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Posted: Thursday 26 January 2012
by Kate Bradbury
How often do you clean your bird feeders? Once or twice a year? Whenever you refill them, or just when they’re looking dirty?
How often do you clean your bird feeders? Once or twice a year? Whenever you refill them, or just when they’re looking dirty? Never? I probably clean my feeders every three to six months. They’ve only ever attracted five birds: a pair each of blue tits and great tits, and a lone robin. But, despite the low traffic, from now on I’ll be cleaning my feeders much more regularly.
Research suggests that diseases, such as salmonella, trichomoniasis and avian pox, are becoming more prevalent in garden birds. Many have been present in low levels for years, with others restricted to just one or two species.
But recently, some diseases have become more common. Avian pox, for example, previously only affected woodpigeons and dunnocks. But it was seen for the first time in British great tits in 2006 and has now spread across southern England into Wales. In tits, the disease causes large pink lesions around the beak, wings and legs, which can inhibit sight and agility, making the birds more susceptible to predation.
Trichomoniasis is caused by the trichomonas parasite. This used to only affect pigeons, doves and birds of prey. But since 2005, it has spread to finches – particularly greenfinches – which have since suffered huge declines.
This is all very sad, but gardeners can help by keeping an eye out for signs of disease in their gardens, and keep their bird feeders clean. At this time of year, there are more birds visiting our feeders, increasing the potential for infection to spread. But while it’s impossible to diagnose a specific disease, it’s easy to spot a sick bird. Most birds on feeders are energetic, hopping from one perch to the next, but sick ones are often slow. Fluffed up and lethargic, they may have wet faces, because some diseases can prevent them from eating, so they regurgitate saliva and food.
So if you’ll be sitting down watching birds for the Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend, keep a close eye on bird activity. If you see signs of disease, empty and clean your feeders immediately. Invest in new feeders if you can – many are now easy to clean and some even come with antibacterial properties. Regularly move your feeding station to another part of the garden, as dropped saliva, food and droppings can infect other birds.
(You can help the experts track the spread and monitor national bird diseases by reporting sightings of sick or dead birds to the RSPB by calling 01767 693 690. To find out more about how you can help birds, and for information on the common diseases affecting garden birds, visit the Garden Bird Health Initiative pages.)
27/01/2012 at 16:53
Good advice, Kate. And it's not just bird feeders that must be kept clean, but bird baths too. Possibly it's even more important to keep bird baths clean, and I scrub mine every month.
I've also recently emptied out a bird nest box, and sterilised it with boiling water.
It doesn't take long, and is time well spent if it helps keep my garden bird population healthy.
29/01/2012 at 15:15
Hi Kate,I think the bird's Know it's Big Bird watch Day again as last year we have had very little bird activity in the garden.
09/02/2012 at 20:15
Very good advice, Kate, but it isn't always practical to move the feeders, especially in a small garden. I move mine back and forth about 1½m but I'm not sure that's far enough to make much difference. I'm considering regularly removing the top layer of soil (with grass, weeds and sprouted seeds!) and replacing with soil from elsewhere, or putting paving slabs under the feeders that I can clean.
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Moderate reasoning
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Home & Hobbies
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Turn Technique in One Short Lesson
What the heck does this mean and what does it look like? No wonder folks avoid turning to books to try to learn how to dance. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth far more. For the above turn, a six second video clip can better describe the action than an entire paragraph of words.
Watch our short video and you’ll learn about ten types of turns in less than five minutes. The turns discussed include: 1) pivot turns, 2) chaine turns, 3) spiral turns, 4) swing and sway turns, 5) heel turns, 6) spin turns, 7) platform (pencil) turns, 8) paddle turns, 9) twist turns, 10) Monterey turns, and 11) tuck turns.
Definitions of terms described in this video
Pivot turns - The pivot turn is a progressive turn that effects half of a rotation with each step. These can be chained together to produce a series of half turns. In the pivot turn, the feet stay oriented in extended third dance position. While turning in this fashion, the thighs should stay close together in a scissors-like fashion. It’s important to avoid spreading your legs to a wide second position during the turns.
Chaine Turns - The chaine turn is also a progressive turn that effects a full rotation for every two steps taken. The turn begins with a forward step taken to extended third dance position. Next, bring the back foot forward while turning one-quarter of a turn, landing in first dance position (feet closed). Without stepping, change weight as you rotate another three-quarters of a turn to complete the full 360-degree rotation. Step forward to extended third dance position with the original foot. Thus the turn is one-quarter, then three-quarters.Spiral turn - It’s easier to show it (see video) than to describe it.
Spin turn - Also called platform turn or pencil turn. It’s a stationary turn on one foot with the other foot in un-weighted first position.
Fan spin - It’s a stationary turn on one foot with the other foot in un-weighted second position.
Paddle turn - Also called jazz pivots. The paddle turn is a stationary turn that rotates around one predominantly weighted and centralized foot using the second foot to push off or paddle around the stationary foot.
Twist turn - This should probably be called “untwist turn.” One leg is hooked behind the other or crossed in front of the other, resulting in the feet being in a locked position. The turn is made so as to untwist.
Pirouette turn - A pirouette is at least one full turn on one foot with the other foot in a raised position.
Other turns - The video shows several other turns, including Monterey turns and tuck turns.
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Basic reasoning
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Sports & Fitness
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MEASLES, MUMPS AND RUBELLA
Measles: This viral disease causes high fever, cough and a rash which last for two weeks. Complications include convulsions, hearing loss and mental retardation. One out of every 500 to 10,000 cases end in death.
Mumps: This viral illness causes fever, headache and swollen salivary glands. Complications include painful swelling of the testicles (1 out of 4 males), meningitis (1/10 cases), encephalopathy (1/200 cases) and hearing loss.
Rubella: Also called German measles, this viral illness causes a rash and fever. This is a mild illness in children. However, if a pregnant woman contracts the disease, her unborn baby may be born blind, deaf or be mentally retarded. Rubella also causes miscarriages.
Benefits: MMR vaccine is a live, attenuated vaccine that protects children from these diseases when given according to schedule.
Risks: Occasionally a child may experience soreness or redness at injection site that lasts 1 to 2 days. One to 3 weeks following vaccination there may be a self-limited rash (5/100 doses), fever (5/100 doses), mild swelling of jaw or neck glands (1/7 doses), mild joint pain lasting 3 days (1/100 doses), or self-limited numbness in the hands and feet (rare). Very rarely (1 in a million doses) encephalopathy has been reported. However, there is no evidence MMR vaccine causes encephalopathy.
Recently (late ‘90’s), there has been some public interest in a theory that suggests that MMR vaccine may be linked to autism, a developmental disorder of language and social skills often associated with mental retardation. The theory was based on the observation of developmental regression in 12 children following vaccination. Subsequently, large studies in England involving nearly 500 patients, as well as larger studies in Sweden and other countries have failed to find any relationship between vaccines and autism. Children who receive MMR vaccine are no more likely to become autistic than children who do not get the vaccine. Both the United States Center for Disease Control and The American Academy of Pediatrics remain confident in the safety of this important vaccine.
Reasons to delay or not give vaccine: The vaccine should not be given to anyone with a febrile illness more severe than the common cold, neomycin allergy, an abnormal immune system (certain cancers, certain treatment for cancers, high dose prednisone), to anyone who has received gamma-globulin injection within the past 3 months, or to pregnant women. It is safe to give MMR to a child whose mother is pregnant.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Sleep apnoea in pregnancy could harm health of both mother and baby
A study of obese pregnant women found those with sleep apnoea were far more likely to develop pre-eclampsiaTheir newborns also had more than double the chance of needing intensive care treatment
13:29 GMT, 21 September 2012
Women who suffer from sleep apnoea during pregnancy are more likely to have babies who suffer from early health problems, researchers say.
They found babies of mothers with the breathing disorder had a greater risk of needing neonatal intensive care than unaffected mothers.
Scientists from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland studied obese pregnant women both with and without obstructive sleep apnoea.
They found OSA was also associated
with higher rates of pre-eclampsia in the overweight women.
The pregnancy complication causes high blood pressure and for protein to leak into the urine. If untreated it can develop into eclampsia, which is a type of life-threatening seizure.
At risk Pregnancy could increase the risk of sleep apnoea, although obesity has a more definite impact
Lead author Dr Judette Louis, from the University of South Florida, said: 'Our findings show that obstructive sleep apnea can contribute to poor outcomes for both obese mothers and their babies.
'Its role as a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes independent of obesity should be examined more closely.'
Sleep apnoea occurs when muscles and soft tissues in the throat collapse sufficiently during sleep to block the airway for 10 seconds or more. A sufferer can have as many as 100 episodes during the night, with each one jerking them out of deep sleep causing fatigue.
Some experts believe pregnancy can increase the chances of developing sleep apnoea, especially in the third trimester due to weight gain. Nasal membranes can also swell as blood vessels expand over the nine months.
Those who are overweight before they fall pregnant are more likely to develop the condition. A fifth of women in the U.S are obese when they conceive, but the number is not known in the UK.
Dr Louis and former colleagues from Case Western Reserve, analysed data for 175 obese pregnant women who had been tested for OSA at home using a portable device.
Around 15 per cent of the participants had sleep apnoea. These women were heavier on average and more likely to have high blood pressure.
Dr Judette Louis said sleep apnoea was an understudied complication of obesity in pregnancy
Around 42 per cent of women with sleep apnoea had pre-eclampsia compared to 17 per cent of those without the condition.
Meanwhile nearly half (46 per cent ) of babies born to women with sleep apnoea needed intensive care treatment compared to 17 per cent of the other overweight mothers. Many of these admissions were due to respiratory distress.
Finally 65 per cent of the women with sleep apnoea required a caesaeran section compared to a third of those without the condition. Premature birth rates were similar between the groups.
Approximately one in five women are obese when they become pregnant in the U.S, according to research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Such statistics are not gathered in the UK.
While numerous studies have examined complications associated with obesity in pregnancy – including high blood pressure and gestational diabetes – sleep apnoea has been underdiagnosed and understudied.
The study authors suggest the best way to decrease obesity-related conditions that lead to poor pregnancy outcomes, including sleep apnoea, would be to treat obesity before a woman becomes pregnant, but acknowledge that 'losing weight is often difficult.'
Dr Louis said the study also points to the need for better ways to screen and treat this common form of sleep-disordered breathing during pregnancy.
The study has been published online in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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There is a new paper out by Brysse et al. in Global Environmental Change (here $) which includes as co-authors Naomi Oreskes (author of Merchants of Doubt) and Michael Oppenheimer (long-time IPCC contributor and a contributing lead author for the AR5). The authors report a remarkable finding -- they have identified a shortcut to divining the true state of knowledge of the science of climate change.
As the authors' explain:
Evidence from recent analyses suggests that scientists, particularly acting in the context of large assessments, may have underestimated the magnitude and rate of expected impacts of anthropogenic climate change. We suggest that this underestimation reflects a systematic bias, which we label “erring on the side of least drama (ESLD)”.What ESLD therefore means is that when scientists make a claim about climate change, particularly via the IPCC and other assessments, the presence of a systematic bias indicates that the odds are that things are really much, much worse. ESLD therefore offers a short cut to anticipating where climate science is headed.
An important reason for this bias, the authors assert, is of course none other than those evil skeptics:
[O]ne possible reason why scientists may have underestimated the threat of anthropogenic warming is the fear that if they don’t, they will be accused by contrarians (as was Schneider) of being alarmist fear-mongers. That is to say, pressure from skeptics and contrarians and the risk of being accused of alarmism may have caused scientists to understate their results.Not only is the accusation of a systematic bias an insult to the integrity of practicing scientists, but the entire paper is built on an empirical foundation that does not touch the ground.
Let's take a closer look at the data claimed to support the ESLD hypothesis. The paper examines literature on IPCC predictions for temperature and sea level, hurricanes, and the role of greenhouse gases from permafrost melting in climate models.
- It finds that sea level is running well below the 1990 IPCC prediction and above the 1995 and 2001 predictions (if anyone can make sense of 2007 IPCC predictions then you get a bonus point).
- It finds that observed temperature increases are consistent with the predictions of all 4 IPCC assessments.
- It finds that the IPCC accurately reflects the community understanding on hurricanes.
- It finds that peramfrost melting is not included in climate models, representing a "potentially profound bias in the climate projections—not toward overestimation of climate change, but toward its underestimation."
- They also cite Arctic sea ice and some science on rainfall.
Consider also the figure below on global temperatures, courtesy of Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) at the University of Reading (for discussion see his post here). The figure shows that for the CMIP5 climate models (i.e., those to be used in IPCC AR5) observed temperatures are running at the low end of the ensemble of predictions, reflecting the recent "standstill" in global temperature (the figure also calls into question the Brysse et al. conclusion that global temperatures are consistent with all 4 previous IPCC reports, but I digress).
Least drama? Hardly.
Consider that the 2007 IPCC report alone had 2,744 findings, almost all of which were reported in probabilistic fashion. Evaluating the accuracy of those findings comprehensively against the evolution of the climate system would be difficult if not impossible, both empirically and epistemologically. Further, one could easily pick out a few findings from the report which tell a different story: drought, methane emissions, flooding, disaster costs, Himalayan glacier melt and so on. In 2010, Robert Watson, a former Chair of the IPCC, noted of the errors discovered in the AR4 report: "The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying." A Dutch assessment of the IPCC AR4 found much the same.
For some reason Brysse et al. neglected to consider a 2010 paper (co-authored by Michael Oppenheimer) which warned of the threat of a dramatic increase in poor Mexicans migrating north into the United States due to climate change. Talk about drama! However, an unnoticed 2012 paper in the same journal found that the original migration paper contained some serious methodological flaws, so never mind. This apparently was a case of Erring on the Side of Too-Much Drama (ESTMD - I can make up scientific-sounding concepts too). We could go on like this all day, and it would not provide any enlightenment.
Is there any evidence that climate scientists exhibit a systematic bias in their published work and assessments due to outside pressure or other factors? No.
As the ESLD paper shows, ironically enough, sometimes work that is badly off base gets into the literature and even scientific assessments are far from perfect. Nonetheless, science is the best route we have to gaining an understanding of the world that we live in. I'm sorry to say that there are no shortcuts. Or perhaps put another way, science is the shortcut.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Vaccine development, especially during public health emergencies, requires collaborative, multi-sectoral, and international efforts, with private pharmaceutical companies teaming up with governmental and nongovernmental agencies, philanthropies, and academic laboratories. For example, the recently approved Ebola vaccine is a result of a close collaboration between the pharmaceutical company Merck, Canadian and U.S. governmental agencies, and the World Health Organization (WHO) (Felter, 2020). When severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in late 2019 and began spreading across the world, the global community mobilized rapidly to start developing and mass-producing effective vaccines. As some high-income countries start securing vaccine allotments through bilateral agreements with pharmaceutical companies, it is clear that an inequitable distribution of vaccines at the global level will ultimately fail to eliminate the risk of new outbreaks in the future. As recently highlighted in a report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “According to modeling from Northeastern University, if rich countries buy up the first 2 billion doses of vaccine instead of making sure they are distributed in proportion to the global population, then almost twice as many people could die from COVID-19” (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2020, p. 16; Chinazzi et al., 2020).
The United States has already made large investments through Operation Warp Speed (OWS) to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and domestic distribution of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines. While the United States has yet to actively engage with global vaccine devel-
opment and allocation efforts, it has officially acknowledged and welcomed them. Indeed, on May 4, 2020, the U.S. Department of State stated that the
United States is bringing together the brightest minds in U.S. government agencies, the private sector, universities, and overseas partners to develop vaccines and therapeutic interventions to protect the world from COVID-19. The United States is using its G7 Presidency to catalyze the power and resilience of the world’s leading democracies and free economies in this effort. The United States welcomes efforts by other countries to mobilize resources to mitigate and ultimately end the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts like the pledging conference in Europe which, among other things, will support investments in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the United Kingdom’s June 4 pledging conference for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). (U.S. Department of State, 2020)
Unfortunately, the current tension between the United States and WHO over its initial response to the pandemic, including a halt to U.S. funding and formal notification of the United States’ intent to withdraw from membership in the World Health Assembly, has further complicated these multilateral discussions. As highlighted in the above quote, the U.S. government is a long-term supporter of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and, indeed, one of the vaccine alliance’s largest donors.1
This chapter will explore existing multilateral strategies to accelerate and equitably deploy future vaccines needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic internationally, as well as the United States’ potential leadership role in supporting global vaccine access mechanisms.
Global Preparedness Monitoring Board
The 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa uncovered important gaps in the global community’s capacities to effectively prepare, detect, respond to and recover from emerging and re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks. In the wake of this unprecedented crisis and in response to recommendations by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Health Crises Task Force, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) was created. In 2018, the GPMB was formally launched by the World Bank
1 The United States is also the largest donor to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. While the Global Fund does not have a role in the ACT-A Vaccines Pillar, it has played a leading role in the Diagnostics and Therapeutics Pillars, as well as the Health Systems connector.
and WHO as an independent body tasked with monitoring and evaluating epidemic and pandemic preparedness around the world (GPMB, 2019).
In September 2019, the GPMB released its first comprehensive annual report, A World at Risk (GPMB, 2019). The report highlighted key actions for global leaders to take. The report warned, “Countries, donors and multilateral institutions must be prepared for the worst” (GPMB, 2019, p. 8). Specifically:
A rapidly spreading pandemic due to a lethal respiratory pathogen (whether naturally emergent or accidentally or deliberately released) poses additional preparedness requirements. Donors and multilateral institutions must ensure adequate investment in developing innovative vaccines and therapeutics, surge manufacturing capacity, broad-spectrum antivirals and appropriate non-pharmaceutical interventions. All countries must develop a system for immediately sharing genome sequences of any new pathogen for public health purposes along with the means to share limited medical countermeasures across countries. (GPMB, 2019, p. 30)
While retrospectively prescient, the GPMB’s recommendation was based on knowledge of the certainty of the periodic, but unpredictably sudden, emergence of new pandemic influenza strains. The board recognized that, while some progress had been made in recent years in preparedness for local emerging infection outbreaks, such as Ebola, the global preparedness for a rapidly moving respiratory pathogen had lagged.
Unfortunately, the world’s leaders had less than 6 months to act on the recommendations of the GPMB before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and its rapid spread throughout the world. The GPMB’s recommendation urged leaders to identify the “means to share limited countermeasures across countries” and cautioned that, “limited medical countermeasures are shared inequitably at times and are likely to be prioritized for domestic use during a pandemic” (GPMB, 2019).
COVID-19 Vaccine Nationalism
The GPMB’s concern about the domestic prioritization of medical countermeasures has proved perceptive, as the world has seen a rush to what has been called “vaccine nationalism” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Weintraub et al., 2020). Many high-income countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and those in the European Commission, have sought to quickly secure reservations of scarce capacities for vaccine production for their domestic deployment, often in return for size-able investments in research and development or at-risk scaling of vaccine manufacturing capacity (HHS, 2020a,b; Rockoff and Hopkins, 2020).
The current approach has several obvious inefficiencies. Few countries will have enough resources to invest in a full portfolio of vaccine constructs.
Consequently, most countries will place very specific bets on individual vaccine partnerships. Given the uncertainties regarding the immunology of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, the highly diverse range of potential vaccine constructs, and the low risk-adjusted probability of the technical and regulatory success of any specific vaccine, they simply may not pick the winner(s).
Additionally, both the time and costs of ultimately meeting the world’s needs will likely increase with highly fragmented pursuits of countermeasures against the virus. Countries may make redundant investments; fail to efficiently harness global capacities for sourcing key supplies, vaccine production, and fill/finish facilities; and be slowed by the lack of regulatory harmonization, integrated post-marketing surveillance, and coordinated management of product liability.
Another obvious problem with the vaccine nationalism approach relates to the global nature of the pandemic. In a global economy, people, goods, and services move rapidly around the world. We have seen the devastating economic consequences of the slowdown of global trade and travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (CRS, 2020). There is a strong urge to get back to some semblance of normal economic and social activity, which will be difficult to attain if there remain areas of the world where the virus is circulating widely. Countermeasures to control and contain the COVID-19 outbreak are needed everywhere, not just in those countries that are able to finance and secure scarce supplies. Global solidarity in ensuring rapid access to and deployment of vaccines is not just the right approach, it is also the best strategic approach for interrupting the pandemic.
Finally, if successful vaccines are developed in high-income countries and not equitably shared with low- and middle-income countries, we will continue to see differential morbidity and mortality, as well as economic and social shocks that will further increase global inequities—and with them global instability, displacement, large-scale migration, and, ultimately, insecurity.
Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator
On April 24, 2020, the president of the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, and President Macron of France, together with the director general of WHO and a host of other development partners and heads of states issued a Call to Action for the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator (ACT-A) (WHO, 2020c). At subsequent pledging events on May 4, 2020, and June 27, 2020, a wide range of countries, industries, civil society, and development partners pledged significant resources to support
The ACT-A is a global initiative to:
speed up an end to the pandemic by supporting the development and equitable distribution of the tests, treatments and vaccines the world needs to reduce mortality and severe disease, restoring full societal and economic activity globally in the near term, and facilitating high-level control of COVID-19 disease in the medium term. (WHO, 2020a)
The ACT-A initiative is primarily a coordinating mechanism to bring together governments, health organizations, scientists, businesses, civil society, and philanthropists for concerted action in order to efficiently pair resources with the organizations best placed to accelerate and deploy the key countermeasures needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative has three “pillars” focused on vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, as well as a health systems “connector” that focuses on identifying and solving the limitations of weak health systems that may delay or frustrate the effective delivery of these vital countermeasures. One of the early benefits of this initiative has been its ability to consolidate an “investment case,” highlighting the resource needs required to accelerate the global availability of COVID-19 tools (WHO, 2020a,b,c). The vaccine pillar of the ACT-A estimates a need of $15.9 billion over the next 18 months to secure two billion doses of vaccines for global use by the end of 2021. The vaccine pillar of ACT-A, also referred to as COVAX, is convened by CEPI and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2020c). CEPI is leading the development of a robust portfolio of vaccine development partnerships. They currently have 10 separate partnerships with a range of companies and, if fully financed, will have potentially the largest portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines under development, increasing the likelihood that one or more will achieve technical and regulatory success. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is leading the work on vaccine procurement and financing. Together, CEPI and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance are working closely with WHO and its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (the apical vaccine advisory body within WHO), which is leading the development of a framework for fair and equitable allocation and prioritization of COVID-19 vaccines together with the member states of the World Health Assembly.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Global Vaccine Procurement Strategy
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has developed a financing approach through the COVAX Facility for the global procurement of COVID-19 vaccines (Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 2020b). The facility is designed to provide all countries with an opportunity to participate in securing initial access to
vaccine supply sufficient to cover at least 20 percent of their population. Once an allocation of 20 percent for all countries participating in COVAX is met, additional allocations will be made to all participating countries using a weighted allocation framework that balances a country’s threat of infection and the vulnerability of its population and health system. This more complex allocation schema is described in the working draft of the Fair Allocation Mechanism for COVID-19 Vaccines Through the COVAX Facility published by WHO (2020e). WHO estimates that vaccines for 20 percent of the population should be enough to immunize frontline health care workers, other essential workers, older adults, and those with significant comorbid conditions that increase the risk of serious COVID-19 illness in most countries. Vaccines for low- and lower-middle-income countries would be financed through an advanced market commitment (AMC) funded from traditional sources of overseas development assistance. Ninety-two lower- and lower-middle-income countries are eligible for vaccine financing through the AMC. High- and upper-middle-income countries would self-finance vaccines through the facility. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance would use these combined financing streams to issue contingent volume guarantees to specific countries to scale vaccine production, as well as to provide a strong demand signal to the vaccine industry in general. These types of market-shaping interventions have proven successful as part of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s innovative financing for other vaccines needed by low- and middle-income countries over the past 20 years (e.g., the successful pneumococcal conjugate vaccine AMC [Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 2019]). The COVAX Facility provides all countries a mechanism to pool procurement, reduce prices, and minimize the risk of not having any effective vaccines. As of September 21, 2020, 64 higher-income nations have officially joined the COVAX Facility, including commitments from 35 countries, as well as the European Commission, representing the 27 European Union member states plus Norway and Iceland. These 64 self-financing economies are joined by 92 lower-income economies who are eligible for financial support through the AMC. A total of 156 economies, representing more than two-thirds of the global population, are now either committed to or eligible for the COVAX Facility—with more expected to follow (Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 2020a; WHO, 2020d). It should be noted that some of these countries also have separate bilateral partnerships with vaccine developers to acquire vaccines directly.
The United States and the COVAX Facility
Despite a long history of leadership in global health, particularly with regard to issues of global health security, the United States has yet to engage
in any significant manner in the global discussions regarding the ACT-A. On September 2, 2020, the White House announced it would opt out of the COVAX Facility.
Unfortunately, the international impression is that the United States has decided to go its own way, with its large investments through OWS tied to reservations of manufacturing capacity for exclusively domestic use. While certainly not alone among high-income countries in this type of “vaccine nationalism” approach, the speed, size, and extent of the U.S. investments with specific vaccine manufacturers may have set the example that others have followed, resulting in the fragmented global response that ACT-A and COVAX are trying to resolve.
Reasons to Support and Engage with Current Global Allocation Efforts
There are several compelling reasons why the U.S. government could reconsider engaging in the discussions on global vaccine allocation and, in particular, the ACT-A and COVAX facilities, as a complement to the efforts currently pursued through OWS.
As an Insurance Policy
Participation in ACT-A and COVAX could ensure the highest likelihood of early access to a safe and effective vaccine to prevent and interrupt transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and reduce the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 among those most susceptible to poor outcomes. Despite having the largest investments in the broadest portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines of any nation (six vaccine partnerships announced to date with more to come), the United States has not invested in every potential vaccine construct, including some of those that CEPI has within its portfolio and that are pioneered by non-U.S. companies. In the event that the first, or most effective, vaccine emerges from the ACT-A portfolio, the United States would be negotiating late and at a disadvantage for access. In the context of OWS, a modest investment in the COVAX Facility would be a reasonable hedge, a sort of insurance policy, to ensure access to any successful COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, at least for the highest-risk Americans.
A Disease Threat Anywhere Is a Threat Everywhere
Shaping the global allocation of COVID-19 vaccines should be of strong interest to the United States, given its global trade interests, foreign military deployments, and vital diplomatic alliances. The reality of the global pandemic is summed up in the truism that “no one is safe until everyone is safe.” A rapid U.S. economic recovery will most certainly depend on economic
recovery elsewhere, and thus on containing the COVID-19 pandemic around the world as quickly as possible. The United States also has the scientific expertise to potentially help shape the deployment of vaccines and other countermeasures in the most effective and timely manner. Most recently, the United States has played an important role in supporting the global response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014–2015, where hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assignees and many American volunteers joined in a historic response to a global health crisis. Similarly, as effective medical countermeasures (MCMs) become available, a U.S. engagement would speed their effective deployment and protect Americans, at home and abroad, and their interests, in the timeliest manner.
Global Health Security Agenda
Participation in ACT-A and COVAX is an important way to help shape the future of the global health security agenda. SARS-CoV-2 will not be the last—or potentially even the most severe—global health threat to emerge. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, does not change the likelihood of emergence of the next influenza pandemic. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century and only one has occurred thus far in the 21st century. In March 2020, the World Economic Forum stated that COVID-19 “isn’t an outlier, it’s part of our interconnected viral age,” coinciding with globalization, urbanization, and climate change (Whiting, 2020). Following the large Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014–2015 there was a global effort to strengthen global health security. Numerous countries undertook Joint External Evaluations, budgets for preparedness were increased, and the International Health Regulations (IHR) were strengthened. But, as highlighted by the Johns Hopkins Global Security Index and the GPMB in its 2019 report, these steps were insufficient to stop the cycle of crisis and neglect (GPMB, 2019; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2019). There will undoubtedly be a deeper assessment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the worst global health security event in over a century. Those assessments will take many forms, including through the GPMB, The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness & Response, which was called for at the most recent World Health Assembly and is to be chaired by Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia (WHO, 2020f). The ACT-A and COVAX, however, provide a specific opportunity for focused lessons to be learned about how to most effectively and quickly harness science and technology in response to an emerging global health threat. Given the scientific strength of the United States, it has much to contribute to that discussion and the strengthening of future global health preparedness.
A Historic and Successful Partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
COVAX could be an opportunity for the United States to further strengthen its partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, one of the United States’ highest-return development partnerships. For the past 20 years the U.S. government has been one of the largest donors supporting Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance across multiple administrations. The return on this investment has been more than 7 million lives saved from vaccine-preventable disease, and those results have garnered strong, consistent, bipartisan support. The COVAX Facility will expand Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s innovative financing model to additional geographic regions (the Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Board just approved the expanded eligibility for COVAX AMC financing to 92 countries), which provides an opportunity to expand the influence of one of the largest U.S. development partnerships.
An Investment in Future Domestic Pandemic Preparedness
Participating in the global allocation of COVID-19 vaccines, including the possibility of devoting some of the reserved capacity of the U.S. supply, could be a wise investment in future domestic preparedness. Per the 2018 U.S. National Biodefense Strategy, “an interconnected world increases the opportunity for pathogens to emerge and spread so that a disease threat anywhere is a disease threat everywhere” (The White House, 2018). Recent experiences with Ebola, SARS, Zika, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Nipah, and 2009 H1N1 have indeed proven repeatedly that new pandemic threats can emerge anywhere on the globe. Rapid sharing of information about emerging pathogens is essential for early containment and the expedient development of needed countermeasures (The White House, 2018). In 2009, the United States decided to proactively dedicate 10 percent of its domestic supply of H1N1 influenza vaccine for global deployment through WHO, both for global solidarity and to ensure the continued willingness of all countries to share viral samples and genetic sequences. The impressive scientific prowess of U.S. companies and academic institutions may become impotent if their researchers cannot obtain samples of novel pathogens as they emerge. Consequently, an investment in global solidarity is not only the right thing to do, but also a wise investment in national preparedness for future outbreaks. This will be especially true if the United States follows through with its intent to withdraw from WHO in 2021 and, presumably, the IHR, a treaty obligation of WHO member states and part of WHO’s global mandate. The IHR currently provides a framework, albeit imperfect, for the sharing of information concerning emergent pathogens (WHO, 2005). Without its guarantees, the United States will be solely dependent on diplomatic goodwill. This alone is a good reason for the United States to reconsider its decision to withdraw from WHO.
An Investment in National Security
Participation in ACT-A and COVAX might be an important way to help the United States meet the ambitious national security goals laid out in its 2018 National Biodefense Strategy. More specifically, contributions to the ongoing global efforts could help the United States meet one of its goals, namely, to “ensure biodefense enterprise preparedness to reduce the impact of bioincidents” (The White House, 2018). One of the key objectives underpinning this goal is to “strengthen international preparedness to support international response and recovery capabilities” (The White House, 2018). In the context of this particular goal, the 2018 National Biodefense Strategy makes clear that it is in the United States’ national security interest to
promote increased global capacities for research, development, evaluation, manufacturing, acquisition, stockpiling, deployment, and distribution of MCMs, including through collaborative arrangements,” and to “develop appropriate plans and agreements to facilitate the rapid international deployment and distribution of MCMs under the appropriate regulatory mechanisms, or for the rapid development, including clinical trials, of investigational MCMs during a crisis. (The White House, 2018, p. 21)
Even a comparatively modest investment in the ACT-A and COVAX Facility might allow the United States to quickly and most effectively meet key national security goals laid out in the 2018 National Biodefense strategy, while still pursuing separate bilateral partnerships with vaccine developers.
A Moral Duty
Re-engaging in discussions on global vaccine allocation, in particular with ACT-A and the COVAX Facility, would allow the United States to maintain its historical position as a leader in global health. The United States has earned this leadership position through long-standing successful humanitarian engagements across the globe, with strong bipartisan support in Congress across both Republican and Democratic administrations. The historic eradication of smallpox in the 1980s could not have happened without strong international partnerships and, importantly, U.S. leadership.
More recently, by providing logistical, technical, and financial support, including the purchase of vaccines, the U.S. government has been instrumental in the ongoing global efforts to eradicate polio (Bristol, 2012). Amid the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic, the United States should consider it a moral duty, as a leading nation and member of the G7/G20, to embrace its humanitarian legacy by re-engaging and leading on the international stage in support of lower-resourced nations.
While the U.S. government works tirelessly to develop and eventually distribute safe and effective vaccines within its own borders, it is important to note that an inequitable distribution of vaccines among countries will ultimately fail to eliminate the risk of new outbreaks in the future. The U.S. government has made multiple large investments in a broad portfolio of COVID-19 vaccine partnerships. It is possible that several vaccines may succeed in achieving technical and regulatory success, including some that may not be included in the COVAX portfolio. It should be a matter of global health and national security that the United States embrace its long-held leadership role on the international stage and support ongoing global vaccine access strategies, such as the ACT-A and the COVAX Facility.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 2020. COVID-19: A Global Perscpective. 2020 Goalkeepers Report. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2020-report/?download=false#GlobalPerspective (accessed September 15, 2020).
Bristol, N. 2012. The U.S. role in global polio eradication. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/121217_Bristol_USRolePolio_Web.pdf (accessed September 7, 2020).
Chinazzi, M., J. T. Davis, N. E. Dean, K. Mu, A. Pastore y Piontti, X. Xiong, M. E. Halloran, I. M. Longini, Jr., and A. Vespignani. 2020. Estimating the effect of cooperative versus uncooperative strategies of COVID-19 vaccine allocation: A modeling study. NetSI. https://www.networkscienceinstitute.org/publications/estimating-the-effect-of-cooperative-versus-uncooperative-strategies-of-covid-19-vaccine-allocation-a-modeling-study (accessed September 22, 2020).
CRS (Congressional Research Service). 2020. Global economic effects of COVID-19. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46270.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
European Commission. 2020a. Coronavirus global response: 7.4 billion raised for universal access to vaccines. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_797 (accessed September 6, 2020).
European Commission. 2020b. Coronavirus global response: Breakdown of the pledges made today in the “global goal” summit. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_1216 (accessed September 6, 2020).
European Commission. 2020c. Coronavirus: Commission continues expanding future vaccines portfolio with new talks. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1494 (accessed September 6, 2020).
Felter, C. 2020. What is the world doing to create a COVID-19 vaccine? Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-world-doing-create-covid-19-vaccine (accessed September 9, 2020).
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 2019. Advance market commitment for pneumococcal vaccines: Annual report 1 January–31 December 2019. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/document/2020/2019-Pneumococcal-AMC-Annual-Report.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 2020a. COVAX commitment agreements. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/pr/COVAX_CA_COIP_List_COVAX_PR_V5.pdf (accessed September 22, 2020).
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 2020b. COVAX Facility explainer. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX_Facility_Explainer.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 2020c. COVAX, the ACT-Accelerator vaccines pillar: Insuring accelerated vaccine development and manufacture. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/COVAX-Pillar-background.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
GPMB (Global Preparedness Monitoring Board). 2019. A world at risk: Annual report on global preparedness for health emergencies. https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_report/GPMB_annualreport_2019.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). 2020a. Trump administration collaborates with Moderna to produce 100 million doses of COVID-19 investigational vaccine. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/08/11/trump-administration-collaborates-with-moderna-produce-100-million-doses-covid-19-investigational-vaccine.html (accessed September 6, 2020).
HHS. 2020b. U.S. government engages Pfizer to produce millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/07/22/us-government-engages-pfizer-produce-millions-doses-covid-19-vaccine.html#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Health,vaccine’s%20successful%20manufacture%20and%20approval (accessed September 6, 2020).
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Nuclear Threat Initiative. 2019. Global health security index. https://www.ghsindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2019-Global-Health-Security-Index.pdf (accessed September 6, 2020).
Rockoff, J., and J. S. Hopkins. 2020. Novavax, J&J ink COVID-19 vaccine deals with U.K. for tens of millions of doses. The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/novavax-inks-covid-19-vaccine-deal-with-u-k-for-60-million-doses-11597381320 (accessed September 6, 2020).
U.S. Department of State. 2020. The U.S. is leading the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and developing a vaccine. https://www.state.gov/the-u-s-is-leading-the-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-developing-a-vaccine (accessed September 9, 2020).
Weintraub, R., A. Bitton, and M. L. Rosenberg. 2020. The danger of vaccine nationalism. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/05/the-danger-of-vaccine-nationalism (accessed September 6, 2020).
The White House. 2018. National biodefense strategy. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2018/09/National-Biodefense-Strategy.pdf (accessed September 7, 2020).
Whiting, K. 2020. Coronavirus isn’t an outlier, it’s part of our interconnected viral age. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-global-epidemics-health-pandemic-covid-19 (accessed September 6, 2020).
WHO (World Health Organization). 2005. International Health Regulations (2005). Geneva, Switzerland: WHO. https://www.who.int/ihr/publications/9789241580496/en (accessed September 7, 2020).
WHO. 2020a. The access to COVID-19 tools (ACT) Accelerator. https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator#:~:text=The%20Access%20to%20COVID%2D19%20Tools%20(ACT)%20Accelerator%2C,tests%2C%20treatments%2C%20and%20vaccines (accessed September 6, 2020).
WHO. 2020b. Access to COVID-19 tools (ACT) accelerator: A global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to new COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/access-to-covid-19-tools-(act)-accelerator (accessed September 6, 2020).
WHO. 2020c. ACT-Accelerator investment case: Invest now to change the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/act-consolidated-investment-case-at-26-june-2020-(vf).pdf?sfvrsn=2f9386e4_2&download=true (accessed September 6, 2020).
WHO. 2020d. Boost for global response to COVID-19 as economies worldwide formally sign up to COVAX Facility. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/21-09-2020-boost-for-global-response-to-covid-19-as-economies-worldwide-formally-sign-up-to-covax-facility (accessed September 22, 2020).
WHO. 2020e. Fair allocation mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/fair-allocation-mechanism-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-the-covax-facility (accessed September 22, 2020).
WHO. 2020f. Independent evaluation of global COVID-19 response announced. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/09-07-2020-independent-evaluation-of-global-covid-19-response-announced (accessed September 6, 2020).
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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Rabies is a viral disease that is spread most often from the bite of a rabid animal to another animal or to a human.
The rabies virus affects the central nervous system including the brain and spinal cord of humans and animals. During the incubation period, the time between exposure to the virus and the appearance of symptoms, the virus travels along nerves towards the brain. This process takes an average of one to three months, but can range from several days to several years after exposure. The infection causes inflammation of the brain and spinal cord that can lead to encephalopathy and later, death. Encephalopathy is any type of disease that changes the brain's function or structure.
The rabies virus has two forms that cause different behaviours in affected animals. The forms of the disease are called furious and paralytic (dumb). If an animal has the furious form of rabies, it is easily provoked, distressed, and aggressive. Some wild animals may do things that are uncharacteristic for their species when infected with the furious form of the virus. For example, bats may come out during the day, or a wild animal may be friendlier than normal towards humans. With the paralytic form of rabies, some or all of the animal's body is paralyzed.
The bite of a rabid animal is the most common cause of rabies. The virus is carried in the saliva of the rabid animal and is able to enter the body through an opening in the skin, such as a bite wound. Although it is possible to get rabies from a non-bite exposure, this is very rare. For example, non-bite exposures include inhalation of aerosol particles of the virus, or by a rabid animal licking a person's eyes, nose, mouth, or broken skin.
High-risk animals include:
Domestic animals like cats, dogs, and cattle can become rabid if bitten, so it is important to vaccinate them against rabies. Recently, steps have been taken in some countries to immunize wildlife populations using oral baits containing vaccines. This is dramatically reducing the spread to domestic populations of animals.
From the point where the rabies virus entered the body, the virus moves towards the brain along the nerves. A person may show the first signs of rabies an average of one to three months after the virus enters the body. In humans, the first symptoms of the disease are non-specific and resemble other viral infections, they include:
In 4 - 10 days, neurological symptoms will appear as the virus begins to multiply in the spinal cord or brain. These symptoms include:
Spasms affecting the muscles in the throat and pain or difficulty swallowing are often seen as the disease progresses. Eventually, a person infected with the rabies virus can slip into a coma and die. Death is usually caused by breathing failure. It is important to seek treatment as soon as possible after the initial contact with the infected animal. Treatment must be started before the symptoms develop or it is highly unlikely to be effective in preventing death from the virus.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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The map of Old English derivation
Nerthus 3D as a derivational map of the Old English lexicon
The lexical paradigms of Old English have been gathered in a derivational map of the language that represents the morphological and lexical relations holding among the approximately 30,000 lexical items filed in the database. Then, José Manuel Valle Melón and Álvaro Rodríguez Miranda (Laboratory for the Geometric Documentation of the Heritage – University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU) have implemented the three-dimensional model of the derivational map with the software Xglore, a 3D graph explorer whose nodes are placed in 3D space relative to their level from the root node, so that child nodes are arranged centrifugally around the corresponding parent node. The derivational map is organized in lexical paradigms, in which edges and labels code the morphological and lexical relations that result. Lexical layers are represented by means of successive generations of node of children stemming from the parent node, as can be seen below:
Fig 1: The lexical paradigm of (ge)beodan.
The graph of the derivational paradigm of (ge)bēodan specifies, among other things, that the strong verb (class II) ābēodan 'to order, proclaim' (pret. sing. ā bēad, pret. plur. ābudon, past part. āboden) is the base of the zero derived weak verb (class 2) ābodian 'to announce'. This information is conveyed by means of the nodes 1 and 2 and the edge 1-> 2, as presented below:
1 [label="a:be:odan" Predicate="a:be:odan" Status="PREFIXED" "Alternative spelling"="" "Lexical category"="verb" "Morphological class"="strong II" "Inflectional paradigm"="pret. sing. a: be:ad, pret. plur. a:budon, past part. a:boden" Translation="to order, proclaim, bid, command, direct; summon, call out; announce, relate, declare, present, offer. ha+:l a: to wish one good luck, greet, bid farewell to" ];
2 [label="a:bodian" Predicate="a:bodian" Status="ZERODERIVED" "Alternative spelling"="" "Lexical category"="verb" "Morphological class"="weak 2" "Inflectional paradigm"="" Translation="to announce, proclaim" ];
1-> 2 ;
As can be seen in the next figure, information on the morphology and meaning of a given member of the paradigm can be accessed by clicking on the lexical item in question. A word list is also provided in which lexical entries are sorted alphabetically.
Fig. 2: The lexical paradigm of stincan.
Overall, the 3D representation of the derivational map offers a set of interactive graphics that provide access to the information contained by an alphanumeric lexical database and facilitate the retrieval of linguistic or metalinguistic data. 3D lexical paradigms allow for spatial manipulation, including focus on a given part of the paradigm or the tracking of relations of derivation and hyponymy. Finally, metadata have been added to the resource that comply with the standards of the Dublin Core metadata element set.
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Strong reasoning
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Literature
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|WikiProject Medicine / Toxicology||(Rated Start-class, Low-importance)|
|WikiProject Chemistry||(Rated Start-class, Low-importance)|
This article, originally a redirect to the excellent article on haloalkanes, was expanded into a full article in order to provide a common source of information about the several chemical families of halogenated organics. These compounds have been beacons of modern industrial chemistry. At the same time, together with petroleum distillates, they have proven to be the most challenging of the modern environmental pollutants.
Craig Bolon 04:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
This artuicle implies that all halocarbons are hazardous and are very carefully regulated. This is not true. Some halocarbons are not hazardous and are very common, like polytetrafluoroethlyene or teflon, which is just polymerized C2F4. Also, dichloromethane is still often used in household products (see its uses). Also, R-134-a, a flouroalkane, is often used as a refrigeratnt and it computer cleaning products (comperessed gas is used to blow away dust) since it is not ozone depleting. While some halocarbons where banned and are unsafe, this article needs to state more clearly that not all of them are regulated heavily and are dangerous. Also, not all of them are unreactive, acid halides (like acetyl chloride, CH3COCl) and a few other species are very reactive (unlike most halocarbons). Also, some species (like HCFCs, chlorophenols, and HFCs are too voatile or reactive to persist in organisms and bioaccumulate. Polonium 00:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The above comment claims "some halocarbons are not hazardous." Not proven. Such assertions recall the promotion of halocarbons in the decades from the 1930s through the 1960s. Manufacturers tended to stress benefits and discount hazards. Some hazards, such as chloracne, were gross and should have been obvious, while others, such as ozone depletion, were subtle and took years of effort to understand.
As the article says, all halocarbons, including PTFE, dichloromethane and refrigerant R-134a, are potentially hazardous when exposed to high temperatures, because they decompose, releasing free halogens and other toxins. Given decades of effort that it has taken to recognize and cope with halocarbon hazards, any statement about current regulations should be provisional, as the controversy over PFOA in recent years clearly illustrates.
The comment about acid halides does make sense, although practically it is limited to reactive intermediates rarely encountered outside chemical process enclosures. A qualification has been added to the article. The one trying to distinguish hazards on the basis of volatility does not. Refrigerants of similar volatility differ widely in their potential for ozone depletion.
Craig Bolon 16:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
request merging Organic halide to this article
- Done. V8rik 15:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
- I haven't been privy to any discussions related to this topic, but in my view and experience, when organic chemists talk about halocarbons, they mean compounds that contain only carbon and halogen, and occasionally those which might have a single hydrogen in addition to multiple halogens (sometime called hydrohalocarbons). The absence of hydrogens gives very special chemical properties to these materials (i.e. PTFE, many of the Freons, CCl4 as inert solvent for radical reactions, etc) which resulted in the special class name halocarbons being coined. Compounds like Me-Cl would not be considered halocarbons, CCl4 would be. This is an extension of names like hydrocarbons (only hydrogen and carbon), cyanocarbons (each carbon fully substituted with CN groups, the WP article on this also over generalizes this name), lithiocarbons (materials like C2Li2 and CLi4), oxocarbons and even the original use of carbohydrates. I think "Organic Halides" would be the proper title for this article, usually subdivided into the various classes which determine important reactivity characteristics of the halide (alkyl halides, aryl halides, vinyl halides, allyl halides, etc, and, of course, halocarbons). Halocarbon is a nice snappy name, but it should not be used in this very general way. ChemistHans 17:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi ChemistHans, you have made a good point, a name change to organic halide or organohalide would be a good idea. I also note that the distinction between halocarbon and haloalkene is not explained in the haloalkane article V8rik 21:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not experienced enough with WP to make such a change. I first noticed this in articles which referred to the Halocarbon page: n-Butyllithium (where I removed the link) and Organolithium reagents (it's still there). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ChemistHans (talk • contribs) 22:42, August 20, 2007 (UTC).
i think the classifications would be better reworked like this:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Halocarbon
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Clean Water in Every Tap
Millions of people across thousands of communities in the U.S. have chemicals in their drinking water that put them at risk. PFOA and PFOS and related compounds linked to cancer, Chromium-6 (the Erin Brockovich chemical) and 1,4 dioxane are in millions of people’s tap water. The Safe Drinking Water Act will limit these known toxins in drinking water, protecting families, homes, schools and businesses from harmful toxins.
Parents and Families
Clean water advocates
Private water system operators
This act shall be known as the Safe Drinking Water Act
This bill directs the Department of Health or other appropriate Department to establish state-level maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for likely or known carcinogens found in public drinking water systems. The bill also directs the Department to consider limits to a contaminant in public drinking water when two or more other states have set maximum contaminant levels or limits on said pollutant(s).
(a) It is the goal of STATE to protect residents from harmful toxins in drinking water.
(b) Accordingly, within 100 days the Department is directed to commence proceedings to establish state-level maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for likely or known carcinogens and toxic chemicals likely to pose a substantial health hazard in accordance with sections (c) and (d) below.
(c) Departmental action shall include (1) the establishment of state-wide maximum contaminant levels for PFOS, PFOA, and other PFAS compounds in public drinking water systems; (2) the establishment of state-wide maximum contaminant levels for chromium-6 in public drinking water systems; (3) the establishment of state-wide maximum contaminant levels for 1,4 dioxane in public drinking water systems; and (4) a Department directive to consider limits on other pollutants in public drinking water systems when two or more other states have set limits or issued guidance on a given pollutant(s).
(d) In proceedings pursuant to section (b) and (c) above, the Department shall review MCLs adopted by other states, the studies and scientific evidence reviewed by those states, material in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the latest peer reviewed science and independent or government agency studies, and shall adopt an MCL protective of public health, including vulnerable subpopulations such as pregnant and nursing mothers, infants, and children, that provides at least as much protection to such populations as any MCL or health advisory promulgated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The commissioner shall annually review the latest peer reviewed science and independent or government agency studies and undertake additional rulemaking if needed to comply with this paragraph.
-(i) “MCL” as defined in this section means maximum contaminant level, or the legal threshold limit on the amount of a substance that is allowed in public water systems.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Preventing Summer Mosquito Bites
Each year, we hear frightening news stories about cases of West Nile virus and encephalitis and do what we can to stay healthy, but with the emergence of dangerous mosquito-borne pathogens like the Zika virus in the southern U.S., it’s more important than ever to protect you and your loved ones from this seasonal threat.
However, your summer preparations should go beyond just bug spray! Mosquito population levels are heavily contingent on the environment in which they live, and the layout of your home and yard could be helping them thrive inadvertently!
Here are a few ways that you can control the mosquito populations and prevent mosquito bites:
Remove all standing water
Mosquitoes lay their eggs in puddles and any other location that features some kind of standing water. If you have any overturned buckets or pots that are allowed to collect rainwater in your yard, this is all the opening that these insects need to breed. As summer kicks off, take a closer look at your yard and check spaces like gutters for proper drainage and any garden items that can collect water and empty them out to eliminate a large majority of the mosquitoes in the vicinity.
Grow mosquito-repellent plants
If you have a deck or other outdoor area that your family uses often, try to frame this area with planters filled with plants that repel mosquitoes naturally. Some of the most easy to grow and care for include citronella grasses, catnip, marigolds, ageratum and horsemint. These plants have particular aromas that mosquitoes strictly avoid, which can make for a less buggy environment outdoors.
If you’ve ever walked into a store and felt that cool breeze of air above you in the doorway, you’ve walked through an air curtain! These devices are extremely helpful for home mosquito control purposes, and they can be mounted above doorways and around outdoor living spaces to deter mosquitoes and other insects from entering these areas. Mosquitoes prefer still air and generally avoid windy conditions, and air curtains also double as an energy saver when mounted above doorways to prevent indoor air loss.
Your outdoor lighting choices may also have a major impact on the density of mosquito populations around your home. While LED lights do emit some blue light that attracts mosquitoes, they emit very little light in the ultraviolet spectrum and less heat than traditional incandescent bulbs. Best of all, LEDs use 75 percent less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, so they are a great energy saver. While they will not completely prevent the attraction of bugs, they can make your outdoor areas more comfortable – and sustainable to boot!
QM Mosquito Trap
This summer, protect your family all summer long with QM mosquito trap. Reduce Mosquito by MBOX Mosquito Trap. MBOX mosquito trap uses a new and highly effective method to catch mosquitoes. First we have to understand that only female mosquitoes need blood (protein) in order to lay eggs. Female mosquitoes track their victim through CO2 up to a range of 50meters, combined with the sense of smell of H2O, female mosquitoes are very effective in tracking their victim. MBOX mosquito trap uses a new method developed by Akira Fujishima (President of the Tokyo University of Science), this method uses photo catalysis of titanium dioxide (also known as the Honda-Fujishima Effect).
When a titanium dioxide surface is irradiated by light, the photo catalytic effect and hydrophilic are activated together. Any organic chemical in contact with the surface will undergo decomposition to CO2 and H2O and thus releasing a highly attractive smell for female mosquitoes. Once close enough the near-silent fan(less than 29db) of the MBOX insect killer sucks in the mosquito and prevent it from escaping. Because of the near-silent design the MBOX mosquito killer can be placed anywhere without any harm to its environment, like a baby room/bed room/living room etc.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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So –we’ve covered on of the two cases dealing with calculating a new path, and then I left you hanging for a week. What’s the second case? Let’s return to our small network for a moment to figure it out.
What happens if D’s cost to reach the destination isn’t lower than E’s cost? E will not be able to determine the path is loop free, and hence it cannot use D as an alternate path. Hence, we’re left without an alternate path, right?
We’re still looking at a two connected network — a network where there is loop in the topology — so there must, in fact, be some sort of alternate path from E to the destination. But what if E forwards traffic to D towards the destination? There is no way for E to know where D is going to forward this traffic — it could just as well be forwarded back through E itself, creating a routing loop.
This is, in fact, why distance vector routing protocols split horizon routing updates — when you reach the point in the topology where the traffic could conceivably loop back to the router advertising the destination, it’s best to simply not advertise the destination (poison reverse is just a “more certain” version of this same thought process).
To shorten this up, we could say that where a route is not advertised due to split horizon is precisely the point where there is the possibility of a routing loop in the case of a topology change. In the world of fast reroute, there is another term used for this point in the network: where the p and q spaces intersect. Given any network that is two connected — or rather, has loops or rings in the topology — there is, from the point of view of any given router, a p space, and a q space.
The p space is the area of the network within which a packet can be transmitted towards a specific destination without the packet being reflected back to the forwarding router. If a packet is forwarded into the q space, however, it will be forwarded back in a loop. The key point is, then, to find someplace in the q space where the packet can be forwarded without the packet being looped back to the sender.
To put it in simpler terms, the point is to figure where E can forward a packet, not using the best path through C, and without the packet being forwarded back to E itself. Given that D might forward the packet back to E, any packets forwarded towards the destination must be forwarded past D.
How can we skip a router in the path towards the destination? Through a tunnel. In fact, as we consider the rest of this series, we’ll find out that’s precisely what every fast reroute mechanism that can go beyond the p/q divide, or rather beyond feasible successors, does.
The mechanism used to compute a tunnel destination to a loop free alternate path towards the destination is tied up with the actual tunneling mechanism itself in many instances, so we’ll deal with a few mechanisms in turn over the next few episodes. Until then, keep your p’s and q’s straight, and keep checking your feasible over your shoulder.
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| 0.931616 | 677 | 3.0625 | 3 | 2.777735 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Sample - 929 words essay topic, essay writing: Bauhaus
BauhausPost World War I Germany set the stage for the most organized art movement in art history. The Bauhaus movement was a reaction to the social changes the Germans were facing. The country had been crushed in the war. Their economy was collapsing. Mobs of unemployed people roamed the street waiting for the country to collapse. The Germans were living in poverty and starving from the lack of supplies (Jackson).
'This may seem to be an unlikely environment to support an artistic revolution. Never-the-less, for the designers of the Bauhaus, this was the beginning of a rewarding struggle' (qtd. Brodie).In 1919 an institution called the Bauhaus was formed in Weimer. Walter Gropius was appointed as the head of the school. He had three goals that he wanted his students to achieve. Artist and craftsmen were accepted into the program in an effort to get them to work collectively to combine all of their skills. Secondly, the students were to design everyday objects as works of art
This would advance modern art into the sense of functional design. The third goal was to maintain contact with the leaders of industry so the students could be their consultants. Ilkka Huovio stated in Bauhaus, The New Man - The New Technique that 'The idealistic basis of Bauhaus was a socially orientate programme. An artist must be conscious of his social responsibility to the community. On the other hand the community has to accept the artist and support him' The movement achieved their believed responsibility to the community of Weimer, in 1924 ,with their mass housing program. There was a great shortage of housing for the working class in Weimer so the designers and architects created affordable and modern housing. The buildings were built from tax money for the workers. Although the workers disliked the new classical form social housing that the Bauhaus had designed.
(Jackson). This set the school up for failure in the community. The Weimer community also thought the students were extremely radical in their appearance and behavior. The fact that women were aloud in the school and the classes were not segregated was a very modern step for the school. This influenced the women to wear their hair short and dress modern.
They were being viewed as being too radical for Weiner. They were becoming more and more isolated from the community. (Boedie). In April 1925, the Thuringer government withdrew its economic support for the institute because of the political pressure that was rising in the community (Jackson).The progressive industrial city of Dessau became the new home for the Bauhaus. For funds they created the Bauhaus GmbH to market their designs and products.
They also held workshop for craftsmen to learn their techniques. Breaking away from the government funding and control gave full independence to the group. Gropius turned the Bauhaus leadership over to a Swiss architect named Hannes Meyer in 1928 (Wu.) In 1932 the National Socialist Party was in control of Dessau. They claimed that the Bauhaus was 'manifestation of Jewish-Marxist propaganda.' The school was closed and the building was destroyed. The school was then moved to Berlin but was only opened for a year until the Nazis raided the school searching the communist documents.
Several students were arrested for not having proper identification papers. The school was closed for the final time in Germany (Brodie).Many of the Bauhaus artist migrated to the United States to flee the Nazi suppression. Gropius was made the Dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard. This gave the American architects a new era in modern architecture. The Bauhaus lend us their ideas of social housing for the low income.
This proved to be very helpful to communities until the end of the World War II. With the raise of our economic structure the workers started leaving the cities and their high rise buildings to live in suburbs. The end of this project happened in St. Louis in 1972 when a multimillion dollar experiment failed. Minoru Yamaski designed the Pruitt-Igoe Project in 1955 for the low income families of St. Louis. The buildings were a classical Bauhaus style.
With steel, glass, and concrete construction with open lawns. The building was eventually demolished with dynamite (Jackson).In 1986 an initiative was taken to create an new independent Bauhaus in Dessau. The New Bauhaus is approaching the art in an ecological philosophy. The area around Dessau has been devastated with environmental problems from the industry. The school is looking for new solutions to deal with these problems and redevelop the housing in the decaying city (Huovio).Although this period of art was short lived, because of the political turmoil of Europe, new media and technologies emerged from the Bauhaus that changed advanced art. The most lasting influence is in applied design in industry.
'Everyone sitting on a chair with a tubular steel frame, using an adjustable reading lamp, or living in a house partly or entirely constructed from prefabricated elements is benefiting from a revolution in design largely brought about by the Bauhaus'(qtd. Whitford.)Works CitedBrodie, Laura. 'Women of the Bauhaus.' Women in the Visual Arts Web Site. 20 Feb. 1999 (http://www. coa. edu/HEJourney? courseprojects/women )Huovio, Ilkka.
'Bauhaus, The New Man - The New Technique.' 20 Feb. 1999 (http://www. ulah. fi/presentation/history/ebauba. ht m)Jackson, John. 'The Bauhaus.' 8 March, 1999. (http://www. johnco. cc. ks. us/~jjackson/bauhaus. html )Whitford, Frank. Bauhaus. London, Thames and Hudson 1984 Wu, Alexandra.
'Bauhaus Background.' The University of New South Whales Web Site. 8 March, 1999 (http://www. fbe. unsw. edu. au/subjects/arch/5203/ 98-s-1/assign4/Wu/background. html).
paper and essay writing, free essay topics, sample works Bauhaus
Please do not pass this sample essay as your own, otherwise you will be accused of plagiarism. Our writers can write any custom essay for you!
Students at universities often have a choice of places to live
They may choose to live in university dormitories, or they may choose to live in apartments in the community. Compare the advantages of living in university housing with the advantages of living in an apartment in the community. Where would you prefer to live? Give reasons for your preference.
Some students prefer to live in Michael Jackson – Сustom Literature essay Sample essay topic, essay writing: Michael Jackson - 804 words
Michael JacksonMy topic for my report is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is alongtime pop music star, known as the King of Pop. Michael is a winner of manyGrammys and other music awards. My first subtopic goes into his music. Thedetails giong into Music are his many Le Corbusier Biography, Interior Designer and Architect Le Corbusier was born in 1887 in the Swiss watchmaking town of La Chaux de Fonds. His father was a highly skilled watch enameler; his mother was a pianist and music teacher. The family was Protestant;
At the age of fifteen, Corbusier enrolled at the local trade school, L'Ecole d'Art, in order to learn the craft Failure Of The Weimar Republic Sample essay topic, essay writing: Failure Of The Weimar Republic - 1196 words
To what extent is it true to say that 'The failure of the Weimer Republic was due to external factors beyond its control and the rise of a German messiah'?In 1933, the Weimer Republic was officially abolished by Hitler, the German 'messiah.' The The events leading up to the international style of architecture being used in America One common criticism of modern architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius is that while their goals might have been laudable, the execution and physical manifestation of their beliefs is somehow disconnected from the culture in which it grew out of. As 'ineffective' as critics might say this style was, there is
26 December 2014. Author: Criticism
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http://www.cherriedesignz.com/bauhaus/
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| 0.96545 | 1,746 | 3.328125 | 3 | 2.897745 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Art & Design
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The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse,1 that is, the power to spend, collect revenue, and borrow. It does not, however, establish procedures by which Congress must consider budget-related legislation. Instead, it states that each chamber may “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.”2 Over time, Congress has therefore developed various rules and practices to govern consideration of budgetary legislation.
The basic framework that is used today for congressional consideration of budget policy was established in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (the Budget Act).3 This act provides for the annual adoption of a concurrent resolution on the budget as a mechanism for setting forth aggregate levels of spending, revenue, the surplus or deficit, and public debt. The Budget Act also established standing committees in both chambers of Congress with jurisdiction over, among other things, the concurrent resolution on the budget.4 This report describes the structure and responsibilities of the Committee on the Budget in the House of Representatives.
Committee Membership and Structure
The rules of the House require that the Budget Committee’s membership be composed of five members from the Committee on Ways and Means, five members from the Committee on Appropriations, and one member from the Committee on Rules.5 In addition, House rules require that the committee include one member designated by the majority party leadership and one member designated by the minority party leadership.6 The Committee on Ways and Means exercises sole jurisdiction over revenue-raising matters, and the Appropriations Committee exercises sole jurisdiction over discretionary spending. Granting these committees guaranteed representation on the Budget Committee provides them with an avenue for continuing involvement with decisions affecting their committee’s jurisdiction. The Congressional Budget Act originally provided for 23 members to serve on the Budget Committee.7 Over time, the number of Budget Committee members has varied, and is currently 39.8
Under House rules, members of the House Budget Committee may not serve more than four in any six successive Congresses.9 Originally, the Budget Act limited service on the Budget Committee to two in any five successive Congresses. The rotating and representational membership on the Budget Committee affords Members of the House an increased level of participation in the activities of the Budget Committee.10 The House Democratic Caucus outlines additional term limits for its members serving on the House Budget Committee. Its rules state that no Member, other than the Member designated by leadership, shall serve more than three Congresses in any period of five successive congresses.11 The House Republican Conference has no comparable rule.
Both Democrats and Republicans designate the Budget Committee as a nonexclusive committee. In general, this means that besides the House rule restricting any Member from serving on more than two standing committees,12 few restrictions apply to Budget Committee members regarding their other committee assignments.13
Although the Budget Act does not prohibit the creation of subcommittees, the Budget Committee has never had them.14 The committee, however, sometimes establishes ad hoc task forces to study specific issues. For example, there have been task forces on such subjects as entitlements, tax policy, economic policy, and budget reform.15
House Budget Committee Jurisdiction and Responsibilities
The jurisdiction of the House Budget Committee is derived from the Budget Act as well as House Rule X. This jurisdiction is protected under the Budget Act, which states that no bill, resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report dealing with any matter within the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee shall be considered in the House unless it is a bill or resolution that has been reported by the Budget Committee or unless it is an amendment to a bill or resolution reported by the Budget Committee.16 House Rule X, clause 1(d) states that the Budget Committee will have jurisdiction over the concurrent resolution on the budget; other matters required to be referred to it pursuant to the Budget Act; establishment, extension, and enforcement of special controls over the federal budget; and the budget process generally.
Over the years, the duties and responsibilities of the Budget Committee have been established in statute, as well as House Rules. This report discusses the Budget Committee’s responsibilities under the following categories: the budget resolution, reconciliation, budget process reform, oversight of the Congressional Budget Office, revisions of allocations and adjustments, and scorekeeping.
The Budget Resolution
The Budget Committee is responsible for developing the annual budget resolution. The budget resolution is a mechanism for setting forth aggregate levels of spending, revenue, the deficit or surplus, and public debt. Its purpose is to create enforceable parameters within which Congress can consider legislation dealing with spending and revenue.17 The budget resolution also often includes other matters such as reconciliation directives or procedures necessary to carry out the Budget Act.18 The Budget Committee can use the budget resolution as a means for initiating changes in tax and spending policy, but the other House committees having jurisdiction over those issues would be responsible for any legislation that would implement those changes. So rather than drafting program- or agency-oriented legislation as most other committees do, the Budget Committee, similar to the House Rules Committee, devotes most of its time to developing the parameters within which the House may consider legislation.
In developing the budget resolution, the Budget Committee examines a budget outlook report that includes baseline budget projections presented to Congress by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The Budget Committee also receives and examines the budget request submitted by the President, and then holds hearings at which they hear testimony from officials who justify and explain the President’s budget recommendations. These include the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, and secretaries of each department, as well as other presidential advisors. In addition, CBO issues a report that analyzes the President’s budget and compares it to CBO’s own economic and technical assumptions.
The Budget Committee also gathers information from the other committees of the House. The Budget Committee holds hearings at which individual Members testify. In addition, Committees each submit their “views and estimates” to the Budget Committee, providing information on the preferences and legislative plans of that committee regarding budget matters within its jurisdiction. These “views and estimates” must include an estimate of the total amount of new budget authority and budget outlays for federal programs that are anticipated for all bills and resolutions within the committee’s jurisdiction that will be effective during that fiscal year.19 House rules require that committees submit “views and estimates” to the Budget Committee within six weeks of the President’s budget submission or at such time as the Budget Committee may request.20
During deliberation on the budget resolution, it has been the policy of the Budget Committee to use as a starting point the baseline data prepared by CBO.21 The Budget Committee then develops and marks up the budget resolution before reporting it to the full House. In marking up the budget resolution, the Budget Committee first considers budget aggregates, functional categories, and other appropriate matter, allowing the offering of amendments.22 During mark-up, the Budget Committee allows subsequent amendments to be offered to aggregates, functional categories, or other appropriate matters, even if they have already been amended in their entirety. Following adoption of the aggregates, functional categories, and other appropriate matter, the text of the budget resolution is considered for amendment. At the completion of this, a final vote on reporting the budget resolution occurs.
Because the budget resolution is a concurrent resolution, once the House and Senate each adopt their own version of the budget resolution, they typically agree to go to conference to reconcile the differences between the two versions. Members of the Budget Committee represent the House in these inter-chamber negotiations. Upon agreement on a conference report, a joint explanatory statement is written to accompany the report. Within this joint explanatory statement are allocations required under Section 302(a) of the Budget Act that establish spending limits for each committee. The text of the budget resolution establishes congressional priorities by dividing spending among the 20 major functional categories of the federal budget.23 These 20 functional categories do not correspond to the committee jurisdictions under which the House or Senate operate. As a result, the spending levels in the 20 functional categories must subsequently be allocated to the committees having jurisdiction over spending. These totals are referred to as 302(a) allocations and hold committees accountable for staying within the spending limits established by the budget resolution. Members of the conference committee and their staff work to determine appropriate 302(a) allocations to be included in the joint explanatory statement accompanying the conference report on the budget resolution.
Budget resolutions sometimes include reconciliation instructions that instruct committees to develop legislation that will change current revenue or direct spending24 laws to conform with policies established in the budget resolution.25 The Budget Committee can choose to include this in the budget resolution that they report to the full chamber.
If the adopted budget resolution does include reconciliation instructions, committees respond by drafting legislative language to meet their specified targets. The Budget Committee is responsible for packaging “without any substantive revision” the legislative language recommended by committees into one or more reconciliation bills. If only a single committee is instructed to recommend reconciliation changes, then those changes are reported directly to the chamber without packaging by the Budget Committee.
The Budget Committee is not permitted to revise substantively the reconciliation legislation as recommended by the instructed committees, even if a committee’s recommendations do not reach the dollar levels in the reconciliation instructions included in the budget resolution. The Budget Committee, however, may sometimes collaborate with House leadership to develop alternatives that may be offered as floor amendments to the reconciliation bill.
Budget Process Reform
Since 1995, House Rules have provided that the Budget Committee shall have jurisdiction over the budget process generally.26 This includes studying on a continuing basis proposals to improve or reform the budget process, including both singular and comprehensive changes to the budget process. These rule changes can be proposed as a provision in the budget resolution, or as a separate measure. When considering budget reform, the Budget Committee may create a task force (the Budget Committee does not have subcommittees, but sometimes creates ad hoc task forces to address specific issues) to research potential reform issues. The task force may hold hearings where they listen to testimony from current and past Members of Congress, as well as representatives from the Administration, to help determine the need for reform. For example, during the 105th Congress the Budget Committee created a Task Force on Budget Process, also known as the Nussle-Cardin Task Force, that examined budget reform issues. This task force held hearings and eventually released several recommendations, including making the budget resolution a joint resolution.
Although budget process reform measures or budget resolutions may include provisions that have an impact on House rules, jurisdiction over the rules of the House is under the Rules Committee. The Budget Act specifically provides that a budget resolution reported from the Budget Committee that includes any matter or procedure that would change any rule of the House would trigger a referral to the House Rules Committee.27
Oversight of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
In addition to creating the House and Senate Budget Committees, the Budget Act also established the Congressional Budget Office.28 House rules state that the Budget Committee shall be responsible for oversight of the CBO. Specifically, the rules state that the Committee shall review on a continuing basis the conduct by the CBO of its functions and duties.29 This oversight can include hearings at which CBO’s practices are examined. For example, during the 107th Congress the House Budget Committee held a hearing titled, “CBO Role and Performance: Enhancing Accuracy, Reliability, and Responsiveness in Budget and Economic Estimates.”30
The Budget Committee also plays a role in the selection of the Director of CBO. The Budget Act states that the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate shall appoint the Director of the CBO after receiving recommendations from the House and Senate Budget Committees.31
Revisions and Adjustments
Provisions in individual budget resolutions, as well as the Budget Act, grant the Budget Chair (not the entire Budget Committee) the authority to revise or adjust budget levels and other matters included in the annual budget resolution in certain circumstances. For instance, Congress frequently includes provisions referred to as “reserve funds” in the annual budget resolution, which provide the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees the authority to adjust committee spending allocations if certain conditions are met. Typically these conditions consist of a committee reporting legislation dealing with a particular policy or an amendment dealing with that policy being offered on the floor. Once this action has taken place, the Budget Committee Chair submits the adjustment to his respective chamber.
Reserve funds frequently require that the net budgetary impact of the specified legislation be deficit neutral. Deficit-neutral reserve funds provide that a committee may report legislation with spending in excess of its allocations, but require the excess amounts be offset by equivalent reductions elsewhere. The Budget Committee Chair may then increase the committee spending allocations by the appropriate amounts to prevent a point of order under Section 302 of the Budget Act.
The Budget Committee Chair is also authorized to make adjustments to the budget resolution levels under the “fungibility rule.”32 The “fungibility rule” applies when a committee has been instructed through reconciliation directions to develop legislation that will change both revenue and direct spending laws to conform with policies established in the budget resolution. Under this rule, the Budget Committee Chair is then authorized to submit for printing in the Congressional Record appropriate changes in budget resolution levels, and committee spending allocations.
The Budget Act also allows for further revisions to the budget resolution. For more information on revisions and adjustments related to the budget process, see CRS Report RL33122, Congressional Budget Resolutions: Revisions and Adjustments, by Robert Keith.
The Budget Committee is responsible for making summary budget scorekeeping reports available to the Members of the House on at least a monthly basis.33 Scorekeeping is the process of measuring the budgetary effects of pending and enacted legislation against the levels recommended in the budget resolution, in general to determine if proposed legislation would violate the levels set forth in the budget resolution. If a Member raises a point of order that legislation or an amendment being considered on the floor violates fiscal limits, the Parliamentarian relies on the estimates provided by the Budget Committee in the form of scorekeeping reports to advise the presiding officer regarding whether the legislative matter is out of order.34 Similarly, if a member raises a point of order that legislation or an amendment violates Rule XXI, clause 10, known as the PAYGO rule, the Parliamentarian relies on estimates provided by the Budget Committee.35 The Budget Committee played a similar role under certain expired budget enforcement statutes such as the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (also known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act) and the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990.
To assist the Budget Committee in scorekeeping, the Director of CBO is required to issue an up-to-date tabulation of congressional budget action to the Budget Committees on at least a monthly basis. Specifically, this report details and tabulates the progress of congressional action on bills and joint resolutions providing new budget authority or providing an increase or decrease in revenues or tax expenditures for each fiscal year covered by the budget resolution.
It has been the policy of the Budget Committee that its scorekeeping reports be prepared by the Budget Committee staff, transmitted to the Speaker in the form of a Parliamentarian’s Status Report, and printed in the Congressional Record.36
- “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9. “Tress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…. ” U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8. “The Congress shall have Power To… borrow Money on the Credit of the United States…. ” U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.
- U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 5.
- Congressional Budget Act, as amended, P.L. 93-34For a compendium of laws and rules related to the budget process, see U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, Compilation of Laws and Rules Relating to the Congressional Budget Process, committee print, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., November 30, 2008.
- As enacted, Section 101 of the Congressional Budget Act amended House Rules X and XI to establish the House Budget Committee.
- House Rule X, clause 5(a)(2)(ii) Under the Rule 16B of the House Democratic Caucus, when the Democratic Party is the majority, Democraty members will be nominated for three of the five seats reserved for Appropriations Committee members, three of the five seats reserved for Ways and Means Committee members, and at least one from the Rules Committee. When the Democratic Party is the minority, Democratic Party members will be nominated for two of the five seats reserved for Appropriations Committee members and two of the five seats reserved for Ways and Means Committee members. Rules of the Democratic Caucus, November 18, 2008. The House Republican Conference has no comparable rule.
- House Rule X, clause 5(a)(2)(ii) and (iii).
- Congressional Budget Act, as enacted, Section 101.
- For a list of members of the Budget Committee since its creation in 1974, refer to /past-members.shtml
- House Rule X, clause 5(a)(2)(B). This rule does not count any service for less than a full session. Exceptions are made for those committers elected to serve as the chair or ranking member of the committee.
- One author has also stated that such limits were originally designed to address concerns that the Budget Committee could become too powerful if its members were able to serve many successive terms. Allen Schick, The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process, Third Edition (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), p. 132.
- This rule disregards any service for less than a full session. Exempt from this rule are an incumbent chair or ranking member having served on the Committee for three congresses and having served as chair or ranking member for not more than one Congress. Rule 16D. Rules of the Democratic Caucus, November 18, 2008.
- House Rule X, clause 5(b)(2).
- House Rule X, clause 5(b)(2)(A)). Both the House Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference designate exclusive committees and generally limit service to one such panel. Democratic Members of exclusive committees cannot also serve on nonexclusive committees, but they can serve on the Budget Committee. Democrats and Republicans designate nonexclusive committees and limit Members to service on two such panels, unless the House rules contain other requirements. For more information on House Committee categories and rules, see CRS Report 98-151, House Committees: Categories and Rules for Committee Assignments, by Judy Schneider.
- Congressional Budget Act, as enacted, Section 101(b). It has been stated that since the Budget Committee’s goal is to create a comprehensive and consistent budget resolution, dividing the production of the resolution is not desirable. Allen Schick, Congress and Money: Budgeting, Spending and Taxing (The Urban Institute, 1980), p. 119.
- 97th Congress, 98th Congress, 99th Congress, and 105th Congress respectively. U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, United States House of Representatives Legislative Calendar, Committee in the Budget, 97th Cong. U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, United States House of Representatives Legislative Calendar, Committee in the Budget, 98th Cong. U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, United States House of Representatives Legislative Calendar, Committee in the Budget, 99th Cong. U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, United States House of Representatives Legislative Calendar, Committee in the Budget, 105thCong.
- Section 306. A standing order provides that resolutions be interpreted as applying to joint resolutions. H.Res. 5Section 3(a)(1), 111th Congress.
- For more information on the annual budget resolution, see CRS Report 98-721, Introduction to the Federal Budget Process, by Robert Keith.
- The authority to include such matters comes from Sec 301(b) of the Congressional Budget Act, as amended, P.L. 93-344.
- The “views and estimates” submitted by the Ways and Means Committee must also include a specific recommendation as to the appropriate level of the public debt that should be set forth in the budget resolution. House Rule X, clause 4(f)(1).
- House Rule X, clause 4(f)(1).
- Rule 9, U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Budget, Rule of procedure of the Committee on the Budget, 2009-2010, committee print, 111th Cong. (Washington: GPO, 2009). Available at /hbc-111th-rules.pdf.
- Unless otherwise determined by the committee. Ibid.
- The budget resolution for FY2010, S.Con.Res. 13, had an additional functional category for overseas deployments of the military bringing the total to 21 major functional categories.
- Direct spending is provided for in legislation outside of appropriations acts and is typically established in permanent law that continues in effect until such time as it is revised or terminated by another law.
- For more information on the reconciliation process, see CRS Report 98-814, Budget Reconciliation Legislation: Development and Consideration, by Bill Heniff Jr.
- Rule X, clause 1(e)(2). This provision was added to House Rules in the 104th Congress (1995-1996). Prior to the rules changes made in the 104th Congress, the Budget Committee’s jurisdiction over the budget process was generally limited to the Budget Act and budget enforcement matters. Jurisdiction over the budget process generally was shared jointly by the House Government Operations Committee and the House Rules Committee. This rules change, in conjunction with “statements of understanding” between the committees, altered the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee.
- 301(c), The Congressional Budget Act, P.L. 93-344. This was added by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, also referred to as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, (Title II P.L. 99-177), to clarify that jurisdiction over the rules of the House rested solely with the Rules Committee.
- Title II, Congressional Budget Act as amended, P.L. 93-344. For more information on the Congressional Budget Office, see http://www.cbo.gov/.
- House Rule X, clause 4(b)(1).
- For more information on the hearing, see https://archive.org/details/gov.gpo.fdsys.CHRG-107hhrg79481.
- Congressional Budget Act as amended, Section 201. For more information on the appointment of the Director of the CBO, see CRS Report RL31880, Congressional Budget Office: Appointment and Tenure of the Director and Deputy Director, by Robert Keith and Mary Frances Bley.
- Section 310(c), Congressional Budget Act, as amended, P.L. 93-344.
- For more information on scorekeeping, see CRS Report 98-560, Baselines and Scorekeeping in the Federal Budget Process, by Bill Heniff Jr.
- Section 312(a), Congressional Budget Act, as amended, P.L. 93-344.
- Rule XXI, clause 10(a)2 states that the effect of such measure on the deficit or surplus shall be determined on the basis of estimates made by the Committee on the Budget relative to baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
- Rule 26, Rules of Procedure of the Committee on the Budget, 111th Congress, 2009-2010.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Web Date: May 10, 2016
Micropillars are gentle dust busters
Most of us fight a battle with dust every day. But for art conservators and those in the electronics industry, microscopic dust can be calamitous, diminishing beauty and value, and rendering devices unusable. Particles larger than 10 µm can be blown off using air jets. But known methods to get rid of smaller specks—such as solvents, ultrasonic waves, and lasers—can damage surfaces while cleaning.
T. Kyle Vanderlick and her colleagues at Yale University have come up with a simple, nondestructive tool to eradicate this invisible enemy (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b09154). They made polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sheets covered with an array of microscopic cylindrical pillars 2–50 µm in diameter. They used this material to lift spherical silica particles with diameters of 0.26–7.75 μm from thin poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films, which serve as a proxy for dust particles on delicate acrylic paint films.
When the researchers gently touch the film with the material, the PDMS interacts minimally with the PMMA, but strong electrostatic forces transfer the silica particles to the pillars’ flat tips. The method should work to remove dust from any rigid surface, says Hadi Izadi, a postdoctoral associate in Vanderlick’s group.
When the material is brought down on another dusty spot, new silica particles push away the ones already stuck on the pillar tips. Those previously attached particles roll up the sides of the pillars, leaving clean PDMS pillar tips to grab new particles. To ensure this self-cleaning, the pillars cannot be more than eight times wider than the particles.
That’s the critical advantage of the micropillar material over a flat PDMS sheet, which also attracts dust, Izadi says. Dust particles have nowhere to go on a flat sheet, so they accumulate and cause tiny dents when pressed repeatedly on the PMMA surface. Flat sheets also do not work on sub-micrometer particles, for reasons the researchers don’t fully understand.
Instead, by repeatedly tapping the micropillar material on the film, the researchers could eliminate all the dust from the surface. The researchers estimate that the micropillar material can clean a surface nine times its size covered in a monolayer of dust.
- Chemical & Engineering News
- ISSN 0009-2347
- Copyright © American Chemical Society
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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(This post was recently published on the Nexus Education blog)
We don’t talk much about feelings in education. There are many reasons for that, but I think one of the most important is that many people don’t see what feelings have to do with “serious” learning—that is, the serious learning of the 5-year-old making sense of colour, the 12-year-old exploring trigonometry, or the 17-year-old studying literature. When we do hear discussion about feelings and emotion it tends to focus on the social and emotional needs of students. But here’s the problem: When we ignore the role of emotion in learning, we neglect one of the most powerful ways human beings make meaning of their experiences.
Like a lot of recent brain research shows, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang’s research in affective neuroscience disproves old beliefs that emotions interfere with our ability to think and reason. It simply is not true. In fact, the reverse is true. She notes: “It is literally neurobiologically impossible to build memories, engage complex thoughts, or make meaningful decisions without emotion.” (Source: Immordino-Yang in Why Emotions Are Integral to Learning [Book Excerpt] | Articles | Noodle). She describes how emotional engagement is crucial in all subject areas and for all ages of students: “Even in academic subjects that are traditionally considered unemotional, like physics, engineering or math, deep understanding depends on making emotional connections between concepts.” (Source: Ibid.)
So what does this mean for educators?
It means we need to leverage emotions in all learning contexts if we want to maximize learning.
The Story-Form Engages Emotion
I often hear the argument that educating people is easier now because there is a wealth of knowledge readily available on the internet. I hope to convince you that access to knowledge is not the greatest challenge that educators face. Making knowledge meaningful and memorable to students is. How often have you spent time “surfing the web” only to leave with absolutely nothing learned? How often have you read something and, soon after, completely forgotten about it?
It’s not access to knowledge that is our greatest challenge as educators—though the internet does offer us a great resource of course—helping students retain and enjoy that knowledge is. So what we need to do is enable our students to form an emotional connection with fractions, photosynthesis, and forces. We need them to feel something about cell division, citizenship, censorship, civil war. Dinosaurs, division, drama. (I could go on and on with this alphabet game.) When topics are shaped in ways that leave students feeling something about them, teaching becomes storytelling. And the story-form—the narrative—is one of the most powerful learning tools human beings have.
Finding The Story
The first and most important step to making anything you teach more memorable is this: Think about what it is about the topic that engages YOU. This is the emotional significance of the topic. Quick example: is it the richness of the air that engages you? We could spend our lives studying what constitutes the “empty” air around us. Or is it the permanence of water? We simply can not get rid of it. (Topics: Properties of the Air or Water Cycle, Elementary Science Curriculum)
You may find it odd that I have bumped learning objectives from centre stage and begin by seeking the story on a topic. I am not suggesting we throw out our learning outcomes or objectives (or whatever we currently call those “targets”)—these are crucial to teaching. Nor am I suggesting our classrooms be full of roller coasters of jubilation followed by gutt-rotting despair. Human emotions are much more varied and complex: curiosity, intrigue, joy, sadness, pleasure, fear, confusion, satisfaction, jealousy and on and on and on…
What I am suggesting is that objectives and outcomes do not acknowledge the role of human emotion in what is meaningful to them. They also do not form an emotional shape for the content we are teaching—that shape is the story. We need to acknowledge that the knowledge we retain, the knowledge that matters to us, has somehow engaged our emotions. So we need to talk more about feelings. When teaching becomes storytelling we, like our ancestors before us, make knowledge memorable and we maximize learning.
My work with educators in all contexts PreK-Higher Education and across subject-areas is about how to bring the imagination—that ability to envision the possible—to the heart of our teaching and learning. If you want to find out more about how to make your topics more meaningful and memorable to students click here: Tools of Imagination Series: Tips For Imaginative Educators. Connect we me and other in the Imaginative Education Research Group at Simon Fraser University in B.C., Canada.
Enjoy imaginED? Find out how to support our work.
Interesting essay samples and examples on: https://essays.io/interview-examples-samples/
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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Several were coiled to strike, and had, in accordance with their habit, sounded their rattles. This had aroused the whole den, many snakes appearing from under ground, or crawling from beneath stones.
“Come on! They’ll chase us!” cried Bob.
“Nonsense,” replied the professor. “Rattlesnakes never attack man unless they are first disturbed. It wouldn’t be advisable to go too close, but, as long as we don’t molest them, we have nothing to fear from the snakes. I’d like to get a few specimens if I had the proper appliances for extracting their fangs. But I never saw so many in one place, before. It is quite interesting to watch—”
The professor broke off suddenly, for the thunderous noise of the approaching steers was now louder.
“They’re coming right at us!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Yes, and they’ve stampeded!” cried Ned. “We’re in for it now!”
The situation of the boys and the professor was extremely perilous. They were right in the path of the now frightened steers. The circle had been broken, by many animals, which had been approaching from the rear of the travelers, joining the beasts on either side, so that now a compact, dark mass of cattle, nearly a quarter of a mile wide, was surging ahead with great speed.
“Run!” called Ned. “There’s an opening at our backs now!”
“You couldn’t go a hundred feet before they’d overtake you!” shouted Jerry. “Let’s see if we can’t frighten ’em. Take off your hats, jump up and down, and yell like mad. If we can force ’em to separate and go on either side of us, we’ll be all right!”
He started to swing his hat in the air, and prepared to let out a series of yells in imitation of an Indian war-whoop.
“Don’t!” cried the professor quickly.
“Why not?” asked Jerry. “It’s the only way to stop ’em.”
“I know a better, and a surer way,” replied the scientist. “Get the rattlesnakes between ourselves and the cattle! Those steers will never go near a rattlesnake den, no matter how frightened they are, nor how badly stampeded! Quick! Here they come!”
The cattle were scarcely two hundred feet away, and were maddened by the sight of unmounted persons, something to which they were unaccustomed, and which thoroughly frightened them. The ground was trembling with their hoof-beats, and the rattle of the horns, as they clashed together, was like the murmur of cannibal tom-toms.
The professor grabbed Bob, who was nearest him, and swung the boy around, so as to get the nest of rattlesnakes between them and the steers. Ned and Jerry followed. The snakes, now all aroused, were rattling away like half a hundred electric batteries working at once.
Would the professor’s ruse succeed? Would the steers be afraid to come over the deadly reptiles, to trample down the little group, which the animals probably took for some new species of enemy? These were questions which the boys waited anxiously to have answered. Nor did they have to wait long.
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Strong reasoning
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Literature
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The following is a guest post by Nina Perdomo, who served as a summer 2021 remote intern transcribing and researching documents in the Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents crowdsourcing campaign at the Law Library of Congress.During my time working with the Herencia collection, I have come across a variety of interesting documents. One that has been the most interesting to me, however, is the Brief on behalf Pedro Goyeneche Infanzón in the criminal case for counterfeiting of money filed against him. This document is a highlight of the Herencia collection because it explores the case of Goyeneche while allowing modern readers to gain insight into the economic status of Spain in the 1600s.
This case attempts to prove Goyeneche as not guilty after 120 counterfeit escudos were found in the well of the house where he resided. The document goes into various reasons as to why people should believe his innocence, such as the fact that others lived in the house, and how possessing counterfeit coins without knowledge of them being so is non-punishable. Among other details, the final defense ends with an explanation that Goyeneche is a popular merchant of good standing, and therefore unlikely to commit such a crime. It is even described how Goyeneche kneeled in front of a magistrate, begging not to be captured. Throughout this document, it is understood that counterfeiting coins was a serious crime, and would have negative socioeconomic implications on a person of high stature.
This case additionally serves as key literature for analyzing how counterfeit coins were produced. The document explains that false coins were determined by their matter, shape, and weight. The escudos in particular were discovered to be counterfeit due to their weight of 30 and 31 ounces, rather than their usual weight of 26 or 27. This is important to note, as currency reflects much about a country’s experiences in a given time frame. Issues with counterfeit money date back even to Classical Rome, where moneyers would make a profit by mixing a different metal into the source of coins to be minted, causing debased coins to circulate the system (Crawford, at 57). Creating false coins may point towards desperation to pay others for a cheaper price. This directly ties to Goyeneche’s experience, as Spain encountered problems with its own currency in the 17th century. This was a period when the country had a shortage in gold and silver, which is the same material that escudos were made from – the counterfeit coins in question for Goyeneche’s case (Royo, at 1). Whoever made these coins, whether Goyeneche or not, was being influenced by the economic struggles of their country. The document itself (p. 4) says:
Estando, como estâ, todo el Reino, lleno de menudos falsos, cessa el indicio, y presuncion, que…el acusado los aya fabricado…
Being, how it is, the entire kingdom, full of false coins, ceases the indication, and presumption that…the accused fabricated them…
This quote directly reflects the problem with the currency of the time. The kingdom was experiencing a wave of these counterfeit coins, with people creating them due to the lack of silver and gold, making the crime that much more severe. Overall, this document helps to contextualize the economic climate of 17th century Spain from a judicial perspective. It is highly recommended that one reads through this case, as well as others in the Herencia collection, in order to gain a deeper understanding of this captivating concept.
Crawford, M. H. “Plated Coins—False Coins.” The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-), vol. 8, 1968, 55–59.
Royo, José A. M. “The Seventeenth-Century Depreciation of Silver Coinage in the Crown of Aragon.” The Journal of European Economic History, vol. 41, no. 1, 2012, pp. 103-143.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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What is it about emotional tears that is so special? A biochemist will tell you that there are three kinds of tears: those required for normal lubrication, those caused by irritants, and tears brought about by strong positive or negative emotions. The latter have a different chemical make-up than those for lubrication or removing of irritants. Emotional tears are composed of more protein-based hormones, such as prolactin, adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), and leucine encephalin, a natural pain killer, and stimulate the production of endorphins , other natural pain killers. This is why people often feel better after crying.
Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis found that emotional tears shed these hormones and also dissolve toxins that accumulate during stress. For example, crying reduces the body’s manganese level, a mineral which affects mood and is found in up to 30 times greater concentration in tears than in blood serum. Researchers concluded that chemicals built up by the body during stress were removed by tears, which actually lowered stress. Suppressing tears increases stress levels, and contributes to diseases aggravated by stress, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, and peptic ulcers.
Thus, we shouldn't feel ashamed to cry. Holding back tears is physically and psychologically unhealthy. If we suppress our feelings, we will become ill and depressed. Dr. Judith Orloff, author of Emotional Freedom, is a big proponent of crying. She told a patient who apologized for crying on her carpet, “Your tears blessed my floor. There is nothing to apologize for.”
Beyond the biochemistry and psychology of emotional tears, there is a spiritual aspect that some masters have commented on in their teachings. The Bulgarian master, Peter Deunov, told his disciples that they should save the tears of joy from a spiritual experience in a tiny vial because these tears contain the essence of the spiritual experience and had miraculous healing power. Other tears, such as tears of grief or repentance, can purify the soul but should be released into the ground like the rain of a storm.
Tears of compassion have been given a magical healing quality by fiction writers. The healing power of tears is an archetypal theme in many fairy tales such as The Snow Queen, Beauty and the Beast, and Rapunzel, in which tears of compassion save the life of the hero, cures him of blindness, or frees him from enchantment.
So the next time you feel like crying, don't suppress it but let the tears flow. Like a garden that is watered regularly, your body and mind will be vibrant and healthy, and your soul will feel blessed. If you would like to cry now, watch the video that will change your life.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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Pray for the forest, pray to the tree,
Pray for the fish in the deep blue sea.
Pray for yourself and for God’s sake,
Say one for me,
Poor wretched unbeliever.
— James Taylor, “Gaia,” from Hourglass
This is what it looks like when a planet dies
Cataclysmic fires along the American West Coast and the Australian East Coast, in the Amazon and on the Steppe. Once-in-a-millenium events occurring annually. Orange skies over California and the Pacific Northwest.
Storms of unprecedented destructive power striking with unnerving frequency, rendering the term “storm of the century” essentially meaningless.
Deepening cycles of drought and flood. Cities across the world literally being inundated by oceans and seas. Glaciers vanishing faster than even the most aggressive projections told us they would. Coral reefs dying. Species going extinct.
My older brothers turned me on to birdwatching when I was seven years old — a gift that has enriched my life for half a century. And over those same fifty years, North America’s population of birds has declined by nearly 30%. Habitat loss, pesticide use, careless architecture, and, yes, climate change — all have played a role. The result? Three billion fewer birds.
In the spring of 1985, my senior year in college, I took an ecology course for non-majors. It offered a survey of critical environmental issues facing the world, and discussed them in terms history and literature majors could understand. At the time, a scientific consensus had long-since formed around what was called at the time “the Greenhouse Effect,” what we later called global warming, and now global climate change. That was thirty-five years ago.
In 1896, a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius theorized that the unfettered burning of fossil fuels, and the resulting release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, would lead to a warming of the planet. Four years later, in 1901, his colleague, Nils Gustaf Ekholm, coined the term “Greenhouse Effect” to describe the phenomenon. In fairness, Ekholm thought it might be a good thing, as it would stave off future ice ages. But the concept is not a new one.
For decades, global temperatures have been rising to record setting levels, only to be topped the following year. Global temperature records were first kept in a systematic way around 1850. Of the 170 or so years for which figures exist, nineteen of the twenty hottest have occurred since 2000. 2020 is on pace to join the top five.
I am willing to engage on most political and social issues. I enjoy a good discussion, a vigorous debate. There are, though, a few topics on which I will no longer engage. First among them is bigotry of any sort — racism, sexism, homophobia, trans bias, religious bias, etc. Climate denial is a close second. (And this year, Covid denial has joined the list.)
This is no longer theory. It hasn’t been for a long, long time. Climate change is real. Our planet is dying. If we do nothing — if we as a global community continue on the path we’re on now, we will bequeath to our children and grandchildren a burnt husk of what was once earth. Future generations will live in a world that staggers from ecological crisis to ecological crisis, from catastrophe to catastrophe, from flood to drought to famine to pandemic and back again.
We have had ample opportunity to address the issue, and we have squandered one after another. We have absented ourselves from vital global treaties and doubled down on the sort of short-sighted consumerism that got us into this mess in the first place. Like James Taylor in the song quoted at the beginning of this post, I have no faith in our ability to save ourselves. We are a society that cannot bring ourselves to wear cloth masks for the common good. How are we supposed to make the economic transitions necessary to change economic course?
And the tragic thing is, addressing climate change could be a tremendous boon to our standing in the world, to our economic fortunes, to our commitment to education. This is the challenge of our time. It demands bold thinking, new industries, innovation and invention. Implementing the necessary changes would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs, replacing and more the jobs lost in the coal and oil industries. Fitting ecological imperatives to our national love affair with cars and trucks could revitalize the American automotive industry. Does anyone really believe that the internal combustion engine, invented more than a century ago, is the be-all and end-all of technological ingenuity? Of course not.
But we have to have the will to change, the courage to say “Saving our planet for our children is worth whatever sacrifices we might have to make.” And, from what I can see, we don’t.
I wish I could end on a more hopeful note.
November’s election is about more than ending corruption, about more than beating back hate and prejudice, about more than the Supreme Court, about more than taxes and health care and social justice. It is about saving our planet. It is about keeping ourselves from a slow and painful march toward extinction.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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By Hilda Parks
Can a pulpit, made of rough wood and a three-pronged branch, be deemed a symbol of Welsh settlement in Blue Earth County? It has been said that in settling a new country, the first thing a Frenchman built was a trading post, an American built a city, a German-built a beer hall, and a Welshman built a church. Church building certainly was important to the early Welsh settlers. Churches were established as quickly as possible in their new settlements. If there was no pastor available, at least Sunday School, Bible Societies and Prayer Meetings could be held. Not only did their churches serve their devout faith, but they also kept alive Welsh heritage.
The Welsh settlers who moved into Blue Earth County in the 1850s were seeking economic stability and were attracted by the rich farmland and ready availability of lumber. They were also seeking religious freedom. Many came to America in the first place because they were required to tithe to the Church of England, even though they followed the teachings of reformers like John Calvin or John Wesley. Rev. Richard Davis, who settled in South Bend (not the present town) in 1855 planning to establish a town there, wrote back to Wales extolling the richness of land along the Minnesota River. 121 Welsh Americans from Jackson County, Ohio moved to South Bend in April/May 1856, and Rev. Davis almost immediately began holding services in his home.
Religion and language were closely related in the life of the Welsh. At one time there were eleven Welsh speaking chapels in Blue Earth County. Many became part of their own distinct denomination, known as the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church in the United States. These churches helped maintain Welsh heritage, and services were held in Welsh until about 1917, with English services being held monthly until about 1941. The Calvinistic Methodist’s merged with the Presbyterians in the 1920s, and were known as “Welsh Presbyterians.”
What about that old pulpit, one of the first used in the county? Almost 130 years old, standing only 3 feet high, it was built to fit the shorter statue of the day. Called a Prairie Pulpit, it was used by the Jerusalem Methodist Church during their cwrdd mawr or preaching meetings, held in a grove on the Jones-Roberts farm north of Lake Crystal. Local chapels were too small to hold the number who attended as people came by wagon or on foot from as far as Mankato for the preaching, singing, and socializing. The pulpit was given to the Blue Earth County Historical Society in 1952. It can be seen as part of the exhibit on the Welsh in the county.
If that old Prairie Pulpit could speak, we would undoubtedly hear the melodious flow of the Welsh language, and the beauty of Welsh singing, which can still be experienced in the yearly gymanfa ganu.
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Moderate reasoning
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History
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24 or 25 June 1944. The Royal Navy’s big guns support the Allied armies in Normandy on board the cruiser HMS SIRIUS in the Sword area. The number of shells used by Royal Marines manning the twin 5.25 inch gun X turret can be gauged by the shell cases massed on X-gun deck. They number more than 2,000. (Photo by Lt. C. H. Parnall, Royal Navy official photographer, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)
(Comments Charles McCain: One or more of the gun turrets aboard Royal Navy ships of cruiser size and above were manned by a crew drawn from the ship’s contingent of Royal Marines. Destroyers sometimes has Royal Marine complements but typically for special assignments and not as a permanent part of the ship’c company. As in the days of sail, when it was thought that the Royal Marines would always be loyal to the officers, the Marines were berthed between the common seamen and the ship’s officers.
One of the great shocks to the Admiralty during the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931 was that many Royal Marines sided with the sailors and refused orders to muster.)
Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum shows HMS Sirius Underway leaving Portsmouth.
British Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Sirius. Commissioned 6 May 1942. She was one of sixteen Dido-class light cruisers built this figure includes the five Bellona sub-class cruisers). Most were named after mythical figures of classic Greek history including Naiad, Argonaut, Cleopatra, Scylla, Charybdis, Phoebe, etc.
Ten survived the war. Some were sold to foreign governments. Others continued in operation service until the early 1960s. Others, such as HMS Sirius, were withdrawn from service, placed in the reserve fleet and eventually scrapped. (Sirius broken up in 1956)
The ships were built in different groups with each group being slightly different. General characteristics were a length of 512 feet, width of 50 feet, fully loaded displacement from 6,900 tons to 7,600 tons. Ten 5.25 inch guns in dual turrets.
Normandy, June 1944 The Royal Navy’s big guns support the Allied armies in Normandy as seen on board the cruiser HMS SIRIUS in the Sword area. From information passed by forward observation units operating ashore near the front line, the cruiser’s artillery officer; Captain C I Chapman, RA, of Scarborough, Yorks, and Lieutenant F C Boys, RN, of London, the Gunnery Officer, direct the fire of the naval guns. Here they can be seen on the bridge of the cruiser, with a map of the beaches in front of them. (Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)
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Moderate reasoning
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History
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The dishwasher was designed to ease the burden of cleaning your dishes by hand. While the dishwasher does ease this burden, it does not totally eliminate it. Some items should never be washed in dishwashers, while others should only be washed with caution. If you have any doubts about what can or cannot go into a dishwasher, just wash it by hand.
Any items made out of wood should never be placed inside a dishwasher. This includes spoons, cutting boards, chopsticks and bowls. This also applies to utensils that only contain a wooden handle. If you do place wooden items in a dishwasher, the wood will expand over time, and the item will crack, split or warp. Instead, simply wash these items by hand, using bleach and warm water. Rinse off the items with soap and water. Dry the items immediately so they do not remain damp for too long.
Plastics should have a label clarifying whether they are dishwasher-safe or not. If you do not see a label, play it safe and wash these items by hand. Smaller plastic items should be placed on the upper racks. If it's placed on the lower racks, the drying cycle can have a negative effect on the item, causing it to melt or warp. Larger plastic items --- such as family-sized salad bowls --- that cannot fit in the upper racks should be washed by hand.
Pans and Glasses
Pots and pans made of stainless steel are fine to wash in a dishwasher, but pots and pans made of aluminum should be washed with caution. If you wash aluminum excessively with a dishwasher, the color will begin to fade over time due to the rinse cycle. If this isn't an issue for you, than use the dishwasher to clean aluminum as frequently as you like. If it is, then remove the aluminum before the rinse cycle and rinse it by hand. Most glassware is suitable for a dishwasher, except lead crystal glassware.
Regardless of what you put inside the dishwasher, make sure to rinse it off first. For example, never place a plate with leftover food items on it in the dishwasher. Pots and pans that have gunk --- or burnt food --- stuck to them should be soaked overnight before being placed in a dishwasher. This will prevent the gunk from spreading to the other items inside the machine. If you have a saucepan with burned residue, soak it overnight with water and dishwashing detergent. In the morning, scrape the loosened residue away.
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images
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Basic reasoning
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Home & Hobbies
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Diabetes, left untreated, is a killer; and it is on the rise, alarmingly so. According to the World Health Organization: “In 1980, 108 million adults were living with diabetes. By 2014, that number had risen to 422 million, or 8.5 per cent of adults. Diabetes now causes some 1.5 million deaths a year. High blood glucose causes an additional 2.2 million deaths.” (See: “On World Health Day, UN Urges Global Efforts to Halt Rise in Diabetes” )
This year, diabetes is the focus of World Health Day, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calls for global efforts to stem the tide of this preventable and treatable disease through healthy lifestyles. This means combating obesity with more exercise and a nutritious diet. It translates to more education and diagnostics for those living with the disease and access to insulin and medicines.
Unfortunately, those guidelines are beyond the purview of many in low and middle-income countries and affect those most in poverty. “Around 100 years after the insulin hormone was discovered, the ‘Global report on diabetes’ shows that essential diabetes medicines and technologies, including insulin, needed for treatment are generally available in only 1 in 3 of the world’s poorest countries,” says WHO Director.
While it is true that poor nutrition, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, and heredity play a part in Type II Diabetes, which comprises over 90% of diabetes cases, Insulin-Dependent Diabetics (or Type I Diabetics/Juvenile Diabetics) have a pancreas that stops producing insulin or an inadequate amount. I am a Type I diabetic, on the thin side and physically active, who developed diabetes in my early thirties, not as a juvenile. In my case, this auto-immune disease was triggered by an infection — Lyme Disease from a tick bite. I have heard of other cases following Scarlet Fever.
A third type of diabetes is gestational diabetes developed during pregnancy, which may disappear after childbirth. However, these women and their offspring have an increased future risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes,which is a non-communicable disease, also affects health systems and economies of countries with lost wages and increased medical costs. Even in the United States where I am fortunate enough to have major health insurance cover, my costs are astronomical for my simple insulin pen. As access to insulin is a simple matter of life and death for many diabetics, we need a health system and pharmaceuticals who betterparticipate to help us “Stay Super: Beat Diabetes.”
(For more stories, see: “Orlando Bloom Looks into the Eyes of Ebola, a Very Young Face” , “All In” to End Adolescent AIDS” , “World Bank & Sesame Street #Muppets Join for Health” and
Diplomat Artist Category Archives: “Global Citizen”
By, Susan Sacirbey
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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If you or someone you know is suffering from a heart ailment, then it is time to act now. A holistic approach to life that includes dietary modifications, stress-free living and an active lifestyle can go a long way in curbing the progress of hear
A heart attack is usually perceived as a disease of the older population, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The latest statistics show that heart attacks are becoming alarmingly frequent in the younger population. Twenty per cent of heart attack cases is seen in a population younger than the age of 40 years. Overall, a heart attack is the most common cause of death in India and accounts for 1 in 4 deaths. However, a remarkable change in trend shows that death due to this condition among the urban population (especially males) have declined. This can be attributed to increasing awareness, better access to healthcare facilities and relatively lower tobacco consumption.
Being diagnosed with heart disease is not the end of life. Studies show that simple changes in the diet, physical exercise and managing stress levels not only slow down the progress but possibly reverse heart ailments.
Understanding Heart Disease
Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) refers to blockage of one or more of the arteries of the heart, which causes an area of the heart to be deprived of crucial blood supply. These blockages often start as small harmless plaques in the arteries. Over a period, physical inactivity and unhealthy eating habits can cause plaque to grow and lead to partial or complete obstruction of blood flow to the heart.
If the heart artery is partially blocked (Angina), chest pain is precipitated by exertion. Exertion can be due to exercise, hurrying or sexual activities) or even due to stress, anger or frustration. The patient describes the chest pain as heaviness, pressure or choking sensation in the middle of the chest. It can further spread to the left arm or jaw.
If the heart artery is completely blocked, chest pain happens unrelated to physical activity, often within a few hours of getting up in the morning. The symptoms can be sweating, nausea, palpitations, breathlessness and anxiety. Urgent hospitalisation should be done in such cases.
(* Please note that the symptoms may vary depending on many factors. For example- people with diabetes may not have the typical chest pain during a heart attack and may present with breathlessness instead)
There are many risk factors which predispose an individual to develop a heart attack. Some of them are beyond our control like:
- Ethnic background
- Family history of heart disease
Some of the risk factors which can be controlled by following a healthy lifestyle are:
- High blood pressure
- Physical inactivity
- Being overweight
- High blood cholesterol
Recent research shows that by bringing in significant changes to one’s lifestyle, blood flow and heart function could be improved to a great extent. Studies showed that a reversal was possible even in case of severe blockages, though the time taken for reversal may be more.
Some of the possible lifestyle modifications include:
- Indulging in at least half an hour of exercise per day or an hour thrice a week.
- Moderate dietary changes such as cutting down on oil, switching to non-fat dairy or non-dairy alternatives and a healthier oil such as olive oil, eating more fresh produce, whole grains, legumes and lean meats can help reverse the condition to a great extent.
- Patients must also cut down on alcohol consumption and processed foods including refined carbs, sugars and excess of salt, and quit tobacco.
- Herbal remedies such as regular intake of green tea and juices that are rich in antioxidants are also beneficial. It stabilises blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
While long-term medications may be required in severe cases, regular monitoring and sticking to a healthy diet-cum-exercise plan can bring about dramatic results in less severe conditions. A strict but sustainable lifestyle is essential to control a heart ailment. However, even though complete reversal may not be possible, in most cases, the condition can be kept in check from progressing.
Apart from dietary changes and exercise, managing stress levels is also an important aspect of reversing heart disease. Practising yoga, meditation and mindfulness techniques can prove highly beneficial. It is also important to know the signs and symptoms of a heart attack so that timely medical attention can be sought. Regular preventive health check-up is an essential step towards preventing and managing heart disease.
With inputs from Dr Prashant Kumar Dash, Director-Medical Services at Medlife.com
Read more articles on Heart Health
All possible measures have been taken to ensure accuracy, reliability, timeliness and authenticity of the information; however Onlymyhealth.com does not take any liability for the same. Using any information provided by the website is solely at the viewers’ discretion. In case of any medical exigencies/ persistent health issues, we advise you to seek a qualified medical practitioner before putting to use any advice/tips given by our team or any third party in form of answers/comments on the above mentioned website.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Habits of a Successful Choral Musician is a resource for both choir directors and choral singers that builds music fundamentals (sight-singing and ear training) and vocal functions (from posture to tone). This book has provided a clear and well-organized pedagogy that is helping my students to improve in all facets of being a choral musician.
— Alan Davis, Director of Choirs, Hemet High School, Hemet, CA
Habits of a Successful Choral Musician by Eric Wilkinson and Scott Rush is a fantastic resource for choir directors who seek to develop all levels of singers. The book provides a pedagogical approach to teaching voice building, rhythm work, tuning exercises, sight-reading, theory exercises, and suggestions to nurture the entire musician. I love how this one method book covers multiple aspects of musicianship, rather than having to use multiple books to build each individual skill.
— Emily Chandler, Director of Choirs, Seven Lakes High School, Katy, TX
Habits of a Successful Choral Musician is a field-tested, vital, and—most important—musical collection of more than 200 sequenced exercises for building fundamentals and artistry.
Perfect for use by an entire choir or soloist, this book contains carefully sequenced warm-ups, vocalises, chorales, rhythm work, tonal patterns, sight-singing etudes, and much more. In one place, this book presents everything an aspiring singer needs to build fundamental musicianship skills and then be able to transfer those skills directly into the performance of great literature.
Habits of a Successful Choral Musician:
Provides material for use during fundamentals time that promotes a comprehensive approach to developing skills necessary to fill the musical toolbox.
Includes a sequential format that leads to the mastery of reading rhythms and, ultimately, to musical sight-singing.
Provides chorales and other ensemble exercises for the development of tone quality, ensemble sonority, and musicianship.
Includes partner songs, folk songs, and rounds to develop harmony skills.
Combines pedagogy, literacy, fundamentals development, sight-singing, and musicianship into one book under one cover.
Promotes the idea that technique and artistry are not taught in silos but are simultaneously taught as students build capacity in both areas.
Habits of a Successful Choral Musician is the answer to the question, "What should I be learning during fundamentals time?"
Eric Wilkinson is the Director of Choral Studies at Wando High School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Scott Rush is the Director of Fine and Performing Arts in Dorchester District Two (SC) and is the lead writer for the Habits series published by GIA.
Preview the contents with Erik Wilkinson in this video...
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Moderate reasoning
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Entertainment
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Approved by Council, January 1975
To be reviewed
Each state in the United States has a statute which allows its agent (usually the juvenile or family court) to intrude into the privacy of a family and to consider separating the child from his/her family. Ordinarily this might occur when:
- The child has been involved in delinquent acts;
- The child is dependent or abandoned, i.e., has no recognized or legally appointed guardian;
- The child is neglected, i.e., his needs are not being met by the family; or
- The child is abused, i.e., is being hurt in his/her family.
The professed principle which governs in such cases has generally been the quest for "the best interest of the child." This principle has few standards or criteria associated with it to guide its interpretation. As a consequence there are wide variations in the way individual state's agents or courts put it into practice. This, in turn, allows and perhaps encourages society's agent to fall back on his personal vales and moral system in evaluating the child rearing of any particular family's ability to meet those needs. This estimate, however, may be based on his own individual class values which can differ radically from the culture of the child and the values of his family. Moreover, the less powerful the family, the greater the likelihood of the state's "benevolent" intrusion (especially when there are few standards and no systematic review of judgements).
For a long time state and federal government agents have intruded regularly into the families of American Indians, particularly those living on reservations. This intrusion occurs in four areas:
- where a child is held to be dependent-abandoned;
- where a child is considered to be neglected;
- when a child is considered delinquent;
- and for another reason altogether: to meet the child's "educational" needs.
In regard to the last mentioned, on some reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A., part of the Department of the Interior) has made it policy to send children as young as six years to a distant boarding school. This had formerly been widespread practice, with the overt air of "helping" Indian children enter the mainstream of American life. Now, supposedly, the practice is confined to regions where other educational opportunities have not developed, where there are difficult home situations, or where behavior has been deviant. In the past, this educational practice has had a devastating effect on several generations of Indian children. It has affected their family life, their native culture, their sense of identity, and their parenting abilities. It is quite likely that the continuation of these practices today will have the same destructive impact. Ultimately the message is the same: It is better for Indian children to be reared by others than by their parents or their own people. The complex issues relating to the B.I.A. boarding schools have recently been addressed by the American Psychiatric Association's Task Force on Indian Affairs. Their views are expressed in an Editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
We would like to focus here on the fact that today American Indian children are regularly removed from their families and communities. This action is being taken by government and voluntary agencies and some religious groups, ostensibly, for reasons of dependency-abandonment or neglect.
The Association on American Indian Affairs asserts that these practices have resulted in the wholesale, and often unwarranted, removal of Indian children from their homes, reservations and people. The figures are alarming. In the state of South Dakota, on a per capita basis, approximately 16 times as many Indian children as white children are living in foster homes. In Montana, the rate is 13 times the national foster home placement rate. In Minnesota, among the Indian children, the rate of foster home placement is 5 times greater than for non-Indian children.
In the United States, one in every 200 children lives outside of his home of origin. In North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska one of every nine Indian children are in foster homes, adoptive homes, institutions or boarding facilities. Indian children in these states are withdrawn from their homes at a rate of 20 times the national average. In Minnesota during 1971-1972, one in every seven Indian children was in placement outside of their own homes (there were about 1,413 Indian children under 18 in adoptive placement which there were 241 Indian children under 18 in foster care). Ninety-one percent of the adoptions were in non-Indian homes. In a survey of 16 states, "approximately 85% of all Indian children in foster care are placed in non-Indian homes."
There are, then two trends which are both obvious and alarming:
- American Indian children are being placed outside of their natural homes at an enormous rate, and
- they are being given over to the care of non-Indians in very considerable numbers.
There is much clinical evidence to suggest that these Native American children placed in off-reservation non-Indian homes are at risk in their later development. Often enough they are cared for by devoted and well-intentioned foster or adoptive parents. Nonetheless, particularly in adolescence, they are subject to ethnic confusion and a pervasive sense of abandonment with its attendant multiple ramifications. Consequently, these problems combined with their early childhood preplacement experiences adversely effect their young adulthood and their own potential capacities as parents. The two trends noted above appear to be final common pathways reflecting:
- The professed policy of the bureau of Indian Affairs, state welfare agencies, and of voluntary and religious groups had been to admit Indians into the mainstream of America. While this policy has changes at higher levels of the Bureau, the change is unevenly applied at the lower levels. It is not so clear that the policy has changed among the other groups, particularly, on actively proselytizing religious groups, such as the Mormon Church.
- Alternatives to placement are either not available, not thought of, or are inaccessible for varied reasons. Families which have become disorganized or have had difficulties in providing for the needs of their children are usually well known to various agencies. The decision to place the child often assumes that other options have been tried and have failed. All too often, however, neither tribe, state nor federal agencies has made any real effort at early intervention and support for the child and his family. As a result, when things get bad enough, the only clear option appears to be placement.
- The decision to remove a child from his parents is often made by federal and state agency personnel who are poorly trained and who have limited understanding of Indian culture, or by Indian personnel with little clinical and developmental training.
- The parents may have no understanding of their rights, e.g., they may be induced to waive their parental rights voluntarily without understanding the implications. Furthermore, the child, and in most cases his parents, do not have an advocate in court to represent his and their respective interests, even if there is a court procedure.
- The decision to place the child is often made by a state court. This procedure typically fails to utilize the rich information about potential support and care readily available from the child's extended family and neighboring community. (While there has been some growth of tribal courts with greater understanding of cultural and community resources, there have been procedural and jurisdictional problems).
- The standards used in non-Indian courts in making the placement reflect the majority culture's criteria for suitability (e.g., so many square feet of space available per foster child in the home) and do not take into sufficient account what may be characteristic of the child's socio-cultural milieu. Thus Indian families are discriminated against as potential foster families.
- The tribes generally have been given little or no responsibility for controlling or monitoring the flow of monies available for child care and family welfare.
- There is no systematic review of placement judgements to insure that the child's placement offers him the least detrimental alternative.
- There is no person or agency charged with focusing on the needs of Indian children that would compile information and develop comprehensive planning models adaptable to different regions.
Recently, Indian communities have been actively involved with these threats to their survival. In some instances, tribal councils have established welfare committees to become involved with decisions pertaining to child neglect and dependence; and have adopted more stringent tribal codes governing child welfare matters. Depending on the local circumstances, such active participation on the part of tribal groups has led to a reduction of off-reservation placements. Indeed, there are some innovative efforts by Indian tribes to find and support foster homes, establish group homes and residential centers for families, and provide for other child-care services. While there are some complex issues resulting from the various degrees of jurisdictional authority, the relationship with the B.I.A., the availability of assistance from the Indian Health Service (a section of the Public Health Service), and the local or state welfare departments, coordinated working relationships are possible. The major point here is that the tribal groups have made an effort to assume parental, and in many ways, grandparental authority over the families and children in their community. Indeed, this corresponds to the increasing activity on the part of Native Americans to gain control over their own lives.
While some changes in the practice of child placement have begun on some reservations, more needs to be done. The following are recommendations related to the specific reasons given previously:
These recommendations can be formally legislated by Congress. Indeed, the Association on American Indian Affairs has made very specific legislative recommendations that would enable broad implementation of similar policies.
States, too, can respond to the spirit of these new approaches. This is evidenced by recent developments in Wisconsin. There the American Indian Child Welfare service Agency, with an all-Indian policy board, has been established with broad responsibility for supervising all child placement decisions.
A recent book concerned with the complex issues of child placement highlights the importance of the issues involved.
"....by and large society must use each child's placement as an occasion for protecting future generations of children by increasing the number of adults-to-be who are likely to be adequate parents. Only in the implementation of this policy does there lie a real opportunity for beginning to break the cycle of sickness and hardship bequeathed from one generation to the next by adults, who as children, were denied the least detrimental alternative."
1. Rodham, Hillary. Children Under the Law, Harvard Educational Review, 43, No. 4, 1973.
2. Hearings, Special Subcommittee in Indian Education, United States Senate, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.
3. Goldstein, George S. "The Model Dormitory", Psychiatric Annals, Vol 4, #11, Nov. 1974.
4. "A Hazard to Mental Health: Indian Boarding Schools". The American Journal of Psychiatry, 131, No 3 (March, 1973).
5. Indian Family Defense. New York: Association on American Indian Affairs, Inc., Winter, 1974, No. 1.
6. "Another Chapter in the Destruction of American Indian Families." Yale Reports. October 21, 1973, #654.
7. Statement of William Byler, Executive Director, Association on American Indian Affairs to the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the United States Senate, April 8, 1974.
8. Shore, James and Nicholis, W.W. "Indian Youth and Tribal Group Homes, a Whipper Man." Unpublished paper.
9. Goldstein, Joseph, Anna Freud, and Albert J. Solnit. Beyond the Best Interests of the Child. New York: The Free Press, 1973, p. 111.
1. Mnookin, Robert, Foster Care: In Whose Best Interest? Harvard Educational Review, 43, No. 4. 1973.
2. Children Who Cannot Live With Their Own Families, in Mental Health: From Infancy Through Adolescence by the Joint Commission on Mental Heath of Children, 1973.
3. Mindell, Carl, "Poverty, Mental Health and the Sioux", 1968, unpublished paper.
4. Mindell, Carl, "Some Psychological Aspects of Normal Indian Adolescents and Two Groups of Non-Indian Adolescents", 1968, unpublished paper.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Many people believe that cats have nine lives. Well, perhaps that’s true, but one thing is certain — your cat can have a long and healthy life with proper care and attention. Here are some of the most important things to consider when caring for a cat. Read more great facts on Pet Care Lab, click here.
Think about medical conditions that may come with a specific cat. If you are considering one cat in particular, inquire about its medical history to see if it needs any long-term care. Would you be able to pay for the cat’s medical needs? Even though the cat is healthy now, consider its breed. Purebred cats from different breeds can have their own genetic issues to deal with. For instance, flat-faced cats such as Manx and Scottish folds frequently develop breathing conditions. Purebred cats are also more likely to develop genetic medical problems than non-pedigreed ones. For more useful reference regarding Amanda, have a peek here.
Reward Good Behavior and Socialize, Socialize
The socialization and training your cat gets while it is still a kitten will influence how well she will interact with people and other animals when she’s older. As a new pet owner, you should be able to guide her and help her understand that the world is a great place. Here are some useful training and socialization techniques:
Kittens will typically use litter boxes instinctively, nonetheless you can help teach her to use it by placing her in the box after meals and play sessions. Make sure the litter box is always accessible to your kitten and cleaned regularly.
Let her experience different walking surfaces such as carpet, linoleum, and many others
Take her outside on a lead or in her carrier because it can be dangerous to take a kitten outside without one. But, before letting her have any outdoor exposure, be certain that your veterinarian has administered the proper vaccines and sufficient time has passed for your kitten to develop immunity.
Pay Attention to Your Cat
Like human children, cats need plenty of affection to remain happy and personable. An empty home will grow a cat that would rather be alone. Hence, if you work the entire day and night, and you don’t have family or other pets, you might better off getting a fish. Or a pet rock. Cats can sense fear and anger like many animals, so try not to raise your voice if they do something wrong. Furthermore, never strike or throw your cat. Physical aggression will make your cat afraid of you, and no one wants to live in the same house as a mortal enemy. Please view this site http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Cats for further details.
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Moderate reasoning
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Home & Hobbies
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In our last article, we’ve covered 15 Basic MySQL Questions, again we are here with another set interview questions for intermediate users. As we said earlier these questions can be asked in Job Interviews. But some of our critics on the last article said, that I don’t give response to my critics and the questions are very basic and will never be asked in any Database Administrator Interview.
To them we must admit all the articles and question can not be composed keeping all the flock in mind. We are coming from basic to expert level step by step. Please Cooperate with us.
1. Define SQL?
Answer : SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is a programming Language designed specially for managing data in Relational Database Management System (RDBMS).
2. What is RDBMS? Explain its features?
3. What is Data Mining?
Answer : Data Mining is a subcategory of Computer Science which aims at extraction of information from set of data and transform it into Human Readable structure, to be used later.
4. What is an ERD?
Answer : ERD stands for Entity Relationship Diagram. Entity Relationship Diagram is the graphical representation of tables, with the relationship between them.
5. What is the difference between Primary Key and Unique Key?
Answer : Both Primary and Unique Key is implemented for Uniqueness of the column. Primary Key creates a clustered index of column where as an Unique creates unclustered index of column. Moreover, Primary Key doesn’t allow NULL value, however Unique Key does allows one NULL value.
6. How to store picture file in the database. What Object type is used?
Answer : Storing Pictures in a database is a bad idea. To store picture in a database Object Type ‘Blob’ is recommended.
7. What is Data Warehousing?
Answer : A Data Warehousing generally refereed as Enterprise Data Warehousing is a central Data repository, created using different Data Sources.
8. What are indexes in a Database. What are the types of indexes?
9. How many TRIGGERS are possible in MySql?
10. What is Heap table?
Answer : Tables that are present in the memory are called as HEAP tables. These tables are commonly known as memory tables. These memory tables never have values with data type like “BLOB” or “TEXT”. They use indexes which make them faster.
That’s all for now on MySQL questions, I will be coming up with another set of questions soon. Don’t forget to provide your valuable feedback in comment section.
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Basic reasoning
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Software Dev.
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Prehistory and Protohistory
|Degree:||Bachelor of Arts|
|Course commences:||winter semester / summer semester|
|Standard course duration:||6 semesters|
|Focus options:||50%; 25%|
|Language requirements:||first main subject (50% (1)): certified proficiency in Latin (Latinum) and reading knowledge of English and French|
|Language of instruction:||German and English|
Though obviously historical in its perspectives, Prehistory and Protohistory is essentially a part of cultural studies. It draws upon material remains (finds and findings) to investigate the environment and the economic and social structures in which the early humans lived their lives. To the extent that relevant material evidence has survived, its purview also Extends to art, customs and religion. Accordingly, its aim is to analyse and reconstruct culture-historical connections and developments operative in times and places prior to those for which written records have come down to us.
The space of time covered by the subject begins with the first appearance of humans and ends with the first advent of a reasonable abundance of written sources coeval with the archaeological traces. The criterion determining such spatial and temporal definitions is the point in history at which significant script cultures emerge from earlier pre- and protohistorical developments.
Prehistory (Urgeschichte) covers a period stretching from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages to the Copper (Chalcolithic and Eneolithic), Bronze and Iron Ages. Its sources are geoarchaeological and its methodologies differ significantly from those employed in historical subjects (in the narrower sense of the term). Due to its close connections with the natural sciences, research on the Palaeolithic Age has developed into a discipline in its own right. Protohistory (Frühgeschichte) investigates cultural developments in Europe from late Antiquity/Völkerwanderung to the onset of the Middle Ages with reference mainly to archaeological evidence but also to historical sources. Though not regionally defined, Prehistory and Protohistory focuses largely on Europe and adjacent areas in Eurasia and North Africa.
In general terms, students of Prehistory and Protohistory need to be gifted in grasping the implications of purely visual material. They also require a good visual memory and the ability to think and work analytically. A good knowledge of English and French (at least) is necessary to understand the scholarly literature on the subject. In addition, students should be prepared to familiarise themselves with the relevant EDP programmes required for the course and to participate in practical fieldwork (excavations, surveys, etc.).
Students of Prehistory and Protohistory begin with the Bachelor (B.A.) course, moving on from there (if desired) to the Master (M.A.) programme, which can be followed up by a PhD.
The focus options for the B.A. course are Prehistory and Protohistory (a) as a first main subject (50% = 74 CP), (b) as a second main subject (50% = 74 CP) and (c) as a subsidiary subject (25% = 35 CP) in combination with a different main subject (75%). Students can enrol for the course in the winter or the summer semester and there are no access (admission) restrictions.
The B.A. course takes six semesters to complete and is modular in structure. Modules are teaching (learning) units comprising a number of different classes. Successful attendance of these modules is assessed by means of course-integrated examinations/tests. All students have to sit an orientation examination by the end of their second semester. The B.A. course closes with a B.A. thesis and a B.A. examination. Successful graduates are awarded the academic degree “Bachelor of Arts”.
After graduation, students can go on to take the Master (M.A.) course. One requirement for this is successful completion of the B.A. course in Heidelberg or of a B.A. course at another university with the same content. The M.A. course ends in the fourth semester with the M.A. thesis and an oral examination. Students graduate from the degree programme with the academic title “Master of Arts”.
The third course of study leads to the PhD qualification. This course is only open to M.A. graduates and normally takes four to six semesters, depending on the topic chosen for the dissertation. Typical dissertation subjects involve an engagement with material discovered in the course of archaeological fieldwork.
Instruction in scholarly activity involves regarding selected topics central to the subject of study from an academic viewpoint. Accordingly, there is no rigid curriculum of thematically predetermined obligatory classes that students have to attend in a certain order.
The lectures are open to students of all semesters. Normally, the seminars, practical classes and colloquia are designed to match the degree of knowledge students can be expected to have acquired at a certain point in their studies. The specific didactic requirements of the subject (instruction on the demonstration and analysis of monuments and finds) are such that seminars and practical classes are only meaningful with attendance figures of 30 participants at the most.
Excursions are designed to acquaint students with the most important monuments and original finds located in museums. They are an indispensable part of the course(s). In Prehistory and Protohistory, successful study is very much a function of the students’ personal initiative. Attendance of the compulsory and elective-compulsory modules alone will not be an adequate foundation for the identification of personal academic preferences and the acquisition of essential knowledge in neighbouring subjects, both scholarly and scientific, such as Ancient History, Egyptology, Classical Archaeology, Medieval History, Classical Philology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Anthropology, Geography, Geology, Ethnology, Palaeo-Zoology, Palaeo-Botany, Archaeometry, etc.).
Students are expected to deepen and round off for themselves the knowledge and skills imparted to them in taught classes. The subject is so broad in its scope that it is indispensable for main-course students to engage from the outset with part of the subject matter via intensive and systematic self-study. Indeed, it is one of the essential aims of the course to instil this propensity for independent knowledge acquisition into the students, not only in their chosen subject itself but also in neighbouring sectors. The best time to engage in self-study of this kind is in the breaks between semesters.
A number of practical aspects associated with the subject are difficult to communicate in the normal university environment. Accordingly, students are expected to take part in excavations undertaken by the Institute or other suitable institutions (Archaeological Cultural Heritage Preservation, German Archaeological Institute) and also (ideally) enlist for a museum internship. Such activities should be undertaken in the semester breaks. Another important part of the course is instruction in the fundamentals of surveying and in handling the EDP programmes relevant for the subject.
At the Heidelberg Institute, the later stages of Prehistory (Neolithic Period to Iron Age) in central and southern Europe are a major focus in research and teaching, with special emphasis on the early Aegean period (beginning of the Neolithic Age to the Minoan-Mycenaean civilisation) and on issues in settlement archaeology. There are also research and teaching focuses in Protohistory. Fieldwork in south-west Germany is a prominent feature.
Application and admission
There are no admission restrictions. Click here for information on how to enrol.
There are special regulations for international applicants. Please consult Heidelberg University’s International Relations Office (Dezernat Internationale Beziehungen, Seminarstraße 2) for more information.
Study and examination regulations
Issues arising in connection with examinations, credit transfer and academic credential recognition are dealt with by the relevant examinations board/office. For more information, consult the academic advisor(s) indicated below.
Tuition fees at Heidelberg University are payable at the beginning of each semester.
Heidelberg University offers a consecutive M.A. course in Prehistory and Protohistory.
Susanne Prillwitz, M.A.
Sandgasse 7, Zi. 014
Tue 4 pm - 6 pm (outside term-time by appointment)
phone: +49 (0)6221-54-2544
Department of Prehistory, Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
|
The answer of the above question is unknown. Doctors claim that grinding teeth, which is also called bruxism, is caused by emotional and psychological stress, but they couldn’t explain the causes in detail. It is so far only an assumption. There’s no research evidence to proof this hypothesis.
Exactly, mothers whose children grind their teeth at sleep might see their children will clench their teeth at night when their kids are totally tired after having a very busy day. Therefore, teeth grinding is closely related to fatigue condition.
Doctors will also argue that bruxism is caused by an abnormal bite or missing or crooked teeth, while some others may have different opinion. The opposite group will say that abnormal bite can be the effect of the bruxism, not the underlying cause of the habit. Bruxism is moved by your jaw muscles, not teeth, and the reason why the muscles move unconsciously remains unknown.
Health Problems Because of Teeth Grinding
You may have seen many people around you grinding their teeth when they are sleeping from time to time, but nothing happens with their health condition. If you ask them, why they do it, they will say, “I don’t know.” Their physical performance is great, and it seems nothing to worry.
Grinding teeth is not harmful when the case is just mild. Bruxism will cause damage when the case occurs on a regular basis. Severe bruxism will effect someone’s health, and the arising health problems can be headache, jaw pain, worn-out tooth enamel, toothache, earache, dull teeth, damage to inside of cheeks or tongue, sensitive teeth, and the most complicated problem is temporomandibular joints disorder (TMD).
How to Stop Teeth Grinding
The main cause of the bruxism is unknown, and thus it would be difficult to cure it from the root. Doctors and health practitioners will give some advice that is all related to the emotional and psychological stress reason. It’s easy to say that they will suggest you doing yoga, exercise, relaxation, or other therapies that would help you manage your stress.
Interestingly, most people with bruxism who change their lifestyle to a healthier style report some improvement.
Stress management that is specifically designed for bruxism is called bruxism management. It includes psychoanalysis, hypnosis, autosuggestion, meditation, progressive relaxation, self-monitoring, habit reversal, and sleep hygiene. One of the most successful therapy is hypnosis.
How About Bruxism That Occurs For Years
People who have suffered from bruxism for many years might need more than therapies or self healing treatment. They need a mouth guard. Where can people get the mouth guard? It’s not only dentist who is capable of creating a mouth guard, pharmacy store will also be ready to help you and serve your order online. From the comfort of your home you can get your costume-made mouth guard.
A mouth guard is also called occlusal splints. These splints are made from plastic. Most of pharmacists’ splints can be used immediately without dentist fitting. People with bruxism is advised to use it while they are asleep. For those of you who clench their teeth in the day, splints should be used the whole day. There’s different design between the night splints and the day splints.
The use of splints is considered the most successful treatment in teeth grinding problem. This device is able to reduce jaw muscle activity and the noise of teeth clenching or teeth grinding.
Occlusal Splints And Occlusal Interventions
Splints that are used to help bruxism sufferers are different from splints that are designed for occlusal interventions. Occlusal interventions are prescribed by doctors for people with mandibular problems. This type of splints involve rehabilitation, occlusal equilibrium, and dental treatment. Doctors use it to make a harmonious relationship between occluding surfaces.
People who clench their teeth during sleep, do not have mandibular problem, will only need occlusal splint. The purpose of this splint is only reducing grinding activity. Occlusal splints that are available in stores both online and offline are solutions for bruxism. Because the activities of your jaw muscles are reduced significantly, thus you will get some relief. You will be free of jaw ache, headache when you wake up in the morning.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
|
How To Tell The Difference Between Bass and Electric GuitarPosted by Jam Addict Staff
Guitars and basses both have different fame in our culture. Guitars are the dream of young teenagers who want to shred and show off. Serenading your lover in front of their window is a mainstay of teenage romance. From adrenaline to romanticism, guitars have something to offer to both the sexes. They are instruments to hype and exhilarate or to swoon.
Basses, on the other hand, are a little bit more of an underappreciated instrument but whose presence is sorely lacking when it is not present in a musical setting. The job of the bassist is to lay down the foundation of the groove and to glue all the components of a band together.
From the descriptions above, it is easy to see why the guitar is the best selling musical instrument. But let's learn a little more about the differences between basses and electrical guitars, and come to a better understanding of their commonalities and differences.
The differences between bass and electric guitars
First, you should know how to differentiate between a bass and an electrical guitar at first glance.
A bass guitar is what the image above is, a guitar normally with four thick strings that makes a low sound. Some bass guitars can have 5 or even 6 strings. There are acoustic bass guitars and upright basses (big basses that stand up and that are used in jazz settings).
An electrical guitar is the slimmer and thinner guitar which usually has 6 small strings. The electric guitar has knobs and switches to control the tone and volume of the guitar as well as a socket to plug in a cable to amplify it.
Both of these guitars can be made of different types of wood, such as maple, mahogany, ash... it's also possible for the same guitar to have a body made of one wood and the fretboard (the part that guitars push their fingers down on) to be made of another type of wood.
The strings are the most identifiable component that distinguishes the guitar from either a bass an electric guitar. The thicker string provides a lower register sound. Usually, the bass guitar is tuned one octave lower than a normal guitar.
Whether you pick a bass or an electrical guitar depends on your aptitude for certain sounds. For starting out bass guitars may be easier, because certain songs don't require too many notes. With the bass guitar hitting just one note can be extremely satisfying as it can fill up the whole room.
Bassists and guitarists have different roles in a band situation. The job of the bass player is to support the groove and the song. If you are making the correct note changes that may be all that is needed for the situation.
However if you like to have control over the song and be the center of attention the guitar may be a great option for you. In most bands, the electrical guitar player is at the front of any performance and they could be even singing at the same time.
Guitar solos are much more common than bass solos. Although your guitar solos don't need to be the most complicated to work with the song, many people like to see a guitar player play really fast (or shred). Also, the ability to switch between different types of chords is vital, while as a bass player, chords are less common to play.
The differences between the instruments are present in their accessories too. Their amplifiers are also different even if they are interchangeable. Bass amplifiers are designed to emphasize the lower end of a bass guitar and bring it out more.
Their picks are different too because of varying string thickness. Bass picks are thicker to allow easy string manipulation and prevent snaps.
Does it even matter?
Chances are once you pick up a bass or electrical guitar, some time or the other, you will try your hand at the other one too.
This is a natural part of finding your musical inclinations. You might very well turn out to have talent and ability for both of them. It would be no surprise since many famous musicians switch between the two without a hitch.
You might find the electrical guitar easier to hold down the strings and to maneuver. Alternatively, you might find the bass easier since you don't necessarily need to play chords or learn to play very fast to sound good in a musical situation.
If you wish to become proficient in playing both bass and electric guitars, then the journey will be tough. Each needs its own training and time. While one may come easier at first, both will ultimately demand attention and perseverance from you.
You should now have a better appreciation for the differences between a bass and an electrical guitar. Don't worry too deeply about differences when you are first starting out. Experiment with both and you will begin to form your own picture of how the instrument works.
The Jam Addict team is a revolving door of writers who care about music, its effects on culture, and giving aspiring artists tools and knowledge to be inspired and keep on creating.
If you have any questions or concerns or just want to drop us a line, don't hesitate to contact us! We always appreciate the feedback.
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| 0.972 | 1,058 | 3 | 3 | 2.010693 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
|
Entertainment
|
Energy & Infrastructure Alert | November.09.2018
On November 1, 2018, the Ministry of the Environment ("MOE") announced that, at the "4th Review Session on Basic Policy Regarding Solar Facilities and the Environmental Impact Assessment," it plans to make certain large-scale solar projects subject to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act ("EIA Act").
The EIA Act divides projects into two classes: (i) Class 1 Projects that have a major impact on the environment and (ii) Class 2 Projects that are comparable in scale and have a notable impact. Environmental impact assessment ("EIA") is mandatory for Class 1 Projects, while Class 2 Projects are screened based on local conditions.
The question is: how will large-scale solar projects be classified?
Initially, the assumption was that the only criteria would be land area (hectares), as is the case when determining the necessity of EIA under ordinance and as currently applicable to solar projects.
MOE, however, has indicated that power capacity is likely to be the determining factor for EIA under the EIA Act, since "classifications under the Electricity Business Act are based on capacity (kW) and EIA under the EIA Act reflects directly upon project permit screenings under the Electricity Business Act." Further, proposals have been set forth to define (i) Class 1 Projects for solar projects as having a "capacity (kW) equivalent to 100 hectares or more," in line with current criteria for Class 1 Projects for land readjustment and other surface-improvement projects that are based on having a land modification area of 100 hectares or more; and (ii) Class 2 Projects for solar projects as having a "comparable scale" equivalent to 0.75 times the criteria for Class 1 Projects, in accordance with laws and ordinances currently in place for other sectors.
What then is "capacity equivalent to 100 hectares"?
Based on current data, MOE approximates 32MW for solar projects already installed under the FIT scheme and 36MW for solar projects that have obtained FIT approvals. As is the case for other energy sources, however, this dataset is based on grid-connected output; that is, with respect to mega solar, it represents PCS rather than solar panel capacity.
Although the majority of the review committee members agreed with the proposal by MOE to use "100 hectares or more" as a criteria, there have been many objections to using "capacity (kW) equivalent to 100 hectares or more."
Further, while EIA under ordinance takes approximately 1 year to complete, EIA under the EIA Act is expected to take 3 to 4 years. For solar projects subject to EIA under the EIA Act, this inevitably means that the development period will be drawn out and operators will face higher development risk in conjunction with the risk of having reduced applicable procurement prices or truncated procurement periods due to delay in the start of operations.
These matters are to be reconsolidated as a final draft by MOE in January of next year and as a formal report by the end of March, upon further discussion by the review committee. There is to be a call for public comment prior to finalization.
With respect to EIA under the EIA Act, it will be essential to monitor what scale criteria will apply to solar projects as well as which projects in various stages of development will be subject to the requirements, and further, whether appropriate transitional measures will be put in place.
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CC-MAIN-2019-18
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https://www.orrick.com/Insights/2018/11/Renewable-Alert-Letter-37
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en
| 0.955299 | 702 | 2.671875 | 3 | 3.015055 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Industrial
|
Schools and Districts too often have a blurry vision of what “technology” means and can do to enhance and support teaching and learning. Technology plans litter the floor of education – well intended roll outs of piece meal plans and wasted educational dollars. In today’s learning environment it is imperative that educational leaders are digitally literate and can help shape a vision of what next generation learning environments look like.
Next Generation Learning Environments (NGLE) are not laptop carts, computer labs, tablets, laptops or online curriculum. NGLE requires an unconstrained vision – and a complete rethink of EVERY step of educational delivery. It is not a budget issue – it is a reinvent and reallocation challenge!
e3 Civic High
all students have laptop
Key considerations to creating NGLE’s are a clear and supporting vision that will lay the foundation for a success. Below are 6 foundational pillars that are critical to shaping future of education.
- Broadband (to every student home)
- Curriculum & PD (web enabled curriculum & assessment)
- Digital Policy & Tools (every student has a take home device)
- Facilities (schools look more like starbucks & less “bells & cells”)
- Finance (a plan to support and measure)
- Infrastructure (shift to cloud & everything has to work all the time)
Five short years ago, Riverview Elementary in the Lakeside School District set out reinvent their school. With declining enrollment, school Principal Olympia Kyriakidis worked with stakeholders to rethink / reinvent the learning environment to best meet the needs of today’s student and tomorrows worker. After touring this school last week, two words came immediately to mind when I observed students: engaged and empowered. One word when I observed teachers and staff: passionate. 5 years after reshaping the vision, the results are remarkable. Some takeaways:
School and Student values centric around “Covey’s 7 Habits” and “Leader In Me”
Covey 7 Habits for Students
Leader in Me
Other key takeaways:
- Riverview is School is tri immersion (English, Mandarin, and Spanish). See Riverview World Language Program
- Project based learning overlay on standards based curriculum infused with technology as enabler. Incredible student engagement in all classrooms.
- Student enrollment has grown from 450 students to 900 in last 5 years – with a waiting list of over 100. 72% of students from outside district.
- Over 12 highly qualified teacher aides support teachers and students, including the Confucias Institute at SDSU
- Embedded a charter school in the middle of campus which (Mandarin Language Academy) which seamlessly serves students to and attracted over $1MM of grant funding. One principal of both schools – in fact, you would not even know it is a charter school, as students are dually enrolled. It really just serves as way to offer programs to students.
- No layoff notices in Lakeside. Fiscally sound management – which is true of several of the 42 districts in San Diego.
Visit: Riverview Elementary
From 2Revolutions: “Because America’s future depends on our ability to make smarter, better integrated investments in kids as they travel the birth-to-26 Human Capital Continuum™, 2Revolutions pursues bold innovations with the potential for transformative impact at the key leverage points where today’s current systems fail”. Watch this great video!
The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) hosted an event with Thomas Friedman (New York Times columnist and co-author of the new book, That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind In the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back) and Marc Tucker (President and CEO of NCEE and author of Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems) on the need to redesign the U.S. education system to meet the demands of today’s workforce and global economy. The conversation was moderated by NBC Correspondent Luke Russert.
Do we really believe that the math most students do in school is really more than applying procedures to problems students really d not understand for reasons they don’t get? Is what they are learning even practical anymore. Conrad Wolfram says in math education, we’re spending about perhaps 80 percent of the time teaching students to calculate math. Yet, that’s the one step computers can do better than any human after years of practice. Instead, we ought to be using computers to do the calculating and have the students to spend much more effort on learning how to pose the right questions, apply to real world and verify. Wolfram says important to understand that math does not equal calculating – it is a much broder subject. Watch Conrad’s though provoking Ted Talk!
Over 16 million Americans are out of work. But that is only part of the story – there are over 1 billion people entering the global workforce that are competing for our jobs. Don’t believe me? See elance.com. Post your job, see how fast the world bids on it. I have done this – and in less than one hour I had several bids from around the world. A few hours later I clicked the “I Agree” button to hire a small firm in India to do some web based design work. I also had two new friends from India, Pushpak and Dharma. The work product was excellent, timely (close to half the project was complete when I awoke the next day) and much less expensive than it would have cost in the US. The flat, connected world will require us all to develop new kinds of skills to to compete in the “global talent cloud”. I hope the next generation is ready….average is over.
Ian Jukes is the founder InfoSavvy Group. He has been a teacher at all grade levels, a school, district and provincial administrator, a university instructor and is a passionate educational evangelist. He asks why do students have to memorize location of states when they can Google the answer? If a student asks “Why do I need to learn this?” and we can’t answer the question, it’s probably not relevant. Watch the short clip below and make sure to see Literacy is Not Enough and The 21st Century Fluency Project.
Over the weekend at a picnic I was talking to a friend’s daughter (Bree, a 7th grader) who asked me if I had heard of the web site called Edmodo, which is a “Facebook like” social media site for education. Bree went on to explain what a great learning and collaborative tool it has been in her classroom. There is no greater testimonial for any learning tool than from a student who uses it! Take a minute to learn about Edmodo and how you can leverage it in your classroom to enhance learning and collaboration. It is a fabulous 21st Century tool. Thanks for sharing, Bree!
Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL) is the research and innovation unit of Northern Beaches Christian School (NBCS) in Sydney, Australia. NBCS, through SCIL, is seeking to create models for 21st century education that change the focus from teacher-directed paradigms to self-directed engaged learning. video captures a number of the ‘spaces for learning’ created – using the campfire, watering hole and cave architectural motifs. Learn more about Principal Stephen Harris.
SCIL: Spaces to learn from SCIL on Vimeo.
Shifting metric from "teachers per student" to "time per student".
Wired Magazine 7.15.11 The disruptive forces of of 21st Century learning are becoming more evident in schools of the future. Read and watch how schools are leveraging online resources like the Kahn Academy to “flip” learning environments – where students can learn at home and get help at school.
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Synonym: club foot
Congenital talipes equinovarus is a congenital orthopaedic condition. It is characterised by a permanent alteration of the morphology of the foot and its relationship with the leg, so the foot cannot be placed flat on the ground when in the physiological standing position. The foot is excessively turned (equinovarus) with a high medial longitudinal arch (cavus).
Talipes equinovarus present at birth may be either positional or congenital:
Positional talipes is a normal foot that has been held in a deformed position in the uterus. Postural talipes is correctable with gentle passive dorsiflexion of the foot. This positional variant occurs about five times more often than congenital talipes equinovarus.
Congenital talipes is a fixed condition, which may be idiopathic or teratological:
- The idiopathic type is usually an isolated skeletal anomaly. It is usually bilateral, and has a higher response rate to conservative treatment and a tendency to recur.
- Causes of the non-idiopathic type include genetic syndromes, teratological anomalies, neurological disorders and myopathies. There may be diametrically opposite deformities in the feet (calcaneovalgus in one foot and equinovarus in the other), presence of other anomalies and poorer response to treatment.
The rest of this article is about congenital talipes equinovarus.
- The incidence is approximately 1 in 1,000 births.
- Around 50% of cases affect both feet.
- Talipes is almost twice as common in males as it is in females.
- Globally, 150,000-200,000 babies with talipes are born each year. Approximately 80% of these will be in low- and middle-income countries. Most will not receive effective treatment and will grow up with severe disability.
The consensus theory is thought to explain the occurrence of talipes. This incorporates neuromuscular and anatomical causes (muscle fibre abnormalities, titling and rotation of the talus, hypoplasia of the anterior tibial artery), polygenic multifactorial genetics and arrested fetal development (ie that the fetal foot is in equinovarus and it fails to correct at birth).
Oligohydramnios, uterine anomalies and multiple pregnancy may lead to positional talipes due to fetal restriction; however, they are not associated with an increased prevalence of congenital talipes.
In 20% of cases, talipes is associated with other genetic and congenital conditions. These include distal arthrogryposis, congenital myotonic dystrophy, myelomeningocele, amniotic band sequence, trisomy 18 and chromosome 22q11 deletion syndrome.
Although talipes is recognisable at birth, the severity of the deformity can vary from mild to an extremely rigid foot that is resistant to manipulation.
- The hindfoot is in rigid equinovarus (foot is turned inwards and downwards) and the forefoot is adducted and supinated. The sole of the foot points medially.
- The heel is high, with the fibula prominent, and the calf muscle and foot are typically smaller than normal.
- In adulthood there may be residual adduction of the forefoot, shortening of the Achilles tendon and a small foot.
Diagnosis is on the clinical appearance and assessment, although imaging is helpful in order to define severity and to monitor progress of treatment.
- X-rays - anteroposterior (AP) plus lateral standing or simulated standing.
- Ultrasound; talipes correction during serial manipulation can be monitored using ultrasound.
Maternal polyhydramnios and other conditions which restrict space in utero (such as uterine abnormalities and multiple pregnancy) have an association with positional talipes but not with congenital (fixed) talipes.
The Pirani scoring system is often used to provide a forecast about the likely treatment for an individual foot. Pirani scoring looks at six anatomical features of the deformity. Each component may score 0, 0.5 or 1:
- Hindfoot contracture score (HCFS):
- Posterior crease.
- Empty heel.
- Rigid equinus.
- Midfoot contracture score (MFCS):
- Medial crease.
- Curvature of lateral border.
- Position of head of talus.
A higher score on presentation may indicate that a higher number of casts will be required, although a low score does not exclude the possibility that a tenotomy may be required. Children with an initial high score are more likely than those with lower scores to experience relapse during the bracing phase.
If diagnosed at or soon after birth, talipes can be successfully treated non-surgically, and this has become the gold standard. There are two methods:
The Ponseti method has, over recent years, become the gold-standard treatment for talipes in most of the world. It is used in children up to 2 years of age.
The Ponseti method requires stretching. The foot is repositioned and a cast is applied. The foot is repositioned and re-cast weekly for several months. Towards the end of the process, Achilles tenotomy (under local anaesthetic) is usually performed to lengthen the tendon. Maintenance involves routine stretching. The child wears special shoes or braces full-time for three months, then nightly for three years. Failure will occur if the brace is not worn. Typical cases require five casts over four weeks. Complex cases may require more.
Botulinum toxin is sometimes used as an alternative to tenotomy. It is injected into the calf muscle to weaken the Achilles tendon. This allows the foot to be turned into a normal position over a period of 4-6 weeks. Most talipes can be corrected with a single injection.
French functional method
The French method, also known as the 'functional method', is easiest to do with young children. The child's foot is gradually stretched to achieve the right position, being held in place with tape after stretching. Specialised physiotherapists are needed. A 2016 review suggests that the French functional method is more successful than the Ponseti method.
Surgery is not recommended as a primary treatment for talipes. It may need to be considered in walking children because of the greater stiffness of the foot, but is used mainly in cases of fixed deformity in which the lateral column of the foot is much longer than the medial as a consequence of an unbalanced growth.
Techniques include selective medial release and posteromedial release, with or without cuboid subtraction osteotomy. Tenotomy and tendon elongation and transfer and joint fusion are sometimes used; the choice of procedure and the optimal timing are controversial.
Community perceptions about talipes affect treatment-seeking in many parts of the world. Misconceptions about the causes of talipes include lunar and solar eclipses, religious and magical explanations and the health status and behaviours of parents. People often do not seek treatment because they are unaware about its availability and do not realise that talipes is a correctable condition.
A neglected or uncorrected deformity forces the child to start walking on the lateral aspect of the foot, which worsens the equinus and supination. The lateral column of the foot grows more than the medial column, and the foot becomes stiff. Eventually the deformity is no longer reducible. As the child's weight goes through the side and top surfaces of the foot, a large bursa and callous form on the weight-bearing surface. A child with neglected talipes will have difficulty in wearing normal shoes and may experience lifelong pain and disability.
Conservative treatment using the Ponseti and French functional methods provides excellent results with an initial correction rate of over 90% in idiopathic talipes. Serial Ponseti casting in cases of late relapse has also demonstrated encouraging results.
With surgical treatment
Surgery is now only generally considered for cases where the deformities are fixed, compensatory growth changes have occurred and the condition cannot be corrected by manipulation. This typically includes ambulant children, although a precise cut-off in terms of age and development has not been defined.
- Approaches include wedge excision of the calcaneo-cuboid bone, fusion of the midtarsal and subtalar joints, or calcaneal osteotomy and talectomy.
- A single episode of corrective surgery may not be sufficient. Further corrective surgery may be required later in childhood.
- Surgery may lead to functional, growth and aesthetic problems in the foot as the child grows. Complications of surgery include:
- Incomplete corrections or overcorrection.
- Skin problems and neurovascular injuries.
- Loss of correction over time.
- Residual deformity after skeletal maturity.
- Stiffness and/or early degenerative changes involving the ankle, the subtalar and the midtarsal joints.
Historical figures born with one or both feet in 'clubbed' condition include the Roman emperor Claudius and the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun who had both talipes and a cleft palate. It is likely that he needed a cane to walk. More recently, sports people born with talipes include the football player Steven Gerrard and Olympic gold figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi.
Did you find this information useful?
- Club Foot and the Ponseti Method; Ponseti International
- Gray K, Pacey V, Gibbons P, Little D, Burns J. Interventions for congenital talipes equinovarus (clubfoot). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 8. Art. No.: CD008602. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008602.pub3.
- Huntley JS; Optimising the management of congenital talipes. Practitioner. 2013 Oct 257(1765):15-8, 2.
- Werler MM, Yazdy MM, Mitchell AA, et al; Descriptive epidemiology of idiopathic clubfoot. Am J Med Genet A. 2013 Jul 161A(7):1569-78. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.a.35955. Epub 2013 May 17.
- Pirani Scoring; Global Clubfoot Initiative
- Anand A, Sala DA; Clubfoot: etiology and treatment. Indian J Orthop. 2008 Jan 42(1):22-8. doi: 10.4103/0019-5413.38576.
- Dobbs MB, Gurnett CA; Genetics of clubfoot. J Pediatr Orthop B. 2012 Jan 21(1):7-9. doi: 10.1097/BPB.0b013e328349927c.
- Dobbs MB, Gurnett CA; Update on clubfoot: etiology and treatment. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2009 May 467(5):1146-53. doi: 10.1007/s11999-009-0734-9. Epub 2009 Feb 18.
- Dyer PJ, Davis N; The role of the Pirani scoring system in the management of club foot by the Ponseti method. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2006 Aug 88(8):1082-4.
- Jowett CR, Morcuende JA, Ramachandran M; Management of congenital talipes equinovarus using the Ponseti method: a systematic review. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2011 Sep 93(9):1160-4. doi: 10.1302/0301-620X.93B9.26947.
- Bergerault F, Fournier J, Bonnard C; Idiopathic congenital clubfoot: Initial treatment. Orthop Traumatol Surg Res. 2013 Feb 99(1 Suppl):S150-9. doi: 10.1016/j.otsr.2012.11.001. Epub 2013 Jan 21.
- ANM M I, Sk Akthar A, Md Rashedul K, Md. Kaoser B S, Atia A.; Effectiveness of French Physiotherapy in Treating Congenital Clubfoot Deformity. Ortho & Rheum Open Access J. 2016 2(3): 555588. DOI: 10.19080/OROAJ.2016.02.555588
- Faldini C, Traina F, Nanni M, et al; Congenital idiopathic talipes equinovarus before and after walking age: observations and strategy of treatment from a series of 88 cases. J Orthop Traumatol. 2016 Mar 17(1):81-7. doi: 10.1007/s10195-015-0377-4. Epub 2015 Sep 26.
- Burfat A, Mohammed S, Siddiqi O, et al; Understanding the knowledge and perceptions about clubfoot in Karachi, Pakistan: a qualitative exploration. Iowa Orthop J. 2013 33:149-52.
- Lourenco AF, Morcuende JA; Correction of neglected idiopathic club foot by the Ponseti method. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2007 Mar 89(3):378-81.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions. Patient Platform Limited has used all reasonable care in compiling the information but make no warranty as to its accuracy. Consult a doctor or other health care professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. For details see our conditions.
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A new book details the contribution of the Irish aces involved in the Allied flying services World War One.
Some 240,000 Irish served in World War One and almost 40,000 died, just 6,000 joined the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Some 500 Irish died in the flying services.
‘Irish Aviators of World War I: Volume I’ by Joe Gleeson details the heroism of Irish pilots such as Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock.
Mannock who had 61 ‘kills’ was known as an ace, which means he had scored five or more aerial victories during the war.
The son of a Scottish corporal in the British army, his Mother, Julia O’Sullivan, came from Ballincollig, Co. Cork. Edward Corringham "Mick" Mannock was born on 24 May, 1887.
Although there is some doubt about where he was born, his service papers list Ballincollig as his place of birth.
Mannock had a curious accent with an Irish, English and Indian lilt. When the war started he found himself in Turkey, where he worked on cable laying for a telephone company.
In the Royal Flying Corps, Mannock was not popular with his fellow pilots at the start of his career with No 40 Squadron due to his outspoken nature.
On May 7, 1917, Mannock barely escaped with his life when his plane was badly shot up. He had his first victory by shooting down a German observation balloon.
He showed his humility after he shot down a German two-seater, killing one of the crew.
He went to the crash site: "The machine was completely smashed and rather interesting also was the little black and tan terrier – dead – in the observer's seat. I felt exactly like a murderer,” he wrote in his biography.
"The journey to the trenches was rather nauseating – dead men's legs sticking through the sides with putties and boots still on – bits of bones and skulls with the hair peeling off and tons of equipment and clothing lying about.
"This sort of thing, combined with the graveyard stench and the dead and mangled body of the pilot combined to upset me for a few days," he wrote.
On July 26, 1918, he took a rookie New Zealand pilot out to train him for his first kill, but he flew too low and was hit by rifle and machine gun fire and was killed. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for valor.
"Overall, Mannock accounted for at least 61 enemy aircraft and remains one of the RAF's highest ever scoring aces.
"He is Ireland's greatest fighter pilot ever," Dublin author Joe Gleeson (41) writes in a new book, Irish Aviators of World War 1, Volume 1, Irish Aces.
"In all likelihood, Mannock was the greatest RAF pilot of all time," says the author, who wrote Volume 1 of a three-part series while on a career break.
Irish Aviators of World War 1, Volume 1, Irish Aces is self published by Joe C Gleeson at CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Carolina. It is available on Amazon, Kindle and other online retailers.
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A new paradigm of THz-energy harvester based on graphene
Future-shaping concepts such as wearable electronics and the Internet of Things are driving the quest for low-power electronics and for energy harvesting at the device or at chip level. Researchers from AMO GmbH, Chalmers University, RWTH Aachen University and the University of Wuppertal have now developed a novel type of flexible energy harvester, which shows good prospects for powering wearable and conformal devices.
The device is a rectenna, i.e. an antenna directly coupled to a diode, which is able to detect radiation and to transform it into a DC output. Rectennas working in the microwave region are well established since the sixties, thanks to the availability of Schottky diodes with a sufficiently short response time. The challenge is to extend the working principle of rectennas to higher frequency ranges – in particular terahertz (THz) and optical frequencies.
“The regime between 0.1 and 10 THz is particularly interesting because there are a lot of applications that work in this frequency range – from communications, to material analysis, to surveillance screening, and biomedical analysis”, explains Andreas Hemmetter, first author of the paper. “Our device is a miniaturized, low-noise THz power detector working up to 0.17 THz. But, at the same time, it works also as energy harvester in the same frequency range, with a performance that is competitive with state of the art devices.”
One of the big advantages of the device developed by Hemmetter and co-workers is that it can be produced on flexible thin-film substrate, overcoming the form factor limitations of silicon electronic chips. The key is the use of metal-insulator-graphene (MIG) diode. The high charge carrier mobility and the flexibility of graphene allow realizing devices that combine excellent DC performance with high cut-off frequencies, and to do so on flexible substrates.
To be more precise, the rectenna of Hemmetter and co-workers exploits a one-dimensional MIG diode, meaning that the junction area in the diode has just the thickness of the graphene sheet itself, which is about 0.3 nm. This change in geometry with respect to conventional MIG diodes has a huge impact, as it reduces both the capacity and the resistance of the junction, increasing its operating frequency and thus the performance of the rectenna.
Another interesting aspect of the work is that the process for developed for fabricating the rectennas based on one-dimensional MIG diodes is scalable and compatible with conventional thin-film technology – and with high-throughput.
The work has been published open-access on ACS Applied Electronic Materials.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101006963 (GreEnergy), No. 881603 (Graphene Flagship), and No. 863337 (WiPLASH). This research was further financially supported by the DFG projects HiPeDi (No. WA4139/1.1), GLECS-2 (No. NE1633/3).
Terahertz Rectennas on Flexible Substrates Based on One-Dimensional Metal–Insulator–Graphene Diodes
A. Hemmetter, X. Yang, Z. Wang, M. Otto, B. Uzlu, M. Andree, U. Pfeiffer, A. Vorobiev, J. Stake, M. C. Lemme, and D. Neumaier, ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 2021, 3, 9, 3747–3753
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The anaerobic digestion process provides at least 10 ways to make money from Biogas Plant, that's why it is such an amazing asset to the owners and operators of biogas plants. Once a farmer, for example, gets his or her own biogas plant up and running they soon realise that a digester is so much more than just a producer of renewable energy.
There is a great danger that in this age of decarbonisation progress, the humble AD process is being overlooked by many who seek to reduce their carbon footprint, and that it fails to get the publicity it deserves.
That's why we compiled a list of them, published the video provided below, and wrote this article.
Each of the following different income streams provided below, can contribute to the economics of individual digester projects, including farm digesters.
Some income methods apply to all digester installations, while others are a matter of choice, or determined by the size or location, of the farm. Some may not be possible for certain waste types, and as this list is for the United Kingdom, some of these income streams may not be available in your country. The ways in which financial benefit is possible, fall essentially into two categories.
Income Created from the By-products of Anaerobic DigestionFirst, there are the savings or direct income created by the by-products, including:
1) savings, on the cost of artificial fertilisers for the farm itself, when a farm uses its own digestate as a fertiliser on their own land
2) sales of digested materials, for use as fertiliser, by other nearby farms
3) sale of fibre or finished compost, either through a regional marketing organisation, or by distribution locally
4) savings in on-farm energy costs, through the use of gas for heating and cooking
5) the sale of electricity, or biogas, either locally or through the national grids, and
6) the sale of spare heat, from CHP units for use in heating buildings or greenhouses, for example.
Income Created from Payments and Subsidies for Reducing Environmental ProblemsSecond, there are payments and subsidies, of one kind or another, for reducing environmental problems which affect the whole community. These payments could include:
1) gate fees for processing other organic wastes, such as source-separated domestic food waste or garden waste or possibly sludge from small sewage works
2) incentives for producing renewable energy, either through the Renewable Heat Initiative or Feed-in-Tariffs, (also known as FiTs), for electricity generation, and
3) payments for overall reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
4) sometimes there may even be payments made by governments to encourage farmers to use anaerobic digestion as a way to reduce the burden of farmyard contamination on local watercourses, in areas of intensive dairy farming.
Anaerobic Digestion Cleans Up Bathing BeachesIn the early 2000s there were even AD project grants given to some farmers close to bathing beaches in Scotland’s Solway Firth, so that biogas plants were built in an area where dairy farmyard, summer storm-water slurry run-off, was jeopardising the tourist industry.
On those local beaches, EU bathing beach water quality in the period after after heavy summer storms, was significantly improved, by installing anaerobic digestion plants.
Establishing effective ways of using all the by-products of a biogas plant, and marketing them in the best manner for maximised income, can raise the income from biogas plants substantially.
Our conclusion is that:
Governments have been subsidising biogas production, but generally they need to focus the provision of this money more directly on the environmental benefits of each AD Facility.
By doing that, the contribution of public funds can be best used, to help encourage use of the biogas process in ways which meet the needs of small, as well as larger farms.
In particular, it is important to bring together as many as possible of these income streams, for each anaerobic digestion plant.
Good News for Anaerobic DigestionThe good news is that, if this is done, many more farmers, on many more farms, should be able to find it possible to profitably install many more biogas digesters.
Thank you for watching our video presentation (above), and reading this article, we hope you found it useful. You may like to also watch our video on how to raise biogas yield, as another way to improve the income from existing anaerobic digestion plants. via Anaerobic-digestion.com/make-money-from-farm-biogas-plants/
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Original classification rating: G.
This clip chosen to be G
A close-up look at the deadly red-back spider. In giant close-up we see an ant enter the red-back’s insect trap, and get caught. The spider drops down, hoists the ant off the ground, and wraps it in special thread for future consumption.
A beautifully shot and constructed sequence, with very effective narration and music. The final slow motion of the spider wrapping up the ant is great.
This clip shows a red-back spider capturing its prey in a suburban back garden. The opening scenes show close-ups of the female spider, her egg sac and sticky web. An ant becomes caught in the web trap, and is then retrieved and spun into a cocoon of threads by the spider. The narrator and presenter, Densey Clyne, comments on the action, which is accompanied by dramatic music in horror-movie style.
Educational value points
- The clip features one of the roughly 2,000 spider species in Australia that have been classified. As many as 10,000 species may exist on the Australian subcontinent. Most of the classified species come from the eastern and southern regions of Australia. Despite the fear that spiders inspire in some people and the dangerous reputation of Australian spiders, only two species have bites that are capable of causing death, the funnel-web spider and the red-back spider, and no deaths have been recorded from a spider bite in Australia since 1981.
- The clip depicts the red-back spider, one of Australia’s most venomous and wide-ranging spiders. Belonging to the genus Latrodectus or widow spider, it is related to the black widow spider, found in the USA. Red-backs can be found in India, across Asia and throughout Australia. They live wherever they can find a sheltered site to construct their web and enough warmth for breeding. About 600 red-back bites are recorded each year in Australia, with more than 250 requiring antivenom treatment. In 1956 an antivenene for red-back bites was developed and there have been no reported deaths from such bites since.
- The female of this species is deadlier than the male – only female red-back spiders are dangerous to humans. The male of the species is less than half the size of the female and its tiny jaws have difficulty penetrating human skin.
- A remarkable aspect of red-back behaviour is the degree of risk that the male incurs in mating. To achieve prolonged and effective mating the male presents his abdomen to the female by way of a somersaulting action. While he inserts his sexual organ, called a 'palp’, she squirts digestive juices onto his abdomen and will attack him in preparation for digestion. If he survives this and returns to insert the second of his two palps he will die; most males die after mating.
- Webs of Intrigue is an example of the work of Densey Clyne, naturalist, author and photographer, and Jim Frazier, cinematographer–director. Their successful collaboration began in 1972 when they formed Mantis Wildlife Films. Two 1975 documentaries, Garden Jungle and Aliens among Us, researched and written by Densey Clyne (1926–) and filmed by Jim Frazier, were shown on Australian television and subsequently sold to the BBC and networks in Germany, Japan, the USA and the Middle East. David Attenborough asked the pair to work on his series Life on Earth and The Living Planet. Clyne and Frazier’s work, including Webs of Intrigue, has won numerous international awards.
- Densey Clyne, naturalist and filmmaker, presents and narrates the film. Clyne’s professional life as a naturalist and filmmaker goes back to the meticulous observations she made of wildlife in her own suburban garden in Sydney. She taught herself macrophotography and in 1972 teamed up with cinematographer Jim Frazier, with whom she made award-winning documentaries about the insects and spiders in her garden. They went on to develop a highly successful style of natural-history documentary making that relied on Clyne’s research and writing skills. Clyne has received many awards for her books, photographs and documentaries and has appeared on the television series Burke’s Backyard.
- The film shows the skill of macrocinematographer and technical innovator Jim Frazier. It was while working on wildlife films for David Attenborough in the 1980s that Frazier became frustrated with the limitations of the lenses then available to him. He determined to develop a lens that could keep very small objects such as spiders and insects in focus while also keeping their world, the background, in focus. The Frazier lens has been hailed as one of only two significant developments in lens technology since the invention of the camera, the other being the zoom lens. The Frazier lens has been used in notable Hollywood films such as Titanic and Jurassic Park.
- The music that accompanies the film was produced by Supersonic, a music collective featuring the talents of composer–filmmakers Paul Healy, Antony Partos and Andrew Lancaster. This group produces music for commercials, theatre, dance and film. The soundtrack for Webs of Intrigue features sound interwoven with music and draws on the horror movie tradition to create a sense of menace to accompany the visuals of spiders. Antony Partos received the Australian Guild of Screen Composers Award for Best Music in a Documentary for Webs of Intrigue.
- Webs of Intrigue was directed by one of Australia’s most established wildlife and science filmmakers, Paul Scott. Scott achieved an honours degree in biology and several film qualifications from London University before moving to Australia in 1984 to work on wildlife documentaries. Some of Scott’s directorial credits include Australia’s Marine World, Devil Diary, Huon Pine – The Oldest Living Tasmanian, Koalas – The Bare Facts and Heaven’s Breath.
- The producer of Webs of Intrigue, Roger Whittaker, is a documentary producer–director. His company Roger Whittaker Media has produced some 30 television documentaries, some of which have screened worldwide and received numerous awards. Whittaker’s collaboration with Paul Scott began with the very successful 25-min A Bird’s Eye View – The Kookaburras, which was televised in many countries.
Shot under a house, then of a red-back spider.
Densey Clyne There’s another dangerous spider common around Australian homes, a sub-species of the notorious black widow of America. She’s the red-back, seen here with her egg sack. The red-back’s permanent insect trap is made up of extremely strong vertical threads, beaded at the base with a contact adhesive. It’s a minefield, a maze with no way out but death and insects enter at their peril. This ant seems to have some misgivings. She’s cleaning her antennae, the sense organs that warn her of danger. Perhaps she is aware of the assassin waiting above her.
An ant is struggling in a red-back’s web. The spider catches the ant and cocoons it.
Densey Clyne Red-back spiders and their relatives use a special comb on their hind feet to wrap their victims. In slow motion we see the silk as a ribbon of rainbow colours. To the ant, it is simply a shroud.
Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer Red-back spiders from the documentary Webs of Intrigue as a high quality video download.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Alice C. Linsley
Question number six of the Nine Meaty Questions is: "I don't read Genesis 1 and 2 as two separate creation stories, but rather chapter 2 as an expansion on the outline laid out in chapter 1.... what do you think?"
Answer: A right reading of Genesis does not require reading the first two chapters as one continuous narrative. These chapters are not a chronological account of historical events. In fact, the narrative flow of chapters 1-3 requires that Genesis 2 be read with Genesis 3, but not Genesis 1 with Genesis 2.
Further, text criticism and number symbolism suggests that Genesis 2 is older than Genesis 1. Looking at the larger picture, it becomes evident that the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 creation and origin accounts represent different traditions among Abraham's Afro-Asiatic people.
One reader of Just Genesis has suggested that "The second description tells it from a different point of view: God's, while the first tells it from man's view." This is certainly the case, but as no humans were present when God created the Heavens and the Earth, Genesis 1 clearly is not to be read as an historical account.
Another reader, Mairnéalach, takes this view: "The two narratives may be reconciled, but any attempt to do so in a consistent manner will also fatally damage the remaining modernistic/journalistic interpretation of Genesis. This is proper and to be desired. If one attempts to maintain the modernistic/journalistic hermeneutic, their rules of interpretation are much like Calvin ball. (This is the game that Calvin and Hobbes played together, where Calvin gets to change the rules on the fly as he wishes, so that he can win the game no matter what happens.)
I appreciate Mairnéalach's criticism of what he calls the "modernistic/journalistic" approach to reading Genesis, something quite foreign to the text itself. Genesis 1 represents an ancient religious worldview that sees the order of creation as having seven parts. Emphasis on the number seven as the achievement of Shalom/Sabbath reflects a well-developed theological understanding of Messiah's inevitable ascent (as we will see later).
The number seven is a reference to union or completion in the first creation story which says that God's creative work lasted six days and God rested on the seventh day. The number seven in association with God at rest (sabbath) portrays the concept of completion or perfection of a relationship between Master and Servant, or between Creator and Creation, or between Husband and Bride.
The seven-part order of Genesis 1 suggests the more recent (eastern Afro-Asiatic) or Babylonian influence, which attaches seven to weddings as attested by Esther 1:5-11: "And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty..."
But the seven-part structure is not characteristic of the older (western Afro-Asiatic) view of the order of creation. The older system, reflected in Genesis 2 and 3, is binary. It upholds the binary distinctions of God-Man, Heaven-Earth, Male-Female, and Life-Death. These distinctions are found in Genesis 1 also, but the structure of Genesis 1 is seven-fold, not binary.
The number symbolism of Abraham's people (which has been re-interpreted in Kabbalah) points to the Triune God (1) whose Son, Jesus Christ, is the Logos (2) who by the Spirit (3) became incarnate of the Virgin Mary (5), lived on earth as a man who died (6) but, as God, rose from the dead, showing great mercy to all the world (4) and ascended as the Royal Son of God (7) who becomes the Royal Bridegroom (8) who enters the bridal chamber to consummate the marriage to his pure and spotless Bride, the Church (9) and from that union will be born a new reality, a new world (10).
Genesis 2-3 addresses the relationship of God (1) and Logos (2), a common theme among the western Afro-Asiatics. The bards of the Bambara of Uganda recite this praise of the generative power of the Logos:
The Word is total:
it cuts, excoriates
cures or directly kills
amplifies or reduces
According to intention
It excites or calms souls.
The idea of the Logos in Genesis seems strange to many because they don't think of Genesis as being about the Son of God. However, as the kinship pattern of Abraham's people reveals, they were motivated to preserve the bloodline through the mothers by an expectation that a Ruler-Priest-Savior would be born from them whose radiance would be a light to the nations. And they were right!
As linguistics, climatology, anthropology and archaeology collaboratively suggest, this expectation was spread by Afro-Asiatic ruler-priests who controlled the large water systems from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley aound 12,000 years ago. They believed that God, who desires Sabbath communion with us, accomplishes this through the Blood of His Son and eternal Priest. The expectation of this Salvation is first found in Genesis 3:15: Thus the Lord God said to the serpent... 'I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall strike at his heel.'
For Jews the Exodus is the central event of their corporate consciousness whereby God delivered them and established a special relationship with them as His own holy possession. For Christians the central event is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whereby atonement is made through the shedding of His Blood. We might argue that these events are at odds, the first locating atonement through obedience to the Law and the second locating atonement through Jesus' obedience to the Father. But in both events God is working with a specific line of Afro-Asiatic ruler-priests. It is from this line that Jesus enters the world to bring salvation to sinners according to the ancient expectation.
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Strong reasoning
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Religion
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Polar Oceans from Space (Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences Library)
Издательство: , 2010 г. ISBN: 0387366288 Foreign book Объем: 440 стр.
The book presents which reveal a wealth of enormous potential material about the the enormous polar oceans, more and the specifically the ice-covered the use areas and peripheral this data seas. It provides the presentation a detailed history main goal of the changing the main climate of the data and polar oceans as these data observed by satellite digital data sensors in the transform digital last three decades. algorithms used The satellite research geophysical parameters data show spatial process and distributions of surface the limitations temperature, sea ice, the data albedo, chlorophyll concentration, analyze the clouds, ocean color and analyze and sea level results from pressure. The book from studies discusses remote sensing change the techniques and algorithms climate change used to transform and climate digital data to book contains geophysical parameters, to contains about process and analyze parameters which the data, the surface parameters limitations of these 150 satellite data and the about 150 enormous potential in processes and the use of ocean processes this data. The polar surfaces main goal of time evolution the book is the time the presentation of sensors and results from studies and their of the time and ocean evolution of polar cryospheric and surfaces as observed the study by satellite sensors their relevance and their relevance and algorithms to the study techniques and of cryospheric and the changing ocean processes and detailed history climate change. The peripheral seas book contains about changing climate 150 satellite images the last of surface parameters satellite research which reveal that the satellite from month to decades the month and from last three one year to and peripheral another the Earth areas and is changing. Although about the the historical record material about of about three book presents decades of continuous oceans more satellite observation is more specifically relatively short, these covered areas measurements have provided ice covered useful insights into the ice the current state specifically the of the polar research data environment and have data show served as a sea level powerful tool for and sea studying the processes color and that govern the level pressure Earth’s climate system. pressure the The advent of sensing techniques even more sophisticated remote sensing technology, including international discusses remote ventures like the book discusses Global Earth Observation ocean color System of all clouds ocean Systems (GEOSS), will surface temperature speed the progress. spatial distributions The advances in show spatial understanding of the temperature sea Earth’s climate engine, sea ice including the crucial concentration clouds role played by chlorophyll concentration the polar oceans, albedo chlorophyll have been tremendous, ice albedo and people look satellite images forward to being the advent able to forecast systems geoss effectively the state all systems of the planet observation system in the immediate geoss will and foreseeable future. will speed
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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|From the ERIC database
The Application of Case Study Evaluations. ERIC/TM Digest.
Rather than using large samples and following a rigid protocol to examine a limited number of variables, case study methods involve an in-depth, longitudinal examination of a single instance or event. It is a systematic way of looking at what is happening, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results. The product is a sharpened understanding of why the instance happened as it did, and what might be important to look at more extensively in future research. Thus, case studies are especially well suited toward generating, rather than testing, hypotheses.
Intended for the consumer of case studies, this digest briefly discusses six types of case studies, based on the framework provided by Datta (1990). For each, we present the type of evaluation questions that can be answered, the functions served, some design features, and some pitfalls.
TYPES OF CASE STUDIES
There are pitfalls in presenting illustrative case studies. They require presentation of in-depth information on each illustration; there may not be time on-site for in-depth examination. The most serious problem is with the selection of instances. The case(s) must adequately represent the situation or program. Where significant diversity exists, it may not be possible to select a typical site.
Exploratory Case Studies are condensed case studies, undertaken before implementing a large-scale investigation. Where considerable uncertainty exists about program operations, goals, and results, exploratory case studies help identify questions, select measurement constructs, and develop measures; they also serve to safeguard investment in larger studies. The greatest pitfall in the exploratory study is prematurity: the findings may seem convincing enough to be released inappropriately as conclusions. Other pitfalls include the tendency to extend the exploratory phase, and inadequate representation of diversity.
Critical Instance Case Studies examine one or a few sites for one of two purposes. A very frequent application is the examination of a situation of unique interest, with little or no interest in generalizability. A second, rarer, application entails a highly generalized or universal assertion which is called into question, and we can test it by examining one instance. This method is particularly suited for answering cause-and-effect questions about the instance of concern. The most serious pitfall in this application is inadequate specification of the evaluation question. The importance of probing the underlying concerns in a request is crucial to the appropriate application of the critical instance case study.
Program Implementation Case Studies help discern whether implementation is in compliance with its intent. These case studies are also useful when concern exists about implementation problems. Extensive, longitudinal reports of what has happened over time can set a context for interpreting a finding of implementation variability. In either case, generalization is wanted and the evaluation questions must be carefully negotiated with the customer. A requirement for good program implementation case studies is investment of sufficient time to obtain longitudinal data and breadth of information. Multiple sites are typically required to answer program implementation questions; this imposes demands on training and supervision needed for quality control. The demands of data management, quality control, validation procedures, and analytic model (within site, cross site, etc.) may lead to cutting too many corners to maintain quality.
Program Effects Case Studies can determine the impact of programs and provide inference about reasons for success or failure. Like the program implementation case study, the evaluation questions usually require generalizability and, for a highly diverse program, it may be difficult to answer the questions adequately and retain a manageable number of sites. There are methodological solutions to this problem. One is to first conduct the case studies in sites chosen for their representativeness, then verify these findings through examination of administrative data, prior reports, or a survey. Another solution is to use other methods first. After identifying findings of specific interest, case studies could then be implemented in selected sites to maximize the usefulness of the information.
Cumulative Case Studies aggregate information from several sites collected at different times. The cumulative case study can be retrospective, collecting information across studies done in the past, or prospective, structuring a series of investigations for different times in the future. Retrospective cumulation allows generalization without cost and time of conducting numerous new case studies; prospective cumulation also allows generalization without unmanageably large numbers of cases in process at any one time. The techniques for ensuring sufficient comparability and quality and for aggregating the information are what constitute the "cumulative" part of the methodology. Two features of the cumulative case study are the case survey method, used as a means of aggregating findings, and backfill techniques. The latter are helpful in retrospective cumulation as a means of obtaining information from authors that permits use otherwise insufficiently detailed case studies. Opinions vary as to the credibility of cumulative case studies for answering program implementation and effects questions. One authority notes that publication biases may favor programs that seem to work, which could lead to a misleading positive view (Berger, 1983). Others are concerned about problems in verifying the quality of the original data and analyses (Yin, 1989).
We have presented six types of case study application, with different strengths and limitations. Evaluators considering the case study as a design for evaluation must first decide what type of evaluation question they have and then examine the ability of each type of case study to answer it. The crucial next step is in determining whether the methodological requirements of the chosen case study method can be met in the situation at hand.
Case studies can generate a great deal of data that may not be easy to analyze. Details on conducting a case study, especially with regard to data collection and analysis, can be found in the references listed below.
Datta, Lois-ellin (1990). Case Study Evaluations. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, Transfer paper 10.1.9.
Miles, Matthew B., and Huberman, A.M. (1984). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Yin, Robert K. (1989). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education under contract number RI88062003. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily re flect the position or policies of OERI or the Department of Education
Title: The Application of Case Study Evaluations. ERIC/TM Digest.
Descriptors: * Case Studies; Educational Assessment; * Program Evaluation; Program Implementation; Qualitative Research; * Research Methodology
Identifiers: ERIC Digests
©1999-2012 Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. All rights reserved. Your privacy is guaranteed at
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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US GAAP Accounting Homework Answers from Us for a Learner’s Best Grade
When studying Accounts an individual needs to know about GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). The rules and laws are followed from this in accounts to get perfect results. Pupils should know about GAAP to help them in their academic life as well as create a good assignment on any topic related to it. Our US GAAP Accounting homework answers shares all the information and updated information with students for fetching good grades.
Understanding Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
This is an ordinary set of principles for accounting procedures and standards which a firm has to follow when compiling the financial statement of their company. It is authoritative standards’ combination which is set up by the policy boards and common ways which are accepted for reporting and recording various accounting information. It improves financial information’s communication clarity.
It makes sure that there is a consistency in the level of a firm’s financial statement. This makes extraction of useful information easy and then analyse it. It also assists in comparing financial information among various companies. Know about this from our US GAAP Accounting assignment answers.
There are four principles which are followed when using GAAP. They are explained below one by one in brief.
Principle of Revenue Recognition
Companies have to record all revenue when it is earned and not when receiving it. The cash flow doesn’t bear recognition of any revenue. However, when lose should be recognised when its occurrence is probable and not whether it actually occurred. This shows the conservatism constraints.
Principle of Historical Cost
An organisation should report and account all acquisition costs. This policy makes the information reliable. Most securities and debts are recorded at the market value. Everything which comes under this is discussed in our US GAAP Accounting homework answers.
Principle of Matching
Expenses should match with revenues. Expenses are recognised when product or work has made a contribution to revenue. If connection with incoming revenue can’t be matched, then these cost are recorded as expenses in current period. This helps in evaluating actual performance and profitability.
Principle of Full Disclosure
Amount of information needed for disclosure depends on the analysis of trade-off as a lot of information costs time and money. Disclosed information should be sufficient enough to have a judgment but at reasonable cost.
Why Take Our Online Aid?
Learners take our online aid to compete in the academic world. This way they can keep up with the competition they face to score good grades. These grades are important as these add and increase the yearly final grade. Our online US GAAP Accounting assignment answers leaves no stones unturned for a client. Our main motto is to assist pupils to get the best possible marks on their homework.
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Moderate reasoning
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Finance & Business
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You might have heard of the term ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ before.
It was coined in 1973 by Nils Bejerot, a Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist, after a particularly strange bank robbery.
Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to form positive feelings and bond with their captors. Its implications for human nature are extraordinary.
It’s the kind of weird observation that often leads to the most worthwhile insights into our collective behaviour.
Which is why it’s important for investors to know about. Collective behaviour is what drives the markets. At least in the short term…
A similar underlying psychology may help explain why, despite the repeated bad behaviour of the banking industry, a lot of people still prefer to defend it.
First let me recap the strange tale in 1973 that led to this insight…
During a failed bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, a convict on parole by the name of Jan-Erik Olsson took four employees of a bank hostage.
While holed up with the hostages he negotiated the release from prison of his friend Clark Olofsson to assist him. The duo held their victims captive for six days in one of the bank’s vaults, throwing in a little torture to boot.
But here’s the strange thing…
When released, none of the hostages would testify against either captor in court. Instead they began raising money for their defence.
How can such behaviour possibly occur?
Well, psychoanalysts believe that ‘the victim’s need to survive is stronger than the impulse to hate the person who has created the dilemma.’
It’s basically a survival mechanism.
If you can’t change a situation, you accept it and amend your thoughts to make it palatable. And that feeling can remain even after the situation ends.
What’s got to do with banking?
Well let’s think about the reality of banks…
Big banks like to portray themselves as bastions of capitalism. The gatekeepers of free market economics. But even a brief look at the last decade shows the reality is very different.
It started with the bailouts in 2008, during the GFC.
Shareholders of private companies bailed out by taxpayers. Bank executives gave themselves large bonuses afterwards!
Most people think this cost around US$700 billion. A huge bill for future taxpayers. But it might be far worse than that…
Mike Collins at Forbes Magazine estimates the true cost to be closer to US$17 trillion!
And he goes on to state that the GFC bailouts are just one dimension in a continual story of banking corruption that has often been criminal.
It includes US$881 billion worth of money laundering by HSBC for Mexican drug cartels. This went to court in court and HSBC ‘copped’ a US$1.9 billion penalty.
Or how about JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs actively betting against their customers in the very same toxic mortgages they created? Products that led to the GFC in the first place.
As well as financial planning scandals, loan protection rorts, LIBOR interest rate cheating… And that’s all only in the past decade.
Here in Australia, the same model of ‘protected’ banking is very much in place.
Consider the implicit guarantee of the Australian government to support our big banks. Again, that is effectively the nation guaranteeing the debt of a private company.
I’m sure your local MP won’t be ready to do the same for your business!
Whatever you think about taxes in general, as a taxpayer you can understand the reason for this bank tax. Why should ‘we’ guarantee a private company for nothing in return?
Of course, if the guarantee for the banks didn’t exist at all, the tax wouldn’t have to exist either. Perhaps that would add some responsibility into banking lending practices as well?
So, we can safely say that banks are not quite the free market stronghold they like to portray. They are actually rent seekers. And every rent seeking industry has people who benefit most from the monopolies they create and maintain.
In the banking world they are the senior bankers, the already-rich, and the global elites. Sure, you and I benefit from time to time in the way of dividends or share prices rises. But on the whole, that is like a hostage being thankful for being fed.
Let me be clear…
The function of banking is obviously important. But that is not the same as supporting the banking cartel that operate these functions.
Which brings me back to ‘stockholder syndrome’.
Are we suffering from ‘Stockholder syndrome’?
Despite this history, there is quite a lot of resistance to any change to this system. The benefits of banking gets muddled up with the benefits of banks.
And in the past, you could probably understand this position.
There really was no viable alternative. And weak politicians could never take on such a powerful industry.
But things have changed recently…
I’m talking, of course, about cryptocurrencies. Whatever you think about cryptocurrencies, they represent the best hope of reforming the inefficiencies and blatant power imbalances of the banking industry.
This image from last night’s Fed Reserve meeting is going viral in bitcoin circles. It shows an enthusiast photobombing the picture. And when you read the accompanying caption on the image below Yellen it’s just brilliant timing.
We’ve had some great feedback to our recently launched Secret Crypto Network. But we’ve also had quite a bit of feedback saying that crypto is a scam, it’s not real money. Some people would prefer to continue trusting the government, central banks and big banks.
They prefer to trust institutions that, time and time again, have supported vested interests and the already-powerful.
It begs the question then, why are so many people resistant to change despite the evidence that something is very wrong?
Is this a kind of collective Stockholm syndrome? Have we fallen in love with our banking captors?
Do we believe that only they, in their all-powerful self-interest, can protect us from…well from them, basically?
Or maybe like the hostages in 1973, we have internalised their necessity to such a degree that to think anything else is too scary?
But surely rationality would at least allow consideration of an alternative?
Cryptocurrencies as an alternate financial system offer a potential solution to the problems of banking.
Forget about their technicalities for a moment and consider the benefits of a well implemented crypto-economic system.
First of all, no fractional reserve banking.
This would mean a purer form of banking could take place, akin to using gold as the underlying asset that backs the cryptocurrencies issued.
In effect this is a return to ‘real’ money, with real assets behind it.
Secondly, no centralised control. Cryptocurrencies are created with a set of rules at the start. And no one can change them without collective agreement.
And as there is no fictitious money, there is no possibility of ‘bank runs’ as everyone tries to get their holdings out on some scandal or economic issue.
No ‘deposit’ haircuts implemented by struggling governments in cash grabs, such as what happened in Cyprus in 2008.
In fact, no one can touch your assets even if they wanted to. Unless you had agreed as part of a smart-contract.
Costs will decrease dramatically. Efficiency will increase. No more queuing, or waiting weeks for a credit decision.
A true free market solution, with lenders responsible for their decisions in both good times and bad.
And no one can create assets out of thin air!
So, to the defenders of the current banking system I ask, is this really as good as it can be?
PS: Maybe you’re already a crypto expert. Or maybe you can’t tell a bitcoin from an ether. No matter your level of understanding, Sam Volkering’s Secret Crypto Network offers invaluable advice and resources in this booming new market. Whether you’re looking to invest or just want to learn more, your next step into this fast-changing world is here.
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Strong reasoning
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Finance & Business
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What is Petroleum, and How is it Formed?
Petroleum is a yellowish-black liquid that is found in various geological formations beneath the Earth’s surface. Petroleum is a fossil fuel that is formed when dead organisms – mostly zooplankton (organisms that float around in seas, oceans, and other freshwater bodies), are buried underneath sedimentary rocks. They are unable to completely decay because of the lack of oxygen. The material that does not decay is subjected to intense pressure and high temperatures and is the raw material for petroleum.
The name petroleum refers to both the naturally occurring, unprocessed crude oil, as well as the petroleum products that are formed by refined crude oil.
When extracted by humans, petroleum is refined into different types of fuels. The various components of petroleum are separated by fractional distillation – the method of separating a liquid mixture into fractions that differ in boiling point using a fractionating column.
Natural petroleum springs are very rare, and petroleum is mainly extracted by oil drilling that is carried out after extensive studies of structural geology, reservoir characterization, and sedimentary basin analysis.
Most nations with the largest oil reserves in the world belong to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The top three oil-producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States. The developments in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in the United States in 2018 made the country the world’s largest producer of petroleum. 80 percent of the world’s readily available petroleum reserves are located in the Middle East, with a whopping 62.5 percent coming from Kuwait and Qatar alone.
Petroleum consists of crude oil and all gaseous, solid, and liquid hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons are mainly cycloalkanes, alkanes, and different aromatic hydrocarbons. While the lighter hydrocarbons (butane, ethane, methane, and propane) exist in the gaseous state, heavier hydrocarbons and pentane exist in liquid or solid states.
The ratio of liquid, solid, and gas depends entirely on the subsurface conditions and on the phase diagram (the conditions at which distinct thermodynamic phases occur and coexist at equilibrium) of the petroleum mixture. The proportion of light hydrocarbons in a petroleum mixture differs with regards to each oil field and can range from as much as 97% by weight in lighter oils to 50% in heavier oils.
Other organic compounds contain oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and traces of metals like vanadium, copper, iron, and nickel. Some oil reserves even contain live bacteria.
The molecular composition of crude oil can vary greatly from one formation to the next, but the proportion of chemical elements is more or less the same.
Composition by Weight
|Carbon||83 to 85%|
|Hydrogen||10 to 14%|
|Nitrogen||0.1 to 2%|
|Oxygen||0.05 to 1.5%|
|Sulfur||0.05 to 6%|
Four Main Types of Petroleum (Crude Oil)
Crude oil is a term used to describe different types of raw oil that are extracted from the ground. This crude oil can vary considerably in density and consistency. It can be found as very thin and volatile to very thick and semi-solid oil. The color of crude oil varies from a light golden yellow to a dark black. Within the petrochemical industry, crude oil is divided into four main categories based on three factors:
Viscosity – This is the ability to flow. Higher viscosity oils are thick and take more energy and a longer time to pump from the ground.
Volatility – The ability to evaporate quickly and easily into the atmosphere is volatility. Higher volatility oils evaporate more easily. During the extraction process, the surrounding environment is controlled to ensure very little oil is lost during extraction.
Toxicity – The poisonous nature of the oil to the environment, humans, and wildlife is its toxicity. The extraction of this oil requires utmost care due to its toxic nature.
The four main types of crude oils based on viscosity, volatility, and toxicity are as follows:
Very light oils – Includes jet, gasoline, petroleum ether, petroleum spirit, petroleum naphtha, and kerosene. These oils are very volatile, and they evaporate very fast. The evaporation process evaporates the toxicity levels of these oils.
Light oils – Includes Grade 1 and Grade 2 fuel oils, most domestic fuel oils, and diesel fuel oils. They are all moderately volatile and moderately toxic.
Medium oils – These are the most common type of crude oil. They have high viscosity, low volatility, and high toxicity.
Heavy fuel oils – Includes heaviest Grade 3, 4, 5, and 6 fuel oils and marine fuels. These are very viscous, the least volatile, and the most toxic.
Classification of Petroleum According to Chemical Composition
|Class of petroleum||Composition of 250-300 degrees Celsius fraction, wt. %|
Uses of Petroleum
In simple terms, petroleum occurs when several hydrocarbons combine with particular minerals (for example, sulphur) under extreme pressure.
The use of petroleum can be dated as far back as 2000 years ago in Ancient China. Today, it is estimated that approximately 95 million barrels of petroleum are consumed universally every single day.
Once extracted, petroleum undergoes the refining process and is separated into a variety of consumer products like gasoline (petrol), asphalt, kerosene, and chemical reagents that are used to manufacture plastics, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides.
Petroleum is mainly refined into fuel oil and gasoline that are both ‘primary energy’ (a form of energy found naturally, and that has not been subjected to any type of human-engineered conversion process). 84 percent (by volume) of hydrocarbons that are present in petroleum are converted into petroleum-based, energy-rich fuels (like gasoline, jet, diesel, heating, and other fuel oils) and liquid petroleum gas (propane or butane).
Where is Petroleum Found?
Petroleum is mainly found in porous rock formations in the upper strata of some areas of the Earth’s crust. Some petroleum is also found in oil sands or bituminous sands.
How is Petroleum Formed?
Petroleum is derived from fossilized organic matter such as algae and zooplankton. Oil and gas are formed from all the vast amounts of organic matter (animal and plant life) that was deposited as sediment on the seabed. This matter was compressed on the sea bed by stagnant water and several billions of tons of sand and silt over the course of millions of years – faster than the matter could decompose aerobically.
Around one meter below all this sediment, water/oxygen concentrations were low and anoxic conditions existed. Temperatures also remained constant. But as the layers of sediment built up over time, there was a buildup of intense pressure and heat in the lower areas. This caused the organic matter to change – first into kerogen (found in various oil shales), and then over time, with the increase in pressure and temperature, into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via catagenesis (the cracking process that results in the conversion of organic kerogens into hydrocarbons).
Formation of petroleum occurred from hydrocarbon pyrolysis (the thermal decomposition of matter at elevated temperatures in an inert atmosphere. The process involves irreversible chemical changes). This hydrocarbon pyrolysis occurred in mostly endothermic reaction either at high pressure, high temperature, or both. The following phases describe the process in detail.
- Diagenesis: The transformation of materials by dissolution and recombination of their constituents. The complete process of kerogen formation – right from the time of anaerobic decay, is called diagenesis.
First Phase of Diagenesis: Anaerobic Decay
Aerobic bacteria could not decay all the organic matter buried under layers of sediment or water because of the lack of rich oxygen. However, the anaerobic bacteria could reduce all the sulfates present in the matter into H2S and reduce the nitrates present in the matter into N2. It did this by using the matter as a source for other reactants.
First, the matter was broken apart by the anaerobic bacteria, for the most part by hydrolysis (any chemical reaction where a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds). Proteins and polysaccharides were hydrolyzed by the process of hydrolysis into amino acids and simple sugars, respectively.
The amino acids and simple sugars were then anaerobically oxidized at a very fast rate by enzymes present in bacteria. Amino acids underwent oxidative deamination to imino acids. These imino acids further reacted to ammonia and alpha-keto acids. Monosaccharides decayed into CO2 and methane.
All the anaerobic decay products (monosaccharides, amino acids, aldehydes, and phenols) combined to fulvic acids. Under this mild condition, fats and waxes could not be deeply hydrolyzed.
Second Phase of Diagenesis: Kerogen Formation
During this second phase, some of the phenolic compounds that were produced from earlier reactions worked as actinomycetal (an order of actinobacteria) and bactericides (a substance that kills bacteria) and produced antibiotic compounds (like streptomycin). With this, the action of anaerobic bacteria stopped at around ten meters below the sediment or water level. At this depth, the mixture contained partially reacted and unreacted fats and waxes, fulvic acids, mildly modified lignin, resins, and a few other hydrocarbons.
As more layers of organic matter settled on the seabed or lakebed, there was a buildup of intense pressure and heat in the lower regions. As a result, compounds of this mixture began to combine to kerogen. The combination was similar to the way molecules of phenol and formaldehyde react to urea-formaldehyde resins. However, the formation of kerogen was more complex than this because of the bigger variety of reactants.
- Catagenesis: The transformation of kerogen into fossil fuels.
The formation of kerogen continued to about half a mile from the Earth’s surface, where temperatures could reach approximately 50 degrees Celsius. The formation of kerogen represents a midpoint between the conversion of organic matter to fossil fuels.
Two things can happen to kerogen. It can either be exposed to oxygen, get oxidized, and be lost in the process, or it could be buried deeper in the Earth’s crust and be subjected to conditions that let it slowly convert/transform into fossil fuels like petroleum. Kerogen that was buried deeper in the Earth’s crust transformed into fossil fuels through catagenesis – the reactions were mainly radical rearrangements of the kerogen.
All the reactions that occurred during catagenesis took place over thousands to millions of years. No external reactions were involved during this phase. Due to the radical nature of the reactions, the kerogen reacted with two classes of products – those with a low H/C ratio (anthracene and similar products) and those with a high H/C ratio (methane and similar products).
As catagenesis was blocked off from all external reactants, the resulting fuel mixture composition was solely dependent on the composition of the kerogen through reaction stoichiometry. Three main types of kerogen existed:
Type I kerogen: Algal – that was produced mainly from algae.
Type II kerogen: Liptinic – that was produced mainly from plankton.
Type III kerogen: Humic – that was produced mainly from woody plants (trees, shrubs, and lianas).
The process of catagenesis was pyrolytic in nature, despite the fact that it happened at relatively low temperatures (when compared with the commercial pyrolysis of plants) that ranged from around 60 degrees Celsius to several hundred degrees Celsius. The reason pyrolysis was possible was because of the long reaction times involved. The heat for catagenesis came from the decomposition of radioactive substances of the crust (Potassium-40, Thorium, Uranium-235, and Uranium-238). The heat ranged with a geothermal gradient and was around 10-30 degrees Celsius/miles of depth from the Earth’s surface. It is believed that unusual magma intrusions also could have created higher localized heating.
The temperature range in which oil forms is referred to as “oil window.” Below the minimum temperature, oil is trapped in the form of kerogen. Above the maximum temperature, the oil is converted, by thermal cracking, to natural gas.
Invariably, oil that is formed at very low depths migrate and gets trapped at shallower levels – like the Athabasca Oil Sands.
Petrol Formation at Different Temperatures
During the formation of petrol, the actual temperature that is applied to the organic matter is crucial in determining the properties of the resulting petroleum. Lower temperatures during the formation stage will result in thicker and darker raw petroleum deposits – the most solid of which is bitumen substance.
If the heat fluctuates during the formation process of petroleum, gas is produced. This gas often separates itself from the petroleum, sometimes remaining mixed up with the raw oil. If the temperatures are extremely high (over 450 degrees Fahrenheit), the original biomass is destroyed, and no gas or petroleum is formed.
As the mud and silt above the organic deposits become heavier and the forces placed on the mud and silt begin to change the bottom layers of the compressing layer above the petroleum, shale is formed. As shale forms, the oil is forced out of the space it was originally formed. The raw petroleum moves to another rock formation (usually known as a reservoir rock) and lays trapped until it is accessed.
The Migration of Petroleum
We know now how petroleum is formed. In short, microscopic phytoplankton die and sink to the bottom of the sea in the oxygen-free sediments. They are buried deeper and deeper over time and are subjected to a lengthy process of chemical conversion into a thickening layer of sediment by bacterial decomposition and maturing. This created the formation of both liquid and gas hydrocarbons within the source rock.
As the oil and gas formed, they seeped out of their source rock. Hydrocarbons are lighter than water. As a result, the gas and the oil migrated upward in porous, water-bearing rocks. This migration of oil and gas takes place over thousands of years and can extend across several miles. The migration continues until the gas and oil are stopped by impermeable rock (reservoir rock), or until the gas or oil leak into the sea.
Reservoir rocks are porous rock and are constantly saturated with water, oil, and gas. The ratio of these differs in each rock.
How is Petroleum Found?
Improved seismic techniques have now increased the odds of identifying precise locations of smaller and more-difficult-to-find reservoirs of petroleum/crude oil. Gravimeters and magnetometers are used to search for petroleum.
Oil Extraction and Recovery
The extraction of petroleum begins with drilling wells into an underground reservoir. Once the oil has been tapped, a geologist notes its presence. New drilling techniques are used to intersect a long but thin reservoir horizontally first, and then by taking a turn vertically into an “L” shape. This ensures that the oil and/or gas can be extracted from the reservoirs without having to create too many wells.
Oil extraction and recovery undergoes three stages:
Primary stage: Primarily driven by natural mechanisms, thanks to the abundance of petroleum found, natural water displaces oil downward into a well. Expansion of natural gas occurs at the top of the reservoir. The natural gas initially dissolves in the crude oil and gravity drainage that results in the oil moving into the reservoir from the upper and lower parts of the well. The recovery of petroleum during this stage is 5 to 15 percent.
Secondary recovery stage: Pressure in the well decreases over time. Secondary recovery is used to extract petroleum from the reservoirs. Secondary recovery uses techniques that increase the reservoir’s pressure. 35 to 40 percent of petroleum is extracted during this stage.
Enhanced recovery stage: Here, the mobility of the oil is increased by thermally enhanced oil recovery methods (TEOR) to increase extraction.
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Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Participating in physical activity is one of the most effective ways to ensure children reach their full potential and to create a healthy and productive society.
Despite all of the benefits of physical activity, not many children and youth get enough daily physical activity according to the 2016 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.
Daily physical activity, or DPA, is a mandatory component of daily instruction for students in Ontario and is included as a curriculum expectation in the Health and Physical Education Curriculum.
Programs such as Active Recess, Active and Safe Routes to School and DPA are only some options to encourage students to be active. Schools and communities need to work together to ensure that all children and youth have opportunities to be active.
Working together to promote physical activity will not only increase student health, but will also help to improve academic performance.
Resources for physical activity
See ideas and resources below that support physical activity:
Curriculum, teaching & learning
- Promote the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth
- Access online health and physical education resources and training from Ophea such as lesson plans, student templates and assessment tools
- Have students assess their physical literacy through the Passport for Life assessment tool
School & classroom leadership
- Apply to have your school recognized for excellence in school physical education programs through the Quality Daily Physical Education Award Program.
- Have student leaders provide active recess opportunities.
- Create a school policy to ensure that physical activity is never used or taken away as a punishment; instead, consider using it as a reward.
- Develop a school travel plan, that focuses on school travel route analysis to improve the students daily journey to and from school.
Social & physical environments
- Follow school board policies and Ophea’s Ontario Physical Education Safety Guidelines to ensure a safe active environment
- Walk around the neighbourhood to determine transportation and safety concerns at the school
- Use Ophea’s Steps to Inclusion to support inclusive physical activity
- Promote Kid Sport Canada for students to access financial support for organized sports programs
- Read about Right to Play Canada, an organization that brings the power of sport and play to children in all communities
- Adopt True Sport’s principles for fair play - ethical, inclusive, fun, safe and welcoming environments
- Ensure student access to equipment and facilities for physical activity such as sidewalk chalk, skipping ropes, balls and hula hoops
- Check Smart Commute Hamilton to learn more about the School Bike Rack Grant Program
Paint lines on school tarmac for active play at recess, such as hopscotch and foursquare
Home, school & community partnerships
- Hamilton Public Health Services - learn how to create an active community.
- Check City of Hamilton recreation courses, lessons or drop-in’s and learn about financial assistance for recreation programs.
- Check Active and Safe Routes to School to read about creating a culture of walking and active school travel options.
- See if your school is eligible for YMCA Y on Wheels by calling 905-317-4948. This program provides free health, fitness and recreation programs and services to eligible schools.
- Check Parks & Recreation Ontario for information on parks, recreation and educational programs.
- For a physical activity consultation contact your public health nurse or email [email protected].
Certains renseignements et certaines ressources du Service de santé publique présentés sur cette page Web pourraient être disponibles en français. Communiquez avec l’infirmière affectée à votre école ou envoyez au courriel à [email protected] pour en savoir plus long sur les ressources et les services offerts en français.
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Moderate reasoning
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Sports & Fitness
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SYDNEY (Reuters) - The 40,000-year-old remains of an Aboriginal man that prompted a drastic rewrite of Australian history were returned to his ancestral homeland on Friday after four decades of examination in the country’s capital.
The discovery of “Mungo Man” in 1974, named after the dry outback lakebed where the fully intact skeleton was found, doubled the known length of humans’ presence on the continent from 20,000 to 40,000 years.
But the bones’ removal to Canberra for study, roughly 600 km (370 miles) east of Lake Mungo, had angered the indigenous community there.
“We’ve been waiting all those years to get him back and I’m so glad he is back, to put him in his resting place,” said Joan Slade, an elder of the Aboriginal Ngiyampaa people at a ceremony welcoming the remains back to her ancestral country.
The skeleton, along with 104 other remains, arrived in a black hearse with the black, yellow and red Aboriginal flag painted on its side.
A traditional smoking ceremony, with green gum-leaves burned over a small fire, welcomed the remains back to the red soil and saltbush scrub of Lake Mungo.
“This, today, is one of those catalytic moments...it makes us, the traditional owners, custodians of our culture,” said elder Michael Young.
“They will be kept in a secret, safe place so that we can pass on to the next generations the legacy that these people have given us.”
Though subsequent discoveries have pushed back even further the date of humans’ first arrival in Australia, the finding of Mungo Man was at the time a huge advance for understanding human history.
His burial, with limbs stretched out, hands crossed across his groin and covered in an ochre drawn from some 200 km away, helped prove the ancient age of Aboriginal civilization - the world’s oldest continuing culture - dating back around the time Neanderthals occupied Europe.
The Australian National University, whose researchers removed the remains, issued a formal apology when it turned the remains over to the region’s Aboriginal custodians in 2015.
“We recognise that the removal of these ancestral remains caused ongoing grief to your communities and we apologise unreservedly,” it said.
“While the research undertaken...contributed significantly to the understanding of the history of indigenous Australians, our research in the past has not always been undertaken with your full knowledge and support.”
Additional reporting by Jane Wardell; Editing by Nick Macfie
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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The Halo, Halo-Tibial, Halo-Femoral, Halo-Pelvic (Halo-Hoop) and Halo Gravity Techniques
The halo was originally used by ENT and plastic surgeons to treat facial fractures. Drs. Nickel and Perry then used it for skeletal traction to treat paralytic scoliosis cases. Later it was used with skeletal tibial and then skeletal femoral fixation to provide counterweight to the halo. The patients were nursed in bed. In the 1960’s Dr. Ronald DeWald attached a hoop to the pelvis with iliac rods through the tables of the ilium. The rods went through the ilium and were attached to the hoop. The hoop was then attached to the halo with turnbuckles. The patient could be ambulatory and shower. Correction was by distraction. Later Prof. Arthur R. Hodgson popularized and renamed it as the Halo-Pelvic device. Later, Halo Gravity traction replaced distal fixation. Halo gravity wheelchairs and Halo gravity walkers are still used for long term correction by distraction.
Harrington Spinal Instrumentation
The first major podium presentation by Dr. Paul Harrington describing his new operation for the treatment of scoliosis was made in June 1960 at the America Orthopaedic Association meeting in Hot Springs, Virginia. Although met with skepticism by many Orthopaedic Surgeons, public recognition of the importance of Harrington’s contribution is reflected in an article published in Time Magazine a few months later. In the June 1962 volume of JBJS, Harrington published the results of his surgical technique in the first 133 patients whom he treated. In 1963, Dr. John Moe presented his validation of 66 prospectively collected patients treated by Harrington’s method with favorable results. Within the next few years Harrington’s method was acknowledged as superior to fusion without instrumentation by many of the contemporary leaders in the field of scoliosis treatment because of reduced rates of pseudarthrosis and improved early mobilization as well as lower reoperation rate. Harrington Instrumentation became the standard of care in the treatment of scoliosis and other disorders requiring spinal stabilization. The wide acceptance of Harrington’s operation paved the way for future development of methods of internal fixation of the spine.
Continuing Education Course on Scoliosis by Dr. John Moe
This course was offered by Dr. John H. Moe in the fall 1964. He showed attendees almost all of his cases. With each case he gave attendees his thinking and showed his results, whether they were good or not as good. The course took place in a typical auditorium with less than 40 attendees. On the last day of the course, Dr. David B. Levine suggested that a group should be organized to study scoliosis. Dr. Moe said that if Dr. Levine would write the constitution and bylaws, that he, Dr. Moe would get it started. This was the precursor to the formation of the Scoliosis Research Society.
June 10, 1966
First Annual Meeting of the Scoliosis Research Society
There were 37 physicians and surgeons who met in Minneapolis, MN to found the SRS. The first order of business after approval of the constitution and bylaws was nomenclature. It was decided that the society would be called the Scoliosis Research Society. A scientific paper was delivered by Dr. Robert B. Winter on congenital scoliosis. Future meeting cities were identified as Los Angeles, CA and Houston, TX.
First Natural History Study of Scoliosis
“A Long Term Follow-Up Study of Non-Treated Scoliosis” by Dr. Alf L. Nachemson was published in Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica. This paper was the first to report on a large series of untreated scoliosis patients. The report does not have x-ray information nor does it have accurate diagnoses. It is still an influential report with regard to the mortality rate of untreated severe scoliosis due to cardiopulmonary disease.
First SRS Morbidity Report
First Morbidity report presented by Dr. G. Dean MacEwen at the 3rd SRS Annual meeting included the neurological complications in scoliosis.
In response to patients refusing use of the Milwaukee Brace and Risser Cast, a custom TLSO Wilmington Brace was developed. A removable thermoplastic device for deformities with apices at-or-below T7 (JBJS Am. 1980 Jan; 62(1): 31-6) casted in a Risser frame in corrected position was the basis for this brace made from a cast mold.
First Anterior Instrumentation
Dr. Allen F. Dwyer developed the first anterior spinal instrumentation for scoliosis correction. He developed this device based on the principle that scoliosis could be corrected by either stretching the short (concave) side of the curve or shortening the long side (convex) side of the curve. The Dwyer anterior spinal implant used titanium screws placed into each vertebral body within the curve on the lateral side of the vertebral body connected together by a titanium cable. Each screw was placed through a titanium plate on the vertebral body that prevented screw cut out. The intervertebral discs were removed to allow shortening of the convex curve and to promote fusion. A button was used at one end of the cable and each vertebral was then tensioned to the adjacent screw in a step by step process down the length of the curve thereby straightening the convex side of the scoliotic curve. Although used for thoracic curves it became best known as a device for lumbar and thoracolumbar deformities.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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Article body copy
Eleven years ago, in the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica, Katharina Pahnke stood on the deck of a large research vessel. Rocking back and forth on the ocean waves, Pahnke watched as a piston corer, a long, heavy tube, was lowered off the side of the ship and plunged through the frigid water to pierce the soft seabed below. Six hours later, the tube—and the long cylinder of mud contained within—was hauled back up to the surface.
On this 2010 research expedition, Pahnke and others scoured the Southern Ocean between Antarctica, New Zealand, and Chile—collecting sediment cores over an area roughly the size of Russia. These tubes of mud have since been used for a wide range of scientific studies. For Pahnke, a geochemist who studies the ocean’s history, the dust trapped within these sediment cores would eventually allow her to answer questions about the coldest period of the last ice age, which happened around 20,000 years ago.
In 1990, 20 years before Pahnke trekked out to the Southern Ocean, oceanographer John Martin proposed that iron-rich dust greatly contributed to the last ice age. Known as the iron hypothesis, Martin argued that flurries of this dust traveled on the wind from cold, barren landscapes to the Southern Ocean. The dust fertilized the marine ecosystem, triggering massive blooms of phytoplankton. These photosynthesizing marine algae sucked carbon dioxide out of the air to produce sugar and oxygen. Once the phytoplankton died, they fell to the bottom of the ocean, taking the sequestered carbon with them, which dramatically cooled the planet.
Today, it is widely accepted that there was an increase in iron fertilization and dust in the Southern Ocean during the last ice age. Yet where this iron-rich dust came from has remained unknown—until now. Using the same sediment cores collected years before, Pahnke and other scientists from the University of Oldenburg in Germany discovered that the dust captured in the tubes traveled up to 20,000 kilometers east from northwestern Argentina—all the way around the world—to where it was deposited in the Southern Ocean.
By knowing the dust’s origin, scientists can fill in the gaps about what caused carbon dioxide levels to change so drastically in the past, which may offer clues to how we can manage the climate in the future.
Climate models, says Zanna Chase, a paleoceanographer at the University of Tasmania in Australia who was not involved with the study, are based around proper estimations of how much dust there was, which is dependent on where it came from. “This study gives us a more realistic picture as to what was going on in the glacial ocean, and more accurate picture of the role of iron fertilization,” says Chase. “It’s a big piece of the puzzle.”
After identifying the sediment layer from around 20,000 years ago within each Southern Ocean core, the team isolated the dust and analyzed its key chemical signatures, including its concentrations of rare earth elements and the isotopic compositions of neodymium, strontium, and lead. They then compared this chemical fingerprint to that of sediments from several other places, including South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Antarctica.
They found that up to 80 percent of the dust found in the sediment cores came from the arid Andes Mountains in northwestern Argentina. The dust was borne by the westerly winds, the prevailing winds that travel from west to east, which were likely stronger during the last ice age. Surprisingly, while Australia is a dominant source of dust in the Southern Ocean today, only a small proportion of the ancient dust originated there.
“It’s not common that you get completely stunned and surprised by something that is in the data,” says Gisela Winckler, a geochemist from New York’s Columbia University and an author on the study. “This was some of the clearest data I have ever seen.”
Today, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than it has been at any point over the past 800,000 years, and reducing this greenhouse gas is more vital than ever. Past attempts to combat climate change by fertilizing the Southern Ocean with iron have caused extreme controversy. But with this new study, scientists can create more accurate climate models that simulate how iron contributed to the last ice age, and therefore more rigorously assess its potential role in fighting climate change today.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Crete has been an island for five million years – so the discovery of artefacts that are at least 130,000 years old on the island implies that pre-modern humans, such as Homo heidelbergensis, must have been long-distance seafarers.
Thus reason the members of a team of archaeologists led by Professor Thomas Strasser, of the Department of Art and Art History at Providence College, USA, and Dr Eleni Panagopoulou, of the Greek Ministry of Culture, who have found Lower Palaeolithic stone tools at nine sites on the island. Up to 300 pieces have been found at each site, and the geological contexts at five of the sites have allowed them to date the sites to at least 130,000 years ago, though some of the handaxes, cleavers and scrapers could be much older, as they closely resemble hand axes fashioned in Africa about 800,000 years ago by early hominins.
To reach Australia, some 50,000 years ago, modern humans had to cross the sea from Indonesia to Australia, as they did at an earlier date to settle the Indonesian island of Flores, but, says Professor Runnels, of the Boston University Archaeology Department and the Palaeolithic expert on the Plakias survey team, these finds ‘push the history of long-distance journeys by sea back by more than 100,000 years, with implications for the dispersal of early humans out of Africa’.
The team is surveying caves and rock shelters near the mouths of freshwater streams along a stretch of the south-western coast of Crete that faces Libya. The journey from Africa to Crete would have involved an open-sea crossing of some 200 miles.
The Cretan finds add to a growing body of evidence for early sea journeys: tools that look Palaeolithic have been made on the island of Gavdos, off the south coast of Crete, and the much earlier date of 1.3 million years ago has been proposed for occupation at Atapuerca, near Burgos, in northern Spain, perhaps the result of a relatively short sea journey across the Straits of Gibraltar.
Sceptics of the idea of deliberate voyages have suggested that early humans reached islands accidentally, having been blown out to sea by storms on rafts built for coastal voyages. Arguing against that is the sheer quantity of material found during the Plakias survey, which suggests a substantial number of people made the journey.
This article is an extract from the full article published in World Archaeology Issue 40. Click here to subscribe
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https://www.world-archaeology.com/world/europe/greece/first-sailors/
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Strong reasoning
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History
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What Are the 4 Types of DNA Monomers?
Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the basis for nearly all life forms on Earth. It contains the genetic information that determines the development and functioning of every organism. DNA is composed of four amino acids: adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. Each nucleotide, or monomer, has different attributes that allow it to link with the corresponding nucleotide and form a long chain, or sequence.
Adenine is one of the two purines within the nucleotide bases. It consists of two rings -- one with six members, the other with five members -- made of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Purines occur commonly in nature. Caffeine and uric acid are examples of naturally occurring purines. Adenine pairs with thymine in the DNA structure, and it has one other important function: It is the nitrogenous base for adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism.
Guanine is the other purine nucleotide in DNA. Guanine pairs with cytosine in the DNA structure. Guanine differs from adenine in that it is made up of oxygen in addition to carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Like adenine, guanine consists of two rings, one with five members and one with six. Guanine also allows for synthesis of glucose when it is the nitrogenous base for guanosine triphosphate. Guanine may also be used for protein synthesis.
Thymine is a pyrimidine base that binds to adenine in the DNA structure. Instead of the two-ring purine structures, pyrimidine structures have one ring with six members. Thymine is usually replaced with uracil in the RNA structures. Thymine consists of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. Thymidine triphosphate is used as a "DNA glue." It allows pieces of DNA to stick together to form longer chains, and repair breaks in double strands of DNA.
Cytosine is also a pyrimidine base. It binds to guanine in the DNA structure. Cytosine consists of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. Like all pyrimidine bases, cytosine has a one-ring structure with six members. Cytosine, like thymine, can be converted to uracil in RNA, and cytosine is the most unstable of the four nucleotides. Because it is unstable, the bond between cytosine and guanine is the bond most easily broken within the DNA strand.
- Thomas Northcut/Photodisc/Getty Images
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Basic reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Here are a selection of puzzles. Useful as quick time fillers, during registration periods and to make A level pupils think! Many of the puzzles don't have answers - it is creativity and intelligence in the method that is sought.
1. How many trees are in Canada?
Think about the area of Canada, fractional area occupied by trees, and space between trees (tree density).
2. Central Line
How many underground cars operate on the Central Line during rush hour?
Trains run approx. every 2 minutes. Each train has 8 cars. It takes about 80 minutes for a train to travel the length of the line.
3. How many ping pong balls can fit on a double
deck London bus?
Think about volume of bus and volume of ball. An interesting exension is to consider packing fraction of spheres. The most efficient packing allows the spheres to take up 74% of the available volume.
4. How many piano tuners are there in New York?
Think about the population of New York, the fraction of people who have pianos, how often they are tuned and how long it takes a piano tuner to tune one piano.
5. How many people can fit inside a Mini?
Consider volume of car and volume of a person. One way is to consider person weighs 60kg and is made up of water with density 1kg/l or 1000kg/m³. The world record for a new BMW Mini is 21.
6. If you flattened out all the mountains and
valleys in Wales would it be bigger than England. Is this a reasonable
If you know that the area of is Wales 20,779 km² and the area of England is 130,410 km² then the average slope angle of land in Wales can be calculated. This assumes, of course, that England is flat. In the same way that a cos theta factor can be used for straight lines (eg. a triangle) it can also be used for areas. So arccos(22779/130410) gives us that the angle would have to be 81°.
7. How many tyres are there in use in the UK?
The answer needs to consider the number of cars (with 4/5 tyres?) and the number of buses/trucks/vans.
8. How many molecules come off a car tire with each revolution?
9. How many frames are in a Walt Disney animated movie?
10. What is the mass of a fully loaded Boeing 747?
11. What is the length in miles of all the Motorways in the UK?
12. How many square kilometers of surface would
it take to supply the UK with all its energy needs if solar energy
could be converted with 1% efficiency? Allow for night time, cloud
cover, etc. The solar constant
is 1.35 kW/m².
13. If all the oxygen atoms breathed by Enrico Fermi over his lifetime are now distributed uniformly through the atmosphere, how many of these atoms do you breathe in with each breath?
14. Pick a nearby tree. Estimate the number of leaves on the tree.
15. How many electrons are there on the earth?
16. What is the probability of winning a million pounds on Who Wants to be a Millionaire by guessing? Assume everyone guesses, including the audience and the phone-a-friend.
17. If the conversion of electrical energy to light energy is 75% efficient, how many photons are emitted per second by a 40 watt fluorescent tube?
18. How many molecules will evaporate each minute from a saucepan of water left to stand in the shade on a dry summer's day?
19. How many hairs are there on a dog?
20. How much do the brakes of a car heat up in stopping at a set of traffic lights?
21. How many dimples are there on a golfball?
22. What is the mass of all the tennis racquets in the world?
23. A 10 year old car is badly rusted. If it rusted at a uniform rate, estimate how many iron atoms each day combine with oxygen to form rust?
24. If there were a mole of butterflies lying evenly distributed ever the earth, how thick a layer would they produce?
25. How long does it take for the electrons in a TV tube to get from the electron gun to the screen?
26. How many pieces of popcorn does it take to fill a room?
27. How many oxygen molecules that pass in and out of the lungs of an adult human in one day?
28. Estimate the mass of lead deposited per square metre per year in London due to airborne lead emitted from cars, if each litre of petrol contains about 2 grams of lead.
29. It is a clear day and the sun is shining straight down on an out door swimming pool. How much will the water temperature change in 5 minutes? The solar constant is 1.35 kW/m².
30. A helium-filled balloon is 50 cm in diameter. What is its diameter when taken to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean?
31. Estimate the magnitude of the gravitational attraction between a man and a woman as they stand talking to each other.
32. What is the thickness of a piece of paper in wavelengths of visible light?
33. Consider the possibility of a large country such as China organizing a "geophysical weapon", by having all the inhabitants of China jump off chairs onto the ground at the same instant. Assuming that the resulting energy could all be focused to one point on the earth, how many kilograms of TNT would this weapon correspond to? 1kg TNT yields about 4MJ of energy.
34. How big does a seed on the ground have to be to justify a bird in flying off a tree branch to eat it?
35. How many bricks are there in Bristol?
36. How likely is the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization?
37. How much area would a 1000 Megawatt solar power generator need? The solar constant is 1.35 kW/m².
38. What is the heat output of a human?
39. How long would a laser have to stay focused on a missile to ignite the chemical explosives in the warhead?
40. How small can a 1 GB memory be?
41. At what distance is the magnetic field from high voltage transmission lines the same as the Earth's magnetic field?
42. Astrology claims that the position of the planets at the time of our birth influences our lives. Calculate the relative gravitational attraction on a newborn baby by Jupiter, the hospital building and the mother.
43. What is the kinetic energy of a drifting continent?
44. How large a moon can you jump off of?
45. How much energy is required to boil the Earth's oceans?
46. How many truck loads would it take to cart away Mt. Everest?
47. Assuming one Santa Claus visits all Christian children on Christmas, how fast would he have to travel?
48. The Catholic Church believes that at communion you receive the body and blood of Christ. Consider whether the Catholic Church are justified in this claim. Consider the number of atoms that once were part of Jesus, are in the world and are in a typical communion wafer…
49. Given that a pencil contains 1.3g of Carbon and that a human being is around 18% Carbon, how many pencils could be made using the Carbon from one person?
How many times do you
have to fold a piece of paper in half to reach the moon?
Pupils will need to know the Earth-Moon distance is 384403 km and the thickness of paper can be assumed to be 0.1mm. This illustrates the magnitude of powers quite well since 2 to the power of n multiplied by the thickness of the paper equals the distance to the moon. Solving this gives that the paper only needs to be folded 42 times.
Deal or No Deal (sort
There are three boxes. One box has a prize. You must pick a box. I know which box has the prize.After you’ve picked I remove one box which does NOT contain the prize.Should you change your choice, keep it the same or does it not matter?
You should change. The probability that you were correct with your original choice was 1/3. After I remove a box, the probability that the box you’ve picked is correct is still 1/3, but the probability that the other box is correct is must now be 2/3.
There is a brick in a boat on a small pond. If the brick is thrown over the side into the pond, does the water level rise, fall or stay the same?
When in the boat the brick displaces its weight in water. When in the water the brick displaces only its volume in water. Therefore the water level in the pond will decrease (slightly) when the brick is thrown in.
There are three light bulbs in a room with no windows. Each is individually wired to one switch outside the room, far from the door. You are only allowed to enter the room once. How can you work out which switch operates bulb?
Answer: Turn switch A on, wait a few minutes. Turn switch A off and B on. Enter room, there will be a hot bulb (which is unlit), a lit bulb and a cold unlit bulb.
Lowest Unique Number
Pupils compete with class to have the lowest unique number written down in their books. Interesting to discuss strategy with more able groups.
Death Due to Hats
The characters are arranged as shown. There are
always two black hats and two white hats. They can't turn round,
move or communicate with eachother. One person needs to shout
out with certainty what colour hat they have on. If they don’t
they will all be shot. Can they survive, and if so how?
They can survive. Consider the options. Label the people ABCD from the left. If the person on the far right (D) can see that the two people in front of him (B and C) have the same colour hat, he must have on the opposite colour so can call out. If, however, he doesn't call out it must mean that he can see the two people in front of him (B and C) have different colour hats on. The person second from the right (C) then knows that if the person behind him (D) doesn't call out, he has the opposite colour hat on to the person in front of him (B).
Using four number fives and any mathematical operators can you make the number 24?
This is easy: 5*5-(5/5) = 25-1 = 24
A harder extension: can you make 24 with just two fives?
Making 24 again
Using the numbers 8, 8, 3 and 3 in any order and just the 4 basic mathematical operators make the number 24.
A king has 1000 bottles of wine. One (and only one) is known to be poisoned with slow acting poison (which always kills a person after one month). The king has 10 slaves who can each drink one whole glass of wine. The king decides how to pour each glass - using wine from one or more bottles. How can he discover which bottle is poisoned?
Answer: Use binary. Label all the bottles from 1 to 1000. Pour each bottle into its corresponding glass. For example bottle 16 = 2^4 should be poured into only glass 4. Bottle 528 = 2^9 + 2^4 should be poured into glasses 4 and 9. Thus each bottle has its own unique combination of glasses and thus slaves killed. So if bottle 72 is the poisoned one slaves 3 and 6 will die since 72 = 2^3+2^6 = 8+64.
© 2016 Dr Matthew French All rights reserved.
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| 0.945231 | 2,479 | 3.109375 | 3 | 2.087128 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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When electricity is generated centrally at large power stations, at least 50% of the energy in the fuel is wasted as heat released into the atmosphere. Further losses occur when the electricity is transmitted large distances through high voltage cables. This wasted energy, coupled with the infrastructure and maintainance costs of power stations and transmission networks, is the reason that electrical energy has a higher economic value than heat.
Generating electricity locally at a household or community level in a combined heat and power (CHP) scheme can yield very high overall efficiencies since both electricity and heat can be used at the point of generation. MicroCHP is the co-generaton of electricity and useful heat at the domestic/small business scale. It is equivalent to a household boiler that generates electricity. These systems are grid-connected and the end user can export unused electricity back to the grid or import additional power at peak usage times.
Small scale domestic generation is attracting interest from major utility companies and could offer reduced energy costs to the customer. It also eliminates the need to increase grid capacity and build large power stations. Boiler manufacturers are also heavily involved in microCHP as they seek the next generation products to replace condensing boilers.
Loss Comparison Between MicroCHP and Conventional Distribution
The Recuperated Microturbine for MicroCHP
Microturbine-generators are well suited for producing electricity in a microCHP scheme, due to a high power to volume ratio and long service life. However, in their most simple arrangement, the electrical efficiency is not high enough to justify the additional capital cost of a microCHP system. The electrical efficiency can be improved by the use of a recuperator, which is a heat exchanger that transfers heat from the exhaust stream of a gas turbine engine back to the air before it goes into the combustor. This reduces the amount of fuel burned, doubling the electrical efficiency of the system and making the recuperated microturbine the optimum microCHP power source. However, the mechanical and thermal demands placed on a recuperator are significant, and many recuperator designs have proven to not meet service life requirements.
Recuperated Microturbine Schematic
The Hiflux Recuperator
The core technology at Hiflux is a high temperature recuperator specifically developed for gas turbine applications. Innovative design and state of the art modelling tools have been used to create a patented design that has the right combination of strength and compliance required for high temperature operation. An array of pins, laser welded to plates, form the heat transfer path as well as providing structural integrity.
Pin Array Schematic
Flow in Pin Array
The Hiflux design is made up of a number of identical cells, each cell consisting of two plates joined by pins. The cells are very strong and well suited to withstand the load from a pressurised fluid. Hiflux recuperators heave been tested successfully at up to 800°C. The cells are flexibly connected to the engine using a novel, patented design. With a counterflow arrangement, a high effectiveness can be achieved. Instrumented field tests of a customer prototype installation have shown a peak effectiveness of approximately 90%.
- Reliable operation at turbine exhaust temperatures up to 800°C
- High resistance to creep, oxidation and thermal shock
- Low pressure losses for maximum engine output
- High surface to volume for maximum compactness
- Customers’ exact requirements met with flexible manufacture
- Quality manufacture achieved through automation
- Available in stainless steel and nickel superalloys
The Hiflux high-temperature heat exchanger is a key component in a European microCHP system, doubling the electrical efficiency. A high electrical efficiency is critical, due to the disparity between fuel and electricity unit prices.
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en
| 0.932018 | 774 | 3.625 | 4 | 2.849141 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Industrial
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When Harry Truman became president following the death of FDR, Arabists in the State Department were determined to convince him not to support the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. They hoped he would honor his predecessor’s promise to Saudi King Ibn Saud that the United States would “make no move hostile to the Arab people and would not assist the Jews against the Arabs.” Truman resented the patronizing tone and did not believe he was obligated to accept the State Department’s interpretation of U.S. interests as described in this memo.
Memorandum for the President
On April 18 Secretary Stettinius sent you a personal and confidential letter in which he pointed out that efforts would undoubtedly be made by the Zionists to obtain commitments from you in favor of their program for Palestine, and that while we were making every effort to relieve the suffering of the Jews in Europe we felt that the question of Palestine was a highly complex one which should be handled with the greatest care.
In this connection I thought that you would like to know that although President Roosevelt at times gave expression to views sympathetic to certain Zionist aims, he also gave certain assurances to the Arabs which they regard as definite commitments on our part. On a number of occasions within the past few years, he authorized the Department to assure the heads of the different Near Eastern Governments in his behalf that “in the view of this Government there should be no decision altering the basic situation in Palestine without full consultation with both Arabs and Jews.” In his meeting with King Ibn Saud early this year, moreover, Mr. Roosevelt promised the King that as regards to Palestine he would make no move hostile to the Arab people and would not assist the Jews as against the Arabs.
I am attaching a copy of a memorandum summarizing the conversation between Ibn Saud and Mr. Roosevelt, of which the original is presumably with Mr. Roosevelt’s papers. After the meeting, this memorandum was approved by both the President and the King, so that it may be regarded as completely authentic. On April 5, only a week before his death, the President signed a letter to Ibn Saud in which he repeated the assurances which he had made to the King during the meeting. A copy of this letter is also attached.
The Arabs, not only in Palestine but throughout the whole Near East, have made no secret of their hostility to Zionism and their Governments say that it would be impossible to restrain them from rallying with arms, in defense of what they consider to be an Arab country. We know that President Roosevelt understood this clearly, for as recently as March 3, after his trip to the Near East, he told an officer of the Department that, in his opinion, a Jewish state in Palestine (the ultimate Zionist aim) could be established and maintained only by military force.
I should be glad at any time to furnish you with any additional background material which you may desire bearing up on the entire Palestine problem.
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CC-MAIN-2022-27
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https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-truman-memo-from-acting-secretary-joseph-c-grew-may-1945
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| 0.985232 | 603 | 2.53125 | 3 | 3.03533 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Politics
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The Acquisition and Development of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 1952-1967 | Carl W. Buchheister
The Acquisition and Development of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 1952-1967
by Carl W. Buchheister
In southwestern Florida in the beginning of the century, the strands of bald cypress extended miles and miles. In those virgin bald cypress stands were giants towering 130 feet, with girths of 25 feet — an awesome sight before the onslaught of the lumbermen in the 1920’s. A remnant of that virgin forest, now the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a veritable living museum piece, escaped the destruction in the nick of time just as the cutting crews were coming upon it. It is now the largest remaining stand of virgin bald cypress in the country.
Joe Brown, a long-time resident near the Sanctuary, described the area:
“The average person has an erroneous impression of the Big Cypress. They think of it as one big huge cypress swamp with water and creeks and animals, which is not true. The Big Cypress area is roughly 50 miles wide and 75 miles long. That is the Big Cypress Swamp. In the old days, before they ruined this country by drainage and roads and building subdivisions where they shouldn’t have ever built them — before that day there were pine islands dotted all through the cypress. What we call a pine island is a high ridge with palmettos on it, and pine trees. The waterways where the cypress lay, starting at the headwaters of the Corkscrew Swamp, which we know as a sanctuary now — that went all the way to the Tamiami Trail, some twenty-five miles long, one big strand that you had to cross to get across it and it was impassable in those days with a vehicle until you cut a way through it.
“Back in the olden days when they used to come up out of the salt water into what is now know as the Imperial River to get fresh water for their boats — they didn’t have any wells in those days — they’d have to take a cask and come up into the headwaters of that creek to get the fresh rain water, and it was so twisty that they called it Corkscrew Creek, or Corkscrew River, at that time. Actually, the headwaters of that was what is now known as Corkscrew Swamp.
“Raleigh (Dyess) used to tell me how they’d kill the plume birds in the ‘Glades — he was a plume bird hunter back in 1915 and along in there — and they’d kill them by the thousands down there and bring them out, and like he said, they’d skin them out and put paper backing on them to hold them in shape, and they’d ship them to New York where they put them on the women’s hats for decoration. He said he saw it go from where you could kill hundreds of them in a day to where you couldn’t find any of them — they just got scarce.” (from an interview with Mr. Joe P. Brown at Immokalee, Florida, January 31, 1977)
Audubon wardens & wading birds…
As early as 1912, National Audubon Society had seasonal wardens in the Corkscrew swamp area to protect the then nesting colonies of wood storks, egrets, and other wading birds. In that year, B. Rhett Green of Fort Myers served as warden of the nesting colonies of the Corkscrew area of the Big Cypress. That was long before there was any cutting. The wood stork colony was estimated to contain about 1,000 birds, and even smaller was the number of great egrets. Those population estimates reveal strikingly the low numbers to which the wading birds of south Florida had been reduced by the plume hunters. According to its Sanctuary records, the Society continued warden patrol in the Corkscrew from 1912 through 1917.
The following is an eye-witness account of an unpaid agent of the National Association of Audubon Societies camping in south Florida, dated February 27, 1912:
“I spent two days and nights camped here, and made three counts of the Egrets as they came in to roost or left in the morning. The first time I saw 522, the next 534, and the last evening counted 541.
“This is the scene where we shortly found that the plumers were shooting them, and the last night, as I was counting, shooting commenced on the other side of the Cypress, at least a mile from camp, and we counted 123 shots. Evidently four men with shotguns were shooting them at their roost, which is two miles from where they will nest.
“We waded over a mile, waist deep, to find the camp of the hunters, and found it just deserted, the fire still burning, and showing that four men had just departed on horseback.
“I trust you can prevail on some of the patrons and humane people to put a stop to this. It can be done easily with a little money, and, as there must be 600 birds that will begin nesting in two weeks, if unprotected there will not be a single bird left.
“I can get a man to watch it — a good man who lives in the woods and knows all the plume-hunters, and who will put a stop to it if you can raise enough money to engage him. We can get him deputized here also, and he will then tell all the hunters he is a warden to guard the Big Cypress until the birds leave. He will also guard the —- Rookery and the —– Rookery (names purposely omitted).”
The inclusion of the local names of the rookeries would have pinpointed their location for plume hunters. According to this account in Bird-Lore, the two unnamed rookeries contained about 200 egrets and were the largest colonies on which the Association could get any positive information. The account is indicative to what an extent the once great colonies, even in the remote Big Cypress, had been reduced.
In happy contrast to this picture of the tragically reduced wading bird numbers of 1912 is the following later day observation of James Callaghan:
“While vacationing in South Florida about February, 1941, it was recommended to my wife Alice and me that we cross the old Tamiami Trail to a point roughly halfway between Naples and Miami and remain there until dark. We did so and as the sun settled and the first signs of dusk appeared, we looked southward and observed many small flights of plume birds, mainly Snowy and American Egrets, coming in to settle in the dense mangrove and swamp growth north of the Trail.
“As dark slowly descended, the flights grew steadily larger and more numerous, until it seemed as though veritable sheets of feathered bodies were blanketing the swamp growth to the north. As darkness continued to fall, the flights diminished in size and numbers but, by then one could look across the entire northeast to northwest quadrants and observe an almost unbroken sea of white. It is safe to say the swamp growth settled by several feet in height as the weight of the birds increased.
“By sitting or standing on the car’s hood, one could see for great distances, limited only by increasing darkness. Under the circumstances, it was impossible to accurately assess the numbers but, certainly they were in the tens if not hundreds of thousands.” (from Bird-Lore, Vol. 14, pp.135-136)
Saving the Corkscrew…
In 1952 more and more persons became concerned over the lumbering of the very northern end of the great stand in which the Corkscrew Swamp section is located. One of these was Joe Brown himself who, writing a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald, claimed to have raised the “first hue and cry.” One of the earliest ones actively to work for saving the Corkscrew, according to O. Earle Frye, Jr., then the Assistant Director of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, was Ernest A. Taylor of Tampa, Florida. An elderly gentleman, amateur naturalist and nature photographer, he urged Frye to do something to save the Corkscrew. Taylor carried on a one-man crusade by giving talks to sundry groups, illustrating them with his own slides. In 1953, Jack and Jeanne Holmes of Coral Gables, both writers and he a photographer, were actively campaigning to save the virgin Bald Cypress area. An article by Jeanne describing the present cutting and how little of the virgin cypress remained appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1954. This gave widespread national publicity.
On March 20, 1954, under the leadership of John H. Baker, President of National Audubon Society, and O. Earle Frye, a meeting was held in Tampa at which the Corkscrew Cypress Rookery Association was formed. Frye was elected Secretary and Baker, Chairman of the Finance Committee. Organizations represented at this meeting included Florida Federation of State Garden Clubs, Florida Audubon Society, Tampa Bird Club, Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials, and Collier Enterprises. Mr. Frye was instructed to enlist a number of Florida and national civic and conservation organizations to support the new association by becoming members. success in that endeavor was certainly assured because many of the Florida and national conservation organizations had already expressed their support to save the cypress.
The Corkscrew Cypress Rookery Association was “established for the acquisition and preservation of the greatest remaining bald cypress swamp and its associated plant and animal life.”
The meeting then learned of the work that Baker and Frye had been doing during the past several years to further their objectives. From the beginning of their efforts, it was clear that the specific areas that had to be acquired and preserved were owned by the Collier Enterprises and Lee Tidewater Cypress Company. Those of the latter were being cut at that very moment; therefore, there was an urgency to acquire a sizable remnant of the virgin stand as fast as possible. Baker, who had met frequently with Mr. J. Arthur Currey, president of Lee Cypress, gave an encouraging report of what his negotiations had produced. The following is from the report given by Mr. Baker:
“He stated that the president of Lee Cypress, Mr. J. Arthur Currey, generously offered to give approximately 640 acres on the eastern side and including portions of a large interior lake or marsh, provided satisfactory assurances were given that the area would be protected; offered to refrain from cutting a fringe of cypress on the western side of the interior lake; granted an option until April 1 on 160 acres of the most valuable timber; and offered to give an additional 800 acres prior to being cut. He stated that until current surveys are completed within a few weeks, his company would not be in a position to name a price. Mr. Baker expressed the opinion that the price of all the land involved would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 and also that Mr. Currey could be expected to deal very fairly in establishing this price.
“Mr. Baker stated that he had been in communication with Mr. Miles Collier and Mr. Norman Herren, of Collier Enterprises, and that Mr. Collier assured Mr. Baker that his company would be equally generous with regard to certain lands owned by it and considered to be an essential part of the Sanctuary.”
Mr. Baker emphasized that the Corkscrew Swamp was the last remaining stand of virgin and merchantable cypress in the United States. Also, he declared that the very area the new Association was seeking to save was the largest rookery of wood storks and egrets in the country, numbering from 8,000 to 10,000 birds. Therefore, the tremendous importance of saving it.
Mr. Baker then stated that the National Audubon Society was prepared to accept title to the land, maintain it, and provide warden and interpretive personnel. But the money needed to purchase the land, construct buildings and other facilities, would have to be raised by other organizations, especially those in Florida. It is of great interest to note here that, at that time, Mr. Baker thought that the National Audubon Society’s custodianship would be only a temporary one and that the land should be owned and maintained by the Florida Board of Parks or another state agency.
In his negotiations with President Currey of the Lee Cypress Company, Mr. Baker found that the former had been disturbed and angered at times by the charges that were being made against his company — that it was without conscience destroying a great relic of the virgin forest. Even if such accusations were not spelled out exactly in letters to the press, newspaper articles, speeches, etc., they were insinuated. The following from a letter of Currey to Baker in October, 1953, describes his feelings:
“Once again I want to make it clear that I have not obligated our Company in any fashion to you or anyone else regarding the preservation of any part of the Corkscrew. I am sure you will agree that inasmuch as I am the only one who ever made any effort to save the Corkscrew, it has a decidedly adverse effect on me to read some of the letters that have been written and some of the articles in the newspapers regarding the Corkscrew. At least 50% of the timber in the main swamp which we have largely logged over was destroyed by fire. I have every reason to believe that within another twenty years all of the timber in that area would have been destroyed. There weren’t many people in Florida who were concerned about the enormous damage done by fires in that area.”
Baker soon won Currey’s respect and confidence by the manner and spirit with which he presented the case of the conservationists. Having been a businessman himself, Baker agreed that a lumber company that had purchased a given forest area for cutting purposes could hardly be expected to give it up without full compensation. After all, the company had to realize a profit on its investment, maintain a payroll, and consider the interest of its stockholders. He made it clear to Currey that he would hope that the company would set a price that it would accept on the land and timber comprising the desired Corkscrew Swamp area; that the National Audubon Society and associated organizations would try to raise the amount.
Corkscrew Cypress Rookery Association & raising the funds…
Once the Corkscrew Cypress Rookery Association had been founded, Baker and others stepped up their efforts to raise the money. Mrs. Eugene A. Smith, president of the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs and a zealous worker from the beginning, succeeded in getting the Federation to pledge $5,000. This was one of the very first gifts and, indeed, influenced other organizations. Florida Power and Light Company pledged $1,000; Charles Brookfield, Tropical Florida Representative of the National Audubon Society, got gifts of $30,000 from Bradford Crane and $10,000 from Arthur Vining Davis, respectively. Davis was Chairman of the Board of the Aluminum Company of America.
Richard H. Pough, president of The Nature Conservancy, who knew the Corkscrew Swamp well and had long advocated that it be saved, not only got moral and some financial support from The Nature Conservancy itself, but persuaded Theodore Edison to make a very substantial gift. Other sizable gifts came from Mr. John D. Rockefeller Jr. through the Jackson Hold Preserve, Inc.; the Old Dominion Foundation; and the National Audubon Society itself. Two hundred and six individuals, of whom eighty-five were from the nearby communities of Naples, Bonita Springs, and Fort Myers, had raised the purchase price of $25,000 for the 160 acres that contained some of the largest cypress trees.
By December, 1954, the money was raised and the Corkscrew Swamp was saved, just in the nick of time. And that was because of the outstanding work of the following: John H. Baker, O. Earle Frye, Richard H. Pough, Mrs. Eugene A. Smith of Ft. Lauderdale and president of the Federation of Garden Clubs, many individual clubs themselves, and Bill Piper of the Everglades Wonder Gardens. In his President’s Report in the January-February, 1955, issue of Audubon magazine, John Baker paid the following special tribute:
“Credit for the inauguration of this Sanctuary goes to J. Arthur Currey, president of the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company who, early last spring, offered to give to the Society 640 acres containing an integral part of the rookery, and is making a Christmas present of this acreage. Truly, the acquisition of these lands and the setting up of this Sanctuary have been a most cooperative undertaking, and the Cypress Company and its officials deserve the greatest credit for their wholehearted participation in this important conservation enterprise.”
This tribute, with its generous expression of credit to President Currey and his company, was indeed well-deserved, for the officials of the company were more than willing to cease cutting the great trees once a receipt of the total cash value of investment in land and timber was assured.
Also most helpful were the Collier Enterprises (now Collier Company) that owned much of the desired land. In 1955, Collier leased to the Society, at $1 a year rental, 3,200 acres with the condition that the lessor shall donate the land to the Society subject to the Society’s purchasing the standing timber for a total of $25,000. From 1963 to 1966 the Society purchased the timber at the stated price and received a magnificent gift of 2,880 of the original 3,200 acres.
These purchased and contributed properties became one of the Society’s finest and most spectacular sanctuaries. Little time was lost in establishing it. Henry P. (Hank) Bennett, one of the Society’s wardens and Wildlife Tour leaders, was assigned as a protective representative of the Society and as an interpreter for the Sanctuary.
There being no housing accommodations in that wilderness, a one-room cabin with screen porch was quickly constructed. It was made by Sam Whidden, a native of the area who knew the Corkscrew Swamp, having hunted in it for years. That became Hank Bennett’s dwelling, a remote one to be sure, without phone and electricity. Furthermore, it was accessible only by jeep. At that time, there was no road into the Corkscrew Swamp from any county road in the area. One had to cross several fenced cattle ranches to reach it. Not until 1959, five years later, was there an access road from what is now Immokalee Road.
The rescue of the Corkscrew and its acquisition by the Society, destined to become one of the greatest of its Sanctuaries, aroused great interest, happiness, and excitement among staff, directors, and donors. Its very remoteness, wildness, and the tales of 700-year-old trees actually lured persons to undergo any difficulty to see it.
First tours into the sanctuary, and stops along the way…
John Baker, who master-minded the rescue effort with such success, was happy to lead select parties of Directors and others to the new Sanctuary. One such visit was a memorable one because of the the character of the individuals of the group. Among them were Mrs. Carll (Marcia) Tucker, a one-time former Board Member, a very generous donor, and an ardent birder; Gardner Stout, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society’s Board of Directors; Dr. Melville Grosvenor, president of National Geographic Society, and Mrs. Grosvenor. None of the party were young. Mrs. Tucker was in her 70’s.
To get into the heart of the Swamp, to see the great trees, the lettuce lake with its lovely floating lettuce-like plants, one had to wade, not ankle-deep, not knee-deep, but often waist-deep. Neither deep water nor rough footing deterred that little group. They came out of the great swamp dripping wet, but excited and starry-eyed. After a quick change of clothes, they made their way by jeep over the intervening cattle ranches to their parked cars.
On the return trip to Miami, the lead car was Mrs. Tucker’s, a large spotless shiny grey Daimler, a product of the United Kingdom complete with liveried chauffeur and footman. The little caravan was making its way eastward when suddenly the Daimler stopped, much to the utter surprise of those in the rear, in front of a rather miserable looking roadside bar. The occupants of the cars in the rear, of course, were looking towards the Daimler. Mr. Stout rushed up to Mrs. Tucker’s car to find out why they had stopped, and was told that she wanted her martinis. A dry martini was her favorite drink, and she had one every afternoon. To the amazement of all those in the rear, they saw the liveried footman walk up to, and into, the bar. In a few minutes he reappeared, walking very straight, holding aloft a tray with a sparkling martini on it. This simply incredible sight, and the act of getting the martini, was repeated. Mrs. Tucker had to have two. All traffic had stopped in the little village and the itinerant farm workers hanging about had their eyes glued on a scene they had never seen before. They had never seen a martini, and they had never seen a Daimler. Soon Mrs. Tucker, happily satisfied, ordered the car on and the caravan made its way to Miami. For that little group of select visitors, the virgin cypress was not the only rare sight.
The boardwalk begins…
Soon after Hank Bennett was in residence, in 1955, the Society decided to construct a boardwalk into the swamp to be an easy and safe means for visitors to enter the area of the giant virgin cypress, a wonderland of plants and animals, and to do so without leaving even a footprint in the unspoiled wilderness. So, in October 1955, Sam, Bob, and Fletcher Whidden, all brothers, began the construction job. Hank Bennett and Alexander (Sandy) Sprunt IV helped. The latter, then in the Research Department, devoted three days a week to the boardwalk and two to making an inventory of plants and animals of the Sanctuary.
The most difficult job involved making holes for the posts. Where the water was shallow, conventional posthole diggers sufficed. With those one could easily get down into the sand which provided firm footing for the posts. Out in the deep water where there was more peat and muck, the poles had to be driven through those soft deposits down into the sand below them. It required three men to hold and drive the poles down through the soft material as far as possible and into the sand. Then, with a handmade water jet arrangement — a little gasoline pump in a canoe pumping water into a garden hose — would wash away the sand under the sharpened pointed end of the pole. Only by such means could the poles be lowered firmly into the sand.
All through October, November, and December, and into January the next year, the work continued. In the lettuce lake area, the post-setting crew worked in the water all the time, up to their waists and often to their chests. They were not frightened or deterred by cottonmouth water moccasins or alligators. What, however, bothered the men most were little diving beetles that the crackers called “gator fleas” which would, at times, get down into their high-topped tennis shoes. As Sandy Sprunt describes them, “Normally they don’t bite, but when they get into a confined situation like that, they’ve got a great sucking proboscis and they’d whack into you with that. The language was somewhat colorful, and whoever it was had to take off his shoes and get rid of the damn gator flea.” (from an interview with Alexander Sprunt IV by Carl W. Buchheister)
The original boardwalk, totaling 5,600 feet, was completed in the fall of 1956, the first one thousand feet in 1955 and the rest in 1956. When it crossed the first and second lettuce lakes, all in the heavy swamp, the work was really laborious. Sandy Sprunt described it: “Crossing the second lettuce lake, for instance, was the most difficult part of the whole boardwalk to construct. Poor Hank, who was a rather short person — I think he stood about 5’6″ or 5’7″ — was up to his chin a lot of the time crossing that, whereas the rest of us had a little more altitude. That was the only place we ever ran afoul of an alligator, too. There was a big female that lived in there and we kept a wary eye out for her. But Hank and I always felt that the alligator was at a distinct disadvantage in attacking a Whidden because the Whiddens had lived off the swamp and trapped and taken furs and alligator hides for all of their lives and we figured it was unequal difficulties for the alligator — she would have been overwhelmed very shortly. As it was, we didn’t really have any trouble.” (Sprunt interview)
Until 1959, there was little development in the Sanctuary. However, visitor pressure was building up once the boardwalk was constructed. Then, with the completion of Rt. 846 from Immokalee to U.S. 41 and an access road, two years later, finished from Rt. 846 to the Sanctuary gate, a building program was started in earnest. Opening up this remote, wild, unspoiled are to visitors, and even encouraging them, was hard for Warden Hank Bennett to take. It was his deep conviction that increasing visitation would change the wilderness character of the Corkscrew, so he resigned, giving up a career with the Society which had been a distinguished one. And to this Sanctuary he had made a substantial contribution, establishing, protecting and winning friends for it. He liked the wilderness so much that in the wet season he didn’t mind walking in knee-deep water for a long way to reach his little one-room cabin.
Getting ready for visitors…
In November, 1959, James Callaghan, director of the Society’s Roosevelt Memorial Sanctuary at Oyster Bay, L.I., was sent down to the Corkscrew. He served not only as a Sanctuary Superintendent, but as a builder equal to the demands of any kind of construction. He was Acting Director, and of course, was in charge of the construction program. One of the first projects completed was the 900-foot road from the entrance of the Sanctuary to the boardwalk. No longer did one have to walk in ankle- or knee-deep water in wet seasons. Callaghan had made an advantageous deal with the same contractor who built the access road from 846 to construct the road in the Sanctuary itself. The gatehouse was completed. It was fashioned as a Seminold chickee, but with shingled instead of a thatched roof. It was designed as a chickee to conform to the history of South Florida and the Seminole Indians who had lived there in the past. It served as the admission center and sales department. The Whidden brothers, builders of the boardwalk, built the chickee also.
In January, 1960, with the completion of the gatehouse and road from it to the boardwalk, the Sanctuary was opened to the public. The admission charge was $1 a head, and children under twelve free. Further development continued with construction of a pump house, other small buildings, and signs. The original boardwalk, completed in January, 1956, had deteriorated badly by 1960. So to rebuild it wherever necessary, Callaghan himself with one helper, David Hill, did the job. Again, since it was a very wet winter, the two men worked in waist-deep water. When all the construction was finished, it was necessary for Callaghan to return to his Sanctuary in Long Island. A young man by the name of Graham, having been recommended, was engaged as director. He turned out to be quite inadequate and was soon dismissed.
Upon Mr. Baker’s recommendation, a man by the name of Lane, who had worked on his mother’s farm in New England, was hired as Director. The story of his short tenure is best told by Callaghan:
“Anyway, later that Spring we had to inch him out of jail and fire him on the spot. He spent one or two nights in the clink — he got himself soused up in some gin mill up in Immokalee and made the sad mistake of aiming a coke bottle at one of the deputy sheriffs. The deputy sheriff was not about to submit to that kind of action from somebody from up north. He immediately clobbered this man on top of the head and threw him into jail. He stayed there until he was bailed out 24 or 36 hours later, at which time Mr. Buchheister said, ‘Get him out of here’ and, of course, he left.” (interview with James Callaghan by Carl W. Buchheister)
Weather attacks: pluses & minuses…
What an eventful year 1960 was for the Corkscrew. During its first eight months it had its ephemeral directors, but it also acquired the new road and buildings which were constructed by Jim Callaghan. September brought the most destructive of visitors, Hurricane Donna. It wreaked tremendous damage in the Naples and Everglades areas. Over the Keys and South Florida, it cut a great swath. The Corkscrew suffered devastating damage. Happily, the buildings suffered the least. One little trailer, however, which was used for part-time help and visitors, was sliced in half. And out in the swamp, some of the great cypress trees were blown down, here and there, over the boardwalk itself. On the high ground area around the dwellings and sheds, approximately 60,000 board feet of prime timber were blown down like so many jackstraws. Hutchinson and Sam Whidden, with little additional help, sawed the downed giants in the swamp and repaired the boardwalk. It was back-breaking labor, but they gave it freely.
The downed timber, a real problem, and the need for additional construction again demanded the knowledge and skills of Jim Callaghan, so President Buchheister sent him down. He soon succeeded in making a most advantageous deal with a sawmill operator in Bonita Springs. The latter would remove all of the felled trees, even the stumps, saw the logs into lumber, and give on-half of it to the Society. That he did, and the Society received one-half of 60,000 board feet. So some good resulted from Lady Donna’s blow. With the increase in staff, additional housing was required. Callaghan designed a dormitory type building which could accommodate several couples. He also had a large building erected for the storage of such equipment as tractor, truck, and swamp buggy. Sam Whidden did most of the carpentry work, but Jim also did a lot as he is an excellent carpenter. The lumber required for all this new construction was cut according to specifications given by Callaghan, and the entire lot came from the Society’s share of the hurricane-felled timber.
During 1961 and the events of 1962, the appearance of the administration area was constantly being improved. More and more visitors were coming to see the Sanctuary. They could now make a mile round trip on the boardwalk. Hutchinson and his helpers took turns serving as guides and interpreters on the boardwalk. When the wood storks nested, the boardwalk section under their nests was closed off. The interpreter stationed at the lettuce lake, with the aid of a telescope, would show the nesting storks to visitors.
1961 was a very dry year. Very little rain fell in the summer, the rainy season, none fell in the fall, and none in the winter of 1962. The set Corkscrew Swamp had virtually dried up. The fire hazard was tremendous and in May it started in the Sanctuary. It burned until June. Phil Owens later described it:
“And, of course, all south Florida was on fire. Down in the Everglades National Park, there were hundreds of acres burning. Corkscrew lost hundreds of acres of pond cypress and some few acres up at the north end of the big timber — maybe seven to twelve acres. It still stands, but the trees are dead. At that time everybody in this state turned out. They volunteered help. Even the prison stockade sent crews here. Contractors sent in a dragline. On the south end they dug deep holes to get water to fill their tanks, both their back-pack tanks and other fire fighting equipment where water was used. But just everybody — high school boys turned out and came here. They just couldn’t begin to use the people they had. You can’t fight that fire by hand anyhow. It just took the rains to put it out. They had airplanes in here also dropping water and also trying to seed the clouds here at that time, but to no avail.” (interview with Phil Owens by Carl W. Buchheister at the Corkscrew Sanctuary)
The care and concern of so many agencies and individuals in loaning equipment, providing planes, and in actual hand labor to save the Corkscrew was most heartening and gratifying. It manifested a widespread appreciation of the Society’s rescue and preservation of the Corkscrew with its remnant of virgin cypress.
In 1962, a modern spacious house was built by a Naples contractor. It was designed especially for the use of the Sanctuary Director and has been so used ever since.
On January 1, 1963, the Corkscrew was fortunate in acquiring as a full-time staff member Phil Owens. He was accompanied by his wife. The two were to make great contributions to the further development and success of the Sanctuary. By trade, Phil was a plumber, so he was handy with tools and was a skilled and responsible worker.
The experience of a long period of dryness and a devastating fire moved the Society to drive wells in the swamp to supply fresh water during future dry spells. The first was drilled after the fire. Phil Owens helped with the installation of the pump and a diesel powered generator to supply electricity for its operation. Later one, four more wells were drilled that were used in the spring when the swamp became dry.
Again the boardwalk had deteriorated and was badly in need of repair. During his first two years, Phil Owens almost single-handedly reconstructed the existing boardwalk. The job, as always, required working in the water. When asked if he encountered any snakes or alligators, Phil answered,
“Enough to worry about. Of course, the Whiddens built the first one. You’d just get in the water with them. The only thing that would bother you at all there would be the leeches, so we would tie our pant cuffs tight. Leeches worked just about the surface of the water, so if you are in it up to your waist, you had to keep a tight belt and a tee shirt to keep the leeches off. A couple of times we were run out by an old female gator that had young in that first lettuce lake. We had to work around her and we kept a stepladder mighty handy. I scrambled out of there a couple of times. She’d take a rush at you with her mouth open and hissing. I’d just come out from Pennsylvania at that time and was not well acquainted with alligators, so I left, up the ladder. She was a good nine or ten feet.” (interview with Phil Owens by Carl W. Buchheister at the Corkscrew Sanctuary)
When asked if he saw any water moccasins, he replied, “Occasionally, but they are not aggressive in any way. When you first get in to work, you look around, and if there is nothing there, you can be sure there won’t be — with all the pounding and sawing and carrying on, they are not going to come in to you.”
Much was being accomplished despite a constant turnover in personnel. Director Hutchinson had many good qualities, was a devoted worker, but simply could not get along with the person under him. Even Sam Whidden, who had long been one of the most faithful and helpful of workers for the Corkscrew, gave up because of Hutchinson. Phil Owens described him: “He’d been in the British Army and the Miami Fire Department. He was just all spit and polish and the place was run more like a military post than it was a wildlife sanctuary. Numbers of men would tell you the same thing, any of the old-timers who ever spent any time here. It was too bad, because he had an awful lot on the ball.”
Matters literally came to a head when tensions between Hutchinson and Owens led to physical combat in which the two aimed blows at each other’s heads. That moved President Buchheister to come down and demand Hutchinson’s resignation. He immediately appointed Phil Owens ad Acting Director. Phil said he would not like to be the Director because he lacked formal or college education, which he thought the job required.
It was about this time that Alexander Sprunt, Jr., having retired from National Audubon Society, and whose career had been an outstanding one, ran tours to the Corkscrew from the Caribbean Gardens in Naples. He brought station wagon loads of tourists to the Sanctuary three or four times a week. He led them into the Sanctuary the length of the boardwalk, giving highly instructive commentary all along the way. No one knew the history of the Swamp better, even from before any of the big cypress was cut, and he knew the plants and animal life. When Caribbean Gardens gave up the tours, Mr. and Mrs. Sprunt were engaged as interpreters on the boardwalk. They lived in the dormitory. After Alexander Sprunt died, his widow Margaret continued for several years. Those two contributed tremendously. In addition to giving excellent interpretation, they provided a charming courtesy. Their contribution was, in reality, a very fine education and public relations program.
Among the very helpful local friends of the Sanctuary were Dutch Bailie and Bill Piper. Dutch had a half-section adjoining the Sanctuary up on the northeast corner. Formerly a stone mason and plasterer in Miami, Dutch came here, bought property, and went into the cattle business. Before there were any roads in the early days, he would bring visitors down to the Sanctuary in his jeep. He constantly watched out for the Corkscrew as if he were warden on the north end of it. If he saw anyone entering the Sanctuary, he saddled a horse and went after them. He was a very good neighbor. He died in the 1960’s.
Bill Piper, native of Florida, had spent most of his life nearby in Collier County. Besides a large ranch, he owned the Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs. In the Gardens, he had a number of the mammals of Florida. They were very well kept. He had even raised panthers and had given their cubs to the National Park Service to release in the Everglades National Park. He was an ardent conservationist and helped in the early efforts to save the Corkscrew. He gave generously himself, and solicited funds from his associates. Because of his influence in the community, he won many friends for the Society and its Corkscrew Sanctuary.
In the spring of 1965, Jim Callaghan and Sam Whidden tackled a herculean kind of job and completed it in ten days. That was the construction of one mile of fencing on the west end, which all had to be done on foot through the rankest underbrush. Posts that had previously been cut by Sam Whidden and stockpiled had to be carried long distances. Before they did the fencing itself, they had to complete a survey of the boundary by finding old slashes on the trees. Many miles of walking were required to fence the west end and give further protection to the Sanctuary.
On March 23, 1965, the United States Department of the Interior sent Stanley Joseph, Superintendent of the Everglades National Park, to dedicate the Corkscrew Sanctuary as a Natural Historic Landmark. In acknowledging this distinction on behalf of the Society, President Buchheister mentioned quite frankly one if its fears: “We hope this plaque will not turn out to be a grave marker but will remain a marker for one of the most beautiful, most ineffable natural history landmarks in the United States.” After the ceremony a crowd of over 100 local and county officials, members and friends, stayed for a barbecue supper.
Carl Buchheister, left, accepts the plaque designating Corkscrew as a National Historic Landmark from M. Stanley Joseph, right.
By 1965, the constant threat of drainage became a reality. The Gulf American Land Corporation announced its plan to establish a huge housing development, Golden Gate Estates, south of the Sanctuary. To create such a development on wet land would necessitate extensive drainage by a system of canals. They, in turn, would suit the developers perfectly for they could then offer “water front properties.” The threat was real. The only way to meet it was to acquire additional land adjacent to the southern borders of the Sanctuary, between it and the proposed development. To buy such additional property would take a huge sum of money. Happily, the Ford Foundation came through with a matching grant of $232,000. To match that, the Society would have to raise $500,000. It did just that, in due course, and then purchased 2,640 acres adjacent to the Sanctuary’s southern border.
To meet the threat of drainage to the south end and on the west, the Society planned a system of dykes to contain and control the run-off of the water in the swamp. Jim Callaghan came down, drew the plans, hired the rag lines, and supervised the construction of the dykes, a masterful achievement. To a considerable extent, the existing tramways over which formerly the logging trains had hauled out the timber were used, and linked together. The dykes were equipped with sluice gates to let out excess water. The canals of Golden Gate did their draining, but the dykes held water on the Corkscrew. At great expense of labor and money, the Corkscrew had been rescued a second time, and was safe, that is until a possible future threat should arise.
Despite all the difficulties — fires, drainage threats, turnover of help — the years had been good to the Corkscrew. It had become the beneficiary of much affectionate devotion, of the magnificently generous gift of lands from the Collier Company, of the Ford Foundation grant, of contributions from members and friends, of increasing support of the County officials, and of the outstandingly loyal, devoted and skilled services of Phil Owens, who finally became Director, and of his wife. The Corkscrew Swamp, with all it appointments by way of wells, dykes, boardwalk, visitors’ center, parking lot, buildings, safeguards of all kinds, and excellent personnel, had become securely established — a jewel among wildlife sanctuaries — and a monument to the dedicated concern of the the National Audubon Society.
This history ends with the year 1967.
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Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!
Roy Acuff, in full Roy Claxton Acuff, (born September 15, 1903, Maynardsville, Tennessee, U.S.—died November 23, 1992, Nashville, Tennessee), American vocalist, songwriter, and fiddle player, called the “King of Country Music,” who in the mid-1930s reasserted the mournful musical traditions of Southeastern rural whites and became a national radio star on the “Grand Ole Opry” broadcasts.
Turning his attention to music after an aborted baseball career, Acuff gained immediate popularity with his recordings of “The Great Speckled Bird” and “The Wabash Cannonball.” The latter piece became his theme song. By the early 1940s his sincere singing style, backed by the traditional sound of the Smoky Mountain Boys, was earning him $200,000 per year.
In 1942 he organized Acuff-Rose Publishing Company, the first publishing house exclusively for country music, with songwriter Fred Rose. Following an unsuccessful bid for the Tennessee governorship in 1948, Acuff continued to record extensively from the 1950s on, lending authenticity to the new boom in country music with such albums as Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972), performed with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 1962 Acuff was elected the first living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
country musicIn 1942 Roy Acuff, one of the most important country singers, co-organized in Nashville the first publishing house for country music. Hank Williams’ meteoric rise to fame in the late 1940s helped establish Nashville as the undisputed centre of country music, with large recording studios and the…
Grand Ole Opry…characterized by the career of Roy Acuff, who was promoted into stardom by the Opry in the late 1930s. After World War II, the honky-tonk style of Ernest Tubb, the bluegrass music of Bill Monroe with Earl Scruggs, the honky-tonk music of Hank Williams, the crooning of Eddy Arnold and…
Fred RoseIn 1942 he and Roy Acuff cofounded the Acuff-Rose Publishing Co. Rose was one of the first three musicians elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.…
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Internet communities span ages, timelines, geographical boundaries and languages. Communicating across such diverse barriers is only possible by following a common protocol, that is, netiquette. It is the etiquette that Internet users, or netizens, follow while interacting in cyberspace to communicate effectively.
As your teen takes his first stride towards becoming a netizen, he needs your guidance to understand and learn the finer points of netiquette. Here are a few points to bear in mind to help you teach your teen the nuances of communicating with the online community.
1. Professional language is cool
When your teen uses professional language online, it shows that she is familiar with the rules of communication. Using professional fonts in emails, responding promptly to messages, communicating without rambling, not getting overly passionate in discussions, and organising communication are all characteristics of a mature Internet user.
2. A post can make or break you
Years ago, a communications student in Mumbai clicked the ‘send all’ tab at the end of a heated exchange of emails with one of her professors. Needless to say, the remainder of her stay at the college wasn’t a pleasant one. And even now, she cannot apply for a job in certain leading organisations because the adverse publicity surrounding the incident is still ‘visible’ on the Internet.
Teach your teen to be extra cautious about the information he posts or emails. It is a good idea to have separate email addresses for personal and private communication. To be on the safe side, key in the address after drafting the email and double check it before hitting the ‘send’ button.
3. Keep it simple
If your teen is a very verbose person, his communication style can appear boring, and perhaps even irritating, to some. So, guide him on how to write in a simple and clear manner using short and crisp sentences. Also, when he writes, he shouldn’t leave things unsaid. It will only prompt the reader to draw his own conclusions and lead to confusion.
4. Uppercase = yelling
Capital letters should not be used while communicating either through chat or emails. Capitalising a word or a sentence is considered the equivalent of yelling and is frowned upon by readers. Ask your teen to be creative without resorting to ‘CAPITALS’. For example, she can underline the words she wants to emphasise.
5. Know your audience well to connect with them
It is common for those of the older generation to raise questions about the lingo or emoticons used by youngsters during an interaction on cyberspace. Similarly, those unfamiliar with technology can feel at sea while reading the interactions between techno-savvy counterparts. So, it is important for your ward to know who he is communicating with and how to communicate effectively with them.
6. Your signature is ‘you’ on paper
A signature in emails should not exceed four lines. It must not carry extraneous or erroneous information. Instead, it must only have information for communication and the title of the sender. Unnecessary graphics, links to blogs and other accounts, quotes, etc., are uncalled for in a signature.
7. Good manners make a good impression
‘Please’ and ‘sorry’ should be used whenever required. Your teen may be a flamboyant go-getter in school, but she needs to adhere to netiquette when it comes to expressing herself online. Impress upon her to not use the Internet for gossip, and to be civil and polite in her choice of words.
8. Acronyms are always casual
Apps like Twitter and WhatsApp are used extensively by teens because of the ease and speed of communication. While communicating on these platforms, it is best to avoid using acronyms, other than ‘PFA’ and ‘etc’. However, it is okay to use them when communicating with close friends or and family members.
9. ‘User-friendly’ does not mean secure and foolproof
Online communities like Facebook, Google+ and Instagram act as platforms for teens to connect with their peers irrespective of their geographical location, school, interests, etc. But the use of passwords and privacy settings do not guarantee security of data on these or other social media sites. There have been numerous instances where information and pictures shared on social media have been misused. Educate your teen on what he can post online and what he shouldn’t. Inform him of the dangers of texting sensitive or explicit content through apps like Snapchat. What is uploaded into cyberspace does not vanish, but remains there and can be used against him later.
10. Good grammar is like personal hygiene
Like personal hygiene, good grammar is all about small details that make a huge difference! Your teen must be careful about spelling, punctuation, word order, tense and grammatical accuracy. A text full of grammatical errors shows poor grasp of language and hinders communication. There are tools available online to check your teen’s texts before she emails/posts them.
Now that you know how important netiquette is and how to teach it to your teen, go ahead and help him build a positive reputation for himself by following these simple techniques. Above all, make your child aware of the dangers of posting personal information in cyberspace, or forwarding chain emails or messages.
Hannah S Mathew is a freelance teacher, trainer and certified diagnostic counsellor.
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Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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(Hong Kong International Airport) was established in 1922 by Chinese businessmen Ho Kai and Au Tak, who formed a company known as the Kai Tak Investment company
, which attempted to reclaim land in Kowloon to be developed.
was originally a small grass landing field for the RAF
and numerous flying clubs and flight schools.Hong Kong, and with it, Kai Tak
, was occupied by the Japanese in 1941.In 1942, two concrete runways (7/25, and 13/31) were constructed using Allied POWs as slave laborers.After the war, the airport was returned to the hands of the British, and the Royal Air Force
In 1954, the plan to modernize Kai Tak
was released that included construction of a passenger terminal, which was completed in 1962.The original runways were replaced by a new 13/31 and was constructed on reclaimed land.13/31 remained the main runway until the closure of the airport.The runway was extended numerous times and the IGS for runway 13 was installed in 1974 to aid landing in adverse weather conditions.
Originally, the airport was "Far Enough" away from residential areas, but as the population of Kowloon grew, and the airport expanded, it was determined that it was too close to residential areas, and plans for its replacement began.On July 6, 1998, after 74 years of heart stopping landings, Kai Tak
was officially closed with the final departure: Cathay Pacific Flight 3340 departed runway 13.
In the following years, the airport was used for numerous purposes and was temporarily reactivated (Cargo Only) due to a software bug at Chek Lap Kok's cargo handling system.Since the closure, Kai Tak's
future has been a hot topic.
The installation of Kai Tak
is one of the more complex, though not difficult, installs that I have ever done.
The documentation for Kai Tak
is quite thorough, but in my opinion, is out of order.It begins with a set of charts for Kai Tak
including approach (Both runways), and two airport diagrams.
The scenery also contains many effects and AI features that enhance the realism and feel of Kai Tak
The Main Apron and terminal area of Kai Tak
was the original parking area at Kai Tak
during the passenger era, with the east and south aprons being added later.It is worth noting, that Kai Tak
only had eight parking spots with jetways despite the fact that it served dozens of heavies every day.
The rest of the main apron is filled with parking stands (which are populated by Boeing
747-300s when the Static Aircraft install option is selected) and light towers as well as ground servicing vehicles and passenger busses.No fewer than 15 static aircraft are parked on the Main apron and at the terminal painted in period liveries from United, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia, Chain, Korean, KLM, and Varig.
Even with AI disabled (in an effort to maximize performance) the hustle and bustle of Kai Tak
is still evident thanks to the static aircraft, moving vehicles, and the overcrowded nature of not only the city, but the airport as well.
The East Apron of Kai Tak
is home to HAECO Airplane Maintenance, overflow parking for airliners, the Kai Tak
cargo terminal, and the remains of China Airlines 605 which crashed at Kai Tak in 1993.This area of the airport is populated by ten static aircraft (Eleven if you count the wreckage of China Airlines 605) carrying the titles of cargo airlines that served Kai Tak including Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, China, Korean and KLM.
South Apron is inhabited by the ever present static aircraft. (Passenger Versions) The South apron was constructed later in the Kai Tak days, and was used as overflow parking.Just like the rest of Kai Tak
(Except the eight gates of course) passengers deplane using portable airstairs and use buses to go to and from the terminal and baggage claim areas.Accordingly, the entire airport is populated with the buses and other ground equipment that is used much more commonly at Kai Tak
than contemporary airports.
only runway (13-31) is a thing of beauty in Non-SDK compliance Mode, marked with years worth of tire skid marks from countless heavies landing in stiff crosswinds.The main goal of this scenery is, in my opinion, to replicate the famous IGS checkerboard approach to runway 13, and I believe that Fly Tampa
hit the nail right on the head.
The Kowloon city scenery is stunningly replicated under the approach, including all the lighting and buildings.Fly Tampa
went so far as to overlay screenshots of its middle marker and lead-in lights with a picture of the real thing, and it lines up perfectly.The checkerboard hill is landable (by helicopter, it seems a bit small for even a cub) and is a good place to watch the traffic landing, though you will need to add AI packs, as default traffic does not go to Kai Tak
As far as I can tell, having never been there, the city of Kowloon is replicated accurately circa 1998 when Kai Tak
...On the realism scale, Fly Tampa is tops in my book, and Kai Tak (I cannot believe that I am saying this, as the other package is also hyper-realistic) gives their St. Maarten package a run for its money!
Unlike the other Fly Tampa products that I have tested, Kai Tak
has a noticeable impact on performance.Sure, I did have many of the frame rate robbing options turned on, but my computer still struggled more than other sceneries.
Even though it has a higher frame rate impact than others that I have tried, the extensive installation options allow it to run on lower end hardware, though it will not be as realistic.Though it does not run as smoothly as St. Maarten for example, FSX was still running at a respectable 15 FPS. (when it would have been running 20-30 under different conditions) By disabling the static aircraft, Non SDK mode, and the moving vehicles, I believe that Kai Tak
could have easily pushed 30FPS even on my relatively low end equipment.
Even though the frame rates were impacted by the scenery, I think that the sheer amount of polygons and objects would have brought my machine to its knees had this not been a Fly Tampa product, as they are famous in the FS community for providing detailed, but frame rate friendly sceneries, that never fail to impress even the most seasoned FS veterans.
During the testing of Kai Tak
, I ran into one problem, and that is that the airport perimeter fences were floating about 500 feet above the airport.
Thanks to Fly Tampa
, Kai Tak
is now re-opened, and I cannot say how glad I am that it is!
...What I Like About Kai Tak
What I Don't Like About Kai Tak
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| 0.968046 | 1,440 | 3.0625 | 3 | 2.709267 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Transportation
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"The marble is the same size as the beads!"
We put a handful of water beads out on some wax paper in the Sunshine, and added a few marbles to the mix. They were just about the same size, the beads looking very much like marbles at this point. Out came the Clubhouse Science Journal, as we started yet another experiment with water beads! We have seen them grow in water, now what happens when they have no water?
The Clubhouse Kids love experiments that involve observation over an extended period of time. From soaking eggs in jars full of varying substances over a period of a week, to observing different ice cubes melt throughout a day, we definitely have a lot of little Scientists over here who enjoy making predictions and observing changes.
"I think the beads will stay huge!"
"They will get smaller!"
"They will disappear!!"
Let the games begin.
After about an hour:
"The bead is shrinking!!!"
After about 3 hours:
"The Sunshine drank up all the water in the bead!"
Oh how I love when a child makes a comment that I can expand on, teaching a valuable lesson. The water beads were definitely shrinking, and this Clubhouse Kid presented me with the perfect intro to talk about how important it is for us to drink lots of water, because that Arizona Sunshine likes to drink up the water in our bodies too! Word of the day: Dehydration. Yes, water beads can even expand their vocabulary ;)
"They need waterrrr to grow, just like we do!"
"I don't want to shrink from deee-hyy-drayy-shunn!"
Back into the water they went with the rest of the beads and marbles,
and soon enough:
"They're all huge again!"
"I like them better when they grow, not when they shrink!"
"Water is good!"
Growing versus shrinking, another look at opposites. Using water to stay hydrated, a bonus Health lesson. These little beads really do make for a lot of ways to learn!!
Take a look at how NurtureStore incorporated Space play with water beads, and how Play Create Explore used clear water beads and plastic diamonds to create a dazzling sensory table! Then be sure to check out Dirt and Boogers (don't you just love that name?) and how they mixed shaving cream with their water beads! We love doing that one around here!
For more water bead ideas go ahead and check out our water bead page here! If you're a blogger, feel free to link up your water bead posts as the fun continues.
Also, thanks to Rainbow Water Beads, we have more water beads to giveaway!! This time it's simple, if you "like" our Facebook page, you're already entered. As soon as we reach 300 likes, we will hold a random drawing and ship off a variety of colored water beads to someone new!! Just be sure to keep them in water ;)
Stay hydrated my friends,
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en
| 0.960116 | 624 | 3.296875 | 3 | 1.590407 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
|
|Mentor, Teacher & Physicist|
|By Charlotte Bruce Harvey ’78|
Chancellor's Professor of Physics Gerald Stanford Guralnik, a much-loved Brown professor who mentored generations of students and younger colleagues and was considered a front-runner for the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics, died April 26 of a heart attack. He was 77.Guralnik was one of six scientists who in 1964 published landmark papers on particle physics that would ultimately explain one of the biggest mysteries in science: why mass exists. He and his coauthors described an invisible, molasses-like force field that slows subatomic particles moving through it so that they acquire mass while other particles (photons, for instance) zip around the universe unencumbered. The two other papers described a similar mechanism.
The three papers sparked a fifty-year quest that involved thousands of scientists worldwide in the search for what became known as the Higgs boson. Named after British physicist Peter Higgs, it was dubbed “the God particle” by the nonscientific press. The search ended in July 2012, when physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland proved the boson’s existence, demonstrating that the 1964 theorists were correct.
Last fall the Nobel committee awarded the top physics prize to Higgs and Belgian physicist Francois Englert, authors of two of the original papers. Nobel rules stipulate a maximum of three recipients, all of whom must be living, and Guralnik, his coauthors C.R. Hagan and Tom Kibble, and Higgs’s coauthor Robert Brout, who died in 2011, were not honored. “I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sting a little,” Guralnik told the Wall St. Journal after the announcement, but, he added, “We are amazed and delighted that our mathematical exercise turned out to play a huge part in describing how nature works.” For their work he and the other surviving authors received the 2010 J.J. Sakurai prize for theoretical particle physics. Guralnik was a fellow of the American Physical Society and an Alfred. P. Sloan Research Foundation Fellow.
As important as Guralnik’s early work turned out to be, it was scorned initially. Science legend Werner Heisenberg, who had won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932, told him it was junk. “That was pretty scary for a young man who wanted to get a job,” Guralnik said in a videotaped lecture on YouTube. Guralnik wrote in the Huffington Post that another physics giant, Robert Marshak, “told me if I wished to survive in physics I must stop thinking about this sort of problem and move on. I wisely obeyed.”
In 1967 Guralnik joined the Brown faculty, where he focused on quantum field theory and computational physics and became an anchor of the physics department. “Gerry was above all a kind and generous man, as well as a beloved colleague,” department chair James Valles said. “In addition to his unique and lasting contributions in theoretical physics, he was a passionate teacher who mentored countless undergraduates, graduate students, and junior faculty members. We will miss him deeply.”
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CC-MAIN-2015-48
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http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/3740/32/
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|
en
| 0.970437 | 683 | 2.671875 | 3 | 2.855732 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
|
Science & Tech.
|
Education and gender equality gender equality is a global priority for unesco and inextricably linked to its efforts to promote the right to education and support the achievement of the sustainable development goals (sdgs. Given that education is a human right and a cornerstone of human and national socio-economic development, promoting gender equity in and through education ought to remain a policy priority for governments, donors and civil society in the 21st century. Gender equity the ace women’s network facilitates the networking of women interested in pursuing leadership opportunities in higher education. Gender bias in education at the heart of the gender bias conundrum are questions of male marginalization, stereotypes and gender identity and female subordination these concepts will be explored throughout this paper as the basis for gender dialogue. Educating girls is pivotal to the development of society despite many global declarations and development goals, and significant effort by the international community, gender disparity in education continues to exist.
To the achievement of gender equity in education development as well as in the development of the country religion offers a platform for members of any society to be united and hence brings about. For decades, usaid has been leading global efforts to achieve gender equality while great strides have been made, gender inequality remains a significant challenge across every development initiative worldwide, from education to global health. Gender equity and discussed effective strategies for the way forward the first panel discussed the main approaches to promoting gender equity and the progress made towards incorporating gender concerns in development institutions. Hidden gender biases in curricula and the socialization of gender roles lead to inequitable education for girls and for boys what changes can be made to create a more equitable learning environment for all students.
Educational equity, also referred to as equity in education, is a measure of achievement, fairness, and opportunity in education the study of education equity is often linked with the study of excellence and equity. Gender equality and equity 3 the time is past when a women's movement had to exclude men in the fight 'against' patriarchy the time has come rather for women's. The unicef-supported child-friendly education framework promotes equality and equity in enrolment and achievement among girls and boys by eliminating gender stereotyping gender-sensitive curricula and textbooks, as well as separate latrines for girls and boys are key vehicles for enhancing gender equality in education. Promoting gender equality and access to education an estimated 100 million will drop out before completing primary school girls in developing countries face complex and often dangerous barriers when trying to get an education.
Gender equality in education in india vimala ramachandran 2003 education and gender and social equity issues we have thus a rich knowledge and database to draw upon this indeed is no small achievement in a country as vast and diverse as india recapturing broad trends. Gender equity: a framework for australian schools is the result of the work of the gender equity taskforce and reference group, working under the auspices of the ministerial council on education, employment, training and youth affairs (mceetya. June 2012 office for civil rights us department of education 1 gender equity in education a data snapshot this data snapshot highlights several differences in educational opportunities between males and females from prekindergarten.
Gender equity in stemm studies show that women researchers are squeezed out of science careers by structural barriers the loss of such expertise is a significant waste of knowledge, talent and investment. Former aauw senior researcher andresse st rose studied a wide range of gender equity issues in higher education and the workplace at aauw, including the recruitment and retention of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) throughout the educational pathway. Gender equality rests on, but is not the same as, achieving gender parity, or females being represented in equal numbers as males in education, although the latter offers a ‘first stage’ measure of progress towards gender equality in education. Gender equity in terms of education is about the socialization of men and women and the results of this process on the life outcomes of the two genders (husen & postlethwaite, 1994.
The abc of gender equality in education: aptitude, behaviour, confidence tries to determine why 15-year-old boys are more likely than girls, on average, to fail to attain a baseline level of proficiency in reading, mathematics and science, and why high-performing 15-year-old girls still. Participation in secondary education in sub-saharan africa: this thematic study is about gender equi ty in junior and senior secondary education ular attention to girlsõ and secondary education gender equity at the primary level has. Education quality and gender equality and the distinction between parity and equity achieving gender equality in education means that boys and girls will have equal opportunities to realize their full human rights and contribute to and benefit from economic, social, cultural, and political development. Elementary education in india, with a special focus on gender equity we acknowledge the create project for providing us an opportunity to contribute this paper to the.
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|
en
| 0.939599 | 1,016 | 3.875 | 4 | 2.967375 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
|
What you will learn
- How Information Technology is used in organizations.
- An overview of how computers and communications networks work.
- Basic concepts of software development and project management.
- Fundamental concepts of computer programming.
- Computer threats, hackers, antivirus and information security.
- Social and ethical implications of IT.
This introductory program is designed to give business professionals the basic background on Information Technology (IT) to let them get the most in their interaction with IT professionals, either from their company or from external corporation, as they will have a deeper understanding when identifying requirements, evaluating workloads or supervising results in the IT field.
Through this program, you will learn the basic concepts of information systems and their application, and gain familiarity with the terminology used within the IT field.This program covers the following topic areas:
- Information Systems and Office Application Software in Organizations: Standard office suite tools, office systems (email, conferencing, etc...), basics of desktop operating systems. Internet, web browsers, Electronic Data Interchange and enterprise wide systems.
- Hardware and Systems Technology: Computers and their components, data representation and processing. Computer networks, client/server architecture, operating systems architecture and wireless computing.
- Information Systems Software Development: Software development, systems development, information processing, user interface design and standards, software project management.
- Programming Concepts and Data Management: Programming languages and logic, object oriented methods, data types and structures, file types, databases, SQL. Web technologies and development, data warehousing and data mining.
- Business, Social, and Ethical Implications and Issues: Economic effects, business strategies, privacy concerns, security threats and controls, intellectual property and careers in information technology.
A program subscription gives you full verified access to all courses and materials within the program you’ve enrolled in, for as long as your subscription is active. Monthly subscription pricing can help you manage your enrollment costs — instead of paying more up front, you pay a smaller amount per month for only as long as you need access. You can cancel your subscription at any time for no additional fee.
Courses in this program
UPValenciaX's IT Fundamentals for Business Professionals Professional Certificate
- Project managers who work on projects related to Information Technology.
- Middle manager in any department that interacts with IT.
- Product manager for any product with an IT component.
Meet your instructors from Universitat Politècnica de València (UPValenciaX)
Experts from UPValenciaX committed to teaching online learning
Information Technology plays a very important role in the management and operations of companies today. Knowing IT fundamentals and terminology is increasingly necessary when planning and developing any new project in a business environment. This UPV program is perfect for professionals who, without having an IT background, need to manage Information Technology or participate in a project with an ICT component, something that, sooner rather than later, will happen for all those with management responsibilities.
As a company specialized in technology integral solutions we know well that IT is nowadays the key factor in the success of any business project. Our work teams are multidisciplinary and it is imperative that professionals that do not have an Information Technology background know the fundamentals and terminology of IT to work side by side with engineers and programmers. The IT Fundamentals program of UPV is perfect to provide the necessary bases so that they can contribute the best of themselves to the teams in which they are integrated.
Grow your career. Start your program subscription today.
- Immediate access to all 5 courses in this program
- Course videos, lectures, and readings
- Practice problems and assessments
- Graded assignments and exams
- edX learner support
- Shareable verified certificates after successfully completing a course or program
|
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en
| 0.882758 | 787 | 2.859375 | 3 | 2.364722 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
|
DEMOCRATS WERE READY to jettison the Electoral College after the 2000 presidential election. Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote, but George W. Bush took the prize with a razor-thin margin in the Electoral College. Now, with the results of the recent election, maybe the move to abolish this unique institution will abate. President Obama won the College convincingly, 332 to 206, even though his popular vote margin was only a tad above 2%. This gave Obama the look of a very convincing win, far more than the popular vote justified.
We should keep the College because it works for this country; it helps keep the U.S. united. We’re exceptional among the world’s nations in that we didn’t evolve from a common religion, race or ethnic group. We were consciously created with a shared set of ideals encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence.
The U.S. is an extraordinarily heterogeneous country, and our interests and priorities can be sharply divergent. Historically our two main political parties have both been uneasy coalitions of groups of people who may not like each other very much. But our political system brings divergent peoples together for a common purpose. In normal times, for example, Republicans in Iowa—site of the nation’s first presidential caucus—are interested primarily in social issues. In contrast, Republicans in New Hampshire—site of the nation’s first presidential primary—are more interested in economic issues. In fact, the Granite State is one place where a pro-choice referendum would probably win overwhelming support from Republicans.
Another example is the Democratic coalition of Franklin D. Roosevelt that reigned supreme for decades. Its biggest components were made up of urban Catholics plus recent descendants of Eastern European Jews and southern Democrats, who were Protestant and openly racist. Talk about a cultural divide! Yet they all resided under one political tent.
While our politics are noisy and fractious, this system ultimately brings people, however reluctantly, together and thus softens sharp edges. The Electoral College is a key part of this ameliorating paradigm. No candidate can win the White House without a national coalition. Regional and one-issue candidates don’t get very far; their bases are too narrow to win the requisite number of states to garner the necessary 270 electoral votes. In that sense the College is democratic: A candidate has to pay attention to the needs and wants of numerous interests and groups of people.
As we saw with this election, the College often gives a close contest a definitive end, which enables us to put the election behind us and move onward. This has happened many times. In 1960 the popular vote was a virtual tie, but John Kennedy handily beat Richard Nixon in the College, 303 to 219. In 1968 we had another whisker-close popular vote, with only a 0.7% difference. But on the electoral side, Nixon easily beat Hubert Humphrey, 301 to 191. The 1976 popular vote was similar to the narrowness of 2012′s, but the College result was decisive for Jimmy Carter.
The 2000 presidential election was a historical anomaly, one that hadn’t occurred since 1888 and, before that, 1876. In both instances a powerful case can be made that Republicans would have had a popular plurality had the African-American vote not been violently suppressed.
One rap against the College is that it forces candidates to focus on a handful of swing states. But, again, that’s the virtue of a candidate’s having to learn about the particularities of those states when trying to appeal to their voters. It forces candidates to go out into the country more than they would otherwise. Moreover, the particular swing states always change over time.
Trashing the Electoral College as undemocratic has always been an easy thing to do. However, the College is a powerfully positive thing with which we shouldn’t tamper.
Steve Forbes is the co-author of Freedom Manifesto: Why Free Markets Are Moral And Big Government Isn’t.
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CC-MAIN-2013-48
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2012/11/26/dont-drop-out-of-this-college/
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en
| 0.9628 | 831 | 2.59375 | 3 | 2.916936 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Politics
|
Achievement objective M7-1
In a range of meaningful contexts, students will be engaged in thinking mathematically and statistically. They will solve problems and model situations that require them to:
- apply coordinate geometry techniques to points and lines.
- Uses algebra and geometry to link points and lines on the Cartesian plane.
- Uses geometric features such as parallel lines, perpendicular lines, collinear points, centre, radius and diameter of circles, and types of triangles to prove conjectures.
- Makes links with trigonometry
M7-2, solving equations
M7-7, and simultaneous equations
key mathematical ideas on NZmaths.
M7-1 links from GM6-7 and to M8-1.
What is new/changed?
- This was previously located in the geometry strand.
Possible context elaborations
- Prove a triangle is isosceles.
- Find the equation of a line parallel to or perpendicular to a given line.
- Find equations and points of intersections of lines such as medians and altitudes of a triangle.
- Prove given points are collinear.
- Find the centre of a circle, given 3 points on its circumference.
- Find the angle between lines by working with angles between line and x-axis.
- Find the values of x that make lines joining (x,0), (2,1), and (6,4) as vertices of a right-angled triangle.
- Given the centre of a circle (-2, 3) and the radius is 4, find the equation of the circle.
Using the locus definition of a circle, the circle is the set of all points that are a distance 4 from (-2, 3). So the equation of the circle is all the points (x, y) such that:
√(x +2)2+(y-3)2 = 4
So, (x +2)2+(y-3)2 = 42
(x +2)2+(y-3)2 = 16 is the equation of the circle.
- Given that (-4, -1) and (6, 3) are the endpoints of a diameter of a circle, find the equation of the circle.
- Given that (2, -5) is a point on a circle with centre (3, 2), find the equation of the circle.
Coordinate geometry: A couple of activities.
- Two towns: Find the distance between two points on a map. Find the place closest to the midpoint between the two towns.
Assessment for qualifications
NCEA achievement standards at level 1, 2 and 3 have been aligned to the New Zealand Curriculum. Please ensure that you are using the correct version of the standards by going to the
The following achievement standard(s) could assess learning outcomes from this AO:
- AS91256 Mathematics and statistics 2.1 Apply co-ordinate geometry methods in solving problems
Refer to the
mathematics and statistics matrix.
Last updated September 26, 2013
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Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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This home in Columbia signifies the rise of the Rutherford family from slavery to freedom. William H. Rutherford was born in 1852 and emancipated at age 13. As a young man during the Reconstruction era, he worked as a servant for a black South Carolina legislator who was later elected to the United States Congress, Robert Brown Elliott. Rutherford became a barber and then a school teacher before finally turning to manufacturing late in life.
Rutherford made regalia for fraternal lodges and also briefly co-owned a cigar factory with William Frasia. In 1878, he purchased a corner lot on what was then Winn Street and built his home, which is no longer extant. By 1905, he was prosperous enough to buy the neighboring house from Dr. Samuel Fair and convert it into a rental property. That home, a small, one-story house built in or before 1850, became known as the Fair-Rutherford House (seen below).
Rutherford then focused on acquiring more rental property around town; owning multiple properties was rare for a black man in South Carolina during the early twentieth century. His son, Harry B. Rutherford, Sr., eventually joined him in business, operating the manufacturing companies and also managing the rental properties. In 1914 Harry Rutherford, Sr. bought a lot on Gregg Street adjacent to the Fair-Rutherford House.
When Harry Rutherford, Sr. died in 1917, his widow, Carrie Rutherford, moved into the Fair-Rutherford House. She replaced the old house with the house seen here between 1924 and 1925 and moved into it upon its completion. She continued to buy and sell property. Later her son, Dr. Harry B. Rutherford, Jr. and his wife, Dr. Evaretta Sims Rutherford, lived in the home. The Rutherfords were both educators who received their doctoral degrees from Harvard University.
Dr. Harry B. Rutherford, Jr. founded the Richland Teachers Council Federal Union to provide loans to African-American teachers, was named principal of Booker T. Washington High School in Columbia during the 1950s, and later worked as an assistant superintendent in Washington, D.C. Dr. Evaretta Rutherford served as the chairman of the Department of Education at Benedict College in Columbia and then became chairman of the Department of Education at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She also authored six books on African studies.
The Rutherford’s son, named Harry Rutherford, II (also known as Harry Rutherford, Jr.), became a dentist and converted this home into his dental office in 1982. Today the dental practice, Palmetto Dental Services, still operates from the historic family home and is run by Dr. Harry Rutherfod, II and his son, Dr. Trace Rutherford.
The Rutherford House is listed in the National Register along with the Fair-Rutherford House, though the latter was demolished in 2004:
The Fair-Rutherford House and the Rutherford House are one- and two-story residences, respectively; the former was erected ca. 1850 on land owned by Dr. Samuel Fair and underwent three alterations during the following century (ca. 1879, ca. 1905, and ca. 1950), and the latter was built in 1924-25. Both houses are significant in Columbia black history because of their association with the advancement of the Rutherford family from slavery to prominence and respect. Over the years, both male and female members of this African American family living in these houses have been business owners, professionals and educators, among them, Dr. Evaretta Sims Rutherford, an educator and Fulbright scholar who wrote, co-authored, or edited six books in the field of African studies. William H. Rutherford’s business had prospered sufficiently by 1905 to permit him to acquire the Fair-Rutherford House as a rental property; his son Harry B. Rutherford, Sr. expanded the family’s holdings with the purchase of the 1330 Gregg St. property in 1914. By 1925 the family had built an imposing residence on the 1330 lot adjacent to the Fair-Rutherford House. William H. and Harry B., Sr. operated independent manufacturing businesses when most blacks in the nation were laborers or worked in service-related occupations. Later family members concentrated their attention on the acquisition of real property and other business ventures. Dr. Harry B. Rutherford, Jr. was a prominent Columbia educator, consultant, and credit union official.
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Moderate reasoning
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History
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By: guest blogger Tara Lane Bowman
Protest placards have come a long way since the days when signs beseeched readers to elect a candidate in an upcoming election.
In the past, these signs and slogans were direct. For example, “I Like Ike” which began as a grassroots movement to draft Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president, sought to draw a contrast between Eisenhower and his opponent, Adlai Stevenson.
Those three simple words worked. After successfully leading American troops fighting against Nazis in the 1940s, Mr. Eisenhower went on to become America’s 34th commander-in-chief.
The act of carrying a sign is a First Amendment right that engages any literate bystander. It would be enough to carry a message that states exactly what it is that a protester stands for or against. However, the Women’s Marches show that modern protests require more than physical presence and traditional signs of dissent.
Historically, images from the earlier, successful American women’s suffrage movement show banners and pins with the words, “We Were Voters Out West! Why Deny Our Rights Out East?” and “Votes For Women”. Civil rights messages from the 1960s took the same approach. “We March for Effective Civil Rights Laws NOW” and “I Am a Man” signs were as serious as they were necessary.
Expressing dissent today, however, is a new game with new rules. Are there still earnest signs with direct messages? Of course. But they are edged out of the frame as wittier descendants of first-generation posters step into the limelight.
At the first Women’s March on January 21, 2017, civilian paparazzi gleefully uploaded pictures of innovative posters to social media. Facebook newsfeeds flooded with users’ favorites. Signs like, “We Are The Granddaughters Of The Witches You Could Not Burn” and “A Good Planet Is Hard To Find” left readers to make historic and literary connections. (The first is a quote from Tish Thawer about historic and contemporary punishments meted out to alleged witches, and the second is a variant on the title of Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find). More examples from the first march are one Google search away in lists and, predictably, on Pinterest.
It cannot be ignored: A new era of protests has begun. Today, instead of simply announcing a cause, protest signs are more likely to reference cultural signifiers, like the boards quoting the hit musical, Hamilton. Rather than name one’s favored political candidate, signs make a not-so-subtle dig at an opponent. The “We Shall Overcomb” signs are a two-fer: They hint at Mr. Trump’s unique hairstyle and take a page from the famous folk and civil rights song, “We Shall Overcome.” Creativity matters, and protesters know it.
By the time the second annual Women’s March arrived, demonstrators were even better prepared. Participants knew the new rule: Investing time in a memorable sign was time well spent.
Thus, it is no surprise that before the third weekend of January 2018 had come to a close, media already declared “Women Take to Streets Around the World in Second Day of Marches (and Great Signs)” and “Signs for the 2018 Women’s March Prove The Movement Is Here To Stay.” Cosmopolitan Magazine shared their votes for the “73 best” signs and Vogue chimed in with their own favorites.
This signals what protesters know: Demonstrations themselves are not the whole story. There is a new generation of placards and signs, of paper and cardboard. These send as strong a message as the numbers of citizens who turned out to protest. Free speech is not just protected. It is sharper, funnier, and pithier than ever.
Tara Lane is a University of North Texas MLIS student and 1A defender. Find her on Twitter @yaybooksyay for talk on books, coffee, and the First Amendment.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Distracted driving is driving while engaging in other activities that distract the driver’s attention from the road. Experts have identified three types of distracted driving: manual, visual, and cognitive.
- Manual: Distractions are caused by using your hands for anything other than steering the vehicle. This includes adjusting the radio, running through a playlist on your phone or looking for your sunglasses.
- Visual: Distractions that take your eyes off the road. Common types of visual distractions include texting, reading billboards or looking at off-road activity or scenery.
- Cognitive: Distractions that take your mind off driving which include, talking on the phone, lack of sleep, or consuming alcohol, illegal drugs or prescription medications against medical advice.
Distracted Driving Statistics
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration distracted driving claimed 2,841 lives in 2018. Among those killed: 1,730 drivers, 605 passengers, 400 pedestrians, and 77 bicyclists. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the typical distraction requires the driver to take their attention off driving for less than five seconds, and if they are going 55 miles per hour, this means the driver has traveled the length of a football field without paying attention. In Wisconsin in 2015, there were 24,089 vehicle crashes related to distracted driving, which means there is a distracted driving crash that happened somewhere in Wisconsin every 22 minutes.
Common Types of Distracted Driving
There are many things that can result in distraction, and it is your job as a driver to avoid things that can cause your attention to waver. Common causes of distracted driving which should be avoided include things such as:
- Eating or drinking
- Adjusting the music
- Rowdy passengers or multiple passengers
- Pets as passengers
- Trying to read a map or GPS device
- Calling, texting, or checking emails
When a person drives while distracted, it is dangerous not only for them but also for the other drivers nearby. Distraction can result in lane deviation, running a stop sign or red light, or veering off the roadway which can cause a collision with another vehicle. Additionally, inattentive drivers may not notice cyclists and pedestrians sharing the roadway, which can put them at risk of devastating injuries.
Any one of these forms of distracted driving is enough to cause an accident. Unfortunately, most of these can be avoided if a driver is always careful to observe what they’re doing while behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Distracted Driving Laws in Wisconsin
Although laws vary from state to state, these are the distracted driving laws in Wisconsin. It is illegal to use a hand-held mobile device while driving for any driver with a probationary license or instruction permit (except to report an emergency). It is illegal to use a hand-held, mobile device when driving through a road work zone, and texting while driving is against the law for ALL drivers in Wisconsin.
There is also a law in Wisconsin under Wisconsin Statute 346.89 that states no one may perform any activity “that interferes or reasonably appears to interfere” with the ability to drive. This law is vague, but it does give the courts a lot of room for interpretation.
If you have been in an accident and discover that the other driver was involved in some distracted driving conduct, it can help prove an auto accident was not your fault. Initially, law enforcement is responsible for investigating an injury crash to determine if the at-fault driver was distracted. This includes searching the car for evidence of distraction or pulling cell phone records.
Whenever possible, the victim (or passenger) should take photos of the car accident scene. These pictures may show evidence of what was distracting the other driver and other valuable information about the injury accident.
Should I hire a distracted driving attorney?
Consider contacting a personal injury attorney immediately after your accident. A knowledgeable personal injury attorney can request that video be preserved from traffic control cameras, police dash-cam, and police body cameras. Typically, the request must be made within 2-4 days of the accident, or the video will be taped over. On-scene videos can show evidence of distracted driving that can greatly assist in proving your injury claim.
If a driver’s cell phone records aren’t investigated at the time of a crash, a personal injury attorney can subpoena the records.
A personal injury attorney can also hire an investigator to conduct a more thorough examination of the crash. For example, the investigator can locate the other party’s vehicle and photograph the interior. Key types of evidence, such as spilled food or used reading material on the front seat, can shed light on what was going on before the crash. These experienced investigators know what to look for and may find items overlooked by victims or law enforcement.
Getting the right help soon after a crash puts you in the best possible position for fair and full compensation. Connect with us today to discuss the details of your case:
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Moderate reasoning
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Crime & Law
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This month a new film documenting César Chávez’s historic campaign to organize farmworkers in America was released in time with what would have been his 87th birthday. Chávez rose to prominence as a founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW), where he organized thousands of poor Latino workers laboring in fields throughout central California.
Through nonviolent but aggressive tactics — many of which we’ve seen revived today — Chávez and the UFW successfully won higher wages, safer working conditions, and collective bargaining rights for generations of farmworkers, culminating in the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
So as we celebrate the legacy of this historic leader, we must also pause to consider that today farmworkers — and others laboring for low wages along the food supply chain — are still struggling. Back then, Chávez and his supporters famously camped outside grocery stores to encourage shoppers to boycott grapes until conditions and wages improved. But today, instead of a grocery store, he may indeed have been standing outside of a Walmart.
After all, not only is Walmart the largest private employer in the United States today, but the company has effectively “Walmart-ified” the entire supply chain of food and manufacturing in America, including farming. More than one quarter of all groceries in the United States are purchased at Walmart. In other words, many of the farmworkers laboring in U.S. fields and as far away as China, in effect work for Walmart.
Most of Walmart’s supply chain workforce is comprised of poor people of color, but the company is owned by six members of the Walton family, all of who are among the 85 wealthiest individuals in the world. Together, they control as much wealth as the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined. While Walmart workers must subsist on an average wage of $8.81 per hour — and farmworkers along the company’s supply chain earn even less — the Walton family earns over$1.5 million per hour. Instead of sharing the prosperity with its employees or addressing dangerous working conditions, the company chooses to spend much of its profits buying back its own stock. It’s no wonder workers across the Walmart empire have appealed directly to the company — and the family that controls it — to address egregious working conditions.
The examples of Walmart’s abuse of these workers are easy to find. Take the 2009 UFW campaign organizing workers picking grapes for Giumarra, a major produce label that contracts with Walmart. Recognizing that Walmart was ultimately responsible for the conditions facing the mostly Latino workforce, the organizers publicly called on the company to address rampant wage theft and other abuses in Giumarra’s fields.
Many other workers along Walmart’s supply chain have followed suit and called on the company to address working conditions. In 2012, Mexican guestworkers at a Walmart-contracted crawfish processing plant in Louisiana went on strike after being beaten and required to work 24-hour shifts. They were threatened with deportation if they spoke up and faced what the New York Times described as “forced labor on American shores.” Walmart attempted to cover up the abuse and falsely claimed they were “unable to substantiate” the workers’ allegations. But thanks to the workers — no doubt emboldened by César Chávez and the history of farmworker justice — the contractor was eventually found guilty for willful violations of labor law and fined by the Department of Labor.
The abuse doesn’t end there. A few months later, workers at a Walmart-contracted warehouse outside of Los Angeles took action to protest a lack of drinking water, extreme heat and other dangerous conditions. Following in the footsteps of the UFW, the workers staged a 50-mile “pilgrimage” from the warehouses to downtown Los Angeles. Members of the UFW even joined the march to call on Walmart to address safety in its warehouses.
Despite Chávez’s meaningful work securing core protections for farmworkers, today’s farmworkers still face unsafe working conditions, weak labor laws, and insufficient wages. Men and women who pick our produce earn an average of $10,000 to $12,000 per year and are twice as likely as other workers to live below the poverty line.
Of course, these low wages are what keep prices artificially low at Walmart — just as they kept the cost of grapes and other foods low in Chávez’s time. Even if the full cost of lifting wages were passed onto consumers, retail price increases would be negligible. In fact, one study suggestedthat raising farmworker wages above the poverty level would cost American households an average of just $38 per year. Another economist found that if Walmart increased its associates pay to $10.10 — which is the rate increase mandated by the Fair Minimum Wage Act under debate in Congress right now — the cost of products like a DVD would increase by a penny if the company passed labor costs directly to consumers. Even a senior editor at Forbes magazine wrote recently that Walmart can afford to give its low-wage workers a 50 percent raise, it just chooses not to. But these increases would be a small price to pay for a massive boost to the working poor, as well as our economy.
When César Chávez launched his first 25-day fast in 1968, he said, “Those who oppose our cause are rich and powerful, and they have many allies in high places. We are poor. Our allies are few. But we have something the rich do not own. We have our own bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons.”
Today, that spirit of César Chávez’s inspiring, creative civil disobedience lives on through the brave activism of Walmart associates and workers along its supply chain, including farmworkers, immigrant workers and their supporters who are challenging corporations and special interests. By walking off the job, organizing mass protests, fasting and speaking to the press, they are putting pressure on low-road corporations to change their exploitative practices.
There are critics who argue that Walmart cannot be challenged, just as there were similar cynics who dismissed the farmworkers’ fasts, boycotts and tenacity. By making the UFW’s cause everyone’s cause, Chávez’s fight ultimately led to significant advancements for farmworkers. Transforming labor practices for workers in Walmart stores and along the supply chain is no different. Walmart recognizes its power in the workplace and in the market. If more of us can harness the lessons of César Chávez, we’ll reclaim our power to change Walmart and reclaim our jobs, our communities and our economy.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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For nearly 25 years now, the idea that it might be possible to extract unlimited amounts of energy from the nucleus of a hydrogen atom at low temperatures has been pretty much in disrepute. When major laboratories were unable to detect nuclear reactions on their work benches back in 1989, the whole notion of what was then called “cold fusion” was debunked as junk science and for most remains so to this day. Fortunately however, a few scientists kept plugging away on just how one could get heat from the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. Now their efforts seem to be paying off. In recent months numerous respected scientists have been reporting at scientific gatherings that they are seeing increasing amounts of heat, which can only be coming from nuclear reactions, during experiments with hydrogen loaded into nickel and palladium under the proper conditions.
There have been so many of these reports by reliable and respected scientists that it has become absurd to claim that the phenomenon is fraudulent or that all these scientists are mistaken in their observations. Currently there are at least six different organizations around the world saying they have a commercially useful heat-producing device under development which they will be demonstrating soon.
To the comfort of skeptics, most of these organizations have been very circumspect in releasing details of their devices and the physics behind them. There are, of course several reasons for this reticence. Some may hope to keep their heat-producing secret as long as possible in hopes of making money from their discovery. More likely, however, is that while they have developed a way to produce heat, they really don’t understand the physics underlying their device.
This situation however seems to be changing following a lengthy interview with a fellow out in Berkeley, California by the name of Robert Godes of Brillouin Energy. He has been working in this field for the last ten years and says that he not only has a reliable heat-producing device, but also understands the physics behind it – which he calls the Quantum Fusion Hypothesis. He says that this theory of just how low-energy nuclear reactions work has allowed the development of a device which produces heat immediately and reliably. Most interestingly, Godes says he has shared his insights with scientists at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories and SRI International, one of the leading US laboratories investigating the phenomenon. He says that both have verified that his theory does indeed work and that they can now produce heat from hydrogen every time they try.
Godes’ hypothesis is interesting for those with even a smattering of physics in their background. First of all, he holds that the heat which is coming from infusing hydrogen into nickel or palladium is not coming from “cold fusion” in the classic sense of the term. It is not a deuterium fusing with deuterium reaction as takes place in the sun or H-bombs and which requires extremely high energies.
What seems to be happening in this new kind of fusion is that when hydrogen is “loaded” into nickel or palladium and subjected to the proper kind of an electromagnetic pulse, the hydrogen nucleus which is a positively charged proton acquires and electron which turns it into a low energy free neutron. Now a low energy free neutron is something very nice to have for it quickly combines with other protons to form deuterium, tritium and finally quadrium. The quadrium only lasts for an instant before undergoing a process called beta decay turning it into helium. This is where Einstein and E = MC2 comes in. The beta decay of quadrium results in a loss of mass which is turned into heat. If all this pans out as claimed, it could be one of the most important secrets of nature that has ever been discovered, for our energy problems are over.
This new hypothesis, it is not yet a theory, says that It would be possible to use water as the source of all energy that mankind could ever want with no bad or radioactive leftovers — only helium and heat. Note that Godes says that if the reaction is done properly, the nickel or palladium which are only used as a matrix to hold the hydrogen in one place, are not consumed in the reaction. For those who are skeptical, and I don’t blame you for this a lot to comprehend, I recommend Brillouin’s web site (www.brillouinenergy.com) where you will find some reasonably comprehensible explanations and videos as to just how all this supposedly works. For those conversant with Bose-Einstein condensates, the Molecular Hamiltonian, Heisenberg confinement energy, and the dense mathematics of nuclear physics there are papers there for you too.
So what happens now? There is so much misunderstanding and skepticism about this phenomenon during the last 20 years, it is likely that the mainstream media will not touch the story until some highly respected institution rolls out a machine that is too hot to touch, will run for months without any visible source of power, and will belch fire and brimstone on command.
Much to its credit, the first thing that Brillouin Energy says it is going to do with its new technology is to build a prototype boiler using its new heat source that would eventually replace the ones currently burning coal in our power stations. This is clearly a brilliant idea for swapping out old coal fired boilers for ones that run on a few cups of water would be a no-brainer for the world’s electricity industry – provided of course they can be made to work reliably.
Brillouin Energy says they have a contract with SRI International to design and build a prototype of what they call a “Hot Tube” boiler. If the concept works well Brillouin would license the technology to the world’s boiler makers who presumably would work overtime replacing every fossil fuel fired boiler on the face of the earth. And that is just the start.
Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Sweeping Industry News Bulletin
Coal Tar-Based Pavement Sealcoat, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), and Environmental Health
Several PAHs are suspected human carcinogens and are toxic to aquatic life.
USGS – March 23, 2011
Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have identified coal-tar-based sealcoat – the black, viscous liquid sprayed or painted on asphalt pavement such as parking lots – as a major source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in urban areas for large parts of the nation.
Key Findings from USGS Studies
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are a group of organic compounds composed of fused benzene rings. PAHs occur naturally in crude oil, coal, and tar, and are produced by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass (wood, grass, tobacco). They are widely distributed in the environment and are of concern because they are toxic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and several are probable human carcinogens.
Pavement sealcoat (also called sealant) is a black liquid that is sprayed or painted on asphalt parking lots and driveways. It is marketed as protecting and beautifying the asphalt pavement. Sealcoat is used commercially and by homeowners across the Nation. It is applied to residential driveways, playgrounds, and parking lots associated with commercial businesses, apartment and condominium complexes, churches, schools, and business parks. Most sealcoat products have a coal-tar-pitch or asphalt base. Coal-tar-based sealcoat is commonly used in the central, southern, and eastern U.S.; asphalt-based sealcoat is commonly used in the western U.S.
Coal-tar pitch can contain 50 percent or more PAHs by weight and is known to cause cancer in humans (International Agency for Research on Cancer, 1985). Coal-tar-based sealcoat products typically are 20 to 35 percent coal-tar pitch. Product analyses indicate that coal-tar-based sealcoat products contain about 1,000 times more PAHs than sealcoat products with an asphalt base.
To view information on this topic in its entirety on the USGS "Texas Water Science Center" website, click here. The site includes a link to the latest seal coat fax sheet. We also have the latter archived here on the WorldSweeper site.
For additional information contact:
If you have a question or comment about this information, please let us know. If appropriate, we'll add it to the bottom of this page.
© 2005 - 2019
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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PASSOVER SACRIFICE (Hebrew, "zebaḥ Pesaḥ"; lit. "sacrifice of exemption"):
The sacrifice which the Israelites offered at the command of God during the night before the Exodus from Egypt, and which they ate with special ceremonies according to divine direction. The blood of this sacrifice sprinkled on the door-posts of the Israelites was to be a sign to the angel of death, when passing through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptians that night, that he should pass by the houses of the Israelites (Ex. xii. 1-23). This is called in the Mishnah the "Egyptian Passover sacrifice" ("Pesaḥ Miẓrayim"; Pes. ix. 5). It was ordained, furthermore (Ex. xii. 24-27), that this observance should be repeated annually for all time. This so-called "Pesaḥ Dorot," the Passover of succeeding generations (Pes. l.c.), differs in many respects from the Pesaḥ Miẓrayim. In the pre-exilic period, however, Pesaḥ was rarely sacrificed in accordance with the legal prescriptions (comp. II Chron. xxxv. 18); but it was regularly offered during the time of the Second Temple, and there was a definite ritual for it, in addition to the regulations prescribed by the Law. The following is a brief summary of the principal ordinances and of the ritual accompanying the sacrifice:The Sacrifice.
The sacrificial animal, which was either a lamb or kid, was necessarily a male, one year old, and without blemish. Each family or society offered one victim together, which did not require the "semikah" (laying on of hands), although it was obligatory to determine who were to take part in the sacrifice that the killing might take place with the proper intentions. Only those who were circumcised and clean before the Law might participate; and they were forbidden to have leavened food in their possession during the act of killing the paschal lamb. The animal was slain on the eve of the Passover, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, after the Tamid sacrifice had been killed, i.e., at three o'clock, or, in case the eve of the Passover fell on Friday, at two. The killing took place in the court of the Temple, and might be performed by a layman, although the blood had to be caught by a priest, and rows of priests with gold or silver cups in their hands stood in line from the Temple court to the altar, where the blood was sprinkled. These cups were rounded on the bottom, so that they could not be set down; for in that case the blood might coagulate. The priest who caught the blood as it dropped from the victim then handed the cup to the priest next to him, receiving from him an empty one, and the full cup was passed along the line until it reached the last priest, who sprinkled its contents on the altar. The lamb was then hung upon special hooks or sticks and skinned; but if the eve of the Passover fell on a Sabbath, the skin was removed down to the breast only. The abdomen was then cut open, and the fatty portions intended for the altar were taken out, placed in a vessel, salted, and offered by the priest on the altar, while the remaining entrails likewise were taken out and cleansed.On Sabbath Eve.
Even if the eve of the Passover fell on a Sabbath, the paschal lamb was killed in the manner described above, the blood was sprinkled on the altar, the entrails removed and cleansed, and the fat offered on the altar; for these four ceremonies in the case of the paschal lamb, and these alone, were exempt from the prohibition against working on the Sabbath. This regulation, that the Sabbath yielded the precedence to the Passover, was not definitely determined until the time of Hillel, who established it as a law and was in return elevated to the dignity of nasi by the Bene Bathyra (Pes. 68a).The Three Groups of Laity.
The people taking part in the sacrifice were divided into three groups. The first of these filled the court of the Temple, so that the gates had to be closed, and while they were killing and offering their paschal lambs the Levites on the platform ("dukan") recited the "Hallel" (Ps. cxiii.-cxviii.), accompanied by instruments of brass. If the Levites finished their recitation before the priests had completed the sacrifice, they repeated the "Hallel," although it never happened that they had to repeat it twice. As soon as the first group had offered their sacrifice, the gates were opened to let them out, and their places were taken by the second and third groups successively. All three groups offered their sacrifice in the manner described, while the "Hallel" was recited; but the third group was so small that it had always finished before the Levites reached Ps. cxvi. It was called the "group of the lazy" because it came last. Even if the majority of the people were ritually uncleanon the eve of the Passover, the sacrifice was offered on the 14th of Nisan. Other sacrifices, on the contrary, called "ḥagigah," which were offered together with the paschal lamb, were omitted if the eve of the Passover fell on a Sabbath, or if the sacrifice was offered in a state of uncleanness, or if the number of participants was so small that they could not consume all the meat. When the sacrifice was completed and the victim was ready for roasting, each one present carried his lamb home, except when the eve of the Passover fell on a Sabbath, in which case it might not be taken away.The Home Ceremony.
The first group stationed itself on the mount of the Temple, the second group in the "ḥel," the space between the Temple wall and the Temple hall, while the third group remained in the Temple court, thus awaiting the evening, when they took their lambs home and roasted them on a spit of pomegranate-wood. No bones might be broken either during the cooking or during the eating. The lamb was set on the table at the evening banquet (see Seder), and was eaten by the assembled company after all had satisfied their appetites with the ḥagigah or other food. The sacrifice had to be consumed entirely that same evening, nothing being allowed to remain overnight. While eating it, the entire company of those who partook was obliged to remain together, and every participant had to take a piece of the lamb at least as large as an olive. Women and girls also might take part in the banquet and eat of the sacrifice. The following benediction was pronounced before eating the lamb: "Blessed be Thou, the Eternal, our God, the King of the world, who hast sanctified us by Thy commands, and hast ordained that we should eat the Passover." The "Hallel" was recited during the meal, and when the lamb had been eaten the meaning of the custom was explained, and the story of the Exodus was told (see Seder).
The paschal sacrifice belongs to the "shelamim," thus forming one of the sacrifices in which the meal is the principal part and indicates the community between God and man. It is really a house or family sacrifice, and each household is regarded as constituting a small community in itself, not only because the lamb is eaten at home, but also because every member of the family is obliged to partake of the meal, on pain of excommunication ("karet"), although each man must be circumcised and all must be ritually clean. The fact that the paschal lamb might be killed only at the central sanctuary of Jerusalem, on the other hand, implies that each household was but a member of the larger community; and this is indicated also by the national character of the sacrifice, which kept alive in the memory of the nation the preservation and liberation of the entire people.
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Picking Apart the Pipeline
Climate Justice Montreal Hosts Pipeline Panel at ConU
With universities investing in oil companies, pipeline expansion proposals passing and chemical spills no longer being considered newsworthy enough for local papers, someone had to say something.
All of the above issues were addressed on Jan. 18 as educators, researchers, activists and concerned citizens convened at Concordia to discuss the environmental impacts of Alberta’s oil industry and the dangers of using pipelines to move oil sands bitumen to markets.
Following a panel discussion, participants talked in small groups about different ways of taking action.
View From Chemical Valley
Welcome to “Chemical Valley”—otherwise know as Sarnia, ON, its surroundings and the Aamjiwnaang First Nation—where toxic spills are so frequent, they don’t even warrant local news coverage.
Vanessa Gray, a resident and member of Aamjiwnaang-Sarnia Against Pipelines, said that benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer, was spilled in the community last Friday—but you wouldn’t have heard about it from the media.
“The spills just happen again and again,” Gray said, specifying that they occur roughly four times a month. “What we live in has been referred to as a bubble—we are used to being afraid of whatever’s going to happen to us. I think that’s why the media chooses not to cover it.”
One pipeline passes right across the street from the community, and there are refineries and pumping stations as far as the eye can see.
“The animals have been heavily affected because the toxic water that flows through my community is the only way for them to hydrate,” Gray said.
“House pets that go off on their own and drink water have been high in cancer rates. There have been a lot of cancer deaths in small animals. We can only imagine how that affects animals that we could be enjoying like deer or fish.”
The community has also noticed significant health consequences in residents. Gray also says that birth rates and cancer rates have been affected by all of the industrial activity around the community.
“I grew up going to a lot of funerals. In my community, the average life expectancy for men is 55.”
When asked whether she has ever felt angry towards the people who work in the refineries and pumping stations surrounding her community, Gray said she never has.
“I’m sure that they’re willfully ignorant because that’s the way of life they were told to live,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that people who work for Shell are bad people—it doesn’t mean that [they are] deliberately hurting me and future generations, it just means that they need to make money in this world. We live in a capitalist system.”
Gray is now involved in environmental youth groups, hoping to raise awareness of the environmental issues in her community.
“I’m trying to get younger individuals to become more aware,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of much until my eyes were opened by grassroots organizers in Toronto who reached out to me and offered to take me to Alberta to see how the tar sands are affecting [those] communities.”
“We go to university to be trained in something [so that we can] go out and contribute to society. It’s just strange for a university to invest in things that destroy our future.”
—David Summerhays, Divest McGill Member
“This Is Dirty Money”
It is not uncommon for universities to invest in oil companies—a trend students across North America are trying to change.
An environmental organization headed by author Bill McKibben called 350.org is demanding that universities immediately stop investing in the oil industry and divest from oil companies over a five-year period.
Over 200 student groups across the continent have responded to 350.org’s call to action, by trying to get their universities on board with these demands—Divest McGill is one of them.
“It would send the message that this is dirty money,” said David Summerhays, a member of Divest McGill, a group pushing for the university to stop investing in companies involved in the oil sands and mineral extraction in northern Quebec.
“We go to university to be trained in something [so that we can] go out and contribute to society,” he said. “It’s just strange for a university to invest in things that destroy our future. It just makes universities less of a good investment for a student and for the society or government that subsidizes them.”
The financial consequences of divestment are difficult to predict, and some experts have said that divesting from the fossil fuel industry would mean lower returns for endowments.
Activists say, though, that it would have a greater impact on oil companies than on the balance sheets of universities.
“The thing about fossil fuels is that they’re so unstable,” said Summerhays, referencing the ups and downs of global oil prices.
“There are lots of great stocks out there,” he added, noting that many ethical investment funds and pension plans offer just as good returns on investment as regular funds that invest in the oil and mineral extraction industries.
Lily Schwarzbaum, another member of Divest McGill, recognizes that divestment probably won’t be a deathblow to oil sands development, but believes universities—as “moral beacons in society” whose actions carry a lot of weight—shouldn’t be involved in those types of investments.
“Putting pressure on those companies will hopefully provide incentive to create alternative sources of energy,” she said.
Tackling Line 9
The primary focus of the panel, though, was on Enbridge’s proposal to reverse the flow of its Line 9 pipeline between Sarnia, ON and Montreal.
On Nov. 29, 2012, pipeline company Enbridge Inc. filed an application with the National Energy Board seeking the reversal of the pipeline’s flow between North Westover, ON and Montreal.
The NEB has already approved the reversal of flow between Sarnia and North Westover.
By reversing the flow of the pipeline, Enbridge would be able to move oil sands bitumen from Alberta to eastern Canada. Proponents of the reversal say it would increase Canada’s energy security by reducing eastern provinces’ dependence on imported oil.
The environmental risk is too great, though, said Marilyne Tovar, an organizer at Climate Justice Montreal and a board member of the Quebec Network of Environmental Groups.
“The pipeline isn’t a new one,” she said of the 60-year-old Line 9. “These tar sands are more abrasive, more corrosive and more acidic [than other forms of oil], and they also move at a higher pressure, increasing the risk of spills—since the lines weren’t made for that.”
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Ch 5. 1.What are three things that need to be acquired to front-load for the ISO function?
1. NFPA 1021: standard on fire officer professional qualifications
2. Additional knowledge and skills
3. Certain attitude
Ch 5. 2.Discuss the concept of mastery and it's benefit to the ISO.
Mastery: 90/90 rule - 90% objective 90% of the time. Ability to perform with a certain unconscious competence. ISO needs to address important issues with a wealth of knowledge.
Ch 5. 3.How are efficiency and effectiveness different?
Effectiveness: doing the right things. Learning part.
Efficiency: doing things right - performance part.
Ch 5. 4.What is the essential difference between learning and performance.
Learning: is the aquisition of knowledge, skills
Performance: demonstration of aquired knowlege and skills
Ch 5. 5.Describe the relationship among knowledge, skill, and attitude.
Knowledge: bring knowledge into application without supervision. Recognize situations
Skills: intellectual tasks such as hazard reduction, and problem solving. Determine, predict, implement
Attitude: gain knowledge and skills to shape an attitude that supports the reduction of injury and death
Ch 5. 6.To check your attitude, what three questions can be asked of yourself?
1. What do I know about this?
2. How do I feel about it?
3. How should I handle it to show a concern for safety?
Ch 6. 1.What are the three ways loads are imposed on materials?
1. Axial load: on the beam
2. Eccentric load: middle of deck
3. Torsion load: sides of deck, take twisted torsion
Ch 6. 2.List three types of forces created when loads are imposed on materials.
1. Compression: push both sides on a beam
2. Tension: pulls on a structural member
3. Shear: load transferee to another structure member
Ch 6. 3.What is the definition of a beam?
A structural element that delivers loads perpendicularly to it's imposed load is called a beam.
Ch 6. 4.Explain the effects of fire on steel structural elements.
Cold drawn steel loses 55% at 800F
Extruded steel loses 50% at 1100F
At 1000F steel elongates 10 inches
Ch 6. 5.How does a masonry wall achieve strength?
Compressive strength using motar. No tensil or shear strength.
Ch 6. 6.List and define the five common types of building construction.
Type 1: Fire-Resistive, approved noncombustable, concrete encased steel, monolithic poured cement, steel spray on fire protection. Large multiple-story-hard to fight rely on no collapse.
Type 2: Noncombustible, less rating-steel not coated makes for collapse. Warehouses, small arenas, newer churches. Building do not burn but heat causes collapse.
Type 3: Ordinary, load bearing walls noncombustable masonry with wood floors, ceilings, structure members. Taxpayer, now strip malls. Spreaders-void spaces.
Type 4: Heavy Timber, masonary exterior walls with 8"" wood laminated beams for structure, floor, roof. Warehouses, older churches, manufactoring.
Type 5: Wood frame, new homes, small business, chain hotels built with wood.
Ch 6. 7.What is a hybrid building? List several types.
Combine 2 types of construction. Expect rapid collapse due to low mass high surface to mass exposure of structural elements.
Ch 6. 8.List in order, the five step analytical approach to predicting building collapse.
1. Classify the construction type
2. Determine structural involvement
3. Visualize and trace loads
4. Evaluate time
5. Predict and communicate collapse potential
Ch 6. 9.List several factors that accelerate the time that a structural element will fail under fire conditions.
1. Lighter structural elements
2. Heavier imposed load
3. No time window for construction
4. Brown dark smoke light weight times up
5. Gravity and time are constant, resistance is not
Ch 7. 1.What is smoke?
The products of incomplete combustion that includes an aggregate of solids, areosols, and fire gases that are toxic, flammable, and volatile.
Ch 7. 2.List common hostile fire events and their associated warning signs.
Flashover: turbulent smoke flow, rollover, autoignition outside.
Backdraft: yellowish gray smoke, bowing black stained windows, signs of extreme heat on outside.
Smoke explosion: smoke trapped above fire, signs of growing fire, pressurizing.
Rapid fire spread: increase in smoke spread, smoke flowing from hallways faster than firefighter can move.
Ch 7. 3.What are the four attributes of smoke?
1. Volume: sets stage for offgassing in a given space.
2. Velocity: speed, means pressure. Heat or smoke volume. Box cannot absorb any more heat-precussor to flashover.
3. Density: thickness, how much fuel laden in the smoke.
4. Color: distance to a fire, white new, black hot unburned.
Ch 7. 4.How do the four smoke attributes contribute to the understanding of fire behavior within a building?
Determine the location, stage, and spread potential of a fire.
Ch 7. 5. What is meant by the term "Black Fire?"
Describe smoke that is high volume, turbulent velocity, ultra dense, and deep black. Charring, heat damage to steel, content destruction, victim death. Over 1000F. No FF should be near it. Vent and Cool.
Ch 7. 6. Explain how influencing factors can affect smoke attributes.
Weather: temperature, humidity, wind change
Thermal Balance: sucking, puffing and breathing smoke into the building indicate rapid fire with increased air.
Container size: Light, thin smoke showing from more than one opening of a very large building is a significant observation.
Firefighting efforts:Color of smoke should change with efforts, if not you're not getting the job done. PPV - if smoke become blacker and thicker it is making conditions worse.
Ch 7. 7.List the three steps of the reading smoke process.
1. View the Volume: velocity, density, color of smoke - compare from where smoke is emitting, indicates fire size, location, spread potential.
2. Analyze the contributing factors: affect volume, velocity, density, color - should refine and or confirm your read.
3. Rate of change of each attribute: measured in seconds, you got a problem.
Ch 8. 1.Describe the difference between Dangerous and Risky.
From the community perspective we believe firefighting to be inherently dangereous. From the fire service perspective the risks of many specific dangers are well known.
Ch 8. 2. List the three influences on risk-taking values.
Community Expectations: the community sees firefighters risking their lives and expect similar response in their emergencies.
Fire Service Standards: NFPA 1500, 1561, 1521 - risk a life to save a known life, Perform in a predictable, practiced manner to save valued property, take no risk to save what's lost, default to defensive when conditions deteriorate quickly.
Department Values and Skills: The ISO should recognize when crews are attempting to perform a skill for which they have never prepared.
Ch 8. 3.List the risk management concepts out-lined in NFPA standards.
Risk a life to save a known life.
Perform in a predictable, practiced manner to save valued property.
Take no risk to save what's lost.
Default to defensive when conditions deteriorate quickly.
Ch 8. 5.What is meant by situational awareness?
The degree of accuracy by which one's perception of the current environment mirrors reality; applied to the ISO, situational awareness is the ability to accurately read potential risks and recognize factors that influence the incident outcome.
Ch 8. 6.Describe three methods to read risk at an incident.
1. Collect Information: read the building, read the smoke, read firefighter effectiveness
2: Analyze: define principel hazard, time, ahead or behind the power curve, what's to be gained
3: Judge Risk: within risk taking values? are we reducing risks?
Ch 9. 2.List four ways to categorize the status of hazardous energy.
1. Stable - not likely to change
2. Stable - may change
3. Unstable - may require attention
4. Unstable - requires immediate attention
Ch 9. 3.List common electrical equipment and its associated hazards.
Powerlines/Wires: arc danger, voltage?, may jump recoil
Pole-Mounted Transformers: hard to extinguish, drip oil
Pad-Mounted Transformers: energize surface, arc
Ground level Vaults: confined space, o2, explosive
Subterranean Vaults: water, ventilate,
Generators: heat, fuel, automatic start up
Batteries: stored energy, chemical, gas buildup
Disconnects/switches/meters: exposed terminals
Ch 9. 4. What is ground gradient?
Is electrical energy that has established a path to ground through the earth and is energizing it. A downed power line may be energizing the earth in a concentric ring of up to 30 feet depending on the voltage source.
Ch 9. 5.Why are UPS battery rooms hazardous?
The direct current (DC) can energize pooled water, battery acid, and battery rack hardware.
Ch 9. 6.List the chemical properties of common utility gases.
Propane: C3H8, vapor density 1.5, bp = -44F, ignition temp 871F, UEL 9.5, LEL 2.4
Natural Gas: CH4, vapor density .55, bp = -259F, ignition temp = 999F, UEL 14.0, LEL 5.3
Ch 9. 7.List the hazards associated with utility water and storm sewer systems.
Uncontrolled water flow can cause initial and secondary structure collapse. The ISO should investigae water flows on scene.
Ch 9. 8.Give examples of mechanical hazardous energy
Sudden release of mechanical systems caused by heat, trauna, or overloading. Pulleys, cables, counterweights, springs. Freestanding truss structures.
Ch 9. 9.What are some of the hazardous energy sources in vehicles?
Stability/position, Fuel systems, electrical systems, power generation systems, suspension/ door systems, drive brake systems, restraint safety systems
Ch 9. 10.What are the four considerations that need to be evaluated when considering weather as a hazardous energy.
Potential for Change/Storms
Ch 9. 11.List some warning signs that extreme weather is approaching.
Watch the sky, Note 180 degree changes in wind direction, potential for flash flood, thunderstorms can produce rapid change, lightning flashes to define cloud formations that may be tornadic, distance between you and lightning, deep snow
Ch 9. 12.List several sources of miscellaneous hazardous energy.
Earthen materials, ice, flowing water, animal movement
Ch 10. 1.List the three factors that lead to overexertion.
Ergonomics, physicology, and rehab efforts
Ch 10. 2.What are the three ergonomic factors that can produce injury?
The physical Environment
The Relationship of the Worker
Ch 10. 3.What are the three As to help mitigate ergonomic hazards.
Ch 10. 4.List the three factors that impact human cell performance.
Ch 10. 5.Discuss two types of thermal stress
Heat Stress: clothing reduces bodies ability to evaporate heat
Cold Stress: body's core temperature cannot be maintained
Ch 10. 6.List three examples of passive cooling and two methods of active cooling.
Hypothermia: Can range from mild to severe. Mild cases are marked by shivering and loss of coordination. Lethargy and coma can onset quickly
Frostbite: A serious local injury meaning that a body part is frozen
Frostnip: A local injury. Most people do not realize they have frostnip, it is, however, a presursor to frostbite
Ch 10. 7.At minimum, how much water should working firefighters drink at an incident?
One quart per hour during periods of work
Ch 10. 8.What four elements need to be balanced to help human cell performance?
oxygen, water, glucose, insulin
Ch 10. 9.When feeding firefighters, food should be geared toward what balance?
low glycemic carbs
Ch 10. 10.How often should firefighters eat when incident activities require significant effort over a long period of time?
Feed every two to three hours
Ch 1. 1.What is the difference between an ISO and an HSO?
The HSO is responsible for health and safety administration, whereas the ISO is focused on scene-specific operations.
Ch. 1. 2.Explain the history of today's safety officer in the industrial world as well as in the fire service.
World war 2 brought about safety officers, 1970 congress passed OSHA-both employees and employers responsible for safety. In 1987 NFPA1500 to 1521. In 2004 homeland security made NIMS the national response plan.
Ch 1. 3.List and discuss the NFPA standards related to the ISO.
NFPA 1500- basic premis to develop and administer an active health and safety program
NFPA 1521-addressed authority, qualifications, and responsibilities of the safety officer
Ch 1. 4.What is the significance of the William Steiger Act?
In 1970 congress passed this act making way for OSHA-occupational safety and health administration. Responsibility of safety to both employee and employer
Ch 1. 5.How are the monetary costs associated with firefighter injuries and deaths paid for?
Workers compensation programs determine their premiums based on past injuries and deaths.
Ch 1. 6.Discuss Current firefighter injury and death trends and the need for incident safety officer response.
Average 105 firefighter fatalities a year, 1/3 on scene. In 2003: 50,000 injuries on the fire ground - 130 a day. Need ISO to bring those stats down
Ch 2. 2.Explain the difference between the formal and informal processes.
Formal processes: are SOP or SOG, departmental directives, temporary memorandums
Informal processes: obviously part of a department routine but are not written
Ch 2. 3.Describe four qualities of a well-written procedure.
Good SOP start with good writting
Applicability to many scenarios
Specific on critical or life endangering points
Ch 2. 4.List and describe the external influences that can affect safety equipment design and purchase.
OSHA regulations outline the equipment required for a given process to be accomplished (CFRs). WA state has Department of Labor and Industries.
NFPA Standards minimum accetable standard for equipment.
NIOSH, ANSI, and UL manufactures use to show their equipment meets design requirement.
Ch 2. 5.List and briefly describe the three factors that influence a person's ability to act safely.
1. Training: clear objectives, proficiency levels, applies real world, id hazards, define acceptable risks, list of options, act as trained. Must include right subjects.
2. Health- fit, stress, overexertion.
3. Attitude- slow and emotional.
Ch 2. 6.Define risk management.
The process of minimizing the chance, degree, or probability of damage, loss, or injury.
Ch 2. 7.List and explain the five steps of classic risk management.
1. Identify hazards - ie smoke
2. Evaluate hazards- for frequency and severity
3. Priortize hazards- how severe
4. Control hazards- avoid, transfer, adaptation
5. Monitor hazards- decline injuries
Ch 3. 1.What has typically motivated the establishment of guiding publications?
The majority of the publications were written as a result of a tragic event; therefore the ISO can use them as a basis to prevent similar tragedies from occuring.
Ch 3. 2.How are OSHA and NIOSH different?
OSHA is tasked with creating and enforcement of workplace law under the CFR's. NIOSH is the safety research and education which can recommend adjustment to CFR's. NIOSH has no enforcement responsibilities.
Ch 3. 3.What is the significance of the US Dept of Homeland Security to the fire service?
DHS regulates the National Response Plan and made NIMS with FEMA grant money tied to NIMS compliance.
Ch 3. 4.Define regulations, codes, laws, and guides.
1. Regulations: detail and procedures that have the force of law-OSHA, CFRs, EPA.
2. Codes: work of law established by a rule-making authority. Uniform fire code.
3. Standards: set of rules, procedures, professional measurements. NFPA.
4. Laws: enforceable rules of conduct that help protect society. Statutory law, case law.
5. Guides: publications offer procedures, direcions, or standard of care. NIOSH.
Ch 3. 5.List the 11 topical areas in the NFPA 1500 chapter on emergency operations.
1. Incident manager
3. Risk management during operations
4. Personnel accountability
5. Members operating at emergency incidents
6. Control zones
7. Roadway incidents
8. Rapid intervention
10. Scenes of violence
11. Post incident analysis
Ch 3. 6.What are the seven topical areas listed in NFPA1521 for functions of an ISO.
2. General incident safety
3. Fire suppression
4. Emergency medical services ops
6. Special operations
7. Postincident responsibilities
Ch 3. 8.What responsibility does the ISO have in use of OSHA title 29 CFRs?
The ISO should have a site safety plans involving hazmat, confined space, trenches, hazardous energy.
Ch 4. 1.Explain the reasons that the ISO role should be preplanned.
The ISO is most effective when they arrive early at an incident (NIOSH recommendation):
1. Early help evaluate hazards during ultrarapid change.
2. First 15-20 min, lots of tasks are going on.
3. Risks are greater early in an incident.
Ch 4. 2.List four examples of when an automatic ISO response is beneficial.
1. Residential and commercial fires.
2. Wildland-Interface fires.
3. Special team incidents.
4. Target hazard incidents.
5. Aircraft incidents.
6. Weather extremes.
Ch 4. 3.List four examples of when automatic ISO delegation should take place.
1. Working incident
2. Growing span of control
3. Mutual aid incidents
4. Firefighter down/missing/trapped
Ch 4. 4.List three methods to get an ISO on-scene, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
1. Training officer: know dept and have equipment. Not available all the time, too many hats to wear.
2. Health and safety committee member: familiar with saftey issues, ISO training easy to accomplish. Extra costs for ot and equipment.
3. All eligible officers: the pool to draw from is large. You need to train a large group of officers. BC.
4. Dedicated ISO: trained and ready to respond. Need funding and support.
Ch 4. 5.Explain the authority given to the incident safety officer by NFPA standards.
NFPA 1521 gives the ISO the authority to stop, alter, or terminate activities if an imminent threat exists.
Ch 4. 6.List four tools that can help the ISO be effective on scene.
1. Radio: contact with IC, working crews.
2. High visibility: vest - safety officer
3. PPE: to walk scene
4. Clipboard file box: note taking.
An intervention to immediately stop, alter, or suspend an action or operation due to an imminent threat.
An activity, condition, or inaction that will most certainly lead to injury or death.
A trained overhead IMS team with specific expertise and organized to deploy to incidents for management functions that exceed those available at the local level
Incident Management Team (IMT)
The center responsible for the ongoing development and refinement of various NIMS activities and programs
NIMS integration center (NIC)
Wearing a highly visible safety vest
Setting a good example, self-discipline etc.
Soft intervention: let people know of dangerous situation on scene
Firm intervention: immediately stop operations to protect personnel
3 ISO Traps:
The Bunker Cop syndrome: spends too much time looking for missing, damaged, or inapproprate use of PPE...focusing on a
small part of the scene instead of big picture can be bad.
The CYA Mode: Citing rules and regulations in order to keep people out of danger or the ISO not held liable...instead of showing genuine concern for the personnel safety
The Worker: Pitching in to help crews do tasks and losing ability to stay mobile and observant to the scene
As a rule, how often should the ISO communicate with the IC at routine incidents?
Face to Face communication every 15 minutes
Proposed NIMS incident typing schem for incident management teams
Type 5; Local, agency, or jurisidiction specific
Type 4: Multiagency or jurisdictional(automatic/mutual aid)
Type 3: Regional
Type 2: State
Type 1: National
Define how the ISO organizational structure can expand for local-level incidents
The ISO can ask the IC to create an Assistant Safety Officer (ASO) position
Define how the ISO organizational structure can expand for large scale incidents
Instead of having 25 ASOs reporting to the safety officer, have one ASO take messages from the other ASOs and give the report the ISO.
A cyclic, four-arena model that allows the incident safety officer to mentally process the surveying and monitoring functions of typical incident activities and concerns
ISO Action Model
What two methods help the ISO achieve a systematic approach in addressing ISO duties?
List several advantages and disadvantages of using checklists
They provide a quick reminder of things that need to be done
When you are distracted, they help you get back on track
They lend themselves to uniformity (from person to person doing the same task).
Archiving is relatively simple
changing the checklist is relatively simple within the framework of a fire department
Most formats are easy to understand
There is no one right way to perform the functions of the ISO
checklist have a tendency to be either overly simple or amazingly complex
Once an item is checked off, the ISO may forget to revisit it
T cover a multitude of incident types, the ISO would have to carry a filing cabinet
Checklists imply an order for task completion, especially for the new or inexperienced ISO.
They may be subject to subpoena in legal matters.
What considerations should be considered in the design of a checklist?
Simple column format
Easy to read in low light
Room for notes and diagrams with space to accommodate grease pencils or water-resistant markers
Easy to differentiate from other similar checklists
A reminder area for required post-incident actions
Describe the four steps that help and ISO become integrated at an incident
Confirm the ISO assignment
Confirm communication links
Don appropriate identification and PPE
List the three ISO general duties that are applicable to all incident types
Monitor the incident
Address personnel safety systems
Define other needs
What four personal safety systems need to be evaluated by the ISO?
Personnel Accountability Systems
Need for control Zones
Areas that are exposed to trauma, debris, and/or thrust of a collapse; a more specific form of a no-entry zone
The are a presenting the greatest risk to members and often classified as an IDLH atmosphere
The hot zone
Areas in or around the building where working firefighters are exposed or may become exposed to smoke and heat
Areas where no person including firefighters, police, other responders, or the general public--should enter due to the serious or unpredictable nature of a hazard or condition
No Entry Zone
An organized reporting activity designed to account for all personnel working an incident.
PAR (personnel accountability report)
A classification given to the probability that a victim will survive the environment.
Areas where firefighters, other responders, IMS staff, and apparatus are operating or staged
A limited access area for members directly aiding or supporting operations in the hot zone.
What is the relevance of risk taking to incident benchmarks?
The ISO looks at the tactical priorities and determines if the risks being taken match the department's preestablished risk-taking criteria. "Risk a lot to save a lot"
What two factors can help in judging operational effectiveness at structure fires?
Fire flow being met
An effective PAR should include the communication of what four elements?
# of people in the assignment
p.223...can't find fourth element
What is the essential difference between an IDLH and no-entry zone?
In a no-entry zone nobody including
List four times when an ISO should request ASO assistance at structure fires.
Large buildings with significant fire involvement
When a "plans section" is established at the fire
Fires in buildings with unusual or unique hazards
Anytime the ISO is requested to go into an IDLH environment
What is meant by a zero rescue profile?
There is obvious death in the building or chance for someone to survive.
Some indicators are turbulent smoke, black fire, and superdense smoke.
List the three dimensions that need to be defined during environmental reconnaissance.
effects of the surrounding elements
What is a magnet task?
A task everyone wants to be involved in ...injuries may occur due to congestion
Why should on-scene time be projected by the ISO?
Projecting the on-scene time reminds the ISO of future circumstances like the darkness of night or an impending storm
what is the trap in labeling structure fires as residential or commercial?
It can set up the firefighter with mistaken expectations
List several unique hazards at strip mall structure fires.
High fire loads,
Common ceiling spaces
Long open-span trusses
List four ISO functions unique to high-rise fires.
The overall action plan
Control of building systems (HVAC, elevators, etc.)
Occupant evacuation or shelter in place considerations
Communication and feedback between ISO and ASOs
List six ASO functions unique to high-rise fires
The physical demands of the firefighters
Internal traffic control
Establishing no-entry zones around lost windows
Developing and delivery of safety briefings
a wildland fire term used to describe the sudden advancement and increase in fire intensity due to wind, prewarmed fuels, or topographic features, such as a narrow canyon or a chimney.
A sudden, short-lived rise in fire intensity, attributed to wind, fuel, or topographical changes.
List and describe five incident types that can be applied to wildland fires
Type-5: Local, agency, or jurisdiction specific
Type 4: Multiagency or jurisdiction
Type 3: Regional
Type 2: State
Type 1: National
Define blow-up and flaring
Blow-up: A wildland fire term used to describe the sudden advancement and increase in fire intensity due to win, prewarmed fuels, or a topographic feature such as a narrow canyon or chimney.
Flaring: A sudden rise in fire intensity that is short-lived
List the leading stresses requiring rehab at the wildland fire
Exposure to heat, smoke and physical exertion
List four situations that may require the appointment of an ASO at wildland fires
Fires that impact a widespread geographical area
When a plans sections is established
Fires that are active for more than four hours
Anytime a base camp is estabished
List the three most common principal hazards at a wiildland fire
Rapid fire spread
Describe the types of behaviors that would indicate rehab efforts are effective
The routine should still be energetic with all positive indicators.
Discuss a troubling issue that may arise when ground firefighter interface with aircraft.
Firefighters may get "slimed" by aircraft dropping fire retardant.
A person who meets or exceeds the NFPA 472 requirements for Hazardous Materials Technician and is trained in the responsibilities of the ISO position as it relates to hazmat response.
Assistant safety officer--hazmat (ASO-HM)
An area where decontamination takes place and includes a safe refuge area for contaminated victims and responders who have left (or who have rapidly escaped) the IDLH zone
Contamination reduction zone
List the federal regulations that may have an impact on ISO functions
29 CFR 1910.95, Occupational Noise Exposure Limits
29 CFR 1910.120, Hazardous Waste Operations & Emergency Response Solutions
29 CFR 1910.134, Respiratory Protection
29 CFR 1910.146, Permit-Required confined Spaces
29 CFR 1910.1030, Blood-Borne pathogens
29 CFR 1910.1200, Hazardous communication
With whom does the ASO-HM likely work at a typical hazmat tech-level incident?
hazmat branch director, hazmat group supervisor or any technical specialist or industry rep that the plans section chief or IC has assigned to assist.
Persons not trained for their hazmat incident assignments create two risks. What are they?
liability and risk communication
What is a contamination reduction zone and where is it located?
an area where decontamination take place and includes a safe refuge area for contaminated victims and responders who have left (or who have rapidly escaped) the IDLH zone
List the three hazmat rehab components that require close evaluation.
What are the ten federally required components of a hazmat response site safety plan?
--Safety, health, and hazard risk analysis, including entry objectives
--Site organization, including the training and qualifications of responders
--Identification of the exact type of PPE required for the tasks performed by responders
--Medical monitoring procedures
--Environmental monitoring and sampling procedures
--Site control measures, including exact control zone locations and gateway marking
--Predefined responder emergency plans (for fires, medical emergencies, and rapid intervention)
--Confined space entry procedures, including intervention and escape plans
--Spill containment procedures, including container-handling measures.
List five hazmat ancillary plans that may require ISO sign-off.
Incident Action Plan
Exposure protection plan
Mass-victim decontamination plan
Responder decontamination plan
Other site-specific plans
List five or more alarming hazards at a clandestine drug lab incident
Chemical reactions in progress
Unidentified chemical and /or containers
Booby traps (improvised firearms, incendiary/explosive devices, and other such devices)
List and describe the three strategic goals for the ISO at a WMD/terrorist incident.
Gather RECON and threat information
Develop a safety action plan
A person who meets or exceeds the NFPA 1670 requirements for Rescue Technician and is trained in the responsibilities of the ISO position as it relates to the specific rescue incident
Assistant safety officer--rescue tech (ASO-RT)
Collapse in which victims are easily accessible and trapped by surface debris. Loads are minimal and easily moved by rescuers. The threat of secondary collapse is minimal.
A collapse in which stressed concrete, reinforced concrete, and steel girders are impending access. Included are collapses that require the response of USAR teams and specialized equipment and collapses that threaten other structures or that involve the possibility of significant secondary collapse.
A collapse in which usually a light-frame (wood) partition collapses and common fire department equipment from engine and truck companies) can access or shore areas for search and extrication.
A collapse of ordinary construction that involves masonry materials and heavy wood. Lightweight construction with unstable large open spans should also be classified as moderate.
An organized system in which a working team is replaced with another working team that is already dialed in and ready to replace them.
Some object (like a large fire apparatus) that can absorb the impact of a secondary crash to protect rescuers.
Efforts to slow down approaching traffic: traffic cones, spotter or flaggers, arrow sticks, flashing lights, and warning signs
List several regulations that outline response requirements for tech-rescue incidents
29 CFR 1910.95, Occupational Noise Exposure Limits
29 CFR 1910.120, Hazardous Waste Operations & Emergency Response Solutions
29 CFR 1910.134, Respiratory protection
29 CFR 1910.146, Permit-Required Confined Spaces
29 CFR 1910.147, The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tag-Out)
29 CFR 1910.1030, Blood-Borne Pathogens
29 CFR 1910.1200, Hazard Communication
29 CFR 1910.1926, Excavations, Trenching Operations
when should an ASO-RT be assigned at a tech-rescue incident?
When the ISO does not have technician-level training and/or certification
List the two rehab issues that require special attention at tech-rescue incidents
What is the benefit of using an on-deck system for crew rotation?
An on-deck system is an organized system in which a working team is replaced with another working team that is already dialed in and ready to replace them.
A collapsed building make of cinder block walls and small timber beams should be classified as which type of collapse?
List five hazards associated with industrial entrapments
Unsecured hazardous energy
Interfaced and /or automated systems
Security system impediment
What is LCES and how can it be used at a cave-in?
Lookouts: ASOs, soil engineers, and briefed support personnel can serve as lookouts
Communications: Visual and voice communications are often a viable communications tool.
Escape Routes: Escape ladders and boarded footpaths should be used to create reliable escape routes.
Safe zones: Developing suitable safe zones can prove challenging. A separate shore or refuse area may need to be erected prior to victim extrication efforts
List six hazards associated with water rescues
Submerged entrapment hazards
Reduced visibility (Murky water and water/salt spray)
Fragile and/or shifting ice
Distance to solid ground
Crushing wave forces and undertows or riptides
List five hazards associated with high angle rescues
Limited escape routes
Limited anchor options
Heights beyond equipment capabilities
Use of helicopters
Name five circumstances in which a duty ISO should implement a discretionary response to motor vehicle accidents.
Multiple vehicles involved
Long response time
Involvement of hazardous energy
Involvement of buses, hazmat, high-angle, and the like
What is the difference between traffic barriers and traffic-calming strategies
A traffic barrier is an object meant to stop and absorb the impact from an outside force
Traffic calming is meant to slow traffic.
Diagram a strategic approach to protect rescuers at roadway incidents
Establish a system of traffic barriers, traffic-calming strategies, work areas, and escape zones.
A subway derailment below ground is similar to what kind of incident?
What do jet fuel, burnt plastics, and composite metals have in common at an aircraft incident?
A statistics-based concept that, for every one serious injury, there are thirty minor injuries, and over six hundred near misses or close calls.
A legal phrase for the effort to act in a reasonable or prudent way, given circumstances, with due regard to laws
Formal and/or informal reflective discussions that fire departments use to summarize the successes and improvement areas discovered from an incident
What is meant by post-incident thought patterns?
Reflective or introspective mental wanderings that firefighters experience just after incident control
Compare and contrast the role of the ISO in informal and formal postincident analysis
The ISO and IC may use an informal "how it went" PIA for routine incident where no significant operational issues were raised.
The ISO and IC should prepare a formal PIA for significant incidents where operational issues were raised.
What are the six items that the ISO should comment on during a PIA?
General Risk Profile of the incident
Effectiveness of crew tracking and accountability
Personal Protective Equipment use
Explain the role of the ISO in accident investigation according to NFPA standards.
The incident safety officer shall initiate the accident investigation procedures as required by the fire department
In the event of a serious injury, fatality, or other potentially harmful occurrence, the incident safety officer shall request assistance from the health and safety officer.
give examples of human factors in the accident chain.
The components of human (or social) behavior--training, the use of/or failure to use recognized practices and procedures, fatigue, fitness, and attitudes
What are the three steps of accident investigation?
Analysis and Reconstruction
What are the six pieces of information that should be collected for an accident investigation?
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Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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The Hypogeum of the Volumnis is located five kilometers outside the city of Perugia among a site of Etruscan tombs known as the Necropolis of Palazzone. A 19th century vestibule exists above ground, enclosing and protecting the archeological site of this ancient Etruscan tomb. The vestibule itself contains a multitude of small funerary urns excavated from the surrounding necropolis that are terraced around the entrance to the hypoguem. From the vestibule, a steep staircase leads 5.3m (17ft) underground over 30 steps. A travertine doorway is at the bottom of this staircase which contains an inscription dedicating the chamber to the Velimna family (translated to Volumnius in Roman). Across the threshold is a large rectangular central chamber surrounded by nine smaller, funerary chambers in a somewhat anthropomorphic plan. The layout of this plan reflects the typology of a typical ancient Etruscan house; the central chamber is analogous to an atrium of the house, and is bordered by lateral chambers on its eastern and western sides; a chamber analogous to a tablinum is located at the far end of the central chamber along a main axis.
Due to the eventual domination by the Romans of their neighbors, little is left in the realm of material culture of the early Italic peoples. We know the most about the Etruscans, whose culture is believed to have begun around 700 BCE. The Etruscans are known primarily through their underground tombs and the funerary artifacts found within. The Hypogeum of the Volumnis is an ancient Etruscan tomb of the Velimna (in Etruscan, Volumnis in Latin) family. It is a prime example of a late Etruscan tomb, showcasing a Greek style in its decorated tympanum in the central chamber. Internments were made from about 300 to 100 BCE, a time when Etruscan elites were being challenged by the growing dominance of the Romans. The Hypogeum of the Volumnis was probably closed during the first century BCE as Roman customs came to replace those of the Etruscans. Uncovered by accident in 1840 and more fully excavated in the 1960s, the Hypogeum of the Volumnis is the largest and most completely intact of the almost two hundred known tomb sites at the Necropolis of Palazzone.
In October 2004, Guido Galvani and Nicola Zaltron, from the Research Center for the Development of Integrated Automatic Procedures for Restoration of Monuments (DIAPReM) of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ferrara, conducted a high definition 3D laser scan survey of the Etruscan tomb known as the Hypogeum of the Volumnis (Ipogeo dei Volumni) together with Daniel Blersch, at that time from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence and currently working at DIAPReM. The 3D laser scan survey, with a Leica/Cyrax HDS 3000 and integrated topographic survey, were executed in only 14 hours to avoid interfering with visitor access. The survey was executed in 23 high definition scans, registered within the topographic survey to create a master data set. The result of this complete data set was a 3D Point Cloud Model containing 10,732,163 points with an average error of 3mm.
Since its discovery in 1840 by the local landowner, Conte Baglioni, the tomb's entrance has been protected by a small vestibule. The landowner used it to house the artifacts uncovered in the course of his informal excavations. Several restorations have been executed, but the sandstone surfaces' preservation is compromised by mechanical vibrations due to a railway track and a pole of a highway bridge, both adjacent to the site.
The chamber in the privileged position, opposite the stair along the axis of the central chamber, is analogous to the tablinum, or master's study, of a traditional Etruscan house where family records and deities resided. The tablinum has a coffered ceiling similar to the eastern ala. This chamber contains seven travertine cinerary urns, some covered with stucco, as well as sculptures in sandstone, terracotta, and marble. These sculptures depict not only the individuals interred in the tomb, but also mythological beasts such as Gorgons and serpents, which represent the demons in Etruscan belief systems.
In the center stands the highly decorated crypt of Arnth Velimna, who is commemorated in the inscription on the doorpost of the entrance as one of the tomb’s founders. At the base are two statues of Furies, underworld creatures from Etruscan myth. While most of these Velimna family effigies date from the pre-Roman period, one has an inscription in Latin and is thought to be from the early years under Roman rule, when local mortuary traditions were still being observed.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR. Russian initials CCCP) or Soviet Union, was a nation between 1917 and 1991, with which Indiana Jones was involved several times in his life. With a strong Communist government, it was made up of 15 Soviet republics, made out of much of the same territory as the Russian Empire that it had replaced, covering much of eastern Europe and northern and central Asia.
Indiana Jones witnessed the birth of the new nation while working for the French Secret Service in Petrograd during the Russian Revolution; this conflict ended the rule of the Romanov dynasty over Russia, and replaced it with a communist government led by Vladimir Lenin, who was eventually replaced by Joseph Stalin.
From its birth onwards, the communist (Bolshevik) revolution was unwelcome to the western powers, who regarded the existence of a socialist state as a threat to the social order within their own territory. Great Britain, and France in particular perpetrated a number of military aggressions against the new socialist state throughout the civil war which opposed the newly formed government and other factions from 1917 to 1921. When the Red faction had won the civil war, western powers remained diplomatically aggressive to the new Soviet state. The Soviet Union remained a somewhat insular power during its early years, more concerned with consolidating the new system of government at home than with events abroad.
In 1936, Jones and Marcus Brody traveled to northern Siberia, racing against Nazi agent Friedrich von Hassell to find the Tomb of the Gods. It is not known whether Soviet authorities were aware of either the American or German archaeological teams present on the cold coastal areas along the Arctic Ocean.
The rise of Nazi Germany and their threat of invasion led the Soviet government to take diplomatic action to ensure peace. However, no European power agreed to sign any treaty of mutual support in the event of a new World War led by Adolf Hitler breaking out. In May 1939, Nazi agents beat Indiana Jones in obtaining one of the last copies of the Hermocrates from a Leningrad museum, and the Soviet police didn't react as Stalin had a policy to ignore Nazi actions. Eventually Stalin signed a treaty of non-aggression with Hitler in 24 August 1939.
After the start of World War II, Hitler later broke that treaty in June 1941 by invading the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union allied with United Kingdom and United States to put an end to the Axis aggression. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was repulsed, Soviet forces on the eastern European front, combined with Allied forces coming from France, managed to take over Germany and force its surrender. With American atomic bombs and the threat of a Soviet invasion, Japan surrendered in September 1945.
Immediately after the war, the Soviet Artifacts Evaluation Commission, hired Jones to help recover artifacts found in Soviet-occupied Berlin. Jones ended up arrested by Nadia Kirov, but the two later worked together to stop a plan by Matthias Jäger to resurrect Nazi soldiers with the Philosopher's Stone.
The end of the war left the Nazis defeated, and the world became divided by alliances to the two superpowers: the Soviet Union and the United States. The clash of ideologies became known as the Cold War, where the two powers tried to gain an advantage through technological and military development and seeking new states to add to its set of allies. The Soviet bloc included many countries in eastern Europe, and later on, Cuba. During the Cold War, Indiana Jones and George McHale, while members of the OSS and MI6, were sent on several missions to spy on them before retiring from the intelligence business.
Meanwhile, Stalin, always looking for new ways to increase Soviet power, put his protege Irina Spalko in charge of KGB psychic research programs, in the hopes of developing a new form of weapon to use against the West. It was as part of this program that Spalko enlisted Dr. Jones and Dr. Harold Oxley's help in locating the lost Crystal Skull of Akator in 1957, which she believed was the key to the new Soviet weapon. However, she was killed by the skull and the weapon was never developed.
The Soviet Union finally dissolved in 1991, following the liberal reforms of Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and was replaced by a number of smaller nations, the most powerful of which was the Russian Federation.
Locations within the Soviet UnionEdit
Groups and Organizations of the Soviet UnionEdit
- Antonin Dovchenko
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Nadia Kirov
- Vladimir Lenin
- Vladimir Radichenko
- Irina Spalko
- Joseph Stalin
- Gennadi Volodnikov
- Young Indiana Jones and the Princess of Peril (Historical Note)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novel
- Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
- Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods
- Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix game (Cancelled)
- Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix
- The World of Indiana Jones
- Indiana Jones and the Lands of Adventure
- Unquiet Voices - Russian Writers and the State (Non-fiction source)
- The Russian Revolution - All Power to the Soviets! (Non-fiction source)
- War and Revolution (Non-fiction source)
- Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
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Strong reasoning
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History
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Pumping more energy into a beam of diagnostic ultrasound could produce a better image – and therefore a better diagnosis – but studies at the University of Illinois suggest the risk of ultrasound-induced lung damage is greater than many scientists previously believed.
While there has been no evidence that clinical use of ultrasound has had any adverse effects in humans, safety concerns were raised recently when scientists discovered that diagnostic treatment levels could produce acute lung hemorrhages in laboratory animals.
“The big question is whether human lungs can be damaged by diagnostic ultrasound, and if so, under what exposure conditions,” said William O’Brien Jr., a UI professor of electrical and computer engineering and the director of the Bioacoustics Research Laboratory at the university’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
In experiments performed on mice, rats, rabbits and pigs, O’Brien and colleagues at the UI found similar patches of lung damage, independent of animal size or species. “What’s common in all of these animals is the thickness of the air-blood barrier near the surface of the lung,” said James F. Zachary, a UI professor of veterinary pathology and interim department head of veterinary pathobiology. “This barrier is of similar thickness in humans, also – so people may be just as susceptible to this type of lung damage.” The air-blood barrier – the membrane through which oxygen diffuses in the lung – is very thin, and may be the principal target for ultrasound-induced lung damage.
“The cause of the damage appears to be mechanical in nature,” O’Brien said. “A sound wave has momentum and imparts a force. A beam of sound focused at an air-water interface, for example, can shoot water into the air – like the cold steam produced by ultrasonic humidifiers. We think the sound waves push against the lung tissue hard enough to create small rips, which cause bleeding.”
Acoustic forces, acting on the air-blood barrier, “could initiate a lesion that could grow through alveolar hemorrhage and propagate into deeper lung tissue,” Zachary said. “The lesion would stop growing only when the hemorrhage becomes large enough to effectively dissipate the acoustic energy.” In their work, the researchers found that lung damage appears to be dependent upon ultrasound beamwidth, pulse duration and exposure duration. In an age-dependent study performed on pigs, the researchers also found that older animals were most sensitive to lung damage.
“One possible explanation is that the lung membrane becomes less pliable with age, and rips more easily when exposed to sound waves,” O’Brien said. The researchers will present their latest findings at the 17th International Congress on Acoustics, to be held in Rome Sept. 2-7.
The National Institutes of Health funded their work.
The above story is based on materials provided by University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Cite This Page:
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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- Historic Sites
Death Of A Dirigible
“Come and see the boiling cloud, ” said a woman on the ground; aloft, the slender Shenandoah headed straight into the eye of the vicious squall
February 1959 | Volume 10, Issue 2
The keel, a triangular tunnel running along inside the Shenandoah ’s bottom and tapering at bow and tail, was the heart of the ship. Bisecting its base was a narrow catwalk, the other two sides of the triangle being bounded by the gas cells. These bags, pressing against restraining networks of wire and twine, were usually filled to about 85 per cent capacity at the start of a long trip. As the ship rose, the gas expanded and the bags became swollen; 4,000 feet was the critical “pressure height”—at that altitude the bags would be 100 per cent full.
Every five meters along the keel was a triangular frame of latticed girders which bound together the circular outer ribs. Each of these frames was marked with phosphorescent numbers so the men would always know where they were in the dark interior. The numbering started at the base of the ship’s rudders, the first girder being called Frame o, the one farthest forward being numbered 194.75—meaning that it was 194.75 meters (about 640 feet) from the rudders. The crew space, a plywood deck twelve feet square that served as the enlisted men’s lounge and dining room, ran from Frames 100 to 105. Farther forward were the officers’ quarters. The control car was suspended on metal struts twenty feet below Frame 160.
At midnight, as the Shenandoah ’s five engines propelled her westward, the sky was partially overcast. But the air was not rough. The night was warm, and the men off duty slept without blankets. Forward in the control car, the midnight weather observations had just been handed to the ship’s aerologist, Lieutenant Joseph B. Anderson.
Anderson, a studious young man, remained in the control car through most of the flight, and he was to remember vividly all that happened there during the eventful hours that lay ahead. Now he began to draw up his usual midnight weather report, and a few minutes later, getting up from his little desk, he handed it to the skipper. Lansdowne studied it for a few minutes, then nodded. Things weren’t as bad as they could be.
He started for the ladder. “Don’t call me,” he said wearily, “unless something unusual comes up.” The first day, with the complications of take-off, was always the hardest. He climbed up the ladder and was soon in his bunk.
But Lansdowne got little sleep. At 3 A.M. a storm began to brew in the northwest, and a few minutes later he was back in the control car. The Shenandoah was making little progress against a strong head wind. Lansdowne ordered the man at the elevator controls to bring the ship down to 2,000 feet, in an effort to find a hole in the wall of wind. It was useless.
For an hour and a half the slender airship struggled westward, drifting first to port, then to starboard. At a few minutes after 5 A.M. , E. P. Alien, the elevatorman, turned to Lansdowne. “Captain,” he said, a slight undertone of nervousness in his voice, “the ship has started to rise.”
“Check her,” said Lansdowne.
Allen turned the big elevator wheel clockwise to drive the ship down. It was obvious that the Shenandoah was not responding to the controls. Sweat covered Alien’s forehead. “She’s rising two meters per second. I can’t check her, sir.”
Lansdowne ordered engines 4 and 5 speeded up. But despite the increased power, the ship continued to rise.
“I can’t hold her down,” said Alien. There was a note of panic in his voice now. He started to pull the wheel even farther over.
Lansdowne stopped him. “Don’t exceed that angle,” he said in a calm, confident voice that reassured everyone in the cabin. “We don’t want to go into a stall.” He ordered Rudderman Ralph Joffray to change his course to the south.
Joffray tugged his wheel counterclockwise. He had to put his whole body into the effort. “Hard over, sir,” he grunted, “and she won’t take it.”
“I’ve got the flippers down and she won’t check,” said Alien, his voice rising again.
“Don’t worry,” said Lansdowne, as if there were nothing to fear.
In spite of rudders, elevators, and motors, the ship continued to shoot up, tail elevated about fifteen degrees, and to head relentlessly westward, directly into the storm. The dirigible was rolling now like a raft in the sea.
|
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CC-MAIN-2014-15
|
http://www.americanheritage.com/content/death-dirigible?page=2&nid=51139
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Moderate reasoning
|
Literature
|
How to introduce Final Cut Pro X to children in less than an hour
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
On Sunday I was lucky enough to catch the live stream of episode 47 of the Tech Educator podcast.
The Tech Educator Podcast supports teachers who want to use and teach technology in schools.
Sunday's show was their first on Final Cut Pro X. The main guest was Jon Corippo - an Apple Distinguished Educator who has devised a lesson plan that he uses to introduce Final Cut Pro X to a classroom of children in less than an hour.
He's summarised the lesson in a 30 slide presentation that he's made available for anyone to use to teach students of any age:
Although you can download the presentation and brief notes from its page on Slideshare I also suggest you watch and listen Jon's quick runthrough as part of the Tech Educator podcast:
He starts soon after 17 minutes and 25 seconds.
After his presentation runthough Jon switches to Final Cut Pro X and demonstrates elements of the lesson in the app itself and then goes on to introduce more features, sometimes in response to presenter and listener questions.
The interesting thing about Jon's lesson is that he teaches fun features as quickly as possible. He doesn't come up with a complex scenario about the film his students are about to make. He shows how to import footage, create a new project, add edits to a clip, add effects, transitions and titles, and then export the result. Enough to get students to the stage where they can find much of the rest of the tools they need to edit - because they want to know more.
Although this lesson method could be used to teach iMovie, why not teach the more powerful application? Although it is more expensive, Apple offers deals for multiple copies of Final Cut, and the software licence allows for each copy to be installed on five machines.
When teacher friends who have taught editing and film making using Final Cut Pro 7 ask me which application they should teach now, I suggest that Adobe Premiere Pro is used on many setups in the real world of production, but Final Cut Pro X is a better tool to learn how to edit. For educators it is hard to seperate the teaching of the skill from the teaching of the tool - the difference between creative writing and computer-based word processing.
For more Final Cut Pro X and other technology education tips, take a look at Jeffrey Bradbury's TeacherCast videos on YouTube.
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Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
|
Ticks are a common pest well known for carrying disease. One of the most common diseases ticks carry is Lyme disease. The key to protecting your family and pets from ticks is to have a professional tick control service, which Family Pest Solutions can help with.
Family Pest Solutions uses a Natural Botanical product (25-B – low risk). The active ingredient in our product is cedar-wood oil – it offers some of the best pest control against ticks that you can find, while being low risk.
THE LIFE CYCLE OF A TICK
Ticks have several different life phases, namely four. These are called:
- Larva (Six-Legged)
- Nymph (Eight-Legged)
We will go ahead and break down each life stage for you, that way you can better understand the behavior of ticks and how they can be dangerous for your home.
Adult ticks will lay eggs that then hatch into larvae. The larvae will need a place to live and nourish its new body, so it will find a host to latch onto and feed off of the host’s blood. These first hosts are usually smaller creatures, commonly rodents.
After the larva leeches off of the first host, it falls off the host and molts into the nymph phase. After successfully molting, the nymph will find a second host, which can still be a small animal, but also includes larger ones, such as humans. The nymph will feed off of this host until it once more removes itself from the host to find another one and begin the adult life phase.
Once ticks reach adulthood, they begin to reproduce. Female ticks can lay up to three thousand eggs, and the average tick life cycle is 3 years.
WHAT DOES A TICK LOOK LIKE?
Ticks are very small, and sometimes hard to spot; however, they are easy to identify once discovered.
Ticks are oval shaped when they have not fed, but after feeding they “inflate” and have a thick round body. Ticks are around 2-6 millimeters long when fully matured into an adult. They can be up to 10 millimeters long once they have fed completely. They can have 6-8 legs, depending on which stage of their life cycle they are in.
SIGNS OF A TICK INFESTATION IN AN ALBANY HOME
If you live in Albany, NY, or the greater Capital District area, and are wondering if you have a tick infestation on your hands, the good news is that it can be easy to find out if you do.
Knowing if you have a tick infestation boils down to whether or not you have several ticks on your body or any of your family members or pets’ bodies. Check warmer areas of your body to see if there are any ticks using you as a host. Some common areas you may find ticks are:
If you find any ticks whatsoever, then you should make sure to give Family Pest Solutions a call. We can help perform an inspection to determine if you have an infestation in your home and offer pest control solutions that will eradicate these nuisances.
Being proactive about preventing ticks from infesting your home is the best way to keep from having an ongoing tick problem.
Here are some prevention tips to keep ticks out of your home:
- Check yourself, pets, or children before entering your home after an outdoor adventure.
- If you’re planning to be outdoors, wear long socks and tuck your pants into them. Also make sure you wear shirts with long sleeves.
- Use an insect repellant that is proven to repel ticks
- Keep grass mowed near your home and keep weeds away from your building.
- Call Family Pest Solutions for other prevention tips and tricks!
HOW CAN FAMILY PEST SOLUTIONS HELP ME?
Family Pest Solutions offers a three-step pest control service that can help you eliminate and prevent ticks from invading your home. We begin by inspecting the property, identifying where ticks can thrive, and then customizing a solution with recommendations. We also treat vegetation close to your home and place a barrier around the perimeter of your yard.
We also use a Natural Botanical product (25-B – low risk). The active ingredient in our product is cedar-wood oil – it offers some of the best pest control against ticks that you can find, while being low risk.
Call us today or use the free inspection form on our website to start getting rid of ticks! We service the greater Capital District area, including Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and Clifton Park, New York.
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Basic reasoning
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Health
|
Real people are never still. Gesture and movement are part of our language. They usually complement what’s being said, but they can also tell us things the speaker didn’t mean for us to know. Our experience of people guides our interpretation. Because readers come equipped to understand body language, writers can use it to show rather than tell. We don’t want to clutter the page with insignificant movements that readers will simply tune out (see Resisting Your Own Autosuggest), but well-chosen gestures and movements present opportunities for writers:
1. Enriching Character. Distinctive, authentic gestures convey personality. We recognize people by the way they do things. In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, when Boris pulls his chin back or pinches his nostrils shut, we feel that we know him. Only he would blow his nose sloppily, inspect the contents of the Kleenex and wince (p. 564). Body language can also open up depth, especially in characters reluctant to reveal themselves. When Boris leaves Theo behind in that scene – “his gait loosening and lightening as soon as he thought he was out of my view” (p. 565) – we immediately grasp that Boris has been hiding something from Theo and realize how tenuous their bond has become.
2. Invoking Sympathy. Small movements can be a subterranean way of engendering sympathy for characters who evoke a mixed response. An example here could be an embittered woman speaking hard truths to a child, but having that woman’s hands open for a moment, then close as if with regret. Imagined actions can be even more subtle – those considered and not taken – as contemplated within a close point of view. In Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (p. 180): “She would like to rest a hand on Marlene’s head, but this is not the kind of thing Olive is especially able to do. So she goes and stands near the chair Marlene sits on, gazing out that side window there, looking down at the shoreline….” Olive’s urge to touch Marlene makes her sympathetic, but her inability to do so is heartbreaking.
3. Creating Layers. Gestures and staging can contrast with narration and dialogue to set up an unreliable narrator, in books such as Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins. They act as our clues. Contrasts like these can also be mined for irony and humor or built up to increase the tension. Jennifer Egan does both in A Visit from the Goon Squad (pp. 180-183) when, in contrast to the typical back and forth of an entertainment interview, the reporter keeps taking little inappropriate actions such as staring at the movie star’s legs. Finally, he experiences an urge to push her back on the grass and then does, which launches a scene of full-blown action, while retaining the tone of dark absurdist comedy.
4. Marking Transitions. Movement can be of great practical use to a writer. For instance, small actions can be used in place of attributions like “said.” Movement draws the reader’s attention; we assume whoever moves is the one who speaks. Similarly, gestures can help us to transition between current time and memory or between dialogue and thought. Not only does movement draw the eye, a gesture can carry a sense of intimacy that invites us deeper. In Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (p. 330), we move seamlessly from outside to inside the character of Jaslyn: “She rubs her hands together, nervously. Why, still, this small feeling of tightness at her core?”
5. Inspiring Discoveries. Gestures are easy for writers to improvise – to try on, if you will. They may open up paths we didn’t know we were on. They encourage us to surprise ourselves by making our scenes more real and vivid and may lead us to unexpected discoveries. All of us – writers as well as readers – interpret body language without consciously meaning to. Remember always to picture how your characters would move as they speak and listen and think, and you may find yourself learning something important and new about them.
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CC-MAIN-2019-13
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https://www.ellentmcknight.com/tag/insight/page/3/
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| 0.955476 | 892 | 2.609375 | 3 | 2.788238 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Literature
|
As the world grows increasingly concerned by terror threats, with the finger often pointing in the direction of Muslims, it is worth noting that one of Britain’s most respected statesmen - Winston Churchill - was so interested in Islam that his family thought he might convert.
In 1907 his future sister-in-law Lady Gwendoline Bertie wrote to him in a passionately worded letter: “Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalize [fascination with the Orient and Islam], Pasha-like tendencies, I really have.”
Lady Gwendoline, who later married Churchill’s brother Jack, said: “If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it.”
The letter, written in 1907, from Lady Gwendoline was found by Cambridge University history fellow Dr. Warren Dockter while researching a book about Churchill.
Docktor told British newspaper The Independent, that while Churchill was progressive for his time - he saw Muslims as equals to Christians – he “never seriously considered converting."
He added “He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway. He did however have a fascination with Islamic culture which was common among Victorians.”
While he held the Muslim faith in high regard, he was later also seen by the Jewish world as a Zionist hero.
The Jewish population welcomed his support - early in his career when he served as Colonial Secretary - for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Publically Churchill was well known for his drawing up of boundaries across the Middle East, creating oil companies and dealing with uprisings - not least in 1920 in Iraq - historically the region do not look upon him favorably.
And in Churchill's 1899 book ‘The River War', about Britain's 19th Century war in Sudan, he included a passage condemning Islam that says: “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."
He was not a hardliner – originally a member of the British Conservative Party, he switched to the center-left Liberals in 1904.
And despite his role in the Colonial department Dockter said: “He often came to loggerheads on imperial policies with hardline imperialists such as Frederick Lugard, the High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria. Churchill was opposed to Lugard’s punitive expeditions against Islamic tribes in northern Nigeria.”
Later in life he and his close friend Wilfrid S. Blunt - a poet and supporter of Muslim causes - were so interested in the Muslim world that the pair took to dressing in Arab clothes.
Later on in his career in 1940, when Britain was at war with Nazi Germany, Churchill approved plans for a central London mosque in Regent’s Park and earmarked $152k for the project.
Although publicly criticized for the project, he hoped it would help build Muslim support for Britain.
Dockter wrote of Churchill’s views of Islamic people and culture that they were “an often paradoxical and complex combination of imperialist perceptions composed of typical orientalist ideals fused with the respect, understanding and magnanimity he had gained from his experiences in his early military career, creating a perspective that was uniquely Churchillian.”SHOW MORE
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en
| 0.981599 | 721 | 2.796875 | 3 | 2.973693 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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History
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What is energy efficiency?
By definition, energy efficiency is the ratio between the amount of energy used and that expected to be used in carrying out an activity.
In this sense, energy efficiency is obtaining energy goods and services with the lowest possible energy consumption, the same or higher quality of comfort, and less pollution, extending the life of resources at lower operating costs. Energy efficiency initiatives aim to achieve the highest possible performance with the least energy consumption.
What is the energy efficiency certificate?
An energy efficiency certificate is a document that determines how much a building consumes and the level of CO2 emissions it emits into the atmosphere.
The content of the energy certificate is summarized in the energy label. This is similar to the energy label on electrical appliances: it indicates the emission and consumption ratings that the property has obtained with a scale of colors and letters going from A (green), the most efficient, to G (red), the least efficient.
The energy certificate is a report that consists of several pages. It contains a wealth of information on the property’s orientation, location, envelope, lighting, and energy production systems. A certificate from a good professional will also include improvements that can be made to the infrastructure for energy savings.
The first page of the energy certificate contains general information on the property, as well as information on the certifying technician. Below is the global energy rating of the property in terms of carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere. It is given on a scale from A to G. The report also has four appendices containing the relevant information:
Appendix I: describes the thermal characteristics of the property.
Appendix II: breaks down the energy rating of the property in different ratings for energy demands and consumption.
Appendix III: includes recommendations for improvement.
Appendix IV: the technician describes the tests, checks, and inspections carried out during the data collection process.
How to get the energy efficiency certificate
In Spain, energy efficiency certification is mandatory for the sale and rental of real estate as of June 1, 2013, both for new and existing buildings. It also is mandatory at the time of offering or advertising a sale or rental.
The obligation to show the energy certificate is regulated by Royal Decree 235/2013 in Spain. The regulation on the energy certificate comes from a European Directive that all member states have already complied with.
It is the responsibility of the owner of the property to obtain this energy certificate. The energy efficiency certificate is issued by a technician with the qualifying academic and professional qualifications (architect, technical architect, engineer, technical engineer) to carry out building projects or thermal installations as required by current regulations.
Once the technician makes the report, the certificate must be registered.
What is the value of energy efficiency?
The Rosenfeld Effect constitutes one of the paradoxes of energy efficiency in urban settings. This effect is named after physicist Arthur H. Rosenfeld, who was born in Alabama in 1927 and worked out of California. Dr. Rosenfeld was a strong advocate for energy efficiency. Among the various developments he proposed was the first electronic ballast for fluorescent lighting, which led to compact energy-saving bulbs.
Since 1973, the per capita demand for energy has remained practically constant in California, while it has grown more than 50% in the rest of the United States. This is due partly to the state’s energy-saving culture and constant technological innovation, and its acceptance in society.
A unit of measure for energy efficiency was created in honor of Dr. Rosenfeld (1 Rosenfeld = consumption of 250,000 inhabitants) and serves as a measure of comparison between cities.
What energy efficiency benchmarks exist in Spain?
Energy efficiency is a lever for the sustainable development of society, both environmentally and economically. This is because efficient energy management significantly reduces the environmental impact of companies, governments, and citizens while also contributing to the long-term economic viability of society as a whole.
To maximize their energy efficiency levels and that of the companies, public administrations, and institutions that trust Ferrovial Services, projects have been developed using the following levers:
- Big data.
- Reusing resources and waste for energy generation.
- Renewable energy generation.
- Cost reduction, sustainable financing, and budget stability.
- Results-oriented and lowering operational risks.
- Equipment maintenance.
- Working with companies and institutions.
Energy efficiency is a cross-cutting pillar in all of Ferrovial Services’ business areas, ranging from public lighting contracts with local administrations to energy management in hospitals, energy use in landfills and facility management.
Due to their extensive experience as Energy Service Companies (ESCO), Ferrovial Services has the capacity and experience to design and implement highly complex energy efficiency projects, including the development of technologies for improving efficiency for both public and private clients. Innovation is the central axis around which Ferrovial Services carries out its energy efficiency measures.
The main sectors in which Ferrovial Services carries out its activity as an ESCO are:
- Public lighting installations.
- Municipal buildings and facilities.
- District Heating.
- Energy services in hospitals.
- Producing renewable energies.
- Industrial facilities.
Ferrovial Services carries out energy efficiency projects for public and private clients in the different countries where it operates. It also works within the European Union’s framework of regional development in projects financed by the ERDF program. In terms of innovation, Ferrovial Services works with local, regional, and state administrations, with technology companies, and in an open innovation ecosystem.
Managing over one million points of light around the world (four times the total number of lights in a city like New York), extensive experience as an energy services company, and the possibility of moving towards generating renewable energies are milestones that help make Ferrovial Services a leader in energy efficiency.
Fun facts about energy efficiency
- In just 15 minutes, the Sun radiates the amount of energy that humanity uses in a year.
- There are two fundamental types of energy: potential and kinetic. All other manifestations of energy are derived from these. According to the law of conservation of matter, potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy and vice versa.
- Energy-saving bulbs use 80% less energy and last about 8 times longer than a standard light bulb.
- Wind energy is the most efficient form because it doesn’t pollute or erode the environment, and its environmental impact is almost zero. It can produce about as much energy as 1,000 kg of oil; unlike oil, though, thousands of liters of fuel don’t have to be burned.
- According to data from the World Bank, more than 1 billion people live without electricity today.
- In Spain, renewable energy sources generate approximately 35% of the electricity the country consumes.
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en
| 0.940194 | 1,394 | 3.5 | 4 | 2.439431 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
|
|The contribution margin format separates
fixed costs from variable costs; the traditional method does not.
The contribution margin format reports total contribution margin; the
traditional method reports gross margin. In a manufacturing company:
- Contribution margin = Revenue - Variable Manufacturing
Costs - Variable Nonmanufacturing Costs.
- Gross margin = Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold, where cost of
goods sold = variable manufacturing cost of goods sold + fixed
manufacturing cost of goods sold.
|Differential analysis involves analyzing the different costs
and benefits arising from alternative solutions to the situation.
The alternative resulting in the greatest positive difference between
future revenues and future expenses (costs) should be selected when
using differential analysis.
- Relevant costs and revenues are those that differ between
alternatives. Future costs that do not differ between alternatives are
irrelevant and may be ignored since they affect both alternatives
- Differential cost is the amount by which relevant costs
differ between two alternatives. Differential revenue is the amount by
which relevant revenues differ between two alternatives.
- Sunk costs are past costs about which management can do
nothing in the future. These costs are irrelevant to decision making.
- Committed fixed costs relate to the facilities or
organizational structure that a company must have to continue
operations. Discretionary fixed costs are subject to management control
from year to year.
- Opportunity cost is the potential benefit that is foregone
from not following the best alternative course of action.
In establishing short-run prices, the goal is to select that price at
which total future revenues will exceed total future variable costs by
the greatest amount. This choice will result in the greatest total
|Under certain conditions a product may be sold at two or more
different prices in different markets.
- This possibility may enable management to minimize the risk
of loss from having idle personnel and plant capacity.
- Only the differential cost of producing the items needs to
be matched against the differential revenue provided when deciding
whether to accept an offer at lower-than-normal price (average costs
should be ignored).
- If the differential cost is lower than the differential
revenue, the offer should be accepted unless there is an alternative
use for the facilities that would be even more profitable.
- Variable costs set a floor for the selling price.
|Special cost and revenue studies may be called for to assist
management in making decisions concerning adding or dropping given
products, segments, or services to certain customers.
In deciding whether to further process a joint product, the future
revenues and costs should be compared. If the differential
revenue exceeds the differential cost, further processing should take
place before sale. The same analysis is valid in deciding whether
by-products should be discarded or processed further.
- If differential revenue exceeds differential cost (usually
only the difference in future variable costs), the product is making a
contribution to income and should be retained.
- Normally, fixed costs will remain unaffected, and therefore
would not be relevant to the decision.
- If an alternative use of the facilities would produce
future revenues that would exceed future costs by more than the current
use of those facilities, a change to the alternative should be made.
|Differential analysis can also be used in
make-or-buy decisions. [E6-8]
High quality improves the company’s prospects for maintaining or even
increasing its market share in years to come. Quality should be
improved if the differential revenues are greater than the differential
costs given the long-term effect the decision will have on demand.
- The price that would be paid for the part if it were
purchased must be compared with the additional costs that would be
incurred if the part were manufactured (including the opportunity cost
of not using the space and facilities in their best alternative use).
- Other factors such as the competency of existing personnel,
availability of working capital, quality requirements, and borrowing
costs should be considered.
|
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CC-MAIN-2016-07
|
http://fisher.jsc.vsc.edu/manacct/wk09_differentialanalysis.html
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en
| 0.914012 | 843 | 3.390625 | 3 | 2.875366 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
|
Finance & Business
|
Has your dentist or endodontist told you that you need root canal treatment? If so, you're not alone. Millions of teeth are treated and saved each year with root canal or endodontic treatment.
Inside the tooth, under the white enamel and a hard layer called the dentin, is a soft tissue called the pulp. The pulp contains blood vessels, nerves and connective tissue, and helps to grow the root of your tooth during development. In a fully developed tooth, the tooth can survive without the pulp because the tooth continues to be nourished by the tissues surrounding it.
Endodontists are dental specialists with an additional two or more years of specialized training beyond dental school. The average endodontist completes 25 root canal treatments a week, while general dentists do about two root canals a week. Because they limit their practice solely to endodontic treatment, endodontists are efficient and precise. This equates to positive experiences and faster healing. Most endodontists offer tremendous flexibility in accommodating emergency cases, so delays in treatment are kept to a minimum and patients can be relieved of dental pain quickly.
Many endodontists use state-of-the-art technology such as operating microscopes, digital imaging, ultrasonic instrumentation and fiber optics, to treat their patients quickly and comfortably.
Today, getting root canal treatment is often no more uncomfortable than having a filling. Watch how root canal specialists put patients at ease with their calm and caring manner
During root canal treatment, the inflamed or infected pulp is removed and the inside of the tooth is carefully cleaned and disinfected, then filled and sealed with a rubber-like material called gutta-percha. Afterwards, the tooth is restored with a crown or filling for protection. After restoration, the tooth continues to function like any other tooth.
Endodontic treatment helps you maintain your natural smile, continue eating the foods you love and limits the need for ongoing dental work. With proper care, most teeth that have had root canal treatment can last as long as other natural teeth and often for a lifetime.
Endodontic treatment treats the inside of the tooth. Endodontic treatment is necessary when the pulp becomes inflamed or infected. The inflammation or infection can have a variety of causes: deep decay, repeated dental procedures on the tooth, faulty crowns, or a crack or chip in the tooth. In addition, trauma to a tooth may cause pulp damage even if the tooth has no visible chips or cracks. If pulp inflammation or infection is left untreated, it can cause pain or lead to an abscess.
Occasionally, a nonsurgical root canal procedure alone cannot save your tooth and your endodontist will recommend surgery. Endodontic surgery can be used to locate small fractures or hidden canals that weren't detected on x-rays or during previous treatment. Surgery may also be needed to remove calcium deposits in root canals, or to treat damaged root surfaces or the surrounding bone of the tooth. To learn more about endodontic surgery, talk to an endodontist in your area.
Traumatic dental injuries often occur in accidents or sports-related injuries. Chipped teeth account for the majority of all dental injuries. Endodontists are dentists who specialize in treating traumatic dental injuries. With their advanced skills, techniques and technologies they can often save injured teeth. If you have a cracked or injured tooth, find an endodontist near you right away!
At Bright Smile, we pride ourselves as one of the best endodontic centre with highly trained & experienced endodontists. So if you are in search of a specialist for your root canal treatment in Dubai or looking to consult a specialized endodontist in Dubai, just call us at Bright Smile and we will serve you for all your dental care needs.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Tel : +971 4 344 9675
Fax: +971 4 344 9657
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Saturday to Wednesday
10:00am – 20:00pm
10:00am – 18:00pm
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Basic reasoning
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Health
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Recently, a student told me that scientific writing for reports and literature reviews was the hardest part of the course, especially for non-native English speakers.
For undergrads and postgrads alike, getting your citations and bibliographies formatted correctly seems to be a common area of weakness. So here’s a (not so short) guide to help explain some of the rules and get your bibliography formatted right first time. Your next report or literature review will be guaranteed to look as professional as a published journal article!
An article on referencing styles is never going to float anyone’s boat. This I know. But use this guide with the style sheets provided in the links, and you’ll be experts (I promise) before your next assignment is due.
First – Some Common Mistakes
A common mistake made by students is overuse of “direct quotation”. Okay, so this is done as a way of avoiding plagiarism. Technically, it’s not exactly wrong, but neither is it good writing practice. It’s much better to make sure all sources of information are cited (and referenced) correctly.
Another common error is the misuse of punctuation. Commas, semi-colons, colons and periods are very specific to the style you use, and not meant for random distribution. These points are both discussed further on.
So It Begins…
The correct use of style, structure and formatting in your writing is so important if you want to produce a high standard of work. I deliberately haven’t included examples showing the layout of every single type of journal article reference. That’s what the links provided are for, so I suggest you refer to those while you read on. Even if you don’t read any further, please use these links before you start your next report or literature review.
Links #1 and #2 below will take you to the recommended style guides for chemists, and link #3 is an invaluable online resource, for locating full references and accurate bibliographic information.
So download the following:
and access this site:
The examples given in style guides #1 and #2 show you how to set out reference sources; journal articles, reviews, web sources, unpublished work, books, or something else that you wish to cite. Get it right from the start and you’ll save yourself a lot of pain and grief later on.
Universities don’t tend to adopt any single particular style, but they do stipulate a preference according to your subject. In chemistry, it’s suggested you follow a universal style guide from either the RSC or ACS, both of which are used by chemists around the world. The important thing is that you’re consistent throughout your work. Never mix styles! It could cost you dearly in your overall grading if it’s part of an assessed course.
So make it easy on yourself and follow these guidelines:
- Undergraduates should use RSC or ACS style for reports and literature reviews
- Postgraduates – for a thesis, review or original article, check with your supervisor, or use the specific style adopted by your intended journal
A Wee Bit of Background
You might wonder where these rules all come from? Well, each publishing house has their own preferred style for the journals they publish. Have a look at journals by Elsevier, ACS, RSC and Karger. Of course there are many other major publishers, and you’ll have accessed these before. If you look at the citations and bibliographies from journal articles (papers), you’ll see at a glance how different journals use different layouts.
There are standards to follow and you need to be aware of the rules. Unfortunately, this is where students can get it wrong. It’s all too easy to mix different styles together when you don’t realise there’s a standard with rules to follow.
Citations, Refs and Error-Proof Bibliographies
So now you’ve decided which style you want to use. How do you apply it to your work? You use a Reference Manager of course.
Meet Mendeley – your new best friend!
By using Ref Manager software, your final reference list gets compiled at the same time as you ‘cite while you write’. This saves you an enormous amount of time, and should result in an error-free bibliography.
Citations (referencing in the text)
Each time you refer to published work you acknowledge that work as belonging to someone else. You do this by including ‘citations’ throughout your own work, and you may often hear this referred to as ‘references’. This is really incorrect terminology, although we all do it. To be correct, you ‘cite’ the literature you are discussing, but you include a literature ‘reference’ in the Literature Cited section, or Bibliography, which appears at the end of the work.
This ‘reference’ contains information needed to locate and read any ‘cited’ literature. If you don’t cite your sources, then you’re saying the work actually belongs to you and could be interpreted as plagiarism. You can download a pdf file of the university document Plagiarism Student Guidance which has helpful advice.
How to Cite as you Write
Each reference to published work is given a number, and the number appears in the text where the work is discussed. This is usually as a superscript or within brackets on the same line as the text, but never both. Have a look at the following examples. Make sure you use the correct one for the style you’ve chosen.
Example 1: To overcome this kinetic barrier, the reaction between the flavin prosthetic group of the flavoprotein and dioxygen proceeds via a step-wise transfer of electrons.3
Example 2: To overcome this kinetic barrier, the reaction between the flavin prosthetic group of the flavoprotein and dioxygen proceeds via a step-wise transfer of electrons.
Example 3: In 2008, Mole et al.21 described a correlation between the onset of MOF and levels of 3HK in serum, while Melvin et al.22 developed this further.
Example 4: In 2008, Mole et al. described a correlation between the onset of MOF and levels of 3HK in serum, while Melvin et al. developed this further.
To write it in the following way is wrong:
Example 5: In 2008, Mole et al. described a correlation between the onset of MOF and levels of 3HK in serum, while Melvin et al. developed this further.21,22
Example 6: In 2008, Mole et al. described a correlation between the onset of MOF and levels of 3HK in serum, while Melvin et al. developed this further.,
This would mean that both papers were saying both things! Examples 5 and 6 are clearly ambiguous and incorrect.
When you use a single reference source e.g. journal article or book chapter, the citation number appears at the end of a sentence after the full stop (no space before the citation number), or in the body of the text where you make the relevant point.
When you have several references within one sentence, each source needs its own citation and reference number. The citation (and corresponding reference) numbers are made in the text, at the place where you discuss the published work.
When to Use Italics
The phrase “et al.” is Latin and always shown in italics, as are other commonly used abbreviations, such as via, in vivo, e.g., i.e., etc. Using “et al.” means ‘and other people’. This allows you to quote the lead author’s name only – Mole was the first author of the paper, but didn’t work alone.
Remember to Keep Them in Order
Citations are always sequential. Each reference in your bibliography is numbered in the order that it appears in the text. The first one you cite will be #1, and never 12, 25, etc. If you add references later while revising your work, you need to re-number everything. For the sake of your sanity don’t attempt this manually! This is where a Reference Manager system really is your best friend.
If you refer to the same article more than once, use its original citation number each time. Don’t give it a new number. If you need to reference several sources at once, list the numbers sequentially. Note there is no space between the numbers 25,26 below.
Example 7: Imbalances have been associated with many infamous and topical neurodegenerative disorders such as multiple sclerosis,24 Alzheimer’s disease,25,26 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.25
This rule also applies to figures and diagrams you use from published sources. Every figure, image or table, needs to be cited and captioned like the example below (Figure 10).
Just a small point for postgrads – if you’re writing a journal article for a peer-review publication, some require table and figure legends in a different font from the text so check the journal criteria.
For university assessed work, this may not be relevant and will dependent upon the assessor’s criteria for marking. Might be worth checking though, especially if it could result in lost marks.
Reference Lists and an Error-Free Bibliography
Right, so you’re now at the end of your report, literature review or thesis. You’ve used a Reference Manager like Mendeley with recommended style guides from RSC or ACS. Great! Nothing can go wrong with how your bibliographical list is compiled if you’ve inserted the information correctly into your Ref Manager.
Your references will be laid out correctly if you’ve followed these guidelines so far. And just to make sure – bear these points in mind when you’re checking your final bibliography for errors.
- Journal Articles
Remember, some journals require the title of articles to be included, while others don’t. For assessed work, check with your supervisor if they have a preference. I can guarantee the answer will probably be – “no preference, just be consistent”. Different styles show reference information in different ways; particularly with author names and initials and the use of punctuation.
- Authored Books
Have a look at these examples where the entire book is written by the named author/s:
RSC Style: INITIALS. Author’s surname, Title, Publisher, Place of publication, Edition (if not the first), Year, Pages.
You’ll see that there are commas (not semi-colons) between author names, and the abbreviation for ‘edition’ is ‘edn’, (not ed.).
ACS Style: Author’s surname, INITIALS. Title, Edition; Publisher: Place of publication, Year.
Referencing books is different from referencing journal articles and reviews. See how the abbreviation for ‘edition’ is different between the RSC and ACS styles, and the author’s name and initials are reversed. There’s also a colon between the publisher name and location in the ACS style. The order isn’t the same for both, and check the style guides to see where italic and bold font is used.
- Edited Books
Sometimes there may be editor/s instead of (or in addition to) author/s. You need to know which abbreviations to use (ed., eds., or something else?). Pay close attention to the style guides.
- Theses, Reports and Online Sources
How about when the publication you want to use is a health information leaflet from a medical communications company? Would this be written in the style of a book, or an article, or something else? How do you layout a reference for a thesis? A Conference Report? A Conference Abstract?
Check the RSC and ACS guides provided in the links. You should find it all there. Still can’t find the right example?
• Use a search engine. Something similar will have been referenced before so you can check what style and layout the author used.
• Ask someone – your supervisor – your friends – a lecturer – a postdoc – ask me! I’ll find it for you.
YouTube has lots of videos showing you how to write and cite correctly, just use ‘referencing and citations’ in the search bar. Okay, so it’s not Netflix, but for this purpose they’re pretty useful.
Final Checks Before Submitting
- Each citation number in the text needs to appear in the reference list (bibliography), complete with publication details of where to find the full article or source of information.
- Pay special attention to the format and punctuation used for difference resources, such as journal articles, books, web sources, etc.
That’s it. You’re done!
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Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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illiterate is perpetually growing. 28 This number continues to grow as our economy becomes more
complex and as more people enter adulthood unprepared to manage their financial well-being. 29
A. What is financial illiteracy?
Financial illiteracy is considered the lack of ability to understand, anticipate, and
adequately plan for one’s financial well-being. 30 The Government Accountability Office defines
financial literacy as the aptitude to “make informed judgments and to take effective actions
regarding the current and future use and management of money.” 31 A financially literate skill set
“includes the ability to understand financial choices, plan for the future, spend wisely, and
manage the challenges that come with life events such as a job loss, retirement, or saving for a
child’s college education.” 32 Someone not equipped with these basic skills is considered
financially illiterate. Importantly, “[a] lack of financial literacy affects consumers’ economic
well-being and security in a variety of ways. Poor money management and financial decision
making can lower a family’s standard of living and interfere with crucial long-term goals, such as
buying a home and financing retirement.” 33 For low-income families struggling to support their
basic needs, financial literacy can mean the difference between paying the bills and facing
disconnected utilities, starvation, and even homelessness.
Other measured financial knowledge components include everyday math skills, and an
understanding of monetary concepts such as interest and inflation. 34 The inability to demonstrate
an understanding of these basic concepts is one factor considered in earning one a designation of
financially illiterate. 35 A base level understanding of math such as adding and subtracting money,
or calculating income earned versus expenses paid, helps in making financial calculations. 36
Making such calculations may seem like a simple task, yet a number of Americans spend more
than their income every year, 37 suggesting that they are not properly calculating what they can
afford to pay based on the income they earn. While it is true that many of these families may by
necessity spend more than they earn because they do not make enough to cover their base-level
survival needs, financial illiteracy may also contribute to this problem. 38 Monetary concepts are
also important to one’s financial skills tool belt because pursuing financial success in modern
society often involves the acquisition of various financial products39 such as mortgages,
Id. at 18. Less than ten percent of respondents were able to answer all the questions covering fundamental financial concepts correctly.
28 Thomas L. Harnisch, Boosting Financial Literacy in America: A Role For State Colleges and Universities, PERSPECTIVES, Fall
2010, at 1,
Financial_Literacy( 3).pdf (discussing the growing concern regarding financial illiteracy in America).
29 FINRA INVESTOR EDUC. FOUND., supra note 12, at 2; Financial Literacy Hearing, supra note 23 (suggesting that learning financial
concepts should begin in childhood).
30 U.S. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, HIGHLIGHTS OF A GAO FORUM: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S ROLE IN IMPROVING
FINANCIAL LITERACY 1 (Nov. 2004), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0593sp.pdf.
34 FINRA INVESTOR EDUC. FOUND., supra note 12, at 18. Measuring financial knowledge components includes asking fundamental
economics and finance questions related to topics such as interest, inflation, risk, and mortgage questions. Id.
35 See id. (testing concepts designed to determine one’s financial literacy).
36 FINRA INVESTOR EDUC. FOUND., supra note 12, at 17; see also Jacob Vigdor, Solving America’s Math Problem, 13
EDUCATIONNEXT, Winter 2013, available at http://educationnext.org/solving-america%E2%80%99s-math-problem/ (examining how
far American children lag behind their global counterparts in mathematical capability throughout their education).
37 See PRESIDENT’S ADVISORY COUNCIL ON FIN. CAPABILITY, supra note 4, at 3 (twelve percent of Americans reported that their
spending exceeded their income in 2011).
38 See Only 41% of Americans Spend Less Than Their Income, CREDIT.COM BLOG (Jun. 9, 2013), http://blog.credit.com/2013/06/only-
41-of-americans-spend-less-than-their-income/ (examining the impact of poor financial decision-making on overspending).
39 See U.S. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, supra note 30, at 8-9 (discussing the range of financial topics that should be emphasized
in financial education, and thereby implying that such topics are important to one’s financial success); see also FINRA INVESTOR
EDUC. FOUND., supra note 12, at 4, 17 (listing some of the aspects of the current financial landscape).
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Strong reasoning
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Finance & Business
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Chinese Physicists Reportedly Break Teleportation Record
From a recent news article from the website for "Time Magazine:"
"Harry Potter and Star Trek fans, rejoice! Teleportation is real. Using powerful lasers and optics to manipulate photons, or units of light, researchers in China set a record for teleporting a photon more than 10 miles (16 km), TIME reported in 2010. Now a different team of physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai says it has shattered that record, claiming to have sent a photon more than 60 miles (97 km)."
"Quantum teleportation, which has been around since 1997, is a little different than what you see in sci-fi movies. Considered “one of the holy grails of practical quantum communication,” as the scientists write in their abstract, teleportation is the ability to essentially move one object from one place to another without traversing the space in between. But as Forbes explains, the actual object is not moving from point A to point B. Rather, the distant photon mirrors the information contained by the original photon, essentially becoming an identical twin."
"As Technology Review notes, “these guys clearly have their eye on the possibility of satellite-based quantum cryptography, which would provide ultra-secure communications around the world.” Experts say this all-but-unbreakable code would be a perfect way to transmit classified information such as military directives or codes."Sources:
Engineer Wants Us To Build Real-Life Starship Enterprise
This is the story of a systems and electrical engineer who has said we should build the USS Starship Enterprise and that there exists the ability to do it today, in this current age of technology (although I doubt it'll have warp capability.)
This is a story that will make the Star Trek nerds blow their loads and make even casual Star Trek fans like me curious.
The person, know as "BTE-Dan" on twitter has gone into extensive detail as well:
"His site includes layouts of the proposed ship's size and specs, potential missions it could undertake, a schedule outlining its development and even a backup plan should the ship's creation be thrown off schedule."
According to "BTE-Dan" it would be able to reach Mars in just 90 days, as opposed to the current mission to Mars which will land in August after nine months.
"In addition, as Atkinson points out, the ship would serve as a spaceship, a space station and a spaceport for up to a thousand people and could eventually go on missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus and beyond."
The ship would use and ion propulsion engine powered by a 1.5GW nuclear reactor. Another three nuclear reactors would supply electricity for the entire ship.
The cost would be a cool $1 trillion (or just short) over a period of twenty years.
So there you go, something interesting to look forward to.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Rear seat safety in modern passenger vehicles is being “neglected” by car manufacturers around the world, despite contributing to a higher proportion of occupant fatalities than any other seating position.
More often than not, the life-saving occupant safety technology is already available to front seat passengers, but is being overlooked for rear pews because of ageing crash safety regulations, a vehicle safety seminar in Sydney heard yesterday.
Julie Brown, a research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia, told the ‘Bringing up the rear’ safety seminar that, despite typically being the furthest point from contact in a motor vehicle collision, rear seat deaths and injuries were being over-represented in accidents. The trend applies to occupants aged 9 years and older.
“The rear seat has historically been neglected and now we think it’s the time to put some attention onto the rear seat because it’s a place where we can actually gain some reduction in injury and fatality numbers simply through using existing technologies,” said Dr Brown, who recently headed an Australian sample study on rear seat occupant safety.
“We know that one in five passengers that have been admitted into hospital have been sitting in the rear seat and even though, in absolute numbers, most numbers come from front seat passengers or the driver. If you look at it in terms of proportionally to the deaths in each position, proportionally there are more deaths in the back seats than anywhere else.”
Authorities are now investigating enforcing basic rear seat technologies already considered commonplace for front seat passengers. These include seatbelt pretensioners and load limiters, improved seatbelt geometry and seat design, and adjustable D-rings which can adjust the height of the seat belt at the pillar.
Lauchlan McIntosh, the chairman of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), said rear seat safety would soon take on a greater importance during local testing. The Japanese NCAP program is currently the only authority around the world to rate vehicles specifically for rear seat occupant safety during crash testing.
“In the future, we’re actually talking about putting different dummys in the back seat and evaluating that in a separate rating away from normal occupants – certainly to start with,” he said. “In the long term, all NCAP systems would like to incorporate the component ratings into the overall rating, but that will be several years away.”
In the meantime, car makers are slowly filtering potentially life-saving technology through their line-ups on their own initiative. In 2010, Ford in the US developed an inflatable seatbelt designed to spread the load of a collision for front and rear seat passengers.
“The seatbelt feels no different when you put it on but during a crash the shoulder component of the belt inflates like an airbag and distributes the load across the chest,” said safety researcher and former Ford engineer Dr Priya Prasad.
“It would substantially reduce injuries over the standard three-point belt, the distortion of the head and neck is less and so the chance of hitting anything in the forward part of the car is less.
“It would prevent many of the fatalities we’re talking about among rear seat passengers if it came to Australia.”
ANCAP has never tested for rear side impact protection, a loophole that allowed manufacturers to leave out potentially life-saving rear side airbags but still achieve a maximum five-star rating.
Given many governments and companies now often stipulate a five-star NCAP rating it meant car makers could leave out potentially life-saving features but still achieve the top rating.
It took Ford, for example, years to fit standard side curtain airbags in the rear of its once popular Falcon large car despite most competitors fitting them standard.
Some European car makers are also taking advantage of the lack of independent side impact testing, presumably in an effort to save money by not fitting full-length curtain airbags.
While it's understood Euro NCAP has no plans to address the issue with its testing the Australasian NCAP arm is closing the loophole and will soon require side impact airbags in the rear to achieve the five-star rating, something likely to impact some new arrivals next year.
However, because ANCAP does not retest models when it updates its testing it means the existing models - such as the Renault Clio and Volkswagen Up - will continue to be awarded a five-star rating even without the side airbags.
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Strong reasoning
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Transportation
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There is no doubt that choosing to build eco friendly homes can help protect the environment. The home is a big offender when it comes to carbon emissions because of the building materials used in construction and also the ongoing fuel consumption used to heat and cool the house. If each and every house did a little bit more to protect the environment that would add up to a lot of help and would significantly reduce carbon emissions across the world. If you want to find out what building materials should be used to build houses instead of the traditional bricks and cement then you should read on. Here you will find out how you can build a environmentally friendly home.
Of course it does not make sense for hydropower to be used everywhere. There are many places where there just is not enough water flowing in the area for them to work well. Not every place as an abundance of rivers, streams, and oceans to produce hydropower. Most of them are found along the West of the United States. They are in Oregon, Washington, and California.
It is not difficult to construct your own solar panels and the bits and pieces are easily obtainable in even small towns. The same holds true for systems that will produce electricity from wind or water. The trick is to get a detailed plan from which to build your solar panels or other devices.
Tom wanted at least a half dozen hens. Their city ordinance allowed for this, but not for a rooster, which was okay with Tom and Barbara, because they weren’t planning to breed more chickens. A half dozen hens would give them just over two dozen eggs a week. Their manure, when added to their compost heap, will give them a superior fertilizer for their garden.
Your abs program is also going to need you to build in an abs diet as well. For me personally, a great way to build that into your regular diet is to slowly replace fast working carbs with the slower complex carbohydrates. When you build those into your diets, especially if you consume them after your workout you will find, even after an exhaustive workout, that you have more green energy.
Download energy efficiency software. Awareness plays a big role in the success of your efforts towards green computing. You can be more aware of just how much energy you consume and save by downloading software that can track it for you.
Public utilities- Already generate electricity? Then you’re the ideal candidate to benefit from biomass advantages. Why? Well, you don’t even have to build a new facility. A biomass energy company can come in, design, and implement a co-firing system in your plant that will allow you to turn a fraction of your power into biomass electricity, meeting changing “go-green” standards. Good for the environment and good for your company too!
As far as I’m concerned ocean wave energy is the most renewable and sustainable energy source we could ever hope to use. First of all we know it sustainable because ocean waves have been going on for 4.5 billion years as far as we know. That’s a lot of dynamic pressure, and it is as old as the moon which orbits our Earth. Why wouldn’t we be using it, harvesting it, and taking advantage of this resource? Please consider all this and think on it.
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Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Infertility is heartbreaking enough, to not be able to get pregnant on your own. But now, new research has found that African-American women who undergo In-Vitro fertilization are only half as likely as Caucasian women to become pregnant after a round of the treatment. The study found that even when donor eggs are used, a large discrepancy is still clear.
Researchers from University of Chicago analyzed over 4,000 cycles of IVF over a period of two years to study the impact of race. Thirty-one percent of Caucasian women fell pregnant after a round of IVF, as compared to 17 percent of African-American patients. Even after studying the hormone levels, smoking habits, body-mass index and age of the patients, the differences still persisted. Researchers also found that Asian patients also had experienced slightly lower live birth rates than Caucasian women after IVF. However, the rates among Hispanic patients were comparable to Caucasian women.
The study’s author, Dr. Eve Feinberg, assistant clinical professor at University of Chicago Medical Center, and a physician at Fertility Centers of Illinois says, “We were just struck by these outcomes. They had been reported previously in other studies, but our study, which is quite large, really confirmed those other findings.” On Monday, the study’s findings were presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual meeting in Honolulu.
IVF has been a popular form of assisted reproduction used in the United States since 1981. Approximately 65,000 babies were born in the U.S. In 2012 with the assistance of 176,000 assisted reproduction cycles, which can cost approximately $10,000 or more. In a different study led by Dr. Lisa Carey Grossman, presented at the ASRM meeting, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in New York had found that racial disparities for IVF successes still continued between Caucasian and African-American women, even when donor eggs had been used. Conditions of the uterus, such as prior cesarean surgery and fibroids were also taken into consideration. African-American women typically have a higher frequency of such conditions. Researchers compared eggs from Caucasian women and African-American women who had similar uterine histories.
However, the African-American women still experienced much lower embryo implantation rates, as compared to Caucasians – a whopping 30.4 percent as compared to 36.3 percent, according to Grossman. Doctors who were not involved with the studies are even weighing in about how they’ve noticed the same thing happening in their own practices.
Dr. Edward Illions, reproductive endocrinologist at Montefiore Medical Center in Hartsdale, New York says, “I’m not actually surprised, because the [medical] literature before this almost uniformly has shown a lower success rate in African-American women compared to Caucasians. In most of the studies also, the BMIs of African-American women have been dramatically higher. We know from lots of data that women with higher BMIs have worse IVF outcomes, even with donor eggs.” While Illions acknowledges the correlation between a higher BMI and IVF success rates, he, along with other scientists, are not sure why a higher BMI is linked to a lower IVF success rate. Illions said, “It has to do with uterine receptivity.” However, the exact reason why has not yet been discovered.
Both studies did bring researchers and scientists together to one consensus, however. They all agree that more research on a larger scale is necessary to pinpoint why these racial disparities in In-Vitro Fertilization outcomes still persist on.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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How is Earth doing? Many contrary impressions are given both from people in our surroundings and through different media channels. Let’s find out what is correct.
Domi, TellusThinkTank 2015-11-12
Stockholm November 2015. Outside the window a few leaves can still be spotted in the trees, soon about to join the thousands of fallen maple stars on the black tar sky. People are walking over them on their way to work, just as usual. There is however an important difference this year: the average temperature is 5℃ / 12 °F warmer than normal.
Tellus Think Tank has spoken to many different persons about sustainability and about the environment, a wide array of people from environmental specialists to urban farmers and to people like ourselves, that is people who don’t normally work with the environment.
ABOUT TELLUS THINK TANK….read more here
It was in the conversations with the latter group, normal people in several different European countries, that we heard the same type of phrase:
-I don’t believe in Global Warming. The natural processes of Earth would have heated the climate anyhow, they said.
I am surfing the internet to try and find explanations and graphs for the warm weather of November. Even on the internet I find many different groups with contrary messages:
- Human emissions of carbon dioxide and methane are the cause of Global Warming.
- Global Warming is a part of Earth’s natural processes.
- Earth is not warmer that usual.
What is really true about Global Warming?
To get an answer to this question we turn to Niclas Köhler, expert on sustainable development, working as a communicator at the Swedish construction company NCC. With a background in journalism and biology he has been working as an environmental reporter for over 20 years. He lays it out for us:
-The Earth’s natural processes can be the cause of a certain variation in the climate but Global Warming that we are experiencing now is indisputably created by humankind, Niclas Köhler says.
Niclas Köhler continues to tell me that scientists were in disagreement/at odds during a period but today 99% of the scientists are in agreement. More than 800 scientists have written a report for the United Nations climate panel (IPCC – International Panel On Climate Change) about how the heated climate is a direct effect of the emissions from human activity. They are calling the phenomenon “Global Warming”.
What have humans done to cause Global Warming?
So, I summarise, Earth is in the beginning of a period of unusually high average temperatures and these temperatures are caused by human emissions. What kind of emissions are we talking about here?
Niclas Köhler tells me that scientists first believed carbon dioxide emissions were the main cause of the climate heating, but that they have now also understood the vastness of the methane gas emissions.
When people increase the amount of carbon dioxide and methane, the so-called greenhouse gases, they retain the heat radiated from Earth itself and keeps it in the atmosphere of Earth. With more molecules like these in the atmosphere of Earth the climate becomes warmer.
Carbon dioxide has always existed and is created when biological material is disintegrated / decomposed, for example when a tree falls down and starts rotting. When a new tree grows it instead binds carbon dioxide in its wooden fibers. De unhealthy carbon dioxides are created when we burn the so-called fossil fuels: diesel, oil, petrol and coal.
Niclas Köhler tells me that fossil fuels were created millions of years ago when biological material such as dead animals, brackens and micro algae sunk to the bottom of a lake, where covered up but not decomposed fully but instead were formed into a layer of, for instance, coal.
Methane emissions are created when organic material, that is everything that grows in nature, is decomposed in a environment with a low level of oxygen. According to Wikipedia (2015-11-12) humans are responsible for 60 percent of the methane emissions, when allowing leakages extracting oil or gas or coal. About 17 % of the methane emissions come from the human livestock production of cows and sheep – the methane comes mainly from the animal’s digestion and faeces.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, in the beginning of the 1800s, the methane content in our atmosphere has doubled and the carbon dioxide content is not far behind.
What happens when the climate of earth becomes warmer as an effect of the emissions?
As an answer to this question Niclas Köhler quotes Sten Bergström, former Head of Research at SMHI, Sweden’s Expert Authority on Meteorologi, Hydrology, Oceanografi och Klimatologi:
-There will be more action in the system, he quotes.
Niclas Köhler explains that heat is energy and that more action in the system means:
- More forceful storms.
- More water when it rains.
- Higher peaks and lower valleys on the temperature curve.
Niclas Köhler calls this “Extreme Weather”. Global Warming will bring more Extreme Weather.
What signs can we see that Global Warming and its extreme weather is already taking place?
Many parts of the world have already been hit by the climate change extreme weather in form of heavy storms and rainfall causing major damage. Gothenburg is one city that experienced this.
Just recently the city presented a “skyfall model” to simulate different scenarios with heavy rain, with the urge to be able to plan for coming storms and soften the consequences. The scenario model tool is open for the public on the city internet, and when trying a couple of different scenarios one can see that the City of Gothenburg might be standing before some really major challenges.
I recently visited my English cousins and they showed me a picture from a helicopter tour over the Hoover dam in the US state of Arizona. The photo pictures a white layer above the water all around the mountains around the dam, showing where the normal water level used to be. The water reserves, meant for drinking and farming, are considerably lower than earlier.
Niclas Köhler also mentions similar problems in the neighbouring state of California. The inhabitants there are living in a permanent state of drought, causing problems with farming and drinking water resources.
NIclas Köhler also says that many European countries have felt the effect of the Global Warming.
The United Kingdom, for example, has been hit by heavy rainfalls. One spectacular example is “The Toon Monsoon” in the metropolitan area of Newcastle on Tyne, a city that has not earlier been hit by floods.
In Lonely Planet’s book “Morocco” by Paul Clammer a description can be found of how the Northern parts of Africa are slowly drying out. I remember a documentary in Swedish SVT’s show “Vetenskapens Värld” (World of Science) that showed how ten of twelve rivers had dried out in the Southern parts of Morocco and it had forced the inhabitants to move to the Moroccan cities.
I might be coming to some very fast conclusions, it is possibly drought in the middle east that is forcing its inhabitants to flee north to land areas with a cooler climate. Europe, is as it seems, very close at hand. The people of the middle east would not seek refugee in the south with even higher temperatures, would they? Thermometers in the Arabian peninsular show summer temperatures of almost 50℃ / 122 °F.
Summarizing: Humankind emits too much carbon dioxide and methane which leads to the heating of the atmosphere around Earth and is the cause of Extreme Weather – drought, storms and rain that cause problems for farming, damage to infrastructure and the major movement of people.
And according to the scientists we are only at the beginning of this unnaturally warm period.
What can we expect from the future? Is there hope or is Global Warming the end of humankind as a species?
Currently Earth holds 7,3 billion people, according to the United Nations. This number of inhabitants can be compared to the one billion people that lived on earth at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, only about 200 years ago. I ask Niclas Köhler if he sees any possibility of having so many people on Earth and at the same time living sustainably?
-Yes, we can [loooong pause] but we need to reconsider our life styles. We have a lot of technique and knowledge to our help but we really need to put it into practise.
He ascertains that humanity has had a fantastic development and economic growth built on access to cheap coal and oil but that we have used more of nature’s resources than nature has had time to re-create.
What hands-on arrangements do we need adopt, now that we need to reconsider our lifestyles?
Niclas Köhler talks about two groups of activities needed simultaneously. The first is to mitigate the risks and soften the damages of the climate change and the second is to decrease emissions.
Decreasing risks and damages caused by climate change can for instance be activities such as handling the larger amounts of water expected in some parts of the world.
Niclas Köhler has some examples of what the building company NCC are working with and mentions a tunnel that is soon to be built under the Danish City of Copenhagen for Hofor, with the purpose of leading away excessive amounts of water and leading it out to the harbour.
In this context The Tellus Think Tank-team also brings the Emisor Oriente-tunnel to mind. The tunnel was built under Mexico City for the same reasons.
NCC has also developed a special asphalt that lets through water much faster than traditional asphalt. The company is also looking into how their residential building projects shall handle the expected increase in water, so that damage by dampness can be avoided.
We can do a lot of work with mitigating the damages but is is much cheaper and considerably less risky to work proactively to avoid the problems, Niclas Köhler says.
That is why it is more important to reduce emission. By reducing emissions the effects of Global Warming can reach a problematic stage, instead of the catastrophic level that we are heading towards now.
Use renewable energy sources and reduce beef in your daily diet, is the short advice that Niclas Köhler offers. He soon continues with an array of activities that could help us reduce the effects of the Global Warming:
- Phase out the coal plants! Consumers can help by choosing an electrical company that offers green, environmentally friendly electricity.
- Heat your house with district warming, pellets or a heat pump.
Build low energy houses – that is buildings that do not leak heat through walls or windows and that contain all heat brought into the house. Old houses can become energy effective by renovation. NCC works with both low energy houses and sustainable renovations.
- Don’t knock down old concrete structures but re-use them, as the process of making new concrete emits large amounts of carbon dioxid.
- Decrease your rides with the car as far as possible, at least until you can afford to buy a car that runs totally without fossil petrol and diesel. Electrical Vehicles, driven by batteries or fuel cells, will probably soon take over the market.
- Car production is also has large emissions of greenhouse gases and every family might not need a car of their own, most cars stand parked most of the time. Instead a family could take a cab, use public transport, walk, take the bike or join a car pool.
- Eat less beef and lamb and replace it with chicken or vegetarian food if possible.
- Decrease the number of journeys with aeroplane, until the renewable fuels that researchers are working on are taken in use.
- In regions where biogas is an alternative these should be exploited as much as possible. It is not practically possible to transport biogas so far, so it has to be considered as a local propellant.
- In countries where the sun is an asset, investments should be made so that solar cells can replace fossil fuels. The energy from the sun is also good for countries closer to the poles, such as Sweden, but the sun produces more energy than average in the summer and less than average in the winter.
- Even industrial processes need to save heat by insulating and taking advantage of waste heat.
So it is not too late to turn the Global Warming process around?
No, not yet but we really need to rethink how we live and decrease the use of fossil fuels and eating less beef. Change our lives and introduce hands-on activities as a way forward.
There are examples of other environmental problems where we have been very successful and changed a destructive trend. Niclas Köhler mentions the replacing of freons in our refrigerators letting the ozone layer around Earth regenerate. Another example is when Sweden successfully reduced sulphur emissions when burning fossil oil, which was causing acidification of Swedish woods and waters.
I thank Niclas Köhler for his pedagogical description of the present situation of Earth, and for sharing hope for the future!
Now that the Tellus Think Tank team understands a bit more about Global Warming we are wondering how this information is being spread in societies and we are also wondering what young people are being taught about it in schools today. Next we investigate how a Swedish school handles environmental questions and meet with with Lars Benon, who has worked as headmaster at several schools in the Stockholm region. Check it out!
Sign up for the TellusThinkTank-newsletter and we will let you know when new articles are available!
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Eiffel is an object oriented programming language that uses an ISO standard. It was designed with the goal of creating advanced software applications that could be reliable, extended, and reusable. Another goal of Eiffel was to increase the productivity of programmers who used it. Despite this, Eiffel is a programming language that is not as common as systems such as Java. It should be noted that the lack of fame that surrounds Eiffel has not effected the many high profile projects it has been used for. For example, Eiffel has been used by the aerospace, healthcare, and game industries. It is also commonly featured in college classrooms where programming languages are taught.
Eiffel uses a number of different structures in its implementation. It uses the principle of Design by contract, along with the Open-closed principle. Many of the principles that are found in Eiffel have been successfully used in such popular programming languages as Java. Like many object oriented programming languages, one of the most fundamental elements of Eiffel are classes. In addition to this, it also uses static typing and automatic memory management. Inheritance is another important concept that can be found in Eiffel. It supports multiple inheritance, and it has a number of mechanisms that make it secure.
Perhaps one of the most notable features of Eiffel is the uniform type system it uses. This sytem is used for the purpose of processing semantics that are value and reference oriented. Agents can also be found in Eiffel, and these are objects that use wrapped computations, which gives them a strong connection to systems such as lambda calculus. The syntax for Eiffel is keyword based. However, it is free of elements such as separators. One of the primary forms of syntax which are available for routines are operators. There are a number of design goals that were connected to the creation of Eiffel. First, Eiffel uses declarative statements more than procedural code.
Eiffel is also notable for demphasizing the the need for bookkeeping instructions. It also does this with coding tricks that attempt to provide optimization hints that can be utilized by the compiler. This allows the code to be read much more readily, and the programmer can focus on the most important features of their applications without having to worry about implementation issues. Overall, Eiffel is a simple program that is designed to build applications that are reusable, and it also attempts to give direct answers to various computing challenges. There are a large number of optimization techniques that are provided by Eiffel, and they can allow programmers to use automatic inlining. The code that can be generated by this programming language is highly efficient.
Eiffel will place a very important emphasis on the use of classes. A large collection of classes are referred to as being a cluster, and superclusters are available as well. The use of clusters in Eiffel is mandatory organizational phenomenon. Any computer program that is built in Eiffel may have classes that are contained in distinct files.
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Moderate reasoning
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Software Dev.
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Foreign trade—import and export alike—has been indispensable in building America from the very start, and many of our worst economic troubles have arisen when that trade wasn’t free enough. A historic overview.
It is not a coincidence that Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and what would one day be the world’s wealthiest nation should both have burst upon the global scene in 1776.
Before Smith, the prevailing economic doctrine was mercantilism. This theory had at its core the notion that only one party benefited from an economic transaction. Economics, it held, was therefore a zero-sum game. If that was true, then it stood to reason that detailed regulations were needed to see to it that a country was on the winning side as often as possible when its merchants traded with foreigners.
The measure by which the success of these regulations was judged was the amount of gold and other precious metals that flowed into a country. Thus, in general, exports were encouraged and imports discouraged and often forbidden outright. This, of course, perfectly suited vested interests at home that didn’t want foreign competition anyway, and Smith put his finger precisely on the engine that actually powered so much of mercantilist regulation: personal self-interest. “People of the same trade,” wrote Smith, “seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy asainst the public.”
To put it another way, the greatest enemies of the capitalist system as a whole are individual capitalists. The reason, of course, is that people invariably pursue their own economic interests—which they can usually see clearly—rather than the good of the whole, always a much murkier matter. But capitalists do not just conspire among themselves to rig markets and fix prices. They also seek to influence government to protect them from competition. In Smith’s day theirs were often the only voices heard trying to influence economic policy, for’an independent press had not yet evolved. And even today no one lobbies only for the common good.
Thus mercantilism, in Smith’s view, was really just a splendid refuge for scoundrels. In The Wealth of Nations he quite simply annihilates the intellectual basis of it. In page after page of elegant, Augustan prose, he demonstrates that in a free market both sides benefit from a transaction or it won’t take place. Thus wealth is created on both sides, not just transferred from one to the other, and it is the volume of trade that measures a country’s economic strength, not the amount of gold in the treasury or even the balance of that trade.
Newly minted, the United States did not have many entrenched interests to protect the mercantilist legacy. Indeed, onerous and unfair British mercantilist regulations, along with a total lack of American political power in London to do something about them, had been a prime cause of the Revolution. When the Founding Fathers, most of whom had read Smith’s book or knew its reasoning intimately, created the Constitution a few years later, they were able to incorporate into it a thoroughly Smithian view of the economic universe.
Because they knew that individual state governments would respond to the interests of their own citizens rather than the general good of the Union, the Founders assigned the regulation of interstate commerce exclusively to the federal government, where countervailing state interests would tend to offset one another. Interstate tariffs on American exports were specifically banned by the Constitution.
As a result, the United States began its independent existence with the freest internal market in the world, and it has largely maintained that freedom, at least relative to other countries. Having the greatest freedom to create wealth, American citizens have proceeded to do exactly that in vast abundance.
But the history of America’s external market—its foreign trade, in other words—has been a more complicated story. First, in no other country has the importance of foreign trade varied so much over history as in the United States. In the early days foreign trade was essential to the very survival of the tiny colonies clinging precariously to the edge of a wilderness continent. So outward-oriented was the economy, in fact, that by the end of the colonial period, the American merchant marine was second only to Great Britain’s in size, and foreign trade accounted for 20 percent of the colonial gross national product. After the Revolution, however, building the vast internal market more and more absorbed the economic energies of the country. By the early twentieth century the American merchant marine had nearly ceased to exist, and foreign trade, while very large as a percentage of total world trade, was only about 6 percent of the American economy. We were for nearly all intents and purposes, self-sufficient. Foreign trade, while certainly profitable, was no more than the icing on the cake of the American economy.
Today the situation has reversed again, and foreign trade is a larger component of the American economy, in both scale and importance, than at any time since the early days of the Republic, about 15 percent and growing quickly. At the end of the twentieth century our self-sufficiency is long gone. Instead the United States has become the world’s largest exporter and importer of goods and services and the linchpin of a swiftly integrating global economy.
But there is also another reason why the history of America’s foreign trade has been very complicated: because the pressures to manipulate that trade for the benefit of particular domestic interests, rather than for the country as a whole, have always been hard for politicians to resist. After all, the relatively few individuals who greatly benefit from, say, protective tariffs—usually domestic producers and their workers—will always press the case against foreign competition with vigor, not to mention political contributions. The vast mass of citizens, who are usually only slightly harmed, however, often have no real means, and little individual incentive, to counter the pressure.
Take the case of sugar, for instance. The United States is at best a marginal producer of sugarcane, because efficient production requires a tropical climate and either large amounts of low-paid labor, as in Latin America, or vast economies of scale, as in Australia. In a free market there would be little, if any, United States production. But the American sugar market is anything but free.
Instead, a system of quotas and tariffs comfortably protects the handful of producers in Florida, Louisiana, and Hawaii. It also raises the cost of sugar to consumers by as much as 50 percent. Not even continuing exposés of the brutal exploitation of migrant workers in American canefields have budged Congress to redress this blatant latter-day mercantilism, because sugar is so small a part of any individual’s budget as to go unnoticed.
The first federal tariff, intended by the Founding Fathers to be the government’s primary source of revenue and enacted on July 4, 1789, was remarkably evenhanded. But in the years that followed, as the United States changed from an agrarian exporter of raw materials into an industrial giant, the Smithian inheritance would often be compromised for political purposes, as it had been with sugar.
Sugar, of course, is not a vital part of the American economy. But twice in our history disaster resulted from political meddling with foreign trade. It could happen again.
When the first colonists landed on the shores of what would one day be the United States, they were nearly as dependent on where they came from for the necessities of life as would be, today, the inhabitants of a lunar base. Game could offer a steady meat supply perhaps, but virtually everything else had to be brought from Europe. Weapons, cloth, tools, medicines, livestock, furniture, even enough food staples to see the colonists through the first growing season and beyond—all had to be imported. As early as 1628 a rule of thumb had developed that settlers in a new colony needed to bring with them eighteen months’ worth of provisions to be safe from famine.
There was one big problem: Those who sent the first colonists were not the officers of well-funded government agencies pursuing knowledge; they were capitalists pursuing profit. Eleven joint-stock companies were formed in the early seventeenth century to establish English colonies in Ireland and the New World, and their stockholders invested some thirteen million pounds, a huge sum by the standards of the day.
Naturally they wanted as immediate a return on their investment as possible. If the colonists were to provide it, as well as finance future imports, they had to find something to export and find it quickly. They were never quick enough to suit the investors. The backers of the Plymouth colony, for instance, severely criticized the Pilgrims not only for detaining the chartered Mayflower over the winter (they would surely have perished if they hadn’t) but, worse, for sending her back in the spring without a cargo.
The earliest schemes, not surprisingly, often foundered on the rocks of inadequate knowledge of New World realities. In Virginia the colonists at Jamestown were at first so bewitched by the prospect of El Dorado that many of them searched for gold rather than plant crops. Starvation was the result when the gold turned out to be non-existent.
The following year the Virginia Company, which had founded the colony, sent over glassmakers from Poland and Bavaria in hopes that tidewater Virginia’s abundant sand and wood (for fuel) could support a glassmaking industry that could profit from England’s rapidly growing demand for glass. Within a year the project was in ruins when the glassmakers returned to Europe, where they could make a far better living in far more comfortable surroundings. The new colony struggled desperately to survive, exporting a few furs, some timber, sassafras, and silk grass, from which mats were woven. At one point Jamestown was nearly abandoned.
Finally, in 1614, it began to export tobacco in small quantities, a commodity that found a swiftly growing market in Europe. But tobacco was a crop that required a lot of labor, much of it very unpleasant. At first indentured servants from England were used. But the long-term solution, at least from the point of view of the white settlers, was the importation of black slaves from Africa and the West Indies to do this work. Over the next nearly two centuries, about three hundred thousand slaves would be brought to North America in a tragic commerce.
The slaves, of course, were, in an economic sense, another import. But the value they added to the tobacco crop far more than paid for their purchase price and maintenance, and the slave population began to rise rapidly. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the system of plantation agriculture and slave labor was firmly in place in Virginia and Maryland and was spreading immediately to the other Southern colonies as they were founded.
By 1700 Virginia and Maryland were exporting annually more than three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of goods to England, mostly tobacco. Today’s equivalent, at least according to one authority, would be something on the order of a hundred million dollars. With a steady, indeed handsome income from tobacco sales in Europe, Virginia and Maryland did not need to establish strong trading ties with other areas, such as the West Indies, or develop their own manufacturing economy, as New England had begun to do.
When the Plymouth colony was founded in 1620, and, ten years later, the Massachusetts Bay at Boston, no cash crop was available, but the Northern settlers soon learned to eke out a living exporting fish, furs, barrel staves, and lumber (especially clapboards). The trouble was that there was not enough of a market for these products in England—or too much competition there. The New Englanders, therefore, soon began trading with the new colonies in the West Indies and with Africa and southern Europe. There they ran up the trade surpluses that financed their purchases in England.
This “triangle trade,” far more complex than simple bartering between two parties, soon gave the New Englanders considerable expertise in international commerce. In Boston, Newport, and other New England seaports, merchants began building their own ships in large numbers and trading for profit far and wide. Further, the triangle trade led directly to the first American industry, the distilling of West Indian molasses into rum.
Only in New Netherland did the original raison d’être of the colony—fur trading—turn out to be a viable proposition. This was largely because of the entirely fortuitous facts that the Hudson and Mohawk rivers provided an easy route deep into the interior and the Indians of that interior were sophisticated and well organized.
But the fur trade, another cash crop, did not require a large resident population. In order to secure a firmer hold on the colony of New Netherlands, flanked on both north and south by growing English settlements, the Dutch West India Company decided to encourage immigration. It offered vast tracks of land along the Hudson to those who would transport fifty families at their own expense to work the land.
These tenant farmers began to grow grain, and soon wheat was a major export, especially in the form of flour. Its importance to the early colony is reflected in the fact that both the flour barrel and the beaver are still found on New York City’s coat of arms. As they were founded in the late seventeenth century, the other middle colonies also became major producers of wheat and flour.
As settlers with particular skills and tools arrived and practiced their crafts, the utter dependence of the colonies on England for simple manufactured goods began to abate. Before the Industrial Revolution most manufacturing was done on a purely local, handicraft basis even in Europe. Wheelwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, and cabinetmakers began to produce their wares in America.
But American industry, often hemmed in by British mercantilist restrictions, remained what today would be called low tech. Pig-iron production, for instance, began as early as the 1620s. By the end of the colonial era, the colonies were producing thirty thousand tons a year, one-seventh of the world supply and a major export to Britain, where the Industrial Revolution was by then gathering steam. But steelmaking, an expensive, difficult process in the eighteenth century, was unknown on this side of the Atlantic.
Shipbuilding, however, was one major exception to this low-tech, cottage-industry rule. The first ship built in Massachusetts was launched only a year after the Puritans landed. By 1665 citizens of the colony owned no fewer than 192 seagoing vessels and had built many more than that and sold them elsewhere. Indeed, it was common for an American ship to carry a cargo to England and then to be sold cargo and all. By the end of the colonial period, fully 30 percent of the British merchant marine (2,342 out of 7,694 ships) was American-built.
By then American imports consisted largely of manufactured and precision goods from Europe and products from the West Indies, such as sugar and molasses, many of which were re-exported. Besides ships, the exports, meanwhile, were fish, agricultural and forest products, and primary manufactured goods derived directly from them, such as pig iron, barrel staves, lumber, rope, and naval stores.
By the 1760s the American colonies had become a major economic force in the British Empire. They supplied close to 12 percent of British imports and bought 9 percent of the mother country’s re-exports. Far more significant, fully a quarter of Britain’s domestic exports went to North America.
After the expensive British victory in the Seven Years’ War (called the French and Indian War on this continent), the British government woke up to the fact that there was an economic giant aborning across the Atlantic. It tried to make it a source of serious revenue, mainly by taxing its trade. The result was the American Revolution.
With independence the new nation found itself free to trade with the whole world. The whole world, that is, except the British Empire, wherein it had always done most of its trading. Much of the West Indies was now cut off, and exports to England were much restricted. Indigo, whose production had utilized about 10 percent of the slave labor in the South before the Revolution, was shut out of the British market, where indigo from India replaced it. The industry collapsed.
But new markets opened. Once forbidden to ship directly to northern European countries other than Britain, American merchants were by the early 1790s selling 16 percent of their exports to those countries. In 1784 the first American vessel bound for the Far East, the Empress of China , set sail from New York. It was not long before Americans were major players in the Far Eastern trade.
Soon American vessels could be found around the world, their captains sailing to wherever profit beckoned. “His vessel went to the West Indies,” one contemporary reported of the merchant Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, “where cargo was exchanged for coffee and sugar; then proceeding to Hamburg or Amsterdam, the coffee would be sold for Spanish dollars or exchanged for cargo which would secure him at the Spice Islands, Calcutta, or Canton the products of those climes.”
Most of the early great fortunes in the United States were based in whole or in part on foreign trade. John Jacob Astor, shipping furs to China, often cleared fifty thousand dollars a voyage. Girard left an estate of nine million dollars when he died in 1831, making him the richest man in the United States except, perhaps, for Astor.
New products were developed as well as new markets. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin made short-staple cotton a profitable export to Great Britain’s fast-rising textile industry. Within a few years it was the country’s greatest export, and by the Civil War the South was producing seven-eighths of the world supply and shipping four million bales a year to Europe.
New England, in the meantime, developed a brand-new product to sell on the world market: ice. Cut from New England ponds in the winter and stored under mounds of sawdust, cargoes of ice were sold in warm climates as far away as Calcutta. By the 1850s ice was the country’s largest export, on a tonnage basis, except only for King Cotton itself.
Trade grew rapidly in the years after the adoption of the Constitution. In 1790 total domestic exports amounted to $19,666,000 while imports that were not re-exported amounted to $22,461,000. By 1807 the figures were, respectively, $48,700,000 and $78,856,000. This apparent trade deficit, which lasted until the mid-1870s, was more than offset by freight charges and commissions earned by American vessels and by the steady inflow of capital from Europe and elsewhere.
(Indeed, the difficulty of figuring the actual trade balance, thanks to these so-called invisible earnings and numerous other complications, has over the years provided a rich and continuing opportunity for self-interested individuals and their political allies to create tendentious statistics. For instance, until the last twenty-five years, the merchandise trade balance—the import and export of physical goods—was not far from the total trade balance, and much easier to calculate. Today, however, services and intellectual property are major and very rapidly growing components of international trade, and notable American strengths. Regardless, those in this country seeking protection habitually use the merchandise trade balance as proof that the country’s competitiveness is failing. Very conveniently for them, if not for the truth, services and intellectual property are not counted in this statistic.)
The main cause of this rapid growth was the European war that broke out in 1793 and raged for most of the next quarter-century. As a neutral power the United States was at first in a good position to benefit, its flag protecting cargoes that actually originated in belligerent powers or their colonies. But as the conflict escalated between Great Britain and France, they sought more and more to fight by interfering with each other’s commerce. Neutrals inevitably suffered, as both sides tried to prevent neutral shipping from trading with the enemy. Ever more restrictive regulations were issued. Between 1803 and 1807 Britain seized 528 American ships, and the French seized another 389. Meanwhile, ships of the Royal Navy high-handedly stopped American vessels, even warships, and seized any sailors they claimed had deserted.
When in 1807 a British frigate fired a broadside into the newly commissioned USS Chesapeake , which was totally unprepared to receive it, national outrage resulted. Probably only because Congress was out of session at the time was a declaration of war averted. But President Jefferson felt obliged to do something. Unfortunately, as often happens in politics, his best course, perhaps most easily seen in retrospect, would have been to do nothing beyond exert what diplomatic pressure he could. Instead, on December 22, 1807, he signed the Embargo Act. This remarkable legislation forbade American ships to deal in foreign commerce, and the American Navy was deployed to enforce it. In effect, in an attempt to get Britain and France to respect neutral rights, the United States went to war with itself and blockaded its own shipping.
Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, warned that such a direct affront to the economic interests of American merchants would be perceived as tyranny and provoke a bitter and divisive reaction. But Jefferson, who viscerally loathed all things commercial anyway, was then at the height of his political power, a position in which so many grievous political misjudgments are made, and the Embargo Act was rammed through Congress with little debate.
If the Embargo Act was intended as a shot across the bows of the belligerent powers, it resulted only in the United States’s shooting itself in the economic foot, for it devastated American foreign commerce. This in turn crippled the American economy, especially in all the great port towns up and down the coast and in New England, which was so heavily dependent on foreign trade and shipping in general.
American domestic exports fell from $109 million in 1807 to $26 million the following year. Domestic imports dropped by 44 percent. And Gallatin had been right. As soon as news of the act reached a port, all the American ships in a position to do so immediately sailed away to avoid being interned. Smuggling flourished (indeed, it became so rife on Lake Champlain that Jefferson actually declared the surrounding country to be in a state of insurrection). A blanket of bureaucratic restrictions smothered internal commerce as well, lest any of it leak into illegal foreign trade.
The embargo’s effect on Britain and France was negligible, and their reaction was contempt, a dangerous emotion to engender in international politics. When Napoleon seized Spain in 1808, he seized as well 250 American vessels and their cargoes in Spanish ports. When the American ambassador demanded an explanation, the emperor calmly replied—one wonders what might be the French word for chutzpah— that he was only helping enforce the Embargo Act.
Jefferson knew just whom to blame for the “absurd hue and cry.” New England merchants, he wrote in a letter to a friend, wanted to sacrifice “agriculture and manufactures to commerce . . . and to convert this great agricultural country into a city of Amsterdam.”
Thanks to enormous political pressure, the Embargo Act lasted only fourteen months, and increasing loopholes and simple evasion—blockade-running, if you will—lessened its effect toward the end of its existence. The Non-Intercourse Act, which succeeded it, forbade trading only with Britain and France, overwhelmingly our major trading partners, and the deep depression in American shipping continued. Finally, in 1812, when Britain still refused to accede to American demands, the United States stumbled into a war it lacked the means to fight effectively.
At least now the blockade of American ports was carried out by an enemy fleet, not our own, and one larger than all the other fleets in the world combined. American foreign commerce all but ceased. In 1814 domestic exports were only one-eighth of what they had been seven years before, while imports were one-sixth.
So bitterly resented was the War of 1812 in New England and other centers of commerce that its continuation threatened the Union itself. Fortunately it did not continue, and the seas were opened once more.
All laws have unintended consequences. The Embargo Act and the Non-Intercourse Act had almost nothing but. Not only did they gravely injure American foreign commerce, these laws acted also as a prohibitive tariff. Imports, especially manufactured imports from Europe, were largely barred from the country, and local industries, already beginning to grow, prospered mightily as a result. Unfortunately, these new enterprises, once confronted with the threat of renewed trade with competing countries, immediately sought a real tariff.
The New England cloth industry demanded, and received, a duty of twenty-five cents a yard on cheap cotton cloth, effectively excluding competing British cloth from the American market. Other industries immediately sought their own protective tariffs, and some succeeded. A tariff to protect growing young industries always has a surface plausibility that enables politicians to more easily accept it and thus accommodate those self-interested constituents who are calling for it. But, in fact, there are always two solid reasons against a protective tariff, both elaborated at length in The Wealth of Nations .
The first is that the tariffs are ultimately paid not by foreign producers but by domestic consumers, to whom the costs are passed along. The second is that protective tariffs insulate producers from foreign competition. This not only allows them to raise their prices but also makes it less imperative for them constantly to seek ways to cut costs and improve quality. And it is the inescapable necessity to innovate and cut costs—in order to survive in a free market—that powers the great force for the general good that has come to be known, in Adam Smith’s famous metaphor, as the “invisible hand.”
Fortunately, the Smithian inheritance still held. And while specific industries were protected, such protection was always presented as an exception to the general rule, and American tariffs stayed low, compared with those of many other countries. New England shipping interests, of course, fought for a low tariff on all goods. But American manufacturing was growing with astounding speed in these years, and its political power along with it. In 1824 there were two million Americans engaged in manufacturing, ten times the number only five years earlier. American shipping, meanwhile, was stagnant or in decline.
Besides the shipping interests, the other great source of opposition to a high tariff was the South. With few industries, and ever more dependent on the export of cotton to the British market, the Southern planters wanted free trade. In those years it was the tariff, not slavery, that most divided North and South and threatened the Union. Under Northern pressure the tariff rose steadily, and in 1828 Congress passed what the South—as always a major exporter of catchy political phrases—called the Tariff of Abominations. This, in turn, led to the nullification crisis in 1832, when South Carolina declared that states had the power to rule federal laws unconstitutional, including the tariff.
A direct confrontation, and quite possibly civil war, were avoided only when a new tariff calling for gradually lower rates was adopted. After the crisis passed, the tariff continued to decline slowly until the Civil War began for real in 1861.
By that year American exports had topped $400 million, four times what they had been in the best year before the War of 1812. But as a percentage of the whole American economy they were much smaller than they had been then, for the economy had grown far faster than had foreign trade. In 1800 about 10 percent of the American gross national product was being shipped abroad. Sixty years later the United States was exporting only about 6 percent of a much larger gross national product.
There has long been an argument among scholars about whether foreign trade (and foreign capital) drove this dramatic domestic expansion or the other way around. The truth, in all likelihood, is that they acted together, each upon the other. Uniquely, the United States is both a continental and an island power. In the great sweep of its territory and the abundance and diversity of its resources, it possesses the inherent advantages of a Russia or China. Yet in its geographical isolation from possible aggression and its unhindered access to the ocean sea and its trade routes, it has the very attributes that made Japan and Great Britain rich. With the best of both worlds, America’s domestic market and its foreign trade together produced the greatest economic synergy the world had ever seen.
But at the outbreak of the Civil War, American exports were still largely agricultural products and raw materials (cotton would remain the leading agent until the 1930s). More than half of all imports were manufactured goods, especially cloth and iron products, including most of the railroad rails that were quickly knitting the country together. Manufacturing exports, however, were beginning to make inroads. In 1820 only about 5 percent of American exports were finished goods. By 1850 more than 12 percent were.
The Civil War changed American foreign commerce profoundly. It dealt a deathblow to the already declining American shipping industry. With Confederate raiders such as the CSS Alabama on the loose, American ships fled to the protection of foreign flags, usually British, and never came back. In 1860 about two-thirds of American foreign trade was carried in American bottoms. By 1865 barely a quarter was; by 1912, less than 10 percent.
Moreover, the cotton trade was temporarily halted by the Northern blockade of the Southern cotton ports. It would be 1875 before cotton shipments again reached their pre-war peak. And the tariff was greatly increased to help pay for the war. This, of course, had the effect of protecting American industry still further from foreign competition, giving it a tremendous short-term boost as it captured market share from foreign companies. The tariff, together with the demands made by the war and the prosperity the war brought to the Northern civilian sector, caused American industry to boom as never before.
By 1865, with the South now politically powerless, Northern industry’s demands for continued high tariffs met little opposition. Fortunately for the common good, the railroad had by this time transformed the once geographically fragmented domestic American market into the largest fully integrated market in the world. This, in turn, provided increasing domestic competition that forced cost savings and innovation, despite increased protection from foreign companies.
Northern industry began to grow so fast that by the turn of the century America was the world’s foremost industrial nation. This was reflected in a fundamental change in the nature of American exports and imports. While the United States remained, then as today, a major exporter of agricultural and mineral products (two new ones, petroleum and copper, were even added), it also became a major exporter of manufactured goods. In 1865 they constituted only 22.78 percent of American exports. By the turn of the century they were 31.65 percent of a vastly larger trade. The portion of world trade, meanwhile, that was American in origin doubled in these years to about 12 percent of the total.
Nowhere was this more noticeable than in iron and steel exports, the cutting edge of late-nineteenth-century technology. Before the Civil War the nation exported only $6,000,000 worth of iron and steel manufactures per year. In 1900 we exported $121,914,000 worth of locomotives, engines, rails, electrical machinery, wire, pipes, metalworking machinery, boilers, and other goods. Even sewing machines and typewriters were being sent abroad in quantity.
Europe had long imported raw materials from the United States and elsewhere and exported finished goods to America and the rest of the world. To alarmist economic commentators—all too often a redundancy then as now—it seemed that an American colossus had suddenly appeared to snatch this profitable trade away, threatening to reduce once mighty Europe to an economic backwater. Books with such ominous titles as The American Invaders , The Americanization of the World , and The “American Commercial Invasion ” of Europe began to fill the bookstores in the 1890s. (Their authors’ spiritual descendants, of course, would be turning out the very same books ninety years later, only with “Japanese” substituted for “American” in the titles.)
Actually, Europe was perfectly able to hold its own market for manufactured goods in the twentieth century, and it was in what we now call the Third World that the American-European rivalry in industrial products reached its height. And with a rapidly growing worldwide market for American manufactures, the high American tariff became more and more a liability to its own political backers, because it tended to generate opposing high tariffs abroad and thus limit American exports. In 1913, with the traditionally antitariff Democrats in control of both the White House and Congress, the tariff was significantly reduced for the first time in more than fifty years. And that year world trade reached heights it would not see again for a generation.
The outbreak of World War I radically transformed the world economy, and the war proved a bonanza for American business. With Russia (a major grain exporter until the advent of communism) cut off from overseas markets, demand for American wheat and meat soared, and American farms boomed. European orders for steel and munitions caused factories to operate around the clock. Lavish government subsidies rebuilt the American merchant marine. Americans were able to capture many markets that had once been firmly controlled by the now-distracted European colonial powers.
New York succeeded London as the world’s financial center, and world trade, which had formerly been financed almost exclusively with sterling acceptances, now used dollar acceptances as well. American loans to Britain and France transformed the United States, a debtor nation since the earliest days of the Republic, into the world’s greatest creditor. By 1916 the United States was running annual trade surpluses, exports minus imports, in excess of $3 billion, twice the total American exports alone at the turn of the century.
With an economy now larger than all of Europe’s, only the United States could lead the world back to the peaceful and fruitful free-trading patterns of the pre-war era. It failed to do so and, once more, injured itself far more than it injured other countries.
For one thing, the United States severely restricted immigration in 1921, depriving itself of the steady inflow of that most priceless of all economic assets, human capital. Far worse, the U.S. government ended the financing of food shipments to Europe eighteen months after the war ended. The market for food exports collapsed, and this helped push American agriculture into a depression from which it would not recover for twenty years. A decade later that depression would spread around the world.
Worse still, the United States refused to cancel war debts owed by its allies, despite their parlous financial state and their importance to us as trading partners. Indeed, about the only means the United States employed to sustain the world economy as a whole was to lend large sums of money to defeated Germany, which in turn used the money to pay reparations to Britain and France. They in turn sent the money back to the United States in payment of war loans. For a while this staved off disaster, but when U.S. lending dried up in the late 1920s, the world economy began to crumble.
It turned into a collapse when the United States tried to wall off its own economy with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the darkest day for the American Smithian inheritance. The United States had reversed the downward trend in tariffs of the Wilson years with the Tariff of 1922, which was primarily intended to help the increasingly distressed farmers.
Then, in the presidential campaign of 1928, Hoover sought the still-troubled farm vote with a promise to raise the tariff on agricultural products once again. He called a special session of Congress in 1929 to fulfill his promise to the farmers. But it soon turned into what can only be described as a special-interest feeding frenzy, as capitalists looked after their individual interests and no one at all looked after the common good.
Every major industry, and countless minor ones (tombstone makers, for instance), paraded before Congress, demanding protection against “unfair” foreign competition. (Unfair competition, in the peculiar lexicon of protectionism, means foreign competitors able and willing to sell to American consumers for a lower price than domestic manufacturers can and will.) With economic conditions unsettled after the stock-market crash and potent postwar xenophobia still abroad in the land, unstoppable political momentum developed. Hoover signed the greatest tariff increase in American history into law in 1930, despite a petition of more than one thousand economists who predicted disaster.
The economists were right for once. Other countries immediately retaliated with sharp hikes of their own, and American foreign markets vanished. U.S. exports in 1929 had been valued at $5.341 billion. Three years later they were a mere $1.666 billion, the lowest they had been, allowing for inflation, since 1896. They would not reach 1929 levels again until 1942, when a second catastrophic war finally ended what Smoot-Hawley, perhaps more than any other single factor, had caused: the Great Depression.
The Second World War, like the First, greatly strengthened the position of the United States relative to its international trading partners. All the other great trading nations had been badly damaged, if not utterly devastated, by the war, and at its end the United States had, temporarily, over half the global GNP. Once again only the United States could lead the world out of the disaster. This time, having learned the painful lessons of the twenties and thirties, it did so.
The United States was instrumental in establishing a new international financial order, called Bretton Woods after the New Hampshire town where it was negotiated. This agreement fixed the value of the dollar in gold and in effect restored the gold standard that had so promoted world trade in the years before World War I.
Further, the United States provided massive aid to countries devastated by the war, both allies and its former enemies, by means of the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, there was no talk of “reparations” or attempts to collect loans made during the war to allies.
Still more important, the United States abandoned the protectionism that had cost it so dearly in the 1930s and led the way on tariff reductions by means of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, known as GATT. The result was a massive increase in world trade and, no coincidence, world prosperity. In 1953 world trade totaled about $167 billion. By 1970 the figure was $639 billion. And the unsustainable American lead in global GNP returned to its pre-war level by 1965 as the other great powers recovered.
In the immediate postwar years the United States was the world leader in nearly all high-technology and capital-intensive industries, such as automobiles and electronics. But as Germany and Japan recovered from the war and other countries, such as Korea and Taiwan, began to develop modern economies, competition intensified.
Further, having to start from scratch and to capture markets that had been dominated by American companies, foreign companies were often much more innovative, both in design and in manufacturing techniques. Foreign companies, in other words, were lean and hungry. American companies, used to the easy profits in the post-war American market that they had largely to themselves, were all too often fat, dumb, and happy. Our automotive industry, for instance, was as late as the 1970s selling cars whose engineering had not basically changed since the 1940s.
America’s once-huge trade surplus in manufactured goods began to slip away. Our self-sufficiency in raw materials also rapidly eroded. The trade balance in such vital commodities as petroleum, iron ore, and copper turned sharply against the United States. For a while the reversal of trade flows was masked by an increase in agricultural exports. In 1959, however, for the first time in this century, the United States ran a trade deficit.
Within a decade such bedrock American industries as steel and automobiles were losing their shares of world markets as well. Gold began to flow abroad, and in 1971 the United States unilaterally severed the link between gold and the dollar. Inflation took off. Then came the sudden increase in the price of petroleum after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Foreign automobile companies, which had long met their local markets’ demands for small, efficient cars, invaded the American market and took increasing chunks of market share from the stunned American giants. American exports rose in volume and value thanks to agriculture, aircraft, and very high-tech equipment, such as supercomputers. But imports rose much faster.
By the early 1980s the United States was running the largest merchandise trade deficits since colonial times, and calls for protection were more loudly voiced than at any time since the Second World War. In fact, these deficits were offset by two other trends. One was that in intellectual trade and services, notoriously hard to quantify and measure but growing explosively in the late twentieth century, the United States was ever increasingly the world leader. In movies, television, books, and music—multibillion-dollar industries all—the United States was first by a very wide margin and holding its lead.
In computer software the United States had, for all intents and purposes, no competition at all. In 1975 William S. Gates, then nineteen, founded Microsoft on a shoestring. By 1992 he was the richest man in the United States, and Microsoft dominated the software industry around the world. Hundreds of other American software firms were prospering alongside it and exporting increasingly.
Second, foreigners were investing more and more in the United States. These capital inflows offset the trade deficits and helped to fund the profound restructuring of the American economy in the 1980s. Faced with intense competition from abroad and at home, thanks to free trade, American companies and unions had little choice but to cut costs and to innovate. The invisible hand moved. Wages were held down; layoffs in inefficient industries multiplied while total employment increased sharply; productivity in manufacturing soared. By 1988 the United States had become the low-cost producer in many industries, and American exports, as a result, were booming. In 1980 American merchandise exports were $220.6 billion (1991 dollars). In 1991 they were $421.9 billion.
Even the American automobile industry, once the glory of the American economy, and in much of the eighties the despair, has largely closed the gap in quality and cost with its overseas rivals. The domestic market share of American automobile companies is rising significantly, and the largest-selling car in the American market is, once again, American designed and built, the Ford Taurus.
Today the American overall trade gap has nearly vanished. Vanishing with it is a world economy made up of separate sovereign national economies. Industrial companies have been operating in many countries since the 1920s, but until the sharp drop in shipping and communications costs, such multi-national companies tended to act as collections of independent units. Today intracompany trade over national borders is growing by leaps and bounds, and the question of where a particular product is “manufactured” is becoming increasingly meaningless. AT&T is Taiwan’s largest exporter of electronics.
These multinational companies are rapidly becoming effectively stateless. General Motors, deeply troubled as it is, last year had worldwide sales of $132 billion, a “gross national product” larger than all but a handful of countries. In 1990 Philip Morris exported $3.1 billion from the United States, but its overseas subsidiaries had sales of more than $13 billion.
Moreover, the ability of sovereign governments to determine their own internal economic policies (and thus which domestic interest groups to favor) is swiftly diminishing. To give just one example of why this is, when currencies began to float freely, international transactions became more complicated to negotiate. But floating currency values also made currency traders, now operating around the globe and around the clock thanks to the quickly falling cost of communications, an important force in the world economy. Today currency trading amounts to about $5 trillion a day, and no central bank or even combination of central banks can any longer effectively intervene to determine how that trading moves. When France elected a socialist government in 1981, and that government instituted traditional socialist policies, currency traders immediately began savaging the franc on world markets until the French government had no choice but to reverse course.
Today, whether individuals like it or not, the world is moving toward that singular blessing for society as a whole that Adam Smith was instrumental in giving the United States two hundred years ago, a borderless marketplace. But it will happen even sooner if we remember Smith’s most profound lesson: that the greatest enemy of capitalism is always the short-term self-interest of capitalists and, in our day if not in Smith’s, unions and those in government who protect and promote their special interests.
So far, despite intense political pressure to look after the few who fear competition rather than the many who will thrive on its effects, the United States is still leading the way. In 1988 we established a free-trade area with Canada. In 1992 Mexico joined what will be, when it is fully implemented, a North American common market of 365 million people. The latest round (the fifth) of negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is nearly complete; it will do much to stimulate trade in services and intellectual property and foster the agricultural exports of Third World countries, strengthening their demand for manufactured imports.
A global economy is already a reality. If this country continues to lend its active support to a world wholly without economic borders, it will turn out that America’s Smithian inheritance will be the greatest of all our exports.
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Strong reasoning
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Finance & Business
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Digital identity is a collection of personal data and/or credentials that can be traced back to the real you. It is basically the virtual representation of your identity in the real world.
Traditionally, identification procedures involve the government issuing physical, paper certifications or documents. It includes the likes of Social Security number (SSN), passport, Aadhaar card, and birth certificate, containing details such as name, address, gender and others.
Today, with the widespread use of the Internet and rise in fraudulent activities, having verifiable digital identity documents is becoming essential.
The new verifiable digital identity documents will need to be valid across services, markets, standards and technologies. And, address the following glaring problems associated with the traditional or paper-based identity documents:
- Lengthy manual processes – the documents pass through multiple processes and personnel before they are dispatched or issued to the recipient. This creates possibilities for errors and forgery.
- Time consuming tasks – not only do people have to make time in their busy schedule to apply for their documents and wait for them to arrive. Companies or institutions also have to invest huge amounts of time to issue every single document.
- High logistics costs – huge costs are incurred to print, courier and deliver the documents safely.
- Lack of safety – physical documents can always be lost, misplaced or forgotten. The world needs digital identity credentials that can be stored and shared online securely.
Quick fact: Around 1.1 billion people around the world have no proof of identity.
This is largely due to the expenses and tiresome paperwork associated with the creation of traditional identity documents. There is also the issue of accessibility, as most rural citizens have to travel long distances to create credentials.
To address these challenges effectively, issuing digital identity documents which can be accessed online or through a smartphone will be a favourable solution. Additionally, if the identity document is secured by blockchain technology, it will ensure that data is protected.
New technologies like blockchain can help to deliver secure identity services, in particular by educational, financial and government institutions.
For the purpose of this blog, we shall look at educational certificates which are commonly asked to prove a person’s identity.
If education or qualification certificates can be issued over blockchain. It will be secure, easily verifiable and universally accepted.
How digital certificates are created on Blockchain
Utilising blockchain technology does not have to be difficult. Platforms like Certif-ID which are powered by blockchain technology make it as easy as using Facebook or Twitter.
On the Certif-ID platform, training and educational institutions can simply sign up, create a profile, and issue digital certificates on blockchain directly to students’ email and profile. It is that simple!
Additionally, the platform also offers other features such as course listing and batch management. Educators can use these services, and rely on insights offered by the platform’s data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities.
The issued digital educational certificates can be shared on social media platforms and recruiters immediately. As the digital certificates are anchored in the blockchain, it is secure. Anyone with access to it can click on the link or scan the QR code and authenticate the information and source mentioned instantly.
“On the Certif-ID platform, organisations can issue blockchain-powered certificates directly into an individual’s email or digital wallet. So, there’s no room for manipulation between the point of the certificate being issued and it being visible to recruiters,” said Tim Miller, Co-Founder of Certif-ID.
Advantages of digital educational certificates on Blockchain
- Simplified verification: once a candidate shares his or her digital certificate, recruiters can verify the authenticity of the certificate with a few clicks. This leads to less time spent in background checks.
- Allows for granular verification: as almost any form of data can be encrypted into a block, educators can issue micro-credentials, testimonials, course project details, etc. Digital certificates can showcase specific information related to niche subjects, and a students’ skill levels, something very useful in today’s age of skill specific job roles.
- Secure, tamper-proof credentials: when a digital certificate is issued via Certif-ID (or on Blockchain) an unalterable link is created between the issuing institute and the candidate’s achievement. This makes the certificate super-transparent and removes the need for any third-party involvement.
- Save costs: millions of dollars are spent on educational certificate checks to validate all types of personal details. Utilising digital credentials or certificates in today’s market can make or break your organisation; saving effort, time and costs.
Finally, it must be said that digital identities can have an immense impact in the current times. These benefits can impact not just the educational sector, but sectors like the carbon credits industry. Today, carbon credits are being issued as paper certificates. A single certificate is being sold multiple times and causing fraud and financial crimes. Using blockchain technology to issue digital certificates will make this a thing of the past.
Also read: Three pillars to drive employability skills to our students https://www.nationalskillsnetwork.in/three-pillars-to-drive-employability-skills-to-our-students/
Certif-ID is making a difference, empowering organizations in various other sectors to reimagine digital identities through the use of a blockchain-based system for issuing and verifying digital documents.
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Strong reasoning
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Software
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Is it possible to build a spaceship which warps the fabric of space and time, as in Star Trek, so that we can travel faster than the speed of light?
Serious physicists do debate this kind of thing. After one such debate, here are:
The third part will probably evolve in the future as I learn what questions people have.
Perhaps someday I might add a fourth part, to discuss the questions I raise but do not pretend to answer. And maybe I might even divide up the third part into a version for physicists and a version for high school folks; for now, I will try to speak to both at the same time.
No one on earth really knows whether warp drive is physically possible. Right now, the odds do appear to be against it, but there are serious loopholes in the arguments which say it is impossible. Because it would “open up a whole new world” for the human species (and help us adapt one way or another to the realities of this galaxy, whatever they may be), rationality demands that do what we can to maximize the probability that we do eventually learn how to build a warp drive – as one part of our many other concerns.
The biggest obstacle to doing this is the tendency of many people today to think of physics as a kind of religion, demanding preaching, faith, formation of fixed opinions about the universe and strict adherence to them, and solidarity and the stamping out of heresy. There will be no hope at all for warp drive (or for any other major breakthrough), unless we remember that science really is a voyage of exploration, that we still live in a world of uncertainty and mystery and “wildcat drilling,” and that we really need to learn a certain kind of strategic thinking in order to probe the space of possibilities.
Overconfidence, pride and narcissism will not give us warp drive. We need enough self-confidence to ask the big questions, but enough humility to know that we don’t have them yet. It is very sad these days when some adult scientists treat the scientific method the way some Mafia “Catholics” treat the words of Jesus Christ. Everything we know is rooted in experience of some kind – empirical data in the laboratory, or subjective experience. Science demands that we periodically ask ourselves what we really know and what we don’t know, based on shared laboratory experience. (Life is more than science, but to achieve warp drive, we would have to know new things as part of science.) We need to always keep asking what the alternatives are. In sum, we need to remember all that old stuff we learned from the history of science, and from the thinking which led up to Francis Bacon’s proposal for a Scientific Method.
We also need to understand how
science has changed, since the mathematics became more difficult and our
knowledge became more complicated. We need to aspire to the kind of
mathematical thinking that Von Neumann espoused – not handwaving bullshitting
with equations (which often reminds me of medieval “proofs” of the existence of
God, complete with a thousand angels and renormalizations on the head of a
pin), not excessive formalism, but an effective (and strategic) use of logic to
try to achieve clear understanding. And now, because physics is even more
complicated than it was in the time of Von Neumann, we need to learn how to
work together more, by opening ourselves up to the kind of discussions which
once could fit within a single brain. And we need to try to listen to a broader
community, more than just one discipline.
First, note that “warp drive” refers to bending space-time around a spaceship. I won’t be talking about wormholes here; they are a different approach to faster than light (FTL) travel.
Years ago, I had the following pessimistic view of warp
drive. If we assume time-forwards causality (and think PDE or stochastic PDE),
then we face the well-known result in basic mathematics that information cannot
propagate faster than the speed of light, under quasilinear PDE. General
relativity (GR) can be formulated as just another PDE theory (cf. Weinberg); it
is not quasilinear, but at the forward edge of a spaceship-cum-space-warping it
still is as close as you like to quasilinear, so forget it. This is similar to
the better known heuristic argument from general relativity that any spaceship
moving faster than light (FTL) is moving backwards in time, from some
But now I realize that these arguments are not quite airtight (even still assuming GR as the theory of gravity). Under the backwards-time theory of quantum mechanics (as described on my physics web page), we cannot rule out this kind of thing.
And so... forgive me... I did a google on "Alcubierre" yesterday. The Alcubierre solutions are well-known to gravity specialists, but I didn't have reason to look them up before now. It looks to me that the Wikipedia article on Alcubierre solutions is quite good.
At first -- the work of Alcubierre really is quite positive. If we reject time-forwards causality and use the PDE directly to make predictions... it does seem that we can find viable solutions consistent with GR that would allow warp drive, somehow or other. But then... it seems fairly definite that this is possible only if we can create "exotic matter," i.e. regions of space with negative total mass-energy. This then leaves us with only three serious hopes for warp drive:
(1) Validating an alternative theory of gravity which does not have this restriction;
(2) validating the possibility, and then producing, negative mass-energy "matter" in a confined space.
(3) Or proving the Riemannian physical world is just an illusion ala The Matrix?
Some physicists are enthusiastic about the first route. It is certainly a worthwhile route in principle, but I really doubt we can claim much about it just yet, on an empirical basis. So far as I know (particularly from the recent Harvard astrophysics paper), GR with a cosmological term is still tenable.
I used to feel a lot more encouraged by the hope of negative mass-energy. I would still not rule it out, but I don't see much basis for it in the empirical evidence available to us just yet. A time-symmetric stochastic term can potentially explain a lot of the things I thought we needed negative mass-energy for. Under GR, negative mass-energy stuff would not cluster around galaxies; thus, to the extent that we know dark matter and light-modifying stuff clusters around galaxies... it would have to be something else, and, as such, would seem very speculative.
Maybe it's there, somewhere, but where? How could we learn more, aside from gross theoretical speculation? These are the questions we need to probe more deeply.
I have been asking myself the question: “Do the laws of physics, as we know them today, permit the possibility of warp drive?”
In answering this question, the first problem is that we do not really know the laws of physics today. There are competing opinions, theories and possibilities. One good reason to ask about warp drive is that it may help us probe what we really know and don’t know.
Some people believe that superstring or n-brane theories are the ultimate laws of physics. What do those theories tell us about the possibility of warp drive? I don’t really know. I recently read a first-class science fiction trilogy by Meaney, the Nulaperion chronicles, which I highly recommend. (It is a good idea to read first-class science fiction, giving alternative viewpoints, even if you have a very tight schedule; we always need to remind ourselves that there really are many possible points of view…) He portrays a universe in which n-brane theory and such does make warp drive possible, in some form. But I don’t see any math in the book, or reference to math which makes it possible. So far as I know (without having checked), we have no idea about whether warp drive is really possible or not, in the canonical n-bran theory.
To be honest – I have not explored that issue, because I do not see much of a chance right now that superstring theory is true. I understand that we must keep an open mind, but from a strategic viewpoint, the n-brane effort has other questions to address. Still… if I were an n-brane believer… probably I would try to look at this question. If warp drive did look truly possible under n-brane theory, then proving this mathematically would raise people’s interest in finding out whether n-brane theory is really true. In fact, it might even suggest more realistic ways to try to test whether n-brane theory is true.
But right now, there is not one shred of empirical laboratory evidence that all the beautiful extra dimensions imagined by n-brane theory have any validity at all. The only proper reason to believe this particular choice of theory, out of the enormous universe of possible theories, is that it seems to offer a way to unify the standard model of physics (today’s “official theory” of electromagnetism, nuclear forces and quantum effects) with general relativity (still our best theory of gravity). But there are other ways to achieve such a unification, without inserting quite so many florid novel hypotheses.
Some people are now shifting from superstrings to “quantum loop gravity.” I would view this as one part of the third loophole in the arguments against warp drive. Greg Bear’s terrific science fiction novel Moving Mars exploits this loophole, and discusses how new theories of physics based on “its from bits” may allow this kind of effect. On my physics web page, I have posted a quick discussion of “digital universe” theories, and suggested that someone should explore these further. In fact, one of the world’s top applied mathematicians, Prof. Leon Chua of Berekeley, has followed up on these suggestions, and published a major discussion of some of the possibilities here, in the International Journal of Chaos and Bifurcation.
But for now – I do not see any shred of empirical laboratory evidence yet that the universe has more than the four dimensions that Einstein talked about – three of space and one of time. Furthermore, there are lots of possible ways to unify what we know about quantum theory, nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity, without needing to imagine extra dimensions. In order to make real progress, we need to be humble enough to try to make sense of what we can make sense of in Einsteinian space, first. The first two loopholes in the argument against warp drive can be explored even without a belief in hyperspace.
Here, a very top theoretical physicist would immediately ask: “OK, where is your proposed theory of the universe, which you want to use as an alternative to n-branes and such? If we want to ask whether the theory permits warp drive, where is the theory or theories of the universe that you propose to analyze here?”
Science demands that we make room for different approaches to this kind of question. We need a diversity of efforts, in parallel, which also need to respect each other.
One possible approach is simply to give the theorist what he is asking for directly – a new unified theory of the universe, or a recipe of alternatives and a path to get to such a theory. I have recently posted a new paper which in my view responds to his question as well as possible today. It gives an example of a model Lagrangian which inserts new terms into a Lagrangian previously given by Moshe Carmelli (Classical Fields: General Relativity and Gauge Theory, Wiley 1982) in order to accommodate new work in nuclear physics, and adds a time-symmetric noise term (as justified in my paper on the Q hypothesis, at arXiv.org: arXiv:quant-ph/0607096v2. However, more work is needed to carry through the new program, and I have not yet had time to do a deep analysis of what the new Lagrangian says about warp drive. Like the much-debated “zero point energy (ZPE)” hypotheses, this model does contain stochastic terms; however, I do not yet know how close they are to any of the ZPE predictions, or whether they would really allow any of the visionary concepts that ZPE people talk about.
Another approach is simply to assume the validity of general relativity, for now, and try to analyze warp drive on that basis. Since my new Lagrangians, like Carmelli’s, basically start from general relativity, this should give a good starting point in guessing what the new theories imply as well. Since we do not yet have good empirical data on how the universe deviates from general relativity (if it does), this is a reasonable way to try to analyze what we know about the possibility of warp drive today. This approach is what leads directly to the work of Alcubierre which I referred to in the technical summary.
And finally, a third legitimate approach is to probe hard the world of empirical data related to general relativity, and explore alternative theories (such as the theories based on torsion which Einstein explored in later life). Some physicists truly Believe in such alternative theories today. (People like Nash and Sarfatti have become well-known in certain circles.) Belief aside, the physicist Hehl has explored a variety of alternative possible theories very systematically, with reference to empirical data. His 2000 paper, gr-qc 0001010, is the best summary I can find of the status of this line of research. He is following the scientific method far more strictly than do the usual enthusiasts for warp drive, superstrings or even the standard model of physics.
Another important review of the empirical situation on gravity is given at gr-gc 0407113. From a quick read of these two papers, it would seem that we do not yet have any laboratory evidence yet for any of the alternatives to general relativity (leaving aside debates about the cosmological constant, which is essentially just a term within general relativity). And yet – even the best review papers are sometimes incomplete, and there have been new experiments since those papers were posted. I have not yet asked Yanhua Shih for a detailed account of his own impressive, precise, recent experiments to probe fourth order terms in gravity. Also, I have heard press accounts of a credible experiment at ESA which showed much stronger coupling between gravity and spinning electromagnetic sources than GR predicts; this sounds very similar to what Hehl has been considering.
Hehl has mainly focused on the question of coupling between
electromagnetism and gravity (including torsion effects). There is much value
in that line of research, because of the experiments they lead to.
But in the long term, coupling between the nuclear strong force and gravity may be much more interesting, both in terms of unified physics and in terms of technological possibilities not yet foreseen. More energy and force, more possibility for big effects.
It is also interesting to ask how these two streams of work could brought together. Hehl's work suggests, in effect, a kind of coupling very different from the usual kind which Moshe Carmelli discusses. It is then nontrivial (but not necessarily problematic) to ask how such coupling mechanisms could be extended to more unified standard model Lagrangians, like what I propose exploring, and tested. That sounds like a nice mid-sized project, except for the testing, which is bigger.
Unimaginative collider experiments that are essentially random two-particle collisions like what we see in the atmosphere probably are not so dangerous, really. Probably they won't do anything that we haven't seen in cosmic rays in the atmosphere. But really interesting many-body nuclear experiments that truly probe the unknown might best be done in earth orbit.
Hehl himself has written nothing about warp drive, so far as I know. But with an alternate theory of gravity, it should be possible to redo the Alcubierre solutions – and perhaps the result will be more promising.
Warp drive and alternative theories of gravity do sometimes bring out wild and undisciplined thinking and excitement. But this is no excuse for failing to explore the serious questions here in a serious but open-minded way.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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CERN congratulates François Englert and Peter W. Higgs on the award of the Nobel prize in physics “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.” The announcement by the ATLAS and CMS experiments took place on 4 July last year.
“I’m thrilled that this year’s Nobel prize has gone to particle physics,” says CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. “The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN last year, which validates the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, marks the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world.”
Members of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations react with jubilation at CERN as the announcement is made (Image: Maximilien Brice/CERN)
The Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism was first proposed in 1964 in two papers published independently, the first by Belgian physicists Robert Brout and François Englert, and the second by British physicist Peter Higgs. It explains how the force responsible for beta decay is much weaker than electromagnetism, but is better known as the mechanism that endows fundamental particles with mass. A third paper, published by Americans Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen with their British colleague Tom Kibble further contributed to the development of the new idea, which now forms an essential part of the Standard Model of particle physics. As was pointed out by Higgs, a key prediction of the idea is the existence of a massive boson of a new type, which was discovered by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN in 2012.
The Standard Model describes the fundamental particles from which we, and all the visible matter in the universe, are made, along with the interactions that govern their behaviour. It is a remarkably successful theory that has been thoroughly tested by experiment over many years. Until last year, the BEH mechanism was the last remaining piece of the model to be experimentally verified. Now that it has been found, experiments at CERN are eagerly looking for physics beyond the Standard Model.
The Higgs particle was discovered by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, each of which involves over 3000 people from all around the world. They have constructed sophisticated instruments – particle detectors – to study proton collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), itself a highly complex instrument involving many people and institutes in its construction.
CERN will be holding a press conference at 2pm CET today in the Globe of Science and Innovation. For those unable to attend, it will be webcast. Media questions can be submitted by Twitter using the hashtag #BosonNobel.
About the Higgs boson
Updates about the Higgs boson
More Higgs boson updates
— To celebrate the fourth birthday of the Higgs boson announcement CERN invites you to make your own particle-based pizza
— A new citizen science project gives sofa-scientists the chance to search for previously undiscovered particles
— Do recent discoveries mean there’s nothing left? Find out what the future holds for theoretical physics in our final In Theory series installment
— Today the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented for the first time a combination of their results on the mass of the Higgs boson
— Recent publications from CMS use data from the LHC's first run to shed light on the properties of the Higgs boson
— Without a doubt, it is a Higgs boson, but is it the Higgs boson of the Standard Model? Run 2 of the LHC find out, says theorist John Ellis
— In CERN’s 60th year, the first proof of the existence of the Higgs boson earns a Guinness World Record for CERN, ATLAS and CMS
— At ICHEP in Valencia, Spain, all four LHC experiments presented new results from the LHC’s first run. Run 2 physics holds much promise
— Results reported by ATLAS and CMS discuss the decay of Higgs bosons directly to fermions, the particles that make up matter
— Teach the machines: CERN launches competition to develop machine-learning analysis techniques for Higgs data
— At the Moriond conference CMS presented the best constraint yet of the Higgs boson “width”, a parameter that determines the particle’s lifetime
— On his first trip to CERN since sharing the Nobel prize in physics last year with Peter Higgs, François Englert talks Higgs bosons and supersymmetry
— Watch François Englert explain the equations for the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism that gives particles mass, with the help of a blackboard
— Higgs boson decays, a Nobel prize for Higgs and Englert and a huge Open Days event were among the big stories at CERN this year
— The CMS collaboration have measured the decay of the Higgs boson to pairs of bottom quarks and to pairs of tau leptons
— The ATLAS experiment at CERN has found evidence for the Higgs boson decaying to two tau particles
— CERN, along with Peter Higgs and François Englert, today receives the Prince of Asturias Award during a ceremony in Spain
— Cameras were rolling in CERN's building 40 when members of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations heard the news from Stockholm live yesterday
— In the first year after the discovery of the Higgs boson, physicists from ATLAS and CMS have been busy studying the properties of the new particle
— In this animated lesson for TED-Ed, CERN physicists David Barney and Steven Goldfarb use the Socratic method to explain the Higgs boson
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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In recent years the development community has witnessed an upsurge of interest in the role that social norms may play in perpetuating a host of harmful practices, especially practices affecting women and girls. There has long been interest in how deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and norms can justify male dominance and reinforce behaviour and institutions that discriminate again women. Despite this recognition, there has been little conceptual clarity about the distinctions between these various constructs or how they relate to actual practices such as female genital cutting, domestic violence, or early marriage.
Indeed, activists, program planners, and donors have tended to refer loosely to the need to address “gender norms,” without making distinctions between whether the construct of interest is an attitude, a norm, a belief or behaviour. This undisciplined approach misses an important opportunity to use theory-based distinctions to shape programme planning and evaluation. As discussed below, both the content of an intervention and who should be involved is greatly affected by the nature of the construct – whether it is an individually held belief or attitude or whether it is a social norm. This reading pack is designed to help practitioners begin to understand these distinctions and thereby capitalise on evolving theory on how to transform and measure shifts in social norms.
The notion of “norms” is multi-disciplinary. A wide range of academic disciplines, including sociology, behavioural economics, philosophy, and social psychology use slightly different terms, however they largely converge around certain key insights related to norms:
- A norm is a social construct. It exists as a collectively shared belief about what others do (what is typical) and what is expected of what others do within the group (what is appropriate). Social norms are generally maintained by social approval and/or disapproval. There are several more formal and complicated definitions of norms, but for our purposes, the above is sufficient.
- An attitude is an individual construct. It is an individually held belief that has an evaluative component—suggesting that something is good, bad, exciting, boring, sacrilegious, disgusting, etc. “Children should be seen and not heard” is an example of an attitude.
- Individuals may also hold factual beliefs about reality and the physical world that may or may not be true. For example, I may believe that if I don’t bury the placenta of my newborn, bad spirits will sicken my child. Sometimes all that is required to change behaviour is to correct factually inaccurate information. However, if all of my peers believe that you must bury the placenta or you are not a good mother, then I may continue the practice in order to receive their approval, even if I no longer believe in its value. Those whose opinions are important to me are called my “reference group.”
To shift social norms, interventions must create new beliefs within an individual’s reference group so that the collective expectations of the people important to them allow new behaviours to emerge. Evidence suggests that when norms are at play, shifting knowledge or individual attitudes is often not enough to shift behaviour. That is because norms are generally enforced through either positive or negative sanctions. People conform to group expectations out of the human need for social approval and belonging. If individuals depart from a norm, they frequently loose social approval and may be ostracised, gossiped about, or sanctioned in some other way.
The table below offers one simple way to conceptualise different types of beliefs. The most important distinction is between social and non-social beliefs: social beliefs are known as “interdependent” and are a property of a group, non-social beliefs are the property of individuals.
Moral beliefs motivate behaviour regardless of what others may think. For example, if I believe that the death penalty is morally wrong, I may protest the practice even if most of my family and other close friends support it. Sometimes moral beliefs can acquire a normative dimension when people conform to a religious practice not because of their own internal belief, but because they fear that they may lose standing in their faith community if they did not conform to group expectations.
A key challenge in transforming harmful behaviours is to diagnose the matrix of linked factors that keep the practice in place. Most practices are held in place by a mix of structural, social, and individual level factors. When social norms are operative, they can act as a “brake” on social change, which is why changes in knowledge and attitudes do not always result in changes in behaviour. Sometimes behaviours are held in place by a matrix of interlocking norms. For example, even in settings where wife beating itself is not a norm (in that people are not sanctioned if they don’t beat their wives), other norms – family privacy, male authority in the family and female obedience – help keep the practice in place.
In other instances, practices are driven almost entirely by structural or material factors rather than norms. Here, focusing on social norms would largely be ineffective. For example, if poor parents marry their children young because they want one less mouth to feed, focusing on early marriage as a social norm may be misguided. If, however, a main driver of early marriage is fear that unmarried girls may become sexually active and bring shame upon the family, then focusing on the collective expectations of virginity and family honour would be essential.
Agency, the ability to make decisions about one’s own life and act on those outcomes, is another factor that can be critical at an individual level. For example, many empowerment programmes focus on building women and girls’ agency, their capacity to aspire and their self-efficacy as a means to strengthen their ability to resist oppressive social structures. However, agency can be constrained by fear of retribution or violence, structured inequalities, or lack of skills and self-confidence to translate desires into action. It can also be inhibited by a limited vision of what is possible. Many women and girls have internalised social norms and messages to such an extent that they can’t imagine the world being any other way.
Thus, most social change strategies must target factors operating at multiple levels. Several of the readings in the package provide further guidance on how to assess these different factors and the degree to which they may interact to perpetuate harmful practices as illustrated in Figure 1.
A note on terminology
The accompanying articles use a variety of different terms to refer to largely similar concepts. While almost all fields agree that a social norm has to do with beliefs about others, within some reference group and maintained by social approval and disapproval, most theorists make distinctions between beliefs about the prevalence of a practice within a reference group and shared expectations within that group about how one should behave. A simple way to think about this is to consider what is “typical” compared to what is considered “appropriate”. The table below summarises terms that are roughly equivalent in meaning, with each colour indicating the pair of terms used by different disciplines:
|Terminology||What it means|
|Descriptive norm ≈
Collective behavioural norm ≈
|What is typical in one’s reference network|
|Injunctive norm ≈
Collective attitudinal norm ≈
|What is appropriate in one’s reference network|
Social norm theory distinguishes between what is typical (beliefs about what others do) and what is appropriate (beliefs about what others think one should do) because both can be important for shaping behaviour. For example, beliefs about what others do, can influence perceptions of what is appropriate or expected. For example, research has shown that students on US college campuses believe that binge drinking is actually far more common than it really is. This false “empirical expectation” creates subtle social pressure to conform to what is perceived as “normal” behaviour. Some interventions have successfully reduced harmful drinking by publicising (making visible) the high proportion of students who do not engage in binge drinking.
Likewise, while shifts in gender-related behaviour do not always lead to shifts in gender-related norms, seeing more people act in a new way can challenge people’s sense of what men and women usually do; as it becomes apparent that a large number of people are now acting in a new way (for example, women entering the workforce), changes in gender ideologies and the emergence of new normative expectations of how society should be organised emerge.
Insights from research and evidence-based practice
As you read the recommended literature, keep in mind the following insights that have emerged from research and evidence-based practice:
- Building a new norm can often be easier and more strategic than attempting to dismantle a harmful one. For example, rather than directly challenging the norm that binge drinking is a way to prove your mettle, public health workers in the United States cultivated a new norm: ‘Friends don’t let friends drive drunk’.
- Clarifying values and consensus-building through a deliberative process appears critical to the success of many norms-based approaches. Most successful interventions include processes to promote critical reflection, drawing on experiential learning and popular education techniques.
- Breaking one norm can make it easier to shift associated norms. For example, breaking down the norm that men alone have responsibility to provide economically for the family, can smooth the way for shifts in other gender-related role expectations.
- Considering opportunities to build strategies around “meta norms” that drive multiple behaviours. By challenging the norm that violence is an appropriate form of discipline, programmes can simultaneously attack a key rationale that undergirds corporal punishment in schools, harsh punishment at home, and wife beating in some settings.
- Identifying those individuals or reference groups whose opinions matter most can help effect change. Defining the reference group, defines who must be targeted by the intervention. If girls have traditionally not played sports because their families fear their reputation will be sullied, seeking to empower girls through sports will likely fail unless the project engages with family and community members as well as girls.
- Communicating change (through testimony, organised diffusion and pledges) as it begins to norms and behaviours begin to shift in an initial core group is important.
Reading 1: Marcus, R. & Harper, C. (2014). Gender justice and social norms – processes of change for adolescent girls. London, UK: ODI.
This paper is a useful introduction to how strategies for change may be most effective when they promote norm change in multiple spheres. It provides a framework that conceptualises the forces that maintain discriminatory gender norms against adolescent girls at the individual, community and structural level. The framework integrates how norms are experienced, the broader structural forces that sustain these norms and the social psychological processes by which gender norms change in order to understand the processes of change.
Reading 2: Alexander-Scott M; Bell E.; Holden J. (2015). DFID Guidance Note: Shifting norms to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG). London, UK: VAWG Helpdesk.
This guidance note introduces the major concepts of social norm theory and applies them to the specific challenge of preventing violence against women and girls. It demonstrates how key concepts can be incorporated into programme design decisions.
Reading 3: Bicchieri, C.; Jiang, T.; & Lindermans, J. W. (2014). A social norms perspective on child marriage: The general framework. Commissioned and to be Published by UNICEF.
This paper describes a theoretical framework that integrates different explanations of child marriage. It distinguishes social norms from other belief systems and provides insights about how individuals make decisions, backed by Bicchieri’s theory of social norms. These insights guide the development of measurement tools for child marriage M&E.
Reading 4: Moneti, F. & Mackie, G. (2013). The general considerations in measuring social norms. Presentation based on longer article.
To date, most researchers who have attempted to measure “gender norms” have instead collected information on beliefs and attitudes. This presentation outlines a number of general considerations and measurement strategies to help with capturing norms and their change on the following three elements: empirical and normative expectations (beliefs about beliefs); consequences of action (e.g. perceived rewards or sanctions); reference group (which maintains compliance to normative expectations through application of informal sanctions).
For a more elaborate and critical discussion on the measurement of norms, see the full article: Mackie, G. et al. (2015). What are social norms? How are they measured? California, USA: UNICEF/Centre on Global Justice, University of San Diego.
Page numbers below indicate the different measurement elements outlined in the presentation:
- Questions to identify reference network (pg. 45-48 50-53, & 64-65)
- Questions to identify what is typical & appropriate (pg. 54-56)
- Identifying social norms in qualitative research (pg. 57-60)
- Cues from DHS & MICS data suggesting the presence of a social norm (pg. 59-63)
- Questions that can be incorporated into surveys to gather data on ‘belief about others’ and how to interpret this data (pg. 49-50)
- Methodological implications, including social desirability bias (pg. 47)
Reading 5: Paluck, E.L., & Ball, L. (2010). Social norms marketing aimed at gender based violence: A literature review and critical assessment. New York: International Rescue Committee.
This paper reviews three case studies, engaging in a critical analysis of their design and evaluation in order to generate a list of considerations to guide future norms inventions aimed at GBV, and more widely. It argues that it is more effective to target injunctive vs. descriptive norms, and provides examples of the risk of circulating and further entrenching negative descriptive norms. It also discusses the inadequacy of the GEM scale as a measure of social norms.
Questions to guide the readings
- Social norms are often held in place by a number of factors. Using an example of a harmful practice from your setting, map the relationship between structural factors, social norms and individual attitudes and agency in the context of this behaviour. What strategy will be most effective for promoting norm change related to the behaviour?
- What are the social vs. non-social explanations that account for child marriage? Why is this distinction crucial in the design of programmes aimed at ending the practice?
- Why is the investigation of non-compliance crucial for discerning norms? What would be a possible strategy to investigate sanctioning mechanisms? (Note: if a norm is effective, then one would rarely observe what happens in the context of non-compliance).
- Why is the evidence for the effectiveness of social norms marketing programmes aimed at GBV mixed? What are some of the methodological challenges in evaluating such programmes and how can they be minimised?
- Can you think of an example from your setting where a campaign slogan may have inadvertently reinforced harmful descriptive norms?
Watch Lori explore social norms further in our webinar discussion in February 2016.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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An art museum or art gallery is a term for a place - building or space for the exhibition of visual arts. There are private and public museums of art that differ in who owns the exposed art pieces. The most common items exhibited in art museums are paintings but sculptures, drawings, textiles, photographs, and other visual arts are also shown.
Public art museums are nonprofit or publicly owned, while private galleries sell art. Galleries are also rooms in museums where the art is displayed. There are also semi-private contemporary art galleries selling the art and keeping a portion of the sales. Vanity galleries charge artists for displaying their art.
The first art museum is called Kustmuseum Basel, which originated from Amerbach-Cabinet, the city of Basel, bought in 1661 and made it the first municipally owned museum. Kustmuseum Basel opened publicly in 1671. The world’s first university art museum is Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which opened in 1683.
The most visited art museum in the world is Louvre Museum in Paris, with over 9 million visitors a year. It is located on the right bank of the Seine and is housed in the Louvre Palace, which began as a fortress in the second half of the 12th century. When in 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles as his household, he left Louvre as a place for displaying a royal collection. From that moment, Louvre held many important works of art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is the second most visited art museum in the world, the largest in the United States, and the third largest in the world. It was founded in 1870 and opened to the public on February 20, 1872. Local business people and financiers, leading artists, and thinkers founded it. It was originally located on Fifth Avenue but was later moved to the eastern edge of Central Park.
British Museum in London is the third most visited art museum, with over 5 million visitors annually. It was founded in 1753 by a collection of physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It was opened for public viewing in 1759. Over the years, it grew and held art from ancient times to Renaissance.
Fourth most visited art museum is Tate Modern in London. It is located in the Bankside area in the former Bankside Power Station. It was founded in 2000 and displays modern art from 1900 until today.
National Gallery is the fifth most visited. It is placed in Trafalgar Square in London. It was founded in 1824 when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, an insurance broker and patron of the arts. It now holds over 2300 paintings from the 14th to 19th century.
National Museum of Modern Art in Paris holds 6th place in the number of yearly visits. It is located in Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. It was founded in 1947, and it holds 70,000 works of art.
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Basic reasoning
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Art & Design
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Nearly 150 years after its introduction, the .45-70 cartridge is breathing new life as a favored hunting, competition, and defense cartridge. Originally developed in 1873 for use in the Springfield Model 1873 “Trapdoor” rifle, the .45-70 served as the standard US military service cartridge for almost 20 years, before being replaced by the .30-40 Krag in 1892.
The .45-70 in government service was provided in two versions. The first, the .45-70-405, featured a .45-caliber bullet weighing 405 grains, pushed by 70 grains of blackpowder. Muzzle velocity was around 1,400 feet per second, resulting in around 1,750 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.
Unimpressed by the rainbow trajectory of the round, the Army developed a .45-70-500 load, featuring a 500-grain bullets. Maximum range of that round was over 3,000 meters, nearly two miles. Tests at the Sandy Hook Proving Ground found that the 500-grain bullets could penetrate three one-inch thick boards at two miles, then penetrate an additional eight inches of sand.
With maximum accuracy on man-sized targets coming at 200-300 yards, the use of massed volley fire by infantry troops could still result in fatalities and casualties at extended ranges as a result of that volley fire. The necessity of maximum individual accuracy from an individual rifleman was still a ways away.
For a time it appeared that the .45-70 would go the way of many other blackpowder cartridges. Pushed to the side by more effective smokeless powder cartridges, the .45-70 seemed to be obsolete. But renewed interest in older cartridges and lever-action rifles in recent years has spurred renewed interest in the .45-70. And with advances in metallurgy since 1873, modern rifles are able to handle .45-70 loads that are far more powerful than those old-time loads.
Those looking to shoot or reload the .45-70 need to be aware that modern .45-70 ammunition is loaded to three different power levels. The first power level, topping out at about 28,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) of pressure, is for older rifles and trapdoor rifles. The second power level is for modern lever-action rifles such as the Marlin 1895, Henry, or modern Winchester 1886, and tops out at around 40,000 PSI. The final power level is for Ruger No. 1 and similar rifles, topping out at about 50,000 PSI.
Standard pressure .45-70 loads can feature a 300-grain bullet traveling at up to 2,100 feet per second, a 405-grain bullet traveling at up to 1,800 feet per second, or a 500-grain bullet traveling at up to 1,450 feet per second. Maximum muzzle energy is around 2,900 foot-pounds.
Loads for lever-action rifles can feature a 300-grain bullet traveling at up to 2,400 feet per second, a 405-grain bullet at up to 2,100 feet per second, and a 500-grain bullet at up to 1,700 feet per second. Muzzle energy maxes out at around 4,000 foot-pounds.
The highest-pressure 45-70 loads feature 500-grain loads at up to 1,800 feet per second, and some handloaders have even pushed 550-grain bullets up to 1,900 feet per second. Muzzle energy runs from 4,000 to 4,500 foot-pounds, rivaling dangerous game cartridges such as the .458 Winchester Magnum, .404 Jefferey, and .450 Nitro Express.
Ammunition for the .45-70 generally starts at about 90 cents per round for the cheapest ammunition, and quickly grows to $2-3 or more per round for high quality hunting ammunition. Given the fierce recoil that can result from heavy loads, the .45-70 isn’t a rifle cartridge you’re going to take to the range for long range sessions. Still, if you’re serious about getting everything you can out of it, handloading will be beneficial both for maximizing performance and minimizing costs.
The .45-70 is capable of taking any game animal in North America, and in the right hands can stop any game in Africa too. The versatility of loading it with everything from light, low-pressure rounds up to elephant-stoppers appeals to many shooters. And with modern rifles available that can hold up to nine rounds, a .45-70 can also be a relatively effective home defense cartridge. So if you have a .45-70 already, or are looking into a .45-70 to do double duty, you’ve picked a good cartridge.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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Moderate reasoning
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Sports & Fitness
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Do your fingernails feel so brittle that the tips just snap off at the slightest knock? Do they split, crumble, and flake off into peeling layers? You are not alone. According to Dermatology and Therapy Journal, brittle nails are a common problem that affects up to 20% of the population, especially women older than 50.
The possible brittle nails causes can vary. Your nails can simply be too dry, you may have used too many chemicals, or you have a hormonal imbalance. But, there are other causes that you may not be familiar with, such as poor nutrition and fungal infections. This guide can help you recognize the causes and find adequate treatment for this condition.
What Are Brittle Nails?
Brittle nails are often hard nails that tend to snap off or break at the ridges. The brittleness of the nails means that your nails can easily become split, chipped, cracked, or peeled. The nails change as we grow older. They become dull and brittle.
But, before you can understand the brittle nails causes, you should recognize the two forms of brittle nails. You can either have “hard and brittle nails”, which means the nail doesn’t have enough moisture, or “soft and brittle”, meaning there is too much moisture.
What Are the Signs of Vitamin Deficiency in Nails?
“Why are my nails so brittle?” This is a common question at any nail salon. However, not many people realize that the nails can become brittle when there is a dietary deficiency. The nail plate is made of a protein known as keratin.
When you supply the body with a diet teeming with protein, minerals, and vitamins, you can keep the nails in excellent shape. But, when there is a deficiency in something, like protein, iron, biotin, zinc, or vitamin C, you can have brittle nails.
The first signs of vitamin deficiency in nails are rough nail plates, fragile nails, and peeling. For example, a lack of biotin causes ridges on the surface of the nail, a deficiency in vitamin C may trigger hangnails, and a lack of zinc can cause white spots on your nails.
What Are the Classic Brittle Nails Causes?
Want to know what causes brittle nails? The treatment depends on finding the cause. There are plenty of different factors that can affect the quality of your nails. Here is a list of some of the potential causes.
Our nails change with age. The older you are, the more likely they are to become brittle and prone to cracking and peeling. Your nails might also turn yellow and lose their natural transparency.
Nails, especially on the toes, might become tough and dense. As you get older, dealing with ingrown toenails could become more frequent. You may also find the tips of your fingernails prone to breaking.
Additionally, you might notice long, parallel lines forming on both your toenails and fingernails. If you notice any changes in shape or structure that are bothering you, it’s better to get them checked out sooner rather than later.
2. Low Iron Levels
Wondering what causes split nails? Iron is crucial for creating hemoglobin, a protein responsible for transporting oxygen throughout your body. When you don't have enough iron, it makes it more difficult to deliver oxygen to the cells that help your nails and hair grow.
Iron is crucial for cellular development, including the cells accountable for creating nails. When there isn't enough iron available, the nail matrix's cell replication process may become slower and less effective. This can result in nails that are more prone to harm and fracture.
Hypothyroidism is one of the most well-known brittle nail causes. Keratin starts to build up in the nail plate and causes ridges. Or there can be a drop in blood flow and nutrition to your nails, resulting in brittle nails and reduced growth.
Both hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) and hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) can affect the quality of your nails. When these hormones are imbalanced, it can disrupt the normal processes involved in nail development.
They affect blood circulation, which decreases the nourishment to the developing nail, and causes a change in keratin production. Evidence from studies suggests that thyroid disorders can affect the entire metabolism. Such as how the body absorbs and uses nutrients.
This is why some people with thyroid disorders might encounter shortages of essential minerals and vitamins. So, if you find yourself grappling with brittle nails, you might want to have your thyroid checked.
4. Fungal Infections
Are you asking yourself “Why are my nails so brittle”? After your nail gets infected, the fungus typically begins at the edge. It then progresses toward the cuticle. Eventually, the entire nail becomes infected. The affected area can turn yellow or white. The nail can also turn brittle.
5. Nail Care Habits
If you want to know how to strengthen nails, give them a break. Overexposure to nail polish remover, household cleaners, and detergents can weaken your nails. Regularly applying nail extensions and nail polish can also cause them to become dry.
Another common mistake is using your nails as a tool. For example, opening soda cans or other containers, and trying to remove labels, stickers, or other materials. Scraping and prying can damage the nails.
Damage to the nails, like regular picking or biting, can cause brittleness. These habits weaken the nail structure over time. They apply constant pressure and force the layers of the nail to become damaged or to separate.
To make matters worse, biting and chewing on the nails disrupts the natural growth and healing process. It hinders the nail’s ability to develop properly. Therefore, the nails become brittle and more likely to split and crack. So, no matter how hard you try to care for your nails, if you keep biting and picking them, it is very hard to maintain their resilience.
How to Strengthen Nails
Now that you know the most common brittle nail causes, it is time to give your nails their strength back. The tips below can help.
1. Minimize exposure to water
You can’t completely keep your hands out of water. But, you can be mindful of your exposure. To do that, wear gloves when you are cleaning or washing dishes, take shorter baths, and avoid spending too much time in the sauna.
2. Avoid using acrylic nails
Acrylic nails can be hard on your nails, mainly because they use a powerful adhesive. If you want to know how to strengthen nails, you can use gel nails, dip-powder nails, nail wraps, etc.
Let the nails rest from time to time. This allows them to breathe and regain their natural strength. Your nails will thank you for it.
3. Reassess your diet
Dietary deficiencies are common brittle nail causes. To make your nails stronger and shinier, eat more foods like avocados, seafood, seeds, nuts, sweet potatoes, eggs, etc.
You can also upgrade your daily routine with the NUU3 Daily Multivitamin Gummies. They are packed with essential vitamins and minerals. Plus, they are delicious and perfect for regular use.
4. Taking daily biotin supplements
Taking daily biotin supplements can be a game-changer for your hair, skin, and nails. However, not all supplements are created equal. That's where NUU3 Hair, Skin & Nail Gummies come in. With a carefully formulated blend of biotin and other vital nutrients, these gummies provide a convenient and delicious way to nourish your body from the inside out.
5. Stay hydrated
Keeping your nails strong and healthy starts from within and hydration is key. Consume ample amounts of water, tea, or other refreshing drinks. But why stop there? NUU3 Nature's Superfuel provides a powerful blend of nutrients the body needs for strong, resilient nails.
6. Use non-toxic polish
Avoid nail polishes with harsh chemicals, and use water-based products free of dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde, and toluene.
Dos and Don’ts for Healthy Nails
As you can see, there are plenty of brittle nail causes. But, the following dos and don’ts can keep your nails nice and strong.
- Use non-slip cotton lining rubber gloves for cleaning. They feel soft and pleasant to touch.
- Keep the nails clean and dry. Want to know what causes split nails? Extended exposure to water can make the nails split. Proper drying can prevent bacteria growth.
- Take good care of your nails. Use sharp clippers and manicure scissors to avoid pulling or damaging the nails. Cut your nails straight across, then gently round the tips.
- Use a nail hardener. This product can fortify your nails.
- Apply moisturizer. When using hand lotion, be sure to massage it into your cuticles and fingernails as well.
- Consult with a healthcare expert. If you notice any signs of vitamin deficiency in nails, talk to a doctor.
- Tear off any tissue around your fingernails. Trim them instead.
- Chew on your nails. Do you want to know how to strengthen nails? Biting your nails can damage the delicate nail bed and expose it to fungi and bacteria.
- Ignore your problem. Persistent dry nails could be a sign of thyroid complications or nutrient deficiencies.
How Long Does It Take for Nails to Grow?
The process of growing out your nails can be quite a journey, and it certainly demands some patience. According to Dr. Tyler Hollmig, the director of the Department of Surgical Dermatology, laser, and aesthetic dermatology at the University of Texas Dell Medical Center, nails have a very slow growth rate.
It can take anywhere from 6 months or more for fingernails to fully grow back. Toenails, however, take longer than that, about a year. Elements like age, nutrition, genetics, and overall well-being can impact the rate at which nails grow.
Do weak nails mean a lack of calcium?
There are plenty of brittle nail causes, one of which can be calcium deficiency. If you don’t supply the body with enough calcium, your nails can be prone to damage, the surface can feel rough and thin.
Do nails show signs of liver disease?
Extremely white nails, particularly nails that have dark edges and very pale surfaces could indicate liver problems. Like hepatitis or jaundice.
What foods make nails strong?
The best foods for your nails are those high in calcium, folate, and iron. Such as poultry, fish, nuts and seeds, dark leafy greens, and dried fruits.
Want to know what causes brittle nails? Many factors can influence the state of your nails, including diet, hormones, age, and nail care. To treat the brittleness, you must first get to the root of the problem.
Revamping your diet can get you on the right track. Especially if your regular meals are lacking balanced nutrients. You should also give your nails a break. If you are using too many nail products, it can be difficult for the nails to get their strength back and grow.
Have you tried any of these options? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
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CC-MAIN-2023-50
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https://www.nuu3.com/blogs/health/brittle-nails-causes-and-remedy
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en
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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