DEAR LORD!!!... there is NOTHING that causes more problems for students of Nuke (and their teachers) than premultiplication. No matter how carefully it is explained, students often dont know how to use it, or use it badly. Several of the items in the script structure page refer to the perils of poorly managed premultiplication. First, here is why premultiplication is needed:
What is premultiplication and why it is needed
All images consist of values that extend from black to white (the three color channels being simply grey-scale images) and these values can be expressed as numbers: 1 for white, 0 for black, .5 for mid grey etc. The problem is that there is no natural value in a digital image for transparency. However, with simple maths we can 'fake' it. First of all we need:
A background (BG), a foreground (FG) and an alpha (A)
- 1 X any number = no change
- 0 X any number = 0
From that we can say:
- The white values (1) in A multiplied by the FG will effect no change upon the FG.
- The black values (0) in A multiplied by the FG will turn the FG black.
Now invert A so that its black values and white values are 'swopped'. Perform the same multiplication over the BG.
Now more maths:
- 0 + any number = no change
- The blacks values (0) in the BG will effect no change upon the FG values.
- The blacks values (0) in the FG will effect no change upon the BG values.
This gives us a FG plus a BG that looks like (voila!):
The example .psd file is in the Assets page (apologies, the alpha is a bit rough).
What happens if premultiplication is not handled well
If premultiplication is not handled well then the maths fails. The following are the main dangers:
- If the black of the premultiplied FG is lightened (for example: as a result of a color adjustment), then it will brighten the BG.
- This is not a good thing. In the image below the ball was lightened but the color correction of the one on the right was not preceded by an unpremultiply (Unpremult). In the process the black premultiplied background was also lightened which affected the color of the composite.
- If (in the process of poorly managed premultiplication workflow) the grey of the soft edges is darkened or lightened then the edges of the composite will be noisy.
- This is not a good thing. In the image below the ball on the right was premultiplied twice. This imparted a dark rim to the edge of the ball (soft edges are very vulnerable to this sort of thing).
The main places this these screw-ups occur is whilst the FG is being color edited or merged:
The standerd workflow for dealing with premultiplication whist merging is simple:
- Derive an alpha from the FG
- Premultiply FG by A
- Merge (add) FG with BG
This translates as:
|When it is time for the FG and BG to be merged together then the FG MUST be in a premultiplied state.|
|Also... DON'T premultiply the same image twice.|
This is wrong:
- Premultiplied image --> Color edit
Such a workflow could badly effect the black values of the premultiplied image. The solution is to unpremultiply before the color edit, like this:
- Premultiplied image --> Unpremultiplied image --> Color edit --> Premultiply
|DONT perform any color edit on the FG if it has been premultiplied.|
Premult and Unpremult and other tools
The Premult and Unpremult are the workhorses of the premultiplaction workflow. Premult wil premultiply an image (asuming it has an alpha), Unpremult will unpremultiply it.
Within many nodes there is a premult parameter. It is there to save on the hassle of top and tailing the color operations with Premult and Unpremult nodes. If ticked it will unpremult and premult entirely within the confines of the node. It is not efficiant to use this parameter on long chains of complex color edits as the premultiplication is always being turned off and on, but for for simple, singular edits it is fine.
Some examples of good and bad premultiplication are in the Assets page.


Microbiologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences Vladislav Zhemchugov assessed the risk of transmission of the Nipah virus from person to person. In his opinion, the likelihood of contracting this infection is extremely low, reports Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Zhemchugov urged Russians not to be afraid of the Nipah virus, since it is low contagious or mildly infectious. Due to this feature, it is difficult to transmit from person to person. However, the mortality rate from infection with this virus is high: it reaches 75 percent, the microbiologist emphasized.
The expert added that in India they will search for sick animals on their own in order to destroy them. Thus, it will be possible to prevent the spread of the virus, as well as its mutation, which affects the ability to be transmitted from person to person.
Earlier, scientists at the National Institute of Virology of India for the first time recorded the Nipah virus (NiV) in bats. The virus, which is naturally detected in these animals, can cause a serious illness in humans, which is characterized by brain inflammation (encephalitis) or respiratory diseases.


You have had plenty of opportunity to interpret coefficients for metric variables in regression models. Using and interpreting categorical variables takes just a little bit of extra practice. In this Discussion, you will have the opportunity to practice how to recode categorical variables so they can be used in a regression model and how to properly interpret the coefficients. Additionally, you will gain some practice in running diagnostics and identifying any potential problems with the model.
To prepare for this Discussion:
1. Review Warner’s Chapter 12 and Chapter 2 of the Wagner course text and the media program found in this week’s Learning Resources and consider the use of dummy variables.
2. Create a research question using the General Social Survey dataset that can be answered by multiple regression. Using the SPSS software, choose a categorical variable to dummy code as one of your predictor variables.
Estimate a multiple regression model that answers your research question. Post your response to the following:
1. What is your research question?
1. Interpret the coefficients for the model, specifically commenting on the dummy variable.
1. Run diagnostics for the regression model. Does the model meet all of the assumptions? Be sure and comment on what assumptions were not met and the possible implications. Is there any possible remedy for one the assumption violations?
Be sure to support your Main Post and Response Post with reference to the week’s Learning Resources and other scholarly evidence in APA Style.
Respond to at least one of your colleagues’ posts in 125 words and provide a constructive comment on their assessment of diagnostics.
1. Were all assumptions tested for?
1. Are there some violations that the model might be robust against? Why or why not?
1. Explain and provide any additional resources (i.e., web links, articles, etc.) to provide your colleague with addressing diagnostic issues.
Wagner, III, W. E. (2020). Using IBM® SPSS® statistics for research methods and social science statistics (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
9. Chapter 2, “Transforming Variables”
10. Chapter 11, “Editing Output” (previously read in Week 2, 3, 4, 5. 6, 7, 8, and 9)
Check attachments for other documents.


22 June 2015
Through a study, published in the journal Nature Communications, physicists at Bath with international collaborators examined how ‘valley polarisarisation’ in silicon transistors affects how electronic spin is polarised.
By using unique technology to polarise valleys (which describe an aspect of how an electrons’ wavelength relates to its energy) in the steady state, they show, for the first time, that contrary to expectations, valley polarisation can make spin polarisation easier.
This work is expected to feed into the flurry of research into the development of valleytronics, which could be applied across technologies not least for quantum computing.
Valley degree of freedom
The science of valleys in silicon has a long history, and plays an important part in how fast silicon transistors and therefore all computers and all smart devices operate.
In conventional silicon transistors, valleys are seen as a nuisance as they reduce how fast electrons move without too much scattering (spending energy).
Similarly, in quantum-information oriented device research, valleys have been seen as a source of decoherence (whereby the quantum part of information is lost) – something that prevents qubits (quantum mechanical analogues of a bit) from maintaining their stored information.
Yet valleytronics, in contrast, aims to exploit valleys and turn them into an advantage and there have been recent theoretical proposals to do exactly this. In order to create silicon valleytronics technology however, scientists need first to become able to control it and fully understand how it interacts with the other degrees of freedom.
Lead author on the paper, Dr Kei Takashina from the Department of Physics explains: “The past couple of years have seen a flurry of research activity into the so-called ‘valley degree of freedom’ in recently discovered atomic layer materials, such the ‘wonder material’ graphene. This relates to how electrons behave, and is something also present in other electronic materials, most notably the most applied of all electronic materials – silicon.
“Our paper establishes the effect valley-polarisation has on spin polarisation in silicon transistors by using our unique capability to polarise valleys in the steady state. According to a simplistic way in which electrons are often thought about – that they move around independently of each other - it should become twice as difficult to polarise spins when valleys are polarised. In stark contrast, we find that at low enough electron density, it becomes easier to align their spin when valleys are frozen. This is a striking demonstration of how interactions between electrons lead to qualitatively new behaviour.
“We are finding out about fundamental aspects of electrons in silicon transistors. Since we can control valley polarisation electrically, harnessing how valley physics relate to spin physics may lead to new ways with which to develop silicon-based spintronics or interface complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology with silicon-based quantum information processing.
In addition to contributing to technological progress towards silicon valleytronics, these latest findings shed light on a fundamental scientific question of “what is the nature of the two dimensional electronic system?” Scientists have known for some time that different phases exist depending on electron density, but here, the scientists say, that their findings suggest the existence of a new liquid state due to the stability afforded by valley-spin degeneracy.
According to the latest Research Excellence Framework 2014, 100 per cent of our research in this area was assessed for impact as either 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'.
To access the latest open access paper, 'Valley polarization assisted spin polarization in two dimensions', see http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150601/ncomms8230/full/ncomms8230.html .


Survivor tells story for Holocaust Remembrance
Buck Lake Elementary School fourth-grade student David Wygodski sat attentively in a shirt and tie at Temple Israel on Sunday, listening to his grandmother's story of living through one of the greatest tragedies of all time.
"I feel it's my duty to make sure that the evidence be kept alive so the terrible truth will not be forgotten or erased," said Mary Wygodski, a Holocaust survivor and the keynote speaker at Temple Israel's observance of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was Thursday.
The service honored students who won the Holocaust Education Resource Council's (HERC) essay and art contests. There were 18 winners, including David Wygodski, who took second place in the elementary essay category.
The crowd sat captivated as the Poland-born Mary Wygodski, who now lives in St. Petersburg, told of going through three concentration camps, each one with a new tragedy, unbearable working conditions and poor food.
She was separated from her family as a teenager in 1943. She would never see them again. She was taken to a Latvian work camp by boxcar, then to a death camp in East Russia and finally to an ammunition factory in Germany.
On one occasion, she was in line to be put into a gas chamber, but avoided entering when the shower filled up.
"Though I have endured the inhumanity of the concentration camps," Wygodski said, "I did not allow fear and loss to destroy my dreams. Love and hope have helped me to rebuild my lost life."
Yom HaShoah is a day for people to remember those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. School teachers instructing kindergarten through 12th grade incorporate the essay and art contests into their Holocaust lessons each year. This year's prompt was "liberation." Students were asked to explore what the liberators knew and what can be learned from them.
"They learn so much about life, humanity and about understanding," said Barbara Goldstein, president of HERC, a Tallahassee nonprofit. "It's so much more important than we realize for them."
Having voices like Wygodski's are important as members of the generation who lived through the Holocaust become fewer, Goldstein added.
"To actually talk to a real survivor, that makes such a difference," she said. "It's so important now to just remember their stories."
Temple Israel Rabbi Jack Romberg highlighted recent acts of cultural and religious discrimination and asked the audience to use Yom HaShoah to remember those injustices.
"It is not just about the Jewish community. It is not just about ourselves," he said. "It's about understanding the tragedy that happens if we allow oppression and prejudice to gain too much of a foothold."
2015 Holocaust Remembrance Campaign
In April and May of 2015, the Holocaust Education Resource Council (HERC), in partnership with the Democrat, is reminding Tallahassee of the past by bringing pictures into their present lives.
Numerous photographic exhibits are located throughout our community that depict significant images of the Holocaust as they appear today. The goal is to teach our young and old that it's never too late to learn and never too late to change.
The photos were taken by Nikki Allen, a former seventh- and eighth-grade social-studies teacher at Fort Braden School. She took the photos in 2008 while attending a Summer Seminar Program on Holocaust Studies in Poland.
Click on the link and scroll through the photos and see where they are being displayed in the community.
Holocaust Education Resource Council 2015 Essay and Art Contest
First - Anthony Ortiz, FSUS
Second - Mary Lengacher, FSUS
Third - Michael Rubin, FSUS
First - Resh Meck, Fairview
Second - Antonio Davis, Cobb
Third - Sara Wallace, Wakulla Christian
First - Jackie Golabek, JPII
Second - Rick Bessey, JPII
Third - Jessica Milam, FSUS
First - Teresa Morgado, Cornerstone
Second - David Wygodski, Buck Lake
First - Skylah Rault, Cornerstone
Second - Amorenna Tillman, Cobb
Third - Cattie Li, Deerlake
First - Nicole Buford, Maclay
Second - Chikodi X., Leon County Virtual School
Third - Temi Omotsyo, Maclay


From 8 to 10 March, 2017, an International Conference on Crystal Growth is to be held in Freiburg under the auspices of the German Association of Crystal Growth DGKK and the Swiss Society for Crystallography SGK-SSCR. The conference, jointly organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, the Crystallography department of the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University Freiburg and the University of Geneva, is to be held in the seminar rooms of the Chemistry Faculty of the University of Freiburg. Furthermore, the Young DGKK will hold a seminar for young scientists at Fraunhofer ISE on 7 March, 2017.
“Whether for mobile communication, computers or LEDs, crystalline materials are key components of our modern lifestyle,” says Dr. Stephan Riepe, group head in the Department of Silicon Materials at Fraunhofer ISE. “Crystal growth has a long tradition and today is still far from becoming obsolete. Materials with special crystalline structure are being developed for applications in high-temperature superconductors through to low-loss power transmission. Artificial diamonds are a favorite choice for building quantum computers. At the conference, the production of silicon, III-V semiconductors and most currently perovskite layers for cost-effective high efficiency tandem solar cells will also be discussed.”
In Freiburg, a close cooperation exists between the Fraunhofer Institutes and the University of Freiburg. For example, at Fraunhofer ISE a doctoral thesis of the University of Freiburg was carried out which investigated how impurities can be minimized during multicrystalline silicon production. In the production process, liquid silicon is melted in a quartz crucible and subsequently solidified. Similar to flour’s function when sprinkled in a baking form, silicon nitride powder acts as a separating agent between the crucible and the silicon. Here the aim is to reduce impurities on the scale of parts per billion, or ppb, to achieve the highest solar cell efficiencies. On a regular basis, student and doctoral degree theses are carried out to address such questions.
Basic research on crystal growth in space has a long tradition at the Crystallography department at the University of Freiburg. In space, growth processes are investigated which can then be used to optimize the production of crystalline material on the earth for applications in applied science and the industry.
Crystals have also played a major role in the efficiency records achieved by Fraunhofer ISE: For example, a four-junction solar cell based on crystalline gallium-arsenide achieved a present record efficiency of 46 %. The silicon multicrystalline solar cell, the work horse in the photovoltaics industry, hit a record high of 20.4 % efficiency and a photovoltaic inverter based on silicon carbide components reached an all-time efficiency of over 99 % for the conversion of dc power from a PV array into ac power for the grid.


With the yearly increment of renewable sources for electricity generation and the world government’s incentives towards them, the displacement of synchronous generators with inverter-based sources on the electric grid is a plausible reality that can occur.
Nevertheless, as probable as it could be, here the current electric power system network faces a few problems with this scenery.
Let’s explore how the utility grid works, what inertia means to the grid control and how does solar penetration affects the electric network system.
How does Frequency Regulation work?
The electric grid is designed to function in a steady-state where it can deliver safe and consistent power to every load connected, despite any disturbance (big load changes, partial generation, transmission, or distribution failures), this is the standard for reliable electricity service.
In order to do so, the utility operators need to control the power flow throughout the grid (real and reactive power). Towards this idea, the operators constantly monitor 3 variables that determine the grid state, voltages, angles and frequency.
- Voltage: Refers to the voltage level at every point of the grid. The operator has to monitor the voltage level from the biggest generation point to the last load attached to the service.
- Angles: As the energy is transmitted in alternating current (AC), all voltages and currents come with an angle reference. In particular, the relation in-between angles of the grid determine the flow of active power.
- Frequency: As expected, the whole AC transmission needs to be made at the same frequency. For example, 60 Hz on the US, or 50 Hz on Europe.
By monitoring and controlling these variables, the operator is able to diagnose and regulate all the grid system, allowing preventive or corrective actions in case of any possible problem.
The present utility grid was designed and still operates on the premise that energy sources work mainly with synchronous or asynchronous generators or rotating generators altogether.
As rotating machines are the heart of the grid, the operators control them to regulate all 3 variables.
The rotating speed of any electrical rotating equipment connected to the grid is determined by the grid frequency and many system protections are tripped by the deviations on the system’s frequency. Currently, the grid frequency is determined by the biggest rotating generators of the grid.
Frequency disturbances are generated mainly by the imbalance between the supply of power and the end-user demand. As so, the generators can react to these differences delivering or consuming energy thanks to the inertia of their mechanical rotating parts.
While the grid requires it, and up to a certain point, a generator can increase or decrease the speed of its rotor to deliver energy, guaranteeing the frequency control of the system.
Though this process is just transitional, it offers to the utility grid operator the required time to take further corrective actions on the load change.
This is called primary frequency response (PFR) and acts as the frequency regulation of the system. This is a property that solar power lacks in case of a disturbance on the grid.
Solar Generation Paradigm and Frequency Regulation
In the last few years, the increasing penetration of solar and wind energy generation has resembled some problems to the grid.
As an example, the state of California has found a phenomenon commonly referred to as “The Solar Duck Curve”, in which a graph of power production throughout the day shows the timing imbalance of peak demand and renewable energy production.
Apart from this, as more and more solar and wind power plants are introduced to the grid, the problem extends to the inability of these renewable sources to respond to grid needs in case of a failure or disturbance. Basically, the lack of inertia that rotating generators provides to the grid.
The current procedure for a solar or wind power plant in case of a frequency or voltage deviation on the grid is to completely isolate itself (IEEE 1547). In the case of a total blackout, this procedure is called “Anti-islanding” protection, as it prevents the plant from energizing the grid when there could be a failure in the system.
This doesn’t mean that the inverters used on renewable plants are not capable of frequency control. But in order to do so, these plants will have to operate in a state where they cannot deliver their maximum capacity.
On the other hand, many propose battery storage as a solution, as they can handle energy fluctuations rather fast but at this time this technology is still expensive for massive storage and massification.
Currently, there are two types of categories for inverters used to connect to the grid, grid-following, and grid-forming inverters.
Grid-Following and Grid-Forming Inverters.
At present all PV inverters connected to the grid operate as grid-following (GFL) sources, they regulate their power output by measuring the angle of the grid voltage in a phase-lock loop (PPL). Therefore, they just follow the grid angle/frequency and do not actively control their frequency output.
Alternatively, grid-forming (GFM) sources continuously control their output frequency and voltage, such as rotating generators do.
GFM inverters are mostly used in microgrids, as they actively regulate their output based on measured real and reactive power values. They must be capable of operating as parallel voltage sources with very good load sharing capability while maintaining a stable AC output voltage and frequency with varying loads.
More research needs to be conducted in order to use GFM inverters as a replacement of the grid inertia of rotating generators. But literature suggests that it can be a viable option for the transitioning into a grid of GFM inverters and rotating generators parallel operation.
At the time of writing, solar power plants lack the ability to respond to frequency deviations on the grid, increasing the reliance on synchronous and asynchronous generators inertia to sustain the grid frequency.
The increasing renewable generation penetration on the energy grid market is a reality that needs to be addressed, hence, GFM inverters in parallel operation with rotating generators are a viable option for transitioning into an inverter-dominated grid.
Sign up now so you can get notified for our latest giveaways, discount promotions and guides


Dolphin hunt in Peru
Peruvian fisherman peels the skin off the dolphin’s back and cuts the severed body into thin slices. The tails of the sharks are being chopped up for soup!
Exclusive video shared with NBC News provides graphic new evidence that Peruvian fishers regularly slaughter dolphins for use as shark bait – an illegal practice that, according to activists, kills up to 15,000 dolphins a year.
In a risky undercover operation in 2013, Peruvian conservation group Mundo Azul documented shark fishers harpooning dolphins, hoisting them on board and slicing them up — sometimes while still alive. The fishermen use the meat to lure sharks, which they sell on the Asian market, the group says.
Stefan Austermühle, executive director of Mundo Azul, said he wept when he saw photos of the slaughtered dolphins. “And I can tell you that has not happened to me before,” said Austermühle, who has worked on dolphin conservation for 30 years.
Biologists monitoring Peruvian fishers also documented them using dolphins for shark bait in a 2010 study.
Unlike Japan, where the government permits a specified number to be hunted each year, Peru made killing dolphins a crime punishable by up to three years in prison — but scientists and advocates say the law is poorly enforced.
Austermühle says the easiest way to curtail the slaughter, which is carried out by small, unregistered boats miles out at sea, is to ban the special harpoon used to spear dolphins alongside the boat.
“If you prohibit the harpoon, you can’t kill the dolphins,” Austermühle said. “They are too fast, they are too small, and you need to have them right there.”
The Peruvian Ministry of Production said in a statement that, since 2013, it “has implemented various controls to safeguard legally protected species whose hunting is punishable by law,” including confiscating dolphin meat sold in markets.
Lawmakers are discussing amendments to the 1996 dolphin protection law that would prohibit the use of dolphins for bait fishing, ban the use of harpoons, and potentially allow the hunting of dolphins to be punished by up to four years in prison, the ministry said.
Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in many Asian cultures, and even though the soup is flavourless with a slithery texture, dining on shark fin soup is considered a status symbol. The soup, brewed from dried shark fins, is often served at lush banquets to celebrate weddings, anniversaries, and corporate and state events.
But to meet the growing demand, the fins are harvested around the world in growing numbers. Up to 73 million sharks die a slow death every year because of fining: the inhumane practice of chopping off the shark’s fins and throwing its body back into the sea.
The sharks drown, starve to death, or are eaten alive by other fish. And soaring demand for the soup over the past two decades has threatened shark populations globally.
To make matters worse, thousands of dolphins are being slaughtered off the coast of Peru, where the mammals are used as shark bait for shark fin soup.
The London-based Ecologist Film Unit recently recorded one of the dolphin hunts in an undercover investigation, which details how bleeding dolphins are hauled on the deck of the vessel. A Peruvian fisher then peels the skin from the dolphin’s back and cuts the severed body into thin slices.
“In recent years, there’s been an upsurge in the targeting of sharks. The shark meat is predominantly consumed within Peru, but the fins we’re told are being exported to the Far East for use as shark fin soup,” said Jim Wickens, an investigative journalist with the Ecologist Film Unit.
He witnessed the scene along with cameraman Alexander Reynoso who recorded the harpooning of the dolphins.
According to the fisherman, the cost of fish bait in Peru has also gone up yearly. It seems to be part of the story around the world, Wickens said. Less fish in the sea means higher selling prices.
CNN notes that since the video has been released, Wickens has been contacted by experts in Southeast Asia who’ve told him this practice might also be taking place close to Indonesian waters.
He said it’s hard to know how many dolphins are being killed worldwide because it happens out of sight.
“It’s a conservation car crash. One apex predator being taken out of the ecosystem, being chopped up and fed to catch another,” said Wickens, “Whichever way you look at it, it’s bad news for the ocean.”
Sources: NBC News, August 31st 2015 & CNN


Growing in Water - Hydroponics Uses & Origins
There are some fascinating origins and uses behind the technique of growing in water so we thought we’d share a few with you...
Floating gardens of the ancient Aztecs
The Aztecs were a nomadic tribe who were driven onto the marshy shore of Lake Tenochtitlan, located in what is now Mexico. They had no land on which to grow crops, so they learned how to build rafts of rushes and reeds and grow vegetables, flowers, and even trees on these rafts which they called Chinampas.
They dredged up soil from the bottom of the lake and piled it on the rafts. The soil was rich of organic debris that released large amounts of nutrients which fed the abundant crops of vegetables, flowers, and even trees planted on them. The roots of these plants grew though the floor of the raft and down into the water. This is much like the root growth you will see in our Vivigrow Planter. Watch our short video showing early root growth of our tomatoes growing in our Vivigrow.
Sometimes the rafts were joined together to form floating islands as long as two hundred feet long. Some Chinampas even had a hut for a resident gardener.
The Aztecs eventually developed a large and powerful empire but they continued to maintain the rafts. In the 16th Century when the Spanish arrived in the New World in search of gold, they were fascinated by these islands of trees seemingly suspended on the water. Chinampas continued to be used in the area into the nineteenth century.
Hanging gardens of Babylon
Many garden writers believe that the hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, were grown using a sophisticated hydroponic system into which oxygen and nutrient rich fresh water was regularly pumped.
Egypt & Antartica
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic records dating back to several hundred years B.C. describe the growing of plants in water along the Nile without soil. The extreme environmental conditions found in the Arctic make the process of growing food a formidable challenge. Four months of solid daylight, four months of total darkness, and unpredictable winds and temperature changes make growing extremely difficult. However, in Antarctica, successful harvests are achieved on a daily basis.
Astrastronauts & Military
NASA have been trialing systems growing in water and now astronauts are likely to be fed on long flights using food originating from crops grown in water. In World War 2 the shipping of fresh vegetables to overseas outposts was not practical so both the American Army and the Royal Air Force opened hydroponic units at military bases. Many millions of tons of vegetables grown without soil were eaten by Allied Soldiers and Airmen during the war years. After World War II the military command continued to use hydroponic growing methods. The United States Army had a special hydroponics branch and in 1952 it grew over 8,000,000 lbs. of fresh produce in water.
The Vivigrow is a ‘hydroponic’ growing technique and our very own founder of Greenhouse Sensation was one of the pioneers of hydroponics. He developed the Vivigrow so that this technique of growing in water in a soil-less planter could be adapted for home/greenhouse use on a smaller scale. The beauty of the Vivigrow planter is that the planter pumps a constant stream of water & nutrients over your plants’ roots, which encourages your plants to take up more water, nutrients and oxygen compared to if you were growing in soil. Watch our founder harvesting a mass of chillies grown in our 3 Plant Vivigrow Planter at the end of the growing season.
Our Rain & Drain Tropical Planter has been designed by our horticulturists to replicate the watering & feeding conditions needed by tropical plants. The Rain & Drain Planters inclusive water timer ensures your tropical and exotic plants such as bananas, ginger and papaya are fed & watered several times a day without ever over-watering. Pebbles are used in the planter instead of soil and a small pump waters the plants several times per day ensuring the plants have access to everything they need for stronger healthier plants and bumper harvests. Watch our founder breaking ginger harvest record.


Scientists and engineers are society’s best hope for solving some of the world’s most complex, stubborn problems. Yet however intelligent these individuals are, they tend to be deficient in one important skill: effectively relaying their ideas and research to laypeople. Communications expert Melissa Marshall offers some much-needed tips to the whiz kids who frequently find their ideas met with blank faces. getAbstract recommends Marshall’s confident, well-packed presentation on “talking nerdy” to scientists, mathematicians, IT developers and engineers who need to pitch their erudite, esoteric concepts to laypeople.
In this summary, you will learn
- Why scientists and engineers ought to be able to communicate effectively,
- Why some people find it daunting to understand them, and
- How these specialists should get across their ideas.
About the Speaker
Melissa Marshall is a communications teacher at Penn State University.
Get the key points from this video in 10 minutes.
For your company
We help you build a culture of continuous learning.
Comment on this summary
Customers who read this summary also read
Oxford UP, 2017


Figure 7.1 — Brownian motion Figure 7.1 — Brownian motion. In 1908, Jean Perrin recorded individual trajectories of small (radius 0.53 μm) putty particles in water at 30-second intervals. In the three trajectories shown above, successive positions are joined by straight line segments. The observed random walk is due to collisions with water molecules. The mesh size is 3.2 μm. Adapted from Perrin (1909).


In the field of heat treatment, the Fraunhofer ILT are investigating processes for the post-treatment of high-strength steels to make them easier to form. In addition, the institutes are focusing on local heat treatment processes; laser irradiation is used to heat the material locally to a temperature below the melting temperature. Depending on the wall thickness, only one edge layer or the entire cross-section (e.g. in the case of a sheet metal) is briefly heated. The heating rate, the maximum temperature and the cooling rate can be adjusted by a temperature control. Applications for metallic materials can be found in the edge hardening of components made of hardenable steel or cast iron, the softening of high-strength steels, the recrystallization of thin sheets and the stress-relieving of additively manufactured components. In the field of non-metallic materials, the group also looks at the crystallization of silicon layers as well as the annealing of transparent, conductive materials.
Laser and Plasma Coating
Laser coating processes often offer many new approaches to produce wear-resistant surfaces for component geometries and materials subject to great wear in which conventional hardening technologies fail.
At its disposal, Fraunhofer IWS has atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) as well as high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) and high velocity air fuel (HVAF) spraying processes with powders and suspensions to thermally coat components made of steel, light metals, ceramics, concrete and other materials containing metals, hard metals and ceramics. The use of suspensions instead of coating powders promises to have several advantages, including the ability to directly use finely dispersed powders and, thus, to save the production of special starting powders, but also the production of nanostructured layers. In addition, the group is examining the possibilities of producing thermally sprayed layers with a layer thickness below 100 μm. This could help to close the gap in the film thickness between CVD/PVD and conventional coating layers.
For the functionalization of surfaces, Fraunhofer ILT uses various laser processes for micro- and macro-functionalization. In addition, it applies coatings having a thickness from 1 μm to several millimeters. In the case of thin layers, the application is first carried out by a printing process, followed by laser functionalization; in the case of thicker layers, the addition is directly applied in the form of wire or powder. Coating materials are metals, metal-based composites, for thin layers also ceramics and glass. Layer composites can also be applied.
Fraunhofer IST uses the laser functionalization as post-processing for surfaces produced by means of cold plasma spraying. In this process, the coating is applied with a plasma jet into which various solutions, dispersions or (sub-) micropowder are fed. Through the special plasma generation, thermally sensitive substrates and natural materials can also be coated.
Fraunhofer IWS provides new methods and industrial systems to produce two- and three-dimensional micro- and nanostructures on polymers, metals, ceramics and coatings. In addition to the topography, the electrical, chemical and mechanical properties can also be varied periodically.


Long ago I'd read about the ancient aboriginal earthworks in northern Michigan, and wanted to find some of them, since I would be remiss as a Michigan ruinographer if I did not include an exposition of them in some form. It took a long time before I finally figured out where exactly to go look. And even then, they were so well hidden that I didn't realize I had found one until I was standing ten feet from it, even with the leaves off the trees. And I only found one out of the four or five that make up the group in Ogemaw County that I was focusing on.
Ogemaw County was set off in 1840 and organized in 1875, according to David M. Brown's Michigan County Atlas. The first settlers and lumberjacks started arriving by 1871. The name "Ogemaw" comes from the Anishinaabe word ogimaa, which means "speaker," or "chief." The county was named after Chief Ogemakegato (or Ogemaunkeketo) of the Saginaw band of Ojibwa, who was the principal speaker during the 1819 Saginaw Cession and Treaty, which ceded another huge swath of the Mitten to the U.S., including what would later become Ogemaw County. Chief Ogemakegato later was awarded a medal by President VanBuren for his speech before Congress in 1837. He is buried in Roosevelt Park in Bay City.
Three old Ojibwa footpaths converged in the county according to a book by the Rose City Area Historical Society, and served as the genesis of the modern-day state roads M-76, M-55, and M-30. The population of Ogemaw County today remains sparse, and it is covered by a surprising amount of farmland for being a northern forest county. The Au Sable State Forest covers about a quarter of the county.
The ancient earthworks in question were mostly scattered around the village of Selkirk. Brown writes that "it is said" that Selkirk was named after an "old Indian" who sold "Indian wares" at a store near there, and that the town was originally named Selkirk Sands from 1887 to 1955 when it had a post office.
In the 1890s, there was a bit of a media sensation when mysterious artifacts of a supposed ancient race began to be "discovered" in Gratiot County and Montcalm County, which I talked about in my older post, "The Traverse City Code". Though there were plenty of real artifacts being plundered from real burial mounds, that entire ordeal was found to be an elaborate hoax, but it reflects that there seems to have been a deep fascination, and perhaps awe or fear, with which white settlers held the strange and little-understood elder "Indian" culture that had lately been displaced from this land in those days. No doubt the discovery of these strange mounds and rings in the deep dark forest by the lumbermen only a few years before had stoked the fires of rumor and fable, which in turn passed by word of mouth for years to come.
There was even a large placard in front of the Selkirk village hall that said "OGEMAW COUNTY: ANCIENT EARTHWORK CAPITOL," and went on to describe what they were, with a diagram of a typical example. The placard did not discuss where the earthworks were located however, probably because they are mostly on private property and they don't want people with shovels going treasure hunting, or new-age weirdos trying to hold rituals there. As such, I will respect the code of silence and not disclose the locations of the mounds either. By my count there are five near Selkirk, and at least one seems to be visible on Google Maps, but it is literally in someone's backyard and apparently kept mowed by the homeowner.
In the early thaw season with at least a foot of soft snow still on the ground, I was concerned that I might not be able to find anything in the deep woods that was only maybe about two feet high, and whose profile had been worn extremely dull during the past thousand interceding years. Nonetheless, I brought my snowshoes and set out. I originally planned to hike along a certain section of the frozen Elfir River to see if anything was visible from there, since at least one or two of the earthworks are supposed to be right on it. Walking on the frozen river proved much easier than tromping through the dense snowy woods, but this unexpected warm weather had begun to seriously compromise the strength of the ice.
Now, maybe you aren't quite as excited as I am about finding a two-foot-high pile of dirt out in the woods, but perhaps you don't realize just how old these things are...most of the earthworks in Michigan are dated from about 1,000 to 2,500 years ago, which makes them about the same age as the Roman Collosseum or Greek Parthenon. The only difference is that the Greeks and Romans recorded their histories, and there is a wealth of their art and cultural artifacts to study, whereas we know almost nothing about the Michigan mound-builders other than what shovels, radiocarbon dating, and a lot of speculation can tell us.
These fading ruins might represent the absolute oldest phase of human occupation that can still be seen in the great state of Michigan, a lost time period whose lore was forgotten centuries ago. This is the eldritch stuff of myth and fantasy whispered about in the campfire tales of pioneers who first began exploring westward into that great pagan expanse beyond the original 13 Colonies, when Native Americans were feared heathen savages, and nothing was known about the history of the vast lands they inhabited or what ancient cities might be hidden beneath the eternal canopy of the great primeval North American woodland.
Among the few sounds I heard in this silent sylvan domain aside from the sound of my snowshoes crushing the wet snow was the occasional clattering of ice chunks in the current, jostling down the narrow opening in the river. It wasn't long before I decided that walking on the ice just wasn't going to work for this mission, and up into the tangled woods I went.
I was looking for a certain fork in the river, where another branch fed into this one upstream; there I knew was supposed to be at least one mound.
According to the scholarly book Michigan, A History of the Wolverine State, there were once over 1,000 burial mounds identified in Michigan around the time of white encroachment, most of them in the southern Mitten. Great vast "garden beds" were once common in Lower Michigan, usually discernible by a raised earth mound enclosing a recognizable geometrical shape many acres in size, usually a rectangle, but one shaped like a spoked wheel or compass was reportedly found near Kalamazoo. It has been theorized that these shaped enclosures were for irrigating crops.
Though "Indian mounds" are common throughout the Midwest, the garden beds are almost exclusively a Michigan phenomenon, with only a handful reported in Wisconsin and Indiana. So far I've noticed that Michigan has three general classes of ancient earthworks: burial mounds, the aforementioned garden beds, and "earth ring" forts or enclosures. There are also the mysterious stone walls in Negwegon State Park, which I discuss in another post. It was the "earth ring" type that I was out in the woods looking for today.
In the 19th century incoming white settlers began finding these earthworks, but the Anishinaabe (Potawatomi) people of southern Michigan told them that the garden beds were not made by the "Indians" themselves; they were built by long-dead ancestors who the Potawatomi called Yam-ko-desh, or the "Prairie People." They warned the white people to beware of harming the mounds because the spirits of the Yam-ko-desh still guarded them. As late as 1956 one archaeologist, Clair Reynolds, was still issued this warning by a tribal elder who refused to guide him to a mound site for study. Naturally, since we Americans were so respectful of native cultures, there were almost no mounds left to study in southern Michigan by the 20th century.
While the garden beds of southern Michigan were discovered by the first farmers, more burial mounds, and the "earth rings" were discovered in northern Michigan by lumberjacks as its towering primordial forests of virgin pine were felled. The presence of so many burial mounds indicates that the Yamkodesh were a populous people at one time, but it has been speculated that the culture suffered from a rapid extinction, possibly due to some disease. Another theory states that as the ancestors of the Anishinaabe tribes (Ojibwa, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Wyandot, etc.) migrated into the Great Lakes, they found the Yamkodesh already there, "thicker than the leaves on a tree," according to Ottawa legend. Some say that the Anishinaabe tribes formed an alliance to exterminate the Yamkodesh.
|Typical garden bed patterns (photo from Detroit Techno Militia)|
A 1997 article in the Detroit News by Vivian M. Baulch entitled "Michigan's mysterious Indian mounds" quotes a University of Michigan professor, Dr. W.B. Hinsdale, who surveyed Michigan's Lower Peninsula in 1925 and listed the mounds that he found. At that time seven counties had more than 20 mounds; there were 57 in Clinton County, 25 in Macomb County, 12 in Wayne County, and two in Oakland County. According to Baulch, Hinsdale also studied pottery and carvings found in the 22 mounds located in Sanilac County, and found a skull "that showed evidence of successful brain surgery." Hinsdale published his work in the book Primitive Man in Michigan, and wrote that as of 1925,
In Detroit I know that there were about 19 burial mounds shown in the vicinity of Delray when the U.S. Army surveyed and mapped that area for the construction of Fort Wayne in 1841; four of them were on the grounds of the fort itself, near the famous "Sand Hill at Spring Wells," which gave the village of Springwells its name. Today only one of the Fort Wayne mounds remains, the result of two mounds being bulldozed together, and it is viewable by the public from behind a fence.
There are fully 600 mounds still to be seen in the state and at least 500 more must have been destroyed within the last 150 years. The enclosures, usually known as "Indian forts," but probably having no connection with military usage, are also vanishing rapidly. It is the duty of the state to locate, measure, photograph and chart these structures before they disappear entirely.
The mounds that once lined the Rouge River are all gone, even the massive one that stood near where Zug Island is now. In Grand Rapids there is the Norton Group of 13 mounds, which according to Michigan State University once numbered as many as 40 mounds, and are "perhaps the best preserved Hopewell mounds in North America," protected by National Historic Landmark status. It surprises me that we would have anything in Michigan that is considered the "best preserved." In all of Michigan, I would estimate that there are only about 25 earthworks still left that are discernible today.
Apparently, I had already reached the fork in the river; the main branch was still totally frozen-over upstream of here, while the tributary was melted through and running strong. Along the mile or more that I had hiked so far, I had seen nothing up in the woods on either bank that indicated the presence of earthworks, so it was time to start exploring back in a downstream direction more thoroughly, moving in a zig-zag pattern further up into the woods from the water. This would consume most of the rest of the day, so it was good that I had carried food with me.
I have read that while the Ottawa or Potawatomi people called the mound-builders "Yamkodesh," the Ojibwa called them "Muskodesh" (though neither word appears in my copy of the Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe for what it's worth). This ancient race is better known to us Europeans now as the Hopewell Culture, because "Hopewell" was the surname of the Ohio landowner on whose property the first mounds were excavated and evidence of this elder culture was discovered.
The Hopewell are a prehistoric culture about which still very little is known, other than they were the first humans to successfully attempt agriculture in the Great Lakes region according to Michigan, A History of the Wolverine State, and that they built mounds for their dead. They flourished from about 500 BC and went into a rapid decline by 700 AD, as the historic tribes we know today such as the Anishinaabe began to migrate into the region.
The beings of the Hopewell Culture were not necessarily the ancestors of the Native American tribes we know today; the two cultures were distinct from each other but it is commonly agreed upon that the Anishinaabe tribes looked upon those who built the mounds of Michigan as ancient ones, a people so old as to be considered like an almost mythical elder race to them. By the time the French voyageurs began arriving in Michigan in the 1600s and keeping diaries of who and what they saw, the Hopewell were already a fading memory of the distant past, and their structures already lost in the towering primordial forests.
Other than hunting, fishing, and mound-building, we know that the Hopewell knew how to make decorated pottery, jewelry, woven fabrics, musical instruments, smoke tobacco, and farm crops. What is perhaps most strange is that the Hopewell Culture seems to have been more advanced than the Native American culture that supplanted them, and the objects they made often consisted of materials found in areas as distant as the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast, indicating that the Hopewell had an extensive trade network.
It has also been speculated that the complex patterns of some of the garden beds indicate that the Hopewell possessed some level of sophistication in mathematics. Some archaeologists believe that the Hopewell had a high level of intelligence, and traded with the Aztecs and Mayans. I'm sure some of those History Channel "experts" would tell you that the Hopewell also had help from aliens, but that just goes to show you what the History Channel is about these days.
It is theorized that the Hopewell were identical to, or related to, the ancient aboriginals who began mining copper in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula around 3000 BC. This was the first instance of metalworking by humankind in the Western Hemisphere, and it coincided with the beginning of the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia. I spoke of the ancient copper miners in a couple older posts ("Manitoti, the Copper Magnet", "The Entrance is Guarded by A Giant Snake", "Ultima Thule").
This type of earth ring that I was after is not only found in Ogemaw County by the way, there is also a group of them in Missaukee County, not far to the west of here. According to a story from Doug Masselink in the book Weird Michigan, by Linda S. Godfrey, the Missaukee earth rings have some similarities that provide strong evidence that the four mound groups were associated with one another in some way; they have openings or "gateways" in their enclosures at 340° and 250°, which also line up with each other and are separated by identical distances, such as 6.21 miles or 24.8 miles (which is four times 6.2).
I'm not sure I ascribe as much amazement to these findings as Masselink however; just because we need compasses and GPS units to figure all this out does not necessarily mean that those who made the mounds thought of their construction as some incredible feat, too.
An interesting analysis occurs in the book The Archaeology of Michigan, a scholarly work written by archaeologist James E. Fitting in 1970. He said that the Ogemaw County earthworks represent "one of the more mysterious archaeological manifestations in eastern Michigan," because they are accompanied by "very little cultural material." In other words, few artifacts such as arrow heads or pottery fragments were ever found in the excavations that were done here.
Mr. Fitting's book also usually refers to the earthworks as "forts," which is no longer the current accepted theory on what purpose they were built to serve, but certainly this type of construction with a raised berm formed from an excavated surrounding ditch or moat is identical to the very same type of fort construction that was taught to European military engineers from medieval times up until the late 1800s. Fitting lists those of his forebears who made written accounts of the "forts" along the Elfir River, starting with M.L. Leach in 1885, Cyrus Thomas in 1894, W.B. Hinsdale in 1924 and 1925, Fred Dustin in 1932, Harold Moll and Eldon Cornelius in 1958, and G.A. Wright in 1966. He also described their varying sizes and shapes as reported by Dustin, who observed three out of the four to be oval.
The first earthwork was 208 feet long by 188 feet wide with walls two feet high above grade, but surrounded by a ditch up to five feet deep. Dustin's informal diggings produced a few flint chips, and over a hundred pottery sherds belonging to probably five vessels. The second earthwork Dustin observed was 314 feet long by 280 feet wide, with its walls varying from two feet to five feet above grade, with the surrounding ditch ranging from three to seven feet deep. It had four gateways with causeways around its circumference. He found sherds from seven vessels, chert flakes, a roughed-out celt, and other objects.
The third earthwork was near the river and a spring, and measured 180 feet by 139 feet, with walls three feet high and ditch up to seven feet deep. There Dustin found sherds from six vessels, a cache of sandstone abraders, three projectile points, several scrapers, more chert chips, and other materials. The fourth earthwork that Dustin observed was actually horseshoe-shaped as opposed to oval, being 216 feet long and about 120 feet across. Fitting notes that both Dustin and Hinsdale believed this earthwork to be unfinished, as almost no artifacts were found there.
The Walter-Linsenman Earthwork elsewhere in the county was excavated in 1958 and 1961, and much of the area inside the enclosure was stripped at that time in an attempt to find house patterns. Post molds were discovered below the surface, which presented strong evidence that a palisade of sharpened logs may have once existed around the area, and I'm sure this is what bolstered the idea of these earthworks being defensive fortifications. The patterns of 19 different lodges were also discovered within the supposed stockade.
There were "refuse pits" found as well, but again, relatively few cultural artifacts were found at the Walter-Linsenman Earthwork; fewer than 50 pottery vessels. Fitting said that the artifacts at that site were radiocarbon dated to about the year 1350 AD, give or take 75 years, which to my mind shows that the mounds either were not in fact built by Hopewell ancients, or that if they were they may have been repurposed by the Anishinaabeg who came later.
Despite the seemingly high interest that the presence of ancient mounds in northern Michigan presumably held, they went largely unstudied for decades. However, a collection of papers published in 1998 under the title Ancient Earthen Enclosures of the Eastern Woodlands contains a chapter by Claire McHale Milner and John M. O'Shea, which asserts that some, if not all northern Michigan earthworks date to the Late Woodland Period, when the Hopewell civilization was in decline. The Late Woodland Period lasted from 450 AD to 1000 AD, or essentially just after the fall of Rome and roughly concurrent with the Viking Age. This was also toward the end of the Mayan civilization.
Milner & O'Shea go on to say that most researchers historically assumed that all Michigan "enclosures" were forts. In 1983 University of Michigan scholar James J. Krakker argued that the presence of such forts in Michigan indicated that there was an increase in raiding amongst the indigenous population, especially after 1350 AD, due to population growth and an increase in agriculture. However no material evidence of battle (such as weapons or bones) has ever been found near these earthworks, and a later DNR study posited that these were "winter villages" used by people who were "horticulturists," and who "lived near Lake Huron or perhaps in the Saginaw Valley in warmer seasons."
So far I was having no luck in my own search for any signs of unnatural land features that might speak to the presence of ancient earthworks, despite having trudged back and forth through the wet snow for a few hours. The sun had decided to come out however, and lit up the forest with the hope of the coming spring.
I probably hiked about three or four miles with all the zig-zagging and overlapping circles that I did to make sure that I covered every inch of ground, from multiple directions. The pace I kept was also very slow and methodical, taking plenty of time to scan the terrain for any clues that might reveal an ancient past. The elder cedars stood mute, unwilling to divulge what old memories they may have witnessed in this valley.
After some time I did indeed come across some irregular shape protruding from the background static of endless trees, but it was no earthwork. A rudimentary miniature log cabin took shape as I neared:
It appeared to be a hunting blind, used fairly recently. I have to admit I was jealous of these quarters, as my own deer hunting perches have been much less commodious.
Soon after leaving this blind I realized that I had already made it back to my starting point, and that if this earthwork was indeed still out there then I must have passed right over it without noticing.
Fairly discouraged and frustrated, I headed back to my truck for a rest and to regroup. I still knew of a couple other spots where earthworks might be, so I drank some water before walking up the road a ways and diving back into the woods. Sadly, the likelihood of finding these other mound sites was much lesser, by my estimation, than the one I had just exhausted. I got the feeling that I would be heading back home to the drawing board empty-handed once again.
When I came into a stand of hardwoods I was almost positive I was in the wrong area, but I kept going, partially because it was just such a nice day for a walk in the woods.
I wandered around casually, following the many deer paths that criss-crossed these woods. I had already been doing this for much of the day, partly because it was easier than trudging through the deep snow, and partly because something in my mind told me that the deer might find some use for the earthworks as a shelter for sleeping, and that the paths might lead straight to one of them.
As I meandered in an uphill direction, I suddenly detected what I thought looked to be a moat-like depression in the ground ahead of me to the left:
As I came closer I noticed that it continued to my right as well, and there was a slightly raised berm immediately behind it:
Holy &*@#, this could be it! There was only one way to verifiy it however--I had to walk around it to see if it went in a complete circle.
I crossed the berm and looked back behind me to see that the "moat" feature was indeed well-pronounced:
Having walked the woods of Michigan since I was old enough to leave the house on my own, and counting myself as fairly experienced in reading terrain, I immediately had a very strong and exciting feeling this ditch was no naturally occurring change in topography--that it was indeed man-made. However, I kept my objectivity in tow as I continued to investigate.
I decided to begin by walking in a clockwise direction along the top ridge of the raised berm and keeping an eye on the ditch...if I was able to do this and return to the point where my tracks in the snow began, then I could officially say that it was in the shape of a circle and that I had found one of the ancient earthworks. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little pumped up at this point.
An interesting new hypothesis is explored in a more recent paper by Meghan C.L. Howey and John M. O'Shea, published in the April, 2006 volume of American Antiquity, entitled "Bear's Journey and the Study of Ritual in Archaeology." Howey & O'Shea suggest the premise that the earth ring enclosures in northern Lower Michigan are structures that were built for ritual purposes, in a slightly later time period than originally thought (~1200 AD), and present strong evidence that they were part of the Midewiwin ceremonies of initiation and teaching. The Midewiwin teachings are one of the most guarded components of Anishinaabe culture. I talked about the Midewiwin in an older post.
Here you can see the shape of the berm curving off to the right:
Here you can see the shape of the berm curving off to the right:
Howey & O'Shea claim that recent University of Michigan studies of the Missaukee County Earthworks provided data that "parallels the tale of origin and the delivery of the great mystery of Midewiwin." Specifically, the relationships between paired earth ring enclosures, their respective openings or gateways, other nearby natural land features, and the discovery of new artifacts found buried on site fit into a theory that the earthworks would have been part of a ceremony that mirrored the origin myth of the Midewiwin, where initiates actually traveled along a sacred path to these sites as they reenacted Bear's travels with the mide pack. The two "twin" enclosures represented the "two Earths" along Bear's journey, and other similar earthworks such as those in Ogemaw County too served the same purpose.
The article further concludes that because of these parallels between archaeological evidence and the dating of materials found on site, that the Midewiwin part of Anishinaabe culture actually predates European contact...and I find myself wondering now if this means that these earthworks were in fact not built by the Yamkodesh but rather the early Anishinaabeg themselves, in a time period where they coexisted with the Yamkodesh? At any rate, Howey & O'Shea's article is very interesting and theirs is the best explanation of the enclosures' purpose that I've heard so far.
I kept following the righthand curvature of this wall, and it was quickly evident that if it was indeed a complete circle or oval, it enclosed a very large area. It occurred to me that after I made the full trip around it, I should also try walking directly across it while counting my paces, to see if the dimensions matched up with what I had read they should be.
I also made a simple offering of some of my food to the four directions, out of courtesy and respect to the spirits of this place.
It looked like I might be approaching one of the gateway openings in the wall:
I stepped off the berm to get a different perspective from the side, and sure enough, here was a gap in the wall that also provided a bridge across the moat...
...and apparently I was correct in thinking that the deer paths might lead me to my goal--they seemed to go directly to the gateway! The raised wall continued on the other side of the gateway just as it had before, with extraordinary uniformity:
Considering how quickly our mightiest architectural achievements such as the Packard Plant or the skyscrapers of Detroit fall into decay once they are left abandoned to the elements for a couple years, it is almost impossible to conceive of how a simple hill of dirt out in the woods can last for millennia and still retain its shape like this. One must take profound pause at just how much change has occurred on this landscape since the earth rings were built; entire forests have grown up and been cleared away by either fire or axe many times over the centuries, all the while adding their layers and layers of fallen leaves to the carpet of soil; billions of rainstorms, snows, and thaws have in turn sculpted the ground. The Elfir River itself is likely to have meandered its changing course widely over the ages, eating away old landforms and creating new ones. The trees that are growing now on top and inside of the earth ring are mostly young I would say, probably none of them over 60 years old.
Looking back over my shoulder, the difference here between the top of the wall and the bottom of the ditch was very pronounced, and every bit of seven feet:
Judging by the shadows, I was standing at about the northernmost point of the earthwork.
These fallen logs laying across the moat help illustrate how much of a topographical variance there is.
It looked like I was approaching another gateway:
By the shadows of the trees I figured that I was nearing the eastern end of the ring now:
Another gateway...there were about three distinct gateways in all that I was able to discern:
And once again, the deer tracks led right through it:
As far out in the woods as I was, I was surprised when I came upon a sort of memorial to a deceased person here:
It was a statue of a fawn (with an ear broken off), and a bottle of Crown Royal (in the blue velvet bag).
It wasn't too much longer before I came back to my starting point where my footprints first came up on the mound, confirming that this earthwork was indeed a complete circle. It was an incredible feeling to have found this very special place after so long, to confirm that it was genuine, and to know just how old it is and feel the ties to our elder Michiganian ancestors. I then walked across the breadth of the earthwork, counting my steps to measure it, which came to 130 paces across (over 200 feet).
After a few more moments of basking in the glory of this discovery, I began the long walk back to my truck. If you should happen to find yourself in one of these places while Up North, I hope that you would treat it with respect and reverence. Baamaapii.
Michigan County Atlas, Second Edition, by David M. Brown, p. 138-139
Michigan, A History of the Wolverine State, Third Rev., by Willis Dunbar & George May, p. 10-12
The Archaeology of Michigan, A Guide to the Prehistory of the Great Lakes Region, by James E. Fitting, p. 172-173
Ancient Earthen Enclosures of the Eastern Woodlands, edited by Robert C. Mainfort, Lynne P. Sullivan, p. 181-185
Ogemaw County, by the Rose City Area Historical Society, p. 7
Strange Michigan, by Linda S. Godfrey & Lisa A. Shiel, p. 180
Weird Michigan, by Linda S. Godfrey, p. 35
Mystic Michigan, Vols. 1, 3, & 5, by Mark Jager
"Michigan's mysterious Indian mounds," by Vivian M. Baulch, Detroit News, June 6, 1997 (retrieved from http://detroittechnomilitia.com/main/index.php/techno-history/detroit-history/120-detroits-curse-indian-burial-mounds)
"Bear's Journey and the Study of Ritual in Archaeology," by Meghan C.L. Howey and John M. O'Shea, American Antiquity, Vol. 71 No. 2, (April, 2006), p. 261-282
"Bear's Journey and the Study of Ritual in Archaeology," by Meghan C.L. Howey and John M. O'Shea, American Antiquity, Vol. 71 No. 2, (April, 2006), p. 261-282


Student: Marta Dazzi
Excessive uptake of plasma macromolecules by the arterial wall is thought to be a key event in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis but has been little studied in vivo because of technical challenges. Of the handful of labs worldwide that can make such measurements, two (one at Imperial and one at KCL) are associated with the CDT and use image-based methods. Bringing them together will allow the resolution of two critical unsolved problems: whether uptake of plasma macromolecules by human arteries is the same as uptake already measured in animal arteries, and whether uptake by the clinically-important but mechanically-unique coronary arteries is the same as uptake by non-coronary arteries. It will also allow improvement of the methods and investigation of mechanisms underlying elevated uptake. Ultimately it could lead to novel strategies for risk stratification and intervention. Inter-group collaboration stimulated by co-supervising a student would lead to joint grant applications.
Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in developed countries. The underlying pathology in most cases is atherosclerosis and lipid accumulation in the wall appears to be the key initiating event. The lipid – principally cholesterol – derives from lipoproteins circulating in the blood. This explains why a high plasma concentration of cholesterol (or its chief carrier, low density lipoprotein (LDL)) is a major risk factor, why lipid-lowering drugs reduce or reverse disease progression, and why atherosclerosis can be induced in animals by dietary or genetic elevation of circulating cholesterol.
Despite its obvious importance, transport of LDL from blood into the wall is poorly understood; for example, it is not even clear whether LDL enters the wall through or between the endothelial cells that line it. Only a handful of labs worldwide study these transport processes in vivo, reflecting the technical difficulty of doing so. Remarkably, the leaders of two of these labs are both members of the CDT in Medical Imaging, giving it an internationally-unique opportunity to excel in this area: Weinberg and Botnar have independently developed and applied image-based methods for investigating arterial wall mass transport in laboratory animals. Both methods are based on studying the movement of albumin, an inert macromolecular marker that avoids the metabolic complications associated with using LDL itself. The Weinberg lab uses fluorescently labelled albumin; after moving into the wall in vivo, this tracer is fixed and its distribution in excised vessels is imaged in 3-D by tile-scanning confocal microscopy. The method allows sub-micron resolution and accurate, absolute quantification. The Botnar lab uses a gadolinium-based, albumin-targeting agent that can be imaged by MRI (resolution = 100 μm) in vivo. The method additionally permits concurrent MR imaging of other, related phenomena such as blood flow characteristics and, most importantly, its non-invasive character means it can be used to measure blood protein transport across the endothelium in people.
The CDT provides an ideal opportunity to bring together these groups for the first time to compare their methods and to combine them. This will permit investigation of two critical unsolved problems: whether uptake of plasma macromolecules by human arteries is the same as uptake by animal arteries, and whether uptake by coronary arteries is the same as uptake by non-coronary arteries. Uptake by human arteries was investigated in the 1970s but, in the absence of non-invasive techniques, these experiments had to be conducted in terminally ill patients, with arteries being harvested after death. Uptake was an order of magnitude higher than in animal experiments – it is unclear whether this reflects the poor health of the patients or unexpected unique properties of human vessels. Only preliminary results are available for coronaries. Again, it is unclear whether uptake in these vessels – the arteries of greatest clinical significance – differs from uptake elsewhere, perhaps reflecting their unique mechanical environment and explaining their particular susceptibility to disease.


The law relating to Special Educational Needs are found in Part 3 of the Children And Families Act 2015.
The Children and Families Act 2014 came in to force on 1st September 2014 and was then updated in 2015.
You can find the legislation using the following links:
The SEND Code of Practice ("COP") is statutory guidance for organisations that work with and support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. It sets out duties, policies and procedures relating to Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and associated regulations, and it applies to England.
All professionals working with special needs children must have regard to the Code of Practice. This means that whenever they are making decisions they must give consideration to what the Code says. They cannot ignore it. They must fulfil their statutory duties towards children and young people with SEN or disabilities in the light of the guidance set out in it. They must be able to demonstrate in their arrangements for children and young people with SEN or disabilities that they are fulfilling their statutory duty to have regard to the Code. So, where the text uses the word ‘should’ it means that the guidance contained in this Code must be considered and that those who must have regard to it will be expected to explain any departure from it.
Click here to access the SEND Code of Practice COP 2015
For a Guide for Parents and Carers click here
Other relevant legislation:
Equality Act 2010
Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
Children in Need - Section 17 Children Act 1989


By Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD
I finally got a scientific explanation for something I intuitively knew: structured eating patterns are beneficial for health and well being. In fact, all mammals have evolved to have a predictable day-night cycle with an “endogenous clock system” set in the brain that runs on a near 24-hour period. This is called “circadian,” from the Latin word circa and diem (about a day).
According to a recent review article published in the British Journal of Nutrition, when this internal clock system is disrupted, over time, it can lead to hormonal imbalances, sleep problems, susceptibility to diseases like cancer, and even reduce life span.
And two things that have power to greatly affect our circadian clock system (a person’s sleep-wake cycle) for the worse or better: how and what we eat.
How We Eat
According to the lead researcher of the study, Felino R. Cagampang, PhD, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton in the U.K., there is a food entrainable clock in the brain that can override the light-based circadian clock. It is recommended for people to eat during daylight hours so both clocks are in sync.
“Circulating levels of most hormones and enzymes involved in the processing of food also show circadian rhythmic patterns in anticipation of when food is available,” he says. “Eating at the right time of the day is important for the efficient processing of the food we eat. It is therefore important that one does not skip breakfast but also avoid eating late at night.”
But when meal patterns get thrown off, like in the case of shift work, frequent travel, crossing time zones, and busy lifestyles, poor metabolic health can result. For example, key hormones that manage hunger, leptin and ghrelin, work less well when eating patterns are not in sync with circadian rhythms
When asked about grazing versus sit down meals, Dr Cagampang replies “The problem with ‘grazing’ is that the food you pick on usually does not contain all three of the macronutrients ( protein, carbohydrates, and fat) which hold your hunger for a longer period. Grazing also leads to more frequent insulin rises, which might make you more resistant to the action of insulin.”
What we eat
When discussing nutrition, Dr Cagampang explains that reducing the amount of saturated fat in the diet is beneficial, as animal studies show eating too much of this type of fat can disrupt circadian rhythms. He recommends focusing on unsaturated fats instead, such as oily fish (salmon and fresh tuna or mackerel) and sunflower or olive oils. And carbohydrates are better received at breakfast as the body is ready to respond to them to get the day started (think energy!).
“One is advised to eat a substantial portion of your food intake for the day at breakfast — also a time when most carbohydrates for the day should be eaten (e.g. bread, bagel, waffles, oatmeal, muesli, dairy products, etc.), says Dr Cagampang. “Protein-rich food should also be eaten during the early part of the day (during breakfast and lunch) and should be lessened in the evening.”
So it makes sense to start with a big breakfast and decent lunch while maintaining a more modest dinner, when the body’s metabolism prepares to slow down and fast for the night.
Tips on how to deal with time changes
Changes in schedules are inevitable but they don’t have to wreak havoc on your health and well being. This is what Dr Cagampang recommends:
“To reduce the time it takes to reset your sleep-wake cycle (i.e. ‘jet-lag’ period), fast for about 12 hours before the time you want be awake. So, if you are a shift worker who needs to start waking up at 1 in the morning, you should start to fast at 1 p.m. the day before. Your body will consider the time you break your fast as your new morning.”
So if you’re having trouble with eating, sleeping, or an uncontrollable appetite, it might be that your sleep-wake cycle is off. A healthy and predictable pattern of eating might just make all the difference in the world.
Tell me, do you have a regular eating routine or do you wing it?


Generic designator for any of several digitally multiplexed telecommunications carrier systems.
In telecommunications, the cable used to transport DS1 service.
In a fiber optic coupler, the ratio of power at the tap port to the power at the input port.
Abbreviation for transmission control protocol/Internet protocol. Two interrelated protocols that are part of the Internet protocol suite. TCP operates on the OSI transport layer and breaks data into packets. IP operates on the OSI network layer and routes packets. Originally developed by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Abbreviation for thermoelectric cooler. A device used to dissipate heat in electronic assemblies.
(Photo of Model TC-101 TEC courtesy of Force, Inc.)
A network that interfaces with a telecommunications network at several points in order to receive information from, and to control the operation of, the telecommunications network.
Noise resulting from thermally induced random fluctuation in current in the receiver’s load resistance.
Abbreviation for temperature induced cable loss. Optical loss as a result of extreme temperatures outside a fiber optic cable’s environmental specifications.
A communications technique that uses a common channel (multipoint or broadcast) for communications among multiple users by allocating unique time slots to each user. Used extensively in satellite systems, local area networks, physical security systems, and combat-net radiosystems.
A transmission technique whereby several low-speed channels are multiplexed into a high-speed channel for transmission. Each low-speed channel is allocated a specific position based on time.
The reflection that occurs when light strikes an interface at an angle of incidence (with respect to the normal) greater than the critical angle.
A device that performs, within one chassis, both telecommunication transmitting and receiving functions.
A device that converts energy from one form to another, such as optical energy to electrical energy.
The part of a satellite that receives and transmits a signal.
1) In a communications network, a single transmission channel between two switching centers or nodes, or both. 2) A circuit between switchboards or other switching equipment, as distinguished from circuits which extend between central office switching equipment and information origination/termination equipment. Trunks may be used to interconnect switches, such as major, minor, public and private switches, to form networks.
Abbreviation for transistor-transistor logic. An old logic family.
A cable made up of one or more separately insulated twisted wire pairs, none of which is arranged with another to form quads.


On this year’s Human Rights’ Day, 10th December, representatives of herding communities from all over India rallied in Delhi to draw attention to their plight and discuss strategies for reviving their customary grazing rights. For hundreds of years these mobile livestock keepers have held together rural life by providing draught animals, milk, meat, wool, manure, and general ecosystem services.
But in the last several decades these diverse and colourful people that include the Raika and Gujjar of Rajasthan, the Maldhari of Gujarat, the Gaddi in Himachal, Bakkarwal in Kashmir, Van Gujjar in Uttaranchal, Changpa in Ladakh, Golla in Orissa, Kuruba in Karnataka, Toda and Konar in Tamil Nadu, and many more, have felt the squeeze of “development” and of generally unsympathetic government policies. The establishment of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, joint-forest management schemes, allotment of common land for commercial plantation or bio-diesel cultivation, expansion of irrigation agriculture are all developments that have constricted their customary grazing areas.
Click here for more.


- "This plant is known as a Water Fruit. It collects moisture within its hard shell. This feature is vital to its survival here."
- — Fi
Water Fruits are items from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. A fruit that grows on vines, Water Fruits contain a small amount of water within their hard, spiny shells. If Link touches these shells, he receives damage. If Link hits a Water Fruit with any of his items, it will fall from its branch. If the Water Fruit falls into lava, the lava will cool and harden into a platform, though this platform will melt after a short time if it does not form in flowing lava. Link can transport low hanging Water Fruits by stabbing them with his sword. Link must use these fruits to progress through the Fire Sanctuary. In the battle against Magmanos, Link can stab low-hanging Water Fruits and thrust them at one of Magmanos' magma hands, solidifying the hand and making it vulnerable to attack.
Food Grade Level
- Bronze Food - Water Fruit
- Silver Food - Tasty Water Fruit
- Gold Food - Delicious Water Fruit


The weather is growing colder – albeit a little slower than normal – which means it is time to start undergoing preparations for winter. Here is what you need to know to prepare your pasture for spring and keep your horse warm and healthy during the winter months:
“Keep ash, sand, salt or nonclumping clay cat litter to give icy walkways traction.”
If you live under the threat of a sudden winter storm, grab some extra feed, hay and equine supplements. This way, you don’t have to worry about running out if you end up snowed in. You should also keep essential snow supplies on hand, including ash, sand, salt or non-clumping clay cat litter to give icy walkways traction. Salt is best for melting ice, but you’ll want to keep it out of grassy areas because it kills plants and burns skin. Even though sand and ash melt ice slowly and are harder to control, accidentally tracking them into your horse’s enclosure won’t cause harm.
Finally, check any medications or equine supplements your horse takes. As Equus Magazine notes, some drugs become ineffective if exposed to cold weather. This is also a good time to check expiration dates and, if necessary, get a new prescription from your veterinarian.
Deciding to use a blanket
When it comes to weathering the cold, horses are a lot tougher than humans. In fact, according to HorseChannel, many can stand the outdoors until temperatures drop below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Still, you can give your horse a blanket to keep it warm if you choose, especially if it’s elderly or has a thin coat. Just be certain to take the blanket off every day to check for rub marks. Remove it or replace it with a lighter one if your horse starts sweating. If you don’t, the moisture will cool once in contact with cold air and cause your horse to shiver. Otherwise, once the moisture comes in contact with the cold air, it will cool and cause your horse to shiver.
In addition, before blanketing your horse, inspect the material for mold, bugs, holes, torn seams or bite marks from rodents. Any small tear will allow cold air to get in. If you plan to exercise your horse, trimming its coat helps prevent it from getting hot and sweaty. Only clip the area that would be covered by a blanket, and keep your horse blanketed when not training.
Feeding for warmth
Horses burn more calories in winter to keep warm and must be fed accordingly. Instead of supplying more food with each feeding, however, give your horse hay more frequently throughout the day. A horse’s stomach is designed to have some food in it at all times, and a consistently empty stomach increases the risk of colic.
“Check your horse’s salt block each time you fill its water bucket.”
If you live in a place with regular freezing temperatures, check your horse’s salt block each time you fill its water bucket. These blocks can get so cold that your equine’s tongue will stick to it. Depending on the temperature, you might be better off adding loose salt to your horse’s grain, HorseChannel notes.
Checking the barn and equipment
You might be tempted to stave off the cold by sealing your barn or stable’s every nook and cranny, but this makes for poor ventilation and sets the stage for dust buildup. On the other hand, too much airflow drops the inside temperature to uncomfortable levels. Equus Magazine recommends holding a light tissue up in different areas. It should sway gently, indicating a good flow of air. If it stays still or forcefully waves back and forth, open or close windows as necessary.
Prepping the pasture
Giving your horse free access to all areas of the pasture ends up doing more harm than good. The grass here needs time to rest so it can regrow properly in the spring. Without this downtime, your pasture will be filled with weeds and bare patches from overgrazing and the equine’s own footsteps. As horses walk across the frozen ground, their hooves create divots that ruin the root systems of the grass underneath. They also compress the soil so water can’t run through, TheHorse.com mentions. Keep your equine in a sacrifice area during the winter so your pasture can recuperate.
Make sure to mow your pasture before the first snow fall so long grass and weeds don’t get stuck underneath. Getting rid of weeds beforehand also stops them from being a problem in spring. Leave a few inches of grass – Equus Magazine suggested no fewer than four – so the roots can last throughout the snow.
Such drastic measures are not needed if you live in a warmer climate. In fact, you might want to let the grass grow a little thicker during late summer and fall so your horse can graze happily throughout the winter.


14 April 2014
Space technology is to be used in a novel plan to identify locations in rivers for water-powered energy.
The University of Leicester will work with a British company, High Efficiency Heating UK Ltd, with interests in renewable energies in order to locate the best sites to deploy micro-hydropower turbines.
The Technology Strategy Board has granted £120,400 to High Efficiency Heating UK Ltd (HEH) and the University of Leicester for a 10 month research project - ISMORTASED (Identification of Sites for Micro-hydropower On Rivers Through Applied Satellite and Environmental Data) Project (No. 131545).
The expertise of the University of Leicester in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is key to cutting the costs of identifying the optimum site in a river for power generation.
Andy Baxter, managing director of HEH said: “Currently, to determine the viability of a stretch of river or stream for micro-hydro power, the process is expensive and complex.
“At present there's a significant fee to pay to determine whether a particular stretch of river will yield hydropower - and this is before socio-economic factors and due processes such as planning application are taken into account.”
Mr Baxter, who lives and works amongst the industrial heritage of the Lancashire mill towns, added: “Historically industry in the area was powered by the local rivers and streams - after all, the cotton industry grew up in Lancashire because of water power, but the hydropower industry seems not to exploit stretches of river where there is obvious potential.
“The industry has gone but the power has not. The potential for locally based power solution remains.”
This realisation has led HEH to develop a long term strategy to develop greener energy solutions around micro-hydropower generation. An initial engagement with the University’s Chemistry Department’s part ERDF funded G-STEP Project led to project definition and a successful collaborative research and development funding application for the UK’s innovations agency Technology Strategy Board’s recent ‘Solving Business Problems with Environmental Data’ competition.
Dr Kevin Tansey, from the Department of Geography, who is leading up the research team, said: ‘We are very excited that the project has been funded. During the ten month project life the research group will develop a GIS prototype and combine as many as two dozen data sets to evaluate sites. Some of these data sets will come from satellites or aircraft. A GIS is a very powerful tool as you can simulate the optimisation process multiple times until you get the right answers.”
Research assistant Jonathan Lee has started the task of identifying and sourcing information, the work of developing the prototype tool being built on knowledge of what data is available and how it fits together.
G-STEP’s Ed Lamb said: “The application of novel approaches, including satellite data, could make site identification quicker and less expensive. If successful this will benefit HEH, community stakeholders, and us all by making smaller scale ‘greener’ power technologies more viable.”
The collaborators argue the long-term benefits of their work. Andy Baxter said: “We hope that the widespread proliferation of "run-of-river" micro hydropower will help towards a stable, green, constant and predictable supply of power in the next few years. We've been hearing warnings from OFGEM and DECC about the dramatic increase in the likelihood of power cuts in 2015/16. Erratic energy supply from wind and solar won't provide a solution to the problem of grid balancing. We have to combine electricity storage with a reliable and constant energy source. Hydropower is half of that solution.”
Dr Kevin Tansey added: “The current and growing concerns of climate and energy make this project of interest both nationally and internationally. University of Leicester’s involvement with commercial organisations to develop tools that are applicable at the local scale globally is exciting and timely.”


Water Violet in Bach flower therapy
properties, benefits, uses
Water Violet ( Hottonia palustris ) is a plant belonging to the Primulaceae family that blooms in late spring. The water violet belongs to the family the only aquatic , lives in stagnant or slow-flowing waters and is found in northern Italy. This plant appears slender, but upright it can reach 40 cm in height, has five-petaled pink and purple flowers, are spirally arranged, are elegant and the stem has no leaves that are feather-shaped and remain under the water.
Water Violet : properties and benefits
This plant was the tenth to have been discovered by Dr. Edward Bach and his key word is ” the lonely princess “. Water Violet is defined by Dr. Edward Bach thus: “ … For those who in health or illness like to be alone. Very quiet people, who move around without disturbing, speak little and in a polite way. Very independent, capable and confident in their means. They are almost totally free from the opinions of others. They stand apart, live alone and go their own way. They are often intelligent and gifted. Their tranquility and calm are a blessing for those around them… ”.
This flower attracts aristocratic characters, who stand on their own and are a bit snobbish , even apparently. Often, they are proud and detached people, they appear cold and detached, they prefer to listen rather than speak.
These guys have a form of pride and conceit, mixed with arrogance; there is also an ad hoc posture in them, they do not blush in the midst of people, they stick to etiquette or rigid educations, they feel good about themselves in this haughty way. When all this exceeds, the Water Violet remains isolated , is in solitude and experiences a deep sense of misunderstanding, is therefore unable to show affection and warmth, which in reality are her primary needs.
The transformation that this remedy brings is impressive, it manages to restore humility, and brings to the light a profound wisdom , positivity, introspection, reflection and capacity for growth.
Therefore the Water Violets become reference points for advice, suggestions and help; they regain confidence in themselves, thus being able to glimpse where others do not see. In conclusion, the Water Violets teach us that we can maintain our individuality by maintaining relationships and living the group, this is the highest degree of individuality, that is, being able to live in the community without losing one’s essence, which remains in harmony.
• Initial emotions (before taking the flower):
Highness , pride, a feeling of superiority and reserve, emotional distance.
• Evolutionary emotions (after taking the flower):
Humility , sharing and wisdom, capacity for open relationships, with affection and warmth.
Water Violet : uses
Water Violet is very useful to proud people, who distance themselves and defend their territory, keep their business to themselves, are reserved and disdain others, would like to live without being disturbed in anonymity, esteem themselves a lot, they know they can do it.
In fact, Water Violets often suffer from eating disorders , hypertension , stomach pain, headaches. These characters are unable to express their feelings even though they are a primary necessity; consequently, a small confrontation with Agrimony can be seen , he too hides the problems and is reluctant to externalize his true feelings, but for other reasons.
In children, these characters are found in cases where they do not want to play and mix with others out of pride.
Water Violet is a precious remedy for those who are loners, who have elitist and exclusivist pride , who have emotional coldness.
Water Violet Bach Flower Affirmation
- I learn to share with humility and wisdom.
- I participate and I get involved.
- I need the world and the world needs me.
- I open myself to the joy of sharing.