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Everest Is Higher Than Ever
As of Nov. 11, 1999, the new official height of Mount Everest was announced as 29,035 feet, or 8,850 meters—6 feet, or 2 meters, higher than the previously accepted measurement. The new elevation was determined using satellite-based technology: the Trimble Global Positioning System (GPS). A team of seven climbers measured the mountain from the summit on May 5, 1999, collecting data from various GPS satellite receivers at the very top of Everest. It took the climbers a number of attempts over several years until they were able to successfully set up the equipment at the summit.
Everest was first measured in 1852 in the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, which established the peak as the highest on Earth. That figure (29,002 feet above sea level) remained Everest’s officially accepted height for more than one hundred years. The original 1852 measurement was remarkably accurate: in 1955 the elevation was adjusted by a mere 26 feet to 29,028 feet (8,848 meters).
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Everest Is Higher Than Ever from Infoplease: | <urn:uuid:06f25f91-ee6c-45db-9b56-c4f53278fd1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873044.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963245 | 248 | 3.796875 | 4 |
I imagine the newly enlisted man-child, Pvt. William Greene Dodson, sitting on a train to Petersburg, in the company of his uncle, Sgt. Benjamin F. Dodson and other Mecklenburg County farmers. The sights, smells and sounds of battle were yet but words from others’ mouths. Would this young man have been excited? Scared? Resolute?
Company B, 34th Virginia Infantry arrived in Petersburg May 1864 as part of Wise’s Brigade, under the command of P.G.T. Beauregard, and were charged with the protection of the railroad hub. Greene and Ben would have welcomed the local Citizen’s Militia who helped swell the troops’ numbers to a scant 2,200 bodies. Perhaps Greene wondered what kind of hell he had entered, as he stared at this landscape, stripped of trees, riddled with tunnels, rifle pits and bombproofs. A bleak reality must have confronted the young soldier, even before the first bullets whistled in his ears. | <urn:uuid:cb4b2414-dc9e-4e5c-a083-8ef3f797cdb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dkaysdays.com/2010/10/06/wordless-wednesday-the-dodsons-of-company-b/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=e94a57fbb5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973383 | 211 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The race-deniers, who say there is no such thing as “race,” have a difficult time explaining why, when genetic differences of native populations across the world are mapped, the result is almost exactly the same as a map of the races. (Fig. 7-4). Thus, there is little doubt that genes differ among different populations.
All of the traits discussed in the previous chapters are caused, at least in part, by genes and, to that extent, “biology is destiny.” (Sigmund Freud). Only recently has genetics advanced to where some of the genes responsible for those traits have been identified, and only still more recently have racial differences in some of those identified genes been published. Although all humans have the same genes, the percentage of each population that has any given allele of a gene can vary from 0 (no one in the population has that allele) to 100% (everyone in the population has that allele, i.e., it is “fixed”).
It would be enlightening to present a table giving the world wide frequency of every important human allele that differs significantly between different populations, but that information is not yet available. Here are some genes for brain size and intelligence (Weiss, 1992;Plomin, 2004), behavior, skin, hair, and eyes, and diseases that are either already known to differ between populations or are very likely to differ.
The Brain and Intelligence
NBPF15 (“neuroblastoma breakpoint family, member 15,” aka MGC8902), Chromosome 1. This gene encodes multiple copies of the protein DUF1220, which is expressed in brain regions associated with higher cognitive function. Moreover, sequences of the gene are specific to different primates and, as the species become closer to humans, the number of duplicate copies increases to 212. (Popesco, 2006). Individual and racial differences in the number of copies have not yet been published.
DAB1 (“disabled-1”), Chromosome 1. This gene is involved in organizing the layers of cells in the cerebral cortex, the site of higher cognitive functions. A version of the gene has become universal in the Chinese, but not in other populations. (Williamson, 2007).
ASPM (“abnormal spindle homolog, microcephaly associated”), Chromosome 1. Its alleles affect the size of the brain; defects in theASPM gene lead to small brains and low IQ. (Evans, 2004). A new ASPM allele arose about 5800 ya in Eurasia and that allele has been suspected of increasing intelligence in Eurasia; it is common in Eurasians but absent in Africans and chimpanzees. People who speak tonal languages (e.g., Chinese) are more likely to carry two newer alleles of ASPM and MCPH1 than people in non-tonal regions. (Dediu, 2007;Mekel-Bobrov, 2005).
SSADH (“NAD(+)-dependent succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase”), Chromosome 6. The C form increases intelligence and lifespan; the T form is 20% less efficient. (Plomin, 2004; Binghom, J., “Clever people could live 15 years longer,” Telegraph (UK), Aug. 23, 2008).
MCPH1 (“microcephaly, primary autosomal recessive 1”), Chromosome 8. The alleles of this gene, commonly called “microcephalin,” at least partly determine brain size and/or organization. (Wang, 2004). A new allele of this gene that increases intelligence arose about 37,000 ya (the confidence limit is very wide — 60,000 – 14,000 BP; Evans, 2005). This allele is common in Eurasians but rare in Africans and absent in chimpanzees.
Both the newly-discovered ASPM and microcephalin alleles were strongly selected for and spread rapidly through the Eurasian populations. These genes have been associated chronologically with two of the most revolutionary changes in human affairs – an explosion of hand-crafts in the Upper Paleolithic era (40,000 ya), and the development of sophisticated cities and the beginning of major trade routes. 1However, so far a correlation between IQ and the presence of these alleles has not been found. (Woods, 2006; Rushton, 2007a).
DCDC2 (“double cortin domain containing 2”), Chromosome 6. This gene affects the formation of brain circuits that make it possible to read. (Weiss, 2005). One allele can result in dyslexia. 2
NQO2 (“Homo sapiens quinone oxidoreductase2”), Chromosome 6. This gene clearly has effects on brain activity and might affect IQ, but that information and its population distribution are not yet published. 3
IGF2R (“insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor”), Chromosome 6. This was the first gene discovered for intelligence; possession of one of the alleles of this gene increases IQ by about 4 points. (Chorney, 1998).
DTNBP1 (“dystrobrevin binding protein 1”), Chromosome 6. It is associated with schizophrenia and has recently been linked to intelligence. (Burdick, 2006).
CHRM2 (“cholinergic receptor, muscarinic 2”), Chromosome 7, activates signaling pathways in the brain; some alleles can increase IQ 15 to 20 points. (Dick, 2007; Gosso, 2006).
FoxP2 (“forkhead box P2”), Chromosome 7. This gene affects language skills, including grammar, as well as IQ. Although many animals also have the gene, humans acquired an allele within the last 200,000 yrs that was strongly selected because the superior communications and creativity it made possible were a major advantage.
EMX2 (“Empty spiracles-like protein”), Chromosome 10, codes for the development of the cortex into specialized areas. Mismatched areas lower performance. (Leingärtner, 2007).
FADS2 (“fatty acid desaturase 2”), Chromosome 11, is involved in processing omega 3 fatty acids to produce nutrients for the brain. An allele of this gene raises the IQ of children by about 6 to 10 IQ points if they are breast-fed. (Caspi, 2007).
DARPP-32 (“dopamine- and cyclic AMP-regulated phosphoprotein”), Chromosome 17. One allele of this gene optimizes the brain’s thinking circuitry, but increases the risk of schizophrenia. (Meyer-Lindenberg, 2007).
MAPT (“microtubule-associated protein tau”), Chromosome 17. Mutations in this gene can cause neurodegenerative disorders. The H2 haplotype of this gene may have come from the Neanderthals. (Hardy, 2005). Also, physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose proposed that consciousness is a quantum effect that arises in these microtubules. (Shadows of the Mind, 1996).
PDYN (“prodynorphin”), Chromosome 20. It codes for a precursor molecule for neuropeptides, which affects perception, behavior, and memory. (Balter, 2005).
HAR1 RNA (“human accelerated region 1”), Chromosome 20. This gene codes for an RNA protein that develops neurons in the neocortex of the brain. This gene is different in the brains of humans and chimpanzees and is rapidly evolving in humans. (Pollard, 2006). Also see HAR1F, which is active in special cells that appear early in embryonic development and help form the human cerebral cortex; HAR1produces RNA that does not produce protein. (Smith, K., 2006; Pollard, 2006).
EST00083 (“expressed sequence tag”) is an mtDNA polymorphism found more often in high IQ groups. It is particularly common in Europe (less so in Asia), where it is associated with a lineage that dates back 35,000 yrs. (Thomas, 1998).
PER2 (period homolog 2, Dosophila), Chromosome 2, “is a key component of the mammalian circadian clock machinery.” “[A] high and significant difference in the geographic distribution of PER2 polymorphisms was observed between Africans and non-Africans.” (Cruciani, 2008)
ADH (“alcohol dehydrogenase”), Chromosome 4. Mutations in this gene cause Asians to have a more intense response to alcohol, including facial flushing. (Duranceaux, 2006).
PAX6 (“paired box gene 6”), Chromosome 11, controls development of the iris. A mutation of this gene is linked to impulsiveness and poor social skills, which is discernable by the appearance of the iris. (Larsson, 2007).
DRD4 (“dopamine receptor D4”), Chromosome 11, controls sex drive. (Zion, 2006). Some studies found that an allele is associated with novelty-seeking personality traits in two European populations (Benjamin, 1996), but other studies did not confirm this.
ACTN3 (“alpha-actinin-3”), Chromosome 11, codes for fast twitch muscle fibers. The R allele encodes a functional copy of the protein but the X allele does not produce the protein; 25% of Asian populations are deficient, 18% of Europeans, but less than 1% of the African Bantu population. (Yang, 2003).
AVPR1a (arginine vasopressin 1a receptor), Chromosome 12, influences social bonding and altruism in humans and some animals. People with a long promoter of the RS3 allele are more altruistic than persons with a short promoter. (Knafo, 2007).
ACE (“angiotensin I-converting enzyme”), Chromosome 17. It converts angiotensin I to angiotensin II, but is also involved in athletic ability. Racial differences are not yet known.
MAOA (“monoamine oxidase A”), X Chromosome. This gene codes for an enzyme which sits on mitochondrial membranes in neurons and degrades several important neurotransmitters, including several believed to be important in the regulation of aggression and impulsivity. (Moran, 2006). People with the short version of MAOA were found to be more violent and generally more antisocial than those with the long version. Also, people with low levels of the enzyme who were mistreated as children have significantly higher crime rates. (Moffitt, 2005; Meyer-Lindenberg, 2006). Different ethnic groups have different alleles. (Wikipedia, “Monoamine Oxidase”).
Skin, Hair,& Eyes
EDAR (“ectodysplasin A receptor”), Chromosome 2, controls hair thickness. East Asians have two copies of an allele that gives them thick hair. (Am. Soc. of Human Gen., Annual Meeting, Oct. 23-27, 2007).
MATP (“melanoma antigen transporter protein”), Chromosome 5, affects skin color. “The L374F mutation was present at an allele frequency as high as 0.96 in the German population, whereas it was completely absent in the Japanese population.” (Yuasa, 2004). There are at least 118 genes associated with skin pigmentation (Lao, 2007).
AIM1 (“absent in melanoma 1”), Chromosome 6, influences skin color. The 272K allele is common in Asian populations, such as Chinese (43.4%), Sinhalese (20.4%), and Tamils (12.1%), but is rare in Europeans (2.5%), Xhosans (Bushmen, 3.4%), and Ghanaians (4.1%). The 374F allele is exclusively found in Europeans (91.6%), but not in the other five populations (0%–1.9%). (Soejima, 2006).
TYR (“Tyrosinase”), Chromosome 11. This gene and the MATP gene have a predominant role in the evolution of light skin in Europeans but not in East Asians, who evolved light skin independently. (Norton, 2006).
KITLG (“KIT legand”), Chromosome 12. About 20% of the differences in pigmentation between people of African and northern European descent is due to different alleles of this gene. (Miller, 2007).
OCA2 (“oculocutaneous albinism II”), Chromosome 15. This gene can cause albinism, but the genetics are different in Caucasians and African Americans. (Lee, 1994). It also affects eye color. (Duffy, 2007).
HERC2, (“HECT domain and RCC1-like domain-containing protein 2”), Chromosome 15, can reduce the production of dark pigment (melanin) by adjacent gene OCA2, resulting in blue eyes, blond hair, and light skin; 97% of blue-eyed people have the same allele. The high frequency of the blue-eyed allele in Scandinavia implies that allele significantly increased reproductive success. (Eiberg, 2008).
SLC24A5 (“solute carrier family 24, member 5,” aka the “golden pigmentation gene”), Chromosome 15. An allele of this gene that changes a single amino acid in a protein plays a major role in giving Eurasians lighter skin than Africans. (Lamason, 2005). The European allele is not the same as the Asian allele. (Norton, 2006). This gene is also expressed in the brain. 4
MC1R (“melanocortin-1 receptor”), Chromosome 16. There are over thirty alleles for this gene. The gene helps determine hair and skin color, but not eye color. (Mueller, 2006). Africans (and tropical indigenous people in general) have an ancestral allele for this gene and only synonymous alleles (i.e., alleles that code for the same amino acids) of this gene; the alleles are ancient and code for eumelanin, which results in black skin and hair. (Harding, 2000). Europeans have alleles for blond, red, brown, and black hair.
KRT41P, aka KRTHAP1 (“keratin 41 pseudogene”), 5 Chromosome 17. This gene is present in chimpanzees, gorillas, and man, and codes for body hair. It was turned off in man about 240,000 ya. (Klein, 2002, p. 203).
EYCL1 (“eye color 1” aka “gey”), Chromosome 19, codes for green and blue eye color; EYCL2 (“bey1”), Chromosome 15, codes for brown eyes, and EYC3 (“bey2”), Chromosome 15, codes for brown and blue eyes. (Wikipedia, “Eye Color“). Five to ten genes may be involved in eye color.
ASIP (“agouti signaling protein”), Chromosome 20. The 8818G allele is associated with darker skin color in Africans and African Americans; since the allele also is found in African apes, it is “ancestral” in Africans. (Norton, 2006,).
Health & Disease
LCT (“lactase gene”), Chromosome 2, codes for lactase, an enzyme that catalyzes the digestion of lactose, milk sugar. An allele that enables adults to digest milk sugar arose in northern Europe only recently, between 5480 BC and 5000 BC. The allele was strongly selected and its possession by over 90% of northern Europeans may help explain how Indo-Europeans were able to spread so suddenly about 4000 ya. The vast majority of Asians and Africans do not have it, but the Tutsis more recently independently evolved a lactose-tolerant allele. (Burger, 2007). Since all children are lactose-tolerant and most adults are not, “lactose tolerance may be considered a form of neoteny.” (Wikipedia, “Lactose Intolerance”).
CCR5 (“chemokine (C-C motif) receptor 5”), Chromosome 3. The delta 32 deletion of this gene appeared more than 5,000 ya in southern Finland and may have provided some protection against smallpox. Today, only a small percentage of Europeans have this deletion (1%, though 10% of European Jews have it), but it protects them from the AIDS virus (Zimmer, 2001, p. 222-225), though it increases their risk of illness from flaviviruses, such as West Nile virus; it is not found in Asians or Africans. (Smith, 1997; Stephens, 1998).
PDE4 (“pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy”), Chromosome 5. An allele of this gene is involved in cardiovascular disease and lung cancer susceptibility. Blacks who smoke up to a pack a day are far more likely to develop lung cancer than whites who smoke similar amounts. Blacks may have less protection against lung cancer because they were subjected to less smoke, as fire is not needed as much in the tropics. (Garte, 2001).
CYP3A5 (“cytochrome”), Chromosome 7, acts to retain salt in the kidneys. It is common in Africans, who live in a hot climate where salt is lost through sweat and is not easily available. The CYP3A5*3 allele, which is non-functional, is far more common in Eurasians (96% for the Basques in the Pyrenees Mountains) than in Africans (6% in Nigeria). Thus, Africans who live in white civilizations retain too much salt, leading to cardiovascular problems. Another gene, AGT M235, which is also involved in salt retention, has a similar distribution. (Thompson, 2004; Roy, 2005).
CASP12 (“cysteinyl aspartate proteinase”), Chromosome 9. Having the non-functional version of this gene better prevents sepsis (infection of the blood and tissues by bacteria). The loss of function occurred 51,000 to 74,000 ya. (Wang, X., 2006). This gene HBB(“hemoglobin beta chain”) on Chromosome 11, codes for the beta strand of hemoglobin. A single copy of an allele of this gene protects against malaria, but two copies cause sickle cell anemia; 6 it is found mostly in people living in malarial regions of Africa and India.
CD4 (“cell development”), Chromosome 12. The 7R allele was probably very ancient in Neanderthals, but may be only 30,000 yrs old in Hss. It is a receptor for HIV. (Hanna, 1989).
BRCA1 (“breast cancer”), Chromosome 17. This gene has an allele that is involved in breast cancer. Of Ashkenazi Jewish women, 1 in 40 carries alleles of the BRCA1 and the BRCA2 gene that give them a 4 out of 5 chance of having breast cancer.
LTA4H (“leukotriene A4 hydrolase”), Chromosome 17. An allele of this gene increases the risk of a heart attack in African Americans by more than 250%, but only by 16% in whites and Asians. The gene boosts inflammation as a way to fight infections and is generally not found in Africans. Although 30% of whites have the allele, they have evolved other genes to counteract it, but the 6% of the African Americans, who acquired it by breeding with whites, have not. (Helgadottir, 2006).
APOH (“apolipoprotein H”), Chromosome 17. This gene is a major autoantigen for the production of antiphospholipid antibodies (APA) in autoimmune diseases. The APOH*3B allele is present only in blacks and is identical to the wild type APOH in chimpanzees. (Kamboh, 2004).
NOS2 (“nitric oxide synthase”), Chromosome 17, encodes an enzyme that produces nitric oxide. An allele possessed by Africans in malaria areas causes increased production of nitric oxide, which protects against the symptoms of the disease. Caucasians do not have that allele. (Keller, 2004).
CNDP1 (“carnosine dipeptidase 1”), Chromosome 18. A trinucleotide repeat sequence on this gene protects Caucasian Europeans, white Americans, and Arabs, but not blacks, from diabetic end-stage kidney failure. (Freedman, B.I., 2007).
APOE (“apolipoprotein E”), Chromosome 19. This gene plays a role in transporting cholesterol and is involved in Alzheimer’s disease. It is possible that some people may not have this gene at all which, if true, would raise some interesting questions. (Miller, 2006).
PDHA1 (“pyruvate dehydrogenase (lipoamide) alpha 1″), X Chromosome. The tree for this gene is estimated as 1.86 mya and the split between Africans and non-Africans as 200,000 yrs. There are no haplotypes shared between the Africans and the non-Africans and one site (544) is fixed in the non-African lineage (i.e., every non-African tested has the same allele, which suggests it is advantageous and ancient). (Harris, 1999.).
The reader may have noticed that genes that code for one trait may affect other, seemingly unrelated traits (e.g., PAX6, CCR5, andPAX6) and that some alleles (“ancestral” alleles) are found in blacks and chimpanzees, but not other races (NQ02, ASIP, APOH*3B,MC1R) or, vice versa, (ASPM, MCPH1).
Men and women differ by only a single chromosome (Y in men, X in women), yet the differences in that chromosome extensively affect their anatomy, physiology, and behavior. Figure 13-1 (Yang, 2006) shows how genes are expressed in the livers of female (top) versus male mice. Red corresponds to more gene expression, green to less. Even though one might think that the differences between males and females would be limited to reproduction-related differences on the X and Y chromosomes, this map shows that the differences have a large effect on genes that are expressed in the liver, which has little to do with reproduction. Thus, we should not be surprised if racial differences in genes affect much more in the body than the obvious differences in appearance.
At the present time, studies of racial genetic differ-ences have been mostly limited to mtDNA and coding nuclear DNA. Yet humans have more “junk” DNA than any other animal, and the functions of junk DNA are just beginning be discovered. Important racial differences can also be expected to be found in it as well, in the number of copies of genes, and in the gene regulators, the genetically-inherited “switches” that determine whether and when a gene is read. | <urn:uuid:55c531fc-4f46-4a64-bdf4-83daecd18529> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whitepowerforum.com/index.php/2012/06/21/genes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920122 | 5,028 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Asylum benefits used to be limited to people from certain countries, but now it's available to refugees worldwide. To qualify for refugee or asylum status, you must have a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political affiliation. It also takes into account things such as close relatives in the U-S, stable employment, and the lack of a criminal record. There are some differences between refugee and asylum processes. Unlike asylum, refugee status can only be obtained if you're outside both your own country and the United States, and you're unwilling or unable to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution. Persecution is defined as harm or suffering inflicted upon the applicant as punishment for possessing a belief or characteristic that the prosecutor will not tolerate. Your application must be filed either with the nearest INS. office outside the U-S or at a designated U-S Consulate. The burden of proof of the persecution rests with the refugee. If you're in the U-S, or at the land border of the U-S, and believe you're a victim of persecution, you can apply for political asylum with asylum officers under the jurisdiction of the Central Office of Refugee, Asylum and Parole within one year of entry. You can file even if you're in the U-S illegally, or in deportation or exclusion proceedings. Whether applying as a refugee or an asylee, you'll be interviewed to determine if your claim is legitimate and your application should be approved. Your eligibility for refugee or asylee status may be affected if it's alleged that you've: involved in the persecution of other persons; firmly resettled in another country; convicted of an especially serious crime; or committed a serious non-political crime prior to coming to the U-S. According to regulations, if your application has been pending for at least one hundred and fifty days, you may be given permission to work. One year after receiving refugee or asylee status, you may become eligible to apply for permanent residence. For more information, contact an attorney qualified in the area of immigration. | <urn:uuid:df5dddbf-26bb-40d7-b97a-dd528602a592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.9wsyr.com/guides/legal/immigration/story/Asylum-and-refugee-status/qpyBPchiy0a9jyTA925aFA.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950389 | 432 | 2.625 | 3 |
I’m accustomed to getting bad news about the state of the world’s coral reefs, but this week there’s some good news for a change.
Scientists have just released findings from their research in American Samoa on especially tough species of corals that are adapting to warming waters and may be resisting climate change.
In a new paper published by Ocean Conservancy board member Dr. Stephen Palumbi and other scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the scientists found that some reef-building corals are resistant to the stress of warmer waters that cause coral bleaching.
While studying corals in American Samoa, researchers found heat-resistant corals can survive damaging temperature increases by switching on a set of 60 genes before the stress has occurred. Heat-sensitive corals switch these genes on after stress has already occurred. This means that some corals have the ability to withstand future increase in ocean temperature.
DNA sequencing can offer broad insights into the differences that may allow some organisms to persist longer amid future changes to global climate. | <urn:uuid:98661a76-9405-48bd-91ca-9571fe783a39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/tag/american-samoa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930095 | 220 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Has anybody over here ever tried the Josephus problem?
In Massada, in ancient Greece, it was decided that there were too many prisoners and many should be executed. One prisoner was given a sword and all 1000 prisoners were instructed to stand in a circle. The one with the sword was instructed to kill the man on his left and then pass the sword to the next man on the left, who would then do the same. The circle would continue to get smaller as this continued, and the last man left would be set free. Josephus, one of the prisoners, placed himself at the correct position in the line-up to be the one remaining man at the end of this elimination. At what position did he place himself on the circle? Also, if the last two will be set free, where should Josephus direct his friend to stand?
I got the answer 977. Is it correct??
Post your codes too [if you want] | <urn:uuid:7824b370-9f18-4306-8bd4-7b8c93fd43bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cboard.cprogramming.com/cplusplus-programming/21249-josephus-problem.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98138 | 194 | 3.1875 | 3 |
by Minna Pekkinen, Heli Viljakainen, Elisa Saarnio, Christel Lamberg-Allardt, Outi Mäkitie
Vitamin D insufficiency in children may have long-term skeletal consequences as vitamin D affects calcium absorption, bone mineralization and bone mass attainment. Methodology/Principal Findings
This school-based study investigated vitamin D status and its association with vitamin D intake and bone health in 195 Finnish children and adolescents (age range 7–19 years). Clinical characteristics, physical activity and dietary vitamin D intake were evaluated. Blood and urine samples were collected for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) and other parameters of calcium homeostasis. Bone mineral density (BMD) and body composition were measured with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Altogether 71% of the subjects were vitamin D insufficient (25-OHD <50 nmol/L). The median 25-OHD was 41 nmol/L for girls and 45 nmol/L for boys, and the respective median vitamin D intakes 9.1 µg/day and 10 µg/day. In regression analysis, after adjusting for relevant factors, 25-OHD concentration explained 5.6% of the variance in lumbar BMD; 25-OHD and exercise together explained 7.6% of the variance in total hip BMD and 17% of the variance in whole body BMD. S-25-OHD was an independent determinant of lumbar spine and whole body BMD and in magnitude surpassed the effects of physical activity. Conclusions/Significance
Vitamin D insufficiency was common even when vitamin D intake exceeded the recommended daily intake. Vitamin D status was a key determinant of BMD. The findings suggest urgent need to increase vitamin D intake to optimize bone health in children. | <urn:uuid:d20ba14b-d995-4604-bdfc-8c195325e803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biospace.com/PLos_Article.aspx?id=17632 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900682 | 394 | 3.171875 | 3 |
southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius)
This species is very similar in appearance to Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), but can be distinguished due to its shorter, thicker, wolly fur. The fur on the back is a gray-brown to orange brown with the belly being more of a buff color. This species has long hairs on its toes that actually extend beyond the claws. This bat is between 77 and 97 mm in total length including the tail and weighs 5 to 8 g. In the northren part of the range (including VA), this speices may hibernate for as many as 7 months and in clusters of up to 100 individuals. Mating occurs in the fall, but the sprem is stored in the uterus of the female (delayed fertilization) through winter. Ovultion and fertilization takes place in the spring and typically two young are born in April or May. These bats form large nursery colonies.
This range of this species in the US extends from extreme southeastern Virginia west to Texas and south to Florida. There are very few documentations of this species in Virginia. Those that do exist are along the Blackwater River near Zuni, VA. In the summer, this species uses caves as roosting sites where in the winter it typiclly prefers hollow trees, mines, caves, and buildings. The roosting site is always near a permanent body of water.
This species eats mainly insects, including mosquitos. | <urn:uuid:61f57d09-567e-48b2-9100-930c8b6ac9e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956515 | 307 | 3.125 | 3 |
Document Number: 6149A Nation at Risk: Obesity in the United States - Today, about 16% of all children and teens in the United States are overweight and obesity is increasing rapidly. This report examines obesity rates of children and teenagers by race, gender and geographical region, discusses the health and financial consequences of obesity and its causes. In 1993, 12 states had obesity prevalence rates between 15% and 19% and no state had rates at or above 20%. By 2003, 15 states had rates between 15% and 19%, 31 states had rates between 20% and 24%, and four states had rates at or above 25%. The consequences of higher obesity rates include higher health care costs and lower life expectancy. The report states that due to the rising obesity epidemic, the current generation of children could become the first generation of Americans to have shorter lives than their parents. (American Heart Association, 2005)... | <urn:uuid:ae160c71-25bc-431b-9fdf-88e28961e8f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecs.org/html/Document.asp?chouseid=6149 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974895 | 179 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Gallery: Mars Rover Curiosity Lands On Mars
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE - The euphoria and excitement of Sunday night's Mars rover landing lingered Monday, but NASA and JPL researchers already know there's some grindingly slow work ahead of them - both scientifically and politically.
In the short term, the Mars Science Laboratory team will get started on Curiosity's two-year mission, searching for signs of life within a low-elevation crater, where water may have collected billions of years ago.
In a statement issued Monday, Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau hailed
A History of NASA and Mars
"This is a win for humankind - Curiosity belongs to everyone," Chameau said. "Exploring Mars will help us develop a greater understanding of the universe and our place in it."
JPL is a division of Caltech and Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
Getting to the surface Sunday night wasn't completely smooth.
Martin Greco, Entry-Descent-Landing and activities lead, said Curiosity's descent was a "very scary time" because the spacecraft was operating completely on its own.
"You can't do anything at that point," Greco said.
The most nerve-wracking moment for Greco was when the crew got a heat shield temperature warning. He said simulated landings
Now that the rover is on the surface, it's out of his hands. After eight years of hard work, he's looking forward to relaxing and watching what the rover does.
"Hopefully in the next day or two, we'll get some good color photos," Greco said.
On Wednesday, JPL engineers will begin checking Curiosity's scientific instruments to see if they are functioning properly. The rover will also begin
Later this week, the rover will be reprogrammed. It currently contains flight software and needs to be switched over to ground software.
"It's like doing a brain transplant on the rover," JPL media representative Gaye Hill said.
It will take several weeks to test the various MSL instruments, and a few months before researchers have really delved into experiments in the area around Curiosity's landing site, MSL and Caltech scientist John Grotzinger said.
"Within a year or so we could be at the base of Mount Sharp," he said, referring to the tall mountain at the center of the crater. "The mission is about patience and checking things out carefully."
Researchers will also use the start of the mission to get themselves acclimated to working on Mars time.
One day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than one day on Earth, so scientists' regular workday constantly starts later and later in the day. Eventually they'll find themselves starting work well after midnight.
"It's a challenge," said Bethany Ehlmann, a Caltech geologist who worked previously with the rovers Spirit and Opportunity. "The way to overcome it is to to dive into it full force and live religiously on Mars time."
Ehlmann has one of the more intriguing Mars Science Laboratory job descriptions, working with an international team to zap rocks with a laser.
While scientists are excited about the discoveries that could be made by Curiosity, there is some apprehension about the immediate future of Mars exploration in the wake of federal budget cuts to NASA and JPL.
There's one more Mars launch scheduled next year, an orbiter called MAVEN that will investigate the planet's upper atmosphere.
After that, there are a lot of question marks.
Curiosity by itself can't identify life on Mars, and a planned mission to bring rock samples back to Earth fell victim to NASA's shrinking budget earlier this year.
A committee formed to set long-term goals, the Mars Program Planning Group, is set to deliver a key report later this month, with 2020 expected to be the earliest date for another mission to the surface.
Robotic analysis does have some limitations, such as dating, that makes it important to bring Mars samples back for study, NASA scientist Michael Meyer said.
However, NASA's political unsteadiness won't have too much of an impact on long-term Mars exploration, Meyer added.
Manned missions to Mars are still a goal for the next decade.
"If we can't do it now, it's one of the things that are still around for the future of space exploration," he said.
While the planet won't change anytime soon, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, is concerned that JPL could lose some its institutional knowledge from building and operating rovers if there's too long of a delay between missions.
"We're fighting to make Curiosity the most recent of a continuing line of great JPL mission to Mars and other planets," Schiff said. "We do not want to step back now."
Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas issued a congratulatory message to the NASA-JPL team.
"Their accomplishments inspire the hearts, minds and imaginations of the youth of America, our next generation of inventors, scientists and explorers," Dreier said in a written statement.
Successes such as the Curiosity landing, which required completely new engineering to make it safely to the surface, provide plenty of lessons for NASA.
But they might learn even more from the mistakes, such as the failed Mars Polar Lander and Spirit's loss after getting stuck.
"There's a lot of heritage in the folks that are acting on the team, and they understand how to deal with these situations. Many of them have seen it before with Spirit and Opportunity," NASA's Mars program director Doug McCuistion said. "So you build a knowledge base, a core competency if you will, that becomes irreplaceable. It's crucial to continue doing these types of missions."
Spirit and Opportunity also serve as a testament to enduring engineering, as both far outlasted their planned three-month missions.
Opportunity, which landed in 2004, is still in operation.
Curiosity, too, could wind up having a long lifespan.
"The nominal mission is for two years, but I think if it lasts twice that, I don't think anybody would be shocked," MSL project manager Pete Theisinger said.
Staff writer Frank C. Girardot contributed to this story.
626-578-6300, ext. 4475 | <urn:uuid:22cb3c6e-d52e-4049-96bb-ed81b092bc01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.willitsnews.com/ci_21250831/long-days-ahead-curiosity-rover-mars-exploration?source=most_viewed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960246 | 1,316 | 2.8125 | 3 |
76 DEFINITIONS OF THE SIGN BY C.S.PEIRCE.
DATED TEXTS (or texts dated by M.Robin)
Representation is anything which is or is represented to stand for another and by which that other may be stood for by something which may stand for the representation.
Thing is that for which a representation stand prescinded from all that can serve to establish a relation with any possible relation.
Form is that respect in which a representation stands for a thing prescinded from all that can serve as the basis of a representation, therefore from its connection with the thing.
2 - 1867 - C.P. 1-554 - On a new list of categories .
[...] every comparison requires, besides the related thing, the ground, and the correlate, also a (mediating representation which) (represents the relate to be a representation of the same correlate) (which this mediating representation itself represents). Such a mediating representation may be termed an (interpretant), who says that a foreigner says the same thing which he himself says.
3 - 1868 - C.P. 5-283 - Consequences of four incapacities .
[...] Now a sign has, as such, three references : first, it is a sign to some thought which interprets it; second, it is a sign for some object to which in that thought it is equivalent, third, it is a sign, in some respect or quality, which brings it into connection with its object. Let us ask what the three correlates are to which a thought-sign refers.
4 - 1873 - MS 380 - Of logic as a study of signs .
A sign is something which stands for another thing to a mind. To it existence as such three things are requisite. On the first place, it must have characters which shall enable us to distinguish it from other objects. In the second place, it must be affected in some way by the object which it signified or at least something about it must vary as a consequence of a real causation with some variation of its object.
5 - 1873 - C.P. 7-356 - Logic. Chapter 5 .
Let us examine some of the characters of signs in general. A sign must in the first place have some qualities in itself which serve to distinguish it, a word must have a peculiar sound different from the sound of another word; but it makes no difference what the sound is, so long as it is something distinguishable. In the next place, a sign must have a real physical connection with the thing it signifies so as to be affected by that thing. A weather-cock, which is a sign of the direction of the wind, must really turn with the wind. This word in this connection is an indirect one; but unless there be some way or other which shall connect words with the things they signifie, and shall ensure their correspondance with them, they have no value as signs of those things. Whatever has these two characters is fit to become a sign. It is at least a symptom, but it is not actually a sign unless it is used as such; that is unless it is interpreted to thought and addresses itself to some mind. As thought is itself a sign we may express this by saying that the sign must be interpreted as another sign. [...]
A representation is an object which stands for another so that an experience of the former affords us a knowledge of the latter. There are three essential conditions to which every representation must conform. It must in the first place like any other object have qualities independent of its meaning. It is only through a knowledge of these that we acquire any information concerning the object it represents.[...] In the second place, representation must have a real causal connection to its object. [...] In the third place, every representation addresses itself to a mind. It is only in as far as it does it that it is a representation. The idea of the representation itself excites in the mind another idea and in order that it may do this it is necessary that some principle of association between the two ideas should already be established in that mind. [...]
7 - 1885 - 3-360 - On the algebra of logic .
A sign is in a conjoint relation tothe thing denoted and to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species, the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental association, and depend upon a habit. Such signs are always abstract and general, because because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part, conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgement. For the sake of brevity I will call them tokens.
[...] Indeed, representation necessary involves a genuine triad. For it involves a sign, or representamen, of some kind, inward or outward, mediating between an object and an interpreting thought. [...]
A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen. [...]
[...] A very broad and important class of triadics characters [consist of] representations. A representation is that character of a thing by virtue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect, or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object.
[...] A sign is only a sign in actu by virtue of its receiving an interpretation, that is, by virtue of its determining another sign of the same object. This is as true of mental judgments as it is of external signs.[...]
Anything which determines something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers (its object) in the same way, the interpretant becoming in turn a sign, and so on an infinitum.
No doubt, intelligent consciousness must enter into the series. If the series of successive interpretants comes to an end, the sign is thereby rendered imperfect, at least. If, an interpretant idea having been determined in an individual consciousness it determines no outward sign, but that consciousness becomes annihilated, or otherwise loses all memory or other significant effect of the sign, it becomes absolutely undiscoverable that there ever was such an idea in that consciousness; and in that case it is difficult to see how it could have any meaning to say that that consciousness ever had the idea, since the saying so would be an interpretant of that idea.
[...] Genuine mediation is the character of a Sign. A sign is anything which is related to a Second thing, its Object, in respect to a Quality, in such a way as to bring a Third thing, its Interpretant, into relation to the same Object, and that in such a way as to bring a Fourth into relation to that Object in the same form, ad infinitum. If the series is broken off, the Sign, in so far, falls short of the perfect significant character. It is not necessary that the Interpretant should actually exist. A being in futuro will suffice.
On the definition of Logic.
Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which not more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place with a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stand to C. It is from this definition, together with a definition of "formal", thah I deduce mathematically the principles of logic. [...]
A sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable of determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stand itself to the same Object. The triadic relation is genuine, that is its three members are bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus of dyadic relations. That is the reason the Interpretant, or Third, cannot stand in a mere dyadic relation to the Object, but must stand in such a relation to it as the Representamen itself does. Nor can the triadic relation in which the third stands be merely similar to that in which the First stands, for this would make the relation of the THird to the First a degenerate Secondness merely. The Third must indeed stand in such a relation, and thus be capable of determining a Third of its own; but besides that, it must have a second triadic relation in which the Representamen, or rather the relation there of to its Object, shall be its own (the Thrid's) Object, and must be capable of determining a Third to this relation. All ths must be equally be true of the Third's Third and so on endlessly; and this, and more, is involved in the familiar idea of a Sign; and the term Representamen is here used, nothing more is implied. A Sign is a Representamen with a mental Interpretant.
Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs. Thus, if a sunflower, in turning towards the sun, becomes by that very act fully capable, without further condition, of reproducing a sunflower which turns in precisely way toward the sun, and of doing so with the same reproductive power, the sunflower would become a Representamen of the sun. But thought is the chief, if not the only, mode of representation.
A Sign does not function as a sign unless it be understood as a sign. It is impossible, in the present state of knowledge, to say, at once fully precisely and with a satisfactory approach to certitude, what is to understand of a sign. ..., it does not seem that conciousness can be considered as essential to the understanding of a sign. But what is indispensable is that there should, actually or virtually, bring about a determination of a sign of the same object of which it is itself a sign. This interpreting sign, like every sign, only functions of a sign so for as it again is interpreted, that is, actually or virtually, determines a sign of the same object of which it is itself a sign. Thus there is a virtual endless series of signs when a sign is understood; and a sign neveer understood can hardly be said to be a sign.
17 - 1903 - C.P. 1=53B- - Lowell Lectures: Lecture III, vol. 21, 3d Draught .
Every sign stands for an object independent of itself; but it can only be a sign of that object in so far as that object is itself of the nature of a sign or thought. For the sign does not affect the object but is affected by it; so that the object must be able to convey thought, that is, must be of the nature of thought or a sign. [...]
[...] Now a sign is something, A, which denotes some fact or object, B, to some interpretant thought, C.
[...] In the first place, as to my terminology I confine the word representation to the operation of a sign or its relation to the object for the interpreter of the representation. The concrete subject that represents I call a sign or representamen. I use these two words, sign and representamen, differently. By a sign I mean anything which conveys any definite notion of an object in any way, as such conveyers of thought are familiarly known tous. Now I start with this familiar idea and make the best analysis I can of what is essential to a sign, and I define a representamen as being whatever that analysis applies to. [...]
My definition of a representamen is as follow:
A REPRESENTAMEN is a subject of a triadic relation TO a second, called its OBJECT, FOR a third, called is INTERPRETANT, this triadic relation being such that the REPRESENTAMEN determines its interpretant to stand in the same triadic relation to the same object for some interpretant.
The mode of being of a representamen is such that it is capable of repetition.[...] This repetitory character of the
representamen involves as a consequence that it is essential to a representamen that it should contribute to the determination of another representamen distinct from itself. [...] I call a representamen which is determined by another representamen, an interpretant of the latter. Every representamen is related or is capable of being related to a reacting thing, its object, and every representamen embodies, in some sense, some quality, which may be called its signification, what in the case of a common name J.S. Mill call its connotation, a particularly objectionable expression.
A Representamen is the First Correlate of a triadic relation, the Second Correlate being termed its Object, and the possible Third Correlate being termed its Interpretant, by which triadic relation the possible Interpretant is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the same Object, and for some possible Interpretant. A Sign is a representamen of which some interpetant is a cognition of a mind. Signs are the only representamens that have been much studied.
[...] As we know a sign, it is something which represents the real Truth, in some aspect of it, to somebody; that is, determines a knowledge of that Truth. This knowledge is itself of the nature of a sign. In its more perfect forms, it involves consciousness, or a representation in the conscious sign of itself to itself, somewhat as a map covering a country may represent itself. But knowledge is nothing, quite nothing but a counterfeit unless it would under some circumstances, determine conduct. It must have real effects. In fact any outward sign must, not merely as a thing, but as a sign produce physical effects in order to be communicated. [...]
[...] A sign is intended to correspond to a real thing, or fact, or to something relatively real; and this object of the sign may be the very sign itself, as when a map is precisely superposed upon that which it maps. [...] A sign is also intended to determine, in a mind or elsewhere, a sign of the same object; and this interpretant of the sign may be the very sign itself; but as a general rule it will be different. [...]
A sign is supposed to have an object or meaning, and also to determine an interpretant sign of the same object. It is convenient to speak as if the sign originated with an utterer and determined its interpretant in the mind of an interpreter.
[...] Conversely, every thought proper involves the idea of a triadic relation. For every thought proper involves the idea of a sign. Now a sign is a thing related to an object and determining in the interpreter an interpreting sign of the same object. It involves the relation between sign, interpreting sign, and object. There is a threefold distinction between signs, which is not in the least psuchological in its nature, but is purely logical, and is of the atmost importance in logic.
I call that which represents, a representamen. A Representation is that relation of the representamen to its object which consists in it determining a third (the interpretant representamen) to be in the same relation to that object.
[...] In its genuine form, thirdness is the triadic relation existing between a sign, its object, and the interpreting thought, itself a sign, considered as constituting the mode of being of a sign. A sign mediates between the interpretant sign and its object. Taking sign in its broadest sense, its interpretant is not necessarily a sign. [...]
A sign therefore is an object which is in relation to its object on the one hand and to an interpretant on the other, in such a way as to bring the interpretant into a relation to the object, corresponding to its own relation to the object. I might say similar to its own for a correspondence consist in a similarity; but perhaps correspondence is narrower.
[...] It is difficult to define a sign in general. It is something which is in such a relation to an object that it determines, or might determine, another sign of the same object. This is true but considered as a definition it would involve a vicious circle, since it does not say what is meant by the interpretant being a "sign" of the same object. However, this much is clear ; that a sign has essentially two correlates, its object and its possible Interpretant sign. Of these three, Sign, Object, Interpretant, the sign as being the very thing under consideration is Monadic, the object is Dyadic, and the Interpretant is Triadic. We therefore look to see, whether there be not two Objects, the object as it is in itself (the Monadic Object), and the object as the sign represents it to be (the Dyadic Object). There are also three Interpretants; namely, 1°, the Interpretant considered as an independent sign of the Object, 2°, the Interpretant as it is as a fact determined by the Sign to be, and 3° the Interpretant as it is intended by, or is represented in, the Sign to be. [...]
So then anything (generally in a mathematical sense) is a priman (not a priman element generally) and we might define a sign as follows:
A "sign" is anything, A, which,
(1) in addition to other characters of its own,
(2) stands in a dyadic relation Þ, to a purely active correlate, B,
(3) and is also in a triadic relation to B for a purely passive correlate, C, this triadic relation being such as to determine C to be in a dyadic relation, µ, to B, the relation µ corresponding in a recognized way to the relation Þ.
In the which statement the sense in which the words active and passive are used is that in a given relationship considering the various characters of all or some of the correlates with the exclusion of those only which involve all the correlates and are immediately implied in the statement of the relationship, none of those which involve only non-passive correlates will by immediately essential necessity vary with any variation of those involving only passive correlates; while no variation of characters involving only non-active elements will by immediately essential necessity involve a variation of any character involving only active elements. And it may be added that by active-passive is meant active and passive if the entire collection of correlates excluding the correlates under consideration be divided into two parts and one part and the other be alternately excluded from consideration; while purely active or passive means active or passive without being active-passive.
This definition avoids the niceties for the sake of emphasizing the principal factors of a sign. Nevertheless, some explanations may be desirable. But first for the terminology. I use "sign" in the widest sense of the definition. It is a wonderful case of an almost popular use of a very broad word in almost the exact sense of the scientific definition. [...]
I formerly preferred the word representamen. But there was no need of this horrid long word. [...]
My notion in preferring "representamen" was that it would seem more natural to apply it to representatives in legislatures, to deputies of various kinds, etc... I admit still that it aids the comprehension of the definition to compare it carefully with such cases. But they certainly depart from the definition, in that this requires that the action of the sign as such shall not affect the object represented. A legislative representative is, on the contrary, expected in his functions to improve the condition of this constituents; and any kind of attorney, even if he has no discretion, is expected to affect the condition of his principal. The truth is I went wrong from not having a formal definition all drawn up. This sort of thing is inevitable in the early stages of a strong logical study; for if a formal definition is attempted too soon, it will only shackle thought. [...]
I thought of a representamen as taking the place of the thing; but a sign is not a substitute. Ernst Mach has also fallen into that snare.
[...] A sign is plainly a species of medium of communication and medium of communication is a species of medium, and a medium is a species of third.[...]
A medium of communication is something, A, which being acted upon by something else, N, in its turn acts upon something, I, in a manner involving its determination by N, so that I shall thereby, through A and only through A, be acted upon by N. [...] A Sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it fulfill the function of a sign, and none other, perfectly conforms to the definition of a medium of communication. It is determined by the object, but in no other respect than goes to enable it to act upon the interpreting quasi mind ; and the more perfectly it fulfill its function as a sign, the less effect it has upon that quasi-mind other than that of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon it. [...]
It seems best to regard a sign as a determination of a quasi-mind; for if we regard it as an outward object, and as addressing itself to a human mind, that mind must first apprehend it as an object in itself, and only after that consider it in its significance; and the like must happen if the sign addresses itself to any quasi-mind. It must begin by forming a determination of that quasi-mind, and nothing will be lost by regarding that determination as the sign.
I use the word "Sign" in the widest sense for any medium for the communication or extension of a Form (or feature). Being medium, it is determined by something, called its Object, and determines something, called its Interpretant or Interpretand. But some distinctions have to be borne in mind in order rightly to understand what is meant by the Object and by the Interpretant. In order that a Form may be extended or communicated, it is necessary that it should have been really embodied in a Subject independently of the communication; and it is necessary that there should be another subject in which the same form is embodied only in consequence of the communication. The Form, (and the Form is the Object of the Sign), as it really determines the former Subject, is quite independent of the sign; yet we may and indeed must say that the object of a sign can be nothing but what that sign represents it to be. Therefore, in order to reconcile these apparently conflicting Truths, it is indispensible to distinguish the immediate object from the dynamical object.
The same form of distinction extends to the interpretant; but as applied to the interpretant, it is complicated by the circumstance that the sign not only determines the interpretant to represent (or to take the form of) the object, but also determines the interpretant to represent the sign. Indeed in what we may, from one point of view, regard as the principal kind of signs, there is one distinct part appropriated to representing the object, and another to representing how this very sign itself represents that object. The class of signs I refer to are the dicisigns. In "John is in love with Helen" the object signified is the pair, John and Helen. But the "is in love with" signifies the form this sign represents itself to represent John and Helen's Form to be. That this is so, is shown by the precise equivalence between any verb in the indicative and the same made the object of "I tell you". "Jesus wept" = "I tell you that Jesus wept".
First, an analysis of the essence of a sign, (stretching that word to its widest limits, as anything witch, being determined by an object, determines an interpretation to determination, through it, by the same object), leads to a proof that every sign is determined by its object, either first, by partaking in the characters of the object, when I call the sign an Icon; secondly, by being really and in its individual existence connected with the individual object, when I call the sign an Index; thirdly, by more or less approximate certainty that it will be interpreted as denoting the object, in consequence of a habit (which term I use as including a natural disposition), when I call the sign a Symbol.
[...] That thing which causes a sign as such is called the object (according to the usage of speech, the "real", but more accurately, the existent object) represented by the sign : the sign is determined to some species of correspondence with that object.[...]
For the proper significate outcome of a sign, I propose the name, the interpretant of the sign. [...]
Whether the interpretant be necessarily a triadic result is a question of words, that is, of how we limit the extension of the term "sign"; but it seems to me convenient to make the triadic production of the interpretant essential to a "sign", calling the wider concept like a Jacquard loom, for example, a "quasi-sign". [...]
A sign may be defined as something (not necessarily existent) which is so determined by a second something called its Object that it will tend in its turn to determine a third something called its Interpretant in such a way that in respect to the accomplishment of some end consisting in an effect made upon the interpretant the action of sign is (more or less) equivalent to what that of the object might have been had the circumstances been different.
[...] How any sign, of whatsoever kind, mediates between an Object to some sort of conformity with which it is moulded, and by which it is thus determined, and an effect which the sign is intended to bring about and which it represents to be the outcome of the object influence upon it. It is of the first importance in such studies as these that the two correlates of the sign should be clearly distinguished : the Object by which the sign is determined and the Meaning, or as I usually call it, the Interpretant, which is determined by the sign, and through it by the object. The meaning may itself be a sign, a concept, for exemple, as may also the object. But everyboby who looks out of his eyes well knows that thoughts bring about tremendous physical effects, that are not, as such, signs. Feelings, too, may be excited by signs without thereby and theorein being themselves signs. We observe that the very same object may be several entirely different signs ; or in some way in other sign. [...] There are meanings that are feelings, meanings that are existent things or facts, and meanings that are concepts. [...]
[...] By a Sign, I mean anything that is, on the one hand, in some way determined by an object and, on the other hand, which determines some awareness, and this in such manner that the awareness is thus determined by that object. [...]
Of the distinction between the Objects, or better the "Originals" and the Interpretant of a Sign.
By "Sign" is meant any Ens which is determined by a single object or set of Objects called its Originals, all other than the Sign itself, and in its turn is capable of determining in a Mind something called its Interpretant, and that in such a way that the Mind is thereby mediately determined to some mode of conformity to the original or Set of originals. This is particularly intended to define (very imperfectly as yet) a complete Sign. But a complete sign has or may have Parts which partake of the nature of their whole; but often in a truncated fashion.
A Sign is in regard to its Interpretant in one or other of three grades of completeness, which may be called the Barely Overt, the Overter, and the Overtest. The Barely Overt of which a Name is an example does not expressly distinguish its original from its interpretant; nor its reference to either from the sign itself. The Overter sign of which an assertion is an exemple,... [phrase inachevée] Thus the Sign has a double function
1°/ to affect a mind which understands its "Grammar" or method of signification, which signification is its substance significate or Interpretant.
2°/ to indicate how to identify the conditions under which .... significate has the mode of being it is represented having [text unfinshed].
[...] Now any sign, of whatsoever kind, professes to mediate between an object, on the one hand, that to which it applies, and which is thus in a sense the cause of the sign, and, on the other hand, a Meaning, or to use a preferable technical term, an Interpretant, that which the sign expresses, the result which it produces in its capacity as sign. [...]
b - [...] Now any sign, of whatever kind, mediates between an object to some sort of conformity with which it is moulded, and which thus determines it, and an effect which it is intended to produce, and which it represents to be the outcome of the object. These two correlates of the sign have to be carefully distinguished. The former is called the object of the sign; the latter is the "meaning", or, as I usually term it, the "interpretant" of the sign. [...]
c - [...] Now the essential nature of a sign is that it mediates between its object which is supposed to determine it and to be, in some sense, the cause of it, and its meaning, or, as I prefer to say, in order to avoid certains ambiguities, its Interpretant which is determined by the sign, and is, in a sense, the effect of it; and which the sign represents to flow as an influences, from the object. [...]
d - [...] ...to which it is, therefore, conceived to be moulded, and by which to be determined, and an effect; on the other hand, which the sign is intended to bring about, representing it to be the outcome of the object influence upon it. I need not say that this influence is usually indirect and not of the nature of a force. [...]
e - [...] A sign is whatever there may be whose intent is to mediate between an utterer of it and an interpreter of it, both being repositories of thought, or quasi-minds, by conveying a meaning from the former to the latter. We may say that the sign is moulded to the meaning in the quasi-mind that utters it, where it was, virtually at least (i.e. if not in fact, yet the moulding of the sign took place as if it had been there) already an ingredient of thought.
But thought being itself a sign the meaning must have been conveyed to that quasi-mind, from some anterior utterer of the thought, of which the utterer of the moulded sign had been the interpreter. The meaning of the moulded sign being conveyed to its interpreter, became the meaning of a thought in that quasi-mind; and as these conveyed in a thought-sign required an interpreter, the interpreter of the moulded sign becoming the utterer of this new thought-sign".
f - I am now prepared to risk an attempt at defining a sign, -since in scientific inquiry, as in other enterprises, the maxim holds : nothing hazard, nothing gain. I will say that a sign is anything, of whatsoever mode of being, which mediates between an object and an interpretant; since it is both determined by the object relatively to the interpretant, and determining the interpretant in reference to the object, in such wise as to cause the interpretant to be determined by the object through the mediation of this "sign".
The object and the interpretant are thus merely the two correlates of the sign; the one being antecedent, the other consequent of the sign. Moreover, the sign being defined in terms of these correlative correlates, it is confidently to be expected that object and interpretant should precisely correspond, each to the other. In point of fact, we do find that the immediate object and emotional interpretant correspond, both being apprehensions, or are "subjective"; both, too, pertain to all signs without exception. The real object and energetic interpretant also correspond, both being real facts or things. But to our surprise, we find that the logical interpretant does not correspond with any kind of object. This defect of correspondance between object and interpretant must be rooted in the essential difference there is between the nature of an object and that of an interpretant; which difference is that former antecedes while the latter succeeds. The logical interpretant must, therefore, be in a relatively future tense.
[...] My idea of a sign has been so generalized that I have at length despaired of making anybody comprehend it, so that for the sake of being understood, I now limit it, so as to define a sign as anything which is on the one hand so determined (or specialized) by an object and on the other hand so determines the mind of an interpreter of it that the latter is thereby determined mediately, or indirectly, by that real object that determines the sign. Even this may well be thought an excessively generalized definition. The determination of the Interpreter's mind I term the Interpretant of the sign. [...]
It is clearly indispensable to start with an accurate and broad analysis of the nature of a Sign. I define a sign as an thing which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its interpretant, that the latter is thereby mediately determined by the former. My insertion of "upon a person" is a sop to Cerberus, because I despair of making my own broader conception understood. [...]
A sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is so determined (i.e. Specialized, bestimmt ), by something other than itself, called its object (or, in some cases, as if the Sign be the sentence "Cain killed Abel", in which Cain and Abel are equally Partial Objects, it may be more convenient to say that that which determines the Sign is the Complexus, or Totality, of Partial Objects. And in every case the object is accurately the Universe of which the special object is member, or part), while, on the other hand, it so determines some actual or potential Mind, the determination whereof I term the Interpretant created by the sign, that that interpreting mind is therein determined mediately by the Object.
A sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is so determined (i.e. Specialized, bestimmt ), by something other than itself, called its object (or, in some cases, as if the Sign be the sentence "Cain killed Abel", in which Cain and Abel are equally Partial Objects, it may be more convenient to say that that which determines the Sign is the Complexus, or Totality, of Partial Objects. And in every case the object is accurately the Universe of which the special object is member, or part), while, on the other hand, it so determines some actual or potential Mind, the determination whereof I term the Interpretant created by the sign, that that interpreting mind is therein determined mediately by the Object.
Another endeavour to analyze a Sign.
A Sign is anything which represents something else (so far as it is complete) and if it represents itself it is as a part of another sign which represents something other than itself, and it represents itself in other circumstances, in other connections. A man may talk and he is a sign of that he relates, he may tell about himself as he was at another time. He cannot tell exactly what he is doing at that very moment. Yes, he may confess he is lying, but he must be a false sign, then. A sign, then, would seem to profess to represent something else.
Either a sign is to be defined as something which truly represents something or else as something which professes to represent something.
[...] I start by defining what I mean by a sign. It is something determined by something else its object and itself influencing some person in such a way that that person becomes thereby mediately influenced or determined in some respect by that Object.[...]
[...] Suffice it to say that a sign endeavours to represent, in part at least, an Object, which is therefore in a sense the cause, or determinant, of the sign even if the sign represents its object falsely. But to say that it represents its object implies that it affects a mind, and so affects it as, in some respect, to determine in that mind something that is mediately due to the Object.
That determination of which the immediate cause, or determinant, is the sign, and of which the mediate cause is the Object may be termed the Interpretant [...]
Signs, the only thing swith which a human being can, without derogation, consent to have any transaction, being a sign himself, are triadic; since a sign denotes a subject, and signifies a form of fact, which latter it brings into connexion with the former. [...]
Bya sign I mean anything whatever, real or fictive, which is capable of a sensible form, is applicable to something other than itself, that is already known, and that is capable of being so interpreted in another sign which I call its interpretant as to communicate something that may not have been previously known about its object there is thus a triadic relation between an sign, an Object, and an Interpretant.
55 - 1910 - C.P. 2-230 - Meaning .
The word sign will be used to denote an Object perceptible, or only imaginable, or even unimaginable in one sense -for the word "fast", which is a sign, is not imaginable, since it is not this word itself that can be set down on paper or pronounced, but only an instance of it, and since it is the very same word when it is written as it is when it is pronounced, but is one word when it means "rapidly" and quite another when it means "immovable", and a third when it refers to abstinence. But in order that anything should be a Sign, it must "represent" , as we say, something else, called its Object, although the condition that a sign must be other than its Object is perhaps arbitrary, since, if we insist upon it we must at least make an exception in the case of a sign that is a part of a sign. [...] A sign may have more than one Object.
Thus, the sentence "Cain killed Abel", which is a sign, refers at least as much to Abel as to Cain, even if it be not regarded as it should, as having "a killing" as a third object. But the set of objects may be regarded as making up one complex Object. In what follows and often elsewhere signs will be treated as having but one object each for the sake of dividing difficulties of the study. If a Sign is other than its object, there must exist, either in thought or in expression, some explanation or argument or other context, showing how -upon what system or for what reason the sign represents the Object or set of Objects that it does. Now the sign and the Explanation together make up another sign, and since the explanation will be a Sign, it will probably require an additional explanation, which taken together with the already enlarged Sign will make up a still larger sign; and proceeding in the same way, we shall, or should, ultimately reach a sign of itself, containing its own explanation and those of all its significant parts; and according to this explanation each such part has some other part as its Object. According to this every sign has, actually or virtually, what we may call a Precept of explanation according to which it is to be understood as a sort of emanation, so to speak, of its Object.
A logical Criticism of some articles of Religious Faith .
The word sign, as it will here be used, denotes any object of thought which excites any kind of mental action, whether voluntary or not, concerning something otherwise recognized. [...] Every sign denotes something, and the anything it denotes is termed an object of it. [... ] I term the idea or mental action that a sign exites and which it causes the interpreter to attribute to the Object or Objects of it, its interpretant. [...] For a Sign cannot denote an object not otherwise known to its interpreter, for the obvious reason that if he does not already know the Object at all, he cannot possess these ideas by means of which alone his attention can be narrowed to the very object denoted. Every object of experience excites an idea of some sort; but if that idea is not associated sufficiently and in the right way so with some previous experience so as to narrow the attention, it will not be a sign.
A Sign necessarily has for its Object some fragment of history, that is, of history of ideas. It must excite some idea. That idea may go wholly to narrowing the attention, as in such sign as "man", "virtue", "manner".
A Sketch of logical critic .
[...] In the first place, a "Representamen", like a word, -indeed, most words are representamens-, is not a single thing, but is of the nature of a mental habit, it consists in the fact that, something would be. The twenty odd "the" on ordinary page are all one and the same word, - that is, they are so many instances of a single word. Here are two instances of Representamens: "--killed--", "a man". The first of several characters which are each of them either essential to a sign being truly an instance of a Representamen or else necessary properties of such an object, is that it should have power to draw the attention of any mind that is fit to "interpret" it to two or more "Objects" of it. [ The first of the above examples of instances of representamens has four objects ; the second has two.] The second such character is that at least two of the objects must be other than the representamen. A closer examination than I have made would I am sure lead to a fuller description of the character. The third is the property that the interpreter of the representamen must have some collateral experiential acquaintance, direct or indirect, with each object of the Representamen before he can perform his function [...]
58 - v. 1911 - MS 676 : A Sketch of logical critics .
[...] If by a "sign" we mean anything of whatsoever nature that is apt to produce a special mental effect upon a mind in which certain associations have been produced -and I invariably use the word "association" as the original associationists did, for a mental habit, and never for the act or effect of associational suggestion when we must admit that a musical air and a command given to a soldier by his officer are signs, although it would seem that a logician is hardly otherwise concerned with such emotional and imperative signs, than that, as long as nobody else concerns himself with the analysis of the action of such signs, the logician is obliged to assume that office in order by the did of its contrast with the action of cognitional signs to perfect the definition of this latter. [...]
59 - 1911 - MS 854 - Notes on logical critique of the essential Articles of religious Faith (20.11.1911) .
Nature of a Sign . Its object is all that the sign recognize; since the sign cannot be understood until the Object is already identically known, though it may be indefinite. It so, it need only be known in its indefiniteness. The interpretant is the mental action on the Object that the sign excites.
For instance the word dog -meaning some dog, implies the knowledge that there is some dog, but it remains indefinite. The Interpretant is the somewhat indefinite idea of the characters that the "some dog" referred to has. And we have to distinguish between the Real Object and the Object as implied in the sign. The latter is some one of the dogs known already by direct experience or some one of the dogs which we more or less believe to exist.
The word dog does not excite any other notion than of the characters that ..... to possess.
The "Object" dog causes us to think of is such a dog as the person addressed has any notion of. But the real Object includes alternatively other dogs which are not known to the party addressed as yet but which he may come to know .
As to the characters we know it has four legs, is a carnivorous animal, etc.. and here we must distinguish then
- first the essential characters which the word implies -the essential interpretant.
- second the idea it actually does excite in the particular interpreter.
- third the characters it was intended specially to excite -perhaps only a part of the essential characters perhaps others not essential and which the word now excites though no such thing has hitherto been known.
In order to understand a Sign better we must consider that what it excites some sort of mental action about is in its Real Being either a history or a Part of a history and one part of it may be a Sign of another part.
Some Dog is a ....
Excites the idea of a Dog....is sign of a Dog and its Interpretant is forced by the interpreter own belief in the truth of the sign to regard its being a dog to admit that it is possible a ratter.
The sign may appeal to the Interpreter himself to assert that the Matter of Fact denoted does call for the....of certain character... or the Sign may exert a Force to cause the Interpreter to attach some Idea to the Object of the Sign.
60 - MS 670 :
A Sign, then, is anythin whatsoever -whether an Actual or a May-be or a Would-be,- which affects a mind, its Interpreter, and draw that interpreter's attention to some Object whether Actual, May-be or Would-be) which has already come within the sphere of his experience; and beside this purely selective action of a sign, it has a power of exciting the mind (whether directly by the image or the sound or indirectly) to some kind of feeling, or to effort of some kind or to thought; [...]
NON DATED TEXTS
The easiest of those which are of philosophical interest is the idea of a sign, or representation. A sign stands for something to the idea which it produces, or modifies. Or, it is a vehicle conveying into the mind something from without. That for which it stands is called its object; that which it conveys, its meaning; and the idea to which it gives rise, its interpretant. The object of representation can be nothing but a representation of which the first representation is the interpretant. But an endless series of representations, each representing the one behind it, may be conceived to have an absolute object at its limit. The meaning of a representation can be nothing but a representation. In fact, it is nothing but the representation itself conceived as stripped of irrelevant clothing. But this clothing never can be completely stripped off; it is only changed for something more diaphanous. So there is an infinite regression here. Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series.
62 - NEM IV - p. XXI - From MS.142.
A sign is a thing which is the representative, or deputy, of another thing for the purpose of affecting a mind [...]
63 - NEM IV - P. 239 - Kaina stoïcheia.
Any sign, B, which a sign, A, is fitted so to determine, without violation of its A's, purpose, that is, in accordance with the "Truth", even though it, B, denotes but a part of the objects of the sign, A, and signifies but a part of its, A's characters, I call an interpretant of A.
A sign is an object which stands for another to some mind. I propose to describe the characters of a sign. In the first place like any other thing it must have qualities which belong to it whether it be regarded as a sign or not thus a printed word is black, has a certain number of letters and those letters have certain shapes. Such characters of a sign I call its material quality. In the next place a sign must have some real connection with the thing it signifies so that when the object is present or is so as the sign signifies it to be the sign shall so signify it and otherwise not. [...] In the first place it is necessary for a sign to be a sign that it should be regarded as a sign for it is only a sign to that mind which so considers and if it is not a sign to any mind it is not a sign at all. It must be known to the mind first in its material qualities but also in its pure demonstrative application. That mind must conceive it to be connected with its object so that it is possible to reason from the sign to the thing. [...]
But at this point certain distinctions are called for. That which is communicated from the object through the Sign to the interpretant is a Form; that is to say, it is nothing like an existent, but is a power, is the fact that something would happen under certain conditions. This form is really embodied in the object, meaning that the conditional relation which constitutes the form is true of the form or it is in the Object. In the Sign it is embodied only in a representative sense, meaning that whether by virtue of some real modification of the Sign, or otherwise, the Sign becomes endowed with the power of communicating it to an interpretant. It may be in the interpretant directly, as it is in the Object, or it may be in the Interpretant dynamically, as behaviour of the Interpretant (this happens when a military officer uses the sign "Halt !" or "Forward march !" and his men simply obey him, perhaps automatically) or it may be in the Interpretant likewise only representatively. In existential graphs the Interpretant is affected in the last way; but for the present, it is best to consider only the common characters of all signs.
A Sign is an thing, A, which
(1) in addition to others characters of its own,
(2) stands in a dyadic relation Þ to a purely active correlate, B, and is also
(3) in a triadic relation to B for a purely passive correlate, C, this triadic relation being such as to determine C to be in a relation, µ, to B, the relation µ corresponding in a recognized way to the relation Þ, its dyadic relation to A would belong to it just the same even if A did not exist.
For instance, ...... the sign, the sentence "Let'songster of `Heliopolis' be our designation of the phenix" we may variously regard as B, either the phenix or the writer's determination, etc.. In any case howewer what is essential to the relation between the sentence and B is the writer's determination of mind to have the phenix called the songster of Heliopolis. This determination would be so shaped howewer whether expressed in this sentence or not. And the subsequent statement the sense in which certain correlates of a given relationship are said to be `active' or `passive' is that considering the different characters of all the correlates excepting only these that are immediately implied in the statement of the relationship none which involves only non-passives correlates will by immediate essential necessity vary with a variation of those involving only passive correlates; while no variation of which involve only non-active correlates will by immediate essential necessity carry with them variation of those which involve only active correlates; while by `active-passive' is meant active in respect to some correlates and passive in respect to others ........`active or passive' meaning........ active and ......without being active passive.
67 - MS 793 -[On Signs]1.
[...] which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is a Form. It is not a singular thing; for if a Singular thing were first in the Object and afterward in the Interpretant outside the Object, it must thereby cease to be in the Object. The form that is communicated does not necessarily cease to be in one thing when it comes to be in a different thing, because its being is the being of a predicate. The Being of a Form consist in the truth of a conditional proposition. Under given circumstances something would be true. The Form is in the Object, one may say, entitatively, meaning that that conditional relation, or following of consequent upon reason, which constitutes the Form is literally true of the Object. In the Sign the Form may .... be embodied entitatively, but it must be embodied representatively, that is, in respect to the Form communicated, the Sign produce upon the interpretant an effect similar to that which the Object would under favorable circumstances.
68 - MS 793[On Signs] .
For the purpose of this inquiry a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form. It is not logically necessary that any thing possessing consciousness, that is, feeling or the peculiar commun quality of all our feeling should be concerned. But it is necessary that there should be two, if not three, quasi-minds, meaning things capable of varied determinations as to forms of the kind communicated.
As a medium the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its Object which determines it and to its Interpretant which it determines. In its relation to the Object, the sign is passive, that is to say, its correspondence to the Object is brought about by on effect upon the sign, the Object remaining unaffected. On the other hand, in its relation to the Interpretant the sign is active determining the interpretant without bein itself thereby affected.
69 - MS 793 -[On Signs, quatre versions d'une certaine page 11] .
a - A Sign would be a Priman Secundan to something termed its Object and if anything were to be in a certain relation to the sign called being Interpretant to it, the Sign actively determines the Interpretant to be itself in a relation to the same Object, corresponding to its own.
b - b - A "Sign" is a genuinely genuine Tertian. It would generally be Priman in some characters, called its "Material Characters". But in addition, it is essentially (if only formally) Second to something termed its "Real Object", which is purely active in the Secundanity, being immediately unmodified by this secundanity; and these characters of the Real Object which are essential to the identity of the Sign constitute an ens rationis called the "Immediate Object". Moreover, the Sign is conceivably adapted to being Third to its Immediate Object for an ens rationis constituted thereby in the same (generic) relation to that Object in which the Sign itself stands to the same ; and this Third is termed the "Intended Interpretant", but the ... [unfinished]
c - A Sign would be in some respects Priman, and its determination as Priman are called its Material characters. But in addition it is Second to what is termed its Real Object, which is altogether active, and immediately unmodified by this Secundanity, and in so far as the Sign is second to it, it is termed the immediate Object. The Sign is conceivably adapted to being third to its Immediate Object for something in so far termed its Intended Interpretant; and the Sign only functions as such so far as the Intended Interpretant is Second to it for an Actual Interpretant which thus becomes adapted become a sign of the Immediate [there is a question mark above this word] Object for a further intended Interpretant, and in so far as the Interpretant is such Third it is termed Reflex Interpretant.
d - A "Sign" would be in some respects Priman, and its determinations as such are called its "Material characters". But in addition, it is Second to something termed its "Real Object", which is purely active being immediately unmodified by this Secundanity; and in so for as the sign is Second to it, it is termed the "Immediate Object" thereof. The Sign is conceivably adapted bo being Third to its Immediate Object for something which should thereby be brought into the generically same dyadic relation to that Object in which the Sign itself stands to that Object, and this Third is called the "Intended Interpretant"; but the Sign functions as such only in so far as the Intended Interpretant is Second to it and is Third to it for an existent termed the "Actual Interpretant", the modes of... [unfinished]
By a sign I mean any thing which is in any way, direct or indirect, so influenced by any thing (which I term its object) and which in turn influence a mind that this mind is thereby influenced by the Object; and I term that which is called forth in the mind the Interpretant of the sign. This explanation will suffice for the present; but distinctions will have to be drawn are long.
A mental representation is something which puts the mind into relation to an object. A representation generally (I am here defining my use of the term) is something which brings one thing into relation with another. The conception of third is here involved, and therefore, also, the conceptions of second or other and of first or an. A representation is in fact nothing but a something which has a third through an other. We may therefore consider an object :
1. as a something, with inward determinations;
2. as related to an other;
3. as bringing a second into relation to a third.
The most characteristic form of thirdness is that of a sign; and it is shown that every cognition is of the nature of a sign. Every sign has an object, which may be regarded either as it is immediately represented in the sign to be, and as it is in its own firstness. It is equally essential to the function of a sign that it should determine an Interpretant, or a second correlate related to the object of the sign as the sign is itself related to that object; and this interpretant may be regarded as the sign represents it to be, as it is in its pure secondness to the object, and as it is in its own firstness.
On the Classification of the Sciences .
A Representamen can be considered from three formal points of view, namely, first, as the substance of the representation, or the vehicle of the Meaning which is common to the three representamen of the triad, second, as the quasi-agent in the representation, conformity to which makes its Truth, that is, as the Natural Object, and third, as the quasi-patient in the representation, or that which modification in the representation make its Intelligence, and this may be called the Interpretant. Thus, in looking at a map, the map itself is the vehicle, the country represented is the Natural Object, and the idea excited in the mind is the Interpretant.
Furthermore, every representamen may be considered as a reagent, its intellectual character being neglected; and both representamen and reagent may be considered as quales, their relative character being neglected. This we do, for example, when we say that the word man has three letters.
by Robert Marty
ABSTRACT: We show that one can clearly distinguish two successive conceptions. The first (before 1905) which we qualify as "global triadic" and the second, more precise than the first, that we qualify as "analytic triadic" .
The 76 texts on the sign spread from1865 to 1911 (for 60 of them that are dated or whose dates are estimated). A brief study of the dispersion of the dated texts shows that more than 80% of them were produced after 1902, that is to say when Peirce was in his sixties. The production reaches a climax in l903, the year of the Lowell conferences. In addition, if one assesses them by their content, most of the non dated texts, and notably the eight definitions grouped in MS 793 are from the same period. Our purpose not being to study the evolution of Peirce's thinking in general, we will be interested only in the different conceptions of the sign that he proposes if, nevertheless, one can speak first of their differences before underlining their unity. Is it necessary to remind ourselves that the fundamental unity of these conceptions is confirmed by the constant reaffirmation of the triadic character of the sign? By describing the Peircean sign as triadic we simply highlight the presence in all implicit or explicit definition of the sign according to Peirce, three constitutive elements (but the datum of these three elements does not exhaust the Peircean concept of the sign since the relationship that links them together is lacking).
Peirce has varied the denomination of these three elements for reasons that he has sometimes clarified. We should not forget that he is the author of a very rigorous moral terminological (C.P.2-219 to 2 - 226). To designate the object of direct experience necessarily at the origin of all semiotic phenomena, Peirce uses the words "representation", "representamen" and especially "sign". He uses the term "representation" to this end only in texts n°1(1865), 6(1873) et 74 (n.d.), the other utilizations of the term designating the act or the fact of representing, as found in texts 10, 19, 27, 50, 52. In the text n°61, this word is given as a synonym for "sign ". There is thus no reason to retain this term.
On the other hand, it is interesting to examine very closely the different uses and distinctions between sign and representamen that Peirce first considers as synonymous (n° 9,1897) before making a distinction (n°19, l903) and finally deciding to abandon "representamen" (n°31, l905) since he explains that the popular usage of the word "sign" is very close to the exact sense of the scientific definition. In saying this, he makes the decision to put aside the formal distinction clearly established in l903 (n° 22, l903). We find the fundamental reason for abandoning this distinction in the statement, so often repeated by Peirce, that it was impossible to observe a single representamen that was not a sign. This conclusion is at odds with a number of authors, but in agreement, it seems to me, with Peirce (since from l905 he no longer uses the word representamen in any definitions except towards 1911 in the text n°57. However, the date attributed to this text being an estimation, it is possible to put it in doubt, and as in any event Peirce uses it in this text in a restricted sense, equivalent to legisign, there is no need to preserve this " horrible word " and "sign" should be quite suitable. There would have perhaps been some interest, on the other hand, in preserving representamen so as to concretize the different conceptualizations of semiotic phenomena as between the Saussuro-hjelmslevian tradition and the Peircean tradition. But the adoption of this viewpoint would be a sort of renunciation of the debates on the profound nature of these phenomena according to these two traditions ; the passive acceptance of the fact that both traditions should develop independently would thus deprive us of the clarity that the opening of conflicts can bring about in the semiotic field.
To designate the object of the sign, Peirce employs on nearly every occasion the word "object" accompanied with considerations that render it, explicitly or implicitly, that which is connected to this object of direct experience that is the sign. Sometimes Peirce designates it by the expression "some thing " and even in the text n°23 the sign is said to represent an aspect of the "True" (the "Truth", the true universe), another representamen in the text n°21, and a subject in the n°53. Moreover, the object is often qualified: Real, Natural or Original in addition to the distinction between immediate object and dynamic objects.
Despite these remarks, there is no problem in denominating as "Object" this other object whose presence to the mind produced by the perception of the sign is characteristic of semiotic phenomena. It is clear that a third element is needed because it is essential in semiotic phenomena to define an element capable of explaining the necessary connection of the two objects that are potentially present to the mind (the perceived sign, as such, and the object to which it is connected). For if the sign, an object of direct experience, is distinguishable because it evokes another object different from itself, because it enables a supplementary perceptive choice (at least) it constitutes, by this very fact, an association between these two objects. That the sign is one of the two objects does not change anything in the matter; it both exists for itself and exists for another. But this association can be conceived only in the mind and by the mind to which the two objects are present. In a sign in actu this association is truly a matter of fact; it is a psychic fact that the mind that constructs two different perceptual judgements on the same percept is in a special state, different from that which it is in, in the case of ordinary phenomena, that is to say in the simple presentation of an object, due to the fact of this dual presence (it is the thesis that I develop in my work in French "The Algebra of signs" (1990, John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia). One can say that this special state of mind gives at this very instant a real existence to this association, even in the most "natural " cases. Friday's footprint in the sand stands for a human presence only because of the association in Robinson's mind, even if its production and therefore its existence are totally independent of his mind. In every sign there intervenes therefore the determination of a mind, distinct from the two objects, which is therefore an element necessarily implied in the factuality of the sign and without which one cannot hope to describe semiotic phenomena correctly. The subject is therefore implied in a certain manner in this approach. It is necessary therefore to attach a third element to the Sign and to the Object. Peirce gives it the name of Interpretant. Now, let us examine the various denominations by which he himself grasped this necessity. Note immediately that the last sentence of the textn°6 (1873) covers exactly the argument we have just developed: "The idea of the representation itself excites in the mind another idea and in order that it may do this it is necessary that some principle of association between the two ideas should already be established in that mind". One finds again this idea in the text n°64 (n.d) :
That mind must conceive it to be connected with its object so that it is possible to reason from the sign to the thing.
and in the text n° 58 (v.1911), the Interpretant is
"a special mental effect upon a mind in which certain associations have been produced".
A systematic list of the words that Peirce uses to give content to the concept of the interpretant shows that he attributes the following characteristics, according to what he is saying at that moment and to the maturation of his thinking: - it is a thought or interpretant thought in texts n°, 8, l0, 18, 28.
-- it is a determination of a mind or quasi -mind or an influence on a person or a mind, this determination or influence being realised through the sign, the object by being the mediate cause in texts n°34, 37, 40(a,b,c,e,f,) 52.
- It is a Third that according to the case is a third correlate of a triadic relationship or a "Tertian", (that is to say a member of the Third universe, a Thirdness) in texts n°13, 15, 20, 22, 36, 69(b,c,d,e). Moreover, in n°30 iit is described as a "passive" correlate and in n°76 it is a quasi - patient.
One sees that these characteristics (by excluding the last that is of a radically different nature), can be classified in two groups:
- Those that refer to a sign in actu, that describe therefore this third element of the semiotic phenomenon in its particularity and that are practically reducible to an effect on a person or again to a determination of a mind, in the here and now of the perception.
- Those that refer to an abstract sign which come from the logical analysis of the phenomenon and form part of a formal construction, in which the interpretant is described as a correlate of a triadic relationship.
Peirce had a great deal of difficulty getting people to accept this conception, quite banal today, of a formal model of the sign. In his letter to Lady Welby dated 23 December l908 he complains about his difficulties by writing : "I have added 'on a person' so as to throw a cake to Cerberus, because I despair of making people understand my own conception which is larger. " In conclusion then, peircean conceptions of the sign lead us to retain three fundamental elements as theoretical universals resulting from the logical analysis of semiotic phenomena,:
- the Sign S, an object of direct experience ("external"or "internal"object").
- the Object O, present in the semiotic phenomenon because it is connected with the sign.
- the Interpretant I, present because it is a mental element which ensures this connection.
The reader will have noticed that these groups and subgroups of definitions possess common elements since the characteristics fundamental to them are not exclusive of each other. However by observing the placings of texts constituting the subgroups and by reminding ourselves that numbers l to 60 are classified by chronological order, this distribution shows a significant change, if not of doctrine, at least of his approach to this connection of the Sign to its Object. It suffices indeed to observe the pre-eminence from n°29 (l905) of the characterization of this connection in terms of determination of S by O to arrive at the conclusion that Peirce has decided to take into account, round about l905, the dissymetric character of this relationship, which he has expressed by writing that if, in a sign, O acts on S, the reverse is not necessarily true. The consequence of this change will be the abandoning of the central position granted to the triad in the global approach to the sign. Indeed, to define a priori the sign as triadic implies that diadic relationships between two elements that are induced by the triadic relationship are symmetrical. Therefore if one wants to preserve the dissymmetry of this relationship, it is necessary either to abandon the idea of basing the sign on the notion of triad, or to add correctives (which would be difficult), or to change the perspective, which does not imply the renunciation of the triadicity but simply causes it to intervene at another level. We will see later, that a third approach, based on the notion of communication, will tend to unify the two precedent perspectives.
With regard to the connection between Sign and Interpretant, it is invariably conceived, each time than it is evoked, as a relationship of determination (when it is evoked in a formal model), an effect on interpreter or a determination of the mind of an interpreter (when it concerns the description of a sign in actu). In text n°49 (l909) lthe Interpretant is even called "a creature of the sign ", a conception which is problematic if one thinks of the necessity, many time underlined by Peirce, that an association is a prerequisite in the mind in order that a sign might function as such, which obviously excludes the possibility that the sign could create the Interpretant ex-nihilo. It is what Peirce resumed in this text by specifying that the Interpretant is created by the Sign "in its capacity to support its determination by the Object". In one of his most formal approaches in which the triadic relationship is his point of departure, (C.P.2-233 and s.q.q., Division of Triadic Relations) Peirce defines the Representamen ( see n°22, v.l903) as the first correlate of an authentic triadic relationship. In other words he considers that this first correlate determines the third correlate. Thus, at that moment, he approaches the sign through its triadicity to which he adds a corrective: the determination of the interpretant by the sign, the connections signs-object and object-interpretant being induced by the triadic relationship, the sign itself being a particular representamen , namely a representamen that determines a particular interpretant that is the "act of cognition of a mind".
By taking into account the dissymmetry of the relationship Object-Sign he has therefore, as we have noticed, abandoned the triadicity as founder principle and has resorted to a new notion, linked to the higthlighting of successive determinations (of the Sign by the Object and the Interpretant by the Sign) in the analysis of the sign in actu, the notion of mediation. It concerns a resumption of this notion already present in 1867 (" mediate representation "in text n°8) and in l902 (" the authentic mediation is the character of a sign"in text n°13).In l904, triadicity and mediation appear in the same text (n°28). However one can observe that in the majority of texts after l905 that mention the two determinations cited above, one of words "mediation"or"medium "or the verb"to mediate"is present (texts n°: 33, 37, 39, 40 (a,b,c,e,f) 46, 47, 48, 49,51, 52). It concerns a new theoretical approach (because the term" triad"does not figure in any of these texts) that is based this time on the determination of the Interpretant by the Object through the sign. This conception is partially clarified and formalized in text n° 30 (l905) in which the triad is still present: the Sign is presented there as a passive correlate in its relationship to the Object, which relationship is incorporated in a triadic relationship in such a manner that the Interpretant is put in a diadic relationship with the Object, induced by this triadic relationship. What does not figure in this definition assuredly the most formalized of all, (and that one finds in text n°66 in the undated manuscript n°793) is precisely the determination of the Interpretant by the Sign.
It is in text n°32 that the change appears fully with the notion of "medium of communication ". The next text (n°33) is more precise: a sign is"a medium for the communication or the extension of a form (or figure)". One finds this idea of form in n° 53 and 54 (19l0). It would seem that Peirce has attempted to explain the fact that the determination of the Sign by the Object was such that it produced the indirect determination of the Interpretant by the Object taking into account that a certain "form"was present in each of the three elements of the sign, as soon as the sign was established, and that the process of establishment of the sign consisted in communicating (or conveying) this form from the Object to the Interpreter through the Sign. This step does not exclude triadicity insofar as it is precisely the presence of this "form"that, we think, allows us to link triadically the three elements of the semiotic phenomenon (by being incorporated in each of them). It would be the ground evoked by Peirce in 2-228 (text n°9, v.1897). One sees therefore that the two main theoretical approachs that we have just elucidated in this group of texts, are not exclusive. In conclusion we will distinguish therefore, without opposing them, two Peircean conceptions of the sign: - a conception that, for convenience, we will call "global triadic " derived from an analysis of semiotic phenomena which considers as essential the fact that the three elements therein are necessarily linked by a triadic relationship. - a conception that we will call" analytic triadic" derived from a finer analysis in terms of the determination of some elements by others (of the sign by the object and the interpretant by the sign), the interplay of these two determinations leading to the establishment of a triadic relationship between the three elements necessarily present in semiotic phenomena (it is the presence of the conveyed Form in the course of these successive determination that creates the triadic relationship). To grasp this second conception better it is necessary to clarify what Peirce understands by "determination" in the precise case of the sign, or, in view of the difficulty of the task, to try to discern this notion better. Because the explanations given by Peirce as to the sense in which he uses the words "active" and "passive"in texts n°30 and 66 appear to us to be no longer operative. To the extent that we have been able to understand his thinking, it seems to us that Peirce considers that there is character determination of one correlate by those of another, the correlate B being active with reference to the correlate A, if all characters of this latter which are involved in the semiotic phenomenon are implied by the characters of B. Friday's footprint in the sand perfectly illustrates this notion since it is just what it is, that is to say possessed of characters that make it a sign, because the foot that has produced it has communicated them without being modified itself, and it is thus a purely active correlate. The imprint itself is a purely passive correlate for opposite reasons . However if now one photographs this imprint, it is going to produce an image on the film which owes all its characters to the imprint itself. In relation to this photographic image the imprint will be therefore an active correlate and it is clear that, for Peirce, the interpretant C is a purely passive correlate determined by the imprint, this interpretant, triadic in nature, being such that it incorporates, as an induced diadic relationship, the diadic relationship established between Friday's foot and its imprint. However the example that we quote is particular, it is a scholastic example. Nevertheless it is, we think, by generalizing the case of signs of this type ( index) that Peirce obtained the definition n° 30.In others texts he has used terms that allow us to higthlight somewhat this conception:
-in 46 and 48 the sign is said to be specialized (that Peirce strengthens by calling it in German "bestimmt") and in 47 and 48 he writes that the determination of the Sign by the Object is such that consequently it determines the Interpretant, what means that if the Sign is passive in relation to the Object and active when related to the Interpretant, it owes this last possibility to the action of the Object, as a pool ball becomes capable of moving another after having itself been knocked by another one. Moreover, in text n°65, Peirce makes it clear that when the Form which comes from the Object is incorporated in the Sign the former becomes "endowed with the power to communicate it to an Interpretant".
- but it is certainly in text n° 40 f, that Peirce clearly presents as an attempt to define the sign, that his conception of determination in semiotic phenomena is best expressed while being probably the most difficult to formalize: the sign, he writes, is both " determined by the object with respect to the interpretant and it determines the interpretant in reference to the object, in such a manner that the interpretant is determined by the object as a cause through the mediation of this sign". One sees that the determinations of elements one by other (of the Sign by the Object, the Interpretant by the Sign) are constructed dependent on the third, for lack of which, the semiotic phenomenon would be reduced to the compositionof two independent successive determinations, in contradiction with the consistant doctrine of Peirce. It is by taking into account the whole of Peirce's contributions, of which it is unnecessary to underline the wealth, the power but also the difficulty, that we have taken the risk (since we are agreement with Peirce -cf 40 f - that in scientific matters, as in other enterprises the maxim:"no risk, no profit" is valid ") of putting forward a formal definition of the sign that is operative and also mathematically formalizable, to reach as far as possible towards authentically scientific semiotics (cf " The Algebra of Signs " an essay in scientific semiotics according to Charles Sanders Peirce) | <urn:uuid:5faec196-cd5f-48ae-8133-45822de6ba65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://perso.numericable.fr/robert.marty/semiotique/76defeng.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964363 | 16,984 | 3.3125 | 3 |
This 24-minute documentary explores the Baikal-Amur Mainline, a railway line which stretches more than four thousand kilometers through Russia, and introduces the people who live in the area.
This is one of the world's longest railway lines, and construction work on it lasted for almost a hundred years. Even the most harsh weather conditions did not stop progress on the line.
Traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the 4,324 km (2,687 mi) long BAM runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of, and parallel to, the Trans-Siberian railway.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, funding was lost. However many people who had been involved in the construction of the railway line decided to stay in the towns and villages built to house workers.
Many have started their own businesses, including a hairdresser, who travels from town to town on the railway. Her services are so popular, and her number of clients so large, a big city salon would be very envious.
In RT's video we meet her clients and other residents along the railway line. | <urn:uuid:f492a8b7-0cf3-4679-8d61-1030e75646c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/330043 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970822 | 236 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Do the biographies of artists – where they came from, who they loved, what they looked like – matter? Or is our obsession with putting a face, a name and a personal story to a great work of art just a distraction from truly engaging with it? Can artistic biography ever be more than cheap gossip?
Philip Roth probably speaks for many writers when he scorns the biographers who search for keys to the work in the creator's life – a standpoint scathingly conveyed in his 2007 novel Exit Ghost. The artists Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly presumably agree with him as both have sought to keep their personal lives remote. For any serious creative artist it must be galling to think that works produced in the calm of the study or studio will be picked apart for personal meanings.
And yet there is no stopping the telling of stories about great art. Oxford historians working on 16th-century coroners' records have just recently added to the sparse and treasured stock of anecdotes about the life of William Shakespeare. The death by drowning of a child whose surname is a variant spelling of Shakespeare – names were spelt in all sorts of ways back then – may be the inspiration for Ophelia's death in Hamlet: a family story, perhaps, resurfacing in his work.
Only a few such tantalising personal details of Shakespeare's life exist, yet this does not stop literary critics trying to reconstruct a life from which to make sense of the works. Nor should it. The fact is that art is a communication between human beings, and to imagine the author as someone who once lived a flesh-and-blood existence may be fundamental to any serious reading of it. The alternative view, that art exists in Byzantine perfection beyond anecdote, smacks of sterile pretension. This is why people started telling tales about Shakespeare centuries ago, and still do.
While Shakespeare is a spectre somewhere within his dramas, other great creators make the connection of art and life explicit. The Italian medieval poets Dante and Petrarch led the way in putting their lives into their art. Both write of their deep love for a named woman – Dante's Beatrice and Petrarch's Laura – in a way that was to shape new ideas of the artist as an individual with particular affinities, desires and pain that must be told. Michelangelo transfers this personal voice to visual art, and his voice is more idiosyncratic than those of his medieval literary predecessors. It was not until the Romantic age that Michelangelo's precocious individuality was taken up as a norm and ideal right across the arts.
Was Romanticism a decline in art? Does it infect us to this day with a vulgar need to know the singer as well as the song? To think so is a basic misunderstanding of the place of art in life. Only if we want art to be a kind of courtly decor can we yearn for a return to the pre-Romantic era when artists hid in the background and the consumers of their works took centre stage. The Romantic belief in the expressive nature of all art is the only attitude that truly values creative genius. To search out anecdotes about Shakespeare is not to trivialise him, but to revere him properly. | <urn:uuid:368a992d-af7b-4901-b70e-9be566071ef8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jun/13/artist-biographies-gossip | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968305 | 648 | 2.625 | 3 |
As can be expected, more kids than ever are getting their first cell phone in the ages between 12 and 17, but what are the unintended consequence of this?
Many of these phones have web browsers on them, and that means teens have greater access to the Internet and less monitoring by mom and dad.
In the past, kids would get on the home computer and surf the web. Parents could then check the history of their page visits or block certain sites. Now, with smartphones, it's tougher to keep track of what they are looking up.
A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds 78 percent of young people, ages 12 to 17, now have cell phones. Nearly half of those are smartphones.
The survey, released Wednesday, finds one in four young people say they are "cell-mostly" Internet users -- a percentage that increases to about half when the phone is a smartphone. That number towers over the only 15 percent of adults who say they access the Internet mostly by cell phone.
The question for parents is how to track and manage what your kids can do on their cell phone? Well, many of these phones have restriction menus allowing parents to block certain functions or mature web sites.
Cell phone providers also have services so parents can see a log of their children's texts. And there are a growing number of smartphone applications that at least claim to give parents some level of control on a phone's web browser, though many tech experts agree that these applications can be hit-or-miss.
Pew researchers have found many parents hesitate to confiscate phones as punishment because they want their kids to stay in contact with them.
"Adults are still trying to work out the appropriate rules for themselves, let alone their children," co-author of this research Mary Madden says. "It's a difficult time to be a parent." | <urn:uuid:611bd175-f59c-4f02-b000-6b25e99e7011> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/21630820/1-in-4-teens-are-cell-mostly-internet-users | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968603 | 378 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Pumpkin seeds actually grow quite well in Arizona. Mid June is the time to plant the seeds if you want a crop of carve-able fun in October.
1 packet pumpkin seeds
Water and a nice spot of ground
Locate a spot of ground that receives morning sun and afternoon shade. Because of their size, pumpkins do not grow well in pots or indoors.
Make a mound of dirt about 10 inches across and four inches tall. Poke a finger into the center of the mound to create a small hole one inch deep. Place three or four seeds in the hole, add a small amount of water and fill with dirt. Using both hands firmly pack the dirt on the mound.
Space each mound about three feet apart, allowing room for vines to spread. Water mounds with a fine mist. Initially you need to keep the soil moist, so give your bed a good soaking each day.
Pumpkin sprouts should emerge from the ground in about 10 days. If all of your seeds sprout (you must have a green thumb!) thin to just two plants per mound, spaced at least a few inches apart.
After the sprouts emerge you can cut back to watering every other day. Try to keep water off the pumpkin leaves. As your vines flourish be sure to keep them off any lawn areas to avoid contracting fungus.
Come fall, when your pumpkins are ripe and bright orange, cut them from the vine and let set in place for a day or two to “cure.” Any un-carved pumpkins can be stored indoors for a month or two.
How to make rock garden markers
Smooth, large stone
Orange and green acrylic craft paint
Paint brushes or cotton swabs
Paint pen or permanent marker
Wash and dry your stone. Pour out a small dollop of paint onto the paper plate. Paint a picture of a pumpkin on the rock. Let dry for a few hours.
Using a paint pen or permanent marker, write the word “pumpkin” in bold letters on the rock. Let dry, then place in garden.
Monthly “Real Crafts” are created just for RAK by Bettijo B. Hirschi & Aimée Lowry, the Arizona moms behind family-style blog Paging Supermom. | <urn:uuid:7724fbde-a151-413e-8536-9bc6aaa4ad48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.raisingarizonakids.com/2012/06/planting-pumpkin-seeds/?add-to-cart=21524&_n=241bdc18fa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920765 | 478 | 2.6875 | 3 |
As the city of Baghdad grew, it developed a reputation for learning and research. Scholars from all across the Islamic world were attracted to Baghdad, quickly turning it into an intellectual hub. This was no surprise because Islam puts so much emphasis on acquiring knowledge.
In fact, the very first verses revealed to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) enjoined him to read, and informed him that God taught man everything that he never knew before. At another place, God exhorts the believers to ask Him: “O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge.” (20:114) Furthermore, God constantly tells humankind to reason, to reflect, to analyze throughout the Quran.
The Prophet himself is known to extol the benefits of knowledge and wisdom. For example, he once said, “The seeking of knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim.” (Baihaqi) Additionally, he has stated, “He who goes forth in search of knowledge is in the way of Allah till he returns.” (Tirmidhi) Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) valued literacy so much that he would promise literate prisoners of war freedom if they taught Muslims how to read and write.
Hence, Islam provided the necessary platform and support, leading to wondrous discoveries, inventions, and developments. | <urn:uuid:f39156fe-bddc-4819-b5ce-7cd82e726540> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whyislam.org/muslim-world/a-center-of-learning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955846 | 265 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Author Contact: [email protected]
Chiral compounds can have unique properties and are becoming increasingly
important in pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries. In this
laboratory exercise, students compare and contrast chemical vs. enzyme-mediated procedures for introducing chirality into a molecule and
gain experience with the principles and experimental techniques used to
prepare and separate enantiomers. Over the course of four, 3-hour lab
periods, students characterize (1) racemic and enantiomerically enriched
products of the sodium borohydride reduction of ethyl acetoacetate with and
without the use of a L-tartaric acid and (2) products obtained with an
enzyme-mediated reduction using Baker's yeast. This exercise provides a
framework for discussing some of the unique challenges associated with using
enzyme-mediated procedures for developing environmentally benign chiral
Supplemental materials are provided on the J. Chem. Educ. website and include instructor notes and student handouts for the laboratory procedure and the chiral GC analysis.
Summary prepared May 2005 by Julie A. Haack, Department of Chemistry at the University of Oregon.
Pohl, N.; Clague, A.; Schwarz, K. J. Chem. Educ., Print 2002, 79, pp 727-728. | <urn:uuid:f5e6706f-2908-4320-b941-3b9fd0026fc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://greenchem.uoregon.edu/Pages/Overview.php?WhereFrom=ResultsAll&ID=35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.849389 | 274 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Watching an infection take hold in 3D and in real time
What does an infection look like as it takes hold in the body? Where does it spread to and when? When does the immune system kick in and drive the infection off?
For the first time, scientists at the new MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection at Imperial College London have used scanning equipment to watch an infection unfurl, in real time, inside an animal.
"I saw this and just said wow!" was the instant response of Prof Gadi Frankel, when he first viewed the scans.
"This allows us for the first time to visualise infection in 3D in real time."
The video shows bacteria infecting the small intestine, retreating to a small pocket in the digestive tract and the booming in numbers as they spread to the rectum then all over the large intestine.
The later scans show the immune system driving the bacteria back and the mouse clearing the infection.
End Quote Prof Gadi Frankel
It will give us incredibly important tools to develop better vaccines and better antibiotics, which will allow us to tackle bacterial infections in the future”
It works by measuring tiny quantities of light produced by the bacteria, which escape from inside the mouse.
The researchers used a genetically modified version of a mouse bug, Citrobacter rodentium, which produces light.
Dr James Collins, who works in Prof Frankel's lab, then puts the infected mice inside the scanner.
"It is a dark box which keeps the animals warm and blocks any other light from coming in. It has a camera at the top so we can very sensitively measure any light that's emitted through the mouse by the bacteria."
He then uses the measurements to build up a map of the exact location of the bacteria in different parts of the body. The amount of light escaping shows how many bacteria there are. More light means more bacteria and if the light starts to go out then that means the bacteria are being killed off.
Repeating these scans, with the same mouse, day after day, builds a complete picture of an infection.
The equipment can also be configured to look in exquisite detail at the immune system. Dr Collins said: "We can image where the bacteria are and where and which types of immune cells have been recruited to that area."'Revolution'
Prof Frankel said: "It is something which will revolutionise the way we study bacterial infection, this is the future."
He hopes this technology will help with some of the most pressing issues in medicine.
Drug resistance in once-treatable diseases is one of the most pressing medical issues.
The World Health Organization says there has been an "alarming" rise in cases of drug resistant tuberculosis. Many of the antibiotics which once treated the disease now fail.
A new variant of the bacterium which causes gonorrhoea has also shown remarkable resistance to drugs raising the prospect of "untreatable gonorrhoea".
There are also new emerging threats such as the new strain of E. coli which caused a European outbreak in 2011. It was centred on Germany and affected more than 4,000 people, killing 50.
"The big problem of course is the rise of antibiotic resistance, this is the major challenge we are facing at the moment," he said.
There are also issues about new emerging bugs such as the E. coli O104 outbreak in Germany last year and the constant need for new and better vaccines.
"We would be able to visualise how antibiotics and vaccination works in a living animal - that's something which was never done before.
"It will give us incredibly important tools to develop better vaccines and better antibiotics, which will allow us to tackle bacterial infections in the future," Prof Frankel added.
The scans would show how different vaccines and antibiotics change the way bacteria take over different parts of the body, which could help researchers screen for the most promising options.
They have also done some experiments with probiotic yoghurts. They have shown that using "good bacteria" changes the way an infection takes hold, which may benefit the mouse.
Dr James Collins concluded: "We're only just scratching the surface of what we're able to do with it really." | <urn:uuid:ce1ee271-152f-46c5-8637-d060f9dfa9d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18631157 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948809 | 873 | 3.46875 | 3 |
The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains the most mysterious and controversial of all shipwreck tales heard around the Great Lakes. Her story is surpassed in books, film and media only by that of the Titanic. Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot inspired popular interest in this vessel with his 1976 ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
The Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with her entire crew of 29 men on Lake Superior November 10, 1975, 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. Whitefish Point is the site of the Whitefish Point Light Station and Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) has conducted three underwater expeditions to the wreck, 1989, 1994, and 1995.
At the request of family members surviving her crew, Fitzgerald's 200 lb. bronze bell was recovered by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society on July 4, 1995. This expedition was conducted jointly with the National Geographic Society, Canadian Navy, Sony Corporation, and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The bell is now on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a memorial to her lost crew.
The Lost Fitzgerald Search Tapes
Rare radio chatter between the Arthur M. Anderson and the Coast Guard November 10th, 1975. The last time anyone ever heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald. | <urn:uuid:011d968d-12bf-47fb-b159-076eaa509144> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/edmund-fitzgerald-36/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945007 | 274 | 2.625 | 3 |
Our sugar-saturated society sees a clear divide between “sweet” and “savoury” dishes - and we wrinkle our noses in distaste, and puzzle over the odd taste preferences of our medieval ancestors when we read ancient recipes with sugar and fruit included in predominantly meat dishes. The crucial point of course is to do with quantity. A small amount of sugar, used in the way of an exotic, expensive, imported spice, was the medieval way. And we have not abandoned the idea of fruit with meat completely, have we? We have apple sauce (or prunes) with pork, cranberries with turkey, and pineapple in some of our interpretations of “Chinese” sweet-and-sour dishes for example.
A week or two ago, we looked at bananas in savoury dishes. A year or more ago we had William Ellis’ mid-eighteenth century Onion Pye made by labouring Mens Wives, - which was as much apple as onion, and was clearly meant to be a “sweet” (i.e “dessert”) dish to rival pumpkin pie. Today I have for you a recipe for a “savoury” pie with apple, to remind you of the almost infinite adaptability of the fruit. It is taken from The English Art of Cookery, by Richard Briggs (1788) - but plagiarism was rife in those times, and the exact same recipe appeared in a number of popular cookbooks of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is called “onion” pie, but has equal amounts of potato, apple, and onion.
Pare a pound of potatoes, slice them thin, peel about a pound of large onions, and slice them, pare the same quantity of apples, core and slice them likewise, boil six eggs hard, take off the shells,and cut them in slices; lay a thin sheet of puff-paste over the bottom of the dish, put on a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, mix a quarter of an ounce of beaten mace, a tea-spoonful of pepper, and three of salt, strew some over the butter, then lay in a layer of potatoes, a layer of onions, a layer of apples, and one of eggs, strew some seasoningon, and so on till all the ingredients are in; strew the remainder of the seasoning on top, put on a quarter of a pound of butter, and our in half a pint of white wine; put a thin puff-paste over it, and bake it one hour and a half.
Quotation for the Day.
The onion being eaten, yea though it be boyled, causeth head-ache, hurteth the eyes, and maketh a man dimme sighted, dulleth the senses, ingendreth windinesse, and provoketh overmuch sleepe, especially being eaten raw.
John Gerard (1545-1611) | <urn:uuid:475ed74d-9ea7-4417-abfd-74e36c729e72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/08/any-apple-in-that.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944418 | 620 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Thursday 30 August 2012
One of the largest studies to look at the effect of induced abortions on a subsequent first birth has found that women who have had three or more abortions have a higher risk of some adverse birth outcomes, such as delivering a baby prematurely and with a low birth weight.
The research, which is published online in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction today (Thursday), found that among 300,858 Finnish mothers, 31,083 (10.3%) had had one induced abortion between 1996-2008, 4,417 (1.5%) had two, and 942 (0.3%) had three or more induced abortions before a first birth (excluding twins and triplets). Those who had had three or more induced abortions had a small, but statistically significant increased risk of having a baby with very low birth weight (less than 1500g), low birth weight (less than 2500g), or of a preterm birth (before 37 weeks), or very preterm birth (before 28 weeks), compared to women who had had no abortions. There was a slightly increased risk of a very preterm birth for women who had had two induced abortions.
Dr Reija Klemetti, an associate professor and senior researcher in public health at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland, who led the research, said: “Our results suggest that induced abortions before the first birth, particularly three or more abortions, are associated with a marginally increased risk during the first birth. However, the increased risk is very small, particularly after only one or even two abortions, and women should not be alarmed by our findings.”
Most of the induced abortions (88%) were surgically performed and nearly all (91%) were performed before 12 weeks gestation. The researchers adjusted their findings to take account of various factors that could affect birth outcomes, such as social background, marital status, age, smoking, previous ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. Multiple births (twins and triplets) were excluded.
The risk of having a baby born very preterm appeared to increase slightly with each induced abortion, but only the risk from two abortions or more was statistically significant.
“To put these risks into perspective, for every 1000 women, three who have had no abortion will have a baby born under 28 weeks,” said Dr Klemetti. “This rises to four women among those who have had one abortion, six women who have had two abortions, and 11 women who have had three or more.”
Among women who had had three or more abortions, there was a statistically significant increased risk of a third (35%) of having a baby born preterm (before 37 weeks), a two-fold (225%) increased risk of very low birth weight, and a two-fifths (43%) increased risk of low birth weight.
The study also showed a small increased risk of a baby’s death around the time of birth. However, the numbers for this finding were very low (1498 births or five per 1000 babies) and so should be treated with caution. In addition, the authors say they might not have been able to fully adjust for all the factors that could affect this result and perinatal deaths are sensitive to social factors such as poverty.
“Our study is the first large study to look at a broad set of perinatal outcomes and to control, at least partly, for the most important confounding factors such as smoking and socioeconomic position,” said Dr Klemetti. “However, it is important to say that even though we adjusted for these factors, and also ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, there might be some confounding for social class that we could not control for. Most probably, this may be related to women’s (or some of these women’s) way of life, life habits, and sexual and reproductive health.
“Furthermore, this is an observational study and, however large and well-controlled, it only shows there is a link between abortion and some adverse birth outcomes – it cannot prove that abortions are the cause.
“Finland has one of the lowest rates of induced abortion in Europe , but even so, a large number are carried out every year. In addition, Finland has good quality abortion and maternity care, and in other contexts, particularly in poorer countries, the situation may be different. For these reasons, even a very small increase in the risk of poor birth outcomes could have significant health implications, as preterm births and low birth weight can have serious, adverse effects on the health and well-being of both babies and mothers.
“We suggest that the potential for increased risks for subsequent births should be included in sex education, especially as there are other, good reasons to avoid induced abortions. Health professionals should also be informed about the potential risks of repeat abortions.”
“Birth outcomes after induced abortion: a nationwide register-based study of first births in Finland”, by R. Klemetti, M. Gissler, M. Niinimäki, and E. Hemminki. Human Reproduction journal. doi:10.1093/humrep/des294 In 2011 there were 10,108 induced abortions in Finland, which translates to 8.7 per 1000 women aged between 15-49.
The paper can be found on the Human Reproduction website. | <urn:uuid:e5832609-4062-44e7-bc75-3f89db48180b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eshre.eu/ESHRE/English/Press-Room/Press-Releases/Press-releases-2012/Babies-born-after-three-or-more-abortions/page.aspx/1675 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982504 | 1,108 | 2.546875 | 3 |
No more than 25% of cases of Clostridium difficile in hospitals are actually acquired in the hospital, a three-hospital study suggested.
The finding comes from a mathematical analysis of a large set of C. difficile samples, collected from the hospitals that provide service to the city of Oxford, England, according to Sarah Walker, PhD, of John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and colleagues.
The study, published online in PLoS Medicine, calls into question the assumption that most hospital cases of C. difficile infection are nosocomial and suggests that many are imported, Walker and colleagues argued.
But that conclusion, while "tantalizing," is not yet borne out by the evidence, commented Stephan Harbarth, MD, of the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Matthew Samore, MD, of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City.
In an accompanying perspective article, Harbarth and Samore note that the study only looked as the possibility of transmission within wards; transmission between wards, such as when patients moved around the hospital for x-rays or other procedures, was not assessed.
The researchers also didn't examine asymptomatic C. difficile carriage when patients entered or left the hospitals, so they can say nothing about the possibility of imported disease.
Proving that most hospital cases of C. difficile disease are imported would be "revolutionary," they wrote, but the evidence from the study "is not yet sufficient to prove this hypothesis."
Walker and colleagues looked at data collected over a 2.5-year period in the three hospitals in the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which serve the approximately 600,000 people in the area.
As a matter of routine, the researchers noted, stool samples from any patient with diarrhea were sent for enzyme immunoassay testing and positive samples were cultured.
Over the period from Sept. 1, 2007 to March 31, 2010, some 1,282 samples (or 4.4% of those tested) were positive for C. difficile on both tests; of those, 1,276 from 927 patients were genotyped.
Analysis of the genotypes found 69 distinct sequence types and the researchers used those data to construct possible networks and transmission events. They found that, on average, there were 102 tests and 9.4 cases of disease per 10,000 overnight stays among inpatients and 238 tests and 15.7 cases per month in outpatients and primary care patients.
In addition, only one in four cases could be linked to a potential ward-based inpatient source, ranging from a high of 37% in renal or transplant patients to 6% in those undergoing specialist surgery.
Most of the apparent transmissions -- some 65% -- occurred no more than a week after the onset of symptoms in the index patient, and only 10% occurred after eight weeks.
The clinical implication of the findings is that current infection control measures may be falling short, the researchers said.
"A better understanding of other routes of transmission and reservoirs is needed to determine what other types of control interventions are required to reduce the spread of C. difficile," they concluded.
Primary source: PLoS Medicine
Walker AS, et al "Characterisation of Clostridium difficile hospital ward–based transmission using extensive epidemiological data and molecular typing" PLoS Med 2012; 9: e1001172.
Additional source: PLoS Medicine
Harbarth S, Samore MH "Clostridium: transmission difficile?" PLoS Med 2012; 9: e1001171. | <urn:uuid:d4101862-76a4-4147-acda-56710f5d24ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medpagetoday.com/HospitalBasedMedicine/InfectionControl/31071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944529 | 740 | 2.671875 | 3 |
British ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is famous for his contributions to our understanding of natural selection and evolution, both as they pertain to biology and to ideas. His 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, popularized the gene-centered view of evolution. It also introduced the concept of the meme, which theorizes that ideas, styles, and behaviors are selected and spread just like genes. His new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know Whats Really True, is aimed at preventing children from getting brainwashed by religion. Each chapter poses a question, such as: Who was the first person? or When and how did everything begin? He supplies the reader with fanciful answers from ancient cultures, the Bible, and beyond, and then uses the karate chop of science to demolish creation myths. Dawkins will give a lecture about his new book at the University of Miamis Storer Auditorium Friday.
Fri., Sept. 30, 5 p.m., 2011 | <urn:uuid:5f2285e5-6b58-40f3-80f7-44e03048dabd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2011-09-22/calendar/myth-buster/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950805 | 198 | 2.5625 | 3 |
THE 2009 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS
THE 2009 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS WAS AWARDED TO Charles K. Kao (Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong), and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith (both of whom worked chiefly at Bell Laboratories, in Murray Hill, NJ, USA) for their work leading to modern telecommunications. Kao will receive half the prize money for helping to invent modern optical fiber, allowing signals to travel flawlessly thousands of miles. Boyle and Smith will split the other half of the prize for their development of charge coupled devices (CCDs).
The part of this year’s award associated with Mr. Kao underscores the fact that optical fibers carry an increasing fraction of phone calls, television programs, and internet traffic into homes. Data can move down silicon fiber more quickly than through copper wire because nothing is faster than light, and light signaling offers higher bandwidth for electronic circuitry. Encoding information in the form of light pulses rather than as electric pulses allows more data to flow down a line. Kao’s principal achievement was in making the fiber more efficient; by excluding impurities in the fiber material, he developed a material that absorbed less of the light carrying signals over long distances.
The part of the prize associated with Boyle and Smith recognizes the huge advantage of capturing images in digital rather than film form. Pictures can be sent through wires more easily, can be manipulated and processed in creative ways (e.g., you can see a moving comet or supernova in sky scans by subtracting tonight’s pixel map from last night’s map), and can be stored more handily. Devices such as photomultiplier tubes for converting light into an electric signal have been around for decades. But the CCD allowed whole two-dimensional fields of optical data to be read out more quickly and efficiently. And, of course, CCD’s have been the backbone of the commercial digital camera industry. | <urn:uuid:d5e6cf4d-9541-4ea0-a646-0d9c916e62fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apl.aip.org/article_archive_2009/10_06_09_2009_nobel_prize | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926236 | 416 | 3.3125 | 3 |
It’s not just the sequoias—the towering firs, hemlocks, and other trees of the Pacific Northwest make its forests the tallest in the world, matched only by those in Southeast Asia. That’s according to a study by NASA, which has completed the first survey of the heights of forests throughout the world.
The map, created by NASA’s ICESat, Terra, and Aqua satellites, does more than give bragging rights to West Coast residents. For one thing, it could help scientists who are trying to predict while wildfires might strike, as well as those who want to determine what kind of forests make the best carbon sinks.
The map could also provide a means of monitoring the effects of climate change and deforestation on the world’s forests. Deforestation and land change use is responsible for 20 percent of the world’s emissions, and 48 percent of the world’s deforestation occurs in Brazil, according to a 2008 report by the World Resources Institute [The Independent].
Michael Lefsky and colleagues spent years compiling the data, which they describe in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Lefsky used data from a laser technology called LIDAR that’s capable of capturing vertical slices of surface features. It measures forest canopy height by shooting pulses of light at the surface and observing how much longer it takes for light to bounce back from the ground surface than from the top of the canopy. Since LIDAR can penetrate the top layer of forest canopy, it provides a fully-textured snapshot of the vertical structure of a forest — something that no other scientific instrument can offer [National Geographic].
The team had to combine the data from a quarter-billion laser pulses to make this map. In these images, the data is rounded off: The smallest points represent regions of about 2 square miles, and the color comes from the average tree height there, not the absolute tallest individuals.
Interestingly, the forest map was just a byproduct of the measurements these satellites could take. ICESat, for instance, carries LIDAR capabilities because its main function is to measure the mass of ice sheets, while the Aqua satellite studies the water cycle. When NASA launch future satellites with more sophisticated imaging technology for vegetation, the forest map could get even better.
“This is a really just a first draft, and it will certainly be refined in the future,” said Lefsky [National Geographic].
80beats: Drop in Illegal Logging Left 42 Million Acres of Forest Standing Tall
80beats: Truce Between Green Groups & Timber Companies Could Save Canadian Forests
80beats: The Latest Threat to the Amazon Rainforest: Hackers
80beats: Papua New Guinea’s Forests Falling Fast
Image: NASA Earth Observatory/Image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon/Michael Lefsky | <urn:uuid:c6a943e2-e235-4ef4-be66-1a55bfdc9b8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/07/21/nasa-satellites-use-lasers-to-map-the-worlds-tallest-forests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923778 | 590 | 4.25 | 4 |
Last Look at Asteroid Before OSIRIS-REX Launch
Astronomers working on the U.S.’s first asteroid-sample return mission -- the NASA mission named OSIRIS-REx -- have begun a months-long observing campaign that is the last chance to study their target asteroid from Earth before the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launches in 2016.
OSIRIS-REx is a quest to bring back to Earth a good-sized sample of an asteroid unaltered since solar system formation -- a sample that very well could contain molecules that seeded life.
Discovered in 1999, the OSIRIS-REx target asteroid, designated 1999 RQ36, nears Earth once every six years. During the 2011 closest approach in early September, it will be 10.9 million miles (17.5 million kilometers) away. In 1999, closest approach was 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers).
“Six years sets the whole cadence for our mission,” said Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, deputy principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission.
1999 RQ36 last attracted astronomers’ attention in 2005, when it passed 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers) from Earth and appeared 30 times brighter than it does this year.
In 2005, Carl Hergenrother of the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory was searching with the 61-inch Kuiper telescope on Mt. Bigelow north of Tucson for exciting targets for the proposed asteroid sample-return mission. He observed 1999 RQ36.
“Looking at my data, I saw this was a B-type asteroid, which is carbonaceous and related to unusual outer main-belt asteroids that act like comets by outgassing volatiles,” Hergenrother, who heads the OSIRIS-REx asteroid astronomy working group, said.
After a quick search of the scientific literature, which turned up nothing on the object, he did a Google search. Jackpot.
“Astronomers had been observing this asteroid, just not formally publishing about it,” Hergenrother said. “Their results were sitting on their personal Web pages. They had radar images of it, visible and near-infrared observations, confirmed it was a B-type (bluish) asteroid, got a pretty good light curve and a rotation period, although the rotation period was wrong.”
Michael Drake of the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx, urged Josh Emery, one of Drake’s former students, now of the University of Tennessee and a co-investigator on OSIRIS-REx, to observe 1999 RQ36 with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Emery won the telescope time, providing first observations of the asteroid at thermal infrared wavelengths.
The international team of astronomers collaborating in the fall 2011-spring 2012 observing campaign for 1999 RQ36 have time or are applying for time on a network of telescopes operating in Arizona, the Canary Islands, Chile, Puerto Rico and space.
The new observations will not only influence mission planning and development, but will directly address two key OSIRIS-REx mission goals, Lauretta said.
One goal is to check results from ground-based observations against results from OSIRIS-REx spacecraft observations that will be made in 2019-20 as the spacecraft circles the asteroid for about 500 days.
Another goal is to measure a slight force called the “Yarkovsky effect” to better understand the likelihood that potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, such as 1999 RQ36, will strike our planet, and when. | <urn:uuid:ce231b98-2e49-411b-a3f5-a0a97be2b16c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astrobio.net/includes/html_to_doc_execute.php?id=4219&component=news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928238 | 770 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Job Description Guidelines
Job Description Template
After reading the following guidelines, use the Job Description Template at the Forms Library. It is necessary that we have consistency in format for all Samford University job descriptions.
Job Description Defined
A job description is intended to be a summary of the primary activities and responsibilities typically performed in a given job. It is not a comprehensive list of all activities performed within a job. Job descriptions should describe the job as it currently exists, not as it will exist sometime in the future.
The purpose of a job description is to:
- Document the primary responsibilities and requirements of each job.
- Ensure that employees have a clear understanding of their jobs.
- Provide a basis for job evaluation, salary surveying, market pricing and career opportunities.
- Provide a vehicle for posting internal jobs.
- Communicate expectations which may assist employees in improving performance.
Guidelines for writing Job Descriptions
- Keep the sentence structure as simple as possible-omit superfluous words that do not contribute necessary information.
- Begin statements with action verbs such as: analyzes approves, authorizes, develops, evaluates, inputs, operates, organizes, performs, recommends, reviews and schedules
- Chose verbs that relate to the appropriate role of the job. For a support role, it would be misleading to use "manages". A verb such as "administers" or "initiates" would be more appropriate.
- Use examples, where appropriate, to add meaning.
- The writing style should be clear and concise-use non-technical language whenever possible.
- Avoid vague words which are subject to varying interpretation, i.e. "compiles monthly counts for reports and distributes report" versus "assists with preparing reports".
- Focus on critical activities while disregarding minor or occasional duties that are not unique to a specific job.
- The preferred sentence structure is present tense telegraphic style (implied subject/verb/object/explanatory phrase)
- Consider all work performed over a 12 month period.
- The best job descriptions are written in a factual and impersonal style – the description is not meant to describe the characteristics of any given incumbent.
- The levels of education and experience should be stated as minimums and should be realistic in view of the duties and responsibilities. If requirements are inflated, they will serve to screen out people who are actually qualified | <urn:uuid:268be194-37e2-48a7-94f5-fdb045e85fc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.samford.edu/humanresources/toolbox.aspx?id=2147494848 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914614 | 496 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In this tutorial we will use a broken egg as a base of bird. The creation of egg would be very simple but lengthy. So, please refer to this page for learning-Create 3d broken twitter egg. And those who knew how to create and break egg please proceed ahead.
- Tools used: Photoshop CS
- Duration: 30 minutes (approx.)
- Difficulty: Intermediate (Basic commands must be known)
This is what we will be creating.
The first step is preparing new Photoshop document. Open a new document of any size you want. I’m working on a new one in size of 512px x 512px with RGB mode.
Step 2: Egg shape
One you have created egg shape in your document. It should look like this. As I told at the beginning, please refer to the tutorial mentioned above for learning how to create broken egg shape.
Next, we need to cut the egg into egg. So to do so take Lasso tool and cut it like this. You don’t have to be specific, cut as you want. And after cutting name it “egg-front”.This is what broken egg will look like.
Now, to make it looks more realistic we will add 3d look. Duplicate “egg-front” layer and place “egg-front copy” layer below the “egg-front” layer and apply color-overlay of dark blue
#1d90a7. Press “up” arrow key once to move it little bit upward. Then name it edd-front copy to egg-front 3d.
We will repeat the same process “Step4″ with one more egg to make egg look hollow, and name it “egg-back”. Consider the lighting here. The inner part of “egg-back” will be dark blue and other part “egg-back 3d” will be lighter. Here is the image look like-
Step 6: Create the Twitter bird:
Set foreground color to
#67ddf7. And take Ellipse tool with “shape layer” selected, then draw a oval shape behind the egg-front.
Once you drew oval shape, press “A” to select direct slection tool. Then add nodes as shown in image below. And change the shape according to the following images. Just drag little bit. The result may vary.
The final bird shape will look like this after tweeking shape. If you get different style, don’t worry, your bird will look great too. This image is showing bird how it created.
Once you done tweaking, just rasterize layer. And the final bird which we can’t tweak furthur will look like this-
Now let’s add “life” to bird. We need some shadows and lightings to remove its flatness. To add shadow and highlight I used the “Burn and dodge tool”. Considering light coming from right. Set brush size to someting 50-60 px and look in the following image and apply burn and dodge tool to area shown below-
After applying burn and dodge. The bird will look like this.
Now take a pen tool with 3px white hard brush and draw a line like this and add stroke. Remember to check stimulate path.
Ok, we have successfully completed the bird base. Lets add cute face to the bird. First, we will draw a eyebrow. Select pen tool with brush set to 3px and shape dynamics:- control set to Fade. See image below for brush setting-
Once you set the brush. With pen tool, draw small line and add stroke to it and name “Eyebrow”. After creating one eyebrow duplicate eyebrow layer then go to Edit => Transform => Flip Horizontal. And then press right arrow key to move it little right to create both eyebrows.
Step 14: Create eyes of the bird.
To create eye, first, draw a cicle shape using ellipse tool and with direct selection tool, draw eye. We performed this action in “Step 7″. After creating eye shape fill color
#ffffff and add 1px stroke to it of color
#138ebf. This becomes bird’s sclera. You can name it “Sclera”.
Step 15: Create pupil
To create pupil first select sclera by holding ctrl and clicking on sclera layer thumbnail. And then with elliptical marquee tool and intersect with selection selected create a circle. Follow the image below-
Above image showing that we have created pupil. Now in layer fill it with black color. And here is final pupil of the bird.
Step 16: Optional step
Well, this is optional if you want to play more with eyes. I added gray color by 5px brush in center of pupil and added small white color stroke above it to create some reflection. I took a 1px hard white brush and with pen tool drew line and then added stroke to it to add reflexion.Layer named “reflextion”. Here is final eye.
Now to create second eye we will simply merge the sclera-relextion layer and then duplcate it and press right arrow key to move it right. Set it below second eyebrow. Here is how both eye looks.
Now lets add beak/nose to bird. I’m using pen tool. First, create beak shape like this with color fill –
After creating shape we can see the beak is looking little flat. So we will use dodge and burn tool again to add life to it.
Take dodge tool and some highlight to area inside the pink line. And apply burn tool to remaining part of beak. See image below, what I mean.
The result after applying dodge and burn tool is -
Now take a pen tool with brush set to 3px and draw line and add stroke to it. Color #ffffff. I added more detail to bird adding nostrils by creating very small circles using ellipse tool. I’m using ellipse tool cause I wanted dots to look clear.
Final image after adding line and nostrils we will have something like this-
Now, write ” Follow Me ” text above the egg-front layer. I use “Duepuntozero black” font you can find it free at dafont or you can use any other font. Set color overlay –
#1193ae and inner- shadow ->
Final image after adding style to text.
Now final step add shadow below the egg.To do so first take ellipse tool and create circle below the egg shape. Remember:- Distance of shadow from egg makes egg look floating in air.
Now add gaussian blur to it of value- 11px.
Thats it here is our final image again- | <urn:uuid:a975e272-f6b4-4780-91a7-e9cb5c686fce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aext.net/2010/08/create-a-cueet-twitter-bird-in-photoshop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.856362 | 1,449 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize was just awarded to Stanton Williams‘ BREEAM Excellent Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge! The winning project was a surprising choice – it’s neither the fan favorite nor one of the top guesses among industry professionals – but the incredibly thoughtful and sustainable approach to a type of building that is often simply utilitarian demanded a second look.
Designed by Stanton Williams, the Sainsbury Laboratory is a plant research center in the Cambridge Botanic Garden. Not only did the building need to be functional, with meeting rooms, research areas and a cafeteria – it also needed to live up to the illustrious history of the Botanic Garden, which was originally laid out by Charles Darwin’s mentor John Henslow.
Stanton Williams stepped up to the challenge by creating a space as beautiful as it is functional. The Laboratory is centered on what is called “the thinking path,” which is a play off of the route that Charles Darwin walked each day as he contemplated his work. This path creates a continuous route that links together the different spaces within the Laboratory. According to Ian Stanton, the garden and the building were carefully integrated, with the garden reflecting “the past of plant science and the building the future.” The ecologically sensitive location and nature of the work happening in the laboratory required a special building.
Although laboratories usually demand a great deal of power, the Sainsbury Laboratory achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating – the highest rating possible – with the help of over 3,000 square feet of photovoltaic panels and plenty of natural light. Every laboratory room receives natural daylight, which is very uncommon. A quick look at the stunning layers of stone and concrete, the stage-like drama of the laboratory research rooms, and the intelligent space layout (which encourages both reflection and interaction), and it is easy to see why the Sainsbury Laboratory took the prize.
Via The Guardian | <urn:uuid:4d262832-1f48-4b41-a10d-1f74eab97cc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/2012-riba-stirling-prize-awarded-to-breeam-excellent-sainsbury-laboratory-at-cambridge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95233 | 397 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Explaining GetHashCode method.
Posted by Vadim on July 5, 2008
Every object you ever created or used in .NET has GetHashCode method along with Equals, GetType, and ToString methods. This method is an instance method of an Object class from which any other class derives.
GetHashCode() method returns an integer that identifies an object instance. I also can repeat MSDN documentation but you can read it on your own.
The best way to explain it is to show an example. In my previous post I was using class Point as an example. I’m going to continue with this class. So let assume that we have class like this:
Next we want to use Point as a key in a Hashtable. Remember that the key of the Hasthable must be unique. In the code bellow we have two identical keys (line 2 & 4). We should expect ArgumentException.
However, no exception was thrown. There are two reasons why exception is not thrown:
- Equals() method that is also an instance method of Object class will always indicate that Point in line 2 and line 4 are different. This expected because two objects have different references.
- GetHashCode() method returns different number for these objects.
Try to execute code bellow:
You will get output similar to this one:
point1 Hash: 58225482
point2 Hash: 54267293
point1 equal to point2: False
You can see that we got different hash codes.
To solve this problem we override Equal() and GetHashCode() in our Point class.
First we override Equals() method:
You can see that I use ReferenceEquals() method that is static method of Object class. It checks if the specified objects are the same.
Next we override GetHashCode() method:
The whole Point would look like this:
Now if you try to execute the application the output should look exactly like this:
point1 Hash: 793
point2 Hash: 793
point1 equal to point2: True
Also if we try to add new Point(2, 3) twice, we get an ArgumentException as expected. | <urn:uuid:384b441c-ff17-4d16-aa87-ce9f9af303f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vkreynin.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/explaining-gethashcode-method/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889443 | 458 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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Irish Walled Towns
The Viking raiders of the ninth century and the Anglo-Norman invaders of the twelfth built defensive strongholds that over the centuries came to enrich the fabric of Irish life.
Welcome to the Events section where you can find out about Irish Walled Towns events. Click on the events articles below for more information.
Click here to view the proceedings from previous conferences >
Piety, politics and prelates
14th-16th June, Waterford- A conference celebrating the 650th anniversary of the unification of the dioceses of Waterford and Lismore | <urn:uuid:e45823a3-a089-4dca-a054-16eb05f4a708> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/irish-walled-towns/events/?L=class%3Dactive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896274 | 131 | 2.625 | 3 |
Whole Brain Radiation Increases Risk of Learning and Memory Problems in Cancer Patients with Brain Metastases
Nearly half of patients experience impaired neurocognitive function, prompts possible change to standard practice
M. D. Anderson News Release 09/22/08
Cancer patients who receive stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) for the treatment of metastatic brain tumors have more than twice the risk of developing learning and memory problems than those treated with SRS alone, according to new research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The findings of the phase III randomized trial were presented at today's 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.
Led by Department of Radiation Oncology at M. D. Anderson, the study offers greater context to the ongoing debate among oncologists about how best to manage the treatment of cancer patients with one to three brain metastases.
The American Cancer Society estimates approximately 170,000 cancer patients will experience metastases to the brain from common primary cancers such as breast, colorectal, kidney and lung in 2008. More than 80,000 of those patients will have between one and three brain metastases.
Over the last decade, SRS, which uses high-doses of targeted x-rays, has gained acceptance as an initial treatment for tumors that have spread to the brain. SRS is also commonly used in combination with WBRT, radiation of the entire brain, to treat tumors that are visible and those that may not be detected by diagnostic imaging.
"Determining how to optimize outcomes with the smallest cost to the quality of life is a treatment decision every radiation oncologist faces," said Chang. "While both approaches are in practice and both are equally acceptable, data from this trial suggest that oncologists should offer SRS alone as the upfront, initial therapy for patients with up to three brain metastases."
The seven year study observed 58 patients presenting with one to three newly diagnosed brain metastases who were randomized to receive SRS followed by WBRT or SRS alone. Approximately four months after treatment, 49 percent of patients who received WBRT experienced a decline in learning and memory function compared to 23 percent in those patients who received SRS alone.
An independent data monitoring committee halted the trial after interim results showed the high statistical probability (96.4 percent) that patients randomized to SRS alone would continue to perform better.
M. D. Anderson researchers measured participants' neurocognitive function using a short battery of neuropsychological tests, with the primary endpoint being memory function as tested by the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test Revised. Patient performance that decreased more than a predefined criteria relative to their baseline were considered to exhibit a marked decline.
"This is a case where the risks of learning dysfunction outweigh the benefits of freedom from progression and tip the scales in favor of using SRS alone. Patients are spared from the side effects of whole brain radiation and we are able to preserve their memory and learning function to a higher degree" said Chang. "Here the research suggests patients who receive SRS as their initial treatment and then are monitored closely for any recurrence will fare better."
The study builds on previous research by senior author Christina A. Meyers, Ph.D., M. D. Anderson's chief of the Section Neuropsychology in the Department of Neuro-Oncology, examining neurocognitive function in patients with brain metastases treated with whole-brain radiation. "Unlike past studies comparing the two treatment strategies which did not use sensitive cognitive tests or closely follow patients after being treated with SRS, radiation oncologists in this trial were able to identify new lesions early and treat them with either radiosurgery, surgery, whole brain radiation or less commonly, chemotherapy," Meyers said. "We believe doctors and patients alike will favor this method over upfront whole brain radiation."
M. D. Anderson is a leader in the application of SRS to cancers of the spine and head and neck, as well as research determining the effects toxic cancer treatment, like radiation therapy, has on brain function. Based on these results, future research studies are planned to determine if there are expanded indications of using SRS alone for patients with more than three brain metastases.
In addition to Chang and Meyers, M. D. Anderson researchers contributing to the study include Jeffrey S. Wefel, Ph.D., Department of Neuro-Oncology; Kenneth R. Hess, Ph.D., Division of Quantitative Sciences; Fredrick F. Lang, M.D., Department of Neurosurgery and Pamela K. Allen, Ph.D., David Kornguth, M.D., Anita Mahajan, M.D., Moshe Maor, M.D., Christopher Pelloski, M.D. and Shiao Y. Woo, M.D., all of the Department of Radiation Oncology. 09/22/08 | <urn:uuid:58629d36-d0c0-4b1a-997c-2daddf32a380> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/news-releases/2008/whole-brain-radiation-increases-risk-of-learning-and-memory-problems-in-cancer-patients-with-brain-metastases.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948095 | 1,025 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Carnegie Institute: "Egg" Term is Unscientific
According to the Carnegie Institute, the term "egg" has "no scientific usefulness" regarding early human development.
Washington D.C.'s National Museum of Health and Medicine established in 1862 houses 24 million specimens including in its Human Development Anatomy Center. NMHM publishes the Carnegie Institute's authoritative Carnegie Stages of Early Human Development for sexual reproduction (i.e., from fertilization) which has become the international standard for vertebrate embryonic development. Deceased human embryos were collected from around the world, beginning with those from the hospital at John Hopkins University. Sexual reproduction begins with Carnegie Stage 1:
Embryonic life commences with fertilization… when a spermatozoon makes contact with an oocyte… and ends with the intermingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes… The three phases… will be included here under stage 1, the characteristic feature of which is unicellularity… The term "egg" is best reserved for... the breakfast table.
Carnegie Stage 1 identifies terms, like "egg," which have "no scientific usefulness." Yet, for example, Secretary of State Jerry Brown published wording on California's official 2010 personhood petition stating that the term person would be defined, "to include fertilized human eggs." Aside from the term egg being unscientific, a "fertilized egg" is itself a contradiction, for after conception, it ceases to be an "egg" and becomes something new - a distinct, living human organism separate from mom. Eggs don't have Y-chromosomes. Half the time the single-celled child is a boy, and his masculine genome cannot be part of the mother's body, and whether boy or girl, that new human being is often programmed for a different blood type.
See also ARTL's article on:
The Beginning of Biological Development
NBC's Denver affiliate 9News is even more embarrassing for its ignorance of basic biology demonstrated by its use of the term "fertilized embryo." 9News reported on Feb. 12, 2010 that Colorado's personhood amendment, "would change the definition of humans in the state constitution to include fertilized embryos." A fertilized embryo? Is that really what they meant to say? To millions of Americans abortion is the most contested issue in the country, and yet the liberal media can't even get the basic terminology correct. (If Mark Cornetta, the general manager at 9News, gets this corrected ARTL will update this report yet as of their Nov. 7, 2011 broadcast 9News continues to be unscientific and dismissive of the wonder and sanctity of the beginning of the new child's life by referring to it as a "fertilized egg.")
Don't call Dred Scott a fertilized egg. Confusing an egg with an organism is inexcusable. RH Reality Check allowed this headline, "Anti-Abortion Activists Push New, More Radical Egg-As-Person Measures." Those who argue against unborn children, and advocate killing them, exploit such ignorance.
In war, terms like japs and gooks dehumanize the enemy. Only since the 2008 launch of the personhood movement in Colorado have abortionists stopped using the euphemism POC (products of conception), since they are now afraid to admit that their enemy, the embryo, comes into existence at conception. Similarly, the abortion industry today even fears the term mother, and now avoids even the phrase, "life of the mother," using instead, "life of the woman," even though in such a tragedy that woman loves and wants her child and likely would be insulted if others hesitated to call her a mom.
Abortionists even call the tiniest boys and girls tissue, to further dehumanize the "unwanted" child. "Abortionists refer to the fetus as a mass of cells," said Lolita Hanks, nurse practitioner and spokeswoman for American RTL. "They even refer to the baby as a tumor, in attempts to dehumanize, but I've never met anyone who has taken their tumor home from the hospital." The U.S. Supreme Court referred to black slave Dred Scott as chattel and likewise, those who are "pro-choice" speak of "fertilized eggs" only to dehumanize kids. But abortionist George Tiller's murder was not merely a very late-term abortion and Dred Scott was not a very old fertilized egg.
The essential truth of personhood exposes the lies. The resurgent personhood movement is seeing that abortionists will become more hesitant to use terms like POC. For while establishing personhood has no effect on contraceptives that only prevent fertilization, personhood will prohibit any chemical abortifacient that kills the tiniest boys and girls. So when Planned Parenthood says that personhood would outlaw contraceptives, they are either lying now, or they were lying then, for the abortion industry assured women for decades that abortifacients did not kill a living embryo. As a school nurse once told a student, "If it's not a baby, you're not pregnant." A woman should know whether or not a chemical would abort her child. And it is a child, both after and before his fingers develop, her heart begins beating, and from the earliest stages of development, for the whole logically precedes his parts and members. Personhood educates, helps to end these lies, and the killing. Thus, as stated in the Carnegie Stages, "The term “egg” is best reserved for a nutritive object frequently seen on the breakfast table."
Please see also our Beginning of Biological Development article, the Many Pro-aborts Say Amino Acid is Life, Embryo is Not, and the stunning ARTL Exceptions page. And remember, we are the makers of the world's largest protest sign against Barack Obama and the Democrats for destroying unborn children. And finally, if you'd like a 40-year pro-life education in 40 days, in less than one hour per day, then American Right To Life will keep track of your progress! To begin, just click on Get a 40-Year RTL Education!
For more information, email, write, or call us:
American Right To Life
1535 Grant Street #105
Denver, CO 80203
Please donate now to ARTL! | <urn:uuid:86dd2597-99dc-4bf4-b7eb-9c2d93c54944> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanrtl.org/carnegie-stage-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945606 | 1,305 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority approved safety standards for atomic power plants that may require years of reinforcement work for some reactors idled after the Fukushima disaster.
Nuclear power plants will need to build secondary control centers at least 100 meters from reactor buildings to manage emergency cooling systems and radiation filter vents, according to the rules. They also stipulate tougher tsunami defenses.
All but two of Japan’s 50 reactors are idled for safety assessments after a record earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011, caused meltdowns and radiation leaks at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima plant. The NRA was set up after Fukushima to provide reviews independent of the trade and industry ministry that oversees nuclear power.
“Some plants may have to undergo large reconstruction” to meet NRA requirements, Tomoko Murakami, a nuclear analyst at the Institute of Energy Economics Japan, said by phone today. For those sites, “it may take several years before they can restart.”
A group of scientists led by Toyoshi Fuketa, the regulatory agency’s commissioner, approved the requirements today in Tokyo, said Tatsuya Taguchi, an NRA official who attended the meeting. The rules will be implemented in July after inviting public comment, according to the NRA.
Quake and Tsunami
Earlier this week, another NRA panel led by Kunihiko Shimazaki, a seismologist and agency commissioner, approved rules for assessing earthquake and tsunami risk.
Currently, power companies are required to assess geological faults using rock and earth samples from the last 120,000 to 130,000 years, or the Late Pleistocene era. The new rules require investigation of faults going back 400,000 years if study of Late Pleistocene geology is inconclusive.
The NRA is investigating quake faults under nuclear plants owned by Kansai Electric Power Co., Tohoku Electric Power Co., Japan Atomic Power Co., Hokuriku Electric Power Co. (9505), and Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The widened definition may prompt the regulator to investigate faults under other nuclear power plants, Murakami said.
Geological faults under Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, the world’s biggest, could be judged active, Kyodo News reported last week, citing the NRA’s earlier draft of the safety rules.
Restarting the Kashiwazaki Kariwa reactors is key to reviving Tokyo Electric, which was taken over by the government because costs stemming from the Fukushima disaster threatened it with bankruptcy.
On tsunami defenses, utilities must estimate tsunami risk based on the latest scientific assessments, according to rules approved by the Shimazaki panel. Tsunami defenses such as seawalls and watertight doors must be able to withstand the largest estimated tsunami, under the rules.
After Fukushima, it was revealed Tokyo Electric’s own research showed the plant could be hit by a tsunami more than 10 meters (33 feet) high, while its defensive seawall was only 5.6 meters high. The March 11 tsunami that wrecked the plant reached 13 meters. | <urn:uuid:6a805b11-d9f8-4f79-81e0-d24f71c3259a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/01/31/japan-atomic-safety-rules-may-keep-reactors-closed-for-years/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928662 | 635 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The organization of gene circuit genotype space favors plasticity-mediated adaptive evolution. Shapes and colors have the same meanings in the diagram as in Figure 1. Starting from the blue genotype network, it is easier to find a genotype that produces a red alternative phenotype than finding the red genotype network. Many genotypes that produce the red alternative phenotype have direct mutational access to the red genotype network. Such genotypes are neighbors of other genotypes that produce the same alternative phenotype. Among genotypes that produce the red alternative phenotype, a high penetrance is associated to easier access to the red genotype network.
Espinosa-Soto et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011 11:5 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-5 | <urn:uuid:2ecd22c6-dc92-4e59-9459-8aad2c0db181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/5/figure/F6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.842058 | 159 | 3.421875 | 3 |
In the last 10 years, advances in broadband technologies have dramatically altered the way Americans consume music. This change is no more evident than in radio, where the fast rising popularity of new alternatives such as cable, satellite and Internet radio have changed the very notion of what radio is.
Unfortunately, the laws that govern radio royalty payments have not evolved at the same pace.
It may surprise Americans to learn that the form of radio they listen to has profound implications for how much the artists who perform the music get paid. Yes, that's right, you can listen to a digital radio service on your home stereo, but depending on whether the stream is coming from the cable provider, a satellite signal or through a web connection, the payment to the artist is very different. The difference borders on the absurd.
Consider this: last year Pandora generated $274MM of gross revenue, and paid $136MM of performance royalties -- approximately 50 percent of the total revenue. In the same year, SiriusXM, on revenues of $2.7B paid $205M in royalties, or 7.5 percent. Radio delivered over cable television pays 15 percent of revenue. Radio delivered over the FM/AM spectrum pays nothing to performers.
How did we get here? Many years ago, Congress decided that terrestrial radio (AM/FM) should be exempt from paying royalties to performing artists and labels. That clear policy choice, made for a number of reasons, has endured for decades and is not likely to be changed anytime soon. When satellite and cable radio were developed in the '90s, Congress determined that these new forms of radio should compensate performing artists and labels and sensibly decided to apply the same model for determining fair compensation that had been in use since the 1970s for determining the rates that record labels should pay to songwriters and publishers for the use of their compositions. However, when Internet radio was developed several years later, the RIAA used the explicit threat of multiple lawsuits and the substantial power of its D.C. lobbying machine to force the small group of fledgling webcasters (all now defunct) to accept a completely different, highly discriminatory method for determining royalty rates that has wreaked havoc with the industry ever since. Royalty rates almost sank Pandora, and have even scared off large broadcasters looking to expand on to the web. Tellingly, Yahoo, AOL and MSN, the three largest Internet radio services when we first launched in 2005, have all essentially exited the business.
There's a win-win to be had here. Consumers are clearly embracing what Internet radio has to offer, and Internet radio is fully supportive of fair compensation to performers. However, to date lawmakers have been unwilling to correct the mistakes of the past, and have continued to allow flawed legislation to pick winners in the radio industry.
Ultimately, it's the artist who is most harmed by the current situation. Radio, and its $15B economy is all set to transition from a medium that doesn't pay performers to one that treats them as stakeholders, yet the law as it stands today is doing its very best to slow that transition. It is especially harmful to independent musicians who rely on Internet radio for exposure. Pandora alone plays the music of more than 100,000 artists, 70 percent of whom are independent. Of the approximately one million songs in our catalogue 95 percent play every month. For most artists, Pandora is the only radio play they will ever receive.
Congress has the ability to level the playing field, and end the current discrimination against Internet radio. It's time for a technology-neutral solution that assures fair compensation to artists while encouraging new voices and new technologies. Legislation that establishes a fair royalty rate setting standard for Internet radio will drive investment in webcasting, which ultimately means greater revenue and greater opportunity for working artists. | <urn:uuid:d080e8f3-8b72-4c9d-94d9-2cc0681fa23f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-westergren/unlock-the-potential-of-i_b_1720504.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966351 | 765 | 2.640625 | 3 |
These finds were part of the "Attitudes Toward Addiction Survey" conducted by the Hazelden organization.
The telephone survey of 1,000 adults revealed some lingering stigma associated with alcoholism and drug addiction in spite of the fact 78% of those surveyed agreed that drug addiction is a chronic disease rather than a personal failing.
According to Hazelden, when survey participants were asked to describe people who have problems with drugs or alcohol included: "sinner," "irresponsible," "selfish, "stupid," "uncaring," "loser," "undisciplined," "pitiful," "pathetic," "weak," "criminal," "derelict," "washed up" and "crazy."
"What Hazelden's new survey brought home to me is that Americans understand addiction is a disease, yet much more work must be done to explain how effective treatment can be for addicts and to bring an end to the stigma that prevents addicts from pursuing treatment," said William Cope Moyers, executive director of Hazelden's Center for Public Advocacy in a news release.
The Prevalence of Addiction
Here are some of the survey findings about the prevalence of addiction:
- Nearly one-third of Americans reported past abuse of alcohol or drugs in their immediate family.
- Of those households with an immediate family member who had an addiction problem, 44% reported more than one family member with a drug problem.
- A third of the families which reported a drug problem in their immediate family say that a majority of their family members have problems with drugs.
- With one in six of the respondents dealing with substance abuse in their family, every member of the family has a problem with drugs or alcohol.
- When asked about extended family, virtually half of Americans surveyed reported three or more family members have experienced a problem with drugs during their lives.
The survey also revealed attitudes about prevention and treatment efforts:
- 79% percent feel the War on Drugs has not been successful.
- 83% agree that much more should be done to prevent addiction.
- 83% believe that first-time drug offenders should get chemical dependency treatment rather than prison time.
- 77 percent agree that many addicts who complete treatment go on to lead useful lives.
- 71% agree health insurance should cover addiction treatment, but most have no idea if their own insurance will pay. | <urn:uuid:30743d9c-7536-4915-b90d-8f53e266361c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alcoholism.about.com/b/2009/02/10/one-third-of-americans-have-an-addicted-relative.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980291 | 490 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Google revamped its reCAPTCHA system, used to block automated scripts from abusing its online services, just hours before a trio of hackers unveiled a free system that defeats the widely used challenge-response tests with more than 99 percent accuracy.
Stiltwalker, as the trio dubbed its proof-of-concept attack, exploits weaknesses in the audio version of reCAPTCHA, which is used by Google, Facebook, Craigslist and some 200,000 other websites to confirm that humans and not scam-bots are creating online accounts. While previous hacks have also used computers to crack the Google-owned CAPTCHA (short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) system, none have achieved Stiltwalker's impressive success rate.
"The primary thing which makes Stiltwalker stand apart is the accuracy," wrote Adam, one of the three hackers who devised the attack, in an e-mail. "According to the lead researcher from the Carnegie Mellon study, the system we attacked was believed to be 'secure against automatic attack,'" he added, referring to this resume from a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist credited with designing the audio CAPTCHA.
Stiltwalker's success exploits some oversights made by the designers of reCAPTCHA's audio version, combined with some clever engineering by the hackers who set out to capitalize on those mistakes. The audio test, which is aimed at visually impaired people who have trouble recognizing obfuscated text, broadcasts six words over a user's computer speaker. To thwart word-recognition systems, reCAPTCHA masks the words with recordings of static-laden radio broadcasts, played backwards, so the background noise would distract computers but not humans.
What the hackers—identified only as C-P, Adam, and Jeffball—learned from analyzing the sound prints of each test was that the background noise, in sharp contrast to the six words, didn't include sounds that registered at higher frequencies. By plotting the frequencies of each audio test on a spectrogram, the hackers could easily isolate each word by locating the regions where high pitches were mapped. reCAPTCHA was also undermined by its use of just 58 unique words. Although the inflections, pronunciations, and sequences of spoken words varied significantly from test to test, the small corpus of words greatly reduced the work it took a computer to recognize each utterance.
Enter the neural network
With the sounds isolated, the hackers then funneled each word into a battery of mathematical solvers to translate the characteristics of each isolated word into text that would solve the CAPTCHA puzzle. An early version of the attack worked by using the open-source pHash software library to generate a "perceptual hash" of each sound. Unlike cryptographic hashes, which typically produce vastly different ciphertext when even tiny changes are made to the plaintext input, pHash outputs vary minimally when generated by similar-sounding words. By comparing the perceptual hashes of the collected sounds to a table of hashes, the team could make educated guesses about which words were being included in the audio tests. But they ultimately scrapped the technique because its level of accuracy didn't break 30 percent.
The hackers eventually devised a machine-learning algorithm that produced significantly better results. Their neural network was seeded with data from 50,000 reCAPTCHA utterances along with human-generated input for each corresponding word. They then combined the tool with a separate attack that exploited another weakness they discovered in the audio version—namely its habit of repeating the same challenges verbatim in pseudo-random fashion. By using cryptographic hashes to fingerprint 15 million of the estimated 25 million challenges in reCAPTCHA's repertoire, their attack was able to crack most of the tests.
"The majority of the time, we can look at the challenge and not do any computation at all," Adam said. "It takes less than a second to get an answer with the MD5 solver."
Their attack became all the more effective after discovering that Google's audio CAPTCHA accepted multiple spellings for many of the challenges based on the approximate phonetic sounds of each word. As a result, an audio test that included the word "boat" could be solved by entering "boat," but it could also be solved by entering "poate." Similarly, a test that included the word "plate" could be solved by entering "plate," but it too could also be solved by entering "poate." Tests for words that included "Friday," "fairy," or "four" were also solved by entering "Friay." By fashioning the same alternate spelling for a variety of different sounding words, the hackers could pare back the number of guesses required to solve a specific puzzle, a technique crackers call "reducing the keyspace."
In the end, the hackers said their computer-generated attack solved 17,338 out of 17,495 challenges they attempted, a success rate of 99.1 percent. At one point, the attack was able to deduce answers to 847 tests in a row before being tripped up. More details of the hack are here.
The Googleplex strikes back
About two hours before the hackers were scheduled to present the attack on Saturday at the Layer One security conference, Google engineers revamped reCAPTCHA. Suddenly, Stiltwalker, which the hackers had carefully kept under wraps, no longer worked. Adam told me that he has no proof anyone tipped off Google employees—but he doubts the timing was coincidence.
The updated reCAPTCHA system uses a human voice uttering unintelligible sounds as background noise, making it impossible for Stiltwalker to isolate the distinct words included in each audio challenge. The puzzles have also been expanded from six words to ten words and each challenge lasts 30 seconds, compared with only eight seconds under the previous reCAPTCHA.
A Google spokesman declined to offer specifics of the reCAPTCHA upgrade beyond issuing a statement.
"We took swift action to fix a vulnerability that affected reCAPTCHA," it said, "and we aren’t aware of any abuse that used the techniques discovered. We're continuing to study the vulnerability to prevent similar issues in the future. We've found reCAPTCHA to be far more resilient than other options while also striking a good balance with human usability. Even so, it's good to bear in mind that while CAPTCHAs remain a powerful and effective tool for fighting abuse, they are best used in combination with other security technologies."
While the changes stymied the Stiltwalker attack, Adam said his own experience using the new audio tests leaves him unconvinced that they are a true improvement over the old system.
"I could only get about one of three right," he said. "Their Turing test isn't all that effective if it thinks I'm a robot."
Story updated to correct use of the word histogram. | <urn:uuid:a2178fe6-9c4d-4dd4-9eee-1d9dc6d6747a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/05/google-recaptcha-brought-to-its-knees/?comments=1&post=22909259 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963851 | 1,406 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Sun protection tips
May 21, 2012, 8:31 a.m.
Women seeking healthy lifestyles will be in direct sunlight at times and should use sun protection products to really get the best benefit from any sun exposure. Sun safety tips are important in view of the fact that there is scientific proof that harmful UVA and UVB rays from the sun can cause wrinkles and skin cancer.
Before you even venture out for sunbathing or swimming, take a few moments to assess your individual potential risk for harm from sun rays. Consider your ancestry, the type of skin you have inherited and if there has been any skin cancer among relatives. If so, chances are you may have the same risks and should be extra cautious with exposure to direct sunlight. Genetic studies show that regardless of skin pigmentation or shade, if there is a family history of skin cancer, all descendants can be at risk.
Remember these sun safety tips at any age:
- Protect the skin physically by keeping it out of direct sunlight.
- Be reasonable when sunbathing; use a timer if necessary so you are not overexposed.
- If you must sunbathe, use proven and safe products that contain zinc oxide.
- Work with your physician on a regular basis to test levels of Vitamin D.
Protecting the skin means wearing protective clothing to shield your skin from harmful sun rays. Wear hats and clothing that cover most of the skin area. New clothing material is designed specifically to protect skin from sun rays.
Products that contain zinc oxide are the most effective sun blockers. It is not a chemical that will penetrate into the skin and does not break down in storage. Use on facial areas as well as other body regions. Use lip balm to protect delicate lip tissue. Limit exposure to sun rays to about 5 minutes daily a few days per week; this should get you enough natural vitamin D. Enjoy outdoor activities from a shady location.
Always consult your doctor about the impact of sunlight on your own skin, or if you are concerned about skin spots, any wrinkles, or other skin blemishes. Take sun safety tips seriously and use sun protection products regularly so you do not burn, and remember that sun rays do their worst damage during mid-day hours.
Content Provided by Spot55.com | <urn:uuid:86a5d1e9-4eb1-4e0d-bca5-7404373f14d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lovinlife.com/news/2012/may/21/sun-protection-tips/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929002 | 465 | 2.75 | 3 |
Museum portrays the dangerous history of mill workby Cathy Wurzer, Minnesota Public Radio
Working in a 19th century flour mill could be hazardous to your health.
On Tuesday, the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis will present "The Minneapolis Horror: Tales from the Night Shift." Actors will tell the story of the tragic 1878 Washburn A Mill explosion that killed 18 people.
They will also explain the every day perils of working in the mill.
Museum director Laura Salveson and historian Annette Atkins gave MPR's Cathy Wurzer a preview.
More from MPRLooking back on St. Paul's Ford plant
September 28, 2010
The unusual history of Irish immigrants to Minnesota
August 13, 2010
A history of theater in Minnesota
July 28, 2010
A portrait of Gideon Pond, the first to write the Dakota Language
June 24, 2010
Minn. companies helped fight WWII in surprising ways
June 16, 2010
- Morning Edition, 10/22/2010, 8:25 a.m. | <urn:uuid:2c7a6c95-7926-401e-8304-515518719c7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/21/millcitymuseum?refid=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885368 | 216 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Canning the Canned Hunt
The government of South Africa, one of the largest captive hunting regions on the globe, officially banned the canned hunting of lions in June. About 120 active lion breeders run lucrative enterprises, where they breed and sell their lions to canned hunts frequented by trophy seeking tourists; about 1,000 of these lions are killed each year.
In 2007, the government proposed laws prohibiting the hunting of captive-reared lions until at least two years after their release into the wild. Obstinate breeders challenged the proposal in court, insisting that hunters should be allowed to shoot the lions just days after their release. A High Court judge ruled in favor of the government in June, stating that the country's biodiversity must be protected, and that breeding lions in captivity for the sole purpose of conducting canned hunts does not further lion protection.
Breeders are now threatening to appeal the High Court's decision. | <urn:uuid:e1158677-bd5f-4033-a44c-7feeed472bef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.awionline.org/awi-quarterly/2009-summer/canning-canned-hunt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949476 | 186 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The sales world seems to be in a state of constant change, thanks to the emergence of new technologies.
To explore the most pivotal inventions that have revolutionized sales, Lattice Engines created the following infographic. It starts with Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press (cuneiform and papyrus didn't make the cut) and brings us up to today.
Among the highlights:
1870s: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. This invention greatly diminishes the world of door-to-door sales.
1980s: Laptop computers begin to transform the day-to-day tasks of salespeople.
1990s: Email's popularity now helps salespeople reach buyers in new, interesting ways.
1990s: Virtual meetings let salespeople connect with clients without their having to physically leave their offices.
2002: The emergence of smartphones, such as BlackBerrys and Palm Pilots, help sales reps access data and close deals while on the road.
Check out the infographic for even more highlights from the tech side of sales: | <urn:uuid:54310a9b-a909-4470-b3f7-66af1d070eac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/10167/history-of-sales-technology-infographic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929145 | 215 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Sep. 23, 2010 A new technique pioneered at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is improving the detection and monitoring of insecticide resistance in field populations of an important malaria-carrying mosquito.
Researchers at LSTM, led by Dr Charles Wondji have developed a new technique which encourages the female Anopheles funestus mosquitoes to lay eggs which are then reared into adult mosquitoes to provide sufficient numbers to determine levels of insecticide resistance and to characterise the underlying mechanisms.
Explaining the significance, John Morgan, who designed the technique, said: "Malaria is the main cause of death in Uganda with some 12 million cases recorded annually. The Ministry of Health relies heavily on insecticide treated nets and spraying to control mosquitoes. The effectiveness of those control programmes depends on the ability to detect and monitor insecticide resistance.
"The An.funestus mosquito is difficult to collect and rear from the field and hence published studies of insecticide resistance in this species are limited. This new forced egg laying technique encourages the females to lay eggs which we were then able to rear into viable populations.
"This allowed us to study levels of resistance to particular insecticides and in doing so, we have been able to find the first documented resistance to pyrethroid/DDT insecticides in East Africa. This will enable researchers to map the distribution of this resistance and allow the Ministry of Health to modify its vector control programme, thereby increasing its effectiveness and helping to reduce the transmission of malaria."
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Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
- Laurent Rénia, John C. Morgan, Helen Irving, Loyce M. Okedi, Andrew Steven, Charles S. Wondji. Pyrethroid Resistance in an Anopheles funestus Population from Uganda. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (7): e11872 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011872
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:1861bc2d-2d7d-46f7-93f1-6426066b6547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922124544.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904687 | 426 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Economic stimulus measures such as spending bills or tax cuts are designed to improve the economy when it is in recession and the private sector is so frozen that it cannot spend or loan money. Conservatives favor cutting taxes, liberals prefer to spend money borrowed from future taxpayers.
For the $789 billion 2009 stimulus, which is now law, see American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The risk is that it might depress the economy, e.g., by reducing incentives for investment, especially if there are strings attached to the stimulus. According to the Congressional Budget Office, "Fiscal stimulus aims to boost economic activity during periods of economic weakness by increasing short-term aggregate demand."
Democrats in Congress passed a $789 billion economic stimulus bill in Feb. 2009 along party lines.
In the early 1930s British economist John Maynard Keynes introduced the theoretical model of how government spending can help an economy out of a severe recession like the Great Depression. President Herbert Hoover had engaged in a massive stimulus spending program that came close to bankrupting state and local governments as the economy continued to spiral downward 1929-32. However, Hoover raised taxes, which economists agree was bad medicine. The New Deal engaged in massive stimulus spending which to a large extent did stimulate the economy and brought it back to levels of the mid 1920s, but did not end high unemployment. | <urn:uuid:eb59b2ea-5a81-45b3-8ce6-691b6782a866> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conservapedia.com/Economic_stimulus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952601 | 271 | 3.734375 | 4 |
The Patent Problem
Today is the World Day to Stop Software Patents. Software patents attempt to offer protection to a company for particular computer programs. One common example is the Amazon One-Click Shopping Patent. Amazon attempted to patent their one-click shopping method. Doing so makes any other online store using one-click shopping a patent violator and in danger of legal action.
These patents typically protect large corporations who patent what are usually common, well-known programs (e.g., clicking to purchase books). The patents are often used offensively to bring legal action against smaller companies also using these methods, thereby pushing them out of the market. Generally, these patents limit innovation by providing this chilling effect on small companies that would be unable to defend themselves against such legal action.
Thankfully, the US Patent Office overturned Amazon’s request for the one-click patent, but many other examples still pose problems for computer programmers.
The Free Software Solution
Groups like the Free Software Foundation (FSF) have been working against software patents. They have filed amicus briefs in court cases and have been pro-active in developing software free of patents. In doing so they further the freedoms that they outlined in this article:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).
Patenting software inhibits all of these freedoms. As a result the aims of free software encourage basic moral precepts like the love and help of neighbor and improving the world around you for its own sake.
Prayer Book Parallels
The Christian concept of liturgy isn’t too different from a computer program. Both are prescribed and carefully designed. Both offer an abstract method that is given life in its praying/running. Both promise concrete changes in finite time. Both have parts that are variable and parts that are unchanging.
The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer is free from copyright and patent. As a result, all of the four freedoms above apply. Anyone can access its contents and use it. Anyone can study it openly, without permission. Anyone can duplicate copies–this is frequently done in making worship booklets.
Importantly, anyone can alter it and re-publish their changes. The Episcopal Church did this with its revisions in 1789, 1892, 1928 and 1979. WIthout the ability to do this, they would not have been able to adapt the 1662 prayer book to their situation in a free America. Independent of the British Crown, the first Episcopalians needed to remove prayers for the monarch and oaths to the king and replace them.
The Roman Catholic Church has adapted the current Book of Common Prayer for their own use as the Book of Divine Worship. A parish in Rosemont, PA has adapted it as the Anglican Service Book. The Anglican Mission in the Americas has used sections of it in developing their own prayer book. All of these “forks” were made possible because there is no patent, no copyright on the existing BCP–it is simple free for use.
Having litrugy and religious texts free of patent and copyright is a Christian principle that is widely regarded as offering more opportunity for prayer, for evangelism and for churches that take their surrounding culture seriously. The same principles hold when it comes to software: sharing, studying and adapting software is an act of love of neighbor. Having software patents acts against basic Christian witness. | <urn:uuid:523c8e62-ce26-4866-aa35-a55e036d883a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lab16.wordpress.com/2008/09/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946695 | 761 | 2.515625 | 3 |
After rescue, Children's nurse encourages water safety education
At Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, we encounter life-and-death situations every day.
Earlier this summer, Leah Mickschl, a Children’s RN, experienced a crisis outside our walls. She was at a private neighborhood pool in Lakeville when a 4-year-old boy was discovered at the bottom of the pool.
She was in the right place at the right time.
Mickschl, who works at Midwest Children’s Resource Center, called upon her training and performed CPR on the boy. He had been under water for approximately two minutes, she said. But within seconds of having CPR performed on him, he sputtered water and regained consciousness. The boy recovered, and today, he’s active and healthy.
In July, the Lakeville City Council honored Mickschl for her life-saving efforts. She appreciates the honor and wants to use it as an opportunity to remind people of aquatic safety.
On the day of the boy’s near-drowning, the pool was filled with people – children and adults, she said. No one saw him go under; Mickschl’s own children were only a few feet away.
“Drowning is silent. It’s not like in the movies where you’re thrashing about and calling for help,” Mickschl said.
Unfortunately, drowning is the leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1 to 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It remains the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death behind motor vehicle crashes among children 1 to 14.
Mickschl encourages people to check out these water-safety tips from Children’s Dr. Manu Madhok before they head to the pool or lake. She also suggests getting CPR-certified.
“Prevention should always be the goal, but you never know when those skills might be needed,” she said. | <urn:uuid:c512c1af-a9cb-4c6a-820a-8fec8b2d162e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrensmn.org/health-professionals/resources/external-phone-log/11-news-and-events/blogs/kids-health-blog/1151-water-safety-education-rescue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967517 | 428 | 2.90625 | 3 |
During the first half of the 1200's under Frederick II, Ursino Castle was a masterly amalgamation of Eastern and Western design symbolically and geometrically. Frederick II was known for his multicultural, multiethnic style of governing.
This mighty structure was originally on a promontory overlooking the sea for maximum security and defense: in fact, the castle's original Latin name was "Castrum Sinus", which translates as "Gulf Castle". Constructed of a mighty inner square with four large outer round towers, four slightly smaller turrets and surrounded by a moat, was a state of the art fortress in its days.
Its distance from the sea now is due to an earthquake in 1600, and Etna eruptions. Lava flowing right up to the castle, buried a part of it, filling the moat, covering and enlarging the coastline, creating a greater distance between the sea and the castle. The castle was also the scene of political change when Frederick III was proclaimed king.
Later, it became the home of the Spanish Aragon dynasty. The Isle of Sicily's inexorable decline, after the sixteenth century (from which it recovered in the eighteen hundreds), affected the Castle, which lost its role as a point of defense. Perhaps it was better suited to the warfare of catapults, crossbows and boiling oil, than to the longer range gunpowder of later years.
It became a prison for a short while in the eighteen hundreds, before being transformed into it's present capacity as a museum, and venue for art exhibitions. | <urn:uuid:d398f5b6-eb5e-4e62-bb16-bea984cab352> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.italyguides.it/us/sicily_italy/catania/ursino_castle.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980534 | 318 | 3.546875 | 4 |
On June 7, 2011, a new comet was discovered in the constellation of Scorpio, the Scorpion at the University of Hawaii Observatory. The new comet was given the name of Panstarrs.
If the comet lives up to current predictions, its brightness should increase over the next several weeks reaching its peak on March 9. By the end of April, it will disappear from naked eye visibility.
Comets, however, are very unpredictable when it comes to brightness estimates. In 1974, Comet Kohoutek was labeled to be the comet of the century, and, perhaps, be bright enough to be seen in broad daylight. However, the comet fizzled in brightness, and barely made it to naked eye visibility.
Currently, Comet Panstarrs is located near the constellation of Sagittarius, the Archer. However, it very slowly moves in position on a daily basis. It is now at the threshold of visibility to the unaided eye. A pair of binoculars or a telescope at a very low power would give a better view.
For best results, dress warmly, and drive out in the country away from city lights where the sky is darker making it easier to see dimmer celestial objects. Look about 15 degrees above the horizon in the southeast about 6:00 A.M. This is where the constellation of Sagittarius and the approximate location of the comet will be about this time. Remember, if you hold your fist out at arm’s length, the distance between the lower and upper part of your fist measures about 10 degrees.
Comet Panstarrs will appear as a fuzzy looking star with a tail. It will remain an early morning object until the end of February when it will be lost in the glare of the Sun from our line of sight here on the Earth. It will then be visible low in the southwest after sunset in early March. A clear view of the western sky is important, however, as the comet will only be about 10 degrees or so above the horizon.
On March 5, the comet will be at its closest point to the Earth or about 101.4 million miles away. Then on March 9, it will be only about 29 million miles from the Sun. At this time, Comet Panstarrs will be at its brightest.
A comet is basically a large dirty snowball with a rock at its center. The majority of most comets are peanut or potato shaped with their long axis no more than several miles in diameter. The nucleus of the comet is made up of porous rock and dust. Surrounding the nucleus is water ice and carbon dioxide ice.
As the comet gets closer and closer to the Sun, the ice melts, and vaporizes. The coma of a comet consists of the nucleus surrounded by its vaporized gases and dust particles. The Sun then blows these gas and dust particles away from the comet. As a result, a gas and dust tail is formed. A comet’s tail almost always points away from the direction of the Sun. However, some comets display anti-tails.
Nasa video on the comet: Here | <urn:uuid:2e866c2e-d288-4f64-924a-875f7a388075> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kiowacountysignal.com/article/20130212/blogs/130219734/0/Events | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952044 | 638 | 3.8125 | 4 |
The Trieste II was anchored in a parking lot, not in metal-eating saltwater.
Yet salty air off Dogfish Bay and red duct tape were ravaging the deep submergence vessel. A fixture at the Naval Undersea Museum since the facility opened in 1991, the Trieste II was rusting away.
A Port Orchard company, with $80,000 from the Navy, is reclaiming the historic vessel. A two-month renovation will wrap up in a couple weeks.
“It’s gone places they don’t build equipment to go anymore,” said Pat Spicer, project leader for Q.E.D. Systems. “It’s as interesting as it gets, but it’s a huge, huge challenge.”
Museum visitors aren’t likely to give the Trieste a second glance. It looks like a giant propane tank with little orange propellers, but its feats are impressive. Certified to operate 20,000 feet under the sea, it discovered and photographed debris from the submarine USS Thresher, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean with all hands on board on April 10, 1963.
In 1969, it again submerged 10,000 feet to investigate the wreckage of USS Scorpion, which sank May 22, 1968, southwest of the Azores. It photographed the submarine and compiled a report to determine how it was lost. And you can bet sunken American subs weren’t the only ones it investigated.
The Trieste II was the first submersible to recover man-made items from the ocean floor, first to certify “hydronauts” for extreme depths and time in the vessel, and first to operate a tethered “flying eyeball.” It was deactivated in 1984.
The ship’s condition didn’t seem too bad at first. Only 4,200 square inches appeared damaged. When workers looked deeper — and pulled off strips of red duct tape that had been on the vessel for years — another 24,000 inches was discovered, said Ron Roehmholdt, museum exhibits chief.
Spicer and his crew found rust holes as big as basketballs, he said, and there were little trees growing on top of the ship.
First they had to pressure wash the vessel, then blast the good part with a Sponge-Jet system — like sandblasting but with softer projectiles. They took power tools to the rusty areas and had to rebuild some places with fiberglass and metal epoxy. Those spots were smoothed over with putty. About all that remains is the final painting.
“We’ll probably never do something like this again,” Spicer said of the company, which is accustomed to working on submarines, tugboats and barges. “It’s been fun. It’s nerve-racking, I tell you that. It’s easy to get overwhelmed because there’s so much rust.”
The Trieste II, which was featured in National Geographic and TV documentaries, was like a big balloon, Roehmholdt said. It carried aircraft fuel, which is lighter than seawater, for buoyancy. To descend, seawater was pumped in. To go up, it discharged iron shot. Powered by batteries, it could stay down for 12 hours traveling at 2 knots. The three-person crew only had a little port hole to see through.
“As far as technology goes, it’s an absolute marvel, a national treasure,” said museum curator Stephen Crowell.
For information, call (360) 396-4148. | <urn:uuid:db86d455-e858-4cf3-814f-9f662c241f2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/dec/01/keyport-deep-sea-museum-artifact-getting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967766 | 753 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Spread-spectrum (SS) methods have long been used in communications systems to achieve certain levels of transmission efficiency and security. Unfortunately, traditional spread-spectrum approaches have typically employed pseudorandom sequences of codes characterized by an inherent periodicity which can be detected over time. As a solution, true random sequences generated by chaotic lasers can help achieve increased SS gain at a lower bit error rate (BER) than traditional SS systems based on pseudorandom bit sequences, while also improving the communications security.
In traditional SS systems, high-speed random codes are substituted for a 1-b source stream, making these transmissions more robust in the presence of interference. Typical techniques for spread spectrum communications are direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), time-hopping spread spectrum (THSS), and chirp modulation. Among them, pseudorandom sequences generated by an n-level m-sequence shift register with longest period of 2n -1 are commonly adopted as SS codes. But theoretical studies have shown that this kind of SS spread spectrum communications systems based on pseudorandom sequences are prone to deciphering. Essentially, the m sequence can be determined when 2n b of m sequence transmission is received and decoded.1
In traditional DSSS communications systems, the SS sequence cannot be changed during the process of communications, allowing hackers to use the inherent periodicity to acquire the SS codes.2 To enhance the anti-interference capabilities and the safety of SS systems, the codes should be varied. In 2005, Xingang Wang, et al.3 proposed a scheme to generate chaotic binary codes by using a chain of coupled chaotic maps. Those researchers demonstrated that the codes can be applied to baseband SS communications systems. Although the period of such chaotic codes is, in theory, infinitely long, the period is practically limited by the word length of the system's microprocessor and can still be deciphered.4 For true SS communications security, true random sequences are needed. Compared with the pseudorandom numbers as spreading codes, true random sequences have the characteristics of aperiodicity, unpredictability, and nonreplicability, and can only be deciphered with great difficulty.
There are many methods available for generating true random numbers. Traditional random-number generators are based on the thermal noise of circuits or resistances,5 the oscillation frequency of an oscillation circuit,6 the randomness of a quantum mechanics fundamental quantity,7,8 circuit chaos,9 or biological random characteristics.10 But the rates of these approaches above are limited by low bandwidths. Typically, the bandwidths of electric chaos effects are below 1 GHz and rarely reach a rate of 200 Mb/s.9
Another kind of novel random-number generator is based on chaotic lasers. The high bandwidth of this approach supports the bandwidths at the current upper limits of electronic data processing. For example, in 2007, the current researchers proposed a patent for a fast true random-number generator using a wideband chaotic light source, realized by an optical-feedback semiconductor laser.11 In 2008, Uchida, et al.12,13 became the first to realize a 1.7-Gb/s random-number generator (RNG) by using chaotic lasers. That same year, the current authors demonstrated that the bandwidth of an optical-feedback semiconductor laser can achieve several tens of GHz by using continuous-wave (CW) optical injection.14 This indicates that true random numbers with higher rate can be accomplished.
In addition, Kanter and colleagues15 demonstrated a high speed, 12.5-Gb/s, random-number generator based on an optical-feedback chaotic laser with an 8-b analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The same researchers improved upon their work by achieving a faster random bit generator based on a chaotic semiconductor laser capable of a rate to 300 Gb/s.16 In 2010, the current researchers demonstrated an all-optical scheme of for a random-number generator (RNG), in which all signal processing is performed in the optical domain; this approach yielded 10-Gb/s random numbers.17
From previous studies, it is known that true random-number generators have reached Gb/s rates. It is also known that a synchronization method for true random numbers has been realized,18 allowing their use in SS communications systems. To pursue that application, the current researchers propose the use of true random numbers for safe and efficient SS communications, using random numbers produced by chaotic semiconductor lasers. A schematic diagram of a true random-number generator based on chaotic lasers is shown in Fig. 1(a).
In this scheme, two semiconductor lasers are used for chaotic intensity. The intensity output of each laser is converted to an AC electrical signal by means of photodetectors. Following amplification, the AC electrical signals are converted to a binary signal by means of two comparators. Subsequently, the generated binary signal is converted into a random number, with its code rate controlled by the clock. The binary bit signals obtained from the lasers are combined by a logical exclusive-OR (XOR) operation to generate a single random bit sequence. Any processing that occurs after this point can be applied to improve the randomness of the sequence.
Figure 1(b) shows the authors' experimental setup for a chaotic laser using distributed-feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers. A circuit for chaotic signals based on semiconductor lasers can be seen in ref. 14. In experiments, the feedback light from semiconductor laser, a model LMD5S752 from Wuhan Telecommunications Devices Co. (WTD), with center wavelength stabilized at 1550 nm and threshold current, Ith, set at 22.5 mA, is injected into the resonant oscillation cavity via a fiber reflection mirror. The intensity and polarization state of the optical feedback signals can be adjusted by a variable attenuator and a polarization controller, respectively. The intensity of the feedback light is monitored by an optical power meter. If the operating current of the laser is biased at 1.6 times more than Ith, at 22.5 mA, and the feedback intensity is 10%, the signal power of the chaotic laser from the DFB laser is 0.5 mW through a 40/60 optical fiber coupler. When the amplitude of optical signals is about 45 mV, the optical signals are converted to electrical signals through a photoelectric detector.
Figure 2 shows the RF spectrum of the generated chaotic light and the noise floor. As can be seen, the bandwidth of the chaotic laser is about 6 GHzconsiderably greater than a traditional entropy source, such as circuit chaos. The signal is sampled and stored by a real-time oscilloscope, a model TDS3052 from Tektronix, which has a bandwidth of 500 MHz and sampling rate of 5 GSamples/s. For improved randomness of the generated random sequence, a post-processing method was adopted, such as the use of a two-way exclusive-OR (XOR) for post-processing. This yields true random-number sequences at 1 Gb/s, which pass all standard tests for randomness according to the United States National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and their Special Publication 800-22.19
The "randomness" of the random sequence can be investigated by analyzing the self-similarity of the generated sequence. The similarity between two random sequences can be expressed by using the autocorrelation function, Rac(m), and the cross-correlation function, Rcc(m). The expressions for these two functions are shown in Eqs. 1 and 2, respectively:
xi = the i-th bit value of the random sequence;
xi + m = the i + m bit value of the random sequence;
x = the mean value of the random sequence;
xli = the i-th bit value of the first random sequence; and
x2(i + m) = the (i + m) bit value of the second random sequence.
The autocorrelation coefficient and the cross-correlation coefficient are the normalization of the autocorrelation function and the cross-correlation function. Ideally, the value of the autocorrelation function and the value of the cross-correlation function for the true random-number sequence should be values of some d function and 0, respectively.
Figure 3(a) shows the autocorrelation function of a traditional m-sequence function. It reveals that the m-sequence function exhibits a strong periodicity. In comparison, the autocorrelation function of the random sequences generated by the chaotic lasers is shown in Fig. 3(b). From it, we can see that its shape is similar with an d function, indicating an improvement for these true random-numbers sequences compared to m sequences.
Figures 3(c) and 3(d) show cross-correlation functions of m sequences and true random numbers, respectively. They reveal a sharp pulse spiking in the cross-correlation function of m sequences, while the true random numbers present a relatively better cross-correlation function (and thus, their suitability as SS codes).
What is the impact of using random-number sequences on the capacities of different communications systems? In a traditional direct-sequence, code-division-multiple-access (DS-CDMA) communications system, the capacity of the system is determined by the available SS numbers. For example, if the spreading factor N is 1023, the available number of m sequences is only 60, which limits the capacity of the system. In contrast, if true random-number sequences are as SS codes, it can greatly enhance the capacity of the system. The true random-number sequence generated by chaotic semiconductor lasers is a kind of sequence with codes that are truly random and independent each other. The higher-order complexity of these codes enhances the anti-decryption and anti-interference characteristics of a SS system.
Figure 4 depicts a schematic diagram of a SS communication system. The transmitter converts an analog signal into a digital signal through an information source encoder. Following the SS operation, the signal is frequency modulated (FM) and transmitted via antennas. In this system, true random sequences are used for SS codes. In the receiver, the original signals can be recovered by following a reverse set of procedures.
The use of a true random-number sequence in a SS communications system greatly increases the anti-interference capability of the system. Such a system faces two main forms of interference: multipath and multiple-user. Multipath interference is associated with the autocorrelation of SS codes, while multiple-user interference is mainly relative to the cross-correlation of SS codes. It is possible to choose SS codes with good orthogonality to minimize relevance between codes. In addition, the authors' experiments have found that the autocorrelation and cross-correlation of a true random-number sequence will decrease with an increase in the length of the random-number sequence. With an appropriate SS code length, SS system interference can be reduced.
The performance levels versus multipath interference and multiple-user interference can be characterized respectively via the mean-square value of the autocorrelation sidelobe and the mean-square value of the cross-correlation sidelobe.4 The mean-square value of the autocorrelation sidelobe, d2ac(m), and the cross-correlation sidelobe, d2cc(m), can be written as Eqs. 3 and 4, respectively:
Rac(m) = the value of the autocorrelation of the m-th bit of the generated sequence and
Rcc(m) = the value of the cross-correlation of the m-th bit of the generated sequence.
Figure 5 shows a curve of the mean-square value of the generated random-number sequence. It can be seen that the mean-square value of the autocorrelation and cross-correlation sidelobes decrease with an increase in the length of the random-number sequence. When the random-number sequence length increases to 2000, the mean-square value of the autocorrelation and cross-correlation sidelobes will be less than 0.6 10-3.
To analyze this further, a simulation was performed using MATLAB Simulink simulation software from The MathWorks, choosing 2000 to 5000 b random sequences as SS codes. Simulink was used to build a simulation model of a DSSS communications system, as shown in Fig. 6. The binary random signal source is multiplied by the input true random-number sequences following polarity-reversal, to realize a SS communications system. Subsequently, the signal passes through an additive-white-Gaussian-noise (AWGN) channel. In the receiver, the signal multiplies the true random sequences to complete the dispreading process. Following that point, the signal will become binary random sequences though polarity reversal. During the simulation, an error bit analyzer is used to compare the transmitted binary random codes with the despreaded random codes in order to calculate the bit-error ratio.
Figure 7 shows the relationship among the information rate, spread spectrum gain, and bit-error ratio. When the information rate is constant, the SS gain increases with a decrease in the bit-error ratio. When signal noise ratio (SNR) is -20 dB, increasing the SS gain can effectively reduce the system bit-error ratio. It can be seen from Fig. 7 that the SS gain is 0 in this system, while the bit-error ratio is 0.4623 when the information bandwidth is 2 MHz. If the information rate is also 2 MHz and the SS gain is 10 dB, the system bit-error ratio will be 0.3765. When the SS gain is 20 dB, the system bit-error ratio will be 0.1567. In essence, the influence of the information rate on the bit-error ratio is minimal. The channel bandwidth is enhanced when the information rate increases. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the bit-error ratio by increasing the SS gain in a practical SS communications system. In this system with true random-number sequences, a section of the sequence is used to represent digital "1" values, while a different section is used to represent digital "0" values. This processing method can double the noise margin of a SS communications system compared to one using orthogonal code.
In summary, the inherent periodicity of the pseudorandom sequences used in traditional SS communications systems limits the capacities of those systems. In the proposed SS scheme, improved capacity and security can be achieved.
ZHANG ZHAO-XIA, Lecturer, College of Physics and Optoelectronics, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, People's Republic of China, and State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, People's Republic of China; (+86) 13803436295.
TONG HAI-LI, Postgraduate Student, College of Information Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, People's Republic of China.
ZHANG JIAN-ZHONG, Lecturer, College of Physics and Optoelectronics, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, People's Republic of China.
XIAO BAO-JIN, Professor, College of Information Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, People's Republic of China.
This project was supported by the Special Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60927007) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60872019), and was an open subject of the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves (Grant No: K201108). | <urn:uuid:c78f0acc-9b35-4e69-8e39-d1512d51486c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mwrf.com/print/systems/ss-method-employs-novel-encryption | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883594 | 3,283 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Basilique du Sacré Coeur
The Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Montmartre is one of the finest landmarks in Paris. Montmartre is so named because it is the place of martyrdom (c.250) of St Denis, Bishop of Paris and patron of France. After suffering defeat in the Franco-Prussian was of 1870-71, French society was divided and the Communard uprising in Paris led to atrocities on both sides. The Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, was among those executed. Alexandre Legentil and Hubert Rohault de Fleury proposed the building of a Church consecrated to the Heart of Christ in reparation and for the spiritual welfare of France. Their idea was taken up by the Church in France which proposed a National Vow. The building of the Basilica was financed by donations from Catholics in parishes throughout France.
It is quite a walk up to the top but there is also a funicular railway:
Since 1885, there has been perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, day and night, without interruption. The Basilica is therefore reserved as a place of prayer - the taking of photographs inside the Church is forbidden and therefore I copied this picture, taken by Matthew Clemente, from Wikipedia Commons:
From the area in front of the Basilica there is a good view across Paris:
To the left of the next picture, you can see the Cathedral of Notre Dame:
Behind the Basilica there are crowded squares and streets with restaurants, tourist shops, and artists selling their goods and offering to do portraits. It was warm enough to eat lunch outside. | <urn:uuid:0d30c0e9-b857-4ac6-8052-a38d05281f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/03/basilique-du-sacre-coeur.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966275 | 340 | 2.53125 | 3 |
I already told you that all angles should be in radians - or you keep getting 2pi all over the place. For a start - your derivative is only correct if ω is in radians. Look up differentiating trig functions - basics of. Degrees suck in Science. Radians will be used all over the Universe (literally) by any civilisation with Maths but degrees are totally arbitrary.
I don't know what those equations mean as you didn't define the variables so it is not possible to derive them.
The "w" on the left hand side is not omega! And what is the theta? Is this describing a tortional vibration? Those angles aren't the same angles as the angular velocity in the vibration cycle. See how confusing it is when the variables aren't defined. | <urn:uuid:2e7dec06-a960-4db0-8675-493f6cf5c0b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=4267481&postcount=16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931496 | 163 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Projects & Facilities
About The Database
Programs & Activities
of the Interior
Rehabilitation of privately developed irrigation facilities on the 880 acre Avondale Project by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1954-1955 required the reconstruction of a pumping plant at the source of supply, Hayden Lake, and the construction of an elevated equalizing tank with a main water line and distribution system for sprinkler irrigation. However, the water source is now four deep wells drilled by the Avondale Irrigation District in lieu of pumping from Hayden Lake. Farming is on a part-time basis and subdividing continues since this is a popular resort area which also offers industrial employment.
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The water supply for the project had been pumped from Hayden Lake, which has a drainage area of 62 square miles, with an average annual inflow of 45,000 acre-feet. Three small irrigation districts, Avondale, Dalton Gardens, and Hayden Lake were using water from the lake.
In 1955, reconstructed facilities by the Bureau of Reclamation were placed in operation. These consisted of a pumphouse, two pumps, one 6,684-cubic-foot (50,000-gal) elevated steel equalizing reservoir, and 2,400 feet of 24-inch steel pipe for the main line, which delivered water to the distribution lines. Ninety-six irrigation turnouts were located so that a turnout was available for every 5 acres. Zoning valves and draining valves were subsequently installed for domestic water supply use.
The pumphouse, on Hayden Lake about 0.25 mile east of the district lands, houses two 6.7- cubic-feet-per-second capacity horizontal centrifugal-type pumps. The pumps are designed to operate against a total dynamic head of 215 feet. The discharge line is 24 inches in diameter and 450 feet long terminating at the equalizing reservoir which is about 130 feet and is equipped with automatic pump control facilities.
The State of Idaho, by court decree, issued a mandate that the water level of Hayden Lake is not to fall below 2,230.0 feet in elevation. This action was instrumental in the irrigation district's decision to develop a groundwater supply by drilling three deep wells in 1977. Two wells are 380 feet deep, 20 inches in diameter, and equipped with 350-horsepower pumps, each rated at 4.7 cubic feet per second. The third well is 405 feet deep, 16 inches in diameter, and has a 200-horsepower pump capable of producing 2.7 cubic feet per second. Total capacity of the three wells is about 12 cubic feet per second. A new 7,700-foot-long discharge line of 18- and 20-inch pipe delivers water from the three wells to the equalizing reservoir. These facilities replaced the pumping plant on Hayden Lake. However, the irrigation district has retained the Hayden Lake pumping plant as a standby facility.
A fourth well was acquired in the early 1990's and is looped into the distribution system. This well is 260 feet deep and is equipped with a 75-horsepower deep well pump rated at 1 cubic feet per second. In addition, a 700,000 gallon storage/regulating tank was constructed in the spring of 1990.
Sprinkler irrigation pressure is maintained at a minimum of 35 pounds per square inch at the farm turnouts. Meters have been installed at all turnouts, both irrigation and domestic.
Operation and maintenance is performed by the Avondale Irrigation District.
Logging, mining, and construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad brought settlers to the Hayden Lake area during the 1880`s, expanding the market for local agricultural products. Although numerous irrigation schemes were promoted during the 1890`s to stimulate land sales, little in the way of irrigation construction was accomplished until after 1900. The Avondale development was one of several small irrigation ventures undertaken by private interests in this vicinity during 1900-1910. Like the others, it was developed as a fruit-raising area. The Avondale Unit originated in 1906 as the Avondale Stock Farms. It was organized in 1908 as the Avondale Irrigation Company, and a reorganization in 1912 established it as an irrigation district.
The original irrigated tracts consisted of 5 to 10 acres. Many of the tracts have been subdivided and resubdivided and only in a few instances have holdings been consolidated into ownerships exceeding 10 acres. Most of the tracts are now used as suburban residences or part-time farms and there are approximately 1,300 user accounts.
The original facilities, abandoned when the system was installed in 1954, consisted of a single pump having a capacity of 7 cubic feet per second, a 720-foot woodstave, low-pressure discharge line connected to a concrete pipeline, three small low-head wooden storage tanks, and a low-pressure pipe distribution system. The pumping plant was installed at Hayden Lake in 1922 on the foundation of one installed in 1906.
Several plans for rehabilitation and betterment of the irrigation system were studied and submitted to the district`s directors for selection of the most desirable plan to satisfy the needs of the water users.
The Avondale Irrigation District had been regarded initially by the Bureau of Reclamation as a possible unit of a much larger potential development known as the Rathdrum Prairie Project. The eastern divisions of this project consisted of three small irrigation districts that pumped their water supply from Hayden Lake-Avondale, Dalton Gardens, and Hayden Lake. The Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1954 designated the Avondale and Dalton Gardens Projects for separate reconstruction.
However, during the 1953 irrigation season, frequent failure of the 50-year-old irrigation system brought an appeal for reconstruction assistance. Each district submitted a separate plan for reconstruction since a greater delay would ensue if applications were submitted concurrently and separate reconstruction was authorized with the Avondale Irrigation District forming the Avondale Project, the Dalton Gardens Irrigation District, the Dalton Gardens Project, and the Hayden Lake Irrigation District becoming a `unit` of the Rathdrum Prairie Project.
The Department of Interior Appropriation Act, 1954, the Act of July 31, 1953 (67 Stat. 261, Public Law 83-172), authorized the emergency rehabilitation of the Avondale Project. Further emergency rehabilitation of the pipe system was authorized by the Act of September 22, 1961 (75 Stat. 588, Public Law 87-289). The authorized project purpose is irrigation.
Rehabilitation of the irrigation works began July 22, 1954, and was completed June 10, 1955. Emergency pipe rehabilitation work began in 1962 and was completed in 1964. The three wells were drilled and pumps were installed in 1977, with funds furnished by the irrigation district.
A fourth well was acquired in the early 1990's as part of an annexation. In addition, a 700,000 gallon storage/reregulating reservoir was constructed by the irrigation district in the spring of 1990.
Although fruit production was the major enterprise during the early years of the Avondale irrigation venture, there has been a gradual shift to pasture and hay crops. Most of the farm units are operated on a part-time basis and are used to produce food for the family or as rural homesites.
The Avondale Project lands are adjacent to a popular resort and recreation area along Hayden Lake. There are many permanent residences along the lakeshore. Several nearby lakes and streams offer excellent recreation opportunities which attract tourists from all over the United States and Canada. | <urn:uuid:2b88982a-56e3-4640-bc40-efa41a16fe49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Avondale+Project | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962019 | 1,532 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Found via mental_floss:
Pirate flags weren’t always just white skull and crossbones on a field of black. There were many different versions and the symbols on them represented different things. A plain black flag represented the death of a crew member, an hourglass represented the swift passage of time, and a wounded heart indicated danger. The flag to the left is attributed to Blackbeard.
Read the other 9 Myths at mental_floss.
Image courtesy of: earlg | <urn:uuid:7c49d489-7c74-4f76-9b63-be9d5a080078> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historyonair.com/2009/09/10-pirate-myths-and-surprises/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905037 | 103 | 2.8125 | 3 |
For nearly half a century, Fort Pitt stood formidable at the forks of the great Ohio River
. A keystone to British domination in the territory during the French and Indian War
’s Rebellion, it was the most technologically advanced fortification in the Western Hemisphere. Early Patriots later seized the fort, and it became a rallying point for the fledgling Revolution. Guarding the young settlement of Pittsburgh
, Fort Pitt was the last point of civilization at the edge of the new American West. With vivid detail, historian Brady Crytzer traces the full history of Fort Pitt, from empire outpost to a bastion on the frontlines of a new republic.
The Ohio River, the largest contributor of water to the Mississippi, flows generally east to west and represents the boundary between several states. There were three wars that collectively have been called the French and Indian Wars, culminating in King George's War, which is sometimes referred to simply as the French and Indian War. | <urn:uuid:1218175d-d659-4440-ab85-fb24fc78a9c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newoh.ohwy.com/progs/history/byml.cfm?record=330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959505 | 193 | 3.953125 | 4 |
The American medical system has the latest technology, the greatest variety of new drugs and unparalleled resources. But anyone who thinks we’re getting something great for our dollars inevitably encounters a two-word rebuke: infant mortality.
The United States is the richest nation on Earth, but it comes in 29th in the world in survival rates among babies. This mediocre ranking is supposed to make an irrefutable case for health care reform. If we cared enough to insure everyone, we are told, we would soon rise to the health standards of other modern nations. It’s just a matter of getting over our weird resistance to a bigger government role in medical care.
But not every health issue is a health care issue. The reason boxers are unusually prone to concussions is not that they lack medical insurance. Doctors may treat head injuries, but it’s a lot easier to prevent them. Absent prevention, we shouldn’t blame the medical industry for punch-drunk fighters.
Like life expectancy, infant mortality is a function of many factors. The more you look at the problem the less it seems to be correctable by a big new federal role in medical insurance — and, in fact, the less it seems to be mainly a medical issue at all.
No one denies the problem. Our infant mortality rate is double that of Japan or Sweden. But we live different lives, on average, than people in those places. We suffer more obesity (about 10 times as much as the Japanese), and we have more births to teenagers (seven times more than the Swedes). Nearly 40 percent of American babies are born to unwed mothers.
Factors like these are linked to low birth weight in babies, which is a dangerous thing. In a 2007 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists June O’Neill and Dave O’Neill noted that “a multitude of behaviors unrelated to the health care system such as substance abuse, smoking and obesity” are connected “to the low birth weight and preterm births that underlie the infant death syndrome.”
African-American babies are far more likely to die than white ones, which is often taken as evidence that poverty and lack of health insurance are to blame. That’s entirely plausible until you notice another racial/ethnic gap: Hispanics of Mexican or Central or South American ancestry not only do consistently better than blacks on infant mortality, they do better than ) whites. Social disadvantage doesn’t explain very much.
Nor does access to prenatal care, as the health care critique implies. It used to be assumed that if you assured that pregnant low-income women could see a physician, their infants would do much better. Not necessarily.
When New York expanded access to prenatal care under Medicaid, the effort reduced the rate of low birth weight infants by just 1 percent. In Tennessee, after a similar effort, researchers found “no concomitant improvements in use of early prenatal care, birth weight or neonatal mortality.”
So why does our infant mortality rate exceed that of, say, Canada, where health care is free at the point of service? One reason is that we have a lot more tiny newborns. But underweight babies don’t fare worse here than in Canada — quite the contrary.
The NBER paper points out that among the smallest infants, survival rates are better on this side of the border. What that suggests is that if we lived under the Canadian health care system, we would not have a lower rate of infant mortality. We would have a higher one.
A lot of things could be done to keep babies from dying in this country. But the health care “reform” being pushed in Washington is not one of them.
• • •
Steve Chapman blogs daily at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman. | <urn:uuid:ff03e94d-36ae-4f62-a38e-4f78e4adc635> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pbcommercial.com/sections/opinion/columns-and-blogs/health-care-and-infant-mortality.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956643 | 796 | 2.515625 | 3 |
It would be nice if all the type O’s lived in one part of the world, and all the type A’s in another. However, this does not happen --much. The various blood groups are found pretty much all over the world. However they are not found in the same frequency everywhere. It was this difference in the frequency of the different blood types that gave the early blood type detectives their first insights into human individuality.
Soon after the ABO blood groups were discovered by Karl Landsteiner in the early 1900’s, scientists began to think about using them as a tool to help study the differences between populations. One of the first to begin using blood type in this manner was a husband and wife team, Ludwik and Hanka Hirszfeld. During World War I, they took blood samples from the soldiers of three continents then assembled in the area of Greece called Macedonia as “The Allied Army of the East.” In reality this army was a hodgepodge of battered contingents and survivors from various Allied nations which did little more than stay put in camp and suffer from constant epidemics. However the Hirszfelds realized that the international nature of this army presented opportunities of examining the serological properties of the blood of a large number of soldiers or civilians belonging to very different races.
They established three categories: One marked by a high percentage of subjects of blood type A and a low percentage of blood type B and which seemed to include the majority of European races (European type); A second showing on the contrary a high percentage of blood type B and a low one of blood type A, comprising Asians and Ethiopians (Asian-African type); and a last category containing approximately equal quantities of blood types A and B made up of Russians, Turks, Arabs and Jews, which they called an intermediate type.
The Hirszfelds invented an interesting and useful tool called the Hirszfeld Biochemical Index and which conveniently lets us express the ratio of blood group A to B in any population. The formula is very simple; you add up the number of blood type A and AB individuals in a population and then divide it by the number of blood type B and AB individuals. As so:
Hirszfeld Biochemical Index = [A + AB] /[B + AB]
Thus, the higher the Hirszfeld Biochemical Index of a population, the more blood type A people in that population over blood type B people in it; the lower, the more blood type B over A. The highest number in the Hirszfeld Biochemical Index (most As, least Bs) was found among the English troops (4.5); the lowest (most Bs, least As) were found in the Indian (0.5) and Vietnamese troops (0.8).
The work of the Hirszfelds would look crude in comparison to later, more sophisticated methods, and it suffers from the problems of all single-gene examinations of human diversity, that is there a no “pure races” to be identified by a single marker. But their discovery, published in 1919, did give rise to a considerable number of subsequent investigations, producing an enormous mass of documents of varying merit.
The arrival of blood typing signaled a new era in physical anthropology, since up to now the field had been limited to many of the physical measurements that I’ve previously described. Here now was a serologic, or blood marker, simple and easy to perform.
One of the first to begin using blood types as an anthropological tool was none other than William Boyd, who I’ve mentioned early in connection with the debunking of racism. In the years after the First World War, Boyd compiled the abundant blood group data coming from transfusion centers throughout the world. With his wife Lyle, during the 1930's, Boyd made a worldwide survey of the distribution of blood types. On this basis, he divided the world population into 13 geographically distinct races with different blood group genetic profiles. He also studied the blood groups of Egyptian and Amerindian mummies.
William Boyd appears to be one of those fascinating people who go on to dominate an entire area of research for a generation. It seems as if his creativity knew no bounds: I’ve already mentioned of his important work with Isaac Asimov used his work with blood types in Races and People to demolish the racist notions then commonly believed in this country during the 1950's; and here we are discussing his work on blood types and anthropology. But William Boyd accomplished much, much more than that. In the 1940’s Boyd noticed that the protein agglutinin in lima bean would agglutinate red cells of human blood type A but not those of O or B; he had in fact discovered that many of the of these blood agglutinins were actually specific to one blood type or another. With Elizabeth Shapely he coined their modern-day name; lectins which is Latin for “to pick or choose.”
Boyd wrote some excellent science fiction (under the name Boyd Ellanby) including two well-known books, 'Category Phoenix' in 1952 and 'Chain Reaction' in 1956. He also authored the Fundamentals of Immunology, one of the first Immunology textbooks for medical students.
By 1950 Boyd had determined about 20 genes for outward appearance traits that are recessive for typical Asians and/or Europeans but homozygous dominant for Africans. These recessive genes include the 6 to 8 genes for light skin color, the genes for blue eyes, gray eyes, blond hair, red hair, thin lips, straight hair, sacral spot, lack of facial hair (beards), narrow nose shape, and some others.
After the Second World War, William Boyd's baton as compiler of blood group data from around the world passed to the Englishman Arthur E. Mourant.
A native of Jersey in the Channel Islands, Mourant received a degree in geology, but as this was Depression-Era Britain, he was unable to find a job. His very strict Methodist upbringing had caused him considerable emotional unhappiness, which he hoped to resolve by becoming a psychoanalyst. To that end he decided to begin by first study medicine.
To avoid the German bombing raids on the capital, his medical school was moved from London to Cambridge, and it was here that he met Ronald Fisher, the most influential geneticist of his day. Fisher, a brilliant eccentric who we will meet again, had been working out the genetics of the new blood groups which were being discovered, and he had become fascinated by the particularly convoluted inheritance of one of them – the Rhesus blood group. Fisher found him a job at once, and the meticulous Mourant spent the rest of his working life compiling and interpreting the most detailed blood group frequency distribution maps ever produced. He never did become a psychoanalyst.
In the early 1600’s Pierre De Lancre, a French witch hunter, speculated why the Basque area seemed to harbor so many witches. He thought the problem stemmed from their great numbers in the various Jesuit missionaries, with all their evangelizing, which had affected them with demons from far-off places that they had carried back to Spain. De Lancre also thought that there early adoption of tobacco use may also be working on their minds. He held Basque women in special contempt, saying that they produced only undersized and cursed children who died.
As Mark Kurlansky recounts in The Basque History Of The World, this last accusation may have had a ring of truth to it, since Basques are renowned among anthropologists for their strikingly high percentage of individuals who have the Rhesus Negative (Rh-) blood type genotype (dd): 60% compared to an average of 16% for the rest of Europe. When a mother is Rh- and she gives birth to Rh+ children, an immune reaction can occur which gives rise to a hemolytic (“blood destroying”) anemia, and often would lead to the death of the child.
Mourant suggested that modern day Basques have other characteristics which may mark them as descendants of the late Paleolithic population of Western Europe: They share a skeletal resemblance to Cro-Magnon man and they are the only Western European people who do not speak a Indo-European language. | <urn:uuid:46f8d988-87ff-4b95-9cd3-ac7e039c8681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dadamo.com/B2blogs/blogs/index.php/serology:?blog=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96653 | 1,721 | 3.078125 | 3 |
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Given at the Australian Academy of Science - Mar 94
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Yesterday’s posting quoted John Adams using the word “caucus” (or “Caucas”) in his diary in 1763, the earliest recorded use of that term for a political meeting. However, there’s evidence that the word, and the custom, were much older.
The Rev. William Gordon’s History of the Independence of the United States of America, published in London in 1784, suggested that the caucus had been a Boston political institution since the first quarter of the century. Gordon (shown here) wasn’t a Boston native, but before and during the Revolution he was a minister in Roxbury and became close to the local Whigs, especially Samuel Adams. This passage implies Gordon got his information about the caucus from Adams himself:
More than fifty years ago Mr. Samuel Adams’ father and twenty others, one or two from the north end of the town where all the ship business is carried on, used to meet, make a caucus and lay their plan for introducing certain persons into places of trust and power.Samuel Adams was first elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1765. His father had been a selectman and town representative decades before.
When they had settled it they separated, and each used their particular influence within his own circle. He and his friends would furnish themselves with ballots, including the names of the parties fixed upon, which they distributed on the days of election. By acting in concert, together with a careful and extensive distribution of ballots, they generally carried their elections to their own mind.
In like manner it was that Mr. Samuel Adams first became a representative for Boston.
Gordon presented his 1784 history in the form of letters written during the events they describe, and this passage comes from a letter dated in 1774. If we take that year as the starting-point for his phrase “More than fifty years ago,” than Adams’s father had participated in caucuses before 1724, when he was in his thirties. That fits with the age of the caucus members John Adams listed in 1763.
I suspect the caucus tradition grew out of Boston’s first political machine based on popular support, assembled by Elisha Cooke, Jr. (1678-1737), in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Cooke held positions of influence for many years through the town meeting and legislature rather than through royal patronage. The largest town meeting in Boston history occurred in 1714, when he mustered opposition to the royal governor’s proposal for a private bank. But no historian is certain when Boston’s caucuses began.
TOMORROW: Opposition to the caucus in 1763. | <urn:uuid:5824d09a-ce14-47f4-8af4-074a20bc0823> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boston1775.blogspot.ca/2008/01/roots-of-boston-caucus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979906 | 556 | 3.21875 | 3 |
By Nathan Wei
One of the more difficult diseases to diagnose and treat properly is crystal induced arthritis.
Of the many types of arthritis that can affect multiple joints, crystal-induced, or as it is sometime referred to, crystal associated arthritis, is probably one of the most common. It may cause arthritis in a single joint, two or three joints, or many joints.
When arthritis affects a single joint, it is termed “monoarticular.” When it affects two or three joints is called “oligoarticular.” When the arthritis affects more than three joints, it is called “polyarticular.”
Crystal induced arthritis generally starts as an oligoarticular arthritis but often rapidly becomes polyarticular.
It may be accompanied by other symptoms such as fever and perhaps even chills. Usually, the joint pain from crystal arthritis comes on relatively suddenly and becomes intense after a few hours.
The joints involved swell, become red, become warm, and are exquisitely sensitive and painful. Often times swelling of the joint extends into the soft tissues beyond the joint.
There are three major types of crystal induced arthritis. The most common is gout. Gouty arthritis is due to deposits of monosodium urate (uric acid) crystals. The underlying abnormality is a metabolic defect that leads to over production of uric acid or inability to excrete (get rid of) uric acid.
Gouty arthritis often affects the feet during the first attack. In particular, the great toe joint is classically affected.
Over the course of months and years, attacks become more frequent and more intense. Deposits of uric acid may accumulate near joints and in soft tissues. These are called tophi.
Gout is generally more common in men than women. However, after menopause, women begin to develop gout more frequently. In particular, women who are on diuretic therapy may be susceptible to developing gout.
The danger is that untreated gout can lead to kidney failure.
The second most common type of crystal induced arthritis is calcium pyrophosphate arthritis. This is caused by deposits of calcium pyrophosphate crystals inside the joint. Joints most commonly affected include the shoulders, hips, knees, and wrists.
Calcium pyrophosphate arthritis, because of its symmetry, may be confused for other types of arthritis, particularly rheumatoid arthritis.
What is more confusing is that often times both calcium pyrophosphate arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis co-exist.
Calcium pyrophosphate arthritis is often called pseudogout. Pseudogout attacks most often occur in the knees and wrists. Pseudogout is much more common in people past the age of 60.
The third type of crystal induced arthritis is hydroxyapatite disease. This is a close cousin to calcium pyrophosphate disease.
Identification of the type of crystal induced arthritis is made by examining joint fluid under a polarizing microscope.
The establishment of a correct diagnosis is imperative.
Appropriate treatment may be administered only after a definite diagnosis has been made.
Crystal induced arthritis may be difficult to manage.
In addition to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, intra-articular steroid injection, physical therapy, and occupational therapy may be helpful. Unfortunately, treatments are generally unsatisfactory.
Some practitioners have used drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and methotrexate with some degree of success.
In addition, debridement of the affected joint using arthroscopy may be helpful.
It is my opinion that many people who have osteoarthritis often have crystal induced arthritis as well. This makes management much more difficult.
About the Author: Nathan Wei, MD FACP FACR is a board-certified rheumatologist and nationally known arthritis authority and expert. For more info: aa href=”http://www.arthritis-treatment-and-relief.com/arthritis-treatment.html” rel=’nofollow’>Arthritis Treatment and aa href= “http://arthritistreatmentcenter.com” rel=’nofollow’>Arthritis Treatment Center
Source: aa href=”http://www.isnare.com” rel=’nofollow’>www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: aa href=”http://www.isnare.com/?aid=940986&ca=Medicines+and+Remedies” rel=’nofollow’>http://www.isnare.com/?aid=940986&ca=Medicines+and+Remedies | <urn:uuid:4fe0ee74-41e6-4af4-8ba8-e3584c63ec8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://caseyalt.com/tag/crystal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928123 | 993 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Between Dependency and Liberty: The Conundrum of Children's Rights in the Gilded Age
David S. Tanenhaus
William S. Boyd School of Law, UNLV
Law and History Review, Vol. 23, No. 2
Although legal scholars often assume that the history of children's rights in the United States did not begin until the mid twentieth century, this essay argues that a sophisticated conception of children's rights existed a century earlier, and analyzes how lawmakers articulated it through their attempts to define the rights of dependent children. How to handle their cases raised fundamental questions about whether children were autonomous beings or the property of either their parents and/or the state. And, if the latter, what were the limits of parental authority and/or the power of the state acting as a parent? By investigating how the Illinois Supreme Court confronted the conundrum of children's rights in the Gilded Age, the essay reconstructs how lawmakers established a viable system for guaranteeing at-risk children due process protections as well as the positive rights of social citizenship. Significantly, this creative moment occurred at a transitional point in American legal history, when lawmakers began developing liberal constitutionalism. Given the subsequent difficulties that liberal constitutionalism has had in protecting children's due process rights, providing for their basic needs, and giving them a voice in the legal process, the essay contends that it is worth engaging this earlier history.
Keywords: children, law, history, children's rights, dependency, juvenile justice
JEL Classification: I30, Z00Accepted Paper Series
Date posted: December 7, 2007
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Archive for the ‘Discipleship’ Category
By Mark Mayberry
David was the second ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel, ancestor of Jesus Christ, and author of numerous Psalms. The record of his life is found in 1 Samuel 16-31; 2 Samuel 1-24; 1 Kings 1-2 and 1 Chronicles 10-29. He is described as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22; cf. 1 Sam. 13:13-14). No higher compliment could be given to a child of God. What caused the Lord to view David in this light? How is he an example to us?
David lived about 1000 years before Christ. His Hebrew name means “beloved” or possibly “chieftain.” His youth was spent in Bethlehem, situated about five miles south of Jerusalem in the district known as Ephrathah in Judah. The youngest of eight brothers (1 Sam. 16:10- 11; 17:12-14), David was the son of Jesse, a respected inhabitant of the city. His mother, tenderly remembered for her godliness, was described as the Lord’s “handmaid” (Psa. 86:15-16). As the youngest son, David kept his father’s sheep, leading them to pasture, providing for their needs, protecting them from danger.
As a result of his rebellion and disobedience, King Saul had forfeited God’s favor (1 Sam. 15:22-23). Afterwards the prophet Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint David as the future king of Israel (1 Sam. 16:1-13). No public pronouncement was made of this event. Many years passed before David would assume the throne. After facing many trials and tribulations, David ascended to power his thirtieth year and reigned for forty years (2 Sam. 5:4). In retrospect, this would be remembered as a golden age, the greatest period in the history of Israel.
God’s choice of David as the successor to King Saul was not based upon physical characteristics. Saul was a towering figure, head and shoulders above the average man (1 Sam. 10:22-23). Although he was beautiful of eyes and handsome in appearance (1 Sam. 16:12), God chose David because of his attitude of heart and mind (1 Sam. 16:6-7). We live in an age that emphasizes externals, but the Bible stresses the importance of the inner man (Psa. 51:6-7; Eph. 3:14-19).
Forsaken by God and troubled by an evil spirit, King Saul was subject to depression and periodic insanity. His attendants advised him to secure a harpist, whose music might soothe his spirit. Because he displayed outstanding musical talent with the harp, David was recommended for this task, and thus entered the service of Saul (1 Sam. 16:14-18, 23).
Despite having been anointed by Samuel as the future king of Israel, David did not develop a haughty attitude. As opportunity allowed, he continued to tend his father’s sheep (1 Sam. 17:15). When needed, he would play the harp for Saul, thus refreshing the troubled king’s spirit. Nevertheless, there was no boasting on his part. Rather, he viewed himself as a servant of the King (1 Sam. 17:32) and of God (Psa. 116:16). We should manifest the same humble attitude (Matt. 20:25-28; 1 Cor. 10:24; Phil. 2:3-4).
During this period, the Philistines were a continuing threat to Israel. On one occasion they invaded the hill country of Palestine, encamping 15 miles west of Bethlehem. Saul led the Israelite army to meet the enemy. Three of David’s brothers were in Saul’s army, and Jesse sent David to the battlefield to inquire about their welfare. Upon his arrival, David heard Goliath, champion of the Philistines, mocking the army of Israel (1 Sam. 17:8-10). The army of Israel was terrified and dismayed by Goliath, but not young David, who had complete confidence in the Lord (1 Sam. 17:26, 34-37).
Weighted with heavy armor, Goliath was equipped to engage in close-range combat. David’s strategy was to fight him at a distance. Taking five smooth stones from a brook, David faced Goliath with only a sling and his unflinching faith in God. Goliath fell, struck by a stone from David’s sling. His victory over the giant made him a national hero. We should manifest similar courage in serving God (Psa. 27:14; 31:23-24; 1 Cor. 16:13-14).
After the returning from the slaughter of the Philistines, the women of Israel met Saul with singing and dancing, saying “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten-thousands.” This greatly displeased King Saul, kindling a growing sense of jealousy and hostility toward David (1 Sam. 18:6-9).
Saul had promised to make the victor his son-in-law, presenting one of his daughters as his wife, agreeing to free the victor’s family from taxation. But after the battle, David was no longer allowed to return to his father’s house, but remained continually at the palace. On two occasions, Saul tried to kill David with a spear; he also gave his daughter, whom he had promised as David’s wife, to another man. As David’s popularity grew, Saul’s paranoia increased, until David was forced to flee from his murderous master.
David gathered a band of fugitives as his followers and fled from Saul. David waited patiently for God to carry out His purpose. On at least two occasions, David could have killed Saul while the king slept, but he refused to do so (1 Sam. 24:2-12; 26:6-25). He did not try to take matters into his own hands, even though he knew that so long as Saul was living, he could not be king. Rather, he believed that God would handle things in His own time and way. Disciples of Christ should manifest a similar attitude (Psa. 37:7-9; Lam. 3:26; Heb. 10:36-39).
When the Philistines battled Saul and his army at Gilboa, they were victorious, slaying Saul and his son, Jonathan, whom David loved as a dear friend. Hearing this sad news, he mourned their fate. He slew the Amalekite messenger who foolishly and falsely claimed to have killed King Saul (2 Sam. 1:6-27). Years later, David again manifested a tender, forgiving spirit toward his rebellious son, Absalom, who attempted to seize the throne (2 Sam. 18:33). We should have the same forgiving spirit toward those who would do us wrong (Mark 11:25; Luke 23:33-34; Eph. 4:31-32).
At Saul’s death the tribe of Judah, to whom David belonged, elected him as king of Judah and placed him on the throne in Hebron. The rest of the tribes of Israel set up Ishbosheth, Saul’s surviving son, as king at Mahanaim. For the next two years civil war raged between these two factions. It ended in the assassination of Ishbosheth, an event which saddened David.
After the death of Ishbosheth, David was elected king over all the people of Israel. He immediately began work to establish a United Kingdom. One of his first acts was to capture the fortified city of Jebus. Although the inhabitants boasted it was safe from capture, David and his army took it by storm. He then made it the capital city of his kingdom and erected his palace there. Afterwards known as Jerusalem, the new capital stood on the border of the southern tribe of Judah and the other tribal territories to the north. This location tended to calm the jealousies between the north and the south, contributing greatly to the unity of the kingdom.
Afterwards, David proceeded to re-establish and strengthen the worship of God. He moved the Ark of the Covenant from Kirjath-jearim and placed it within a tabernacle which he pitched in Jerusalem. Next, he organized the worship of Israel, especially regarding songs of praise, and began plans to build a house of worship. But God brought a halt to his plans, informing David that the task of constructing the Temple would be entrusted to his successor (2 Sam. 7:1-16; 1 Kings 8:18-21; 1 Chron. 22:7-10). David accepted this without question, and began gathering materials that Solomon would one day use to build the temple. As David endeavored to keep God’s precepts, we must also obey His commandments (Psa. 19:7-14; John 15:10; 1 Tim. 4:11-16).
To say that David was “a man after God’s own heart” does not mean that he was perfect. Although he was a righteous king, David was subject to sin, just like other human beings. His unlawful manner of transporting the ark of the covenant resulted in the tragic death of Uzzah (2 Sam. 6). He yielded to sinful desire, committing adultery with Bathsheba, and attempting to cover-up his transgression, David ordered the murder of her husband (cf. 2 Sam. 11-12). Afterwards, he disobeyed God by numbering Israel and Judah (cf. 2 Sam. 24; 1 Chron. 21).
The Bible does not gloss over human weakness; instead, it presents its subjects accurately and honestly, a mixture of strength and weakness. David was confronted by the prophet Nathan, who courageously exposed his wrongdoing. Faced with his sin, David freely confessed, demonstrating genuine penitence (Psa. 32:1-7; 51:1-4). We also should evidence similar penitence (Prov. 28:13; Matt. 5:4; 1 John 1:8-9).
Although David committed deep sin, he still was known as a man who sought God’s will. He was willing to repent of his wrongdoing and rededicate himself to serving God. His influence for good in the life of his nation was great, since every king after David was compared to the standard which he established.
God forgave David of his shameful actions, the consequences of the sin continued to plague him. The child born to David and Bathsheba died. The example he set as a father was a bad influence on his sons. One son, Amnon, raped and humiliated his half-sister. Another son, Absalom, rebelled against David and tried to take away his kingdom by force. Forgiveness does not necessarily eliminate consequences. One can pull nails out of a board, but the scars remain.
David died when he was 71 years old, having been king for a total of over 40 years, including both his reign in Hebron and his kingship over the United Kingdom.
A capable musician, David unquestionably gave great encouragement to this fine art in the life of his people. As a warrior and military man, he was resourceful and courageous. As a king, David was without equal in the life of his nation. As a religious leader, he was exceptional. His psalms continue to be the favorite devotional literature for honest souls who seek a closer walk with God.
The Jewish historian Josephus praised David by saying, “This man was of an excellent character, and was endowed with all the virtues that were desirable in a king.” But even higher praise came from God Himself through the speech of Stephen in the Book of Acts. Stephen quoted the Lord as declaring, “I have found David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22).
Do these characteristics describe your life? Are you spiritually-minded, humble, courageous and faithful, patient, forgiving, obedient and penitent? If these qualities are present in your life, you too can be a person after God’s own heart.
Sources: Donald P. Ames, “A Man After God’s Own Heart,” Preach The Word, ed. Earl E. Robertson, (Fairmount, IN: Guardian of Truth Foundation, 1981), p. 1-3. Extensively Revised. Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Herbert Lockyer, Sr. (Seattle, WA: BibleSoft & Nashville: TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1986), s.v. “David.” | <urn:uuid:bd9cee9d-afa8-4619-8f2d-4e83b13b27f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ascoc.org/?cat=83 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972534 | 2,690 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The definition of power is highly contested. Power is defined to be an abstract entity that enables a person to make others do what one wants them to do. Power is gained through many ways that include wealth, religion, knowledge and politics. Economic power is exercised by rich people upon poor. Religious power is exercised by religious leaders upon disciples and followers. Academic power is shared by academicians with their colleagues and pupils. Political power is imposed by governors over the governed. In many forms of power, the exerciser of power is virtually free from the one whom he or she exercises the power upon because the power holder does not hold any bond from the ones upon which their power is exercised. To be the power holders, there are specific criteria and qualifications but it is not equally applicable to political power holders in at least two counts: first, political power holders do not generally hold any particular qualifications except that they are the member of a particular party and there are no qualifications to be a member of party except that one is the citizen of the country where the party is formed and functioning; second, the exercisers of political power hold a crystal clear contract with the governed that they govern in the interest of the governed therefore it is transitory.
The contract is between the rulers and the ruled. Generally, the rulers go to the people, present their job-list or policies that they want to implement if they are elected and mandated by the people but if they fail, people hold right to oust such rulers. This principle vest sovereignty in the hand of the people and has been widely practised in modern representative democracy. Nepal is also conjectured by the political parties and particularly whoever is on the power to be such a representative democracy. But in the context of Nepal, it is limited in virtual understanding because an analysis of post 1990 political scenarios of Nepal does not provide convincing evidence to be so. Even the whole history ever since Kathmandu became the capital of modern Nepal in 1769 lacks the evidence of people friendly rule. For example, the pre-Rana regime rulers were mostly involved in war for the greater extension of Nepal which could be the reflections of then existing trends of building empire across the world. Indeed, Nepal was united during this period and we are proud of being Nepali today even if the rulers were busy at calculating the influence of their power.
Nepal fought Anglo-Nepal war in 1814 and had been forced to sign the treaty of Sugauli in 1816. We must be proud of our ancestors for their sacrifice to maintain the existence of Nepal. Yet, Sugaili treaty was a way to distract British by then Nepalese rulers in the favour of clinging to power. Later Jung Bahadur became the Prime Minister of Nepal in 1846 and the Kot Scandal was also another example of attempts to reach to political power that freely allowed Ranarchy to continue until 1950. Ranas did everything to prevent dissent. During this period, people were deprived of educational, social and political rights. For example, the literacy rate of 1951 was 2 per cent in Nepal. The Peace and Friendship treaty of 1950 signed by Mohan Shamsher along with a secret letter with India was the telling evident of then rulers to maintain the rein of power in their hand. Post 1990 politics also include many examples such as the attempts of late GP Koirala to remain in the power forever by capturing chairman position of Nepali Congress and chair of the Prime Minister of Nepal; the decision of Sher Bahadur Deuba to dissolve the parliament and go for fresh election in 2002 which gave a chance to ex-king Gyanendra consolidate his power for direct rule in 2005.
Maoists people’s war for 10 years that had begun in 1996 and ended in 2006 at Jana Andolan II is also a power seeking agenda. Seven Party Alliance plus Maoists had collectively revolted against absolute monarchy for the transfer of power from monarch to the people. These alliance were also seeking power though in different way because the movement had widespread participation of general public and civil society organizations such as associations of lawyers, teachers, doctors, nurses, university teachers, journalists, students and many others. Public and civil society had high expectations for peace, security, harmonious society, economic growth and development therefore the participation was so huge. Yet the expectations of the people have not yet materialized due to the power game of the political parties. Many complain that only characters have changed in politics not system. This is evidently true.
People gave a clear mandate to the Constituent Assembly to complete peace process, constitution writing process and take the decision on the fate of monarchy within two years timeframe from April 2008 to May 2010. The power game of forming and toppling governments remained pervasive during this period which put the main issues of CA agenda aside. Several extensions had been made along with blatant public spending from taxpayers’ money or from international loan/aid. Every time the political parties acted as if the CA was the parliament: government and opposition. In these last four years, each of these political parties always used the term ‘consensus and national coalition government’ but in practise that never took place. Some parties joined the government and other became opponents as if they were debating policies. They even forgot the actual purpose of the CA.
Only in the last four year time, we had five different governments. Five Prime Ministers, many deputy prime ministers and the floods of ministers and state ministers. Indeed, no one can remember their names and respective ministries except the data. The four different prime minister candidates, two from UML and two from UCPN (M), always barked that they would take the peace process and constitution writing to the logical end but these things never happened. It does not mean nothing happened in these last four year time. Some grave transformations have occurred such as republic from monarchy, secular from Hindu, inclusive and proportional representation, 33 per cent representation of women in state’s mechanisms and nearing conclusion of peace process. However, these achievements have not well been institutionalized yet. And there are many more challenges ahead such as completing lasting peace process, drafting constitution, minimizing the threats of potential communal disintegrity, equal right of every citizen irrespective of any caste, race, gender, ethnic or non-ethnic groups are a few among many others.
These are uphill challenges before political leaders. Time has been crucial and it has demanded actions but the power-prone nature of political leaders is dilapidating the favourable environment. Leaders, if there is any, should understand that political power and legitimacy is gained through the consent of people and if people withdraw their consent, both power and legitimacy becomes fraught. The current government of Nepal does not hold any legitimacy in this sense because the legitimacy Baburam Bhattarai had had at the time of becoming PM is entirely lost now. The two major and many small parties do not support his leadership. His own party has been split. The fight between Dahal and Baburam factions during the plenum of UCPN (Maoist) sends signal that the ruling party is in pitiable minority. Therefore, Baburam should not consider that time has come for him to step down in order to form a new national consensus government to complete the remaining tasks either through fresh elections or referendum. His clinging onto power might make sense to him but history has evidently shown that power unsupported by people crumbles like a sand castle when some drops of water fall on it. | <urn:uuid:b1453780-27ad-4276-b6bd-a73a928aa15c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nepalnews.com/home/index.php/top-column-hidden-menu/20281-power-democracy-and-nepal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975679 | 1,510 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Alternate Entry Name: _EPOST
B: .epost( errnum, format, arg1, arg2, ... );
C: void _epost(int errnum, const char *format, ...);
.EPOST "posts" an error message. This means that the message is formatted using the "format" string and arguments, then is saved in memory for later retrieval.
For example, suppose that a program encounters an error but wants to perform some clean-up or error recovery operations before it issues an error message to the user. The program may use .EPOST to create and save an appropriate error message, then perform whatever clean-up actions are necessary. Later on, it can retrieve the message and actually output it. Formatting the message before cleaning up may let you create a more informative message, since the clean-up process may get rid of data which would be useful to include in the message.
Only one message can be posted at a time. Thus each call to .EPOST overwrites the message posted by the previous call.
There are several ways to retrieve a posted message:
msg = .strer(errnum);
assigns "msg" a pointer to a string holding the text of the currently posted message, provided that the specified "errnum" matches the error number of the posted message. Once you have obtained this message pointer, you can output it in the usual way (e.g. with PRINTF).
outputs the "prefix" string followed by the posted error message, provided that the current value of "errno" matches the error number of the posted message.
expl b lib .strer
expl b lib io.err
expl b lib .perror
Copyright © 1996, Thinkage Ltd. | <urn:uuid:8fdd4c35-11b6-4cdb-8a83-73cf09da4e8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkage.ca/english/gcos/expl/b/lib/0epost.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.739209 | 369 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Simple answer - it's complicated!
The world was very different in 1776 than it was in 1867 or 1900.
The US war of independance followed the movement/ideas that led to the French revolution and was a real political/philosophical difference in how you should run a country. It was also concentrated in a few large cities with a large established political class. At the same time Canada, NZ and Australia were much more sparsely populated by people who were mostly much newer immigrants and still thought of themselves as British so there was no real 'independence' movement.
The formation of these three into separate countries was a much more gentle gradual process and generally fairly peaceful. I think there was a genuine feeling that their economies, population etc was big enough to stand on their own and there was no legitimate reason to stop them - better as friendly 'cousins' than prisoners.
India, the remaining bits of Africa and the Caribbean following WWII was more a combination of, "we can't afford them", "we just fought a war for freedom we can't really justify our own Reich" and the Bomb+Cold war makes the empire pretty irrelevant anyway.
Why Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales didn't get separated then?
At the time? Because either their economies and population didn't support it or were much
much more interlinked with England's. Ireland is a bit of a special case - there were political/religious reasons for it being independent which overrode other concerns | <urn:uuid:65a728e6-278e-4323-b2fc-bc19447bd126> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/1785/why-did-canada-australia-and-new-zealand-separate-from-uk/2038 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988151 | 305 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The caliber .308 Winchester (Also known as 7.62mm NATO or 7.62 x 51 mm) Was developed by the North American army between 1940/1950 and in 1952 Winchester introduced in the civilian market under the name of .308 Winchester. In 1954 it was adopted by NATO.The development of this new caliber occurred after the World War II, trailing the 7.92 Kurz. This cartridge was developed in the German end of the 2nd War for the new weapon StG44. The 7.92 Kurz was developed after research of the German High Command concluded that the 7.92 Mauser in use was more powerful than necessary because the fighting of War 2 were very different from the First (to combat short distance and rapid movement of troops fighting versus long distance with entire armies entrenched ). So it was decided that a smaller cartridge with range of 800 meters , would be ideal for the " new " war. The 7.92 Kurz is basically a shortened Mauser 7.92 . Probably some copies of this cartridge German fell into the hands of the Allies and the Russians who , realizing the new possibilities of new ammunition , quickly developed their short : the 7.62 x51mm American, a 30-06 Springfield (cartridge used by the U.S. military America at the 2nd World War) and the shortened 7.62 x39mm Russian, a 7.62 x54mmR the Mosin -Nagant used by the Russians in the 2nd War shortened. The new cartridges were " mere " shortenings cartridge pre-existing because it facilitates the conversion of weapons of a caliber to another.
Soon after the adoption of a new cartridge after the war by the Americans , the cartridge was adopted as standard by NATO. The funny fact is that a .280 Enfield cartridge ran with the 7.62 x51mm for the standard to be eventually lost . Sixty years after the army - American (who strongly " encouraged " to adopt the 7.62 x51mm ) is testing a new cartridge of the same caliber of the .280 Enfield, the 6.8 Rem SPC mm . | <urn:uuid:511adab7-a662-4020-9a04-1e6bc6b41a8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://military.wikia.com/wiki/7.62x51mm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957744 | 431 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Radiation Effects Research Foundation
The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) Studies of Japanese Atomic-bomb Survivors
In 1947 President Harry Truman authorized the National Academy of Sciences to develop studies to document the long-term health effects of exposures from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The resulting organization, originally called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), but reorganized in 1975 as RERF with joint Japanese and American support, began the systematic follow-up in 1950 of the mortality experience of a group of 120,000 persons, both males and females of all ages, known as the Life Span Study (LSS). Based on national census information, this included as many as possible of those who were within 2.5 km of the hypocenter (the ground location directly beneath the bomb) and a random subsample, matched on age and sex, of the much larger numbers who had been between 2.5 and 10 km from the hypocenter. It also included about 26,000 who were not in the cities at the time of the bombing but resided there as of 1950. In 1958, a biennial systematic clinical examination program (Adult Health Study; AHS) was begun for a subsample of about 20,000 members of the LSS. Subsequently a sample of about 77,000 offspring of atomic bomb survivors, born in 1946-1984, was formed for mortality follow-up. Cancer registries were formed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1958, the first such registries in Japan, to document the incidence of cancer among atomic bomb survivors and their offspring. The LSS, AHS and offspring studies continue to this day, and worldwide have been the primary basis for estimating the health risks from ionizing radiation exposure.
Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF)
5-2 Hijiyama Park
Minami-ku Hiroshima 732-0815
National Academies Staff in Residence at RERF | <urn:uuid:c4c1e12b-2dfd-42e5-967d-3afb9db0e5f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dels-old.nas.edu/global/nrsb/rerf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919342 | 395 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Environment Canada says we throw away 4 million disposable diapers a day! Most of them go into landfills – making up about 2% of the garbage there and taking hundreds of years or more to decompose. What’s more, disposables cost parents $2,400 during baby’s first two and a half years.
Cloth diapers cost less – especially if you launder them yourself – but in terms of “impact” they’re not necessarily better on the environment, thanks to the water and detergent used to clean them. It turns out that diapers are a matter of personal choice. If you do opt for cloth, be sure to use biodegradable, phosphatefree detergent.
Here are some cost-saving baby ideas that are also green:
• Scout out gently used baby clothes at garage sales and consignment shops, and on Craigslist, eBay and Freecycle.
• Make your own food instead of buying all those little glass jars. Pureeing vegetables is quick, simple, healthy and cost-effective.
• Nurse your baby instead of feeding formula. You’ll save about $40 a week, it’s healthier, and there’s no manufacturing, packaging or shipping involved.
$40 a week by nursing
the glass in 600 jars by pureeing your own baby food.
Another important green baby issue has to do with the furniture in your nursery. Some scientists believe that crib death may actually be caused by flame-retardant chemicals – called PBDEs – in beds and mattresses, which become poisonous when they interact with common household fungi. Keep your baby safe by choosing organic, chemical-free mattresses and bedding. For all-natural crib mattresses, visit the website of manufacturer Hästens at www.hastens.com.
Go green action steps
• If you choose disposable diapers, be sure to buy the greenest ones available, such as Nature Boy & Girl, which are made with cornstarch instead of plastic (www.natureboyandgirl.net). Or try Seventh Generation’s, which are made without chlorine (www.seventhgeneration.com).
• Check out the gDiapers website at www.gdiapers.com. gDiapers are a blend of cloth and disposable diapers. They combine a cotton outer-pant with a waterproof liner that can both be washed and reused. Then you slide a disposable pad into the liner, which can be flushed, composted or thrown away.
• Make your own baby food. Find recipes for easy, all-natural baby food at www.wholesomebabyfood.com.
Excerpted from Go Green, Live Rich by David Bach. Copyright 2008 by David Bach. Excerpted with permission from Random House Canada. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
For even more ways to green up your life, visit RandomHouse.ca for 30% off plus free shipping on select environmental books. This special offer ends April 30, 2008. | <urn:uuid:68bb2bc4-71ec-4ceb-bd74-75993ee275dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canadianliving.com/moms/babies/raise_your_baby_the_eco_friendly_way.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917232 | 638 | 2.609375 | 3 |
What You Can Do In The Community
In the Community
Encourage businesses to adopt a series of coastal bays-friendly Best Management Practices (BMPs). BMPs might focus on conserving water, paper, or controlling chemicals or other pollutants at the workplace. Join in the local clean-ups of our stream banks and shorelines. Participate in other hands-on, community-level Estuary restoration programs such as wetland creation, dune re-vegetation, and wildlife habitat enhancement.
- Volunteer for one of the many nonprofit groups working to protect and restore our estuary.
- Educate your friends, office mates and children about the importance of our Estuary and the things they can do to protect its health.
- Visit shoreline parks and join guided bird watching and wetland ecology walks. The more you understand about the marvels of our estuary, the more you'll want to save them.
- Attend public hearings on water quality and land use and development issues. Voice concerns about environmental impacts, and support for source reduction efforts, BMPs for business, sustainable development and natural resource protection.
- Encourage cities and counties to launch curbside recycling and motor oil pick-up programs, and to provide regular, easily accessible household hazardous waste disposal programs.
- Encourage your community host rain barrel workshops (see photo at right) and other workshops that teach green practices.
- Encourage your local municipal government to clean streets and catch basins more often, to enforce pooper-scooper laws, and to use porous asphalt for streets and sidewalks.
- Be a watchdog. You can call the Coastal Bays Program to report spills, illegal dumping and other water quality problems.
- Become active in the planning and zoning process in your community.
- Participate in workshops that teach how to preserve and protect the watershed. | <urn:uuid:547644e5-ee14-4938-9a23-b3579d891fdd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mdcoastalbays.org/what-you-can-do-in-the-community | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905103 | 384 | 2.921875 | 3 |
GPS tag deployments on Snow petrels (Pagodroma nivea) in 2011 from Bechervaise Island, Mawson Coast and Filla Island, Rauer Group, as part of AAS project 2722.
Identifying potential threats from a changing environment on snow petrel populations requires understanding key ecological processes and their driving factors. This project focuses on determining driving factors for the species' at-sea ... distribution and foraging habitat. The data will be linked to spatio-temporally coincident data of biological and physical characteristics of the ecosystem to develop explanatory models and, where possible, predictive models to explore the outcomes of plausible scenarios of future environmental change on snow petrel populations.
Tags were deployed on Snow Petrels in the Mawson and Davis areas for tracking purposes. | <urn:uuid:c5a84a1e-84ba-4175-b8d8-6309e5aa5bf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/Metadata.do?Portal=amd&KeywordPath=%5BISO_Topic_Category%3D'BIOTA'%5D&OrigMetadataNode=AADC&EntryId=ASAC_2722_SP_GLS&MetadataView=Full&MetadataType=0&lbnode=mdlb4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87919 | 164 | 2.75 | 3 |
Need to Get Walking More? Clip on a Pedometer
TUESDAY, July 24 (HealthDay News) -- Many people say they want to get out and walk or exercise more, but following through is another matter. Now, a study suggests that simply wearing a pedometer can help boost walking rates.
The study of more than 300 New Zealand seniors found that weekly walking times nearly doubled when they wore the devices.
"Use of pedometers, as a mechanism to monitor physical activity, was beneficial to older adults as they improved their levels of activity," said study lead author Gregory Kolt, head of the School of Science and Health at the University of Western Sydney in Penrith, Australia.
"Pedometers allowed users to check their progress throughout the day against activity goals they had set for themselves," Kolt said.
The study, published in a recent issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, tracked walking rates for over a year among 330 relatively non-active people aged 65 or older.
At the time of the study's launch in 2006, all of the participants were deemed healthy enough to engage in physical activity, including walking, but most admitted they got little regular exercise.
Participants were randomly separated into two groups: one group received pedometers to track their step-by-step movements, and the other group did not.
All were then asked to follow New Zealand's so-called "Green Prescription" for physical activity -- a government-funded initiative aimed at getting people to engage in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity each day.
Participants were encouraged by both a doctor and in regular telephone counseling sessions to get active via leisure-time walking.
Over the course of a year, both groups of seniors boosted their activity levels significantly, the researchers found. However, those who had been given pedometers increased their average weekly walking time by almost twice as much as those who didn't have pedometers -- about 50 minutes per week for pedometer-wearers versus 28 minutes for those without the devices.
While neither group saw any change in their weight (as measured by body mass index or BMI), both groups did experience significant improvements in blood pressure, the researchers noted.
How did pedometers work to boost walking rates? According to Kolt, wearing the device apparently "allows users to see how much physical activity they are accumulating through their general daily routines," upping the odds they'll stick with the program.
Pedometers' cheap price tag may also make them an ideal component of public health efforts aimed at boosting exercise habits, said Kolt, who is also affiliated with the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
One expert in the United States agreed. David Bassett Jr. is co-director of the Obesity Research Center and a professor of health and exercise science in the department of kinesiology, recreation, and sport studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He said the New Zealand research is "consistent" with prior studies.
"In general, researchers have found that pedometer-based exercise prescriptions elicit greater changes in walking than equivalent time-based exercise prescriptions," he said. "The study shows that pedometers can be used in a minimal contact, cost-effective manner within health care systems, to encourage healthy lifestyles."
For most on boosting your daily exercise rate, head to the U.S. National Institute on Aging.
SOURCES: Gregory S. Kolt, Ph.D., head of the School of Science and Health, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, Australia and Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand; David Bassett Jr., Ph.D., professor, health and exercise science, department of kinesiology, recreation, and sport studies, and co-director, Obesity Research Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.; May/June 2012, Annals of Family Medicine | <urn:uuid:e4f446d1-913a-4669-8954-bf9b62e236f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bridgeporthospital.org/HealthLibrary/default.aspx?view=doc&pageid=666857&typeid=6&cTOCKey=12SCC9&cContentSource= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965209 | 804 | 2.828125 | 3 |
is an interesting collection recorded to celebrate the centenary
of the birth of the African American poet, Langston Hughes.
in Missouri, Hughes had a varied artistic life. He was one of
the leaders of the so-called ‘Harlem Renaissance’ of the late
1920s Subsequently, his political beliefs veered sharply to the
left, a move that was reflected in the style and content of his
poetry. As can be seen from this anthology, his verse inspired
many composers but, interestingly, he himself began to write lyrics
in the 1940s. Perhaps his best known effort was the piece with
which he made his breakthrough in the genre, Kurt Weill’s Street
Scene – the marvellous, evocative song Lonely House
is included here, I’m glad to see. Though his words continued
to provide inspiration for composers of art songs and concert
works Hughes’ own interests towards the end of his career lay
in the fields of jazz, blues and, eventually, gospel music.
the exception of Weill, the only other composer represented here
whose music I’d heard previously is William Grant Still. The music
of the remaining composers covers quite a range of styles so the
programme is nicely varied. However, it was a good idea to intersperse
the songs with recitations of a few of Hughes’ poems. It was an
inspired idea to choose the distinguished American baritone,
William Warfield as narrator. He uses his wonderfully rich, molasses
voice to marvellous effect and the wide range of colour, pitch
and pacing that he employs could only come from a singer, and
a fine one at that. Indeed, we get a snatch of his singing voice
during his reading of The Weary Blues (track 4)
remainder of the programme is sung by the American tenor, Darryl
Taylor. To judge by the timbre of his voice I’d say he’s relatively
young (though he has a lengthy c.v.) and I infer from his biography
that he is African American. He seems perfectly in tune with the
sentiments and style of Hughes’ ideas and he has made an adroit
choice of songs since, for the most part, they suit his fairly
light and plangent voice well. His is a pleasing sound and he
sings with commitment and sensitivity. For most of his programme
he is ably supported by the Jamaican pianist, Maria Corley.
be honest I don’t think that any of the composers represented
here sound like major figures. I heard nothing on this disc to
match the songs of the two American masters of the genre, Samuel
Barber and Ned Rorem. (Margaret Bonds was one of Rorem’s early
teachers.) However, there is much to entertain in the music and
most of the songs are well crafted and responsive to the texts.
I enjoyed Harry Burleigh’s largely wistful song (track 20) and
was impressed by Robert Owens’ impassioned contribution (track
2). In this latter item a long, lyrical and wide-ranging vocal
line is given urgency and impetus by a piano accompaniment that
is constantly moving. John Musto’s Litany (track 5) has
a rather intense and grave beauty and the song by Still (track
6) is pretty dramatic – this little piece is stronger in character
than the music of Still’s that I’ve previously heard. The Negro
Speaks of Rivers (track 9) is a dark, quite powerful piece
and though Florence Price’s offering is fairly conventional (track
11) it possesses an innocent and open-hearted lyricism that I
found rather appealing.
over one third of the disc is given over to Dreamer, a
cycle of five Hughes poems (two more are read by the singer),
commissioned by Darryl Taylor from Eric Santos. This was, apparently,
Santos’ first composition for voice. The accompaniment is rather
unusual; as well as a piano a harp and, occasionally, a limited
amount of percussion add some colour. The first song, Sandman
(track 22) consists for the most part of long, undulating lines
for the singer against a "minimalist", pulsing accompaniment.
This song segues into the spoken Birth in which the recitation
is punctuated by occasional low chords, which give a rather spooky
effect. Bound No’th Blues (track 23) is an impassioned
blues setting for the singer against, for the most part, a pounding
piano accompaniment (the harp joins in for the slow middle section.)
To Artina (track 24) is an intense and atmospheric love
song. Down where I am (track 25) is stronger meat. Described
as a "dark tough blues" the setting lives up to that
description. Those who like modern jazz may enjoy it; I didn’t.
In particular I found the relentless, percussive piano chords
a trial and I also felt that the wordless blues improvisation
with which the singer ends the song was a gesture that didn’t
really come off. We’re back to rippling, minimalist accompaniment
for the final song, Dream Keeper.
view of this cycle is that it is let down by the accompaniment,
which doesn’t, to my ears, complement and enhance the singer’s
part, as it should. The harp part is really the most interesting
aspect of the accompaniment but for the most part it plays second
fiddle to a rather unimaginative piano line. Taylor sings with
real commitment and intensity, sounding as if he believes in every
note. However, in the last analysis I feel that the invention
in this work is spread rather too thinly and it’s a pity that
it occupies so much of the CD. I’m sure other listeners will respond
more positively but I doubt I shall be returning to this part
of the CD very often.
recorded sound is good and there’s a useful and informative note.
Naxos are usually pretty good at providing texts so I presume
that copyright issues have prevented the inclusion of texts on
this occasion. That’s a pity, for although Taylor sings very clearly
the idiom is not always straightforward, especially for non-American
listeners and the provision of texts would certainly aid appreciation.
is an unusual and interesting release. At the price collectors
with an interest in twentieth century musical Americana can safely
indulge their curiosity.
also review by Jonathan | <urn:uuid:0bf750da-4aab-4ea5-9502-492d57c92e9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/nov03/Dreamer.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958291 | 1,430 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Discovering the genetics of autism. (Medicine & Health).NOT TOO LONG AGO, the parents of a child who was diagnosed with autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. were overwhelmed with disheartening information. They were told that their offspring might have to be institutionalized, that he or she would never be able to be a productive member of society, that nothing could be done to change this prognosis, and, worst of all, that they themselves were likely to blame for their child's condition. Doctors and scientists knew little about autism, and the lack of a clear diagnosis or any real understanding of its cause led to finger-pointing and misinformation mis·in·form
tr.v. mis·in·formed, mis·in·form·ing, mis·in·forms
To provide with incorrect information.
Today, while autism is far from completely understood, the future for families of newly diagnosed youngsters is hopeful. Scientists have determined that autism is most likely caused by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors. Poor parenting has been ruled out as a contributing factor.
Autism is a generic term that designates several more-specific disorders, known as pervasive developmental disorders, or PDDs. According to a website developed at Duke University's Center for Human Genetics Human genetics
A discipline concerned with genetically determined resemblances and differences among human beings. Technological advances in the visualization of human chromosomes have shown that abnormalities of chromosome number or structure are surprisingly , "Exploring Autism: A Look at the Genetics of Autism" (www.brilliantcontent.org/autism/), a child with PDD has a pattern of delayed or unique language development and impaired social interaction when compared to one without the disorder. Specifically, individuals with PDD show symptoms in three areas: socialization socialization /so·cial·iza·tion/ (so?shal-i-za´shun) the process by which society integrates the individual and the individual learns to behave in socially acceptable ways.
n. (interaction with others), communication, and repetitive behaviors. One of the most-difficult aspects of autism for family members is the struggle for emotional connection with the affected child. Those with autism have particular difficulty interpreting the variety of social cues people use to infer how another person thinks or feels. This may be part of a larger problem with generalization. Children with autism can often learn discrete tasks or follow specific sets of direction fairly easily, but characteristically do not apply what they learn to other circumstances.
Research into the causes of autism Autism and autism spectrum disorders are complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Many causes of autism have been proposed, but its theory of causation is still incomplete. has taken off over the last few years. More resources are being directed towards understanding and treating it than ever before. However, understanding its causes is an enormously complex undertaking, as researchers who are attempting to identify the genes that may increase an individual's risk of developing autism can attest. Some of this complexity comes from the fact that autism is often difficult to diagnose. Nearly 60 years have passed since Leo Kanner first described autism as a distinct clinical entity in 1943, and the definition of the disorder continues to be refined.
What is known is that autism describes a set of neurodevelopmental problems which result in significant disturbances in social, communicative, and behavioral functioning. Autistic disorder Autistic disorder
A severe neuropsychiatric disorder of early childhood onset, historically regarded as a psychosis of childhood but now classified as a pervasive developmental disorder. and the other PDDs (Rett disorder, Asperger disorder Asperger disorder Pediatric psychiatry A neurobiological condition characterized by autistic-like behaviors with severe defects in social and communication skills, which may be coupled with high intelligence and hyperfocusing on one particular area of interest , childhood disintegrative disorder, and PDD-not otherwise specified) are clinical diagnoses, which are made based on developmental history and behavioral observations. The onset is in early childhood, usually before the age of three, and symptoms persist throughout adult life. Scientists estimate that the best-known of the PDDs, autistic disorder, occurs in between two and 10 out of 10,000 children, which makes it almost as common as Down syndrome Down syndrome, congenital disorder characterized by mild to severe mental retardation, slow physical development, and characteristic physical features. Down syndrome affects about 1 in every 730 live births and occurs in all populations equally. . In addition, male children are three to four times more likely to have autistic disorder than females. Having a clear description of the symptoms is the first step in identifying its genetic basis, because it allows researchers to define clearly autistic autistic /au·tis·tic/ (aw-tis´tik) characterized by or pertaining to autism. patients in the population. Once they are sure they can determine who has autism, scientists can begin the search for the specific genes involved.
Evidence that some forms of autism have a genetic basis was first published in the 1970s. Since then, data from multiple studies have confirmed this hypothesis. These reports included observational studies, such as case reports and observation of families with more than one autism patient, usually siblings. As genetic research became more sophisticated, chromosomal and statistical evidence from twin studies also emerged, further supporting the genetic contribution to the development of autism. These studies show that autism occurs significantly more often in identical twins identical twins
Twins derived from the same fertilized ovum that at an early stage of development becomes separated into independently growing cell aggregations, giving rise to two individuals of the same sex, identical genetic makeup, and than in nonidentical non·i·den·ti·cal
1. Not being the same; different.
2. Fraternal, as of twins. twins. Since identical twins share all of their genetic material, this finding points strongly to a genetic component for autism.
Genetic research is one of the most-promising approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of disease today. This type of work has been jump-started by the completion of the Human Genome Project, giving scientists their first complete map of the 30,000 to 50,000 genes in the human body. The genetic basis for single-gene disorders is somewhat easier to determine than that of complex ones such as autism. Single-gene diseases, called Mendelian diseases, are passed on from generation to generation through a mutation (or change) on one specific gene. Genes themselves are small structures inside almost every cell of the human body that contain the blueprints of human life and tell bodies how to grow and develop. Genes determine many physical characteristics, such as hair and eye color and blood type. A well-known example of a trait with Mendelian inheritance mendelian inheritance
Inheritance that conforms to Mendel's laws.
An inheritance pattern for autosomal gene pairs. is cystic fibrosis cystic fibrosis (sĭs`tĭk fībrō`sĭs), inherited disorder of the exocrine glands (see gland), affecting children and young people; median survival is 25 years in females and 30 years in males. (CF), the gene for which was identified in 1989. Now, individuals who may have a family history of the disease can undergo genetic testing Genetic Testing Definition
A genetic test examines the genetic information contained inside a person's cells, called DNA, to determine if that person has or will develop a certain disease or could pass a disease to his or her offspring. to see if they carry the mutation that causes CF. If both parents are found to carry it in their genetic material, geneticists can determine prior to birth whether a child conceived by those parents has CF.
Much more common in the population are complex genetic disorders. In them, the gene or genes involved do not directly cause the disease in question, but, rather, can make an individual more susceptible to that disease. Therefore, these genes are referred to as susceptibility genes. The susceptibility conferred by one gene can be increased or decreased by a number of factors, including other susceptibility genes, as well as a variety of environmental influences. Some examples of common complex genetic disorders are asthma, cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease
Disease that affects the heart and blood vessels.
Mentioned in: Lipoproteins Test
cardiovascular disease , Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (ăls`hī'mərz, ôls–), degenerative disease of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex that leads to atrophy of the brain and senile dementia. , and autism.
There are many reasons that scientists want to find the genetic risk factors involved in complex genetic disorders such as autism. Knowing the genes involved helps identify those individuals at an increased risk for the disease. For instance, if doctors knew that a particular individual had an elevated genetic risk for a certain disease, they could closely follow this individual, enabling earlier diagnosis and therefore a better chance at successful intervention. This is one of the most-compelling goals in the search for the genetic basis of autism. Because research has suggested that, the earlier in life an autistic child can be given specialized education and therapy, the better his or her functioning later in life is likely to be, early diagnosis of autistic disorder is of critical importance.
Another goal of genetic research is to investigate the potential of an approach called pharmacogenetics Pharmacogenetics Definition
Pharmacogenetics is the study of how the actions of and reactions to drugs vary with the patient's genes.
Description , the study of how an individual's genetic makeup can affect one's responses to drugs. The goals of pharmacogenetics are twofold: to develop medicines that can more specifically target and treat causes and symptoms of disease, and to make medications safer to use by allowing the understanding of how direct effects and side effects Side effects
Effects of a proposed project on other parts of the firm. of a medication might be tied to specific factors in a person's genetic profile. For instance, if physicians know that a certain medicine causes unbearable nausea in 10% of the population and scientists can determine that those 10% all carry a specific version of a particular gene (called an allele allele (əlēl`): see genetics.
Any one of two or more alternative forms of a gene that may occur alternatively at a given site on a chromosome. ), with genetic testing, doctors could avoid giving that medication to patients who are genetically predisposed to the negative reaction.
Pharmacogenetics may be able to help find more-effective drag therapies for use in autism. "We would like to be able to link subtypes of autism with more-specific intervention strategies," indicates Michael Cuccaro, associate professor of psychiatry and a member of the autism research team at Duke University Medical Center's Center for Human Genetics. "For example, some children may benefit more from medicines, some with behavioral intervention behavioral intervention Behavior modification, behavior 'mod', behavioral therapy, behaviorism Psychiatry The use of operant conditioning models, ie positive and negative reinforcement, to modify undesired behaviors–eg, anxiety. , although many will need both."
Almost since the first suggestions of a genetic component in autism, studies have been conducted to identify the genes involved. Research to date suggests that multiple genetic risk factors or genes contribute to cause the disorder. It may actually be not individual genes, but the interaction between specific genes, that causes autism. It is likely as well that different genes, or combinations of genes, may be responsible for different forms of autism, or for autism in different families. These forms may vary so slightly in how they affect an individual that the differences would be very difficult to categorize based on symptoms a child exhibits.
Looking for the cause of a complex genetic disorder is similar to trying to find someone's house without knowing the address. By narrowing down the area you are searching--from state to city to neighborhood to street--eventually you can find the actual address of a particular person. Just as gas stations or restaurants can be used as landmarks to help you find your way around when attempting to locate a specific house, genetic signposts called markers can help scientists find their way around a chromosome to locate a specific gene. (Markers are patterns of DNA DNA: see nucleic acid.
or deoxyribonucleic acid
One of two types of nucleic acid (the other is RNA); a complex organic compound found in all living cells and many viruses. It is the chemical substance of genes. that repeat in a predictable way at various locations along a given chromosome.)
In order to look for genetic risk factors for complex disorders, scientists test many markers on all the chromosomes, trying to find ones that appear consistently in family members who have a particular disorder, but not in those without it. Once a marker that is shared more often among autistic family members is found, certain statistical methods can tell a scientist how close the marker is to a gene. Testing more markers will narrow the search area of the gene (like closing in on the block a given house is on). Markers that are very close to a gene are said to be linked to that gene because the marker is rarely inherited without that gene also being inherited. Once scientists find a set of markers that are linked to a gene, they say they have found linkage.
Linkage indicates approximately where on a chromosome a gene is located. Scientists still need to determine the exact location of the gene. One common method to do this uses candidate genes, which are genes known to be in the target region. A gene is called a candidate if its known function in some way relates to the biology of the disorder. For instance, a gene that is known to affect the proteins that build muscles might be considered a candidate if scientists were looking for risk factors for a muscular disorder such as muscular dystrophy muscular dystrophy (dĭs`trōfē), any of several inherited diseases characterized by progressive wasting of the skeletal muscles. There are five main forms of the disease. . This technique is like knocking on the door of every house on the block until you find the one where your friend lives. Scientists test candidate genes for changes that might cause the disorder. If there are not any changes in that gene in a person who has the disorder, the candidate gene is not a cause. If all the likely candidate genes are tested and none are found to be responsible for the disorder, researchers turn to genes whose functions are not yet known. Many genes may have to be tested before the right one is found.
The genetics of autism
Using these methods, researchers have been able to identify some promising chromosomal regions that may contain genes involved in autism. One of these regions is on chromosome 15. For over a dozen years, scientists have noticed that some individuals with autism have a chromosomal change involving a specific part of chromosome 15 as well. These individuals have extra copies, or duplications, of a small region of chromosome 15. This same region also contains genes associated with Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes, two disorders whose patients display developmental delays and, in some cases, autistic-like behavior.
Research found markers on chromosome 15 that are seen more frequently in individuals with autism (those without the specific chromosomal duplication which led researchers to this region in the first place) than in those without autism. This finding strongly suggests that a gene or genes that contribute to autism may be in this region. Although the specific gene has not been found, the area in which to look has been dramatically narrowed. The next step is to look gene by gene through this very complicated chromosomal region to figure out which specific one may be involved with autism. In order to facilitate this work, researchers at the Duke University Center for Human Genetics have created a complete map, similar to a road map, of this region. They have published this map in order to help other researchers looking for genes related to autism on chromosome 15.
When researchers tested markers, using linkage analysis, on all chromosomes in the human genome, they found that some individuals with autism share certain markers on chromosome 7. This linkage had been previously suggested by work done by a research group primarily located in Europe, and has since been reconfirmed by other research teams. As a result of the linkage findings on chromosome 7, several candidate genes have emerged and are being examined as autism risk genes. The hope is that the chromosome 7 gene will be identified in the near future.
There is also evidence for linkage in an area on chromosome 2. The evidence that links this chromosomal region to autism is even stronger when researchers look only at the group of patients with the disorder who began to use phrase speech relatively late in their development (older than three years). One hypothesis that researchers have to explain this finding is that there may be a risk gene on chromosome 2 that is implicated primarily in a subset of autism families. This potential risk gene would not be involved in all cases of autism, but might contribute to risk in the subset.
The future looks bright for genetic researchers in autism and for autistic patients and their families. The discovery of genetic contributions to common diseases such as autism is already having an impact on primary health care practice. As a website devoted to disseminating information about genetic research into autism (www.exploringautism.org) reports, "This new emphasis on genetics is transforming the way we approach medicine. Defining the human genome will give us the ability to identify, treat, and ultimately prevent diseases in ways that we never imagined. During this century, we will be able to develop new therapies for diseases that have plagued humans for generations, from cancer to heart disease, from Alzheimer's disease to diabetes." Autism is a disorder that is ripe to reap the benefits of these genomic medicine milestones, which, it is hoped, will result in radical advancements in diagnosis, treatment, and care.
Margaret A. Pericak-Vance is the James B. Duke Professor At Duke University, the title of James B. Duke Professor is given to a small number of the faculty with extraordinary records of achievement. At some universities, titles like "Distinguished Professor," "University Professor," or "Regents Professor" are counterparts of this title of Medicine and director, Center for Human Genetics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C. | <urn:uuid:058e37b4-93e4-4639-beef-ddab820f5043> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Discovering+the+genetics+of+autism.+(Medicine+%26+Health).-a096268303 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950442 | 3,761 | 3.359375 | 3 |
|— Capital city —|
|Founder||Abu Jafar al-Mansur|
|• Body||Baghdad City Advisory Council|
|• Mayor||Saber Nabet Al-Essawi|
|• Total||204.2 km2 (78.8 sq mi)|
|Elevation||34 m (112 ft)|
|• Estimate (2011)||7,216,040|
|Time zone||Arabia Standard Time (UTC+3)|
|• Summer (DST)||No DST (UTC)|
|Postal code||10001 to 10090|
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد, Baġdād, IPA: [bæɣˈdæːd]) is the capital of the Republic of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Province. The population of Baghdad as of 2011 is approximately 7,216,040, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran). According to the government, which is preparing for a census, the population of the country has reached 35 million, with 9 million in the capital.
Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World. This in addition to housing several key academic institutions (e.g. House of Wisdom) garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1,200,000 people. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state (formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia) in 1938, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture.
In contemporary times the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the American-led foreign occupation in March 2003 that lasted until December 2011 and the subsequent sectarian violence. In recent years the city has been frequently subjected to insurgency activities and terrorist attacks. Though the nation continues to work toward rebuilding and reconciliation, as of 2012 Baghdad continues to be listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live and was ranked by Mercer as the worst of 221 major cities as measured by quality-of-life.
The name Baghdad is pre-Islamic and its origins are under some dispute. Some say it comes from an Aramaic phrase that means "sheep enclosure". Others contend that the word comes from ancient Persian: "bagh" meaning God, and "dad" meaning gift. "The gift of God...." During at least one point in history, it certainly seemed so. The name has been found as Baghdadu on Assyrian cuneiform records of the 9th century BC, and on Babylonian bricks bearing the Royal Seal of King Nebuchadnezzar (6th century BC).[better source needed]. However it is related to previous settlements, which did not have any political or commercial power.
When the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the official name on coins, weights, and other official usage, although the common people continued to use the old name. By the 11th century, "Baghdad" became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis.
There are several rival theories as to the etymology of the specific name Baghdad. The most widely accepted among these is that the name is a Middle Persian compound of Bag "god" + dād "given", translating to "God-given" or "God's gift", from which comes Modern Persian Baɣdād. This in turn can be traced to Old Persian. A less probable guess is the Persian compound Bāğ "garden" + dād "fair", translating to "The fair garden".
After the fall of the Persian Sassanid empire, the victorious Muslim rulers wanted their own capital. Choosing a site north of the Persian capital of Ctesiphone, on 30, July 734 the caliph Al Mansur commissioned the construction of the city and it was built under the supervision of the Barmakids. Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, "This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward".
The city's growth was helped by its location, which gave it control over strategic and trading routes, along the Tigris. A reason why Baghdad provided an excellent location was the abundance of water and the dry climate. Water exists on both north and south ends of the city gates, allowing all households to have a plentiful supply, which was very uncommon during this time.
Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Empire, which was located some 30 km (19 mi) to the southeast. Today, all that remains of Ctesiphon is the shrine town of Salman Pak, just to the south of Greater Baghdad. Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire. Seleucia had earlier replaced the city of Babylon.
In its early years the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur'an, when it refers to Paradise. It took four years to build (734-738). Mansur assembled engineers, surveyors, and art constructionists from around the world to come together and draw up plans for the city. Over 100,000 construction workers came to survey the plans; many were distributed salaries to start the building of the city. July was chosen as the starting time because two astrologers, Naubakht Ahvaz and Mashallah, believed that the city should be built under the sign of the lion, Leo. Leo is associated with fire and symbolises productivity, pride, and expansion.
The bricks used to make the city were 18 inches (460 mm) on all four sides. Abu Hanifa was the counter of the bricks and he developed a canal, which brought water to the work site for the use of both human consumption and the manufacturing of the bricks. Marble was also used to make buildings throughout the city, and marble steps led down to the river's edge.
The basic framework of the city consists of two large semicircles about 19 km (12 mi) in diameter. The city was designed as a circle about 2 km in diameter, leading it to be known as the "Round City". The original design shows as single ring of residential and commercial structures along the inside of the city walls, but the final construction added another ring inside the first. Within the city there were many parks, gardens, villas, and promenades. In the center of the city lay the mosque, as well as headquarters for guards. The purpose or use of the remaining space in the center is unknown. The circular design of the city was a direct reflection of the traditional Persian Sasanian urban design. The Sasanian city of Gur in Fars, built 500 years before Baghdad, is nearly identical in its general circular design, radiating avenues, and the government buildings and temples at the centre of the city. This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.
The surrounding walls
The four surrounding walls of Baghdad were named Kufa, Basra, Khurasan, and Damascus; named because their gates pointed in the directions of these destinations. The distance between these gates was a little less than 1.5 miles (2.4 km). Each gate had double doors that were made of iron; the doors were so heavy it took several men to open and close them. The wall itself was about 44 m thick at the base and about 12 m thick at the top. Also, the wall was 30 m high, which included merlons, a solid part of an embattled parapet usually pierced by embrasures. This wall was surrounded by another wall with a thickness of 50 m. The second wall had towers and rounded merlons, which surrounded the towers. This outer wall was protected by solid glacis, which is made out of bricks and quicklime. Beyond the outer wall was a water-filled moat.
Golden Gate Palace
In the middle of Baghdad, in the central square was the Golden Gate Palace. The Palace was the residence of the caliph and his family. In the central part of the building was a green dome that was 39 m high. Surrounding the palace was an esplanade, a waterside building, in which only the caliph could come riding on horseback. In addition, the palace was near other mansions and officer's residences. Near the Gate of Syria a building served as the home for the guards. It was made of brick and marble. The palace governor lived in the latter part of the building and the commander of the guards in the front. In 813, after the death of caliph Al-Amin the palace was no longer used as the home for the caliph and his family. The roundness points to the fact that it was based on Arabic script. The two designers who were hired by Al-Mansur to plan the city's design were Naubakht, a Zoroastrian who also determined that the date of the foundation of the city would be astrologically auspicious, and Mashallah, a Jew from Khorasan, Iran.
The Abbasids and the round city
The Abbasid Caliphate was based on their being the descendants of the uncle of Muhammad and being part of the Quraysh tribe. They used Shi'a resentment, Khorasanian movement, and appeals to the ambitions and traditions of the newly conquered Persian aristocracy to overthrow the Umayyads. The Abbasids sought to combine the hegemony of the Arabic tribes with the imperial, court, ceremonial, and administrative structures of the Persians. The Abbasids considered themselves the inherittures and the need of Mansur to place the capital in a place that was representative of Arab-Islamic identity by building the House of Wisdom, where ancient texts were translated from their original language, such as Greek, to Arabic. Mansur is credited with the "Translation Movement" for this. Further, Baghdad is also near the ancient Sassanid imperial seat of Ctesiphon on the Tigris River.
A centre of learning (8th to 13th centuries)
Within a generation of its founding, Baghdad became a hub of learning and commerce. The House of Wisdom was an establishment dedicated to the translation of Greek, Middle Persian and Syriac works. Scholars headed to Baghdad from all over the Abbasid empire, facilitating the introduction of Persian, Greek and Indian science into the Arabic and Islamic world at that time. Baghdad was likely the largest city in the world from shortly after its foundation until the 930s, when it was tied by Córdoba. Several estimates suggest that the city contained over a million inhabitants at its peak. Many of the One Thousand and One Nights tales are set in Baghdad during this period.
The end of the Abbasids in Baghdad
By the 10th century, the city's population was between 1.2 million and 2 million. Baghdad's early meteoric growth eventually slowed due to troubles within the Caliphate, including relocations of the capital to Samarra (during 808–819 and 836–892), the loss of the western and easternmost provinces, and periods of political domination by the Iranian Buwayhids (945–1055) and Seljuk Turks (1055–1135).
The Seljuks were a clan of the Oghuz Turks from the Central Asia that converted to the Sunni branch of Islam. In 1040, they destroyed the Ghaznavids, taking over their land and in 1055, Tughril Beg, the leader of the Seljuks, took over Baghdad. The Seljuks expelled the Buyids dynasty of Shiites that ruled for some time and took over power and control of Baghdad. They ruled as Sultans in the name of the Abbasid caliphs (they saw themselves as being part of the Abbasid regime) Tughril Beg saw himself as the protector of the Abbasid Caliphs.
In 1058, Baghdad was captured by the Fatimids under the Turkish general Abu'l-Ḥārith Arslān al-Basasiri, an adherent of the Ismailis along with the 'Uqaylid Quraysh. Not long before the arrival of the Saljuqs in Baghdad, al-Basasiri petitioned to the Fatimid Imam-Caliph al-Mustansir to support him in conquering Baghdad on the Ismaili Imam's behalf. It has recently come to light that the famed Fatimid da'i al-Mu'ayyad al-Shirazi had a direct role in supporting al-Basasiri and helped the general to succeed in taking Mawṣil, Wāsit and Kufa. Soonafter, By December 1058, a Shi'i adhān (call to prayer) was implemented in Baghdad and a khutba (sermon) was delivered in the name of the Fatimid Imam-Caliph. Despite his Shi'i inclinations, Al-Basasiri received support from Sunnis and Shi'is alike, for whom opposition to the Saljuq power was a common factor.
On February 10, 1258, Baghdad was captured by the Mongols led by Hulegu, a grandson of Chingiz Khan (Genghis Khan) during the sack of Baghdad. Many quarters were ruined by fire, siege, or looting. The Mongols massacred most of the city's inhabitants, including the caliph Al-Musta'sim, and destroyed large sections of the city. The canals and dykes forming the city's irrigation system were also destroyed. The sack of Baghdad put an end to the Abbasid Caliphate, a blow from which the Islamic civilization never fully recovered.
At this point Baghdad was ruled by the Il-Khanids, the Mongol rulers of Iran. In 1401, Baghdad was again sacked, by the Central Asian Turkic conqueror Timur ("Tamerlane"). When his forces took Baghdad, he spared almost no one, and ordered that each of his soldiers bring back two severed human heads. It became a provincial capital controlled by the Mongol Jalayirid (1400–1411), Turkic Kara Koyunlu (1411–1469), Turkic Ak Koyunlu (1469–1508), and the Iranian Safavid (1508–1534) dynasties.
Ottoman era (16th to 19th centuries)
In 1534, Baghdad was captured by the Ottoman Turks. Under the Ottomans, Baghdad fell into a period of decline, partially as a result of the enmity between its rulers and Iranian Safavids, which did not accept the Sunni control of the city. Between 1623 and 1638, it returned to Iranian rule before falling back into Ottoman hands.
For a time, Baghdad had been the largest city in the Middle East. The city saw relative revival in the latter part of the 18th century under a Mamluk government. Direct Ottoman rule was reimposed by Ali Ridha Pasha in 1831. From 1851-1852 and from 1861–1867, Baghdad was governed, under the Ottoman Empire by Mehmed Namık Pasha. The Nuttall Encyclopedia reports the 1907 population of Baghdad as 185,000. Aside from ethnically Arab Iraqis, the city was also home to a substantial ancient Jewish community, which comprised over a quarter of the city's population (this proportion would grow in later years).
20th century
Baghdad and southern Iraq remained under Ottoman rule until 1917, when captured by the British during World War I. From 1920, Baghdad became the capital of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia and, after 1932, Baghdad was the capital of the Kingdom of Iraq. Iraq was given formal independence in 1932 and increased autonomy in 1946. The city's population grew from an estimated 145,000 in 1900 to 580,000 in 1950.
On 1 April 1941 members of the "Golden Square" and Rashid Ali staged a coup in Baghdad. Rashid Ali installed a pro-German and pro-Italian government to replace the pro-British government of Regent Abdul Ilah. On 31 May, after the resulting Anglo-Iraqi War and after Rashid Ali and his government had fled, the Mayor of Baghdad surrendered to British and Commonwealth forces.
On 14 July 1958, members of the Iraqi Army under Abdul Karim Kassem staged a coup to topple the Kingdom of Iraq. King Faisal II, former Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, former Regent Prince Abdul Ilah, members of the royal family, and others were brutally killed during the coup. Many of the victim's bodies were then dragged through the streets of Baghdad.
During the 1970s, Baghdad experienced a period of prosperity and growth because of a sharp increase in the price of petroleum, Iraq's main export. New infrastructure including modern sewerage, water, and highway facilities were built during this period. However, the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s was a difficult time for the city, as money was diverted by Saddam Hussein to the army and thousands of residents were killed. Iran launched a number of missile attacks against Baghdad in retaliation for Saddam Hussein's continuous bombardments of Tehran's residential districts.
In 1991 and 2003, the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq caused significant damage to Baghdad's transportation, power, and sanitary infrastructure as the US-led coalition forces launched massive aerial assaults in the city in the two wars.
Main sights
Points of interest include the National Museum of Iraq whose priceless collection of artifacts was looted during the 2003 invasion, and the iconic Hands of Victory arches. Multiple Iraqi parties are in discussions as to whether the arches should remain as historical monuments or be dismantled. Thousands of ancient manuscripts in the National Library were destroyed wh under Saddam's command.
Baghdad Zoo
The Baghdad Zoo was the largest zoo in the Middle East. Within eight days following the 2003 invasion, however, only 35 of the 650 animals in the facility survived. This was a result of theft of some animals for human food, and starvation of caged animals that had no food invasion, South African Lawrence Anthony and some of the zoo keepers cared for the animals and fed the carnivores with donkeys they had bought locally. Eventually, L. Paul Bremer, Director of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 11, 2003 to June 28, 2004 ordered protection of the zoo and U.S. engineers helped to reopen the facility.
Geography and climate
The city is located on a vast plain bisected by the River Tigris. The Tigris splits Baghdad in half, with the eastern half being called 'Risafa' and the Western half known as 'Karkh'. The land on which the city is built is almost entirely flat and low-lying, being of alluvial origin due to the periodic large floods which have occurred on the river.
Baghdad has a subtropical arid climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) and is, in terms of maximum temperatures, one of the hottest cities in the world. In the summer from June to August, the average maximum temperature is as high as 44 °C (111 °F) accompanied by blazing sunshine: rainfall has in fact been recorded on fewer than half a dozen occasions at this time of year and has never exceeded 1 millimetre (0.04 in). Temperatures exceeding 50 °C (122 °F) in the shade are by no means unheard of, and even at night temperatures in summer are seldom below 24 °C (75 °F). Because the humidity is very low (usually under 10%) due to Baghdad's distance from the marshy Persian Gulf, dust storms from the deserts to the west are a normal occurrence during the summer.
Winters boast mild days and variable nights. From December to February, Baghdad has maximum temperatures averaging 15.5 to 18.5 °C (60 to 65 °F), though highs above 70 °F (21 °C) are not unheard of. Morning temperatures can be chilly: the average January low is 3.8 °C (38.8 °F) but lows below freezing only occur a couple of times per year.
Annual rainfall, almost entirely confined to the period from November to March, averages around 150 mm (5.91 in), but has been as high as 338 mm (13.31 in) and as low as 37 mm (1.46 in). On January 11, 2008, light snow fell across Baghdad for the first time in memory.
|Climate data for Baghdad|
|Average high °C (°F)||16
|Average low °C (°F)||3.8
|Rainfall mm (inches)||26
|Avg. rainy days (≥ 0.1 mm)||5||6||4||2||0||0||0||0||0||1||5||6||29|
|Mean monthly sunshine hours||192.2||203.3||244.9||255.0||300.7||348.0||347.2||353.4||315.0||272.8||213.0||195.3||3,240.8|
|Source #1: Climate & Temperature|
|Source #2: World Meteorological Organisation (UN)|
Administrative divisions
The city of Baghdad has 89 official neighbourhoods within 9 districts. These official subdivisions of the city served as administrative centres for the delivery of municipal services but until 2003 had no political function. Beginning in April 2003, the U.S. controlled Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) began the process of creating new functions for these. The process initially focused on the election of neighbourhood councils in the official neighbourhoods, elected by neighbourhood caucuses.
The CPA convened a series of meetings in each neighbourhood to explain local government, to describe the caucus election process and to encourage participants to spread the word and bring friends, relatives and neighbours to subsequent meetings. Each neighbourhood process ultimately ended with a final meeting where candidates for the new neighbourhood councils identified themselves and asked their neighbours to vote for them.
Once all 88 (later increased to 89) neighbourhood councils were in place, each neighbourhood council elected representatives from among their members to serve on one of the city's nine district councils. The number of neighbourhood representatives on a district council is based upon the neighbourhood's population. The next step was to have each of the nine district councils elect representatives from their membership to serve on the 37 member Baghdad City Council. This three tier system of local government connected the people of Baghdad to the central government through their representatives from the neighbourhood, through the district, and up to the city council.
The same process was used to provide representative councils for the other communities in Baghdad Province outside of the city itself. There, local councils were elected from 20 neighbourhoods (Nahia) and these councils elected representatives from their members to serve on six district councils (Qada). As within the city, the district councils then elected representatives from among their members to serve on the 35 member Baghdad Regional Council.
The first step in the establishment of the system of local government for Baghdad Province was the election of the Baghdad Provincial Council. As before, the representatives to the Provincial Council were elected by their peers from the lower councils in numbers proportional to the population of the districts they represent. The 41 member Provincial Council took office in February, 2004 and served until national elections held in January 2005, when a new Provincial Council was elected.
This system of 127 separate councils may seem overly cumbersome but Baghdad Province is home to approximately seven million people. At the lowest level, the neighbourhood councils, each council represents an average of 75,000 people.
The nine District Advisory Councils (DAC) are as follows:
- Sadr City (Thawra)
- Al Rashid
- New Baghdad (Tisaa Nissan) (9 April)
The nine districts are subdivided into 89 smaller neighborhoods which may make up sectors of any of the districts above. The following is a selection (rather than a complete list) of these neighborhoods:
- Hurriya City
- Bab Al-Moatham
- Hayy Ur
- Hayy Al-Jami'a
- Al Khadhraa
- Hayy Al-Jihad
- Hayy Al-A'amel
- Hayy Aoor
- Hayy Al-Shurtta
- Jesr Diyala
- Abu Disher
- Raghiba Khatoun
- Arab Jijur
|This section requires expansion. (December 2009)|
Reconstruction efforts
Most Iraqi reconstruction efforts have been devoted to the restoration and repair of badly damaged urban infrastructure. More visible efforts at reconstruction through private development, like architect and urban designer Hisham N. Ashkouri's Baghdad Renaissance Plan and the Sindbad Hotel Complex and Conference Center have also been made.
There are also plans to build a giant Ferris wheel akin to the London Eye. Iraq's Tourism Board also is seeking investors to develop a "romantic" island on the River Tigris in Baghdad that was once a popular honeymoon spot for newlywed Iraqis. The project would include a six-star hotel, spa, an 18-hole golf course and a country club. In addition, the go-ahead has been given to build numerous architecturally unique skyscrapers along the Tigris that would develop the city's financial centre in Kadhehemiah.
In October, 2008, the Baghdad Metro resumed service. It connects the center to the southern neighborhood of Dora. In May 2010, a new residential and commercial project nicknamed Baghdad Gate was announced. This project not only addresses the urgent need for new residential units in Baghdad but also acts as a real symbol of progress in the war torn city, as Baghdad has not seen projects of this scale for decades.
The Mustansiriya Madrasah was established in 1227 by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustansir. The name was changed to Al-Mustansiriya University in 1963. The University of Baghdad is the largest university in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab world.
- Al-Nahrain University
- Al-Mustansiriya University
- Iraqi University
- University of Baghdad
- University of Technology, Iraq
Baghdad has always played an important role in Arab cultural life and has been the home of noted writers, musicians and visual artists. Famous Arab poets and singers such as Nizar Qabbani, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, Salah Al-Hamdani, Ilham al-Madfai and others wrote beautiful poems and sang for Baghdad.
The dialect of Arabic spoken in Baghdad today differs from that of other large urban centres in Iraq, having features more characteristic of nomadic Arabic dialects (Verseegh, The Arabic Language). It is possible that this was caused by the repopulating of the city with rural residents after the multiple sacks of the late Middle Ages.
Some of the important cultural institutions in the city include:
- Iraqi National Orchestra – Rehearsals and performances were briefly interrupted during the Second Gulf War, but have since returned to normal.
- National Theatre of Iraq – The theatre was looted during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, but efforts are underway to restore the theatre.
The live theatre scene received a boost during the 1990s when UN sanctions limited the import of foreign films. As many as 30 movie theatres were reported to have been converted to live stages, producing a wide range of comedies and dramatic productions.
Institutions offering cultural education in Baghdad include the Academy of Music, Institute of Fine Arts, and the Music and Ballet school Baghdad. Baghdad is also home to a number of museums which housed artifacts and relics of ancient civilization; many of these were stolen, and the museums looted, during the widespread chaos immediately after United States forces entered the city.
During the 2003 occupation of Iraq, AFN Iraq ("Freedom Radio") broadcast news and entertainment within Baghdad, among other locations. There is also a private radio station called "Dijlah" (named after the Arabic word for the Tigris River) that was created in 2004 as Iraq's first independent talk radio station. Radio Dijlah offices, in the Jamia neighborhood of Baghdad, have been attacked on several occasions.
Baghdad is home to some of the most successful football (soccer) teams in Iraq, the biggest being Al Quwa Al Jawiya (Airforce club), Al Zawra, Al Shurta (Police), and Al Talaba (Students). The largest stadium in Baghdad is Al Shaab Stadium which was opened in 1966. Another, but much larger stadium, is still in the opening stages of construction.
The city has also had a strong tradition of horse racing ever since World War I, known to Baghdadis simply as 'Races'. There are reports of pressures by the Islamists to stop this tradition due to the associated gambling.
Major streets
- Haifa Street
- Salihiya Residential area - situated off Al Sinak bridge in central Baghdad,surrounded by Al- Mansur Hotel in the north and Al-Rasheed hotel in the south
- Hilla Road – Runs from the south into Baghdad via Yarmouk (Baghdad)
- Caliphs Street – site of historical mosques and churches
- Sadoun Street – stretching from Liberation Square to Masbah
- Mohammed Al-Qassim highway near Adhamiyah
- Abu Nuwas Street – runs along the Tigris from the from Jumhouriya Bridge to 14 July Suspended Bridge
- Damascus Street – goes from Damascus Square to the International Airport Road
- Mutanabbi Street – A street with numerous books, named after the 10th century Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi
- Rabia Street
- Arbataash Tamuz (14th July) Street (Mosul Road)
- Muthana al-Shaibani Street
- Bor Saeed (Port Said) Street
- Thawra Street
- Al Qanat Street – runs through Baghdad north-south
- Al Khat al Sare'a – Mohammed al Qasim (high speed lane) – runs through Bagdhad, north-south
- Al Sinaa Street (Industry Street) runs by the University of Technology – centre of computers trade in Baghdad
- Al Nidhal Street
- Al Rasheed Street – city centre Baghdad
- Al Jamhuriah Street – city centre Baghdad
- Falastin (Palestine) Street
- Tariq el Muaskar – (Al Rasheed Camp Road)
- Baghdad Airport Road
Sister cities
See also
- Round city of Baghdad
- List of places in Iraq
- Firdos Square - is a public open space in Baghdad and the location of two of the best-known hotels, the Palestine Hotel and the Sheraton Ishtar, which are both also the tallest buildings in Baghdad. The square was the site of the statue of Saddam Hussein that was pulled down by U.S. coalition forces in a widely-televised event during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
- Operation Imposing Law Baghdad Security Plan
- 1950-1951 Baghdad bombings
- Estimates of total population differ substantially. The Encyclopædia Britannica gives a 2001 population of 4,950,000, the 2006 Lancet Report states a population of 7,216,050 in 2011.
- "Cities and urban areas in Iraq with population over 100,000", Mongabay.com
- "List of largest cities throughout history". Wikipedia.
- Inocencio, Ramy (4 December 2012). "What city has world's best quality of life?". CNN.
- http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21569077-one-africas-most-miserable-countries-looks-unstable-ever-brink The Central African Republic: On the brink
- "ما معنى اسم مدينة بغداد ومن سماه ؟". Seenjeem.maktoob.com. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "ما معنى (بغداد)؟ - تمت الإجابة عنه - Google إجابات". Egabat.google.com. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- Guy Le Strange, "Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic and Persian", pg 10
- Corzine, Phyllis (2005). The Islamic Empire. Thomson Gale. pp. 68–69.
- Times History of the World. London: Times Books. 2000.
- Wiet, Gastron (1971). Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate. Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
- Wiet, pg. 13
- Corzine, Phyllis (2005). The Islamic Empire. Thomson Gale. p. 69.
- Wiet, pg. 12
- "Yakut: Baghdad under the Abbasids, c. 1000CE"
- Wiet, pg. 15
- Hill, Donald R. (1994). Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. p. 10. ISBN 0-7486-0457-X.
- Atlas of the Medieval World pg. 78
- "Largest Cities Through History". Geography.about.com. 2009-11-02. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- Matt T. Rosenberg, Largest Cities Through History.
- George Modelski, World Cities: –3000 to 2000, Washington, D.C.: FAROS 2000, 2003. ISBN 978-0-9676230-1-6. See also Evolutionary World Politics Homepage.
- Trudy Ring, Robert M. Salkin, K. A. Berney, Paul E. Schellinger (1996). International dictionary of historic places, Volume 4: Middle East and Africa. Taylor and Francis. p. 116
- Atlas of the Medieval World pg. 170
- Virani, Shafique N. The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 6.
- Daftary, Farhad. The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 205-206.
- Daftary, Farhad. The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 206.
- Central Asian world cities, George Modelski
- Ian Frazier, Annals of history: Invaders: Destroying Baghdad, The New Yorker 25 April 2005. p.5
- New Book Looks at Old-Style Central Asian Despotism, EurasiaNet Civil Society, Elizabeth Kiem, April 28, 2006
- "The Fertile Crescent, 1800-1914: a documentary economic history". Charles Philip Issawi (1988). Oxford University Press US. p.99. ISBN 0-19-504951-9
- Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil İnalcık, Donald Quataert (1997). "An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire". Cambridge University Press. p.651. ISBN 0-521-57455-2
- Cetinsaya, Gokhan. Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 1890-1908. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
- "The Choice, featuring Lawrence Anthony". BBC radio 4. 2007-09-04. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- Anthony, Lawrence; Spence Grayham (2007-06-03). Babylon's Ark; The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 0-312-35832-6.
- Monthly rainfall for Baghdad (WMO #40650)
- Annual Rainfall Statistics for Baghdad (WMO #40650)
- (AFP) – Jan 11, 2008 (2008-01-11). "Afp.google.com, First snow for 100 years falls on Baghdad". Afp.google.com. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Baghdad Climate Guide to the Average Weather & Temperatures, with Graphs Elucidating Sunshine and Rainfall Data & Information about Wind Speeds & Humidity:". Climate & Temperature. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
- "World Weather Information Service - Baghdad". Retrieved 2010-03-29.
- USA Today http://images.usatoday.com/news/graphics/troop_surge/flash.swf
|url=missing title (help).
- "DefenseLink News Article: Soldier Helps to Form Democracy in Baghdad". Defenselink.mil. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Zafaraniya Residents Get Water Project Update - DefendAmerica News Article". Defendamerica.mil. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- Frank, Thomas (2006-03-26). "Basics of democracy in Iraq include frustration". USA Today. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
- "DefendAmerica News - Article". Defendamerica.mil. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Democracy from scratch". csmonitor.com. 2003-12-05. Archived from the original on 3 April 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Leaders Highlight Successes of Baghdad Operation - DefendAmerica News Article". Defendamerica.mil. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- NBC 6 News - 1st Cav Headlines[dead link]
- "Iraqi Airways." Arab Air Carriers Organization. Retrieved on October 19, 2009.
- "Contact Us." Al-Naser Airlines. Retrieved on 13 February 2011. "Main Branch: Al-Karrada , Babil Region - Distrlct 929 [sic] - St21 - Home 46 - Beside Al Jadirya Private Hospital. [...] Iraq- Baghdad."
- ARCADD[dead link]
- 3:48 p.m. ET (2008-08-27). "Baghdad plans to build giant Ferris wheel". MSNBC. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Baghdad Gate". Baghdad Gate. Iraqi News. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
- "Baghdad Investment: Creating (1824) housing units in Baghdad.". Baghdad Governorate Website. 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-09.
- Five women confront a new Iraq | csmonitor.com[dead link]
- "In Baghdad, Art Thrives As War Hovers". Commondreams.org. 2003-01-02. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Gunmen storm independent radio station in latest attack against media in Iraq". International Herald Tribune. 2009-03-29. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- "Twinning the Cities". City of Beirut. Archived from the original on 2008-02-21. Retrieved 2008-01-13.
Further reading
- By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb (Mrs. Roland Wilkins), 1908 (1909 ed) (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & PDF (11.3 MB) format)
- A Dweller in Mesopotamia, being the adventures of an official artist in the Garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & PDF (7.53 MB) format)
- Pieri, Caecilia (2011). Baghdad Arts Deco: Architectural Brickwork, 1920-1950 (1st ed.). The American University in Cairo Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-9774163562.
- "Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-135" by Ibn Battuta.
- "Gertrude Bell: the Arabian diaries,1913-1914." by Bell Gertrude Lowthian, and O'Brien, Rosemary.
- "Historic cities of the Islamic world."by Bosworth, Clifford Edmund.
- "Ottoman administration of Iraq, 1890-1908." by Cetinsaya, Gokhan.
- "Naked in Baghdad." by Garrels, Anne, and Lawrence, Vint.
- "A memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson." by Rawlinson, George.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Baghdad|
|Wikivoyage has travel information related to: Baghdad|
|Look up Baghdad in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
|Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bagdad (city).|
- Map of Baghdad
- Iraq Image - Baghdad Satellite Observation
- National Commission for Investment in Iraq
- Interactive map
- Iraq - Urban Society
- Envisioning Reconstruction In Iraq
- Description of the original layout of Baghdad
- Ethnic and sectarian map of Baghdad - Healingiraq
- UAE Investors Keen On Taking Part In Baghdad Renaissance Project
- Man With A Plan: Hisham Ashkouri
- Behind Baghdad's 9/11
- Iraq Inter-Agency Information & Analysis Unit Reports, maps and assessments of Iraq from the UN Inter-Agency Information & Analysis Unit | <urn:uuid:eff43e30-0077-43de-9660-78082e109714> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92974 | 8,885 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Creating Strategic Readers
Techniques for Developing Competency in Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension
More about the author
Author Valerie Ellery has updated her bestselling book, Creating Strategic Readers, to help you meet the challenges of educating your 21st-century learners. Here she describes a comprehensive literacy classroom, detailing appropriate curriculum, assessment, and instruction. She then focuses on the five essential reading components—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
The book includes numerous exciting and engaging techniques geared to students’ reading levels and incorporating students’ multiple intelligences. This updated, revised, and expanded second edition features
- Over 140 classroom-tested techniques
- 35 new techniques
- An expanded focus on educating the whole child
- A motivation/engagement section for many techniques
- An accompanying CD with a wide assortment of reproducibles and assessment forms
TIP: Printing of reproducibles is not possible from e-books. If you would like reproducibles for classroom use, please purchase the print edition.
© 2009 | 256 pp.
ISBN 13: 978-0-87207-469-9 | <urn:uuid:43ff22b5-b109-46e5-bb72-725af98de426> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reading.org/General/Publications/Books/bk469.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.860899 | 249 | 3.53125 | 4 |
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission said the overall health of the river basin is improving, but there are some problem areas.
The commission said important data on the 49,000 miles of rivers and streams in the basin comes from a network of gauges, but funding for many of those was lost in 2011. The gauges are used to monitor water and pollutant levels.
Paul Swartz, the commission's executive director, said in a statement that "we would literally be flying blind" without the stream gauge data.
More than 2,000 miles of streams are polluted by mine drainage, and smallmouth bass in the lower region are suffering from increasing levels of disease, Swartz said. The cause of that isn't known. Drinking water protection is also a concern in some areas, he said.
Throughout the basin 32 percent of rivers and streams have water quality that isn't impaired, 40 percent are slightly impaired, 23 percent are moderately impaired, and 5 percent are severely impaired, the report said. Between 2010 and 2012 the number of stream miles that were polluted by stormwater runoff rose from 1,120 to 1,150.
However, the report said that the main branch of the river meets or exceeds standards along most of its 444 miles, and many smaller watersheds are pristine.
Total water use in the basin is increasing, too.
Electric power companies were by far the largest user, withdrawing 86.4 million gallons of water per day in 2010, and 92.7 million gallons per day in 2012. Water use by the natural gas industry also rose significantly, from 1.3 million gallons per day in 2010 to 10.4 million gallons per day in 2012.
Public water supplies used 8.9 million gallons per day in 2012, down slightly from 2010.
The Susquehanna basin flows 444 miles from headwaters in Cooperstown, N.Y. to Havre de Grace, Maryland. | <urn:uuid:d6dd6bb8-ccc6-481b-89e5-1efcf8e8ccbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ldnews.com/state/ci_22582995/susquehanna-river-commission-issues-report | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965569 | 391 | 2.90625 | 3 |
“The P.O.S.D.C. of Management” a student aid
Gregory V. Boulware
Pupils need every available edge when it comes to studies, whether they know it or not. They should take advantage of every bit of information available, i.e., research articles, white papers, periodicals, magazines, and yes…blogs.
This wee bit of information should prove useful to the aspiring business management, marketing, accounting, secretarial sciences, business law, and/or programming student(s). These extra tools will aid the student in his/her preparation for successful management endeavors. Management students will first need to know the P.O.S.D.C.’s of management.
PLANNING: the process of setting objectives and determining what needs to be done to successfully accomplish the assignment-mission of an organization.
ORGANIZING: the process of task assignment, the coordination of resources, team structuring, and work activities for the organization.
STAFFING: the process of building the team by attempting to attract and retain qualified people to the organization.
DIRECTING: the process that provides leadership, arranges motivational opportunities, and builds a good working environment.
CONTROLLING: the process of establishing enterprise-wide standards, analyzing results, measuring actual performance and monitoring to see whether standards have been met. Controlling also includes making the right decisions and corrective actions, if needed.
Students should also become familiar with the process of management and what is required to become a manager. The best managers are well informed and are acutely aware of team needs. The needs of the team are met with the managerial support reflecting alternatives and suggestions for a team coordinated solution.
The process of management involves planning, organization, leading, and controlling the use of resources to accomplish target performance goals. “All managers, regardless of title, level, type, and organizational setting(s), are responsible for the four functions. However, they are not accomplished linear, step-by-step fashion.” John R. Schermerhorn Jr., goes on to say…”The reality is that these functions are continually engaged as a manager moves from task to task and opportunity to opportunity in his or her work.”
While agreeing with Mr. Schermerhorn as well as several other experienced, teachers, and gurus of this profession, the ultimate goal of a manager is to help the company/organization achieve its highest performance with the utilization of resources, human and material.
Henry Mintzberg wrote, “Although the management process may seem straightforward, things are more complicated than they appear at first glance.” Ever-present e-mail and instant messages are added to his list of executive/managerial operations.
Remember my message “IT and BI”, the non-hyperbole of the marriage between Business Intelligence and Information Technology? “BI and IT virtually, methodically, and basically go arm-in-arm.” Just look around you. Technology and Management is everywhere. But in order to ascend to the highest level(s) in management, one must begin with the P.O.S.D.C. of management.
Til next time…
“SERVICE SOFTWARE DREAMING”
“Quality Education vs. Accreditation”
“The Data and Tech Phenom” - “Da Dit Dot Data Phenom”
“We The Matrix”
“A Students Prelude to Management and Computer Science”
Gregory’s Voice Blog Message: | <urn:uuid:8bebb5c9-da57-4bdb-80f0-26f23520c27d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theposdcofmanagement.blogspot.com/2010/03/posdc-of-management-student-aid.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895706 | 749 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Panasonic Hair-Washing Robot
At the Home Care & Rehabilitation Expo 2010, Panasonic exhibited, a prototype hair-washing robot.
This hair-washing robot utilizes Panasonic's robot hand technology. The left and right arm mechanisms adjust the pressure used to wash hair, depending on the shape of the user's head.
"People have all sorts of head shapes and hairstyles, and to scan them fully, we've developed a new 3D scanning mechanism. This mechanism utilizes robot hand technology, which was previously developed by Panasonic, to learn a variety of shapes. And we've built the mechanism into this robot."
The robot is designed to act like a person washing their hands. Its left and right end-effectors wash the user's hair as if they're giving a massage, while pressing the head gently.
"First of all, the robot uses plenty of hot water to loosen up the hair, then it applies mousse and shampoo. Next, the robot washes the hair by stroking and squeezing. After it's done enough massaging, it finishes by rinsing off the shampoo."
"In hospitals and care facilities, some people only have two baths scheduled per week, but they want to wash their hair more often. We'd like such patients to utilize this robot. Also, staff who wash patients' hair a lot sometimes get chapped hands and backache, but this robot can help them out. It could also be used in hair salons as well."
This robot can also give dry massages, so it could be used for relaxation purposes as well. | <urn:uuid:8ce19cd4-6c5f-4cc0-bf9e-195f7926a4c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diginfo.tv/v/10-0197-r-en.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953717 | 323 | 2.875 | 3 |
The 50 gigapixel camera - sharper vision than an eagle?
Since the digital revolution, we all communicate the capabilities of our image capturing devices - be it a phone, camera, or tablet - in one, all-powerful word: megapixel. And now there's a prototype camera capable of shooting 50 GIGAPIXELS!
Today, mobile phones shoot more megapixels than my first professional digital camera. Does more megapixels mean better photos? Not necessarily. For outdoor photography, where nature’s unpredictable beauty pushes the world's best photographers and cameras to perform, there are much more important elements than pixel count. In fact, pushing the megapixel count without adequate improvement in things like buffer, shutter-lag, and focus capabilities results in a camera that takes really big, really lousy pictures; but the most common measuring stick for the technology of a camera is, and will likely be for some time, the mighty megapixel.
In keeping with the megapixel race, a team of electrical engineers from Duke University and the University of Arizona have developed a prototype camera that blows away all previous camera's resolution. It can capture 50,000 megapixels of information - that’s 50 gigapixels - or five times more resolution than the eyesight of a human with 20/20 vision.
Eagles are thought to have vision four times better than a human, so the new prototype camera is supposedly sharper even than an eagle’s eye. (I'm not sure which is more impressive, that this prototype camera might compete with an eagle, or that even with todays most cutting-edge optical technology, we're just barely able to compete with the incredible resolving power of an eagle's eye.)
The prototype camera works by combining the information from 98 small cameras, called microcameras, which fire simultaneously to create an image. A single lens feeds light to all 98 microcameras, which then feed their information to a processor that combines the images from the microcameras into a single photograph.
According to the developers the camera is fairly large, nearly a metre wide, in order to handle the control boards and the temperature control components that keep the electronics from overheating while processing information.
The obvious question is: do we need a camera that sees in gigapixels? My gut answer is no, but after seeing what the 36mp Nikon D800 is capable of doing, I’m not so sure. You don’t NEED that many megapixels, but if you have them, it not only allows for larger printing, but also expands the creative potential of the camera.
I bought the D800 for a specific assignment to shoot a sunset landscape to be printed three metres wide. That big of a fine art print demands a resolution that, until the D800, wasn’t possible without using expensive and cumbersome medium format equipment. I began the project before the invention of the D800, and was struggling with stitching together lower resolution photos from a scene with rapidly changing light. When the D800 came out, I was able to finish the job the first time I took the camera out of the box:
Here's a crop of the tiny baby pine tree growing next to the puddle:
So what could you do with 50 gigapixels? That’s a photograph containing 50 billion pixels. It boggles the mind to consider. At 300 dpi, the standard resolution for high resolution printing, a 50 gigapixel print could be about 90 metres across - almost the size of a football field.
Google Earth in scary detail comes to mind, and also murals on skyscrapers, airports and museums - but even more game-changing would be the the post-production potential of the image. Take this casual photo of a woman enjoying a cold drink on a warm afternoon at the Bugaboo Lodge that was shot using the 36mp D800:
No big deal, but then look at the crop below that shows details in the image that are not even visible with the human eye from the distance where the photo was taken:
You could read her watch if it was rotated slightly! So now imagine wildlife photography with a 50 gigapixel camera. Provided the optics are good enough, you could crop in on a tiny portion of the frame with excellent results. Imagine shooting a grizzly bear mother and cub from a nice, safe distance, and afterwards being able to crop in on her and her cub’s faces with enough resolution for a full-sized print.
The documentary capabilities of such a camera would open the door to previously unexplored videography methods, such as panning across a video clip of a busy street scene with enough resolution to see many dozens of people interacting in intimate detail.
For my world, often photographing people having fun adventures in nature, I'd rather if technology produced, instead of a 50 gigapixel beast, a 12mp camera the size of a deck of cards with optics to compete with the best DSLRs. Perhaps one day we'll have my dream camera too.
What about you? Would 50 gigapixels be your dream camera? | <urn:uuid:71aff626-0b3c-49f2-892d-59d1c134df82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.canadianmountainholidays.com/the-adventure/bid/90461/The-50-gigapixel-camera-sharper-vision-than-an-eagle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950822 | 1,045 | 2.75 | 3 |
Now, research at Cornell University, using the fruit fly as a model system, has confirmed a theory about one step in the process by showing that a protein complex known as FACT is positioned in living cells at sites where chromosomal DNA is unpacked so that its code can be read. It is part of what the researchers call "a sophisticated molecular machine" that is not yet completely understood. The research is reported in the latest edition (Aug. 22) of the journal Science .
"This process is fundamental to the expression of all genes, whether they are normally expressed genes or genes that contribute to disease -- all these use the same machinery," says John T. Lis, Cornell professor of molecular biology and genetics, who supervised the research.
Two other related papers on the topic also will be published in the same issue of Science from groups at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Harvard Medical School. The cover image of the issue, from the Cornell and Robert Wood Johnson research groups, shows FACT appearing at the same locations as two other transcription factors on fruit fly (Drosophila ) chromosomes.
To fit into the nucleus of a cell, DNA must be packed into folded structures called nucleosomes that in turn form higher order structures. When the cell needs to manufacture a particular protein, nucleosomes open to expose the part of the chromosomal DNA where the gene for that protein is located. This allows an enzyme called RNA polymerase II to contact the gene to transcribe its code onto another molecule called messenger RNA. In turn, the messenger RNA travels out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm and to another cell structure called a ribosome, where a protein is manufactured according to the transcribed code.
Contact: Bill Steele
Cornell University News Service | <urn:uuid:5f72d200-832e-4f4b-992f-b758bcd83c78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-2/Protein-is-shown-to-aid-cells-reading-of-genetic-code-3929-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935906 | 359 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Monday, February 2, 2009
Flu season is making a slow start this winter. There are widespread cases reported in only two states: Virginia and New Jersey.
But, experts say, don't get complacent. Influenza usually ramps up in February, long after many people have forgotten last fall's campaigns to get vaccinated. Last year, there was even a spike in March.
The CDC notes that while doctor visits for flu-like symptoms have been below normal all season, they did inch up each week in January. Also, 14 states are reporting what the CDC calls "regional activity." So, flu is making people sick, but just not as many statewide as is usual.
Seasonal flu aside, specialists have another worry: Bird flu. The global recession could threaten work to keep the deadly H5N1 strain in check in birds, which in turn limits its spread to people. | <urn:uuid:e56784bd-838b-4a36-a0c2-4910ecc86932> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kake.com/health/headlines/38812987.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979778 | 183 | 2.640625 | 3 |
All About Aging Eyes
Do you know the difference between normal changes in vision that occur with age and abnormal changes caused by age-related eye disease? Here's a look at some common eye problems associated with getting older.
This is the slow loss of ability to see close objects or small print. It happens gradually after age 40 and is considered a normal consequence of aging. The lens of the eye slowly stiffens with age, and the muscles that control the curvature of the lens become unable to focus the lens properly. Reading glasses or bi- or trifocals can often help with this problem.
The lens of the eye becomes cloudy, blocking light from passing through and eventually causing a loss of vision, according to the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Cataracts develop slowly and have no symptoms until they become large enough or thick enough to affect vision. Cataracts may be corrected through surgery.
This is caused when the tear glands stop working well, the NIA says. Dry eye can cause itching, burning and even some vision loss. A humidifier in your home or artificial tears may help ease dry eye.
Glaucoma is a condition in which the optic nerve is damaged, resulting in vision loss. It is caused by a number of poorly understood diseases. These diseases usually, but not always, cause an abnormal increase in fluid pressure inside the eye. Glaucoma has no early symptoms. The best prevention is to have a regular eye exam in which your eyes are dilated. Treatment may be eye drops, oral medication or surgery.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
This disorder, which occurs as a wet form or a dry form, affects the part of the retina called the macula. The macula gives you your central vision used for reading, driving and seeing fine detail. A person with AMD eventually develops a blind spot in the center of the visual field and is not able to see objects clearly. It does not affect peripheral (side) vision. Wet AMD can be treated with laser therapy or with medication. New drugs have been developed that slow or block the growth of new blood vessels and decrease the leakage of blood from existing blood vessels, thus preserving sight. These medications are injected into the eye. Pegaptanib (Macugen), a drug that is injected every six weeks, was approved in 2004; ranibizumab (Lucentis), which is injected monthly, was approved in 2006 and may be able to reverse some of the effects of macular degeneration. There is no cure for dry AMD, but vitamin supplements and lutein can slow the progress.
This occurs when the inner and outer layers of the retina become separated, the NIA says. The retina is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eyeball. Symptoms of retinal detachment include an increase in the number of floaters (small spots or strings that appear in your field of vision), a shadow seems to block part of your visual field, light flashes or a sudden blurring of vision. If you have these symptoms, see your eye doctor immediately; you may not have a retinal detachment, but only your eye doctor can tell you for certain. Surgery or laser treatment may be able to reattach the retina.
Adults 60 or older should have an eye exam at least once a year to determine if they have any vision changes that could be corrected with a new eyeglass prescription or better lighting, or if they have a serious vision problem that needs medical attention.
An eye exam includes adding eye drops to dilate your eyes. This is the only way to find some eye diseases, such as glaucoma, that have no early signs or symptoms, the NIA says. Your eye doctor should check your eyesight, your glasses and your eye muscles.
You also should see your primary care doctor regularly to check for diabetes and other diseases that can cause eye problems if not treated.
Steps to take
These are reasons to see your eye doctor:
You have a need for more light and a gradual, spotty loss of detail vision or a sudden and severe loss of central vision. These may be warning signs of wet or dry AMD, the most common eye disorder in older people. AMD occurs when the retina degenerates over time. There's no treatment for the dry form, but studies have found antioxidants and lutein may slow progression.
Your vision seems hazy, you're having trouble distinguishing colors, have an increased sensitivity to glare, and/or light scatters and appears like a "halo." These may be the warning signs of cataracts, cloudy areas in part or all of the eye lens. Some cataracts remain small and don't affect eyesight too much. But those that become large or thick can keep light from easily passing through the lens, which can cause loss of eyesight. They can be successfully removed surgically 90 percent of the time.
You experience a subtle loss of contrast, difficulty driving at night and/or loss of peripheral vision. These may be the warning signs of glaucoma, a condition that results from too much fluid pressure inside the eye that can lead to vision loss. Treatment options include prescription eye drops, oral medications and surgery.
You have diabetes. Depending on how long you have had it and your current eye health, your eye doctor will want to see you every six months to a year.
You experience sudden onset of pain in an eye.
For people with AMD, it is important to check vision in each eye every day to monitor for changes in central vision. | <urn:uuid:5b34ae1a-5548-43ba-885e-9139c74a6767> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/Encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=2467 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948052 | 1,143 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Contemporary Views of Behavioral Learning Theory
There remains quite a bit of controversy, among researchers and clinicians alike, regarding the role of classical conditioning in the development of anxiety disorders. First, it is not always possible to identify the initial classical conditioning life event which led to the development of an anxiety disorder. Second, there is a great deal of evidence in the literature to suggest a multitude of factors combine to produce an anxiety disorder, including genetics and disposition, psychological vulnerabilities, and social learning. We discussed these influences in the section on the biopsychosocial model. While the precise role of classical conditioning is still uncertain, it does appear there is sufficient evidence to support the reinforcing nature of avoidance learning, according to the principles of operant conditioning.
Not withstanding these limitations, these two theoretical models directly gave rise to numerous effective behavioral therapies that are applied in clinical practice today, and continue to be refined. Behavioral techniques are widely used for a plethora of problems, including drug/alcohol addiction, smoking cessation, improving social skills, and helping children with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. In the next section, we discuss the application of behavioral theory as it relates to the treatment of anxiety disorders.
Behavioral therapies for anxiety disorders
Since it was demonstrated that phobias could be learned through paired association, and reinforced through avoidance and escape, scientists hypothesized that what could be learned, could potentially be un-learned. A common type of behavioral therapy, called exposure and response prevention therapy, was developed as a direct result of the classical and operant conditioning research. For some disorders, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) the two components (exposure and response prevention) are most effective when used together. For other disorders they may be applied separately, or together.
Exposure simply means facing or confronting one's fears repeatedly until the fear subsides (called habituation, see below), and response prevention mean refraining from engaging in typical avoidance or escape behaviors when faced with a feared situation, so that these maladaptive behaviors are no longer reinforced. For example, if a person has germ contamination OCD, a typical exposure exercise consists of shaking hands with someone (exposure), and not washing afterwards (response prevention). | <urn:uuid:9d87feca-5283-4fd0-b736-d45d6028c4b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vbhcs.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=38495&cn=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935849 | 454 | 3.46875 | 3 |
In less than six months, households across the country will take part in a massive nationwide survey that occurs only once every decade. This spring people from the Atlantic to the Pacific will take part in the 2010 census, part of the government's effort to paint a new portrait of the country.
But counting every person residing in the United States is no small feat. And since the results can have a drastic effect on everything from Congressional representation to the allocation of more than $400 billion in federal money annually, the process is frequently rife with controversy. The upcoming one appears set to be no exception.
In a variety of ways, though, the 2010 census will be different from surveys seen in years past, reflecting changes made by career scientists at the Census Bureau who have been preparing for this effort for the last decade.
Most importantly, the new census form is now the shortest in history.
This year's form, the Bureau boasts, consists of just 10 questions that can be completed in only 10 minutes. And for the first time since 1930, the census is using only one form, rather than two.
Another first for the census this year is a bilingual form that will be sent to selected areas with high Hispanic populations -- around 12 million of these forms will be sent out in all. A few years ago the Census Bureau realized that a lot of non-responses in the past could be chalked up to the language barrier. And for the Bureau, non-responses can be costly: for every one percent increase in the number of people who mail back forms, the Bureau saves $80 million.
However, a recent Census analysis found that a decrease in mailed-back forms could lie ahead -- the analysis found that recent increases in government mistrust, identity theft, and foreclosure rates could lead to a 3 percent drop in the number of households that mail in their forms without visits from census takers.
In another attempt by the Bureau to boost participation, this year a replacement form will also be sent out this year to households that do not initially respond by mail.
The changes do not end with the form. Around 140,000 census workers -- hailing from communities nationwide -- last spring used handheld technology for the first time in the bureau's history as they canvassed the country to identify each residential address, in essence, compiling the most comprehensive address book the country has ever seen.
In the coming months, work will pick up. Recruitment is now under way for census takers the bureau will employ during the peak workload next year. In all, more than 1 million employees -- nearly all of them short-term and temporary -- will work to gather information to make this census possible.
Then, in January, the Bureau will launch a communications campaign to let people know the census is coming. A large chunk of the $326 million outreach campaign will be spent on media buys. Then in the middle of March, census forms will be sent to households.
On April 1 comes National Census Day, the date Americans have been told to use as a reference point for sending back their completed forms. People who do not return their completed forms on time should expect a visit from census takers sometime in April, May, June, or July. | <urn:uuid:9edfde62-38ac-43cd-b079-74bd92737e71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-us-census-survey-paint-picture-america/story?id=9091217 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955854 | 653 | 2.6875 | 3 |
COLLUTHUS, a schismatic presbyter in Alexandria during the episcopate of ALEXANDER (312-326), nineteenth patriarch of the See of Saint Mark. In 324 the council convened by Hosius to quell the growing Arian controversy deposed Colluthus for taking upon himself the episcopal function of conferring orders. Ancient sources indicate that Colluthus was not a supporter of Arius, but was himself the leader of a schismatic group. Although Philastrius stated that Colluthus erred in teaching against Isaiah 45:7 that God did not create evil, the exact nature of the beliefs of Colluthus is not known. His activities after 324 are similarly obscure.
Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections. | <urn:uuid:723d5c10-4b17-47b8-936e-cd894897a92f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cce/id/490/rec/18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953188 | 160 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The History of
Genesee County, MI
Online Edition by Holice, Deb & Clayton
Montrose, located near the old reservations of Pewanigawink, is the most northern of the villages on the route to Saginaw by the river trail of the Indians. Its first white resident was Seymour W. ensign, a native of New York State who had emigrated to Saginaw. In 1842 Mr. ensign, having purchased of the Brent estate forty acres in Montrose township, tied two canoes together and built a platform upon them, and, with family, goods and stores, towed his primitive craft fifty-five miles by river to his home in the wilderness. At that time there was not a white person living in the township, neither were there roads or clearings.
Montrose has two churches, the Methodist Episcopal and the Baptist. It has one weekly newspaper and Masonic and Odd fellows lodges. It is centrally located in the midst of a good agricultural district. It was incorporated as a village in 1899. Its populationis four hundred fifty. The village officers are:
President L. M. Jennings
The village of Gaines, in the western portion of Genesee county, was once covered with a dense growth of heavy timber and was threaded by a branch of the Swartz Creek. Along the banks of the latter in early years were extensive groves of maple and a trail reached from Flint, which was used by the Indians, who made large quantities of maple sugar. This has disappeared, although there are still living in this vicinity several families, descendants of the aborigines who inhabited this region.
Gaines has one bank and two churches, the Methodist Church, with the Rev. Mr. Barton as pastor, and the Catholic church, Rev. Fr. F. J. Burke, priest. It was incorporated as a village in 1875. Its population is two hundred seventy-five. The officers for 1916 are:
President George W. Chase, Jr.
THE VILLAGE OF Mt. Morris, six and one-half miles north of flint, on the lines of the Pere Marquette railroad and the Bay City, Saginaw & Flint interurban railway, was known in early days as the "Coldwater Settlement," its pioneers being opposed to the use and abuse of intoxicants. It is generally conceded that Benjamin Pearson was the pioneer of Mt. Morris. With other settlers who emigrated to the West from Livingston County, New York, he has come to Flint river in 1833 and devoted some weeks to "land-looking." After selecting land in this locality and purchasing it form the government, Mr. Pearson erected the first dwelling every built in Mt. Morris township. During the succeeding year he was joined by other arrivals and a settlement was effected, a school was opened, a society of Presbyterians organized and the "Coldwater settlement," as it was known, disseminated and practiced in their midst the principles of temperance. Later the settlement was named Mt. Morris, deriving its name from the early home of many of the settlers, Mr. Morris, Livingston county, New York.
However, there was nothing to indicate this settlement as a village until 1857, when the Flint & Pere Marquette line had been surveyed and active operations commenced, when quite a number of families settled upon the site of the prospective village.
The following item appeared in the Wolverine Citizen of Flint on January 25, 1862: "The Flint & Pere Marquette railway was regularly opened for passengers and freight traffic in connection with Boss, Burrell & Company's line of stage coaches on Monday last. The railway is now completed from East Saginaw as far as Mt. Morris station, with six miles of Flint. The company has iron on hand to continue the track to Flint as soon as the season opens." In 1867 an act incorporating the village passed the state legislative body.
Mt. Morris in the year of 1916 has a good business district of well built, up-to-date stores, a private bank, and three churches, the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist and St. Mary's Catholic church, with Rev. Fr. Thomas Luby as priest. The Mt. Morris consolidated schools, under the management of William J. Maginn, rank among the best of the village schools in the state. Mt. Morris also has a large elevator and a number of attractive residences, and is a progressive village, with a population of seven hundred and eighty.
Swartz Creek is an unincorporated village in the township of Mundy, and is the site of what, in the pioneer days, was the division between the heavy timber and the "oak openings." Regarding the first early white settler in what is now the township of Mundy, there is some dispute, but it has been generally accepted that Morgan Baldwin and George Judson were the first resident of this locality.
During the early days of the settlement persons coming from the direction of Flint spoke of going "up the Swartz," though it was only a branch of the main stream, and in time the settlement was named Swartz Creek. Adam Miller was one of the first resident of this locality, who, assisted by several members of his family, chopped a road through from his land to Flint river, which afterwards became known as the "Miller road" and is now one of the finest highways in the county.
Swartz Creek has a large elevator, three beet weighing stations, the sugar beet industry being carried on extensively in this locality; a good graded school, a private bank, which is one of the chain of private banks operated under the management of Ira T. Sayre, of Flushing, and a number of stores. It has also two churches, the Catholic church and the Methodist Episcopal. Its population is six hundred and fifty.
In September, 1835, Moses and Enos Goodrich came to Atlas township and purchased from the government over one thousand acres of land. From the period of their settlement in this locality the name of Goodrich has been interwoven with all social, commercial and political history of the township. They founded mills, a village store, and opened to cultivation fields of the best land to be found in this section of Michigan. These two brothers were joined by others of their family, among them Aaron Goodrich, who had been admitted to the bar of Tennessee and in 1849 was appointed by President Taylor as chief justice of Minnesota. He was also a delegate to the Republican national convention at Chicago in1860, which resulted in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln.
A post office was established on the site of the village in 1846, with Enos Goodrich, postmaster, it being known at that time as Atlas post office, but was changed to its present title in 1849. The village of Goodrich is on the direct line of the Detroit united Interurban railroad and is surrounded by a farming district of good resources.
Goodrich has two churches, the Baptist and the Methodist Episcopal. It has also a high school of ten grades, a private bank, a number of stores and a good hotel. In 1916, through the efforts of Dr. a. Wheelock, a small but very complete hospital was built, fully equipped, and planned on very up-to-date principles. Goodrich has also a growing dairy concern. The village has a population of four hundred.
The village of Otisville, in Forest township, was built about the site of the Hayes saw-mill, in 1851. There was quite a settlement here at this time, the mill company building a few small houses for themselves and a boarding house for their employees. It was platted in 1863 by William F. Otis and T. D. Crocker and named Otisville. There were several members of the Otis family who settled in this locality, Francis W. Otis, of Cleveland, being the owner of the large saw-mill which was placed in position and operated under the supervision of John Hamilton, father or William Hamilton, of Flint. In Otisville and vicinity from 1860 to 1870 there were twelve large saw-mills in operation.
Otisville in 1916 has two churches, the Methodist Episcopal and the Free Methodist, and a graded school of twelve grades, a state bank and a creamery. The president of the village is Paul J. Laing. The population is three hundred and seventy-five.
The village of Atlas, from point of location, is one of the most attractive of the hamlets of the county, Kearsley Creek affording excellent water power privileges.
Among the prominent pioneers of this locality were the Carpenters, who came from Dutchess county, New York, William Carpenter, in company with Levi Preston, coming on foot from Niagara county, New York, through Canada to Detroit, and thence by the old Saginaw road to Atlas, where they selected land, purchased it from the government and built log houses and put in a few crops. They then returned to New York state and, with their families, again started for the new home in the western wilderness. They were thirty days by ox-team on the journey, but arrived safely at their destination. The Carpenter family have been most prominent in the growth and development of this part of the county, and members of the family are still residents of this locality, William Carpenter, of Goodrich, being one of the best known men in Genesee county.
Atlas in 1916 has a population of one hundred and seventy-five, its residents being chiefly retired farmers. There is one flouring mill, the Hastings Mill, a school, a general store and post office, and one church, the Presbyterian. It is a station on the Detroit United Interurban railway.
The village of Geneseeville was an important settlement in the early days of the county and a number of saw-mills were built along the banks of the Kearsley Creek and the Flint river by the pioneers of this locality. The first saw-mill was built in 1834, Kearsley Creek being dammed for that purpose about one hundred rods above its junction with the river. Benjamin Pearson was interested in this mill, which was built by a Mr. Harger. The mill was not very large, but it furnished lumber for many of the pioneer homes in this part of the county. A second mill was built on the Kearsley in 1836, known as the Jones mill, and was built about one mile above the first mill. The third was built in 1837 by Ogden Clarke, and the fourth on the flint river at Geneseeville. This last named mill was afterward owned by Reuben McCreery, who in 1853, also built another mill in this locality.
In the early days there were no bridges across the streams and it was not until 1843 that a bridge was built, the location of this being at the mouth of the Kearsley creek. In 1860 the "Fay Bridge," was built,. At a crossing which is the site of a bridge at the present time. The flint river and the Kearsley creek were much larger streams during the early days, owing to the heavy growth of timber which lined their banks. The first white person born in the town of Genesee was Damon Stewart, whose widow, who was Miss Francis McQuigg, is now residing in Flint.
The village of Geneseeville was platted in 1858 by Reuben McCreery, and Simon King, and a post office was established in 1859. Geneseeville in 1916 has one church, the Methodist Episcopal, and a few stores. An old grist-mill, which was originally built by Reuben McCreery, in 1849, and transferred eventually to Isaac O. Rogers in 1875, is still operated by members of the Rogers family. The population of Geneseeville is about one hundred.
The township of Thetford was named by one of its early resident, Nahum N. Wilson, for the town of Thetford in Orange county, Vermont and Thetford Center takes its name from the township. The village is now only a four corners with the usual few stores and residences.
On the site of what is now Pine run in early days was located the famous tavern of Corydon E. Fay, who for a number of years was one of the most prominent resident of this locality. He came to Genesee county from Avon, Livingston county, New York, in 1837, and secured employment on the farm of Benjamin Pearson, afterward purchasing land for himself. In 1850 travel on the Saginaw turnpike came to assume proportions which called for houses of entertainment for travelers along its route, and Mr. Fay built a large frame building and opened the first inn on the road between Flint River and Saginaw. It was called the Fay House and for many years was a famous hostelry in this part of the state, but was discontinued as a tavern in 1867.
Pine Run in 1916 has one church and a few stores. Its population is about one hundred and fifty.
The village of Argentine is on the township of that name, which at first included what is now Fenton. It is surrounded by a number of lakes, among which are Lobdell lake, named after a settler on its shores; Murray lake, named after the first settler in the township; McKane, McCaslin and Bass lakes, It is said that wolves and bears in large numbers were seen in this locality in the days of the first settlements.
James H. Murray, who had come to the west from Rochester, New York, settled in Argentine in 1835, and in 1836 built the dam in the village, later erecting a saw-mill. William Lobdell, for whom Lobdell lake was named, settled near Argentine in 1836. He had come to Detroit from Auburn, New York, and, being the owner of a wagon and three horses, found employment in transporting pioneer families and their effects through to Grand River. On one of these trips he found the land upon which he afterward settled.,
A post office was established at the village at an early date, and called Booton, but was later change to Argentine, mail being carried on horseback over a route which extended from Pontiac to Ionia. The village has a few stores, hotel and a population of about one hundred and fifty.
Whigville also known as Gibsonville, is situated one and one-half miles northeast of Grand Blanc and five miles from Flint. Here are located a Baptist church, a school and a few stores. The first saw-mill in the county was built here in 1828 by Rowland B. Perry and at one period considerable business was transacted here. It undoubtedly would have become a flourishing village, but the Flint & Pere Marquette railroad surveyed its road through Grand Blanc, which was an inducement for many of the earlier residents to remove to that village. The old Gibson homestead, one of the landmarks on the old state road, and formerly the home of C. D. Gibson, is still occupied by members of the Gibson family. Gibsonville has a few stores and a population of about one hundred.
Crapo Farm is a station on the main line of the Grand Trunk railroad, named for the eleven-hundred-acre farm of Governor Henry H. Crapo. This tract of land was originally a swamp which Governor Crapo reclaimed and made extensive improvements thereon, until today, under the ownership of Hon. W. W. Crapo, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, it is one of the finest farms in this section of Michigan. Governor Crapo was highly interested in the development of this land, and gave it his close attention. At one time he was a regular contributor on agricultural topics to the Albany County Gentleman. Among the interesting persons who might be mentioned in connection with the Crapo farm is Henry M. Flagler, the multi-millionaire who has built the chain of great hotels along the Florida coast, and who, while he was still a young boy, found employment on this farm, and lived here for a number of years.
Crapo Farm is only a small four corners, with a population of about fifty inhabitants.
Brent Creek, a small hamlet on the River road from Flushing to Saginaw, was named for Thomas L. L. Brent. It has a few stores and population of about one hundred.
RANKIN POST OFFICE.
Rankin post office is a small four corners in Mundy township, with one church, the Methodist Episcopal, a grange hall, one general store and a few houses. It was formerly known as Mundy Centre.
Otterburn is a small hamlet on the main line of the Grand Trunk railroad between Durand and Flint. Its population is one hundred and fifty.
Belsay is a station on the Grand Trunk railroad near the division of the main line and the belt line, and is a freight and shipping point for growers of sugar beets,. who market their crops from this station. There are only a few houses and no stores.
Richfield Centre is a small hamlet in Richfield township, on the site of the old Maxfield saw-mill, which was built in 1855. In the old days there was also a tavern at this place, but for many years it has been occupied as a residence. There is one church, the Methodist Episcopal, and a few stores.
History of Genesee
County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions
Transcribed by Holice B. Young
HTML by Deb
You are the 6655th Visitor to this USGenNet Safe-Site™ Since March 1, 2002.
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Many children are born with an underdeveloped tear-duct system, a problem that can lead to tear-duct blockage, excess tearing, and infection.
Blocked tear ducts are common in infants; as many as one third may be born with this condition. Fortunately, more than 90% of all cases resolve by the time kids are 1 year old with little or no treatment.
The earlier that blocked tear ducts are discovered, the less likely it is that infection will result or that surgery will be necessary.
About Tear Ducts
Our eyes are continually exposed to dust, bacteria, viruses, and other objects that could cause damage, and the eyelids and eyelashes play a key role in preventing that.
Besides serving as protective barriers, the lids and lashes also help the eyes stay moist. Without moisture, the corneas would dry out and could become cloudy or injured.
Working with the lids and lashes, the protective system of glands and ducts (called the lacrimal system) keeps eyes from drying out. Small glands at the edge of the eyelid produce an oily film that mixes with the liquid part of tears and keeps them from evaporating.
Lacrimal (or tear-producing) glands secrete the watery part of tears. These glands are located under the browbone behind the upper eyelid, at the edge of the eye socket, and in the lids.
Eyelids move tears across the eyes. Tears keep the eyes lubricated and clean and contain antibodies that protect against infection. They drain out of the eyes through two openings (puncta, or lacrimal ducts), one on each of the upper and lower lids.
From these puncta, tears enter small tubes called canaliculi or ducts, located at the inner corner of the eyelids, then pass into the lacrimal sac, which is next to the inner corner of the eyes (between the eyes and the nose).
From the lacrimal sacs, tears move down through the nasolacrimal duct and drain into the back of the nose. (That's why you usually get a runny nose when you cry — your eyes are producing excess tears, and your nose can't handle the additional flow.) When you blink, the motion forces the lacrimal sacs to compress, squeezing tears out of them, away from the eyes, and into the nasolacrimal duct.
The nasolacrimal duct and the lacrimal ducts are also known as tear ducts. However, it's the nasolacrimal duct that's involved in tear-duct blockage.
Many kids are born without a fully developed nasolacrimal duct. This is called congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction or dacryostenosis. Most commonly, an infant is born with a duct that is too narrow or has a web of tissue blocking the duct and therefore doesn't drain properly or becomes blocked easily. Most kids outgrow this by the first birthday.
Other causes of blockage, especially in older kids, are rare. Some kids have nasal polyps, which are cysts or growths of extra tissue in the nose at the end of the tear duct. A blockage also can be caused by a cyst or tumor in the nose, but again, this is unusual in children.
Trauma to the eye area or an eye injury that lacerates (cuts through) the tear ducts also could block a duct, but reconstructive surgery at the time of the accident or injury may prevent this.
Signs of Blocked Tear Ducts
Kids with blocked tear ducts usually develop symptoms between birth and 12 weeks of age, although the problem might not be apparent until an eye becomes infected. The most common signs are excessive tearing, even when a child is not crying (this is called epiphora). You also may notice pus in the corner of the eye, or that your child wakes up with a crust over the eyelid or in the eyelashes.
Kids with blocked tear ducts can develop an infection in the lacrimal sac called dacryocystitis. Signs include redness at the inner corner of the eye and a slight tenderness and swelling or bump at the side of the nose.
Some infants are born with a swollen lacrimal sac, causing a blue bump called a dacryocystocele to appear next to the inside corner of the eye.
Although this condition should be monitored closely by your doctor, it doesn't always lead to infection and can be treated at home with firm massage and observation. If it becomes infected, sometimes topical antibiotics are required. However, with some infections, the child may need to be admitted to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics, followed by surgical probing of the duct.
When to Call the Doctor
If your child's eyes tear excessively but show no sign of infection, consult with your doctor or a pediatric ophthalmologist (eye specialist). Early treatment of a blocked duct may prevent the need for surgery.
If there are signs of infection (such as redness, pus, or swelling) or if a mass or bump is felt on the inside corner of the eye, call your doctor immediately because the infection can spread to other parts of the face and the blockage can lead to an abscess if not treated.
Kids with blocked tear ducts often can be treated at home. Your doctor or pediatric ophthalmologist may recommend that you massage the eye several times daily for a couple of months. Before massaging the tear duct, wash your hands. Place your index finger on the side of your child's nose and firmly massage down toward the corner of the nose. You may also want to apply warm compresses to the eye to help promote drainage and ease discomfort.
If your child develops an infection as a result of the tear-duct blockage, the doctor will prescribe antibiotic eye drops or ointment to treat the infection. It's important to remember that antibiotics will not get rid of the obstruction. Once the infection has cleared, you can continue massaging the tear duct as the doctor recommends.
If your child still has excess tearing after 6 to 8 months, develops a serious infection, or has repeated infections, the doctor may recommend that the tear duct be opened surgically. This has an 85% to 95% success rate for kids who are 1 year old or younger; the success rate drops as children get older. Surgical probing may be repeated if it's not initially successful.
The probe should be performed by an ophthalmologist — your doctor can refer you to one. Probes are done on an outpatient surgery basis (unless your child is suffering from a severe infection and has already been admitted to the hospital) under general anesthesia.
The ophthalmologist first will do a complete eye exam to rule out other eye problems or types of inflammation that could cause similar symptoms. A dye disappearance test may help determine the cause of the problem. This involves placing fluorescein dye in the eye and then examining the tear film (the amount of tear in the eye) to see if it's greater than it should be. Or the doctor will wait to see if dye has drained properly by having the child blow his or her nose and then checking to see if any of the dye exited through the nose.
A surgical probe takes about 10 minutes. A thin, blunt metal wire is gently passed through the tear duct to open any obstruction. Sterile saline is then irrigated through the duct into the nose to make sure that there is now an open path. There's very little discomfort after the probing.
If surgical probing is unsuccessful, your doctor may recommend further surgical treatment. The more traditional form of treatment is called silicone tube intubation, in which silicone tubes are placed in tear ducts to stretch them. The tubes are left in place for as long as 6 months and then removed in another short surgical procedure or in the office depending upon the stent used.
A newer form of treatment is balloon catheter dilation (DCP), in which a balloon is inserted through an opening in the corner of the eye and into the tear duct. The balloon is inflated with a sterile solution to expand the tear duct. It is then deflated and removed.
Both of these procedures are fairly short but require that a child be put under anesthesia. Both are considered to be generally successful, with an 80% to 90% success rate in younger kids.
It may take up to a week after surgery before symptoms improve. Your doctor will give you antibiotic ointment or drops along with specific instructions on how to care for your child. | <urn:uuid:4a8dda6a-0c37-432c-b316-2cfd9ab08792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/PageManager.jsp?dn=SanfordHealth&lic=199&cat_id=177&article_set=21306&ps=104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960621 | 1,785 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Press Release 2012
How the cell swallows
3D movie at ‘ultraresolution’ shows how cell’s machinery bends membrane inwards
Video: different microscopy techniques combined to uncover how cells swallow molecules.
Click image to play.
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have combined the power of two kinds of microscope to produce a 3-dimensional movie of how cells ‘swallow’ nutrients and other molecules by engulfing them. The study, published today in Cell, is the first to follow changes in the shape of the cell’s membrane and track proteins thought to influence those changes. It also provides ample data to investigate this essential process further.
This ‘swallowing’, called endocytosis, is involved in a variety of crucial tasks. It is used by brain cells relaying information to each other, for instance, and is also hijacked by many viruses, which use it to invade their host’s cells. When a cell is about to swallow some molecules, a dent appears in the cell’s membrane, and gradually expands inwards, pinching off to form a little pouch, or vesicle, that transports molecules into the cell.
To investigate how the cell’s machinery pulls in the membrane and forms the vesicle, researchers led by Marko Kaksonen and John Briggs employed a method they developed two years ago to faithfully follow the exact same molecules first under a light microscope and then with the higher resolution of an electron microscope. This enabled them to combine two sets of data that so far could only be obtained in isolation: the timing and sequence with which different components of the cell’s machinery arrive at the vesicle-to-be, and the 3D changes to membrane shape that ultimately form that vesicle. They discovered, for instance, that the first proteins to arrive on the inside of the cell’s membrane are not able to start bending it inwards until a network of the cell’s scaffolding protein, actin, forms and starts pulling on the membrane.
The data used to make the video is freely available to the scientific community and will, Kaksonen and Briggs believe, provide valuable information to others trying to develop physical models of how this process works. The EMBL scientists themselves are probing the roles of individual proteins in this process, by perturbing them, and would like to extend the current work in yeast to human cells.
The video accompanying this release is also available on the EMBL YouTube Channel.
Kukulski, W., Schorb, M., Kaksonen, M. & Briggs, J.A.B. Time-resolved electron tomography reveals how the plasma membrane is reshaped during endocytosis. Cell, 3 August 2012.
Endocytosis, like many dynamic cellular processes, requires precise temporal and spatial orchestration of complex protein machinery to mediate membrane budding. To understand how this machinery works, we directly correlated fluorescence microscopy of key protein pairs with electron tomography. We systematically located 211 endocytic intermediates, assigned each to a specific time window in endocytosis and reconstructed their ultrastructure in 3D. The resulting virtual ultrastructural movie defines the protein-mediated membrane shape changes during endocytosis. It reveals that clathrin is recruited to flat membranes and does not initiate curvature. Membrane invagination begins upon actin network assembly. Subsequently, amphiphysin binding to parallel membrane segments promotes elongation of the invagination into a tubule, which constricts at 1/3 of its depth. Scission occurs on average 9s after initial bending when invaginations are 100 nm deep, releasing non-spherical vesicles with 6’400 nm2 mean surface area. Direct correlation of protein dynamics with ultrastructure provides a quantitative 4D resource.
Sonia Furtado Neves
EMBL Press Officer, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
|Tel:||+49 6221 387-8263|
Policy regarding use
Press and Picture Releases
EMBL press and picture releases including photographs, graphics, movies and videos are copyrighted by EMBL. They may be freely reprinted and distributed for non-commercial use via print, broadcast and electronic media, provided that proper attribution to authors, photographers and designers is made. | <urn:uuid:dc1eec71-3f91-4ba9-89e6-ad78b941c210> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.embl.de/aboutus/communication_outreach/media_relations/2012/120803_Heidelberg/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895349 | 920 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Fracking, Oil Sands, and Deep-Water Drilling
The dangerous new era of "extreme energy."
The ongoing debacle in the Gulf of Mexico is a sign of many things: the incompetence of BP, poor oversight, and an industry that places too much emphasis on production technology and too little on safety technology. But it also highlights a larger truth. We've entered an age in which the production of energy, especially from fossil fuels, demands ever-more-expensive environmental trade-offs. We've entered what Michael Klare, professor at Hampshire College, calls the era of " extreme energy."
Consider how oil production in the United States has evolved. In Texas in 1901, wildcatters didn't have to work very hard to tap into the great Beaumont gusher. The oil was essentially at the surface, all but seeping out of the earth's crust. When the land-based oil was exhausted, American prospectors went to sea. And when the shallow-water oil was exhausted, they went farther out. In 1985, only 21 million barrels, or 6 percent of the oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico, came from wells drilled in water more than 1,000 feet deep. In 2009, such wells produced 456 million barrels, or 80 percent of total Gulf production. Today, deep-water Gulf wells account for about one-quarter of the oil the United States sucks from the earth. The webcams broadcasting images from the spill provide a real-time measure of the environmental cost of this effort.
The Gulf of Mexico isn't the only place where such so-called tough oil is to be found in North America. The environmental hazards of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are so obvious that even the Bush-era Congress and White House wouldn't go there. Analysts have enthused about the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands in Canada—friendly, nearby, democratic, non-terrorist-promoting Canada. An Alberta government Web site notes that the oil sands are " the second largest source of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia." The reserves there—171.8 billion barrels—amount to 13 percent of the global total and are about what Iraq and Russia combined have. But the gunk in the tar sands isn't really oil. It's bitumen. And it has to be ripped out of the earth, or pushed to the surface in a process that itself consumes a lot of water and natural gas. Producing a barrel of oil from tar sands creates more than twice as many emissions than old-school oil drilling.
Natural gas is supposed to be an easy form of energy—it burns more cleanly than petroleum, and the United States has vast supplies. In recent years, discoveries of reserves locked in shale rock in Texas (the Barnett Shale) and in the Appalachians (the Marcellus Shale) have spurred a boom. But shale gas is also tough energy. The gas is produced via fracking—fracturing the rock with water and chemical solvents to loosen up the gas molecules. The environmental risk? The water mixed with solvents could filter into underground aquifers. Inconveniently, the Marcellus Shale overlaps with the watershed of the New York City region. And then there's the matter of earthquakes. Last year, experts in Texas grew concerned when rare seismic activity was detected in areas where natural-gas drillers had been fracking.
Even the cleanest sources come with trade-offs. The wind-turbine farm off of Cape Cod aroused the ire of waterfront homeowners whose views would be marred by giant propellers in the distance, but also by environmentalists concerned about its potential impact on wildlife. Proposals to put huge solar arrays in the Mojave Desert have provoked similar green concerns.
Thus far, we've deemed these risks—oil spills, more emissions, polluted water, the odd earthquake—to be worthwhile, in large measure because of the laws of supply and demand. "As the price of energy keeps drifting higher, we're going to do more and more dubious things," says Joseph Romm, an assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration and editor of the influential Climateprogress blog.
But the response to the age of tough oil shouldn't be engineering feats that allow us to drill deeper or to liberate hydrocarbons from rocks. Rather, we should apply our collective engineering smarts to figuring out ways to use less energy. If we want to avoid extreme energy, we need extreme efficiency.
Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter. His latest book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, has just been published in paperback.
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Explaining Today's Papers
Updated Dec. 14, 2005
Readers have requested explanations of some of the terms used in Slate's "Today's Papers" column. Here is a brief glossary.
Above-the-fold: On the top half of the front page (therefore visible even before the newspaper is unfolded). Signifies one of the most important stories of the day, according to that paper's editors.
Evergreen: An article that could run at any time. There are two types of evergreens: 1) an article without a direct tie-in to the day's news (e.g., "Traffic on the Rise in Metro Area"); and 2) a story that recurs regularly (e.g., "Elderly Threatened by Record Heat").
Front (as a verb): To place a story on the front page. The five national newspapers often reach different decisions on which stories to front on any given day. (See also, above-the-fold.)
Jump (verb or noun): For a story that begins on one (usually the front) page, to continue on another page. Or the place in the story where it breaks between pages. Or the entire part of the story after the first page. Because studies consistently show that few readers follow an article beyond the jump, many papers attempt to lay out the crucial elements of the story before the jump. (USA Today is the most extreme case, with front page news stories that almost never jump). Thus, the organization of facts around the jump can often reveal a paper's slant on a story.
Lead: The news story deemed most important by the newspaper. In most papers, the lead appears on the front page at the top of the right-hand column. The New York Times is the strictest about this rule, while USA Today--which often runs a feature story across the top of the front page--varies the most from this standard. On occasion, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times will displace the lead with a feature story--usually one with an eye-grabbing visual. In these cases, the lead will almost always be the next story down in the right-hand column. The Wall Street Journal has not adopted these conventions for leads. Instead, the paper usually fronts feature stories and an extensive, two-column news summary.
(Note: The opening sentence or paragraph of a news story is also known as the lead, but usually spelled "lede" to avoid confusion.)
Off-lead: The second most important news story of the day. The off-lead appears either in the top left corner, or directly below the lead on the right.
Op-Ed: The page in a newspaper where opinion pieces not written by the paper's editorial board appear. It originally stood for "opposite the editorial page." It also refers to the individual articles on the op-ed page (e.g., "Henry Kissinger's New York Times op-ed on the nuclear test ban treaty"). Some op-ed pieces are written by regularly syndicated columnists, and others are submitted to the newspaper unsolicited. | <urn:uuid:71c07193-6320-4d20-92c2-5cecd285380a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1999/09/explaining_todays_papers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929705 | 640 | 3.125 | 3 |
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The central functions of an academic community are learning, teaching, research, and scholarship. By accepting membership in the University, an individual joins a community ideally characterized by free expression, free inquiry, intellectual honesty, respect for the dignity of others, and openness to constructive change. The rights and responsibilities exercised within the community must be compatible with these qualities.
The rights of members of the University are not fundamentally different from those of other members of society. The University, however, has a special autonomy and reasoned dissent plays a particularly vital part in its existence. All members of the University have the right to press for action on matters of concern by any appropriate means. The University must affirm, assure, and protect the rights of its members to organize and join political associations, convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate and picket in orderly fashion, advocate, and publicize opinion by print, sign, and voice.
The University places special emphasis, as well, upon certain values which are essential to its nature as an academic community. Among these are freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom from personal force and violence, and freedom of movement. Interference with any of these freedoms must be regarded as a serious violation of the personal rights upon which the community is based. Furthermore, although the administrative processes and activities of the University cannot be ends in themselves, such functions are vital to the orderly pursuit of the work of all members of the University. Therefore, interference with members of the University in performance of their normal duties and activities must be regarded as unacceptable obstruction of the essential processes of the University. Theft or willful destruction of the property of the University or its members must also be considered an unacceptable violation of the rights of individuals or of the community as a whole.
Moreover, it is the responsibility of all members of the academic community to maintain an atmosphere in which violations of rights are unlikely to occur and to develop processes by which these rights are fully assured. In particular, it is the responsibility of officers of administration and instruction to be alert to the needs of the University community; to give full and fair hearing to reasoned expressions of grievances; and to respond promptly and in good faith to such expressions and to widely expressed needs for change. In making decisions that concern the community as a whole or any part of the community, officers are expected to consult with those affected by the decisions. Failures to meet these responsibilities may be profoundly damaging to the life of the University. Therefore, the University community has the right to establish orderly procedures consistent with imperatives of academic freedom to assess the policies and assure the responsibility of those whose decisions affect the life of the University.
No violation of the rights of members of the University, nor any failure to meet responsibilities, should be interpreted as justifying any violation of the rights of members of the University. All members of the community—students and officers alike—should uphold the rights and responsibilities expressed in this Statement if the University is to be characterized by mutual respect and trust.
It is implicit in the language of the Statement on Rights and Responsibilities that intense personal harassment of such a character as to amount to grave disrespect for the dignity of others be regarded as an unacceptable violation of the personal rights on which the University is based.
It is implicit in the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities that any unauthorized occupation of a University building, or any part of it, that interferes with the ability of members of the University to perform their normal activities constitutes unacceptable conduct in violation of the Statement and is subject to appropriate discipline.
In view of events last spring and beyond, questions have been raised about Harvard’s policies regarding protests and demonstrations. We take this opportunity to affirm our shared commitment to an academic community in which all members of the University are able to express their views freely and vigorously. We also affirm our commitment to ensuring that all members of the University are able to carry out their normal duties and activities in support of the University’s mission without interference or constraint by others. These commitments are expressed in the longstanding University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities.
We believe it is timely to remind the University community of this longstanding policy statement and its application to unauthorized occupation of University buildings. To highlight that aspect of the existing policy, we have proposed and the Governing Boards have adopted an “interpretation” of the Statement, parallel to a prior “interpretation” regarding personal harassment. The newly adopted interpretation has been appended to the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities and now appears at the bottom of its text.
While we recognize that the determination of specific penalties for violation of this policy by students is primarily the responsibility of the several faculties, we regard it as essential that there be shared understandings across the University that emphasize the serious nature of building occupations that interfere with the ability of members of the University to carry out their normal duties and activities and the serious consequences that should follow from such interference. We are therefore informing the relevant officers and committees in our faculties of our shared view that students who engage in such conduct should ordinarily be subject to suspension, and that others who engage in similar conduct should be subject to appropriate sanction. Of course, applicable laws may also bear on such conduct, and the University-wide Statement itself has potential application to many other forms of conduct.
We also believe it important, when a building occupation or similar acts involve participants from different Schools, that steps be taken toward coordination in the approach to discipline, including possible reference to the University-wide Committee on Rights and Responsibilities.
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Using MICASE: Tips & Tutorials
If you need help using the MICASE online search interface, try one of these resources:
The history, purpose, and ideas behind the MICASE project.
Learn how to use all the features of MICASE Online, our searchable database.
Order the transcripts, sound files, and handbook.
Lessons and activities for the classroom using real MICASE dialogue.
Interactive lessons that build vocabulary, improve pronunciation using authentic sound clips, and provide great listening comprehension activities.
Access a large portion of the MICASE sound files for free.
The surprising findings of these research projects give us insight into the language of academia.
Explanation of tags, colors, punctuation, and other mark-ups used in our transcripts.
Our how-to use MICASE information complied into one downloadable document.
How is MICASE being used by applied linguists?
A list of publications, presentations and teaching materials using MICASE (1999-present). | <urn:uuid:9f78894b-2cf5-4ad8-8dcf-60cd70f5eb26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://micase.elicorpora.info/using-micase-tips-tutorials | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.799344 | 205 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Trinidadians of East Indian descent will celebrate 167 years of their people’s presence on the island today, Wednesday 30 May.
Indian Arrival Day commemorates the arrival of the first indentured labourers from India aboard the Fatel Razack ship in May 1845.
Celebrations usually include re-enactments of the arrival of the ship staged at various beaches throughout Trinidad and Tobago. There is also music and dance, and outstanding members of the community are honoured for their contributions to society.
The centenary of East Indians’ arrival was celebrated in a major way on 30 May 1945 and was the first commemoration of arrival. But, the strength of commemorations dwindled thereafter and it was not until 1994 that it became an official public holiday called Arrival Day. The following year it was re-named Indian Arrival Day.
While the celebrations in Trinidad may be the best known, Guyana, Suriname and Mauritius also observe Indian Arrival Day on 5 May, 5 June and 2 November, respectively. | <urn:uuid:15e018e9-5e3c-4fdb-ac63-66eef280d1df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socanews.com/articles/article.php?167th-anniversary-of-Indian-Arrival-in-T-T-629 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966651 | 215 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Basic Patent Process
What exactly is a patent? A patent is a grant given by the Government of Canada. The grant helps an inventor gain success from his or her own work by stopping other people from making, using, or selling his or her invention for a maximum of 20 years. Patents are only given to products that can be defined as "inventions". The Canadian Patent Guide describes an invention according to three criteria
- The invention must be new and meet the test of "novelty," meaning it has not been anticipated by another patent or publication.
- The invention must be "useful", meaning it must perform a function, and also be material; something you can hold in your hand. Patents are not granted to scientific principles (E = mc2), abstract theories (Communism), ideas (the earth is round), business methods, computer programs or medical treatments.
- The invention must show an "inventive step" or a recognizable advance from previous inventions.
Patents are different from trademarks and copyrights. A trademark is a word, symbol or design used to distinguish one person's or one company's work from another, much like a signature on a painting. A copyright is a protection on literary, artistic, dramatic or musical works. Patents are only granted for the material form of an idea. Inventions can be a product, a chemical composition, an apparatus, or an improvement on any of those.
In Canada, the first person to file for a patent is entitled to the patent. That means if two people come up with the same invention by themselves, the first person to file for the patent will receive the exclusive rights to the invention. The other person will be out of luck and have to go back to the drawing board.
A unique and useful invention is worth a great deal of money and patents provide the incentive to invest time and money for devising and perfecting new products.
How to File For a Patent
Before receiving a patent, the inventor must fill out a patent application. Preparing, prosecuting and completing the patent application can be a complex task. First, the inventor must find a Patent Agent. The Patent Agent represents the inventor before the Canadian Patent Office in a similar fashion to how a lawyer represents a client in court.
A patent application must include a clear and complete description of the invention and its usefulness and claims that define the boundaries of the patent protection. The application must be incredibly clear and complete to allow anyone with average skill in the field to make or use the invention.
This is the portion of the patent that outlines the unique features of the invention. Claims are series of numbered statements that clearly state what the inventor feels to be his or her invention’s unique features. Not all of the claims outlined by the inventor may be allowed by the patent office. Claims must be demonstrated to the patent office.
Only the claims that have been outlined by the inventor are protected by the patent. This means that if the invention has another use or function that has not been defined by the patent application, the invention can be legally used by anyone for this purpose. It is important to clearly define the function and uses of an invention in the patent application.
Background of Invention
The background of invention describes the need that an invention fulfills. The background can also state the problem that the invention solves. The description provided in this section can distinguish an invention from other work/inventions in the same sector of discovery. The merits of the invention and the need behind the invention can help to convince the patent office about the usefulness of an invention and clearly demonstrate the "inventive step."
According to the Canadian Patent Act, the description of a patent shall describe the background, as far as is known by the applicant, that can be regarded as important for the understanding, searching, and examination of the invention.
In order for an inventor to possess the exclusive right to a product, the Government of Canada expects the inventor to provide a full description of his or her invention. This process is known as disclosure.
Disclosure, as defined by the Patent Act of Canada allows any skilled person in the field to carry out the invention and its function. If the inventor's description is misleading or unclear, the patent will be rejected and invalid.
Disclosure does not refer to a specific description of the patent, but more to the overall impression given by the patent. This is the essential exchange between the Canadian Government and the inventor. In exchange for exclusive rights to make, sell and license their invention, the inventor gives a detailed description of their product for the technological advancement of society. By sharing the inventor's knowledge and innovation with the Canadian Government, the inventor gains unique rights over his or her discovery, and allows it to become public.
For more information please search the patent database at the following the link: Patents Database
Copyright © 2008 Heritage Community Foundation
All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:5f84ebb4-9b5e-4ccb-a2be-b055d490a968> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wayback.archive-it.org/2217/20101208161519/http:/www.edukits.ca/inventors/student/info_student_patent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949234 | 997 | 3.4375 | 3 |
WIDE public outcry has greeted the recent decline of Britain's once plentiful house sparrows and starlings. Now reports are coming in of young birds unable to fly and instead walking around in tight circles, doing somersaults and twisting their heads in a bizarre fashion (
I asked Elliot Morley, the junior minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (DEFRA) with responsibility for animal welfare, if his department is backing any research into what is decimating these small birds.
Morley said that DEFRA recently published a report based on research led by the British Trust for Ornithology with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the University of Oxford, the government's Central Science Laboratory and the consultancy Wildwings Bird Management. Both the sparrow and the starling have drastically declined in the past 30 years in suburban gardens, sparrows ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. | <urn:uuid:b8985b72-191d-492d-b6ba-a1f2a39bbdfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623726.600-westminster-diary.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938378 | 203 | 2.671875 | 3 |
As the population grew during the 1880's, people moved west and away from perennial water supplies. The westward expansion also moved population into more arid regions of the country where the flow of rivers and streams was much less dependable than in the humid East. Dependence on water storage and transmission increased as the distances from reliable water sources increased.
During the first two-thirds of the 20th century, water planners and managers sought to develop the Nation's water resources to meet the growing needs of the country. Large reservoirs and aqueducts were constructed to provide water for public supply, industry, irrigation, and hydropower; to provide flood control; and to foster regional economic development. By the 1960's and the 1970's, concerns about the environmental effects of large reservoirs, as well as increasing construction costs and the scarcity of suitable storage sites, curtailed the construction of significant additional reservoir capacity (fig. 1).
Figure 1. Cumulative reservoir storage in the United States ( from U.S. Geological Survey, 1990 ).
The development of data on the flow of the Nation's rivers mirrored the development of the country. Increasing need for reliable water supplies quickly led to the need for streamflow data with which to design storage and distribution facilities. In 1889, the first stream-gaging station operated in the United States by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was established on the Rio Grande near Embudo, New Mexico. The establishment of this early station was an outgrowth of efforts to train individuals to measure the flow of rivers and streams and to define standard stream-gaging procedures. As the need for streamflow data increased, the stream-gaging program of the USGS has grown to include (as of 1994) 7,292 continuous-record stream-gaging stations (herein referred to as "stations") in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands (fig. 2). More than 90 percent of these stations are operated with at least partial support from other Federal, State, and local agencies. This report briefly describes the evolution and current status of the stream-gaging program of the USGS, the uses of streamflow data, the data-collection process, evaluations of the stream-gaging program, and challenges for the future. | <urn:uuid:09c60d2b-5351-49aa-b497-ab8954ee29a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1123/introduction.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956247 | 469 | 3.828125 | 4 |
National Citizen Service (NCS)
National Citizen Service (NCS) supports the Government’s vision for building a Big Society. It will act as a gateway to the Big Society for many young people by supporting them to develop the skills and attitudes they need to become more engaged with their communities and become active and responsible citizens. NCS will make a positive contribution to local communities, requiring close working with schools, local authorities, businesses and other neighbourhood groups to create a more cohesive, responsible and engaged society.
NCS is a voluntary four-week summer programme for 16 and 17 year-olds that will promote:
- A more cohesive society by mixing participants of different backgrounds
- A more responsible society by supporting the transition into adulthood for young people
- A more engaged society by enabling young people to work together to create social action projects in their local communities. It is the Government’s vision that NCS will, over time, become a valued rite of passage into adulthood that all 16-year-olds will want to complete.(Source: Department for Education)
OVERVIEW OF THE STAGES
The National Citizen Service is divided into five phases. Approximately 75% of participants will progress through these phases in the summers of 2013, 2014 and 2015 and 25% will go through them, in a condensed form, in Spring and Autumn.
Phase 1: Introductory phase – overview of the programme, introduction to staff and Keeping Warm activities
Phase 2: Full-time (5 nights, 4 days) residential programme away from participants’ local community, with a focus on teamwork and outdoor physical challenges (one week). This provides an opportunity for personal and social development through a series of physical and mental challenges to push participants out of their comfort zones.
Phase 3: Full-time (5 nights, 4 days) residential programme based in participants’ home community, with a focus on developing new skills and serving groups in the community (one week). Teams should use a shared passion to build on their teamwork and project management skills and develop an interest in community service.
Phase 4: Participants to design a social action project in consultation with the local community. Teams should design a project that will deliver tangible benefit to the local community and agree a plan to deliver it in around 30 hours, including time spent at weekends and evenings if appropriate, in
Phase 5: Our successful 2012 pilot identified that social action that is group designed and delivered is far more effective than simply allocating social action activities to groups.
Phase 5 onwards: A period of 30 hours social action on a part-time basis, during which the teams will deliver the project they designed in Phase 4. A fair/event to encourage participants to get involved in ongoing social action or volunteering activities in their area and sign-post them to further opportunities. A large celebration and graduation event for participants and their guests. It is anticipated that as a final challenge young people will play a full and active part in this celebration.
Elevation Networks is currently running the NCS programme for 105 young people in Windsor, Maidenhead and Slough.
We’ll be running the programme twice in the Summer, please find dates below:
Wave 1: 22nd July – 10th August
Wave 2: 12th August – 30th August
For more information about the programme please feel free to contact us on 02074043927
We are currently running a competition for the person who recommends the most people for the NCS Summer Programme. The prize is an iPad!
For a chance to win you just need to get some friends or people you know to sign up for the NCS and you’ll automatically be entered into the iPad prize draw.
If you’re too old to take part in the programme, but would like to get involved. Don’t worry you still can be a part of the programme we are currently looking for NCS Brand Ambassadors contact us for more information.
Read about our Autumn Pilot Residential
Last week EN was in South Yorkshire bringing together over 200 young people in Kingswood, Dearne Valley for the residential element of the National Citizen Service programme. This was an opportunity for all the young people to interact with new friends and also engage in challenging activities.
Day 1: On the first full day of activities we met with young people on the problem solving area, where they engaged in tasks such as the human knot, balancing on a giant seesaw and applying their sensory skills to a pretend scenario. The young people were so engrossed in their tasks as they were going head to head with their peers for the title of the best team.
Quote: ‘I is simple yet great fun’.
Day 2: Team Lambeth were engaged in Nightline, where they had to walk around cones in a forest area with a blindfold on whilst holding onto each other. If they broke the chain they would lose out on valuable points, which would make up their final score at the end of the week to establish if they hold the title for the best team.
Quote: ‘It was really really fun. You meet new people and engage in challenging activities like nightline where you have to crawl through a muddy tunnel, which you might not necessarily have done otherwise’.
Day 3: On our final full day of activities, the morning saw all teams engage in their usual outdoor activities. Team Enfield spent their morning on the low ropes where they had to go through various obstacles by ensuring that they go through a hula-hoop. It was very amusing to watch the young people attempt this task, as they had to try and balance themselves on the various forms of equipment.
Quote: ‘It is fun getting to do the low ropes activity as you have to go through a hula-hoop whilst on the obstacle. It is not something you would think to do every day’. | <urn:uuid:7fcf0ec0-0bcc-4953-a3cd-4f3b71db62b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elevationnetworks.org/national-citizen-service-ncs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964082 | 1,202 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Featured Water Lesson!
Water Efficient TechnologiesBy exploring an interactive website, students learn about the technology of how familiar fixtures work and compare them with their inefficient counterparts.
Check it out!
Outdoor Water Conservation Tips
- Use natural fertilizers like compost, manure, bone meal or peat whenever possible. Composting decreases the need for fertilizer and helps oil retain moisture. Don’t know how to compost? Visit GEF’s composting pages to learn how easy it is!
- Water grass at night or early morning to avoid evaporation - Watering your grass in the heat of the day allows the sun to evaporate much of the water before it’s absorbed into the soil, causing the need for more frequent watering. Watering grass in the evening or early morning before the sun rises achieves the same healthy lawn with less water.
- Use native plants to landscape - Plants that are native to a region are able to better survive in that region naturally, without the need for extra water or fertilizer. Find out which native plants are available for your area.
- Adjust your lawn mower to a higher setting. A taller lawn shades roots and holds soil moisture better than if it is closely clipped.
- Wash your car with water from a bucket rather than using the hose, or find a car wash that uses recycled water.
- If you have a pool, make sure it is covered when not in use to prevent evaporation.
- During the summer, avoid using recreational water toys that use a constant stream of water, like sprinklers. But, if you do, have your kids use them on areas of your yard that need more water.
- Collect outdoor water - Setting up a rain barrel is an easy way to gather water for irrigation and other outdoor uses. Learn how to make your own or purchase one at http://www.rainbarrelguide.com/.
- Position your sprinklers so they don’t spray the sidewalks or driveway. This ensures all the water is sprayed on the lawn and not wasted on hard surfaces.
- Clean your driveway and sidewalks by sweeping instead of using the hose. | <urn:uuid:4d571bb2-c7e2-409c-b512-b84acda9299d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org/sustainable-water-challenge/water-saving-tips/outdoor-conservation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896191 | 441 | 3.375 | 3 |
A mechanical bowel obstruction is a partial or complete blockage in the intestine, which is also called the bowel. Blockages can occur at any point along the small or large bowel. They are more common in the small bowel. When the bowel is blocked, food and liquid cannot pass through. Over time, food, liquid, and gas build up in the area above the blockage.
Most small bowel blockages are due to adhesions. An adhesion is a band of scar tissue that causes the bowel to attach to the abdominal wall or other organs. Most large bowel obstructions are caused by tumors.
Specific causes of bowel obstructions include:
- Bowel inflammation or swelling
- Foreign matter in the intestines
- Impacted feces
- Volvulus—twisting of the intestine
- Intussusception—when the intestine pulls inward into itself
- Scar tissue from a previous abdominal or pelvic surgery, particularly gynecologic or gastrointestinal operations
Factors that increases your chance of getting a bowel obstruction include anything that is likely to cause scar tissue or a blockage, such as:
Symptoms of a bowel obstruction include:
- Abdominal pain
- Abdominal swelling
- Abdominal cramps
- Severe constipation; inability to pass gas or stool
- Foul breath odor
Complications from an untreated obstruction can include strangulation, which is cutting off the blood supply to part of the intestine.
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. Your doctor will place a stethoscope on your abdomen to listen for bowel sounds. If the normal bowel sounds are absent, or if high pitched, tinkling sounds are present, it may be an indication of bowel obstruction. Further testing may include:
Bowel obstructions can be serious, even fatal. If your doctor thinks you have a bowel obstruction, you will be hospitalized and treated. Your treatment will depend on what part of your bowel is blocked and what is causing the blockage.
Possible treatments include the following:
- Nasogastric tube—This involves the passage of a narrow tube through your nose and down into the stomach to suction out fluids that have become trapped above the blockage.
- IV fluids—Vomiting and diarrhea can cause dehydration and imbalances in your body fluids; if you are dehydrated, you will be given fluids and electrolytes.
- Medications—You may be given antibiotics or pain medication through an IV or through the nasogastric tube.
- Removal of fecal impaction—If fecal matter is causing the obstruction, it can be removed; your doctor will insert a gloved finger into your rectum to loosen and remove the feces.
- Endoscopy—A thin, lighted tube is inserted through the rectum and into the large intestine to straighten out the intestines.
- Surgery—Depending on the cause of the obstruction, you may need surgery. Surgery can:
During surgery, the blocked part of the bowel may be removed. The remaining sections will then be joined together. You will probably need a nasogastric tube temporarily after surgery. In addition, you may need antibiotics and pain medication during recovery.
If you are diagnosed with a mechanical bowel obstruction, follow your doctor's instructions.
Prevention of bowel obstruction depends on the cause. Some bowel obstructions cannot be prevented. The following actions may help reduce your risk of a bowel obstruction:
- Treat hernias promptly before they can cause a blockage.
To lessen the chance of fecal impaction and diverticulitis:
- Eat plenty of fiber-rich foods.
- Drink plenty of fluids.
- Exercise regularly.
- Reviewer: Daus Mahnke, MD
- Review Date: 09/2012 -
- Update Date: 03/21/2013 - | <urn:uuid:3c40bc31-63fe-46f8-a373-601b87a339e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://doctors-hospital.net/your-health/?/2010815159/Mechanical-Bowel-Obstruction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903846 | 800 | 3.390625 | 3 |
|Introduction to SQL|
|Form Query User Guide|
|SkyServer Traffic Page|
|Contact Help Desk|
|2. A Simple Query|
|3. Common Searches|
|4. More Samples|
|5. Multiple Tables|
|6. Aggregate Fcns.|
|7. Group By|
|8. Order By|
All the queries you have written so far return every record that matches the criteria in the where block. But with SQL, you can also return statistical summaries of all matching records. For example, look at the query below:
The query retrieves the minimum, maximum, and average declination of one of the SDSS's equatorial stripes (the area of the survey near the celestial equator, dec = 0). The commands min(x), max(x), and avg(x) are aggregate functions, named because they operate on an aggregate, or sum, of all the matching records. SQL's aggregate functions are listed in the table below:
The difference between count(x) and count(*) can appear confusing, but they are usually used in different situations. Use count(*) to find out the number of records in a table - how big the table is. The command "select count(*) from specObj" returns 608801 - meaning there are 608,801 separate records in the specObj table. The command "select count(*) from PhotoPrimary" returns 180,235,043.
Unlike count(*), count(x) is usually used with a characteristic listed in the where block. For example, the query below returns the number of records in the specObj table that have redshift between 0.5 and 1: 14,759. So the number of objects with redshift between 0.5 and 1 found by count(x) is much less than the total number of objects in specObj, found by count(*).
Try pressing the buttons "Query 1" and "Query 2" below. These buttons will make the two queries above (in the purple boxes) appear in the query window. Press Submit to execute the queries. Do you get what you expected? Do the results seem reasonable to you?
Click Next when you are ready to move on. | <urn:uuid:63f08481-551f-4aa6-9a08-30f512d5c72e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr7/hu/help/howto/search/aggfunctions.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.829892 | 467 | 3.4375 | 3 |
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