Tom Visser, from the Rafael Department at Sint Michielsgestel, describes current developments and approaches to the care of deafblind children within the department.
Description of Current Developments
The Institute voor Doven (IvI) first came into contact with children who were deafblind in the early 1960s, when staff from the Institute visited Potsdam (Germany) and Poitiers (France) at the request of the then Board of Management of the Institute, to learn about the most appropriate ways of caring for and educating deafblind children. The Institute took the plunge in 1962 and admitted the first deafblind children. In 1968, following a period in which it was sometimes necessary to sleep two children to each bed, a building was made available specially for the children: the Rafael department for children who are deafblind was born.
During its first 20 years the department grew slowly, but its development began to accelerate after 1981. In recent years the number of children admitted to the Rafael department has continued to increase and now numbers 70. One change has been the fall in the proportion of children with Rubella syndrome in recent years, from around 80% of our population ten years ago to some 50% today. Many children admitted in recent years have different syndromes: Zwelleger syndrome, Goldenhar syndrome, CHARGE association and Usher syndrome. It naturally makes a great difference whether a child is deaf and blind from birth or whether one or both function losses developed at a later stage in the child's development.
Theory and principles underlying the educational programme
The need for an adequate theoretical framework has always been recognized at the Rafael department, and we have therefore constantly been on the lookout for theories which could help increase our understanding of the behaviour and development of children who are deafblind, and which above all could help us to place the experiences built up by parents and staff at our Institute into some sort of ordered framework. Our hope is that this framework will increasingly enable us to use these experiences in the development of an optimized educational programme.
At the moment, we draw on three theories in particular. First is the deprivation theory. This theory describes various forms of deprivation and their impact on the development of children. Sensory deprivation means that a child observes the world in a very fragmentary way, often failing to process adequately the multitude of information with which he or she is bombarded. The child's response is often to shut off from certain stimuli while focusing on others in a one-sided way in what appears to be a complete fixation.
Another common problem in the early years of life of children who are deafblind is social deprivation, where the development of the early mother-child relationship is disrupted by frequent hospitalisation or the poor physical condition of the child. This results in oversensitivity to certain stimuli, and this again can easily lead to atypical behaviour patterns, so that 'normal contact' with others gradually becomes more difficult for the child.
A second theory which offers many useful insights is the 'bonding theory'. This focuses mainly on the importance of correctly 'seizing' and interpreting behaviour used by the child to try and make intentions clear. If the carers then respond adequately to this behaviour, the child develops an 'inner working model', as it were; the child learns how the carer will respond and is thus able to develop a feeling of competence, a realisation of how to become an active 'conversation' partner. In recent years the contribution of "the transactional model of development" (Ende & Sameroff, Vogel, etc.) has been significant for our department. In this model developmental problems are related over time to a continuity of rigid or dysfunctional child-environment interactions.
The third theory underpinning much of our thinking and actions is the social learning theory. This theory emphasises the major influence of the social environment on the development of a child. According to his view, the child's development is influenced by three factors: by reinforcement of the behaviour which the child itself displays, by instruction and by imitation. The main problem affecting the development of deafblind children is that they frequently fail to discover the contingencies between different events. Consequently they often learn in a very limited way through observation and imitation of other children and adults, and develop virtually no form of spontaneous learning. The social learning theory is used increasingly within our department for the further operationalisation of the bonding theory; in our view, the two theories complement each other very well.
In the debate on the most adequate form of caring for and educating children who are deafblind, diagnostics should be seen as a 'keyword'. Without a very clear and cohesive insight into a child's limitations or handicaps, development potential and his or her optimal learning conditions, it is not possible to set up an adequate programme. At the Institute voor Doven, the Diagnostic Centre was founded to meet this need. The Centre's tasks cover both diagnostics and the treatment of children and adults and are carried out by six working teams: the Medical Service, the Audiological Centre, the Vision Centre, the Intake and Differentiation team, the Educational Psychology and Counselling team and the Developmental and Behavioural Problems Prevention and Treatment team. Frequently they work together on a multi-disciplinary basis. The Rafael department works very closely with all the six working teams.
Several staff in these teams have specialised in issues relating to the care and education of deafblind children. Each of the diagnosticians is expected to be capable both of conducting adequate and reliable diagnostic examinations within their own discipline and of 'translating' their findings into an individual treatment plan for each child. They are also expected to be capable of communicating their findings directly to the child concerned and/or their parents.
For special educational and psychological diagnostics, the 'broad band procedure' is used. Both 'free field' and 'standardized test' procedures are employed: conversations and interviews with the parents, observations at home, in the living group and classroom, checklists, inventories, tests, etc. The essential point is that each form of diagnostics should lead to concrete recommendations with respect to the treatment plan for each child. The entire approach at all times retains the character of a 'teach and test model'. Recommendations which have been 'translated' in the Individual Educational Plan (IEP) into concrete agreements with respect to the child are subsequently put into practice and evaluated for their effectiveness. Where necessary the recommendations are adjusted, possibly in combination with further diagnosis.
Organizational model of the residential home and Rafael school: From integrated living and learning to peripatetic support within the mainstream education system
To mark the opening of the renovated residential homes and the new Rafael
school building, we invited a number of 'experts' from outside the department
and from outside the Institute voor Doven to perform a strength/weakness
analysis of our care provision based on their wide experience. These
experts were people working in the care of mentally handicapped persons,
children with severe psychological and psychiatric difficulties and children
and adults who are deafblind. The findings of their analyses were
surprisingly concurrent in a number of respects. On the one hand
there was great appreciation of the high quality of the care, the capacity
for very methodical working and the high commitment of the staff;
on the other hand, there was concern that the wide range of care options
offered appears to lead to overstimulation of a not inconsiderable group
of children. This overstimulation derives in part from our tendency
when planning the I.E.P. to be guided mainly by the developments undergone
by the child in a given - sometimes specific - area (e.g. communication
development/language development), and less by the emotional and social
development of the child. As a result, many children in our care
were plunged too quickly into what, for them, was an overly large, complex
and unpredictable world. This 'criticism' of our working method largely
confirmed the thoughts which had already been voiced in many internal discussions.
The upshot was a realignment of our organization in the direction of what
we have called the 'continuum model'.
This is a model in which the living and learning/school environments are precisely tailored to each child's individual needs. It is thus a model which can offer the child an environment which is surveyable and predictable to the extent that this is important for the child, and which can be broadened in stages. This gives the child an adequate sense of security and enables the child to integrate new experiences, in terms of understanding and skills, with experiences gained earlier.
At one end of the continuum is the care provision, in which the living group/residential situation plays a crucial role and learning/the school is completely integrated in the activities taking place within that living group. At the other end of the continuum is the service provided for children who use only the school programme or who have been integrated in another form of education and receive peripatetic support. Between these two extremes are a number of 'intermediate steps'. In his workshop in Cordoba (at the IAEDB World Conference) Walther Tibosch, head of our residential setting, will give more extensive information about our "child based organization".
Interaction, communication and language development
It is the view of our department that the 'heart' of the care and education of children who are deafblind still lies above all else in our commitment to helping the children to develop the best possible level of communication, and to bring them to the highest possible degree of language development.
In recent decades major strides have been made in this development process, and we have also seen a number of 'waves' in our department. During the department's first two decades much attention was devoted to what we could call mutual interaction between child and educator, or the development of conversation. The educator tries to "seize" what the child has tried to express and gives him or her the correct communication code for this before going on to react as adequately as possible to the communication.
In the last ten years a great deal of work has been done on the development of the various communication codes, including the use of objects of reference, drawings/pictures, reference books and on the further development of a wide variety of calendars. These developments are of vital importance because they make it possible, with increasing success, to give the child the communication code which is both the most effective at present, and which also lays the foundation for the next step in the communication development process.
One thing which we have observed in recent years is that attention is often given to the code at the expense of attention to the essence of communication and the development of mutual interaction. Our contact with four experienced colleagues in the European Working Group on Communication has made this clear, particularly to myself. Through in-service training activities, however, we are now working to shift the emphases once again.
The use of signs is currently the subject of much study. Some children and young people will initially - and sometimes permanently - have to communicate through signs matched to their abilities. Colleagues at the Aalborgskole in Denmark recently published an article on this subject in this journal. Our approach is largely in line with theirs. Little or no research has been carried out in Dutch situations into the use of the Dutch Sign Language. What adaptations in use occur in the Dutch situation is still unclear.
Over the course of the years we have made a distinction between communication development and language development. Whereas in communication development the primary focus of attention is on learning to communicate as adequately as possible, in language development the main focus is on learning the Dutch language and, in particular, learning to read. This may sometimes be one and the same objective, but in many cases this is not so. Of prime importance is that everyone knows what objective he or she is aiming for at each moment. Experience has shown us that insufficient attention to this point can result in us investing a very great deal of time in teaching a very limited number of words to children who proved to have very little capacity for this, while these words often turned out to be of little actual use in their communication after leaving school. We also found that with other children, devoting too little highly explicit and skilful attention to 'learning language' can hold them back at an unnecessarily low language development level and, in particular, stop them reaching the level of reading which they must be regarded as capable of achieving.
The development of independent living and social skills and the development of pre-vocational and vocational training
In addition to the development of the most adequate communication skills possible and the highest possible language level, the development of skills to live and work in less restrictive environments also occupies a key place in our programme. For children who are deafblind, developing the highest possible level of independent living and social skills offers the opportunity to achieve a feeling of 'being able to do something themselves' and of 'being somebody' - in order word, to develop a feeling of competence and autonomy. Until around five years ago this aspect of development was given much less attention than the development of communication skills. In particular, visits to colleagues where the programme for children who are deafblind is linked to centres for visually handicapped persons, showed us that they had developed this and gave it more attention than we did. When planning and equiping our new school building, therefore, we made use of the opportunity to give this component of the programme the room - literally - it needs to develop to the full.
From the age of 12 children in our Centre can now follow a programme
which we have called 'supported living and working'. The following
are some of the features of this programme:
Activities within the programme are structured in such a way that the child is required at all times - to however slight a degree - to use his or her own initiative. This is in order to prevent 'learned helplessness' as much as possible.
Many activities are simple and routine in nature. This means that staff constantly have to search for activities which fit in with the world of the child, which are as varied as possible and yet which are routine in nature and result in a product which is recognizable for the child. Continuous error analysis must be used to make clear which aspects require extra training and/or where the skill to be learned needs to be modified.
As far as possible, the activities should show a logical relationship with each other. For example, potatoes are sown in the garden and harvested again later. In the woodworking room, boxes are made for storing the harvested potatoes. In the kitchen the potatoes are boiled, fried, chipped or made into chips and frozen. The same products are then bought in the shop, etc.
Maximum attention should be devoted in these lessons to the development
of social skills such as waiting, sitting still in one place, asking for
help in the right way, helping each other, leading cretin activities as
a pupil, etc.
The use of Individual Educational Plans
In the Rafael department working wt. Individual Educational Plans (IEP)
has assumed a central role in the working method. In principle the
IEP is redefined once a year in an IEP meeting. During these meetings
the parents, given their extensive experience with their child, generally
have a large and important contribution to make regarding the details of
their child's IEP.
Each IEP consists of a 'personal profile' and a description of each aspect of the individual's development programme. In the personal profile an attempt is made in one or two pages to give a description of the child or young person in which their personality is characterized as sharply as possible. It also examines the way the environment should be tailored to him or her, in order to ensure well-being and opportunity to develop. An important element of the personal profile is the description of what is regarded as the developmental potential of the child concerned.
The descriptions of each aspect of the individual development programme give an indication of the baseline for evaluation and of the objectives and methodology. The programme file belonging to each IEP contains a detailed description of the working method for each programme component. In the Rafael department, a number of inventories have been developed in recent years which enable the development of the children to be monitored. These 'home-made' lists chart the socio-economic development of the child, the development of socialization and modified behaviour, a number of aspects of personal independent living skills and the development of a feeling of competence. The lists give a good impression of how well the programme is matched to the capacities of the child and indicates the presence of overstimulation or under stimulation. In this way the list has a strong signalling function. The advantage of the lists, all of which are developed in collaboration with a large number of experienced staff, is that they chart very accurately certain developments in the children. Many standardized lists developed for this purpose are based on overly large development steps and are thus less suitable for this particular group of children. On the other hand, the obvious drawback of the Rafael lists is precisely that they are not standardized.
In principle these lists are developed for ech IEP-meeting. Apart from these lists, standardized inventories and, where possible, standardized tests are also used every two to three years. The aim at the moment is to record the results in a sort of pupil monitoring system, making it easier to chart the development of each child over a large number of years.
Working with co-ordinators (school) and heads of the group homes in the role of supervisors.
The book 'Staff Supervision in Services for Sensory Impaired Children and Adults', which appeared last year, cotaines an extensive description of several aspects relating to supervision within the Rafael department. One of the main reasons for deciding to work with co-ordinators/supervisors was the observation that, in our situation, the visual and hearing function loss, the learning and developmental difficulties and the medical problems are very different and complex. Staff cannot be expected to possess all the understanding and skills necessary to be able to draw up an IEP themselves for every child and to be able to implement that plan unaided.
Of the multitude of tasks which co-ordinators carry out, two are seen as the most crucial. In the first place they are responsible for adequately co-ordinating the contributions of the many people involved (e.g. parents, teachers, group leaders, ophthalmologists, audiologists, etc.) for monitoring continuously that the correct priorities are set within the programme. Their most essential task, however, remains the supervision of staff in the workplace itself: demonstrating, coaching, observing - possibly with the aid of video - and discussing their observations, etc. Our experience is that this is still the only truly effective way of 'learning the trade' properly.
Training is seen as a keyword both in our department and in our Institute as a whole. Everything stands or falls on having the capacity to train new staff well and to offer experienced staff the opportunity for ongoing in-service training. I have already indicated in discussing the co-ordinators/heads of group homes that we regard the supervision of staff in the workplace as something which should play a key role here.
In order to be able to place staff training and supervision of parents in a more concrete framework, this school year we have started recording elements of our programme, as I have described it above, on paper and video. We have released a few staff from their normal duties on several days a week for this purpose. The primary aim of 'recording on paper and video' is to place the large amount of experience possessed by many people in some kind of order, to make it visible and accessible to others. We hope that this will make it easier to transfer this experience to parents and colleagues. These programme elements will also serve as modules in the training of new staff members. I know that several colleagues in a number of departments throughout Europe are currently working on similar projects. With the aid of the Euco Unit, I hope we shall succeed in making these products available to each other.
The Institute voor Doven has traditionally devoted a good deal of attention to scientific research, and has for many years had its own Research and Development department.
Two research projects are currently underway in the Rafael department. One project, led by Dr J Lancioni, is investigating the best ways of providing children with the necessary support to enable them to carry out tasks as independently as possible. A large number of research projects have been completed in our department under Dr Lancioni's leadership in recent years; all these projects concluded with a publication.
The research project led by Marleen Janssen was set up to investigate how competent behaviour can be fostered in deafblind children in interactive situations. This project attempts to make the children more competent in the use of their skills for showing their likes and dislikes clearly. At the same time an attempt is being made to teach adults to recognize when their behaviour towards the children has the effect of being supportive. In other words: what things that I do as an adult help the child to express himself or herself more competently and what things that I do make that more difficult for the child?
At the request of the editor of Deafblind Education I have tried to present an outline of the work carried out within our department for children who are deafblind.
No single article - no single book, for that matter - can however do justice to all the ideas and experience of parents and staff, nor to their dedication to put them to good use in the upbringing and education of deafblind children. We are therefore always delighted to be able to welcome colleagues to our Institute who wish to share our experiences. Above all we consider it very important to receive their feedback on our work. This is one of the ways in which we hope to be able to continue learning and developing. In order to maximize the benefit from visits from colleagues, and also to enable normal day-to-day business to continue running smoothly, we have organized these visits into three 'visitors weeks' per year.
One item which canno go unmentined is a very extensive article by Jan van Dijk, Marleen Janssen and Catherine Nelson entitled 'Deafblind Children', in which they describe the diagnostics, theoretical background and a number of important apects from the educational programme for children who are deafblind.
In conclusion: the objective of all the efforts made within the Rafael department is to achieve the best possible 'qualty of life' for all the children concerned, both now and in the future: a life in which they experience what it is to be 'heard and seen', a life in which they are allowed and are able to take pride in being human beings. It is my hope that this is the feature which more than any other characterizes the 'programme' of the Rafael department.
Ton Visser: Director, Rafael School. Deafblind Education: January -
June 1995. Pages 6 -10.


Bison Declarations ================== The "Bison declarations" section of a Bison grammar defines the symbols used in formulating the grammar and the data types of semantic values. Note: Symbols. All token type names (but not single-character literal tokens such as `'+'' and `'*'') must be declared. Nonterminal symbols must be declared if you need to specify which data type to use for the semantic value (Note: More Than One Value Type.). The first rule in the file also specifies the start symbol, by default. If you want some other symbol to be the start symbol, you must declare it explicitly (*note Languages and Context-Free Grammars: Language and Grammar.).
Dirfile and infopages generated Sat Dec 3 02:07:54 2005


You have likely heard time and again that smoking and chewing tobacco products can have a serious impact on your oral health. But what does smoking actually do to your mouth and why is it such an issue? Read on to discover the real reasons why smoking is one of the most destructive habits when it comes to your oral health and the serious health risks that come with it.
Smoking is well known for the yellowing effect it has on teeth. This discolouration is actually stains left by the nicotine and tar found in cigarettes and other tobacco products. Yellowed teeth can be extremely difficult to whiten, depending on how deep the stains actually are and for how long they have been exposed to the various chemicals found in tobacco products. Exposing your teeth to these chemicals weakens the tooth enamel, the protective layer that cannot be replaced, causing teeth to become vulnerable and allowing stains to become deeply set into teeth.
Because the chemicals in tobacco products weaken the tooth’s protective enamel, teeth become more susceptible to bacteria, acids, and other destructive substances. With no protective layer, these substances can eat away at teeth and eventually cause them to rot right down to the tooth root. This can be extremely painful and can cause teeth to become loose, requiring removal, and even falling out. This rotting can also lead to infection which leads to even larger issues. Smoking causes a lack of oxygen in the blood, which your body needs in order to fight these infections. Being less able to naturally fight infection can also lead to major issues such as gum disease.
Decreased levels of oxygen in the blood leads to a weakened immune system and leaves your mouth vulnerable to infection. This means that bacteria found in your mouth can more easily build-up and infiltrate your gums. The bacteria can quickly destroy gum flesh, causing it to recede and become loose and unhealthy. The gums help to anchor teeth in place, so when their health is compromised teeth can become loose and potentially fall out. When gum disease progresses it can affect the bones and surrounding flesh, causing them to break down, too. Studies have shown that those who smoke are two times more likely to contract gum disease than those who don’t.
Tobacco products such as cigarettes, pipes, chewing tobacco, and others are highly carcinogenic. The chemicals found in these products have been cited as a leading causes of many cancers, including oral cancer. According to The Oral Cancer Foundation, there are over 7,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke, including over 70 known to cause cancer. Oral cancer is especially dangerous in that, generally those who have it are unaware of it in the early stages since it does not produce painful side effects until it has spread. Historically, over 75% of people over the age of 50 who have had oral cancer were regular tobacco smokers at one point in their life. Oral cancer can take many forms including unexplained bumps, bleeding, swelling, numbness, pain, and difficulty swallowing.
Because smoking weakens or erodes tooth enamel, smokers’ teeth are often vulnerable and can become extremely sensitive to hot and cold temperatures. This can be quite painful and very restricting when it comes to food and drink.
There are toothpastes and mouthwashes available on the market produced specifically for those who use tobacco products, however they are not nearly as effective at treating oral issues brought on by smoking as getting rid of the habit is. These products are generally more harsh and abrasive in an attempt to target destructive bacteria but they have no effect in restoring enamel, reversing tooth rot, root rot, gum rot, or preventing any kind of cancer.
Tobacco users especially should visit their dentist regularly to have their oral health monitored closely. If you are looking for a dentist in your area, be sure to consult 123 Dentist’s list of dental professionals in the Lower Mainland.
It’s important to keep in mind that the only truly effective treatment in restoring the health of a smoker’s’ mouth is to stop smoking. If you are a tobacco user, talk to your health care professional today about beginning a smoking cessation program that will work for you.


Problems in Philosophy and Physics
Here we review some great questions of philosophy for which information philosophy now provides us with the possibility of fuller understanding, with plausible and practical, if tentative, solutions to philosophical problems that have been known for millennia as well as major problems in physics from the twentieth century.
Several of these are problems that 20th-century philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein labeled "philosophical puzzles" and Bertrand Russell called "pseudo-problems." Analytic language philosophers thought many of these problems could be "dis-solved," revealing them to be conceptual errors caused by the misuse of language. Analytical philosopher Gilbert Ryle called them "category mistakes" that could be avoided by more careful "conceptual analysis." For example, his critical analysis of the "concept of mind" concluded that a "metaphysical" - an immaterial - mind simply could not exist. Using the new methodology of information philosophy, these classic problems are now back under consideration as genuinely important, analyzable and potentially soluble in terms of information. Although it is neither matter nor energy, immaterial information can interact causally with the more familiar contents of the physical world. Information philosophy explains how "an idea can move a mountain." Note that the goal of information philosophy is not to remove a problem from philosophy once it is solved. To be sure, where scientists seek solutions, philosophers prefer problems, ones that are teachable as problems. While perhaps necessary for academic careers, agnostic attitudes only serve to prevent progress in philosophy. Bertrand Russell was simply wrong when he said "what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know," and
"questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy."Recently, Peter van Inwagen agreed with Russell:
"If some branch of philosophy were suddenly to undergo a revolutionary transformation and began, as a consequence, to yield real information, it would cease to be regarded as a branch of philosophy and would come to be regarded as one of the sciences."We disagree. By providing plausible answers to some truly great questions, information philosophy hopes to prevent philosophy from being reduced to "Russell's Residue."
Classical Philosophical ProblemsThe Problem of Free Will - Over two dozen thinkers since William James in 1884 have proposed "two-stage" models of free will - first "free," then will," - first chance, then choice, - first alternative possibilities, then one actuality. The most plausible and practical solution to the 2400-year old problem of free will is our Cogito model. The critical random component of the first stage is provided by noise in the brain's information processing, generating free thoughts to be followed by adequately determined willed actions. The chance nature of a thought that just "pops into one's head" in no way makes the resulting action, or the agent, random. The Problem of Value - Information philosophy moves the source of ultimate value beyond man and our created gods, beyond life and the Earth, to its origins in a Cosmic Providence, which creates stable information structures that we call Ergo. Note that quantum mechanics, though normally thought of as adding only indeterminacy, is the source of the stability in most information structures. The Problem of Knowledge - Epistemology - More correctly the problem of certain knowledge, when our means of perception is limited and fallible. Instead of the classical logical language debates about "justified true belief" since Plato's time, information philosophy looks to information structures in the brain and mind that correspond to external structures in the world and in other minds. Correspondence is the quantitative isomorphism (or overlap) between the internal and external bits of information. The Problem of Mental Causation is solved by showing how the information-processing system of life emerges from matter, and mind in turn emerges from life. In both cases we show that there is clear downward causal control of the component atoms by the higher-level information-processing system. We also show that thermal/quantal noise in the lower level blocks "bottom-up" causation. There is no upward flow of information. The emergence of life from matter is "order out of order," as Erwin Schrödinger called it, "life feeding on negative entropy" (via the dephosporylation of ATP). The emergence of mind from life is "pure abstract information from order." And information is the stuff of thought. Consciousness can be defined in information terms as the property of an entity (usually a living thing, but we can also include artificially conscious machines or computers) that perceives and reacts to the information (and particularly to changes in the information) in its environment. We call it information consciousness. The Problem of Evil - Theodicy - "If God is Good, He is not God. If God is God, He is not Good." (J.B., by Archibald MacLeish) The question is not "Does God exist?" The question is "Does Goodness exist?" The solution lies in a dualist world with both bad and good. If ergodic information is an objective good, then entropic destruction of information is "the devil incarnate," as Norbert Wiener put it. Information philosophy offers a test of "revealed truth," specifically visions by inspired thinkers that have no empirical evidence, because these visions are usually in the realm of "pure ideas." Immortality - Information philosophy implies two kinds of immortality, the material survival of genetic information and the survival of our ideas in the sum of all knowledge and human artifacts. The survival of parts of the genetic code in DNA is the longest approximation to immortality known in living things. The Problem of Induction - We now understand why David Hume was right that induction does not lead to certain truth. But induction, for example the classic repeated observations of white swans, can count as statistical evidence for or against our hypotheses and theories. Theories are not economical summaries of experiments. Nor are they logically deducible from experiments. They are "free creations of the human mind" (as Albert Einstein called them) that may be confirmed by experimental evidence. Metaphysics - The first claim of a metaphysics based on information is that the physical universe contains more than just matter (and energy) in motion. The Platonic realm of ideas, Immanuel Kant's noumenal realm of "things in themselves" unconstrained by the deterministic laws of matter in motion, an immaterial mind that gives those ideas causal powers, and the immortal aspect of those ideas, all these touch on problems traditionally part of metaphysics. Secondly, because the external information is in the things themselves as information structures, information philosophy provides an ontological inventory of what exists in a mind-independent reality that in no way depends on how we came to acquire the knowledge of what exists. A third claim rests on the unqualified existence of immaterial, non-substantial, abstract, universals, some of which are necessary by logical definition, all of them existing in the Platonic and noumenal realm of pure information. The Mind-Body Problem - Solved in part by our Sum model, which explains how abstract information, an idea, or knowledge is incorporated into a human mind, and how pure ideas act on the physical world. Information is neither energy nor matter, although it needs matter for its embodiment and energy for its communication. Information is the mind in the body, the ghost in the machine, as close to a spirit or soul as science can get. When we die, it is our information that is lost. Our ERR (Experience Recorder and Reproducer) model for the mind is simpler than, yet superior to, "computational" models of the mind/brain as a computer. One or Many - Is the world a unity? We see this as part of the great dualism between ideal and material, between being and becoming, between mind and matter. The basis for a "neutral monism" may be to see both "thoughts" and "things" as fundamentally part of what William James called "pure experience," the information processing that produces an approximate isomorphism between what is in the world and the knowledge that is in our minds.
Problems in Modern PhysicsThe Arrow of Time - Arthur Stanley Eddington connected "Time's Arrow" with the direction of increasing entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We now show that it is also the direction of increasing information. It is the same direction as the "radiation" arrow (outgoing spherical waves) because 1) incoming spherical waves of radiation are impossible, and 2) the outgoing spherical waves are only the immaterial possibilities of detecting quanta of energy or material particles. There is no unified field theory, because there are no fields. There are only particles. Fields are averages over particles. The fundamental arrow of time is the expansion of the universe, making all the other arrows possible and observable. The "collapse" of the wave function can occur whenever there is an interaction between matter and energy (or matter and matter). Measurements are a miniscule fraction of all interactions. The universe is its own observer. The mysterious "collapse" is a question about possibilities, probabilities, and actuality. Nothing actually moves in the "collapse." One possibility becomes actual. The others disappear. Entanglement is a mysterious quantum phenomenon that seems capable of transmitting information over vast distances faster than the speed of light, a property called nonlocality, first seen by Einstein in 1905. Information physics shows that although new information comes into existence simultaneously at space-like separated points, no faster-than-light signaling is possible, since neither matter nor energy is transmitted. Two particles appear simultaneously and far apart, with their properties perfectly correlated to satisfy the conservation principles for mass, energy, momentum, angular momentum, and spin. The collapse of the two-particle wave function in the EPR experiment is the same mystery as the one in the two-slit experiment. But now there are two particles and they appear instantly and simultaneously, despite their space-like separation, because of nonlocality and nonseparability. This can be seen by reformulating the EPR paradox using a special frame of reference in which the source of the entangled particles and the observers are at rest. When identical and indistinguishable particles are entangled, their later disentanglement happens symmetrically and synchronously in the special frame of reference in which their entanglement source (and their mean motion) is at rest. The EPR paradox is caused by the observer introducing an asymmetry where none exists, privileging "here" and "now" over "there" and "then." Einstein mistakenly introduced this false asymmetry into a perfectly symmetric situation. The Horizon, Flatness, and Missing Mass Problems in Cosmology - The universe is flat because it was created from an empty universe, which is also flat. Leibniz' question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is simply answered. The universe is made out of something and the equal opposite of that something. The missing mass needed to achieve flatness may be dark matter in the intergalactic medium, but this does not explain the apparent acceleration of the universe expansion (dark energy), which may not be real, the result of misinterpretation of observational evidence. We solve the horizon problem by accepting Einstein's insight that in the wave-function collapse something appears to be "traveling" faster than the speed of light. That something is information about possibilities. When the universal wave function Ψ collapsed at t = 0, entangled parts of the universe that are now outside our current light horizon were "informed" that it was time to start. Questions of Infinity include: Time: Is it infinite? There appears to be only a finite past but an infinite possible future. 2) Space: If it is infinite, how did infinitely distance places know how to synchronize their starting time with us (the horizon problem. 3) Fields: Do they contain infinite information? Algorithmic information theory tells us a field contains only the amount needed to specify it. Thus a gravitation field is defined through all space for a large mass M and a test particle m as exerting a force F = GMm/r2. But there is nothing substantial at an arbitrary point r. There is information there, in the form of knowledge about the gravitational force on m iff m is at that point. This is called "action-at-a-distance," but is better thought of as "knowledge-at-a-distance." The "Interpretation" Problem of Quantum Mechanics - The Information Interpretation is the Copenhagen Interpretation plus information and minus the Conscious Observer. I-Phi interprets the wave function ψ as a "possibilities" function. I-Phi accepts the principle of superposition, the axiom of measurement, and the projection postulate of standard quantum mechanics. But a conscious observer is not required for the "collapse of the wave-function". The collapse (also known as the "reduction of the wave packet") occurs whenever there is an interaction of a quantum system with another system (a "measurement") that reduces multiple possibilities to a single actuality, generating new information. Contrary to the usual understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, both the entropy and the negative entropy (information) increase. The transformation theory of Dirac and Jordan lets us represent ψ by expanding it in a set of basis functions for which the combined quantum system and measurement apparatus has eigenvalues. ψ is now in a superposition of those "possible" eigenfunctions. Quantum mechanics lets us calculate the probabilities of each of those "possibilities." Interaction with the measurement apparatus (or indeed interaction with any other system) may project out one of those possibilities as an actuality. But for this event to be an "observable" (a John Bell "beable"), information must be created and positive entropy must be transferred away from the new information structure, in accordance with our two-stage information creation process. Macroscopic Recurrence - Ernst Zermelo argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem (his derivation of the second law of thermodynamics), on the grounds that given enough time, any system would return to the same starting conditions and thus entropy must decrease as well as increase. Information physics shows that exactly the same circumstances can never recur. Friedrich Nietzsche's "Eternal Return of the Same" is a physical impossibility, because of the increasing information in the universe. The Measurement Problem - We explain how our measuring instruments, which are usually macroscopic objects and treatable with "adequately determined" classical physics, can give us information about the microscopic world of atoms and subatomic particles like electrons and photons, which are described with quantum physics. The so-called "cut" between the quantum and classical worlds occurs at the moment that stable observable information enters the world. It does not require the consciousness of an observer. The reason that there are no macroscopic superpositions (e.g., Schrödinger's Cat) is that when the "possibilities function" ψ becomes actual, entropy is transferred away from the new "adequately determined" information structure, probability amplitudes become probabilities, and superposition with interference is no longer a "possibility." Microscopic Reversibility - Joseph Loschmidt also argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem, on the grounds that if time were reversed the entropy would decrease. Boltzmann agreed that it would, according to his initial version of the H-Theorem which was derived from classical dynamical physics. He later defended his case for entropy increase on the basis of probabilities and an assumption of "molecular disorder." A quantum-mechanical treatment of binary (two-particle) collisions confirms the correctness of Boltzmann's "molecular disorder" assumption. Information physics explains the origin of irreversibility, confirming Albert Einstein's insight that the elementary processes of interaction between matter and radiation have no inverses. In particular, there are no incoming spherical waves of radiation.


See also Amy Tan Criticism.
Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting e.
Use appropriate and varied transitions to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to manage the complexity of the topic.
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented e.
Apply grades 9—10 Reading standards to literature e. Apply grades 9—10 Reading standards to literary nonfiction e.
Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it to create a unified whole; include formatting e. Use appropriate and varied transitions and syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts.
Use precise language, domain-specific vocabulary, and techniques such as metaphor, simile, and analogy to manage the complexity of the topic. Apply grades 11—12 Reading standards to literature e. Apply grades 11—12 Reading standards to literary nonfiction e.
Supreme Court Case majority opinions and dissents] and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy [e.2 days ago · government essay how to write a college application essay introduction.
Hint you must know not only one percent of his ity that a candidate to talk to to produce goods for the configuration shown in figur should be clear that he was certainly aware of her own company. The Joy Luck Club: Learning Standards; Provide an introduction that is relevant to the rest of the text and effectively engages the audience.
A. write an analytical essay of sufficient length that includes: effective introductory and concluding paragraphs and a variety of sentence structures;.
The Joy Luck Club is stimulated by two forces in Amy Tan‟s life: her relationship with her mother and the death of her loved ones mainly her 16 year old brother and her father, who died of a brain tumour.
“The Politics of Transnational Memory in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club” sees Tan’s representation of memory as either a function of loss (and limited recovery) or of distance (whether temporal or physical).
For Schultermandl, the text suggests that familial or national relationships built on. INTRODUCTION The Joy Luck Club retold the lives of four women who came from China and their four Americanized daughters.
The protagonist, Jing Mei Woo (June) took over her mother's place at the meetings of a social group called the Joy Luck Club.4/4(1). Introduction Symbolism in The Joy Luck Club Symbolism is defined by the dictionary as "the practice of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships," which means creating an importance and special meaning in objects that normally would not be important.


Hope you have seen people pushing their car when it’s not starting due to some issue.
When someone is pushing a car or something like that, he first pushes the ground or floor obliquely backwards with his feet.
Following the ‘3rd law of Newton‘ the ground also exerts an equal and opposite force obliquely on the feet of the person.
A component of this Reaction Force is obtained horizontally in the forward direction.
It’s kind of a forward push which is generated by Friction or frictional force only as its opposing the intended backward motion of the feet.
Thus here using frictional force we are making ourselves capable to exert a forward push.
This person now transfers that forward push on the vehicle through his hands.
Friction you face while pushing a car
Types of Friction you face
A resistive force called Friction acts opposite to this applied force and is generated between the tires of the vehicle and the road.
As the person starts pushing harder( i.e. the applied force by him starts rising), this Friction also starts rising equally (of course in the opposite direction) and the car is yet to move.
But this friction(of static type) has an upper limit beyond which it can’t rise anymore. This max value of the static frictional force is called Limiting Friction.
As the applied force goes beyond this limit, the vehicle starts rolling.
The friction which was resisting the applied force when the vehicle was not moving is called static friction.
When the car starts rolling there is still a frictional force between the tires and the road. It is called Rolling friction.
Remember that as the vehicle has tires it can move so easily defeating the frictional force.
Apart from Rolling friction and Static friction there is another type of friction and it is sliding friction.
If you drag something (not rolling) then this type of frictional force arises.
Out of these three types, rolling frictional force is the smallest in value and static frictional force is the largest.
Now you know why the tires are circular. Yes, to face the rolling frictional force which is the easiest to defeat.
Friction factors you need to know
Frictional force between 2 surfaces depends on 2 things:
1) Roughness of the surface makes the frictional force value high.
2) Frictional force value depends on the normal reaction i.e. the Reaction force given by the surface on the object, in the perpendicular direction.
Again this Normal Reaction depends on the weight and in turn on the mass of the object.
So simply we can say, heavier bodies with large mass will face greater friction while moving.
If frictional force is high because of these reasons, you need to apply more force to overcome this opposing force.


Approx Price: Rs / Ton
The principal food grain of India is rice. In terms of rice production, the country holds the second position all over the world. Rice is grown in approximately 34% of the overall cropped territory of the country. Rice production comprises 42% of the overall food crop production in the country.
For rice production, it is essential that the production fields receive a mean precipitation of 125 cm every year. It is also necessary that the average temperature of the place stays at 23° C.
In India, rice is grown in the eastern and western shoreline areas, Northeast India, and the drainage basin of river Ganga. The important rice growing states in India are as follows:
Other than these states, rice is cultivated in the following states of India:
The second most important food grain cultivated in India is wheat. The Rabi season is the ideal time to grow wheat. The Green Revolution in India paved the way for a substantial development in wheat production in the nation. Since the revolution, the production of the second most important food crop has risen considerably. The elements that contributed to increased wheat production are better seeds, right usage of water supply, and manures.
In India, wheat is grown in regions which receive a mean precipitation of 75 cm. The region should also have productive soil. The state of Uttar Pradesh ranks first in terms of wheat production. About 35% of the overall wheat production is done by the state. Other than Uttar Pradesh, states like Haryana and Punjab also produce a significant amount of wheat.
Jowar is a major food grain in India as well. The ideal climate for cultivation of Jowar should be warm and arid and the average annual rainfall should be 45 cm.
The state of Maharashtra is the leading producer of Jowar in the country. The state houses about 50% of the overall area for Jowar production in India.
Maharashtra cultivates about 52% of the overall Jowar production in the country. Other important producers of Jowar include states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
Pulses are cultivated in the arid areas of the country. These harvests supply nitrogen to the earth. The population of India prefers a diet which contains pulses since they carry a significant degree of proteins.
The top producer of pulses in India is the state of Madhya Pradesh. The state contributes 24% of the overall pulses production of the nation. Other major pulse producing states include Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
India is a prominent jute producing nation across the world. Some of the important jute producing states in the country are Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa. A negligible amount of jute is produced in Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
The states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu are the major coffee producers in India. They house a number of coffee estates and farms in Southern India. Indian coffee is famous for its flavor and aroma. As a result, it has a significant demand in the global coffee market. India is a major exporter of coffee because of this. The Nilgiri Mountain Ranges produce coffee on a substantial scale.
Rubber is a tree crop which is grown in agricultural estates. It is made from latex which is emitted from the stems of the plants. The ideal weather for rubber growing is a warm and moist weather and the soil should be sufficiently watered. The following states are the important cultivators of rubber in India:
Kerala ranks as the topmost producer of rubber in the country


The special feature of this model is its innovative, geometric design.
The engineers had some pretty lofty goals this time around. Their aim was to develop a bumper that offered the same crash performance as current models while being lighter, cheaper, and ideally, more sustainable to produce than ever before. “It was a massive challenge, but we achieved it in the end and came up with a number of extremely impressive solutions,” explained Martin Kibben.
Engineers at work
Martin Kibben presents the new bumper with its open crash beam
Kibben is responsible for bumpers and longitudinal members as part of thyssenkrupp’s InCar®plus project. InCar®plus is a Groupwide program in which engineers strive to discover different ways to optimize vehicle components. After testing some of its preliminary ideas, the team developed a number of promising concepts. These were then subjected to intensive computer simulations. However the Group’s laundry list of objectives often proved to be somewhat conflicting. “If the forming process checked out, then crash performance would be a problem. Or maybe an idea looked like it would save on weight, but then the production process was too complex and forced our costs up,” says Subproject Manager Andreas Keutz.
The engineers rejected several ideas right away, choosing to develop others instead. One of the approaches they focused their efforts on was the idea to use an open crash beam as a central element of the bumper. The advantages were obvious: The specialized wave-shaped profile allowed the steel sheet to be thinner without compromising on crash performance and eliminated the need for the closing plate used in the reference model. That alone saved an impressive 1.7 kilograms in weight.
The new bumper system optimizes weight, cost, and function.
But before this bumper could be built, the team needed to develop the required forming technology. Good thing they had the expertise of ThyssenKrupp System Engineering to back them up. “We combined our knowledge in materials and processes to develop a solution that would allow our customers to eliminate a significant amount of weight without raising costs. In fact, our solution is cheaper than the reference model,” explains Kibben.
Now that the development phase of InCar®plus is over, this solution is one of four different ideas that the team put together. At a weight of 8.25 kilograms, the new bumper system is almost two kilograms lighter than the reference model. A few of the other solutions are under nine kilograms as well.
Less weight means that the car uses less gas, which means that it produces less CO2. Over time, the drop in material costs will make up for the cost of implementing the new production methods, so the new product will be lighter, but no more expensive.
Currently, the four bumper concepts are on tour as part of the worldwide InCar®plus roadshow. “Which approach works best for which customer? That’s something that has to be decided on an individual basis,” says Kibben. “And we’d be happy to offer our advice.” Car manufacturers are already interested in the solutions and concrete talks are taking place.


Water Quality, Waste Management Essay
In secondary water treatment, the waste water is allowed to sustain organic bacteria on the waste. This initiative allows bacteria to break the organic matter through the process of biodegradation to non harmful products. Further, this process helps to reduce the amount of organic substances in the waste. In tertiary waste water treatment, bacteria and other harmful compounds are removed from the water which is ready to be disposed off in other water masses. Moreover, in tertiary water treatment, there is use of chemicals to dissolve harmful compounds while in secondary treatment; there is use of usable micro-organisms.
The by-products formed in secondary treatment can be used economically. For example, in the decomposition of raw waste products by micro-organisms, there is the formation of biogas which can be re-used. On the other hand, in secondary treatment methods, there is the use of filters to decant any organic material that may trickle on the water surfaces (Manahan, 2005). Conversely, in tertiary treatment, there is no use of filters since the products formed are scientifically extracted. The comparison in both treatment methods is that there is treatment of water from harmful state to a more useful state.
This work is done by reduction of
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It can also be treated well to the extent of removing pollutants which are resistant to other methods of treatment and then disposed off to underground outfalls which flow back to the ocean. Reclaimed water can be used for domestic purposes such as flushing toilets in urban centers (Hill, 2010). It can be used in factories as coolant and also in water processing companies. Further, it can be used in recreation of wetlands in areas where there are no wetlands or in dry regions. Treated water can be used to increase the supply of surface water which is used for drinking. The treated water is thus used for human consumption.
On my own opinion, I would recommend that the water that is treated and recharged for underground replenishment which is later used for drinking should be treated to the tertiary level. This is because the water that is treated up to this level is much safer for drinking since the harmful compounds, such as phosphorus, are removed from the water. Secondary treated water contains some dissolved harmful compounds which may not be visible because the bacteria used to biodegrade the water only works only on the organic compounds in the water while the inorganic compounds remain dissolved in the water.
The main reason that has made me to choose this treatment is because it removes all the dissolved inorganic compounds which dissolve in the water and which remain after the degradation of the organic compounds in the secondary treatment.
Hill, M. K. (2010). Understanding environmental pollution. Cambridge University Press. Manahan, S. E. (2005). Environmental chemistry. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.


In the days following the fiery April 20 blowout of BP’s Macondo well off the coast of Louisiana, TV viewers across the world watched dismayed at the images of crude oil spewing unabated into the Gulf of Mexico. Their widespread reaction: feelings of utter helplessness.
Mines alumni Bill McElduff ’82 and Donal Fitterer MS ’88 reacted differently. “I told my 10-year-old daughter ‘I have to go out there and help fix the problem,'” recalls McElduff, who watched the underwater footage with his family from his home in Houston, Texas.
As one of a half-dozen engineers in the world who specializes in drilling relief wells, McElduff soon received a one-sentence email, “Do you want to help with Macondo?” Meanwhile, Fitterer, one of three in the world who specializes in using electromagnetic ranging tools to locate wells, was summoned to the Houston offices of BP from his home in Ithaca, N.Y.
The two were old friends, having worked together on numerous occasions before, but the stakes had never been so high. The next four months spent on a football field-sized drilling rig called Development Driller III was a career-defining collaboration for both. To kill the rogue well, they had to hit a target the size of a dinner plate from their floating platform three miles away. And with the world scrutinizing every development, they couldn’t afford to make mistakes.
“We could watch our progress on the Fox News Channel ticker tape,” laughs McElduff, an affable Southerner with a warm Texas drawl. “We all understood the implications of what we were doing.” But they were also confident they could accomplish the goal: “We never had any doubts,” said the more reserved Fitterer.
The evolution of relief wells
As far back as the early 1900s, relief wells have been drilled as a last-resort cure for taming blowouts caused by fires, natural disasters or other oil-field mishaps. Initially, drillers would simply bore another vertical well adjacent to the problem well, relieving pressure from and ultimately depleting the reservoir. But that approach could take months, with oil continuing to spill.
In 1934, after a massive blowout created a lake of burning oil near Conroe, Texas, engineers took a different approach to tame the gusher. They developed survey techniques and directional drilling tools to intersect the problem well from an angle. They then pumped water in to kill the flow of crude. The new tack was a success, and the directional drilling industry was born. In the late 1980s, electromagnetic ranging tools and processes were developed and incorporated into the modern relief well drilling techniques.
Since then, advances in both surveying and directional drilling technologies have enabled an elite squadron of specialized troubleshooters to kill rogue wells around the world from a safer distance and far faster than they once could.
As a relief well engineer for Boots and Coots’ considered the go-to company for out-of-control oil and gas wells, McElduff has made his office everywhere from the blazing-hot Syrian desert to the windripped Mauritanian Sea, spending roughly 10 months a year away from home.
As a wireline engineer, computer programmer and ranging specialist with technology pioneer Vector Magnetics, Fitterer has helped tame more than 20 problem wells, from a blazing blowout in the oil fields of Bangladesh to a hurricane-damaged underwater gusher off the coast of Egypt.
He’s quick to point out that the president of Vector Magnetics, Rahn Pitzer ’87, is also a Mines grad, and says it’s no coincidence that the school churned out three leaders in such a specialized, pressurecooker field.
“The number-one thing I learned at Mines was the ability to focus on exactly what needs to happen to get the job done,” says Fitterer. “They are very big on giving you too much to do, so you have to make a decision as to what is most important. That prepares you for the type of work we do.”
A national emergency
Graduating six years apart at Mines, McElduff and Fitterer never knew each other at Mines, but their interdependent skills have brought them together on jobs repeatedly. The two were just wrapping up a routine drill on a rig 30 miles off the coast of New Orleans when the tragedy on the Deepwater Horizon began to unfold.
“We could see the glow from the fire and we knew there was an emergency,” says McElduff. “We figured we’d be on it sooner or later.”
The April 20 fire that killed 11 men and triggered the largest off-shore oil spill in U.S. history prompted a relief response that many have likened to the D-Day armada. More than 8,044 vessels carried 47,848 responders into the gulf, shadowed by a phalanx of media who commenced tracking every move of those the world was counting on to plug the leak.
While officials from BP and the federal government worked around the clock to stem the blowout as quickly as possible, the crew of the Development Drill III rig began drilling a relief well on May 2. The bad news: It would take months to move methodically at an angle through roughly 13,000-feet of rock buried beneath 5,000 feet of water. The good news: It would provide a final and permanent solution, TV viewers were assured.
But many remained skeptical. “That’s the typical response to relief wells,” says Fitterer. “People don’t believe you can do it until it happens.”
For roughly six weeks, the Development Driller III bored downward in the direction of the blown out Macondo well. Then, as the drill bit drew near its target, about 300 horizontal feet, and a perfect aim became imperative, the 10-person specialized relief well team moved into place.
At its helm was John Wright, senior vice president of technology at Boots and Coots, a somewhat legendary character considered to be the godfather of modern relief well drilling. McElduff, Wright’s second in command, served as the lead directional drilling engineer. His job was to guide the bit for the final stretch. Fitterer’s job was to tell McElduff where the bit was and where it needed to go, information he provided using state-of-the-art ranging tools.
“It’s a bit like driving blind with somebody next to you using instruments to tell you where the road is,” Wright told NPR in a September interview.
Positioning is achieved using a 300-foot-long assembly, which includes a 30-foot-long cylindrical beryllium copper tool equipped with a transmitter and receiver on opposite ends. Invented by Vector Magnetics, the device emits a current that sets up an electromagnetic field when conducted by the well casing. By interpreting data on the electromagnetic field picked up by the receiver, Fitterer can calculate the precise distance and direction to the blown-out well.
It only takes him two or three hours to collect these measurements, but they must be taken every 30 to 60 feet, and getting the equipment into place at the extreme depths at which they were operating was a very time-consuming process: 24 hours to withdraw the drill bit; 12 hours to lower the ranging tools, take measurements, and retrieve the equipment; and another 24 hours to lower the drill bit back into place. As a result, in the final approach, progress moved at a rate of 30 feet every 2 days.
But precision is everything in this business. Equipped with distance and bearing to the well, as well as the drill’s current orientation (determined from instruments mounted on the drill string) McElduff finetuned the drilling plan. Then, standing next to the driller who was seated in a futuristic control-chair complete with joystick and a complex panel of instrumentation, McElduff directed the bit’s progress as it bored through rock three miles away.
Movement in the drill rig further complicated their work. “This is a floating rig, so it is moving,” McElduff says. “If the rig is moving, the bit is moving, and the rougher the seas get, the harder it is to control the bit.” At one point, tropical storm Bonnie shut down relief well operations for two weeks.
Slaying the dragon
On August 4, BP officials announced that their ‘top kill’ was holding and the flow of oil from the blown-out well had stopped for now. Their mission on board the Development Driller III didn’t change. No one could predict if, or how long, it would hold. A ‘bottom kill’ via the relief well remained the only way to permanently fix the problem.
Their work continued until, on Sept. 17, the nation heaved a true sigh of relief as workers finished pumping mud and cement down the relief well and into the base of the Macondo well.
“Psychologically, it’s important for people in the gulf to understand that there is a stake in the heart of this beast,” said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen to reporters that day.
How does it feel to be a dragonslayer? Fitterer and McElduff modestly shrug off the title. They just feel lucky they could do something to help, they say.
If you enjoyed the feature story ‘Plugging Macondo,’ then you may find these two videos interesting. One is anoverview of relief well drilling operations; the other is a more detailed look at how Fitterer pinpointed the exact location of the end of the relief well using ranging tools.


An amazing picture taken during the Solar Eclipse yesterday, showing the International Space Station crossing our line of sight to the Sun (credit NASA):
This composite image, made from seven frames, shows the International Space Station, with a crew of six onboard, as it transits the Sun at roughly five miles per second during a partial solar eclipse, Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 near Banner, Wyoming. Onboard as part of Expedition 52 are: NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson, Jack Fischer, and Randy Bresnik; Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy; and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Paolo Nespoli. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of South America, Africa, and Europe.
Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky


By Cove’s Reading Team
Summer is a great time to encourage your student to curl up with a favorite book, flip through a magazine and view reading as a fun, daily activity. Cove’s Reading Team has some tips for fostering those healthy reading habits all summer long:
- Set up a calendar of activities to include weekly visits to the library. Block out a time daily for everyone to read.
- Help your child create a cozy space for reading. Cushions, pillows and blankets make the space comfortable.
- Read the same book as your child. Set aside a time to either read together or talk about your favorite part of the story, whether or not the story turned out as you predicted, characters you liked or disliked, how you would change the story if you were the author. Encourage your child to connect ideas in the story to their experiences. Discuss what would happen next if the book had a sequel. If you choose non-fiction talk about what you all learned from the text.
- Experience reading without books such as meal planning, creating a garden, tour information for your family vacation, movie reviews and crafty ideas.
- Create a summer scrapbook with souvenirs and photos. Have your child write the captions.
- Reading aloud is always valuable. It allows your child to access information at their interest level, hear appropriate phrasing and intonation, and allows for natural modeling and discussion.
- The most important thing a parent can do is set a good example. Keep a variety of reading material around your home - magazines, newspapers, manuals, graphic novels, comic books and of course books.


In Germanic Tribal Law, which could vary from tribe to tribe, and as with all cultures, evolved over millenia, was largely based on a compensation practice around the first century.
The majority of crimes, including murder, were settled through compensation for damages, and it generally frowned upon a revenge approach. Damages were largely determined by the victim, and ordered, if decided fitting for the crime, by the chiefs or by law speakers, who held the oral legal traditions for the tribes.
For much of Germanic Tribal history, only three crimes resulted in death.
– Treason – betraying your chief, family or fellow warriors.
– Incest – A forbidden act under all Germanic beliefs.
– Rape – A truly despicable act, with its own unique punishment, but typically only applicable upon the rape of fellow tribal members or other Germanic tribal members.
Treason was dealt with by hanging, as was incest, unless it was rape.
For rape, the perpetrators hands and feet would be bound, and they were thrown into peat bogs, as they see these crimes as being so heinous, that the evil of the perpetrators must be buried in the earth, never to return or be able to be honored by their families. Some of these criminals are found today, and are known as bog bodies, or bog people.
The excavation of these bog people would be seen as the reason why there is such a prevalence of rape and pedophilia in modern culture, their evil has been released from where it was sealed thousands of years ago.
For all other crimes, such as bodily injury, standard values were set for each body part, and an entire life was set with a weregild, also known as a man price. The average starting weregild for a freeman was equivalent to two hundred shillings of the time. Social status, rank, and amount of possessions would increase the weregild. Chiefs and nobles were often valued at twelve hundred shillings.
The weregild of all women was twice that of a man of equal status.
Early Roman and later Christian expansion from the sixth century onward, gradually replaced the compensation system with broader capital punishment for lesser crimes. Rape and incest were also transitioned to compensation offenses, but only if perpetrated against a Roman or Christian. It generally did not apply the other way.
These Roman and Christian policies continued in the empire scheme throughout Europe, and were also applied in American expansionism against the indigenous tribes of the North American continent.


By mid-18th century, many Cherokee men and women realized that their survival depended on adopting a twisted, primitive, patriarchal way of life that Europeans forced on them
In February of 1757, the great Cherokee leader Attakullakulla came to South Carolina to negotiate trade agreements with the governor and was shocked to find that no white women were present. “Since the white man as well as the red was born of woman, did not the white man admit women to their council?” Attakullakulla asked the governor. Carolyn Johnston, professor at Eckerd College and author of Cherokee Women in Crisis; Trail of Tears, Civil War, and Allotment, 1838-1907, says in her book that the governor was so taken aback by the question that he took two or three days to come up with this milquetoast response: “The white men do place confidence in their women and share their councils with them when they know their hearts are good.”
Europeans were astonished to see that Cherokee women were the equals of men—politically, economically and theologically. “Women had autonomy and sexual freedom, could obtain divorce easily, rarely experienced rape or domestic violence, worked as producers/farmers, owned their own homes and fields, possessed a cosmology that contains female supernatural figures, and had significant political and economic power,” she writes. “Cherokee women’s close association with nature, as mothers and producers, served as a basis of their power within the tribe, not as a basis of oppression. Their position as ‘the other’ led to gender equivalence, not hierarchy.”
One of the hardest things for the colonists to comprehend was the Cherokee kinship system. It was based on the matrilineal structure—the oldest social organization known to man (woman?) in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. The most important male relative in a Cherokee child’s life was his mother’s brother, not his father. In fact, the father was not formally related to his offspring. According to Theda Perdue, professor at the University of North Carolina and author of Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835, white men who married Indian women were shocked to discover that the Cherokees did not consider them to be related to their children, and that mothers, not fathers, had control over children and property.
Women owned the houses where the extended family lived, and daughters inherited the property from their mothers. In order to prevent white men from marrying Indian women for profit–as the Cherokee land was coveted by white colonists–the husband’s Cherokee citizenship was revoked if he decided to leave. “Should a white man abandon his Cherokee wife without good reason, he forfeited Cherokee citizenship and paid a settlement determined by the Cherokee Committee and Council for breach of marriage,” writes Fay Yarbrough, associate professor at the University of Oklahoma in Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century.
Johnston points out that in the traditional Cherokee culture, men and women had different roles, different ritual spaces and different ceremonies. Men were hunters, and women were farmers who controlled the household. Both were responsible for putting food on the table. In the winter, when men traveled hundreds of miles to hunt bear, deer, turkey and other game, women stayed at home. They kept the fires burning in the winter-houses, made baskets, pottery, clothing and other things the family needed, cared for the children, and performed the chores for the household. “Perhaps because women were so important in the family and in the economy, they also had a voice in government,” Perdue writes in Tar Heel Junior Historian, a magazine published by North Carolina Museum of History (Spring 1984) “The Cherokees made decisions only after they discussed an issue for a long time and agreed on what they should do. The council meetings at which decisions were made were open to everyone including women. Women participated actively. Sometimes they urged the men to go to war to avenge an earlier enemy attack. At other times they advised peace. Occasionally women even fought in battles beside the men. The Cherokees called these women ‘War Women’, and all the people respected and honored them for their bravery.”
Johnston says that both men and women were sexually liberated, and unions were typically based on mutual attraction. The concept of being ashamed of one’s body or physical desires was foreign to the Cherokee mind-set. Even though married men and women were expected to be faithful to one another, adultery was not considered a grand crime, and divorce based on loss of attraction was not uncommon: “Sometimes they will live together till they have five or six children and then part as unconcernedly as if they had never known one another, the men taking the male children and the women the female and so each marry with contrary parties.” Cherokee couples going through divorce did not seem to experience the same level of emotional or financial trauma that is almost expected for modern day Euro-American couples dealing with separation and divorce. According to Johnston, traditional Cherokee “singles’ mixers” were charged with sexual energy, although they were strictly regulated through ceremony. The ritual dance performed publicly by young Cherokees at such events culminated in moves that imitated a sexual act—something that appalled the prudish white Americans (Elvis was yet to be born and crowned a king). In general, physical relations between consenting adults were viewed as most natural and even divine, and not as a source of shame, fear or sin.
Cherokees strictly obeyed individual taboos on food and sex, but those taboos were specific to one’s circumstances and usually temporary. It is not at all surprising that the joyless, rigid, sex-negative, and guilt-intensive view of life, pitched to the Cherokees by the European missionaries in the early 18th century, was initially met with very little enthusiasm. “Because the Cherokees did not believe in the depravity of human nature, the majority of the Nation continued to resist this new view of themselves,” Johnston writes. In 1840 Daniel Butrick, a missionary in the Cherokee land, wrote a letter “complaining about the morals of the Cherokee women: ‘One Mrs. Safford, it is said, uses profane language, one Mrs. Glass, it is said, attends dances, and the other Mrs. Broken Canoe, I believe, has never been at meeting here since she was baptized in May 1836.’ ” Several years earlier, Butrick noted with horror that actors in a ball play (a traditional Cherokee game similar to lacrosse) he witnessed were naked. According to Johnston, Butrick “forbade any student in his school to go to a ball play or an all night dance. He despaired, however, that ‘the young women who have been educated at a mission schools and by great expense and labor taught to read and understand the Bible, are the first victims of these emissaries of darkness.’” Sophia Sawyer, a female Christian missionary in the Indian Country, reportedly chased a local woman into her “chimney corner” trying to convince her to send her child into the missionary school. The Native woman’s response was that she would “as soon see her child in hell as in the mission classroom.”
Sadly, with the advent of Native American boarding schools where “savage-born” children were, in the words of Richard Henry Pratt, trained in “civilized language and habit” (a part of his notorious “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” campaign), the two became nearly equivalent. In 1825, a hired white girl named Mary had a “criminal intercourse with a young Cherokee, Robert Sanders, at Carmel mission in Georgia. Here is how Moody Hall, a missionary at ABCFM, described the incident: “We burned their beds and cabin. Cherokee take such ‘abominable crimes’ lightly.” Johnston notes that this incident “sheds light on the battle being waged over Indians’ land, mind and bodies. For the Cherokees, becoming ‘civilized’ increasingly came to mean nothing less than a radical alteration of gender roles.”
“The U.S. government and missionaries made a concerted effort to transform Cherokee gender roles and attitudes towards sexuality and the body,” says Johnston. “They sought to inculcate Euro-American values of true womanhood and confine Cherokee women to the domestic sphere. They met with resistance from the traditional Cherokees, but, over the course of contact, wealthier members of that society, often of mixed ancestry, readily accepted both Christianity and the ideals of true womanhood. This gender inequality intersected with class inequality because more affluent women were freed from most domestic labor by hired help of slaves, and they had the means to acquire education and gentility. By the end of the 18th century, Cherokee women no longer agreed among themselves what it meant to be a woman.” “A wife! What a sacred name, what a responsible office!” wrote missionary Elias Boudinot (Buck Watie) in an article entitled Who is a Beautiful Woman? “She must be an unspotted sanctuary to which wearied men flow from the crimes of the world, and feel that no sin dare enter there. A wife! She must be the guardian angel of his footsteps on earth, and guide him to Heaven.” Nothing in that description reminded the reader of the once powerful, uninhibited, breadwinning Cherokee woman.
By mid-18th century, many Cherokees started to realize that their sovereignty and possibly their survival depended on being viewed as civilized. Being civilized meant wearing European clothes, denouncing their centuries-old religious practices and art, converting to Christianity and adopting a patriarchal, agrarian way of life. Men would no longer hunt, and women would no longer farm. “The civilization program, the loss of hunting lands, missionary efforts, and slavery destabilized gender relations within the Cherokee Nation,” says Johnston. “Men’s roles were more disrupted than women’s because the men lost their ability to be hunters and warriors. Because farming was considered ‘women’s work’. The men would have had to radically alter their views of masculinity had they chosen to become farmers.”
According to Wilma Dunaway, professor of sociology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and author of Rethinking Cherokee Acculturation; Agrarian Capitalism and Women’s Resistance to Cult of Domesticity, 1800-1838, “shortly before removal, the Cherokees had learned new survival strategies in a world economy; their agricultural production equaled or surpassed that of their white neighbors.” Dunaway points out that “historically, agrarian capitalism has shifted control of household, land, and means of production to men; has stimulated public policies that disempowered women; and has fostered the ‘cult of domesticity’ in order to justify the inequitable treatment of wives… Because the Cherokee elite believed that tribal sovereignty depended on being recognized as “civilized,” they also selectively accepted some aspects of patriarchal roles.” “Many of the legal changes within the Cherokee nation in the early nineteenth century excluded women from the formal political process, weakened the power of the clans and diminished women’s autonomy,” Johnston notes. “With the passage of Cherokee Constitution in 1827, Cherokee women became politically disenfranchised and could no longer vote or hold public office.
The loss of formal political power was dramatic. The Cherokee Constitution, modeled after the U.S. Constitution, created a three-branch government with a Supreme Court, a legislature and a principle chief as executive.” The Cherokees hoped that this demonstration of sovereignty would prevent their forced removal from their ancestors’ land. “By the 1800s the Cherokees had lost their independence and had become dominated by white Americans,” said Johnston. “At this time white Americans did not believe that it was proper for women to fight wars, vote, speak in public, work outside the home or even control their own children. The Cherokees began to imitate whites, and Cherokee women lost much of their power and prestige. In the 20th century, they had to struggle along with other women to acquire many of the rights that Cherokee women once freely enjoyed.”


Tests of decrepitation to discriminate between soil samples
Potential forensic application
In October 2020 soil samples were collected from 3 separate locations to see if decrepitation would aid in discriminating between soil samples. This should be applicable to soils containing quartz grains, but grains in soils may be quite small with low decrepitation counts. Soils are a mixture of minerals and there may be effects due to the dehydration of clay minerals during heating or additional decrepitation from carbonate of other mineral grains in the soil. These effects complicate the interpretation of fluid inclusions in the sample, but may actually help to characterize soils and facilitate the discrimination of soils from different locations.
Location map of the 3 soil samples tested
The Litchfield sample (number 2069) was collected within an area
of quartzose outcrop of the Depot creek formation sandstone of
middle Proterozoic age on a residual plateau. It is 83 Km from the
The McMinns samples (numbers 2070, 2072, 2073) are from the
laboratory location in an area of Cainozoic age lateritic soil,
probably over Mesozoic siltstone/sandstone sediments and there is
no nearby outcrop.
The Burrell sample (number 2071) is over outcrop of Burrell creek
formation or Koolpin formation siltstone of early Proterozoic age.
It is 8 Km from the Mcminns sample.
Compare-contrast 3 unrelated samples
All 3 of the soil samples were collected over quartzose
sedimentary rocks but from mutally distant locations and over very
different age parent rocks. All of these samples have been
subjected to intense lateritic weathering with abundant
ferruginous nodules in the Mcminns samples 2070, 2072 & 2073.
The samples were sieved and 0.5 grams of the <420, >200
micron size fraction was analysed. The plotted results are
weighted rolling mean smoothed over 3 samples at 25%, 50%, 25%
weights. Note that sample 2070 had much more intense decrepitation
and has been divided by 4 or 8 for convenient comparison with the
There are significant differences between these samples in both
their decrepitation temperature pattern and decrepitation
intensity. Normally it would be best to distinguish samples based
on their temperature profiles, but the significant differences in
decrepitation intensity between these 3 samples is probably also a
defining characteristic, although likely to be influenced to some
degree by variations in the quartz to clay percentages in the
sample. Clay minerals do not usually give a decrepitation
response, but may do so if they dehydrate or decompose. The low
temperature decrepitation between 200 and 300 C of sample 2069 is
characteristic of CO2 rich fluid inclusions within
quartz grains. The near absence of the quartz alpha-beta inversion
peak at 580-590 C on this sample 2069 is also unusual and
distinctive. Samples 2070 and 2071 show quite different
temperature patterns with dual peaks at 430 and 465 C on sample
2071 and an almost single peak at 510 C on sample 2070.
It is also possible to use curve fitting to discern the component sub-populations which make up these complex curves as in many examples on this website and also here. Using the deconvolution data would assist in discriminating between or identifying identical samples.
It is clear that these 3 soil samples are mutually quite distinct
and readily distinguished by decrepitation analysis. NOTE:
subsequent tests suggest that sample 2070 is contaminated and a better plot of samples from
these 3 locations is below using sample 2072 instead.
Initial sample comparison plot
Testing the sampling reproducibility for multiple samples
collected at a single location, within 10 metres distance.
Sample 2072 was collected at the McMinns laboratory some 2 metres
from the original sample 2070. These 2 results were surprisingly
different, so a third sample 2073 was also collected at the
McMinns laboratory some 10 metres from sample 2070. The
decrepitation of samples 2072 and 2073 are very similar to each
other, but both different from sample 2070. It is possible
that sample 2070 was contaminated with sand left after
construction activities some 30 years ago.
The results from the 3 separate samples collected at the McMinns
laboratory show that samples 2072 and 2073 are a close match, but
sample 2070 is very different.
Preferred sample comparison plot after collecting additional
This preferred comparison of decrepitation of soil from 3
locations in NT shows sample 2072 instead of (possibly
contaminated) sample 2070 at the McMinns laboratory location.
The effect of grainsize on analyses of the same sample
Two different grainsize fractions of sample 2071 were analysed.
This sample was dominated by fine grains with only some 20%
exceeding 200 microns. The analysis of the fine grained fraction
was done on 1.0 gram of sample as only low decrepitation was
anticipated. It is likely that the fine fraction was mostly clay,
as indicated by the absence of the distinctive quartz alpha-beta
peak at 580 C on the fine grainsize fraction. Although both
fractions start to decrepitate at 400 C, the grainsize effect
prevents identification of these 2 results as being part of the
same original sample.
Test of analytical reproducibility
The McMinns laboratory sample 2073 was analysed twice on
subsequent days to examine the repeatability of analyses. These 2
analyses are a good match. Because of the low decrepitation counts
on this sample, better results would be obtained by using a larger
1.0 gram sample - or perhaps even 2.0 grams.
Soil sample 2073 collected at the McMinns laboratory was of a nodular furruginous lag soil over quartzose sediments with no nearby outcrop, photographed here. The sample came from the scraped area.
This brief preliminary study shows that
decrepitation of soil samples is capable of discriminating
between samples and may be useful for forensic purposes.
However because soils are a mixture of mineral phases there
can be unexpected variations which may either interfere or
contribute to identification of similarity or difference
between samples. There is good between-sample reproducibilty
for multiple samples collected at the same location and also
good analytical reproducibility of the same sample on multiple
days. Further studies of soil decrepitation would be helpful
to better understand the reliability of soil sample
identifications. Curve deconvolution as seen elsewhere
on this website would probably assist in differentiating or
confirming the similarity of samples.


Gardening Tips and Tricks : Can Snails Make Pearls?
Abalones are large snails with a beautiful secret. Brown and grey on the outside, covered in seaweed, slowly crawling rocks in tidal zones whilst remaining firmly attached to them using a muscular foot, Abalones deposit striking iridescent mother-of-pearl nacre inside their shells.
Abalones are a marine gastropod, a sea snail resembling a typical garden snail by also carrying a single spiralled shell on its back. Along with Conch snails and Melo melo, Abalones are one of the few gastropods that are capable of producing pearls.
Abalones live in shells that are up to 20 or 30 cm in size and can survive in cool or warm waters, which has supported their broad geographic habitat. They are typically found off the coasts of Western USA, Mexico, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Although most abalones live for 10 to 20 years, they can even reach 40 or 50 years in age. A delicacy in some of the areas of the world, Abalones have historically been collected by hand for meat with the shells being used for ornaments, cups and even coins.
As with pearls that come from a mollusc such as an oyster, an Abalone’s pearls are made by depositing thousands of layers of an organic substance called nacre. Their inner mother-of-pearl shell is typically more colourful than that of bivalve molluscs such as oysters and frequently displays a stunning combination of blue, green, pink, purple and silver.
Natural Abalone pearls are quite rare and until the last century were relatively unknown in gemological markets. With their unique colour and baroque horn shapes, these pearls are now highly sought after by jewellery designers and collectors. One of the largest natural Abalone pearls ever found is the Big Pink Pearl, which was valued in 1991 at $4.7 million. Round symmetrical abalone pearls remain very rare and can take many years to form.
Attempts to produce cultured pearls with Abalones have been recorded since the late 19th century in several countries. The principal pearl farms today are in New Zealand and California. The main challenge for pearl farmers is that the animal’s blood does not coagulate and, if the animal is accidentally injured during the surgical insertion of a nucleus, it may bleed to death. For this reason, Abalone mabe blister pearls are more frequently cultivated by pearl farmers as no incision is required to start the Abalone making a blister pearl.
Although large sea snails such as Abalones do secretively make very valuable and rare pearls, beautiful cultured mabe Abalone pearls are also made into pendants and earrings that are quite accessible in price to jewellery lovers.