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Do Young and Older Adults Have Different Health Care Priorities? Evidence From a National Survey of English Inpatients
Journal of Adolescent Health, 08/16/2012
Hargreaves DS et al. – These findings provide a quantitative national–level evidence base regarding young people's priorities in inpatient care.Methods
- Standardized scores were calculated covering overall care and eight domains of patient experience (consistency, respect, involvement, nursing, doctors, cleanliness, pain control, and privacy).
- Values for young and older adults were compared.
- Additionally, Fisher r-to-z transformation was used to assess age differences in the strength of correlation between overall care and individual care domains.
- Young people reported a poorer experience across all aspects of inpatient care (p < .01).
- Compared with older adults, young men's overall care rating was more strongly correlated to pain control, and young women's to respect and doctors' characteristics (p < .05).
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| 0.928779 | 202 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Vitamin B12 and folate are two important
micronutrients in the diet that are essential during pregnancy for the normal
development of the fetus. It is important that these micronutrients be taken in
adequate amounts for proper development of the fetus.
How does one assess if the intake of these
micronutrients in the diet is adequate? The simplest way to do so is by
recording the intake on a questionnaire. However, currently, there are no
validated questionnaires to measure vitamin B12 and folate intake.
A study was
conducted in Japan to validate the usability and reproducibility of a
self-administered diet history questionnaire (DHQ) in pregnant women. The 22-page questionnaire
measures intake of energy, folate and vitamin B12 over the past 1 month.
The study was conducted in 2 hospitals in Japan.
Women in their second trimester, that is, between four and six months of
pregnancy, were included in the study. Blood samples to measure vitamin B12 and
folate levels were taken along with the blood samples routinely obtained during
pregnancy. Each woman was given the questionnaire, which was completed within 7
days of the blood sample.
To assess whether the results of the questionnaire
are reproducible, some women were asked to complete the questionnaire twice
during the study.
The final analysis was carried out on data from 167
pregnant women. Reproducibility was determined based on the questionnaires
submitted by 58 women.
The study found that there was some correlation
between intake and serum levels of vitamin B12 and folate. Thus, the DHQ can be used as a screening test in pregnant women in
Japan to detect vitamin B12 and folate deficiency. This is especially true
for women without nausea. The results were found to be reproducible when
repeated twice in some participants. The study, however, does have its
limitations. Further studies may be required to establish the routine use of
the diet history questionnaire in pregnant women in Japan and elsewhere.
1. Mie Shiraishi et al. Validity and reproducibility of folate and
vitamin B12 intakes estimated from a self-administered diet history
questionnaire in Japanese pregnant women. Nutrition Journal 2012, 11:15
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| 0.941718 | 483 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Definition of Sickle cell anemia
Sickle cell anemia: A genetic blood disease due to the presence of an abnormal form of hemoglobin, namely hemoglobin S. Hemoglobin is the molecule in red blood cells that transports oxygen from the lungs to the farthest areas of the body.
Sickle cell anemia affects millions of people throughout the world. It is particularly common among people whose ancestors came from sub-Saharan Africa; Spanish-speaking regions (South America, Cuba, Central America); Saudi Arabia; India; and Mediterranean countries, such as Turkey, Greece, and Italy. In the USA, sickle cell disease occurs in about 1 in every 500 African-American births and 1 in every 1,000-1,400 Hispanic-American births.
Sickle cell anemia is caused by an error in a gene that makes the beta globin chain of hemoglobin. The resultant abnormal hemoglobin (sickle hemoglobin) deforms the red blood cells when they are under low oxygen conditions. Children who inherit 2 copies of the sickle gene, one from each parent, have sickle cell anemia. Children who inherit the sickle gene from only one parent do not have the disease, but will carry the sickle cell trait. Individuals with sickle cell trait generally have no symptoms. About 2 million Americans (or 1 in 12 African-Americans) carry the sickle gene.
The sickle mutation occurred thousands of years ago. The sickle gene became common in malarious areas because it affords a selective advantage against malaria. In the U.S., Canada, and many other countries where malaria is rare today, the sickle gene can no longer use its anti-malarial advantage. Instead, the sickle gene may be a serious threat to the carrier's children, who may inherit two abnormal sickle hemoglobin genes and have sickle cell anemia.
In sickle cell anemia, the hemoglobin molecules tend to aggregate after unloading oxygen. They form long, rod-like structures that force the red cells to assume a sickle shape. Unlike normal red cells, which are usually smooth and deformable, the sickle red cells cannot squeeze through small blood vessels.
The sickle cells block little vessels depriving the organs of blood and oxygen. This leads to the periodic episodes of pain and damages the vital organs. Whereas normal red blood cells last about 120 days in the bloodstream, sickle red cells die after only about 10 to 20 days. Because they cannot be replaced fast enough, the blood is chronically short of red blood cells causing anemia -- sickle cell anemia.
Last Editorial Review: 4/27/2011 5:27:15 PM
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
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| 0.895032 | 583 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Definition of Sand-blind
Sand-blind: Partly blind, semi-blind, half-blind. From the Old English samblind from sam- meaning semi- + blind. In the erroneous belief that the term referred to blindness caused by sand, Samuel Johnson defined the term in his great Dictionary of the English Language (1755) as: "Having a defect in the eyes, by which small particles appear to fly before them."
Last Editorial Review: 6/14/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
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| 0.882322 | 134 | 2.75 | 3 |
Sonochemical preparation of hollow nanospheres and hollow nanocrystals.
- PubMed: 15724972
Ceramic hollow spheres of MoS2 and MoO3 were obtained by sonochemical synthesis of MoS2 and MoO3 templated on silica nanoparticles (diameters 50-500 nm) followed by acid etching to remove the silica core. The resulting hollow materials have been characterized by elemental analysis, XPS, SEM, TEM, optical absorption, and hydrodesulfurization (HDS) studies. The TEM studies on the hollow ceramic materials indicate the formation of dispersed free spheres with a hollow core. The hollow materials obtained from thermally treated MoS2/SiO2 (450-700 degrees C) show the formation of layered MoS2 (lattice fringes approximately 6.2 A) with a wall thickness of 6-8 layers. The MoS2 hollow spheres are extremely active catalysts for the HDS of thiophene. Hollow spheres of MoO3 are prepared in a similar fashion. Surprisingly, upon heating, hollow crystals of MoO3 with sharp-edged truncated cubes containing inner voids are formed from the initial spheres.
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http://www.mendeley.com/research/sonochemical-preparation-hollow-nanospheres-hollow-nanocrystals-1/
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| 0.884247 | 247 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Late Movies: Khan Academy
Khan Academy provides free instructional videos (among many other things) for K-12 kids to learn about a variety of topics (the site currently boasts a library of over 2,600 videos!). You can read more about Khan or just dive into some awesome learning. Below, I've rounded up a few starter videos to give you a taste.
Khan Explains How it Works
A fun TED Talk. "First time I smiled doing a derivative!"
An "introduction to how banks make money and the value they (potentially) add to society."
Calculus: Introduction to Limits
Chemistry: Elements and Atoms
"How elements relate to atoms. The basics of how protons, electrons and neutrons make up an atom."
Computer Science: Introduction to Programs, Data Types, and Variables
Points to Khan for using Python, though we all know real men write in Assembler.
Astronomy: Scale of Earth and Sun
Just how big is the Earth? One nerd-jerk note from me: this video misuses the term "further." It should be "farther" when referring to distance.
Tell Your Khan Story
Do you use Khan Academy? Leave your thoughts and links to favorite videos and exercises in the comments.
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| 0.882616 | 270 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Pulmonary embolism is the sudden blocking of an artery of the lung (pulmonary artery) by a collection of solid material brought through the bloodstream (embolus)—usually a blood clot (thrombus) or rarely other foreign material.
The pulmonary arteries carry blood from the heart to the lungs. The blood picks up oxygen from the lungs and travels back to the heart. From the heart, the blood is pumped to the rest of the body to provide oxygen to the tissues (see Biology of the Lungs and Airways: Exchanging Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide). When a pulmonary artery is blocked by an embolus, people may not be able to get sufficient oxygen into the blood. Large emboli may cause so much blockage that the heart has to strain to pump blood through the pulmonary arteries that remain open. If too little blood is pumped or the heart is strained excessively, the person can go into shock and die. Sometimes, the blockage of blood flow causes lung tissue to die (a condition called pulmonary infarction).
The body usually breaks up small clots quickly, keeping damage to a minimum. Large clots take much longer to disintegrate, so more damage is done.
About 1% of people admitted to the hospital have a pulmonary embolism. In about 5% of people in whom autopsy is done to find the cause of death, pulmonary embolism is unexpectedly found to be the cause.
The most common type of pulmonary embolism is a blood clot, usually one that forms in a leg or pelvic vein (see Venous Disorders: Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)) when blood flow slows down or stops, as may occur in the leg veins when a person stays in one position for a long time. People who have been on prolonged bed rest and those recovering from major surgery are at risk. Those sitting for long time periods without moving around (as may happen during air travel) are at slightly increased risk. Far less often, blood clots form in the veins of the arms or in the right side of the heart. Once a clot breaks free into the bloodstream, it usually travels to the lungs.
Unusual Types of Emboli:
The sudden blocking of an artery of the lung is not only caused by blood clots. Other material can also form emboli.
Symptoms depend on the extent that the pulmonary artery is blocked and on the person's overall health. For example, people who have another disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or coronary artery disease may have more disabling symptoms.
Small emboli may not cause any symptoms, but when symptoms do occur, they usually develop abruptly. Shortness of breath may be the only symptom, especially if pulmonary infarction does not develop. Often, the breathing is very rapid, and the person may feel anxious or restless and appear to have an anxiety attack. Some people have pain in the chest. In some people, the first symptoms are light-headedness, fainting, or seizures. In older people, the first symptom may be confusion or deterioration of mental function. These symptoms usually result from a sudden decrease in the heart's ability to deliver enough oxygen-rich blood to the brain and other organs.
The heartbeat may become rapid, irregular, or both. With very large emboli, blood pressure may be dangerously low (shock), the skin may have a blue color (cyanosis), or the person may suddenly die.
The symptoms of pulmonary infarction develop over hours. If pulmonary infarction occurs, the person experiences coughing that may produce blood-stained sputum, sharp chest pain when breathing in, and in some cases fever. Symptoms of infarction often last several days but usually become milder every day.
In people who have recurring episodes of small pulmonary emboli, symptoms such as chronic shortness of breath, swelling of the ankles or legs, and weakness tend to develop progressively over weeks, months, or years.
Doctors suspect pulmonary embolism based on the person's symptoms and risk factors, such as recent surgery, a prolonged period of bed rest, or an inherited tendency to form blood clots. A large pulmonary embolism may be relatively easy for doctors to diagnose, especially when there are obvious preconditions, such as signs of a blood clot in a leg. However, in many cases, symptoms are absent or not very characteristic, which is an important reason why pulmonary embolism is often difficult to diagnose. Indeed, pulmonary embolism is one of the most difficult serious disorders for doctors to recognize and diagnose.
A chest x-ray may reveal subtle changes in the blood vessel patterns after embolism and signs of pulmonary infarction. However, the x‑ray results are often normal, and even when they are abnormal, they rarely enable doctors to establish the diagnosis with certainty.
An electrocardiogram may show abnormalities, but often these abnormalities are transient and can only support the possibility of pulmonary embolism.
The person's symptoms and risk factors and the results of tests help doctors estimate the likelihood of a pulmonary embolism. This estimate determines what other tests are done. Doctors try to use tests that do not involve making an incision or entering the person's body (noninvasive tests) before they use an invasive test. Noninvasive tests are usually easier to perform and carry less risk of side effects. For example, if pulmonary embolism appears unlikely, testing may be limited to a blood test that measures a substance called d‑dimer. If pulmonary embolism seems more likely or if the result of the d-dimer test is abnormal, further testing is done, which may include a CT angiogram, an ultrasound examination of the legs, or a lung perfusion scan. These are noninvasive tests. If the diagnosis is still unclear after noninvasive tests are done, an invasive test (for example, pulmonary angiography) may be done.
A CT angiogram is a type of computed tomography (CT) scan. It is fast, noninvasive, and fairly accurate, particularly for large clots. In this test, contrast material is injected into a vein. The contrast material travels to the lungs, and a CT scanner generates images of blood in the arteries to determine if a pulmonary embolism is blocking blood flow. A CT angiogram is the imaging test most often used to diagnose pulmonary embolism.
An ultrasound examination of the legs is noninvasive and can identify clots in the legs, which are the usual sources of pulmonary embolism. The absence of clots on this test does not rule out pulmonary embolism. However, if the ultrasound examination reveals blood clots, people are usually treated as they would be for pulmonary embolism without any further testing.
A lung perfusion scan is noninvasive and fairly accurate but is not very rapid. A tiny amount of radioactive substance is injected into a vein and travels to the lungs, where it outlines the blood supply (perfusion) of the lung. Completely normal scan results indicate that the person does not have a significant blood vessel obstruction. Abnormal scan results support the possibility of pulmonary embolism but may also reflect disorders other than pulmonary embolism, such as emphysema, which can result in decreased blood flow to areas where lung tissue has been damaged.
Usually, the perfusion scan is done with a lung ventilation scan. The person inhales a harmless gas containing a trace amount of radioactive material, which is distributed throughout the small air sacs of the lungs (alveoli). The areas where carbon dioxide is being released and oxygen is taken up can then be seen on a scanner. By comparing this scan to the pattern of blood supply shown on the perfusion scan, doctors can usually determine whether a person has had a pulmonary embolism.
Pulmonary angiography (see Diagnosis of Lung Disorders: Chest Imaging) is the most accurate means of diagnosing pulmonary embolism, but it is invasive and poses some risk and is more uncomfortable than the other tests. It is usually performed only if the results of other tests are not conclusive.
The likelihood of dying from pulmonary embolism is very low, but massive pulmonary embolism can cause sudden death. Most deaths occur before the diagnosis is made, often within 1 to 2 hours of the embolism occurring. If a person is alive when diagnosed, the chance of survival is about 95%. Important factors include the size of the embolus, the size and number of pulmonary arteries blocked, and the person's overall health status. Anyone with a serious heart or lung problem is at greater risk of dying from pulmonary embolism. A person with normal heart and lung function usually survives unless the embolus blocks half or more of the pulmonary arteries.
Given the danger of pulmonary embolism and the limitations of treatment, doctors try to prevent blood clots from forming in the veins of people at risk. In general, people, particularly those who are prone to clotting, should try to be active and move around as much as possible. For example, when traveling on an airplane for a long period, people should try to get up and move around every 2 hours.
For certain people, an anticoagulant drug is given, most often heparin. Heparin comes in two forms: traditional and low molecular weight. They appear equally effective. Heparin is the most widely used drug for reducing the likelihood of clots forming in calf veins after any type of major surgery, especially surgery on the legs. Small doses are injected just under the skin shortly before surgery, and ideally additional doses are given until the person is up and walking again. Hospitalized people at high risk of developing pulmonary embolism (such as those with heart failure, immobility, obesity, or who have had clots in the past) benefit from small doses of heparin even if they are not undergoing surgery. Low-dose heparin does not increase the frequency of major bleeding complications, but heparin can increase minor oozing of blood from wounds.
Warfarin, an anticoagulant given by mouth, may be given to people with one or more risk factors. It is also given to those who have undergone certain kinds of surgery that are particularly likely to result in clots, such as surgery for a hip fracture or a joint replacement. Warfarin therapy may need to be continued for several weeks or months. Low-molecular-weight heparin is also effective for people in this situation.
Newer anticoagulants include those such as hirudin, which inhibits the production of thrombin (a substance that promotes the formation of blood clots), and danaparoid and fondaparinux, which inhibit the formation of other substances that enhance the body's production of clots. These drugs are effective in prevention but are still being studied to determine whether they have advantages compared with heparin.
For people who have undergone surgery—especially older people—the risk of clot formation can be reduced by wearing compression elastic stockings, doing leg exercises, and getting out of bed and becoming active as soon as possible. For people who cannot move their legs, intermittent air compression devices can provide rhythmic external pressure to keep blood moving in the legs. However, these devices alone are inadequate to prevent clot formation in people who have undergone hip or knee surgery.
Treatment of pulmonary embolism begins with treating the symptoms. Oxygen is given if blood oxygen levels are low. Analgesics are given to relieve pain. If blood pressure is low, intravenous fluids are given and sometimes drugs that increase blood pressure are given. Mechanical ventilation (a breathing tube) may be needed if respiratory failure develops.
Anticoagulant drugs such as heparin are given to prevent existing blood clots from enlarging and additional clots from forming. Heparin is given intravenously to achieve a rapid effect, and doctors carefully regulate the dose. Doctors strive to achieve a full anticoagulant effect within the first 24 hours of treatment. Low-molecular-weight heparin is probably as effective as traditional heparin and does not require the blood test monitoring that is commonly recommended for conventional heparin. Warfarin, which also inhibits clotting but takes longer to start working, is given next. Because warfarin is taken by mouth, it can be used long-term. Heparin and warfarin are given together for 5 to 7 days, until blood tests show that the warfarin is effectively preventing clotting. Then, the heparin is discontinued.
How long anticoagulants are given depends on the person's situation. If pulmonary embolism is caused by a temporary risk factor, such as surgery, treatment is given for 2 to 3 months. If the cause is some longer-term problem, such as prolonged bed rest, treatment usually is given for 3 to 6 months, but sometimes it must continue indefinitely. For example, people who have recurrent pulmonary embolism, often because of a hereditary clotting disorder, usually take anticoagulants indefinitely. While taking warfarin, people periodically have to have a blood test to determine if the dose needs to be adjusted.
Changes in diet and use of other drugs may affect warfarin's anticoagulant effects. If excessive anticoagulation occurs, severe bleeding in a number of body organs can develop. Because many drugs can interact with warfarin, people who take anticoagulants should be sure to check with their doctor before taking any other drugs, including drugs that can be obtained without a prescription (over-the-counter drugs) such as acetaminophen or aspirin, herbal preparations, and dietary supplements. Foods that are high in vitamin K (which affects blood clotting), such as broccoli, spinach, kale, and other leafy green vegetables, liver, grapefruit and grapefruit juice, and green tea, may also need to be avoided.
Thrombolytic drugs such as streptokinase or tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) break up and dissolve blood clots. They can be used for people who appear to be in danger of dying of pulmonary embolism. However, except in the most dire situations, these drugs cannot be given to people who have had surgery in the preceding 2 weeks, are pregnant, have had a recent stroke, or tend to bleed excessively.
In some centers, if a person appears to be in danger of dying from a massive pulmonary embolism, doctors may try to shatter the embolus using a catheter inserted into the pulmonary artery. Surgery may be needed to save someone with severe embolism. Removal of the embolus from the pulmonary artery may be lifesaving. Surgery is also used to remove long-standing pulmonary artery clots that cause persistent shortness of breath and high pressures in the pulmonary artery (pulmonary hypertension).
A filter can be surgically placed in the main vein in the abdomen that drains blood from the legs and pelvis to the right side of the heart (see Venous Disorders: Umbrellas: One Way to Prevent Pulmonary Embolism). Such a filter can be used if emboli recur despite anticoagulant treatment or if anticoagulants cannot be used or cause significant bleeding. Because clots generally originate in the legs or pelvis, this filter usually prevents them from being carried into the pulmonary artery. Newer filters are removable. Removal helps prevent some complications that can occur when filters are left in place permanently.
Last full review/revision August 2007 by John H. Newman, MD
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| 0.941266 | 3,231 | 3.859375 | 4 |
September 12 USDA Crop Report
Category: USDA Reports
The USDA Crop Report released on September 12 made a slight decrease in the expected U.S. corn and soybean production for 2012, as compared to the August USDA estimates, reflecting the severity of the 2012 drought in many areas of the U.S. USDA is now estimating the total 2012 corn production at 10.7 billion bushels, which slightly below the 10.8 billion bushel estimate in August. Total U.S. corn production was 12.3 billion bushels in 2011, 12.5 billion bushels in 2010, and 13.1 billion bushels in 2009. If the 2012 projections hold up, this would be the lowest total U.S. corn production since 2006.
USDA is now estimating the 2012 average U.S. corn yield at 122.8 bushels per acre, which is down slightly from the August estimate of 123.4 bushels per acre, and would be the lowest average U.S. corn yield since 1995. The 2012 projected national average corn yield would be well below the 2011 U.S. corn yield of 147.2 bushels per acre, or the 2010 U.S. corn yield of 152.8 bushels per acre. The record U.S. average corn yield was 164.7 bushels per acre in 2009. The decreased U.S. corn yield expectations by USDA are due to extended drought conditions that have persisted in large areas of the Corn Belt and the Great Plains States during much of the 2012 growing season.
The USDA Report is estimating total soybean production in 2012 at 2.63 billion bushels, which is also a slight decrease compared to the 2.69 billion bushel estimate in August. Total U.S. soybean production was 3.06 billion bushels in 2011, 3.33 billion bushels in 2010, and 3.36 billion bushels in 2009. The average U.S. soybean yield for 2012 is now estimated at 35.3 bushels per acre, which down from the August USDA estimate of 36.1 bushels per acre. The 2012 soybean yield estimate is well below the 2011 U.S. soybean yield of 41.5 Bushels per acre, or the 2010 national soybean yield of 43.5 bushels per acre. The record U.S. soybean yield was 44.0 bushels per acre in 2009.
Based on the September 12 Report, USDA is estimating the 2012 corn yield in Minnesota at 156 bushels per acre, which is 1 bushel above the August estimate, and is the same as the 2011 statewide corn yield, but is well below the 2010 record corn yield of 177 bushels per acre. USDA is estimating the 2012 average corn yield in Iowa to be 140 bushels per acre, which is well below the 2011 corn yield of 172 bushels per acre, or the record average state corn yield of 182 bushels per acre in 2008. Illinois is projected to have a 2012 average corn yield of 110 bushels per acre, compared to 157 bushels per acre in 2011. Other 2012 estimated corn yields are 100 bushels per acre for Indiana, compared to 146 bushels per acre in 2011; 145 bushels per acre in Nebraska, compared to 160 bushels per acre in 2011; and 96 bushels per acre in South Dakota, compared to 132 bushels per acre in 2011.
The September 12 USDA Report estimated the 2012 Minnesota soybean yield 38 bushels per acre, which is slightly below the 2011 statewide soybean yield of 38.5 bushels per acre, and much lower than the 2010 record state average soybean yield of 45 bushels per acre. The projected 2011 Iowa soybean yield is estimated at 39 bushels per acre, which compares to an average yield of 50.5 bushels per acre in 2011. The estimated 2012 average soybean yield in Illinois is 37 bushels per acre, which compares to 47 bushels per acre in 2011. Other 2012 state average soybean yields are Indiana at 37 bushels per acre, compared to 45 bushels per acre in 2011; Nebraska at 40 bushels per acre, compared to 53.5 bushels per acre in 2011; and South Dakota at 28 bushels per acre, compared to 37 bushels per acre in 2011.
PROJECTED 2012-2013 CARRYOVER STOCKS
USDA also released the latest estimates for 2012-2013 carryover stocks of corn, soybeans, and other grains on September 12. USDA is now estimating 2012-2013 U.S. corn ending stocks at 733 million bushels, which is an increase of 83 million bushels from to the August 1 carryover estimate, but would still leave U.S. corn stocks very tight. The expected 2011-2012 final corn ending stocks are estimated at 1.18 billion bushels, which is slightly above the final 2010-2011 corn carryover stocks of 1.12 billion bushels. The level of projected 2011-12 ending stocks was increased by 160 million bushels from the August estimate, due to decreased feed usage, lower export levels, and more new-crop corn available for use prior to September 1, as a result of the early harvest in 2012. The USDA marketing year runs from September 1 to August 31 each year.
USDA is expecting 2012-2013 soybean carryover stocks to be 115 million bushels, which is the same as the August 1 estimate. The final 2011-2012 final soybean ending stocks are projected at 130 million bushels, which compares to the final ending stocks of 215 million bushels in 2010-2011. The projected 2012-2013 soybean ending stocks would be at the lowest level in nine years, since the 2003-2004 USDA marketing year. The estimated 2012-2013 ending stocks for corn and soybeans represent about 24 days of usage for corn and 16 days of usage for soybeans, based on current corn and soybean use estimates in the U.S. for 2012-2013.
USDA is currently estimating the U.S average cash corn price for the 2012-2013 marketing year (September 1 to August 31) in a range of $7.20 - $8.60 per bushel, or an average of $7.90 per bushel, which was a decrease of $.30 per bushel from August estimates. The final U.S. average corn price is currently estimated at $6.25 per bushel for 2011-2012, compared to $5.18 per bushel for 2010-2011, $3.55 per bushel in 2009-2010, and $4.06 per bushel in 2008-2009.
USDA is projecting the U.S. average cash soybean price for 2012-2013 in a range of $15.00 - $17.00 per bushel, resulting in an average soybean price of $16.00 per bushel, which is the same as the August estimates. The final U.S. average soybean price for 2011-2012 is currently estimated at $12.45 per bushel, compared to $11.30 per bushel for 2010-2011, $9.59 per bushel for 2009-2010, and $9.97 per bushel for 2008-2009.
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| 0.917779 | 1,533 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Tagged as: Composting
Composting is a biological process whereby plant material, such as leaves and grass clippings, and other sources of organic matter decompose into humus – a dark brown, crumbly mass resembling rich garden soil. Composting does exactly what nature does all the time by recycling valuable nutrients for reuse. For the home gardener, it offers the opportunity to recycle yard and kitchen wastes while avoiding the expense and effort of disposing of these materials. The resulting compost can be applied as a soil amendment, top dressing, or mulch.
As more communities restrict the dumping of yard waste in landfills, this encourages homeowners to compost their leaves, grass clippings, and other yard debris. The incorporation of organic matter, or humus, in garden and landscape soils is a necessity often overlooked by gardeners. Organic matter helps maintain a steady supply of plant nutrients, especially nitrogen and potassium. It also improves the soil’s ability to absorb rainfall or irrigation water and to reduce surface runoff, yet holds nutrients loosely at the optimum, slightly acidic pH so they’re easily released into the soil to meet plant needs. Adding compost to soil increases earthworms and soil microbial activity that benefits plant growth.
WHAT MATERIALS CAN BE COMPOSTED?
Most of the ingredients for the compost pile are raw materials from the garden, grass clippings, sod, leaves, hedge clippings, weeds, and discarded plants. Kitchen scraps such as fruit and vegetable trimmings can also be added to the pile. Do not include grease, fat, meat or bones because they are slow to decompose, will cause
odors, and attract rodents. Small twigs and branches of trees or shrubs should be cut up before adding to a compost pile, to speed up the time of decomposition. Sewage sludge and animal waste is not recommended for use in compost, because it may transmit certain diseases and contain toxic amounts of heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. Also, diseased plant material or weeds that have gone to seed should be avoided. Usually the compost pile is contained in some type of enclosure, although it can be made without one. There are commercially available compost bins made of slatted metal, plastic or plasticized wire mesh. Perforated trash cans may also serve the purpose, or simple containers can be constructed of galvanized wire fencing, boards, bricks or concrete blocks. It is important that there be enough openings to allow adequate air movement. The compost pile should be located in a visually unobtrusive area and where odors from possible anaerobic decomposition would not be a nuisance. A properly functioning compost pile has no unpleasant odor, but you can get a smell going by dumping on a layer of matted, wet grass clippings that doesn’t break down properly. When compost forms, heat is produced. The pile should have a minimum volume of 1 cubic yard, which is 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet, to facilitate its internal temperature reaching 150 to 170 degrees. The heat will kill weed seeds, insect eggs, and disease organisms present in the raw material. If the pile is much larger, the air necessary for decomposition will not enter the pile and will need to be turned frequently for the center of the pile to decompose sufficiently
CONSTRUCTING A COMPOST PILE
The compost should be constructed in layers. Alternate moist and green materials like grass clippings or kitchen wastes with dry materials such as leaves or cornstalks. A pile built primarily of dry materials will decompose very slowly, because it lacks nitrogen and water. Compost that is made primarily of fresh, green materials will decompose very rapidly, but will shrink as water is lost, leaving only a small volume of compost. Therefore, combining equal volumes of dry to moist is optimum. If the organic materials seem dry, enough water to promote decomposition should be added. Chopping the materials into smaller pieces is not necessary, but doing so will greatly increase the rate of decomposition, because the microorganisms have more surface area to work on. This is especially true for coarse, dry ingredients. Another method of constructing a compost pile, perhaps the one most commonly used, is to alternate layers of plant material and garden soil. Begin by placing a 6 to 8-inch layer of organic matter inside the composting container. The microbes needed for decomposition are already present in this organic matter. The addition of a 1-inch layer of garden soil will speed the process. Continue building the pile with alternate layers of soil and organic matter as they accumulate throughout the growing season.
MAINTAINING A COMPOST PILE
The organisms that break down the organic matter also require large amounts of nitrogen for rapid and thorough decomposition of the plant material. Therefore, 1 pound of a complete fertilizer (10-10-10) or 1/3 pound of ammonium nitrate (33-0-0) may be added to the pile for each cubic yard of compost. Cottonseed meal or dried blood may be used instead of the above concentrated fertilizers, but this will result in somewhat slower decomposition activity. To hasten the composting process, keep the pile moist but not soggy. Inadequate moisture will reduce microbial activity, while excess moisture may cause undesirable anaerobic decomposition and unpleasant odors. The pile can also bemoistened occasionally with a garden hose during dry periods. As the plant materials decompose, the pH of the pile is lowered, meaning that its acidity is increased. However, as the process continues, the pH eventually rises to the neutral level of 7.0 pH. A pile that is built in layers, as described above, should be turned for the first time about 4 weeks after its construction. A spading fork or similar tool can be used to ‘turn’ the pile by lifting the pile’s lower layers on top of the upper layers in order to mix the contents. The mixed pile is less dense, maximizing the contact with oxygen necessary for aerobic decomposition. Locating two or three compost bins side by side can make the turning process easier and simpler; just shift the material from one bin to the other. During the warm months, the pile should be turned about once a month. In cooler weather, decomposition is slower and during the winter, very little decomposition occurs. A well-managed compost pile will break down in 4-6 months. Problems will develop if the pile is not working properly. These problems include unpleasant odor, slow decomposition, a dry pile, or standing water. The solution to a problem depends on its cause. In general, turning the pile, adding water, maintaining a mixture of dry and moist materials, or adding nitrogen will solve the problem.
Compost is ready to use when it is dark and crumbly and the ingredients have lost much of their original identity. Finished compost should have an earthy, pleasant smell. Once it is ready, the compost can be used as surface mulch on plant beds. Apply compost 2-4 inches deep around vegetable and perennial plants to control weeds and conserve moisture. As a soil conditioner, compost can be mixed into the soil just before planting to lighten heavy soil and improve drainage, or it can increase the moisture holding ability in sandy or light soil. Adding compost to soil increases earthworm and soil microbial activity that benefits plant growth. Compost can also be used as a substitute for peat moss to amend soil in potting mixes, seed flats, or when transplanting trees and shrubs.
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| 0.934745 | 1,548 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Victoria University researcher Dr David Ackerley is working to combat the PSA disease that has ravaged New Zealand’s $1 billion kiwifruit industry.
PSA was detected in New Zealand in late 2010 and as of October last year had affected 369 orchards covering 2214 hectares, with the rate of the bacterium’s spread increasing.
Dr Ackerley from Victoria’s School of Biological Sciences is working with Seeka, New Zealand’s largest kiwifruit grower, and Professor Iain Lamont and Associate Professor Russell Poulter from the University of Otago, to overcome the disease.
The research is funded by a Technology Transfer Voucher worth potentially up to $1 million over three years from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. The Ministry provides half the funding, with the other half funded by Seeka.
“PSA has been brutal for our kiwifruit industry and gold kiwifruit are particularly susceptible,” says Dr Ackerley.
“We only have to look overseas to see the potential damage. In the four seasons the PSA bacterium has been in Italy, it has essentially destroyed the gold variety in the country’s main growing area and is now affecting almost every orchard that’s growing green kiwifruit.”
His team is taking two approaches to find a solution to the disease.
“Our first strategy is to test a range of antimicrobial agents, substances that kill or inhibit the growth of microorganisms, to find compounds that may be suitable for use against PSA in the field” says Dr Ackerley. “Kiwifruit crops could potentially be sprayed or even injected with these agents to help limit the spread of the disease.”
“Another possible step is to identify and knock out key genes that make PSA particularly virulent, removing the ‘lethal’ genes that enable PSA to invade kiwifruit vines. You could then inoculate plants with a mild form of PSA that will dominate the surface of the plant and prevent the disease-causing strain from establishing a beachhead.
“This ‘biocontrol’ strategy is particularly exciting to us, and is building off the high-quality PSA genome sequence data generated by our collaborators at Otago.”
Dr Ackerley says the work to sequence the genome of PSA will have ongoing benefits. “Initially, we’re aiming to combat the spread of the bacterium; longer-term efforts may enable us to understand the precise mechanisms that make PSA such a lethal pathogen, and this could guide efforts to breed more resistant kiwifruit crops.”
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http://www.msi.govt.nz/update-me/news/2012/helping-to-save-the-billion-dollar-kiwifruit-industry/
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| 0.942801 | 566 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Fifty years ago yesterday, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. For most of us, that seems a very long time ago, another era, but, in another sense, it seems not long enough, because it still feels as if the “Space Age” has only just begun.
By way of comparison, it was almost exactly fifty years from the first manned flight under power by the Wright Brothers to the introduction of commercial passenger jet services – a remarkably short period of time. Gagarin’s achievement followed within another decade, and within another decade of that men were on the Moon.
There have been other achievements since then, but nothing so spectacular, and if you compare the First Fifty Years of Space Travel with the First Fifty Years of Air Travel, it can look as if human progress is running out of energy.
The reason for this is that the huge sums of money needed for space travel mean that it has been, for the most part, a government monopoly. The development of the aeroplane, on the other hand, was a triumph of private enterprise – sometimes helped by government, sometimes hindered.
For example, it was immense government funding in World War One that enabled private manufacturers, like Sir Tommy Sopwith, to make enormous improvements in aeroplane technology at a time when the whole sector was only just into the second decade of its existence. It was also government taxation that forced Sopwith out of business once the war was over.
Space travel is now moribund because that it what always happens to nationalised industries. The current Administration in the United States has none of the passion for space that motivated some of its predecessors. NASA is near the bottom of the list of priorities at a time of tight budgets. Most other countries share those priorities.
The only hope for space travel, as for so many other things, is if the private sector is allowed to fill the gaps being left by the public sector.
There are plenty of commercial opportunities. Satellite technology is well established. Space tourism is now a fact. The exploitation of mineral reserves elsewhere in the solar system may soon become a necessity. Zero gravity offers some intriguing possibilities for technology. Space based solar power avoids many of the drawbacks of its terrestrial equivalents. The spin-off technologies from space exploration have impacted on every aspect of our lives already.
The Universe awaits us – if we want it.
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http://www.myobpod.com/blog/post/Flight-Diverted.aspx
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| 0.964869 | 487 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing on Causality
Two large uncontrolled population-based studies provide relevant information on hepatitis B vaccination and arthritis. The largest is the summary of results of a vaccination program involving 166,757 children in New Zealand; each child received at least one injection of plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine prepared by a U.S. pharmaceutical firm (Morris and Butler, 1992). In this large group of vaccinees, arthralgias or arthritis occurred on 12 occasions in 10 individuals, giving an incidence of less than 1 episode of arthralgia or arthritis in 10,000 vaccinees. Of these 12 episodes, five were reported after receipt of the first vaccine injection, six after the second, and one after the third. One of these patients was hospitalized for 1 day. In none of these individuals were there any chronic sequelae of the arthralgia or arthritis.
The second large observational study described the frequency of adverse reactions to hepatitis B vaccine in 43,618 Alaskan natives who received 101,360 doses of hepatitis B vaccine (McMahon et al., 1989). In that study myalgias or arthralgias lasting for more than 3 days occurred in 12 individuals, an incidence of less than 1 episode in 3,000 vaccinees. The authors felt that the arthralgias were coincidental to the hepatitis B vaccines. since 5 of the 12 patients had negative skin tests to the vaccine. These five patients as well as four others who did not undergo skin testing received additional doses of hepatitis B vaccine without an adverse event. One of the 12 patients did have an Arthus-type reaction, with transient polyarthritis and a positive skin test to the hepatitis B vaccine.
Controlled Observational Studies
Controlled Clinical Trials
No controlled clinical trials reviewed by the committee contained information regarding hepatitis B vaccine and arthritis.
On the basis of the two largest available observational studies, arthropathy appears to be unusual following vaccination against hepatitis B virus. On the basis of VAERS reports, the possibility exists that a hypersensitivity arthritis occurred in the 17 individuals who developed acute arthritis associated with fever with or without an associated rash. In the absence of a denominator, however, it is not clear that these episodes represented more than coincidental occurrences.
The 1988 National Health Survey indicated that approximately 13 percent of adults surveyed reported having ''arthritis or any kind of rheuma-
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http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2138&page=226
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| 0.931731 | 538 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The study described below is reported in JAMA (Jnl of the American Medical Assn) Apr 25, 2001 (285: 2083-93). A total of 445 HIV-1infected pregnant women were enrolled as the study cohort from February 1997 to September 1998; controls consisted of 899 pregnant women who had received zidovudine monotherapy in May 1994 to February 1997 as standard care.
Reported is a study in France of AZT/3TC for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The transmission rate was low 1.6% (7/437) and similar with and without elective caesarean (1.10% vs 1.75%). Viral load was reduced 1.24 log. 74% of women had <500 copies/ml at delivery. But, of the 452 newborns, there were "significant hematologic adverse events reported in the children included 81cases of neutropenia and 68 cases of anemia; 9 required blood transfusions and 19 discontinued treatment because of these abnormalities". Several infants developed mitochondrial toxicity, which has been rare, but this has not been reported in the USA. Whether or not the mi tochondrial toxicity was related to the AZT/3TC was questioned. Authors reported two uninfected children died at age 1 year from neurologic complications related to mitochondrial dysfunction. See follow-up outcomes below. Three women who transmitted HIV had plasma HIV-1 RNA levels of less than 500 copies/mL at delivery. This shows that HIV can be transmitted when viral load is under 500 copies/ml. One had an elective cesarean delivery at 38 weeks (case 4), and the others had uneventful vaginal term deliveries. None of these women breastfed.
Sixteen children (4%) had major birth defects, including 4 cardiac malformation cases, 4 cases of polydactyly, 3 talipes cases, and 1 case each of congenital diaphragmatic hernia, hydronephrosis, imperforate anus, genu recurvatum with a suburethral cyst, and hypospadia. One child each had Down syndrome, Ito nevus, and sickle cell anemia. The prevalence of major birth defects was of the order expected in children not exposed to antiretroviral drugs, which ranges from 2% to 5% in most registries and was 2.7% among liveborn children in Paris during a10-year period.
For children in the study group, the mean (SD) duration of follow-up was 16 (4) months. Follow-up data were available after age 6 months for 96% of children and after age 12 months for 89%.
A total of 397 adverse events, 180 biological (ie, involving hematologic or blood chemistry alterations) and 217 clinical in nature, were reported among 238 of the 452 children in the lamivudine-zidovudine cohort. Altogether, 151 hematologic adverse events, defined as moderate to severe according to the age-adjusted ACTG classification,17 occurred during exposure to study drugs. These mostly consisted of neutropenia (81 cases) or anemia (68 cases), leading to blood transfusion because of clinical symptoms in 9 infants (5 had mild symptoms [pallor or tachycardia] and 4 had severe symptoms [cardiac insufficiency or dyspnea]) and to premature treatment discontinuation for 19 children. Of the children with hematologic toxic effects during receipt of lamivudine-zidovudine, none had persistent serious anemia at the last follow-up, and only 1 had persistent moderate neutropenia at age 6 months. Liver abnormalities without proven cause were recorded in 6 children (1 case of severe jaundice and 5 of alanine aminotransferase elevations >2.5 times the ULN); only 1 was persistent (3 times the ULN) at age 18 months. Six children had asymptomatic elevations of serum lipase levels to more than 2.5 times the ULN. One of these children had a persistent lipase elevation (3 times the ULN) after age 1 year and was diagnosed with mitochondrial dysfunction, as previously reported.21
Of the 217 clinical adverse events reported among children, most were due to a known cause unrelated to study drugs (ie, perinatal complications, [53 cases, principally intrapartum asphyxia, withdrawal syndromes, and maternal-fetal bacterialinfections], hospitalization for infectious disease [117 cases], or various other reasons [15 cases]). Sixteen children (4%) had major birth defects, including 4 cardiac malformation cases, 4 cases of polydactyly, 3 talipes cases, and 1 case each of congenital diaphragmatic hernia, hydronephrosis, imperforate anus, genu recurvatum with a suburethral cyst, and hypospadia. One child each had Down syndrome, Ito nevus, and sickle cell anemia. The prevalence of major birth defects was of the order expected in children not exposed to antiretroviral drugs, which ranges from 2% to 5% in most registries and was 2.7% among liveborn children in Paris23 during a 10-year period.
Neurologic signs/symptoms were reported in 12 children who did not have HIV infection and had no other known infectious or genetic disease. Six had febrile seizures without other symptoms. Two children with neurologic complications were diagnosed as having mitochondrial dysfunction and died at age 1 year, as previously discussed.21 No other children died during follow-up. Two children had hydrocephalus, 1 of whom had severe neurodevelopmental delay; 1 had severe behavioral problems and cognitive delay; and 1 had Guillain-Barré syndrome. These 12 children all also were reported as having adverse events involving hematologic or blood chemistry alterations during the first 6 weeks. Another 2 children had unexplained failure to thrive. Follow-up of these children is ongoing. The prevalence of mitochondrial cytopathies in the general population has recently been estimated as being about 60 in 100 000 in a large 7-year study in Finland.
Rate of pregnancy complications did not differ between the 2 cohorts (M.-J. M., unpublished data). Birth characteristics of the children in the study group did not differ significantly from those of the control group with the exceptions noted below. However, the mean (SD) hemoglobin level was significantly lower in the study group than in the control group at birth (15.0 [2.2] g/dL vs 15.5 [2.5] g/dL; P = .004) and at age 1 month (9.8 [1.4] g/dL vs 10.3 [1.6] g/dL; P<.001). The mean (SD) neutrophil count was significantly lower in the study group than in the control group at birth, but not at age 1 month.
"Combination Prophylaxis for Prevention of Maternal-Infant HIV Transmission: Beyond 076"
Nathan Shaffer, MD
read full PDF of this study
Since 1994, rapid implementation of the landmark ACTG 076 study regimen has led to a dramatic reduction in perinatal HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) transmission in the United States and other developed countries.1 Cohort studies, registries, and surveillance data have all confirmed the effectiveness of the 3-part zidovudine monotherapy regimen, administered orally to the pregnant woman beginning at 14 to 34 weeks' gestation, intravenously during labor, and orally to the newborn for 6 weeks. In the absence of breastfeeding, use of this regimen has resulted in perinatal transmission rates of 4% to 10% in the United States and Europe.2 In conjunction with the 076 regimen, elective caesarean delivery or combination antiretroviral therapy has resulted in transmission rates of less than 2%.2-4 Although the data on combination therapy have been quite limited, there is a growing conviction that perinatal HIV transmission can be reduced to near zero with early identification of the HIV-infected pregnant woman and aggressive clinical management.5
The use of combination antiretroviral therapy for pregnant women has become increasingly common because of the recommendation that HIV treatment for the woman should not be withheld during pregnancy.2 However, these treatment decisions are complex and require consideration of the potential toxicity during pregnancy and 2 separate but related issues: antiretroviral treatment of the woman's HIV infection and antiretroviral chemoprophylaxis to reduce the risk for perinatal transmission. The study reported in this issue of THE JOURNAL by Mandelbrot et al6 provides a systematic evaluation of the efficacy and toxicity of combination prophylaxis during pregnancy. The study evaluates the addition of lamivudine to the standard 076 zidovudine regimen, with lamivudine administration beginning at 32 weeks' gestation in the mother and lamivudine administration to the newborn for 6 weeks. The study design is a historical comparison with a previous national cohort of HIV-infected pregnant women who had received the 076 regimen. A randomized trial was not conducted because of the belief among participating clinicians that the combination therapy would be superior to zidovudine monotherapy. Although the authors acknowledge the potential limitations of their study design, particularly with regard to possible temporal changes in transmission risk or clinical management, their findings are based on a large, carefully followed cohort with baseline characteristics and risk similar to those of the earlier cohort.
The efficacy findings for the lamivudine-zidovudine combination are impressive. Of 437 HIV-exposed children with known infection status, only 7 (1.6%) were infected with HIV perinatally. Rates were similarly low among those with and without elective caesarean deliveries (1.10% vs 1.75%, respectively). The results of a multivariable analysis controlling for mode of delivery, history of antiretroviral therapy, and measures of maternal HIV disease progression (including viral load) showed that the rate of perinatal HIV transmission was 5-fold lower than in the earlier zidovudine comparison group (6.8%).
In contrast to the 076 study, in which viral load was reduced only 0.24 log and accounted for little of zidovudine's efficacy in the 3-part regimen,7 the lamivudine-zidovudine combination resulted in a median paired decrease in viral load levels of 1.24 log. The proportion of women with viral load levels of less than 500 copies/mL increased from 23% at enrollment to 74% at delivery. Although it is likely that the regimen offers protection via several mechanisms, including prophylaxis in the fetal circulation and post-exposure prophylaxis in the newborn, the findings of sharply reduced and low viral load levels provide important new evidence that combination therapy can reduce viral load at the time of delivery and can add significant additional protection to that afforded by the 076 regimen alone.
The safety and toxicity data emphasize the need for close monitoring during th e administration of the combination therapy, particularly for hematologic and hepatic toxicity. A main concern appears to be increased risk of hematologic toxicity in the infants (nearly all of whom will be uninfected). There were a total of 452 infants born to 445 women in the lamivudine-zidovudine study group. Significant hematologic adverse events reported in the children included 81cases of neutropenia and 68 cases of anemia; 9 required blood transfusions and 19 discontinued treatment because of these abnormalities. To the extent that ascertainment was complete, these data may represent a minimum estimate of the number of substantial hematologic events that can occur in children receiving this combination therapy. In addition, several infants developed mitochondrial dysfunction, which has been reported as a rare, late complication of both zidovudine and lamivudine exposure in France, but which has not been seen in the United States.8, 9 Although the frequency of serious adverse events seems increased, the frequency of toxicity observed for combination therapy was similar to that observed in the comparison zidovudine cohort.
These data will be extremely useful to the Public Health Service Task Force and other consensus bodies charged with making recommendations regarding new perinatal regimens. One question that future research initiatives should address is whether, in addition to the 076 regimen, administration of lamivudine to only the mother late in pregnancy could achieve similarly low transmission rates with less toxicity to the infants. Concerns about long-term effects, which are still not known for zidovudine, underscore the importance of recommendations for long-term follow up of any child with in utero exposure to antiretroviral drugs and emphasize the value of exposure registries such as the Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry.2, 10 A second important concern highlighted in this study is the rapid development of resistance to lamivudine (characterized by detection of the M184 variant). However, although it was estimated that about one third of the women included in a genotyping study developed resistance, much of this resistance may have been related to ongoing lamivudine treatment in the mother postpartum. Among women with evaluable data, for the 12 women who received lamivudine for less than 1 month (it was likely that therapy was stopped after delivery), the mutation was not detected; for those receiving lamivudine for 1 to 2 months, it was identified in 14 of 70 (20%) women, compared with 37 of 74 (50%) women who received lamivudine for more than 2 months. In addition to monitoring for resistance, further research is needed to determine the clinical significance of the M184V mutation, including whether the virus with the mutation is more transmissible than the wild-type virus. The data in this study suggest that perinatal transmission may be associated with the mutation, although this finding did not reach statistical significance. Furthermore, it is not known whether this mutation will persist in the absence of ongoing treatment, whether it would affect the response to later initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy for the woman, or whether it would affect the efficacy of a combination regimen if used in a subsequent pregnancy.
The findings of Mandelbrot et al may also have implications for developing countries focusing on the use of short-course antiretroviral regimens initiated in late third trimester. The Perinatal Transmission (PETRA) study, involving a predominantly breastfeeding population in Africa, used a similar lamivudine-zidovudine combination but provided treatment for only 4 weeks to the mother and 1 week to the infant in its long-treatment group.11 The efficacy level in this group was estimated at 50% and transmission rate was 8%. Comparison of viral load data from the PETRA study (if available) with the viral load data in the current study may explain some of the differences in early transmission rates and suggest an optimal duration of antenatal therapy with lamivudine. For countries that are implementing the short-course zidovudine regimen evaluated in Thailand,12 addition of antenatal lamivudine, with or without neonatal lamivudine, may provide additional significant protection by further reducing viral load level and raises the possibility of achieving transmission rates of less than 5% with abbreviated regimens. The potential additional benefit of lamivudine vs nevirapine in resource-poor settings also will be important to evaluate.
Until recently, the emphasis in adult treatment of HIV infection was on initiating combination antiretroviral therapy as early as possible,13 which likely led some clinicians and patients to decide to initiate or continue combination therapy early in pregnancy. However, in February 2001, the adult treatment guidelines were revised substantially.13 The new guidelines are more conservative: initiation of treatment is recommended in asymptomatic individuals with fewer than 350 CD4 cells/µL or with plasma RNA levels greater than 55 000 copies/mL. Although it is too early to assess the impact of these new recommendations on treatment decisions for pregnant women, it is likely that the new adult treatment recommendations will result in fewer pregnant women starting treatment for their own HIV infection during pregnancy. Thus, the issue of combination therapy as prophylaxis against perinatal transmission will become increasingly important. In this regard, the study by Mandelbrot et alprovides important and timely data on the efficacy and safety of the lamivudine-zidovudine combination.
In developed countries, additional interventions that enhance the 076 regimen, such as combination lamivudine-zidovudine and zidovudine plus caesarean delivery, offer the possibility of virtually eliminating perinatal HIV transmission. Barriers to this goal include identifying and offering prophylaxis to all HIV-positive pregnant women inantenatal care, and providing effective interventions for HIV-infected women who present in labor. In sharp contrast, in resource-poor countries where the problem is so much greater, the urgent challenge is to implement basic perinatal HIV prevention programs offering proven, simplified interventions.
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| 0.952834 | 3,587 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Promising Discovery in the Cause of Osteoarthritis
Over 100 million Americans are faced with the daily challenges of joint pain that produce signs and symptoms comprising Toxic Joint Syndrome. Pain is often worse after exercise and joints can become stiff and harder to move over time. Often, it presents as "morning stiffness," which may subside as the joints warm up. As underlying conditions and injuries progress, pain may interfere with sleep.
Oftentimes, inflammation and joint toxicity contribute to deterioration of bones and joints, leading to osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis (OA) may be diagnosed early in life and span 15 years or more and then may require joint replacement. During that time literally thousands of NSAIDS, analgesics and prescription medications such as Opioid Pain Relievers (OPR) can be ingested. Adverse effects of medication, drug reliance, and overdose often become complicating issues. This month the Centers for Disease Control reported that 14,800 deaths in 2008 were caused by overdose of OPRs.
These findings, reported by senior investigator Dr. William Robinson at Stanford, are reported in the journal Nature Medicine.
Physician's Technology Medical Director Dr. Ronald Shapiro commented, "From a medical and scientific perspective, this new 'paradigm shift' from Dr. Robinson's report correlates well with the implication that Toxic Joint Syndrome (TJS) may be one of America's most pressing health care challenges.
Robinson's data suggests that early intervention becomes essential in preserving joint architecture and performance. WilloMD technology stimulates bio-physiologic actions and is supported by extensive favorable clinical outcomes as well as a positive study. This provides additional validation that this technology offers significant opportunity to help preserve joints and improve the quality of life for many patients with Toxic Joint Syndrome."
Since joints are natural "shock absorbers" they take extreme stress from the activities of daily living, sports, obesity d disease. Recent studies have quantified joint stress for many activities. Even "joint friendly" golf produces extensive stress to joints. A swing off the tee can produce a force 4.5 times the body weight on the forward knee. For a 150-pound person that's 675 pounds of knee stress. No wonder America is a "Nation in Pain."
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http://www.naturalsolutionsmag.com/news-item/promising-discovery-cause-osteoarthritis
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| 0.939625 | 461 | 3 | 3 |
Baton Rouge bus boycott remembered 60 years later
POSTED: Saturday, February 23, 2013 - 9:37pm
UPDATED: Sunday, February 24, 2013 - 12:07pm
BATON ROUGE,LA (NBC33) — The civil rights movement did not begin in Alabama. It began in 1953 in Baton Rouge. Dozens of people gathered at Mt. Zion First Baptist Church on East Boulevard to honor the 60th aniversary of the Baton Rouge Bus Boycotts of 1953. The ceremony payed tribute to the movement started by Rev. T.J. Jemsion and also honored other local historical civil rights figures. Honorees say Baton Rouge is a better place but there's still work to be done.
"You couldn't ride on the front seats," Clovis Hayes, First African American Bus driver, described what life was like in early 1950's. "The four front seats in front you could be on that bus it would be loaded but you had to stand up you couldn't ride on it."
Jemison noticed buses pass by his church with empty seats but people still standing.
"On close examination he looked and found out it was black people that were standing and he thought that was a shame," Theodore Jemison Jr., Jemison’s son explained.
Jemison said his father decided things had to change, so his father went before the Baton Rouge city council to plead his case.
Jemison quoted his fathers speech: "my brothers we need to do something about this injustice. It seems that it's a shame that people can pay the same fare as others and yet they cannot sit. "
Eventually T.J. Jemison founded the bus boycott movement in Baton Rouge. The movement would be the model later used by civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King to hold bus boycotts.
The ceremony also honored Baton Rouge's first African American bus driver Clovis Hayes.
"Coworkers, the white drivers, told me they said look they are going to start hiring some black drivers and you're going to be the first one,” Hayes described. “So, he slipped and told me. And, I said well that'd be fine. "
It was the moment things change for Hayes. He went from utility worker for the bus company cleaning the yard and fixing the vehicles to a driver.
“I was driving them around in the yard parking them and fueling them, so I had the swing of the buses and things,” Hayes explained. “I just had to meet the people and learn the routes.”
Hayes served as a bus driver in the city from 1964 to 2000.
Hayes said Baton Rouge has come a long way since the civil rights era, but the bus system still needs work.
"It’s a lot of places that the bus system is needed but the buses don't run. A lot of places that people have to walk so far. If you have to go eight or ten blocks to a bus stop in the rain, in most places you don't have a bus shelter, you're going to get wet," Hayes stated.
Now it’s time for younger generations to shape the city’s future.
"Tell them the same thing that I did. You know. Be what you are you know and you can make it," Hayes advices.
“Dad believed in a word that word being perseverance,” Jemison added. “I think that young people today have to watch and learn and look at their situation. Find out a way to get beyond what ever problem they are having to persevere.”
Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle hosted the event.
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Operations of "Unfettered" Labor Markets at the Turn of the Century
The American economy at the turn of the century offers an excellent opportunity to study the functioning of relatively unregulated labor markets. The essay surveys the economic history literature to determine how well labor markets operated in the early 1900s. After examining the mobility of workers, the integration of geographically dispersed labor markets of the extent of employer monopsony, we examine the extent to which workers received compensating differentials for workplace disamenities and the extent to which competition among employers reduced discrimination. During this period institutions like the company town company union, and share cropping developed. These institutions are reexamined to determine the extent to which they were exploitative or helped resolve problems with transactions costs. Finally, reformers pushed for legislation during the progressive era to correct perceived market failures. We examine the impact of progressive legislation and discuss the political economy of its passage.
Published: Fishback, Price V. "Operations Of 'Unfettered' Labor Markets: Exit And Voice In American Labor Markets At The Turn Of The Century," Journal of Economic Literature, 1998, v36(2,Jun), 722-765.
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Some of the controversies that arise in the world seem to latch on to the public’s imagination and then, for decades or years following, simply will not let go. Such is the character of intrigue that has, for more than sixty years now, swirled turbulently around the personage of Immanuel Velikovsky.
Velikovsky, who sadly died in 1979, was a Russian-born medical doctor and psychoanalyst. He first came into the public eye in the 1920’s for founding the Scripta Universitatis academic journal in Berlin, and later worked alongside others to establish the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Velikovsky was an intensely curious man who had been broadly educated in many different fields of study as diverse as science, medicine, philosophy, ancient history and law. He studied psychoanalysis under Sigmund Freud’s acclaimed protégé Wilhelm Stekel. Velikovsky first worked alongside Albert Einstein in Berlin, when Einstein edited mathematical articles in Scripta Universitatis, again in Jerusalem during their efforts to help found the Hebrew University, and later in life as close friends and colleagues at Princeton University.
In 1939, Velikovsky brought his family to New York City, planning to spend the summer engaged in research at Columbia University’s library. He was compiling a psycho-historical text to outline the many intriguing parallels he had uncovered between the Greek literary character Oedipus and the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaton. This research, however, was soon sidelined when Velikovsky uncovered an Egyptian papyrus called “The Admonitions of Ipuwer,” a text that seemed to provide historical confirmation for biblical accounts of the 10 plagues in Egypt at the time of Moses. Intrigued that the biblical account might possibly have foundation in actual historic events, Velikovsky began to seek out other ancient references that might serve to uphold that point of view.
Using the techniques of a comparative mythologist, Velikovsky began a comprehensive review of ancient texts from around the world dating from that same time period, and produced a body of supporting evidence that was more substantial than he at first imagined. The ancient texts presented what he saw as a kind of universality of theme relating to reports of global calamity – descriptions of fire raining from the sky, violent earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, displacement of great bodies of water, and similar disasters of seeming mythic proportion.
At the same time he also began a search for references that might point to some real-world agent capable of inflicting the kinds of misfortunes described in the Book of Exodus. He eventually settled on the theoretic close approach of a comet to the Earth as the type of natural event that most closely fits the profile of destructive consequences described in the texts. This tentative conclusion was upheld in his mind by many explicit ancient references to a fearful wandering comet associated with great calamity. References to this comet were given by different cultures under various names such as Seth and Typhon. Velikovsky also found himself confused to learn that in some cultures, the names that had been initially assigned to this fearful comet also came later to be associated with the planet Venus.
Meanwhile, Velikovsky became aware of the sudden rise at about that same historical period of what seemed to be a global obsession with tracking the motions of Venus. Many different cultures began to keep careful written counts of the number of days between the risings and settings of Venus. Tracking Venus is the likely motive that is cited by some historians as having inspired the Oracle Bone texts – the earliest form of written record known to exist in China. For Velikovsky, these facts taken together seemed to implicate Venus as the fearsome agent of terrible events that he believed may have ravaged our planet. Velikovsky associated this same period of destruction with the stupendous eruption of the volcano Thera on the island of Santorini, the sudden fall of the Minoan Empire in the Mediterranean, and the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt at around 1500 BCE.
In support of this unorthodox thesis, Velikovsky noted that the texts of most ancient cultures prior to 1500 BCE – most notably those of the Hindus, Babylonians and Egyptians – refer only to four planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Mercury. References to Venus prior to that date are inexplicably given using words and symbols that were traditionally reserved for comets. They describe Venus as appearing “hairy” or refer to its “horns” or “long tail.” (There are references prior to 1500 BCE to goddesses such as the Sumerian Innana, however, the iconography associated with these goddesses typically involve images of comets.)
Two independent but synchronised sets of ancient astronomic records – one from China and the other from Korea – describe the first appearance of a supernova on the same observation date and both compare it in size and brightness to Venus “with its rays.” Furthermore, virtually all ancient cultures went through a period during which they classified Venus alongside the Sun and the Moon, rather than with the planets, based on its brightness. While it’s true that even now, under proper circumstances, the planet Venus can remain visible during the first hours of daylight, there are ancient reports that refer to the brightness of Venus as rivalling that of the Sun.
Velikovsky changed the focus of his study from Oedipus to the origins of Venus, and in 1950, MacMillan and Company published his highly controversial book on the subject called Worlds in Collision. In the book Velikovsky postulated – based on a wide range of ancient accounts and references – that the planet Venus must have been formed within the historic memory of mankind as a consequence of the impact of a large astronomic body with Jupiter. This event was recorded in a Greek myth in which Jupiter was said to have swallowed whole a pregnant goddess named Metis, soon after which Athena burst newborn from Jupiter’s head. According to Velikovsky, Venus – whose name in Greek means “the newcomer” – at first “blazed as brightly as the Sun” as it roamed across the sky, far outside the Newtonian bounds of its familiar modern-day orbit. He proposed that Venus, in its travels, had wrought considerable havoc within the solar system, that its trajectory had brought it to a near-miss with Earth around 1500 BCE and that Venus had directly impacted Mars. This impact caused Mars, in turn, to leave its orbit and to become the catalyst for a second series of close encounters between Mars and the Earth. The worst of these happened, according to Velikovsky, around 750 BCE. One serious consequence of this final interaction with Mars, according to Velikovsky, is that it affected the Earth’s orbital period, lengthening it from an ancient 360-day year to our familiar 365-day year, and ejecting Mars into its present orbit.
Several factors conspired together to help position Velikovsky’s book to become a top seller. The first of these was Velikovsky’s own personal reputation and long time association with high-profile projects and people, which together made him a difficult heretic to simply ignore outright, since Velikovsky already had a well-established reputation. The second was that his theory of an historically recent birth for Venus directly contradicted modern planetary theory and scientific conceptions of proper planetary motion. The third may have come out of the sheer astonishment on the part of traditional scientists that Velikovsky would presume to offer a theory that crossed the traditional boundaries of numerous academic disciplines, and move outside of his own field of expertise into another field entirely – namely astronomy – to make his case. The fourth was that he deemed it appropriate to cite as evidence for this theory ancient textual references that, in the estimation of many astronomers of the day, rated somewhere alongside a child’s fairy-tale in scientific evidentiary value. Moreover, this evidence – which was drawn from the fields of ancient history and archaeology – fell far outside of the ability of most astronomers to even attempt to evaluate, let alone refute. With the help of some very effective advance publicity – including a condensation of the book that appeared in a popular magazine and advance copies of the book that were sent to several leading astronomers – the outrage of the astronomers was effectively stoked. Their professional outrage helped propel the book to the status of a runaway bestseller.
The rising popularity of Velikovsky’s book turned the astronomic world on its head. The din of uproar against the heretic Velikovsky approached levels that had not been heard since the Catholic Church’s infamous persecution of Galileo in the mid-1600’s. In retrospect, the outrage was understandable: In what had by 1950 become an increasingly Darwinian world, Velikovsky’s theory threatened to resurrect a kind of fire-and-brimstone religion that the scientific world had struggled for more than a century to supplant. Likewise, by contradicting the view that all planets must be billions of years old, Velikovsky’s theory threatened to undermine the Uniformitarian views that provided the foundation for Darwinism itself. Darwin’s theory required a stable and unchanging universe to accommodate the imperceptibly slow processes of the evolution it proposed.
Several top astronomers wrote to MacMillan’s management urging the company to block publication of Velikovsky’s book. Dr. Harlow Shapley (then director of the Harvard Observatory) worked behind the scenes to organise colleges and universities in a boycott of MacMillan’s highly profitable textbook division, hoping to financially arm-twist them into dropping the book. MacMillan – hoping to defuse the boycott without actually bowing to the demands of the astronomers – took the highly unusual step of transferring its lucrative publishing rights for a bestselling book to Doubleday, one of its competitors who had no stake in the sale of textbooks.
At the time of publication of Worlds in Collision, many aspects of Velikovsky’s theories were flatly characterised as purest nonsense by authorities within the astronomic world. Later the truth would surface that some of Velikovsky’s harshest critics had never actually read his book prior to making their declarations, but had instead based their critique solely on pre-publication summaries of the book. Certainly Velikovsky’s vision of a young, hot Venus ran counter to the conventional wisdom in 1950, which presumed that Venus had an Earth-like atmosphere and might ultimately prove to be colonisable. The seemingly acrobatic requirements for the motions of Venus laid out by Velikovsky in his book – moving first like a comet but then somehow eventually coming to inhabit one of the most circular and regular orbits of all the planets – appeared to flatly contradict Newtonian laws of motion. Carl Sagan pointed out that the great amount of energy required to eject a body the size of Venus from Jupiter would likely have vaporised large portions of Jupiter and left those areas intensely hot, even today. Even Einstein, whose natural impulse was to be sympathetic to his friend and colleague, at first sided against Velikovsky, flatly discounting his suggestion that electromagnetic forces must play a significant role in planetary dynamics.
Velikovsky’s theory, when carefully considered, carries with it a number of logical eventualities or consequences that, if they were not all within the reach of scientists to prove or disprove experimentally in 1950, would surely become testable sometime in the near future. For example, a geologically-recent birth for Venus would require the planet to be intensely hot. Likewise, it would imply that Venus exhibit a seemingly unevolved set of geological formations. Furthermore, if Venus had roamed the solar system as a rogue astronomic body for centuries then we would expect to find certain anomalies in its orientation and rotation when compared to the other planets. Surely we would eventually be able to detect if either Mars of Venus had ever suffered a direct impact with a planet-sized body. If Venus and Mars had made close approaches to the Earth in ancient times, we should be able to identify chemical, geological or magnetic signatures associated with those events. Moreover, Velikovsky himself had provided a long list of his own “prognostications” – consequential observations that he felt must eventually show themselves to be true, if the facts were to uphold what he saw as the unmovable cornerstones of his theory.
Soon after publication of the book, certain of Velikovsky’s “prognostications” began to be affirmed, if not always for the precise reasons offered by Velikovsky. For example, the controversial outlook Velikovsky held on the role of electromagnetism in the interaction of planetary bodies – the one that had been at first opposed by Einstein – was upheld by the incidental discovery of radio emissions from Jupiter and acceptance based on work by Van Allen of the existence of a significant magnetic field surrounding the Earth. By the 1960’s, Velikovsky was considered a credible enough authority on questions of astronomy to be hired by a leading television network to consult and comment during NASA’s live Moon landings. In 1974, a symposium of scientists (including Velikovsky) was held in San Francisco to debate Velikovsky’s theories that ended up pitting several leading critics against Velikovsky. The official “spin” coming out of that conference – and the impression left on the general public – was that Velikovsky’s theories had been finally and definitively disproved.
However since that time, as new evidence continues to emerge, there has been a persistent nagging tendency for new findings to – at least outwardly – appear to uphold many of Velikovsky’s “prognostications.” In recent years when new discoveries are made that could potentially relate to the controversy, these findings are most often presented without official mention of Velikovsky. Instead, they are typically announced bundled with an accompanying new theory, whose net effect is to distance the find from Velikovsky’s controversial theories. For example, when probes to Venus did, in fact, show the planet to be intensely hot – a key point that Velikovsky had cited as a crucial demonstration of the correctness of his theory – scientists completely sidestepped the issue by pre-emptively postulating a runaway greenhouse effect to explain the unexpectedly high temperature. When Venus was found to have far fewer impact craters than would be expected for a billions-year-old planet, astronomers again proposed that “unknown geologic forces” must have somehow caused a geologically-recent global resurfacing of Venus, thus wiping away evidence of the craters.
As far-fetched as some of Velikovsky’s proposals may seem at first blush – especially his often questionable musings on chemical interactions that he presumes to have occurred between the atmospheres of Venus, Mars and the Earth – there is a perspective from which we might profit by carefully considering certain aspects of his theory. For example, his suggestion that a planet might be formed as a consequence of a large impact on a gas giant planet seems as reasonable as either of the two leading traditional theories of planetary creation – both of which are believed by some astronomers to suffer from serious (perhaps fatal) theoretic difficulties. Likewise, it is already an accepted part of traditional astronomic theory that our own Moon was formed as the by-product of an impact. Surely it is not unreasonable to think that what can happen on a small scale in our solar system could also happen on a larger scale. Some of Velikovsky’s critics say that it is unreasonable to think that the wandering orbit of Venus as a comet could have circularised for the planet Venus in such a short period – and yet it is well known there are some comets that have apparently achieved circular orbits around our Sun. Some theories suggest that a comet’s tail can provide the necessary drag to circularise its orbit. Others claim the tidal forces of gravity can cause the orbits to circularise.
The way Velikovsky’s argument is structured, there are a number of single-question fail-points attached to his scenario. For example, if it could be definitively shown that granite exists on Venus (a type of rock that takes millions of years to form) then much of Velikovsky’s theory would simply fall to the ground. The same would be true if an archaeologist suddenly turned up an ancient document from prior to 1500 BCE that explicitly referred to Venus as a planet. Likewise, if explicit evidence could be produced for the existence of a 365-day year in ancient times, then one of Velikovsky’s key claims would be effectively rebutted.
My purpose in writing my newest book The Velikovsky Heresies is to help bring Immanuel Velikovsky and the many still-unanswered questions he raised relating to Venus back into the consciousness of the reading public. My goal is to remind this audience that – notwithstanding the symposium held in 1974 – an open, ongoing controversy still exists relating to Velikovsky. That controversy continues to be coloured by the disturbing suggestion of long-term, politically-motivated manipulation of scientific results. Another of my main goals is to update the Velikovsky controversy with the latest astronomic evidence relating to Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Much of this new evidence is drawn from the wealth of data gathered by recent probes such as the European Space Agency’s Venus Express, and recent first-hand studies that have been conducted in relation to comets.
One of my original hopes – unfortunately not yet realised – was to pinpoint a single fact upon which the controversy could be said to turn – one essential, illusive bit of evidence that a person could point to as unquestionable proof that Velikovsky’s theory must either be largely correct or specifically and fatally flawed. Instead, I believe I have brought new eyes and new evidence to bear on many of the critical questions and criticisms that shape the unique and enduring controversy fostered more than sixty years ago by Velikovsky’s Worlds In Collision.
If you appreciated this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn.
LAIRD SCRANTON is an independent software developer from Albany, New York. In addition to The Velikovsky Heresies he has also written a number of books and articles on African and Egyptian cosmology and language, including articles for the University of Chicago’s Anthropology News academic journal and Temple University’s Encyclopedia of African Religion.
The above article appeared in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 6 No 1.
© New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
For our reproduction notice, click here.
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Published on June 18, 2011 at 4:34 AM
"A vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, triggered by the human papillomavirus (HPV), has helped reduce the number of teenage girls developing abnormalities in their cervix by as much as 50 percent in a study in Australia," according to a report published Friday in the Lancet, Reuters reports.
Australia implemented a national, publicly funded HPV vaccination program for all women ages 12 to 26 between 2007 and 2009. Researchers analyzed data from a regional cervical cancer registry, comparing pap smear test results prior to the immunization program and following its introduction (Lyn, 6/16). The proportion of women younger than 18 showing high-grade abnormalities (HGA) dropped from 0.80 percent to 0.42 percent, but there was no drop in the percentage of women 18 and older showing HGA, according to the Guardian.
Writing in a Lancet commentary, Mona Saraiya and Susan Hariri of the CDC "said they wanted to know more about the vaccine status of the individuals (each woman is supposed to have three shots) and wanted more work to establish whether the reductions in potential cancers were really a result of vaccination or some other cause," the Guardian writes (Boseley, 6/17).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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A study to be published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM) shows consumption of a Mediterranean diet enriched with olive oil for two years is associated with increased serum osteocalcin concentrations, suggesting a protective effect on bone.
Age-related bone mass loss and decreased bone strength affects women and men alike are an important determinant of osteoporosis and fracture risk. Studies have shown that the incidence of osteoporosis in Europe is lower in the Mediterranean basin. The traditional Mediterranean diet, rich in fruits and vegetables, with a high intake of olives and olive oil could be one of the environmental factors underlying this difference.
"The intake of olive oil has been related to the prevention of osteoporosis in experimental and in vitro models," said Jos- Manuel Fern-ndez-Real, MD, PhD, of Hospital Dr. Josep Trueta in Girona, Spain and lead author of the study. "This is the first randomized study which demonstrates that olive oil preserves bone, at least as inferred by circulating bone markers, in humans."
The participants in this study were 127 community-dwelling men aged 55 to 80 years randomly selected from one of the Prevencion con Dieta Mediterranea (PREDIMED) study centers who had at least two years of follow-up. The PREDIMED study is a large, parallel group, randomized, controlled trial aimed to assess the effect of the Mediterranean diet on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
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MEET Mito and Tracker (left), twin rhesus monkeys created using a DNA transplant technique that could prevent rare but devastating human diseases caused when our cells' energy system is disrupted.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov and colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton used the fact that mitochondria, which provide cells with energy, contain their own DNA, separate from the chromosomes. Faulty mtDNA inherited from the mother can cause incurable diseases such as MELAS syndrome.
Mitalipov transferred chromosomes, but not the mtDNA, from the eggs of female monkeys into chromosome-free donor eggs that retained their own mtDNA. The team then fertilised the eggs using standard IVF (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08368). "I believe it can be replicated in people very quickly," he says.
However, gene therapy of this kind that introduces heritable changes could make regulators nervous about human trials.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
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Published in Gene Therapy Weekly, November 29th, 1999
"The etiology of many neurodegenerative diseases has been identified in recent years," stated L.S. Shihabuddin and colleagues from the Salk Institute Biological Studies, California. "Treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disease could focus on one or more steps that lead to cell loss. In the past decade, cell therapy and/or ex vivo gene therapy have emerged as possible strategies for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases."
Shihabuddin et al. published the results of their study in Molecular...
Want to see the full article?
Welcome to NewsRx!
Learn more about a six-week, no-risk free trial of Gene Therapy Weekly
NewsRx also is available at LexisNexis, Gale, ProQuest, Factiva, Dialog, Thomson Reuters, NewsEdge, and Dow Jones.
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A Day On Another Planet
Name: bess amaral
Date: 1993 - 1999
What would a "day" look like on Mercury? on Uranus? with respect to
the apparent path of the sun to an observer on the surface of these planets...I
had read an article that the sun would appear to make a retrograde movement on
Mercury...is that true? Why?/Why not?
...and which orientation does Uranus take as it rotates on its side around the
sun (does it keep one pole always facing away?) this is my first note.
An interesting question. I'll try to sketch out an answer, though I'm
not entirely sure. First imagine that the earth rotated on it's axis at the
same rate it does, but in the opposite direction. Then a "day" would be the
same length, but the sun would "rise" in the west and "set" in the east rather t han rising in the east
and setting in the west as we observe. This is how such things could be
No suppose that we could slow down the rotation so that the earth rotated on its
axis in one year instead of one day.
Then the rotation would cancel the motion of the earth around the sun, and the
sun would never rise or set on a given spot.
One side would always be "day" and the other side always " "night". This is the
situation with the moon, which always keeps the same face towards the earth.
That's why the moon always looks the same to us.
Now let's consider Uranus. It rotates on it's side, but this doesn't really
affect the way a day looks as long as Uranus rotates in much less time than it
takes for it to go around t sun. What will get really wacky are the seasons. A
minor point here is that the "surface" of Uranus we see is really the cloud tops , which do indeed
rotate in much less than a "year" on Uranus. But there's nothing to stand on to
watch the sunset there, and none really knows where the "surface" is if there is
Let me back up a bit. A day is the time the planet takes to spin on it's axis,
like a top spinning. A year is the time for a planet to go around the sun.
(You probably already knew this, but just in case.)
Now let's try Mercury. This planet is in a resonance where it rotates in 2/3
the time it takes to go around the sun (or maybe it's 3/2, but off the top of my
head, I think it's 2/3). Since it "spins" more slowly than it goes around the
sun, the sun will indeed "rise" in the west instead of the east. (Think about t he case where the
sun "stands" still. If rotation is faster, then the sun must move "forward"
i.e. the way it does on earth. If rotation is slower, the sun must move
backwards.) Since this is already a long answer, please send another question if you are interested in the
Click here to return to the Astronomy Archives
Update: June 2012
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We Can!® Community News Feature
Put the Wild into Your Child: Use a Trip to the Farm to Spark a Healthy Change!
Does your child know where fruits and vegetables come from?
Does she realize that carrots grow in the ground?
Has he ever seen a tomato or a watermelon ripening on the vine?
If the answer is no, a trip to a nearby farm for more than the pony rides and a petting zoo may be a way to enlighten the whole family to the benefits of fresh-grown foods, and to encourage your children to make healthier food choices.
Here's how to start your adventure:
- First, find a "pick-your-own" farm in your area. Local Harvest
(http://www.localharvest.org) offers a farm-finding tool and tips. Your local paper may also publish a list of farms—watch for one seasonally or search your paper's website for past lists.
- Sign up for hands-on activities if available, such as making applesauce or churning butter from fresh milk.
- While at the farm, encourage everyone to try new foods and ask questions! You might be surprised by how willing your children will be to taste a radish, a purple tomato, or a blackberry that they've picked themselves. Chances are they'll be more excited about plucking an apple from a tree than picking one off of the grocery store shelf.
If the nearest farm is too far away, don't give up! There are other options, such as growing your own produce—pots and planters work if you don't have a garden. Or, you can visit your local farmers' market, where kids can see a variety of locally-grown produce, ask questions of the farmers directly, and (best of all) taste free samples.
Another benefit of having your children pick or grow their own food is that it may make them more eager to help you out in the kitchen! If you're looking for healthy recipes for those extra helping hands, visit the We Can! (Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition)® website (http://wecan.nhlbi.nih.gov). Developed by the National Institutes of Health, We Can! provides resources for parents, caregivers, and communities to help children ages 8–13 maintain a healthy weight by improving food choices, increasing physical activity, and reducing screen time.
So, explore both the website and "the wilds" together with your family; by doing so you just might have them trying new, healthy foods and helping you with supper, too!
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Ocypus olens is a beneficial insect. Its diet ensures that organic matter is broken down and nutrients are returned to the food chain and the soil.
This beetle does not have conservation status in the UK. It is an example of a species successfully exploiting an ecological niche.
Its place as a dominant insect predator are ensured by:
However, we must ensure that habitats continue to exist for this beetle species to survive successfully. This means conserving natural spaces, and where they don't exist, building a beetle refuge.
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Mass spectrometry is an important technique in analytical chemistry, essential in areas including drug development, criminal and agricultural forensics, detection of explosives, and verification of chemical weapons treaty compliance. Yet there is no way to predict or model mass spectra from first principles. This means that a compound can only be identified with confidence if it is already known, with its spectrum registered in the NIST Mass Spectrometry Database. A compound that is unknown or unregistered can be identified only tentatively, and only by an expert. If a reliable theory can be developed, new compounds will be identified with greater confidence and the analytical power of mass spectrometry will be increased.
Unknown compounds will be identified more reliably. Quality control for the NIST Mass Spectrometry Database will be enhanced.
- Develop software tools for predicting microcanonical branching fractions automatically. This is currently too laborious and too technical to be used routinely. (applications: EIMS; MS/MS; CIMS)
- Develop a theoretical approach for predicting the energy deposition function during electron ionization. (application: EIMS)
- Combine the above methods to create software for predicting spectra. (applications: EIMS; MS/MS; CIMS)
Research Activities and Technical Approach
- Quantum chemistry will be used to determine fragmentation energetics. Reaction pathways will be determined using isopotential searching, heuristics, and other automated methods. Branching fractions will be predicted using RRKM and related theoretical methods.
- New ideas are needed for predicting the energy deposition function; there has been little progress in the past 60 years. One idea is to adapt Kim’s BEB theory (developed at NIST) for this purpose.
- Once a successful method is developed, software will be developed and distributed so that the method can be used in mass spectrometry laboratories.
Additional Technical Details:
Irikura, K. K.; Meot-Ner, M; Sieck, L. Wayne; Fant, Andrew D.; Liebman, Joel F., Protonated para-Benzoquinone, J. Org. Chem. 1996, 61, 3167-3171.
Irikura, K. K.; Johnson, R. D. III, Predicting Unexpected Chemical Reactions by Isopotential Searching, J. Phys. Chem. A 2000, 104, 2191-2194.
Kim, Y.-K.; Irikura, K. K. Electron-Impact Ionization Cross Sections for Polyatomic Molecules, Radicals, and Ions. In American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings 543, Atomic and Molecular Data and Their Applications; Berrington, K. A; Bell, K. L., Eds.; American Institute of Physics: College Park, Maryland, 2000; pp. 220-241.
Irikura, K. K.; Todua, N. G.; Tretyakov, K. V.; Stein, S. E.; Mikaia, A. I., EIMS of Alkylated Sulfabenzamides: Quantum Chemistry of an Unusual Rearrangement, 59th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, Denver, CO; June 8, 2011.
Haeffner, F.; Merle, J. K.; Irikura, K. K., N-Protonated Isomers as Gateways to Peptide Ion Fragmentation, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom., 2011, 22, 2222-2231.
Irikura, K. K.; Merle, J. K.; Simón-Manso, Y., Tryptic y++ Fragment Ion Distributions Are Guided by Coulombic Repulsion, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom., 2012, 23, 483-488.
- Thermochemistry may be used as an economical surrogate for kinetics in the formation of sequence ions in peptide MS/MS.
Lead Organizational Unit:
NIST Mass Spectrometry Data Center
MML/NIST computing resources
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Bringing Parenting Into Schools
By Robert Schroeder
Parenting is tough, the experts agree. Anyone who disagrees may risk physical harm from a parent nearby.
Yet when kids flounder in school, parents are often the easy scapegoat. In 2010, an Associated Press-Stanford University poll on education found that 68 percent of adult Americans believe parents deserve heavy blame for what ails the U.S. education system.
Of course, what people think is true and what is actually true can be radically different. And no parenting manual contains the foolproof list of preparing a child for school.
National Louis University's educational psychology program is reaching out to Chicago-area parents through the Incredible Years program, an evidence-based program that fosters collaboration between school psychologists and parents to identify parents' needs and reach mutually-satisfying solutions. The educational psychology department's Center for Learning has begun implementing the program in the Waukegan, Ill. school district at the start of the school year, bringing school psychologists, National Louis student interns and parents together in one program.
"We can have the best curriculum in the world, the fanciest classrooms and technology and the best trained teachers, but unless kids come to school ready to pay attention and to learn, we are not going to be effective," said Kim Adamle, Ed.S., assistant professor in the National College of Education and director of the Center for Learning. "The best way to do that is through working with parents."
The parent program within Incredible Years includes three components. National Louis students are trained to work with parents through the program, professional development is offered to current school psychologists, and National Louis faculty and students are offering direct service to parents and families.
National Louis students are immersed in three years of training in the program. In the first year, students learn the details of the program and observe other students in action. In year two, students work as facilitators with parents alongside National Louis faculty. In the final year, students complete their internship independently as leaders in the program with tangential supervision from faculty.
Students focus on building individualized approaches to working with parents. The key to the program's success is relationship building and creating an environment where parents feel comfortable discussing their vulnerabilities with the student school psychologists. Students use video vignettes to illustrate solutions, while parents engage in role play to hash out real-world actions and wordings.
"It doesn't matter what educational level one has or how many years you have been in school," Adamle said. "They don't have to read about it, we don't use fancy words, and seeing it in action is a powerful way of teaching people from any background."
The Center for Learning is running the Incredible Years project concurrently in the Evanston school district and is planning to start a weekend program with a group of Polish students and their parents at the University's North Shore campus.
National Louis students credit the program with deepening their ability to build deep relationships with parents and to create positive differences in the lives of Waukegan students. For Adamle, giving National Louis students an opportunity to connect theory to practice is a critical component of the Center for Learning's role.
"When schools talk about working with parents or parental involvement, it usually has involved telling parents what to do or what they should be doing," said Adamle. "The wonderful thing about this program is that it is collaborative and a non-expert model."
Adamle and the Center for Learning will use the fall semester to collaborate with Waukegan to choose the appropriate schools to work in and finalize the district's exact needs.
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This interview was originally broadcast on Jan. 9, 2008. Gilpin is featured in PBS's American Experience called Death and the Civil War. It premiered Sept. 18, the day after the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the deadliest day in American military history.
Historian Drew Gilpin Faust writes that Civil War deaths — both their number and their manner — transformed America. Her book is This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
The Civil War death rate was six times that of World War II, when adjusted against the size of the American population, Faust points out.
"For those Americans who lived in and through the Civil War, the texture of the experience ... was the presence of death," she writes. "At war's end this shared suffering would override persisting differences about the meanings of race, citizenship, and nationhood to establish sacrifice and its memorialization as the ground on which North and South would ultimately reunite."
Faust is the president of Harvard University, where she also holds the Lincoln Professorship in History.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream teachers' guide
Based on the 2009 production directed by Aaron Posner in Orinda, CA, this guide has easy to use tools to bring the play to life in your classroom. Guide includes a plot summary, visual character map, a breakdown of Shakespeare's language, an overview of Elizabethan culture and many play related classroom activities.
Romeo and Juliet Teacher's Guide
Written in conjunction with Cal Shakes' 2008 production of Romeo and Juliet, this comprehensive Teacher's Guide serves to engage students with summaries, activities, games, and relevant readings about the themes and time period of the play . The theme of this guide is "You Just Don’t Understand." Cue your students to look for the misunderstandings in the play and how the world of the play creates and perpetuates them.
Primary sources: a process guide for students
Questions to consider when reading primary source documents.
Photographs: a process guide for students
Questions to consider when looking at photographs as primary sources.
American Memory: North Carolina educator's guide
Each month during 2007, LEARN NC will feature an in-depth look at one aspect of the Library of Congress' American Memory with a special focus on North Carolina materials.
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Methods of Discovery: A Guide to Research Writing
Unlike many research writing texts on the commercial market, this text has the following key features: Treats research writing as a rhetorical process Teaches use of research in different genres (not just the generic research paper). This approach allows the text to be used in a variety of writing and rhetoric classes. Discusses the use of various kinds of research sources (academic ones and others) Contains links to resources and multimedia which help students to understand and practice key con
Book Writing and Wall Writing
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Much Ado About Nothing: A teacher's guide
This teacher’s guide, Much Ado About Nothing: Word! is intended to help guide students through this particular thicket of playful language that Shakespeare employs here. It has been posited that language is the primary tool through which we construct our own reality, and the characters are certainly ...
Text parts of James Gibbs' "Book on Architecture containing designs of buildings and ornaments"
Transcribed text parts of Gibbs, J. (1739 - Second ed.) A book of architecture containing designs of buildings and ornaments. London : printed for W. Innys [etc.], 1739, on the basis of its image-only version in http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/titleinfo/203786. With a concordance between the the plates ...
Into the Book
The "Into the Book" web site is designed to help elementary students (grades 1-4) practice eight reading comprehension strategies through playful interactive activities. The site focuses on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, ...
G.L.A.D. Resource Book (Guided Language Acquisition Design)
This GLAD Resource Book has four sections Focus and Motivation, Input, Guided Oral Practice, and Reading and Writing. G.L.A.D. Strategy descriptions are from the Pasco School District’s G.L.A.D. Website. Strategy photos taken of Main Street Elementary Teachers class work and from the 5-Day and 2-Day ...
Starting a Preschool Guide
Starting a Preschool Guide. Part of the series: Early Education Teaching Tips. Starting a preschool involves attaining the appropriate license from the state, creating a budget, deciding on the cost of tuition and hiring a highly-trained staff of teachers. (1:28)
Developed for third and fourth grade. This is a very content driven experiment. Students will dissect flowers, with the main focus and emphasis being on learning the different parts and functions. Especially parts that are most necessary for survival. Students will also play a game to learn new vocabulary about plants. Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level
Lab 9 - Rat Anatomy
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Guide for Teaching About Coastal Wetlands
The intent of this material is to provide a basis from which a comprehensive study of coastal wetlands can be developed by the teacher on the basis of individual needs. Each teacher has students with varying needs and must, therefore, plan accordingly. The information and activities are provided as a framework and may be used and revised to accommodate different levels of students. Some activities may be used as demonstrations rather than student activities for younger students. Any grade level
Study Guide for a Beginning Course in Ground-Water Hydrology
The principal purpose of this study guide is to provide a broad selection of study materials that comprise a beginning course in ground-water hydrology. These study materials consist primarily of notes and exercises. The notes are designed to emphasize ideas and to clarify technical points that commonly cause difficulty and confusion to inexperienced hydrologists and may not receive adequate treatment in standard textbooks. Some of the exercises are more extensive than those usually found in tex
Heroes For My Son, by Brad Meltzer, book trailer
From the author's website: "Since the day my son was born, I've been writing a book for him. It's a collection of heroes throughout history. Some are famous (Jim Henson, Rosa Parks, Mr. Rogers). Some are totally unknown. But the result is this book -- a gift to my son. It's called Heroes For My Son. It came out in May 2010. And as I share this with my sons, I hope you'll share it with the hero in your life." The video shows the author seated o
Global Change Teacher's Guide
Global change is a relatively new area of scientific study using research from many disciplines to determine how Earth systems change, and to assess the influence of human activity on these changes. The Global Change section of the Teaching Packet consists of an introduction and five activities. In teaching these activities, four themes are important: time, change, cycles, and Earth as home.
Soil Change Guide - Procedures for Soil Survey and Resource Inventory
This Guide is designed for soil survey, vegetation, and ecological site or unit inventory work in order to help soil scientists and other inventory specialists collect interpretable data about soil change within the human time scale. This Guide describes a sampling system to measure dynamic soil properties for all major land uses (except urban lands where the land and soil have been significantly reshaped). The Guide includes instructions for project planning, field execution, and data analysis
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Accessibility is all about ensuring that as few people as possible are excluded from access to and use of digital systems, the Internet particularly.
There are moral, legal and business reasons for thinking about accessibility, so that people with different technology and different kinds of disability are not excluded. This means considering, when designing:
- People with a visual impairment
- People who are blind
- People with a physical disability
- People with a hearing impairment
- People who are colour blind
- People with a cognitive impairment, e.g. dyslexia
- People with varying levels of literacy
There are many guidelines on accessibility. The Web Accessibility Initiative is a good, authoritative place to start.
Affinity diagramming is a very simple but powerful technique for grouping (and understanding) information. It is a way to identify, analyse and synthesize meaning from a large, unstructured body of data. A good example might be to organise the results of a brainstorming session, or the conclusion of a contextual enquiry, when you may have hundreds or even thousands of individual notes.
The technique consists simply of writing down items - concepts, facts, ideas, dimensions, descriptions and so on - on Post It notes (or similar sticky paper things) and physically sticking them next to each other to form natural groupings.
Although this can be done electronically for very small sets of data (using a word processor or spreadsheet program), it is mostly always better to work with paper.
Affinity diagramming is, above all else, a simple technique. Its explanatory power derives from its very visual nature, i.e. the more similar two items are, the closer together their Post It notes are.
In the context of production methodology, affinity diagramming comes into its own during Definition, when you are trying to create a solution and there is a large amount of unstructured data.
The concept of affordance was coined by the seminal psychologist James Gibson in The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, and introduced to the HCI community by Donald Norman in his 1988 The Psychology of Everyday Things.
According to Norman an affordance is the design aspect of an object that suggests how the object should be used. Or, putting it another way, affordance refers to the fact that the physical characteristics of an object or an environment influence the function of that object or environment.
This property of objects - a propensity for function to be influenced by physical characteristics - is called affordance (there is debate about this interpretation of the term).
When the affordance of an object or environment corresponds with its intended function, the design will function more efficiently and will be easier to use. And conversely, for the negative case. For example, a door with a handle affords pulling. But sometimes, doors with handles are designed to open only by pushing (think restaurant kitchen doors perhaps). But then the affordance of the handle conflicts with the door's function.
Whenever possible, designers should seek to create objects and environments to afford their intended function.
- Synonyms - agile methodologies; agile usability engineering
Agile is the name for a particular way of doing development. The term is most often applied to software or interactive projects (indeed, it originated in a software development context).
Most agile methods attempt to minimize risk by developing software in short timeboxes, called iterations, which typically last one to four weeks. Each iteration is like a miniature software project of its own, and includes all of the tasks necessary to release the mini-increment of new functionality: planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation. Agile methods emphasize:
- Working software as the primary measure of progress
- Real time communication, preferably face-to-face, over written documents
- Active user involvement is imperative
- The team must be empowered to make decisions
- Requirements evolve but the timescale is fixed
- Capture requirements at a high level
- Develop small, incremental releases - and iterate
- Focus on frequent delivery of products
- Complete each feature before moving on to the next
- Apply the 80/20 rule - nothing is ever built right first time
- Testing is integrated throughout the project lifecycle - test early and often
- A collaborative & cooperative approach between all stakeholders is essential
Agile usability engineering
- Synonyms - agile methodologies; agile usability engineering
Agile usability engineering is a concept to describe a combination of methods and practices inspired by "agile" development methodologies and usability engineering.
Detailed always up-to-date documentation and models
Cards and hand-drawn abstract models. Travel light. Communicate rather than document
Detailed, complex, high-fidelity prototypes
Sketchy, simple, functional prototypes
Develop and prove concepts with user feedback. Iterate.
Courage. Design for needs rather than expectations. Retrieve design from models rather than continuous user feedback.
Time-consuming usability evaluations, workshops with intense stakeholder integration
Fast usability inspections. No need to evaluate if models are right.
An algorithm is a specific set of instructions or steps that can always be guaranteed to lead to the same goal or objective.
"Algorithm" should be contrasted with "heuristic". Like an algorithm, a heuristic is a set of instructions or steps. But unlike an algorithm, a heuristic is not always guaranteed to lead to the same goal.
Algorithms are common in programming. In important ways, a computer program is nothing more than a set of algorithms all stacked up together. Heuristics are more common in the real world of people and uncertainty. Much of what people do is "governed" by heuristics (learned from experience and inferred from incomplete knowledge) rather than algorithms.
The term for situations where forward progress on a project or programme of effort is hampered by an inability (or unwillingness) to move beyond analysis (qua definition, requirements capture, etc) to synthesis and the generation of solutions.
The term for the desired propensity of interative applications to anticipate the user's wants and needs.
This is something obviously designed in by the application designer. The principle being that the designer should not expct the user to search for or gather information or evoke necessary tools. By contrast, the application should bring to the user all the information and tools needed for each step of the process.
- Synonyms - pit-fall; garden-path solution
An anti-pattern is the opposite of a (interaction) design-pattern. It's a commonly (re)-invented poor quality solution to a problem. Two examples of anti-pattern are:
- Interface bloat (from interface design) - Interface bloat refers to the practise of making an interface so powerful and feature rich that it is in actual fact difficult to use
- God object (from programming practise) - a God object is a code module that knows or does too much
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| 0.921415 | 1,413 | 4.03125 | 4 |
Knowing how and when to exit a building is critical in an emergency situation. All employees should be properly trained on emergency exit procedures, and evacuations should be routinely practiced.
A successful evacuation is dependent on having reliable exit routes. OSHA requires every workplace to have at least two emergency exits, or more depending on the size of the facility or workforce. Maintaining the safety of these exit routes should be of the utmost importance.
To keep exit routes safe, OSHA advises:
- Keep exit routes free of all clutter, equipment, locked doors and dead-end corridors.
- Be sure to keep highly flammable furnishings and decorations at a safe distance from emergency exits.
- Arrange exit routes so employees will not have to travel past high-hazard areas unless absolutely necessary.
- Post signs along the walls indicating safe evacuation routes and be sure paths are well-lit.
- Clearly label doors that can be mistaken for an exit with a sign reading “Not an exit” or indicating the room’s use, such as “Closet.”
- Renew fire-retardant paints and solutions when needed.
- Maintain safe exit routes during construction, maintenance and repairs.
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| 0.937691 | 252 | 2.75 | 3 |
New Case Study – LED Cooling in Industrial Environments
One of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in India, known for technological innovation, economic growth and dedication to clean energy, has recently begun converting their plants to LED lighting their ongoing effort to decrease their carbon footprint.
The benefits of LED lighting on the environment are well documented; the switch to LEDs from average incandescent bulbs can often lead to reducing a building’s carbon footprint by as much as 85%. Meanwhile, the benefits of LED lighting in an industrial plant are just as impressive. Longer lifetimes lead to savings in maintenance costs, instant on combined with better quality and brighter light increases plant productivity and the inherent nature of LED lighting leads to huge energy savings. By replacing the plant’s 400W mercury vapor fixtures with 90W LED low bay lights, the company was able to achieve an energy savings of 80%!
LED performance in an industrial environment depends largely on the temperature and conditions of the operating environment. As one might imagine, an industrial automotive plant in India is likely to encounter extremely high temperatures, an average heatsink is not likely to provide proper thermal management in such an environment. As one might also imagine an industrial automotive plant in India is also likely to encounter a considerable amount of dust build up as well humidity and intense thermal cycling, most active cooling solutions are not rugged or dependable enough to be relied on. To answer this conundrum, Future Lighting India turned to Nuventix to provide the thermal management technology necessary to meet this challenge.
The Nuventix ZFlow 90 and Spotlight LED Cooler 70W SynJet cooling solution provided the power and durability needed to weather the harsh environs of the truck manufacturing plant. The small, lightweight cooling device dissipates up to 70W while enabling up to 10,000 lumens and has been thoroughly tested to withstand temperatures as cold as -40° C and as hot as 70° C. Additionally, it’s frictionless design makes it extremely resilient to dust build up, thus ensuring that the cooling solution with perform over the entire lifetime of the LED it is meant to cool, often times longer. All this combined to make the SynJet the ideal solution for proper thermal management to support the company’s move to LED Lighting in their continuing quest for energy efficiency environmental responsibility.
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Gary P. Wormser, M.D., a physician-researcher at New York Medical College who is also chief of infectious diseases at Westchester Medical Center, first noticed the trend among patients he treats at the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center in Valhalla.
The number of reported cases of babesiosis has been rising steadily since the disease was first seen in 2001, according to the New York State Department of Health. Dr. Wormser was seeing it, too—an increase he characterized as a spike. With the backing of the medical center, he appeared on local news programs to warn the populace about the disease, which can lead to serious, debilitating illness or even death.
Symptoms include tiredness, loss of appetite, fever, drenching sweats, muscle aches and headache. Complications may result in liver problems, anemia and kidney failure. The illness may last from a few days to several months, and treatment with antibiotics has been proven effective. Anyone with what appears to be the flu during the summer months should see a doctor to be tested for the disease, which is spread by the same deer tick that causes Lyme disease.
For more than 30 years, New York Medical College researchers have played a leading role in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of many tick-borne disease, including babesiosis and Lyme. Our scientists are currently working to develop improved diagnostic tests and, in a truly ingenious approach, a vaccine for wildlife that carry the spirochete that causes Lyme disease.
Visit the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center website.
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http://www.nymc.edu/AboutNYMC/NYMCExamines/Babesiosis.html
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New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, legitimised by the Treaty of Waitangi and Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson's declaration of 21 May declaring sovereignty over the islands.
Hobson (who served from 1840 until his death in 1842) and Robert FitzRoy (who served between 1843 and 1845) were naval officers. Their administrations were grossly under-resourced. They were challenged in providing even the most basic infrastructure while preserving harmony between the British settlers and the numerically and militarily dominant Maori.
Both fell out with settlers; Hobson angered the New Zealand Company's Wellington colonists, and FitzRoy was accused of favouring Maori and missionaries. Nelson settlers burned FitzRoy in effigy when news of his recall (sacking) by London reached New Zealand in 1845.
New Zealand began as a dependency of New South Wales. Late in 1839 letters patent altered the commission of the governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, by reappointing him captain-general and governor-in-chief in and over the territory of New South Wales, the new boundaries of which included any land that might be acquired here. For the next 18 months his legislative council promulgated all New Zealand law, and the New South Wales land regulations were also extended to New Zealand. This arrangement ended in May 1841, when New Zealand became a separate Crown colony.
In Crown colonies (i.e., colonies that are not self-governing), governors ruled personally. Hobson had two bodies to assist him. The Executive Council comprised the colonial secretary, attorney-general and colonial treasurer. Hobson convened and chaired it.
The Legislative Council, made up of Hobson, the Executive Council and three senior justices of the peace, gave a veneer of independence, but it could meet only at the request of the governor, who set the agenda and who alone introduced law. As a result, many settlers treated it with contempt. Charles Clifford, appointed a counsellor in 1844, resigned after 10 months 'because he objected to FitzRoy's use of the official majority and because he considered the meetings an idle and useless formality'.
War broke out in 1844 between some northern tribes and the British and their Maori allies. Dashing, young Governor George Grey (1845–53 and 1861–8) arrived with more realistic numbers of troops and the money to pay them. By the end of 1845 an uneasy peace had settled over the far north.
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Yoga Promotes A Healtheir Life
by Sintilia Miecevole
What goes on in the body when you are doing your asanas? Most of us realize that yoga increases and maintains flexibility, strengthens muscles and increases one's stamina. All forms of yoga invite the participant to attend to their breath and notice the inward quieting. Most individuals who participate sense a uniqueness in this movement form. Many of us are satisfied with just sensing this, leaving an explanation of how it affects our bodies and spirit to the realm of the mystical.
Those who seek to understand how things work ask:
What effect does yoga have on one's physicality? When one assumes and holds a yoga posture, this act of stretching and bending at the joints facilitates feedback to the central nervous system. This is done by means of beds of proprioceptive nerve endings located within the joints and muscles. Proprioceptors provide information about position, direction and rate of movement as well as the amount of muscle tension in a locality.
Yoga causes the central nervous system to respond with appropriate self-regulatory measures by promoting proper bio- mechanical use.
Self-regulation and self-healing are the physiological responses of the living body. The central nervous system takes the input from the proprioceptive nerve endings and by relaxing and tightening muscles in an organized fashion allows one to hold that posture. Changing balance of any one portion of the spine requires compensatory adjustments throughout it. Muscles respond automatically to stimuli from the nervous system which controls and integrates the activity of the whole body.
Flexibility is the proper and full range of motion within the joints of the body. This is brought about by the coordination of muscle tension and muscle relaxation via the nervous ystem.
Slowly moving into a proper postural stance and holding it provides for proprioceptive feedback that allows the nervous system to coordinate muscle action. Stretching slowly protects muscle fibers and their tendons from strain while resistance set up by holding the posture increases muscle strength. Improved muscle strength and stretch provides stability, flexibility and protection to the joints.
Stimulating the proprioceptive system or massaging the nervous system is but one of yoga's benefits. The encouragement and development of proper structural alignment reduces strain on muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Proper alignment allows for better functioning of the organ systems.
Structure determines function. If body cavities are distorted, so too are the contents within. Distortion caused by poor posture changes the relationship of tissues within organs, leading to the dysfunctioning of the system. Stress, a product of the distortion, reduces circulation throughout the area.
By improving posture, yoga supports the proper functioning of internal organs by maintaining structural integrity of these systems. Proper position and relaxation of tension improves circulation. Nutrition to the whole system is encouraged by the fluctuating internal pressures generated by the different asanas. This fluctuation in pressure enhances cellular diffusion and osmosis.
Simply, motion is life! By moving us through bio-mechanically sound postures, yoga promotes a healthier life. To say that yoga only affects us physically would be denying the larger reality of our existence. However, it is the profound effect that it has on our physicality which frees us to experience the depths of our existence.
About the Author: Visit http://www.yogasmile.com
with your host, Sintilia Miecevole and explore the world of yoga and related subjects such as breathing and meditation. You'll find information from beginner, certification, equipment, instruction, techniques and weight loss to pilates, apparel, postures, exercise, poses and much more. Visit http://www.yogasmile.com
Article Source: http://newagearticles.com
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This directory is limited to users with paid user access. Please refer to the page below for more information on the content of this directory.
The site is currently being updated, please come back later.
Benefits of Organic Photochemistry
When a molecule is irradiated with a frequency that matches the energy difference between ground and excited state, a photochemical reaction may occur. These type of reactions differ significantly form the traditional reactions:
- The excited states are rich in energy. Therefore reactions may occur that are highly endothermic in the ground state.
- In the excited state antibonding orbitals are occupied. This may allow reactions which are not possible for electronic reasons in the ground state.
- Photochemical reaction can include singlet and triplet states. Thermal reactions usually only show singlet states. In photochemical reaction intermediates may be formed which are not accessible at thermal conditions.
The web site "Organic Photochemistry" is an excellent starting point for both a researcher new to the field as an expert who is looking for a intuitively organized web site about this subject.
- Introduction (listings)
- Newsletters (listing)
- Recent Reviews (listings)
- Recent Books (listings)
- Journals (listings)
- Meetings (listing)
- Courses (listing)
- Expertise Centers
- Companies (listings)
- Societies (listings)
- Academic Groups (listings)
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By Kathleen Rushall
While mental health is often considered a separate issue from one’s physical well-being, the two have always been linked in the practice of traditional Chinese medicine. In TCM, emotions and thoughts are considered to have a direct impact on the physical health of a person, and furthermore, mental and physical health are equally valued. Because of the importance placed on the mind in traditional Chinese medicine, there are many methods available within the profession that are geared toward the renewal, healing, and upkeep of mental wellness.
Over 28 million Americans take antidepressant and anti-anxiety agents, and depression is considered among the most common of behavioral disorders. While there are a myriad of prescription drugs and therapists available for disorders such as depression, there are also some interesting Oriental methods available for this affliction. Peace-providing physical exercises such as Tai Ji and Qi Gong have been known to help align the energetic forces of the body and soothe anxiety. Massage therapy is a well-known stress reliever, and consistent breathing and meditation exercises can have long-term effects on high-strung individuals.
Even the approach to diagnosis in TCM differs. In his article Can Chinese Herbs Help Clients with Depression? Andrew Gaeddert discusses the contrast between diagnosis for psychiatric problems in Eastern versus Western medicine.
Gaeddert writes that in Western medicine, when a person sees a doctor with an emotional complaint, the patient is often quickly prescribed with an anti-depressant to ‘relieve’ the difficulty instead of being carefully diagnosed to ascertain the root cause. In Eastern medicine, Gaeddert asserts “When diagnosing a patient, we do so through the four techniques of looking, listening and smelling, asking, and palpating.” Gaeddert goes on to explain that in Chinese medicine, emotional presentations are treated just like any other disease, since the seven emotions are intimately connected with the health of an individual.
Chinese herbal therapy is one manner of healing mental conditions in traditional Chinese medicine. Wei Liu, LaC, writes in his advice article, Traditional Chinese Medicine for Depression, that “The Chinese herbal formula Mood Smooth (Jia Wei Xiao YaoWan) has been in use for six hundred years in China to deal with depression. The Chinese call this old remedy "the happy pill" because of its well-known anti-depressant effect.” Liu expands on Chinese herbal therapy, writing about other common herbal remedies for depression. These include spleen tonic herbal formula, known as Bu Zhong Yi Qi Wan, kidney nourishing herbal formula, known as Jin Gui Shen Qi Wan, and many other curatives that are widely used with different patterns of depression, treating the organs that may correspond to the emotion.
In his article, Liu also directs his attention to acupuncture as a treatment for depression. Many clinical studies have been performed to test acupuncture’s affect on mental health, and Liu claims that in by the end of one such study, more than half the patients no longer met the criteria for clinical depression. Statistically, this means that acupuncture is just as effective as antidepressants. A study performed by the Health Education Alliance for Life and Longevity is one such example of acupuncture’s triumph over depression. A new pilot study by psychologist John Allen of The University of Arizona in Tucson and Tucson acupuncturist Rosa Schnyer suggests that acupuncture may prove to be at least as effective in the treatment of depression as psychotherapy or drug therapy. The study was a double-blind study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine.
It compared the reduction of major depression in three groups of women. For eight weeks the first group of women received specific acupuncture therapy for depression. The second group received acupuncture treatment for symptoms not associated with depression. The final group was put on a wait-list. The raters who assessed the subjects' degree of depression before and after the trial were also blind to the treatment conditions of individual subjects. At the end of eight weeks, Allen and co-workers found that the women who received specific acupuncture treatment for depression were significantly less depressed than the women who received acupuncture treatment for symptoms not related to depression.
Traditional Chinese medicine can offer an entirely new method of healing for patients suffering from mental health issues. Depression is most commonly discussed, but ailments like anxiety, mania, various phobias, stress, and even schizophrenia can be alleviated by traditional Chinese medical methods like acupuncture, herbal treatment, massage, and qi gong exercises. Above all, patients may find it refreshing that the very process of diagnosis in TCM is different than in Western medicine. The TCM process is thought to be more personal, taking an increased amount of history and examination into account to design a unique treatment tailored to the patient, one that addresses both symptoms and the pattern of disturbance in the energetic equilibrium of the body.
Gaeddert, Andrew. Can Chinese Herbs Help Clients with Depression? The Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine News Source.
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Kids Activities: Hop to It
Play a hip, hopping game with the kids.
- Tape measure
- Using your chalk, you or your kid should draw a 10-foot line on the sidewalk.
- Break the line into 1-foot increments and label them 1 through 10.
- Give your child challenges. "Hop to number 2. Take a step to number 4. Jump back to number 3." Make up your own challenges.
- You and your kid should take turns being the Hopper and the Caller. Work off those fries you had for lunch.
- If your child can reach the 10-foot mark in a single leap, notify the Olympics track and field coach, pronto.
- Want more active games to get your Olympian ready for action (and bed)? Try these LazyTown Backyard Games from NickJr.com.
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The latest “Science Ink” provides a closer look at the tattoo of Gabriel Pato, a Brazilian biologist. Per Zimmer’s post, the message of his tattoo is simple: the brain is a network.“Neural Net” - Photos and Text Courtesy of “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer
Neurons send signals to thousands of other neurons, and it is the number and the strength of those connections from which our thoughts emerge. There is no single humunculus-like neuron in which a person’s mind resides. There is not even a single neuron for memories, or for smells, or for joy. Instead, our perceptions flow into layered networks, and out of those network come responses. If you like too far into the brain, you lose the forest for the trees.
Check out more tattoos in “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer.
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Turbo Scramjet is named for an experimental engine developed by NASA. The ramjet, also called a stovepipe jet, or an athodyd, is a form of jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress incoming air. Ramjets therefore require forward motion through the air to produce thrust. A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variation of a ramjet distinguished by supersonic combustion. Projections for the top speed of a scramjet engine (without additional oxidizer input) vary between Mach 12 and Mach 24 (orbital velocity). Usable dynamic pressures lie in the range 20 to 200 kPa, where q = pv2, where q is the dynamic pressure of the gas, p (rho) is the density of the gas, and v is the velocity of the gas.
Scramjets are both fast and extremely unpredictable, and the composer incorporated these characteristics into the music. The entire piece is based on the five-note Lydian scale, introduced in the canonic opening. It is filled with driving, relentless rhythm, instability, shifting meters, random syncopated rhythms and more. While the middle section is more subdued, focusing on the calm experienced during a smooth flight, eventually all parts re-emerge and the rhythmic drive returns. After the gradual build to the climax, the momentum relents until the final punch.
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Peru Sees Biggest Decline in Infant Mortality Rate in Latin America
The decline in Peru’s infant mortality rate over the past 20 years has been the sharpest drop in all of Latin America, according to a report by UNICEF.
In 1990, Peru had the world’s fourth highest infant mortality rate at 75 per 1,000 births, according to the report, which was cited by Peru.21. By 2011, however, the infant mortality rate dropped to 18 deaths per 1,000 births.
Experts says the decline is the result of improved health services in rural areas, as well as improved controls of respiratory infections and diarrhea.
Experts also attribute it to campaigns to promote breastfeeding, vaccinations, the education of women, and better attention during labor in health centers.
Although the drop in the infant mortalities is good, about 11,000 children younger than 5 years old died in 2011, including 5,000 babies less than a month old.
There are also still big gaps between urban centers on the coast and rural areas in the Andean highlands and Amazon jungle. The highest rate of infant mortality in Peru, for example, is in the Andean region of Puno, with a rate of 52 deaths for every 1,000 births. Many deaths are attributed to respiratory infections, the result of freezing temperatures during May-August and —in the rural areas— smoke inhalation from cooking fires within homes that have little ventilation in order to ward off the cold.
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Written by PETA
Do you know what
you're seeing when you look at seafood? It seems that most of us don't. When Consumer Reports
tested 190 different samples of fish from restaurants and stores, they found
that more than 20 percent were being marketed as something other than what they
actually were. A similar investigation by the Boston Globe found that as much as 48 percent of fish flesh is mislabeled.
will no doubt dismay people who try to
buy only species of fish that they think are sustainable. But "sustainable"
is simply a marketing buzzword that the seafood industry likes to use. Eating any
fish at all contributes to the decimation of the ocean's ecosystem.
© Alaska Fisheries Science Center
The massive nets
and long-lines used by factory
are indiscriminate in what types of fish they catch, and fishers simply toss
overboard the dead or dying dolphins, sea turtles, and other "bycatch"
they don't want. Farmed
such as salmon and sea bass are often carnivorous, so many pounds of wild fish
must be caught to feed those on farms.
the label on the package matches the fish under the cellophane, one thing we
can be sure of is that the flesh we are eating came from an intelligent animal with a
who did not want to be gutted
alive or suffocated.
If we can eat faux fish, such as Vegieworld's codfish,
that tastes the same, is free of harmful toxins like mercury
and PCBs, and doesn't claim any animals' lives, why not?
Forty-thousand young salmon are swimming free in San Francisco Bay
this week after someone cut the netting of their cramped holding pens.
© Robert Koopmans | iStockphoto.com
The salmon were being held in 25-foot-by-16-foot-by-8-foot pens, and with 20,000 to a
pen, this means that there were more
than six 10-inch fish per cubic foot. Fish kept in such crowded conditions
often suffer from severe injuries, and in such filthy conditions they are also susceptible
to parasites that can eat their faces down to the bone. On fish farms,
as many as 40 percent of the fish die before they are even scheduled for
Farming salmon—for commercial use or for enhanced
angling opportunities—also depletes the ocean of other fish. It can take more
than 5 pounds of ocean fish to
produce just 1 pound of salmon.
Do fish a favor, and leave them in the water where
they belong. Enjoy a day on a boat or hiking near a creek without hurting
animals, and leave fish off your plate with delicious faux-seafood recipes.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail [email protected]. If you need to report cruelty to
an animal, please click
here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the
animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local
police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA
immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
Follow PETA on Twitter!
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights? Read more.
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Sounds have meaning
Being able to reliably hear the sound of a doorbell, a crying baby or the signal of an alarm is of vital importance. Our quality of life, on the other hand, is influenced by the subtle sounds, a child’s carefree laughter, music or the soft tap of rain on the roof. How well do you hear?
Noises help orientation
Noises can provide important orientation. The sound of our steps helps us with spatial orientation. Engine sounds help us locate potential dangers on the street. Many sounds and noises are also connected to memories. What would a summer day be without birdsong, or an autumn walk without the rustling of leaves? How to recognize hearing loss
Get a hearing check
Regular hearing checks help you to recognize hearing loss early on. When was the last time you had your hearing tested? Go to our online hearing check
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Posted by Keith Rennie on December 06, 2004
In Reply to: "Balls to the Wall" posted by B.Barclay on December 06, 2004
: The phrase is much older than Airplanes. It goes back at least 100 years to the days of the stationary steam engines and refers to the speed regulator that kept the output speed constant. The "balls" were attached to the outer horizontal corners of diamond shaped 4-link mechanism mounted vertically on a shaft that spun in proportion to the output speed of the main drive pulley or gear. The upper corner of the diamond was fastened to the shaft and the bottom corner was fastened to throttle that applied more or less steam to the engine. The faster the shaft turned the further the balls extended horisontally due to centrifugal force, and higher the bottom of diamond rose and the more steam was applied and the faster the engine ran. The engine's fastest speed was when it ran with the "balls to the walls."
: There is some advantage to being older than dirt!
This adds a bit more detail to an explanation already in the archives: =
on 26 Sept 2003 Paul littleton wrote:
In Reply to: Balls to the Wall posted by Art SC USA on September 18, 2003
The terms "Balls to the Wall" and "Balls Out" both refer to the flyball governer. As the rotational speed of the governer increases the balls move out toward the horizon (wall). That motion, coupled through various linkages has been used to control the speed of engines and or trigger safety devices once a certain speed is reached. "Going balls to the wall" simply means going fast.
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Recently, a number of articles have suggested that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos. Just last month, in an essay in The New York Review of Books, Marcia Angell-Relman, former interim editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, favorably entertained the premise that “psychoactive drugs are useless.”
Earlier, a USA Today piece about a study done by the psychologist Robert DeRubeis had the headline, “Antidepressant lift may be all in your head,” and shortly after, a Newsweek cover piece discussed research by the psychologist Irving Kirsch arguing that the drugs were no more effective than a placebo.
To address the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of antidepressants used in Americans, Peter D. Kramer, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University, wrote an article in the New York Times, “defending antidepressants.”
In Defense of Antidepressants
Kramer starts out by asserting that, “antidepressants work — ordinarily well, on a par with other medications doctors prescribe.” He noted that, “certain researchers who have questioned their efficacy in particular areas,” have done so “on the basis of shaky data.”
The problem with these researchers using shaky data is that the notion that antidepressants “aren’t effective in general is influencing treatment.”
Kramer first offers support that antidepressants work from a study in France of more than 100 people with a particular kind of stroke. Along with physiotherapy, half received Prozac, and half a placebo. Members of the Prozac group recovered more of their mobility. Antidepressants are good at treating post-stroke depression and good at preventing it. They also help protect memory. In stroke patients, antidepressants look like a tonic for brain health.
What was surprising to Kramer was that a friend of his, who suffered from a stroke, was not put on antidepressants until after Kramer himself emailed his friend’s doctor. And even then, he learned from his friend, Robert G. Robinson at the University of Iowa’s department of psychiatry, that neurologists say they “don’t use an antidepressant unless a patient is suffering very serious depression” because “they’re influenced by reports that say that’s all antidepressants are good for.”
Kramer asserts that, “the serious dispute about antidepressant efficacy has a limited focus. Do they work for the core symptoms (such as despair, low energy and feelings of worthlessness) of isolated episodes of mild or moderate depression? The claim that antidepressants do nothing for this common condition — that they are merely placebos with side effects — is based on studies that have probably received more ink than they deserve.”
Kramer points out that the most widely publicized debunking research — the basis for the Newsweek and New York Review pieces — is drawn from data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the late 1980s and the 1990s by companies seeking approval for new drugs. This research led to its share of scandal when a study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the trials had been published selectively. Papers showing that antidepressants work had found their way into print; unfavorable findings had not.
In his book “The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth,” Dr. Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Hull in England, analyzed all the data. He found that while the drugs outperformed the placebos for mild and moderate depression, the benefits were small. The problem with the Kirsch analysis — and none of the major press reports considered this shortcoming — is that the FDA material is ill suited to answer questions about mild depression.
Kramer explained that as a condition for drug approval, the FDA requires drug companies to demonstrate a medicine’s efficacy in at least two trials. Trials in which neither the new drug nor an older, established drug is distinguishable from a placebo are deemed “failed” and are disregarded or weighed lightly in the evaluation. Consequently, companies rushing to get medications to market have had an incentive to run quick, sloppy trials.
Often subjects who don’t really have depression are included — and (no surprise) weeks down the road they are not depressed. People may exaggerate their symptoms to get free care or incentive payments offered in trials. Other, perfectly honest subjects participate when they are at their worst and then spontaneously return to their usual, lower, level of depression. Kramer explained that these problems are an “artifact of the recruitment process.” As a result, he noted that if many subjects labeled mildly depressed in the FDA data don’t have depression, this would explain why they might respond to placebos as readily as to antidepressants.
Kramer explained how there are two sorts of studies that are done on drugs: broad trials and narrow trials. Broad trials, like those done to evaluate new drugs, can be difficult these days, because many antidepressants are available as generics.
Narrow studies, done on those with specific disorders, tend to be more reliable. Recruitment of subjects is straightforward; no one’s walking off the street to enter a trial for stroke patients. Narrow studies have identified many specific indications for antidepressants, such as depression in neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis and epilepsy; depression caused by interferon, a medication used to treat hepatitis and melanoma; and anxiety disorders in children.
New ones regularly emerge. The June issue of Surgery Today features a study in which elderly female cardiac patients who had had emergency operations and were given antidepressants experienced less depression, shorter hospital stays and fewer deaths in the hospital.
Broad studies tend to be most trustworthy when they look at patients with sustained illness. A reliable finding is that antidepressants work for chronic and recurrent mild depression, the condition called dysthymia. More than half of patients on medicine get better, compared to less than a third taking a placebo. (This level of efficacy — far from ideal — is typical across a range of conditions in which antidepressants outperform placebos.) Similarly, even the analyses that doubt the usefulness of antidepressants find that they help with severe depression.
In fact, antidepressants appear to have effects across the depressive spectrum. Scattered studies suggest that antidepressants bolster confidence or diminish emotional vulnerability — for people with depression but also for healthy people. In the depressed, the decrease in what is called neuroticism seems to protect against further episodes. Because neuroticism is not a core symptom of depression, most outcome trials don’t measure this change, but we can see why patients and doctors might consider it beneficial.
Similarly, in rodent and primate trials, antidepressants have broad effects on both healthy animals and animals with conditions that resemble mood disruptions in humans.
One reason the FDA manages to identify useful medicines is that it looks at a range of evidence. It encourages companies to submit “maintenance studies.” In these trials, researchers take patients who are doing well on medication and switch some to dummy pills. If the drugs are acting as placebos, switching should do nothing. In an analysis that looked at maintenance studies for 4,410 patients with a range of severity levels, antidepressants cut the odds of relapse by 70 percent. These results, rarely referenced in the antidepressant-as-placebo literature, hardly suggest that the usefulness of the drugs is all in patients’ heads.
The other round of media articles questioning antidepressants came in response to a seemingly minor study engineered to highlight placebo responses. One effort to mute the placebo effect in drug trials involves using a “washout period” during which all subjects get a dummy pill for up to two weeks. Those who report prompt relief are dropped; the study proceeds with those who remain symptomatic, with half getting the active medication. In light of subject recruitment problems, this approach has obvious appeal.
Consequently, Kramer explained how a study conducted by Dr. DeRubeis, an authority on cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, was problematic because it was built around his own research. Overall, the medications looked best for very severe depression and had only slight benefits for mild depression — but this study, looking at weak treatments and intentionally maximized placebo effects, could not quite meet the scientific standard for a firm conclusion. And yet, the publication of the no-washout paper produced a new round of news reports that antidepressants were placebos.
In the end, Kramer asserted that, “the much heralded overview analyses look to be editorials with numbers attached. The intent, presumably to right the balance between psychotherapy and medication in the treatment of mild depression, may be admirable, but the data bearing on the question is messy.”
As for the news media’s uncritical embrace of debunking studies, Kramer suggested that this trend is based on a number of forces, including, “misdeeds — from hiding study results to paying off doctors — that have made Big Pharma an inviting and, frankly, an appropriate target.
That said, the result that the debunking analyses propose remains implausible: antidepressants help in severe depression, depressive subtypes, chronic minor depression, social unease and a range of conditions modeled in mice and monkeys — but uniquely not in isolated episodes of mild depression in humans.
Accordingly, Kramer noted that better-designed research may tell us whether there is a point on the continuum of mood disorder where antidepressants cease to work. Nevertheless, he recognized that “it is dangerous for the press to hammer away at the theme that antidepressants are placebos” because they are not, and to give the impression that they are is to cause needless suffering.
As far as other products, the effort that goes into researching a prescription product or medical device is amazing. Perhaps some of that effort should be considered when judging products.
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There are about 40 lysosomal storage diseases, inherited conditions, each one individually rare, but as a group they may affect as many as 1 in 1,500 live births, although this is the high figure and 1 in 5,000 seems more likely. For the most part, these diseases are carried by a recessive gene, so that both mother and father must be carriers of the gene before a child will have the syndrome.
The defective genes cause failure of the body to produce an enzyme needed for elimination of some toxic material. Over time, there is damage to the nervous system leading to damage, most often some level of developmental problem, but commonly with loss of other functions as well.
In the case of Tay-Sachs disease, this means the infant will appear normal at birth, but go into decline after a few months, leading to blindness, deafness, paralysis and death by the age of 4 years. Hunters Syndrome usually appears between the ages of 1 and 3, and can be marked by vision and hearing loss, heart problems, joint problems, and other developmental delays. Hurler Syndrome may show signs as early as 2 years, but generally appears between 3 and 8, and is marked by mental decline, deafness, impaired vision, and skeletal stiffness. Hurler Syndrome can progress quickly, and leads to early death, but other forms, notably Hurler-Scheie Syndrome, are relatively benign. The conditions have this in common the infant appears normal at birth, symptoms appear after months or years, and the effects, sometimes, can be devastating. Which brings us to Oklahoma.
While medical science has no treatment for lysosomal storage diseases, genetic screening permits detection. Genetic screening can identify carriers of the genes, who can then make intelligent decisions about having children. Tay-Sachs Disease, which was once thought of as a disease of Eastern European Jews, has been effectively eliminated in this population because of awareness, and genetic screening but as a result, the disease is now seen in the children of couples who would have been considered low risk, who never thought they needed genetic screening. The genetic defect in the fetus can be detected in the 10th week of pregnancy, with amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling.
With this information, prospective parents can still make a choice. Even those who strongly oppose abortion might be called on to say whether abortion is worse than condemning a live child to progressive decline and early, often painful death. If the lab results indicate the presence of any of the lysosomal storage diseases, the physician should sit down with the parents and have a discussion of diagnosis and prognosis.
Oklahomas legislature has passed two bills intended to make abortion more difficult. One requires that a woman seeking an abortion look at an ultrasound of the fetus while the healthcare provider narrates the state of fetal development. The second prevents a woman from suing her physician for withholding information about potential fetal defects. Gov. Brad Henry (D) had vetoed the bills, but the legislature, in a show of bipartisanship, overrode the veto. Mary Balch, of the Oklahoma Right to Life organization, was quoted as saying of the ultrasound law, It helps to prevent (a woman) from making a decision she may regret for the rest of her life and it empowers her with the most accurate information about her pregnancy so that she can make a truly informed choice. This might be justified, if it were true, but since the physician has the option of withholding information, the claim is patently false. Ultrasound can show fingers and toes, but it cant show the genetic defects that lead to blindness, deafness, paralysis and early death, and the physician is under no obligation to give the parents this information. Thats not a truly informed choice.
Research is making progress in helping people with lysosomal storage disorders. Several of the enzymes whose absence causes these conditions have been identified, and one, idursulfase (brand name Elaprase), is commercially available for treatment of some of the symptoms of Hunters Syndrome. It cant reverse the condition, but idursulfase often improves walking ability.
Unfortunately, the enzyme is expensive to produce, and the market is very small, and so the annual cost of treatment is between $300,000 and $500,000. Oklahoma has been cutting back on assistance for diabetic patients, and reducing payments for dialysis, so people with Hunters Disease dont stand much chance of getting help.
Did anybody explain this to the Oklahoma legislature, or does their concern for children stop at the moment of birth?
Sam Uretsky is a pharmacist who lives on Long Island, N.Y.
From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2010
News | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us
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How to select an agglomeration method — Part I
Enlarging particle size by agglomeration can be achieved by several methods. The method best suited to your application depends on several factors. In this two-part article, the author discusses which factors to consider when selecting a method as well as how to size the agglomeration equipment for your application. Part I covers selection factors related to your feed and agglomerate. Part II [to appear in the March 1999 issue] discusses factors related to the equipment and your plant location, how to use an agglomeration method selection table, and how to select and size your equipment.
Agglomeration is the size enlargement of particles by various mechanisms, such as particle interlocking, molecular [van der Waals], electrostatic or magnetic forces, chemical reaction, or the use of a hardening binder. An agglomerated material is desirable in many solids processing and handling applications. It contains little or no dust, flows freely for easy metering, and has good storage and handling characteristics. An agglomerate also has a defined shape, high bulk density, and low bulk volume. Its porosity and density can be controlled, within limits, to influence the material's solubility, reactivity, heat conductivity, and other properties. An agglomerate often has better product appeal and sales value than a fine particle product.
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View Full Version : Uncertainty in Definition
13th Aug 2012, 23:40
I understand the definition of center of gravity, but what do you call the manner in which mass is distributed throughout an aircraft.
An aircraft could, in theory, have almost all of it's mass right in the middle with little in front of or behind it; another aircraft can have a sizable amount of mass in front of and behind the center of gravity with the rest in the middle.
I can't think of a name for this.
15th Aug 2012, 13:20
The way the mass is distributed (all in one big lump in the center or lots on the margins and nothing in the center) won't affect your CG; What will change is the moment of inertia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia) for the body... uhm...think of flywheels
15th Aug 2012, 17:04
Maybe the term "mass couple" might be appropriate. Some century series fighters, if at a high aoa, would tend to increase their aoa even more during rapid rolls, causing a rather unpleasant "pitch up". Radu's mention of the moment of inertia principle applies.
16th Aug 2012, 00:17
How about mass distribution?
16th Aug 2012, 16:42
In the Tipler physics manual there was a nice pic of two sea gull models hanging from a thread.
One of them had its mass evenly distributed, and its was hanging from its CG, in the middle of it. The other sea gull had its mass concentrated in the tip of one wing. It hanged from its CG which was in the wing, not in the center of the shape.
Distribution of mass will determine the CG. In fact, it determines the center of masses. For small bodies, this and the CG are coincident. For superlarge objects such as the moon, the CG and the center of masses will be close but not coincident.
16th Aug 2012, 17:15
So why does every large aircraft I have ever flown have a range of CofG and certainly for take off it is vital that the load distribution results in the CofG being within those limits and remains there throughout flight as fuel is used?
16th Aug 2012, 22:39
For small bodies, this and the CG are coincident. For superlarge objects such as the moon, the CG and the center of masses will be close but not coincident.
If the bodies are a sphere and are of uniform density (which the moon is not very close) then the CG and the centre of mass are the same, regardless of whether they are small or superlarge.
1106, normally the stab is set for the C of G. If that is not possible (eg, an aircraft that has no trimable stab), then the elevator trim tab is set to the correct setting.
I hear that the setting is computed for a V2 climb OEI with zero elevator force, though in the sim I've found it not to be all that close.
17th Aug 2012, 15:16
What in the world is a "center of masses"? (or center of mass?) Do you mean the CP perhaps?
Second, if you have to use words like "small bodies" and "superlarge objects" to differentiate behaviour, your physics theory/understanding is wrong. Scale has no bearing on classical mechanics.
All that the OP was asking about was mass distribution. You can have 10 kg sitting on the center fuselage of the aircraft, or 5 kg sitting at the tip of each wing. Your CG will not have moved one bit. What will change is the moment of inertia (ie. in the plane with the weights on the wings will roll slighly slower because of the way the mass is distributed). There is no need to bring the Moon into the discussion.
17th Aug 2012, 17:55
When I used the term "centre of mass" I should have said "centre of the mass", or "centre of the shape".
Meaning, for a sphere, the point that is equidistant from any point on the circumference or surface. Not necessarily the C of G, as you have pointed out.
sorry for the confusion
17th Aug 2012, 18:17
CG location along the X-axis (i.e., fore/aft) impacts both static and dynamic longitudinal stability. Statically, the tail lift must be adjusted (stabilizer and/or elevator position) to trim the pitching moments. Dynamically, the further aft the cg goes, the lower the dynamic stability. As CG goes aft, it takes less control surface deflection to pitch the airplane, but the inherent damping of the short period reduces as well.
Moment of inertia impacts the angular acceleration that is generated when a control input is made. The biggest impact on roll moment of inertia is the amount of fuel in the wing tanks. Roll inertia is highest at takeoff and steadily reduces as fuel is burned. Pitch inertia depends on how the payload is distributed along the fuselage. Often the term "dumbbell" is used to describe load distribution with most of the weight either near the nose or the tail.
Handling qualities need to be assessed for conditions representing the range of both cg locations and moments of inertia that will be encountered. When stability augmentation control laws are involved, these variations in airplane configuration must be addressed during control system design.
17th Aug 2012, 18:38
Thank you - I understand that but the earlier posts seem to suggest that while the centre of mass moved the CofG did not and this clearly is not the case. Maybe I misunderstood the argument.
As to V2 and take off trim settings, what you say is certainly what I was taught when flying the VC10 but, never mind the sim it never resulted in zero elevator force in the aircraft either! In fact if the tail trim setting for take off from the load sheet was less than 6 the usual response to the check 'TPI setting' was 'Noted - setting 6'. That at least ensured that you didn't have to pull too hard if aiming for V2!
18th Aug 2012, 11:52
No need to get excited.:ouch:
So he asks about same CG for different mass distributions, right?
yes, the answer is that only the moments of inertia change.
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Women's Magazines from the Pratt Library Collections
Part 1: Ladies' Books
Magazines created specifically for women readers emerged during what historian Frank Luther Mott called the “Golden Age of Periodicals” in the United States. In 1825, fewer than one hundred American journals were published regularly; by 1850, readers could choose from among approximately six hundred titles.
This period was also an age of expansion and reform, and questions about women’s place in a changing society were anxiously debated. The titles below offer a fascinating look at what was considered appropriate reading material for middle-class women during this time.
The Periodicals Department holds the following titles:
- The Ladies’ Literary Cabinet (1819 -- 1822)
- The Ladies’ Companion (1834 -- 1844)
- The Ladies’ Garland (1837 -- 1849)
- The Ladies' Pearl and Literary Gleaner (1840 -- 1842)
- The Lady's World of Literature and Fashion (1843), which turned into
- The Ladies' National Magazine (1843 -- 1848), which became
- Peterson's Magazine (1848 -- 1891)
- The Ladies' Repository (1845 -- 1876)
The similarity of their titles suggests the similarity of their contents. Sober in appearance and tone, “embellished” only with black and white engravings, these magazines were designed to fill female leisure hours with instructive as well as entertaining content, much of it reprinted from other published sources. Each issue generally included a serialized novel or short fiction, poetry, household hints or recipes, and descriptions of the latest fashions. Biographical sketches of notable women, tidbits of history and travel, and sheet music for piano were also included.
The above editorial on “Woman’s Mission,” (Ladies’ Garland, Nov. 1848) reflects both the reformist spirit of the age and the popular view of “woman’s sphere”--the home.
The outstanding woman’s journal of the era was Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830 -- 1898) [housed in Pratt's Special Collections Department]. It contained the same type of content as the earlier magazines, but of higher quality. Its beautiful color plates inspired its competitors to upgrade the quality of their illustrations as well, as the picture gallery below reveals (click on each image for a larger view):
What these magazines did not contain were articles on politics and on the pressing social and economic questions of the day. Yet they were not entirely conservative in their views on women. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, frequently advocated for women's higher education and entrance into the professions, especially medicine. Ann Sophia Stephens, who oversaw the equally popular Peterson's Magazine, was committed to publishing the works of women writers and was a successful author in her own right.
Many of these journals did not last beyond the middle of the nineteenth century, when a new group of titles emerged that explicitly tied womens' interests to the home, family, and fashion.
Read about More Women's Magazines from the Pratt Library Collections.
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Smoking During Early Pregnancy Increases Risk Of Heart Defects In Baby
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when a mama-to-be smokes cigarettes during the...
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when a mama-to-be smokes cigarettes during the first trimester there is a 20% to 70% greater likelihood that her baby will be born with certain types of congenital heart defects. Congenital heart defects are defects present at birth that not only decrease the ability of a baby's heart to work as it should, but can also result in long-term disabilities or even death. 30% of infant deaths due to birth defects are due to congenital heart defects specifically. Now that we know there's a connection between smoking and heart defects though, maybe more women will quit smoking either when they find out they're pregnant, or better yet, before they become pregnant. CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. says:
"Women who smoke and are thinking about becoming pregnant need to quit smoking and, if they're already pregnant, they need to stop. Quitting is the single most important thing a woman can do to improve her health as well as the health of her baby."Based on the findings of this research, along with many other studies, quitting smoking before or very early in pregnancy could prevent as many as 800 cases of heart defects annually in the United States. This may also potentially save as much as $16 million in hospital costs. Of course we know that quitting smoking is a good idea for other reasons too. For example, babies of mothers who smoke are more often born early and these babies more often suffer from lower than average birth weight. If you're pregnant, or considering pregnancy, quit smoking now. Each cigarette you don't light up is a step towards a healthier baby (and a healthier you). Take a look at the following posts:
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One by one, the ten JN-4 "Jennies" dropped out of cloud-laden skies at the end of a trail-blazing cross-country flight. The date was November 19, 1916 and these pioneer aviators, members of New York's 1st Aero Company, had just completed an historic roundtrip from Mineola, N.Y., to Princeton, New Jersey. The flight, hailed by the press as "the largest number ever seen on one flight in this country," was the first mass cross-country flight in U.S. military aviation. The first leg of the historic flight was launched on Saturday, November 18, with a rendezvous of twelve airplanes over Governor's Island, New York. The flight leader, an airman destined to be one of the great names in World War I aviation-Captain (later Colonel) Raynal Cawthorne Bolling, formed the aero unit in 1915. Navigating by familiar landmarks on the roads and fields, the adventuresome National Guard pilots (two aircraft piloted by civilian trainees flew only the first leg), made the return trip on Sunday, November 19, a cold and overcast day. Truly a pioneer in militia aviation, the 1st Aero Company was the first ever to be called into Federal service, in June 1916. A year later most of its members were flying combat missions in France. But the first formation cross-country flight, a pioneer accomplishment soon to be eclipsed by the great strides in aviation, nevertheless set the stage for the accomplishments of the Air National Guard in the years to come.
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Why do you have brown eyes, while your brother’s are blue? Jeans, baby. Wait, we mean genes, which are all the little chemical components that make up you, from the color of your hair, to the shape of your nose, to whether your middle toe is longer than your big toe.
Genetics is the science of heredity. In other words, it’s the study of which genes are responsible for which physical traits in humans and other organisms. Genetics is often broken down into more specialized areas of study. For example, Washington State University divides Genetics into transmission genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary genetics. As an undergraduate, you’ll most likely become well versed in all of three of these fields.
As a Genetics major, you’re in a position to do a great deal of good, medically and scientifically. Many Geneticists eventually choose to focus on molecular genetics, which includes, among other things, cancer research. In this field, you would study how cell growth, reproduction, and mutation leads to cancer and how to stop (or reverse) the process. You might eventually concentrate on human gene therapy, in which you’d study the possible treatments and cures for currently incurable diseases like cystic fibrosis. You might also choose to become involved in genetic engineering, which uses the fundamentals of Genetics to alter and improve plants, animals, and other organisms.
Most Genetics majors choose to continue their studies in graduate or medical school.
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Raw Food Info
Increasing the amounts of raw foods in one's diet is described by many as a journey of physical renewal, mental enhancement and spiritual awakening. People report disappearance of minor ailments like colds and headaches, accelerated healing, increased
energy and a calmer more enlightened existance.
There are various different categories raw and living foods.
Fresh foods include fruits, vegetables and salad greens and are great for their high water and vitamin content. A raw diet consists of more of these than any other type of raw food. Fresh green foods are particularly important for their oxygenating
and alkalising effects.
Sprouted foods include seeds, grains and legumes and also green sprouts such as chlorophyll rich wheatgrass and sunflower greens. Sprouted foods demonstrate a massive increase in vitamin content as a result of the germination process. Weight
for weight sprouted legumes can contain as much protein as red meat, yet are totally digestible and have none of the fat, cholesterol, hormones or antibiotics found in present day meats. Raw nuts and seeds become more digestible by simply soaking for 1
-12hours (time depending on the type of seed).
Superfoods are natural plant foods with an unusually high array of nutrients, for example wheatgrass or spirulina. These are the types of foods we would choose to mightily boost our regular intake of minerals, enzymes, amino acids, essential
fats, and all the other essential nutrients which contribute to our good health.
Fermented foods such as seed cheese or sauerkraut which include a friendly culture (eg Acidophilus, Bifodis etc.) The good bacteria inhibits the growth of unfriendly bacteria (e.coli, candidia etc) and promotes a higher and faster absorption
of food. These cultured foods fit into the category of 'living food' alongside sprouted food.
Dehydrated foods have had their water removed at a temperature lower than 48 degrees celsius (118 degrees farenheit). This is the temperature at which life giving enzymes die, and the main distinction between what is 'cooked' and what is 'raw'.
A dehydrator is a specially designed machine which makes it possible to create more varied textured foods such as breads or crackers.
Enzymes do essential work in the body, starting, altering, speeding up and slowing down biochemical processes. We need enzymes for everything we do including breathing, talking and walking! As we age our bodies natural enzymes become depleted. Natural
uncooked foods contain exactly the necessary enzymes needed to digest them. It has been discovered that enzymes are destroyed by heat, so when we eat cooked foods we make demands on our bodies limited supply of enzymes, for digestion. Dr. Edward Howell
who researched this, reported that our body must divert enzymes towards digestion which would otherwise have been cleaning, healing and rebuilding us.
Acid Alkaline balance
To be able to efficiently take in nutrients and oxygen, and to be able to rid itself of toxins, our bodies need to be in a predominantly alkaline state at the cellular level. An acidic body is prone to all sorts of disease states. We know that the Standard
Western Diet comprises many more acid forming foods such as grains and meats than alkaline ones such as raw fruits and vegetables.
The acidity or alkalinity of a food is determined by the minerals it contains. Minerals and trace minerals supplied by our diet, are needed to activate vitamins and the enzymes which run our bodies, and are at the base of all the organ and cellular structures
of the body. The more minerals the food has the better it is, and it is found that wild foods including seaweeds, and organic foods contain the highest amounts. Dr. Linus Pauling who won two noble prizes said, "You can trace every sickness, every
disease and every ailment, ultimately to a mineral deficiency." A highly mineralised diet contributes to the beauty of our skin and hair as well as our positive mental state.
For many people the first step towards a kinder and healthier diet and lifestyle is becoming a vegetarian. More and more research such as 'The China Study' link meat consumption to the high incidences of degenerative diseases like cancer, diabetes and
heart disease. Better and more assimilable sources of protein include green leafy vegetables, almonds, hempseeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, buckwheat, algaes such as spirulina and chlorella, sprouted foods, durian and olives. Studies
show that vegetarians have an endurance rate approximately twice that of meat eaters. Many world class athletes were vegetarian at the times of their greatest sporting accomplishments.
The use of artificial pesticides and fertilisers in farming which increased drastically since World War II, damage the environment and our health. It has been shown that pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides can cause cancer, nervous system disorders,
birth defects, alteration of DNA, liver, kidney, lung and reproductive problems. These chemicals which are entirely unfit for human consumption also kill the micro-organisms that break down the soil to release plant nutrients. This is one of the reasons
why modern food is less nutritious than foods of some decades ago. Organic food is better tasting and offers us significantly more vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and anti-oxidants than chemically produced foods.
The significance of raw food to health and longevity has been widely reported in an increasing number of scientific studies. Another significant piece of research widely reported in the raw food literature, is the fact that when we eat cooked foods our
bodies produce large amounts of white blood cells which rush to the intestines. This response is called 'digestive leucocytosis' which is the body treating the cooked foods as a 'foreign invader'. When we eat raw foods, or when we eat raw foods just before
cooked foods, this does not happen. This phenomena was observed by Paul Kouchakoff in the 1930s.
Various types of rawfood diets
Using the 'Hippocrates Diet and Health Programme' holistic healing Centres such as The Optimum Health Institute in San Diego or Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida have been offering detox and recovery programmes to thousands of clients in recent decades.
Based on the work of pioneer Ann Wigmore, raw preparations and juices emphasising highly nutritious sprouted and green foods including wheatgrass are served as healing foods.
The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Centre in Arizona founded by Dr. Gabriel Cousens offers clients an individualised Whole Person Healing programme utilising live food nutrition. The emphasis here is on individualising the diet with many visitors on the
low glycemic 'Living Green Diet' which has been found to be very powerful in the treatment of sugar related conditions such as hypoglycemia and candida.
'The Sunfood Diet Success System', devised by leading expert David Wolfe emphasises the important roles of fruits, greens including wild foods and supernutritious 'superfoods', and fats in a balanced diet, within the context of a broader personal development
Detox and cleanses
Many people turn to raw foods because they are interested in cleaning their bodies from the inside out. Would you be shocked to know that you are very likely to have metres of a substance called 'mucoid plaque' - the undigestible residue of cooked grains,
animal products and processed foods, covering the internal walls of your intestines and colon, polluting your body and inhibiting the uptake of nutrients? Drinking raw vegetable juices every day will begin to remove this, and it is also possible to use
herbal cleanses or colonics to speed up this process. Most people report that besides having a massive increase in energy after a cleanse, they feel much better mentally and emotionally as well.
Massive benefits may be achieved by increasing the amounts of raw foods in your daily diet to 50-70% raw (by weight). A diet comprised of 80% raw foods is sufficient to keep your immune system functioning at a peak level. Transitioning slowly step by step
is the best. This gives yourself a chance to adjust to all the changes, whilst letting go of negative or addictive habits. Enjoy expanding your choices - exploring and incorporating fresh, sprouted, juiced, cultured, dried, wild, exotic and 'super' raw
foods. Starting can be as simple as adding to your diet, a vegetable juice each day. Explore the different approaches to eating raw to find a balance which feels good for you. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is to change your diet so read all
you can, and speak to others on the same path. Let your goal for optimum health be your greatest guide!
At the physical level, ill health arises from ingesting toxins or by consuming foods which pollute the body during digestion, and from a lack of minerals or other essential nutrients. Diseased conditions take years to develop and often go unnoticed
until the problem surfaces as a major crisis. Good health arises from detoxing your body and nourishing yourself with the best quality foods.
More to it than food!
The thoughts you have, the emotions you feel, the water you drink, the environment you live in and the exercise you do, and the rest you have all profoundly affect your life and health. Consider all of these things together with the food and you are surely
on the path to success!
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| 0.95216 | 1,936 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Cross-Connection Control Program
The Regional District of North Okanagan - Greater Vernon Water (RDNO-GVW) is committed to providing safe and clean drinking water at the system intake. However, we can't always protect water from backflow or cross connection contamination after it has entered the distribution system. To ensure water remains clean and uncontaminated right to your tap, we have implemented a Cross Connection Control Program.
What is a Cross Connection?
A cross connection is a connection between the drinking water system and any source of contamination. Cross connections can be eliminated or controlled by installing equipment like a mechanical backflow preventer that can stop contaminants from flowing backward within a piping system and into the potable water system.
What is the Cross Connection Control bylaw?
The Cross Connection Control bylaw helps protect Greater Vernon’s drinking water from contamination through cross connections due to backflow. The bylaw, which is required by provincial legislation, calls on water suppliers to establish regulations to identify, eliminate and prevent actual and potential cross connections with non-potable sources.
Why does RDNO-GVW need a Cross Connection Control Program?
A Cross Connection Control Program is a requirement specified by the Interior Health Authority (IHA) as a condition of the Water Utility’s Permit to Operate. It also helps RDNO-GVW meet the requirements of the BC Drinking Water Protection Act and Canadian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines.
- Certified Backflow Testers (10Kb)
- Protection and Winterization of your Backflow Preventer (35Kb)
- Frequently Asked Questions (75Kb)
- Cross Connection Building Requirements Form (75Kb)
- Irrigation System Cross Connection Control Factsheet (1.14MB)
- Backflow Assembly Test Report Form (40Kb)
Please direct enquiries to:
Cross Connection Control
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| 0.870983 | 386 | 2.546875 | 3 |
|Home||Founder||What's New||In The News||Consulting|
Paradigm Shift Intervention Monitoring
Media Myth On
Beta Coronavirus Source
The above comments reiterate the position that the recent human beta cornavirus infections are linked to animal exposure, either directly or through an environmental source such as contaminated water or fruit. However, there is limited support for a recent transmission linked to an animal reservoir such as bats, the most frequently cited reservoir for coronavirus.
The linkage with bats stems from extensive surveys that were initially linked to to SARS-CoV outbreak that began in late 2002 and spread internationally in early 2003. At the time, cornaviruses had been isolated from human and poultry, and the known examples fell into three distinct groups. Group 1, also designated as alpha coronavirus was represent by a human cold virus,229E. Group 2 (beta coronaviruses) was represented by another human cold virus, OC43. Group 3 (gamma coronaviruses) was represented by a poulty virus, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV).
Although the SARS CoV was a Group 2 virus, it was easily distinguished from OC43, and therefore classified as novel. Closely related sequences were found in multiple species sold in live markets in Hong Kong (most notably the Himalaya palm civet), but all of the animal sequences were closed related to each other, as well as the human isolates, raising the possibility that the animal isolates were due to recent infections in the live markets due to animal to animal transmission or human to animal transmission. This possibility was supported by the failure to find the SARS CoV in the animal species in the wild.
An extensive survey of wild animals led to the identification of multiple versions of coronaviruses in bats, including a SARS CoV that had 98% identity with the human cases. Thus, bats were considered the natural reservoir for SARS CoV. The extensive survey of bats led to the identification of additional coronavirus, including subgroups among the beta coronavirus. OC43 was designated as group 2a and SARS CoV was group 2b, while additional isolates from bats were designated as group 2c and 2d.
When a novel coronavirus was isolated from a fatal case (60M) in Saudi Arabia, it was also novel and most closely related to the bat group 2c viruses from Guangdong province (HKU-4 and HKU-5), such as Bat coronavirus HKU4-1 and Bat coronavirus HKU5-2. Full sequences were public and the relatedness with the human sequences (Human betacoronavirus 2c EMC/2012 or Betacoronavirus England 1) was approximately 70%. A segment from a 2c bat sequence from the Netherlands, Bat coronavirus BtCoV/UKR-G17/Pip_nat/UKR/2011, had 91% identity, but the sequence was from a highly conserved region. A recent bat survey for additional group 2c sequences led to the identification of 3 sets from Africa (Ghana) and 3 sets from Europe (Romania and Ukraine). The three sequences from Ghana were Betacoronavirus BtCoV/KW2E-F53/Nyc_spec/GHA/2011, Betacoronavirus BtCoV/KW2E-F93/Nyc_spec/GHA/2010, and Betacoronavirus BtCoV/KW2E-F82/Nyc_spec/GHA/2011 The most closely related sequences were from Ukraine (Bat coronavirus BtCoV/UKR-G17/Pip_nat/UKR/2011) and Romania (Bat coronavirus BtCoV/8-691/Pip_nat/ROU/2009 and Bat coronavirus BtCoV/8-724/Pip_pyg/ROU/2009) with 88% identity to the novel human sequences, which was greater than the 70% in sequences from Guangdong province, but well shy of the 98% seen when human SARS CoV was compared to bat SARS CoV.
In contrast, all of the human sequences have been at least 99.5% identical which each other, including full sequences from the first two confirmed cases (from Saudi Arabia and Qatar) or partial sequences from subsequent sequences from cases in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Moreover, it is likely that the two sets of sequences from the cases in Jordan, as well as the cluster in Saudi Arabia and the most recent cases, who was a UK resident who traveled to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, where he (60M) developed symptoms, are also 99.5% identical to the public sequences based on detection by probes made from the two sets of full sequences.
Thus, the sequence data does not support a recent jump from bats to humans, which is also true for camels.
Moreover, the failure to detect the virus in symptomatic contacts, raises serious concerns regarding the sensitivity of the assay. WHO has classified these contacts as probable cases, signaling the lack in confidence in the assay. In addition, WHO has suggested that the viral level may be higher in the lower respiratory tract, again raising serious questions about the ability to detect the coronavirus using protocols involving nasopharyngeal swabs from the upper respiratory tract.
In spite of these limitations, ECDC suggests that they failure to identify mild cases suggest the virus transmission is linked to an animal or environment source.
The discovery of H1N1psm09 in the most recent case raises additional concerns that co-infected cases will be diagnosed as H1N1pdm09 cases, since the symptoms linked to each virus are similar.
The H1N1pdm09 may also facilitate transmission, raising further concerns that the novel coronavirus is far more common in humans than indicated by the limited number of lab confirmed cases.
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| 0.963995 | 1,259 | 2.765625 | 3 |
There are approximately 400 brightener types listed in the Color Index, but less than 90 are actually produced commercially and only a handful are commercially important. Generically, the C.I. FBA number can be assigned to a specific molecule, however, some are duplicated, since manufacturers apply for the index number when they produce it. The global OBA production for paper, textiles and detergents is dominated by just a few di- and tetra-sulfonated triazole-stilbenes and a di-sulfonated stilbene-biphenyl. These are subject to fading when exposed long term to UV, due to the formation of optically inactive stilbene cis-isomers found at the center of the molecule. All brighteners have extended conjungation and/or aromaticity, allowing for electron movement. Some non-stilbene brighteners are used in more permanent applications such as whitening synthetic fiber.
Basic class types of brighteners include:
Brighteners can be "boosted" by the addition of certain polyols like high molecular weight polyethylene glycol or polyvinyl alcohol. These additives increase the visible blue light emissions significantly. Brighteners can also be "quenched". Too much use of brightener will often cause a greening effect as emissions start to show above the blue region in the visible spectrum. Besides the formation of cis isomer in stilbene-containing brighteners (only the trans isomer is optically active), continued exposure to UV-containing light will actually cleave the molecule and start the process of degradation.
Brighteners are used in many papers, especially high brightness papers, resulting in their strongly fluorescent appearance under UV illumination. Paper brightness is typically measured at 457nm, well within the fluorescent activity range of brighteners. Paper used for banknotes does not contain optical brighteners, so a common method for detecting counterfeit notes is to check for fluorescence.
A side effect of optical whitening is to make the treated fabrics more visible with Night Vision Devices than non-treated ones. This may or may not be desirable for military or other applications. Optically brightened paper is often not useful in exacting photographic or art applications, since the whiteness decreases with time.
Endues of optical brighteners include:
US Patent Issued to Henkel on Aug. 31 for "Stability of Detergents Containing Hypochlorite, Phosphonate Chelant, and Optical Brightener" (Spanish Inventors)
Sep 01, 2010; ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 1 -- United States Patent no. 7,786,066, issued on Aug. 31, was assigned to Henkel AG & Co. KGaA...
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| 0.920461 | 571 | 2.875 | 3 |
The 1861 England & Wales census was taken on 7 April of that year and was essentially of the same format as the previous one ten years earlier.
In 1861 the population of Great Britain & Ireland was 29,070,930; made up of 9,776,259 males & 10,289,965 females in England & Wales, with a further 1,449,848 males & 1,612,446 females in Scotland. Thus the general male/female split at that time was approximately 48 males for every 52 females.
The total number of people recorded in England & Wales with the Reffell surname was just 75, a miniscule proportion of 0.00025% of the total population. This consisted of 41 males & 34 females, very different from the national average. The most popular male name was William and Mary was the most popular female name. The average age was surprisingly low at just over 25 and the oldest was 78 years old.
The family was largely London-based and there was other large branches in Surrey and Buckinghamshire. Smaller branches were to be found in, Kent, & Suffolk. All had been born in England or Wales.
There were many varied occupations listed including; farmers, a working jeweller, some cabmen, an ironmonger, some gun makers, a number of watermen and rope makers. Also included were people connected with the brewing trade both brewers and publicans. There was no one listed as being in any of the the armed services, and perhaps the strangest occupation noted was a manure agent!
It was predominantly a male working force, with only a few of the females having any occupation; a couple of dressmakers, a waitress, a shop assistant, a housekeeper and a pipemaker.
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| 0.986321 | 358 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam – Part 17No Comments | June 2012
Translated from Urdu by
Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan
A Characteristic of Islam
Islam has always produced persons of this rank. It is Islam alone in which God approaches a servant and holds converse with him and speaks inside him. He builds His throne in the heart of such a one and pulls him from inside towards heaven. He bestows upon him all the bounties that were bestowed on those before him. It is a pity that the blind world does not realise how far a person can reach in nearness to God. They do not step forward themselves, and if another one does so, he is either declared a disbeliever or he is deified and is put in the place of God. Both these are great wrongs which proceed from one extreme or the other. A wise one should not lack high resolve and should not persist in the denial of such an exalted rank being conferred on anyone, and should neither denigrate such a one nor deify him. When a person attains such high rank, God Almighty manifests such relationship with him as if He covers him up with the mantle of His Godhead and such a one becomes a mirror for beholding God. That is why the Holy Prophet(saw) said: He who has seen me has seen God. This is the last stage in the spiritual progress of man in which he is bestowed full satisfaction.
The Speaker is Honoured with Divine Converse
I would be guilty of doing great wrong to my fellow beings if I were not to declare at this stage that divine bounty has bestowed upon me the status which I have just defined and has honoured me with the kind of converse the features of which I have just set out in detail, so that I should bestow sight upon the blind and should guide the seekers of the One Who has been so far lost, and should give to those who accept the truth the good news of that holy fountain of which many speak but which few find. I wish to assure the listeners that the God, meeting with Whom is the salvation and eternal welfare of man, cannot be found without following the Holy Qur’an. Would that the people were to see that which I have seen, and were to hear that which I have heard, and should lay aside mere tales and should run to the truth. The cleansing water which removes all doubt, that mirror through which that Supreme Being can be seen, is converse with the Divine that I have just mentioned. Let him whose soul seeks the truth arise and search. I tell you truly that if souls are charged with true seeking and hearts develop true thirst, people would search for that way and would seek that path. How can that way be discovered, and how can the intervening veil be removed? I assure all seekers that it is Islam alone which conveys the good news of that path. All other people have since long sealed up divine revelation. Be sure, however, that this seal is not imposed by God, but is an excuse that is put forward by man on account of his privation. Be sure that as it is not possible that we should be able to see without eyes, or should be able to hear without ears, or should be able to speak without a tongue, in the same way it is not possible that without the help of the Qur’an we should be able to behold the countenance of the True Beloved. I was young and am now old but I have not encountered anyone who has quaffed the cup of this visible understanding except out of this holy fountain.
The Source of Perfect Knowledge is Divine Revelation
Dear ones, no one can fight God’s designs. Be sure that the source of perfect knowledge is divine revelation which is bestowed on the holy prophets of God. Therefore God, Who is the ocean of grace, did not design that divine revelation should be sealed up for the future and the world should thus be destroyed. The doors of His revelation and converse are always open. If you seek them along their proper ways you will find them easily. The water of life has come down from heaven and has stopped at its proper place. What must you do, so that you might drink of it? You should, by some means or the other, arrive at that fountain and should put your mouth to it so that you might be filled with the water of life. The entire good fortune of a person consists in this that he should run in the direction in which he perceives that light, and should adopt the way in which he discovers a sign of the Friend Who has been lost. You have observed that light always descends from heaven and falls upon the earth. In the same way the true light of guidance also descends from heaven. Man’s own devices and his own conjectures cannot bestow true understanding upon him. Can you behold God without His manifestation? Can you see in the dark without the help of heavenly light; if you can you may perhaps see in this case also. But our eyes, though in perfect condition, depend on heavenly light; and our ears, though they can hear perfectly, depend upon the air which circulates under divine direction. That god is not true who is silent and leaves everything to our conjectures. The Perfect and Living God is He Who manifests Himself on His own. At this time also He has designed to disclose His own Being. The windows of heaven are about to open, the day is about to dawn. Blessed are those who should rise up and seek the True God, the One Who is not overtaken by any calamity, the brilliance of Whose Glory is never dimmed. It is said in the Holy Qur’an that all the light of the heavens and the earth proceeds from God and lights up everything.1 He is the Sun that bestows light upon the sun, and He is the life of all the animates in the earth. He is the True Living God. Blessed are those who accept Him.
The third source of knowledge is certainty through experience, that is to say, all the hardships and calamities and sufferings that are experienced by the Prophets and the righteous at the hands of their opponents, or that are imposed upon them by Divine decree. Through these hardships and sufferings all the commandments of the law and its directions that were comprehended by the human mind intellectually, appear in practical shape and become experience, and by being developed by practical exercise arrive at their climax, and the person concerned himself becomes a perfect code of Divine guidance. All the moral qualities like forbearance, retribution, endurance, mercy, etc. which hitherto pervaded the mind and heart theoretically, become part of the personality through practical experience and make their impress upon the total personality of the sufferer, as God the Glorious has said that we shall surely try you with somewhat of fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives and of the fruits of your labour, that is to say, you will suffer all this at the hands of your enemies or by virtue of Divine decree. Then give glad tidings to the steadfast, who, when a misfortune overtakes them, do not lose heart but say: Surely to Allah we belong and to Him shall we return.2 It is these on whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy, and it is these who are rightly and perfectly guided. These verses indicate that there is no virtue in the knowledge that is confined to the mind and heart. True knowledge is that which emerges from the mind and regulates and trains all the limbs, and manifests in practice all the store of memory. Thus knowledge is strengthened and fostered through its impress being imposed on all the limbs by practical experience. No type of knowledge, however elementary, arrives at its climax without practice. For instance, we have always known that baking bread is perfectly easy and involves no great art. All that is needed is that after kneading the flour and preparing the dough, we should divide it into balls of proper size and pressing each ball between our hands should spread it out and place it on a properly heated pan, and move it about till it is heated into bread. But this is only our academic boast. When without experience we start the process of baking, our first difficulty is to prepare the dough in its proper condition so that it neither becomes too hard nor remains too soft. Even if we succeed in preparing the dough after much effort and weariness, the bread that we bake will be part burnt and part unbaked with lumps all over of irregular shape, despite our observation of the process of baking over a period of half a century. Thus relying upon our bare knowledge which we have never practiced, we would suffer a loss of a quantity of flour. If such is the case of our academic knowledge in elementary matters, then how can we rely solely on our knowledge without any practical experience in matters of great import? Thus God Almighty teaches us in these verses that the sufferings which He imposes upon us are a means of perfecting our knowledge through experience.
He has then warned us: You will surely be tried in respect of your possessions and your persons, that is to say, people will plunder your wealth and will kill you; and you will surely suffer many hurtful things at the hands of Jews and Christians and of those who set up partners with Allah; but if you show fortitude and restrain yourselves, that indeed would be evidence of high resolve. The purport of all these verses is that only that knowledge is beneficial which has been tested by experience, and the knowledge that is merely academic and has not been the subject of experience is without beneficence. As wealth is multiplied by commerce, in the same way knowledge arrives at its spiritual climax through practical experience. Thus practical experience is the principal means of perfecting knowledge and bestows a light upon knowledge. The ultimate certainty of knowledge is achieved through experience of every part of it. That is what happened in Islam. God Almighty provided the Muslims with the opportunity to illustrate whatever they were taught in the Qur’an in their practice and thus to become filled with its light.
- Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth… (Ch.24:V.36)
- You shall surely be tried in your possessions and in your persons and you shall surely hear many hurtful things from those who were given the Book before you and from those who set up equals to God. But if you show fortitude and act righteously, that indeed is a matter of strong determination. (Ch.3:V.187)
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| 0.975344 | 2,145 | 2.75 | 3 |
MAXIMUM CAPACITY: 47 TOTAL IN BOAT: 12 (out of approximately 30 who were in or reached the boat)
OCCUPANTS IDENTIFIED: 12 UNIDENTIFIED OR UNACCOUNTED FOR: at least 18
SECOND CLASS: 0
THIRD CLASS: Mrs. Stanton (Rhoda, sometimes referreed to as “Rosa”) Abbott; Olaus Abelseth; Carl Olof Jansson; Carl Jonsson; Edvard B. Lindell, died in the boat; Mrs. Edvard B. (Elin) Lindell, died while clinging to the side of the boat; Gunnar I. Tenglin; William H. Tornquist; Mr. August E. (“Gus”) Wennerstrom. TOTAL: 9
NOTE: Collapsible A was one of the last two boats to leave the Titanic (the other being Collapsible B). Both were stored atop the forward superstructure abreast of the first funnel. First Officer Murdoch was able to successfully bring Collapsible A down to the Boat Deck and connect it to the falls used by Lifeboat No. 1 and Collapsible D. However, before A could be loaded and launched, the forward end of the Titanic’s superstructure went under (this would have been around 2:15 AM, just moments before the ship sank) and the boat had to be cut free from the falls. As it floated away, a handful of swimmers reached it and were able to climb aboard, but they were unable to fully raise the canvas sides of the boat, so it remained partly awash, the survivors standing almost knee-deep in seawater until they were taken off by Boats 4 and 12 some hours later. During this time a number of swimmers reached the boat, most too exhausted to climb over the shallow gunwales, and they subsequently froze to death. When Collapsible A was abandoned, three bodies were left behind, only to be recovered by the RMS Oceanic (ironically, a White Star liner) a month later, some 160 miles southeast of where the boat had been abandoned. One of them was positively identified at Thompson Beattie; all three were buried at sea.
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Benefits of polio eradication up to US$50 billion
The Rotary clubs of Farooqabad, Sheikhupura Aarzoo, and Sucha Souda, in Punjab, Pakistan, rallied to end polio and held a polio vaccination camp during National Immunization Days in July. More than one million Rotarians worldwide have contributed to the success of the GPEI. Photo courtesy of the Rotary Club of Sheikhupura Aarzoo
A new study estimates that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative could prevent more than eight million cases of paralytic polio and save US$40 billion to $50 billion, if the wild poliovirus is eradicated in 2012 or shortly thereafter.
Published online this month in the Vaccine journal, the study, “Economic Analysis of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative,” is based on actual and projected immunization costs and polio incidence from 1988 through 2035. Low-income countries would account for about 85 percent of the savings.
The study also estimates that the distribution of vitamin A supplements during National Immunization Days has prevented from 1.1 million to 5.4 million child deaths and saved between $17 billion and $90 billion in disease treatment costs.
"Polio eradication is a good deal, from both a humanitarian and an economic perspective," says the study’s lead author, Radboud J. Duintjer Tebbens, of the nonprofit Kid Risk Inc. "The GPEI prevents devastating paralysis and death in children and also allows developing countries and the world to realize meaningful financial benefits."
The study focuses on 104 countries, most of them lower-income, that have directly benefited from the GPEI since 1988 through reduced polio treatment costs and the prevention of lost productivity due to disability.
Not included in the study are the substantial benefits that continue to accrue in countries that have eradicated polio. In 2006, for example, estimates indicated that the United States had saved more than $180 billion because of its investment in immunization to become polio-free.
The study was produced by Kid Risk Inc., the Delft University of Technology, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the GPEI.
The incidence of polio has fallen by more than 99 percent worldwide since the GPEI began in 1988. Indigenous transmission of the wild poliovirus persists only in relatively small areas of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Until eradication is complete, however, all countries remain at risk for the importation of the virus, as demonstrated by the polio outbreaks in Tajikistan and the Republic of the Congo this year.
By the time the world is certified polio-free, Rotary’s contributions to the global eradication effort will exceed $1.2 billion. In addition, Rotary has mobilized hundreds of thousands of volunteers in support of immunization activities.
Rotary also plays a leading role in soliciting financial support from national governments, which has amounted to more than $8.2 billion since 1988.
"This entire initiative began because of the vision of Rotary International," says Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, who calls the more than 1.2 million Rotarians "tireless partners in the polio eradication effort."
Says Robert S. Scott, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee: "The positive results of this study will, I am certain, increase even further the enthusiasm of Rotarians to fulfill their promise to the children of the world to eradicate polio."
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What wildlife lives in the grounds of your school/home/club? Do you provide any safe, comfortable homes for them? Wildlife homes can be a really attractive feature, and may also be a use for that neglected corner that you don’t quite know what to do with. They could also make an ideal project to do with your class or group, as you could fit it around several curriculum areas.
How about building a wildlife stack with some old bricks and tiles - a great opportunity to reuse some materials which might have otherwise gone to waste, whilst thinking about shape, proportion and balance. You could incorporate some natural materials such as pebbles and the odd herb plant to give your stack a bit of earthy texture.
Perhaps you could start a wildlife corner, and create some small individual wildlife stacks, maybe plant a few wild flowers and see how it develops over the course of a year. You could have daily or weekly class monitors to survey the wildlife and minibeasts that you attract - we'd love to hear about how it develops.
If you have a pond, why not try installing one of these frogitat homes? Your class could keep an eye on whether anybody moves in, and even create a 'home sweet home' sign.
You hould use this hogitat to attract some hedgehogs to your grounds - a good way to reinforce learning about living things and their environment, and would keep your hedgehogs very happy.
How about a good old-fashioned nestbox? You could integrate it into a technology project and get your students to design (and make) their own nestbox - we have instructions on our website. B&Q have launched a competition to design a bird box which would see the winning entry displayed in Kew Gardens.
There are some fantastic initiatives and competitions to get children and young people outdoors and active, whilst getting involved with nature at the same time.
One initiative we have worked with is the John Muir Award, an environmental award scheme focused on wild places. The award provides a progressive structure for learning outdoors, whilst encouraging people of all backgrounds to connect, enjoy and care for wild places through its four challenges: discover - explore - conserve – share.
Although the competition is now closed, National Geographic Kids have been looking for their Young Adventurer of the year, with results to be announced shortly at the National Geographic Store on London’s Regent Street (23 October - it's free, so why not drop in if you're in the area). Perhaps you can get your students thinking about what an adventurer is, and how they can become adventurers on their own doorstep.
Whilst we’re thinking of adventures, how could I not mention the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards? With three levels of awards – bronze, silver and gold young people can achieve an award that is going to give them skills for life at the same time as enabling them to engage with nature. Many of the young people involved in these awards have their lives turned around, as they are introduced to a host of activities which they wouldn't ordinarily experience.
Of course, I couldn't end this blog without a mention of our very own Wildlife Action Awards, a scheme which enables children to get out there and experience nature for themselves which can be done through school, a group or at home.
South Essex Marshes are hosting their Warden Week event this coming half term (24th – 28th October) and they are still looking for young people to participate.
This is a great opportunity to get some work experience, gain friends and get some hands-on experience of being a warden with the UKs biggest conservation charity. If this sounds interesting, read their blog for more details of the types of activitites you could be doing.
There are nine places available, it’s free to take part, and is open to anybody between the ages of 16-19. So if you know somebody who might be interested in this great opportunity, or want more information please get in touch on 01268 498623 or email [email protected]. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis so be quick!
Halloween is just around the corner and what better way to mark the occasion than a Nocturnal Nature Expedition with your brave adventurers at Wat Tyler Park?
Learn about the secret world of nocturnal creatures on Friday 28th October by joining the RSPB for a spooky family evening, you never know what you might see!
Make sure you dress up warm with sensible shoes, and take a torch - but be creative as there is a prize for the best fancy dress. You’ll be rewarded for making it to the end of the walk with a tasty hot chocolate in the visitor centre.
Visit the website for more details, as booking is essential.
Our fantastic FREE Big Schools’ Birdwatch packs will be available very soon - have you registered to receive yours yet?
We have three packs available to provide differentiated resources for your age range - Nursery, Primary, and Secondary. The packs include all sorts of activities, suggestions and resources that you can use in your teaching to support the Birdwatch. We also have a great website which can provide you with downloadable activities and child-friendly bird ID pages that your students can use.
So why not find out more and register for your pack now!
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Improve Your Stride Sequence
Perfect your running technique from impact to takeoff
Researchers at Stanford University, US, analysed a single stride sequence to determine which muscles activate and when. We asked a trainer how to strengthen your weak spots so you become a better runner.
The key to diffusing impact is to land closer to your centre of gravity, says Dicharry (who wasn't involved in the running study). A shorter, quicker stride helps. And once a week, run barefoot on grass. "You'll avoid landing heavily on your heels, "Dicharry says. "You'll naturally take shorter strides and land closer to your body."
Most runners don't extend their hips properly because their legs don't stretch back enough, says Jay Dicharry, director of the Speed Clinic at the University of Virginia, US. They compensate by landing in front of their body, adding to the impact.
Upgrade: Stretch your hip flexors
After a run, kneel on one knee, keeping your back straight. Tilt your pelvis backward and hold for 60 seconds. Repeat three times on each side.
Discuss this article
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An education campaign focused on showing how reducing idling makes good environmental and financial sense will be accompanied this fall with enforcement of Vancouver’s idling bylaw.
The educational campaign focuses on dispelling common myths around idling, such as:
Myth: Allowing your engine to cool down will cause more emissions and use more gas than just letting it run.
FACT: Recent AirCare tests confirmed that idling your engine uses more fuel and causes more emissions than turning it off and restarting it.
Myth: Frequent engine restarts will harm your engine starter.
FACT: Component wear caused by restarting the engine, estimated at $10 per year, will be recovered many times over in fuel savings from reduced idling.
Vancouver City Council enacted the idle free bylaw on July 18, 2006. For more information about the initiative, visit www.idlefree.ca.
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The New Year is an event that happens when a culture celebrates the end of one year and the beginning of the next year. Cultures that measure yearly calendars all have New Year celebrations.
The ancient Roman calendar had only ten months and started the year on 1 March, which is still reflected in the names of some months which derive from Latin: September (seventh), October (eighth), November (ninth), December (tenth). Around 713 BC the months of January and February were added to the year, traditionally by the second king, Numa Pompilius, along with the leap month Intercalaris. The year used in dates was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office — fixed by law at 15 March in 222 BC, but this event was moved to 1 January in 153 BC. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, dropping Intercalaris; however, 1 January continued to be the first day of the new year.
In the Middle Ages in Europe a number of significant feast days in the ecclesiastical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church came to be used as the beginning of the Julian year:
It took quite a long time before the adoption of the 1st of January as the start of the year became widespread. The years of adoption are as follows -
When the Gregorian calendar started to be adopted, at different times in different countries, after 1582, the new year's day was again unaligned, with the countries still using the Julian calendar being 10 days behind those that adopted the Gregorian calendar. The discrepancy increased to 11 days in 1700, 12 days in 1800, and 13 days in 1900 (see Gregorian calendar article section on the difference between Gregorian and Julian calendar dates).
The ancient Roman New Year of 1 March was used in the Republic of Venice until its destruction in 1797, and in Russia from 988 until 1492 (AM 7000). 1 September was used in Russia from 1492 until the adoption of the Christian era in 1700 via a December 1699 decree of Tsar Peter I (previously, Russia had counted years since the creation of the world—Anno Mundi).
Since the 17th century, the Roman Catholic ecclesiastic year has started on the first day of Advent, the Sunday nearest to St. Andrew's Day (30 November).
Autumnal equinox day (usually 22 September) was "New Year's Day" in the French Republican Calendar, which was in use from 1793 to 1805. This was primidi Vendemière, the first day of the first month.
Because of the division of the globe into time zones, the new year moves progressively around the globe as the start of the day users in the New Year. The first time zone to usher in the New Year is just west of the International Date Line. At that time the time zone to the east of the Date Line is 23 hours behind, still in the previous day. The residents on the central Pacific Ocean island of Kiritimati (Christmas Island), the eastern-most island in the island nation of Kiribati claim to be the first to usher in the New Year.
It is believed that if the current enrolment in our colleges and universities of 7-8 per cent of youth in the age group of 18-23 years has to be increased to the desired level of 15 per cent by 2015, we need to increase the number of colleges by thousands and that of universities by hundreds. The Chinese seem to be thinking of expanding their higher education system on an unprecedented scale with adequate financial resources for top class infrastructure, especially for undergraduate education. What do we have to do to sustain a massive higher education network?
Spending on education has not exceeded 3 per cent of our GDP in the foregone Plan periods although the target was about 6 per cent. As suggested by the National Knowledge Commission and as endorsed by the Planning Commission, there is an imperative need to augment budgetary allocation for education to nearly 6 per cent of GDP during the XI Plan period. Even if the Governments are able to accomplish this seemingly difficult task, given the fact that a large proportion of this money has to be diverted for improving primary and secondary education, what will be left for supporting higher education is anybody's guess. Central assistance even if increased, will be largely utilised by the existing and future establishments like central universities, IIMs, IITs and IIScs, leaving others, as usual, being starved of funds. Do our State governments have the resources to ameliorate the appaling conditions of our colleges and universities?
There exists a popular, if not pragmatic, theory that the Centre-State government co-operation is obliged to make higher education both accessible and affordable to all (regardless of class or caste) those who desire it. It is held that the fees charged by aided institutions should not exceed 20 per cent of the operative cost. It is further argued that not only should the number of admissions be increased but also the number of higher education centres should be expanded substantially to help weaker sections and OBCs gain access to specialised training. The objective sounds reasonable and justifiable but the modus operandi was seldom explained satisfactorily nor adequate resource mobilisation addressed vigorously. Similarly, how high quality of teaching and research could be nourished without excellent infrastructure and faculty has remained unanswered.
In many areas of our operation, planning is good but execution is poor. Management of higher education is no exception to this syndrome. World class higher education (we cannot settle for anything less in the present competitive world looking for competent people) calls for massive capital investments and high running costs. First and foremost, we need to educate the stakeholders on these issues and tell them clearly to what extent, as a policy decision, the Central and State Governments put together could subsidise. People should be taught to pay for good services (higher education is indeed included in the service sector) and to accept the reality that any expenditure on the part of citizens should be treated as a wise investment with the promise of rich dividends in future.
Instead of the populist approach of rendering higher education cheap, the Governments should introduce liberal loan and scholarship schemes to help talented but economically poor students. A review of the existing loan schemes of the Nationalized banks is a must to verify whether these public financial institutions support only the traditional professional courses or have identified a host of new ones in emerging areas of science, technology, management, health care, tourism, hospitality, animation and so on. It is very pertinent to mention in this context that if the present loan and scholarship schemes are found faulty or inadequate, a separate new system, say, Higher Education Development Corporation / Bank with a nation-wide network could be established. The modalities of functioning of such an organisation, including mobilising deposits from NRIs and Corporate Bodies on a low rate of interest, could be worked out by an expert committee of financial wizards, industrial magnates and eminent academic administrators. When there are so many Corporations and Boards for meeting societal needs such as housing, infrastructure, roads, power, forests and environment, the case for a similar set up for higher education is certainly not out of place.
With respect to higher education, the Governments should act as facilitators to help those who wish to help themselves. In the current scenario, the potential for earning by the competent graduates and postgraduates is high. In a progressive economy, the beneficiaries should be partners of the State is sustaining top quality higher and professional education. Motivating people to believe in paying (despite several constraints) for good education, at least through loans and scholarships is a crucial step in extending higher education to larger segments of society.
There has been a lot of controversy and confusion on private initiatives in higher education. Those who are opposed to the practice, contend that privatisation leads to mere commercialisation wherein the profit motive outweighs social concerns of accessibility and equity. However, in our country, we have seen private participation in higher education (e.g. establishment of a good number of science and technology schools by the Tatas and Birlas) even prior to independence. In those days, a part of the profit earned by the industries used to be earmarked to maintain educational institutions, temples, planetaria, community centres, etc. The trustees of these bodies were good custodians of money and used to spend/ invest it wisely. Therefore, the concept of private sector playing an important role in promoting higher education is not something new.
We also have people who vociferously argue that our youngsters need high quality education, and 'who provides it' is a secondary question. These votaries maintain that in every sphere of activity, people around the world pay for services, the extent of the payment being dependent on the nature of service desired. Ours is a free country, and the people have a right to choose from the available avenues. Hence, it is argued that there is nothing wrong in private institutions (either at the primary or secondary or higher education level) charging fees that appear exhorbitant. It is relevant to note that running a good institution without much Government support either for recurring or non-recurring expenditure is a great challenge demanding considerable effort and planning.The role of the private sector in higher education is not something unique in India. Some of the best centres of higher learning in the world such as Harvard and Stanford Universities in the US are privately managed. Of course, they are eligible for government support in terms of various schemes and research projects on a competitive basis. The author is aware that it is difficult to draw parallelism for, the civil society and the per capita income in USA are different from those of India.
If Government institutions are not able to meet the demands of people for quality education in relevant and emerging areas, what are the options? How to find an amicable solution for the Governments' limitations on the one hand and the so-called exploitation by the private operators on the other?
One tangible and meaningful approach is to increase the spending on education including higher education significantly keeping in view the importance of empowering young people (approximately more than 55 per cent of our population at present) in nation building. Even if this is achieved by some means, as mentioned earlier, it may not be possible to meet the aspirations of millions of students (about 11 million with three million fresh admissions) who would like to study in our colleges and universities.
Under these compelling circumstances, it is wise to allow private participation with certain safeguards and riders. For instance, the practical approach could be to allow a reasonable period of five years for a private institution of higher learning to metamorphose. Thereafter, every such centre shall have to submit itself to academic audit by way of accreditation.
One hundred per cent autonomy should be given to nascent institutions and the archaic system of affiliation should be totally dispensed with. The next step is to bring such institutions under a facilitating mechanism wherein they are obliged to provide a fixed proportion of admissions to socially and economically backward students to ensure equity, accessibility and affordability. Of course, the parameters for social and economic backwardness must be well defined as is currently argued in the Supreme Court. To partially compensate for the loss of income because of differential fee structure, private institutions should be encouraged to submit proposals for Central-State grants through non-plan schemes on competitive basis. In any case, a viable approach must be devised wherein private operators including NRIs are encouraged to build institutions of excellence. Their social obligation should percolate as a consequence of accured resources and not as a result of too much control and policing. We certainly do not wish to revert to the Licence Raj.
Thai Pongal (Tamil: தைப்பொங்கல்) is a harvest festival equivalent to a thanksgiving event celebrated by Tamils across the world. Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over or spill over." The act of boiling over of milk in the clay pot is considered to denote future prosperity for the family. Traditionally celebrated at harvest time, it is a celebration of the prosperity associated with the harvest by thanking the rain, sun and the farm animals that have helped in the harvest. Pongal is celebrated by the Indian state of Tamil Nadu as well as Tamils worldwide, including those in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, USA, Canada and Singapore. The festival is at least 1000 years old although some believe that the festival is more than 2000 years old. As per epigraphic evidence, it used to be celebrated as Puthiyeedu during Medieval Chola empire days. It is thought that Puthiyeedu meant the first harvest of the year. People of all relegions celebrate the pongal festival.
Tamils refer to Pongal as "Tamizhar Thirunal" (meaning "the festival of Tamils"). This festival originated in Tamil Nadu. The saying "Thai Pirandhal Vazhi Pirakkum" (தை பிறந்தால் வழி பிறக்கும்) meaning "the birth of the month of Thai will pave the way for new opportunities" often is quoted regarding the Pongal festival.
Usually, the festival takes place January 12 — 15 (on the Gregorian calendar). The festival is celebrated four days from the last day of the Tamil month Maargazhi (December — January) to the third day of Thai (January — February).The first day, Bhogi, is celebrated by throwing away and destroying old clothes and materials, by setting them on fire, marking the end of the old Thai and the emergence of the new Thai.
The second day, Pongal, is the main day, falling on the first day of the Tamil month Thai (January 14 — 15). Also known as Sarkarai Pongal or Veetu Pongal, it is celebrated by boiling rice with fresh milk and jaggery in new pots, which are later topped with brown sugar, cashew nuts and raisins early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel. This tradition gives Pongal its name.
The moment the rice boils over and bubbles out of the vessel, the tradition is to shout of "Ponggalo Ponggal!" and blowing the sangu (a conch), a custom practiced during the festival to announce it was going to be a year blessed with good tidings. For Tamils, it is considered a good sign to watch it boil over, since it means that good luck and prosperity is forthcoming. ThenNew boiled rice is offered to the Nature during sunrise, a gesture which symbolises thanks to the sun and nature for providing prosperity. It is later served to the people present in the house for the ceremony. People also prepare savories and sweets such as vadai, murrukku, payasam and visit each other and exchange greetings.
The third day, Maattu Pongal, is for offering thanks to cattle, as they help farmer in different ways for agriculture. On this day the cattle are decorated with paint, flowers and bells. They are allowed to roam free and fed sweet rice and sugar cane. Some people decorate the horns with gold or other metalic covers. In some places, Jallikattu, or taming the wild bull contest, is the main event of this day and this is mostly seen in the villages.
During the final day, Kaanum Pongal (the word kaanum means "to view") people visit beaches and theme parks. They also chew sugar cane and decorate their houses with kolam. This day is a day to thank relatives and friends for their support in the harvest..Although it started as a farmers festival, today it has become a national festival for all Tamils irrespective of their origins, caste or even religion. It is as popular in urban areas as is in rural areas.
The astronomical significance of the festival is that it marks the beginning of Uttarayana, the sun's movement northward for a six-month period. Makara Sankranthi refers to the event of the sun entering the zodiac sign of Makara (Capricorn). While Pongal is predominantly a Tamil festival, similar festivals are also celebrated in several other Indian States under different names. In Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka, the harvest festival Sankranthi is celebrated. In northern India, it is called Makara Sankranti. In Maharashtra and Gujarat, it is celebrated on the date of the annual kite flying day, Uttarayan. It also coincides with the bonfire and harvest festival in Punjab and Haryana, known as Lohri. Similar harvest festivals in the same time frame are also celebrated by farmers in in Burma, Cambodia, and Korea.
The Republic Day of India is a national holiday of India to mark the transition of India from a British Dominion to a republic on January 26, 1950 and the adoption of the Constitution of India. It is one of the three national holidays in India. This is not to be confused with the Independence Day on August 15th.
Although India obtained its independence on August 15, 1947, the Constitution of India came into effect only on January 26, 1950. During the transition period from 1947 to 1950, King George VI was the head of state. C. Rajagopalachari served as the Governor-General of India during this period. Following January 26, 1950, Rajendra Prasad was elected as the president of India.
To mark the importance of this occasion, every year a grand parade is held in the capital, New Delhi, from the Raisina Hill near the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's Palace), along the Rajpath, past India Gate and on to the historic Red Fort. The different regiments of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force march past in all their finery and official decorations. The President of India who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces, takes the salute. The parade also includes vibrant displays and floats and traditionally ends with a flypast by Indian Air Force jets.
Celebrations, though on a much smaller scale, are also held in state capitals, where the governor of the state unfurls the national flag. If the Governor of the state is unwell, or is unavailable for some reason, the Chief Minister of the state assumes the honor of unfurling the National Flag of India. India celebrates January 26 each year as Republic Day. But we, the people of India settled in India or anywhere in the world salute the Republic of India with our both hands. This day marks more than merely a ritual. In every sense it goes beyond massive celebrations that are witnessed across the India. These are the visible demonstrations of joy, happiness and strength by a proud great independent republic.
Indians had long been agitating for independence from Britain. But following the landslide victory of Britain's Labour Party in July 1945, the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, urged an end to our long struggle for independence. He wanted the Indians to establish a political assembly that would create for the people of India a constitution of their own making. The stated goal of the constitution team which was headed by Dr Rajindra Prasad was: "to secure for all" of India's citizens "social, economic and political" justice; to establish "liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; to establish "equality of status and opportunity;" and to promote among all citizens a "fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the Nation."
Once we achieved our freedom this day now reflects the journey of India from a colonized country to an independent republic as India became formally independent from the United Kingdom on August 15, 1947, however, the country remained a Commonwealth realm, and continued in a personal union relationship with the other countries who each regarded the same person as their monarch and Head of State. The Monarch of India was represented by the Governor-General of India, appointed by the Monarch of the United Kingdom upon the advice of the Prime Minister of India, instead of the British government, till India's parliament worked through the creation of its own constitution which was passed by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 19 49 and then the Constitution was formally adopted on January 26, 1950.
On this day when the constitution took effect, the Governor General was replaced by an elected president, with Dr. Rajendra Prasad serving as the first President of India. The move ended India's status as a Commonwealth realm, but the republic remained in the Commonwealth of Nations. But our Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India argued that a nation should be allowed to stay in the Commonwealth simply by observing the British monarch as "Head of the Commonwealth" but not necessarily head of state. This was a ground-breaking decision that would set a precedent in the second half of the twentieth century for many other former British colonies to remain in the Commonwealth after becoming newly-independent republics.
India was then a federated nation and a union of states. More than 275 principalities had to be merged into new states and after merging these princely states, India became a truly sovereign state. On this day, 26th Jan a date of symbolic importance as it was on January 26, 1930, that the Congress Party had first issued the call for complete independence from Britain. Thus 26th January is one of the most important days in the Indian history. Indeed our past glory has come back after we gained independence and India has once again become a land of hope and immense possibilities, as we have risen like the phoenix, the symbol of death and resurrection, showing our civilized strength and a will to prove our Bhagavad Gita’s message -- that wherever there is dharma (righteousness), there is victory -- true. The story of India's recent progress is a saga of peoples' power, determination and a will to move ahead as enshrined in our constitution a constitution, which perhaps is the longest written document of any independent nation in the world.
Republic Day, January 26, is celebrated most grandly in New Delhi, where symbols of the great nation's military might and cultural wealth are displayed in what must be world's most impressive parade. All Government buildings are dramatically illuminated lending the business like city the atmosphere of a fairyland. This Day is celebrated with zeal and pride all over the country. To honour the occasion, a grand parade is held in the National Capital New Delhi. Different regiments of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, march from the Rashtrapati Bhavan, along the Rajpath New Delhi’s broad parade avenue and reach the India Gate and then move towards old Delhi.
However the beginning of this day is always a solemn reminder of the sacrifice of the martyrs who died for the country in the freedom movement and the succeeding wars for the defence of sovereignty of our country. The Prime Minster of India and three chiefs of Army, Navy and Air force salute these brave persons at India Gate (Amar Jyoti) a memorial arch honouring members of the Indian armies before the start of the parade. Patriotic fervour national pride and ardent devotion fills the heart of every Indian with these emotions.
President of India, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces, takes the salute at the grand parade and later awards the medals of bravery to the people from the armed forces for their exceptional courage in the field and also the civilians, who have distinguished themselves by their different acts of valour in different situations. The richly caparisoned elephants proceed down the Rajpath, bearing musicians as well as citizens being honoured for personal courage. The patriotic fervour of the people on this day brings the whole country together. Every part of the country is represented in occasion as the parade is followed by spectacular displays from the different states of the country. These moving exhibits depict scenes of activities of people in those states and the music and songs of that particular state accompany each display. Each display brings out the diversity and richness of the culture of India and the whole show lends a festive air to the occasion. N.C.C cadets, selected from all over the country consider it an honour to participate in this event, as do the school children from various schools in the capital. They spend many days preparing for the event and practice for the drills, the essential props and their uniforms.
Over half a million people, young and old, throng the parade ground very early in the morning and take vantage points along the path that follows the parade some carrying with them the national flags. The orange, white and green Indian flag flies all along the route. The parade and the ensuing pageantry are telecasted live and are watched by millions of viewers in every corner of the country and the world over.
Dignitaries from various foreign embassies/ commissions in India are invited to witness this day who eagerly participate in full strength as each state depicts its unique festivals, historical locations and art forms. The displays from all the states are meant to promote the feelings of brotherhood, harmony and unity among the citizens. The festivities also include colourful performances by school children from across the Country. The most eagerly awaited part of the Republic Day parade is the spectacular fly past, put on by the Indian Air Force. Roaring past the dais, the Indian Air Force planes symbolically salute the President. Republic Day is celebrated with the same ardour and passion throughout the country in the state capitals as well, where the governor of the state unfurls the national flag. The annual Beating of the Retreat ceremony ending the Republic Day celebrations start in the evening on 29th when ranks of Indian bagpipers march in procession and noble Bikaner Camel Corps stands at attention on the ramparts, silhouetted against the setting sun. The patriotic fervour of the people on this day brings the whole country together even in her essential diversity a every part of the country is represented in occasion, which makes the Republic Day the most popular of all the national holidays of India. It is definitely a matter of pride and honour for all of us that we are free, not chained by anyone. The world is now equally amazed at the gradual emergence of India as an economic super power. The country has done it despite numerous problems. It has a huge population. Moreover, it is an intensely multi-ethnic and multi-religious society with divisions and sub-divisions down the line. The unity of our nation is not based on any monolithic idea but on our age-old tradition of tolerance which is at once a pragmatic concept of living together and a philosophic concept of finding truth and goodness in every religion.
Kanayalal Raina Brampton, Canada
The Republic Day Parade is an annual military and cultural parade held in the Indian Capital of New Delhi on 26 January, the Republic Day of India. Republic Day is celebrated with the hoisting of the national flag, and parades by the armed forces and school children all over the country. The largest, and most important, of these parades takes place in New Delhi, and the phrase "Republic Day Parade" generally refers to the parade in New Delhi.
Before the parade starts, the Prime Minister of India lays a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate, commemorating all the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country. The President, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, then arrives in his motorcade, escorted by his bodyguards. The President is accompanied by a notable foreign Head of State - who is the Chief Guest at the celebration. The President presides over the function. Soon afterward, a 21 gun salute is presented, the President unfurls the National Flag and the National Anthem is played. This marks the beginning of the parade.
The Parade begins with winners of gallantry awards passing the President in open jeeps. Various divisions of the Armed Forces then salute the President of India. The parade also sees the Indian Military showcasing its latest acquisitions such as tanks, missiles, radars, etc.
The military contingent contains representatives of all three divisions of the Armed Forces (air, sea and land). There are also massive parades of Police contingents, Home guards , Civil Defense and the National Cadet Corps.
The military parade is followed by a colourful cultural parade. India's rich cultural heritage is paraded with tableaux from various states. Each state depicts its unique festivals, historical locations and art forms. The most cheered section of the parade is the children who have won National Bravery Awards. They ride past the dais on elephants. School-children from all over the country also participate in the parade. The parade also includes displays of skillful motor-cycle riding, usually by a division from one of the Armed Forces.
The most eagerly awaited part of the parade is the fly past, put on by the Indian Air Force. The parade concludes with a Fly Past, when fighter planes of the IAF roar past the dais, symbolically saluting the President.
However, the official conclusion of Republic Day festivities is much later - on the evening of January 29, i.e. three days after Republic Day. This ceremony is called Beating the Retreat.
The processions starts by moving down from the Rashtrapati Bhavan through Rajpath, past the India Gate and on to Con naught Place, the heart of the city, to enter the historic Red Fort. The crowds sit on either side of the route and the VIP enclosure is on the Southern flank of Rajpath, near India Gate.
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Psicologia Escolar e Educacional
Print version ISSN 1413-8557
CAPOVILLA, Alessandra Gotuzo Seabra et al. Reading strategies and writing development in the literacy acquisition. Psicol. Esc. Educ. (Impr.) [online]. 2004, vol.8, n.2, pp. 189-197. ISSN 1413-8557. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-85572004000200007.
This study aims to identify the reading strategies &– logographic, alphabetic and orthography &– used by children without reading learning difficulties manifested and the relation between the strategies and writing performance. It were evaluated 55 first class students from public school with the Prova de Escrita sob Ditado and Teste de Competência de Leitura Silenciosa &– TeCoLeSi. The results showed positive correlation between the students‘ score in Prova de Escrita sob Ditado and TeCoLeSi (r = 0,33; p = 0,028). The poor readers group was discriminated by the phonological strategy performance; the others didn‘t discriminate the groups. It‘s shows that this strategy is the more frequently used in this school stage. By this result, it‘s suggests to teach reading strategies in the beginning of the reading acquisition.
Keywords : Neuropsychological evaluation; Reading development; Reading routes.
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July 31, 1997 HIV-infected patients at high risk for tuberculosis (TB) but without confirmed TB infection do not benefit from preventive treatment with a front-line TB drug, a study supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has found. The study is reported in the July 31, 1997 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
"Clinicians who care for people with HIV/AIDS should take note of this important finding," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "This study suggests that we can make more efficient use of TB prevention resources by focusing on HIV-infected persons with known TB infection or who have close contact with another individual with active TB."
Although only 10 percent of healthy people infected with TB bacteria ever develop active TB disease, co-infection with TB and HIV dramatically increases this risk. A number of studies have shown that daily treatment with the antibiotic isoniazid (INH) significantly reduces TB disease risk in persons known to be co-infected with HIV and TB.
The tuberculin skin test, which involves injecting TB-derived proteins below the skin, is the only method available for diagnosing inactive, or latent, TB infection. Palpable swelling at the site of injection occurs in most TB-infected people with healthy immune systems. However, HIV-infected people with suppressed immune systems often exhibit anergy, a reduced or absent reaction to skin tests for TB as well as other infections. In such persons, TB infection can be masked by a false negative skin test. As a precaution against activation of a possible latent TB infection, in 1991 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested that INH preventive therapy be given to anergic HIV-infected individuals at high risk for TB. High-risk individuals include those who belong to groups, such as homeless persons and those who inject drugs, in which the prevalence of TB infection is at least 10 percent.
To determine the effectiveness of INH prophylaxis in this population, investigators in NIAID's Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA) divided more than 500 high-risk HIV-infected people with anergy into groups that received either daily INH or placebo. They found that the number of cases of active TB disease that developed in each group during the six-month study period did not differ significantly.
"Our findings suggest that giving INH to people in this group is probably not warranted," says lead author Fred M. Gordin, M.D., of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "It would be more appropriate to reserve INH preventive therapy for HIV-infected persons who have a prior history of a positive TB skin test or who have been in recent contact with someone with active TB disease."
In fact, revised guidelines for preventing TB and other opportunistic infections in HIV-infected individuals, developed by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, (IDSA) recommend just that: daily INH for persons with positive TB skin tests and for those in close contact with someone known to have active TB. The PHS/IDSA Working Group considered the findings of Dr. Gordin and his colleagues in developing the guidelines, which were published in the June 27, 1997 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
"The low rates of TB in both the treatment and placebo groups (three cases out of 260 patients, and six cases out of 257 patients, respectively)," says Dr. Gordin, "indicate that TB may be under much better control than in 1991 when the CDC suggested that INH preventive therapy might be useful in anergic patients."
Dr. Gordin adds that in addition to saving the considerable programmatic costs associated with administering prophylactic INH to anergic HIV-infected individuals, a more selective use of INH would allow many people to avoid the known toxic side effects of INH. For example, about 2 percent of persons who take INH develop hepatitis.
The CPCRA is a network of primary care physicians and nurses who work with NIAID staff to design and conduct community-based clinical trials in patients with HIV disease and AIDS. NIAID currently funds 15 CPCRA units in 14 cities throughout the United States.
NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID conducts and supports research to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, asthma and allergies. NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
NIAID press releases, fact sheets and other materials are available on the Internet via the NIAID home page at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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Sep. 24, 2001 Most of the Australian mammals that have gone extinct in the last 200 years were medium sized, and many biologists believe that this somehow predisposed them to extinction. New research debunks this belief and reveals another link between body size and extinction: small mammals are less likely to die out.
This work is presented in the October issue of Conservation Biology by Marcel Cardillo and Lindell Bromham, who did this work at the University of Queensland, Australia, and are now at the University of Sussex, UK.
Nearly half of all the mammals that have gone extinct worldwide in the last 200 years were Australian, and most of them were medium-sized (1.2 ounces - 12 pounds). Biologists theorized that Australian mammals in this so-called "Critical Weight Range" were more prone to extinction. While this theory has been widely accepted, it had not been tested rigorously.
To test this theory, Cardillo and Bromham did the first statistical analysis of weight and extinction risk in Australian mammals. The researchers considered 25 extinct and 16 endangered species.
Cardillo and Bromham discovered that the medium-sized mammals were not at greater risk of extinction. So why are most of Australia's extinct mammals medium-sized? The answer is simple: most of Australia's mammals happen to be medium- sized.
The researchers also found a new link between size and extinction risk: the smallest mammal species are the least vulnerable to extinction. Many Australian rodents weigh less than an ounce and some marsupials weigh less than a third of an ounce. Cardillo and Bromham speculate that these small species are more robust because they have high population densities and reproductive rates, which means they can recover quickly.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society For Conservation Biology.
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Oct. 4, 2004 Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that the extent of Arctic sea ice, the floating mass of ice that covers the Arctic Ocean, is continuing its rapid decline.
The latest satellite information indicates the September 2004 sea ice extent was 13.4 percent below average, a reduction in area nearly twice the size of Texas, said Mark Serreze of CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. In 2002, the decline in arctic sea ice during September -- which traditionally marks the end of the summer melt season -- was about 15 percent, a record low, said CU-Boulder researcher Walt Meier of NSIDC.
The decline in sea ice extent during September has averaged about 8 percent over the past decade, said Serreze, who is part of a CU-Boulder team monitoring Arctic sea-ice conditions. "This is the third year in a row with extreme ice losses, pointing to an acceleration of the downward trend," he said.
"While a 'low' September ice extent one year is often followed by a recovery the next year, this was not the case in 2003, which was about 12 percent below average," Serreze said. The September 2004 sea-ice loss was especially evident in extreme northern Alaska and eastern Siberia. The CU-Boulder researchers used remote-sensing data from the SSMI satellite to record the sea-ice changes.
"We're seeing more melting of multi-year ice in the summer," said Julienne Stroeve, a CU-Boulder scientist with NSIDC involved in the research. "We may soon reach a threshold beyond which the sea ice can no longer recover." NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
One possible explanation for the continuing loss of sea ice is that climate warming from human activities like the burning of fossil fuels is becoming more apparent, said Serreze. "Climate models are in general agreement that one of the strongest signals of greenhouse warming will be a loss of Arctic sea ice," he said. "Some indicate complete disappearance of the summer sea ice cover by 2070."
Serreze believes natural climate variability likely plays some part in the observed changes. "However, the most reasonable view is that the sea ice decline represents a combination of both natural variability and the greenhouse effect, with the latter becoming more evident in coming decades," he said.
One complicating factor is the atmospheric circulation pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation, which may be contributing to the loss of the much thicker "multi-year" ice that has accumulated over many years. "As winds and currents force this ice southward, more of it melts," said Stroeve. "And while new ice is still forming in the winters, it is thinner, and therefore melts faster in the summer than older ice."
In a study funded by the National Science Foundation conducted with assistance from CU-Boulder, former graduate student Shari Fox Gearheard looked at the effects of climate change on Inuit communities in the Arctic region.
"The timing of the climate and environmental changes observed by Inuit in Nunavut vary depending on the phenomenon, but in many cases elders and other experienced Inuit point to the last decade as a period of considerable change," Gearheard said. Nunavut is a Canadian Territory established in 1999 that is roughly the size of Western Europe.
Gearheard said one of the most frequent observations in indigenous communities all across the circumpolar north is that the weather is more unpredictable than usual.
"In the past, Inuit were able to predict the weather using traditional indicators such as clouds, winds and currents," she said. "These indicators are no longer working."
Inuit elders point out that the sea ice in some places is thinner, causing dangerous travel conditions, she said. The ice forms later and breaks up earlier in the year, and the spring melt season is much shorter than before. In addition, unexpected storms have left hunting parties stranded, and harder packed snow due to recent wind changes makes it more difficult to build igloos for shelter.
The results of Gearheard's work are presented in an interactive multimedia CD titled "When the Weather is Uggianaqtuq: Inuit observations of environmental change." Uggianaqtuq is a North Baffin Inuktitut word meaning to behave unexpectedly or in an unfamiliar way.
Another CU-Boulder project involves the effects of climate change on North Slope communities in Alaska, including the effects of loss of ice cover on the potential for increased damage, erosion and flooding from severe storms.
CU-Boulder researchers Jim Maslanik of NSIDC said the retreat of the protective ice edge further offshore later into autumn has increased the potential for flooding and erosion for coastal communities such as Barrow.
"Another aspect of the changing ice conditions is that, in addition to the ice edge retreating far offshore, the rate of retreat of the ice edge has been very rapid," said Maslanik. "In recent years, this has resulted in unexpected impacts, such as unusually large numbers of polar bears being stranded on shore near Barrow."
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May 10, 2012 The number of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) cases in the United States are exploding. According to a 2011 statement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in 10 American children is diagnosed with the disorder. To better understand the cause of ADHD and to identify methods to prevent and treat it, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center have developed a new form of specially bred mouse that mimics the condition.
The research is published in the current edition of the PLoS ONE, a journal of the Public Library of Science.
The research, led by OHSU and ONPRC scientists Jacob Raber, Ph.D., and Sergio Ojeda, D.V.M., found that mice carrying a certain mutated form of gene displayed the human-like symptoms of ADHD. The scientists believe that mice bred with this unique genome can greatly assist in research to combat ADHD.
The specific gene that was studied in this research is called SynCAM1, which is found in glial cells -- a type of cell in the central nervous system involved in cellular communication. The researchers found that mice carrying a dominant/negative form of the gene were hyperactive. The mice displayed enhanced and more frequent activity during rest periods. In addition, the mice exhibited reduced anxiety, similar to children diagnosed with ADHD. The mutated gene caused these conditions because it blocks the actions of the normal gene.
"While some animal models for ADHD exist, they are far from perfect," explained Raber, a professor of behavioral neuroscience and neurology in the OHSU School of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at ONPRC "For instance, a rat model of this condition displays high blood pressure also known as spontaneous hypertensive rats or SHR, which is not observed in humans with ADHD. When hypertension is eliminated by crossing SHR rats to another commonly studied rat breed, the resulting rat has normal blood pressure but no longer responds to the methylphenidate in a way that humans with ADHD do."
"We believe that this animal model may more closely mimic ADHD and shed new light on this condition," added Ojeda, a senior scientist at ONPRC.
The ONPRC, National Institutes of Health and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression funded this research.
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- Ursula S. Sandau, Zefora Alderman, Gabriel Corfas, Sergio R. Ojeda, Jacob Raber. Astrocyte-Specific Disruption of SynCAM1 Signaling Results in ADHD-Like Behavioral Manifestations. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (4): e36424 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036424
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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The article “Running barefoot cushions impact of forces on foot” (SN: 02/27/10, p. 14) says a lot about whether running barefoot is or isn’t healthier than running shod. Has anyone looked into which is faster?
Henry Jones, Baton Rouge, La.
“No,” responds Daniel Lieberman, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University. But he does note that Abebe Bikila set a world record for the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics running barefoot. And Zola Budd set quite a few records running middle distances barefoot. “There is no theoretical reason why barefoot runners are necessarily slower,” he says. “Further, slight differences in speed are probably irrelevant from an evolutionary perspective. Humans evolved to make animals gallop in the heat, not to win races.” — Laura Sanders
The ultrahot radiation produced in the Big Bang was emitted throughout the entire visible universe. So everything in the universe, including Earth, is bathed in the remnants of that radiation. Astronomers observing that radiation today see it after it has been stretched out by the expansion of the universe and cooled (putting it in the microwave range of the electromagnetic spectrum). Slight temperature differences from point to point on the sky in this cosmic microwave background radiation reflect its last interactions with matter. Most of the microwave background photons last interacted strongly with matter 13.7 billion years ago, roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang, says cosmologist David Spergel of Princeton University, a member of the WMAP team analyzing the microwave data. So when we observe these photons today, we see the effects of interactions that occurred 13.7 billion years ago. Because of the travel time of light, we are in effect viewing the surface of a sphere 13.7 billion light-years in radius, Spergel notes. On this sphere we see conditions that are similar, but not identical, to conditions of the early universe in the location now occupied by Earth. “While we like to claim that our CMB observations are taking ‘our baby picture,’ we are actually taking the ‘baby pictures’ of stars that will form in a galaxy far, far away from us!” Spergel comments.
Reading the article “Relic radiation refines age of cosmos” (SN: 02/27/10, p. 7), I was struck by a question: How could any of the radiation from the Big Bang be reaching our planet just now? How are physicists able to analyze “snapshots of the earliest light in the universe”?
Christopher Kendall, via e-mail
— Ron Cowen
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The smell of rotten eggs could ruin anyone's day at the beach. But residents of coastal towns in Namibia have become used to the disagreeable smells that accompany frequent eruptions of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas in the area. Now research published in the current issue of the journal Nature suggests that these noxious emissions are much more extensive and persistent than previously thought.
Oxygen-starved organic matter decaying on the seafloor in the waters off the coast of southwestern Africa generates the hydrogen sulfide gas. Townspeople know when an eruption has occurred because nearshore fish die and rock lobsters run ashore, fleeing the poisonous water. To get a broader perspective, Scarla Weeks of the University of Cape Town, South Africa and colleagues tracked the gas from afar using satellite imagery. The team observed a region of turquoise-colored, sulfide-infused water that stretched more than 200 kilometers along the coast of the Namib Desert. Moreover, even as the poisonous patch of water moved offshore, a second distinct hydrogen sulfide emission event occurred closer to the coast.
Formerly believed to have only limited local consequences, the bursts of hydrogen sulfide could also have long-term effects, according to the report. Because the gas strips oxygen from the water, subsurface hypoxia might linger longer than the gas itself. If so, the authors note, the marine ecology and valuable coastal fisheries of this region could face considerable problems.
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LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES: Shown in this electron micrograph, Listeria monocytogenes bacterium is the infectious agent responsible for the food borne illness Listeriosis. In the U.S., an estimated 2,500 persons become seriously ill with Listeriosis each year. Of these, 500 die. Image: Courtesy of the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Elizabeth White
If you are pregnant or know anyone who is pregnant, you have almost certainly heard of Listeria, a dangerous bacterium that contaminates vegetables, dairy and meat. It is something you want to avoid: Listeria infections kill about 500 people a year in the U.S., and 2,000 more become seriously ill with food poisoning. Pregnant women are about 20 times more likely to become infected.
So it might surprise you that scientists want to inject patients who have HIV and cancer with the bacterium, whose scientific name is Listeria monocytogenes.
That is because Listeria creates a strong immune response in the body. Medical researchers are trying to harness this behavior by creating their own modified version of Listeria that is less dangerous as a bug, strengthens the immune system in general, and has the ability to get inside tumors. Once inside the tumor, the idea is for this bioengineered Listeria to give the immune system the green light to terminate the tumor with extreme prejudice.
"When you're dealing with cancer, you want autoimmune responses, and Listeria invokes these responses," says John Rothman, the vice president of clinical development at Advaxis, Inc., a biotech in North Brunswick, N.J., that is working on a Listeria-based vaccine, Lovaxin C. "Listeria is a pretty nifty bug for this purpose," adds Rothman. "We're co-opting a lot of evolution here because Listeria modifies the immune system in a lot of ways."
Advaxis tested the safety of Lovaxin C between 2005 and 2007 in 15 women with progressive, recurrent or advanced cervical cancer who previously had been treated unsuccessfully with chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. The women reacted with symptoms including headache, fever and chills, which Rothman attributes to the body's immune response designed to fight the Listeria infection. The company concluded that the patients generally tolerated Lovaxin C well, depending on the strength of the dose given. Too much of the drug did cause high fevers and significant drops in blood pressure. "Both the response rate and survival data are encouraging," Rothman says.
The company announced Tuesday that it expects to initiate phase II Lovaxin C testing in the U.S. this summer for the treatment of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, an overgrowth of cells in the cervix caused by the human papillomavirus—a sexually transmitted virus that can lead to invasive cervical cancer if not diagnosed properly and left untreated. Advaxis also wants to test the drug's effectiveness combating head and neck cancers.
Advaxis's researchers are not the only ones looking to make Listeria into an effective vaccine. Using the bug to create and deliver vaccines dates back to the early 1990s, when University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine microbiologist Yvonne Paterson and University of California, Berkeley, microbiologist Daniel Portnoy showed that L. monocytogenes replicates in a host cell's cytoplasm (its gelatinous fluid filling) and can move from one cell to another. In fact, Advaxis draws on more than a decade's worth of research by Paterson, a breast cancer survivor who has committed herself to developing medicine that can find and destroy cancer cells and better prevent and treat infectious diseases such as HIV.
One of the concerns about Listeria is that, even if it reproduces slowly in a patient, this could be dangerous to patients suffering from already compromised immune systems, says Darren Higgins, an associate professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School who has performed his own experiments on Listeria to find a strain that stimulates the immune system but does not reproduce inside the body. That's a key concern in patients with HIV—the virus's middle name, "immunodeficiency," says it all—and those who have had chemotherapy, which also ravages the immune system.
Taking this a step further, Anza Therapeutics, which late last year spun out of Concord, Calif., biopharmaceutical company Cerus Corporation, is testing an approach to making vaccines that employ Listeria which is dead, and thereby unable to reproduce, although still able to stimulate the immune system. "The big worry about Listeria is that it can cause listeriosis in people with weakened immune systems," says Tom Dubensky, Anza's co-founder and chief scientific officer. "Many live attenuated vaccines have the ability to revert to being dangerous again." Anza, with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is hoping this approach, still in animal testing, can be used to develop a vaccine for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV. Anza is also testing a second approach—presently in human clinical trials—to vaccine development that uses a form of live, but weakened Listeria that is modified so it cannot revert to its dangerous behavior. The company is conducting U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved early-stage clinical studies of this approach at various sites in the U.S. on patients with advanced cancers.
Higgins and H. G. Archie Bouwer, an immunology research scientist at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute and Portland VA Medical Center, reported in a March 2006 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA article using a weakened strain of Listeria to vaccinate monkeys against larger doses of the bacterium. It worked: "Our Listeria studies demonstrate the potential to generate vaccine strains of bacteria that are effective, yet safe for both healthy and immunocompromised individuals," they wrote, referring to people with HIV or who have been through the ravages of chemotherapy.
Higgins says that Listeria could be used to make improved vaccines for diseases other than cancer and HIV as long as researchers can figure out which targets to tell the immune system to fight. "Listeria monocytogenes is potentially a great delivery vehicle," he says, "but you need to know what to deliver."
The use of Listeria as a vaccine is promising, but it is too early to tell just how effective it might be, agrees Stanley Plotkin, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and an executive advisor to pharmaceuticals company Sanofi Pasteur. "We'll have to see if the promising results in animals will be borne out in human trials," he says. One of the bacterium's attractive features, for example, is that it might help the immune system fight viruses within cells—a notoriously tricky problem for vaccines—because Listeria lives within cells, instead of floating around the bloodstream.
So far, however, the effectiveness of Listeria and other potential building blocks for vaccines against cancer or HIV remains unproved. It will be five years before researchers are able to identify the best vectors, and another decade before there is a licensed vaccine, he adds, "if we're lucky."
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Copyright © 2004, 2005 Nokia
Toolchain is a collection of tools used to develop software for a certain hardware target. Toolchains are based on particular versions of compiler, libraries, special headers and other tools. A cross-toolchain is a toolchain for compiling binaries for different CPU architecture than the host CPU.
Scratchbox is a cross-compilation toolkit for embedded Linux application development. It is designed for compiling software for different target CPU architectures. Scratchbox allows creating several target environments. Each target is a separate environment that has a selected toolchain, target CPU and an own file system.
Building toolchains is not always trivial. Scratchbox uses scripts for building predefined toolchains. After building a toolchain it should be tested to know that it works properly. Testing toolchains is harder than building toolchains.
Scratchbox toolchains provide the cross compilation tools for compiling binaries for the target environment. Each toolchain is built for a certain CPU target and they are based on certain gcc and C-library sources.
Scratchbox toolchains can be used both inside and outside Scratchbox. In Scratchbox each target uses a certain toolchain with a specific target CPU. Scratchbox uses wrappers to make the toolchains appear as if they were native toolchains. Outside Scratchbox the toolchains are used as any normal cross compilation toolchains.
All the installed toolchains can be found in the /scratchbox/compilers directory.
The toolchains use either glibc or uClibc C-libraries. The glibc toolchain is based on Debian gcc-3.3, binutils, libc6 and linux-kernel-headers packages. Also some Scratchbox patches are applied to the packages. The uClibc build uses Erik Andersen's uClibc toolchain build script which uses uClibc's own patches.
Scratchbox.org offers prebuilt toolchains for x86 and ARM targets. Only these targets are currently supported because too much work to support all different configurations. With the Scratchbox toolchain sources you can build your own custom toolchains.
Scratchbox toolchain building scripts allow you to build easily predefined toolchains and give the possibility to build custom toolchains for different targets. Changing the toolchain binutils, compiler or C-library packages can be a more demanding task.
Scratchbox uses a gcc wrapper for wrapping most of the toolchain command binaries. In the /scratchbox/compilers/bin/ directory you can see the linked binaries. The wrapper knows how to handle each command and depending on the command it might change some of the command parameters. Then it runs the actual command from the correct path that depends from the selected target. The gcc wrapper reads all the target specific information from the target configuration files that can be found in the /scratchbox/users/username/targets/ directory.
Scratchbox has also an ld wrapper for linking the binaries properly. When compiling inside Scratchbox a fake-native ld is used. Outside Scratchbox a normally behaving ld is used. For example inside Scratchbox the dynamically linked binaries are linked against the libraries that are in standard library paths, not in the toolchain's library path.
The gcc wrapper uses ccache by default. The default cache directory is /scratchbox/ccache/. Ccache can be disabled by setting the environment variable SBOX_USE_CCACHE to “no”. The cache directory can be changed with the CCACHE_DIR environment variable.
The following binary packages are available:
For each toolchain that you want to use you need to create a Scratchbox target. For installation and target creation instructions see Installing Scratchbox .
Scratchbox toolchain build scripts are available in the sb-toolchains source package that is available at the Scratchbox download page for each Scratchbox version.
Scratchbox toolchains are built with the GAR system . It is a mechanism for automating the compilation and installation of third-party source code. It appears in the form of a tree of directories containing Makefiles and other ancillary bookkeeping files (such as installation manifests and checksum lists).
The gcc/glibc directory contains the glibc toolchain scripts and gcc/uclibc the uClibc toolchain scripts. The gcc/glibc/versions file has all the information of the debian package versions. It tells which debian packages are used for compiling the toolchains. The gcc/glibc/files directory contains the Scratchbox patches. Only some of them are in use.
The sb-toolchains source package is used also to build arch tools and device tools which are target dependent. The build instructions in this document automatically build all of them; there is currently no documented way to disable that.
Toolchains have to be built with an already existing compiler. Scratchbox has the HOST target for this. HOST's host-gcc toolchain is for compiling binaries for the host. It's configured to make the compiled binaries use the Scratchbox's host libraries.
When building toolchains you need write privileges to the /scratchbox/compilers and /scratchbox/device_tools directories. The scratchbox source package contains the scripts/permhack script for changing the privileges, but you can also do it like this:
# chown -R username:groupname /scratchbox/compilers/ # chown -R username:groupname /scratchbox/device_tools/
Toolchain building needs the Debian devkit package to be installed; the build script uses the dpatch and dpkg commands.
Make sure you have the scratchbox-devkit-debian package installed on your system.
Download the sb-toolchains source package (see Section 3.1). Extract it into a directory that is visible inside Scratchbox (such as /scratchbox/users/username/home/username).
Change the permissions of the Scratchbox installation directories (see Section 3.2).
Login to Scratchbox.
Modify the HOST target to use the Debian devkit:
[sbox-HOST: ~] > sb-conf setup HOST --devkits debian --force
Install /etc/passwd and Debian-specific files on the HOST target:
[sbox-HOST: ~] > sb-conf install HOST --etc --devkits
Reselect the HOST target so that the environment gets updated:
[sbox-HOST: ~] > sb-conf select HOST
If you want to build the default toolchains, run the build script in the sb-toolchains directory:
[sbox-HOST: ~] > cd sb-toolchains [sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains] > ./build --build
If you want to build custom toolchains, use the Makefile. You need to pass the following variables to make:
source directory; for example “gcc/glibc”
compiler name; for example “i686-gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2”
architecture; for example “i386”
sub-architecture; for example “i686”
CPU type (optional)
[sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains] > make TC_SOURCE=gcc/glibc \ TC_NAME=armv3l-gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2 TC_ARCH=arm TC_SUBARCH=armv3l TC_CPU=arm7
[sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains] > cat my-compiler.config TC_SOURCE = gcc/glibc TC_NAME = arm-gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2 TC_ARCH = arm TC_SUBARCH = arm [sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains] > make TOOLCHAIN=my-compiler.config
Before changing the source package versions, test building the toolchains with the default configuration to see that the Scratchbox environment works properly.
The glibc and uClibc sources are fetched in different ways. Glibc toolchain build uses a version file for managing the package versions. Each package is downloaded separately from the download site that is defined by gar.conf.mk. (You can override the MASTER_SITES variable in the .gar-local.conf file.)
The uClibc toolchain source version is defined in the gcc/uclibs/Makefile. The same file also defines the sources download site.
The glibc toolchain packages can be updated with the following process:
Download the new source packages to the gcc/glibc/files directory. For example in Debian you can use this command:
$ cd /scratchbox/users/username/home/username/sb-toolchain/gcc/glibc/files $ apt-get source gcc-3.3
Update the new package names in versions file.
$ /scratchbox/login [sbox-HOST: ~] > cd sb-toolchains/gcc/glibc [sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains/gcc/glibc] > vi versions
Generate MD5 checksums of the new packages.
[sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains/gcc/glibc] > make makesums
Test that all used patches get written properly.
Compile and test the new toolchain.
The toolchains can be packaged outside or inside Scratchbox. You can create tarballs and Debian packages inside Scratchbox, but if you want to create RPMs you need the rpmbuild command which is not included in Scratchbox. If you are using a Debian GNU/Linux system, you can get rpmbuild from the “rpm” Debian package.
You can create all three package types of the default toolchains using the build script:
$ cd /scratchbox/users/username/home/username/sb-toolchains/ $ ./build --package
Custom toolchains are packaged using the packages, tarball, deb and/or rpm targets of Makefile. This time the following options are needed:
compiler name (see Section 3.3)
name of the binary package; for example “scratchbox-toolchain-i686-gcc3.3-glibc2.3”
name of a package this new package replaces (optional)
[sbox-HOST: ~/sb-toolchains] > make tarball deb \ TC_NAME=armv3l-gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2 \ TC_PACKAGE=scratchbox-toolchain-armv3l-gcc3.3-glibc2.3
$ cat my-compiler.config TC_SOURCE = gcc/glibc TC_NAME = arm-gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2 TC_ARCH = arm TC_SUBARCH = arm TC_PACKAGE = scratchbox-toolchain-arm-gcc3.3-glibc2.3 TC_REPLACE = scratchbox-toolchain-arm-glibc $ make packages TOOLCHAIN=my-compiler.config
All created compilers should be at least tested to compile, link and run a simple test program. The test program should be tested to link both statically and dynamically. These tests should be done with both a C and a C++ program.
The sb-toolchains/test_tools/test_scripts/init_tests.sh script can be used for these initial tests.
These tests are a collection of test for the C and C++ frontends of gcc. The tests can be found in gcc's directory gcc-VERSION/gcc/testsuite.
The result of running the testsuite are various *.sum and *.log files in the testsuite subdirectories. The *.log files contain a detailed log of the compiler invocations and the corresponding results, the *.sum files summarise the results. These summaries contain status codes for all tests:
PASS: the test passed as expected
XPASS: the test unexpectedly passed
FAIL: the test unexpectedly failed
XFAIL: the test failed as expected
UNSUPPORTED: the test is not supported on this platform
ERROR: the testsuite detected an error
WARNING: the testsuite detected a possible problem
The Scratchbox toolchains should be tested with these tests. These tests can be run with sb-toolchains/test_tools/test_scripts/reg_tests.sh or manually as described in GCC Testing .
Runnig the gcc testsuite requires DejaGnu and Expect host tools. These can be compiled running make install in the sb-toolchains/test_tools/dejagnu/ directory. This will also build Expect. Remember that these are host tools so they have to be compiled with the HOST target. You also need to change the permissions of the /scratchbox/tools directory.
# chown -R username:groupname /scratchbox/tools/
Scratchbox download page .
Installing Scratchbox , Valtteri Rahkonen.
GAR Architecture .
GCC Testing .
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<urn:uuid:e9bc2fe8-3468-40b0-b2f0-4fa2c4e39809>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.scratchbox.org/download/files/sbox-releases/branches/apophis/r3/doc/toolchain.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.763527 | 2,902 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Some hours and perhaps a day or two, had already passed. The rebels were impatientwaiting for their enemies. Was the Spanish force coming? Two, and then three moreshots were heard. General Antonio of the rebel force went up a tall tree to find out.Verily, the Spanish force was coming. He blew his bugle and the rebels reported to their leader, Palaris. The latter instructed them to line up along the opposite west bank of theBayambang River and spread themselves.The Spanish force numbering 33 Spaniards and 400 natives headed by Francisco Arayatfrom Bacolor, finally arrived at the east bank of the river. As the river was impossible tocrossed, the Spanish leader detained his men for some time. Then he thought best to sendan embassy to the rebels so that they would submit."If Your Majesty Has Muskets, We Have Cannons."Palaris received the members of the embassy courteously, who accordingly told him of their plan. Immediately he replied (rather haughtily): "If your majesty has muskets, wehave cannons." Thereupon, the Spanish commander was compelled to make war on them,attacking them in the trenches which they built with five hundred men equipped withthirty-four muskets and some cannons besides their bows and arrows.The rebels hurled their banner to the breeze accompanied by a hot from a cannon of thecaliber of four, and two shots from falconets. Spanish Lieutenant Pedro Hernani, with onesergeant, one corporal, and twenty soldiers began to cross the river on their horses.The rest of the Spanish force was left as a reserve. Lieutenant Pedro Hernani was the firstto reach the other bank; but he was at once shot by General Domingo by an arrow which pierced his breast. Lieutenant Hernani, at once returned his deadly blow by a gunshotcrashing in at Domingo's temple, and they both died - the heroes of the occasion.The Rebel's FlagPedro Tagle succeeded Lieutenant Hernani. He shouted at his soldiers not to waver, andthe battle was on. It later developed into a hand to hand fight; and the rebels, lacking inmilitary training and equipment began to waver, and they broke. The Spanish forcecaptured their flag which they immediately brought to their commander-in-chief,Francisco Arayat.The rebel flag was two varas long and a trifle more narrow. At each corner was a two-headed eagle, and in the center an escutcheon with its border. Within it were the arms of the Order of St. Dominic. With the rebel flag in their possession, the Spanish forcedecided to return to Manila, thinking that the rebels were already gone for good never tooffer trouble again. Palaris saw them leaving, and desirous still to kill some soldiers of the Spanish army, he adroitly crossed the river and attacked them from behind. After killing many of them to his heart's satisfaction he dashed to the thick underbrush and thenescaped to join men. The Spanish commander forbore to attack them reiterating that hewould act mildly, and he continued his march to Manila.
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<urn:uuid:3cfb8a0c-c357-489a-bdd1-ff8ca795f757>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/34084891/The-Juan-Dela-Cruz
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.98703 | 651 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Tom Sawyer is quite typical of the thousands of men who came to the West during the Gold Rush. He settled in San Francisco and held several jobs and minor political positions. He would have died in relative obscurity except that he is reputed to have known Samuel Clemens when the author was a reporter for the Daily Morning Call newspaper, writing under the name Mark Twain. Twain is supposed to have named his book, Tom Sawyer after his San Francisco acquaintence. Twain scholars, including Barbara Schmidt of Tarleton University have been unable to verify any claim that Mark Twain named his book for this particular Tom Sawyer.
To write the biography of the subject of this sketch is a simple but long task, for the life of Tom Sawyer is replete with stirring scenes and adventures in many parts of the country. He was born in New York City on January 1, 1832.
His first duty was in a bakery, from which employment he soon graduated and went to opening oysters in Washington market, where he remained until the first rumor of the new El Dorado in California struck New York; then the roaming spirit born in him came to the front, and he was soon on his way to the gold diggings in a staunch ship that safely weathered the storms that were so fatal to many vessels that rounded the Horn at that time. he arrived in San Francisco Bay in February, 1850, with $11.50 in his pockets, and immediately went to steam shipping, running as a fireman between this port and San Juan and Panama. He continued at this occupation for some years during which time his vessel, the steamer Independence, was wrecked on a reef off the Southern coast and burned to the water line and sunk.
Through his ingenuity and heroism he saved the lives of ninety people aboard, among them being Jas. L. Freeborn, the banker, and Jason Collins, the chief engineer, both of whom had lost consciousness in the water and were rescued by his diving down and bring them up and swimming ashore with them on his back. When nearly exhausted with the great task of swimming ashore with each passenger on his back, his great mind came to his rescue. By putting the rest of them in life preservers he towed them ashore and landed in the boiling surf safe and sound.
After returning from a long trip on the water he concluded to try his fortune in the mines, where he was associated with John W. Mackay. But Dame Fortune failed to smile upon his efforts, and he soon returned to a life upon the surging billows, where he remained until 1859 when he left the ocean for good and became a special patrolman, for which position he filled with ability until 1863, when he was appointed Inspector at the Custom House, where he remained until 1884, at which time he retired from public life and opened up the saloon at No. 935 Mission street [the southwest corner of Mission and Mary streets], where he has lived with his estimable wife for forty-three years. His place is fitted out with pictures and momentoes of Volunteer Firemens days.
Tom Sawyers fire record dates back to his boyhood days in New York, when he was a member of Columbian Engine Company No. 14. Before that time he was signal boy for Hudson, No. 1, under Cornelius Ruderson, afterwards Chief Engineer of the New York Department. After coming to San Francisco, he assisted in organizing Liberty Hose Company, No. 2, and was elected foreman, which position he held for three terms. He was a member of the Board of Delegates, and when the Veteran Firemans Association was organized in 1888 he was elected vice-president. When Sam Clemens was a reporter on one of the daily papers in San Francisco he was an associate of Tom Sawyer and dedicated his first book to his old time friend who had been the inspiration for his best work.
It was a source of much gratification to look back upon a life so well spent and treasure up the marks of esteem tendered him by his fellow men. At one time Mr. Sawyer held the highest office in the gift of the people, bell-ringer in the tower, forty yards above the mayor.
IN: The Exempt Firemen of San Francisco : Their Unique and Gallant Record, with a Resume of the San Francisco Fire Department and its Personnel; Historical, Biographical. [San Francisco : H. C. Pendleton], 1900 : pp. 100-101
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<urn:uuid:2413128f-4bdc-42dc-b41f-275962fe87bf>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/sawyer.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.988822 | 907 | 3.046875 | 3 |
(WYOMING NEWS SERVICE) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has released regulations aimed at cutting down air pollution due to natural gas drilling, according to a press release from Wyoming News Service.
Starting in January of 2015, drillers using hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” will have to trap the gas and fumes released by the broken shale, and by June of 2015, drillers will have to use another method of extracting the gas, called “flaring,” to reduce gas emissions.
Research from the Colorado School of Public Health found people who live near drilling sites have higher-than-average incidences of cancer and asthma-related health issues. Robin Cooley, attorney for Earthjustice.
Gina McCarthy with the EPA said developers will be required to get new equipment to comply with the regulations, but the investment should quickly pay for itself. Also, about half of existing wells already have gas recapture systems in place.
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<urn:uuid:7007db2b-0bef-4899-9e2b-f5ca6833b2d2>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.sheridanmedia.com/print/news/epa-states-new-fracking-pollution-standards30597
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.962195 | 194 | 3 | 3 |
Burnt plant remains
Analysed by Susan Ramsay and Jennifer Miller (GUARD)
Burnt peat or turf made up over 80% of the carbonized macroplant assemblage. Woodland was very scarce on Unst and driftwood was an unreliable source, so people would have had to use any other combustible material they could find. Much of the landscape of Unst would have consisted of rough grassland and blanket mire, and heather would have grown in both habitats. Peat was, and still is, commonly used in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as fuel, particularly in areas where woodland has been cleared and blanket peat has formed in its place. Archaeological evidence for the use of peat as fuel on Shetland has been found at Jarlshof and the Biggins on Papa Stour. Abundant burnt grass and heather stems, heather flowers, leafy shoots and crowberry seeds suggest that grassland or heathland turves were also being burned at Sandwick. Above-ground heather stems may have been collected initially for flooring, roofing or bedding but then later used as fuel. Seeds from grassland habitats were also found – including sedges, heath grass, knotweeds, redshank and buttercups – suggesting that turves were taken from a variety of habitats.
Most of the wood charcoal came from spruce or fir. As neither is native to Scotland, it probably arrived on Unst as driftwood – either from Scandinavia or the eastern seaboard of North America. Oak charcoal from the excavations might have also come from driftwood, or from wooden artefacts brought from the mainland. Willow and perhaps hazel charcoal were also found, and these might have been growing on Unst in the Iron Age.
Burnt cereal grains were found in many deposits – mostly six-row barley, along with a little hulled barley and a single grain of wheat. Chaff was only found in one deposit. From the amounts of grain and chaff found, it appears that the inhabitants were storing and perhaps processing grain at the settlement, but not in great quantities.
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<urn:uuid:63a1a45a-ec29-48cc-a583-ca81a96c9fee>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.shorewatch.co.uk/unst/enviro_plant.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.985277 | 439 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Gutka, a small sized missal or breviary containing chosen hymns or Banis from Sikh Scriptures. The etymology of the term gutka may be traced back to Sanskrit ‘gud’ (to guard, preserve) or ‘gunth’ (to enclose, envelop, surround, cover) through ‘Pali gutii’ (keeping, guarding). A late eighteenth century scholar of the Udasi sect spelt the word as gudhad. It is obligatory for Sikhs to recite certain texts and prayers as part of their daily devotions. This led to the practice of writing them down in gutkas or pothis (larger in size than gutkas).
The keeping or carrying of gutkas must have gained greater vogue among the Sikhs during the early eighteenth century when disturbed conditions forced them to be ever on the move. They kept them sheathed with their gdtrds or crossbelts as they rode from place to place. Gutkas became really popular with the advent of the printing press and the rise of the Singh Sabha movement during the last quarter of the nineteenth century when various types of gutkas made their appearance.
The most common were Nitnem gutkas, which contained Banis meant to be recited daily, namely Japji, Jaap, Sawayya, Anand for the morning, Sodar Rehras and Benti Chaupai for the evening and Sohila at bedtime. Some also contained Shabad Hazare, Asa ki Var and Sukhmani, although the last two banis were also available in separate volumes.
Another gutka which has gained currency under the title is Sundar Gutka containing besides all the above banis, compositions for occasional recitation such as Barah Maha (Twelve Months) and hymns appropriate to birth, marriage and funeral ceremonies and rites. The commonest script is Gurmukhi, although gutkas published in English, Devanagari and Persian scripts are also available.
|These are the Popular Banis of Sikhism|
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<urn:uuid:f49601e0-95fb-425b-aeef-52bcae7175ba>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Gutka
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.944424 | 430 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Communities developing resources and competencies for using their languages
Foundational understanding for language development work of all kinds
Publications, fonts and computer tools for language development, translation and research
SIL offers training in disciplines relevant to sustainable language development.
7,105 languages are spoken or signed. CLICK for map of world languages & regional websites.
SIL's dedication to language development past and present
This paper examines the advantages of presenting interlinear texts using a multi-line model. The particular one discussed here includes three types of transcription, glosses and notes in two languages, glosses and translations at three levels, and a citation form for each inflected word.
This model has many advantages over traditional three-line models. It addresses a broader audience of scholars and native speakers, provides clearer representation of the semantic structure, and links directly with published dictionaries. The greater number of lines enable editors and others who don't know the language to assist the linguist by checking for consistency between lines.
If texts from different languages are all prepared according to this model, comparison between them is much easier. Such a collection is currently being assembled, consisting of texts from languages in Mexico and the Southwest U.S.A, with accompanying explanatory materials.
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<urn:uuid:2a27673f-064b-45c9-954f-4af1e4455577>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.sil.org/resources/archives/7848
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.922191 | 253 | 3.03125 | 3 |
|American Civil War||Spanish Civil War||the Vietnam War|
The Blue Shirts
The Army Comrades' Association was established in Ireland in February 1932. The organisation soon became known as Blueshirts. In July 1933, Eoin O'Duffy, became leader of the Blueshirts. O'Duffy renamed the movement the National Guard. He also organized marches, flags, salutes ("Hail O'Duffy) based on those in Nazi Germany. This led to fighting in the streets between the National Guard and left-wing groups. In August 1933 the government banned the National Guard from marching to Leinster Lawn.
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War O'Duffy began recruiting volunteers to go and fight in the war. Supported by the Catholic Church in Ireland and by right-wing national newspapers, O'Duffy and the first volunteers left travelled from Dublin on 13th November, 1936. It has been argued that the men who went to Spain were mainly motivated by a desire to defend the Catholic Church in Spain.
An estimated 750 Blueshirts fought with the Nationalist Army during the war. The Irish volunteers became part of the XV Bandera Irlandesa del Terico of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The Blueshirts suffered heavy losses at Jarama in February 1937.
On his return to Ireland in 1938 Eoin O'Duffy published his book, Crusade in Spain. O'Duffy continued to advocate fascist policies and during the Second World War he had negotiations with politicians in Germany about the possibility of persuading the Irish Republican Army of undertaking a policy of sabotage against Britain.
(1) John Quinn, interviewed in the North Belfast News (20th October 2001)
The one thing that upsets me about the history that is written about the Irish men who fought in the Spanish Civil War is that it tends to misrepresent the ideals and beliefs which led so many of these men to fight, on both sides.
Many people mistakenly believe that everyone who joined Eoin O'Duffy was a fascist, some may have been, but the vast majority of those who did fight for Franco had no interest in fascism and were more traditional Catholics. This book (Spanish Civil War: The Untold Misery) will show that many of the men who joined Eoin O'Duffy, especially from Belfast, did so because of the fact that they were devout Catholics and as a consequence did what the church told them to do, but also they went to fight because of the unique relationship they had with O'Duffy himself.
Whatever O'Duffy's faults he obviously made an impression on a number of his old IRA comrades and when 1936 came around some joined him on the boat to Spain.
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<urn:uuid:75c9fb51-2e06-42da-bdd5-37c37c0f18c3>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPblue.htm
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.985548 | 558 | 2.859375 | 3 |
|Slavery in the United States||American West||Civil Rights Movement|
Henry W. Davis
Henry Winter Davis was bornin Annapolis, Maryland on 16th August November, 1817. After graduating from Kenyon College he studied law at the University of Virginia.
Davis worked as a lawyer in Baltimore, where he became an active member of the Whig Party. In the dispute over slavery Davis refused to support the political factions on either side and in 1860 was elected to the House of Representatives as a member of the Union Party. Although critical of Abraham Lincoln, it was mainly due to Davis that Maryland did not secede from the Union.
On the outbreak of the Civil War Davis joined the Republican Party and in 1863 was re-elected to the House of Representatives. During the war Davis developed strong opinions against slavery and was associated with the Radical Republicans in Congress.
In 1864 Davis joined with Benjamin Wade in sponsoring a bill the that provided for the administration of the affairs of southern states by provisional governors until the end of the war. They also argued that civil government should only be re-established when half of the male white citizens took an oath of loyalty to the Union.
The Wade-Davis Bill was passed on 2nd July, 1864, with only one Republican voting against it. However, Abraham Lincoln refused to sign it. Lincoln defended his decision by telling Zachariah Chandler, one of the bill's supporters, that it was a question of time: "this bill was placed before me a few minutes before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way." Six days later Lincoln issued a proclamation explaining his views on the bill. He argued that he had rejected it because he did not wish "to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration".
The Radical Republicans were furious with Lincoln's decision. On 5th August, Davis and Benjamin Wade published an attack on Lincoln in the New York Tribune. In what became known as the Wade-Davis Manifesto, the men argued that Lincoln's actions had been taken "at the dictation of his personal ambition" and accused him of "dictatorial usurpation". They added that: "he must realize that our support is of a cause and not of a man."
Davis also opposed Andrew Johnson and his Reconstruction Plan before losing his seat in the House of Representatives in 1865. Henry Winter Davis, who returned to his law practice in Baltimore, died on 30th December, 1865.
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When establishing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) certain requirements were put in place to help protect the rights of children with a disability and their parents. These protections called the Procedural Safeguards are outlined in 20 U. S. C. § 1415. In my opinion, one of the most important of these safeguards is the Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) which is found in Section 300.502 of IDEA. It States:
(1) The parents of a child with a disability have the right under this part to obtain an independent educational evaluation of the child, subject to paragraphs (b) through (e) of this section.
(2) Each public agency must provide to parents, upon request for an independent educational evaluation, information about where an independent educational evaluation may be obtained, and the agency criteria applicable for independent educational evaluations as set forth in paragraph (e) of this section.
(3) For the purposes of this subpart—
(i) Independent educational evaluation means an evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner who is not employed by the public agency responsible for the education of the child in question; and
(ii) Public expense means that the public agency either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with §300.103.
To learn more about the requirements for an Independent Educational Evaluations please visit this link.
The IEE gives parents’ an outlet to determine if the School is offering the proper amount and types of services when the school specialist is recommending something less than the parent thinks is necessary. Most School District’s I work with are under the impression that Parent’s cannot ask for an IEE unless they have already conducted an assessment in that area of suspected disability. While it is true that the School District must conduct its evaluation or reevaluation first it does not have to be in that exact area of disability. Recently, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) for the United States issued a memorandum to the State of New Jersey’s Department of Education which stated:
Based on review of the New Jersey regulation, OSEP’s assessment is that N.J.A.C 6A:14-2.5(c)(1) limits the parents’ rights to an IEE by giving the public agency an opportunity to conduct an assessment in an area not covered by the initial evaluation or reevaluation before the parents are granted the IEE. In order to receive its Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2012 Part B grant award, the State will need to provide specific written assurance to OSEP that the State will: (1) Revise New Jersey regulation N.J.A.C 6A:14-2.5(c)(1) to eliminate the provision that, “If a parent seeks an independent evaluation in an area not assessed as part of the initial evaluation or a reevaluation, the school district shall first have the opportunity to conduct the requested evaluation.” (2) Ensure compliance in the interim throughout the FY 2012 grant period with the specific requirements of 34 CFR§300.502; and (3) Send a memorandum to all Local Education Agencies to inform them of the changes to the regulation and the need to comply with the requirements in 34 CFR§300.502.
While this memo was specific to language contained in the State of New Jersey’s Education code most School District’s that I have been involved with outside of New Jersey hold a similar philosophy whether or not it’s specifically written in the law. What this memo does is clarify OSEP’s position on a parent’s right to an IEE and when it is allowable. What is important to note is that while every State is allowed to write their own special education law it is not allowed to provide less protections then would be available through IDEA. I highly recommend printing out a copy of the memorandum and bringing it with you to IEP meeting’s if you think you might be requesting an IEE.
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Seychelles is a multi-party republic governed by President James A. Michel and the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF). In April, ex-President France Albert Rene handed over power to Michel after serving as President since a 1977 coup. The leader of the opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP), Wavel Ramkalawan, argued that Rene misused the handover provision in the Constitution, charging that Rene wanted to allow Michel to establish himself politically prior to elections scheduled for 2006; however, the SNP recognized Michel as President. In 2001, President Rene and the SPPF won reelection with 54 percent of the vote. Some international observers concluded that the overall result was decided fairly; however, other international observers said that the election was not entirely free and fair. December 2002 elections for the National Assembly were judged to be free and fair by international observers. The President and the SPPF dominated the country through a pervasive system of political patronage, control over government jobs, contracts, and resources. The judiciary was inefficient, lacked resources, and was subject to executive interference.
The President has complete control over the security apparatus, which included a National Guard force, the army, the Presidential Protection Unit, the coast guard, and police. There also was an armed paramilitary Police Mobile Unit (SMU), which together with police had primary responsibility for internal security. The army, National Guard force, and coast guard were responsible for external security and some internal security. The Presidential Protection Unit was responsible for the President's security. The civilian authorities maintained effective control of the security forces. Some members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.
The economy was market-based, although there was significant government control over the exchange rate and the import and export of goods. According to a census conducted in 2003, the population was 82,000. The economy is based primarily on tourism; however, the fishing industry also is an important sector. The Government estimated the rate of economic growth to be negative 3 percent in 2003. Wages kept pace with inflation largely because the Government maintained an artificially high exchange rate. The lack of progress towards privatization, shortages of foreign exchange, and the pervasive presence of inefficient state enterprises led to an economic recession that continued at year's end.
The Government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were problems in several areas. President Michel was not free to act independently because ex-President Rene and the SPPF continued to wield substantial power. There was one political killing. Police brutality was a problem. The Government sometimes infringed on privacy rights. There were some restrictions on freedom of the press. Violence against women continued, and child abuse remained a problem. Women's rights were limited. Discrimination against foreign workers also was a problem.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There was a report of a politically motivated killing. According to an opposition newspaper report, on July 25, agents of the Government accidentally killed Claude Monnaie, confusing him for an opposition party activist. By year's end, no one was charged.
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The Constitution forbids torture; however, there were reports of beatings by security forces. In November, police received a record number of complaints of police brutality. During the year, the Supreme Court reported that there were eight cases of police brutality, all of which were pending at year's end. Unlike in the previous year, there were no reports of beatings with electrical wires, or of families denied access in cases where the detainee had been severely beaten.
In mid-November, police officers allegedly beat a man and sexually abused a woman after police picked up the couple in Anse Royale.
Conditions at the Long Island prison remained Spartan. In 2003, the Grand Police High Security Prison was established on Mahe for more violent criminals. During the year, the total number of inmates increased to 193, of whom 8 were women; there were 16 prisoners under the age of 23, and 8 were noncitizens. Family members were allowed monthly visits, and prisoners had access to reading but not writing materials.
Men were held separately from women, and juveniles were held separately from adults. Pretrial detainees generally were held separately from convicted prisoners.
There was no regular system of independent monitoring of prisons; however, local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were allowed to visit. During the year, the Assistant Commissioner of Prisons from Mauritius, a Canadian NGO focused on prison conditions worldwide, and the African Commission on Human and People's Rights made visits; however, no local NGO visited the prisons.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The Constitution prohibits such practices; however, legal restraints were not always respected.
The Police Commissioner reports to the Defense Forces Chief of Staff and commands the police and the armed SMU. Regular police are unarmed and must work with the army on issues of internal security.
The Constitution provides that persons arrested must be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours, with allowances made for boat travel from distant islands; however, police did not always uphold this requirement. For example, according to legal sources, in February, a man who was suspected of theft was arrested on a Friday, held over the weekend, and released on a Monday with no charges filed. A similar situation occurred in June. Despite these isolated examples, police appeared to have reduced their detention of individuals on a Friday or Saturday specifically to allow for a longer period of detention without charge. When the practice was used, police released such persons on Monday before the court could rule on a writ of habeas corpus.
The law also provides for detention without charge for up to 7 days if authorized by court order, and, in practice, this provision generally was respected.
Unlike in previous years, there were no reported cases that police used extended periods of detention under harsh conditions to extort confessions from suspects.
Detainees have the right of access to legal counsel, and unlike in the previous year, there was no reported case of security forces withholding this right. Free counsel was provided to the indigent. Bail was available for most offenses.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary was inefficient and subject to executive interference.
The judicial system includes magistrates' courts (or small-claims court), the Supreme (or trial) Court, the Constitutional Court, and the Court of Appeal. The Constitutional Court convenes weekly or as necessary to consider constitutional issues only. The Court of Appeal convenes three times per year for 2 weeks in April, August, and October to consider appeals from the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court only.
All members of the Supreme Court are appointed for 7 years and may be reappointed by the President on the recommendation of the Constitutional Appointment Committee. The Chief Justice was a naturalized citizen, and one other judge was from the country; the remaining judges were hired from other Commonwealth countries, including Mauritius, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and Zambia. The Bar Association criticized the Government for not advertising domestically that judicial positions were available, since approximately 30 citizens practiced law either domestically or abroad. There were also several justices of the peace responsible for small-claims cases, and there were allegations that many justices of the peace were appointed because of their affiliation with the SPPF. Legal entities of the Government, such as the Attorney General's Office, were reluctant to pursue charges of wrongdoing or abuse of power against senior officials.
Defendants have the right to a fair public trial. Depending on the gravity of the offense, criminal cases were heard by a magistrates' court or the Supreme Court. A jury was used in cases involving murder or treason. Trials were public, and the accused was considered innocent until proven guilty. Defendants have the right to counsel, to be present at their trial, to confront witnesses, and to appeal.
An 18 member Family Tribunal heard and decided all matters relating to the care, custody, access, and maintenance of children, except paternity cases, which remained under the courts (see Section 5). The Family Tribunal was empowered to offer protection orders to victims of family violence. During the year, 451 cases came before the Tribunal, including a case in which the Tribunal prevented the removal of a child from the country’s jurisdiction.
There were no reports of political prisoners.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The Constitution provides for the right to privacy and freedom from arbitrary searches; however, the Government sometimes infringed on these rights. The law requires a warrant for police searches and seizures; unlike in previous years, there were no reports that members of the police drug squad entered homes and detained persons without a warrant.
The law requires that all electronic surveillance be justified on the grounds of preventing a serious crime and approved by a judge; however, there were reports that the Government maintained telephone surveillance of some political figures.
There were reports that members of the opposition were barred from receiving postings in administrative positions in the education sector (see Section 2.a.).
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, it also provides for restrictions on speech "for protecting the reputation, rights, and freedoms of private lives of persons" and "in the interest of defense, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health." As a result, both freedom of speech and of the press were limited because civil lawsuits could easily be filed to penalize journalists for alleged libel.
The government controlled Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) continued to ban a local singer's music from being broadcast on the grounds that the songs were seditious.
The Government had a near monopoly of the media and owned the only television station, all radio stations the most important means for reaching the public and the only daily newspaper, the Nation. The government-owned media adhered closely to the Government's position on policy issues and gave the opposition and news adverse to the Government only limited attention. While both opposition parties published an assortment of newsletters and magazines, there was publication of only one significant opposition newspaper, the weekly Regar. Government officials have sued Regar for libel numerous times in recent years, most recently in 2003. This case had not been heard by year's end.
In November, the editor of Regar appeared in court to defend the newspaper's publication, despite a court order not to publish, of a letter written by three judges to the Chief Justice. The editor was charged with contempt of court for publishing the article. There was no resolution to the case at year's end.
Journalists did not practice self-censorship.
The license fees for a private radio or television station were prohibitively expensive and were a deterrent to the establishment of such stations. The license fees for a private newspaper were not as prohibitive.
The law allows the Minister of Information Technology to prohibit the broadcast of any material believed to be against the "national interest" or "objectionable"; however, the law was not used during the year. The legislation also requires telecommunications companies to submit subscriber information to the Government.
There were no government restrictions on the use of the Internet.
Academic freedom was limited because persons could not reach senior positions in the academic bureaucracy without demonstrating at least nominal loyalty to the SPPF. There are no universities; secondary school teacher appointments were largely apolitical. The Government controlled faculty appointments to the Polytechnic, the most advanced learning institution.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Constitution provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the Government generally respected these rights in practice; however, while generally permitting SPPF rallies, the police on occasion refused to grant such permission to the SNP.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2004 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The Constitution provides for these rights, and the Government generally respected them in practice. Although it was not used during the year, the law allows the Government to deny passports to any citizen if the Minister of Defense finds that such denial is "in the national interest." While the resident departure tax of approximately $49 (SR 250) was payable in local currency, government foreign exchange regulations and the foreign exchange shortage hindered many citizens from being able to afford foreign travel.
The law prohibits forced exile, and the Government did not use it. Several claims to reacquire property of some individuals who returned from voluntary exile following the 1977 coup remained in the court system, and no action on those cases occurred during the year.
The law provides for the granting of refugee status or asylum in accordance with the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, but the Government has not established a system for providing protection to refugees. In practice, the Government provided protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where they feared persecution; however, the issue did not arise during the year.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The Constitution provides citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in the 2001 presidential elections and in the 2002 National Assembly elections. Suffrage was universal.
In the 2001 presidential election, approximately 90 percent of eligible voters participated. President Rene was reelected with 54 percent of the vote; SNP candidate Wavel Ramkalawan received 45 percent, and independent candidate Dr. Philip Boulle received 1 percent. Ramkalawan challenged the election results, accusing the SPPF of intimidation, vote buying, and election rule misuse, but in 2003 he withdrew his court case. Observers from the Southern African Development Community noted "minor hitches" but stated their satisfaction with the election and in particular observed transparency during vote casting and counting. However, the Commonwealth Organization observers reported that while the presidential elections were peaceful, they were not entirely free and fair. Their report described instances of intimidation during voting and the lack of open competition during the campaign.
In the 2002 National Assembly elections, judged to be free and fair by international observers, the opposition SNP party won 11 of the 34 seats.
France Albert Rene's SPPF party continued to use its political resources and those of the Government to develop a nationwide organization that extended to the village level. The opposition parties have been unable to match the SPPF's organization and patronage, in part because of financial limitations. In the current budget, the SPPF was allocated $49,300 (SR 271,500), the SNP $38,700 (SR 213,000), and the Democratic Party $2,800 (SR 15,500). These amounts were based on percentages received by the political parties nationally in the 2002 legislative elections.
Some members of opposition parties claimed that they lost their government jobs because of their political beliefs and were at a disadvantage when applying for government licenses and loans.
There was widespread public perception of corruption in the executive branch, especially in the process of privatization of government-owned businesses and government-owned land distribution. There were reports that recent sales of major government-owned assets were decided without independent review. There were also complaints in the opposition newspaper that in at least two cases, the identity of the purchasers of these properties was never revealed.
There are laws allowing public access to government information; however, the Government does not enforce them.
There were 10 women in the 34-seat National Assembly, 7 by direct election and 3 by proportional representation, and there were 2 women in the 12-minister Cabinet. There were four female principal secretaries in the government service.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
A number of domestic human rights groups, including churches, generally operated without government restriction, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases. Government officials were generally cooperative and responsive to their views.
The Center for Rights and Development (CEFRAD) had a 5-year action plan that stressed respect for human rights, participation in a civil society, and sensible approaches to development; however, CEFRAD did not claim any results from its 5-year plan by year's end. CEFRAD also established ties with other national and international NGOs.
In June, the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, a branch of the African Union, assessed the overall human rights situation in the country. The group found that the country demonstrated a broad respect for human rights, but it noted that army involvement in police operations was a point of concern.
A government-run National Humanitarian Affairs Committee (NHAC) operates with a diverse range of members from both civil society and the Government. The International Committee of the Red Cross acts as a technical adviser to the NHAC.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The Constitution affirms the right to be free from all types of discrimination, but it does not prohibit discrimination based on specific factors. In practice, there was no overt discrimination in housing, employment, education, or other social services based on race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, or disabilities.
Domestic violence against women, particularly wife beating, was an increasing problem. Police seldom intervened in domestic disputes, unless the dispute involved a weapon or major assault. The few cases that reached a prosecutor often were dismissed, or, if a case reached court, the perpetrator usually was given only a light sentence. Rape, spousal rape, and domestic abuse are criminal offenses. There was growing societal concern about domestic violence and increased recognition of the need to address it. During the year, one local NGO held awareness campaigns and training programs for women and girls regarding domestic abuse.
Prostitution is illegal but remained prevalent.
The law prohibits sexual harassment but was rarely enforced.
The society largely was matriarchal. There were no reports of societal discrimination against unwed mothers, and more than 70 percent of births were out of wedlock during the year; fathers were required by law to support their children. There was no officially sanctioned discrimination in employment, and women were well represented in business. Inheritance laws did not discriminate against women.
The Division of Social Affairs in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Manpower Development worked to protect children's rights, and in practice, they were fairly effective, given the resource constraints.
Children were required to attend school through the 10th grade. Free public education was available through the secondary level until age 18. Students had to buy school uniforms but did not have to pay for books or tuition. However, parents were sometimes asked to contribute some supplies. Parents contributed up to two thirds of the cost of post secondary education and training based on their income for both in-country and overseas schools. According to government figures, all children between the ages of 6 and 16 attended school, and the percentages of boys and girls enrolled was roughly equal. There was a noncompulsory 5th year of secondary school. After completing secondary school, students can go to the Polytechnic School for Vocational Training, go abroad for university studies, or go to apprenticeship or short term work programs. Children in the apprenticeship or short term work programs received a training stipend, which was less than the minimum wage.
The age of consent was 15 years. Girls were not allowed to attend school when they were pregnant, and many did not return to school after the birth of a child.
Girls and boys had equal access to medical care.
The Family Tribunal was responsible for collecting and disbursing child support payments made by family members. In December 2003, the Auditor General confirmed that there were missing child support funds totaling $255,400 (SR 1,297,615). At year's end, the funds had not been recovered, and it was unlikely that further action would be taken in the case. Social security funds were transferred to cover the child support obligations.
The law prohibits physical abuse of children. Sexual abuse of children, usually in low-income families, was a problem; however, there were only a few cases of sexual abuse, generally by stepfathers and older brothers, reported during the year. Ministry of Health data and press reports indicated that there were a significant number of rapes committed against girls under the age of 15. Very few child abuse cases were prosecuted in court. The strongest public advocate for young victims was a semiautonomous agency, the National Council for Children. There was criticism that police failed to investigate vigorously charges of child abuse.
Trafficking in Persons
The law prohibits trafficking in persons, and there were no reports that persons were trafficked to, from, or within the country.
Persons with Disabilities
There was no legislation providing for access to public buildings, transportation, or state services; however, there was no reported discrimination against persons with disabilities in housing, jobs, or education.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. Right of Association
The law provides workers with the right to form and join unions of their choosing; however, police, military, prison, and fire fighting personnel may not unionize. Between 15 and 20 percent of the workforce was unionized.
b. Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The law provides workers with the right to engage in collective bargaining; however, free collective bargaining did not take place. The Government has the right to review and approve all collective bargaining agreements in the public and private sectors. There was little flexibility in setting wages. In the public sector, which employed 57 percent of the labor force, the Government set mandatory wage scales for employees. The employer generally set wages in the private sector in individual agreements with the employee, but, in the few larger businesses, the Government set wage rates.
The law authorizes the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs to establish and enforce employment terms, conditions, and benefits, and in practice, workers frequently obtained recourse against their employers through the Ministry.
Strikes are illegal without first exhausting arbitration procedures and are rare.
There is 1 export processing zone, the Seychelles International Trade Zone (SITZ), with 24 participating companies. The SITZ was bound only by the Seychelles Trade Zone Act and was not obliged to adhere to labor, property, tax, business, or immigration laws.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children, and there were no reports that such practices occurred.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The Constitution states that the minimum age for employment is 15, "subject to exceptions for children who are employed part time in light work prescribed by law without harm to their health, morals, or education," and in practice, these requirements were followed. It is a criminal offense punishable by a fine of $1,090 (SR 6,000) to employ a child under the age of 15. The Ministry of Employment and Social Services enforced child labor laws and investigated abuses of child labor. The Ministry handled such complaints within its general budget and staffing; no cases that required investigation were reported.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
There is no official private sector minimum wage. However, according to the Ministry of Employment, the minimum wage is $412 (SR 2,225) per month for public sector employees. The Government encourages but does not require the private sector to grant the minimum public sector wage. Even with the free public services that were available, primarily health care and education, independent labor unions believed that a single salary at the low end of the pay scale did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. Private employers historically paid higher wages than the Government to attract qualified workers; however, economic problems during the year led to downward pressures on wages.
The legal maximum workweek varied from 45 to 55 hours, depending on the economic sector; in practice, some workers may work up to 60 hours per week. Government employees worked fewer hours. Each full time worker was entitled to a 30 minute break per day and a minimum of 21 days of paid annual leave. Workers were permitted to work overtime up to 60 additional hours per month. The Government generally enforced these regulations.
Foreign workers did not enjoy the same legal protections. There continued to be a growing trend to admit foreign workers, primarily from China, India, the Philippines, Thailand, and Madagascar, to work in the construction and commercial fishing sectors, because few citizens chose to work in these sectors. These workers were sometimes paid lower wages and forced to work longer hours than citizens.
The Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs has formal responsibility for enforcing the Government's comprehensive occupational health and safety regulations, and the Ministry of Health enforced such standards. During the year, an International Labor Organization (ILO) team found serious deficiencies in the management and effectiveness of government monitoring and enforcement efforts; however, there was no known government response to the ILO criticisms. Occupational injuries were most common in the construction, marine, and port industries. Safety and health inspectors rarely visited job sites. Unlike in the previous year, there were no work-related deaths. Workers do not have the right to remove themselves from dangerous or unhealthy work situations without risking their continued employment, and if they took such action, they were considered as having resigned.
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Note: This message is displayed if (1) your browser is not standards-compliant or (2) you have you disabled CSS. Read our Policies for more information.
Location: 5765 S. Westport Road, 0.2 mile northwest of SR 362, Nabb. (Scott County, Indiana)
Installed: 2001 Indiana Historical Bureau, Preservation Alliance, Inc., and Scott County Community Foundation.
ID# : 72.2001.2
Kimberlin, a Revolutionary War veteran, was first person to purchase land in what is now Scott County. In 1804 he bought Tract 264 of land grant to soldiers of George Rogers Clark. His family settled 1805 in well-built cabin northwest of here, cleared land, built fences, and farmed. He and his wife are buried in the cemetery southwest of here.
After Pigeon Roost Massacre in September 1812, his cabin was converted to fortified blockhouse and sheltered area settlers. Nearly 600 mounted volunteers from Kentucky and Indiana Territory came to protect the area, encamped on his land, and used his supplies. He petitioned the U.S. Congress in 1832 for payment and received $150 in 1834.
Early Settlement and Exploration, Military
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"The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify the people, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to worship God. Because they are signs they also belong in the realm of instruction. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen and express it. That is why they are called the sacraments of faith. They do, indeed, confer grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating them is most effective by making people ready to receive this grace to their profit, to worship God duly, and to practise charity." (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 59)
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes seven sacraments: baptism, eucharist, confirmation, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, marriage and holy orders.
"The seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life: they give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian’s life of faith. There is thus a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of spiritual life." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1210)
The sacraments can be grouped into three categories.
- The sacraments of initiation are baptism, eucharist and confirmation;
- The sacraments of healing are reconciliation and anointing of the sick;
- The sacraments of service are marriage and holy orders.
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Plant Photography Basics
Plant photography involves some of the more vibrantly colored and dynamic subjects in the field, creating artwork on film. No two plants or landscapes are alike, even when photographing within the same area. Read on for tips on how to take plant and landscape photos.
It's All about Timing
The same landscape can look different depending on the time of the day. Photographing during the noon hours can produce stark extremes between light and dark areas, making some areas look washed and overexposed with shadowy portions. Consider photographing earlier in the morning or during the afternoon. An alternative is photographing during an overcast day, making the light appear softer.
Location, Location, Location
One of the best reasons for photographing landscapes and plants is that they do not move much. Photographers can pick a spot and an angle, then set up without worrying about any changes in the scenery. Take the time to figure out what part of the landscape or plant to focus on. Decide on where to set up the equipment. Use light equipment, such as a tripod, to allow for easy setup and transfer between one area to another.
Take Lots of Photographs
Bring lots of batteries and memory cards to allow for more images to be captured. See the same plant or scenery from a different viewpoint. Try going nearer, farther or moving around the plant. Consider crouching or taking a shot from above for a unique angle. Get creative. The sun will be moving along, creating interesting shadows.
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| 0.940034 | 309 | 2.875 | 3 |
EU needs more electric, hybrid cars to reach carbon goals: Study
BRUSSELS (REUTERS) - The European Union (EU) needs a leap in the number of electric and hybrid cars on the road over the next decade to succeed in cutting auto carbon emissions significantly by 2025, a British consulting firm found.
The study by Ricardo-AEA will stoke already difficult debate over how to implement a 2020 vehicle emission standard of 95g of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
The Commission has said it will publish a document later this year on low carbon car standards beyond 2020.
The consultancy, which advises governments and companies, looked at a set of scenarios for 2025 in the study, commissioned by campaign groups Greenpeace and Transport & Environment and seen by Reuters prior to official publication.
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| 0.929724 | 157 | 2.703125 | 3 |
HandTalkers for Early Math Facts and Simple Word Problems is a reproducible book that uses a fun and well-known children's game to help students learn, practice, or review basic addition and subtraction math facts quickly and accurately. HandTalkers includes one-digit addition and subtraction math facts (0-9) and addition and subtraction facts of two digits plus or minus one digit (10-20). Each section of the book concludes by introducing the application of these math facts through simple word problems. Each HandTalker is self-checking, allowing the student to play alone.
HandTalkers for Early Math Facts and Simple Word Problems:
- 60 reproducible pages of HandTalkers.
- Directions on each page to help the teacher and student play the game.
- Detailed instructions on how to fold the HandTalkers.
- One digit plus/minus one digit (0-9) and two digits plus/minus one digit math facts (10-20).
- Basic addition and subtraction word problems to practice application of the math facts in each section.
- Spinner for playing with the HandTalkers.
Take a look at our other popular HandTalkers books for reading comprehension, word meaning, and grammar!
Now all four HandTalker titles come in just one book! 240 total lessons!
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| 0.895611 | 274 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Testing and Choice
Ghanshyam, seven months old, crawls around the house. He spills
water and plays in it. There are steps in the house. He sometimes
falls down while crawling on them. He never cries. He always laughs.
The parents become very happy seeing his smiling face.
It was a day of "Aso vad Tritiya" Dharmadev thought
"when I tested Rampratapji, he chose the weapons. But what
will Ghanshyam choose. Let me test him."
He asked for a stool from the house. He spread the cloth on it.
He put a sword, a book, and a golden coin on it. Bhaktimata came
with Ghanshyam and made him sit a few feet away from the stool.
When Ghanshyam got a chance, he crawled to the stool. His parents
were watching him. Ghanshyam picked up the book. Seeing this Dharmadev
became very happy. He thought " My son will be a great scholar
in the world. He will surely be my true heir."
Answer the following questions.
- How did Ghanshyam play in the house?
- What did Dharmadev put on the stool?
- What was Rampratapji's choice?
- What did Ghanshyam choose?
- Why were the parents of Ghanshyam happy?
- What did Dharmadev predict about Ghanshyam?
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| 0.973816 | 318 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Definitions for aglaomorpha
The noun aglaomorpha has 1 senses? (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Aglaomorpha, genus Aglaomorpha
(epiphytic ferns of tropical Asia)
What Is a Caesura and How Does It Function in the Rhythm of a Poem?
Does APA Style Require a Parenthetical Citation Instead of Footnotes?
Difference Between Career Schools & Universities
What Is the Imagery in the Poem "The New Colossus"?
Differences of Literature & Writing Courses
How to Cite Poetry in a Bibliography
Synonym.com © 2001-2013, Demand Media, all rights reserved. The database is based on Word Net a lexical database for the English language. see
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| 0.701947 | 168 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Elevation: The average surface elevation is 6,225 feet above sea level making it the highest lake of it’s size in the United States.
Location: Lake Tahoe is located on the California/Nevada border, 198 miles northeast of San Francisco, 98 miles east of Sacramento and 58 miles southwest of Reno, Nevada.
Size: Lake Tahoe is 22 miles long, 12 miles wide, and 72 miles of shoreline. Lake Tahoe’s greatest depth of 1,645 feet makes it the third deepest lake in North America and the tenth deepest in the world.
Volume: The water in Lake Tahoe could cover a flat area the size of California by 14 inches. This is enough to provide everyone in the United States with 50 gallons of water per day for 5 years. And believe it or not, the amount of water that evaporates from the surface of Lake Tahoe every year could supply a city the size of Los Angeles for 5 years.
Clarity: Tahoe’s waters are among the purest in the world at 99.7% pure. A white dinner plate can be seen 120 feet below the surface with little trouble.
Temp: During the summer months the upper 12 feet of water forms a layer that can warm to 68 degrees F, but below depths of 700 feet during the winter the temperature remains a constant 39 degrees F.
Snow: Lake Tahoe gets an average of 215.4 inches of snowfall, or a little under 18 feet. Upper elevations can get between 300 and 500 inches per year.
Winds: Winds are generally mild, 10-15 mph, out of the west and northwest. During storm periods they can average 25-35 mph.
Sun: The sunshine probability for the Basin is 84%, with at least 307 days of sun per year.
Dress: Sweaters and jackets are almost always necessary in the evenings. Winter means heavy jackets and warm boots and clothes, while summer days can be spent in shorts and T-shirts.
Population: In 1950 there were 2,500 permanent residents in the Lake Tahoe Basin. By 1986 that number had risen to 60,000 with 17,500 in Nevada and 42,500 in California.
Visitors: There were approximately 12,000,000 visitor days recorded in the basin in 1986, or an average of 33,000 per day. However, the visitor population can exceed 100,000 on peak weekends.
AVERAGE AIR TEMPERATURES AND RAIN
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| 0.933453 | 512 | 3.1875 | 3 |
A gas mask made using nano-gold catalyst technology was among 12 inventions unveiled by the Ministry of Education yesterday to highlight the results of research and development cooperation projects undertaken at nine technology colleges.
The nano-mask, which can convert poisonous gas into harmless vapor, was invented by a team led by Su Chao-chin (蘇昭瑾), an associate professor at the National Taipei Technology University’s department of molecular science and engineering.
Su said the nano-gold catalyst used in the mask was obtained from recycled gold wire stripped from old electronic products and then turned into catalysts, a process known as nano-gold technology.
The technology can transform poisonous carbon monoxide into benign carbon dioxide, making the mask suitable for use by motorcyclists and firefighters.
Su said the mask is patented and will be commercialized in the future.
Other inventions include the nation’s first air pollution detection drone designed by Fooyin University professor, Char Jir-ming (賈澤民).
The drone can detect particles in the air, including ozone or pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, while in flight.
Chienkuo Technology University showcased an energy-saving bicycle, which unlike most bikes, can move forward even when the rider is back-pedaling.
The bike uses an energy-saving device that stores power while the cyclist is pedaling and can help save energy as it increases the bike’s gradeability by 20 percent, said Jan Fu-she (詹福賜), assistant professor at the Chienkuo’s Department of Automation Engineering and Institute of Mechatronoptic Systems.
An interactive rehabilitative grip device designed by Horng Mong-fong (洪盟峰), an associate professor at National Kaohsiung University’s applied sciences department of electric engineering, was also on show.
Hung said the device is equipped with a wireless micro sensor that can control a patient’s grip during rehabilitation.
It is hoped that physical therapy centers in the future will be equipped with cloud technology, which will allow online viewing of the patient’s rehabilitation progress, Hung added.
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| 0.940831 | 455 | 2.84375 | 3 |
When I embarked on “family homework” with my son this year, and began thinking of ways to digitize and archive it, I had no idea or intention that it would become a series. However, over the past few weeks it has become a welcome app-ortunity to spend quality instruction time with my son that is enjoyable and engaging for both of us.
This week’s math assignment focused on locating patterns around the house. This reminded me of an old post “Math in My World” that showcased multiple ways to highlight shapes and geometry in the world around us.
Here are the workflow steps to create an iPattern Scavenger Hunt:
- Use the iPad to capture photos of patterns around your house and outside.
- Use Skitch to annotate each photo to highlight the shape that creates the pattern.
- Import all photos into Strip Designer.
- Add text as necessary.
- Share work via email or Dropbox (comic can be saved as a PDF or a jpeg).
- If saved as a PDF, collect each student’s PDF and compile into one iPattern class book.
Want more Digital Artifact Inspiration:
- Creating and Collecting Digital Work
- Creating Digital Artifacts with Sonic Pics
- Digital Homework Reflection with Audioboo
- Showcasing Digital Work: Leaving a Digital Learning Legacy
300+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!
Did you know TechChef4u had a FB page?
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| 0.922129 | 309 | 3.15625 | 3 |
An Android app that measures atmospheric pressure is now feeding that distributed data to scientists working on better ways to predict the weather.
The app, called PressureNet, highlights the potential of distributed sensing using mobile devices and shows how the sophisticated sensors found in modern smartphones could be harnessed for research. It was launched in late 2011 By Jacob Sheehy, a software developer for Flighthub.com, and Phil Jones, an independent Web designer, who became friends while studying at Concordia University in Montreal.
Atmospheric pressure sensors are unique to Android, though not all Android phones have them. Google added the ability to measure pressure to its operating system because the data can help improve location finding. While PressureNet isn’t the only Android app that displays pressure information for users, its creators think it’s the only one that collects the data and shares it.
It turns out that this pressure data from ordinary phone users could be scientifically useful. Sheehy and Jones were contacted last year by Cliff Mass, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist, who was excited to try incorporating the data into climate models. He hopes that a large volume of atmospheric pressure data can help scientists do a better job of predicting where and when certain severe weather events, like thunderstorms and tornados, will hit.
But Sheehy and Jones weren’t quite ready to start sharing the data. For starters, they hadn’t asked users’ permission to do so.
Earlier this week, they released an update to the app that presents users with a pop-up explaining that the app collects the time, the location of the phone, and the atmospheric pressure. “We will share this data only according to your wishes, but remember that limiting your sharing will limit our ability to help scientists improve weather forecasting,” it reads. The default is to allow PressureNet to share the data with Sheehy and Jones, university researchers, and commercial weather forecasters, but users can choose to share with nobody or with a subset of those groups.
Sheehy and Jones have also developed a way to share live data. Their goal is to launch a website that will let interested researchers and forecasters download the PressureNet API—for a price—and start using it to tap into the data feed.
For now, they’ve set up a feed with Mass, who is helping to test it. “We’re making sure everything works and we’re working out the kinks,” Sheehy says. Mass plans to work with his students to analyze and calibrate the data before integrating it with models.
Sheehy and Jones are also hammering out what to charge for the data. They may charge less for infrequent updates or for users who want data only in a small geographic area.
Since word got out that Sheehy and Jones were collecting this data and wanted to share it, they’ve gotten some interesting queries. One was from a researcher in Germany who studies soil and wants to correlate atmospheric pressure with soil moisture. Another is from a meteorologist with News 12 in Brooklyn who wants to access live data in the region to improve his weather forecasts.
Still, the developers have a big hurdle to clear before the data becomes truly useful: they need to boost downloads. Around 18,000 people worldwide have the app, and they’re generating around 6,000 measurements per hour.
Mass says that the data would be really useful if millions of people were contributing. In that case, PressureNet has a way to go.
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en
| 0.950868 | 729 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Use of Data Mining in Scheduler Optimization
Source: University of Johannesburg
The operating system's role in a computer system is to manage the various resources. One of these resources is the CPU (Central Processing Unit). It is managed by a component of the operating system called the CPU scheduler. Schedulers are optimized for typical workloads expected to run on the platform. However, a single scheduler may not be appropriate for all workloads. That is, a scheduler may schedule a workload such that the completion time is minimized, but when another type of workload is run on the platform, scheduling and therefore completion time will not be optimal; a different scheduling algorithm, or a different set of parameters, may work better. Several approaches to solving this problem have been proposed.
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en
| 0.925667 | 158 | 3.171875 | 3 |
If the instructor writes something on the chalkboard/overhead or repeats an idea then it is usually a key point and you should write it down.
Try to use a three-ring binder, it allows for more flexibility in rearranging your notes and any handouts that you may receive.
Try to sit towards the front and center of the class where you'll be less distracted and can hear the professor the best and have a good angle on any visual aids that may be shown.
Don't rely on someone else's notes, you may not understand everything that they write down and you'll learn the best by taking your own notes.
If your instructor talks fast, it may help to bring an audio recorder and record the lecture while taking notes. After the lecture is over you can replay the lecture and fill in any parts that you missed in your notes.
Do reading assignments or homework questions before class, it is easier to take notes when you know what the instructor is talking about.
Date your notes. Add titles and subtitles when you move onto a new topic for easy referencing.
Write down any terminology along with the definition that the instructor may present.
Make sure that you write legibly, if you can't read them later, they'll be useless. If you have sloppy handwriting it may be wise to type your notes so that they are easier to read.
If you missed what the instructor said, ask them to repeat it or go to the instructor after class and ask for clarification. If you are in a rush, ask the instructor at the beginning of the next class or try to find the answer from a friend or the text.
Compare notes with a classmate to make sure you didn't miss any important points.
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| 0.942315 | 352 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Summary: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research: Theory and Methods is the first textbook to offer comprehensive treatment of the interdisciplinary research process commonly used by interdisciplinarians. Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) programs are rapidly growing in formal degree-granting opportunities across institutions around the world. Further to this,more traditional discipline programs involve integrating multidisciplinary perspectives into their research.Author Al ...show morelen Repko offersthe first concise and guided resource on the most commonly accepted interdisciplinary studies principles as applied to the research process. The text covers topics such as deciding how to choose disciplines relevant to the problem or topic, dealing with disciplinary and ideological bias, making explicit the rationale for taking an interdisciplinary approach, and choosing research methods appropriate to the problem or topic.This text is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary studies courses that require research projects or cover methods of social inquiry. Programs in cultural studies, women's studies, public administration and policy, criminology, urban affairs, evaluation, and other areas in which an interdisciplinary perspective is often foundational to the curriculum will find this an invaluable course resource to bring together issues and methods of interdisciplinarity in one comprehensive yet manageable text. ...show lessEdition/Copyright: 08
More prices and sellers below.
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| 0.896929 | 258 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Climate change alters ocean chemistry much more than previously believedDecember 12th, 2008 - 3:36 pm ICT by ANI
Washington, Dec 12 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have discovered that the oceans chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed.
The research team, which included scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Carnegie Institutions Department of Global Ecology, report that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically.
The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway, with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems.
As CO2 increases and weather patterns shift, the chemical composition of our rivers will change, and this will affect the oceans, said co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institutions Department of Global Ecology. This will change the amount of calcium and other elements in ocean salts, he added.
The research team, which included Caldeira, Elizabeth M. Griffith and Adina Paytan of the University of California, Santa Cruz, plus two other colleagues, studied core samples of deep oceanic sediment recovered from the Pacific Ocean Basin.
By analyzing the calcium isotopes in grains of the mineral barite in different layers, they determined that between 13 and 8 million years ago the oceans calcium levels shifted dramatically.
The shift corresponds to the growth of the Antarctic ice sheets during the same time interval.
Because of the huge volume of water that became locked up in the ice cap, the sea level also dropped.
The climate got colder, ice sheets expanded, sea level dropped, and the intensity, type, and extent of weathering on land changed, explained Griffith.
This caused changes in ocean circulation and in the amount and composition of what rivers delivered to the ocean, said Paytan. This in turn impacted the biology and chemistry of the ocean, he added.
What we learned from this work is that the ocean system is much more sensitive to climate change than we have previously appreciated, said Griffith.
According to Griffith, We thought that the concentration of calcium, which is a major element in seawater, would change slowly and gradually over tens of millions of years.
But what our data suggests is that there could be a more dynamic relationship between climate and ocean chemistry, which can sometimes result in rapid biogeochemical reorganization, he added. (ANI)
- Climate change speeds up microbial change - Feb 10, 2012
- NASA to undertake new mission to study arctic climate change - Jun 09, 2010
- Carbonate veins reveal chemistry of ancient seawater - Feb 07, 2010
- NASA's ICESCAPE to study impacts of climate change on Arctic - Jun 09, 2010
- Whitening clouds could fight global warming - Jun 29, 2010
- Halting carbon dioxide emissions cannot avert climate change - Jul 03, 2010
- Cutting carbon concentrations can prevent drought - Mar 25, 2011
- Deflecting solar rays could improve food supply - Jan 23, 2012
- How 450mn-yr-old mass extinction is closely linked to climate change - Jan 28, 2011
- Evidence from octopus hints at ice sheet collapse - May 10, 2012
- Study finds how sea urchins affect coral reefs' growth - Jan 15, 2011
- Ancient fossils hold clues for predicting future climate change - Apr 09, 2011
- Ice age to interglacial period: Greatest climate change - Jul 24, 2012
- Oceans acidification peaks in 300 mn years - Mar 04, 2012
- Dust in Earth's atmosphere has doubled since the beginning of 20th century - Jan 09, 2011
Tags: antarctic ice sheets, calcium levels, california santa cruz, chemical composition, chemical makeup, climate change, climate changes, composition of the ocean, core samples, ken caldeira, marine ecosystems, mineral barite, ocean chemistry, ocean circulation, pacific ocean basin, research scientists, time interval, university of california santa cruz, volume of water, weather patterns
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| 0.90077 | 840 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Today, January 31st …
On this day in 1961, a primate of the chimpanzee family was sent to test the dangers of space before a primate from the human family was risked out there. The chimp’s name was Ham, after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Centre, and this story is not about cured meat from the porcine family, it is about bananas. Sort of.
Ham not only did not die, get space germs, or go bananas (Sorry!) he completed his work well, and was rewarded with banana pellets. The first human to eat in space was John Glenn a little over a year later, and he ate applesauce out of an aluminium tube. So far all of this space-eating seems particularly apt, don’t you think? Bananas for the chimp, apples for the American. Well, I want it known that Ham got cheated. “Banana pellets” do not contain banana. The phrase refers to precision food pellets made specifically as training rewards for animals, so in Ham’s case they would have been made from basic “Monkey Chow”.
The banana’s extreme perishability meant that it was an expensive delicacy in Europe until transport methods improved in the 1920’s. They soon became cheap enough to languish in long enough in the fruit bowl to become spotty and squishy – in other words, good enough for banana cake.
The following recipe for banana cake, from the American Mrs. Rorer’s “New Cook Book” (1902), is often quoted as being the first. It is another cheat: it sounds very odd, it may even be delicious, but it aint cake!
Beat to a cream a quarter of a cup of butter, add a half cup of sugar and one egg; when very light, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet and line a square, shallow baking pan. Peel five good, ripe bananas, and chop them very fine; put them over the crust in a pan, sprinkle over a half cup of sugar, the pulp of five tamarinds soaked in a quarter of a cup of warm water; squeeze over the juice of two Japanese oranges, put over a tablespoonful of butter cut into pieces, a saltspoonful of mace, and two tablespoonfuls of thick cream. Grate over the top two small crackers, bake in a moderate oven a half hour, and cut into narrow strips to serve.
Grate crackers over the top??
Tomorrow: Dishes for the deserted.
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| 0.966919 | 539 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Halitosis, or bad breath as it is more commonly known, is a problem almost everyone has suffered from. Bad breath can range from something experienced after eating too much garlic to a symptom of a more serious, underlying medical problem. There are four key culprits behind bad breath and any one of them could explain what you are experiencing. The most obvious is food: particles become trapped around teeth or in gum pockets and start to smell bad. Often, its food thats being digested in the stomach that is the source. Dental problems and inadequate dental hygiene can also be major causes of halitosis. People are sometimes surprised to learn that simple dry mouth is considered a chief cause. Without enough saliva to keep the mouth clean, odors can develop. Other underlying medical conditions account for a small percentage of halitosis cases. As common of a condition as bad breath is, it is reassuring that halitosis treatment has received a lot of attention by the scientific community and the pharmaceutical industry.
Treating Halitosis Yourself
For many sufferers, the toothbrush and some dental floss is the only halitosis treatment they need. One of the most effective remedies for bad breath is simply to do what your dentist told you. Remember to brush your teeth after a meal or snack. Take a toothbrush to work or school if you have problems with bad breath and have found brushing helpful. Ideally, a toothbrush should be replaced every couple of months because it can harbor bacteria and reintroduce them to a clean mouth. Get in the habit of cleaning your tongue when brushing. The tongue is like Velcro and traps food in small crevices. While using your toothbrush, just very gently sweep it over the top of your tongue.
Toothpaste with an antibacterial component to it can lessen mouth odors as long as 12 hours. Its a good idea to floss after each meal too but, if you cant, make sure to do it at least once daily. Dental floss is easy to carry in a purse or pocket and use when you cant brush. Consider, also, using another type of inter-dental cleaner in addition to brushing and flossing. Irrigation devices are excellent for cleaning all the areas under gums or around teeth. Although it is a short-term fix, mouthwash is a good solution to temporarily mask odor.
There are a lot of over-the-counter products available to help control halitosis. Some, of course, are better than others because they take a different approach or were developed using new science and techniques. For example, halitosis treatment has been advanced by products like Therabreath toothpaste which specifically targets the anaerobic bacteria that cause bad breath.
Since its not always particles left behind that cause bad breath, its good to look at foods you eat. Garlic and onion, among other foods, release oil when digested that can give off bad odors. If you think your food choices are contributing to halitosis, keep a food log and chart the occurrence of bad breath against what you eat to target the problem food. Limiting your intake of coffee and alcoholic beverages can help as they directly contribute to mouth odor by drying the mouth and leaving a residue that produces odors. Its always a good idea to quit smoking for health reasons but, in the case of bad breath, tobacco products also directly contribute to it by drying out the mouth.
If you suspect dry mouth is the source of your halitosis, there are a number of ways to attack it. The easiest is to drink more water because that, alone, keeps the mouth more moist and sweeps bacteria along while not drying the mouth as soft drinks and other beverages do. Any activity that stimulates the production of saliva helps treat halitosis because saliva washes away bacteria and food particles. Chewing sugarless gum or sucking on sugarless candy will increase saliva. These arent permanent solutions but can help temporarily conceal the problem. Look for gums or other products sweetened with Xylitol because it helps prevent bacteria from reproducing and increases saliva, too.
When to See a Dentist for Halitosis Treatment
If you have exhausted all possible home halitosis treatments and still have a noticeable problem affecting your work or personal relationships, then its time to schedule a dental visit. Ideally, you will see your dentist a couple of times a year for a checkup anyway because thats one of the best ways to prevent the problems that cause bad breath from developing. The first thing the dentist will look for is evidence of cavities, gum disease and any crowns or bridges that might need replacement. In the case of a cavity, a severely-decayed tooth may produce strong odors. Bridges, crowns and other restoration procedures can develop cracks or get damaged and become crevices where bacteria lodge, reproduce and give off odors. If there are signs of gum disease, it may be necessary to see a gum specialist, or periodontist, for further halitosis treatment. With gum disease, gums pull away from the teeth and pockets might open up which become home to odor-causing bacteria. A deep cleaning by a professional may be needed to treat and remove them.
The dentist also might refer you to a medical doctor for further diagnosis if he cant find anything to explain your bad breath. A relatively small percentage of bad breath problems are caused by a medical condition of which the sufferer is unaware. For example, diabetes can produce a distinctive breath odor. With medical disorders, the halitosis treatment is simply to take care of the underlying problem.
Halitosis is a condition that affects millions and has social consequences as well as dental and medical dimensions. Sufferers cant suffer in silence because its a problem apparent to those around them. With todays science and effective available treatments, no one needs to continually suffer with bad breath.
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