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From the website:
GeoGebra is a dynamic mathematics software for education in secondary schools that joins geometry, algebra and calculus.
On the one hand, GeoGebra is a dynamic geometry system. You can do constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines, conic sections as well as functions and change them dynamically afterwards.
On the other hand, equations and coordinates can be entered directly. Thus, GeoGebra has the ability to deal with variables for numbers, vectors and points, finds derivatives and integrals of functions and offers commands like Root or Extremum.
These two views are characteristic of GeoGebra: an expression in the algebra window corresponds to an object in the geometry window and vice versa.
I would characterise the website as a tool for creating visualisation of mathematical equations. :-)
See examples and an article Creating Mathlets with Open Source Tools | <urn:uuid:83e93f31-4b8b-42af-917e-3483ed250987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elearningrandomwalk.blogspot.com/2007/09/geogebra.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911608 | 179 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Cookbook | Recipes | Ingredients | Nuts and Seeds | Cookbook:Vegetables | Legume
The peanut, also known as the groundnut fruit, is a type of legume that is often used as if it were a nut.
Peanuts are used to make peanut oil, peanut butter, and peanut sauce.
Recipes featuring peanuts include
Last modified on 25 December 2006, at 11:56
- Moldy peanuts are deadly. They contain aflatoxin. In time, even low amounts can lead to cancer.
- Many people are horribly allergic to peanuts. Cashews can often be substituted. | <urn:uuid:6cf96c22-370d-4354-87de-ac13392cba1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Peanut | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968361 | 127 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Quantum Mechanics/Meaning of Quantum Wave Function
In the classical picture, we usually work with the position and momentum of a particle or particles. From these, we can generate all the physical information about the system.
However, it is easy to see how such an approach will run into serious problems for quantum mechanics. If we consider, for the moment, the Uncertainty Principle to be our definition of Quantum Mechanics then, there is the position of a particle having no simple meaning, as there is an inherent uncertainty in it.
Talking about a particular position and momentum is wrong, in quantum mechanics.
To get round this problem, instead of having a particular value of position (or momentum) of a particle, we instead assign a probability to each point in space, of finding the particle there. We could similarly define the probability of it having a particular momentum but, while equally valid, that approach is not initially useful.
Thus, in quantum mechanics, we have a wavefunction, which, as we will see, contains all the information about the system. In general, this wavefunction will be complex. This wavefunction's modulus squared is the probability distribution of the system.
Position (or momentum for that matter) now, is not a variable. Rather, it is an operator. Before we see how it works, let us deviate a little, in order to understand operators better.
Take a two state system for example. By two states, we mean that a particular property (say the color) can have only two values (say Red and Blue). Now, a wavefunction of the system will be a mixture of these states. Let us say R is the wavefunction, when the particle is "definitely" Red, and B when it is definitely Blue. So, the general wavefunction, W of the system is a linear combination of the two.
where is the probability that the particle is Red. Since this is a two state system, . Be aware that, in general, and may be complex numbers, which is why we must use rather than in order to get a real probability.
Now, the big news. The fundamental assumption of quantum mechanics is that any measurement will send the system into one of that operator's eigenstates. Eigenstates are just the states of a system unchanged by an operator.
In this example, when we measure the color of the system, we multiply it by a color operator, which turns a wavefunction into a color, Red or Blue.
So, Quantum Mechanics says that if you make a measurement of the colour, you will never find the system to be a mixture of Red and Blue! It is only that you will sometimes find it Red, sometimes Blue, with the corresponding probabilities.
If you were to measure some other property of the system, you might find it in a state which you could deduce had mixed color, but you wouldn't be able to observe this mixture. The uncertainty principle stems from this phenomenon.
Measurement is nothing but acting the corresponding operator on our wavefunction. Remember, once we have acted an operator on our wavefunction, the system has already "collapsed" into one of it's eigen-states (allowed states). Any subsequent measurements will yield the same result, because the system isn't anymore a mixture of all those eigen-states.
To see the probability effect as stated above, you'll have to prepare the system from scratch. In other words, before making a measurement, prepare infinite mental copies of the system (an ensemble) and then perform the same measurement on each of them.
Coming back to position; this is a special operator, in that its spectrum (the range of eigen-values) is continuous. Our example had a discrete (2 level) system. The details of working out stuff become more complicated for such an operator, but the basic premise remains exactly the same.
What happens now? We know that Quantum Mechanics should reduce to Classical Mechanics at a large enough scale. For a single particle, this wavefunction is peaked around the "Classical Position" and the standard deviation is ~ h. So, on normal scales, we won't see this "fuzziness" of the particle.
To see how a result matches with Classical Mechanics, we can use the concept of an "Expectation Value". An expectation value of an operator is just the average value of its eigenvalues, weighted with the corresponding probabilities. It can be shown that the expectation values of position and momentum are related like the classical position and momentum.Last modified on 15 January 2010, at 18:06 | <urn:uuid:9194fc31-9824-44cd-841e-3c8f6f578f12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quantum_Mechanics/Meaning_of_Quantum_Wave_Function | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937118 | 942 | 3.46875 | 3 |
The Eyrieux River is a tributary of the Rhône River in Europe. The Eyrieux runs for 83 kilometres (52 mi). It begins in the Massif Central and joins the Rhône in the Rhône Valley just downstream of Valence.
The Eyrieux has at least three distinct landscapes. Above Le Cheylard, the plateau is marked by the sugarloaf cones of old volcanoes, and the land is used mostly for raising cattle and sheep. In its middle section, down to Saint-Sauveur-de-Montagut and Les Ollières-sur-Eyrieux, the river is torrential and prone to flash floods and extreme variation. Formerly used for silk mills, it is now used for micro-hydroelectric production, and is a popular spot for canoeing. The river never dries up in summer, as the many dams and barrages maintain a steady flow. The lower section to the Rhône, at Beauchastel and La Voulte-sur-Rhône, opens into the valley and allows intensive farming, especially peach orchards which are best viewed when the trees bloom in the spring.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eyrieux|
|This Rhône-Alpes geographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| | <urn:uuid:343b7325-5fa1-4a52-927a-cc451d21dd8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyrieux_(river) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866673 | 286 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Kertha Gosa Pavilion
||This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (February 2008)|
The Kertha Gosa pavilion is an example of Balinese architecture located on the island of Bali, in the city Klungkung, Indonesia. The Kertha Gosa Pavilion at Klungkung Palace was first built in the early 18th century by Dewa Agung Gusti Sideman. The first function of the pavilion was for the court of law in 1945. Kertha Gosa was repainted in the 1920s and again in the 1960s. The people who discovered the pavilion knew there was an extensive history behind the pavilion. The discovery of Kertha Gosa pavilion was only known by people writing about it here or there to others outside of Bali. The Kertha Gosa Pavilion at Klungkung has the story of Bhima Swarga painted around the ceiling. Bhima Swarga is a Hindu epic referenced form the Mahabharata. The story at the Kertha Gosa Pavilion is not the whole Mahabharata but one small section called Bhima Swarga.
Kertha Gosa means - “the place where the king meets with his ministries to discuss questions of justice.” The story of Bhima Swarga is elaborate and all-embracing. Bhima Swarga in Balinese means, “Bhima goes to the abode of the gods.” Swarga literally means to any place where the gods happen to reside, Heaven or Hell.
Bhima, the second oldest of the five Pandava brothers, is forced by his mother Kunti with the mission to rescue from Hell the souls of his earthly father Pandu, and his second mother, Madri. After saving Pandu and Madri from Hell, Bhima must secure them for Heaven. Throughout Bhima’s journey to Heaven and Hell he is accompanied by his two loyal servants (the clown characters). These made up characters are highly important to the story Bhima Swarga because the ordinary Balinese can relate to the characters in the story Bhima Swarga because the characters represent ordinary Bali.
Bhima’s siblings go through hell right along with Bhima to rescue their parents. The siblings observe people being tortured for their sins. The siblings are Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadewa, Yudisthira, and Bhima. The two clown characters whom accompany Bhima on his journey to Hell are Twalen and Mredah. Twalen wears a black checkered loin cloth and is the helper to Bhima. Twalen translates what is being said by Yudisthira and Kunti. Mredah always wears red checkered loin cloths and he also helps Bhima along with cracking a joke to lighten the mood. Bhima goes to Hell to rescue his parents and when he arrives he finds his parents are in a huge hot water bath. Bhima tips the bath which his parents were boiling in and they are taken off to Heaven. The Demons did not like Bhima rescuing his parents and allowing them to go to Heaven. Bhima then has to fight off the Demons. Next, the Gods do not like this idea of Bhima taking his parents from Hell to Heaven. Bhima then gets into a fight with the Gods and Bhima dies in Heaven. The high God of all restores Bhima back to life and gives Bhima the drink of immortality. The last scene of Bhima Swarga shows justice, even with punishments of Hell.
Use of iconography
The ceiling of Kertha Gosa is painted in a traditional Balinese style called wayang, meaning “shadow figure”. Paintings in the wayang style are related closely to shadow theatre art, relating to the Mahabharata and Ramayana stories. Wayang style paintings have been faithfully preserved that it continues today to reflect Bali’s Hindu-Javanese heritage in its traditional iconography and content. Iconography was used a lot in Bali’s culture. Iconoclasm is used because the Balinese people wanted to represent living things through pictures and shadows; it was prohibited to represent any living entity.
Types of characters
Until the early twentieth century, the wayang style was Bali’s only form of pictorial ways. The ubud style developed after the arrival of the Dutch. Ubud style tends to represent aspects and scenes of everyday life in Bali. In iconographic language, color performs an important function. Very light brown is used for flesh color of the gods. Kasar characters can be recognized by their brownish-red flesh.
All the characters in the story of Bhima Swarga painted in the pavilion Kertha Gosa have a symbolic meaning relating to color and whether the characters are kasar or halus. Kasar characters are rough and coarse, whereas halus characters are refined and flowing. For example, the demons in the painting Bhima Swarga would be described as kasar - rough, coarse, crude, and vulgar. A halus figure can be described as refined and recognized by delicate hands and fingers. Bhima, his siblings, and Kunti are all halus characters. The angle of the head and body attitude of the characters are also important. For example, human heads and bodies are always a straight on position, but kasar paintings are represented in between with eyes and nose at an angle.
Kasar characters also have big eyes, noses, and mouths. The hand positioning of the kasar characters is upward. Kasar characters can be monstrous looking, have skin troubles, and look masculine. Halus characters have small eyes, noses, and mouths with almost no facial hair. The head and face are pointed downward. The lips of a halus character are thin and show white uniformed teeth. In paintings, the right hand is usually active, and the left hand remains motionless. One of Bhima’s most important features assigned to only him is his right thumb, which ends in a very long curved nail as his weapon, this is a magical implication.
In the paintings, social standing can be portrayed by the hierarchical position of the characters, the size of their body, the side on which they are placed (left or right of the scene). In Bhima Swarga story the statue of Siwa, Heaven’s most prominent god, is larger and more inflicting than any other god. Also, Bhima overpowers all other humans in the story. Bhima’s servants Twalen and Mredah usually appear side by side, with Mredah, Twalen’s son, placed a little below his father. Age and social class also play a role in the placement of the five Pandawa brothers. Bhima, since his power is strictly physical, his body must be unhindered and ready for battle. Around Bhima’s body wrapped flowingly is a sarong of black and white checked material that in Bali is believed to have magic protective qualities. In Heaven, battle scenes are not bloody. Bhima as usual is in the center of the war panels, his body is much smaller than in hell. Bhima’s body size is proving the importance of the hierarchy, since Bhima’s importance diminishes when he is around the gods.
The Bhima Swarga painting in the Kertha Gosa Pavilion is a moral epic, depicting wisdom and perseverance and the ultimate virtue over vice. Today huge audiences listen to the epic just as it was hundreds of years ago. It is said, “He who with fervid devotion listens to a recitation of the Mahabharata attains to high success in consequence of the merit that becomes his through understanding even a very small portion thereof. All the sins of that man who recites or listens to this history with devotion are washed off.”[this quote needs a citation]
The paintings of the Bhima Swarga story (painted in the traditional wayang style) depicted on the Kertha Gosa pavilion ceiling have a mystery to them. The story of Bhima Swarga occupies five rows and reads clockwise starting at the far northeastern corner of the ceiling. The first two rows of the Bhima Swarga paintings represent Bhima’s appearances in Hell, and the top three rows, his journey to Heaven. At the center of the ceiling, there is a lotus surrounded by four doves, symbolizing good fortune, enlightenment, and ultimate salvation.
A patron of arts, Dewa Agung Gusti Sideman took greatness in supervising the design and construction of his palace in Klungkung - an example of Hindu-Balinese architecture. Kertha Gosa architecture took shape of a mandala - a Buddhist influence domed-mountain shape. Mandalas help people further their enlightenment; pure forces of good come from a mountain. Kertha Gosa’s first major function pertained to court of law and justice. The Kertha Gosa pavilion was the meeting place for the raja (Hindu prince) and Brahman judges (Kerthas) to discuss issues of law and human affairs. Whether or not the king instructed his court painters to decorate the ceiling at the time Kertha Gosa was built is impossible to know. Moreover, it is impossible to know whether or not the story of Bhima Swarga was the first painting in the pavilion. The earliest and only record of paintings at Kertha Gosa dates from the year 1842 and is written in a lontar book (a book that holds prayers, history of Bali, and epics). Also it is not documented whether the paintings were a permanent feature of the pavilion or if it was for a temporary reason of celebration. It is possible that the raja might have wanted the story of Bhima Swarga since it deals with moral and social questions and with justice in general. These paintings furthermore, have been supervised by I Gde Modara, the most important painter at the court of Klungkung during this period.
Dewa Agung Gusta Sideman ruled until 1775; he was succeeded by his son, then by his grandson, and his line of descendents continued to reign until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1908, the Dutch attacked Klungkung, and fire broke out in the royal area. To this day it is said that the fire was started not by the Dutch but by the local people because they were confused with the condition of their society and were rebelling against the raja. Klungkung was the last Balinese kingdom to fall. In 1909 Kertha Gosa became the official court of Justice for the region of Klungkung. Klunkung had been a unique service to justice; utilizing Kertha Gosa as a court of law - the story of Bhima Swarga played a significant role in aiding justice. Those who had broken the law therefore had been tried. The accused knelt before the dreadful punishments (painting of the story Bhima Swarga) depicted on the ceiling. But if the accused looked higher above the horror of Hell and looked to the panels of Heaven he could find consolation.
In 1960 the entire ceiling at Kertha Gosa was replaced (latest renovation) and new paintings were made, still depicting the story of Bhima Swarga but adding a greater deal of detail. In 1982 eight panels were replaced. The quality of the new paintings was substandard to those from 1960; the colors were subdued. Until 1982 a visitor could enter Kertha Gosa, but now one must pay an entrance fee. The pavilion floor is surrounded by a wooden fence so that visitors cannot go to the center to look up at the ceiling paintings but can see them only from along the sides. Kertha Gosa is the most complete example of Balinese art and culture. The most fascinating of all is the painted ceiling in Kertha Gosa symbolizing afterlife.
- Covarrubias, M. Bali. Wikipedia.com. November 2006.
- Pucci, Idanna. Bhima Swarga: The Balinese Journey of the Soul. 1st pbk. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.
- Kerta Gosa, Bali tourism culture | <urn:uuid:7d8ad645-1d4c-4790-abc5-5f5d5ce32ec2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kertha_Gosa_Pavilion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960728 | 2,581 | 3.40625 | 3 |
In molecular biology, molecular chaperones are proteins that assist the non-covalent folding or unfolding and the assembly or disassembly of other macromolecular structures, but do not occur in these structures when the structures are performing their normal biological functions having completed the processes of folding and/or assembly. The common perception that chaperones are concerned primarily with protein folding is incorrect. The first protein to be called a chaperone assists the assembly of nucleosomes from folded histones and DNA and such assembly chaperones, especially in the nucleus, are concerned with the assembly of folded subunits into oligomeric structures.
One major function of chaperones is to prevent both newly synthesised polypeptide chains and assembled subunits from aggregating into nonfunctional structures. It is for this reason that many chaperones, but by no means all, are also heat shock proteins because the tendency to aggregate increases as proteins are denatured by stress. In this case, chaperones do not convey any additional steric information required for proteins to fold. However, some highly specific 'steric chaperones' do convey unique structural (steric) information onto proteins, which cannot be folded spontaneously. Such proteins violate Anfinsen's dogma.
Location and functions
Many chaperones are heat shock proteins, that is, proteins expressed in response to elevated temperatures or other cellular stresses. The reason for this behaviour is that protein folding is severely affected by heat and, therefore, some chaperones act to repair the potential damage caused by misfolding. Other chaperones are involved in folding newly made proteins as they are extruded from the ribosome. Although most newly synthesized proteins can fold in absence of chaperones, a minority strictly requires them for the same.
Some chaperone systems work as foldases: they support the folding of proteins in an ATP-dependent manner (for example, the GroEL/GroES or the DnaK/DnaJ/GrpE system). Other chaperones work as holdases: they bind folding intermediates to prevent their aggregation, for example DnaJ or Hsp33.
Macromolecular crowding may be important in chaperone function. The crowded environment of the cytosol can accelerate the folding process, since a compact folded protein will occupy less volume than an unfolded protein chain. However, crowding can reduce the yield of correctly-folded protein by increasing protein aggregation. Crowding may also increase the effectiveness of the chaperone proteins such as GroEL, which could counteract this reduction in folding efficiency.
More information on the various types and mechanisms of a subset of chaperones that encapsulate their folding substrates (e.g. GroES) can be found in the article for chaperonins. Chaperonins are characterized by a stacked double-ring structure and are found in prokaryotes, in the cytosol of eukaryotes, and in mitochondria.
Other types of chaperones are involved in transport across membranes, for example membranes of the mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in eukaryotes. Bacterial translocation—specific chaperone maintains newly synthesized precursor polypeptide chains in a translocation-competent (generally unfolded) state and guides them to the translocon.
New functions for chaperones continue to be discovered, such as assistance in protein degradation, bacterial adhesin activity, and in responding to diseases linked to protein aggregation (e.g. see prion).
Human chaperone proteins
Chaperones are found in, for example, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), since protein synthesis often occurs in this area.
Endoplasmic reticulum
In the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) there are general, lectin- and non-classical molecular chaperones helping to fold proteins.
- General chaperones: BiP, GRP94, GRP170.
- Lectin chaperones: calnexin and calreticulin
- Non-classical molecular chaperones: HSP47 and ERp29
- Folding chaperones:
Nomenclature and examples of bacterial and archeal chaperones
There are many different families of chaperones; each family acts to aid protein folding in a different way. In bacteria like E. coli, many of these proteins are highly expressed under conditions of high stress, for example, when the bacterium is placed in high temperatures. For this reason, the term "heat shock protein" has historically been used to name these chaperones. The prefix "Hsp" designates that the protein is a heat shock protein.
Hsp60 (GroEL/GroES complex in E. coli) is the best characterized large (~ 1 MDa) chaperone complex. GroEL is a double-ring 14mer with a hydrophobic patch at its opening; it is so large it can accommodate native folding of 54-kDa GFP in its lumen. GroES is a single-ring heptamer that binds to GroEL in the presence of ATP or ADP. GroEL/GroES may not be able to undo previous aggregation, but it does compete in the pathway of misfolding and aggregation. Also acts in mitochondrial matrix as molecular chaperone.
Hsp70 (DnaK in E. coli) is perhaps the best characterized small (~ 70 kDa) chaperone.
The Hsp70 proteins are aided by Hsp40 proteins (DnaJ in E. coli), which increase the ATP consumption rate and activity of the Hsp70s.
It has been noted that increased expression of Hsp70 proteins in the cell results in a decreased tendency toward apoptosis.
Although a precise mechanistic understanding has yet to be determined, it is known that Hsp70s have a high-affinity bound state to unfolded proteins when bound to ADP, and a low-affinity state when bound to ATP.
It is thought that many Hsp70s crowd around an unfolded substrate, stabilizing it and preventing aggregation until the unfolded molecule folds properly, at which time the Hsp70s lose affinity for the molecule and diffuse away. Hsp70 also acts as a mitochondrial and chloroplastic molecular chaperone in eukaryotes.
Hsp90 (HtpG in E. coli) may be the least understood chaperone. Its molecular weight is about 90 kDa, and it is necessary for viability in eukaryotes (possibly for prokaryotes as well).
Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a molecular chaperone essential for activating many signaling proteins in the eukaryotic cell.
Each Hsp90 has an ATP-binding domain, a middle domain, and a dimerization domain. Originally thought to clamp onto their substrate protein (also known as a client protein) upon binding ATP, the recently published structures by Vaughan et al. and Ali et al. indicate that client proteins may bind externally to both the N-terminal and middle domains of Hsp90.
Proteins in the Hsp100/Clp family form large hexameric structures with unfoldase activity in the presence of ATP. These proteins are thought to function as chaperones by processively threading client proteins through a small 20 Å (2 nm) pore, thereby giving each client protein a second chance to fold.
Some of these Hsp100 chaperones, like ClpA and ClpX, associate with the double-ringed tetradecameric serine protease ClpP; instead of catalyzing the refolding of client proteins, these complexes are responsible for the targeted destruction of tagged and misfolded proteins.
The investigation of chaperones has a long history. The term `molecular chaperone` appeared first in the literature in 1978, and was invented by Ron Laskey to describe the ability of a nuclear protein called nucleoplasmin to prevent the aggregation of folded histone proteins with DNA during the assembly of nucleosomes. The term was later extended by R. John Ellis in 1987 to describe proteins that mediated the post-translational assembly of protein complexes. In 1988, it was realised that similar proteins mediated this process in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The details of this process were determined in 1989, when the ATP-dependent protein folding was demonstrated in vitro.
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- Soluble complexes of target proteins and peptidyl prolyl isomerase ...
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- Pearl LH, Prodromou C (2006). "Structure and mechanism of the Hsp90 molecular chaperone machinery". Annu. Rev. Biochem. 75: 271–94. doi:10.1146/annurev.biochem.75.103004.142738. PMID 16756493.
- Ellis RJ (1996). "Discovery of molecular chaperones". Cell Stress Chaperones 1 (3): 155–60. doi:10.1379/1466-1268(1996)001<0155:DOMC>2.3.CO;2. PMC 248474. PMID 9222600.
- Laskey RA, Honda BM, Mills AD, Finch JT (1978). "Nucleosomes are assembled by an acidic protein that binds histones and transfers them to DNA". Nature 275 (5679): 416–20. doi:10.1038/275416a0. PMID 692721.
- Ellis J (1987). "Proteins as molecular chaperones". Nature 328 (6129): 378–9. doi:10.1038/328378a0. PMID 3112578.
- Hemmingsen SM, Woolford C, van der Vies SM et al. (1988). "Homologous plant and bacterial proteins chaperone oligomeric protein assembly". Nature 333 (6171): 330–4. doi:10.1038/333330a0. PMID 2897629.
- Goloubinoff P, Christeller JT, Gatenby AA, Lorimer GH (1989). "Reconstitution of active dimeric ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase from an unfoleded state depends on two chaperonin proteins and Mg-ATP". Nature 342 (6252): 884–9. doi:10.1038/342884a0. PMID 10532860.
See also
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chaperone proteins| | <urn:uuid:3613c8d2-ddbe-4f61-b255-65b0f1efb449> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaperone_(protein) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.783438 | 3,714 | 3.65625 | 4 |
|Organization||European Space Agency (ESA)|
|Launched from||Guiana Space Centre
French Guiana
|Launch vehicle||Soyuz-2/Fregat |
|Orbit height||1.5 million km
Darwin was a suggested ESA Cornerstone mission which would have involved a constellation of four to nine spacecraft designed to directly detect Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars and search for evidence of life on these planets. The most recent design envisaged three free-flying space telescopes, each three to four metres in diameter, flying in formation as an astronomical interferometer. These telescopes were to redirect light from distant stars and planets to a fourth spacecraft, which would have contained the beam combiner, spectrometers, and cameras for the interferometer array, and which would have also acted as a communications hub. There was also an earlier design, called the "Robin Laurance configuration," which included six 1.5 metre telescopes, a beam combiner spacecraft, and a separate power and communications spacecraft.
The study of this proposed mission ended in 2007 with no further activities planned. To produce an image, the telescopes would have had to operate in formation with distances between the telescopes controlled to within a few micrometres, and the distance between the telescopes and receiver controlled to within about one nanometre. Several more detailed studies would have been needed to determine whether technology capable of such precision is actually feasible.
The space telescopes were to observe in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As well as studying extrasolar planets, the telescopes would probably have been useful for general purpose imaging, producing very high resolution (i.e. milliarcsecond) infrared images, allowing detailed study of a variety of astrophysical processes.
The infrared region was chosen because in the visible spectrum an Earth-like planet is outshone by its star by a factor of a billion. However, in the infrared, the difference is less by a few orders of magnitude. According to a 2000 ESA bulletin, all spacecraft components in the optical path would have to be passively cooled to 40 kelvins to allow infrared observations to take place.
The planet search would have used a nulling interferometer configuration. In this system, phase shifts would be introduced into the three beams, so that light from the central star would suffer destructive interference and cancel itself out. However, light from any orbiting planets would not cancel out, as the planets are offset slightly from the star's position. This would allow planets to be detected, despite the much brighter signal from the star.
For planet detection, the telescopes would operate in an imaging mode. The detection of an Earth-like planet would require about 10 hours of observation in total, spread out over several months. A 2002 design which would have used 1.5 metre mirrors was expected to take about 100 hours to get a spectrum of a possibly Earth-like planet.
After the Darwin spacecraft detected a planet, a more detailed study of its atmosphere would have been made by taking an infrared spectrum of the planet. By analyzing this spectrum, the chemistry of the atmosphere could be determined, and this could provide evidence for life on the planet. The presence of oxygen and water vapour in the atmosphere could be evidence for life. Oxygen is very reactive so if large amounts of oxygen exist in a planet's atmosphere some process such as photosynthesis must be continuously producing it.
The presence of oxygen alone, however, is not conclusive evidence for life. Jupiter's moon Europa, for example, has a tenuous oxygen atmosphere thought to be produced by radiolysis of water molecules. Numerical simulations have shown that under proper conditions it is possible to build up an oxygen atmosphere via photolysis of carbon dioxide. Photolysis of water vapor and carbon dioxide produces hydroxyl ions and atomic oxygen, respectively, and these in turn produce oxygen in small concentrations, with hydrogen escaping into space. When O2 is produced by H2O photolysis at high altitude, hydrogenous compounds like H+, OH- and H2O are produced which attack very efficiently O3 and prevent its accumulation. The only known way to have a significant amount of O3 in the atmosphere is that O2 be produced at low altitude, e.g. by biological photosynthesis, and that little H2O gets to high altitudes where UV is present. For terrestrial planets, the simultaneous presence of O3, H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere appears to be a reliable biosignature, and the Darwin spacecraft would have been capable of detecting these atmospheric components.
Candidate planets
Planet Gliese 581 d, discovered in 2007, was considered a good candidate for the Darwin project. It orbits within the theoretical habitable zone of its star, and scientists surmise that conditions on the planet may be conducive to supporting life.
Similar initiatives
The interferometric version of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission is similar in concept to Darwin and also has very similar scientific aims. According to NASA's 2007 budget documentation, released on February 6, 2006, the project was deferred indefinitely, and in June 2011 the project was reported as cancelled. Antoine Labeyrie has proposed a much larger space-based astronomical interferometer similar to Darwin, but with the individual telescopes positioned in a spherical arrangement and with an emphasis on interferometric imaging. This Hypertelescope project would be much more expensive and complex than the Darwin and TPF missions, involving many large free-flying spacecraft.
- "Darwin factsheet: Finding Earth-like planets". European Space Agency. 2009-10-23. Archived from the original on 2008-05-13. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
- "Darwin: study ended, no further activities planned". European Space Agency. 2009-10-23. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
- Fridlund, CVM (August 2000). "ESA Bulletin 103: Darwin: The Infrared Space Interferometry Mission" (PDF). ESA. Retrieved 2009-10-30.[dead link]
- Penny, Alan J (1999-07-27). "A concept for the `Free-Flyer' version.". Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Archived from the original on 2005-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-30.
- Karlsson, Anders; Malcolm Fridlund (April 2002). "Darwin: The Infrared Space Interferometer" (GIF). Alcatel. Archived from the original on 2005-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-30.
- von Bloh, W.; Bounama, C.; Cuntz, M.; Franck, S. (2007). "The Habitability of Super-Earths in Gliese 581". Astronomy & Astrophysics 476 (3): 1365–1371. arXiv:0705.3758. Bibcode:2007A&A...476.1365V. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20077939.
- Science Daily: Extrasolar planet may indeed be habitable
- "NASA budget statement". Planetary Society. 2006-02-06. Retrieved 2006-07-17.
- NASA President's FY 2007 Budget Request
- Darwin: study ended, no further activities planned
- Archived website: Darwin Space Infrared Interferometer Project
- DARWIN Exoplanet Space Mission
- Mission and Technology Review (2000)(pdf) | <urn:uuid:27afddb3-05d8-4136-967a-c318d61dc2b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(ESA) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924957 | 1,534 | 4.03125 | 4 |
A geotagged photograph is a photograph which is associated with a geographical location by geotagging. Usually this is done by assigning at least a latitude and longitude to the image, and optionally altitude, compass bearing and other fields may also be included.
In theory, every part of a picture can be tied to a geographic location, but in the most typical application, only the position of the photographer is associated with the entire digital image. This has implications for search and retrieval. For example, photos of a mountain summit can be taken from different positions miles apart. To find all images of a particular summit in an image database, all photos taken within a reasonable distance must be considered. The point position of the photographer can in some cases include the bearing, the direction the camera was pointing, as well as the elevation and the DOP.
Methods of geotagging photographs
There are a few methods of geotagging photographs, either automatic or manual. Automatic methods provide the easiest and most precise method of geotagging an image, providing that a good signal has been acquired at the time of taking the photo.
Automatic using a built in GPS
Several manufacturers offer cameras with a built-in GPS receiver, but most cameras with this capability are camera phones as camera manufacturers after initial experience in the market came to treat GPS cameras as a niche market. The 2008 Nikon P6000, for example, an early geotagging camera, was replaced in 2010 by the P7000 which lacked that feature. Some models also include a compass to indicate the direction the camera was facing when the picture was taken.
- Canon EOS 6D
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10
- Sony Alpha 55V (DSLR)
- Sony Alpha 65V (DSLR)
- Some mobile phones with assisted GPS use the cell phone network to speed GPS acquisition times.
Automatic using a connected GPS
The D1X and D1H that Nikon introduced in 2002 included a GPS interface. In 2006 the first special GPS receiver for Nikon was produced by Dawntech. Since 2009 Nikon has sold its own Geotagger GP-1. Canon uses the USB socket on the wireless file transmitter unit (WFT) as the GPS interface.
Some digital cameras and camera phones support an external GPS receiver connected by cable, or inserted into the memory card slot or flash shoe. The Samsung SH100 can connect using Wi-Fi to get position data from a GPS-enabled smartphone. Generally the relevant GPS data is automatically stored in the photo's EXIF information when the photo is taken. A connected GPS will generally remain switched on continuously, requiring power, and will then have location information available immediately when the camera is switched on.
Many GPS-ready cameras are currently available, made by manufacturers such as [[Canon],[Nikon]], Fujifilm, Sony and Panasonic. Automatic geotagging combined with real-time transfer and publishing results in real-time geotagging.
Synchronizing with a separate GPS
Most cameras sold today do not contain a built-in GPS receiver; however, an external location-aware device, such as a hand-held GPS logger, can still be used with a non-GPS digital camera for geotagging. The photo is taken without geographical information and is processed later using software in conjunction with the GPS data. Timestamps made by the camera can be compared with timestamps in the recorded GPS information, provided that the clocks in the separate devices can be synchronized. The resulting coordinates can then be added to the EXIF information of the photo.
Manual geotagging
Location information can also be added to photos, for example via its Exif specification that has fields for longitude/latitude, even if no GPS device was present when the photo was taken.
The information can be entered by directly giving the coordinates or by selecting a location from a map using software tools. Some tools allow entry of tags such as city, postal code or a street address. Geocoding and reverse geocoding can be used to convert between locations and addresses.
Manual geotagging also introduces possibilities of error, where a photograph's location is incorrectly represented by wrong coordinates. An advanced comparative analysis of such photos with the total collection set of all photos available from the surrounding coordinates, needs to be done to single out and flag such photos, but such a software's value, need and purpose could be limited in today's environment where almost every smartphone and camera have geotagging built-in and user do not need to manually enter this information.
Remote standoff capture
Some manufacturers of military and professional mapping-grade GPS instruments have integrated a GPS receiver with a laser rangefinder and digital camera. These multi-functional tools are able to determine a remote subject's GPS position by calculating the subject's geographic location relative to the camera's GPS position. These instruments are commonly used in military applications when an aircraft or operator is targeting an area, the position is inaccessible (for example over a valley or wetland), there are personal health & safety concerns (motorway traffic), or the user wants to quickly capture multiple targets from a single, safe position (trees, street signage and furniture).
Civilian integrated GPS cameras with rangefinders and remote standoff capability are currently available made by manufacturers such as Ricoh and Surveylab.
When geotagged photos are uploaded to online sharing communities such as Flickr, Panoramio or Moblog, the photo can be placed onto a map to view the location the photo was taken. In this way, users can browse photos from a map, search for photos from a given area, and find related photos of the same place from other users.
Many smartphones automatically geotag their photos by default. Photographers who prefer not to reveal their location can turn this feature off. Additionally smartphones can use their GPS to geotag photos taken with an external camera.
Geotagged photos may be visually stamped with their GPS location information using software tools. A stamped photo affords universal and cross-platform viewing of the photo's location, and offers the security of retaining that location information in the event of metadata corruption, or if file metadata is stripped from a photo, e.g. when uploading to various online photo sharing communities.
Geotagging is also being used to determine social patterns. For example, Now app uses geotagged Instagram photos to find nearby events happening now.
See also
- New York Times Gadgetwise 2010/07/28 Why don't more cameras offer GPS?
- CNET UK Nikon says No to GPS
- "CES: Samsung's SH100 Wi-Fi-enabled camera". MacWorld. 7 January 2011.
- US Army | <urn:uuid:a346ce32-7eb7-4f49-89bb-0417a80d558e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagged_photograph | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924459 | 1,383 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Giudicato of Arborea
|Giudicato di Arboréa
Rennu de Arbaree
|Capital||Tharros (until 1070), Oristano (until March 29, 1410), Sassari (until August 17, 1420)|
|-||1060 – 1070||Marianus I of Arborea|
|-||1347–1376||Marianus IV of Arborea|
|-||1383 – 1402||Eleanor of Arborea|
|-||Disestablished||August 14, 1420|
The Giudicato of Arborea (Italian: Giudicato di Arborea, Sardinian: Giuigadu de Arborea) was one of the four independent, hereditary "judicatures" (giudicati) into which the island of Sardinia was divided in the High Middle Ages. It occupied the central-west portion of the island, wedged between Logudoro to the north and east, Cagliari to the south and east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. To the north west and beyond Logudoro was located Gallura, with which Arborea had far less interaction. Arborea outlasted her neighbours, surviving well into the 15th century. The earliest known judicial seat was Tharros (Tarra). Giudicato of Arborea at the times of its maximum expansion occupied the whole island's territory, except the cities of Alghero and Cagliari.
In the early 9th century, when the Arabs and Berbers of North Africa became aggressive in expansion and piracy, the central authorities of the Byzantine Empire was unable to effectively defend or consistently govern the imperial province of Sardinia. The local Byzantine magistrates, entitled iudici, meaning "judges" were increasingly left to provide for administration and defense by themselves. Maintaining the traditional forms and patterns of the imperial bureaucracy, the island's iudicati, originally an administrative sub-division, had became autonomous states provinces ruled by iudices. By the 10th century, these districts (like the provinces administered by dux ("Duke") and comes ("Count") on mainland Europe) had become hereditary or rotated amongst a few most powerful clans.
The first important Giudice of Arborea was Marianus I (ruled 1060 – 1070) of the Thori family. In 1070, his successor, Orzocorre I moved the capital from the ancient port of Tharros, which was exposed to Arab attacks, to Oristano. At about that time, Sardinia begins to emerge from obscurity and come into the historian's view. Under the ambitious Pope Gregory VII, then leading a papal reform, Sardinia was integrated into the wider Christendom. By the infusion of Western monasticism and Pisan ecclesiastic rule, she became involved in the conflicts and commerce of Europe.
Lacon dynasty
Under Constantine I of the Lacon dynasty, Arborea paid tribute to the papacy and sponsored Camaldolese monks, in opposition to the monks of Marseille favoured by rival Cagliari. Constantine did homage to Pisa for his giudicato and was successor was his brother Comita II. When Pope Innocent II divided Sardinia between the sees of Pisa and Genoa in 1133, Arborea fell to the former, but Comita, for reasons of furthering Arborean independence, allied with Genoa during the subsequent civil wars of that decade. In 1145, Comita was excommunicated by Baldwin, Archbishop of Pisa, and the giudicato of Arborea was nominally transferred to Logudoro.
Comita's son and successor, Barison II, put Arborea back on good terms with Pisa. He married into the Catalan nobility, creating ties to Spain which culminated in Sardinia falling to the Crown of Aragon some centuries later. In 1164, Barison paid the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to have him crowned King of Sardinia, but the emperor revoked that title the next year, though Barison continued to employ it. He finally left Pisa for Genoa, but his legacy was civil war. His son Peter I and grandson Hugh I finally divided the giudicato by the Treaty of Oristano (1192), but in the end Hugh's line, the House of Cervera (or Bas), succeeded in establishing themselves.
Catalan dynasty
While Peter II, son of Hugh, has been accused by historians of impoverishing his realm of glory, his son Marianus II expanded it substantially, even ruling over a majority of the island. During the final decades of the 13th century, three other giudicati fell into the hands of either Pisa or Genoa or one of their great families, but Arborea remained independent.
Hugh II (ruled 1321 – 1336), great-grandson of Marianus II, headed up a faction which favoured James II of Aragon, who had been promised the island by pope, as overlord. He supported the Infante Alfonso in his campaign (1323 – 1324) to conquer the island from Pisa and Genoa. In 1336, Hugh II was succeeded by his son Peter III (died 1345). His brother Marianus IV (ruled 1353 – 1375) was the only Sardinian ruler to be known as "the Great." He was educated at the Aragonese court, but later turned against his cultural allies and led a victorious revolt against the invaders, both Ligurian and Spanish. A period of splendour commenced. Oral traditions were codified and new legislation enacted. Army and tactics were reformed. With the exception of Cagliari, Alghero, and Sassari (then under Brancaleone Doria), Marianus conquered the whole of the island, making Arborea the strongest any giudicato had ever been.
Marianus was succeeded by his son Hugh III, who furthered his father's legislation and died without descendants in 1383. A republic was proclaimed, but the crown was claimed by Eleanor, elder sister of Hugh III, who was married to Brancaleone Doria. She succeeded in power in 1387. Eleanor was technically regent on behalf of her sons Frederick and, subsequently, Marianus V. Eleanor died in 1404 and Marianus in 1407: after the latter's death the succession descended to William III of Narbonne, grandson of Beatrice, Eleanor's sister. He defended the island against the Catalan troops of the Martin of Aragon, but Martin I of Sicily vanquished them in the Battle of Sanluri on 30 June 1409. Martin's sudden death made possible a recovery and occupation of Sassari and part of Logoduro, as well as reclamation of the title of Judge of Arborea by William. However, all the Arborean castles fell after a renewed Catalan offensive and Oristano fell in March 1410 without resistance.
Leonard Cubell laid claim to the title of Judge of Arborea, but was compelled in Oristano by Pedro de Torrelles to renounce the title, after which he was given the Marquisate of Oristano and County of Gucea. In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon purchased for 100,000 gold florins the rights of the viscounts of Narbonne. Later, the Aragonese governor, Leonardo de Alagona, rebelled and was also able to beat the king's troops at Uras in 1470. However, his defeat at the Battle of Macomer (1478) put a definitive end to the independence of Arborea and Sardinia.
Arborea was divided into thirteen (at times, fourteen) curatoriae or partes (sing. curatoria and partis). These were the main administrative regions, governed by curatores (curators) under the judge. The subdivisions of the curatoriae were the villae, the inhabited centres (villages) that, altogether, probably comprised 100,000 inhabitants. The curatoriae were an inheritance of Byzantine government and are still recognised today as "historic regions."
The fourteen curatoriae of Arborea were Barbagia di Belvì, Barbagia d’Ollolai, Barigadu, Bonorzuli, Campidano di Cabras, Campidano di Milis, Campidano di Simaxis, Guilcier, Mandrolisai, Marmilla, Montis, Usellus, Valenza, and Brabaxiana.
The history of Arborea is based on slender documentation, most of it assembled in the archives of Pisa and Genoa and viewing Arborea and the other giudicati through a colonial lens. John Day concentrates on attempting to reconstruct the socio-economic history; the internal social structure of Arborea still remains silent.
The evaluation of political figures has traditionally been made on the basis of military accomplishment, whereas Nowé points out that the ecclesiastical policy of the rulers of Sardinia was just as important in determining the stability, peacefulness, and long-term success of the giudicati in the face of colonialism.
- Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Rome, 1963 – present.
- Nowé, Laura Sannia. Dai "lumi" dalla patria Italiana: Cultura letteraria sarda. Mucchi Editore: Modena, 1996.
- Day, John. La Sardegna sotto la dominazione pisano-genovese dal secolo XI al secolo XIV. UTET: Turin, 1987. | <urn:uuid:f0cae3c3-4bdc-48bd-a821-50afefc9a5e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giudicato_of_Arborea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953723 | 2,032 | 2.890625 | 3 |
|Part of the nature series|
A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. While definitions vary, a heat wave is measured relative to the usual weather in the area and relative to normal temperatures for the season. Temperatures that people from a hotter climate consider normal can be termed a heat wave in a cooler area if they are outside the normal climate pattern for that area. The term is applied both to routine weather variations and to extraordinary spells of heat which may occur only once a century. Severe heat waves have caused catastrophic crop failures, thousands of deaths from hyperthermia, and widespread power outages due to increased use of air conditioning.
The definition recommended by the World Meteorological Organization is when the daily maximum temperature of more than five consecutive days exceeds the average maximum temperature by 5 °C (9 °F), the normal period being 1961–1990.
- A period of abnormally and uncomfortably hot and usually humid weather.
- To be a heat wave such a period should last at least one day, but conventionally it lasts from several days to several weeks. In 1900, A. T. Burrows more rigidly defined a “hot wave” as a spell of three or more days on each of which the maximum shade temperature reaches or exceeds 90 °F (32.2 °C). More realistically, the comfort criteria for any one region are dependent upon the normal conditions of that region.
In the Netherlands, a heat wave is defined as period of at least 5 consecutive days in which the maximum temperature in De Bilt exceeds 25 °C (77 °F), provided that on at least 3 days in this period the maximum temperature in De Bilt exceeds 30 °C (86 °F). This definition of a heat wave is also used in Belgium and Luxembourg.
In Denmark, a heat wave is defined as a period of at least 3 consecutive days of which period the average maximum temperature across more than fifty percent of the country exceeds 28 °C (82.4 °F), while in Sweden, a heat wave is defined as at least 5 days in a row with a daily high exceeding 25 °C (77.0 °F).
In the United States, definitions also vary by region; however, a heat wave is usually defined as a period of at least two or more days of excessively hot weather. In the Northeast, a heat wave is typically defined as three consecutive days where the temperature reaches or exceeds 90 °F (32.2 °C), but not always as this ties in with humidity levels to determine a heat index threshold. The same does not apply to drier climates. A heat storm is a Californian term for an extended heat wave. Heat storms occur when the temperature reaches 100 °F (37.8 °C) for three or more consecutive days over a wide area (tens of thousands of square miles). The National Weather Service issues heat advisories and excessive heat warnings when unusual periods of hot weather are expected.
How they occur
Heat waves form when high pressure aloft (from 10,000–25,000 feet (3,000–7,600 metres)) strengthens and remains over a region for several days up to several weeks. This is common in summer (in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres) as the jet stream 'follows the sun'. On the equator side of the jet stream, in the middle layers of the atmosphere, is the high pressure area.
Summertime weather patterns are generally slower to change than in winter. As a result, this mid-level high pressure also moves slowly. Under high pressure, the air subsides (sinks) toward the surface. This sinking air acts as a dome capping the atmosphere.
This cap helps to trap heat instead of allowing it to lift. Without the lift there is little or no convection and therefore little or no convective clouds (cumulus clouds) with minimal chances for rain. The end result is a continual build-up of heat at the surface that we experience as a heat wave.
In the Eastern United States a heat wave can occur when a high pressure system originating in the Gulf of Mexico becomes stationary just off the Atlantic Seaboard (typically known as a Bermuda High.) Hot humid air masses form over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea while hot dry air masses form over the desert Southwest and northern Mexico. The SW winds on the back side of the High continue to pump hot, humid Gulf air northeastward resulting in a spell of hot and humid weather for much of the Eastern States.
In the Western Cape Province of South Africa, a heat wave can occur when a low pressure offshore and high pressure inland combine to form a Bergwind. The air warms as it descends from the Karoo interior, and the temperature will rise about 10 °C from the interior to the coast. Humidities are usually very low, and the temperatures can be over 40 °C in summer. The highest official temperatures recorded in South Africa (51.5 °C) was recorded one summer during a bergwind occurring along the Eastern Cape coastline.
Health effects
|Relative Humidity (%)|
The Heat Index (as shown in the table above) is a measure of how hot it feels when relative humidity is factored with the actual air temperature. Hyperthermia, also known as heat stroke, becomes commonplace during periods of sustained high temperature and humidity. Sweating is absent from 84%–100% of those affected. Older adults, very young children, and those who are sick or overweight are at a higher risk for heat-related illness. The chronically ill and elderly are often taking prescription medications (e.g., diuretics, anticholinergics, antipsychotics, and antihypertensives) that interfere with the body's ability to dissipate heat.
Heat edema presents as a transient swelling of the hands, feet, and ankles and is generally secondary to increased aldosterone secretion, which enhances water retention. When combined with peripheral vasodilation and venous stasis, the excess fluid accumulates in the dependent areas of the extremities. The heat edema usually resolves within several days after the patient becomes acclimated to the warmer environment. No treatment is required, although wearing support stocking and elevating the affected legs with help minimize the edema.
Heat rash, also known as prickly heat, is a maculopapular rash accompanied by acute inflammation and blocked sweat ducts. The sweat ducts may become dilated and may eventually rupture, producing small pruritic vesicles on an erythematous base. Heat rash affects areas of the body covered by tight clothing. If this continues for a duration of time it can lead to the development of chronic dermatitis or a secondary bacterial infection. Prevention is the best therapy. It is also advised to wear loose-fitting clothing in the heat. However, once heat rash has developed, the initial treatment involves the application of chlorhexidine lotion to remove any desquamated skin. The associated itching may be treated with topical or systemic antihistamines. If infection occurs a regimen of antibiotics is required.
Heat cramps are painful, often severe, involuntary spasms of the large muscle groups used in strenuous exercise. Heat cramps tend to occur after intense exertion. They usually develop in people performing heavy exercise while sweating profusely and replenishing fluid loss with non-electrolyte containing water. This is believed to lead to hyponatremia that induces cramping in stressed muscles. Rehydration with salt-containing fluids provides rapid relief. Patients with mild cramps can be given oral .2% salt solutions, while those with severe cramps require IV isotonic fluids. The many sport drinks on the market are a good source of electrolytes and are readily accessible.
Heat syncope is related to heat exposure that produces orthostatic hypotension. This hypotension can precipitate a near-syncopal episode. Heat syncope is believed to result from intense sweating, which leads to dehydration, followed by peripheral vasodilation and reduced venous blood return in the face of decreased vasomotor control. Management of heat syncope consists of cooling and rehydration of the patient using oral rehydration therapy (sport drinks) or isotonic IV fluids. People who experience heat syncope should avoid standing in the heat for long periods of time. They should move to a cooler environment and lie down if they recognize the initial symptoms. Wearing support stockings and engaging in deep knee-bending movements can help promote venous blood return.
Heat exhaustion is considered by experts to be the forerunner of heat stroke (hyperthermia). It may even resemble heat stroke, with the difference being that the neurologic function remains intact. Heat exhaustion is marked by excessive dehydration and electrolyte depletion. Symptoms may include headache, nausea, and vomiting, dizziness, tachycardia, malaise, and myalgia. Definitive therapy includes removing patients from the heat and replenishing their fluids. Most patients will require fluid replacement with IV isotonic fluids at first. The salt content is adjusted as necessary once the electrolyte levels are known. After discharge from the hospital, patients are instructed to rest, drink plenty of fluids for 2–3 hours, and avoid the heat for several days. If this advice is not followed it may then lead to heat stroke.
One public health measure taken during heat waves is the setting-up of air-conditioned public cooling centers.
Heat waves are the most lethal type of weather phenomenon, overall. Between 1992 and 2001, deaths from excessive heat in the United States numbered 2,190, compared with 880 deaths from floods and 150 from hurricanes. The average annual number of fatalities directly attributed to heat in the United States is about 400. The 1995 Chicago heat wave, one of the worst in US history, led to approximately 600 heat-related deaths over a period of five days. Eric Klinenberg has noted that in the United States, the loss of human life in hot spells in summer exceeds that caused by all other weather events combined, including lightning, rain, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Despite the dangers, Scott Sheridan, professor of geography at Kent State University, found that less than half of people 65 and older abide by heat-emergency recommendations like drinking lots of water. In his study of heat-wave behavior, focusing particularly on seniors in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Toronto, and Dayton, Ohio, he found that people over 65 "don't consider themselves seniors." "Heat doesn't bother me much, but I worry about my neighbors," said one of his older respondents. According to the Agency for Health care Research and Quality, about 6,200 Americans are hospitalized each summer due to excessive heat, and those at highest risk are poor, uninsured or elderly. More than 70,000 Europeans died as a result of the 2003 European heat wave.
- Underreporting and "Harvesting" effect
The number of heat fatalities is likely highly underreported due to lack of reports and misreports. Part of the mortality observed during a heat wave, however, can be attributed to a so-called "harvesting effect", a term for a short-term forward mortality displacement. It has been observed that for some heat waves, there is a compensatory decrease in overall mortality during the subsequent weeks after a heat wave. Such compensatory reduction in mortality suggests that heat affects especially those so ill that they "would have died in the short term anyway".
Psychological and sociological effects
Power outages
Abnormally hot temperatures cause electricity demand to increase during the peak summertime hours of 4 to 7 p.m. when air conditioners are straining to overcome the heat. If a hot spell extends to three days or more, however, nighttime temperatures do not cool down, and the thermal mass in homes and buildings retains the heat from previous days. This heat build-up causes air conditioners to turn on earlier and to stay on later in the day. As a result, available electricity supplies are challenged during a higher, wider, peak electricity consumption period.
Heat waves often lead to electricity spikes due to increased air conditioning use, which can create power outages, exacerbating the problem. During the 2006 North American heat wave, thousands of homes and businesses went without power, especially in California. In Los Angeles, electrical transformers failed, leaving thousands without power for as long as five days. The 2009 South Eastern Australia Heat Wave caused the city of Melbourne, Australia to experience some major power disruptions which left over half a million people without power as the heat wave blew transformers and overloaded a power grid.
If a heat wave occurs during a drought, which dries out vegetation, it can contribute to bushfires and wildfires. During the disastrous heat wave that struck Europe in 2003, fires raged through Portugal, destroying over 3,010 square kilometres (1,160 sq mi) or 301,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of forest and 440 square kilometres (170 sq mi) or 44,000 hectares (110,000 acres) of agricultural land and causing an estimated €1 billion worth of damage. High end farmlands have irrigation systems to back up crops with.
Physical damage
Heat waves can and do cause roads and highways to buckle, water lines to burst, power transformers to detonate, causing fires. See the 2006 North American heat wave article about heat waves causing physical damage.
20th century
1936 - The 1936 North American heat wave during the Dust Bowl, followed one of the coldest winters on record—the 1936 North American cold wave. Massive heat waves across North America were persistent in the 1930s, many mid-Atlantic/Ohio valley states recorded their highest temperatures during July 1934. The longest continuous string of 100 °F (38 °C) or higher temperatures was reached for 101 days in Yuma, Arizona during 1937 and the highest temperatures ever reached in Canada were recorded in two locations in Saskatchewan in July 1937.
1950s - A prolonged severe drought and heat wave occurred in the early 1950s throughout the central and southern United States. In some areas it was drier than during the Dust Bowl and the heat wave in most areas was within the top five on record. The heat was particularly severe in 1954 with 22 days of temperatures exceeding 100 °F (38 °C) covering significant parts of eleven states. On July 14, the thermometer reached 117 °F (47 °C) at East St. Louis, Illinois, which remains the record highest temperature for that state.
1972 - The heat waves of 1972 in New York and Northeastern United States were significant. Almost 900 people perished; the heat conditions lasted almost 16 days, aggravated by very high humidity levels.
1976 - The 1976 United Kingdom heat wave was one of the hottest in living memory and was marked by constant blues skies from May until September when dramatic thunderstorms signalled the heat wave's end.
1980 - An estimated 10,000 people perished in the 1980 United States heat wave and drought, which impacted the central and eastern United States. Temperatures were highest in the southern plains. From June through September, temperatures remained above 90 °F (32 °C) all but two days in Kansas City, Missouri. The Dallas/Fort Worth area experienced 42 consecutive days with high temperatures above 100 °F (38 °C), with temperatures reaching 117 °F (47 °C) at Wichita Falls, Texas on June 28. Economic losses were $20 billion (1980 dollars).
1983 - During the Summer of 1983 temperatures over 100 °F (38 °C) were common across Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska and certain parts of Kentucky; the summer of 1983 remains one of the hottest summers ever recorded in many of the states affected. The hundred-degree readings were accompanied by very dry conditions associated with drought affecting the Corn Belt States and Upper Midwest. The heat also affected the Southeastern U.S. and the Mid-Atlantic states as well that same summer. New York Times represented articles about the heat waves of 1983 affecting the central United States.
1988 - intense heat spells in combination with the drought of 1988, reminiscent of the dust bowl years caused deadly results across the United States. Some 5,000 to 10,000 people perished because of constant heat across the United States although-according to many estimates-total death reports run as high as next to 17,000 deaths.
1995 - The 1995 Chicago heat wave produced record high dew point levels and heat indices in the Chicago area and Wisconsin. The lack of emergency cooling facilities and inadequate response from civic authorities to the senior population, particularly in lower income neighborhoods in Chicago and other Midwest cities, lead to many deaths.
1999 - a heat wave and drought in the eastern United States during the summer of 1999. Rainfall shortages resulted in worst drought on record for Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. The state of West Viriginia was declared a disaster area. 3,810,000 acres (15,400 km2) were consumed by fire as of mid-August Record heat throughout the country resulted in 502 deaths nationwide.
21st century
- In late Summer 2000, a heat wave occurred in the southern United States, breaking many cities' all-time maximum temperature records.
- In early August 2001 an intense heatwave hit the eastern seaboard of the United States and neighboring southeastern Canada. For over a week, temperatures climbed above 35 °C (95 °F) combined with stifling high humidity. Newark, New Jersey tied its all-time record high temperature of 41 °C (106 °F) with a heat index of over 50 °C (122 °F).
- In April 2002 a summer-like heat wave in spring affected much of the Eastern United States.
- More than 46,000 people and perhaps in excess of 70,000 died in the European heat wave of 2003. Much of the heat was concentrated in France, where nearly 15,000 people died. In Portugal, the temperatures reached as high as 47 °C (117 °F) in the south.
- The European heat wave of 2006 was the second massive heat wave to hit the continent in four years, with temperatures rising to 40 °C (104 °F) in Paris; in Ireland, which has a moderate maritime climate, temperatures of over 32 °C (90 °F) were reported. Temperatures of 35 °C (95 °F) were reached in the Benelux and Germany (in some areas 38 °C (100 °F), while Great Britain recorded 37 °C (99 °F). Many heat records were broken (including the hottest ever July temperature in Great Britain) and many people who experienced the heat waves of 1976 and 2003 drew comparisons with them. Highest average July temperatures were recorded at many locations in Great Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany.
- The 2006 North American heat wave affected a wide area of the United States and parts of neighboring Canada during July and August 2006. Over 220 deaths were reported. Temperatures in some parts of South Dakota exceeded 115 °F (46 °C). Also, California experienced temperatures that were extraordinarily high, with records ranging from 100 to 130 °F (38 to 54 °C). On July 22, the County of Los Angeles recorded its highest temperature ever at 119 °F (48 °C). Humidity levels in California were also unusually high, although low compared with normal gulf coast/eastern seaboard summer humidity they were significant enough to cause widespread discomfort.
- The European heat wave of 2007 affected primarily south-eastern Europe during late June through August. Bulgaria experienced its hottest year on record, with previously unrecorded temperatures above 45 °C (113 °F). The 2007 Greek forest fires were associated with the heat wave.
- During the 2007 Asian heat wave, the Indian city of Datia experienced temperatures of 48 °C (118 °F).
- In January 2008, Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory recorded ten consecutive days of temperatures above 40 °C (104 °F) with the average temperature for that month being 39.8 °C (103.6 °F). In March 2008, Adelaide, South Australia experienced maximum temperatures of above 35 °C (95 °F) for fifteen consecutive days, seven days more than the previous longest stretch of 35 °C (95 °F) days. The March 2008 heat wave also included eleven consecutive days above 38 °C (100 °F). The heat wave was especially notable because it occurred in March, an autumn month, in which Adelaide averages only 2.3 days above 35 °C (95 °F).
- The eastern United States experienced an early Summer heat wave from June 6–10, 2008 with record temperatures. There was a heat wave in Southern California beginning late June, which contributed to widespread fires. On July 6, a renewed heat wave was forecast, which was expected to affect the entire state.
- In early 2009, Adelaide, South Australia was hit by a heat wave with temperatures reaching 40+ °C for six days in a row, while many rural areas experienced temperatures hovering around about mid 40s °C (mid 110s°F). Kyancutta on the Eyre Peninsula endured at least one day at 48 °C, with 46 and 47 being common in the hottest parts of the state. Melbourne, in neighbouring Victoria recorded 3 consecutive days over 43 °C (109 °F), and also recorded its highest ever temperature 8 days later in a secondary heatwave, with the mercury peaking at 46.4 °C (115.5 °F). During this heat wave Victoria suffered from large bushfires which claimed the lives of more than 210 people and destroyed more than 2,500 homes. There were also over half a million people without power as the heatwave blew transformers and the power grid was overloaded.
- In August 2009, Argentina experienced a period of unusual and exceptionally hot weather during August 24–30, during the Southern Hemisphere winter, just a month before Spring, when an unusual and unrecorded winter heat wave hit the country. A shot of tropical heat drawn unusually far southward hiked temperatures 22 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahreinheit) above normal in the city of Buenos Aires and across the northern-centre regions of the country. Several records were broken. Even though normal high temperatures for late August are in the lower 15 °C (59 °F), readings topped 30 °C (86 °F) degrees at midweek, then topped out above 32 °C (90 °F) degrees during the weekend. Temperatures hit 33.8 °C (92.8 °F) on 29 August and finally 34.6 °C (94.3 °F) on 30 August in Buenos Aires, making it the hottest day ever recorded in winter breaking the 1996 winter record of 33.7 °C (92.7 °F). In the city of Santa Fe, 38.3 °C (100.9 °F) degrees on 30 August was registered, notwithstanding the normal high in the upper 15 °C/60°Fs. As per the Meteorological Office of Argentina, August 2009 has been the warmest month during winter since official measurements began.
- The Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave of 2010 affected many areas across the Northern Hemisphere, especially parts of Northeastern China and European Russia.
- Starting in May 2010, records were being set. On 26 May, at Mohenjo-daro, Sindh province in Pakistan a national record high temperature of 53.5 °C (128.3 °F) occurred.
- In June 2010, Eastern Europe experienced very warm conditions. Ruse, Bulgaria hit 36.6 °C (97.9 °F) on the 13th making it the warmest spot in Europe. Other records broken on the 13th include Vidin, Bulgaria at 35.8 °C (96.4 °F), Sandanski, Bulgaria hitting 35.5 °C (95.9 °F), Lovech and Pazardzhik, Bulgaria at 35.1 °C (95.2 °F) as well as the capital, Sofia, hitting 33.3 °C (91.9 °F). The heat came from the Sahara desert and was not associated with rain. This helped the situation with high water levels in that part of the continent. On the 14th, several cities were once again above the 35 °C (95 °F) mark even though they did not break records. The only cities in Bulgaria breaking records were Musala peak hitting 15.2 °C (59.4 °F) and Elhovo hitting 35.6 °C (96.1 °F). On the 15th, Ruse, Bulgaria peaked at 37.2 °C (99.0 °F). Although it was not a record, this was the highest temperature recorded in the country. Five Bulgarian cities broke records that day: Ahtopol hit 28.6 °C (83.5 °F), Dobrich was 33.8 °C (92.8 °F), Karnobat hit 34 °C (93 °F), Sliven hit 35 °C (95 °F) and Elhovo recorded 36.1 °C (97.0 °F).
- From July 4 to July 9, 2010, the majority of the American East Coast, from the Carolinas to Maine, was gripped in a severe heat wave. Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Washington, Raleigh, and even Boston eclipsed 100 °F (38 °C). Many records were broken, some of which dated back to the 19th century, including Wilmington, Delaware's temperature of 103 °F (39 °C) on Wednesday, July 7, which broke the record of 97 °F (36 °C) from 1897. Philadelphia and New York eclipsed 100 °F (38 °C) for the first time since 2001. Fredrick, Maryland, and Newark, New Jersey, among others topped the century mark (37.8 Celsius) for four days in a row.
- The UK declared a heatwave, MetOffice Level 2/4, on 9 July 2010 for South East England and East Anglia. This was after temperatures reached 31.0 degrees Celsius in London and night-time temperatures levelled around 21 degrees Celsius.
- The 2011 North American heat wave brought record heat to the Midwestern United States, Eastern Canada, and much of the Eastern Seaboard.
- A record-breaking heat wave hit Southwestern Asia in late July and early August 2011, with temperatures in Iraq exceeding 120 °F (49 °C), and an "asphalt-melting, earth-parching, brain-scrambling heat of midsummer" in Tbilisi, Georgia. The Iraqis were further challenged by pressure to fast during Ramadan, despite heat of 124 °F (51 °C) in Baghdad and 126 °F (52 °C) in Diwaniya on 4 August. The extreme heat inspired conspiracy theories of the government corruption in Iraq and retaliation from the United States government; and, in Georgia, the Apocalypse, mutant locusts caused by Chernobyl, snakes imported by unseen enemies, and sun spots.
- Most parts of the United Kingdom experienced an Indian summer between September and October 2011. The heat wave resulted in a new record high temperature for October at 30°C.
- In March 2012, one of the greatest heat waves was observed in many regions of North America. First very warm air pushed northward west of the Great Lakes region, and subsequently spread eastward. This air mass movement was propelled by an unusually intense low level southerly jet that stretched from Louisiana to western Wisconsin. Once this warm surge inundated the area, a remarkably prolonged period of record setting temperatures ensued. NOAA's National Climate Data Center reported that over 7000 daily record high temperatures were broken over the U.S. from 1 March thru 27 March. In some places the temperature exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) with anomalies up to +22°C. Temperature records across much of southern Canada were also demolished.
- In March, 2012, the United Kingdom experienced a heat wave with temperature anomalies of +10 °C in many places.
- In late June 2012, much of North America began experiencing a heat wave, as heat spread east from the Rocky Mountains. During the heat wave, the June 2012 North American derecho caused violent storms that downed trees and power lines, leaving 3 million people in the eastern U. S. without power on June 30.
- From Dec 28th, 2012 through at least January 9th, 2013 Australia has faced its most severe heatwave in over 80 years, with a large portion of the nation recording high temperature reading above 40°C to 45°C or greater in some areas, a couple spots have also neared 50°C. This extreme heat has also resulted in a 'flash' drought across southern and central areas of the country and has sparked several massive wildfires due to periodic high winds. It was said as of January 9th, 2013 that the heatwave could persist for several more days.
- On Mar 12th, 2013, Melbourne, Australia reached a record nine consecutive days of temperatures reaching or exceeding 30°C in March. Although not consecutive, there were 14 such days in the prior month, which tied records set in 1997 and almost one hundred years earlier, in 1898.
See also
- Meehl, George A.; Tebaldi, Claudia (2004-08-13). "More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st Century". Science 305 (5686): 994. Bibcode:2004Sci...305..994M. doi:10.1126/science.1098704. PMID 15310900.
- Robinson, Peter J. (April 2001). "On the Definition of a Heat Wave". Journal of Applied Meteorology (American Meteorological Society) 40 (4): 762–775. Bibcode:2001JApMe..40..762R. doi:10.1175/1520-0450(2001)040<0762:OTDOAH>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1520-0450.
- Frich, A.; L.V. Alexander, P. Della-Marta, B. Gleason, M. Haylock, A.M.G. Klein Tank, and T. Peterson (January 2002). "Observed coherent changes in climatic extremes during the second half of the twentieth century" (PDF). Climate Research 19: 193–212. doi:10.3354/cr019193.
- <Glickman, Todd S. (June 2000). Glossary of Meteorology. Boston: American Meteorological Society. ISBN 1-878220-49-7.
- Singer, Stephen. "Half the country wilts under unrelenting heat". Yahoo!.
- "Heat Index". US National Weather Service.
- "Heat Index". Pasquotank County, NC, U. S. Website.
- "Bergwind Info". 1stweather.com.
- "Natural Hazards - Heat Wave". City of Cape Town, South Africa Website.
- "Has global warming brought an early summer to the US?". New Scientist.
- Global Warming Makes Heat Waves More Likely, Study Finds July 10, 2012 NYT
- James Hansen; Makiko Sato; Reto Ruedy (August 2012). "Perception of climate change". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (National Academy of Sciences) 109 (32). doi:10.1073/pnas.1205276109. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
- "Extreme Heat". FEMA:Are You Ready?. Retrieved 2006-07-27.
- "Hot Weather Tips and the Chicago Heat Plan". About.com. Retrieved 2006-07-27.
- Basu, Rupa; Jonathan M. Samet (2002). "Relation between Elevated Ambient Temperature and Mortality: A Review of the Epidemiologic Evidence". Epidemiologic Reviews (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) 24 (2): 190–202. doi:10.1093/epirev/mxf007. PMID 12762092.
- Near-Fatal Heat Stroke during the 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago. Annals of Internal Medicine Vol. 129 Issue 3
- Klinenberg, Eric (2002). Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-44321-3.
- Dead Heat: Why don't Americans sweat over heat-wave deaths? By Eric Klinenberg. Slate.com. Posted Tuesday, July 30, 2002
- Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Wildfires, Earthquakes... Why We Don't Prepare By Amanda Ripley. Time. August 28, 2006.
- Most People Struck Down by Summer Heat Are Poor Newswise, Retrieved on July 9, 2008.
- Robine, Jean-Marie; Siu Lan K. Cheung, Sophie Le Roy, Herman Van Oyen, Clare Griffiths, Jean-Pierre Michel, François Richard Herrmann (2008). "Death toll exceeded 70,000 in Europe during the summer of 2003". Comptes Rendus Biologies 331 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2007.12.001. ISSN 1631-0691. PMID 18241810. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
- Huygens, Maud M.T.E.; Pim Martens, Dieneke Scram, Matty P. Weinberg, and Anton E. Kunst (May 2001). "The Impact of Heat Waves and Cold Spells on Mortality Rates in the Dutch Population". Environmental Health Perspectives (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) 109 (5): 463–470. doi:10.2307/3454704. JSTOR 3454704. PMC 1240305. PMID 11401757.
- Simister, John; Cary Cooper (October 2004). "Thermal stress in the U.S.A.: effects on violence and on employee behaviour". Stress and Health (International Society for the Investigation of Stress) 21 (1): 3–15. doi:10.1002/smi.1029.
- Doan, Lynn; Covarrubias, Amanda (2006-07-27). "Heat Eases, but Thousands of Southern Californians Still Lack Power". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-07-28.[dead link]
- Bell, M.; A. Giannini, E. Grover, M. Hopp, B. Lyon, A. Seth (September 2003). "Climate Impacts". IRI Climate Digest (The Earth Institute). Retrieved 2006-07-28.
- "Marble Bar heatwave, 1923–1924". Australian Climate Extremes. Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- Westcott, Nancy E. (July 2011). "The Prolonged 1954 Midwestern U.S. Heat Wave: Impacts and Responses". Wea. Climate Soc. 3 (3): 165–76. doi:10.1175/WCAS-D-10-05002.1.
- "Lessons Learned from 1950s' Heat Wave Show Planning Needed for Future Severe Events" (Press release). Illinois State Water Survey. 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- Westcott, Nancy (2010-01-19). "Impacts of the 1954 Heat Wave". 18th Conference on Applied Climatology. Atlanta, GA: American Meteorological Society.
- "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters". National Climatic Data Center. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
- "St. Louis Bears Brunt of Heat Wave as U.S. Toll Rises". New York Times. 1983-07-24. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
- "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters". National Climatic Data Center. Retrieved 2008-07-14.
- Robine, Jean-Marie; Siu Lan K. Cheung, Sophie Le Roy, Herman Van Oyen, Clare Griffiths, Jean-Pierre Michel, François Richard Herrmann (2008). "Death toll exceeded 46,000 in Europe during the summer of 2003". Comptes Rendus Biologies 331 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2007.12.001. ISSN 1631-0691. PMID 18241810. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
- Robine, Jean-Marie; Siu Lan K. Cheung, Sophie Le Roy, Herman Van Oyen, Clare Griffiths, Jean-Pierre Michel, François Richard Herrmann (2008). "Death toll exceeded 70,000 in Europe during the summer of 2003". Comptes Rendus Biologies 331 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2007.12.001. ISSN 1631-0691. PMID 18241810. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
- French heat toll almost 15,000 BBC News. 25 September, 2003.
- Pool, Bob (2006-07-26). "In Woodland Hills, It's Just Too Darn Hot". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2006-07-28.[dead link]
- "Adelaide, South Australia March 2008 Daily Weather Observations". Bureau of Meteorology. 2008-04-21. Archived from the original on 2008-03-12. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
- "Climate statistics for Australian locations". Bureau of Meteorology. 2008-04-23. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
- , .
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- Heat wave coming to scorched California, UPI.com
- Bay Area Braces For 'Scorchers' As Temps Rise, cbs5.com, July 7th, 2008.
- La temperatura llego a 34.7° y ya es un record/Clarin.com
- Situacion extrema climatica en Argentina durante Agosto 2009 (In Spanish)
- Жега мори цяла Европа(In Bulgarian)
- Топло: над 35 градуса на много места в страната (In Bulgarian)
- Schmidt, Michael (3 August 2011). "Heat [Wave] And Fasting Add to Woes Of Iraqis". New York Times. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
- Barry, Ellen (3 August 2011). "Out of a Swelter Come Apolcalyptic Visions". New York Times. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
- "UK weather returns to normal after record-breaking heatwave". The Guardian. 3 October 2011.
- Meteorological March Madness 2012, NOAA Research, 2 April 2012
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- 'Heat Dome' seals in sweltering temperatures
- Klinenberg, Eric (2002). Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-44321-3.
- FEMA: Extreme Heat
- Hot Weather Tips
- Social & Economic Costs of Temperature Extremes from "NOAA Socioeconomics" website initiative
- Study: Global Warming to Bring Increased Heat Waves to U.S. – video report by Democracy Now!
- Wu, Zhiwei; et al. (2012). "Heat wave frequency variability over North America: Two distinct leading modes". J. Geophys. Res. 117 (D02102). Bibcode:2012JGRD..11702102W. doi:10.1029/2011JD016908.
- Global Warming Makes Heat Waves More Likely, Study Finds July 10, 2012 NYT, regarding effects of global warming. | <urn:uuid:e6762608-a919-4a72-a807-9ae9cfd15c8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_wave | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900397 | 8,388 | 4.40625 | 4 |
|Look up prank in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
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A practical joke (also known as a prank, gag, jape or shenanigan) is a mischievous trick or joke played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks or hoaxes in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or other valuables. Practical jokes or pranks are generally lighthearted, reversible and non-permanent, and aim to make the victim feel foolish or victimised to a degree, but may also involve cruelty verging on bullying if performed without appropriate finesse.
The term "practical" refers to the fact that the joke consists of someone doing something physical, instead of a verbal or written joke. For example, the joker who is setting up and performing the practical joke might hang a bucket of water above a doorway and rig the bucket using pulleys so when the door opens the bucket dumps the water. The joker would then wait for the victim to walk through the doorway and be drenched by the bucket of water. Objects can also be used in practical jokes, like fake vomit, chewing gum bugs, exploding cigars, stink bombs, costumes and whoopee cushions. In Western culture, April Fools' Day is a day traditionally dedicated to performing practical jokes. A person who performs a practical joke is called a practical joker. The most common cases of practical jokes are encountered inside offices, usually to surprise co-workers. Covering the computer accessories with Jell-O, wrapping the desk with Christmas paper or aluminium foil or filling it with balloons are just some examples of office pranks.
Famous practical jokes
The American humorist H. Allen Smith wrote a 320-page book in 1953 called The Compleat Practical Joker (ISBN 0-688-03705-4) that contains many examples of practical jokes. A common one, recalled as his favorite by the playwright Charles MacArthur, concerns the American painter and bohemian character Waldo Peirce. Peirce was living in Paris in the 1920s and "made a gift of a very big turtle to the woman who was the concierge of his building." The woman doted on the turtle and lavished care on it. A few days later Peirce substituted a somewhat larger turtle for the original one. This continued for some time, with larger and larger turtles being surreptitiously introduced into the woman's apartment. The concierge was beside herself with happiness and displayed her miraculous turtle to the entire neighborhood. Peirce then began to sneak in and replace the turtle with smaller and smaller ones, to her bewildered distress. This was the storyline behind Esio Trot, by Roald Dahl.
Modern and successful pranks often take advantage of the modernization of tools and techniques. In Canada, engineering students have a reputation for annual pranks; at the University of British Columbia these usually involve leaving a Volkswagen beetle in an unexpected location (such as suspended from the Golden Gate Bridge and the Lions Gate Bridge). A similar prank was undertaken by engineering students at Cambridge University, England, where an Austin 7 car was put on top of the Senate House building. Pranks can also adapt to the political context of the era. Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are particularly known for their "hacks".
The 2003 TV movie Windy City Heat, is an elaborate practical joke on the film's star, Perry Caravallo, who is led to believe that he is starring in a faux action film, Windy City Heat, where the filming which is ostensibly for the films DVD extras is actually a documentation of the long chain of pranks and jokes done at Caravallo's expense.
Peter Funt wrote, "Pranksters must always be accountable for their actions, but in the digital age the burden of responsibility also lies with those who use the echo chamber to amplify things to the point of distortion and stress."
- The Complete Book of Outrageous and Atrocious Practical Jokes by Justin Geste (ISBN 978-0-385-23044-5)
- Cubicle Warfare: 101 Office Traps and Pranks by John Austin (ISBN 978-0-06-143886-8)
- The Compleat Practical Joker by H. Allen Smith (ISBN 978-0-89966-931-1)
- The Practical Joker's Handbook by Tim Nyberg (ISBN 978-0-7407-4198-2)
- Prank University: The Ultimate Guide to College's Greatest Tradition by John Austin (ISBN 978-0-307-33843-3)
- Prank the Monkey: The ZUG Book of Pranks by Sir John Hargrave (ISBN 978-0-8065-2780-2)
- Pranks by V. Vale and Andrea Juno (ISBN 978-0-940642-10-2)
- If at All Possible, Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks by Neil Steinberg (ISBN 978-0-312078102)
- Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT by T.F. Peterson (ISBN 0-262-66137-3)
- The Official Handbook of Practical Jokes by Peter Van Der Linden
Films in which practical jokes are featured include:
- One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)
- Carrie (1976)
- Porky's (1982)
- April Fool's Day (1986)
- Men at Work (1990)
- Grumpy Old Men (1993)
- Watch It (1993)
- Grumpier Old Men (1995)
- Dirty Work (1998)
- Super Troopers (2001)
- Jackass: The Movie (2002)
- Windy City Heat (2003)
- Jackass Number Two (2006)
- Jackass 3D (2010)
- Big Fat Liar (2002)
- The Prankster (2010)
- The Howard Stern Show
- The Jerky Boys
- The Phil Hendrie Show
- Rickey Smiley
- Roy D. Mercer
- Touch-Tone Terrorists
- Tube Bar prank calls
- America's Funniest People
- America's Funniest Home Videos
- Beadle's About
- Boiling Points
- Candid Camera
- Crank Yankers
- The Dudesons
- Game For A Laugh
- Girls Behaving Badly
- Howie Do It
- Just For Laughs
- The Jamie Kennedy Experiment
- Joe Millionaire
- Just For Laughs Gags
- Naked Camera
- Our Gang shorts
- The Office
- The Office (UK TV series)
- Loiter Squad
- Prank Patrol
- Rad Girls
- Room 401
- Scare Tactics
- The Tom Green Show
- Trigger Happy TV
- TV Bloopers And Practical Jokes
- What's with Andy?
- Wild Boys
- truTV Presents: World's Dumbest...
Some people have developed reputations as pranksters in addition to other work, or in some cases have made pranking their primary work. Many pranksters are comedians or entertainers, while others engage in pranks connected to social activism or protest movements.
- Alan Abel — prankster, satirist
- Ken Babbs — writer, famous member of Merry Pranksters group
- Jeremy Beadle — British television personality
- Jello Biafra — musician, political activist
- Cyrus Broacha — Indian comedian
- George Clooney — film actor
- Sacha Baron Cohen - comedian, writer, actor
- The Diggers — social activist group, originated Free Stores in the 1960s
- Rio Ferdinand - footballer
- Richard Feynman — Nobel prize winning physicist
- Allen Funt — producer of television show Candid Camera
- Rémi Gaillard — French humorist, prankster
- George Gamow — physicist, science writer
- Mel Gibson — film actor
- Eddie Gossling - comedian, writer
- Tom Green — actor, comedian
- Abbie Hoffman — political activist, leader of the Yippies, writer
- Andy Kaufman — comedian
- Ken Kesey — writer, organized Merry Pranksters group
- Jimmy Kimmel
- Ashton Kutcher - host, executive producer of Punk'd
- Tom Mabe — comedian
- monochrom — German
- Odd Future — rap crew
- Keith Moon — rock band musician
- Jim Moran — publicist, publicity stunt promoter
- Camille Paglia — feminist writer, teacher
- Janoskians - Australian web-based comedy group who deal with pranks and stunts
- Sean Penn — film actor
- Penn & Teller — comedians, magicians
- Darren "Whackhead" Simpson — South African radio host, prank caller
- Joey Skaggs — prankster, culture jammer
- Vivian Stanshall — English singer-songwriter, eccentric, worked with Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
- Carl Dean "Alfalfa" Switzer — child actor
- Hugh Troy — painter, Cornell student prankster
- Dick Tuck — political prankster against Richard Nixon
- The Yes Men — pranksters, satirists of corporate behavior
- Darryl F. Zanuck — film producer and director
- Anton LaVey — Occultist and writer
Fictional characters
- Al Bundy, on Married... with Children
- Alex Russo, on Wizards Of Waverly Place
- Andy Larkin on What's with Andy?
- BJ Hunnicutt, on CBS's sitcom M*A*S*H*
- Bart Simpson, on The Simpsons
- The Comedian, on the comic book series Watchmen
- David Brent, on BBC's sitcom The Office
- Dean Winchester, on the CW's Supernatural
- The Electric Company regulars Francine Carruthers, Manny Spamboni, Danny Rebus, Annie Scrambler, and Gilda Flip
- Emil i Lönneberga, the title character of Astrid Lindgren's fictional children's novels
- Hawkeye Pierce, on CBS's sitcom M*A*S*H*
- Jim Halpert, on the US sitcom The Office
- The Joker, the DC Comics supervillain
- Jokey Smurf, on the comic book and animated series The Smurfs
- Naruto Uzumaki, the main protagonist and titular character of Masashi Kishimoto's anime and manga franchise
- Megan Parker, on the show Drake and Josh
- Pinkie Pie, animated show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
- Prankster (comics), the DC Comics supervillain
- Sheldon Cooper, on CBS's sitcom The Big Bang Theory
- Tim Canterbury, on BBC's sitcom The Office
- Trapper John McIntyre, on CBS's sitcom M*A*S*H*
- Tricky Dicky from The Topper had been a prankster as his main trait.
- Valentina La Paz, on The Sopranos
- Fred and George Weasley, Harry Potter series
- Hermann Fegelein, (not the real SS Obergruppenführer, but his counterpart in the Downfall parodies, played by Thomas Kretschmann).
- Heinrich Himmler, (not the real SS Reichsführer, but his counterpart in the Downfall parodies, played by Ulrich Noethen).
- Felicity Merriman and Elizabeth Cole from the American Girl series.
See also
- Dreadnought hoax
- Gag name
- Practical joke device
- Prank call
- School prank
- Senior prank
- Snipe hunt
- Student prank
- The Yes Men
- "Practical joke". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
- "Japes of the great (book review of April is the cruellest month: The history and meaning of All Fools' Day)". The Economist. Retrieved 2011-04-18.
- "Funny Office Pranks". Weirdomatic.com. Retrieved 2012-10-25.
- Curiel, Jonathan. "Beetle Overboard! / VW hung off GG Bridge in prank", San Francisco Chronicle, February 5, 2001, accessed March 9, 2011
- Wood, Graeme. "UBC dean says punishment uncertain for botched Volkswagen Beetle stunt", The Vancouver Sun, February 5, 2009, accessed March 9, 2011
- From Hermes to bonsai kittens. What makes a jape great?, from The Economist, December 20, 2005. Discusses the origins and evolution of pranks.
- Priceless pranks, from The Economist, February 21, 2006. Lists famous and successful pranks throughout history.
- Kravets, David. "April 1, 1998: Disney to Buy MIT for $6.9 Billion" Wired, March 31, 2010, accessed March 10, 2011.
- Funt, Peter. "The Joke’s on Whom?" The New York Times. 8 December 2012. 8 December 2012. | <urn:uuid:5173beff-6069-44a9-bd67-92910fddfc56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prank | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880998 | 2,821 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Salar de Atacama
Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile. It is located 55 km (34 mi) south of San Pedro de Atacama, is surrounded by mountains, and has no drainage outlets. In the east it is enclosed by the main chain of the Andes, while to the west lies a secondary mountain range of the Andes called Cordillera de Domeyko. Large volcanoes dominate the landscape, including the Licancabur, Acamarachi, Aguas Calientes and the Láscar. The last is one of the most active volcanoes in Chile. All of them are located along the eastern side of the Salar de Atacama, forming a generally north-south trending line of volcanoes that separate it from smaller endorheic basins.
The salt flat encompasses 3,000 km² (1,864.11 mi²), is about 100 km (62.14 mi) long and 80 km (49.71 mi) wide, which makes it the Americas' second largest and also the second in the world, after Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (10,582 km²). Its average elevation is about 2,300 m asl. The topography of the core portion of the salar exhibits a high level of roughness, the result of evaporation and ephemeral surface water, unlike the most other salt flats, as for example the Salar de Uyuni, which is periodically covered with shallow water.
Some areas of the salt flat form part of Los Flamencos National Reserve. The Laguna Cejar is a sink hole lake in the Salar de Atacama, 18 km from San Pedro, Chile. It has a salt concentration that ranges from 5 to 28% (50 to 280 parts per thousand), producing at the higher end of the range an effect of floating like the Dead Sea.
Salar de Atacama basin is bordered on the north by the Salado River basin, which is a sub-basin of the Loa River basin. To the east, the drainage divide approximately coincides with the international border with Bolivia until the Portezuelo del Cajón. The dividing range includes the volcanoes Cerros de Tocorpuri, Sairecabur, Curiquinca, Licancabur and Juriques. Going southward, the water divide runs along a chain of volcanoes that lie entirely in Chilean territory. To the west, the Cordillera Domeyko separates the Salar de Atacama basin from arheic areas.
Lithium production
Salar de Atacama is the world's largest and purest active source of lithium, containing 27% of the world's lithium reserve base, and as of 2008 provided almost 30% of the world's lithium carbonate supply, followed by China with 23%. High lithium concentration in its brine (2,700 parts per million), a high rate of evaporation (3,500 mm per year), and extremely low annual rainfall (<30 mm average per year) make Atacama's finished lithium carbonate easier and cheaper to produce than what could be produced in the neighboring Salar de Uyuni, which is estimated to have half of the lithium reserves in the world. Salar de Atacama's evaporation rate is the highest in the lithium industry, followed by Puna de Atacama, Argentina (2,600 mm per year), and the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia (1,300–1,700 mm per year).
- "The Optical/Infrared Astronomical Quality of High Atacama Sites.". Retrieved 2007-04-24.
- Cade-Idepe, Consultores in Ingenieria. "Cuenca Salar de Atacama. Diagnostico y clasificacion de los cursos y cuerpos de agua segun objetivos de calidad." (in Spanish). Gobierno de Chile, Ministerio de Obras Publicas. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
- "Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia". NASA Earth Observatory. Retrieved 2007-12-01.
- Kampf, Stephanie; Tyler S.; Ortiz C.; Muñoz J.F.; Adkins P. (2005). "Evaporation and land surface energy budget at the Salar de Atacama, Northern Chile". Journal of Hydrology 310 (1–4): 236–252. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.01.005.
- Crespo, Julio E. (2002). "Artemia in Chile: Genetic Characterisation by mtDNA RFLP Analysis". Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. p. 6. Retrieved 4 February 2013. (Called Laguna Cejas in this document.)
- Niemeyer, Hans (1980). "Hoyas hidrográficas de Chile. Segunda Región". Ministerio de Obras Públicas. Dirección General de Aguas. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
- Fletcher, Seth (2011). Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy|. Hill and Wang, New York. ISBN 978-0-8090-3053-8. Chapter 10: The Lithium Triangle, pp. 186-187
- Brendan I. Koerner (2008-10-30). "The Saudi Arabia of Lithium". Forbes. Retrieved 2011-05-12. Published on Forbes Magazine dated November 24, 2008.
Media related to Salar de Atacama at Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:e9ef46d7-3330-4039-aa73-b9a46ac944a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Atacama | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.762555 | 1,177 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Power is a term which can refer to vital or incidental social or political power, the ability to influence or control people, circumstances or events, including the economic power to specifically influence systems of finances, currency, production and services, or the military power derived from these. In the physical sciences power represents the rate at which work is performed or energy is transferred, used, or transformed.
- Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
- Speak truth to power.
- American Friends Service Committee in Speak Truth to Power : A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence (1955)
- What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power. However, and this is the supreme irony of it all, never before have musicians tried so hard to communicate with their audience, and never before has that communication been so deceiving. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector.
- He hath no power that hath not power to use.
- Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Visit
- Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.
- Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.
- William Ellery Channing, The Present Age, An Address (1841)
- The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
- If you want to discover just what there is in a man — give him power.
- Francis Trevelyan Miller (1910), Portrait Life of Lincoln: Life of Abraham Lincoln, the Greatest American
- A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.
- Voltairine de Cleyre, in "The Economic Tendency of Freethought" (1890)
- Power expands through the distribution of secrecy.
- David John Moore Cornwell (John le Carré) (b. 1931), British author and one time spy, interviewed by Pip Ayers in Live magazine, The Mail on (10 July 2011)
- It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.
- Demosthenes, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 455
- What elements of power we wield! Truth unmixed with error, flashing as God's own lightning in its brightness, resistless if properly wielded, as that living flame! O what agencies! The Holy Ghost standing and pleading with us to so work that He may help us, the very earth coming to the help of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet I am painfully impressed that we are not wielding the elements of Christian achievement nearly up to their maximum.
- T. M. Eddy, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 455
- Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 456
- Then, everlasting Love, restrain thy will;
'Tis god-like to have power, but not to kill.
- John Fletcher, The Chances (c. 1613–25; 1647), Act II, scene 2. Song
- One needs to be nominalistic, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.
- Domination is not that solid and global kind of domination that one person exercises over others, or one group over another, but the manifold forms of domination that can be exercised within society.
- Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, p.96
- One should try to locate power at the extreme of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character.
- Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, p.97
- The analysis [of power] should not attempt to consider power from its internal point of view and...should refrain from posing the labyrinthine and unanswerable question: 'Who then has power and what has he in mind? What is the aim of someone who possesses power?' Instead, it is a case of studying power at the point where its intention, if it has one, is completely invested in its real and effective practices.
- Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, p.97
- Let us ask...how things work at the level of on-going subjugation, at the level of those continuous and uninterrupted processes which subject our bodies, govern our gestures, dictate our behaviors, etc....we should try to discover how it is that subjects are gradually, progressively, really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials, desires, thoughts, etc. We should try to grasp subjection in its material instance as a constitution of subjects.
- Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, p.97
- Power is everywhere...because it comes from everywhere.
- Michel Foucault, quoted in Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History : From World War II to the Present Day (2001) edited by Robert Aldrich and Gary Wotherspoon
- The problem with power is that people pay attention to it, and it's very easy to get beside yourself and use it in the wrong way.
- The impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
- Eric Hoffer, in The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 15 : The Unnaturalness Of Human Nature
- The best education will not immunize a person against corruption by power. The best education does not automatically make people compassionate. We know this more clearly than any preceding generation. Our time has seen the best-educated society, situated in the heart of the most civilized part of the world, give birth to the most murderously vengeful government in history.
Forty years ago the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead thought it self-evident that you would get a good government if you took power out of the hands of the acquisitive and gave it to the learned and the cultivated. At present, a child in kindergarten knows better than that.
- Eric Hoffer, in Before the Sabbath (1979), p. 40-41
- Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
- Carl Jung, in The Psychology of the Unconscious (1943)
- Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
- There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence. To souls baptized in Christian nobleness the largest sphere of command is but a wider empire of obedience, calling them, not to escape from holy rule, but to its full impersonation.
- James Martineau, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 456
- Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
- Nonviolent action involves opposing the opponent's power, including his police & military capacity, not with the weapons chosen by him but by quite different means...Repression by the opponent is used against his own power position in a kind of political "ju-jitsu" and the very sources of his power thus reduced or removed, with the result that his political and military position is seriously weakened or destroyed.
- If you were handed power on a plate you'd be left fighting over a plate.
- Tom Stoppard, Squaring the Circle (1984)
- All power corrupts, absolute power is even more fun.
- Simon Travaglia, The Operator From Hell Part 2 (1997)
- Power corrupts, PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
- Ed Tufte, Wired, issue 11:09 (September 2003)
- Power only has meaning if it's put into action, it defines you, power like that is what rules the world. Everyone seeks power, seeks to grow in strength, but this goal is out of reach of ordinary men. The poor seek riches, the ugly, beauty. We compare ourselves to others, sheltering our own inadequacies to find peace of mind. The mere existence of those who are better than us becomes intolerable, we fight in retaliation. If beauty is not enough, we'll use money. If money does not work, we resort to violence. This energy powers our world, it is essential! All I seek, is to move this natural process along. This destructive force begotten from conflict, this power that everyone must have, I will spread it across the world with but a touch. It is like a well that can never run dry. A precious mineral, flowing from an inexhaustable mine!...This power will be mine
- Seth, Street Fighter 4
- We are defined by how we use our power.
- The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power.
- Gerry Spence, How to Argue and Win Every Time (1995), Ch. 6 : The New King : Tyranny of the Corporate Core, p. 90
- With great power comes great responsibility.
- Voltaire: Voltaire. Jean, Adrien. Beuchot, Quentin and Miger, Pierre, Auguste. Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48. Lefèvre, 1832.
- The sentiment is also found in Luke 12:48: "from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (NIV)
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 622-24.
- Give me a lever long enough
And a prop strong enough,
I can single handed move the world.
- Odin, thou whirlwind, what a threat is this
Thou threatenest what transcends thy might, even thine,
For of all powers the mightiest far art thou,
Lord over men on earth, and Gods in Heaven;
Yet even from thee thyself hath been withheld
One thing — to undo what thou thyself hast ruled.
- Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead, The Funeral
- The balance of power.
- Edmund Burke, speech, (1741). Sir Robert Walpole—Speech. (1741). John Wesley—Journal, Sept. 20, 1790, ascribes it to "the King of Sweden." A German Diet, or the Ballance of Europe. Title of a Folio of 1653
- Iron hand in a velvet glove.
- Attributed to Charles V. Used also by Napoleon. See Carlyle, Latter Day Pamphlets, No, II
- To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.
- Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, p. 255
- Qui peut ce qui lui plaît, commande alors qu'il prie.
- Whoever can do as he pleases, commands when he entreats.
- Pierre Corneille, Sertorius, IV. 2
- So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed,
And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be!
- Barry Cornwall, Songs, The Sea in Calm, line 13
- For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
- John Dryden, Medal, line 235
- Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.
- O what is it proud slime will not believe
Of his own worth, to hear it equal praised
Thus with the gods?
- Ben Jonson, Sejanus, Act I
- Nihil est quod credere de se
Non possit, quum laudatur dis æqua potestas.
- There is nothing which power cannot believe of itself, when it is praised as equal to the gods.
- Juvenal, Satires, IV. 70
- Et qui nolunt occidere quemquam
- Those who do not wish to kill any one, wish they had the power.
- Juvenal, Satires, X. 96
- Without his rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power.
- Ut desint vires tamen est laudanda voluntas.
- Though the power be wanting, yet the wish is praiseworthy.
- Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, III. 4. 79
- A cane non magno sæpe tenetur aper.
- The wild boar is often held by a small dog.
- Ovid, Remedia Amoris, 422
- Nunquam est fidelis cum potente societas.
- A partnership with men in power is never safe.
- Phaedrus, Fables, I. 5. 1
- Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.
- William Pitt, speaking of the case of John Wilkes (1770)
- And deal damnation round the land.
- Alexander Pope, The Universal Prayer, Stanza 7
- The powers that be are ordained of God.
- Romans, XIII. 1
- The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
- Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
- The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.
- Kann ich Armeen aus der Erde stampfen?
Wächst mir ein Kornfeld in der flachen Hand?
- Can I summon armies from the earth?
Or grow a cornfield on my open palm?
- Friedrich Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, I. 3
- Can I summon armies from the earth?
- Ich fühle eine Armee in meiner Faust.
- I feel an army in my fist.
- Friedrich Schiller, Die Rauber, II. 3
- Quod non potest vult posse, qui nimium potest.
- He who is too powerful, is still aiming at that degree of power which is unattainable.
- Seneca, Hippolytus, 215
- Minimum decet libere cui multum licet.
- He who has great power should use it lightly.
- Seneca, Troades, 336
- No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
- Jonathan Sewall, Epilogue to Addison's Cato. Written for the performance at the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth, N. H
- The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats, tho' unseen, amongst us.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
- Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Part III
- Male imperando summum imperium amittitur.
- The highest power may be lost by misrule.
- Syrus, Maxims
- Suspectum semper invisumque dominantibus qui proximus destinaretur.
- Rulers always hate and suspect the next in succession.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), I. 21
- Imperium flagitio acquisitum nemo unquam bonis artibus exercuit.
- Power acquired by guilt was never used for a good purpose.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), I. 30
- Imperium cupientibus nihil medium inter summa et præcipitia.
- In the struggle between those seeking power there is no middle course.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), II. 74
- Potentiam cautis quam acribus consiliis tutius haberi.
- Power is more safely retained by cautious than by severe councils.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), XI. 29
- Cupido dominandi cunctis affectibus flagrantior est.
- Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), XV. 53
- I thought that my invincible power would hold the world captive, leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.
- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, 31
- He never sold the truth to serve the hour,
Nor paltered with Eternal God for power.
- Alfred Tennyson, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington
- Et errat longe, mea quidem sententia,
Qui imperium credat esse gravius, aut stabilius,
Vi quod fit, quam illud quod amicitia adjungitur.
- And he makes a great mistake, in my opinion at least, who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.
- Terence, Adelph, Act I. 1, line 40
- Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.
- An untoward event. (Threatening to disturb the balance of power.)
- Duke of Wellington, on the destruction of the Turkish Navy at the battle of Navarino (Oct. 20, 1827)
- A power is passing from the earth.
- William Wordsworth, Lines on the Expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox | <urn:uuid:742e0d99-3765-4b9a-ba17-49ee6dd850a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Power | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890536 | 4,197 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
- IPA: /cɨɜŋ˧˨/
Etymology 1
- A place – typically a large, open area – with a well-defined purpose: field
- The domain in which controversial political or societal action takes place: the public sphere.
- đi đến trường — to go to school
- trường học — a school (literally, a place of study)
- nhà trường — a school, schoolhouse
- trường phái — school of thought
- (physics) A region affected by a particular force: field.
- Bulleted list item
Derived terms
Etymology 2
- long (in length or time)
- trường thọ — long life | <urn:uuid:48f595d8-1642-4fdd-a10d-34e78ff69858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tr%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Dng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.729156 | 208 | 3.15625 | 3 |
by Patrick Sweeney
Ink blotters are an interesting historical ephemera category that were once in universal use but have now virtually disappeared. Not only would typical 2012 teenagers not recognize a blotter, they could scarcely imagine a world that depended on messy liquid ink instead of ballpoint pens.
While they could be purchased as a stationery items, blotters were mostly distributed as advertisements of products and services of every description. The advertisements appeared on the normally smooth top side of blotters while the plain absorbent side helped dry the wet ink on a check or an envelope. Up until ballpoint pens became reliable and inexpensive in the 1950s, countless quantities of blotters were distributed over desks, sales and service counters like banks and post offices where they were stacked free for the taking.
The attached samples can only hint at the range of blotter advertising, produced both for national distribution and as well blotters with local dealer or retailer imprints. Like today's teenagers' disbelief at the story of yesterday's blotters, imagine a 1940's adult learning that a give-away Kelloggs cereal blotter was selling today on Ebay for over $400! | <urn:uuid:72b5fe92-d4cb-40c9-86c3-e389df1e8eda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ephemerasociety.org/examples/ex-blotters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968578 | 233 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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Learn more about gardening with our Gardening Tips.
Don't forget to fertilize houseplants in spring
Houseplants need fertilizer in the spring.
Envision the lawn you’d be happy with and fertilize accordingly, says OSU expert
Fertilize your lawn based on your own expectations.
Fertilizer application techniques demystified here
OSU guide describes basic fertilizer application techniques for home gardeners.
Grass clippings are a good source of nutrients for your lawn
Cut fertilizer use by leaving lawn clippings.
Does your garden soil have enough organic matter?
Many problems in home gardens stem from lack of organic matter in the soil.
Here's the scoop on chemical and organic fertilizers
The scoop on organic vs. chemical fertilizers.
For amphibians' sake, be careful with fertilizer
How to help eliminate risk of exposure of amphibians to nitrogen-based compounds. Be careful with fertilizer.
Gardeners can be citizen scientists with Project Budburst
Here’s how to help scientists track climate change in "Project BudBurst."
How to recognize, treat and avoid lilac bacterial blight
Blackened, wilted shoots on lilac mean trouble.
Camellias--Prune after spring bloom
Is your camellia looking a little bedraggled? | <urn:uuid:de1dcb5b-fcc6-4a1d-892f-51918c715d14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/tips?page=33 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.843332 | 294 | 2.640625 | 3 |
PLANT OF THE WEEK
Dr. T. Ombrello - UCC Biology Department
Dumbcane, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue, Dumb Plant
Scientific name: Dieffenbachia picta
of scientific name:
- Name commemorating J.F. Dieffenbach (1794-1847), a German physician and
Latin for painted or variegated in reference to the interesting color patterns
on the leaves.
With common names like
Mother-in-Law’s Tongue and Dumbcane, you can be sure that this plant has an
interesting story associated with it. A
popular houseplant for over 150 years, the Dumbcane is native to South America
where it is commonly found growing in tropical jungles, especially in Brazil.
As members of the Arum family of plants
(Araceae), all 30 members of the genus Diffenbachia, including
the Dumbcane, count as close relatives such well-known plants as Philodendron,
Pothos, Calla, Anthurium, Spathiphyllum, and Skunk Cabbage.
The relationship between Dumbcane and Skunk Cabbage becomes very obvious
when either plant is bruised. They
both emit a skunk-like odor.
The Dumbcane, like all
Arums, has an interesting blossom that consists of many small, inconspicuous
flowers densely packed on a stalk called a “spadix”.
The spadix is surrounded by a showy “spathe”, which is a modified
leaf or bract. Dumbcane can get
quite tall. Their rarely branching
stems look like canes and can reach heights of over 10 feet.
As they increase in size it is quite natural for their large green,
white, and yellow-blotched leaves to be lost from the lower portions of the
plant, leaving just exposed canes.
Undoubtedly the most
intriguing characteristic of the Dumbcane relates to its common names.
It has been known for over a century that the plant contains crystals of
calcium oxalate, and if any part of it is eaten a sudden burning irritation and
paralysis of the mouth, tongue, and lips will result.
This usually prevents a person from talking for a while, which has led to
the amusing common names. The
ingestion of this plant, however, can have some serious consequences such as
vomiting, diarrhea, and intense salivation.
Death has been reported to occur when tissues at the back of the tongue
and throat swell and block air passage.
In 1963 it was
discovered that specialized cells called idioblasts within the Dumbcane could
“shoot” double-pointed, sharp, needle-like crystals of calcium oxalate much
like darts from a microscopic blowgun. These crystals, called raphides, are forcibly ejected from
the idioblasts after the tips of these cells are broken off as a result of
tissue damage such as from chewing. These
crystals readily penetrate the soft tissues all along the digestive tract of an
animal. With the aid of an electron
microscope, the presence of barbs along the length of the raphides has been
demonstrated. They probably prevent
the raphides from being readily dislodged from the soft animal tissues once
penetration has occurred. The only
effective way to rid the mouth of the crystals other than letting nature take
its course is to rinse the mouth with vinegar to dissolve the imbedded crystals.
The rinse should not be swallowed. The
raphides also have 2 grooves running down their sides, making it possible for a
proteolytic enzyme in Dumbcane to penetrate the mouth and throat tissues.
The enzyme is very similar to those found in scorpion and snake venoms,
and accounts at least in part for the localized paralysis suffered by animals
ingesting this plant.
As bad as all this
sounds, it is fortunate that the raphides remain largely undissolved during
their passage through the digestive tract.
If these crystals of calcium oxalate were to dissolve internally, the
resulting oxalic acid would create an imbalance of blood minerals and a plugging
of kidney tubules with often fatal results.
The adaptive value of
the idioblasts and their raphides to the Dumbcane is twofold.
The plant “disposes” of potentially toxic excess oxalic acid that
accumulates in the plant’s tissues by forming insoluble calcium oxalate
crystals (raphides). These crystals
protect the plant from herbivores (plant eating animals).
No animal will have a second helping of Dumbcane.
Through hybridization and natural mutation, many fancy-leaved Dumbcanes have been developed and released into the nursery trade. As a result, there are a number of cultivated varieties with all sorts of leaf color patterns. One of the more famous is ‘Rudolph Roehrs’, developed in New Jersey from a striking chartreuse, ivory, and green-leaved mutant in 1937.
A Dumbcane plant growing in one of Union County College's greenhouses.
|A 'Rudolph Roehrs' cultivar of Dumbcane, growing in one of Union County College's greenhouses.| | <urn:uuid:e81444f6-d9ee-4a10-bdf8-c02aaf87ce7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-ombrello/POW/dumbcane.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927646 | 1,151 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Temple Mound "A" at the Crystal River State Archaeological Site. This mound was once 30 feet high, 182 feet long, and 100 feet wide. It was probably built around A.D. 600, during the time known as the Weedon Island period. The Crystal River site is believed to have been continuously occupied from 200 B.C. to about A.D. 1400.
credit: The Florida Center for Instructional Technology, University of
Florida: A Social Studies Resource for Students and Teachers
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional
College of Education, University of South Florida © 2002. | <urn:uuid:84a4f2fb-9cab-41e4-a3ba-e00553215797> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/native/crystl/crystl01.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944486 | 126 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Early man has known that his Creator has made provision for healing dating back 5,000 years ago. The first recorded writings of Indian culture called The Veda's document man's knowledge of healing through nutrition.
Bible scriptures from thirty five-hundred years ago show man divinely inspired to write, "God would bless his food and water and take sickness from among them" (Exodus 23:25). As a nutritionist, I have witnessed thousands of patients be restored to health from disorders ranging from gastric disturbances, intestinal conditions, type II diabetes, hypertension, obesity and the list goes on.
By developing a healthy nutritional lifestyle we can bring a balance and harmony back to our human existence and it can begin with the next meal you eat.
The Human Digestive System
To understand the healing power of your next meal, you must have a basic knowledge of the process foods we eat have on digestion, absorption and elimination. Digestion of carbohydrates begins in the mouth, both by mechanical breaking down of food and chemical digestion through the salivary enzyme amylase. In the stomach, gastric juices consisting of hydrochloric acid and pepsin start to digest proteins, and the partially digested food turns into a paste like substance called chyme.
As the chyme is released into the small intestine, digestive bile from the liver, gallbladder and pancreatic enzymes, along with enzymes from the exocrine cells in the mucosa of the small intestine complete the digestion of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The digested food is now absorbed by the intestinal wall lining called the villi and enters into the blood stream. The nutrient void food then moves into the large intestine, where there is an absorption of water and electrolytes and the formation, storage and elimination of feces.
I have walked you through the digestive process because maintaining good gastrointestinal and intestinal health depends on proper digestion. The following factors eating slowly, regular scheduling of meals and balanced macro-nutrition (30% protein, 50% high fiber, low glycemic carbohydrates and 20% essential fatty acid fats), can restore health to stomach lining and improve detoxification function of intestines.
This will prevent unnecessary entrance of toxins into the blood and maintain good colon health. Each healing meal should also provide essential micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, enzymes and important phytochemicals from plant-based fruits, vegetables and whole grains). These photochemicals though classified as nonessential are receiving much of the resent scientific research moving us from the mind-set of foods preventing deficiencies, to foods healing a disease and promoting longevity.
A movement towards foods healing diseases and promoting longevity
Plants, like humans, are susceptible to disease and viruses and have developed their own protective substances, called phytochemicals. Mounting research reveals that many phytochemicals also protect humans from cancers and diseases. The following is a list of foods, which provide protective plant chemicals and the conditions they protect us from, and the research to support its claims.
The best sources are wheat, rice, barley, oats and rye. Whole grains are the seeds of the plant and consist of an outer shell called the bran, the middle called the endosperm and inner called the germ. Whole grains are excellent sources of folate, B vitamins, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc, chromium, phosphorus and Vitamin E. Folate helps decrease levels of the amino acid homocysteine in the blood. High levels of homocysteine in the bloodstream are linked to risk of heart disease.
Whole grains contain phytochemicals called phytosterols, phenolic acid and lignans. Studies have shown that whole grains reduce risk of several cancers, type II diabetes, they lower cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease and they reduce inflammation, lowering risk of cardiovascular disease. In a recent study at University of Utah, Dr. Martha Slattery found that high intakes of whole grains, especially high fiber cereals, reduced the risk of rectal cancer by 31%.
A high fiber diet (more than 34 grams daily) reduced rectal cancer by 66%. In a recent study at Tufts University, Dr. Nicola McKeown reported participants who consumed at least three servings daily of whole grains are less likely to develop insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome which are precursors of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Whole grains are an excellent source of fiber, both insoluble and soluble. In a resent study reported by Harvard School of Public Health, Doctor Qi and colleagues found that women with diabetes that consumed more whole grains, bran and cereal fiber had lower blood vessel inflammation that has been linked to heart disease.
Dark Colored Fruits and Vegetables
They are part of the largest group of phytochemicals called flavonoids. They are characterized by dark colored fruits and vegetables and the best sources are, blueberry, strawberry, cranberry, bilberry, blackberry, apples, red and black grapes, eggplant, peppers, broccoli and onions.
There are more than 4,000 flavonoids and are broken into subgroups called, anthocyanidins, proanthocyanidins, polyphenolic acid, quercetin, ellagic acid and tannins. Studies show that dark colored fruits and vegetables are powerful anti-oxidants, some have fifty times the antioxidant activity of both vitamin C and vitamin E.
Studies show that flavonoids in fruits and vegetables reduce the risk of arthritis, atherosclerosis, diabetes and cancers. They protect the collagen protein in joints and blood vessels from free radical damage, which reduces edema, varicose veins and hemorrhoids. A resent study reported by Cornell University showed the flavonoid, quercetin in apples could protect the brain against neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism.
This was a follow up to an earlier study at Cornell University by professor Lee, who found that the photochemical in apples and berries has a stronger antioxidant protective effect than Vitamin C against colon and liver cancer cells. Blueberries have 40% more antioxidant than the next highest, strawberries. Neuroscientist, James Joseph from Tufts University, discovered in addition to fighting disease and cancer, blueberries prevented short-term memory loss that accompanies aging.
"…blueberries prevented short-term memory loss that accompanies aging.
They are in a group of vegetables that include beans, peas, lentils and soybeans. Legumes are rich in folate and fiber. They become a complete protein when combined with whole grains like, rice, wheat, barley and oats. Legumes are packed with the phytochemicals, phytosterols, saponins, lignans and isoflavones. Legumes help prevent breast, prostate and colon cancers. Soybeans contain substances that destroy beta carotene and vitamin B-12 and vitamin D.
Beans and peas have an anti vitamin D compound. It is a good practice to balance the consumption of legumes with fresh fruits and yellow and dark green vegetables to provide beta carotene Vitamin B-12, and whole grain cereals. Recent findings from the University of Illinois under the direction of Professor Singlstary, show saponins found in soybeans, garbanzo beans and navy beans, reduce risk of colon cancer. Isoflavones found in soybeans, chickpeas and other legumes gained attention, when researchers reported women in Japan and China who eat diets high in isoflavones, reported fewer menopausal symptoms and lower incidence of heart disease and osteoporosis, than Western women who consumed less. Studies show the high soluble fiber in legumes lower cholesterol levels.
Lima beans, kidney beans, navy beans, soybeans and other legumes can all help lower your cholesterol, according to James W. Anderson, M.D., an expert in cholesterol research who is professor of medicine and clinical nutrition at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington. The reason these high-fiber legumes are so effective is because they also contain pectin. In one study, Dr. Anderson asked men to eat 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans a day. The result? Their cholesterol plummeted 20 percent in just three weeks.
Red, Orange and Yellow Fruits and Vegetable
They are in a group of fruits and vegetables called carotenoids. Carotenoids are found in all plant foods. In simple terms, the greater the intensity of color, the higher the level of carotenoids. Carotenoids are rich in antioxidants and are found in tomatoes, sweet potatoes, oranges, grapefruit, summer squash, along with many others.
Carotenoids contain the phytochemicals, alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene and lutein. Carotenoids provide many health benefits which include growth and repair of tissue and help our bodies fight bacteria and infection. Some carotenoids can be converted to Vitamin A, especially the beta-carotenoids. As potent antioxidant, carotenoids prevent free radical cells from damaging DNA, through oxidation. This is an important factor in cancer prevention.
Studies show that carotenoids may lower risk of heart disease, stroke and help to avoid diverticulitis, cataracts and macular degeneration. A six-year Harvard Medical study of 48,000 men, showed that the phytochemical, lycopene found in tomatoes reduced risk of prostate cancer by 34% over men who eat less. The study also showed the processing of the tomato into sauce or paste, increased the lycopenes bio availability.
"… lycopene found in tomatoes reduced risk of prostate cancer by 34%"
Cruciferous Vegetables - They are from the plant family called Brassica, which consists of broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale and several others. Cruciferous vegetables contain a sulfur compound called glucosinolates. When glucosinates are chopped or chewed they release the phytochemicals; isothiocynantes and indoles.
High intakes of cruciferous vegetables have been associated with lower risk of lung cancer and cancer of the colon. It's believed that glocosinalte hydrolysis may alter the metabolism of sex hormones in a way that inhibit the formation of a hormone influenced cancers like prostate and breast cancers. Resent studies from Georgetown University Medical Center, under the direction of Fung-Lung
Chung have found that glucosinolates help to both eliminate carcinogenic toxins in the body and encourage the self-destruction of precancerous cells. Researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle reported that men who eat 1.5 cups of cruciferous vegetables a week can reduce the prostate cancer risk by 40%. Researchers concluded the phytochemical, isothocynates help produce enzymes that destroy cancer causing cells
They come from the subgroup of cruciferous vegetables called thiosulfonates. They are found in onions, garlic, leeks and shallots. Unfortunately they are looked down upon because of their strong sulfur odor, but what might keep your friends away is what keep the bacteria and viruses away. They contain the phytochemical allylic sulfides, which block the activity of toxins produced by bacteria and viruses. Allylic sulfides protect the immune system, lower risk for some cancers, lower cholesterol. They act as a natural antibiotic against viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Researchers at John Hopkins University reported that phytochemicals found in garlic and onion kills pylori, the bacterium responsible for most gastric and stomach ulcers and stomach cancers. When cooking with good oils, like olive oil, heat changes it's structure into trans-fatty acids or bad fats. Adding garlic or onions to the oil will keep this degradation from occurring for up to 20 minutes.
In closing, I encourage all who have an ear to listen to enlarge your belief and purpose for what you eat at your next meal. Look beyond it will keep you a certain size or satisfy some physical or behavioral hunger, but that your next meal can start to heal you, or better yet prevent a disease from forming. The best offense against disease is a good defense. It's much easier to prepare than to repair. Stop thinking that the squeaky hinge gets the oil and take action before you squeak. Healing is a process and it can start with the healing power of your next meal.
About Charles Remington
Charles Remington for more of his articles and his bio.
You Are What You Eat by Paul Chek
High Protein Diets by Brad Schoenfeld
CoQ10: The Supplement for Greater Energy and Heart Health by Al Sears
2005 MyPyramid: What the USDA Won’t Tell You by Bonnie Minsky
Back to More Articles About Proper Nutrition | <urn:uuid:9cfe6493-db2a-47e3-a7e1-af417c9e7f3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fitcommerce.com/Blueprint/Page.aspx?pageId=462&portalId=2&cid=1664&linkId=2239&review=-1&rrefid=997 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932874 | 2,641 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Achene - a small, dry, indehiscent one-seeded fruit with a thin
wall. A sunflower seed is an Achene.
Acuminate - tapering gradually to a sharp point.
Acute - terminating in a sharp angle.
Adventitious - occurring
sporadically or in other than the usual locations.
Alternate - arranged singly, at intervals along a stem or
Anaerobic - lacking oxygen.
Anther - The anther is the pollen carrying tip of a
Annual - a plant which completes its life cycle in 1 year.
Apex - the distal tip of a leaf or upper most point of a
Plural - apexes or apices
Aril - a specialized covering that attaches a seed to the
ovule and often forms a partial or complete envelope around the seed,
many are brightly colored to attract birds or animals which then eat and
disperse the seed.
Auriculate - ear shaped
Axil - the angle formed between a leaf petiole and the
stem to it is attached to.
Axis - stem, usually referring to the main stem or stalk of a
plant or of an inflorescence.
Basal - arising from the base of a stem.
Bi-annual - a plant that completes two life cycles in 1 year.
Biennial - a plant that requires 2 years to
produce flowers & fruit, with only vegetative growth and root
development occurring during the first year.
Bipinnate - a pinnate leaf in which the leaflets are also divided
in a pinnate fashion.
Blade - the broad, flattened part of a plants leaf
which presents a larger surface area to sunlight for photosynthesis.
Botany - the scientific field concerned with the study of
Bract - leaf-like structure associated with a
flower, flower stalk or an inflorescence.
Bulb - a bulb is where a plant develops and stores the following seasons
growth. It contains the developing leaves, stem and flowers.
Bulbil - a small specilized bulb that forms in leaf axils or on an
inflorescence. Also referred to as offsets, bulbils fall from the parent
plant, producing new plants.
Buttress or Buttressed - protruding tissue at the base
of a tree which lends support and strength to the trunk.
Calyx - the sepals of a flower are collectively referred to as
Campanulate - bell shaped or cup shaped, often used to describe
the shape of a plants flower or fruit.
Catkin - a spike in which the flowers are unisexual, usually
hanging from a branch.
Cauline - belonging to, or growing from a stem.
Compound (leaf) - leaves that have two or more leaflets attached
to a single leaf stem. a fruit that is made up of many sections
Corm - a modified, thickened, underground stem used by the plant to
store food. A corm develops buds that produce new vegetative growth.
Corolla - all of a flowers petals referred to collectively is the
Crenate - having a margin with rounded or scalloped teeth.
Deciduous - trees and other plants that shed all of their leaves
every year at the end of the growing season.
Dehiscent - splitting open at maturity to release seeds.
Dentate - toothed. A leaf with a toothed margin.
Drupe - fleshy or succulent fruit with a hardened inner pit which
surrounds the seed or seeds.
Distal -furthest from the point of origin or attachment, as in
"the distal end of a leaf"
Ephemeral - 1. Lasting only for one day. 2. Lasting a
short time, not permanent. "Many Florida wetlands are ephemeral, being
flooded for varying lengths of time."
Endemic - a plant found growing only in a certain area
and nowhere else is said to be endemic to that area.
Entire - a leaf margin that is not divided, toothed or
Epiphyte - a plant that grows on another
plant, using it for structural support and not being parasitic. Many orchids are epiphytes,
growing only in the forest canopy.
Filament - the male part of a flower that holds the anther or
pollen producing sac on the tip of the stamen
Glabrous - Smooth, not pubescent.
Habit - characteristic growth pattern of a plant.
Habitat - the place where a population of organisms lives is its
Hastate - spearhead shaped leaf with pointed lobes at the base
Hemiphyte - a plant that begins life as an epiphyte but later
extends its roots down into the soil, such as the Strangler Fig.
Herb or Herbaceous - A herbaceous plant produces only fleshy
growth, with no woody stem or trunk.
Indehiscent - Term used to describe a fruit that does not split
open to release its seed.
Inflorescence - an arrangement of flowers on a stem or stalk. An
inflorescence in which the terminal bud continues to produce flowers is
referred to as being "indeterminate", when the terminal bud stops
growing and new, lateral flowers are produced from axillary buds on the
main axis, the inflorescence is said to be "determinate".
Internode - the part of a stem between two
Lamina - broad, flattened area of a plant or alga that serves to
increase the surface area available for photosynthesis. Most leaves consists
of a lamina (blade) and a petiole (stalk, stem).
Lanceolate - usually referring to leaf shape, several
times longer than wide with the base being the widest and tapering to a
point. Lance shaped.
Linear - long and narrow with parallel sides or edges.
Node - the place on a plants stem or trunk where leaves, twigs or
aerial roots emerge.
Opposite - arranged in pairs on a stem or twig, with one leaf on
each opposing side of the twig.
Orbicular - Leaf; Rounded and flat
Ovate - shaped like an egg with a rounded base, used to describe
fruit & leaf. Widest at the base and tapering to the tip.
Palmate , palmately - A compound leaf with all leaflets
originating from a common point, like fingers on a hand, or a simple
leaf with lobes originating from a common point.
Peduncle - The stalk of an inflorescence or a stalk bearing
Perennial - plants that persist for more than 2 years, herbaceous
perennials die back to the ground at the end of each growing season.
Woody perennials have above ground parts that persist year-round and
season to season.
Petiole - the stalk that attaches the leaf blade to the stem or
Pubescent - covered with short, fine hairs.
Rhizome - an underground horizontal stem which some plants use to
store food reserves and as a method of reproduction. Differs from a root
in that a rhizome has buds, nodes and scale-like leaves.
Pinnate - having parts arranged on each side of a common axis,
usually refers to the arrangement of the leaflets on a pinnately
Ruderal - growing in waste places: areas disturbed by humans or
Sepal - modified leaf like structures that make up the calyx
which encases developing flowers.
Serrate - describes a leaf margin as being toothed, with the
teeth facing toward the tip (apex) of the leaf.
Spatulate - Shaped like a spoon or spatula, being narrow at the
base and widest at the apex.
Spike - an un-branched, indeterminate inflorescence in which the
flowers are without stalks.
Stamen - the male part of a flower, consisting of a Filament and
Stolon - Sometimes referred to as runners, a specialized above ground
horizontal shoot, usually forming adventitious roots at the nodes.
Colony forming plants use stolons as a method of vegetative
reproduction, with water and nutrients flowing from the mother plant
until the offspring is self-sufficient.
or lines distinguished from the surrounding area by color, generally
used in reference to a flowers markings.
Syncarp - A fleshy compound fruit. Mulberry, Pineapple, and
Magnolia are examples of plants that produce this type of fruit.
Taxonomy - system used for the classification & identification
of living organisms, including plants.
Tuber - a thickened underground plant stem used to store nutrients.
Tubers also have buds and can produce shoots and roots, forming new plants.
Whorl - an arrangement of leaves, bracts or floral parts in a
ring around an axis. | <urn:uuid:07f85c95-9a35-457e-b544-285d1cd92013> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://floridasnature.com/glossary.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91296 | 1,904 | 3.5 | 4 |
The Tiny Tree Pollen Grain:
Tree pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing grains of genetic material of seed plants including trees. Pollen contains the male gametes, called sperm cells, and are grains with a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during transportation from the stamens (male plant part) to the pistil (female plant part) of flowering trees. Conifers have both male and female cones.
The Job of a Tree Pollen Grain:
Tree pollen has the ability to produce a male cell called a gamete that has the ability to fuse with a female gamete cell which results in pollination. The male stamen produces pollen which eventually lands on the female pistil (which contains the receptive ovary) of flowering trees. The male gamete generates a pollen tube that transfers the sperm to the ovule of a receptive ovary.
Profile of a Tree Pollen Grain:
Remember that tree pollen itself is not just the male reproductive material. Pollen grains are made up of both vegetative cell(s) and one cell that reproduces. That one reproductive cell contains two nuclei: a tube nucleus (that produces the pollen tube) and a generative nucleus (that divides to form the two sperm cells). The size of these tree pollen grains determines the method of reproductive transport - wind or insects/animals - and the shape aids in successful pollen grain germination and a successful introduction of sperm cells to the female ovary.
Tree Pollen and Pollination:
As I have mentioned, these tree pollen grains are distributed by wind and insects/animals. Small tree pollen is blown by wind to female parts while larger tree pollen grains are deposited by insects onto the female ovary where pollination takes place. Tree pollen grains germinate and develop a pollen tube which grows down to the ovary and deposits the sperm cell which causes the production of seed.
Tree Pollen and Allergy:
Tree flowers with large blooms usually produce heavy (large particle) pollen. Large blooming trees attract insects that transport pollen and do not depend on wind transportation. These trees are generally lower in their allergy potential and include female ash, female red maple, yellow poplar, dogwood, magnolia, double-flowered cherry, fir, spruce and flowering plum.
Trees with high allergy potential are often dioecious males, which will bear only pollen and no fruit or seed. Trees to avoid are male ash, pine, oak, sycamore, elm, male boxelder, alder, birch, male maples and hickory. | <urn:uuid:e01cad3a-bfbe-4023-871d-11cbee3f16ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forestry.about.com/od/treephysiology/p/tree_pollen.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928974 | 534 | 3.796875 | 4 |
George Guo-Qiang Chen and Shrikumar Suryanarayan look to the planet’s oceans to provide the resources to produce and process the large quantities of biomass that will be needed for a sustainable future
Industrial applications of biotechnology – the new “Bioeconomy” – hold out the promise of being able to produce biofuels and renewable chemicals and provide an alternative for society’s chronic addiction to goods that are produced using the finite supplies of petroleum and fossil fuel feedstocks. “Biorefining” is based on using biomass as its basic feedstock. Biomass is a renewable resource produced by agriculture. However, the scale on which such biomass will need to be produced and used to effectively begin to replace petroleum-based feedstocks will start to rival the current scale of agriculture for food and feed – and therein lies the problem.
There have been impressive demonstrations of the possibilities of “biorefining” technology – whether it is the conversion of a variety of sugars derived from woody biomass to advanced biofuels or production of renewable bioplastics from corn. Some of these products are already commercial. The mantra for the scientists working in this area is “sugar is the “new oil” – the sugar being derived from the breakdown of biomass.
The ingredients to produce biomass are, of course, the same as that for agriculture – i.e. land, fresh water and fertilizer. Some countries have an abundance of land per capita and are also blessed with water for irrigation. Brazil is one such country and has become a leader in biofuels. Other countries are not so lucky. India, for instance, has the lowest amount of land per capita among the large economies (not least because of its huge population, which it has to feed) and it also happens to have a scarcity of fresh water. The United States has adequate land and adequate water and could be a leader in biofuels (though the advent of cheap shale gas has diminished this urgency somewhat).
Fresh water is needed not only to produce the biomass; it is also needed in large quantities during the conversion process of the biomass. When ethanol (a renewable biofuel) is produced by fermentation, typically there are nine litres of water at the end of fermentation for every one litre of ethanol that is produced. This ratio is even more for advanced biofuels, such as butanol, given their lower solubility in water. It is expensive to treat and recycle these waste waters from fermentation processes.
Would it not then make sense to look at the planet’s oceans to provide the resources to produce and process the large quantities of biomass that will be needed for a sustainable future?
It turns out that it is, indeed, scientifically possible. Seaweed (or seaplants or macroalgae) thrive in saltwater. The oceans have an entire ecosystem of micro-organisms well adapted to growing in saltwater and capable of converting the marine biomass into useful products. The techniques of modern biology that have so successfully been applied to terrestrial microbes and plants could easily be applied to marine microbes.
The engineering challenges of operating and carrying out cultivation of seaplants in an ocean environment have already been overcome in other disciplines, such as offshore oil exploration or offshore wind energy generation. Materials are already available that can deal with seawater for extended periods of time with minimal corrosion – one needs to look at the desalination plants that are already in operation in several parts of the world.
All of this can become a reality in the not too distant future, but the urgency with which different countries pursue such solutions will depend on their local imperatives and how they perceive the criticality of their own future energy supplies.
Authors: George Guo-Qiang Chen is Professor of Microbiology and Biomaterials at Tsinghua University Beijing and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Biotechnology. Shrikumar Suryanarayan is Chairman of Sea6 Energy, India and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Biotechnology
Image: A family plays on a beach in California REUTERS/Mike Blake | <urn:uuid:092b3df5-630f-4b55-a350-40ba3ed92364> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forumblog.org/2013/02/sustainable-solutions-from-the-sea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955428 | 852 | 3.46875 | 3 |
The recent opening of Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and of Yad Vashem’s new museum in Jerusalem are important and welcome developments. But we must go beyond our singular focus on memorializing the Holocaust. We must help people realize that genocidal violence is a threat to all people. We must demand of the political world — in our own interest, and the interest of the wider community — to finally put actions behind its pledge to “never forget.”
Any examination of the Holocaust must involve an examination of the general phenomenon of genocide. The internationally recognized legal definition delineated by the Genocide Convention of 1948 is unsatisfactory, but any attempt to change it is all but politically impossible. This is the definition of genocide with which we must work, but every effort should be made to expand our understanding of what it should imply.
Political mass murder, ethnic cleansing designed to annihilate a group and global genocidal ideologies such as radical Islam very
much fit the concept of genocide, in spirit if not in letter. These are genocidal threats, and as such they should be added to the convention’s definition that genocide is the intent to annihilate ethnic, national, racial and religious groups. The genocide of the Jewish people — inaccurately known as the Holocaust — is, as far as we know, the most extreme case of genocide to date.
Each and every genocide has targeted a specific group of people. In order to understand genocide, therefore, one has to deal with the specific group targeted. Jews were not transported to extermination camps because they were humans; humans were transported because they were Jews. The Young Turks did not randomly kill masses of humans; they killed Armenians. The same is true for the Tutsi in Rwanda, and for the ethnic Africans being murdered in Darfur by Arab Janjaweed militias.
Each genocide is different, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the similarities. Foremost among them is the suffering of the victims. There is no better or worse genocide, just as there is no better or worse murder, no better or worse torture. There is no scale to measure suffering. Jews, Armenians or Poles who were martyred and murdered all suffered the same. Another characteristic common to all genocides is that the “civilized” world was unable to prevent them, or to make a serious effort to stop them. There are, tragically, few exceptions.
The argument that the Holocaust was the most extreme form of genocide is based on the fact that a modern nation state committed itself to the total and universal annihilation of individuals belonging to a particular group of humans. The Nazi ideology that motivated the murder was unprecedented in its lack of pragmatism: The Nazis murdered Jewish slave workers while they produced materials essential for the German war effort, and killed experts whom they could have used. Nazi ideology related to the Jews as mythical beings — Satans or supposed rulers of the world that had to be destroyed — a marked contrast to other genocides that were motivated by economic or political considerations. True, Jewish property was confiscated and used — but that was not the reason for persecuting and murdering the Jews; it was the result.
The Holocaust was not unique, because that would mean that it could never happen again, to anyone, Jewish or otherwise. This is simply not true. The Holocaust was perpetrated by humans, for human reasons, and anything done by humans can be repeated — not in exactly the same form, but in similar or parallel ways.
From 1900 to 1987, according to Rudolph Rummel, an estimated 169 million civilians were murdered by governments and by other political bodies. Of that number, some 38 million of these victims were murdered in genocides as defined by the convention. Today, Darfur is the scene of genocide, and again the international community has, so far, proved itself unable to stop the killing. To be fair, more is now being written about genocidal threats, and more people and even politicians seem to care about genocide than before. Nonetheless, the killing continues.
Today, genocidal threats are present everywhere. For the Jewish people, the main genocidal threat does not lie with European antisemitism, but with the radical Islamist version. It is a serious error to view the murderous language of radical Islamists as mere talk: We have learned that when people are ideologically committed to murderous action, they will act accordingly if given the chance.
Therefore, Jews should be actively involved in all attempts to prevent genocidal murders of any kind. In most cases, including the radical Islamic one, it is largely from within the group that potential perpetrators are recruited. In the effort to combat the genocidal threat, then, Jews and others must seek out allies in the nonradical Islamic world, which still makes up the vast majority of Islam’s 1.3 billion adherents. That means that we must view Muslims as brothers, as equals, as potential allies and as bearers of one of the great civilizations of the world — and as those who are the first to be threatened by the radicals in their midst. | <urn:uuid:7654b765-3280-474a-8729-3703540ce1dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/3450/genocidal-threats-demand-more-than-just-memorializ/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97027 | 1,044 | 3.078125 | 3 |
DOVER — The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire is offering hands-on science classes to preschool and home-school children.
The Junior Science Explorers class is for three and a half to five year olds and the Science Explorers for Homeschoolers is for five and a half to nine year olds. Both classes are for those interested in a variety of science topics with themed activities and experiments.
Classes for the junior explorers, taught by a museum educators, begins on Thursday, Jan. 10 and runs for six-weeks, through Feb. 15, from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Registration is now available.
The first session for home-schoolers is Winter Wonders, which will run from Jan. 10 to Feb. 14. Starting at 11:30 a.m. each week, students will explore the three different states of matter, discover how insulators work and will work on designing contraptions to keep ice cubes from melting. Students will also have the opportunity to make ice cream.
The second homeschool-aged session will be Making Things Move with Physics, beginning on Mar. 7 and running through Apr. 11.
Classes for museum members are $60 and $70 for non-members. The program cost includes all materials. Additional siblings in a family will pay $36 to participate.
To register for any of the science classes, call (603) 742-2002. Each class is limited to 12 students for personalized instruction. More information can be found at www.childrens-museum.org. | <urn:uuid:4d981541-d0e6-4de0-ac2b-4d194afd4448> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121228/GJNEWS_01/121229353/-1/fosnews1421 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932442 | 322 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Causes printing to be grouped into a logical block.
The logical block is printed to the stream that is the value
of the variable denoted by stream-symbol.
During the execution of the forms,
that variable is bound to a pretty printing stream
that supports decisions about the arrangement of output
and then forwards the output to the destination stream.
All the standard printing functions
can be used to print output to the pretty printing stream.
All and only the output sent to this pretty printing stream
is treated as being in the logical block.
The prefix specifies a prefix to be printed before the beginning of
the logical block.
The per-line-prefix specifies a prefix that is printed before the block
and at the beginning of each new line in the block.
The :prefix and :pre-line-prefix arguments are mutually exclusive.
If neither :prefix nor :per-line-prefix is specified,
a prefix of the null string is assumed.
The suffix specifies a suffix that is printed just after the logical block.
The object is
a list that the body forms are responsible for printing.
If object is not a list,
it is printed using write.
(This makes it easier to write printing functions that are robust
in the face of malformed arguments.)
is non-nil and object is a circular (or shared) reference to a cons,
then an appropriate "#n#" marker is printed. (This
makes it easy to write printing functions that provide full support
for circularity and sharing abbreviation.) If *print-level* is not
nil and the logical block is at a dynamic nesting depth of greater
than *print-level* in logical blocks, "#" is printed.
(This makes easy to write printing functions that provide full support for depth
If either of the three conditions above occurs, the indicated output is
printed on stream-symbol and the body forms are skipped
along with the printing of the :prefix and :suffix.
(If the body forms are not to be responsible for printing a list,
then the first two tests above can be turned off by supplying nil for
the object argument.)
In addition to the object argument of pprint-logical-block,
the arguments of the standard printing functions (such as write,
print, prin1, and pprint, as well as the arguments
of the standard format directives such as ~A, ~S,
(and ~W) are all checked (when necessary) for circularity and sharing.
However, such checking is not applied to the arguments of the
functions write-line, write-string, and write-char
or to the literal text output by format. A consequence of this is
that you must use one of the latter functions if you want to print some
literal text in the output that is not supposed to be checked for circularity
The body forms of a pprint-logical-block form
must not perform any side-effects on the surrounding environment; for
example, no variables must be assigned which have not been
bound within its scope.
The pprint-logical-block macro may be used regardless of the value of *print-pretty*. | <urn:uuid:e517f1be-c9ac-44eb-b872-37c656981892> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://franz.com/support/documentation/9.0/ansicl/dictentr/pprint-l.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886251 | 677 | 2.75 | 3 |
How heat pump works
Heat pumps are quite different from other heating devices: contrary to them, the heat they produce is a by-product, rather than the main heat source.
Take an electric heater for example. It consumes electricity to produce heat directly. A heat pump will use this electricity to move the heat from a place to another. What’s the difference? Well it turns out that it’s cheaper to move heat than to create it. For the same amount of electricity required to produce 1kW of heat, you could move 7kW. (Of course this can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors.)
A heat pump takes heat from a place and move it to another (thus there’s always a hot side and a cold side)
If I were to put in sentimental terms, I would say that using electricity to produce heat is one of the stupidest and wasteful way to use electricity. Moving heat is far more intelligent.
Heat pump controls
Transferring heat from one place to another requires some work. The bigger the temperature difference between the two places, the more work it requires.
You could see it as moving dirt using a wheelbarrow. The temperature difference in this case would be the height difference. To take heat (wheelbarrow) from a cold place (low ground), you would have to push it to the hot place (high hill). The hotter the destination, the higher the hill.
Knowing this, to expand the least amount of energy possible, you would want to find the lowest possible hill to dump your dirt. In other words, you want your heat pump to work at a minimum temperature differential.
To accelerate heat transfer however, you must increase the temperature difference. The heat transfer is proportional to the temperature differential squared. This means that in order to keep a room warm in the cold months of winter, you might have to increase your heater set point to a higher temperature.
Let’s sum this up in those 2 following points:
- For optimal efficiency, always seek the lowest temperature differential;
- To increase heat transfer, you have to increase the temperature differential.
Thus, we can see that the optimal way to control a heat pump is to always try to use the lowest temperature differential, and only increase it when necessary to enable a bigger heat transfer.
If we were to follow this rule and to plot it compared to the exterior temperature, this is what we would get:
The optimal heat pump set point should look like a mirror image of the exterior temperature
As you can see, the lower the exterior temperature, the higher the heat pump set point (to increase the heat exchange between the heat coils and the room air). But as soon as the exterior temperature rises, we lower the heat pump temperature set point.
The cold, hard, real world
Unfortunately, an optimal control is often supposed when salesman and engineers push for heat pumps, but is rarely applied once the machine is installed.
In the snowy french world of Québec, Canada, electricity is a province matter and is heavily subsidized. Even if ‘burning’ electricity directly to create heat is the dumbest way to use electricity, it’s often cheaper than to invest heavily in other solutions.
To patch this problem, the government created some ‘energy efficiency programs’. Geothermal energy and heat pumps can become a wise investment with these, but all estimates always assume an optimum heat pump control. And why shouldn’t they? If you buy a manual transmission car, everyone assumes you are going to shift gears when the time comes.
Alas, this is not the real world. Once installed, these systems are often tuned to ‘work’ and that’s it.
I’ve recently monitored a geothermal installation that reminded me of this cold hard fact. Here is what the heat pump set point looks like:
An actual heat pump set point compared to the exterior temperature
Does this looks like a mirror image? No, it looks like a single set point for every exterior temperature. If this set point is enough for the worse case exterior temperature (-30°C perhaps?), then it’s overkill for everything else. -20°C and still the same set point? You have a needlessly big temperature differential and are thus using the heat pump in a less efficient manner.
What does it mean? Plainly, money is wasted. Remember the manual car analogy? Here the car is always in the first gear, regardless of its speed. Will the car go forward? Sure! Will you burn more fuel? Yup!
The sad part of this is that everything is in place to use it efficiently. No need to buy or replace components. Only how this system is used should be changed. This could be rectified with some lines of code… Meanwhile, electricity is wasted and money lost.
Yet another reason why everyone with a BACnet network should do everything in their power to have historical data: to spot any easy-to-change costly behaviours. | <urn:uuid:258318ea-6ce9-46d8-ad2c-63acbdb2d572> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frozenlock.org/2012/12/30/geothermal-and-heat-pump-controls/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937811 | 1,036 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Genie (Jin) in the Holy Quran is not Ghost/Spirit/Satan, but Human Being
Maulana Muhammad Ali on his book The Religion of Islam, Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam, USA, Sixth Edition (Revised) 1990, stated that Genie (Jin) is not sprit, but human being. Be ready to be surprised:
The other use of the word jinn is with regard to men of a certain class1. Even the word devil (shaitan) or devils (shayatin), has been applied to men in the Quran, and the leaders of evil are again and again called devils (2:14; 3:174; 8:48; 15:17; 21:82). But the use of the word jinn when speaking of men was recognized in Arabic literature before Islam. The verses of Musa ibn Jabir “fa ma nafarat jinn”, which would literally mean, and my jinn did not flee, has been explained as meaning, “and my companions who were like the jinn did not flee” (Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon). Here the word jinn is clearly explained as meaning human beings. And Tabrezi says, further, that the Arabs liken a man who is sharp and clever in affairs to a jinni and a shaitan. There are other examples in pre-Islamic poetry in which the word jinn has been used to denote great or brave men. In addition to this the word jinn is explained by Arabic lexicologist as meaning mu’azzam al-nas (Qamu, by Allamah Shaikh Nasr al-Huraini, printed at the Maimana Press, Cairo; Taj al-Aru, by Abu-l-Faidz Sayyid Muhammad Murtadza al-Husaini), i.e, the main body of men or the bulk of mankind (Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon). In the mouth of an Arab, the main body of men would mean the non-arabworld. They called all foreigners jinn because they were concealed from their eyes. It is in this sense that the word jinn is used in Quran in the story of Solomon: “And of the jinn there were those who worked before him by command of his lord. They made for him what he pleased of synagogues and images” (34:12-13)2. The desciption of the jinn here as builder show them to have been men. And they are also spoken of as devils (shayatin) in 38:37, where they are called builders and divers and it is further added that some of them “fettered in chains” surely those who build buildings and dived in to the sea were not invisible spirits, nor do invisible spirits required to be fettered in chains. These were in fact the strangers whom Solomon had subjected to his rule and forced into service.
Foonote 1 Some authorities have held the word jinn is also applicable to the angels, but it should be borne in mind that it is in a strictly literal sense that the word has been so used. The literal significance of the word jinn is a being hidden from the human eye, and as the angels are also invisible beings, they may be called jinn in a literal sense. Otherwise they have nothing in common with jinn.
Foonote 2 A comparison with II chronicle (Bible) 2:18 would further clear the point: “ And he set three-score and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and four-score thousand to be hewers in the mountain”.
In one place in the quran jinn and men are addressed as one class or community (ma’shar)3. In this verse both jinn and men are asked the question: ”did there not come to you messengers from among you?” Now the messengers who are mentioned in the quran or tradition all belong to mankind, and the holy book does not speak of a single messenger from among the jinn. The jinn in this case, therefore are either non-arabs or the iniquitous leaders who mislead others. In one verse, it is stated that “if jinn and men should combine together to bring the like of Quran they could not bring the like of it” (17:88) while in another in an exactly similar challenge the expression “ your helpers” or “leaders” have been used instead of jinn (2:23). The jinn mentioned in the first section of ch. 72 are evidently foreign Christian since they are spoken of as holding the doctrine sonship (72:3,4). In 72:6, they are called rijal (pl. of rajul), which word is applicable to the males of human beings only (LA.). Again, in the 46th chapter the word jin has been used in the sense of foreigner when a party of the jinn is stated to have come to the the prophet and listened to holy book and believe in it4, because all the injunction contain in the quran are for men and there is not one for the jinn. This was evidently a party of the jews of Nisibus as reports show, and the quran speaks of them as believers in moses5. Commenting on this incident Ibn Kathir had quotes several reports from the Musnad of Ahmad, which establish the following facts. The prophet met a party of jinn at Nakla when returning from ta’if in the tenth year of call. These are said to have come from Nineveh. On the other hand, there is a well-established story that the prophet on his way back from Ta’if took rest in a garden where he met a Christian who was a resident of Nineveh; and the man listened to his message and believed in him. It may be that he had other companions to whom he spoke of the prophet, and that these came to him later on. Another party of jinn is said to have waited on him when he was at mekkah and he is reported to have gone out of the city to a lonely place at night time, and to have spent the whole night with them. And we are told that their traces and the the traces of fire which they had burned during the night were visible in the morning. When payer time came and the prophet said his prayers in the company of ibn mas’ud the narrator two of them them are said to have come and joined the service. They are supposed to have been Jews of Nisibus and were seven in number (IK. 46:29). The prophet went to see them outside Makkah, evidently because the Quraish would have interfered with the meeting and ill-treated any who came to seehim. At any rate the quran and tradition do not speak of the jinn as they exist in the popular imagination, interfering in human affairs or controlling the forces of nature or assuming human or any other shape or taking possession of men and women and affecting them with certain disease6.
Foonote 3 “O community (ma’shar) of jinn and men, did there not come to you messengers from among you, relating to you My messages and warning you of the meeting of this day of yours?” (6:131). Ma’shar is a class or community whose affair is one (Lisan al-Arab, by ImamAllama Abu-l-Fadzl Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Mukarram).
Foonote 4 “And when we turned towards there a party of the jinn, who listened to the Quran. Then when it was finished they turned back to their people warning them” (46:29).
Foonote 5 “They said: ”O our people, we have herad a book revealed after Moses, verifying that which is before it, guiding to the truth and to the right path” (46:30). | <urn:uuid:eea41031-93cb-4055-9f4e-869b721d6309> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ghost-mistery.blogspot.com/2008/11/hantu-setan-jin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977707 | 1,694 | 2.625 | 3 |
Atter engang indså man at jorden var rund ...
Yet again someone realized that the Earth is round ...
From an Amazonian rainforest to a Santa Cruz Canyon, activists are discovering if you can map it, you can save it
By E.B. Boyd
The map didn’t make sense. It was one of those grainy, black-and-white topographical maps, the kind of 8 ½ x 11 photocopy you get in the mail to inform you of an upcoming construction project near your home. The kind you turn this way and that until you give up trying to figure out what it corresponds to in the real world and just toss it into the trash instead.
Rebecca Moore, however, did not toss this particular map. It was the summer of 2005, and the map came from a utility company that owned land in the Santa Cruz Mountains near her home. The map was titled “Notice of Intent to Harvest Timber.” Moore thought that sounded like logging. She couldn’t make heads or tails of the boundaries the map proposed to illustrate, but she was determined to figure out where the timber harvest was going to take place. [...]
Read more: http://commongroundmag.com/2009/01/googleearth0901.html | <urn:uuid:520e13b4-279a-44b6-a708-1564a1f49f75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gisdk.blogspot.com/2009/01/life-on-google-earth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953121 | 268 | 3.0625 | 3 |
How do kids understand negative numbers?
Professors Lamb, Bishop, & Philipp Research Mathematical Thinking
Have you ever wondered why 6 – -2 = 6 + +2? Is there any such number as negative zero? What percentage of second graders do you think could solve 3 – 5 = ?, and how might they solve that problem?
Drs. Lisa Lamb, Jessica Bishop, and Randy Philipp asked themselves these and other questions and have found surprising answers from their research on children’s mathematical thinking in K–12 classrooms. The three mathematics educators were awarded a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study students’ ways of reasoning about negative numbers in Grades 2, 4, 7, and 11. On the basis of their findings, they have conducted professional development on the teaching of integers, written and presented broadly for teachers and researchers, and, at the invitation of the authors, revised the integers section in textbooks for mathematics content courses for prospective teachers. Additionally, several of SDSU’s graduates from the MA program in K-8 Mathematics Education and students from the Mathematics and Science Education Doctoral (MSED) program engage in research and professional development and present with the project team. | <urn:uuid:c182e88c-c39c-46f4-b4b7-d551ef00f1e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://go.sdsu.edu/education/ste/negative_numbers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954285 | 250 | 3.6875 | 4 |
When a software engineer designs and writes a program, it is often in one of the many modern programming languages available. Rather than taking on the rather tedious task of writing the program using the actual instructions used by the computer processor, the logic and behavior of the program are expressed using human-like and English-like terms. Whether the programming language is C++ or COBOL, the representation of which actions the program is to perform and how they are actually implemented differs greatly.
Programming languages are classified by their "generation". The first programs were written in machine code - since no other programming technology had been developed. If another computer processor was designed with the same basic instruction set, but a slightly different machine code format, programs had to be completely rewritten. This lead to the development of "second generation" programming languages: assemblers. Assemblers display each instruction using a keyword rather than the binary format. This gives a layer of abstraction between the machine code and the instruction set itself. Programs became far easier to read and write.
The disadvantage to the second generation languages was that programs could not be ported to other platforms. As a result, computer scientists designed the first "third generation" programming language: FORTRAN. Though it is not used much today, its effect on the computer industry was great. Programs could be written in human-like and English-like terms and then later compiled and executed on different machines. When most programmers use the term "programming language", they are referring to the third generation languages such as C++, COBOL, Visual Basic, Java and Delphi.
There is, however, a catch. To convert a modern third generation language to machine code, those human-like and English-like terms must be broken down into their different logical units. This is the job of a parser.
While the text of a program is easy to understand by humans, the computer must convert it into a form which it can understand before any emulation or compilation can begin.
This process is know generally as "parsing" and consists of two distinct parts.
The first part is the "tokenizer" - also called a "lexer" or "scanner". The tokenizer takes the source text and breaks it into the reserved words, constants, identifiers, and symbols that are defined in the language. These "tokens" are subsequently passed to the actual 'parser' which analyzes the series of tokens and then determines when one of the language's syntax rules is complete.
As these completed rules are "reduced" by the parser, a tree following the language's grammar and representing the program is created. In this form, the program is ready to be interpreted or compiled by the application.
Modern bottom-up parsers use a Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) to implement the tokenizer and a LALR(1) state machine to parse the created tokens. Practically all common parser generators, such as the UNIX standard YACC, use these algorithms.
The actual LALR(1) and DFA algorithms are easy to implement since they rely on tables to determine actions and state transition. Consequently, it is the computing of these tables that is both time-consuming and complex.
The GOLD Parser Builder performs this task. Information is read from an source grammar and the the appropriate tables are computed . These tables are then saved to a file which can be, subsequently, loaded by the actual parser engine and used. | <urn:uuid:1be44156-f758-47aa-a776-62776f9f72ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goldparser.org/articles/parser.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946033 | 710 | 4.375 | 4 |
Schedule - Saturday, January 7th, 2012
Forces in Space
Powerful forces are at work in the universe. We’ll use Newton’s Laws of motion to discover how objects move on Earth and in space (more)
Stop by and learn first-hand about one of our many exciting exhibits. (more)
Physical Science Demonstration
Learn about important science concepts, explore the world of science, and have fun! (more)
Become Bubbleologists and discover what makes bubbles good, clean fun.
Especially for our youngest visitors!
Join us for a short demonstration of air pressure and the invisible forces that make flight possible. | <urn:uuid:799fc6d3-382c-4d48-8708-4943f9584cdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://greatscience.com/visit/upcoming.php?date=2012-1-7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878967 | 136 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Developing commercially viable carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology should be a major priority for companies and governments all over the world because renewable energy sources will not be able to replace oil and gas quickly enough, a senior executive at Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday.
“Without CCS, fossil fuel use would have to be cut by more than half,” Malcolm Brinded, Executive Director of Exploration and Production at the Anglo-Dutch company, said at the Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen.
“Nuclear would have to grow twice as fast … thousands more wind turbines would be needed. And a new vehicle fleet would have to run largely on biofuels and electricity, with petrol and diesel fuel almost completely phased out,” he said.
A change this drastic would be very difficult to achieve quickly, so CCS — which could reduce emissions from major industrial sources of carbon dioxide such as power stations by up to 90% — is necessary to smooth the transition to more widespread renewable energy, he said.
My god, fossil fuel cut by half? Thousands of new wind turbines? A vehicle fleet running on biofuels and electricity? Spare us this awful fate, CCS!
But seriously. This analysis only makes sense if developing and widely deploying CCS takes substantially less time and costs substantially less money than the renewable options Brinded acknowledges are inevitable either way.
If your transition-smoothing option costs as much and takes as long as the option to which you are transitioning, you are not “smoothing the transition,” you are delaying it — perhaps in order to squeeze more profit out of the fossil fuel business model, though one hesitates to speculate about motives. | <urn:uuid:16b9e6eb-fdf3-45cc-9879-77f4b71fdf22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grist.org/article/smooth-the-transition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971683 | 353 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Function to scan a set of directories for a given file
Location in HEALPix directory tree:
directories, filename, fullpath
||contains the set of directories (up to 20), separated by an ASCII
character of value < 32 (see concatnl). During the
search, it is assumed that the
given directories and filename can be separated by nothing,
a / (slash) or a (backslash)
||the file to be found.
||returns the full path to the first occurrence of the
file among the directories provided. Empty if the file is not
found. The search is not recursive.
||set to true if the file is found, to false otherwise.
character(len=filenamelen) :: dirs, full
logical(lgt) :: found
dirs = concatnl('dir1','/dir2','/dir2/subdir1/') ! build directories list.
found = scan_directories(dirs, 'myfile', full) ! do the search
if (found) print*,trim(full)
Search for 'myfile' in the directories 'dir1', '/dir2', '/dir2/subdir1/'
This section lists the routines related to scan_directories
- parse an ASCII file for parameters definition
- concatenates a set of substrings into one string, interspaced
with LineFeed character | <urn:uuid:8146f0e9-ea03-4036-8057-addc8cb68927> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healpix.jpl.nasa.gov/html/subroutinesnode92.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.680777 | 307 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The 2013 Calendar is available as:
Previous year's calendars are available
This calendar is the working calendar of Hellenion, a diverse
group of Hellenic polytheists sharing the common goal of living
a life of piety and proper respect for the Gods of Olympos and
ancient Hellenic tradition.
The calendar is based on the monthly and annual observances and
festivals of the ancient Athenians from about 800 BCE to 323
BCE. This version was created using information derived from
www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa and from
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html as well as
This calendar is a work in progress, and as research and
reconstruction proceeds, the calendars of future years will
reflect this. The on-line version of this calendar, contains
links to descriptions of all the special days noted on this
calendar and suggestions about how to observe them in the 21st
You are under no obligation to observe all the occasions and
days mentioned here; in fact, that would be all but impossible
at present, since none of us live in a wholly polytheistic city.
Every observance is optional. This calendar is made available to
you as a learning tool, and as a framework to begin or extend
your practice of ancient Hellenic religious tradition. Needless
to say, ancient Hellenic religion involved many more practices
than are implied by the calendar.
The calendar outlines ancient monthly practices, such as
Hekate’s Deipnon (on the darkest night, honoring Hekate,
the “Bringer of Light”, by a donation of food at a crossroads or
to a charity), Noumenia (new moon, beginning of
the new Athenian month) and the Agathos Daimon (honoring one’s
own personal spirit, a destiny, a characteristic, a blessing,
inherently neither good nor bad). It also lists
ancient Athenian festivals, on the exact dates where these are
known. Where the exact date has not been revealed by research, a
question mark follows the name of the festival. Information
specific observance can be found in the references mentioned
above. Note that the date of the new moon is determined by when
the crescent is visible in Athens; check local sources for the
exact time and day in your locality if you wish to be precise.
In addition to ancient festivals and observances, certain modern
occasions are listed as well. This includes the Hellenion
monthly libation (ensuring that at least one day a month is
shared by a community, albeit scattered, at the same time, and
also ensuring that each of the twelve Olympians is honored at
least once during the year). Note that this libation is not an
official practice of Hellenion but a voluntary activity endorsed
by many Hellenion members.
Some modern festivals are also listed, such as Heliogenna, held
over several days during the shortest days of December, and
Prometheia, held in Greece on the summer solstice near Mt.
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php for more information about this
Remember that, among the ancient Greeks, the day begins at
sundown of the previous day. Days in gray indicate days observed
by Hellenion members, including new moon/beginning of Greek
month and Hellenion monthly libation.
Transliteration of Greek month names and festivals below used
“y” to represent the short “u” of Greek, “kh” is used to
represent “chi” (χ), a sound which does not exist in English,
and “e” represents both epsilon (ε) and eta (η). Έρρωσο!
Many of the documents posted on this web site are in
Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If you do not have Adobe
Acrobat Reader software and would like to download it at
no cost, please click on the “Get Acrobat” button below. | <urn:uuid:21c9b2e2-952a-4493-abb7-5bd784572603> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hellenion.org/calendar.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885931 | 888 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The context in Psalm 68:18 is the exodus from Egypt. The Israelites escaped from Egypt, and plundered the Egyptians. The Lord is the one who delivered them from Egypt "with an outstretched arm."
The same passage is used in the New Testament. After his death, the humanity of the Second Person of the Godhead entered Sheol. His humanity led captivity captive, since Sheol was the staging point for Old Testament saints who died before the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is, while believers in the Old Testament had righteousness, they did not have the free gift of eternal life, which was promised in the New Covenant. Therefore they "rested" in a confined location called Sheol until the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who led them out of Sheol.
Please notice that the same days of Nisan in the first month of the Hebrew calendar correspond exactly to the dates of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is, on the 16th of Nisan was the date when the Israelites escaped from Egypt and the next morning (Sunday) was when the waters wiped out the Egyptian Army. In like fashion, Jesus is the Second Moses (the "prophet" in Acts 3:20-22), who delivered the Old Testament believers from Sheol. His resurrection was the "water" that wiped out death and its power.
I will translate this to English later, but here is a preview.
In the Old Testament, the plunder from the Egyptians was material -- gold, earrings, and the like, and the Jews received the Law at Sinai fifty days later. They dedicated their plunder to God in Exodus 25:1-9, when God gave them the Law. In the New Testament, the plunder is spiritual power, since Satan has been plundered (like the Egyptians). Satan's power was wiped out by the "water" of eternal life at the resurrection. Our plunder is the spiritual power which we receive as spiritual gifts, which are distributed to us by the Holy Spirit.
The parallels in regard to Psalm 66:18 to Ephesians 4:8-10 (not to mention Romans 10:7) are very striking and very impressionable. For example, Sinai is mentioned in Psalm 66:17, since the Jews received the Law at Sinai, when their plunder was dedicated to God (Exodus 25:1-9). The distribution of spiritual gifts happened at Pentecost, which was the exact same day that the Law was given at Sinai. Again, I am sorry that this is not in English, but you will see how the remarkable coincidence of these dates and events.
Pentecost ("Pfingsten" in German) and Shavuot ("Schawuot" in German) are the exact same dates on the calendar. In other words, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant were announced to the nation of Israel on the very same date --> exactly 50 days after the "escape" from Egypt (and Sheol), when plunder was seized from the enemy. The dates correspond (in both cases) to the time when the plunder was then received by God and distributed to God's people as his temple (sanctuary). We are the sanctuaries of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. We therefore have the plunder of spiritual power because the Second Moses ("Prophet" in Acts 3:20-22) delivered the captives, and as a result plunder was delivered in the Covenant of God to the people: in the New Covenant, this plunder is spiritual power, since we are the sanctuaries of God (please see Exodus 25:8-9).
Do you see the parallels? | <urn:uuid:cc244426-778c-42ec-b200-6c119e9eb2d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2793/what-does-psalm-6818-refer-to-in-context | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962711 | 749 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History, is
essential to an understanding of the period because he explains the origins and
course of Manifest Destiny and the American sense of mission. Merk does not like
Manifest Destiny because he realizes that it was imperialism (though of a
different kind than that which led to the Spanish American War and subsequent US
interventions in Latin American countries); he doesn’t like imperialism.
I incline to view that the two (Manifest Destiny and Mission) are so
intertwined that it is impossible to speak of one and not the other. Both
have that sense that American actions were preordained or divinely 'ordained.
Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that the US was supposed to conquer
and/or occupy the North American continent in whole or part because the US was a
special and beneficent case in human affairs. How does this differ from Mission,
except that Mission did not necessarily includes territorial aggrandizement?
Perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of the US view itself is its
belief that the country has special mission in human affairs. In a way, it is
the Chosen People concept but unlike that of Judaism because the Jews knew that
being Chosen meant having to suffer ( that they had to carry the burdens of
humankind on their shoulders). In the US, the idea chosen was that the US had
the best society, best economy, best form of government the world had ever seen
or ever would see. Americans believed that they a purity that no other group
had. In part, this was because it saw itself as an Anglo-Saxon civilization
(which it wasn't) purified by New World circumstances.
Although Americans granted that they owed much to classical
and British heritage, they, believed that New World and American genius had
made the US distinctly better. One sees this idea in a different way when one
examines the Monroe Doctrine and the Western Hemisphere idea. One can see the idea
expressed in newspapers and speeches of the period and in the observations of
foreigners, who resented American arrogance.
How does one explain the fact that Americans in the first half of
the nineteenth century and beyond believed, generally, that they had
a special mission in the world which save the World from itself and that
whatever they did to further the spread of the American ideal was justified?
Was it related to Revolutionary fervor and the need to justify the new form
of government—a federal republic? Was it related to the crusading zeal of
Protestantism and, in the 1840s, the Second Great Awakening?
Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire, tells us that the
Americans were expansionistic, imperialistic, even in the colonial period. Merk
also sees the sense of mission existing from the very beginning of colonization.
Why? How does one account for this since most people who came across in colonial
period did not have any idea of building a new nation or a new empire. Even
Benjamin Franklin considered himself British until just before the Declaration
Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was the obvious destiny of the United States to expand on
this continent. A careful reading of Merk tells us that the idea was not
universally held by Americans, that it reached its prominence in the last days
of the Tyler administration (1845), that Polk had to choose between slow,
deliberate Manifest Destiny or the war hawk Manifest Destiny. He chose the
latter. Americans did not
agree, however, as to what they should conquer.
Merk stresses, as do most, authors, that Americans were taking over
unpopulated or sparsely populated areas and bringing civilization, liberty, and
order to these areas, and, thus, differed from what European powers at the same
time were doing, There is obviously some truth in this. The American-Mexicans in
Texas numbered some 50,000 persons in 1836, certainly a majority of the
population. The Great Plains from Oklahoma north to the Dakotas were had few
people in them save for the Plains Indians. The area of New Mexico was sparsely
populated, except for towns, but it was populated and much as it is now. Mark
sees this population characteristic as justifying the actions of the Americans.
Other scholars assert that the US was justified in taking land from Mexico in
the Mexican War
because they were not using it fully but the US would. Further,
Americans believed that they would bring truth, beauty, and light to the areas
The Texans who revolted against Mexico had been violating their agreements
with Mexico and had no serious grievances against their home government. No
matter what was said in Mexico City, the powers of the Mexican government was
not extensive enough to work any great hardship on the Texans. After all, the
distance between the Texas region and Mexico City was lengthy (today, the
distance between San Antonio, Texas and Mexico City is 900 miles). Merk does a
good job in pointing out that the Americans wore determined to secure Texas for
the US and to obtain California, that California is what the US was after when
it declared war on Mexico in 1846. When the US won that war, its imperialistic
impulse was checked by its racism.
The imperialistic urge was so strong that the US was willing to fight Great
Britain to get the Oregon territory. The US backed down from the campaign
promise of "540 400 Fight!" and compromised.
What the US did in these instances was take land that Americans had been
settling. That is what Mark means about Texas being a pattern for American
expansion through the year 1848. A basic rule in international politics is
"to populate us to govern," to quote a famous Argentine.
A side note, Under American concepts property and due process, it seems to me
that we have to agree the United States and Texans stole the land just as the Europeans always had done. The Indians
owned and occupied the land. If they were not physically present on the land
during the years when the Americans took it, does this invalidate their claims
and their ownership? If a person is not occupying his/her house or car or land,
does he/she therefore lost title to it?
What we have to conclude, it seems, is that power is the determining factor
here, not divine guidance, divine sanction, or spiritual purity. The US took the
because it wanted it. The US did not take Cuba or all of Mexico because
Americans couldn't agree that they wanted it. The US wanted Canada and expected
to get it but the Canadians and British had too much power and resisted
conquest. Had they not had the power, Canada would have become part of the US by
1815. By 1848, Manifest Destiny virtually stops because the US had taken all it
could by then, that is, stops as far as acquisitions not attempts were
concerned. The US did acquire the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 by purchase.
Early statesmen, including Thomas Jefferson, were interesting in acquiring
Cuba. After 1848, Havana was a natural port of call for ships bound, for
California and Oregon. The desire to expand slavery was a factor in this
interest. President James K. Polk, in 1848, confidentially told Romulus M. Saunders, US ambassador to Spain, to negotiate the
purchase of Cuba; he was allowed to offer as much as 100 million dollars.
Spain was not interested. General Narciso López,
a Venezuelan, made an attempt in 1849 to wrest Cuba from Spain but was stopped
in New York. In his second attempt in 1850, he landed in Cuba, failed, and
returned to the US. In 1851, when he tried again, he was caught and executed as
well as all fifty-one of his co-conspirators. There was an outcry in the US by
those wanting Cuba. In April, 1852, Britain and France suggested that the US
join them in a pact to guarantee Cuba to Spain but the US refused. The next
year, three US Ambassadors—James Buchanan (to Britain), John Y. Mason(to
France), and Pierre Soulé
(to Spain)—met on Ostend, Belgium and issued a Manifesto arguing for the
taking of Cuba from Spain by force. Anti-slavery outcries in the US prevented
this from occurring. Buchanan remained interested in acquiring Cuba for slavery.
The Monroe Doctrine of December, 1823 7 seems to me to be
part of both the American sense of mission and of Manifest Destiny. The Monroe
Doctrine was a nationalistic outburst by the United States that had little
international significance. Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine,
is the standard authority on the Monroe Doctrine. In the Doctrine, the US
claimed that its system was different from that of Europe and that Europe should
not expand in the hemisphere. The US promised not to touch existing European
colonies and promised not to intervene in Europe. The idea behind it was that
the US was different and better from everyone else. The US knew that it could
not enforce it; in fact, it seems that even President James Monroe and Secretary
of State John Quincy Adams were not particularly interested in enforcing it.
That it was some hallowed statement of principle which the US and others were
bound to follow is a post-Monroe idea. The US stated that it was opposed to
monarchical government and it claimed the New World. It had the idea that it
would eventually own or control the Western Hemisphere either by occupying it or
by creating independent republics allied to the US. This did not happen. Such
control as the US has is more by economic power, which came later. In December
1845, President Polk revived the Monroe Doctrine but changed it. His version said no transfer and warned Europe not to
interfere with US expansionism. The US, of course, is most concerned about what
happens near its borders. The US violated the Monroe Doctrine with it war on
Spain in 1898 and entry into European wars. In spite of the facts, the Monroe
Doctrine itself has become mythological and the subject of partisan debate.
It was a phantom in as much as it had any relationship to Latin American
independence because the US couldn't/wouldn't help and the British had already
removed the threat from Europe. Did it mean the US wouldn’t allow interference
or colonization on the continent or in the Hemisphere? No, because it couldn’t
stop that either. The systems of government weren’t as different as we
thought. What, then, did it mean? I contend that it excited some Americans but
that it meant nothing international affairs except that the Americans were
boasting and proclaiming what they thought their interests were. "Monroeism"
was another statement of the American sense of mission, Manifest Destiny, and
As the US became more powerful, it exercised that power to defend its
interests and, increasingly, did so unilaterally. The US tends to act
unilaterally in its foreign policy not because it is "God’s creation or
favored nation " but because it can. | <urn:uuid:8631ac88-0eec-4e84-a891-c316449518a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=297 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975648 | 2,366 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Nathaniel Backus House, at 44 Rockwell Street in Norwich, was built as a Colonial era house in 1750, but is notable for its later Federal-style detailing. The house is named for Nathaniel Backus, Jr., who married Hannah Baldwin in 1726. Backus was one of only six men in Norwich who owned their own carriages in the years before the Revolutionary War. The house originally stood on lower Broadway. In 1951, it was saved from demolition and moved to Rockwell Street by the Faith Trumbull Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Together with the neighboring Perkins-Rockwell House, the Backus House is operated as a museum by the DAR.
Fairfield’s Old Academy was a school founded in 1802 by a group of prominent local citizens. The schoolhouse itself was erected on the Old Post Road in Fairfield and opened in 1804. The original academy was in existence until around 1884. The building then served several purposes over the years, being used by a nearby private school and as a library and place for meetings. In 1920, the Old Academy was faced with demolition but the Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Fairfield Historical Society joined to save and restore the building, which was moved to the town green in 1958. Today the Old Academy is owned by the town and still used by the DAR. Opened to visitors several days a year, the building contains historical artifacts and the second floor is maintained as a replica of the old schoolroom.
The Perkins-Rockwell House, on Rockwell Street in Norwich, is an interesting stone Federal Style house. It was built around 1818 by Joseph Perkins, a merchant and Revolutionary War soldier. The house was inherited by his daughter, Mary Watkinson Perkins, who married John Arnold Rockwell, a lawyer and politician, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives. The house was inherited, in 1924, by Mary Watkinson Rockwell Cole. Today it is a museum, operated by the Faith Trumbull Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
George Washington slept many places, but where did George Washington’s horse sleep? In the Wadsworth Stable in Hartford, which was on the estate of Jeremiah Wadsworth, in whose house Washington, Rochambeau and Governor Trumbull had their first meeting in 1780. The original stable, built in 1730, later burned down. It was rebuilt around 1820 in the Palladian style, unusual for an outbuilding, to suit the pretensions of the Federal era. The stable was probably designed by Daniel Wadsworth, Jeremiah Wadsworth’s son. In 1842, the Wadsworth House was moved to a new location (it was torn down in 1887) when the Wadsworth Atheneum was constructed. The stable, which was owned for a time by the Hartford Public Library, remained on its original site, adjacent to the Atheneum, until 1954, when it was saved from demolition and moved to Lebanon. Its original location is now the Travelers Tower plaza. The new home of the Wadsworth Stable was provided by the Connecticut DAR and is adjacent to the Governor Jonathan Trumbull House. A plaque on the stable recognizes the generosity of Katharine Seymour Day, who also established what is now the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, for the restoration of the building.
A portion of what would later be known as the Bradford-Huntington House was built in Norwich on the home lot of John Bradford sometime prior to 1691 (perhaps as early as 1660, although a D.A.R. marker on the property gives the date as 1705). The house was bought by Capt. Joshua Huntington, a merchant, in 1719 (or by his father, Simon Huntington, in 1691). In later years he would enlarge and update the house in the Georgian style, adding a gambrel roof and a new chimney. The house was later owned (1745), and expanded with the addition of a rear ell, by his son, Jabez Huntington, who became Major General of the Connecticut militia in 1776, the same year George Washington spent a night in the home during the Revolutionary War. Later, Huntington experienced mental strain from his efforts and resigned in 1779. He died in 1786 and is buried near his house in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery.
Jonathan Trumbull, Connecticut’s last colonial governor and first state governor (1769-1784), was born in Lebanon in 1710. Educated at Harvard, Trumbull began working with his father, Joseph Trumbull, as a merchant in 1731. He became a delegate to Connecticut’s General Assembly in the 1730s and his later support of the Patriot cause led to his election as deputy governor in 1766, with the support of the Sons of Liberty. He became governor in 1769, after the death of governor William Pitkin. Trumbull was the only colonial governor to support the American Revolution, organizing Connecticut’s resources to serve the war effort and earning the praise of George Washington. Among the children of Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., who died in 1785, were Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (a later governor of Connecticut) and the artist, John Trumbull.
The Governor Jonathan Trumbull House was built by his father, Joseph, between 1735 and 1740, and was inherited by Jonathan Trumbull in 1755, who enlarged and remodeled it in the fashionable Georgian style. The building is architecturally notable as the state’s only central chimney house with a center hall. It was also moved slightly north of its first location in 1824. The house has been owned and operated as a house museum since 1935 by the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution.
The house of Oliver Ellsworth, on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, was originally at the heart of the Ellsworth estate, called Elmwood. It was built in 1781 by Samuel Denslow, to Ellsworth’s specifications. Oliver Ellsworth had been born on the property in 1745 and went on to become a member of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, an envoy to France, a framer of the U.S. Constitution, the chairman of the Senate Committee that framed the bill organizing the federal judiciary system, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. Ellsworth married Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth in 1772 and the couple lived in the house until his death in 1807. Two sitting presidents visited the house, George Washington in 1789 and John Adams in 1799.
In 1788, Ellsworth commissioned Thomas Hayden, a notable Windsor architect-builder, to construct a two-story addition to the house on the south elevation. The addition’s first floor was a drawing room, in which Ellsworth’s daughter Abigail married Ezekiel Williams, son of the merchant and Hartford County Sheriff, Ezekiel Williams of Wethersfield in 1794. Ezekiel Williams Sr had served with Ellsworth on the Committe of the Pay Table during the Revolutionary War. The Greek Revival-style colonnaded porch was added by Martin Ellsworth in 1836. Members of the Ellsworth family continued to live in the house until 1903. It was then deeded to the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution by Oliver Ellsworth’s descendants. Restored in the 1980s and 1990s, the house is open to the public as the Oliver Ellsworth Homestead. | <urn:uuid:295152fa-63d9-4632-9820-09e75afe7a5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historicbuildingsct.com/?tag=dar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981307 | 1,554 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Early Signal History and Methods
Visual Signalling No. 2 - Signalling with Sunlight (Heliograph)
Recording Signalling Methods, Technology, Equipment & History for Posterity
|1. Victorian Signals Skills Overview & Training|
|2. The Heliography|| |
|2a. The 1905 Heliography Handbook|| |
|3. Flags & Semaphoring|| |
|4. Mechanical Telegraph|
|6. Beacon & Flare|
|9. Dispatch Rider|
The following is a compilation of many different sources and information by Petra, some she found from on-line web sites, some from books, some translations from German sources and a lot is simply written by herself, including the noticeably "odd" inclusion of her very twisted humour from which everyone distances themselves! (even Petra)
That said you can hopefully still learn a lot and have fun? It is free! So anyone who is unhappy with the content of this free newsletter or datasheet can ask for a full refund under our standard Policy.
A copy of the policy can be purchased for three hundred pounds sterling including P&P from Petra directly.
The Royal Signals .. Heliograph
Recording Signalling Methods, Technology, Equipment & History for Posterity
The following is a compilation of many different sources and information by Petra, some she found from on-line web sites, some from books, some translations from German sources and a lot is simply written by herself, including the noticeably "odd" inclusion of her very twisted humour from which everyone distances themselves! (even Petra) That said you can hopefully still learn a lot and have fun? So anyone who is unhappy with the content of this free newsletter or datasheet can ask for a full refund under our standard Policy. A copy of the policy can be purchased for three hundred pounds sterling including P&P from Petra directly.
Royal Signals Datasheet No. 2. The Heliograph Last revised April 2003
Communication via Heliograph using "Morse"
Figure 1. Head Detail and full Heliograph (Mk 5 Mance model)
The original Instructions scanned, OCR'ed and restored, from a Signalling handbook (1905) are also to be found linked to at the end of this document! Link to 1905 Signalling Document
The heliograph provided a very mobile element in the British Signal Service and was light, quick to set up and Cheap to make. In heliography, a mirror is used to flash light in "Morse" code. Using this method, eight to sixteen words could be transmitted per minute and the equipment was relatively cheap and easy to manufacture - in the absence of anything else, a simple mirror would suffice - and a 'crew' of only one trained person was required. signalling ranges varied, depending upon the size of the reflector. For example, a 5 inch reflector had a signalling distance of some 50 miles (80 km), whilst the 9 or 12 inch models had a range of up to 80 miles (130 km). Indeed, in India, signalling distances of over 100 miles (160 km) had been recorded and it is interesting to note that, at least until 1975, the Pakistan Army continued to use the heliograph, and that in 2001 during the invasion of Afghanistan the Coalition forces found that the Taliban and other regional forces still used them.
But let us first look at the history! From an Encyclopaedia of 1895 came the following definition:
HELIOGRAPH (from Gr. Helios, sun, and graphos to write) an instrument for reflecting the rays of the sun (or the light obtained from any other source) over a considerable distance. Its main application is in military signalling. A similar instrument to the heliotrope, used principally for defining distant points in geodetic surveys, such as in the triangulation of India, and in the verification of the African arc of the meridian. It is necessary to distinguish the method of signalling termed heliography from the new photographic process of the same name.
Petra's note: The new Science of Photography was being called Heliography from "Drawing (Graphic) with Sun (Helios) or Sunlight (Photo)" The confusion about the name Heliograph was caused by a Frenchman (Who else?), and inventor, called Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who produced the first photograph through a process he calls heliography or sun drawing in 1816, but the images faded within days. Later he together with Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre made stable pictures on glass what was called 'Daguerreotypes' and in 1829 Niépce and Daguerre form a 10 year partnership to develop photography which while not subject of this newsletter has been able to entertain British troops since WW1 and their purchase of French Daguerreotype's of young Mademoiselles with little or no clothing ever since! Daguerreotype had insisted that they take their clothes off since it improved the (photographic-) Exposure by needing less materials for the sun to paint!!! The Heliographers in the army were appalled to be associated with pornography under the name Heliography and insisted on their cut of the profits or at least a set of negatives for their own use, but failure to get it made them go to war in France and the French under military force duly changed the name to Daguerreotype!!! (Sorry! one of Petra's funny looks at History and a slight bending of facts!)
By an odd twist of fate, it was Samuel Finley Breese Morse ("Inventor" of the Morse code) who introduced Daguerre's process of photography, into America…
Back to some real history. Then it shows us that Heliography (using polished shields to reflect the sun) was used in antiquity, by the Romans and also used by the Athenian's to signal from ship to shore, between ships and also between ground forces although they did not have any records of trying any ground to air communications with their air-force! (Another poor Petra joke!) as can be read in Xenophon's Hellenica written in ca. BC 405.
There is also a brief reference to a method of signalling in the biography of Tiberius, Claudius Nero Caesar Augustus (Born 42 BC - and Emperor from year10 AD till his death in 37 AD) written by Suetonius, in Book III of The Twelve Caesars…
"For nearly ten years during the reign of the wise but unpopular emperor Tiberius, Rome was ruled from the island of Capri. Each day he sent orders to the mainland by a type of "heliograph" which transmitted the sun's rays by means of a mirror of polished metal."
…but it is unclear if intelligent signals were sent by this method, or simply a check to see that outer positions were still in good state?
A first clear description of a heliographic signalling method was published in 1292 by the English author Roger Bako (often spelled Bacon, 1214-1292), in a work called Opus Majus. There is, however, no record that it was actually used by the British in this period, who were particularly adept at sending messengers on foot or horse and covering the "last (qtr-)mile" (to put it into modern telecom terms) if necessary by use of a longbow and arrow. Then the British missed one thing needed for good Heliography, the Sun (or the Daily Mirror, The Telegraph, etc. Interesting to note how many papers have names that can be tenuously connected with communications or for that matter "News!")
Richard Hennig quoted a description of a heliograph from the sixteenth century author Khevenhiller. In Annales Ferdinandei, Khevenhiller described a device that had supposedly been used during the siege of a Hungarian fortress in 1598
"… with an art, as described by an Englishman, consisting of two mirrors and a magnet [a compass?], with which one can, at a distance of many miles, give signals to each other in moon-light."
Hennig questions the feasibility of the method. Yet, if the "magnet" was really a compass, it could have been used by the two correspondents to locate each other, before their signalling began. On a clear night, the light of the moon can be reflected as easily as the light of the sun during a clear day, so the device would probably have worked. Then later Modern High Quality Mirrors used in the British Military signalling were definitely capable of Lunargraphy which is the name I give it when a Heliographer goes Moonlighting!
The design of a modern mechanically-set (on tripod and adjustable frame) heliographic device was not reliably documented until 1810.
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855)
Professor Carl Friedrich Gauss of Göttingen, Germany, invented a device in 1810 to direct a controlled beam of sunlight to a distant station. It included "silvered and half-silvered mirrors" which are then fixed at right angles to each other. The operator looked in the half-silvered mirror at the distant station. He then turned both mirrors so the sun's image (reflected faintly from the plain surface of the half-silvered mirror) was superimposed over the distant station, automatically directing the beam from the silvered mirror in the same direction.
Though the device built by Gauss was meant to be used for geodetic survey work, which is probably where the British Engineers first put it to use, they soon discovered it could (in the hands of a skilled operator be used to signal as good as, if not better than flagging alone! Indeed it would later be used extensively by both the British and the American armies as a so-called "wireless" field telegraph, albeit with different versions of Morse codes between them.
"Early in the nineteenth century, Gauss, a German mathematician, had discovered the tremendous potential of the sun's rays reflected from a plane mirror. Through experiments he was able to demonstrate that even a small mirror one inch square could send flashes that could be seen over a distance of seven miles. The silvered glass mirror, invented in 1840 by Justin Liebeg, paved the way for the heliograph. (...)
We know Gauss from a different endeavour perhaps? De-gausing a TV or computer screen. Or the term Gauss from Magnetism, then this was the same person and mathematician who made such discoveries and permutations… His original name was Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss, a German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and potential theory (including said electromagnetism). He was also honoured on the back of the German Ten Mark Note and numerous Stamps despite being guilty of "mathematical child-abuse" in schools worldwide due to his Fundamental Theorem of Algebra.
Figure 2. Ten Deutsche Mark Note with Carl Friedrich Gauss
Sir Henry Christopher Mance (1840 - 1926)
In 1869 the English electrical engineer Henry C. Mance adapted Gauss's design by adding a movable mirror that could be used to signal Morse code. By adding stops to set the on target and of target positions of the mirror tilt. But the movement was still by hand and due to the vigour's of movement the device needed constant resetting to re-establish the line of sight started with. It did not take him long to add a Telegraph key and linkage similar to one being designed by Babbage and by 1875 he had developed the heliograph or sun telegraph (Royal Society Letter No. 7/36). So the original hand keyed model was therefore invented by Sir Henry C. Mance, at that time in Karachi, Bombay. Who made a patent application at US Patent Office in February, 1876.
Sir Henry C. Mance, C.I.E. Went on to become Director of the West African Telegraph Company and a chairman for the Electric Construction Company.
Meanwhile in the UK an engineer who long after his death was determined to be the father of modern computing took a keen interest in mathematics, statistics, railways and the unification of England, Wales and Scotland by railways. Who had invented the standard railway Gauge, to ensure that when the different railway companies met up they would be compatible! and invented the GMT standard-time for the entire UK to ensure the trains all ran "late" to the same time and timetable, and due to his interest in Surveying and calculation of triangulation data, he took an active part in designing the Heliograph essentially coupling the Heliotrope with a vertically depressed Morse key to overcome pushing or pulling the set of course, and mechanical adjustment mechanism to allow it to send code faster and be readjusted for sun deviation on a predictable basis got involved with signalling. But Babbage was more interested in adding clockwork to send automated code, and/or make precise corrective adjustments for the movement of the sun, which while later used in telescopes for stargazing photos using long-time exposure, would have been too costly, complex (to set up) and fragile for practical military use. Odd that Heliography, Mathematics and Photography keep crossing paths in so many different cases…
Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)
Born December 26, 1791 in Teignmouth, Devonshire UK, Died 1871, London; Known to many as the true "Father of Computing" for his contributions to the basic design of the computer through his Analytical machine. His previous Difference Engine was a special purpose device intended for the production of tables including accurate trigonometry and Log tables needed by the ordinance and military surveyors.
His inventions list included; The cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard railroad gauge, uniform postal rates, occulting lights for lighthouses, Greenwich time signals, heliograph, ophthalmoscope. He also had an interest in ciphers and lock-picking, but he was not popular with the public, then he abhorred street musicians and campaigned for their prohibition from the streets.
In 1851 Charles Babbage, the builder of the so-called analytical engine, a precursor of the modern digital computer, invented a "light-flashing machine," which he named an occulting telegraph. This is how Babbage described it.
"I then, by means of a small piece of clock-work and a bright lamp, made a numerical system of occultation, by which any number might be transmitted to all those within sight of the source of light."
I think the purpose of these occulting telegraphs were to send a form of automatic "marker codes" and was later adopted by lighthouses to send a Morse letter to give their location/ID. Then constant light was OK when trying to identify one station, but when as in the case of triangulation many teams were being deployed, to help find and identify the two you needed for triangulation was very important, Besides Babbage was a keen proponent of the mapping of countries and the resulting processing of mathematical statistics.
Babbage also described another "sun-flashing" machine, which resembles Gauss's design more closely. Babbage had worked a lot with mechanics and levers, linkages and the like, and so it was no surprise when he added a Morse key, and an counter-threaded adjustment screw that when turned at regular periods would keep the device compensated for the movement of the sun.
For More On Babbage Click
Heliographs and the American Army
The American Army made an extensive use of heliographs in the 1880s, in combination with the so-called real Morse code. It is unclear if they were based on Babbage's proposal or Henry Mance's but the British Army however decided that Mance's was the better design. It did however play a major part in communications between forts, outpost and during the building of the railways.
The American Heliographs for some strange reason had square mirrors, but the shape of the mirror still created a round projection beam, then the sun remained round even on the other side of the big pond! A larger mirror was sometimes preferred over the "right sized" one by the operators, if they could get away with it, who would have less tracking adjustments to make to keep the target within beam as the sun traversed the sky. But there was a rule as to which size was for what distance. As a "rule of thumb" the range of a heliograph is ten miles per inch of the mirror's diameter.
Therefore, a 5" mirror, whether round or square, would have a range of about 50 miles, the 1.8" mirror of some more modern handheld equipments, work for about 18 miles.
In 1886 heliographs were used by General Nelson Miles, in his battles with native Americans in Arizona. He built a total of 27 signalling stations, 40 to 50 km (25 to 30 miles) apart. Between 1 May 1886 and 30 September 1886 a total of 2,276 messages with 80,012 words were transmitted over this network. The heliograph is said to have averaged some 16 words per minute.
Figure 14 Early “Square Heliograph” USA 1877
Differences between the Heliograph, the Heliostat and the Heliotrope
The heliotrope and theodolite were in their principles identical, and based on Gauss's 1810 invention of the Heliostat/Sextant, then Gauss had calculated a way to predict the angular height of the sun for every location on the earth at every time of day and vice-versa and so revolutionised both seafaring and mapmaking at one go and also improved communications!
The only significant difference between the Heliograph and the Heliotrope was that the latter was set so as "not" to reflect sunlight to the distant station unless it were sending a part of a code (dot or dash!), whereas the other was originally intended to be set to constantly attract the attention of the distant station to the location of the survey team by continuously reflecting light to such station. Indeed the Heliotrope was used before such surveys for only such purpose and the viewer attracted by the light would then spy out the flagman and read the code off the flag signals. However it did not take long to see that it could be possible for the mirror (with some mechanical appendages) to tip up and down and accurately send signals in place of the flags. From an 1858 report of the previously conducted "Trigonometrical Survey of India" it was written…
"The heliotrope operator was called a "heliotroper" or "flasher" and would sometimes employ a second mirror for communicating with the instrument station through heliography, a form of language using impulsed reflecting surfaces. (i.e. what we would call flashing-code!)"
The heliotrope, which since not being originally designed to send or receive code could be operated by one man, was a pair of mirrors and telescope set all in one. It was utilized by surveyors as a specialized form of target; it was employed during large triangulation surveys where, because of the great distance between stations (usually twenty miles or more), a regular target would appear indistinct. Soon however there were developments to use it for code sending and the sender could not look through and hold the telescope steady while keying or hand tilting a mirror, so the dedicated Heliograph was made. Both the Heliotrope and the Heliograph had a flat mirror with a non-silvered opening at the centre of the plate. During the use of the flat mirror, the angle of the cone of reflected sun offered a base diameter of about 50 feet at one mile and 1000 feet at 20 miles.
Therefore, high accuracy was not required when directing the mirror at the instrument station but constant adjustment was needed to take account for the movement of the sun.
The Heliostat was a logical consequence of the Heliotrope. (The Stat part of the name due to the fact the Mirror stayed Static.) Then it was discovered that if someone or something stood between the mirror and the distant station the signal was interrupted, so a Form of Venetian blind was invented that was based on the already popular Shutter Telegraph system. Only that when open the reflected light from the mirror passed through, and when shut was obscured. In the illustration below The “A” situation shows the slats opened and letting light through. The “B” closed.
At some stage, someone must have realised that if you made a mechanism attached to a Morse key that tipped the mirror up and down in time with the taps, that the need of the large and unwieldily (Ten foot high and Eight foot six wide) framework could be spared.
Note: Later (around 1880) there were Heliograph sets with different sized mirrors with different dispersion angles for different distances and improved security (Less dispersion means less chance of detection and also of the enemy reading the code.) or you could add snoot tubes to ensure the signalling went only as directed. But I am Jumping way ahead.
"The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India." (1830 to 1851) was commenced with Heliotropes and flag signalling, and soon with Heliostats, then Heliographs. The task of Measuring and mapping India was under the direction of Colonel Sir G. Everest in 1832, after whom Queen Victoria on her Coronation in 1837 decided that in honour of his skill, a Large Mountain should be built and named. This was planned as a way to employ the hands of idle soldiers and stop them turning to self-abuse, something that the Queen (as most Victorians) was deeply concerned about! The last piece of this massive British construction was carried up in May 29,1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary, NZ and Tenzing Norgay, NP and cemented into place just in time for the Coronation of another Queen and Grand daughter of the aforesaid Queen Victoria, Due to a misprint the title of the newspaper report of the actual completion was accidentally changed from "Mount Everest Concreted!" to "Mount Everest Conquered!" :-)
Back to serous mode, it should be mentioned that the accuracy of the Survey was so good that the height of Mt. Everest was determined to be 29,018 feet, and in later survey in 1954 to be 29,028 feet (8,848 meters) or ten feet higher than the original survey determined. Much later with the aid of GPS measurements and Satellite radar measurements it was actually found that the peak was actually an inch under an exact 29,000', which would correspond to 8840 meters. Why the differences? The first measurement did not take into account three factors which also played a role in giving false readings for the 1954 survey… refractive effects in the atmosphere had on the optical equipment, the sloping snow surface on to which the theodolites were aligned which changed height according to time of year and snow thickness, and deviations of the keeping the head of the tripod horizontal or the plum-line where used vertical-- because of a tendency of mountains to give a slight gravitational tug on the spirit level. GPS of course is almost completely immune to these factors.
The travel writer Jan Morris (who accompanied the 1953 British expedition as the Times correspondent to the top and radioed the report of the completion back to the base station) was asked "What was so remarkable about getting to the top of a mountain?"… She wrote in Time: 100 People of the Century, "by any rational standards, this was no big deal. Aircraft had long before flown over the summit, and within a few decades literally hundreds of other people from many nations would climb Everest too. [...] Geography was not furthered by the achievement, scientific progress was scarcely hastened, and nothing new was discovered. Yet the names of Hillary and Tenzing went instantly into all languages as the names of heroes, partly because they really were men of heroic mould but chiefly because they represented so compellingly the spirit of their time."
James Morris, as Jan was back then, was the correspondent for The Times of London, and was the team signaller, and instrumental in sending out the coded message that ensured news of success broke in England on the Coronation Day of Queen Elizabeth II. Morris (b.1926), In 1972, nearly two decades after winning international plaudits for his Everest reporting - years of mental anguish during which he nevertheless persisted with conformity (marriage and children) - she underwent male-to-female sex-reassignment surgery, and began living as Jan Morris.
Figure 3. Headlines for the Queen's Coronation day
Some facts, in case you meet the Mountain at a cheese and wine party in your area! As said it took the name Everest after Sir George Everest in 1865, the British surveyor-general of India. Before George married her, she was simply known as Peak 15, Last known Location: Latitude 27° 59' N.....Longitude 86° 56' E, but does move around a bit, currently at a rate of three quarter of an inch northwards per year.. It's summit ridge separates Nepal and Tibet so one of these countries is slowly and sneakily stealing the land of the other…
An anonymous Everest summiteer was asked "what was the hardest thing about climbing Mount Everest?" …"Pissing through 6 inches of clothes with a 3 inch penis", he replied (i.e. the different Fly's of Multiple layered clothing). Petra's Tip for Explorers: Never, ever, eat the yellow snow!!!
So without the heliograph the height would probably have been wrongly guessed and maybe declared to be a hundred feet higher than it really was. Had this happened Sir Edmund Hillary would have had to carry up a big step ladder and a 100 foot flag pole to get his flag to the top :-)
The Invention of the Heliograph provided more reliable (and just as important reproducible) results, and greater signalling distances than flagging or Heliotropes/Heliostats had ever had, and the greater the size of the triangles in the triangulation the better the accuracy of the mapping. The distances were referred to as "marching's", then the teams were sent marching to some pre-agreed distant location to set up. So in some reports of Heliography you might see the signalling range (size of mirrors, etc.) given as a "marching range!"
For every Team (a minimum of three teams were needed for Triangulation) there were Signallers, A signalling party of three men was usually found sufficient to manipulate a pair of heliotropes - one for single, two for double reflection, according to the sun's position-and a lamp, throughout the night and day. Heliotropers were also employed at the observing stations to flash instructions to the signallers.
Between 1790 and 1805, the resulting cartographic work was carried out back at the Tower of London in the Drawing Room of the Ordnance Survey by civilians working under Royal Engineer officers. In 1805 the civilians were formed into the Royal Corps of Military Surveyors and Draughtsmen. That Corps was disbanded in 1817. Seven years after Gauss made his invention!
In the mid 1800's Britain launched an export drive to convince the French of the benefits of the new Sandwich and Wellington boot, but feeling insulted by French jaunts that they tasted exactly the same, and also since the French were cheating conscientious British servicemen who ordering Heliographs to improve their signalling skills, but were instead sent "naughty French maid photographs" we had an axe to grind… So some surveying work was delayed while we discussed the menu with a waiter called Bonaparte!
Figure 4. Defeating (De-feet-ing) the French by hurling tight Wellington boots at them!
Wellington is shown in the above illustration taking on the French at the new sport of "Welly-tossing" or "left-boot-hurling" during an early Victorian BBC "Its-a-knock-out" contest in Waterloo. Playing the joker he got double points for this throw… When we won we were presented with a whooping great big Railway station and matching Bridge, which at great cost was dragged by the rails back to London to become a key part of a song by the Kinks…
After the Napoleonic wars, the Survey's work was extended to undertake a survey of Ireland.
To aid this operation a regular and disciplined labour force was provided by the formation in 1824 and 1825 of three Survey Companies, the 13th, 14th and 16th Companies of the Royal Sappers and Miners (Royal Signals Granddaddy and father of the R.E.). Another Company, the 19th, was formed in 1848, and all four were transferred to the Royal Engineers, from which their officers came, in 1856. The 16th Company was disbanded in 1906, and the remainder reconstituted as the Survey Battalion, RE, in 1929.
With the altered conditions after the end of the Second World War the Battalion itself was disbanded in 1946. These Survey Companies did not function as ordinary Royal Engineer Companies, the personnel being distributed throughout the Ordinance Survey. Until just after the Second World War, men serving with the Ordnance Survey might be either Royal Engineers or Civil Assistants. It should be remembered that only a proportion of the staff of the Ordnance Survey was in the Royal Engineers.
Surveyors today still use skills and tools learnt from these Empire measuring days, of which the Royal Signals (albeit then as Sappers) added their part.
Line vs. Heliograph
The heliograph was in its peak at the time that another new medium was being developed, wire-line telegraphy! The two chief drawbacks of line however from the military point of view, were that the line itself was readily cut and that messages could be intercepted by tapping.
On occasions, the line after being cut was used by the opposing forces to pass its own messages. Line cutting was an occupation much favoured by the Boers, as not only did it interrupt British communications, but it also provided splendid opportunities for ambushing British lines parties with inadequate escorts.
For instance, on 3 May 1901, the Manchester Regiment's line parties suffered casualties. The telegraph wire between Witklip and Badfontein, having been cut during the previous night, parties were sent out from each end but were attacked by about 50 Boers. The fire was so heavy that it was impossible to mend the wire, which was found to be cut in twelve places.
One native killed, L/C Davies, 1st Manchester Regt., slightly wounded another, and two men missing. Similarly, line tapping was a most popular Boer activity. To overcome it, the British fed false information down their line in clear and later encoded messages and corrections gave the intended communication.
Latin was considered secure, but with General Smuts having little else in his saddlebags but Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and a Greek New Testament, while General Hertzog had his Tacitus with him, clearly Latin was less secure than the British believed. Satis dicit.
The Boers however preferred the Heliograph for their communications and were as adept if not better than the British! That said the Heliograph was not good in inclement weather, or on a moonless night, so the Signaller had to learn and master more than one tool, and flags or lamps were a constant alternative.
The main disadvantages of the heliograph were as said that a light source was required, be it the sun, the moon, or a concentrated limelight lantern, and that a clear atmosphere was essential.
Tactically, interception was possible anywhere along the axis of the projected light beam (line of sight), but this was sometimes much reduced in diameter by the use of a narrow tube called a snoot. Even a artillery barrel could be used to project the beam.
The disadvantage in this was that the signalling distances of these very narrow beams were greatly reduced, as less light was radiated.
Heliographs in the British Army
Figure 5. The 5th Lancers Field Service Kit (A Hand-coloured Postcard)
NCO to Signaller at Heliograph… "Signaller, flash them that due to the total cloud cover we have had for the last hour, they should switch to flags! Ask them to heliograph back three flashes if they understand!"
The Mark V in the picture above dates it from about 1904 to well into the first world war. The postcard is posed, then lack of the Shadows (with or without Cliff Richard) even under the horse, shows that there was currently no sun to signal with! In the Picture above the Leather case can be seen hanging on the tripod of a Mk V Heliograph, and a set of flags leis slovenly on the ground as a back up should "clouds stop play!"
It is evident from the use of the second mirror that the sun was high and/or just behind the signaller, but as said the lack of shadows (especially under the horse) tends to suggest this was a posed photo even if the sloppy handling of the flags might lead to think otherwise. In some 1880's British Army photos, the mirrors appear to be 10" or 12" in diameter instead of basic 5" one shown above.
The heliograph that was used in the British Army for signalling to a distant point and were issued to at least regimental/battalion level and, of course, each column had its own equipment. It comprised of a sturdy wooden tripod of which each leg was adjustable. The mirror assembly was usually kept safely packed in a stout leather case and/or wooden box. The Mirrors were packed separately into protective tins.
Under the middle of the Tripod is a sturdy hook onto which a sandbag, rock or other heavy weight could be hung to prevent the tripod "walking" during signalling!
This hook is NOT as so often seen (incl. In the Royal Signals Museum) for hanging the leather carrying case on! The Case is actually to be hung "round the legs of the tripod" as shown in Figure 8 above or in figure one on the front page.
The chain for the screw cap (Thread protector) and the Loop for the carrying sling, act together to prevent the carrying strap of the leather-case slipping down and pulling the legs together…
Figure 6. 2nd Gurkha Rifles / Sirmoor Regiment Signalling Unit (from ~ 1896)
As can be seen in this Picture of the Signallers of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles / Sirmoor Regiment Signalling Unit, from about 1896, there was a significant technology transfer via the deployment of Heliographic equipment and skills. Standing behind the Heliographer is the Signalling officer.(Note: he has Breast Pockets, where the others don't ) to the right is a flag-waver at rest and kneeling, and behind him a messenger recording the message being read.
Unlike figure 5., here there is sun, and it is in the right direction and angle for the Heliograph as it is shown. So although more posed than Fig. 5., it is more authentic in set-up and use.
The Gurkhas were quick and skilful students, learning not only the Morse and flag-waving codes, but also to spell, read and write, etc. which was by no means common for them at that time! The technology transfer served us well and the Gurkhas and Royal Signals have been close ever since.
The Zulu War
By far the most significant use of the Heliograph in conflict was the part it took in the Zulu wars and later wars against the Boars…
The Newspaper "Harpers Weekly" dated 31st of May, 1879 printed a report of the Heliograph at war under the title: The Zulu War - The Heliograph at Work, Flashing Messages to a Beleaguered Force.
This print was a typical Victorian engraving and made an impressive centre spread with a lot of detailed text around the engraving concerning the Heliograph. (Double page spread, size 22 x 15 ½ inches)
Compare in the various pictures (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8) below, showing the above described newspaper print version with the coloured print that can be obtained from the Royal Signals Museum Shop…
They are subtly different, but "not a lot!", as Paul Daniels used to say.
Figure 7. The Heliograph at the Tugela River (Harpers Weekly Engraving)
Figure 8. The Heliograph at the Tugela River (A Coloured Reprint)
Figure 9. The Heliograph at the Tugela River (Another Coloured Reprint)
Figure 25a and b The same different Signalling Skills (Flag, Flash & Read) Zulu War (May 1879)
from http://www.army.mod.uk/royalsignals/engrs.html comes the following text.
Up to their arrival in Zululand, C Troop had used the heliostat as one of their visual instruments. They were now issued with four heliographs which had been manufactured by the Bengal Sappers and Miners in their workshops at Roorkee. These were found to be excellent and to give a much steadier signal. The heliostat used a fixed mirror which reflected a steady beam to the distant station. The beam was interrupted by a shutter, making morse signals possible. The heliograph had an oscillating mirror which, when operated, reflected the elements of the morse signal to the distant station. Part of the force became beleaguered in Fort Ekowe, the ground between them and the Tugela River being entirely in Zulu hands.
At Tugela, Lieutenant Haynes RE, in spite of the pessimistic discouragement of his seniors, spent a week heliographing in the direction of Fort Ekowe before he received an answer.
At the other end, Major Wynne RE had noticed the signal almost immediately, but found that shaving mirrors would not serve. He spent the week constructing a large screen which pivoted from the horizontal to the vertical, the space of time of the vertical appearances producing the elements of the morse code. Traffic passed, but Major Wynne was exhausted and became fatally ill that same day.
As a result of the Telegraph Troop's persistence, communications with the beleaguered force were established and a relief operation mounted which saved the garrison.
You can buy a (20" x 16") colour print of 'Tugela River' from the Royal Signals Museum Shop
Here is a link to the on-line museum shop
However the Heliograph was not only used in Afghanistan, India and south Aria, but also used in locations closer to home such as in the Crimea, and even in Europe ( on sunny days!)
From the History of the 3rd (UK) Division Headquarters and Signal Regiment we read following…
The 3rd Division was raised in 1806 during the Peninsular War and at this time dispatch riders provided communications essential for successful command. The Army Telegraph Train provided line heliograph communication for the 3rd Division during the Crimean War and following this campaign the Telegraph Troop RE was formed in Blandford in 1870 which by 1884 had grown to a telegraph Battalion. No 3 Detachment of this Battalion deployed with 3rd Division to fight in the Boer War from 1892 to 1902. On return to the UK this was retitled 3rd Division Signals and located at Bulford. In 1937 Divisional Signals was mechanized and in 1939 mobilised as part of the British Expeditionary Force and took part in the Dunkirk withdrawal.
Simplified description of Heliography Basics
The following description is greatly simplified and in part goes against the real set up and use of the Military Heliograph. The original description (from 1905) on the use of the Mk V Army Heliograph can be found in the Annex to this datasheet. See Figure 9 bellow for the respective component parts described here…
Figure 9. The Heliograph Basic Functions
The basic functions of the Heliograph
If the sun (A) is in front of the station (i.e. towards the target) the Signalling Mirror (C) is used alone. If the sun is directly overhead or behind the addition of the Duplex Mirror (B) on an arm (coloured Dk Blue / Purple) turned to the appropriate side so as to be not quite in the way, but reflect strongest light, helps redirect the light to Signalling Mirror (C).
Aligning the Unsilvered black spot of the mirror (or hole through the back) with the cross hairs of the target for a Line-of-Sight (F to E) sets up the basic direction. Once this is found, then the vertical azimuth needs setting to light up the cross hairs of the sight arm with a depressed key…, it may be necessary to turn the mirror horizontally by turning the "U" frame (coloured light blue and yellow in my drawing) and then tightening the thumb screw (J).
Releasing the key lets the light go up into the sky and become unseen by the distant station! Pressing the key (G) for normal signalling code raises the lever (H) and causes the Mirror (C) to tilt forward and flash to the distant station. i.e. the light beam dips from angle (D) to the required signal angle (E). Releasing the key allows the beam to rise up to (D) again!
If the sun is in front, the Signalling Mirror (C) needs constant adjustment to account for the sun traversing the sky. If the sun is above or behind the station, the fitting and use of Duplex Mirror (B) is required and this needs adjusting with wing nuts (K and L) to keep the sun onto the centre of the signalling mirror!
Once these simple basics are understood, we can describe the main differences in Army use.
In the Vance heliograph, the mirror does not dip on key depression, but rises. This was a problem when signalling over an enemy held valley or river as anyone in the LoS under the signal path could read a negative (dark signalling) version of the code.
Also to align the centre of the mirror onto the target the mirror is looked into from approximately the angle of the sun, (i.e. so your head puts the mirror into shadow) and looking at the shadow spot, move till the spot is indicating the distant location… the sighting rod is moved until it's cross hairs are now between the spot and the distant station, then a flip-up vane raised and the signalling mirror moved till sunbeam with clamped down (depressed key) hits the centre of this vane…
The army also decided that the signalling mirror (the one that moves during keying) must always face the sun, and so if the sun was behind you the Heliograph was to be set up to face away from distant station. The outgoing signal was to be redirected back towards the target by the second (duplex) mirror. This rule simplified learning the method for adjustment, then the trim for sun passage was always done with the same adjustment screws, etc. on the main signalling mirror.
To widen the beam and make the Heliograph suitable for use on a moving deck of a ship or to signal to a moving ship offshore, etc. there was a diffuser glass in a frame like the mirror that could be added in place of the sighting arm, or on its own arm.
The Mk V made it even simpler to align by simply removing the sighting vane and using a marked sight on the centre of the redirecting "Duplex" mirror, now the user had only to ensure the spot of the signalling mirror and centre of the reflector, were identically aligned to the distant station reflection!
Figure 10. A Mk V used on left with Sighting rod and on right with the Duplex mirror
A complete Heliograph set as shown in the left picture was recently sold brand new and unused in e-Bay for a bargain sum of US $37.50 so it is worth keeping your eyes and ears open…
Figure 11. A Stereoscope Picture of a Mk V being used for long distance “wireless” communications
The picture shows five men, one facing towards the back is sending the messages received (By flag) down to the camp, then the station is pretty high up in the mountains. Another man (not seen in this picture) next to the flag signaller, Reads the messages from the base camp.
So two are the “local Loop” or the “last mile” in modern Telecommunications terms. in the early days, another four men were needed to operate each actual long distance Heliograph “Wireless” station. Making a total of six at this station without counting any guards or ancillary staff.
The Heliograph operator (this Victorian “3D” stereo picture from the Boer War in South Africa) is not trusted to read and send, but is dictated what to send by the officer standing in the Background.
He Sends the words he is told or read out, using Morse code onto the actuator “Key” and only as fast as they are being read to him.
The reader using this telescope “reads only” He does not write the message, but speaks it and another person lying beside him writes it down.
They are clearly sending some distance, (up to 100 miles depending upon height of the two stations and a clear Line of Sight) due to the length of the Telescope.
Later it was discovered that one operator could read and send and receive and write if allowed to. However he would not be expected to work full duplex.
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Says…
At first a code book was used and the signals represented code words, but it was found better to revert to the telegraphic system of signalling by the Morse alphabet, amongst the undeniable advantages of which was the fact that it was used both by the postal service and the telegraph units of Royal Engineers. Thenceforward, in ever-increasing perfection, the work of signallers has been a feature of almost every campaign of the British army. To the original flags have been added the heliograph (for long-distance work), the semaphore system of the Royal Navy (for very rapid signalling at short distances), and the lamps of various kinds for working by night. Full and detailed instructions for the proper performance of the work, which provide for almost every possible contingency, have been published and are enforced.
The apparatus employed for signalling in the British service consists of flags, large and small, heliograph and lamp for night work. The distances at which their signals can be read vary very considerably, the flags having but a limited scope of usefulness, whilst the range of a heliograph is very great indeed. Whether it be 10 or 100 miles away, it has been found in practice that, given good sunlight, nothing but the presence of an intervening physical obstacle, such as a ridge or wood, prevents communication. For shorter distances moonlight, and even artificial light, have on occasion been employed as the source of light. In northern Europe the use of the instrument is much restricted by climate, and, further, stretches of plain country, permitting of a line of vision between distant hills, are not often found. It is in the wilder parts of the earth, that is to say in colonial theatres of war, that the astonishing value of the heliograph is displayed. In European warfare flag signalling is more usually employed. The flags in use are blue and white, the former for work with light, the latter for dark backgrounds. The same principle is followed in the heliograph.
This instrument, invented by Sir Henry C. Mance, receives on a mirror, and thence casts upon the distant station, the rays of the sun; the working of a small key controls the flashes by throwing the mirror slightly off its alignment and thus obscuring the light from the party reading signals. The fact that the heliograph requires sunlight, as mentioned above, militates against its employment in Great Britain, but where it is possible to use it, it is by far the best means of signalling. Secrecy and rapidity are its chief advantages.
An observer 6 miles. distant would see none of its light if he were more than 50 yds. on one side of the exact alignment, whereas a flag signal could be read from almost every hill within range. None of the physical exertion required for fast signalling with the flag is required to manipulate the instrument at a high rate of speed. The whole apparatus is packed in a light and portable form. An alternative method of using the heliograph is to keep the rays permanently on the distant point, a shutter of some kind being used in front of it to produce obscurations.
Fig. 12. from a German description of their version of Mk.5
When in use the heliograph is fixed upon. a tripod. A tangent screw (E) which moves the whole instrument (except the jointed arm L) turns the mirror in any direction. Metal U-shaped arms (C) carry the mirror (B), which is controlled by the vertical rod (J) and its clamping screw (K). The signalling mirror itself (usually having a surface of 5 in. diameter) is of glass, an unsilvered spot (R) being left In the centre. This spot retains its position through all movements in any plane. The instrument is aligned by means of the sighting vane (P) fixed in the jointed arm L, and the rays of the sun are then brought on to the distant station by turning the horizontal and vertical adjustments until the "shadow spot" cast by the unsilvered centre of the mirror appears on the vane. The heliograph is thus ready, and signals are made by the depression and release of the "collar" (I) which, with the pivoted arm (U, V), acts as a telegraph key. When the sun makes an angle of more than 120 degrees with the mirror and the distant station, a "duplex mirror" is used in place of the sighting vane. The process of alignment is in. this case a little more complicated. Various other means of making dots and dashes are referred to in the official work, ranging from the "collapsible drum" hung on a mast to the rough but effective improvisation of a heliograph out of a shaving-glass. The employment of the beams of the search-light to make flashes on clouds is also a method of signalling which has been. in practice very effective.
Signalling is used on most campaigns to a large extent. In the Tirah expedition, 1897 and 1898, one signal station received and sent, between the 1st and 18th November, as many as 980 messages by heliograph, some of which were 200 to 300 words in length. It is often used as an auxiliary to the field telegraph, especially in mountainous countries, and when the wire is liable to be cut and stolen by hostile natives. In the Waziri expedition, 1881, communication was maintained direct for a distance of 70 miles with a 5-in, heliograph. In the Boer War, 1899-1902, the system of heliographic signalling was employed very extensively by both sides.
Fig. 1X. from Cigarette Cards of 1911, shows Navy training in Flags and on the Mk.5 Heliograph.
In the USA there is a strong following of Heliograph enthusiast. A demonstration was held by James Riddle, KD7AOI at Fort Huachuca in the USA on Nov 15, 2001, for members of the Current US forces to demonstrate the setting up and use of the Heliograph. In the photo above James correctly hangs the case around the tripod legs and not on the hook under the middle, then the hook is only for suspension of a stabilising weight / sandbag.
In this photo the signalling soldier is "catching" the shadow spot. It is cast on his hand by an unsilvered spot in the centre of the heliograph mirror as he aligns the instrument to place the spot in the exact centre of the sighting vane. The same procedure would apply if he were using a duplex mirror in place of the sight.
Figure 13. Modern Heliographers (Demo) at Fort Huachuca in the USA
Photo by kind permission of James Riddel: See his Heliography Web-site
The Heliograph, the Heliotrope
Source: The Telegraph: A History of Morse's Invention and its Predecessors in the United States by Lewis Coe TK 5115 C54 1993 McFarland and Company, Publishers ISBN 0-89950-736-0 (page 8)
"One of the most successful and widely used visual signalling systems, the heliograph, did not appear until 1865, long after most visual systems were considered obsolete. The factor that established the heliograph was the existence of the Morse alphabet of dots and dashes, widely used for land telegraph and submarine cable operations.
The ancients understood the principles of reflected sunlight, but no one ever got around to devising a code for the letters of the alphabet. Signal codes of some type had existed long before Morse, but none of them ever reached a level of universal acceptance, and they were mostly forgotten by the time Morse published his code.
"Early in the nineteenth century, Gauss, a German mathematician, had discovered the tremendous potential of the sun's rays reflected from a plane mirror. Through experiments he was able to demonstrate that even a small mirror one inch square could send flashes that could be seen over a distance of seven miles."
The silvered glass mirror, invented in 1840 by Justin Liebeg, paved the way for the heliograph. (...)
"Like the American army, the British did not have a separate Signal Corps organization until the 1860s. The first British signal school was established at Chatham in 1865.
Shortly after, a young officer named Henry Christopher Mance (1840-1926) became interested in signalling with the sun. Mance, later to be knighted for his achievements in engineering, knew of the use of mirror instruments called heliotropes in the triangulation of India.
The Indian survey, one of the great engineering projects of the nineteenth century, required accurate location of high mountain peaks to serve as control points for the ground survey.
Bright fire pots were used at night and the heliotropes by day. It is not know whether any Morse code signalling was done by heliotrope, but it is certain that prearranged signals were exchanged.
(...) "The simple and effective instrument that Mance invented was to be an important part of military communications for the next 40 years. Limited to use in sunlight, the heliograph became the most efficient visual signalling device ever known.
In pre-radio days it was often the only means of communication that could span ranges of up to 100 miles with a lightweight portable instrument.
"The Mance instrument employed tripod-mounted mirrors, with one mirror linked to a key mechanism. The key tilted the mirror enough to turn the flash on and off at the distant station in accordance with the dots and dashes of the Morse code.
Range was line-of-sight, with atmospheric conditions establishing the upper limit. The British army found the Mance heliograph ideally suited to field operations in India and Afghanistan.
It was used to transmit daily reports and orders to and from the remote mountain posts and for tactical communications when troops were in the field. (One hundred ten years later, TV pictures were to show Afghan guerrilla units using British pattern heliographs in their conflict with the Russians.)
The present Afghans have found the heliograph useful for the same reason as their British enemies of old; namely, a simple uncomplicated mechanism that requires no batteries or complex maintenance."
A Code of Morals by Mr. Rudyard Kipling
Lest you should think this story true I merely mention I Evolved it lately.
'Tis a most Unmitigated misstatement.
Now Jones had left his new-wed bride - to keep his house in order,
and take away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
to sit on a rock with a heliograph; but 'ere he left, he taught his wife
the workings of the flashing Code that sets the miles at naught.
And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;
So Cupid and Apollo linked, per 'Heliograph', the pair.
At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise-
At evening, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.
He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,
As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;
But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)
That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.
'Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way,
When they beheld a Heliograph's flash tempestuously at play.
They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt-
So stopped to take the message down-and this is what they learnt-
"Dash dot dot dot, dot dash, dot dash dot" twice. The General swore.
"Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before?
"'My Love,' I'. faith! 'My Duck,' Gadzooks! 'My darling popsy-wop!'
"Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountaintop?"
The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,
As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;
For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband's warning ran:-
"Don't dance or ride with General Bangs-a most immoral man."
[At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise-
But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]
With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
Some interesting details of the General's private life.
The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still,
And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill.
And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):-
"I think we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!"
All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know
By word or act official who read off that helio' signal.
But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan
They know the worthy General as "that most immoral man."
E-Bay and Signals History
The heliograph set shown in figure 10 shows that there are a lot of interesting things to be found on e-bay, and despite being over a hundred years old, due to a lack of knowledge or interest by people not knowing how to use it, and what maybe they have, you can grab a slice of history for a relatively small sum. The post card shown in Fig. 6 is also from e-bay.
You can also learn a lot then many sellers give descriptions to their wares from the handbook or other sources and so give a free history lesson! But beware of red herrings like the sellers of "WW1 Royal Signals Cap Badges" (using the 1926 to 1947 version) I keep seeing!
The Black and White print (from the centre spread of the Harpers weekly Newspaper) and show in this data sheet as Fig. 7, has also just sold in e-bay for $US 11.01, so the bargains are out there somewhere "Scully", you need only keep your eyes open.
Seen on e-Bay...
Question. Have you ever used a Heliograph? Or even ever seen one in the RQMS? If so let us know… we would like to add your experiences / info to this datasheet…
If you have any comments about this Datasheet, inputs or events for the Newsletter, please Contact Brian Streetly or myself via the respective “royal-signals.org.uk” email addresses by adding a Petra@ or Brian@ as appropriate.
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As a potential source of Legionella, cooling towers require special attention, but state-of-the-art protection is possible and affordable
It has been more than 30 years since Legionnaires' disease (also known as Legionellosis) reared its head. Since then, our knowledge of the disease and its causes has grown dramatically, and state-of-the-art prevention not only is possible, but practical and affordable.
This article will address prevention of Legionnaires' disease from a specific point source — cooling towers — but does not imply that cooling towers are to be singled out as the only point source. Any water source can serve as a source of Legionella bacteria. Also, keep in mind that although this article presents a “state-of-the-art” prevention regimen, if contamination and illness lead to a court case, one could pose the following question to a jury: “What more could we have done?”
Let us look at what is known about this illness. The causative agent of the most serious form of Legionnaires' disease in the United States is Legionella pneumophila SG1 (L. pneumophila). Some would point to Legionella anisa, the agent for Pontiac fever, a mild form of the illness with no reported deaths, as another serious source. Be that as it may, if we address L. pneumophila in an efficient manner, we would, in all probability, also be addressing all aquatic forms of Legionella.1
There are many different configurations of open HVAC systems. Figure 1 illustrates a system with a cooling tower, a chiller, a plate-and-frame heat exchanger, and a load-following, water-meter-actuated chemical feed/bleed system. The plate-and-frame heat exchanger is included because such devices increasingly are being used to achieve energy savings in green-focused buildings.
Because Legionella bacteria are aquatic organisms, one can assume contamination of a system is most probable via the makeup-water system, regardless of the source. Although there are papers that point to dissemination via air for long distances, one must assume that aquatic organisms normally are associated with aquatic systems. That being the case, let us address the issue by seeing what can be done to minimize makeup water as a source of entry.
The use of an iodine-feeding device or a bromine feeder may appear to be an acceptable approach, but this only addresses planktonic or “free-swimming” organisms. It misses bacteria within sloughed-off slime films or protozoan cysts, failing to address the combined issues of contact, contact time, and concentration.2
Figure 2 shows a dual-bag filtration system that prevents dirt and other material from entering a tower pan. Protozoan cysts, which can contain thousands of Legionella bacteria, are quite large and can be filtered out.
Installing a sand filter, rather than a dual-bag system, is not advised. Consider the surface area of a grain of the course sand used in a sand filter. Now, multiply that by the number of grains of sand in the filter. Do you see the point? Achieving low-micron filtration requires fine sand (or garnet) and a large surface area. In time, such a system may experience high biofilm growth, which can serve as an additional inoculant.
Two bag filters are shown because one does not want to bypass unfiltered water into a cooling tower during bag changes, and the filtration system must provide sufficient capacity to address greater flow during cleaning and flushing in the spring and fall.
Now that we are feeding clean water to the tower pan, on what should we focus next? It stands to reason that a cooling tower is nothing more than an efficient air washer in its role as a heat exchanger. So, we look toward sidestream filtration of system water at 10-percent total system flow.
Now, you can see why the plate-and-frame heat exchanger was included in Figure 1. This system is stagnant, valved off most of the time, and an excellent incubator for undesirable microbes. Consider that when its internal surface area is valved off, it will not get any chemical feed. The first time the valve is opened to the unit, whatever is inside will be dumped into the operating system.
Figure 3 shows a dual-filter-bag system piped so that one filter can handle full flow. The other filter is valved on during bag changes. This allows complete draining and flushing of a dirty unit without contaminating the system. A sand filter can be used, but it must have the means to have the sand “fluffed” no less than monthly.
Figure 3 also shows a circulating pump off the down-comer pipe of the cooling tower. Water is pumped through the filter in service and piped back to the system through the line feeding the plate-and-frame heat exchanger. Do not “dead-head” this line. This will ensure that only clean, filtered, and treated water is flowing into the plate-and-frame heat exchanger at all times, minimizing biofilm growth and the likelihood of bacterial amplification.
If a system does not have a plate-and-frame heat exchanger, feed the clean water into the intake pipe of the condenser. It is assumed that the main condenser-water pump has a check valve to prevent backflow when the pumps are off. Again, do not dead-head this line.
Use of a centrifugal separator or mechanical filtration system also is not advised, as it cannot be defended in court. Remember, we are talking a range of 5 microns and less. A bag-filter system can be tailored to fit any system at any micron rating. Most system designers will settle for 50-micron bags; however, one can go as far as submicron, if desired. In an open cooling tower, we are not as concerned with filtering bacteria as we are with filtering dirt.
To achieve a state-of-the-art system, one additional piece of equipment is recommended: an air screen. Air screens minimize the impact of bugs, birds, leaves, grass clippings, and airborne debris on biocide feed systems. Also, they prevent plastic fill from becoming packed with debris and collapsing. An air screen loaded with debris can be “broomed off” during the season or washed out at season's end.
Now that we are at the current state-of-the-art, we must return to the question that could be asked in court: “What more could have been done?” The answer is that towers can be tested in-house for Legionella with a 30-min test kit. Such a test allows an in-house staffer to ascertain if conditions meet facility standards for risk. One always can send samples to a certified laboratory for a complete evaluation and paper trail, if required by health authorities.
There are two tests from which one can choose: a 30-min field test with a sensitivity of 100,000 colony-forming units (cfu) per liter or an industrial test with a sensitivity of 100 cfu per liter. The benefits of testing are obvious: It can be done quickly in-house, and the results are immediate. There also are some minor caveats: The kit only tests for L. pneumophila (although that is the organism responsible for more than 85 percent of outbreaks), and its sensitivity leaves a lot to be desired. But even buffered charcoal yeast agar, with its dilution factor, is prone to variables that can be challenged in court. Microbiological sampling, plating, and testing is an art, not a science. The science comes in the identification of the colonies.
Because the focus is achieving a reading of 0 cfu, any other reading is a cause for action, especially in a health-care setting, motel/hotel environment, and areas where close proximity to cooling towers is an issue.
There you have a look at a state-of-the-art Legionella-prevention regimen for an open-condenser circulating system. If you already are there, congratulations. If not, your facility is at risk.
Fenstersheib, M.D., et al. (1990). Outbreak of Pontiac fever due to Legionella anisa. Lancet, 336, 35-37.
Kwaik, Y.A., et al. (1998). Invasion of protozoa by Legionella pneumophila and its role in bacterial ecology and pathogenesis. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 64, 3127-3133.
Did you find this article useful? Send comments and suggestions to Senior Editor Ron Rajecki at email@example.com.
The president of Aqua Technical Services Inc. (http://aquatechnicalservices.com/), Frank Rosa has been involved in water treatment for 51 years, as a laboratory technician, chemist, field troubleshooter, and sales representative. The designer and installer of the first 5.0-micron filtration/rechlorination system used for Legionella control in a hospital, he has traveled extensively — to Singapore, Brunei, and Trinidad — to address water-treatment problems, specifically Legionnaires' disease. He is the author of the books “Water Treatment Specification Manual” and “Legionnaires' Disease: Prevention and Control” and numerous technical articles.
Proposed American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Standard 188P, Prevention of Legionellosis Associated With Building Water Systems, is open for a second public review. For more information, see Codes & Standards on Page 12. | <urn:uuid:891c8acf-2a79-433c-9e26-4a3c0331e20f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hpac.com/archive/preventing-legionnaires-disease-cooling-towers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939093 | 2,029 | 3 | 3 |
Hopefully this new regulation will help the concrete jungle change the way we use space and think about it. Private home owners do have rights, but visual and physical pollution are real challenges that impact the livability of blocks, neighborhoods, and communities.
The Department of City Planning has proposed regulations that would restrict certain homeowners from paving over their front yards to create parking spaces, a move that could alter the residential streetscape, especially in boroughs like Queens and Brooklyn.
Responding to residents’ complaints of unsightly concrete driveways and lost street parking, the new rules would restrict so-called curb cuts — the sidewalk indentations created to allow cars to move from the street onto the front yards of houses — and tighten front-yard “planting” requirements. They would also require certain residential building owners to add parking if they modify their buildings.
Like the PlaNYC and other recent Bloomberg administration initiatives, the rules hold the potential for making the city more pedestrian friendly and create more green spaces. But if approved, they would inhibit homeowners who want to carve out parking spaces on their own properties.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Front Yard Driveways No More
In NYC every square inch of land is overvalued. For years home owners have taken it upon themselves to create front driveways by paving over the front yard. This is the worse case of density and auto abuse. In a city with such small amounts of green space, the paving phenomenon has been going on (front and back) for years. It finally looks like that is about to change: | <urn:uuid:c9f8c89c-c2cc-473a-95cd-1c9a5547d338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hubandspokes.blogspot.com/2009/11/front-yard-driveways-no-more.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961736 | 319 | 2.609375 | 3 |
\ō-pən ˈso rs ˈär-kə-ˌtek-chər\
Etymology : From Open Source (computing) + Architecture
Function : noun
1- (computing) open source software framework without license restriction for modification and redistribution by a third party.
2- (Digital Architecture) The production of digital architecture utilizing scripted code obtained from another source. See also archimatrix
3- (Architecture-1) Copyright unprotected work that is reproduced knowingly or unknowingly to its original author.
4- (Architecture-2) Architecture produced due to the reduction in the role of the architect as 'author' and process of increased participation in teams or collaboration.
( ben howard,02/12/07)
Tag this site in del.icio.us. | <urn:uuid:db012052-000e-4017-8512-937a25b1bf6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iaac-readings.wikidot.com/words:open-source-architecture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.849803 | 179 | 2.578125 | 3 |
I was just covering this today!! This will definitely be used as a review for my kids next week!
Scientific method foldable
Guess what my general level kids are doing next week?
I’m going to preface this by assuring the OP that this is not intended to be a personal criticism, and I’m always excited to see teachers exploring ways to make science more accessible for their students. I think that this “scientific variables” foldable is great!
But I’m less excited about the scientific method foldable. I don’t know what grade these foldables are intended for, but in secondary science we are really trying hard to move away from teaching the “scientific method.” What we ought to be focusing on is the nature of science.
It might seem like an insignificant change in phrasing, but it’s really not. Science is a way of knowing, not a list of steps. Yeah, you generally start with a problem/question and a hypothesis. Sometimes after you gather info you revise your hypothesis before actually testing it. Sometimes you can’t really “test” a hypothesis; you can only model/research/make predictions. Sometimes the only conclusion you can draw is unrelated to the original hypothesis so you have to start over. Scientists share constantly, not just at the end. Etc, etc, etc.
I’m sure that all of that is well known by most teachers. But most teachers don’t teach that; they teach this finite sequence of steps that scientists take. And it’s simply not accurate. Scientists are creative, flexible, innovative thinkers, and there’s no single correct “method” for approaching a scientific problem. This is why I teach “think like a scientist” instead of the scientific method. | <urn:uuid:dc0cdc34-b667-4ad8-a828-be69818eda16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iamlittlei.tumblr.com/post/30131404161/iheartstem-i-was-just-covering-this-today | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938884 | 384 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Exactly on April 3, 28 years back, IAF Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma strapped himself inside a Soyuz T-11 mission capsule. As the rocket, essentially a gigantic intercontinental ballistic missile, carrying the 6850-kg spacecraft, blasted off from its launch pad in Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Sharma became the first Indian cosmonaut, the first Indian in space.
Born on January 13, 1949, in Patiala, Punjab, to Hindu Gaur parents, Sharma joined the Indian Air Force in 1970 as a pilot officer after joining the NDA as an IAF cadet in 1966. In the 1971 War, Sharma flew missions is MiG aircraft with considerable success.
He was picked to be India's representative in the Soviet Union's Intercosmos programme - an outreach initiative by the Soviets, using space travel, to enhance friendship and cooperation with Warsaw Pact nations and a few others like India and France on September 20, 1982. Wing Commander Ravish Malhotra, another IAF officer was selected as his backup.
Accompanied and guided by Yuri Malyshev and Gennady Strekalov, both experienced Soviet cosmonauts with multiple space flights to their credit, the Indian research cosmonaut galvanised the countrys citizenry like seldom before. There was an outpouring of nationalism. His spaceflight would be remembered by all Indians who were around to listen to AIR or to watch the news on Doordarshan. There were frenzied celebrations in many Indian cities, the kind of which were reserved for the cricket teams victory over Pakistan, a relative rarity back then.... | <urn:uuid:ce8b227d-634e-45d5-ab12-f86bbdf911a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ibnlive.in.com/newstopics/rakesh-Sharma.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969883 | 331 | 2.859375 | 3 |
| Medieval diocese: Linköping
Dörarp Church in the southwest part of Småland was constructed in 13th century. It was never vaulted and very fragmentary paintings from various periods are visible in the foremost part of the church. The baptismal font is from the 12th century and the crucifix from 13th century.
Raine Borg, Smålands medeltida dopfuntar. Göteborg 2002
Carina Jacobsson, Höggotisk träskulptur i gamla Linköpings stift. Uddevalla 1995 | <urn:uuid:e57e2a86-3a99-4146-bb6b-19dfae3dae97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ica.princeton.edu/albertson/showchurch.php?id=77 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.806796 | 120 | 2.609375 | 3 |
This machine was displayed on the 5th floor of Gates Computer Science, between late 1997 and summer 2000 and was normally operational every day from about 5:30pm to 8:00 pm as part of the Computer History Exhibits. It has now been moved to the Computer Museum History Center in Mountain View, CA.
The Galaxy Game was the first commercial video game. Installed in Tresidder Union in September 1971, the game was quickly and enthusiastically embraced by the Stanford community, with players often waiting for over an hour for their next turn.
Galaxy Game is a reprogrammed version of Spacewar!, which was
conceived in 1961 by Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne
Wiitanen and first realized on the PDP-1 at M.I.T. in 1962 by Stephen
Russell, Peter Samson, Dan Edwards, and Martin Graetz, together with
Alan Kotok, Steve Piner, and Robert A. Saunders using PDP-1 assembly
language. It very became popular at most Artificial Intelligence (AI)
research centers, for instance at Stanford's former AI laboratory,
running on the SAIL DEC PDP-6
and the I3 vector display.
It is now also available in a simulated version on the web: http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/spacewar/.
Spacewar was a magical game that captivated everyone that played it. However, since time on the mainframe computers required to support Spacewar was billed to users at rates of several hundred dollars per hour, Spacewar was usually played only by system programmers when the mainframe was idle; times like 2am!
In late 1970, Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the PDP-11 minicomputer. Finally, there was an affordable computer with the power to run Spacewar!. So, Bill Pitts (a recent Stanford grad and AI alumn) and his high school buddy Hugh Tuck formed Computer Recreations, Inc. in June of 1971 to build coin operated Spacewar machines.
Bill, a computer hacker, did the programming and electrical stuff, and Hugh, a mechanical engineer, designed the enclosures. After three and a half months of labor, Spacewar was about to be delivered to the masses. However, at this time (1971), the concept of "war" was a very bad thing on campus. Astute marketeers that they were, Bill and Hugh decided to change the name to Galaxy Game.
The first version of Galaxy Game, packaged in a walnut veneered enclosure, incorporated a PDP-11/20 computer, a simple point plotting display interface, and a Hewlett Packard 1300A Electrostatic Display. The PDP-11/20 (with 8K bytes of core memory and an optional hardware multiply/divide unit) cost $14,000 and the display cost $3,000. Coin acceptors and packaging brought the total cost to approximately $20,000. Playing of the Galaxy Game was priced at 10 cents per game or 25 cents for 3 games. If at the end of the game your ship still survived and had some fuel left, you got a free game. Given the investment, perhaps Bill and Hugh were not the most astute of businessmen.
A second version of Galaxy Game, with a more powerful display interface enabling the PDP-11 to drive four to eight consoles, was developed to amortize the cost of the computer over several consoles. This version was installed in the Coffee House at Tresidder Union in June 1972, where it remained in operation until May 1979. Throughout its tenure at Tresidder, Galaxy Game was heavily used. Ten to twenty people gathered around the machines most Friday and Saturday nights when school was in session.
After removing Galaxy Game from Tresidder because the display processor had become very unreliable, the machine was disassembled. The computer and displays were stored in an office and the fiberglass cases were stored outdoors for the next eighteen years. Sometime in April 1997, Les Earnest (the former Director of the Stanford AI Lab) received a phone call from Bill Pitts. Bill was about to throw away some old PDP-11 stuff, and he was wondering if Les might know of a good home for old computers. Les mentioned that the new Computer History Exhibits at Stanford might be interested.
So, Bill fired off a couple of emails in the direction of Stanford and then finally, a reply! Yes, the Computer History Exhibits would like Galaxy Game as an operating exhibit.
To get Galaxy Game operating again was no small feat. The call for help went out. The biggest job was to build a new display processor using the original design schematics. Ted Panofsky, who had designed and built the display processor way back when, soon received a call from Bill. Could Ted please take complete responsibility for building and delivering a fully functional display processor in eight weeks? For free, of course. Ted said he'd been waiting 25 years for just such an opportunity! Yes, he would love to!
So, with Ted's generous contribution of time, energy, and smarts, and help from Doug Brentlinger, Paul Mancuso, and Victor Scheinman, the Galaxy Game is back. By the way, the original display processor's poor reliability resulted from using early vintage Texas Instruments wire wrap IC sockets. Ted was not the one that selected them.
In December 1997 the refurbished Galaxy games (two two-player consoles driven bu a single PDP-11) were installed on the fifth floor of the Stanford Computer Science department's Gates building and made available for free use by students. Problems of space and maintenance at Stanford for operational equipment could not be satisfactorily resolved however, and after nearly two years of operation the Galaxy Game was moved to the Computer History Center at Ames.
Both versions of Galaxy Game were based on the the Stanford AI Lab's PDP-10 version of Spacewar. Galaxy Game is a faithful PDP-11 re-implementation of the AI Lab's PDP-10 Spacewar. Except, I don't seem to recall any coin acceptors on the PDP-10.
Bill Pitts, October 29, 1997
Spacewar was the topic of a
The installation was sponsored by the Computer History Exhibits (email to: Gio Wiederhold <email@example.com>).More early computer games.
Back to Computer
Displays main Page | <urn:uuid:bc797e42-028c-4567-84f3-8712426df9fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/galaxy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964765 | 1,351 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Praise be to Allaah.
Islam is the relationship between a person and his or
her Lord, submission to His commands, humbling oneself before Him, loving and fearing Him,
placing one’s hopes in Him, and worshipping Him in the manner He has prescribed.
Islam also has certain pillars and duties. The key to all of this is to bear witness that
there is no god except Allaah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allaah. With regard to
Hajj, it is not a condition for entering Islam, rather it is one of the pillars and duties
that come into effect after a person has entered Islam, and it is a duty only for those
who are able to do it, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
“And Hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah) to the House (Ka‘bah) is
a duty that mankind owes to Allâh, those who can afford the expenses (for one’s
conveyance, provision and residence)” [Aal ‘Imraan 3:97]
(See Question # 5261
for details on what constitutes being able to go for Hajj).
Obtaining an official certificate from an Islamic centre as proof of
your Islam so that you can use it to get permission to go for Hajj and enter the Holy
Places is a means which you must use in order to go for Hajj in the future, but it is not
a condition that is necessary for you to become Muslim or start to do the acts of worship
such as Salaah (prayer) etc. When a person becomes Muslim he becomes a member of the
Muslim Ummah and is connected to all the Muslims who believe in One God by the bonds of
Islamic brotherhood which includes friendship and mutual help and support, as Allaah says
(interpretation of the meaning):
“The believers are nothing else than brothers (in Islamic
religion)” [al-Hujuraat 49:10]
“The believers, men and women, are Auliya’ (helpers,
supporters, friends, protectors) of one another; they enjoin (on the people)
Al-Ma‘roof (i.e. Islamic Monotheism and all that Islam orders one to do), and forbid
(people) from Al-Munkar (i.e. polytheism and disbelief of all kinds, and all that Islam
has forbidden); they perform As-Salaah (Iqaamat-as-Salaah), and give the Zakaah, and obey
Allaah and His Messenger. Allaah will have His Mercy on them. Surely, Allaah is
All-Mighty, All-Wise” [al-Tawbah 9:71]
So you must hasten to enter Islam. We congratulate you on the keenness that you have shown and we ask Allaah to help us and you to be sincere towards Him, to be strong and to attain success. And Allaah is the Guide to the Straight Path. | <urn:uuid:eeb70c81-375b-4974-8d4d-67d551222cf0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://islamqa.info/en/ref/6542 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946578 | 651 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Personhood: In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
is a process where oocyte cells are fertilized by sperm cells outside the body: . The process involves hormonally controlling the ovulatory process, removing oocytes from the woman’s ovaries and letting male sperm fertilize them in a fluid medium. The blastocyst, (three (3) to five (5) day old embryo), is then transferred to the uterus with the intent to establish a successful pregnancy. 1 The first successful birth of a “ “, Louise Joy Brown, occurred Tuesday, July 25th, 1978, five (5) years, six (6) months, three (3) days after Roe v. Wade on Monday, January 22nd, 1973. Robert G. Edwards, the physiologist who developed the treatment, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010.
Personhood: Embryonic Human Beings
Many have expressed fear about how Personhood will impactbecause the process often creates more embryonic human beings than are implanted in the mother’s womb and the excess are usually discarded.
In fact many “” embryos are “ ” for use in ; even “ ” are “ ” for “ “.
In a Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 press release, the(ACE) ardently opposed (regulation pending in California) that proposes to define human embryos as . 2 ACE testified that “within diagnostic laboratories working with human specimens, there are clear pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical phases. At the end of the process the specimen is discarded as biological waste or stored, but in either case, the specimen is rendered non-viable. Diagnostic laboratory quality is measured in accuracy, sensitivity and specificity etc, according to the federal standards set by CLIA 88. On the other hand, human embryos do not become specimens at any stage of the process in the embryology laboratory. On the contrary, embryos are created with the intent to be transferred into the uterus to achieve pregnancy and all efforts are made to keep them viable. Embryology laboratory quality is measured in the percentage of embryos becoming live-born children.” 3
Personhood will require ethical standards to forbid the intentional mass production, genetic selection and harvesting of embryos for research., , Special Consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC) has this to say: “Let’s hope the California bureaucrats pay heed to the embryologists. Whatever rules we create for nascent humans, should recognize that they are distinct human organisms. They are not blood cells or pieces of tumor tissue.” 4
Personhood: IVF Mothers Know The Truth
“The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human?” — Wesley J. Smith, J.D. 5
know the yearning in their hearts to fill the void that can only be filled by a child. They go through tests, spend thousands of dollars to have the oocyte and sperm unite so one unique individual will begin to grow to the stage it can be instilled in her womb where it will implant, continue growth and be born. The entire expectation of each infertile woman is that the single-cell human embryo, who was sexually or asexually reproduced , allowed to grow bigger, and then implanted in her womb, will one day be held in her arms and in her heart. believe that the tiny embryos who are implanted in their wombs are human beings, human Persons, right from the beginning of their development. , perhaps better than any of us, understand that the only product of a human male and a human female is a human being. A human being that deserves to be protected by love and by law.
On Starbuck’s take-away coffee cups as part of its “” campaign in 2006 was a profound question posed by 6
Here it is:
“Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human?
Answer, and we have a chance of achieving universal human rights.
Answer, and it means that we are merely another animal in the forest.”
Personhood answers: ““.
Brothers, we really need to talk.
1. According to Dr. Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.; former career-appointed bench research biologist/biochemist, NCI, NIH; philosopher and medical ethicist (http://bit.ly/tLE8zB), the embryo must be in the correct stage of development in order to implant in the woman’s uterus. If he or she is too young or too old implantation will not happen and the embryo simply dies. This is the basis for some of the mechanisms of action used in most contraceptives.
2. Houston, Texas — September 7, 2010 — American College of Embryology (ACE) opposes ruling DH-08-001 pending in California, which aims to regulate human embryos as diagnostic specimens (http://bit.ly/f2RYVT).
4. Wesley J. Smith, “American College of Embryology Opposes Defining Embryos as Mere ‘Diagnostic Specimens’ in California” (http://bit.ly/svLs43).
5. Wesley J. Smith, Featured on Starbuck’s take-away coffee cups as part of its “The Way I See It” 2006 Campaign (http://bit.ly/b83dKq) | <urn:uuid:d6568357-17b5-4612-beff-c1ccd4050d27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://issues4lifefoundation.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/personhood-in-vitro-fertilization-ivf/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9421 | 1,171 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Puritan doctrine taught that all men are totally depraved and require constant self-examination to see that they are sinners and unworthy of God's Grace. Because man had broken the Covenant of Works when Adam had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, God offered a new covenant to Abraham's people which held that election to Heaven was merely a possibility. In the Puritan religion, believers dutifully recognized the negative aspects of their humanity rather than the gifts they possessed. This shadow of distrust would have a direct influence on early American New England and on many of its historians and writers, one of which was Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The influence of Puritan religion, culture and education along with the setting of his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, is a common topic in Nathaniel Hawthorne's works. In particular, Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" allows the writer to examine and perhaps provide commentary on not only the Salem of his own time but also the Salem of his ancestors. Growing up Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society, not only from residing with his father's devout Puritan family as a child but also due to Hawthorne's study of his own family history. The first of his ancestors, William Hathorne, is described in Hawthorne's "The Custom House" as arriving with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 "with his Bible and his sword" (26). A further connection can also be seen in his more notable ancestor John Hathorne, who exemplified the level of zealousness in Puritanism with his role as persecutor in the Salem Witch Trials. The study of his own family from the establishment of the Bay Colony to the Second Great Awakening of his own time parallels the issues brought forth in "Young Goodman Brown." In looking into the history of Salem and especially early Puritan society Hawthorne is able to discuss the merits and consequences of such zeal, especially the zeal of the Half-Way Covenant of 1662, the Puritan Catechism of John Cotton, and the repercussions of The Salem Witch trials. Hawthorne sets “Young Goodman Brown” into a context of Puritan rigidity and self-doubt to allow his contemporary readers to see the consequences of such a system of belief.
Hawthorne’s tale places the newly wed Puritan Brown upon the road to what may or may not be a true conversion experience. The conversion experience – a sudden realization brought about by divine intervention, a vision, or perhaps a dream – easily translates into the dream allegory of Hawthorne’s work and allows the author to use Puritan doctrine and the history of Salem to argue the merits and consequences of such a belief. Major issues and themes of Puritanism must have been researched and delicately placed into Hawthorne’s discussion of not only past consequences of Puritan zeal but also on the contemporary religious issue of his own time, the Second Great Awakening. Much like the nighttime witches Sabbath that awaits Goodman Brown, the tent revivals of the 1820’s and 1830’s could be seen by the questioning Hawthorne as another attempt by the church to sway its membership towards total obedience and faith. The importance placed on this event by Goodman Brown shows the importance placed on the conversion experience itself. It can be argued that the Half-Way Covenant – itself a means by which Puritanism attempted to hold onto its congregation – as an antagonist cast further doubt onto the later generations of Puritan society.
As the second generation of Puritans were born in America they lacked the zealousness of the first. Waning membership within the congregation made what would come to be known as the Half-Way Covenant an attempt by the church to solve this problem. The Covenant allowed the children of church members to be baptized and become part of the congregation, thus bolstering membership. But in order to be a full member and receive communion the conversion experience was still necessary. Much like the “journey” in which Brown placed so much significance, the fact that further doubt was now placed upon new members of the church would cause later problems in Puritan society and Salem itself.
In a further attempt to deal with lack of zeal within the church, church hierarchy controlled not only the congregation’s culture and laws, but also its education. In order to stress the consequences of such an education – one that would teach a child that man was not only suspect but also guilty of depravity -- Hawthorne would have most likely relied on Puritan educational history as a setting for the newly married Brown's self-examination. In the setting of the tale, Brown would fall under the Half-Way Covenant, and his education under Goody Cloyse in part fosters the need within Brown to enter the forest at night and seek the true conversion experience that would allow him full membership. As Benjamin Franklin V states in "Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism," Hawthorne used John Cotton's Milk for Babes as the education source of Goodman Brown. It was the Puritan belief that man must be instructed to realize his own depravity, and therefore at childhood the education began. In order to understand Brown's own background as it pertains to his duty as a Puritan, Franklin returns to Cotton's original Catechism:
Q: What hath GOD done for you?
A: God hath made me, He keepeth me, and he can save me.
Q: Who is God?
A: God is a Spirit of himself, and for himself.
Q: How many Gods be there?
A: There is but one God in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Q: How did God make you?
A: In my first Parents holy and righteous.
Q: Are you then born holy and righteous?
A: No, my first Father sinned, and I in him.
Q: Are you then born a Sinner?
A: I was conceived in sin, and born in iniquity.
Q: What is your Birth-sin?
A: Adams sin imputed to me, and a corrupt nature dwelling in me.
Q: What is your corrupt nature?
A: My corrupt nature is empty of Grace, bent unto sin, and onely unto sin,
and that continually.
Q: What is sin?
A: Sin is the transgression of the Law [the Ten Commandments]. (70)
John Cotton’s Catechism Milk for Babes, by its emphasis on total depravity, soured the milk of human kindness. Consequently persons instructed in the catechism from their youth could consider a person of good works and character to be a witch merely on the basis of spectral evidence in spite of the witch’s quite orthodox relation to the community’s approved doctrinal authority. (1)While changes to the Catechism would have occurred from the 17th to Hawthorne's own 19th century, the idea that his father's family had wished a proper Puritan education for Hawthorne is an important issue. To accept as a child that you have in no way sinned but are completely sinful by nature is but one way in which "Young Goodman Brown" speaks out against Puritanism. As Young Goodman Brown witnesses the exchange between the “devil” – in the guise of Brown’s own father – and Goody Cloyse he can not accept that such a good Puritan is in fact in league with the devil. His remark that “That old woman taught me my catechism” creates a further shadow of doubt upon the young Puritan and is noted by Hawthorne that “there was a world of meaning in this simple comment” (2132).
Tension within the congregations concerning the conversion experience would grow in the late 17th century, and the culmination of this tension would be the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Once again a deep knowledge of the historical background of Salem would allow Hawthorne to reconsider the question posed to the Salem congregation in the late 1600’s – what counts as a true conversion experience and what could be seen as evidence. If the experience could be a dream or a vision, what would facilitate it? Just as the Protestants of his own time sought to regain enthusiasm through the unorthodox tent revivals of the Second Great Awakening, Hawthorne creates the possible dream journey of Brown deep into the forest to the Witches Sabbath. Spectral evidence – such as the devil changing into the shape of Brown’s deceased father – to the nighttime bonfires and finally to the dramatic invitation of the devil for Brown to enter into communion all are offered as part of a possible conversion experience. Hawthorne shows that the consequence for the mistrust and self-doubt that is inherent in Puritan education and doctrine does not create faith and peace. It creates only further confusion. Just like the men who condemned and executed the alleged witches of Salem, the confused and searching Goodman Brown is unable to see whether his experience is real or a dream.
Hawthorne’s claim is that this confusion is the only possible result of Puritan doctrine. To mistrust yourself, your neighbor, your teacher, and your very mind can not create faith. After his experience in the woods the aged and bitter Goodman Brown may be an example of the hardened persecutors of Salem. Left with no evidence and a severe mistrust of oneself and others, any evidence may be used. Hearsay, as when Brown “could have sworn . . . that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin,” or spectral evidence such as when the devils serpentine staff “perhaps . . . assumed life.” But such testimony is not even valid due to the fact that Brown “could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff” (2132). And while Brown would live the rest of his days miserable, at least his condemnation of these people was kept to himself, unlike the congregation of Salem during the Trials. Cotton Mather himself preached a sermon in 1689 that furthered this mistrust and acceptance of non-evidence. His sermon told of how the supposed witches “do make craftily of the Air, the Figures and Colors of things that can never be truly crafted by them” (97). Mather also deals with the lack of evidence of witchcraft by simply stating that people who do not believe in witches are of “small wit” and the excuse “that they never saw any Witches, therefore there are none” is dismissible (97). The statement that Hawthorne creates for “Young Goodman Brown” is that in a distrustful and depraved society personal evidence such as a dream or vision grows into allegations and belief. The distrustful society that Puritans created themselves for a prosperous congregation would only return to harm them.
By showing the failures of Puritan society in dealing with the problem of church membership and specifically the conversion experience, Hawthorne spoke to his own time about the possible consequences of the Second Great Awakening. Such specific historical evidence is used to question the validity of Puritan doctrine. For example, the “devil” in Young Goodman Brown is seen by many critics not only as an apparition of Goodman Brown’s due to his lack of a conversion experience and the psychological effects of catechism but also may be seen as the Evangelist at a revival meeting. Both taught of the evil that lurked in man’s soul and the self-examination that was required to see it. Frank Shuffelton’s work “Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Revival Movement” states that:
To accept one’s almost solipsistic isolation from humanity . . . . Goodman Brown turns his back on Salem village in order to venture into dark nature and his darker self . . . reject(ing) the society which has nurtured him from the self-willed terrors of the imagination. This perception is for Hawthorne the central truth of the story, and it is simultaneously the old error toward which Puritanism tended and the mistake of the contemporary revivalists. (319)As a Puritan Young Goodman Brown sought a true conversion experience. Whether or not the meeting in the woods existed as reality or a dream does not matter. The point is that Puritanism required their followers to doubt themselves and their community so much that a reality in which one could achieve Grace did not exist. It taught that one could not trust anyone. In the Witch Trials men turned on their accused wives just as Goodman Brown himself has lost both his spiritual faith and his wife Faith because of something that may not have happened at all.
Hawthorne’s knowledge of the historical background of Puritanism combined
with the personal experience of his early life and the history of his own
family merge into the statement that “Young Goodman Brown” makes.
A system in which individuals can not trust themselves, their neighbors,
their instructors or even their ministers can not create an atmosphere
where faith exists. Hawthorne may be going even further than this,
to show that Goodman Brown’s experience, the alleged Witches of Salem,
and the tent revivals of his own time are the direct result of Puritan
doctrine. By placing so much importance on the conversion experience
and evidence for election to heaven while granting neither the self-trust
nor the self-worth to its congregation, Puritanism can only be seen as
an unending cycle of misery in which man is the most depraved and most
unworthy – exactly what the good Puritan should see themself as.
Franklin, Benjamin V. "Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism." ESQ 40 (First Quarter 1994): 67-88.
Grayson, Robert C. "Curdled Milk for Babes: The Role of the Catechism in 'Young Goodman Brown.'" The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 16 (Spring 1990): 1-5.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: Heath, 1944. 2129-38.
Levin, David. What happened in Salem? 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc, 1967.
Mather, Cotton. "A Discourse on Witchcraft." Levin 96-105.
Murfin, Ross C. “Introduction: The Biographical and Historical Background.” Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter." Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. 3-18.
Shuffelton, Frank. “Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Revival Movement.” The American Transcendental Quarterly 44 (Fall 1979): 311-321.
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Hawthorne viewed his Puritan ancestors with a mixture of pride and guilt. He felt pride in seeing the history of his own family interwoven with that of Salem (Turner 5). He was proud of their prominence and accomplishments that greatly overshadowed the declining fortunes of subsequent generations. On the other hand, he felt guilt for his ancestor's part in witch trials and intolerant prosecution of Quakers. In "Young Goodman Brown" the devil tells Brown that "I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly" (Hawthorne 2131). Historians of Hawthorne's day were harshly critical of the witch trials and inflexible Puritan ideology of the 17th century. Many current publications and lectures condemned the cruel intolerance of Puritans, and Hawthorne anticipated reader interest as an added incentive for using his Puritan heritage as a background for his work. "Hawthorne's fullest display of witch lore is in one of the first tales he wrote, 'Young Goodman Brown"' (Turner 67). When Brown marveled that Goody Cloyse, who had taught him his catechism was in the forest after dark (Hawthorne 2131), he referred to an historical witch.
Hawthorne had a skeptical, dual-outlook on life. By the time “Young Goodman Brown” was published he had chosen to spend approximately one-third of his life in self-imposed isolation. Though he chose isolation, it was entirely contrary to his beliefs. Hawthorne believed society to be all-important. During his college years, associations with people and exposure to current ideas convinced him of the need for social responsibility and humanistic concern (Johnson 35). Hawthorne felt that the human self has meaning and value only through reciprocal relationships (Anderson 60). The choice between isolation and society recurs in “Young Goodman Brown.”
During his years of isolated study, Hawthorne’s dual-outlook caused him to constantly try to see both sides of situations, and subsequent doubts increased his skepticism. He adopted what was to be a lifelong "philosophy of uncertainty both in his private life and in his fiction" (Donaldson 216). Hawthorne's skepticism helped to develop a writing technique in which a mixture of fact and imagination lets the reader make his own interpretations. In "Young Goodman Brown" both Brown and the reader are given choices as to what is happening. Brown thinks that he recognizes voices of his minister, deacon, and of his wife, but can't be certain since their figures are not visible (2133-34). The flaming altar rock is suddenly chill and damp, while flaming trees and twigs become covered with cold dew (2137). "Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?" (2137). The choice is dream or reality. Whatever the reader chooses to believe, Goodman Brown's own horrible doubts create a central theme of the tale (Fogel 21).
Hawthorne’s mental and moral beliefs are revealed throughout “Young Goodman Brown.” Puritans believed that the fall of Adam was the inheritance of all men, and that redemption came only through Christ. Hawthorne came to believe that the fall was by human contrivance, that "damnation is not inherited but chosen and is redeemable through human agency" (Ziff 140). He thought that humans share a brotherhood of guilt. "If guilt itself was escapable, brotherhood with the guilty was not" (Ziff 142). This belief of Hawthorne's is the pivotal point of this tale. Unable to accept that society is a brotherhood of both good and evil, Goodman Brown chose his own damnation. In the forest Brown saw a mixture of pious and dissolute people, and it was strange to see that "the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints" (Hawthorne 2135). Brown chose to see that all were evil and lost his chance at redemption when he chose to isolate himself and to "shrink from his Faith" and fellow man.
We probably know everything about Hawthorne's life that we are ever
going to know. By all accounts, he was very inexperienced when he wrote
"Young Goodman Brown," and I believe that Hawthorne would have us make
of that work what we will. A recent biographer Arlin Turner tells us that
"to recognize his life and his writings as components of a consistent whole"
clarifies both (vi). The biographical contexts for "Young Goodman Brown"
of which we are certain are that Hawthorne's Puritan heritage was a "treasure
house of frailties of human certitude which skeptics love to brood on"
(Canby 236) and that he was a skeptic who brooded about his own beliefs,
his own morality.
Anderson, Quentin. The Imperial Self: An Essay in American Literary and Cultural History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.
Canby, Henry Seidel. Classic Americans: A Study of Eminent American Writers from Irving to Whitman. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939.
Donaldson, Scott and Ann Massa. American Literature: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.
Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne's Fiction: The Light and the Dark. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1952.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: Heath, 1944. 2129-38.
Johnson, Claudia D. The Productive Tension of Hawthorne's Art. University: U of Alabama P, 1981.
Turner, Arlin. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography. New York: Oxford UP, 1980.
Ziff, Larzer. Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence
in America. New York: Viking Press, 1981.
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“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, “pr'y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself, sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year!”
“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, cost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!”
“Then, God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons, “and may you find all well, when you come back.”
“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back, and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done to-night. But, no, no! 'twould kill her to think it. Well; she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.”
With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said Goodman Brown, to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him, as he added, “What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!”
His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at Goodman Brown’s approach, and walked onward, side by side with him.
“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston; and that is full fifteen minutes agone.”
“Faith kept me back awhile,” replied the young man, with a tremor in
his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not
It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still, they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner-table, or in King William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself, like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
“Come, Goodman Brown!” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.”
“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot'st of.”
“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. “Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest, yet.”
“Too far, too far!” exclaimed the goodman unconsciously resuming his walk. “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path, and kept—”
“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. “Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you, for their sake.”
“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel they never spoke of these matters. Or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New-England. We are a people of prayer, and good works, to boot, and abide no such wickedness.”
“Wickedness or not,” said the. traveller with the twisted staff, “I have a very general acquaintance here in New-England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen, of divers towns, make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too—but these are state-secrets.”
“Can this be so!” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman, like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and lecture-day!”
Thus far, the elder traveller had listened with due gravity, but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently, that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he, again and again; then composing himself, “Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but pr'y thee, don't kill me with laughing!”
“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own!”
“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not, for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us, that Faith should come to any harm.”
As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism, in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin.
“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness, at night-fall!” said he. “But, with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods, until we have left this Christian woman behind. Bring a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with, and whither I was going.”
“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path.”
Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road, until he had come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words, a prayer, doubtless, as she went. The traveller put forth his staff, and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail.
“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady.
“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the traveller, confronting her, and leaning on his writhing stick.
“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship, indeed?” cried the good dame. “Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my odd gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But—would your worship believe it?—my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane—”
“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said the shape
of old Goodman Brown.
“Ah, your worship knows the receipt,” cried the old lady, cackling aloud. “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.”
“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here is my staff, if you will.”
So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian Magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.
“That old woman taught me my catechism!” said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.
They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly, that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor, than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple, to serve for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree, and refused to go any farther.
“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not another step
will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to
go to the devil, when I thought she was going to Heaven! Is that any reason
why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after her?”
“You will think better of this, by-and-by,” said his acquaintance, composedly. “Sit here and rest yourself awhile; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along.”
Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight, as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments, by the road-side, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister, in his morning-walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his, that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.
On came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but owing, doubtless, to the depth of the gloom, at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the way-side, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky, athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe, pulling aside the branches, and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst, without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.
“Of the two, reverend Sir,” said the voice like the deacon's, “I had rather miss an ordination-dinner than to-night's meeting. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode-Island; besides several of the Indian powows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion.”
“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones of the minister. “Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground.”
The hoofs clattered again, and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying, so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree, for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburthened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him. Yet, there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.
“With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” cried Goodman Brown.
While he still gazed upward, into the deep arch of the firmament, and
had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried
across the zenith, and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still
visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping
swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud,
came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once, the listener fancied
that he could distinguish the accents of town's-people of his own, men
and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion-table,
and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct
were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of
the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of
those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine, at Salem village, but
never, until now, from a cloud of night. There was one voice, of a young
woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating
for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain. And all
the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her
“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying—“Faith! Faith!” as if bewildered wretches were seeking her, all through the wilderness.
The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.
“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.”
And maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate, that he seemed to fly along the forest-path, rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while, sometimes, the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown, when the wind laughed at him. “Let
us hear which will laugh loudest! Think not to frighten me with your deviltry!
Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powow, come devil himself! and here
comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you!”
In truth, all through the haunted forest, there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew, among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter, as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance, with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with the cry of the desert.
In the interval of silence, he stole forward, until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage, that had overgrown the summit of the rock, was all on fire, blazing high into the night, and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.
“A grave and dark-clad company!” quoth Goodman Brown.
In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to-and-fro, between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen, next day, at the council-board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm, that the lady of the governor was there. At least, there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled, lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the churchmembers of Salem village, famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered, also, among their pale-faced enemies, were the Indian priests, or powows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.
“But, where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled.
Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends verse after verse was sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled between, like the deepest tone of a mighty organ. And, with the final peal of that dreadful anthem, there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconverted wilderness, were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man, in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke-wreaths, above the impious assembly. At the same moment, the fire on the rock shot redly forth, and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New-England churches.
“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice, that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest.
At the word, Goodman Brown steps forth from the shadow of the trees, and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood, by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well nigh sworn, that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke-wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms, and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she! And there stood the proselytes, beneath the canopy of fire.
“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!”
They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend-worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.
“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness, and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here are they all, in my worshipping assembly! This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widow's weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damsels—blush not, sweet ones!—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places—whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest—where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot. Far more than this! It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power—than my power, at its utmost!—can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each other.”
They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar.
“Lo! there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep and solemn torte, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. “Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped, that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your race!”
“Welcome!” repeated the fiend-worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph.
And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating
on the verge of wickedness, in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally,
in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was
it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the Shape of Evil dip
his hand, and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads,
that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the
secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be
of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at
him. What polluted wretches would the next glance shew them to each other,
shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw!
“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband. “Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!”
Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken, when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind, which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock and felt it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.
The next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the grave-yard, to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. “What God cloth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meetinghouse, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she skips along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But, Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.
Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild
dream of a witch-meeting?
Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath-day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear, and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading, lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awakening suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grand-children, a goodly procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tomb-stone; for his dying hour was gloom.
Salem village: It was “the center of the witchcraft delusion, in the witching times of 1692, and it shows the populace of Salem Village, those chief in authority as well as obscure young citizens like Brown, enticed by fiendish shapes into the frightful solitude of superstitious fear” (Abel 133). Return to Text.
the pink ribbons of her cap: 1. “The ribbons are in fact an explicit link between two conceptions of Faith, connecting sweet little Faith of the village with the woman who stands at the Devil’s baptismal font. We can legitimately disagree about the meaning of this duality; the fact remains that in proposing that Faith’s significance is the opposite of what he had led the reader to expect, Hawthorne violates the fixed conceptual meaning associated with his character” (Levy 123). “They are part of her adornment of dress, and they suggest, rather than symbolize something light and playful, consistent with her anxious simplicity at the beginning and the joyful, almost childish eagerness with which she greets Brown at the end” (Levy 124). 2. “These ribbons . . . are an important factor in the plot, and as an emblem of heavenly faith their color gradually deepens into the liquid flame or blood of the baptism into sin” (Fogle 24). 3. “The pink ribbons that adorn the cap which Faith wears . . . are a badge of feminine innocence” (Abel 130). 4. “Neither scarlet nor white, but of a hue somewhere between, the ribbons suggest neither total depravity nor innocence, but a psychological state somewhere between. Tied like a label to the head of Faith, they represent the tainted innocence, the spiritual imperfection of all mankind” (Ferguson). Return to Text.
Goodman Brown: 1. According to Levy, he “is Everyman. The bargain he has struck with Satan is the universal one . . . . Initially, he is a naive and immature young man who fails to understand the gravity of the step he has taken . . . [which is] succeeded by a presumably adult determination to resist his own evil impulses” (117). 2. Fogle writes that he is “a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals at their own valuation, [who] is in one terrible night confronted with the vision of human evil . . . ” (15). Return to Text.
fellow-traveler: 1. Hale writes that he is “a likeness or part or ancestor of Brown himself” (17). 2. “This man is, of course, the Devil, who seeks to lure the still reluctant goodman to a witch-meeting. In the process he progressively undermines the young man’s faith in the institutions and the men whom he has heretofore revered” (Fogle 17). Return to Text.
staff: “[W]hen the diabolic companion throws his twisted staff down at the feet of Goody Cloyse,” the act references the biblical story of “Aaron [who] had thrown down his rod (staff) before Pharoah, and so had the magicians of Egypt done with theirs, and all became serpents . . . ” (Hale 17). “Therefore, within an allegorical or typological framework, the staff of Brown’s companion is being linked with the opponents of Moses and of the God of Israel. . . . It typifies deformity, evil, all that which fascinates Brown” (Hale 18). Just as the rods (staffs) of the Egyptian magicians had become serpents when thrown down before Pharoah, so “Hawthorne suggests wonder-working, therefore power, in the strange antics of the twisted staff . . . . the symbolism is that of a struggle, a universal (not merely sexual) struggle for possession of the mind” (Hale 18). Return to Text.
my catechism: “Although the treatment of innate depravity in the catechism is relatively brief, this was only one source of information about human corruption and its implications available to Puritan youth. As part of the Puritan upbringing . . . Brown doubtless would have sat through many sermons that emphasized innate depravity, which his family of churchgoers presumably reinforced . . . ” (Franklin 71). “Had Brown understood from childhood that humans, all of whom are depraved, cannot obey the Commandments, that fidelity to God’s law is impossible, [as the Puritan catechism teaches] he would not be so surprised to see, or to think he sees, the several worthies preparing to act in a decidedly non-Christian manner in the woods” (Franklin 80). Return to Text.
maple stick: Hale writes: “the point about a maple [stick] is that it rots from inside, out of sight. . . . Hawthorne discriminates. The maple stick . . . is given to Brown, the twisted staff to Goody Cloyse: she has apparently undergone confirmation in evil, where Brown is weak and rotten” (Hale 17). Return to Text.
Faith: 1. “She is at once an allegorical idea and the means by which the idea is inverted” (Levy 116). “Not the least terrifying aspect of the story is the insinuation that Faith has made her own independent covenant with the Devil. There is a faint suggestion that her complicity may be prior to and deeper than Brown’s” (Levy 120). 2. “If he [Brown] believed in the certainty of depravity and only the possibiity of salvation, as the [Puritan] catechism teaches, he would know that even so righteous a person as Faith is corrupt and not necessarily of the elect, appearances notwithstanding” (Franklin 73). Return to Text.
a pink ribbon: 1. “Brown
calls out three times for Faith to come to his aid, and not until he [Brown]
sees a pink ribbon from Faith’s cap that has fluttered down from the sky
and caught on the branch of a tree does he abandon hope . . . . [It
is] the tangible evidence of Faith’s desertion” (Levy 117). 2. “The pink
ribbon seen in the forest may be merely a lustful projection of the goodman’s
depraved fancy, which wills wickedness . . . even as it reluctantly departs
from its forfeited innocence” (Abel 136). Return
the forest: “Hawthorne emphasizes the split between convention and the unconscious by having Brown move from the town to the country as he follows his impulses. The deeper he moves into the forest, the more completely he becomes one with his ‘evil’” (Bunge 13). Return to Text.
laughter: According to Coldiron, “Hawthorne uses laughter to mark his protagonists’ epiphanies and to emphasize points of thematic conflict. . . . a Satan-figure, the elder traveler, initiates the dreadful laughter . . . . [which] mocks Brown’s naive belief in the innocence of the townspeople, as he wonders aloud how he could face his minister after such a night’s journey into evil. . . [T]he transformation of Faith’s scream into a laugh of acceptance as she joins a similarly evil gathering in progress . . . . intensifies and personalizes Brown’s perception of conflict. Thus, propelled by crescendos of laughing, Brown sees the pink ribbon fall, and his awareness of the conflict between good and evil is complete. He gives himself over to a new perspective.” After Faith’s apparent union with Satan, Brown “initiates the horrible laughter, as the Satan-figure first did, [which] confirms not only his awareness of the opposition of good and evil forces, but also his union with, acceptance of, and even leadership in the evil viewpoint” (19). Return to Text.
the demoniac: “Utterly possessed by the Devil, he [Brown] yields to the conviction that the world is given over to sin” (Levy 118). Return to Text.
a hanging twig and the coldest dew: It awakens Goodman Brown “to reality from his dream or vision” when it “scatters cold dew on his cheek. . . . [It] is the vehicle for bringing to Brown’s face the reminder of what would be correct behavior and attitude for a man in this situation. He should be weeping, but he is not.” Because Goodman Brown “does not weep,” Hawthorne sprinkles dew “on his cheek to represent the absence of tears. This lack of tears, the outward sign of an inward reality, posits the absence of the innate love and humility that would have made possible Brown’s moral and spiritual progression” (Easterly 340). Return to Text.
Goodman Brown: 1. “The young man has the vulnerability of youth and, having newly yielded to the persuasions of the Devil, he has been led step by step to mistrust all he had believed in” (Abel 131). 2. “Since Brown never masters the lessons Goody Cloyse tried to teach him, he cannot fit spiritually, emotionally, or psychologically into his own society” (Franklin 82). Return to Text.
that fearful dream: Levy
writes that through this metaphor “the many hints of Brown’s unconscious
fascination with evil are communicated, but Hawthorne recognizes that our
waking life and the life of dreams are bound up together--that life is
like a dream in its revelation of terrifying truths. His point is
that the truth conveyed in the dream--that faith may betray us--is also
a truth of waking experience” (116). Return to Text.
Bunge, Nancy. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Coldiron, A.E.B. “Laughter as Thematic Marker in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 17 (Spring 1991): 19.
Easterly, Joan Elizabeth. “Lachrymal Imagery in Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” Studies in Short Fiction 28 (Summer 1991): 339-343.
Ferguson, J. M., Jr. “Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.” Explicator 28 (Dec. 1969): Item 32.
Franklin, Benjamin V. “Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism.” ESQ 40 (1994): 67-88.
Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and the Dark. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1952.
Hale, John K. “The Serpentine Staff in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 19 (Fall 1993): 17-18.
Levy, Leo B. “The Problem of Faith in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’”
Modern Critcial Views: Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ed.
Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 115-126.
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In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne depicts a 17th century Puritan attempting to reach justification as Brown’s faith required. Upon completing his journey, however, Brown could not confront the terrors of evil in his heart and chose to reject all of society. Puritan justification was a topic Hawthorne was aware of as an internalized journey to hell necessary for a moral man. Works such as John Winthrop’s The History of New England and Neal’s The History of the Puritans described justification as a psychological journey into evil, the hell of the self. Having referred to the heart of man as hell, Puritans found themselves in the midst of Satan and his multitude of devils as he established his kingdom in man’s heart. “It was an interior landscape more bleak and far more treacherous than the external one in which the New World Puritan found himself” (Johnson 11). This was a dreadful revelation that caused Brown to grow bitter and distrustful, just as it did with 17th Century Puritans.
Puritan communities, secured by their orthodox faith, dealt with the ungodly wilderness around them. Set in Salem during the early witchcraft day of 1692, Young Goodman Brown’s experience in the dark, evil forest correlated and would have been recognized by Puritans as a symbol of mistrust of their own corrupt hearts and faculties (137). The forest, dark and evil, represented the deceit and darkness of man’s heart. Just as Brown could not trust the shadows and figures he saw hidden in the forest, he could not trust his own desires. Those desires had to be purged through his journey into the forest, which became a Journey towards Justification. That corrupt heart was torn open after Brown heard Faith’s voice and seeing her pink ribbon screamed: “My Faith is gone . . . . There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come Devil; for to thee is this world given.” Such a revelation made Brown “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man.” This revelation is often the result of a Puritan confronting his repressed evil. According to the Journey towards Justification, this confrontation should teach him to let go of his wordly dependence and strive for a life without sin.
Hawthorne often called the Puritan life of his ancestors “stern.”
He was aware of the constant tension and battle between the flesh and the
spirit in the lives of the 17th Century Puritans. The purpose of
their faith was to provide a divine victory in the after-life from that
battle. Boredom, vice and need (desire), the three evils, were kept
at bay, under the forceful hand of religion. However, such a battle
often led to an inner despair. They were constantly tormented because
of the possible convictions and judgements of their peers. This battle
intrigued Hawthorne and he sought out its presence in Puritan literature.
Works such as Cotton Mather’s Magnalia fascinated Hawthorne.
It held “the morbid intensity with which he projected distinctive features
of the Puritan imagination of reality.” Mather believed there were
evil spirits in the world: “these unlovely demons were everywhere, in the
sunshine as well as in the darkness, and that they were hidden in men’s
hearts and stole into their most secret thoughts” (Abel 133).
Those evil spirits tortured the Puritan, constantly reminding him
of his sin and the battle in his own heart. Hawthorne used the presence
of these demon in “Young Goodman Brown” by demonstrating, through Brown,
the Puritan Journey towards Justification.
The descent of this Journey towards Justification was marked by the disappearance of the self. In place of the self, was the awareness of depravity, helplessness and the illusions of sin. This awareness would then assist the moral man to no longer depend upon material things or people, but to put his faith solely upon God. Intending to be a positive outcome of Justification, Brown found the awareness of his depravity and instead of feeling the enlightenment of his vision, he was blinded by the reality of sin and sentenced himself to a life of miserable isolation.
Hawthorne used “Young Goodman Brown” to create an awareness similar to that of the Journey of Justification. Hawthorne intended for the reader to become aware of the depravity accompanied by sin. He intended for the reader to view the reality of sin and the terror of the human hell that was revealed to Brown. However, Hawthorne also intended for his reader to take that awareness and use it to better deal with life. Isolation from society and complete rejection of all who have sinned could only lead to a miserable and desperate end. “Hawthorne poses the dangerous question of the relations of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer. Nor does he permit himself to determine whether the events . . . are real” (Fogle 16). That way the complete interpretation of “Young Goodman Brown” is left up to the reader, according to his/her own life, mind, forms of Justification, beliefs, fears and of course, hell.
Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and The Dark. Noman: U of Oklahoma P, 1970.
Johnson, Claudia D. The Productive Tension of Hawthorne’s Art.
University, AL: U of Alabama P, 1981.
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Benoit, Raymond. "'Young Goodman Brown': The Second Time Around." The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 19 (Spring 1993): 18-21.
Using Jungian ideas, Benoit provides a psychoanalytic reading of “Young Goodman Brown.” Benoit focuses on “Jung’s Psychology and Religion to clarify the psychological dimension of Hawthorne’s artistic achievement . . .” Young Goodman Brown’s dream in the tale, represents the struggle of his conscious and unconscious ideals of marriage. In Brown’s unconscious dream he uncovers sexual feelings in which he refers to as gotten him “into trouble.” Brown’s submission during the forest scene erases his marriage, which is “annulled at least psychologically in the revelation of his deep feelings . . .” because he is “repelled by sexuality.”Coldiron, A.E.B. "Laughter as Thematic Marker in 'Young Goodman Brown.'" The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 17 (Spring 1991): 19.
Laughter accentuates the progress of the protagonist in “Young Goodman Brown.” Coldrion examines the presence of laughter showing its surfacing in the intuitive realization of the main character. In “Young Goodman Brown” laughter “not only marks the narrative moment of the protagonist’s awareness and its underlying thematic conflict but also heralds the protagonist’s initiation into a new vision, and even his assumption of an antagonistic leadership position.” Brown perceived the Puritan townspeople as strong godly people; however, in his enlightenment or new vision he recognizes that these people do have evil tendencies and are hypocrites. In conclusion, laughter marks Young Goodman Brown’s acknowledgment of his new vision and his conversion into an opposing school of thought.Franklin, Benjamin V. "Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism." ESQ 40 (First Quarter 1994): 67-88.
The role of catechism is the focus in this article. Catechism is a book that explains principals of Christian religion. Franklin examines the significance of 'Young Goodman Brown' referring to Goody Cloyse teaching Brown his catechism. Franklin also identifies the use of John Cotton's Milk for Babes catechism. This article suggests that Young Goodman Brown did not learn or comprehend the catechism; he only memorized the words and, therefore, he had no true understanding or ability to apply these tenents to his life. Franklin notes, "I then examine the entire catechism and apply it to Brown, demonstrating that he never masters its meaning." With Brown not comprehending his religious principles, he does not realize the innate corruptness in mankind until his experience in the forest.Keil, James C. "Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown': Early Nineteenth-Century and Puritan Constructions of Gender.'" The New England Quarterly 69 (March 1996): 33-55.
This article examines how Puritan ideology helped to develop in the 19th century distinct gender roles that separate males into the public sphere and females into the private sphere. "Young Goodman Brown" reveals Hawthorne's frustrations imposed by the tension between Puritan ideology and the natural behavior of man. Keil notes, "'Young Goodman Brown', probably written no earlier than the initial years of the decade and published anonymously in 1835, chronicles Hawthorne's observations about the anxieties caused by such discrepancies between ideology and behavior. Young Goodman Brown, who has come to believe with religious fervor what he has been taught prior to marriage about the separation of spheres, is disoriented by the behavior expectations he confronts once he has entered that institution." In closing, it is implied that Hawthorne wants the reader to integrate historical and psychosexual concepts when comprehending Puritan values.Morris, Christopher D. "Deconstructing 'Young Goodman Brown.'" American Trancendental Quarterly 2 (March 1988): 23-33.
Morris uses reader response theory in order to describe how the reader is taken into Young Goodman Brown's life. Morris then demonstrates, through deconstruction, how the reader is misled through Brown: "by following young Goodman Brown, the fellow-traveller, and the narrator, the reader repeats the necessary misinterpretations they commit." The reader interprets Brown's experiences and is led to the same false interpretation. Brown concludes that life is meaningless, "acced[ing] to a nietzschean 'transvaluation of all values.'" Lastly, by misinterpreting "Young Goodman Brown" the reader may possibly respond with doubt and dislike of mankind from the loss of faith in our ideological values.Return to Top
Return to Top | <urn:uuid:82b475ee-5dec-4f8e-b040-55ff395a0737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/Hawthorne.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967355 | 16,114 | 3.828125 | 4 |
来る is most often read as
くる. However, it can also be read as
きたる mostly an archaic reading? Does it carry a different, or any additional meanings?? When are "appropriate" (socially, grammatically, etc.) times to use it?
Basically, it is literary (and archaic), but there are some situations when it is still appropriate to use it in a modern context.
Outside of these usages, it has a literary flavor, sort of like "is come" or "cometh" (rather than "has come") in modern English.
Incidentally, I learned that although it looks like 来る + past/perfect aux. たる, it is actually a separate word derived from 来る + 至る; I just checked the 広辞苑 and 日本国語大辞典, and they agree with this (although obviously, sometimes the word きたる will in fact be 来る + たる). Special bonus trivia: the 来る + 至る /kitaru/ got its big break in the world of kanbun 漢文, as a pinch hitter for 来(る). (And it is true that the character 来 is generally rendered /kitaru/ in kanbun.) I can't find a reliable source for why kanbun kundoku doesn't just use /ku(ru)/, but some (e.g. fontomanie at Chiebukuro) suggest that it was because /ku(ru)/ didn't have enough syllables for convenient okurigana affixation (cf /nasu/ instead of /su(ru)/ for 為).
So, the specific literary flavor is that of kanbun or heavily Chinese-influenced Japanese, not "pure" classical Japanese. | <urn:uuid:ee9809fb-b1c6-47ed-9d20-8d687406f570> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2693/when-and-how-to-use-%e6%9d%a5%e3%82%8b-%e3%80%90%e3%81%8d%e3%81%9f%e3%82%8b%e3%80%91/2697 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929692 | 411 | 2.796875 | 3 |
French composer; born at Weissenburg, Alsace, 1830; died at Brussels 1895; son of Israel Süsskind Erlanger, rabbi at Weissenburg, and brother of Michel Erlanger, of the Consistory of Paris; a graduate from the conservatory of music at Paris, and one of the founders of the Society of Authors and Dramatic Composers. From 1859 to 1861 he wrote several operettas for the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens—"L'Arbre de Robinson," "Les Dames de Cœur Volant," and "La Servante à Nicolas." He then, however, abandoned the musical profession and went into business, from that time composing sacred music only. Durlacher, in Paris, published in 1891 a "Recueil de Dix Morceaux Exécutés dans les Synagogues de France et de Belgique." Four collections of Erlanger's posthumous works were published in Brussels in 1903, one containing sacred music and three secular. He was one of the founders of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and until his death president of the Alliance Committee for Belgium. | <urn:uuid:ccec241c-f229-48a4-bc20-ed88889d3cc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5833-erlanger-jules | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911039 | 247 | 2.84375 | 3 |
More U.S. residents are now dying of hepatitis C complications than HIV-related illnesses, according to data summarized in the February 21 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. Fortunately, an accompanying editorial notes, the future looks particularly bright for people living with hepatitis C, on account of the anticipated arrival of new treatments that are expected to substantially improve disease-free survival rates.
The report, authored by Kathleen Ly, MPH, and her colleagues of the CDC’s Division of Viral Hepatitis Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, is based on data involving 21.8 million deaths reported to the National Center for Health Statistics between 1999 and 2007. Data included in the CDC analysis are similar to those presented in November at the 62nd annual meeting of the American Association for the Studies of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in San Francisco.
The only cases included in the analysis involved reports that specified HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C virus (HCV) or hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection as possible contributors to the deaths. As viral hepatitis infection status may not have been known at the time of death in several cases, the reported data may not be completely accurate, Ly and her follow authors warn.
Encouragingly, death rates associated with chronic HBV infection—a major cause of liver failure and liver cancer—remained relatively flat between 1999 and 2007. In 2007, for example, 1,815 U.S. residents died of HBV-related complications, which translated into less than one chronic hepatitis B-attributable death per 100,000 people in this country.
The discovery that HCV infection is now responsible for more deaths than HIV infection is due, in large part, to the continued decline of AIDS-related deaths over the decade. Whereas HIV contributed to six per 100,000 deaths in 1999, the rate dropped to less than four per 100,000 deaths in 2007.
Conversely, hepatitis C–related deaths have increased sharply. Whereas HCV contributed to roughly three per 100,000 deaths in 1999, the HCV-related death rate exceeded four per 100,000 people in the United States by 2007.
With respect to crude numbers, roughly 12,700 HIV-related deaths were reported to the National Center for Health Statistics in 2007. More than 15,000 HCV-related deaths were reported to the center that year.
Most viral hepatitis deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives. About 59 percent of people who died of complications related to hepatitis B were baby boomers—men and women between the ages of 45 and 64. The impact of chronic hepatitis C was even more substantial: Roughly 73 percent of the deaths related to HCV were in baby boomers.
Not surprisingly, death rates were highest among certain populations. For example, people coinfected with both HBV and HCV faced a 30-fold increase in the risk of death from liver disease or related complications. Alcohol abuse was associated with a four-fold increase in the risk of death. Coinfection with HIV nearly doubled the risk of death from HBV-related complications and quadrupled the risk of death from HCV-associated liver disease.
“By 2007, HCV had superseded HIV as a cause of death in the United States, and deaths from HCV and HBV disproportionately occurred in middle-aged persons,” Ly and her colleagues conclude. “To achieve decreases in mortality similar to those seen with HIV requires new policy initiatives to detect patients with chronic hepatitis and link them to care and treatment.”
- hep- Your Guide to Hepatitis includes information (transmission, treatment, symptoms, etc) as well as news and community resources (blogs, videos, personals, and an ask-the-expert area)
- Hepatitis (MedlinePlus) has trusted links on topics as overviews, treatments, specific conditions, news, and journal articles
- Viral Hepatitis (CDC) has information for both professionals and the rest of us through links as Resource Center, Training Resources, Statistics, For the Public, Populations (as Injection Drug Users), and Specific Settings (as health care settings)
- Hepatitis C Killed More Americans Than AIDS In 2007 – And Is On The Rise (blisstree.com)
- Vaccine discovered for hep C (InnovationToronto.com)
- Novartis snags preclinical hep C drug in $440M Enanta pact (fiercebiotech.com)
- Dirty needles blamed for hep. C among Chinese children (ctv.ca)
- Vaccine discovered for hep C (medicalxpress.com)
- The Scientist Who Discovered Hepatitis C Says He’s Now Discovered the Vaccine [Science] (gizmodo.com)
- Hepatitis C-related deaths outpace HIV deaths, study says – Baltimore Sun (baltimoresun.com)
- Hepatitis C Now Killing More Americans than HIV (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- Most Hepatitis C Deaths In Baby Boomers, USA (medicalnewstoday.com) | <urn:uuid:3e2aa6b5-db63-4fb4-862a-6bf8e9cf42b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jflahiff.wordpress.com/tag/hepatitis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946309 | 1,059 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Pub. date: 2009 | Online Pub. Date: December 16, 2008 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412963992 | Print ISBN: 9781412906784 | Online ISBN: 9781412963992| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
Cultural pluralism is a widely used term that has application to and relevance for education. Culture can be defined as a common set of values, beliefs, and social practices, as well as the group of people who share that similar identity. The word usually applies to ethnicity and race—for example, African American culture or German culture—but more contentiously, it may apply to groups of individuals who share traits or similar beliefs, for example, the gay culture or the Christian culture. Pluralism describes a situation in which the diversity among the cultures of different groups is an accepted part of a civil society. This entry examines what is involved in cultural pluralism and looks at its application in education. How a cultural group is formed and identified varies significantly. Some cultures are identified by an obvious trait or characteristic: skin color, ethnicity, race, gender, and the like. Other cultures involve people ... | <urn:uuid:2285ca7d-d408-4722-a7fc-2bdb417adbe3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowledge.sagepub.com/abstract/foundations/n103.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926725 | 242 | 4.5625 | 5 |
Loss of all for those of you who do not like fruits and vegetables. Because the vegetables and fruits are good companions for the body to prevent cancer cells.
Cancer is not a mild disease. Cancer is a disease caused by the growth of tissue cells are not normal.
Under normal circumstances, the cells will divide only if there is replacement of cells that have died and broken. Instead cancer cells will divide continues even if the body does not need it, so will the accumulation of new cells are called malignant tumors. Stacking cells are urgent and damage normal tissue, thereby disrupting the organs they occupy.Cancer can occur in various tissues in various organs in each body, from feet to head.
Based on several studies, in 1990, the World Health Organization or the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends eating at least five servings or about 400 grams of fruit and vegetables every day to prevent cancer and other chronic diseases.
We’ve often heard that yoga is the practice of listening to the body. The practice of yoga begins with the feel and listen to your body sensations while performing asanas (yoga postures). We learn to read the reaction of the body of any movement or posture while holding silent.
When we do well, your body will invite the mind to enter deeper into the posture. But when we’ve reached the limit, the body will react and look for the most comfortable position. Once we get used to listening to our bodies, the practice of yoga becomes natural. We can move with supple and injury can be avoided.
However, communications with body exercises can also be done in two directions. We can talk with your body to get into the posture, hold the posture, and out of yoga postures. It is like practicing affirmations to achieve positive results. For example, when doing poses Warriors (or Warrior), we can say to myself, “I’m strong like the warrior.”
Say the sentence a few times and we will become a formidable fighter. | <urn:uuid:2fad611e-f43f-40d5-b9d1-7931962dd215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leadsloop.com/tag/replacement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943947 | 411 | 2.9375 | 3 |
On July 5, 1944, the millionth Allied soldier landed in France. The lodgement phase of Operation Overlord—codenamed Neptune—was over. The port of Cherbourg was secure and to everyone’s surprise the supply system, using the remaining Mulberry (artificial) Harbour and the open beaches, was working smoothly. No operation can succeed without solid logistical support and the Allies were bringing manpower and materiel to Normandy more quickly than the enemy.
By early July, Allied strengths included total mastery of the air and sea, plus an intelligence system that allowed the Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his senior commanders to accurately gauge German strengths and intentions.
The situation was very different for the enemy. On the eastern and western fronts, Hitler and the High Command had made basic errors. They had expected the Soviets to launch their summer offensive in the south and were quickly overwhelmed when the attack came in the centre. They had been so certain the Allies would land in the Pas de Calais that even after weeks of intense combat in Normandy, reserves were still stationed between the River Seine and the Scheldt.
But despite these advantages the Allied ground offensive seemed in danger of stalling and the prospect of a stalemate—reminiscent of the First World War—loomed. The battle for Carpiquet, like a number of other engagements fought by British Second Army in June and July 1944, illustrated a fundamental criticism of General Bernard Montgomery’s conduct of the campaign. Too often it is argued that Montgomery committed a brigade rather than a division, a division rather than a corps and a single corps when the whole resources of the army should have been brought to bear on the enemy. One explanation for this policy, which brought sharp comments from Eisenhower’s headquarters as well as from soldiers in the field, is that he did not want to attack without massive artillery support, and the build-up of supplies in the bridgehead was much slower than expected. There was no easy answer to the problem confronting Montgomery and his army commander Sir Miles Dempsey. The bitter complaints of battalion commanders who cursed limited attacks because they allowed the full weight of German artillery and mortar fire to be brought to bear on a small section of the front are hard to argue with, but no one wanted to attack without the largest possible measure of artillery support.
For Operation Charnwood, the attack on the German-held city of Caen, Montgomery had decided to use three divisions of 1st British Corps. A front of eight miles would be struck on July 8. To supplement the artillery and naval guns, joined Bomber Command in the preliminaries. This was to be the first use of heavy bombers in direct support of the army and no one knew exactly how to obtain the best results, or what to expect. Fear of bombs hitting Allied troops led to the selection of a “bomb line” three miles beyond the Allied positions. The area chosen, a rectangle along the northwest edge of Caen, was well inside the ring of fortified positions held by the Germans. The vast armada of Halifax and Lancaster bombers arrived over the battlefield on the night of July 7, six to eight hours before the infantry assault.
All reports agree that for the Allied soldier in his slit trench, the never-to-be-forgotten sight of an endless stream of bombers blasting away at the enemy was an enormous boost to morale. It is equally clear that rear-echelon German troops received a tremendous shock in the dramatic demonstration of Allied airpower. Unfortunately, the bombing had no impact on the capacity or will of the Germans to resist in the defensive perimeter. The destruction of large parts of Caen and the death of many civilians must also be added to the balance sheet.
The old problem of an open flank which had confounded the Canadians on June 7 was to be overcome by folding the front in from the left with the 3rd British Division and newly arrived 59th British Div. starting off for Galmanche and St. Contest well before the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade once more took the road to Carpiquet.
The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders were ordered to seize the village of Gruchy and the buildings around the Château de St. Louet. Lieutenant-Colonel G.H Christiansen decided to take Gruchy with just two companies, keeping two in reserve for the second objective. Gruchy was on the outer edge of the defended area and the Glens had direct assistance from the Vickers medium machine-guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa and the armoured cars of 7 Recce Regiment (17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars).
This additional support proved especially valuable in the second phase when the mobility and firepower of the armoured cars provided close support. Lt.-Col. T.C Lewis reported “the best shooting of the whole operation occurred when the cars swept in to cut off the enemy’s retreat.” For the Glens, Charnwood involved very “severe and close fighting” with significant casualties. However, their story is overshadowed by the much more costly assault on Buron, a village crucial to the German defence of Caen. The Highland Light Inf. of Canada, Waterloo County’s regiment, was selected for this task.
There had been ample time to study the German positions around Buron. In addition to ground observations, air photographs—when viewed through stereo glasses—offered a detailed three-dimensional picture. Anti-tank ditches, designed to force Allied tanks into killing zones, were protected by camouflaged machine-gun posts. Air photos showed signs of other enemy activity which confirmed an interrogation report on a prisoner captured by the North Nova Scotia Highlanders on July 5. The young Hitler Youth soldier talked freely about the dispositions of the 3rd Battalion, 12th S.S. Panzer Div., right down to platoon positions for his own company. He described a network of weapon slits linked by communication trenches and camouflaged by waist-high grain fields. “Concertina wire was erected along the front of the platoon position…” and anti-personnel mines sown behind the wire. “In front of the wire there was a tripwire attached to egg grenades and a flare device….” According to the prisoner, his platoon “was up to strength in LMGs (Light Machine Guns) 2 per section….”
Lt.-Col. F.M. “Smokey” Griffiths planned to attack two companies up, saving his reserve companies for the final objective which was represented by a ring contour on topographical maps that was to be the start line for the second phase of the advance by the North Novas.
Brigadier D.G. Cunningham, commanding 9th Canadian Inf. Bde., had been assured that an advance by the 59th British Div. would capture or neutralize the villages of Galmanche and St. Contest, a move that would protect 9th Brigade’s left flank. But as the minutes ticked away there was no sign of the British, and it became too late to change the artillery fire plan or make arrangements for a smokescreen. The Sherbrooke Fusilier tank squadrons needed no reminding of the threat they faced because the skeletons of their burnt out Shermans from June 7 were still plainly visible.
The HLI moved through the waist-high wheat fields, taking casualties from the flank and German field guns. The anti-tank ditches, it was noted at the time, “were almost like a World War I trench system of bays and shelter areas requiring hand-to-hand fighting.” B Company was held up at the “trench system” until tank support arrived. D Company pressed forward into Buron with Sergeant A.P. Herchenratter, a soldier who became a legend in the battalion, leading the remnants of two platoons to the orchard, their final objective.
Griffiths ordered his reserves forward and with elements of all four rifle companies at work, Buron was cleared. The HLI war diary describes the situation: “At 1130 hrs the C.O. was able to get to his Coy Commanders by means of a runner and learned the state of affairs.” Three of the four companies were at or below half strength while A Company still had two-thirds of its men available. “Mortaring and shelling from St. Contest and Bitot on the left flank were exacting a heavy toll by the minute.”
Griffiths and his command group established a headquarters on the west side of Buron and began to redeploy his companies. The ring contour which the operational plan had described as high ground “was merely a flat open field and Colonel Griffiths did not consider he was justified in sending troops from the village out into the open to seize something that was not dominating ground.”
He discovered that while none of the surviving Sherbrooke tanks had been able to reach the village, the 245th Battery Royal Artillery, detached from the corps anti-tank regiment, had come forward to an orchard on the southeast corner of Buron. They were busy camouflaging their self-propelled 17-pounder guns and checking fields of fire to cover approaches to the village because German doctrine called for an immediate artillery strike on any position captured by the Allies followed by a counterattack led by armoured assault guns or tanks.
As predicted, the counterattack came from the southeast. Very little was known about this engagement until Captain Tony Foulds, who served with the 62nd, wrote an account in the article, In Support of the Canadians, available online at canadianmilitaryhistory.ca > Journal-CMH > Back Issues > Vol. 7 (1998): Issue 2, pp 71-78.
Foulds writes, “a battle group of 20 to 30 Mk IV’s and Panthers moved across the front of the gun positions and in the ensuing action 13 enemy tanks were destroyed before the remainder withdrew. This was the most celebrated British anti-tank engagement of the Normandy campaign.”
Buron would not be overrun, but the battalion battle was far from over. German artillery scored a direct hit on a HLI orders group, killing Lieutenant C.W. Sparks and three signallers and wounding the CO and two of his remaining company commanders. This brought the day’s casualties to 262 of which 62 were fatal. The Sherbrooke tank squadron lost 11 of its 15 tanks and the British anti-tank battery was standing guard with just one of its eight guns undamaged.
The British overcame resistance in St. Contest early in the afternoon, and Cunningham ordered the Glens to seize their second objective while the North Novas attacked through Buron to capture Authie, the village that had witnessed the murders of their comrades on June 7. Both objectives were taken after a concentrated artillery bombardment.
The threat from Hussars armoured cars and the advance of 8th Bde. from Carpiquet to the edge of Caen forced the 3rd Bn. 12th S.S. to withdraw to Cussy and the Abbaye d’Ardenne where elements of 2nd Bn. were preparing to hold the inner defensive perimeter. After the war, Kurt Meyer, who commanded the 12th S.S., claimed he had repeatedly requested permission to withdraw across the River Orne, and finally did so against orders. This, like so many of Meyer’s stories, is pure invention. The 12th S.S. moved rear echelon and support units across the Orne as ordered July 8. The front-line soldiers had one more battle to face: defending a series of well-fortified positions against British and Canadian attacks.
On the Canadian front, the 7th Inf. Bde., which had been waiting all day to carry out Phase 3 of Operation Charnwood, stayed well back until Authie was cleared. The story of the Regina Rifles, Canadian Scottish and Royal Winnipeg Rifles on July 8 and the advance into Caen on July 9 will be the subject of the next article in this series.
The battle for Buron was analyzed by Major F.A. Sparks who commanded Headquarters Company. He noted enemy artillery was used against Buron while the battle raged because his own troops were so well dug in. “Troops should not yield to the impulse to take cover behind stone walls…as this may be fatal under mortar fire.” Instead, they “should push on to the far edge of the village…supporting companies should go to the flanks, not directly into it.” The crucial role of the anti-tank guns was a key lesson as was the value of the division’s LOB (Left Out of Battle) policy which had persevered a core of officers and NCOs to help re-organize the battalion. Sparks also drew attention to the challenge of the timely evacuation of casualties. Lives depended on prompt action so “large stretcher-bearer parties are necessary.” The high wheat fields presented a special problem that required a careful search of the ground “preferably with one man from each platoon retracing the course travelled.…” This had been done at Buron and many wounded men were found early enough to save lives.
Email the writer at: email@example.com
Email a letter to the editor at: firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:f053cfd7-8624-4394-a310-32c515c83c58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2011/06/clearing-buron-army-part-94/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976409 | 2,792 | 3.375 | 3 |
Question by : what does “expertext” , “neural network” terms mean?
i want to know a simple definition and an example of
2. neural network
one more term
3. CIM system
Answer by Ronald
Expertext is a hypertext expert system. It has predicates at the nodes and implications on the links. A neural net is an artificial intelligence system that uses a structure mimicing the living neurons system.
CIM is Computer Integrated Manufacturing where computer tools are used to manage the entire production from design to engineering to production to marketing etc…
Add your own answer in the comments! | <urn:uuid:bfc3936c-969f-4b2e-8793-058c97e2f775> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leotraderprofessional.com/tag/expertext/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901681 | 131 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The Titans, also known as the elder gods, ruled the earth before the Olympians overthrew them. The ruler of the Titans was Cronus whom Zeus dethroned. Most of the Titans fought with Cronus against Zeus and when Zeus finally won, the Titans were punished by being banished to Tartarus, the Netherlands.
(Please click on one of the links to visit one page)
The Main Titans
The Other Titans | <urn:uuid:5ead13cd-0a16-4021-beeb-a83b92736e3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/01660/GODS.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948875 | 88 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Top 10 Mysteries of the Bible
The Bible is a source of inerrant truth to over a billion humans but with a book (or more literally a set of books) of this age, speculation arises as to the facts contained therein. This list looks at some of the historical mysteries and even some of the theological mysteries contained in the Bible. These are all topics which fascinate biblical scholars and laymen alike.
The mystery: Where is the Holy Grail?
According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers. The connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the Grail legend dates from the late 12th century in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their influence around the time that Grail stories started circulating. There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice (pictured above – note, only the top “cup” portion is original), supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the first century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the 3rd century. The Valencia chalice does hold some merit as a contender for the true grail as it has been scientifically asserted to have been created between the 4th century BC and the first century AD in the Middle East. Other stories claim that the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia’s famous “Money Pit”.
The mystery: Where is the Ark of the Covenant?
The Ark of the Covenant is a container described in the Bible as containing the tablets of stone on which were inscribed the Ten Commandments as well as Aaron’s rod and manna. The ark was kept in Jerusalem until the Babylonians plundered and destroyed the temple. From then, the Ark entered the domain of legend as it vanished forever. Some of the theories for where it may be are: Intentional concealment by the priests under the Temple Mount; Intentional removal from Jerusalem in advance of the Babylonians; and Removal of the Ark by the Ethiopian prince Menelik I. Modern excavations near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have found tunnels, but digging beneath the Temple Mount is heavily restricted. One of the most important Islamic shrines, the Dome of the Rock, sits in the location where the First Temple of Solomon is alleged to have stood. According to the Bible, King Solomon, when building the temple, had the Ark of the Covenant put on a platform which could be lowered down into a tunnel system if the Temple were ever overrun. This would make it a plausible location.
The mystery: Were they real cities and if so where are they?
For the sins of their inhabitants Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim were destroyed by “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24-25). In Christianity and Islam, their names have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God’s wrath. The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists. The Bible indicates they were located near the Dead Sea. Possible candidates for Sodom or Gomorrah are the sites discovered or visited by Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub in 1973, including Bab edh-Dhra, which was originally excavated in 1965 by archaeologist Paul Lapp. Other possibilities also include Numeira, es-Safi, Feifeh and Khanazir, which were also visited by Schaub and Rast. All sites were located near the Dead Sea, with evidence of burning and traces of sulfur on many of the stones and a sudden stop of inhabitation towards the end of the Early Bronze Age.
The mystery: Where is the Garden of Eden?
While the majority of Biblical scholars and theologians consider that the story of the Garden of Eden is most likely not literal, some people do believe that the place existed in reality. Furthermore, the Bible gives directions to the location. This has led to many attempts to locate the garden. The creation story in Genesis relates the geographical location of both Eden and the garden to four rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates), and three regions (Havilah, Assyria, and Kush). There are hypotheses that place Eden at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates (northern Mesopotamia), in Iraq (Mesopotamia), Africa, and the Persian Gulf. While the true location is a mystery, there is a particularly fascinating twist to this tale: Ethiopia is mentioned as being near or surrounding the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:13 (“And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.”). Since 1974 Paleontologists have excavated six million years of life and conclude that Ethiopia is the scientific location of human origin, a scientifically true Garden of Eden.
The mystery: The Bible appears to contain coded messages; is this a coincidence?
The Bible code, also known as the Torah code, is a series of messages alleged to exist within the Bible text, that when decoded form words and phrases supposedly demonstrating foreknowledge and prophecy. The study and results from this cipher have been popularized by the book The Bible Code.
The primary method by which purportedly meaningful messages have been extracted is the Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS). To obtain an ELS from a text, choose a starting point (in principle, any letter) and a skip number, also freely and possibly negative. Then, beginning at the starting point, select letters from the text at equal spacing as given by the skip number. For example, the bold letters in this sentence form an ELS. With a skip of -4, and ignoring the spaces and punctuation, the word SAFEST is spelled out backwards. Bible codes proponents usually use a Hebrew Bible text. The use and publication of “predictions” based on Bible codes has succeeded in bringing about popular awareness of the codes, most notably based on the work of journalist Michael Drosnin. Drosnin’s most famous prediction, in 1994, was the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, using a Bible code technique.
The mystery: What happened to the lost tribes?
The phrase Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to the ancient Tribes of Israel that disappeared from the Biblical account after the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed, enslaved and exiled by ancient Assyria. Many groups of Jews have doctrines concerning the continued hidden existence or future public return of these tribes. This is a subject that is partially based upon authenticated and documented historical fact, partially upon written religious tradition and partially upon speculation. There have been some bizarre claims about who may be descended from the lost tribes. Some claims include the Irish, Native Americans, British, and the Japanese. The Kaifeng Jews (pictured above) in China claim to be descended from one of the lost tribes.
The mystery: Who was the pharaoh of the Exodus?
The Pharaoh of the Exodus is the pharaoh (king) who ruled over ancient Egypt at the time of the Exodus. More precisely, it is the question of who this pharaoh might have been. The story of the enslavement of the Children of Israel in Egypt, the plagues by which God forces their release, and their subsequent escape from a pursuing army at the Crossing of the Red Sea, is told in the opening chapters of the Book of Exodus. The pharaoh of the story is not named – he is referred to simply as “pharaoh” – and the question of his identity has been the subject of much speculation among those who believe the Exodus to be a real event. The most commonly imagined figure in popular culture is Ramesses the Great, although there is no documentary or archaeological evidence that he had to deal with the Plagues of Egypt or anything similar or that he chased Hebrew slaves fleeing Egypt. There is also an account made by Merneptah, in the form of a poem from the so-called Israel Stele, which makes reference to the supposed utter destruction of Israel in a campaign prior to his 5th year in Canaan: “Israel has been wiped out…its seed is no more.” There is basically no evidence to strongly support the view of any specific Pharaoh as the one mentioned in Exodus.
The mystery: Where is Noah’s Ark?
From at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275 – 339 AD) to the present day, the search for the physical remains of Noah’s Ark has held a fascination for Christians, Jews and Muslims. Despite many rumours, claims of sightings and expeditions no scientific evidence of the ark has ever been found. The search for the ark has been called a “wild goose chase” by some archaeologists. Ark searchers have had little to guide them to the Ark beyond Genesis’ mention of the “mountains of Ararat”. By the middle of the 19th century, archaeologists had identified a 1st-millennium BC kingdom and region of Urartu, contemporaneous with the Assyrian empire and the early kingdoms of Judah and Israel, located in the mountains of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey. Not until the 19th century was the region settled enough, and welcoming enough for Westerners, to make it possible for significant expeditions to search for the Ark. By the beginning of the 21st century, two main candidates for exploration had emerged: the so-called Ararat anomaly (pictured above) near the main summit of Ararat (an “anomaly” in that it shows on aerial and satellite images as a dark blemish on the snow and ice of the peak), and the separate site at Durup?nar near Dogubayazit, 18 miles (29 km) south of the Greater Ararat summit. Here is an interesting article on the most recent discovery of petrified timber purported to be part of one of the walls of the boat.
The mystery: Who was the Beloved Disciple?
One of the biggest mysteries in biblical scholarship concerns the identity of “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” According to the Gospel of John, this was the disciple who leaned on Jesus during the Last Supper, and the only male disciple present at the crucifixion. In addition, John 21:24 implies that the entire Gospel of John is based on this disciple’s memories. Yet, oddly, it never gives his name. The other three gospels don’t give his name either. In fact they never even mention this “Beloved Disciple” (as he is often called). They also say nothing about any disciple leaning on Jesus during the Last Supper or witnessing the crucifixion. Their total silence on the matter only adds to the mystery. A number of scholars have argued that the Beloved Disciple was Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, and the man that Jesus raised from the dead. The reason for this is the fact that when the sisters summoned Jesus to help Lazarus, they said: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Some modern theories even claim that Mary Magdalene was the Beloved Disciple – an idea which would certainly impress Dan Brown. [Source]
The mystery: Who wrote the Gospels?
The gospels are probably the most important part of the New Testament and until the 18th century their authorship was generally not regarded as a mystery. But as modern biblical scholars investigated the history of the four books, they began to question the fact that they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is much speculation (mostly based on the order of the writing of the books) that the gospels were written by people who know the apostles, but not by the apostles directly. This is a mystery that is unlikely to be solved unless a “master” source document for the common quotes in the gospels is discovered which would explain the anomalies which are spoken of in support of the non-apostolic author theories.
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The potential of computers and technology to assist individuals in their efforts to maintain and develop proficiency in their heritage language is powerful. According to Wallraff (2000), "the Internet is capable of helping immigrants everywhere to remain proficient in their first language and also to stay current with what is going on back home" (p. 61). Although a growing number of studies have examined how technology can be used to record and preserve indigenous languages for revitalization efforts (Buszard-Welcher, 2001; Warschauer, 2000; Villa, 2002), little attention has been given to the effects of electronic literacy and online communication on heritage language learners. This study focuses on Korean electronic literacy practices in a popular Korean weblog and the effects of such practices on the language maintenance efforts of two Korean-American heritage language speakers.
THE KOREAN CONTEXT
The Republic of Korea has one of the fastest-growing cybercommunities in the world. According to the Korea Network Information Center, over 63% of the entire South Korean population are Internet users, and 95% of individuals in the 6-29 age bracket report using it on a daily basis. Internet sites that enable users to create "personal spaces" to share and document their changing lives and keep connected with people they know are immensely popular among Koreans. A case in point is "Cyworld," an upgraded blog that features chatting, commentaries, pictures, music, a guest book, avatars and links to other homepages prompting users to network with their friends, family, and colleagues. As of August 2005, there are over 11 million Cyworld registered users.
Participation in online forums such as Cyworld engages its members in a social process of learning through shared practices, internally constructed membership, and the formation of personal and group identities (Holmes & Myerhoff, 1999). Members are involved in a community of practice, where a group of people who come together around a joint enterprise develop common beliefs, values, and ways of doing things, which all influence the ways in which members communicate with one another (Eckert, 2000; Wenger, 1998).
New forms of expression are constantly being negotiated and shared among online users, making it difficult to keep current with the changing face of electronic text. Computer-mediated communication is unique in that, despite its similarities to oral speech, it invites substantial deregulation effects on communication, which can foster the use of creative, non-standard language play (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986).1 Studies have documented non-standard uses of language in online interactions (a) to mark certain individual characteristics such as provincial dialects, social class, gender, age, and/or personality traits, (b) to economize typing efforts, and/or (c) to mimic spoken language (Barnes, 2003; Herring, 2001; Song, 2002; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986). For example, Su (2004) found an emergent mock Taiwanese accent among Internet users as a form of language play to jointly construct "a young, lively, congenial, and witty presence" (p. 61). Androutsopoulos (2000) also revealed that non-standard orthography in online fan media texts was representative of spoken language and purely graphemic modifications, which are used to serve as contextualization cues and cues of subcultural positioning.
Although all natural languages inevitably change over time, drastic deviances from standard language ranging from non-standard orthography and incorrect grammar to unfamiliar lexical items and symbols have brought forth great concern about the preservation of standard orthography, grammar, and pragmatic uses of the Korean language (Choi, 2003; Kim, 2005; Park, 1989). Educators across grade levels in Korea are reporting that students display electronic textual features in their school work: they have difficulty with spelling and with the proper word spacing used to delineate word boundaries due to non-standard ways of Internet language use, which flout conventional norms of literacy practices (Ahn, 2000; Choi, 2003; Kim, 2005; Noh, 2000). For young children and Korean as foreign/second language learners who have not fully acquired literacy in the language, exposure to electronic texts may have adverse effects on their language development. However, Meskill, Mossop, and Bates (1999) state that "children in the age of electronic text are developing unique skills and strategies for inventing novel forms of understanding these texts that are quite often independent of formal instructional ('school') literacy training" (p. 4), thus, highlighting the positive ways in which the development of electronic texts can benefit students’ cognitive flexibility and skills.
CHARACTERISTICS OF KOREAN INTERNET LANGUAGE
Hangul, the South Korean national alphabet, was developed over five centuries ago and is the only alphabet completely native to East Asia (Lee & Ramsey, 2000). There are 24 basic Hangul letters: 14 consonants (ㄱ = k, ㄴ=n, ㄷ = t,ㄹ = l,ㅁ = m,ㅂ = p,ㅅ=s,ㅇ = ø or –ng, ㅈ =c, ㅊ = ch,ㅋ = kh,ㅌ = th,ㅍ=ph,ㅎ = h); 10 vowels (ㅏ = a, ㅑ = ya,ㅓ = e,ㅕ = ye,ㅗ = o,ㅛ = yo,ㅜ = wu,ㅠ = yu,ㅡ = u,ㅣ=i); and 16 additional complex symbols which include 5 consonants (ㄲ = kk,ㄸ = tt,ㅃ = pp,ㅆ = ss, ㅉ = cc) and 11 vowels (ㅐ = ay,ㅒ = yay,ㅔ = ey,ㅖ = yey,ㅘ = wa,ㅙ = way,ㅚ=oy,ㅝ = we, ㅞ =wey, ㅟ = wi,ㅢ = uy). Hangul orthography groups these basic letters into syllables to create words, as shown in (1).2 The consonants written on the bottom of the syllable, such as ‘ㅁ’ in (1b), are called patchim.
Korean is structurally different from English in a number of ways. First of all, the basic syntactic structure is Subject-Object-Verb rather than Subject-Verb-Object as in English. Secondly, Korean is an agglutinative language, which means that grammatical particles are attached to the end of nouns to indicate its function in the sentence, as well as to the end of verbs to indicate speech levels (i.e., honorifics), mood, and tense, as shown in (2). Moreover, modern Korean writing requires spacing between words, unlike traditional Korean writing systems, and particles are considered to be part of the word. For example, agi-ka in (2a) would be one word and the space would follow -ka. However, spacing causes much confusion among language learners, because it is not always clear whether a particular syllable is a particle or a separate word (see Sohn (1999) for further discussion on spacing).
In the case of phonology, Korean also differs from English in that there are no labio-dental sounds (e.g., f or v), no interdental sounds (e.g., th), and no voicing distinctions as in p and b. Instead, Korean differentiates between the obstruents with a three-way contrast between lax sounds, reinforced sounds, and aspirated sounds (e.g., tal 'moon,' ttal 'daughter,' and thal 'mask,' respectively). Also, Korean consonants in syllable-final (coda) position are not released in articulation. For example, aph ‘front’ is pronounced [ap] with a complete closure. Because Korean consonants are not pronounced with a release in the final position, the distinctions between stops, fricatives, and affricates are neutralized. For example, in oral speech, patchims such as ㅅ ,ㅈ,ㅊ, and ㄷ are all phonetically pronounced as a [t]. Furthermore, adjacent sounds can undergo assimilation. For instance, when a stop sound likeㄱ occurs before a nasal sound like ㅁ as in 국물 (kwuk-mwul 'broth'), the stop becomes nasalized and is pronounced kwung-mul. These examples show the difficulties that morphophonemic orthography causes due to the discrepancies between the way the syllables are spelled following the invariable phonemic shape of each morpheme and the way in which they are pronounced, which often does not reflect the actual spelling of the word (for further explanation on the linguistic structure of Korean, please refer to Lee & Ramsey (2000) and Sohn (1999)).
The Korean Language Research Institute, in addition to a handful of independent scholars, has analyzed characteristics of Korean Internet language (Ahn, 2000; Kim & Ra, 2003; Lee, 2004; Noh, 2000; Song, 2002). They discovered many forms that were unique to online language use. In particular, they found that non-standard orthography was used as a means to condense the time and effort of typing and to mark individual and collective identity within online groups. Some of the more common characteristics have been described by Kim and Ra (2003), Noh (2000), and Song (2002) as follows:
HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AND THE INTERNET
In the case of Korean-American heritage language speakers, who are experiencing one of the fastest heritage language attrition rates (Au & Oh, In press; Lopez, 1996), the Internet provides many possibilities for learners to gain exposure to the language and maintain ties with Korean speakers. Meskill et al. (1999) describe electronic literacy as "an environment that invites free form creativity, experimentation, bricolage, and discovery; a place where intuitiveness, risk taking, working through ambiguities and the like, engage" (p. 4). Such a context is likely to provide a fertile ground for language learning to happen. The social constructivist paradigm (Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf & Appel, 1994; Vygotsky, 1978), which places social interaction at the core of second language learning, provides a foundation for understanding how electronic literacy practices within online communities can contribute to language maintenance and development. Learning is most effectively achieved within a community of practice, where there are "networks of people who engage in similar activities and learn from each other in the process" (Warschauer, 2003, p. 120). That is, learners become active agents engaged in co-constructing their own learning by observing, imitating, experimenting, modeling, and providing and receiving feedback from one another.
With computers, the learning environment extends beyond concrete boundaries to connect with others in the world, allowing learners to communicate directly with native speakers for a genuine purpose (Kern, 1995). In other words, links provided by technology provide learners with the opportunities to interact and negotiate meaning through authentic tasks with the culture of the target language and the practices of the community (Egbert, Chao, & Hanson-Smith, 1999; Kung, 2002). Recently, many scholars have turned to social network theory to understand the mechanisms of language maintenance (De Bot & Stoessel, 2002; King, 2000; Wei, 2000). This model posits that the more visible and vital the community of speakers, the more likely for individuals to want to become members of such a social network. Vibrant social networks of speakers offer access to more opportunities to use the language for meaningful communication. Technology and online communities provide an alternative way to find and create social networks that can elevate the vitality of a group.
The seminal work of Miller and Slater (2000), which examined the role of the Internet in the lives of Trinidadians and diasporic Trinidadians, identified "the internet as a place to hang around that constituted a most obvious natural affinity to Trini-ness" (p. 89). The Internet allows for what Miller and Slater (2000) call the expansion of realization (i.e., a means of enacting new representations of one’s identity and culture) and expansive potential (i.e., the possibilities of expanding connections that allow one to picture a novel image of what one could be). In other words, the Internet helps communities to come closer to a realization of who they really are and provides the means to reestablish local communities, which have been hindered by physical distance. Furthermore, the Internet serves as an effective medium for students’ cultural exploration and expression. Warschauer (2000) found that interacting in cyberspace provided, for example, Hawaiian students with an opportunity to explore and strengthen their sense of individual and collective Hawaiian identity.
According to Villa (2002), computers cannot become a surrogate for one generation of minority language speakers passing that version to subsequent generations. The teaching of a language and its intergenerational transmission depends on individuals’ dedication and will both transmit and learn the heritage tongue (Warschauer, 2000). Computers can only support language maintenance and teaching efforts by providing access to authentic materials and opportunities to practice the language for authentic purposes.
As part of a larger study examining the influences of popular culture and the Internet on heritage language maintenance, I met two informants, who reported being active participants in what was one of the most popular websites in Korea at the time, http://www.cyworld.com. Interested in how these individuals were interacting with the unique features of online Korean electronic text, I contacted the siblings to inquire about their willingness to participate in a series of interviews regarding how and why they participate in Cyworld and what effects their involvement had on their heritage language maintenance and development. Both informants agreed to participate in this exploratory study and also consented to my use of screen shots of their Cyworld pages for research and publication purposes.
With technological advancements making it easier for researchers to examine the lives of others, Scollon and Levine (2004) raise questions about the rights of academic researchers in relationship to and in negotiation with research participants and stress the importance of heightened sensitivity to protect the interests and rights of those being studied. Various precautions were taken in this study to protect the participants’ privacy and anonymity. No identifiable images and names of the informants were used, and all excerpts of the collected data were sent to the participants for their review and consent. Furthermore, as I was explaining the procedures and the rights of the informants as participants in the study, I specifically inquired about their feelings toward using their language practices in Cyworld as public research data. Both informants stated that they felt comfortable sharing the information with others, because the content of their postings was about aspects of their life that they did not deem to be private. The format of Cyworld allows strangers to visit their sites, view the contents of their sites, and leave messages for them requesting the establishment of a friendship link, unless the authors of the weblogs restrict access to those within their closest personal circles. In spite of the protection mechanism that prevents unauthorized strangers from viewing their content, the informants still viewed the content as public information. They stated that they would not post personal information that they do not want to share with others on this venue, because it is not an anonymous forum. The majority of their postings had to do with factual information about daily events.
Over three months, I interviewed each informant about their linguistic biographies, their online practices, their proficiency in Korean, and their perceptions of the effects of Korean electronic text on their heritage language learning process. The interviews were conducted over three sessions which lasted approximately two hours each. The informants also gave permission to log onto their sites to observe their activities in Cyworld, where I retrieved screen shots of their activities. Each retrieval was emailed back to the informants to ask for confirmation that it could be used for research purposes. The informants were consulted throughout the analytic and writing processes to check for accuracy in my interpretation and representation of their views. The interviews were conducted in English, although each of the informants incorporated some Korean into their speech to explain their language use. Approximately thirty screen shots were recorded for analysis.
Both informants described and demonstrated how they use their personal Cyworldblogs (see Figure 1). The informants explained that the most attractive features of this site were its user friendliness, the fact that the services were free of charge, and the vast number of members connected in Cyworld. On the left of the screen in Figure 1, a menu of the weblog organized by topics such as diary, friends, family, etc., appears, and, on the right, there is a tab menu that organizes the site by function such as photo album, discussion board, profile, guest book, and so forth. Pictures and favorite music are also easily incorporated to personalize the site.
Figure 1. Sample screenshot of Cyworld
The interviews were transcribed and the Korean responses were translated into English. Using an inductive thematic analysis approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), the data were reviewed for conceptual themes that depict the nature of the informants’ comments. The case studies of two heritage language participants of Cyworld will be presented in three sections: (a) motivations for online participation; (b) the linguistic and pragmatic conventions of Korean online literacy practices among friends; and (c) the effects of such participation on heritage language learners’ language development and the learners’ perceptions of proficiency.
Jendy is a 23-year-old female undergraduate student in her senior year at a university in California. Currently, she resides in an area where there is a small, but growing Korean population. The majority of her friends at school are other Korean-American students. She was born in Seattle, but grew up in Saipan, a U.S. territory, until she was 15 years old. In Saipan, she attended an international school where the medium of instruction was in English. English was also the language of the wider society. However, her social network of friends mainly consisted of other Koreans who had recently immigrated from Korea. Jendy reports that in Saipan, Korean was used for most social purposes and English was only used in class and other school-related activities. She learned how to read and write in Korean from being exposed to the Korean alphabet through the books that her parents would bring back from their frequent trips to Korea. At 15, she moved with her sisters to a small community in central California where she had minimal contact with other Koreans. She soon became much more comfortable and fluent in English and the dominant language among her siblings and peers was English during her high school years.
For academic purposes, Jendy states that she is much more proficient in English because she has never received formal education in Korean. She explained that she cannot write academic reports or essays in Korean and has difficulty reading technical books and classical literature, but has no problem reading or writing informal and personal messages or letters. Jendy first started using the Internet two years ago to create personal sites for social networking purposes. She originally learned about another site that had similar features from a friend in Korea; however, when that particular site started to charge their users about a year and a half ago, she transferred over to Cyworld. She logs on daily to see who has visited her site and to go to her friends’ and families’ sites to view their current postings.
I had several opportunities to converse with her in Korean. As a native speaker of Korean, I assessed her pronunciation and intonation patterns to be near native-like. She was also familiar with popular phrases and vocabulary currently used among Korean young adults and was conversationally very fluent. However, she had some difficulty with proper usage of honorifics and did not use any formal academic language in Korean during our interactions. Her oral proficiency showed sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary which would enable her to participate effectively in most conversational situations. She also demonstrated native-like proficiency in English, although she had a distinct accent, which she claims is the product of the English she learned in Saipan. Assuming that she would be more fluent in English as is typically the case of heritage language learners, I initiated the conversation in English. Once we became more comfortable with one another, she started to code-switch, interweaving Korean phrases and words as she was responding to my interview questions. I also had the opportunity to observe her typing comments onto her blog and to hear her read aloud excerpts from her blog. Her typing and reading skills in Korean were very fluent, and it was evident that she has had much practice in both skills.
Lizzy is a 19-year-old sophomore at a small college in central California, where there are hardly any other Koreans. She mainly associates with other Asian Americans at her school. She was born in Seattle, but moved to Saipan when she was two years old. She grew up with two older sisters, who were proficient in English by the time she started to produce her first words. In contrast to her older sisters, who were only exposed to Korean before they started school, Lizzy heard both Korean and English in the home; however, Korean was the main language of communication between her parents and the children. When Lizzy started school, there were many Korean children who were English-dominant speakers in Saipan. Although she was conversationally proficient in Korean, she stated that outside of the home, she used English. Her mother taught her the Korean alphabet by teaching her to read the Korean Bible when she was 9 years old. Since then, she has had no other form of instruction to develop her Korean proficiency.
She moved with her sisters to a small town in central California when she was in junior high school. Soon, her sisters began to use more English, and the only source of Korean input was from her parents, who traveled back and forth from Saipan. She feels that her Korean proficiency started to deteriorate at that point. She explains:
In order to help Lizzy regain her fluency in Korean, her parents require her to speak in Korean to them. She realizes that her Korean proficiency needs to be further developed, and says:
For Lizzy, maintaining Korean was a matter of the degree of effort she puts into the process. She describes her oral fluency in Korean to be "okay". She has been going to Korea every summer since she started college, and states:
She commented that her friends in Korea told her during her last visit that she sounded like she was literally translating from English when she spoke Korean. She claims to be least proficient in her writing skills, especially in terms of spelling, word spacing, and grammar.
Lizzy’s sisters first introduced her to the world of online Korean through Cyworld a year and a half ago so that they could communicate with her on a regular basis. Currently, one sister lives in Korea and the other sister attends college 150 miles away from where she lives. She reports her participation to be irregular, but frequent:
During our conversations, Lizzy communicated mainly in English and appeared to be very comfortable expressing herself in English. In contrast to Jendy, who stated that code-switching was the most comfortable way to express herself, there were only a few instances when Lizzy code-switched, stating that it has always been very difficult for her to go back and forth between Korean and English. According to the siblings, Jendy possesses greater proficiency in Korean than Lizzy. Jendy describes her sister’s proficiency in the following way: "My sister, she’s not really good at it. She speaks it but sometimes she speaks like a mom’s style. She sounds like an ajumma ('older married woman'), you know, how Korean Americans sound exactly like their mothers (laugh)." From my interactions with Lizzy, it was evident that she possessed enough proficiency in Korean to be able to converse in simple informal situations, but appeared much more comfortable speaking in English than in Korean. Her reading aloud skills and typing skills in Korean were not as fluent as Jendy’s. She was slow and careful in her typing and often had to backspace to retype what she had written.
The following sections will present the results of the content analysis of the interview data. The data will be organized into why and how Cyworld is used for the purposes of heritage language maintenance and learning; heritage language learners’ perspectives on the linguistic and pragmatic conventions of Korean electronic literacy practices; and the perceived effects of electronic literacy on heritage language maintenance.
Motivations for Online Participation
In light of Warschauer’s (2000) argument that one possible role of technology may be to increase the will of individuals to develop and maintain their heritage language proficiency, participation in Cyworld appears to have provided the incentive and the opportunities to keep both Jendy and Lizzy connected with the language. Both informants were situated in an environment where there were limited opportunities to interact in Korean. They were also mindful of how the lack of a vibrant community of Korean speakers was a determining factor in their shift to English. However, through Cyworld, they state that they were able to create and broaden their social network of Korean speakers in an easily accessible way:
Jendy’s Korean social network grew from 5-6 friends to 40 close acquaintances, of whom one third are monolingual Korean speakers. In contrast, Lizzy, who was not as comfortable and literate in Korean, limited her interactions to her siblings and her friends who have returned to Korea. By interacting with those people that are close to her and know her well, it seems that Lizzy created a safe place where she could experiment with language without being "judged" about her abilities, intelligence, or character. Through Cyworld, her social circle of Korean speakers increased from 2-3 to 15-20.
Jendy saw the online forum as the ideal opportunity to experiment with language. As an adult, it may be somewhat face threatening to openly admit lack of knowledge about something that one is expected to know. The wide range of creativity accommodated by electronic literacy seems to alleviate the pressure for these two individuals to produce the correct forms of the language. They expressed that they could make errors and still save face:
Cyworld also provided a rich forum to keep connected with popular Korean culture, including popular expressions, current fashion trends, as well as links to popular movies, television shows, celebrity news, and popular music. Both Lizzy and Jendy mentioned that Korean pop culture is becoming widely known not only among Korean Americans, but among other Asian groups as well. They claimed that they felt obliged to keep up with current news, because they were seen as the 'experts' on Korean-related topics in their local communities:
Sites such as Cyworld provide individuals with a personal space to exchange information about their lives and a forum to explore one’s connections to the language and culture. Lizzy and Jendy seem to have control over what information they access, the connections they make, and the language they use. The degree to which they engage and attach themselves to the language and culture appears to be a function of how central "Koreanness" is positioned as a marker of their identity. According to them, Lizzy and Jendy’s decision to participate in Cyworld was in part to be able to closely identify as Korean and also to gain the sociopsychological support from members of the social network that keep their connection to their "Koreanness" alive.
On the other hand, participation in Cyworld seems to carry a social stigma among Korean-American peers. Jendy and Lizzy report that other Korean Americans view "Cy-ing" (the act of using Cyworld) as "Fobby" behavior, and so they are categorized by their peers as FOBS. FOB is an acronym that stands for "Fresh Off the Boat," and in the social circles of young Korean Americans, it refers to displaying qualities that align one with being native Korean (e.g., speaking Korean, engaging in Korean-related activities such as watching Korean TV or using Korean-based Internet sites, and dressing in ways that are in style in Korea):
It was evident from their responses that overtly displaying characteristics and actions connected to "Fobby Koreanness" is not favorably viewed by their other Korean peers at school. Jendy seems to have made a decision to position herself as a FOB, because without Korean, she states that she sees herself as not having any cultural affiliation. Lizzy, on the other hand, could not take such a strong position, because she did not fully align herself with the Korean community due to her lack of proficiency in Korean. Moreover, Lizzy is situated in a social context and physical space where venues to align herself with the Korean community are rare, and thus, the need to express her Koreanness may not have been as great as Jendy’s. Although Lizzy states that she does not care what others think, it was obvious that the negativity attached to the label caused her and her peers much pain. It seems quite possible that such social stigma, in addition to other social and personal constraints such as lack of Korean proficiency or interest, can hinder other heritage language learners from wanting to actively participate in Cyworld or other Korean-based sites.
HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS' ELECTRONIC LITERACY PRACTICES IN KOREAN
The informants reported that they use Internet language to express their personality and their emotions. By playing with the sentence endings and using emoticons as well as abbreviations, the writing process online has become more efficient for them. The flexibility of language forms found in electronic literacy practices opens opportunities for learners to experiment with language forms to creatively express themselves. Jaffe (2000) emphasizes the importance of considering the "creative use of nonstandard orthography in the affirmation of subcultural identity" (p. 499).
Lizzy starts the message in (3) by shortening, 언니야 (enniya 'big sister') to 언냐 (ennya), which she claims was done to sound cute and feminine. She continues to use this tone by playing with the ending of the next sentence. Instead of using the standard spelling of 했어 (haysse 'to do'), she used the form 해쪄 (hayccye) as a phonological approximation of a young child’s speech to sound cute (similar examples were found in Lee, 2004; Kim & Ra, 2003; Noh, 2000). The same strategy is repeated in the last line as well (e.g., 이쪄). Lizzy states that she would "be out of place and weird if you don’t use Internet language because then you are not categorized as cool." She recalled that when she used to write 하하하 (ha haha), her friends told her it was not cool and to useㅋㅋㅋ (k kk) instead. Jendy further elaborates:
Jendy is much more articulate in her electronic text, where her sentences read fluently as if she were speaking orally. Her message in (4) also shows how she plays with the sentence endings such as 사야쥐 (sayacwi 'want to buy') for 사야지 (sayaci) to convey a tone of "cuteness" (Noh, 2000). She also uses phonological approximations of the conjunction 두 (dwu 'and') for 도 and 마니마니(manimani 'many many') for 많이많이 (manhimanhi) as well as contractions of 넘 (num 'very, too') for 너무 (nemwu) and셤(syem 'test') for 시험 (si hem), which are commonly found features in the electronic literacy produced by native Korean speakers.
These examples were instances of deliberate deviations from the standard forms that conform to the writing norms of the online users in their groups. However, in other instances, the informants admitted to having difficulty deciphering which words were spelled correctly because the phonetic approximation of the spelling is so similar to the way they pronounce the words. For example, Jendy describes an error she found on her sister’s site, which she claims was unintentional.
In describing her experiences with the Korean electronic text, Jendy goes on to say
Lizzy had a much more difficult time distinguishing between intentional Internet language use and errors. The examples shown in (5) are some instances where Lizzy thought she was using the proper spelling (as shown on the left side of the arrow), but were unintentional errors:
In examples (5a) and (5b), replacing the ㅡ (e) with ㅜ (wu) in 좋은 and 이쁘면 did not shorten the word or add any stylistic effects. English speakers have a very difficult time differentiating between the ㅡ and ㅜ sounds in Korean. Continued use of incorrect orthography raises concern from a language developmental perspective, in that the learner may not acquire a complete understanding of the spelling conventions if electronic texts are the only forms of literacy exposure (Gonzalez-Bueno, 1998; Noh, 2000). There needs to be some mechanism in place such as formal instruction that assists learners in understanding the differences between socioculturally acceptable uses of the language online and standard literacy practices offline. Example (5b) is also an instance of a form that native speakers would not use online. It is an unintentional error made by Lizzy, which is an assessment based on the fact that the use of the more complicated form of 않(anh 'not') for 안(an) did not shorten the word or add any stylistic effects since ㅎ is silent.
Although the informants claim that there is much liberty in writing styles and ways of spelling, there seem to be rules that distinguish intentional deviations from unintentional errors within electronic literacy practices. Similar to the characteristics of electronic literacies in English (Barnes, 2003; Herring, 2003; Murray, 1991; Gains, 1999; Song, 2002; Sproull & Keisler, 1986), deviations from standard forms in Korean electronic literacy practices are also motivated by one or all of the following: to truncate or abbreviate for economic purposes of typing, to produce conversational stylistic effects, and/or to mark one’s membership by sharing in a secret code agreed upon within the smaller community of users.
There were also many instances where both English and Korean were used. Lizzy had many more postings that were completely in English in comparison to Jendy who hardly had any. When I inquired about when they used English and/or Korean, Jendy stated that it depended on the effect she is trying to produce and with whom she is corresponding. When she wants to represent herself online as a Korean American, she states that she uses both Korean and English. However, for Lizzy, English use was compensatory rather than an expression of textual stylistics:
As bilingual speakers, both Jendy and Lizzy strategically used their linguistic skills in the two languages not only to carve out a unique identity for themselves online, but also as a means of participating in Cyworld. The learners were aware of the norms and structures of electronic literacy practices and, within the boundaries of expectations, managed to find various ways to experiment with their language use as they develop their Korean proficiency.
EFFECTS OF HERITAGE ON LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
When the informants were asked to reflect on how their participation in Cyworld had affected their heritage language maintenance process, they both commented that their participation in Cyworld led to ample opportunities to practice Korean, which resulted in improved proficiency. They acknowledged improvements in their writing abilities in terms of vocabulary acquisition and syntax as well as dexterity in their typing skills in both Korean and English. The informants’ comments underscore the fact that being able to type in two languages is an important bilingual skill in our technological age. It requires cognitive flexibility and dexterity to automatically reposition the fingers on the keyboard as one code-mixes from English to Korean and vice versa.
Secondly, frequent engagement in electronic literacy practices also appears to have improved the informants’ oral proficiency. Jendy states:
The features of orality commonly found in electronic texts seem to have assisted Jendy in developing more native-like pronunciation and fluency in her flow of speech. Jendy reported that other Korean speakers have told her that her oral speech has become much more fluent and natural since she started engaging in electronic literacy practices. Gonzalez-Bueno (1998) similarly found that students who took advantage of the opportunity afforded by the electronic medium developed conversation-like language, which was difficult to develop in class because of shyness or fear of making mistakes. Although the validity of Jendy’s claim must be empirically tested, her report offers insights into the broad effects of electronic literacy on overall language development.
Thirdly, the informants’ willingness to participate online was driven by the lowered inhibition they felt about exercising their literacy skills online. What they observed were forms of electronic text that deviated from the standard forms used by native speakers of Korean. They reported that it gave them courage to participate as a non-native speaker and the space to make errors without being branded as an illiterate or incompetent Korean speaker. Both Jendy and Lizzy positioned themselves among their local friends to be very Korean and highly proficient in Korean, and, thus, exposing the limitations of their proficiency was a face threatening act for them. However, as the following quotes indicate, the non-standard ways of language use by other native speakers served as a front for them to appear as if they were intentionally deviating from the standard conventions as is commonly practiced online:
A learning strategy for the heritage learners online is to experiment with different ways of language use. They reported that they try out different expressions, words, and spellings, and then wait to see what the reaction is. If the reaction is negative or other users point out the inappropriateness of the usage, then it is not used again. On the other hand, if the other users appear to have understood the message, they continue to use the form.
Fourthly, the connection to friends and family provided a comfortable environment to receive explicit instruction or feedback on one’s writing. Lizzy recollects her friend’s attempt to help her learn Korean through the Internet:
I had this one friend in Korea. He was about 4 years older than me. I would write to him online and he would always correct me in every single error. Some were errors but some were intentional misspellings and he corrected both. At first it was like oh c’mon, it was like nothing … I just started to become more aware of what I was typing. I think it was because he knew I wasn’t exposed to Korean very much. He said you know it’s cool and funny to hear that [Lizzy’s Korean internet language] but when you’re older and you have kids, or when you’re older and you have to talk professionally, he said it’s just not very smart looking or intelligent so he started fixing me, grammar, nouns, verbs. (L)
At first, Lizzy stated that she was somewhat embarrassed by the public correction of her language use, but now as she thinks back, the explicit and immediate feedback helped her become more aware of her language use and her need to improve her proficiency. She suggests that heritage language speakers should openly ask for help and feedback from members of the social network. Because being corrected in a public domain may be face threatening, she recommends the use of the messenger function, which can privately send messages to one individual.
Finally, the process of using electronic literacy practices to interact with a social network of Korean speakers nurtured and sustained the feeling of being connected to a wider community of Koreans, as was similarly found in Miller and Slater’s (2000) study of diasporic Trinidadians. This was extremely important to both informants, because they were placed in a physical location that offered limited opportunities to use Korean.
The psychological connection and support from the wider online Korean community provided these informants with a strong sense of identity that was not available to them in their immediate surroundings. Their heightened sense of belonging to the Korean community was a main source of their willingness and desire to maintain and further develop their heritage language skills. This would not have been possible without the Internet for these two individuals.
Despite the positive influences of electronic literacy on the heritage language maintenance process, the informants also mentioned the potential downsides of electronic literacy on their language maintenance efforts. First of all, they both admitted to having increased confusion about correct and standard forms of the language, because they commonly see variations in spellings of the same word or phrase. For example, Lizzy states:
Thus, heritage language learners may need additional support to help them distinguish between appropriate electronic text forms and standard forms of the Korean language. Support can come in several forms, such as explicit explanations of the ways in which certain words are used or spelled by the native speakers in the community, or by enrolling in language courses where the grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic explanations of language use are a part of the curriculum. The Internet can play a significant role in providing appropriate and effective contexts in which languages can be experimented with and practiced, which can facilitate the learning process. However, learners may further benefit from additional formal instruction that will help them understand the differences between online, playful language use and offline, formal literacy practices to be able to strategically utilize the linguistic and pragmatic norms of both online and offline communities.
Another difficult issue that Jendy has faced was the lack of quality control of language use and accountability of information presented online:
Jendy’s concerns are real in light of the adverse effects that certain materials might have on emergent heritage language learners who lack the experience or knowledge to filter through the information. Jendy explained that her Korean-American peers are quick to pass judgment about Koreans and Korea, and often formed stereotypes that did not reflect the reality of the situation. Further research is needed to examine the scope and nature of the effects of information attained online on the formation of attitudes and beliefs of heritage language learners toward their heritage culture and language. Although we need to find ways to maximize the benefits of technology on the maintenance process of heritage language learners, we also need to be cognizant of the possible pitfalls and dangers of its use.
With the reality of our current information age, our conceptualization of communicative competence and language proficiency among heritage language learners will need to be extended to include knowledge of the forms and norms of electronic literacy practices. In the cases of the informants in this study, electronic literacy practices enabled them to create social networks with other Korean speakers, which allowed these heritage language learners to practice and use their Korean for authentic purposes. Perhaps more importantly, such practices provided a means to connect with and to express their cultural identity. The sociopsychological support found in such networks was a major factor in shaping their desire and will to develop and maintain their heritage languages. The flexibility and creative means of expression commonly found in electronic literacy practices also lowered their inhibition about writing in Korean. Therefore, the lack of perceived pressure to produce correct spelling and forms of Korean gave these learners the confidence and space to experiment with and engage in literacy practices. The take up of such opportunities not only reinforced their language skills, it also provided the motivation to continue using and developing their language skills.
Opportunities to engage with other native speakers online on a regular basis provide an optimal language-learning environment from a sociocultural perspective. However, there are many individual and situational constraints that can shape the extent to which an individual can participate online in their heritage language. For example, proficiency in the language, willingness to invest in the time and effort to engage in online activities, and the initial knowledge of how, where, and with whom to engage online may be critical factors that govern whether one can participate in online communities. These factors are likely to play a significant role in the individual experiences of heritage language learners in their experiences interacting with electronic literacy.
In conclusion, electronic communication holds significant promise for heritage language development and maintenance. Engagement with Korean-based Internet sites continuously provides a forum and a goal to engage in purposeful communication, which may lead to increased literacy proficiency and greater attachment to the heritage language and culture. This case study of these two individuals was a starting point in examining the meaning and function of electronic literacy from the perspective of heritage language learners. However, the scope of this study did not cover aspects of actual language development and how the use of electronic literacy shapes its trajectory. Longitudinal studies on the developmental process of heritage languages in relation to the learners’ involvement with electronic literacy are needed. Furthermore, future work needs to capture the diversity of heritage language learner experiences in developing and maintaining their heritage languages by attending to the personal, sociocultural, and political contexts and constraints that shape their interactions and motivations in engaging with electronic literacy through the Internet.
1. "Standard" language refers to the prescribed forms and rules of pronunciation, grammar, lexicon, semantics, orthography, and language use that are taught in formal schooling.It is viewed as "educated" or "correct" speech by native speakers, and it is free from regional marking. "Non-standard" language refers to forms that deviate from the "standard" (Androutsopoulos, 2000).
2. Romanization of the Korean syllables follow the Yale transcription system.
3. The names of the informants are pseudonyms.
4. Bold font is used to highlight the specific word or phrase under discussion for the reader’s convenience.
5. “~~~” is used to represent an elongation of the final sound of the word, which adds an effect of cuteness.
6.ㅋㅋ is used to represent the sound of laughter and the emoticon ㅡ_ㅡ;; is used to symbolize a sweating face to mean that something took a lot of effort to get done.
7. ^^ are the graphic representation for smiling eyes.
This study was supported by a Junior Faculty Research Incentive Grant from the University of California, Santa Barbara. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and the informants for sharing and making public their Cyworld experiences. Any errors in the article are solely the responsibility of the author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jin Sook Lee is an assistant professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include sociocultural contexts of language learning, heritage language maintenance, and interlanguage pragmatics. She is currently studying how the Internet affects the linguistic development of heritage language learners.
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One of the most fundamental distinctions in legal theory is that between "positive legal theory" and "normative legal theory." This post provides a very brief introduction to the distinction, aimed at law students (especially first years) with an interest in legal theory.
The core idea of the distinction between positive and normative legal theory is simple:
- Positive legal theory seeks to explain what the law is and why it is that way, and how laws affect the world, whereas
- Pormative legal theories tell us what the law ought to be.
Thus, a positive theory of tort law might seek to explain what causal forces have produced the existing principles of tort law, whereas a normative theory of tort law would tell us what rules of tort liability would be best, right, or justifiable. Or more simply: positive legal theories are about facts and normative legal theories are about values. (This simple formulations assumes that facts and values are mutually exclusive, but that may not be correct.)
Positive Legal Theory
Sometimes, the notion of positive legal theory is presented in an oversimplified way--as if there were a single, well-defined type of theory that counted as positive. In fact, the phrase "positive legal theory" is used in a variety of ways. The one thing that positive legal theories have in common is that they are not normative. Nonetheless, there are three characteristic type of positive legal theory that can be identified:
Positive Legal Theory Type 1: Doctrinal Theories--The first kind of legal theory that is called "positive" is quite simply a theory of what the content of a particular field of legal doctrine is. Thus, a theory of the freedom of speech might simply seek to explain the shape of existing first amendment doctrine. Or a theory of hearsay rule might seek to provide an account of the rule and exceptions that explains and accurately predicts particular applications of the rule. Doctrinal legal theories are responsive to questions like, "What are the principles that shape this area of the law?" or "Can these cases be explained by some underlying theory?" What I am calling a "doctrinal theory" is also sometimes called a "descriptive theory."
Positive Legal Theory Type 2: Explanatory Theories--The second kind of legal theory to which the label "positive" is applied are explanatory theories--theories about why the law is the way it is. For example, a very simple Marxist theory might state that the content of the law can best be explained by the interests of the ruling class. Some legal economists have tried to argue that common-law rules are efficient, because there is "evolutionary pressure" on inefficient legal rules. What I am calling an "explanatory theory" is also sometimes called a "causal theory."
Positive Legal Theory Type 3: Effects Theories--The third kind of legal theories that are referred to as "positive" are theories about the consequences that will be produced by a given regime of legal rules. This is the sense of "positive theory" that is most frequently invoked by legal economists. The question --"What effects will a strict liability regime (as opposed to a negligence) regime have on the manufacturers of consumer products?"--can be answered by a legal theory that is positive in the sense that it predicts behavior but does not explicitly evaluate the desirability of the rule. What I am calling an "effects theory" is also sometimes called a "predictive theory."
Normative Legal Theory
Normative legal theories, on the other hand, are by their nature evaluative. Thus, a normative theory of products liability law would take a stand on the question whether negligence or strict liability is the better rule. Normative legal theories tend to be entwined with more general normative theories, e.g. moral or political theories, although this is not necessarily the case. The Legal Theory Lexicon already includes entries on deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics--three of the most important general normative theories that have had an influence on the law. There are three other distinctions that are important to understanding the general idea of a normative legal theory:
Ideal versus Nonideal Theory Some normative legal theories are "ideal"--that is, they are theories about what the best legal rule would be in the world in which everything was politically possible, the law could be adequately enforced, and other legal rules that interact with the subject of the theory could be adjusted to produce the best overall system. Other normative legal theories are "nonideal"--that is, they are theories that assume a variety of constraints on the choice of legal rules. For example, a nonideal theory might take into account political feasibility or it might take into account the possibility that the system would not provide an optimal level of enforcement for the rule that would otherwise be best. The Legal Theory Lexicon entry on second best explores these ideas in greater detail.
Justificatory Theories and Critical Theories Normative legal theories also vary in their "attitude" towards the status quo. You are likely to encounter normative legal theories that start with the question, "What is the best justification that be given for such and such a legal rule?" These justificatory theories have a limited purpose. Dworkin's theory--"law as integrity"--is an example of a justificatory theory: Dworkin offers theories that "fit and justify" existing law. Such justificatory theories do not address the ultimate question, "What is the best legal rule?" On the other hand, many legal theories have the opposite purpose--the critique of existing legal doctrine. Thus, a critical theory might enumerate all of the criticisms that could be made of an existing legal rule--even though some of the criticisms may rest on inconsistent premises.
Normative Legal Theories, Political Philosophy, and Comprehensive Moral Theories Another important issue concerns the relationship of normative legal theory to other normative theories, especially political philosophy, ethics, and comprehensive moral theories. Normative political philosphy asks questions about the normative justification for the state and the normative principles that establish the ends of and limits on the content of the law. The term ethics can be defined in various ways--but for our purposes on this , ethics might be seen as concerned with the morality of individual action outside the political sphere. A comprehensive moral theory might encompass both ethics and normative political philosophy. Normative legal theories have as their domain the normative evaluation of legal substance and procedure. Normative theories about the law as a whole might be called "general normative jurisprudence." There can also be normative theories of particular legal domains--"normative constitutional theory," "normative tort theory," and so forth.
One picture of this relationship normative legal theory, on the one hand, and moral and political philosophy, on the other, might be called "top-down." That is, we might start with a comprehensive moral doctrine (such as utilitarianism or Kant's version of deontology). Using the method of deduction, we might try to deduce the principles of political philosophy and ethics from a comprehensive moral theory, and the principles of normative legal theory might in turn be deduced from those of political philosophy and ethics. The top-down approach is exemplified by some consequentialists, who argue for a comprehensive moral doctrine such as welfarism or utilitarianism and then derive normative justifications or criticisms from the comprehensive doctrine and facts about which legal rules will result in what consequences.
Another possibility is that normative legal theory is relatively independent of ethics and political philosophy. It is at least conceivable that one might believe that the realm of interpersonal ethics is governed by a different set of principles and theories than is the law. For example, one might espouse deontological ethics, but believe that the laws should (for the most part) be aimed at maximizing utility.
The Intersection of Positive and Normative Theory
So far, we have been assuming a fairly sharp distinction between positive and normative legal theory. And for many purposes, assuming that there is a bright line that separates normative and descriptive legal theory is a good working hypothesis. Even assuming there is such a bright line, however, there are relationships between positive and normative legal theories.
Positive Theory in the Service of Normative Theory--One relationship is clear and straightforward. Many normative theories underdetermine what the legal rules should be in the absence of substantial information about the effects of the rules. This is most obvious in the case of utilitarian theories, where information about consequences does all the real work of determining which legal rule is best. For normative theories like utilitarianism, positive theory performs an essential service. Without a positive account of the effects of a given rule choice, utilitarianism has nothing to say about what rule is best.
Positive Theory as a Constraint on Normative Theory--Another relatively noncontroversial relationship between positive and normative legal theories arises when a positive theory that explains why the law has the shape that it does, is taken as imposing a constraint on normative theory. For example, public choice theory makes certain predictions about how legislatures will act in response to various incentives. Some legal rules that might be justified by ideal normative legal theory may be considered "unrealistic" in light of positive theory. In cases like this, positive legal theory provides constraints that limit the options available to normative theory.
Interpretivism and "Law as Integrity"--There is another, more controversial, way that positive and normative legal theory can interact. Ronald Dworkin's theory of law, "law as integrity," attempts to combine the aims of positive doctrinal theory and normative theory. The idea is that a legal theory should both fit and justify the existing legal landscape. Thus, a Dworkinian theory of the freedom of speech would need to both fit the contours of the Supreme Court's decisions and justify those decisions. Of those interpretations of free speech doctrine that fit the legal topography, Dworkin maintains that judges should select that interpretation that makes the existing law, "the best that it can be." Dworkin's view of legal theory blurs the line between positive and normative legal theory--essentially combining the enterprises that I have called positive doctrinal theory and justificatory normative theory. As you might imagine, this is hugely controversial--although that is a topic for another post.
The distinction between positive and normative legal theories is fundamental, but once you have the terminology down, it is usually easy to apply. The tricky part comes when you are confronted with theories like Dworkin's that blur the lines between the positive and the normative. When you do, my advice is that you stay on your toes. A common mistake is to try to force interpretivist theories into either the positive or the normative. Although there may be deep reasons of legal theory that would justify such a forcing move, it will rarely be productive to start there. A better strategy is to try to understand such hybrid theories from the inside first. When you are constructing your own theories, it is always important to be sure you know whether your theory is positive, normative, or has elements of both. One of the oft-repeated questions that law professors ask of entry-level candidates giving job talks (or ambitious students writing papers) is whether their theory is positive or normative. Be sure you know the answer before the question is asked!
- Legal Theory Lexicon 008: Utilitarianism
- Legal Theory Lexicon 010: Deontology
- Legal Theory Lexicon 012: Virtue Ethics
- Legal Theory Lexicon 014: Fact and Value
- Legal Theory Lexicon 031: Virtue Jurisprudence
- Legal Theory Lexicon 044: Legal Theory, Jurisprudence, and the Philosophy of Law
- Legal Theory Lexicon 058: Contractarianism, Contractualism, and the Social Contract
- Adrian Vermeule, Connecting Positive and Normative Legal Theory, 10 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 387 (2007).
(This entry was last revised on January 29, 2012.) | <urn:uuid:c4631cec-d1c1-4376-b423-6005526b7421> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lsolum.typepad.com/legal_theory_lexicon/2003/12/legal_theory_le.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938799 | 2,454 | 3.03125 | 3 |
*Recent ruminations from LUPEC, as originally published in The Weekly Dig.
by Barbara West
“Mary S.” of St. Louis, Missouri (c. 1851-1880) was an inventor who led a life of genius and poverty. Lacking finances and confidence, she sold the rights to her mechanical inventions to various male agents, for as little as $5 each. These men received 53 patents and a great deal of wealth. Mary S. herself died impoverished at roughly age thirty.
A businesswoman and former intelligence agent for the Union army during the Civil War, Charlotte Smith was known for empathizing with the struggles of self-supporting women.
The tragic story of Mary S. spurred Smith, an acquaintance, to seek justice and recognition for women inventors. She wrote about Mary S. in The Woman Inventor, a magazine she founded in 1891. She also pushed for the publication of an official List of Women Patentees. Feminists used the list to argue for women’s suffrage. Today, the list remains the major source of information on 19th-century female inventors. These women were patronizingly dubbed “Lady Edisons.”
Thanks to the list, we know that nearly 4,000 women received U.S. patents between 1809 and 1895—more than 5,000 if design patents are counted. One of the era’s most prolific female inventors was Margaret Knight of Boston (1838-1914). She is credited with about 90 inventions and 22 patents, the most famous of which was the first machine to make the square-bottomed paper bags that are still used in grocery stores today.
In the late 1890s, Smith moved to Boston, where she founded a Women’s Rescue League. In 1907, she organized a Woman’s Board of Trade. After spending thousands of dollars on projects to help women become self-supporting, and years of direct charity to homeless and desperate women, Charlotte Smith died alone in Boston in 1917. She was seventy-seven.
Here’s a cocktail with which to toast our industrious forebroads, known as “Lady Edisons,” this Women’s History Month.
2 ounces brandy
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
Shake brandy, Campari and lemon juice with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass. | <urn:uuid:30527bf4-ec27-4b28-9472-8226d0ffa36c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lupecboston.com/tag/lady-edisons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970107 | 501 | 3.1875 | 3 |
S. Korea's Independence Hall leaves Japan smarting over its occupation
CHONAN, SOUTH KOREA
In a valley an hour and a half from the South Korean capital of Seoul, it's easy to understand why Imperial Japan's era of colonization and aggression remains unforgotten and unforgiven.
The statues, monuments, and pavilions that make up South Korea's Independence Hall, including displays on Japanese interrogation methods that seem inspired by Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, may do more to nurture animosity than explain history.
Lim Jin Mook, a 10-year-old seeing the exhibits with his parents, says the life-size dioramas leave an impression. "When I saw the torture scenes, I felt the Japanese were really bad," he says. He's not interested in visiting Japan, either. "I might see more scenes like that."
If little Jin Mook had come to Japan over the weekend, he would not have seen torture, but he might have witnessed how history continues to contort the relationship between the two most industrialized countries of Asia and America's main allies in the region.
Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and South Korean President Kim Young Sam, meeting in southern Japan, tried to focus on the positive. But before they could begin talking about their future - such as the World Cup soccer competition the two countries will co-host in 2002 - they had to talk about the past.
Mr. Hashimoto apologized at the summit's opening because his spokesman had made comments a day earlier that hinted at a social rationale for the Japanese military's use of sex slaves during World War II. Most of the women forced into front-line brothels were Korean.
The comment demonstrates to many Koreans that the Japanese government has never convincingly apologized for the brutalities its soldiers committed when Japan invaded and colonized the Korean peninsula, the Chinese region of Manchuria, and other parts of Asia. In recent years, Japanese prime ministers have said apologetic things, but conservative politicians and academics have often made comments that undermined the impact of the official contrition. | <urn:uuid:b9f8643f-0ba1-4fe1-973e-5202daa063d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/1997/0127/012797.intl.intl.4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974877 | 426 | 3 | 3 |
Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870
after cutting out some of the most interesting portions of the story, thus destroying in some measure the continuity of the narrative. The office of the Western Monthly was destroyed by fire before the copies of the magazine containing Mr. Folsom's article were distributed, and the single copy which Mr. Folsom possessed and which he presented to the Historical Society of Montana met a like fate in the great Helena fire. The copy which I possessed and which I afterwards presented to that Society is doubtless the only original copy now in existence; and, for the purpose of preserving the history of the initial step which eventuated in the creation of the Yellowstone National Park, I re-published, in the year 1894, 500 copies of Mr. Folsom's narrative, for distribution among those most interested in that exploration.
In the spring of 1870, while in St. Paul, I had an interview with Major General Winfield S. Hancock, during which he showed great interest in the plan of exploration which I outlined to him, and | <urn:uuid:c97178a3-88eb-4c13-8e6b-01aa9ad6f83d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manybooks.net/titles/langfordn1114511145-8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96191 | 224 | 2.546875 | 3 |
- Morality is relative.
- Right and wrong depend on the situation and people. As long as they do their best, they can't do wrong.
- What is true for you may not be true for me.
- That might have been considered wrong in the past, but we have progressed beyond such ancient fears.
- Dogmatically proclaiming you are right and everyone else is wrong is really the worst sin.
- We shouldn't judge others, but should each follow our own conscience
The biggest issue in our culture today.
Relativism is the belief that truth is relative. It can change depending on people, situations, cultures, time, etc. Truth, especially moral truth, is subjective and not objective. It can change and there is no objective truth that transcends people or experience.
Why is this a problem? Because without moral absolutes, there can be no sin. No action can be wrong at all times. It leads to a society with moral license and each individual can do whatever they please - damn the consequences. It is a philosophy that will ultimately be the end of any society that owns it.
Relativism is getting worse in our society. From the Barna Research Group:
"We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America....The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them - the Baby Busters - pushed the limits that had been challenged by their parents - the Baby Boomers. The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness.But, it isn't just outside the society as a whole - it is inside the Catholic Church. From a recent poll done about the Millenial Generation and the Catholic Church:
**82% of Catholic millenials believe morals are “relative.”
Here is how that is lived out - Catholic Millenials believed the following practices are "morally acceptable" at these percentages:
- 61% - a Catholic to practice more than one religion
- 33% - having a baby outside of marriage
- 35% - same sex marriage
- 37% - medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos
- 20% - euthanasia
To have a clear faith, according to the creed of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. While relativism, that is, allowing oneself to be carried about with every wind of "doctrine," seems to be the only attitude that is fashionable. A dictatorship of relativism is being constituted that recognizes nothing as absolute and which only leaves the "I" and its whims as the ultimate measure.The questions then arise:
We have another measure: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. "Adult" is not a faith that follows the waves in fashion and the latest novelty. Adult and mature is a faith profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ. This friendship opens us to all that is good and gives us the measure to discern between what is true and what is false, between deceit and truth.
We must mature in this adult faith; we must lead the flock of Christ to this faith.
Where is the tide against relativism being fought?
Where can the Catholic Church hope to turn the tide?
My thesis is this - I believe it MUST be done in the young adult stage of life. Previous research shows that college-age adults are more open to ideas and change than at later stages in life. If we miss this chance, we lose the culture war.
So, how can the Catholic Church best meet the challenges in this age with young adults? Many argue it must be done in Catholic universities. I agree that having a good system of Catholic colleges and universities is a great way to form Catholics. The Catholic Church started the university. But, here is the problem - Catholic universities are not doing the job.
First of all, I am not saying to toss the baby out with the bathwater. Catholic colleges and universities play an indispensable roll in our Church and country. We cannot give away higher education to secularism. Nor can theology or Catholic philosophy be maintained in non-Catholic schools. But, the tide isn't turning in the Church's favor quick enough at Catholic institutions.
Studies show that female students are MORE promiscuous at Catholic universities and Catholic colleges and universities not forming students any better than secular universities in the Catholic faith.
This is shameful. Especially when we stop to consider the state of campus ministries in the USA and the way resources are distributed. A few numbers:
- On average, the largest campus ministry professional/ministerial staff sizes are on Catholic campuses (almost nine staff members)
- 12 percent of campus minsitry sites report no Masses anytime during the week or weekend.
80% of Catholic university and college students go to non-Catholic schools.
If we are to reform the Church, then we need reform to start where young Catholic students are going to school - at non-Catholic institutions.
Even if we start to turn the tide in some of the Catholic universities that are losing (or have already lost) their Catholic identity, it will take generations to turn them around. On the other hand, a campus ministry at a non-Catholic school can be ratcheted up quickly, within a few years - if it has the right leadership (starting with the Bishop) and enough monetary support (built by a good development office).
We need a paradigm shift.
- We need to re-focus our priorities of ministering to the millenial generation toward the non-Catholic campus ministry centers.
- We can no longer be satisfied with pizza parties and Communion services.
- We need dynamic and orthodox leaders to start programs that challenge and form Catholics to go out into the world and change it - not be changed by it. | <urn:uuid:c535c9ba-8b93-4917-bd79-0cc7085afb77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2010/03/reform-of-catholic-church-in-us-will.html?showComment=1267665046597 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959649 | 1,208 | 2.59375 | 3 |
What about the small squares the match heads and the ends make between the squares....
If you look close there isn't a 3x3 square. None of the sticks connect all the way across.
If you look close there isn't a 3x3 square. None of the sticks actually go across to make a 3x3 square.
when does a square turn into a rectangle? and does the L shape a real square shape?
Where is the 3 x 3?
i dont see how you can count rectangulars as squares..You are missing 4 matches to make up 16 squares...can you explain that ???? thankssss
There are only 8 actual squares.....
There are also 2 of 1x2 squares which although most people call rectangles are still classed as a square
I've always thought the purpose of matches in a puzzle is the flexibility to move them around, without taking any away to come up with a finite answer. This is typically where people often get stuck thinking "inside the box", overlooking that matches are movable parts. This one is circulating on facebook, and if it was just about the squares, then why is it illustrated in matches instead of solid lines, I asked myself. Because matches can be moved to make more squares! My answer is 30! Thanks for indulging me!
It is 19!
they need to be touching to be squares.
are you counting the squares where the sticks meat. If so then you are wrong. There would be 22
15 or 0:15...count big outer square first, then all the little ones inside (that's 10 so far), then the four quadrant squares that make up the big one, then the one in the middle made up by four little squares... OR ZERO (NONE of the lines actually connect, so technically, these are just a bunch of segments that don't make any shape at all).
There is actually 17. I could 6 - 2x2's not just 5.
I count 17.There are 6 2x2's!
Yes there is...bottom left
There is NO square wherein there are 3 matches across all four sides, there is always one matchstick missing on one side. So there is no 3x3 in this puzzle.
OHP! I retract my last comment, I finally found the 3x3.
there is a 3x3 its the bottom left side 16 is the correct number
The 3 by 3 starts bottom left.
I got 19
Cody start in bottom left corner 3 x 3 :)
Try again Cody gofromthebottom left over 3 up 3.
The 3x3 square is on the lower left side of the puzzle.
The bottom left corner is a 3x3
Yes they do Cody... Start from bottom left.
What about the 17 square? Take off the top row & the right/vertical row. That leaves another large square...or would you argue that is a rectangle. It LOOKS like a square.
I saw 17 squares. If you remove the very top/horizontal row that leaves another large square...or would you argue that is a rectangle? It looks like a square to me.
Lower left corner is 3x3
Cody, yes there is. Start with the second row, go across three and down three, it's the only place it is possible. xoxo
There is one
There is a 3x3 square, second row left + 3 then 3 down.
Cody, the bottom left corner is a 3x3 square, only the matchsticks outlining that square have to connect (not all within), so 16 is correct. There are nine 1x1's, five 2x2's, one 3x3, and one 4x4.
3x3 is wrong... 3 matchsticks by 4 matchsticks do not make a square. The answer is 21.
Yes they do Cody, from bottom left - it goes up three and across three to the right, then down three and back across three to reconnect with the bottom left...
there is no 3x3 because you only have 3 on two sides of the lower left corner. There are no squares that have 3squares on each of the four sides to make a 3x3 square.
there is no 3x3 as there are only 2 sides with 3 smaller squares for the lower left hand corner and there are not 3 rows of 3 anywhere in the largest square. The lower left hand corner has an "L" that - if divided - would be 3 squares to make the 3x3. 15
Duh, there is one 3 x3 square, look closely- coming from the bottom left corner...
to Cody Adams there is a 3x3 square starting at the left bottom count three right three up three left three down, therefor a 3x3 square. the correct answer is 16 total squares. and to anonymous the match head are coned so they are not actually squares.
Bottom left corner, Cody.
Yes there is one 3 x 3 square. Start in the bottom left corner and count 3 sticks right or up and then keep turning & counting by three's to form the square.
17 actually... you missd a 2x2 square.
There is a 3x3 square, bottom left corner
Cody, look again. start at the bottom left corner, there is a 3x3.
@Cody, there is, on the lower right
I can't see a 3x3
Cody, Starting from the bottom left corner go three over and the up. I had to turn the image sideways to see it.
Cody - Bottom left 3x3 quadrant.
There is a 3x3 square.Start at the bottom left, 3up and 3 over. You'll see it.
Start bottom left corner and you will see the 3x3 square
@Cody Adams, bottom left corner is 3x3
If you look close they do connect buddy
yes there is a 3x3 from bottom left count up 3 accross 3 down 3 and back 3 and there is your 16th square
Where the heck did someone come up with 6 - 2x2's ?? There are only five. Four in each corner of the single large square, and a final 2x2 in the center. If there were six, there would have to be one of four other spots splitting out from the center square in one of four directions here like this (+)And yes, there IS a 3x3 for a total of 16 squares. However, to be argumentative - there is a final 17th square containing the square image. ;-)
I think I've lost all faith in humanity. The amount of people who can't see a 3x3 square, even after being told exactly where it is!, insane!. Theres only 4 possible places for one in this square so its not exactly a trick is it.
Where is this magical 6th 2x2 that people are talking about?
Bottom left is the 3X3
There IS A 3X3. Start in the lower left corner, count upwards 3 sticks, count across 3 sticks, count down 3 sticks, and across 3 sticks. This makes a square & you cannot deny that anyone.
the answer is 0 because none of the matchsticks are connected...i think
It can't be 0 because ALL of the match sticks are inside one outer square ;-) Either 1 or 15 depending on if you're counting the squares who's ends don't meet!
The answer above is correct. It is 16 squares and the 3x3 is found from the top count 3 small squares right to left and then up and down to find the 3x3.
Rectangles are not classified as squares. Squares are however rectangles. I count 15 actual squares. For a rectangle to be a square all the sides have to be the same length.
Now I see the three by three. 16
And now for the real hardcore crowd....RECTANGLES!6 2x1 Horizontal6 1x2 Vertical 3 3x1 Hz3 1x3 Vt2 4x1 Hz2 1x4 Vt2 3x2 Hz2 2x3 Vt2 4x2 Hz2 2x4 Vt1 3x4 Hz1 4x3 VtGrand Total = 32!!
I go with zero as well... By deff, no actual squares exist in this puzzle-
Whenver I wonder why I am doing so well in life even given the fact that I am quite lazy, all I need to do is look at comments of folks on this page and I know there are a bunch of morons out there.There are 16 squares. 1x1 - 92x2 - 5 (not 6 like one tool wrote)3x3 - 14x4 - 1I cannot believe that folks in this discussion don't know the definition of a square like the person who decided if he took off the top row, a 4x3 was a square or the folks that asked if a rectangle is a square. I weep for our future.
There are also 7 tiny squares where the match heads meet. If those count then the total is 22.
Yay I got it right!!!!
I find 15... it says there is a 3x3 square and I can't find it.
Yes there is...you're just stupid
The 3x3 is bottom left
My brain doesn't work very well. Now I see the the 3 X 3 crap.
There are 16 total squares. To find the 3x3 square begin at the lower left corner. Count 3 matches along the bottom then count 3 matches up then count 3 matches along the top then count 3 matches down to the lower left corner where you started at. There's your 3x3 square.
It's 16, end of.
Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:e59e646e-11bd-45f6-8d43-dd4aa42d8e8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://matchstickpuzzles.blogspot.com/2011/06/55-4x4-square-how-many-squares.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929381 | 2,048 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Professional manicures are gaining in popularity but dermatologists advise caution. Overly aggressive nail care, artificial nails or unsanitary conditions increase the chance for an infection (bacterial or fungal) or for an allergic-type skin reaction. Manicures and nail problems don’t necessarily go hand in hand. But to reduce risk, remember these nail tips:
*Avoid too frequent manicures- Two or three manicures a year may reduce potential damage. Between manicures, don’t apply or remove polish more than twice a month. Repair chipped surfaces by reapplying polish without removing it. When you remove polish without removing it. When you remove polish, use an acetone=free solution and then moisturize your nails.
*Don’t allow your cuticles to be cut- Damaged cuticles remove your nails’ protective barrier against fungi, bacteria or damage from harsh chemicals.
*Be careful when cleaning under your nail tip- Cleaning debris from under your nail tip too vigorously may create space that allows yeast, fungi and, sometimes, bacteria to grow.
If you wear Artificial Nails
Sanitation is important- Your manicurist should disinfect and dry (dehydrate) the surface of your nail. By keeping air out, artificial nails prevent the nail bed from sweating. Moisture trapped beneath artificial nails creates an ideal environment for fungi to grow. Choose salons that use disinfectants and equipment such as dry-heat sterilizers and autoclave machines.
Know your sensitivities- The adhesive that’s often used to secure nails and tips can cause allergic reactions in some sensitive people. | <urn:uuid:4fe8f379-d109-49f9-97b0-1e624ee5abae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medcareforum.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.879982 | 335 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Healthy lungs' microbes focus of study on cystic fibrosis
(Medical Xpress)—Healthy people's lungs are home to a diverse community of microbes that differs markedly from the bacteria found in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. That's the result of new research from Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, which has wide implications for treatment of cystic fibrosis and other lung diseases.
"The lung is not a sterile organ," said David Cornfield, MD, an author of the new study, published Sept. 26 in Science Translational Medicine. Although decades of received scientific wisdom said healthy lungs lacked resident microbes, scientists had begun questioning that notion. "This research confirmed a long-held suspicion that a forest of microbes exists in both healthy and diseased lungs," said Cornfield, a pulmonologist at Packard Children's and a professor of pediatrics in pulmonary medicine at the School of Medicine. "More surprising, our data presents a suggestion that the lung flora provides microbial homeostasis that might function to preserve health."
Healthy lungs' microbes have been overlooked in part because past research has focused heavily on lung diseases, Cornfield said. Another flaw in prior studies was a bias toward looking for micro-organisms that could be grown in labs. Many of the types of microbes that the Stanford researchers found in healthy lungs have never been cultured in a laboratory.
In contrast, a large body of research had previously shown chronic microbial colonization in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease characterized by serious, progressive lung problems and death from respiratory failure. For instance, CF patients are vulnerable to chronic infection with the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause pneumonia.
The new study used sputum samples from 16 CF patients and nine healthy control patients. The scientists also analyzed lung tissue samples from seven patients' explanted lungs, the organs removed when the patients received lung transplants. (Three lung-transplant recipients had CF; four had other lung diseases.) The researchers extracted DNA from the sputum and tissue, and selectively copied genes coding for the 16S ribosomal gene sequences, which are found only in bacteria. The resulting genetic material was measured to determine which phyla, or families, of bacteria it came from and the relative contributions of each bacterial phylum to the total bacterial population in the lungs.
Several differences emerged between CF patients and healthy people's communities of lung bacteria. In general, healthy individuals had more diversity among their lung bacteria. Different bacterial phyla predominated in the two groups: members of the Bacteroidetes and Fusobacteria phyla were much more prominent in healthy individuals, whereas CF patients had a larger percentage of Actinobacteria. Also, healthy people had a larger proportion of bacteria that had never been grown in a lab.
"I think the tendency toward decreased diversity can be metaphorically viewed as the same phenomenon that might happen in a rainforest," Cornfield said. "When the ecosystem of a rainforest is disturbed and one organism predominates, it undermines a carefully constructed balance and causes disturbances in overall ecosystem. I think it's reasonable to assume something similar could happen in the lung microbiome, where pathogenic bacteria may out-compete organisms that may play a salutary, health-affirming role."
The results open many questions for future research. No one has ever tested the idea that certain microbes benefit lung health, for instance. "We may need to consider strategies that allow favorable microbes to exist while eradicating disease-causing species," Cornfield said. "That paradigm, if it's true, would really turn the care of patients with pneumonia and other lower-airway diseases on its head." Future research might test whether CF or pneumonia patients could benefit from doses of probiotic bacteria to their lungs, he said.
In addition, no one is sure how the antibiotics often given to CF patients change the microbes in their lungs.
"The marked differences in composition and diversity of microbial communities from adults with cystic fibrosis and normal controls are intriguing," said Thomas Ferkol, MD, director of allergy, immunology and pulmonary medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "The question that remains to be answered is whether these differences are directly related to the underlying lung disease or simply a consequence of frequent antibiotic use, which has been shown to change microbiota of the upper airways." Ferkol was not involved in the research.
More questions arise from the fact that bacterial profiles varied within the group of CF patients. CF patients differ widely in their disease progression, even when they have the same disease-causing gene mutations. It is possible that patients' lung function may be linked to the bacteria present in their lungs. The research team now plans to study whether individual patients' bacterial profiles can be used to predict their clinical condition.
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine
Provided by Stanford University Medical Center
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(Medical Xpress)—A powerful new way of imaging kidneys is providing scientists with insights into the importance of the body's filtering system and how it is affected by cardiovascular disease, stroke and ...
56 minutes ago | not rated yet | 0 | <urn:uuid:cc3a41df-d5c6-4b2b-8d88-5ac30245dde2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-healthy-lungs-microbes-focus-cystic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94502 | 2,169 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Country Location: Caribbean, eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Haiti
Country Overview: Originally called Hispaniola prior to the arrival of the Europeans in 1492 – it became a springboard for Spanish conquest of the Caribbean and the American mainland. In 1821 it was conquered and ruled by the Haitians from the western part of the island for 22 years; it finally attained independence as the Dominican Republic in 1844. After many years of dictatorial rule, regular elections were established and today it is a democratic republic.
Country Under 5 Child Mortality Rate (per thousand births): 27*
*Cited Source: UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2012 | <urn:uuid:1d2af159-455e-4975-a53d-b89b5333373b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicinesforhumanity.org/our-projects/dominican-republic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953078 | 154 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Freiburg & Environment: Ecological Capital? Environmental Capital? Solar City? Sustainable City? Green City?
Freiburg, the green southern German city located in the area between the Upper Rhine and the Black Forest, has a good reputation. It is said to be Germany´s ecological capital, situated in the sun belt of the country, the 'German Tuscany'. In fact, many things were achieved here in the ecological field. But 'environmental capital' actually only means that the global processes of destruction in Freiburg proceed a little slower than elsewhere.
The city of 215,000 inhabitants (among them 30,000 students) was frequently awarded environmental prizes, e.g. the titles 'Ecological capital' in 1992 and 'Sustainable city' in 2004. Freiburg won several times the 'national solar league' (there are 1,800 annual hours of sunshine in Freiburg).
This positive development has its roots in the past. Until 1962, Freiburg had been a rather sleepy and conservative catholic city, dominated by the university and the bishop. The city´s position at the edge of Germany and the wars with France had led to the absence of large companies that pollute the environment.
Around 1975 massive ecologically motivated protests came up in this politically rather conservative region. For example, by staging sit-ins the construction of a French chemical factory not far from Freiburg was prevented, as well as three nuclear plants in German, French and Swiss cities close by.
Based on the successful 'No' to nuclear power and the early 'Yes' to sustainable energy sources, regional networks of environmentalists came into existence. Important ecological institutions like the Freiburger Oeko-Institut [Institute of Ecology], the BUND [Friends of the Earth], the party Die Grünen [Greens] and today´s environment and energy companies have their roots in the initial ecological conflicts in the Upper Rhine area for years critical and dedicated people have been generating the political pressure necessary to achieve ecological progress. Freiburg´s ecological spirit influences the city´s election results as well.
After the Chernobyl disaster and at the same time menaced by the French nuclear power station Fessenheim, in 1986 Freiburg was one of the first German cities to adopt a local concept of energy supply in order to protect the climate. The programme included the reduction of consumption of energy, water and resources. Further issues were the use of renewable energy sources and the application of new energy technologies.
The ecologically oriented new district Vauban is a model project in Freiburg. The whole quarter´s construction method follows the main idea of saving energy and space. The several times awarded BUND-Oekostation [ecological centre] in Freiburg is a project of environmental education with nationwide influence.
Those and other encouraging successes are based on the work of dedicated people, like for example 'solar architect' Rolf Disch, pioneer of solar energy Georg Salvamoser, Heide Bergmann of the BUND-Oekostation, Nik Geiler of the AK Wasser [working group 'water"> of the BBU, people that are part of Freiburg´s political life and administration, and committed citizens in the environmental organisations. Another factor is Freiburg´s media scene. Here topics like man and nature, environment and sustainability are reported on more openly than elsewhere.
The citizen´s engagement in environmental politics over the past decades has been profitable ecologically and economically. Leading research institutes of solar technologies are based in Freiburg, as well as a multitude of small and medium-sized companies dealing in various ways with the promotion and application of regenerative energies.
With bicycle demonstrations and other forms of protest, people in Freiburg demanded the introduction of a low price environment ticket for the local public transport already decades ago. This exemplary ticket which enables to make use of the public transport in Freiburg and around today has become conventional. City and region invested a good deal in the promotion of other environment-friendly means of transport. By now, the percentage of environment-friendly modes of transport in Freiburg has reached its peak.
A large number of different ecological institutions have developed from the beginnings of the environmental movement: the Oeko-Institute`s Office as well as the European Office of the ICLEI [Local Governments for Sustainability] can be found here. Furthermore, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Engery Systems ISE and the International Solar Engergy Society ISES are based in Freiburg.
Even in an ecological capital not everything that glitters is green.
In the beginnings of the 1990s a powerful lobby was fighting on regional and national level for lucrative and ususally oversized waste incineration plants and against the construction of mechanical biological treatment plants. In Freiburg, the skilful and influential incineration lobby won a victory over the supporters of the more cost-effective and more ecological version of waste plant.
Another major ecological topic is the usage of land which still increases significantly. While the population in other German regions is decreasing, the Freiburg region is booming. There is still a strong belief in growth especially in the area around Freiburg. Who would not like to live in the environmental capital, the 'German Tuscany', the nation´s sun belt? So the ecological region´s good reputation itself leads to a vast usage of land, splinter development and disfigurement of the landscape along the Upper Rhine.
The extension of the B 31 road through Freiburg was accompanied by protests but nonetheless enforced with a huge array of police units. Street extension in general leads to more traffic. The city and the region suffer from the increasing transit traffic through Freiburg and on the European North-South route.
While every new and passably sized solar plant is duly celebrated, the waste of 50 megawatts lost heat in the waste incineration plant TREA Bremgarten (where also Freiburg´s refuse is incinerated) is hardly spoken of in the ecological capital. The TREA plant emits an unused amount of heat corresponding to the energy of 120,000 litres of oil every day.
The share of sustainable energies used in Freiburg is still small. Municipal intentions cannot lead to grand results when energy politics of the conservative state Baden-Württemberg are decided upon in the EnBW energy company´s corporate headquarter. Freiburg´s wind energy plans of a sustainable and future-oriented energy supply are prevented by the regional administrative authority.
The risks of genetic engineering are not discussed willingly in the so-called 'Gentech-Biovalley' along the Upper Rhine. Not only at the University of Freiburg people want to profit from both environment protection and genetic engineering.
Ecology, climate protection and the environment still are great topics in Freiburg, in particular when they can used to make money. Nowadays self-discovery and other fashionable subjects that distantly can be connected with environmental politics seem to have gained more importance than the enlargement of the Alsace´s zone of heavy industry. Greenwash, the 'green cloak' for industrial plants that cause environmental damage, is far advanced along the Upper Rhine. Here even the atomic companies EnBW and EDF with “Au fil du Rhin“ have founded an 'environment' organisation controlled by the economy.
Sustainable community and ecological capital don`t automatically go along with 'pushing ahead with ecology and sustainability'. Ecological capital Freiburg means that with lots of effort people succeeded in regionally slowing down the global processes of destruction. But the consumption of resources and energy as well as the production of nuclear waste and carbon dioxid cannot be called sustainable in the slightest. Therefore, they must not be adopted by the 'rest of the world' in no way.
The Green City Freiburg and its ecological footprint Upon looking on Freibirg its ecological footprint is easily overlooked. The term "ecological footprint" refers to the area necessary to sustain a person's lifestyle (which is a wasteful one in Freiburg, too). Many goods and all the resources consumed and used in Freiburg are produced and won in countries far away from the Green City. So these goods actually don't pollute the Green Capital's area but the environment in those countries producing them. An objective evaluation however should not omit this pollution when calculating Freiburg's ecological balance
The crucial question concerning the future is the limit of growth. But even in the city of Freiburg there is some hesitation to raise this question.
Sustainability cannot be reached without social justice.
Freiburg citizens, environmental groups and companies as well as the committed administration achieved many ecological objectives. There are many reasons to be proud of the results achieved, and in crucial fields Freiburg indeed is more environmentally friendly than many other cities. The city has made the first steps in the right direction and others can learn from Freiburg.
But the legitimate pride sometimes leads to a certain laziness, a weakening of efforts and the wrong belief to have reached (almost) every ecological aim. The essential pressure of the environmental movement has decreased as well. So there is no need for Freiburg to lie back, because the ecological capital is still far away from real sustainability.
Axel Mayer / BUND Geschäftsführer
Translation: Annalena Ehrenfeld
Link list Freiburg & Environment:
Growth and Growth criticism - Unlimited growth destroys limited systems
About the BUND in Freiburg
Global Warming USA
Growth and growth criticism
Nuclear Reactor: Function and Risks - Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), nuclear plant
Short description of the „Solar City“ Freiburg
Official website of the BUND - Oekostation, which is the educational centre for environmental awareness of the Southern Upper Rhine.
Several options in terms of Freiburg's solar projects are available
Official homepage of Vauban district
The official homepage of the “Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems“
Freiburg: Germany’s greenest city
Freiburg - an inspirational city powered by solar, where a third of all journeys are by bike
The official homepage of the “Freiburg Öko- Institut“, an Institute for Applied Ecology. | <urn:uuid:4c1ba99f-5b37-4726-87aa-97911afff736> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mitwelt.org/print.php?id=111 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932045 | 2,165 | 2.90625 | 3 |
"For the first time ever, researchers now have a detailed view of the forests across the lower 48 states. Taking 6 years to complete, the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset project mapped our nation’s forests at the highest resolution ever (30 meters), providing baseline information about tree height, forest structure and carbon storage capability in the year 2000.
"It’s believed that as much as 45 percent of the carbon stored on land is tied up in trees. Western North Carolina’s unique climate has produced amazing biodiversity across our region and our important role in the Earth’s carbon cycle is evident in the dark green colors on the map above. The map depicts the concentration of biomass— a measure of the amount of organic carbon—stored in the trunks, limbs, and leaves of trees. The darkest greens reveal the areas with the densest, tallest, and most robust forest growth.
"And while it’s interesting to see the important role that our forests play in the role of carbon storage - it’s the detail of the new maps that will leave you stunned."
The image is an up-close look at Western North Carolina/Eastern Tennessee taken from a larger national map, McCown explains. "Heavily forested areas are dark green, lakes are light blue, and areas with less trees are lighter in color. Can you make out the major population centers in the region?" she continues. "If you look carefully, you can even see the corridors formed by major roadways such as I-40 through Buncombe County and Highway 19 through Madison and Yancey Counties."
McCown credits NASA Earth Observatory mapper Robert Simmon, who used multiple data sets compiled and analyzed at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. You can find NASA’s story on the project here.
Want to study this stuff in greater detail? Check out the classes offered by the Institute for Climate Education, including those explaining how the weather and climate of Western North Carolina have helped to create our region’s amazing biodiversity. | <urn:uuid:af72835a-2a36-4d39-ae95-c4aa43c514b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mountainx.com/article/39598/Where-the-trees-are-in-WNC | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916554 | 423 | 3.875 | 4 |
Tell your community’s experiences and stories of migration and diversity…
Community exhibitions are created by communities themselves with support from the Museum. The museum provides financial, marketing and promotional support so that communities can create quality exhibitions. Communities must be able to demonstrate community support and endorsement for exhibitions so that they are inclusive and representative of the community.
Where possible community exhibitions are scheduled to coincide with important milestones or celebrations in the participating community’s calendar.
What are the aims of the Community Gallery?
- To provide a forum for community groups, organisations and special interest groups to tell stories and investigate themes relating to immigration, cultural diversity and identity.
- To encourage community collaboration, participation and ownership.
- To document and promote the diverse community stories and experiences that are an important part of Australian history.
- To contribute to the history collections of Museum Victoria and the State of Victoria. | <urn:uuid:08b9574c-acab-447a-a04e-36e8a4c98960> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/about-us/community-engagement/community-exhibitions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923062 | 180 | 2.765625 | 3 |
What is addiction?
WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES BULLETIN #17
What is addiction?
The World Service Board of Trustees developed the "What is Addiction" essay during the 1988-1989 conference year. It was revised during the 1995-96 conference year.
The task of defining addiction has challenged physicians, judges, clergy, addicts, their families, and the general public throughout history. There are as many potential definitions as there are groups with an interest in defining addiction. These definitions emphasize such things as physiological dependence, psychological dependence, family dynamics, behavioral problems, and morality. This list could be expanded at length, and NA could come up with its own definition and add it to the list. Fortunately, Tradition Ten steers us away from such public debates. Clearly, debating such issues is not NA's task. Our task is to carry the message of recovery to the addict who still suffers.
Still, defining addiction for ourselves is certainly important to the process of recovery. After all, in our First Step we admit powerlessness over it. That admission is the foundation upon which our recovery is built. So the question, "What is addiction?" is relevant indeed; the fellowship has a responsibility to consider it carefully.
This discussion will not include a restatement of our fellowship's broadest understanding of what addiction is. That may be found in the Basic Text, especially in the chapter "Who is an Addict?" Instead, we will focus on a few difficult issues that the World Service Board of Trustees has been asked to consider.
Is Addiction a Disease?
This is one of those questions about addiction that is difficult to answer. There is much public debate over the question of whether addiction is a disease, and we do not choose to become involved in this debate. However, it is our fellowship's collective experience and understanding that addiction is, in fact, a disease. We have no reason to challenge that perception now. It has served us well.
Our experience with addiction is that when we accept that it is a disease over which we are powerless, such surrender provides a basis for recovery through the Twelve Steps. The number of NA members living in freedom from active addiction show that this philosophy has worked for us. So even though we as a fellowship are not in a position to argue what is or is not a disease in the strictest medical sense, we are fully confident that our use of the word "disease" in describing our condition is appropriate.
This is the key point: professional people in fields like medicine, religion, psychiatry, law, and law enforcement define addiction in terms that are appropriate to their areas of concern. So do we. Narcotics Anonymous defines addiction for the purpose of providing recovery from it. We treat addiction as a disease because that makes sense to us and it works. We have no need to press the issue any farther than that.
Does "Addiction" Mean Only Drug Addiction?
What about other kinds of addiction? By the word "addiction" we do, in fact, mean "drug addiction." Our Third Tradition says, "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using." Clearly, we mean "... a desire to stop using drugs."
As a fellowship, we place much importance on the fact that we have shifted the focus of our steps off any specific drug and onto the addiction itself. We have done that by wording Step One "powerless over our addiction" rather than "powerless over drugs" or "powerless over narcotics." Any wording of Step One which named specific drugs, or drugs at all, would have stated the principle with much less power than our current wording does.
If we were to broaden our focus beyond drug addiction to include other types of addiction, we believe we would seriously damage the atmosphere of identification in our meetings. The balance we strive for is a delicate one. On the one hand, we must understand our First Step well enough to keep our sharing at meetings focused on the disease of addiction, not on specific drugs. That way our focus is broad enough to include all drug addicts. On the other hand, we must keep our focus specific enough to provide clear identification for our new members.
Why is Our Fellowship Named After a Specific Category of Drugs, Then?
Since it is true that we attempt not to focus on any particular drugs in our meetings, many members have questioned why we are called Narcotics Anonymous. Wouldn't Addicts Anonymous or Drug Addicts Anonymous have been a more appropriate title?
The name of our program does seem incongruous with our philosophy and with the varied nature of our membership. In fact, when our fellowship first formed, we called ourselves "Addicts Anonymous." Two separate fellowships, both calling themselves "AA" was not such a clean break, though. So our founders chose the name Narcotics Anonymous. At the time, "narcotics" referred to all drug categories, and so "Narcotics Anonymous" was a reasonable choice as the name of our fellowship. The original title, then, did reflect our philosophy of not being focused on a specific drug or drugs. Unfortunately, the word narcotics later became associated with a particular drug category.
As our message is translated into other languages, a dilemma occurs. Sometimes "Narcotics Anonymous" is being translated into "Addicts Anonymous" or "Drug Addicts Anonymous" because the local translating committees understand the philosophy of our program. Other times, a new word is created in a language to preserve a stricter translation of our name. And sometimes "Narcotics Anonymous" is translated literally. What has seemed important to us is that the spirit of the NA message be maintained in these translations and that the program, by message and by name, be recognizable regardless of the language used.
The essay is intended to stimulate members' thinking discussion about the nature of addiction. As members awaken spiritually and share with one another, the answers get woven into the fabric of the fellowship's conventional wisdom. Then, just when our thinking begins to harden into dogma, another generation comes along to challenge us and keep our perspective fresh.
We urge NA members to remain open-minded and flexible. It is important to look to our literature and our experienced members for guidance, but ultimately each member has the right to understand and apply this program in the way that works best for her or him.
News for the Public
Please contact the webmaster (email@example.com) if you have any comments, are not able to find something that you are looking for, or have any questions about this new site.
SUBSCRIBEto our Periodicals and Other Publications | <urn:uuid:51fcdb26-ec2c-4a7d-a396-677b7456ae14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://na.org/?ID=bulletins-bull17-r | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962185 | 1,356 | 2.796875 | 3 |
What is a Turkey Vulture? The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) is a large, dark brown-black bird with a bald, red head. The flight feathers are pale grey on the underside and appear as a light band along the edge of the wings when you see them flying above. The Turkey Vulture is very widespread in the Americas, with its range stretching from southern Canada to the southernmost tip of South America.
What do Turkey Vultures eat? Turkey Vultures eat mostly carrion (dead animals). Unlike their relatives, the Black Vultures, it is very uncommon to see a Turkey Vulture kill or eat anything still living. You'll often find them feeding along roadsides, in open fields, and along streams, all areas where dead animals can be found.
How do Turkey Vultures find their food? Turkey Vultures are amazing! They have incredibly good eyesight and a highly developed sense of smell. They typically find their food by the smell rotting carcasses give off and they can see carrion from high in the air. Once they locate a carcass, they will fly down to feed.
How do Turkey Vultures stay cool? Turkey Vultures live in some very hot places and occasionally need to cool down. They do so by urinating or defecating on their own legs! As they fly, they release wastes onto their legs. Fluids in the wastes then evaporate, cooling the blood vessels in the feet and lowering the overall temperature of the bird.
Find out more about the natural happenings at Prairie Ridge at our What Time is it in Nature Archive .
Vulture photo by Dori , used under Creative Commons license. | <urn:uuid:0173fd4f-0fff-4b4d-a8e8-1cebd2a0c85b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://naturalsciences.org/print/2302 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958125 | 350 | 3.15625 | 3 |
3.2. A Hypothetical H-R Diagram for the Inner Region
It is now possible to infer a luminosity-spectrum array that would give an integrated spectrum similar to the one observed for the nuclear region of the Andromeda Nebula. This is illustrated by the vertical lines in Figure 1, where the areas covered by these lines give the approximate loci of the principal contributors to the integrated light.
Figure 1. Hypothetical H-R diagram for the principal contributors to the light of the inner part of M 31 (vertical lines) and of NGC 4449 (horizontal lines). The plot for NGC 4449 is less complete than that for M 31, since spectra in the yellow and red regions were not available.
The question naturally arises as to how nearly unique this interpretation of the composite spectrum of M 31 may be. Although no certain answer can be given on the basis of the scanty M 31 data, the information available on the H-R diagrams and color-magnitude arrays for the older open clusters leads us to conclude that the hypothetical H-R diagram illustrated is approximately correct - as far as the principal contributors to the luminosity are concerned.
It is important to emphasize that the absence in Figure 1 of main-sequence dwarf stars of types G8 to M does not imply that such stars may not be plentiful in the inner part of M 31. In order to have an approximately equal effect in the integrated light, there would have to be of the order of 100 times as many G8 to K2 dwarfs as giants, and thus the relative number of K dwarfs to giants probably is less than 100 to 1. Any ratio smaller than about 50 to 1, however, would be consistent with the appearance of the integrated spectrum. Since the ratio of G8 to K3 dwarfs to giants is of the order of 40 to 1 in the neighborhood of the sun, it appears that a similar ratio is possible for the nuclear region of M 31. This conclusion emphasizes the fact that the principal contributors to the luminosity and to the mass of the inner part of M 31 may be entirely different in nature. Nevertheless, the existence of large numbers of K dwarfs in the system cannot yet be said to have been demonstrated.
We summarize this section as follows: The principal sources of luminosity for the inner part of the Andromeda Nebula are (a) giant stars of spectral types G8 to early M, and (b) an appreciable number of F8 to G5 stars. There is no evidence for the presence of A or early F stars in sufficient numbers to affect the integrated spectrum to an observable degree. | <urn:uuid:5af236ba-83eb-4608-b04b-ae3ed0c7688e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Morgan3/Morgan3_2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944811 | 539 | 3.375 | 3 |
The Britons of 250,000 years ago were a good deal more sophisticated than they are sometimes given credit for, new archaeological evidence suggests.
Only one other handaxe of this type has been found that is bigger
It comes in the form of giant flint handaxes that have been unearthed at a site at Cuxton in Kent.
The tools display exquisite, almost flamboyant, workmanship not associated with this period until now.
The axes - one of which measured 307mm (1ft) in length - were dug up from old sand deposits in a front garden.
"It is a site where there would once have been a slow-moving river," explained Dr Francis Wenban-Smith, from the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of Southampton.
"It would have periodically overflowed its banks; and there would have been occasional sand bars and islands that got exposed. Obviously, at some point, Palaeolithic man was doing something there, left his handaxes, and they got covered up."
The biggest of the tools - the second largest of its type found in Britain - is beautifully preserved and sharply pointed.
It was probably used to butcher prey, which at that time would have included rhino, elephants, large deer and an extinct type of cattle known as aurochs.
Another big implement was uncovered immediately beside the star find; this time a cleaver, 179mm (7 inches) long by 134mm (5 inches) wide.
The lands which are now the UK have been occupied on and off by human species since before 500,000 years ago.
When the retreat of great ice sheets permitted, people would move in from warmer climes further south; and then abandon the region when conditions turned harsh again.
But the period from about 400,000 to 250,000 years ago is known to have been one of intense occupation; not by modern humans (Homo sapiens), who were not in Europe at this time, but by what is now an extinct human form evolving into Homo neanderthalensis, the Neanderthals.
The culture at Cuxton is one that archaeologists refer to as Acheulian, to describe the type of stone tool manufacturing that was dominant at that time.
Dr Wenban-Smith says the latest finds hint that these people were more advanced in their cognitive and behavioural development than is normally assumed.
"Both handaxes come from next to each other which is an important point because it shows they were making different designs," he told BBC News.
The tools were probably left by the side of a slow-moving river
"This points to their mental capabilities. It shows that they could hold in their minds the idea of the shape they wanted to make. There are also technical traits in terms of how they were sharpened which would have to have been preconceived.
"To my mind, this helps prove that these people were not so far away from us as some would think and also that they were probably using language."
The Cuxton manufacturing techniques were soon supplanted by a different way of making stone tools, known as Levalloisian technology. Dr Wenban-Smith said it was unclear whether this knowledge was imported from further south in Europe or independently discovered by the Britons themselves. | <urn:uuid:9b9a3c12-4539-4e21-beae-3c4d4f4780f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5098748.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98702 | 673 | 3.5625 | 4 |
East Hills, NY (February 8, 2005) - - Assessing the risk of potential exposure to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human form of 'mad cow disease,' from blood transfusion was the focus of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) Advisory Committee in Silver Spring, Maryland today. In response to the Committee's encouragement that new technologies should be considered that might lead to greater reduction of risk while not deferring many donors unnecessarily, Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) presented the latest scientific data on its new prion reduction technology. The Leukotrap Affinity Prion Reduction Filter, expected to be launched commercially in Europe this spring, removes infectious prions from red cells, the most widely transfused blood component. Prions are associated with causing vCJD and other fatal neurodegenerative diseases, known as TSEs.
Sam Coker PhD, Principal Scientist and Technical Director of Pall Medical, acknowledged the public health community's heightened concern about the possibility of a second wave of mad cow disease in humans of unknown magnitude globally, including North America. Japan is the latest nation to confirm a human case of mad cow disease.
The unknown time interval between exposure to the infected prion and onset of symptoms exacerbates the challenge of determining the size of a second wave or epidemic. This asymptomatic characteristic poses the key question: How many dormant carriers of vCJD are out there who are at risk of developing clinical disease and who also may be blood donors?
There is currently a ban on blood donations from people who lived in countries with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) infected cattle, which can have an impact on availability and result in shortages of lifesaving blood components. A loss of one percent of donors involves approximately 75,000 to 85,000 individuals in the first year, not to mention their future Page: 1 2 3 4 Related biology news :1
Contact: Marcia Katz
. Removing a hydrogen fuel-cell roadblock2
. Removing DNA repair gene causes metabolic syndrome3
. Removing egg from nest may help save endangered whooping crane4
. Alzheimers prevention role discovered for prions5
. Brittle prions are more infectious6
. Soil-bound prions that cause CWD remain infectious7
. Pall blood filtration technology removes prions that can cause TSEs8
. Deadly infectious entity of prions discovered9
. First technology to remove prions that cause vCJD from blood launched10
. Research confirms that vCJD prions can be removed from blood11
. Study begins to reveal clues to the cause and progression of sepsis | <urn:uuid:cd39d455-a187-4bd4-9f01-1a6da882484d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-3/Removing-prions-that-cause-mad-cow-in-humans-from-blood-13082-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900762 | 570 | 2.984375 | 3 |
European-Style Vocational Education Takes Off in American Schools
Despite America’s struggling economy, companies are hard pressed to find adequately trained workers to fill jobs in manufacturing and other technical sectors as baby boomers retire.
Technical training in U.S. schools is increasingly sophisticated and appealing, in some places beginning to mimic long-established European counterparts. The well-regarded International Baccalaureate high school program has just announced a new Career Certificate (IBCC), affording students at select U.S. schools the opportunity to assume vocational skills, potentially reshaping their post-secondary goals and opportunities.
“The program can be for any student who wants to do it, but not every student who can will,” said Stephanie Childress, this year’s IBCC coordinator at Western Hills High School in Texas. “This gets the kids who still want higher-level learning but who want vocational learning versus academic.”
‘Vehicle to Motivate’ U.S. Students
The career orientation translates well into the U.S. education system, said said Drew Deutsch, IB Americas director. Eight schools across the U.S. piloted it during the 2011-2012 school year.
Multiple states are initiating or already run successful career-certification programs, and several of the pilot schools added IBCC along with other math, science, and early-college options.
“[IBCC] would help both technical educators and academic administrators to understand what intellectually demanding career technical studies might look like,” said Gene Bottoms, director of the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit interstate compact that aims to improve education.
The board is currently working with 12 states, higher education, and the private sector to develop career-oriented high school classes.
“This hits the home run of what we’ve been advocating for the states,” Bottoms said. “It’s not just a work-bound curriculum, it’s a curriculum that utilizes the context of careers as a vehicle to motivate.”
Technical and career options like IBCC should be available to all high school students, said Ashley Parker, a spokesman for the Association for Career and Technical Education.
“That early career exploration and preparation and really starting to develop skills…you need for long-term career success,” she said.
Career training increases students’ abilities and opportunities whether they attend a four-year college or enter the workforce directly, Childress said, because the IBCC program requires tough courses like foreign languages and higher math.
European secondary schools tend to enroll students specific tracks as early as age 14, which American schools should avoid, Parker said.
“Students should have the opportunity to pursue multiple pathways,” Parker said.
Not Just an Elective
The current IBCC pilot schools and 16 additional schools are expected to gain authorization to run the program in 2012-2013, Deutsch said, and 11 more have submitted applications for the 2013-2014 school year.
“Ninety percent of the grads from Granite Bay go on to college,” said Mike McGuire, principal of Granite Bay High School, which piloted IBCC. “This is an affluent community and most of the parents here are very well educated. It’s taken some time over a course of time to have the community look at our programs of study as something other than an elective.”
Given the changing job market, Parker said, more families will likely return to considering technical jobs desirable.
“The sectors in jobs that are really experiencing growth don’t require a four-year degree but are highly skilled jobs that do require post-secondary education,” Parker said. “We definitely think [technical education] is important for the long-term economic vitality of the United States.”
Diploma Programme v. Career Certificate
The IBCC is touted not as an alternative to the academically rigorous IB Diploma Programme, but a similarly challenging group of courses that incorporates aspects of both. Only schools that already offer the Diploma Programme are being considered for IBCC piloting and authorization.
Students take at least two IB Diploma Programme courses and the IBCC core. The core consists of a community service project, an “approaches to learning” class, language classes, and a cross-disciplinary project. They will also engage in an accredited two-year, specific career-oriented course of study aimed at preparing them for college or work upon graduation.
Career focuses include engineering, bio-medical science, automotive technology, culinary arts, business management, and construction. The pathway will be accredited through the schools that offer it.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kenneth Abbate. | <urn:uuid:7b777122-b1ac-465e-861c-53e20494b407> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/06/27/european-style-vocational-education-takes-american-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95356 | 1,006 | 2.625 | 3 |
March 04, 2013
Illustration of the little dodo likely based on stuffed specimens. By: John Gould.
"Surveys suggest that less than 200 birds remain, but the actual population size maybe much lower than this," biologist Rebecca Stirnemann told mongabay.com in a recent interview. "Over 2.5 years of field work in Samoan forests, I have only sighted ten Manumea in the wild. All sightings were of a single adult bird."
Stirnemann's work means that the current listing for the Manumea by the IUCN Red List—Endangered—could be hugely optimistic; worse still, there are no little dodos in captivity, meaning if it vanishes from the wild there is no hope of reintroducing the species. It's believed that the Manumea has fallen to this point due to predation by invasive cats and rats in combination with large-scale forest loss.
A living adult little dodo or Manumea. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
"People in Samoa have described the Manumea as the princess of the forest and their voices are filled with awe. Some people say they have seen Manumea in the past but say sightings are now rare," Stirnemann says. "The old people in some villages are particularly worried, yet they do not know what they can do."
But scientists are also at a loss. The Manumea has never been well studied; in fact Stirnemann says that the species is so little known that a Manumea nest has never been documented.
"We have no idea how territorial they are or how big an area a single bird uses in a daily and seasonal basis. Because we do not know this information if we see a Manumea in two different locations which are some distant apart it is not clear whether we are potentially seeing the same bird," she says, adding that even if it were possible to find individuals for captive breeding, researchers wouldn't know how to care for them.
"The success of any captive breeding program would also require an understanding of the basic biology of the species and its dietary requirements," she notes. "Currently we are not even sure if they breed high up in trees or low to the ground."
To safeguard the Manumea, or little dodo, Stirnemann recommends two courses of action: working closely with locals to protect the forest combined with research to inform us about the biology of the Manumea.
Fealele Enoka, field assistant, holding a Mao. Stirnemann says: 'he is an excellent tree climber. He free climbed to the Mao nests no ropes 26 meters. Working to inspire the future conservations like him is one of my missions so that they can take over the ultimately run the projects.' Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Stirnemann hopes they can eventually capture a Manumea and attach a radio transmitter, so scientists can track the bird and discover how much territory it uses as well as find a nest.
But the Manumea isn't Stirnemann's only concern, however. She is also working with the Mao, a giant forest honey eater, which is endemic to the island as well.
"Like the Manumea when I started my research we knew nothing about this species, but now after extensive field work we know its basic biology and what the threats to its survival are," she says. "For instance we learnt they lay only a single egg at a time. The female feeds her single chick for an extended period of 2.5-3 months. Most birds feed chicks for only a few days after they leave the nest and have many chicks in each nest."
The Mao's biggest threat is an invasive rat that attacks the splendid-looking bird while it's nesting.
Stirnemann says that protecting these two endemic birds would translate into better lives for the Samoan people as well.
"The people of Samoa also need the native forest which is not only beautiful but also protects water catchments. The presence of the forest reduces flooding during heavy rain and protects water for the dry season by acting like a giant sponge," she explains. "Yet until it is gone the value of the forest is not noticed. Slowly it is being logged away."
INTERVIEW WITH REBECCA STIRNEMANN
A juvenile Manumea. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Mongabay: What's your background?
Rebecca Stirnemann: I was introduced to nature and conservation at a very young age. When I was ten years old my family went to live at the foothills of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Here I was lucky to observe elephants, giraffe and herds of migratory wildebeest and zebra in the wild. This experience inspired me becoming a biologist and has resulted in me working with some amazing people and animal species in different areas of the world. For the last three years I have been studying the Ma'oma'o, an endangered species of honeyeater endemic to Samoa. Working in Samoa has lead to me take up the cause of another endangered Samoan bird species, the Manumea.
MANY MONIKERS: THE LITTLE DODO, DODLET, TOOTH-BILLED PIGEON, and MANUMEA
Mongabay: Why has the Manumea or tooth-billed pigeon been dubbed the 'little dodo'? What are its similarities with the extinct dodo?
Rebecca Stirnemann: The Manumea is one of the closest living relatives of the extinct dodo. Both species evolved on tropical islands with few predators. The dodo was only found on Mauritius while the Manumea is only in Samoa. Like the extinct dodo the Manumea is a ground pigeon with a large head and beak. Also like the dodo the future of the Manumea does not look rosy.
Mongabay: How many of these birds are believed to survive on Samoa?
Rebecca Stirnemann weighing birds during capture. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Mongabay: Are there any captive populations?
Rebecca Stirnemann: There are currently no captive Manumea. However, the importance of captive breeding may be important component for increasing the Manumea population to a viable level. Implementing a captive breeding would require us to find Manumea populations in the wild. However the success of any captive breeding program would also require an understanding of the basic biology of the species and its dietary requirements. Currently we are not even sure if they breed high up in trees or low to the ground.
Mongabay: What are the major threats?
Rebecca Stirnemann: Multiple factors are likely to be having an impact on Manumea survival. Historical records suggest that wild cats, which are not native to Samoa, kill Manumea on the nest. Invasive rats are also likely to be eating chicks and eggs. Since many large tropical species only produce a single chick a year, they are strongly impacted by the increased mortality caused by these invasive species. Though local hunters do not target Manumea deliberately since the meat is not considered to be tasty, occasionally Manumea have been shot accidentally when hunting other pigeon species. Furthermore, low land forest in Samoa has substantially declined over the last decade impacting habitat and food sources for the Manumea. With the occurrence of cyclones such as the one in Dec 2012 forest cover has been further reduced potentially affecting food supplies and nest sites.
Historical excerpt from The Call of the South, by Louis Becke, 1908:
Photograph of live Manumea in 1901. Photo by: Augustin Kramer.
Mongabay: How concerned are locals about losing the Manumea?
Ariel shot of upland Savaii, a region that holds many of Samoa's endemic species, and the craters that form there. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Mongabay: What needs to happen to ensure this species doesn't go the way of the big dodo?
Rebecca Stirnemann: Because 76% of land in Samoais owned and managed by local villages and not the government any land and species protection must work with the local people. Therefore conservation education is the key to implementing any conservation plan and getting the appropriate support.
Research on the basic biology of the species is also critical. By gathering initial data on this unknown species, we are hoping to provide insight into how to better conserve this amazing species. We are currently determining where the last Manumea populations remain whilst collecting what biological information we can. We then aim to conduct a more in depth study of the biology of the species and its threats. The latter will involve capturing at least one Manumea and attaching a radio transmitter so we can follow its flight so we can determine what food items the bird needs and also its home range.
By conserving the Manumea we are not only protecting a bird. The Manumea needs the native forest of Samoa. The people of Samoa also need the native forest which is not only beautiful but also protects water catchments. The presence of the forest reduces flooding during heavy rain and protects water for the dry season by acting like a giant sponge. Yet until it is gone the value of the forest is not noticed. Slowly it is being logged away. Conservation education is required to inform the people of Samoa of the value of the forest before it is too late. The Manumea is the symbol not only of a species which is disappearing like the dodo, but also of forest conservation.
THE MAO, SAMOA's ENDANGERED HONEY EATER
An adult Mao. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Mongabay: Will you also tell us about the Mao?
Rebecca Stirnemann: The Mao or Ma'oma'o is an endangered giant forest honey eater also only found in Samoa. It used to also be in American Samoa but went extinct there in the 1800s. Like the Manumea when I started my research we knew nothing about this species, but now after extensive field work we know its basic biology and what the threats to its survival are. For instance we learnt they lay only a single egg at a time. The female feeds her single chick for an extended period of 2.5 to 3 months. Most birds feed chicks for only a few days and have many chicks in each nest.
Mongabay: What makes this bird special?
Rebecca Stirnemann: The call of the Mao is beautiful and very varied. You can follow it to find a breeding pair in their breeding territory. Interestingly, if you can get close enough you can sex because the male has blue eyes while the female has brown eyes. After years of study I can also sex them by listening to their calls. The female sounds a bit more nasal. Also the male bird likes to sit high up in the canopy on the lookout for other bird intruders whom he needs to defend his nest from.
Mongabay: Are the threats similar for the Mao and the Manumea?
Mao mother and chick. Mao mothers spend an incredible three months rearing a single chick. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Mongabay: What are researchers currently hoping to learn about these birds?
Rebecca Stirnemann: I am currently investigating if all areas in the forest are equally risky places to nest or if some places are safe zones. This will help us determine if and where rat control might be required.
Mongabay: What are some of Samoa's other biological wonders?
Rebecca Stirnemann: Samoa has many species which are only in Samoa and nowhere else in the world. Many species are up Mt. Silli silli in the uplands of Savaii. Within the forests there are not only many orchid species and native plants only in Samoa. Forming the top canopy of the forest are giant fig trees which have multiple stems with which to fasten themselves to the ground so they can survive a cyclone. Flying in the canopy there are two species of large fruit bat, one is a diurnal solitary species and the other a nocturnal communal species.
Black and white illustration of the little dodo or Manumea. Photo by: Gustav Mützel.
Air New Zealand defense force helicopters dropping of researchers to survey the biodiversity uplands of Savaii. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Moa chick in nest. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Taken during a Manumea survey post cyclone season, this picture shows just how much rainfall there has been this rainy season. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Ringing a broadbill. The broadbill, or Samoan flycatcher (Myiagra albiventris), is also endemic to Samoa and little is known about its biology. It is considered Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Each tree in the Samoan forest is covered in epiphytes, many of which are orchid species found only in Samoa. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
One of the unoccupied Aleipata islands, Nu'utele. This island currently has only one of the three invasive rat species the Polynesian rat. Recently the first attempt to make it completely rat free was undertaken. The eradication attempt did not completely remove rats from the island however it did buy valuable time for birds to breed and for an entire generation of young trees to grow. Photo by: Rebecca Stirnemann.
Warlords, sorcery, and wildlife: an environmental artist ventures into the Congo
(02/25/2013) Last year, Roger Peet, an American artist, traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to visit one of the world's most remote and wild forests. Peet spent three months in a region that is largely unknown to the outside world, but where a group of conservationists, headed by Terese and John Hart, are working diligently to create a new national park, known as Lomami. Here, the printmaker met a local warlord, discovered a downed plane, and designed a tomb for a wildlife ranger killed by disease, in addition to seeing some of the region's astounding wildlife. Notably, the burgeoning Lomami National Park is home to the world's newest monkey species, only announced by scientists last September.
Pity the pangolin: little-known mammal most common victim of the wildlife trade
(02/11/2013) Last year tens-of-thousands of elephants and hundreds of rhinos were butchered to feed the growing appetite of the illegal wildlife trade. This black market, largely centered in East Asia, also devoured tigers, sharks, leopards, turtles, snakes, and hundreds of other animals. Estimated at $19 billion annually, the booming trade has periodically captured global media attention, even receiving a high-profile speech by U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, last year. But the biggest mammal victim of the wildlife trade is not elephants, rhinos, or tigers, but an animal that receives little notice and even less press: the pangolin. If that name doesn't ring a bell, you're not alone.
Geneticists discover distinct lion group in squalid conditions
(02/04/2013) They languished behind bars in squalid conditions, their very survival in jeopardy. Outside, an international team of advocates strove to bring worldwide attention to their plight. With modern genetics, the experts sought to prove what they had long believed: that these individuals were special. Like other cases of individuals waiting for rescue from a life of deprivation behind bars, the fate of those held captive might be dramatically altered with the application of genetic science to answer questions of debated identity. Now recent DNA analysis has made it official: this group is special and because of their scientifically confirmed distinctiveness they will soon enjoy greater freedom.
Asian bear farming: breaking the cycle of exploitation (warning: graphic images)
(01/31/2013) In the forests of Asia, bears are being captured. These captives will be sent to bear farms, most unregulated and illegal, where they will be kept alive in a small cage, locked away for life. Their bodies will be used as renewable natural resources, from which profit will be made through the extraction of internal organs and fluids. By surgically inserting a permanent catheter into the bears' gall bladders, "farmers" extract several ounces of their bile. In a cycle of exploitation across east Asia, traditional medicine shops receive these daily shipments of bear bile products, while consumers support the industry through the purchase of these products, sustaining a supply-and-demand chain that puts more and more bears in cages as wild populations dwindle.
New palm oil concession imperils orangutan population in Borneo
(01/28/2013) Three conservation groups warn that a proposed palm oil plantation puts a significant Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) population at risk in the Malaysian state of Sabah. The plantation, which would cover 400 hectares of private forest land, lies adjacent to Kulamba Wildlife Reserve, home to 480 orangutans.
Cute koalas have become 'urban refugees'
(01/28/2013) According to Susan Kelly, koalas have become "urban refugees," under siege by expanding cities that bring with them deforestation, dogs, traffic, and other ills for native wildlife. Director of Global Witness, and writer, producer and director of the new documentary Koala Hospital, Kelly has spent 3 years working to understand the rising threats to one of the world's most beloved marsupials. While Koala Hospital highlights the many perils facing koalas, including climate change due to record fires across Australia, it also looks at the efforts of individuals who work to save koalas one—by—one at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, taking in patients who have been orphaned, hit by cars, scarred in fires, or attacked by dogs.
Artificial 'misting system' allows vanished toad to be released back into the wild
(11/01/2012) In 1996 scientists discovered a new species of dwarf toad: the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis). Although surviving on only two hectares near the Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania, the toads proved populous: around 17,000 individuals crowded the smallest known habitat of any vertebrate, living happily off the moist micro-habitat created by spray from adjacent waterfalls. Eight years later and the Kihansi spray toad was gone. Disease combined with the construction of a hydroelectric dam ended the toads' limited, but fecund, reign.
Above the ocean: saving the world's most threatened birds
(11/01/2012) A life on the ocean is a perilous one for any bird. They must expend energy staying aloft for thousands of miles and learn to be marathon swimmers; they must seek food beneath treacherous waves and brave the world's most extreme climates; they must navigate the perils both of an unforgiving sea and far-flung islands. Yet seabirds, which includes 346 global species that depend on marine ecosystems, have evolved numerous strategies and complex life histories to deal with the challenges of the sea successfully, and they have been doing so since the dinosaur’s last stand. Today, despite such a track record, no other bird family is more threatened; yet it's not the wild, unpredictable sea that endangers them, but pervasive human impacts.
Mysteries surrounding the legendary and vanishing oriental bald ibis
(10/31/2012) In a remote corner of the Ethiopian highlands in January 2011, the bright tropical light combined with the fresh and thin air at 3,600 metres. The Ethiopian bird-watching guide and conservationist, Yilma Dellelegn, from the Ethiopian Wildlife Society, was startled when he spotted two un-ringed young bald ibises, together with two ringed and well known adult females (Zenobia and Salam) at their wintering site. Considering the dwindling numbers, two unaccounted for young birds, literally popping out of the blue, were a great surprise—and precious! The sighting had the potential to raise intriguing geographic and behavioral questions: in fact, the riddle of the migration and wintering strategy of the oriental northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) was still half way from being solved. | <urn:uuid:bc1bb54f-4025-45c8-b434-abcfcc56dbc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0304-hance-little-dodo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946455 | 4,291 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Enough already. Five different teams of physicists have now independently verified that elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos do not travel faster than light. New results, announced today in Japan, contradict those announced last September by a 170-member crew working with the OPERA particle detector in Italy's subterranean Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The OPERA team made headlines after they suggested neutrinos traveled 0.002% faster than light, thus violating Einstein's theory of special relativity. The OPERA results were debunked months ago, however. So instead of the nail in the coffin of faster-than-light neutrinos, the new suite of results is more like the sod planted atop their grave.
The OPERA team had timed neutrinos fired through Earth from the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, and found that they made the 730-kilometer trip to Gran Sasso 60 nanosecond faster than they would traveling at light speed. But in February, the OPERA team also discovered that a loose fiber optic cable had introduced a delay in their timing system that explained the effect. A month later, researchers working with the ICARUS particle detector, also housed in Gran Sasso, measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN and found that they travel at light speed, as predicted. By that point, most physicists deemed faster-than-light neutrinos really most sincerely dead. Some OPERA team members thought the whole episode had besmirched the collaboration's reputation, and in March, two of the team's elected leaders lost a vote of no confidence and tendered their resignations. | <urn:uuid:71fa66bf-384b-4b10-b440-a510a4d544b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/06/once-again-physicists-debunk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964086 | 331 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Squeezing Africa dry: behind every land grab is a water grab-GRAIN
Culled from http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/82903
Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years, whether based in Dubai or London City, understand that it’s the access to water that they get from the land deals, which they often get for free and without restriction, that may well be worth the most over the long-term. “The value is not in the land,” says Neil Crowder, whose UK-based company, Chayton Capital, has been acquiring farmland in Zambia. “The real value is in water.”
And water is abundant in Africa, according to those behind the hundreds of large farmland deals that have been signed across Africa. They say the continent’s water resources are vastly under-utilised, and they want to harness them for their agriculture projects. But the reality is that a third of Africans already live in water-scarce environments and climate change is going to up these numbers significantly. A closer look at where these deals are taking place and how much water they plan to consume shows that the projects will rob millions of people of their access to water and risk to deplete the continent’s most precious fresh water sources.
WHEN THE NILE RUNS DRY….
Few countries in Africa have received more foreign interest in their farmland than those served by the Nile River. The Nile, Africa’s longest river, is a lifeline especially for Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda, and already a source of significant geopolitical tensions aggravated by the numerous large-scale irrigation projects that have been undertaken in the region. Back in 1959, Great Britain brokered a colonial deal that divided the water rights between Sudan (a bit) and Egypt (a lot), and no one else. Massive irrigation schemes were built in both countries to grow cotton for export to the UK. In the 1960s, Egypt built the mighty Aswan Dam to regulate the flow of the Nile in Egypt and increase irrigation possibilities. The dam achieved both, but it also stopped the flow of nutrients and minerals that fertilised the downstream soils of Egypt’s farmers.
This economically, ecologically and politically fragile Nile basin is now the target of a new wave of large-scale agriculture projects. Three of the main countries in the basin, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan have, together, already leased out millions of hectares in the basin and are offering more. To bring this land into production, all of it will need to be irrigated. Ethiopia is the source of some 80% of the Nile water. In its Gambela region on the border with South Sudan, corporations such as Karuturi from India and Saudi Star from Saudi Arabia are already building big irrigation channels that will massively increase Ethiopia’s withdrawal of water from the Nile. And these are just two of the actors involved. One calculation suggests that if all the land that the country has leased out is brought under production and irrigation it will increase the country’s use of freshwater resources for agriculture by a factor of nine.
Further downstream, in South Sudan and Sudan, some 4.9 million hectares of land has been leased out to foreign corporations since 2006. That is more than the size of the whole of the Netherlands. And further up north, Egypt is also leasing out land and implementing its own new irrigation projects. Of course, it remains to be seen how much of all this will actually be brought into production and under irrigation, but it is difficult to imagine that the Nile can handle this onslaught.
Reliable figures on how much irrigation is actually possible and sustainable are difficult to find. The FAO, in various publications and in its Aquastat database, gives figures on ‘irrigation potential’ and actual irrigation by country and river basin. FAO establishes 8 million hectares as the total ‘maximum value’ available for total irrigation in all 10 countries of the Nile basin. But the 4 countries mentioned above already have irrigation infrastructure established for 5.4 million hectares and have now leased out a further 8.6 million hectares of land where irrigation will be developed.
THE NIGER, ANOTHER LIFELINE AT RISK
Another part of Africa targeted by agribusiness is the lands along the Niger River, West Africa’s biggest river. Mali, Niger and Nigeria are the countries most dependent on the river, but seven other countries in the Niger basin share its water. It is also extremely fragile as it has suffered from man-made interventions such as dams, irrigation and pollution. Water experts estimate that the volume of the Niger has shrunk by one-third during the last three decades alone. Others indicate that the river might lose another third of its flow as a consequence of climate change.
In Mali, the river spreads out into a vast inland delta which constitutes Mali’s main agricultural zone and one of the region’s most important wetlands. It is here that the ‘Office du Niger’ is located and where many of the land grabbing projects are concentrated. The Office du Niger presides over the irrigation of over 70,000 ha, mainly for the production of rice. It is the largest irrigation scheme in West Africa, and it uses a substantial part of all the river’s water, especially during the dry season.
Back in the 1990s, the FAO put Mali’s potential to irrigate from the Niger at a bit over half a million ha. But now, due to increased water scarcity, independent experts conclude that the whole of Mali has the water capacity to irrigate only 250,000 ha. Yet the Malian government has already signed away 470,000 ha to foreign companies from Libya, China, the UK, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the past few years, and is offering much more.
The Nile and the Niger basins are just two of the areas where land and water rights are massively being given away. The areas where land grabbing is concentrated in Africa coincide almost completely with the continent’s largest river and lake systems, and in most of these areas irrigation is a prerequisite of commercial production
The Ethiopian government is constructing a dam in the Omo River to generate electricity and irrigate a huge sugar-cane plantation – a project that threatens hundreds of thousands of indigenous people that depend on the river further downstream. It also threatens to empty the world’s biggest desert lake, fed by the Omo River, Lake Turkana.
In Kenya, a tremendous controversy has arisen from the government’s plans to hand out huge areas of land in the delta of the Tana River with disastrous implications for the local communities depending on the delta’s water.
The already degraded Senegal River basin and its delta have been subject to hundreds of thousands of hectares in land deals, putting foreign agribusiness in direct competition for the water with local farmers. The list goes on and is growing by the day.
If this land and water grab is not put to an end, millions of Africans are going to lose access to water sources which they need for their livelihoods, as they are moved out of the areas where land/water deals have been agreed to, or simply see the access to their traditional water sources blocked by newly built fences, canals and dikes that are owned by someone else.
There is simply not enough water in Africa’s rivers and water tables to provide irrigation for all of the large-scale agriculture projects that foreign companies are pursuing. If and when they are put under production, these 21st century industrial plantations will rapidly destroy, deplete and pollute water sources across the continent. Such models of agricultural production have generated enormous problems of soil degradation, salinisation and water logging wherever they have been applied.
Africa is in no shape for such an imposition. Over one in three Africans live with water scarcity, and the continent’s food production is set to suffer more than any other from climate change. The advocates of the land deals and mega-irrigation schemes argue that these big investments should be welcomed as an opportunity to combat hunger and poverty in the continent. But bringing in the bulldozers to plant water-demanding crops for export can never be a solution to hunger and poverty.
If the goal is to increase food production, then there is ample evidence that this can be most effectively done by building on the traditional water management and soil conservation systems of local communities, and by strengthening collective and customary rights over land and water sources. | <urn:uuid:98ae2374-66e4-424d-807a-ca20f809f1b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsdiaryonline.com/squeezing-africa-dry-behind-every-land-grab-is-a-water-grab-grain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958749 | 1,763 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Equations of circuit theory led to a prediction of the memristor almost 40 years before the device was discovered. The equations state relations among four variables: charge (q), current (i), voltage (v) and magnetic flux (phi). Taking these variables in pairs, there are six possible combinations, but only five equations were known
1. (Journal of the American Scientist) - The Memristor - The first new passive circuit element since the 1830s might transform computer hardware
Will the memristor turn out to be a transformative technology, the key to putting hundreds of trillions of devices in the palm of your hand? Or will we be asking, a few years from now, “Whatever happened to the memristor?”
The TiO2 memristor is just one of many contending new technologies. Considering only the realm of switched-resistance memory elements, there are several other candidates, including devices based on phase changes, on magnetic fields and on electron spin. (Chua argues that all these devices should be classified as memristors.) To evaluate the long-term prospects of such technologies, one would have to go beyond basic principles of operation to questions of reliability, longevity, uniformity, cost of manufacturing and dozens of other details.
2. Design considerations for variation tolerant multilevel CMOS/Nano memristor memory
With technology migration into nano and molecular scales several hybrid CMOS/nano logic and memory architectures have been proposed thus far that aim to achieve high device density with low power consumption. The discovery of the memristor has further enabled the realization of denser nanoscale logic and memory systems. This work describes the design of such a multilevel memristor memory (MLMM) system, and the design constraints imposed in the realization of such a memory. In particular, the limitations on load, bank size, number of bits achievable per device, placed by the required noise margin (NM) for accurately reading the data stored in a device are analyzed.
3. An Approach to Tolerate Process Related Variations in Memristor-Based Applications
Memristors have been proposed to be used in a wide variety of applications ranging from neural networks to memory to digital logic. Like other electronic devices, memristors are also prone to process variations. We show that the effect of process induced variations in the thickness of the oxide layer of a memristor has a non-linear relationship with memristance. We analyze the effects of process variation on memristor-based threshold gates. We propose two algorithms to tolerate variations on memristance based on two different constraints. One is used to determine the memristance values for a given list of Boolean functions to tolerate a maximum amount of variation. The other is used to determine the list of Boolean functions that can tolerate a maximum amount of variation for given memristance values. Finally, we analyze the performance of memristor-based threshold gates to tolerate variations.
4. Memristor based programmable threshold logic array
In this work, we utilized memristors in the realization of power and area efficient programmable threshold gates. Memristors are used as weights at the inputs of the threshold gates. The threshold gates are programmed by changing the memristance to enable implementation of different Boolean functions. A new threshold gate-array architecture is proposed and evaluated for power, area and delay metrics. The CAD setup that was utilized in the evaluation of the aforementioned architecture, can also be used to analyse the performance of emerging computing technologies. The proposed architecture achieves an average power reduction of 75% and area (transistor count) reduction of 75% when compared to look-up-table (LUT) based logic with some delay penalty.
5. Design of embedded MRAM macros for memory-in-logic applications
In this article we present a design method for integrating non-volatile MRAM memory cells into standard CMOS design. The emphasis is on standard cell based flow for general purpose logic and automatic generation or MRAM macros suitable for the applications. We present a design space exploration for this purpose and transient simulation results of the hybrid MTJ/CMOS designs. We continue the article with examples of automatic macro generation, integration layout and a prototype in 130nm CMOS which is designed to test a large subset of this design space. In conclusion we show that a high 3D integration density with reasonable speed can be achieved with automatic flow by sharing the reading/writing circuitry among a number of MTJs.
6. Low-power dual-element memristor based memory design
Recently, the emerging memristor device technology has attracted significant research interests due to its distinctive hysteresis characteristic, which potentially can enable novel circuit designs for future VLSI circuits. In particular, characteristics such as non-volatility, non-linearity, low power consumption, and good scalability make memristor one of the most promising emerging memory technologies. Some important design parameter, however, such as speed, energy consumption, and distingushiablility, are mainly determined by the memristor's physical characteristics. In this paper, a key observation of memristor's asymmetric energy consumption is made by the detailed analysis of the transient power consumption. Based on this observation, we propose a dual-element memory structure in which each memory cell consists of two memristors. By constantly writing complement bits into the two elements within a cell, the dual-element is flexible to satisfy design constraints which are usually difficult to be satisfied with one-cell memory structure. Design space of the dual-element memory cell is studied and it shows that the trade-offs among the energy, speed, and distingushiablility should be explored for different design objectives. In particular, we show that under the energy-driven optimization, the proposed dual-element memory achieves the same programming speed and distinguishability as conventional single-element memory but the energy consumption can be reduced by up to 80%.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks | <urn:uuid:bba0829e-a929-4811-97da-412396913b79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/memristor-research-roundup-process-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917432 | 1,241 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Shots - Health News
Thu March 7, 2013
To Make Mice Smarter, Add A Few Human Brain Cells
Originally published on Thu March 7, 2013 6:13 pm
For more than a century, neurons have been the superstars of the brain. Their less glamorous partners, glial cells, can't send electric signals, and so they've been mostly ignored.
Now scientists have injected some human glial cells into the brains of newborn mice. When the mice grew up, they were faster learners. The study, published Thursday in Cell Stem Cell, not only introduces a new tool to study the mechanisms of the human brain, it supports the hypothesis that glial cells — and not just neurons — play an important role in learning.
The scientific obsession with neurons really began at the end of the 19th century. Spanish anatomy professor Santiago Ramon y Cajal used a special dye to stain brain tissue. Under the microscope, neurons were revealed in exquisite detail. "A dense forest," Ramón y Cajal called it — a field of little branching cells that would soon be named neurons.
With beautiful ink drawings, Ramón y Cajal painstakingly mapped neural networks and slowly developed the theory that neurons are the telegraph lines of thought (an idea later embraced by Schoolhouse Rock). Every idea and memory — every aspect of learning — could be traced back to the electric signals sent between neurons.
Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize for his work, and scientists focused on neurons for the next century.
But neurons aren't the only cells in the brain.
"We've overlooked half the brain," says Douglas Fields, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health. "We've only been studying one kind of cell in the brain."
The other kind of cell — glial cells — are at least as abundant as neurons. But early scientists thought they were so boring they didn't even merit a singular noun.
"Glia is plural — there is no singular," Fields says. "We have 'neuron' but we don't have 'glion.' "
Glial cells lacked the ability to send electric signals, and most scientists thought they were housekeeping cells, helping provide nutrients and insulation.
It was only in the last decade or so that scientists realized glial cells were more than that. Special types of glial cells, called astrocytes, which are named for the star-like patterns of their cellular structure, have their own form of chemical signaling. They have the potential to coordinate whole groups of neurons.
"Glia are in a position to regulate the flow of information through the brain," Fields says. "This is all missing from our models."
And there's something else. This type of glial cell, these astrocytes, have changed a lot as humans have evolved, while neurons have pretty much stayed the same. A mouse neuron and a human neuron look so much alike, even experienced neuroscientists can't tell them apart.
"I can't tell the differences between a neuron from a bird or a mouse or a primate or a human," says Steve Goldman, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester who has studied brain cells for decades.
But Goldman says glial cells are easy to tell apart.
"Human glial cells — human astrocytes — are much larger than those of lower species," he says. "They have more fibers and they send those fibers out over greater distances."
The thought is maybe these glial cells have played a role in making humans smarter. So Goldman teamed up with this wife, Maiken Nedergaard, to test this idea.
They injected some human glial cells into the brains of newborn mice. The mice grew up, and so did the human glial cells. The cells spread through the mouse brain, integrating perfectly with mouse neurons and, in some areas, outnumbering their mouse counterparts. All the while Goldman says the glial cells maintained their human characteristics.
"They very much thought that they were in the human brain, in terms of how they developed and integrated," he says.
So what are these mice like, the ones with brains full of functioning human cells? Their neural circuitry is still just the same, so they act completely normal. They still socialize with other mice and still seem interested in mousey things.
But the researchers say these mice are measurably smarter. In classic maze tests, they learn faster. "They make many fewer errors, and it takes them less time to come to the appropriate answer," Goldman says.
It might take a normal mouse four or five attempts to learn the correct route, for example. But a mouse with human brain cells could get it on the second try. Glial cells — those boring glial cells — somehow enhance learning.
In fact, they could be changing what it means to be a mouse, and that raises ethical questions for this kind of research.
"Maybe bioethicists have been a little bit too cavalier assuming that a mouse with some human brain cells in it is just your normal old mouse," says Robert Streiffer, a bioethicist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Well, it's not going to be human, but that doesn't mean it's a normal old mouse either."
Streiffer says it's not just that these mice can get through a maze more quickly — they're better at recognizing things that scare them. And perception of fear is one of the things bioethicists must weigh when they decide the types of experiments you can do on an animal.
"So you have to sort of step back and do some hardcore philosophy," he says. Like, will these types of human-animal hybrids eventually get close enough to humanity that we would feel uncomfortable performing experiments on them?
The researchers in this study say we're really, really far from that point. And if you want to investigate the role of glial cells, these hybrid mice are the best tools available. | <urn:uuid:4f374616-0c00-4a9b-9b0b-d0239089995f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nhpr.org/post/make-mice-smarter-add-few-human-brain-cells | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970875 | 1,238 | 3.265625 | 3 |
(Picture stolen from the Daily Telegraph. The top shows the extent of Arctic sea ice in September 2005, the bottom in September 2007)
In 2005, the arctic ice-cap shrank to its smallest extent in recorded history. This year, it's smashed that record, shrinking to a mere 4.13 million square kilometres, compared with the previous low of 5.32 million square kilometres. Previously, climate scientists had been estimating that if climate change continued the arctic would be ice-free around 2080. Now they're talking 2030. This isn't about our children anymore - it will happen in our lifetime.
Worse, the disappearance of the arctic ice-cap will have a significant positive feedback effect on climate change. Ice has a high albedo - it reflects incoming sunlight - so the icecap helps keep the planet cool. Water, OTOH, is darker, and absorbs sunlight. So the result will be more heat pumped into the system, and a dramatic quickening of the warming trend.
The need for swift action is now undeniable (though I'm sure the US-backed Denial industry will find some way to do so. The polar icecap is being stolen by Islamic terrorists?). Given the projected timescale, we are now almost certainly committed to seeing the Arctic melt, with a consequent flow-on effect for the rest of the global climate. But we can reduce the severity of that further impact through significant emissions cuts now. And its up to our governments to do so. | <urn:uuid:3c698835-ef4c-45e2-b642-40c37c389bc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2007/09/climate-change-picture-is-worth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946251 | 307 | 3.203125 | 3 |
The Loskop Dam in Mpumalanga provides water to one of the largest irrigation schemes in the country, the Loskop Irrigation Board.
However, warns CSIR limnologist Dr Paul Oberholster, Loskop Dam’s water quality is deteriorating fast, with permanent blooms of cyanobacteria visible on the surface water throughout the year since 2008. The dam provides water to the Loskop Irrigation Board situated downstream – one of the largest irrigation schemes in South Africa.
The main crops produced in the irrigation area and analysed by the research team include fresh produce, maize, citrus, grapes and wheat.
According to a research report from the CSIR and the University of Stellenbosch, to date none of these nuisance and potentially toxic cyanobacteria had been detected in the irrigation canal water or on irrigated crops.
A more immediate problem and cause for concern is the proliferation of nuisance filamentous algae with strings of up to 15 metres long, caused by the high levels of nutrient enrichment detected in the canals.
According to Oberholster the filamentous macroalgae decrease the carrying capacity of the canals.
“Detached algae continuously drift down the canals, clogging the control gates and crop sprayers causing economical losses. The irrigation board then has to bear the costs of removing these nuisance algae,”he said.
Diek Engelbrecht, chair of LIB, said while they are relieved about the results from the study in the short term, they are still concerned as the dam’s water quality problems and the causes thereof have not been resolved.
Loskop Dam is fed by the heavily contaminated Olifants River. Over the past 15 years, the dam has had a history of isolated incidents of fish mortality. These incidents have escalated in recent years and are believed to be linked to crocodile mortalities and a decline in the crocodile population.
Since the dam’s construction in 1938, it has played an important role in supplying irrigation water to the agriculture sector. Currently the dam supports an export market to the European Union (EU) valued at R1 billion a year. The Loskop Irrigation Board – one of several downstream of the dam – provides irrigation water to 16 000 hectares of agricultural land by means of irrigation channels with a total length of more than 550 kilometres.
Dr Paul Oberholster (CSIR)
Tel: 021 888-2591
Prof Anna-Maria Botha (Stellenbosch University)
Tel: 021 808 5832
Diek Engelbrecht (LIB)
Mobile: 082 557 8197
Johan van Stryp (LIB)
Mobile: 082 960 9585
Dirk Ferreira (LIB)
Mobile: 082 927 1219 | <urn:uuid:fe08ec10-bbf9-4713-9d8e-1009287bec3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ntww1.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/PTL0002_PGE157_MEDIA_REL?MEDIA_RELEASE_NO=7524076 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910701 | 583 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The main meltdowns of the past at civilian plants were Three Mile Island in 1979, the St.-Laurent reactor in France in 1980, and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.
One of the first safety codes to emerge after Three Mile Island was the Modular Accident Analysis Program. Running on a modest computer, it simulates reactor crises based on such information as the duration of a power blackout and the presence of invisible wisps of radioactive materials.
Robert E. Henry, a developer of the code at Fauske & Associates, an engineering company near Chicago, said that a first sign of major trouble at any reactor was the release of hydrogen — a highly flammable gas that has fueled several large explosions at Fukushima Daiichi. The gas, he said in an interview, indicated that cooling water had fallen low, exposing the hot fuel rods.
The next alarms, Dr. Henry said, centered on various types of radioactivity that signal increasingly high core temperatures and melting.
First, he said, “as the core gets hotter and hotter,” easily evaporated products of atomic fission — like iodine 131 and cesium 137 — fly out. If temperatures rise higher, threatening to melt the core entirely, he added, less volatile products such as strontium 90 and plutonium 239 join the rising plume.
The lofting of the latter particles in large quantities points to “substantial fuel melting,” Dr. Henry said.
He added that he and his colleagues modeled the Japanese accident in its first days and discerned partial — not full — core melting.
Micro-Simulation Technology, a software company in Montville, N.J., used its own computer code to model the Japanese accident. It found core temperatures in the reactors soaring as high as 2,250 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to liquefy many reactor metals.
“Some portion of the core melted,” said Li-chi Cliff Po, the company’s president. He called his methods simpler than most industry simulations, adding that the Japanese disaster was relatively easy to model because the observable facts of the first hours and days were so unremittingly bleak — “no water in, no injection” to cool the hot cores.
“I don’t think there’s any mystery or foul play,” Dr. Po said of the disaster’s scale. “It’s just so bad.”
The big players in reactor modeling are federal laboratories and large nuclear companies such as General Electric, Westinghouse and Areva, a French group that supplied reactor fuel to the Japanese complex.
The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque wrote one of the most respected codes. It models whole plants and serves as a main tool of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Washington agency that oversees the nation’s reactors.
Areva and French agencies use a reactor code-named Cathare, a complicated acronym that also refers to a kind of goat’s milk cheese.
On March 21, Stanford University presented an invitation-only panel discussion on the Japanese crisis that featured Alan Hansen, an executive vice president of Areva NC, a unit of the company focused on the nuclear fuel cycle.
“Clearly,” he told the audience, “we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.”
Dr. Hansen, a nuclear engineer, presented a slide show that he said the company’s German unit had prepared. That division, he added, “has been analyzing this accident in great detail.”
The presentation gave a blow-by-blow of the accident’s early hours and days. It said drops in cooling water exposed up to three-quarters of the reactor cores, and that peak temperatures hit 2,700 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot enough to melt steel and zirconium — the main ingredient in the metallic outer shell of a fuel rod, known as the cladding.
“Zirconium in the cladding starts to burn,” said the slide presentation. At the peak temperature, it continued, the core experienced “melting of uranium-zirconium eutectics,” a reactor alloy.
A slide with a cutaway illustration of a reactor featured a glowing hot mass of melted fuel rods in the middle of the core and noted “release of fission products” during meltdown. The products are radioactive fragments of split atoms that can result in cancer and other serious illnesses.
Stanford, where Dr. Hansen is a visiting scholar, posted the slides online after the March presentation. At that time, each of the roughly 30 slides was marked with the Areva symbol or name, and each also gave the name of their author, Matthias Braun.
The posted document was later changed to remove all references to Areva, and Dr. Braun and Areva did not reply to questions about what simulation code or codes the company may have used to arrive at its analysis of the Fukushima disaster.
“We cannot comment on that,” Jarret Adams, a spokesman for Areva, said of the slide presentation. The reason, he added, was “because it was not an officially released document.”
A European atomic official monitoring the Fukushima crisis expressed sympathy for Japan’s need to rely on forensics to grasp the full dimensions of the unfolding disaster.
“Clearly, there’s no access to the core,” the official said. “The Japanese are honestly blind.” | <urn:uuid:d747e939-ac02-47d1-baaa-a7d108dc01bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nutrimedical.com/news.jhtml?method=view&news.id=3098 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93707 | 1,167 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Front Page Titles (by Subject) CHAPTER X.: means of abolishing cottier tenancy - Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (Ashley ed.)
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CHAPTER X.: means of abolishing cottier tenancy - John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (Ashley ed.)
Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, ed. William James Ashley (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909, 7th ed.).
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means of abolishing cottier tenancy
1. When the first edition of this work was written and published,1 . the question, what is to be done with a cottier population, was to the English Government the most urgent of practical questions. The majority of a population of eight millions, having long grovelled in helpless inertness and abject poverty under the cottier system, reduced by its operation to mere food of the cheapest description, and to an incapacity of either doing or willing anything for the improvement of their lot, had at last, by the failure of that lowest quality of food, been plunged into a state in which the alternative seemed to be either death, or to be permanently supported by other people, or a radical change in the economical arrangements under which it had hitherto been their misfortune to live. Such an emergency had compelled attention to the subject from the legislature and from the nation, but it could hardly be said with much result; for, the evil having originated in a system of land tenancy which withdrew from the people every motive to industry or thrift except the fear of starvation, the remedy provided by Parliament was to take away even that, by conferring on them a legal claim to eleemosynary support: while, towards correcting the cause of the mischief, nothing was done, beyond vain complaints, though at the price to the national treasury of ten millions sterling for the delay.
“It is needless,” (I observed) “to expend any argument in proving that the very foundation of the economical evils of Ireland is the cottier system; that while peasant rents fixed by competition are the practice of the country, to expect industry, useful activity, any restraint on population but death, or any the smallest diminution of poverty, is to look for figs on thistles and grapes on thorns. If our practical statesmen are not ripe for the recognition of this fact; or if while they acknowledge it in theory, they have not a sufficient feeling of its reality, to be capable of founding upon it any course of conduct; there is still another, and a purely physical consideration, from which they will find it impossible to escape. If the one crop on which the people have hitherto supported themselves continues to be precarious, either some new and great impulse must be given to agricultural skill and industry, or the soil of Ireland can no longer feed anything like its present population. The whole produce of the western half of the island, leaving nothing for rent, will not now keep permanently in existence the whole of its people: and they will necessarily remain an annual charge on the taxation of the empire, until they are reduced either by emigration or by starvation to a number corresponding with the low state of their industry, or unless the means are found of making that industry much more productive.”
1 Since these words were written, events unforeseen by any one have saved the English rulers of Ireland from the embarrassments which would have been the just penalty of their indifference and want of foresight. Ireland, under cottier agriculture, could no longer supply food to its population: Parliament, by way of remedy, applied a stimulus to population, but none at all to production; the help, however, which had not been provided for the people of Ireland by political wisdom, came from an unexpected source. Self-supporting emigration—the Wakefield system, brought into effect on the voluntary principle and on a gigantic scale (the expenses of those who followed being paid from the earnings of those who went before) has, for the present, reduced the population down to the number for which the existing agricultural system can find employment and support. The census of 1851, compared with that of 1841, showed in round numbers a diminution of population of a million and a half. The subsequent census (of 1861) shows a further diminution of about half a million. The Irish having thus found the way to that flourishing continent which for generations will be capable of supporting in undiminished comfort the increase of the population of the whole world; the peasantry of Ireland having learnt to fix their eyes on a terrestrial paradise beyond the ocean, as a sure refuge both from the oppression of the Saxon and from the tyranny of nature; there can be little doubt that however much the employment for agricultural labour may hereafter be diminished by the general introduction throughout Ireland of English farming—or even if, like the county of Sutherland, all Ireland should be turned into a grazing farm—the superseded people would migrate to America with the same rapidity, and as free of cost to the nation, as the million of Irish who went thither during the three years previous to 1851. Those who think that the land of a country exists for the sake of a few thousand landowners, and that as long as rents are paid, society and government have fulfilled their function, may see in this consummation a happy end to Irish difficulties.
But this is not a time, nor is the human mind now in a condition, in which such insolent pretensions can be maintained. The land of Ireland, the land of every country, belongs to the people of that country. The individuals called landowners have no right, in morality and justice, to anything but the rent, or compensation for its saleable value. With regard to the land itself, the paramount consideration is, by what mode of appropriation and of cultivation it can be made most useful to the collective body of its inhabitants. To the owners of the rent it may be very convenient that the bulk of the inhabitants, despairing of justice in the country where they and their ancestors have lived and suffered, should seek on another continent that property in land which is denied to them at home. But the legislature of the empire ought to regard with other eyes the forced expatriation of millions of people. When the inhabitants of a country quit the country en masse because its Government will not make it a place fit for them to live in, the Government is judged and condemned. There is no necessity for depriving the landlords of one farthing of the pecuniary value of their legal rights; but justice requires that the actual cultivators should be enabled to become in Ireland what they will become in America—proprietors of the soil which they cultivate.
Good policy requires it no less. Those who, knowing neither Ireland nor any foreign country, take as their sole standard of social and economical excellence English practice, propose as the single remedy for Irish wretchedness, the transformation of the cottiers into hired labourers. But this is rather a scheme for the improvement of Irish agriculture, than of the condition of the Irish people. The status of a day-labourer has no charm for infusing forethought, frugality, or self-restraint, into a people devoid of them. If the Irish peasant could be universally changed into receivers of wages, the old habits and mental characteristics of the people remaining, we should merely see four or five millions of people living as day-labourers in the same wretched manner in which as cottiers they lived before; equally passive in the absence of every comfort, equally reckless in multiplication, and even, perhaps, equally listless at their work; since they could not be dismissed in a body, and if they could, dismissal would now be simply remanding them to the poor-rate. Far other would be the effect of making them peasant proprietors. A people who in industry and providence have everything to learn—who are confessedly among the most backward of European populations in the industrial virtues—require for their regeneration the most powerful incitements by which those virtues can be stimulated: and there is no stimulus as yet comparable to property in land. A permanent interest in the soil to those who till it, is almost a guarantee for the most unwearied laboriousness: against over-population, thought not infallible, it is the best preservative yet known, and where it failed, any other plan would probably fail much more egregiously; the evil would be beyond the reach of merely economic remedies.
The case of Ireland is similar in its requirements to that of India. In India, though great errors have from time to time been committed, no one ever proposed, under the name of agricultural improvement, to eject the ryots or peasant farmers from their possession; the improvement that has been looked for, has been through making their tenure more secure to them, and the sole difference of opinion is between those who contend for perpetuity, and those who think that long leases will suffice. The same question exists as to Ireland: and it would be idle to deny that long leases, under such landlords as are sometimes to be found do effect wonders, even in Ireland. But then they must be leases at a low rent. Long leases are in no way to be relied on for getting rid of cottierism. During the existence of cottier tenancy, leases have always been long; twenty-one years and three lives concurrent, was a usual term. But the rent being fixed by competition, at a higher amount than could be paid, so that the tenant neither had, nor could by any exertion acquire, a beneficial interest in the land, the advantage of a lease was nearly nominal. In India, the government, where it has not imprudently made over its proprietary rights to the zemindars,1 . is able to prevent this evil, because, being itself the landlord, it can fix the rent according to its own judgment; but under individual landlords, while rents are fixed by competition, and the competitors are a peasantry struggling for subsistence, nominal rents are inevitable, unless the population is so thin, that the competition itself is only nominal. The majority of landlords will grasp at immediate money and immediate power; and so long as they find cottiers eager to offer them everything, it is useless to rely on them for tempering the vicious practice by a considerate self-denial.
A perpetuity is a stronger stimulus to improvement than a long lease: not only because the longest lease, before coming to an end, passes through all the varieties of short leases down to no lease at all; but for more fundamental reasons. It is very shallow, even in pure economics, to take no account of the influence of imagination: there is a virtue in “for ever” beyond the longest term of years; even if the term is long enough to include children, and all whom a person individually cares for, yet until he has reached that high degree of mental cultivation at which the public good (which also includes perpetuity) acquires a paramount ascendancy over his feelings and desires, he will not exert himself with the same ardour to increase the value of an estate, his interest in which diminishes in value every year. Besides, while perpetual tenure is the general rule of landed property, as it is in all the counties of Europe, a tenure for a limited period, however long, is sure to be regarded as a something of inferior consideration and dignity, and inspires less of ardour to obtain it, and of attachment to it when obtained. But where a country is under cottier tenure, the question of perpetuity is quite secondary to the more important point, a limitation of the rent. Rent paid by a capitalist who farms for profit, and not for bread, may safely be abandoned to competition; rent paid by labourers cannot, unless the labourers were in a state of civilization and improvement which labourers have nowhere yet reached, and cannot easily reach under such a tenure. Peasant rents ought never to be arbitrary, never at the discretion of the landlord: either by custom or law, it is imperatively necessary that they should be fixed; and where no mutually advantageous custom, such as the metayer system of Tuscany, has established itself, reason and experience recommend that they should be fixed by authority: thus changing the rent into a quit-rent, and the farmer into a peasant proprietor.
For carrying this change into effect on a sufficiently large scale to accomplish the complete abolition of cottier tenancy, the mode which most obviously suggests itself is the direct one of doing the thing outright by Act of Parliament; making the whole land of Ireland the property of the tenants, subject to the rents now really paid (not the nominal rent), as a fixed rent charge. This, under the name of “fixity of tenure,” was one of the demands of the Repeal Association during the most successful period of their agitation; and was better expressed by Mr. Conner, its earliest, most enthusiastic, and most indefatigable apostle,∗ . by the words, “a valuation and a perpetuity.” In such a measure there would not have been any injustice, provided the landlords were compensated for the present value of the chances of increase which they were prospectively required to forego. The rupture of existing social relations would hardly have been more violent than that effected by the ministers Stein and Hardenberg when, by a series of edicts, in the early part of the present century, they revolutionized the state of landed property in the Prussian monarchy, and left their names to posterity among the greatest benefactors of their country. To enlightened foreigners writing on Ireland, Von Raumer and Gustave de Beaumont, a remedy of this sort seemed so exactly and obviously what the disease required, that they had some difficulty in comprehending how it was that the thing was not yet done.
This, however, would have been, in the first place, a complete expropriation of the higher classes of Ireland: which, if there is any truth in the principles we have laid down, would be perfectly warrantable, but only if it were the sole means of effecting a great public good. In the second place, that there should be none but peasant proprietors, is in itself far from desirable. Large farms, cultivated by large capital, and owned by persons of the best education which the country can give, persons qualified by instruction to appreciate scientific discoveries, and able to bear the delay and risk of costly experiments, are an important part of a good agricultural system. Many such landlords there are even in Ireland; and it would be a public misfortune to drive them from their posts. A large proportion also of the present holdings are probably still too small to try the proprietary system under the greatest advantages; nor are the tenants always the persons one would desire to select as the first occupants of peasant-properties. There are numbers of them on whom it would have a more beneficial effect to give them the hope of acquiring a landed property by industry and frugality, than the property itself in immediate possession.1 .
There are, however, much milder measures, not open to similar objections, and which, if pushed to the utmost extent of which they are susceptible, would realize in no inconsiderable degree the object sought. One of them would be, to enact that whoever reclaims waste land becomes the owner of it, at a fixed quit-rent equal to a moderate interest on its mere value as waste. It would of course be a necessary part of this measure, to make compulsory on landlords the surrender of waste lands (not of an ornamental character) whenever required for reclamation. Another expedient, and one in which individuals could co-operate, would be to buy as much as possible of the land offered for sale, and sell it again in small portions as peasant-properties. A Society for this purpose was at one time projected (though the attempt to establish it proved unsuccessful) on the principles, so far as applicable, of the Freehold Land Societies which have been so successfully established in England, not primarily for agricultural, but for electoral purposes.1 .
This is a mode in which private capital may be employed in renovating the social and agricultural economy of Ireland, not only without sacrifice but with considerable profit to its owners. The remarkable success of the Waste Land Improvement Society, which proceeded on a plan far less advantageous to the tenant, is an instance of what an Irish peasantry can be stimulated to do, by a sufficient assurance that what they do will be for their own advantage. It is not even indispensable to adopt perpetuity as the rule; long leases at moderate rents, like those of the Waste Land Society, would suffice, if a prospect were held out to the farmers of being allowed to purchase their farms with the capital which they might acquire, as the Society' tenants were so rapidly acquiring under the influence of its beneficent system.∗ . When the lands were sold, the funds of the association would be liberated, and it might recommence operations in some other quarter.
§ 2.1 . Thus far I had written in 1856. Since that time the great crisis of Irish industry has made further progress, and it is necessary to consider how its present state affects the opinions, on prospects or on practical measures, expressed in the previous part of this chapter.
The principal change in the situation consists in the great diminution, holding out a hope of the entire extinction, of cottier tenure. The enormous decrease in the number of small holdings, and increase in those of a medium size, attested by the statistical returns, sufficiently proves the general fact, and all testimonies show that the tendency still continues.∗ . It is probable that the repeal of the corn laws, necessitating a change in the exports of Ireland from the products of tillage to those of pasturage, would of itself have sufficed to bring about this revolution in tenure. A grazing farm can only be managed by a capitalist farmer, or by the landlord. But a change involving so great a displacement of the population has been immensely facilitated and made more rapid by the vast emigration, as well as by that greatest boon ever conferred on Ireland by any Government, the Encumbered Estates Act; the best provisions of which have since, through the Landed Estates Court, been permanently incorporated into the social system of the country. The greatest part of the soil of Ireland, there is reason to believe, is now farmed either by the landlords, or by small capitalist farmers. That these farmers are improving in circumstances, and accumulating capital, there is considerable evidence, in particular the great increase of deposits in the banks of which they are the principal customers. So far as that class is concerned, the chief thing still wanted is security of tenure, or assurance of compensation for improvements. The means of supplying these wants are now engaging the attention of the most competent minds; Judge Longfield' address, in the autumn of 1864, and the sensation created by it, are an era in the subject, and a point has now been reached when we may confidently expect that within a very few years something effectual will be done.
But what, meanwhile, is the condition of the displaced cottiers, so far as they have not emigrated; and of the whole class who subsist by agricultural labour, without the occupation of any land? As yet, their state is one of great poverty, with but slight prospect of improvement. Money wages, indeed, have risen much above the wretched level of a generation ago: but the cost of subsistence has also risen so much above the old potato standard, that the real improvement is not equal to the nominal; and according to the best information to which I have access, there is little appearance of an improved standard of living among the class. The population, in fact, reduced though it be, is still far beyond what the country can support as a mere grazing district of England. It may not, perhaps, be strictly true that, if the present number of inhabitants are to be maintained at home, it can only be either on the old vicious system of cottierism, or as small proprietors growing their own food. The lands which will remain under tillage would, no doubt, if sufficient security for outlay were given, admit of a more extensive employment of labourers by the small capitalist farmers; and this, in the opinion of some competent judges, might enable the country to support the present number of its population in actual existence. But no one will pretend that this resource is sufficient to maintain them in any condition in which it is fit that the great body of the peasantry of a country should exist. Accordingly the emigration, which for a time had fallen off, has, under the additional stimulus of bad seasons, revived in all its strength. It is calculated that within the year 1864 not less than 100,000 emigrants left the Irish shores. As far as regards the emigrants themselves and their posterity, or the general interests of the human race, it would be folly to regret this result. The children of the immigrant Irish receive the education of Americans, and enter, more rapidly and completely than would have been possible in the country of their descent, into the benefits of a higher state of civilization. In twenty or thirty years they are not mentally distinguishable from other Americans. The loss, and the disgrace, are England' : and it is the English people and government whom it chiefly concerns to ask themselves, how far it will be to their honour and advantage to retain the mere soil of Ireland, but to lose its inhabitants. With the present feelings of the Irish people, and the direction which their hope of improving their condition seems to be permanently taking, England, it is probable, has only the choice between the depopulation of Ireland, and the conversion of a part of the labouring population into peasant proprietors. The truly insular ignorance of her public men respecting a form of agricultural economy which predominates in nearly every other civilized country, makes it only too probable that she will choose the worse side of the alternative. Yet there are germs of a tendency to the formation of peasant proprietors on Irish soil, which require only the aid of a friendly legislator to foster them; as is shown in the following extract from a private communication by my eminent and valued friend, Professor Cairnes:—
“On the sale, some eight or ten years ago, of the Thomond, Portarlington, and Kingston estates, in the Encumbered Estates Court, it was observed that a considerable number of occupying tenants purchased the fee of their farms. I have not been able to obtain any information as to what followed that proceeding—whether the purchasers continued to farm their small properties, or under the mania of landlordism tried to escape from their former mode of life. But there are other facts which have a hearing on this question. In those parts of the country where tenant-right prevails, the prices given for the goodwill of a farm are enormous. The following figures, taken from the schedule of an estate in the neighbourhood of Newry, now passing through the Landed Estates Court, will give an idea, but a very inadequate one, of the prices which this mere customary right generally fetches.
“Statement showing the prices at which the tenant-right of certain farms near Newry was sold:—
“The prices here represent on the whole about three years' purchase of the rental: but this, as I have said, gives but an inadequate idea of that which is frequently, indeed of that which is ordinarily, paid. The right, being purely customary, will vary in value with the confidence generally reposed in the good faith of the landlord. In the present instance, circumstances have come to light in the course of the proceedings connected with the sale of the estate, which give reason to believe that the confidence in this case was not high; consequently, the rates above given may be taken as considerably under those which ordinarily prevail. Cases, as I am informed on the highest authority, have in other parts of the country come to light, also in the Landed Estates Court, in which the price given for the tenant-right was equal to that of the whole fee of the land. It is a remarkable fact that people should be found to give, say twenty or twenty-five years' purchase, for land which is still subject to a good round rent. Why, it will be asked, do they not purchase land out and out for the same, or a slightly larger, sum? The answer to this question, I believe is to be found in the state of our land laws. The cost of transferring land in small portions is, relatively to the purchase money, very considerable, even in the Landed Estates Court; while the goodwill of a farm may be transferred without any cost at all. The cheapest conveyance that could be drawn in that Court, where the utmost economy, consistent with the present mode of remunerating legal services, is strictly enforced, would, irrespective of stamp duties, cost 10l.—a very sensible addition to the purchase of a small peasant estate: a conveyance to transfer a thousand acres might not cost more, and would probably not cost much more. But in truth, the mere cost of conveyance represents but the least part of the obstacles which exist to obtaining land in small portions. A far more serious impediment is the complicated state of the ownership of land, which renders it frequently impracticable to subdivide a property into such portions as would bring the land within the reach of small bidders. The remedy for this state of things, however, lies in measures of a more radical sort than I fear it is at all probable that any House of Commons we are soon likely to see would even with patience consider. A registry of titles may succeed in reducing this complex condition of ownership to its simplest expression; but where real complication exists, the difficulty is not to be got rid of by mere simplicity of form; and a registry of titles—while the powers of disposition at present enjoyed by landowners remain undiminished, while every settler and testator has an almost unbounded licence to multiply interests in land, as pride, the passion for dictation, or mere whim may suggest—will, in my opinion, fail to reach the root of the evil. The effect of these circumstances is to place an immense premium upon large dealings in land—indeed in most cases practically to preclude all other than large dealing; and while this is the state of the law, the experiment of peasant proprietorship, it is plain, cannot be fairly tried. The facts, however, which I have stated, show, I think, conclusively, that there is no obstacle in the disposition of the people to the introduction of this system.”
I have concluded a discussion, which has occupied a space almost disproportioned to the dimensions of this work; and I here close the examination of those simpler forms of social economy in which the produce of the land either belongs undividedly to one class, or is shared only between two classes. We now proceed to the hypothesis of a threefold division of the produce, among labourers, landlords, and capitalists; and in order to connect the coming discussions as closely as possible with those which have now for some time occupied us, I shall commence with the subject of Wages.1 .
[These words were added in the 3rd ed. (1852), and the following sentences changed from the present to the past tense.]
[This and the next two paragraphs date from the 3rd ed. (1852), and take the place of the whole of the original § 2.]
[This clause was inserted in the 3rd ed. (1852).]
[∗]Author of numerous pamphlets, entitled True Political Economy of Ireland, Letter to the Earl of Devon, Two Letters on the Rackrent Oppression of Ireland, and others. Mr. Conner has been an agitator on the subject since 1832.
[Here was dropt out, from the 3rd ed. (1852) the following section of the original text:
[Little more than this remained in the 3rd ed. (1852)—modified to its present shape in the 5th (1862)—of the argument in favour of measures of reclamation of waste land which occupied five pages in the original edition. It opened thus: “There is no need to extend them to all the population, or all the land. It is enough if there be land available, on which to locate so great a portion of the population, that the remaining area of the country shall not be required to maintain greater numbers than are compatible with large farming and hired labour. For this purpose there is an obvious resource in the waste lands; which are happily so extensive, and a large proportion of them so improvable, as to afford a means by which, without making the present tenants proprietors, nearly the whole surplus population might be converted into peasant proprietors elsewhere.”
[∗] Though this society, during the years succeeding the famine, was forced to wind up its affairs, the memory of what is accomplished ought to be preserved. The following is an extract in the Proceedings of Lord Devon' Commission (page 84) from the report made to the society in 1845, by their intelligent manager, Colonel Robinson:—
[A brief section, beginning thus, was added in the 5th ed. (1862). This was omitted, and the present § 2 added in the 6th ed. (1865).]
[∗]There is, however, a partial counter-current, of which I have not seen any public notice. “A class of men, not very numerous, but sufficiently so to do much mischief, have, through the Landed Estates Court, got into possession of land in Ireland, who, of all classes, are least likely to recognise the duties of a landlord' position. These are small traders in towns, who by dint of sheer parsimony, frequently combined with money-lending at usurious rates, have succeeded, in the course of a long life, in scraping together as much money as will enable them to buy fifty or a hundred acres of land. These people never think of turning farmers, but, proud of their position as landlords, proceed to turn it to the utmost account. An instance of this kind came under my notice lately. The tenants on the property were, at the time of the purchase, some twelve years ago, in a tolerably comfortable state. Within that period their rent has been raised three several times; and it is now, as I am informed by the priest of the district, nearly double its amount at the commencement of the present proprietor' reign. The result is that the people, who were formerly in tolerable comfort, are now reduced to poverty: two of them have left the property and squatted near an adjacent turf bog, where they exist trusting for support to occasional jobs. If this man is not shot, he will injure himself through the deterioration of his property, but meantime he has been getting eight or ten per cent on his purchase-money. This is by no means a rare case. The scandal which such occurrences cause, casts its reflection on transactions of a wholly different and perfectly legitimate kind, where the removal of the tenants is simply an act of mercy for all parties.
[See Appendix N. Irish Agrarian Development.] | <urn:uuid:cf15af09-cda4-4fbc-84d1-0a59b2d736e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=101&chapter=36267&layout=html&Itemid=27 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968707 | 6,616 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Migrant labor in the US agricultural sector
The agricultural (farm) sector in the United States makes significant use of migrant labor, typically in the form of seasonal migrant laborers, also called guest workers. Due to the difficulty of getting temporary visas for work classed as “low-skilled” work, a lot of the labor used in this sector is from unauthorized (also known as “illegal”) workers. Proponents of the use of migrant labor have advocated for expanded guest worker programs that would allow easier legal passage for short-term work, such as by expanding the H-2 visa category in the United States.
Key points of contention
Restrictionists have voiced a number of concerns regarding the use of migrant labor.
- Restrictionists have argued that migrant laborers take jobs from American natives by suppressing the market-clearing wage levels to well below those that Americans would be willing to work at. Restrictionists often ridicule the poorly framed pro-migration argument which says “immigrants do jobs natives won’t do” by pointing out that at a sufficiently high price, natives would be willing to do those jobs. The counter-argument to this is that offering such a high price would not be cost-effective for employers and they may instead choose to forgo the use of labor entirely, letting their produce rot. More on the general theory at the “immigrants do jobs natives won’t do” link.
- Another point often made, specifically in the context of low-skilled agricultural labor, is that cheap labor comes in the way of technological improvements and mechanization. This is partly true, but there are a number of counter-arguments. More on the general theory at the cheap labor leading to a technological slowdown page.
- An argument occasionally offered by restrictionists is that farm subsidies cause an overproduction in the US agricultural sector, so keeping out migrant labor may serve as a correction factor. This is a “two wrongs make a right” type of argument.
- Some labor advocacy groups have voiced concern regarding what they perceive to be the exploitation of migrant workers who lack some legal rights and privileges accorded to US citizens and legal residents. A counter-argument to this (made in Michael Clemens’ blog post linked below) is that many seasonal migrant workers are repeat workers — they often choose to participate in the guest worker program multiple times, which suggests that their previous experiences were sufficiently positive.
Articles, papers, and blog posts discussing the theory and ground realities of farm labor in the United States from a broad perspective:
- Farm Labor Shortages and the Economic Evidence of the Declining Competitiveness of U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Producers: A White Paper (PDF, 4 pages) by James S. Holt, prepared for the Agricultural Coalition on Immigration Reform.
- Do Farm Workers from Developing Countries Take Jobs from Americans? by Michael Clemens on a blog of the Center for Global Development.
Policy analyses and news articles discussing the impact of the Arizona immigration crackdown and a similar crackdown in Alabama on agriculture in these states:
- The Economic Case Against Arizona’s Immigration Laws, a policy analysis by Alex Nowrasteh for the Cato Institute, discusses the impact of Arizona’s law on agriculture, construction, and services.
- Bitter Harvest: U.S. Farmers Blame Billion-Dollar Losses on Immigration Laws by Alfonso Serrano, September 21, 2012, Time Magazine. This was referenced in The Bitter Harvest of Immigration Restrictions by Ilya Somin, September 21, 2012, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog.
- After immigration crackdown, farmers mull planting by Kate Brumback, January 20, 2012, Associated Press (link is to printed version in CNSNews.com).
- A Shortage of Mexican Laborers Threatens Arizona Farming by Monica Alonzo, August 25, 2011, in the Phoenix NewTimes.
- Anti-illegal immigration bill stokes backlash in Alabama fields by Mark Guarino, Ocotober 22, 2011, in the Christian Science Monitor.
Creative solutions to the problem of difficulty of getting visas for migrant agricultural labor:
- CITA, praised by Michael Clemens in a blog post titled This Beats Most Aid by Miles — And It’s a Migration Non-Profit (September 20, 2012), and featured on the migration arbitrage business opportunities page.
P.S.: Thanks to Alex Nowrasteh for suggesting some of the links and references on this page. | <urn:uuid:f9c4b3df-03fa-41ca-a199-7b51b7eeb5ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://openborders.info/migrant-labor-in-the-us-agricultural-sector/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927698 | 935 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Russian Orthodox Church in Exile
The Russian Orthodox Church in Exile (ROCE/ROCIE) is a jurisdiction formed in 2001 in protest against and breaking from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, primarily over the latter's ongoing rapprochement process with the Moscow Patriarchate. The ROCE still sometimes uses the ROCOR/ROCA name and regards itself as the true ROCOR.
The two jurisdictions are sometimes distinguished as ROCOR (V) and ROCOR (L), the initial in parentheses referring to the primate of each group.
The ROCE was led by Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) of New York, who had retired as the primate of the ROCOR, but passed away on September 26, 2006. Upon the formation of the ROCE Metropolitan Vitaly was declared by the ROCE to have been retired forcibly by his enemies in ROCOR and then removed to Canada, where he governs the ROCE. It is reported by critics of this jurisdiction that the aged Vitaly was kidnapped and is essentially a figurehead, being unfit for episcopal governance.
According to its website, the ROCE currently has 8 parishes, missions and home chapels, along with one convent, in the United States; 8 parishes, missions and chapels, along with 2 monastic sketes, in Canada; 2 parishes and one convent in South America; 8 parishes in Europe; and a "deanery" of clergy and monastics in Russia. The ROCE also has a handful of clergy and laymen throughout the world which hold allegiance to it but may not have any parish associated with them. | <urn:uuid:e8133154-bc90-4cf4-9503-af75ca154e57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Russian_Orthodox_Church_in_Exile&oldid=40714 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973753 | 347 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Nehanda was the leader of the resistance organized by the Mashona people against white-settler colonialism in Zimbabwe. She was captured and executed by the British for her fearless struggles against British imperialism., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Indigenisation and race demographics
Tuesday, 24 January 2012 00:00
The whites who settled in the then Rhodesia, most of whom were of British extraction, brought with them a Western type liberal-democratic political culture. They, however, applied it to where land ownership was concerned. They propped up some kind of "sectional democracy". The political scheme was built in such a way that black people were excluded from the system, as they were considered to be "politically immature". Regular elections characterised white politics, white supremacy, white economic security and white privilege.
Blacks were not up for discussion, as their welfare didn't matter.
When Zimbabwe gained independence, around 6 000 white commercial farmers, who made up less than 1 percent of the population, owned 70 percent of the best farming land (some of which lay without being utilised).
The new Government accepted a "willing buyer, willing seller" plan as part of the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, among other concessions to the white minority.
As part of this agreement, land redistribution was blocked for a period of 10 years.
This was to sustain a culture whereby indigenous people were forced to live on marginal lands as Zimbabwe's best lands were reserved for mainly white landlords growing cash crops for export.
In some cases, the white farms were utilised for game ranching, giving more prominence to game hunting and the so-called eco-tourism over the need to empower local indigenous people.
Racial and class privilege were guaranteed through a network of legislation that confined the non-White populations outside the mainstream economy, indigenous people were therefore forced to be a cheap pool of labour, to be precise slaves for industry, commercial agriculture and mining. Some commentators, such as Matthew Sweet, hold Cecil Rhodes ultimately responsible.
Sweet believes that it was Cecil Rhodes who originated the racist "land grabs" in Zimbabwe.
It was Rhodes who in 1887 told the House of Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa that "the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise".
He said: "We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of Southern Africa". According to Sweet, "In less oratorical moments, Rhodes put it even more bluntly: ‘I prefer land to niggers.'"
It is on these bases that it was decided by Government that direct intervention in the distribution of assets and opportunities was needed to resolve the economic disparities created by Rhodesian policies which had favoured whites for decades.
The Zimbabwe Government gave priority to human resource investments and support for smallholder agriculture.
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment of Zimbabweans, though delayed, was always in the minds of our new government.
The Government's intention was to transform the economy to be representative of the demographics, specifically race demographics.
It was to be an integrated and coherent socio-economic process.
It was been a long time coming.
The Indigenisation Act (2007) is clearly aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer ownership, management and control of Zimbabwean financial and economic resources to the majority of the citizens.
It seeks to ensure broader and meaningful participation in the economy by indigenous black people to achieve sustainable development and prosperity.
This is what Indigenisation is about.
In the past 15 years, the victories of the indigenous Zimbabweans have been a never-ending nightmare for western governments.
This is something the western world doesn't want to see happening.
Since the Government's land reform programme beginning in the late 1990s, the western media has painted our leaders as dictators who abuse human rights to remain in power.
What is actually an issue is the fact that the western media has hidden crucial evidence in their reports as to why the land reform and indigenisation are very much opposed by western governments.
As Zimbabweans we need to be critical of the fact that the very groups and organisations that we extract our references of arguments from are linked to western powers out to destabilise Zimbabwe so that a regime change can bring about a government more compliant with their interests.
It comes as no surprise that African opposition parties are western favourites, funded by the British government and the opposition party's policy advisors have links with either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party in the US. This leads us back to the Indigenisation programme that the Government has encrusted in law and which was rejected by none other than our own opposition parties.
In an interview with Gregory Elich, Netfa Freeman, Director of the Social Action and Leadership School for Activists in 2006 said: "Nowhere on the continent have Africans taken as radical a measure toward land reform as have been done in Zimbabwe. And not only have Zimbabwe's land reforms been an inspiration for people in other African states, they have gained respect in Diaspora countries such as Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China and Bolivia. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has publicly praised Zimbabwe's land reform process as a model he would like to emulate in his country".
The world's two largest platinum miners, Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum a British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne, have multi-million dollar investments in Zimbabwe, while Rio Tinto has gold and diamond interests.
The successful implementation of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act means that 51 percent of these Western companies' shares are being transferred into the hands of Zimbabweans.
Is this what the fierce anti-indigenisation media stories are really about?
It seems so.
The IEEA seems to be a significant historical Act for Zimbabwe, handing over the theft of resources and land back to the black indigenous Zimbabweans.
It spells danger from a western point of view if similar measures are taken by other African governments and their control and power on the continent diminishes.
This is the real reason why Government's indigenisation policy is being demonised in the western media.
As Zimbabweans, when it comes to our national matters we need to be more critical and not simply be fooled, mobilised and worked into a frenzy. United States foreign policy includes covert actions to topple opposing foreign governments.
In 1953, the CIA, working with the British government, endorsed the military in a coup d'état against the anti-British government of Iran led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalise Iran's oil, threatening the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
On May 25, 2011, during his recent official visit to the UK, President Obama reaffirmed the destructive relationship between the UK and the US in an address to Parliament.
Amongst other points, Obama stated: "I've come here today to reaffirm one of the oldest; one of the strongest alliances the world has ever known".
This confirms the axis of evil pitting the British and Americans which would want to see black people and other peoples suffer for the sin of having been endowed by God with rich resources.
--Innocent Katsande is the Communications Officer for Zimbabwe Youth Council. | <urn:uuid:d1018285-1c5b-4219-99c5-5aac03a3d2a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2012/01/indigenization-and-race-demographics-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968316 | 1,505 | 3.390625 | 3 |
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After watching a movie with your children or students, we encourage parents and teachers to look for education opportunities to teach with movies. Here are a few discussion topics that can help with lesson plans or teaching in the home.
Why didn’t Ali want to tell his father that he had lost his sister’s shoes? What do you think his father would have done? How did his father’s attitude toward Ali change after they spent the day together looking for yard work?
Were the adults in Ali’s world interested in hearing about Ali’s problems? Do you (as a child) ever feel adults don’t care about what you have to say? What can a child do to help an adult understand that what they are saying is important?
Ali’s family is obviously poor, but what were some of the good things you noticed about his family? What was the one “modern” appliance that they did have? [A television.] What does this tell you about television and its influence on the world? | <urn:uuid:83e513b5-819b-4626-ad62-960f290547bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parentpreviews.com/movie-reviews/discussion/children-of-heaven | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982613 | 241 | 2.96875 | 3 |
An Introduction to FractalsWritten by Paul Bourke
"Philosophy is written in this grand book - I mean universe - which stands continuously open to our gaze, but which cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth." - Galileo (1623)
A rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced/size copy of the whole.
A set of points whose fractal dimension exceeds its topological dimension.
The classic Mandelbrot below has been the image that has greatly popularised chaotic and fractal systems. The Mandelbrot set is created by a general technique where a function of the form zn+1 = f(zn) is used to create a series of a complex variable. In the case of the Mandelbrot the function is f(zn) = zn2 + zo. This series in generated for every initial point zo on some partition of the complex plane. To draw an image on a computer screen the point under consideration is coloured depending on the behaviour of the series which will act in one of the following ways:(a) decay to 0
In the figure above, situation (a) occurs in the interior portion, (b) in the exterior, (c) and (d) near the boundary. The boundary of the set exhibits infinite detail and variation (the boundary will never appear smooth irrespective of the zoom factor), as well as self similarity. (Object pascal source code by Omar Awile)
An example using the same technique but a different function is called "biomorphs" by C.A.Pickover. It uses the function f(zn) = sin(zn) + ez + c and gives rise to many biological looking creatures depending on the value of the constant "c".
A second technique, often called "hopalong" after an article in Scientific American in 1986 by Barry Martin, is normally used to represent the strange attractor of a chaotic system, for example, the well known Julia set. In this case each coordinate generated by the series is drawn as a small point, ie: we hop-along from one point to the next. For an image on a plane the series is either an equation of a complex variable or else there are two interrelated equations, one for the x and one for the y coordinate. As an example consider the following function:
This series of x,y coordinates is specified by an initial point xo,yo and three constants a,b, and c. The following is an example where a=0.4, b=1, and c=0.
Interestingly for strange attractors the initial point does not matter (except for a few special cases), ie: all initial coordinates xo,yo result in the same image. In other words, the image shows the x,y pairs that can be generated by the series, any initial point will generate the same set of points although they will be generated in a different order. Another example attributed to Peter de Jong uses the two equations
This gives swirling tendrils that appear three dimensional, an example is shown below where a = -2.24, b = -0.65, c = 0.43, d = -2.43.
This technique is based on the Newton Raphson method of finding the solution (roots) to a polynomial equation of the form
The method generates a series where the n+1'th approximation to the solution is given by
where f'(zn) is the slope (first derivative) of f(z) evaluated at zn. To create a 2D image using this technique each point in a partition of the plane is used as initial guess, zo, to the solution. The point is coloured depending on which solution is found and/or how long it took to arrive at the solution. A simple example is an application of the above to find the three roots of the polynomial z*z*z - 1 = 0. The following shows the appearance of a small portion of the positive real and imaginary quadrant of the complex plane. A trademark of chaotic systems is that very similar initial conditions can give rise to very different behaviour. In the image shown there are points very close together one of which converges to the solution very fast and the other converges very slowly.
"The most useful fractals involve chance ... both their regularities and their irregularities are statistical." - Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
Many attractive images can be generated using theory from areas of Chemistry and Physics. One such example is diffusion limited aggregation or DLA which describes, among other things, the diffusion and aggregation of zinc ions in an electrolytic solution onto electrodes. Another more colourful description involves a city square surrounded by taverns. Drunks leave the taverns and stagger randomly around the square until they finally trip over one of their insensate companions at which time lulled by the sounds of peaceful snoring they lie down and fall asleep. The tendril like structure is an aerial view of the sleeping crowd in the morning.
Almost all geomtric forms used for building man made objects belong to Euclidean geometry, they are comprised of lines, planes, rectangular volumes, arcs, cylinders, spheres, etc. These elements can be classified as belonging to an integer dimension, either 1, 2, or 3. This concept of dimension can be described both intuitively and mathematically. Intuitively we say that a line is one dimensional because it only takes 1 number to uniquely define any point on it. That one number could be the distance from the start of the line. This applies equally well to the circumference of a circle, a curve, or the boundary of any object.
A plane is two dimensional since in order to uniquely define any point on its surface we require two numbers. There are many ways to arrange the definition of these two numbers but we normally create an orthogonal coordinate system. Other examples of two dimensional objects are the surface of a sphere or an arbitrary twisted plane.
The volume of some solid object is 3 dimensional on the same basis as above, it takes three numbers to uniquely define any point within the object.
A more mathematical description of dimension is based on how the "size" of an object behaves as the linear dimension increases. In one dimension consider a line segment. If the linear dimension of the line segment is doubled then obviously the length (characteristic size) of the line has doubled. In two dimensions, ff the linear dimensions of a rectangle for example is doubled then the characteristic size, the area, increases by a factor of 4. In three dimensions if the linear dimension of a box are doubled then the volume increases by a factor of 8. This relationship between dimension D, linear scaling L and the resulting increase in size S can be generalised and written as
This is just telling us mathematically what we know from everyday experience. If we scale a two dimensional object for example then the area increases by the square of the scaling. If we scale a three dimensional object the volume increases by the cube of the scale factor. Rearranging the above gives an expression for dimension depending on how the size changes as a function of linear scaling, namely
In the examples above the value of D is an integer, either 1, 2, or 3, depending on the dimension of the geometry. This relationship holds for all Euclidean shapes. There are however many shapes which do not conform to the integer based idea of dimension given above in both the intuitive and mathematical descriptions. That is, there are objects which appear to be curves for example but which a point on the curve cannot be uniquely described with just one number. If the earlier scaling formulation for dimension is applied the formula does not yield an integer. There are shapes that lie in a plane but if they are linearly scaled by a factor L, the area does not increase by L squared but by some non integer amount. These geometries are called fractals! One of the simpler fractal shapes is the von Koch snowflake. The method of creating this shape is to repeatedly replace each line segment with the following 4 line segments.
The process starts with a sigle line segment and continues for ever. The first few iterations of this procedure are shown below.
This demonstrates how a very simple generation rule for this shape can generate some unusual (fractal) properties. Unlike Euclidean shapes this object has detail at all levels. If one magnifies an Euclidean shape such as the circumference of a circle it becomes a different shape, namely a striaght line. If we magnify this fractal more and more detail is uncovered, the detail is self similar or rather it is exactly self similar. Put another way, any magnified portion is identical to any other magnified portion.
Note also that the "curve" on the right is not a fractal but only an approximation of one. This is no different from when one draws a circle, it is only an approximation to a perfect circle. At each iteration the length of the curve increases bu a factor of 4/3. Thus the limiting curve is of infinite length and indeed the length between any two points of the curve is infinite. This curve manages to compress an infinite length into a finite area of the plane without intersecting itself! Considering the intuiitve notion of 1 dimensional shapes, although this object appears to be a curve with one starting point and one end point, it is not possible to uniquely specify any position along the curve with one number as we expect to be able to do with Euclidean curves which are 1 dimensional. Although the method of creating this curve is straightforward, there is no algebraic formula the describes the points on the curve. Some of the major differences between fractal and Euclidean geometry are outlined in the following table.
Firstly the recognition of fractal is very modern, they have only formally been studied in the last 10 years compared to Euclidean geometry which goes back over 2000 years. Secondly whereas Euclidean shapes normally have a few characteristic sizes or length scales (eg: the radius of a circle or the length of of a side of a cube) fractals have so characteristic sizes. Fractal shapes are self similar and independent of size or scaling. Third, Euclidean geometry provides a good description of man made objects whereas fractals are required for a representation of naturally occuring geoemtries. It is likely that this limitation of our traditional language of shape is responsible for the stiking difference between mass produced objects and natural shapes. Finally, Euclidean geometries are defined by algebraic formulae, for example
defines a sphere. Fractals are normally the result of a iterative or recursive construction or algorithm.
The following is based on L-Systems as described in "Lecture Notes in Biomathematics" by Przemyslaw Prusinkiewcz and James Hanan. A brief description of an 0L system will be presented here but for a more complete description the user should consult the literature.Simpleminded example of 0L system
A string of characters (symbols) is rewritten on each iteration according to some replacement rules. Consider an initial string (axiom)
and a rewriting rule
After one iteration the following string would result
For the next iteration the same rule is applied but now to the string resulting from the last iteration
F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-FF+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-FF+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-FF+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-FF+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F+ F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F-F+ F-F-FF+ F+ F-F
Some symbols are now given a graphical meaning, for example, F means move forward drawing a line, + means turn right by some predefined angle (90 degrees in this case), - means turn left. Using these symbols the initial string F+F+F+F is just a rectangle (ø = 90). The replacement rule F --> F+F-F-FF+F+F-F replaces each forward movement by the following figure
The first iteration interpreted graphically is
The next iteration interpreted graphically is:
The following characters have a geometric interpretation.
Recent usage of L-Systems is for the creation of realistic looking objects that occur in nature and in particular the branching structure of plants. One of the important characteristics of L systems is that only a small amount of information is required to represent very complex objects. So while the bushes in figure 9 contain many thousands of lines they can be described in a database by only a few bytes of data, the actual bushes are only "grown" when required for visual presentation. Using suitably designed L-System algorithms it is possible to design the L-System production rules that will create a particular class of plant.Further examples:
Featured on the cover of the HPC (High Performance Computing) magazine, 3 August 2001.
Instead of working with lines as in L systems, IFS replaces polygons by other polygons as described by a generator. On every iteration each polygon is replaced by a suitably scaled, rotated, and translated version of the polygons in the generator. Figure 10 shows two such generators made of rectangles and the result after one and six iterations. From this geometric description it is also possible to derive a hopalong description which gives the image that would be created after iterating the geometric model to infinity. The description of this is a set of contractive transformations on a plane of the form
each with an assigned probability. To run the system an initial point is chosen and on each iteration one of the transformation is chosen randomly according to the assigned probabilities, the resulting points (xn,yn) are drawn on the page. As in the case of L systems, if the IFS code for a desired image can be determined (by something called the Collage theorem) then large data compression ratios can be achieved. Instead of storing the geometry of the very complex object just the IFS generator needs to be stored and the image can be generated when required. The fundamental iterative process involves replacing rectangles with a series of rectangles called the generator. The rectangles are replaced by a suitably scaled, translated, and rotated version of the generator.
For example consider the generator on the right|
It consists of three rectangles, each with its own center, dimensions and rotation angle. The initial conditions usually consist of a single square, the first iteration then consists of replacing this square by a suitably positioned, scaled and rotated version of the generator.
The next iteration involves replacing each of the rectangles in the current system by suitabled positioned, scaled, and rotated versions of the generator resulting in the following
The next iteration replaces each rectangle above again by the initial generator as shown
and so on, three more iterations later|
Hopalong or "The Chaos Game"
A technique exists by which the resulting form after an infinite number of iterations can be derived. This is a function of the form
This gives a series of (x,y) points all which lie on the result of an infinite IFS. Although it still takes an infinite number of terms in this series to form the result the appearance can be readily appreciated after a modest number of terms (10000 say).
Note that with both methods it is possible to create the image at any scale. In many but not all cases zoomed in examples will be exhibit self similarity at all scales. Applications generally iinvolve data reduction for model files. If a generator can be found for a complex image then storing the generator and the rules of production results in a great deal of data reduction. For example the weed in the examples above might eventually contain over 2000 rectangles but is completely specified by the characteristics of 3 rectangles, only 5 numbers, center (cx,cy), scale (sx,sy), and angle (ø) Note: it is not necessarily trivial to derive a rectangular generator for an arbitrary form, although it is possible to create a polygonal generator for any form.Further examples
Barnsley, F., and Sloan, A.D.,
A Better Way to Compress Images, Byte Magazine, January 1988, Pages 215-222
Blumenthol, Leonard. & Menger, Karl,
Studies in Geometry,
W.H.Freeman & Co, 1970
Grundlagen Einer Allgemeinen Mannichfaltigkeitslehre, Mathematische Annalen, 21, p545-591, 1882
Demko, S., Hodges, L., and Naylor B,
Construction of Fractal Objects with Iterated Function Systems, Computer Graphics 19, 3, July 1985, Pages 271-278
F.Kenton Musgrave, Craig E Kolb, Robert S. Mace,
The Synthesis and Rendering or Eroded Fractal Terrains, IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications
The Fractal Geometry of Nature, W.H.Freeman & Co, NY, 1982
Real Time Design and Animation of Fractal Plants and Trees, Computer Graphics, 20, 4, 1986
Heinz-Otto and Dietmar Saupe,
The Science of Fractal Images, Springer-Verlag
Computer Recreations, Scientific American, Sept 1986
Peitgen H, Saupe D,
The Science of Fractal Images, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1988
Graphical Applications of L-Systems, Proc. of Graphics Interface 1986 - Vision Interface, 1986, Pages 247-253.
Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, James Hanan,
Lecture Notes in Biomathematics #79
Application of L-Systems to Computer Imagery, Lecture Notes in Computer Science #291, Pages 534-548
Prusinkiewicz, P and Lindenmayer A.,
The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants, Springer Verleg, 1990, Pages 40-50
An Overview of Data Compression Techniques, Computer, 14, 4, 1981, Pages 71-76
Plants, Fractals, and Formal Languages Computer Graphics, 18, 3, 1984, Pages 1-10 | <urn:uuid:d60def84-b984-458c-a4f9-039494412ff1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paulbourke.net/fractals/fracintro/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894775 | 4,179 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Everybody hates els. They’re ugly and noisy and cities will even move their train station away from downtown to tear them down. The hypocritical treatment of els versus much wider and noisier elevated highways is fortunately the subject of another post, on Market Urbanism. I would instead like to discuss how elevated rail could be made to work in cities, allowing the construction of rapid transit at acceptable cost.
One way viaduct structures can be made more acceptable is if they’re branded as a new technology. This is the case of Vancouver’s SkyTrain, the JFK AirTrain, the Honolulu light rail line, and monorails. Another is if they’re along rights-of-way that are already considered blighted, such as freeways; this also helps explain why the JFK AirTrain was built whereas the proposed subway extension to LaGuardia was not.
As a first filter, the above examples suggest that the most useful elevated rapid transit – grade-separated mainline rail, or els over major streets – is impractical due to community opposition. But as a second filter, we could simulate some features of both cases in which viaducts are more acceptable – new technology and freeway right-of-way. If we build a well-designed and aesthetic arched viaduct over a wide road, this could pass community muster. For example, Robert Cruickshank prominently used the second and further photos in this CAHSR Blog post to argue that grade separations on the Peninsula will not be a blight. The 7 viaduct in Sunnyside is also a good example of an el.
As a third filter, the success of the elevated train over Queens Boulevard comes precisely from the enormous street width. East of Sunnyside, Queens Boulevard becomes practically a highway, nicknamed the Boulevard of Death and excoriated on Streetsblog for its lack of pedestrian scale. At the same time, the 7 above Roosevelt Avenue darkens the street and the steel el structure is very noisy. But when there is an el about Queens Boulevard, everything works out: the street is broken into two narrower halves, with the el acting as a street wall and helping produce human scale; the el is also farther from the buildings and uses an arched concrete structure, both of which mitigate its impact.
It’s possible to mitigate even further and imitate the methods of the AirTrain or SkyTrain. Those use modern viaduct construction techniques and are therefore relatively unobtrusive: see for example this photo on Greater City: Providence, in the context of reinstating some of the elevated infrastructure torn down in the 1980s. Even if the technology is your standard railroad, newer viaducts can reduce impact. In addition, the old els were built with very tight curves, producing squeal; building with wider curve radii is the norm today, and although it increases visual impact and can require more takings, it reduces noise impact, often to practically zero.
Commenters from various Northeastern suburbs have told stories of how people don’t even notice the electric regional trains, but complain about the freight trains. Of course those regional lines were built in the 19th century, but they were built to mainline standards, rather than to the standards of the Chicago L, and thus have what by rapid transit standards are wide curves.
The 7 el is 12 meters wide, and works fine on Queens Boulevard, which is 60 meters from building to building, and poorly on Roosevelt, which is 22. These give an upper and lower bound for street width. The N/W el on Astoria, at 12 meters over a 30-meter street, is also quite bad, though perhaps not as much as the 7 el on Roosevelt. The 1 el in Manhattanville is an imposing steel structure, but its problem is one of topography and height rather than street width, and so it should be put in the category of good els from the perspective of width; this is 12 meters over a 43-meter street. Finally, the Metro-North viaduct in Harlem is 18 meters over a 43-meter street; the area is quite blighted, though it could be a characteristic of the neighborhood more than of the el. Optimistically, it seems that a more modern two-track el, about 9 meters wide (and thus blocking light less than the New York examples regardless of street width), could work over a 30-meter street, such as the Manhattan avenues.
Of course, another issue is the surrounding density. Despite the above calculation I would not want to see new elevated lines on the Manhattan avenues. Partly this is because the population density in Manhattan is so high that the higher cost of a subway is acceptable. But partly it’s because the buildings are tall and would not pair off with the viaduct nicely as they do in Sunnyside. However, it could be a good solution in Queens and the North Bronx, where, additionally, the streets that could take rapid transit are wider than a standard Manhattan avenue. | <urn:uuid:4619a3d4-9c89-47e7-94b5-b161e5c03dcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/making-elevated-rail-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958174 | 1,036 | 2.796875 | 3 |
This rendering of a temple complex is intended as a surrogate for actual buildings used for ancestor offerings. Although this composition has a strong degree of balance and symmetry, the symmetry is not perfect. Small discrepancies from one side to the other give the painting dynamism, and avoid the stagnancy of perfect balance. Symmetry is a constant in Chinese design, especially in formal circumstances such as ceremonial and temple architecture. Communication with deceased members of a clan lineage is a fundamental aspect of Chinese society, and forms of ancestral worship predated Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism.
Inscription: “I heard that the rules of ceremonies are fixed, and peoples consciousness of filial piety is inexhaustible. According to traditional laws, the emperor can build seven temples, princes can build five, high officials can build three, and low officials can build one. Common people are not allowed to establish temples for their ancestors. Therefore the building here is a so-called temple, but actually is not.” | <urn:uuid:066b1e19-b8d8-41c3-ab8b-d274185df195> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pem.org/sites/perfect-imbalance/temple.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955353 | 203 | 3.28125 | 3 |
‘Homeless’ Planet Without A Star Found
November 14, 2012 by UPI - United Press International, Inc.
MONTREAL (UPI) — A “homeless” planet that is not orbiting a star and thus is free of any gravitation link has been discovered, Canadian and European astronomers are reporting.
University of Montreal researchers and European colleagues said it is the first isolated planet of its kind ever to be observed.
“Although theorists had established the existence of this type of very cold and young planet, one had never been observed until today,” astrophysicist Etienne Artigau said in a University of Montreal release Wednesday.
The planet dubbed CFBDSIR2149 is located within a group of very young stars known as the AB Doradus Moving Group but is not gravitationally linked to any of them and has the specific criteria of mass, temperature and age to be designated as a “planet.”
“Over the past few years, several objects of this type have been identified, but their existence could not be established without scientific confirmation of their age,” Montreal doctoral student Jonathan Gagne said.
“Astronomers weren’t sure whether to categorize them as planets or as Brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are what we could call failed stars, as they never manage to initiate nuclear reactions in their centers.”
Researchers say the isolated planet, about seven times the size of Jupiter, could have been flung away from other bodies during its formation. | <urn:uuid:776611a3-8ed9-403d-89d5-92ad2899be38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://personalliberty.com/2012/11/14/homeless-planet-without-a-star-found/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=3b93935130 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971912 | 318 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Figure 1: Band of Light Comparison
This artist's concept illustrates what the night sky might look like from a hypothetical alien planet in a star system with an asteroid belt 25 times as massive as the one in our own solar system (alien system above, ours below; see Figure 1).
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence for such a belt around the nearby star called HD 69830, when its infrared eyes spotted dust, presumably from asteroids banging together. The telescope did not find any evidence for a planet in the system, but astronomers speculate one or more may be present.
The movie begins at dusk on the imaginary world, when HD 69830, like our Sun, has begun to set over the horizon. Time is sped up to show the onset of night and the appearance of a brilliant band of light. This light comes from dust in a massive asteroid belt, which scatters sunlight.
In our solar system, anybody observing the skies on a moonless night far from city lights can see the sunlight that is scattered by dust in our asteroid belt. Called zodiacal light and sometimes the "false dawn," this light appears as a dim band stretching up from the horizon when the Sun is about to rise or set. The light is faint enough that the disk of our Milky Way galaxy remains the most prominent feature in the sky. (The Milky Way disk is shown perpendicular to the zodiacal light in both pictures.)
In contrast, the zodiacal light in the HD 69830 system would be 1,000 times brighter than our own, outshining even the Milky Way. | <urn:uuid:3ff95966-9f46-43c4-960d-c4cdf56b4348> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07853 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924057 | 321 | 3.515625 | 4 |
E.g. in exploding nuclear bomb or some other big explosions. I mean if the speed of electrons as waves/particles is a constant or changes according to other "forces" involved?
When particles mass can be changed by changing the website, then how to calculate with confidence? For example: Google: electron mass = 9.10938 188 × 10$^-31$ kilograms Wikipedia: electron mass ...
I am writing a lab report for class on PNMR experiment that we did. How come in this experiment we don't worry about the electron spins in our sample? Aren't the electrons affected by the PNMR machine ...
Rb83 is unstable and decays to Kr-83. Mode of the decay is electron capture. Rb85 is stable. The nuclei Rb83 and Rb85 have the same charge. Rb85 is heavier than Rb85, but gravitation is too weak to ... | <urn:uuid:680e930c-9025-404a-9751-9069cfe90a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electron+nuclear-physics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913229 | 192 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Kepler picks up stellar vibrations
Apr 8, 2011 2 comments
An international team using the Kepler space telescope has spied oscillations in the atmospheres of 500 Sun-like stars, a twenty-fold increase in the number of such objects previously studied. This bonanza of stellar data provides a new way of testing our understanding of how stars evolve, and could even help in the search for a second Earth.
Scientists have long known that the atmosphere of the Sun oscillates. In the same way seismologists use earthquakes to model the interior of the Earth, helioseismologists use vibrations observed on the Sun to probe deeper into our star. Oscillations of about 25 other stars have also been studied in the emerging field of asteroseismology. Now, thanks to the Kepler space telescope, a team led by Bill Chaplin, at the University of Birmingham, UK, has increased this figure significantly.
Launched by NASA in 2009, Kepler is better known for its planet-hunting endeavours, and the mission has identified over 1000 possible exoplanets. These are planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. In order to determine the density of an exoplanet, astronomers must know the mass and radius of its host star. These two parameters can be determined by asteroseismology and Kepler was designed with this in mind.
Continuous star gazing
"Kepler looks at the same stars continuously, it isn't chopping and changing to different parts of the sky," Chaplin told physicsworld.com. "This has allowed us to find small oscillations in 500 stars, compared to only a handful known previously. We can now get great coverage of the different flavours of Sun-like stars and their different evolutionary stages," he adds.
With our own Sun, the simplest oscillations occur with periods of approximately five minutes and effectively cause the Sun to "breathe" in and out. However, this expansion and contraction only amounts to tens of metres over the 1.4 million kilometres of the Sun's diameter, which is why finding the same phenomena in other stars had proved so difficult. "These are really tiny effects; they are tricky to measure. We've had to wait for a sophisticated satellite like Kepler to be able do it," Chaplin explains.
The oscillations observed with Kepler were of comparable periods to those on our Sun, ranging from three minutes up to 25. These differences in period, and therefore frequency, provide important information about the individual properties of the stars. For example, when it comes to radius, the smaller the star the more high-pitched its song. "It is similar to musical instruments. A piccolo trumpet is small and resonates at a higher frequency than a much larger tuba. The same is true for stars: they resonate like musical instruments because they have sound trapped inside," says Chaplin.
Models come up short
Such large ensembles of stars allow statistical analysis of their properties, which include mass and age as well as radius. When it comes to mass, variations in the star's density alter the way sound waves permeate through the star and this leaves a tell-tale fingerprint in the observed oscillations. Using this technique Chaplin was able to measure the masses of the Kepler stars and compare this mass distribution to that predicted from theoretical models. It turns out the models come up short. "We found there are more low-mass stars, ones with around one solar mass, than predicted by theory," Chaplin explains.
These results excite asteroseismology researcher Don Kurtz, at the University of Central Lancashire who was not involved with this work. "For decades we've been trying to find stars like this, and now we have 500 of them," Kurtz told physicsworld.com. "This is one of the big results from the Kepler asteroseismic effort," he adds.
Kurtz also believes that it could be an important stepping stone to finding a planet like the Earth. "An Earth-like planet needs to be in the 'habitable zone' where water can be liquid. To pin down the habitable zone for each individual star you need to know its properties accurately, something Kepler's asteroseismology work is helping to do," he says.
And the work is set to continue according to Chaplin. "As we add to the data, we will be able to not just measure the masses and radii more accurately, but we'll be able to do the equivalent of a CT scan and peel away the surface layers and look in a lot more detail at what is going on inside these stars," he explains.
The research is outlined in Science.
About the author
Colin Stuart is a science writer and astronomer based in London | <urn:uuid:d5e88774-257b-4606-903e-73a297f98963> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/apr/08/kepler-picks-up-stellar-vibrations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960212 | 965 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Arduino's LiquidCrystal Library with SPI Author: Juan Hernandez
This is the same library that comes with Arduino I just added SPI functionality to use a Shift Register (I was using a 74HC595). it can be used with SPI or the same way it was intended with six or eight wires or whatever. all I did was to add a way for it to communicate with the LCD using SPI and a shift register other then that it is the exact same. I figured why write another library when there was one already written and free and fully functional and made public for the same purpose. will Linux had become what it is if people would have writen a diferent operating system for every project they had, or functionality they needed I think not. (that is a message for everyone) so here it is I hope it is of use. I also hope no one else has written it already and I just wasted my time, since I am new and learning it takes me longer than it would a seasoned programer, also as I mentioned above I don't like to reinvent the wheel unless the code is not readily available. it was good learning though.
This version only works in arduino versions before 1.0
Download here: LiquidCrystal.zip
this version works on arduino 1.0 and the older versions
Download here: LiquidCrystal_1.zip
Breadboard Sketch: LCD_using_74HC595_and_SPI.png
and replace the LiquidCrystal folder in the libraries folder of your Arduino installation directory with this one.
You can see an example sketch from "File -> Examples -> LiquidCrystal -> HelloWorld_SPI".
To create a new sketch, select from the menubar "Sketch->Import Library->LiquidCrystal". Once the library is imported, an '#include <LiquidCrystal.h>' line will appear at the top of your Sketch. you will also need to include the SPI library. (in other words just as you would use the regular Library since its the same) the only diference is it takes only one parameter the sspin for SPI (or the latchPin of the register) if you want to use SPI otherwise it is used the same.
I'll just use the example that is in the Examples folder:
The 74HC595 or the CD4094 shift register can be used. They operate in the same way, but they have different layouts and different names for the pins.
A clock signal is used for a serial input of 8 data-bits into a shift-register. The contents of the shift-register are copied into a latch with a strobe pulse. The outputs of the latch register is on the output pins.
Data = The data bits (74HC595 pin 14 "DS").
Clock = The shift clock for the data bits (74HC595 pin 11 "SHCP").
Latch = The strobe that copies the databits into the latch (74HC595 pin 12 "STCP").
Connect to SPI:
Data = MOSI = Arduino pin 11
Clock = SCK = Arduino pin 13
Latch = SS = Arduino pin 10, but also other pins can be used.
Note:I had to connect pin 5 on the LCD to gnd (not on diagram) to make it work.
|Last Modified:||August 04, 2012, at 03:52 PM| | <urn:uuid:061fadef-ba16-4804-a7a8-30beb7d24a6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/LiquidCrystal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92749 | 699 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Scientists tell us that our magnetic poles have reversed in the past, and that they will again. The last one occurred 780,000 years ago. The average time period between reversals is 450,000 years, but there isn’t really any pattern, it is random. We are overdue by average only.
Scientists don’t really know how the process works, and are unable to predict the next reversal. They have been telling us that the process takes hundreds or thousands of years. Recent studies have shown that it can happen in the space of weeks or months, and I suggest it can happen overnight. Perhaps rapid reversals don’t leave much evidence – perhaps rapid reversals are quite common! For example, if it was normal for a double reversal to happen quickly – where the poles return to their original position – we wouldn’t know about any historical instances.
If a reversal involves a dramatic lessening of our geomagnetic field’s strength, then basically our shields are down, and cosmic rays reaching ground-level will greatly increase. Forget about navigational problems – we could be fried.
Studies have shown that pigeons have receptors in their brains that are sensitive to magnetic fields, and presumably those are a reason for their great navigation skills. It is possible that many other animals also have such receptors, but they don’t utilize them as obviously. So during a reversal, the chaos in the animal world could be significant – and of course humans are animals.
Scientists have not yet worked out what causes a magnetic reversal, but recent studies of Mercury suggest that the solar wind and particles from the Sun have an effect on planetary cores. My interpretation is that a massive solar storm could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and trigger a reversal if the Earth is ready for one. The Electric Universe folk have also suggested that a highly-charged comet passing by could also do the trick. Or perhaps ocean currents, after being affected by climate change, are the trigger? And if climate change is caused by the Sun, then that ties in nicely with the first theory.
Rapid Magnetic Changes
NASA loves telling is that a magnetic reversal takes thousands of years, and that we have nothing to fear. I suggest that NASA should pay more attention to scientific studies that suggest otherwise:
…a new study of ancient copper mines in southern Israel found that the strength of the magnetic field could double and then fall back down in less than 20 years. [Wired]
This lava, Bogue says, initially started to cool and then was heated again within a year as a fresh lava flow buried it. The fresh lava re-magnetized the crystals within the rock below, causing them to reorient themselves a whopping 53 degrees. At the rate the lava would have cooled, says Bogue, that would mean the magnetic field was changing direction at approximately 1 degree per week. [Wired]
Palaeomagnetic results from lava flows recording a geomagnetic polarity reversal at Steens Mountain, Oregon suggest the occurrence of brief episodes of astonishingly rapid field change of six degrees per day. The evidence is large, systematic variations in the direction of remanent magnetization as a function of the temperature of thermal demagnetization and of vertical position within a single flow, which are most simply explained by the hypothesis that the field was changing direction as the flow cooled. [Nature]
the spacing in time between successive flows erupted during a transition cannot be determined accurately because the errors associated with radiometric ages are typically much greater than the duration of a polarity transition. [The Magnetic Field of the Earth: Paleomagnetism, the Core, and the Deep Mantle, page 205]
The final quote suggests that we are not able to detect rapid transitions, and that estimates of durations lasting thousands of years are are a consequence of measurement limitations.
This is indisputable – the speed at which the magnetic north pole is moving (not necessarily in the same direction) has recently become much faster. Because this is the entirety of our studies, we don’t know what was normal prior to the 1500s…
Not only are the poles moving rapidly – the strength of our magnetic field is diminishing as well:
Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth’s liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet’s surface, a new study says.
“What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth’s magnetic field,” said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.
…The changes “may suggest the possibility of an upcoming reversal of the geomagnetic field,” said study co-author Mioara Mandea, a scientist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. [National Geographic]
The Navigational Danger
Without our magnetic shield, technology will be more at risk from solar storms. The most at risk will be satellites – they are not designed to withstand solar storms in the absence of the magnetic field. So if our GPS satellites are knocked out, planes would be grounded.
Of course planes have old-school compasses as a backup, but these certainly will not be accurate during a magnetic pole shift. So even the possibility of GPS satellites failing would be enough to ground planes – otherwise they could lose navigation mid-flight.
Ships would face the same problems of course.
The Ozone Danger
It is expected that the Ozone Layer would disappear completely during a magnetic reversal (and return afterwards). See this NASA paper, Particle Events as a Possible Source of Large Ozone Loss during Magnetic Polarity Transitions.
Major solar storms during a reversal could cause ozone depletion. According to Wikipedia, humans would see at least 3x more incidences of skin cancer. The effects on all living things combined is hard to predict, but could be catastrophic when everything is added together.
The Power Grid Danger
One study has nominated massive solar storms as the trigger for a magnetic reversal. Another suggests global warming is the culprit – and global warming can be caused by increased solar activity. During a reversal our shields are down, and if there is a concurrent solar storm, the situation becomes worse again. Life on Earth won’t be affected in general, and societies that don’t rely on technology will be OK as well. The most modern societies would suffer terribly if the reversal is rapid. Power grids would fail (a major solar storm can wreck them, and a magnetic reversal would be much worse). With no electricity there is no water, no sewage being pumped, no gas stations operating, no deliveries of food. Emergency services will be compromised and unable to make much of a difference. Certainly millions would die, and a billion people would face great difficulties. Only those who have sensibly prepared by storing food and water will be able to cope.
The Cosmic Ray Danger
Detailed calculations confirm that, if the Earth’s dipole field disappeared entirely (leaving the quadrupole and higher components), most of the atmosphere could be reached by high energy particles. However, the atmosphere would stop them. Instead there would be secondary radiation of 10Be or 36Cl from collisions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere. There is evidence that this occurs both during secular variation and during reversals. [Wikipedia]
Our geomagnetic field is responsible for blocking out roughly 50% of cosmic rays [Nature]… so if our “shields are down”, cosmic radiation would double. While this would lead to increased mutations, double the current rate is nothing to worry about. However, two of the possible triggers for a magnetic pole shift are a result of increases in solar activity. This could result in an increased in charged particles from the Sun reaching Earth as well. And that could spell trouble. | <urn:uuid:ade05378-0434-4af8-9add-a64295687118> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://poleshift.com/magnetic-reversals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959206 | 1,617 | 3.546875 | 4 |
- Universal access to energy Increasing access to modern energy services for poor households in Eastern Africa
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- Urban services: water, sanitation and waste management services increasing access to adequate water and sanitation facilities
- Gender and Social Inclusion addressing gender inequity/inequality on how communities access technology and services
- Climate Change build the capacity of vulnerable people in Eastern Africa to adapt to the impacts of climate chan...
- Market systems development building ‘prosperous communities within Eastern Africa’ region through sustainable market systems
Practical Action Eastern Africa Regional Office has been delivering technology as its niche in the region for over 25 years. Throughout the period, we have leveraged best practices learnt that yield high impact at scale into our programmes. We deliver our work through three Goal areas:
- Universal access to energy will increase access to modern energy services for cooking, lighting, communication and productive uses for poor households in Eastern Africa.
- Food security, Agriculture and Disaster Risk Reduction will scale up work on resilience to disasters, community based extension and maximising the impacts of devolved governance and funding.
- Water, sanitation and waste management services for urban dwellers will seek to increase access to basic services such as adequate water and sanitation facilities.
In addition to our Goals, we have three cross-cutting themes. These include: Gender and social Inclusion, Climate Change and Market Systems Development.
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Gender and social inclusion
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Practical Action Eastern Africa shines at National Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) Innovations and Technology Exhibition
Practical Action Eastern Africa was a key sponsor in this year’s National Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) Innovations and Technology Exhibition organized by the Ministry of Labour at the Jomo Kenyatta Grounds in Kisumu, western Kenya.Find out more | <urn:uuid:9feb1986-2daf-42b1-b52d-8b819f8fab50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://practicalaction.org/east-africa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922363 | 639 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Amniocentesis is a diagnostic test that withdraws fluid from the sac surrounding the fetus to diagnose a number of birth defects.
Amniocentesis is a procedure used to withdraw a small amount of amniotic fluid (the fluid in the sac surrounding the fetus). Analyzing this fluid can help diagnose a number of birth defects with approximately 99 percent accuracy. This diagnostic test offers the most remarkable advancement of this century in prenatal care.
Amniocentesis is usually performed between weeks 15 and 18 of pregnancy. But it can be performed as early as Week 12 or as late as Week 20. It might also be performed toward the end of the pregnancy to check the baby's lung maturity. Depending on the tests being performed on the fluid, it can take anywhere from one day to one month to get the results.
Amniocentesis is most commonly used to determine two things:
Although the test is not given for this specific purpose, it can also tell the gender of the baby with great accuracy.
Your family medical history is also very important in determining if your partner should undergo amniocentesis. Your genes share an equal part in creating the baby your partner is carrying. If you're not sure if you have a history of birth defects or inherited diseases, talk to other family members and get the facts.
Medical literature tells us that amniocentesis was performed as early as the nineteenth century. But it wasn't until 1966 that fetal cells could be grown and their genetic traits analyzed. Before the sixties, genetic birth defects were a surprise delivered at the birth of the baby.
No one is required to have this test. But an amniocentesis is generally offered to women in the following three categories:
Some women want to have an amniocentesis; others say no way. Those who have it want to know in advance if their baby has a birth defect; this gives them time to decide either to terminate the pregnancy or to learn more about the baby's future needs. Other women choose not to have this test because they will not consider having an abortion and prefer to learn about the baby's health at delivery. This is not always a wise decision; knowing in advance about a baby's medical problems allows the health care team and the parents to plan the safest timing, location, and method of delivery, with the appropriate specialists available immediately after birth. But nobody knows what's best for you, except you. This is a personal decision you should make with the help of your family, your doctor, and (if necessary) a genetic counselor.
Nobody likes the thought of how an amniocentesis is performed, because it involves a long needle. But don't faint away just yet. Millions of women have had this test and have lived to tell the tale.
An amniocentesis is usually performed in a hospital. Here you will lie down on an examining table and the doctor or technician will use an ultrasound to locate the fetus and decide on the best place, away from the baby and the placenta, to insert the needle. This is not always a quick process, so lie back and relax. It can take up to about 20 minutes to find just the right spot.
The rest of the test is much faster. The doctor will take about five minutes to insert a long, thin, hollow needle through the abdominal wall and into the sac of amniotic fluid around the baby. As she does this, you're allowed to yell "Ouch!" (or shout any other word that comes to mind). It is not terribly painful, but most women say the needle stings as it goes in. The needle withdraws about two tablespoons of amniotic fluid and the test is over.
After the test, you may have some cramping and/or spotting. Your doctor will probably tell you to take it easy for the rest of the day. You will also be told to watch for signs of infection. About one woman out of 200 gets an infection, or some other complication that results in miscarriage after an amniocentesis. That's why it's so important to let your doctor know immediately if you experience fever, chills, contractions, irritability, and uterine tenderness after having this test.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth © 2004 by Michele Isaac Gliksman, M.D. and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's website or call 1-800-253-6476.
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