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1. Why is extremism an issue in prisons? Extremist groups often pose special security risks in prisons. They may encourage the overthrow of the government, and prison officials can be targeted as agents of "illegal" government authority. Further, their literature often encourages ethnic hatred, promoting a violent and racially charged prison atmosphere. Since the 1980s, white supremacist organizations have spread throughout the American prison system, beginning with the growth of Aryan Brotherhood.1 Aryan Nations, although not permitting inmates to become members, has engaged in "prison outreach" since 1979. In 1987, it began publishing a "prison outreach newsletter" called The Way to facilitate recruitment. Aryan Nations also disseminates its literature and letters to inmates. The World Church of the Creator and some Identity Church groups engage in similar outreach activity, as do other racist groups, such as Nation of Islam. The situation is further complicated by the fact that nonideological criminal prison gangs are often organized based on race, which increases racial polarization. Imprisoned extremists also pose a security threat by continuing their activities while incarcerated. They recruit inmates, and teach other inmates extremist tactics. Some imprisoned extremists also have attempted to continue to influence adherents outside of prison by, for instance, publishing newsletters from the prison to maintain their outside following. Prison officials have responded in various ways, reflecting the fact that each state has its own prison system (as do cities, counties and the federal government), and that prisons have varying populations. At times, prison officials have tried to limit access to extremist literature, and these responses have occasionally given rise to litigation because they potentially impinge upon inmates' First Amendment rights. The questions are especially complicated when the censored material comes from a group that claims to be religious. 1 Aryan Brotherhood, at one time associated with Aryan Nations, began as a virulent racist and anti-Semitic prison gang, and has since developed into a crime gang associated with extortion, drug operations and prison violence. 2. Do inmates have the same First Amendment rights as everybody else? The United States Supreme Court has said that "prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution." Nevertheless, inmates' First Amendment rights are less extensive than other citizens' and their rights can be limited due to security or other penological concerns. Because of the particular challenges administrators face running prisons, the Supreme Court has acknowledged there is a compelling government interest which warrants limiting prisoners' rights. Courts have been deferential to prison officials' assessments of security threats, and sensitive to their related regulatory decisions, even if such decisions impact inmates' First Amendment rights. A prison regulation that impinges on an inmate's constitutional rights will be upheld in court if that regulation is reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives. This means that, generally, prison officials can ban extremist materials from prisons because of concerns that the distribution of such material will undermine prison security. Extremist books, leaflets, and magazines have been forbidden to prisoners on this basis. Such material has not been allowed through the mail and has not been kept in the prison library. However, prisons have less discretion to limit inmates' religious practices than other First Amendment rights due to a new federal law. Because of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), prison officials' discretion in limiting access to extremist material may depend in part on whether such material is related to an inmate's religious exercise. Therefore, prison regulations that affect religious exercise, including access to religious literature, will be reviewed carefully if challenged in court. 3. What legal standard is used to determine the constitutionality of prison regulations? The Supreme Court announced the standard under which it would review the constitutionality of prison regulations in Turner v. Safley, a case involving a challenge to a complete prohibition on inmate marriage. As noted earlier, a prison regulation is constitutional if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives. Under this standard, courts have upheld regulations based on the consideration of certain factors: - Is there a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it? - Are there alternative means of exercising the assert- ed right that remain open to inmates? - How great a negative impact will accommodating the inmates' rights have on guards, other inmates,a nd on the allocation of prison resources? Courts will consider the existence of obvious and easy alternatives to a challenged regulation as evidence of a regulation's arbitrariness. 4. Is the same legal standard used to determine the constitutionality of prison regulations that implicate an inmate's right to free exercise of religion? No, the same standard is not applicable to determining the constitutionality of prison regulations alleged to violate inmates' free exercise rights. The constitutionality of such regulations is determined under the more stringent standard set forth in RLUIPA. RLUIPA says that the government cannot impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of an inmate, even if the inmate's religious exercise is being limited by a generally applicable rule. However, an inmate's religious practices can be limited if the prison official demonstrates that the regulations in question (i) further a compelling interest and (ii) the same interest cannot be served in a manner that is less restrictive of the inmate's free exercise rights. Since RLUIPA was enacted in September 2000, it has not yet been interpreted by the courts. Therefore, how this statute will impact prison regulations that affect inmates' religious exercise remains unclear. 5. How should prison officials evaluate whether particular material can be withheld from inmates? Generally, the First Amendment does not allow speech to be censored by the government because of the content of that speech. The government can only limit the time, place, and manner of speech. However, because inmates have more limited First Amendment rights than other citizens, some content-based discrimination is allowed for security reasons. For example, the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld a prison official's decision to withhold entire issues of the magazine, Muhammad Speaks, because certain articles in the magazine created a danger of violence by advocating racial, religious, or national hatred. This decision was prior to the passage of RLUIPA, and therefore the Court's analysis might be somewhat different today. Under current law, if having the entire magazine withheld was determined to be a substantial burden on inmates' free exercise rights, the Court might require that the offending material be removed rather than the entire issue being withheld. Regulations that exclude publications from a prison because of security concerns have been found constitutional when the regulations have required individualized review of any material before it is banned, notification to inmates that the material has been denied, and the possibility of review of such decisions. Courts have tended to find prison regulations that ban all literature from particular groups unconstitutional. However, the determination of the constitutionality of a given regulation or the implementation of the regulation has tended to be very fact-specific. Courts look not only at the regulation at issue but also consider the nature of the prison (high, medium, or low security) and the particular administrative challenges faced by the prison (such as crowding and quantity of incoming mail) in determining reasonableness, or the practical existence of less restrictive alternative measures. 6. Can prison officials apply the same restrictions to outgoing prison material? The Supreme Court does not allow content regulation with respect to outgoing mail from inmates. While outgoing mail can be searched for contraband,2 content regulation of outgoing mail is also more restricted because it implicates the First Amendment rights of non-prisoner addressees.3 In addition, outgoing material does not pose a threat to internal prison security; therefore content limitations have been considered less urgent. However, regulations can limit the content of outgoing mail categorically. For example, escape plans, threats, running a business, and blackmail are categories that have been disallowed. Therefore, correspondence from prisoners to extremist groups cannot be banned outright because of its content. However, inmates can be prevented from distributing a newsletter from prison when doing so constitutes running a business. 2 Special rules exist with respect to attorney-client correspondence or mail that implicates an inmate's right to access the courts that are beyond the scope of this discussion. 3 However, prison officials can forbid all correspondence between incarcerated individuals. 7. Can extremist "missionaries" be prevented from visiting prisons? Prison officials can ban categories of prison visitors, such as former inmates or visitors who have previously broken visiting rules. An extremist "missionary" can be barred from a prison because of generally applicable rules. In addition, prisons can create procedures for requesting visiting ministers, and impose conditions on the selection of the ministers, such as sponsorship by an outside religious organization. Prison officials can also exclude prison "missionaries" if they are advocating violence or otherwise fomenting prison unrest by encouraging racial tension. However, under RLUIPA, the prison would have to show that any restrictions on visiting clergy are the least restrictive means of achieving its end. Prison officials do not have a responsibility to hire a minister for each religious denomination represented in the prison population. However, if visiting ministers of one denomination are compensated, visiting ministers of other denominations must be equally compensated. Security limitations can be placed on inmate-led prayer or services, but again, under RLUIPA, the prison would have to show that any restrictions on such gatherings is the least restrictive means of achieving its end. For example, it is more likely that the prison could limit the frequency of such meetings, the number of attendees and require supervision than that such gatherings could be banned outright. 8. Under what circumstances must prisons accommodate prisoners' religious dietary requirements? Accommodating religiously based dietary rules has become an issue when dealing with extremists because incidents have raised concern that extremists "adopt" religious practices that are not based on sincere beliefs in order to obtain special privileges, such as specialized diets. Generally, if an inmate's request for a special diet is because of a sincerely held belief and religious in nature, the inmate has a constitutionally protected interest. Under RLUIPA, a request for a special religious diet can only be refused based on a compelling prison interest and if it is the least restrictive means possible for the prison protecting that interest. Prisons may offer more limited food selection to prisoners with religious dietary limitations, such as providing only cold kosher meals rather than hot food. In the past, when determining whether a prison was required to provided a special diet for a prisoner, courts have considered whether the dietary restrictions were central to the prisoner's religious observance. Under RLUIPA, such a determination would probably not be relevant. The threshold question in evaluating the prison's obligation to accommodate a request would still be whether the inmate's dietary request arose out of sincerely held beliefs that were religious in nature.

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- published: 19 Mar 2013 - views: 42 - author: T.A. B possibly testing on weans, that worries me http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21849808. A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters. Vaccines can be prophylactic (example: to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by any natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (e.g. vaccines against cancer are also being investigated; see cancer vaccine). The term vaccine derives from Edward Jenner's 1796 use of cow pox (Latin variola vaccinia, adapted from the Latin vaccīn-us, from vacca, cow), to inoculate humans, providing them protection against smallpox. Vaccines do not guarantee complete protection from a disease. Sometimes, this is because the host's immune system simply does not respond adequately or at all. This may be due to a lowered immunity in general (diabetes, steroid use, HIV infection, age) or because the host's immune system does not have a B cell capable of generating antibodies to that antigen. Even if the host develops antibodies, the human immune system is not perfect and in any case the immune system might still not be able to defeat the infection immediately. In this case, the infection will be less severe and heal faster. Adjuvants are typically used to boost immune response. Most often aluminium adjuvants are used, but adjuvants like squalene are also used in some vaccines and more vaccines with squalene and phosphate adjuvants are being tested. Larger doses are used in some cases for older people (50–75 years and up), whose immune response to a given vaccine is not as strong. The efficacy or performance of the vaccine is dependent on a number of factors: When a vaccinated individual does develop the disease vaccinated against, the disease is likely to be milder than without vaccination. The following are important considerations in the effectiveness of a vaccination program: In 1958 there were 763,094 cases of measles and 552 deaths in the United States. With the help of new vaccines, the number of cases dropped to fewer than 150 per year (median of 56). In early 2008, there were 64 suspected cases of measles. 54 out of 64 infections were associated with importation from another country, although only 13% were actually acquired outside of the United States; 63 of these 64 individuals either had never been vaccinated against measles, or were uncertain whether they had been vaccinated. Vaccines are dead or inactivated organisms or purified products derived from them. There are several types of vaccines in use. These represent different strategies used to try to reduce risk of illness, while retaining the ability to induce a beneficial immune response. Some vaccines contain killed, but previously virulent, micro-organisms that have been destroyed with chemicals, heat, radioactivity or antibiotics. Examples are the influenza vaccine, cholera vaccine, bubonic plague vaccine, polio vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, and rabies vaccine. Some vaccines contain live, attenuated microorganisms. Many of these are live viruses that have been cultivated under conditions that disable their virulent properties, or which use closely related but less dangerous organisms to produce a broad immune response. Although most attenuated vaccines are viral, some are bacterial in nature. They typically provoke more durable immunological responses and are the preferred type for healthy adults. Examples include the viral diseases yellow fever, measles, rubella, and mumps and the bacterial disease typhoid. The live Mycobacterium tuberculosis vaccine developed by Calmette and Guérin is not made of a contagious strain, but contains a virulently modified strain called "BCG" used to elicit an immune response to the vaccine. The live attenuated vaccine containing strain Yersinia pestis EV is used for plague immunization. Attenuated vaccines have some advantages and disadvantages. They have the capacity of transient growth so they give prolonged protection, and no booster dose is required. But they may get reverted to the virulent form and cause the disease. Toxoid vaccines are made from inactivated toxic compounds that cause illness rather than the micro-organism. Examples of toxoid-based vaccines include tetanus and diphtheria. Toxoid vaccines are known for their efficacy. Not all toxoids are for micro-organisms; for example, Crotalus atrox toxoid is used to vaccinate dogs against rattlesnake bites. Protein subunit – rather than introducing an inactivated or attenuated micro-organism to an immune system (which would constitute a "whole-agent" vaccine), a fragment of it can create an immune response. Examples include the subunit vaccine against Hepatitis B virus that is composed of only the surface proteins of the virus (previously extracted from the blood serum of chronically infected patients, but now produced by recombination of the viral genes into yeast), the virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) that is composed of the viral major capsid protein, and the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase subunits of the influenza virus. Subunit vaccine is being used for plague immunization. Conjugate – certain bacteria have polysaccharide outer coats that are poorly immunogenic. By linking these outer coats to proteins (e.g. toxins), the immune system can be led to recognize the polysaccharide as if it were a protein antigen. This approach is used in the Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine. A number of innovative vaccines are also in development and in use: While most vaccines are created using inactivated or attenuated compounds from micro-organisms, synthetic vaccines are composed mainly or wholly of synthetic peptides, carbohydrates or antigens. Vaccines may be monovalent (also called univalent) or multivalent (also called polyvalent). A monovalent vaccine is designed to immunize against a single antigen or single microorganism. A multivalent or polyvalent vaccine is designed to immunize against two or more strains of the same microorganism, or against two or more microorganisms. In certain cases a monovalent vaccine may be preferable for rapidly developing a strong immune response. The immune system recognizes vaccine agents as foreign, destroys them, and "remembers" them. When the virulent version of an agent comes along the body recognizes the protein coat on the virus, and thus is prepared to respond, by (1) neutralizing the target agent before it can enter cells, and (2) by recognizing and destroying infected cells before that agent can multiply to vast numbers. When two or more vaccines are mixed together in the same formulation, the two vaccines can interfere. This most frequently occurs with live attenuated vaccines, where one of the vaccine components is more robust than the others and suppresses the growth and immune response to the other components. This phenomenon was first noted in the trivalent Sabin polio vaccine, where the amount of serotype 2 virus in the vaccine had to be reduced to stop it from interfering with the "take" of the serotype 1 and 3 viruses in the vaccine. This phenomenon has also been found to be a problem with the dengue vaccines currently being researched,[when?] where the DEN-3 serotype was found to predominate and suppress the response to DEN-1, -2 and -4 serotypes. Vaccines have contributed to the eradication of smallpox, one of the most contagious and deadly diseases known to man. Other diseases such as rubella, polio, measles, mumps, chickenpox, and typhoid are nowhere near as common as they were a hundred years ago. As long as the vast majority of people are vaccinated, it is much more difficult for an outbreak of disease to occur, let alone spread. This effect is called herd immunity. Polio, which is transmitted only between humans, is targeted by an extensive eradication campaign that has seen endemic polio restricted to only parts of four countries (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan). The difficulty of reaching all children as well as cultural misunderstandings, however, have caused the anticipated eradication date to be missed several times. In order to provide best protection, children are recommended to receive vaccinations as soon as their immune systems are sufficiently developed to respond to particular vaccines, with additional "booster" shots often required to achieve "full immunity". This has led to the development of complex vaccination schedules. In the United States, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends schedule additions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommends routine vaccination of children against: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, HiB, chickenpox, rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease and pneumonia. The large number of vaccines and boosters recommended (up to 24 injections by age two) has led to problems with achieving full compliance. In order to combat declining compliance rates, various notification systems have been instituted and a number of combination injections are now marketed (e.g., Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and MMRV vaccine), which provide protection against multiple diseases. Besides recommendations for infant vaccinations and boosters, many specific vaccines are recommended at other ages or for repeated injections throughout life—most commonly for measles, tetanus, influenza, and pneumonia. Pregnant women are often screened for continued resistance to rubella. The human papillomavirus vaccine is recommended in the U.S. (as of 2011) and UK (as of 2009). Vaccine recommendations for the elderly concentrate on pneumonia and influenza, which are more deadly to that group. In 2006, a vaccine was introduced against shingles, a disease caused by the chickenpox virus, which usually affects the elderly. Sometime during the 1770s Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid boast that she would never have the often-fatal or disfiguring disease smallpox, because she had already had cowpox, which has a very mild effect in humans. In 1796, Jenner took pus from the hand of a milkmaid with cowpox, inoculated an 8-year-old boy with it, and six weeks later variolated the boy's arm with smallpox, afterwards observing that the boy did not catch smallpox. Further experimentation demonstrated the efficacy of the procedure on an infant. Since vaccination with cowpox was much safer than smallpox inoculation, the latter, though still widely practiced in England, was banned in 1840. Louis Pasteur generalized Jenner's idea by developing what he called a rabies vaccine, and in the nineteenth century vaccines were considered a matter of national prestige, and compulsory vaccination laws were passed. The twentieth century saw the introduction of several successful vaccines, including those against diphtheria, measles, mumps, and rubella. Major achievements included the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s and the eradication of smallpox during the 1960s and 1970s. Maurice Hilleman was the most prolific of the developers of the vaccines in the twentieth century. As vaccines became more common, many people began taking them for granted. However, vaccines remain elusive for many important diseases, including malaria and HIV. ||The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (October 2011)| ||This article is missing information about Scientific rebuttal to the attacks. This concern has been noted on the talk page where whether or not to include such information may be discussed. (October 2011)| Opposition to vaccination, from a wide array of vaccine critics, has existed since the earliest vaccination campaigns. Although the benefits of preventing suffering and death from serious infectious diseases greatly outweigh the risks of rare adverse effects following immunization, disputes have arisen over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of vaccination. Some vaccination critics say that vaccines are ineffective against disease or that vaccine safety studies are inadequate. Some religious groups do not allow vaccination, and some political groups oppose mandatory vaccination on the grounds of individual liberty. In response, concern has been raised that spreading unfounded information about the medical risks of vaccines increases rates of life-threatening infections, not only in the children whose parents refused vaccinations, but also in other children, perhaps too young for vaccines, who could contract infections from unvaccinated carriers (see herd immunity). One challenge in vaccine development is economic: many of the diseases most demanding a vaccine, including HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, exist principally in poor countries. Pharmaceutical firms and biotechnology companies have little incentive to develop vaccines for these diseases, because there is little revenue potential. Even in more affluent countries, financial returns are usually minimal and the financial and other risks are great. Most vaccine development to date has relied on "push" funding by government, universities and non-profit organizations. Many vaccines have been highly cost effective and beneficial for public health. The number of vaccines actually administered has risen dramatically in recent decades.[when?] This increase, particularly in the number of different vaccines administered to children before entry into schools may be due to government mandates and support, rather than economic incentive. The filing of patents on vaccine development processes can also be viewed as an obstacle to the development of new vaccines. Because of the weak protection offered through a patent on the final product, the protection of the innovation regarding vaccines is often made through the patent of processes used on the development of new vaccines as well as the protection of secrecy. Vaccine production has several stages. First, the antigen itself is generated. Viruses are grown either on primary cells such as chicken eggs (e.g., for influenza), or on continuous cell lines such as cultured human cells (e.g., for hepatitis A). Bacteria are grown in bioreactors (e.g., Haemophilus influenzae type b). Alternatively, a recombinant protein derived from the viruses or bacteria can be generated in yeast, bacteria, or cell cultures. After the antigen is generated, it is isolated from the cells used to generate it. A virus may need to be inactivated, possibly with no further purification required. Recombinant proteins need many operations involving ultrafiltration and column chromatography. Finally, the vaccine is formulated by adding adjuvant, stabilizers, and preservatives as needed. The adjuvant enhances the immune response of the antigen, stabilizers increase the storage life, and preservatives allow the use of multidose vials. Combination vaccines are harder to develop and produce, because of potential incompatibilities and interactions among the antigens and other ingredients involved. Vaccine production techniques are evolving. Cultured mammalian cells are expected to become increasingly important, compared to conventional options such as chicken eggs, due to greater productivity and low incidence of problems with contamination. Recombination technology that produces genetically detoxified vaccine is expected to grow in popularity for the production of bacterial vaccines that use toxoids. Combination vaccines are expected to reduce the quantities of antigens they contain, and thereby decrease undesirable interactions, by using pathogen-associated molecular patterns. In 2010, India produced 60 percent of world's vaccine worth about $900 million. Many vaccines need preservatives to prevent serious adverse effects such as Staphylococcus infection that, in one 1928 incident, killed 12 of 21 children inoculated with a diphtheria vaccine that lacked a preservative. Several preservatives are available, including thiomersal, phenoxyethanol, and formaldehyde. Thiomersal is more effective against bacteria, has better shelf life, and improves vaccine stability, potency, and safety, but in the U.S., the European Union, and a few other affluent countries, it is no longer used as a preservative in childhood vaccines, as a precautionary measure due to its mercury content. Although controversial claims have been made that thiomersal contributes to autism, no convincing scientific evidence supports these claims. There are several new delivery systems in development[when?] that will hopefully make vaccines more efficient to deliver. Possible methods include liposomes and ISCOM (immune stimulating complex). The latest developments[when?] in vaccine delivery technologies have resulted in oral vaccines. A polio vaccine was developed and tested by volunteer vaccinations with no formal training; the results were positive in that the ease of the vaccines increased. With an oral vaccine, there is no risk of blood contamination. Oral vaccines are likely to be solid which have proven to be more stable and less likely to freeze; this stability reduces the need for a "cold chain": the resources required to keep vaccines within a restricted temperature range from the manufacturing stage to the point of administration, which, in turn, may decrease costs of vaccines. A microneedle approach, which is still in stages of development, uses "pointed projections fabricated into arrays that can create vaccine delivery pathways through the skin". A nanopatch is a needle free vaccine delivery system which is under development. A stamp-sized patch similar to an adhesive bandage contains about 20,000 microscopic projections per square inch. When worn on the skin, it will deliver vaccine directly to the skin, which has a higher concentration of immune cells than that in the muscles, where needles and syringes deliver. It thus increases the effectiveness of the vaccination using a lower amount of vaccine used in traditional syringe delivery system. The use of plasmids has been validated in preclinical studies as a protective vaccine strategy for cancer and infectious diseases. However, in human studies this approach has failed to provide clinically relevant benefit. The overall efficacy of plasmid DNA immunization depends on increasing the plasmid's immunogenicity while also correcting for factors involved in the specific activation of immune effector cells. Vaccinations of animals are used both to prevent their contracting diseases and to prevent transmission of disease to humans. Both animals kept as pets and animals raised as livestock are routinely vaccinated. In some instances, wild populations may be vaccinated. This is sometimes accomplished with vaccine-laced food spread in a disease-prone area and has been used to attempt to control rabies in raccoons. Where rabies occurs, rabies vaccination of dogs may be required by law. Other canine vaccines include canine distemper, canine parvovirus, infectious canine hepatitis, adenovirus-2, leptospirosis, bordatella, canine parainfluenza virus, and Lyme disease among others. Vaccine development has several trends: Principles that govern the immune response can now be used in tailor-made vaccines against many noninfectious human diseases, such as cancers and autoimmune disorders. For example, the experimental vaccine CYT006-AngQb has been investigated as a possible treatment for high blood pressure. Factors that have impact on the trends of vaccine development include progress in translatory medicine, demographics, regulatory science, political, cultural, and social responses. |Modern Vaccine and Adjuvant Production and Characterization, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News| The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters. We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.). We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. 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Wars have given us the Jeep, the computer and even the microwave. Will the war in Iraq give us the Tiger? Military scientists at Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground hope so. The machine - its full name is the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery - combines a chute, an engine, chemical tanks and other components, giving it the appearance of a lunar rover. It's designed to turn food and waste into fuel. If it works, it could save scores of American and Iraqi lives. Among the biggest threats that soldiers face in the war in Iraq are the roadside bombs that have killed or maimed thousands since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Because some military bases lack a landfill, transporting garbage to dumps miles away in the desert has become a potentially fatal routine for U.S. troops and military contractors. The Tiger would attempt to solve two problems at once: It would sharply reduce those trash hauls and provide the military with an alternative source of fuel. It is the latest in a long line of wartime innovations, from can openers to desert boots. The conflict in Iraq has produced innovations such as "warlocks," which jam electronic signals from cell phones, garage door openers and other electronic devices that insurgents use to detonate roadside bombs, according to Inventors Digest. "In wartime, you're not worried about making a profit necessarily. You're worried about getting the latest technology on the street," said Peter Kindsvatter, a military historian at Aberdeen Proving Ground, who added that money is spent more freely for research when a nation is at war. "Basically, you find yourself in a technology race with your enemy." The Tiger, now being tested in Baghdad, would not be the first device to turn garbage into energy - a large incinerator near Baltimore's downtown stadiums does it. But it would be among the first to attempt to do it on a small scale. Its creators say it could one day become widely used in civilian life, following the lead of other wartime innovations. During World War II, contractors developed the Jeep to meet the military's desire for a light, all-purpose vehicle that could transport supplies. The development of radar technology to spot Nazi planes led to the microwave, according to historians. The World War II era also gave birth to the first electronic digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC. Funded by the Defense Department, the machine was built to compute ballistics tables that soldiers used to mechanically aim large guns. For years it was located at Aberdeen Proving Ground. This decade, the Pentagon determined that garbage on military bases poses a serious logistical problem. "When you're over in a combat area and people are shooting at you, you still have to deal with your trash," said John Spiller, project officer with the Army's Rapid Equipping Force, which is funding the Tiger project. "How would you feel if somebody was shooting at you every other time you pushed it down the curb?" He and other Army officials said they could not recall any specific attacks against troops or contractors heading to dumpsites.For years, large incinerators have burned trash to generate power. Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Co., the waste-to-energy plant near the stadiums, consumes up to 2,250 tons of refuse a day while producing steam and electricity. The process is so expensive that it has only made sense to do it on a large scale, scientists say. The military has spent almost $3 million on two Tiger prototypes, each weighing nearly 5 tons and small enough to fit into a 20- to 40-foot wide container. The project is being developed by scientists from the Edgewood, Va.-based Defense Life Sciences LLC and Indiana's Purdue University. The biggest challenge was getting the parts to work together, said Donald Kennedy, an Edgewood spokesman. Because the Tiger is a hybrid consisting of a gasifier, bioreactor and generator, much of it is built with off-the-shelf items, including a grinder. Another big challenge: expectations. "When we would initially talk to people about the Tiger system, a large percentage would refuse to believe it could actually work," Kennedy wrote in an e-mail. "Alternatively, a similar percentage would be so intrigued by the idea that they would demand to know when they could buy one for their neighborhood." The Tiger works like this: A shredder rips up waste and soaks it in water. A bioreactor metabolizes the sludge into ethanol. A pelletizer compresses undigested waste into pellets that are fed into a gasification unit, which produces composite gas. The ethanol, composite gas and a 10-percent diesel drip are injected into a diesel generator to produce electricity, according to scientists. It takes about six hours for the Tiger to power up. When it works, the device can power a 60-kilowatt generator. The prototypes are being tested at Camp Victory in Baghdad Initial runs proved successful. The prototypes have been used to power an office trailer. At their peak, they could power two to three trailers. In recent weeks, the scientists suffered a setback: The above-100 degree temperatures caused a chiller device to overheat and shut off occasionally. A new chiller from Edgewood just arrived at the site, Kennedy said. After the 90-day testing phase that ends Aug. 10, the Army will decide whether to fund the project further. Its developers envision the device being used to respond to crises such as Hurricane Katrina, when there is no lack of garbage but a great need for electricity. Spiller, of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force, said he is optimistic. "The mere fact we wrote a check means we think it's got a high chance of success," Spiller said.

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Belgian physicist Francois Englert, left, speaks with British physicist… (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP/Getty…) For physicists, it was a moment like landing on the moon or the discovery of DNA. The focus was the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that exists for a mere fraction of a second. Long theorized but never glimpsed, the so-called God particle is thought to be key to understanding the existence of all mass in the universe. The revelation Wednesday that it -- or some version of it -- had almost certainly been detected amid more than hundreds of trillions of high-speed collisions in a 17-mile track near Geneva prompted a group of normally reserved scientists to erupt with joy. For The Record Los Angeles Times Friday, July 06, 2012 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 News Desk 1 inches; 48 words Type of Material: Correction Large Hadron Collider: In some copies of the July 5 edition, an article in Section A about the machine used by physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research to search for the Higgs boson referred to the $5-billion Large Hadron Collider. The correct amount is $10 billion. Peter Higgs, one of the scientists who first hypothesized the existence of the particle, reportedly shed tears as the data were presented in a jampacked and applause-heavy seminar at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. "It's a gigantic triumph for physics," said Frank Wilczek, an MIT physicist and Nobel laureate. "It's a tremendous demonstration of a community dedicated to understanding nature." The achievement, nearly 50 years in the making, confirms physicists' understanding of how mass -- the stuff that makes stars, planets and even people -- arose in the universe, they said. It also points the way toward a new path of scientific inquiry into the mass-generating mechanism that was never before possible, said UCLA physicist Robert Cousins, a member of one of the two research teams that has been chasing the Higgs boson at CERN. "I compare it to turning the corner and walking around a building -- there's a whole new set of things you can look at," he said. "It is a beginning, not an end." Leaders of the two teams reported independent results that suggested the existence of a previously unseen subatomic particle with a mass of about 125 to 126 billion electron volts. Both groups got results at a "five sigma" level of confidence -- the statistical requirement for declaring a scientific "discovery." "The chance that either of the two experiments had seen a fluke is less than three parts in 10 million," said UC San Diego physicist Vivek Sharma, a former leader of one of the Higgs research groups. "There is no doubt that we have found something." But he and others stopped just shy of saying that this new particle was indeed the long-sought Higgs boson. "All we can tell right now is that it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck," Sharma said. In this case, quacking was enough for most. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably at least a bird," said Wilczek, who stayed up past 3 a.m. to watch the seminar live over the Web while vacationing in New Hampshire. Certainly CERN leaders in Geneva, even as they referred to their discovery simply as "a new particle," didn't bother hiding their excitement. The original plan had been to present the latest results on the Higgs search at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, a big scientific meeting that began Wednesday in Melbourne. But as it dawned on CERN scientists that they were on the verge of "a big announcement," Cousins said, officials decided to honor tradition and instead present the results on CERN's turf. The small number of scientists who theorized the existence of the Higgs boson in the 1960s -- including Higgs of the University of Edinburgh -- were invited to fly to Geneva. For the non-VIP set, lines to get into the auditorium began forming late Tuesday. Many spent the night in sleeping bags. All the hubbub was due to the fact that the discovery of the Higgs boson is the last piece of the puzzle needed to complete the so-called Standard Model of particle physics -- the big picture that describes the subatomic particles that make up everything in the universe, and the forces that work between them. Over the course of the 20th century, as physicists learned more about the Standard Model, they struggled to answer one very basic question: Why does matter exist? Higgs and others came up with a possible explanation: that particles gain mass by traveling through an energy field. One way to think about it is that the field sticks to the particles, slowing them down and imparting mass. That energy field came to be known as the Higgs field. The particle associated with the field was dubbed the Higgs boson. Higgs published his theory in 1964. In the 48 years since, physicists have eagerly chased the Higgs boson. Finding it would provide the experimental confirmation they needed to show that their current understanding of the Standard Model was correct. On the other hand, ruling it out would mean a return to the drawing board to look for an alternative Higgs particle, or several alternative Higgs particles, or perhaps to rethink the Standard Model from the bottom up. Either outcome would be monumental, scientists said.

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Nursing a critically ill state back to health |Indranill Basu Ray highlights the core problems that afflict Bengal's health sector and suggests a few ways to improve the situation| Despite many technological and other achievements that have propelled India from being a developing nation to one of the top economies of the world, one field that India continues to lag behind in is health. This is why stories of babies dying in large numbers haunt newspaper headlines. India is behind Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in life expectancy at birth or under-five mortality level. India accounts for about 17 per cent of the world population, but it contribute to a fifth of the world's share of diseases. A third of all diarrhoeal diseases in the world occurs in India. The country has the second largest number of HIV/AIDS cases after South Africa. It is home to one-fifth of the world's population afflicted with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. A common excuse that I often hear is that we have limited resources to tackle the huge and burgeoning health problems. But even the richest country on earth, the United States of America, has failed to provide appropriate health services to a large section of the populace. The problem in India is quite different. Apart from being a poor nation with limited resources, it also has a sizeable population in need of basic health services. Furthermore, the lack of appropriate sanitary measures and education ensures an ever increasing presence of communicable disease that have been controlled and even eradicated in the developed nations. India's list of woes does not stop here. Lack of foresight on the part of successive governments and selective and fragmented strategies to counter daily problems without a definite public health goal have been the mainstay of India's health policies. Resource allocation to this sector is influenced by the prevailing fiscal situation as well as by the priorities of the reigning government. Unfortunately, in Bengal — a state that faces a dismal fiscal situation — the government's priorities have been skewed as a result of political necessities. Although we have a new government at the helm, it is important to realize that gross changes at the practical level cannot be initiated without having a team with experience and knowledge define a well-thought-out strategy. It is also essential to have a government that is willing to fulfil the financial needs necessary for the strategy to work. It is difficult, if not impossible, to paint a picture of the present state of public health in West Bengal and to suggest measures to rectify the same in a short article like this. My intention is to highlight the core problems plaguing the system and to suggest solutions based on accepted principles of public health and healthcare management. The steps that need to be taken are as follows: reducing disease burden, including infectious diseases as well as non-communicable epidemics like diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease; restructuring the existing primary healthcare system to make it more accountable; creating a skilled and professional workforce which is quality driven; financial planning to bring more investment to the health sector. Reducing disease burden is the cornerstone of any good health policy. The factors that help reduce communicable diseases are clean drinking water, improved sanitation and an effective vaccination programme. A paradigm shift, from the prevalent curative approach to a preventive approach, including health promotion by inculcating behavioural changes, is imperative to reduce disease burden. West Bengal is one of four states that urgently needs high investment in safe drinking water and toilet facilities. It is estimated that Rs 18,000 crore is required to provide effective drinking water and sanitation facilities for the entire country. Kerala, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Odisha would account for more than 60 per cent of the total outlay. Similarly, a huge investment is required to provide nutritional supplements to malnourished children and pregnant and lactating mothers living below the poverty line. According to a report by the national commission on macroeconomics and health, West Bengal would need to harness an additional resource requirement of rupees (in crore) 1,286, 2,459, 4,693, 13,811 and 8,485 in sectors such as health, water and sanitation, nutrition, primary schooling and roads. It has been projected that in the next five years West Bengal will spend a large portion of its revenues on wages and salaries, interest payments and pensions, leaving very little for discretionary expenditure in the field of health. It is imperative that the present government rethink and strategize in collaboration with the Centre to ensure the appropriate funding necessary to make the state healthy. Restructuring the present healthcare delivery system is also equally important. Most primary healthcare centres are old, dilapidated buildings with few or no facilities. Some do not even have basic resources like healthcare workers or pharmacists. What is required is a radical overhaul of the existing system. There are differences in health systems of different countries. A State-run health system, such as the one in Canada, suffers from delayed medical care. A privately-run health system like the one in the US provides only limited health services to its poor. India's healthcare should carve out the best of both systems. Private healthcare is thriving in India. It is uncontrolled and aimed at profit-making. Government-run hospitals are poorly managed, providing few or no facilities to those living below the poverty line. Different models have been suggested to take care of this disparity. While private investment will always be geared towards profit-making, it is mandatory to rein in these bodies under well-defined rules. Large private hospitals in the US are non-profit bodies, which have to follow stringent rules in patient care. At the other end of the spectrum is the National Health Service in Britain in which small, medium and even a few large hospitals are making way for a more competent and accountable government-controlled health system with fewer hospitals. Human resource management is very important in running an effective health system. One of the biggest lacunae of government health service is its poor human-resource management. Many physicians are not paid appropriate salaries or are posted in places that are not of their choice. Political intervention and favouritism play a big role in posting physicians. Consequently, dedicated physicians who want to serve the public or work in the academic setting found in government hospitals are forced to remain in private hospitals. To boost morale and efficacy, discipline needs to be instituted in the system and a transparent posting policy adopted. The doctor-population ratio needs to be improved by filling up vacancies in the West Bengal health service. It is important to free postings from the grip of bureaucrats to ensure the registration of quality candidates. Physicians failing to report to duty or indulging in indiscipline must be punished. Doctors who do sign up need to provide relevant and quality medical care. This can only be done if some form of recertification of doctors is made mandatory once every 10 years. Physicians' salaries in the state health service must be made on a par with those of the Central government to make sure that it remains a lucrative option. Senior physicians providing exemplary public service must be rewarded for the same. A commonly-held notion is that most physicians run after the lucrative salaries that are offered in private hospitals. Hence it is difficult to retain them in the government sector. This, however, is true of a minority. The majority of physicians are willing to work in a healthy, progressive and academic environment if there are appropriate non-financial incentives. Let us take the example of Christian Medical College, Vellore. Most of the faculty there are paid salaries that are much lower than those of the private sector. However, physicians are provided with other facilities such as good housing, free schools, free-to-highly-subsidized college education and, most importantly, a progressive and research oriented work environment. West Bengal lags behind many other states when it comes to medical education. There is an urgent need to increase the number of medical colleges in the state. Private investment for the same should be welcomed but appropriate laws must be instituted so that huge capitation fees are not charged for seats. Furthermore, selection should be made through competitive examinations. A certain percentage of seats can be reserved for the economically weaker sections. Students passing out of such medical colleges must be given postings in rural hospitals. This has been true on paper for many decades now, but the rule has been poorly implemented even in government-run medical colleges. Innovative schemes ought to be thought of to involve the cash-rich private sector to service the medical needs of the state. Private institutions using government money or land must be asked to provide free service to 20 per cent of their capacity. Appropriate punitive measures — such as temporarily withholding or cancelling licences — can be taken when a private institution fails to honour this commitment. Institutions willing to set up large hospitals, particularly around Calcutta, must be helped through the provision of low-cost land. But in return, promises to set up satellite hospitals in far-flung district headquarters have to be met. The biggest challenge to the rejuvenation of the healthcare system is the garnering of funds. West Bengal is financially broke, thanks to the misrule of the communists. Unlike most other communist rulers, our home-grown variants failed to provide basic sanitation, good roads, a working healthcare system and appropriate nutritional supplements to women and children. The lack of social services resulted in poor health and in increased mortality among the vulnerable sections of society. Government efforts to improve basic health services must fund programmes that provide sanitation, nutritional supplements, and daily meals for school-going children. Substantial investments in these sectors can reduce mortality in children. It is popular to blame doctors for not being able to save severely ill, malnourished children. But things won't change unless determined steps are taken to root out the problems, such as poor funds, minimal resources and an incompetent workforce, that affect the West Bengal health service. In the next five years, in collaboration with the Centre and the non-government organizations involved in public health, the state government must chalk out a definitive strategy to improve the supply of clean drinking water, provide better sanitation and one full meal to school-going children and arrange for nutritional supplements to pregnant women. Private investment should be wooed in the health sector to set up hospitals in large metropolitan areas as well as in small district towns. While government land is needed at an appropriate price to help investors build hospitals, steps must be taken to bring about the inclusion of the deprived sections in their service plans. Strong regulatory bodies that can monitor private hospitals and nursing homes must be instituted. Many of the profiteering health institutions do not provide basic facilities, lack trained nurses and paramedical staff, and some are even run by quacks without medical degrees. It is of utmost importance that a regulatory body conducts surprise checks on these institutions, registers complaints and takes remedial steps. Many NGOs have been able to set up large projects benefiting thousands of people. They have also succeeded in bringing foreign aid to tackle malaria and HIV. The state government should help these NGOs achieve their goals while exercising control to prevent financial irregularities. Their services ought to be applauded and single-window processing of applications instituted to help them tackle bureaucratic delays. Health is a service industry and not a lucrative business. Unfortunately, in Bengal, most large hospitals are owned by corporates. Only a few are owned or run by doctors. There is thus a sustained effort to make profit. Poor consumer protection makes the man on the street vulnerable to substandard service at high prices. These are trying times for Bengal, after years of mismanagement in the health sector. It is important for the present rulers to rectify the situation by laying down the stepping stones for a better tomorrow. Tuesday, November 22, 2011 Nursing a critically ill state back to health Indranill Basu Ray highlights the core problems that afflict Bengal’s health sector and suggests a few ways to improve the situation

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Public Papers - 1991 White House Fact Sheet on The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) Today, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. This treaty marks the first agreement between the two countries in which the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons will actually be reduced. Reductions will take place over a period of 7 years, and will result in parity between the strategic nuclear forces of the two sides at levels approximately 30 percent below currently deployed forces. Deeper cuts are required in the most dangerous and destabilizing systems. START provisions are designed to strengthen strategic stability at lower levels and to encourage the restructuring of strategic forces in ways that make them more stable and less threatening. The treaty includes a wide variety of very demanding verification measures designed to ensure compliance and build confidence. The treaty sets equal ceilings on the number of strategic nuclear forces that can be deployed by either side. In addition, the treaty establishes an equal ceiling on ballistic missile throw-weight (a measure of overall capability for ballistic missiles). Each side is limited to no more than: -- 1600 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBM's], submarine launched ballistic missiles [SLBM's], and heavy bombers), a limit that is 36 percent below the Soviet level declared in September 1990 and 29 percent below the U.S. level. -- 6000 total accountable warheads, about 41 percent below the current Soviet level and 43 percent below the current U.S. level. -- 4900 accountable warheads deployed on ICBM's or SLBM's, about 48 percent below the current Soviet level and 40 percent below the current U.S. level. -- 1540 accountable warheads deployed on 154 heavy ICBM's, a 50-percent reduction in current Soviet forces. The U.S. has no heavy ICBM's. -- 1100 accountable warheads deployed on mobile ICBM's. -- Aggregate throw-weight of deployed ICBM's and SLBM's equal to about 54 percent of the current Soviet aggregate throw-weight. Ballistic Missile Warhead Accountability The treaty uses detailed counting rules to ensure the accurate accounting of the number of warheads attributed to each type of ballistic missile. -- Each deployed ballistic missile warhead counts as 1 under the 4900 ceiling and 1 under the 6000 overall warhead ceiling. -- Each side is allowed 10 on-site inspections each year to verify that deployed ballistic missiles contain no more warheads than the number that is attributed to them under the treaty. Downloading Ballistic Missile Warheads The treaty also allows for a reduction in the number of warheads on certain ballistic missiles, which will help the sides transition their existing forces to the new regime. Such downloading is permitted in a carefully structured and limited fashion. -- The U.S. may download its three-warhead Minuteman III ICBM by either one or two warheads. The Soviet Union has already downloaded it's seven warhead SS - N - 18 SLBM by four warheads. -- In addition, each side may download up to 500 warheads on two other existing types of ballistic missiles, as long as the total number of warheads removed from downloaded missiles does not exceed 1250 at any one time. The treaty places constraints on the characteristics of new types of ballistic missiles to ensure the accuracy of counting rules and prevent undercounting of missile warheads. -- The number of warheads attributed to a new type of ballistic missile must be no less than the number determined by dividing 40 percent of the missile's total throw-weight by the weight of the lightest RV tested on that missile. -- The throw-weight attributed to a new type must be no less than the missile's throw-weight capability at specified reference ranges (11,000 km for ICBM's and 9,500 km for SLBM's). START places significant restrictions on the Soviet SS - 18 heavy ICBM. -- A 50-percent reduction in the number of Soviet SS - 18 ICBM's; a total reduction of 154 of these Soviet missiles. -- New types of heavy ICBM's are banned. -- Downloading of heavy ICBM's is banned. -- Heavy SLBM's and heavy mobile ICBM's are banned. -- Heavy ICBM's will be reduced on a more stringent schedule than other strategic arms. Because mobile missiles are more difficult to verify than other types of ballistic missiles, START incorporates a number of special restrictions and notifications with regard to these missiles. These measures will significantly improve our confidence that START will be effectively verifiable. -- Nondeployed mobile missiles and non-deployed mobile launchers are numerically and geographically limited so as to limit the possibility for reload and refire. -- The verification regime includes continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production, restrictions on movements, on-site inspections, and cooperative measures to improve the effectiveness of national technical means of intelligence collection. Because heavy bombers are stabilizing strategic systems (e.g., they are less capable of a short-warning attack than ballistic missiles), START counting rules for weapons on bombers are different than those for ballistic missile warheads. -- Each heavy bomber counts as one strategic nuclear delivery vehicle. -- Each heavy bomber equipped to carry only short-range missiles or gravity bombs is counted as one warhead under the 6000 limit. -- Each U.S. heavy bomber equipped to carry long-range nuclear ALCM's (up to a maximum of 150 bombers) is counted as 10 warheads even though it may be equipped to carry up to 20 ALCM's. -- A similar discount applies to Soviet heavy bombers equipped to carry long-range nuclear ALCM's. Each such Soviet heavy bomber (up to a maximum of 180) is counted as 8 warheads even though it may be equipped to carry up to 16 ALCM's. -- Any heavy bomber equipped for long-range nuclear ALCM's deployed in excess of 150 for the U.S. or 180 for the Soviet Union will be accountable by the number of ALCM's the heavy bomber is actually equipped to carry. Building on recent arms control agreements, START includes extensive and unprecedented verification provisions. This comprehensive verification regime greatly reduces the likelihood that violations would go undetected. -- START bans the encryption and encapsulation of telemetric information and other forms of information denial on flight tests of ballistic missiles. However, strictly limited exemptions to this ban are granted sufficient to protect the flight-testing of sensitive research projects. -- START allows 12 different types of on-site inspections and requires roughly 60 different types of notifications covering production, testing, movement, deployment, and destruction of strategic offensive arms. START will have a duration of 15 years, unless it is superseded by a subsequent agreement. If the sides agree, the treaty may be extended for successive 5-year periods beyond the 15 years. Noncircumvention and Third Countries START prohibits the transfer of strategic offensive arms to third countries, except that the treaty will not interfere with existing patterns of cooperation. In addition, the treaty prohibits the permanent basing of strategic offensive arms outside the national territory of each side. Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCM's) START does not directly count or limit ALCM's. ALCM's are limited indirectly through their association with heavy bombers. -- Only nuclear-armed ALCM's with a range in excess of 600 km are covered by START. -- Long-range, conventionally armed ALCM's that are distinguishable from nuclear-armed ALCM's are not affected. -- Long-range nuclear-armed ALCM's may not be located at air bases for heavy bombers not accountable as being equipped for such ALCM's. -- Multiple warhead long-range nuclear ALCM's are banned. Sea Launched Cruise Missiles (SLCM's) SLCMs are not constrained by the treaty. However, each side has made a politically binding declaration as to its plans for the deployment of nuclear-armed SLCM's. Conventionally-armed SLCM's are not subject to such a declaration. -- Each side will make an annual declaration of the maximum number of nuclear-armed SLCM's with a range greater than 600 km that it plans to deploy for each of the following 5 years. -- This number will not be greater than 880 long-range nuclear-armed SLCM's. -- In addition, as a confidence building measure, nuclear-armed SLCM's with a range of 300 - 600 km will be the subject of a confidential annual data exchange. The Soviet Backfire bomber is not constrained by the treaty. However, the Soviet side has made a politically binding declaration that it will not deploy more than 800 air force and 200 naval Backfire bombers, and that these bombers will not be given intercontinental capability. The START agreement consists of the treaty document itself and a number of associated documents. Together they total more than 700 pages. The treaty was signed in a public ceremony by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev in St. Vladimir's Hall in the Kremlin. The associated documents were signed in a private ceremony at Novo Ogaryevo, President Gorbachev's weekend dacha. Seven of these documents were signed by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev. Three associated agreements were signed by Secretary Baker and Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh. In addition, the START negotiators, Ambassadors Brooks and Nazarkin, exchanged seven letters related to START in a separate event at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Magnitude of START -- Accountable Reductions Following is the aggregate data from the Memorandum of Understanding, based upon agreed counting rules in START. (Because of those counting rules, the number of heavy bomber weapons actually deployed may be higher than the number shown in the aggregate.) This data is effective as of September 1990 (TABLE START)and will be updated at entry into force: Delivery Vehicles .... 2,246 .... 2,500 Warheads .... 10,563 .... 10,271 Ballistic Missile Warheads .... 8,210 .... 9,416 Heavy ICBM's/Warheads .... None .... 308/3080 Throw-weight (metric tons) .... 2,361.3 .... 6,626.3 As a result of the treaty, the above values will be reduced by the following percentages: Delivery Vehicles .... 29 percent .... 36 percent Warheads .... 43 percent .... 41 percent Ballistic Missile Warheads .... 40 percent .... 48 percent Heavy ICBM's/Warheads .... None .... 50 percent Throw-weight (metric tons) .... None .... 46 percent

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Instructors: Andrea Dykstra, Curt Van Dam, Kelli Ten Haken and Tami De Jong 1. Students will gain interest in the Unit on Alaska. 2. Students will be introduced to Alaska and the Iditarod race that takes place in Alaska every year. 3. Students will be able to appreciate the beauty of Godís creation in Alaska. 4. Students will be able to see Godís majesty and power in their personal experiences. In this lesson, the students will discuss what they know about Alaska. They will watch a movie and then discuss how God shows His power and majesty through creation. Next, they will be introduced to the Iditarod race by reading a story and then the teachers will explain the game the students will play about the Iditarod through the unit. At the end of class, students will have a chance to start work on their maps of Alaska and then the teachers will end in closing prayer. - Psalm 19:1- The Heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. - Other Scripture references that can be used through out the unit: The Creation story in Gen. 1 and 2 Alaska: Spirit of the Wild 2. DVD player 5. Learning center and trade books 6. Example of the Iditarod Game 7. Book: Iditarod Dream by Ted Wood 8. Overhead projector, overhead and pen 9. Construction paper 10. Markers, crayons, colored pencils 1. On the first day of this unit, teachers should enter the room dressed in parkas, snowshoes, scarves, mittens; anything that looks like what people in Alaska would wear. Motion for the student to sit down. Once they are quiet, ask them where they think the teachers are from and how they came to this conclusion. We would expect conclusions such as the Artic, Antarctica, and possibly Alaska. 2. Have students take out a sheet of paper and write five things down that come to their minds when they think of Alaska. Have them get into groups of three and share what they wrote with their group. The students will be encouraged to share the combined ideas from their group with the whole class. The teacher will write down these ideas on the overhead. 3. Explain to the students that they are going to be learning about all of these of these things and even more about Alaska in the upcoming unit. 4. Have each student write down one or two things about Alaska they would like to know more about. Suggest ideas such as: What sports do they play in Alaska? How many people live there? Is it really cold and snowy year round? Take these ideas into consideration when planning the rest of the unit. 1. Put in the DVD Alaska: Sprit of the Wild. Students will watch the movie. It is forty minutes long. Before they watch it, share with them the beauty that can be found in Alaska. Tell them to look specifically for how they can see God in the things that are shown on the film. 2. After the movie, discuss with the students what they thought of the movie. Ask them questions such as what surprised you about this film? What did you learn about Alaska that you didnít know before? What can we discover about God by watching this movie? How can we get to know God better by studying Alaska? 3. Read Psalm 19:1 aloud. Read it again, this time have the students say it after you. Ask them how this verse relates to Alaska. Hopefully they will make the connection that creation shouts Godís praise. Alaska is so beautiful; this reflects on Godís majesty, creativity and mercy. God loves us enough to give us beautiful creation simply so we can enjoy it. We can see his fingerprints in Alaska. 4. Read Psalm 8 aloud. Again, ask them how this verse relates to Alaska. They will probably have similar responses as above in step three. Share a personal experience of how he/ she has seen Godís power and majesty in His creation. - For example, this is my own experience; you could share something similar to it: One time I climbed the highpoint of Colorado with my dad. We started hiking before the sun was up. As we were walking along the ridge of the mountain, the sun began to rise; the colors were brilliant! We kept on hiking and hiking. I was getting tired and hungry but soon we came close to the top. As I climbed up the last little peak and the top of the mountain, I looked out and the view was breathtaking!!! I had never seen so many snow capped mountains before. Sitting up there on the mountaintop, I felt such a joy and peace. What a great God I serve! He created all of this; His creation alone is enough to tell of His majesty. 5. Ask the students if any of them have had an experience like this; encourage them to share if they would like. 6. Encourage them to find other verses that could relate to our study of Alaska and bring them to class tomorrow to share. 1. Introduce the Iditarod race the studentís will be learning about by reading the book Iditarod Dream by Ted Wood. As you are reading, stop periodically through out the book and ask them to jot down a few of their thoughts. At the end of the book ask them to share a few thoughts they wrote down about the book. 2. Introduce the game the students will be playing throughout the unit. Tell the students they will be having their own Iditarod race in the classroom. Each student will make a map of Alaska on construction paper. On this map, they will draw the trail of the Iditarod race. They will have to map out the different checkpoints of the race on their trails. It is their job to find out how many miles are between each checkpoint and how many miles they can travel in one day. 3. Each day the students will move their markers on their maps how ever many miles we decide as a class they can travel in one day. Every morning the students will receive a ďracerís fateĒ card. These cards will say various things such as, ďyour dog has broken a leg, move back twenty milesĒ, or ď you have found an extra bundle of food on the trail, move ahead twelve milesĒ. The students will have to keep track of where they are on the trail on their own maps and on a large map on the classroom bulletin board. 4. Each afternoon, students will have an opportunity to receive another card if they got their homework done on time that day. This card could be good or bad, but the students get to decide if they want to take it. 5. This activity will be incorporated into language arts. The students will be keeping a race journal. As they play this game they can write their feelings about the race in the journal as if they were an actual racer. 6. This game will also be incorporated into math. Students will need to do calculations to play the game correctly. They will also discover how to find median, mean and using the game. 1. The students will begin making their maps of Alaska for the Iditarod game. The outline of the map of Alaska will be projected on the overhead so the students have something to follow when they draw. Copies of the outline of this map will be available for students to trace if they do not want to draw the map freehand. 2. The students can use crayons or colored pencils to make their maps on. 3. The trail outline and check points will be labeled on the overhead map, but the students will need to research how many miles are in between each check point in a later class 1. Read Psalm 8 one more time and end in prayer, thanking God for His creativity that is evident in all of creation, especially as it has been seen in Alaska today. 1. Students can do more research about the real Iditarod race on the Internet. 2. Students can read one of the many books about Alaska set up in the learning center. 3. Students can complete any activity set up in the learning center, including: math story problems, language arts writing activities, and social studies and science 1. Observe how much students participate in the lesson. Have one teacher walk around with a checklist and put checks by the names of the students who are on task and participating by sharing, asking questions, diligently listening. 2. Observe how diligently students work on their maps. Check the next day to see if they have completed them. Give them a check if they are finished and are done Lesson Plans Unit Outline Home Page Trade Books Learning Center

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Is this bone a Neanderthal flute? Cave Bear femur fragment from Slovenia, 43+kya DOUBTS AIRED OVER NEANDERTHAL BONE 'FLUTE' (AND REPLY BY MUSICOLOGIST BOB FINK) Science News 153 (April 4, 1998): 215. By B. Bower Amid much media fanfare, a research team in 1996 trumpeted an ancient, hollowed out bear bone pierced on one side with four complete or partial holes as the earliest known musical instrument. The perforated bone, found in an Eastern European cave, represents a flute made and played by Neandertals at least 43,000 ye us ago, the scientists contended. Now it's time to stop the music, say two archaeologists who examined the purported flute last spring. On closer inspection, the bone appears to have been punctured and gnawed by the teeth of an animal -- perhaps a wolf -- as it stripped the limb of meat and marrow report, April Nowell and Philip G. Chase, both of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "The bone was heavily chewed by one or more carnivores, creating holes that became more rounded due to natural processes after burial," Nowell says. "It provides very weak evidence for the origins of [Stone Age] music." Nowell presented the new analysis at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in Seattle last week. Nowell and Chase examined the bone with the permission of its discoverer, Ivan Turk of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana (S.N.: 11/23/96, p. 328). Turk knows of their conclusion but still views the specimen as a flute. Both open ends of the thighbone contain clear signs of gnawing by carnivores, Nowell asserts. Wolves and other animals typically bite off nutrient-rich tissue at the ends of limb bones and extract available marrow. If Neandertals had hollowed out the bone and fashioned holes in it, animals would not have bothered to gnaw it, she says. Complete and partial holes on the bone's shaft were also made by carnivores, says Nowell. Carnivores typically break open bones with their scissor like cheek teeth. Uneven bone thickness and signs of wear along the borders of the holes, products of extended burial in the soil, indicate that openings made by cheek teeth were at first less rounded and slightly smaller, the researchers hold. Moreover, the simultaneous pressure of an upper and lower tooth produced a set of opposing holes, one partial and one complete, they maintain. Prehistoric, carnivore-chewed bear bones in two Spanish caves display circular punctures aligned in much the same way as those on the Slovenian find. In the March Antiquity, Francesco d'Errico of the Institute of Quaternary Prehistory and Geology in Talence, France, and his colleagues describe the Spanish bones. In a different twist, Bob Fink, an independent musicologist in Canada, has reported on the Internet (http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm) that the spacing of the two complete and two partial holes on the back of the Slovenian bone conforms to musical notes on the diatonic (do, re, mi. . .) scale. The bone is too short to incorporate the diatonic scale's seven notes, counter Nowell and Chase. Working with Pennsylvania musicologist Robert Judd, they estimate that the find's 5.7-inch length is less than half that needed to cover the diatonic spectrum. The recent meeting presentation is "a most convincing analysis," comments J. Desmond Clark of the University of California, Berkeley, although it's possible that Neandertals blew single notes through carnivore-chewed holes in the bone. "We can't exclude that possibility," Nowell responds. "But it's a big leap of faith to conclude that this was an intentionally constructed flute." TO THE EDITOR, SCIENCE NEWS (REPLY BY BOB FINK, May 1998) (See an update of this discussion on Bob Fink's web site, November 2000) The doubts raised by Nowell and Chase (April 4th, DOUBTS AIRED OVER NEANDERTHAL BONE 'FLUTE') saying the Neanderthal Bone is not a flute have these weaknesses: The alignment of the holes -- all in a row, and all of equivalent diameter, appear to be contrary to most teeth marks, unless some holes were made independently by several animals. The latter case boggles the odds for the holes ending up being in line. It also would be strange that animals homed in on this one bone in a cave full of bones, where no reports of similarly chewed bones have been made. This claim is harder to believe when it is calculated that chances for holes to be arranged, by chance, in a pattern that matches the spacings of 4 notes of a diatonic flute, are only one in hundreds to occur . The analysis I made on the Internet (http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm) regarding the bone being capable of matching 4 notes of the do, re, mi (diatonic) scale included the possibility that the bone was extended with another bone "mouthpiece" sufficiently long to make the notes sound fairly in tune. While Nowell says "it's a big leap of faith to conclude that this was an intentionally constructed flute," it's a bigger leap of faith to accept the immense coincidence that animals blindly created a hole-spacing pattern with holes all in line (in what clearly looks like so many other known bone flutes which are made to play notes in a step-wise scale) and blindly create a pattern that also could play a known acoustic scale if the bone was extended. That's too much coincidence for me to accept. It is more likely that it is an intentionally made flute, although admittedly with only the barest of clues regarding its original condition. The 5.7 inch figure your article quoted appears erroneous, as the centimeter scale provided by its discoverer, Ivan Turk, indicates the artifact is about 4.3 inches long. However, the unbroken femur would originally have been about 8.5 inches, and the possibility of an additional hole or two exists, to complete a full scale, perhaps aided by the possible thumbhole. However, the full diatonic spectrum is not required as indicated by Nowell and Chase: It could also have been a simpler (but still diatonic) 4 or 5 note scale. Such short-scale flutes are plentiful in homo sapiens history. Finally, a worn-out or broken flute bone can serve as a scoop for manipulation of food, explaining why animals might chew on its ends later. It is also well-known that dogs chase and maul even sticks, despite their non-nutritional nature. What appears "weak" is not the case for a flute, but the case against it by Nowell and Chase. Letter to the Editor: Antiquity Journal: "A Bone to Pick" By Bob Fink I have a bone to pick with Francesco d'Errico's viewpoint in the March issue of Antiquity (article too long to reproduce here) regarding the Neanderthal flute found in Slovenia by Ivan Turk. D'Errico argues the bone artifact is not a flute. D'Errico omits dealing with the best evidence that this bone find is a flute. Regarding the most important evidence, that of the holes being lined up, neither d'Errico nor Turk make mention of this. This line-up is remarkable especially if they were made by more than one carnivore, which apparently they'd have to be, based on Turk's analysis of the center-spans of the holes precluding their being made by a single carnivore or bite (Turk,* pp.171-175). To account for this possible difficulty, some doubters do mention "one or more" carnivores (Chase & Nowell, Science News 4/4/98). My arguments over the past year pointed out the mathematical odds of the lining up of the holes occurring by chance-chewing are too difficult to believe. The Appendix in my essay ("Neanderthal Flute --A Musicological Analysis") proves that the number of ways a set of 4 random holes could be differently spaced (to produce an audibly different set of tones) are 680 ways. The chances a random set would match the existing fragment's spacing [which also could produce a match to four diatonic notes of the scale] are therefore only one in hundreds. If, in calculating the odds, you also allowed the holes to be out of line, or to be less than 4 holes as well, then the chance of a line-up match is only one from many tens of thousands. And yet randomness and animal bites still are acceptable to account for holes being in line that could also play some notes of the scale? This is too much coincidence for me to believe occurred by chance. D'Errico mentions my essay in his article and what he thought it was about, but he overstates my case into being a less believable one. My case simply was that if the bone was long enough (or a shorter bone extended by a mouthpiece insert) then the 4 holes would be consistent and in tune with the sounds of Do, Re, Mi, Fa (or flat Mi, Fa, Sol, and flat La in a minor scale). In the 5 points I list below, extracted from Turk's monograph in support of this being a flute, d'Errico omits dealing with much of the first, and all of the second, fourth and sixth points. Turk & Co's monograph shows the presence on site of boring tools, and includes experiments made by Turk's colleague Guiliano Bastiani who successfully produced similar holes in fresh bone using tools of the type found at the site (pp. 176-78 Turk). They also wrote (pp. 171-75) that: 1. The center-to-center distances of the holes in the artifact are smaller than that of the tooth spans of most carnivores. The smallest tooth spans they found were 45mm, and the holes on the bone are 35mm (or less) apart; 2. Holes bitten are usually at the ends of bones rather than in the center of them; 3. There is an absence of dents, scratches and other signs of gnawing and counter-bites on the artifact; 4. The center-to-center distances do not correspond to the spans of carnivores which could pierce the bone; 5. The diameters of the holes are greater than that producible by a wolf exerting the greatest jaw pressure it had available -- it's doubtful that a wolf's jaws would be strong enough (like a hyena's) to have made the holes, especially in the thickest part of the wall of the artifact. 6. If you accept one or more carnivores, then why did they over-target one bone, when there were so many other bones in the cave site? Only about 4.5% of the juvenile bones were chewed or had holes, according to Turk (p. 117). * Turk, Ivan (ed.) (1997). Mousterian Bone Flute. Znanstvenoraziskovalni Center Sazu, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Maintained by Francis F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California Los Angeles

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Dictionary and translator for handheld New : sensagent is now available on your handheld A windows (pop-into) of information (full-content of Sensagent) triggered by double-clicking any word on your webpage. Give contextual explanation and translation from your sites ! With a SensagentBox, visitors to your site can access reliable information on over 5 million pages provided by Sensagent.com. Choose the design that fits your site. Improve your site content Add new content to your site from Sensagent by XML. Crawl products or adds Get XML access to reach the best products. Index images and define metadata Get XML access to fix the meaning of your metadata. Please, email us to describe your idea. Lettris is a curious tetris-clone game where all the bricks have the same square shape but different content. Each square carries a letter. To make squares disappear and save space for other squares you have to assemble English words (left, right, up, down) from the falling squares. Boggle gives you 3 minutes to find as many words (3 letters or more) as you can in a grid of 16 letters. You can also try the grid of 16 letters. Letters must be adjacent and longer words score better. See if you can get into the grid Hall of Fame ! Change the target language to find translations. Tips: browse the semantic fields (see From ideas to words) in two languages to learn more. 1.the language of educated people in ancient Rome"Latin is a language as dead as dead can be. It killed the ancient Romans--and now it's killing me" classical Latin (n.) Latin inscription in the Colosseum |Spoken in||Roman republic, Roman empire| |Region||mare nostrum (Mediterranean)| |Era||75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin| |Writing system||Latin alphabet| |Official language in||Roman republic, Roman empire| |Regulated by||Schools of grammar and rhetoric| The range of Latin, 60 AD Classical Latin in simplest terms is the socio-linguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it. Any unabridged Latin dictionary informs moderns that Marcus Tullius Cicero and his contemporaries of the late republic while using lingua Latina and sermo Latinus to mean the Latin language as opposed to the Greek or other languages, and sermo vulgaris or sermo vulgi to refer to the vernacular of the uneducated masses, regarded the speech they valued most and in which they wrote as Latinitas, "Latinity", with the implication of good. Sometimes it is called sermo familiaris, "speech of the good families", sermo urbanus, "speech of the city" or rarely sermo nobilis, "noble speech", but mainly besides Latinitas it was Latine (adverb), "in good Latin", or Latinius (comparative degree of adjective), "good Latin." Latinitas was spoken as well as written. Moreover, it was the language taught by the schools. Prescriptive rules therefore applied to it, and where a special subject was concerned, such as poetry or rhetoric, additional rules applied as well. Now that the spoken Latinitas has become extinct (in favor of various other registers later in date) the rules of the, for the most part, polished (politus) texts may give the appearance of an artificial language, but Latinitas was a form of sermo, or spoken language and as such retains a spontaneity. No authors are noted for the type of rigidity evidenced by stylized art, except possibly the repetitious abbreviations and stock phrases of inscriptions. Good Latin in philology is "classical" Latin literature. The term refers to the canonicity of works of literature written in Latin in the late Roman republic and the early to middle Roman empire: "that is to say, that of belonging to an exclusive group of authors (or works) that were considered to be emblematic of a certain genre." The term classicus (masculine plural classici) was devised by the Romans themselves to translate Greek ἐγκριθέντες (egkrithentes), "select", referring to authors who wrote in Greek that were considered model. Before then, classis, in addition to being a naval fleet, was a social class in one of the diachronic divisions of Roman society according to property ownership by the Roman constitution. The word is a transliteration of Greek κλῆσις (klēsis) "calling", used to rank army draftees by property from first to fifth class. Classicus is anything primae classis, "first class", such as the authors of the polished works of Latinitas, or sermo urbanus. It had nuances of the certified and the authentic: testis classicus, "reliable witness." It was in this sense that Marcus Cornelius Fronto (an African-Roman lawyer and language teacher) in the 2nd century AD used scriptores classici, "first-class" or "reliable authors" whose works could be relied upon as model of good Latin. This is the first known reference, possibly innovated at this time, to classical applied to authors by virtue of the authentic language of their works. In imitation of the Greek grammarians, the Roman ones, such as Quintilian, drew up lists termed indices or ordines on the model of the Greek lists, termed pinakes, considered classical: the recepti scriptores, "select writers." Aulus Gellius includes many authors, such as Plautus, who are currently considered writers of Old Latin and not strictly in the period of classical Latin. The classical Romans distinguished Old Latin as prisca Latinitas and not sermo vulgaris. Each author (and work) in the Roman lists was considered equivalent to one in the Greek; for example Ennius was the Latin Homer, the Aeneid was a new Iliad, and so on. The lists of classical authors were as far as the Roman grammarians went in developing a philology. The topic remained at that point while interest in the classici scriptores declined in the medieval period as the best Latin yielded to medieval Latin, somewhat less than the best by classical standards. The Renaissance brought a revival of interest in restoring as much of Roman culture as could be restored and with it the return of the concept of classic, "the best." Thomas Sebillet in 1548 (Art Poétique) referred to "les bons et classiques poètes françois", meaning Jean de Meun and Alain Chartier, which was the first modern application of the word. According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the term classical, from classicus, entered modern English in 1599, some 50 years after its re-introduction on the continent. Governor William Bradford in 1648 referred to synods of a separatist church as "classical meetings" in his Dialogue, a report of a meeting between New-England-born "young men" and "ancient men" from Holland and England. In 1715 Laurence Echard's Classical Geographical Dictionary was published. In 1736 Robert Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius turned English words and expressions into "proper and classical Latin." In 1768 David Ruhnken (Critical History of the Greek Orators) recast the mold of the view of the classical by applying the word canon to the pinakes of orators, after the Biblical canon or list of authentic books of the Bible. Ruhnken had a kind of secular catechism in mind. In 1870 Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel in Geschichte der Römischen Literatur (A History of Roman Literature) innovated the definitive philological classification of classical Latin based on the metaphoric uses of the ancient myth of the Ages of Man, a practice then universally current: a Golden Age and a Silver Age of classical Latin were to be presumed. The practice and Teuffel's classification, with modifications, are still in use. His work was translated into English as soon as published in German by Wilhelm Wagner, who corresponded with Teuffel. Wagner published the English translation in 1873. Teuffel divides the chronology of classical Latin authors into several periods according to political events, rather than by style. Regarding the style of the literary Latin of those periods he had but few comments. Teuffel was to go on with other editions of his history, but meanwhile it had come out in English almost as soon as it did in German and found immediate favorable reception. In 1877 Charles Thomas Cruttwell produced the first English work along the same lines. In his Preface he refers to "Teuffel's admirable history, without which many chapters in the present work could not have attained completeness" and also gives credit to Wagner. Cruttwell adopts the same periods with minor differences; however, where Teuffel's work is mainly historical, Cruttwell's work contains detailed analyses of style. Nevertheless like Teuffel he encounters the same problem of trying to summarize the voluminous detail in a way that captures in brief the gist of a few phases of writing styles. Like Teuffel, he has trouble finding a name for the first of the three periods (the current Old Latin phase), calling it mainly "from Livius to Sulla." The language, he says, is "…marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength…" These abstracts have little meaning to those not well-versed in Latin literature. In fact, Cruttwell admits "The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us." Some of Cruttwell's ideas have become stock in Latin philology for better or for worse. While praising the application of rules to classical Latin, most intensely in the Golden Age, he says "In gaining accuracy, however, classical Latin suffered a grievous loss. It became cultivated as distinct from a natural language… Spontaneity, therefore, became impossible and soon invention also ceased… In a certain sense, therefore, Latin was studied as a dead language, while it was still a living." These views are certainly debatable; one might ask how the upper classes of late 16th century Britain, who shared the Renaissance zealousness for the classics, managed to speak spontaneous Latin to each other officially and unofficially after being taught classical Latin by tutors hired for the purpose. Latinitas in the Golden Age was in fact sermo familiaris, the spoken Latin of the Roman upper classes, who sent their children to school to learn it. The debate continues. A second problem is the appropriateness of Teuffel's scheme to the concept of classical Latin, which Teuffel does not discuss. Cruttwell addresses the problem, however, altering the concept of the classical. As the best Latin is defined as golden Latin, the second of the three periods, the other two periods considered classical are left hanging. While on the one hand assigning to Old Latin the term pre-classical and by implication the term post-classical (or post-Augustan) to silver Latin Cruttwell realizes that this construct is not according to ancient usage and asserts "…the epithet classical is by many restricted to the authors who wrote in it [golden Latin]. It is best, however, not to narrow unnecessarily the sphere of classicity; to exclude Terence on the one hand or Tacitus and Pliny on the other, would savour of artificial restriction rather than that of a natural classification." (This from a scholar who had just been complaining that golden Latin was not a natural language.) The contradiction remains; Terence is and is not a classical author depending on context. After defining a "First Period" of inscriptional Latin and the literature of the earliest known authors and fragments, to which he assigns no definitive name (he does use the term "Old Roman" at one point), Teuffel presents "the second period", his major, "das goldene Zeitalter der römischen Literatur", the Golden Age of Roman Literature, dated 671 – 767 AUC or 83 BC – 14 AD according to his time reckoning, between the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and the death of the emperor Augustus. Of it Wagner translating Teuffel writes The golden age of the Roman literature is that period in which the climax was reached in the perfection of form, and in most respects also in the methodical treatment of the subject-matters. It may be subdivided between the generations, in the first of which (the Ciceronian Age) prose culminated, while poetry was principally developed in the Augustan Age. The Ciceronian Age was dated 671–711 AUC (83 BC – 43 BC), ending just after the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar, and the Augustan 711–67 AUC (43 BC – 14 AD), ending with the death of Augustus. The Ciceronian Age is further divided by the consulship of Cicero in 691 AUC or 63 BC into a first and second half. Authors are assigned to these periods by years of principal achievements. The Golden Age had already made an appearance in German philology but in a less systematic way. In Bielfeld's 1770 Elements of universal erudition the author says (in translation): "The Second Age of Latin began about the time of Caesar [his ages are different from Teuffel's], and ended with Tiberius. This is what is called the Augustan Age, which was perhaps of all others the most brilliant, a period at which it should seem as if the greatest men, and the immortal authors, had met together upon the earth, in order to write the Latin language in its utmost purity and perfection." and of Tacitus "…his conceits and sententious style is not that of the golden age…". Teuffel evidently received the ideas of a golden and silver Latin from an existing tradition and embedded them in a new system, transforming them as he thought best. In Cruttwell's introduction, the Golden Age is dated 80 BC – 14 AD ("from Cicero to Ovid"), which is about the same as Teuffel's. Of this "Second Period" Cruttwell says that it "represents the highest excellence in prose and poetry," paraphrasing Teuffel. The Ciceronian Age is now "the Republican Period" and is dated 80–42 BC through the Battle of Philippi. Later in the book Cruttwell omits Teuffel's first half of the Ciceronian and starts the Golden Age at Cicero's consulship of 63 BC, an error perpetuated into Cruttwell's second edition as well. He must mean 80 BC as he includes Varro in Golden Latin. Teuffel's Augustan Age is Cruttwell's Augustan Epoch, 42 BC – 14 AD. The literary histories list all authors canonical to the Ciceronian Age even though their works may be fragmentary or may not have survived at all. With the exception of a few major writers, such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius and Catullus, ancient accounts of Republican literature are glowing accounts of jurists and orators who wrote prolifically but who now can't be read because their works have been lost, or analyses of language and style that appear insightful but can't be verified because there are no surviving instances. In that sense the pages of literary history are peopled with shadows: Aquilius Gallus, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Lucius Licinius Lucullus and many others who left a reputation but no readable works; they are to be presumed in the Golden Age by their associations. A list of some canonical authors of the period, whose works have survived in whole or in part (typically in part, some only short fragments) is as follows: The Golden Age is divided by the assassination of Julius Caesar. In the wars that followed the Republican generation of literary men was lost, as most of them had taken the losing side; Marcus Tullius Cicero was beheaded in the street as he enquired from his litter what the disturbance was. They were replaced by a new generation that had grown up and been educated under the old and were now to make their mark under the watchful eye of the new emperor. As the demand for great orators was more or less over, the talent shifted emphasis to poetry. Other than the historian Livy, the most remarkable writers of the period were the poets Vergil, Horace, and Ovid. Although Augustus evidenced some toleration to republican sympathizers, he exiled Ovid, and imperial tolerance ended with the continuance of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. Augustan writers include: In his second volume, on the Imperial Period, Teuffel initiated a slight alteration in approach, making it clearer that his terms applied to the Latin and not just to the age, and also changing his dating scheme from years AUC to modern. Although he introduces das silberne Zeitalter der römischen Literatur, "the Silver Age of Roman Literature", 14–117 AD, from the death of Augustus to the death of Trajan, he also mentions regarding a section of a work by Seneca the Elder a wenig Einfluss der silbernen Latinität, a "slight influence of silver Latin." It is clear that he had shifted in thought from golden and silver ages to golden and silver Latin, and not just Latin, but Latinitas, which must at this point be interpreted as classical Latin. He may have been influenced in that regard by one of his sources, E. Opitz, who in 1852 had published a title specimen lexilogiae argenteae latinitatis, mentioning silver Latinity. Although Teuffel's First Period was equivalent to Old Latin and his Second Period was equal to the Golden Age, his Third Period, die römische Kaiserheit, encompasses both the Silver Age and the centuries now termed Late Latin, in which the forms seemed to break loose from their foundation and float freely; that is, literary men appeared uncertain as to what "good Latin" should mean. The last of the Classical Latin is the Silver Latin. The Silver Age is the first of the Imperial Period and is divided into die Zeit der julischen Dynastie, 14–68; die Zeit der flavischen Dynastie, 69–96; and die Zeit des Nerva und Trajan, 96–117. Subsequently Teuffel goes over to a century scheme: 2nd, 3rd, etc., through 6th. His later editions (which came out in the rest of the late 19th century) divide the Imperial Age into parts: the 1st century (Silver Age), the 2nd century: Hadrian and the Antonines and the 3rd through the 6th Centuries. Of the Silver Age proper, pointing out that anything like freedom of speech had vanished with Tiberius, Teuffel says …the continual apprehension in which men lived caused a restless versatility… Simple or natural composition was considered insipid; the aim of language was to be brilliant… Hence it was dressed up with abundant tinsel of epigrams, rhetorical figures and poetical terms… Mannerism supplanted style, and bombastic pathos took the place of quiet power. The content of new literary works was continually proscribed by the emperor (by executing or exiling the author), who also played the role of literary man (typically badly). The talent therefore went into a repertory of new and dazzling mannerisms, which Teuffel calls "utter unreality." Crutwell picks up this theme: The foremost of these [characteristics] is unreality, arising from the extinction of freedom… Hence arose a declamatory tone, which strove by frigid and almost hyterical exaggeration to make up for the healthy stimulus afforded by daily contact with affairs. The vein of artificial rhetoric, antithesis and epigram… owes its origin to this forced contentment with an uncongenial sphere. With the decay of freedom, taste sank… In Crutwell's view (which had not been expressed by Teuffel), Silver Latin was a "rank, weed-grown garden", a "decline." Cruttwell had already decried what he saw as a loss of spontaneity in Golden Latin. That Teuffel should regard the Silver Age as a loss of natural language and therefore of spontaneity, implying that the Golden Age had it, is passed without comment. Instead, Tiberius brought about a "sudden collapse of letters." The idea of a decline had been dominant in English society since Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Once again, Cruttwell evidences some unease with his stock pronouncements: "The Natural History of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest." The idea of Pliny as a model is not consistent with any sort of decline; moreover, Pliny did his best work under emperors at least as tolerant as Augustus had been. To include some of the best writings of the Silver Age, Cruttwell found he had to extend the period through the death of Marcus Aurelius, 180 AD. The philosophic prose of that good emperor was in no way compatible with either Teuffel's view of unnatural language or Cruttwell's depiction of a decline. Having created these constructs, the two philologists found they could not entirely justify them; apparently, in the worst implications of their views, there was no classical Latin by the ancient definition at all and some of the very best writing of any period in world history was a stilted and degenerate unnatural language. Writers of the Silver Age include the following. Of the additional century granted by Cruttwell and others of his point of view to Silver Latin but not by Teuffel the latter says "The second century was a happy period for the Roman State, the happiest indeed during the whole Empire… But in the world of letters the lassitude and enervation, which told of Rome's decline, became unmistakeable… its forte is in imitation." Teuffel, however, excepts the jurists; others find other "exceptions," recasting Teuffels's view. The style of language refers to repeatable features of speech that are somewhat less general than the fundamental characteristics of the language. The latter give it a unity allowing it to be referenced under a single name. Thus Old Latin, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, etc., are not considered different languages, but are all referenced under the name of Latin. This is an ancient practice continued by moderns rather than a philological innovation of recent times. That Latin had case endings is a fundamental feature of the language. Whether a given form of speech prefers to use prepositions such as ad, ex, de for "to", "from" and "of" rather than simple case endings is a matter of style. Latin has a large number of styles. Each and every author has a style, which typically allows his prose or poetry to be identified by experienced Latinists. The problem of comparative literature has been to group styles finding similarities by period, in which case one may speak of Old Latin, Silver Latin, Late Latin as styles or a phase of styles. The ancient authors themselves first defined style by recognizing different kinds of sermo, or "speech." In making the value judgement that classical Latin was "first class" and that it was better to write with Latinitas they were themselves selecting the literary and upper-class language of the city as a standard style and all sermo that differed from it was a different style; thus in rhetoric Cicero was able to define sublime, intermediate and low styles (within classical Latin) and St. Augustine to recommend the low style for sermons (from sermo). Style therefore is to be defined by differences in speech from a standard. Teuffel defined that standard as Golden Latin.

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Born in 1940, Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan ecologist and environmental activist who founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, causing the media to depict her as a latter-day Johnny Appleseed who has planted millions of trees in Africa. (The Green Belt Movement has been responsible for the planting of more than 10 million trees to prevent soil erosion and provide a source of firewood.) As a member of the Green Belt Movement, Maathai has led sub-Saharan African women in provoking sometimes-violent clashes with police. Though casting herself as a hero of the downtrodden, she has demonstrated against peasants’ economic interests. When Kenyan autocratic leader Daniel arap Moi wanted to revive the nation’s dead economy by building the world’s largest skyscraper in the capital, her riotous actions dried up investment. Later, she led a protest to prevent “small-scale farming” on African forestland and called farmers “invaders” who were guilty of “rape.” In 1992, she and the women in her Green Belt Movement foreshadowed contemporary Western antiwar demonstrators by staging a public strip-in. In 2004 she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in “human rights” and “reversing deforestation across Africa.” When Maathai was awarded her Nobel Prize, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid her a glowing tribute: Maathai is also an anti-white, anti-Western crusader for international socialism. She charges that “some sadistic [white] scientists” created the AIDS virus “to punish blacks” and, ultimately, “to wipe out the black race.” Maathai continues: “Renowned and admired throughout her native Kenya and across Africa for her pioneering struggle against deforestation and for women’s rights and democracy, Ms. Maathai has also played an important role at UN conferences such as the Earth Summit, making an imprint on the global quest for sustainable development.... Selfless and steadfast, Ms. Maathai has been a champion of the environment, of women, of Africa, and of anyone concerned about our future security.” “Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that, because we have been living with monkeys [since] time immemorial; others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.... Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet. It’s true that there are some people who create agents to wipe out other people.” “Why is the rest of the world just watching,” Maathai asks, “doing nothing while Africans are being wiped out? The rest of the world has abandoned us.” There is, of course, a very real genocide throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as Muslim Arabs murder indigenous black Christians and animists, 100,000 in Darfur alone. The repeated rape of young black boys by Arabs is now commonplace. These scenes first played out during the genocide in Rwanda, which began early in the Clinton administration, and have been seen all over the sub-continent for a decade. Maathai addressed this brutality at the World Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, where she blamed it on Western capitalists. She claims that Western governments laid the groundwork for present slaughter during the Cold War. “The carnage goes on in Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia and in the streets of many cities,” she says. “People of Africa continue to be sacrificed so that some factories may stay open, earn capital and save jobs.” Thus in Maathai’s view, Arab genocide is the fault of wealthy whites. Maathai has courted global socialism through her long association with the United Nations’ environmentalist agenda. She was a member of the Commission on Global Governance (CGG), founded in 1992 at the suggestion of former West German Chancellor and socialist Willy Brandt. Maathai worked on the CGG alongside Maurice Strong, Jimmy Carter, and Robert McNamara. The group’s manifesto, “Our Global Neighborhood,” calls for a dramatic reordering of the world’s political power – and redistribution of the world’s wealth. Most importantly, the CGG’s proposals would phase out America’s veto in the Security Council. At the same time, the CGG would increase UN authority over member nations, declaring, “All member-states of the UN that have not already done so should accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court.” It asks the UN to prevail upon member governments to enact proposals made by wide NGOs – such as the Green Belt Movement. “Our Global Neighborhood” also suggested creating a 10,000-man “UN Volunteer Force” to be deployed at the UN’s approval on infinite peacekeeping missions everywhere (except Iraq). Maathai currently acts as a commissioner for the Earth Charter, along with the aforementioned Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev and Steven Rockefeller. She is also on the Earth Charter’s Steering Committee. In addition to calling for sharing the “benefits of development . . . equitably,” the Earth Charter calls on international bodies to “Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations.” Another Charter provision would disarm the entire world and use the money previously allocated for national defense to restore the environment. Additionally, the Earth Charter worries about the “unprecedented rise in human population,” and demands “universal access to health care.” Maathai earned her biology degree from Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas and a Master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh. She later returned to Kenya and worked in veterinary medical research at the University of Nairobi, eventually earning a Ph.D. there and becoming head of the veterinary medicine faculty.

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Now he’s alerted me to a new study and related lecture on what he and his co-authors are calling “peak farmland” — an impending stabilization of the amount of land required for food as humanity’s growth spurt plays out. While laying out several important wild cards (expanded farming of biofuels among them), Ausubel and his co-authors see a reasonable prospect for conserving, and restoring, forests and other stressed terrestrial ecosystems even as humanity exerts an ever greater influence on the planet. The study, “Peak Farmland and the Prospects for Sparing Nature,” is by Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick and Paul E. Waggoner and will be published next year as part of a special supplement to the journal Population and Development Review, published by the Population Council. Drawing on a host of data sets, the authors conclude that a combination of slowing population growth, moderated demand for land-intensive food (meat, for instance) and more efficient farming methods have resulted in a substantial “decoupling” of acreage and human appetites. Here’s the optimistic opener: Expecting that more and richer people will demand more from the land, cultivating wider fields, logging more forests, and pressing nature, comes naturally. The past half-century of disciplined and dematerializing demand and more intense and efficient land use encourage a rational hope that humanity’s pressure will not overwhelm nature. Ausubel will describe the findings in a talk during a daylong symposium at his university on Tuesday honoring Paul Demeny, who at age 80 is stepping down as editor of the journal. Ausubel’s prepared remarks are online. In his talk, he explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have: [T]he main actors are parents changing population, workers changing affluence, consumers changing the diet (more or less calories, more or less meat) and also the portion of crops entering the food supply (corn can fuel people or cars), and farmers changing the crop production per hectare of cropland (yield). The new paper builds on a long string of studies by Ausubel and the others, including the 2001 paper “How Much Will Feeding More and Wealthier People Encroach on Forests?.” Also relevant is “Restoring the Forests,” a 2000 article in Foreign Affairs co-written by Ausubel and David G. Victor (now at the University of California, San Diego) This body of analysis is closely related to the core focus of this blog: finding ways to fit infinite human aspirations (and appetites) on a finite planet. The work presents a compelling case for concentrating agriculture through whatever hybrid mix of means — technological or traditional — that best fits particular situations, but also fostering moderation in consumption. Here’s an excerpt from the paper’s conclusion, which notes the many wild cards that make the peak farmland scenario still only a plausible, and hardly inevitable, future: [W]ild cards remain part of the game, both for and against land sparing. As discussed, the wild card of biofuels confounded expectations for the past 15 years. Most wild cards probably will continue to come from consumers. Will people choose to eat much more meat? If so, will it be beef, which requires more land than poultry and fish, which require less? Will people become vegetarian or even vegan? But if they become vegan, will they also choose clothing made from linen, hemp, and cotton, which require hectares? Will the average human continue to grow taller and thus require more calories? Will norms of beauty accept obesity and thus high average calories per capita? Will a global population with a median age of 40 eat less than one with a median age of 28? Will radical innovations in food production move humanity closer to landless agriculture (Ausubel 2010)? Will hunger or international investment encourage cropland expansion in Africa and South America? (Cropland may, of course, shrink in some countries while expanding in others as the global sum declines.) And will time moderate the disparities cloaked within global averages, in particular disparities of hunger and excess among regions and individuals? Allowing for wild cards, we believe that projecting conservative values for population, affluence, consumers, and technology shows humanity peaking in the use of farmland. Over the next 50 years, the prospect is that humanity is likely to release at least 146 mHa [146 million hectares, or 563,710 square miles], one and a half times the size of Egypt, two and a half times that of France, or ten Iowas, and possibly multiples of this amount. Notwithstanding the biofuels case, the trends of the past 15 years largely resemble those for the past 50 and 150. We see no evidence of exhaustion of the factors that allow the peaking of cropland and the subsequent restoration of nature. In an e-mail exchange today, I asked Ausubel about another issue touched on in the paper: Looking around the planet, it’s clear from a biodiversity standpoint that all forests — or farming pressures — are not equal. For instance, in Southeast Asia, palm oil and orangutans are having a particularly hard time co-existing. So while the overall trend is great, do you see the need for maintaining a focus on particular “hot spots,” to use a term familiar in environmental circles? So far, I don’t see lots of evidence that conservation campaigners (you are one on ocean resources) have found a way to accept this kind of good news and/or incorporate it in their prescriptions for sustaining a rich and variegated biological sheath on Earth. If you agree, any idea why? Indonesia is the number one place where letting the underlying trend work will not work fast enough. The list of threatened regions is quite well identified: parts of the central African forest, parts of the Amazon. Some conservation groups have realized that the slow growth in demand for calories as well as pulp and paper are creating big chances to reserve or protect more land. In the right places, where crops are no longer profitable, some amounts of money can acquire large amounts of land for nature. Conservation groups also ought to attend more to the ecological disaster called biofuels. I encourage you to dig in on this paper and related work, which provides a useful guide for softening the human impact on a crowding planet. There’ll be plenty of losses, and surprises, but there are real prospects for sustaining a thriving, and peopled, orb. 6:57 p.m. | Addendum | For relevant work with somewhat different conclusions review the presentations from “Intensifying agriculture within planetary boundaries,” a session at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London last March. I’ll be adding links to other relevant analysis here.

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Volume 4 Number 2 ©The Author(s) 2002 The Continuity Framework: A Tool for Building Home, School, and Community Partnerships AbstractWe will need to become savvy about how to build relationships, how to nurture growing, evolving things. All of us will need better skills in listening, communicating, and facilitating groups, because these are the talents that build strong relationships. (Wheatley, 1992, p. 38) In the face of today's challenging social and family issues, many new efforts are underway to help children and families. One solution that many communities have adopted is the establishment of a collaborative partnership that involves all the relevant partners—home, school, and community—in the planning and monitoring of services for children. Unfortunately, achieving a strong partnership with meaningful participation can often be difficult and time-consuming. This article focuses on a set of training materials that has been developed to assist community partnerships in their efforts. These materials highlight eight elements of continuity and successful partnerships: (1) families as partners, (2) shared leadership, (3) comprehensive/responsive services, (4) culture and home language, (5) communication, (6) knowledge and skill development, (7) appropriate care and education, and (8) evaluation of partnership success. Results from a field study that included more than 200 reviewers and 8 pilot sites are summarized. Results indicate that a majority of reviewers found the training materials easy to understand, relevant to their work, and up-to-date. In addition, data gathered from the pilot sites indicate that the partnerships found the materials practical and useful for addressing a variety of issues, including time constraints, communication gaps, differences in professional training, and funding limitations. Communities face a host of problems that threaten the health and well-being of their children and families. Poverty, unemployment, inadequate care/education, and poor health care are just a few of the difficult issues that communities must confront. What makes these issues particularly challenging is that children and families who experience one problem are often likely to experience other problems as well. Compounding the problem is that delivery of services to help children and families is typically fragmented and scattered. Even efforts designed to increase the quality and supply of services to children and families have, at times, created greater fragmentation and discontinuity. In previous years, those who sought to improve outcomes for children concentrated only on the child. Today, however, many service providers have come to understand that the best way to serve and preserve children is to serve and preserve the supportive networks that benefit children (Family Support America, 1996). An extensive body of research identifies the elements that contribute to children's well-being, beginning with those closest to the child and moving outward to encompass the family, early care/education, the neighborhood, the community, and beyond. This ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) has motivated a growing number of communities to focus more closely on the need for collaboration--engaging in a process that allows the community to address many problems at once rather than one at a time. One solution that many communities have adopted is the establishment of a collaborative partnership involving all the relevant partners--home, school, and service providers--in the planning and monitoring of services for children (Kagan, 1992; Hoffman, 1991). The goal of most of these collaboration initiatives is to improve child outcomes, recognizing that many of the child's needs are closely linked to needs of the family and the community. Challenges to Collaboration Community collaboratives/partnerships represent one of the most challenging--yet one of the most effective--efforts for creating a flexible, comprehensive system that meets the needs of children and families. They involve new relationships among service providers and the children and families they serve. They require time, resources, and the willingness of collaborating agencies to learn about and establish trust with each other. In short, they require change (Bruner, Kunesh, & Knuth, 1992). As a result of the new roles and responsibilities that service providers must assume, collaboratives/partnerships encounter many common difficulties, including (Melaville, Blank, & Asayesh, 1996): - staff or agency representatives who are resistant to relinquishing power; - policies and regulations within individual agencies that make it difficult to coordinate services, information, and resources; - differences in prior knowledge, training, or experience that make it difficult for members to communicate and work together; and - lack of time to meet and plan together. Many factors contribute to the success or failure of a community collaborative, and no two collaboratives operate in exactly the same way. However, certain guidelines seem to help smooth the way for a more successful partnership, including (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1993): - involve all key stakeholders; - establish a shared vision of how the partnership will operate and expected outcomes for the children and families served; - build in ownership at all levels; - establish communication and decision-making processes that are open and allow conflict to be addressed constructively; - institutionalize changes through established policies, procedures, and program mandates; - provide adequate time for partners to meet, plan, and carry out activities. The process of establishing and maintaining a collaborative partnership is not easy, and in the end, each partnership must find a way to proceed that is consistent with its community and unique set of circumstances. However, a number of resources and tools are available to help communities get started creating an effective system for delivering services. In this article, we describe one such tool that assembles elements essential to building a successful collaborative partnership. Development of Continuity Framework Materials For the past eight years, the 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) serving each region of the country have studied effective strategies for strengthening collaboration and increasing continuity among programs for young children and their families. The RELs are overseen by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement [now the Institute of Education Sciences], and their primary purpose is ensuring that those involved in educational improvement have access to the best information from research and practice. During the contract period of 1995-2000, the RELs established a program called the Laboratory Network Program (LNP), which convened representatives from each Laboratory as a national network working on common issues. In 1995, the Early Childhood LNP developed Continuity in Early Childhood: A Framework for Home, School, and Community Linkages (U.S. Department of Education, 1995), a document designed with two key purposes in mind: first, an emphasis on the need for children and families to receive comprehensive and responsive services, reflected in the eight elements of continuity outlined in the Framework (see Figure 1). Taken together, the elements are intended to promote a comprehensive understanding of continuity and transition during early childhood. Second, the Framework offered a set of guidelines that partnerships could use to compare and assess their current policies and practices, as well as identify areas in need of improvement. Figure 1. Elements of Continuity (U.S.Department of Education, 1995) An extensive field review of the Framework indicated that although the document was helpful and informative, many community partnerships continued to have difficulty "getting started." As a result, a Trainer's Guide was developed to support the use of the Framework and assist community partnerships in the first stages. These materials were developed by the Early Childhood LNP in collaboration with the National Center for Early Development & Learning. The Trainer's Guide provides an overview of the content and potential uses of the Framework and includes all activities and materials necessary to conduct training sessions. The Guide itself consists of four training sessions that are organized around the eight elements of continuity. The materials are designed so that a local partnership has everything needed to conduct the training: background information, scripts, handouts, transparencies, sample agendas, and checklists for additional equipment and supplies: - The first session, Understanding Continuity, is designed to introduce participants to the Framework document and help participants develop a greater understanding and appreciation for continuity. - The second session, Developing a Continuity Team, highlights the importance of broad representation and shared leadership among partnership members. - The third session, Planning for Continuity, emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to service delivery and encourages participants to examine their current partnership practices and policies. - The final session, Formalizing Continuity, focuses on the importance of effective communication among group members and provides participants with an opportunity to formulate action plans. The Guide is designed to be a flexible training tool, adaptable to meet the needs of a particular audience. The intended audience includes local partnerships for children and families (including Smart Start partnerships in North Carolina), Head Start Program representatives, public schools, and communities. The overall objectives of the training are (1) to enhance the collaborative's knowledge and understanding of continuity, (2) to strengthen and support collaborative groups in their efforts to work as partners, and (3) to maximize the benefit they might receive from using the Framework. What follows is a description of the field test that was designed to assess the use and effectiveness of the Trainer's Guide. The field test focused exclusively on the Framework materials--no other instructional sources were employed. We will present the major findings of the field test and summarize recommendations based on those findings. In addition, we will highlight the work of several collaborative partnerships that took part in the field study, and we will describe some of the problems they encountered, how they used the Framework materials to address those problems, and where they are today. Specifically, the evaluation will explore: - To what extent is the information contained in the Framework and Trainer's Guide relevant and useful to community partnerships? - What is the perceived impact of the training and Framework on partnership activities? - How do partnerships incorporate elements of the Framework into their ongoing activities? - Of the review sites that indicated interest in the training materials, what proportion actually conducted the training? The overall usefulness and effectiveness of the Trainer's Guide was studied in two phases. Phase One consisted of document review and feedback from individuals working in the early childhood field. In Phase Two of field testing, the training was actually piloted in eight partnership sites. Phase One: Document Review Reviewers for the Trainer's Guide were solicited through the Laboratory Network Program (LNP) and at conferences related to early childhood issues. Three hundred thirteen individuals/organizations requested a set of the Framework materials (participant manual, Trainer's Guide, and a sample color transparency) and feedback form. Feedback questions centered on four areas: (1) information's relevancy and accuracy, (2) format and organization of the Trainer's Guide, (3) specific training needs, and (4) possible barriers to conducting training. Of the 313 requesting materials, 215 (68.7%) reviewers returned feedback forms. Twenty-one percent (N = 45) of the respondents were members of a Smart Start partnership (North Carolina initiative), 19% (N = 40) worked in Head Start agencies, and 11% (N = 24) worked in family resource centers. Others included representatives from state agencies, school personnel, and university faculty. A majority (89%) of the respondents indicated that they are actively involved in a community partnership. Final Follow-up with Select Reviewer Sites. Of the original 215 organizations/individuals who reviewed the Framework materials, 80 indicated an interest in conducting the training in its entirety and requested a complete set of transparencies. (The original materials included one sample color transparency, and the REL offered a complete set of Framework transparencies to all organizations making the request.) Approximately one year after receiving the materials, interviews were conducted with representatives who received transparencies. The purpose of these follow-up telephone calls was to determine if the materials had been used and the degree to which outside support or assistance might be needed to conduct the training. Phase Two: Pilot Training During the second phase of the field testing, the training was piloted in eight collaborative partnerships from across the nation (see Table 1). These sites were recruited through the LNP and selected based on their interest in the project. To assist with logistical details, a liaison, identified at each site, coordinated training dates and assisted with data collection. Sites varied according to demographics, partnership maturity, and sponsoring or lead agency. |Site Location||Community Type||Sponsor/Lead Agency| |Beaufort, SC||Rural||Success by 6| |Dothan, AL||Urban||Family Resource Center| |Walnut Cove, NC||Rural||Smart Start| |Valdosta, GA||Rural||Family Connections/County Commission| |Wheeling, WV||Rural||Head Start| |Troy, NC||Rural||Smart Start| |Concord, WV||Rural||Family Resource Center| Five of the partnerships described themselves as existing collaboratives (two years or more), while the remaining three indicated that they were in the planning stages of building a collaborative partnership. Sponsors of the partnerships included Smart Start (2); Head Start, family resource centers (2); Success by 6; a public school system; and a county task force. Across the eight sites, a total of 160 individuals participated in the training. Approximately 64% of the attendees were White, 27% were African American, and the remainder were either Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, or multiracial. Several of the partnerships invited persons who were not part of the collaborative partnership to attend the training. As a result, slightly more than half (54%) of the participants reported that they were current members of the partnership. The majority of these had been members less than one year (53%). Early childhood specialists represented the largest group attending the training (29%), followed by program administrators (18%), teachers/caregivers (14%), and parents (10%). Other groups represented included policy makers, members of the business community, and university faculty. Each of the sites conducted the entire training course in the fall; however, there was some variability in delivery of training. For example, some partnerships conducted the training as described in the Trainer's Guide--two complete, consecutive days of training. Other partnerships modified the training schedule to meet the needs of its members and used other formats such as one day of training followed two weeks later by a second day of training. At the conclusion of training, participants were asked to provide feedback on specific elements of the training, including organization, training content, and materials/resources. In addition, participants were asked to comment on their satisfaction with the training and the overall usefulness of the training materials. This information, along with information gathered from the review sites, was used to revise the Trainer's Guide. In the six months following the training, partnership activities were studied to determine the degree to which the collaboratives incorporated content from the Framework into their regular activities. Materials studied included a record of stakeholder attendance and meeting minutes documenting partnership activities. At the end of this period, a follow-up survey was sent to participants at each pilot site. Survey questions focused on three major areas: (1) impact of the training, (2) impact of the Framework materials, and (3) overall familiarity with Framework materials. In addition to the final survey with individuals who participated in the training, a final interview was conducted with seven site liaisons (one liaison was unavailable for interview). Interview questions focused on the original goal of the partnership, reasons for participating in the field study, and impact of the training and Framework materials. The data were analyzed to determine general response patterns and to identify logical changes or improvements to the Trainer's Guide. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to analyze data from the review sites and the pilot sites. Phase One: Document Review Analyses of data from reviewer sites were conducted on 215 surveys. Table 2 summarizes Trainer's Guide as easy to understand, relevant to their work, accurate, and up-to-date. |Survey Statement||Agreed or Strongly Agreed with Statement| |Information is accurate and up to date.||94.9% (4.54)| |Format is easy to understand and follow.||93.9% (4.49)| |Training materials were easy to understand and follow.||92.5% (4.46)| |Information is relevant to my work.||89.3% (4.41)| |I would be comfortable using the materials.||83.3% (4.29)| |*Note: According to the scale, 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Mean scores are presented in parentheses.| A series of open-ended questions provided respondents with an opportunity to provide more specific information and feedback. When asked what parts of the training were most useful, of those who responded, approximately 30% reported that the materials were the most useful part of the training. Reviewers specifically mentioned handouts, transparencies, and checklists. Another 22% reported that the information focusing on the need to include families and share leadership responsibilities was most useful. Reviewers also were asked to identify the greatest training need within their partnerships. Of those who responded, more than one-third (34%) reported that they often need assistance identifying and including community stakeholders. Reviewers cited family members and members of the business community as groups that often are poorly represented at partnership meetings. Other topics representing challenges to partnerships included developing the team, sharing leadership responsibilities, and involving families in meaningful ways. In terms of barriers or factors that would influence the use of training, most of the respondents (75%) cited time as the greatest barrier to conducting training. This factor was followed by a lack of funding (68%), the unavailability of a trainer (45%), and lack of interest of collaborative partners (39%). Final Follow-up with Select Reviewer Sites. Of the 80 individuals/organizations who requested a complete set of transparencies, 68 were located for follow-up interviews (85%). For the remaining 12, attempts to contact the site were unsuccessful; either the person requesting the transparencies was no longer there, or the materials were never received. Interviews revealed that 23 of the respondents had conducted training using the Framework and accompanying materials. Of those who stated that they had conducted the training, only two (less than 10%) had used the training in its entirety. Most had conducted at least one part of the training, selecting the portions most useful for their work. "Families as Partners," "Shared Leadership," and "Comprehensive and Responsive Services" were the elements from the Framework most often used for training. An additional 17% said that although they had not conducted the training as designed, they had adapted the materials or used them in other circumstances. Examples of how they had adapted the materials included using the exercises, overheads, major concepts, and other information in training activities. Head Start agencies were the primary sponsors for half of the training events. Public schools, area education associations, state departments of education, local partnerships, child development centers, and related-type centers were listed as sponsors or lead agencies for the remaining training activities. Training participants included staff and administrators at Head Start agencies, preschool and child care providers, local education agencies, schools, school improvement teams, state departments of education staff, local family service agencies and boards of directors, and parents. All who said they had used the training materials were asked to comment on the usefulness of the training. The majority of respondents rated the training as "very useful" or "useful," and all said they would recommend the training to others. Particular aspects of the training that respondents liked included: - professional quality, clarity of materials, and sequencing of content of the Framework; - handouts, activities, and overheads; - content and the ability to present the material at multiple skill levels; and - ease of use of the Framework. There were suggestions for improving the training. Four respondents said the course was "too long," especially if used in school systems or with parents. Others maintained a need for greater emphasis on action planning and implementation, "more written support materials (research, position support, background), and additional copies of key pieces of materials that helped shape the Framework." Phase Two: Pilot Training In terms of the training quality and overall effectiveness, most of the participants rated the training sessions as either "good" or "excellent." Participants tended to rate the second day of training as higher in quality and more effective than the first day of training (M = 4.392 and M = 4.17, respectively, based on a 5-point scale). Participants also evaluated the effects of the training and estimated its impact on future partnership practices. Using a four-point Likert-type scale, participants rated the extent to which they agreed with each statement. Table 3 summarizes participants' appraisal of the training and reinforces the focus of the original training objectives. Objective 1: To enhance the collaborative's knowledge and understanding of continuity |As a result of the training, I believe that I am motivated to build and strengthen continuity efforts in my community.||3.44||.65| |As a result of the training, I believe that I have a better understanding of continuity and why it is important.||3.41||.65| |I believe that this training will have an impact on increasing awareness of new skills and knowledge for our team.||3.31||63| Objective 2: To strengthen and support collaborative groups in their efforts to works as partners |As a result of the training, I believe that I am better able to participate as a member of a home, school, and community partnership.||3.40||.65| |I believe that this training will have an impact on how decisions are made and the planning we do for services.||3.25||.59| |I believe that this training will have an impact on changing/enhancing the quality of community practices.||3.23||.58| Objective 3: To maximize the benefit the collaborative might receive from using the Framework |As a result of the training, I believe that I am better able to use the Framework as a tool for exploring continuity and transition||3.26||.63| |I believe that this training will have an impact on positively affecting outcomes for children and families.||3.31||.63| |*Note: According to the scale, 1 = strongly disagree and 4 = strongly agree.| In addition to participant ratings immediately following the training, data were collected on regular partnership activities after the training. Analysis of materials such as meeting minutes revealed that during the six months following completion of the training, five of the eight sites reported that they continued to use the Framework materials. Exactly how the materials were used varied from site to site. Two of the sites selected specific elements of the Framework as their priority concerns for the coming year. They then organized subcommittees to review the partnerships' practices with respect to those elements and make recommendations for improving existing services. Another partnership used the materials to provide training to other agencies and organizations not directly involved with the partnership. The remaining two partnerships used the Framework as a resource for improving transition practices with their communities. At the end of the six months, a final survey was distributed to participants at the last partnership meeting of the year, and surveys were mailed to those not in attendance at the final meeting. Approximately half of the individuals who participated in the training (81 of 160) responded to the survey. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which the Framework materials had had an impact on partnership practices. On a four-point scale (4 = "a great deal," 3 = "some," 2 = "very little," and 1 = "not at all"), the majority of respondents (88.6%) reported that the training had "impacted" their knowledge and skill development "some" or a "great deal." Respondents also thought that the Framework had at least "some" impact on the knowledge and skills development of their partnership (83%) and community (72%). The majority (97.4%) speculated that the Framework would have at least some future impact. Finally, participants were asked to indicate the single greatest impact they experienced as a result of the training. Approximately 41% reported that as a result of the training they felt more motivated to build or strengthen efforts to support continuity of services for children in their communities. Thirty-five percent of the respondents said they had a better understanding of continuity and its importance; 17% felt that the training prepared them to be better members of their partnership; and 7% said that the training gave them a greater understanding of the Framework as a tool. Stokes County Partnership for Children, King, NC An ongoing goal of the Stokes County Partnership for Children is to create a system that encourages service providers to work together and promotes continuity for children and their families. Members of the partnership began by using the Framework to build their own knowledge and skills about continuity; however, they soon recognized the need to inform others of the importance of continuity in children's lives. As a result, the Partnership conducted a series of focus groups and meetings among parents and family members within the community. They used information from Elements 3 (Comprehensive/Responsive Services) and 7 (Developmentally Appropriate Care/Education) to explain what was needed to support continuity and its potential benefits for children. These meetings were also an opportunity to inform families of the various resources and supports available within the community. Later, the focus groups were expanded to include all stakeholders (e.g., child care, kindergarten, Head Start, school administrators, special needs coordinators, etc). The information gathered from these meetings has been used to guide the development and implementation of policies and practices that promote continuity. Final Interview with Liaisons. In the final interview conducted with site liaisons, five of the seven liaisons reported that the overall goal of their partnership is to improve services for children and their families by connecting agencies and strengthening the collaborative bonds between those agencies. Three of the liaisons specifically mentioned the need to improve transitions and create a system of responsive and comprehensive services. In addition, liaisons were asked to talk about their reasons for participating in the field-test process. At least three of the liaisons cited low levels of collaboration across agencies and indicated that partnership meetings were used primarily as a time for sharing information. Others saw the training as an opportunity to invite additional partners to the table and begin a discussion of how they could better work together. Finally, liaisons were asked to rate the extent to which the Framework materials had been helpful in accomplishing their overall partnership goal. Using a five-point scale, five of the liaisons rated the Framework materials as either "helpful" (4) or "very helpful" (5). The remaining two liaisons rated the Framework materials as at least "somewhat helpful" (3). Developing and maintaining a community collaborative is hard work, and it is a challenge that requires a great deal of commitment and cooperation from those involved. Training and resource materials available to help community partnerships build a more responsive system must address such issues as time constraints, communication gaps, differences in professional training, and funding limitations. Given these challenges, the Continuity Framework and its Trainer's Guide seem to be important and useful tools for helping partnerships increase collaboration and involvement. Data gathered from participant ratings and key-informant interviews indicated that the training was helpful in a number of ways. A feature of the training mentioned by many of the participants was the fact that the experience helped "level the playing field." That is, it provided stakeholders with a common language to use as they worked together. As illustrated in the following example, stakeholders often come from a variety of agencies and backgrounds, which can be a major impediment when a community must begin to work together and coordinate its efforts. The case studies in the sidebars highlight the work of four collaborative partnerships that took part in the field study. These case studies discuss some of the problems they encountered, how they used the Framework materials to address those problems, and where they are today. Bovill, Idaho, Collaborative Bovill is a small town (population 310) located in the north central part of the state. Bovill has no resident doctor or dentist. At the time, there also was no child care center or preschool available to children. (The closest one was 35 miles away.) In 1998, various members of the community decided that they wanted to do something to help improve the situation for children. This group of citizens brought together parents and virtually every local organization to work on a plan that would support the learning needs of children and their families. Part of this effort was a proposal submitted to the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation that would help fund an early learning center. In 1999, they were awarded a grant, and they began the work to open the Bovill Early Childhood Community Learning Center. However, once the work began, members of the partnership found that they did not have a common vocabulary to talk about the issues of early childhood education. There were also difficulties associated with establishing a partnership, such as "Who else should be included?" and "How do you get started?" In an effort to "get started" and begin the planning process, the partnership elected to participate in the field testing of the Framework materials. Framework training was provided over two consecutive days and built into the inservice training schedule of the elementary school. In addition to staff and faculty from the elementary school, representatives from other agencies and organizations participated, including the health department, the Idaho Department of Disabilities, news media, schools, early childhood education, Even Start, parents, university students, attorneys, community leaders, and businesses. According the site liaison, the Framework materials were used: - To improve awareness of key issues in providing high-quality services. The Framework provides direction to help develop a program that really works. - To provide a common language and for internal communication enhancement. Now everyone "speaks the same language." - As an external communication tool. According to the liaison, "it is so much easier to talk with funding sources when you use the structure of the elements as a base." - To validate their progress toward providing the best practices in early childhood education. - As a piece of the Bovill Elementary School improvement plan. Positive impact on individual partnership members was cited as another basis for success of the training. Many indicated they had a better understanding of continuity and were more motivated to continue to work on the difficult issues that often arise as part of the collaborative process. An added value of the training was the opportunity to spend time together and develop relationships with persons from other agencies. Often, these individual relationships help form the basis for collaborative work within the partnership. Based on the sites that continued to use the materials, the Continuity Framework and its Trainer's Guide seem to be equally useful to both existing and newly established partnerships. A common experience in the maturation of partnerships is that they are prone to lose initial momentum, often stagnating into "easy" roles such as simple information sharing. A serendipitous discovery of this study is that such partnerships evidenced rejuvenation of their efforts after participating in the training (see the Valdosta, Georgia, example). Valdosta, Georgia, Collaborative The Lowndes County/Valdosta Commission for Children and Youth has been in existence for more than a decade, and during this time, the partnership has experienced various "ups and downs." According to site liaison Vickie Elliott, cycles are a normal part of the collaborative process, "They may be the result of staff turnover or changes in the board chair and/or board members." She reports that participation in the training provided members with practical, research-based information. This information served as a reminder to members that they were doing good work and that their work was important. Since the training, the partnership has continued to use Framework materials as a reference and resource. For example, during a recent meeting, members began a discussion regarding the evaluation of partnership activities. They used Element 8: Evaluation of Partnership Success to help shape and guide this discussion. In addition, the partnership has applied for and received a 21st Century Learning Community grant. Because of the knowledge and understanding they gained during the training, members requested funds for a case manager position to be based at each school and conducting home visits. It is hoped that this strategy will facilitate communication and create greater continuity of services for students and families. Finally, the data indicate that change takes place slowly. Participants reported that the training had had some impact on their community but felt that the greatest impact was yet to come. Bringing everyone to the table is not enough. True collaboration that produces continuity in services for children takes place over a long period of time, as agencies that have not previously worked together begin to get to know each other and slowly modify procedures and practices. Marshall County Tadpole Team, Wheeling, WV Efforts to collaborate are often driven by the realization that single agencies cannot solve problems alone. Partners must be willing to jointly plan and implement new ventures, as well as pool resources such as money and personnel. Nowhere is this need to collaborate and pool resources more crucial than in Marshall County, WV. Located in the northern part of West Virginia, Marshall County remains a predominantly rural county. With a population of approximately 36,000, Marshall County has seen a decline in the number of residents over the past two to three years, largely attributed to the economic hardships of the area. This part of West Virginia relies heavily on the coal and steel industries, and as these industries have fallen on hard times, so too have many families. As a result, many families have moved away to find other employment; however, many others have sought support from social services agencies within the community. In order to make the most of the limited resources and support available within the county, many of the local agencies (e.g., Northern Panhandle Head Start, Starting Points Center, Tadpoles Team) came together to form a community collaborative. Although their collaborative meetings began more as a time for sharing information, members soon realized that to be a true "working group," they would need to broaden the meeting agendas and formalize the collaborative relationships. Using the Framework materials as an assessment tool, members worked through each element identifying the gaps in services and generating ideas for possible programs and procedures to address those gaps. This shift encouraged members to devote meeting times to discussing specific issues facing the community. Moreover, it encouraged members to formalize the partnership with written agreements. These agreements have allowed members to make a solid commitment to the collaborative, as well as clarify specific roles and responsibilities for services. Beyond the content of the training and issues related to the collaborative process, the field study underscored the importance of training structure and design. Many study participants praised the Framework materials for flexibility and relevance to a variety of contexts. The training materials were designed so that particular attention was devoted to issues such as target audience attributes (e.g., varied educational and professional development backgrounds), which dictate the appropriate level of sophistication as well as the need for course module structure (i.e., overall organization and scripting) to be highly adaptable to local training needs. The field studies indicate that community partnerships benefit from training and technical assistance that help with the process of getting started, as well as recapturing momentum and focus. Additional research is needed to document the ongoing efforts of these communities and explore whether the Framework materials continue to have an impact on community practices and outcomes, as many of the participants predicted. Further study also is needed to determine what other kinds of training or technical assistance might be useful to these partnerships as they work to build capacity and expand or grow new programs. Bronfenbrenner, Urie. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, Charles; Kunesh, Linda; & Knuth, Randy. (1992). What does research say about interagency collaboration? [Online]. Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Available: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/stw_esys/8agcycol.htm [2002, October 22].Editor's Note: this url is no longer active. Family Support America. (1996). Making the case for family support [Online]. Chicago: Author. Available: http://www.familysupportamerica.org/content/pub_proddef.htm [2002, October 22]. Editor's Note: this url is no longer active. Hoffman, Stevie (Ed.). (1991). Educational partnerships: Home-school-community [Special issue]. Elementary School Journal, 91(3). Kagan, Sharon Lynn. (1992). The strategic importance of linkages and the transition between early childhood programs and early elementary school. In Sticking together: Strengthening linkages and the transition between early childhood education and early elementary school (Summary of a National Policy Forum). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. ED 351 152. Kunesh, Linda. (1994). Integrating community services for children, youth, and families. Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Melaville, Atelia; Blank, Martin; & Asayesh, Gelareh. (1996). Together we can: A guide for crafting a profamily system of education and human services (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Available: http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/families/TWC/ Editor's Note: this url is no longer active.[2002, October 22]. ED 443 164. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. (1993). NCREL's policy briefs: Integrating community services for young children and their families. Oak Brook, IL: Author. Available: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/go/93-3toc.htm [2002, October 22]. U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1995). Continuity in early childhood: A framework for home, school, and community linkages [Online]. Washington, DC: Author. Available: http://www.sedl.org/prep/hsclinkages.pdf [2002, October 22]. ED 395 664. Wheatley, Margaret J. (1992). Leadership and the new science. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Dr. Glyn Brown is a senior program specialist with SERVE Regional Educational Laboratory. She studied at the University of Alabama (B.S.), the University of Southern Mississippi (M.S.), and completed her Ph.D. in Family and Child Development at Auburn University. Prior to coming to SERVE, Dr. Brown worked as a children's therapist in a community mental health program. As a program specialist with SERVE, Dr. Brown provides training and direct consultation to school personnel, child care providers, and community partnerships. SERVE Regional Educational Laboratory 1203 Governor's Square Blvd., Suite 400 Tallahassee, FL 32301 Carolynn Amwake, a program specialist at the SERVE Regional Educational Laboratory, has extensive experience working with families, child care providers, teachers, administrators, and community partners. She received her B.S. from Radford University in early childhood education and special education and has taught children with special needs in elementary schools, children's homes, and child care centers. Her experiences as an educator and parent led to an interest in improving the quality and continuity of early childhood transitions for both children and families. SERVE Regional Educational Laboratory 1203 Governor's Square Blvd., Suite 400 Tallahassee, FL 32301 Timothy Speth is a research associate at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL). He received his B.S. in psychology from South Dakota State University and his M.A. from San Diego State University. He has extensive training and experience in research design, statistics, and program evaluation. Mr. Speth is currently involved with several research and evaluation projects throughout the Northwest, as a Research Associate of NWREL's Child and Family Program. He is the primary external evaluator for six Alaska schools participating in the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Project (CSRD) and assists in CSRD-related activities throughout the Northwest. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory 101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500 Portland, OR 97204-3297 Catherine Scott-Little, Ph.D., is director of the Expanded Learning Opportunities Project for SERVE. Dr. Little completed her graduate work in human development at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her undergraduate degree in child development and family relations is from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Prior to joining SERVE, Dr. Little was deputy director of a large Head Start program in Fort Worth, Texas, and she has also served as director for a child development center serving homeless families in the Washington, DC, area. SERVE Regional Educational Laboratory P.O. Box 5367 Greensboro, NC 27435

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The significance of Alabama Unionists during the Civil War and Reconstruction has long been a subject of study among scholars. Largely centered in northern Alabama and to a lesser degree in the southeast region and in Montgomery and Mobile, Unionists were important both militarily and politically. Until recently, however, the details of this phenomenon have remained less well known, largely because the term Unionist (both then and now) has been used to refer to a range of different individuals and positions. In the broadest sense, Unionist has meant any white person who opposed secession (including those who later supported the Confederacy) and those who came to support the Union during the war despite having originally supported the Confederacy. This broad definition includes a very wide range of Alabamians—from the most well-to-do planters who ultimately become officers in the Confederate Army to the subsistence farmer who deserted the southern cause midway through the war. It is also possible to define Unionism more narrowly, confining the label to those individuals who resisted both secession and the Confederacy during the war. Such unconditional loyalists probably represented no more than 15 percent of Alabama's adult white population. They were mostly nonslaveholding farmers (though a small minority owned slaves) living in the northern third of the state. A few Unionists also lived in the piney woods and coastal plain further south. In many respects, these men and women were very much like their neighbors who supported the Confederate cause. The reasons they remained loyal to the Union were also quite diverse. Many saw secession as illegal, whereas others felt that it would dishonor the American Revolution and their own ancestors. Still others were certain that secession would end in political or military disaster. Many were influenced by the respected figures in their families or neighborhoods. Unionism in Alabama arose under the pressures of the presidential election of 1860. Nine months before, the state legislature had directed that, in the event of a Republican's election, a state secession convention would be called. By directly linking the presidential election to secession, the legislature fostered a political atmosphere that was particularly hostile to Unionists. Newspaper editorials and participants at community meetings condemned as traitors those who canvassed for Illinois senator Stephen Douglas, the nominee of the regular Democratic Party, rather than the southern-rights Democratic nominee, John Breckinridge. In the election, fully 80 percent of Alabama's eligible voters participated, giving Breckinridge a substantial victory, with 54 percent of the vote. John Bell, the Constitutional Union candidate who was supported by a number of Alabamians hostile to secession, received 31 percent of the vote. Douglas, the candidate most associated with a strongly Unionist position, polled slightly more than 15 percent. Republican Abraham Lincoln was not even on the ballot in Alabama. As promised, Alabama secessionists called a convention in the wake of Lincoln's election. The campaign for convention delegates provoked heated and sometimes violent debates among neighbors, forcing many to defend their positions in public. Of the 100 delegates elected, 53 were secessionists and 47 were cooperationists, a term that refers to the delegates' desire to secede only in "cooperation" with other southern states. In fact, the men elected on this platform represented a wide range of ideas about if, when, and under what circumstances to cooperate with secession and included a minority faction—probably less than one-third (the vast majority of them from the northern third of the state)—of unconditional Unionists who opposed secession outright. These delegates convened in Montgomery on January 7, 1861, and debated secession for four days. On January 11, 1861, the convention passed Alabama's Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 61 to 39. Many of those who voted against the ordinance, however, ultimately did support secession, and four immediately reversed themselves and signed with the majority. Among the opposition, 33 delegates subsequently signed the "Address to the People of Alabama," in which they pledged to consult with their supporters and then act on their wishes. Ten signatories of the address signed the ordinance to satisfy their constituents. Other delegates who rejected the ordinance eventually took active part in the war. Only three signers—Henry C. Sanford of Cherokee County, Elliot P. Jones of Fayette County, and Robert Guttery of Walker County—never signed the ordinance and maintained their Unionism throughout the war. Only two wartime Unionists—R. S. Watkins of Franklin County and Christopher C. Sheats of Winston County—signed neither the "Address" nor the Ordinance of Secession. Most of the men and women who supported the Union after Alabama's secession faced great difficulties. Many were ostracized and ridiculed by neighbors, called before community vigilance committees for questioning and intimidation, or actually harmed for endorsing the Union. Such treatment was most commonly meted out to those who publicly asserted their views; those who kept quiet and did not interfere with volunteering were often left alone during the first year of the war. After Confederate conscription began in April 1862, however, community tolerance of Unionists waned. Individuals who resisted the draft, for whatever reason, were subject to arrest and imprisonment. Family members who supported resisters were frequently threatened with violence or exile by conscript cavalry who hoped to pressure men to come in from the woods or mountains and surrender. In addition, it was not at all uncommon for the families of Unionists to be targeted for punitive foraging or arson by Confederate forces or local conscript cavalry. After the Union Army invaded Alabama in early 1862, Unionists had more opportunities to flee behind Union lines for safety and the possibility of employment as soldiers, spies, or laborers. Most well known of Alabama's Union troops was the First Alabama Cavalry, U.S.A., organized in late 1862 by Brig. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, stationed at Corinth, Mississippi. The regiment served mostly in northern Alabama, western Tennessee, and northeastern Mississippi, though it marched with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to Savannah in 1864. Alabama Unionists also joined other federal regiments, particularly those from Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Those who remained at home, both within Union-occupied territory and behind Confederate lines, also actively assisted Union forces as spies and guides. In some cases, they collaborated with local African Americans (most often their own slaves) to aid and abet the Union Army or pro-Union men in their neighborhoods. Moreover, African Americans from Alabama also crossed the Union lines to serve as laborers and soldiers, and after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, many were inducted into United States Colored Troops regiments. Almost 5,000 African Americans, or 6 percent of Alabama's black male population between the ages of 18 and 45, volunteered in the Union ranks. As was the case throughout the South, by the midpoint of the war Alabama's original Unionists were increasingly joined in their dissent by deserters from the Confederate Army, mostly men whose families were struggling at home without their labor. Disillusioned by the realities of warfare, angered by the inequities of service under laws exempting slaveowners and selected professionals, such Alabamians generally wanted the war to end more than they desired Union victory, though some did cross lines and join the Union army rather than desert and avoid service altogether. A small peace movement also emerged at this time among men who had originally opposed secession but later supported the state. After the war, Unionists continued to struggle politically and socially, for their wartime activities had alienated them from their now-defeated neighbors. Most eagerly joined the Union League and the Republican Party. Some wartime Unionists helped reintroduce the Methodist-Episcopal Church (as contrasted with the Methodist-Episcopal Church, South) to northern Alabama, finding there a more hospitable environment for worship. Many campaigned strenuously to convince the president and Congress to limit the political rights of former Confederates. They also sought positions of local and state authority for others who had supported the Union during the war. At this point, a number of men who had originally opposed secession but supported the state in 1861, as well as citizens who had become disillusioned with the war, also moved to the fore of political life in Alabama. These moderates were, in general, encouraged by Pres. Andrew Johnson, who appointed such men to positions of political authority in the immediate post-war provisional governments he established. The Republican Party in Alabama was populated by such individuals, as well as core Unionists who had served in the Union Army or otherwise actively resisted the Confederacy. Both groups were referred to by their Democratic opponents as sc alawags. Under Congressional Reconstruction (1867-74) wartime loyalists gained greater political power than they had under Presidential Reconstruction, taking leading roles in the constitutional convention of 1867, the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Republican-dominated state legislature. Most also supported, though sometimes reluctantly, voting rights for African Americans as a means to gain political power over former Confederates. For their continued association with northern Republicans and support for African American equality, white Unionists were targeted for intimidation and physical violence by the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Reconstruction vigilantes. As elsewhere in the South, Alabama Unionists and their Republican allies (white and black, northern and southern) received little in the way of federal assistance to defend against the onslaught of violence. As their party was overwhelmed by the Democratic opposition, Unionists retreated from the forefront of state politics, though those in communities with substantial loyalist populations continued in positions of local political leadership well into the late nineteenth century. Barney, William L. The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. Fitzgerald, Michael W. The Union League Movement in the Deep South: Politics and Agri cultural Change During Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. Mills, Gary B. Southern Loyalists in the Civil War: The Southern Claims Commission. A Composite Directory of Case Files Created by the U.S. Commissioner of Claims, 1871-1880, including those appealed to the War Claims Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Court of Claims. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc. 1994. Rogers, William Warren, Jr. The Confederate Home Front: Montgomery During the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1999. Storey, Margaret M. Loyalty and Loss: Alabama's Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Margaret M. Storey Published December 14, 2007 Last updated October 3, 2011

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