Michael Mackert and Marie Guadagno
Advertising as a field and industry often has a contentious relationship with both health communication and public health due to legitimate concerns about how advertising for certain products, such as alcohol and tobacco, could contribute to less-healthy decisions and behaviors. While acknowledging such concerns, advertisers and their approach to solving communication problems could also provide valuable lessons to those working in health communication. Indeed, advertising agencies are designed to develop creative and effective messages that change consumer behavior—and health communication practitioners and scholars aim to change population-level behavior as well. The perspective and approach of the account planner in the advertising agency—a role whose chief responsibility is to bring the consumer perspective into every step of the advertising development process and inspire effective and creative campaigns—would be particularly valuable to those working in health communication. It was account planning work that shifted traditional milk advertising from promoting it as a healthy drink to the iconic “got milk?” campaign, which positioned milk as a complement that makes other food better—an approach that drove positive sales after years of declining milk consumption. Yet many who work in health communication and public health often know little of how advertising agencies work or their internal processes that might be productively adopted. This lack of understanding can also lead to misperceptions of advertisers’ work and intentions. As an example, one might assume dense medical language in prescription drug advertising is intended to add unnecessary complexity to the advertisements and obscure side effects; instead, advertising professionals who work on prescription drug advertising have often been trained on clear communication—but cannot fully utilize that training because of regulations that require medically accurate terminology that might not be comprehensible to most viewers. Improved understanding of how advertisers can act as agents of change, and increased dialogue between the fields of advertising and health communication, could contribute to improved health communication research, practice, and policy.
Brenda L. Berkelaar and Millie Harrison
Broadly speaking, cybervetting can be described as the acquisition and use of online information to evaluate the suitability of an individual or organization for a particular role. When cybervetting, an information seeker gathers information about an information target from online sources in order to evaluate past behavior, to predict future behavior, or to address some combination thereof. Information targets may be individuals, groups, or organizations. Although often considered in terms of new hires or personnel selection, cybervetting may also include acquiring and using online information in order to evaluate a prospective or current client, employee, employer, romantic partner, roommate, tenant, client, or other relational partner, as well as criminal, civil, or intelligence suspects. Cybervetting takes advantage of information made increasingly available and easily accessible by regular and popular uses and affordances of Internet technologies, in particular social media. Communication scholars have long been interested in the information seeking, impression management, surveillance, and other processes implicated in cybervetting; however, the uses and affordances of new online information technologies offer new dimensions for theory and research as well as ethical and practical concerns for individuals, groups, organizations, and society.
In the European Union, “television-like” is a legal concept, introduced in 2007 as a part of a political compromise over the scope of the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). The European Commission had originally intended to expand the new rules on linear television programming to cover also all new nonlinear audiovisual content services intended for the same audiences online. This approach was objected to by the U.K. government, which saw it as potentially harmful for the growth of the new online media. Although left practically alone in the opposition in the EU decision-making process, the U.K. government managed with the support of the U.K. regulator Ofcom and the U.K. industry alliance to limit the new directive to cover only “television-like” online services. According to AVMSD Recital 24, these services should “compete for the same audience as television broadcasts” while “the concept of ‘programme’ should be interpreted in a dynamic way taking into account developments in television broadcasting.” The vagueness of this concept has left room for very different and even opposing interpretations. A number of national regulatory authorities in Europe as well as the Court of Justice of the European Union argue that parts of some newspaper’s websites can also be classified as video-on-demand services, while Ofcom has systematically excluded all the audiovisual services on the websites of British newspapers from regulation.
Creating a clear definition of “TV-like” content or services is difficult not just because of the vague wording of the EU directive or digital media convergence, but because the whole concept is based on another set of concepts, which definitions are highly dependent on time and context: television, program, and channel as a practice of packaging content into a linear transmission schedule. Early TV was indeed showing radio programming in production, or radio with pictures. From a contemporary perspective, full-length films may seem to be typical content for television, but most of them have originally been made for theatrical distribution. Over the years, audiovisual media formerly known as television has expanded on multiple platforms and its content has also been available in different on demand-type formats for several decades. So depending on your perspective, there is either a plentitude of “TV-like” content services besides the genuine TV or a wide variety of different flavors of television. Currently, it can be argued whether TV is in terminal decline or just integrating with mobile and online media, but it is obvious that any efforts to define “TV-like” content could make sense only as long the traditional, linear type of (broadcast) TV continues to have an important role in our societies and media cultures.
Courtney Barclay and Kearston Wesner
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Please check back later for the full article.
Drones armed with cameras have allowed journalists to capture images from new perspectives and in places previously unreachable. Footage of volcanic eruptions, war-torn villages, and nuclear disaster areas have all been made possible with drone technology. However, this same technology presents risks to personal privacy.
Since before Warren and Brandeis penned the oft cited Right to Privacy, newsgatherers have tested the boundaries of society’s notion of privacy. The development of new technologies at the time, such as the snap camera, made photography a faster, more efficient endeavor. Warren and Brandeis recognized that the increased photographic recording of society threatened individual privacy on a scale never before imagined. More than a century later, the use of new technology—drones outfitted with cameras and other imaging devices—has once again ignited debate over how to protect an individual’s privacy while ensuring journalists’ ability to gather news.
The traditional remedy for intrusive journalism has been through tort law, which requires an individual to show that she or he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. By and large, these laws have favored journalists; however, that result is usually based on the fact that the newsgathering activity occurred in a public place rather than any recognition of the importance of newsgathering. State lawmakers have begun to address drone photography with a wide variety of approaches that would move away from this public place exception—from prohibiting photography over private property to prohibiting any photography without someone’s consent, even in a public place.
The press has recognized the cost to individual privacy incurred by use of technologies such as drone photography. Professional codes of ethics instruct journalists to minimize harm to the public, requiring an “overriding” public interest to invade someone’s privacy. The Professional Society of Drone Journalists’ Code of Ethics addresses the additional responsibilities inherent to drone technology. Under this code, journalists should record only public spaces and delete any images of individuals in a private space.
Drone technology represents only one of the latest developments in surveillance used for law enforcement, commercial enterprise, and journalism. However, its growth and the gaps in privacy tort law underscore the importance of strong codes of ethics that serve the interests of both newsgathering and individual privacy.
Brenda L. Berkelaar and Millie A. Harrison
Information visibility refers to the degree to which information is available and accessible. Availability focuses on whether people could acquire particular information if they wanted. Accessibility focuses on the effort needed to acquire available information. In scholarly, industry, and popular press, people often conflate information visibility with transparency, yet transparency is generally a valued or ideological concept, whereas visibility is an empirical concept. Growing interest in studying and managing information visibility corresponds with the rapid growth in the use of digital, networked technologies. Yet, interest in information visibility existed prior to the introduction of networked information and communication technologies. Research has historically focused on information visibility as a form of social control and as a tool to increase individual, organizational, and social control and coordination. As a research area, information visibility ties to classic communication and interdisciplinary concerns, as well as core concerns of contemporary society including privacy, surveillance, transparency, accountability, democracy, secrecy, coordination, control, and efficiency. An emerging research area with deep historical roots, information visibility offers a promising avenue for future research.
Internet neutrality—usually net(work) neutrality—encompasses the idea that all data packets that circulate on the Internet should be treated equally, without discriminating between users, types of content, platforms, sites, applications, equipment, or modes of communication. The debate about this normative principle revolves around the Internet as a set of distribution channels and how and by whom these channels can be used to control communication. The controversy was spurred by advancements in technology, the increased usage of bandwidth-intensive services, and changing economic interests of Internet service providers. Internet service providers are not only important technical but also central economic actors in the management of the Internet’s architecture. They seek to increase revenue, to recover sizable infrastructure upgrades, and expand their business model. This has consequences for the net neutrality principle, for individual users and corporate content providers. In the case of Internet service providers becoming content providers themselves, net neutrality proponents fear that providers may exclude competitor content, distribute it poorly and more slowly, and require competitors to pay for using high-speed networks. Net neutrality is not only a debate on infrastructure business models that is carried out in economic expert circles. On the contrary, and despite its technical character, it has become an issue in the public debate and an issue that is framed not only in economic but also in political and social terms. The main dividing line in the debate is whether net neutrality regulation is necessary or not and what scope net neutrality obligations should have. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States passed new net neutrality rules in 2015 and strengthened its legal underpinning regarding the regulation of Internet service providers (ISPs). With the Telecoms Single Market Regulation, for the first time there will be a European Union–wide legislation for net neutrality, but not recent dilution of requirements. From a communication studies perspective, Internet neutrality is an issue because it relates to a number of topics addressed in communication research, including communication rights, diversity of media ownership, media distribution, user control, and consumer protection. The connection between legal and economic bodies of research, dominating net neutrality literature, and communication studies is largely underexplored. The study of net neutrality would benefit from such a linkage.
Yvonnes Chen and Joseph Erba
Media literacy describes the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce media messages. As media messages can influence audiences’ attitudes and behaviors toward various topics, such as attitudes toward others and risky behaviors, media literacy can counter potential negative media effects, a crucial task in today’s oversaturated media environment. Media literacy in the context of health promotion is addressed by analyzing the characteristics of 54 media literacy programs conducted in the United States and abroad that have successfully influenced audiences’ attitudes and behaviors toward six health topics: prevention of alcohol use, prevention of tobacco use, eating disorders and body image, sex education, nutrition education, and violent behavior. Because media literacy can change how audiences perceive the media industry and critique media messages, it could also reduce the potential harmful effects media can have on audiences’ health decision-making process.
The majority of the interventions have focused on youth, likely because children’s and adolescents’ lack of cognitive sophistication may make them more vulnerable to potentially harmful media effects. The design of these health-related media literacy programs varied. Many studies’ interventions consisted of a one-course lesson, while others were multi-month, multi-lesson interventions. The majority of these programs’ content was developed and administered by a team of researchers affiliated with local universities and schools, and was focused on three main areas: reduction of media consumption, media analysis and evaluations, and media production and activism. Media literacy study designs almost always included a control group that did not take part in the intervention to confirm that potential changes in health and risk attitudes and behaviors among participants could be attributed to the intervention. Most programs were also designed to include at least one pre-intervention test and one post-intervention test, with the latter usually administered immediately following the intervention. Demographic variables, such as gender, age or grade level, and prior behavior pertaining to the health topic under study, were found to affect participants’ responses to media literacy interventions.
In these 54 studies, a number of key media literacy components were clearly absent from the field. First, adults—especially those from historically underserved communities—were noticeably missing from these interventions. Second, media literacy interventions were often designed with a top-down approach, with little to no involvement from or collaboration with members of the target population. Third, the creation of counter media messages tailored to individuals’ needs and circumstances was rarely the focus of these interventions. Finally, these studies paid little attention to evaluating the development, process, and outcomes of media literacy interventions with participants’ sociodemographic characteristics in mind. Based on these findings, it is recommended that health-related media literacy programs fully engage community members at all steps, including in the critical analysis of current media messages and the production and dissemination of counter media messages. Health-related media literacy programs should also impart participants and community members with tools to advocate for their own causes and health behaviors.
Jessica Fitts Willoughby
People who communicate health and risk information are often trying to determine new and innovative ways to reach members of their target audience. Because of the nearly ubiquitous use of mobile phones among individuals in the United States and the continued proliferation of such devices around the world, communicators have turned to mobile as a possible channel for disseminating health information. Mobile health, often referred to as mHealth, uses mobile and portable devices to communicate information about health and to monitor health issues. Cell phones are one primary form of mHealth, with the use of cell phone features such as text messaging and mobile applications (apps) often used as a way to provide health information and motivation to target audience members. Text messaging, or short message service (SMS), is a convenient form for conveying health information, as most cell phone owners regularly send and receive text messages. mHealth offers benefits over other channels for communicating health information, such as convenience, portability, interactivity, and the ability to personalize or tailor messages. Additionally, mHealth has been found to be effective at changing attitudes and behaviors related to health. Research has found mobile to be a tool useful for promoting healthy attitudes and behaviors related to a number of topic areas, from increased sexual health to decreased alcohol consumption. Literature from health communication and research into mHealth can provide guidance for health communicators looking to develop an effective mHealth intervention or program, but possible concerns related to the use of mobile need to be considered, such as concerns about data security and participant privacy.
Henry A. Giroux
Education in society occurs across both formal and informal spheres of communication exchange. It extends from schools to diverse cultural apparatuses such as the mainstream media, alternative screen cultures, the Internet, and other spaces actively involved in the construction of knowledge, values, modes of identification, and agency itself. The modern era is shaped by a public pedagogy rooted in neoliberal capitalism that embraces consumer culture as the primary mechanism through which to express personal agency and identity. Produced and circulated through a depoliticizing machinery of fear and consumption, the cultural focus on the pursuit of individual desires rather than public responsibilities has led to a loss of public memory, democratic dissent, and political identity. As the public sphere collapses into the realm of the private, the bonds of mutual dependence have been shredded along with the public spheres that make such bonds possible. Freedom is reduced to a private matter divorced from the obligations of social life and politics only lives in the immediate. The personal has become the only sphere of politics that remains.
The rise of the selfie as a mode of public discourse and self-display demands critical scrutiny in terms of how it is symptomatic of the widespread shift toward market-driven values and a surveillance culture, increasingly facilitated by ubiquitous, commercial forms of digital technology and social media. Far from harmless, the unexamined “selfie” can be viewed as an example of how predatory technology-based capitalism socializes people in a way that encourages not only narcissism and anti-social indifference, but active participation in a larger authoritarian culture defined by a rejection of social bonds and cruelty toward others. As with other forms of cultural and self-expression, the selfie—when placed in alternative, collective frameworks—can also become a tool for engaging in struggles over meaning. Possibilities for social change that effectively challenges growing inequality, atomization, and injustice under neoliberalism can only emerge from the creation of new, broad-ranging sites of pedagogy capable of building new political communities and drawing attention to anti-democratic structures throughout the broader society.
S. Anne Moorhead
Social media used for communication purposes within healthcare contexts is increasing and becoming more acceptable. The users of social media for healthcare communication include members of the general public, patients, health professionals, and health organizations. The uses of social media for healthcare communication are various and include providing health information on a range of conditions; providing answers to medical questions; facilitating dialogue between patients and between patients and health professionals; collecting data on patient experiences and opinions used for health intervention, health promotion, and health education; reducing stigma; and providing online consultations. With emerging advances over time, including new platforms and purposes, these uses will change and expand, increasing usability and thus providing more opportunities to use social media in connection to healthcare in the future. However, both patients and health professionals may require training to fully maximize the uses of using social media in healthcare.
Social media has numerous benefits for healthcare communication, including increased interactions with others; more available, shared, and tailored information; increased accessibility and widening access; and increased peer/social/emotional support. While there may be further benefits of using social media in healthcare, there are many limitations of social media for healthcare communication as well. The main reported limitations include a lack of reliability; quality concerns; and lack of confidentiality and privacy. From the available evidence, it is clear that maintaining patient privacy as well as the security and integrity of information shared are concerns when using social media.
As patients and members of the general public use social media widely, some may expect it in healthcare, thus it important for health professionals and organizations to manage expectations of social media in healthcare communication. This results in challenges ranging from encouraging staff to use social media to dealing with user problems and complaints. It is recommended that organizations embrace social media but have a specific purpose for each activity and platform while continually monitoring traffic. Regardless of the nature or size of the healthcare organization, it is time to adopt appropriate guidelines for the use of the social media in healthcare communication to address the challenges and the growing expectations of using social media, especially within healthcare contexts. The key message is that social media has the potential to supplement and complement but not replace other methods to improve communication and interaction among members of the general public, patients, health professionals, and healthcare organizations.


Shroud of Turin
Many religious people believe the Shroud of Turin is a genuine artifact from the burial of Jesus. The first problem for me is that there is very little evidence Jesus even existed, but that isn't the subject for this page so I'll move onto the next point. That is, if we assume Jesus existed, could the shroud be genuine? The answer is its very unlikely. While nothing can ever be ruled out entirely, the evidence showing the shroud has nothing to do with Jesus is practically undeniable.
Most people who believe in the authenticity of the shroud also believe the Bible is a true historical record. But have a look at the account of Jesus' burial in the Gospel of John and you will see the description is incompatible with the shroud. John mentions many cloths, and 100 pounds of burial spices. The shroud is a single cloth, and has no evidence of spice. Sounds like its not the real thing, doesn't it? Even if we reject John (and we should, since the Bible isn't reliable) we know the Jews of that era did not bury their dead with a single cloth, and the use of spices was common.
From the American Standard Version. John 19:39-40. And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.
Apart from the Bible, which as I said, is unreliable anyway, we have historical evidence that the shroud is fake. It first showed up in middle of 14th century and there is no record of it before that. Isn't that a bit suspicious? Even the bishops of the time reported to the Pope that it was part of a scam. Apparently, people were hired to pretend they were cured by it. It was painted by an artist, and a forger even admitted that he created it. The general style fits this theory - its French gothic art.
If that isn't enough, what about scientific evidence? The shroud was sampled a by lab and they found the pattern was created using paint. In 1988 it was radio carbon dated by three labs, and it was reliably dated to the 14th century. Tests for blood were negative. Areas which were supposed to be blood stains were bright red, when blood should be darkened by age. The shroud was charred by fire in 1532, but this wouldn't affect the dating because samples were from an undamaged area. The samples were supplied by the Catholic Church, so presumably they took them from a reasonable location. Since then they have refused to supply another one after the validity of the original was questioned. But there is no real reason to believe the sample had any major flaws.
Religious people have a great ability for believing things which have no evidence to support them. They call this faith, and pretend its a good thing. But believing in something which is obviously fake has nothing to do with exhibiting a positive characteristic, its demonstrating naive stupidity, and how can that be good?
The mundane origins of the shroud are far better supported than the religious interpretation. Supporters refuse to accept new historical and scientific evidence as it is discovered. Therefore I give this a moderately high score on the crap-ometer!
Sources of Further Information
There are many web sites with information on this subject. Below I have shown some which present the information for both sides of the argument.


Dilution of precision (DOP), or geometric dilution of precision (GDOP), is a term used in satellite navigation and geomatics engineering to specify the additional multiplicative effect of navigation satellite geometry on positional measurement precision. Due to the relative geometry of any given satellite to a receiver, the precision in the pseudorange of the satellite translates to a corresponding component in each of the four dimensions of position measured by the receiver (i.e., x, y, z, and t). The precision of multiple satellites in view of a receiver combine according to the relative position of the satellites to determine the level of precision in each dimension of the receiver measurement. When visible navigation satellites are close together in the sky, the geometry is said to be weak and the DOP value is high; when far apart, the geometry is strong and the DOP value is low. Consider two overlapping rings, or annuli, of different centres. If they overlap at right angles, the greatest extent of the overlap is much smaller than if they overlap in near parallel. Thus a low DOP value represents a better positional precision due to the wider angular separation between the satellites used to calculate a unit's position. Other factors that can increase the effective DOP are obstructions such as nearby mountains or buildings. DOP can be expressed as a number of separate measurements. HDOP, VDOP, PDOP, and TDOP are respectively Horizontal, Vertical, Position (3D), and Time Dilution of Precision.
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For domestic raising supplementary deer feed is very important for them. Deer is a plant eating animal. They generally eat small plants, leaves of trees and various types of grasses.
Feed habit of deer varies from their living condition. In wild nature they eat various types of plants and grasses from forest. And in domestic nature they eat the feed served by the farmer.
For domestic rearing of deer every farmer needs to know about the feed what deer eat and their feeding habits. Feeding habits and deer feed varies from region to region.
On an average wild deer eats all types of plants which are available near their living location. But for domestic rearing they need proper nutrition and balanced diet feed.
On an average a deer of 100 pounds body weight eat about 5 to 8 pounds feed daily. They consume more feed in winter season than summer season.
What to Feed Deer
Deer generally eat feed early in the morning and take rest whole day and start eating feed again in afternoon. Some favorite deer feed and their feed value are described below.
Different kinds of nuts are available like red acorns, white acorns, hickory and beech nuts. Acorns contain high portion of carbohydrates and energy but low in protein. Acorn tastes sweet and deer like them very much. You can feed your deer acorn according to their demands.
Different types of various non-woody plants are good feed source of deer. Feed them plants from roadside, edges of field etc. Plants are very important for deer health in summer season.
Leaves of Tree
Deer eat leaf of different trees. Leaf of trees is not their favorite feed. They eat leaf if nothing else is available near them. Deer generally eat leaf of the tree like blueberry, hemlock, dogwoods, honeysuckle, chokecherry, maples, aspen, poplar, poison ivy, sumac, mango, jack fruit etc.
Deer should feed mushrooms. Because it contain high nutrition. There are some species of mushrooms which are deadly to human but deer can consume that easily.
Deer eat various types of crops. Among them they like wheat, oats, sweet potatoes, peas, soybeans, alfalfa, clover, corn, gram etc. Crops are very important for deer health. So, feed them crop as much as you can.
Supplementary Deer Feed
Feed the deer some supplementary grainy feed. This will ensure the availability of all nutrition. Before feeding them supplementary feed be ensure that all nutrition ingredients are are available in the feed.
Water is very important for all animal. Provide the deer clean and fresh water regularly according to their demands.


Django is a web framework which uses Python as programming language. With reusable and pluggable components, it became easy and fast for development and deployment of data driven websites.
It's free and open source.
| Basics||Installation and creating pojects using Django|
| Form||Form to collect user intered data and displaying|
| For Loop||Displaying data by looping using Django|
| Admin||Admin interface for managing users and tables|
| static files||Adding JQuery and Bootstrap to static files|
| MySQL()||Installing mysqlclient and connecting to framework|
| Add||Adding records to MySQL tables|
| Display||Displaying records from MySQL tables|
Model Template View ( MTV )
Django uses Model Template View (MTV) Architecture and we can separate the three important areas of the web framework. It became easy for the teams to work on different parts of a complex project.
Model : We will handle our database by using Model. We declare our class here to manage data tables.
Template : We keep our user interface ( UI ) here. Take the input data or display the outcome of a transaction here.
Views : Views remains between our Model and Template ( UI ) . The main job is to handle business logics of our project.
This article is written by plus2net.com team.


Read about some of our Multi-Skill Health Technician courses so you can discover how our training will get you started on the path to your new career.
Sample Multi-Skill Health Technician Courses
Medical Law/Ethics and Special Procedures
This course acquaints students pursuing the health and legal professions with issues involving medicine, law, and ethics.
Anatomy and Physiology
Students concentrate on identifying the organs of the body to include: body cells, planes, and surfaces, skeletal, urinary, digestive, nervous, reproductive, muscular, endocrine and cardiovascular systems; become familiar with common lab test; and define and understand word structures, roots/prefixes.
Intro to Basic Patient Care Skills
Students concentrate on strategies that define the patient care technician’s role within the community: demonstrate the concepts and principles of medical asepsis, technical skills in isolation techniques, environmental control and safety, long-term patient care and emergencies and their procedures.
Expanded Functions of Patient Care
Students will concentrate on describing conditions and disorders of the endocrine, nervous, reproductive, gastrointestinal, and circulatory, the role of the patient care technician, and special procedures.
Intro to Phlebotomy
Students will concentrate on laboratory personnel and their duties. Students will learn about the medical lab including the care and use, safety practices and procedures, handling of infectious diseases and their control, various blood tests and slipper preparation; and the various departments for special tests.
Fundamentals of EKG
Students will concentrate on describing the function of the EKG machine; understanding the EKG paper, voltage, time, and all controls; Identify and demonstrate procedures in performing an EKG and the correct placement and mounting of EKG tracers; and identifying all forms of interference, technical errors and machine functions by exhibiting proficiency in problem solving and machine utilization.
Cardiac Rates and Rhythms
Students will concentrate on determining heart rates, normal sinus rhythms, knowledge, location and function of ectopic foci; and recognize the signs of rapid ectopic rates and rhythms, irregular rhythms, escape beats, premature beats, bundle branch blocks, and hemiblocks.
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The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project was the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, and has the stated goal of providing children everywhere the opportunity to learn. It’s really not intended to be a project about technology, and while many of the laptops are donated the prospect of being able to get a laptop and donate one at the same time for only $200 is extremely appealing.
Unfortunately, for a project that is not intended to be about technology specifically it has been embroiled in a radical user interface design that is specifically targeted at kids. You can use the VMware Player on your own home computer to experiment with the OLPC desktop, a pre-built VMware appliance is available.
Why should this look so different from a Windows desktop? Rather than give the two-billion children in underdeveloped nations a computer with a standard desktop metaphore, the OLPC project is providing them a completely non-standard computing experience that has no provision for learning established GUI mechanisms.
Sure, there are menus and one might argue the nebulous onscreen “X” might be indicative of an icon, but generally speaking this is not anything like Windows XP, Mac OS X, Gnome or KDE. It almost seems like this is the kind of thing that would provide a learning obstical.
What is it exactly kids are suppose to be learning while using this laptop? It includes a utility for discovering other unnamed entities around your vicinity, something like an online chat but with unadorned objects floating around the screen. Let’s hope you’re not color blind, since that seems to be one of the prerequisits for using any of this stuff. Then there is a virtually hidden web browsing feature, which is quite similar to any modern browser with the only exception being the non-standard mechanism for launching the application.
It seems to me all of this could have been accomplished with a CDE approach, start an X server with a button bar on the bottom for a few core applications and have everything running in a fullscreen mode. What more do you need? Certainly a library of applications would help, it would be smart to keep the device easily extensible so that when the need arises to do something new (eg: learn how to track celestial objects) it can be added.
The laptop hardware is well designed and extremely rugged, it is an ideal computer for children everywhere with the exception of the user interface. Let’s hope this changes and an alternative provisioning option is made available, I wouldn’t want my daughter learning on this device so why should it be any different for children in Cambodia?


Published on Feb 28, 2016
Mechanical brakes all act by generating frictional forces as two surfaces rub against each other. The stopping power or capacity of a brake depends largely on the surface area of frictional surfaces as well as on the actuation force applied. The friction and wear encountered by the working surfaces are severe. Thus, the durability of a brake or service life between maintenance depends heavily on the type of material used to line the shoe or pad.
Mechanical brakes are assemblies consisting of mechanical elements for the slowing or stopping of shafts in equipment drives. They use levers or linkages to transmit force from one point to another. Braking slows or stops the movement of the coupled shafts. There are several types of mechanical brakes. Band brakes, the simplest brake configuration, have a metal band lined with heat and wear resistant friction material. Drum brakes, which are commonly used on automobile rear wheels, work when shoes press against a spinning surface called a drum. Disc brakes are constructed of brake pads, a caliper, and a rotor. During operation, the brake pads are squeezed against the rotor. Cone brakes are made with a cup and a cone, which is lined with heat and wear resistant material. During actuation, the cone is pressed against the mating cup surface.
The disc brake is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel while it is in motion. A brake disc is usually made of cast iron , but may in some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon-carbon or ceramic -matrix composites. This is connected to the wheel and/or the axle . To stop the wheel, friction material in the form of brake pads (mounted on a device called a brake caliper ) is forced hydraulically , pneumatically or electromagnetically against both sides of the disc. Friction causes the disc and attached wheel to slow or stop. Brakes convert motion to heat, and if the brakes get too hot, they become less effective, a phenomenon known as brake fade .
A drum brake is a brake in which the friction is caused by a set of shoes or pads that press againt a rotating drum-shaped part called a brake drum.
The term "drum brake" usually means a brake in which shoes press on the inner surface of the drum. When shoes press on the outside of the drum, it is usually called a clasp brake . Where the drum is pinched between two shoes, similar to a conventional disk brake , it is sometimes called a "pinch drum brake", although such brakes are relatively rare. A related type of brake uses a flexible belt or "band" wrapping around the outside of a drum, called a band brake .
A compression engine brake is a device that can convert a diesel engine into an air compressor, a power absorbing device. These devices are used in trucking applications to provide a means for retarding the vehicle, supplementing the normal vehicle braking system. The retarding operation is under full control of the vehicle operator and can be used simultaneously with the normal service brakes. Engine brakes can be installed at any time to a new or used vehicle for most applications.
EXHAUST BRAKING MECHANISM
An exhaust brake works by restricting the flow of exhaust gases through the engine Heavy goods vehicles can often require increased braking, in situations where friction brakes could overheat and fail. This is achieved by using an exhaust brake. It achieves this by closing a butterfly valve located in the exhaust manifold. This maintains high pressures in the exhaust manifold, and the engine cylinders, which in turn, acts as a brake against the engine rotating. This then slows the road wheels through the transmission, or power train.


Talking Mats is an effective but deceptively simple tool so a question we are often asked is do you need training to use it. Communication and supporting people with communication difficulties is a complex process and Talking Mats is based on a number of research projects which examined who could use Talking Mats, and how best to use it in different situations. It is therefore important that the integrity of the Talking Mats model is maintained and that Talking Mats training teaches the principles developed from our evidence base.
Some of these principles include:
- Understanding who can and who cannot benefit from using Talking Mats
- Asking open questions
- Handing over control
- Maintaining neutrality
- Interpreting additional information including both non-verbal and verbal information
- Matching the top scale to the question or view being explored
- Presenting the options in an order that maximises the individuals ability to respond by using our model which focuses on concrete to abstract symbols
- Monitoring language complexity and topic sensitivity
All our training courses include hands-on practice and video examples as well as reflection on all these aspects of using Talking Mats
The techniques used in Talking Mats accord with best practice guidance in semi –structured interview techniques including:
- being clear in what you want to find out and using open questions
- enabling elaboration in whatever form is appropriate
- planning in advance but in a context that is flexible and can respond to the dynamics of the conversation
- being cognisant of the influence of the environment
- taking time to establish engagement and rapport
- being non-judgemental
- supportive of periods of silence
- ensuring there is a summary at the end so that both parties agree on what was said .
So whilst Talking Mats may seem simple, it is not simplistic. The listener is creating a space that enables the thinker to think and express themselves. Training gives the listener time to reflect on the components of an effective Talking Mats conversation and identify which ones they are already skilled in and which ones they need to develop further. There are no short cuts to reflective practice training and we know Talking Mats foundation training has impact. Time and time again people who thought they knew about Talking Mats reflect and say things like ‘I got so much more from this training than I expected’ or ‘ I now see I can use Talking Mats for so many different conversations not just ’ I like’ , ‘I don’t like’ ‘or ‘I have been using Talking Mats but now feel much more confident to use it and to make my own submats’
This is why we put so much emphasis on training. We have developed our successful “Train the trainer” scheme to ensure that quality is maintained and reflective practice maintained. If Talking Mats is passed by word of mouth then key aspects of the framework are missed and/or misinterpreted which in turn lessens its effectiveness and impact.
People who come on training are often excited, want to tell colleagues and share it with others. Demonstration and sharing is fine, but it is important to be aware of the difference between sharing and training.
Sharing can often be appropriate especially when there is a team of people supporting the person or parents are keen to see how it works. You can show someone how to use a Talking Mat about a specific conversation. We call this a ‘demonstrating model’. It is helpful to give the listener the words to say to go with it. That way you are enabling other colleagues or family members to have an effective but specific conversation only.
If they then want to use it for other conversations we would strongly recommend they go on to attend the training. Attending a foundation course will enable them:
- to get more out of the technique
- to understand more about their own communication
- to become creative in their use of Talking Mats whilst still adhering to the research principles
- to be able to create their own mats or explore a topic in more depth using submats
So do you need training to use Talking Mats ? The answer is a resounding yes . Training supports you to be an effective Talking Mats listener and get the most out of this versatile communication framework. So if you have not attended a course check out our course opportunities There are lots of way you can access this training e.g. through the train the trainer network, through core training run frequently in the UK and Australia or through our online course.


Teaching Gender’s Value
If economic historians never paid attention to gender we’d be left with many faulty assumptions. We might believe that free markets were open to all; that the value of commodities could be objectively calculated; or that uncompensated household labor flowed in seamlessly to support technical and financial innovations. Attention to gender upends each of these.
But to use this powerful historical tool, students have to dismantle their sense that male and female are obvious and fixed and come to see them as evolving historical processes in the nineteenth century. When I teach the history of capitalism, I show students how to unravel beliefs grounded in gender stereotypes—for example, that laundry is timeless women’s work, or that enslaved men cost more than enslaved women because they were stronger. With a critical approach to some key primary sources, I help them see how culture and economy shaped one another under capitalism.
Take, for example, the familiar crank-turned cotton gins of the 1790s, which made separating seeds from fuzzy fibers feasible, supporting the spread of slave-grown cotton across the southern United States (Figure 1). Cotton textiles, manufactured in Britain and northern U.S. states, became fashionable and popular as clothing because, more than wool, linen, or silk, they were washable. The technology/slavery/land connections in cotton’s growth are well known. But who was going to wash the newly washable clothing and make those connections worthwhile?
To answer that part of the equation, I show students another crank-turned machine that debuted in the 1790s—the “Washing Mill,” and ask them to evaluate how it might explain the expansion of the cotton industry. A trade card promises the ease with which a well-dressed young lady could keep her family’s expanding wardrobe clean (Figure 2). I ask students why the advertisement shows a girl in a flowing dress operating the machinery. They usually answer that laundry was women’s work and this is a labor-saving device for them. Yet, as they can see on this same trade card, the technology was developed for navy ships, where laundry abounded and female hands were scarce.
I then read a printed newspaper “testimonial” advertising the washing mill, in which a husband reports that thanks to the device, his wife had to hire only a single adolescent girl to handle the washing, rather than the three adult women she usually paid. In other words, laundry was not women’s work, it was work for people under the command of others, whether common sailors or poor neighbor women. In fact, probing further, students can see that in the nineteenth-century United States, white women in the North sought to hire someone else to do the laundry (often black women); simultaneously, white women in the South sought to replace themselves as field laborers (often, again, with black women). Investigating gender connects supply to demand, through changing hierarchical labor arrangements.
Those same female field laborers, each of whom had a price, offer students ways to understand commodification, another essential part of capitalism. As a number that purported to communicate a person’s value, price was the clearest link between human capital and other forms of capital. The “prime male rate” price was and is a number used to describe a uniform commodity, wrapped around a unique human being through the processes of the slave trade (Figure 3).
I show students a page from Stephen Fuller’s 1788 report on Jamaica to the British Privy Council’s Committee for Trade and Commerce and ask them whether gender determined a person’s price (Figure 4). As they start to answer, their ideas of a uniform commodity fall away. They ponder the report’s overlapping price ranges for different enslaved people. A female field worker was not always priced lower than a male field worker; a midwife could cost more than a doctor. In trying to connect human skills, human labor, and price, students get a more complex understanding of how work and market intersected to create hierarchies based on sex, skill, or strength in a variety of combinations.
Then I ask: Why are infants, youths, and the “superannuated” not separated by sex on the rate sheet? Did the sex of an enslaved person influence price only during her reproductive years? These questions lead to a discussion of the connection between childbirth and field work as valued labor when by law the children of slave mothers were slaves for life.
Finally, we tackle the question: Were enslaved children and enslaved grandparents ungendered? Students intuitively say no, but it takes time to figure out what it means to say gender mattered in lives under slavery. They have to consider how a person’s price might affect her daily life experience, either in terms of the work assigned or the knowledge of being valued differently from others and over a lifetime. But they also have to confront what value meant within different markets and along the edges of them.Students expect to find a few women working within economic history, as machine operators or cotton pickers. But showing them how to really see gender—its changing appearance, its intersection with race and class, its variable value—offers a far more powerful tool to unlock the history of American capitalism.
Students expect to find a few women working within economic history, as machine operators or cotton pickers. But showing them how to really see gender—its changing appearance, its intersection with race and class, its variable value—offers a far more powerful tool to unlock the history of American capitalism.
 Cotton has been the focus of many new histories of the economy of the nineteenth-century United States, including Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York, 2015); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York, 2014); Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (New York, 2013); Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South (Cambridge, MA, 2005).
 Kathleen M. Brown, Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (New Haven, CT, 2009), 269. The classic work is Ruth Schwartz Cohen, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1985).
 On commodification, see Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA, 2008); Daina Ramey Berry, “‘We’m Fus’ Rate Bargain’: Value, Labor, and Price in a Georgia Slave Community,” in The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas, 1808‒1888, ed. Walter Johnson (New Haven, CT, 2004).
 Advanced students can consider how some kinds of lists shaped what was knowable about the value of human beings; see Caitlin Rosenthal’s article in the Winter 2016 Journal of the Early Republic.
27 February 2017
About the Author
Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Davis.
Recent Contributions to the JER
Gender’s Value in the History of Capitalism (Winter 2016)
The Personal Is Political Economy (Summer 2016)


Understanding Mobile Phone Impact on Livelihoods in Developing Countries: A New Research Framework
Work data:ISBN: 978-1-905469-17-8
Type of work: Working Paper
Categories:ICT Infrastructure | ICT4D
Mobile phones are diffusing rapidly in developing countries, but research conceptualisations have been lagging behind practice, particularly those that link mobile phones to livelihoods. This working paper seeks to fill this gap in two ways.
First, by means of a literature review that uses key livelihoods concepts as a template for analysis. It starts by analysing mobile phones according to how they impact upon assets – through facilitating asset substitution, enhancement, combination, exchange and forms of dis-embodiment. The analysis also incorporates an understanding of the intervening structures and processes that intermediate assets through passive diffusion and active innovation of mobile technologies. On this basis key roles for mobile phones are defined within livelihood strategies.
The second part of the paper revisits the livelihood framework and suggests a number of adaptations that: a) integrate a broader conception of capitals; b) emphasise underlying information processes within livelihoods analysis; c) interpret forms of intermediation; and d) delineate outputs, outcomes and impacts. Finally, the paper suggests areas of research concerning mobile phones and livelihoods where the revised framework can be applied.
Taken from Understanding mobiles and livelihoods.
The livelihoods approach suggests four potential impacts of mobiles on the assets that underpin all livelihoods:
- Asset substitution: saving time and costs for journeys, but adding costs for mobile expenditure.
- Asset enhancement: greater efficiency in use of other assets e.g. for agricultural production or relationship-building.
- Asset disembodiment: the conversion of assets to digital form e.g. the codification of social contacts, or digitisation of money.
- Asset exchange/combination: e.g. the exchange of airtime or m-cash.
The assets pentagon is made up by: natural capital, human capital, physical capital, financial capital and social capital.


The United Kingdom's Prime Minister, David Cameron is pictured here in a classic critical evaluation cluster (Pease). With his thumb and middle finger supporting the jaw and the index finger covering his mouth, a subtle drawing together and lowering of his eyebrows, as well as his head turned slightly away from the person(s) he is listening to - this nonverbal grouping is a strong indicator that Mr. Cameron does not like what he's hearing. His words may very well not convey the same level of negativity that his body language does - indeed his words may very well be positive. In such examples of disparity, the nonverbal cues are always correct. What would make this configuration even more critical? ..... if his other hand/arm were crossed over his lower (or upper) chest - or if his thumb was covering his ear - or if there were flaring of his nostrils. These would all be additional negative nonverbal signals typically seen in this context.


In general, there are seven approaches to the study of abnormal psychology: biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, sociocultural and diathesis-stress.Click to see full answer. Similarly, you may ask, what are the models of abnormality in psychology?The four main models to explain psychological abnormality are the biological, behavioural, cognitive, and psychodynamic models. They all attempt to explain the causes and treatments for all psychological illnesses, and all from a different approach.Likewise, what is the latest method of classification of mental disorder? Today, the two most widely established systems of psychiatric classification are the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification for Diseases (ICD). Then, how are normal and abnormal behaviors defined using the psychological health approach? Abnormal behavior is any behavior that deviates from what is considered normal. There are four general criteria that psychologists use to identify abnormal behavior: violation of social norms, statistical rarity, personal distress, and maladaptive behavior.What is comorbidity in psychology?In psychology, comorbidity refers to more than one disorders or diseases that exist alongside a primary diagnosis, which is the reason a patient gets referred and/or treated.


Students with liberal arts degrees from schools such as Boston University are likely to see a solid return on investment as their careers progress, according to a new study released Wednesday.
“A good liberal arts education trains the student to think in creative ways, to questions everything, learn close reading and writing, analyze data, synthesis, analyze information in rigorous ways and ask questions in rigorous ways,” said John Mackey, a professor of social sciences at BU’s College of General Studies.
The study, which was conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, tapped into the United States Census Bureau 2012 American Community Survey to explore how the salaries of those with liberal arts degrees compared to those in professional and pre-professional degrees compared during peak earning ages.
“Students who are considering majoring in liberal arts as undergraduates can know that they are employable after they graduate and, in the long term, would have more significant earnings than those who just majored in the professional or pre-professional fields,” said Carrie Johnson, a spokesperson for the AACU.
While those with professional and pre-professional degrees working in the humanities and social sciences fields initially earned around $5,000 more than those with liberal arts degrees directly after college, liberal arts majors earned approximately $2,000 more than those without during peak earning ages, Johnson said.
“People tend to think that the social sciences and humanities are narrow in scope… but in fact, social sciences graduates learn a range of skills and ways of thinking that are broadly applicable. Graduates go onto careers in law, politics, entertainment, broadcasting and a range of business careers.”
Mackey said studying social sciences and humanities is vital to gaining a full perception of how the world has changed in order to understand what might happen in the future.
“Social sciences help us understand how the societies we live in work and function and where they came from,” Mackey said. “…Social sciences really help us understand systems, which are really important. Economic systems that shape the way we live, political systems, systems of social, racial, gender stratification have a huge impact on the way we live.”
Jeffrey Volpintesta, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said liberal arts degrees are beneficial in that they teach students how to think critically and adapt to a variety of career fields.
“While you don’t learn a specific set of skills, like say a computer scientist would learn how to code software, a liberal arts major, depending on what it is your studying on the whole, teaches you how to learn and how to adapt,” he said.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences junior Lindsey Petro said a liberal arts background is not necessary for people like her who are pursuing medical careers.
“I want to go into something related to the medical field so that’s not really what my education is about,” Petro said. “For someone wanting to go into the medical field, it’s not really useful. It’s good to have a more well-rounded education … but I don’t see the purpose in very specialized field.”
Shane Hennessey, a CAS junior, said while there is bias against the value of a liberal arts degree, he believes it will be relevant to his future in environmental sciences.
“I know some people have that stigma against the whole liberal arts degree, but I think some people really do value it,” Hennessey said. “The more general requirements I’m taking now will definitely apply to my career.”
Sophia Goldberg contributed to the reporting of this story.


In previous articles here at lawneq.com, we have discussed many different ways to rid your garden of pesky insects, rabbits, deer, and groundhogs that love to eat your plants. We’ve discussed how you can modify your garden with certain types of plants that attract good bugs that battle off the bad bugs that threaten plants. We also discuss using ducks to rid your vegetable garden of bad bugs. We describe how to make traps to capture groundhogs that love to burrow through the garden soil attacking the roots of plants and vegetables and we described how to mix special concoctions that can be sprayed on plants to discourage deer and rabbits from chowing down on your flora.
Another critter of nature that can help to guard your plants and vegetables against threatening insects are toads and frogs.
The Differences Between Toads And Frogs
Although you may look at them as being the same, there are differences between toads and frogs. Yes, both are amphibian, but toads have dry, bumpy skin and spend most of their time on land. In the winter they hibernate in the ground below the frost line.
On the other hand, frogs have a moist smooth skin and spend more time in or near water than on land. However, they do venture out on to grassy areas to find food.
What they have it common is that they both feed on pests including bugs, beetles, caterpillars, cutworms, grasshoppers, grubs, slugs, and other critters that threaten your garden. It is said that a single frog can eat more than 100 insects in one night. Using frogs and toads to manage pest problems is certainly better for your plants than chemical or natural pesticides.
What you want to do is modify your garden and the area around it to attract these creatures.
How To Attract Toads And Frogs To Your Garden
If you have a water feature on your property or one nearby, there are no doubt frogs and toads in the area. We have even discussed how you can create ponds and other water features on your property. If you have a water feature, then that should encourage a pretty nice population of frogs and toads. If you don’t, there are things you can do to attract these critters from ponds or streams nearby.
First, it is essential that you stop using chemicals including pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and herbicides. These products can poison frogs and toads. Instead of relying on them, switch to organic gardening. Build healthy soil and install companion plants and use crop rotation and organic gardening techniques.
Next, create shelters for them. They love hiding places where they can keep out of the sun because they are nocturnal and avoiding the sun prevents them from getting dehydrated. They favor damp, shady areas and shelters where they can hide from predators and escape from the heat. Simply arrange some stones into a small cave and partially cover a hole with an upside down clay or ceramic flower pot. Set up the shelters in shady areas of your garden.
Finally, offer water. Toads and frogs don’t drink through their mouths; they sit in water and absorb it into their bodies. So, locate shallow containers of water in the shade near the shelters. Rinse the containers at least once a week and fill them with fresh water.
You may be surprised to learn that just one frog or toad can consume up to 10,000 pests during a gardening season. A friendly environment will encourage them to come back year after year.


Talent Development in Gifted Education
The Council for Exceptional Children
1110 N. Glebe Rd.
Arlington, VA 22201-5704
Toll Free: 1.800.328.0272
ERIC EC Digest #E610
Author: John F. Feldhusen
The last decades of the twentieth century saw the growth of a large body of research and development around the concept of intelligence. New concepts have facilitated new approaches to identifying and developing giftedness in young people. This digest presents a model for the education of gifted children and youth based on the concept of talent development. Specific ways to identify and develop talent are also discussed.
New Conceptions of Intelligence and Talent
A longstanding tradition in the field of gifted education assumes it is possible and desirable to identify children as “gifted” based on high IQ scores and/or high achievement test scores. Gifted programming developed from a notion of global and fixed intelligence and often resulted in exclusive one-size-fits-all programs of study. Such an approach disregarded the individual strengths and potential of some gifted students.
In contrast, the work of Sternberg (1991) and Gardner (1983) led to a diagnostic approach to ability, where specific talents or aptitudes became the focus for identification and services. Sternberg’s theory proposed a number of components of intelligence in three broad categories: metacomponents (planning, monitoring, and evaluation), performance components (skills and abilities), and knowledge-acquisition components (processing and encoding). Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (originally linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal) also elaborated on the view of human abilities as multidimensional.
Gagne’s research (1985, 1993) and model for talent development explicitly set the stage for a focus on talents. He proposed an underlying set of aptitudes or gifts that are intellectual, creative, socio-affective, perceptual-motor, and other unspecified abilities. With these basic abilities the child interacts with catalysts such as teachers or parents and participates in learning, training, and practice experiences. With encouragement and support, a child’s talents emerge from these experiences.
A Model for Talent Recognition and Development in Schools
Programs, curricula, and services for gifted and talented youth can best meet their needs, promote their achievements in life, and contribute to the enhancement of our society when schools identify students’ specific talent strengths and focus educational services on these talents. Schools are in a unique position to identify and develop the talents of students in four major domains: academic, artistic, vocational-technical, and personal-social. The academic domain includes science, math, English, social studies, and languages. Dance, music, drama, photography, and graphic arts comprise the artistic domain. The vocational-technical areas are home economics, trade-industrial, business-office, agriculture, and computers-technology. Finally, in the interpersonal realm, leadership, care-giving, and human services are potential areas in which identification and nurturance of specific talents can be carried out.
Several rating scales and checklists are useful in identifying talents in all four of the domains. These include the ten Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students by Renzulli et al. (1997), the Purdue Academic Rating Scales and Purdue Vocational Rating Scales (Feldhusen, Hoover, & Sayler, 1997). A wide variety of aptitude and achievement tests can be used to identify academic and some of the vocational-technical talents. Auditions are the preferred mode of evaluating talent in the performing arts and portfolios in the graphic arts. Portfolios are also useful in the identification of talents in academic areas when they contain the results of a child’s projects, problem-solving activities, and creative productions.
However, the process of recognizing and developing talents should not be seen as a one-shot, one-time determination with tests and rating scales labeling students as “talented” or “untalented.” Rather, it is a long-range process in which parents, school personnel, and the students themselves recognize, understand, and work together to facilitate the development of the students’ unique talents. As a way of involving students, parents, teachers, and counselors in the recognition and development of student talent, Feldhusen and Wood (1997) presented a system for “growth planning” in which students, grades 3-12, plan in late spring their school programs for the coming year. They inventory and review their own achievements, assess their own interests and learning styles, and write personal goals (academic, career, and social). They then select courses, extracurricular activities, and out-of-school experiences that are commensurate with their prior achievements, reflect the goals they have set for themselves, and are suitably challenging.
Feldhusen and Wood used the system with several hundred gifted and talented students and found it to be an effective method for involving children and youth in the talent development process. Talented students often could engage in learning activities with little or minimum teacher involvement. Feldhusen reported that the students’ capacity for self-direction in individual and small group work was very high if their teachers provided good instructional material and initial directions. The students grew rapidly in their capacity to carry out self-directed and individualized learning.
Strategies for Recognizing and Developing Talent
All students at all ages have relative talent strengths, and schools should help them identify and understand their own special abilities. Those whose talents are at levels exceptionally higher than their peers should have access to instructional resources and activities that are commensurate with their talents (Feldhusen, 1998). They need a great deal of help and emotional support from parents, extensive educational input and resources from the school, a supportive peer environment, and mentors who can demonstrate and model advanced levels of expertise and creativity in their areas of talent potential (Pleiss & Feldhusen, 1995).
Teachers and other school personnel can employ the following strategies to help implement this model (Feldhusen, 1996).
- Be alert to signs of talent in the four talent areas. Point out strengths to the student and parents, and test to verify possible emerging talent.
- Structure learning activities that will give students the opportunity to demonstrate their talent potential.
- Use praise to recognize and reinforce signs of talent.
- Help students who have talent in particular areas set learning goals in that area.
- Locate resources in the school and community that can help foster the student’s talents.
- Enlist parents in identifying and nurturing their children’s talents by providing resources and experiences, and encouraging goal-setting behavior.
The ultimate goal of talent recognition and development is to help students understand their own talent strengths and potentials, to know how to pursue and engage in the best talent development activities, and to commit themselves to the development of their talents.
Feldhusen, J. F. (June 1998). Programs for the gifted few or talent development for the many? Phi Delta Kappan, 79(10), 735-738.
Feldhusen, J. F. (1996). How to identify and develop special talents. Educational Leadership, 53(5), 66-69.
Feldhusen, J. F., Hoover, S. M., & Sayler, M. F. (1997). Identification and education of the gifted and talented at the secondary level. New York: Trillium Press.
Feldhusen, J. F., & Wood, B. K. (1997). Developing growth plans for gifted students. Gifted Child Today, 20(6), 24-28.
Gagne, F. (1985). Giftedness and talent: Reexamining a reexamination of the definition. Gifted Child Quarterly, 29(3), 103-112.
Gagne, F. (1993). Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 69-87). New York: Pergamon Press.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Pleiss, M. K., & Feldhusen, J. F. (1995). Mentors, role models, and heroes in the lives of gifted children. Educational Psychologist, 30(3), 159-169.
Renzulli, J. S., Smith, L. H., White, A. J., Callahan, C. M., Hartman, R. K., & Westberg, K. L. (1997). Scales for rating the behavioral characteristics of superior students. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (1991). Giftedness according to the triarchic theory of human intelligence. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 45-54). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.


Keller is a suburban city located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in Tarrant County, Texas. Keller is a mostly residential area that has 300 acres of developed land dedicated to 11 park sites. Keller is considered the 74th most populated city in Texas, with a recent estimate of 47,213 as of July 2019. In this article, we are going to learn more about the rich history of Keller, Texas
Establishment of Keller
Back in the 1840s, Keller was part of the frontier of Peters Colony settlers because it is located in the western fringe of the Eastern Cross Timbers in northeast Tarrant County. During that time, the area was settled by families from Missouri, which built their homes near the head-waters of Big Bear Creek. In July 1850, Mount Gilead Baptist Church, however, nine years later, the little log church was burned in an Indian raid.
The area was once called ‘Double Springs’ because of the two large springs that are located approximately ½ mile north of Mt. Gilead Baptist Church. During the early 1870s, the area had a grist mill, a cotton gin, several stores, and a blacksmith shop. When an artesian well was drilled in Keller in 1896, the Double Springs was filled with silt and eventually were plugged and lost until it was rediscovered in 1984.
In 1881, The Texas and Pacific Railway located between Fort Worth and Texarkana was completed, and the first train ran on this track in May 1881. With the arrival of the rail service, businesses and new villages were established all along the line. The Keller we know today was one of those villages. In July 1881, A.C Roberts decided to deed 62 acres of land to a Tarrant County pharmacist named H.W. Black. This land later became a townsite known as Athol. In just a year, settlers began to migrate to the new village, and the town’s name was changed from Athol to Keller, in honor of John C. Keller, a man who worked as a foreman on the railroad.
The streets on the townsite still carry the names that were given to them in 1881. Streets going north and south are named Elm, Main, and Lamar, while those running east and west are named Pecan, Vine, Price, Taylor, Bates, Hill, and Olive.
As the town develops, new residential sites slowly filled in the open spaces, to the point where Keller’s neighboring towns no longer had the opportunity to expand its boundaries. In 1980 the Census calculated that Keller has a population of 4,555; Today, Keller nearly has 45,000 people call Keller their home.
The city has several facilities such as the Keller Public Library, the Municipal Service Center on Bear Creek Parkway West, Keller Town Hall located on Bear Creek Parkway, and the Keller Senior Activities Center situated on Johnson Road. Keller also has an award-winning recreation and aquatic center called The Keller Pointe, which is located on Rufe Snow Drive. They also recently expanded and renovated its police facility, which includes the Regional Animal Adoption Center, a Regional Jail, regional 911 dispatch center, and NETCOM that serves the cities of Colleyville, Keller, Westlake, and Southlake.


Scientists in South Africa, discovered earlier this week, numerous amounts of fossils. Some were fossilized birds and rats, but the real discovery, was of a previously unknown hominin species called Homo naledi. The discovery was made in the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. A professor at the University of Witwatersrand, Lee Berger and his team, made the discovery. Paying homage to where the discovery was made, he chose to call the specimen of fossilized bones Homo naledi, ‘naledi’ means ‘star’ in Sotho (also called Sesotho), which is one of the languages spoken in South Africa. What made this find so intriguing, was where they were actually found. Before this discovery, modern humans were the first known species to bury their dead. But after being found deep in a cave, with an underground path, Berger and his team believe this was a burial place for Homo naledi, who had to even use fire to get through the cave. In total at least 15 individuals were unearthed, and include most of the bones in the skeleton. Based on this wide range of specimens from a single site, Berger describes Homo naledi as being similar in size and weight to a small modern human, with human-like hands and feet. Furthermore, while the skull had several unique features, it had a small brain case that was most similar in size to other early hominin species that lived between four million and two million years ago. Homo naledi’s ribcage, shoulders and pelvis also more closely resembled those of earlier hominin species than those of modern humans. More information still needs to be uncovered and there is sure to be challenges from the scientific community, but the fact that this was a huge discovery, is undeniable.
*All this information was found in the eLife research article.*


National Register of Historic Places in Alameda County
The Alden Branch of the Oakland Free Library, which was renamed the Temescal Branch, was one of four architecturally similar but varied branches built under a 1914 grant to the city of Oakland.
Temescal was a working class, largely Italian neighborhood, settled by farmers, stonecutters from the nearby quarry and cemetery, and employees of the local Lusk Cannery, Oakland Scavenger Company, and Oakland Traction Company whose carbarn was on 47th Street.
An early placard in the library's files appealed to the Italian population:
La ALDEN RAMO LIBRERIA. Abbiamo libri in ITALIANO per tutti. Mettete il vostro nome in questo pezzo di carta, e andate alia Libreria potete avere uno libro.
In the years after World War I the Oakland schools and libraries were very conscious of their mission of "Americanization" to Oakland's large foreign-born population of many nationalities.
The neighborhood name Alden came from Solomon Alden, a farmer who settled on 600 acres in this upper Telegraph Avenue area in 1855. The name Temescal, which replaced Alden in popular usage by the end of the century, came from Temescal Creek which runs through the area. Temescal was the Ohlone Indian word for the sweathouses along its banks.
Adapted from the NRHP nomination.
The Alden, Golden Gate and 23rd Avenue branches were all designed by Charles W. Dickey and John J. Donovan. The three buildings had virtually identical plans but different period costumes. Alden was one of only two Tudor Revival Carnegie libraries built in California. The other, which was in Hollywood, no longer exists.
Escalating construction costs for the elaborate Spanish Colonial 23rd Avenue branch diverted funds from the Alden and Golden Gate branches, not yet begun. The relatively austere Tudor and Colonial styles chosen for Alden and Golden Gate apparently absorbed any economy measures with good grace.
Both the Alden and Golden Gate branches are virtually unchanged both inside and out and have continuously operated as libraries since their construction.
Excerpted from the NRHP nomination.
Some Carnegie Free Libraries in California
Some Other Carnegie Free Libraries in the West
The website Carnegie Libraries of California contains much information about these libraries.


Chairs: Raül Romeva, ministry of global affairs, institutional relationships and transparency, Government of Catalonia
Jaume López, Univesitat Pompeu Fabra
Jefferson said that the values of the past should align with the projects of the future:
every generation should write their own constitution.
Representative democracy, deliberative/participatory democracy and direct democracy as three methodologies that complement each other. Democracy is about choosing the best tools to make decisions, but also to overcome the most dangerous hazards. Best results usually rely on best designs. That’s why the importance of the democratic design. Participation is a good tool to open constitutional processes to the citizenry.
What is to be expected in a constitutional process?
- A constitutional text of the maximum quality, representing an actual understanding of democracy, acknowledged by most.
- An exercise of citizen of empowerment and emancipation, that legitimates the new political system, combining the virtues of direct, deliberative and representative democracy. Deliberation has to be of the most quality and widely participated by everyone.
The probability of success depends on the acknowledged need for a change and the coincidence in the methodology to perform that change.
There is a global trend that democracy is becoming more direct and participated. And there hardly is a chance for turning back to strictly representative politics. The results, though, vary: participation does not necessarily lead to quality. Design matters.
Six examples in the world: Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile.
Ireland used a mixed commission on constitutional reforms: citizens chosen at random and some politicians.
The process of deliberation delivered great outputs. It smoothed the opposing points of view and contributed to the creation of a consensus on complicated issues. The combination of proposals of constitutional reforms plus a confirming referendum proved to be a good design.
There was a constitutional assembly but, before that, there was a pre-constitutional referendum that was binding for the constitutional assembly plus a post-constitutional referendum. The latter was on purpose so that the issue at stake did not block the rest of the reforms, arguably easier to debate and vote.
The assembly had to decide not only content, but also methodology, and it ended up being blocked. It would have been a good idea that the methodology had already been set for the assembly to use it for deliberation on content.
Of course, the existence of the assembly and the parliament presented a major problem of legitimacy.
The need that both chambers of the parliament had to approve the final text implied negotiations between the party in office and the opposition, and somewhat denaturalized the whole “citizen” process, which became much less participated.
A little bit more than 1% of the total population contributed with proposals to the constitutional reform. And this happened without a precise participatory methodology, which made it difficult to advance in the process. This fact was used by the presidency to have a major role in the whole process, again denaturalizing the constitutional participatory process.
There was a national citizen forum, chosen by lot, and there was a reporting commission chosen at the elections. But if only citizens, as individuals, write the constitutions, the resulting text is weak and lacks legitimacy. Now the text is seen as a reference document, but cannot be directly put into practice and has thus been set aside.
The government appointed a Monitoring Citizen Council. The Self-Scheduled Local Meetings were a decentralitzed way to contribute to the constitutional process, to which 1% of the population participated with their deliberations and debates in up to 8,000 meetings.
The resulting proposals were sent to the presidency as the Citizen Basis for the New Constitution.
The participative process still has no clear definition on the later stages. So, the process has been initiated without knowing how it will end.
Most of the deliberation went around democracy itself.
There was no constitutional process, because it was due after the referendum of independence and in case Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom. But there was a document written by the Scottish government defining a constitutional convention with a participatory and inclusive citizen process.
It is good that a constitutional process has different stages and each one has different designs/logic. Each stage underlines a specific aspect of democracy.
The connection between stages is very important. The outputs of a given stage have to feed the following one. There cannot be steps backward in terms of rights or of things learned or even in decisions made.
Initial participation somehow sets the pace and scope of the whole process. It will be different to begin with a small set of “experts” rather that with a massive grassroots participation.
Choosing members of commissions at random is generally a good thing for the sake of plurality.
Commissions can be mixed (citizens and politicians) or not (only citizens, only politicians). In any case, plurality within the commission is a must. Among other things, it contributes to establish links between stages.
There is no need to begin with the draft of a constitution. It can be done thus, but there is no need. Supporting documents (reports, etc.) can be handy.
Not even constitutional elections themselves are needed. There is not even the need to stop all legislative activity during the constitutional process. But the final text of the constitution is usually written at the parliament, in an official commission/assembly (although it can be made up by citizens too or even only citizens).
Jordi Rich: can citizens not only participate, but lead the constitutional process? Can citizens have a say in what topics are to be debated in constitutional processes? How to guarantee that the results are binding?
Teresa Forcades: how can constitutional processes be initiated when the momentum for change is unclear? What happens when there is no consensus on the need for a constitutional reform?
If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:
Peña-López, I. (2017) “Constitutional processes in the world” In ICTlogy,
#165, June 2017. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
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