping it above the loop already on the thumb (Step 12).
Navaho the thumb loops (Step 13).
Extending the Figure
With each middle finger reach over the upper far index string and pick up the (lower) near index string.
Release the little finger loops and extend with palms facing away from you (Step 14).
As the students practice making the figure, I emphasize the division of the sequence into phases | <urn:uuid:9dec4175-92fb-4e9a-b9da-d67277916992> | 512 | 0 |
The drilling for oil and gas exploration and production under increasingly difficult geological conditions has revealed a need for better understanding of borehole stability issues. It is estimated that wellbore instability results in substantial economic losses of about US$ 8 billion per year worldwide. Many innovative technologies have been applied in the oil and gas industry, such as underbalanced drilling, high pressure jet drilling, re-entry horizontal wells, and multilaterals from a single well. These have definitely increased the demand for wellbore stability studies. Recently, technological advances have been pushing the boreholes to reach beyond 34,100 ft (10,400 m) below the sea level in deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico. Highly inclined, extended-reach wellbores may have to remain open for prolonged time periods, not only during the drilling stage but also over the life of a reservoir.
New challenges also emerged since the increasing use of horizontal wells, drilling in naturally fractured media, in very deep formations, and in difficult geological conditions, where wellbore stability is of major concern (Willson and Willis 1986). For example, a 8,715 m deep well was drilled in crystalline rock in Germany and some types of wellbore instabilities (breakouts, washout, undergauged sections) were observed (Hoffers et al. 1994). Some wellbore instabilities associated with complex geologic conditions, where the stress regime was controlled by active faults, are reported in the Cusiana field (Colombia), the Pedernales field (Venezuela), the Alberta Basin (Canada), the Tarim Basin (China), certain areas of the Norwegian Sea, and offshore Indonesia (Willson et al. 1999, Plumb et al. 1998, Wiprut and Zoback 1998, Ramos et al. 1998).
When a borehole is drilled in a naturally fractured formation, excessively high mud density allows the drilling fluid to penetrate into fractures, mobilizing the rock blocks, and intensifying ovalization (Charlez 1999). When this occurs, the fractured blocks are no longer subject to the mud overbalance pressure, and the destabil | <urn:uuid:f67b504d-9470-4f53-9929-a9787ab82e2f> | 512 | 0 |
The drilling for oil and gas exploration and production under increasingly difficult geological conditions has revealed a need [...] ized blocks can cave into the well bore as a result of swabbing the formation when tripping (Willson et al. 1999). When a borehole crosses a fault, drilling mud may invade the discontinuity plane. Apart from mud losses, penetration of the fluid reduces the normal stress and induces a displacement along the crack planes which shears the well, as shown in Fig. 7.1. The consequences can quickly become dramatic and could lead to partial or even total loss of a well. Two case histories in Aquitaine, France were described that resulted in the loss of the wells and the need for the drilling of two new wells, costing in the range of US$30 million (Maury and Zurdo 1996).
Wellbore instability can result in lost circulation where tensile stresses have occurred due to high drilling mud pressure (Fig. 7.2a); breakouts and hole closure in case of compressive and shear failures (Fig. 7.2b). During drilling stage an open hole is supported by drilling mud pressure to keep wellbore from collapse. If the mud weight is lower than the shear failure stress or collapse stress, the shear failure and compressive failure occur in the wellbore in the minimum far-field stress (Sh) direction, causing hole collapse or breakout. If the mud weight exceeds the rock tensile strength, the tensile fracture is induced in the maximum far-field stress (SH) direction. Consequently, this may cause drilling fluid losses or lost circulation.
Figure 7.3 shows a typical wellbore instability due to breakout and drilling induced tensile fracture. For a circular opening with large diameter the hole/tunnel breakout has a similar behavior as small boreholes. Figure 7.4 presents hole breakout in a circular tunnel with a radius of R = 1.75 m in the Underground Research Laboratory of Canada (Martino and Chandler 2004). The fully developed notch (breakout) in the roof was caused by stress redistribution due to excavation. The notch is stable, owing to its naturally formed shape, which develops a confining pressure at the notch tip | <urn:uuid:f67b504d-9470-4f53-9929-a9787ab82e2f> | 512 | 23 |
The drilling for oil and gas exploration and production under increasingly difficult geological conditions has revealed a need [...] . The notch will remain stable unless disturbed by changing conditions, such as increased temperature, small stress changes caused by nearby excavations.
In severe cases the borehole instability can lead to loss of the open hole section. The borehole stability problem can be considered by separating the potential rock failure mechanisms into the following four categories (Roegiers1990):
- failures related to pre-existing or drilling-induced formation damage;
- failures caused by the induced stress, pore pressure concentrations, and temperature redistributions;
- failures attributed to deliberate or unintentional additional stresses; and,
- failures related to shock-wave loading.
Borehole instabilities are the main cause of drilling difficulties, resulting in an expensive loss of time, sometimes in a loss of part of or even whole boreholes. Wellbore instabilities make logging very difficult to perform and to interpret (Maury and Sauzay 1987). A bad condition of the borehole wall alters artificially the annulus zone corresponding to the depth of investigation of most of the logging tools.
The shape of the borehole can be strongly modified giving an elongated hole in one direction, diameter reduction in the other direction and also almost circular cavings in places. In the Cusiana field in Colombia, even though some measures to prevent borehole instability were taken, extensive breakouts in fissile and naturally fractured shales – of up to 44" in 121/4" hole – occurred (Willson et al. 1999). Approximately 10% of the well costs in the Cusiana field were spent coping with bad holes, mainly because of abnormally high tectonic stresses induced by an active thrust-faulting environment (Addis et al. 1993, Last and McLean 1995). In addition to the cost associated with borehole instability while drilling, borehole stability also has a substantial impact on reservoir productions (Bradley 1979).
There are several stages in the life of a well, i.e., drilling, completion, stimulation, flow tests, production, and depletion. Borehole instabilities can be encountered in all these | <urn:uuid:f67b504d-9470-4f53-9929-a9787ab82e2f> | 512 | 23 |
Memphis History begins when the region was first inhabited by the Chickasaw Indians. Some streets reflect their names as encountered by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1541. In an apocalyptic story typical of the Americas, control of the land passed from Native-American to Spanish to French to American control as a byproduct of wars, disease, reduction of food supplies and false treaties.
European immigrans arrived in larger numbers in the early 1800s, when Tennessee was admitted to the Union. They introduced slavery to power local cotton plantations. Memphis’ early economic infrastructure was based on its proximity to the Mississippi River and being largest city close to the Cotton Belt. Those traits allowed Memphis to become the leading cotton exporter.
The prospering City of Memphis, founded in 1819 by Andrew Jackson and two other Anglo-Americans, incorporated in 1826. Jackson later became president. The city’s name comes from the ancient city of Memphis, Egypt, which sits on the banks of a great Nile River.
Free people of color worked as servants and dock laborers. Many enjoyed full citizenship rights, until the government stripped their voting rights in 1834. Even the rights of free African Americans were threatened when the ban on the slave trade was repealed in 1840. Lack of proper ID and an unlucky encounter sometimes landed free persons of color into slavery. After this repeal, the city became a major hub for human cargo. How ironic that Memphis, named after a great African city, should become a hub for the slavery of Africans.
By 1857, Memphis and Charleston Railroad completed, linking the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. Plantation holders, railroad and Memphis export/import businessmen were making more money than ever. But life for free African Americans was very tough. Newly arrived, less qualified German, Irish, and Italian immigrants moved African Americans further down the job market food chain using a phalanx of newly legislated Black Codes. When the Civil War came in 1861, Tennessee sided with the Confederacy and a Confederate Army base was established in Memphis. That Confederate Camp was established on Beale Street.
The Union Navy defeated Confederate forces along | <urn:uuid:d1f52c11-34bd-455a-8db2-48c7ab7204da> | 512 | 0 |
Memphis History begins when the region was first inhabited by the Chickasaw Indians. [...] the Mississippi River in a two-hour Battle of Memphis in 6 June 1862. For African Americans, life improved overnight as Union troops occupied the city for the duration of the war, liberated slaves and restored human rights. By Memphis falling so quickly, Union forces spared Memphis from the burning and looting endured by Vicksburg, Atlanta and Columbia after their hard fought campaigns. In 1865 the Memphis Freedman’s Bureau was established to assist the transition from slavery to freedom. In 1869 First Baptist Church was built on Beale Street. The Grand Lodge, an order of African American Masons, was established here in 1870. Then the bottom dropped out.
In 1878, a yellow fever epidemic claimed 5,000 lives and caused most European-Americans to exit. African-Americans, less susceptible to the disease, stayed. Robert Church Sr., acquiring Memphis land at bargain prices, would soon become the nation’s first black millionaire. Nevertheless, so many people exited by 1879, that Memphis declared bankruptcy and became a ward of the state. When the yellow fever scare subsided years later, European Americans returned. Racism reared its ugly head again. In 1892, Ida B. Wells reported against lynching and the conditions of public schools in her newspaper. Shortly afterwards, she lost her teaching job and the Klu Klux Klan burned her office down, droving Wells out of Memphis. Despite that setback, Robert Church Sr. and other Black Memphians, helped the city regain its charter in 1893.
African Americans persevered to create a thriving community, Beale Street, in the late 1890s. While most southern African-Americans would never consider voting for fear of retribution, in Memphis they registered to vote in large numbers as early as the 1920s. Race relations were helped in 1925, when Tom Lee, a black man who could not swim, risked his life in a small boat to rescue 32 European Americans on the M.E | <urn:uuid:d1f52c11-34bd-455a-8db2-48c7ab7204da> | 512 | 23 |
Memphis History begins when the region was first inhabited by the Chickasaw Indians. [...] . Norman ship that sank in the Mississippi River. During this time, Memphis was on par with New Orleans, Atlanta, Durham and Richmond as a center for black commerce in the South. There were middle-income black communities in North Memphis, South Memphis, Orange Mound and Frayser districts.
Growing in city infrastructure and status again, in 1929, the Municipal Airport was completed. In 1931, Memphis’ first Cotton Carnival was celebrated. The city received an economic boost in 1934, when citizens opted to join the Tennessee Valley Authority electric system. The first community library for African-Americans opened in the same year. World War II efforts boosted the economy and population. In 1943, the Army Depot and Mallory Air Force Depot were built. By 1950, city population reached nearly 300,000. During the 1950s, Memphis was named the country’s quietest, cleanest, and safest city on several occasions under the big boss politics of E.H. Crump, its mayor of 45 years. By 1960, Memphis population reached 497,524. By 1963, Memphis had as many African-American registered voters as Anglo-American registered voters.
Memphis had fewer of the worst aspects of southern racism compared to neighboring Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. Yet, one epic incident would scar city history. On 4 April 1968, King was assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel. A couple months later James Earl Ray was captured in the United Kingdom and later convicted of the assassination.
As school busing and fair housing took hold in the early 1970s, Memphis, like other cities was severely hurt by White Flight. This process weakened the tax base and school system. Yet, African-Americans from the Deep South continued migrating to Memphis for job opportunities. Despite being a large percentage of the population, they could not obtain significant political power until 1974, when they elected Harold Ford, Sr. to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the | <urn:uuid:d1f52c11-34bd-455a-8db2-48c7ab7204da> | 512 | 23 |
We're always looking for the best way to securely log on to computers, ATMs, and the like. We recently looked at fingerprint scanners, and found that while they aren't necessarily very secure, they can be convenient. Today we look at the opposite end of the spectrum: a very secure password input method that you won't find on your next laptop or PC... just yet.
Researchers at Stanford have created a new secure input (abstract and full paper) system that watches your eyes scan a visual keyboard to determine what text to input into secure fields, such as a password field or an ATM PIN. The benefits of such an approach come chiefly from defeating two common ways of snagging PINs and passwords: keylogging and good old-fashioned over-the-shoulder snooping, also known as "shoulder surfing."
The researchers suggest that ATMs are a natural fit for such technology. Just think of all those moments when you're using an ATM to withdraw or deposit money, while simultaneously attempting to shield your PIN number from the goon behind you who doesn't have the good sense to look away or admire the cars in the parking lot while you get to business.
The gaze-tracking system functions by shining an invisible infrared beam on a user's face. The beam produces a tiny reflection in the eyes that stays put, no matter where a person looks (provided they do not move their head too much). By tracking the stable position of this reflection and the relative position of a person's pupils, the system is able to calculate which keys or buttons a user wishes to input, and interpret the information accordingly.
An EyePass virtual keyboard with eye tracking. Source: research paper.
In tests with 18 subjects, the researchers compared the password entry speed and error rates of the subjects using the EyePassword system and a standard keyboard. Unsurprisingly, keyboard speed was quick (two seconds on average), while EyePassword input was slow, between nine and 12 seconds on average in different testing scenarios. Despite this, more than 80 percent of those tested preferred the EyePassword method. Additionally, when testing EyePassword input using an input method where users visually "dwell" on the characters they wish to input, error rates were comparable to keyboarding.
The researchers say that they expect eye tracking hardware prices to decline rapidly over the next | <urn:uuid:bd5107af-81d5-4759-83c3-ca46d1c1fd97> | 512 | 0 |
This is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. It’s a time to celebrate what has been learned and to push the process further along. There is no screening test to diagnose Parkinson’s disease (PD) early. Researchers are searching for biomarkers – telltale signs of the disease – that would allow earlier treatments and provide insight into possible cures. At the moment, medications, exercise, creative activities, and surgery can reduce the symptoms of PD, but there is no way of stopping the disease in its tracks.
Yet, this is a very promising time in PD research. A key reason is an emerging collaboration between PD patients, physicians and scientists in determining research directions. Patients are influencing the course of PD science as never before. Once considered weak victims of a devastating disease, they have become influential collaborators in the search for a cure.
When I was first diagnosed with PD over a decade ago, patient input was close to negligible. Definition of the disease was narrow. A diagnosis required a set of motor indicators shared, it was assumed, with all true PD patients. PD was a brain disease – short and simple. Now, through the collaboration of patients and experts, we know that PD looks different across patients at various points in time and some have little in the way of noticeable tremor. The disease may even reveal itself in gut or nasal bacteria before commonly known symptoms are evident.
Patient involvement in PD research is moving the route to a cure from pot-holed, one-lane back roads to multiple-lane avenues of shared information. Rather than passive objects of study, PD patients are actively involved in finding a cure. Their input has led to a realization that the best treatment for PD is individualized. In fact, Parkinson’s disease may not be one disease at all. Treating it may be more a matter of patient-doctor communication about which symptoms are in need of attention at any given point in time than finding a single medication to meet all challenges.
Not long ago, what became known as non-motor symptoms, among them changes in cognition, digestive problems, and sleep difficulties, were considered irrelevant to finding biomarkers or a cure. Yet patients live with these symptoms and they saw the link to PD. Now most non-motor symptoms are viewed as treatable aspects of PD and potential, crucial clues to a possible cure.
As Dr. Zolton Mar | <urn:uuid:955a19aa-c26d-4d96-a7da-f4b966855c79> | 512 | 0 |
This is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. It’s a time to celebrate what has [...] i, MD, interim director of the Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, explains, “Clinically there is heterogeneity. Patients may be tremor dominant; they may be more rigid. The prognosis varies across a significantly wide spectrum.” He adds, “In this whole complex mash of what works for whom, if we could make sense of that better, you know we don’t have to invent the magic, miracle pill to stop Parkinson’s if we could just use all the information and apply it to find what works for each individual patient.” How better to do that than to ask patients themselves to be involved?
Amy Comstock Rick, J.S., CEO of the Parkinson’s Action Network, shared with Neurology Now that patients and advocates need to be involved every step of the way. Her view: “No research is successful in isolation.” The Parkinson Disease Foundation, Parkinson’s Alliance and European Parkinson’s Disease Association, to name a few, invite patients to become advocates not only for spreading awareness of PD and involving patients in clinical trials, but in lending their voices to the choice of research directions.
Each April in New York City’s Central Park, thousands of PD patients, their families and friends join the Unity Walk. Such walks take place in Europe and around the world as well. These colorful, joyful experiences bring together the very people who hold the key to a disease that has long baffled those who commit their lives to studying it.
Research on a disease such as PD in isolation of patient input is a recipe for failure. Patient subjects are not the messy necessity of science. They are the reason for its existence. If science is to be useful, it’s imperative to understand the people being studied. They used to be the last group asked about the problem being investigated. They were victims. Today, you can hardly read about Parkinson’s without learning of the important role played by patients. They learn from each other, share their observations and increase the likelihood of better treatments and ultimately a cure.
Parkinson’s disease remains a tough challenge, but the battle is heating up and more soldiers are wearing t-shirts, carrying signs, marching in optimistic solidarity for | <urn:uuid:955a19aa-c26d-4d96-a7da-f4b966855c79> | 512 | 23 |
How Certificate Physical and Human Geography by Goh Cheng Leong is helpful in UPSC Exam Preparation.
The Certificate Physical and Human Geography by Goh Cheng Leong is one of the sources recommended by many IAS experts to cover geography part of the UPSC Syllabus and this source plays a major part especially in answering geography questions of General Studies Paper I of UPSC Prelims exam.
Why the Certificate Physical and Human Geography Book for UPSC Exam?
The Certificate Physical and Human Geography is an accepted source by all the IAS aspirants’ to learn about climate change, climatic patterns, desserts, glaciers, types of natural vegetation, mountain chains, minerals or any other natural phenomenon.
The book contains much of geographical knowledge that one needs to possess, hence IAS aspirants appearing for UPSC Civil Services Exam and candidates aspiring for other competitive exams highly rely on the book.
How the book is helpful for the aspirants’ in the IAS Mains Exam Preparation
This book covers the basic details of most topics of physical and human geography in an easy to understand language with many illustrations, photographs, and maps along with detailed explanation.
The book is divided into two main sections and they are:
1. The first section deals with physical geography
This section covers in-depth information about existing
- land masses
- oceans, types of winds
- mountain types
- rainfall and its global patterns and such existing natural phenomenon
The detailed information on these topics is presented in a well-illustrated manner that makes reading a pleasure.
It also has information on Earth’s crust and the various natural forces present in our world. Also, there is a detailed section on earthquakes and volcanoes.
2. The second section deals with global climatic zones
This section covers the
- Existing global climatic zones of Savanna, Steppe, Mediterranean, Equatorial and Tropical Monsoon Climate
- Aspects of Human Geography spread over these varied climatic zones
- The types of agriculture practiced,
- The urban centers,
- Mineral wealth and
- Developed industrial belts
At the end of every topic, a set of relevant questions is given which IAS aspirants’ can practice and make a self-analysis about having obtained clarity | <urn:uuid:132900ef-0ef1-4ed3-afaa-0b81c9b566a1> | 512 | 0 |
Since the earliest days of philosophy, a question has been pondered and debated, with many of our greatest minds weighing in. What is humanity’s essential nature? Are we intrinsically selfish or by-and-large altruistic? In ancient China, humans were thought to be born pure, and it was the world that corrupted them. We see a similar philosophy taking shape during the Enlightenment among such philosophers as Locke and Rousseau.
For Plato and many to follow, the emotions were what corrupted us. The intellect was our salvation. He compared this lifelong struggle to a chariot. The emotions are the horses. The charioteer serves as the intellect, who keeps the horses in line and steers them. This concept was carried throughout the ancient world until the advent of Christianity and the concept of original sin.
Nietzsche saw compassion as an utter failing. If you were really compassionate, you would wish sickness, difficulty, hardship, and woe on your friends, as these were the only things that helped them develop, making them stronger and smarter. With the advent of psychology, we began to see the environment’s influence and that of our upbringing. Loving parents for instance brought up compassionate children, while self-centered one’s bred selfish offspring.
Now, evolutionary science is weighing in, and finds that compassion may have developed as an evolutionary advantage which helped our species survive and thrive. This isn’t a new concept. Darwin himself in The Descent of Man argues that sympathy and compassion are some of humanities strongest traits. Instead, Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” was taken to mean that humans are naturally competitive, and overwhelmingly motivated by self-interest.
Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson reintroduced the importance of compassion as an evolutionary trait in his 1975 book Sociobiology. He argued that we were imbued with a set of social behaviors meant to aid our survival, and that these have a biological foundation. Wilson’s theory was called “kin selection.” He thought that by working together and helping one another, a clan of hunter-gatherers would improve their prospects, which helped each individual survive. The group benefitted due to this “inclusive fitness.”
Years later, Wilson amended his theory, saying that altr | <urn:uuid:3aec71ac-08e4-4bf2-80e4-f1d4f5585e90> | 512 | 0 |
Since the earliest days of philosophy, a question has been pondered and debated, with many [...] uism had a limit. After running a mathematical assessment, he and colleagues found that compassion helped the community, but when it came at the expense of the individual, conflict ensued. Of this Wilson said, “We may be the only species intelligent enough to strike a balance between individual and group-level selection, but we are far from perfect at it.” He added, “The conflict between the different levels may produce the great dramas of our species: the alliances, the love affairs, and the wars.”
The interior insular cortex in orange. By: Brodmann, Mysid. Colored by was_a_bee. - File:Gray727.svg, Wikipedia Commons.
Scientists have made great strides in uncovering what they believe to be the biological basis of human compassion. In 2012, in a study published in the journal Brain, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City declared that they had discovered where compassion resides, in a region of the brain known as the anterior insular cortex. This is the epicenter for what we call the “social brain.” Further research has found that much of the central nervous system contributes to what we consider altruistic thoughts and behavior.
An Emory University study followed the brain activity of participants while they helped someone in need. Researchers found that the areas of the brain responsible for feelings of happiness and reward, the caudate nuclear and the anterior cingulate, were activated when participants came to the person’s aid.
While the “fight or flight” response is triggered by adrenaline which prepares the body to manage danger, oxytocin is released when we act compassionately. This is the “calm and cuddle” hormone that lowers our heartrate and promotes bonding. It is the very same one that floods a mother’s body during breastfeeding, or lovers’ bodies before sex.
Dr. Dacher Keltner is an expert on compassion. He is a psychologist at UC Berkeley, the director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory, and author of the book, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. In his book, Keltner states that human gene survival is dependent on compassion | <urn:uuid:3aec71ac-08e4-4bf2-80e4-f1d4f5585e90> | 512 | 23 |
Since the earliest days of philosophy, a question has been pondered and debated, with many [...] and altruistic acts.
Through their research, Keltner and his team have found that the vagus nerve, a long strand which travels throughout the body and is present in the brain, neck, thorax and abdomen, plays a critical role in the physical component of what we call compassion. This is part of the parasympathetic nervous system. Only mammals have this nerve.
When activated, the vagus nerve creates a warm expansive feeling in the chest, which we often associate with altruistic feelings, but also when say, moved by an emotional scene in a movie or a particular piece of music. Keltner and colleagues have found that those who have a high rate of vagus nerve activity at a resting state, report more altruistic emotions. Meanwhile, psychologist Nancy Eisenberg out of Arizona State University, found that children with more active vagus nerves were more cooperative.
Wildfire survivors. Showing compassion helped our ancestors survive, just as it does today.
If you think back to our earliest ancestors, small hunter-gatherer bands must have interacted on a daily basis. So helping someone not only aided that person’s survival. The benefactor would be sure to return the favor, and this exchange of good deeds acted as a social glue, adding to group cohesion, cooperation, and teamwork.
As a result, hunting and foraging efforts improved, and the whole community fared better. The evolutionary advantage of the social brain was more likely to be passed down, as cooperative groups overtook less cohesive ones. Those social and altruistic genes were imprinted and passed on, creating what we now call the “social brain.”
Researchers say those who have damage to the anterior insular cortex have similar deficits in empathy as those with certain psychological, mood, or developmental disorders. Schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, certain kinds of autism, and many more are among them. Therapies could be employed to make up for a deficit in compassion. Research in this vein may also help scientists find molecular and cellular processes that motivate social functions, such as altruism. Someday we may even coin the term compassion deficit disorder, and have a cure for | <urn:uuid:3aec71ac-08e4-4bf2-80e4-f1d4f5585e90> | 512 | 23 |
Indeed, how good is the Lord: bless his holy name.
Year: A(I). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Green.
|St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207 - 1231)|
She was a daughter of the King of Hungary. She was given in marriage to Ludwig, the Landgrave of Thuringia, by whom she had three children. She frequently meditated on heavenly things and when her husband died she embraced poverty and built a hospice in which she cared for the sick herself.
Saint Hilda (or Hild) was born in Northumbria in 614. She was the grandniece of King Edwin of Northumbria and was not baptised until the age of 13, when she was received into the Church by Paulinus at York, at the same time as King Edwin and many of his nobles.
The first part of Hilda’s life was spent in the ordinary secular pursuits of the day. But these were years of constant warfare and in 655, her sister Hereswith, the wife of the King of the East Angles, suffered the loss of her husband in battle and decided to withdraw from the world to the monastery of Cale in Paris where she entered religious life. At the age of 33, Hilda decided to follow her and was only prevented from doing so by the intervention of St Aidan who directed her first to establish a small religious house on the north bank of the Wear where she stayed for a year, and then to take charge of the monastery of Hieu at Hartlepool. She proved to be an able and wise superior and, after several years at Hartlepool, she set about establishing the famous double monastery at Whitby which she governed for the rest of her life.
Hilda was an extraordinary woman for her time. Her influence was widespread and her advice was valued by high and low alike. In her monastery she gave ‘a great example of peace and charity’, as Bede says ‘all who knew her called her mother, such were her wonderful godliness and grace.’ She laid emphasis on the study of the Scriptures and insisted on careful preparation for the priesthood, after the manner of St Aidan on Lindisfarne. Among her community was the first English poet, Caedmon, who had been the community’ | <urn:uuid:97d84f24-6693-41a0-b5bb-68fcb5bcc39f> | 512 | 0 |
Indeed, how good is the Lord: bless his holy name.
Year: A(I). [...] s herdsman until his poetic genius was discovered. After the death of St Aidan, when the divisions between those who held the Celtic tradition and those who supported Roman ways became critical, it was at her monastery that the important Synod of Whitby was held in 644 to decide upon a common Church order among the rival parties.
Although her last seven years were a time of constant illness, she continued to lead her community to the end. Towards daybreak on 17 November 680 she asked for, and received, viaticum and died peacefully with her community around her or as St Bede says, ‘she joyfully saw death approaching… and passed from death to life.’
|St Hugh of Lincoln (1140 - 1200)|
He was born near Grenoble in France and entered the Carthusian monastery of La Grande Chartreuse at the age of 25. In 1175 he was asked by King Henry II of England to become prior of a Carthusian house in England, and a decade later he was appointed bishop of Lincoln, a post which he accepted only when directly commanded to do so by the prior of La Grande Chartreuse. His diocese was the largest in England, and he spent the rest of his life in ceaseless work there. He delegated much authority. He was a friend (and critic) of successive kings, but also worked with his own hands on the extension of his cathedral. He gained a great reputation for justice, the care of the sick, and the support of the oppressed: he risked his life to help the Jewish community. He died in London on 16 November 1200 and was declared a saint in 1220, the first Carthusian to be canonized.
|Other saints: St Dionysius of Alexandria, Bishop (190 - 265)|
Dionysius was born in Alexandria in 190. After studying literature and philosophy, he became a Christian and joined the catechetical school where he was taught by Origen. In 232 he became the head of that school. Fifteen years later he was appointed bishop of Alexandria and had to | <urn:uuid:97d84f24-6693-41a0-b5bb-68fcb5bcc39f> | 512 | 23 |
Indeed, how good is the Lord: bless his holy name.
Year: A(I). [...] endure severe persecutions and even exile because of his boldness in proclaiming the faith. He involved himself in major theological disputes of the time. He died in 265.
The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the season in which we are being neither especially penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).
|Mid-morning reading (Terce)||Romans 12:17,19-20,21 ©|
Never repay evil with evil. As scripture says: Vengeance is mine – I will pay them back, says the Lord. But there is more: If your enemy is hungry, you should give him food, and if he is thirsty, let him drink. Resist evil and conquer it with good.
|Noon reading (Sext)||1 John 3:16 ©|
This has taught us love – that he gave up his life for us; and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers.
|Afternoon reading (None)||1 John 4:9-11 ©|
God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another.
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Office of Readings for Friday of week 32
Morning Prayer for Friday of week 32
Evening Prayer for Friday of week 32
Full page including sources and copyrights | <urn:uuid:97d84f24-6693-41a0-b5bb-68fcb5bcc39f> | 458 | 23 |
As a Friday treat, I thought I’d take this opportunity to teach an interesting Chinese idiom to all of our friends and fellow logophiles out there in cyberspace.
A while back, I talked about the phrase 马后炮 (mă hòu pào), which is essentially a way of telling someone to shove it when they scold you for an event or situation that’s too late to avoid. (One of our readers suggested an English translation of “No use crying over spilled milk,” which I think is pretty appropriate.) In that same entry, we discussed how the Chinese language is chock-full of metaphorical idioms (called chengyu, or 成语) pulled from ancient stories and literature, which are used to offer concise insight into common experiences or situations.
Today, I’d like to talk about another one of my favorite Chinese idioms: 刻舟求剑 (kè zhōu qiú jiàn). To take this phrase character by character, 刻 (kè) means to carve or engrave, a 舟 (zhōu) is a boat, 求 (qiú) is a verb meaning to seek, and 剑 (jiàn) means sword. Put them all together, and this phrase literally means “to mark (or put a notch on) the boat to find one’s sword.” But what the heck does that mean? Read on a bit and it’ll make more sense, I promise.
This idiom comes from a story in the ancient Chinese text, “Mister Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals” (吕氏春秋), which is essentially a classical encyclopedia (circa 239 BCE) that touches on a broad range of topics, including military affairs, government, and agriculture, etc., all with a philosophical nod at contemporary Taoist and Confucian thought. The following is a loose translation of the story from which the abovementioned idiom derives.
In the Warring States Period, there was a man from the State of Chu who was crossing a river on a boat. When the boat reached the middle of the river, the man from Chu accidentally dropped his sword into the water. He scrambled to grab it, but it was too late: the sword had already sunk to | <urn:uuid:2dc9fdd4-4693-43a4-a114-b43f13a62cb4> | 512 | 0 |
As a Friday treat, I thought I’d take this opportunity to teach an interesting Chinese idiom [...] the bottom of the river.
The man immediately pulled out a small dagger and proceeded to carve a small mark into the side of the boat. He then said aloud, “This is where my sword dropped in the water.”
When the boat reached the bank on the other side of the river, the man from Chu jumped into the water to look for his sword in the place where he had marked the boat.
The boat had since moved, but the sword itself had not. Isn’t this a foolish way to look for his sword?
So basically, “to mark the boat to find one’s sword” means to adopt a stupid approach to solving a problem, or to stubbornly stick to an ineffective method of doing something while disregarding any changes in the situation.
Here’s an example of this from my own life:
My dad is a very meat-and-potatoes, traditional type of guy. In some ways, he’s even a bit of a Luddite when it comes to new technology. Every April when taxes are due, this proves to be a terrible combination.
He views the family’s finances as something that he, as the “head of the household,” should be in charge of. Completely disregarding the fact that my mom is an accomplished accountant, my father sets out to prepare all of our taxes by himself.
Now, I love the guy, but filing taxes and balancing checkbooks isn’t really his strong point. Especially because he refuses to use a computer to do them, preferring to go through every receipt, paycheck stub, potential reduction and everything else by hand, adding everything up with a little solar-paneled calculator from the early nineties.
Every year he does this, and every year he messes up our taxes, at which point my mom has to secretly go and do them behind his back with Turbo Tax. What takes my dad the better part of a frustrating day to do wrong, takes my mom about an hour to do correctly. And yet he still insists on doing it.
In this sense, my dad marking the boat to find his sword is a sick family tradition that I hope will continue for many years to come, because it’s absolutely hilarious. Do you have any experiences like this | <urn:uuid:2dc9fdd4-4693-43a4-a114-b43f13a62cb4> | 512 | 23 |
Did you ever wonder about your relationship with food? Do you eat to live or live to eat? Do you think of foods as “good” and “bad”? As a dietitian, you probably think I have it all under control. Well, I don’t. I love food. I love exercising. I am always striving to achieve a healthy balance between the two. The older I get the more difficult it is to achieve the balance. My goal for my young patients is for them to develop a healthy relationship with food. The thing is, that can be different for all of us. The picture above exemplifies the very last thing you want. Would you look forward to a meal if someone were forcing you to eat things you didn’t like? Even though I don’t think of foods as good and bad, I do think there are “anytime” foods, “sometimes” foods, and “indulgent” foods. My ideal rules of everyday eating go something like this:
- Everything in moderation. You can eat any foods you want in appropriate portion sizes. If everyone followed this one simple rule, I think the obesity rate would plummet. Modeling this behavior for your children is key.
- DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET TOO HUNGRY!!!! I cannot emphasize this enough. When we are starving, we shovel in food so fast we don’t realize we are full yet.
- Pick foods you like. Just because you see a recipe for Tofu Baked Oats don’t think you “should” eat it because it is good for you. Number one when making your food choices – YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT!!!!!! This does not mean you don’t try new things. I am just suggesting that when you come to the realization you don’t like something, such as kale smoothies, let yourself off the hook. You’re not going to maintain any eating plan where you are forcing yourself to eat things you don’t like. Not all of us like every single food that is “healthy” for us.
- When you crave a food, give into your craving. Eating an apple when what you really crave is Oreo cookies can eventually lead to overeating. Your best bet is to have a cookie or two. Usually this can satisfy the craving. Of course, it may take some willpower to limit the quantity | <urn:uuid:4393d52f-3e33-43a3-a1e5-bb438216b38e> | 512 | 0 |
Did you ever wonder about your relationship with food? Do you eat to live or live to eat? [...] you eat but remember the “everything in moderation” rule. Once you eat your cookies, the craving should subside.
- Some days you may eat more than others. It’s all a balance. If you overeat on one day, try to get back on track the next day. We’ve all heard this before, don’t give up because you’ve had a bad day.
- Make sure to weigh yourself once a week. Most of my patients report gaining weight during periods when they were not weighing themselves. Seeing that number on the scale go up can help you monitor your eating habits and get back on track.
Below is a list of how I categorize my foods
My “anytime” foods are primarily fruits and vegetables. These are generally low-calorie foods that are packed with nutrients and fiber. Consume these foods the most.
“Sometimes” foods encompass a huge list of things. Just about everything goes in to this list for me. This includes meats, dairy, snack foods, starchy vegetables, etc. Sometimes calories may seem a little high, however, eaten in moderation it’s ok. Scattered among the “anytime” foods should be your “sometimes” foods. For example, in the morning you may have an apple (anytime), oatmeal (sometime), and orange juice (sometime). Lunch may be half a hoagie (sometime) and carrots (anytime). Dinner may be chicken breast (sometime), baked potato (sometime), green beans (anytime). This is just an example but the key with the “sometimes” foods is portion control.
“Indulgent” goods are those that make your eyes bug out when reading the nutrition label. For instance, you want to get a slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. One slice of Adam’s Peanut Butter Ripple Cheesecake provides an astronomical 930 calories and 59 grams of fat!!! Ok, so get what I mean by indulgent? However, very occasionally these are ok. It might even be a good idea to eat only half of food like this. Given the richness, chances are it will satisfy | <urn:uuid:4393d52f-3e33-43a3-a1e5-bb438216b38e> | 512 | 23 |
Almost everyone agrees that they should have balanced budgets, that is, that they should not spend more money than they take in. It makes perfect sense for individuals, so why not for our federal government?
Actually, there are several reasons why requiring a balanced budget for the federal government would be a very bad idea. For starters, let’s consider the assumption about individuals having balanced budgets. If this were really the case, we would not be able to get home mortgages, student loans, or finance the purchase of a car. We would not be able to borrow money for such sound investments in our future.
Requiring a balanced budget makes no more sense for the federal government than it does for individuals. The federal government needs the flexibility to do things like respond to natural disasters, public health epidemics, military threats, demographic changes, and economic downturns, among other things. What appears to be a commonsense approach is actually very bad public policy.
What is a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA)?
A balanced budget amendment is a proposed federal constitutional rule requiring that the government not spend more than its income in a given year. Most state constitutions have balanced-budget provisions and most of these make an exception for times of war or national emergency, or allow the legislature to suspend the rule by a supermajority vote. The U.S. Constitution does not require a balanced budget. Some members of Congress are looking to change that by passing legislation to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Why is a BBA Harmful?
It will result in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other large programs. Programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Social Security are a large part of the federal budget. They are projected to grow in the next several years primarily due to the aging of the population. Since these are very popular and critical programs, Congress has been unable to make direct cuts to them and some Members are now looking to try less direct methods, including a BBA.
Social Security and Medicare are particularly vulnerable to cuts because a BBA prohibits spending from exceeding revenues collected in that year. These programs operate with trust funds that collect dedicated payroll taxes designated for specific programs which are partially paid out in future years to meet projected population needs. For example, in years when Social Security collects more | <urn:uuid:7a025be6-9c65-446a-9ec9-d332414775a2> | 512 | 0 |
Almost everyone agrees that they should have balanced budgets, that is, that they should not spend more [...] than it pays in benefits and other expenses (which it has done every year since 1984), the Treasury invests the surplus in interest-bearing Treasury bonds and other Treasury securities. These bonds can be redeemed whenever needed to pay benefits. The trust fund balances allow benefits to be paid when the Social Security program’s current income is insufficient by itself. Under a BBA, the $2.9 trillion in Treasury securities held in the Social Security Trust Fund would not be available to help pay benefits to the baby boomers for retirement or disability since almost all of it was collected in prior years.
It would harm the economy. A BBA would likely cause significant harm to the economy, making recessions both deeper and longer. In an economic slowdown, revenues (mostly taxes) fall while spending for unemployment and other benefits increases. A BBA would force policymakers to cut federal programs, raise taxes, or both when the economy is weak or already in recession, the exact opposite of what good economic policy would advise, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
It is extremely hard to change. An amendment to the Constitution is a dramatic step that takes a lot of time to enact. Unlike typical legislation, once a constitutional amendment has passed, it is extremely difficult to undo.
What is Happening in Congress?
There are two BBA bills that have been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) – H.J. Res 1 and H.J. Res 2 – that Congress may vote on. While both versions are very harmful, H. J. Res 1 is the most drastic one since it essentially prohibits tax increases (by requiring a three-fifths vote in the House and the Senate) and limits spending to 20 percent of the economy (gross domestic product(GDP)). The House may vote on one of these bills as soon as next week.
Key Points for Advocates
People with disabilities, their families, and advocates can:
- Speak concretely about how their lives will be upended if the dramatic spending cuts forced by a BBA were to happen. What would happen if Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs were | <urn:uuid:7a025be6-9c65-446a-9ec9-d332414775a2> | 512 | 23 |
Apart from its common translation of ‘to die’, 死 sǐ also has the meaning of being inflexible and rigid. 读 dú，literal translation is ‘to read’, and 书 means book. The term 死读书 sǐ dú shū basically means read books in an inflexible, rigid way.
I brought up 死读书 in my previous post, referring it to one of the most distinguishing, and widely debated characteristics of the Chinese education system (we were forced to memorise all the compulsory reads), and deemed to acknowledge its underappreciated value.
The explanation can simply be put into 12 Chinese characters originated from Confucius,
When we were young, we don’t have enough knowledge to process our thoughts, like what 孔子 said, 思而不学则殆, you may think a lot but lack of the background knowledge to justify your thinking, and this may lead to dangerous thoughts. Therefore, in order to acquire and more importantly, to retain solid knowledge in our head, and to boost the quality of our thoughts, 死读书 seem to be a hard, but effective way.
Back in my school years, I often wonder whether memorising poems or old literatures have anything to do with real adulthood life, and like most of the ‘good kids’, I choose to do what is being told, and followed the path of 死读书. However, it’s only up till now, I gradually made sense of it.
For sure that you should always make your own judgement,and I definitely agree with the western idea of questioning about anything, everything. However, it is those times when life throws out one big question after another, I found that those years of memorising seemingly useless words are not all gone to waste, and as if our wise ancestors are now whispering in my ears that the answers to all my problems can be found, just in the back of my head.
In the old days, Chinese poems must have the same effect as modern day pop songs, something for us to relate to, and have the power to heal a soul.
On the other hand, 死读书 in the young age also helps to set a certain value and standard within oneself, the type of value that you might not even consciously aware until you saw that not everyone have it in them.
Having said all this, one must | <urn:uuid:5816b449-3a71-4234-a00a-1afebb46c26e> | 512 | 0 |
The name orangutan can be literally translated from Indonesian language as “person of forest”. It is not clear where and when the primate got this name but predictably this is how local indigenous people call the animal because of its resemblance in size with human.
Jacobus Bontius, a Dutch physician, in 1631 was the first one ever to mention this animal in a report. He wrote that this animal had the ability to ‘talk’ but “lest he be compelled to labor”. However, many people thought that actually what Bontius met was not an orangutan, but rather a human suffering from cretinism.
Whether what Bontius met was a ‘talking’ orangutan or just another human, the primate has gained much attention from the world since then. Carl Linnaeus gave the first ever scientific description of this animal in 1760 in his famously known Systema Naturae.
Aside from the debate whether what Bontius met was actually a ‘talking’ orangutan or just another human being, no wonder that some people in that age are confused. Not only because the size is almost similar to human, but also because of its intelligence.
Indeed, orangutan is a highly intelligent animal and among those the most intelligent primates on earth. A study conducted by Gary L Saphiro in 1973 to 1980 found out the possibility of orangutan to learn sign language. He found that in just two years, the animal could learn more than 30 sign languages which is used by human.
That’ not the only prove of this animal’s intelligence. Scientists said that orangutans also have the ability to solve complex problems with representational strategy. They can even play computer games, such as shown by two orangutans in Zoo Atlanta.
A study conducted in Leipzig Zoo also showed that orangutans can measure the costs and benefits of gift exchanges. It means that if they are accustomed to it, they can learn to trade. So far, there is no other animal species known to own this ability.
This animal also has the natural ability to use tools for foraging and self-defense. But unlike other tools-using animals, the tools they use and how they use it is different from one site to another | <urn:uuid:3d53500a-fb66-462f-9dc4-e72f18ce6606> | 512 | 0 |
The name orangutan can be literally translated from Indonesian language as “person of forest”. [...] . It means that orangutans obtained this ability by learning about the environment and give response to it.
Orangutans And Humans In Early Times
Many local folklores told that orangutans have the ability to be involved in close relationship with human such as seducing and mating. Possibly, this is how the local people’s ancestors described the intelligence and advanced behavior of orangutans.
Although being one of the most intelligent animal in the world that can use tools for self-defense, but humans are still smarter than them. When they use sticks and rocks, humans use gun and blades to hunt them down.
The tradition to hunt down this primate is likely to have occurred for millenniums, since ancient cave pictures showed that this animal was treated as pet and food source. But in ancient times, orangutans were only hunted merely for human survival.
The population of this animal remained stable until 19th century when people, especially Europe invaders in Borneo, started to hunt orangutan extensively for pet and science experiments. Since then, the population of orangutan started to decline dramatically.
Officials in both Malaysia and Indonesia has declared this animal as a protected animal, and hunting may lead to years of prison life and enormous fine. However, it seems like the poachers don’t care much about the rules.
In this modern age, when human is already well established on the land, orangutan hunting has developed into a kind of cruelty. Indeed, this animal is considered to be one of the most hunted wild primate in the world.
Data showed that hunting activities has decreased the population of this animal unbelievably. Orangutans are hunted down by human for many purposes, such as pet, food, decoration, even just for sheer fun. Some farmers also hunt them down to eliminate competition for fruits.
It is believed that around 1,000 individuals are smuggled all around the world every year and sold in black market for pets. Most of them are young ones which was robbed from their mothers, which often include killing of the mothers in the process.
If you think that’s the cruelest thing human can do to orangutan, you are wrong. A | <urn:uuid:3d53500a-fb66-462f-9dc4-e72f18ce6606> | 512 | 23 |
The name orangutan can be literally translated from Indonesian language as “person of forest”. [...] female orangutan named Pony, was rescued from a brothel in Central Kalimantan in 2003 was shaved and chained for sexual purposes.
Based on 2016 report, the number of orangutans roaming the Borneo is approximately between 70,000 to 100,000 individuals left. If you think that is a good number, you need to compare it with older data collected in late 1999 to early 2000.
In the older data, the population of orangutan was more than twice as much as nowadays. It means that in just 17 years, about 150,000 orangutans were erased from existence. “I expected to see a fairly steep decline, but I did not anticipate it would be this large,” said Serge Wich, the co-author of the report.
Wich said that he and his teammates first didn’t believe the number they got, since it was too big. “When we did the analyses, we ran them again and again to figure out if we had made a mistake somewhere. You think the numbers can’t be that high, but unfortunately they are,” he said.
Apparently, hunting is not the only threat that orangutans are facing. Habitat loss for agricultural activities also put a great threat to the population of this animal. Not only their homes are cut down, but whenever the farm workers see them they will be shot on sight.
All those cruelty happened although the animal has been classified as ‘critically endangered’. If there is no further action to protect the animal, it is predicted that another 45,000 individuals will get lost by 2035.
“Orangutans are disappearing at an alarming rate. Their forests homes have been lost and degraded, and hunting threatens the existence of this magnificent great ape. Immediate action is needed to reform industries that have pushed orangutans to the brink of extinction,” said Emma Keller of WWF. | <urn:uuid:3d53500a-fb66-462f-9dc4-e72f18ce6606> | 477 | 23 |
Archaeologists Uncover “Historical” Goldmine.
In 2015 a group of archaeologists set out on a project to learn about environmental changes in the Black sea near Bulgaria. In order to better understand changes that may have occurred to the area, they decided to map out the sea floor. That is when they made the discovery of a lifetime. When they stumbled upon a total of 60 Ancient Shipwrecks ranging from Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and the more recent medieval times.
The discovery of an Ancient shipwreck normally would be quite a find, but what makes these shipwrecks extraordinary is the sea that they were found in. The deeper waters of the Black sea are anoxic (oxygenless) thereby preserving the ships and keeping them from rotting. Conditions are ideal and provide a glimpse into the past that could only before have been imagined or seen in drawings or sketches.
Watch it here.
As Reported By Jason Daley, Smithsonian.com
“We have never seen anything like this before,” Kroum Batchvarov, marine archaeologist from the University of Connecticut, who participated in the expedition tells Katy Evans at IFLScience. “This is history in the making unfolding before us.”
The wrecks are not the only discoveries the expedition made. The researchers excavated an ancient settlement in Bulgarian waters that was covered by the rising sea. That Bronze Age village, now submerged under about 13 feet of water, contains timbers from houses, ceramic pots, and hearths. The team also collected geophysical data on hundreds of miles of ancient coast as well as core samples that will help them reconstruct the ancient shoreline of the sea.
While there’s no word on whether the researchers will investigate the wrecks further, Georgiou reports the team was shadowed by British filmmakers, who are putting together a documentary on the project.
This isn’t the first expedition to find remarkable shipwrecks in the Black Sea. Since 1999, famed explorer Robert Ballard found 26 ships in the area, including the Eregli E (pronounced EH-ray-lee), a perfectly preserved Ottoman trading vessel that even included human remains. Combined with a remarkable find of 23 ancient shipwrecks | <urn:uuid:f427e760-c6a6-48be-b51f-f3df52bd66cf> | 512 | 0 |
"Don't let me die, I have got so much to do.
The last words of assassinated Louisiana Senator Huey Long, to his doctors, September 10, 1935.
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
Retired US Marines Major-General Smedley Butler, from his book War Is A Racket, 1935.
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacts three of the most iconic laws of the New Deal, creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which creates thousands of jobs by putting the unemployed to work on public works projects, signing the Social Security Act which creates a federal program to care for the aged and the handicapped, and approving the National Labor Relations Act, which gives labor unions the power of collective bargaining.
American labor leaders establish the Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO) for the purpose of organizing workers in heavy industrial sectors.
A massive Earthquake destroys the town of Quetta in modern-day Pakistan killing more than 26,000.
The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 smashes Florida, killing 483.
As part of a filibuster, Huey Long of Louisiana makes the longest speech in US Senate history on the night of June 12, clocking in at 15 and a half hours and 150,000 words.
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger first presents the famous thought experiment now known as "Schrödinger's Cat" in a German magazine article.
DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers invents Nylon.
Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in New York City by William G. Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith.
The Pan American Airways flying boat China Clipper delivers the first airmail across the Pacific Ocean.
Construction begins on Hoover Dam.
National Periodical Publications (later known as DC Comics) publishes New Fun Comics, the first modern comic book.
The briefs style of men's underwear is sold for the first time by Chicago clothier Co | <urn:uuid:34ab3011-88c5-4aec-b28e-a7d1be9c4ba1> | 512 | 0 |
Experts still find it the most effective alternative supply of power. This power is drawn from heat that strikes our planet. Solar power 's been around for an incredible number of years and it's safe for the surroundings. It can be renewed and concentrated. Experts are looking at it as a viable alternative power source so it can be utilized world wide.
It's used around the globe. Inherently, the sun offers a natural heat source which is often used to manage heat without changing it. TO become employed for electricity, it requires to be collected and converted. There are different types of solar energy.
How many lights are you experiencing on? Take a peek around. Is there rooms with the lights on but no body is in them? Are there lights on in your house or office that are unnecessary in the sunshine? Make an effort to use natural light up to possible, and turn off the lights when you leave the space.
Carbon off-setting helps you to offset the carbon dioxide that you use thus removing your contribution to global climate change and when flying by planting trees or installing solar panels. You contribute to pollution by flying; you decrease the pollution by planting trees! You are carbon neutral!
(3 )The quantity of sun or insolation locally. While virtually all of the U. S. gets lots of sunshine to generate solar a good idea to power, solar power systems do provide additional power in sunnier areas.
If you have children or are just creative, consider craft ideas for recycled objects. Cardboard pipes, plastic and cardboard milk containers, 2-litre plastic bottles, etc. may all be used to make interesting recycled items and art projects. You can get quiet sophisticated with your types of initiatives, making chandelier lamps out of plastic bottles, vases out of incandescent light bulbs, and drinking glasses out of glass bottles. You will cut costs and keep these items out of the waste (you'll even keep them out of the recycling bin!), which is really a gratifying step toward protecting your environment.
In order to make your backyard lights more efficient, why don't you attempt to benefit from the sun more than you currently do in your lifestyle? Why not consider putting a bit solar energy to your late afternoon garden parties? You will be able to easily do this by adding outdoor garden solar lights that will bring a warm glow to any occasion. Make a move | <urn:uuid:489c2d80-4837-4513-b6c6-3eb6a8b99993> | 512 | 0 |
New viruses, superbugs found in study of New York house mice
(CNN) — House mice don’t carry door keys, but they can freely enter any residence in New York City, from low-rent studios to penthouse suites.
A yearlong assessment of the city’s residential mouse population found that what many of these rodents do carry are previously unseen viruses as well as bacteria capable of causing life-threatening human illness. Some of the bacteria were even antibiotic-resistant.
“Mouse droppings may contain harmful bacteria that are difficult to treat with common antibiotics,” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, senior author of the two papers resulting from the study and a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “Contaminated areas should be thoroughly cleaned, and contaminated food should be discarded.”
Lipkin’s research was published Tuesday in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
‘More worrisome’ than rats
Over a period of about a year, Lipkin and his colleagues collected 416 mice from residential buildings at seven sites in four of New York City’s five boroughs (Staten Island was excluded). Primarily, the scientists caught the mice in or around garbage disposal areas in sub-basements, though five mice were trapped in food preparation/storage areas of a commercial building, and a single mouse was imprisoned in a private apartment.
For one of the two papers, Lipkin and his team searched for and analyzed bacteria in the droppings of the captured mice. Running genetic tests, the researchers defined 235 separate genera and 149 distinct species of bacteria, including the most common causes of gastrointestinal upset: C. difficile, E. coli, Shigella and Salmonella.
A leading cause of bacterial food poisoning, Salmonella alone causes 1.2 million reported cases, including 450 deaths, in the US each year.
Further analysis of the identified bacteria showed evidence of genes indicative of antimicrobial resistance to several common antibiotics.
A second paper concerned the viral load of the mouse droppings.
Here, the researchers discovered 36 separate viruses, including six new ones. None of | <urn:uuid:829ef9b6-7e1e-40be-bc6a-0308b7e9c61a> | 512 | 0 |
New viruses, superbugs found in study of New York house mice
(CNN [...] the viruses identified by the researchers is known to infect humans, however, the genetic sequences matched those known to infect dogs, chickens and pigs. This suggests that some of the viruses might have crossed over from other species.
Though New Yorkers tend to be most squeamish about rats, “mice are more worrisome because they live indoors and are more likely to contaminate our environment,” said Lipkin, who is director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Mailman. “To our knowledge, this is the first such survey in NYC,” he said, adding that the laboratory work was “substantial.”
Country mice and city mice
Professor John Baines, an evolutionary biologist working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany and Kiel University in Germany, appreciates the “multitiered approach” used by Lipkin and his colleagues to look for pathogens within the droppings.
Baines, who was not involved in the research, explained that within some groups of bacteria, there are many different members, some pathogenic (or disease-causing), others harmless. By using different methods of analysis, the researchers were able to learn more about the microbes.
“The more you look, the more you may potentially find,” Baines said. “It’s a nice combined approach.”
The samples studied, gathered only in New York City, are “relatively limited in a geographic context,” he said.
Do country mice carry the same bacteria and viruses as city mice? “One would really have to do the same experiments in the city and in the countryside to have a direct comparison,” said Baines, who, for his own most recent research, “laid traps in and around farms” to find sick mice in the wild.
“We were essentially looking for pathology in the mice and then trying to trace back what was causing the pathology,” he said. The pathogens “making mice sick in more rural environments are also known to make humans sick. So there is some overlap there.”
Professor Mark Viney, a biologist at the University of Bristol, said the findings “would probably be pretty similar across any city in | <urn:uuid:829ef9b6-7e1e-40be-bc6a-0308b7e9c61a> | 512 | 23 |
New viruses, superbugs found in study of New York house mice
(CNN [...] the world, because what you’ve got in cities is lots of people and rats and mice and so on living closely together.” Viney conducts related research but was not involved in the current study.
In the countryside, it might be different, Viney said, “because then the density of people is less, so mice would be in closer contact with wild animals, perhaps livestock, cows and sheep and pigs.”
“Of course, we don’t know that, so we need to do future studies to understand that,” he added.
“Over the last few years, it’s become abundantly clear that all living animals are full of bacteria and viruses,” Viney said. “That’s the normal state of animals, and it’s true of humans as well, and the vast majority of these bacteria and viruses are harmless.”
The antibiotic resistance found by the researchers is, “again, absolutely as one would expect,” he said.
“And that’s because there’s a lot of antibacterial resistance in the bacteria that people and many animals have, and of course those genes therefore are spread into the wider bacterial environment,” he said.
Viney, who studies the immune responses of wild mice, noted that “an enormous amount is known about the immune responses of lab mice.” However, they live “very different lives” than wild mice, which are not so well-fed or making a home in nearly “sterile conditions.”
Wild mice have very elevated immune responses compared with lab mice, Viney said. “That’s because the wild mice are being exposed to infections all the time, bacteria and viruses and occasionally worms and some fleas and ticks.”
As for the city mice, the question is: Where did these bugs come from, and what are the consequences?
“We have no idea,” Viney said. One possibility is that house mice are picking up the bacteria and viruses that are passed through human waste and feces into the sewer systems.
“Whether these are a source of infection for humans: Who knows?” he said. “My guess is, other people are the biggest source of infection for people as well.” He said more study is needed.
B | <urn:uuid:829ef9b6-7e1e-40be-bc6a-0308b7e9c61a> | 512 | 23 |
Obesity: A Silent GI Threat
We experience potentially harmful and dangerous events every day without even thinking about it. While we know car accidents can happen, we’re not worried about driving to work. We’ve heard stories of friends who have gotten food poisoning, but that doesn’t keep us from eating or trying a new restaurant. We know knives can hurt people, yet we still keep them in our kitchens. We’ve watched movies where mom and dad slip and fall on their child’s toy car collection, but we willingly add to children's toy collections.
But what if we told you that your weight was something harmful and potentially life-threatening? Would that change the way you eat, exercise, and alter your determination to lose weight? After reviewing over 1,000 research studies, the Center for Disease Control discovered that obesity is the second leading cause of preventable cancer death, coming in behind tobacco use. You might be unhappy with your weight, but have you ever considered how harmful being obese or overweight really is to your overall health.
The Link Between Cancer And Weight
Studies show that the risk of 13 different kinds of cancer are greatly increased depending on weight. In fact, the risk is proportionate to the amount of excess weight a person carries. The higher your body mass index (BMI), the greater the chance you will develop one of these cancers. This includes cancer of the esophagus, gallbladder, pancreas, kidney, thyroid, liver, stomach, colon and rectum, uterus, ovary, and breast for women who are postmenopausal. Due to the rise of obesity in the younger generations, this research shows that young men and women are strengthening their risk for cancer simply because they are overweight. The C.D.C. revealed in JAMA that almost half of all cancer diagnosis in adults under the age of 65 were connected to overweight and obesity. The sad part is, cancer as a product of weight is completely preventable.
Details Behind The Terms
Sometimes “obese” and “overweight” are used interchangeably, but they actually identify different things. They are, however, both terms that are used to describe someone is over the recommended weight for their given height. This is calculated by your BMI (body mass index), the | <urn:uuid:38105eae-7d48-4371-a40f-64fa7de74519> | 512 | 0 |
Obesity: A Silent GI Threat
We experience potentially harmful and dangerous events every [...] ratio between height and weight. Someone who is overweight has a BMI of 25-29.9. Someone is obese if they have a BMI of 30 or more. If you are curious about your own BMI, use an online BMI calculator to find out whether or not you need to be concerned about the risks associated with your weight. While cancer may seem like the biggest risk, there are many other health issues that are associated with overweight and obesity. If you are overweight, you also have a higher chance of developing heart disease, high blood pressure, and many GI issues such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and GERD. There are many factors that play into our weight such as genetics and metabolism, but lifestyle is one of the most important.
You’re In Control
You are in control of your body and your health. If you are overweight or obese, it’s time for you to take action so that you can lower the risk of these potentially life-threatening diseases. If you currently have a healthy weight, take charge to maintain it. How? Diet and exercise. It may sound cliche, but it may very well save your life. Diet doesn’t have to be extreme. Portion control goes a long way. As well as eating lean proteins, whole grains, fruits, and veggies. Limit your sugar intake and foods that are high in fat, and drink plenty of water. Exercise can consist of a 30 minute walk every day, or a cardio video you find online if you prefer the comfort of your living room. While making these lifestyle changes appear easy on paper, we know how difficult it really is. We invite you to check out Ideal Protein at GI Associates. Ideal Protein gives you accountability and a plan that works. We have an informational meeting the first Tuesday of every month and would love to see you there!
If you’d like more information about the Ideal Protein program, check out our website and clear your calendar for the next meeting. At GI Associates, we are committed to helping you reach your goals and live a healthy life free from the risk of GI issues and GI cancer that are associated with weight. Schedule an appointment with | <urn:uuid:38105eae-7d48-4371-a40f-64fa7de74519> | 512 | 23 |
On Wednesday European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament that if Britain leaves the EU, it would still be welcome to re-join under Article 49 of the Treaty of the European Union.
This comes a day after Mr Juncker and Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said that Britain would still be welcome to reverse Brexit now if it chose to do so.
What is Article 49?
In Britain, Article 50 – which allows a state to leave the EU – is the far more famous cousin of Article 49. Article 50 spells out the process by which a state leaves.
Article 49, by contrast, is the opposite: it spells out how countries may join the EU. In other words, it is the normal way for a country that isn’t in the EU to join the bloc, and spells out the conditions under which it might do so.
So can Britain trigger Article 49 to reverse Brexit?
Not unilaterally – once Britain has left, it is no longer a party to the Treaty of the European Union and cannot “invoke” the clause in the same way Article 50 was triggered.
Rather, the clause simply sets how existing members of the EU may admit a new member to join.
What are the conditions of Article 49?
First, a country wishing to join must submit its request to the European Council – the heads of state and government of the members of the EU. Currently there are 28, when Britain leaves there will be 27, though there could be more if other countries join after the UK leaves.
The Council must approve the application unanimously. It also requires the consent of the European Parliament – essentially a vote of all the MEPs, which are elected by member states.
Article 49 also states that the decision must be taken in consultation with the European Commission – Mr Juncker’s institution, which is essentially the EU’s combined bureaucracy and executive.
What if we want to stop Brexit before it happens?
This would be a case of revoking Article 50, rather than triggering Article 49. There are differing legal opinions on whether Article 50 can be unilaterally revoked by a member state, but Mr Juncker and Mr Tusk have said they would support Britain remaining if it decided | <urn:uuid:40b4a34d-a4f7-4c63-8cde-389537b40307> | 512 | 0 |
Q I just bought my first horse. Is lip or ear twitching effective in subduing or distracting horses? Is either type of twitching harmful in any way?
SAMANTHA CRESS, Alabama
A During veterinary procedures, it can be necessary to restrain a horse to accomplish a task and avoid injury to human and horse. Twitches have long been a tool for this purpose, applying pressure to either the horse’s lip or ear. Twitching can be done by grasping the horse’s ear or lip with a hand, but most people associate the devices known as twitches with this action, especially when done on the lip.
There are three competing hypotheses about how twitches subdue horses: distraction, pain, or decreased sensitivity. It’s also possible that horses are subdued by combinations of those factors. And some studies have shown that lip twitching subdues horses based on an analgesic (pain-relieving) effect.
Twitches in Action
A 2016 study gave us insight into how horses respond to the lip twitch and the ear twitch, based on the stress indicators of heart rate, heart-rate variability, and cortisol levels. The study measured heart rate and heart-rate variability to assess autonomic nervous-system activity before and during the use of twitches. (Heart-rate variability is the change in time intervals between adjacent heartbeats; variability is considered desirable, suggesting efficiency and health.) The study also analyzed salivary cortisol to assess stress levels before and after twitches were applied.
Twelve geldings—including Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds, and draft horses, with amedian age of 13—were divided into two groups. Researchers applied lip twitches to one group and ear twitches to the other. Results showed the lip twitch significantly decreased heart rate and increased heart-rate variability when applied for up to 5 minutes. When applied for more than 5 minutes, however, the lip twitch significantly increased heart rate and decreased heart-rate variability. The ear twitch, meanwhile, significantly increased the horses’ heart rate, decreased their heart-rate variability, and increased their salivary cortisol levels—all of which are undesirable responses—when applied for any length of time
The lip twitch | <urn:uuid:56da8447-9ad7-4391-b47d-2c9e11e46297> | 512 | 0 |
This is an analysis of the poem Bergliot that begins with:
(In her lodgings)
To-day King Harald...
Elements of the verse: questions and answers
The information we provided is prepared by means of a special computer program. Use the criteria sheet to understand greatest poems or improve your poetry analysis essay.
- Rhyme scheme:
- Stanza lengths (in strings):
- Closest metre:
- Сlosest rhyme:
- Сlosest stanza type:
- Guessed form:
- Amount of stanzas: 39
- Average number of symbols per stanza: 128
- Average number of words per stanza: 23
- Amount of lines: 180
- Average number of symbols per line: 27 (strings are less long than medium ones)
- Average number of words per line: 5
Mood of the speaker:
There are many exclamation marks in the poem. The speaker is excited. He or she has strong feelings on the subject that is described in the poem.
The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; what, it, your, hall, of, here, i, in, vengeance are repeated.
The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighboring lines. The same words the, what, if are repeated.
The author used the same words the, fallen at the beginnings of some neighboring stanzas. The figure of speech is a kind of anaphora.
The literary device anadiplosis is detected in two or more neighboring lines. The word/phrase murdered connects the lines.
If you write a school or university poetry essay, you should Include in it:
- summary of Bergliot;
- idea of the verse;
- history of its creation.
Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice!
Pay attention: the program cannot take into account all the numerous nuances of poetic technique while analyzing. We make no warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability and suitability with respect to the information. | <urn:uuid:071a7d92-4abe-406c-9569-6d8dfb35dafb> | 468 | 0 |
Water sustains life. Without it, none of us would live. Luckily, for most of us, access to water isn’t an issue. What can become an issue is actively drinking it to stay healthy. The least amount you need is 2-3 liters per day. However, experts now believe that most of the water we drink is on a one-way path to the exit. Along with it, it takes important minerals that the body needs. In contrast, a good portion of foods have a high-water content that enables the body to absorb it, hydrating the body for a longer period of time. Knowledge of this has spread, causing more folks to reach for food that is dense in water. Here are a few foods you need to consume to stay hydrated longer!
Foods with a High-Water Content
The good news is there are countless fruits and vegetables that can help replenish the body’s water supply. Fruits like watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes, raspberries, and oranges have up to a 95% water content. Vegetables like tomatoes, zucchini, celery, spinach, and radishes also have up to a 95% water content.
In addition to hydrating your body, these fruits and veggies have a healthy number of vitamins, fiber, and other nutrients. These foods not only nourish and hydrate your body but they also help you absorb it. Think of water as a way to flush out toxins and food as a way to replenish it.
At a Glance—Water Content in Popular Foods
Fruits (and their water content percentage)
Cantaloupe, strawberries, watermelon, grapefruit: 90-95%
Peaches, pineapples, apples, cranberries, oranges: 85-90%
Avocado, banana, blueberries, plum, cherries: 80-85%
Cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, radish, celery, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant: 90-95%
Carrot, potato, green peas 75-85%
Chicken meat: | <urn:uuid:36b0fe05-48ff-467c-b15f-65f9864f7983> | 512 | 0 |
What If We Hadn't Won the Right to Vote??!
by Ann Lewis, November 11, 2015
Watched any Presidential candidate debates lately? You probably have.
For anyone who cares about America’s future, these debates, the conversations they inspire –and yes, even the cable television arguments they set off – offer fascinating guides to November, 2016.
And as this year goes on, we’ll be hearing more information about even more candidates, because the 2016 elections will determine the balance in the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, and state and local offices coast to coast.
But what if watching was all we could do? What if women hadn’t won the fight for the vote?
After all, women were legally barred from voting for more than half our country’s lifetime. When the United States proudly celebrated our first centennial in 1876, women were not just excluded from voting –they weren’t even welcome on the speaker’s platform! Susan B. Anthony and a small, determined group made their way to the stage that day, distributing suffrage literature as they went –the only recognition that women too took part in building our country.
What if those courageous suffrage pioneers had gotten discouraged after the 200th referendum, or the 100th arrest, or the 1000th insult? If they had decided politics was too much trouble, so they just gave up? What would our lives be like now?
Would we still be watching presidential debates and discussing electoral choices –but unable to act on them? Imagine knowing that this coming election could make a huge difference in our lives, and our children’s future – but you had to watch from the sidelines, unable to make a difference.
Think of the last picture you saw of the United States Senate, and how you looked for the women: 20 women out of one hundred. . What if there were no women at all? Women candidates may still face a higher threshold, but they bring our life experience into their campaigns, and into national policy.
More presidential debates coming up? Hurray! Pull up a comfortable chair, pass the popcorn --and give a silent thank you to the women and men who fought long and hard to make sure our votes will count! | <urn:uuid:dcddbdc6-5681-48d4-a88d-ca09a102b7c3> | 508 | 0 |
Blog post by: Maya Ramanath
A big trend in data management research is to “structurize” unstructured data. One of the main sources of unstructured data is (online) text. It’s all around us. News, QA forums, scientific content, social media, enterprise web-sites, government data, etc. are all available at a click. The content comprises of facts, opinions, analysis, commentary and also spam. One of the grand challenges in AI is to organize this data in such a way as to be machine-readable, i.e., allowing machines to “know” things. While we are still a long way from machines which can understand subtlety, we can certainly look at machines which “understand” facts, that is, statements which are either true or false.
The aim of this post is to give a very high level overview on identifying and organizing a very specific kind of content: political opinions. We are used to politicians giving long speeches explaining their opinions about everything under the sun to us in detail. Speeches filled with ambiguous statements, sometimes contradictory statements, oversimplifications, rhetoric, sarcasm, incitement. What exactly do we mean be organising this landscape of opinions, and how do we even start? We will start in the simplest way possible and add layers of complexity to it as we go along.
When we talk about an “opinion”, it is immediately obvious that there is someone who holds this opinion: the “opinion holder”. Second, there has to a topic on which the opinion is held, we’ll just call it “topic”. Third, we will simplify what we mean by “opinion”. In our first attempt, an “opinion” has only two polarities: pro or con, support or oppose. So, someone is pro something, or con something. “Narendra Modi supports Beti-Bachao campaign”, “Jayalalithaa opposes fuel price hike”, “Kejriwal opposes land bill” — all statements of opinion, each consisting of an opinion holder (Narendra Modi, Jayalalithaa, Kejriwal), a topic (Beti-Bachao campaign, fuel price hike, land bill) and a polarity. These statements, all of which could easily appear in news articles | <urn:uuid:4a1a63ed-345c-4fd3-9d35-3653c9560fe1> | 512 | 0 |
Blog post by: Maya Ramanath
A big trend in data management research is to “ [...] , neatly fit into the nice triple structure of <opinion holder, polarity, topic>. So, we have news articles as our textual sources, and the goal is to extract these kinds of opinion triples.
While automatically acquiring a large number of such triples is already quite challenging, we have more things to think about. First, the opinions that we have acquired so far are structured, but they lack “uniformity”. For example, we need to figure out that “Arvind Kejriwal” and “Kejriwal” both refer to the same person. Similarly, “land bill” and “land acquisition bill of 2015” both refer to the same bill. This process is referred to as canonicalisation, i.e., assigning canonical names to opinion holders and topics. Next, we need to differentiate between the “land bill” which refers to the “land acquisition bill of 2015” and “land acquisition act of 1984”. This process is known as disambiguation. Canonicalisation and disambiguation are closely related and challenging problems in their own right. However, once we are able to provide reasonable solutions for these problems, we have an “opinion-base” where we can ask questions such as “who all oppose the land bill?”, “who all oppose the land bill, but support eminent domain?”
One of the major pieces missing in our opinion-base is time. We all know that politicians are famous for having different opinions on the same topic at different times. So, it would be helpful to know when these opinions were expressed. Instead of triples, we could have quadruples: <opinion holder, polarity, topic, time>. Unfortunately, associating time with opinions is non-trivial. It increases the complexity of extraction. Instead of looking to extract triples from sentences such as “Kejriwal opposes land bill”, we need to look for when this piece of news was reported. The easy case would be if we had a news article with this headline–we could simply look at when the article was published and associate that time to this opinion. However, if the article was reporting this opinion at some future date, perhaps as part of an opinion piece (“Kejriwal expressed his opposition to the land | <urn:uuid:4a1a63ed-345c-4fd3-9d35-3653c9560fe1> | 512 | 23 |
Blog post by: Maya Ramanath
A big trend in data management research is to “ [...] bill in July 2015 and continued to do so….”), then we need to identify that the time of interest is July 2015, not the current date or even the date on which the article was published. Just to make it a bit more complicated, instead of just a particular point in time, we may have to identify a time range–after all, the United States was opposed to our nuclear program until they supported it. As expected, identifying times at which opinions are valid is also a challenging task. But once we find a reasonable solution to the problem, we have an opinion-base where we can ask questions such as “who all opposed the land bill but later changed their stance?” (in effect, we can identify the flip-floppers in our political system; perhaps this is everyone!!).
It’s great that so far, we have been able to extract these crisp structured opinions. However, we have completely eliminated any kind of subtlety and context from this process! Subtlety might be tough, but context should be easy. We know that the United States opposed our nuclear program before the nuclear tests, but now they support it. Having two facts <United States, opposes, Indian nuclear program, 1997> and <United States, opposes, Indian nuclear program, 2000> seems quite inexplicable, unless we also provide context. This is quite easily done. Just add another column pointing to the source from which we extracted this information from. So we now have: <opinion holder, polarity, topic, time, context>. Context could simply be the article itself from which this opinion was extracted. Anyone making use of the opinion-base can easily trace the origins for themselves.
Let’s now add a meta-level complexity: Why should someone trust whatever we have extracted in our opinion-base? That is, does it matter where we acquired our opinions from? Of course it does. There are serious newspapers and there are tabloids. We can still (hopefully) trust what the serious newspapers tell us, but we all know there can sometimes be conflicting reports and subsequent denials–all depending on all kinds of interpretations of the exact words that were spoken (politicians are of course, experts at this!). Things are now messy. We are | <urn:uuid:4a1a63ed-345c-4fd3-9d35-3653c9560fe1> | 512 | 23 |
Blog post by: Maya Ramanath
A big trend in data management research is to “ [...] trying to determine the “truth” of the facts in our opinion-base. So, let’s simplify the problem of trust a bit. For our opinion-base, we will rely on news sources and will associate a “trust” factor for every fact. So, did Kejriwal really oppose the land bill? Did Jayalalithaa really oppose the fuel price hike? Well, the best we can do (given that we are relying on textual sources) is to believe something if it came from a large number of reputable sources. So, our “trust” factor is a combination of the number of times we came across this report and a measure of how “reputable” each source is. So, we now have: <opinion holder, polarity, topic, time, trust factor>. And associated with each trust factor are the details: which sources reported this and how reputable do we consider them.
The problem is still not solved though. What about conflicting reports? How do we reconcile them? Do we just leave them as is, acquire both opinions, point to their sources, and throw up our hands? Or do we aim to have a fully consistent opinion-base? Because, one of the advantages of having a consistent opinion-base is that we can perform reasoning and prediction on top of it. For example, we may be able to predict how a certain politician will vote on a specific bill, given their pattern of support to other, older bills. All complex questions for which we do not have excellent answers yet. Even without all the answers, we can certainly use opinion-bases in a number of applications. Apart from answering some interesting questions about our politicians and their stances, we can study, for example, bias in our news channels. Organize our topics into groups (economy, sports, cultural, etc.), and study how news channels report on these topics and when. Are they mainly supportive of the economy during a Congress government or a BJP government or are they roughly even? Are they supportive of our cricket team when they lose under Dhoni, or are they stringent in their criticism? We could also study complex interconnections among politicians. Just as we built an opinion-base, we can think of building a knowledge-base of “political relationships”, i.e | <urn:uuid:4a1a63ed-345c-4fd3-9d35-3653c9560fe1> | 512 | 23 |
Subsets and Splits