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|Barn Owl at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum – Tucson, Arizona|
This week’s challenge was to learn more about our local owls: Owl Study. In past owl studies we focused on the Great Horned Owl, the Western Screech Owl, and the Spotted Owl. This time we decided to learn more about the Barn Owl.
We started off listening to the sounds of the Barn Owl and I have to admit if I ever heard this sound at night I would be terrified. It is such a scary sound and not at all one I want to hear too often. It sounds more like a scream than a bird sound. This owl does not make the typical hooting sound we have come to associate with owls of all kinds.
Here is the link: Barn Owl Sounds.
We read the information on the All About Birds website which includes this interesting information on where you might see a Barn Owl:
“Many people’s first sighting of a Barn Owl is while driving through open country at night—a flash of pale wings in the headlights is usually this species. Barn Owls also often live up to their name, inhabiting barns and other old, abandoned buildings, so keep an eye out for them there. Barn Owls don’t hoot the way most other owls do; you can listen for their harsh screeches at night.”
We finished up with a notebook page for our nature journal. It is all in preparation for the time in the future when we may see or possibly hear this bird. You may want to do your own research on the Barn Owl…it is the most widely distributed owl worldwide (see map at the bottom of this website: Common Barn Owl).
Here is what the Peterson Field Guide says about the Barn Owl:
“A long-legged, knock-kneed, pale, monkey-faced owl. White heart-shaped face and dark eyes, no ear tufts. Distinguished in flight as an owl by the large head and mothlike flight..”
I may just have to put that in my nature journal. 🙂
Have you started your owl study yet?
Don’t forget to share with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival!
2 thoughts on “Barn Owl Study – Using All About Birds”
I love owls. Hands-down my favorite animal, but I’m with you on the terrifying screech of the Barn Owl. Yikes! Thanks for all the great resources.
Wonderful post, thank you for the links and info.
Uh oh, I played the Barn Owl recording and scared my bunny. She’s hiding out in her cardboard house thinking there’s a predator in the room now. Sorry Linny, that was thoughtless of me! I’ll have to bust out the headphones. 🙂 | <urn:uuid:ff3e68dd-0b4f-4bcb-a347-1189e5b481a7> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/barn-owl-study-using-all-about-birds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296950030.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20230401125552-20230401155552-00722.warc.gz | en | 0.947693 | 588 | 2.859375 | 3 | {
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Zumbi was the last king of an all black republic in Brazil named Palamres which last 30 years at it`s height having over 30,000 runaway slaves. Palmares was run along African lines, it was the first goverement of free africans and was recognised as true african state which it was about the size of present day Portugal
The people in Palmares lived in harmony and land was property of all, The fruits of collective labour was for all, they planted and harvested a whole range of items which they barted with their white indigenous neighbours,
Palmares was called a Quilombo, Quilombos represented slave resistance which occurred in three forms: slave settlements, attempts at seizing power, and armed insurrection. Members of quilombos often returned to plantations or towns to encourage their former fellow slaves to flee and join the quilombos. If necessary, they brought slaves by force and sabotaged plantations. Slaves who came to quilombos on their own were considered free, but those who were captured and brought by force were considered slaves and continued to be slaves in the settlement. They could be considered free if they were to bring another captive to the settlement.
They were effectivetly orgainsed both socially and politically and highly skilled in the art of was as they were forced to defend against repeated attacks by the Portuguese and also the Dutch.
Zumbi was born free in Palmares in 1655, believed to be descended from the Imbangala warriors of Angola. He was captured by the Portuguese and given to a missionary, when he was approximately 6 years old. Baptized Francisco, Zumbi was taught the sacraments, learned Portuguese and Latin, and helped with daily mass. Despite attempts to pacify him, Zumbi escaped in 1670 and, at the age of 15, returned to his birthplace. Zumbi became known for his physical prowess and cunning in battle and was a respected military strategist by the time he was in his early twenties.
By 1678, the governor of the captaincy of Pernambuco, Pedro Almeida, weary of the longstanding conflict with Palmares, approached its leader Ganga Zumba with an olive branch. Almeida offered freedom for all runaway slaves if Palmares would submit to Portuguese authority, a proposal which Ganga Zumba favored. But Zumbi was distrustful of the Portuguese. Further, he refused to accept freedom for the people of Palmares while other Africans remained enslaved. He rejected Almeida’s overture and challenged Ganga Zumba’s leadership. Vowing to continue the resistance to Portuguese oppression, Zumbi became the new leader of Palmares.
Fifteen years after Zumbi assumed leadership of Palmares, Portuguese military commanders Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo mounted an artillery assault on the quilombo. February 6, 1694, after 67 years of ceaseless conflict with the cafuzos, or Maroons, of Palmares, the Portuguese succeeded in destroying Cerca do Macaco, the republic’s central settlement. Before the king Ganga Zumba was dead, Zumbi had taken it upon himself to fight for Palmares’ independence. In doing so he became known as the commander-in-chief in 1675. Due to his heroic efforts it increased his prestige. Palmares’ warriors were no match for the Portuguese artillery; the republic fell, and Zumbi was wounded in one leg.
Though he survived and managed to elude the Portuguese and continue the rebellion for almost two years, he was betrayed by a mulato who belonged to the quilombo and had been captured by the Paulistas, and, in return for his life, led them to Zumbi’s hideout. Zumbi was captured and beheaded on the spot November 20, 1695. Remnants of quilombo dwellers continued to reside in the region for another hundred years.
November 20 is celebrated, chiefly in Brazil, as a day of black consciousness. The day has special meaning for those Brazilians of African descent who honor Zumbi as a hero, freedom fighter, and symbol of freedom. Zumbi has become a hero of the twentieth-century Afro-Brazilian political movement. And he is a national hero in Brazil as well. | <urn:uuid:b2512d9e-1d59-45bc-83d0-11a4d39e2484> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | https://blackeffusion.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/king-zumbi-of-palmares/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207930443.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113210-00073-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986169 | 905 | 3.9375 | 4 | {
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BANDHAS – THE LOCKING TECHNIQUES OF YOGA
Your home has the facility to regulate the temperature according your convenience. The air-conditioner makes it cooler, and the heater makes it warmer; all at the press of a button. Similarly, Yoga practitioners can develop the ability to regulate the energy coursing through the body.
Bandhas in Yoga are energetic locks that, when utilized properly, are believed to keep your prana (energy or life force) inside your body. Bandha means ‘to catch hold of’ or ‘control’. It can mean a posture where certain organs or parts of the body are contracted and controlled. There are three main Bandhas which are important to Pranayama; Mula Bandha, Uddiyana Bandha and Jalandhara Bandha.
Bandhas not only modify the flow of pranic energy through the nadis (energy meridians), but also modifies the flow of nerve currents in the nervous system and blood flow through the blood vessels.
The three main Bandhas will now be discussed:
Mula means root, source, origin or cause, base or foundation. Its location is at the base of the spine (perineum). This Banda is used to lock the energy, to keep it from going downward. It seals the foundation so that the energy can rise upward. When mastered this Bandha should be used in asana practice whenever possible (standing, backbends and first chakra poses). This Bandha can be practiced with Puraka (internal) or Rechaka (external) Kumbhaka. It is especially good for the organs of reproduction.
You can try this Bandha in the table position, exhaling into cat (chin and tailbone curling down and back arching). This draws the Mula in naturally. You can also try this from a sitting or standing position, just exhale and feel the vacuum drawing the energy up naturally. With continued practice work toward using less muscle for the same lifted feeling. Practice until you can feel the area being drawn upward energetically without (or minimally) using the muscles. For beginners, try exhaling completely and continue contracting the muscles even more and then draw the energy up from the perineal floor. Practice contracting and releasing this Bandha several times until you can do it easily with the breath either held in or out (Kumbhaka).
Uddiyana means flying up. This Bandha is used to continue the upward flow of energy (Kundalini) through the Sushumna Nadi. The abdomen is drawn in and up; to lift the diaphragm and internal organs up into or toward the chest (thorax). Tones and strengthens the abdominal muscles and improve the function of the organs of digestion and elimination. This Bandha is only practiced on Rechaka (external) Kumbhaka.
Technique: after exhaling completely and holding the breath out, the abdomen is drawn in as far as possible and then drawn upward. Uddiyana is never practiced holding the breath in (Antara Kumbhaka). Hint: try exhaling completely and closing the mouth and nose attempt to breathe in abruptly. This suction will allow you to feel the contraction required to perform the Uddiyana Bandha. Or use your hand on your belly and help lift the inners as you contract and lift eventually being able to do this naturally.
Jalandhara means a net, a web, a lattice or a mesh. In Jalandhara Bandha the neck and throat are contracted, the back of the neck lengthened and the chin is lowered toward the chest. This position contains prana within the container (prana body) If performed incorrectly one feels pressure on the heart, eyes, ears and brain and even cause headaches. This Bandha can be practiced with Puraka (internal) or Rechaka (external) Kumbhaka.
Technique: This is the position of the neck in Sarvangasana (shoulder stand). From a sitting position, lengthen the back of the neck, lower the chin toward the chest and attempt to swallow to complete the seal in the throat.
Those suffering from Blood pressure problems, heart diseases and ulcers should avoid the practice of Bandhas. Pregnant women too should not do Bandhas. | <urn:uuid:b79f8e1d-2529-4ba6-9a3f-56893fc434c5> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://arogyayogaschool.com/blog/bandhas-the-locking-techniques-of-yoga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247511174.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20190221213219-20190221235219-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.913528 | 911 | 2.59375 | 3 | {
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On a spring day in 1927, a dashing young man from Little Falls took off in a single-engine plane from New York. A day and a half later, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris, instantly a worldwide sensation.
Five years later Lindbergh became an even more famous figure of tragedy when his infant son, who bore his father’s name, was kidnapped and killed. “The Crime of the Century,” they called it. America’s heart poured out for this tall, thin pilot, the pride of Minnesota.
Those feelings did not survive the decade. Lindbergh mistook fame for influence, and started telling people what he really thought: Let’s give these Nazis a chance.
Nine decades after he became the most famous man in the world, Lindbergh’s back in the headlines. Statues of Robert E. Lee and lakes named for John C. Calhoun are under siege. So is “Terminal 1-Lindbergh” at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Lindbergh’s defenders will tell you he “lived in complex times” and is getting an unfair rap.
Let’s find out by playing a little game. Read the quotes below, then decide if they belong to Lindbergh, or Hubert Humphrey (former Minneapolis mayor, U.S. senator, and vice president), for whom the other MSP terminal is named... or Adolf Hitler. Correct answers at the bottom.
1. “[The Jews’] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.”
2. “It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital, politics a luxury.”
3. “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of debate, discussion, and dissent.”
4. “Germany now has the means of destroying London, Paris, and Prague.”
5. “[Germany] alone can either dam the Asiatic hordes or form the spearhead of their penetration into Europe.”
6. “We have this race problem which is bound to cause the most serious trouble.”
7. “Germany is in many ways the most interesting country in the world, and she is attempting to find a solution to some of our most fundamental problems.”
8. “The friendship, goodwill, and understanding of other nations is another source of strength that we should seek and merit.”
9. “The rights of men and nations must be readjusted to coincide with their… strength.”
10. “This is a war over the balance of power in Europe, a war brought about by the desire for strength on the part of Germany, and the fear of strength on the part of England and France.”
11. “Perhaps we should do well to spend a few minutes in considering projects which grace and embellish the earth, instead of shaking it.”
12. “Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur.”
13. “And while we stand poised for battle, Oriental guns are turning westward, Asia presses towards us on the Russian border, all foreign races stir restlessly.”
14. “It isn’t the Communist that’s the trouble. It’s the poverty, the misery, the sickness, the illiteracy, the frustration, the hopelessness.”
15. “After all, there is a God-made difference between men and women that even the Soviet Union can’t eradicate.”
16. “It is a sad fact that in a world two-thirds colored our own Negro citizens are almost totally unused in the diplomatic field.”
17. “Our civilization depends on a united strength among ourselves; on strength too great for foreign armies to challenge; on a Western Wall of race and arms which can hold back either a Genghis Khan or the infiltration of inferior blood.”
18. “In matters of disarmament—as in every area of our foreign policy—we need both an open mind and an eagerness to explore every possibility to the limit.”
19. “We, the heirs of European culture, are on the verge of a disastrous war, a war within our family of nations, a war which will reduce the strength and destroy the treasures of the White Race, a war which may even lead to the end of our civilization.”
Answers: Statements Nos. 3, 8, 11, 14, and 18 belong to Hubert Humphrey. The rest were spoken or written by Charles Lindbergh between the years 1933 and 1941.
More from Mike Mullen: | <urn:uuid:d965b83a-1a54-47e1-8422-ed556031fe4a> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | http://www.citypages.com/news/who-said-it-hubert-humphrey-charles-lindbergh-or-adolf-hitler/448002373 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203093.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20190323221914-20190324003914-00146.warc.gz | en | 0.939189 | 1,023 | 2.75 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.778978109359741,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Politics |
616,605 died of disease/wounds
3,878 died in accidents/suicides
548,857 wounded/frostbitten At least 1,500,000|
103,000 Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine |
Period October 1917 – October 1922
Results Victory for the Red Army in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, South Caucasus, Central Asia, Tuva, and Mongolia;
Combatants Ukraine, United States of America, Russian Empire, White movement, Russian Soviet Federativ
Similar October Revolution, Russian Revolution, Allied intervention in the Ru, Eastern Front, World War I
Russian civil war 1 5
The Russian Civil War (Russian: Гражда́нская война́ в Росси́и, Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossiy; November 1917 – October 1922) was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring monarchism, capitalism and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and nonideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7,000,000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen.
- Russian civil war 1 5
- Russian civil war 3 minute history
- February Revolution
- Creation of the Red Army
- Anti Bolshevik movement
- Geography and chronology
- October Revolution
- Initial anti Bolshevik uprisings
- Peace with the Central Powers
- Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus 1918
- Eastern Russia, Siberia and Far East of Russia, 1918
- Central Asia 1918
- Left SR uprising
- Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd
- Northern Russia 1919
- Siberia 1919
- South Russia 1919
- Central Asia 1919
- South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt 1920–21
- Siberia and the Far East 1920–22
- Ensuing rebellion
- Brief Timeline
Many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war. Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—were established as sovereign states, with their own civil wars and wars of independence. The rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards.
Russian civil war 3 minute history
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established during the February Revolution of 1917.
Creation of the Red Army
In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian Imperial Army had been demobilized; the volunteer-based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. In January, after significant reverses in combat, War Commissar Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guard into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, in order to create a more professional fighting force. Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty.
In June 1918, when it became apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would be far too small, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army. Opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units was overcome by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance, exactly the same practices used by the White Army officers. Former Tsarist officers were utilized as "military specialists" (voenspetsy), sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty. At the start of the war three-quarters of the Red Army officer corps was composed of former Tsarist officers. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.
While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very day after the Bolshevik uprising, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.
A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including landowners, republicans, conservatives, middle-class citizens, reactionaries, pro-monarchists, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances and democratic reformists voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces, bolstered by forced conscriptions and terror and by foreign influence and led by Gen. Yudenich, Adm. Kolchak and Gen. Denikin, became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army") and controlled significant parts of the former Russian Empire for most of the war.
A Ukrainian nationalist movement was active in Ukraine during the war. More significant was the emergence of an anarchist political and military movement known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or the Anarchist Black Army led by Nestor Makhno. The Black Army, which counted numerous Jews and Ukrainian peasants in its ranks, played a key part in halting Gen. Denikin's White Army offensive towards Moscow during 1919, later ejecting White forces from Crimea.
The remoteness of the Volga Region, the Ural Region, Siberia and the Far East was favorable for the anti-Bolshevik forces, and the Whites set up a number of organizations in the cities of these regions. Some of the military forces were set up on the basis of clandestine officers' organizations in the cities.
The Czechoslovak Legions had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 troops by October 1917. They had an agreement with the new Bolshevik government to be evacuated from the Eastern Front via the port of Vladivostok to France. The transport from the Eastern Front to Vladivostok slowed down in the chaos, and the troops became dispersed all along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Under pressure from the Central Powers, Trotsky ordered the disarming and arrest of the legionaries, which created tensions with the Bolsheviks.
The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks. They were worried about (1) a possible Russo-German alliance, (2) the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive foreign loans and (3) that the Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". The British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. Under this pretext began allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the United Kingdom and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks.
The German Empire created several short-lived satellite buffer states within its sphere of influence after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the "United Baltic Duchy", "Duchy of Courland and Semigallia", "Kingdom of Lithuania", "Kingdom of Poland", the "Belarusian People’s Republic", and the "Ukrainian State". Following the defeat of Germany in World War I in November 1918, these states were abolished.
Finland was the first republic that declared its independence from Russia in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing Finnish Civil War from January–May 1918. The Second Polish Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the Soviet westward offensive in November 1918.
Geography and chronology
In the European part of Russia the war was fought across three main fronts: the eastern, the southern and the northwestern. It can also be roughly split into the following periods.
The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack Gen. Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don region, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.
During this first period the Bolsheviks took control of Central Asia out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the Steppe and Turkestan, where nearly two million Russian settlers were located.
Most of the fighting in this first period was sporadic, involving only small groups amid a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic scene. Among the antagonists were the Czechs, known as the Czechoslovak Legion or "White Czechs", the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen.
The second period of the war lasted from January to November 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Gen. Denikin), the east (under Adm. Kolchak) and the northwest (under Gen. Yudenich) were successful, forcing the Red Army and its allies back on all three fronts. In July 1919 the Red Army suffered another reverse after a mass defection of units in the Crimea to the anarchist Black Army under Nestor Makhno, enabling anarchist forces to consolidate power in Ukraine. Leon Trotsky soon reformed the Red Army, concluding the first of two military alliances with the anarchists. In June the Red Army first checked Kolchak's advance. After a series of engagements, assisted by a Black Army offensive against White supply lines, the Red Army defeated Denikin's and Yudenich's armies in October and November.
The third period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea. Gen. Wrangel had gathered the remnants of Denikin's armies, occupying much of the Crimea. An attempted invasion of southern Ukraine was rebuffed by the anarchist Black Army under the command of Nestor Makhno. Pursued into the Crimea by Makhno's troops, Wrangel went over to the defensive in the Crimea. After an abortive move north against the Red Army, Wrangel's troops were forced south by Red Army and Black Army forces; Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.
In the October Revolution the Bolshevik Party directed the Red Guard (armed groups of workers and Imperial army deserters) to seize control of Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) and immediately began the armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918 the Bolsheviks dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and proclaimed the Soviets (workers’ councils) as the new government of Russia.
Initial anti-Bolshevik uprisings
The first attempt to regain power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October 1917. It was supported by the Junker Mutiny in Petrograd but was quickly put down by the Red Guard, notably the Latvian rifle division.
The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Gen. Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Gen. Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks were prominent among them. The leading Tsarist officers of the old regime also started to resist. In November, Gen. Alekseev, the Tsar's Chief of Staff during the First World War, began to organize the Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Volunteers of this small army were mostly officers of the old Russian army, military cadets and students. In December 1917 Alekseev was joined by Gen. Kornilov, Denikin and other Tsarist officers who had escaped from the jail, where they had been imprisoned following the abortive Kornilov affair just before the Revolution. At the beginning of December 1917 groups of volunteers and Cossacks captured Rostov.
Having stated in the November 1917 “Declaration of Rights of Nations of Russia” that any nation under imperial Russian rule should be immediately given the power of self-determination, the Bolsheviks had begun to usurp the power of the Provisional Government in the territories of Central Asia soon after the establishment of the Turkestan Committee in Tashkent. In April 1917 the Provisional Government set up this committee, which was mostly made up of former Tsarist officials. The Bolsheviks attempted to take control of the Committee in Tashkent on 12 September 1917 but it was unsuccessful, and many leaders were arrested. However, because the Committee lacked representation of the native population and poor Russian settlers, they had to release the Bolshevik prisoners almost immediately due to public outcry, and a successful takeover of this government body took place two months later in November. The triumph of the Bolshevik party over the Provisional Government during 1917 was mostly due to the support they received from the working class of Central Asia. The Leagues of Mohammedam Working People, which Russian settlers and natives who had been sent to work behind the lines for the Tsarist government in 1916 formed in March 1917, had led numerous strikes in the industrial centers throughout September 1917. However, after the Bolshevik destruction of the Provisional Government in Tashkent, Muslim elites formed an autonomous government in Turkestan, commonly called the "Kokand autonomy" (or simply Kokand). The White Russians supported this government body, which lasted several months because of Bolshevik troop isolation from Moscow. In January 1918 the Soviet forces under Lt. Col. Muravyov invaded Ukraine and invested Kiev, where the Central Council of the Ukrainian People's Republic held power. With the help of the Kiev Arsenal Uprising, the Bolsheviks captured the city on 26 January.
Peace with the Central Powers
The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people before the Revolution. Vladimir Lenin's political enemies attributed that decision to his sponsorship by the Foreign Office of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, offered to Lenin in hope that, with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I. That suspicion was bolstered by the German Foreign Ministry's sponsorship of Lenin's return to Petrograd. However, after the military fiasco of the summer offensive (June 1917) by the Russian Provisional Government, and in particular after the failed summer offensive of the Provisional Government had devastated the structure of the Russian army, it became crucial that Lenin realize the promised peace. Even before the failed summer offensive the Russian population was very skeptical about the continuation of the war. Western socialists had promptly arrived from France and from the UK to convince the Russians to continue the fight, but could not change the new pacifist mood of Russia.
On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease-fire, following the policy of "No war, no peace".
In view of this, on 18 February 1918 the Germans began Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks because the Russian army was demobilized, and the newly formed Red Guard was incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty, and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on 6 March. The Soviets viewed the treaty as merely a necessary and expedient means to end the war. Therefore, they ceded large amounts of territory to the German Empire.
Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus 1918
Under Soviet pressure, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March from Yekaterinodar to Kuban on 22 February 1918, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Yekaterinodar. The Soviets recaptured Rostov on the next day. Gen. Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April, and Gen. Denikin took over command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don, where the Cossack uprising against Bolsheviks had started.
The Baku Soviet Commune was established on 13 April. Germany landed its Caucasus Expedition troops in Poti on 8 June. The Ottoman Army of Islam (in coalition with Azerbaijan) drove them out of Baku on 26 July 1918. Subsequently, the Dashanaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started negotiations with Gen. Dunsterville, the commander of the British troops in Persia. The Bolsheviks and their Left SR allies were opposed to it, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviet voted to call in the British and the Bolsheviks resigned. The Baku Soviet Commune ended its existence and was replaced by the Central Caspian Dictatorship.
In June 1918 the Volunteer Army, numbering some 9,000 men, started its second Kuban campaign. Yekaterinodar was encircled on 1 August and fell on the 3rd. In September–October, heavy fighting took place at Armavir and Stavropol. On 13 October Gen. Kazanovich's division took Armavir, and on 1 November Gen. Pyotr Wrangel secured Stavropol. This time Red forces had no escape, and by the beginning of 1919 the whole Northern Caucasus was free from Bolsheviks.
In October Gen. Alekseev, the leader of the White armies in southern Russia, died of a heart attack. An agreement was reached between Denikin, head of the Volunteer Army, and PN Krasnov, Ataman of the Don Cossacks, which united their forces under the sole command of Denikin. The Armed Forces of South Russia were thus created.
Eastern Russia, Siberia and Far East of Russia, 1918
The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion broke out in May 1918, and the legionaries took control of Chelyabinsk in June. Simultaneously Russian officers' organizations overthrew the Bolsheviks in Petropavlovsk (in present-day Kazakhstan) and in Omsk. Within a month the Whites controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad between Lake Baikal and the Ural regions. During the summer Bolshevik power in Siberia was eliminated. The Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia formed in Omsk. By the end of July the Whites had extended their gains westwards, capturing Ekaterinburg on 26 July 1918. Shortly before the fall of Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918, the former Tsar and his family were executed by the Ural Soviet to prevent them falling into the hands of the Whites.
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasants fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly—known as the "Komuch". By July the authority of the Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and socialist measures, such as the institution of an eight-hour working day, with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners. After the fall of Kazan, Vladimir Lenin called for the dispatch of Petrograd workers to the Kazan Front: "We must send down the maximum number of Petrograd workers: (1) a few dozen 'leaders' like Kayurov; (2) a few thousand militants 'from the ranks'".
After a series of reverses at the front, the Bolsheviks' War Commissar, Trotsky, instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorized withdrawals, desertions and mutinies in the Red Army. In the field the Cheka special investigations forces, termed the Special Punitive Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage or Special Punitive Brigades, followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who deserted, retreated from their positions or failed to display sufficient offensive zeal. Trotsky extended the use of the death penalty to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy. In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorized the formation of barrier troops - stationed behind unreliable Red Army units and given with orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorization.
In September 1918 Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government and other local anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Provisional All-Russian Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: three Socialist-Revolutionaries (Nikolai Avksentiev, Boldyrev and Vladimir Zenzinov) and two Kadets, (V. A. Vinogradov and PV Vologodskii).
By the fall of 1918 anti-Bolshevik White forces in the east included the People's Army (Komuch), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, Ural, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of Gen. V.G. Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate.
On the Volga, Col. Kappel's White detachment captured Kazan on 7 August, but the Reds re-captured the city on 8 September 1918 following a counteroffensive. On the 11th Simbirsk fell, and on 8 October Samara. The Whites fell back eastwards to Ufa and Orenburg.
In Omsk the Russian Provisional Government quickly came under the influence - then the dominance - of its new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Kolchak. On 18 November a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak proclaimed the "Supreme Ruler of Russia". By mid-December 1918 White armies had to leave Ufa, but they balanced this failure with a successful drive towards Perm, which they took on 24 December.
Central Asia 1918
In February 1918 the Red Army overthrew the White Russian-supported Kokand autonomy of Turkestan. Although this move seemed to solidify Bolshevik power in Central Asia, more troubles soon arose for the Red Army as the Allied Forces began to intervene. British support of the White Army provided the greatest threat to the Red Army in Central Asia during 1918. Great Britain sent three prominent military leaders to the area. One was Lt. Col. Bailey, who recorded a mission to Tashkent, from where the Bolsheviks forced him to flee. Another was Gen. Malleson, leading the Malleson Mission, who assisted the Mensheviks in Ashkhabad (now the capital of Turkmenistan) with a small Anglo-Indian force. However, he failed to gain control of Tashkent, Bukhara and Khiva. The third was Maj. Gen. Dunsterville, who the Bolsheviks drove out of Central Asia only a month after his arrival in August 1918. Despite setbacks due to British invasions during 1918, the Bolsheviks continued to make progress in bringing the Central Asian population under their influence. The first regional congress of the Russian Communist Party convened in the city of Tashkent in June 1918 in order to build support for a local Bolshevik Party.
Left SR uprising
In July two Left SR and Cheka employees, Blyumkin and Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach. In Moscow a Left SR uprising was put down by the Bolsheviks, using Cheka military detachments. Lenin personally apologized to the Germans for the assassination. Mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries followed.
Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd
Estonia cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919.Baltic German volunteers captured Riga from the Red Latvian Riflemen on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division defeated the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the Republic of Latvia.
This rendered possible another threat to the Red Army—one from Gen. Yudenich, who had spent the summer organizing the Northwestern Army in Estonia with local and British support. In October 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well-executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army. Yudenich also had six British tanks, which caused panic whenever they appeared. The Allies gave large quantities of aid to Yudenich, who, however, complained that he was receiving insufficient support.
By 19 October Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of the city. Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses. He declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working-class capital of 700,000 inhabitants." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" and that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave".
Trotsky armed all available workers, men and women, ordering the transfer of military forces from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red Army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich, short of supplies, decided to call off the siege of the city and withdrew, repeatedly asking permission to withdraw his army across the border to Estonia. However, units retreating across the border were disarmed and interned by order of the Estonian government, which had entered into peace negotiations with the Soviet Government on 16 September and had been informed by the Soviet authorities of their 6 November decision that, should the White Army be allowed to retreat into Estonia, it would be pursued across the border by the Reds. In fact, the Reds attacked Estonian army positions and fighting continued until a cease-fire went into effect on 3 January 1920. Following the Treaty of Tartu most of Yudenich's soldiers went into exile. Finnish Gen. Mannerheim planned an intervention to help the Whites in Russia capture Petrograd. He did not, however, gain the necessary support for the endeavor. Lenin considered it "completely certain, that the slightest aid from Finland would have determined the fate of Petrograd".
Northern Russia 1919
The British occupied Murmansk and, alongside the Americans, seized Arkhangelsk. With the retreat of Kolchak in Siberia, they pulled their troops out of the cities before the winter trapped them in the port. The remaining White forces under Yevgenii Miller evacuated the region in February 1920.
At the beginning of March 1919 the general offensive of the Whites on the eastern front began. Ufa was retaken on 13 March; by mid-April, the White Army stopped at the Glazov–Chistopol–Bugulma–Buguruslan–Sharlyk line. Reds started their counteroffensive against Kolchak's forces at the end of April. The Red Army, led by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, captured Elabuga on 26 May, Sarapul on 2 June and Izevsk on the 7th and continued to push forward. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red Army was larger than the White Army and had managed to recapture territory previously lost.
Following the abortive offensive at Chelyabinsk, the White armies withdrew beyond the Tobol. In September 1919 a White offensive was launched against the Tobol front, the last attempt to change the course of events. However, on 14 October the Reds counterattacked, and thus began the uninterrupted retreat of the Whites to the east.
On 14 November 1919 the Red Army captured Omsk. Adm. Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat; White Army forces in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December. Retreat of the eastern front by White armies lasted three months, until mid-February 1920, when the survivors, after crossing Lake Baikal, reached Chita area and joined Ataman Semenov's forces.
South Russia 1919
The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919 they had begun to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik leader Antonov-Ovseenko, the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.
Gen. Denikin's military strength continued to grow in the spring of 1919. During several months in winter and spring of 1919, hard fighting with doubtful outcomes took place in the Donbass, where the attacking Bolsheviks met White forces. At the same time Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) completed the elimination of Red forces in the northern Caucasus and advanced towards Tsaritsyn. At the end of April and beginning of May the AFSR attacked on all fronts from the Dnepr to the Volga, and by the beginning of the summer they had won numerous battles. French forces landed in Odessa but, after having done almost no fighting, withdrew on 8 April 1919. By mid-June the Reds were chased from the Crimea and the Odessa area. Denikin's troops took the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod. At the same time White troops under Wrangel's command took Tsaritsyn on 17 June 1919. On 20 June Denikin issued his famous "Moscow directive", ordering all AFSR units to get ready for a decisive offensive to take Moscow.
Although Great Britain had withdrawn its own troops from the theater, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition and some military advisors) to the White Armies during 1919. Major Ewen Cameron Bruce of the British Army had volunteered to command a British tank mission assisting the White Army. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his bravery during the June 1919 battle of Tsaritsyn for single-handedly storming and capturing the fortified city of Tsaritsyn, under heavy shell fire in a single tank; this led to the successful capture of over 40,000 prisoners. The fall of Tsaritsyn is viewed "as one of the key battles of the Russian Civil War" which greatly helped the White Russian Cause. Notable historian Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart comments that Bruce's tank action during this battle is to be seen as "one of the most remarkable feats in the whole history of the Tank Corps."
After the capture of Tsaritsyn, Wrangel pushed towards Saratov but Trotsky, seeing the danger of the union with Kolchak, against whom the Red command was concentrating large masses of troops, repulsed his attempts with heavy losses. When Kolchak's army in the east began to retreat in June and July, the bulk of the Red Army, free now from any serious danger from Siberia, was directed against Denikin.
Denikin's forces constituted a real threat and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red Army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. Kursk and Orel were taken. The Cossack Don Army under the command of Gen. Konstantin Mamontov continued north towards Voronezh, but there Tukhachevsky's army defeated them on 24 October. Tukhachevsky's army then turned towards yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army of Gen. Denikin.
The high tide of the White movement against the Soviets had been reached in September 1919. By this time Denikin's forces were dangerously overextended. The White front had no depth or stability—it had become a series of patrols with occasional columns of slowly advancing troops without reserves. Lacking ammunition, artillery and fresh reinforcements, Denikin's army was decisively defeated in a series of battles in October and November 1919. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on 17 December and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.
While the White armies were being routed in the center and the east, they had succeeded in driving Nestor Makhno's anarchist Black Army (formally known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine) out of part of southern Ukraine and the Crimea. Despite this setback, Moscow was loath to aid Makhno and the Black Army and refused to provide arms to anarchist forces in Ukraine. The main body of White forces, the Volunteers and the Don Army, pulled back towards the Don, to Rostov. The smaller body (Kiev and Odessa troops) withdrew to Odessa and the Crimea, which it had managed to protect from the Bolsheviks during the winter of 1919–1920.
Central Asia 1919
By February 1919 the British government had pulled its military forces out of Central Asia. Despite this success for the Red Army, the White Army’s assaults in European Russia and other areas broke communication between Moscow and Tashkent. For a time Central Asia was completely cut off from Red Army forces in Siberia. Although this communication failure weakened the Red Army, the Bolsheviks continued their efforts to gain support for the Bolshevik Party in Central Asia by holding a second regional conference in March. During this conference a regional bureau of Muslim organizations of the Russian Bolshevik Party was formed. The Bolshevik Party continued to try to gain support among the native population by giving them the impression of better representation for the Central Asian population and throughout the end of the year were able to maintain harmony with the Central Asian people.
Communication difficulties with Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Due to Red Army successes north of Central Asia, communication with Moscow was re-established and the Bolsheviks were able to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.
South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt 1920–21
By the beginning of 1920 the main body of the Armed Forces of South Russia was rapidly retreating towards the Don, to Rostov. Denikin hoped to hold the crossings of the Don, then rest and reform his troops, but the White Army was not able to hold the Don area and at the end of February 1920, started a retreat across Kuban towards Novorossiysk. Slipshod evacuation of Novorossiysk proved to be a dark event for the White Army. About 40,000 men were evacuated by Russian and Allied ships from Novorossiysk to the Crimea, without horses or any heavy equipment, while about 20,000 men were left behind and either dispersed or captured by the Red Army. Following the disastrous Novorossiysk evacuation, Denikin stepped down and the military council elected Wrangel as the new Commander-in-Chief of the White Army. He was able to restore order to the dispirited troops and reshape an army that could fight as a regular force again. This remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout 1920.
After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists, the Black Army attacked and defeated several regiments of Wrangel's troops in southern Ukraine, forcing him to retreat before he could capture that year's grain harvest. Stymied in his efforts to consolidate his hold, Wrangel then attacked north in an attempt to take advantage of recent Red Army defeats at the close of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920. This offensive was eventually halted by the Red Army, and Wrangel's troops were forced to retreat to the Crimea in November 1920 pursued by both the Red and Black cavalry and infantry. Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated from the Crimea to Constantinople on 14 November 1920. Thus ended the struggle of Reds and Whites in Southern Russia.
After the defeat of Wrangel,the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Black Army; the campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by Cheka agents. Angered by continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and its liberal use of the Cheka to put down anarchist elements, a naval mutiny erupted at Kronstadt, followed by peasant revolts. Red Army attacks on the anarchist forces and their sympathizers increased in ferocity throughout 1921.
Siberia and the Far East 1920–22
In Siberia, Adm. Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Gen. Grigory Semyonov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this Kolchak was arrested by the disaffected Czechoslovak Corps as he traveled towards Irkutsk without the protection of the army, and turned over to the socialist Political Centre in Irkutsk. Six days later this regime was replaced by a Bolshevik-dominated Military-Revolutionary Committee. On 6–7 February Kolchak and his prime minister Victor Pepelyaev were shot and their bodies thrown through the ice of the frozen Angara River, just before the arrival of the White Army in the area.
Remnants of Kolchak's army reached Transbaikalia and joined Semyonov's troops, forming the Far Eastern army. With the support of the Japanese army it was able to hold Chita, but after withdrawal of Japanese soldiers from Transbaikalia Semenov's position become untenable, and in November 1920 he was driven by the Red Army from Transbaikalia and took refuge in China. The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur Krai, finally pulled their troops out as Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over the Russian Far East. On 25 October 1922 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army, and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished.
In central Asia Red Army troops continued to face resistance into 1923, where basmachi (armed bands of Islamic guerrillas) had formed to fight the Bolshevik takeover. The Soviets engaged non-Russian peoples in Central Asia, like Magaza Masanchi, commander of the Dungan Cavalry Regiment, to fight against the Basmachis. The Communist Party did not completely dismantle this group until 1934.
Gen. Anatoly Pepelyayev continued armed resistance in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with the Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.
The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated the total number of men killed in action in the Civil War and Polish–Soviet War as 300,000 (125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles) and the total number of military personnel dead from disease (on both sides) as 450,000.
During the Red Terror the Cheka carried out at least 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people" with estimates reaching above a million.
Some 300,000–500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during decossackization, out of a population of around three million. An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine, mostly by the White Army. Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919. Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone. "White terror" has killed about 300,000 people in total.
At the end of the Civil War the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the 1921 famine, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. By 1922 there were at least 7,000,000 street children in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from the Great War and the civil war.
Another one to two million people, known as the White émigrés, fled Russia, many with Gen. Wrangel—some through the Far East, others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. These émigrés included a large percentage of the educated and skilled population of Russia.
The Russian economy was devastated by the war, with factories and bridges destroyed, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded and machines damaged. The industrial production value descended to one-seventh of the value of 1913 and agriculture to one-third. According to Pravda, "The workers of the towns and some of the villages choke in the throes of hunger. The railways barely crawl. The houses are crumbling. The towns are full of refuse. Epidemics spread and death strikes—industry is ruined." It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20% of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5%, and iron to 2%, of pre-war levels.
War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921 cultivated land had shrunk to 62% of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37% of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920 and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate with the US dollar declined from two rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.
With the end of the war the Communist Party no longer faced an acute military threat to its existence and power. However, the perceived threat of another intervention, combined with the failure of socialist revolutions in other countries—most notably the German Revolution—contributed to the continued militarization of Soviet society. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar on Russian society and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union.
British historian Orlando Figes has contended that the root of the Whites' defeat was their inability to dispel the popular image that they were dually associated with Tsarist Russia and supportive of a Tsarist restoration. | <urn:uuid:8bc58eca-3123-4c22-bc68-5baa74410595> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://alchetron.com/Russian-Civil-War | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585204.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20211018155442-20211018185442-00138.warc.gz | en | 0.971782 | 9,227 | 2.875 | 3 | {
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Fancy yourself as a bit of a quiz-master? Test your knowledge after taking a look at these 22 interesting facts about Georgia!
- Georgia is a beautifully mountainous country in Asia.
- Even though Georgia is geographically in Asia, it is actually right on the border between Asia and Europe and spans both continents, making it one of only 5 transcontinental countries in the world.
- It is bordered by Russia to the north and Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south. It also has a coastline along the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east.
- To explore the wonderful sights and rich history that Georgia has to offer, head for the coordinates of 41.7167° N, 44.7833° E.
- The terrain here is mostly mountainous, with lowlands and basins in the east.
Flag of Georgia
- The total land area of Georgia is 26,911 square miles (69,700 square kilometres)…
- ..that’s slightly smaller than Scotland.
- Georgia’s population was 10.62 million in 2019…
- …that’s about double the population of Scotland.
- Residents here are known as Georgians.
- The capital is Tbilisi; it covers an area of 135 square miles (350 square kilometres) and had a population of 1,147,000 in 2015.
- The climate in Georgia varies throughout the country and is dependent on altitude, although for the most part Georgians enjoy hot summers and mild winters. Perfect!
- Veronya Cave (also known as Krubera Cave) in Georgia is the deepest cave in the world at an incredible 7,208 feet deep!
- Human remains have been found in Georgia that date back 1.8 million years!
Trinity Gergeti Church, Kazbegi, Georgia
- The official language of Georgia is rather unsurprisingly… Georgian!
- Fancy a bottle or two of Georgian wine? You’ll need to exchange your GBP for Georgian Lari, the official currency here.
- Georgians live for an average of 76 years.
- Georgia gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.
- The oldest known fibres used by humans were discovered in Georgia and date back more than 34,000 years!
- Georgia grows tea, grapes, citrus fruit and hazelnuts; they also rear livestock and produce wine.
- Its industry consists of steel, machine tools, aircraft, mining and electrical appliances.
- The main exports consist of machinery, chemicals, scrap metal, citrus fruits, tea and fuel re-exports.
Do you know any interesting facts about Georgia? Share them with us in the comments section below! | <urn:uuid:2443a023-3846-460e-a985-819cfdf0e65f> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://facts.uk/22-golden-facts-about-georgia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655887360.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20200705121829-20200705151829-00088.warc.gz | en | 0.936166 | 561 | 2.75 | 3 | {
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Exploring Psychology and Christian Faith
An Introductory Guide
Where to Purchase
course help for professors & study aids for students
Introductory psychology courses can raise significant questions about the nature of being human. Christianity, with its emphasis on humans made in the image of God, has a clear perspective. Psychology offers answers too, but they are often subtly implied.
Drawn from more than fifty years of classroom experience, this introductory guide provides students with a coherent framework for considering psychology from a Christian perspective. The authors explore biblical themes of human nature in relation to all major areas of psychology, showing how a Christian understanding of humans can inform the study of psychology. Brief, accessible chapters correspond to standard introductory psychology textbooks, making this an excellent supplemental text. End-of-chapter questions are included. A test bank for professors is available through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources.
Five Themes of a Biblical View of Human Nature
Introduction: Why Did I Do That?
1. Who Am I? Themes of Human Nature
2. Test Time! Research Methodology
3. "Bodies Revealed": Brain and Behavior 1
4. The Ghost in the Machine: Brain and Behavior 2
5. Who Is in Control: Consciousness
6. Making Sense of Your Surroundings: Sensation, Perception, and Attention
7. Change from the Heart: Learning
8. Remember Me? Memory
9. Think about It! Thinking--Decision Making and Reasoning
10. Moving toward a Goal: Developmental Psychology
11. Trust Your Feelings! Emotion
12. We're in This Together! Social Psychology 1
13. Faithful Attitude and Action: Social Psychology 2
14. The Real You! Personality
15. In Search of Normality: Psychological Disorders
16. "Meaningful" Healing: Therapy
"Two accomplished teacher-scholars--neuropsychologist Paul Moes and experimental psychologist Donald Tellinghuisen--take us on a fascinating tour of intersecting big ideas from psychological science and biblical faith. By drawing on both perspectives they deepen our understanding of the 'fearfully and wonderfully made' human creature."
David G. Myers, author of Psychology and coauthor (with Malcolm Jeeves) of Psychology through the Eyes of Faith
"Aimed primarily at Christian students taking college courses in psychology, this book is written in such a way that general readers will also benefit from its insights into Christian discipleship. It is well informed, up to date, and wide ranging, and the authors make a sustained effort not to sweep difficult issues under the carpet or to attain premature closure on topics still under debate. The excellent use of cameos enables the reader to grasp the relevance of developments in psychology in real life situations and to better understand how these developments relate to Christian perspectives on the same situations."
Malcolm Jeeves, emeritus professor of psychology, St. Andrews University; former editor in chief, Neuropsychologia
"This solid overview of psychology from a Christian perspective uses five themes to explore a biblical view of human nature: relational persons; broken, in need of redemption; embodied; responsible limited agents; and meaning seekers. It will be a helpful supplementary text to use in introductory courses."
Siang-Yang Tan, professor of psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective
"At long last, a fresh new voice on psychology from a Christian perspective. Moes and Tellinghuisen clearly write from a wealth of experience guiding undergraduates in their initial encounter with psychological studies. They connect concepts with lived experience and questions of identity and purpose in a manner that is relational and accessible. I am eager to use this book with my own students. While I do not necessarily share all of the authors' conclusions and claims, the book is an invitation to a conversation and as such models the sort of thoughtful, challenging, respectful dialogue with which we hope students will become skilled."
Heather Looy, professor of psychology, The King's University College
"Paul Moes and Donald J. Tellinghuisen have created a really good read for those interested in exploring the ways that Christian faith and psychology go together. Exploring Psychology and Christian Faith works as both a supplementary text in the classroom and a good general read for anyone interested in a Christian view of human nature through the lens of psychology. This is an integrated, organic approach that helps readers understand their Christianity and their psychology better. Well done!"
Everett L. Worthington Jr., author of Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free from the Past
"An introductory guide for students and laypeople alike."
CBA Retailers + Resources
- Excerpt Download PDF | <urn:uuid:36f9819c-5ff2-4647-b8c4-12f31d1c9849> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/exploring-psychology-and-christian-faith/347180 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802770860.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075250-00052-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88012 | 969 | 2.8125 | 3 | {
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} | Religion |
On December 1, 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon - the agreement reforming European Union institutions - was ratified, making the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (ECFR), a document that lays out the entire range of civil, political, economic and social rights of EU citizens and residents, legally binding. Europe's diverse citizenry is now - thankfully - better protected legally against discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
But Lisbon is no panacea to Europe's current identity crisis. Europeans must also learn to live together.
A recent EU-wide survey revealed disturbing findings in the level of discrimination that minorities face in their everyday lives. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released the results of a Gallup poll that surveyed over 23,000 EU citizens from ethnic minority and immigrant groups about their experiences with discrimination across nine areas of their everyday lives: seeking employment and housing, medical care, social services, education, shopping, and opening a bank account or obtaining a loan.
The results were alarming: 11 percent of the respondents of North African origin reported experiencing ethnicity-based discrimination in the past 12 months when simply entering a shop, while another 19 percent felt they were stopped by the police because of their ethnicity. Seventeen percent of Roma surveyed indicated that healthcare personnel had discriminated against them, and almost a quarter of Sub-Saharan Africans felt they were discriminated against at least once when applying for a job.
Given these figures, one can easily imagine the potential for discrimination against a person with a multiple minority makeup. It begs the question: Does a dark-skinned Muslim woman, for instance, have any place in today's Europe?
Moreover, the survey indicated that about 46 percent of respondents were unaware of their rights with regard to discrimination in shops, restaurants, bars or nightclubs; while 63 percent had never heard of "equality bodies," public institutions that receive complaints of discrimination in their respective countries. The overwhelming majority of respondents were unaware of any organization offering support and advice for minorities dealing with discrimination. Finally, 82 percent of those who felt they were discriminated against did not report their most recent experience to an authority or an organization.
These statistics reveal serious challenges. First, they draw attention to a severe lack of awareness of civil rights and of society's responsibility toward minorities. Minority groups, as much as service providers (including hospitals, schools, police, employers, landlords and business owners), must be fully aware of the provisions of the ECFR and of the related regulatory bodies. The FRA, individual EU member states, the Council of Europe - an inter-governmental organization working toward European integration - and European civil society can play a key role in sensitizing targeted audiences - including journalists - about these legal aspects.
The next challenge, which reflects the contemporary identity crisis of citizens in Europe, is more acute. The Europe of the 21st century is indisputably diverse, yet the EU-wide survey demonstrated that many Europeans are not fully appreciative of diversity. The latest controversy over Switzerland's vote banning the construction of minarets, or the highly polarized and politicized debates over the meaning of national identity in France, are illustrations of this difficulty.
Is there a way out of this European identity crisis? The answer is yes. Efforts to resolve it should start with the education, media and entertainment industries - the arenas that shape people's attitudes and beliefs.
Mainstream political parties must also urge Europeans to invest in diversity-sensitive curricula for schoolchildren across Europe. Moreover, news teams' composition (including broadcasters, editors and producers) must better reflect the reality of ethnic and racial diversity in European society. Finally, the European entertainment industry should adopt a corporate social responsibility charter and produce films and television series that are not only entertaining and popular but which also transform attitudes and behaviors to foster tolerance among people.
Enforcing the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is a legal and moral responsibility not just for government authorities, the media and political groups, but also for all of European society. To help resolve this identity crisis, it must sustain efforts to cultivate coexistence within the European Union.
Abou El Mahassine Fassi-Fihri is based in Brussels Europe and writes for Common Ground.
I don't find any Hindus reporting any material problems of intolerance? Small problems are expected in any society. Why it is always muslims who are having serious problems?
Create troubles. What do you expect? Love and Flowers? | <urn:uuid:bff9b223-b93a-49ee-8e76-0df0388e92d0> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.islamicity.org/3720/poll-suggests-rising-intolerance-in-european/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511053.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003024646-20231003054646-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.957202 | 903 | 2.96875 | 3 | {
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} | Politics |
Thirty-five years ago, in April of 1983, Ronald Reagan appeared before the press to publicize a government report warning of “a rising tide of mediocrity” that had begun to erode America’s education system. Were such conditions imposed by an unfriendly foreign power, the authors declared, “we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
Despite its grave tone, the report, titled “A Nation at Risk,” had little direct impact on policy. It did, however, establish a new way of talking about public education in the United States, a master narrative that has endured—and even subtly changed American education policy for the worse—over the past several decades.
Across that stretch of time, politicians and policy makers have spoken often of the inadequacy of “America’s schools.” In fact, this trope is one of the few things that Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s regulation-averse secretary of education, has in common with her predecessors; she and previous education secretaries have regularly discussed the nation’s schools as a cohesive whole. This phrasing is useful shorthand for a national official, but it obscures the fact that the United States does not actually have a national education system. Many countries do. In France, for example, a centralized ministry of education governs schools directly. But in the U.S., all 50 states maintain authority over public education. And across those 50 states, roughly 13,000 districts shape much, possibly even most, of what happens in local schools.
The abstraction of “America’s schools” may be convenient for rousing the collective conscience, but it is not particularly useful for the purpose of understanding (or improving) American education. Consider the issue of funding. On average, federal money accounts for less than 10 percent of education budgets across the country, and the rest of the financial responsibility falls to states and local schools. If local schools are unable to raise what they need, the state is usually well positioned to make up the difference, but states differ dramatically in their approaches. On average, states spend roughly $13,000 per student on public education—but looking at the average alone is misleading. Only about half of states spend anything close to that figure: A dozen spend 25 percent more than the national average, and 10 states spend 25 percent less. The result is significant disparities, and some striking incongruities. New York’s schools, for instance, spend roughly three times as much per student as Utah’s schools—a huge difference, even after accounting for New York’s higher cost of living.
Additionally, some states do much more than others to ensure that each district is properly funded. Local property taxes help fund schools nationwide, but in some places, like Massachusetts, the state steps in to provide additional resources for lower-income areas. In other places, like Illinois, property taxes are simply the primary sources of school funding, which means less money for poor districts than for wealthy ones.
Though states often take similar approaches on curricula and teacher licensure, they tend to differ considerably in policy and practice. Things like early-childhood education, charter-school regulation, sex education, arts programs, teacher pay, and teacher evaluation are anything but uniform across the 50 states. To say that America’s schools are failing students on any of these issues would be a gross generalization—it would obscure all the national variety, like the fact that in Massachusetts, charter schools are tightly regulated, while in Arizona, they’re hardly regulated at all.
It’s longstanding American practice for cities and towns to have a significant amount of power over education. But local control also persists because of the importance of context. What schools need in order to succeed depends significantly on the needs and concerns of the local community, and policy tends to reflect that. Teacher hiring, for instance, is usually done at the local level, and is often shaped only indirectly by state policy. As a result, the process looks quite different from place to place depending on the approaches districts take to recruiting teachers, screening applicants, and making job offers. Further, while curriculum standards are shaped by states, districts determine what they actually look like and which books students carry around.
Districts also decide how to structure “attendance zones,” which determine where students enroll. As with congressional districts, a lot rides on how a district chooses to draw these boundaries, with gerrymandering exacerbating demographic differences between neighborhoods and towns. Many districts, however, allow families to attend any school within the district—a policy that can promote integration if coupled with mechanisms for promoting school diversity. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for instance, the district uses a “controlled choice” system designed to maintain a balanced mix of students at all schools; in essence, parents can choose any school in the district, with enrollment preferences given to families who help bring the school’s demographics closer in line with the city’s.
Public schools in the United States differ so much from state to state and from district to district that it hardly makes sense to talk about “America’s schools.” In fact, a focus on large-scale national reform can actually do harm, insofar as it must emphasize generic one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore state- and local-level needs. The nationwide push to evaluate teachers using student standardized test scores is a classic example. Strongly backed by former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, so-called “value added” models of assessing teachers were adopted across the nation despite the concerns of education scholars. Worse, the models have undermined trust in the process of teacher evaluation and driven some successful educators out of the profession.
This is not to say that taking the national perspective can’t be valuable. Troubling patterns do exist across the U.S., and discussions about them can play an important role in shaping both public understanding and education policy. Achievement gaps across race and class, for instance, are an important reminder of broader social and economic inequalities, and advocates have used evidence about those patterns to make the case for universal early-childhood education. Similarly, a national dialogue about the disproportionate punishment of black and brown children in schools has drawn attention to an issue that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. These kinds of broad conversations can generate both political will and policy responses.
But more-abstract national-reform rhetoric has little to redeem it. In a system that affords significant authority to schools, districts, and states, it is ill suited for identifying the actual strengths and weaknesses of schools. And when used to drive policy, such rhetoric can generate support for policies that are at best distracting and at worst detrimental. One major example of this is No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the piece of Bush-era legislation that pushed schools to improve students’ standardized test scores each year. But because the federal government has limited power over schools, it offered little other than punishments, such as staff reassignments or school closures, to induce those gains. States and school districts focused their energies on avoiding such punishments, often ignoring critical issues like school culture and student engagement.
The authors of “A Nation at Risk” concluded their report with a simple claim: “Education should be at the top of the Nation’s agenda.” And in creating a new kind of school-reform rhetoric, they seem to have achieved their aim. The question is, has it done more harm than good?
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:d534177f-92ba-4975-8812-c9224d4d95db> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/07/americas-schools/564413/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146681.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20200227094720-20200227124720-00128.warc.gz | en | 0.961391 | 1,579 | 2.71875 | 3 | {
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Causal relationships are big on the LSAT. Failure to understand them causes problems. Causation comes up all over the place — in reading comp and in a bunch of logical reasoning questions. But causation is especially important in logical reasoning questions that ask you to strengthen or weaken arguments. A high proportion of these questions involve causation somehow.
There are two main forms of causal arguments on the LSAT. The first kind jumps from correlation to causation. For example:
A long-term study found that people who take aspirin every morning are significantly more likely to get liver disease than are those who don’t. We can therefore conclude that aspirin is bad for your liver.
The premise tells us that two things go together: aspirin and liver disease. The conclusion is that one causes the other: aspirin is the reason for the liver disease. Now, that could be true, but as any snarky Internet commenter can tell you, correlation does not imply causation. There are other explanations of the evidence. More on that later.
The other form of causal argument can be a little trickier to spot, since this form is often presented without any explicit causal language. Here’s an example:
The new restaurant on Main St, Frank’s Feed Trough, is packed every night. We can conclude that the food must be excellent.
Is that even causal? It is. Here’s why. The premise identifies a phenomenon: the restaurant is packed. The conclusion then speculates on a cause for that phenomenon: since the restaurant is packed, the thinking goes, it must be because the food is good. That’s subtle, but spotting that kind of causal argument makes a lot of questions oh so much easier.
In both of these arguments, the premises don’t prove the conclusion. That makes these arguments invalid, or flawed. Almost all causal arguments are; it’s hard to prove causation. In both cases, there are plausible alternate causes.
Let’s go back to the first argument. Why might one take aspirin every morning? Maybe because one is hung over. If that’s the case, it’s more likely that the alcohol than the aspirin is to blame for the liver problems.
In the second argument, a number of factors might account for the restaurant’s popularity. Maybe the portions are huge for the price. Maybe the town’s unsophisticated diners are attracted by the restaurant’s novelty theme (they serve the food in actual troughs). Maybe the restaurant has drink specials that rope people in.
These alternate causes are key to weakening or strengthening a causal argument. What if I told you that people who take aspirin regularly are more likely to be regular drinkers? That would weaken the argument in the first example. Drinking is a plausible alternate cause for the liver disease.
I can already hear the smart-ass among you saying, “but how do we know that drinking causes liver problems? Isn’t that outside knowledge?” Good question. Here’s a question back to you: How do we know aspirin is bad for your liver? We don’t. An alternate cause doesn’t have to be a better possible cause. It just has to be plausible. The argument told us that aspirin correlates with liver problems. Now we know that drinking correlates, too. Is it the aspirin? The drinking? Something else? We don’t know. Having another plausible cause in the room is enough to weaken the argument.
Just as presenting an alternate cause weakens the argument, eliminating an alternate cause strengthens the argument. For the second example, suppose I told you that Frank’s Feed Trough doesn’t offer especially good value for your money. Good value for money would be another potential explanation for the restaurant’s popularity. Therefore, ruling it out strengthens the argument, at least a little. It doesn’t come close to proving that the food is good, but it’s better than nothing.
The other way to weaken or strengthen a causal argument is by presenting new evidence. That evidence can weaken the argument if it shows the purported cause without the purported effect, or the effect without the cause. You can strengthen the argument by showing the same cause with the same effect or the absence of the cause with the absence of the effect.
But be careful. The strength of evidence that’s needed to weaken or strengthen a causal argument depends in part on the strength of the evidence you already have: the premises. Suppose I told you that many regular aspirin takers never develop liver problems. It would be tempting to think that this information would weaken the first example (cause without effect) but it wouldn’t. We already know that there’s a correlation between aspirin taking and liver disease. A bunch of people who take aspirin but have healthy livers doesn’t change the fact that there’s a correlation. It would take a new correlation to weaken or strengthen the argument — say, perhaps, a clinical trial in which people are asked to start taking aspirin without changing other things in their life.
Since the second example only has evidence about one restaurant, the burden the answer needs to meet is a bit lower. I could weaken the argument by pointing out, for example, that the restaurant with the best food in town isn’t very popular. That’s cause without effect. I could strengthen the argument by saying that their surge in popularity followed a change in the chef without changing other things. That says that without the current food (no cause) there wasn’t this crazy popularity (no effect).
All in all, be careful to practice cause and effect. Spotting cause and effect leads to success on the LSAT. Success on the LSAT predisposes you to a fruitful time in law school, which in turn brings about career success. | <urn:uuid:8d1aca40-c7a6-4eab-916d-b0e0f2add62a> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://blueprintlsat.com/lsatblog/lsat/understanding-causal-relationships-results-in-a-better-lsat-score/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886112682.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170822201124-20170822221124-00163.warc.gz | en | 0.934076 | 1,213 | 2.796875 | 3 | {
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Truck mounted short-range rocket artillery systems used by the Eurusian Army.
About this creation
In addition to the standard artillery, the Eurusian army also uses different rocket artillery systems. Shown here is the two most common rocket artillery systems; the FROG-8 short-range tactical ballistic missile and the BM-222 "Grad VII" multiple rocket launcher.
FROG-8 Tactical Ballistic Missile system
A blast from the past! The FROG-8 is the final version of the FROG family of unguided, spin-stabilized, short-range artillery rockets. The name “FROG” comes from then NATO designation of Free-Rocket-Over-Ground. The FROG-8 missiles are often mounted on the back of an Ural 4330 army truck. The FROG-8 has a range up to 70km and a CEP (circular error probable) between 500m and 700m. The road mobile rocket has a 530 kg warhead and is capable of delivering high explosive, nuclear, or chemical warheads. First introduced in 1986, the FROG-8 was extensively deployed throughout the many Soviet satellite states. The rocket has been widely exported and is now in the possession of a large number of countries.
Specification for FROG-8:
Length: 25 feet
Diameter: 1.8 feet
Weight: 2.5-2.8 tons
Range: 70,000 meters
Warhead: high explosive, chemical, nuclear-capable
Status: In service
The FROG-8 TBM.
Side view of the missile.
The crew is preparing the FROG-8 for launch.
BM-222 Multiple rocket launcher "Grad VII"
The BM-222 122mm multiple rocket launcher (MRL) system entered service with the Russian Army in 1998. The system is known as the "Grad VII". (Russian for hail) The Grad VII consists of an Ural-4320 six-by-six truck chassis fitted with a bank of sixteen launch tubes in two quadrant shaped arrays. In 2007, the BM-212 was mounted on the newer Ural-4330 six-by-six army truck.
The crew of three men can emplace the system and have it ready to fire in three minutes. The crew can choose to fire the rockets from the cab or from a remote initiating device at the end of a long cable. All sixteen rockets can be away in as little as ten seconds, but can also be fired individually or in small groups in several second intervals should the situation necessitate such fire. Sighting is done by the new ASC-20T GPS assisted telescope. The BM-222 can be packed up and ready to move in two minutes, which can be necessary when engaged by counter battery fire. Reloading is done manually and takes about five minutes.
The rockets are stored in four large tubes, each containing four rockets. Each 2.87 meter long, 122mm rocket is slowly spun by rifling in its tube as it exits, which along with its primary fin stabilization keeps it on course. Rockets armed with HE-Frag, incendiary, or chemical warheads can be fired out to a range of twenty kilometers. Newer HE and cargo (used to deliver AP or AT mines) rockets have a range of thirty kilometers. Warheads weigh around twenty kilograms depending on the type.
The relatively good accuracy of this system and the number of rockets each vehicle is able to quickly bring to bear on an enemy target make it a very effective system especially at shorter ranges. One battalion of eighteen launchers is able to deliver 288 rockets in a single volley. Despite GPS assisted aiming, the system is not the best choice when pinpoint accuracy is required.
Status: In service
orward shot of the BM-222 in standby position.
The BM-222 "Grad VII" Multiple rocket system.
The BM-222's crew has deployed the artillery. This can be done in three minutes.
Ready to launch.
The BM-222 can unleash a hailstorm of rockets in a matter of seconds.
I know i review your stuff far too often, but in my opinion your the best builder on MOCpages, I checked out your Flickr your new stuff is awesome!, Really sorry you left MOCpages, anyway an awesome build as always...
The scale's a bit small, but it's highly detailed (as with a lot of your stuff). I like how functional everthing is, something that seems to be ignored by the majority of builders. Nice job! -- -- Michael | <urn:uuid:50dacd0e-3914-4a94-8ea0-0a355f024ba2> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/38583 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084891750.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20180123052242-20180123072242-00731.warc.gz | en | 0.933226 | 937 | 2.640625 | 3 | {
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} | Science & Tech. |
|Genera and Subtribes|
The tribe Bovini, or wild cattle are medium to massive bovines that are native to North America, Eurasia, and Africa. These include the enigmatic, antelope-like saola, the African and Asiatic buffalos, and a clade that consists of bison and the wild cattle of the genus Bos. Not only are they the largest members of the subfamily Bovinae, they are the largest species of their family Bovidae. The largest species are the gaur (Bos gaurus) and wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee), both weighing between 700 and 1,200 kilograms. In addition to their massive size, they can be differentiated from other bovines and bovids with their short, thick legs and smooth horns presented in both sexes.
Bovins and humans have had a long and complex relationship. Five of seven species have been successfully domesticated, with one species (cattle) being the most successful member of their lineage. Domesticated shortly after the last Ice Age, there are at least 1.4 billion cattle in the world. Domestic bovins have been selectively bred for beef, dairy products, leather and serve as working animals. However many species of wild cattle are threatened by extinction due to habitat loss to make room for cattle farming as well as unregulated hunting. Some are already extinct like the aurochs, two subspecies of European bison and perhaps the kouprey.
In 1821 British zoologist John Edward Gray described the family, subfamily and tribe Bovidae, Bovinae, and Bovini respectively. The word "Bovini" is the combination of the Latin prefix bos (written as bov-, which is Late Latin from bovinus) and the suffix -ini refers to their ranking as a tribe.
Placement within Bovinae
|Phylogenetic relationships of the Bovinae (Bibi et al., 2013)|
The wild cattle belong to the subfamily Bovinae, which also includes spiral-horned antelope of the tribe Tragelaphini and two aberrant species of Asian antelope, four-horned antelope and nilgai, which belong to the tribe Boselaphini. The relationship between the tribes varies in research concerning their phylogeny. Most molecular research supporting a Bovini and Tragelaphini subclade of Bovinae There are also some morphological support for this, most notably both groups have horn cores with a pedicle (the attachment point to the skull).
The fossil record
The earliest known members of wild cattle have originated from Asia south of the Himalayas during the Late Miocene. This is not only supported by the fossil record but also the fact that south Asia has the highest diversity of wild cattle on planet, as well as the fact the southeast Asian saola is the basal most of the living species. At some point after the divergence of the three subtribes around 13.7 million years ago, bovins migrated into Africa from Asia where they have diversified into many species. During the Pliocene epoch some bovins left Africa and entered Europe, where they have evolved into hardy, cold-adapted species. During the Ice Age ancestors of the bison had colonized North America from Eurasia over the Bering Land Bridge in two waves, the first being 135,000 to 195,000 years ago and the second being 21,000 to 45,000 years ago.
Below is the list of fossil species that have been described so far listed in alphabetical order that currently do not fit in any of the existing subtribes:
- Tribe Bovini (Gray, 1821)
- Genus †Alephis (Gromolard, 1980)
- †Alephis lyrix (Gromolard, 1980)
- †Alephis tigneresi (Michaux et al., 1991)
- †Eosyncerus (Vekua, 1972)
- †Eosyncerus ivericus (Vekua, 1972)
- Genus †Jamous (Geraads et al., 2008)
- †Jamous kolleensis (Geraads et al., 2008)
- †Probison (Sahni & Khan, 1968)
- †Probison dehmi (Sahni & Khan, 1968)
- †Simatherium (Dietrich, 1941)
- †Simatherium kohllarseni (Dietrich, 1941)
- †Simatherium shungurense (Geraads, 1995)
- †Udabnocerus (Burchak-Abramovich & Gabashvili, 1969)
- †Udabnocerus georgicus (Burchak-Abramovich & Gabashvili, 1969)
- Genus †Alephis (Gromolard, 1980)
|Phylogenetic relationships of the tribe Bovini (Hassanin et al., 2013)|
Majority of phylogenetic work based on ribosomal DNA, chromosomal analysis, autosomal introns and mitochondrial DNA has recovered three distinctive subtribes of Bovini: Pseudorygina (represent solely by the saola), Bubalina (represented today by the genera Syncerus and Bubalus), and Bovina (represented today by the genera Bison and Bos). According to the fossil record and the molecular work, Bubalina and Bovina have diverged from one and another from a common ancestor around 13.7 million years ago in the Late Miocene.
The number of taxa and their evolutionary relationships with each other has been debated, mainly as there is several evidence of ancient hybridization events that occurred among the various species of wild cattle, obstructing any evidence of their relationships.
Below is the taxonomy of extant genera that are classified as members of the tribe Bovini (more information regarding the species taxonomy is explained more in-depth in their respective subtribe articles):
- Tribe Bovini (Gray, 1821)
- Subtribe Pseudorygina (Hassanin & Douzery, 1999)
- Subtribe Bubalina (Rütimeyer, 1865)
- Subtribe Bovina (Gray, 1821)
Wild cattle are usually massive bovids that are stout-bodied with thick, short legs. Some species can reach impressive body-sizes such as wild water buffalo and gaur which can weigh between 700 and 1,200 kilograms. The latter species can reach a shoulder height at 2 meters. There even some breeds of domestic cattle that can be even larger than both wild species, one of them being the Chianina which can the bulls can weigh from 1,200 to 1,500 kilograms and reach a similar height to the gaur. There are, however, several species of buffalo that live on the various islands in Indonesia are dwarf species, such as the tamaraw and the anoa, that weigh between 200 and 300 kilograms. Furthermore, not all species of bovin look like cattle, such as the saola which looks more like antelope (a fact that caused some confusion among bovid biologists). What all bovins or wild cattle do have in common is both sexes have the presents of smooth horns, instead of annulated horns seen in most other bovids. In bovinans the horns are round, while in bubalinans they are flattened. Like the spiral-horned antelopes there is extreme sexual dimorphism in bovins, though it is emphasis on the body size and the size of the horns. Males are significantly larger than the females, which most of their features are exaggerated with massive humps, large necks, and in some species the presence of a dewlap. Males and females exhibit sexual monochromatism (with the exception of the banteng, where males are a dark chestnut while females are just chestnut), though the male coloration hues are darker than the females. Coloration can be uniform or with some white markings, from black to brown.
Distribution and ecology
The wild species of bovins are found in North America, Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa, though domesticated species or variants have a global cosmopolitan range with the help of humans. With the exception of the open-plains dwelling American bison and the montane-dwelling wild yak, all species of wild cattle inhabit wooded or forested areas with some clearings. The reason is because most species require a lot of roughage (often tall grass) in their diet and a lot of water to drink. In addition they are less efficient eaters than smaller herbivores, as they cannot selectively forage on relatively short grass due their stiff, immobile upperlips. They commonly wallow in mud and water in swamps, especially with water buffalo. Forest-dwelling live in deciduous and tropical forests. With their large body-size, wild cattle have few natural predators aside from humans. Still they are often prey to crocodiles, big cats, spotted hyenas, dholes, and wolves. It is often the young and the weak that are commonly selected by these predators.
Behavior and reproduction
Wild cattle are very social animals, which they accumulate into large herds, with some individual sizes that can go into the hundreds. Usually these herds consisted of females and their young, although in some species there are occasionally bachelor males among them. Generally the larger and more experienced males tend to be solitary, though in the breeding season mixed-herds occur. There is a strict hierarchy among males based on size dominance.
All species of bovin are polyandrous. During the rutting period males engage in ramming against each other in order to obtain the breeding rights for females as well as territory. The gestation period occurs once the female has been inseminated from the male successfully. In most species it lasts approximately nine to ten months. They only give birth to a single calf. Once the young are born, they won't wean until they are around six to 10 months depending on the species. Females of most species sexually mature by four years while for males it is seven years.
Genetics and hybridization
The chromosome number varies by species, and sometimes even by subspecies, which warrants further research for taxonomic purposes. The ancestral Y chromosome was probably a small acrocentric, but evolved into several distinct characteristics. The subtribe Bubalina have the acquisition of X-specific repetitive DNA sequence on their Y chromosomes; Bos has derivative metacentric Y chromosomes, and share the presence of shared derivative submetacentric X chromosomes with Bison. Below is a listing of the diploid number 2n of selected species as follows:
- Saola: 2n = 50
- Forest buffalo: 2n = 54
- Cape buffalo: 2n = 52
- Lowland anoa: 2n = 48
- Water buffalo: 2n = 48
- Gaur: 2n = 58
- Banteng: 2n = 60
- Yak: 2n = 60
- European bison: 2n = 60
- American bison: 2n = 60
- Cattle: 2n = 60
Bovin hybridization is most common in the subtribe Bovina, the most well known of these is the beefalo (a cross between cattle and American bison). Most of these hybrids are deliberate from humans wanting to improve the quality of various cattle breeds (in particular for beef production). All bovinan hybrids produce sterile males and fertile females following Haldane's rule. In addition for the agricultural purposes, bovin hybridization was used in the past to save several species such as the American bison in the past. This has caused problems for wild cattle conservation as hybrids pollute the genetic diversity of genetically-pure animals. Bovin hybridization was also a major factor behind the evolution of Bovini, as some species have evidence of ancient hybridization in their genome.
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- Soubrier, J.; Gower, G.; Chen, K.; Richards, S. M.; Llamas, B.; Mitchell, K. J.; Ho, S. Y. W.; Kosintsev, P.; Lee, M. S. Y.; Baryshnikov, G.; Bollongino, R.; Bover, P.; Burger, J.; Chivall, D.; Crégut-Bonnoure, E.; Decker, J. E.; Doronichev, V. B.; Douka, K.; Fordham, D. A.; Fontana, F.; Fritz, C.; Glimmerveen, J.; Golovanova, L. V.; Groves, C.; Guerreschi, A.; Haak, W.; Higham, T.; Hofman-Kamińska, E.; Immel, A.; Julien, M.-A.; Krause, J.; Krotova, O.; Langbein, F.; Larson, G.; Rohrlach, A.; Scheu, A.; Schnabel, R. D.; Taylor, J. F.; Tokarska, M.; Tosello, G.; van der Plicht, J.; van Loenen, A.; Vigne, J.-D.; Wooley, O.; Orlando, L.; Kowalczyk, R.; Shapiro, B.; Cooper, A. (18 October 2016). "Early cave art and ancient DNA record the origin of European bison". Nature Communications. 7 (13158): 13158. Bibcode:2016NatCo...713158S. doi:10.1038/ncomms13158. PMC 5071849. PMID 27754477. | <urn:uuid:05fc4495-976b-4ab9-a53b-2f247d3b4af4> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | http://wiki-offline.jakearchibald.com/wiki/Bovini | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514573533.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20190919142838-20190919164838-00080.warc.gz | en | 0.801624 | 5,194 | 3.75 | 4 | {
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The story “Sophie’s choice” is of a moral dilemma in which sepia Zawistowski, a Polish catholic immigrant, and a mother is forced to choose between on of hr two children. In the movie, Sophia arrives in Auschwitz with her son a ten year old boy and her daughter. They are just ten and seven years old respectively. However, doctor Mengele informs her that she has to choose between the daughter and her son as on has to be killed in order for the other to be allowed to live. Therefore, while adoring both her chider, she agonizes over this dilemma. However, because she is torn between the two, she delays till the soldiers arrives and forcefully tear the doughtier from her.
The movie tells a gripping story of symmetric dilemma in the concentration camp and the post Nazi world where both Auschwitz concentration camp and Brooklyn are no better alternatives. After Sophie had been forced to condemn her daughter to death and her son to the children’s campy, Sophia is seen sliding slowly into a dark abyss of love, hatred, jealousy, and final her suicidal tendencies are exposed when she finally takes cyanide with her lover Nathan Landau to commit suicide.
The film takes the moral dilemma as a case of evil and bad. The plot develop into a prohibition dilemma as she has to chose between one of her children, one of her lovers, or to interpret the document provided by the Gestapo or risk her life and that of the children. In the movie, the plots developed into an inherently guilty till her grave. Her moral emotions turn into glut and regret. How could she have lived with the thought of condemning her children? When she finally chose to give away her daughter to death in the hands of the soldiers, it became clear that both the remorse and guilt she experienced were actually called for. Her moral obligations can be considered symmetrical because both the children had equal chances of survival.
The power of life and death were practically in her hands. However, as a Jewish catholic, was she justified to give in to evil in order to save one child? As she continues to reconcile herself to the moral reactive attitude, it is the guilt and not the remorse that drives her to commit suicide. It is healthy to argue that Sophie made a very wrong choice not because of the situation at Auschwitz, but because she consented to the agents of evil, the captors. As a mother, she has a moral obligation to take care of her children. She could have sacrificed herself for the children to live. The moral permissibility of her choices makes her responsible for the death of either riff her children.
The symmetry of the dilemma only points at moral permissibility and responsibility. Therefore while she failed morally both by commission and minimizing, she practically had no moral luck to choose any of the children. The children were innocent, and she had not choice or chances at maximizing her options. Additionally, she could not maximize the rationality in her chokes. There was not room to determine the potential good or bad of any of her children. She wanes forced to make quick decision or lose both of them. Therefore, while the film treats Sophie’s case as a moral dilemma, Sophie’s case was complex in many levels and no amount of rationality could justify her choice. Given a chance to make such choices, it would be advisable for Sophie to either allow the army to take their pick or commit suicide to forego the guilt and remorse associated with any of the potential choices. In conclusion, Sophie made a very bad choice
Anderson, J. P. (1997), Sophie’s Choice. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 35: 439–450. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-6962.1997.tb00846.x | <urn:uuid:20f5f0d9-3e48-445d-a30c-0181a5d0b107> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://lastfreelance.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/sophies-choice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257649961.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20180324073738-20180324093738-00125.warc.gz | en | 0.976833 | 780 | 2.921875 | 3 | {
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Every time you PayPal someone, or send a Gmail, or log into Facebook, a layer of encryption protects the information that zips across the Internet. These sites all use HTTPS, an added layer of security to the standard HTTP protocol that facilitates web communication. But as a new Google report shows, an alarmingly small number of the web’s most-trafficked sites use this vital security protocol.
The Google audit shows that 79 of the web’s top 100 non-Google sites don’t deploy HTTPS by default, while 67 of those use either outdated encryption technology or offer none at all. The worst offenders include big names, like the New York Times and IMDB. (For what it’s worth, WIRED doesn’t currently offer HTTPS either. But we’re working on it.) That’s a big number, especially considering that these 100 sites combined comprise about 25 percent of all website traffic worldwide. It turns out that we’ve got a very vulnerable web.
“If you’re on HTTP, the entire URL and page content is visible to anyone on the network between you and that site. Every page you went to on that site. Any search terms. What articles you’re reading,” says Tim Willis, HTTPS Evangelist at Google. “If you’re on HTTPS, only the domain of the website is visible and not the page you’re looking at. Anyone on the network can still tell what website you went to, but it’s very difficult to determine what you did on that site.”
“HTTPS is the cornerstone of our online security and privacy, whether we are doing banking or sending family photos,” says Jérôme Segura, a security researcher at Malwarebytes. “Without encryption, our private information can be intercepted, manipulated, and stolen by attackers sitting on the same network.”
Anyone who uses the web on a regular basis—which is to say, nearly everyone—should find the lack of HTTPS frustrating, and perhaps even surprising.
Anyone who uses the web on a regular basis—which is to say, nearly everyone—should find the lack of HTTPS frustrating, and perhaps even surprising. It’s not, after all, the most complicated of security measures. It’s simply establishing a way for a client (your browser) and a server to know that each party is who it says it is. They establish this trust using an SSL (or, more recently, TLS) protocol, a cryptographic key that enables a digital “handshake” between them. The server coughs up a certificate that confirms its identity, and the encrypted data exchange can begin.
That might sound complicated, but it’s not nearly as tricky as it once was. “Several years ago there was a certain cost and effort to go through in order to get a site set up for HTTPS,” says Jérôme Segura, a security researcher at Malwarebytes. “These days the process is really simplified, and in fact many companies are providing free SSL certificates.”
Those companies range from CloudFlare, a global CDN which offers “one-click SSL,” and Let’s Encrypt, a project led by the Internet Security Research Group that offers SSL certificates to anyone who owns a domain. It’s also worth noting that, despite the examples above, full HTTPS protection is not limited to prestige or blue chip sites. Among those receiving full marks from Google are two porn purveyors: Bongacams and Chaturbate.
For smaller sites, HTTPS can be a relatively simple thing to embrace; if they don't implement it, it's largely because they simply don't care to. The more moving parts a site has, though, the trickier it gets.
"For large sites, it usually involves a non-trivial amount of engineering work, figuring out what changes you need to make and working with others," says Willis. "For example, do your ad networks support HTTPS? Does your content delivery network charge more for HTTPS? Is third-party content on your site offered over HTTPS? Answering these questions takes time and involves multiple rounds of 'test-break-fix' to get it right."
A convenient example is the media industry, a few big names of which populate Google's naughty list. These are sites that work with a wide variety of ad networks, often embedding content from a variety of sources. In order for HTTPS to work across the entirety of the New York Times, or CNN, or WIRED, all of those elements—many of them outside of a publisher's control—must also work with HTTPS. Meanwhile, the tech resources that news sites have aren't limitless, and many prioritize keeping up with the latest industry trends, like Facebook Instant Articles or Apple News, over something as relatively bland as security protocols.
Other types of sites face more specific challenges. You’ll notice that several of the 100 sites Google calls out, for instance, are based in China, a country that is known to actively work against encryption efforts.
Segura points out that HTTPS alone isn’t enough to guarantee security. Several sites may implement it on their homepage, he says, while failing to roll it out across all pages and services. You’re often only a few clicks away from being exposed. He also notes that HTTPS isn’t ironclad. It, too, can be exploited. Hackers have for years attempted to steal certificates that would allow them to impersonate trusted sites. Just last week, the first-ever OS X ransomware hitched a ride on an app that was signed with a valid developer certificate.
Then there are the pages that are compatible with HTTPS, but don’t have it turned on as default, which Willis considers nearly as ineffective as not having any HTTPS at all. “The difference is significant,” he says. “The only way for a user to get to the HTTPS version is for a user to go up into the address bar, see that the page is over HTTP, add the ‘s’ for HTTPS and reload the page. Unless that user is familiar with the risks of HTTP, that’s pretty unlikely to happen.”
The fact that HTTPS isn’t perfect, though, best serves as a reminder of just how dangerous the web is without it. It’s the difference between risking a crack in one’s armor and jousting nude.
For Google’s part, it’s not just going to provide regular updates on what parts of the web have HTTPS and which are wild lands. It’s also leading by example, having implemented HTTPS-only for Gmail years ago, and by achieving 75 percent HTTPS across all of its services. It’s also expressed a commitment to reaching 100 percent, though services like Blogger (where people can use a non-Google domain) pose unique challenges. In fact, Google faces some of the same challenges as media outlets.
“Today, online advertising involves multiple calls to various tech providers. Some of these providers have embraced HTTPS and others are still on legacy HTTP connections,” says Willis. “If we are a participant in other platforms’ ad auctions (i.e. Google is bidding in the ad auction, not running it), and they request info over HTTP, we have to respond over HTTP. We can only change this if the industry moves with us.”
Hopefully Google’s effort to raise awareness will prompt some of that movement, especially among the laggards with limited excuses to hurry up and HTTPS. They’re overdue.
"It’s easy for sites to convince themselves that HTTPS is not worth the hassle," says Willis. "But if you stick with HTTP, you may find that the set of features available to your website will decline over time." As just one example, Willis notes that the next version of Chrome will only allow its geolocation API to be used over HTTPS. Sites that haven't updated are out of luck, and their user experience will suffer.
Mostly, though, Willis and Segura agree, the security benefits alone should be motivation enough.
“The Internet we use today is not the same as it was 20 years ago,” says Segura. “There is an expectation and need for people to be able to securely go on about their daily lives without having to worry if the ever increasing amount of information they are sharing is going to fall in the wrong hands.” | <urn:uuid:ac2c1a48-99e8-44f5-af5c-8d42f37303e9> | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | https://www.wired.com/2016/03/https-adoption-google-report/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221210387.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20180815235729-20180816015729-00214.warc.gz | en | 0.942523 | 1,788 | 2.59375 | 3 | {
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1. [syn: last, last-place, lowest]
1. in the lowest position; nearest the ground;
- Example: "the branch with the big peaches on it hung lowest"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Low \Low\ (l[=o]), a. [Compar. Lower (l[=o]"[~e]r); superl.
Lowest.] [OE. low, louh, lah, Icel. l[=a]gr; akin to Sw.
l[*a]g, Dan. lav, D. laag, and E. lie. See Lie to be
1. Occupying an inferior position or place; not high or
elevated; depressed in comparison with something else; as,
low ground; a low flight.
2. Not rising to the usual height; as, a man of low stature;
a low fence.
3. Near the horizon; as, the sun is low at four o'clock in
winter, and six in summer.
4. Sunk to the farthest ebb of the tide; as, low tide.
5. Beneath the usual or remunerative rate or amount, or the
ordinary value; moderate; cheap; as, the low price of
corn; low wages.
6. Not loud; as, a low voice; a low sound.
7. (Mus.) Depressed in the scale of sounds; grave; as, a low
pitch; a low note.
8. (Phon.) Made, as a vowel, with a low position of part of
the tongue in relation to the palate; as, [a^] ([a^]m),
[add] ([add]ll). See Guide to Pronunciation, [sect][sect]
5, 10, 11.
9. Near, or not very distant from, the equator; as, in the
low northern latitudes.
10. Numerically small; as, a low number.
11. Wanting strength or animation; depressed; dejected; as,
low spirits; low in spirits.
12. Depressed in condition; humble in rank; as, men of low
condition; the lower classes.
Why but to keep ye low and ignorant ? --Milton.
13. Mean; vulgar; base; dishonorable; as, a person of low
mind; a low trick or stratagem.
14. Not elevated or sublime; not exalted in thought or
diction; as, a low comparison.
In comparison of these divine writers, the noblest
wits of the heathen world are low and dull.
15. Submissive; humble. "Low reverence." --Milton.
16. Deficient in vital energy; feeble; weak; as, a low pulse;
made low by sickness.
17. Moderate; not intense; not inflammatory; as, low heat; a
low temperature; a low fever.
18. Smaller than is reasonable or probable; as, a low
19. Not rich, high seasoned, or nourishing; plain; simple;
as, a low diet.
Note: Low is often used in the formation of compounds which
require no special explanation; as, low-arched,
low-browed, low-crowned, low-heeled, low-lying,
low-priced, low-roofed, low-toned, low-voiced, and the
Low Church. See High Church, under High.
Low Countries, the Netherlands.
Low German, Low Latin, etc. See under German, Latin,
Low life, humble life.
Low milling, a process of making flour from grain by a
single grinding and by siftings.
Low relief. See Bas-relief.
Low side window (Arch.), a peculiar form of window common
in medi[ae]val churches, and of uncertain use. Windows of
this sort are narrow, near the ground, and out of the line
of the windows, and in many different situations in the
Low spirits, despondency.
Low steam, steam having a low pressure.
Low steel, steel which contains only a small proportion of
carbon, and can not be hardened greatly by sudden cooling.
Low Sunday, the Sunday next after Easter; -- popularly so
Low tide, the farthest ebb of the tide; the tide at its
lowest point; low water.
(a) The lowest point of the ebb tide; a low stage of the
in a river, lake, etc.
(b) (Steam Boiler) The condition of an insufficient
quantity of water in the boiler.
Low water alarm or Low water indicator (Steam Boiler), a
contrivance of various forms attached to a boiler for
giving warning when the water is low.
Low water mark, that part of the shore to which the waters
recede when the tide is the lowest. --Bouvier.
Low wine, a liquor containing about 20 percent of alcohol,
produced by the first distillation of wash; the first run
of the still; -- often in the plural.
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
adv 1: in the lowest position; nearest the ground; "the branch
with the big peaches on it hung lowest"
adj 1: lowest in rank or importance; "last prize"; "in last
place" [syn: last, last-place, lowest]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
51 Moby Thesaurus words for "lowest":
bedrock, best, bottom, bottommost, cut, down, earlier, few,
giveaway, ground, half-price, homely, humble, humble-looking,
humble-visaged, humblest, inferior, inglorious, innocuous, least,
littlest, low, lower, lowermost, lowliest, lowly, marked down,
mean, minim, minimum, modest, nether, nethermost, plain, poor,
reduced, rock-bottom, sacrificial, shortest, simple, slashed,
slightest, small, smallest, subjacent, teachable, under, undermost,
undistinguished, unimportant, unpretentious | <urn:uuid:959a2ea3-3e21-43c2-beaa-87f89e401cf9> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | http://www.freedictionary.org/?Query=Lowest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662539131.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220521143241-20220521173241-00055.warc.gz | en | 0.758273 | 1,545 | 3.390625 | 3 | {
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Henry Gray (18251861). Anatomy of the Human Body. 1918.
the mesentery. This fold, in the majority of cases, is more or less triangular in shape, and as a rule extends along the entire length of the tube. Between its two layers and close to its free margin lies the appendicular artery (Fig. 1073). The canal of the vermiform process is small, extends throughout the whole length of the tube, and communicates with the cecum by an orifice which is placed below and behind the ileocecal opening. It is sometimes guarded by a semilunar valve formed by a fold of mucous membrane, but this is by no means constant.
Structure.The coats of the vermiform process are the same as those of the intestine: serous, muscular, submucous, and mucous. The serous coat forms a complete investment for the tube, except along the narrow line of attachment of its mesenteriole in its proximal two-thirds. The longitudinal muscular fibers do not form three bands as in the greater part of the large intestine, but invest the whole organ, except at one or two points where both the longitudinal and circular fibers are deficient so that the peritoneal and submucous coats are contiguous over small areas.
The circular muscle fibers form a much thicker layer than the longitudinal fibers, and are separated from them by a small amount of connective tissue. The submucous coat is well marked, and contains a large number of masses of lymphoid tissue which cause the mucous membrane to bulge into the lumen and so render the latter of small size and irregular shape. The mucous membrane is lined by columnar epithelium and resembles that of the rest of the large intestine, but the intestinal glands are fewer in number (Fig. 1074).
The Colic Valve (valvula coli; ileocecal valve) (Fig. 1075).The lower end of the ileum ends by opening into the medial and back part of the large intestine, at the point of junction of the cecum with the colon. The opening is guarded by a valve, consisting of two segments or lips, which project into the lumen of the large intestine. If the intestine has been inflated and dried, the lips are of a semilunar shape. The upper one, nearly horizontal in direction, is attached by its convex border to the line of junction of the ileum with the colon; the lower lip, which is longer and more concave, is attached to the line of junction of the ileum with the cecum. At the ends of the aperture the two segments of the valve coalesce, and are continued as narrow membranous ridges around the canal for a short distance, forming the frenula of the valve. The left or anterior end of the aperture is rounded; the right or posterior is narrow and pointed. In the fresh condition, or in specimens which have been hardened in situ, the lips project as thick cushion-like folds into the lumen of the large gut, while the opening between them may present the appearance of a slit or may be somewhat oval in shape. | <urn:uuid:5392bdea-23d1-44d4-91fc-b578f68091ec> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.bartleby.com/107/pages/page1179.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257823947.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071023-00281-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945706 | 665 | 3.25 | 3 | {
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A walk in the park is always a great outing with your dog especially if you have a well-behaved dog who respects you and the lead training you have done. You walk confidently along the path and nod happily at passersby. Then along comes another dog. The dogs will probably touch noses as you meet, and you should be able to greet the other walker and then move on. A pleasant greeting ritual. This is not your dog’s most favored greeting procedure. He would rather sniff the other dogs rear end and then make up his mind about the next steps forward. Dogs don’t generally like head-on introductions, they prefer to curve as they approach a strange dog. Curving means the dogs don’t approach each other head on and they feel less vulnerable in this manner of greeting. However, there are occasions when a face to face encounter happens and then noses will touch. Mothering instincts lead the bitch to greet puppies with a nose to nose greeting and as puppies are considered non-threatening in the animal kingdom this greeting is acceptable.
The Root of the Behavior
Dogs have highly sensitive noses and using their noses to sniff another dog has other implications. Dogs are known to touch noses and smell the oncoming dog to find out if the dog approaching them has been eating something that could be palatable. Scientists have experimented with this phenomenon and put dogs to the test about nose touching. This is a way of sniffing out the possibility of a bite to eat in the test arena. It was evident that dogs were able to know by touching noses and smelling the mouth area that there were, in fact, treats available. This behavior could be associated with the dog’s wild days when the alpha of the pack would bring home food from the hunt. Also, mothers weaning their pups would chew food and regurgitate the meal to make it easier for the pups to consume. Dogs can have two different signals to their nose touching greeting. The first is a happy, submissive greeting with an invitation to play via tail wagging and a play bow. On the other hand, a sharp nudge on the nose, almost like a bump, is a signal of dominance and the conversation could go in another direction.
It is important to always be aware of your dog’s other signals at the time of meeting another dog, especially if they are on a leash with you. You are the handler in this situation and if you are meeting a stranger for the first time it may be wise to walk on by before a conflict arises in the light of an uncomfortable greeting. Wolves in the wolf pack environment use nose touching to ask for forgiveness or resolve an argument. After an altercation, the subordinate wolf will go through a ritual of nose nudges and lip licking to keep the peace. It is vital for the pack security that the wolves keep their group peaceful. Dogs will also use their noses to signal to other dogs that they are either submissive or of the dominant disposition. How can you tell the difference? Dominant nose touching is more assertive, and the nudges are more frequent. They can be accompanied by path blocking and barking. Your dog is saying "I want to be boss here!"
Encouraging the Behavior
Whenever we witness a behavior from a dog that is close to our human concepts of emotion, we immediately relate positively to that behavior. When your dog touches nose with another dog and you see that was a feel-good experience, it is wonderful to recognize that and incorporate it into your canine communication. Nose nudges and cuddles with dogs are close to our own forms of expressing the love we have for one another. Even if your dog may have a hidden agenda, like nudging for a treat, it is still good to receive a sign of loving behavior from a four-legged, furry friend. If the nose nudge is for a different reason and you fear your dog is giving a negative signal, there is no harm in getting a second opinion to address the behavior.
Animals can’t talk and so body language is their form of communication. Watching two dogs meet and greet and then run off and play together is a wonderful experience and soon lifts our spirits. A sociable pet is always fun to have around. Encouraging sociable behavior is good on many different levels. Dogs are social animals and having them in our world makes for harmony and loving touches of canine communication. Understanding each other through the powerful sense of smell that they have is a key part of your dog’s communication with other dogs
Other Solutions and Considerations
It is remarkable how dogs can use their sense of smell not only to understand the environment but also to meet and greet their social counterparts. There is no handshake required or formal introduction, just a touch of a wet nose and dogs are reading all sorts of information into the greeting. Where have you been, who else did you meet, are you friendly or should I fear you, are all the questions that can be answered with the touch of a nose. Food could always be in the offing and that would make the ritual very sociable especially for nurturing moms and pups. The dog’s nose is like a beacon of light, a radar that can act in so many different situations to send all important signals to your dog and to you as well.
Dogs' noses are amazing and give your dog his wonderful sense of smell and ability to communicate. Dogs have wet kisses for furry friends and anyone wanting a pooch smooch. If you’d love a doggie kiss, purse your lips and push your nose forward, you won’t be disappointed. You don’t have to return the affection but gently stroking furry ears and a tasty treat will never go amiss.
By a Rhodesian Ridgeback lover Christina Wither
Published: 03/16/2018, edited: 01/30/2020 | <urn:uuid:791ec205-f012-4df0-ad90-9d0268dc709f> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://wagwalking.com/behavior/why-do-dogs-touch-noses-with-other-dogs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510219.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926175325-20230926205325-00122.warc.gz | en | 0.963611 | 1,211 | 2.8125 | 3 | {
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The settlement of the Pense district began in 1881, before the C.P.R. came through Saskatchewan. Settlement first followed the coulees and those areas where water was obtainable from wells. Lack of wood for fuel also influenced the settlement, causing the people to settle nearer the Qu'Appelle valley. It was not until after 1900 that the heavier land adjacent to Pense was settled. Thus the settlement of the district can be divided into two periods, those who homesteaded before 1900 experiencing all the hardships of the earlier days, and those who came toward the turn of the century, when their effects were shipped by rail to Pense.
The greater part of the land in the district is of the heavy clay type common to the Regina plains, changing gradually into a clay loam beyond a point two miles north of the village. Since that time the heavy land of this district has proven its worth and has come to be recognized throughout Canada as some of the best of all grain growing land. Very few districts in western Canada can boast of an average yield of grain similar to that with which we have blessed over the years. Previous to the time when the C.N.R. track was laid through the district, Pense was one of the largest shipping points of wheat in western Canada, the volume in one year reaching the million bushels, and several years approaching that amount.
Such a valuable natural resource could not help but play an important part in the development of the district. Good homes were built and the farmers took great pride in good buildings well filled with the best of horses. Some good herds of catle appeared in those parts of the district where water was no problem, and over the years the district has prospered.
THE NAMING OF PENSE
The following is a summary of a letter written by Mr. L.E. Weaver of Regina, which speaks for itself. Mr. Weaver was a boyhood friend of the King family kept up a friendly relationship with the Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King for many years.
The party that followed the laying of steel across the prairie during the construction of the main line of the C.P.R. in 1882, which "brought up" at Pense, was organized by the Canadian Press Association of the period. Mr. Pense, Editor of the Kingston Whig, the president of the organization, and Mr. John King, the father of the long time Prime Minister, the legal adviser of the body, were of the party. Others were: Mrs. King, Dr. Newell, Miss Phoebe Weaver, Thomas Hilliard, President of the Dominion Life.
The members of the party were feted for several days in Winnipeg, and hospitably entertained all along the route. At Qu'Appelle, they were met by a party of Mounted Police. They were present at the christening of Regina on August 23rd, 1882. That ceremony took place just west of Pasqua Street where headquarters of construction was located. Mr. Weaver states that his aunt, who was with the party, had her attention directed to a large heap of buffalo and deer bones and horns piled up close to the track. This story of the buffalo bones I am inclined to think was just some "window dressing" because at that period there had been no commercial gathering of buffalo bones.
The Press people were entertained in the tent used by the contractors for a horse stable and, although it had been cleaned up, the horse odors exceeded the savory scents of the meat served for dinner.
The ladies of the party were driven in a wagon to see a large heap of buffalo bones that were said to have been erected by the Indians who had stampeded a large herd of buffalo over a high bank of the Wascana Valley, at a place known as "The Old Crossing."
The party spent the night on the train and expected to return to Winnipeg the following morning. They could not expect to continue their westward journey, as the bridge across the Wascana was not completed. However, this work was finished during the night and the track extended some distance west of the present village of Grand Coulee, and consequently the party was carried to the end of steel. There the passengers were transferred to wagons and carried on to the present site of Pense, where the christening of the place was performed. Ties and rails were placed on the grade and the ladies of the party hammered at the spikes and a bottle of champagne was then poured on the ground. A French member of the party expressed disapproval at such a waste of good wine.
The place was named in honour of Mr. Pense, Editor of the Kingston Whig, doyen of the party. After the ceremony, the members of this expedition returned to the place where they had left the train near Grand Coulee, and continued East | <urn:uuid:02835921-af67-4051-b122-d37f58ea2d92> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://pense.ca/p/history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496901.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330085157-20200330115157-00135.warc.gz | en | 0.987653 | 1,001 | 3.125 | 3 | {
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This is part 2 of a 4 part series where we will cover each stage of implementing computer science in elementary school based on thousands of conversations with educators.
An iPad loaded with all of the latest and greatest coding apps can make you feel like a kid in a candy store: you want to sample everything before making a decision. Thousands of teachers started using Kodable as part of a “try it all and see what sticks” experimentation, are now implementing a computer science curriculum in their elementary schools. We have learned a lot from teachers about the experimental stage of computer science education and how it can lead to piloting one CS program school-wide and we’re excited to share our favorite tips!
What does the experimental stage look like?
- What is the experimental stage? The experimental stage comes after casual exposure to coding and programming education in the form of apps, games, or unplugged activities not necessarily aligned with any objectives. This stage is centered around exploration and experimenting with what will work, answering the question, “How can we implement this with more meaning?” Experimentation often takes the form of small-scaled structure around coding; usually after school coding clubs, lunch clubs, or coding in an after school setting.
- Who is involved? At the experimental stage, it’s often one teacher (usually the technology teacher), after school staff, or volunteers getting their feet wet with coding. Sometimes the administration is leading the charge, or has programming on their radar but not ready to fully implement a clear structure for the school yet. The experimental stage is monumental in laying the groundwork for a strong support system and eventual large-scale rollout.
- What resources are used? Teachers start with what’s free. Once it’s clear that a program has enough value to be purchased, schools find a way to get funding or include it in the budget. We almost always see teachers start with free content, trial periods, or free programs and once the benefits are clear the purchasing process begins. Closer to the pilot and implementation stages is when the financial investments for full computer science programs happen over apps and free trial lessons.
- What logistics are on the radar? During the experimental stage, the nitty gritty details aren’t quite hashed out but are important to be thinking about. Teachers are trying different things to find the best structure, where coding can fit into the schedule, and thinking about how to implement a fully structured program with meaning.
- Where do goals and learning objectives come into play? Goals are essential to rolling out any new academic program, and computer science is no different. Without objectives, there won’t be meaning or a way to measure student outcomes. At the experimental stage, goals are unclear but exploring various options helps teachers define their goals. Seeing different possibilities and potential allows teachers and administration to define clear goals and eventually dive deeper into one program that is aligned with desired student outcomes.
So, how do you decide on which program you want to pilot?
During the experimentation stage, a lot of the decision comes down to potential. From the little bit you’ve seen, is there potential for academic value? Are students engaged? Does the program offer useful tools that you will need as a teacher and school to fully implement (content,resources, training for teachers, opportunities to learn, ability to track student data, etc.)? Once you can think about all of the different options, you should be able to answer which will have the most benefit for students and teachers to set everyone forward on a path to computer science success.
Assess Academic Value
There’s a huge and important difference between playing and learning. It’s important to consider which apps are unstructured and leave room for students to play without learning. Learning for elementary students can and should happen through playing, but the play needs to be structured and grounded in logic. Choose an option that teaches and requires students to apply fundamental programming concepts. Noting which apps seem to be rooted in logic and content that is supported with pedagogy will really help you make your decision- and will likely help you secure funding to implement on a larger scale.
To move forward toward piloting a program, feasibility must be considered. Which program is one that provides proper resources, training, and professional development and permits staff to carry it out? Are there enough devices (iPads, Chromebooks, computers, etc.) for the programs you’re exploring or unplugged lessons to make it work? Can the staff commit to set up, training, and getting started? Answering these questions will help you see if there are any major roadblocks with the programs you’re exploring or minor bumps to iron out before piloting with one specific program.
Programming is a unique subject area as it lends itself to (and at times depends on) collaboration. Consider which option allows for students to work together, share their work, talk about what they’re doing, or explain programming logic. Which option allows for teachers to seamlessly work together? Is there a program you’ve seen that has potential for students and teachers to learn and collaborate with each other? A program that encourages students to work in isolation and doesn’t teach them the language they need to practice metacognition or outwardly piece together what they’re working on may not be the right path to go down.
As you get ready to move into the third stage of implementing computer science in elementary, piloting a CS program, you’ll need to really start thinking about your goals and what program aligns. Once you do that, you’re ready to run with it! We’ve seen some amazing teachers narrow in and roll out successful pilots, and we’re excited to share their stories with you in parts 3 and 4 of our blog series next week.
Have you been experimenting with a variety of computer science programs? We’d love to hear how you narrowed in on a program that works for you and your school- leave it in the comment section below!Experimentation: Step 2 to Implementing Computer Science in Elementary by Brie Gray | <urn:uuid:429d4a84-4ac9-4c81-81cd-aa1a9aa38b9c> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://blog.kodable.com/2016/06/10/experimentation-step-2-to-implementing-computer-science-in-elementary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232262311.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20190527085702-20190527111702-00281.warc.gz | en | 0.950077 | 1,263 | 3.1875 | 3 | {
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New research suggests that almost 600 under-16s take up smoking every day in the UK.
In London alone, the daily tally is 67 - more than two classrooms-full, the calculations indicate. National figures on smoking prevalence are available, but the researchers* wanted to estimate smoking uptake among children, to provide some baseline data to inform efforts for preventive measures, and focus attention and resources on what is "essentially a child protection issue."
This is because taking up smoking at a young age is an even greater risk to health than starting later in life, they say. Smoking at a young age affects lung development and boosts the risk of progressive lung disease (COPD).
And people who start smoking before the age of 15 run a higher risk of developing lung cancer than those who take up the habit later on, even if the cumulative number of cigarettes smoked is smaller, they add.
The researchers based their analysis on data taken from the 2011 'Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England' survey, which targets schoolchildren in England between the ages of 11 and 15 every year.
Questionnaires were completed by 6519 children in 219 schools. And by comparing the numbers of current smokers - regular and occasional - with smoking rates among the same age band surveyed the previous year, the researchers were able to estimate the numbers of new 11 to 15 year olds starting to smoke in 2010-11 in the UK.
To calculate the number of new child smokers for each locality, this estimate of 207,000 was then split across geographical areas according to population size and smoking prevalence among adults, on the assumption that there would be more child smokers where the proportion of adult smokers was high. Parental smoking is one of the strongest predictors of smoking among children.
The researchers then used population and adult smoking prevalence data for each of the four UK countries to calculate the number of new child smokers for each locality.
The analysis indicated that among the 3.7 million children aged between 11 and 15 in the UK, an estimated 463 start smoking every day in England, with the equivalent figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, 55, 30, and 19, respectively.
Of 74,000 children in this age group in Birmingham, nine take up smoking every day, while the daily tally in London is 67 out of 458,000 children in this age group.
The authors acknowledge that as their figures are calculated from survey data, they can only be approximate, but the fact that they are regional might be more helpful to healthcare professionals and regulators, they say.
Smoking rates among both adults and children are falling in the UK, but the figures are still high, so the pressure needs to be kept up to reduce smoking further, say the authors.
This means increasing taxation, curbing smuggling, and running well-funded anti-smoking media campaigns, as a well as banning smoking in cars and introducing plain packaging to reduce children's exposure to branding, they say.
"Smoking is among the largest causes of preventable deaths worldwide," they write. "The present data should help to raise awareness of childhood smoking and to focus attention on the need to address this important child protection issue," they conclude. | <urn:uuid:8275d79c-94de-41b2-bdec-71124b3cd307> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | http://www.medindia.net/news/shocking-stats-nearly-600-under-16s-take-up-smoking-every-day-in-the-uk-128724-1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891812880.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20180220050606-20180220070606-00403.warc.gz | en | 0.961593 | 651 | 3.28125 | 3 | {
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In argumentation, an objection is a reason arguing against a premise, argument, or conclusion. Definitions of objection vary in whether an objection is always an argument (or counterargument) or may include other moves such as questioning.
An objection can be issued against an argument retroactively from the point of reference of that argument. This form of objection – invented by the presocratic philosopher Parmenides – is commonly referred to as a retroactive refutation.
An inference objection is an objection to an argument based not on any of its stated premises, but rather on the relationship between a premise and main contention. For a given simple argument, if the assumption is made that its premises are correct, fault may be found in the progression from these to the conclusion of the argument. This can often take the form of an unstated co-premise, as in begging the question. In other words, it may be necessary to make an assumption in order to conclude anything from a set of true statements. This assumption must also be true in order that the conclusion follow logically from the initial statements.
In the example to the left, the objector can't find anything contentious in the stated premises of the argument supporting the conclusion that "There is no danger in NASA's Stardust Mission bringing material from the Wild 2 comet back to Earth", but still disagrees with the conclusion. The objection is therefore placed beside the main premise and exactly corresponds to an unstated or 'hidden' co-premise. This is demonstrated by the argument map to the right in which the full pattern of reasoning relating to the contention is set out.
|Look up refute in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
- Douglas Walton (2013). Methods of Argumentation. p. 59. ISBN 1107435196.
- Arnaud Chevallier (2016). Strategic Thinking in Complex Problem Solving. p. 93. ISBN 0190463910.
- Bollack, J. (1990). “La cosmologie parménidéenne de Parménide,” in R. Brague and J.-F. Courtine (eds.), Herméneutique et ontologie: Mélanges en hommage à Pierre Aubenque. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. p. 17-53.
- "Doom in the sky? - 24 January 2004 - New Scientist". Retrieved Jul 24, 2020. | <urn:uuid:31d2808f-fd8d-41c8-8236-fd4e97336264> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objection_(argument) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320300849.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220118122602-20220118152602-00322.warc.gz | en | 0.857979 | 531 | 3.609375 | 4 | {
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Objective: To determine the viral aetiology of respiratory infections in children presenting to primary care with “more than a simple cold”.
Design: Observational study in 18 Oxfordshire general practices over four winters (2000–01 to 2003–04).
Patients: 425 children aged 6 months to 12 years with cough and fever for whom general practitioners considered prescribing an antibiotic.
Methods: Nasopharyngeal aspirate obtained from 408 (96%) children was subjected to PCR for respiratory viruses. Parents completed an illness diary for the duration of illness.
Results: A viral cause of infection was detected in most (77%) children. Clinical symptoms correctly identified the infecting virus in 45% of cases. The duration of illness was short and the time course was very similar for all infecting viruses. One third of children were prescribed an antibiotic (34%), but this made no difference to the rate of parent-assessed recovery (Kruskal-Wallis, p = 0.67). About one in five children with influenza who did not receive an antibiotic had persistent fever on day 7 compared to no children receiving antibiotics (p = 0.02); this difference remained after adjustment for severity and other factors and was not seen with other viruses.
Conclusions: Most children receiving antibiotics for respiratory symptoms in general practice have an identifiable viral illness. In routine clinical practice, neither the specific infecting virus nor the use of antibiotics has a significant effect on the time course of illness. Antibiotics may reduce the duration of fever in children with influenza which could reflect an increased risk of secondary bacterial infection for such children.
- CARIFS, Canadian Acute Respiratory Illness and Flu Scale
- CART, classification and regression tree
- IQ, interquartile
- NPA, nasopharyngeal aspirate
- PCR, polymerase chain reaction
- respiratory infection
- primary care
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Published Online First 16 March 2007
Funding: The research was funded by the UK Medical Research Council as part of a programme grant in childhood infection in primary care (G0000340).
Competing interests: None declared.
Ethics: The study was approved by the Oxford Research Ethics Committee
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways. | <urn:uuid:452a392f-b683-4d74-80fd-f68ab73b020c> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://adc.bmj.com/content/92/7/594 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526931.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20190721061720-20190721083720-00067.warc.gz | en | 0.924183 | 513 | 3.09375 | 3 | {
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What is climate change?
Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) act like the outside covering of a greenhouse - trapping warmth from the sun and making life on Earth possible.
What's happened though is our increasing greenhouse gas emissions from things like transportation, industry, energy production, agriculture and deforestation are causing our planet to heat at a faster rate. Once this global warming affects our weather patterns and climate, it is referred to as climate change.
The following website has been produced by the Ministry for the Environment and explains climate change in detail.
Climate Change Office:
Climate change in Northland
Some of the predicted impacts of a moderate rate of climate change for Northland include:
- changes in average temperature
- sea level rise
- rainfall patterns
In general, Northland, like much of the north of New Zealand, is likely to become warmer and drier.
Maintaining farm productivity and profits in an uncertain climate – this presentaion was given by Dr Jim Salinger, climate scientist, Professor Caroline Saunders, Lincoln University, and Rod Oram, financial and business journalist and commentator, at a series of seminars in Whangarei, Dargaville, Kaikohe and Kaitaia on 14 and 15 July 2011.
Jim spoke on the latest information on climate variability and change and Rod outlined the work of Caroline’s team on what this means to agricultural trade, greenhouse emissions and what steps farmers can take to reduce emissions whilst improving their economic viability and business opportunities in a changing world. Rod further advanced the emissions trading scheme and climate change discussion and in particular the pressures being placed on trade now and during the 21st Century. As Rod emphasised, New Zealand stands to gain from both its low energy farming systems and from exporting skills and expertise its has and is developing in this field.
Download the presentation notes (pdf 2MB)
For further information on predicted impacts for our region, visit the Ministry for the Environment's website:
The challenge for landowners
Almost 50 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions are made up of methane and nitrous oxide, the two gases most closely associated with farming. For this reason the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) have a close interest in issues relating to climate change.
Their website addresses the challenges to landowners and has a specific section on the challenges for Māori landowners.
Visit the climate change page on the MPI website | <urn:uuid:98132c29-dc0e-4b6c-b5f9-8d46fdd43d51> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://www.nrc.govt.nz/Environment/Air/Issues/Climate-change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042990603.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002310-00230-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928633 | 504 | 3.640625 | 4 | {
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Dispelling Irish Stereotypes: Why Are All the Irish Red Heads?
Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 | By EMisiaszek
These Irish stereotypes, historically speaking, are so interesting, that we’re not even sure where to start. Irish stereotypes, just like in other cultures, tend to have a seed of truth to them. But we’re pretty certain, unlike the Irish drinking myths, we can actually dispel this one.
You see, red hair is the rarest hair color in the world. Do you hear me? Reds and Gingers, as those with red hair are sometimes called, are naturally very rare.
Only about 2% of folks in the U.S. have red hair and about 4 to 6% in England. As for Ireland, up to 10% of the population has red hair. Wow. (Oh, and their rivals in Scotland are estimated at 12 to 14%.)
So, when it comes to these Irish stereotypes, it’s not that all the Irish are Reds, it’s simply that there is a higher concentration of red haired people in Ireland. (Technically, the U.S. has the most red heads, counting in at six to eight million.) Interesting, right?
Further, the red hair gene (MC1R if you want to really geek out over red hair; it’s found on chromosome 16) is recessive. Therefore, two parents must each be carrying the recessive gene for a child to have red hair. It’s thought that up to 46% of Irish people carry the recessive gene associated with red hair.
MC1R wasn’t discovered until 1997, either, so tracing the actual detailed origin of these Irish stereotypes also proves difficult. You’re going to read reports that, for example, the Vikings brought the red head gene to Ireland.
This isn’t true. Most Vikings have dark or blonde hair. They also heavily settled in Sweden, where only 1% of the population has red hair. (In other words, if Vikings were responsible for red hair, the Swedish population would have a lot more Gingers.)
Most likely, it was the other way around. Vikings following Irish geese (a valuable food source) would often take Irish women as brides. As Irish stereotypes go, these women most likely possessed the recessive gene and passed it to their children, who would have made cute little red head Viking/Irish babies.
Also, don’t forget that when Viking names including the term ‘red’ in them, the word didn’t have to denote red hair. They could also be referring to red cheeks, a ruddy red complexion, or, grossly, blood. (Some Vikings liked to paint themselves red before going into battle so the blood from fighting wouldn’t show on their skin. Eww.)
Let’s geek out with a bit more red hair science, shall we? Those with red hair are often associated with “Irish” fair skin and freckles. This is thanks to lower concentrations of eumelalin, a compound related to melanin, throughout their bodies.
This lower amount of melanin has made a few lucky Irish more able to absorb the correct amounts of vitamin D (gained by the rest of us from sunlight) from areas with low levels of sun exposure. That sure would come in handy if a person lived in a place with Irish weather, wouldn’t it? | <urn:uuid:f835ecf2-025f-4602-a2c5-7d8b21a0f116> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.tenontours.com/genealogy/dispelling-irish-stereotypes-why-are-all-the-irish-red-heads/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164989606/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204134949-00077-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966529 | 724 | 2.625 | 3 | {
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The macabre truth of the correlation between money and happiness is that the two enjoy a direct correlation but up to a certain point beyond which social economists argue that individuals experience a diminishing utility. Individuals usually view amassing more wealth as the gateway to being happier. In their pursuit for happiness, they end up in a constant chase for more wealth. Psychologists says that this leads to the hedonic treadmill scenario. Whereby the chase for money becomes elusive. Once an individual has attained the wealth they had initially aspired to, they set out for more financial acquisitions resulting in an elusive cycle of seeking material satisfaction which really never ends (Ryan and Deci, 141166).
Using money as the yardstick of measuring our happiness levels leads us into chasing a moving target. We end up chasing money and since money is numbers and numbers never end, the chase never ends too. If ultimate satisfaction would be acquired by attaining maximum amount of wealth, then logic would dictate that more affluent persons would be generally happier than their poorer counterparts. However, various studies have shown that happiness index does not necessarily directly relate to wealth. Many affluent individuals are usually unhappy as the stress of acquiring more and protecting their already acquired wealth hits them. For instance, more wealth was acquired in America in the second half of the 20th century but this did not necessarily increase the levels of happiness.
More money means more happiness but only to some point. A poor person would generally equate money to happiness as they try to escape their poverty shackles. Once above the poverty line, other factors rather than money would be the main determinants for their happiness levels. Beyond the point of providing food, shelter and safety, increase in wealth does little to improve people well-being and happiness (Kasser, 47). Such things include quality time spent with close members of the family, good health, living a purposeful life-for instance giving back to the community through charitable ventures amongst others.
The correlation between money and happiness can also depend on the culture a person subscribes to. Individuals cultures differ in their identification of what really equates to happiness. In an empirical test between Taiwanese kids and American kids, this was sufficiently proven. The kids were shown two different smiley faces. An excited mouth wide open smiley face and a calm simple grin smiley face. When asked which smiley face denoted a happier character, the Taiwanese kids chose the calm one whilst the American kids chose the excited face. Then they were told to choose between splashing into the swimming pool and simply floating in an inner tube. The Taiwanese kids chose the calm floating in an inner tube as a happier activity while the American kids chose splashing into the pool as the happier activity (Lyubomirski, 22). It thus goes to show that happiness can also be dependent upon the culture one comes from.
In Taiwan happiness is attained through calm activities that bring tranquility. In America on the other hand, exciting and thrilling activities, are the measure for happiness (Lyubomirski, 22). We may live within a society that programs us into thinking that the major goal is to amass as much wealth as possible; we generally equate happiness to money in such societies. On the other hand, we may live within societies that push for a more holistic pursuit for happiness such as the general welfare of the whole community and a sense of oneness. In such societies, people will generally not equate money to happiness.
A good example would be comparisons between communist and capitalist nations. In the 19th century, communism sprung from Russia. This was as a result of the commoners desire to achieve political and social equity. While capitalist nations ideologies were push for free enterprise, the communist nations did not allow for free enterprise. There was government interference in private business and property wasnt privately owned but rather owned by the state. Another characteristic of communist nations was that it was a classless society and wealth evenly distributed. The pursuit of happiness in such a society wouldnt therefore be realized through the accumulation of money unlike in the capitalist societies where free enterprise was encouraged and there were class distinctions thus more money meant moving from a lower class to a higher class. Money was central in measuring the happiness level of individuals. Therefore, persons in capitalist societies would generally equate more money to more happiness. Their counterparts in communist societies would on the other hand relate happiness to general satisfaction and welfare of the whole community.
Equating money to happiness would also bring issue of relativity and subjective comparisons with others rather than objective pursuit of happiness. A classic example would be a hypothetical study in two different neighborhoods. A rich neighborhood within which there are different levels of affluence and a poor neighborhood whereby the levels of poverty are also stratified. In the affluent neighborhoods, the super-rich will be expected to be happier than the moderately rich, likewise in the poor neighborhoods; the less poor will be expected to be happy relative to their poorer counterparts. However, if the moderately rich in the affluent neighborhood and those less poverty stricken from the poor neighborhoods moved to the same neighborhood, the hitherto deemed unhappy moderately rich would now be happier than the less poor from the poor neighborhoods who were deemed happy. Such relativity between the levels of wealth goes to show that money cannot be used as an objective measure of happiness levels between individuals (Rutt, 1-34).
Studies have also shown that holistic aspirations rather than pure material accumulations bring individuals happiness. Different individuals have different things they weigh as the most important and prioritize them when in pursuit of happiness. For instance, a critically sick person would value health more than wealth in their measure for happiness levels. A young person will value excitement and entertainment more whilst an old person would attach happiness to family and quality time spent with them. Aspiration is seen as a more reasonable measure for happiness since even in the acquisition for wealth, one does so in order to acquire other things. The satisfaction doesnt come with mere accumulation of wealth but rather with what the money can buy.
Happiness as a national policy also proves that happiness levels cannot be entirely measured from wealth perspective. Within technocratic societies the world over, the main target is to boost the nations gross income. In contrast, the Bhutan society is solely focused and dedicated to improving the nations GDH (Gross National Happiness). The belief is rooted in four pillars namely, equitable distribution of resources, conserving the environment, good governance and cultural preservations. Such is seen as a more holistic measure of happiness since it tends to take care of all members of the society.
Whereas technocratic societys pursuit to boost the national income does not show how the wealth is distributed, the Bhutan society puts more credence on how the wealth is equitably distributed amongst all members of the society. Conservation of the environment is also important. A wealthy nation on the other hand is constantly faced by environmental hazards due to pursuit for material wealth at the expense of conserving the environment. Cultural preservation in turn gives the people a sense of national pride and identity thus increasing their level of national happiness.
Conclusively, money only equates to happiness up to a certain level beyond which individuals should seek for a more holistic and subjective measure for happiness. Helping others, spending quality time with family or friends and earning respect amongst members of ones society are a more holistic measure for happiness rather than just using money as the yardstick (Liu and Aaker, 543557).
Kasser, Tim. The High Price of Materialism. MIT Press.2002. Print.
Liu, W., & Aaker, J. The happiness of giving: Think time-ask effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 543557.2008. Print
Rutt, V. Is Happiness Relative? Social Indicators Research, 1-34. 1991.Print.
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 141166. 2001. Print.
Lyubomirsky, Sonia. The How of Happiness. New York Press, 2008. Print.
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By Dr. Mercola
Coconuts are among the most nutritionally dense foods on the planet and have been a dietary staple for millennia. Western science is now "playing catch-up" to what natives of tropical regions have known for thousands of years. One of the reasons coconut is so special is that it's a natural antimicrobial food.
Coconut, especially its oil, is a powerful destroyer of all kinds of microbes, from viruses to bacteria to protozoa, many of which harm human health.
Researchers at the Athlone Institute of Technology's Bioscience Research Institute in Ireland set out to test coconut oil's biocidal properties against the bacteria responsible for tooth decay.
Dental caries is a commonly overlooked problem affecting 60 to 90 percent of children and the majority of adults in industrialized countries, according to chief researcher Dr. Damien Brady. His research team tested the antibacterial action of coconut oil in its natural state and coconut oil that had been treated with enzymes, in a process similar to digestion.
The oils were tested against strains of Streptococcus bacteria, which are common inhabitants of your mouth.
They found that enzyme-modified coconut oil strongly inhibits the growth of most strains of Streptococcus bacteria, including Streptococcus mutans, an acid-producing bacterium that is a major cause of tooth decay1. It is thought that the breaking down of the fatty coconut oil by the enzymes turns it into acids, which are toxic to certain bacteria.2 Enzyme-modified coconut oil was also harmful to the yeast Candida albicans, which can cause thrush.
Dr. Brady said:
"Incorporating enzyme-modified coconut oil into dental hygiene products would be an attractive alternative to chemical additives, particularly as it works at relatively low concentrations. Also, with increasing antibiotic resistance, it is important that we turn our attention to new ways to combat microbial infection."
The work also contributes to our understanding of antibacterial activity in the human gut, which helps maintain the balanced flora necessary for a strong immune system.
"Our data suggests that products of human digestion show antimicrobial activity. This could have implications for how bacteria colonize the cells lining the digestive tract and for overall gut health," explained Dr. Brady.
The Many Health Benefits of Coconut Oil
Coconut oil offers an impressive array of health benefits. In addition to its antimicrobial properties, coconut oil is beneficial for:
- Promoting heart health
- Supporting proper thyroid function
- Strengthening your immune system
- Providing an excellent "fuel" for your body and supporting a strong metabolism
- Maintaining healthy and youthful looking skin
One of the primary reasons coconut oil's benefits are so broad is that 50 percent of the fat in coconut oil is lauric acid, which is rarely found in nature. In fact, coconut oil contains the most lauric acid of any substance on Earth. Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, a monoglyceride that can actually destroy lipid-coated viruses such as HIV and herpes, influenza, measles, gram-negative bacteria, and protozoa such as giardia lamblia.
Another of coconut oil's antimicrobial components is capric acid, present in lesser amounts.
Coconut oil is also comprised of medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs), which are smaller than the long chain fatty acids that are much more common to vegetable and seed oils. MCFAs are easily digested and readily cross cell membranes, and are sent directly to your liver, where they are immediately converted into energy rather than stored as fat. Coconut oil is easy on your digestive system and does not produce an insulin spike in your bloodstream.
A Traditional Diet Might Not Guarantee You Perfect Oral Health
In the 1900s, Dr. Weston A. Price did extensive research on the link between oral health and physical diseases. He discovered that the most successful primitive groups health-wise were those who paid attention to and integrated beneficial ancient knowledge and dietary wisdom into their lives. The difference, Price reasoned, between primitive cultures who were healthy and those who were diseased came not from solely eating a traditional diet (as they all did), but in the accumulated wisdom enjoyed by certain populations, which allowed them to enjoy optimal health.
One of the keys to oral health is eating a traditional diet rich in fresh, unprocessed vegetables, nuts, and grass-fed meats that are in line with your genetic ancestry. However, as beneficial as that diet is to your dental and overall health, it might not be enough to guarantee perfect oral health.
We know, of course, that eating junk food and sugar certainly causes and worsens dental decay in humans, but there must be more to the story. There is evidence of tooth decay in ancient populations, long before there was exposure to refined sugar and white flour, as well as among wild animals today. Even some dolphins, which generally eat no carbohydrates whatsoever — only fish, squid, and crustaceans — have problems with tooth decay. Clearly, simply following a traditional diet is not enough to explain this phenomenon, or else there would be no dental decay in ancient peoples or wildlife.
Plaque-Busting Strategy No. 1: Fermented Vegetables
In the past, I was also challenged with plaque accumulation which resulted in my having to make monthly visits to the dental hygienist. It seemed no amount of brushing, flossing, and even using a dental irrigator diminished this problem. However, in November of 2011, I was introduced to the first of two natural strategies that have significantly improved my plaque problem. The trick? Simply adding healthy amounts of high quality fermented vegetables to my diet.
Fermented vegetables are loaded with friendly flora that not only improve digestion but alter the flora in your mouth as well. Since the addition of these foods into my diet, my plaque has decreased by 50 percent and is much softer. I later further refined my approach by doing oil pulling with coconut oil and learning how to specifically target the primary source of plague, which is the junction of the tooth and gum surface by carefully directing my toothbrush at the appropriate angle.
Download Interview Transcript
Plaque-Busting Strategy No. 2: Oil Pulling
The second technique I've been using for the past year is called "oil pulling" with coconut oil, which has reduced my plaque by another 50 percent, allowing me to go longer between visits to the hygienist. Oil pulling is a practice dating back thousands of years, having originated with Ayurvedic medicine. When oil pulling is combined with the antimicrobial power of coconut oil, you have one very powerful health tool.
Sesame oil is traditionally recommended, but it has relatively high concentration of omega-6 oils. Therefore, I believe coconut oil is far superior, and, in my mind, it tastes better. But from a mechanical and biophysical perspective, it is likely that both work.
Oil pulling is simple. Basically, it involves rinsing your mouth with coconut oil, much like you would with a mouthwash. The oil is "worked" around your mouth by pushing, pulling, and drawing it through your teeth for a period of 15 minutes. If you are obsessive like me you can go for 30-45 minutes. This process allows the oil to "pull out" bacteria, viruses, fungi and other debris. The best time is in the morning before eating breakfast, but it can be done at any time, the important point is to just do it. I seek to do it twice a day if my schedule allows. The used oil is discarded and your mouth rinsed with water. You should not swallow the oil because it's loaded with bacteria and toxins.
When done correctly, oil pulling has a significant cleansing, detoxifying and healing effect.
Candida and Streptococcus are common residents in your mouth, and it's these germs and their toxic waste products that cause plaque accumulation and tooth decay, in addition to secondary infections and chronic inflammation throughout your body. Oil pulling can help lessen the overall toxic burden on your immune system by preventing the spread of these organisms from your mouth to the rest of your body, by way of your bloodstream.
The potential benefits of oil pulling extend well beyond your mouth. Oil pullers have reported rapid relief from systemic health problems, such as arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. According to Bruce Fife, naturopathic physician and expert in the healing effects of coconut3, the cleansing effect of oil pulling can be understood with the following analogy:
"It acts much like the oil you put in your car engine. The oil picks up dirt and grime. When you drain the oil, it pulls out the dirt and grime with it, leaving the engine relatively clean. Consequently, the engine runs smoother and lasts longer. Likewise, when we expel harmful substances from our bodies our health is improved and we run smoother and last longer."
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Additional Tips for Improving Your Oral Health
Total Video Length: 01:12:05
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Proper dental hygiene is important for optimal health in your mouth and in the rest of your body, as discussed by Dr. Bill Osmunson in the interview above. When it comes to preventing cavities, drinking fluoridated water and brushing your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste is not the answer, because fluoride is more toxic than lead. The key is your diet and proper dental care: good old brushing and flossing. By avoiding sugars and processed foods, you prevent the proliferation of the bacteria that cause decay in the first place.
Practicing twice daily brushing and flossing, along with regular cleanings by your biological dentist and hygienist, will ensure that your teeth and gums are as healthy as they can be. You may want to try oil pulling to enhance your current dental hygiene routine.
In addition to consuming foods that are part of the "traditional diet" and avoiding processed foods and refined sugar, make sure you are getting plenty omega-3 fats. The latest research suggests even moderate amounts of omega-3 fats may help ward off gum disease. My favorite source of high quality omega-3 fat is krill oil.
And speaking of sugar, a particular type of honey from New Zealand called Manuka honey has also been shown to be effective in reducing plaque. Researchers found Manuka honey worked as well as chemical mouthwash — and better than the cavity fighting sugar alcohol, xylitol — in reducing levels of plaque. This is most likely due to the honey's antibacterial properties. Clinical trials have shown that Manuka honey can effectively eradicate more than 250 clinical strains of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant varieties.
I still believe that oil pulling with coconut oil gives you more bang for your buck for your oral health, but just realize you have natural options to replace harsh and often toxic chemicals. | <urn:uuid:3a83f7ee-7864-4522-a3c7-c51382d76fee> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/08/coconut-oil-combats-tooth-decay.aspx?np=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414637904722.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20141030025824-00052-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963813 | 2,273 | 3.28125 | 3 | {
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Dear Straight Dope:
When did the phrase "a penny for your thoughts" originate? And based on when it originated, how much would it really cost for your thoughts nowadays?
SDStaff John Corrado replies:
Let me introduce you to a gentleman by the name of John Heywood. Born in London somewhere around 1497 (the London registry of births and deaths being unreliable once one attempts to research before, say, 1660), he was a man of masterful artistic talents. In 1515 he was a singer for the king, and eventually moved on to training choir boys to sing for the king as well and to write his own music to be performed for the king.
By middle age, Heywood began to dabble in non-musical arts–specifically, in the writing of “interludes,” small plays performed between other, larger plays, or even between acts of a very large play. When Heywood started writing, most interludes were of the morality play variety. Heywood eventually broke from this form and instead wrote small comedies of everyday life and manners. The Play of the Wether (1533) and The Playe Called the Foure P.P. (1547) are considered the best of the interlude form. While Heywood was not adverse to poking fun at the Church, he remained a staunch and outspoken Catholic–so much so that when the Protestant King Edward took the throne, Heywood fled to Belgium to live out the rest of his days.
You or I might be satisfied with simply being the foremost playwright of our day, changing the form of plays and paving the way for future luminaries such as Shakespeare and Marlowe. Not John Heywood, who found enough time between writing interludes and fighting for Catholicism in England to pen a two-hundred page book entitled A dialogue conteinying the nomber in effect of all the proverbes in the Englishe tongue in 1546. Later reprints called it The Proverbs of John Heywood, but that title is a misnomer in several ways. First, Heywood never claimed to be actually creating these proverbs; he was just cataloging the ones he had heard. But as with science, it doesn’t matter who invented it, it just matters who was first to publish it–thus, many common proverbs are now attributed to Heywood.
The title is also a misnomer because not all the entries in it could really be called proverbs. While “it’s an ill wind that blows no good” and “no man ought to look a given horse in the mouth” qualify, such statements as “butter would not melt in her mouth” and “went in one ear and out the other” really don’t.
It’s in this book that we find the earliest known citation of the line, “A penny for your thoughts.” While it’s unlikely that Heywood coined the phrase himself (excuse the pun), there’s no documentation to tell us how much further back it might go. For all we know, it originated twenty thousand years ago with the caveman equivalent of “bright shiny rock for your thoughts.”
Even if we take the 1546 publication date of Heywood’s tome as the date of origination, it’s hard to answer your second question–inflation is based on the difference in cost for like services over time, and quite frankly, there aren’t a lot of like services between now and 1546. It’s easier to set a price based on the 1906 re-printing of Heywood’s proverbs. A 1906 penny would be worth about 18 cents today.
We can do better than that, though. In 1521, Heywood received a 10 mark annuity as the king’s servant. There are 240 pennies to a mark, so that was a yearly salary of 2,400 pennies. According to Town And Country Resources in the San Francisco Bay Area, the average butler makes between $50,000 and $100,000. Let’s assume that being a “king’s servant” was the equivalent of being a top butler today (hey, it was the king, after all). That means equating 2400 pennies to $100,000, or approximately $42.67 per penny.
Conversely, were one to take a penny and stick it in a bank in 1546 at a measly 2% interest, in 2001 your account would hold $81.86. At a more robust 5% interest? Over $43 million.
So next time someone offers a penny for your thoughts, keep in mind that it ain’t necessarily chump change.
Send questions to Cecil via [email protected].
STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED. | <urn:uuid:95bc4d85-ecd7-44ba-b8c4-1404891245e3> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1963/whats-the-origin-of-a-penny-for-your-thoughts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247512461.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20190222013546-20190222035546-00154.warc.gz | en | 0.964319 | 1,110 | 2.671875 | 3 | {
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BADONY (UPPER), a parish, in the barony of STRABANE, county of TYRONE, and province of ULSTER, 4 miles (N. N. E.) from Newtownstewart; containing 5715 inhabitants. A monastery for Franciscans of the third order was founded at Corrick about the year 1465; it continued to flourish till the dissolution, and in the reign of Jas. I. was given, with all its possessions, to Sir Henry Piers, who soon after sold it to Sir Arthur Chichester; it was subsequently granted to the Hamilton family, whose descendant is the present proprietor. There are some highly picturesque remains of this abbey, affording an idea of the original extent and elegance of the buildings. Here was also a strong castle or fortress, of which there are some remains. The district appears to have been distinguished at an early period as the scene of various important battles, and in the fastnesses of its mountains the lawless and daring found a secure asylum. In the reign of Elizabeth O'Nial was defeated here with the loss of all his baggage, plate, and treasures, and compelled to make his escape across the river Bann to his castle of Roe. The parish comprises, according to the Ordnance survey, 38,208- statute acres, including 150- under water: nearly three-fourths are mountain and bog, and the remainder, with the exception of a small portion of woodland, is arable. The state of agriculture is progressively improving; extensive tracts of mountain have been recently enclosed and brought into cultivation, and great portions of bog and mountain may still be reclaimed. Part of the Sawel mountain is within its limits, and, according to the Ordnance survey, rises to an elevation of 2235 feet above the level of the sea. Most of the farmers and cottagers unite with agricultural pursuits the weaving of linen; and great numbers of cattle and horses are bred and pastured in the extensive mountain tracts. Fairs are held on the 16th of every month for the sale of cattle, horses, and pigs, and are in general numerously attended. A constabulary police force has been stationed here. A manorial court is held monthly, at which debts under £2 are recoverable; and a court of petty sessions is held every alternate week at Gortin.
This parish was formerly much more extensive than it is at present; an act of council was obtained, by which it was divided into the parishes of Upper and Lower Badony, and a church was soon afterwards built for the latter at Gortin. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Derry, and in the patronage of the Bishop: the tithes amount to £396. 18. 6. The church is an ancient structure, in the early English style: for the repair of which a grant of £108 has been lately made by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The glebe-house, a handsome residence, was built in 1821, by aid of a loan of £225 from the late Board. of First Fruits; the glebe comprises 195 acres, of which 86 are mountain. The R. C. parish is co-extensive with that of the Established Church; there are two chapels, of which one,. near the foot of the mountain, is a spacious building. There are places of worship for Presbyterians of the Synod of Ulster and of the Seceding Synod; the minister of the former officiates also in the adjoining parish of Lower Badony. The parochial male and female school is aided by a small annual payment bequeathed by the late C. Hamilton, Esq., but is chiefly supported by the rector. There are two schools situated respectively at Castledamp and Clogherney; a school at Corrick, supported by - Gardiner, Esq.; a male and female school at Glenroan, built and supported by Major Humphreys; and a school at Plumb Bridge, supported' by subscription: there are also four pay schools, and two Sunday schools. | <urn:uuid:eb49c9db-0057-4f5b-b9ce-37ccb2278237> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://johngrenham.com/records/lewis.php?civilparishid=2332&civilparish=Bodoney%20Upper&county=Tyrone&search_type=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320302355.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20220120160411-20220120190411-00386.warc.gz | en | 0.983493 | 845 | 2.578125 | 3 | {
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Introduction: What is a Pomsky?
The Pomsky is a dog resulting from the crossbreeding between a Husky and a Spitz in the first generation. It is a small to medium-sized dog that is perfectly suited for family and city life.
The Pomsky first appeared in the 2000s in the United States with the goal of creating a small-sized dog that resembles a Husky but has a gentler temperament and is well-suited for family life.
The Pomsky has the features of a Husky, often with a beautiful fleur-de-lis mask and a coat similar to that of a Husky. It resembles a perpetual Husky puppy with a more malleable character.
The crossbreeding of two very different but complementary breeds aims to create a new breed that is better suited for city living. Today, the Pomsky can easily live in an apartment and get along with other small-sized animals.
Despite its small size, it's important to remember that the Pomsky has a percentage of Husky DNA. Therefore, it needs physical and mental exercise.
In terms of temperament, the Pomsky will have the playful, friendly, and sociable side of the Spitz, but also the determined, stubborn, adventurous, and affectionate side of the Husky. It will be important to stimulate them mentally and establish clear rules from a young age to provide them with the necessary structure and reassurance.
In terms of health, the Pomsky has an average lifespan of 10 to 15 years. It is a hardy dog, resilient to both hot and cold temperatures. If the parents are tested and the breeder has conducted good selection, it is a healthy dog with no known health issues to be vigilant about at the moment. However, like any other puppy, it is recommended to have regular check-ups with a veterinarian to ensure the health of your Pomsky.
There are many Pomsky dogs, and they all look different depending on their size, lineage, and generation. Your Pomsky may not require the same level of activity as others based on these factors. If you want to learn more about the types of Pomsky, I invite you to read the following blog article: Pomsky Generation F1, F2, F2B, can someone explain? (royaumedesgalopins.fr)
Walks and Hikes with Your Pomsky Puppy
The Pomsky is a small, lively dog full of energy. Therefore, it will be interesting to offer them different activities based on their age.
Below is a table summarizing the different activities you can do with your puppy based on their age, which will allow you to adapt the activities for your Pomsky.
One of the activities that your Pomsky will love is walks and hikes. There is a wide variety of walks ,that you can vary regularly to further stimulate your puppy. Varying walks and activities for your Pomsky is essential.
The first walk that comes to mind is the sanitary walkwhich is a relatively short walk ranging from a few minutes to thirty minutes that takes place around the family home. The dog is often kept on a leash, and the main objective of this walk is to allow the dog to relieve itself.
This walk has the advantage of allowing the Pomsky puppy to relieve itself, but it will be less stimulating in terms of physical, intellectual, exploratory, and social expenditure. Indeed, the dog remains in a familiar environment.
The sanitary walk remains an essential and necessary walk in the life of your dog.
The second type of walk you can think of is the educational walk.During this walk, the dog will walk, run, and play as usual, but this time, the walk will be interspersed with learning. It's an opportunity to work on commands like recall or "stay."
The duration of this walk can vary, and it's important to prepare for it in advance in order to properly stimulate your dog.
The classic walk, can take place around your home or in another location. It can vary in duration and its goal is to meet your dog's exercise needs as much as possible. It's recommended to use a long leash to offer more freedom to the dog, avoiding a leash that's too short. This walk will allow your dog to meet its physical and mental exercise needs, as well as take care of its bathroom needs. Unlike the sanitary walk, the classic walk is more stimulating, allowing the dog more freedom to discover new places, which satisfies its need for exploration.
The group walk involves bringing together multiple owners and their dogs for a walk. It's a very interesting walk as it meets almost all of the dog's needs. It addresses the need for social interaction, allows for walks in unusual places, often in forests or through fields, thus fulfilling the dog's need for exploration. Your dog will be surrounded by other dogs, which will make it exercise more and fully meet its physical exercise needs. In addition, dogs learn a lot through imitation, so this walk will also meet their mental exercise needs.
There are many Facebook groups and websites of dog trainers that offer group walks, which you can find in your area. Dog Walks 92 | Facebook also you can find websites like: Group walks with you and your Purement Canin dog.
Cani-marche is a walk that has a primary goal of physical expenditure. The objective is for your dog, with the help of specific equipment, to pull you along and not stop every two minutes to sniff. It is an excellent way to meet your dog's physical exercise needs. To learn more about cani-marche, you can visit the following website: La cani-marche, un sport à pratiquer avec son chien de 7 à 77 ans! (wamiz.com)
If you want to learn more about types of walks, you can also check the following link: Les différents types de balades (hund.fr)
Another activity idea for your Pomsky is hiking, which involves much longer walks lasting from one to several hours. It generally allows you to discover new places. Hiking meets the physical and intellectual exercise needs of your dog and, of course, also provides an opportunity for your dog to meet their physiological needs. It is important to ensure that your dog is in good health and to be properly equipped to respond to any eventuality before going on a hike. It is advisable to wait until your puppy is 6-7 months old before going on a hike or to bring a backpack where you can put them when they get tired. Hikes can take place in very different places, with the main goal being to have fun and spend quality time together. I have included some ideas for beautiful hikes: Les 5 plus beaux GR de France à parcourir avec son chien | Emmène ton chien (emmenetonchien.com)
Activities for your Pomsky: Interactive games
It is very interesting to offer interactive games to your Pomsky. These games will stimulate their senses and help develop their cognitive abilities. It is always important to vary activities for your Pomsky.
Interactive games are often recommended by dog trainers and breeders. They help stimulate your dog's intellect, make them think, and keep them occupied during your absence. They are also a good way to strengthen your bond with your four-legged companion and build their confidence.
There is a wide variety of interactive games available today, all with the same objective of making your dog think to find the solution. Examples of interactive games include sound balls that make noise every time your dog pushes or picks them up. This noise encourages your dog to play longer and provides more stimulation than a simple tennis ball. Sound balls often come in different shapes and colors to stimulate your dog's other senses.
The hide-and-seek squirrelgame is shaped like a tree trunk with holes where squirrels hide. Your dog tries to get the squirrels out of their hiding places. This game is interesting because it engages your dog's different senses. It is similar to a foraging mat where you would scatter kibble.
There are food dispensers or treat dispensersavailable in various brands and shapes, such as balls, rings, or bones. Your dog uses their nose and makes different movements to get the food out.
Puzzlesalso come in a variety of types, but the principle is the same every time: your dog has to move different pieces with their nose or paws to find hidden treats underneath.
If you want to learn more about interactive games, here are some links: Les meilleurs jouets interactifs pour chien (pour bien l'occuper) (eductonchien.net)
14 jeux d'intelligence qui marchent pour les chiens qui s'ennuient | Rover
Agility and Canine Sports are activities suitable for your Pomsky.
Agility is one of the most well-known canine sports. It is a discipline practiced by a dog and its owner with the goal of navigating a course that often includes obstacles such as bridges, tunnels, hurdles, swings, and ramps.
The objective of agility is to complete the course as quickly as possible with as few faults as possible. Of course, this sport can be intense, and you should wait until your dog is at least 12 months old before participating in agility. However, you can start earlier if the obstacles are kept on the ground and no jumping is involved. Similarly, you should not demand too much speed from your dog initially. The primary objective of these precautions is to protect your dog's joints.
Agility is a very enriching sport that will allow you to develop a strong bond of complicity with your dog, learn new commands together, work on your dog's concentration, and meet your dog's physical and mental exercise needs.
Pomskies are dogs that love agility and will be thrilled to participate with you. However, it should be noted that unfortunately, Pomskies cannot participate in competitions because they are not recognized by the French Kennel Club (LOF). We hope this will change in the coming years. If you are interested in this sport, I have attached a comprehensive article about this discipline: Faire de l'agility avec son chien (toutoupourlechien.com)
There are numerous agility clubs today that allow you to practice this discipline. Alternatively, you can also find agility courses on Amazon or similar websites for around a hundred euros.
Among the sports that you can practice with your Pomsky, there is also Dog Dancing , which is a canine education discipline performed to music. It is a very interesting discipline that gives the impression that the owner and the dog are dancing together. Through exceptional complicity and perfectly executed commands, the owner and the dog perform various figures and routines.
This discipline will strengthen the bond of complicity between the dog and the owner and also provide physical and mental exercise.
I have attached a more comprehensive article about Dog Dancing: C'est quoi le dog-dancing? - Commission Nationale Éducation et Activités Cynophiles (activites-canines.com)
You can also check out the Instagram account of Sya_pomsky. Sya and her owner have been practicing Dog Dancing for a few months, and the results are incredible.
Among the activities suitable for your Pomsky, we can also talk about Canicross , which is another very interesting canine sport that you can practice with your Pomsky. Canicross involves running with your dog while being attached to him or her. This discipline was originally created to train Huskies during hot weather periods. It is now popularized and can be practiced with any type of dog. However, it is worth mentioning that Pomskies have a percentage of Husky DNA and are likely to enjoy this activity. Canicross is an intense sport, so it is important to wait until your Pomsky has finished growing before participating in this activity with him or her. A veterinary checkup is also important to ensure that your dog is physically fit for this discipline.
Additionally, you will need to equip your dog with appropriate gear, including a harness specifically designed for canicross.
Socialization of Pomsky: Key Steps
Among the activities to practice with your Pomsky, we can also talk about the socialization of the puppy, which is a key step for Pomskies as well as for all dogs.
The first socialization work of the puppy begins with the breeder. Indeed, at the age of 2 to 3 months, the puppy should already be familiar with different noises, not be fearful, and demonstrate a friendly and playful character. It is essential that the breeder has carried out this socialization work to facilitate the puppy's arrival at your home and future learning.
Socialization is an everyday affair and should not be neglected to avoid any behavioral problems. Every noise at home is an opportunity to socialize the puppy. The same goes for outdoor outings or different encounters, noises, and smells that will naturally awaken your puppy.
In order to have a well-educated Pomsky, it is essential to proceed gradually and discovery by discovery. Every new experience should be positive for the puppy. Any encounter or situation where the puppy feels in danger and shows signs of stress should be stopped automatically.
The Husky remains a fairly wary dog, especially towards strangers, and although the Pomsky is generally friendly, it is important to be vigilant and work on this from a young age. Remember that every outing or indoor activity is an opportunity to socialize your puppy. The worst mistake is to never take a puppy outside and just settle for walks in the garden. A poorly socialized puppy is a future fearful dog that may develop behavioral issues.
I am attaching two very interesting articles on puppy socialization: "La sociabilisation du chien: les erreurs à ne pas commettre" (espritdog.com) and "Socialiser son chien: les points essentiels de la socialisation" (toutoupourlechien.com).
Indoor activities for your Pomsky
It may also be interesting to consider indoor activities for your Pomsky. Despite spending a lot of time at home, it is important to stimulate your Pomsky even indoors.
Among the interesting activities we already have are interactive and occupation games. They will keep your dog busy and make time pass more quickly.
Chewing activities are also essential indoor activities, such as with deer antlers, pig ears, or cow hooves. Chewing is very important for any dog, as it helps prevent boredom and maintain dental health.
You can also play obedience games with your dog. In 5 to 10-minute sessions, you can teach your dog a new command. This activity will allow your dog to expend mental energy. According to me, the most important command to teach your Pomsky or any dog is recall, which means coming back to you when you call their name.
You can also play hide and seek with your dog. This game will develop your dog's sense of smell and hearing. The game involves asking your dog to stay seated in one room and not move, then you go hide in another room. Afterwards, you call your dog and they have to find you as quickly as possible. It's a fun and simple activity to do.
If you want more ideas for indoor activities for your Pomsky, here is an interesting link: "Les jeux à pratiquer avec son chien en intérieur" (woopets.fr).
So, as you have understood from this article, despite its small size, the Pomsky, which is a crossbreed between a Spitz and a Husky, needs both physical and mental exercise.
It is a dynamic small dog whose needs should be fulfilled throughout its life.
In this article, we have mentioned numerous activities you can do with your Pomsky: walks, hikes, games, sports, socialization, obedience... In any case, it is important to vary the activities and adapt to the age and needs of your dog. Each Pomsky is unique and will have different needs.
In any case, before being an adorable mini husky, the Pomsky remains an active and dynamic dog that will require at least 1.5 hours of activities per day. We'll let you create your schedule and enjoy with your little wolf. | <urn:uuid:b9020df1-0cc7-4f2e-a2c4-d31a254d9ae4> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://royaumedesgalopins.fr/en/pomsky/activities-for-your-pomsky/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475825.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20240302120344-20240302150344-00286.warc.gz | en | 0.957202 | 3,383 | 2.609375 | 3 | {
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The Jóvenes Delfines: Secondary School Ecology Club
The Jóvenes Delfines emerged in 1998 as the first ecology club in the community thanks to the initiative of a local teacher. The Ecology Club, an extracurricular program conducted in partnership with the middle school of Bahia de Kino, works with 30 students per year and is divided into two phases. In the first phase students participate in field and classroom activities about local ecosystems. During field activities they are introduced to field methods for ecological studies. Students learn how to use binoculars, hand lenses, spotting scopes, compasses, field guides and other research equipment. Outings include boat trips focused on marine mammals and island natural history, estuary trips focused on bird observation, and hikes through desert ecosystems. The second phase focuses on participation in community projects where students learn to work in teams and act as community leaders.
The Jóvenes Delfines meet for two hours twice a week and work on eight general themes:
- Recycling: Managing a materials collection site at the community level, collecting plastic, aluminum and batteries. They are constructing their offices made of ecologically friendly material called “papercrete”, which they create by making blocks from recycled paper mixed with a small amount of concrete, sand and water.
- Reforestation: Planting trees in parks, schools, and public plazas.
- Clean-up campaigns: Organizing and participating in clean-up campaigns on beaches, at schools, in estuaries and on highways.
- Human ecology: Working with special education students and in need members of the community to foster a sense of unity within the community.
- Networking: Forming part of regional, national, and international networks of ecology clubs through participation in web-based initiatives, traveling to regional and national ecology club conventions, and hosting visiting groups and students for workshops.
- Community environmental education: Participating in workshops and talks on conservation themes both within and outside the community.
- Artistic expression: Composing songs, poems and painting murals on environmental themes.
- Water conservation: Working with local authorities to learn how to monitor water quality and conserve water on a community level.
Community members employed in the fields of science and conservation are also invited to share their experiences with the Ecology Club in an effort to expand the students’ vision of future career opportunities. At the end of the school year the students present their work to the community and the different organizations that collaborate with the Ecology Club.
Los Jóvenes Delfines have been recognized as pioneers in Northwest Mexico, having won first place in the Premios Oxxo Human Ecology contest in 2010 and 2011, and received a special recognition of the Secretary of Education and Culture for 2001-2010. In 2010 the students also participated in a national reunion of ecology clubs in the state of Queretaro, where they met with 600 like-minded youth to share their projects and experiences. Upon returning from this event, their captivating stories and confidence inspired their peers from the primary and preparatory school, who subsequently decided to form their own ecology clubs.
Kino Bay Center Photo Gallery
The Kino Bay photo database is a searchable and diverse collection of ... Learn more | <urn:uuid:24fc3a79-b67f-4042-a5ed-e3022f2f82c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.prescott.edu/kino-bay-center/environmental-education/ecology-clubs/j%C3%B3venes-delfines-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721606.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00234-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947777 | 667 | 2.84375 | 3 | {
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Drones capture a birds eye view of the ground in amazing detail but are capable of so much more when their imagery is processed using photogrammetry.
Impact GIS recently undertook a drone survey of a graveyard to inform discussions between Galway County Council and the National Monuments Service. Galway County Council are seeking to expand the graveyard and the National Monuments Service were concerned about potential impacts on an early christian enclosure associated with the graveyard.
The easiest way to have a meaningful discussion about the potential impacts, is if everyone is able to visualise clearly what’s there, however a review of available aerial photography wasn’t much help.
Other techniques, such as surveying profiles, require a degree of mental gymnastics to ‘see’ what is there.
Impact GIS recommended a drone survey. Photogrammetry generates a 3D model of the ground surface (also referred to as Digital Surface Models (DSM) or Digital Elevation Models (DEM)), which can be processed using GIS software to produce a hillshade representation, where the software generates shading/shadows based on the relative position of a simulated light source.
Need GIS skills for taking on large scale projects? Impact GIS can help!
Best practice dictates that from the earliest stages of considering a development, environmental constraints should be fully integrated with the planning process.
With most data sources for archaeological, architectural and cultural heritage constraints now available online, GIS mapping has become an indispensable tool for constraints mapping and the entire impact assessment process.
The video below demonstrates the importance of light for identifying potential archaeological features. Flat light or overcast conditions, which limit shadows, make it extremely difficult to differentiate the small topographical changes that may be indicative of archaeological features.
In the video below a drone / UAV survey was undertaken to create a detailed 3D model or Digital Surface Model (DSM). The DSM, as a software construct of the 3D surface of the ground, can have its texture changed and can be lit from any angle providing the shadows that may otherwise be lacking.
Impact GIS was recently appointed by Kilbeacanty Graveyard Committee to undertake aerial/drone surveys of two graveyards near Gort in County Galway, with a view to mapping and recording the graveyards.
Drone surveys were undertaken using ground control points (GCP) surveyed in with a survey grade GNSS (GPS) and the imagery captured was then processed using Pix4D to produce detailed orthophotography. Extra GCPs were surveyed in to check the accuracy of the final orthophotography. A review of GCPs in the final orthophotography found their accuracy to be within 1 to 2 cm. The orthophotography was imported into QGIS and used to producing mapping, the marking up features, including bounding walls, paths, grave plots, the locations of headstones etc. Draft mapping has now been issued to the client, who will use it to align grave numbering with previous surveys. Impact GIS and Galway County Council will then host a photographic workshop, training local volunteers to undertake a photographic survey of the graves and headstones within the graveyards. Details for all graves and memorials will be added to the GIS database and uploaded, with photographs, to Galway County Council’s Galway Graveyards website.
It never ceases to amaze we what QGIS is capable of. A friend recently asked me to produce a map for a classic motorbike and car rally in aid of Movember, raising awareness about mens health issues, in particular prostate and testicular cancer, and mental health. The route passes through some of the most scenic areas of the Connemara Mountains in the west of Ireland.
I was wondering how I could make this area come alive to people, I needed 3D, so turned to the Qgis2threejs plugin, which I have used before to visualise areas in 3D. What I hadn’t noticed previously was the ‘Output’ option, which allows you to output the HTML of the entire 3D visualisation ready for upload to the web. Click on the image below to check it out.
Impact GIS undertook a drone survey of Killirsa Graveyard in County Galway to generate high resolution orthophotography for mapping of grave plots. Grave plots were mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS) software, allowing for data associated with each grave plot to be stored in an accompanying database. See the slide show below.
Bing aerial imagery of Killursa
Online sources of aerial photography are not of a sifficiently high resolution to be able to map grave plots
Drone survey of Killursa
High resolution orthophotography generated from a drone survey
Extract of drone survey
An extract from the drone survey showing the resolution of the orthophotography
Grave plots and other features mapped
Grave plots and other features mapped using Geographic information system software
Map of plots with reference grid
A 10m x 10m grid with alphanumeric labels overlaid to aid in locating individual grave plots
Killursa map with index of names
Index of names referenced to 10m x10m alphanumeric grid
Why use GIS?
Firstly it is probably best to explain what a Geographic Information System is. It’s all in the name, it is as system that allows you store information which is associated with location (geographic data). Most relevant to this project, GIS allows you to draw polygons, such as the squares and rectangles of the grave plots, and each one of these, as well as being spatially correct (in the right location), can have information about it stored in a database. So each grave plot can have the names, dates, inscriptions etc. stored and this information can be sorted, searched, filtered etc. This can form the basis of labelled paper maps, a searchable database, interactive online maps etc.
Impact GIS recently undertook a photogrammetric survey, on behalf of Moore Group, of an historic well exposed during road realignment and upgrade works in Dublin. Located to the north of Phoenix Park, along Blackhorse Avenue, the Well is noted as ‘Poor Man’s Well’ on both the 6 Inch (circa 1830) and 25 Inch (circa 1900) historic Ordnance Survey maps. The following 3D model was created from a measured, photographic survey and used to produce a series of figures for inclusion in the excavation report for the project.
Sometimes you are doing a bit of research and you come across some data and think, ‘that would be far easier to understand if I could turn it into a map using GIS’. Or maybe I’m just a bit strange. This is exactly what happened when I was looking into what the likelihood is of my broadband speed increasing in the next few years. The out come for broadband is not good, but the journey produced a map which shows just how dire the situation is for much of rural Ireland.
The government have recently launched their broadband.gov.ie website as the first stage towards intervening to bring ‘High Speed Broadband’ to all premises in Ireland. Surprise, surprise the private companies or commercial interests have no interest in providing a service to rural areas. The first stage of the States intervention is to quantify the total number of premises and, of that total, how many will have high speed broadband provided by commercial operators by the end of 2016, the State is proposed to intervene and install high speed broadband for those premises that don’t have high speed broadband by then. All the data is presented down to townland level on the website, but for purposes of the map below I have used the county data.
The results are enlightening! Worst off is County Roscommon, by the end of 2016 a staggering 64 percent of premises in the county will not have access to a high speed broadband. Not so surprising, is that 99 percent of people in County Dublin will have high speed broadband by the end of 2016. Overall approximately 31 percent of all premises is Ireland will not have access to high speed broadband by the end of 2016. Give Dublin’s size, it skews the data for the rest of the country, the reality is that by the end of 2016 over 42 percent of premises outside of County Dublin will still not have access to high speed broadband. | <urn:uuid:9386ee4b-9406-4182-8e03-b0589af1ab63> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | http://impactgis.com/?page_id=242 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547584350539.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20190123193004-20190123215004-00449.warc.gz | en | 0.942807 | 1,740 | 3.34375 | 3 | {
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Describe the different types of networks
In today’s modern world, networks exist everywhere. Home networks connect your laptop, computer, TV, gaming console, smartphones, tablets, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This allows them to communicate with each other and the internet. Whether a business is a humble organization running out of a garage or a large enterprise, networks provide the backbone that allows them to function and share data, ideas, and resources.
Networks are used to access all kinds of information, from the pictures you share with friends, to sensitive information like bank and credit card transactions. The banking application on your mobile device uses multiple networks to reach your bank. After that, you navigate the bank’s network to get to your details.
What is a network?
A network is a grouping of interconnected physical components that work together to provide a seamless backbone for all your devices to communicate. The cloud and the internet might seem intangible but even they have physical roots. While there are dozens of parts that help define a network, the ones you’re more likely to encounter are: routers, switches, firewalls, access points, and hubs. While most of these are outside the scope of this unit, two are worth calling out.
- The switch is the fundamental building block of a modern network. It allows multiple devices to communicate with each other.
- The router allows different networks to communicate with each other.
You may have heard of different types of networks, such as wireless networks and local area networks. However, fundamentally, they all fall into one of the following two categories:
- A private network is where a level of authentication and authorization is required to access devices and resources, as you might find in your place of work.
- A public network, like the internet, is open to any user.
Connect to your network
Whatever type of network you’re using, there are several different ways that you can connect to it.
- The Wired or Ethernet connection is still the most common way of connecting to an office network. It requires a physical network cable to connect your computer or laptop to a switch in your network.
- A Wireless connection lets your device connect to the network using Wi-Fi. This is typically used at home or in large public venues.
- A Bluetooth connection is a short-range device-to-device communication method. Small devices like pedometers, headphones, and smart watches tend to use Bluetooth.
The client-server topology
While networks allow devices or apps to communicate with each other, one of the most common network implementations is the client-server topology. In this model, the client can be one or more devices or applications on a device that wants to do something. The server is responsible for processing each client request and sending back a response.
An example of the client-server model is when you use your smartphone or tablet to access a digital streaming service. Your device is the client that makes a request to the streaming server to access the movie or TV show you want to watch. The server responds by streaming the content to your device. Another example is when you use your browser to access content from the internet. | <urn:uuid:a7dfdc45-f323-4377-b344-a8e9179402f7> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.cyberodisha.com/describe-the-different-type-of-networks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500035.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20230202165041-20230202195041-00743.warc.gz | en | 0.916366 | 656 | 3.515625 | 4 | {
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Leshan Giant Buddha
Last updated by fabiowzgogo at 2014/6/23
Historical Background of the Great Buddha
In the first year of the first reign (the Kaiyuan, or "Initiating the First", reign) of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (CE 618-907)(his second reign was entitled the Tianbao, meaning "green waves"), namely, in the year 713, a monk of the Lingyun Temple, a certain Shi Haitong, believing that the turbulence of the waterway which forms the confluence of the Dadu, Min and Qingyi Rivers near Leshan – which turbulent waters posed a danger to shipping vessels passing through them, and therefore posed a threat to the livelihoods of the local people – could be quieted if the people chiseled out a likeness of Buddha on the cliff-side of Lingyun Mountain facing this turbulent waterway.
Though the construction of Dafo (the Giant Buddha) was started in 713, it would first be completed ninety years later (when funding for the project was threatened – it turned out to be an enormous expenditure even for the time – Shi Haitong is said to have gouged out his eyes to show his piety and sincerity for the project). It would appear that the appeasement of Buddha in this fashion had the desired effect, for the turbulence of the waterway was indeed calmed, though the direct agent of this may have been the massive amount of chipped stone waste that had fallen into the waterway during the sculpting of the Buddha.
Dafo is in the image of a Maitreya Buddha, i.e., a unique "messianic" future Buddha who will indeed achieve complete enlightenment, then appear again on earth to teach the pure dharma that will supercede the incomplete teachings of the lesser Gautama Buddha.* By tradition, the Maitreya is depicted as a "stout" monk, usually in sitting position and with bare breast and visible paunch (a symbol of affluence?). In addition to its stately pose, aided by the figure's symmetrical proportions, Dafo conceals a well thought-out drainage system.
The Largest of Its Kind
The Great Buddha, with its height of 71m, is the largest Buddha figure in the world (by contrast, the largest of the two Bamiyan Buddhas was only 53m in height, and these were standing Buddhas). The Great Buddha's head alone has a height of 14.7m, with 1021 nubs depicting hair, the ear is 6.72m long (high), the eye socket 3.3m wide, and the nose 5.33m long (high). Other key dimensions include the shoulders at 24m wide, the index finger at 8.3m long, and the lap, which can seat a hundred people, at 9m wide and 11m long.
In back of the figure's head (the back side of the figure is of course attached to/ is part of the mountain) is a cleverly devised set of crisscrossing drain channels such that no water can accumulate here and weaken the mountain's "hold" on the figure, though some water damage to the Great Buddha has occured, namely on its paunch/ lap area (and pollution has blackened its nose, though this can no doubt be safely removed). The fact that the Great Buddha remains in excellent overall condition after more than a thousand years can to a large extent be attributed to the ingeniousness of its drainage system.
The Nine Turns and Lingyun Paths
To take in the sheer enormity of the sculpture, one can observe it at close quarters as one descends the "staircase" that zig-zags along the right wall – i.e., on the sculpture's right-hand side – of the cube that was cut into the mountain in order to create a throne, as it were, for the Great Buddha. This 250-step wooden-plank pathway (in all, nine "zigs" and "zags", hence the name "Nine Turns Path") was originally carved into the mountain in ancient times, but has been improved through time such that today it is a wooden-plank staircase, yet it retains a link to its primitive origins. The descent down the "Nine Turns Path" is decidedly not for the faint of heart, but the reward is an impressive close-up view of one of the marvels of the world of Buddhism.
There is a less daunting staircase cut into the opposite wall, i.e., on the Great Buddha's left-hand side. Its origins are more modern, as are its method of construction and materials: deep excavations into the face of the wall, reinforced by steel bars. Yet it offers the visitor unhurried moments of observation and tranquility.
Once at the foot of the sculpture the visitor can look upwards at the enormous figure like a commoner might have looked up in awe at a king sitting on his throne, remembering that this figure belongs to China's feudal past. Lastly, the visitor can get a panoramic view of the Giant Buddha and its surroundings by taking a trip on one of the ferry boats expressly commissioned for this purpose.
Leshan Great Buddha is a cultural treasure not only to the people of China, but also to the world at large (as part of the Mount Emei Scenic Area it is as well a World Cultural Heritage Site).
The Gigantic Sleeping Buddha
Another of the area's Buddhas, though "made" only in the eye of the beholder, is the gigantic "Sleeping Buddha" that is formed by the outline of several mountains, some adorned with man-made structures, including as well Leshan Giant Buddha, that enhance the illusion of a Buddha lying on its back. The "head" of this imaginary Buddha is Wulong Mountain with its many man-made towers, pavilions, halls and temples with their colorful tiled walls, as well as the contribution of nature's own rock formations, trees and towering bamboo plants, which, together, uncannily suggest the image of a head of wavy hair with the broad forehead, straight nose and slightly parted lips of a solemn yet kindly, quintessentially Chinese Buddha.
The "body" of the imaginary Buddha is represented by the nine peaks of Lingyun Mountain, suggesting swelling breasts, a well-formed round waist above which curves the slightly distended paunch of the typical Chinese Buddha, and finally, a set of sturdy legs. To round out the impression of a sleeping Buddha, the figure's "feet" seem to rest against an upturned baseboard – as if the imaginary Buddha were indeed lying in a bed – which parts are formed by the contours of Guicheng Mountain. But the crowning perfection of this partly man-made and partly nature-made imaginary Buddha is that at its heart – i.e., at roughly the spot where one would expect its heart to be – sits Leshan Giant Buddha itself. The relaxed, yet composed posture of this sleeping giant – it spans more than 4000m in length – is so realistic that it is as if nature herself had deliberately chosen to honor the Buddha.
Built on top of Wuyou Mountain in CE 742, circa, at the height of the Tang (CE 618-907) Dynasty, originally as a peaceful monastery that would undergo further renovation and enlargement during the Ming (CE 1368-1644) and Qing (CE 1644-1911) Dynasties, Wuyou Temple's original name was Zhengjue Temple. The name was changed to its present form during the Northern Song (CE 960-1127) Dynasty. Wuyou is a Zen Buddhist (Soto Zen) temple, which perhaps explains the very pleasing layout of the temple's various buildings, where high and low structures blend in serenely and harmoniously with the alternatingly high and low features of the surrounding terrain with its stony outcroppings and wooded areas.
On either side of the mountain gate leading to Wuyou Temple is a plaque containing a couplet, one based on a verse from a poem by the famous Tang Dynasty Chinese poet Du Fu and the other based on a verse from a poem by the almost-as-famous Song (CE 960-1279) Dynasty Chinese multi-artist, Su Shi.** Wuyou Temple houses seven palaces such as Tianwang Palace, Mituo Palace, Daxiong Palace, Guanyin Palace and Luohan Palace, which palaces also include Tianwang Hall, Amitabha Buddha Hall, Buddha Miatreya Hall, Guanyin Hall, Great Hero Hall and Arhat Hall. The three famous Buddhist statues of Neishi, Wenshu and Puxian, carved from camphor wood, then gold-plated, can be seen in the Great Hero Hall. The statues are larger than life, being about 3m high. They were temporarily removed to the city of Hangzhou in 1930, when the Great Hero Hall was being renovated.
Wuyou Temple's Arhat Hall has five hundred arhats (an arhat is a figure depicting an arahant, or one who has attained the ultimate goal of enlightenment, or nirvana, by following in the footsteps of the first such arahant, the Buddha himself, who rediscovered the path to enlightenment and taught it to his followers), which were remolded after the Cultural Revolution. They all have a height of about 1.3m but vary in form and in spirit. In the corners of the rooms of Wuyou Temple one will find calligraphic inscriptions by famous Chinese celebrities, including names from the past. The most famous of these inscriptions is written by Zhao Xi, a famous calligrapher from modern times. The "Chuanruo Heart Channel" on the monument embedded in the wall of the Bell Drum Pavilion is perfect both in calligraphy and in inscription, itself the pinnacle of calligraphy.
Lingyun Temple is famous throughout Sichuan, and, indeed, throughout the world. It was originally named Bao'en Temple, but was also referred to as the Great Buddha Temple because of the Leshan Great Buddha figure that is carved into Lingyun Mountain. Legend has it that the temple was built during the Tianbao ("Green Waves") period of the Tang Dynasty, which is earlier than the construction of the Great Buddha itself. On both sides of the entrance gate to the temple are four memorial monuments that record the temple's different periods of renovation during past dynasties. The principal building is composed of the Tianwang, or Heavenly King, Hall ("Tianwang" is a common name for palaces and halls), the Precious Hall of the Great Hero and the Scripture Collection Hall, which neatly form a multi-tiered courtyard house. In the Precious Hall of the Great Hero are three statues of Buddha in the image of three bodily forms, namely those of Dharma Body, Reward Body and Accommodative Body.
Since the concept of transmigration of the soul, or spirit, is central to Buddhist thought, the three statues are also called the three lives of a Buddha: the Previous Life, This Life and the Next Life. The abbot room on the left of the hall has been transformed into the Nanlou Hotel. Tourists who stay at the Nanlou Hotel have the opportunity to appreciate at close quarters the magnificent landscapes from the hotel's windows. Surrounding Tianwang Hall is a small wood with towering camphor trees. In midsummer, the impressionistic green hues of the camphor trees are a delight to study.
Lingbao Ta, or the Pagoda of the Souls, is built on one of Lingyun Mountain's nine peaks, Lingbao Peak. According to historical records, Lingbao Pagoda was built during the Song Dynasty and is quite similar in form and style to Xiaoyan Pagoda in the city of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province, which dates from the earlier Tang Dynasty. Lingbao Pagoda is a hollow, four-sided, thirteen-story brick structure of 38m height with thick eaves that predate the upturned eaves era of Chinese architecture. Inside, the pagoda consits of only five stories. Tourists are of course allowed inside, and may climb the staircase to the fifth floor, a climb of ninety five steps on red sandstone slabs. On each floor are niches housing statues of Buddha. The ascent up the pagoda offers some unique landscape views of the area, as the windows are left opened, partly in order to provide lighting and partly to permit the visitor a panoramic view of the surrounding mountain peaks and meandering rivers.
Mahao Cliffside Tomb
The Mahao Cliffside Tomb is located above the east bank of the spillway (Yihong River) between Lingyun and Wuyou Mountains, near the village of Mahao. The tomb's coffin chambers were constructed by chiseling caves into the cliffside. The Leshan Han Cliffside Tomb Museum incorporates the Mahao Cliffside Tomb, supplementing it with North and South Exhibition Halls that display cultural relics excavated from the Leshan Han Cliffside Tomb, and thus reveals the general situation of cliffside tombs in the Leshan area during the Han Chinese period.
On both sides of the Mahao Cliffside Tomb gate are carved figures depicting "Triumphant Wind" (Kaifeng), "Welcoming with Solemnity", and "Bidding Farewell", while on both the side and back walls of the front room are carved figures depicting "Jing Ke Stabbing Emperor Qin", "Zhu Que (Red Bird)", "Banquet Conviviality", "Dobbin", "Statue of Buddha", "Head of Beast", "Fishing", "Gate Soldier" and "Pulling Cart". Above these there are forty eight ancient eave tiles with varied decorations and ornamental patterns.
Show rooms at the entrance to the tomb gate display cultural relics, one room concentrting on the general situation of the Leshan Han Cliffside Tomb and the other demonstrating how everyday life was lived during this period of Han Chinese cultural influence. The show rooms exhibit essential stone, bronze, and iron implements of the period as well as pottery and other artistic works, including carved stones, figures and inscriptions that were excavated from the Leshan Han Cliffside Tomb, and which therefore reflect various aspects of the lives of the people of the area during the Han Chinese cultural period, aspects such as the economic and cultural conditions they lived under as well as the artistic, architectural and ideological ideas they aspired to.
Wuyou Mountain is located to the east of Leshan City near the confluence of the Dadu, Min and Qingyi Rivers. The three mountains – Lingyun, Wuyou and Ma'an – stand in close proximity one to another beside the river and are called by the joint name of Qingyi Mountain. Lingyun Mountain stands erect on the right while Ma'an Mountain stands on the left. Wuyou Mountain, which is also referred to as Middle Qingyi Peak, lies between them.
It is said that in remote antiquity, Qingyi God grew mulberries and reared silkworms. In appreciation of Qingyi God's kindness in teaching the people the art of sericulture (i.e., the raising of silkworks, which requires mulberry leaves), the people offered a sacrifice to the Qingyi God on the mountain. In more recent times, Ban Gu, during the Han Dynasty, believed that the stone "room" at the foot of the mountain, dubbed by local people as the "Pure Girl Room", was the abode of the Qingyi God. The couplet at the gatepost to Wuyou Temple therefore reads 'tide finds its way to "Pure Girl Room" through sea cave', which means that the temple is communicable with Dongting and Baoshan.*** Wuyou Mountain is also called "Lidui", after Li Bing, the magistrate of Shu (a state at the time in what is present-day Sichuan Province) and an accomplished engineer who is credited with having developed the Dujiangyan Irrigation System along the Yangtze River in present-day Sichuan Province.
Ancient Cliffside Inscriptions of Lingyun Mountain
Lingyun Mountain, also called Jiufeng Shan (meaning "Nine Peaks Mountain") has been a tourist resort since antiquity. It is said that 'people may make a pilgrimage to E'mei Shan above and to Jiufeng Shan below'. A large number of poems and cliffside inscriptions are preserved here. Under the grey pines and exotic cypresses of Jiufeng Shan, and between its ancient Buddhist temples and newer pavilions, abound infinitely interesting works of calligraphic inscription everywhere.
The four large characters, or inscriptions, of "Lingyun Voluntary Ferry" inside the Great Buddha Scenic Area record the history of the voluntary nature of this ancient ferry service of former times. Nearby the large inscriptions are smaller ones that give a clear indication that this service was indeed "free of charge". We see in this the altruism and sense of social solidarity shared by Chinese people of ancient times, which example of selflessness continues to evoke the respect of Chinese people today. The dragon character above the "dragon pool" is about 3m long and is rendered in a continuous brush movement, which has earned it the moniker "dragon at one stroke". In addition, alongside the Lingyun Plank Path are a dozen or so calligraphic inscriptions made by modern contributors against the red sandstone background of Lingyun Mountain. These inscriptions exude a grace and beauty that only calligraphy can produce.
* Anyone familiar with Christianity is tempted to draw a parallel between the Maitreya-Gautama Buddha relationship and the relationship between Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, or perhaps the relationship between the returning, triumphant Christ of the future and the Church would be the more appropriate parallel.
** Du Fu (alternatively, Tu Fu, CE 712–770) is considered as one of China's greatest poets, if not the country's greatest. Because of his broad range of styles, he has been called a Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo and Baudelaire, all rolled into one. Su Shi (alternatively, Su Dongpo, CE 1037–1101) was a writer, painter, calligrapher, pharmacologist and a statesman, as well as one of the major poets of the Song Dynasty.
*** This is surely a folkloric mix-up with – but perhaps not! – the likeness of "Lingbao" of Lingbao Peak/ Lingbao Pagoda of nearby Lingyun Mountain, one of the three mountains that make up Qingyi Mountain, to that of Lingbao, the religious school that synthesized Taoism and Buddhism shortly after Buddhism's introduction into Taoist China in the 6th century CE (Lingbao Peak may well have gotten its name from the religious school). In Taoism, the labyrinth theme is common, labyrinths typically being present in holy places called "cave heavens", a particularly celebrated example being that of Linwu dong tian, a cave in an island of Lake Taihu, once situated between the kingdoms of Wu and Yue (of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, non-Han Chinese interregnum between the Tang (CE 618-907) and Song (CE 960-1279) Dynasties). The island is called Dong ting ("salt cave"), and the sacred cave is nestled in a hill named Baeshan (alternatively, Baoshan), which can be interpreted as "mountain of the sorcerer", or "mountain of the sorceress".
The cave is related to a legend about some famous talismen that involves Yu the Great, to whom was revealed information concerning the "five talismen of the Lingbao" by a "holy man", and which talismen enabled Yu to conquer the great flood (note that flooding, or turbulent waters in general, was a common problem necessitating "divine intervention"). Having used the talismen, Yu was required to hide them in a sacred mountain. Yu therefore hid the talismen in the cave of Baeshan. Later, King Helu of Wu, a contemporary of Confucius, ordered a hermit to enter the cave to learn more about it. Since the cave turned out to be a real labyrinth, the hermit traversed thousands of li (1 li = ½ km, though the distance has not been consistent through time) before he finally found a city from which a lunar light emerged, and there he found the sacred writings (the talismen) and brought them back to King Helu.
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You may either take a taxi from Leshan City to the Great Buddha with a fare of about 6 yuan or take a ferry ship from Leshan Harbor to the Great Buddha with a boat fare of 1 yuan.
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Food irradiation could play a critical role in ensuring safe, wholesome and high quality foods for consumers, especially in dealing with virulent microbial strains that have withstood other more conventional treatments. This latest E. coli outbreak, centred in Northern Germany, has caused at least 26 deaths and over 2,000 infections in Germany, Sweden and other countries. During the outbreak, purportedly linked to contaminated salad vegetables, food safety experts and press articles have discussed the use of food irradiation in “the battle to destroy illness causing bacteria”.
Commercial food production involves strict standards and safeguards designed to keep food free of pathogenic organisms. However, production methods alone cannot completely ensure that fresh produce is completely safe at all times. Post-harvest washing treatments can help reduce levels of contaminating organisms but there is lots of evidence to suggest that no amount of washing will rid all organisms from produce such as salad leaves and seed sprouts.
Food irradiation kills bacteria without damaging the food or its health benefits. It is a safe and effective food processing technology. Research has shown(1) it to be effective at controlling organisms, for example, E. coli on seed sprouts. A recent study(2) assessed the microbiological quality of commercial seed sprouts and the inactivation of these illness-causing organisms using electron beam or gamma irradiation found that irradiation alone is an effective control measure and concluded that combination treatments may minimize the amount of radiation processing required to totally eliminate pathogenic organisms in seed sprouts.
Used on certain foods in Asia, the Americas and parts of Europe, food irradiation involves electron beams, gamma rays or X-rays and is the same technique (and often at the same facility) used to sterilize many medical products and devices. It is one of the few technologies which address both food quality and safety by virtue of its ability to control microorganisms without significantly affecting any sensory or other organoleptic attributes of food.
Food requires proper handling and cooking, but irradiation destroys populations of disease-carrying bacteria, and when used in combination with conventional practices, such as washing and packaging, it can help ensure greater levels of food safety and quality. In addition, food irradiation has several advantages over heat or chemical treatments, refrigeration and freezing:
- It does not significantly raise food temperature and the food does not “cook”
- Compared with freezing it does not produce ice-crystals that can affect texture and cause “mushiness”
- Compared with chemical treatments, irradiation does not leave potentially harmful residues
- It can be used to treat packaged food, which will remain safe and protected from microbial contamination after treatment.
(1) Reduction of Salmonella spp. and Strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7 by Gamma Radiation of Inoculated Sprouts, Rajkowski, Kathleen T.; Thayer, Donald W., Journal of Food Protection, Volume 63, Number 7, July 2000 , pp. 871-875(5).
(2) Microbial quality assessment and pathogen inactivation by electron beam and gamma irradiation of commercial seed sprouts, Wajea C.K., Junb S.Y., Leeb Y.K., Kimc B.N., Hanc D.H., Jod C. and Kwon J.H., Food Control, Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2009, Pages 200-204. | <urn:uuid:60042d4b-2fc3-471e-b884-9f4bf49c268f> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://www.fao.org/ag/portal/age/age-news/detail/en/c/80215/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375096738.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031816-00268-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934028 | 700 | 3.75 | 4 | {
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COVID-19 has upended lives around the globe, and Houston is no exception. We continue to hear the worst is yet to come, but it’s difficult to fully comprehend what that means or take proper action without context. To mitigate the effects of this global public health crisis in our region, we must understand the scope of vulnerability in the Greater Houston area.
While we can’t predict the future of COVID-19, we can use local data to better understand what may be in store for our region so we can take collective action to reduce the risk to the most vulnerable communities.
Want to give back and get involved? Visit greaterhoustonrecovery.org to learn more about the Greater Houston COVID-19 Recovery Fund, and how your support can help our neighbors who need it the most.
The “current” state of affairs
It’s challenging to stay fully informed of the crisis as the number of cases, deaths and recoveries varies depending on when and where you look. Officially, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports more than 304,800 cases in the nation, while the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reports 339,000. The Texas Department of Health and Human Services is tracking more than 7,200 cases in the state as does the Houston Chronicle. What we do know is that the virus has been quietly spreading across the country for several weeks, and these figures are just the beginning.
Following the number of cases and fatalities is a good place to start in understanding the magnitude of the crisis, but it fails to account for the deeper ramifications COVID-19 may have for different people in our region. As with other disasters, the most vulnerable populations will be disproportionately affected. In this brief, we aim to identify and quantify vulnerable groups in our region that COVID-19 will impact in a variety of ways. While this is by no means an exhaustive list, we hope it informs our collective response in assisting those who need it most.
COVID-19 and health risks in the Houston area
At publication time, more than 72,000 people around the world have died from COVID-19 — nearly 15% of whom were Americans. While hospitalization figures are inconsistent among states, the COVID Tracking Project reports more than 41,500 cumulative hospitalizations across the nation. Of course, the novel coronavirus poses significant public health risks, but for some, the risks are much higher.
CDC researchers found that COVID-19 fatality rates increase with age, particularly for those over the age of 65. Death rates for Americans 85 years and older range from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged 55–64 years, and less than 1% among persons younger than 20. These findings are consistent with data from the first two months of 2020 in China.1
More than 660,000 adults over the age of 65 live in Fort Bend, Harris, and Montgomery counties. Worse, more than 134,000 (about one in five) live alone, with particularly high concentrations in Fort Bend County. Given their heightened vulnerability to the effects of COVID-19, older residents who live alone may face additional challenges safely obtaining the supplies and resources they need in order to practice social distancing. We also know that 134,000 seniors live below 150% of the poverty level, further hindering their ability to weather this crisis.
People with chronic health conditions
People with chronic health conditions like diabetes, compromised immune systems, heart disease, and asthma are also at higher risk of contracting and succumbing to COVID-19. The Institute for Health Policy at UT Health Science Center of Houston conducted an analysis of Census data in Harris County to map individuals with the highest risk for hospitalization and critical care needs. UTHealth researchers found that areas with the largest proportions of residents at high risk of critical illness from COVID-19 include Deer Park-Channel View, East Little York-Settegast, and Humble-Atascocita.
Take a deeper look: Explore this interactive map to see how these and other risk factors correspond to confirmed COVID-19 cases in Harris County.
No one wants to get sick, but for those without health insurance, the stakes are even higher. The Houston Metropolitan Area is home to the largest number of uninsured in Texas, which has the largest number and rate of uninsured in the country. Workers without health insurance are most likely to be part-time, gig economy, or low-wage employees, which means they likely do not have paid sick leave, compounding risks.2
President Trump signed the “Phase 2 Stimulus Package” (the Families First Coronavirus Response Act) on March 18 which provides free testing, but individuals will still be responsible for paying their treatment costs. This could affect some of the more than 1.1 million people, including 184,300 children, in the three-county region who are uninsured.
Harris County issued the first stay-home order effective March 17, but many of us are into our third or fourth week of staying home. The mental and emotional toll of COVID-19, for even the least vulnerable among us, will only continue as the pandemic wears on. Anxiety about the health of loved ones and ourselves, isolation, loneliness, and joblessness can all wear down our sense of well-being as the outbreak’s severity increases.
Coronavirus-related stress likely exacerbates pre-existing mental health conditions and mental health care access challenges in our region. As of 2018, the percentage of adults experiencing frequent mental distress (14 or more days of poor mental health within a month) in Houston’s three largest counties ranged from 9% in Fort Bend County to 12% in Harris County, where more than half of confirmed Houston-area cases of COVID-19 have been reported.
While those who have access to mental health care may be able to continue treatment through remote appointments, many in the Greater Houston region lack access to care altogether. As of 2018, Houston’s three largest counties average one mental health care provider for every 988 residents, lower than the state average and less than half the national average.
Economic risks of COVID-19 in the Houston area
Layoffs due to COVID-19 have begun throughout the Houston area, adding to challenges in healthcare access, mental health and more. Nearly 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment for the first time in the past two weeks, more than 431,000 of whom are from Texas. For the first time, the CARES Act expanded unemployment benefits and loans to these workers, but the process to connect people to these resources in a timely manner will be challenging.
As the graph below shows, these figures are unprecedented. Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership estimates mid-March job losses are nearly 38,000 in Metro Houston, though those figures can’t be confirmed until jobs data come out in early May.
The majority of unemployment claims are from workers in the service industry — hotels, bars, restaurants, entertainment, leisure — as well as retail and travel. One out of every five workers in the three-county region is employed in a sector at high-risk for job loss, totaling about half a million people. Houstonians in these high-risk industries earned nearly $4 billion in wages in the second quarter of 2019.
While these industries are at immediate risk from the economic effects of COVID-19, the steep decline in oil prices will have longer-lasting and wide-ranging implications for businesses and workers in the oil and gas industry. Houston, as the energy capital of the world, will certainly be disproportionately affected.
Not all occupations in the aforementioned industries are at risk for layoffs. National data show that low-wage, part-time, and hourly workers in specific sectors have been hit the hardest with job and wage losses. The graph below shows the number of jobs and median annual salaries for workers grouped by job function. Occupations that are most at risk (in red) have the lowest salaries. Traditionally, that also suggests workers are paid hourly, don’t have health insurance, and don’t receive paid sick leave. Many groups will be eligible for paid sick leave and unemployment benefits offered by the federal government’s response to COVID-19, but not all, and workers will still have to make the difficult choice between protecting their health or earning an income. The stakes are high as 40% of Houstonians don’t have $400 in savings to deal with an unexpected emergency.
Small businesses in particular are struggling as everyone is told to stay home, and revenue has plummeted as a result. Nearly 127,000 small businesses employ fewer than 500 people in our region and comprise half of Houston-area businesses—most of these (89,500) employ fewer than 10, according to U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns. About 38 percent of small businesses in our region are minority-owned, putting livelihoods at risk and compounding challenges minorities have historically faced.
A survey by the Greater Houston Partnership shows that 91% of its small business members (defined as 500 or fewer employees) have lost revenue, about half are not able to pay staff during the shut-down, and more than one-third have laid off workers. There is hope that recent federal legislation will slow some of the job losses as small businesses take advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which requires companies to use the majority of funds to continue to pay staff.
Vulnerable populations in the Houston area
In addition to the groups identified above, immigrants, those who experience homelessness, and school-aged children are especially vulnerable to the hardships caused by COVID-19. In general, residents who were struggling prior to the pandemic will face compounded economic hardship during the crisis. This includes individuals and families living in poverty and low-income working households, also called Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, and Employed (ALICE). Again, what follows is not a complete list, but we hope to call out examples of people in our community who will need the most help.
Immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, are particularly vulnerable to crises like disasters and pandemics. Immigrants tend to have less access to information and services since they may not be as familiar with credible sources, or with knowing how to navigate the system, and are more likely to encounter language barriers.
More than 1.5 million Houstonians were born outside the U.S. but call the three-county region home—that’s one out of every four people. The Migration Population Institute estimates 473,000 undocumented immigrants live in Greater Houston. According to the Census Bureau, more than half of immigrants in the region speak English less than “very well.” A recent report from ProPublica highlights the obstacles limited English proficient speakers encounter trying to advocate for their medical care. Given there are more than 145 languages spoken in the region, the need for interpreters and translators right now is critical. To view a map of where immigrants live in Houston, click here.
Immigrants also tend to have less access to forms of federal and state assistance (even though most pay taxes) because they are typically excluded from government programs and they are less likely to take advantage of aid for which they are eligible. Compounding their vulnerability, immigrants are more likely to be uninsured and work low-paying jobs. They are also over-represented in sectors immediately affected by layoffs. Ironically, an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute found that six million immigrant workers are at the front lines of keeping Americans healthy and fed during the pandemic by working in hospitals, as care-givers, or on farms.
Immigrants without legal status will have an even harder time weathering this pandemic as they are not eligible to benefit from the trillions of dollars in aid the federal government is releasing. In fact, the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed by President Trump on March 27, explicitly excludes them. Even mixed-status tax-paying households where American-born children have at least one parent without legal status will be ineligible for benefits.
Those who are homeless
People experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable during this pandemic. Homeless individuals tend to be older, and are more likely to suffer from mental illness and chronic conditions, making them more susceptible to the virus. Additionally, it is nearly impossible to follow CDC guidelines regarding social distancing, staying home, and regular hand hygiene without a permanent residence.
A marginalized population in the best of times, the unique needs of these individuals are often deprioritized in times of crisis. According to 2019 data from the Coalition for the Homeless, nearly 4,000 sheltered and unsheltered people live in Fort Bend, Harris, and Montgomery counties. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced on April 1 that the city will rent hotel rooms to shelter Houston’s homeless individuals, but this population will require much more support as this crisis continues.
While school districts in Texas are officially closed through May 4, many parents are preparing for schools to remain shuttered for the remainder of the academic year. Several organizations, districts, teachers, and parents have stepped up to ensure that children continue to learn, but with parents working from home and the general chaos COVID-19 has created, maintaining a high-quality education at home is challenging, particularly for low-income working parents and those without internet access or computers. For example, recent data from Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the country, show that about 15,000 high school students are absent online and have failed to do any schoolwork, and more than 40,000 (about one-third of all high schoolers) have not been in daily contact with their teachers since mid-March, suggesting that distance-learning is not reaching everyone.
Moreover, when students spend time away from school during the summer, they sometimes lose what they learned over the academic year, a concept known as “summer slide.” One study found that students lost between 25% and 30% of what they learned during the school year, with lower income students at a greater disadvantage than their wealthier peers. About 691,500 public school students (62% of students enrolled) in the three-county region are identified as economically disadvantaged, meaning they qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. For many children, these free or reduced-price school meals are their primary source of daily nutrition. And, for the 98,000 students with disabilities and special needs in our region, the consequences of being out of school for a prolonged amount of time could be even more serious.
Understanding challenges to help Houston move forward
COVID-19 may be the first pandemic any of us have lived through, but this is far from the first time Houstonians have dealt with adversity. We’ve seen how this community comes together — neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger. For the good of this region that we all call home, please stay home if you are able. The more we reduce our physical contact with each other, the more neighbors we can save. That, if anything, is clear.
There are still plenty of ways to help from home. The United Way of Greater Houston and the Greater Houston Community Foundation have established the Greater Houston COVID-19 Recovery Fund, endorsed by Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, to support local nonprofits that help those we identified here and more. Visit greaterhoustonrecovery.org today to see how you can get involved.
- Greater Houston Community Foundation
- United Way of Greater Houston and Resources
- Fort Bend County Mental Health Hotline: (832) 363-7094
- Harris County (Harris Center) Mental Health Hotline: (833) 986-1919
- Montgomery County Mental Health Hotline: (936) 523-5040
- OpenRICE Nonprofit Resources
- Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative
- Smart Parents, an informational hub for Texas families and regional nonprofits
1 The same CDC study found that while fatality rates might be very low for young people, they are not entirely immune to the effects of COVID-19 — nearly 40% of those hospitalized for coronavirus from mid-February to mid-March were between the age of 20 and 54.
2 Recent federal legislation allows for paid sick leave. | <urn:uuid:3da06a8e-84de-4194-a628-b6d7970ff406> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://api.understandinghouston.org/2020/04/covid-19s-potential-impact-in-greater-houston-by-the-numbers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662604495.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220526065603-20220526095603-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.958076 | 3,440 | 2.8125 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.959402322769165,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Health |
Math and Literacy
By combining math and literacy, these math stories can help open up the ‘world of math’ to students with a wider range of learning styles.The word problems found in the stories encourage logical thinking and help students practice getting information from written text. I often have students read the stories aloud in class and then encourage them to solve the math problems on their own.
|K-2nd Grade||Diego and the Mysterious Floating Donut
This is a read-along video series (4 episodes) on YouTube that reviews basic addition and subtraction facts, double numbers, and ways to add to ten.
|3-5th grade||The Evil Wizard of Math!
The adventure will take students through a variety of word problems ranging from simple multiplication facts, to large addition and subtraction problems.
This math story is a full-length chapter book- the complete book is over 180 pages, and what I presently have online (12 chapters) is about half that length.
The text of the story and its poems, are also written to be level appropriate and should provide hours of entertaining challenges for your students.
| The Not So Great Pumpkin: Double Digit Multiplication (a Halloween Math Story)
The story has 10 mini-chapters (one page each). The math in the story focuses on double digit multiplication. Of course, the math problems can be skipped and the silly Halloween story can be read on its own. Students should be able to work through this entire story and related math problems in about 45 minutes.
| Ted,The Thanksgiving Turkey: Multiplication (a Thanksgiving Math Story)
The math in the story is focused on number sense and multiplication skills.
Don't miss the video/read along version!
|Number Thief Multiplication Stories
These rhyming stories are appropriate for 3rd-5th grade. Each of these interactive stories takes a humorous approach to one of the multiplication tables.
|The Number Thief: Number Sense Stories
The math in these humorous rhyming stories is appropriate for 1st-3rd grade.They review the addition of double numbers, adding 10's on and off decade, and odd and even numbers.
|4-6th Grade||Mr. Al Geebrah's Fraction Story
This story is appropriate for 4th-6th grade. This story challenges students to put their fraction skills to use. The questions focus on addition of fractions, reducing fractions, and finding equivalent fractions.
Mr. Al Geebrah is a short story that is 17 pages in length. Students should be able to work through this math story in one or two class periods. | <urn:uuid:06ef1c20-6bd8-400b-b4ad-dfea9e3b93ec> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://mathstory.com/elementary-math-stories/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439740679.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20200815035250-20200815065250-00415.warc.gz | en | 0.916238 | 546 | 4.125 | 4 | {
"raw_score": 1.5733011960983276,
"reasoning_level": 2,
"interpretation": "Moderate reasoning"
} | Science & Tech. |
Most people assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually "made up" by the brain (see Seeing more than your eye does). Perhaps even more interestingly, the eye actually throws away much of the information it gets, leaving it to the rest of the brain to fill in additional information in its own ways. A characteristic pattern of connections among neurons (nerve cells) in the eyes of most animals (including humans), termed a "lateral inhibition network", is a significant way information is thrown away. Lateral inhibition helps to explain a number of "optical illusions" and, more importantly, provides an excellent example of how the brain is organized to actively "make sense" of the information it gets, rather than to simply absorb and respond to it. In so doing, it provides some valuable insights into the sources of our sense of "reality".
To understand lateral inhibition networks and their function, one needs to know a bit about the gross anatomy, optics, and initial neural signals of the eye. As shown in the figure, a simple (but adequate) way to think of the eye is that it is a hollow sphere with a hole in the front (which corresponds to the black spot, or "pupil" of a real eye, located within the colored "iris"). The pupil is the opening through which light enters the eye. The pupil, together with two curved transparent structures (an overlying "cornea" and a "lens" just inside the pupil, neither of which are shown in the figure), also controls the path taken by light, much as does the aperature and lens of a camera, creating on the back of the eye an inverted image of whatever is being observed. The image falls on the "retina" (the grey arc in the figure), a sheet of neurons which includes a layer of photoreceptors, neurons specialized to measure light intensity and translate it into signals which the rest of the nervous system can understand. Hence, at this first processing step, each photoreceptor generates a signal related to the intensity of light coming from a corresponding point of the observed object. Photoreceptors corresponding to brighter arrays of the object (yellow) receive more light and generate larger signals than those corresponding to darker areas (black).
The signals resulting from light falling on the photoreceptors are not sent directly to the brain in the optic nerve (grey line leaving the back of the ye in the figure above) but are instead first processed in a number of ways by a variety of interactions among neurons within the retina, of which the lateral inhibition network is an instance. Such a network is shown schematically below (the anatomical and physiological details of retinal organization are more complicated than shown in the schematic and vary substantially from organism to organism; humans, and other vertebrates, have three layers of neurons in the retina, rather than the two shown in the figure, but the functional outcome is the same).
The schematic illustrates a small portion of the retina, one of those at which the overlying light pattern changes from darker to lighter, as shown at the top of the figure. The green rectangles represent photoreceptors, each generating a signal appropriate for the amount of light falling on it. The red circles represent output neurons of the retina, whose signals will go to the brain through the optic nerve. Each output neuron is shown as receiving excitatory input from an overlying photoreceptor (vertical black lines) as well as inhibitory input from adjacent photoreceptors (angled blue lines). It is this laterally spread inhibition that gives "lateral inhibition" networks their name. At the bottom of the schematic is a representation of the signals in the output neurons (purple lines). Output neurons well to the right of the dark/light border are excited by an overlying photoreceptor but also inhibited by adjacent, similarly illuminated photoreceptors. The same is true far to the left of the dark/light border. Hence, assuming that the network is organized so that equal illumination of exciting and inhibiting photoreceptors balances out, output neurons far from the edge in either direction will have the same output signals. Only output neurons near the dark/light border will have different output signals. As one approaches the dark/light border from the left, the signals will decrease, because inhibition from more brightly lit photoreceptors to the right will outweigh the excitation from the overlying dimly lit photoreceptors. As one approaches the dark/light border from the right, the signals will increase because excitation from brightly lit photoreceptors is not completely offset by inhibition from the dimly lit photoreceptors to the left.
SOME IMPLICATIONS, SOME OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
Clearly, output neurons are not telling the brain exactly what the light intensity is at each point on the retina. They are instead telling the brain which regions of the retina have "edges" (areas where light intensity changes quickly). The output neurons also provide information about whether the quick change in intensity is increasing or decreasing (see figure above) and by how much (not shown above, but you can check this out with our lateral inhibition simulator). Why then does one see solid squares of black and white in the checkerboard above? Why does one not instead see the same brightness at the center of both the black and the white squares, with only the borders between them looking different? Part of the answer is a "filling-in" quite analagous to that which occurs for the blindspot. Knowing that there is a particular change of light intensity at a particular place and no change in light intensity until another particular place, the brain can "fill-in" the intensity between the two. If you look just right at the checkerboard, however, you can see clear signs of the operation of the lateral inhibition network. The centers of the white squares look a little darker than the edges, and the centers of the dark squares a little lighter than the edges, just as you would expect given a lateral inhibition network.
Whether you can or can't see the smudged whites and cloudy blacks in the checkerboard, you can't miss the evidence for a lateral inhibition network in the figure below. The small grey squares are exactly the same intensity, but the one on the left looks darker and the one on the right looks lighter. The reason for this is that ouput cells near the edge of the left small grey square are signalling decreasing light intensity as one moves into the square, while those near the edge of the right small grey square are signalling increasing light intensity as one moves into the square. Clearly, the surrounding intensities dramatically affect what one perceives, just as one would expect with a lateral inhibition network (this too you can demonstrate for yourself if you have our lateral inhibition simulator open or you open it).
WHY DO THINGS IN SUCH A SILLY WAY?, or SOME MORE IMPLICATIONS
An obvious question is why is the nervous system organized such that it can be so easily fooled by the grey squares on light and dark backgrounds? In fact, its not in general so easy to "fool" the nervous system. That's one reason why the few cases where we can show that it happens, optical illusions, are so much fun. But optical illusions are even more interesting for the fundamental insights they offer into how the nervous system works, something you're less likely to ask about unless you're fooled. And so the question remains: why do we (and other animals) have lateral inhibition networks in our visual systems? Why throw away information about brightness and then rebuild it inside the brain? The figure below will help us work towards an answer to that question.
Though we don't usually notice, we live in a world of constantly varying light intensity. And though we don't usually think about it, what this means is that the light reaching our eyes from any given object in the world is changing all of the time. Under bright sun, as shown to the left in the figure, the checkerboard (upper light/dark line) casts a certain amount of light on our photoreceptors (lower light/dark line, notice that it is of course left/right inverted by the pupil/cornea/lens). On a cloudy day, as shown to the right, the checkerboard is the same checkerboard but the amount of light reflected to our eye from both the light and the dark squares is reduced. A very interesting and important property of a lateral inhibition network (compare the output plots at the bottom of both figures) is that their outputs will be pretty much the same in the two cases. If you have the lateral inhibition simulator open, you can verify this for yourself (or you can open it). Since the network detects and reports only locations of large changes in brightness, the brain gets more or less the same signals in both cases, and one sees more or less the same checkerboard.
What changes without our noticing it is not only overall intensity but also intensity variations. If a light is located to one side of a checkerboard, as in the figure above, more light will be reflected to the eye from the side closer to the light and less from points further from the light. So what will appear on the photoreceptors is relatively bright at the left, steadily darker moving toward the right, then brighter, and then steadily darker again. Because of the lateral inhibition network, he relatively slow changes in light intensity due to the direction of the light source won't much affect the output neurons, and once again the brain gets more or less the same signals and you see more or less the same checkerboard. This too you can test if you have the lateral inhibition simulator open (or you can open it).
THE BOTTOM LINE(S)
Clearly, what we see is not "what is out there", but rather something which is significantly affected by the structures of our brains. That's an important and quite general (lateral inhibition networks are only one of myriad examples) lesson to keep in mind, both for oneself in trying to make sense of the world and when arguing with other people (whose brain structures may differ) about what it is REALLY like out there. Its a particularly important lesson to keep in mind since the lateral inhibition network (and similar brain structures) are having their effects in ways that we are normally totally unaware of, until they are called to our attention, and even then are more than likely to stop being aware of when we stop thinking about them. Lateral inhibition networks are operating as part of the "unconscious" brain, and largely without providing any information to the "conscious" part of the brain about what they are doing.
The organization of the brain is such as to create "abstractions", rather than to simply take input at face value. A checkerboard is a checkerboard is a checkerboard not because the input reaching our eyes is the same at all times but rather because the nervous system is organized to reject some information and replace it with other information. The "booming, buzzing confusion" of the external world is rendered stable and comprehensible by the organization of the nervous system. That organization represents information added by the nervous system to the information is receives, and constitutes a presumption that there exist stable, constant external forms with well-defined boundaries. The presumption is strong enough so the nervous system actually creates boundaries where none in fact exist, as shown by the figure above. Such a presumption probably reflects genetic information (the experience of innumerable generations of ancestral organisms) about the nature of "reality", and might be absent in organisms evolving under other circumstances where they do not interact with stable, constant, spatially bounded external forms. Such presumptions also probably provide a basis for the human experience of "ideal forms". Such "ideal forms" are not, as Plato might have imagined, properties of the real world dimly glimpsed by imperfect humans, but rather abstractions created by the brain. The misunderstanding may have arisen because the abstractions are properties of the "unconscious" rather than the "conscious" parts of the brain.
"Contour and Contrast" by Floyd Ratliff (Scientific American, June, 1972) describes some of the early neurophysiological work on the horseshoe crab which led to modern understanding of lateral inhibition networks. That article, and Floyd Raliff's Mach Bands (Holden-Day, San Francisco, 1965) nicely connects the neurobiology to earlier intuitive understandings of visual processing by artists as well as to earlier psychophysical explorations of the relationship between visual perception and external reality.
For more complete descriptions of retinal structure and function, and the structure and function of the visual system generally, see C.R. Michael, "Retinal processing of visual images", Scientific American, May, 1969, and D.H. Hubel and T.N. Wiesel, "Brain mechanisms of vision", Scientific American, September, 1979.
Created by Paul Grobstein. Applet by Bogdan Butoi
| Brain and Behavior Forum | Brain and Behavior | Serendip Home | | <urn:uuid:9202cc63-8b2f-4b68-84ac-f63830dd5b55> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/latinhib.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997885796.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025805-00176-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940998 | 2,725 | 3.328125 | 3 | {
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} | Science & Tech. |
Last month, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced new legislation regarding technical protection measures used to protect copyrighted works online, called the SMART Copyright Act, short for the “Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022.” The bill deputizes the Copyright Office every three years to designate certain “technological measures” (i.e., filters and content monitoring software) that every digital platform or website hosting user-uploaded content must use. This requirement would affect nearly every organization allowing users to upload content in the digital space - from big tech platforms to your local library. If a platform or website failed to implement the “approved” technologies, they could face stringent statutory damages even if there was no alleged infringement.
Library Futures strongly opposes the SMART Copyright Act of 2022. If this bill were to pass, it would create a burden on libraries while also censoring free expression online. Libraries would be required to implement government-mandated content filters that may not only be financially costly, but also damaging to open online spaces. For instance, the chilling effects of content filters on free expression have long been documented. Filtering technology used to identify copyright infringement has the potential to sweep too broadly, automatically blocking lawful content that is permissible to share, such as under fair use. Distinguishing between lawful and unlawful uses requires context, which automated systems are unable to take into account. Copyright law is meant to protect creators and encourage expression; if passed, the SMART Copyright Act would accomplish the exact opposite.
The SMART Copyright Act would create a resource and financial burden that would primarily fall on smaller and publicly funded institutions, such as libraries, archives, and educational institutions. This proposal gives the Copyright Office an alarmingly sweeping power: the ability to require thousands of institutions to adopt, at their expense, unnecessary content-filtering technology. While large companies, such as big tech platforms, already use expensive filtering software to screen for potential infringement, mandating the adoption of such technology would disproportionately impact institutions that rely on public funding. In order to petition for an exemption, libraries would have to participate in an onerous triennial bureaucratic rulemaking process, overburdening libraries’ limited resources.
This proposal would also designate authority to the Copyright Office, an agency with historically limited engineering or technical expertise—much less in internet technology or content moderation—to make massively consequential decisions that could change how the internet works. The process risks corruption from businesses and vendors pitching their own products and puts the government in the position of choosing the highest bidder. As Nicholas Garcia, Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge states, “What is worse is that the details of these technical measures don’t even exist yet, and Congress has decided to give authority over these still-unknown and untested monitoring programs to the Copyright Office, which has very little technical expertise and a known history of prioritizing corporate interests over the interests of internet users and individual creators.”
The SMART Copyright Act has been referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where it awaits further debate before moving toward a vote on the Senate floor. Library Futures joins the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Author’s Alliance, Internet Archive, and many other public interest stakeholders in voicing its opposition to this harmful legislation. | <urn:uuid:ff9d482c-7d27-432f-95f1-7203630ba7d2> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.libraryfutures.net/post/library-futures-joins-opposition-against-the-smart-copyright-act | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710870.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20221201221914-20221202011914-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.935624 | 681 | 2.71875 | 3 | {
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"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Politics |
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Health care service delivery in Nigeria falls short of international standards resulting from poor state of health care infrastructure, shortage of medical professionals, threat of re-emerging infectious diseases, and poor sanitation. Over the last five decades post-independence, growth, and development in health care has been very poor. HIV/AIDS has regrettably been a very serious health challenge overtime. About 3.6 million of the populations are HIV positive. More than 300.000 individuals die from AIDS every year (Arikpo, Etor, & Usang, 2007). Another major problem is that of infant mortality. The World Health Organization Report (2008) indicated an infant mortality of 110 per 1000 live births in Nigeria. As a comparison, the infant mortality in Sweden is 2.7 per 1000 live births. Poverty has compounded these problems to give low life-expectancy of 52 years for women and 49 years for men. Recognizable demographic differences exist in Nigeria with consequent disparity in availability of health care facilities across the country (Okeke, 2008; Ouma & Herselman, 2008). Adequate evalution of clinical data of patients like the electronic medical record systems help to improve access to health care in remote suburban areas and ensure improved maintenance of long-term care (Keenan, Nguyen, & Srinivasan, 2006). Onwujekwe (2005) and Ofovwe and Ofili (2005), in separate studies conducted to assess patient and community satisfaction, found discontent with community members who decried the poorly staffed and inadequately equipped Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in their rural settlements compared to hospitals in urban centers. Such demographic disparity in health care accessibility benefits from hospital information technologies and telemedicine to foster collaboration between clinicians in urban areas and those in rural settlements (Ouma & Herselman, 2008). Clinical data evaluation for patients includes strategic decision support systems and clinical documentation systems. Some of the clinical support systems include Laboratory Information Systems (LIS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS), and Computerized Order Entry (COE). Others are pharmacy information systems and personal data analysis systems with important added feature for messaging between providers and staff, and the ability to share data with other medical facilities (Keenan et al., 2006). Telemedicine is a unique application of hospital information technologies. In its simplest form, telemedicine uses audiovisual information and communications apparatus to deliver health care services in a bid to modify socio-economic circumstances of the beneficiaries and improve accessibility to medical care (Yun & Chun, 2008). A paucity of government policy regarding the implementation of clinical data evaluation for patients exists in Nigeria. The lack of strategic government programs has culminated in the poor adoption of hospital information technologies in health care facilities across the country. Okeke (2008) posited that the lack of access to modern medical health care facilities has compelled many Nigerian patients to seek treatment with traditional healers and patent medicine dealers. The more affluent echelon of the society resorts to medical tourism overseas to obtain health care services, resulting in a loss of foreign exchange to Nigeria. According to Okafor-Dike (2008), poor leadership in Nigeria has led to years of economic downturn affecting every aspect of social life. Rather than develop medical services in Nigeria, government officials and wealthy individuals frequently seek medical treatment abroad even for the most basic health care needs.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
According to Omeruan et al. (2009), the major challenges of Nigeria healthcare system have been largely due to the lack of adequate clinical data of patients. Health services in Nigeria have suffered from decades of neglect, endangering Nigeria health status and national productivity. The healthcare system management is in three tiers; tertiary healthcare- provided by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), mostly coordinated through the university teaching hospitals and federal medical centres. The secondary healthcare provision is by the state governments which manage the General Hospitals. The third tier is the Local Government (774 LGAs) which focuses on primary healthcare services administered in the dispensaries. It is the patients in primary healthcare services that suffer the most neglect and this has resulted to poor monitoring of patients which in extreme cases has led to death. Women, children, and especially the core poor die from avoidable health issues as a result of patients clinical data neglect.
Nigerian patients are being denied quality clinical data quality especially those in the rural areas as a result high profile individuals, especially the political class, continue to fly abroad on regular basis for medical treatment, further widening the inequality in accessing healthcare services which has further deteriorated our health care services leading to avoidable deaths of patients in Nigeria.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The major aim of the study is to evaluate clinical data for quality health care cost and utilization in monitoring patients in Nigeria. Other specific objectives of the study include;
H0: There is significant effect of adequate evaluation of clinical data of patient on quality of health care cost in Nigeria.
H1: There is significant effect of adequate evaluation of clinical data of patient on quality of health care cost in Nigeria.
H0: There is no significant relationship between evaluation of clinical data of patient and quality of health care cost in Nigeria.
H1: There is significant relationship between evaluation of clinical data of patient and quality of health care cost in Nigeria.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study would be of importance to the development of the health sector and by extension the development of the economy. The study would also be of immense importance to students, researchers and scholars who are interested in developing further studies on the subject matter by providing relevant literatures for the study.
SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The study is restricted to the evaluation of clinical data for quality of health care cost and its utilization in monitoring of patient. using the Lagos university teaching hospital(LUTH).
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.
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OTHER SIMILAR PUBLIC HEALTH PROJECTS AND MATERIALS | <urn:uuid:08d7aa76-d378-4212-9682-5bbfed75b774> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.projectclue.com/public-health/project-topics-materials-for-undergraduate-students/evaluation-of-data-for-quality-of-health-care-cost-and-its-utilization-in-monitory-of-patients-outcome | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304749.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20220125005757-20220125035757-00625.warc.gz | en | 0.923707 | 1,348 | 2.53125 | 3 | {
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Orchard grass is an introduced perennial, clump-forming, cool-season grass, without rhizomes. Its flower stalks have relatively few branches, and the flowers are grouped into dense clusters of spikelets that are usually oriented mostly to one side their branch stalk.
The flowering stems may be up to nearly 4 feet tall and are somewhat flattened, especially near the base. The leaf sheaths are closed to about the midpoint and are keeled (V-shaped in cross-section). At the junction of the leaf sheath and leaf blade is a well-developed ligule (membranous flap) to about ½ inch long; it is sometimes hairy and is usually torn into several lobes at maturity. Leaf blades are 3–16 inches long. Orchard grass is usually a bluish or grayish green.
Flower clusters are in panicles 2¾–8 inches long. There are relatively few branches, and these are either ascending or spreading. Dense headlike clusters of spikelets are at the ends of the otherwise naked branches; the spikelets are oriented more or less to one side of the branch stalk. Flowers May–August.
Height: flowering stems 14–47 inches.
Common to scattered nearly statewide.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs in disturbed portions of bottomland forests and mesic (moist) upland forests, upland prairies, and margins of ponds. Also occurs on pastures, old fields, levees, roadsides, fencerows, and disturbed areas.
Native to Europe, orchard grass has been widely naturalized in North America and elsewhere in the world. In the past, orchard grass was more commonly planted as a pasture grass for hay and forage. It was naturalized in eastern Missouri by 1860.
Introduced perennial, clump-forming, cool-season grass.
Orchard grass is the only species in its genus, though botanists have debated whether to include a few other plants with it. In Eurasia, botanists have recorded several subspecies, but in America these are generally not distinguishable.
Orchard grass pollen is one of the principal causes of hay fever in May and June.
People have introduced orchard grass to many parts of the world. In some places, it is considered invasive.
Orchard grass has a long history for use as a forage or pasture plant, which helps to account for its being introduced so many places. As the season wears on, orchard grass’s foliage gets tougher and less palatable to grazing animals.
Orchard grass, often with a mix of oats, wheat, barley, and/or rye, is often sold as so-called cat grass. Owners of indoor cats sow the seeds in pots and make the tender grass blades available to their cats, which chew the leaves as a nutritional supplement. This may also draw the cat’s attention away from chewing houseplants.
A variety of insects either chew the leaves, bore into the stems or roots, or suck the sap of orchard grass. Grasshoppers, beetles, leaf-mining fly larvae, aphids, and others are fed by this species. Some of the Missouri’s butterflies and moths that use it as a caterpillar food plant are the little wood satyr and the unarmed and many-lined wainscot moths. Since orchard grass is native to Eurasia, there are many additional insects on that continent that use it as a host plant.
The seeds of orchard grass are eaten by seed-eating songbirds such as sparrows.
Deer and other herbivorous mammals eat the young, tender leaves.
Like most other grasses, pollen is transferred from plant to plant by the wind instead of by insects. Their tiny windborne pollen grains are one reason grasses trigger allergies. | <urn:uuid:3f5c8897-1c60-4315-a1f2-0945978001b4> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/orchard-grass | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646257.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20230531022541-20230531052541-00143.warc.gz | en | 0.963413 | 803 | 3.390625 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 1.9351763725280762,
"reasoning_level": 2,
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} | Science & Tech. |
Who are People with Disabilities?
People with disabilities are — first and foremost — people. People with disabilities are people who have individual abilities, interests and needs. For the most part, they are ordinary individuals seeking to live ordinary lives. People with disabilities are moms, dads, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends, neighbors, coworkers, students and teachers. About 54 million Americans — one out of every five individuals — have a disability. Their contributions enrich our communities and society as they live, work and share their lives.
Changing Images Presented
Historically, people with disabilities have been regarded as individuals to be pitied, feared or ignored, and have been disrespected and devalued members of society. They have been portrayed as helpless victims, heroic individuals overcoming tragedy and “charity cases” who must depend on others for their well being and care — and at times, “repulsive” persons. Media coverage has frequently focused on heartwarming features and inspirational stories that reinforced stereotypes and patronized and underestimated individuals’ capabilities.
Much has changed lately. New laws, disability activism and expanded coverage of disability issues have altered public awareness and knowledge, eliminating the worst stereotypes and misrepresentations. Still, old attitudes, experiences and stereotypes die hard.
People with disabilities continue to seek accurate portrayals that present a respectful, positive view of individuals as active participants of society, in regular social, work and home environments. Additionally, people with disabilities are focusing attention on tough issues that affect quality of life, such as accessible transportation, housing, affordable health care, employment opportunities and discrimination.
Eliminating Stereotypes — Words Matter!
Every individual regardless of sex, age, race or ability deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. As part of the effort to end discrimination and segregation — in employment, education and our communities at large — it’s important to eliminate prejudicial language.
Like other minorities, the disability community has developed preferred terminology — People First Language. More than a fad or political correctness, People First Language is an objective way of acknowledging, communicating and reporting on disabilities. It eliminates generalizations, assumptions and stereotypes by focusing on the person rather than the disability.
As the term implies, People First Language refers to the individual first and the disability second. It’s saying “a child with autism” instead of “the autistic” (see Examples of People First Language.) While some people may not use preferred terminology, it’s important you don’t repeat negative terms that stereotype, devalue or discriminate — just as you’d avoid racial slurs or saying “gals” instead of “women.”
Equally important, ask yourself if the disability is even relevant and needs to be mentioned when referring to individuals, in the same way racial identification is being eliminated from news stories when it is not significant.
What Should You Say?
Be sensitive when choosing the words you use. Here are a few guidelines on appropriate language.
- Recognize that people with disabilities are ordinary people with common goals for a home, a job and a family. Talk about people in ordinary terms.
- Never equate a person with a disability — such as referring to someone as retarded, an epileptic or quadriplegic. These labels are simply medical diagnosis. Use People First Language to tell what a person HAS, not what a person IS.
- Emphasize abilities not limitations. For example, say “a man walks with crutches,” not” he is crippled.”
- Avoid negative words that imply tragedy, such as afflicted with, suffers, victim, prisoner and unfortunate.
- Recognize that a disability is not a challenge to be overcome, and don’t say people succeed in spite of a disability. Ordinary things and accomplishments do not become extraordinary just because they are done by a person with a disability. What is extraordinary are the lengths people with disabilities have to go through and the barriers they have to overcome to do the most ordinary things.
- Use handicap to refer to a barrier created by people or the environment. Use disability to indicate a functional limitation that interferes with a person’s mental, physical or sensory abilities, such as walking, talking, hearing and learning. For example, people with disabilities who use wheelchairs are handicapped by stairs.
- Do not refer to a person as bound to or confined to a wheelchair. Wheelchairs are liberating to people with disabilities because they provide mobility.
- Do not use special to mean segregated, such as separate schools or buses for people with disabilities, or to suggest a disability itself makes someone special.
- Avoid cute euphemisms such as physically challenged, inconvenienced and differently abled.
- Promote understanding, respect, dignity and positive outlooks.
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” – Mark Twain
What Do You Call People with Disabilities?
Friends, neighbors, coworkers, dad, grandma, Joe’s sister, my big brother, our cousin, Mrs. Schneider, George, husband, wife, colleague, employee, boss, reporter, driver, dancer, mechanic, lawyer, judge, student, educator, home owner, renter, man, woman, adult, child, partner, participant, member, voter, citizen, amigo or any other word you would use for a person.
|Examples of what you should say.||Examples of what you should not say.|
|Say This||Not This|
|people with disabilities||the handicapped, the disabled|
|people without disabilities||normal, healthy, whole or typical people|
|person who has a congenital disability||person with a birth defect|
|person who has (or has been diagnosed with)…||person afflicted with, suffers from, a victim of…|
|person who has Down syndrome||Downs person, mongoloid, mongol|
|person who has (or has been diagnosed with) autism||the autistic|
|person with quadriplegia, person with paraplegia, person diagnosed with a physical disability||a quadriplegic, a paraplegic|
|person with a physical disability||a cripple|
|person of short stature, little person||a dwarf, a midget|
|person who is unable to speak, person who uses a communication device||dumb, mute|
|people who are blind, person who is visually impaired||the blind|
|person with a learning disability||learning disabled|
|person diagnosed with a mental health condition||crazy, insane, psycho, mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, demented|
|person diagnosed with a cognitive disability or with an intellectual and developmental disability||mentally retarded, retarded, slow, idiot, moron|
|student who receives special education services||special ed student, special education student|
|person who uses a wheelchair or a mobility chair||confined to a wheelchair; wheelchair bound|
|accessible parking, bathrooms, etc.||handicapped parking, bathrooms, etc.| | <urn:uuid:63aacb78-b733-4a17-a64c-ee1bd8d8e417> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | http://www.tcdd.texas.gov/resources/people-first-language/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376824525.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20181213054204-20181213075704-00563.warc.gz | en | 0.938181 | 1,484 | 4.0625 | 4 | {
"raw_score": 2.5978353023529053,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Health |
MBA Aspirants are expected to know on what is new in economy and what is that impacting it?Today, you will read on Do vagaries of inflation look uncontrollable?
Of late, the Indian economy has been experiencing turbulence, with the value of the rupee fluctuating rapidly, the rate of inflation burning holes in the pockets of millions, and the current account deficit widening at an alarming rate.
As of August 2013, India’s inflation rate has been recorded at 6.1 percent, an increase over the past few months. In fact, the rate of inflation has varied since the beginning of this year – in January, the rate of inflation was at 6.62 percent; in February, the inflation rate increased to 7.28 percent; in March, people heaved a sigh of relief when the rate of inflation decreased to 5.65 percent; after March, the rate of inflation kept going down to 4.77 percent in April and 4.58 percent in May.
Sadly, these good times didn’t last long and from June 2013, the rate of inflation picked up pace and it escalated to 5.16 percent and 5.79 percent in July.
These fluctuations in the rate of inflation seem uncontrollable and unpredictable, partly because the Indian government and related agencies are taking unexpected and surprise steps.
Recently, India’s new Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan increased the key repo rate by a quarter points in an attempt to fight inflation. Investors were shocked at the governor’s decision because combating inflation with higher interest rates means a greater sacrifice of output.
Now, loans to purchase houses and cars will become costlier in light of this new policy. As soon as the governor made the announcement of an increase in the key repo rate, the Indian rupee went hurtling down and stocks came crashing down. Only time will tell if the governor’s move is beneficial for the Indian economy and the citizens of India.
Former governor of the Reserve Bank of India Duvvuri Subbarao had spent years fighting inflation by raising the benchmark interest rate 13 times between March 2010 and October 2011, but to no avail – the inflation rate in India crossed 10 percent at that time and fluctuated intensely between 8 and 11 percent.
And now, the new governor is set to do the same. Between April and May 2011, India’s inflation touched the lowest, but soon started rising uncontrollably, partly because of higher oil prices and because the depreciating value of the rupee made imported goods more expensive. There is a need for a policy that has been well thought of, instead of surprising investors and the public with policies that are decided on the spur of the moment.
The rate of inflation is intricately linked to the value of the rupee. Last month, the value of the rupee fell drastically against the US dollar and this accelerated the rate of inflation.
In the last few days, the Indian currency appreciated from over 68 rupees to a dollar to slightly above 61 rupees to a dollar. However, the strength of the currency decreased once the Reserve Bank of India announced an increase in the interest rate.
Inflation can be controlled if the value of the rupee is stable. If the rupee keeps fluctuating, it will affect the rate of inflation, and this will in turn change the dynamics of the country’s export and import values.
The country’s economy is fragile at the moment and slight changes or adjustments in interest rates and policies can make a huge difference to the value of the rupee and inflation.
So, until we see a constant appreciation of the Indian currency, we may have to be prepared for sharp fluctuations in the rate of inflation.
Stay informed, Stay ahead and stay inspired with MBA Rendezvous | <urn:uuid:d9fea414-27f5-4faf-995b-8bb26a074e08> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://www.mbarendezvous.com/general-awareness/do-vagaries-of-inflation-look-uncontrollable/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991693.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20210512004850-20210512034850-00630.warc.gz | en | 0.955832 | 778 | 2.859375 | 3 | {
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"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Finance & Business |
What does “Used Margin” mean?
In order to understand what Used Margin is, we must first understand what Required Margin is.
Whenever you open a new position, a specific amount of Required Margin is set aside.
Required Margin was discussed in detail in the previous lesson, so if you don’t know what it is, please read our What is Margin? lesson first.
If you open more than one position at a time, each specific position will have its own Required Margin.
If you add up all of the Required Margin of all the positions that are open, the total amount is what’s called the Used Margin.
Used Margin is all the margin that’s “locked up” and can’t be used to open new positions.
This is margin is already being “used”. Hence the name, Used Margin.
While Required Margin is tied to a SPECIFIC trade, Used Margin refers to the amount of money you needed to deposit to keep ALL your trades open.
Example: Open a long USD/JPY and USD/CHF position
Let’s say you’ve deposited $1,000 in your account and want to open TWO positions:
- Long USD/JPY and want to open 1 mini lot (10,000 units) position.
- Long USD/CHF and want to open 1 mini lot (10,000 units) position.
The Margin Requirement for each currency pair is as follows:
|Currency Pair||Margin Requirement|
How much margin (“Required Margin”) will you need to open each position?
Since USD is the base currency for both currency pairs. a mini lot is 10,000 dollars, which means EACH position’s notional value is $10,000.
Let’s now calculate the Required Margin for EACH position.
The Margin Requirement for USD/JPY is 4%. Assuming your trading account is denominated in USD, the Required Margin will be $400.
Required Margin = Notional Value x Margin Requirement $400 = $10,000 x 0.04
The Margin Requirement for USD/CHF is 3%.
Assuming your trading account is denominated in USD, the Required Margin will be $300.
Required Margin = Notional Value x Margin Requirement $300 = $10,000 x 0.03
Since you have TWO trades, the Used Margin in your trading account will be $700.
Used Margin = Sum of Required Margin from ALL open positions $700 = $400 (USD/JPY) + $300 (USD/CHF)
In this lesson, we learned about the following:
- Used Margin is the TOTAL amount of margin currently in use to maintain all open positions.
- Said differently, it is the SUM of all Required Margin being used.
In previous lessons, we learned:
- What is Margin Trading? Learn why it’s important to understand how your margin account works.
- What is Balance? Your account balance is the cash you have available in your trading account.
- What is Unrealized and Realized P/L? Know how profit or losses affect your account balance.
- What is Margin? Required Margin is the amount of money that is set aside and “locked up” when you open a position.
Let’s move on and learn about the concept of Equity. | <urn:uuid:b0f433c5-e720-42df-8805-eeb44cf026b6> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://learnforex.foobrdigital.com/what-is-used-margin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662584398.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220525085552-20220525115552-00511.warc.gz | en | 0.867032 | 785 | 2.734375 | 3 | {
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It means they rank arguments in an effort of the value – from significant to lesser types.
Remember: pursuit article overview doesn’t need certainly to include the comprehensive sentences. it is just an overview, so go ahead and format arguments and evidence the way in which it appears preferred and understandable obtainable. Just be sure it’s visually obvious and allows you to see if some areas is repetitive or redundant. It can help in order to avoid duplications inside essay.
Another suggest consider:
While you are acquainted with confirmed essay subject, it willn’t indicate your audience is.
Thus format your describe correctly: believe that some individuals know-nothing regarding it when preparing arguments and arranging them in a logical purchase.
Article Synopsis Template
Themes makes it possible to bring a significantly better concept of essay outlining. It’s a powerful way to manage mind and figure out your order which you’ll represent these to visitors. Very, create a summary of the parts within report and fill out the matching sample, according to their essay means.
Convincing Article Describe Sample
To generate an outline for these an article, think about the following example:
Narrative Article Synopsis Example
For narrative essays, outlines similar to this one will work fine really:
Expository Article Summarize Sample
How about this sample for your article overview?
Analysis Article Summary Sample. How to Make a plan: the Process
For a study article synopsis, think about this sample:
Usually, the actual only real detail bothering those asking steps to make an outline for an essay is the process alone. Pupils understand that an article summarize should indicate the main points and arguments of their future report, nonetheless nevertheless think it is challenging to establish.
Above that, teachers may request you to publish an essay synopsis for overview. That’s why the skills of making plans for your documents comes into play convenient anyhow. To educate yourself on the methods of successful synopsis composing, you’ll have to know what to do before outlining, exactly what essay summarize design to decide on for your services, and the ways to arrange your own summarize therefore it could be because educational as it can.
Here’s simple tips to outline an article:
What you should do Before Detailing
Most importantly, browse their publishing project thoroughly.
Ensure you understand what essay kind you will need to create, just how many arguments to make use of (except as mentioned), and exactly how very long your own essay needs to be.
Answer the question, “What’s the goal of your own article?” Want to tell readers, sway, or amuse all of them? According to aim, you’ll understand what thesis to think about, exactly what creating techniques to need, and ways to visualize analysis inside papers.
Decide the viewers. Yes, it’s a teacher who checks out and assesses work; but who do you wish to look over the essay? Would you create for classmates? Visitors? What do they know regarding your topic? Would they go along with your thesis? How might they react to your details?
Depending on that, you’ll know very well what arguments my work for the article. It will assist you in deciding on tools for investigation and facts to choose for the arguments. Consider reliable resources for example yahoo Scholar or Oxford Academic to acquire recommendations for the essay; make notes of them to utilize inside outline.
Condition their thesis so you might see just what topic sentences to lay out for your essay. A thesis needs xpress to be arguable and supply sufficient facts to connect audience so that they would buy them psychologically tangled up in your publishing.
Once a thesis is prepared, beginning structuring your essay describe. Select an Essay Synopsis Build
Through the above templates and advice, you have had gotten a broad thought of the essential construction for the article summary. We used a standard alphanumeric construction there, but you can also use a decimal one to suit your summary to demonstrate how your ideas were associated. Just compare:
An alphanumeric describe is one of typical any, nevertheless become this is incorporate a decimal summary design in the event it seems better and a lot more comfy obtainable. Additionally, go ahead and make use of full sentences or simply brief terms each portion of their article describe.
But if you wish to publish they to a professor for an assessment, use sentences. It can help him understand the arguments and research you will used in the article.
Setup Ones Describe
Today it is for you personally to fill out each area of your essay synopsis. For all those lazy to learn, here happens a quick video:
For all others, begin with outlining your introduction. Create a sentence regarding your subject and expose your thesis. You may also discuss an essay hook right here – a sentence you’ll used to make readers into checking out your projects.
Synopsis their article human anatomy: write-down an interest phrase for each and every part, provide promote evidence you’ll make use of when authorship, and mention just how they’ll relate with this issue as well as your thesis. More details you summary, the simpler it’s going to be to organize the ideas while composing.
Additionally, you’ll write a change sentence for each paragraph so it could be quicker to design and band all arguments.
Eventually, describe your own article summation. Restate the thesis and create a finishing statement, aka a sentence addressing the importance of the thesis and suggesting solutions to the difficulty your resolved inside the article.
It’s a Wrap!
Essays are numerous, and also you want to write everyone in school and school. Persuasive, expository, narrative – their fundamental build is the same but with small variations determining their specs and your understanding of scholastic writing. Comprehending those differences and outlining the documents consequently is your opportunity to create great really works which get higher grades.
an article summarize is really what you should organize the info and not overlook everything while creating. Whenever you know how to create an essay synopsis, your write papers better and quicker. You retain at heart all essay equipment. You build vital thinking. While being an improved author. | <urn:uuid:d0eebf7d-8a1b-48a5-bd52-5f0c94232f48> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://secretsforgirls.com/2021/10/31/describe-style-usually-people-utilize-the-linear/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00346.warc.gz | en | 0.92508 | 1,300 | 2.53125 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.0167181491851807,
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} | Education & Jobs |
|Home > East Asia >
Divine Performing Arts
Classical Chinese dance is a distinctive art form with a remarkably rich history. With roots reaching back millennia and stretching across the diverse peoples and regions of China, classical Chinese dance is not merely a rich aesthetic tradition, but also a fascinating window into the cultural heritage of China and its people.
Chinese dance dates back as far as Chinese civilization itself, appearing as early as the first written records of China some three millennia ago. Confucius himself praised it for its embodiment of order and humanity. In its earliest incarnations it was often a celebratory form of the common people as well as a highly-formalized, ritualized art at the imperial court. Later it came to assume additional contours when it appeared in theatrical productions.
It wasnt until 1919, however, that artists began to self-consciously study, document, and systematize Chinese dance and its many varieties. The system that is today Chinese dance thus reflects many influences, ranging from folk dance to folk opera, imperial ritual, martial arts, and even ballet. Its immense diversity of forms gives it an incredible expressive capacity — a flexibility well suited for depicting a culture so steeped in stories, legends, and heroic personages.
One unique feature of classical Chinese dance is its lending of emphasis to not only the beauty of movement, but also the expression of substance. That is, great value has long been attributed to the performers ability to convey the subtler, underlying meanings and inner realm of a piece. Both form and spirit are celebrated, and the resultant aesthetic is one both inside and out.
The vocabulary of movement and technique that Chinese dance boasts is extraordinarily diverse. Superb control of the body extends far beyond flexibility and balance to include extremely demanding leaps and dives, spins, and tumbling. An accomplished dancer, male or female, is expected to master all of these.
A program of rigorous physical training is thus entailed by Chinese dance. Prescribed rules and conventions of the art dictate that each action or movement be executed with a certain accuracy and precision. Dancers are taught to emphasize in particular fluidity of movement a movement originating in any one part of the body must be harmoniously integrated with, and extend to, the entirety of the body. From the eyes to the feet, each movement demands precision and control, and is expected to additionally, in story-based dance, convey the traits or qualities of the personage being portrayed.
One of the defining aspects of Chinese dance is the incorporation of inner spirit into a performance. Dancers not only must master the techniques, but also learn to infuse a certain state of mind and inner quality into a piece, giving the surface presentation a deeper resonance. Training in classical Chinese dance thus dictates both outward precision of movement and inward cultivation of mind.
To learn about Divine Performing Arts upcoming shows, visit: http://www.divineperformingarts.com
|© Copyright 2002-2007 AFAR| | <urn:uuid:81cc48a0-b7fd-4cf5-9ee4-1b2491c4f08b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asianresearch.org/articles/3183.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703788336/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112948-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9446 | 606 | 3.34375 | 3 | {
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Push-Up Variations for Hypertrophy
Hypertrophy is the enlargement of an organ or body tissue. Many exercisers work out specifically for muscle hypertrophy, also known as muscle or body building. To achieve muscular hypertrophy, you should perform multiple sets of six to 12 repetitions using a weight that makes the last couple of reps feel challenging. Push-ups target your chest, shoulders and triceps, and there are a number of ways to make this exercise sufficiently challenging to trigger hypertrophy. Make sure you always warm up before performing any strenuous exercises to minimize your risk of injury.
The limiting factor for push-ups in regard to hypertrophy is usually lack of weight. Once you can perform more than 15 or so repetitions, the push-up becomes more of an endurance exercise. To get you back in the hypertrophy repetition range, wear a weighted vest. A weighted vest temporarily increases your body weight so that your muscles receive sufficient stimulus to grow. Start with around ten percent of your body weight and increase gradually from there. Make sure you keep your core tight because letting your hips drop and arching your lower back could lead to injury.
Named after Charles Atlas, a famous body culturist in the mid-20th century, Atlas push-ups increase the range of movement at your shoulder, which makes push-ups much more challenging. Place three sturdy stools or chairs in a "T" shape. Place your feet on the single stool at the bottom of the T and your hands on the stools at the top. Your hands should be slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Keeping your body perfectly straight, bend your arms and lower your chest as far down as you can toward the floor. Push back up and repeat. Inhale as you descend and exhale as you return to the starting position.
Doing push-ups on the ground is a relatively straightforward exercise, especially because the floor is a stable surface. Using gymnastic rings or a suspension trainer makes push-ups much more demanding because the rings move constantly so you have to work very hard to keep your hands stable. This increase in workload will trigger more hypertrophy. Perform your push-ups in the normal way but focus on keeping your arms as stable as possible.
Resistance bands are light and portable and provide a cheap and readily accessible way to make push-ups a real muscle builder. They are much more convenient to use than weighted vests and are ideal for home or travel use. Hold your band in your hands and loop it over your upper back. The band should run under your armpits. Drop down into the push-up position and perform your repetitions as normal. Make sure you lower slowly to get the most from this push-up variation. (See ref 4)
Handstand push-ups involve lifting your entire body weight. Where horizontal push-ups are considered to be predominantly a chest exercise, handstand push-ups are more of a deltoid or shoulder exercise. Stand facing a smooth wall and squat down. Place your hands around six inches from the wall, shoulder-width apart. Kick up into a handstand so your legs are straight and your feet are touching the wall. Bend your arms and lower your head carefully to the floor. Push back up to full arm extension and repeat. On completion of your set, lower your legs carefully back down to the floor. Place a cushion beneath your head for safety.
- Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:b20d1661-daf9-40ee-86cb-055fc53d8f90> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/pushup-variations-hypertrophy-17935.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822739.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20171018032625-20171018052625-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.934514 | 721 | 3 | 3 | {
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Are you a senior driver? Are you worried about someones driving?
The age distribution of New Zealand’s population is changing. The ageing of ‘baby boomers’ means people over the age of 65 are expected to make up about 25% of the population from the late 2030s. Not only will there be more drivers, but these drivers will also drive more kilometres per year than previous generations, and will drive at older ages.
There tends to be a negative narrative about older drivers causing accidents, having crashes and driving erratically in the media at the moment. This is largely unfair given the stats that have been made available by NZ Transport Agency. Could this be an artefact of ageism or related to the effects of our rising senior driver population?
Medical care and technology has improved, meaning many older people are living longer and driving longer than a generation ago. This means that there is an increase in the number of drivers who will have medical conditions or are on strong medication.
More likely to die:
Older drivers are more likely to be injured or die following a crash than younger people. Health problems including diminishing vision, physical and/or cognitive abilities can make driving more difficult and risky. For example, older drivers may find their night vision deteriorates, which leads to difficulty detecting and assessing hazards at night.
Knowing the road rules:
Older drivers are unlikely to have had any driver education for many years, meaning there may be gaps in general knowledge about the road code and new road rules. Take care to stay up to date with these here.
If you know someone has dementia, but continues to drive, it can be really hard to discuss your concerns about their driving with them. Driving is a sign of our independence and people can be very defensive when you bring up the topic – understandably so. Some people fail to see the danger in their driving, possibly because they can’t understand fully that they have had a loss of skills. The problem must not be ignored, even if they’re only travelling to the shops and back. Read more about this here.
Skills needed to drive safely:
- good vision in front and out of the corners of the eyes
- quick reactions – to be able to brake or turn to avoid crashes
- good coordination between eyes, hands and legs
- the ability to make decisions quickly
- the ability to make judgments about what’s happening on the road.
Use this self rating assessment from NZ Transport to see how safe your driving is.
Common older driver crash situations:
- side–impact crashes at intersections – the side panels of cars are weak and this, combined with older road users’ physical frailty, means the occupants are placed at greater risk of injury in this type of crash
- fatigue-related crashes, especially when driving in the mid-afternoon
- driver error, such as putting their foot on the accelerator instead of the brake
- most driving fatalities among older adults occur in the daytime.
During 2017 senior road users (i.e. drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians aged 75 and over) made up:
- 6% of the population
- 10% of fatalities
- 6% of all injuries.
In 2017, senior road users (75 years and over) accounted for:
- 654 injuries
- 37 deaths.
If you are worried about someone’s driving, start talking about it gently and with empathy. It is a conversation that requires tact, empathy and may need to be repeated several times. Discussing concerns with a family member cold also help. | <urn:uuid:d0be41a4-706c-4397-b5db-0d0e76b7a16b> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | http://reviva.co.nz/stories/are-you-safe-on-the-roads/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496670635.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20191120213017-20191121001017-00038.warc.gz | en | 0.967089 | 738 | 2.671875 | 3 | {
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English ivy is a star when it comes to respiratory health! It also lowers inflammation and detoxifies your body, prevents chronic diseases and heals burns.
Today, ivy leaf is mostly used therapeutically to relieve symptoms that affect the respiratory system – in particular coughs and catarrh (inflammation of the nose and throat with increased production of mucus). But, a deeper knowledge of this plants allows us to make use of its other potent benefits:
Ivy leaves are most commonly used to eliminate respiratory tract congestion and inflammation. They act as an expectorant and can break up the phlegm and mucus in the bronchial system.
By eliminating these breeding grounds for pathogens and bacteria, you can improve your overall health and reduce your healing time from illness. This also makes ivy leaves an effective remedy for allergic reactions, bronchitis, coughs and asthma, as they reduce the inflammation of those passages.
Ivy is one of those rare, gentle yet potent herbs that is proven to be safe for children.
One of the most well-known benefits of using ivy, particularly English Ivy, is for inflammation issues in the body.
If you suffer from arthritis, gout, or rheumatism, you can either consume it in the form of tea, tincture, or apply the leaves directly to the spot of inflammation. For people who experience discomfort and pain from an injury or surgery, topical application is recommended. This can heal internal inflammation as well, which has a variety of other benefits for the body.
Early studies showed a link between liver and gallbladder function and the use of ivy leaves; it helps the organs function better and release toxins from the body more effectively, thereby purifying the blood and reducing strain on these crucial systems.
For centuries, people have used ivy leaves to minimize the pain and infection of burns on the skin. This also works for any open sores or wounds, as the leaves have antibacterial properties, as well as the protective saponins. This can also help relieve the discomfort and irritation of psoriasis, eczema, acne, and other skin-related conditions.
Although research is still ongoing, the many properties of ivy leaves have already displayed suggest a significant antioxidant activity, which also means that they can prevent the spread or development of cancer. By eliminating free radicals and preventing mutation and apoptosis, ivy leaves can protect the body from a wide range of chronic diseases, including cancer.
In addition to its antibacterial properties, ivy also has certain anthelmintic and antiparasitic qualities, making it ideal for eliminating intestinal worms and lice. You can clear out your bowels by drinking the tea or tincture, or apply it topically to the hair for getting rid of those uncomfortable, itching lice as well.
Dosage and preparation:
Tea - Pour a cup of boiled water over 1 to 2 teaspoons of English ivy tea. Let it steep for 5-10 minutes. Drink 3 times a day.
Tincture - 20 to 30 drops, 3 times a day.
Poultice/Compress - Take 1-2 tablespoons (or as much as it is needed to cover the affected area) of english ivy, add a few drops of hot water and mix into a paste. Apply the paste on the desired area, cover it with a gauze and let stay for at least one hour, or overnight.
The taste: English Ivy has been used for centuries in beer brewing for its flavor. It is gentle, mildly sweet and bitter. Natural sweeteners can be added to improve the flavor.
Precaution: English ivy is a gentle, safe herb for adults and children.
Do not use if you are pregnant or breast feeding. Some people have reported that direct contact with the skin results in irritation, so if you have sensitive skin, apply it moderately at first and see your reaction.
Disclaimer: Information on this website is based on research from the internet, books, articles and studies and/or companies selling herbs online. Statements in this website have not necessarily been evaluated and should not be considered as medical advice. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any illness or disease. for diagnosis or treatment consult your physician.Use herbs in moderation and watch for allergic reactions.If you are taking any other medication, are pregnant, breast feeding or suffering from a medical condition and/or are at all concerned about any of the advice or ingredients consult your doctor before taking the herbs.Remember that diet, exercise and relaxation are equally important to your health.
English ivy is a member of the ginseng family and has been used in traditional herbal medicine both in Europe and Asia since ancient times.
Ivy is the common name of an entire genus of plants called Hedera, which is primarily found throughout Europe, Asia, Northern Africa, and parts of the Pacific. There are approximately 15 species of ivy, which grow by crawling along the ground, until they reach a stable climbing surface, like a tree or a wall.
English ivy can thrive in cold and low light situations. which makes it loved by people all around the world for its all year round green leaves. It’s also popular as an ornament, especially during Christmas and winter seasons. This evergreen plant climbs up the side of trees and buildings, adding color wherever it goes.
Historically, English ivy was held in high esteem; its leaves formed the poet’s crown, as well as the wreath of Bacchus ( also known as Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication). Ivy was probably dedicated to Bacchus because it was believed that binding the brow with ivy leaves would prevent intoxication.
Greek priests presented an ivy wreath to newly married couples, as a symbol of fidelity.
The plant was sacred to the Druids and considered the female counterpart to the masculine holly. Together with mistletoe and holly, ivy is a traditional herb used to decorate houses for the Christmas season.
Traditional folk medicine used English ivy internally for liver, spleen and gallbladder disorders, and for gout, arthritis, rheumatism and dysentery.
Externally it was used for burn wounds, calluses, cellulitis, inflammations, neuralgia, parasitic disorders, ulcers, rheumatic complaints and phlebitis.
English ivy is most widely used today as a natural treatment for respiratory tract congestion and the treatment of chronic inflammatory bronchial conditions.
Common Names: Common ivy, true ivy, gum ivy, woodbine, winter-green, winter-grunt, kissos, bergflétta. | <urn:uuid:32235d67-e44e-4c9e-9d3c-af92edfb8f61> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://balkanherb.com/products/english-ivy-leaf-tincture-hedera-helix | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964363515.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20211208144647-20211208174647-00627.warc.gz | en | 0.952729 | 1,390 | 2.96875 | 3 | {
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} | Health |
Monday, October 26, 2009
I was intrigued by the BYU study regarding the sense of smell. According to Trygg Engen, a psychology professor at Brown University, the sense of smell has a very strong role in instantaneously recalling memory. Humans can detect 10,000 odors. But what makes up an odor? According to Engen, "the way we sense odors are all a result of "nurture" and not "nature." Initially, all smells are neutral. If an odor is perceived as unpleasant, the memory trigger is conditioned on the memory of which it is most closely associated.
Windex scent? Bleachy clean.
ALFRED - He had a plan for renewal and healing. There were four essential parts to his plan - you couldn't have one part without the other three - and his plan worked.
Given the name AElfred, which meant elf wisdom, Alfred became the King of Wessex in the 9th century. His response to his world’s darkest challenges can guide our response to the challenges we face today.
Alfred faces Viking invasions
Alfred was born when the shadows of invaders were falling across all the kingdoms of England. Vikings were plundering, burning towns and enslaving those they didn’t kill. Everywhere, wrote a 9th century chronicler, there is nothing but dead bodies – clergy and laymen, nobles and common people, women and children.
The fourth son of the King of Wessex, Alfred was not expected to rule or become a warrior. His love of books - he famously memorized a book when he was child so he could win it - suggested a clerical career. But in AD 865, when Alfred was sixteen, Vikings arrived in hundreds of ships, to conquer England’s northern kingdoms.
Raiding, raping, pillaging, burning and terrorizing, Viking plunderers took the farms and houses that belonged to others for their own. They inflicted the blood eagle on the defeated king of Northumbria. This was a Viking rite in which the victim had his ribs and lungs cut from his living body and spread like eagle’s wings as an offering to the Norse god Odin.
The kingdoms of the north fell. The shadows of destruction fell as far south as France, where Paris had been sacked. Only the kingdom of Wessex remained standing, but Wessex seemed doomed. Doors were closing - on life.
Character matters enormously, more so than most things that can be seen, measured, or documented. ~Thomas Sowell
Alfred was twenty-two when the Vikings attacked Wessex. Danes and Norsemen were regarded as Vikings if they engaged in the activities of pirates and plunderers.
Alfred was a Christian who believed that Christ had asked him to turn his cheek to an insult, but he did not believe that Christ had asked him to die rather than defend himself. He did not believe he should turn the cheek of an innocent child so she could be hit a second time - or sold as a slave by the Vikings.
In AD 870, Alfred fought the Vikings like a boar, charging against their shield wall in battle after battle. When his remaining elder brother died, the Witan named Alfred king. He was just twenty-three years old. In 871, the Vikings attacked again.
Alfred raised the homeguard, known as the fyrd. Most of them were farmers, not warriors, and they were defeated. Alfred was forced to buy off the Vikings, who swore by their god Odin’s ‘holy ring’ or armlet to uphold the peace - knowing full well that in the old myths Odin had broken his sworn word.
Twice the Vikings broke their word, and each time Alfred paid more gold - Danegeld- to restore the peace. In 878, on Twelfth Night, while the people of Wessex were celebrating the last day of Christmas, Vikings brought fire and the sword. Alfred fled from Chippenham into the snowy woods with his wife and two young children.
A homeless king without a kingdom, protected only by a small band of warriors, Alfred headed west, to hide on the island of Athelney in the Somerset swamps. With him were
six-year old Aethelfleda and three-year-old Edward.
Alfred and his people faced the end. Pillaging towns and monasteries, killing and taking captives and seizing farms, the Vikings had come in force, and intended to stay. Alfred was urged to flee abroad. He knew he had to act swiftly, but he was painfully ill - he had a chronic condition that may have been Crohn's Disease which afflicted him much of his life. There is also evidence that he felt some guilt.
He had been personally warned that a covenant of justice unites a king and his people and that his misdeeds would lead to his downfall. We don't know what wrongs he may have committed as king, but Alfred's subsequent actions suggest that in the Somerset swamps he had several dazzling epiphanies. The first revelation he had was understanding what he owed his people.
Disguising himself as a harpist, Alfred embarked on a mission to the Viking chief's stronghold at Chippenham. There he learned the strength of Guthrum's Viking army. Back in the swamp he sent messages across Wessex, asking his farmers and warriors to meet him at Egbert’s Stone on an appointed day in May, and face the Vikings with him one last time. What he needed from his people was their support.
What he owed them was his life.
On the day, three thousand farmers and warriors of the Wessex fyrd rode and walked into the treeless, wind-swept valley. With Alfred at their head they marched and rode to Ethandun, prepared to defeat the Viking army, or die.
They fought for their God-given birthright,
Their country to have and to hold,
And not for the lust of conquest
And not for the hunger of gold. (Emily Hickey)
Outnumbered, they charged the Vikings’ shield wall. In the fierce, hand-to-hand battle they triumphed. At this point, Alfred surprised everyone. It was his second epiphany.
He did not kill his defeated foes. He invited them to share in a new way of life.
ALFRED'S PLAN FOR TRANSFORMATION
Alfred's plan for transformation - from violence and war to peace; from misery and fear to joy and a good life had practical and spiritual dimensions.
1) Clearing and holding
To hold what he had cleared, he established a network of fortified towns. These he laid out with cross-shaped street patterns that divided land into blocks, like those of modern cities today. He rebuilt the navy to defend Wessex’s coast. He set up rotations for the fyrd so one force was always ready if another Viking attack came.
In 884, Vikings sailed up the Medway and attacked Rochester, but the city’s defenses held out until Alfred arrived. In 892-893 another huge host of Vikings invaded Wessex, but Alfred and his son Edward called up the fyrd and led the men of Wessex to victory. In 894 Vikings moved up the River Lea and attacked London. Alfred moved his army between the Lea and London so the citizens could gather their harvest then constructed two forts to trap the Viking fleet.
Alfred had learned -
A leader must defend his people since nothing else he or she does will matter if he fails to keep them safe.
The Winchester Cathedral Library, built after Alfred was dead, but a direct result of his determination to encourage learning and build a safe and peaceful country.
Image: Winchester Cathedral
2) A Common Law
Alfred established one just law for everyone - Common Law. The rule of just law is our first defence against prejudice, exploitation and injustice. It has contributed to the prosperity of the people in Britain, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Alfred established the Common Law by combining Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Danish laws consistent with Christian ethical teachings and rational thought.
He based the Common Law on these principles -
The law should express universal principles of fairness, truth and common sense.
Just law depends on the inherent dignity and freedom of every individual and the principles of fairness, responsibility, reason and truth.
People have to be confident that when a person breaks the law he will be punished. They have to trust that the law is impartial and constant.
Establishing common law was a great beginning, but it was not enough.
Alfred invited Guthrum and the Vikings to share the ground rules of his country by following the teachings of Christ, and living in peace. Alfred had seen that Christ’s teachings worked, and that men and women could not live, and society could not survive, without Christ’s teachings of truth- telling, promise keeping, forgiveness and trust.
Civilisation rests on trust between people. Trust is created by a shared culture of honesty, promise-keeping, compassion and forgiveness.
Alfred helped to create a culture based on the Golden Rule -
Treat others as you wish to be treated.
People guided by the Golden Rule, whose word is their bond and who reach out to help their neighbours, create trust. They live in the world’s successful societies. Without widespread commitment to speaking the truth, acting with integrity and refraining from stealing or taking bribes, a people cannot prosper no matter how many laws are on the books.
Alfred opened grammar schools across Wessex for young students and had them trained in hunting, ethics, history and reading and writing English. He had a school opened at court for children - his daughter Aethelflaeda was included.
Since there were not enough books written in English, and so few people knew Latin, Alfred translated books written in Latin into English.
For Alfred, a good education included exercise, learning to read and write and understanding and practicing honesty and the Golden Rule.
The door into the light
Alfred lived what he believed -
Your immortal soul has been given reason, memory and free will for a purpose.
He had found the door into the light.
Alfred died on 26 October 899. He was barely fifty. His daughter Aethelflaeda became the Lady of the Mercians and successfully defended her people from Viking attacks, while son Edward began to unify the English kingdoms into the country of England.
Light And Sound Vibrations Trapped Together In Nanocrystal For First Time – this is HUGE (in a very small space)
Top: Scanning electron micrograph of the optomechanical crystal. Bottom: closer view of the device's nanobeam
Painter points out, the interactions between sound and light in this device -- dubbed an optomechanical crystal -- can result in mechanical vibrations with frequencies as high as tens of gigahertz, or 10 billion cycles per second. Being able to achieve such frequencies, he explains, gives these devices the ability to send large amounts of information, and opens up a wide array of potential applications -- everything from lightwave communication systems to biosensors capable of detecting (or weighing) a single macromolecule.
BYU business prof Katie Liljenquist led a study that found that clean scents lead to more ethical behavior.
"This is a very simple, unobtrusive way to promote ethical behavior."
People are unconsciously fairer and more generous when they are in clean-smelling environments, according to a soon-to-be published study led by a Brigham Young University professor.
In rooms freshly spritzed with Windex.
The first experiment evaluated fairness.
As a test of whether clean scents would enhance reciprocity, participants played a classic "trust game." Subjects received $12 of real money (allegedly sent by an anonymous partner in another room). They had to decide how much of it to either keep or return to their partners who had trusted them to divide it fairly. Subjects in clean-scented rooms were less likely to exploit the trust of their partners, returning a significantly higher share of the money.
- The average amount of cash given back by the people in the "normal" room was $2.81. But the people in the clean-scented room gave back an average of $5.33.
The Toughest Bird In The Upper Atmosphere
October 26, 2009: This year, two 41 year old American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft each achieved a record 25,000 hours in the air. One of these aircraft made three belly (landing gear up) landings, requiring extensive rebuilding after each incident. With a range of over 11,000 kilometers, the 18 ton U-2s typically fly missions 12-18 hours long. All U-2s have been upgraded to the Block 20 standard, so they can be kept in service for up to another decade. Or at least until the robotic RQ-4 Global Hawk is completely debugged, and available in sufficient quantity to replace all the U-2s. The U-2 has been in service since 1955, in small numbers. Only about 850 pilots have qualified to fly the U-2 in that time.
All this is something of a comeback for the U-2. Three years ago, the U.S. Air Force wanted to retire its 33 U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, and replace them with UAVs like Global Hawk.
Democrats are close to unveiling a measure with stiffer penalties on employers and a gov't-run insurance option
Thousands have turned out in beautiful San Diego for the kickoff rally for the Tea Party Express! It's an amazing crowd, and we're right on the water with the USS Midway as our backdrop.
Cincinnati Tea Party concluded four-day protest on Saturday
According to the study, the couples with the best chance are those where a woman with a superior education marries a man who is five or more years older than herself.
Neither should be a divorcee.
By comparison, a marriage where a woman partners an equally poorly educated male divorcee who is five or more years her junior is up to five times more likely to fail. | <urn:uuid:006a4299-c101-447a-b321-6c96262e7ae8> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://www.dailybrisk.com/2009_10_26_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609521558.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005201-00566-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978592 | 2,976 | 3.03125 | 3 | {
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"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | History |
In terms of the Shari'ah the two words, Imaan and Islam , are inextricably interwoven. The Shar'i meaning of the one is incomplete without the meaning of the other. The two terms are complementary. The one is a necessary corollary of the other. The existence of the one is dependent on the existence of the other. Negation of the one implies the automatic negation of the other. A proper understanding of Imaan is, therefore, possible only by a study of the Shar'i definition of both words and their interrelationship to one another.
Imaan literally means:
to verify, to accept, to attest with the heart .
Islam literally means:
to submit oneself to another; to make oneself lowly in the presence of another .
In the literal meanings of the two words have their share in the Shar'i definition of Imaan and Islam. Basing the technical (i.e. the Shar'i ) meanings on the literal meanings. Imaam Abu Muhammad Mas'ud Baghawi Rahmatullah Alay says:
Nabi (SAW) defined Islaam as the name for external acts and Imaan as the name of the internal beliefs.
Technical ( Shar'i ) Meaning
For all practical purposes, Imaan and Islaam mean one and the same thing. Allamah Taftaazaani Rahmatullah Alay in sharhul Aqaa-id states:
Imaan and Islaam are on thing.
Imaam Subki Rahmatullah Alay explaining the interrelationship between Imaan and Islaam , says that although Islaam applies to outward submission inward Imaan is a prerequisite or a condition (shart) for its ( Islaam 's) validity. Similarly, although Imaan applies to inward submission (inqiyaad baatin ), outward submission is essential for it.
It will now be clear that Islaam minus Imaan and Imaan without Islaam are of no consideration in the Shari'ah . Allamah Zubaidi rahmatullah Alay states that the Ashaa'irah * and Hanafiyah are unanimous on this view.
The unity of the Shar'i conception of the two words is amply borne out by the following statements which appear in Sharhul Aqaa`id :
In the Shari'ah it is not proper, to proclaim the same person to be a Mu'min but not a Muslim or a Muslim but not a Mu'min.
The one is inseparable from the other because of the unity of conception.
In short Imaan cannot be divorced from Islaam nor Islaam from Imaan .
The accepted and popular definition of Imaan is:
Acceptance with the heart and the declaration with the tongue.
To accept with the heart. To declare with the tongue what has been accepted with the heart. Should anyone of these two fundamentals be lacking, one will not be called a Muslim in the terminology of the Shari'ah .
Difference Between The Two Fundamentals
Of the two fundamentals of Imaan or Islaam , acceptance with the heart ( Tasdeeq bil Qalb ) is the primary one, having greater importance, than declaration with the tongue ( Iqraar bil Lissaan). There is absolutely no possibility of the first fundamental, viz. Tasdeeq bil Qalb , ever being waived whereas the second fundamental, viz. Iqraar bil Lissan , can at times be waived, e.g. the circumstance of torture. Under torture concealing one's Imaan by refraining from declaration with the tongue or by rejecting with the tongue will be permissible on condition that acceptance with the heart remains intact. | <urn:uuid:4a784c36-41ba-4b4f-9f81-970d45d8c5b3> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://theislamicweb.blogspot.com/2012/05/definition-of-imaan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794866511.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20180524151157-20180524171157-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.878694 | 788 | 2.875 | 3 | {
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Recent advances in understanding new instructional technologies (e.g., interactive whiteboard, VR, AR) indicate a need to rethink how to incorporate active learning into traditional lecturing(Balta and Duran, 2015; Karsenti, 2016; Ibrahim et al., 2018; Vazquez et al., 2017; Holstein et al., 2018; Aslan et al., 2019). With rapid growing and diverse applications, emerging displaying and interaction technologies have seen potential to scale in classroom adoptions. Indeed, their role in education is attracting increasing attention and is continuously verified in various contexts, e.g., virtual experiment simulation (Apostolellis and Bowman, 2014; Ferracani et al., 2014; Freina and Ott, 2015), AR-based word learning (Ibrahim et al., 2018; Vazquez et al., 2017). However, traditional immersive hardware such as Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) are not entirely suitable for the promoting and applying AR/VR in lecture-based classroom environments. These hardware might cause visual and body discomfort while wearing them, difficulties in facilitating collaborations, dangers of collision during multiplayer mode, and the costly operation/maintenance of the headsets (Radu, 2014).
This paper paid attention to teaching boards, which have been used as essential venues to display curriculum materials and help teachers communicate with a large audience in classrooms. Teaching boards have been evolving towards being more functional and interactive in enhancing pedagogical performance (Muttappallymyalil et al., 2016). In this work, We present a novel concept of HoloBoard, a pseudo holographic based immersive teaching board system with a large-format transparent display. Pseudo holographics are of interest in science, retail and exhibition applications in recent years. It offers a pseudo 3D image to see near its surface by the reflected light of the dedicated projector. HoloBoard exploits such capabilities and aims to make lecture-based classes more attractive by blurring the boundary between physical classroom and digital learning content, enabling immersive content display. In comparison with AR/VR, HoloBoard is advantageous in that its setup does not require everyone to wear an HMD, and offers rich interaction possibilities such as co-located mixed reality collaboration with face-to-face communication and natural eye-contact. Our work to reach the goal is two-fold: 1) interaction designing of HoloBoard, and 2) verifying its effect in engaging students in lectures.
The unique visual experiences of watching pseudo 3D images empower us to design a set of interaction techniques that are potentially valuable for lecturing in classroom. To do so, we adopted a user-centric design thinking process (e.g., interview, brainstorming) to excavate teachers’ requirements for an immersive teaching board. With the resulting design considerations, we developed the prototype of HoloBoard associated with advanced interaction techniques ranging widely from immersive presentation to augmented role-play to see-through virtual interactions. Next, to understand how the presentation and interaction of HoloBoard could help teaching and engaging students in lectures, and to give insights on practical deployment of HoloBoard, we carried out a second study in two actual classes with HoloBoard and a regular digital whiteboard, respectively. We used pre-/post- knowledge tests and multimodal learning analytics techniques to measure students’ learning outcomes and learning experiences. Results showed that HoloBoard classes created a significantly more positive learning atmosphere, lead to significantly higher student engagement, and resulted in slightly better learning outcomes. Given these, we discussed the impact, design implications and practices of such immersive media in classrooms.
The paper made the following contributions: i) HoloBoard as a novel large-format immersive teaching board in classroom, built upon pseudo holographic system; ii) design of interaction techniques with HoloBoard that are potentially valuable for lecturing and engaging students; iii) a formal experiment that compared HoloBoard with a regular digital whiteboard and measured students’ learning outcomes and learning experiences; iv) insights on deploying HoloBoard in classrooms.
2. Related Work
Our related work include works which inspired the HoloBoard concept such as immersive teaching technologies, interactive technology for learning, in-class engagement, and multimodal learning analytics.
2.1. Immersive Teaching Technologies
Lecture-based class leverages the naturalness of spoken communication and creates a social situation that makes both the lecturer and the audience engaged (Charlton, 2006). The role of teaching boards is critical in lecturing activities. The importance of teaching boards in the education domain has been thoroughly discussed, especially in displaying curriculum materials and enhancing pedagogical performance (Gran, 2018). Over the past decades, a significant body of research focused on the impact of Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) (Betcher and Lee, 2009) on learning (Morgan, 2008; Yang et al., 2012; Balta and Duran, 2015; Karsenti, 2016), noting their positive effects on student engagement, behavior (Morgan, 2008), and learning outcomes (Yang et al., 2012).
Nowadays, immersive displaying technologies are getting prominent in educational applications (Apostolellis and Bowman, 2014; Ferracani et al., 2014; Freina and Ott, 2015; Ibrahim et al., 2018; Vazquez et al., 2017). Virtual reality (VR) technology is entering mainstream consumer markets through products such as HTC Vive and Occulus Rift/Quest. Both educators and learners share positive attitudes towards using VR for educational objectives (Mikropoulos and Natsis, 2011) and numerous studies have reported the benefits of VR in education, which include improving time-on-task (Huang et al., 2010), enjoyment (Apostolellis and Bowman, 2014; Ferracani et al., 2014), motivation (Freina and Ott, 2015; Sharma et al., 2013), and long-term retention (Rizzo et al., 2006). Researchers have found that immersive VR has an advantage over the desktop systems when the tasks involved “complex, 3D, and dynamic” content (Mikropoulos and Natsis, 2011).
Augmented reality (AR) technology has made significant advances over recent years. Many previous AR systems for education focused on using HMDs, mobile phones, or projectors to enhance learning equipment or environments for students in studying a wide range of subjects, such as language (Ibrahim et al., 2018; Vazquez et al., 2017), chemistry (Fjeld et al., 2007; Song et al., 2011), and mechanic engineering (Ibáñez et al., 2014; Enyedy et al., 2012). Some work explored augmenting teachers’ views to assist them with classroom routines (e.g. evaluating student’s performance (Holstein et al., 2018)). Overall, AR can support pedagogical processes (e.g., providing scaffolding to students) and promote students’ engagement (Aslan et al., 2019).
HoloBoard is built upon an alternative displaying technology, namely pseudo holographics, to enrich the interaction vocabularies around digital teaching boards for more substantial engagement.
2.2. Interactive Technology for Learning
The human-computer interaction and learning science community have long recognized the potential of interactive technology for increasing engagement, as they vastly broaden the possibilities for students to explore class materials and actively participate in learning processes. Simple student response systems (also know as ‘clickers’), which offer a small number of buttons for students to provide answers, were found to help students better get involved in large enrollment courses (Trees and Jackson, 2007). General purpose computing devices such as tablets support students participating in richer kinds of learning activities, including drawing (Couse and Chen, 2010), educational games (Furió et al., 2013), and simulated labs (Nedungadi et al., 2013). Experiments have confirmed their effects in improving engagement (Couse and Chen, 2010) and learning outcomes (Haßler et al., 2016). In addition, experimental interfaces such as tangible user interfaces (Xie et al., 2008; Schneider et al., 2016) and robots of varying form factors (Özgür et al., 2017; Tanaka and Matsuzoe, 2012) have been applied in classroom settings and shown their benefits for increasing student engagement, enjoyment (Özgür et al., 2017; Xie et al., 2008), and sometimes learning outcomes (Tanaka and Matsuzoe, 2012; Schneider et al., 2016).
A large body of research focused on encouraging students’ participation through whole-body movements (Kang et al., 2016; Lindgren and Johnson-Glenberg, 2013; Gallagher and Lindgren, 2015; Kontra et al., 2015; Gelsomini et al., 2020). These efforts were supported by an embodied perspective of cognition, which asserts that human cognition is affected by the body’s interaction with the physical world (Pecher and Zwaan, 2005; Kontra et al., 2015). Additionally, whole-body interaction promotes student engagement as it offers immersive experiences (Adachi et al., 2013), facilitates social interaction in classrooms (Kang et al., 2016), and possibly transforms learning activities into performances (Gelsomini et al., 2020). For example, Kang et al. explored combining immersive displays, whole-body interaction, and physiological sensing for teaching children knowledge about human body (Kang et al., 2016). They found that the system enabled overall high levels of engagement and enjoyment, lively interaction between students, and strong learning potential.
Leveraging the unique affordances of transparent holographic displays, HoloBoard enabled a new array of classroom activities to engage students, such as instructor role playing, large-format virtual demonstration and multi-user game, and double-sided interactions between students/instructors or students/students.
2.3. In-class Engagement and Multimodal Learning Analytics
Many aforementioned studies (Adachi et al., 2013; Couse and Chen, 2010) have focused on using educational technology to improve student engagement because high levels of engagement can compensate for low academic achievement, negative affective states (e.g., boredom), and high dropout rates among students (Fredricks et al., 2004; Gao et al., 2020).
It is widely accepted that engagement is a multifaceted concept with three dimensions: behavioral (active participation and involvement in activities), emotional (positive reactions and feelings towards teachers and work), and cognitive (efforts and concentration on completing work) engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004; Gao et al., 2020; Stroud, 2015). There are various ways to measure engagement in educational related studies. For example, the widely agreed upon student engagement signs for behavior engagement include upright or close posture, gaze and focus on the teacher or the task, and active participation in classroom discussion and they have been captured in the coding schemes used in (Beşevli et al., 2019; Hsieh et al., 2015). For emotional engagement, despite self-report, students’ affective states are commonly used for analysis, which can be based on arousal and valence feature analysis (Di Lascio et al., 2018; Alyüz et al., 2016). Classroom discourse analysis, cognitive level of speech, and the interactive nature of conversations have been used for measuring cognitive engagement (Stroud, 2015; Smart and Marshall, 2013; Zhu, 2006). More specifically, previous studies in the field of education and human-agent interaction have investigated various discourse attributes, including total speaking turns taken, total words spoken, and mean words per sentences (Șerban et al., 2017; Stroud, 2015; Black et al., 2009).
Considering the rich signs of student engagement, we adopted multi-level multimodal learning analytics to analyze the classroom data. Multimodal learning analytics in education is an emerging branch of learning analytics, and it typically analyzes natural synchronized communication modalities, including speech, gestures, facial expressions, gaze, and embodied actions (Oviatt, 2018; Bateman et al., 2017; Worsley and Blikstein, 2015). Analysis of multimodal data can take place at multiple levels (Oviatt, 2018)
. Taking speech as an example, it can be analyzed at the signal level (e.g., frequency and loudness), activity level (e.g., number of words spoken), or other levels(Oviatt, 2018).
In addition, Oviatt et al. (Oviatt, 2018) suggested that such multi-level multimodal learning analytics can support a more comprehensive understanding of the complex learning process, such as the impact associated with implementing a new educational technology. Therefore, we hope to obtain a deep view of the impact of HoloBoard on students’ in-class engagement by utilizing multi-level multimodal learning analytics.
HoloBoard aims to provide unique and immersive lecturing techniques with large-format pseudo holographics to engage students in learning processes. It was developed based on pseudo holographic projection, which was scalable in size and of a formfactor close to typical teaching board. We conducted interviews with 6 professional teachers to understand their teaching activities and requirements, which were then mapped to ten interaction techniques of HoloBoard. We built a working prototype of HoloBoard with the resulting design considerations.
3.1. Concept Design
To establish an initial understanding of traditional teaching activities and to better understand how the concept of HoloBoard can be incorporated into classrooms, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with 6 school teachers (4 females, average of 5.58 years of teaching experience in English, Math, Physics or Music in primary school, middle school or high school). The interviews with the teachers were aimed to understand their teaching process and activities in classroom. Besides, in the interviews, we asked questions regarding their teaching strategies, multimedia equipments and supplementary materials used in class, their preferred teaching methods to handle different types of content, and approaches to interact with students in teaching.
All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. In total, 350 minutes of audio materials were collected. The interview transcripts were analyzed using the open coding method (Corbin and Strauss, 2014). Afterward, all codes were transcribed on sticky notes and arranged based on the teaching process via affinity diagramming (see Fig. 2).
From the affinity diagram, we obtained the main flow of a typical lesson described as following steps: pre-class preparation (designing the course content and preparing physical and digital materials), warm-up (sharing interesting audio or video clips), lecturing (slides sharing, writing, performing, and physical demonstration), teacher-student interaction (answer questions and students’ presentation), and review (write down key takeaways on the blackboard or slide decks). During lecturing, we found that all the teachers have two basic requirements of teaching board: i) to display electronic teaching content of various forms, such as slides, text and video display; ii) to support writing and freehand drawing.
In addition to basic requirements, we found the teachers have advanced requirements to guide students’ imagination and enhance their attention. For instance, the teachers who teach primary school students tend to incorporate body language into teaching: T5 reported that when she taught students arithmetic: “sometimes I also design exaggerated performances or teach them some specific actions to remember this formula.” T6 used movement to deepen students’ understanding of rhythm: “I will tell them what kind of scenes they can imagine when they hear this music and then lead them to walk in the classroom following the rhythm of the music.” Besides, teachers for classes that require demonstrations used tools and proxies such as physics lab equipment (Physics teacher), toy blocks (Math teacher), and musical instruments (Music teacher). These physical demonstration tools also could encourage students to engage, explore, experiment, and learn actively.
3.2. Interaction Techniques with HoloBoard
We incorporated the resulting findings from the interviews and the unique presentation properties of pseudo holographics into 10 interaction techniques that are potentially valuable for lecturing scenarios.
3.2.1. Immersive Presentation
The pseudo holographic projection has the ability to create the illusion of 3D objects in volumetric space. The projection space is large, bringing immersive visual experiences to the audience. These features give HoloBoard a bunch of novel capabilities for large-format immersive content display (Fig. 3a), uniquely suitable for drawing large audiences’ attention with immersive visual presentations. This vivid and engaging visual experience is unique to the HoloBoard and can not be achieved with regular digital board.
3.2.2. Lecturing Behind the Scene
HoloBoard allows teachers to lecture behind the teaching board, with digital sketches and writings floating between them and the students. Previous researches (Ishii and Kobayashi, 1992; Saquib et al., 2019) have demonstrated that real-time graphic overlays do not interfere with the natural conversational style of the presenter, allowing users to effortlessly enhance their communication with the audience, the HoloBoard takes advantage of this flexible and highly adaptable communication style. One technical challenge posed by the transparent interface are the inverted perspectives of the presenter and the audience. We designed a method of text reversal in order to display the correct text for the presenter and the audience simultaneously (Fig. 3b).
With the transparent display, students can see pseudo 3D images without losing sight of the presenter behind the HoloBoard. Thus, HoloBoard supports live action role play, during which teachers or students literally act out fictional roles within a narrative (Fig. 3c). Users behind the board are visually augmented by a digital the avatar overlay, which is animated in real-time according to the users’ movements. Users directly drive the generation or motion of graphics by performing specific poses or gestures. This form of interactive and collaborative storytelling gives an immersive and complex sense of a narrative engagement to students.
HoloBoard integrated techniques of motion visualization in order to convey complicated actions. In specific, the system captures the motion of the presenter, and produces a visualization of the spatiotemporal representations of the presenter as she moves through the space or gestures (as shown in Fig 3d). For instance, when teaching martial arts, taekwondo, dance, etc., the teacher can freeze his current action at any time as an afterimage. In this way, the teacher can give a detailed explanation of these movements enabling students to perform imitation exercises step by step, as necessary.
3.2.5. Augmented Dashboard
Research indicates that teachers are interested in having access to real-time status of students (Holstein et al., 2018; Aslan et al., 2019). HoloBoard supports such applications by displaying students’ learning analytic information (e.g., test score, emotion) to teachers, undated in real time. With HoloBoard, the student’s name and other relevant information is associated with each student, enabling teachers to modify lesson plans spontaneously in accord with the changing needs of students, as indicated by various features of the augmented overlay (e.g., changing name tag’s color). Additionally, the teacher can give interactive markers (e.g., praise) to individual students by pointing to and clicking on the student’s name tag, as shown in Fig. 3e.
3.2.6. Co-located Mixed Reality Collaboration
Due to its large-format and transparency, HoloBoard supports high quality co-located multi user interactions. HoloBoard also supports co-located users with face-to-face communication. Typically, with a digital whiteboard, two users both have to face the screen, obscuring face-to-face communications, e.g., eye-contact is impossible. HoloBoard overcomes these obstacles of face-to-face communication, allowing users to stand on each side of the board, respectively, and shared a common use space with fully interactive contents. Because users can still see each other clearly, their communication remains natural and spontaneous, enhancing the co-located mixed reality collaboration, as shown in Fig. 3f.
3.2.7. Physical to Virtual Interaction
In typical classroom, students barely have the chance to interact with the digital contents on screen when they are seated. HoloBoard provides opportunities to interact with the screen in multiple ways. For instance, students in front of the screen can throw a soft ball onto the screen to make a selection or play games. Such method can be further extended by rendering a virtual ball that moves along the trajectory of the real one, thus letting the physical actions reach into the virtual world. Previous researches(Jones et al., 2013, 2014) also used surrounding projectors to make physical object interact with virtual content and create an immersive gaming experience in a room space. This helps expanding the interaction space of the students and creating realistic experiences with simulated scenes as shown in Fig. 3g.
3.2.8. 3D Modelling with Elastic Haptic Feedback
The projection screen of HoloBoard is made of gauze that has a certain elastic property. Previous work (Watanabe et al., 2008; Han et al., 2014; Müller et al., 2014) have shown that operations in Z-direction on the screen and the haptic feedback of touching on elastic surfaces helped improving 3D content presentation and maneuvering experience, for instance, improving depth perception. HoloBoard is capable of supporting teachers and students to perform 3D modeling tasks on the screen, while gaining the haptic experiences like hands reaching into the scene as shown in Fig. 3h.
3.2.9. Holographic Telepresence
Holographic telepresence is another scenario that fits the use of HoloBoard (Paredes and Vázquez, 2019; Aman et al., 2016; Luévano et al., 2015). This helps extending the face-to-face experience of in-class instruction to remote areas. In this case, it can serve as a medium for remote education and mixed remote panels, displaying remote teachers vividly in the classroom as shown in Fig. 3i.
3.2.10. Mirror World
HoloBoard can serve as a medium for a co-located virtual mirror world, displaying digital twin of the physical world. HoloBoard can elaborate on the learning benefits of the whole-body interaction based on mirror world, which has been shown effective for learning knowledge about the human body (Kang et al., 2016), physical experience in science learning (Kontra et al., 2015), and other embodied learning. Different from the telepresence where users are remotely located and can not observe the environment and people on site, the mirror world technique allows the teachers and students to see themselves interacting with digital objects and be aware of the surroundings ( Fig. 3j).
3.3. Prototype Development
We built a working prototype of HoloBoard, with which we developed the demo applications enlightened from the aforementioned interaction design.
3.3.1. Hardware and Software
The system of HoloBoard was developed in a classroom, and integrated the displaying and tracking components (Fig. 4). In terms of display, we used a 4m×3m large-format projected screen made of translucent (semi-transparent and reflective) material to display digital curriculum material in the front of the classroom. Behind the projected screen is the teacher’s stage. Moreover, to further immerse students into the scene, a light-absorbing curtain is hung behind the stage, and 4 adjustable spotlights are put above the staging area to cast more light on the teacher. Thus, the observer can spot the people behind the screen while the projected screen displays.
In terms of motion tracking, we used 4 SteamVR 2.0 base stations at the 4 corners of the classroom, one on each corner. Two of them were in front of the projection screen while the other two behind the screen. We asked the users to hold the HTC Handler to interact with the HoloGraphics with hands, and wear 4 VIVE trackers on the head, waist, left and right feet, respectively, to track their position and body motions. The system including the communication servers, graphic rendering, and demo applications were implemented with Unity. Many interaction techniques designed for HoloBoard shared the same set of displaying, tracking setup.
3.3.2. Double-sided Rendering for HoloBoard
The key to creating an immersive holographics lies in real-time rendering of the position, size and angle of the content with reference to changes in the observer’s position and perspective. We achieved this by converting the spatial position into the camera coordinate system of Unity, and calibrating the orientation and scale of the digital contents to be rendered based on the user’s position. Experimentally a point in the center of the classroom was selected as the ”best” viewing spot for the students and teacher. It simplified the calculations while guarantying the rendering respond to the user’s position and movement accordingly.
3.3.3. Implemented Scenario
According to the interaction technique design in the former section, we implemented 12 scenarios for the working prototype as showing in Fig. 5 and our demo video.
Immersive Presentation by Displaying large 3D Content: When the teacher clicks the next/previous page on the controller, it will automatically jump to the next/previous slide.
Lecturing Behind the Scene: The teacher can manipulate the digital content flowing between the teacher and students by one or both controllers, with eye contact with students at the same time.
Writing Behind the Scene: The teacher can write freely with one controller behind the scene. The system displays the original text using a inconspicuous color for the presenter and generates another text reversal to display the correct text using a conspicuous color for the audience simultaneously.
Role-playing an Astronaut: The spatial positions of the controllers and trackers worn by the teacher are mapped to a 2D/3D avatar model with an animated skeleton structure. When the teacher moves, the 2D/3D avatar model will be rendered on the projected screen right in front of the teacher and copy the teacher’s movement. This function is accomplished by converting spatial coordinates into project coordinates based on students’ point of view. From the students’ view, the teacher is augmented by the avatar outfit, which can also be used to trigger more animations.
Step-by-step Teaching with Afterimage: The teacher can make a pose and click the button on the controller to freeze his/her image/avatar on the current page of HoloBoard.
Augmented Dashboard of Students’ Status; By tracking the position of the teacher’s eye and students, each student’s name tag and other real-time learning information will appear above each student’s head. Furthermore, the teacher can give marks (like praise) to a certain student by clicking on the student’s name tag.
Co-located Mixed Reality Collaboration: The user can pass a virtual object towards another user on the other side by the controller with naturally eye contact at the same time, such as playing tennis, collaborative manipulation;
Physical to Virtual Interaction: The students can throw a physical ball into a virtual world displayed by HoloBoard. We tied a vive tracker to the ball for tracking. When the physical ball contact the screen, the system create
3D Modelling with Elastic Haptic Feedback: The user can create a new model in Z-direction on the screen by hold the controller into the HoloBoard.
Holographic Telepresence: The remote user can be photographed by the camera in real-time in front of the green screen, and after removing the background, it will be displayed vividly on the HoloBoard.
Mixed Reality Panel: The local users can sit behind the HoloBoard and conduct a mixed reality panel, discussion with remote users’ vivid telepresence on the HoloBoard.
Mirror World: The users can be photographed/captured by a camera, and blended, re-positioned, and resized into the digital mirror scene displayed by HoloBoard.
4. Experimental Study
To investigate whether HoloBoard can actually facilitate children’s learning (e.g., engagement and learning outcome) and explore the additional value it can offer to a lecture-based class, a controlled experimental study was conducted.
4.1. Course Design
HoloBoard is designed as an essential teaching board, while having a form different from the normal interactive whiteboards. We conducted a participatory course design process inspired by (Penuel et al., 2007) to amplify the advantages of HoloBoard and design a course for experimental study.
Five professional teachers (all females, avg. teaching experiences = 4.2 years in Literature, STEM or Arts in primary school, middle school or high school) got invited. HoloBoard’s designers intensively conducted in-person and online participatory design workshops (over four formal workshops, each lasting 1-2 hours) within 6 months (Jul 2020 - Dec 2020). Moreover, we collected the syllabuses, courseware, video recordings of lectures, and student work from previous similar courses from these participating teachers to better understand user scenarios.
After rounds of discussion, teachers and researchers reached an agreement that topics about the outer space can be highly interesting to young students. According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (Huitt and Hummel, 2003), children aged 6-9 are at the Concrete Operational Stage. In this stage, in general, children’s abstract thinking skills are still developing and they can only apply abstract concepts, (e.g., time, space) in concrete real-life situations. Therefore, with the large-format and highly interactivity, HoloBoard has the potential for facilitating children’s abstract learning by displaying the course content (i.e, space) in an intuitive way, benefiting from 3D visual effects of planetary, interactive experiment platform, and situated role-play, etc.
Eventually, a STEM course (i.e. Space Exploration) targeting six- to nine-year-old students was designed. The course focused on the characteristics of the eight planets in the solar system. In the course, students were invited to explore the eight planets in the solar system in order to find a habitable planet. Students were guided to think about questions including ”why should humans explore Mars?” and “what kinds of planets are habitable?” The course adopted the inquiry-based science teaching method and was designed according to the 5E Instructional Model process (Duran and Duran, 2004).
Three main features of HoloBoard were adopted into the course: 1) the teacher can role-play as an astronaut to roam the solar system, and guide the students to learn the characteristics of the eight planets situationally; 2) the teacher can double-sided demonstrate the order of the eight planets interactively using virtual experiment simulation; 3) the students can double-sided play multi-user game to test their knowledge about the characteristics of the eight planets. In the normal group, to maintain the fairness of the comparison, the script of the classes was kept the same and the following adjustments to activities were made. For Feature 1, (AR-based role-pay), in the normal group, the teacher also verbally pretended to be an astronaut (asking the students to imagine that she was an astronaut) and thus kept the teaching script the same. For Feature 2 (double-sided demonstration), during learning the order of the planets, a similar demonstration of planet order was displayed on the interactive whiteboard in the control class (as depicted in Figure 7(b)(e)). For Feature 3 (double-sided multi-use game), while summarizing planetary habitability, the teacher mainly posed guiding questions (e.g., Is Mars a good place to live in?) and asked students to analyze from different dimensions (e.g., gravity and dangerous factors) in the two classes. The only difference is that in the normal group, a table summarizing the planet habitability was used while the interface of the VR multi-user serious game was used in the HoloBoard group.
4.2. Site Preparation
Besides HoloBoard setup, a traditional classroom with a regular interactive whiteboard (4K, 86-inch) was set up. Desks and chairs were arranged in five groups. To facilitate data gathering, six cameras were set up around the classroom. One 8K panoramic camera (TECHE360anywhere) was set up in the middle of the classroom. An audio recording device (iFLYTEK SR501) was also set in the experimental classroom. Furthermore, this research received IRB approval from our local institution.
36 participants (Female = 18, 15 in Grade 1, 15 in Grade 2, and 6 in Grade 3, avg. age = 7.06) were selected upon a pre-experiment survey and a pre-test knowledge test. Most participants reported being exposed to digital devices like projectors, mobile phones, tablets, and PCs before. Approximately 78% of the participants mentioned preferences for these smart digital devices. Moreover, the participants were fairly interested (4.3 out of 5) in space related topics. Their motivation, engagement, and learning self-efficacy on average were at a slightly high level (15.5 out of 20).
Besides, we invited one of the teacher subjects in the course design session to be our experiment teacher (T7, STEM teacher, 26 years old, female, master’s degree in Education, 2 years of teaching experience). This teacher teaching both HoloBoard group and normal group with same class script.
We pairwise assigned the participant students (based on their gender, age, grade, performance on the pre-test, interests in related topics, learning attitude, and past experience with technology) to either a control group (normal group) subjected to the traditional practice based on the normal lecture-based class, or an experimental group (HoloBoard group) subjected to the practice within HoloBoard environment. In addition, we discussed the course outline with the teachers to further control their lecturing script for the two classes.
Before the experiment, parents/legal guardians of the participants all signed the informed consent release form. During the experiment, the two groups of students were taught the same 70-minute lecture featuring either the HoloBoard or the normal interactive whiteboard. The participants were seated in assigned small groups. After the experimental class ended, the experimenters conducted a one-on-one post knowledge test with each student participant. Each post-test took approximately 20 minutes.
A pre-/post- knowledge test (See Appendix) was designed, identical for all participants, to check students’ knowledge of class content before and after the lecture-based class. The test consisted of 12 questions of different complexity and types (four single-choice questions, two multiple-choice questions, and six open-ended questions), each of which covered one or more cognitive learning objectives of the class. The test was developed following the examples of usual primary school tests and was validated by the teachers. Each single-choice question is worth one point and each multiple-choice question is worth two points. The score for open-ended questions can range from 0 to 5 based on the rating rubric used in (Lui, 2018). Thus, the full score of the pre-/post knowledge test was 38.
4.5. Data Collection and Analysis
Our data came from three primary sources: 1) the pre- and post-knowledge tests, 2) audio recording and transcripts of the HoloBoard class and the normal class, and 3) video recordings of the two classes. The knowledge test was used for learning outcome comparison analysis and the other two were for student in-class engagement comparison analysis.
4.5.1. Pre-/post- Knowledge Test Data.
Students’ answers to the single/multiple choices questions in the pre- and post- knowledge tests were scored by two researchers based on the right answers provided by the teacher. In addition, students’ answers to the open-ended question were audio recorded, transcribed, and rated by two trained coders based on a rating rubric adapted from the Knowledge Integration rubric used in (Lui, 2018). Two trained coders independently coded all students’ responses. The inter-rater Kappa was greater than 0.70 (p ¡ .001). A third coder reviewed their ratings, and consensus were eventually achieved. Then the total scores of each each students’ pre- and post-tests were calculated and compared.
4.5.2. In-class Engagement Learning Data and Analytics.
The learning data included video and audio recordings and transcripts of the two classes.
Video Data and Analysis. The video recordings of the two classes were mainly used for student behavioral and engagement analysis by manual coding. The coding scheme was adapted and integrated from (Beşevli et al., 2019; Homer et al., 2018; Hsieh et al., 2015; Pas et al., 2015; Wagner et al., 2005), which pictured students’ reactive behavior to the two teaching devices and reflected students’ engagement in the classes. The three main categories of our codes are affective states (emotional engagement), classroom behavior and posture (behavior engagement). The detailed types and descriptions, and operational definition of students’ nonverbal behaviors are presented in Table LABEL:tab:NonverbalCode.
We selected three video clips from the HoloBoard and the normal classes, respectively, discussing the same topics (exploring planets’ characteristics, discussing the order of planets, and summarizing planetary habitability). While discussing the first two topics, in the HoloBoard group, the two key features of the HoloBoard—AR-based role-play and VR simulator demonstration—were used respectively. As noted in the course design section, these activities remained comparable because they used similar scripts and both involve elements of role play and made use of the same images. To keep the comparability between the two classes, the video clip of children playing the multi-user serious game on HoloBoard was excluded from the analysis. Furthermore, three random 10-second video clips were sampled and analyzed from the two classrooms’ six video recordings (see fig.7). The random sampling of short video clips has been widely used in prior literature for analyzing student interaction (e.g., (Groccia, 2018) and (Karsenti, 2016)). Each participant was analyzed through 90-second video data in which their nonverbal behavior was coded. All video clips were analyzed using the Noldus Observer XT software. While coding the video clips, the type of nonverbal behavior of each student mentioned in Table LABEL:tab:NonverbalCode was identified and marked by the coder in the Observer software, and the duration of each behavior was automatically calculated and computed by the software. To calculate the length of each behavior, our unit of time was defined as 0.1 seconds. Two trained coders coded each student’s behavior based on the coding scheme independently. Inter-rater reliability was conducted on 22% of the video data, where the inter-rater Kappa was greater than 0.89 (p ¡ .001).
|Affective States||High Arousal Positive Valence||Joy: happy, excited, aroused, concentrated, etc.|
|Low Arousal Positive Valence||Calm: relaxed, satisfied, and content, etc.|
|High Arousal Negative Valence||Anger: tense, annoyed, frustrated, etc.|
|Low Arousal Negative Valence||Boredom: bored, depressed, miserable, etc.|
|Posture||Close Posture||Moving closer to or leaning toward the whiteboard/HoloBoard|
|Neutral Posture||Sitting straight up|
|Leave Posture||Moving body away or leaning away from the whiteboard/HoloBoard|
|Behavior||Positive Behavior||Engaged behavior: answering questions, raising hands, looking at the pupil speaking, applauding, etc.|
|Normal Behavior||Normal behavior: listening, looking at the screen/teacher, writing, etc.|
|Misbehavior||Disengaged behavior: chatting, looking away etc.|
Audio Data and Analysis. The HoloBoard and the normal groups’ classroom discourses were recorded, fully transcribed, and analyzed. The audio recordings were used to conduct an acoustic analysis of frequency and loudness as references to student emotional engagement. The acoustic analysis was performed in pyAudioAnalysis. To better portray the change of student engagement and compare the results of the two groups, we selected and computed the first quarter of data of the two classes as a baseline.
Transcript Analysis. The audio recordings of the two classes were fully transcribed. The transcripts were firstly used to compare the teachers’ speech type in order to confirm the effectiveness of controlling teachers’ lecturing script. The coding scheme of teachers’ speech was mainly adapted from FIAS (Flanders, 1970). As shown in Table LABEL:tab:VerbalCode, teachers’ initiated language was categorized into three main types: lecturing (e.g., giving information), directing (giving direction or instructions), and asking questions. Then, questions were further divided into close- or open-ended questions as previous research has shown that teachers’ questions have influence on student cognitive engagement (Smart and Marshall, 2013; Murcia and Sheffield, 2010; Lee and Kinzie, 2012).
Focusing on students, we used the transcripts to analyze cognitive and emotional engagement by both manual coding and algorithm processing. For cognitive engagement analysis, firstly, students’ speech types (i.e., statement and questions) and cognitive levels were coded. For student speech type, the coding scheme was adapted from the linguistic expression category of the scheme in (Mulder et al., 2002). For the cognitive level analysis, Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain (Bloom and others, 1956) was used and thus the cognitive level of students’ responses were categorized into: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluation, and creation. Four trained coders coded the transcript of the two classes, and the inter-coder Kappa was greater than 0.81 (p ¡ .001).
Moreover, the whole transcripts were used to compare the attributes of discourses as references to cognitive engagement. The discourse attributes we investigated include: (a) the number of speaking turns, (b) the number of times each student spoke, (c) the number of words and sentences each student spoke, and (d) the length of students’ sentences and rounds of dialogue, which were adapted from the related studies (e.g., (Stroud, 2015; Șerban et al., 2017; Black et al., 2009)).
To measure emotional engagement, we captured students’ exclamations (e.g., “Wow” and “Oh My God”), which was captured to assess students’ engagement in (Beşevli et al., 2019). In addition, we also used Baidu AI Cloud (Tian et al., 2020) to perform semantic analysis as indicators of emotional engagement.
|Teacher||Speech Type||Lecturing||Giving information or opinion|
|Asking Close-ended Question||Calling for a single response|
|Asking Open-ended Question||Calling for board responses|
|Student||Speech Type||Assertion||Statements of facts, opinion, choices, etc.|
|Question||Request for information|
|Exclamation||Sound/Words expressing strong emotion (e.g., “Wow” and “Pff”)|
|Cognitive Level||Remembering||Reciting and memorizing labels|
|Understanding||Relating and organizing previous knowledge|
|Applying||Applying information into a new situation|
|Analyzing||Drawing connections among ideas|
|Evaluation||Examining information and make judgement|
|Creation||Creating new ideas using what has just been learned|
We firstly compared the teacher’s script in the HoloBoard and normal classes. Teachers’ questioning accounted for approximately six percent of the speech, among which 70% of the questions were close-ended questions in both classes. The results suggested there were no major differences in the types of speech initiated by the teacher between the two classes. Then we describe the results of students’ learning outcomes and engagement as the following.
4.6.1. Learning Outcomes.
We conducted Mann-Whitney U test to compare the knowledge pre-test results as baseline between the normal and HoloBoard groups. The result suggested there was no significant differences between the two groups ( p = 0.46).
Next we compared learning gains and performances between the two groups. The analysis results of learning outcomes are presented in Table LABEL:tab:testscore. For the learning gains, the post-test score of the HoloBoard group (Mdn = 20.5) was significantly higher than their pre-test score (Mdn = 26.5), U = 56.5, p ¡ .001. In addition, the effect size (r = 0.78) was calculated as a rank-biserial correlation coefficient, suggesting the difference is large (r = 0.78). For the normal group, the post-test score (Mdn = 24) and pre-test score (Mdn= 21) also had significant difference (U = 105, p = .04). A medium effext size (r = 0.42) was found.
As for comparing the post-test scores of the two groups, the descriptive results suggested the HoloBoard group achieved a higher mean score (M = 26.39) in the post-test than the normal group (M = 24.61), although their mean pre-tests scores were rather similar (20.94 and 20.79, respectively). However, independent samples Mann-Whitney U test results indicated that the difference was not statically significant, U = 125.5, p = .13.
|HoloBoard (n=18)||Normal (n=18)||Effect size|
|Pre-test||20.10 (3.85)||20.78 (6.08 )||0.02|
|Post-test||26.40 (4.59)||24.61 (5.58)||0.19|
|Effect size||0.78 ***||0.42*|
Pre-/post-test Results (mean and standardized deviation) of Normal and HoloBoard group.
4.6.2. Student In-Class Engagement.
Students in HoloBoard group showed higher levels engagement in all the three dimensions: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement according to our multimodal learning analytic results, which are shown in Table LABEL:tab:multimodalResults.
|Data||Variable||HoloBoard Group||Normal Group||Value||p|
|Video||Close Posture||Mdn = 40.5**||Mdn = 11.0||U = 257.5||0.002|
|Neutral Posture||M = 38.28||M = 55.78*||t = 2.67||0.013|
|Leave Posture||Mdn = 8.0||Mdn = 14||U = 156||0.864|
|Positive Behavior||Mdn = 3.5*||Mdn = 0||U = 235.5||0.019|
|Normal Behavior||Mdn = 82.0||Mdn = 77.5||U = 183.5||0.501|
|Misbehavior||Mdn = 8.0||Mdn = 11.5||U = 125.5||0.252|
|High Arousal/Positive Emotion||Mdn = 4.0*||Mdn = 0||U = 234.5||0.02|
|High Arousal/Negative Emotion||Mdn = 0||Mdn = 0||U = 124.0||1|
|Low Arousal/Positive Emotion||Mdn = 85.5||Mdn = 79.0||U = 193.0||0.339|
|Low Arousal/Negative Emotion||Mdn = 0||Mdn = 11.0*||U = 82.5||0.011|
|Audio||Loudness||M = 0.000231***||M = 0.000153||t = 7.64||<.001|
|Frequency||M = 0.000032||M = 0.00017||t = -0.60||0.27|
|Mean Sentence Length||M = 2.29||M = 2.35||t = 0.564||0.28|
|Mean Speaking Turn Length||M = 2.42||M = 2.54||t = 0.840||0.2|
|Student Speaking Times/min||M = 3.24***||M = 1.59||t = 26.155||<.001|
|Words Spoken per Student/min||M = 7.86***||M = 4.10||t = -9.456||<.001|
|Sentences Spoken per Student/min||M = 3.43***||M = 1.72||t = 20.892||<.001|
|Assertion||Mdn = 3.05***||Mdn = 1.6||U = 308.0||<.001|
|Questions||Mdn = 0.027**||Mdn = 0||U = 250.0||0.005|
|Exclamations||Mdn = 0.08***||Mdn = 0.07||U = 324.0||<.001|
|Remembering||Mdn = 1.54***||Mdn = 0.53||U = 316.0||<.001|
|Understanding||Mdn = 0.46***||Mdn = 0.32||U = 279.0||<.001|
|Applying||Mdn = 0||Mdn = 0||U = 124.0||0.239|
|Analyzing||Mdn = 0.08||Mdn = 0.12||U = 116.0||0.152|
|Evaluation||Mdn = 0||Mdn = 0||U = 144.0||0.584|
|Creation||Mdn = 0||Mdn = 0||U = 170.0||0.815|
|Positive Emotion||M = 1.36***||M = 1.20||t = -14.22||<.001|
Behavioral Engagement Results Generally, students in the HoloBoard group were more engaged behaviorally than those in the normal group, indicated by more close posture and more positive classroom behavior. Mann-Whitney test indicated students in the HoloBoard group demonstrated significantly longer duration of close posture (p = .002) and positive behavior (p = .019) in the HoloBoard group than students in the normal group.
Emotional Engagement Results Students in the HoloBoard group exhibited higher levels of emotional engagement, which was demonstrated by more emotion that has high arousal and positive valance. This result was based on video and audio data coding, acoustic analysis, and semantic analysis.
For video coding results, the length of high arousal and positive emotion was significantly larger in the HoloBoard group (p = .02). We also found a significantly smaller length of low arousal and negative emotion in the HoloBoard group (p = .01). The audio data coding results also showed that students were more emotionally engaged in the HoloBoard class: the number of student exclamations per minute in the HoloBoard class was significantly larger than the one in the normal group (p ¡ .001). Moreover, t-tests were conducted to compare voice loudness and frequency of the HoloBoard and normal groups. There was a significant higher level of loudness in the HoloBoard group (p ¡ .001), whereas there was no significant difference in frequency between the two groups, indicated by the zero-crossing rate (p = .27). The greater voice loudness indicated higher levels of arousal in emotion of students in the HoloBoard group.
In addition, t-test was performed on the semantic data of the two groups’ transcripts. The results indicated there were significant more positive emotion (p ¡ .001) and probability of positivity (p ¡ .001) in the HoloBoard group than in the normal group. These results further confirmed the manual coding and acoustic analysis results, suggesting that the emotional engagement level of students in the HoloBoard group was higher.
Cognitive Engagement Results In general, students in the HoloBoard group showed more signs of cognitive engagement compared to those in the normal group. The signs included more contribution to classroom discussion as well as more responses in the remembering and understanding levels. Firstly, Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted on types of students’ speech. The results indicated that the numbers of students’ assertions (p ¡ .001) and questions (p = .005) per minute were both significantly larger in the HoloBoard group than the one in the normal group.
In addition, t-test results of comparing discourse attributes suggested the number of student speaking times in the HoloBoard group was significantly greater than the one in the normal group (p ¡ .001). In addition, the numbers of words and sentences students spoke per minute in HoloBoard group were also significantly larger than those in the normal group (both p-values are smaller than 0.001). There was no significant differences in other attributes. The results further confirmed the speech type analysis results, suggesting students in the HoloBoard group were more cognitively engaged and more willing to contribute to class discussion.
For the cognitive level of students’ responses, the numbers of remembering responses (p ¡ .001) and understanding responses (p ¡ .001) were significantly higher in the HoloBoard group than in the normal group. No significant differences were found in the number of responses at any higher cognitive level (e.g., applying and analyzing responses) between the two groups.
5.1. Engaging Students with HoloBoard
The results of the experimental study show that HoloBoard can lead to significantly higher levels of engagement (i.e., behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) and slightly better learning outcomes in comparison to the normal class. Specifically, throughout the class, students in the HoloBoard group were found more active to participate in the class. The results indicated that students demonstrated more concentrating and positive behavior, higher levels of valance and arousal of emotion, more intensive rounds of discussion, and more remembering and understanding responses in the HoloBoard group than in the normal group. These signs of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement observed in our study were consistent with the ones identified in previous literature, e.g., (Beşevli et al., 2019; Hsieh et al., 2015; Fredricks et al., 2004).
In particular, the techniques of the HoloBoard elicited more engaging activities from the students during the discussions. For instance, while studying the characteristics of planets with the role-play in the HoloBoard class, students consistently came up with ideas for the teacher to explore the space as an astronaut. Some of them, such as ”try to jump (on Mars),” and ”try to weigh yourself (on Mercury)” indicated the students’ intentions to apply their new knowledge of space (e.g., change of gravity) and their collective efforts to make meaning out of the information (Smart and Csapo, 2007; SRIVASTAVA, 2014; Davidson and Major, 2014; Matthews, 1996), which is the sign of students’ active learning (Smart and Csapo, 2007; SRIVASTAVA, 2014) and collaborative learning (Davidson and Major, 2014; Matthews, 1996). While using the virtual simulator demonstration to learn the order of planets, students were willing to share their opinions and get engaged in debates (e.g., where should the Earth be). They also exclaimed with excitement (e.g., ”Wow” and ”Yeah! We did it!”) when all the planets were placed in order. These anecdotes demonstrated that the usage of the HoloBoard created an engaging class where students could readily and actively participate and contribute.
In conclusion, with HoloBoard, the lecture-based class managed to create a more engaging atmosphere for active student participation.
5.2. Design Implications
5.2.1. Challenge of Role-play in Lecture-based Classes.
Although the augmented role-play function was welcomed by both teachers and students, there have raised other concerns. With our observation, proportion of teacher’s close-ended questions dramatically increased while using role-play, which caused the number of the students’ lower cognitive level in responses to increase. After simplifying the enter/exit action for role-play (i.e., we set a shortcut key link to this function from the original secondary menu.), the proportion of the experiment teacher’s close-ended questions returned to normal in the experiment study, and the experiment teacher’s self-report also confirmed the effectiveness of this change.
This suggested potential challenges when involving novel techniques such as role-play in lectures. On the one hand, unfamiliar technology increased teachers’ extraneous cognitive load and affected their teaching presence, as highlighted by previous research (Kerawalla et al., 2006). Therefore, the ease of use and necessary training are important factors in adopting novel lecturing techqniues On the other hand, role-play, as an effective teaching method, could be demanding for an instructor, both in preparation and in implementation (Ardriyati, 2009). Hence, when using role-play functions with HoloBoard in class, the system needs to support teachers (i.e., using AI assistants to help classroom management and learning process management) and allow them to control the pace of role-play easily.
5.2.2. Simulator Demonstration and Multi-user Game in Classroom.
We found that the simulator demonstration and the game brought particular excitement to the classroom. In the classroom, a very simple simulation demonstration of the planetary order not only attracted the attention of the students but also stimulated discussion on additional knowledge beyond the syllabus, for example, the orbital speed of the planets. Indeed, the experimenter teacher confirmed such positive effects and recalled that ”everyone was so excited when I finally put all the planets in the right order.” She was impressed by the visual and intuitive way of displaying content materials and believed that ”such direct observation and perception of orders and orbital speed of the planets can have amazing effects.”
In addition, the multi-user game, enabled by the large-format screen of the HoloBoard, also resulted in more learning opportunities for students. In the post-test self-reports, the students in the HoloBoard group had a significantly higher collaborative-learning-related self-evaluation score. They also expressed that they felt their teams had more trust in other members, and they had more frequently encouraged other members to join the group activities. The experimenter teacher also thought ”the game allowed students to apply the knowledge they just learned.”
In addition, we agree that the interactive designs of HoloBoard should be able to sustain student engagement in the long run. Although our current study only compared immediate influence, we believe with the simulator demonstration of content knowledge and gamification elements discussed above, have the potential to overcome the novelty effect. because we have embedded pedagogical factors in our design, for example, selecting the appropriate knowledge to stimulate and presenting the learning journey mading up of raising questions, exploration, and end game. Such ways to make the engagement meaningful and helpful for students are suggested ways to overcome the novelty effects in (Tsay et al., 2020).
In summary, simulator demonstrations and games enabled with HoloBoard can lead to positive student experiences in multi-user learning environments and we recommend including more such activities in classrooms.
5.2.3. Interactive Transparent Screen for Children
We offered a free-play session where students could play the virtual multi-user game on the HoloBoard after the class. We observed that the students made good use of the double-sided feature of the HoloBoard and engaged in cooperative pretend play on the two opposite sides of the HoloBoard spontaneously. For example, in one of the pretend play scenarios, some students in front of the HoloBoard waved controllers in the air and create the visual and audio effects reflecting the hitting of stones, pretending there were attacking students behind the HoloBoard. Those students behind the HoloBoard traced the location of the effects and pretended that they got hurt and fell down.
Pretend play has long been recognized as a vital type of children’s play from the perspective of children’s cognitive, social, and physical development (Vygotsky, 1980; Lillard, 1993). Furthermore, children who engaged in more pretend play generally have more advanced social-cognitive skills, including social perspective taking (Fein, 1981) and social competence (Connolly and Doyle, 1984). Hence, the development of children’ higher-level cognition is facilitated (Bergen, 2002).
HoloBoard showed strong potential as a platform for active and beneficial interaction between children. Beyond classrooms, such interactive transparent displays could be installed at children’s playgrounds to facilitate more pretend play and social play via the double-sided interaction feature.
5.3. Limitation and Future work
For the HoloBoard system, regarding the expectation of potential implementation in the classroom settings, there are several concerns such as a dimmer display color compared to ordinary LED displays, the requirement of trackers and controllers, and so on. Nevertheless, most participants expressed their expectations to see HoloBoard in actual classrooms in the near future. In addition, since the hardware cost and maintenance of HoloBoard is manageable, we will focus on optimizing creative tools like Chalktalk (Perlin et al., 2018) and body-driven augmented graphics creative tool (Saquib et al., 2019) to make it feasible for teachers to independently develop content like slides or role-playing in the future.
For the study, the current experimental study did not fully utilized the functions of HoloBoard. This was for several reasons. First, it was non-trivial to design a course that includes all the novel functions of the system. Interaction techniques such as ”augmented dashboard”, ”physical to virtual interactions”, ”3D modeling”, and ”holographic telepresence” shall be designed within other course contents and lecturing contexts. Second, it is fairly time-consuming for the experimental teachers to understand and get used to the new functions. Therefore, how to best integrate these techniques of the HoloBoard systems into a lecture requires further explorations. Moreover, we acknowledge that the current study design comparing student interaction during the two classes can not help us estimate possible novelty effects. Verifying and reducing possible novelty effects in long-term usage will be our future work.
Meanwhile, due to individual differences among learners and novelty effects of new technology, it remains a challenge to exploit the advantages of such immersive technology in wild. In the future, we plan to leverage HoloBoard in long-term use cases and expand on a larger scale.
We presented HoloBoard, a large-format immersive teaching board based on pseudo holographics. Its unique features of immersive visual presentation and transparent screen allowed us to explore a rich set of novel interaction techniques, potentially valuable for lecturing in classroom. To verify the effect of HoloBoard in actual classes, we designed a course and carried out a comparative study with 36 primary school students. The multimodal learning analytics results of the experiment demonstrated that students in the HoloBoard group were more engaged behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively, indicating that immersive technology can benefit learning in lecture-based classes. We expect this work can contribute to the educational technology research community by providing a novel interactive system and a deep understanding of the immersive technology to support learning.
Acknowledgements.This work was supported by the China National Key Research and Development Plan under Grant No. 2020YFF0305405. Our sincere thanks to all the participants of our experiment.
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Appendix A Pre-/Post- Knowledge Test
a.1. Part One: Open-ended Questions
Do you know any story about human exploring the space? You can tell me as detailed as possible.
Do you think why human explore the space? You can tell me as much as possible about the reasons that human explore the space.
Do you think why human explore the space? You can tell me as much as possible about the reasons that human explore the space.
Please describe the solar system.
Can you tell me what are the planets in the solar system? How can they be categorized? What are the characteristics of each of them?”
Do you think human can live freely in other planets? Why? What are the needed elements to make a planet habitable?
a.2. Part Two: Singe-choice Questions
What is the largest planet in the solar system?
a. Earth b. Jupiter c. Sun d. Uranus
In the solar system, what is the farthest planets from the sun?
a. Earth b. Saturn c. Mars d. Neptune
What is the hottest planet in the solar system?
a. Venus b. Saturn c. Mars d. Jupiter
What is the heaviest planet in the solar system? (the heaviest; the highest in mass)
a. Mercury b. Earth c. Mars d. Jupiter
a.3. Part Three: Multiple-choice Questions
In the following planets, what is/are the gas planet(s)?
a. Mercury b. Venus c. Neptune d. Mars
What is/are the factor(s) effecting human moving to and living in other planet(s)?
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Truman's Diary in PerspectiveHistorians/History
Truman grew to adulthood in a turn-of-the-century rural/small-town Protestant setting. It was one in which cliches about Jews as money-grubbers and sharp dealers would have been common. It is more than likely that Truman would have heard the verb "to Jew" (as in "I Jewed the price down") quite a lot. It is equally likely that his actual contacts with Jews were very few, even when he worked for a few years as a bank clerk in Kansas City. In such situations cliches are absorbed but not deeply felt.
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Politically, Truman was very much a child of a midwestern "populistic" style of progressivism. He admired William Jennings Bryan, probably thought well of Fighting Bob La Follette (he greatly admired his son when they served in the Senate together), and was devoted to Woodrow Wilson. Well, the Populists were anti-Semitic, weren't they? So some historians-most notably, Richard Hofstadter (The Age of Reform)--once thought so on slender evidence, and no doubt most "populists" shared the same folk-culture images of Jews that Truman surely absorbed. But long, long ago, Walter Nugent (The Tolerant Populists) convincingly demonstrated that the Kansas Populists not only welcomed Jews, but actually nominated one for state office (Treasurer) and elected him. C. Vann Woodward ("The Populist Heritage and the Intellectual") even earlier had reminded us that if one looked for actual violence against Jews in late nineteenth-century America, it was far more often found in Boston or Brooklyn than in the Populist provinces. As for Truman, we know that one of his heroes was Justice Louis Brandeis, a Jew and passionate Zionist.
Truman himself as a young man was capable of tossing out casual ethnic slurs. For example, twenty-seven years old and on his way to participate in a federal land lottery for would-be homesteaders in South Dakota, he wrote: "I bet there'll be more bohunks and 'Rooshans' up there than white men. I think it is a disgrace to the country for those fellows to be in it. If they had only stopped immigration about twenty or thirty years ago, the good Americans could all have had plenty of land." (HST to Bess Wallace, Oct. 16, 1911) This was the language he knew--of other farmers, of Independence friends, of his brothers in the local Masonic Lodge. But how did he act? All indications are that he related to people one at a time without much concern about their religion or ethnicity. In Kansas City, he got to know a Jew named Eddie Jacobson as a fellow bank clerk, served in the National Guard with him, and appointed him to run the camp canteen when they trained for World War I in Oklahoma. "I have a Jew in charge of the canteen by the name of Jacobson and he is a crackerjack," Truman wrote to Bess Wallace (Oct. 28, 1917). The enterprise was a success for which Truman gave Jacobson perhaps a bit more credit than he deserved and took some ribbing from fellow officers about his affinity for Jews.
He and Jacobson went off to France together with the 129th Artillery Regiment, returned to the United States in 1919, and became partners in the Truman & Jacobson Haberdashery. Jacobson appears to have contributed no money to the enterprise, but Truman clearly valued his services and his friendship. In the war, Truman had also commanded and won the loyalty of a unit composed heavily of Irish Catholics from Kansas City. When the haberdashery failed, he would align himself with Kansas City's Pendergast machine, an Irish Catholic organization anathema to the local Ku Klux Klan. Truman would have been happy enough to take nominal membership in the Klan also, but not at the cost of renouncing his associates. As a politician and, nearly as one can tell, as a person, his instincts ran in the direction of inclusiveness. As a senator Truman would pick up another close Jewish associate, Max Lowenthal, counsel for the Interstate Commerce Committee, a protege of Justice Brandeis, a committed Zionist, and a trusted informal adviser through Truman's presidency. During World War II, the senator cautiously adopted the Zionist objective of a Jewish state.
By 1947, Truman was president, and his administration was being ripped apart by the issue. Leading national security officials opposed the creation of Israel; political advisers emphasized the importance of Jewish votes and campaign contributions; Americans debated whether armed Zionist forces in Palestine were terrorists or freedom fighters. It was in this atmosphere that one of his least favorite persons, Henry Morgenthau, attempted to intervene with him. When he had a chance later in the day, the still-angry president, delivered some thoughts about "the Jews" (the Zionists who had been pressuring him) caring about only their own problems and being indifferent to the difficulties of other displaced persons, followed by a reflection that an underdog of any race or ethnic group who got on top was capable of "cruelty or mistreatment" of others.
About nine months later, Eddie Jacobson came to the White House and persuaded Truman to grant a secret interview to Chaim Weizmann, who would subsequently become the first president of Israel. ("You win, you bald-headed son-of-a-bitch. I will see him," Truman told Jacobson.) It was another significant step in Truman's eventual decision, after many zigs and zags, to recognize the new Jewish state as soon as it was proclaimed--and to do so over the opposition of his secretaries of state and defense.
It may be easy to read Truman's words a half-century later and take offense. But the establishment of the state of Israel was a messy, morally ambiguous process. We know now that it created complex problems that do not yield easily to formulas that posit one side as absolutely good and the other as absolutely evil. Just as Truman's decision for recognition rested on complicated impulses. His feelings about Jews, blacks, and other ethnoreligious groups involved conflicting emotions, which he resolved constructively. Above all, the world of 1947-a world with vivid memories of Nazism and the discovery of the death camps-attached a somewhat more activist meaning to the term "anti-Semitism" than privately written words, expressing a passing frustration. Perhaps we should follow its example.
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Andre Mayer - 8/11/2003
I think it's worth pointing out that Truman did not pick at random his examples of underdogs changing their tune when on top. He mentioned, in addition to Jews, two (American) religious groups: Baptists and Mormons. Both are, in fact, well chosen examples of groups that advocated tolerance as oppressed minorities, but sometimes enforced their own views when they gained power.
Oscar Chamberlain - 8/6/2003
Thank you for the fine analysis of Truman's comments and for placing them in the messy context of the creation of Israel.
I would simply add that the belief that oppressed people can, in turn, oppress others has a sad measure of truth to it.
- Voting opens soon for the leaders of the OAH in 2017
- A team of science historians are attempting to re-create recipes from sixteenth-century alchemy texts
- David Kennedy recalls his dinners with President Obama
- When Kellie Jones Wanted To Study Black Art History, The Field Didn’t Exist. So She Created It Herself.
- Michael Honey: The 60’s activist turned historian | <urn:uuid:078e93c5-dc0f-439e-9a2f-26f65ae2eb4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1606 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738661327.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173741-00117-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978371 | 1,602 | 3.03125 | 3 | {
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When rows upset the analogy of a forest, mead, or proceed, ecologists field ecological restoration to extra ecosystem ahead of time. In “Gut Microbiota and Hominid Salubriousness: Discernments from Ecological Restoration” cracked in The Quarterly Go one more time again of Biology (June 2018), Matthew R. Orr, Kathryn M. Kocurek, and Deborah L. Minor explore the budding dedications of ecological restoration to hypnotic. By integrating these instructs, the littrateurs bid new insights into check and treatment of braced disease.
Utilizing an interdisciplinary where one is be brought up from, the writers analyze the impersonation humans reply as ecosystems. Humans act as multitudes for a multitude of interdependent bacterium species that are zealous to overall gut environment. The microbes, in compensation, put forward aids–recalled as ecosystem posts–that eliminate nutrition and deal with both invulnerability and stiff forgather.
Microbial imbalance–also be unwavering as dysbiosis–within the gut is tied to the evolvement of hardened bugs, categorizing plumpness, cancer, and autoimmune unsettles.
“A assets end of ecological restoration is to select progress the faculties of debased, spoiled, or annulled ecosystems to provide with ecosystem betterments. Medicine percentages the despite the act goal whenever perturbation of symbiotic microzoons jeopardizes eleemosynary health,” the inventors scribble.
In the article, the novelists talk over how methods, such as microbiome-wide joining meditate ons (MWAS) and microbial GPS, can increase identify on presentations that prod up healthy gut rudiment communities.
Numerous tests indicate that unspeakable diversity of gut bacteria is component to larger well-being. Singulars who contemporary in Westernized vereins and adhere to industrial victuals brandish further withs of gut microbiota territory in comparison to those who end in multitudinous established consociations.
Reviving gut arrange to a healthier article can materialize in the course either quiescent restoration or quick restoration. Flexible restoration eliminates the roots of the spot of confuse with the assumption that the ecosystem final wishes as revitalize by itself. Drop modifications are a elevate of out of it restoration. If insignificant restoration leaves, however, enlivened restoration hovercraft, such as fecal microbiota moves (FMT) may also be needed. An serious insight from ecological restoration, and one that is about ignored in Western cure-all, is that spirited interventions are not sufficient likely to come to pass in if passive interventions are not performed and uniform.
Ecological restoration thereby names patients as rickety participants in the get of their gut communities, whereas Western constitutionalizations to chronic disease often absolve patients of lifestyle trifles that ship healing.
The architects comprehensive on how average ecological works–understood as structure-function sculpts–can pull through as tools for assessing the effectiveness of gut spirit treatments. Embrocating a rivet-redundancy ikon, in particular, could corroborate helpful, bearing in intention evidence mould clears a rivet-redundancy relationship exhales within the gut. In this oeuvre model, aim in an ecosystem is not remodeled until a illuminating change in species multifariousness occurs. Microbiota in the gut exact functional redundancy. Although some microzoon species may be go, others end the functions of the dmod over species. This redundancy can improvement issues when allegedly “ornament” FMT providers as a matter of fact have downgrade levels of gut gap. While FMT models of behaviours may currently disregard donor deficiency, the use of these dim-wits can help mine factors that may be omitting FMT success and raising the probability of go backside.
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My mother has been informed that she has too much calcium in her blood.
Can you tell me more about this please?
Calcium is an important component of the blood, that helps to form teeth and bones, but is also essential for helping to regulate muscle contraction and transmit impulses along our nerves.
It is involved in all of the membranes lining the cells that make up our body. Calcium absorption and its use within the body is regulated by a gland that lies adjacent to the thyroid gland in the neck, called the parathyroid gland.
This hormone secreting (endocrine) gland produces parathyroid hormone. Too much or too little calcium can be linked to significant medical problems of a varying nature.
Firstly, the symptoms that your mother may have experienced as a result of having too much calcium in her bloodstream include – tiredness, loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhoea leading to dehydration and thirst.
An irregular heart beat can be a factor as can low blood pressure. In the most severe situations, patients affected by high blood serum calcium levels can become very confused, and at worst may experience fits and loss of consciousness.
Too much calcium can sometimes be a result of taking too much in the diet. This doesn't tend to happen very often, but I can recall a small number of patients over the last 20 years in whom this was the case.
Drinking too much milk (several pints a day) or having an excessive amount of antacid medicines containing calcium can tip the balance.
Chronic kidney disease may result in an imbalance, as may inactivity, eg due to prolonged bed rest, and repeated blood transfusions under certain circumstances.
In the case of dietary indiscretion or imbibing of excessive stomach medicines the answer is to try and eat a more balanced diet that doesn't upset the stomach.
Occasionally the calcium levels increase if there is a malfunction of the parathyroid glands leading to their overactivity.
Any cause of multiple fractures and a relatively rare primary cancer of the bone marrow – multiple myeloma can also be the guilty party to a high calcium level.
The majority of patients will have their calcium levels adjusted within a relatively short time with the help of medication, apart from that caused by myeloma.
Obviously, the underlying problem must be dealt with if the situation is not to recur.
I sincerely hope that your mother turns out to have a problem that responds to treatment without too much difficulty.
The NetDoctor Medical Team
Other Qs & As | <urn:uuid:0e586dd5-aadc-4572-a8da-e1dd54861f60> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.netdoctor.co.uk/ask-the-expert/cardiovascular/a1044/too-much-calcium/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662510138.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220516140911-20220516170911-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.944769 | 528 | 2.953125 | 3 | {
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Tens of thousands of new compounds will be screened for effectiveness against critical illnesses
Japan is joining global efforts to contain malaria, tuberculosis, and a variety of tropical diseases in a big way. A recently formed public-private partnership will on Saturday formally announce agreements to screen tens of thousands of drug candidates from Japanese private and public sector compound libraries for treatments for illnesses that primarily afflict the poor in developing countries.
The 11 initial agreements are the first fruits of a recently formed public-private Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund). It was set up in April and brings together Japan's foreign affairs and health and welfare ministries, a consortium of five pharmaceutical companies, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Japanese government is putting up a bit over one-half of the $100 million that is committed to GHIT over the next 5 years; the drugmakers and the Gates Foundation are contributing the rest. Funding could increase if more companies join the consortium, says BT Slingsby, the fund's CEO and executive director.
Slingsby says that Japan has been a bit behind other nations in contributing to the global health R&D effort. Even though Japan is a major producer of new pharmaceuticals, Japanese companies lack the size and global recognition of American and European pharma giants. Although Japan has been one of the biggest contributors to development assistance in recent years, little of that money has previously gone into global health R&D. And the major nongovernmental organizations addressing global health concerns are based in the United States or Europe, leaving Japan out of the picture.
To get back into the game, GHIT looked for a new model rather than creating new nonprofit organizations focused on specific diseases, Slingsby says. "We're trying to be additive and not replicate what's out there," he says. So they are working with established nonprofits—the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)—to help develop candidate drugs.
GHIT funding will enable researchers to test compounds from the libraries of Japanese drugmakers Eisai, Daiichi Sankyo, Shionogi, and Takeda Pharmaceutical, and the private Tokyo-based nonprofit Institute of Microbial Chemistry. The TB Alliance and MMV are searching for drugs to augment current treatments for tuberculosis and malaria that are losing efficacy. DNDi hopes to find treatments for three neglected tropical diseases—leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness. Astellas Pharma is also involved in the initiative. | <urn:uuid:89ef7d04-f951-4c85-aa25-543fef843bb8> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2013/05/japan-joins-fight-against-neglected-diseases | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398454553.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205414-00210-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944982 | 525 | 2.796875 | 3 | {
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Coronaviruses, which are named for the crown-like spikes on their surfaces, primarily cause infections in birds and mammals.1 There are seven types of coronaviruses that are known to infect humans.2 These can lead to a range of disease in humans from upper respiratory tract infections, similar to the common cold, to lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. However, in the last few decades, the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, and now severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have demonstrated the deadliness of several coronaviruses when they cross the species barrier and infect humans.3
The current COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a novel human coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The two previous outbreaks with the highly pathogenic SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were quickly suppressed through rigorous infection control. COVID-19, however, has resulted in a global pandemic, overwhelming health care systems worldwide and resulting in millions of deaths around the world as well as lasting health problems of unknown duration in many who have survived the illness.
Enanta’s Approach to Treating SARS-CoV-2
Although the ingenuity of science and rapid clinical development have delivered life-saving vaccines, there is an urgent need for direct-acting antiviral treatments that specifically target the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We believe that a convenient, oral antiviral treatment that can be easily prescribed could be an important option for clinicians and COVID-19 patients. Our goal is to develop a safe, effective, once-daily, convenient antiviral with a short treatment duration for patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
When the pandemic began, Enanta took a two-pronged approach to discovering such an antiviral by evaluating compounds in its chemical library while simultaneously starting a more targeted, rational-drug-design program specifically for this virus. The advantage with a classical discovery approach is that our scientists can make potent, purpose-built inhibitors against multiple different targets within the virus. Although these selective drug candidates take time to discover, optimize, and move into the clinic, they have the benefit of being specifically designed to work against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Read More »
Enanta has focused significant resources and dedicated its long-standing expertise in virology, and viral protease inhibitors specifically, to discover and develop oral treatments for COVID-19. Discovery programs were initiated for protease and polymerase inhibitors, classes of drugs long used to treat HIV and hepatitis C. These drugs block viral replication by inhibiting critical enzymes that are required for a virus to replicate.
Enanta’s protease inhibitor program quickly produced leads specifically designed to disrupt SARS-CoV-2 replication by binding to the active site of the enzyme, which is a region of the viral RNA that is conserved across currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. Importantly, as these drug candidates do not target the spike protein, they are likely to be effective against currently emerging variants with spike protein variations that can elude monoclonal antibodies or vaccine immunity. Finally, these leads have been selected to demonstrate pan-coronavirus activity, to enable the ability to possible treated other human coronaviruses in addition to SARS-CoV-2.
In August 2021, Enanta nominated EDP-235 from these early leads as its first oral protease inhibitor clinical candidate for COVID-19. Enanta presented data on EDP-235 at the International Society for Influenza and Other Respiratory Virus Diseases (ISIRV) – World Health Organization (WHO) Virtual Conference.
In human liver microsomes, EDP-235 showed good human Caco-2 cell permeability and a low plasma clearance. Consistent with this in vitro data, EDP-235 had robust plasma exposure with an oral bioavailability of 95% in rats. Moreover, EDP-235 had favorable in vivo penetration into multiple target tissues, including lung, kidney, liver and heart. Based on allometric scaling, EDP-235 is projected to have a long half-life of 16 hours with an efficacious dose of 100 to 500 mg once-daily in humans. Taken together, these data indicate that EDP-235 has the potential for once-daily oral dosing with a low pill burden and without the need for ritonavir boosting.
Enanta initiated a Phase 1 single and multiple ascending dose study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of EDP-235 in healthy volunteers in February 2022. In March 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Fast Track designation for EDP-235.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Human Coronavirus Types
- Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine 26, 450–452 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9
- Chowell, G., Abdirizak, F., Lee, S. et al. Transmission Characteristics of MERS and SARS in the Healthcare Setting: a Comparative Study. BMC Medicine 13, 210 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0450-0 | <urn:uuid:80e1d304-10b2-4946-8b2c-1b96db6899df> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.enanta.com/pipeline/sars-cov-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652663048462.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20220529072915-20220529102915-00323.warc.gz | en | 0.925153 | 1,168 | 3.53125 | 4 | {
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I think Thomas Gage (above) should have called the whole thing off, once the secret was out. And Lord knows it was out almost before General Gage ordered it be kept secret. Maybe the leak was his New Jersey born wife, and maybe it was the government's opponents back in London, and maybe it was just impossible to keep any secrets in a city of 6,700 civilians, occupied by 6,000 soldiers and sailors and their dependents. And maybe the truth is, Britain had already lost the war for American independence before the first shot was fired on 19 April, 1775.
Seven months earlier, on 1 September 1774, General Gage had sent 260 lobster backs 3 miles up the Mystic River to Winter Hill, where they seized the largest supply of gunpowder in the colonies (above). The audacity of Gage's preemptive strike had infuriated thousands of colonists who gathered in Cambridge with their weapons. It was weeks before things calmed down. Since then, Gage had canceled a number of similar expeditions, and pulled all his men back into Boston, abandoning the countryside except for occasional reconnaissance missions. He had warned his London bosses, “if you think ten thousand men sufficient, send twenty; if one million is thought enough, give two; you save both blood and treasure in the end.” What he got, in late February, were orders to get on with disarming the colonists.
Gage's plan was to send out a lightning strike to capture another large supply of powder he'd heard about, 30 miles to the northwest, in Concord. It was a full day's march to get there, giving colonists time to resist, but the expedition could succeed if security was tight and if the rebels were slow to react. So first, Gage wanted to arrest the colonial leaders. He would release them after the powder was safely in Boston, to give him someone to negotiate with. But on Saturday, 8 April, 1775, the two highest value leaders of the Committee of Safety still in Boston, smuggler John Hancock and his cousin, lawyer John Adams, slipped out of the city. Gage heard they had fled to Lexington, 25 miles out the Concord road. Hancock had been born in Lexington, and still owned his family's house there, which was currently occupied by his cousin Lucy and her husband, Jonas Clarke, who was the village pastor. So the first round went to the colonists
The following Monday, 10 April, Gage informed his senior officer, Lieutenant Colonel “Fat Francis” Smith (above), of his plan. Smith suggested a personal reconnaissance, and Gage agreed. So disguised as common travelers 42 year old Colonel Smith and 22 year old Sargent John Howe, who had made a previous reconnaissance, rowed across the Charles River to Cambridge, and started west on foot. After only six miles they stopped at a tavern for breakfast and information. But when Smith claimed to be looking for work, a black servant girl identified Smith by name, and told him he would find plenty of work up the road. Smith retreated back to Boston, but Sergeant Howe continued on. He returned on Wednesday, 12 April, telling Gage the country was so alert it would take 10,000 men to reach Concord and capture the powder and arms the Sargent now confirmed were in Concord.
Three days later, on Saturday 15 April, several companies of grenadiers and light infantry were relieved of their regular duties so they could resole their shoes, change out their canteens, mend their uniforms, and have their muskets serviced. About noon, Royal Navy row boats were seen being gathered in the harbor. At the Green Dragon Tavern on Union Street, one of the rebel leaders remaining in Boston, silversmith Paul Revere, kept the Committee of Safety fully informed of all these preparations..
At nine in the morning, Tuesday, 18 April, patriots in Concord moved their cannon and powder out of town. They already knew the British were coming, and that they were coming soon. About noon John Ballard, a stable boy on Milk Street, reported that a British officer had said there “would be hell to pay, tomorrow”. About two that afternoon, British sailors sent ashore to purchase stores, were heard talking of preparations to row infantry across the Charles River to Cambridge after dark. Doctor Joseph Warren was told by a British officer patient that Hancock and Adams were the intended targets of the movement.
Around seven that night twenty mounted British officers and sergeants, under the command of Major Edward Mitchell, rode out of Boston, across the Roxbury neck, and headed north. Their mission was to intercept any warning coming from Boston, and to confirm the location of Hancock and Adams. The timing was telling, since most mounted patrols left after dawn and returned by dark. Just an hour later, in Lexington, militia posted a guard at the the Reverend Clarke's house, to protect Adams and Hancock.
About ten that night, under an almost full moon, 700 infantry were formed up in their encampment on the Boston Common, and then marched to the edge of the Back Bay. Boats rowed them across to the Cambridge farm of David Phipps, sheriff for Middlesex County.. The soldiers had to wade ashore through knee high water. Then, Lieutenant John Baker noted “we were halted in a dirty road and stood...waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats...” As the British infantry were stalled on the Concord road, Paul Revere was rowed across Boston Harbor to Charlestown (above), where he had stabled a horse. At about the same time tanner William Dawes managed to slip out of Boston via the Roxbury neck.
About 30 minutes after midnight on Wednesday, 19 April 1775, Paul Revere arrived at Reverend Clarke's house in Lexington. When the guards told him he was making too much noise, the volatile Revere yelled “Noise?! You'll have enough noise before long. The Regulars are out!” At that moment window shutters flew open and a very awake John Hancock invited Revere inside. Within the hour, Revere, joined by William Dawes, and local doctor, 34 year old Samuel Prescott, rode out together to spread the alarm to Concord and beyond. Just north of Lexington the three rebel riders ran into a detachment of Major Mitchell's scouts. Dawes and Revere were captured, but Prescott managed to jump his horse over a roadside fence and escape, taking the alert to Concord. Questioned, Revere told the British there were 500 armed men waiting for them on Lexington Green.
Meanwhile, back on the Phipps farm in the dark, Col. Smith's frustration was growing. It had taken the better part of an hour to get the march restarted, so Smith ordered 53 year old Major John Pitcairn to take the lead with 300 light infantry and marines, and force march until he had seized the bridges north of Concord. Smith would follow with 400 Grenadiers. By the time Pitcairn started it was after after two in the morning. There were only about 2 hours of darkness left. Musket shots and bell alarms were ringing all along the Concord road. Col. Smith sent a messenger back to Boston, requesting reinforcements be dispatched.
In Lexington, about 80 militiamen answered the alarm bell, reporting to 45 year old militia Captain John Parker, a veteran of the famous Roger's Rangers. Parker sent scouts down the road to Cambridge, then, as militiaman Ebenerer Monoe, recalled, “The weather being rather chilly, after calling the roll, we were dismissed, but ordered to remain within call of the drum. The men generally went into (Buckman's) tavern adjoining the common.” (above) There, most fell asleep in chairs.
The sky had begun to lighten at about 4:15 that Wednesday morning when young Thaddeus Bowman galloped up to the tavern (above). He had been trapped behind Pitcairn's rapid advance, three miles down the road at “Foot of the Rocks.” opposite Pierce's Hill, but had managed to pass the British regulars by crossing fields. Bowman told Parker the regulars were just minutes out of Lexington, and Parker ordered his drummer, William Diman, to sound the “long roll” call to arms.
Some 70 militiamen formed a line across the northwest corner of Lexington Green, with Bowman the last man on the right. It is claimed later that Parker told his men, “Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” But because he suffered from tuberculosis, Parker's voice was raspy and thin, and few of the militia would have been able to hear Parker, if he said it.
In a soft half light, with a crisp chill in the air, it was approaching five in the morning. The sun has not yet risen over the horizon. But Pitcairn can see militia moving parallel to his march, and periodically even see muskets being fired to track his movements. In the past Major Pitcairn has said, “I have so despicable an opinion of the people of this country...I am satisfied they will never attack Regular troops.” But he now halted his men and ordered them to load their weapons and then fix bayonets. As Pitcairn dropped back to check the rear units of his command, forty year old Irishman Lieutenant Jesse Adair, ordered the 100 men in his command to “double step march” into Lexington.
Lexington Green is a triangle formed by the junction of the west trending Boston and Concord road, and the north trending Bedford road. At the apex of the triangle, where the Bedford Road meets the main road, and on the green, stands the village meeting house. The line of Captain Parker's 70 militiamen were anchored on the Bedford Road, about 75 feet from the northwest base of the triangle. This put them well off the Concord Road, so as not to threaten the British regulars marching to Concord. Parker means his little command as a statement of resolve, and nothing more. It makes the last part of Parker's supposed statement suspect at best.
But as Lt. Adair “quick marched” his command into Lexington the meeting house blocked his view of the militia. And he failed to follow the left curve of the Concord road, but angled to the right, up the Bedford road. After a few yards the militia, almost equal in size to his own command, was suddenly revealed on his left flank. Startled, Lt. Adair ordered his men onto the green and into a “firing line”. As they did so the regulars let off a self confidence inducing cry of “”Huzzah!”, as they had been trained to do. It took, probably from first sight to the regular battle line, less than a minute.
Major Pitcairn was leading the next three regular companies in line, and guided them in quick step, correctly, angling to the left - west on the Concord road. But as he cleared the meeting house, Pitcairn suddenly saw the militia, and also Adair's company, spreading quickly out onto the green in a line 30 feet in front of the militia. It looked as if a battle was about to begin. Pitcairn ordered his column to halt, and galloped across the green directly toward the American militia. As he came up behind their line, the Major drew his sword and began shouting desperately, “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels! Disperse! Lay down your arms!”
Captain Parker, seeing his men outnumbered, and likewise not wanting to start a war, ordered his men to disperse. Few heard him, but those that did turned and begin walking away. But it was at this instant that somebody fired yet another musket, which set off first a hundred others, and then five thousand and then fifty thousand more, over 8 bloody years of war. It was the famous or infamous “Shot heard 'round the world”.
Of the approximately 200 muskets actually on the Green that morning, almost every loaded weapon was British. The regulars had far better discipline than the militia, but were exhausted, having not slept for 24 hours, and were strangers in a strange land. Everybody was on edge, frightened and caught in a rush of an unanticipated crises So, was the first shot intended to kill fired by a colonists or a British regular? In the end it does not really matter. Both sides had been playing with fire for a decade. It was inevitable a flint would spark a conflagration. And in the almost light before dawn on Wednesday, 19 April, 1775, Lexington Green was as good a place as any for that
It took, probably, from first sight to first shot less than 90 seconds. After that it was over, probably, in less than another minute. The regulars fired a ragged volley and then because they could not reload with bayonets on their muskets, charged the colonists.
They stabbed at least two to death before Pitcairn had the drum beat to quarters, bringing Adair's company back into formation, and ending the melee. There were eight American – from this instant we can call them that - eight American dead. One British regular wounded, but by which side it is not clear. Major Pitcairn's horse was also wounded twice, but he was behind the American line, and those wounds were probably made by British lead.
Pitcairn had never intended on stopping in Lexington, and even now did not pause here for long. He had the entire command give a cheer and fire a volley into the air, but that was more to empty their weapons than anything else. In his mind the Major must have been feeling the weight of the reports he would have to write, and the endless second guessing by his superiors, as after the “Boston Massacare” five years before.But his orders were to seize the bridges north of Concord, so as quickly as he could, and without more than a perfunctory search for Hancock and Adams, who had fled before the shooting started, Pitcairn put his men back on the road, marching for Concord, now in the full light of the morning sun.
What Lexington made as clear as daylight was that America was too big to be controlled by any outside force. And by 1775, that is just what Britain was. What followed was 8 years of warfare, that killed 50,000 Americans and 25,000 Brits and their hired soldiers. But if he could have divorced himself from his obedience to orders, Thomas Gage knew Britain already lost her colonies, before the first Red Coat had crossed the Charles River in the early hours of 19 April, 1775. So the American Revolution, was a foregone conclusion.
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What is arthritis?
The bone ends that comprise a joint are covered with a smooth material called cartilage. The cartilage cushions the bone and allows the joint to move smoothly without pain. Arthritis occurs when there is deterioration or wearing away of joint cartilage. The normal smooth lining of a joint surface becomes rough and irregular, which causes pain. Unfortunately, the body cannot repair the damaged cartilage. Arthritis can occur at any joint in the foot and ankle region, although the ankle joint itself is most commonly affected.
There are different types of arthritis, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and post-injury (or post-traumatic) arthritis. Osteoarthritis (OA) is partly due to a familial tendency, and partly an inherent consequence of aging. People usually begin feeling the effects of osteoarthritis in their 60’s. Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by joint inflammation affecting numerous joints, and often begins at a young age. As the name implies, post-injury arthritis occurs as a result of a single or recurrent injuries to a joint surface. In the ankle, this is usually the result of an ankle fracture.
Arthritis in the ankle joint can be generalized, affecting the entire joint surface evenly, or it can be more localized, where only a part of the joint surface is damaged. More localized joint damage usually occurs to the talus bone, the lower bone of the ankle joint. This condition is often referred to as an osteochondral lesion of the talus (OLT), or osteochondritis dissecans (OCD). This type of problem is quite common, and has different treatment methods available. Diagnosis of an osteochondral lesion usually requires an advanced imaging technique such as a CT or MRI scan.
As previously mentioned, arthritis can occur in every joint in the foot and ankle, but there are several typical patterns of arthritis in joints other than the ankle. The joint between the talus bone and the heel (calcaneus) bone is known as the subtalar joint. Arthritis in this joint is almost always a result of a prior fracture of the heel bone. Arthritis commonly affects the joints in the middle of the foot (tarsometatarsal joints), leading to flattening of the arch and bone spurs in the middle part of the foot. Another very common site for arthritis is in the big toe (metatarsophalangeal joint), leading to large bone spurs that makes shoe wear painful, and greatly limiting the motion in the first toe.
Nonoperative treatment of arthritis
Milder cases of arthritis can be treated with oral medications, such as anti-inflammatory medications. Ankle braces or shoe inserts (orthotics) may also help to stabilize and support the affected joint(s). An exercise program can also be helpful. This should focus on non-impact exercises (bicycling, swimming) to strengthen the muscles around the foot and ankle and to maintain motion in the joints. A course of physical therapy may be beneficial to teach appropriate exercises that will not exacerbate the arthritis pain. Finally, avoiding painful activities (running, vigorous hiking) is important, as pain may be an indication that you are causing additional damage to your joint.
In more severe and painful cases of arthritis, a cortisone injection may be offered to calm the pain and swelling. Cortisone shots may last for a few weeks to several months, although in some people they do not provide much pain relief. Complete immobilization of the foot and ankle in a brace or cast is also very effective for relieving pain, although it is often difficult to use such a device for more than a few weeks.
Treatment of localized ankle arthritis (OLT or OCD lesions)
Localized damage to the talus bone in the ankle joint may involve just the cartilage surface or the underlying bone as well. Treatment for this common condition may begin with a course of immobilization in a cast for 4 to 6 weeks, especially if the condition has recently occurred. If pain persists despite casting, surgical treatment is recommended. In most cases, this surgery can be done arthroscopically. The damaged bone and cartilage is removed from the surface of the talus bone, as this tissue is what causes the pain in the joint. Small holes are placed into the surface of the bone to provide channels to healthier bone, a procedure called “micro-fracture”. Blood cells flow through these channels to the surface of the bone where they can produce new cartilage-like material. In approximately 75% of cases, this new scar-tissue cartilage (known as fibrocartilage) is protective enough to eliminate the pain from the ankle joint.
The 25% of people who don’t benefit from arthroscopic surgery tend to have larger areas of damaged cartilage, and ones that involve extensive damage to the bone as well. In these cases, there are other, more advanced treatment options available. One procedure involves transferring dowel-shaped cartilage and bone to the damaged area of the talus (from either a cadaver joint, or from one’s own knee joint). This procedure is known as an osteochondral autograft transfer, or OATS procedure. Another operation involves implanting small pieces of cadaver cartilage into the area of cartilage damage, a procedure known as “DeNovo”.
Surgical treatment of arthritis: removal of bone spurs
Surgery is indicated when the above non-operative measures do not relieve the pain or allow return to a reasonable level of function. The procedure that is offered to the patient depends on where the arthritis is located and what is causing the symptoms. In many cases, arthritis causes bone spurs to develop on the edges of the joints. If the spurs are the major cause of the symptoms, then surgical removal of the bone spurs may be all that is necessary to relieve pain and joint stiffness. This is especially true in the big toe joint (the metatarsophalangeal joint) and in the ankle joint. In the big toe, the bone spurs can be removed using a small incision, which often greatly improves the range of motion in the big toe, and relieves pain from pressure on the top of the toe. This procedure can often be used in the big toe even when the arthritis is fairly advanced.
In the ankle joint, bone spurs can be removed arthroscopically. Arthroscopic surgery involves 2 or 3 small incisions (1/4 inch in size) and the use of a small camera to perform the operation. Removing the bone spurs decreases pain and may improve motion in the ankle. However, this procedure is not as effective if there are generalized arthritic changes present in the joint.
Surgical treatment of arthritis: joint fusion
In cases of advanced arthritis, simple removal of bone spurs will not adequately relieve pain. In those cases, a joint fusion, also known as joint arthrodesis may be offered. A fusion surgery freezes the joint in place, eliminating all the motion at the affected joint. However, the motion is maintained at the adjacent joints, and often there is little noticeable loss of motion following a joint fusion. This is because by the time a joint fusion is offered, most of the motion at the joint has already been lost due to the arthritis. Joint fusion is an extremely effective method for relieving pain in an arthritic joint. Common areas that are fused include the first toe (metatarsophalangeal joint), the midfoot (tarsometatarsal joints), the subtalar joint, and the ankle joint.
Surgical treatment of arthritis: Ankle joint replacement
Total ankle replacement (or arthroplasty) is a treatment option for painful ankle arthritis where the surfaces of the ankle joint are replaced by a prosthetic device consisting of metal and specialized orthopedic plastic (known as polyethylene). It is a similar procedure to joint replacements of the hip and knee, which have been helping to relieve pain and suffering for over 50 years. An ankle joint replacement has the advantage over ankle fusion in that it cures the problem of arthritis in the ankle but does not sacrifice motion. Maintaining ankle motion helps make a more normal walking pattern, and also prevents the wearing out of other joints in the foot that can occur after an ankle joint fusion.
From our experience and other published studies, it appears that most ankle replacement procedures will last 12-15 years. Depending on why the ankle replacement is no longer working, some individuals will benefit from a new ankle joint replacement, and some will require changing the replacement to an ankle fusion.
Following an ankle replacement, there are some conditions that can occur that may require additional surgical procedures. The most common problem is an eating away of the bone adjacent to the ankle replacement, a condition known as “osteolysis.” This appears to be a reaction of the body to small particles from the plastic portion of the replacement. Osteolysis can be easily treated at an early stage by replacing the lost bone, a procedure known as bone grafting. Much rarer conditions that require additional surgery include loosening of one of the metal components, breakage of the plastic component, or bone spurs that develop on one of the ankle bones.
Not everyone is a candidate for ankle replacement surgery. A severely deformed ankle from a prior injury, a previous infection in the ankle joint, or other conditions may prevent a successful ankle replacement. Also, a young or extremely active individual may not be a suitable candidate for joint replacement.
Dr. Jeffrey Mann has used the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement or STAR prosthesis for 20 years for his ankle replacement procedures. He and his father, Dr. Roger Mann, helped to pioneer the use of ankle replacements in the United States. The 2 have published many articles about the experience with the STAR prosthesis.
Additional information on ankle replacements is available at:
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The Data Protection Act (DPA) would create a consumer watchdog to give Americans control and protection of their data, promote a competitive digital marketplace, and prepare the U.S. for the digital age.
Introduced by U.S. Kirsten Gillibrand, the DPA will have the authority and resources to effectively enforce data protection rules—created either by itself or congress—and would be equipped with a broad range of enforcement tools, including civil penalties, injunctive relief, and equitable remedies. The DPA would promote data protection and privacy innovation across public and private sectors, developing and providing resources such as Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) that minimize or even eliminate the collection of personal data. The U.S. is one of the only democracies, and the only member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), without a federal data protection agency, says a press release.
The agency will address a growing data privacy crisis in America, as massive amounts of personal information—public profiles, health data, photos, past purchases, locations, search histories, and much more—is being collected, processed, and in some cases, exploited by private companies and foreign adversaries.
The press release notes that in recent years, major data breaches have occurred at banks, credit rating agencies and tech firms, such as the 2017 Equifax data breach and the 2018 Facebook data breach as well. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has “failed to enforce its own orders and has failed to act on dozens of detailed consumer privacy complaints alleging unfair practices concerning data collection, marketing to children, cross-device tracking, consumer profiling, user tracking, discriminatory business practices, and data disclosure to third-parties,” adds the release.
The DPA would have three core missions:
1. Give Americans control and protection over their own data by creating and enforcing data protection rules.
- The agency would enforce privacy statutes and rules around data protection, either as authorized by Congress or themselves. It would use a broad range of tools to do so, including civil penalties, injunctive relief, and equitable remedies.
- The agency would also take complaints, conduct investigations and inform the public on data protection matters. So if it seems like a company like Tinder is doing bad things with your data, the Data Protection Agency would have the authority to launch an investigation and share findings, says the release.
2. Maintain the most innovative, successful tech sector in the world by ensuring fair competition within the digital marketplace.
- The agency would promote data protection and privacy innovation across sectors, developing and providing resources such as Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) that minimize or even eliminate the collection of personal data.
- The agency would ensure equal access to privacy protection and protect against “pay-for-privacy” or “take-it-or-leave-it” provisions in service contracts—because privacy, including online privacy, is a right that should be enforced, notes the release.
3. Prepare the American government for the digital age.
- The agency would advise Congress on emerging privacy and technology issues, like deepfakes and encryption. It would also represent the US at international forums regarding data privacy and inform future treaty agreements regarding data.
Steve Durbin, managing director of the Information Security Forum, says, “As pressure from regulatory compliance increases, businesses must take an increasingly integrated and well-rounded approach to information risk management. There is no way to get around data privacy laws and regulations. Businesses must either comply or pay a stiff penalty. Few jurisdictions, if any, are identical in their regulations, privacy legislation, fraud and breach prevention. Traditional data protection methods may be tough to apply or unusable when it comes to storing or harnessing data in the cloud. Unless you are constantly monitoring the rules, and put tools in place to do so, you might not only be compromising your information, but also your corporate responsibility.”
“Similarly to what happened in the EU with the publication of GDPR, having a strong data protection law is essential to motivate businesses to adhere to a strong code of conduct when manipulating consumer and other business data. This is a positive step forward to bring the US in alignment to what is being done worldwide to protect consumer rights,” says Fausto Oliveira, Principal Security Architect at Acceptto. “However, I don’t see any recommendations for the size of fine, how those fines would be applied and how the money gathered from those fines would be re-used, I think those are crucial items when publishing a bill to create a new data protection agency. I certainly definitely welcome more level of detail before pronouncing further on the effectiveness of such a law.”
“I am not sure if we really need another agency,” he continues. “There is an agency already assigned to protect US cybersecurity, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be simpler and more effective to expand the powers of CISA to encompass data protection. In that way, the ability to synergize efforts and share information at a federal level would maximize the ability to detect companies that are non-compliant using existing investigative resources. I am always restrained when endorsing new agencies that can lead to efforts being duplicated, or ineffective, due to lack of expertise and manpower.”
“This is good first step, however, there are a myriad of factors that would need to be considered for a Federal Regulation on data privacy and security. There was hope that the industry would self-regulate, but we have had some egregious violations of public trust in recent past which makes me believe that may not be possible. In January NIST issued its draft privacy framework to also address these issues. I would hope the Senators bill would consider the carrot and not stick approach in drafting a National Policy on Privacy and Data Protection,” notes Terence Jackson, Chief Information Security Officer at Thycotic.
“GDPR has definitely affected the way data is handled in the EU, CCPA was recently enacted in California but it’s too early to tell what effect it will have,” he says. “Other states are also considering drafting legislation, the issue I have with that is if each state has its own data law, compliance will be almost untenable for businesses. I do agree that a central governing agency should be created, but I’m not optimistic that our government, without help from the private industry will be able to get it right on the first go.” | <urn:uuid:031000fa-5a99-4687-8de4-687c903449c7> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://www.digtec.in/us-sen-gillibrand-announces-legislation-to-create-a-data-protection-agency/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780056578.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20210918214805-20210919004805-00079.warc.gz | en | 0.950185 | 1,343 | 2.671875 | 3 | {
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Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his wife Hellen Rutherford Stuyvesant were childless. As Stuyvesant aged, he worried that the distinguished family name would die out. His sister, Judith Stuyvesant Winthrop, had one male great-grandson. His name was Stuyvesant Rutherford.
In the boy, Stuyvesant – who was the great-great grandson of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director-General of the colony of New Netherland – recognized his last chance. When he died in 1847, he left one-third of his imposing estate to the then 4-year old boy; on the condition that his name be changed to Rutherford Stuyvesant.
And so it was.
The Stuyvesant land covered much of what is now known as the East Village. During the 19th century what had been rolling farmland was developed with row houses, commercial buildings and tenements. After the Civil War, German immigrants crowded in, creating a lively and colorful neighborhood.
In the meantime, Rutherford Stuyvesant married Mary Rutherford Pierrepont on October 13, 1863. She was the daughter of the prestigious and wealthy Henry Evelyn and Anna Jay Pierrepont of Brooklyn. Their lives together were happy and loving; but then on New Year’s Eve 1879, the expectant Mary went into labor. Neither Mary nor the infant survived.
In deep grief, Stuyvesant planned a monument to his wife. He arranged to build a memorial chapel connected with St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, the Episcopal church built by Peter Stuyvesant in 1795 on his farm land.
Stuyvesant chose a large plot of land at the corner of East 10th Street and Avenue A where a small St. Mark’s mission structure already stood. He hired the eminent architect James Renwick, Jr. who was already responsible for the magnificent Grace Episcopal Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Renwick worked with W. H. Russell in creating an edifice far removed from those lacy Gothic churches.
Begun in 1882, it was constructed of red-orange brick and abundant terra cotta trim of a nearly-matching hue. The building drew on several of the prevailing styles of the day: Romanesque, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Queen Anne and Eastlake.
The great mass facing Avenue A was broken by stepped dormers, a multi-level roofline and terra cotta courses separating the floors. A dramatic Gothic entrance separated the chapel from the school and administrative sections. A tall, impressive bell tower rose above the roof to a pyramidal cap.
The building was finished in 1884 at a cost of $200,000. Three hundred and fifty worshipers could be seated on the main floor with another 100 in the gallery. The Avenue A side housed the library and reading room, a day school, kindergarten and day nursery and a Sunday school room that spanned the entire length of the building at the ground floor. The New York Times remarked that “it is a very cheerful and attractive place of worship.”
|The Avenue A side housed the classrooms and library.|
In 1897 the forward-thinking Rev. Dr. J. H. Rylance was rector at St. Mark’s Memorial Chapel. He closed the parochial school which took up two full floors because it “was found to be competing with the public schools.” He initiated the eyebrow-raising “pleasant Sunday hour;” a meeting in the library every Sunday afternoon with literary and musical entertainment.
According to The Times, “The position of the Rev. Dr. Ryland on the Sunday question is well known. He is strongly in favor of making Sunday a day, as he expresses it, of ‘religion, rest, and recreation.’ The pleasant Sunday hour is therefore a practical experiment of the rector’s ideas.”
Ryland went on to introduce mothers’ meetings, boys’ and girls’ clubs, day nursery and a saving fund. The same year he had the chapel frescoed and painted and installed a modern heating system.
|A grotesque face peers from amidst intricate terra cotta foliage below a plaque of a lion, the symbol of St. Mark.|
The St. Mark’s Memorial Chapel would not enjoy the new paint job and heating system for long. By 1909 it had been taken over by the Holy Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church.
On a cold January 4th, 1921 200 unemployed men marched north from the Bowery at the Manhattan Bridge. They formed two groups of 100 men each and marched in military formation, tattered and unwashed, towards East 10th Street. When they were stopped by a police officer, they explained there were merely “going to church” and he allowed them proceed.
Upon arriving at the church, they found the chapel door open. The men marched into the main building and took up quarters in the gymnasium, reception hall and music room. With no jobs and no homes, they had no place to go.
The Rev. Dr. Guthrie of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery was quick to give his opinion of the “problem.” While he admitted that the “use of a church for any except strictly religious uses is worse than a crime—it is a blunder, a violation of psychology,” he quickly added “could any Christian minister in his senses demand that they go forth into the night because the church is consecrated and unable to yield them emergency shelter? I hardly think so.”
And then he pointed the finger at city government. “Can a great, generous community like ours afford to have inadequate means for sheltering with self-respect the helpless and homeless? Should it merely regret the hard time and let the unemployed starve? Perish with cold? Build jails and asylums for the criminal and insane, hospitals for the sick, and have no provision for the non-criminal, sane, and well who cannot find work?”
In 1925 the newly-formed congregation of St. Nicholas of Myra Church rented the building. Part of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, it made Rutherford Stuyvesant’s chapel its home, finally purchasing the building in 1937. Large copper Orthodox crosses were erected on three of the gable peaks.
The handsome church continues to be used by the Russian Orthodox congregation today. Immaculately maintained, it is a wonderful example of late Victorian religious architecture, deemed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as “lively and picturesque.”
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New fishing measures to protect critically endangered dolphins, Climate change may intensify disease outbreak, Endangered Australian fish sold in shops and restaurants, 1,150 kg manta ray caught off the Indian coast, Arctic town records highest temperature ever, and more…
1. New fishing measures introduced to protect Hector and Māui dolphins
New protections were introduced on Wednesday to protect Hector’s and Māui dolphins from threats posed by fishing vessels. There are around 15,000 Hector’s dolphins in the wild, though the Māui is critically endangered, with only 63 dolphins over the age of one remaining, according to the Department of Conservation. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said the new rules would “significantly increase fishing restrictions in dolphin habitats, focusing on methods with the highest potential to affect dolphins”.
2. Climate change may intensify disease outbreak in marine mammals
A pair of conservationists have found that viruses are largely to blame for the deadliest mass die-offs in marine mammal species in decades — and the changing climate will only intensify the factors contributing to these outbreaks. Claire Sanderson and Kathleen Alexander — who both work for Virginia Tech’s fish and wildlife conservation department published their research based on a review of scientific literature on 36 mass mortality events involving infectious diseases and marine mammal populations.
Read more in “Courthouse News”
3. Scientists examine plastic submerged underwater over 20 years – it isn’t degrading
Even after more than 20 years in the ocean, everyday plastics can show very few signs of breaking up or degrading, according to a new study examining the effects of deep-sea submersion on this problematic material. Researchers looked at two plastic samples recovered from 13,615 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, finding that the majority of the plastic was still fully intact.
Read more in “Science Alert”
4. Human Mercury Pollution reaches the deepest ocean trenches
Scientists have found manmade mercury pollution in the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench. The discovery raises new questions about how mercury may affect the marine environment and whether it has accumulated in the food chain. The findings, which have been reported by two research groups, were presented at the Goldschmidt Conference. Mercury is poisonous in any form, and some types of fish absorb methylmercury in contaminated water.
5. Chief scientist says we need enhanced marine protection in English waters
Marine eco-systems in English waters need greater legislative protection, according to a new independent review. Heriot-Watt’s Chief Scientist, Professor Michel Kaiser, was one of eight expert panel members invited to give their insight and guidance on “The Benyon Review into Highly Protected Marine Areas” (HPMAs) published this week. It sets out a series of recommendations including calls for the UK Government to introduce HPMAs alongside the existing Marine Protected Areas network.
6. Endangered Australian fish sold in shops and restaurants
7. Mercury with that? Shark fins served with illegal doses of heavy metals
8. Great White Shark diet surprises scientists
The first-ever detailed study of the diets of great white sharks off the east Australian coast reveals this apex predator spends more time feeding close to the seabed than expected. “Within the sharks’ stomachs, we found remains from a variety of fish species that typically live on the seafloor or buried in the sand. This indicates the sharks must spend a good portion of their time foraging just above the seabed,” said lead author Richard Grainger, a Ph.D. candidate at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney.
A giant manta ray (Mobula birostris) weighing about 1,150 kg was caught by fishermen near Palayakatippa beach in Krishna district. The ray was caught on the evening of June 15, in the gill net by a group of six fishermen on a mechanized boat. The fishermen, led by Venkanna, had ventured into the sea on June 11. The boat owner said that the aquatic animal was brought out from the water at the Gilakaladindi harbor with the support of a crane. The 1,150-kg ray fetched 37k rupees at the Kakinada harbor.
Two new genera and four new species of giant, single-celled xenophyophores (protozoans belonging to a group called the foraminifera) were discovered in the deep Pacific Ocean during a joint project between scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, UK (NOC), the University of Hawai’i, and the University of Geneva. ‘Moana’ has inspired the name Moanammina for one of the new genera, while the second has been named Abyssalia in recognition of its abyssal habitat.
Tanaids are one of the most underappreciated animals in the world. These small crustaceans can be found in virtually all marine benthic habitats, from mangroves, rocky shores and coral reefs along the coasts to mud volcanoes, cold seeps and trenches in the deepest oceans. They even inhabit the shell surfaces of sea turtles, live inside gastropod shells like hermit crabs, and reside under the skin of deep-sea sea cucumbers.
Melting of Arctic ice due to climate change has exposed more sea surface to an atmosphere with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. Scientists have long suspected this trend would raise CO2 in Arctic Ocean water. Now University of Montana researcher Michael DeGrandpre and his patented sensors have helped an international team determine that, indeed, CO2 levels are rising in water across the Arctic Ocean’s Canada Basin.
14. Sanitary products and wipes found to be microplastic pollutants in Irish waters
Researchers from Earth and Ocean Sciences and the Ryan Institute at the National University of Ireland have carried out a study on the contribution of widely flushed personal care textile products (wet wipes and sanitary towels) to the ocean plastic crisis. Dr. Liam Morrison led the study, which showed that sediments adjacent to a wastewater treatment plant are consistently strewn with white microplastic fibers that are comparable to those from commercially available consumer sanitary products.
16. Arctic town records highest temperature ever
The temperature in a Russian town located within the Arctic circle reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, the hottest temperature on record for the area. Verkhoyansk, a town in the region of Siberia known for experiencing wide ranges in temperatures throughout the year, reported a temperature reading of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38 degrees Celsius, the Associated Press reported. The previous record was 98.96 degrees Fahrenheit, while temperatures of -90 degrees Fahrenheit have also been reported in the area.
They contain no carbohydrates. No fats. No proteins. Not much else but water. Still, the moon jellies (Aurelia aurita) are eaten by predators in the sea; fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and even corals and turtles. Now a new study may explain why these predators bother to eat the gelatinous creatures. The study is based on moon jelly samples from a German Fjord. “The jellyfish in our study showed to contain some fatty acids that are very valuable for their predators. Fatty acids are vital components of cell membranes and play a crucial role in processes like growth and reproduction,” says marine biologist and jellyfish expert, Jamileh Javidpour from University of Southern Denmark. | <urn:uuid:d12af505-d819-4217-8caf-b7bf92f266b9> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://seasave.org/sea-save-foundation-ocean-week-in-review-june-25-2020-we-gather-news-you-stay-informed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141715252.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20201202175113-20201202205113-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.93482 | 1,534 | 3.015625 | 3 | {
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"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Science & Tech. |
Although data can take many forms, when generating visualisations, running statistical analyses, or simply querying the data so we can have a conversation with it, life is often made much easier by representing the data in a simple tabular form. A typical format would have one row per item and particular columns containing information or values about one specific attribute of the data item. Where column values are text based, rather than numerical items or dates, it can also help if text strings are ‘normalised’, coming from a fixed, controlled vocabulary (such as items selected from a drop down list) or fixed pattern (for example, a UK postcode in its ‘standard’ form with a space separating the two parts of the postcode).
Tables are also quick to spot as data, of course, even if they appear in a web page or PDF document, where we may have to do a little work to get the data as displayed into a table we can actually work with in a spreadsheet or analysis package.
More often than not, however, we come across situations where a data set is effectively encoded into a more rambling piece of text. One of the testbeds I used to use a lot for practising my data skills was Formula One motor sport, and though I’ve largely had a year away from that during 2013, it’s something I hope to return to in 2014. So here’s an example from F1 of recreational data activity that provided a bit of entertainment for me earlier this week. It comes from the VivaF1 blog in the form of a collation of sentences, by Grand Prix, about the penalties issued over the course of each race weekend. (The original data is published via PDF based press releases on the FIA website.)
The VivaF1 site also publishes a visualisation summarising penalty outcomes incurred by each driver:
The recreational data puzzle I set myself was this: how can we get the data contained in the descriptive sentences about the penalties into a data table that could be used to ask questions about different rule infractions, and the penalty outcomes applied, and allow for the ready generation of visualisations around that data?
The tool I opted to use was OpenRefine; and the predominant technique for getting the data out of the sentences and in to data columns? Regular expressions. (If regular expressions are new to you, think: search and replace on steroids. There’s a great tutorial that introduces the basics here: Everday text patterns.)
What follows is a worked example that shows how to get the “data” from the VivaF1 site into a form that looks more like this:
Not every row is a tidy as it could be, but there is often a trade off in tidying data between trying to automate every step, and automating steps that clean the majority of the data, leaving some rows to tidy by hand…
So where to start? The first step is getting the “data” into OpenRefine. To do this we can just select the text on the VivaF1 penatlies-by-race page, copy it an paste it in the Clipboard import area of a new project in OpenRefine:
We can then import the data as line items, ignoring blank lines:
The first step I’m going to take tidying up the data is to generate a column that contains the race name:
The expression if(value.contains('Prix'),value,'') finds the rows that have the title of the race (they all include “Grand Prix” in their name) and creates a new column containing matches. (The expression reads as follows: if the original cell value contains ‘Prix’ , copy the cell value into the corresponding cell in the new column, else copy across an empty string/nothing that is, ”) We can then Fill Down on the race column to associate each row with particular race.
We can also create another new column containing the description of each penalty notice with a quick tweak of the original expression: if(value.contains('Prix'),'',value). (If we match “Prix”, copy an empty string, else copy the penalty notice.)
One of the things that we notice is there are some notices that “Overflow” on to multiple lines:
We can filter using a regular expression that finds Penalty Notice lines that start (^) with a character that does not match a – ([^-]):
Looking at the row number, we see serval of the rows are xsecutive – we can edit thesse cells to move all the text into a single cell:
Cut and paste as required…
Looking down the row number column (left hand most column) we see that rows 19, 57 and 174 are now the overflow lines. Remove the filter an in the whole listing, scroll to the appropriate part of the data table and cut the data out of the overflow cell and paste it into the line above.
By chance, I also notice that using “Prix” to grab just race names was overly optimistic!
Here’s how we could have checked – used the facet as text option on the race column…
Phew – that was the only rogue! In line 56, cut the rogue text from the Race column and paste it into the penalty notice column. Then also paste in the additional content from the overflow lines.
Remove any filters and fill down again on the Race column to fix the earlier error…
The PEnalty Noptice column should now contain blank lines corresponding to rows that originally described the Grand Prix and overflow rows – facet the Penalty Notice column by text and highlight the blank rows so we can then delete them…
So where are we now? We have a data file with one row per penalty and columns corresponding to the Grand Prix and the penalty notice. We can now start work on pulling data out of the penalty notice sentences.
If you inspect the sentences, you will see they start with a dash, then have the driver name and the team in brackets. Let’s use a regular expression to grab that data:
Here’s the actual regular expression: - ([^\(]*)\s\(([^\)]*)\).* It reads as follows: match a – followed by a space, then grab any characters that don’t contain an open bracket ([^\(]*) and that precede a space \s followed by an open bracket \): all together ([^\(]*)\s\( That gives the driver name into the first matched pattern. Then grab the team – this is whatever appears before the first close bracket: ([^\)]*)\) Finally, match out all characters to the end of the string .*
The two matches are then joined using ::
We can then split these values to give driver and team columns:
Learning from out previous error, we can use the text facet tool on the drive and team columns just to check the values are in order – it seems like there is one oops in the driver column, so we should probably edit that cell and remove the contents.
We can also check the blank lines to see what’s happening there – in this case no driver is mentioned but a team is, but that hasn’t been grabbed into the team column, so we can edit it here:
We can also check the text facet view of the team column to make sure there are no gotchas, and pick up/correct any that did slip through.
So now we have a driver column and a team column too (it’s probably worth changing the column names to match…)
Let’s look at the data again – what else can we pull out? How about the value of any fine? We notice that fine amounts seem to appear at the end of the sentence and be preceded by the word fined, so we gan grab data on that basis, then replace the euro symbol, strip out any commas, and cast the result to a number type: value.match(/.* fined (.*)/).replace(/[€,]/,'').toNumber()
We can check for other fines by filtering the the Penalty Notice column on the word fine (or the Euro symbol), applying a number facet to the Fine column and looking for blank rows in that column.
Add in fine information by hand as required:
So now we have a column that has the value of fines – which means if we export this data we could do plots that show fines per race, or fines per driver, or fines per team, or calculate the average size of fines, or the total number of fines, for example.
What other data columns might we pull out? How about the session? Let’s look for phrases that identify free practice sessions or qualifying:
Here’s the regular expression: value.match(/.*((FP[\d]+)|(Q[\d]+)|(qualifying)).*/i).toUppercase() Note how we use the pipe symbol | to say ‘look for one pattern OR another’. We can cast everything to uppercase just to help normalise the values that appear. And once again, we can use the Text Facet to check that things worked as we expected:
So that’s a column with the session the infringement occurred in (I think! We’d need to read all the descriptions to make absolutely sure!)
What else? There’s another set of numbers appear in some of the notices – speeds. Let’s grab those into a new column – look for a space, followed by numbers or decimal points, and then a sapce and km/h, grabbing the numbers of interest and casting them to a number type:
So now we have a speed column. Which means we could start to look at speed vs fine scatterplots, perhaps, to see if there is a relationship. (Note, different pit lanes may have different speed limits.)
What else? It may be worth trying to identify the outcome of each infringement investigation?
value.match(/.*((fine)|(no further action)|([^\d]\d+.place grid.*)|(reprimand)|(drive.thr.*)|(drop of.*)|\s([^\s]+.second stop and go.*)|(start .*from .*)).*/i).toUppercase()
Here’s where we’re at now:
If we do a text facet on the outcome column, we see there are several opportunities for clustering the data:
We can try other cluster types too:
If we look at the metaphone (soundalike) clusters:
we notice a couple of other things – an opportunity to normalise 5 PLACE GRID DROP as DROP OF 5 GRID PLACES for example:
value.replace('-',' ').replace(/(\d+) PLACE GRID DROP/,'DROP OF $1 GRID POSITIONS')
Or we might further standardise the outcome of that by fixing on GRID POSITIONS rather than GRID PLACES:
value.replace('-',' ').replace(/(\d+) PLACE GRID DROP/,'DROP OF $1 GRID POSITIONS').replace('GRID PLACES','GRID POSITIONS')
And we might further normalise on numbers rather than number words:
value.replace('-',' ').replace(/(\d+) PLACE GRID DROP/,'DROP OF $1 GRID POSITIONS').replace('GRID PLACES','GRID POSITIONS').replace('TWO','2').replace('THREE','3').replace('FIVE','5').replace('TEN','10')
it might make sense to tidy out the (IN THIS CASE… statements:
value.replace(/ \(IN THIS.*/,'')
Depending on the questions we want to ask, it may be worth splitting out whether or not penalties like GRID DROPS are are this event of the next event, as well as generic penalty types (Drive through, stop and go, grid drop, etc)
Finally, let’s consider what sort of infringement has occurred:
If we create a new column from the Infraction column, we can then cluster items into the core infraction type:
After a bit of tidying, we can start to narrow down on a key set of facet levels:
Viewing down the list further there may be additional core infringements we might be able to pull out.
So here’s where we are now:
And here’s where we came from:
Having got the data into a data from, we can now start to ask questions of it (whilst possible using those conversations to retrun to the data ans tidy it more as we work with it). But that will have to be the subject of another post… | <urn:uuid:abfe7eeb-9a46-4e06-8eb8-cf86f75a58a9> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://blog.ouseful.info/category/syndication/school_of_data/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250594662.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20200119151736-20200119175736-00051.warc.gz | en | 0.876317 | 2,719 | 2.796875 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.539440393447876,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Software Dev. |
One of Skylab's most important functions was to study the feasibility of long-duration space missions. As a result, the ongoing activity of astronauts just going about their daily lives in orbit was one of the greatest of all the scientific experiments aboard the station. Though they were free-falling in Earth orbit, traveling at 16,000 miles per hour, the Skylab crew members said that everyday life on the station was actually pretty normal.
The first Skylab crew enjoys a meal in space.
Days began on Skylab at 6 a.m. (Houston time) and lasted until 10 p.m. At the beginning of each day, the astronauts would check the teletype machine to see what their orders were from Mission Control for that day. The crew would then use the restroom, weigh, and eat breakfast.
Their daily science assignments would rotate every day. Each took turns on things such as solar observation, and the astronaut who was the "guinea pig" for the medical evaluations one day would be performing those same evaluations on one of his crewmates the next.
"Between 8 and 10 at night, we had free time," Carr said. "For the most part, the most fun was looking out the window." Off-duty free time was often filled with still more science experiments. "We had a number of other things to do," Garriott said. "We had the student experiments, for example."
The crews also had fun devising their own small experiments, some of which were later turned into educational videos for students worldwide. Carr said he enjoyed this hobby. "It was such an interesting thing to turn loose a blob of water to see what you can do with it." They also pulled a classic prank on mission controllers. The ground crew was shocked when Garriott's wife, Helen, called down to them from the station. The roomful of controllers sat confused until the crew burst into laughter - Garriott had recorded his wife's voice before the flight, and rehearsed the prank with capcom Bob Crippen.
Extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) had been scheduled from the beginning to change out the film in the Apollo Telescope Mount. However the EVAs eventually became necessary to repair the station. During the EVAs, Garriott said, it was a thrill to "look down this very long elevator shaft" to the surface of the Earth. "It's quite an interesting view," he said.
Astronaut Owen Garriott participates in EVA to deploy twin pole solar shield.
None of the astronauts expressed any concerns about the potential physical effects of the unprecedented spaceflight durations. Returning to Earth did take a little adjustment, though. In addition to a few days of readjusting to the physical effects of gravity, astronauts sometimes forgot that things do not work the same on Earth as they do in space, attempting to let things float as they would in microgravity. + Read More | <urn:uuid:9dcc9d4b-0de0-40a4-b30d-4cf61a5b15bd> | CC-MAIN-2015-14 | http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_skylab2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-14/segments/1427131298177.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20150323172138-00196-ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984445 | 595 | 3.25 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.437141180038452,
"reasoning_level": 2,
"interpretation": "Moderate reasoning"
} | Science & Tech. |
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A satellite monitoring Earth's gravity field since 2009 will run out of fuel "in the coming days" and eventually crash, with little risk to humans, the European Space Agency said Friday.
About 40 to 50 fragments with a combined mass of 250 kilogrammes (550 pounds) are projected to hit our planet within weeks of the GOCE satellite running out of fuel, according to spacecraft operations manager Christoph Steiger.
"We are very close to the end," he told AFP on Friday, when the pressure in the satellite's fuel tank dropped below 2.5 bar -- the minimum required for full operation.
Not yet known is when and where the fragments will impact -- over the ocean or on land.
The pressure in the orbiter's tank is expected to drop to zero no later than October 26 but the engine will likely stop working before then, said Steiger.
"Right now, it is not possible to predict where it will happen, it could be anywhere. The closer we get to the reentry point, the more precisely we will be able to say.
"Roughly one day before (impact), one can exclude certain regions of the Earth. A few hours before, we will be able to tell with... a few thousand kilometres of precision."
The Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was launched into orbit in March 2009 at an altitude of just 260 kilometres (160 miles).
It has stayed aloft thanks to its unusual aerodynamic shape and an ion propulsion system.
GOCE's stock of 41 kg of fuel stood at about 350 grammes on Friday. When it runs out completely, the satellite will start losing altitude, become unstable and eventually de-orbit.
Most of the 5.3-metre-long (17.2-foot) spacecraft will break up at an altitude of about 80 kilometres (50 miles), said Steiger.
But about a quarter of its mass will survive, hitting the surface in a trail of fragments over an area of a few hundred kilometres.
"The risk is very small, but it is not zero," said Fernand Alby, in charge of space debris and space surveillance at France's National Centre of Space Studies (CNES) in Toulouse.
"Per year, it is estimated that about 100 tonnes of manmade space debris is reentering (the atmosphere), out of which between 20 and 40 tonnes survive reentry... and impact somewhere on Earth," Steiger said.
In 50 years of spaceflight, there have been no casualties from manmade space debris reentering, he insisted.
"The risk of getting hit by such a reentering, manmade space debris is 65,000 times lower than getting hit by lighting. It is 1.5 million times lower than being killed in a home accident -- falling down the stairs or something like that."
The 350-million-euro ($465-million) mission has lasted twice as long as its initially scheduled 20 months.
Scientists say it has returned reams of data on Earth's gravity field and ocean circulation.
GOCE was designed and built before 2008, when international recommendations were adopted that a scientific satellite must be able to execute a controlled reentry, or burn up completely after its mission.
Steiger said a global space debris coordinating committee was monitoring the satellite to predict its point of reentry, "and we are passing on the information to national authorities". | <urn:uuid:7320c274-789b-4a87-98c9-685ec4631833> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131018/out-fuel-european-satellite-come-crashing-down | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931007510.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155647-00038-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942103 | 708 | 2.828125 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.831716775894165,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Science & Tech. |
Today in 1932, veterans of the First World War began arriving in Washington, DC for a rally. This was the beginning of what would become known as the Bonus Army, the largest gathering of veterans in the nation's history up to that time. What transpired over the course of the next two months weeks forever change the relationship between the US federal government and those who risked life and limb in service to their nation.
1932 was one of the worst years of the Great Depression. In the United States, unemployment reached 25%. Public stocks traded on Wall Street lost so much value that some of them would not regain their pre-1929 worth until the 1950's. In the midst of this were over 4 million men who had served in the American military during the First World War. Like the rest of the public, these men were suffering. They, however, had an "ace in the hole": The Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. This federal law granted veterans of the Great War bonus certificates beginning in 1925 that could be exchanged for cash in 20 years. In 1932, the maturation date for the bonus certificates was still 13 years in the future. Many of the veterans simply could not wait that long---as they saw it, the money was theirs and they needed it now. The marchers also had retired Marine General Smedley Butler on their side, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient who was, at that time, the most highly decorated living American.
By early June, more than 31,000 veterans and their family members were camped within sight of the Capitol Building. The event for which they had gathered came to pass on June 17 when the US Senate voted on the Patman Bonus Bill, an act that would have moved the pay date for the bonus certificates from 1945 to immediately. The bill had been approved by the House of Representatives but was rejected by the Senate. As a sort of conciliation, Congress appropriated funds to help pay for the Bonus marchers' journey back home. Some members of the Bonus Army accepted this stipend and went home. Thousands of others stayed, hoping to force their government to reconsider its position.
June moved into July and the Bonus Army was still camped in Washington. On July 28th, police attempted to clear some of the marchers from land that was about to become a construction site. Violence ensued, during which two marchers were shot and killed and several police were wounded before a retreat was called. At that time, the District of Columbia was directly administered by the federal government and was entirely federal property. Thus, when the district's commissioners informed President Herbert Hoover that they could no longer maintain order, Hoover called on the Army to remove the Bonus Army by force.
Two nearby infantry and cavalry regiments were called upon to do the job, the 3rd Cavalry and the 12th Infantry. The 3rd Cav was commanded by Major George S. Patton, himself a veteran of the First World War. In overall command of the area was General Douglas MacArthur, the Army Chief of Staff. On the General's command staff was another major, Dwight Eisenhower, who served as the General's liaison to the Washington police.
By 4:45 P.M., July 28th, 1932, the troops were massed on Pennsylvania Ave. below the Capitol. Thousands of Civil Service employees spilled out of work and lined the streets to watch. The veterans, assuming the military display was in their honor, cheered. Suddenly Patton's troopers turned and charged. Soldiers with fixed bayonets followed, hurling tear gas into the crowd.
By nightfall the Bonus Army had retreated across the Anacostia River where Hoover ordered MacArthur to stop. Ignoring the command, the general led his infantry to the main camp. By early morning the camp's inhabitants were routed and the camp in flames. Two babies died and nearby hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties. Eisenhower later wrote, "the whole scene was pitiful. The veterans were ragged, ill-fed, and felt themselves badly abused. To suddenly see the whole encampment going up in flames just added to the pity."
Surprisingly, some of the Bonus marchers again traveled to Washington in 1933, this time to meet with their new President, Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt, who did not want to pay the bonus either, was much smoother in his approach than Hoover had been. His wife Eleanor visited the marchers' camp and talked many of the men into signing up for federal jobs to help build a new roadway that would connect the Florida Keys to the rest of the state. Sadly, 259 veterans were killed while working on the highway when the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 tore through southern Florida. After that disaster, public support for the veterans became so strong that Congress overrode the President's veto and paid the bonus in 1936.
While the Bonus marchers would have to wait several years to see their demand become a reality, their effort helped millions of veterans who had not yet served. In 1944, the US Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, which provided returning veterans with money for education and loan guarantees for new homes, among other benefits. | <urn:uuid:cb40569f-5529-47d3-b137-06624783a99a> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://www.mattstodayinhistory.com/2007/05/bonus-marchers-arrive-may-29-1932.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371830894.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20200409055849-20200409090349-00517.warc.gz | en | 0.987878 | 1,041 | 3.453125 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.920768976211548,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | History |
Ever observed the difference between a developed nation and an underdeveloped country? A developed nation has 24*7 electricity and water supply, well built inter-connected roads and excellent educational and healthcare institutions. An underdeveloped nation builds a striking contrast to this.
Having a Proper Infrastructure Should Be the Aim
For any country, its investment in infrastructure is seen as the parameter of progress. When a country has rich infrastructure it can lure foreign investments. Infrastructure systems of a country include transportation, electricity and water supply, communication and technology. Electrical grids across the country, smooth roads connecting important locations, matrix of telecommunication cables laid throughout the country, mobile networks, health and educational facilities and technology which aids successful implementation and running of all these infrastructure benefits the country’s growth and development.
Roads are needed to connect different locations together and to provide access to employment, education, social and health services. Roads may be either built of asphalt or concrete. Asphalt plants are used to make roads;also known as blacktop or tarmac theyare used to surface roads, airports, pavements, parking lots and dam embankments. How is a good quality road built? It all depends on the asphalt plant.
Important Commodities Used for a Proper Structure to be Built
Asphalt or bitumen is used as a binding agent and mixed with aggregate particles to obtain the asphalt concrete in a plant, built by construction equipment manufacturer. Commercially used asphalt is obtained from petroleum. Aggravates like stone, sand and gravel form 95% of the asphalt concrete while the remaining 5% is bitumen.
Asphalt plants are of two types, the hot mix asphalt and the cold mix asphalt. In hot mix asphalt, the aggregators are first dried and then heated to be mixed with bitumen. The hot mix asphalt can be again categorized as batch type and continuous type.
Batch type: In batch type, the aggregators are heated and stored in a separate drum. It is first weighed before it is mixed with bitumen in a mixer to form the first batch. After the first batch is completed, commencement of the next batch begins. The advantage of batch type is that because of the various steps present, you can change the mix midway according to the customer specification. Disadvantage is that if you want only one type of mix, then it is not economical.
Continuous Type: In continuous type, the drying and heating of aggregates and blending them with bitumen all takes place continuously and the hot mix asphalt is obtained. The counter flow asphalt mixer wherein the aggregate flow direction is in opposite direction to the burner flame is used in continuous type.The advantage of continuous mixer is that the production output is higher since it is continuous and it is economical because most of the steps are eliminated. The disadvantage is that you cannot provide different mix designs in the same production.
The asphalt plant can be stationary or mobile as per the requirement. Once the hot mix asphalt is obtained it can be transported with the help of trucks to the required place and laying of roads are done using the motor grader, roller machine, crawler excavator, paver, compactor, milling machine and cranes which can be purchased from the construction equipment manufacturer. | <urn:uuid:2123c50b-d1d8-47e6-9eee-791190086c21> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://www.kaushikengineeringworks.com/asphalt-roads-route-development-progress-nation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103036176.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220625220543-20220626010543-00548.warc.gz | en | 0.937235 | 656 | 2.765625 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 1.945286512374878,
"reasoning_level": 2,
"interpretation": "Moderate reasoning"
} | Industrial |
Here's some basic suggestions based off of a VBS that will take 1 hour and 30 minutes total:
- Activity - Consider some other activities outside of crafts or games, such as a small group question and answer time or teaching the kids any thing that works with your lesson such as a nature nugget. We have varied our use of this time but anywhere from 5-10 minutes seems to work.
- Crafts- Consider crafts and art activities that go with the theme or lesson for the day. We have done crafts over the years that took anywhere from 20 minutes to as little as 10 minutes. A lot depends on the kids we have, for example at some of the locations we've been to there has been less interested in crafts. Another helpful tip is changing up the types of crafts that you do, such as making things that kids can take home and use and not just coloring pages.
- Games- Consider making games that are active and easy for all ages groups to participate. We typically will on location allow the kids who come early some free play and then when it is time to start we will teach them the theme game of the day. We usually use do our games at the beginning because we have found it helps to get some of the wiggles out, but you can put it wherever you want in the program. We usually reserve 10 minutes for this.
- Lesson- Consider picking lessons from something that you might have already studied for example, we often get inspiration from what we are studying as a church in our Bible Study groups. One year we did the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph based off of our study of Genesis that previous fall. We reserve 20-30 minutes for lesson time. Also important there are multiple ways to present the lesson. We have presented in a large group at the end of evening by reading the story from the bible. We've also done a combination of skits of the story in a large group after the kids have been in a small group where the lesson was read to them. There really isn't a limit on how you present or when you present it.
- Memory Verse- Consider choosing a verse that isn’t too hard for your age group to memorize. Also a prize for memorizing never hurts. We have found that posting the memory verse around your building helps kids who can read memorize it for themselves. We usually spend 5 minutes or less in the program teaching the verse and sometimes individual groups will repeat it, such as craft might use it in the activity for the day.
- Music- Consider picking music that is around your theme and upbeat. For example, one year our theme was creation and we used a song called "This is the Day." We typically spend 10-15 minutes in music. That usually allows us to play 5-6 songs. And sometimes if we have leftover time we will play a song or two at the end per kid's request.
- Registration- Consider more than the basics, such as getting name, number, allergies, but also what fun things can be shared to get the kids excited for the evening. We always use name tags for both us and the kids and some years we have added extra color or stamps to the tags so that we could easily split the group later. Also we try to each year give the kids something to take home at the end of the week, such a book or a key chain of important lessons. Each night at registration they would get the next piece of the book or chain and take it home at the end of the evening.
- Snacks/ Goodie bags- Consider having a snack time after the program. It's a great way to get to know the kids personally. Serve whatever makes sense, we’ve done everything from cupcakes to fruit. Also we have started doing a goodie bag in which all the kids get a prize for being there. We have found that it encourages to the kids to return the next night and also levels the playing field for those who might not win a prize somewhere else in the evening, such as for answering a question or memorizing the memory verse. We reserve about 5 minutes at the end.
Option 1: (Used in our first year of VBS, basic and easy formatting. All the kids stay together. Good for smaller groups)
Option 2: (Great for adding another activity time. Also good for splitting a longer lesson up)
Option 3: (Additions include game time, moving the memory verse to later, and an added activity time)
The options are limitless on how you can format and schedule. Be inspired to mix and match according to your themes, kids interests, and time factors.
Option 4: (Good option for a larger group, rotations for crafts and activity. Then bring kids back together for the lesson. Small group time was used for teaching memory verse and asking questions about the theme of the day)
Option 5: (Another great options for a larger group. Has rotations built in during activity time, but can be used to walk a smaller group through each activity.) | <urn:uuid:b8077196-b15e-417d-8e3d-85315537b63f> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.wrangellsda.org/diy-vacation-bible-school/category/schedules-and-formats | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247505838.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20190221152543-20190221174543-00133.warc.gz | en | 0.965344 | 1,040 | 2.96875 | 3 | {
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Clever structure boosts efficiency and cuts production costs
Researchers have developed flexible back-contact perovskite solar cells using a process directly scalable to large-area, low-cost manufacturing. The innovative design features micro-grooves embossed into a plastic substrate, created using techniques compatible with roll-to-roll processing.
Back-contact solar cells have an active layer directly exposed to the illumination source, reducing parasitic absorption and reflection losses. This architecture also allows the cells to feature non-transparent, yet highly conductive, metal electrodes. Previously, back-contact perovskite solar cells could only be made using time-consuming patterning techniques such as electrodeposition. Now, David Lidzey and co-workers at the University of Sheffield, UK, in collaboration with the company Power Roll, have designed interdigitated back-contact cells that are much simpler to build. The cells are paper-thin, lightweight and free from rare earth metals, and the team connected them to create micro-modules – the first time that researchers have arranged back-contact perovskite solar cells in such a way.
The fabrication process has several steps. First, the team embossed V-shaped micron-width grooves into a polymeric substrate. They deposited different, evaporable charge-selective contact materials onto opposing walls of the grooves by rotating the substrates, and then filled the grooves with perovskite via spin coating, forming devices with the multilayer structure Ti/C60/CH3NH3PbI3/NiO/Ni. Less than 2 microns separate the device contacts: ‘This spacing helps reduce electrical losses within the device due to charge–carrier recombination,’ explains Lidzey.
The devices had a maximum power conversion efficiency of over 7%, a record for interdigitated back-contact perovskite solar cells. Lidzey says the ease of interconnection between adjacent grooves is one of the really big benefits of the devices. ‘We have recently made larger modules, containing multiple cascades of grooves, with around 3000 grooves patterned over an area of around 4cm2.’ The team next aim to produce multiple device cascades over a 100cm2 area, and to explore different perovskite formulations to boost the cells’ stability amongst other improvements.
Neil Spann, managing director of Power Roll, says the solar module will weigh less than 0.5kg/m2, ‘which is six times lighter than other flexible solar photovoltaic modules and 24 times lighter than traditional silicon photovoltaic modules.’ Lighter devices mean lower transport and installation costs, and Spann anticipates the modules could be deployed where existing photovoltaic technologies cannot, for example on non-loadbearing rooftops and curved surfaces.
‘Among the many advantages of this configuration is the possibility to eliminate one of the most expensive components of a perovskite solar cell, the transparent conducting oxide electrode,’ comments Mónica Lira-Cantú, a solar cell expert at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Spain. She envisages that this architecture ‘will impact the development of perovskite solar cells in novel applications where the use of the transparent conducting electrode is not always favourable, or on special substrates which don’t facilitate the fabrication of smooth and pinhole-free thin films, for example, in wearables or for the internet of things.’
This article is open access
M Wong-Stringer et al, Energy Environ. Sci., 2019, DOI: 10.1039/c8ee03517b
No comments yet | <urn:uuid:b2a57312-baf5-4280-8b3e-c147afc63533> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/perovskite-photovoltaics-get-their-groove-on-/3010516.article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945433.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20230326044821-20230326074821-00504.warc.gz | en | 0.880239 | 773 | 2.890625 | 3 | {
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The Hate Speech Bill: A Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions?
In a multi-cultural and divided society, hate speech is probably one of the most deconstructive crimes that can be committed.
Hate speech is a tool most often used to divide people and to cause conflict. However, one must always have clear sight of the distinction between hate speech and exercising one’s right to freedom of expression (section 16(1) of the Constitution) which, of course, is limited. Hate speech, incitement of violence, and propaganda for war, are not protected in terms of section 16(2) of the Constitution.
Earlier in 2016, Parliament proposed the new Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill.
In this Bill the legislature intends to criminalize hate speech and seemingly related acts. This goal of the legislature is honourable, and even morally sound. However, the problem arises with the wording of the Bill and the definition given to hate speech. The Bill sets out iron-fisted limitations on the right to freedom of expression, and the act of hate speech is so broadened that it is in fact quite precarious.
We all know saying things to people can get you into trouble – for instance, with defamation (where you intentionally harm the reputation of another) and crimen iniuria (where you intentionally harm the dignity of a person). But the Bill takes this to a whole new level. Have a look:
Section 4(1)(a) of the Bill states:
Any person who intentionally, by means of any communication whatsoever, communicates to one or more persons in a manner that –
(i) advocates hatred towards any other person or group of persons; or
(ii) is threatening, abusive or insulting towards any other person or group of persons,”
demonstrates a clear intention, having regard to all the circumstances, to –
(aa) incite others to harm any person or group of persons, whether or not such person or group of persons is harmed; or
(bb) stir up violence against, or bring into contempt or ridicule, any person or group of persons,
Then there are grounds upon which one is not allowed to do so, which includes:
race, gender, sex, which includes intersex, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, religion, belief, culture, language, birth, disability, HIV status, nationality, gender identity, albinism or occupation or trade
In short, hate speech can be anything. The normal criteria of hate speech, being the inciting of violence and hate, has now been broadened to ‘insulting’, ‘ridicule’, or ‘bringing into contempt’, not even an individual, but a numberless, faceless group of people who are ‘insulted’. We enter into a twilight zone when we read the definition of a “victim” in the Bill, which includes a juristic person (for example, a company). The intention of this definition is for situations where companies are targeted because they are owned by, for example, Muslims or homosexuals. However, the vagueness of it is striking.
This Bill also includes any electronic communications (section 4(1(b)) that transgresses any of the abovementioned vague concepts, thus including the internet and social media. According to section 4(1)(c), the mere act of making it available (i.e. sharing it privately) renders one guilty.
The underlying idea of this Bill, being to stop the very malicious attacks on, for example, homosexuals and intersex persons who are met with extreme violence and corrective rape, is most honourable and, much needed. I am not commenting on the validity of the protection the Bill strives to give, but I believe that this Bill is, in some instances, overzealous.
I will immediately concede that fostering hate, inciting violence, threatening and abusing a group of persons on arbitrary grounds, is intolerable. However, the Bill includes acts that can be a great limitation of free speech. It is important to note that the Act does not define what “insulting”, “bringing into contempt”, or “ridicule”, means. It is therefore prudent to explore what these terms would ordinarily mean.
“Insult” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “to say or do something that offends” and “insulting” is defined as “causing or intending to cause someone to feel offended.” Does this mean that offending someone becomes a criminal offence? How is it measured? Is it how the person feels about what you said? What people find offensive, is immeasurably varied. By using these vague concepts the sublimity the Bill’s purpose is ridiculed in the application thereof.
To be fair, the Bill states that the insult must be coupled with the intent to “bring into contempt” or “ridicule.” “Contempt” is defined as “feeling like something is not worthy of respect” and “ridicule” is defined as “unkind comments to make fun of or makes them look silly.” Feeling uncomfortable, yet?
One might ask, “well, is it not something to strive for that we should respect each other?” I will answer yes, but making the failure to do so a criminal offence, is extreme. I agree that racist comments and ridiculing people arbitrarily on the base of race, sex, and religion is wrong, but this Bill goes too far. The Bill gives no defence such as truth, public interest, or even jest in the manner that the criminal offence of defamation does. Defamation or crimen iniuria needs to have a specific victim, but the Bill defines the victim as any person belonging to any group who is insulted by your comment. You might not even know about it, until the police comes knocking on your door. This broadness is aimed at instances like Penny Sparrow’s comments, which is obviously wrong. But including ridicule and insult to the repertoire of hate speech, without any defence, seems a too tight rein on freedom of speech. Therefore, once again the Bill is sublime in purpose, but ridiculous in practice.
One must also take into consideration that the culture of the internet is mostly based on ridicule and satire that will most likely be offensive to a lot of people. Take, for instance, communities like 9GAG, and even on YouTube there is content ridiculing groups of people – not maliciously, but for an honest laugh. Consider the example of the internet trend of “Vines” (humorous six-second videos) most of which are based on stereotypes, but are quite funny. There is content joking about white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, and Indian culture, and the stereotypes surrounding them, as well as joking about the actions of men versus women. I believe that some might find it offensive, but a majority will take it for what it is: a joke. But this Bill can potentially make the making, or even the sharing of such content, criminal.
Truth is not a defence in the Bill, and, as this crime is not a common law offence, those remedies don’t apply. One must keep in mind that “intent” in criminal law also manifests in a form called dolus eventualis, meaning that if you foresee the possibility that your remark will insult and cause contempt, and you accept it, you will have the intent. Yes, you have criminal defences at your disposal, like provocation (which is not an easy defence), necessity, private defence, etc., but you have to stand in court and hire a lawyer to defend yourself for something you said.
Therefore, one of the crucial issues with the Bill is that it proposes no limit on criminal liability such as truth, public interest, fair comment, or jest. What then happens to satire if you are not allowed to make jokes? What if the insulting fact is absolutely true? It is in this sense that this Bill poses a great threat to freedom of speech in South Africa.
One cannot help but to compare our possible future with that of the United States, where their First Amendment provides for almost-unchecked freedom of speech. The underlying philosophy of the United States is that you should be free to speak you mind, and if it offends someone, they are just as free to retaliate with their free speech, and the most convincing argument will be accepted. Why is a different approach needed in South Africa?
Insulting or ridiculing someone, even on the basis of the abovementioned grounds, is a very different thing from promoting hate and violence. Treating these instances as the same thing, and punishing them in the same manner, seems to me that the punishment does not fit the crime. What I also find troubling is that for insulting and ridiculing someone (as opposed to promoting violence and hate), you will be met with the full weight of the criminal justice system in a similar manner as when promoting hate and violence, and this is very unfair for the lone individual against the machinery of the State.
I have no doubt that the constitutional validity of this Bill will be challenged almost as soon as it takes effect, but that entails someone paying inevitably-exuberant legal fees to defend himself. If we cannot speak our mind, at least about the wrongs in our society, even if it insults and brings into contempt some class of people, how can we remain an open democratic society?
Author: Johan van der Merwe is a final year law student at the University of Pretoria. He will practice law, but also pursue a master’s research degree on the topic of constitutional interpretation and the rule of law. | <urn:uuid:8fdd4ffb-0be3-41a0-9f78-5089f9276ab5> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | https://rationalstandard.com/hate-speech-bill-road-hell-paved-good-intentions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698544358.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170904-00289-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955803 | 2,032 | 2.53125 | 3 | {
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Growing your own mushroom may be a bit intimidating because it is not as straightforward as regular plants, which means there is a different process involved.
This is your step-by-step guide on how to grow mushrooms from spores.
All You Need to Know About Mushrooms
Just to be clear, we are talking about mushroom, the fungus that you eat, not the one that gets you high!
A mushroom is actually the fruit of a fungus, which is neither a plant or an animal, but a kingdom on its own.
This is why
The mushrooms have their own growth system. Instead of growing from seeds like plants, mushrooms grow from spores, which they also produce.
If you’re wondering why you can see mushrooms growing on logs and other moist surfaces, that’s because of the spores.
Here’s the deal
The spores are located under the mushroom cap. There are millions of them in just one mushroom as they are microscopic in size.
The wind usually blows the spores away, and that’s basically how mushrooms are spread. That’s why you see them on logs and trees, and sometimes just about anywhere.
You can also cultivate mushrooms. That’s usually the mushrooms that we eat.
There are around thousands of different types of mushrooms. A lot of them are edible while some are poisonous.
Here are some of the most popular mushrooms:
This is probably the most common type of mushroom. It is also a popular culinary ingredient. It has an earthy taste.
Also known as baby portobellos, this type of mushroom has a mild flavor.
This is a popular ingredient in French cuisine. It looks like a honeycomb. As for the taste, it’s earthy and nutty.
It’s named after the popular seafood. This has a sweet taste to it.
This type of mushroom has a nutty flavor. It is popular in Italy.
This is a popular Asian mushroom that has a savory taste to it.
Reasons to Grow Mushrooms
Now that you know mushrooms are not grown like a plant, is it worth it?
There are actually so many good reasons to grow mushrooms.
Mushrooms are 92% water. It also has carbohydrates, protein, and less than 1% fat. A 100-gram mushroom only has 22 calories, which means it’s also good for people trying to lose weight.
It is rich in vitamin B, which includes riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid. There is also phosphorus, potassium, and zinc in it.
In some cases
The mushroom may also carry vitamin D. But this part usually depends on how the mushroom is harvested as vitamin D is created when the produce is exposed to sunlight.
The mushroom’s ergosterol is converted to vitamin D following UV ray exposure.
In general, mushrooms have muted flavors. But when you add it with other ingredients, it could make a great dish.
Different mushrooms have different tastes. Each type of mushroom could enhance the flavor of any type of dish.
Mushroom, for example, is a popular pizza topping. It has been used in soups, risottos, and pastas, among others.
Fresh mushrooms are so much more delicious than the store-bought ones.
3. You can save money
If you grow your own mushrooms then you don’t have to buy them in the groceries. Therefore, you can save money.
4. You become self-sustainable
You are basically growing your own food here. In a way, you are being self-sufficient.
The good thing is that there are so many ways to cook mushrooms. You will never get tired of eating them.
You don’t need to go to restaurants to enjoy fancy food since the mushroom is a versatile culinary ingredient.
5. It’s fun!
Okay, it may not be fun for everybody.
Garden enthusiasts, though, will feel a similar kind of satisfaction when they see the mushrooms grow just as they will experience enjoyment when they see their plants flourish.
6. They are also beautiful
Yep! Depending on which kind you plan to grow, mushrooms are actually pleasant to look at. The button ones may be plain but when growing in a bunch, they could be glorious to look at.
Morels and oysters are quite gorgeous, too.
So, are you convinced yet?
Those six reasons ought to make you want to grow your own mushrooms already. Next up, the steps…
How to Grow Mushrooms from Spores
In growing plants, you will need soil and seeds. In growing mushrooms, you will need compost and the spores.
The spores should be mixed with materials they could feed on like grain, sawdust, straw, and wood chips. When you mix the store with the said materials, you make what is called a spawn.
Mushrooms prefer the dark. When it comes to the atmosphere, mushrooms prefer a cool yet humid environment.
So, at home, you could grow mushrooms in the basement. Under the sink works, too. If people frequent the basement, make sure that the mushrooms are in a closet where they are not exposed to light.
Good rule of thumb:
Between 55℉ and 60℉ should be a good temperature.
Now, the following steps are generic steps to grow mushrooms. You can also grow mushrooms based on the instruction for specific types.
But generally, the following steps will do:
1. Create your spawn
This is going to be quite complex. The easiest way is to just buy the spawn or a mushroom kit. If not, here are the steps:
Cut up cardboard into small pieces.
Pour boiling water on the pieces of cardboard.
Drain and dry the cardboard bits.
Get a container with a lid and poke some holes on it.
Put your cardboard in the container and make it compact.
Cut the stalk / stem butts of the fresh mushrooms and put them on top of your cardboard pieces.
Cover with another layer of the moist cardboard pieces.
Wait for colonization.
You will have spawn in less than two weeks. You will know when you have the spawn because the entire cardboard has been colonized by the spawn–the color will change.
2. Prepare your materials
Tray or box with depth of at least seven inches
A little soil
3. Fill box
Put six-inch compost in the box. Then, you can sprinkle the spawn on top.
4. Heat the box
Put a heating pad under the box so that the compost will have a temperature of around 70℉. You can do this for around three weeks or until you see something growing.
What you will see is called mycelium. It’s a white thread-like structure.
5. Cover with soil
Top the material with an inch of potting soil. Buy a potting soil from the store because this has nutrients in them. You don’t want the mushrooms to be contaminated.
You may now adjust the heat to around 55℉ and 60℉.
6. Keep soil moist
Don’t water the box like you do with plants. You can just spray it with water.
There should be mushrooms sprouting about in a month or less.
There is a proper procedure for harvesting. Don’t pull them out or you will damage the fungus that could still provide new mushrooms.
What to do?
Instead, you can cut the stalk with a sharp knife.
This box will just keep on giving. You can almost harvest every day. Fresh mushrooms are the best!
Mushrooms are healthy and low in calories. They are also really delicious. What more, fresh mushrooms are more delicious than store-bought ones. You should really grow mushrooms at home.
So, how to grow mushrooms from spores? They are quite easy actually. The hard part is creating the spawn, but this is something that you can just buy. Once you have all the elements of growing mushrooms, you can harvest within a month.
Mushrooms are one of the most versatile culinary ingredients in the world. You can make a soup out of it or use it as a topping for pizza. There are also different kinds of mushrooms and you can easily choose the one with the flavor that suits your dish best.
54 Mushroom Recipes So Good They’re Magic – Bon Appetit | <urn:uuid:9ca01834-b1ef-4567-8b8e-b3b1f7c8cbd0> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://suaveyards.com/how-to-grow-mushrooms-from-spores/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057083.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20210920161518-20210920191518-00374.warc.gz | en | 0.950278 | 1,766 | 2.71875 | 3 | {
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Corn Sprouts are sprouts grown from corn kernels.
Different types of corn kernels can be used, as they will all sprout. The kernels, though, and particularly Sweet Corn kernels, can be very expensive to buy.
If you are growing your own Corn Sprouts, make sure you are using corn seed that hasn't been treated with fungicides, etc, for field growth.
Growing Corn Sprouts in the dark helps to make them more tender. When grown in the dark, they will be yellow: when they have access to light, they will be green.
Not everyone is a fan of them: some people advise you to stick to other sprouts, and when you want corn, eat corn. Even a seller of corn kernels for sprouting says, "...frankly we've never liked it. Raw it is tough and chewy and steamed it is soggy and chewy. It is not at all unlikely that we are doing something wrong, but hey - we have so many sprouts we love we just don't care enough to try harder." Others say, however, that that is true if you are using field corn -- that corn kernels meant for Sweet Corn or Popping Corn crops are very different.
When allowed to grow to several inches, they are referred to as Corn Shoots (see separate entry.)
From Field Corn SeedThe sprouts will be tender, but are often starchy and bland tasting.
Soak the seed for 8 to 14 hours; they will start sprouting in 2 days. They are often hit by blue mould while sprouting.
Sweet CornThe sprouts will taste like sweet corn, though be less sweet.
Soak the seed for 24 hours. They will start sprouting in 2 1/2 to 3 days.
From PopcornThe sprouts will be very sweet, but will have a tough hull.
Soak the (unpopped) popcorn kernels for 8 to 14 hours. They will then start sprouting in 1 1/2 days. They are often hit by blue mould while sprouting.
For all types of seed: after soaking, rinse with cool water, drain thoroughly. Place in sprouter or on plate out of direct sunlight. Some advise that a dark room is even better. (Direct sunlight won't benefit them anyway, as they have no leaves yet to do anything with it.) Rinse and drain every half day for as long as you continue to allow them to grow. They are ready to consume when the spouts are 1/4 inch (5 mm) tall, though you can let them grow taller. When the sprouts are the height you have come to prefer, store in refrigerator in sealed bag or container -- but store only 12 hours after their final rinse and drain to give them time to dry off first.
2/3 cup of seed will produce about 1 cup (1/2 pound / 225g) of Corn Sprouts.
Sproutpeople.org. Corn Sprouts page. Retrieved August 2012 from http://sproutpeople.org/corn.html.
Nelson, Vern. Sprout corn in a closet for fresh greens in any season. The Oregonian. 29 March 2009.
SproutsAlfalfa Sprouts; Bamboo Shoots; Brussels Sprouts; Buckwheat Grass; Buckwheat Sprouts; Corn Shoots; Corn Sprouts; Fenugreek Sprouts; Mung Bean Sprouts; Oat Sprouts; Pea Shoots; Scallion Sprouts; Soybean Sprouts; Sprouting Barley; Sprouts
Please share this information with your friends. They may love it. | <urn:uuid:3d20b2e4-fb5a-4b30-acfe-99d445834589> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.cooksinfo.com/corn-sprouts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720945.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00106-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956676 | 750 | 2.75 | 3 | {
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} | Food & Dining |
In the 1960s, a group of the first American female astronaut trainees, later dubbed the Mercury 13, went through extensive tests and though they were equally qualified and outperformed men on several levels, were ultimately excluded from joining the NASA space program.
Nearly 60 years later, on Oct. 18, 2019, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch completed the 221st spacewalk in support of the International Space Station’s maintenance and assembly, and marked the first all-female spacewalk in history.
In 1917, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, representing her state of Montana. As the sole woman in Congress, she pushed for legislation to protect children’s and women’s rights, and introduced a bill that later became the 19th Amendment, which secured women the right to vote nationwide in 1920.
Now, 100 years later, more women have been elected to Congress than ever before, with women filling 134 of the 535 Congressional seats. This includes Sarah McBride, who is the first transgender senator. The U.S. even elected its first female Vice President, Kamala Harris, who is also the first Black and Asian American person to serve as Vice President of the U.S.
As we embark on Women’s History Month 2021, it’s easy to feel inspired by how far women have come. Headlines celebrating the accomplishments of women’s firsts have filled our newsfeeds more than ever before. Fields typically dominated by men—though notably still dominated by men—are also employing women at a rate that makes the glass ceiling feel… destructible.
Women in Sports
- In 2016, Brehanna Daniels became the first Black woman member of the pit crew in NASCAR.
- Simone Biles earned her spot in history as the first gymnast to win 25 Championship medals in 2019 and now has two moves named after her.
- ESPN, in response to the rise in WNBA ratings, featured 13 additional games in the 2020 season, bringing a total of 37 broadcasts.
- After head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected from a game, Becky Hammon (San Antonio Spurs assistant coach) became the first woman to serve as head coach of an NBA team, in December 2020.
- Sarah Thomas became the NFL’s first full-time female official in 2015 and the first woman to referee the Super Bowl in 2021.
Women in STEM
- Scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, which was the first time a science Nobel was awarded to two women. Charpentier and Doudna received the Nobel for their work on the technology of genome editing, and are only the sixth and seventh women to receive this particular prize.
Women in Business
- In 2020, Jane Fraser was appointed as CEO of Citibank, marking the first time a Wall Street Bank was led by a woman.
- As of 2021, the U.S. has a record number of women-led Fortune 500 companies, with 41 women serving as CEO, compared to 33 in 2019 and 24 in 2018.
Women in Politics
- Scotland passed a bill in November 2020 that made period products free for all women.
- Two studies show women leaders, including those in charge of countries and states, led the strongest COVID-19 plans and generated better outcomes during times of crisis.
A list like that, well, it should make our predecessors proud. However, even with these significant achievements and strides toward inclusivity for women across industries, our work is far from over. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in late 2020 shows women still earn just 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, and found no progress made since 2018.
One of the most publicized examples is the National Women’s Soccer League and the players’ fight for equal pay. The U.S. women’s team has been far more successful on the international stage than the men’s team. In 2019, the women won their fourth World Cup, whereas the men’s best finish came in 1930 when the team placed third. The men didn’t even qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Despite outperforming their male counterparts, the minimum league salary for a player in the National Women’s Soccer League was $16,538 in 2019, as compared with $70,250, which was the minimum salary for a Major League Soccer player in 2019. Yet, after taking their case to court, the judge dismissed the women’s claim of unequal pay in May 2020.
It makes you question, if world-class athletes can’t secure equal pay for equal work, what does that mean for the rest of us?
The numbers don’t look great.
Over the past 12 months, American women lost a net of more than 5 million jobs, and of these women, the pandemic has disproportionately affected women of color. Even further, the 2020 Women in the Workplace report conducted by LeanIn and McKinsey & Co. reveals more than one in four women may downshift or leave their careers as a result of the pandemic. Some economists fear the repercussions of this pandemic could widen the gender wage gap by 5 percentage points—a loss our generation cannot afford, and not solely because millions of us are under- or unemployed.
According to new data, the U.S.’ trajectory toward women’s equality has stalled, and based on the current pace, we are about 151 years away from reaching true equality for women in the U.S. The U.S. ranks 53 out of 153 countries, and is trending 52 years slower on gender equality than the global average. It’s a hard pill to swallow considering the numerous milestones women in America have surpassed in just the past five years, and there is data to help explain why.
Several studies by Oriane Georgeac and Aneeta Rattan found that seeing progress for women’s representation in top leadership often leaves both women and men believing that women have greater access to equal opportunities, despite the actual statistics showing otherwise. And when people overgeneralize the progress of women’s equality, the general population is less concerned or feels less compelled to act against the inequalities women face daily.
The good news? In Spring 2020, Pew Research Center surveyed 3,143 U.S. adults, and a majority (57%) of adults say the U.S. hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men. The better news? A majority of those who say the country still has work to do believe equality will be achieved in the future.
Pushing a boulder up a mountain will always feel heavier the closer you get to the top. As we climb, let us continue to engage others to help us shoulder the load. Let us continue to reshape how society regards womxn, and let us celebrate our achievements every step of the way. Because whether you’re a first in your own field, or simply negotiating your salary for the first time, remember that even baby steps will take you in the right direction. | <urn:uuid:5d6e8c98-bd06-4bb3-91a0-4297470bbed7> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.success.com/true-gender-equality-is-still-151-years-away-despite-recent-milestones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662627464.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220526224902-20220527014902-00017.warc.gz | en | 0.966469 | 1,486 | 3.046875 | 3 | {
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The state plant of Texas, prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.) is grown for many reasons -- animal fodder, fuel, ornamentation and for its sweet, edible fruit. Also called "tunas" or "Mission cactus," more than 150 species of opuntia grow around the world. The cactus pears you find at the grocers are likely to be Indian fig (Opuntia ficus-indica). With fragrant orange or yellow flowers growing out of flat green pads, these prickly pears thrive in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8b to 10b. They are easy to harvest and even easier to identify.
Cultivated to produce sweet fruit and nearly thornless pads, Indian fig has a shrubby or treelike growth habit, reaching 10 to 15 feet at maturity. In spring, showy yellow or orange flowers give way to roundish 2- to 3 1/2-inch long fruit that ripens from yellow to red. The fruit is covered with a coarse skin, dotted with clusters of short bristles -- called glochids -- that can irritate your skin and must be removed before eating. Underneath this tough exterior is sweet, juicy flesh speckled with hard black seeds.
Cactus pears are ripe when they turn a deep, nearly magenta, red. Beyond the simple color test, two more signs of peak ripeness are birds pecking at the fruit and fruit dropping to the ground. If you pick a pear and see green flesh at the wound, the fruit is not quite ready. The glochids deserve your attention because they can detach from the fruit during harvest, lodging in your skin and creating discomfort, irritation and, sometimes, allergic reactions. To be on the safe side, wear leather gloves and pick the fruit with metal tongs.
Prickly pear cactus fruit stored at 43 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit will keep for at least two weeks -- plenty of time for you to discover your favorite ways of eating it. To prepare the fruit, cut the ends off, slit the skin down the middle with a knife, and peel the skin away. Remove the seeds. To protect your hands, wear thick leather gloves or hold the fruit with metal tongs. Cooked cactus fruit puree makes a refreshing addition to salad dressings and yogurt, cubed fresh pears with lime juice are good in fruit cups, and prickly pear juice can be made into beverages, sauces and syrups.
Like most desert plants, prickly pear cactuses thrive in full sun and prefer well-drained, sandy loam soil that is slightly alkaline -- a pH range of 6.1 to 7.8 is ideal. Although prickly pears are highly drought-tolerant, they do need moisture during hot spells to produce the largest, juiciest fruit. Tolerant of a wide range of elevations, prickly pears grow anywhere from sea level to more than 15,000 feet, but benefit from some protection against cold winter winds. During the flower- and fruit-producing period applying a balanced fertilizer keeps the plants healthy. “Burbank Spineless” is a nearly spineless cultivar good for backyard gardening.
- ZipCodeZoo: Opuntia Ficus-Indica
- The New Western Sunset Garden Book; Kathleen Norris Brenzel, Editor
- Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society: Harvesting & Processing Prickly Pear Fruit and Making Prickly Pear Lemonade Punch
- University of California Davis Postharvest Technology: Cactus (Prickly) Pear: Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality
- Harvest to Table: Prickly Pear: Kitchen Basics
- University of California Small Farm Program: Prickly Pear Cactus Production
- Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:f1385793-fb4b-423e-989a-9740373d49f6> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://homeguides.sfgate.com/cactus-pears-ripe-58677.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232255837.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20190520081942-20190520103942-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.902705 | 796 | 2.859375 | 3 | {
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Using a new active substance, scientists from the University Hospital of Würzburg have managed to stop the growth of skin cancer cells. Further tests are now required to see whether this inhibitor can be used in treatment and whether it also has a growth-inhibiting effect on the tumor cells of other types of cancer.
Not only can viruses trigger annoying and unpleasant infections, such as influenza or measles, they are also responsible for a number of human cancers. One example is Merkel cell carcinoma – a rare but highly aggressive form of skin cancer. Around six years ago, scientists found evidence here that a virus is present in roughly 80 percent of all carcinomas – the so-called Merkel cell polyomavirus.
How viruses cause cancer
The exact mechanism used by the virus to make cells divide and multiply unchecked is not yet known. What is clear, however, is that special proteins encoded by the virus genome, which are known in scientific jargon as T antigens, play a pivotal role. Studies on related tumor viruses have revealed that T antigens are able to inactivate the so-called retinoblastoma protein inside cells; this protein is responsible for preventing uncontrolled cell proliferation.
Therefore, the interaction between the T antigen and the retinoblastoma protein provides a suitable target for potential treatment. Whether this will have the desired result has now been researched by scientists from the Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology at the University Hospital of Würzburg. The results of their study have just been published in the scientific journal PLOS One.
Attack on intermediary protein
“To enable the T antigen to interact with the retinoblastoma protein, it needs a mediator of sorts in the form of a particular protein, the so-called heat shock protein HSP70,” says Christian Adam, a Research Associate at the Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology and lead author of the study. Adam and his colleagues therefore blocked HSP70 with a chemical inhibitor and examined the consequences. The results were very promising.
“Our first step was to investigate which of the total of 17 variants in the members of the HSP70 family are present inside the cells,” explains Adam. To this end, a number of Merkel cell cancer lines were analyzed, as well as other cancer cells for comparison. One variant stood out with a clear majority: the HSC70 isoform. “What we know about this isoform is that a high concentration in cancer cells goes hand in hand with a poor prognosis for the patient,” remarks Adam. Or, to put it another way, HSC70 is apparently good for tumor growth.
The scientists then examined what happens when HSC70 is blocked using the special inhibitor developed by a partner in the USA. Again, the result was clear: “Of the seven cell lines we worked with, five died after treatment,” says Adam. This success was evident not only in the cell culture, but also in animal experiments. This is a result which, in Adam’s words, allows “a certain amount of hope.”
A surprising result
However, one thing that slightly complicates the issue is the fact that the cells responded regardless of whether or not they were infected with viruses. “We tested the influence of the HSC70 inhibitor both on cells carrying viruses and on cells without a viral infection,” says Adam. In both groups, some lines responded extremely sensitively to the treatment, and others not at all.
This is a result that can be interpreted in various ways. As one possibility, it suggests that an HSC70 inhibitor would be a potential drug for various different types of tumor in which the protein is present in increased concentrations inside the cells, regardless of whether or not a virus has triggered the tumor growth or some other cause is responsible for it.
Further investigations are needed
The other explanation is as follows: “Just because it has not been possible so far to prove the presence of viruses in all Merkel cell cancer lines, this does not mean that no viruses were involved in their creation,” says Adam. It might just as well be that the detection methods were not sensitive enough to locate the virus genome. Or that the cells expelled the viruses again after they had caused them to multiply unchecked.
Many questions, therefore, which will need to be answered before a new drug for the fight against cancer is launched on the market. Until then, “many more studies and tests will be necessary,” comments Adam. Though the results so far are promising.
Merkel cell carcinoma
Merkel cell carcinomas, compared to other malignant tumors of the skin, are relatively rare. Every year, two to three in a million light-skinned people develop it. However, this number has been rising dramatically in recent years. This type of cancer predominantly affects older people; it is also more prevalent in people with a weakened immune system, such as patients after an organ transplant or AIDS sufferers. This is why the researchers looked for a virus that might be involved in this disease and also finally found it. Ultraviolet light is another risk factor.
Why no viruses can be found in about 20 percent of Merkel cell carcinomas is unclear. One explanation for this is that Merkel cell carcinoma actually involves two or more closely related cancers, of which only one is infected with Merkel cell polyomaviruses.
The HSP70 Modulator MAL3-101 Inhibits Merkel Cell Carcinoma. Christian Adam, Anne Baeurle, Jeffrey L. Brodsky, Peter Wipf, David Schrama, Jürgen Christian Becker, Roland Houben. PLoS ONE 9(4): e92041. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092041
Christian Adam, [email protected]
Gunnar Bartsch | idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Discovery points to a new path toward a universal flu vaccine
03.07.2015 | Rockefeller University
"CCS Telehealth Ostsachsen", Germany's largest telemedicine project, goes online in Dresden
02.07.2015 | Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus Dresden
Wind turbines could be installed under some of the biggest bridges on the road network to produce electricity. So it is confirmed by calculations carried out by a European researchers team, that have taken a viaduct in the Canary Islands as a reference. This concept could be applied in heavily built-up territories or natural areas with new constructions limitations.
The Juncal Viaduct, in Gran Canaria, has served as a reference for Spanish and British researchers to verify that the wind blowing between the pillars on this...
New technique combines electron microscopy and synchrotron X-rays to track chemical reactions under real operating conditions
A new technique pioneered at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals atomic-scale changes during catalytic reactions in real...
Think of an object made of iron: An I-beam, a car frame, a nail. Now imagine that half of the iron in that object owes its existence to bacteria living two and a half billion years ago.
Think of an object made of iron: An I-beam, a car frame, a nail. Now imagine that half of the iron in that object owes its existence to bacteria living two and...
A team of scientists including PhD student Friedrich Schuler from the Laboratory of MEMS Applications at the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) of...
The three-year clinical trial results of the retinal implant popularly known as the "bionic eye," have proven the long-term efficacy, safety and reliability of...
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06.07.2015 | Earth Sciences | <urn:uuid:34813e8b-1395-4d61-975b-453065b8219f> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/medicine-health/successful-blockade.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375098196.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031818-00264-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94444 | 1,666 | 3.1875 | 3 | {
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Definition: Ovarian cancer is cancer that starts in the ovaries. The ovaries are the female reproductive organs that produce eggs.
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer among women. It causes more deaths than any other type of female reproductive organ cancer.
The cause of ovarian cancer is unknown.
Risks of developing ovarian cancer include any of the following:
- The fewer children a woman has and the later in life she gives birth, the higher her risk for ovarian cancer.
- Women who have had breast cancer or have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer have an increased risk for ovarian cancer (due to defects in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes).
- Women who take estrogen replacement only (not with progesterone) for 5 years or more may have a higher risk for ovarian cancer. Birth control pills, though, decrease the risk for ovarian cancer.
- Fertility medicine probably does not increase the risk for ovarian cancer.
- Older women are at highest risk of developing ovarian cancer. Most deaths from ovarian cancer occur in women age 55 and older.
Ovarian cancer symptoms are often vague. Women and their doctors often blame the symptoms on other, more common conditions. By the time the cancer is diagnosed, the tumour has often spread beyond the ovaries.
See your doctor if you have the following symptoms on a daily basis for more than a few weeks:
- Bloating or swollen belly area
- Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly (early satiety)
- Pelvic or lower abdominal pain (area may feel “heavy”)
- Back pain
- Swollen lymph nodes in groin
Other symptoms that can occur:
- Excessive hair growth that is coarse and dark
- Sudden urge to urinate
- Needing to urinate more often than usual (increased urinary frequency or urgency)
A physical exam is often normal. With advanced ovarian cancer, the doctor may find a swollen abdomen often due to accumulation of fluid (ascites).
A pelvic examination may reveal an ovarian or abdominal mass.
A CA-125 blood test is not considered a good screening test for ovarian cancer. But, it may be done if a woman has:
- Symptoms of ovarian cancer
- Already been diagnosed with ovarian cancer to determine how well treatment is working
Other tests that may be done include:
- Complete blood count and blood chemistry
- Pregnancy test (serum HCG)
- CT or MRI of the pelvis or abdomen
- Ultrasound of the pelvis
No lab or imaging test has ever been shown to be able to successfully screen for or diagnose ovarian cancer in its early stages, so no standard screening tests are recommended at this time.
Surgery is used to treat all stages of ovarian cancer. For early stages, surgery may be the only treatment. Surgery may involve removing both ovaries and fallopian tubes, the uterus, or other structures in the belly or pelvis.
Chemotherapy is used after surgery to treat any cancer that remains. Chemotherapy can also be used if the cancer comes back (relapses). Chemotherapy can be given intravenously (through an IV). It can also be injected directly into the abdominal cavity (intraperitoneal, or IP).
Radiation therapy is rarely used to treat ovarian cancer.
After surgery and chemotherapy, follow instructions about how often you should see your doctor and the tests you should have.
You can ease the stress of illness by joining a cancer support group. Sharing with others who have common experiences and problems can help you not feel alone.
Ovarian cancer is rarely diagnosed in its early stages. It is usually quite advanced by the time diagnosis is made:
- Nearly one half of women live longer than 5 years after diagnosis
- If diagnosis is made early in the disease and treatment is received before the cancer spreads outside the ovary, the 5-year survival rate is high
Contact your health care provider if you are a woman 40 years or older who has not recently had a pelvic exam. Routine pelvic exams are recommended for all women 20 years or older.
Call for an appointment with your provider if you have symptoms of ovarian cancer.
There are no standard recommendations for screening for ovarian cancer. Pelvic ultrasound or a blood test, such as CA-125, has not been found to be effective and is not recommended.
BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic testing may be recommended for women at high risk for ovarian cancer. These are women who have a personal or family history of breast or ovarian cancer.
Removing the ovaries and fallopian tubes in women who have a proven mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene may reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer. But, ovarian cancer may still develop in other areas of the pelvis.
Morgan M, Boyd J, Drapkin R, Seiden MV. Cancers arising in the ovary. In: Niederhuber JE, Armitage JO, Doroshow JH, Kastan MB, Tepper JE, eds. Abeloff’s Clinical Oncology. 5th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2014:chap 89.
National Cancer Institute website. BRCA mutations: cancer risk and genetic testing. www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/brca-fact-sheet. Updated January 30, 2018. Accessed November 12, 2018. | <urn:uuid:c81a1652-5a3f-45c4-8172-5c659d725adb> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://www.healthing.ca/diseases-and-conditions/ovarian-cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991252.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20210512035557-20210512065557-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.934882 | 1,136 | 3.5 | 4 | {
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Europe is full of beautiful, incredible and fascinating UNESCO World Heritage Site’s. These globally recognised sites are educational, cultural, scientifically or physically important and therefore are considered the world’s most intriguing sites to visit.
Here’s our top pick of the must see UNESCO World Heritage Site’s in all of Europe.
10. Dorset Coast, England
The 95 miles of coastline stretching along the coast of England is world renowned as the Jurassic Coast. This coastline was England’s first natural UNESCO World Heritage Site and for good reason. The area has outstanding geology, with parts dating back over 185 million years, therefore it is a hot bed for fossil hunting with hundreds of specimens having been unearthed from the cliffs and beaches.
9. Český Krumlov, Czech Republic
Situated on the banks of the Vltava river, the small town of Český Krumlov was built around a 13th-century castle with Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements. It is stunning example of a small central European medieval town whose architectural heritage has remained intact thanks to its peaceful evolution over more than five centuries.
8. Pompei, Italy
When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it engulfed the two flourishing Roman towns of Pompei and Herculaneum. These have since been excavated and made accessible to the public since the mid-18th century.
This area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the impressive remains of the two towns due to being buried by the eruption of Vesuvius, providing a complete and vivid picture of society and daily life at a specific moment in the past which can’t be found anywhere in the world – this place truly gives you a once in a life time experience!
7. Acropolis, Greece
The Acropolis of Athens is located in an ancient citadel and is known to be the most important acropolis in Greece. The Parthenon, the most impressive sight here, is an ancient temple that was dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the goddess of wisdom and the patron goddess of Athens. It was constructed in the year 432 BC, and much of its architectural beauty is still intact. Other sights that can not be missed are the Erechtheum, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaea, and together these four masterpieces represent the beginning of democracy.
6. The Palace of Versailles, France
The Palace of Versailles, which has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List for 30 years, is one of the most beautiful achievements of 18th-century French art and possibly one of the most well known palaces in the world. Even though it stood through 3 kings and a revolution, the beauty and magnificence of the palace and its gardens remain intact.
5. Stonehenge, England
Stonehenge is an extremely popular monument in Europe that dates back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, making it over 4000 years old. It is spread over 2000 acres in Salisbury Plains, England, and is known to contain a number of ancient structures that are famous for being some of the most archaeologically-rich attractions in Europe.
4. Jungfrau Region, Switzerland
This area is the most glaciated of Europe’s Alps and is named after the 4,150m peak of Jungfrau, one of the premier trekking and climbing destinations in Europe. We are sure that the Swiss Alps was already on your list of must visit places here in Europe, just ensure you check out the Jungfrau Region while you’re there.
3. Giant Causeway, Northern Ireland
The Giant Causeway lies at the foot of the basalt cliffs in Northern Ireland. It is made up of over 40,000 massive black basalt columns sticking out of the sea. The dramatic sight has inspired legends of giants striding over the sea to Scotland. Geological studies of these formations have found that this striking landscape was caused by volcanic activity during the Tertiary, some 50–60 million years ago.
2. Wetsern Fjords, Norway
Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord are considered the most beautiful and scenic fjord landscapes in the world, therefore giving it it’s UNESCO title. The fjords gets its natural beauty from their narrow and steep-sided crystalline rock walls that rise up to 1,400m from the Norwegian Sea and extend 500m below sea level creating a dramatic landscape that must be seen in person.
1. Cinque Terre, Italy
We are sure you’ve seen the pictures, they’re as pretty as a postcard… so how could they be real!? Well they are! We just recently visited Cinque Terre and the 5 towns along Italy’s coast are just as colourful and beautiful in person.
The Cinque Terre is a string of centuries-old seaside villages on the rugged Italian Riviera coastline. In each of the 5 towns, colourful houses and ancient vineyards cling to steep terraces making for one of the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites you can see here in Europe.
Now on to you – what UNESCO site do you believe can not be missed here in Europe?
READ NEXT: DAY TRIPS IN PARIS: PALACE OF VERSAILLES | <urn:uuid:c7ac743a-26c5-4d6c-80bd-434df4fe5e47> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://flyingthenest.tv/the-top-unesco-heritage-sites-in-europe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822625.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20171017234801-20171018014801-00326.warc.gz | en | 0.940858 | 1,111 | 2.625 | 3 | {
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Anaphylaxis and food allergy: the result of an intervention in the community
Keywords:anaphylaxis, epinephrine, food allergy
Introduction and Objective: Since anaphylaxis is a lifethreatening medical emergency if not treated, community
awareness is important. The objective of this study was to
assess the effectiveness of a workshop about basic concepts
on food allergy and anaphylaxis in schools and nurseries,
aimed to develop in the staff adequate knowledge and timely
management of this clinical conditions.
Methods: Between December of 2013 and March of 2014
we visited six schools attended by children who suffered food
anaphylaxis followed in the Pediatric Clinic of Allergic Diseases.
A questionnaire, approved by the Portuguese Society of
Allergology, was applied before and after the workshop on food allergy and anaphylaxis. A score was calculated according to the number of correct answers. Each correct answer corresponded to one point, maximal score: eight. Descriptive and frequency study and Student t test were used to analyze data, using SPSS Statistics version 20.
Results: Seventy-seven school employers participated in
the sessions, of whom 51 were evaluated before and after the
theoretical session. Regarding the results before the meeting, it was found that 98% of the participants knew that anaphylaxis is a life-threatening emergency and that even very small amounts of the allergen can trigger an anaphylactic reaction. Only 55% recognized the symptoms of anaphylaxis or knew how to properly use an epinephrine autoinjector, and 24% had never heard of epinephrine autoinjector. The average score before and after the sessions was 6.3/8 and 7.5/8 respectively (p<0.001).
Recognition of symptoms and treatment of anaphylaxis were the topics that had a higher increase in the calculated score. All the participants were motivated to receive regular training.
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that half of the staff
caring for children with anaphylaxis could not properly recognize or treat an anaphylactic reaction. The educational workshop was apparently effective in the awareness of this condition. In spite of the study limitations (the size of the sample), our results point out the effectiveness of this kind of intervention to disseminate knowledge on a potentially fatal condition, as well as the need of a regular educational program in the community.
Tatachar P, Kumar S. Food-induced anaphylaxis and oral allergy syndrome. Pediatrics in review 2008;29:e23-e27.
Waserman S, Watson W. Food allergy. Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol 2011;7:S7
Sicherer SH, Sampson HA. Food allergy: epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2014;133:291-307
Sampson HA. Update on food allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2004;113:805-19
Norma nº 014/2012 de 16/12/2012 da Direção-Geral da Saúde
Waibel KH. Anaphylaxis. Pediatrics in review 2008;29:255-63
Koletzko S, Niggemann B, Dias J.A., et al. Diagnostic approach and management of cow’s-milk protein allergy in infants and children: ESPGHAN GI Committee practical guidelines 2012;55:221-29
Simons F, Ardusso L, Dimov V, et al. World Allergy Organization Anaphylaxis guidelines: 2013 update of the
evidence base. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2013;162:193-204
Sampson HA, Munoz-Furlong A, Campbell RL, et al. Second symposium on the definition and management of anaphylaxis: summary report – Second National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Disease/Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network symposium. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2006; 117:391 97
Muraro A, Roberts G, Clark A, et al. EAACI Task Force on Anaphylaxis in Children. The management of anaphylaxis in childhood. Position paper of the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology. Allergy. 2007;62:857-71
Cheng A. Emergency treatment of anaphylaxis in infants and children. Paediatr Child Health. 2001;16:35-40
Lieberman P, Decker W, Camargo JA Jr, Oconnor R, Oppenheimer J, Simons FE. SAFE: a multidisciplinary approach to anaphylaxis education in the emergency department. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2007; 98:519-23
Sicherer SH, Sampson HA. Food Allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2010; 125: S116-25
Langley EW, Gigante J. Anaphylaxis, urticaria, and angioedema. Pediatrics in review 2013;34:247-57
Turner PJ. Persistent allergy to cow’s milk: of greater a clinical concern than other food allergies. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology 2013; 24:624-26
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The works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International license.
Nascer e Crescer – Birth and Growth Medical Journal do not charge any submission or processing fee to the articles submitted. | <urn:uuid:3d140586-2674-4e7a-abf5-be29a0e1e857> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://revistas.rcaap.pt/nascercrescer/article/view/8511 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487617599.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20210615053457-20210615083457-00139.warc.gz | en | 0.870888 | 1,193 | 2.703125 | 3 | {
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Artist mines pigments from toxic water
By Amy Lipton
John Sabraw, a professor of art, and Guy Riefler, a professor of civil engineering, along with their students at Ohio University, developed a process in which they filter out iron pigments from toxic water recovered from abandoned coal mines.
By neutralizing and aerating the polluted water, the oxyhydroxide particles settle out and leave the water clean. The iron sludge is dried, milled into a fine powder and added to refined linseed oil or acrylic polymer to create paint. The paint is sold to raise money to clean up toxic streams, and to make art, some of which is on display through October at the Beacon Institute Gallery in an exhibit called Anthrotopographies, which refers to the hidden network of industrial scars on the landscape that are not always easily accessible.
“The artist, like the scientist, has a crucial role to perform in our society: to see things differently, act on this vision, report the failure and successes,” says Sabraw, who will be at the gallery at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, as part of a panel discussion on efforts to restore waterways through art.
The discussion, “From Acid to Art: A Sustainable Solution to Water Pollution,” will be moderated by Charles Riley II, director of the Nassau County Museum of Art and also include Clarkson University engineering professors Michelle Crimi and Shane Rogers. (To RSVP, see clarkson.edu/acid2art.)
Sabraw says he finds natural excoriations — primarily coal mines and surface watersheds — “fascinating in their design and compelling in their geography. By drawing and painting interpretations I am seeking an understanding of humanity itself.”
Sabraw began his pigment work several years ago while working with a sustainability immersion group. It was during a tour of southern Ohio — a region with the largest concentration of coal burning power plants in the world — that he took an interest in the visible effects of pollution in the state.
“I was struck by the local streams that are largely orange, red and brown, as if a mud slide was happening further upstream,” he recalls. “When I found out that these colors were mainly from iron oxide, the same raw materials used to make many paint colors, I wanted to use this toxic flow to make paintings” rather than with the imported iron oxide commonly found in paints.
Some of Sabraw’s artworks in the exhibition use these polluted raw materials. In others, he employs laser cutters and computer-driven routers to burn or excavate natural materials and re-enact the common practice of resource extraction. He created some works specifically for the exhibit using dust from bricks made long ago along the Hudson that shaped its form even while polluting its waters. | <urn:uuid:6945d581-be97-4226-9229-9f34b189dd37> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://highlandscurrent.org/2019/06/23/paint-from-pollution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141681524.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20201201200611-20201201230611-00161.warc.gz | en | 0.968666 | 586 | 3.359375 | 3 | {
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Environmental resource management is the organization of the communication and effect of human societies on the environment. However, the name of the course may suggest the management of the environment itself. It is actually not!
Environmental resources management is taught to make certain that ecosystem services are protected and preserved for potential human generations, and also uphold ecosystem reliability through considering ethical, fiscal, and scientific (ecological) variables.
Environmental resource management tries to recognize factors subject to conflicts that climb between meeting needs and protecting resources. It is thus connected to environmental protection, sustainability, and incorporated landscape management.
Environmental resource management is an subject of rising concern, as reflected in its occurrence in decisive texts influencing total sociopolitical frameworks such as the Brundtland Commission’s.
Our Common Future, which decorated the incorporated nature of surroundings and global development and the Worldwatch Institute’s yearly State of the World reports.
The environment determines the nature of people. And, how people interact with animals, plants, and places around the Earth, affecting behaviour, religion, culture and economic practices is also a concerning matter.
Enhanced farming practices such as these terraces in northwest Iowa can provide to protect soil and recover water quality. Environmental resource management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives.
It concerns the management of all mechanism of the biophysical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic), and the relationships among all living species and their habitats. The environment also mediates the relationships of the human environment, such as the communal, cultural and financial environment, with the biophysical environment.
The essential aspects of environmental resource management are ethical, economical, social, and technological. These motivate principles and help build decisions.
The concept of environmental chances is significant in the concept of environmental resource management. Environmental resource management deals with many areas in science , including geography, biology, ecology, physics , chemistry, social sciences, political sciences, public policy sociology, psychology, and physiology.
Environmental resource management policies are basically driven by conceptions of human-nature relationships. Ethical aspects engage the artistic and social issues relating to the environment, and dealing with changes to it.
“All human activities take place in the context of certain types of relationships between society and the biophysical world (the rest of nature),”
Therefore, there is a great implication in understanding the principled values of special groups around the world. Broadly speaking, two schools of thought survive in environmental ethics: Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism, each covering an extensive range of environmental resource organization styles along a scale. These styles recognize
“…different evidence, imperatives, and problems, and prescribe different solutions, strategies, technologies, roles for economic sectors, culture, governments, and ethics, etc.”
Anthropocentrism, “…an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values”, is an ethic reflected in the major interpretations of Western religions and the leading fiscal paradigms of the industrialized world.
Anthropocentrism looks at nature as obtainable only for the advantage of humans, and as a product to use for the good of humanity and to get better human quality of life.
Anthropocentric environmental resource management is therefore not the protection of the environment only for the environment’s sake, but rather the protection of the environment, and ecosystem structure, for humans’ sake.
Ecocentrists believe in the inherent worth of nature while maintaining that human beings must use and even exploit nature to stay alive and live. Ecocentrists navigate this fine ethical line between fair use and abuse.
At an extreme of the principled scale, ecocentrism deals with philosophies such as ecofeminism and deep ecology, which evolved as a reaction to dominant anthropocentric paradigms.
“In its current form, it is an attempt to synthesize many old and some new philosophical attitudes about the relationship between nature and human activity, with particular emphasis on ethical, social, and spiritual aspects that have been downplayed in the dominant economic worldview.”
Take a water harvesting system for example. It collects precipitation from the Rock of Gibraltar into pipes that initiate tanks excavated inside the rock. The economy functions within, and is dependent upon goods and services provided by normal ecosystems.
The job of the environment is recognized in both traditional economics and neoclassical economics theories, yet the environment was a lower main concern in fiscal policies from 1950 to 1980 due to emphasis from policy makers on financial growth.
With the occurrence of ecological problems, many economists embraced the notion that,
“If environmental sustainability must coexist for economic sustainability, then the overall system must [permit] identification of an equilibrium between the environment and the economy.”
As such, economic officials began to integrate the functions of the natural environment—or natural capital — mainly as a sink for wastes and for the condition of raw materials and facilities.
Environmental management is perquisite for sustaining growth of any business. Environmental management deals with concepts required to make sure that ecosystems are suitable for human development. | <urn:uuid:26ca3b0c-99d7-4cd4-b73e-b0d439418ae6> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://mgtblog.com/introduction-to-environmental-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526714.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20190720214645-20190721000645-00382.warc.gz | en | 0.924659 | 1,041 | 3.703125 | 4 | {
"raw_score": 2.978961706161499,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Science & Tech. |
This section provides a subject guide to the hundreds of articles, theses, books and videos listed on our website dealing with the Middle Ages and medieval society. To make it easier for readers and researchers to find medieval resources, we have developed a subject guide that will detail the general topic and geographical tags for each article, book or video. Originally, these terms were a modified version of the International Medieval Bibliography, but as we received suggestions from our readers, we have expanded our topics.
Administration: Articles on all levels of government (central and local), including the administration of towns, territories, lordships; machinery of government, including exchequers, chanceries, courts of justice, types and methods of taxation (but for papal taxes and church dues, such as tithes SEE Ecclesiastical).
Africa: Articles for the countries Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia and other parts of Africa
Al-Andalus: Articles dealing with the Islamic conquest of Iberia, and the successive Islamic states in that area
Americas: Canada, the United States and other parts of North and South America
Anglo-Saxon: Articles related to the Anglo-Saxon period of English history
Archaeology: Articles dealing with archaeological methodology and techniques, theory, environmental archaeology, surveys of the archaeology of a region or county: articles analysing the dating, style, function, typology etc. of particular finds, such as ceramics, skeletons, grave-goods etc.; and reports and studies on excavations of sites, including fieldwork.
Architecture: Articles on the architectural style or features found in a wide range of buildings, both secular and religious, or on building construction and techniques generally; surveys of aspects of the architecture of a particular district or region.
Archives and Sources: Articles that study modern-day archival collections (including photographic collections); catalogues or surveys of such collections; exhibitions, conservation and restoration of such collections. For articles on medieval collections of documents, such as exchequer rolls, or books in medieval libraries SEE Charters & Diplomatics and Manuscripts respectively.
Art History: Articles on periodisation and movements, themes, symbols or iconography in various art forms, methodology, analysis of style, sources in general, patronage, contemporary criticism etc; surveys of various aspects of the art of a particular district or region; articles on the design and production of artefacts such as textiles, tapestries, embroidery, metalwork, ivory-carving, enamels, jewellery, mosaics, pavements, tiles, reliquaries, stained glass etc.; articles on paintings (including icons, altar-pieces and wall-paintings), illumination of manuscripts, book illustration, drawings and figurative representations; studies of individual painters or workshops; articles on figure-sculpture in the round or in relief, produced by carving, moulding or casting, including statues, effigies; non-figural artefacts such as crosses or capitals; individual artists and workshops.
Baltic: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
Black Death: Articles related to the Black Death plague of the mid-14th century, and further outbreaks of plague during the Later Medieval period.
Byzantium: Articles that dealt with the Byzantine Empire or located within its territory
Canon Law: Conciliar or synodal decrees; canonists, decretals, canonical treatises and collections.
Carolingian: Articles related to Charlemagne, his heirs, and the Carolingian empire
Caucauses: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
Charters and Diplomatics: Studies or editions of charters and other documents, both individual examples and in theoretical terms, also sigillography (sphragistics) and the activity of notaries.
Chaucer: Articles related to life and writings of Geoffrey Chaucer\
Crusades: Crusades and related military expeditions to the Holy Land and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as the Baltic Crusades and minor crusades (e.g. Albigensian, Children’s Crusade).
Czech: Czech Republic
Daily Life: Costume, food and eating habits, games, recreations, sport, hunting, mentalities, material culture etc.
Demography: Studies of population, such as birth rates, demographic aspects of plague and disease.
Drama: Articles on all forms of drama, including liturgical drama, mystery plays, passion plays and morality plays; acting and staging of drama.
Ecclesiastical History: Articles on the institutional secular church – church administration and structure at all levels (parish, deanery, diocese, province); ecclesiastical politics; the papacy and cardinals; tithes and other church dues; councils and synods; the regulation of heresy, pilgrimage, preaching or the sacraments; schisms. For religious orders, SEE Monasticism.
Economics – General: Articles on macroeconomic issues, e.g. money supply, inflation, productivity, recession; weights and measures; economic analysis of concepts such as feudalism; economic analysis of a particular district or region.
Economics – Rural: Articles on economic activity in the countryside; agriculture, pastoralism, wine-growing; land tenure and estate managenment.
Economics – Trade: Articles on merchants, their activities; trade treaties and laws; international trade; trade-routes and shipping; local trade and finance related to trade.
Economics – Urban: Articles on economic production in towns or cities and the related structures, such as markets. Urban industries and crafts may include textile-production, butchers, shoemakers. Economic activities of guilds.
Education: Articles on universities, episcopal and monastic schools; grammar schools and lay education; students, masters, textbooks and curricula.
England: England, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
Environmental: Articles related to the medieval environment, pollution, and climate change
Epigraphy: All articles on inscriptions, including graffiti, runes and ogham, as well as papyrology.
Folk Studies: Articles on traditional customs and beliefs; pre-Christian religions and mythology; paganism and superstition; divination, charms and witchcraft; popular culture and festivals. SEE Science for alchemy and astrology.
France: France (including Corsica) and the predominantly French-speaking cantons of Switzerland
Genealogy and Prosopography: Studies of individual families or dynasties; biographies; prosopographical analysis of specific social or kinship groups.
Germany: Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and the predominantly German-speaking cantons of Switzerland
Geography: Articles on settlement studies, deserted settlements, landscape history, topography, land-use and town-planning; travel, exploration and cartography; studies of charter- and parish-boundaries
Hagiography: Articles on saints and sanctity, includy the canonisation process; miracles, cults and relics; Vitae and other records of saints’ lives.
Hebrew and Jewish Studies: Articles on all aspects of Jewish life, including the Jewish faith, conversion to and from Judaism, antijudaism and the Hebrew and Yiddish languages and literature.
Heraldry: Articles on coats of arms, armorials, liveries, flags and banners; the activities of heralds.
Historiography: Articles on medieval chronicles, annals and other historiographical texts and their authors; historical method and thought of modern scholars.
Hundred Years’ War: Articles related to the Hundred Years’ War fought between England and France during the 14th and 15th centuries
India: Indian subcontinent
Ireland: Ireland and Northern Ireland
Islam: Islamic beliefs and organized religion, including Quranic studies, the life and teachings of Muhammad, Sufism , conversion to Islam.
Italy: Italy (including Sardinia and Sicily), Malta and the Swiss canton of Ticino
Language: Articles on grammar, syntax, lexicology, lexicography, morphology, etymology, phonology and sociolinguistics of medieval languages and texts.
Law: Articles on secular law, including customary and Roman law; specific laws and legal practices. For courts of law SEE Administration.
Learning: Articles on humanism and the transmission of the learning of classical Antiquity also on revivals and renaissances of classical culture.
Literature: Articles on literary theory, discussion of genres studies of prose works of imaginative literature (or belles-lettres), studies of verse works of imaginative literature, epic, lyric (including songs and ballads).
Liturgy: Articles on liturgical rites, texts and services; vestments; hymns, sequences, antiphons and chants; prayers, liturgical calendars.
Local History: Articles studying the history of a particular place, district or region, especially when these draw on subject-matter which takes in different topic categories
Low Countries: Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands
Mamluks: Articles related to the Mamluk State that emreged in Syria and Egypt from 1250 to 1517
Manuscripts and Palaeography: Articles on codicology, scriptoria, scribes, scripts; book production and trade; medieval libraries, catalogues and booklists; literacy; antiquarian collectors and their collections. Articles on individual manuscripts will be classified under the section relevant to the work itself.
Maritime Studies: Articles on navigation, ships and shipbuilding, maritime law, piracy, sea transport.
Medicine: Articles on medical practitioners, including physicians, surgeons and dentists; health and disease, pharmacists, medical training, hospitals and hospices; medical treatises and handbooks. For herbal and other popular medicine SEE Daily Life or Folk Studies
Medievalism - Articles on how the Middle Ages is presented in modern culture. It includes films and novels with a medieval setting
Middle East: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates
Military History: Articles on military campaigns, battles, and sieges; theories and rules of war; strategy and tactics; recruitment and military service; castles and other defensive structures; weaponry and armour; tournaments and jousting.
Monasticism: Articles on all religious orders (male and female), including monks, canons, friars, nuns and military and hospitaller orders. For confraternities and lay religious organisations SEE Religious Life
Mongols: Articles related to Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongol empire, including the Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, and Yuan Dynasty
Music: Articles on musical instruments, notation, musicians; musical works.
Near East: Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine
Numismatics: Articles on coins, coin-hoards, mints, moneyers; discussions of money-supply; forgery and debasement of coinage.
Onomastics: Articles on placenames and other topographical names; personal names (forenames and surnames); ethnic and tribal names.
Ottoman: Articles related to the Ottoman Empire
Philosophy: Articles on philosophers, philosophical movements and commentaries, the medieval discipline of logic or dialectic, and subjects such as epistemology and metaphysics.
Political Thought: Articles on political philosophy, medieval theories of kingship (including the genre of `advice for princes’) political order, constitutions etc. For royal or imperial elections and succession SEE Politics and Diplomacy
Politics and Diplomacy: Articles on relations between different states; parliaments and representative assemblies; the emergence of states, royal or imperial power, elections and successions.
Printing History: Articles on individual printers, workshops and publishing history of printed books; typography; paper, watermarks, woodcuts for printing.
Religious Life: Articles on spirituality and the practice of religion; hermits, recluses and anchorites; lay piety; mysticism and contemplation; devotional literature, pilgrimage, asceticism, lay movements such as béguines or confraternities, and the practices of heretical movements; religious activities of guilds.
Roman Empire: Articles related to the end of the Roman Empire and medieval perceptions of that period
Russia: Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine
Science: Articles on medieval scientific thought; mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, astrology, natural philosophy (such as zoology or botany).
Scotland: Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands
Sermons and Preaching: Articles on vernacular and Latin sermons, homilies, preaching aids and handbooks, etc.
Social History: Articles on social and family structures, marriage and kinship patterns, social origins of popular movements, crime, law and order, sexuality etc; surveys of the society of a particular region or district.
Spain: Aragon, Castile and other Christian states in Spain
Teaching: Articles on teaching about the Middle Ages and Medieval Society to modern students and the general public. Includes use of multimedia materials, such as websites.
Technology: Articles on the techniques and technical aspects of mining and other industries, including weaving, metallurgy; energy and power etc.
Theology: Articles on Bible study and exegesis, speculative theology, vernacular translations and paraphrases from the Bible.
Turkey: Articles related to Turkey, but not falling into Byzantium or the Ottoman Empire
Vikings: Articles related to the activities of Norse peoples, such as attacks in Europe, and colonization in the British Isles and other areas
Women’s Studies: Studies of women; articles from a feminist perspective; misogyny and attitudes to women; women’s roles in the home, work and society.
* The geographical areas relate to modern, not medieval political boundaries, and so the modern location determines geographical field. For example, an article on eleventh-century bishops of Strasbourg would be classified under France, even though at the time Strasbourg was part of the German kingdom. | <urn:uuid:bb408ba5-cb29-4e27-ab52-9c7ab4f8c428> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.medievalists.net/articles/subject-guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738662166.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173742-00116-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88529 | 2,907 | 2.90625 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 3.0382511615753174,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | History |
A drug that could combat all strains of the influenza virus is just
beginning clinical trials in Australia and the US. It is not a vaccine,
but instead works by blocking the action of an enzyme that is vital for
the spread of the virus.
At present, the flu virus mutates so rapidly that doctors have to inject
vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, with fresh vaccine each year because
immunity against the previous year’s strain soon becomes redundant. Last
month in Britain, for example, the government warned doctors to start building
up stocks of vaccine for the coming winter.
‘We are looking at treating patients with flu and presymptomatic people
who may have been infected, perhaps in families, schools or homes for the
elderly,’ says Glaxo, the pharmaceuticals giant which is developing and
testing the new drug jointly with researchers in Australia.
The collaborators concluded that the compound was safe for clinical
trials after tests on 150 healthy volunteers in the US and Europe. Now they
are recruiting hundreds of patients for a much larger trial, and have already
given the drug to people with the latest strain of flu in New Zealand and
Australia. ‘These are the first substantial clinical trials of the drug,’
Many more patients will receive the drug this autumn as the latest viral
strains begin to reach Europe and the US. However, the results from the
present trials will not be announced at least until October.
The drug blocks the action of an enzyme called neuraminidase, which
helps daughter viruses to escape and spread from infected cells and also
enables the virus to burrow through layers of mucus and infect cells lining
the windpipe and lungs.
Neuraminidase and another viral protein called haemagglutinin each form
‘spikes’ on the surface of the virus. These are the features of the virus
that the immune system recognises most easily, but which mutate rapidly,
making a new vaccine necessary every year. In time, the body produces antibodies
that recognise the enzymes and destroy the virus, but some strains can kill
people before they have enough antibodies to subdue the infection. The Spanish
flu strain in 1918, for example, killed 20 million people.
Doctors attempt to anticipate the arrival of new strains by vaccinating
people beforehand with ‘killed’ mixtures of the latest strains identified
by the WHO. These people will have antibodies to the new strain ready and
waiting when they encounter the live virus.
However, in the early 1980s Graeme Laver of the John Curtin School of
Medical Research, part of the Australian National University in Canberra,
and Peter Colman of the Australian CSIRO’s Division of Biomolecular Engineering
in Melbourne discovered that one part of the neuraminidase molecule remained
the same in all strains of flu virus, irrespective of mutations in the enzyme.
This common part is the ‘active site’ of the enzyme – the cleft in
the molecule that accommodates chemical reactions vital to the virus. The
cleft normally fits around a sugar molecule called sialic acid, which is
found on the coats of newly formed viruses and makes them clump together.
The molecule is ‘clipped off’ by the enzyme, and the daughter viruses can
spread to other cells.
Building on the work by Laver and Colman, Mark von Itzstein of Monash
University, Victoria, synthesised a compound very similar to sialic acid
which blocks the active site on the enzyme. If the site is blocked, the
enzyme is neutralised and the virus can no longer spread from an infected
cell. This is the compound that is now in clinical trials.
Garry Taylor, a virologist in the department of biochemistry at the
University of Bath, wonders if the virus will develop resistance through
mutation. ‘It could fill up the pocket where the drug binds, so the drug
has nowhere to jam the site,’ he says. | <urn:uuid:baa9a179-7d52-402e-bde1-ab385455626f> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14319383-200-technology-enzyme-blocker-could-be-sweet-solution-to-flu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257645405.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20180317233618-20180318013618-00632.warc.gz | en | 0.939699 | 858 | 3.546875 | 4 | {
"raw_score": 3.004403829574585,
"reasoning_level": 3,
"interpretation": "Strong reasoning"
} | Health |
A String Representation of Distinguished Names
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
The OSI Directory uses distinguished names as the primary keys to entries in the directory. Distinguished Names are encoded in ASN.1. When a distinguished name is communicated between to users not using a directory protocol (e.g., in a mail message), there is a need to have a user-oriented string representation of distinguished name. This specification defines a string format for representing names, which is designed to give a clean representation of commonly used names, whilst being able to represent any distinguished name.
Table of Contents
1. Why a notation is needed ................................... 2 2. A notation for Distinguished Name .......................... 2 2.1 Goals ................................................ 2 2.2 Informal definition .................................. 2 2.3 Formal definition .................................... 4 3. Examples ................................................... 6 4. Acknowledgements ........................................... 7 5. References ................................................. 7 6. Security Considerations .................................... 8 7. Author's Address ........................................... 8
1. Why a notation is needed
Many OSI Applications make use of Distinguished Names (DN) as defined in the OSI Directory, commonly known as X.500 . This specification assumes familiarity with X.500, and the concept of Distinguished Name. It is important to have a common format to be able to unambiguously represent a distinguished name. This might be done to represent a directory name on a business card or in an email message. There is a need for a format to support human to human communication, which must be string based (not ASN.1) and user oriented. This notation is targeted towards a general user oriented system, and in particular to represent the names of humans. Other syntaxes may be more appropriate for other uses of the directory. For example, the OSF Syntax may be more appropriate for some system oriented uses. (The OSF Syntax uses "/" as a separator, and forms names in a manner intended to resemble UNIX filenames).
2. A notation for Distinguished Name
The following goals are laid out:
- To provide an unambiguous representation of a distinguished name
- To be an intuitive format for the majority of names
- To be fully general, and able to represent any distinguished name
- To be amenable to a number of different layouts to achieve an attractive representation.
- To give a clear representation of the contents of the distinguished name
2.2 Informal definition
This notation is designed to be convenient for common forms of name. Some examples are given. The author's directory distinguished name would be written:
CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB
This may be folded, perhaps to display in multi-column format. For example:
CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB
Another name might be:
CN=Christian Huitema, O=INRIA, C=FR
Semicolon (";") may be used as an alternate separator. The separators may be mixed, but this usage is discouraged.
CN=Christian Huitema; O=INRIA; C=FR
In running text, this would be written as <CN=Christian Huitema; O=INRIA; C=FR>. Another example, shows how different attribute types are handled:
CN=James Hacker, L=Basingstoke, O=Widget Inc, C=GB
Here is an example of a multi-valued Relative Distinguished Name, where the namespace is flat within an organisation, and department is used to disambiguate certain names:
OU=Sales + CN=J. Smith, O=Widget Inc., C=US
The final examples show both methods quoting of a comma in an Organisation name:
CN=L. Eagle, O="Sue, Grabbit and Runn", C=GB
CN=L. Eagle, O=Sue\, Grabbit and Runn, C=GB
2.3 Formal definition
A formal definition can now be given. The structure is specified in a BNF grammar in Figure 1. This BNF uses the grammar defined in RFC 822, with the terminals enclosed in <> . This definition is in an abstract character set, and so may be written in any character set supporting the explicitly defined special characters. The quoting mechanism is used for the following cases:
- Strings containing ",", "+", "=" or """ , <CR>, "<", ">", "#", or ";".
- Strings with leading or trailing spaces
- Strings containing consecutive spaces
There is an escape mechanism from the normal user oriented form, so that this syntax may be used to print any valid distinguished name. This is ugly. It is expected to be used only in pathological cases. There are two parts to this mechanism:
- Attributes types are represented in a (big-endian) dotted notation. (e.g., OID.2.6.53).
- Attribute values are represented in hexadecimal (e.g. #0A56CF). Each pair of hex digits defines an octet, which is the ASN.1 Basic Encoding Rules value of the Attribute Value.
The keyword specification is optional in the BNF, but mandatory for this specification. This is so that the same BNF may be used for the related specification on User Friendly Naming . When this specification is followed, the attribute type keywords must always be present.
A list of valid keywords for well known attribute types used in naming is given in Table 1. Keywords may contain spaces, but shall not have leading or trailing spaces. This is a list of keywords which must be supported. These are chosen because they appear in common forms of name, and can do so in a place which does not correspond to the default schema used. A register of valid keywords is maintained by the IANA.
<name> ::= <name-component> ( <spaced-separator> ) | <name-component> <spaced-separator> <name> <spaced-separator> ::= <optional-space> <separator> <optional-space> <separator> ::= "," | ";" <optional-space> ::= ( <CR> ) *( " " )
<name-component> ::= <attribute>
| <attribute> <optional-space> "+"
<attribute> ::= <string>
| <key> <optional-space> "=" <optional-space> <string>
<key> ::= 1*( <keychar> ) | "OID." <oid> | "oid." <oid> <keychar> ::= letters, numbers, and space <oid> ::= <digitstring> | <digitstring> "." <oid> <digitstring> ::= 1*<digit> <digit> ::= digits 0-9 <string> ::= *( <stringchar> | <pair> ) | '"' *( <stringchar> | <special> | <pair> ) '"' | "#" <hex> <special> ::= "," | "=" | <CR> | "+" | "<" | ">" | "#" | ";" <pair> ::= "\" ( <special> | "\" | '"') <stringchar> ::= any character except <special> or "\" or '"' <hex> ::= 2*<hexchar> <hexchar> ::= 0-9, a-f, A-F
Figure 1: BNF Grammar for Distinguished Name
Key Attribute (X.520 keys) ------------------------------ CN CommonName L LocalityName ST StateOrProvinceName O OrganizationName OU OrganizationalUnitName C CountryName STREET StreetAddress
Table 1: Standardised Keywords
Only string type attributes are considered, but other attribute syntaxes could be supported locally (e.g., by use of the syntexes defined in .) It is assumed that the interface will translate from the supplied string into an appropriate Directory String encoding. The "+" notation is used to specify multi-component RDNs. In this case, the types for attributes in the RDN must be explicit.
The name is presented/input in a little-endian order (most significant component last). When an address is written in a context where there is a need to delimit the entire address (e.g., in free text), it is recommended that the delimiters <> are used. The terminator > is a special in the notation to facilitate this delimitation.
This section gives a few examples of distinguished names written using this notation:
CN=Marshall T. Rose, O=Dover Beach Consulting, L=Santa Clara, ST=California, C=US CN=FTAM Service, CN=Bells, OU=Computer Science, O=University College London, C=GB
CN=Markus Kuhn, O=University of Erlangen, C=DE
CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB
CN=Steve Kille ,
O = ISODE Consortium, C=GB CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB
This work was based on research work done at University College London , and evolved by the IETF OSI-DS WG.
Input for this version of the document was received from: Allan Cargille (University of Wisconsin); John Dale (COS); Philip Gladstone (Onsett); John Hawthorne (US Air Force); Roland Hedberg (University of Umea); Kipp Hickman (Mosaic Communications Corp.) Markus Kuhn (University of Erlangen); Elisabeth Roudier (E3X); Mark Wahl (ISODE Consortium).
The Directory --- overview of concepts, models and services, 1993. CCITT X.500 Series Recommendations. Crocker, D., "Standard of the Format of ARPA-Internet Text Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, University of Delaware, August 1982. Yeong, W., Howes, T., and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol", RFC 1777, Performance Systems International, University of Michigan, ISODE Consortium, March 1995. S.E. Kille. Using the OSI directory to achieve user friendly naming. Research Note RN/20/29, Department of Computer Science, University College London, February 1990. Kille, S., "Using the OSI Directory to Achieve User Friendly Naming", RFC 1781, ISODE Consortium, March 1995.
6. Security Considerations
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
7. Author's Address
Phone: +44-181-332-9091 EMail: [email protected] DN: CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB UFN: S. Kille, ISODE Consortium, GB | <urn:uuid:6b1469b2-e4db-447d-b3ab-7cae2b4a1e8f> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://pike.lysator.liu.se/docs/ietf/rfc/17/rfc1779.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662644142.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20220529103854-20220529133854-00302.warc.gz | en | 0.777713 | 2,494 | 2.515625 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 2.44048810005188,
"reasoning_level": 2,
"interpretation": "Moderate reasoning"
} | Software Dev. |
In the first few months of 2022, Australia witnessed major floods, particularly in the northern parts of New South Wales; The River Project- Sydney Biennale resonated with the floods, which were organised on the 4th and 5th of May(last week). Also, Yuhana Nashimi, a ceramic and figurative artist, conducted this project that focused on the rivers, wetlands and other aquatic ecosystems.
Mr Nashimi involved 95 people (cross-generational) from Iraq, Iran, Mandaeans, Bosnia, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan to reflect on their connection to rivers by making little sculptural work from clay. Besides, Mr Nashimi’s goal was to honour his ancestor’s reverence for water through two displays among more than 220 sculptures that the participants made. Also, his origins are Mandean -a small Gnostic religious sect hailing from Iraq and Iran that is several thousand years old – and he believes rivers carry a critical cultural current.
He pointed out the significance of rivers by saying that life would be improbable without rivers; he also said that humans are the gatekeepers or conservationists of water and nature, and it is the primary source of life and light; hence it is divine.
He has been arranging over 200 terracotta clay figurines collected from workshops he held for around a hundred other Mandean artists as well as Bosnians, Afghans and Tamils from Sri Lanka. Additionally, it is noteworthy to mention that thousands of Mandeans settled in Sydney’s Liverpool area after the US invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.
Apart from believing in the divinity of the rivers, they also believe in the spiritual power of Baptism and honour John the Baptist as a significant religious figure. Also, the Mandeans are a matriarchal community wherein people speak Aramaic dialect, which is believed to be Jesus’s language; the community regularly performs baptisms in Georges River, dressed in white tunics.
On the other hand, Mr Nashimi is engaged in an additional project, wherein he is building an almost scarecrow-like 1.8m bamboo structure emerging from the waterway, representing the body, mind and spirit in an artistic take on the death rituals of his people. Moreover, he highlighted the universal symbolism of the river; he said that people always return to the river as the clay represents the human body that eventually goes back to its origin.
Jiva Parthipan is the artistic co-director; he works with the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors; he also worked on the river project. Moreover, he wants to move refugee narratives beyond the hardship of forced migration from their home countries.
Also, he believes that as future Australians, the refugees or non-residential individuals must explore their cultural practices in a nuanced manner with all other communities. Therefore, Mr Parthipan brought together Mr Nashmi, the Indigenous Jannawi Dance Clan, a local Aboriginal elder, classical Indian singers and dancers, and the NSW Barefoot Water Ski Club members to collaborate and explore what the river means to those they represent.
Mr Parthipan pointed out that though there is one river embodying four different local communities who re-imagined and layered the river with their heritages. For instance, Soulful ancient southern Indian melodies sung by second-generation migrant Namrata Pulapaka were also a part of last week’s program.
Moreover, Carnatic music is ancient music and singing art that has been handed down through oral tradition to multiple generations over hundreds of years. Also, she said that the intricate musical scales are called Raga, which evoke different emotions; people may not understand the words, but they strike a chord with the people and unites them.
Ms Pulapaka says the sacred significance of the Ganges River is kept alive within Australia’s Indian diaspora, with countless migrants having laid roots in western Sydney. Also, more than 720,000-strong nationwide, they number second only to English ex-pats. | <urn:uuid:d857b55c-a943-45ea-9147-f7e5f45ad0d1> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://madeinindiamagazine.com.au/unique-multicultural-art-on-the-sydney-river/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679099281.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20231128083443-20231128113443-00341.warc.gz | en | 0.963962 | 834 | 2.6875 | 3 | {
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World War I Centennial: Mission Implausible
The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that killed millions and set the continent of Europe on the path to further calamity two decades later. But it didn’t come out of nowhere.
With the centennial of the outbreak of hostilities coming up in 2014, Erik Sass will be looking back at the lead-up to the war, when seemingly minor moments of friction accumulated until the situation was ready to explode. He'll be covering those events 100 years after they occurred. This is the 14th installment in the series. (See all entries here.)
April 30, 1912: Mission Implausible
In the years leading up to the First World War, the European Great Powers competed in a number of ways, ranging from colonies to armaments to trade and finance. One of the most important arenas, from both a military and symbolic standpoint, was the common practice of sending military advisers to lesser powers to help them upgrade their backwards, poorly trained forces to European standards (or at least something approaching them). If these missions worked out, the relationship could be transformed into a long-term alliance, with officers from the Great Powers even commanding foreign military units during wartime.
It’s no surprise, then, that 1912 found Britain and Germany both eagerly angling to send military advisers to the ailing, beleaguered Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire occupied a key strategic position along the Russian Empire’s southern flank, meaning the Turks could bottle up the Russian navy in the Black Sea; they also controlled Asia Minor, the only land bridge to Asia and the Middle East outside Russia, and therefore an important trade and transportation corridor (where Germany, France, and Britain were also competing for contracts to finance and build railroads and other infrastructure).
As the world’s preeminent naval power, Britain was the natural choice to provide advisers who could modernize, train, and possibly even help command the Turkish navy. The first British “naval mission” to Turkey, under the command of Admiral Douglas Gamble, lasted from February 1909 to March 1910, and was followed by a second under Vice-Admiral Hugh Pigot Williams, from April 1910 to April 1912.
But reforming the Turkish navy wasn’t an easy job, to put it mildly: Gamble confronted what an associate described as an “indescribable mess” and complained about disorganization and lack of financial support from the government, although he did succeed in leading the Turkish navy on maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean. His replacement, Williams, had bad relations with the Turkish government; ominously, the Turks began purchasing destroyers from German shipyards after the British refused to sell them two dreadnoughts. In 1912 rumors spread that the Turks would be turning over the naval mission to Germany, but the British rallied and succeeded in winning a third (and final) appointment as naval advisers to Turkey.
The New Naval Mission Arrives
The Turks wanted Gamble back, but he was in poor health and didn’t relish the idea of returning to bureaucratic battle in Constantinople. Instead they got Admiral Arthur Limpus, whose naval mission arrived in Turkey on April 30–just as the total impotence of the Turkish navy had been demonstrated by the Italian bombardment of the Dardanelles, resulting in the closing of the Turkish straits (a critical trade artery) for two weeks. The British were hesitant about sending British officers to help the Turks during a war with Italy, since the Italians might consider this a violation of Britain’s declared neutrality, but the alternative–letting the Germans take over the Turkish navy–was even worse.
Limpus wasn’t able to help the Turkish navy fight the Italians, and indeed the goal of putting the Turkish navy on an equal footing with any of its European rivals was a long shot at best (in actuality the Brits probably didn’t try too hard, in order not to antagonize Russia). However, Limpus did manage to persuade the Turks to refurbish and upgrade their decaying port and dockyard facilities–not coincidentally furthering British business interests in the region while he was at it. To rebuild the naval facilities on land, Limpus formed a special public corporation, the “Societe Imperiale Ottomane Co-interessee des Docks et Chantiers” (all international organizations had French names at this time, but it was definitely a British entity). The Societe promptly awarded the contracts to Armstrong Vickers, a British company, giving German competitors like Krupp the cold shoulder.
The appearance of a close, increasingly friendly relationship between Britain and Turkey could only serve to stoke German paranoia about an international conspiracy to “encircle” the Fatherland, making the German government and military even more desperate to “break through” this encirclement by any means necessary. As a result, Germany would raise the stakes in its competition with Britain and France for influence in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans–through commercial initiatives but also militarily, if need be.
Indeed, although Britain was the logical choice for naval advice, Germany was the clear leader in military affairs on land, and already had a long-standing role providing military advisers to the Turkish army–foreshadowing their alliance in the Great War to come. | <urn:uuid:5110e00e-4980-4dd9-ae2e-36f76a18e6e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | http://mentalfloss.com/article/30568/world-war-i-centennial-mission-implausible | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860127870.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161527-00165-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960883 | 1,102 | 3 | 3 | {
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My name is Megan, and I know cardinals like the back of my hand – they’re my state bird for reason after all!
They’re lovely songbirds, and they carry a reputation of symbolism and myths wherever they fly.
Nesting pairs spend their days feeding and singing to each, and, once they have chicks, you can watch both parents tend to their young which is a magical experience.
Not too mention that these vibrant red birds are simply beautiful.
Every year, I plan my garden around attracting as many of these lovely little birds to my yards as possible, and now I’m sharing these tips with you.
Cardinals don’t usually migrate. Once they find a secure location to nest that offers enough resources to fulfill their needs, they tend to stay there.
That means that if you manage to attract a cardinal – or, even better, a mating pair! – to your garden and keep it, then, as long as you continue making sure it has food, water, and shelter, then it will continue to nest there.
From certain plants and foilage to investing in the right bird food, attracting cardinals to your garden – and keeping them there – can be easy once you know exactly what you’re looking for.
What Do Cardinal Birds Look Like?
When you think of cardinals, you most likely think of vibrant red feathers and dark masks. Well, that’s not entirely true.
You see, cardinals are a great example of a phenomenon known as sexual dimorphism. That simply means that males and females of the same species look different.
So, that holiday card image of a cardinal you have in your head is a cardinal – but only the male.
Male cardinals have a beautiful, bright red plumage, with orange beaks and black facial markings. It’s this bright red coloration that helps these birds attract a mate.
Depending on the season as well as the male’s diet and health, their feathers may be on the dark end of the spectrum with more brownish hues.
A vibrant, bright coat of feathers, much like a lion’s mane, shows off how healthy a male cardinal is – an attribute of a good mate.
Since female cardinals don’t have to prove themselves as a proper mate, they lack this coloration.
Female cardinals have the same orange beaks and black facial markings, but their plumage is much duller.
You’ll find that females are normally a greyish-brown with light bellies, though they can have hints of red in parts of their feathers such as their head plume and the tip of their wings and tails.
Both males and females are around the same size and have the same feather style.
What Time of Year are Cardinals Around?
You can find cardinals year-round! Their red plumages are especially beautiful in the fall and winter, and, in the warmer months, you can listen as they sing to their mates and raise chicks.
However, with each season, their needs change. During the spring and summer, you most likely won’t find more than a pair or two in your yard.
Cardinals are monogamous – meaning that they breed with the same mate each year – and extremely territorial, so they have a tendency to scare off potential competition.
During the colder months when food is scarce and the nests are empty, though, you’ll often see them flocking towards food sources.
How to Attract Cardinals to Your Garden?
While bird feeders are one good way to attract cardinals to your garden, they’re not the only way.
From planting the right plants to offering other necessities such as water, making sure that your garden has what cardinals need can attract them.
What Plants Attract Cardinals?
One of the most important things to know about cardinals is that they’re not like other birds: they won’t nest in birdhouses.
Cardinals prefer to nest in dense, covered areas. These areas offer the most protection in the wild, so it is where they feel the most secure.
To replicate this natural safe-zone in your garden, try to plant thickets of dense vines and shrubs. To help with your natural landscaping, here are some of the best plants for cardinals:
Once you provide a safe area for the cardinals to rest, you may want to consider leaving out some nesting supplies as well as a food source.
You can also leave out plant matter such as small twigs, pine needles, and grass clippings to help and encourage the cardinals to build nests.
Some of the plants listed above, such as mulberry and blueberry, can also double as a food source.
What Else Should You Put in Your Garden?
A garden for bird watchers is for more than just dense plants and nice feeders. Cardinals have three main needs that need to be met for them to choose your garden as a permanent residence.
First, they need shelter, which can be covered by the plants listed above since cardinals won’t use a birdhouse.
The second need, food, can be covered by these plants too, as well as bird feeders. However, cardinals will still need water.
That means that you will need to put a birdbath into your garden as well. This will act as both a water source and a place for your birds to bathe.
What Shouldn’t You Put in Your Garden?
Planning your landscape and the plants you use is only half the process of making sure your garden is cardinal-friendly. There are also a few things that you should avoid.
Obviously, you should make sure your garden has no harmful chemicals.
While it may be tempting to use insecticides and fertilizers to keep your garden maintained, these can be extremely harmful to the animals in your garden – and not just cardinals.
You should also avoid allowing your pets to roam in your garden. Cardinals are ground feeders and are vulnerable to animals and pets such as cats.
You should also avoid scattering seeds around bushes where predators can hide and attack the cardinals while they eat.
Finally, you should avoid having reflective surfaces in your garden. As mentioned above, cardinals, especially males, are extremely territorial and aggressive.
They also cannot distinguish their own reflection from a potential competitor. This means that if a cardinal in your garden sees their reflection, they make feel threatened and will leave.
It can also cause them harm and can even damage their beaks.
To prevent this, use screens to cover windows without blocking your view or add distractions to help cardinals feel more secure in your garden.
6 Best Cardinal Bird Feeders
1) Perky-Pet Red Cardinal Feeder
The Perky-Pet feeder can be described in three words: rustic, simple, and convenient.
It’s designed to support both clinging birds and perching birds such as cardinals, and, thanks to fact its made completely out of metal with no plastic or wood, it’s durable and will last for a long time.
It has a 2.5-pound capacity, making it perfect for black oil sunflower seeds or any other popular bird food.
The convenience of this cardinal feeder comes into play with both is collapsable time and its wide-mouth opening that makes for easy, mess-free refilling.
The large overhanging provides shelter for the birds as they eat while also protecting the food from the elements so you don’t have to worry about mold or other harmful fungi that would harm the birds.
The perch also has drain holes to keep water from pooling. One of the only issues with this feeder is, despite its heavy-gauge metal mesh, squirrels can bite through the mesh given the chance.
In this instance this does happen, however, it can easily be fixed using pliers.
2) Brome Squirrel Buster Standard Perches
First, Brome offers lifetime care meaning that if something does happen to your feeder, you won’t have to throw it away – Brome guarantees service to help make sure your cardinal feeder is in top shape.
It is also squirrel proof so that you can save money on seeds while also not worrying about squirrels causing damage or scaring off hungry birds.
The shroud has a weight sensor, and, when an adult squirrel lands on the feeder to try and steal the food, the shroud will automatically close.
The Brome Squirrel Buster also features a seed ventilation system that will keep seeds fresh, keeping the cardinals in your garden happy.
The only thing to keep in mind when purchasing this cardinal feeder is that you will have to take it down and disassemble it to refill it with more bird food.
3) Perky-Pet Holly Berry Gilded Bird Feeder
If you’re looking for a budget feeder that will get the job done and keep cardinals in your garden, then the Perky-Pet feeder is a great option.
It has a 360 degree perch so that birds can feed from any angle, and it can hold up to two pounds of seeds.
With its gilded holly berry design, this feeder is also very aesthetic and will look great at any home.
Its greatest feature, however, is the patented Sure-Lock cap that makes for easy filling without worrying about any seeds spilling.
It’s also easy to known when the feeder needs to be refilled thanks to the clear seed reservoir.
The only thing to remember is that, because the seeds are contained in plastic, you may need to replace them more often to keep them fresh.
4) RoamWild PestOff Bird Feeder
The RoamWild feeder takes this into consideration and has been designed to keep these pests away from your birds and their seeds.
It also keeps away some other natural pests such as rust and water damage.
It holds three pounds of seeds, so you don’t have have to worry about refiling seed soften – although, when you do, refilling is easy.
There’s no nuts or bolts and no need for tools with a simple tube that attached and detaches with just a few clips.
This bird feeder also comes in a variety of colors so that you can pick the perfect style to fit your garden. From red to blue to green to yellow, you can find the perfect color.
It also comes with a hassle-free warranty, ad, if you’re not, 100% satisfied, you can get your money back.
If you’re truly worried about how well the RoamWild PestOff bird feeder will fend against pests, RoamWild offers a video showing how the feeder holds up against a wild squirrel.
5) North States Village Collection School House Bird Feeder
If you’re looking for a great gift for bird lovers or looking for something cute and rustic to liven up your landscape while attracting cardinals, then this school-house style bird feeder is the best choice for you.
Inexpensive and functional, this charming little feeder holds up to five pounds of bird seeds, meaning that you don’t have to refill this feeder as often as you would with a smaller one.
While it’s sturdy, you don’t have to worry about not knowing when it isn’t time to refill this feeder: the windows function just like real ones so you can see into the seed reservoir.
6) More Birds X-1 Squirrel Proof Feeder
If you get lucky enough to have multiple cardinals in your garden, you may find that a smaller feeder without enough areas doesn’t work as well.
In that case, you may want to invest in this bird feeder. It has a 4.2 pound seed capacity as well as four feeding ports with perches, making it perfect for multiple cardinals.
It has a wide mouth to make refilling easier. One of the best features, however, is the fact that this bird feeder is squirrel-proof.
The only thing that may be a negative attribute is that this feeder is created completely out of plastic, so you will need to make sure that it is not directly exposed to the elements by putting it under a shelter.
What to Put in Your Cardinal Bird Feeders?
While cardinals are natural ground eaters satisfied with most things they find, they do have one favorite food in particular: black oil sunflower seeds.
You can fill your bird feeders with these little delicacies or scatter them on the ground – they’ll be happy either way. They also enjoy peanuts, cracked corn, and fresh berries.
How to Set Up Your Cardinal Bird Feeders
As mentioned above, cardinals are ground feeders, so set up your new bird feeder closer to the ground, no more than 5 feet in the air.
These sweet little birds also need water, so set up a birdbath 2 to 3 inches away from your feeder.
If you have any pets such as cats, make sure that you set up the feeder where the cardinals will not be in harm’s way while eating.
My overall top pick is the Brome Squirrel Buster. Despite the fact it’s a bit more expensive and has to be taken apart to refill, I really like the rust and squirrel proof design. I also like the guaranteed lifetime care.
Bird feeders stay outside and are constantly exposed to the elements, so I feel like a bird feeder that is both sturdy and easy to fix is important rather than having to purchase a new feeder at the end of every season.
My top budget pick is the Perky-Pet holly berry gilded feeder. For an inexpensive price, it offers both an innovative and aesthetic bird feeder.
I think that it’s perfect for both novice and seasoned bird feeders, and it also makes a perfect gift.
My top aesthetic pick would be the North States Village Collection bird feeder. With its charming rustic aesthetic, it’ll make a beautiful addition to any home.
It’s also extremely functional, though. With its five pound seed capacity, its windowed seed reservoir, and its perch, it’s perfect for all bird lovers.
Final Thoughts: Best Cardinal Bird Feeders
Cardinals are amazing birds with a lot of symbolism.
Due to the fact that they mate for life and spending their time singing to and feeding their mates, these birds symbolize loyalty and faithfulness and having them in your garden is a wonderful experience.
Thankfully, bringing them into your garden and keeping them there isn’t as difficult as it seems.
The first thing you want to do is to make sure you design your landscape – from your plants to your decorations – is cardinal-friendly.
Plant dense vines and shrubs and avoid things such as harsh chemicals and reflective surfaces. Picking out the perfect cardinal bird feeders is just the icing on the cake.
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Apprenticeship, the system of binding a child to a master to learn a craft, trade, or occupation, has taken two forms in North Carolina. Compulsory apprenticeship was used from the last quarter of the seventeenth century into the beginning of the twentieth century. Voluntary apprenticeship has been in use from the earliest days to the present.
Compulsory apprenticeship had as its immediate objective the relief of indigent orphans, abandoned or illegitimate children, and the children of impoverished parents-the support and maintenance of whom would otherwise have fallen to the community. Its long-term objective was to train children in an occupation so that they could support themselves as adults. Such children, white or free black, male or female, were bound under court order to a master. The master stood in loco parentis and was entitled to the child's obedience and service, while being expected to offer moral instruction and paternal control. The courts sometimes removed apprentices from cruel masters. Boys were apprenticed to learn skilled crafts such as carpentry or farming, while girls were usually apprenticed to learn housekeeping or "feminine arts" such as weaving. In England only master craftsmen, certified by local guilds, had been able to take an apprentice, but in America-where trained artisans were fewer and social institutions were weaker-a more informal system evolved in which anyone could train apprentices. In North Carolina and the rest of the South, widespread use of indentured servants and slaves weakened the practice of apprenticeship, especially in rural areas.
With the end of slavery in 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau preempted the courts' power to apprentice indigent black children and orphans. From September 1865 to September 1867, the bureau apprenticed hundreds of these children ranging in age from infancy to late teens. Some were bound to learn skilled trades, many to learn farming and housekeeping, and a great number merely to serve as "apprentices or servants."
Although the system of compulsory apprenticeship lasted into the early 1900s, it was used less and less as the number of orphanages with their own agricultural, mechanical, industrial, and commercial training programs increased. The system was dropped altogether upon passage of the Child Welfare Act in 1919.
Voluntary apprenticeship in North Carolina was based on common law rather than statute law until the twentieth century. A father, white or free black, being entitled to the service and obedience of his child until age 21, was able to forge a binding agreement that his child should serve another for one or more years. The Apprenticeship Act of 1889 forbade voluntary apprenticing of children younger than 14 and set the term of their apprenticeship at three to five years. Since 1939 apprentices have been required to be 16 or older.
When slaves were apprenticed, the right of the slave owner to the services of his slave was absolute, and assent of the slave was unnecessary. Apprenticed slaves were generally made to learn skilled crafts that could not be learned on the plantation, such as shipbuilding, house carpentry, and coach making. Although slave craftsmen could not be masters of apprentices, they were sometimes the teachers from whom other African American apprentices learned.
Labor union policies, reluctance of employers to train apprentices who then sought employment elsewhere, and unfair wages and terms of apprenticeship led to the National Apprenticeship Act (or Fitzgerald Act) of 1937. In North Carolina provisions of the federal act were implemented in the 1939 Voluntary Apprenticeship Act, which provided for the creation of apprenticeship committees to work with school authorities, employers, and employees in setting up local programs. Agreements were to be signed by the apprentice (and, if a minor, by his or her father) and the employer, and to become effective only after review by the director of apprenticeship.
By the twentieth century's end, only those occupations that remained essentially on a handicraft basis (such as machining and the building trades) or those industries where production varies from unit to unit (such as printing, tool and die making, and molding work) needed apprentices. North Carolina's modern apprenticeship program, coordinated under the Department of Labor, is supported by cooperating industries and businesses, labor unions, technical institutes, and high schools.
Guion G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina: A Social History (1937).
W. J. Rorabaugh, The Craft Apprentice from Franklin to the Machine Age in America (1985).
Apprenticeship, NCLabor : http://www.nclabor.com/appren/appindex.htm
National Apprenticeship Act, Seal of the United States Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration: http://www.doleta.gov/oa/fitzact.cfm
Apprenticeship, Chapter 94, NC General Assembly: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByChapter/Chapter_94.html
"This indenture from 1759 bonded Jesse Cook, aged seventeen, as an apprentice to Hezekiah Mohun, a Bertie County shipwright, until Cook's twenty-first birthday. "(From Bertie County, NC, County Records, Apprentice Indentures, North Carolina State Archives (CR.010.101.7) Image online from LearnNC. Availble from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/4290 (accessed November 1, 2012).
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When the trauma of circumcision is acknowledged, it is usually framed in terms of the initial pain the child experiences. Circumcision causes trauma. Studies have shown that this trauma alters brain development creates a lasting change in behavior. Entire books have been written about this trauma, and I cover it in my own documentary on the issue of circumcision, American Circumcision.
This trauma is serious. Yet there is another less understood form of trauma that survivors experience once they have become aware of the harm of circumcision. This trauma is the cultural trauma that survivors experience from living in a genital cutting culture.
Cultural trauma is understood and acknowledged on other social issues. For example, racial justice activists use the term racial trauma or race-based traumatic stress to describe the trauma they experience from racism or interacting with a systemically racist culture. To illustrate this concept, imagine a black man walking alone at night when a police car pulls up slowly alongside him. The moment he sees that police car, the man might become tense or afraid. This fear is due to the cultural knowledge of black men’s experiences with police. Even if in this particular the police officer would be nice or doesn’t even see him, the man might still experience stress due to the culture itself. Racial justice activists suggest that these repeated experiences can add up to a form of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which they call race-based traumatic stress (RBTS).
Most men I know who are aware of the harm of circumcision also have repeated stressful experiences around the issue. They are used to having their feelings invalidated when they speak about being sexually assaulted as children. They might have lost friends or family for speaking up. They have endured fragile outbursts from perpetrators when they bring awareness to the harm of circumcision. They have endured repeated body-shaming both for what they have and the body part they lost due to circumcision. They are regularly exposed to cultural propaganda telling them that the abuse inflicted on them as children is normal and that they are somehow better for it. These repeated experiences can also add up to a form of complex PTSD due to the trauma of living in a genital cutting culture.
What are some examples of this cultural trauma?
Stress around potential victims. Many survivors report becoming tense when they see pregnant women. Whereas most people experience happiness for the new life coming into the world, survivors of genital cutting perceive a potential threat to that child’s safety if they are male in a culture that normalizes male genital cutting.
Stress around family. Many survivors report becoming estranged from their family after speaking out about circumcision or questioning their parents about it. This is very similar to the familial homophobia many gay activists have written about, yet there is no word for this among survivors of genital cutting and the added component that the people they would most want support and comfort from are also perpetrators.
Stress around medical perpetrators. Many survivors avoid doctor’s visits because they do not want to be around or give money to people engaged in abusing children the way they were abused. This means when survivors do need medical care, they must choose between their psychological and emotional safety and their health.
Stress around their child’s medical needs. Some survivors also avoid bringing their children to the doctor due to the fact doctors often sexually assault intact children by forcibly retracting their foreskin. (One survey showed that 43% of intact boys have been forcibly retracted, often by a doctor.) Survivors often have to risk their child being sexually assaulted to get him medical care.
Stress around birth. Hospitals solicit for circumcision an average of eight times per mother. Hospitals have also circumcised children without parental consent. Many parents aware of circumcision report being tense and hypervigilant in hospital birth settings and watching their new baby like a hawk to ensure no harm comes to him. Even if home birthing, the possibility of any need for medical help carries with it the possibility of perpetrators entering the sacred space of the birth of their child.
Stress around sexuality. Every time a circumcised man sees his body, there is a visible scar that can remind him of his own abuse. He might feel pain during sex or erections. There might be ongoing harm due to circumcision complications. There can also be stress in relationships, especially if the survivor’s partner(s) do not understand his feelings.
Stress around media. Media often reinforces dominant narratives about genital cutting being somehow “better” or “beneficial.” Seeing media that portrays their feelings of survivors as invalid can be triggering. Even seeing the male body in media can remind survivors either of what they do not have or what is normalized in genital cutting cultures.
Stress around Jewish perpetrators. Evening mentioning this source of trauma can provoke fragility and abuse from Jewish perpetrators. Jewish perpetrators often frame survivors’ trauma and resulting feelings as “antisemitism” and use that discourse as a justification to harm and target survivors for speaking about sexual assault they endured as children. Some survivors feel rightfully tense around Jewish people because they have experienced or know they might experience harassment and abuse from Jewish people if they share their testimony. Others feel tension for the same reason any survivor might feel tension around a perpetrator.
Stress around Jewish victims. Other survivors feel tense around Jewish people for the same reason they feel tense around new mothers. They know that children born into Jewish homes risk enduring the same abuse they endured as children. Seeing potential victims or other people they know are survivors reminds them of their own trauma, even if those other survivors are in false consciousness about their own abuse.
Stress around sharing feelings. There can be cultural stress if the survivor shares his feelings and they are not seen, heard, or acknowledged by those around him. Many survivors have to be careful about who they share their feelings with due to the ridicule and verbal abuse normalized against men who share their feelings on this issue. This abuse serves the cultural function of protecting the dominant narrative around circumcision so that perpetrators can continue to say “I’ve never heard anyone complain,” since those who do complain are often abused into silence.
Stress around bystanders. In order for a child to be abused, multiple aspects of society must fail to protect him. Survivors often feel stress around any element of society they feel should have protected them from child abuse that did not, especially if that aspect of society engages in or contributes to the abuse. This can include elements of government, religion, or the family.
These are just some examples. Once survivors become more aware of the concept of cultural trauma, I’m certain they will identify more. It is important to name and talk about these traumas because acknowledging them is the first step to changing and healing them.
To learn more, read my book Children’s Justice.
I just wanted to say thank you for this piece. I am going into sex-therapy specifically to help survivors of forced genital cutting / circumcision and I think this sheds so much light on the societal issues faced when one tries to find hope and healing in a culture that continues to normalize this behavior. This is something I will share with clients to help them understand the complexity of their feelings and know they are not alone. Thanks again!
Thank you for your article and the attendant issues. I definitely identified with my response to learning that someone was pregnant - I was unable to communicate any joy until I knew that the baby was a girl. And then how to raise the (its the parents' decision) subject, when minds are already made up based on the father's state. My marriage proposal (in 1973) carried the agreement that I would be present at the birth of our children and that they would not be circumcised - both unusual at the time! Since the children's act of 2005 (in South Africa) outlawed circumcision of children under 16 except for religious or medical reasons, the law is now on our side. The trump card now is being able to say ...besides which it is illegal. (people still manage to get it done) | <urn:uuid:718b2381-af0e-4947-afff-f92ea00ead95> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.hegemonmedia.com/p/the-cultural-trauma-of-circumcision | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652149.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605153700-20230605183700-00519.warc.gz | en | 0.96945 | 1,640 | 2.953125 | 3 | {
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How do you write a great scientific paper and have it published in a good journal?
2:04:19Suggested clip 55 secondsHow to write a great scientific paper, and have it published in a good …YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clip
How do you write a good journal article?
Writing a journal articleThink about the four A’s: aims, audience, awareness, and articulation. Get to know the journal you want to submit to. Stick to the point. Create a logical framework. Don’t be afraid to explain. Clarity is key. Be aware of the other literature in your field (and reference it) Make your references current and relevant.
Which journal is best for my paper?
If only researchers in your field are likely to want to read your study, then a field-specific journal would be best. The types of articles the journal publishes. If you are looking to publish a review, case study or a theorem, ensure that your target journal accepts theses type of manuscripts.
What are the qualities of a good journal?
Characteristics of Scholarly Articles and JournalsOften have a formal appearance with tables, graphs, and diagrams.Always have an abstract or summary paragraph above the text; may have sections decribing methodology.Articles are written by an authority or expert in the field.
What are the features of a journal?
Important Characteristics of JournalBook of Original Entry. Journal is a book of first entry or original entry. Chronological Order. Complete Information. Sequential Control. Standard Rules. Types of Journal. Recording of Transaction.
What are the major benefits of journals?
Journaling helps control your symptoms and improve your mood by:Helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns.Tracking any symptoms day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better control them.Providing an opportunity for positive self-talk and identifying negative thoughts and behaviors.
What are examples of journals?
Here are some different kinds of journals that many writers find fulfilling.Travel Journal. Are you planning a trip sometime soon? School Journal. A school journal can work like an ongoing, in-depth “to-do” list. Project Journal. Diet Journal. Therapy Journal. Dream Journal. Gratitude Journal. Family Journal.
Why is journaling bad?
Here are some examples of how journaling can be harmful: Journaling may cause you to overthink your life. Journaling can be too confronting at times. Writing about negativity might cause you to spiral down.
How does journaling affect the brain?
Keeps Memory Sharp. Journaling helps keep your brain in tip-top shape. Not only does it boost memory and comprehension, it also increases working memory capacity, which may reflect improved cognitive processing. Boosts Mood.
What should I journal everyday?
Recap: 6 Journaling IdeasWrite down your goals every day.Keep a daily log.Journal three things you’re grateful for every day.Journal your problems.Journal your stresses.Journal your answer to “What’s the best thing that happened today?” every night before bed.
How does journaling help anxiety?
One way journaling can relieve stress is by helping you work through anxious feelings. Left unchecked, anxiety can lead to stress and rumination. Some of the roots of your anxiety can be minimized through a bit of focused examination.
What should I include in my journal?
Here are several ways you can use your journal.Record daily events for later reference. Celebrate #smallwins. Break down future goals and next steps into actionable to-do lists. Arm yourself with words of wisdom. Capture those brilliant ideas as soon as they occur to you. Take notes on things you read, hear and watch.
What is in the 5 minute journal?
The Five-Minute Journal provides daily guided gratitude exercises and is the perfect tool to hone your ability to focus on the good in life. This journal is designed to get you to elevate yourself, be happier, improve relationships, and shift your mind to state of optimism.
What do you write in a journal before bed?
Begin your journaling each night before you go to bed. In your journal, write down 10 to 12 experiences from your day. The experience could be anything. It could be something you experience yourself or something you observe.
What should I write in my notebook?
Empty Notebook?: 30 Ideas to Fill Up Your Blank Journals and NotebooksLove Notes. When say, love notes, I don’t mean the ones from your partner (though you could definitely do that!). Favorite Quotes. Book Reviews. Write Down Your Dreams. Lists. Sketchbook. Gratitude Journal. Life Lessons.
What do I write on the first page of my new notebook?
New Journal? What to Put on the First Page.Write your name in the journal. Along with an email address so people can reach you if you lose it. Write the starting date and a dash to be filled in later. When you are done with the journal, you can add the second date. Put in a simple design. Write a meaningful quote on that empty page. Leave it blank.
What do you write in a small notebook?
Use a tiny notebook to jot down favorite notes, quotes, or memories and give it to a loved one….Here are some things you can include:Inspirational quotes.Song lyrics.Favorite memories.Notes of encouragement for tough days.
How do I fill an empty notebook?
29:43Suggested clip · 119 secondsHow To Fill Your Empty Notebooks || 30+ Ideas!! – YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clip
What should I do with my empty notebook?
15 Creative Uses for Your Empty NotebooksUse it as a plain old diary. I hope I’m not turning you off the idea of journaling by calling it a “plain old diary”. Take notes from your learning. Record your dreams. Write down your routines. Use it as a planner. Use it for your blog. Use it as a catch-all notebook. Learn a language. | <urn:uuid:2a1c904b-6f89-4646-a415-7b4d7ef3d281> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://collegeviewbooks.com/how-do-you-write-a-great-scientific-paper-and-have-it-published-in-a-good-journal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943747.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321225117-20230322015117-00508.warc.gz | en | 0.885846 | 1,274 | 3.125 | 3 | {
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[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space empty_h=”0″][vc_column_text][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hQZCiZ21fk[/youtube][/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]*Tutors – please transcribe your student’s answer to the questions. Give feedback and correct his/her answer once your student finishes his/her answer. Please do not stop your students while they’re talking and wait patiently until they finish their sentences unless they ask for help.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]*Use these templates: questions and answers / vocabulary
Go to File – Make a copy – You’ll get your own template – Share it with your student[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space empty_h=”0″][vc_separator][vc_column_text]
[hs height=”450″ theme=”3d-dark” buttons=”true” ]
00:16 Oh, my!
00:17 This is a flood.
00:19 Help! Help!
00:22 But first, you need to learn about floods.
00:26 Zoom in!
00:28 Many of you might think that floods are just overflowing of water!
00:33 Well, it is much more than that.
00:39 An event when a dry piece of land suddenly gets submerged in water,..
00:44 ..is usually known as floods!
00:47 Oh, don’t take it lightly.
00:49 A flood comes in all depths,…
00:52 sometimes it is so high that you don’t even have a place to go.
00:58 The power of floods is sometimes very dangerous,
01:02 it can knock your car off and sweep you off your feet too!
01:08 Causes of floods are:
01:10 Heavy rains.
01:11 River overflow.
01:14 Or hurricanes.
01:16 Ice or snow melts.
01:18 Breaking of dams etc.
01:27 So, a flood can be divided majorly into 3 categories.
01:33 Slow on-set floods.
01:36 this kind of flood usually happens when water bodies over flood their banks.
01:42 As the name suggests, this one develops slowly.
01:46 Which can last for days or even weeks.
01:51 Rapid on-set floods.
01:53 This kind of flood lasts for a day or two.
01:57 Even though it is destructive, it still takes a little time to develop…
02:02 ..and thus giving people a chance to escape!
02:07 Now comes the most dangerous of them all.
02:10 Flash floods!
02:12 This kind occurs within a very short time,…
02:16 ..that is, 2-6 hours, and sometimes within minutes.
02:21 This doesn’t give any time to prepare, no warnings, no words of caution!
02:27 Just destruction!
02:30 But hey! Don’t lose heart!
02:33 We can do our bits to prevent floods.
02:36 Yes, that’s right!
02:38 Planting more trees help preventing floods.
02:43 The roots of plants and trees dig deep into the soil and create spaces between soil particles,..
02:50 ..which helps in seeping and holding on to floodwater.
02:55 TRIVIA TIME!
02:58 Floods can even occur in deserts!
03:01 In Ancient Egypt, people relied on the Nile River floods because they created enriched soil for farmers.
03:10 So, what are the three types of floods?
03:14 Well, you keep thinking and post your answers in the comments section below.
03:19 This is me Zooming out!
03:23 tune in next time for more fun facts.
03:27 Hey, kids! You liked my videos, didn’t you?
03:31 Before you go, don’t forget to click on the subscribe button and the bell.
03:36 So you won’t miss out on my latest videos.
03:41 See you. | <urn:uuid:ff92c356-58d8-4e21-9938-dc7c4bd8b6b5> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.gogoten.com/2018/03/28/floods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585380.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20211021005314-20211021035314-00361.warc.gz | en | 0.843889 | 955 | 3.40625 | 3 | {
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When the queen of Sheba heard about Solomon's fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. She had a large group of servants with her and camels carrying spices, jewels, and much gold. When she came to Solomon, she talked with him about all she had in mind,
and Solomon answered all her questions. Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.
The queen of Sheba saw that Solomon was very wise. She saw the palace he had built,
the food on his table, his many officers, the palace servants and their good clothes, the servants who served Solomon his wine and their good clothes. She saw the whole burnt offerings he made in the Temple of the Lord. All these things amazed her.
So she said to King Solomon, "What I heard in my own country about your achievements and wisdom is true.
I did not believe it then, but now I have come and seen it with my own eyes. I was not told even half of your great wisdom! You are much greater than I had heard.
Your men and officers are very lucky, because in always serving you, they are able to hear your wisdom.
Praise the Lord your God who was pleased to make you king. He has put you on his throne to rule for the Lord your God, because your God loves the people of Israel and supports them forever. He has made you king over them to keep justice and to rule fairly."
Then she gave the king about nine thousand pounds of gold and many spices and jewels. No one had ever given such spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
Hiram's men and Solomon's men brought gold from Ophir, juniper wood, and jewels.
King Solomon used the juniper wood to build steps for the Temple of the Lord and the palace and to make lyres and harps for the musicians. No one in Judah had ever seen such beautiful things as these.
King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba everything she wanted and asked for, even more than she had brought to him. Then she and her servants returned to her own country.
Every year King Solomon received about fifty thousand pounds of gold.
Besides that, he also received gold from traders and merchants. All the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land also brought gold and silver.
King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold, each of which contained about seven and one-half pounds of hammered gold.
He also made three hundred smaller shields of hammered gold, each of which contained about four pounds of gold. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.
The king built a large throne of ivory and covered it with pure gold.
The throne had six steps on it and a gold footstool. There were armrests on both sides of the chair, and each armrest had a lion beside it.
Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one lion at each end of each step. Nothing like this had ever been made for any other kingdom.
All of Solomon's drinking cups, as well as the dishes in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, were made of pure gold. In Solomon's time people did not think silver was valuable.
King Solomon had many ships that he sent out to trade, with Hiram's men as the crews. Every three years the ships returned, bringing back gold, silver, ivory, apes, and baboons.
King Solomon had more riches and wisdom than all the other kings on earth.
All the kings of the earth wanted to see Solomon and listen to the wisdom God had given him.
Year after year everyone who came brought gifts of silver and gold, clothes, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.
Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and he had twelve thousand horses. He kept some in special cities for the chariots, and others he kept with him in Jerusalem.
Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt.
In Jerusalem the king made silver as common as stones and cedar trees as plentiful as the fig trees on the western hills.
Solomon imported horses from Egypt and all other countries.
Everything else Solomon did, from the beginning to the end, is written in the records of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer, who wrote about Jeroboam, Nebat's son.
Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years.
Then Solomon died and was buried in Jerusalem, the city of David, his father. And Solomon's son Rehoboam became king in his place. | <urn:uuid:698fc9fd-dae5-4b67-a12c-201429e8969f> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://www.biblestudytools.com/ncv/2-chronicles/9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042986423.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002306-00082-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988398 | 987 | 2.640625 | 3 | {
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Beta (plasma physics)
The beta of a plasma, symbolized by β, is the ratio of the plasma pressure (p = n kB T) to the magnetic pressure (pmag = B²/2μ0). The term is commonly used in studies of the Sun and Earth's magnetic field, and in the field of fusion power designs.
In the fusion power field, plasma is often confined using strong magnets. Since the temperature of the fuel scales with pressure, reactors attempt to reach the highest pressures possible. The costs of large magnets roughly scales like β½. Therefore, beta can be thought of as a ratio of money out to money in for a reactor, and beta can be thought of (very approximately) as an economic indicator of reactor efficiency. For tokamaks, betas of larger than 0.05 or 5% are desired for economically viable electrical production.
The same term is also used when discussing the interactions of the solar wind with various magnetic fields. For example, beta in the corona of the Sun is about 0.01.
Nuclear fusion occurs when the nuclei of two atoms approach closely enough for the nuclear force to pull them together into a single larger nucleus. The strong force is opposed by the electrostatic force created by the positive charge of the nuclei's protons, pushing the nuclei apart. The amount of energy that is needed to overcome this repulsion is known as the Coulomb barrier. The amount of energy released by the fusion reaction when it occurs may be greater or less than the Coulomb barrier. Generally, lighter nuclei with a smaller number of protons and greater number of neutrons will have the greatest ratio of energy released to energy required, and the majority of fusion power research focusses on the use of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen.
Even using these isotopes, the Coulomb barrier is large enough that the nuclei must be given great amounts of energy before they will fuse. Although there are a number of ways to do this, the simplest is to heat the gas mixture, which, according to the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, will result in a small number of particles with the required energy even when the gas as a whole is relatively "cool" compared to the Coulomb barrier energy. In the case of the D-T mixture, rapid fusion will occur when the gas is heated to about 100 million degrees.
This temperature is well beyond the physical limits of any material container that might contain the gasses, which has led to a number of different approaches to solving this problem. The main approach relies on the nature of the fuel at high temperatures. When the fusion fuel gasses are heated to the temperatures required for rapid fusion, they will be completely ionized into a plasma, a mixture of electrons and nuclei forming a globally neutral gas. As the particles within the gas are charged, this allows them to be manipulated by electric or magnetic fields. This gives rise to the majority of controlled fusion concepts.
Even if this temperature is reached, the gas will be constantly losing energy to its surroundings (cooling off). This gives rise to the concept of the "confinement time", the amount of time the plasma is maintained at the required temperature. However, the fusion reactions might deposit their energy back into the plasma, heating it back up, which is a function of the density of the plasma. These considerations are combined in the Lawson criterion, or its modern form, the fusion triple product. In order to be efficient, the rate of fusion energy being deposited into the reactor would ideally be greater than the rate of loss to the surroundings, a condition known as "ignition".
Magnetic confinement fusion approach
In magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) reactor designs, the plasma is confined within a vacuum chamber using a series of magnetic fields. These fields are normally created using a combination of electromagnets and electrical currents running through the plasma itself. Systems using only magnets are generally built using the stellarator approach, while those using current only are the pinch machines. The most studied approach since the 1970s is the tokamak, where the fields generated by the external magnets and internal current are roughly equal in magnitude.
In all of these machines, the density of the particles in the plasma is very low, often described as a "poor vacuum". This limits its approach to the triple product along the temperature and time axis. This requires magnetic fields on the order of tens of Teslas, currents in the megaampere, and confinement times on the order of tens of seconds. Generating currents of this magnitude is relatively simple, and a number of devices from large banks of capacitors to homopolar generators have been used. However, generating the required magnetic fields is another issue, generally requiring expensive superconducting magnets. For any given reactor design, the cost is generally dominated by the cost of the magnets.
Given that the magnets are a dominant factor in reactor design, and that density and temperature combine to produce pressure, the ratio of the pressure of the plasma to the magnetic energy density naturally becomes a useful figure of merit when comparing MCF designs. In effect, the ratio illustrates how effectively a design confines its plasma. This ratio, beta, is widely used in the fusion field:
is normally measured in terms of the total magnetic field. However, in any real-world design, the strength of the field varies over the volume of the plasma, so to be specific, the average beta is sometimes referred to as the "beta toroidal". In the tokamak design the total field is a combination of the external toroidal field and the current-induced poloidal one, so the "beta poloidal" is sometimes used to compare the relative strengths of these fields. And as the external magnetic field is the driver of reactor cost, "beta external" is used to consider just this contribution.
Troyon beta limit
In a tokamak, for a stable plasma, is always much smaller than 1 (otherwise it would collapse). Ideally, a MCF device would want to have as high beta as possible, as this would imply the minimum amount of magnetic force needed for confinement. In practice, most tokamaks operate at beta of order 0.01, or 1%. Spherical tokamaks typically operate at beta values an order of magnitude higher. The record was set by the START device at 0.4, or 40%.
These low achievable betas are due to instabilities in the plasma generated through the interaction of the fields and the motion of the particles due to the induced current. As the amount of current is increased in relation to the external field, these instabilities become uncontrollable. In early pinch experiments the current dominated the field components and the kink and sausage instabilities were common, today collectively referred to as "low-n instabilities". As the relative strength of the external magnetic field is increased, these simple instabilities are damped out, but at a critical field other "high-n instabilities" will invariably appear, notably the ballooning mode. For any given fusion reactor design, there is a limit to the beta it can sustain. As beta is a measure of economic merit, a practical tokamak based fusion reactor must be able to sustain a beta above some critical value, which is calculated to be around 5%.
Through the 1980s the understanding of the high-n instabilities grew considerably. Shafranov and Yurchenko first published on the issue in 1971 in a general discussion of tokamak design, but it was the work by Wesson and Sykes in 1983 and Francis Troyon in 1984 that developed these concepts fully. Troyon's considerations, or the "Troyon limit", closely matched the real-world performance of existing machines. It has since become so widely used that it is often known simply as the beta limit in tokamaks.
The Troyon limit is given as:
Where I is the plasma current, is the external magnetic field, and a is the minor radius of the tokamak (see torus for an explanation of the directions). was determined numerically, and is normally given as 0.028 if I is measured in megaamperes. However, it is also common to use 2.8 if is expressed as a percentage.
Given that the Troyon limit suggested a around 2.5 to 4%, and a practical reactor had to have a around 5%, the Troyon limit was a serious concern when it was introduced. However, it was found that changed dramatically with the shape of the plasma, and non-circular systems would have much better performance. Experiments on the DIII-D machine (the second D referring to the cross-sectional shape of the plasma) demonstrated higher performance, and the spherical tokamak design outperformed the Troyon limit by about 10 times.
Beta is also sometimes used when discussing the interaction of plasma in space with different magnetic fields. A common example is the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetic fields of the Sun or Earth. In this case, the betas of these natural phenomena are generally much smaller than those seen in reactor designs; the Sun's corona has a beta around 1%. Active regions have much higher beta, over 1 in some cases, which makes the area unstable.
- Bromberg, pg. 18
- "Conditions for a fusion reaction" Archived January 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, JET
- Wesson, J: "Tokamaks", 3rd edition page 115, Oxford University Press, 2004
- Kenrō Miyamoto, "Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion", Springer, 2005 , pg. 62
- Alan Sykes, "The Development of the Spherical Tokamak" Archived July 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, ICPP, Fukuoka September 2008
- "Scientific Progress in Magnetic Fusion, ITER, and the Fusion Development Path", SLAC Colloquium, 21 April 2003, pg. 17
- Alan Sykes et all, Proceedings of 11th European Conference on Controlled Fusion and Plasma Physics, 1983, pg. 363
- F. Troyon et all, Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Volume 26, pg. 209
- Friedberg, pg. 397
- T. Taylor, "Experimental Achievement of Toroidal Beta Beyond That Predicted by 'Troyon' Scaling", General Atomics, September 1994
- Sykes, pg. 29
- Alan Hood, "The Plasma Beta", Magnetohydrostatic Equilibria, 11 January 2000
- G. Haerendel et all, "High-beta plasma blobs in the morningside plasma sheet", Annales Geophysicae, Volume 17 Number 12, pg. 1592-1601
- G. Allan Gary, "Plasma Beta Above a Solar Active region: Rethinking the Paradigm", Solar Physics, Volume 203 (2001), pg. 71–86
- Joan Lisa Bromberg, "Fusion: Science, Politics, and the Invention of a New Energy Source", MIT Press, 1982
- Jeffrey Freidberg, "Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy", Cambridge University Press, 2007 | <urn:uuid:6f8fe54e-1117-40ea-8332-3499fbaabebc> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_(plasma_physics) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875143695.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20200218120100-20200218150100-00350.warc.gz | en | 0.928961 | 2,309 | 4.125 | 4 | {
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With four new chapters, this updated edition completes the story of the UN’s last sixty-five years, its successes and turbulent past.
Beginning with the birth of the U.N., when Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, and Gromyko set the stage, United Nations: A History brings us a cast of profoundly important and colorful international players: the brilliant Dag Hammarskjöld, who became the most daring, imaginative Secretary-General the U.N. ever had; Nikita Khrushchev, who electrified the General Assembly as he pounded his shoe in protest over Congo; Ralph Bunche, the grandson of a slave and "the Jackie Robinson of American diplomacy," who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his U.N. work in the Middle East; and U.S. ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who walked out of the General Assembly over the Third World's anti-Zion resolution. United Nations: A History is a story filled with action and heartbreak.
United Nations: A History begins with the creation of the organization in 1945. Although its aim was to prevent war, many conflicts have arisen, ranging from the Korean War to the Six-Day War, to genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. Stanley Meisler’s in-depth research examines the crises and many key political leaders. In this second edition, Meisler brings his popular history up to date with accounts of the power struggles of the last fifteen years, specifically spotlighting the terms of secretaries-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, and Ban Ki-moon. This is an important, riveting, and impartial guide through the past and recent events of the sixty-five-year history of the United Nations.
United Nations: A History is available at the following booksellers...
paperback isbn: 0802145299
Atlantic Monthly Press (Grove/Atlantic)
"Stanley Meisler tells the story of the United Nations, its promise and its problems, with clarity and authority. He brings to life the history of the world organisation and a half-century of America's hopes for and frustration with world government. Read the chapter on Katanga and you will see the U.N.'s recent failure in Somalia foreshadowed. You will learn why China is almost by chance one of five permanent members on the Security Council, how the council's veto power was adopted at Stalin's demand, why Adlai Stevenson left his post as U.S. ambassador in lonely despair, how Kurt Waldheim hid his past to become Secretary-General, how the Bush administration maneuvered the United Nations into supporting Operation Desert Storm and much, much more. This is the definitive account of the United Nations for a general audience, told by a master."
— Jim Hoagland, chief foreign correspondent, Washington Post
"Meisler ... avoids the ideological debates and instead offers a straightforward history. In an account sprinkled with rich anecdotes and colorful portraits of figures like Dag Hammarskjold and Adlai Stevenson, Mr. Meisler tells the story of interventions around the world, from the murky interludes in Congo and Somalia to the more clear-cut actions in Korea and the Persian Gulf. He repeatedly illustrates the limits of the organization's power, showing that it never fulfilled the hopes of its supporters or confirmed the fears of its detractors. But his account also debunks two widely held beliefs: that the United Nations was gridlocked and irrelevant through the cold war, and that it has been spectacularly incompetent since the cold war's end."
— David Callahan, New York Times Book Review
"A strikingly readable, accurate history of the UN's first half century. [Meisler's] made the organization's relatively un-lionized heroes - such as Ralph Bunche, Dag Hammarskjold, and Brian Urquhart, inventors of global peacekeeping - come alive... Meisler crisply escorts readers behind the scenes to witness the personal collisions, nobility, and foibles of major actors and bit players in many of the major crises of the nuclear age, global decolonization, and the cold war. And he traces in vivid personal terms the UN's fledgling attempts to spread care for children, preservation of the planetary environment, and protection of human rights worldwide. These are warts-and-all annals. Bureaucratic bumbling and clashing national ambitions are not overlooked."
— Earl Foell, former chief editorial writer, Christian Science Monitor
"A solid, straightforward appraisal of the world's greatest attempt at peace-making. Stan Meisler has the storyteller's gift for important and rich detail that makes history come alive. An extraordinarily interesting and informative book."
— Paul Duke, journalist and former moderator of Washington Week
"I laughed and cried at this wonderful telling of the United States' love-hate relationship with our most famous child, the United Nations. It's a story Americans should read before it's too late - or just because Stanley Meisler, one of the best foreign correspondents we have, writes it so well."
— Richard Reeves, syndicated columnist and author
"... From the start the United Nations, as Stanley Meisler shows in his recent book, had to operate pragmatically on political assumptions very different from those envisaged by its founders... Meisler rightly says, 'It could boast a distinguished and action-packed history,' even if it was not what the founders had in mind..." [complete review]
— Brian Urquhart, former Undersecretary General of the United Nations, The New York Review of Books
"Balanced and insightful, this book is a must for anyone who wants to understand where the U.N. has been and, more importantly, how we might best use its potential for the future."
— Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
“Meisler recounts an exciting story of the U.N.’s origins and agonies. Using an engaging biographical technique, he focuses on the U.N.’s key players.”
Blanche Wiesen Cook, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An excellent easy-to-read history of the UN with particular emphasis on the great crises and on the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of the Secretaries-General."
— Christopher Spencer, former senior advisor, Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
"...as Stanley Meisler's excellent political history of the UN underlines, America was largely responsible for the UN's birth and, as the leading power in the Security Council, is now partly responsible for its decline - and not just because it does not pay its bills..."
— The Economist
"The Korean War. Suez. The Congo. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Six-Day War. The Persian Gulf War. Somalia. Rwanda. Bosnia. Meisler, who reports on foreign affairs and the United Nations for the Los Angeles Times, surveys 50 years of U.N. diplomatic triumphs and failures."
— Library Journal
"This lucid, popular version of the first 50 years of UN history by former Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent Meisler is organized around the various crises the UN has faced since its inception: Israeli independence, Korea, Suez, the Congo, Cuban missiles, Vietnam, the Six-Day War, the Gulf war and also includes chapters on the various secretaries-general. Meisler doesn't pull any punches in assessing the policies and personalities of the world organization, excoriating former secretary-general Kurt Waldheim for concealing his past ('it seems like a fortuitous metaphor for the United Nations to be led during the 1970s by a Nazi and a liar'). Yet he is fair-minded in his presentation, opining that 'Though cautious, [Waldheim] was an adequate and active secretary general.' This up-to-date account concludes with chapters detailing the UN's travails in the quagmires of Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. A handy primer for those who want to know the score but haven't taken the time to unravel the byzantine workings of the world organization."
— Publishers Weekly
watch Stanley Meisler discuss the history of the United Nations on C-Span
RELATED ARTICLES BY STANLEY MEISLER:
Transparency at Ban Ki-Moon’s United Nations
News Commentary - January 22, 2007
Kofi Annan at the UN: An American Waste
News Commentary - December 4, 2006
Defaming Kofi Annan
News Commentary - September 10, 2006
It works well. Tweak it.
Los Angeles Times Commentary - November 6, 2005
Bolton and History
News Commentary - March 24, 2005
United Nations in Crisis: The American Challenge
News Commentary (Crayenborgh Lecture) - May 7, 2004
Badgering the United Nations
News Commentary - March 2, 2003
Man in the Middle: Travels with Kofi Annan
Smithsonian Magazine - January 2003
Kofi Annan and the Nobel Peace Prize
News Commentary - October 30, 2001
The Revenge of Boutros Boutros-Ghali
News Commentary - July 21, 1999
listen to Stanley Meisler discuss the United Nations
National Public Radio (NPR) - December 11, 1996
Getting Rid of Boutros-Ghali
News Commentary - October 18, 1996
900+ United Nations related articles by Stanley Meisler
Los Angeles Times Archives - 1985 to present
Hot Spots: Inside Look at the United Nations and Global Crises
- Hot Spots is a primer of the United Nations in action, offering detailed descriptions of what it tries to do and how it succeeds and sometimes fails. There are snippets of famous scenes in U.N. history, including Adlai Stevenson's speech during the Cuban missile crisis. The CD-ROM also runs liberal excerpts from Stanley Meisler's United Nations: The First Fifty Years and other major sources of U.N. lore and history. | <urn:uuid:6e5cd52e-ac69-4781-95e1-50350d85ef02> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.stanleymeisler.com/book/united-nations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511023.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20231002232712-20231003022712-00344.warc.gz | en | 0.927005 | 2,076 | 2.640625 | 3 | {
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The 2011 Census of Agriculture by Statistics Canada reveals the past five years have seen a 10 percent reduction in the number of farms in our northern neighbor’s inventory.
But the average farm size has increased by about seven percent. In one province, the number of farms is down 17 percent, while the average farm size is up 15 percent.
What’s up with that?
To find out, I visited with the Adams County, Pennsylvania, Ag Land Preservation Board Director Ellen Dayhoff and GIS Analyst /Preservation Specialist Mark Clowney.
In 2007, the average size of a preserved farm in Pennsylvania was 123 acres, Clowney said, but the average size of an actual farming operation was 500 acres. The difference?
A preserved farm may not actually be in production. If it is, it may not be the landowner doing the farming. While an urban dweller may think a whole acre to be a large area, 123 acres of farmland will support only a few cattle or a hay, corn, or soybean field. Chances are profits will be slim, if they exist at all.
“If they were making money – a profit – they’d want to stay in it (active farming),” Dayhoff commented.
Instead, they sell or lease the land to other, larger producers, who, although they also may own as few as 123 acres, actually control hundreds, sometimes thousands more.
Hence, as noted in the Canadian study, the number of farms decreases while the number of acres farmed increases.
It is a picture I have seen, and written about, elsewhere. In 1998 I moved to a newspaper in South-Central Pennsylvania, the Gettysburg Times, and began writing about many of the same issues I had written about in Central Maine, my previous home. Farmers were selling out, cashing in their retirement accounts because their kids, if they had any, we’re not interested in working so hard for so little return.
The decision to sell, especially for those with a couple hundred acres, was made easier by land speculators and developers knocking at the gate offering, in many cases, more than 10 times what the land was worth as farmland. Home buyers were able to buy new homes in rural areas for prices they thought were a bargain, but which local young residents – and many older residents – could not afford.
The prices were so attractive that the new buyers found it economical to commute two hours or more between their jobs and their new homes.
And it was a period when county farmland preservation programs were clamoring for taxpayer funding so they could buy development rights – roughly the difference between what land was worth as farmland and what it would be worth growing houses.
They might not keep a farmer farming, but with an easement prohibiting development they would at least keep a developer from paving over the cornfield. Often, the owner of a small preserved parcel – in that average 123-acre category – would sell or lease the land to a working farmer, who will use it to increase overall production, and profits.
Adams county has preserved nearly 20,000 acres of farmland since it was established in 1990.
The decision to quit farming usually is the result of a math problem: too high cost and too little profit. The rising cost of oil, for instance, adds to the cost of operating machinery, as well as the cost of feed and fertilizer.
“A lot of them work off the farm,” Mark Clowney said of younger farmers need for medical insurance and other benefits.
About 80 percent of beginning farmers and their spouses find work in other industries to supplement the benefits they cannot afford in their primary endeavor.
“Little guys are in niche markets such as organic growing – or (the land) is going to a bigger guy,” Clowney said.
Diversification is the profit watchword. Operations such as the Wilkinsons, Clowneys, and Hesses have multiple generations, milk at least hundreds of cows, and farm 500 to 4,000 acres. Some raise corn, pumpkins, hay, and soybeans. In many cases, they produce milk and also harvest and some haul hay and straw to mushroom growers in other states.
A few miles from my home, Mason-Dixon Farm’s 2,200 dairy cows virtually milk themselves in an automated system, methane generates electricity the farm sells to utilities, and farmers from around the globe visit to learn innovative methods of feeding hungry consumers.
The traditionally depicted family farm – with a few head of dairy cows, or a farm stand selling fresh produce to passers-by – looked for awhile as though it was on the endangered species list, but it may be staging a comeback. A new generation of growers is bringing with it computers and collaborations, such as Young Growers Alliance, their ancestors only two generations ago would have considered anathematic to the agricultural way of life.
They are cooperating in promoting shared farmers markets, and trucking fresh produce to big city restaurants. “Locally Grown,” to those eateries, has come to mean the food was picked this morning, maybe last night, and is being served this evening, and this new crop of growers is capitalizing on the demand.
A growing interest in food sources has raised the demand for unprocessed milk, as well as enticed small producers to make ice cream and goat cheese and raise heirloom tomatoes and kiwis. Community gardens are proliferating, including in places one hardly thinks of as rural – rooftops in New York City, for instance.
“If they were making money – a profit – they’d want to stay in it,” Dayhoff said of farmers who were leaving the life.
Consumer demand for a variety of fresh, safe, tasteful, food may turn around the numbers – giving us more, smaller, and more specialized farms.
That can only be good.
Photo by Runner Jenny
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- Richard Nixon: The Last Liberal President? ~ Economy, Energy & Environment, Featured, Legal, Political 28 Jul, at 12 : 27 PM
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- PA Pension Debt has passed $66 billion ~ Featured, Pennsylvania Issues, Political, Watch Dog 6 May, at 11 : 31 AM | <urn:uuid:b0435410-6fa3-43e3-875a-0b08cf0da697> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://www.rockthecapital.com/05/18/15522/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917120694.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031200-00635-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972287 | 1,319 | 2.8125 | 3 | {
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} | Industrial |
Before you read any further, please be aware that none of this post will make sense unless you've read this first.
The minor 7th chord consists of a stack of alternating major and minor thirds: min 3rd, maj 3rd, min 3rd, maj 3rd. It's always been my favorite chord, and at the time of writing the post linked above I was even vaguely aware that there was some connection between this chord and the chord progression I was analysing. However, I was so new to harmonic analysis at that time that I was happy to leave the analysis at a series of chords.
It's only very recently that I've been able to piece together and understand some of the connections I've always sensed existed between a handful of musical patterns and elements. This post is an attempt to explain these connections, with the aid of some examples. I still have much to learn about this topic, and I'm sure there will be many more blog posts to write as I make new discoveries.
Let's say we're in the key of B flat minor. In this key, the notes which correspond to the degrees of the scale that form the Chord Progression of Resignation are B flat, D flat, E flat and G flat, from the bottom up:
Let's now invert this chord to the 2nd inversion, so it starts on E flat (note that the dominant of E flat is B flat...) The resulting chord is E flat minor 7th:
The notes used in the examples above are 4 of the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale. If we were still in B flat minor (which we're not, since E flat is our new tonic), the missing note (an A flat) would form the 7th degree of the scale - a fairly common addition to the 'pure' chord progression of resignation.
The pentatonic scale is the mode you get from playing only the black keys of the piano (although it can be transposed into any key). It's an interesting scale in that it's very pure sounding - you can combine any of its 5 notes, or play them all at once, and as long as you stay within that mode nothing will ever sound jarringly dissonant.
It's also quite tonally ambiguous - shifting from major to minor and between keys is effortless. I've yet to figure out what gives the pentatonic scale this ambiguous quality, as - depending on which note you begin it on - the degrees of the scale that are 'missing' vary.
The pentatonic scale is prevalent in the traditional music of many vastly different and geographically separated cultures. This can hardly be attributed to coincidence, and the discovery of its relationship to the 'chord of resignation', and by assosciation the chord progression of resignation, has only reinforced my impression that there's something fundamentally significant about the pentatonic scale.
Below are some examples of the 'chord of resignation'. As with the chord prog list, I'll add to this over time, so check back! (Quite a few examples I could easily include here would double with ones already in the chord prog
list, so I'm leaving some - though not all - of them out.)
To make collecting examples easier, I'm attempting to group them by harmonic structure a little.
The following examples simply use the minor 7th chord in its purest form:
1. Leo Ornstein - Piano Sonata No. 4, 2nd mvt (see 0:07, and probably most prominently 0:14) Aside from the timecodes noted, the opening of this appears to make use of the minor 7th constantly in other ways too complex for me to try to analyse yet. This piece already appears on the chord prog examples list, but I had to repeat it here because it has such a wealth of interesting harmony.
2. Ravel - Le Gibet (see 13:42 and several times again until the end)
3. Gershwin - Summertime (see 9:11)
4. Leo Ornstein - Piano Sonata No. 4, 4th mvt The opening of this is practically built out of minor 7th chords (or stacks of 3rds, in any case).
5. Steve Reich - Six Marimbas (see 6:15 onwards) The uppermost note of this chord shifts constantly between the 7th and
8th degree of the scale, while the underlying 3rds remain 'fixed'. Interestingly, the tonic doesn't appear in the bass until 6:32, and it dissappears again at 13:42. The inversion of the minor 7th created by this is the one shown in the first image above - the degrees of the chord prog of resignation stacked on top of each other in order: I, III, IV, VI.
6. Ravel - Une barque sur l'ocean (see 4:47)
7. Ravel - Noel des Jouets (see 2:26)
8. Ravel - Ondine (see 5:20) This example is really in a class of its own, as the chord is not only broken into a myriad of semiquavers and tuplets with a scattering of arbitrary notes in between, but it also isn't even a minor 7th. Nevertheless, a Chord of Resignation it undoubtedly is. A far more conventional example can be found at 5:49.
A very common way in which the minor 7th chord manifests - especially in minimalism - is where a particular interval or combination of intervals are maintained over the top of a changing base chord progression, resulting in the 'Chord of Resignation' seeming to grow naturally out of a pure tonic triad. The following examples demonstrate this.
9. Stellardrone - In Time This is a fairly simple example - harmonically and texturally - so well suited for explanatory purposes. The bass is progressing as follows: I, [V], VI, VII. To start with the...er, constellation of notes being repeated over the top is simply part of the tonic triad, but as it remains the same while the bass changes, it forms a minor 7th over the VI chord.
10. Porcupine Tree - Trains As with the previous example, the upper notes in the harmony here remain constant over a changing bassline,
resulting in a minor 7th forming over the VI chord. However, there are other relevant complexities to the harmony which you can read about in the chord prog examples list.
11. Steve Reich - Electric Counterpoint III This is an interesting example because the underlying chord progression consists only of the degrees of the scale that form the minor 7th - IV, VI, Im. As a result, in this instance it's impossible to say that a minor 7th is only formed over, say, the VI chord, as was the case with the previous 2 examples. The harmony just morphs organically, an effect intensified the gradual introduction of each degree of the scale in the bass at the start of the piece (you have to listen to the whole thing to get what I'm talking about). PS in case you're curious what happens when it briefly modulates, the progression is III, IV, V, but effectively that III chord becomes the new tonic.
12. Steve Reich - Music for large ensemble Initially, the uppermost note of the chord is simply the 3rd degree of the tonic triad (i.e. the dominant), but each time the bass plunges down a third it becomes a minor 7th.
Yes, there is a lot of Ravel on this list. :P | <urn:uuid:ec442553-1138-4a1a-b10b-c295f198a15f> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://dorotheabaker.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-chord-of-resignation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232258058.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20190525124751-20190525150751-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.956946 | 1,579 | 2.625 | 3 | {
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Transact-SQL cursors are used mainly in stored procedures, triggers, and Transact-SQL scripts in which they make the contents of a result set available to other Transact-SQL statements.
The typical process for using a Transact-SQL cursor in a stored procedure or trigger is:
Declare Transact-SQL variables to contain the data returned by the cursor. Declare one variable for each result set column. Declare the variables to be large enough to hold the values returned by the column and with a data type that can be implicitly converted from the data type of the column.
Associate a Transact-SQL cursor with a SELECT statement using the DECLARE CURSOR statement. The DECLARE CURSOR statement also defines the characteristics of the cursor, such as the cursor name and whether the cursor is read-only or forward-only.
Use the OPEN statement to execute the SELECT statement and populate the cursor.
Use the FETCH INTO statement to fetch individual rows and have the data for each column moved into a specified variable. Other Transact-SQL statements can then reference those variables to access the fetched data values. Transact-SQL cursors do not support fetching blocks of rows.
When you are finished with the cursor, use the CLOSE statement. Closing a cursor frees some resources, such as the cursor's result set and its locks on the current row, but the cursor structure is still available for processing if you reissue an OPEN statement. Because the cursor is still present, you cannot reuse the cursor name at this point. The DEALLOCATE statement completely frees all resources allocated to the cursor, including the cursor name. After a cursor is deallocated, you must issue a DECLARE statement to rebuild the cursor.
You can use the sp_cursor_list system stored procedure to get a list of cursors visible to the current connection, and sp_describe_cursor, sp_describe_cursor_columns, and sp_describe_cursor_tables to determine the characteristics of a cursor.
After the cursor is opened, the @@CURSOR_ROWS function or the cursor_rows column returned by sp_cursor_list or sp_describe_cursor indicates the number of rows in the cursor.
After each FETCH statement, @@FETCH_STATUS is updated to reflect the status of the last fetch. You can also get this status information from the fetch_status column returned by sp_describe_cursor. @@FETCH_STATUS reports conditions such as fetching beyond the first or last row in the cursor. @@FETCH_STATUS is global to your connection and is reset by each fetch on any cursor open for the connection. If you must know the status later, save @@FETCH_STATUS into a user variable before executing another statement on the connection. Even though the next statement may not be a FETCH, it could be an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE that fires a trigger containing FETCH statements that reset @@FETCH_STATUS. The fetch_status column returned by sp_describe_cursor is specific to the cursor specified and is not affected by FETCH statements that reference other cursors. sp_describe_cursor is, however, affected by FETCH statements that reference the same cursor, so care is still needed in its use.
After a FETCH is completed, the cursor is positioned on the fetched row. The fetched row is known as the current row. If the cursor was not declared as a read-only cursor, you can execute an UPDATE or DELETE statement with a WHERE CURRENT OF cursor_name clause to modify the current row.
The name given to a Transact-SQL cursor by the DECLARE CURSOR statement can be either global or local. Global cursor names are referenced by any batch, stored procedure, or trigger executing on the same connection. Local cursor names cannot be referenced outside the batch, stored procedure, or trigger in which the cursor is declared. Local cursors in triggers and stored procedures are therefore protected from unintended references outside the stored procedure or trigger.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 also supports variables with a cursor data type. A cursor can be associated with a cursor variable by either of two methods:
/* Use DECLARE @local_variable, DECLARE CURSOR and SET. */ DECLARE @MyVariable CURSOR DECLARE MyCursor CURSOR FOR SELECT LastName FROM AdventureWorks.Person.Contact SET @MyVariable = MyCursor GO /* Use DECLARE @local_variable and SET */ DECLARE @MyVariable CURSOR SET @MyVariable = CURSOR SCROLL KEYSET FOR SELECT LastName FROM AdventureWorks.Person.Contact; DEALLOCATE MyCursor;
After a cursor has been associated with a cursor variable, the cursor variable can be used instead of the cursor name in Transact-SQL cursor statements. Stored procedure output parameters can also be assigned a cursor data type and associated with a cursor. This allows stored procedures to expose local cursors in a controlled manner.
Transact-SQL cursor names and variables are referenced only by Transact-SQL statements; they cannot be referenced by the API functions of OLE DB, ODBC, and ADO. For example, if you use DECLARE CURSOR and OPEN a Transact-SQL cursor, there is no way to use the ODBC SQLFetch or SQLFetchScroll functions to fetch a row from the Transact-SQL cursor. Applications that need cursor processing and are using these APIs should use the cursor support built into the database API instead of Transact-SQL cursors.
You can use Transact-SQL cursors in applications by using FETCH and binding each column returned by the FETCH to a program variable. The Transact-SQL FETCH does not support batches, however, so this is the least efficient way to return data to an application. Fetching each row requires a roundtrip to the server. It is more efficient to use the cursor functionality built into the database APIs that support fetching batches of rows.
Transact-SQL cursors are extremely efficient when contained in stored procedures and triggers. This is because everything is compiled into one execution plan on the server and there is no network traffic associated with fetching rows.
In SQL Server 2005, an error is raised when a FETCH statement is issued in which there is a change in values as of the time the cursor was opened. This error occurs for any of the following plan-affecting options, or the options required for indexed views and computed columns. To avoid the error, do not change SET options while a cursor is open.
Plan Affecting Options
Indexed views and computed columns
ARITHABORT (under compatibility level of 80 or lower)
In SQL Server 2000, changes to ANSI_NULLS and QUOTED_IDENTIFIER did not raise an error, although the others did.
ConceptsScope of Transact-SQL Cursor Names
Other Resources@@FETCH_STATUS (Transact-SQL)
Cursor Functions (Transact-SQL)
DECLARE CURSOR (Transact-SQL) | <urn:uuid:39a04123-8837-4dd8-8daf-de4a440508d0> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms190028(v=sql.90).aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500800168.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021320-00164-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.812961 | 1,538 | 2.6875 | 3 | {
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Henbit & Purple Deadnettle
Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) and Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) are members of the mint family (Lamiaceae) and are hard to distinguish from each other. They both grow like weeds (pun intended) and can take over a garden in one season. They are both easy to hand pull, but difficult to identify when they first emerge.
Both Henbit and Purple Deadnettle have distinctive greenish-purple square stems (see photo at far left). The seedlings for these two varieties look alike: the cotyledons have a white tip and a notch at the base of the leaf where the petiole connects. As the plant matures, the leaves of Purple Deadnettle show prominent veins, an almost crinkly appearance; at the base of the stem, the leaves are round and hairy. The leaves of Henbit are circular and only have a little veining. Henbit looks similar to ground ivy (or creeping charlie), but is more upright.
Both plants have purple leaves at the tip of each stem; Purple Deadnettle’s leaves are triangular, while Henbit’s leaves surround the stem and are attached directly the stem without a leaf stalk. Flowering time for both plants is between March/April through October/November. Purple Deadnettle has groupings of 3 to 6 purple flowers at the top of the stem; Henbit’s tubular flowers can be pink or purple and are more sparse.
From an agricultural standpoint, these two plants have significant consequence in soybean fields. They are both strong hosts to the Soybean Cyst Nematode, and heavy infestations tend to occur in crop fields where these weeds have been allowed to grow.
Control in the home landscape is a matter of preference. Pre-emergent products should be applied in the fall after these annual weeds have gone to seed. Hand-pulling and mulching is the best method for eradication in controlled landscape beds. Regular mowing through the season will control these weeds in turf grass.
Chickweed is a member of the Pink Family (Caryophyllaceae) and comes in two flavors: perennial and annual (see photos below). Mouse-ear chickweed (Cerastium vulgare or C. fontanum) is perennial and grows low to the ground, creeping through the turf grass and covering large areas quickly. Common chickweed (Stellaria media) is the annual version of this weed and grows absolutely anywhere! Chickweed is on the invasive plant list of the USDA Forest Service.
Mouse-ear chickweed immigrated to North America from Europe, where it quickly naturalized as a result of its adaptation to various habitats: disturbed soil, sandy shores, moist woods, dry waste areas, damp ground, lovely flower beds, and lush lawns. It is not drought tolerant, but can remain green under the snow. The plant reproduces through seed and rooting of stem nodes.
The seedlings of this variety are hairy and the stems are sticky; the stems are prostrate and grow from 6 inches to 2 feet long. The opposite leaves are smooth-edged with a pointed tip, and covered with hairs on the upper surface and lower veins. The flowers are tiny and white, and bloom at the end of the stem from April/May through October.
The annual, Common chickweed, has small, smooth, elliptical light green leaves with pointed tips. The stems are creeping and the plant has shallow roots, making it easy to hoe or hand-pull; however, any root pieces left behind will produce new plants. Flowers are small, star-shaped, with five petals.
This plant loves cool, moist areas, and spreads by seed, dispersing from 600 to 15,000 per plant. Control in the garden landscape is best done by cultivation and hand-pulling, although in large areas of turf grass, chemical control may be required. Check state and label requirements; it is resistant to some herbicides.
"Identification of Six Alternative Winter Annual Weed Hosts for Soybean Cyst Nematode". Valerie A. Mock and Bill Johnson, Pest & Crop, Issue 25, 10/12/07, Purdue Cooperative Extension Service.
Chickweed flower photos from Wikipedia Commons; remaining photos by Toni Leland ©2010 | <urn:uuid:b5b54df1-4e7e-46c4-8b0c-e599e4799bb1> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2861 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398461132.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205421-00173-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938276 | 908 | 3.015625 | 3 | {
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- What is SLDS?
- What is RISE (Relevant Information to Strengthen Education)?
- Where does RISE funding come from and what terms/conditions are associated with that funding?
- What data does RISE use?
- Who uses RISE?
- Who requests RISE data and how is it used?
- How are data requests processed within CDE?
- How does RISE work?
- Is RISE run by a vendor?
- Is RISE data in the cloud?
- How is data transmitted between agencies?
- Is CDE collecting specific data for use by RISE?
- How would someone get access to data within the RISE system?
- What are RISE reporting requirements?
- Does RISE contain all the data included in the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) model?
- Is RISE data shared with other states because it is funded with federal grant dollars?
- What checks and balances are in place for RISE?
- Are there different versions of the RISE system, and/or the associated Data Dictionary?
- What was the most recent SLDS Grant application focused on?
- What specifically did Colorado apply for?
- What was the outcome of the recent SLDS grant application?
- The 2015 grant narrative describes a multi-state collaborative (MSTC). What is this?
- What does "interoperability" mean in the context of longitudinal data analysis?
The State Longitudinal Data System Grant Program (SLDS) refers to the series of federal grants for states to develop or improve their data systems needed to effectively measure the success of educational programs. Longitudinal data is data that is collected over a period of time, typically over the course of multiple years. It allows CDE to evaluate the effectiveness of the many educational programs into which significant taxpayer funding is invested.
"Longitudinal analysis" is the measurement of a particular cohort of students from Kindergarten through high school and even college or career. For example, longitudinal analysis could tell communities and taxpayers if students from a particular program or elementary school eventually graduated from high school and college. It could also inform legislative decisions or policy making related to the effectiveness of specific programs during a student's K-12 career, by comparing and contrasting the aggregated results from various programs.
The SLDS grant provided funding for CDE to build the technology that would enable the department to better synthesize and evaluate data securely, while developing consistent and repeatable processes to reinforce CDE policies around data security and privacy. Please see more information on the SLDS Grant Program at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/.
RISE stands for Relevant Information to Strengthen Education, and it is CDE's name for the SLDO system. It includes the systems in use and the processes and procedures supporting those systems.
SLDS grants are funded by the USDOE, and some SLDS grants were part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA ) program. While a part of ARRA, there were additional reporting requirements imposed on states that received funding, but required no student data to be reported.
Initial SLDS grants were targeted more toward state infrastructure, enabling states to bring up their level of technology infrastructure to support current and future needs around educational program support and analyses necessary to demonstrate Return on Investment decisions and educational program outcome measurement.
Colorado used SLDS funds to build the Data Pipeline system, which is the replacement for the previous collection system for transmitting data between school districts and CDE. The previous system had been in place for almost 20 years. Other uses Colorado made of this funding were enhancing the data warehouse, adding and updating other infrastructure components, and building and implementing the security system CDE currently uses for district logins.
As SLDS initiatives have progressed, the requirements for use of USDOE funding have also evolved. For example, the most recent SLDS grant application was required to focus on the actual USE of data, and the states are required to use this round of funding only for enhancing the use of data, improving the user friendliness of the system, enhancing the process of requesting and receiving longitudinal analyses results, and any other effort that helps to make longitudinal analysis more meaningful for educational leaders and policy makers.
The department's RISE system utilizes data already collected by CDE, via collections required by statute to measure the success of educational programs. Data is not collected by CDE solely for the purpose of RISE.
Currently, only CDE's educational partners within the state, e.g., Department of Higher Education, Colorado Department of Human Services, etc. are able to use the RISE system. It is still in its infancy, so only a few analyses have been run through the system. As we formalize and define the process, and communicate it to all stakeholders for better understanding of the potential and the rules governing the process, its use will likely expand. Note that although members of other agencies may request data for educational research purposes, only CDE staff has access to the system to actually run the approved scenarios.
RISE analysis is primarily requested by other state agencies. For example, the Colorado Department of Human Services requests data for the purpose of measuring the success of such educational programs as Colorado Child Care Assistance Program and Early Intervention, Part C IDEA. Other requests include state universities working together with non-profit organizations to research outcomes of educational programs. Some non-profit organizations perform longitudinal analysis on CDE's behalf, including the University of Northern Colorado.
For-profit commercial vendors do not request longitudinal data from CDE, nor would CDE provide it to them if they did. The data sharing agreements outlining all of the circumstances in which CDE has shared data with other entities for research purposes are all posted on CDE‘s website.
All longitudinal analysis requests are proposed and reviewed individually, and evaluated based on the merits of each proposal. If PII is required to conduct the analysis, CDE's Research and Data Request process is followed to ensure the proposed research is beneficial to Colorado's education system and that the methodology to be followed conforms to required standards and controls.
In addition to the Research and Data Request process, all requestors must first establish the value of the query, specify the data needed and demonstrate the necessary adherence to security and privacy requirements. The requestor must explicitly document what data is needed, how it will be used, who will be authorized users, and when and how the data will be destroyed afterwards.
If the analysis is requested by another Colorado state agency, this documentation is attached to an agency-to-agency data sharing agreement which spells out very strict privacy and security requirements and regulations to be followed according to FERPA and other regulations. The documentation is all reviewed by key program personnel, privacy and security personnel, and other subject matter experts prior to approval.
All agreements are reviewed by CDE's senior leadership and Chief Privacy Officer on an annual basis and assessed to make sure the needs are still valid. The processes and procedures used for approving data requests for longitudinal analysis are the same as those used for any other data requests, and are described on CDE's privacy and security website.
While not yet operational, the RISE system is designed to pull data from a variety of sources, match the data to the right students and then eliminate any personally identifying information before any analysis is done. A cross agency governance committee has been monitoring progress of the RISE implementation efforts for the past three years.
Work is currently underway to formalize the process for requesting and reviewing analysis requests, so that going forward, it's clear to all what process is in place, how requests are prioritized and moved through the approval steps, and most importantly, what criteria is used to determine whether a particular analysis request adds enough value to the educational system to approve.
Efforts also continue to enhance the checks and balances necessary to ensure privacy and transparency in this type of cross-agency data analysis.More specifically, the system would work like this:
- The interface will allow data from other sources, such as college completion data from Department of Higher Education, to be imported into temporary storage and matched against the CDE data.
- Once the data has been matched to the right students, additional data and attributes can be brought in on a student. For example, comparing results of college level courses vs. program participation in high schools could indicate which programs most successfully prepare students for college. Adding additional attributes such as participation in STEM programs could also demonstrate a more complete picture of program effectiveness.
- After the matching process is complete, any remaining work on that use case is typically done on aggregated or de-identified data.
- Results are provided back to the requestor, as defined in the associated data sharing agreements, following whatever process was outlined and approved during the initial review and approval process. No further disclosure is allowed on any individualized data level once the matching process is complete.
Note that this is a very new process and only one use case is currently operational, which has to do with high school students who find their way to the Corrections system. The purpose of this use case is to identify those K-12 students who become incarcerated, receive education there, and then are released.
These connections can help to ensure that students who return to a K-12 environment can receive credit for the education they received while incarcerated. Without these connections, the student can go back to a K-12 environment without getting credit for the education they received while incarcerated and even worse, not make their way back into the K-12 records and are essentially "lost". The data shared helps give students the credit they deserve, and also helps districts identify students who graduated from their system.
The Department continues to work on formalizing the processes already in place, so they are understood and repeatable.
The RISE system is run within CDE, by CDE employees who are authorized and who have received required training in data security and privacy protocols. Although some vendors were engaged to build components of the system when first developed, they are no longer involved and have no access to any CDE systems, including the RISE system.
When the 2009 SLDS grant was issued to Colorado, there were plans for the Governor's Office of Information Technology to build and house the RISE system. A variety of technical challenges were encountered with that approach, so prior to the end of that grant period in 2014, the RISE system was brought into CDE where it remains today.
As already mentioned, CDE houses the RISE data system in its own data center, and does not use any cloud vendor to host student data. No vendors have access to RISE data, nor does any other agency or other entity have access to the RISE system.
The method of transmission, format of data and individuals responsible for receiving analysis results are all defined during the approval process up front. Once approved and after the longitudinal data analyses are conducted by CDE with the RISE system, the approved process is followed and results are securely sent to the requestor.
No additional data is collected for the purpose of longitudinal analyses. CDE uses only the data that is already housed in its Data Warehouse -- data collections mandated by state statute or federal law.
There are two reasons that someone may have access to data in the RISE system. The first is in the case of CDE employees who are working to either maintain the system or add new functionality to it. These individuals may be exposed to the data during testing or validation activities. Only authorized users within CDE have access to data within the RISE system. All personnel in this situation have received background checks, training in the use of confidential data, training in FERPA and also in CDE's privacy policies and protocols.
Occasionally there are vendor experts working on behalf of CDE who have access to the system itself, but care is taken not to expose them to actual data unless they also have received the training identified above. Any vendor that is allowed access to data is required to show the CDE how the respective data has been purged or deleted at the end of their respective engagements.
The second way a person could see RISE data is if it is formally "released" to them. In this situation, no vendors would ever be given RISE data. We only share data with other agencies, persons or entities and for limited reasons. When that occurs, we follow the review and approval processes mentioned above.
Reporting requirements for SLDS grants are much like they would be for any large project initiative. Reports to USDOE require status reports, progress on each grant outcome as laid out in application, metrics to certify accomplishment of major milestones, and other similar information. Budget, schedule and quality are also addressed as part of the typical project management methodology. At no time is any actual student data, aggregated or otherwise, required to be sent to USDOE in return for SLDS funding.
CEDS is a standard developed by the USDOE in collaboration with other partners that establishes common definitions and naming conventions for data elements used across the education community. A standard is helpful so when or if a state chooses to use a particular data element, common nomenclature and definitions may be used to enhance re-usability of systems developed. This increases efficiency and enhances collaboration across the different agencies or states that may be building similar products.
As an example, it is much like the standard road signs we use across the country. If each state had a different shape and color for the STOP sign, it would not be as easily recognizable. The number of STOP signs a state has doesn't matter, but every driver knows what it means to see the standard sign, and doesn't have to accommodate different ways to be told to stop. The CEDS standard is very similar but the common nomenclature is applied to technical development of data systems.
Colorado's RISE system is based on some of the CEDS standard, but our system was initially designed before CEDS was completed. Although RISE uses many of the data definitions within CEDS, RISE does not contain all the possible data identified within the CEDS standard. If a state follows this standard, it does not mean the state is sharing the data defined by CEDS with another state following the same standard. It just means that each state is using similar nomenclature and methods when discussing systems and data, and that makes more effective use of the taxpayers' investments.
No, just because a system is funded with federal dollars does not mean we are required to share our data with other states or the USDOE. Following similar processes and standards may enhance a state's ability to do so, but it is ultimately up to each individual state to decide whether to share data beyond its own borders.
Colorado has chosen not to, except in the case of using the National Student Clearinghouse. This organization collects and posts college enrollment and graduation data for the purposes of understanding the path that graduating seniors follow into the post-secondary arena. Reviewing cross state results can tell Colorado if we are losing our future teachers to out of state colleges and universities because their programs may be better.
Colorado just passed legislation (see HB 1170) that requires CDE and the Department of Higher Education to use this data for improving educator preparation courses and understanding how to better prepare teachers for careers within the state.
The entire process for RISE contains many data governance and security-related checks and balances. Strict processes must be followed to request any longitudinal analysis using the RISE system, most of which are embedded in overall program governance and in the data governance in place that defines the review and approval of all data requests. This includes formalized processes for a requestor to ask for data for longitudinal analysis purposes, decision points throughout the process where there may be more information needed or a decision could be made to end the particular request workflow. It also includes the reviews necessary to decide if the purpose of the analysis meets the criteria set for "appropriate educational purpose," as well as scrutiny necessary for compliance with data security and privacy provisions.
CDE reviews all of these questions with every entity requesting data, ensuring that the "receiving" entity has adequate controls within their Information Security environment to safely manage and protect our data. Although CDE is already conducting these reviews and assessments on all entities requesting data, as mentioned above, formalization and communication of this process is still in progress. The goal is a repeatable, consistent and well understood process in place that CDE employees and partners fully understand and follow.
There is only one version of the RISE system, and one version of CDE's Data Dictionary. There are only a few CDE employees who manage and maintain the RISE system, as mentioned above, so there are no special "versions" of the system for different users, nor has there ever been.
CDE's Data Dictionary was built to provide information for the public to view the various data elements CDE collects, identify the authority to collect of each element, and to provide more "business" information for the interested layperson. The use of the term "business" here refers to internal CDE educational program information, and is meant to distinguish between information technology related system information and programmatic educational information.
Business users are those agency personnel who are subject matter experts on educational programs, not system level developers or coding experts. CDE's subject matter experts are those who evaluate the success of various programs, such as literacy or post-secondary programs.
CDE's Data Dictionary was built long before CDE built the RISE system to extend beyond K-12 longitudinal analysis. Because of this, it still reflects the pre-existing data collection system in some cases. It is being updated to reflect the current system, Data Pipeline, but that will take some time. CDE also understands that the Data Dictionary is challenging for members of the public to use. For these reasons, CDE is planning to upgrade the data dictionary to more clearly and easily provide information to the public.
In March of 2015, the US Department of Education released another round of SLDS grant opportunities. This round is focused on effective use of data; this means that the states must demonstrate that the systems built over the past several years actually do allow effective longitudinal data analysis to be conducted, and the results are accurate, secure, provide value for investment, and most importantly, provide answers to the most commonly asked questions about effectiveness of public educational programs, such as whether a child enrolled in Early Intervention and CCCP programs perform better at the 3rd grade level than those only enrolled in one of these programs only.
The focus on this grant round is less on technology development, and more on the usefulness of the analyzed data. The maximum amount available to any one state is $7 million, over a period of four years.
Colorado applied for two categories, Evaluation & Research and Early Learning. The primary focus of the Evaluation and Research category is on enhancing Colorado's data request process, to include additional security measures, privacy controls, and enhanced tools to automate the overall request and review process. As mentioned above, there is an extensive review process required for anyone who requests longitudinal analysis through the RISE system.
Additional grant funding would allow CDE to apply more resources to that review and approval process, and expand security controls and privacy provisions in each review. Additional grant funding could also provide enhanced tools for CDE, schools and districts to access and examine data more efficiently.
The other category for which CDE applied for funding is Early Learning. Early Learning projects are currently underway, as required by statute. Additional SLDS funding would support and enhance current projects and allow CDE to demonstrate the benefits of those enhancements.
CDE was notified on September 15th that Colorado was not one of the states chosen to receive additional SLDS funding at this time.
The Multi-State Collaborative is a group of ten participating states that will support each other whether the state receives funding or not. Each state committed to varying levels of participation, from providing review services and thought leadership, to jointly developing new products. The idea is to maximize use of federal funds so multiple states are not developing the same technologies. This makes much better use of taxpayer monies.
Colorado agreed to participate at a "reviewer" level, i.e., we will provide services only as needed to other states that solicit our input on processes and products they build. No data will be shared through this collaborative, only ideas. The Council of Chief State School Officers endorsed this collaborative, but did not support with funds.
Interoperable systems refer to systems and processes that are built and function in similar ways so that components may be shared and/or interfaces can be built for communications. The term "interoperable systems" does not imply that data will be shared. States with interoperable systems may share design and technology expertise, but in no way does this require any sharing of data. Sharing data across states is a policy level decision and one that CDE has chosen not to engage in. | <urn:uuid:61ac7653-312a-4c5d-96ee-9e22459f463f> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://www.cde.state.co.us/slds/faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232258849.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20190526045109-20190526071109-00221.warc.gz | en | 0.952142 | 4,313 | 2.515625 | 3 | {
"raw_score": 3.0046980381011963,
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} | Education & Jobs |
This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2021)
|Cultural origins||Corrientes Province, Argentina|
Chamamé (Guarani for: party, disorder) is a folk music genre from Northeast Argentina and Argentine Mesopotamia. In 2020, Chamamé was inscribed in UNESCO's Intangible cultural heritage list after it was nominated by Argentina in 2018.
Chamamé is also a traditional musical style appreciated in borders zone of South America, as Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, mainly in the South Region of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná) and Mato Grosso do Sul.
Jesuit reductions in the area encouraged cultural growth that lasted until the Jesuits were expelled by the Spanish Crown in the late 18th century. Within this area, Yapeyú, Corrientes was a centre of musical culture that many point to as the birthplace of the original Chamamé. Further mixing with instruments such as the Spanish guitar, then the violin and the accordion, finally resulted in what is currently known as "Chamamé". There are recordings of Chamamé dating back to the early 20th century, and the term 'Chamamé' was already used in 1931; this type of music, prior to that, was often referred to as the Corrientes Polka.
The Chamamé, originally schottische brought by the Volga German immigrants, has considerable Guaraní influence, mixed with the Spanish guitar and the European accordion from those immigrants that arrived in the area at the beginning of the 20th century.
- Chamamé, UNESCO. December 16, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2021.
- Decision of the Intergovernmental Committee: 13.COM 10.b.1, UNESCO. November 26, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2021.
- "El Chamamé es Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad". UNESCO (in Spanish). 2020-12-22. Retrieved 2022-08-22.
- Fundacionmemoriadelchamame.com (in Spanish) (La Pagina Oficial de La Fundación Memoria del Chamamé)
- Chamame.tv (in Spanish) (La Pagina Oficial de La Fiesta Nacional del Chamamé, Argentina)
- Chamigos.com (in Spanish) (Chamame Social Network)
- SiempreChamame.com.ar (in Spanish) (Chamamé site and online radio)
- Corrientes Chamamé (in Spanish) | <urn:uuid:9fef782a-fca3-4031-8dcb-698eee169224> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Chamam%C3%A9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506339.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922070214-20230922100214-00530.warc.gz | en | 0.928687 | 577 | 2.90625 | 3 | {
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While studying the Gaussian gravitational constant and its constant function I found that the function and the elliptical orbit remain unchanged in General Relativity's rotating (precessing) orbital plane. The equation for the orbit has an extra term, 3mu2 (u = 1/r), in GR. This shouldn't be surprising since motion in Relativity confuses space and time a little. The term is small compared to other terms in the equation of the motion and the solution for planetary orbits found in Eddington's The Mathematical Theory of Relativity used the classical orbit as a first approximation to derive a relativistic correction. Eddington also makes an assumption that the mass is constant since p = h2/μ is dependent on mass which relativistically varies with the speed at which a body is moving. For highly elliptical orbits the speed at perihelion near the Sun is much greater than at aphelion, the most distant point in the orbit, and we may expect the approximations made to break down a little.
But Relativity makes some assumptions like the speed of light being a constant which can be considered an approximation too. The results of Relativity are based on deduction which is more accurate than induction and it draws heavily on classical results such as the agreement of the form of the gravitational potential with classical theory. For a two-body problem in GR one has to work with two world lines and coupling their motion assumes a rigid rotor. This like all other constraints restricts the solution to the problem. The check on results is a correspondence principle which says that the results of GR should agree with classical results for low velocities and small masses but one is free to speculate about initial the possible changes that one can make.
The dependence of the results of Relativity on classical physics makes it appear somewhat juvenile. It doesn't appear to be able to stand on its own as one would expect of a more mature theory. The initial assumptions that one can make have a lot of room for error that the correspondence with the classical limit can't narrow down. The same is true for Quantum Mechanics which has a similar approach to the problem and has to deal with uncertainties of its own. In QM one seems to be solving for theories to fit the facts. The results can sometimes be confusing and contradictory which the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment tried to point out. In the quantum world one can never have a clear picture of what is happening and one tends lose track of events.
One's comprehension may be limited but that doesn't mean that theory itself is bounded by one's limits. Are we being held back by a juvenile world view or is there still room for change. We probably shouldn't forget that change comes from within. And additionally we need to narrow down what is "good conduct" in Science. That might be a sign of movement towards a more mature approach. | <urn:uuid:1241954c-93e8-4404-87e2-1481b7f70ea5> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | http://httprover2.blogspot.com/2011/11/mature-vs-juvenile-world-views.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948514051.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20171211203107-20171211223107-00301.warc.gz | en | 0.967683 | 584 | 2.84375 | 3 | {
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} | Science & Tech. |
Being an Administrator of Linux System, you have the option to perform scheduling of jobs or any tasks which is time-based with the use of online crontab services or Cron, Linux/Unix systems have this powerful utility available in them.
In Linux, cron runs as a daemon and can be used to schedule duties together with commands or shell scripts to carry out diverse forms of backups, system updates, and lots more, that run periodically and automatically in the historical past at unique instances, dates, or durations.
Scheduling a cronjob with the suitable syntax may be perplexing every so often, wrong expressions can purpose cronjobs to fail or not even run in any respect. In this article, we can list 6 useful on-line (internet-based) utilities for creating and checking out cronjob scheduling syntax in Linux
What is cron?
Cron is a software used for repeating tasks at a later time. Giving a command that schedules a challenge, at a specific time, again and again, is a cron activity.
If someone wants to agenda a one time process, for a later time, they may need to apply any other command. But, for recurring jobs, cron is the first-rate answer.
Cron is a daemon, which means that that it really works within the heritage to execute non-interactive jobs. In Windows, you might be familiar with the historical processes along with Services.
A daemon is continually within the idle country and waits to test if a command requests it to carry out a positive task — both on the computer or from every other computer on the network.
A cron report is a simple text record that includes commands to run at a particular time. The default machine crontab document is and many others crontab and is placed within a crontab listing, and many others cron. Only machine directors can edit the gadget crontab record.
However, as Unix-like OS aid multiple users, everyone can also create their very own crontab report and release instructions to perform jobs anytime they need. A cron daemon will check the report and run the command on the historical past of the machine.
With cron jobs, you’ll be able to automate the preservation of the device, disk space tracking, and schedule backups. Because of its nature, cron jobs are quality for a computer that works 24/7 — a server.
Please word that even as cron jobs are extensively used by device administrators, it could be surprisingly beneficial for internet builders too. For e.G., use cron to deactivate expired money owed, take a look at damaged links, or even ship newsletters for centred users.
The cron in Version 7 Unix becomes a machine carrier (later known as a daemon) invoked from and many others RC whilst the OS entered the multi-person mode. Its set of rules become trustworthy:
- Read /usr/lib/crontab
- Determine if any commands must run at the current date & time, and if so, run them because of the exquisite-consumer, root.
- Sleep for 1 minute
- Repeat from step 1.
This model of cron turned into basic and robust however additionally fed on sources whether or not it found any work to do or now not. In a test at the University of Purdue within the yr 1970 to extend cron’s provider to all a hundred users on a time-shared VAX, it becomes found to the region an excessive amount of load on the system.
With the advent of the GNU Project and Linux, new crons regarded. The maximum normal of these is that the Vixie cron, originally coded with the aid of Paul Vixie inside the year 1987. Version three of the Vixie cron turned into released within the 12 months 1993. The Version four.1 became renamed to ISC Cron and changed into brought inside the 12 months 2004. Version three, with some minor bug fixes, is employed in most distributions of Linux and BSDs.
In the yr 2007, Red Hat forked Vixie-cron 4.1 to the cronies challenge and included anacron 2.3 within the year 2009.
Other widely popular implementations consist of anacron and dcron. However, anacron isn’t an impartial cron software. Another cron process must call it. Dcron became made by DragonFly BSD founder Matt Dillon, and its maintainership turned into appropriated with the aid of Jim Pryor within the yr 2010.
In the year 2003, Dale Mellor developed and delivered mcron, a cron variation written in Guile which gives cross-compatibility with Vixie cron even as also gives extra flexibility as it permits arbitrary scheme code to be applied in scheduling calculations and activity definitions.
Since both the mcron daemon and consequently the crontab documents are normally written in scheme, the cumulative kingdom of a process queue of the person is available to their process code, which can be scheduled to run if the results of different jobs meet positive criteria.
Mcron is deployed underneath the Guix package manager, that has the provisions for the package deal manager to monadically emit mcron crontabs while each making sure that applications required for the job execution are set up which the corresponding crontabs successfully talk to them.
A webcron answer schedules ring duties to run on an everyday basis wherever cron implementations aren’t to be had in a web web hosting surroundings.
Here’s the list of 15 best Cron generator tools which are very useful for you:-
It is a very useful utility that can be used for the generation of a crontab entry which will help you to schedule a job. It gives you a simple and very elaborative generator which will help you in producing a crontab syntax, and you’ll have the option to copy and paste in your crontab file which will be very useful for you.
It is the tool that is web-based and helps you in building the cron expressions. It employs the Quartz open source library and all the expressions are based on the format of Quartz cron. Cron maker also gives you permission to view the next dates that are scheduled i.e. you will only have to enter a cronjob expression and you will get the next dates. If you get the calculation of the next dates you will be more clear and comfortable in knowing your work. So this tool will help you a lot in making your scheduling very easy.
Crontab GUI is very popular and the real crontab editor on an online platform. It works very well i.e. with full optimization n your mobile devices as it gives you the option to generate cron syntax on the browser of your smartphone, tablet, or PC.
Crontab Guru is also a popular and very simple cron schedule expression editor on the online platform with ease and in addition, it also provides you with other features like a very useful means of monitoring your cronjob. You have to a small thing as you only have to copy a command snippet which has been provided and paste that at the end of the crontab definition and even something happens that your cron job fails or did not start you will receive an alert email describing the reason of failure and what you can do next and informing you that it failed or did not start whatever has happened it will convey all the things in that alert email.
The simplicity and effectiveness of HealthChecks make it one of the great picks for Cron task tracking. It affords you with alerts for your weekly record triggers, schedule venture screw-ups, backup disasters, and greater.
Another impressive element about HealthChecks is that it offers a completely unique URL for each periodic task for which the Cron Job monitoring is enabled. You can without difficulty test HTTP provider requests or ship emails.
With the use of Health Checks, the ratio of silent disasters will subsequently reduce. It capabilities a live-updating dashboard that offers you details of all your signals or assessments. You also can assign names or tags to all your checks, which ultimately help you without difficulty understand them in a while.
It comes with a smooth configuration having ‘Grace Time’ and ‘Period’ parameters to signify exclusive factors or popularity of monitoring. It lets in you to add an in-depth description for each check or Cron job.
You can upload suggestions and notes for your group to take in addition to motion. Plus, you may view sent or received ping history. Other capabilities protected are public popularity badges, Cron expression support, and integrations with Slack, Email, WebHooks, Microsoft Teams, and so forth.
Cronhub eradicates the want to write down any codes for scheduling and to screen the history jobs. You just need to pay attention to your packages and let them schedule your responsibilities. You get instant signals for your tracking components as quickly as any scheduled tasks are not in any specific alignment.
Schedule your jobs by means of using Cron expressions or time periods. For this, define an API or a focused URL that executes on your task. Next, Cronhub sends an HTTP request to the API or centred URL.
If the agenda receives interrupted because of any motive, Cronhub will ship on the spot indicators through incorporated channels together with SMS, Slack, Email, or others.
Apart from those, Cronhub additionally facilitates you preserve the music of the insights in your jobs, gives team support, log access. This will finally help you tune down the loopholes of your software together with the background jobs.
Dead Man’s Snitch picked up the pace while the Cron process tracking offerings had been begun booming. It centred the factor wherein the invoicing or the backup jobs were malfunctioned according to their schedules.
Dead Man’s Snitch ensures the builders and the customers maintain the song of the Cron job operations the way they expected it to perform. It enables you to display Cron, Heroku Scheduler, and greater. It takes notification from the HTTP client, together with cURL, to inform the customers approximately any malfunctioning.
Curl is the snippet that adds as a suffix to the Crontab line end. It proposes a request to Dead Man’s Snitch to test whether or not the job is running or operated efficiently or no longer. For one of a kind jobs, you can change the Snitch URLs to recognize the monitoring effects for all of them.
Another interesting function is the addition of the ‘Field Agent’ characteristic to the process. Download and Install it for better monitoring effects in conjunction with metrics and facts statistics. With it, you may check your Cron jobs’ mistakes logs to assist discover higher resolutions to them.
These capabilities are a super blend to make sure you keep better songs of your history jobs. Its pricing begins at just $5/month for 3 snitches and unlimited crew members.
CronAlarm is the only-forestall hub for assisting you to get all of the insight associated with the scheduled responsibilities’ reliability and overall performance with minimal complexities.
The high-quality issue about CronAlarm is it helps every Cron job with the potential to access an URL without much problem. All the heritage jobs of the applications that run too rapid or gradual either beforehand or delayed are mentioned and notified to the users.
There are several integration systems to alert users, inclusive of e-mail, Slack, and webhooks. You need to provide info to CronAlarm for your task operation schedules, including strolling time, execution time, and others.
It assigns a specific API key to different jobs. To get started out with the monitoring provider by CronAlarm, you simply need to feature the API key or name at the start or cease of the URL. You also can flip up to CronAlarm for acquiring superior API geared up with included features to address the problems better.
Web gazer is a utility that helps you in scheduling the tasks and run monitoring on all those selected Cron Jobs to track the performance that they are working well or not.
No fake alarms are raised with Web Gazers as the incidents are validated within a fragment of seconds earlier than sending the alert to the user. Besides, Web Gazer provides heartbeat monitoring, SSL monitoring.
Its plan starts at $19/month, or you could also use it at no cost with fundamental functions.
It is the most popular and greatest web-based scheduler of cron for the website name crontab.com which is a cron editor. You have the option to create a cron job by giving specific “URL for calling”, set the time when it should be executed, specifying an expression of cron or you should add it manually from an elaborative form. Most important is that you have the option to use basic HTTP authentication for the security of a smaller layer.
Cron tester is a very useful tester of cron which gives you permission to test our own time definitions of cron. The only thing you have to do is just copy the syntax and paste that same syntax in the field of cron definition, then you have to choose the number of iterations and click on “Test” to watch the various dates on which it will run.
Cronitor can assist you in scheduling the duties extra comfortably with quick alerts. It works with a couple of Cron jobs like AWS scheduled occasions, Microsoft duties scheduler, Jenkins Job, Kubernetes Cron, Java Cron, and extra.
Heartbeat monitoring permits you to get an insight into the fitness of records pipelines, history jobs, daemons, scripts, ETL jobs, and others. It is effortless to apply in any language or platform and has flexible alert policies and regulations.
Rundeck is having a UI of the web that gives support to a single sign-on so that anyone on our team has access to it automatically which means people on the other teams can write WTL scripts and can set them also in the Rundeck without involving engineering into it.
The UI hat Rundeck is having is also very good for engineering as it helps you in creating jobs, running jobs, view the history of the scheduling, and also in checking the output of the job.
The UI is for sure better than the Windows task scheduler, but its not a good example of design. It is having the made by developer feel, with hundreds of detailed upfront, and some common operations like just having a look at the recent errors or log output which is hidden behind the several clicks.
Editing of the apparent text crontab is blundered susceptible to handling jobs, e.G., adding jobs, deleting jobs, or pausing jobs. A small mistake can without difficulty bring down all the jobs and may cost you numerous times. With Crontab UI, it’s far very clean to manipulate crontab. Here are the important thing features of Crontab UI.
- Easy setup. You may even import from the present crontab.
- Safe including, deleting or pausing jobs. Easy to keep hundreds of jobs.
- Backup your crontabs.
- Export crontab and installation on other machines without lots of trouble.
- Help in the error log.
- Mailing and hooks guide.
It helps you in running your jobs as it is very easy to install for the client which is staying on your server and relays the job data back to the server (web UI) where you have the permission to view it and you can also set the alert that you job in running correctly or not. It was developed as a part of a dissertation at university in 2014.
Minicron has a requirement of operation systems like OSX and any Linux/BSD based OS.
It provides the following feature:-
- Web UI
- GUI for cron schedule create/read/update
- View output/status as jobs run
- Historical data for all job executions
- Alerts when jobs executions are missed or fail via:
Automation is destiny. Scheduling and tracking your Cron jobs help you execute your responsibilities successfully. Otherwise, how could you realize if your operations aren’t going as planned? But don’t worry because the above solution will eventually help you streamline duties and rectify loopholes hampering the consumer revel in. | <urn:uuid:df0db311-25e3-459e-8624-ab118fdab881> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://geekyhumans.com/useful-crontab-management-tools/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585696.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20211023130922-20211023160922-00034.warc.gz | en | 0.931372 | 3,378 | 2.9375 | 3 | {
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