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Table of contentsNo headers Toposurface subregions are areas that you sketch inside existing toposurfaces. For example, you can use subregions to draw parking lots on a graded surface, roads, or islands. Creating a subregion does not result in separate surfaces. It merely defines an area of the surface where you can apply a different set of properties, such as material. To create a subregion - Open a site plan that displays a toposurface. - Click Site tabModel Site panel (Subregion). Revit LT enters sketch mode. - Click (Pick Lines) or use other sketch tools to create a subregion on the toposurface. To modify subregion boundaries - Select the subregion. - Click Modify | Topography tab Subregion panel (Edit Boundary). - Click (Pick Lines) or use other sketch tools to modify the subregion on the toposurface. The following image shows a toposurface that has a subregion, shown in gray.

In the conceptual design environment, you can label dimensions by assigning parameters to them, and then use direct manipulation to explore design variations. As a labeled dimension is manipulated, all its related geometry adjusts, and the dimension labels change to reflect their new values. The dimension labels change dynamically as they are manipulated in the drawing area. For example, drag a labeled dimension to a new position. All the lines that are associated by formulas move with respect to their parameter settings. For example if parameter B = A/2, the value of B is always half of the value of parameter A. If the value of B changes to 8, the value of A changes to 16. You can see the parameter values change in the drawing area when you directly manipulate these lines. The formulas assigned to a parameter display in the Label drop-down list on the Options Bar. These can be selected and applied to the labeled dimensions. When applied to a dimension, the formula displays as the new label in the drawing area.

Fri November 9, 2012 Bioengineering Beer Foam Originally published on Fri November 9, 2012 12:03 pm FLORA LICHTMAN, HOST: And one last salute to science before the weekend. Here are some news you can raise the glass to. Microbiologist Tomas Villa and colleagues report that they may be able to bioengineer better beer foam. That's right. TOMAS G. VILLA: Beer foam. Foam is what you like the most in a beer. And a beer drinker wants foam to stay longer, right? LICHTMAN: Of course. And the secret to long-lasting froth, proteins, produced by barley and yeast during fermentation. VILLA: The hydroforming portion of the protein sticks inside the bubble and the hydrophilic bubbles of protein sticks out of the bubble. LICHTMAN: The protein coat stabilizes the bubble, leading to a longer lifespan. Villa and colleagues identified the gene in a lager yeast strain that codes for this protein. And they say they can insert it into other brewer's yeast, producing beer with foamy heads that can last for hours. Cheers. You can learn more about Dr. Tomas Gonzales Villa's research on our website, along with everything else on our website, including a video tour of Dr. Oliver Sacks' desk. I don't think you want to miss that. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Try creating an outline, and then using that as a reference to write the story. One of the first books I wrote as a teenager, I actually did this. I just wrote down an outline first; pencil on paper. Not chapter by chapter, but event by event. When a major event came to mind, I would use the top-level outline numbering and indent level, and then drill down into what would transpire. It was a great exercise to help train my mind how to write books. As I wrote the story, perhaps a year later, I remember finding it easier to write about one event at a time. It was more like writing a series of short stories. Of course, I changed things at whim. Through several rounds of rewrites, the book did eventually come together. I hate to say it, but if you're writing a story, don't be afraid to just outright use a formula. I don't do this any more, but have certainly used it as a mechanism to help get ideas out when I was younger. Just think about how you think the basic story should flow, and then fill in the blanks with passes of ever-increasing detail, sketchy outline, detailed outline, rough draft of events, piece together into short stories, and then craft a draft novel (or series, depending on the amount of stuff you're covering). - Opening scene - Plot development 1 - Plot development 2 - Ending climax Looking back, this may not have been the easiest way to create a book, but it was a way that worked for me, given being wont to overfocus on details and then actually lose focus on the story as a whole. I'd say that anything you do that helps you get out the stories you have inside is a good practice. Your talents will develop better as you write than if you're thinking about writing, but not actually doing it :)

The performance of a section of concrete pavement built with 30 percent Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) is compared to a control section of concrete pavement built with 25 percent GGBFS to determine if the higher slag content pavement is more resistant to wear from studded tires. This report details the construction of the pavement, construction quality control tests, and initial base line wear, friction, and smoothness results. August 12, 2009 Keith W. Anderson, Jeff S. Uhlmeyer, Kurt Williams, Mark Russell, Jim Weston. Washington (State). Dept. of Transportation. Materials Laboratory - # of Pages: 36 p., 1.34 MB (PDF) - Subject: Concrete pavements, Concrete construction, Paving, Granulated slag, Slag, Pavement performance, Studded tires, Durability, Quality control, Base lines, Alternatives analysis. - Keywords: Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag, GGBFS, concrete performance, studded tires. - Related Publications: This abstract was last modified January 22, 2013

World looks to ICCAT to overcome more than four decades of failure to save tuna A WWF analysis of ICCAT's record, updated for the Paris meeting, has found parallels between the collapse of the Western Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery under ICCAT's supervision in the 1990s and the current looming collapse of the remaining Eastern Atlantic (Mediterranean) bluefin tuna fishery. These parallels include periods of reduced catch limits when frustration with ICCAT led to proposals for trade restrictions under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) - followed by a return to inflated catches and negligent management when the danger of international intervention had passed. The WWF analysis clearly identifies the key issue as ICCAT's woeful adherence to its original charter of managing fisheries in accordance with scientific advice. At last year's meeting, ICCAT’s own scientists established that Atlantic bluefin tuna fitted the criteria for the highest level of trade restrictions, as did a subsequent analysis of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation - but a Monaco proposal to list bluefin tuna was voted down with no debate at the March 2010 meeting of parties to CITES in Doha, Qatar. Lobbying by the principal bluefin market, Japan, played a key role in this decision, which was however followed by the most significant players on both the catch and trade sides of the bluefin tuna equation – Japan, the EU, the U.S., Norway and Canada – also committing themselves to the adoption of sustainable, science-based fisheries management measures by ICCAT. The Paris test will be whether ICCAT parties remain true to their “Doha Commitments” or agree only a marginal reduction in quotas and persist with a management regime full of loopholes.

According to the Detroit Area Study (DAS) (R. Marans, see this link for a sample), public transportation use in the Detroit area has been declining. DAS data from 2001 shows that only 8.3 percent of commuters choose bus as their travel mode whereas 69.1 percent of people are driving single occupant cars. Furthermore, 63.1 percent of respondents to the DAS answered that they never use the bus. Frequent users, including daily users and people taking a bus at least once a week, composed about ten percent of the sample. Previous studies indicate that there are relationships among environmental factors, psychological factors, and transportation use (Bamberg, Sebastian and Peter Schmidt, "The impact of general attitude on decisions" Rationality and Society, Thousand Oaks, Feb 1999). GIS data collected in 2000 by SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments) enable one to gauge the condition of bus stops in Detroit. Bus stop condition will be considered one of indicators that represents the environmental condition of public transportation. Also, 2001 DAS shows specific preferences and attitudes toward transportation among Detroiters. Bus stop condition will be examined using GIS. The results are presented, in this paper, as a single interactive, internet map. DDOT (Detroit Department of Transportation) and SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) operate buses in the City of Detroit. There are a total of 5618 bus stops located along the routes (Hamtramck and Highland Park are excluded). Field evidence, including overall condition of bus stops, was observed and photographed for selected stops. Five indicators, stop sign, light, shelter, bench, and sidewalk, are used to evaluate the condition of bus stops. These indicators were then used to formulate an index of bus stop condition, scored as 1 to 5, from poor to good, respectively. The accompanying internet map shows Detroit bus routes and bus stops. The stops that scored 1 or 2 on the index are colored red. Click on a stop to get data concerning that stop; click on a route to look at the database accompanying the mapped route. The map showing bus stop condition alone, has also been combined by the author with results about bus users from the DAS (for internal DAS use only). Hence, the title of this article. This interactive internet map is used to capture numerous variables in a single image that can be used interactively without owning any software other than a browser. Thus, some of the power of GIS analysis is transferred to members of the public, allowing them to query records that might not otherwise be readily available to them. Link to Interactive Internet Map, made in ArcView 3.2 using ImageMapper from Alta 4, www.alta4.com.--access to the full map, for qualified viewers, available by contacting IMaGe. Click here to see a link to a partial, but very useful, interactive map showing all bus stops, routes, and bus stop conditions (shelter availability and so forth).

Smack, H, junk...whatever you call it, heroin is addicting! Heroin is an opiate drug which is semi-synthetic. That means it's part man-made-derived from the drug morphine-and part natural-morphine comes from the poppy flower. Heroin is a powder that can be "cooked" into a liquid and delivered via injection. It can also be sniffed or smoked. It takes ten seconds to feel the impact of injected heroine, while other methods take minutes. After taking heroin, you'll feel a rush of well-being, followed by a blissful, euphoric state. Because it's derived from morphine, heroin also provides pain relief and slowed breathing. The intense ecstasy of heroin lasts a few hours, and when it wears off, cravings often occur. Long-term heroin users often suffer from weakened immune systems and malnourishment. Even death can result. Because the drug is injected intravenously, heroin users have an increased risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis. Remember: Heroin is very addicting and is illegal. When the Want Becomes a Need Energy Drinks May be Risky More Rural Teens Look to 'Mother's Little Helpers' Mixed Report Card on Teen Substance Use Last Updated:December 20, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Education Department commission is recommending pre-kindergarten programs for every poor student within 10 years. The recommendation, released Tuesday, adds a timeframe to President Barack Obama's similar call to help the least advantaged arrive for their first day of classes as prepared as their counterparts from more affluent homes. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says too many children "who need the most help get the least." The report's recommendations aren't binding but offer hints for how Obama might want to implement his plan to expand early childhood education. The administration has been short on details for the program he first introduced during his State of the Union. The commission's main charge is to address how to remove inequality in schools, and officials says pre-kindergarten programs are a smart start.

Survival fight after KI shipwreck Thousands visit Kangaroo Island for adventure but its rugged coastline also harbours a very dark side. "We call this the killer coast of Kangaroo Island because it's tough on shipwrecks but even tougher on survivors," said maritime archaeologist Amer Khan. The rugged west coast claimed the Loch Sloy in the early hours of April 24 back in 1899. Heavy seas lashed the ship as 34 passengers and crew clung to the rigging. There were only four survivors from the disaster, but Mr Khan said it was their tale of survival that would go on to become legendary. "They actually survived out here for over two weeks and it's such an exposed coastline," he explained. "The Loch Sloy really is a story about survival [and] it's a story about the Kangaroo Island community coming together." The survivors were washed onto rocks and then climbed a steep cliff to reach some higher ground. Gordon May's grandfather Charles May lived in the area at the time of the Loch Sloy sinking and helped rescue the survivors and bury those who perished in the disaster. "How they managed to scramble up that cliff no-one will ever know," he said. "Present-day people would never attempt it, they'd just get drowned (sic)." Fifteen days after the sinking, one of the survivors, Duncan McMillan, stumbled into Charles May's backyard at the Rocky River homestead. "The dog started barking and McMillan appeared out of the scrub," Gordon May explained. "His tongue was all swollen up and anyway they administered some tender loving care to him and later he told them about the wreck." A search party was launched and two days later John Simpson and William Mitchell were found by a lighthouse keeper. "He found the two sailors chewing on a penguin. Anyway he bandaged their feet, just imagine how the fellas had walked that far in bare feet - it's unbelievable," Mr May said. A fourth man, David Kilpatrick, survived the shipwreck, but did not survive the island's isolation. His body was found almost a month after the disaster and later buried by the search team. His grave remains a memorial to the lives lost in shipwrecks along the rugged western coastline of Kangaroo Island. The burial sites for many from the Loch Sloy recently attracted a group of researchers to the island, from South Australia's Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Flinders University. The modern-day team trekked for hours up hills, into ravines, through soft sand and salt bush, at times battling strong winds, the baking sun or rain. Amer Khan said it gave him a sense of what the survivors had coped with. "It's clearly a very treacherous part of the state, we've got the blisters to prove it. It's a really tough place to make it out [of] alive," he said. The team spent five days checking for signs of the burial sites and the area of cliffs where the drama unfolded more than a century before, to help decide if any grave sites need protection. "There's collapsing cliff, it's a very high energy zone for waves crashing into the island and so there's a very good chance many of those graves have already been destroyed by natural forces," Mr Khan said. A potential grave was identified, but a careful examination found no traces of bones. A magnetometer on board a boat also surveyed the waters around Maupertius Bay in search of the wreck itself. "The Loch Sloy was a 1,200-tonne iron ship and there would be even today large portions today of that iron on the sea floor," Mr Khan explained. "You can actually detect large metal anomalies [and] you're looking for variations in the earth's magnetic field." A possible site of the wreck was found and will be the focus of future expeditions. Others say they located the wreck years ago. Roger Williams, Gifford Chapman and Alan Roberts dived on what they believed was the Loch Sloy in the 1970s. Mr Williams is not claiming they were the first to discover the wreck but said he is pretty sure which vessel it was. "We discovered what we thought looked like the stern piece of a large sailing-type vessel and ... it was right up against the edge of the cliff," he said. "I personally have never seen the ribs but I know of other divers who have seen them, they are there and not a long way from where we discovered the stern post." Four shipwrecks along Kangaroo Island's western coastline helped prompt improved safety measures. "It was the loss of that much life on this coast that eventually convinced enough people in Adelaide to take the measures required to set up the Cape du Couedic lighthouse and the Neptune light," Mr Khan said.

Stem Cell Research Science journalist Liz Finkel talks to Professor Catherine Verfaillie, Director of the University of Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute, about her research. Norman Swan: Welcome to the program. Well the debate in Canberra rages about whether and how to allow embryonic stem cell research. It hasn't been helped by questions over material supplied to parliamentarians. But before I go on, it's probably worth pointing out that one of the problems here is the way words are being used. Stem cells is probably not a useful phrase because what we're really talking about here are better called progenitor cells. These are cells which can be the raw material for all sorts of organs and tissues, from the pancreas to nerve cells, or neurones in the brain, to heart cells. And progenitor cells come in various flavours. There are embryonic and germ cell progenitors which have the potential to become almost anything, germ cells being the ones which produce sperm or eggs; you have foetal progenitor cells which are usually more specific to certain tissues; and then there are adult progenitor cells or mature ones which are embedded in the tissues of the body and are either programmed to become blood, liver or nerves or, according to recent results, perhaps have nearly as much potential as embryonic progenitor cells. And that's what the opponents of embryonic stem cell research have pounced upon. They say that remarkable findings on adult stem cells from the United States make embryonic work unnecessary. The research they're usually quoting is that of Professor Catherine Verfaillie, Director of the University of Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute. But she claims that embryonic stem cell critics are wrong to use her work in this way because that research is still needed. She's been studying progenitors in the bone marrow called mesenchymal stem cells and found that in the right circumstances with the right cocktail of growth factor chemicals, they have an extraordinary ability to transform themselves. But it's not every mesenchymal stem cell. Professor Verfaillie found that it's only about one in a thousand of them. She spoke to Liz Finkel for The Health Report, and Liz wondered how on earth Catherine Verfaillie could tell which were the ones with the greater potential. Catherine Verfaillie: Well the first difference we noticed was that in contrast to mesenchymal stem cells that can be passaged for maybe a few weeks, but at that time the cells start ageing, which is a classical characteristic of any adult cell, in contrast our cells, even though they kind of seem to slow down in their growth pattern, even after a few weeks they continue to grow or proliferate, and they have been induced to proliferate now for close to 89 day cell doublings in humans, and more than 150 in mice or rats, which is way beyond what a classical adult cell can actually do before it undergoes an ageing process and actually stops growing. Liz Finkel: So once you'd found these very exciting cells with such great potential, what did you do next? Catherine Verfaillie: Well the first thing we did was trying to make bone and cartilage and muscle and things like that, and we used exactly what investigators in the field of mesenchymal stem cells have been using, and we could coax the cells indeed to switch from their stem cell phenotype to bone tissue or cartilage tissue or muscle tissue. We had noticed that the cells actually expressed the receptor for a growth factor that is important to make endothelial cells grow and endothelial cells are the cells that line blood vessels. And so a simple experiment that we did was actually add the growth factor that binds to this particular receptor, and ask whether maybe these cells could be switched around to become these endothelial cells, and they could indeed do that. And so that was the second hint that these cells were actually different when classic mesenchymal stem cells. We then went on and tried to make blood cells from these mesenchymal stem cells and you would say that that's maybe logical because they both come from bone marrow. However, the blood cells are actually from a different origin than the mesenchymal stem cell. And we've not been very successful at doing so, even though my lab has been working on blood stem cells for the last ten years. However while we were doing this, every single time we tried, cells grew out that had a very funny shape and almost looked like neurones. Initially we poo-pooed it away and said, Well this is just an artefact of the culture, but we could repeat this many, many times over, and it really made no sense at that time, because we were trying to make blood, and it appeared that we were making brain. So we went back to the literature and then found out that by accident we had put in the mixture of growth factors that is actually important for brain stem cells to grow. And once we figured this out, we went back and very specifically added growth factors that people have identified to be important for brain stem cells to grow and differentiate, and have since been able to under very specific methods, show that the cells can differentiate between neurones, as well as the supporting cells in the brain. And within the neurones we can make cells that are missing in patients with Parkinson's disease which are called dopamine neurones, and these cells appear at least in a culture dish, to really work like the neurones that you would need to repair the brain. And then the last thing we tried was to create liver cells from these same cells in the culture dish and we were indeed able to induce the cells to become cells that looked like liver and appeared to function like liver in a culture dish. Liz Finkel: The experiment I think that really caught the excitement was when you transplanted some of these cells into a very early mouse embryo; can you describe what you saw there? Catherine Verfaillie: Once we saw that the cells had the ability of making all these things in culture dishes, we wanted to go beyond that and ask whether they were truly more potent than we had previously thought it could be. And the experiment we did is what investigators that use embryonic stem cells do all the time, which is actually proving that if you take the cell and put it in a very early developing mouse embryo asking whether this mixed mouse embryo would give rise to animals that are mixed which we call chimaeric mice. And when we did this experiment we were indeed able to show that even if you put a single cell from these mouse cultures into this very early mouse embryo that about 30% to 40% of the animals that are born from this mix, which we call blastocyst, were actually mixed, and if you looked in the brain, eyes, lungs, heart, liver, anywhere we looked, we could actually find some of the donor cells contributing to most organs of the mouse that was born. Liz Finkel: They tend not to form heart tissue. Catherine Verfaillie: Correct. So when we tried in the culture dish there are several tissues that we have not been very successful in creating. Heart muscle is one of the very important ones that we haven't been able to create. Liz Finkel: And that's not true for embryonic stem cells? Catherine Verfaillie: It's interesting, because embryonic stem cells it appears that the fault pathway, if you sort of forget about the culture in the incubator, the cells spontaneously make beating heart muscle cells and it is definitely not the case for these adult cells that we have been working with. That's one very strong indication that there is actually differences between the embryonic stem cell and the adult cell that we have found. Liz Finkel: Well Cathleen, you've almost convinced me that we don't need embryonic stem cells; how do you answer that argument? Catherine Verfaillie: Well I've been actually pretty vocal on the fact that we do need to continue work on the embryonic stem cells. Heart disease is the No.1 killer of humans in the developed world, and we have been quite unsuccessful of creating heart tissue in a culture dish. Maybe we're just not smart enough how to do this, but it's been worked on very hard for three years straight, and we haven't been able to really successfully do this. So there might be something inherently difficult between the embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells such that if one were to think five, ten years from now what we would do for patients with heart failure, it might well be necessary to use an embryonic stem cell source where it's very easy to make heart muscle, whereas it might be very, very difficult to do this with adult stem cells. So I think to recite that since the cells that we identified seem to have greater potency than we previously thought, that therefore embryonic stem cells shouldn't be used, I think is incorrect just because we know so little about it. The second reason I think is that the cocktails of growth factors that we put in the culture systems that we have, we really didn't invent these ourselves, we went back to the literature and looked what investigators had used for embryonic stem cells, and sort of modelled our culture systems based on the embryonic stem cell culture system. So I would think that if both fields go forward side by side, there will be an enormous amount of what I would like to call cross-fertilisation between the two areas of research, such that we make much quicker progress than if we took one path at a time. Ultimately science will need to tell us which cell will work for which tissue that we try to repair. Liz Finkel: What do you think the first diseases will be that will benefit from this? Catherine Verfaillie: Most investigators in this field think that diseases where you have to repair one cell in one location makes the most sense. And so if you think about brain diseases, on top of the list is not Alzheimer's because it's a disease throughout the brain, but we're thinking more about Parkinson's disease, where you need to bring in one cell in one location of the brain, namely a cell that produces dopamine. A second disease would be insulin-dependent diabetes, type 1 diabetes that is seen in younger individuals, where again the insulin-producing cells in the body are destroyed, and currently already islets, which is the little group of cells from the pancreas where these insulin-producing cells are in, are being used for transplantation, and so if you can make these cells to become islets then it would be relatively straightforward to test whether this would help patients with type 1 diabetes. And a third disease probably would be heart disease, where again, it's one organ one cell type, even though there you would have to assure that the new tissue you implant into the heart aligns itself with the rest of the heart and actually is electrically coupled to the rest of the heart, so the heart beats in unison and the only cell that can be used for that is an embryonic stem cell. Liz Finkel: What do you think will be the ramifications for Australian research if the Bill doesn't go ahead? Catherine Verfaillie: Several groups here in Australia are very far advanced in the fields of embryonic stem cell research. If that would be curtailed here in Australia, I would think that would make the progress being made in this field worldwide actually go slower. You know, if you take two or three teams from the ten or twelve teams that are around the world working on this, away, it just slows down the research and actually would be a significant setback for research worldwide. Norman Swan: Professor Catherine Verfaillie is Director of the University of Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute and she was talking to Liz Finkel. - Professor Catherine Verfaillie University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, - Liz Finkel - Science Journalist - Dr Norman Swan - Brigitte Seega

CIA to capture iris recognition at a distance The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is developing technology that will be able to identify people from their iris - even while they are moving at a distance. Andrew Kirby, senior physical scientist at CIA's Intelligence Technology and Innovation Centre told a Centre for Strategic and International Studies forum on biometrics, held in Washington D.C. this week, that the Agency was also trying to improve facial recognition technology which can be notoriously inaccurate. Differences in simple factors like lighting and expression can impede identification of someone using current facial recognition technology, said Kirby. "Those differences are so significant that my own picture taken in two different places at two different times is actually more difficult to match than it would be to match me with someone in this audience," he told the forum. Kirby said his program, which was created two years ago, has set a goal of improving face recognition technology "by a factor of 10". Currently iris recognition technology is more reliable than face recognition technology but its limitation is that it requires a co-operative subject who will stand in front of the scanner and line up the eye properly, he said. We're looking at remote iris recognition," Kirby said, adding that it would be more valuable if the iris could be captured by a camera while the person was in motion at a distance to make the identification. "One of the main thrusts of our program is in fact to make this possible." The U.S. Army is using biometrics, which also includes the more commonly used identification tool of fingerprints, to build identity records for detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Kirby said, adding the records could be used to identify detainees in the future. John Woodward, director of the Pentagon's biometrics management office told the forum using biometrics could be important for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. For example, with a large number of foreign locals working on military installations overseas, if that person is fired for some reason and goes to another base to get hired under a different identity, biometrics could help identify that person. It could also be used to identify people who try to give false intelligence at one U.S. location and then try it again under a different identity at another, he said. The goal for the future is to combine different biometrics "to give us the ability to make identification from a distance to a very accurate level," said Kirby. In 10 years, there will be handheld devices that "track the person's presence like a bloodhound," Tony Frudakis, chief scientific officer and founder of DNAPrint Genomics, said. Barry Hodge, president of AcSys Biometrics Corp., said according to a recent study, the facial recognition biometric market worldwide is a US$21.5 million business and is forecast to grow to $791.6 million by 2009. "That's a huge growth rate, so obviously people are expecting a lot of excitement and things to be happening around the facial recognition marketplace," he said. Hodge said it was a difficult task to get computers to recognise people in the same way that humans did: "You recognise them from the back, you recognise them from the side, in varying lighting conditions. When you see people you know, you just know them. And teaching a computer to do that is an amazingly difficult task," Hodge said.

ETA: S&F for a well put together thread edit on 9-2-2013 by thesmokingman because: (no reason given) Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day, the real danger facing humanity is not global warming, but more likely the coming of a new Ice Age.What we live in now is known as an interglacial, a relatively brief period between long ice ages. Unfortunately for us, most interglacial periods last only about ten thousand years, and that is how long it has been since the last Ice Age ended.How much longer do we have before the ice begins to spread across the Earth's surface? Less than a hundred years or several hundred? We simply don't know Even if all the temperature increase over the last century is attributable to human activities, the rise has been relatively modest one of a little over one degree Fahrenheit — an increase well within natural variations over the last few thousand years. While an enduring temperature rise of the same size over the next century would cause humanity to make some changes, it would undoubtedly be within our ability to adapt.Entering a new ice age, however, would be catastrophic for the continuation of modern civilization. New York (CNN) -- A massive blizzard that dumped as much as 3 feet of snow in parts of the Northeast is heading out to sea, as workers across New York and New England struggle to get airports, trains and highways back online. The snowstorm, a product of two converging weather systems, knocked out power for more than 635,000 customers and prompted the U.S. Postal Service to suspend deliveries in seven states. About 4,800 flights were canceled as of Saturday, and at least four people died in traffic accidents related to the storm in New York, Connecticut and southern Ontario The last glaciation centered on the huge ice sheets of North America and Eurasia. Considerable areas in the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes were ice-covered, and Antarctica remained glaciated. Canada was nearly completely covered by ice, as well as the northern part of the USA, both blanketed by the huge Laurentide ice sheet. Alaska remained mostly ice free due to arid climate conditions. Local glaciations existed in the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleran ice sheet and as ice fields and ice caps in the Sierra Nevada in northern California. In Britain, mainland Europe, and northwestern Asia, the Scandinavian ice sheet once again reached the northern parts of the British Isles, Germany, Poland, and Russia, extending as far east as the Taimyr Peninsula in western Siberia. The maximum extent of western Siberian glaciation was reached approximately 18,000 to 17,000 BP and thus later than in Europe (22,000–18,000 BP). Northeastern Siberia was not covered by a continental-scale ice sheet. Instead, large, but restricted, icefield complexes covered mountain ranges within northeast Siberia, including the Kamchatka-Koryak Mountains An artist's impression of the last glacial period at glacial maximum. Based on: Crowley, Thomas J. (1995). Originally posted by Painterz Global Warming for the UK for example means it will get generally a lot colder here, and a whole lot wetter. Which is exactly what is happening. Seriously - global warming will cause a lot of the planet to cool down?Is a lot of the planet seeing record low temperatures? Can you provide some statistics on that? Originally posted by Ben81 This winter have been one of the worst in term of precipitation and very cold temperature many in the north hemisphere will agree with me on that

ACT Reports That Significant Gaps Persist Between Career Interests of 2010 High School Graduates and Job Projections IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT has released national and state-specific data for all 50 states that helps answer the question: Are students prepared for college and career? The analysis reveals likely shortfalls in high-growth career fields as well as inadequate preparation to succeed in coursework required for these fields. The analysis compares data from two sources for the nation and for each of the 50 states: long-term occupational projections and results contained in ACT’s recently released The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2010 reports. A state’s occupational projections are based on job growth and job replacement forecasts for the decade ending 2016 to 2018. ACT is an international not-for-profit organization experienced in educational and workplace skills assessment and research. The ACT report reveals career interests and achievement results for the 2010 ACT-tested high school graduates. The analysis in bar chart form shows the five highest-growth career fields in each state requiring a two-year college degree or higher; the percentage of 2010 ACT-tested graduates in the state expressing interest in those five career fields; and the percentage of students meeting ACT’s recommended College Readiness Benchmarks in each of four subject areas (English, reading, mathematics and science) who expressed interest in each of the high-growth career fields One analysis reveals the gaps between projected job openings and student career interests. A second analysis indicates the college and career readiness of ACT-tested graduates interested in the five high-growth career fields. These data may have implications for economic development nationally and in each state. The nation’s five fastest-growing career fields requiring at least a two-year degree, based on 2008-2018 annual projected job openings from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, are depicted below. These five career fields account for 53 percent of the demand for jobs. However, for all five career fields, the percentage of the nation’s 2010 ACT-tested high school graduates expressing an interest in those fields falls short of projected openings. The most significant gaps are for Computer/Information Specialties (9 percentage points) and Education (7 percentage points). Far too few students who expressed interest in the five high-growth career fields have attained the level of knowledge to be ready for college-entry coursework in English, reading, mathematics and science as measured by ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks. The ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, which are based on the actual grades earned by students in college, give ACT the unique ability to define college and career readiness and report student performance results relative to that goal. The benchmarks specify the minimum scores needed on each ACT subject-area test to indicate that a student has a 50 percent chance of earning a grade of B or higher or about a 75 percent chance of earning a C or higher in a typical credit-bearing first-year college course in that subject area (English composition, college algebra, introductory social science and biology). Years of empirical ACT data indicate that students who meet or surpass the College Readiness Benchmarks are more likely to go to college, stay in school and graduate with a college degree. “Students interested in these careers mostly met the College Readiness Benchmarks in English and reading,” said ACT chief executive officer Jon Whitmore. However, only about a quarter of the students met all four College Readiness Benchmarks within each of the five career fields.” Whitmore added, “ACT research indicates that given these results, many students are not on the right path to take advantage of career opportunities in these high-growth fields requiring a two-year degree or more. Fortunately, given that the occupational projections extend through 2018, there is time for middle and high school students to consider, plan, and prepare for careers in the fields where openings are projected to be the highest.” Example occupations for the five highest-growth career fields are as follows: - Education: such as secondary school teachers, secondary school administrators - Computer/Information Specialties: such as computer programmers, database administrators - Management: such as hotel/restaurant managers, convention planners - Community Services: such as social workers, school counselors - Marketing/Sales: such as insurance agents, buyers For more information, see the complete College and Career Readiness Report for the nation and for each state. Workforce data appears on page 17 of the national report and on page 10 of each state report.

Victory in Chile! Coastal Road Rerouted! Press release from January 23, 2003 regarding the rerouting of a road that was to threaten the Valdivian rainforest of southern Chile. January 23, 2003 Good news for the temperate Valdivian rainforest of southern Chile: on 11 January, the government of Chile signed an agreement to redefine the routing of the Coastal Range Road and establish mechanisms for the creation of protected areas along the country's Coastal Range - home to the oldest and most diverse rainforest remaining in southern South America. The agreement was signed with the Coastal Range Coalition, an NGO group spearheaded by WWF that includes more than 12 institutions, ranging from indigenous groups to leading scientists, interested in the conservation of the remaining temperate rainforest of the Coastal Range. The Minister of Public Works, the Intendente of Region X (State Governor), and the Directors of CONAMA (National Environmental Commission) and CONAF (National Forestry Agency) signed the agreement on behalf of the Government of Chile, and Francisco Solís signed on behalf of the Coastal Range Coalition. The Coastal Range Road was initiated to connect the cities of Valdivia and Puerto Montt by way of the Pacific Coast. The planned route passed along the western flanks of the Coastal Range, which contains the oldest and most diverse rainforest remaining in southern South America. One of only five temperate rainforests in the world, the Valdivian rainforest is one of WWF's Global 200 ecosystems. The road would have further fragmented this ancient rainforest and facilitated its conversion to eucalypt and pine plantations. The agreement represents an outstanding conservation result. Twenty percent of the 200-km road that is already under construction will be changed from a logging penetration road (speed limit of 70 km/h) to a minimal environmental impact road (speed limit of 40 km/h). Additionally, the remaining 80 percent of the road, currently under study, will be routed outside forested areas (east of the range) and use existing minor roads. Significantly, each segment will be subject to a full environmental assessment, which is not required by law. Finally, the plan also considers the establishment of protected areas, since less than five percent of the Coastal Range is currently under protection. This agreement with the government of Chile is unprecedented: only two years ago the project was moving at full speed and no communication channels existed between the environmental community and the regional or national governments. At the event, the Chilean government recognized that the Coastal Range Coalition was a legitimate, scientifically and technically sound NGO, capable of engaging in this and other important environmental issues in the ecoregion. The Coastal Range Coalition and WWF's Valdivian Temperate Rainforest Ecoregional Programme will now work to implement the agreement and ensure long lasting conservation results in this rare and special ecoregion. Information aquired from Rainforest Action Network

Hyperemesis gravidarum is the term used for persistent nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. While over half of all pregnant women experience some form of morning sickness, only 1.5% to 2% suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum, a much more serious condition. Often leading to dehydration and malnutrition, hyperemesis gravidarum sends more than 50,000 pregnant women to the hospital each year. While more common in the first trimester, it often continues throughout the entire pregnancy. Fortunately, if diagnosed in time and treated properly, it presents little risk to you or your baby. The exact cause of hyperemesis gravidarum is unknown, but some factors may include: - High levels of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin). Levels of this pregnancy hormone rise quickly during the early stages of pregnancy and may trigger the part of the brain that controls nausea and vomiting. - Increased estrogen levels. This hormone also affects the part of the brain that controls nausea and vomiting. - Gastrointestinal changes. During your entire pregnancy the digestive organs displace to make room for the growing fetus. This may result in acid reflux and the stomach emptying more slowly, which can cause nausea and vomiting. - Psychological factors. Stress can often make you physically ill. The anxiety that can accompany a pregnancy may trigger acute morning sickness. - High-fat diet. Recent research shows that women with a high-fat diet are at a much greater risk for developing hyperemesis gravidarum. Their risk increases five times for every additional 15 grams of saturated fat (such as a quarter-pound cheeseburger) they eat each day. - Helicobacter pylori. A research study in Obstetrics &Gynecology reported that 90% of pregnant women with hyperemesis gravidarum are also infected with this bacterium, which may sometimes cause stomach ulcers. Women at increased risk for hyperemesis include those in their first pregnancy, carrying more than one baby, under the age of 24, or carrying a female fetus. Women with a prior history of nausea in pregnancy and those who are obese are also at increased risk. How Do I Know Have It? The symptoms are unmistakable and sometimes even crippling, including: - Severe nausea. - Persistent, excessive vomiting or the urge to vomit. Vomiting is considered excessive if it occurs more than three or four times per day and prevents you from keeping down any food or fluids for a period of 24 hours. - Weight loss of 5 or more pounds over a 1-2 week period. * - Lightheadedness or fainting. * - Infrequent urination. * - Pale skin. - Jaundice. * - Dehydration. * *(These symptoms result from malnutrition and dehydration brought on by excessive vomiting.) Your health care provider may perform several tests to rule out other possible causes, including: - Gastrointestinal problems. - Thyroid problems and other metabolic disorders. - Liver problems. - Neurological disorders. - Molar pregnancy. - HELLP syndrome, in cases where the condition appears later in the pregnancy. Your health care provider may also check for signs of dehydration with urine tests and blood tests. How Can I Treat It? It is important to contact your health care provider if you are experiencing severe nausea and vomiting. If properly treated, there should be no serious complications for you or your baby. Your health care provider can tell you whether your case is mild or severe. If it's mild, you should change your diet by eating more protein and complex carbohydrates, such as nuts, cheese and crackers, and milk. It's best to eat these foods in small portions, several times throughout the day. You should also avoid eating fatty foods, drink plenty of water, and get as much rest as possible. (For more suggestions, see our morning sickness article). Your doctor may also recommend taking antacids and an antiemetic (anti-vomiting) medication. Medications your doctor may prescribe for severe cases include: - Antihistamines, which help ease nausea and motion sickness. - Vitamin B6, which helps ease nausea (if you're unable to take it orally your doctor can give you an injection). - Phenothiazine, which helps ease nausea and vomiting. - Metoclopramide, which helps increase the rate that the stomach moves food into the intestines. - Antacids, which can absorb stomach acid and help prevent acid reflux. Severe cases of hyperemesis gravidarum require hospitalization. Once at the hospital, you may receive intravenous fluids, glucose, electrolytes, and, occasionally, vitamins and other nutritional supplements. Your vitamin levels may also be monitored since women suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum are often deficient in thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, vitamin A, and retinol-binding proteins. Remember, pregnant women need to maintain a much higher level of calories, protein, iron, and folate than nonpregnant women. Your health care provider will talk to you about the sufficient levels and how to maintain them. Anti-nausea drugs and sedatives may be given, and you will be encouraged to rest. After receiving intravenous (IV) fluids for 24 to 48 hours, you may be ready to eat a clear liquid diet and then move on to eating several small meals a day. You will be monitored by your health care provider after you leave the hospital, and be readmitted if problems continue or recur. Women with hyperemesis gravidarum are often encouraged to work with a counselor since emotional problems may not only contribute to this condition, but may result from it as well. Frequently Asked Questions Q: Can I take steps to prevent this from happening to me? A: Women who start taking prenatal vitamins early in pregnancy seem to be at lower risk of hyperemesis. Once symptoms start, it’s important to get care as soon as possible, so that the problem doesn’t progress. Q: I am suffering from a mild case of hyperemesis gravidarum. Am I going to be sick like this my whole pregnancy? A: For most women, nausea and vomiting are worse between six and 12 weeks gestation, and will subside and even vanish by the second half of pregnancy. Q: Are there any serious complications with hyperemesis gravidarum? A: Complications are extremely rare, but do happen. Mallory-Weiss tears (tears to the cardiac part of the stomach from excessive vomiting) and Wernicke's encephalopathy (a syndrome related to thiamin deficiency that may cause disorientation, confusion, and coma) have been reported in some rare cases. Miscarriage is extremely rare. In fact, women with bad nausea and vomiting have lower rates of miscarriage than those who breeze through early pregnancy. Irina Burd, MD, PhD, Maternal Fetal Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997- A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

Mark Perry has posted some interesting comparison of how prices have plummeted between 1958 and 2012 when measured in terms of the hours of work required to purchase items. He concludes that today's consumer working at the average wage of $19.19 would only have to work 26.6 hours (a little more than three days) to earn enough income ($511) to purchase a toaster, TV and iPod. The equivalent products (in terms of their basic function, not their quality) would have required 4.64 weeks of work in 1958. In short, the "time cost" of these items has massively declined by 86% in less than 5 decades. Similarly, Perry calculates that measured in the amount of time working at the average hourly wage to earn enough income to purchase a washer-dryer combination, the "time cost" of those two appliances together has fallen by 83%, from 181.8 hours in 1959 to only 31 hours today. What if we applied this kind of analysis to health care? The results are quite interesting. In 1958, per capita health expenditures were $134. This may seem astonishingly small, but it actually includes everything, inclusive of care paid for by government or private health insurers. A worker earning the average wage in 1958 ($1.98) would have had to work 118 hours-nearly 15 days-to cover this expense. By 2012, per capita health spending had climbed to $8,953. At the average wage, a typical worker would have to work 467 hours-about 58 days. In short, while time prices for other goods and services had shrunk to less than one quarter of their 1958 levels, time prices for health care had more than quadrupled! Of course, health care in 2012 is vastly different and greatly improved compared to what was available in 1958. But the same can be said of other goods and services (Perry, for example, is comparing the cost of an iPod to 4-speed automatic record player). This simple comparison reminds us of three basic truths. In general, private markets tend to produce steadily lower prices in real terms (e.g., in worker time costs) and steadily rising quality. This is exactly what we observe for goods such as toasters, TVs, iPods, washers and dryers. In contrast, while the quality of health care unequivocably has risen since 1958, real spending on health care has climbed dramatically. This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison insofar as the bundle of goods and services that constitute health care is also much larger today than in 1958. In contrast, even though the quality may be better, a washing machine in 2012 is still a washing machine. If we were willing to rely more on markets in medicine, we might be able to harness the superior ability of Americans to find good value for the money to produce results more similar to other goods. Second, over time, we as a nation have been able to afford more health care precisely because the time cost of other goods and services has declined. For the same number of hours worked, workers can enjoy the same standard of living even as they allocate more of their working time to purchasing health care. There is nothing wrong with this. The only issue is whether we are getting good value for the money when we buy health care. With only 11 cents of every health dollar paid directly out-of-pocket, I think most of us can honestly say "no." Anyone who is skeptical on this point should do the following mental experiment: if I promised to pay 89 percent of the cost of your groceries, would what you buy be different? Most students I ask freely concede that they would buy things they would not otherwise buy and might well pay higher prices even for things they would have bought anyway. The difference between the cost of your weekly groceries when you buy them with your own money (say, $100) and what you spend when someone else is paying most of the bill (say, $150) is not pure waste. There is some added value to you from those extra groceries. But that value cannot exceed the added cost else you would have bought them on your own in the first place. The difference between that added cost and your own estimate of the added value is what an economist would call waste. According to the Institute of Medicine, we wasted about $765 billion in health care in 2009-about 30 percent of all spending. Finally, this rate of increase is not sustainable. The time price of health spending cannot quadruple again over the next half century, else the average worker is likely to experience a decline in his or her real standard of living (i.e., what can be afforded after paying for health care). To paraphrase the former president of AEI, "we cannot make health care affordable by picking each other's pockets." The sooner policymakers recognize this basic truth, the sooner we can get on a path towards sustainable growth in health care expenditures. As well, one could argue that the average worker does not purchase the average per capita amount of health care since there are all sorts of cross-subsidies created by private and public insurance as well as U.S. tax policy. But at the end of the day, today's health spending is financed by today's workers, so if anything, the very rough picture I've provided is overly optimistic. On a per worker basis, total U.S. health spending this year will amount to $21,280, which would require an average-paid worker 1,108 hours of work to finance (and even more when taxes are taken into account). In reality, there are few U.S. workers who have to devote more than half a year to bankrolling their health care. The average hourly earnings figure I am using is only for production and nonsupervisory employees in manufacturing. Many other workers, including those in management and entrepreneurs, do not earn an hourly wage. And the costs of government-financed health care-which now accounts for more than 60 percent of health spending-tends to be borne more by those with the highest incomes. In fairness, when health economists have tried to measure the real prices of health treatments such as for heart attacks, they sometimes have found these have declined, though not nearly as rapidly as the decline in prices for goods and services analyzed by Perry. The original quote, from Christopher DeMuth, was "we cannot all grow wealthier by picking each other's pockets."

|Temperatures Geranium sanguineum continental : We suggest to place The Geranium sanguineum where it is exposed to direct sunlight. alpine : Place The Geranium sanguineum in a location exposed to direct sunlight. mediterranean : These plants need to be exposed to direct sunlight; in summer they can be exposed to a slight shadow without any problem. Feed Geranium sanguineum : From March to October fertilize using a fertilizer to be added to normal waterings, every 15-20 days; for your convenience it is also possible to use a slow-release granular fertilizer, to be placed around the plant every 3-4 months.Irrigation Geranium sanguineum continental : Give very regular waterings; all year long the soil shall be kept humid, however avoiding dangerous stagnations. Increase waterings in summer and decrease them when autumn starts. alpine : We suggest frequent and generous waterings, so that the soil remains mostly humid all year long. It is possible to decrease waterings in winter. mediterranean : It is advisable to give regular waterings, specially during spring and summer; before giving again water make sure the soil is dry. Adversity Geranium sanguineum : Apply a precautionary treatment against fungal diseases at the end of winter; later on treatments will be applied only in case parasites are on the plant, trying to use specific products and not broad-spectrum ones. In any case avoid treatments during bloom for not injuring the pollinating insects.

Daniel Kahneman earned the Nobel Prize in economics for the years of work he did with Amos Tversky (who died before the prize was given). Over years, sustained by curiosity and Tversky’s humor, these two and others investigated that age old economics question, what do people want? That old operating assumption, people as rational actors, hasn’t ever been confirmed. System 1 vs System 2 System 1 thinking operates automatically and quickly with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. Given this image even when we know that both segments are the same length, our intuitive self, System 1 still sees the bottom line as longer. Given the math problem, A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? System 1, our intuitive thinking, produces a cost of 10 cents. How often does our System 2 thinking, which does the checking, get called into play? It only takes a few seconds in this example. More than half of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton failed to check their System 1 response. At less selective colleges, failure to check exceeded 80%. It really doesn’t matter to us much how much the bat costs. But how much effort do most people allocate to issues we do care about, such as the financial integrity of our nation, or climate change? Answering the wrong question Often people answer irrelevant questions, or questions very different from what was asked. For example, years ago a chief investment officer of a large financial firm invested tens of millions of dollars in Ford. The question for stock investment is this: is the stock underpriced? The question he answered was this: do I like the product? And what do you think? I will prepare a few blogs as I make my way through the book. There are still a few more hundred pages.

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Grayson was settled in the year 988 P.D. (Post Diaspora; equivalent to 3091 on present-day calendar) by the Reverend Austin Grayson and his followers, all members of the Church of Humanity (Unchained) . The settlers' intention was to start a new life totally free of technology and live the way the Bible said people should live. This dream was foiled before their ship even landed because Grayson has an unusually high concentration of heavy metals in its soil which made anything indigenous poisonous. As a result technology was necessary just to survive. After the Rev. Grayson's death his doctrine about life totally without technology was abandoned. Adopted in its place was the view that technology in and of itself was not un-Godly, but the way it had consumed Man's life on Earth was. Not all Graysons could accept this reinterpretation, and over the course of several hundred years a political rift developed between the Moderates (those willing to employ technology to a limited extent), and the Faithful (those who wanted nothing to do with technology). War eventually broke out between the two groups. The Moderates won the most battles, but the Faithful had a doomsday weapon, which was intended to blow the planet up. This might have actually happened had Barbara Bancroft , wife of one of the Faithful's leaders, not fled to the Moderates and disclosed the existance of the doomsday weapon. For her bravery, Barbara Bancroft is known as the Mother of Grayson. Having learned about the doomsday weapon the Moderates realized that the time had come to strike a truce with the Faithful. Under the treaty that was signed, the Moderates would provision the Faithful as lavishly as they could, and send the Faithful to the planet Masada in the nearby Endicott system. In the six hundred years since the Faithful's exile, there have been several interplanetary wars between Grayson and Masada. The Masadans have promised to exterminate the Graysons in the name of God. The Church of Humanity practiced polygamy even before they came to Grayson. For this reason women outnumbered men on Grayson 4:1. The planet's environment is so dangerous that the orginal colonists required genetic engineering to survive. However, the genetic alterations unintentionally resulted in a sex-linked genetic defect that killed many males before birth. (This defect was forgotten by the Graysons for centuries, until Allison Chou Harrington rediscovered it.) Live female births outnumbered male births 3:1. So the practice of polygamy continued. Under Grayson's constitution women have no political or legal rights. They cannot vote, sit on juries, own land, or hold a title. Women are loved and respected, but are believed to be inferior to men. This changed after a security camera captured Honor Harrington defending the life of Grayson's Protector, Benjamin Mayhew IX . The resulting footage was shown all over Grayson forcing many men to reevaluate their opinion of the opposite sex. The planet is ruled by a council headed up by a Protector. Since the Rev. Grayson's death, this Protector has been a member of the Mayhew family. For the past five generations, the Council has worked to reduce amount of autonomous power welded by the Mayhew clan. In this they were very successful. Prior to the Grayson-Manticore alliance the Protectorate had become a largely ceremonial (if influential) position. - Benjamin Mayhew IX --Protector of Grayson - Michael Mayhew --heir to the Protectorate - Bernard Yanakov --Admiral of the Grayson Navy - Howard Clinkscales --Head of Grayson Security. The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details

Blue Crab Information Blue crab have long been a delicacy around the world. Thanks to their scavanging ability and will to survive, this crab has withstood the test of time, even though it is avidly hunted world wide. The Blue Crab belongs to the crustacean order of Decapoda, and consists of several species which are prized as delicacies worldwide. This crab lives along the eastern coasts of North and South America. It prefers waters known as "brackish," a mixture of fresh and salt water, sea grasses and weeds. Like most large crustaceans, the blue crab has a hard shell. The shell ranges in color from olive, brown or red to varying shades of blue. The shell of this crab is made of chitin and hardened with calcium. The blue crab's pinchers or "chelae" are large and very unequal in size. The crab has both pinchers and legs and is one of the few crustaceans who are capable of swimming. The eyes of the blue crab rest on short stalks, and are like those of insects, allowing the crab to see even the smallest movement in almost any direction. The blue crab has five pairs of legs, like other crabs. The male carries blue legs and the females are reddish-orange in color. The first pair of legs holds the sharp claws of the Blue crab, which are used to capture and hold food. They can also be used as a protective measure, holding predators in a painful grip. Often times, when threatened, the crab can allow these claws to break or drop off. Through the process of molting, the crab is able to regrow its claws. The Blue crab also has "paddles," which are formed at the tail end of its body. These long, flattened legs enable the crab to swim, a skill not found in many crabs. The Blue crab's other three pair of legs are used solely for walking. During molting, the hard outer shell of the crab is discarded. A new, softer shell, which has already formed under the old shell, swells and begins to harden in the seawater. Molting begins as a break in the outer shell. Just below the crab's eyes and on either side of its mouth, the shell cracks open, so that the crab is able to back out. Male crabs molt through out their lifetime to accomodate their large bodies. Female crabs molt before breeding or when injured. Young crabs molt almost continiously during their early development. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Mating of the blue crab occurs between June and October. The male crab dances and waves at the female during courtship, using his swimming paddles to attract the female's attention. A mature female blue crab is 1-1/2 years old and prepares for mating by losing her shell or "molting." A few days before shedding her hard shell, the male grasps on to the female and holds her tightly beneath his own shell. A few days later, the female is released to complete the process of molting. Mating occurs once the female has released her old shell. Because the female is extremely vulnerable while growing her new outer coating, the mating male will often protect the female during this time. After several days, as the female's shell hardens, she separates herself from the male, and travels closer to the water's edge, where she burrows in the mud for the winter. The female crab carries fertilized eggs in her abdomen in an area referred to as the "apron," on the underside of her body. The eggs undergo larval development inside the female. Once summer arrives, eggs are brooded, at which time they then develop into larvae. Of the many eggs that hatch, as few as two may live to reproduce. With an average size of .1 inches, the larvae spend the first days of their lives drifting between plants and plankton. Every three to five days, small crab larvae molts to accommodate their growing body. Young crabs molt many times and eventually, grow to 7 inches in length in about 200 days. The blue crab are considered scavengers, often feeding on the bodies of dead animals at the bottom of the ocean. It is because of this that the blue crab has survived as a population. Today, blue crab is considered a delicacy in much of the world. Favored for their soft, sweet meat, blue crab is actively hunted.

Most studies predict the cost of wind energy will continue to fall through at least 2030, said national laboratory staffers in a new report. The report, "The Past and Future Cost of Wind Energy," released June 6, is a collaboration among workers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with assistance from European researchers. The crux of the report is that while future trends, drivers and constraints are difficult to predict, the cost of wind-generated electricity will probably continue to decrease in the coming decades. Onshore wind's levelized cost of energy, or LCOE, fell by a factor of more than three between 1980 and 2000, the researchers said. "However, beginning in about 2003 and continuing through the latter half of the past decade, wind power capital costs increased — driven by rising commodity and raw materials prices, increased labor costs, improved manufacturer profitability, and turbine upscaling — thus pushing wind's LCOE upward in spite of continued performance improvements," they said. Trojanís Industrial Line of deep-cycle batteries is the newest addition to Trojanís lineage of high-quality flooded batteries for renewable energy and backup power applications. Designed to support large daily loads where the batteries are cycled regularly, Trojanís Industrial Line batteries are ideal solutions for a wide range of photovoltaic (PV) systems including large off-grid PV systems, off-grid hybrid PV systems, grid-tied PV systems with battery backup, smart grid peak shifting systems and a variety of other applications. Tested to meet both IEC and BCI standards, the Industrial Line features advanced battery technologies that deliver reliable power and is housed in a dual container construction for enhanced battery protection. Engineered for high-energy requirements, the Industrial line delivers 1,500 cycles at 80 percent depth-of-discharge and features advanced battery technologies that provide high performance.

Developing coping strategies Taking care of yourself "I always used to lay the table at mealtimes but I started to get mixed up with the cutlery. So now I clear the table after the meal instead. I think it helps a bit." (Hector) "My friends say that I have developed a very philosophical attitude towards life. I think that it was necessary for me in order to cope." (Janice) Once people with dementia and carers have got over the initial shock of learning the diagnosis and started to organise help, they will probably find that they have already started to develop coping strategies. People use a variety of strategies, but as different things work for different people, it is up to each person to find out what works best for them. On the whole, worrying or blaming yourself doesn’t help as much as confronting the problem or seeking information and social support Some strategies involve trying to manipulate the situation in order to reduce the problem or prevent it from happening in the first place. This might include organising practical help, rearranging the home, creating routines or changing the way you do things. If this involves leaving notes all over the house or making other visible changes, try not to be too house proud. Above all, it is important to set yourself realistic targets, acknowledge what you have achieved and try different solutions until you find one that works. As the disease progresses, carers will gradually learn how to handle different situations, sometimes by trial and error. This may involve changing or adapting their technique. Another coping strategy is to change how you think about yourself and others, the problem and the consequences it has on you. Making a conscious decision to see something in a particular way can really help e.g. trying to see the funny side of a situation or looking for something positive in the situation. Some people tell themselves that there is always someone worse off than themselves. People with philosophical or religious beliefs may find some support in their religion or philosophy of life. Basically, you should try to find out what works best for you and then take one day at a time. For the person with dementia Adopt a positive attitude and approach - Keep a sense of humour. - Try to make the best of things and get on with your life. - Maintain contact with people. - Accept practical and emotional support from others. - Think about joining a support group. - Try something new. - If you can, find a good book or watch something interesting on television. - Be prepared for changes to occur over time. When this happens, try to adapt to the new situation/state of affairs. - Try to adapt your targets and standards of achievement to your current abilities. If necessary, lower your expectations a little. - Remember that dementia is a disease. It is the effects of the disease which interfere with your ability to do things not your intelligence or skills. Devise a coping strategy - “Use it or lose it” i.e. exercise your brain with reading, puzzles or crosswords etc. - Decide what you can still do safely. - If necessary, ask someone to do a risk assessment on what you can safely do. - If you cannot do something you used to be able to do, don’t despair. You may find that there are other things or parts of tasks that you can manage. - Give yourself more time. - Take things in stages. - Develop a routine in your life. - Take frequent breaks as you may have to concentrate hard to do something and this can be tiring. - Make use of calendars, lists, notes, labels, “post-it” stickers, colour codes, alarms and images etc. if you need to. For the carer Devise a problem solving strategy: - Define the problem, explore possible causes and think about ways to overcome/deal with it. - Use your own knowledge/experience and ask other people for advice. - Collect as much information as you can and then set realistic goals. - Try different solutions in order to find the one that works best for you. - Try to prevent the problem from occurring by planning ahead. - Do a risk assessment on what the person with dementia can safely do (if necessary consult someone qualified). - Try to adapt to the changing needs of the person with dementia. - Assist when needed and discuss things together if you can. - Be calm and patient when handling problems. - Stimulate and encourage the person with dementia to remain active. - Take them out for a drive or encourage them to accompany you to different places e.g. a walk, a visit to the gym or the local library. Develop a positive outlook: - Avoid catastrophic thinking (e.g. I lost my wife in the supermarket for five minutes so I am totally useless or I should never take her out of the house again). - Remember the good times you had together. - Remember that the disease is the problem and not the person with dementia. - Remind yourself of things you do well (particularly when something goes wrong!). - Remember that nobody is perfect and don’t be too hard on yourself. Last Updated: vendredi 11 septembre 2009

Legislation relating to the provision of home care services The new Health Insurance Act which came into force on 1 January 2006 abolished the former distinction between private and public health insurance. The act made it compulsory for every person residing or paying tax in the Netherlands to take out a health insurance. Every healthcare insurance company in the Netherlands, having agreed to provide services under the new Act, is obliged to accept any person who applies for insurance. People pay a nominal premium directly to the health insurer as well as an income-related contribution. The latter is levied by the Inland Revenue Service. Under the Health Care Insurance Act, which also came into force on 1 January 2006, people may receive an allowance if the nominal premium is particularly high in relation to their income. The Exceptional Medical Expenses Act of 14 December 1967 (implemented on 1 January 1968) – AWBZ – covers costs for the care of long-term chronic illness that are not covered by the Health Insurance Act. A basic principle of the AWBZ is that people should be helped to live at home for as long as possible. The AWBZ originally covered costly long term institutional care but the scope of the act was extended to cover other services such as home nursing in 1980 and home help in 1989. Health insurance companies are designated by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport to implement the AWBZ. Organisation and financing of home care services Care provided under the Health Insurance Act and the AWBZ is divided into “products”. Home care and residential/nursing care for people with physical and/or mental disabilities are considered Medical Expenses Act products. A product consists of one or more functionally defined categories of care. There are seven broadly-defined categories of care: - Domestic help - Personal care - Supportive guidance (e.g. help organising one’s daily life, day care etc.) - Activating guidance (helping the person to adapt their behaviour or learn new skills) - Treatment (care linked to a health condition e.g. rehabilitation after a stroke) - Accommodation (e.g. sheltered housing, constant supervision, institutionalisation) AWBZ is funded through a compulsory premium, a co-payment and general taxation. The compulsory premium is integrated into the income tax structure but it is the employer who pays the largest share. The amount of the co-payment depends on the type of service, the income of the person who needs it, whether they are over 65, whether they live at home or in an institution and whether they live alone or cohabit. There is, however, a maximum weekly co-payment for all forms of home care. To be considered eligible for care, it is necessary to be assessed by an organisation called CIZ (Centrum indicatiestelling zorg). CIZ determines how much and what kind of care a person is entitled to receive. Once a person’s entitlement has been established, the person is free to choose care in kind, a personal care budget or a combination of the two. Care in kind means care services provided directly by a health care provider. This is arranged in consultation with the client who can use one or more care providers. A personal care budget is an amount of money granted to the client to purchase care independently. The client is free to purchase the care services from a health care provider but also from any person willing to provide the service e.g. a friend, relative or neighbour etc. Clients receiving a personal care budget are obliged to provide regular justification of their expenditure. The personal care budget is quite popular. The number of people with a personal care budget increased from 5,400 in 1996 to 65,000 in 2003 (Beukeman quoted in van Vliet and Oudenampsen, 2004). For care in kind, people may receive a bill or have the co-payment deducted from other state allowances. Co-payments for people receiving a personal care budget are deducted from the total amount that the person would otherwise receive. Kinds of home care services available Home care services are organised around the afore-mentioned categories of care. Examples include: home nursing (e.g. giving advice on how to cope with an illness, dressing wounds, administering medication), personal care (e.g. assistance with dressing, bathing, personal hygiene, eating and drinking), home help and housekeeping (e.g. cleaning, tidying and preparing meals), day care, respite care, night care and assistive devices. A special service called “Alpha Care” consists of home care that is provided by housewives. It is less expensive but limited to 16 hours per week. Nursing care is limited to 3 hours per day except in exceptional circumstances (Brodsky et al. 2000). Possible future developments A Social Support Act is currently being debated. If passed, it is likely to absorb cover for domestic help, supportive care and activating care, currently provided under the AWBZ, as well as certain grant schemes under the AWBZ concerning support to elderly people requiring assistance from relatives and friends outside the professional setting. According to van Vliet and Oudenampsen (2004), the consequences of the possible future transfer of cover for certain services to the Social Support Act is that these services will become the responsibility of the local government and will no longer be part of the services that budget-holders can purchase themselves. - Brodsky, J., Habib, J. and Mizrahi, I. (2000), A review of long-term care laws in five developed countries, http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/wwwu/institute/Sozialpolitik/LTC.pdf#search='A%20review%20of%20longterm%20care%20laws - Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sport (2005), Health insurance in the Netherlands; the new health insurance system from 2006: http://www.minvws.nl/images/health-insurance-in-nl_tcm11-74566.pdf - Van Vliet, K. and Oudenampsen, D. (2004), Integrated care in the Netherlands, http://www.verwey-jonker.nl/images/dynamisch/D3551878.pdf - Visser-Jansen, G. and Knipscheer, C.P.M. (2004), National Background Report for the Netherlands, EUROFAMCARE: http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de/extern/eurofamcare/documents/nabare_netherlands_rc1_a4.pdf Last Updated: mercredi 15 juillet 2009

This book is intended to provide a working knowledge of those parts of exterior differential forms, differential geometry, algebraic and differential topology, Lie groups, vector bundles and Chern forms that are essential for a deeper understanding of both classical and modern physics and engineering. Included are discussions of analytical and fluid dynamics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, the deformation tensors of elasticity, soap films, special and general relativity, the Dirac operator and spinors, and gauge fields, including Yang-Mills, the Aharonov-Bohm effect, Berry phase, and instanton winding numbers. Before discussing abstract notions of differential geometry, geometric intuition is developed through a rather extensive introduction to the study of surfaces in ordinary space; consequently, the book should also be of interest to mathematics students. This book will be useful to graduate and advanced undergraduate students of physics, engineering and mathematics. It can be used as a course text or for self study.

- Historic Sites Osceola Fights to Save the Seminole In Florida during the 1830s a young Indian warrior led a bold and bloody campaign against the government's plan to relocate his people west of the Mississippi River Summer 2012 | Volume 62, Issue 2 The story of Osceola and the Great Seminole War in Florida seems so fantastic at times that it is hard to believe it is all true. One warrior with courage, cunning, and audacity unsurpassed by any Native American leader masterminded battle tactics that frustrated and embarrassed a succession of U.S. Army generals. Osceola initiated and orchestrated the longest, most expensive, and deadliest war ever fought by Native Americans. He embarked on this quixotic struggle not for glory or out of hatred for the white man, but simply because he believed his people were being treated unjustly. Osceola had not always been a member of the Seminole tribe, nor had he always lived in Florida. He was born Billy Powell around 1804 in the Creek town of Tallassee, near present-day Tuskegee, Alabama. Like many Creeks of his generation he was of mixed parentage—a Scottish-English father and a Creek mother. Between 1812 and 1814, the Creeks living along the Tallapoosa River, which included the Powell family, rose to defend their land against encroaching white settlers. The U.S. government, already involved in the War of 1812, mustered a militia under the command of Gen. Andrew Jackson to come to the aid of the settlers. Jackson and his men laid waste to the territory, attacking and destroying Creek towns. The Powell family and their neighbors were forced to flee. Impoverished and desperate, they drifted south, living off the land. In time, these Creek refugees arrived in Spanish Florida and settled near present-day Tallahassee. The area was inhabited by the Seminoles, whose culture resembled their own in most respects. The Seminole Nation was not a distinct tribe with a long heritage but instead had been formed from various Native American tribes that had migrated down from the north and banded together. They also invited runaway slaves to join them. The Creek newcomers felt heartily welcomed and enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. The tribe owned herds of livestock, the luxuriant Florida climate produced an abundance of food, and goods from British and Spanish traders were readily available. For years, however, the Seminoles had been raiding white American settlements along the Georgia and Alabama borders. Once again the government called on Andrew Jackson, who led a large force into Florida and eventually marched on the village where Billy Powell and his mother lived and burned it to the ground. Billy, now 14 years old, got a firsthand taste of U.S. military power when he was captured and held briefly before being released unharmed. Jackson’s invasion ended the prosperity of these Seminoles, and Billy and his mother uprooted once more and moved to the Tampa Bay area. There, Billy officially passed into manhood at the Seminoles’ Green Corn Dance, a ceremony of purification, forgiveness, and thanksgiving held every summer. During the event, men consumed an herbal tea known as the black drink. Billy shed his childhood name and took the name of the wordless song that accompanied the serving of this drink. He became Asi Yaholo—Osceola—“Black Drink Singer.” In 1819 Spain turned Florida over to the United States. Native Americans who had fled south were once again living in U.S. territory. The government began openly discussing a plan to move the Seminoles from Florida to an area west of the Mississippi River. The threat of relocation caused Chief Micanopy to seek a compromise. In 1823 the Seminoles grudgingly agreed to the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, under which they would remain in Florida but give up 28 million acres of traditional homeland in return for about 4 million acres in the marshy Florida interior, land difficult to farm and short of animals to hunt. By this time Osceola was a highly respected tustenugge, or policeman, of his band. He had established a cordial relationship with white authorities with whom he came in contact. In 1826 the 22-year-old became enamored of a young woman named Che-cho-ter, or Morning Dew. Accounts suggest that she was at least part black, either a former slave or a descendant of a runaway. The couple, alas, was not to live happily ever after. In 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected president. He viewed the Seminoles as an obstruction to progress and pushed his Indian Removal Bill through Congress to relocate Eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River once and for all. The government met with a delegation of Seminoles at Payne’s Landing on the Ocklawaha River to negotiate a treaty for the removal. Details of the meeting are sketchy, but the Seminole tribe apparently agreed to move from Florida. Up to that point Osceola had shown little interest in the politics that had affected his nation, but what transpired at Payne’s Landing in 1832 deeply affected him. When Seminole chiefs acquiesced to the removal, the young tustenugge began rallying his fellow Seminoles to the cause of resistance. He believed the treaty would lead to the annihilation of their nation. With Morning Dew no doubt in mind, he stressed a provision in the treaty that black Seminoles would be seized and returned to slavery. The chiefs finally agreed with Osceola and vowed to fight rather than allow the people to be removed from their homeland. At the same time, Indian agent Wiley Thompson, the government’s chief representative, summoned Seminole leaders, including Osceola, to Fort King to sign a contract reaffirming their acceptance of the Payne’s Landing treaty. To Osceola’s consternation, 16 chiefs, ignoring their pledge to him to fight, signed the contract, agreeing to deliver their people to Tampa Bay for removal. Outraged, Osceola rose to his feet and strode forward, thrusting his knife into the treaty paper. He loudly vowed, “This is the only treaty I will make with the whites!”

Microscopically small and usually just a single cell, protists are complex, varied organisms that represent more than 30 different phyla (the bulk of eukaryotic diversity on Earth). Some are photosynthetic, some are important pathogens, and their modes of locomotion vary. These glass models allow the naked eye to see the complex protists. Herman O. Mueller, a Museum preparator whose family had worked as glass blowers in Germany for generations, spent 40 years working on the models. He completed them in 1943. Hall of Biodiversity

Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs One of two halls in the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing, the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs features fossils from one of the two major groups of dinosaurs. The ornithischians are characterized by a backward-pointing extension of the pubis bone, which is thought to have helped to support the enormous stomachs that these dinosaurs needed to digest the masses of tough vegetation they ate. Within the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, exhibits explore two evolutionary branches within this group: the genasaurs, which are defined by the development of inset tooth rows that form cheeks, and the cerapods, identified by an uneven covering of tooth enamel. These traits may have made holding and chewing food easier. Together, the two halls of the Koch Dinosaur Wing feature about 100 specimens, 85 percent of them fossils, rather than casts. These 100 specimens are just a small fraction of the Museum’s collection of dinosaur fossils, which is among the largest and most scientifically important of such collections in the world. Corythosaurus is a member of the group of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs, which walked and ran on their two hind legs. The species’ strange skull is capped by a crescent-shaped helmet that contains extended tubes, which formed elaborate nasal passages. The Museum’s dinosaur mummy is a fossilized imprint of the carcass of a duck-billed dinosaur. One of the most complete pieces of Mesozoic dinosaur remains ever found, this fossil represents one of the greatest discoveries in the history of paleontology. Anatotitan was a duck-billed dinosaur, one of the most widespread dinosaur groups. About 70 million years ago, duck-billed dinosaurs lived in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Their habitats varied from forests in river valleys to swamps in coastal floodplains. At 4 feet long and 2 feet tall, Psittacosaurus (pronounced sih-TACK-oh-sore-us) lived some 100 million years ago. Despite the fact that it didn't have any horns, Psittacosaurus was a member of the same group as Triceratops. At one time, some scientists thought Stegosaurus had a second brain since the one in its head seemed so small. Stegosaurus did, however, manage with one small brain. This 65-million-year-old Triceratops has a large frill on the back of its skull, two large horns over its eyes, and a smaller horn on its nose. On the side of the skull on display is a partially healed injury, perhaps caused by a conflict with another Triceratops.

An eSpring® Water Purifier ensures your drinking water is as clean, great tasting, and clear as possible. No other system is documented to effectively reduce as wide a range of contaminants as eSpring. If your tap water is treated at a local or regional water treatment facility, a disinfecting agent (typically chlorine or chloramines) is used. During the disinfection process, low levels of disinfection by-products can form when the disinfectant reacts with naturally occurring organic matter in the water. Some of these compounds are suspected carcinogens, and regulatory agencies are trying to reduce the levels. The pressed carbon block in the eSpring® System is very effective at reducing disinfectant by-products. During tests by NSF International, the eSpring System met or exceeded the reduction standards for disinfection by-products such as THMs (trihalomethanes), including chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and chlorodibromomethane. Pesticides and Pesticide By-Products Pesticide contamination of groundwater and surface water is an increasing concern, particularly in agricultural areas. Although pesticide contamination of drinking water does not appear to be widespread, water quality surveys have shown it does occur. The extent of drinking water contamination and the health effects of consuming low levels of pesticides are not yet known. Tests conducted by NSF International have resulted in certification of the eSpring Water Purifier for the effective reduction of a number of different pesticides and pesticide by-products. Radionuclides are radioactive health-effect contaminants. The eSpring® Water Purifier is the first NSF certified system to reduce radon and radon decay products in drinking water. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that has no taste, odor, or color. Radon is produced by the natural decay of uranium found in soil and rocks containing uranium ores, granite, shale, phosphate, and pitchblende. Most radon rises out of rock and is harmlessly dissipated in the atmosphere. However, radon gas can accumulate and dissolve in underground water sources such as wells. Particulates are tiny solids suspended in water. They can be visible or invisible specks of dirt, rust, or other materials. Particulates can affect the taste, odor, and clarity of your water. The spaces between the carbon molecules in the carbon block filter of the eSpring® Water Purifier are extremely small, enabling the filter to remove particles as small as 0.2 microns. That’s 300 percent smaller than the width of a human hair. This includes tiny particles such of asbestos, sediment, dirt, and scale. Contaminants come in many different forms. As described above, they can range from naturally-occurring microorganisms and minerals, to industrial and agricultural pollutants, and even to chemicals that have been inadvertently introduced by the very processes used by cities and towns to treat drinking public drinking water. Contamination can affect the taste, odor, and purity of water. The eSpring® System effectively removes lead, mercury, and asbestos. Even at low levels, lead poisoning may cause IQ deficiencies, reading and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced attention spans, hyperactivity, and other behavior problems. Lead can exist in different forms in water, depending on the pH or acidity of the water. The eSpring System was tested at two different pHs to accurately determine that it is effective at reducing lead. Mercury gets into water from erosion of natural mineral deposits, discharge from refineries and factories, and runoff from landfills and farms. Asbestos sources include decay of asbestos cement in water mains, runoff from glass and electronics plant wastes and wear/breakdown of asbestos-containing materials. The eSpring system effectively reduces both mercury and asbestos. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) VOCs are a group of organic chemicals that may leach into ground water or be discharged into lakes and streams in wastewater coming from chemical, plastic, petroleum plants, landfills, dry cleaners, or gasoline storage tanks. Vinyl chloride is a gas used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a plastic material often used for drinking water pipes. Prior to the mid-1970s, PVC pipe often contained high levels of residual vinyl chloride, which could contaminate drinking water. While the methods of manufacturing PVC pipes have changed to significantly reduce any residual vinyl chloride, many older PVC pipes are still in use, and vinyl chloride contamination of drinking water still occurs. The eSpring® Carbon Water Treatment System has an activated pressed carbon-block filter. This patented, multistage carbon-block technology effectively reduces more than 140 potential health-effect contaminants that may be present in your drinking water. But it allows beneficial minerals like calcium, magnesium, and fluoride to pass through. Copyright © 2012 Amway

In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often called an intro. The introduction establishes melodic, harmonic, and/or rhythmic material related to the main body of a piece. Introductions may be an ostinato that is used in the following music, an important chord or progression that establishes the tonality and groove for the following music, important but disguised or out of context motivic or thematic material. As such the introduction may be the first statement of primary or other important material, may be related to but different from the primary or other important material, or may bear little relation to any other material. (Courtesy of Wikipedia) Introductions or Intros, which occur at the beginning of a song, are short (usually only several bars) and are used to establish a songs mood, tempo, and key. If a song's initial chord progression starts with the "I" chord (as most songs do), you can use any Turnaround to create an Introduction.

USDA ditches food pyramid for a dinner plate in latest guidelines The Daily Ardmoreite Posted Jan. 25, 2013 @ 9:00 am Posted Jan. 25, 2013 @ 9:00 am » Social News The government is ditching the famous food pyramid for a dinner plate as part of the latest changes to USDA dietary guidelines. Everydayhealth.com offers the new rules: New Food Rule 1: Eat the Most Nutrient-Dense Foods Why change: Americans consume far too many "empty calories" - those that lack good-for-you nutrients like whole grains, lean protein, vitamins, and minerals. "About 260 calories in a 2,000-calorie daily diet could be from indulgences like cookies or soda. But the typical American eats closer to 600 to 800 empty calories a day. Nutrient-dense foods are described as "foods that in their prepared state have significantly more nutrients per calorie. For example, for the same amount of calories as soda, fat-free or low-fat milk offers calcium, vitamins, minerals, and protein, where soda has none. Fill half your plate at any given meal with vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, which are naturally nutrient dense. Skip add-ons like batters, breading, and butter, and choose sauces and dressings wisely, like vinaigrettes made with healthy olive oil instead of full-fat dressings. Opt for a baked potato instead of French fries, grilled chicken instead of fried, brown rice instead of white rice, and low-fat milk instead of whole milk or soda. But remember that nutrient-dense doesn't always mean low-calorie. The key is displacing empty calories with nutritious, filling calories. New Food Rule 2: Eat Fewer Solid Fats and Added Sugars Why the change: Solid fats and added sugars have no. Solid fats include butter, stick margarine, and meat fats. Added sugars are commonly found in packaged goods such as grain-based snacks and desserts, soda, energy drinks, and juice "drinks." What you can do: Trim fat from meat, remove skin from poultry, and use less table sugar. Watch for sneaky sugar in food, like ketchup. Read ingredient lists of packaged foods for tip-off words like corn syrup, sucrose, sugar, honey, syrup, and dextrose. If you spot them in the first few ingredients, avoid the food or eat it less frequently. Treat desserts, sugar-sweetened sodas, and candy as treats - not as everyday foods. Or rethink your definition of dessert: Try a bowl of fruit with an ice cream topping, rather than a bowl of ice cream with fruit topping. New Food Rule 3: Eat More Seafood Why change: Seafood is rich in heart- and brain-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, which the typical American diet sorely lacks. The new food guidelines recommend consuming at least 8 ounces of fish, shellfish, and other types of seafood every week (the 2005 guidelines did not recommend a specific amount of fish). What you can do: Swap out your usual meat or poultry dinner twice a week for seafood. A 4-ounce serving of fish is smaller than you might think - it looks like a deck of cards. Pick fish that's high in omega-3s but low in mercury, such as salmon, trout, or herring. Pregnant women should eat fish too, but it's especially important to pick low-mercury varieties (in large amounts the heavy metal has been linked to health problems). If you're pregnant or breastfeeding, limit your intake of white tuna (albacore) to 6 ounces per week, and and don't eat tilefish, shark, swordfish, or king mackerel, which can be high in mercury. If you're concerned about the mercury content in tuna, use canned salmon instead for your sandwiches or casseroles. How to get your kids to eat it? Grill salmon burgers instead of hamburgers or toss teriyaki tuna strips onto a salad. New Food Rule 4: Show Red Veggies Some Love Why change: The previous food guidelines mentioned orange, but not red, vegetables. Now the two have been combined into one veggie sub-group. The guidelines recommend eating more of this group, along with dark-green veggies and beans and peas. Remember red vegetables include tomatoes and red peppers, both great sources of vitamin C, lycopene ,other antioxidants, and other nutrients. What you can do: Most people should eat five-and-a-half cups cups of red and orange vegetables each week. To get the most nutritional bang for your buck, keep in mind that your body is better able to absorb lycopene, the fat-soluble antioxidant in red peppers and tomatoes, in the presence of oil. Lycopene is important because it may improve heart health and lower the risk of cancers like breast and prostate cancer. Keep a supply of jarred red peppers in oil and add them to sandwiches, salads, stir-fries, and omelets for a flavorful nutrient boost. Tomato sauce is another easy way to boost your red veggie intake, but the ready-made stuff can be loaded with added salt. Look for jars with 300 or fewer milligrams of salt per serving. Some stores even carry no-salt-added versions. And think beyond the usual suspects to red varieties of vegetables such as red cabbage, beans, and Swiss chard. Red cabbage and beans contain anthocyanins, plant chemicals that show promise in preventing heart disease and cancer and protecting brain health. Red beans are the most fiber-rich vegetable in the world, Grotto says. New Food Rule 5: Eat More Fruit Every Day Why change: Here's why, only 42 percent of Americans eat the two cups of fruit per day that are recommended for someone on a 2,000-calorie diet. Choosing fruit over less-healthy snacks will automatically make your diet more nutrient-dense and lower in calories. All fruits are healthy, but berries are among the best – gram for gram, they're jam-packed with nutrients for very few calories. One cup of whole strawberries has about 50 calories and contains elagic acid that may help the lining of your arteries become more pliable, which could help prevent atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. What you can do: The best way to work more fruits into your diet is to have them ready to go: peeled, cut up, and mixed together in individual serving containers in your fridge. At least half of your fruit should be in whole fruit form - fresh, frozen, or canned if it's packed in 100 percent fruit juice - because whole fruit contains fiber that juice doesn't. You can get the rest of your fruit from 100 percent fruit juices, such as orange juice. Eat fruit for snacks or dessert, add it to salads, and use it in place of sugar, syrups, and other sweet toppings for cereal and pancakes. New Food Rule 6: Vegetarianism and Veganism Can Be Healthy Why change: For the first time, the dietary guidelines include a model for healthy vegetarian and vegan eating. With proper planning, you can get enough protein from dairy, eggs, beans and peas, soy products, and nuts and seeds, and other nutrients from vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. What you can do: Not surprisingly, the biggest concern with meat-free diets is getting enough protein. You'll need to replace meat with other foods that qualify as complete proteins - which means they contain all of the essential amino acids. Complete proteins include dairy, eggs, soy (such as tofu and edamame), and certain grains, such as amaranth and quinoa. Watch out for the salt: Veggie burgers and other frozen meat substitutes can be packed with sodium. Vegans, and vegetarians who don't get enough dairy and eggs, may also be deficient in certain nutrients, namely vitamins B12 and D, calcium, and iron, so it's a good idea to talk to a registered dietitian, who may recommend that you take supplements or make other changes to your diet.

Image Number K7252-47 Apples are an all-American success story-each of us eats more than 19 pounds of them annually. Thanks to fruit-breeding research, we're able to enjoy more productive, healthy, and flavorful new varieties every year. And we're collecting and preserving the world's bounty of apple genestock, so that the apples of tomorrow may be even sweeter crunchier, and better than ever. Think about the quality of the apples you buy at the supermarket: They may have been stored for as long as 9 months but you can bet they'll remain crisp, thanks to controlled-atmosphere-storage methods devised by ARS. Never before have growers had a better chance against pests and diseases in the apple orchard, thanks to new, nonchemical biocontrols. ARS scientists have toiled to harness naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria and turn them against apples' We've even worked on bashless bagging-packaging systems that are used by wholesalers to bring you apples without bruises. Photo by Scott Bauer. 640 pixels wide: (k7252-47.jpg) Please visit our Image Gallery

The soap makes her vision blurry as she flows down a hollow rusty pipe collecting particles contradicting her purity and making her heavy. She feels the texture of millions like her, gushing through the coarse metal and out into a deep dark pit. A hoard of small stones and fine particles of sand meet her course. Her pace slowed, her flow determined, she makes her way through the crevices and drops into a free fall. She smiles. For now, she can see, her vision is no more blurry, the heaviness gone, she's pure again. Soon enough, she feels a vacuum pulling her up through a cold steel pipe and she gushes out into a glass. The touch of fresh air feels good. Moments later she sees the face of a little boy smiling as he raises the glass to his lips, and she gladly surrenders to his need, and trickles down his throat, accompanied by a fulfilling sigh. Quenching the boy's thirst, she is indeed, life! Water is life. In India, which is surrounded by water on the three sides, millions do not have access to clean water. On the other hand, there is so much wastage of water, unmindful of the lives that it costs. The residents of Lakshmipura, a village in Karnataka, have a story to tell. The village has been subject to years of water scarcity, and drought during summers as a consequence of wastage of water - but not anymore. The water conservation project initiated by The Art of Living in the village and in different parts of Karnataka is bearing refreshing results. The drains have been made free of waste water, and are now used to collect rainwater, further purifying it with the help of natural filters. During monsoon, the water gushing through these drains is collected in small tanks, which after being filtered is left to bigger tanks. It is further made to flow down a channel to the bore-wells in the villages, giving the villagers access to clean drinking water. The simple motto "Waste no water!" is the mantra of the villagers. They have been educated, and are aware of the importance of water conservation. The villagers have also pledged not to use the clean water to wash vehicles, clothes and bathe cattle. It is encouraging to see that people are aware, and are taking steps to conserve water. To know that every drop is precious and conducive to life is a reason enough to be grateful for every sip. The gratefulness that the little boy, his family, and the rest of the villagers of Lakshmipura are feeling, with every gulp of clean water they take is a joy worth sharing. Why did it take them so long to do this? This is where spiritual practices help. Spirituality nourishes team work, a sense of responsibility and belongingness. It brings greater sensitivity towards nature and each other and promotes caring and sharing. Just a few sessions of group meditations and Satsang is enough to spark the community spirit and harmony that is required to implement sustainable solutions for the challenges we face. This has been seen time and again, village after village, challenge after challenge, and has resulted in success after success. To be part of our efforts to transform rural India, please do write in to email@example.com Writer: Eben Felix, Graphics: Niladri Dutta

The Battle of Leyte Gulf The largest and greatest naval battle ever fought! A milestone in naval and military history! Read about the World War II Pacific commanders on both sides: The Americans: Nimitz, Halsey, Sprague, MacArthur, Kinkaid, The Japanese: Kurita, Ozawa, Nishimura, and an American President: Franklin D. Roosevelt Learn about the strategic considerations both sides had to assess as they prepared to fight this historic World War II Pacific conflict, where it happened, when it happened, and the resulting aftermath. Click here to read more. I hope you find this web site enjoyable, educational, and entertaining. If you wish to let me know your thoughts about this web site, please click here take a survey. Whatever your feelings are, please go to the E-mail Me page to send an E-mail to me to ask any question or make any comments you may have about the battle or this web site. Written by: Kenneth I. Friedman, Ph.D

Not technically seeds, these are the split halves of the dried fruits of a plant that are used as a spice. They grow in East and South East Europe, the Netherlands, North Africa and the USA. They are brown, long, narrow, slightly curved, ridged, and pointed at both ends. They are aromatic and have a distinctive bitter, sharp, nutty taste, with warm, sweet undertones. Buy from supermarkets, delis or speciality spice shops. Store in a cool, dry place, and use within six months. Caraway seeds are widely used in Central and Eastern Europe to flavour rye breads, biscuits, cakes, stews, meat dishes, cheeses, sauerkraut and pickles; they are also often combined with potatoes and apples. They can be used in English comfits and seed cakes, the Arabic spice mixture tabil, North African harissa paste, and north Indian curries. Liqueurs such as kummel, schnapps and aquavit are all flavoured with caraway. Article by Sejal Sukhadwala Type the ingredients you want to use, then click Go. For better results you can use quotation marks around phrases (e.g. "chicken breast"). Alternatively you can search by chef, programme, cuisine, diet, or dish (e.g. Lasagne). This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.

Cancer oregonensis (Pygmy rock crab) 2005 Mary Jo Adams small crab has a carapace width of less than 2 inches. The rounded carapace is widest at the 7 th or 8 th lateral tooth and unlike other cancer crabs, the carapace lacks angular corners. The carapace is usually red-brown but color varies; the tips of the claws look like they were dipped in black ink. Its legs are quite hairy. Look for this crab low in the intertidal under rocks, hiding in crevices, or tucked away in the otherwise empty shell of a giant barnacle ( Balanus nubilus ). It is found subtidally to a depth of 1400 feet. pygmy rock crab accesses the small barnacles that it preys on by crushing their shells with powerful claws. Other common names for this crab are hairy cancer crab and Oregon cancer crab most likely to be confused with this species is Lophopanopeus bellus bellus (the black clawed crab) as both are small and have black tipped claws. To distinguish between the two, look for the 3 lateral teeth along the edge of the carapace of the black-clawed crab. The pygmy rock crab carapace is more rounded, has more numerous teeth, and has very hairy legs. This page was created by Mary Jo Adams on 12/5/05.

"How to Identify Prehistoric Projectile Points" From site: News & Events Date: Monday, January 14th, 2013 Time: 7:00 pm Duration: 2 hours Location: Basement Laboratory, Logan Museum of Anthropology Sponsored by: Three Rivers Archaeological Society and Logan Museum of Anthropology Contact: , Contact: Bill Green 363-2119 Please join the Three Rivers Archaeology Society and the Logan Museum of Art for a hands-on workshop on projectile point identification using the Logan Museum of Anthropology’s education collection. Professional archaeologists will help with identifications and show you how to identify prehistoric points and other stone tools. We will sort and identify the approximately 200 artifacts using guidebooks, comparative material, and local experts. No prior experience is necessary. This exercise will help you become familiar with projectile point guidebooks and other resources you can use on your own. We will work in the Logan Museum’s basement laboratory, so plan on getting to the meeting by 7:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the campus and community.

To their surprise, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a new type of cell in women's breast tissue that might one day be used to heal a variety of wounds and damaged organs, without having to destroy embryos to acquire stem cells. The newly discovered cells act similarly to embryonic stem cells in that they can be placed in mice or in a Petri dish and "instructed" to produce many different cell types. That raises hope that the cells might someday be used as a sort of personalized "patch kit," without the controversy that has surrounded stem cells taken from human embryos. "When we saw that they could make cartilage, bone, gut, brain, pancreas cells -- even beating heart tissue -- we were excited and intrigued," said senior study author Thea Tlsty, a UCSF professor of pathology. "We were not looking for this," she said. "This was unexpected." The study was published Monday in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists had previously believed that so-called pluripotent cells, which can transform into most cell types, did not exist in the body beyond the embryonic stage of development. The new cells may have some advantages over a 2007 scientific breakthrough that revolutionized the field of regenerative medicine -- the discovery that adult skin cells could be reprogrammed or reverse-engineered to act like embryonic stem cells and transform into a variety of cell Researchers dubbed these reprogrammed cells induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS. Such cells are made without destroying embryos, and hundreds of scientists around the world are researching them, but some have wondered whether these cells might form cancerous tumors when introduced into a human body. Tlsty noted that the newly discovered cells are more genetically stable than the iPS cells and are limited in how often they can reproduce, making them less likely to form cancers. "They have great potential," Tlsty said. "If this develops the way we think it's going to develop, it really could be a significant step forward for regenerative medicine." A leading California stem cell researcher who was not involved with the study called the results "really interesting and intriguing" but said more research is needed. "Any unusual finding awaits independent replication and further exploration," said Larry Goldstein, director of the UC San Diego stem cell research program. "Time will tell as investigators try to replicate the finding. Is it a mirage, a blind alley, or a path to a valley full of riches?" he said. The cells were first discovered in healthy breast tissue from women who were undergoing breast reductions. Researchers have since looked at tissue from more than 60 women. All had some of the cells, although it isn't yet known whether they exist in older women and young girls. "We anticipate that we'll be able to get them from other tissues, and that's some of the research that we're doing now," Tlsty said. She added that researchers believe the cells will be found in both men and women. They are calling the newly identified cells endogenous pluripotent somatic cells, or ePS. "Pretty much everything we've asked them to make, they've made," Tlsty said. "These cells have responded beautifully." Sandy Kleffman covers health. Contact her at 510-293-2478. Follow her at Twitter.com/skleffman.

SAVING THE SAND MOUNTAIN BLUE BUTTERFLY Sand Mountain blue butterflies live in only one place on Earth — within and near the dunes of “Singing” Sand Mountain in Nevada. But over the past three decades, extensive off-road vehicle use on these public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management has destroyed more than 50 percent of the rare butterfly’s habitat and main food source, leaving the species perched on the edge of extinction. The Sand Mountain blue butterfly is closely linked to Kearney buckwheat; larvae feed exclusively on the plant, and adult butterflies rely on its nectar as a primary food source. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management has allowed off-road vehicle use to destroy much of the Kearney buckwheat that once thrived on the dunes at Sand Mountain. To ensure that the Sand Mountain blue butterfly will have adequate habitat and protection, the Center submitted a petition to list this rare species as federally endangered in 2004. In 2006, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to respond to our initial petition, the Center filed another suit against the Service to compel a response. In 2007, the Service denied our petition to list the species despite continued threats from increasing off-road vehicle use at the dunes. The Service is staking the continued existence of the species on a new Conservation Plan that relies on largely voluntary measures to stem the tide of habitat destruction from off-road vehicle use. The Center will continue to advocate for mandatory legal protections for the butterfly and its habitat under the Endangered Species Act. Contact: Lisa Belenky |Photo courtesy of Carson City BLM Field Office||HOME / DONATE NOW / SIGN UP FOR E-NETWORK / CONTACT US / PHOTO USE /|

The Sutra of Filial Piety Shelfmark: Oriental MS 74.B.3 Korean woodblock book, printed on brown paper during the 16th century. The text is assumed to have been written in China since the earliest known version of this sutra was discovered at Dunhuang. Though Buddhist, it incorporates the Confucian ethic of repaying the kindness and devotion of one's parents through acts of self-abasement. Find out more about this manuscript and other sacred texts in Expressions of Faith.

of their expenses such as a financial reward or a day off from chores. Showing them the importance of budgeting for items they need versus spending extravagantly is critical. “Children must realize that there is an inflow and an outflow of money and you don’t want the outflow to be greater than the inflow or else we become financially over extended,” says Gwendolyn Kirkland, a certified financial planner at Kirkland, Turnbo & Associates, in Chicago. “A budget establishes financial boundaries. So when they’re asking for different things, parents can say they either budgeted or they didn’t budget for it.” Encourage children under the age of 8 to divide money into different categories. Perhaps they should have one piggy bank for saving and another piggy bank for spending. By the time your child turns 9, talk to him or her about creating a small budget to keep track of income and expenses. Teenagers, should already understand the basics of personal finance and budgeting and be allowed to make their own financial decisions, with your guidance. By then, budgets should be a cornerstone of their money management. Plant the seeds of entrepreneurship. Not all children receive weekly allowances. When Angelina and Marvin Lipford, of Hampton, Virginia, were married 20 years ago, they entered into their marriage carting around $15,000 to $20,000 worth of credit card and student loan debt. They spent the first five years of their marriage paying off the debt along with the accompanying high interest rates. The couple was determined to keep their three children from falling into the same trap. Knowing the financial sacrifices they had to make early in their marriage, the Lipfords are making sure their three children keep a tight rein on their finances and avoid the same pitfalls. They have an 18-year-old daughter, Jasmine, who is attending Howard University on a basketball scholarship; a 15-year-old son, Marvin Jr., who is a sophomore in high school; and a 9-year-old, Nehemiah. A natural progression in teaching their children the building blocks of finances was to encourage their children to either work, as Jasmine had done before going to college, or to start their own business. Instead of giving their children allowances, the Lipfords encourage them to earn their own money by doing chores around the house. It was on a pay-per-work arrangement. And if the children asked their parents for additional money, they were required to pay their parents back with interest. This arrangement encouraged Marvin Jr. to earn money on his own. In 2002, he took the financial and entrepreneurial lessons he learned from attending a weeklong financial camp to cut grass during the summer months using his father’s lawn mower. This past summer, he charged $20 a yard and earned $1,000, which he put into his savings account. Show children how to pay bills. With so many people paying bills online, this is an opportunity to get children involved. Show them how money is deposited into an account, and how you’re subtracting from those dollars to pay your obligations

Dear Dr. Levister: I live in a low-income neighborhood where my two sons are exposed to a lot of violence. Both boys have nightmares. One wets the bed. Can children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Y.S. Dear Y.S.: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition in which a person has long-lasting psychological symptoms after experiencing an extremely stressful event(s). About 30 percent of men and women who have spent time in war zones experience what we now call PTSD. In years past, a number of names were given to the emotional problems some soldiers had after returning from war, including: shell shock and combat fatigue. Children and teenagers can show signs of PTSD too. The loss of a friend or loved one, a violent experience, or exposure to a horrifying event may cause a child to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers have found that the disorder is extremely common in young people who experience such violence as seeing a parent murdered or raped, witnessing a school shooting, or being the victim of sexual abuse. It is also very common in young people who are exposed to a lot of violence in their community. Young children with PTSD may experience less specific fears, such as being afraid of strangers. They may have sleep problems, and they may lose previously learned skills, such as toilet training. In addition, they may act out parts of the distressing event in their play or daily interactions. Older children also may reenact parts of stressful events in play or drawings. Most people who have been through a very frightening event will have a noticeable reaction in the days and weeks just afterward. The diagnosis of PTSD is considered only if the symptoms last more than a month. The course of the disorder varies. Some people with PTSD recover within months, while others have symptoms that last much longer. Occasionally, the onset of symptoms can be delayed and may not show up until years after the stressful event. While it is unclear why PTSD develops in some people but not in others, at least two factors, early counseling and a high degree of family support, lowers the risk of PTSD in young people. |< Prev||Next >|

PARI displays items from NASA's space shuttle program Published: Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 4:30 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, November 16, 2012 at 6:37 p.m. ROSMAN — Space shuttle parts that have been to space and back are now on display to the public at Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in Rosman. The Exhibit Gallery holds an orbiter wing leading edge and a tire used in the landing of Shuttle Discovery, along with an antenna assembly and other items gifted by NASA. Established in September 1998, PARI is a not-for-profit foundation that provides hands-on educational and research opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math. The Exhibit Gallery is located on the 200-acre campus where scientific research is conducted using equipment including two 85-foot radio telescopes. Education Director Christi Whitworth said staff and volunteers at the observation center were ecstatic when the space shuttle items arrived last month. "It was very exciting NASA finally released these because we have been waiting for a long while," Whitworth said about the items, valued at about $1 million. It took about three years for the items to arrive at PARI on Oct. 12 from the Kennedy Space Center. Scientists, volunteers and educators unpacked the wing segment immediately and started snapping photos of the parts that once left the earth's atmosphere to explore the vast realm of space. "There was a lot of geeking out going on," Whitworth said Wednesday in the Exhibit Gallery, where many more artifacts from the space shuttle program, as well as meteorites dating back as far as 1492, are on display. The wing panel on display is constructed from reinforced carbon material that provides protection for re-entry into the atmosphere, where temperatures on the surface of the shuttle exceed 3,000 degrees. The panel is similar to the one damaged in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Gallery visitors get a better idea of what failed during that mission after seeing the wing segment, Whitworth said. Nearby, a Space Shuttle Discovery tire stands more than 3-and-a-half feet tall and is visibly worn down. "You know that this is the tire when you watch the Discovery touchdown," Whitworth said about the Kennedy Space Center landing on July 17, 2006, following a 5.3 million-mile journey. Children tend to gravitate to the tire, she said. "The kids are just as tall as the tire and they can get an idea on how big the shuttle actually is," Whitworth said. The Exhibit Gallery is open to the public and Whitworth said visitors enjoy seeing the space equipment and learning it was used. "People get a sense of size and scale," Whitworth said. She is impressed with the new additions to the Exhibit Gallery and encourages people to visit the PARI campus, which is open on weekdays and for special occasions. "I never thought I would be standing next to a (shuttle) tire and wing segment," Whitworth said. The PARI site was initially developed by NASA in 1962 as the East Coast facility to track satellites and monitor manned space flights. The best known PARI radio telescope is the 15-foot antenna, nicknamed "Smiley" because a smiley face was painted on the dish as a friendly wave to Soviet satellites during the Cold War era, according to the PARI website. The Exhibit Gallery is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment. For more information, visit www.pari.edu. Reach Schulman at 828-694-7890 or email@example.com. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.

A dead finback whale more than 50 feet in length was found floating in Boston Harbor early Sunday morning — a rarity for the area, officials said. Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium, which sent officials to examine the whale, said how the massive mammal died remained a mystery. “We don’t know,” he said. “We’ve only been able to look at a small portion of the body so far.” LaCasse said the animal probably died of natural causes, disease, or a unique medical problem, such as being struck by a vessel or becoming entangled in netting. He said a large amount of blood in the water surrounding the whale and marks on its body may indicate trauma. But he added that it is unclear whether the possible trauma took place before or after the animal died. Authorities did not know how old the whale was, but were conducting tests on samples taken from the animal, and planned to perform a necropsy. Although the finback whale is common in this area, it is endangered in the United States, said LaCasse. About 10,000 remain in US waters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. LaCasse said adult finback whales weigh on average between 70,000 and 90,000 pounds. The species can grow to an average length of between 45 and 70 feet, according to the Whale Center of New England. “It’s not rare to see a whale in the Boston Harbor, but it’s rare to see a dead whale in the Boston Harbor,” said Brian Fleming, command duty officer at the US Coast Guard Base Boston. “The majority of these cases happen out to sea.” Massachusetts State Police marine officials spotted the whale around 3 a.m. near the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, and the Coast Guard transported New England Aquarium rescue team members to examine it. LaCasse said the whale floated to within “a couple hundred yards” of the shore of Long Island in Boston Harbor at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, but the tide carried it back into the harbor. Authorities will wait for the carcass to wash up so they can examine it and then dispose of it. Fleming said that about three or four live whales are sighted in Boston Harbor per year. Matt Rocheleau can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.

In 1899, a contingent of nuns journeyed into the malarial forests of southern Africa to set up missionary schools. They mastered the clicking language of the Ndebele tribe, baked communion bread in brick ovens they built themselves, and steered clear of the subject of monogamy so as not to enrage the polygamous local chief. In 1911, another group of sister-pioneers set sail for the islands of Fiji to run a clinic for lepers. In 1929, nuns in black habits rode a steamship up the Yangtze River into the heart of China, braving insufferable heat, flying termites, and warring generals. Without the resourcefulness and courage of these extraordinary women, the Catholic Church would never have been able to spread its teachings around the globe or staff its unwieldy empire of schools, churches, and hospitals. So it is odd to hear the Vatican denouncing the largest group of nuns in America for promoting “radical feminist” ideas. The statement is shockingly out of touch with the modern world. But it is also willfully blind to important parts of the church’s own history. A profound faith in women’s capabilities — in the world, in the classroom, and in God’s eyes — lies at the core of what nuns have always been. Long before Betty Friedan kicked off the modern feminist movement in the 1960s, nuns were earning medical degrees and running complex institutions, often without financial support from Rome. Just look at the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, founded in 1804 to educate impoverished girls. When a bishop forbade them to expand their work, they refused to obey him and were kicked out of France. They relocated to Namur, Belgium, and went on to build schools in 17 countries — including Trinity College in Washington, D.C., which educated Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius. It’s not surprising that religious orders attracted such tenacious women. For centuries, the convent was the only respectable place for girls who aspired to travel and make a difference in the world, not simply get married and bear children. Eventually, the women’s-rights movement gave young women the chance to work in social justice outside of the church. That’s one reason the number of American nuns plummeted from a peak of 180,000 in 1965 to fewer than 60,000 today. But the lack of respect for nuns in an all-male church hierarchy also played a role. In the early 1960s, Vatican II gave nuns wide latitude to go out into the world and perform good works. Some joined the civil rights movement. Others protested the Vietnam War. But skittish men simultaneously reined them in. The archbishop of Washington refused to allow nuns in his diocese to attend Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, even though priests were encouraged to go. The archbishop of Los Angeles insisted on dictating nuns’ bedtimes and prayer hours, and even which books they could read, leading to an infamous standoff in 1970 that prompted more than 300 Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to break with the church. If the Vatican insists on punishing the largest group of American nuns — the recent reprimand accuses them for focusing too much on poverty, and not enough on the church’s teachings on homosexuality — we could see a similar showdown. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious could take the dramatic step of removing themselves from the official church hierarchy. Maybe the powerful men of the Vatican would say “good riddance.” Maybe they prefer a smaller, “purer” church reminiscent of the Middle Ages. But what kind of message does this war with nuns send to everybody else? Are we really supposed to believe that nuns on whose backs the church system was built are “radical” for seeking a greater voice in it? That strong-willed nuns are more dangerous to Catholicism than child-molesting priests? That crusades against masturbation and gay marriage are more important than helping the poor? It’s hard to imagine that Jesus would agree. The Vatican has been on the wrong side of history before. Luckily, the church’s vibrant community has a way of self-correcting with time. Two hundred years ago, Julie Billiart, foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was a persona non grata in France. Today, she is a saint. Follow her on Twitter @fstockman.

Alaska Marine Highway Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review. importance to Alaska ...Prudhoe Bay. Anchorage is Alaska’s major port for imports, while petroleum is exported from Kenai and Valdez, and fish are exported from southeast port cities, particularly Kodiak and Unalaska. The Alaska Marine Highway (1963) is a ferry system with passenger and vehicle service that runs from Bellingham, Wash., or Prince Rupert, B.C., northward across the Gulf of Alaska, into Prince William... What made you want to look up "Alaska Marine Highway"? Please share what surprised you most...

Charles BabbageArticle Free Pass Charles Babbage, (born December 26, 1791, London, England—died October 18, 1871, London), English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer. In 1812 Babbage helped found the Analytical Society, whose object was to introduce developments from the European continent into English mathematics. In 1816 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He was instrumental in founding the Royal Astronomical (1820) and Statistical (1834) societies. The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small calculator that could perform certain mathematical computations to eight decimals. Then in 1823 he obtained government support for the design of a projected machine with a 20-decimal capacity. Its construction required the development of mechanical engineering techniques, to which Babbage of necessity devoted himself. In the meantime (1828–39) he served as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. During the mid-1830s Babbage developed plans for the Analytical Engine, the forerunner of the modern digital computer. In this device he envisioned the capability of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer. The Analytical Engine, however, was never completed. Babbage’s design was forgotten until his unpublished notebooks were discovered in 1937. In 1991 British scientists built Difference Engine No. 2—accurate to 31 digits—to Babbage’s specifications. Babbage made notable contributions in other areas as well. He assisted in establishing the modern postal system in England and compiled the first reliable actuarial tables. He also invented a type of speedometer and the locomotive cowcatcher. What made you want to look up "Charles Babbage"? Please share what surprised you most...

salivaArticle Free Pass saliva, a thick, colourless, opalescent fluid that is constantly present in the mouth of humans and other vertebrates. It is composed of water, mucus, proteins, mineral salts, and amylase. As saliva circulates in the mouth cavity it picks up food debris, bacterial cells, and white blood cells. One to two litres of fluid are excreted daily into the human mouth. Three major pairs of salivary glands and many smaller glands scattered in the surface tissue of the cheeks, lips, tongue, and palate contribute to the total amount of saliva. Small amounts of saliva are continually being secreted into the mouth, but the presence of food, or even the mere smell or thought of it, will rapidly increase saliva flow. The functions of saliva are numerous. Primarily, it lubricates and moistens the inside of the mouth to help with speech and to change food into a liquid or semisolid mass that can be tasted and swallowed more easily. Saliva helps to control the body’s water balance; if water is lacking, the salivary glands become dehydrated, leaving the mouth dry, which causes a sensation of thirst and stimulates the need to drink. Saliva reduces tooth decay and infection by removing food debris, dead cells, bacteria, and white blood cells. It also contains small amounts of the digestive enzyme amylase, which chemically breaks down carbohydrates into simpler compounds. What made you want to look up "saliva"? Please share what surprised you most...

In Atrial Septal Defects (ASD), the blood tends to flow from the right atrium to the left atrium due to the relatively high pressure exerted by the blood returning to the heart from the body circulation. This phenomenon prevents blood in the heart from being pushed into the lungs leading to poor oxygenation of blood cells and consequently a decrease in the circulating oxygen in the body. Depending on the size and location of the hole in the cardiac muscle wall, minor defects may not result in any visible signs while larger defects often result in an imbalance in blood pressure within the heart. Most Bulldogs diagnosed with the condition usually live normal lives but those with severe forms die from secondary defects of the heart. A veterinarian can diagnose ASD in a Bulldog upon detecting a significant heart murmur while doing a thorough physical examination. Bulldogs suffering from the condition may show evidence of heart problems as shown by poor exercise tolerance and/or mucus membranes or tongue with a bluish tinge. Other signs include swelling of the abdomen, breathing difficulties, collapse or even death. ASD may also incidentally show up on routine x-rays. Chest x-rays will demonstrate a right-side heart enlargement while an echocardiography (ultrasound of the heart) can reveal the abnormal physical changes in the dimensions of the heart and the blood flowing though from the heart to the lungs. The treatment regimen for ASD depends on the size of the defect and the existence of other heart abnormalities. Although a Bulldog may already be diagnosed with the condition at an early age, no treatment is indicated until clinical signs are manifested. In moderate to severely affected dogs, heart medications may be given to maintain normal functioning of the heart and for the relief of respiratory congestion. Most veterinarians prescribe a special heart-friendly diet and tell the dog owner to restrict the dog’s activity. Surgery has been done in some cases where an affected suffers from multiple heart problems but results were not as promising. Thus, most veterinarians believe that the condition is best left managed with drugs. Since it is a hereditary condition, screening of dogs which are predisposed to the disease as well as those whose littermates have been diagnosed with the disease should be done before breeding to prevent affected animals from passing on the defect to its offspring.

BACN is technological “gateway” system that, acting as a sort-of middleware, interconnects different radio systems and datalinks and makes them able to transfer information and communicate. The WB-57 bridges the gap between different kinetic platforms, such as U.S. Navy F/A-18s and USAF B-52 or B-1 bombers that are equipped with incompatible systems. Needless to say, its capability to link ground patrols, Forward Air Controllers (FACs)/Joint Terminal Attack Controllers and planes providing Close Air Support, is particularly important in Afghanistan, a theater where Line Of Sight communication can not always be established among the interested parties. Consequently, WB-57s are frequently deployed in Asia. One of them, NASA 928, flew there via Bermuda, Lajes and RAF Mildenhall last week. Its ferry flight could be easily tracked on Flight Aware, as the following screenshot shows. The following picture show the WB-57 conducting final preps prior to the Afghan deployment. The ball turret system mounted on the nose houses houses an optical bench, providing installation of both HDTV and infrared cameras. According to the NASA website, optics consist of an 11-inch-diameter, 4.2 meter fixed-focal-length lens. The system can be operated in both auto track and manual modes. A 32-inch-ball turret system was part of the WB-57 Ascent Video Experiment (WAVE) that enabled better observation of the Space Shuttle on days of heavier cloud cover.

The East has longer American history. The West has more palm trees. The East has rolling deciduous forests. The West has towering evergreens and Rocky mountains. Homeowners from coast to coast take pride in their design, their cities, and their environment. Yet at the same time, a home in Boston is likely designed much different from a home in Los Angeles. How and why are East and West Coast housing different? What, if anything, makes one better or more attractive than the other? In this post we’ll attempt to explore the markets, architecture, and environment on both sides of the Mississippi River. Up until a few years ago, East and West both enjoyed an unprecedented housing boom. Unfortunately, both are now deep in the throes of a rapid economic downturn, resulting largely from a sudden crash in the housing market. It’s hard to say if East or West has it any better than the other. After all, Florida and California, the two states taking the hardest hit, are geographical opposites. In terms of housing permits, declines were seen across the nation from 2005-2007, although southern California and western Arizona had the most widespread decline. Palm Coast, Florida had the largest decrease in permits issued at 86 percent. There were pockets of increases as well, although few and far between. Most growth in the West was limited to central Washington and the small region in and around Missoula, Montana. There were several more localized increases east of the Mississippi, but they do not represent the overall trend and have most likely reversed direction since these figures were released a year ago. There’s just no point in trying to separate east from west in market terms. The overall downward trend in the national housing market screams for unity, not division. East Coast versus West Coast architecture is like old versus new. Eastern metropoles have centuries of design behind them, while many western cities may have but 50 years. The difference is palpable. The old brownstones of Chicago and New York clash loudly with Spanish-influenced, mission-style stucco peppering Los Angeles neighborhoods. Or contrast the long history of Connecticut colonials and Atlanta’s sprawling porches with the mid-century modern architecture so prevalent in Hollywood’s golden years. One would have to fly to San Francisco to find much architecture that reflects eastern origins. Yet each region has its own style, and it’s up to homeowners to decide which better suits their preferences, whether it be the cooler colors of the arid-to-temperate west or the intricacy and age of America’s early years. The future of American architecture will be influenced mostly by one key factor… I am by no means an architect or an expert in building design trends, but I feel confident in saying that environment will drive and inspire the architects of the future; for many it already does. Just like the housing market is slumping across the country, so green building is increasing from sea to shining sea. According to a report from the American Institute of Architects (via sourcecorp.com), the Pacific region is moving toward green building at a much faster rate than other regions, mainly due to progressive state and local governments and public support. East and West both have their advantages, but the differences are moot. It is easy to fall in love with eastern architecture, but times are changing, and presently. The rapid move to green, energy efficient building will change the face of American (and global) architecture. Now the great architects will trade in large mega mansions of brick, stone, and wood for sandbags, straw bales, and solar panels. Housing in the 21st Century will not be inhibited by the Mississippi River.

10,000 homes to be demolished in the U.K. Monday, June 27, 2005 John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that 10,000 homes would be demolished in a $2 billion program to create "sustainable communities." This massive "Pathfinder" program has been adopted to transform the nation into sustainable communities, a major step toward compliance with goal seven of the U.N.s Millennium Development Goals, and further implementation of the U.N.s Agenda 21. A similar program is underway in the United States, but proponents are careful to deny that the U.N. has any influence or involvement. The facts tell a different story. In 1976, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I), was held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Among the recommendations endorsed by the U.S., and adopted, are these: A(1)(b) All countries should establish as a matter of urgency a national policy on human settlements, embodying the distribution of population...over the national territory. (c)(v) Such a policy should be devised to facilitate population redistribution to accord with the availability of resources. D(1)(a) Public ownership or effective control of land in the public interest is the single most important means of...achieving a more equitable distribution of the benefits of development whilst assuring that environmental impacts are considered. (b) Land is a scarce resource whose management should be subject to public surveillance or control in the interest of the nation. (d) Governments must maintain full jurisdiction and exercise complete sovereignty over such land with a view to freely planning development of human settlements.... In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development adopted Agenda 21, also endorsed by the U.S. Chapter seven, on Human settlements, says: 7.4. The overall human settlement objective is to improve the social, economic and environmental quality of human settlements and the living and working environments of all people, in particular the urban and rural poor. These approaches should form the core principles of national settlement strategies. What could possibly be wrong with this objective? It requires government to make all the decisions about where and how people must live, rather than a free market. The promotional literature in England blames "market failures" for slums and degraded housing, that the government must now step in to improve. Actually, slums and degraded housing are not market failures, they are simply the evolving market at work. As people enter the work force, often, they can only afford slum or degraded housing. But as they climb the economic ladder, they move to better housing, fueling the real estate and construction industries. When the slum area becomes so bad that no one wants to live there, the price of the property becomes very attractive to developers, who buy up the slums, and replace them with properties that the developers hope to sell to new buyers. Thats the way the market worked - until the latter part of the 20th century. After the 1976 U.N. meeting in Vancouver, governments began to take a more active role in community development. The 1981 "Poletown" decision, in Michigan, allowed a city to take the homes of 4,200 people. Since then, governments, at every level, have created dozens of ways to gain "Public ownership or effective control of land in the public interest," as recommended in the 1976 U.N. document. Now, under the guise of improving the lives of everyone, and protecting the environment, government, in England and in the United States, is taking control over the housing decisions of everyone. The fine print in the housing section of virtually every "comprehensive plan" proposed or adopted in recent years, contains language that gives government the authority to dictate minute details, often including colors that may be used, and the type of vegetation that must be used in landscaping. In King County, Washington, 65% of a private owners land must be unused, and left in natural condition. Whether it is the result of an outright purchase by government, an eminent domain acquisition, a heritage area, a battlefield, a scenic highway designation, a wildlife refuge, a wetland, a critical habitat, a green-belt, or any one of dozens of other excuses, government is increasingly restricting where and how private citizens can live. The goal in the U.S., and in the U.K., is to create the "sustainable communities" as envisioned by a handful of people who reject free markets, and are transforming the world into a managed global society. Sustainable communities is only one part of the sustainable development agenda. Sustainable agriculture, medicine, transportation, education, and trade, all have programs underway, to give government ultimate control over every facet of human life. The entire program is detailed in Agenda 21, which has never been debated or adopted by any legislative body. It is simply being implemented administratively, with assistance from legislators who see only small bits and pieces, that are sold as progress. Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), and chairman of Sovereignty International. Henry Lamb can be reached at: email@example.com Recent articles by Henry Lamb

Posted: May 16th, 2013 | Author: M.Aaron Silverman | Filed under: Applied Science, Genetics | Tags: Gene Therapy, Genetic Engineering, Stem Cells, Therapeutic Cloning | No Comments » Scientists have made a long-awaited breakthrough in human cloning, by using human skin cells to create early-stage embryos. The breakthrough marks the first time human stem cells have been produced via nuclear transfer and follows several unsuccessful attempts by research groups worldwide In what is being described as a “significant milestone” for medicine, the team from Oregon Health and Science University successfully used a technique which utilised a human skin cell and a woman’s egg to produce an embryo which was a genetic copy of the original skin cell. The resulting embryos were then used as a source of stem cells, which can be used to create specialised tissue cells for transplant operations. However scientists say they do not think the technique could be used to clone humans for reproductive purposes :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: May 12th, 2013 | Author: Michael Courtenay | Filed under: Applied Science | Tags: 3D Printed Gun, 3D Printed Gun Schematics, 3D Printed Human Organs, 3D Printing, Organ Regeneration, Pirate Bay | No Comments » It’s proof perhaps that we live in an ironic world, Australian researchers are on the cusp of creating new human organs via 3D-printing. While a US student fires the first bullet from a home-made 3D Printed polymer gun. On the up-side, Australian scientists say they have found a way to grow human body parts using 3D printing technology. The technology isn’t the only cleverness here, 3D printers are now so portable that they might be installed in hospitals. The University of Wollongong’s Centre for Electromaterials Science is opening a research unit at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital where 3D printing will be used to reproduce tissue material :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: May 6th, 2013 | Author: Verity Penfold | Filed under: Applied Science, Physics | Tags: Atomic Movie, Guinness World Records, IBM, IBM Research, Stop-Motion-Film | No Comments » Researchers from tech-behemoth IBM have unveiled – confirmed by Guinness World Records – the world’s smallest movie, made with atoms. Named A Boy And His Atom, the movie used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action. The movie depicts a character named Atom who befriends a single atom and goes on a journey that includes dancing, playing catch and bouncing on a trampoline. Set to a playful musical track, the movie represents a unique way to convey science outside the research community. It takes around 1 million atoms to store a single bit of data on a computer, a bit being the basic unit of information in computing. Recently, IBM Research announced it can store that same bit of information in just 12 atoms. In order to make the movie atoms were moved with a scanning tunnelling microscope. The microscope weighs two tonnes, operates at minus 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface more than 100 million times :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: May 2nd, 2013 | Author: Marcus Dangerfield | Filed under: Engineered Life, Favorite New Thought | Tags: Adelaide University, Australian Landmark, Barley, Barley Genome, Beer, Grains Research and Development Corporation, New Long Life Beer, research | No Comments » Australian beer drinkers will soon have the option of buying a beer with a much longer shelf life, a new type of malt barley, developed by Adelaide researchers and a Japanese brewer, can curb beers propensity of tasting stale when left on the shelf. The new barley variety ‘SouthernStar’ is the results of collaboration between the University of Adelaide and Sapporo Breweries. Importantly this new barley is not genetically modified, it’s been produced using conventional – albeit high tech – breeding techniques, utilising data from the recently completed Barley Genome Project . South Australian farmers are to begin commercial production of the barley this year. Commercial crops grown in 2013 will be harvested in November/December, processed into malt in the first half of 2014 and used for commercial beer production in the later part of 2014 :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: April 22nd, 2013 | Author: M.Aaron Silverman | Filed under: Medicated | Tags: Cancer Survival, Cancer Treatment, Lung Cancer Treatment, PET-CT Scan, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Positron emission tomography - computed tomography, Survival Rates | No Comments » Researchers in Melbourne have used a new targeted treatment technique to achieve the highest-ever long-term survival rates for patients with some forms of lung cancer. The team from Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute used PET/CT - Positron Emission Tomography / Computed Tomography - scans to determine the location and stage of tumours in 76 patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The patients were treated with a combination of radical radiation therapy and chemotherapy, leading to a four year survival rate of 32 per cent, the highest ever published. Research team leader, Associate Professor Michael MacManus, says that is dramatically higher than the historic average of between 10 and 20 per cent. PET/CT scanning uses a device which combines both PET and an x-ray Computed Tomography, so that the produced images – taken by both devices sequentially – combine into a single superposed image, a 3D map. The image shows the spatial distribution of metabolic activity in the body can be more precisely :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: April 19th, 2013 | Author: Marcus Dangerfield | Filed under: Astronomy, NASA | Tags: Kepler, Kepler Orrery, Kepler-10c, Kepler-37 Kepler-48 - 60 Kepler-47 Kepler-36b & 36c Kepler-34b & 35b Kepler-22b Kepler-20b Kepler-18 Kepler-16b Kepler-11 Kepler-10b, NASA, NASA MISSION | No Comments » Astronomers using a potent NASA space telescope to search for life say they have found planets which are the most Earth-like candidates yet. Two of the five planets orbiting a Sun-like star called Kepler-62 are squarely in the habitable zone – not too hot, not too cold, possibly bearing water – NASA scientists report in the journal Science :: Read the full article »»»» Posted: April 15th, 2013 | Author: Verity Penfold | Filed under: Medicated | Tags: Australian Medical Association, Dr Google, Healthy Communities, Immunisation, Inoculation, National Health Performance Authority, Vaccinatiom | No Comments » Research from the National Health Performance Authority has found 77,000 Australian children are not fully immunised. The study – Healthy Communities: Immunisation rates for children in 2011-12 – measures the percentage of children who were considered fully immunised at one, two, three and five years of age. It found 32 areas where the percentage of children fully immunised was 85 per cent or lower for at least one age group. The Australian Medical Association says anything below 93 per cent is unsafe. The success of immunisation programs depends on public support. A lack of public support for these programs can contribute to a significant increase in preventable diseases, and can be directly linked to the resurgence of once common illnesses like measles and pertussis – whooping cough – of which we’ve recently seen outbreaks of in Australia. Scientific evidence for the effectiveness of large-scale immunisation is well published, in the US full-vaccination from birth save an estimated 35,000 lives annually and prevents an estimated 14 million infections. Some opponents of vaccination argue that the reduction in infectious disease are a result of improved sanitation and hygiene – rather than vaccination – or that the diseases were already in decline before the introduction of vaccination, unlike medicine however, they don’t process any evidence for these anecdotes. Repating sometimes is the only way of getting a point across; for vaccination programs to work, 93 per cent of people need to be immunised, any number below this presents a danger for communities. In Australia there are pockets with rates of immunisation as low as 85 per cent. More concerning however is that there are communities relying on Dr Google for medical information, forming what the perceive as informed decisions and lowering immunisation rates in the process. Affluent Eastern Sydney for example has an immunisation rate of 89 per cent, this well educated region is choosing to place it’s children in danger of serious infection due to misguided information? :: Read the full article »»»»

Probably the most frustrating thing about caring for a new baby is the fact that your baby canít communicate verbally and you arenít a mind reader. When it comes to illnesses, many new parents often overreact and call the doctor every single time they think something is wrong. This can be frustrating both for the parents as well as the doctor. It helps to know what signs you should look for and when it really is the right time to make that phone call. Babies get sick. Some worse than others. The problem is that many times the symptoms or type of illness is hard to distinguish from typical to serious. It can be difficult to read your babyís body language or tell a sick cry from a normal ďfeed meĒ or ďchange meĒ cry. However, there are some key behavioral and physical changes you can detect in your infant that will help you make the decision as to whether you should call your doctor or not. Small signs you donít have to worry about include the typical cough, sneeze or runny nose. Infants catch the common cold just like adults so donít feel the need to jump the gun. However, fevers are one of the conditions you need to look at closely. Usually a mild fever isnít a sign of a more serious condition but if your baby starts to experience a fever and has a rectal temperature of 100 degrees or more or an oral/ear temperature of 102 degrees or higher, youíll want to call your doctor. This type of high fever should be a big concern to parents if your infant is less than two months of age. If your baby stops eating, repeatedly refuses feedings or eats very poorly, call your doctor. The same goes if your infant has diarrhea or vomiting. More serious signs of a very sick baby include any changes in skin color (yellow or blue around the lips or nails), oozing or bleeding around the navel and/or genital area, discharge from the eye area, ear pain (your baby will signal this by pulling excessively on the affected ear or if you see drainage), constipation, rashes, dehydration, or changes in mood such as lethargy. Of course there may be times when a call isnít necessary and you need to rush your baby to the emergency room immediately. Such conditions include injury/trauma, extremely high fever, trouble breathing, bleeding or discharge that wonít stop, seizures, choking, unresponsiveness, and sudden lethargy or the inability to move. When you take your baby to the doctor, be sure you have all his/her medical history and information on hand. Be prepared to answer questions and describe in detail to the doctor how your infant was behaving prior to falling ill. |Honey, Your Baby & Infant Botulism| Honey may seem harmless, especially when it comes to your baby but not knowing that this sweet treat can potentially be fatal to your infant can be dangerous. Learn what you need to know about honey, infant botulism, your baby and why this common element of Mother Nature shouldnít be anywhere |Natural Health Remedies for Your Sick Baby| Seeing your baby sick can be heartbreaking for any parent. No one wants to see their child uncomfortable or in any pain. With the FDAís warning to avoid using cough and cold medication on younger children, many parents are wondering what to do the next time their baby gets sick. For parents who

Hackers and new computer viruses seem to be in the news more frequently, along with regular warnings to update your virus protection and protect your privacy. The task of keeping your computer safe can seem overwhelming. So, what can you do to safeguard access to your computer and to protect yourself and your family from cyber intrusion? Know the terminology The first step is to recognize the risks and become familiar with some terminology. Hackers, attackers or intruders are terms applied to the people who seek to exploit weaknesses in software and computer systems for their own gain. Their actions can range from mischief (creating a virus with no intentionally negative impact) to malicious (stealing or altering information). Malicious code includes code such as viruses, worms and Trojan horses. Although some people use these terms interchangeably, they have unique characteristics: - Viruses — This type of malicious code requires you to actually do something before it infects your computer. This action could be opening an e-mail attachment or going to a particular Web page. - Worms — Worms propagate without you doing anything. They typically start by exploiting a software vulnerability (a flaw that allows the software's intended security policy to be violated). Then once the victim computer has been infected, the worm will attempt to find and infect other computers. Similar to viruses, worms can propagate via e-mail, websites or network-based software. The automated self-propagation of worms distinguishes them from viruses. - Trojan horses — A Trojan horse program is software that claims to do one thing while, in fact, doing something different behind the scenes. For example, a program that claims it will speed up your computer may actually be sending your confidential information to an intruder. - Spyware — This sneaky software rides its way onto computers when you download screensavers, games, music and other applications. Spyware sends information about what you're doing on the Internet to a third-party, usually to target you with pop-up ads. Minimize access to your information As long as you have a computer and connect it to a network or the Internet, you are vulnerable to someone or something else remotely accessing or corrupting your information. Here are some tips to make it more difficult for someone to do this: - Lock or log-off your computer when you are away from it. This prevents another person from then sitting down at your computer and accessing all of your information. - To be really secure, disconnect your computer from the Internet when you aren't using it. The likelihood that attackers or viruses scanning the network for available computers will target your computer becomes much higher if your computer is always connected. - Evaluate your security settings. Many, but not all Internet providers offer free security software. If you don't receive free software, you should consider buying a commercial product that includes virus scan, firewall and pop-up blockers. You should also be aware of your Internet cookies setting. Cookies are short pieces of data used by Web servers to identify users. Some cookies are useful for storing images and data from websites that you frequent, but others are malicious and collect information about you. You'll have to decide how much risk from cookies you can accept. - Browsers enable you to block pop-up ads. You can also install anti-spyware to block them. - Look for signals that you are using a secure web page. A secure site encrypts or scrambles personal information so it cannot be easily intercepted. Signals include a screen notice that says you are on a secure site, a closed lock or unbroken key in the bottom corner of your screen, or having the first letters of the Internet address you are viewing change from "http" to "https."

From the Latin eboreus, ivory is a phosphatic secretion that forms the tusks of elephants and certain other animals, and which has been sculpted into decorative objects since the Paleolithic era. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans were all skilled ivory carvers, as were the Japanese, Chinese and Indians. The town of Dieppe was for many years France’s most important ivory-carving center. Today elephants are a protected species and consequently all ivory on the market should come from existing stocks. It is fashioned mainly into ornamental objects, necklaces and bracelets. Ivory has only rarely been used by Cartier as the main inspiration for an object, with remarkable results: in 1919 the jeweler created its so-called “Sudanese bracelets”, a series of astonishing African-inspired bracelets in ivory, decorated with enameled gold, coral or onyx and diamonds. Examples of more classic creations are the precious shafts of pen-holders and the handles of paper-knives, sometimes enhanced with enamel, which the jeweler made in the early years of the century. Hardness: 2 to 3. Africa.

Irenaeus (c 130-203) was the first Father of the Church to confront the threat presented to Christianity by the Gnostics. Gnosticism flourished before the birth of Christ, and in some aspects persists today. The phenomenon, however, has always been so diffuse that it is difficult to define. The essential proposition is that this world is too fundamentally flawed to be the creation of a perfect God. Rather, the Gnostics decided, it was the work of the Demiurge, a partially corrupted emanation of the supreme deity. The ultimate divinity remains hidden from mankind. Even so, buried deep within us, there are inklings of its existence, which may be discerned by those inherently gifted in spiritual affairs, or possessed of the correct cabbalistic formulae. For the Gnostics, then, religious knowledge was the province of the superior intellect. Far from there being any absolute truths or moralities, there were merely intuitions available to the few. As for Christ, he might be a valued teacher; he could never, though, be God. Irenaeus perfectly captured the smugness that Gnosticism imbued. “As soon as a man has been won over to their way of salvation, he becomes so puffed up with conceit and self-importance that he imagines himself to be no longer in heaven or on earth, but to have already passed into the fullness of God’s powers. “With the majestic air of a cock he goes strutting about – as if he had already embraced his angel.” Indeed, modern times have also demonstrated that, when a man is judge in his own cause, he becomes intolerable. Irenaeus, in fact, was associated with the very roots of Christianity. Born apparently in the eastern Mediterranean, he had been taught by a disciple of St John, Polycarp of Smyrna, who relayed to him the Apostle’s accounts of conversations with Jesus. Somehow Irenaeus became a priest in Lyons. Perhaps he earned his irenical, “peace-giving”, nomenclature in 177 when he was dispatched to Rome to urge Pope Eleutherius to adopt a more lenient policy towards an over-enthusiastic sect of Montanists in Phrygia. On his return to Lyons, he was appointed bishop in place of St Pothinus, who had been martyred at the age of 90. In combating the Gnostics, Irenaeus was particularly concerned by the followers of Simon Magus, the sorcerer who gave his name to the sin of simony, and had been roundly rebuked by St Peter (Acts 8:20-23). Although some Gnostics gained a reputation for asceticism, Irenaeus railed against their sexual licence. What, after all, could be expected of men who considered that “conduct is only good or evil in the eyes of man”? In his view Christian practice and morality should be guided by Apostolic tradition. No wonder his tomb in Lyons was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562.

Many of the machine-dependent audiovisual collections held by our cultural institutions are in peril. Therefore, it is crucial to have knowledge about the life expectancy and unique needs of our legacy media in order to make good preservation decisions. From wax cylinders, 78s, motion picture film, magnetic wire, and magnetic audiotapes, to LPs & 45s, audiocassettes, videotapes, and videocassettes, each format has a critical point at which information will begin to be lost. The challenge of long-term preservation for these formats is that they often require intervention, including cleaning and reformatting. To maximize the life of these materials, one must understand the nature of the media, causes of deterioration, storage and handling practices, and the various types of playback equipment. In response to an increasing need, the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) traveled to 8 U.S. cities over the course of several years presenting the program entitled A Race Against Time: Preserving Our Audiovisual Media. This series of videos was developed based on the content from those programs. This online tutorial was developed for curators, librarians, archivists, collections managers and other staff who are involved in managing machine-based media collections in cultural institutions. Viewers will learn basic principles and concepts for managing audiovisual collections and will be provided with information and strategies for preservation, contracting for reformatting, and finding funding opportunities. We would like to thank the experts that appear in these videos, Alan Lewis, George Blood and Sarah Stauderman for their commitment to this project and for generously sharing their time and expertise. Special thanks to Colorlab Corp, Safe Sound Archive, and The Smithsonian Institution for making their facilities available during filming. Finally, this project would not have been possible without the generous support of The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We are most grateful to them for their funding and assistance. Length: 3 minutes, 4 seconds Ingrid Bogel, Executive Director of CCAHA, provides an introduction to the series of videos and explains the ever-growing need for cultural institutions to properly preserve their audiovisual media. This glossary includes definitions of the terminology that is used throughout the series of videos. Length: 8 minutes, 11 seconds Ingrid Bogel, Executive Director of CCAHA, discusses the challenges of preserving audiovisual media, the many facets of long-term care, the definitions of audiovisual preservation terminology, and the multiple copies associated with audiovisual media archives. Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, discusses some fundamental principles common to the care of audiovisual collections. He describes the archival set, which includes a preservation copy, a reference copy, an intermediate copy and a replacement preservation copy. Mr. Lewis also explains what an institution should consider before accepting audiovisual media into their collections. Considerations for reformatting and reformatting priorities are also discussed. In 2005, Columbia University Libraries was given a grant to develop and test a survey instrument to inventory and assess the physical condition and intellectual control of audio and moving image materials. The survey instrument and instruction manual are available for free download at the above website. Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, provides an in-depth discussion of his “19 Conservation Concerns” for audiovisual media, which range from physical security and cleanliness to item identification and inventory control. In 2006 New York University Libraries embarked on a three-year grant funded project to develop a rationale for and strategic approach to operational library preservation services for moving image and audio materials, and to devise methodologies for assessing the condition of archival magnetic media in order to prioritize the need of preservation. The website offers a free downloadable database to serve as a comprehensive archival audiovisual inventory, assessment, and preservation priority tool. The National Archives has compiled an instructional manual which provides basic guidelines for the creation, maintenance, preservation, and use of audiovisual records. The guide also contains appendix materials pertinent to audiovisual media which include an inventory form, a self-evaluation checklist, a records schedule, and a code of regulations. Length: 20 minutes, 30 seconds George Blood, President of Safe Sound Archive, discusses the basics of audio preservation, including reformatting options for small and large collections, playback options, and the recovery of machine-based sound recordings. Mr. Blood also explains the different types of analog sound recordings and shows examples of each type. The ways to properly clean and store sound recordings are also discussed. Hannah Frost, Media Preservation Librarian, discusses the planning and design that is involved in surveying audio collections. She explains why it is important to conduct surveys, how audio surveys are different, what type of information to collect, and how to take action based on survey results. The appendix, which is available in a Portable Document Format (PDF) at the end of the article, provides a list of Survey Data Elements for Sound Recordings. The Library of Congress outlines the proper handling, storage, cleaning, packaging, and playback equipment maintenance for audio recordings. There is also a detailed bibliography and list of suppliers provided. This website includes a wide range of audio preservation resources, including how to conduct collection assessments; the history and formats of sound recording; standards, guidelines and best practices, bibliographic resources; as well as digital audio guides, formats, books and articles, projects and standards, organizations concerned with audio preservation. Length: 10 minutes, 14 seconds Sarah Stauderman, Preservation Manager at The Smithsonian Institution Archives, discusses preservation and reformatting options for videotapes. Ms. Stauderman comments on the history of video recordings, the different videotape formats, the life expectancy of videotape, the obsolescence ratings for videotape formats, and the different pigment components of videotapes. Compression, storage standards, and cleaning of videotapes are also discussed. Paul Messier and Timothy Vitale provide an identification guide for approximately 50 different formats which are represented chronologically from the year 1956 to 1995. Each format is accompanied with a thumbnail image, a descriptive essay, and an obsolescence rating. Glenn Pearson and Michael Gill evaluate Motion JPEG 2000 as a potential format for long-term video preservation. They discuss all the implementations for this software, as well as practical limitations. Sarah Stauderman, Preservation Manager at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, provides notes best practices for videotape preservation. Topics include storage, deterioration, reformatting and preservation management. In this handbook, Jim Wheeler covers a wide variety of videotape preservation topics, including the appropriate storage environment, cleaning and handling techniques, risk management, reformatting, and emergency preparedness. Wheeler also includes a brief history of videotape recording, videotape formats and tape types. This website discusses the three main video standards used in the world: PAL, SECAM and NTSC. There is a color-coded map and a listing of which countries use which format. Length: 12 minutes Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, and Russ Suniewick, President of Colorlab Corp, discuss intervention of films as they come into the laboratory, treatment of distressed film, and maintaining a film collection. Components of film, film gauges, determining the age of film stock, and ways to slow deterioration are also addressed. This handout contains information ,compiled by AMIA’s Nitrate Film Interest Group, on ways to identify nitrate film, the possible hazards of nitrate film, and how to house nitrate film. The Library of Congress outlines the proper storage conditions and handling procedures for several types of motion picture film, including nitrate, acetate, and polyester. Catherine Nicholson and Elissa O’Loughlin, conservators at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., conduct research using acid detector strips and provide information on the general results of the tests. Robin Williams, of the East Anglian Film Archive, has compiled a table of manufacturer symbols to determine the age of film stock. Length: 12 minutes, 34 seconds Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, and Julia Nicoll, Head of the Optical Department at Colorlab, discuss preservation options for film. Film-to-film preservation using an optical printer is shown in great detail. Ways to record film sound are also discussed. Length: 9 minutes, 34 seconds Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, and George Blood, President of Safe Sound Archive, discuss contracting for reformatting from the perspective of the institution, as well as the perspective of the vendor. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Blood provide tips on the institutional process, how an institution can approach vendors, and what needs to be included in a statement of work. George Blood, President of Safe Sound Archive and Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, provide a step-by-step process of contracting for reformatting services, including the procurement process, writing a statement of work, and selecting a vendor. Alan Lewis, Audiovisual Archivist & Consultant, compiled a list of contact information for companies that provide equipment and/or supplies for audiovisual and archival media. Sarah Stauderman, Preservation Manager at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, created a worksheet in order to assess the preservation priorities for videotape collections. Institute of Museum and Library Services National Endowment for the Humanities National Endowment for the Arts In addition to making the series available free on our website, CCAHA is offering a DVD of the complete, seven-segment A Race Against Time: Preserving Our Audiovisual Media video series for $25, including shipping and handling. Contact Preservation Services Assistant Kimberly Magyar at to purchase the DVD for your institution.

Progress Toward Global Eradication of Poliomyelitis, January 2003--April 2004 In 1988, the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolved to eradicate poliomyelitis globally (1). Since then, implementation of the eradication strategies reduced the number of countries with endemic polio from 125 in 1988 to six in 2003 (2). However, in 2003, an unprecedented 10 countries reported poliovirus importations, including eight in West and Central Africa (3), one in Southern Africa (Botswana), and one in the Middle East (Lebanon). This report describes progress made toward global polio eradication during January 2003--April 2004, outlines remaining challenges, and underscores the need for decisive action to interrupt transmission by the end of 2004 or early 2005. Worldwide, routine vaccination coverage among infants with 3 doses of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV3) was estimated at 75% in 2002, compared with 75% in 2001 and 82% in 2000. Coverage varied among World Health Organization (WHO) regions, from 56% in the African Region to 93% in the European Region, with a range in country-level estimates from 25% to 99%. In countries with endemic polio, estimated OPV3 coverage in 2002 was as follows: Egypt, 97%; India, 70%; Pakistan, 63%; Afghanistan, 48%; Niger, 25%; and Nigeria, 25% (4). Supplementary Immunization Activities (SIAs) In 2003, increased SIAs reached 415 million children aged <5 years during 157 SIA rounds conducted in 55 countries. Countries with endemic polio conducted an increased number of national immunization days (NIDs)* and subnational immunization days (SNIDs) during 2003: four NIDs and two SNIDs in India, four NIDs and four SNIDs in Pakistan, three NIDs and three SNIDs in Afghanistan, four NIDs and three SNIDs in Egypt, and three NIDs and two SNIDs in Niger. In Nigeria, SIAs were conducted in most states; however, SIAs were suspended in certain northern states (e.g., Kano) after March 2003 because of unfounded concerns about OPV safety. Synchronized NIDs were conducted in late 2003 in eight West and Central African countries affected by poliovirus importations, targeting approximately 25 million children aged <5 years. Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) Surveillance AFP surveillance is established in all countries presently and previously endemic for polio. Two key performance indicators are monitored: 1) the rate of nonpolio AFP cases (target: one or more cases per 100,000 persons aged <15 years); and 2) the proportion of persons with AFP with adequate stool specimens (target: >80%). Globally, the nonpolio AFP rate was 1.9 in 2003 (range by WHO region: 1.2--2.6). The annualized nonpolio AFP rate through April 2004 was 1.5 (range by WHO region: 0.8--2.7). The proportion of persons with adequate specimens for laboratory testing increased from 84% in 2002, to 86% in 2003, and 87% during January--April 2004 (Table). All countries with endemic polio achieved or maintained surveillance quality standards; however, analyses at the subnational level indicate gaps in surveillance. A global network of 145 specialized laboratories supports surveillance activities by testing stool samples for the presence of poliovirus, determining whether the viruses are vaccine-related or wild, and conducting genomic sequencing. Approximately 70,000 stool samples were processed during 2003 in these WHO-accredited, national, regional, and global laboratories. Wild Poliovirus (WPV) Incidence The number of polio cases decreased from 1,918 in 2002, to 784 in 2003, and to 185 during January--April 2004§ (Figure). In 2002, a total of 1,600 cases (83% of all global cases) were detected in India; of these, 59% were in children from Muslim communities, which represent approximately 20% of the total population of India. In response to the 2002 epidemic, India intensified SIAs in 2003 and enhanced social mobilization activities to increase acceptance of OPV in all socioeconomic groups. The proportion of Muslim children receiving >3 doses of OPV, as assessed by surveillance data¶, increased from 61% to 85% during 2002--2003. Cases of polio in India decreased from 1,600 in 2002, to 225 cases in 2003, to eight cases during January--April 2004; a total of 77 cases were reported during January--April 2003. In Pakistan, reported cases increased from 90 in 2002 to 103 in 2003. However, transmission during the peak season in the second half of 2003 was lower than in any previous year. Pakistan reported 12 cases during January--April 2004, compared with 23 during the same period in 2003. Afghanistan, which shares a cross-border reservoir of ongoing transmission with Pakistan, reported 10 cases in 2002, eight cases in 2003, and two cases in 2004. Egypt intensified SIAs and increased the proportion of children receiving >5 doses of OPV from 74% to 89% during 2002--2003. One polio case was reported in 2003, compared with seven cases in 2002; the proportion of environmental samples positive for WPV declined from 57% in 2001 to 4% in 2003. No polio cases were reported during January--April 2004. The number of reported cases increased substantially in Nigeria, from 202 in 2002, to 355 in 2003, to 133 in January--April 2004; a total of 32 cases were reported for the same period in 2003. In 2003, Nigeria reported the largest number of cases globally (5). Inadequate SIA coverage and suspension of SIAs in some northern states resulted in intense poliovirus transmission in these areas. This led to the reemergence of polio in previously polio-free areas within Nigeria, and exportation of virus to eight previously polio-free countries in West and Central Africa. The number of reported cases in Niger, which borders Nigeria, increased from three in 2002 to 40 in 2003. During January--April 2004, a total of 12 cases were reported, compared with one for the same period in 2003. Surveillance data indicate that <20% of target age children have received >3 doses of OPV, indicating poor quality of SIAs. In 2003, a total of 51 cases of polio were reported from eight previously polio-free countries in West and Central Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo) (3). In 2004, a total of 17 cases have been reported from six of these countries and one in Southern Africa (Botswana). Reported by: Vaccines and Biologicals Dept, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Div of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases; Global Immunization Div, National Immunization Program, CDC. Substantial progress toward polio eradication was made in 2003, particularly in the Asian and Northern African countries with endemic polio. Only six countries in the world had endemic polio in 2003, the lowest total ever, compared with seven in 2002. Somalia is no longer considered endemic after >1 year without detection of WPV. Egypt, India, and Pakistan recorded their lowest-ever levels of transmission during the second half of 2003, the peak season for poliovirus transmission; levels for January--April 2004 also were record lows. The eradication initiative faced multiple unprecedented obstacles. In Nigeria, several states postponed or canceled SIAs beginning in mid-2003 because of rumors about the safety of OPV. The intense transmission in Nigeria jeopardizes the goal of interruption of poliovirus transmission globally by the end of 2004. For the first time ever, the number (10) of countries reporting poliovirus importations was greater than the number of countries (six) with endemic transmission. The additional control activities in countries with importations resulted in $25 million (U.S.) in unbudgeted costs in 2003. An emergency meeting on polio eradication was convened in January 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland, to develop consensus on increased efforts toward interrupting WPV transmission. On behalf of their nations, health ministers from the affected countries and their polio eradication partners signed the Geneva Declaration to express renewed national and international commitment toward the eradication goal. To interrupt WPV transmission as quickly as possible, countries with endemic polio must intensify polio immunization campaigns throughout 2004, and surveillance standards must be achieved or maintained to ensure rapid detection and response to any importation of polio. On May 17, 2004, at the World Health Assembly, representatives of Afghanistan, Egypt, India, and Pakistan announced accelerated plans to respond to every new case with immediate and widespread vaccination campaigns. Emergency response campaigns in countries of West and Central Africa affected by importations should be extended throughout 2004 and 2005. At their May 2004 meeting, African Union health ministers decided that 22 West and Central African countries should launch emergency synchronized SIAs, targeting 74 million children. These activities will cost an additional $100 million (U.S.) during 2004--2005. The world is almost polio-free. Substantial progress has been made in the majority of countries that remain endemic for polio, increasingly restricting WPV transmission. Governments, health-care workers, volunteers, and international polio partners in all countries where poliovirus is detected must continue to work together to achieve global polio eradication. * National or subnational mass campaigns during a limited number of days in which 2 doses of OPV are administered to all children (usually aged <5 years), regardless of previous vaccination history, with an interval of 4--6 weeks between doses Campaigns similar to NIDs but confined to certain parts of the country. § As of May 18, 2004. ¶ National polio eradication programs analyze the OPV vaccination status (routine and supplemental doses) of children aged <5 years with nonpolio AFP as a proxy for OPV coverage in the general population. Return to top. Return to top. Disclaimer All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices. **Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to email@example.com. Page converted: 6/23/2004 This page last reviewed 6/23/2004