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The Hound Dog Breeds Group is a diverse cluster of dogs that range in size from the small pocket beagle who stands less than 13 inches and weighs about 15 pounds to the Irish Wolfhound, who stands an astonishing 35 inches high and weighs upwards of 180 pounds. Whether you think of hounds as a hunter’s best friend, or as an easy going house pet, they all have at least one thing in common. These breeds were originally bred to hunt and track either larger game or small vermin, and that is how they differ from sporting dogs who hunt birds. If you are intent on finding other similarities, you might be searching for awhile. They don’t look alike, act alike, or even hunt alike. You might even think they shouldn’t belong to the same species. But they all do share one thing in common. They aren't called the Working group, but they do have a strong work ethic. Once on a trail they are single-minded and determined, and it is usually hard if not impossible to distract them from their mission. Most of the world’s kennel registries have divided the hounds into two broad groups: the Sighthounds and the Scent Hounds and depending on whatever grouping the dog falls determines his style of hunting. While many of these dogs continue to perform the job they were developed for, most are companions or pampered family dogs. So we know historically, that early breeders developed these dogs to do one of two things: See or Smell. Some talented breeds found ways to perform both. Those dogs that have an extraordinary sense of smell are classified as scenthounds. Sighthounds, on the other hand, can hunt based on an instinct that allows them to see movement and then once spotted, take off after it. Scenthounds have several things in common. They have long droopy ears, large nasal cavities, loose wet lips that often drool, and a bark that is hard to ignore. They are not fast runners like their cousins the scenthounds. They can follow their prey simply by keeping their noses to the ground. They come in several sizes, but most are medium to large breed dogs. They come in different colors, but most are some shade of brown or tan, earthy colors. They also have a distinctive vocal sound called baying, which is neither a bark or a howl. Scenthounds include the bloodhounds, beagles, coonhounds, dachshunds, foxhounds, harriers, Petit Basset Griffon Vendeens and the Otterhounds. As a group, they can be hard to train because they are stubborn. Most find them charming pets because they are just plain fun. They are amusing, intelligent, and very loyal. They generally get along with children and other dogs. They do not, however, do well around small pets (mice, hamsters, gerbils, and so forth) because they see them as prey. Their owners love their docile nature, but they are strong-willed and sometimes hard to train. They require an authoritative owner willing to enforce rules in a positive, kind way. Some drool. As long as you don’t mind the drool and don’t require instant training success, this group of dogs makes excellent pets. Their noses are legendary, the most famous of course is the bloodhound. They can catch a scent and follow it for hours or days. Some have been mistakenly labeled as vicious, especially during the time of slavery in the U.S. These dogs were used to track runaway slaves, but their job was done the second they found what they were searching. The most popular of the scenthounds is the Beagle, made famous by the comic strip, Peanuts. A very “terrier” like scenthound is the little Dachshund, which makes a great family pet. Their prey is small and may include mice or rats. Sighthounds are the sprinters in the dog world. Some are so fast that they would win every race with a human. Greyhounds, for example, have been clocked at 40 mph (64 kph). They can take off after anything that resembles prey so secure fenced in yards is a must for most sighthounds. Other terms you may have encountered for this group include the gazehounds or coursing hounds. They have an excellent vision that can detect even the slightest movement from a far distance. Most of the sighthounds are sensitive and will respond poorly to harsh treatment. They are loyal and want to please, so most sighthounds are easier to train than the scenthounds. They do well with other dogs and children, but small pocket pets will be viewed as prey. Hamsters and Gerbils will not fare well in a home with a sighthound. They are very fast runners so they should never be off leash when outdoors. A securely fenced yard is ideal for scenthounds to run freely without fear of them taking off at something that looks like it could be prey. This group is diverse in size from tiny to giant. Colors vary but are mostly shades of brown and tan. Most have very short coats and little grooming requirements. The sighthounds include the Whippets, Italian Greyhounds, Pharoh Hounds, Basenjis, Borzois, Irish Wolfhounds, Lurchers, Salukis and Scottish Deerhounds. American Leopard Hound Treeing Tennessee Brindle Return from Hound Dog Breeds to Dog Breeds Expert	<urn:uuid:8fd53d95-213e-4145-931d-2e0ac04a1fb6>	CC-MAIN-2019-18	https://www.dog-breeds-expert.com/hound-dog-breeds.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578650225.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20190424154437-20190424180437-00484.warc.gz	en	0.967671	1,175	2.90625	3	1.891278	2	Moderate reasoning	Home & Hobbies
The chinchillas belong to the mammal category. Chinchillas are crepuscular (most active during dawn and dusk) rodents, they are a bit bigger and stronger than the ground squirrels. Chinchillas port several colors. The only, natural color seen is the standard gray color. We find them in general colors like black velvet, white, beige, violet, ebony, sapphire and combinations of these colors. Around the size of a little rabbit Height: 12 inches (30cm) Weight: 1.3 – 4 pounds (0.6 – 1.8 kg) The male is normally smaller than the female These are very clever, integrated, and curious as well as independent, and if you wish to build up a rapport with them, you have to spend time and endure to appreciate and communicate with him. Chinchillas are capable of distinguishing a male and female human being! They do not smell and are very hygienic creatures. They draw back their whiskers to clean them! Chinchillas bathe with a special kind of dust, but do not need water for their bath. They hail from the mountains of the Andes of South America and live in settlements called “herds” at heights around 4,270 meters (14,000 ft). In the past chinchillas resided in the Andes Mountains of Peru, Bolivia and Chile, but as of today their colonies continue only in Chile and Peru. As a Pet Female chinchillas gain sexual maturity at the age of 8 months to 1 year, because the males become sexually mature in almost 5 months. However, chances are bright for a chinchilla (or chin) to meet puberty before this time. When females meet the age of 6 months, they begin to go into heat every other 25 or 35 days. Usually a female delivers two litters a year, each having 1-6 kits. Keep your chinchillas in wire cages, if not, they gnaw, and escape. They may heat up in an aquarium-like cage. Ensure your wired cage does not have a coating of plastic or painting, since the chin will consume them and get sick. Give the chins enough space in the cage for them to have exercise. The chins enjoy playing and running about, for which you need to house them in a big cage, especially if you do not allow your chin to have enough fun outside the cage. An unhappy chin is one that cannot run about and play. Give your chinchillas a regular supply of hay (Timothy/orchard grass/Brome etc), rich pellet (no treats included). If possible, avoid alfalfa because their pellets already have alfalfa for a base. Feed them water regularly. For treats, feed your chins with cheerios, rose buds, rose hips, unfrosted shredded wheat and whole-wheat pasta. Avoid items like nuts, veggies, raisins and fruits that are rich in sugar content as they upset the chin’s microbial balance. If you make any change in their food, gradually mix the new one with the old. Chinchillas are gentle and loving animals; do take care of them. In case you handle them from infancy, they become quiet and domesticated. Handle them with care; they are excellent pets. Handle your pet, as you would do with a kitten by gently sliding one of your hands beneath its belly and the other over the chinchillas. For it to feel secure, support the chin’s bum and hind legs with your hand. Avoid grasping the chin tightly, but bear in mind that they are fidgety. Thus, grasp them carefully. Having discovered a fondness for insects while pursuing her degree in Biology, Randi Jones was quite bugged to know that people usually dismissed these little creatures as “creepy-crawlies”.	<urn:uuid:2be09f58-6abe-40b9-bc82-8db9deb8e4da>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://www.learnaboutnature.com/mammals/rodents/chinchillas/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679101282.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20231210060949-20231210090949-00479.warc.gz	en	0.940218	805	2.984375	3	1.452077	1	Basic reasoning	Home & Hobbies
The Road to Proportional Representation When the framers of the United States Constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787 to write a document securing the rights of the people and the restraints on government, the state delegates were immediately met with difficulties. One of the most often discussed problems was that of representation in central government (Ferrand 94)—something that the American people had lacked under British rule. More specifically, the fifty-five men that met at the Pennsylvania State House argued over what type of representation the people should have, especially when referring to the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives: whether proportional to each state’s population or equal regardless of a state’s size or wealth. Starting from the basis of Madison’s Virginia Plan, the framers worked to develop a situation that both the large and small states could accept—a plan in which neither type of state dominated the legislative branch. Once the delegates more or less decided on a bicameral government, a proposal unanimously accepted (Ferrand 91), the framers soon faced their problem: how could larger states be kept from dominating over smaller states without giving the smaller states more power than they deserved? The solution, brought about by debate followed by revision to what was fundamentally Madison’s Virginia Plan, took a relatively long time within the Constitutional Convention to resolve (Ferrand 94). Madison’s plan called for both houses of government to be based on proportional representation—the larger a state, the more representatives it had in each house of congress. However, when discussing representation in the lower house of Congress, Brearley and Paterson, delegates from New Jersey, saw the Virginia Plan and proportional representation as robbing the smaller states of an equal share in government, as the interests of larger states, since they had more representatives and therefore more votes, would always win over the interests of smaller ones. But although the Virginia plan did give the larger states an advantage, many argued that proportional representation more accurately represented the interests of the people (Boyer 133)—more people lived in and therefore shared the interests of the larger states, so in any popular vote, the interests of the larger states would prevail anyhow. It is not surprising, then, that in the first vote on the subject, New Jersey was only able to gain the support of Delaware and half of Maryland, and so the idea of proportional representation in the lower house passed (Ferrand 75). While the efforts of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were not enough to turn the vote in their favor, they were enough to encourage future attempts. The smaller states in the Union came back for another round of debate on June 19. Negotiations went calmly for the first few days, but soon feelings were running so high that the debate nearly caused a breakup of the Convention (Ferrand 93). A motion proposed on June 29 by Connecticut formalizing much of what had been voiced in the previous few days called for the members of the upper house of Congress to have an equal number of representatives from each state. The vote was a tie, perhaps only because some delegates, like Baldwin of Georgia, changed their votes only to keep the smaller states from leaving the Convention, or, worse yet, leaving the Union. “The fate of America was suspended by a hair,” later said Governor Morris (Ferrand 95-7). General Pinckney proposed a committee of one delegate from each state to create a compromise. The committee, when it returned on July 5, proposed that the first branch of Congress would be determined by proportional representation, while the second branch would show an equal number of representatives from each state. Again, debate erupted. Some delegates from small states, of which Paterson was the most vocal, thought the compromise conceded too much. Others, like Gorham, thought that Delaware should be annexed to Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey, the other part going to New York, thus generally equating the population of each state (Ferrand 99-100). Again, large states thought that small states were gaining more power than they deserved, while small states believed that in this sort of a system, the larger states would still be able to overpower the smaller ones. Nothing yet came of the committee’s response, but most delegates realized that in order to come to a conclusion, the proposal would need to be split up and each part would need to be voted on separately, or else debates could continue forever (Ferrand 100). The length of the debates may have been the only reason why both sides were willing to compromise. Had the delegates not come to a conclusion soon, the Convention would have surely either continued indefinitely or broken up all together. Delegates like Bedford feared that another country might move in against the relatively weak Americans through the support of the smaller states, while Williamson thought the committee’s proposal was “the most objectionable of any he had heard yet.” But still, the delegates were drawing closer to a compromise (Ferrand 100). Over the next week, while another committee worked out the details of what ratio would be used to determine representation in the lower house, the rest of the delegates seemed to calm down. Perhaps because of a change in weather or just because of the break in debate that the newly formed committee provided, the states came back on July 15 in what seemed to be a better frame of mind. When the final proposal was put to a vote, it passed, although only by one state; Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina voted for it, while Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia voted against it, with New York being excluded because its delegates had already left the convention and with Massachusetts divided (Ferrand 104). The issue was closed. The convention had decided: the upper house of Congress would have equal representation, while the lower house would be determined in proportion to the population of each state in a ration “not exceeding” one representative to forty thousand people, counting three-fifths of blacks, with Congress able to redefine the ratio as the population grew (Ferrand 101-103). While the framers had reached a compromise, not everyone was happy with it. Madison objected because he foresaw the huge number of representatives that would be needed in the lower house as the population grew, but most delegates never believed that the nation would stay united long enough for such a situation to become a problem (Ferrand 99). The plan still gave the smaller states more power than the larger states thought they deserved in the Senate, but the situation was more or less balanced out through proportional representation in the lower house and the system of checks and balances later put in place. The framers knew they had to compromise in order to continue writing the constitution and maintain the Union, so they decided on a system that has held in place for over two hundred years. What will become of it as the population continues to grow and the ratio of people to representatives in the House gets larger and larger is yet to be seen, but at the time, the modified Virginia Plan and Connecticut Proposal provided an acceptable solution to the problem of balancing individual state power and providing adequate representation for the people. Works Cited and Bibliography Ackerman, Bruce. We the People; Foundations. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991. Boyer Paul S., et al. Enfuring Vision. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1995. Ferrand, Max. The Framing of the Constitution of the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913. Pyle, Christopher H. and Pious, Richard M. The President, Congress, and the Constitution; Power and Legitamacy in American Politics. New York: The Free Press, 1984.	<urn:uuid:ed6bf760-2a11-431d-9e10-6ba04d5c23de>	CC-MAIN-2017-17	http://schoolbytes.com/papers/summary.php?disp=term&id=302	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917122619.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031202-00280-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.969662	1,597	4.25	4	3.030088	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
This Day in Texas History: Ground Broken for New Capitol This Day in Texas History: (from the Texas State Historical Association archives) Ground Broken for New Capitol February 01, 1882 On this date in 1882, building commissioners Nimrod Norton and Joseph Lee turned the first shovelful of dirt for the present Texas Capitol. Construction was financed by the sale of three million acres of public land in the Panhandle, under the auspices of the XIT Ranch. The main building material is red granite from Marble Mountain, west of Austin. The Renaissance Revival structure, for which the Capitol in Washington was the model, was dedicated in 1888. The total cost was $3.75 million. The cost of restoration in the 1990s was $200 million. The present Capitol building is the fourth one in Austin. As a result of the need for a new Capitol, the Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of land in the Panhandle to fund construction. In 1879 the Sixteenth Legislature provided for surveying the Capitol lands in ten counties of the Panhandle, and formed a Capitol Board as well as a building commission consisting of a “superintendent” architect and two building commissioners to oversee the project. After the completion and acceptance of the surveys in late 1880, the building commission announced a design competition for the new statehouse. Eight architects entered a total of eleven different designs in the competition. In May 1881 the Capitol Board approved the design entered by Elijah E. Myers of Detroit. The building commission then advertised for a contractor who would build the Capitol in exchange for the three million acres of public land. The state received only two bids: from Mathias Schnell of Rock Island, Illinois, and from Alfred Andrew Burck of Rockdale, Texas. Schnell received the contract but soon assigned three-fourths of it to Taylor, Babcock and Company, a Chicago firm that included Abner Taylor, Amos C. Babcock, Charles B. Farwell, and John V. Farwell. A few months later, Schnell signed over the rest of the contract to the same firm. Abner Taylor became the chief contractor but subcontracted the work to Gustav Wilke, a young Chicago builder. The plans and specifications for the Capitol called for its construction of native limestone, but all of the limestone found near Austin contained discoloring iron particles. Abner Taylor proposed using limestone from Bedford, Indiana, but the Capitol Board and Governor John Ireland wished to use Texas stone, specifically red granite from Granite Mountain near the site of present-day Marble Falls in Burnet County. The owners of the mountain, George W. Lacy, William H. Westfall, and Nimrod L. Norton, offered to give the state enough granite for the building. Taylor initially refused to use the red granite because he believed the difficulty of working the stone would make it too expensive. In early 1885 subcontractor Wilke informed Taylor that it would cost much less to use donated red granite in a simplified style agreed upon by architect Myers than limestone with the extensive decorative carving originally agreed upon. However, Taylor kept this information a secret, and continued to assure state officials that he could not afford to use red granite because of its additional cost. Finally, on July 25, 1885, he signed a supplementary contract in which he agreed to use red granite for the Capitol if the state would supply it free of charge, share the “extra cost,” construct a narrow-gauge railroad from Burnet to Granite Mountain, and furnish convict labor to quarry the stone. Taylor also agreed to pay the state for the use of the convicts and to provide room and board for them. After labor difficulties arose in 1886, stemming from the use of convict labor to quarry the granite, Wilke imported granite cutters from Scotland, in violation of the Contract Labor Act of 1885 (see CAPITOL BOYCOTT). In spite of such difficulties, work began on the Capitol dome in mid-1887 and the Goddess of Liberty was hoisted to the top of it in February 1888. The Capitol first was opened to the public on the evening of April 21, 1888, before its completion. The structure was dedicated during a week-long celebration lasting from May 14 to May 19, 1888, but the Capitol Board refused to accept the structure because its copper roof leaked and because of assorted other minor problems. After Wilke fixed the roof and corrected several other problems, the Capitol Board received the building on December 6, 1888. In 1882 the three million acres of land in the Capitol reservation was valued at $1.5 million. The total cost of the Capitol was $3,744,630.60, of which the state assumed about $500,000. A hundred years later, the lands exchanged for the Capitol had a tax evaluation of almost $7 billion. The Texas Capitol is of Renaissance Revival design and was modeled after the national Capitol in Washington. At the time of its completion it contained 392 rooms, 18 vaults, 924 windows, and 404 doors. From the ground to the top of statue on the dome is 311 feet. In February 1983 a fire badly damaged the east wing of the Capitol and provided the impetus for a restoration of the building. A few weeks after the fire, the legislature formed the State Preservation Board. The first project of this board was to replace the figure of Liberty on the dome of the Capitol. In November 1985 the original Goddess of Liberty was removed by helicopter. A new statue, cast of aluminum in molds made from the original zinc statue, was placed on the dome in June 1986. The entire cost of more than $450,000 was raised from private donations. The original statue has been restored and is on exhibition on the Capitol grounds in a special structure built for it in 1995. The Governor’s Public Reception Room, originally the most lavishly decorated space in the building, was restored in 1987. In 1988 work began on a masterplan to restore the Capitol and to build an underground annex north of the building. The legislature approved this plan in 1989, and work began in 1990. The extension was completed by January 1993. The restoration of the 1888 Capitol was finished in early 1995, and the structure was re-dedicated on April 21, 1995. You must log in to post a comment.	<urn:uuid:0e07b174-8b34-4d83-8083-d7dcc35ac9bf>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://texasasiseeit.net/blog/this-day-in-texas-history-ground-broken-for-new-capitol/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224657144.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20230610062920-20230610092920-00714.warc.gz	en	0.965597	1,297	3.1875	3	2.767835	3	Strong reasoning	History
BBC Earth newsletter BBC Earth delivered direct to your inbox Sign up to receive news, updates and exclusives from BBC Earth and related content from BBC Studios by email. Illegal hunting is threatening the critically endangered eastern gorilla, which is scarily just one step away from extinction. They are one of humankind’s closest living relatives. They live in family groups and, far from their fearsome King Kong-style image, they are mostly gentle souls who subsist on a vegetarian diet. As the males of the species age, the hair down the saddle of the back turns a striking white, much like our hair grows grey as we get older, earning them their famous nickname ‘silverbacks’. This is the eastern gorilla and, despite our similarities to them, we have now pushed them to the brink of extinction. This year the largest primates on the planet – adult males can weigh over 200 kilograms and reach heights of over 1.7 metres – became one of the latest animals to join the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) critically endangered list. Inhabiting the remote rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda, the species – Latin name Gorilla beringei – has seen its population numbers plunge by 70 per cent in recent years, the victim of illegal hunting and habitat destruction. Shockingly, barely 5,000 of the apes, which are divided into two subspecies – Grauer’s gorilla and the rarer mountain gorilla – remain. At the root of the problem is artisanal mining and humankind’s ever-growing demand for high-tech gadgets. In eastern DRC, coltan and other valuable minerals used in the manufacture of mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices, have been illegally extracted for years. The lucrative mines often form a handy way for the militias that roam the unstable area to fund their activities. These illegal mines are frequently set up in remote areas where supplies are scarce, causing workers to resort to hunting local wildlife for food. The area’s large Grauer’s gorillas make a particularly good target because they provide such a large quantity of bushmeat and are easy to catch because they move in groups. At the same time the ravages caused by the mining are also destroying their habitat, while illegal poaching is also having an impact on numbers. It all now means that of the around 17,000 Grauer’s gorillas – formerly known as the eastern lowland gorilla – that existed in 1995, only an estimated 3,800 remain, according to a report issued by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Fauna & Flora International earlier this year. Numbers of the even more at-risk mountain gorilla – which lives in the Virunga Massif, an area that covers parts of DRC, Uganda and Rwanda, and Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park – have bounced back in recent years, but still only reach around 880. The possibility that these majestic primates could disappear is very real. Urgent action needs to be taken. The report issued by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Fauna & Flora International urges that manufacturers of mobile phones, computers and other electronic equipment are more transparent about the minerals they use in devices and ensure that they come from mines that are not linked to conflicts in the area and whose workers do not hunt bushmeat. Illegal mining in DRC produces a significant amount of the world’s minerals – it also supplies most of the world’s coltan, used in mobile phones and other small electronic devices. The Enough project and Amnesty International are raising awareness about conflict minerals and a Fairphone made from ethically sourced materials is also available. With an international focus directed on this issue, hopefully the magnificent mountain gorillas, who have unwittingly become caught up in this tragedy, can be saved. Photograph © Alessandro Tramonti	<urn:uuid:a768c93f-cc2e-4a34-af79-eb5495b744aa>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-great-gorilla-wipeout	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243988696.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20210505203909-20210505233909-00594.warc.gz	en	0.935791	803	3.203125	3	2.832107	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, more commonly known as OCD, is a term often thrown around and jokingly applied to friends or family members who tend to be a little too precise or particular about certain things. Some people even equate peculiar behaviour with such a diagnosis. But what exactly is OCD and how does it differ from the little quirks we all display from time to time?Affecting about 2% to 3% of the population, OCD is an anxiety disorder that usually lasts for years, during which time patients’ symptoms may vary in severity and focus. People living with OCD experience obsessions and compulsions. “Obsessions are intrusive thoughts, images or impulses that are involuntary and produce anxiety,” explains Johannesburg clinical psychologist and OCD expert, Kevin Bolon. He defines compulsions as voluntary behaviours aimed at reducing the anxiety experienced – these may be observable or unobservable. For example, a person with obsessions about contamination may wash their hands repetitively; someone with obsessions about possible harm may check repeatedly. While washing and checking are easily recognised, many people have more abstract symptoms such as having to pray over and over to get rid of blasphemous thoughts or having to hoard excessively. In addition to obsessions and compulsions, people with OCD may show avoidance behaviours, for instance the person with contamination concerns may simply stay indoors, avoiding contact with the outside world at all costs. Others may take an extraordinarily long time to complete routine daily activities – this is a form of OCD known as obsessional slowness.Bolon says: “When differentiating OCD from individual eccentricities, it’s important to consider two aspects – time and impairment.” If a person spends over one hour per day performing rituals that reduce the anxiety caused by their obsessions and if these rituals result in significantly impaired functioning in their work/social life, etc. then it’s possible they may have OCD.Stephen* is 28 years old and has been living with this condition for years: “It feels like obsessions are big knots in your stomach that can only be released by a compulsion. The problems is, the more you give in to the rituals, the worse the obsessions get.”Most people with OCD have good insight into their symptoms; they know their concerns are excessive, even though they cannot help following through on compulsions to set their minds at ease. “I feel like a freak, so alone… and I know what I’m doing is weird, but I just can’t stop because of the doubt,” says Stephen.The distress and functional impairment people with OCD experience also increase the risk of depression. Commonly beginning in childhood or adolescence, OCD affects both men and women of all ethnic groups. For women, another common age of onset is at the time of pregnancy or childbirth; hormonal interactions with brain chemicals are likely to play an important role in such cases. Certain genes appear to also contribute to OCD, while there’s increasing evidence that the cause of OCD lies in problems with the circuitry, structure and neurochemistry of the brain. The optimum treatment of OCD is a combination of medication and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Drake says: “OCD was considered a chronically debilitating and treatment-resistant condition prior to the development of exposure and ritual prevention. This was a groundbreaking discovery that has since been developed and refined into what is commonly referred to as prolonged exposure and response prevention, as we know it today.” To learn more about OCD or any other mental illness, contact SADAG between 8am and 8pm 7 days a week toll free on 0800 21 22 23 . * Name has been changed. (a direct transcript from SADAG) The term “transgender” applies to individuals whose gender identity differs from the physical sexual characteristics with which they were born. This particular term only came about in the 20th century. The dissatisfaction experienced with the biological sex that one is born with is referred to as gender dysphoria. It has a great impact on the emotional and psychological development of the individual and frequently leads to anxiety and depression. Gender dysphoria is normally evident from a young age and leads to many challenges for the growing child who finds it increasingly difficult to conform to societal standards. Socially, there are expectations regarding how female and male children should behave, for example, boys shouldn’t wear dresses or play with dolls. Children experiencing gender dysphoria learn from a young age that there is a part of themselves that must be hidden. In addition, puberty is often a very stressful period as it brings unwanted, gender specific changes to their bodies. As they get older, transgender individuals are faced with many decisions that have to be made. Some will choose to keep their inner feelings hidden for fear of rejection and isolation. This has a huge impact on their emotional development. Others will decide to transition which is a life changing decision and is accompanied with many fears, such as fears of being rejected by family, friends and colleagues, of changing legal documents, of finding a partner, of enduring surgery and hormones and its impact on relationships. As so much of the territory they are entering is unknown, this decision can be extremely stressful. Despite South Africa having one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, the transgender community still faces many challenges. They are subjected to discrimination, stigma and prejudices and gender-based violence is prevalent throughout South Africa. Many of these crimes go unreported due to victims experiencing secondary trauma when reporting incidents at police stations. Many cultures do not accept the transgender community resulting in them being ostracised by family and friends. Very often they are forced to choose between their culture and their gender identity. In certain African countries, transgender individuals are openly condemned. In Uganda a bill was passed in 2013 stating that homosexual acts were to be punishable by life imprisonment. Stigma and discrimination is also evident in our healthcare services, our educational institutions and in the employment sector. The constant threat of persecution and discrimination is a heavy burden to bear and has a direct impact on the person’s emotional, social and physical wellness. Accessing public healthcare services is extremely difficult. There are only two centres that offer specific services for the transgender community. The one centre is in Cape Town and the other is in Pretoria. As gender reassignment surgery is not viewed as urgent, very little time is allocated to it, resulting in a waiting list of 26 years. This prevents many transgender individuals from receiving medical services. Although there is support available for the transgender community, more education needs to be undertaken in order to eliminate discrimination and stigma. Living authentically according to one’s gender identity is extremely empowering and liberating and creates emotional wellness. Published in Diverstiy Magazine – August 2015 According to the Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms, coming out refers to “be willing to talk in public about something that was kept secret” or to “announce that you are attracted to the same sex”. It is used commonly amongst the gay community to refer to the disclosure of sexual identity or gender orientation. Faced with the decision of “coming out” can be a very daunting experience. For many people the decision is an extremely difficult one accompanied by many internal conflicts. On the one hand, letting go of secrecy and pretending in order to live an open and authentic life is very appealing. On the other, fears of rejection, isolation and discrimination are overwhelming. This decision is a personal one and the outcome needs to be weighed up carefully. Each person is unique and what is best for one might not be the best for another. Often, hiding your true self away behind a mask of heterosexuality seems to be much easier, but not being true to yourself does damage psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally. Rather than an isolated event, coming out is a process which begins with acknowledging and accepting your sexual orientation to yourself. The feelings accompanying this phase range from denial, disbelief and anger to relief, acceptance and excitement. Once you have accepted yourself and are confident with your sexuality, you are ready to share your identity with others. Starting off by confiding in a person whom you trust and who you know will not judge you, is very important. This person needs to be chosen carefully – it could be a counsellor, a friend, a family member or a valued colleague. The confidence you gain and the support you receive from this initial sharing will help you through the process of coming out. It is not necessary to tell everyone in your life at the same time but rather in stages guided by how you feel and what you are most comfortable with. Often coming out to one’s parents is the most difficult. Be mindful of the timing, the venue as well as the method of your disclosure and allow them time and space to absorb this new knowledge. It is important to be prepared for the various reactions of the people with whom you share your sexual orientation. People may show shock, disbelief and have many questions to ask. Treat their concerns seriously and answer as honestly and openly as possible. Coming out is a difficult and very brave decision to make. However,making this choice can lead to a far happier and more meaningful life. Published in Diversity Magazine – October 2014 July is Mental Illness Awareness month – a time to reflect on mental health and give thought to how we can go about attaining it. The World Health Organisation defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This definition focuses on the positive aspects of mental health. Our mental health is part of our overall health and enables us to cope effectively with our daily life, be productive and reach our full potential. It is, therefore, well worth looking after. Everyone is susceptible to mental health problems, irrespective of age, gender, culture or socio-economic group. Feelings such as fear, anxiety, irritability and sadness are common and are generally of short duration. However, if they last longer and begin disrupting our daily functioning, they could be signs of something more serious. Biological factors, our current environment and negative life experiences all contribute to our mental health difficulties. Twenty-five % of children suffer with mental health complications. Parents play an important role in promoting their young ones’ mental health. There are several ways in which this can be done: - Provide unconditional love: It is important that children are loved unconditionally. They need to know that whatever mistakes they make, whatever grades they achieve, however “naughty” they are, they will still be accepted wholeheartedly. - Discipline consistently and lovingly: Teach your children the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and be the perfect role model. The consequences for incorrect behaviour should be fair and consistent. Set reasonable limits and allow your child to make age appropriate choices. - Boost self-esteem: Children rely on adults to assist in developing positive self-esteem and confidence. A child that is always experiencing disapproval grows up believing they are unworthy. A child’s behavior needs to be separated from them as a person – bad behavior does not mean a bad person. Be on the look out for positive behaviours and praise them rather than only reprimanding unsuitable behaviours. For every negative comment there should be 5 positive ones. - Provide time for play: Children learn through play which contributes to both their physical and mental health. Setting aside time regularly to play with your child one-on-one, is a great bonding opportunity which increases their sense of worth and self-esteem. Sibling rivalry refers to the competition, jealousy and fighting that occurs in many instances between brothers and sisters. It generally begins with the introduction of the new sibling and can carry on throughout childhood right into adulthood. Children have a strong need to grow up feeling safe and secure in their parent’s love and sometimes feel threatened when a baby arrives in their family. It is often hard for a child, especially the first-born, to accept and love their new sibling. Parents have to devote a lot of time to the needs of the new baby resulting in the first child feeling left out and competing for attention. They are also forced to share things such as toys, sweets, personal space and clothing, that they have never had to share before. As they grow older, feelings of being treated unfairly when one child receives something the other may not have – a later bedtime, a new toy – lead to jealousy and resentment. Unlike friends, siblings cannot be chosen and often personality differences can result in them simply not liking each other. Although sibling rivalry is common it can be extremely frustrating and upsetting for parents. It is difficult to know how to deal with the fighting, as stepping in to resolve the issue often creates the impression that one child is being favoured. This exacerbates the problem and can cause resentment for one child whilst encouraging the other child to rely on its parent’s help to rescue him. It is important to try not to take sides, to remain uninvolved and to give them the opportunity to try and resolve their own differences. Although it is best to let children sort out their own conflict, it is often difficult for them, as they don’t have the necessary emotional maturity and conflict resolution skills. If the situation is getting out of hand or either child is being emotionally or physically bullied, parents need to intervene and mediate. Working with both children and guiding them to deal with disputes in a healthy manner teaches skills that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. When children argue, parents should not get drawn into the emotions. Children must be encouraged to calm down by finding their own safe space. This must not be seen as a punishment but rather as a cooling down period. Once they are calmer they can be helped to find a win-win solution – they can perhaps take turns with the wanted toy, find a game they can play together or share the last piece of cake. This is a perfect opportunity to teach negotiation and compromise. In order to curtail rivalry amongst siblings, the following points should be considered: - Show each child that they are loved unconditionally. Never, ever take sides or compare your children – each child is unique and has its own strengths - Don’t dismiss angry, resentful feelings. Validate them and teach your children how to deal with them in a positive manner - Structure family time when everyone has fun and no-one has to compete for attention. Also spend one-on-one time with each child to enable them to enjoy your undivided attention - Be the best role model – children will deal with conflict in the same way they observe their parents dealing with it - Children have a right to their own possessions – they should not be forced to share everything - Allow children their own space for play and for friends. Encourage separate play dates - Teach children from a young age that everything cannot be equal. Different children have different needs and should be treated as individuals - Establish rules for acceptable behavior. Name calling, hitting or damaging property should never be tolerated - Draw up schedules to eliminate disputes, e.g. TV programs, whose turn it is to sit in the front of the car - Teach your children how to deal with teasing Being allowed to enter into a child’s world in play therapy sessions has been, and remains, a great privilege. I learn so much from each and every little person. ” You go for counselling when you feel angry and sad and the counsellor cheers you up” – Aron (8 Years old) “Don’t wish your life away – it’s hard being an adult” – Luca (8 years old) “Things just change when you’re an adult – it’s just the way it is. It’s tough luck” – Gabriel (9 years old) ” I don’t understand adults – they make the rules and then they break them” – Gabriel (9 years old) ” I don’t understand what ‘back chatting’ is. I listen to what the teacher says to me, I think about it and then give her my opinion….” – Gabriel (9 years) February – the month of love! A time for celebrating romance with roses and champagne… or is it? The reality is that, for many of us, it is a time of feeling unloved and rejected – longing for that perfect relationship and that perfect romantic partner so that we can feel cherished and secure.We search for love “out there” – our “other half” to make us feel whole – often going through one relationship after another or staying in a dysfunctional one rather than the fearful aspect of facing life on our own. We search outside of ourselves to fill the emptiness inside – seldom looking within for support and happiness. Our relationship with ourself and self love is the core of living a fullfilling and joyful life and is often the most neglected. We work on relationships with partners, family and friends but seldom with ourselves. We learn at an early age to don masks to hide the parts of ourselves which we have learned not to like and which we fear will prevent us from being accepted.We measure our sense of self worth by our perceived perceptions of how others see us. We are setting ourselves up for failure if we allow the rest of the world to determine how we see ourselves. Learning to love ourselves empowers us to create the life we want and to experience joy and peace. Every relationship in our life will reflect this loving relationship. Once we learn to love ourselves we are capable of being loved and of loving others. How do we begin to create this self love? - Get to know yourself better : embark on a journey of personal growth to get to know yourself and to discover your authentic inner being. This can be a very challenging but extremely rewarding task. Re–visit your past to establish the origins of your negative self talk and find ways to disarm your inner critic. - Self nurture : discover what makes you truly happy – it could be listening to your favourite music, reading, a bubble bath… Treat yourself by indulging in a little of this each day. - Journal : buy a journal, decorate it and commit yourself to writing a couple of pages in it every morning. Let it be an uncensored account of your thoughts and feelings. - Take yourself on a date : delight yourself by doing something just for you – something self indulgent and extravagant. Rediscover what you love doing. - Forgive yourself : mistakes happen – forgive yourself and move on. - Be kind to yourself : become your own best friend and treat yourself as such. Develop compassion and understanding. - Remove your masks : accept yourself for who you are. Celebrate your uniqueness and live for yourself without fear of what others may think. - Avoid the inner critic : pause regularly and observe the voice in your head – your inner critic. Question it and most of the time you will find that it does not tell the truth. Learn to speak kindly to yourself. Make this your year of self discovery – find your authentic self, remove your masks and learn to accept and love yourself for who you are. Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you’ll ever have. “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” Signs of an Eating Disorder - Constant dieting or fasting - Skipping meals - Making excuses for not eating - Frequently looking in the mirror at ‘flaws’ - Wearing baggy clothing - Eating in secret/Not eating in public - Going to the toilet during meals - Having an intense fear of gaining weight - Exercising excessively - Having a distorted, negative body image - Withdrawing from social activities - Feeling disgusted over the amount of food eaten - Inducing vomiting ( A direct transcript from “Facebook Fridays” ) Study: Tai Chi Leads to Smoother, Steadier Movements, Longer Strides, and Fewer Falls Compared to Other Types of Exercise By Brenda Goodman, MA WebMD Health News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD If further studies confirm the findings, experts say it appears that tai chi might be an effective therapy for improving a person’s ability to walk, move steadily, and balance. Tai chi may also reduce the chances of a fall. “The results from this study are quite impressive,” says Ray Dorsey, MD, MBA, a neurologist and associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. “It’s always difficult to compare results across studies, but the magnitude of the impact that they had is larger, in some cases, than what is seen with medications in Parkinson’s,” says Dorsey, who also directs the Movement Disorders Center and Neurology Telemedicine at Johns Hopkins. He was not involved in the research. Parkinson’s disease involves the slow destruction of brain cells that make a chemical called dopamine. Nerve cells depend on dopamine to send messages that guide muscle movement. As the cells die, movements may become shaky, stiff, and unbalanced. Walking may be harder. It may also be tougher to start a movement or keep going. Medications may help control some things, like tremors, but many drugs are not as good at helping the so-called axial symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which include problems with balance and walking. Tai Chi Comes Out Tops For the study, doctors assigned 195 people with mild-to-moderate Parkinson’s disease to one of three groups: The first took tai chi classes, the second exercised with weights, and the third was assigned to a program of seated stretching. All the groups met for 60-minute sessions twice each week. After six months, people who had been taking tai chi were able to lean farther forward or backward without stumbling or falling compared to those who had been doing resistance training or stretching. They were also better able to smoothly direct their movements. And they were able to take longer strides than people in the other two groups. Like resistance training, tai chi helped people walk more swiftly, get up from a chair more quickly, and increased leg strength. Perhaps the most impressive benefit of tai chi, however, was related to falls. Falls are common in people with Parkinson’s, and they can cause serious injuries, including fractures and concussions. Studies show falls are the main cause of hospitalizations in Parkinson’s patients. People in the tai chi group reported half the number of falls compared to those who were taking resistance training and two-thirds fewer falls than people who were doing light stretching exercises. The research is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This is a very encouraging study,” says Chenchen Wang, MD, Msc, a rheumatologist and associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. “Most of our previous studies have measured pain, depression, and anxiety, which are subjective measures. These results are very impressive because they used objective measurements,” Wang tells WebMD. It’s not clear exactly why tai chi may offer an edge over more conventional kinds of exercise like resistance training, but researchers say they believe it probably has something to do with the mind-body connection that’s encouraged throughout the poses. “It’s intentional movement. So every step you take, you are aware of it. We put quite a bit of emphasis on the self-awareness of the movement,” says Fuzhong Li, PhD, senior scientist at the Oregon Research Institute, a nonprofit center for the study of human behavior in Eugene, Ore. Additionally, Li says, tai chi has some practical advantages over other kinds of exercise. “You don’t need any equipment. You can practice anywhere, anytime. It’s low cost. It can easily be incorporated into the rehab setting, as well,” Li says. Personal Growth course starting soon! Join me on a 13 week fun filled course and begin to live life more authentically. Contact me for details….	<urn:uuid:bced10c5-77a4-443c-9b79-367ad1fd2aeb>	CC-MAIN-2021-49	https://www.wendykempster.co.za/author/admin/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358685.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20211129014336-20211129044336-00393.warc.gz	en	0.960352	5,092	3.4375	3	2.849901	3	Strong reasoning	Health
For nearly 40 years, NOVA’s been reporting from the frontlines of research, translating the ideas and sharing the passion of scientists who've changed the world. Now, through these Lab experiences, we’re adapting the storytelling skills we use in our TV programs to help teens and lifelong learners take part in research themselves. Our guiding principle? The best way to appreciate science is to be involved in it. NOVA Labs is a new digital platform where "citizen scientists" can actively participate in the scientific process. From predicting solar storms and designing renewable energy systems to tracking cloud movements and learning cybersecurity strategies, NOVA Labs participants can take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and sharing the same data that scientists use. Each Lab is unique, and focuses on a different area of active research. But all of them illustrate key concepts with engaging and informative videos and guide participants as they answer scientific questions or design solutions to current problems. Experts in the field are available as well to answer users’ questions and to propose new routes of investigation. We will use both qualitative and quantitative information to gauge the progress and success of the NOVA Labs Initiative. The effectiveness of the initiative will be measured through external evaluation undertaken by The Lifelong Learning Group (LLG), an independent research and evaluation consulting group. LLG will direct evaluation the Labs to assess the achievement of targeted outcomes among student and teacher audiences, individually and as compared to other Labs. We will use web analytics and social media tools to gather quantitative information about traffic to the Labs (usage and reach) and about the time users spend with them (engagement). The NOVA Labs team works closely with the following dedicated content and outreach partners, who help us develop the Labs, connect with our audience, and create professional development resources for educators. - PBS’s Design Squad Nation Through our online communities, Design Squad Nation (ages 8+) and NOVA Labs (ages 13+) together give kids a continuum of opportunities for engaging in authentic science research and design projects. - PBS Learning Media Through this partnership, NOVA Labs develops strategies, resources, and professional development that specifically support teachers and students in using NOVA Labs in classroom and school settings. - Science Buddies Science Buddies works with NOVA Labs to connect teens with fun science activities and science fair projects that extend the Labs experience beyond the web. - Sci Girls SciGirls is a multimedia initiative that serves girls, families, and educators in both English and Spanish. Based on best practices in STEM education for girls, SciGirls emphasizes teamwork, problem solving, the freedom to express ideas, and support throughout the process. - NASA SDO Mission Data from the SDO mission is used in the NOVA Sun Lab, and our partnership enables Labs to stay connected to current solar research and the leading scientists in the field. - Content Partners: - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center - MIT’s Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences - JPL, Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) mission - JPL, CloudSat mission - NASA Langley, Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line (S’COOL) Effectiveness and Impact Evaluation findings and impact statements: Internally, we work with a group of approximately twenty-five teen advisors, all between the ages 13 to 17, who provide formative feedback about the Labs during development and production. Our teen advisors provide quick turnaround feedback on all aspects of the Lab, including: design, content, and usability. Our work with the teen advisors helps to ensure that Labs are age appropriate and engaging. Externally, NOVA contracts with The Lifelong Learning Group (LLG), part of COSI, to direct formative and summative evaluation of NOVA Labs. The description of services for the formative evaluation of the pilot Sun Lab is attached. The summative evaluation for both NASA-funded Labs is still in process and planned for completion by winter 2013-14, however formative evaluation of the pilot Sun Lab has been completed, and an excerpt of the findings follow: Original Report Prepared by: Jessica Sickler, M.S.Ed. September 2012 Overall Appeal: Factors Driving Teen Use of Site When asked to think hypothetically about what would likely drive them to use a site like NOVA Labs, the consensus was overwhelmingly that the site would be used and valuable for school-related contexts The benefits for school use, however, were many and attractive to teens in the focus group discussions. Several teens mentioned specific courses or teachers from their own experience who would use the site and that they felt it would have improved their experience in the class: Teens who explored the site on their own in the think-alouds (without direction about where to go or what to look at) did not tend to understand that the purpose of the site was to conduct one’s own investigations with authentic data. Two features that seemed to be more helpful in explaining the purpose of the site were the intro video and the infographic, both in the slideshow on the home page. For participants in the focus groups, the overall concept of NOVA Labs was very positively received, with teens generally thinking it had cool and interesting aspects that would add to their school experiences. The video features and lab features were generally the most instantly compelling ideas for most of the teens. The other compelling attribute of the overall NOVA Labs concept was its authenticity. This was partially impacted by the relationship with NASA, which seemed to create a positive impression on teens – as identified via the logo on the home page and through the scientists’ affiliations. But it was most impacted when teens were told or read that the site was sharing real data from NASA satellites and instruments. In both focus group discussions, teens sought verification on this point, that what they were seeing was real data, and not just content for an educational purpose. “Probably using the live data from NASA [is most interesting]. … this was just more like, okay, this is actual data from – that's like currently being collected. I thought that was cool.” “Like those are like the sunspots on the sun [in the image] like at the moment, or are they just like, hey, we're just going to throw these on for the Sun Lab?” In response to the Facebook Meet-the-Scientist Event example (Phillip Chamberlain), results were somewhat positive in both the focus group and think-aloud samples. The idea of a Q&A opportunity with a real scientist was seen as a positive and unique opportunity and outlet for participants. Conclusions and Recommendations: Overall, the concept and core features of the NOVA Labs framework were well received by teen test audiences. The authenticity of interacting with real data from real NASA research and instruments was very appealing to those who realized those opportunities. Similarly, the use of high quality video segments that were brief, explanatory, and used strong graphics and animations to explain concepts were very appealing to the teen test audiences. The biggest challenge for the site overall seems to be how to reach the target audience. The pathway of formal education seems to be very promising, as nearly all of the students felt their use of it would be for a school-related purpose. Teens felt it would be a very positive addition to their schoolwork, seeing great benefit in high quality, interesting, and interactive content like this Lab. Although these tests were artificial in some regards – the users were selected to test the website in a brief period of time out of context from real use – themes emerged in usability and content that may help inform the team in the development of future NOVA Labs. Reaching Teen Audiences: The plan to use dissemination via schools, teachers, and formal education contexts seems a fruitful approach with great potential impact. From the descriptions of teens, the site aligns with content they are currently learning and the types of resources their teachers like to employ – although NOVA Labs was felt to be of a higher quality than much of what they’ve encountered previously. Non-formal uses of the site may require identifying smaller segments of the teen audience with particular interest in the content area of a given Lab. Navigation and Usability Improvements to navigation and site architecture are already underway and established by the NOVA Labs team, so basic navigation was not a main focus of this evaluation. The focus was on specific user challenges in interacting with the features, which may impact understanding. Thus, these comments and suggestions are made knowing that some may already be addressed in current plans. Although challenging for any website, opportunities to decrease reliance on reading large quantities of text in order to be successful are advised. The use of videos was a huge strength of NOVA Labs in this regard. However, in Lab activities, the reliance on reading written instructions often hindered understanding the purpose of an activity (for teens exploring on their own). Even with the strong video content, the quantity of reading on the site was a frequent critique. The use and style of the current videos is a strong and successful strategy to maintain. The style, tone, narration, and length of the videos were all tremendous attributes for the audience. They were relatable, understandable, and the look even pulled in a number of viewers. Continue and consider opportunities to further use animations and diagrams to help explain important concepts. These were very well-received by teens and the combination of those diagrams with narration helped them feel like they were understanding the content. Maintain the engaging style of narration in the videos, as well as the inclusion of scientists who are strong presenters / communicators. This added to the engaging qualities of the videos, as well as their feeling of reliability of information. The Sun Lab: The Lab activities are generally difficult for teens; they were not insurmountable, but they were challenging. There did not appear to be a concern that any of the challenges were too easy or simplistic. Maintain the strong use of guided exploration activities in the Lab environment. Even teens intrigued by the option to do free exploration felt that guidance was needed to feel successful and know what you are doing. In fact, there were requests across teens to make the current guided explorations MORE step-by-step to reduce confusion. Consider enhancements to an Open Investigation area that might give users more guidance in how to get started on their own – orienting them to the features on the page that they might use and how. Label features with both technical names and more common explanations of what they do. If there is a specific video that provides the tutorial, perhaps link to it directly on this page (for users who have not completed the full Boot Camp sequence). The Lifelong Learning Group (LLG), part of COSI, will direct summative evaluation, to be undertaken in fall and winter 2013-14. As currently envisioned, this summative evaluation will explore NOVA Labs success in achieving the following outcomes: Youth participants in the Lab will: - Increase knowledge of STEM career paths. - Increase interest in pursuing careers or higher education in STEM fields. - Increase knowledge of Lockheed’s leading role in science research. - Demonstrate targeted STEM skills through work in the Lab	<urn:uuid:818a42fc-af62-48d2-bfe0-194d8f20cdeb>	CC-MAIN-2019-22	http://nasamissionepometrics.org/nova-labs	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232254731.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20190519081519-20190519103519-00055.warc.gz	en	0.960455	2,325	3.484375	3	3.012291	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Long-term care refers to the range of services available to support those who need long-term or permanent assistance in caring for themselves. This can include residential and nursing home care, as well as domestic help. Services are provided by a wide range of different bodies and organisations, including local Authorities, the NHS, private organisations and charities. In the UK, better standards of living and improvements in healthcare have led to people enjoying a longer life expectancy. While in 1950, the average person could expect to live until they were nearly 69 years of age, today we have a life expectancy of over 81 years old. While many older people can now expect to live to an advanced age in good health, it is inevitable that some will require care and assistance as they reach their later years. How much does long-term care cost? According to the Money Advice Service, the average annual cost of residential care is between £30,000 and £40,000 per year. These costs may not be all-inclusive, either – visits to the hairdressers, day trips and other forms of entertainment, for example, can all cost extra. Home care costs will vary according to the person’s needs. On average, the cost of a home carer is around £17 per hour. So, even if you only need two hours of care per day, it could still add up to £12,500 per year. Does the government help to pay long-term care fees? Government funding is available to help you with the costs of long-term care. The amount to which you are entitled varies across the UK, with each devolved nation offering different levels of support. England and Northern Ireland If you live in England or Northern Ireland, the government funding you receive will depend on how much capital you have. If you have capital assets: Less than £14,250: You’re entitled to local government funding to cover the cost of your care. You won’t be expected to contribute from your capital, but if you are still drawing an income (e.g. a State or private pension), you’ll be expected to contribute this except for a personal expenses allowance (PEA) of £24.90 per week. If the cost of your care is more than your local authority’s standard rate, you may have to pay the difference – this is called a ‘third party top up’. Between £14,250 and £23,250: You’ll be entitled to some funding, but you may have to contribute all income in excess of the PEA, as well as £1 per week for every £250 in capital you have between the upper and lower limits. For example, if you have savings of £21,000, you’ll be expected to contribute £27 of your capital per week in addition to your income. Over £23,250: You will have to pay for your own care. The capital limits are higher in Scotland, but similar rules apply. If you have capital assets: Less than £18,000: You’re entitled to funding to help with your care fees. As above, you won’t be expected to contribute from your capital, but you will be expected to contribute all income over the PEA (£28.75 per week in Scotland). Between £18,000 and £28,500: You’ll be entitled to some funding from your local authority, but will be expected to contribute £1 of your capital per week for every £250 you have between the upper and lower limits, as above. Over £28,500: You will be expected to pay the full cost of your care. In Wales, there are different rules depending on whether you need at-home or residential care. If you have capital worth: Less than £24,000: You will not be expected to use your capital to pay for your care. Your local authority can only look at your income when deciding what to charge you. Over £24,000: You will be obliged to pay for your home care, but the Welsh government has capped the cost at a maximum of £90 per week. If you have capital worth: Under £50,000: You won’t be expected to use your capital to pay for residential care. You will, however, be expected to contribute all income in excess of the PEA, (£32 per week in Wales). Over £50,000: You will be expected to pay the full cost of your care until your capital is reduced to £50,000 or below. What counts as ‘capital’ for long-term care means tests? For the purpose of local authority means tests, your ‘capital’ includes the value of the following assets: - Property (although this can be disregarded under certain circumstances) - Money held in bank accounts/building societies - Premium bonds - Any benefits you’re eligible for (even if you’re not claiming them) What if I’m not entitled to government funding for my long-term care needs? If you have a disability or complex health needs, you may be eligible for NHS continuing healthcare (CHC) free of charge. It is a package of care that can be provided at home, in a nursing care home or in a hospice. You’re more likely to qualify if you have healthcare, as opposed to social care needs. If you are ineligible for government or NHS funding, there are ways to self-fund your care. Whether you’re paying in full or in part, the costs can mount up and it’s wise to prepare yourself financially. You could do this, for example, through savings and investments, or through a care fees plan (also known as an immediate needs annuity). This is a specialist insurance plan designed to convert capital into income to meet your care fees. Consulting with an independent financial adviser well ahead of time will equip you with the tools you need to prepare yourself for the potential costs of long-term care. Will I have to sell my house to pay for long-term care? Your property will be included in government means test assessments, except in the following circumstances: - Your spouse/civil partner lives in the property - A disabled relative lives in the property - A relative over the age of 60 lives in the property - A child under the age of 16 lives in the property - Your care needs are only temporary - You are in your first 12 weeks of needing permanent care If you do need to sell your home to pay your care home fees, the 12-week deferment period (which only applies if your capital falls under the upper limit in your country of residence) gives you time to find a buyer for your property and complete the transaction before you have to start paying fees. Can I give away my property so it’s not included in the means assessment? Even if you give your home away, for example to your child or another relative, it may still be counted as capital in the means test. This is because your local authority may see it as a ‘deprivation of assets’. This means that you have gifted your property for the sole purpose of discounting it from a means assessment. So, you might have to pay for the cost of your care as if you still owned your home anyway. What happens when I can no longer make important decisions for myself? Some people who require long-term care have lost mental capacity, and no longer have the ability to look after their money or advocate for their needs. That’s why planning ahead is so important, to enable your family to step in and manage your affairs when you need it most. You can nominate somebody who is legally entitled to manage your personal and financial affairs with a document called a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). There are two types of LPA: - Health and Welfare LPAs allow your nominated attorney to make vital decisions relating to your health and personal welfare (including decisions surrounding long-term care); - Property and Finance LPAs will allow them to make key decisions about your money and property (e.g. whether or not to sell your house to pay for care home fees and accessing your capital to pay for your care). Without an LPA in place, your family could face a drawn-out court process before they are able to give you the help you need. Assistance is at hand If you have capital and property that places you above the capital limits in your country of residence, then it is extremely important to seek professional independent financial advice from an adviser specialising in long-term care planning. Our SOLLA (Society of Later Life Advisers) accredited care fees planning team can help you create a robust plan for later life, in order to avoid difficult financial decisions for yourself and your loved ones down the line. At Tees we offer expert independent financial as well as legal advice which gives us the ability to combine your financial planning and legal needs, giving you a fully joined-up view. We can take care of your later life financial plans in conjunction with advising you on estate planning and Powers of Attorney. We’re here to help, and only a phone call away. Tees coronavirus update We’re open and here to help you. We’re running as normal with our employees all working from home. You can call us as normal on 0800 013 1165 or email us: [email protected]. You can also find contact details for all our advisers here. As a flexible and technologically-adept firm, we already had many home-working systems in place. We have now rolled this technology out to all our employees working for clients, so they can continue to work normally - and from home. If you are a client, please be assured you can get in touch with Tees and we are still working on your case. To replace face-to-face meetings, we have the facilities to do video-conferencing, conference calls or just speak on the phone, as you need. Due to the circumstances, please call us if you would have wanted a home visit, and we can organise the best and safest way of being in touch.	<urn:uuid:547afab2-d063-45b9-a217-26fbc26ddd16>	CC-MAIN-2021-17	https://www.teeslaw.com/insights/help-and-advice-funding-long-term-care/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038069133.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20210412175257-20210412205257-00055.warc.gz	en	0.956742	2,152	2.59375	3	2.431866	2	Moderate reasoning	Finance & Business
A post-quantum blockchain distinguishes itself by utilizing quantum-resistant cryptography instead of the currently standardized cryptographic schemes such as elliptic curves cryptography, RSA, and DSA. Quantum-resistant cryptography ensures that the security of the blockchain cannot be compromised by future quantum computers. Although the arrival of such computers might be a decade away or more, it is imperative that prominent blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin begin considering the migration to quantum-safe cryptographic schemes. One crucial factor to consider is that the process of migrating to quantum-resistant cryptography might span several years. Apart from the technical challenges associated with transitioning the network to a new cryptographic scheme, there are also logistical obstacles related to ensuring that all users switch over. By proactively addressing these challenges, blockchain platforms can fortify their security and guarantee the integrity of transactions in the face of potential quantum threats. How Quantum Computers Break Blockchain? To underscore the gravity of the quantum threat, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has taken proactive steps by initiating the standardization of post-quantum cryptography. NIST has called upon the cryptographic mathematics community to propose novel cryptographic schemes that can withstand quantum computer attacks. In fact, significant progress has been made, with NIST nearing the standardization of mathematically proven quantum-safe schemes. This standardization process holds immense relevance for blockchain technology since it heavily relies on cryptography. For instance, popular blockchain platforms like Bitcoin and Ethereum currently employ Elliptic Curve Cryptography for crucial functions such as account and wallet creation, as well as transaction signing. The image below, extracted from a NIST paper, illustrates the cryptographic algorithms that are rendered insecure in a post-quantum world. Since 2016, significant advancements have been made in the development of highly promising quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms, which are now nearing standardization. It is crucial that all blockchain networks intending to exist in the long term take immediate action to explore and experiment with these new algorithms, assessing their feasibility for network-wide adoption. By embracing quantum-safe cryptographic schemes, blockchain platforms can ensure the long-term security and viability of their systems. Failure to address this critical concern now could lead to potential vulnerabilities in the future, jeopardizing the integrity and trustworthiness of decentralized transactions. The time to act is now, as we prepare for a quantum-resistant future. How Migrating to New Cryptographic Schemes for Blockchain might play out. In a post-quantum world, a critical consideration arises: the private keys corresponding to exposed public keys on the blockchain become common knowledge, assuming the presence of a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Consequently, the existing private keys must be discarded, and new ones generated under a new cryptographic scheme. This process would typically occur within a designated migration period, during which users would manually create new private keys and associate them with their accounts. To facilitate this transition, blockchains may need to implement flexible account access models that allow users to attach multiple private keys under different cryptographic schemes. Once the migration period concludes, the old cryptosystem, including all previous private keys, would no longer be valid on the network. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that delays could occur if not all users migrate within the specified timeframe. The ultimate goal is to complete the migration before the advent of sufficiently powerful quantum computers. Smooth execution would ensure that users do not lose funds while upholding data integrity throughout the process.	<urn:uuid:821a4328-b795-4175-8719-4bacb963b5eb>	CC-MAIN-2024-10	https://baahkusi.com/post-quantum-blockchain/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474715.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20240228112121-20240228142121-00074.warc.gz	en	0.920343	690	2.875	3	3.05182	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
In this installment of the history of signs and graphics printing, I’ll talk about the vast improvements in from the mid-1800’s until late in the 20th century. And where the two trades intersected to create a significant change for many sign makers. To recap the previous three articles on this history series, we’ve talked about how signage came to be used in the West and the wood type gave way (mostly) to electrical and neon in the past 100 years or so. The end products have never been so fascinating – much of this information is new to me, so I hope it is for you as well! Sign Graphics and Printing Since the 1860’s While this is part 4 of this series, it is really the second part of the history and how eventually manufacturers came to integrate printing into signs. The last major improvement we talked about in the last article was roll printing, in which large rolls of media could be printed at high speeds. This improvement took place about 1863. I’m going to backtrack slightly to 1796. A printing process called Lithography was developed by an innovative Bavarian author by the name of Aloys Senefelder. The reason I am backtracking to this method is because it became one of the methods used in by makers later, or at least in part. In Lithography, chemicals are used to create an image. Without going into the gory details (which are really above my head and I’m just not into chemistry – I just like what it can do!), we’ll just say there’s some positive and negative images, that combined, produces very nice signs and graphics. Today, most books are pressed using offset lithography, or offset printing for short. Posters (large runs), maps, packaging, and newspapers are also produced with this method, as well as some other types. Major improvements in Lithography came later into the 19th century with the addition of color (chromolithography). This process is reputed to be the antecedent to 4-color process printing which is the basis for most color print processing today. Another improvement to lithography was the addition of offset press, in which the inked plate was transferred to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing substrate such as metal or paper or plastic. Again, there’s some chemicals and water used in this process that I won’t go into, but this improvement is still used to this day in books, packaging, and many other high speed print items. Another innovation known today as Flexographic pressing. Initially, in 1890, when the first rubber printing plates were used with water-based inks, the results were fast but smeared too easily. New aniline inks were developed within 15 to 20 years that worked great, particularly with food packaging. The process was called “aniline printing” at that time, but the inks were classified in the 1940’s by the FDA as unsafe for food packaging, and although new, safer inks were developed in 1949, the food industry shied away from aniline method, so in 1951, Frank Moss renamed aniline to flexographic imprinting, and this category was reborn. In the 1990’s, rubber plates were replaced with photopolymer plates, and the quality improved dramatically with this innovation. The photopolymer plates are also easier to create now, and digital “direct-to-plate” technology has been developed which has also made the process much faster as well. Finally, with these improvements, lithography now rivals offset press quality. There’s more knowledge to grasp when it comes to printing methodology. Click here to read the final part of this history of signs and graphics series.	<urn:uuid:d0454a59-5c0a-4acc-a44b-bc010511932a>	CC-MAIN-2017-43	https://www.visigraph.com/signs/signs-and-graphics/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187825057.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20171022022540-20171022042540-00452.warc.gz	en	0.975837	781	3.328125	3	2.660158	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
By Dr Jyots Bhattacharjee Education is supposed to be the key to knowledge. Only knowledge can enlighten our mind by removing the darkness of ignorance. Francis Bacon, the renowned philosopher, had stated “Knowledge is power”. For gaining knowledge education is indispensable. But it must be the right kind of education; wrong education does not edify us; rather it may have some adverse effects on the mind of the learner. Right education must enlighten the mind and it should not compress it. But it seems that in the present era education has not been able to give proper knowledge to learners. In fact, education at present has become a chief obstacle in the path of intelligence and freedom of thought. The primary purpose of education is to build the character of learners. But now this noble goal seems to have been lost, since education is no longer interested in character-building exercise. If we go back to the ancient era, we find that besides imparting knowledge on various topics, character-building was the main objective of preceptors. But today’s educated persons do not seem to have any idea of morality and they may not even be aware of the distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Parents want to admit their children in the best schools. The ‘best’ implies the most sophisticated, expensive and glamorous school and only affluent section can hope to obtain seats for their wards in these aristocratic schools. As far as my knowledge goes, moral lessons are not given due importance in any of these schools, whether well-known or unknown. I believe that nowadays ‘Moral Science’ is in the school curriculum as a subject to be taught in some junior classes. There are some text books on moral science. But it is treated as a purely theoretical and unimportant subject. Hence the young students do not give the least importance to moral science, nor do the teachers. One must be a moral person to teach morality to the pupils. But morality has become irrelevant in the present age. Hence we see chaos and calamity all around the globe. Most parents do not bother about the lessons in morality to their wards, since corruption has gripped the tion in such a way. Young people are getting involved in all sorts of vices and the way they are drifting away to the wrong path does bring apprehensions to the minds of the conscientious and sensible parents. They are afraid their wards may not develop into better human beings, because most institutions are churning out academic adolescents, who have not learnt the value of morality and right conduct. We all can see how the institutions of education are functioning today. They have been battered down by indiscipline, violence and diverse forms of agitations. They are no longer temples of learning with the maxim of ‘simple living and high thinking’. This admirable principle has been turned into the principle of luxurious living and low mental attitude. In the primitive age the disciples were taught the value of self-sacrifice for the good of others and honesty. Now they learn to sacrifice others for persol good and dishonesty has elbowed out honesty. As a consequence most of the young men with university degrees do not become good and honest human beings; rather they become ruthless, selfish opportunists with wrong idea of value. The aim of true education should be to minimize the evil inclitions and to maximize the good ones. Unfortutely the process appears to have been reversed. Today’s degree-holders love to lead a luxurious life. They look with contempt at the simple village folk, behave rudely with the menials and the daily wage-earners like rickshaw-pullers, vendors, cobblers and small shop keepers. They seem to believe education is the license for their atrocious behaviour. You can see students from some reputed English-medium schools, after their entry to some college, always huddle together and look with disparagement at students from vercular-medium schools. They do not seem to be aware that education does not imply the learning of English language only. It is good to learn as many languages as one can. One may also learn French, German, Latin and other languages. If they are interested, they may also learn some Indian languages. Sanskrit also is a very important language. But one must never discredit the mother tongue. No person can claim to be educated, if he does not respect his own language. Swami Vivekanda had said that he was amazed to see the vanity of people taking the western form of education and having knowledge of English language. Strangely enough, even some mothers proudly say that their children get very good marks in English, but get poor marks in their own mother tongue. I think it is not a matter of pride at all, rather it is a matter of shame. But that is what education implies today — it is to extol foreign culture and denigrate own customs and civilization. It is obvious that our young students are obsessed with anything western, whether it is language or things. So we can see that our people are always tempted to buy things with a foreign tag. Various educatiol institutions hardly offer any ideal to the young children, who are already bemused by violence, intolerance and indiscipline they witness in our archistic democracy. The institutions themselves function in a chaotic manner and the students are imparted knowledge through a lacklustre method of teaching. They dictate old worn out notes in the class rooms, which do not create even a spark of interest in the minds of students. If we go back to earlier times, it may be noticed that the students learnt about discipline, punctuality, generosity and other aspects of morality from the behaviour of teachers. The teachers taught them moral activities through examples and not by precept. Today the teachers are busy augmenting their income by private tuition, though they are much better paid than their counterparts in earlier times. In the present era, education has been turned into a commercial venture. Temples of learning have been changed into trade centres. There does not seem to be any organization of the streams and no true system of knowledge. The student’s mind remains confined to the books or notes and he cannot go beyond that limit. He has no idea that some great mysteries might be revealed to him and that a different and more humane way of life can be constructed by what he is going to learn. Only the right sort of education can give him true knowledge about the mysteries of the universe. The university has ceased to be distinctive. The academic circle provides bality and caters to the career needs of a bunch of course-completing and degree-holding illiterates. They are only interested in placements and an excellent salary. And in this competitive market, knowledge or learning takes a back seat and we have a bunch of degree-holders without proper knowledge. This mental clogging is characteristic of ubiquitous nihilism found in the mind of the Indian youth. The young people today are more interested in entertainment, sexuality, crime and money power. There are many universities in our country. There are many buildings in a university, which are used for offices, colleges, libraries and laboratories. But in spite of the imposing buildings, there is no atmosphere of study or meditation. One can only find overwhelming commotion and agitations. The only aspect missing is constructive suggestion regarding the implementation of better education for making better human beings. Canteens are crowded, while classrooms are empty. Are these educatiol institutions temples of learning, to which we send our children? In these institutions the emphasis is given on mere theoretical knowledge to the utter neglect of the inner, higher and the imperceptible element in man. To make the situation worse, our tradition of simple living and high thinking handed down to us by our saints and preceptors from the ancient age, has been most shamefully abandoned and set aside as something hackneyed, unscientific and degrading. People today clamour for money and more money. If the young students had been taught to listen to the voices of the saints, they would have acquired something more than money. They would have got grace, peace and a sense of fulfillment. The British attached great importance to discipline. We followed them in every sphere and adopted their culture as our own, but did not adopt their rigid adherence to discipline. Now our people have adopted their life style, their dresses, behaviour, language, mannerism, and consequently have done immense harm to rich Indian culture. We have rejected discipline and banished morality and religion. We have the liberty to do anything we wish to do. The question of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, does not come into it. After completion of the exams, the successful candidates obtain their degrees and are happy. But the degree, which ought to be a certificate of general intellectual competence, becomes a certificate of intellectual illiteracy, because the university systems have created knowledge of many new topics, but have not been able to create a new humanity. We in India can at least reject the western mode of education and offer our students a humane education, which will enhance their intellectual and moral qualities. Education should aim at making good human beings. Then only our children will be truly educated in the real sense of the term.	<urn:uuid:bffcf087-7f9d-4eaf-9711-23e638c6e480>	CC-MAIN-2022-27	https://www.sentinelassam.com/editorialeditorial/intellectual-illiteracy/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656104669950.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220706090857-20220706120857-00705.warc.gz	en	0.969489	1,902	2.6875	3	2.935904	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Recently, I decided to crunch some data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (which I’ll just call BoM) to assess some of my own perceptions about how the climate in my home city of Brisbane had changed throughout my lifetime. As always, I performed the analysis in Knime, a free and open software platform that allows you to do highly sophisticated and repeatable data analyses without having to learn how to code. Along the way, I also took the opportunity to sharpen my skills at using R as a platform for making data visualisations, which is something that Knime doesn’t do quite as well. The result of this process is HeatTraKR, a Knime workflow for analysing and visualising climate data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, principally the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset, which has been developed specifically to monitor climate variability and change in Australia. The workflow uses Knime’s native functionality to download, prepare and manipulate the data, but calls upon R to create the visual outputs. (The workflow does allow you to create the plots with Knime’s native nodes, but they are not as nice as the R versions.) I’ve already used the HeatTraKR to produce this post about how the climate in Brisbane and Melbourne (my new home city) is changing. But the workflow has some capabilities that are not showcased in that post, and I will take the opportunity to demonstrate these a little later in the present post. Below I explain how to install and use the HeatTraKR, and take a closer look at some of its outputs that I have not already discussed in my other post. Continue reading → For so long, climate change has been discussed in Australia (and indeed elsewhere) as if it were an abstract concept, a threat that looms somewhere in the future. Not anymore. In 2019, climate change became a living nightmare from which Australia may never awake. While I prepared this post in the dying weeks of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, there was not a day when some part of the country was not on fire. As at 24 January, more than 7.7 million hectares — that’s an area about the size of the Czech Republic — have burned. Thirty-three people have died. Towns have been destroyed. Old-growth forests have burned. Around a billion animals have been killed. Whole species have probably been lost. The effects were not only felt in the bush. Capital cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra endured scorching temperatures while choking in smoke. Newspaper front pages (except those of the Murdoch press) became a constant variation on the theme of red. The country entered a state of collective trauma, as if at war with an unseen and invincible enemy. The connection between the bushfires and climate change has been accepted by nearly everyone, with the notable exception of certain denialists who happen to be running the country–and even they are starting to change their tune (albeit to one of ‘adaptation and resilience’). One thing that is undeniable is that 2019 was both the hottest and driest year Australia has experienced since records began, and by no small margin. In December, the record for the country’s hottest day was smashed twice in a single week. And this year was not an aberration. Eight of the ten hottest years on record occurred in the last 10 years. Environmentally, politically, and culturally, the country is in uncharted territory. I watched this nightmare unfold from my newly adopted city of Melbourne, to which which I moved from Brisbane with my then-fiancée-now-wife in January 2019. As far as I can tell, Melbourne has been one of the better places in the country to have been in the past few months. The summer here has been pleasantly mild so far, save for a few horrific days when northerly winds baked the city and flames lapped at the northern suburbs. It seems that relief from the heat is never far away in Melbourne: the cool change always comes, tonight or tomorrow if not this afternoon. During the final week of 2019, as other parts of Victoria remained an inferno, Melbourne reverted to temperatures in the low 20s. We even got some rain. It was almost embarrassing. Finding relief from the heat is one of the reasons my wife and I moved to Melbourne. Having lived in Brisbane all of our lives, we were used to its subtropical summers, but the last few pushed us over the edge. To be sure, Brisbane rarely sees extreme heat. In summer, the maximums hover around 30 degrees, and rarely get beyond the mid-30s. But as Brisbanites are fond of saying (especially to southerners ), it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that gets you. The temperature doesn’t have to be much about 30 degrees in Brisbane before comfort levels become thoroughly unreasonable. Continue reading → I created a Knime workflow — the TroveKleaner — that uses a combination of topic modelling, string matching and other methods to correct OCR errors in large collections of texts. You can download it from GitHub. It works, but does not correct all errors. It doesn’t even attempt to do so. Instead of examining every word in the text, it builds a dictionary of high-confidence errors and corrections, and uses the dictionary to make substitutions in the text. It’s worth a look if you plan to perform computational analyses on a large collection of error-ridden digitised texts. It may also be of interest if you want to learn about topic modelling, string matching, ngrams, semantic similarity measures, and how all these things can be used in combination. This post discusses the second in a series of Knime workflows that I plan to release for the purpose of mining newspaper texts from Trove, that most marvellous collection of historical newspapers and much more maintained by the National Library of Australia. The end-game is to release the whole process for geo-parsing and geovisualisation that I presented in this post on my other blog. But revising those workflows and making them fit for public consumption will be a big job (and not one I get paid for), so I’ll work towards it one step at a time. Already, I have released the Trove KnewsGetter, which interfaces with the Trove API to allow you to download newspaper texts in bulk. But what do you do with 20,000 newspaper articles from Trove? Before you even think about how to analyse this data, the first thing you will probably do is cast your eyes over it, just to see what it looks like. A typical reaction upon seeing Trove’s OCR-derived text for the first time. Continue reading → NOTE: This post discusses the most recent version (v2.0) of the Trove KnewsGetter. You can obtain the latest version from the GitHub page. Around about this time last year, I hatched a side-project to keep me amused while finishing my PhD thesis (which is still being examined, thanks for asking). Keen to apply my new skills in text analytics to something other than my PhD case study (a corpus of news texts about coal seam gas), I decided to try my hand at analysing historical newspapers. In the process, I finally brought my PhD back into contact with the project that led me to commence a PhD in the first place. I’m talking here about my other blog, which explores (albeit very rarely, these days) the natural history of the part of Brisbane in which I grew up. Pivotal to the inception of that blog was the publicly available collection of historical newspapers on Trove, a wondrous online resource maintained by the National Library of Australia. Having never studied history before, I became an instant deskchair historian when I discovered how easily I could search 100 years of newspapers for the names of streets, waterways, parks — and yes, even people. I trawled Trove for everything I could find about Western Creek and its surrounds, so that I could tell the story how this waterway and its catchment had been transformed by urbanisation. How anyone found the time and patience to study history before there were digitised resources like Trove is beyond me. I cannot even imagine how many person-hours would be needed to replicate the work performed by a single keyword search of Trove’s collection. The act of digitising and indexing textual archives has revolutionised the way in which historical study can be done. But keyword searches, as powerful as they are, barely scratch the surface of what can be done nowadays with digitised texts. In the age of algorithms, it is possible to not merely index keywords, but to mine textual collections in increasingly sophisticated ways. For example, there are algorithms that can tell the difference between ordinary words and different kinds of named entities, like places or people. Another class of algorithms goes beyond counting individual keywords and instead detect topics — collections of related words that correspond with recurring themes in a collection of texts. My PhD thesis was largely a meditation on these latter types of algorithms, known as topic models. Along the way, I also used named entity recognition techniques to identify place names and relate them to topics, ultimately enabling me to map the geographic reach of topics in the text. These were the sorts of techniques that I wanted to bring to apply to Trove’s historical newspapers through my side-project last year. The outcome of this project was a paper that I presented at the Australian Digital Humanities conference in Adelaide in September 2018. To this day, it remains a ‘paper’ in name only, existing only as a slideshow and a lengthy post on my other blog. Releasing some more tangible outputs from this project is on my to-do list for 2019. In this post, I am going to share the first in what will hopefully be a series of such outputs. This output is a workflow that performs the foundational step in any data analysis — namely, acquiring the data. I hereby introduce the KnewsGrabber — a Knime workflow for harvesting newspaper articles from Trove. Continue reading →	<urn:uuid:4b9c2847-bfc2-4893-9ebb-816f40d66673>	CC-MAIN-2020-34	http://seenanotherway.com/tag/knime/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738944.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20200812200445-20200812230445-00450.warc.gz	en	0.959524	2,111	2.515625	3	2.964369	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Once An Eagle In order to assess the character of Samuel Damon from Once and Eagle from a military point of view this paper will follow a rough format of the Leadership Assessment Report (blue card) used to assess Army ROTC cadets. As the assessment of Damon is being made Courtney Massengale will also be assessed in order to compare the two men’s leadership styles. The assessment of both will also show a contrast of what a good leader is from a poor one. The book begins with Damon at his hometown in Nebraska. Before Damon ever enlists into the army, he already exhibits the qualities of a leader. While reading the first part, Orchard, in Once an Eagle, we find out that he works as night clerk at a hotel in town. We know that he is the oldest son in his family and that his father has passed. He works not only to make money, but also to make money to support his family. This shows his sense of Duty and Selfless-Service towards his family that we later see carry on into his military career. We also learn of his Personal Courage when being confronted with Riley who arrived at the hotel drunk, demanding to be served. Damon did not run away when being threatened by a man so much bigger than himself. He is able to devise a plan to take out Riley, successfully executing it, earning himself a reputation as “The Night Clerk” that follows him through his military career. In this first part of the book alone Damon proves that he is a very capable leader, exhibiting Duty, Selfless-Service, Personal Courage, and adding on to the qualities already listed, Confidence, Resilience, showing Mental Agility, and being Physically Fit. Damon continuously presents all of these throughout the book. Damon attempts to go to West Point to start his military career, but he could not wait another year for the position the Nebraskan congressman had promised (Damon proved himself by making an excellent score on the exam and impressing the congressman). He enlists despite the protests of his family. Damon sees action during World War I, and it is during this time that he fights a battle that is a great example of how he is meant to lead. Damon is separated from his platoon during a battle; finds one of his men (Brewster) and the two are on their way to meet up with the rest of their forces. Along the way he encounters Devlin, Raebyrne and Poletti captured by two Germans and walking down a road. He displays Mental Agility when planning how to free his men from their captors. He quickly briefs Brewster, who is terrified, but Damon motivates him, telling him that he is absolutely capable of completing the plan (Developing Others and Interpersonal Tact). They are able to free their comrades and as they continue on they pick up two more soldiers from C Company. As they continue, they arrive at Brigny-le-Thiep, which Damon recognizes from a brief that was the German’s main objective. Again exhibiting his Mental Agility, he creates a plan that he successfully executes, showing how Resilient he was in his attack despite them being outnumbered and ill equipped. He takes out the German force up in the farmhouse, showing to his mean his Confidence and ability to Lead by Example. As soon as the farmhouse is captured he places the men in positions to defend, using Sound Judgment and his experience as a night clerk at a hotel (the height being just right, as he reports to Major Caldwell) to keep watch and conduct an attack on approaching German forces. As expected, the German force arrived, and maintaining his Confidence, Military Bearing, and Domain Knowledge in tactics, he waits till the Germans are barely one hundred yards from the farmhouse before he orders the men to fire. His actions win him the attention of Major Caldwell, who becomes a key figure in his life (he is also to be his father-in-law). Other battles such as these further illustrate Damon’s leadership, and despite hardships, he never quits. The book doesn’t... Please join StudyMode to read the full document	<urn:uuid:33c3cd3c-acdf-4be7-8b41-373a41b5f74a>	CC-MAIN-2018-26	http://www.studymode.com/essays/Once-An-Eagle-Leadership-Assessment-1044762.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267864740.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20180622162604-20180622182604-00326.warc.gz	en	0.986554	854	2.765625	3	2.839563	3	Strong reasoning	Literature
Chronology of the Union Carbide Corporation September 1999: Dow Chemical to buy Union Carbide Click here for a separate chronology of toxic chemical accidents 1897. Major James T. Morehead and Guillaume de Chalmont produced America's first commercial high-carbon ferrochrome, and furnished ferrochrome for Spanish-American War armorplating. In 1898 the Union Carbide Company was created in Virginia to manufacture calcium carbide for acetylene lighting. 1899. National Carbon Company formed in New Jersey; it was succeeded by the National Carbon Company in New York in 1917; its stock eventually was acquired by the Union Carbide & Carbon Company. 1900. Union Carbide was capitalized at $6 million; its calcium carbide plants operated in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan and Niagara Falls, New York; its main office was in Chicago. 1917. Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation incorporated in New York. It acquired the stock of four companies: Linde Air Products (begun in Ohio in 1907), National Carbon Company (New Jersey, 1899 and New York, 1917), Prest-O-Lite (New York, 1913), and Union Carbide Company (Virginia, 1898). The name was changed to Union Carbide Corporation in May 1957. 1920. Union Carbide's chemicals business (Carbide & Carbon Chemical Company) established. New products included ethylene glycol (antifreeze), batteries, carbon for film, and ferroalloys for steel construction. 1930. Several hundred Union Carbide workers died of acute silica poisoning while constructing a tunnel for hydroelectric power for Union Carbide near Hawk's Nest, West Virginia. Almost 400 lawsuits resulted in an out-of-court settlement of $130,000, after the victims' attorneys received secret payments to take no further legal action. World War II. Union Carbide developed raw materials and by-products; resumed butadiene studies to synthesize rubber; acquired the Bakelite Corporation and developed plastics; began operating Oak Ridge facilities; Linde perfected uranium refining; Electro Metallurgical Company (later Union Carbide's Metals Division) created for wartime metallurgical research and uranium manufacturing; National Carbon (later Carbon Products) developed special carbon products; United States Vanadium (later part of Metals Division) mined uranium and constructed three plants for treating uranium ores; Union Carbide and Carbon research laboratories contributed to atomic weapons research. 1943 January 18. Entered into contract with the Manhattan Engineer District to operate the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Tennessee. Union Carbide ceased operating the U.S. DOE's Oak Ridge facilities in 1984. 1950s-1960s. Mercury used for the separation of lithium-6 at Oak Ridge. A third of the world's mercury was brought to Oak Ridge. Some 2.4 million pounds of mercury are unaccounted for; while most is probably underneath buildings, 475,000 pounds leaked into a creek, and 30,000 pounds are believed to have leaked into the air. In 1955, almost half of workers tested had mercury in their urine at levels above those considered safe. 1952. Kanawha Industrial Emergency Planning Council was founded by area chemical industries; later on government agencies joined the Council, and the word "Industrial" was dropped. 1955. Union Carbide Nuclear Company created. 1963. Union Carbide began funding confidential research on the toxicity of methyl isocyanate (MIC) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; more research was performed in 1970. 1972. The corporation's long-term plan included "strengthening the assignment of individual responsibilties and accountabilities, strengthening business management methods, allocating resources selectively in strategic planning units, and practicing good corporate citizenship at home and abroad." 1973. Three employees killed at the Penuelas, Puerto Rico complex. 1973. Benzene gas leak at the Penuelas, Puerto Rico complex killed an employee. 1973. Employee at Institute, West Virginia killed by propane fumes. 1975. India granted Union Carbide a license to manufacture pesticides. Union Carbide Corporation built a plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, with Union Carbide owning 51 percent and private Indian companies the other 49 percent. 1975 February 10. An explosion at Union Carbide's Antwerp, Belgium polyethylene plant killed six employees. The plant was later sold to BP Chemicals. 1976. Union Carbide's Agricultural Products Division began producing Sevin insecticide and Temik pesticide. 1977. Strike at Union Carbide's MIC plant in France. 1978. Worker electrocuted at the Eveready battery plant in Jakarta, Indonesia. 1980 July. The U.S. Departments of Labor and Health & Human Services reported excessively high brain cancer rates at seven petrochemical plants. The second-highest rate was at Union Carbide's Texas City facility, where 18 workers had died of brain cancer. 1980 December. The Environmental Quality Board fined Union Carbide $550,000 for air pollution violations dating back to 1972 at its Yabucoa, Puerto Rico graphite electrode plant. See also the 1981 entry. 1981. Fire at the graphite electrode plant at Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. 1981. "Pollution control and other facility obligations [listed as $142 million in 1980 and $126 million in 1981] represent state, commonwealth, and local governmental bond financing of pollution control and other facilities and are treated for accounting and tax purposes as debt of Union Carbide Corporation. These tax exempt bonds mature at various dates from 1982 through 2009 and have an average annual effective interest rate of 6.93%. At December 31, 1981, the Corporation had a contingent obligation with respect to $42 million of pollution control and other facility obligations assumed by purchasers of Union Carbide facilities." 1981. Union Carbide fined $50,000 for spilling 25,600 gallons of propylene oxide into the Kanawha River in 1978-1980. 1981 December. Newsday article on Union Carbide in Indonesia reported that more than half its Indonesian employees suffered from kidney disease due to exposure to mercury, that mercury levels in an Indonesian factory's well water were twenty times higher than levels considered acceptable in the U.S, and that surrounding rice fields and groundwater were also contaminated. 1981-82. Completed a Temik aldicarb pesticide plant in Brazil. 1982. "By the end of the decade, we expect to add nine new insecticides to our roster, for a total of eleven. Our intention is to have the broadest and strongest portfolio of insecticides in the industry, with products that offer important protection for all the major agricultural crops of the world." 1982 May. Union Carbide inspection team indicated that the plant at Bhopal, India was unsafe. 1982 July. Hydrogen chloride leaked from a tank car at Union Carbide's Massey yard at South Charleston, West Virgina; several hundred residents were evacuated, a some were treated at the hospital. 1982 December 11. Tank containing acrolein exploded at the Taft, Louisiana plant; windows a mile and a half from the plant were blown out, and 17,000 people were evacuated. 1983. Agreement reached to sell Indian chemicals and plastics business. 1983. Temik aldicarb pesticide reinstated for use in Florida after being temporarily suspended for environmental impact evaluation. 1983. An excess of cancer deaths is reported at Union Carbide's Seadrift, Texas plant. Workers exposed to polyethylene showed a seven-fold greater risk of lymphoma than the general public. 1984. West Virginia agencies fine Union Carbide $105,000 for hazardous waste violations. 1984 March. Ceased operating the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge, Tennessee (begun in 1943) and Paducah, Kentucky facilities, and dissolved its Nuclear Division. 1984 September 11. An internal Union Carbide memo warned of a "runaway reaction that could cause a catastrophic failure of the storage tanks holding the poisonous [MIC] gas" at the Institute, West Virginia plant. The memo was released in January 1985 by U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Health and the Environment Subcommittee. 1984 December 2-3. Bhopal, India disaster killed thousands of people. 1984 CORPORATE STATEMENT ON BHOPAL: Company statements in its 1984 Annual Report included the following: "Bhopal was a shocking tragedy, but Union Carbide was well served by our quick and compassionate response, and by the way the situation was managed. We moved swiftly to provide emergency relief while concentrating management of the crisis among a small group of executives, so that unaffected businesses could proceed with their normal routines. Many were shocked that the accident had happened to Union Carbide, a company with an excellent safety record. Expressions of support for Carbide poured in from customers, suppliers, and friends around the world. Carbide was also sustained by the performance of our employees, who never faltered throughout the December crisis." "Numerous lawsuits have been brought... alleging, among other things, personal injuries or wrongful death from exposure to a release of gas... Some of these actions are purported class actions in which plaintiffs claim to represent large numbers of claimants alleged to have been killed or injured as a result of such exposure..." In its 1984 Form 10-K (written in early 1985), the only mention of Bhopal was the following statement: "In part because of the accident in Bhopal, India, chemical companies, including Union Carbide, have had difficulty renewing their public liability insurance for the same coverage that had been in effect. In March 1985 Union Carbide renewed its personal injury and property damage insurance and now has substantially less of such insurance with broader exclusions and a substantially larger deductible than in 1984. Union Carbide is continuing to seek additional coverage." 1985. CORPORATE STATEMENT ON BHOPAL: "A settlement for $350 million has been proposed for the lawsuits seeking recovery for personal injuries, death, property damages and economic losses from the release of gas at Union Carbide India Limited's Bhopal, India plant in December 1984... The tentative settlement agreement is supported by the U.S. attorneys for the individual plaintiffs, but is subject to the approval of Judge John Keenan and of the Corporation's Board of Directors, and in addition, the Union of India must either agree to the settlement or a portion of the settlement must be reasonably identified and allocated for the Union of India's claims for its expenses from the release. The Corporation does not intend to conclude a settlement unless all claims arising out of the Bhopal gas release can be resolved with finality or provided for in the settlement process." 1985. "Union Carbide and its affiliated companies operate[d] approximately 700 plants, factories, laboratories, mines, and mills around the world. Some of the facilities will be divested under the announced restructuring program and the sale of the Consumer Products business [batteries, lighting products, plastic wrap and bags, antifreeze, and automotive specialty products, in 1986]." 1985. The National Institutes for Chemical Studies (NICS) was established; see the 1992 entry for NICS' Kanawha cancer study, and the June 1994 entry for the "Safety Street" event sponsored by NICS. West Virginia donated $150,000 of state money to fund the organization. 1985. Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (New Orleans) dismissed 28 suits by chemical manufacturers attempting to challenge EPA regulations on plastic and synthetic fiber wastewaters. 1985. When the price of Union Carbide stock dropped from $48 per share to $32, Texas investor Sid Bass bought over five percent of the total stock. 1985. $42 million of pollution abatement facility obligations was assumed by purchasers of Union Carbide facilities. 1985. Lawsuit filed by the family of Joe Harding, an employee at the Union Carbide-run uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, charging that his fatal cancer was due to exposure to low-level radiation. Harding had claimed that exposure to uranium hexafluoride was routine, and that Union Carbide had encouraged workers to falsify radiation tests. The Kentucky Department of Workers' Claims was to decide in 1994 whether to award workers' compensation benefits to the family. 1985 January 15. The chemical industry announced the formation of a special committee of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association to lobby the state legislature "so that those regulations [in response to the Bhopal disaster] are reasonable and do not unnecessarily harm the industry." 1985 January 23. The U.S. EPA announced that Union Carbide records showed that there had been 28 leaks of MIC at the Institute, West Virginia plant in the years 1980 through 1984. MIC production at the Institute plant was halted after the disaster at Bhopal until May 1985, but in the six weeks following the disaster, 1.4 million pounds of MIC at Institute were converted to pesticide, and shipments of MIC to France and Brazil were returned to the company's Woodbine, Georgia facility. See also the February 1985, August 1985, and February 1990 entries. 1985 February. Union Carbide notified the U.S. EPA that since 1980, 190 chemical leaks had occured at its Institute, West Virginia plant, including 61 leaks of methyl isocynate (MIC), 107 leaks of phosgene, and 22 leaks of both. 1985 February. Union Carbide employees in the United States had raised more than $100,000 to help victims in Bhopal; the money was distributed through the Missionaries of Charity (New York), the Lions Club International Foundation (Oak Brook, Illinois), and Share and Care Foundation for India (Ramsey, New Jersey). 1985 March 1. The U.S. EPA filed a civil administrative complaint against Union Carbide under TSCA Section 8(e), seeking a civil penalty of $3.9 million for delayed reporting of skin cancer tests involving diethyl sulfate. The tests, which had been conducted at the Carnegie Mellon Institute of Research in 1976-1978, showed a high rate of skin cancer in mice treated with the chemical; Union Carbide did not notify the EPA until September 1983. 1985 March. 5,700 pounds of acetone and mesityl oxide leaked from a Union Carbide distillation column at its plant in South Charleston, West Virginia; dozens of area residents became ill after breathing the fumes. 1985 June. The U.S. EPA fined six corporations (Union Carbide, BASF Wyandotte, Ciba-Geigy, BASF Systems, Dow Corning, and B.F. Goodrich's Tremco subsidiary) more than $6.9 million dollars for failing to notify the EPA before manufacturing new chemicals; the names and uses of the chemicals were withheld by the EPA because the manufacturers claimed that was confidential business information protected by law. Union Carbide was fined $212,500 for producing a new chemical at its Sisterville, West Virginia plant. 1985 August 11. The Institute, West Virginia facility leaked methylene chloride and aldicarb oxime, chemicals used to manufacture the pesticide Temik; six workers were injured, and more than a hundred residents were sent to the hospital. Thirty people filed two lawsuits seeking $88 million in damages, but hundreds of people marched in support of the company. OSHA proposed fines of $32,100 for endangering workers, though later agreed to having Union Carbide pay $4,400 if it bought an accident simulator for training workers. Union Carbide spent $5 million to improve safety systems, but two more leaks occurred in February 1990. See also the January 23, 1985, February 1985, and February 1990 entries. 1985 November. Union Carbide charged that employee sabotage caused the disaster at Bhopal, India. 1985 November. A U.S. EPA study lists 403 highly toxic chemicals, being used by at least 577 companies at thousands of locations, which pose serious health dangers to the public in the event of a chemical accident; only about twenty percent of the thousands of chemicals in commercial use had even been tested. The previous month, it was revealed that a draft EPA report revealed that there had been 6,928 toxic chemical accidents since 1980, killing 135 people and injuring almost 1,500. 1986. Severance agreement between Union Carbide and former chairman Warren Anderson. 1986. In response to the Bhopal disaster, the U.S. Congress enacted the Emergency Planning & Community Right-to-Know Act. EPCRA (or the Superfund Amendment & Reauthorization Act, SARA III) is a compromised and largely procedural law entailing no major reductions in toxic chemicals. EPCRA requires that inventories of hazardous chemicals be provided; the Toxic Release Inventory and Local Emergency Planning Committees are results of EPCRA. 1986 January. Hostile takeover attempt by GAF Corporation; GAF soon withdrew its bid, but profited $81 million from sales of Union Carbide stock. RECAPITALIZATION/BANK CREDIT AGREEMENT/DEBT TENDER OFFER: To defend itself against the takeover attempt, Union Carbide repurchased 116,400,000 shares [out of 128 million total shares?] of its common stock (38,800,000 shares, adjusted for the March 1986 stock split) for $776 million in cash and $2.521 billion in debt securities "under an indenture which contained covenants that imposed significant restrictions upon the Corporation", one of which was the agreement to sell the consumer products division by March 1986; see the June 1986 entry for the cost of failing to do so. Funds to finance the repurchase were obtained through: loans of $2 billion and $976 million; proceeds from the sale of the agricultural products business for $800 million; sale and leaseback of the corporate headquarters in Connecticut for $340 million; the December 1986 sale of 30 million shares of common stock for $650 million; the 1987 sale of the electronic capacitor business to Kemet for $150 million; the sale of $249 million receivables to the new subsidiary, Union Carbide Finance Corporation; and other transactions. 1986. The mayor of La Mesa, California asked Union Carbide to relocate its arsine-phosphine-ethylene oxide production facility. An attempt to locate it in Washougal, Washington failed. Amidst citizen protest in 1988-1989, the arsine-phosphine facility was relocated outside Kingman, Arizona. The plants were later transferred to Praxair, and one of them was sold to Allied Signal. 1986 February. Institute, West Virginia employee killed in coal crusher. 1986 April. The U.S. OSHA, after a September 1985 inspection of five of 18 plant units at Institute, West Virginia, alleged 221 violations of 55 health and safety laws, and proposed $1.4 million in fines. OSHA classified 72 of the 221 violations "serious," where there is substantial probability of death or substantial physical harm. OSHA had earlier given the Institute plant a "clean bill of health" after Union Carbide spent $5 million in safety repairs after the disaster at Bhopal. 1986 May. Federal district judge dismissed Bhopal suits in the United States. 1986 May. Union Carbide had finished spending $700,000 on fencing, a guard tower, and electronic and photographic surveillance equipment to "increase security" at its Institute, West Virginia plant. 1986 June. Completed the sale of most of its worldwide battery operations, to Ralston Purina, for $1.415 billion. The consumer products division was to have been sold by March 1986, or shareholders were to receive special cash distributions; since the sale did not occur by then (see also the July 1986 entry for the sale of home and automotive products), the corporation distributed $951 million in July 1986 and $102 million in October 1986, and in September 1988, a tentative settlement of class actions cost another $31.7 million ("In re Union Carbide Corporation Consumer Products Business Securities Litigation"). 1986 June. Explosion injures employee at Institute, West Virginia. 1986 July. In a highly-leveraged buy-out, Union Carbide sold its Home & Automotive Products to the newly-created First Brands Corporation, completing the sale of its home and automotive products business. For the penalty paid by Union Carbide for not divesting its consumer products division by March 1986, see the June 1986 entry. 1986 July. Distributed $951 million as partial payment in a class action lawsuit ("In re Union Carbide Corporation Consumer Products Business Securities Litigation"), which was settled in September 1988; see the June 1986 entry. 1986 September. The Indian government filed Bhopal suit against Union Carbide, seeking $3 billion. 1986 October. Distributed $102 million as partial payment in a class action lawsuit ("In re Union Carbide Corporation Consumer Products Business Securities Litigation"), which was settled in September 1988; see the June 1986 entry. 1986 October 2. Agreement between Union Carbide Corporation, GAF Corporation, Jay & Company, Mayfair Instruments, and GAF chairman Samuel Heyman. See the January 1986 entry for the takeover attempt by GAF Corporation. 1986 December. Completed the sale of its worldwide Agricultural Products business to the French chemical and pharmaceuticals company, Rhone Poulenc, for $585 million. The deal included Rhone-Poulenc's purchase of Union Carbide's chemical plant in Institute, West Virginia. 1987. RESTRUCTURING: "After a period of dramatic change, Union Carbide Corporation in 1987 completed a successful year as a restructured company, sharply refocused on three businesses in which we have leading positions: chemicals and plastics, industrial gases, and carbon products." 1987. BHOPAL: "... [M]anagement believes that adequate provisions have been made for probable losses with respect [to litigation]... The Corporation is vigorously defending the pending litigation... The Union of India alleged in [the November 17, 1986] proceeding [in Bhopal district court] that damages and losses arising from the Bhopal gas emission exceed $3 billion, which the Corporation strongly denies... The Corporation has appealed to the High Court in Jabalpur to set the order aside [for $270 million in interim compensation, of $15,400 for each death and $7,700 for each case of total disability]. The Corporation maintains that interim compensation for personal injuries cannot be allowed when the evidence as to liability is in dispute and the claimants' right to compensation has not been established. Given the Corporation's numerous defenses and the evidence that the tragedy was caused by employee sabotage, liability is in dispute... The Corporation believes that the [homicide] charges [against former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson] are without merit, and that Mr. Anderson, UCE [Union Carbide Eastern] and the Corporation are not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of India in respect to criminal charges." 1987. "As for South Africa, dividends so far totaling $3.5 million from Union Carbide's investments there have been set aside to aid South African blacks. The goal is a permanent fund earmarked for college scholarships for blacks at mixed-race universities, for legal aid, tutoring, and for training in business and civic affairs. Seventy-five students are currently participating in the scholarship program." 1987. Union Carbide Corporation operated a uranium mine in Uravan, Colorado from the 1930s to 1984. In 1987, UC signed an agreement to pay $40 million to clean up its Uravan uranium contamination, and to pay the state $2.8 million in legal costs. Yet UC subsidiary Umetco planned to transport low-level radioactive waste from other sites to Uravan. 1987 July 24. Union Carbide Corporation agreed to pay $408,500 to settle 556 alleged health and safety regulations violations at its Institute and South Charleston, West Virginia plants; OSHA had originally proposed $1.4 million in fines for 462 willful violations. 1988. More than 170 members of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, a tax-free lobbying organization, established their "Responsible Care: a Public Commitment" program of ten pledges to manufacture and use their products in a safe manner. Responsible Care "is an ongoing process, and a call for action, to achieve these primary goals: improved chemical processes; enhanced practices and procedures; reduction of every kind of waste, accident, incident and emission; reliable communication and dialogue; and heightened publlic scrutiny and input." 1988 April. Union Carbide Corporation sued 115 insurance companies to recover the costs of cleaning up its hazardous waste sites. 1988 April. Indian court upheld order for Union Carbide to pay $190 million in interim relief to Bhopal victims. 1988 August 13. Fire and explosion of 4,300 pounds of ethylene oxide at Institute, West Virginia; tetranaphthalene was spilled into the Kanawha River, killing 3,000 fish. 1988 September. Payment of $31.7 million in tentative settlement of a class action lawsuit ("In re Union Carbide Corporation Consumer Products Business Securities Litigation"); see the June 1986 entry. 1988 October. Union Carbide's Texas City, Texas facility began a community outreach program, including focus groups, plant tours, and a formal citizens advisory panel (CAP). 1988 November. Bhopal district court issues arrest warrant for former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson after he failed to respond to a summons. See also 1991 and April 1994 entries. 1989. VOLUNTARY CORPORATION DISSOLVING & RESTRUCTURING: A new holding company, UCC Holdings, was incorporated in New York, and then renamed Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The former UCC became the Union Carbide Chemicals & Plastics Company (UCC&P), and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the new holding company. Union Carbide Industrial Gases and UCAR Carbon Company became wholly-owned subsidiaries of UCC&P. In July 1990, UCC&P distributed its shares in UCAR Carbon to the holding company. [So Union Carbide, the new holding company, owned Union Carbide Chemicals & Plastics (UCC&P), which had two segments: Chemicals & Plastics and Industrial Gases.] In 1991, Union Carbide sold half of UCAR, which thus became a joint venture with Mitsubishi. In 1992, Union Carbide Corporation spun off its industrial gases operations into a new corporation called Praxair (see June 1992 entry). 1989. "The Corporation and its subsidiaries operate[d] approximately 483 plants, factories, and laboratories around the world." 1989. CORPORATE DEBT: By the end of 1989, Union Carbide had reduced its debt-to-capital ratio from a high in 1986 of almost 80 percent to 47.8 percent. 1989. Union Carbide, one of three defendents in an asbestos cancer lawsuit, settled for $900,000. See also December 1993 entry. 1989. CORPORATE STATEMENT: "During the year, some 30,000 of our neighbors at manufacturing locations attended plant open-house gatherings to hear about our safety and environmental programs from the people who run the plants. We have also been an active participant in the Community Awareness and Emergency Response program of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA)." 1989-1990. GAF-Boyd Jeffries-Union Carbide stock manipulation case. 1989 January. Incorporated its U.S. industrial gases and carbon products businesses as separate subsidiaries. The carbon business became UCAR Carbon Company; the gases operations became Union Carbide Industrial Gases, which continued under the Linde trademark. See also the June 1992 entry for the spin-off of the Linde industrial gases operations into a new corporation, Praxair. 1989 BHOPAL: In February, the Supreme Court of India ordered a full and final Bhopal settlement of $470 million, and dismissed charges against Warren Anderson (the charges were revived in 1991). UCC&P and Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) paid the $470 million in a "final settlement of all civil claims." "Our goal from the beginning has been to get fair compensation to the victims as rapidly as possible." The Indian government, and the victims, contested the settlement. UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION STATEMENT ON BHOPAL: "On February 14, 1989, the Supreme Court of India ordered a $470 million final settlement of all litigation with respect to the December 3, 1984 methyl isocyanate gas release at the Union Carbide India Limited ("UCIL") plant at Bhopal, India. The Corporation is a 50.9% shareholder of UCIL. The Union of India and Union Carbide Corporation accepted the Court's order. The Court stated that its order was just, equitable and reasonable based on the facts and circumstances of the case, including the pleadings, the data placed before the Court, the proceedings in the litigation in the United States, the settlement offers and counter-offers made by the parties, the complex issues if law and fact, the enormity of human suffering and the pressing urgency to provide immediate and substantial relief to the victims. The Court also quashed all criminal proceedings related to the gas release. Although the civil suit was filed by the Union of India against the Corporation alone, on February 15, 1989 the Supreme Court of India made UCIL party to the suit. The Court directed that the Corporation pay $425 million of the settlement and that UCIL pay the Rupee equivalent of $45 million. The $5 million payment previously made by the Corporation to the Red Cross at the suggestion of U.S. Judge John F. Keenan was credited to the Corporation, leaving a balance due of $420 million. The Court specified that the $470 million total be paid by March 23, 1989 to the Union of India for the benefit of all the victims of the gas release under the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act. "Effective upon full payment of the settlement, the Court discharged the previous undertaking of the Corporation in the District Court at Bhopal to maintain unencumbered assets having a fair market value of $3 billion. The Supreme Court proceedings also provide that the accused in the criminal proceedings are deemed acquitted. On February 24, 1989, the Corporation and UCIL delivered their respective payments to the Supreme Court of India, which payments were accepted by the Court." [On February 24, 1989, Union Carbide paid $420 million, and UCIL paid $45 million; "the payment was funded through proceeds from drawdowns of existing standby credit facilities. It is anticipated that these borrowings will be reduced during 1989 by application of insurance proceeds as well as internally generated funds."] "Various applications have been filed in the Supreme Court of India to set aside the settlement. The Corporation believes that those applications are without merit. At the time the settlement occurred, all of the suits that were brought in the United States with respect to the gas release had been dismissed. except a civil suit in the state court in Connecticut. The settlement will be placed before the Connecticut court. Also, plaintiffs in a civil suit in the state court in Texas that was dismissed have attempted to appeal the dismissal. If the appellate process proceeds, the settlement will be placed before the appellate court." 1989 April. Shareholders at Union Carbide's annual meeting rejected a plan to increase compensation to victims of the Bhopal gas leak. 1989 December. U.S. EPA conditionally proposed a civil penalty of $325,000 jointly against Union Carbide Corporation and Rhone-Poulenc Ag Company for violations of the Clean Water Act at the Institute, West Virginia facility. 1989 December 22. Supreme Court of India upheld the Bhopal Act, under which India represented the victims. 1990. UNION CARBIDE CORPORATE STATEMENT ON HAZARDOUS WASTE SITES: "The Company has received requests for information, notices and/or claims with respect to approximately 150 waste sites at which the Company has no ownership interest. At a substantial majority of these sites, it is our belief that the Company will incur no liability or a small liability, since, in general, final allocation of responsibility is made based on each PRP's relative contribution of hazardous waste to the site. Environmental investigatory and remediation projects are also being undertaken at waste sites located on property presently owned by the Company." 1990. BHOPAL: Union Carbide recorded "a charge of $58 million, representing litigation accruals principally related to resolution of the Bhopal litigation." 1990. Federal appeals court rejected a challenge by Union Carbide and the Chemical Manufacturers Association to overrule EPA regulations from 1989 on hazardous waste landfill liners and leak detection systems. 1990 January 12. The administration of the government of India announced it would support the victims' petitions to set aside the Bhopal settlement. See also the 1991 Bhopal entry for the rejection of these petitions. 1990 February. Union Carbide's Institute, West Virginia facility leaked methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, injuring seven workers, and muriatic acid, after which 15,000 residents were ordered to remain indoors. See also the January 23, 1985, February 1985, and August 1985 entries. 1990 August. The Mexican environmental agency SEDUE took action against Union Carbide's Kemet subsidiary and six other companies for illegally dumping hazardous waste from the Parqu Industrial de Norte maquiladora at Matamoros, Mexico, near Brownsville, Texas. 1990 September. Sold its urethane polyols (urethane foams) and propylene glycols (personal care products) to Arco Chemical for a gain of $164 million; there were anti-trust issues in the deal, and it was challenged by the Federal Trade Commission. 1990 November. Friends of the Earth Union Carbide report. 1990 November. National Toxics Campaign releases Present Dangers... Hidden Liabilities: A Profile of the Environmental Impact of the Union Carbide Corporation in the United States (1987-88) by Robert Ginsburg. 1991. Union Carbide opened "the first full-scale multiplastics recycling facility" in the U.S., in Piscataway, New Jersey. The facility can process 4.5 million pounds per month of polyethylene bags, bottles, and containers. 1991. The Canadian government cancelled the registration for personal insect repellants containing ethylhexanediol (EHX); the U.S. EPA issued a customer warning that the product posed a risk of birth defects to pregnant women; and Union Carbide withdrew its registration to manufacture it. 1991. The U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Coal Technology Program gave Union Carbide $32.7 million for its Cansolv process for reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants. 1991. BHOPAL: In January, the Indian government again said the $470 million Bhopal settlement was inadequate, and said it would support the victims' petitions challenging it. By February, Union Carbide had collected $200 million from its insurance companies to cover Bhopal claims. In October, the Supreme Court of India rejected the victims petitions, upheld $470 million settlement, and lifted the company's immunity from criminal prosecution. A Bhopal court then revived culpable homicide charges against former chairman Warren Anderson (a warrant for him was originally issued in November 1988) and eight other Union Carbide officials. UCC&P and UCIL, at the request of the Supreme Court of India, announced that they would provide the government of India with up to $16 million for a hospital to be built in Bhopal, but by May 1992, with Anderson still not appearing in court, the government ordered the confiscation of Union Carbide Corporation's 50.9 percent share in Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). 1991 January. The U.S. EPA issued a complaint against McGhan Nusil (which UCC&P acquired in March 1991), alleging that McGhan had violated the Toxic Substances Control Act by manufacturing TSCA inventory chemicals without notifying EPA; the EPA proposed a penalty of $384,000. See also the June 1992 entry. 1991 March 12. An explosion at Union Carbide's No. 1 ethylene oxide and derivative production unit Seadrift plant near Port Lavaca, Texas killed John Resendez, a contract worker, and injured 26 others. The plant shutdown cost Union Carbide $50 million in net income. In September, the U.S. OSHA proposed a fine of $2,803,500 for 112 willful violations of health and safety regulations; $1.5 million was eventually paid. In March 1992, Union Carbide agreed to pay $3.2 million to the widow and two children of Resendez. 1991 May. Srinagar, India battery plant closed by citizen protest. 1991 May 24. 380,000 gallons of chloroform spilled into Guayanilla Bay at Ponce, Puerto Rico. U.S. EPA ERNS database, Aug. 16, 1994, record number 73245. 1991 November. U.S. EPA issued an enforcement order to eleven companies, including Union Carbide, for the clean-up of the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman groundwater contamination site in Mountain View-San Jose, California. 1991 December. Union Carbide and Rhone-Poulenc filed a consent decree for violations of the Clean Water Act at their Institute, West Virginia facility. They agreed to a penalty of $425,000 ($188,398 from Union Carbide, $236,602 from Rhone-Poulenc). 1991 December. UCC&P "voluntarily disclosed" "certain potential violations" of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which could result in penalties likely to exceed $100,000. See also June 1992 entry. 1991 December 31. Chemical tank explosion killed an employee at South Charleston, West Virginia plant. An asbestos contractor reported the loss of asbestos in the explosion. Union Carbide was subsequently fined $151,000 for 23 health and safety violations. 1992. Six corporations (Union Carbide, Amoco, Sterling Chemicals, Marathon Oil, Phibro Energy, and I.S.P., formerly GAF Corporation) installed a $2.5 million system for monitoring air quality in Texas City, Texas. 1992. The National Institutes for Chemical Studies (NICS), established in 1985, released its five-year study of cancer rates in the Kanawha Valley, West Virginia. The study was funded by Union Carbide and other chemical corporations, the U.S. EPA, and environmental groups. The study, which listed the top 23 polluters in West Virginia, showed a link between children's health and their proximity to chemical plants emitting volatile organic compounds. UC and other companies challenged the report's findings. 1992. UCC&P pledged its shares in UCIL to an English charitable trust established by UCIL and UCC&P to provide funding for the hospital; the magistrate in pending criminal proceedings ordered the attachment of the shares of UCIL held by UCC&P. 1992. Union Carbide and other companies agreed to pay $8.2 million to settle a suit by residents near the Brio Superfund site near Houston. 1992. Union Carbide rejected a shareholder resolution for the corporation to sign the CERES (Valdez) Principles of environmental conduct. A similar resolution was rejected in 1993. 1992 January 2-3. The U.S. EPA served a complaint on UCC&P and Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority for violations of the hazardous waste laws in connection with disposal of wastes from the Texas City, Texas plant at a Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority landfill, and seeking a penalty of $170,150. In 1993, UCC&P indemnified Gulf Coast for $45,600 of the $60,000 Gulf Coast paid to the EPA in April 1993, and in December 1993, UCC&P paid a penalty of $95,000 to settle the complaint. 1992 March. Indian court orders extradition of retired Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson. 1992 March. U.S. EPA issued a unilateral administrative order requiring Union Carbide and five other parties to clean up the Warwick (New York) Landfill Superfund site. 1992 April. CEO Robert Kennedy: "If we make products that harm the environment, consumers will look for ways to do without them. If protecting the environment is not part of our business strategy, investors and analysts will shun our stock." 1992 June 30. The Praxair industrial gases subsidiary was spun off to Union Carbide Corporation's stockholders after the Internal Revenue Service ruled that the split would be tax-free. "Union Carbide is now engaged almost exclusively in the chemicals and plastics business." 1993. For the second year, Union Carbide rejected a shareholder resolution calling for the corporation to sign the CERES (Valdez) Principles of environmental conduct. The corporation also rejected another resolution calling for it to disclose information on the risks of, and its procedures for, toxic chemical accidents. 1993. Union Carbide Corporation's Responsible Care Progess Report shows: (a) the number of fires and explosions per year (6 in 1988, 3 in 1989, 3 in 1990, 2 in 1991, and 2 in 1992); (b) the cancer rates of its employees compared to the U.S. average (less than average); (c) Union Carbide fatalities (2 in 1989, 2 in 1990, 3 in 1991); (d) Union Carbide carcinogens (dichloroethane, butadiene, dioxane, acetaldehyde, acrylonitrile, anthracene, benzene, chloromethane, chromium compaounds, dichloromethane, diethyl sulfate, epichlorohydrin, ethyl acrylate, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, nickel and compounds, propylene oxide, styrene, styrene oxide, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl acetate, and vinyl chloride); (e) the 1987-1992 emissions at various Union Carbide plants. 1993 February 26. An unspecified amount of benzene, 25,920 pounds of methane, 67,490 pounds of ethylene, and 40,000 pounds of "refinery by-product gases" were spilled in several incidents at Texas City, Texas. U.S. EPA ERNS database, Aug. 16, 1994, record number F93-1635, F93-1641, F93-1642, F93-1643 and F93-1651. 1993 June. World-scale petrochemical joint venture planned for Kuwait. 1993 August 18. An explosion at a former Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia killed one employee and critically injured two others. Rhone-Poulenc, the current owner, was charged with 27 safety violations at its Larvin pesticide plant, including failure to properly maintain, inspect, and test piping systems and other equipment. OSHA fined Rhone-Poulenc a record $1.6 million. 1993 September 31. President Clinton and Vice President Gore presented William Joyce of Union Carbide with a National Medal of Technology Award; the awards are considered the nation's highest for science and commercialization of technology. 1993 October 27. Union Carbide announced a restructuring of divisions and decisionmaking. 1993 November 19. The U.S. EPA issued a complaint to UCC&P alleging violations of the Clean Air Act at the Texas City, Texas plant, seeking a civil penalty of $194,550. 1993 December 5. Attorneys sought litigants in a 20-year-old class-action suit involving 100,000 victims of occupational exposure to asbestos; Union Carbide was one of twenty corporations named in the suit, for which a $1 billion settlement was proposed January 1993. 1994 February. UCC&P and UCIL agreed to increase the funding for the Bhopal hospital to $19.3 million; the Supreme Court of India ordered that the attachment be lifted to permit sales of the UCIL shares, together with blocked dividends and UCIL's contribution, to provide the agreed funding. The remainder of the proceeds from the sale of UCIL shares would be subject to the attachment. 1994 February 23. The U.S. EPA issued a complaint and compliance order to UCC&P, alleging violations of federal hazardous waste regulations at the South Charleston, West Virginia plant, and seeking a civil penalty of $320,000. The EPA charged Union Carbide with failure to perform regular leak detection testing, and with failure to maintain records of boiler wastes such as mercury, lead, and beryllium; the charges stemmed from a December 1992 surprise inspection of the plant. 1994 March 16. The U.S. EPA fined Union Carbide $75,000 for not reporting a leak of ethylene oxide at its Institute, West Virginia plant. 1994 April. Union Carbide and a former subsidiary, McGhan Medical, joined a tentative $4.7 billion settlement of Dow Corning's silicone breast implant litigation. Union Carbide was to pay $138 million over two years, and McGhan $25 million over 25 years. 1994 April 5. The Free Press reported that India's Central Bureau of Investigation had taken steps to have former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson extradited to India for his failure to appear in court in connection with the 1984 Bhopal disaster. See also November 1988 and 1991 entries. 1999 September. Dow Chemical is buying Union Carbide for about $11.6 billion. The Dow-Carbide merger is a tax-free, stock-for-stock pooling of interests with the resulting corporation to be owned 75 percent by Dow shareholders and 25 percent by Union Carbide shareholders. Two Union Carbide directors will join the board of Dow. The new corporation expects to save $500 million by consolidating. 1999 November. Lawsuit Seeks Compensation For 1984 Disaster Victims. A federal lawsuit filed Nov. 15 is seeking unspecified damages from Union Carbide Corp. for the "world's worst" industrial accident that killed at least 7,000 people in Bhopal, India, in 1984. The class-action suit accuses the company, which owned 50.9 percent of the plant, of "unlawful, reckless and depraved indifference to human life." The suit says the company and its former CEO, Warren Anderson, failed to comply with court orders in the United States and India after the accident. Union Carbide paid $470 million in a 1989 out-of-court settlement that gave company executives immunity from prosecution, but India's supreme court later struck down the immunity clause while letting the settlement stand. Many victims and their relatives are still waiting for compensation. Union Carbide accepted "moral responsibility" for the disaster but blamed a "disgruntled" employee (Greenwire, Nov. 18, 1999, citing Larry Neumeister, AP/New Jersey online, Nov. 16, 1999). March 2000. Former Union Carbide Official Avoids Summons "A top executive at Union Carbide Corp. during the 1984 chemical disaster at Bhopal, India, has apparently gone into seclusion to avoid a summons to appear in a Manhattan federal court for civil proceedings against him and the company. Warren M. Anderson, who was the company's chairman, has vacated his last known address in Florida and Union Carbide officials have declined to help track him down, said Kenneth F. McCallion, the lawyer who initiated the civil case. Union Carbide says the settlement it reached with the Indian government in 1989 exempts it and Anderson from further proceedings. Union Carbide spokesman Sean Clancy: "Based on that settlement, we see no reason to encourage any disturbance of Mr. Anderson, who retired as chairman 12 years ago." But the Indian Supreme Court and a federal judge have ruled that the company must "submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of India." The company and Anderson, in absentia, are facing criminal charges in India. And a lawsuit filed in New York charges Union Carbide and Anderson with violating international law." (Greenwire, March 6, 2000, citing Chris Hedges, New York Times, March 5).	<urn:uuid:c5cdfd22-9758-4512-8c54-b144a2fe3943>	CC-MAIN-2017-30	http://www.endgame.org/carbide-history.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424961.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170725042318-20170725062318-00394.warc.gz	en	0.950428	10,003	3.03125	3	3.12761	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
Jewel of the Russian Far East The eastern seaboard of Russia dominates the North Pacific and yet very few people know anything about it, let alone have experienced it. This isolation has protected one of its most valuable assets – its wilderness and to some degree, its wildlife. The area was considered an important ‘frontier zone’ during the Cold War, so it was off-limits to foreigners. Even Russians had to get special permission to travel here. These limitations were changed in 1992/93 with Perestroika but that didn’t make it more accessible. If anything it is probably less accessible now than it was, as there are fewer people living in the region and the state-subsidized transport system has collapsed. There is no money to replace the aging fleets of aircraft and ships and few people can afford the prices that are charged to travel in this region today. This makes it the perfect destination for Expedition Cruising. In the winter much of the shoreline is choked by ice. During spring and summer the region is a hive of activity. In September the thousands of birds that migrated here to take advantage of the phenomenal abundance of food will be preparing to leave. The reindeer and mountain sheep will be feeding in preparation for the harsh winter, while fat Kamchatka Brown Bears, which have fed extensively on berries in the early summer, then feasted on salmon in the rivers and creeks, will be dozing in the late summer sunshine. Late summer and early autumn is a beautiful time to discover this wilderness. The onset of autumn paints vibrant colors on the tundra cloaked hillsides making the landscape a picture perfect postcard. On this journey from Anadyr to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy we will make numerous landings along these remote coastlines so that you can discover for yourself this untamed and beautiful landscape. We will select sites that few people visit such as river mouths, fiords, bays and islands that in our experience offer the natural history enthusiast, the photographer, the historian and travelers the most unique of opportunities. Come with us and discover the jewel that is the Russian Far East. \|Day 3\|\|Bukhta Gavriila\| \|Day 4\|\|Pika Rivr and Meinypil'gyno\| \|Day 5\|\|Bukhta Natalii\| \|Day 6\|\|Tintikun Lagoon\| \|Day 7\|\|Koryakskiy Reserve and Verhoturova Island\| \|Day 8\|\|Karaginskiy Island\| \|Days 9-10\|\|Commander Islands\| \|Day 11\|\|Olga Bay\| \|Day 12\|\|Zhupanova River and Bukhta Bechevinskaya\| You can join this expedition either in Anadyr or in Nome, Alaska. Those starting in Nome will fly by charter flight to Anadyr and will join the ship and the expedition members who have travelled direct to Anadyr. Those departing from Nome, Alaska, should arrive in Nome before midday (Aug 31st) but preferably the previous night (Aug 30th). On arrival, you should check in with Bering Air at the Nome Airport who will have details of our charter flight. During this flight you will cross the International Date Line, arriving into Anadyr on Day 1 (Sept 5th) of the expedition. You will clear Russian Customs and Immigration. All expedition members will arrive in Anadyr, the administrative centre of the Chukotka region, and transfer to the Spirit of Enderby. We spend the day in and around the town of Egvekinot on the shores of Kresta Bay. The town was built by Gulag prisoners who were then forced to construct a road to the mine. We explore the town which has an excellent museum, the road and tundra as well as visit the Arctic circle. This coastline is rich in marine mammals and one creature we will be looking for, in particular, is the walrus. The bukhta (or bay) was named after Commander Vitus Bering’s ship, the St Gabriel, of the First Kamchatka Expedition. Behind the expansive beach there is a lagoon we can explore for waterfowl and waders. We start the day with a visit to the delta of Pika River – a well known walrus haul out. Later in the day, we visit Meinypil’gyno, a small settlement located on a 24 mi (40km) long shingle spit. It is a traditional village although renovated under the recent Chukotka government; we enjoy local hospitality from the village ensemble who perform some of their traditional dances for us. Along the Koryak Coast there are many beautiful fiords (bukhtas or bays) and none are more beautiful than Bukhta Natalii. This fiord has two smaller fiords that drain into it from the south. We hike from one bay to another whilst surrounded by the magnificent mountain landscapes and tundra vegetation. Much of the southern Govena Peninsula was recently made into a state reserve. There are a number of fiords included in the reserve; one of the most spectacular is Tintikun Lagoon which is one of the most picturesque locations found anywhere in the world. A large population of brown bears inhabits this area, if we are fortunate we should see a number of them. We will start the morning in Kamchatka Brown Bear country, an undisturbed habitat within the Koryakskiy Reserve, where we will go bear watching. Brown bears frequently visit this area which is completely protected and rarely visited. In the afternoon we visit Verkhoturova Island where Tufted and Horned Puffins, Pigeon, Common and Brunnich’s Guillemots and also Parakeet and Least Auklets can be seen. On nearby rocky islets there is a regular non-breeding haul out of Steller Sea Lions. A few miles to the south of Verhoturova Island is the much larger Karaginskiy Island. Here we encounter some of the first ‘forests’ of the voyage. This is a change from the tundra that we have seen, a sure sign that we are getting further south. Autumn is the best time for the wild berries and we can marvel at the richness of the local flora, as many of them should be at their best. The wildlife-rich Commander Islands were first discovered by Commander Vitus Bering when his ship was wrecked here in 1741. He perished on the island along with many of his men. The reports from those that survived led to a ‘fur rush’ and the settlement of the islands. There are two large islands (Bering and Medny) with two smaller islands Ariy Karmen and Toporkov. We intend to explore the islands through a combination of landings and Zodiac cruises. We plan to stop at the village of Nikolskoye. We visit the fur seal rookery at North-West Cape and Zodiac cruise around the impressive bird colony at Ariy Kamen. We will also possibly visit the gravesite of Commander Vitus Bering or the remarkable Medny Island. Olga Bay is a part of the very large Kronotskiy Reserve, which also includes the world-famous Valley of the Geysers. The habitat has lush Kamchatka forests coming right down to the beach. The area around Olga Bay is frequented by large numbers of Gray Whales that are usually quite friendly to visiting boats. The rising volcanoes in the background will provide a beautiful setting to explore real Kamchatka wilderness. This morning we make our way along the Zhupanova River by Zodiac. This journey allows us to explore a river habitat which is common in Kamchatka. Steller’s Sea Eagles are known to nest in the lower reaches of the river. During the night the Spirit of Enderby will enter Avacha Bay which is one of the greatest natural harbors in the world. There will be a complimentary transfer to the airport or to a central downtown hotel. * Itinerary may be subject to change	<urn:uuid:b9900349-e6ea-49e6-a9ae-9ef1815bdd76>	CC-MAIN-2015-27	http://www.polarcruises.com/arctic/ships/expedition-ships/spirit-enderby-arctic/jewel-russian-far-east-2015	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375098849.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031818-00074-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.956294	1,710	2.515625	3	2.350613	2	Moderate reasoning	Travel
How Mandibular Advancement Devices Work Oral or dental appliances or devices may be considered a treatment option for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients who cannot tolerate CPAP therapy. Oral or dental appliances are termed mandibular advancement devices (MAD) or mandibular advancement splints (MAS). Mandibular Advancement Device Explained The oral appliance comprise of a mouth guard that is fitted to the bottom and top teeth and then joined in such a way that the bottom teeth is positioned in front of the top teeth. As the lower jaw is pushed slightly forward, the soft tissues and muscles of the upper airway are tightened thereby preventing obstruction of the airway during sleep. Opening up the airway reduces apnoea/hypopnea episodes during sleep and even lessen the severity of episodes. The tightening of the airway also prevents the upper airway tissues from vibrating during inhalation and exhalation which in turn prevents or minimizes snoring. For most OSA patients, an 8mm to 10mm advancement is sufficient to make a difference. However, this is the not the rule-of-thumb as the MAD may have to be adjusted if the fit is not right. Pushing the bottom jaw forward could be quite uncomfortable a properly fitted MAD should not cause any grave discomfort. However, some tooth tenderness and excessive saliva production may be experienced by a user. Some OSA patients report that a MAD is more comfortable and convenient than a CPAP machine. Is MAD for everyone? Each OSA is different from each other is terms of the shape of their faces and airways. The success of a MAD is variable and assessment of the effectiveness of the treatment must be under the supervision of a qualified sleep specialist or dentist specializing in OSA oral appliances. Who are good candidates for MAD? • OSA patients with mild to moderate OSA. This refers to patients with 20 to 30 apnoea/hypopnea episodes during sleep. • Those who suffer from positional apnoea/hyponea. This refers to patients who experience some relief from OSA when lying on his side. • Those with a receding bottom jaw. The receding jaw could have caused the apnoea and pushing the bottom jaw out could effectively manage OSA. Who are not good candidates for MAD? The following are negative points for the treatment success of MAD. • OSA patients with poor dental structure or those with no teeth as there is no structure to attach the device. • Those with stiff jaw joints may not achieve the required 8 to 10mm advancement required for a MAD. • Overweight OSA patients will fare better with CPAP machine. • Those suffering from severe OSA. Though a MAD is capable of reducing apnoea/hypopnea by as much as 50%, this may not be enough for patients with hundreds of episodes during sleep. • Patients with complicated sleep apnoeas such as central sleep apneas, MAD is not recommended. Advantages and Disadvantages of Mandibular Advancement Device Patients, with mild to moderate OSA, who used MAD, exhibited a significant reduction of apneas. People who sleep on their stomachs or backs showed marked improvement. Some reduction in the loudness and frequency of snoring were reported. MAD and other dental appliances such as Mandibular Advancement Splint (MAS) and Tongue Rotating Device (TRD) showed an adequate long-term control of sleep apnoea compared to surgical treatment such as uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP). However, dental appliances have some disadvantages. A user is more likely to experience discomfort in the mouth, such as excessive saliva, tooth discomfort, dry lips and even pain. The side effects are mild and new oral devices are made of stronger yet pliable material. Changes in the position of the jaw or teeth have been occurred in patients using an oral device for a long time. It is best to consult with a qualified sleep doctor and dentist when using a MAD. CPAP Victoria can help you. We have the qualification, experience and expertise to diagnose and present treatment options for your sleeping disorder. Give us a call NOW at 1300 750 006 or pop into one of our CPAP clinics Victoria. We are located in Melbourne, Wantirna and Frankston	<urn:uuid:5a48124e-cf87-45e4-a05c-23fbdfeeb92e>	CC-MAIN-2022-05	https://cpapvictoria.com.au/blogs/epap/how-mandibular-advancement-devices-work	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304600.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220124185733-20220124215733-00119.warc.gz	en	0.938872	908	2.75	3	2.257886	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Cabbage Lore and Trivia they look very different, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are all the same species of plant. The differences between these plants are the results of thousands of years of human cultivation and selective propagation. The family name comes from the Latin word for "cross" and was given to members of this family because the flowers are cross-shaped . Cole crops are herbaceous, biennial, dicotyledonous plants specifically from the genus and species, Brassica oleracea. name for cabbage is Brassica oleracea capitata. historical and botanical evidence that cabbage has been cultivatedfor more than 4,000 years and domesticated for over 2,500 years. Before cole cropswere domesticated they were collected from the wild and used primarily as medicinal herbs. The other forms were domesticated at later dates. Brussels sprouts are the most recent crop, having come into existence less than 500 years ago. The March of Cabbage Although Cabbage is often connected to the Irish, the Celts brought cabbage to Europe from Asia around 600 B.C. wild, Cabbage species are native to the Mediterranean. Wild Cole crops are found growing along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe. Cabbages and kale presumably originated in Western Europe; cauliflower and broccoli in the Mediterranean region. were first grown by the Slavs in the 9th century. Greek and Roman colonists brought cabbages from the Black Sea region into Russia. It was probably the Celts who introduced Cabbage to lands they invaded from the Mediterranean to the British Isles and Asia Minor. grows well in cool climates, yields large harvests, and stores well during winter, it soon became a major crop in Europe. Early Cabbage was not the full-bodied head we take for granted today, but rather a more loose-leaf variety. The head variety was developed during the Middle Ages by northern European farmers. 'Coles' were described by European writers in the first, third, fourth and 13th centuries. or headless Cabbage plants, such as kale and collards were brought to the United States with the arrival of the white man. It is not believed to have been cultivated by the native tribes of either North or South French navigator Jacques Cartier is generally credited with the introduction of the Cabbage to the Americas in 1536. Most likely the Cabbage was brought to North America in the 1600's. The first North American record of planting cabbages was in 1699. The variety of Napa Cabbage, introduced into Japan from China in the 1860s, was brought to North America by immigrant laborers in the 1880's and 1890's. Origin of the Name What food did the Greeks, Romans, Hindis, Tartars and the Celts all have in common? Coleworts - a primitive cabbage. or colewyrts is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning cabbage plants. The Anglo-Saxon's got the word from the Romans whose word 'coles' or 'caulis' referenced the whole group of cabbage-like plants. The German word 'Kohl' has the same origin. Kale is a Scottish word from, you guessed it, the same Roman root word 'coles'. Collards is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon word colewyrts. roots of the story of this very ancient plant go much deeper. The Tartars called it Kappes, krout, or kapost, the Hindi called it kopi, the Norwegians called it kaal and the Spanish called it col. The original Greek word (from which the Romans got caulis) was Kaulion. is from a group of plants known as the Cole crops. The word "Cole" derives from the Middle English word "col". The Romans called these crops "caulis", and the Greeks called them "kaulion". All these words mean "stem". The English name cabbage comes from the French caboche, meaning head, referring to its round form. In Chinese, the word for "vegetable" is choi, which is the same word for cabbage. Kohlrabi (also known as cabbage turnip and stem cabbage) is a member of the same species. The cabbage has a place in almost every cuisine from Korean kim chee, German sauerkraut, and Irish colcannon, to New England corned beef and cabbage. Kohlrabi is popular in Austrian, German, and Eastern European soups and stews; in Chinese dishes, where it often substitutes for the similar-tasting Chinese broccoli; and in the American South, where it joins any gathering of mixed boiled greens. Because cabbage requires only three months of growing time, one acre of cabbage will yield more edible vegetables than any other plant. world's largest cabbage is credited to William Collingwood of County Durham, England, whose prized cabbage in 1865 weighed in at 123 pounds. is considered Russia's national food. Russians eat about seven times as much cabbage as the average North American. is a legend told to children that babies come from Cabbage Patches. is also an old tale that the Man on the Moon was banished to this remote abode after being caught stealing a cabbage from his neighbor on Christmas princes paid tributes not only with racing horses and jewels, but also with garden plots planted with kopusta, or cabbage. Babe Ruth used to wear a cabbage leaf under his hat during games. He would switch out for a fresh leaf halfway through each game. Ancient medicinal uses ..... pharaohs would eat large quantities of cabbage before a night of drinking as they believed that cabbage consumption would allow them to drink more alcoholic beverages and not feel the effects. This is perhaps why many still consider cabbage with vinegar as a good hangover remedy. and Romans placed great importance on the healing powers of cabbage. They held that the vegetable could cure just about any illness. Roman mythology holds that cabbages sprung from the tears of Lycurgus, King of the Edonians. Scrolls from 1000 BC uncovered in China mention white cabbage as a cure for baldness in men. The Romans cultivated it and some of them, like Cato, ate it before and after meals, a practice he advised to his countrymen: "It will make you feel as if you had not eaten," he assured them, "and you can drink as much as you like." Captain Cook swore by the medicinal value of sauerkraut (cabbage preserved in brine) back in 1769. His ship doctor used it for compresses on soldiers who were wounded during a severe storm and thus prevented the development of gangrene. At the turn of the last century Cabbage was considered to be the lowly vegetable of poor people. It is now highly regarded as one of the most nutritious vegetables available today, and is thought to have strong anti-aging and anti-cancer properties. Current Medicinal Uses for Cabbage.... Uncooked Cabbage is high in glutamine, an amino acid that is essential for intestinal health. Cabbages are a good source of Vitamin K, which is essential inthe production of blood clotting proteins. Cabbage is high in potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure, promotes a steady heartbeat, and can lower your risk of stroke. Savoy Cabbage is among the highest in beta-carotene. Bok Choy and Chinese Cabbage are highest in calcium. Cabbage contains quercetin, an antioxidant that is a natural antihistamine that can benefit allergy sufferers. Red Cabbage provides the most Vitamin C. Cabbage juice can be used to treat stomach ulcers and help stop any bleeding. Colewyrts are high in vitamins A and C, and in the mineral iron. Cabbage juice is used to relieve constipation. However it may cause flatulence as the juice breaks down putrefying matter in the intestines. Cabbage leaves are considered ideal roughage. A chemical (isothiocyanates) found in cabbages may lower the risk of lung cancer in smokers by as much as 38%. Some Cabbage Chemistry or ~ or Why does cabbage "stink" when it is cooking? has explained such emissions as a release of hydrogen sulfide. gets its red color from anthocyanines, compounds made up out of sugar You can make your own pH solution from Cabbage Water - see details below. Cabbage Chemistry fun~ Red cabbage water is an indicator for pH. It will go red in acidic solutions and green in basic solutions. stay it's nice purple color in neutral solutions. Making cabbage water 1. Chop one large red cabbage into small pieces. Note: Blackberries, red onions, or even hibiscus flowers can be used as a substitute. 2. Simmer the cabbage pieces until the water turns a deep shade of purple. 3. Allow the water to cool. 4. Refrigerate when not in use. Cabbage Day is on February the 17th, mark your calendar! life like a Cabbage	<urn:uuid:cfda3776-72a0-4d26-8bc5-5e487de8b3e1>	CC-MAIN-2017-30	http://www.cheriestihler.com/CC/trivia.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424610.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723202459-20170723222459-00176.warc.gz	en	0.948183	1,966	3.25	3	2.325325	2	Moderate reasoning	Food & Dining
The Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM) The animal article of the month for February is ‘Invited review: a position on The Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM)‘ The livestock sector is one of the fastest growing subsectors of the agricultural economy and it makes a major contribution to global food supply and economic development. However, it also consumes significant amounts of natural resources and alters the environment. In order to improve our understanding of the environmental impact of livestock supply chains, FAO developed GLEAM, the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model. GLEAM is a modelling framework that can quantify the impacts of livestock production at the (sub) national, regional and global scales. It includes the impacts arising from the main processes during the three stages of livestock supply chains: (1) pre-farm production of inputs such as feed, energy and fertiliser, (2) on-farm livestock rearing and crop cultivation, and (3) post-farm processing and transport. The model captures the specific impacts of each process, offering a comprehensive and disaggregated picture. Key features include: - Global coverage of six livestock species and their edible products: meat and milk from cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats; meat from pigs; and meat and eggs from chickens. - Spatially explicit modelling of livestock distributions, climatic data, feed yields and biophysical processes that allows, for example, rations to be derived that reflect the local availability of feed resources in developing countries. - A herd model that enables livestock statistics to be disaggregated and variation in livestock performance and management to be captured. Ultimately, the purpose of GLEAM is to help stakeholders identify ways to improve efficiency and reduce the impact of livestock production. To that end, it has been used in a variety of projects, for example in the identification of cost-effective ways of reducing enteric methane in Uruguayan beef production. Details of these applications are outlined on the GLEAM website (http://www.fao.org/gleam/in-practice/en/) along with other resources, including detailed technical descriptions, results, reports and multimedia. This article is freely available for one month: ‘Invited review: a position on The Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM)‘. Author: M. J. MacLeod, T. Vellinga, C. Opio, A. Falcucci The animal Article of the Month is selected by the Editor-in-Chief and is freely available for one month. View the recent selections	<urn:uuid:cbb2147c-cc4c-4b20-bf18-aadd9f3d4b94>	CC-MAIN-2018-09	http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2018/02/06/the-global-livestock-environmental-assessment-model-gleam/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891812855.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20180219231024-20180220011024-00384.warc.gz	en	0.909264	539	3.3125	3	2.942366	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
"The creative writer does the same as the child at play," and other quips "Writing is a little door," Susan Sontag wrote in her diary. "Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won't come through." Sigmund Freud—key figure in the making of consumer culture, deft architect of his own myth, modern plaything—spent a fair amount of his career exploring the psychology of dreams. In 1908, he turned to the intersection of fantasies and creativity, and penned a short essay titled "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming," eventually republished in the anthology The Freud Reader (public library). Though his theories have been the subject of much controversy and subsequent revision, they remain a fascinating formative framework for much of the modern understanding of the psyche. Predictably, Freud begins by tracing the subject matter to its roots in childhood, stressing, as Anaïs Nin eloquently did—herself trained in psychoanalysis—the importance of emotional investment in creative writing: Should we not look for the first traces of imaginative activity as early as in childhood? The child's best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, he takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real. In spite of all the emotion with which he cathects his world of play, the child distinguishes it quite well from reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to the tangible and visible things of the real world. This linking is all that differentiates the child's 'play' from 'phantasying.' The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously—that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion—while separating it sharply from reality. The relation of phantasy to time is in general very important. We may say that it hovers, as it ware, between three times—the three moments of time which our ideation involves. Mental work is linked to some current impression, some provoking occasion in the present which has been able to arouse one of the subject's major wishes. From here it harks back to a memory of an earlier experience (usually an infantile one) in which this wish was fulfilled; and now it creates a situation relating to the future which represents the fulfillment of the wish. What it thus creates is a day-dream or phantasy, which carries about it traces of its origin from the occasion which provoked it and from the memory. Thus, past, present and future are strung together, as it were, on the thread of the wish that runs through them. He synthesizes the parallel between creative writing and play: [A] piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood. He goes on to explore the secretive nature of our daydreams, suggesting that an element of shame keeps us from sharing them with others—perhaps what Jack Kerouac meant when he listed the unspeakable visions of the individual as one of his iconic beliefs and techniques for prose—and considers how the creative writer transcends that to achieve pleasure in the disclosure of these fantasies: How the writer accomplishes this is his innermost secret; the essential ars poetica lies in the technique of overcoming the feeling of repulsion in us which is undoubtedly connected with the barriers that rise between each single ego and the others. We can guess two of the methods used by this technique. The writer softens the character of his egoistic day-dreams by altering and disguising it, and he bribes us by the purely formal—that is, aesthetic—yield of pleasure which he offers us in the presentation of his phantasies. We give the name of an incentive bonus, or a fore-pleasure, to a yield of pleasure such as this, which is offered to us so as to make possible the release of still greater pleasure arising from deeper psychical sources. In my opinion, all the aesthetic pleasure which a creative writer affords us has the character of a fore-pleasure of this kind, and our actual enjoyment of an imaginative work proceeds from a liberation of tensions in our minds. It may even be that not a little of this effect is due to the writer's enabling us thenceforward to enjoy our own day-dreams without self-reproach or shame. For more famous insights on writing, see Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy's 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller's 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac's 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck's six pointers, and Susan Sontag's synthesized learnings. This post also appears on Brain Pickings, an Atlantic partner site. This article available online at:	<urn:uuid:eec388b3-8a0e-4b13-ba60-0ea152e02cc4>	CC-MAIN-2014-35	http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/print/2012/10/what-freud-said-about-writing-fiction/263623/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500837094.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021357-00355-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.972886	1,080	2.6875	3	2.892989	3	Strong reasoning	Literature
Vegetation, landscape and human activity in Midland Ireland: mire and lake records from the Lough Kinale-Derragh Lough area, Central Ireland Brown, Anthony G., Hatton, Jackie, O'Brian, Charlotte E., Selby, Katherine A., Langdon, Peter G., Stuijts, Ingelisa and Caseldine, Christopher J. (2005) Vegetation, landscape and human activity in Midland Ireland: mire and lake records from the Lough Kinale-Derragh Lough area, Central Ireland. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 14, (2), 81-98. (doi:10.1007/s00334-005-0063-1). Full text not available from this repository. A high-resolution pollen record for the Holocene has been obtained from Derragh Bog, a small raised mire located on a peninsula in Lough Kinale-Derragh Lough, in Central Ireland as part of the Discovery Programme (Ireland) Lake Settlements Project. The data are compared with two lower resolution diagrams, one obtained from Derragh Lough and one from adjacent to a crannog in Lough Kinale. The general trends of vegetation change are similar and indicate that landscape-scale clearance did not occur until the Medieval period (ca. a.d. 800–900). There are, however, significant differences between the diagrams due primarily to core location and taphonomy, including pollen source area. Only the pollen profile from Derragh Bog reveals an unusually well represented multi-phase primary decline in Ulmus ca. 3500–3100 b.c. (4800–475014C b.p.) which is associated with the first arable farming in the area. The pollen diagram indicates a rapid, and almost complete, clearance of a stand of Ulmus with some Quercus on the Derragh peninsula, arable cultivation in the clearing and then abandonment by mobile/shifting late Neolithic farmers. Subsequently there are a number of clearance phases which allow the colonisation of the area by Fraxinus and are probably associated with pastoral activity. The pollen sequence from adjacent to a crannog in Lough Kinale shows clear evidence of the construction and use of the crannog for the storage of crops (Hordeum and Avena) whereas the Derragh Bog diagram and the diagram from Derragh Lough reflect the growth of the mire. This study reveals that in this landscape the record from a small mire shows changes in prehistoric vegetation caused by human agriculture that are not detectable in the lake sequences. Although in part this is due to the higher temporal resolution and more consistent and complete chronology for the mire, the most important factor is the closer proximity of the raised mire sequence to the dry land. However, the pollen sequence from adjacent to a crannog does provide detailed evidence of the construction and function of the site. It is concluded that in order to ascertain a complete picture of vegetation changes in a lowland shallow lake-dominated landscape, cores from both the lake and surrounding small mires should be analysed. \|Digital Object Identifier (DOI):\|\|doi:10.1007/s00334-005-0063-1\| \|Additional Information:\|\|One of the first papers to use multiple proxies from multiple cores in a shallow lake system to reconstruct surrounding landuse history. The comparison of a raised bog, with remarkable detail of the elm decline, with surrounding lake cores is novel. Brown wrote the paper and co-directed the project.\| \|Keywords:\|\|pollen, raised mire, lake sediments, ulmus decline, crannog, deforestation\| \|Subjects:\|\|C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology Q Science > QK Botany G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GB Physical geography \|Divisions:\|\|University Structure - Pre August 2011 > School of Geography > Environmental Processes and Change \|Date Deposited:\|\|17 Jul 2007\| \|Last Modified:\|\|31 Mar 2016 12:22\| \|RDF:\|\|RDF+N-Triples, RDF+N3, RDF+XML, Browse.\| Actions (login required)	<urn:uuid:ca76ce4c-4ff0-4a58-82a2-280afa6e3b44>	CC-MAIN-2016-18	http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/46751/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860122420.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161522-00084-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.860138	888	2.515625	3	3.034287	3	Strong reasoning	History
Inventorship and Ownership Inventorship and ownership of a patent are two separate and distinct issues. In many cases, a patent is owned by a single inventor, which is an ideal situation that does not present significant legal issues. In some cases, however, the inventor and the owner of the patent may be different when the inventor assigns the patent to an entity, such as a corporation or a university, or to another person. Moreover, in some instances, there could be a team of inventors who assign away their rights to a corporation or another entity. In situations when the inventorship or the duty of an inventor or inventors to assign the patent is not clearly defined, there could be some serious and complex legal consequences. A patent application filed in the United States must be filed in the name of the person who invented the invention. An inventor is a person who conceived the invention and also reduced it to practice. Conception must be done in the mind of the inventor. Conception is defined as “the complete performance of the mental part of the inventive act” and it is “the formation in the mind of the inventor of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention as it is thereafter to be applied in practice,” and it is established when the invention is made sufficiently clear to enable one skilled in the art to practice the invention by following the inventor’s conception. The invention must also be reduced to practice, which could be done either by making the invention (e.g., making a prototype) or constructively by filing a patent application claiming the invention. The Patent Act requires “the inventor” to apply for a patent, but the statute also expressly recognizes that a single invention could be jointly invented by two or more co-inventors (see 35 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1). All of the joint inventors do not have to contribute to every claim of the invention. It is sufficient for a person to contribute a conception to one claim in a patent to qualify as an inventor. Inventors may apply for a patent jointly event though (i) they did not physically work together or at the same time, (ii) each did not make the same type or amount of contribution, or (iii) each did not make a contribution to the subject matter of every claim of the patent. The issue of who is entitled to be considered an “inventor” becomes critical in view of another rule: In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, each co-inventor becomes a co-owner of the patent and may license third parties to use the invention without the consent of the other co-owners. Therefore, each joint inventor may practice the invention without consent of the other inventors and without any duty to pay the other inventors a share of royalties received from licensing the patent. Thus, it is very important to resolve inventorship issues before the patent is granted by making sure to list all the patent inventors when filing a patent application, because an unnamed inventor may prevent patent owners from enforcing their rights to the patent.	<urn:uuid:c73c8f26-59cb-4342-b7e3-d15790271a79>	CC-MAIN-2019-30	https://www.timetopatent.com/patent-inventorship-and-patent-ownership/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195525793.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20190718190635-20190718212635-00011.warc.gz	en	0.964003	638	3.1875	3	2.783658	3	Strong reasoning	Crime & Law
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – From 1900-2010, freshwater fish species in North America went extinct at a rate 877 times faster than the rate found in the fossil record, while estimates indicate the rate may double between now and 2050. This new information comes from a U.S. Geological Survey study to be published in the September issue of the journal BioScience. In the fossil record, one freshwater fish species goes extinct every 3 million years, but North America lost 39 species and 18 subspecies between 1898 and 2006. Based on current trends in threatened and endangered fish species, researchers estimate that an additional 53-86 species of freshwater fish may be extinct by the year 2050. Since the first assessment of extinct North American freshwater fishes in 1989, the number of extinct fishes increased by 25 percent. "This study illustrates the value of placing current events into the context of deep geologic time, as rocks preserve an unbiased record of natural rates of processes before human activities began to alter the landscape, the atmosphere, the rivers, and oceans," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "Freshwater fish are a good choice for analysis as their bones make clear fossil impressions, and their lake and river environments produce excellent stratigraphic sequences." The study's author, Noel Burkhead, used an established method to compare the rate of extinction found in the fossil record with modern rates. "Estimates of freshwater fish extinctions during the twentieth century are conservative, because it can take 20-50 years to confirm extinction," said Burkhead, a research fish biologist for the USGS. Extinction is a natural process, Burkhead explained, so examining its rate over a long geological timescale provides biologists with a benchmark for comparing current extinctions to background rate. The accelerated pace of extinction observed since the beginning of the twentieth century suggests human causes. In North America, assessments of extinctions are conducted by the American Fisheries Society's Endangered Species Committee, using categories to factor in a lag time since the last observation of the species. The study used the categories "extinct" (species not seen for 50 years or more), "possibly extinct" (not been seen for 20 years or more), and "extinct in nature." All these categories require that searches for the missing fishes must have been made by knowledgeable biologists. "It is extremely rare that the death of the last individual is documented by biologists," said Burkhead, "although it can happen when a fish only is found in a specific spring or caldera, and it dries up. That's what happened with five species of desert pupfishes and the Alberca silverside—the last known fish to go extinct in North America." The Alberca silverside was found only in the Alberca Caldera, Guanajuato, Mexico; it went extinct when the caldera temporarily dried up in August 2006. Surprisingly, Burkhead reported that 90-96 percent of fish extinctions in the fossil record were not linked to the five well-known mass extinctions. Natural causes of fish extinction are linked to transitions in landforms and continental watercourses over time, but many twentieth century extinctions were caused by dams, channelization of rivers, water pollution, and other human-induced factors. The background rate of extinction is based on the fossil record, which includes information on when ancient fishes lived and how long species survived in the geological past. Burkhead used data on fish extinctions from well-known paleontologist Steven M. Stanley at the University of Hawaii. "Another cause of extinction can be a change in a fish's food chain, which is what may have happened to the harelip sucker, a really cool fish that used to live in seven states throughout the Ohio River basin," said Burkhead. "It was a snail-eating specialist with cleft lips that used to pluck snails off river bottoms and manipulate the snail in its mouth in order to suck out the snail's soft parts, perhaps making little popping sounds. Sadly, snails are highly sensitive to excessive sedimentation and in the late nineteenth century, large amounts of topsoil were washing into rivers along with sewage and industrial effluents from cities. This likely caused snails to decline, which may have been what drove the fish to extinction." Declines in freshwater fishes are only the "tip of the iceberg" for freshwater ecosystems, with mussels and snails experiencing declines greater than that of freshwater fishes. The study, "Extinction Rates in North American Freshwater Fishes, 1900-2010," will be published in the September issue of the journal BioScience. A summary of data on extinct North American freshwater fishes is available online on the Extinct North American Fishes website, which is updated by USGS and the AFS. Putting the numbers into perspective: The USGS serves the nation by providing reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life. To receive USGS news releases go to Get Our News! to subscribe. Links and contacts within this release are valid at the time of publication.	<urn:uuid:f2e25fd4-8fc3-4ab7-8671-d742fb79c244>	CC-MAIN-2014-10	http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3315	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642307/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00013-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.94565	1,070	3.390625	3	3.045878	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Entering the court for the first time as a trial attorney can be intimidating. Jury bias – defined as a juror’s automatic preconceptions against a particular group of people – has influenced the courtroom for years, and continues to do so. Defense attorneys create strategies that allow them to use jury bias in their favor, and inadvertently, succeed in gaining a positive verdict. The greatest chance of ensuring a fair trial is through jury selection. Jury selection occurs after the initial random selection when the judge and attorneys select jury members through a process of questioning. This is where you deal with jury bias first hand – before the trial has actually taken place. In order to successfully select jury members for the trial, you have to be aware of the types of jurors you will encounter. Attorney Keith Mitnik, in his book Don’t Eat the Bruises, says that there are three types of jurors to watch out for. Here are those three: 1. The One with No Feelings Against Your Case You will, presumably, first research all of the jurors (unless the jury pool is too vast), and pose questions that have some personal impact on each one. Keep the jurors whose responses reveal that their personal biases will not influence their verdict. The juror who doesn’t have any preconceived feelings related to your case is the best kind of juror there is. He or she is the perfect juror, who you can convince of your argument if you do your job as a trial lawyer correctly. 2. The One with Feelings Against Your Case The juror who has strong feelings about your case is the one you need to watch out for; he or she has the power to negatively influence the outcome of the trial. This is the juror that will actively ask questions during the trial. Mitnik suggests you ask jurors who have strong feelings about the case to rate their feelings on a scale of 1-10. After they have given their responses, he suggests using not only the numbers themselves but the tone of their voices. A juror may be sarcastic, or even angry when answering. This could mean that they not only have feelings against your case but may also be prepared to voice their feelings. Attorneys are given a few chances to eliminate jurors in the selection. If you’re in a jurisdiction in which the juror is required to state that he or she cannot be “fair,” pay close attention to what questions you ask the juror. Mitnik states that phrasing the question in a way that makes it seem as if telling the truth is the “honorable thing to do” may make jurors admit their biases. For example, Mitnik suggests using phrases such as “in all fairness” or “in all honesty” when phrasing questions to draw focus to the ethics. 3. The One Who Isn’t Sure The juror who isn’t sure whether he or she has strong feelings against your case needs to be paid as much attention as the one who does. This is because the unsure juror can be the deciding factor in the way the trial plays out. In this case, you may need to probe the juror in your initial questioning until he or she gives you a proper stance on the case. Similar to the way you’d handle the juror with strong feelings, you must always pose questions that use the least resistance and hostility and make approaching a stance seem like the honorable thing to do. For example, Mitnik suggests emphasizing the honor system – in which admitting the effect of personal bias is the right thing to do as a juror called in for duty. If the juror is unable to reach a specific stance, use your judgment in allowing or eliminating them from the final jury. Remember – you cannot eliminate everyone who is against, or may be against your case. Use your finite number of exclusions wisely. Identifying jurors who may act in your favor, or act against you, is crucial before a case as it can greatly influence the outcome. Think of William Roger Clemens, who was tried, and acquitted by the jury, for using performance enhancing drugs. Think of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a “mercy doctor” who got acquitted in court even though he admitted to euthanizing patients who expressed their desire to die. Jurors can make-or-break your case- make sure to choose them wisely. For important information about trial law, and to read more of Mitnik’s advice gleaned from a successful career as a trial attorney, you can find his book here.	<urn:uuid:5b5eb9ae-d50f-4535-bfdd-f59a3b7bf76f>	CC-MAIN-2019-26	https://www.forthepeople.com/blog/the-three-types-of-jurors-to-watch-out-for/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627999066.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20190619224436-20190620010436-00185.warc.gz	en	0.962649	943	2.71875	3	2.804561	3	Strong reasoning	Crime & Law
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. In addition to posing a major health threat, the pandemic has also had a strong influence on the economy. Such abrupt, major change, coupled with uncertainty surrounding the future, has the potential to damage psychological well-being. Furthermore, there are large disparities in life and health outcomes between individuals of high versus low socioeconomic status (SES). Socioeconomic status refers to one’s social or economic position relative to that of others. Large socioeconomic inequalities could suggest that the pandemic may differentially impact the well-being of people depending on their SES. WELL-BEING DURING COVID-19 New research (Wanberg et al., 2020) examines how levels of psychological well-being have changed during COVID-19. The authors used data from a survey that was administered to a large, nationally representative sample during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US (April, 2020) and one year prior (April-June, 2019). The researchers compared levels of well-being during the pandemic to previously established norms from before the pandemic, and also compared data collected from the same individuals prior to COVID-19 and during COVID-19. The results suggest that psychological well-being has become lower during COVID-19 compared to before, and has also decreased within individuals from before to during COVID-19. THE ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS Additionally, the authors examined how two indicators of SES, education level and income, may influence these results. Contrary to what they predicted, they found that higher education was associated with greater decreases in well-being during the pandemic (indicated by a stronger increase in depressive symptoms and decrease in life satisfaction). On the other hand, higher income was associated with better well-being during the pandemic (indicated by lower depressive symptoms and higher life satisfaction). However, individuals with the highest levels of income did have larger reductions in life satisfaction from before to during the pandemic, compared to individuals with lower levels of income. The results of this study suggest that people are experiencing lower well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to before the pandemic. Additionally, declines in well-being from before to during the pandemic were worse for individuals with higher levels of education compared to individuals with lower levels of education. While lower income was generally associated with inferior well-being, individuals with the highest income levels experienced greater declines in life satisfaction from before to during the pandemic compared to individuals with lower income levels. Organizations should try to understand the unique effects that the pandemic has had on their employees’ well-being and consider offering services or training to support their employees during this difficult time. Wanberg, C. R., Csillag, B., Douglass, R. P., Zhou, L., & Pollard, M. S. (2020). Socioeconomic status and well-being during COVID-19: A resource-based examination. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(12), 1382-1396.	<urn:uuid:89f60e81-e724-40d0-a705-72db89137208>	CC-MAIN-2022-27	https://www.ioatwork.com/the-effects-of-covid-19-and-socioeconomic-status-on-well-being/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103626162.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220629084939-20220629114939-00418.warc.gz	en	0.96913	652	3.09375	3	3.037562	3	Strong reasoning	Health
In every dispensation, whether in the time of Jesus, or Buddha, or Baha’u’llah it’s always the same; whenever the Manifestation of God arises the conventions and prejudices of the day are arrayed against Him and those in power try to destroy Him. Because of this Abdu’l-Baha says, “All prejudices, whether of religion, race, politics or nation, must be renounced, for these prejudices have caused the world’s sickness. It is a grave malady which, unless arrested, is capable of causing the destruction of the whole human race. Every ruinous war, with its terrible bloodshed and misery, has been caused by one or other of these prejudices.” He goes on to state that “The first principle of Baha’u’llah is: The Search for Truth. “Man must cut himself free from all prejudice and from the result of his own imagination, so that he may be able to search for truth unhindered. Truth is one in all religions, and by means of it the unity of the world can be realized. “All the peoples have a fundamental belief in common. Being one, truth cannot be divided, and the differences that appear to exist among the nations only result from their attachment to prejudice. If only men would search out truth, they would find themselves united.” When you study the annals of history, the truth is every Manifestation of God including Baha’u’llah was tormented and set upon by the clerics of their time, and some like Jesus and the Bab were put to death. Although a great number of the clerics and government officials of Persia wanted to have Baha’u’llah put to death they did not because He was widely respected and considered a saint by many. So instead of killing Him the Persians conspired to have the Ottoman Empire send Him to the prison city of Akka, a place rampant with disease of which Muslims believed, if a bird flew over Akka it would die. Soon after arriving in Akka the Governor and other government officials sought the companionship of Baha’u’llah because He was treasured for His wisdom and saintly demeanor. Years later after his father had ascended, and Abdu’l-Baha and other Baha’is in Akka were released from imprisonment and exile by the Young Turk Revolution that had overthrown the Ottoman Empire, Abdu’l-Baha decided to travel to the Western World to speak with people about the Mission of Baha’u’llah which was no less than ending all wars by establishing God’s government on earth. While in Paris, on November 10, 1911, he spoke about the first principle of the Teaching of Baha’u’llah which is to Search After Truth. That night in the company of government officials, businessmen, artists, and others, Abdu’l-Baha said: “If a man would succeed in his search after truth, he must, in the first place, shut his eyes to all the traditional superstitions of the past. “The Jews have traditional superstitions, the Buddhists and the Zoroastrians are not free from them, neither are the Christians! All religions have gradually become bound by tradition and dogma. “All consider themselves, respectively, the only guardians of the truth, and that every other religion is composed of errors. They themselves are right, all others are wrong! The Jews believe that they are the only possessors of the truth and condemn all other religions. The Christians affirm that their religion is the only true one, that all others are false. Likewise the Buddhists and Muhammadans; all limit themselves. If all condemn one another, where shall we search for truth? All contradicting one another, all cannot be true. If each believe his particular religion to be the only true one, he blinds his eyes to the truth in the others. If, for instance, a Jew is bound by the external practice of the religion of Israel, he does not permit himself to perceive that truth can exist in any other religion; it must be all contained in his own! “We should, therefore, detach ourselves from the external forms and practices of religion. We must realize that these forms and practices, however beautiful, are but garments clothing the warm heart and the living limbs of Divine truth. We must abandon the prejudices of tradition if we would succeed in finding the truth at the core of all religions. If a Zoroastrian believes that the Sun is God, how can he be united to other religions? While idolaters believe in their various idols, how can they understand the oneness of God? “It is, therefore, clear that in order to make any progress in the search after truth we must relinquish superstition. If all seekers would follow this principle they would obtain a clear vision of the truth. “If five people meet together to seek for truth, they must begin by cutting themselves free from all their own special conditions and renouncing all preconceived ideas. In order to find truth we must give up our prejudices, our own small trivial notions; an open receptive mind is essential. If our chalice is full of self, there is no room in it for the water of life. The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one. “Therefore it is imperative that we should renounce our own particular prejudices and superstitions if we earnestly desire to seek the truth. Unless we make a distinction in our minds between dogma, superstition and prejudice on the one hand, and truth on the other, we cannot succeed. When we are in earnest in our search for anything we look for it everywhere. This principle we must carry out in our search for truth. “Science must be accepted. No one truth can contradict another truth. Light is good in whatsoever lamp it is burning! A rose is beautiful in whatsoever garden it may bloom! A star has the same radiance if it shines from the East or from the West. Be free from prejudice, so will you love the Sun of Truth from whatsoever point in the horizon it may arise! You will realize that if the Divine light of truth shone in Jesus Christ it also shone in Moses and in Buddha. The earnest seeker will arrive at this truth. This is what is meant by the ‘Search after Truth’. “It means, also, that we must be willing to clear away all that we have previously learned, all that would clog our steps on the way to truth; we must not shrink if necessary from beginning our education all over again. We must not allow our love for any one religion or any one personality to so blind our eyes that we become fettered by superstition! When we are freed from all these bonds, seeking with liberated minds, then shall we be able to arrive at our goal. “‘Seek the truth, the truth shall make you free.’ So shall we see the truth in all religions, for truth is in all and truth is one!”	<urn:uuid:6288e828-fa03-485e-8c7c-c7de112d7602>	CC-MAIN-2021-10	https://risebahaiwebsiteservices.com/search-for-truth/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178376206.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20210307074942-20210307104942-00434.warc.gz	en	0.958576	1,515	3.03125	3	2.930284	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon said: If two people sit together and do not exchange words of Torah, it is a company of scorners, as the verse states, "In the company of scorners he [the righteous man] did not sit" (Psalms 1:1). But if two people sit and exchange words of Torah, the Divine Presence rests between them, as the verse states, "Then those who fear God spoke one to another, and God listened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for those who fear God and contemplate His Name" (Malachi 3:16). From here we learn only about two; how do we know that even one who sits and studies Torah that the Holy One, blessed be He, allocates for him reward? For the verse states, "Let him sit alone and be still, so that [a reward] will be given to him" (Lamentations 3:28). Ask almost any person to identify the location of his soul and he will point to his chest. Jewish tradition, however, teaches that the soul resides in the mind. And by explaining why the mind is the repository of the soul, we can begin to understand the divinity that sets human beings apart from every other creature with whom we share the earth. Jewish philosophy identifies four ascending categories of creation: inanimate, vegetable, animal, and human. In the language of the sages, the classification of inanimate objects is called domaim, or "silent," while the classification of human beings is called midaber, or "speaking." It appears, therefore, that it is the quality of speech that separates us from all other forms of creation. In fact, animals do possess the capacity to communicate. Dogs bark, horses neigh, elephants trumpet, and bees dance to guide their hives to sources of pollen. Dolphins and simians possess an extensive vocabulary and even a rudimentary grammatical structure. The phenomenon of language, however, enables the speaker not only to communicate information, but to express a line of reasoning, to describe thoughts and feelings, to articulate abstract ideals, to probe the depths and expand the limits of the mind. George Orwell, in his famous novel 1984, depicted in frightening detail how control of language can limit, control, and destroy the human capacity to think. In Orwell's classic distopia, the government of Big Brother is designing a modern language, Newspeak, that will be stripped of the color, the nuance, and the imagination of language, thereby exorcising all color, nuance, and imagination from the minds of the citizens who speak it. Nothing will remain except the bare basics necessary for exchange of factual information, reducing all human communication to the level of chimpanzees. Words are the medium through which our ideas shape themselves and direct our actions, and the words we speak define the essence of who we are and what we will accomplish. It is for this reason that the human mind contains the uniquely human soul: ultimately, it is our uniquely human intellect that, through the medium of language, enables each of us to forge a relationship with our Creator. Speech is never neutral. The sages record that when Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, president of the Sanhedrin, instructed his servant Tuvi to go to the market and bring him something good, Tuvi returned with tongue. Rabban Shimon then asked Tuvi to go and bring him something bad, and again Tuvi returned with tongue. When Rabban Shimon asked Tuvi to explain himself, he replied, "When the tongue is good it is very good, but when the tongue is bad it is very bad." Thus teaches Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon in our mishna that speech is never neutral. The potential that we have to bind ourselves to the Almighty through words is incalculably precious, and to waste any opportunity to elevate our speech represents the worst kind of neglect. When two or more people sit together, the opportunity to stimulate the intellect through the language of ideas doubles and redoubles to a degree that the Divine Presence rests between them. Consequently, companions who allow their speech to devolve not only into the profane, but even into the mundane, are comparable to the scorners or cynics who dismiss all that is good in the world and see only the worst in everything. Indeed, speech implies, by definition, the presence of at least one speaker and one listener, and the benefits of Torah are most completely realized through the spoken word of one companion to another. Nevertheless, should we suppose that the opportunity to elevate oneself through Torah is limited to exchanging ideas with another, Rabbi Chanina applies his principle even to an individual left to his own company. Rabbi Noah Weinberg, dean of Aish HaTorah, often asks audiences which is more valuable: time or money? Invariably people place greater value on their time. Rabbi Weinberg then asks why it would never occur to them to throw their money out the window, whereas they think nothing of gazing through the window at nothing in particular for hours on end. Our mishna reminds us that time is more precious than money, and that every moment provides an opportunity to elevate ourselves spiritually by applying our divine intellect to the study and contemplation of Torah. Even in solitude, by filling our thoughts with words of Torah we bring ourselves closer to the Almighty and enhance our ultimate reward in the World to Come.	<urn:uuid:182be327-1640-4d4e-89c7-e7a832baa34e>	CC-MAIN-2013-20	http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/48901897.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706298270/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121138-00088-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.953932	1,111	2.765625	3	2.917221	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
Violent Death Report Underscores Intervening Early, CDC Says CDC recently released the second detailed report summarizing violent deaths from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a system that collects reports from 16 participating states. Summarizing data on 15,395 violent deaths, the report ("Surveillance for Violent Deaths — National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2006") contains demographic information about victims and suspects, mental health problems, drug or alcohol use, and more. It will be published in the March 20 edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summaries. NVDRS obtains the data from death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, toxicology results, law enforcement reports, and other reports related to each death. This report says 56 percent of violent deaths in those states during the period were suicides, followed by homicides and deaths involving legal interventions (28 percent) and violent deaths of undetermined intent (15 percent). Highlighted in the release signed by W. Rodney Hammond, Ph.D., director of the Division of Violence Prevention in CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, were these findings: - Violent deaths resulting from self-inflicted or interpersonal violence were disproportionately higher among males, those 20-54 years old, and minority populations. - Relationship problems, interpersonal conflicts, mental health problems, and recent crises were among the primary precipitating factors for many types of violent deaths. - The majority of all violent deaths occurred in the home and involved a single victim. - Firearms were the most common method used in suicides, homicides, incidents involving multiple victims, and homicide followed by suicide incidents. - Alcohol was present at the time of death in about one-third of all violent deaths. CDC began implementing NVDRS in 2002, funding six states initially and expanding that number in 2006. The program's goal is to include all 50 states, all U.S. territories, and Washington, D.C. Participants agree to voluntarily report all violent deaths. The 16 states included in this report are Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Data from the 16 are available online from WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System). The findings of this report underscore the importance of teaching young people much earlier to develop and promote non-violent intimate and interpersonal relationships, CDC said.	<urn:uuid:945f4502-37a8-43d5-87a7-b959c637c0f0>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://ohsonline.com/articles/2009/03/23/violent-death-report-underscores-intervening-early.aspx	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710698.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20221129132340-20221129162340-00286.warc.gz	en	0.929913	518	2.734375	3	2.797493	3	Strong reasoning	Health
3.1 What Is a Copyright? 3.2 How Are Copyrights Important? 3.3 What Is Copyrightable? 3.4 How is Copyright Protection Obtained? 3.5 Enforcement of Copyright 3.6 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act 3.7 Protection Strategies 3.1 what is a copyright?^ A copyright is a form of intangible property that provides protection for the creative expression of ideas. Only the expression of the idea is protected. No protection is provided by copyright for the idea itself (although the idea may be protectable by patent, trademark or trade secret laws). For example, the blueprints for a home powered by a wind turbine would be copyrightable, but the copyright would not extend to the manner in which the wind turbine is incorporated into the home as a power plant. Historically, copyrighted works consisted principally of works of art, such as paintings, songs, and plays. As the information age has matured, however, copyrights have been relied upon to protect catalogs, instruction manuals, seminars, computer software, and data bases. 3.2 how are copyrights important?^ Copyrights are statutory, and a copyright gives the owner five categories of exclusive rights -- the rights of reproduction, adaptation, public distribution, public performance, and public display. Also included in the adaptation right is the right to prepare other works, called "derivative works," based on the original work. Furthermore, in the case of software programs and sound recordings, the owner has the additional right of restricting the rental of lawful copies. The copyright owner may elect to license others to exercise the rights provided by the copyright. The copyright owner may elect to grant any of these rights to others. This is generally done in a contract which provides for the payment of royalties to the copyright owner. 3.3 what is copyrightable?^ In the Copyright Act, Congress stated that any "original work of authorship" fixed in any "tangible medium of expression" is copyright-able. 17 U.S.C. ß 102(a). Congress has specifically provided that certain things are not copyrightable. These include "any idea, proce-dure, process, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied." The copyright statute requires that the work in which a copyright is sought must be original. Hence, painstakingly repainting the Mona Lisa to produce an exact copy of the original, although requiring a great deal of talent, would not produce a copyrightable work. In contrast, a child’s crayon portrait of the Madonna would be copyright-able. Virtually all creative works become "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." Consequently, this element of the statutory test is hardly ever at issue. A painter’s canvas, a piece of paper, a cassette tape, and a compact disc are all examples of a tangible medium. An unrecorded speech, given extemporaneously, would be one example of a work not fixed in a tangible medium of expression, and as such, would not be afforded copyright protection. The sole exception to the requirement of "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" exists for live musical performances. Under "anti-bootleg-ging" statutes live musical performances do not have to be fixed in tangible form to be protected under copyright law. The performer’s consent is required for any fixation of sounds or images during the performance. Although rights under copyright law are obtained automatically, there are some limitations to the scope of copyrights and to ownership of copyrights. Three principal limitations are independent development, fair use, and works made for hire. Each such limitation is discussed briefly below: Copyrights protect only from copying. Hence, if someone does not "copy" a copyrighted work, there is no copyright infringement. Although an accused infringing work may be remarkably similar to a copyrighted work, if the accused work was truly developed independent of the copyrighted work, the copyright owner has no recourse. As you might imagine, a copyright infringer rarely admits to copying a copyrighted work. As a result, the courts will use a two-part test to assist the copyright owner in proving copyright infringement. If a copyright owner can prove that the accused infringer had access to the copyrighted work and that the accused work is "substantially similar" to the copyrighted work, then the courts will infer copying. The Copyright Act provides that, under certain circumstances, making copies of a copyrighted work constitutes "fair use" and can be done without the permission of the copyright owner. Congress has specifi-cally provided that reproducing the copyrighted work for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." Unfortunately, determining whether a particular instance of copying constitutes "fair use" can be highly complex. Indeed, this is one of the most frequently litigated issues in copyright law. Congress has set forth four factors that are to be considered in deter-mining whether copying falls within the fair use exception: 1. The purpose and character of the use: If the purpose for copying was for non-profit use, rather than for a commercial use, fair use is more likely to be found. 2. The nature of the copyrighted work: The fair use exception is more readily available for published works than unpublished works that the author is trying to keep secret. Similarly, fair use is more likely to be applied to factual works than to artistic ones. 3. The amount and importance of the portion used: Fair use is more likely to be found when small, relatively insignificant aspects of the copyrighted work are copied. 4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the work: This is generally the most important factor. Fair use is more likely to be found if the copying has no commercial effect on the marketability of the copyrighted work. Although the fair use analysis depends on the particular facts of the case, a rule of thumb is that if the alleged copy provides a market substitute for the copyrighted work, the copying is not likely to be considered a fair use. WORK MADE FOR HIRE^ The other primary source of litigation in the copyright field arises out of the "work made for hire" doctrine. Simply stated, the Copyright Act provides that if an employee creates a copyrightable work in the course of employment, the work is considered a "work made for hire" and the copyright is owned by the employer. On the other hand, if the "employee" is really a subcontractor, such as an outside consultant, or if the work is created outside the employee’s scope of employment, the copyright does not belong to the employer. Many employers are disturbed to learn that after they have paid thousands of dollars to a consultant for the creation of forms, a com-puter program or a book, they do not own the copyright to that work. This problem can easily be avoided by entering into a written contract which specifies that the copyright belongs to the employer. A verbal agreement is insufficient because the Copyright Act requires that such agreements be in writing. 3.4 how is copyright protection obtained?^ Unlike a patent, rights are obtained under the Copyright Act automati-cally. Once a work becomes "fixed" in a "tangible medium of expres-sion," rights under the Copyright Act attach. A copyright notice is no longer required. Prior to March 1, 1989, proper copyright notice was a condition for copyright protection. Even minor defects in the copyright notice could result in loss of rights. Although works created after March 1, 1989 no longer require notice, it is still a good idea to include a copyright notice on all copyrightable works. Although certain rights accrue automatically, the full spectrum of rights under the Copyright Act are only available through prompt formal registration of the copyright with the United States Copyright Office. In addition to enhanced rights, additional remedies for copy-right infringement are granted the owner of a registered copyright. Registration of a copyright is accomplished by submitting a Copyright Application along with two copies of the best edition of the work to the United States Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. The Copyright Office reviews the application to ensure that it is complete and that the work constitutes copyrightable subject matter. In most cases, the Registration Certificate is issued within two to three months from the filing date of the application. Generally, copyright protection extends for seventy years beyond the death of the author. If the author of the work is anonymous or is a business entity, then the copyright protection extends for ninety-five years from the year of first publication, or 120 years from the year of creation, whichever expires first. 3.5 enforcement of copyright^ Many copyright disputes can be resolved simply by initiating a dialog between the parties. Now more than ever, people inherently sense that copyright infringement is illegal. Consequently, most people will willingly cease infringing activities when the issue is brought to their attention. Not all copyright infringement issues are black and white. Occasion- ally situations arise when formal dispute resolution tribunals must be utilized to settle disputes. To keep the costs for resolving disputes to a minimum, it may be advisable, in the appropriate situation, to use "alternate dispute resolution" methods rather than spend the time and money required for a protracted battle in the courts. Popular alternate dispute resolution methods include arbitration and mediation. On occasion, however, it is necessary to pursue relief through the courts to protect and preserve your rights. Recently, highly publicized cases, such as A&M Records v. Napster, Inc., have highlighted the potential complexity of copyright law and the role of attorneys and courts in the proper settlement of copyright disputes. Congress has specifically provided that copyright infringement cases can only be filed in federal court. Because the federal court docket is substantially less crowded than that of the state courts, having access to federal court can be a great advantage. Before filing a copyright infringement action, your copyright must be registered with the United States Copyright Office. For this reason, the Copyright Registration Certificate is often referred to as "the key to the courthouse." If you decide to file a lawsuit and your copyright is not registered, the Copyright Office has an expedited registration procedure in place to accommodate you. It is not necessary nor is it advisable to register every copyrightable work. However, by registering the work before an infringement occurs, the Copyright Act provides for the recovery of statutory damages of at least $750 and up to $30,000) for each infringing work in addition to a possible award of attorneys fees and costs of suit. If the court deter-mines the infringement has been "willful," an award of up to $150,000 is authorized by the statute. If the work is not registered, damages may be limited to those lost profits which can be proved at trial or the actual profits of the infringer. The court also has power to grant injunctions to prevent further copying of the work. Such injunctions may be temporary or final. The court also has the power to impound copies that are claimed to have been made or used in violation of the rights of the copyright owner. Articles that may be used to reproduce copies may also be impounded. The court may order the destruction of illicit copies and materials used to reproduce the copies. 3.6 the digital millennium copyright act^ The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) addresses many emerging issues in copyright law and was signed into law in 1998. Only a cursory review of the most important changes in copyright law is possible in this handbook. One of the primary purposes of the DMCA was to bring United States copyright law into conformity with various worldwide treaties regarding copyright law. To this effect, the copyright law was amended to provide greater protection for original works created outside of the United States. Another important part of this legislation was directed to technological advancements and their relation to copyrighted material. Without affecting the rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses of traditional copyright law, the DMCA was designed to prohibit devices or services that provide unauthorized access to copyrighted material by circum-venting technological measures of preventing copyright infringement. A complete exception to the anti-circumvention law was included for law enforcement and other governmental activities. Also included were limited exceptions for nonprofit libraries, archives, and educational institutions. Partial exceptions for reverse engineering, encryption research, protection of minors, protection of personal privacy, and security testing were also included in the DMCA. Copyright Manage-ment Information was also covered in this section of the DMCA, prohibiting the removal, alteration, or falsification of Copyright Management Information. The next major section in the DMCA was designed to further limit the liability of online service providers. The liability of service providers is limited for four categories of activity: 1) transitory communications; 2) system caching; 3) storage of information on systems or networks at direction of users; and 4) information location tools. Each of these categories is subject to its own rules and qualifications but there are some aspects that are general to all of the limitations. If the service provider qualifies for a limitation, he is entitled to a complete bar on monetary damages and the injunctive relief available is also limited in a variety of ways. To qualify for any of the limitations on liability, an entity must first qualify as an "online service provider." This term was defined broadly in the DMCA and most companies with an online presence will qualify. The service provider must meet two additional requirements. The provider must implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of members who are repeat copyright infringers and it must accommodate standard technical measures that are employed to protect copyrights. Other sections of the DMCA address copyright issues regarding computer maintenance or repair and provide for copyright protection of boat hull designs. Still other sections modify existing law to accom-modate current digital music broadcasting technologies. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is the first of what will certainly be many legislative attempts to keep up with rapidly changing technology. It provides for civil and criminal remedies for copyright owners and it is considered by some to be a good effort to balance the rights of copyright owners and users. As is the case with all new laws, the specifics of these new laws and the changes to the law will be further clarified as the law is applied. 3.7 protection strategies^ At a minimum, all copyrighted works which are distributed should include a copyright notice. It is not necessary to register the work with the Copyright Office before placing a copyright notice on the work. An acceptable copyright notice includes three elements: (1) the word "Copyright," the abbreviation "Copr." or the symbol "(c)"; (2) the name of the copyright owner, e.g., XYZ Corp.; and (3) the year of first publication of the work or the year of creation in the case of an unpublished work. It is also preferable to include the words "All Rights Reserved." Thus, for a book first published in 2004 by XYZ Corpora-tion, the copyright notice would read: (c) 2004, XYZ Corp. All Rights Reserved The copyright notice should be placed where it reasonably will give notice to the public. Including a copyright notice will at least provide those who see it with notice that you consider your work protected by the copyright laws. In some cases, that will provide sufficient deterrent to prevent copying. Because the cost to register a copyright is relatively nominal, it is also recommended that any significant works be registered with the United States Copyright Office. If a work is copied and litigation for copyright infringement must be commenced against the infringer, having previously registered the works will provide advantages having value far in excess of the cost of registration. Of equal importance to protecting copyrightable material is ensuring that the copyrights of others are respected. The avoidance of disputes is wise because litigation is expensive irrespective of who ultimately prevails. Developing a frequent consultation dialog with legal counsel regarding new products and marketing strategies is the most cost effec-tive means for avoiding problems. By identifying potential problems early, design changes can be incorporated or permission sought before a company commits to a course of action which may infringe the copyrights of others. For companies whose primary product lines depend principally on the copyright law for their protection, a more aggressive approach in pursuing copyright protection is warranted. For instance, a software development company should consider registering each major version of its software and user manuals. Potential infringements should be investigated thoroughly to determine whether copyrighted works are being pirated. Often, such disputes can be quickly resolved simply by notifying the offending company of the impropriety of their actions. When copyrights play an important role in a company’s legal portfolio, employment contracts should be audited to ensure that they discuss ownership issues and the employees’ duty regarding copyrights. Of particular importance is the relationship the company has with persons hired as non-traditional employees. In some circumstances, the copyrights in works created by these persons are not owned by the company because of the "work made for hire" doctrine. Thus, the company should have a written agreement with all such persons which specifically address copyright ownership. An aggressive approach to copyright protection would dictate that all copyrighted works within a company’s product line be registered with the United States Copyright Office. This might include computer software, instruction manuals, forms, art work accompanying a pack-age design and any other features of a product which embody creative expression. The implementation of a plan to police for copying in the market can also be instrumental in preventing the loss of company revenue through illegal copying. Some industries have organizations which provide this function. For example, in the software field, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) provide a degree of enforcement for many instances of software piracy. In some instances, it may be necessary to retain a private investigation firm to monitor or verify infringing activities. Copyrights are designed to protect creative expressions. Although all creative works have some inherent protection under modern copyright law, registration of the copyright in the creative work is necessary for full protection and for some of the most appropriate remedies. Technological advancements have made infringing use of copyrighted material much easier and much more common. A consultation with a qualified intellectual property attorney is recommended to ensure the best protection for your copyrightable material.	<urn:uuid:a9475488-27e3-4f05-83b6-98cfca8405f1>	CC-MAIN-2018-34	http://austin-rapp.com/handbook/part1/copyrights.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221211664.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20180817025907-20180817045907-00483.warc.gz	en	0.938788	3,767	3.703125	4	2.899292	3	Strong reasoning	Crime & Law
James M. Arlandson Muslim expositors and preachers tell the world that Islam elevates women, so this proves their religion's truthfulness. They imply that the entire world, especially women, should therefore warmly embrace Islam. Here is only one typical example among many. Dr. Jamal A. Badawi is a Muslim scholar and propagandist. In an article first printed in 1971, but reprinted many times since then by popular demand, he asserts that Islam and the Quran rose high above seventh-century Arab culture and lifted women's status. He proclaims that the Quran says that even though men are a degree above women in status (Sura 2:228, see below), "it implies no superiority or advantage before the law." This part of his conclusion says that the elevation of women reflects Islam's intrinsic truthfulness, uninfluenced by its seventh-century environment: In the case of Islam such compassionate and dignified status was decreed, not because it reflects the environment of the seventh century, nor under the threat or pressure of women and their organizations, but rather because of its intrinsic truthfulness. Are any of his claims (and those of others) exaggerated? Or were earliest Islam and the Quran too deeply influenced by their seventh-century Arab patriarchal environment to be relevant today? 1. Husbands are a degree above their wives in a legal context. The Quran in Sura 2:228 says: . . . Wives have the same rights as the husbands have on them in accordance with the generally known principles. Of course, men are a degree above them in status . . . (Sayyid Abul A'La Maududi, the Meaning of the Qur'an, vol. 1, p. 165) Maududi (d. 1979) is a highly respected traditional commentator on the Quran, and he reviews the historical and literary topical contexts of Sura 2 here. At first, this verse appears positive: "Wives have the same rights as the husbands." However, too often a verse has a sting in it, as verse 228 does: "men are a degree above them in status." This principle of gender inequality reflects Arab culture of the seventh century. If Allah and Muhammad improved on this patriarchy, then they did not go far enough. This verse occurring in the revealed Quran is troubling for those of us on the outside of Islam. The verse indicates that the nature of womankind is being challenged in a way that transcends culture, as we shall see. Therefore, traditional Muslims, especially legal scholars, are permitted to apply this verse to the world of today and outside of Arabia. These Muslims believe that the entire Quran reflects the values of Allah, the god of this world, so Sura 2:228 should be carried out everywhere-it is universal. 2. Men are superior to women in a domestic context. The Quran in Sura 4:34 says: Men are managers of the affairs of women because Allah has made the one superior to the other. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 329) For the historical and literary topical contexts of Sura 4, click here. The verse goes on to permit husbands to hit their wives if the husbands merely fear highhandedness. Readers may view that article here. At the end, it has many links to modern interpretations of Sura 4:34 and to arguments for wife beating today. The essential point to notice here is the Quran's clear explanation of why men manage the affairs of women: because mankind is superior to womankind. The verse says that Allah made them this way. It strikes at the nature of womankind, beyond just women's social roles in seventh-century Arabia. Maududi tells us in his commentary that the Arabic word for "manager" stands for anyone who is: [R]esponsible for the right conduct, safeguard and maintenance of the affairs of an individual, an institution, or an organization. Thus, man is governor, director, protector, and manager of the affairs of women (p. 333, note 56). Thus, a man's control over a woman ranges far and wide. In the next note, Maududi informs us that men are not superior to women in a moral way, that is, in honor and excellence, but men "have been endowed with certain natural qualities and powers that have not been given to women or have been given in a less [sic] degree" (p. 333, note 57). The clause "men have been endowed with certain natural abilities" once again degrades womankind's abilities. Maududi is merely stating the obvious meaning in Sura 4:34. God made woman inferior. The Quran says so. From a patriarchal perspective, one would think that his dubious belief in womankind's inferiority would crop up in a business or professional context, but here the belief is found in a domestic context. And as the previous link to domestic violence demonstrates, this belief is driven home, so to speak, by giving the husbands the right to hit their wives. Patriarchy and even misogyny runs deeply in the Quran. For more information, see this article, (scroll down to the section "women are inferior to men"), the first of three parts on women in Islam. These two cultural vices also show up in a theological context. The hadith are the reports of Muhammad's actions and words outside of the Quran. The two most reliable collectors and editors are Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875). This hadith shows that the majority of inhabitants of hell are women. Narrated 'Imran bin Husain: The Prophet said, "I looked at Paradise and found poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants; and I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants were women." (Bukhari, emphasis added; see also these parallel traditions here and here) This parallel hadith explains that the majority of the inhabitants of hell are women because they are ungrateful and harsh towards their husbands. There is no word about the husbands' ingratitude and harshness. It should be noted that some Muslim missionaries and polemicists assert that since women make up the majority of the world, it only stands to reason that they would be the majority in hell. In reply, however, this misses the point-and may miss the possibility that women may be more spiritual than men. Regardless, the reason that women make up the majority in hell is their harshness and ingratitude. So it has nothing to do with a numerical majority. Instead, Islam clearly does not honor women. For a thorough refutation of this line of argument advanced by Muslim missionaries, go again to this article and scroll down to the endnotes, where more hadith on women in hell are cited and explained. See this article for details on women in Islamic hell. Muhammad was also superstitious. This hadith says that women are part of an evil omen. Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: I heard the Prophet saying. "Evil omen is in three things: The horse, the woman and the house." (Bukhari) It is one thing if a culture perpetuates this inequality from time immemorial, but it is quite another if it gets enshrined in the sacred texts of a worldwide religion. The Quran and the hadith attack women simply because they are women. Surely it is this patriarchal and misogynistic attitude that permeates too much of the Islamic world. This attitude is wrong on its own, but it is doubly misguided when it can be interpreted by judges and jurists to give husbands a legal step above their wives, in such contexts as inheritance laws and giving testimony. This means that the Quranic view of womankind in Suras 2:228 and 4:34 does not remain only in a theological sphere, but in down-to-earth areas, where material and physical damage can be done, as seen, for example, in the Quranic permission for men to hit their wives. This view will also show up in two laws in the Quran. Badawi and others like him are wrong. Muhammad seems unable to rise above his own culture. Indeed, he absorbs too much of it in his "revelations" that get incorporated into his allegedly eternal, universal Quran. 3. In dividing the inheritance, a female gets half of a male's share. The Quran in Sura 4:11 says: The share of the male shall be twice that of a female . . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 311) (See Sura 4:176.) Classical legal scholars agree with this underlying principle of awarding the male twice the inheritance of the female. Malik (d. 795) is a founder of a major school of law. He composed a law book that is also considered a collection of reliable hadith: Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas: The First Formation of Islamic Law (rev. trans. Aisha Bewley, Inverness, Scotland: Madina Press, 1989, 2001). The generally agreed upon way of doing things among us . . . about fixed shares of inheritance (fara'id) of children from the mother or father when one or the other dies is that if they leave male and female children, the male takes the portion of two females. Ibn Rushd, known in the West as AverroŽs (d. 1198), is the most thorough compiler and editor of legal opinions. His two-volume work, The Distinguished Jurist's Primer, (trans. Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, Reading, UK: Garnet, 1994-1996), took over twenty years to write. It provides a foundation in Islamic law for judges and legal scholars throughout the Islamic world, where it is still used today. Ibn Rushd agrees with Malik: Muslims [jurists] agreed that the inheritance of the child from his father or mother, if they are both males and females, is that the share of the male is equal to the shares of two females . . . (vol. 2, p. 413). Maududi explains the rationale behind the verse: The guiding principle about the division of inheritance is that the share of the male shall be double that of the female, and this is very sound and just. As the Muslim law lays the major burden of the economic responsibility of the family on the male and keeps the female almost free from it, justice demands that her share of inheritance should be less than that of the male. (vol. 1, p. 312, note 15). The problem with Maududi's explanation (and what is implied in Malik's and Ibn Rushd's assessment) is that it is too culture-bound; paradoxically, however, it is intended to be universal. It may be true that in seventh-century Arabia a male had most or all of the responsibilities over the household. This may be true even today in traditional Muslim countries or regions. However, it is troubling that Muhammad did not receive verses from on high that clearly and unambiguously spell out the equality of mankind and womankind-verses without stings in them or near them. Regardless of Muhammad's failure to receive these verses, this law of inheritance should in no way be applied to the western world or in other regions that are not burdened with Islam but that want to grow economically. Here in the US, for example, the inheritance can be divided equally among all siblings, regardless of their gender. No religious law prohibits this from happening in advance. American secular law fits into a modern context better. Thus, today's American secular law surpasses seventh-century Islamic law found in the allegedly universal Quran, inspired by Allah. More importantly, sharia (Islamic law) must never creep around the world. 4. A woman's testimony often counts half of a man's testimony. The Quran in Sura 2:282 says: And let two men from among you bear witness to all such documents [contracts of loans without interest]. But if two men be not available, there should be one man and two women to bear witness so that if one of the women forgets (anything), the other may remind her. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 205). It seems that the foundational reason for having two women witnesses is that one of the women may "forget" something. Again, this goes to the nature of womankind. Philosophers teach us that one of the main differences between animals and humans lies in humankind's rationality. But this verse implies that a woman's mind is weak. How is this verse not misogynistic? This hadith removes any ambiguity about women in Sura 2:282: Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: The Prophet said, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind." (Bukhari, emphasis added) The reason for diminishing women's role in court is clear enough. Women have deficient minds, says Muhammad bluntly and tersely. Sura 2:282 says that a female witness may "forget," so the other female witness may need to remind the first. The Quran and the hadith match up well in this matter. In the one area that sets humans apart-the mind-Muhammad says that womankind falls short by nature or Allah-endowed (in)abilities. As for later legal opinions in Islam, Ibn Rushd again guides us. Sura 2:282 appears in a contractual business context, but legal scholars differ on whether woman may serve as witnesses in other contexts, like criminal cases. For the "crime" of sexual immorality (zina), which in Islam is punishable by death for adultery and whipping for fornication, four males must prove the crime. Females are excluded (vol. 2, p. 559). So this means that if a wife suspects adultery from her husband, she cannot get four women to catch him in the act. She has to get four men. Would the "Old Boy's Club" prevent justice in Islamic patriarchal societies? In crimes like theft and their punishments (hudud): "The opinion that is adopted by the majority is that the testimony of women is not admissible in hudud, with men or independently" (ibid). But one legal school (Zahirites) says it is admissible, when accompanied by the testimony of a man. Thus, women are not allowed to testify, according to the majority of jurists in this legal context. In personal law, such as divorce, retraction of divorce, marriage, and emancipation of slaves, one school of law says a woman's testimony is accepted (Abu Hanifa) (ibid). This implies that the other schools of law deny this right to a woman. In personal law affecting women only, like birth, consummation, and "the defects of women," Ibn Rushd reports: "the independent testimony of women, that is, women unaccompanied by male witness, is acceptable according to the majority" (ibid). One school of law puts things indelicately: "Abu Hanifa permitted the testimony of women (about women) for the area that is between the navel and the knees" (vol. 2, p. 560). So in this one area of "women's issues," they are allowed to testify. To sum up these opinions, women's testimony counts independently in the legal area affecting women alone, according to the majority. But in other areas, for the majority of schools of law, women are second-class citizens or are excluded from an Islamic court altogether. Stepping back and viewing the big picture, an outsider to Islam may ask this question: why would intelligent legal scholars even debate whether women are allowed to testify in this or that area of the law? Here is why they must debate this question. The Quran and the hadith do not honor women. The general attitude says that women are barely able to stand in the same arena as men are, not to mention a house or a courtroom. Muhammad said women have deficient minds, so why wouldn't devout Muslims-scholars-follow their prophet? Badawi and others like him are therefore wrong. Islam and the Quran do not elevate women so high as to demonstrate that this religion and this book came down from God. For more hadith and discussion of women's alleged mental inferiority, go again to this article and scroll down to the section "women are inferior to men." This article also cites more scholarship on women's alleged innate inferiority (scroll down to Sura 4:34, a little more than halfway down). Because of original Islam's misogyny, women are not allowed to be leaders. Throughout the history of the Church, male Christian leaders have been patriarchal, oppressive, and even misogynist. No one should deny simple facts. However, these leaders absorbed too much of their cultures and not enough of the clear and universal teachings of the New Testament. Jesus and the New Testament authors promote the universal principle of equity. In the Christian community, There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). This verse is remarkable, considering the patriarchal and divisive culture and rigidly structured classes in the Greco-Roman world. It breaks down all barriers between religions or ethnicities (Jew or Greek, that is, Gentile), and between wide social statuses (free or slave), and between gender (male or female). This goes to the nature of humankind. In Christ, all are one, regardless of their roles in society or external circumstances. All receive God's value and love in their essence. This universal principle should flow out into all areas of practical life. If later Christian leaders were patriarchal and derogatory towards womankind, then they strayed from and misread the universal pronouncements in the New Testament. Muhammad and his Quran, in contrast, attack the nature of womankind, universally. Says the Quran: "Men are a degree above [women] in status" (Sura 2:228); and "Allah has made the one [mankind] superior to the other [womankind]" (Sura 4:34). Allah himself made men superior to women, so asserts Muhammad. He also says in the hadith: "This [diminishment of a woman's testimony] is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind." This insults the one quality in humans that exalts them and gives them dignity: their rational, thinking mind. (In no place does Jesus or a New Testament author say that a woman's mind is deficient.) Clearly, Allah and his prophet absorbed too much of seventh-century Arab culture in their "universal revelations." Therefore, if later Muslim leaders are patriarchal and derogatory towards womankind, then they are closely following and correctly reading the universal pronouncements in the Quran and the hadith. Is Muhammad's religion really the greatest and most advanced one for all humankind, as Badawi and others would have us believe? Certain kinds of men may cherish its patriarchy, but what about the rest of us? Muhammad's Quran on womankind is too culture-bound and patriarchal to be relevant today. For a direct reply to Badawi's article, click here. This online booklet explores the differing ideas in Islam and Christianity on the place of women. This short article reviews Jesus' attitude towards women. This short chapter has an excellent overview on the differences between Islam and Christianity and women's role in each. This short chapter in the same online booklet sketches out the unpleasant fact that women's testimony counts half of men's testimony. This one in the same online booklet has an explanation on women's inheritance rights. This superb online booklet surveys many passages in the Quran and the hadith about women in Islam. The facts lead to only one conclusion: Islam does not honor women. This webpage has many links to articles and online booklets. Christian Debater™ P.O. Box 144441 Austin, TX 78714	<urn:uuid:815f53fd-88da-4e05-9d4d-db449626ce3e>	CC-MAIN-2018-09	http://www.muslimhope.com/JamesArlandson/WomenAreInferiorToMenInTheQuran.htm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891814538.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20180223075134-20180223095134-00031.warc.gz	en	0.953419	4,217	2.8125	3	3.039635	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
What’s the difference between a “street” and an “avenue”? Seth R. Digel A street is a basic paved traffic link within an urban area; an avenue was originally grander, wider and often lined with trees or other flora. But the distinction has eroded over time, as when, for example, real estate developers indiscriminately call new roads “avenues” to make a more grandiose impression. Curator, National Postal Museum Did the Viking settlers of Greenland grow grapes there during the Medieval Warm Period (c. 950-1250)? Could gooseberries have grown there at the time, accounting for the references to grapes in Norse sagas? No, on both counts. Those settlers—who are more correctly called “Norse” after they became established in Greenland and adopted Christianity—never grew grapes in Greenland. It was too cold, even during the Medieval Warm Period. However, Norse explorers likely found grapes in northern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Gooseberries were introduced from Europe to the Americas in post-Norse times. Anthropologist and Co-author, Maine to Greenland: Exploring the Maritime Far Northeast, National Museum of Natural History Do stars make sounds? Stars do vibrate and generate acoustic waves, but at frequencies way too low for humans to hear. In addition, sounds are compression waves and need some medium to travel through, such as air, water or metal; they can’t travel through empty space. That’s why I chuckled at the opening scene of the first Star Wars movie, in which the giant spacecraft is accompanied by a rumble. Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics How effective is an air horn as a defense against an animal attack? Edward John Hinker Some animal facilities have used a pressurized horn system, but we use bear spray and other measures when we work near large carnivores. Bear spray (stronger than mace) offers longer protection than a horn. Animal Keeper, National Zoo Why did Alexander Gardner move soldiers’ bodies for his Civil War photographs? Los Angeles, California Gardner was seeking to create dramatic tableaux of the aftermath of battle. The best known of his “manipulations” was of the so-called Rebel sharpshooter at Devil’s Den at Gettysburg, for which he moved an ordinary soldier’s corpse some distance to a nook in the rocks to give him the status of a sharpshooter. In effect, he created a narrative about an individual; it was his way of coping with the mass, anonymous casualties of modern warfare. Now, we justifiably deplore this as an affront to historical fact. David C. Ward Senior Historian, National Portrait Gallery It's your turn to Ask Smithsonian	<urn:uuid:cc6cb06e-8e20-4606-9472-27a9143f1ad1>	CC-MAIN-2017-43	https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/whats-difference-between-streets-and-avenues-and-more-questions-our-readers-180953395/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823478.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019212946-20171019232819-00042.warc.gz	en	0.94521	597	2.84375	3	2.635141	3	Strong reasoning	History
Painting the sand and pebbles We can now tackle painting the sand and pebble area of our watercolor beach scene. First step in painting the sand is to wet the area of the darkest area of sand with clean water. See figure 10, because the clear water is difficult to make out in the photograph I have marked the areas to wet in red. Then into this drop in a mixture of Cobalt Blue and Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Add extra water to the distant area to make sure it is lighter than the foreground as in Figure 11. Let this dry thoroughly! In figure 12 you can see the premixed starting water colors for the sand. The watercolor paints used are: French Ultramarine, Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna is varying consistencies. As you can see some mixtures lean to the violet and others towards the brown. These mixtures (especially the brown) have to be quite thick at about a creamy consistency as the sand contains some of the darkest tones in the painting. With the sand watercolors mixed, drop your easel down to about five degrees as can be seen in figure 13. This will allow the colors to flow but only a little. Splatter some water in the bright area near the bottom of the painting. See figure 14. Follow this up by splattering some of the dark brown colored watercolor to create a variety of different shapes and tones as the splattered watercolors mix and mingle with the splattered water. This can be seen in figure 16. If you are not confident with your ability to use the splatter technique I suggest you cover the sky area with an old towel to protect it from stray splattered watercolor paint. See figure 15. When splattering watercolor I hold the brush in my right hand (I am right handed) and gently tap it against the side of the index finger on my left hand. I also point the brush in the direction I want the splatter to go in. If you have not used this technique before it is a good idea to practice it on a scrap piece of paper until you get a feel for how much force is require to produce a particular splatter effect. As soon as I have finished applying the splattered watercolor paint at the bottom of my painting I then quickly wet the distant sand area to just before the area of splatter. I don’t wet the distant sea area on the left however. I then begin painting the distant sand so that as it hits the wet area I get a soft edge. When I paint something like this I usually hold my reference photo in my left hand and as I see changes within it that I like I place them into my painting – I don’t go for absolute realism however – I am shooting for the feel of the scene, that is what is important to me. You can see the beginning of this stage in figure 16. I continue painting the sand area concentrating on a number of points. Firstly I keep the tones lighter (more water) and the colors cooler (more blue) in the distance. I keep my sharpest edges for the foreground. I also try to retain some white of the paper to represent the reflection of the sunset on the wet sand. Additional splatter was added near the end to give more interest in the foreground and enhance the feeling of all the pebbles on the beach. This has to be done before the shine leaves that area of the watercolor painting or you will end up with hard edges or unwanted cauliflower shapes. I also kept in mind the general pattern of the sand area to keep it looking interesting. A common mistake beginners make when painting sand and beach scenes is that they make the sand and water interface one straight edge which just does not make for an interesting shape. During this stage I use my water spray bottle often to keep the shine on the wet area of my painting. Remember the time to lightly spray the surface of you painting is while it still has a wet shine on it – otherwise it is usually too late. By keeping the shine on the surface you can continue to work on it without the danger of creating mud! As soon as I get the feeling that the sand area is looking good I leave it. Remember “The enemy of good is better!” if it is good don’t try to make it better or you will most likely make it worse. One thing I have discovered about watercolor paintings is that if they look good while you are painting them they will look even better with a mat around them and a frame will really finish them off. So if while you are painting you think you have a good one then it will usually look even better when you frame it. I let this stage dry completely. The sand and pebble area of our beach watercolor landscape painting is now finished and we can move on to painting the sea and waves. Continue to: Painting the sea, water’s edge and waves with watercolor. Return to: Previous step	<urn:uuid:447b4589-54be-4553-b74b-adc2b2fc5b45>	CC-MAIN-2016-26	http://www.paintingwithwatercolors.com/painting-the-sand-of-our-beach-watercolor-landscape/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.954638	1,036	2.734375	3	1.960958	2	Moderate reasoning	Art & Design
Palgreves is a name of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the family once having lived in the region of Palgrave in various counties throughout England . Palgreves is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree. Habitation names form the other broad category of surnames that were derived from place-names. They were derived from pre-existing names for towns, villages, parishes, or farmsteads. Early Origins of the Palgreves family The surname Palgreves was first found in Suffolk at Palgrave, a village and civil parish that dates back to 962 when it was listed as Palegrave. By the Domesday Book of 1086 the village's name evolved to Palegraua which was listed there at that time. CITATION[CLOSE] Williams, Dr Ann. And G.H. Martin, Eds., Domesday Book A Complete Translation. London: Penguin, 1992. Print. (ISBN 0-141-00523-8) Great Palgrave in Norfolk has a similar entry in the Domesday Book but this entry is the first listing and therefore it is presumed a more recent village. The place name literally means "grove where the poles are got" from the Old English "pal + "graf" or "grove or a man called Paga" from the Old English personal name + "graf." CITATION[CLOSE] Mills, A.D., Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-19-869156-4) Early History of the Palgreves family This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Palgreves research.Another 204 words (15 lines of text) covering the years 1480, 1554 and 1525 are included under the topic Early Palgreves History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible. Palgreves Spelling Variations Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Palgreves family name include Palgrave, Palgrove and others. Early Notables of the Palgreves family (pre 1700) Notables of this surname at this time include: John Palsgrave (c.1480-1554), an English priest of Henry VIII of England's court. In 1525, he was appointed tutor to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. The expression... Another 34 words (2 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Palgreves Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible. Migration of the Palgreves family to Ireland Some of the Palgreves family moved to Ireland , but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.Another 45 words (3 lines of text) about their life in Ireland is included in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible. Migration of the Palgreves family to the New World and Oceana For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland , Canada, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Palgreves surname or a spelling variation of the name include: Richard Palgrave, his wife Anne and their three daughters Elizabeth, Sarah and Mary, who arrived in Charlestown, MA in 1630.	<urn:uuid:6c31cff3-199a-4d12-a9c3-4391fa173ade>	CC-MAIN-2018-17	https://www.houseofnames.com/palgreves-family-crest	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125937161.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20180420061851-20180420081851-00634.warc.gz	en	0.940606	846	2.78125	3	2.087442	2	Moderate reasoning	History
What support is available? I am new to the forums and I am in need of some advice. This will be my third year teaching ESL and this year a student with severe autism has tested into the program. Has anyone else had this type of situation? What support is available? I have a student with Asperger's in one of my private classes. I find that he picks up words he's interested in very quickly. It's hard to keep his attention... he goes off in his own world very easily. He hates drawing and colouring and loves mathematical things, like telling the time. It can be difficult in a class with others, as he is quite time demanding, but he's a good kid and picks up English very quickly! Each child is individual though, and so is the way autism effects them. I've never taught an autistic child but have plenty of contact with them in my personal life, and while you will have lots of challenges I hope you find it very rewarding too. It's actually Autism Awareness month here in the UK so there's plenty of material out there to help you at the moment! As kirstyjay says, every autistic child is individual, no less so than any other child, but in general some basic tips include things like keeping strictly to a pre-established routine (so the child feels secure and knows what to expect) and cutting back on the "decorative" elements in your classroom so that only images relevant to the lesson are being displayed. Keep distractions and noise (visual and aural) to a minimum if possible. Autistic children often need more processing time than others - so don't lose patience if they don't understand a concept. Take a break, do something else for a while and then return to the original concept and you will often find they now understand it very well. Symbols and simple images representing concepts work very well with most autistic children, and since they are also invaluable in an ESL classroom, they're certainly something to use plenty of! Some children with autism respond well to drama and role play activities to learn social skills, and again I would imagine this could work well in an ESL setting. Best of luck with your teaching :) Thank you all for your valuable input. It is very hard because he is in Kindergarten, and is using a lot of echolalic speech. He does pick up vocabulary very quickly. My problem lies in the state testing for ESL that the state of New York gives every year. He can answer simple yes or no questions, but when it comes to more open ended questions (which is what the state test asks) he is just not there yet. An example of a speaking question might be to finish the sentence (and it would have a picture): The girl goes to the store.... He would not be able to answer this, he only repeats. He can read a book, but if you ask what the boy did he cannot tell you. Maybe in time he can, but I don't understand how to get him there. He is in a self-contained classroom with other students that are labeled as having disabilities, but they are mainly behavior/emotional issues. The echolalic speech is a good thing because it means he is making some developmental progress in the area of speech, but besides vocabulary and role playing, I'm not sure what else I can be doing. I cannot offer any help at all with your situation, I am afraid. All I can do is to wish you luck, and say that if you find yourself feeling guilty about your inability to help this child, stop! Working with autistic children is difficult for those with specialist training and some experience. It seems to me that you have been dumped in a situation which is unfair to both you and the child. I think that Tullia has given some useful suggestions. I hope they help. If they don't, don't blame yourself. Very best wishes Teaching any child is a challenge and responsibility. No matter how professional you are at developmental psychology, today's young learners will guarantee you a lot of headache. Regarding autism, it might help to know that certain features like fear of changes, difficulties in dealing with others, repetitive behaviour and a lot of others are becoming quite common nowadays, common among those who have never been diagnosed with autism. To cut it short, there are certain golden rules which usually help in both cases: - autism and autocracy never match - there is no sense in forcing the boy into any activity/task as he either has his own point of view or just doesn't follow you. A good alternative could be to offer him a choice, for example the task for the whole group and/or something special for him like writing. Most of them find virtually any writing, even most meaningless, quite comfortable. - it usually helps to avoid eye contact. It might look ridiculous to stare at the ceiling while talking to the child, yet in this case he may be more willing to reply. - any 1-to-1 contact should be thoughtfully organised. It could be worthwhile experimenting with the distance, voice volume and body movements. The point is to attract his attention without threatening, give him enough elbow room to digest the information and enough time to come up with the answer. With small children a teddy bear or any other toy could play the role of an interpreter. Indeed, hiding behind a toy makes speaking much more comfortable and consequently easier. - in ESL class pair work is probably the only possible way to success, but it's a matter of life and death to find a suitable partner. Preferably, it is somebody easy-going, not extremely competitive and even-tempered. Clearly, it's a matter of luck. Should you find one, make sure you provide the boy in question with straightforward instructions and supportive prompts. There is a lot more about autistic pupils, but the core approach is to let them learn at their own pace. Given enough time, many of them manage to cope with their problems, acquire a thorough knowledge and develop good skills. ps. Being positive and optimistic no matter what is usually a good way to deal with any problem children. Best of luck, if there are any questions just ask	<urn:uuid:fc663497-cbc6-4e5b-acb4-a2a71a79f052>	CC-MAIN-2014-52	http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/168535-ESL-student-with-Autism?p=870234	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1419447549908.109/warc/CC-MAIN-20141224185909-00070-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.975539	1,283	2.578125	3	2.508461	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
By KRISTEN JARVIS March is National Nutrition Month. It’s a perfect time to take a closer look at how nutrition plays a role in our lives and how it can help those living with many different chronic diseases. Nutrition is a very important, but often overlooked aspect of our health and wellness. As of 2011, more than eight percent of our population (both adults and children) had diabetes. Heart disease has been the leading cause of death for both male and female minorities for the past 80 years. Other chronic conditions from poor nutrition include obesity, high blood pressure, kidney disease and high cholesterol. Nutrition is not a cure for chronic illnesses, but can lead to a healthier, longer life and in some instances, can be used in place of medicines. Doctors are (usually) willing to let patients use nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes first to help improve their health before starting them on a medication. These changes can include drinking more water, quitting smoking, cutting down on alcohol and adding more physical activity daily. Nutrition is just as beneficial for people living with HIV as any other chronic condition. People with HIV should make it a priority to consume adequate protein to keep their muscles strong in addition to eating foods with appropriate vitamins and minerals for overall health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently began the “My Plate” initiative to help consumers make better food choices. Among their recommendations are: • Make half your plate fruits and vegetables. • Make at least half your grains whole grains. • Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1 percent) milk. • Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread and frozen meals—and choose foods with lower numbers. When you are trying to work on making changes in what you eat or drink, it is best to throw out the word “diet” and instead think of it as a chance to gain new knowledge about lifestyle and food modifications that will last a lifetime. It’s easiest if you choose one or two habits that you can add in (or take away if it’s a negative habit) from what you are already doing and work on it for one week at a time. Then add in something else for the following week. It’s easier to do a few small things than to try and take on too much at once and get discouraged. A few helpful hints to start working on at the beginning of this month could be: • Cutting down on large portions (especially out at restaurants); • Drinking more water; • Being more conscious of the empty sugar calories coming from the juice and sodas you might be drinking daily; • Trying to eat consistently on a schedule; Changing eating habits can be difficult. But the payoff when you do is so great. Weight loss, more energy, and an improvement in your general health are all benefits of eating healthier. Whitman-Walker Health can help our patients with nutrition guidance. Any WWH medical patient with a chronic health condition can meet with me and receive guidance on healthier eating. Come learn how to eat healthy on a budget and how to make smarter choices at the grocery store for both you and your family’s health. You can gain the knowledge to properly read food labels, learn the differences in fats, carbohydrates and protein, and how to put together a balanced plate. Whether you are on a diabetic diet, low-sodium diet or just want to lose weight, learning basic nutrition skills today can help keep you on track for the rest of your life. To become a WWH patient, call 202-745-7000 or e-mail [email protected]. Kristen Jarvis is a registered dietician with Whitman-Walker Health. Reach her via whitman-walker.org.	<urn:uuid:7ed15abc-b476-42a8-be11-04d378ade262>	CC-MAIN-2014-35	http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/03/07/focus-on-nutrition-for-healthier-lifestyle/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500824562.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021344-00432-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.945631	782	3.484375	3	2.009141	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Tips for Staying Healthy Over the Winter As people age, it can become harder for the body to fight off illness and fully recover. The immune system weakens and other conditions can complicate a cold or the flu. Taking steps to stay healthy and protect against illness (as much as possible) is essential for seniors. From eating right and staying active to avoiding certain situations, there are many ways seniors can be proactive. Get vaccinated. December 4-11 is National Influenza Vaccine Week. If you and your loved ones haven’t already been vaccinated, now is the time. Adults age 65 and older can get a “high dose vaccine” to provide even more immune support and protection. Remember that it takes about two weeks for the vaccination to become fully effective, so still take care around individuals who may be sick. While getting a flu shot won’t guarantee that you won’t get sick – it only protects against certain strains of the flu, it can help reduce your risk. Rest up. Give your body plenty of time to rest and recover, especially if you are feeling worn down. Pushing too hard can stress your body and weaken your immune system making you more susceptible to illness. Sleep allows your body to heal and recharge, fighting off germs. Avoid individuals who are sick. As much as you want to see your grandchildren or visit with friends, if someone is ill, try to stay away until they are feeling better. Limiting your exposure to germs can help you stay healthier. In the meantime, consider using FaceTime, Skype, or another digital platform to stay in touch without sharing germs. Wash your hands. This is an effective way to reduce the spread of illness if you are vigilant about it. After you’ve been out in public, touched common items, or spent time around a lot of people, it’s a good idea to wash your hands and even change your clothes. If you can’t get to a sink, keep some hand sanitizer in your bag or car. Try to avoid touching your face as much as possible because the eyes and mouth are prime entryways for germs. Eat right. Make sure you are eating a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and lean protein. This can help boost your immune system. If you can’t find fresh produce, frozen is okay too. Consider freezing your own over the summer and fall so you have plenty come colder weather. Stay active. Regular exercise can help to stimulate your immune system, sweat out toxins, and keep illness at bay. It also supports stress management – too much stress can weaken your immune system. It’s great to go outside and get fresh air, but make sure to bundle up. Exercising at home or the gym are other options when going outside isn’t safe. If you are receiving in-home care in San Antonio, a caregiver can help with creating grocery lists, preparing meals, scheduling appointments, accompanying walks, and remembering to take medication as prescribed. They provide another sets of eyes and pair of hands to keep seniors safe and support aging in place. Caregivers from Always Best Care provide as much or as little assistance as needed and can help seniors make the most of each day – including taking steps to stay healthy and active. Schedule your free consultation today.	<urn:uuid:5ad4513f-c40f-4caf-82de-3d3279510622>	CC-MAIN-2018-51	https://www.alwaysbestcare.com/tx/san-antonio/tips-for-staying-healthy-over-the-winter/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376830479.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20181219025453-20181219051453-00376.warc.gz	en	0.957406	692	2.890625	3	1.305353	1	Basic reasoning	Health
I had a small Skype chat today with my dear Indian friend of mine Happy. She is now in situation with uncertain outcome, where the Indian government has to approve her mother's application for Visa. As being uncertain she used the classical English saying: "fingers crossed – i cross the fingers". I was curious about the origin of Crossing the Fingers and thought for a second over how Cross-ing the fingers originated and how it visually looks like. It depicts a a X cross shape, also interestingly the X is the first letter of the Greek and Slavonic IC XC depicted on each and every icon of our Savior Jesus Christ. XC – stands for Χριστός (in Greek) and in Slavonic, thus obviously crossing the fingers depicts also first letter of Χριστός – Christ – Messiah (savior of the World). Having the insight I hurried to explain Happy, why I think people used to be crossing fingers when in situation with uncertain outcome. Just out of curiosity I searched for Crossed_fingers and found it good explained in Wikipedia. After all, my assumption turned right, crossing the fingers is made not just out of old superstitious as many might thought, It was made on purpose by early times Christians. Crossing the fingers is an external expression of the Internal faith,hope,love and unceasing prayer that early Christians possessed. Crossing the fingers was very popular in times, when Christians use it as a sign to recognize each other in times of persecution. The reason for crossing the fingers is that it resembles the Sign of the Cross. It is believed even to this day in the One Holy Apostolic Church the Orthodox Church the sign of the Cross when being made invokes over one the protection and blessing of Christ. Sign of the Cross is being done in prayer in the Church in times of trouble in difficult life time events and when evil is faced. The crossed finger sign was also used as a secret way for Christians to tell each other to assemble for prayer and holy liturgy worship service. There is even symbolism in why people cross fingers with exactly those two fingers with which the gesture is done. In very ancient Church times Christians used to make the sign of the cross over their body using two fingers and not three. 4th-century icon of St. Paul the Apostle from Ephesus – Wall Painting The sign of the cross when being depicted on one's body was done with the exact two fingers with which the crossed finger gesture is completed. Today crossing the fingers is a popular "good luck" invocation automatic reaction, most people who do it as not being realized Christian don't know why they do it they just believe it will be a magical mantra like which will give them good outcome of problem or difficult situation. It is little sad that we the modern people who think we know a lot and are smart or educated, didn't know even the basics of what made us the nations we're which in the biggest part was Christian faith kept by our ancestors for centuries.	<urn:uuid:c2f04773-5a03-4cf3-b44b-78a6562a9adf>	CC-MAIN-2020-50	https://pc-freak.net/blog/tag/curiosity/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141191511.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20201127073750-20201127103750-00409.warc.gz	en	0.969323	620	2.859375	3	2.702919	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
When Texas driver's licenses first required Updated 12:29 am, Sunday, February 26, 2012 In comparison with the four-century span of recorded history in San Antonio, a couple of decades doesn't sound like much, but in the context of newspaper columns, it's not bad. The earliest version of this column debuted about 20 years ago and grew out of a regular feature, S.A. Questionnaire, in the Sunday paper. The first historical question came from a reader who found a deceased relative's driver's license, which had a single-digit number: 6. When did Texas first require drivers to be licensed, the reader asked, and who got license No. 1? In those pre-Internet days, it took a chain of phone calls — to the Department of Public Safety, the Texas State Library and other sources — to get to the answer, a surprising one to anyone who hadn't lived through the long campaign to pass a driver's license bill in Texas. Though some municipalities, such as Kansas City, Mo., issued driver's licenses, and San Antonio had flirted with the idea in the 1910s, only 18 states and the District of Columbia required them by the early 1930s. Safety organizations, women's clubs, civic groups and automobile associations all promoted their adoption, noting that traffic fatalities had been reduced by as much as 25 percent in states that required drivers to be tested. “We can see no argument against it,” said the Express, but there were several. Trucking companies didn't want to pay any more fees. Municipal and county governments worried about getting stuck with administrative expenses. Some law-enforcement authorities feared unfunded extra work for officers, and some drivers claimed that only those envious of car owners could support the measure. From the mid-1920s through the early '30s, the issue came up whenever the Texas legislature met but was never passed. What had long been referred to as the “contemplated driver's license bill” finally passed both houses and was signed Nov. 15, 1935, by Gov. James V. Allred. The new law required “any person driving a car” to have a license as of April 1, 1936; those caught driving without one were subject to a $200 fine — equivalent to more than $3,000 in today's money. Drivers had to be at least 18 years old and pass a test. There was no fee for regular licenses, which were “notarized free,” and chauffeur's licenses cost $4. The DPS was in charge of issuance, and county tax collectors collected the fees. There were provisions for suspension or revocation in cases of manslaughter with a vehicle, drunken driving, failure to “stop and render aid” or committing a felony while driving. A special driver's license office opened Feb. 15, 1936, “in the northeast corner of the basement” of the Bexar County Courthouse, where officials expected around 300,000 drivers to fill out license applications. The first Texas license was issued that day, but it's hard to say where or to whom. Numbering was done within counties, since without a computer network, DPS employees had no way of knowing if their counterparts elsewhere were issuing licenses at the same time. Gov. Allred is thought to have been the recipient, at least symbolically, of the first license, but there could be No. 1 licenses in every county. When I first researched this question, there was no Internet and no email. For every question, I needed to call people or visit libraries. People sent irreplaceable photographs by postal mail. It was only 20 years ago, but in some ways, 1992 was closer to 1935 than it was to 2012. Email Paula Allen at [email protected] com. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/sahistory- column.	<urn:uuid:11297ab8-ae17-4e67-a80d-3a9be1c01570>	CC-MAIN-2016-36	http://www.mysanantonio.com/life/life_columnists/paula_allen/article/When-Texas-driver-s-licenses-first-required-3361831.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982974985.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823200934-00037-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.979201	809	2.90625	3	2.817578	3	Strong reasoning	History
Catalan is not, as some believe, a dialect of Spanish, but a language that developed independently out of the vulgar Latin spoken by the Romans who colonised the Tarragona area. It is spoken by 9 million people in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Isles, Andorra and the town of Alghero in Sardinia. Variants of Catalan are spoken in Valencia and the Balearics, which were taken back from the Moors in the 13th century. According to Professor Albert Rossich of the University of Girona (Gerona) these variants reflect the origin of the people who repopulated these areas when the Moors were driven out. Valencia was repopulated with people from Lleida and Tortosa; the Baleares with people from Barcelona and l'Empordà in the north. Catalonia had been an autonomous province within the kingdom of Aragón but when Aragón was united with Castile with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, Castilian – ie Spanish – became the language of court and literature, while Catalan remained the popular tongue. When in 1714 Barcelona fell to Spanish troops led by the Earl of Berwick, Catalonia lost its autonomy, the central government imposed restrictions on the use of Catalan and Spanish became the official language. It wasn't until the 19th century and the rise of the nationalist cultural movement known as the renaixença that Catalan was revived as a literary language, Rossich says. However, this revival was short-lived. The fascist regime that emerged triumphant from the civil war in 1939 did everything in its power to stamp out the official and private use of Catalan. Harsh penalties were imposed for speaking it. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Spain's impoverished south further consolidated the use of Spanish as the lingua franca of Catalonia. Most of these immigrants, or their children at least, have come to understand and or speak Catalan since democracy was restored in 1978. However, large-scale immigration from Latin America over the past 10 years means just over half the Catalan population claim Spanish as their mother tongue. Since the early 1980s, the imposition of a system known as "immersion," with Catalan as the only vehicular language in state schools, has guaranteed everyone educated in the past 30 years has a command of it. However, thanks to the presence of Spanish in daily life and the media, virtually all Catalans are perfectly bilingual.	<urn:uuid:6d34cff4-7e10-4d4d-969b-2df2dcd6ba6b>	CC-MAIN-2018-22	https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/22/catalan-language-survived	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794867046.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20180525063346-20180525083346-00165.warc.gz	en	0.978289	501	3.25	3	2.930187	3	Strong reasoning	History
History of Olympic Weightlifting The Lift Up project is brought to you by chidlovski.com. by Dresdin Archibald, Canada, 2005 With the recent death of Doug Hepburn (CAN) in Vancouver there is renewed interest in this man and his role in the development of our sport. Any discussion of Doug Hepburn automatically brings up the name of Paul Anderson (USA) as well. This is due to the many similarities that they had as well as the fact that their careers overlapped for the most part. Hepburn rose and fell somewhat sooner but they did compete together for several years. Hepburn remains the only man to ever hand the Dixie Derrick a defeat. Both were heroes to their countries. Both were very colourful individuals. Both were very charismatic, with Anderson more fabled but Hepburn perhaps more mysterious. They were friends who lived at opposite corners of populated North America, Hepburn in Vancouver, BC, Anderson in Vidalia, Georgia. It now seems to be a good time to compare and contrast these giants, with a view to evaluating their contributions to the iron game. DH stood 5'8 1/2" and scaled 280 to 300 pounds at his peak. DH told me that he felt good at these weights but that he noticed that PA was always huffing and puffing and needing to sit down. DH was simply a normal man who found a way to pack on many pounds of muscle. Writer David Willoughby in his "The Strength Athletes" described him as virtually a carbon copy of fin-de-siecle vaudeville professional Louis Cyr (CAN). He usually wore a moustache, which with his thick dark hair gave him the look of an old-time strongman. His withered lower right leg, caused by a clubfoot which would not allow the otherwise healthy lower leg to be exercised, was usually disguised in some way. PA stood 5'9" and weighed around 350 pounds at his peak, although went as high as 400 and won the Olympics at "only" a lighter bodyweight 303. PA was not a normally proportioned man, it would seem. He had large bones and joints with large tendons to support the resultant large muscles. But most unusual, he had tremendous ballistic strength in his oversize legs. He was famous for his fast sprint starts. This quality would help overcome his limited mobility. DH had the less stable family background. His father left when he was very young. Eventually his mother remarried. The stepfather was not interested in Doug or his weightlifting so eventually kicked him out of the house. I don't believe he had any siblings. Except for a brief move to Edmonton he grew up in Vancouver. He is of Scottish extraction. PA however had a full intact family. I'm not sure if he had any siblings but it seems to me he didn't. The only instability was the many moves Anderson Sr. had to make while working on the TVA project. It is not certain whether he was a Scottish or a Scandinavian Anderson, but being deeply rooted in the soil of Dixie one has to put his money on a Celtic past as with DH. Neither man had the recent foreign, ethnic roots so cherished by Bob Hoffman at that time. DH was a lifelong bachelor. This would probably be due to poor social skills in his youth, poor self-image due to his handicaps, non-endearing personality traits as a self-absorbed young athlete, and uncertain financial resources later in life. PA by contrast was married (Glenda) during his 20s and had one child (Paula), although not until after his retirement. His stable family life can be attributed to his more stable personality, stable family of origin and to solid Baptist values. The Olympic lift performances shown are their best official lifts. The others have been documented frequently but their exact veracity 45 years later may be uncertain. For example, Bob Hise II claimed to have witnessed PA jerking from the rack 600x3! This would be astounding even today. It does seem to be a bit too much to believe. But we must remember his push press of 545, done in 1957 and some believe never duplicated since. That is well documented by photos – a bar with 4x45s and 2x35s plainly loaded on each end. Some reports even say 565. That would bring the 600 jerk at least a little closer to a possibility. Three reps….I don't know. Notes: * wide grip; touch and go; * depth uncertain Both men had short international careers, only two competitions each. But each took gold whenever they competed at this level. \|1953 Worlds\|\|1955 Worlds\| \|1954 Commonwealth Games\|\|1956 Olympic Games\| DH was a splitter while PA used the squat, even in the jerk (actually a power jerk). PA was the pioneer in this style. He also pulled with his arms inside his legs in the clean. Both were as strict as anyone in the press then (except Jim Bradford), even though this was their best lift and one may have expected them to try to cheat up even more. Both had technique problems caused by their physiques. While PA's bulk necessitated the above named technical modifications DH exhibited good technique despite his leg problems. The only problem was that his leg ballistic strength seemed to suffer from the clubfoot. He could always press much more than he could clean. PA could also press more than he could clean, but the difference was far less. DH had a number of mentors on his way to the top. These included Mike Poppel, Joe Weider, Ed Yarick, Charlie Smith and Al Murray. PA was most influenced by Bob Peoples, Rye Bell, Bob Hise and Bob Hoffman Both men are as revered in the sport of Powerlifting as they are in Olympic lifting. It might be fair to say that if Powerlifting had been organized in their time that they might never have bothered with the Olympic three. DH, with some help from Marvin Eder, transformed the bench press from an obscure rehab exercise into the favorite exercise of all weight trainers that it is today. He showed the world what the pecs could do. He made the bench his own by specializing on it. He also did well on the squat despite his leg problems. Conversely PA specialized on the squat and was also very good on the bench press. Prior to PA only Milo Steinborn did any specialization on the lift, doing somewhere around the 600 pound mark. It was PA that would full explore the possibilities on this lift, as DH did with the bench. He broke the unofficial record with a 660-pound effort in 1952 and moved it to anywhere from 900 to 1200, depending upon how low you wanted him to go. His performances at Muscle Beach with Dave Ashman and Chuck Ahrens did much to stimulate the coming interest in powerlifting. Neither man seemed to like working the third lift, despite excellent performances. But small hands on both probably made this lift a chore. PA had the additional reason of not wanting to beat his friend Bob Peoples' unofficial record. He knew that with more and bigger men assailing it that it would not last for long, but at least he could avoid breaking it himself. Both men had short amateur careers, sandwiched between "sandlot" training with no competitive intentions and patchwork professional careers. They each got involved in training without any goals other than to get as big and strong as possible. This was quite common in the late 40s and early 50s. Strict specialization was still in the future. Neither was in any hurry to become an Olympic champion in those days. Both were discovered by others and then steered in the right directions by them. DH had only a sporadic career as a pro strongman due to limited opportunities for such in the Canada of the 50s. PA had a little more success on the stage. He did a run in Las Vegas, squatting a special barbell using silver dollars as weight. He also appeared on Ed Sullivan and other TV shows hoping to raise money for his youth home. Both men did countless appearances wherever any audience could be found. But no decent living (or youth home funding) could be made this way. Due to the public indifference to displays of pure strength both men eventually found it necessary to embark on pro wrestling careers once they were declared professional. DH worked mainly for Whipper Watson and Frank Tunney out of Toronto while PA worked for Paul Jones of Atlanta. DH wrestled purely for the money, for his own livelihood. It is now well known that he hated the wrestling game. PA again used the activity to try to raise his profile and to raise money for his youth home. Not wanting to miss any opportunity, PA also tried boxing. Recent comments have come to light concerning the bona fides of his bouts. This seems credible when you consider that even at a slimmed down 260 pounds it would be difficult to box effectively for more than a few seconds with such a heavy and short body. In addition, his easygoing personality was ill suited to that sport. Both men even tried musical careers. DH was a good singer and actually worked lounges in the 60s. PA would backlift huge loads in his stage act while playing some wind instrument. He did this while trying to get re-instated as an amateur. Hoffman would later claim, with a straight face, at a USOC eligibility hearing that PA was a musician, not a professional weightlifter. (I wonder what Jimmy Dorsey could squat?) With both men professional "sport" raised little money but nevertheless made them ineligible for future amateur competition. Personality type is very important in weightlifter selection and would be telling with both men. DH was a typical lifter, somewhat the loner but also very much the self-sufficient type. This is good when a lot of solitary training is required. But such personalities are prone to cynicism and to brooding depression Doug did not escape these pitfalls. They dogged him all his life. He was forever bitter about his lack of recognition. PA by contrast was very outgoing and affable. This often goes with a strong ego. PA was able to take good advantage of his extroversion in his professional and evangelical work. But often such types get bored with training. This may be one of the reasons why PA was able to so easily leave amateur lifting so soon. PA had always had a dream to open his own youth home. This idea, along with his optimistic nature kept him pushing on when others might have quit. DH was the opposite. He seemed to be very unfocussed in his post weightlifting years. It seems doubtful that he would have had the same encouragement to make something of himself as Andy did. This lack of early focus undoubtedly led him to the alcoholism phase of his life. However, DH should not be counted out as a quitter. He eventually did thrive after many tough breaks. He was no stranger to adversity. He had to run his life's races with a much larger millstone around his neck than his friend ever did. He fought life all his life, eventually claiming a draw. PA we now know was plagued by Bright's disease (kidneys) his whole life. This is what forced a long layoff in the early 60s. It would always hang over his life like a suspended death sentence, which in reality it was. He was vulnerable to minor sickness, as on the Mid-East tour and at the Olympics. The man with the strongest legs in human history was forced to spend his last years in a wheelchair. DH's health, both physical and mental, was more difficult to analyze. He was born, a forceps delivery that scarred his temples, with crossed eyes (later fixed) and a clubfoot. These difficulties would surely affect him psychologically throughout his life. Indeed I believe it was the motivation that would drive him forward. He had an above average IQ but underachieved in school. He tried to make up for his real and perceived deficiencies by trying to succeed at sports. Typical for broken home, low self esteem kids. This situation almost surely sent him in the direction of our sport to seek redemption. Much of his future problems probably stemmed from this situation where a young man had unrealistic expectations of what his chosen redemption could deliver. Reality usually disappoints. When his sport failed him bitterness, paranoia and depression were sure to follow. After his brief wrestling career ended the illusion was finally over. It was time to pay the piper. His descent into alcoholism is not surprising with hindsight. Fortunately he did not lose too many years to this, and he eventually recovered. After this he was very diet and health conscious and generally physically healthy. But depression would sometimes get him down. PA, as is well known by all, was a committed Southern Baptist fundamentalist. He did a lot of evangelist work both on his own and with the Billy Graham Crusade. This again would have contributed to his sense of having both feet on the ground. It was his reason for living, before, during, and after weightlifting. He was a Christian with absolutely no doubts about any faith issue. DH, when prodded into talking about religion, always mentioned his interest in some vague form of Eastern mysticism. I'm not sure to what extent he was committed to this regime or how effective it was in his life. PA died, and remains a hero to all who ever picked up a barbell. His do-gooder youth and evangelical work only add to the esteem he is held in by his fans. He remains such a hero that some are now engaged in revisionist work, trying to sort out the fact from the myth. DH has been more of an enigma in Canada. There has been much misunderstanding of him and his life over the years. The ongoing dialogue about drugs in sports always seems ready to accuse him of steroid use despite the time-line problems such an accusation raises. His admitted usage of LSD, even as an alcoholism treatment does little to dispel this. But in general the sport community is beginning to take a second look at his contributions. Most agree that he did not get the recognition he deserved, that he took too much ridicule for no reason. During his era sport in Canada meant hockey, football and little else. Anything else could be ridiculed as freakish. He was accused of being a muscular anachronism in a modern, push button world. The feats accomplished by both men were made 45 to 50 years ago now. Some iron game critics now say that we have given enough honour to these men, that we should now relegate their reputations to the past and that we should see that they remain there. After all, athletes in much lower weight categories now routinely surpass the performances of both men, glorious as they were when first made. Chinese women may even soon surpass Hepburn's relatively weak quick lifts. Time has rendered their hard won performances ordinary. And now new heroes are waiting to be honoured while the public seems caught in the past. Why then are these men still the subject of countless awe-inspired gym discussions all over the continent? Is this simply a matter of old-timers who won't give up their past? Is it because today's athletes offer no new excitement? Is it because of today's drug problem in sport that we may wish to continually re-visit a more pristine past? Why? I think the answer lies in both their significance at the time and the legacy that they have left the sport. Doug Hepburn was a new world champion when thoughtful Canadian hockey observers (yes, there were a few) could see that the one sport we could rely on to win a world title may not be so easy in future. Doug Hepburn showed that not every athlete was perfectly suited to the mainstream sports. That some might be better at something else. That it may be better to continue and excel in some obscure sport than to be chewed up and spit out by the system at age 14, never to try sport again. It would be years before the sport establishment would realize this but realize it they did. The fact that most of these new sports, as well as the old ones, would require serious weight training only adds to Hepburn's significance. While similar things could be said about Anderson and American sport, they did have other heroes that paved the way for non-traditional sports. Andy's great contribution was in his timing. Just as Canada was losing its hockey hegemony the USA and Team Hoffman was losing theirs in our sport. Hoffman's system of developing athletes, so eloquently described in Fair's "Muscletown USA" had limitations that could not defeat the coming Red juggernaut with its massive state support, coaching systems, etc. First the smaller categories were being taken over by Soviets. No problem. America is not a land of little men, Vinci and Berger notwithstanding. But then fell the middle ones, right up to 90 kg. Just as the future was being unfolded comes a giant good-old-boy from the red clay of the Georgia piedmont. Any Hollywood scriptwriter who tried writing this story would surely be fired for being just too corny. But it was true. The WR press in Gorky Park, the State Dept trip around the world, the Munich assault on the records, the squeaker in Melbourne all pointed to one thing. That was that when Uncle Sam needed a hero just when things looked bad, one did emerge. The Soviets may indeed have great lightweights but the USA had a super that was a full 70 kilos better than his best opposition. Weightlifting is not a big sport but in the Cold War it was an important one for propaganda purposes. The Strongest Man in the World still ate grits for breakfast, not borscht. In addition to their personal characteristics we have their legacy. We must remember what the WL world looked like then. Heavyweights were often only 200 pounds or so. Big men existed then, but they were often unathletic and very overweight good pressers perhaps but forget the quick lifts. John Davis was the perennial World Heavyweight Champion. He stood 5'8" and weighed anywhere from 200 to 225 pounds. At the latter figure he looked a little soft. But he was very explosive, even though his technique could not pass today's muster. Not a big man to be sure, but athletic enough to propel his lifts fast enough to make the first 400 CJ. The conventional wisdom was that big men should be trained in a more leisurely fashion, but seldom with a thought about gaining muscular bodyweight. It was not thought that more bodyweight would help your total. It would only make you slower. Davis would be counted as one of the greatest ever 90 kg lifters if that category existed in his time. As it was he could still rule the supers due to his talent and the fat, slow supers of that era. But then came Hepburn, who trained like a combination bodybuilder-powerlifter. This combined with his obsessive personality helped make him very strong before he ever knew what Olympic lifting was. In a time when very little information was available, and so much was still to be learned athletes had to do a lot of experimenting as to exercises, reps, sets, intensity, etc. Some went down the wrong alley; others found systems that worked, mostly by trial and error. Lots of error. But it seems that Hepburn made few errors in his experimenting. Willoughby thought that he seemed to have greater ability to progress than most trainees, but Hepburn disagreed. He told me that he was only a normal, regular man, not naturally big at all. He just trained a lot harder than most. If lifting would make him bigger and stronger, then he would lift until he was blue in the face. He knew little about cycling, need for rest, etc. But in this process he seems to have discovered that lifters could tolerate and even thrive on a greater volume and intensity. This added to his size and size added to his strength. No old fashioned lazy training for big men, just more work. He pushed back the barriers of what was considered the appropriate amount of work. He served notice that in future years no fattened up 82er with good ballistics would ever be able to win again. You better be very big. So the year after Hepburn's Worlds win Norb Schemansky went up to super weighing 16 kg more than the previous year. In future years the once hard gaining "Ski" would gain another 20 kg to become a pressing threat after a youth famous for quick lifts only. Then in 1955 came Anderson, bigger yet, albeit with a lot of surplus. As time went on progressively heavier men attacked the bar. Technique lagged behind size, but eventually caught up. All were reminded that it was not a sin to gain muscle, and that untimately only muscle lifts iron. Both men speeded up the evolution of the sport. They showed what greater intensity and size would accomplish. And not only our sport benefited. Eventually football, hockey, and even boxing learned how to properly train average sized men to be big and big men to be both strong and fast. We would have discovered these secrets sooner or later. But it would have been later if our sport did not have eccentric athletes willing to experiment with new training methods. The weights they lifted they lifted clean and decades before the powerlifters today who demand a share of their glory. Can these knockers say the same? That is the legacy of Doug Hepburn and Paul Anderson. Back to Feature Articles	<urn:uuid:8eab2e27-2e64-48be-9988-bd0fdd0c991b>	CC-MAIN-2017-17	http://www.chidlovski.net/liftup/a_anderson_n_hepburn.asp	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917119642.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031159-00128-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.990446	4,416	2.59375	3	2.954081	3	Strong reasoning	Sports & Fitness
Late last week, we revealed that the elaborate, fenced-in spires spotted in the Peruvian Amazon are made by spiders. We were with a team of scientists on the ground in Peru, who watched as three spiderlings hatched from eggs concealed at the base of the towers. But the scientists are still trying to figure out what kind of spider is building these intricate silk structures — a very hard task when you’ve only got photos and video of three, two-day-old spiderlings to go on. Unfortunately, the team had to leave Peru before the spiders grew up, so the spiders’ final adult form remains unknown. We’ve asked experts in both arachnology and the evolution of spider silk for their opinions on what species those tiny spiderlings could be. We’ve also received reports of these structures appearing in other places; now that people know what to look for, will we find that these silky spires have been hiding in plain sight, all over the world? Can we learn anything from their geographic distribution? So far, we’ve been able to confirm, using photos and descriptions, additional sightings in Ecuador and French Guiana. Both of those structures were seen in neotropical areas similar to the one we visited in Peru, near the Tambopata Research Center. The structure in French Guiana was spotted nearly a decade ago by biologist Julien Grangier, a post-doc at the University of Lyon, in France. Photographer Brian Lee saw the Ecuadorian structure last January, on an island in an Amazon tributary. We’ve also gotten unconfirmed reports of sightings from Brazil, several places in the United States, and Belgium, and are awaiting photos from those locations. In Peru, we only saw the structures on a small island near the research center, along a stretch of trail running through stands of cecropia and bamboo. Now, what the confirmed South American sightings suggest is that the critter responsible is more widespread that we’d initially thought – but that it might be picky about the kind of habitat it lives in. Alas, identifying the spider responsible for the structures has proven to be much more difficult than searching for more sightings. What little we know about the spiders themselves comes from the photos and video of the tiny newborns climbing the silk fences. And, it seems, those records aren’t going to be good enough for a specific identification. “There is no way a photo can show me all the info I would need to make an accurate identification,” said Norm Platnick, curator emeritus of spiders at the American Museum of Natural History. “If these specimens exist, they should be examined by a competent arachnologist. If they don’t exist, there is no real knowledge achievable.” It gets worse. Even under the best of circumstances, identifying spiders is hard. “Keying out spiders was the one lab I taught in which I made sure to have chocolate and tissues on hand for the inevitable nervous breakdown by a student,” said Gwen Pearson, entomologist and WIRED bug blogger. Arachnologists normally rely on mature, adult specimens for identifications. If they have these specimens in hand, they’ll carefully study the spiders’ eyes, front and back legs, claws, and reproductive organs. Of these, the latter bits are the most crucial for identifying a mature spider down to the level of species. “The truly diagnostic characters are all with genitalia,” said Chris Buddle, an entomologist at McGill University. That means adult animals will be necessary to make a definitive ID. But in the Amazon, researchers only have these freshly hatched spiderlings, which could take weeks or months to mature into their adult forms. As they grow, the features used to identify a spider’s species will begin develop. Despite the difficulties involved, some brave experts have been willing to speculate about what kind of spider we’re looking at — and what we aren’t looking at. Less specific identifications – for instance, at the family level – can sometimes be made based on the arrangement of a spiders’ eyes, which vary significantly among families. “Some families can be identified clearly by eye arrangement,” said Joe Lapp, who used to manage the spider collection for the University of Texas in Austin. “Some families sport a variety of not-too-different eye arrangements that overlap with spider of other families.” The eyes seem to rule out Salticidae – jumping spiders. “I think you can rule out some families, including Salticidae, due to the relatively small size of the anterior median eyes, and the positions of the other eyes,” said William Eberhard, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. In other words, the spiderlings lack adult jumping spiders’ characteristic big-eyed cuteness. Other clues come from the silky tower itself. For starters, based on the silk in the structures, it seems likely we’re looking at a spider in the superfamily Orbiculariae, says Leslie Brunetta, who’s studied the evolution of spider silk. This superfamily includes spiders that weave cribellate silk, which is fluffy and frizzy like the silk in the fences, as well as all the spiders that spin orb-shaped webs. Over time, some of these spiders’ descendants have modified their orb webs to the point that they no longer resemble the original orb shape. Brunetta suggests the corral could be one of these modified orbs, with sturdy fence posts connected by fluffy, cribellate silk. An alternative idea, suggested by two arachnologists, is that the tower-building spiders belong to the family Mimetidae, which makes cocoons that are similar to the towers. At least superficially. Known colloquially as Pirate Spiders, this is a group that cannibalizes other spiders. Instead of spinning webs of their own, Mimetids crawl into the webs of other spiders and mimic tangled up prey. Then, when the spider approaches, they bite into its foreleg and paralyze it. Then, dinner. “I think the spiderling is in the vicinity of Mimetidae,” said Jonathan Coddington curator of arachnids at the National Museum of Natural History. But Coddington acknowledges the difficulty in identifying spiders at such an early stage of development. “It is feckless to try to identify second-instar spiderlings,” he said. “If you look at the cocoon itself, it looks a bit like Mimetidae, or Theridiidae,” said Peter Jaeger, head of arachnology at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. “It is only a superficial similarity, but nevertheless, the silk piles around the egg sac, together with the 3-D threads, is amazing.” Jaeger suggests these structures don’t appear to be the work of the crazy corpse spiders we found hiding in spooky nests near the structures. These spiders live in nests camouflaged with prey corpses. Scientists have seen them near the tower structures, but Jaeger doesn’t see any reason to think they built the fenced-in spires: Usually, these spiders lay their eggs inside their creepy nests of death. Alexandre Bonaldo, a curator at the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi in Brazil, questions whether the spiders spotted near the towers actually built the corpse-ridden nests at all. “That second spider is a Corinninae,” Bonaldo said. He notes that Corinninae often occupy old retreats made by other spiders, rather than building their own creepy, corpse-covered houses. Moreover, the spiderlings that emerged from the tower don’t look like Corinninae anyway, Bonaldo says. “I can’t give you a positive identification, but it isn’t a Corinninae.” Another idea, by far the most detailed we’ve heard so far, comes from arachnologist John Kochalka of Paraguay’s National Museum of Natural History. Kochalka suspects the spiderling belongs to an undescribed genus within the subfamily Hadrotarsinae — a group of very tiny spiders whose adults often grow to only several millimeters long. “The adult spider is not much bigger than the hatchling, which explains why the female can only lay one egg at a time,” Kochalka said, noting that some Hadrotarsinae also make a conical egg sac. He also considered the location where the structures were spotted — along a trail lined by cecropia trees, which have hollow trunks normally inhabited by ants. The tiny towers were also clustered in areas where tree trunks were covered in lichen. “My latest thoughts are that the spider in question is a specialist in eating ants, as some — or most — Hadrotarsinae are known to do,” Kochalka said. “The female chooses a site where she knows there will be lots of very small ants to feed her baby. The picket fence is a very specific adaptation to keep ants out, and incidentally also serves as a lichen/fungus mimic for camouflage.” As Kochalka noted, additional clues to the spider’s identity might come from the fence itself. One possibility is that it’s built simply to deter predators who might fancy a bit of spiderling sashimi. In the Amazon, research assistant Geena M. Hill, from the Florida Museum of Natural History, watched as a large ant crawling down a cecropia tree went out of its way to avoid the woven fence – and towering egg sac — in its path. But it’s also possible the fences are acting to trap food for the spiderlings, such as mites, which were seen crawling inside and stuck on many of the fences. Ultimately, we still don’t know what kind of spider is making these strange structures, and if it’s a new species, or a known species doing something that hasn’t yet been formally described. Have you seen a structure like these? Do you have any ideas about what these spiders could be? Let us know in the comments. Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 8:45 a.m. Pacific time to include the opinions of arachnologist John Kochalka.	<urn:uuid:0c6564d4-c858-4be3-934c-ccac74693326>	CC-MAIN-2015-18	http://www.wired.com/2013/12/mysterious-structures-amazon/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246654687.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045734-00152-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.957798	2,211	2.953125	3	3.038353	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Bring Your Own Device - Years 5 - 8 Why introduce BYOD? The learning needs of students in the 21st century are different to those of previous generations. The NZ Curriculum reflects this need with a strong focus on promoting digitally capable, global citizens. Technology is moving at a fast pace and many of the careers we are preparing our students for do not yet exist. Skill-sets no longer revolve around merely learning facts, as this information is now at our fingertips. Digital learning enables teachers and students to access the curriculum in meaningful ways. Using devices and digital literacy at primary school helps our students foster a smoother transition to college. Why are Chromebooks the preferred device at PBS? Chromebooks are our preferred device option; many other NZ schools are already using this device and finding it the ideal choice for classrooms. Some of the reasons for this are: a long battery life (requiring no charging throughout the school day), attached keyboard and reasonable size screen, able to get online quickly, lightweight for carrying between home and school. Having one preferred device also increases equity between students e.g. they are all on a level playing field. Chromebooks are also a preferred device at both local Colleges, which means Year 8 students can keep using them through to Year 13. Students will be using Google Classroom as their main learning platform, which enhances their ability to work collaboratively and share work between home and school, teachers, parents and peers. The Chromebook is designed to get you on the web as quickly as possible. They’re faster, simpler, and more secure than traditional computers. If you’re the kind of person to do everything online, a Chromebook will help you stay connected and get more out of the web. Parent asked: What makes Chromebooks different? - All your work is done in a browser. Send mail, edit photos, create documents — you can do all of these activities in the browser, thanks to thousands of apps on the web. There’s no complicated software to install. - All your stuff is saved on the web. Everything -- your apps, documents, settings -- are all stored safely on the web, and not on the device. So you’ll have constant access to your stuff even if you're using another computer. - You can surf the web anytime, anywhere. Chromebooks connect quickly to your preferred wireless or wired networks. Some Chromebook models also come with built-in mobile broadband access, so you can get online anywhere you can make a phone call. - Chromebooks start up fast and last all day long. Chromebooks start up quickly and resume instantly from sleep. Your favorite websites load quickly, with full support for the latest web standards and Adobe Flash. Last but not least, you don’t need to worry about power because the battery lasts all day. - Your device will always be up-to-date. Each time you turn your Chromebook on, it automatically updates itself with the latest features, hardware and system updates, and anti-virus software. - You can safely share your device, not your information. People can sign in with their own Google Accounts on your device to access their own Chrome apps, bookmarks, and settings. Or they can browse the web as a guest, without signing in. Either way, your personal files are never accessible outside your account. - You are protected by built-in security. Each webpage and application you visit runs in a restricted environment. So visiting one page that’s been infected with something malicious can’t affect anything else on your computer. - You won't need that much RAM. Since you won’t have client apps to manage, you don’t need that much RAM--everything you’re doing is taken care of by super fast and super secure supercomputers. The Ministry of Education is clear that children should not be disadvantaged if they lack a device. How will PBS address this? Finance is something we are aware of and equity is important to us. This is one of the reasons we prefer one device option as it raises equity and provides a level playing field. We will work with families in need and have some school-owned devices on hand for such students.	<urn:uuid:7d4e384b-0a1c-46cf-a60e-edbe1637d3da>	CC-MAIN-2020-45	http://ultranet.paraparaumubeach.school.nz/Web/642/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107878633.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20201021205955-20201021235955-00715.warc.gz	en	0.944329	884	2.78125	3	1.953042	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
The letter "M" is for moon, mountain and mouse! Your little one can have fun reviewing his ABC's with this puzzle that he can make himself. A cloud, a cat and cheese have something in common: the letter C! Your little learner will have fun learning about "C" with this letter puzzle. 'A' is a great place to start learning the ABCs! This simple letter puzzle is a fun, engaging way to introduce your child to the alphabet. B is for beginning...to read! Help your kindergartener cut out and piece together this simple, colorful puzzle full of "B" words. Dogs, dolls, and drums, oh my! Your kindergartener will get plenty of letter practice with this delightful "D" letter puzzle. Help your little learner get ready to read with this colorful letter puzzle. Examine "E" words, with corresponding pictures of an elephant, egg and eye. Feast your eyes on this "F" letter puzzle! Show your kindergartener why F stands for fun with this simple, colorful jigsaw puzzle. A goat, glass and grapes need your kid's help in this great letter puzzle! Piece together this home-made jigsaw puzzle to learn a few "G" words and pictures. This "H" puzzle will keep your little learner happy and his mind healthy. Help him hone motor skills by solving this alphabet jigsaw puzzle. Get your kindergartener interested in "I" with a cheery letter puzzle. He'll be learning sight words and honing motor skills as he pieces the puzzle together. What joy you and your little learner can have with this simple letter 'J' jigsaw puzzle! Cut the pieces on the dotted lines to create the pieces. Kick-start alphabet learning for your kindergartener with this kooky "K" jigsaw puzzle! Your child can practice reasoning skills as he practices his ABC's. The letter 'L' and learning go together! Share this fun alphabet puzzle page with your little one, and he'll get to learn some new 'L' sight words. Here's a fun way for your kindergartener to learn the letter'N. He can cut out an alphabet puzzle, full of pictures and sight words all about the letter N! 'O' is for orange, owl and one in this charming puzzle! Your little one can learn the letter 'O' in a fun, interactive way. The letter 'Q' is quite fun to learn with this activity! Your kindergartener can cut out his own alphabet puzzle to help him review the letter 'Q'. What kinds of words start with the letter 'R'? Your little reader can learn sight words as he reviews his ABC's with this fun puzzle. A star shines, a snake slithers and a strawberry is sweet! Those words are perfect for learning the letter 'S' in this alphabet puzzle. 'T' is for terrific, just like this alphabet puzzle! Your young one can have fun while learning words that start with 'T.' Help your beginning reader learn her ABC's with a puzzle she can cut out herself! She'll learn "U" sight words as she pieces these colorful pictures together. 'V' is for victory, and very fun! Help your child learn some sight words that start with the letter 'V' with this cut-out jigsaw puzzle. Here's a fun way for your child to review the letter 'W'. She can cut out this alphabet puzzle herself, a great way to hone fine motor skills. Can you think of words that start with the letter 'X'? Give your little reader a review of this tricky letter of the alphabet with a fun puzzle. Help your beginning reader review his ABC's with this colorful puzzle, full of 'Y' sight words and colorful pictures to piece together. Little readers can learn all about the letter 'Z' with this alphabet puzzle, full of colorful pictures and sight words starting with 'Z'. Practice putting together a "P" puzzle with this picture perfect printable! Your child can cut out these pieces to create his own alphabet puzzle.	<urn:uuid:361dd23c-ba1c-43e7-b40b-75e5e3ed16ad>	CC-MAIN-2015-11	http://www.education.com/collection/maryellenmorris/letter-puzzles/?viewall	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936463606.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074103-00181-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.927801	858	3.640625	4	0.663396	1	Basic reasoning	Education & Jobs
A protocol describes a set of rules or procedures that a given task must follow. It identifies the conventions that work on an object, such as how to make connections for communication or file transfer, or connectivity. However, it is silent about how to perform the operations, only stating what they are. Here are three protocols: transfer, e-mail and program development. Transfer protocols move files and data from one location to another. Two computers in the operation are required: one is a transferring server and the other a receiving client. Several file transfer protocols include the following: FTP (file transfer protocol) allows the transfer of files. It establishes a connection to a remote client and transfers the files until completed, and then it disconnects. The connection can be in an internal network or over the Internet. Developed in 1971, this protocol served as one of the objectives for the development of the Internet. Xmodem is an alternative to the FTP protocol. It was popular with bulletin board services in the late 1970s because of its simplicity and ease of use. Kermit is a binary (0's and 1's) and text file transfer protocol designed in the early 1980s. For the transfer to occur a file conversion takes place to binary format before transmittal and then converted back afterwards. This allowed for file transfers over dissimilar systems. The advantage of these file transfer protocols is that they share information between different computer systems and different formats. The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) allows an e-mail client to access e-mail messages on a remote e-mail server. IMAP supports two modes of operation: online and offline. In online mode, e-mail clients using IMAP leave the e-mail messages on the server until the user purposely deletes them. In offline mode, the e-mail is downloaded and then deleted. This characteristic of the IMAP operation allows multiple clients to manage the same mailbox. The upshot is that the mail stays on the server automatically until deleted. POP (Post Office Protocol) is an alternate e-mail protocol that supports simple download and delete for access to remote mailboxes. Most POP clients have an option to leave e-mail on the server after download. However, e-mail clients typically follow this procedure. They connect to the server, retrieve their messages, store them on the user's local PC and then delete them from the server and disconnect. The upshot is, the mail is automatically deleted unless kept. The advantage of both of these protocols is enhanced e-mail management. Software Developer Protocols Software developers use protocols in their work. Platform-based database protocols like JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity) or ADO (active x database objects) have a performance advantage. Also, flexibility and reuse are two main advantages of using a neutral platform protocol such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).This is a protocol specification that facilitates the exchange of structured information in web services. By using protocols, software architects and program developers can determine the opportunity cost of the project, that is, whether the development is going to be faster versus whether the program is going to be faster. These performance versus flexibility alternatives affect the coding decision, which impacts the way the program will run. The advantage of using these protocols is that they improve the performance of programs and provide flexibility in program design.	<urn:uuid:6521ea38-53a5-4d77-a5ad-2244aafb0f76>	CC-MAIN-2017-09	https://www.techwalla.com/articles/the-advantages-of-protocols	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501172017.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104612-00118-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.916761	688	4.09375	4	2.182452	2	Moderate reasoning	Software Dev.
Growth of phage materials Isolate bacteriophage from bacterial culture, measure phage concentration, and complex phage with gold nanoparticles at the assigned ratios. The accomplishments of the natural world can inspire us to great engineering feats. Biomineralization is one particularly impressive trick nature pulls off. Vertebrates, invertebrates and plants all have ways to precisely position inorganic substrates into crystalline order. For example, calcium carbonate will form unstructured dust in the absence of genetically-programmed organizers, but the same material can be made into the hard and luminous shells of sea creatures. Similarly, diatoms organize silicon dioxide into intricate patterns that manufacturers of electronic components can’t begin to approach. In one more instance, bacteria align iron inside their cytoplasm to form magnetic rods on the submicron scale. These feats are accomplished without harsh chemicals, without extreme temperatures, and without noxious wastes that poison the nests of the organisms themselves. Humans have a lot to learn from nature’s successes. In the upcoming weeks we’ll use a virus that infects bacteria, namely the bacteriophage M13, and we'll rely on the self-assembling coat of this virus to template carbon nanotubes or gold nanoparticles and TiO2. The interaction of these materials with a protein on the phage coat yields nanoscale-particles with useful energetic properties, as we’ll see. M13 bacteriophage is a member of the filamentous phage family. This well studied phage is roughly 880 nm long, has a diameter of about 6.5 nm, and a mass of approximately 16.3 MDa. Of this mass, 87% is accounted for by the structural coat proteins which encase the single stranded DNA genome of about 6.4 kb. The M13 genome encodes 11 proteins, five of which compose the phage’s protein coat and six of which are involved in phage maturation inside its E. coli host. The phage coat is primarily assembled from a 50 amino acid protein called pVIII (or p8), which is sensibly enough encoded by gene VIII (or g8) in the phage genome. For a wild type M13, there are approximately 2,700 copies of p8 which pack together to build the majority of the ~880 nm long coat. The coat's dimensions are flexible though and the number of p8 copies adjusts to accommodate the size of the single stranded genome it packages. In contrast, there are typically only about five copies of each of the other four coat proteins, located at opposite ends of the mature virion. Of note, pIII (or p3) is a 406 amino acid protein found at one end of the phage, and is responsible for recognizing the host E. coli. From a biological engineering perspective, this bacteriophage provides an efficient and modular platform allowing for either random or specific genetic alterations of the phage DNA to be related to phenotypic changes of the phage surface. For example, genetically encoded fusions to the surface coat proteins can be used to display peptides with the ability to bind materials with which the wild type phage would normally not interact. Electron micrographs of microphage described by Specthrie et al[ ], images courtesy of Esther Bullitt E. coli shedding M13 with p3 mutation, image courtesy of M. Russel and schematic of M13 genome, image courtesy of M. Blaber The general stages to a viral life cycle are: infection, replication of the viral genome, assembly of new viral particles and then release of the progeny particles from the host. Filamentous phages use a protein at their tip, namely p3, to contact a bacterial structure known as the F pilus to infect E. coli. Through mechanisms which are not fully elucidated, the phage genome is then translocated into the cytoplasm of the bacteria where resident proteins convert the single stranded DNA genome to a double stranded replicative form (RF). This DNA then serves as a template for expression of the phage genes and produces new phage particles that shed off the surface of the infected cell. While other phage are known to lyse their host cells, M13 and E. coli co-exist in a balanced way, allowing the growth of both host and virus, although the infection does slow down the doubling time of the E. coli, causing plaques to form in a bacterial lawn. has been used for decades as a tool for discovery. This technique exploits natural selection and identifies functional peptide sequences that can be fused to the phage coat. Fusions are usually added to either p3 or p8, with p3 accommodating larger peptides and p8 providing higher valency, in general. A library of genetic sequences encoding random peptides can be synthesized and cloned into the M13 genome; in this way a pool of phage each with different peptide fusions can be made. Finally, the phage pool can be screened for interesting behaviors or properties. Peptide-fusion proteins to p8 or p3 that include stop codons or intolerable sequences are largely lost from the population after the first round of “panning.” Other phage that can bind to a substance of interest or show enzyme activity or glow green…, these remain and can be directly isolated from the pool or further enriched by a second, third, fourth round of panning. Ultimately anywhere from 10 to 1000 candidate sequences may remain from a starting pool of 1 billion Despite phage display techniques being available for more than a generation, this tool has been applied only recently to the search for novel materials. Largely it’s been Angela Belcher and her lab who highlighted and then demonstrated the usefulness of this search tool for finding peptides that interact with materials to meet human needs. That M13 could interact with inorganic materials could not have been predicted from the original genetic studies on the phage, but there was also no one who had tried it. Phage that can bind to cobalt oxide, gold, iridium and indium tin oxide are all in-hand thanks to their work (e.g see reference ). Today you will harvest phage that can bind to gold nanoparticles and TiO2 since these can be used to build nanocomposites that will be assembled into a photovoltaic device before this module is over. In preparation for this lab, a bacterial host E. coli K12 ER2738 (New England Biolabs) was infected with the M13 phage clone named p8#9 that can bind thin gold films (PMID: 16178252). This infection allowed for amplification of phage as the bacterial culture was incubated over night. These particular phage clones are modified with an 8 amino acid addition to the surface-exposed terminus of the p8 protein -- VSGSSPDS. Phage were obtained by panning, starting with a library of p8 mutants and isolating phage that could bind materials. Behind the scenes Cherry and members of the Belcher Laboratory have also prepared another phage clone, DSPH, that can bind single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) (doi:10.1038/nnano.2011.50) by incorporating the DSPHTELP peptide into p8. They will prepare solar cells utilizing the DSPH phage and SWNTs that you can use to as a comparison for your gold nanoparticle-based solar cells. Today, you will isolate phage from the infected bacterial culture and measure its concentration using the spectrophotometer. Finally, you will bind the phage to 5, 20, or 50 nm gold nanoparticles. These phage will be used as a template for TiO2 nanowire synthesis incorporated in the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) in future lab sessions. Part 1: Phage purification - Divide the overnight culture (~80 ml volume) into 2 x 50 ml conical tubes. - Label the tubes with your group color and phage type. - Spin 3,250 rpm, 10 minutes using a fixed angle rotor. The TA will help you load your samples into the centrifuge located on the TA bench. - Transfer the supernatant to new 50 ml conical tubes, splitting the supernatant between them. The transfer should be done with a plastic pipet and a bulb so you can measure the volume of supernatant. - Add a 1/6th that volume of 20% PEG-8000/2.5M NaCl solution. - Invert to mix, then incubate on ice 60 minutes. During this time, you can finish up your reflections, or start thinking about the culminating 20.109 assignment described here. - Spin at 3,250 rpm for 15 minutes. A white pellet may be visible: these are your precipitated phage. If you can't see a pellet keep going, but be aware of where the pellet you can't see is in the tube and don't scrape a tip against it or you will accidentally remove it. Hint: Mark the tube where you expect the pellet to form when as you load it into the centrifuge. - Remove the supernatant by pouring most down the sink and the rest with aspiration (carefully so as not to disturb the pellet). - Resuspend the pellet in 3 ml sterile H2O. This is best done by adding 3 ml of H2O to one of the conical tubes, washing the water up and down the side of the tube with the phage pellet, and then moving the 3 ml of phage solution to the second tube and dissolving that pellet as well by washing the water up and down the side of the tube. - Split the phage solution between three eppendorf tubes. For this part of the protocol, you will be given special eppendorf tubes that can hold 2 ml. - Spin tubes in a room temperature microfuge for 1 minute to remove residual bacterial residues. Transfer supernatant to fresh eppendorf tubes. - Add a 1/6th volume of 20% PEG-8000/2.5M NaCl solution. - Invert to mix, then incubate on ice for 15 minutes. - Spin the tubes full speed in a microfuge for 10 minutes. - Aspirate the supernatant and resuspend the pellets (if you can see them) in 0.2 ml TBS--using 0.2 ml to resuspend one pellet and moving that volume to resuspend the next pellet, and then moving that volume again to resuspend the third pellet. This is your phage stock (yay!). - If the solution looks at all cloudy, spin in a room temperature microfuge for 1 minute more and move supernatant with the phage to a new tube. Part 2: Measuring concentration of phage With this technique you will calculate the concentration of phage in your stock using the spectrophotometer. This method can approximate the number of phage based on the ability of the virions to absorb ultraviolet light. The number of phage is calculated by the formula: Number of phage particles/ml = (6x10^16)(A269 - A320)/(#DNA Bases in the genome of the phage) - the molar extinction coefficient of the phage and the average size of a DNA base are used collected into the constant - the absorbance at 269 nm reflects the protein and DNA content in the solution - the absorbance at 320 nm corrects for the naturally high baseline value of the solution - the number of DNA bases in DSPH is ~7220. This method for titering the phage stock is less informative than the traditional plaque method (known as titering) since materials other than phage might be contributing to the absorbance readings. Thus, the number of infectious particles isn't truly known. Since infectivity is not critical for the synthesis of SWNT-TiO2 nanowires,however, we will be using spectrophotometry only. - Dilute the phage stock you have 1:10 by adding 70 ul of the phage to 630 ul of TBS, vortex to mix and then move this solution to a quartz (not plastic!) cuvette. - A few things to be aware of when using quartz cuvettes: - They are very expensive. - The lab has very few. - When you are done using your cuvette, you should carefully clean it by shaking out the contents into the sink and rinsing it once with 70% EtOH, then two times with water. Quartz cuvettes get most of their chips and cracks when someone is shaking out the contents since it is so easy for the cuvette to slip from wet fingers or be hit against the sink. Don’t let this happen to you. - Read the absorbances of your phage dilution at 269 and 320, using TBS in a second quartz cuvette to blank the spectrophotometer at each wavelength. - Calculate the number of phage particles/ml using the formula shown above. Part 3: Binding phage to solar cell enhancers: Complexing phage with gold nanoparticles The class will be optimizing the solar cell's performance by comparing the influence of gold nanoparticles versus SWNT’s on efficiency metrics. In order to make the best use of our time, each team will bind their phage to one of the material parameters in the table below. Performance results between all groups and conditions will be compared after solar cell assembly at the end of the module. \|\|AuNP Size (nm) \|\|AuNP Size (nm) Part 3: Complexing phage with Gold nanoparticles - Each group will complex the gold and phage at the same mass ratio: 1.45x10^-17 grams of gold / phage - You'll need the following information about your teams specific AuNP size: 5nm particles 6.32x10-5 g/ml 50nm particles 5.68x10^-5 g/ml - Calculate the volume of AuNP solution that you need using the following equation: total gold needed in ml = (Total number of phage) (1.45X10^-17 g gold / phage) * (1 / (concentration of gold in nanoparticles)) - You should use all of the phage that you have left in your reaction. - Obtain a glass scintillation vial and mix phage and nanoparticles together. Store in the refrigerator and leave it until you return to lab. - The quartz cuvettes can be returned, clean, to the instructors bench at the front of the room. Due on M3D2 - The primary assignment for this experimental module will be for you to develop a research proposal and present your idea to the class. For next time, please describe five recent findings that could potentially define an interesting research question. You should hand in a 3-5 sentence description of each topic, in your own words, and also formally cite an associated reference from the scientific literature. The topics you pick can be related to any aspect of the class, i.e. DNA, system, or biomaterials engineering. During lab next time, you and your partner will review the topics and narrow your choices, identifying one or perhaps two topics for further research. - Note: for this assignment, you do not need to have a novel research idea sketched out; you simply have to describe five recent examples of existing work. However, you can start to brainstorm how to build off of those topics into something new if you want to get ahead of the game. 20% PEG 8000, 2.5 M NaCl - 50 mM Tris - 150 mM NaCl - pH 7.6 - 0.5844 g/liter, pH to 5.3 or 10 - Ted Pella 5, 20, and 50 nm gold particles Next Day: Biotemplating on phage nanowires Previous Day: Data analysis	<urn:uuid:818f87d5-682b-4aab-885b-9e55891719ec>	CC-MAIN-2019-35	https://openwetware.org/wiki/20.109(S15):Growth_of_phage_nanowires_(Day_1)	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-35/segments/1566027316718.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20190822022401-20190822044401-00413.warc.gz	en	0.90579	3,398	3.5625	4	2.773219	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Landowners on Central Oregon’s Deschutes River and its tributaries would have at least 12 years without facing water-diversion limits or other restrictions triggered by the presence of a newly reintroduced steelhead that’s on the endangered species list. A federal agency Monday announced it was taking this unusual step as part of the reintroduction of steelhead in tributaries above Round Butte Dam near Madras, Ore. The hatchery-raised fish are being reintroduced as part of an effort to help recover Middle Columbia steelhead. Fisheries officials had already spent several years preparing for the first juvenile steelhead to be reintroduced when that population was listed in 2006 as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Fisheries officials were already planning to reestablish the steelhead in the Deschutes and its tributaries when the steelhead was listed. Juveniles were first released in Deschutes tributaries in 2007. Under the original Endangered Species Act, “take rules” – restrictions on activities that harm a protected species — would be imposed immediately after the appearance of a federally listed steelhead, said Scott Carlin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Services. But an amendment to the act allows the government to designate a species as “experimental,” so such restrictions can be put on hold. Monday’s proposal would give that designation to the Deschutes’ hatchery-raised steelhead. If it’s adopted, Carlin said, the government will have the leeway to provide legal protection to anyone who harms the fish, so long as they aren’t doing anything unlawful. In other words, Carlin said, landowners, municipalities, and others who might otherwise be hit with a new set of restrictions can carry on with their currently lawful practices, which include drawing water from the Deschutes and its tributaries for irrigation and other uses. “It reduces the conflict and it can even encourage partnerships to use these rule to reintroduce species,” he said. Currently, no such “take rules” have been drawn up to protect threatened steelhead in the Deschutes. If the NOAA Fisheries proposal is adopted, none would be imposed for 12 years – with the clock starting when the first adult steelhead returns from the ocean and swims back up the Deschutes River past the Round Butte Dam. Carlin said he expects the first adult steelhead to reach that point in 2012. The Deschutes steelhead’s reintroduction is a condition of a new federal hydropower license for the Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project on the Deschutes River. Portland General Electric Co. and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation are the licensees for that project. NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comments on the proposed “experimental species” designation. Comments must be received by July 18 at www.regulations.gov, by fax, or through the mail.	<urn:uuid:32383b5d-7c2b-4729-ba2b-aed67ce788aa>	CC-MAIN-2016-40	http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/protecting-central-ore-landowners-with-a-fish-designation/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738660706.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173740-00113-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.947316	632	3.03125	3	3.017159	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
The Six Principles of The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org Abolitionist Vegan Society The Abolitionist Vegan Society is based on The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights by Gary L. Francione. The Six Principles of The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights: - The abolitionist approach to animal rights maintains that all sentient beings, humans or nonhumans, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others. - Our recognition of the one basic right means that we must abolish, and not merely regulate, institutionalized animal exploitation—because it assumes that animals are the property of humans. - Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans. - We recognize that we will not abolish overnight the property status of nonhumans, but we will support only those campaigns and positions that explicitly promote the abolitionist agenda. We will not support positions that call for supposedly “improved” regulation of animal exploitation. We reject any campaign that promotes sexism, racism, heterosexism or other forms of discrimination against humans. - We recognize that the most important step that any of us can take toward abolition is to adopt the vegan lifestyle and to educate others about veganism. Veganism is the principle of abolition applied to one’s personal life and the consumption of any meat, fowl, fish, or dairy product, or the wearing or use of animal products, is inconsistent with the abolitionist - We recognize the principle of nonviolence as the guiding principle of the animal rights movement. Violence is the problem; it is not any part of the A Note: In order to embrace the abolitionist approach to animal rights, it is not necessary to be spiritual or religious, or to be an atheist. You can be a spiritual or religious person, or you can be an atheist, or anything in between. It does not matter. What does matter is: - that you have moral concern about animals and that you want to do right by animals. That moral concern/moral impulse can come from any source, spiritual or non-spiritual; and - that you regard as valid the logical arguments that our moral concern should not be limited to some nonhumans but should extend to all sentient beings and that we should abolish, and not regulate, animal exploitation. Return to Animal Rights Articles	<urn:uuid:4cbbd904-3959-4c9e-8a7d-37f928ac5c82>	CC-MAIN-2017-09	http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-six-principles-abolitionist.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501174154.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104614-00370-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.893478	579	3.171875	3	2.935208	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
My target children filled out a questionnaire on Oral Language from online. Interestingly, most children stated they felt 'Okay' and 'Very Confident' in a range of speaking and presenting situations. This is interesting as it is not in line with observation data I have collected. The children did a really good job of explaining what they found difficult about speaking out loud in front of others. Here is the breakdown of their responses: 1/17: Being Spoken Over 1/17: lack of preparation 1/17: Reactions towards others 1/17: Making mistakes 9/17: Opinions of others 11/17: Confidence in self This really shows a clear picture of the challenges the children feel they face when speaking and presenting. This supports my inquiry which is focussing on the 3 highest frequency challenges the children face: Vocabulary, Opinions of others, Confidence. I need to develop the children's vocabulary but also be giving them lots of opportunities to speak in front of others to build their confidence in a safe environment. The children were asked what they think makes someone good at expressing themselves out loud. Here is the breakdown of their responses: What makes a good speaker/presenter: 1/15: Good explanations 2/15: Kindness/ Encouraging 1/15: Reads lots of books 1/15: Doesn't make mistakes 1/15: Takes it seriously 1/15: A leader 1/15: Not being under pressure 1/15: Participation in discussions 1/15: Speaking your culture 2/15: Asking questions This is a really powerful list that the children came up with. It will be really valuable to make these into a poster to share with the children. The children were asked whether they discuss school events with family at home. All the children said they did do this. Vocabulary. In this section, the children were asked how good they thought they were at using vocabulary in 4 different situations. Confidence in using vocabulary when speaking and presenting ranges greatly across the group of children. Most children placed themselves mostly in the category of being good at using vocabulary in different speaking/presenting scenarios. I added the responses up in each section. Across the group of children in the four vocabulary categories, there was a 19% response of not being any good at using vocabulary in speaking/presenting scenarios, 50% response of being good at using vocabulary in speaking/presenting scenarios and a 31% response of being very good at using vocabulary in speaking/presenting scenarios. The final part of the questionnaire asked what teachers could do to help with speaking/presenting and expressing yourself. Here are the breakdowns of the responses: 1/17: Management of emotions/ feeling 1/17: Using better vocabulary 1/17: Knowing how to explain my thinking 2/17: Other people showing respect while I'm speaking 2/17: Get better at Maths, Writing and Reading 3/17: Give me books to read 5/17: Give me opportunities to talk so I don't feel nervous and can practice speaking up and expressing what I feel when I talk / Confidence	<urn:uuid:6fc1f9a7-2bb1-4320-9d43-4717222f64f4>	CC-MAIN-2022-21	https://hmwest.blogspot.com/2021/06/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652663011588.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220528000300-20220528030300-00421.warc.gz	en	0.952494	761	3.359375	3	2.401794	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
Support the news This week, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station will power down for the last time. Over the next few years, workers will move the radioactive fuel into storage, dismantle the plant, and clean up the site. The process is called decommissioning, and a lot of people are worried about safety, cost and where the nuclear waste will finally end up. The biggest source of radioactivity at Pilgrim is the plant's fuel assemblies, which power the reactor. Entergy, the company that owns Pilgrim, says there are 580 fuel assemblies currently in the reactor, and another 2,378 used assemblies cooling off in the blue water of the plant's spent fuel pool. That's in addition to 1,156 stored outside the plant in huge containers. All together, there are 4,114 fuel assemblies at Pilgrim. They’ll stay radioactive for thousands of years. And with nowhere to put them — for now, at least — they’ll stay in Plymouth indefinitely. “With no repository in sight, Plymouth — America’s hometown — will be a nuclear waste dump,” says Diane Turco, executive director of the watchdog group Cape Downwinders. “No one knows what to do with this waste. ... So I think we need to prepare that it’s going to be in Plymouth for a long time." Storing The Nuclear Waste After the plant powers down, workers will move the fuel from the reactor into the spent fuel pool. It will take a few years for the fuel to cool off enough for workers to move it from the pool into steel canisters. Then they'll put the canisters into enormous steel-and-concrete containers called “dry casks” for storage. Everybody wants the job done right, because an accident could release radioactive material into the environment. The worst-case scenario — a major fire in the spent fuel pool — could put thousands of lives at risk. “Decommissioning is a very dangerous time at Pilgrim. The spent fuel will be moved from the pool to the dry casks; the dry casks will be moved on the property,” says Turco. “To do it quick and fast doesn’t necessarily mean safe — let’s do it right.” The fuel storage casks are made by New Jersey-based Holtec International. Holtec produces storage components for more than half of the nuclear power plants in the United States. And with nuclear plants shutting down across the country, business is booming. “At a time when nuclear energy is taking a downturn, we’re really expanding,” says Joy Russell, Holtec's senior vice president of business development and communications. Each dry cask that will store the spent fuel at Pilgrim looks like a giant soup can: about 20 feet tall and 11 feet in diameter. Inside, the casks have inner and outer steel shells separated by more than 2 feet of concrete for shielding. When filled, a single cask can weigh up to 300,000 pounds, almost twice as much as a fully loaded 737 airplane. It seems like a surprisingly low-tech way to hold highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. That’s the beauty of it, says Allen Hickman, vice president of manufacturing for Holtec. “What many people don’t realize is the amount of engineering, design and analysis that went into licensing this with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” says Hickman. “It had to go through all different kinds of scenarios: being knocked over, being struck by a projectile, a plane crashing into it, a seismic event.” Hickman says all this gives him a lot of confidence in the casks: “I’d rather live next to a nuclear power plant storing our equipment,” he says, "than next to a fossil plant putting out sulfur in the air.” Not everyone shares Hickman’s confidence, including Plymouth resident Sean Mullin, chair of the state's Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. “What happens if a crack emerges? There is a lot of salt in the air, and there's a lot of other things that could deteriorate it,” says Mullin. “I’d rather live next to a nuclear power plant storing our equipment than next to a fossil plant putting out sulfur in the air.”Allen Hickman, of Holtec At a public meeting in March, NRC Reactor Decommissioning Branch Chief Bruce Watson said the NRC is currently working with industry to develop surveillance and testing requirements, and that the storage facility at Pilgrim would be inspected "at least annually." If workers detect a serious leak or crack in a cask — an event the Watson called "extremely unlikely" — it will be "encapsulated" in another cask. Mullin is skeptical of the encapsulation plan. “There should be something better,” he says. Decommissioning In 60 Years — Or 8? Holtec wants to do more than build nuclear storage casks. The company plans to buy Pilgrim and handle the whole decommissioning process: move the fuel to storage, tear down the plant, and clean up the site. But Holtec has never fully decommissioned a nuclear plant before. And unlike Entergy, which proposes decommissioning the site in 60 years, Holtec says it can be done in eight. “This is a new model that's come about within really the last several years. We have companies that want to do a soup-to-nuts kind of approach,” says NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. “It obviously raises a lot of questions, but we're going to be diligent when it comes to looking at those.” Holtec’s proposal worries critics like citizen’s group Pilgrim Watch and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Both have filed petitions to intervene with the NRC. “Holtec has never actually cleaned up a nuclear power plant before, and it's proposing to do so at what's really a record pace,” says Healey. “What we want is for the closure to be done safely. We want the site cleaned up and we need to make sure that there's enough money there to make that happen well.” Holtec also wants to buy Indian Point nuclear plant in New York, and build an interim storage site in New Mexico, where the company hopes to eventually ship spent fuel from Pilgrim and other sites. Critics say Holtec is stretched thin. “We fear that they have bitten off far more than they can chew, negatively impacting the quality of oversight and attention to properly decommission Pilgrim Station,” wrote Pilgrim Watch director Mary Lampert in an email. In April the NRC issued two safety violations against the company for an incident involving dry casks at the San Onofre nuclear plant in California. Although no radioactive material was released and the NRC did not issue a fine, Holtec’s Russell says the company takes the violations “very seriously” and is scrutinizing technology, training and procedures. “This is an industry where we're proactive, and we make those changes that are necessary,” says Russell. “We do not like to be a reactive industry.” “I think they're all learning, including the NRC,” says NDCAP chairman Mullin. “They're getting better at it. I think like any other process, you know, you do it five, six, eight times, you're a little better on the ninth than you were the first. I don't like the fact that Holtec is going to learn how to shave on our beard. And that's what's about to happen.” If Holtec purchases Pilgrim, the company will receive the plant, the surrounding land and a decommissioning trust fund currently valued around $1 billion. Holtec might also get additional money by suing the federal Department of Energy for failing to build a permanent nuclear waste repository. But an old plant like Pilgrim will likely have cleanup problems beyond nuclear waste, like asbestos and lead paint. And other nuclear plants, like Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe, cost far more to clean up than expected. “We think that Holtec is seriously underestimating what it's going to cost to get this done — underestimating to the tune of millions of dollars,” state AG Healey says. “And at the end of the day, if Holtec begins this project and doesn't have the money to finish it, it's going to be the state, our residents and taxpayers that are going to be on the hook, and we want to make sure that doesn't happen." “We think that Holtec is seriously underestimating what it's going to cost to get this done."Attorney General Maura Healey Critics are also concerned about Holtec’s formation of a limited liability company with Canadian engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin called Comprehensive Decommissioning International, which will handle Pilgrim’s decommissioning. Dan Wolf, a former state senator from the Cape and Islands — and the founder and CEO of Cape Air — says the move insulates the parent company and makes it unclear who is ultimately financially responsible for the cleanup. “My concern is, if there's not enough money and the job doesn’t get completed, it's going to fall both on our government and on the ratepayers to make up any deficiencies,” says Wolf. “It's one of the more egregious cases of socializing risk and privatizing profit.” Holtec's Russell calls the company's cost estimate "conservative" and says that the NRC puts the company "on the hook" for the decommissioning. "There's no way to pull up stakes and run away," she says. NRC spokesman Sheehan concurs. “Just because you've created an LLC does not mean that we would let somebody walk away without finishing the job,” he says. He adds that the NRC will evaluate ongoing decommissioning costs and force the company to adjust — through the Department of Justice, if necessary. "They need to complete the radiological cleanup of that site," Sheehan says. "They're going to live up to that obligation." The Pilgrim site is already storing spent nuclear fuel in 17 dry casks near the reactor building. Eventually, there will be 61 casks, stored on a new pad, 75 feet above sea level, partly to safeguard against sea level rise. It's expected they’ll be moved there by 2021 and protected by armed guards. While Congress has recently started talking about a new national repository for nuclear waste, and Holtec says it hopes to remove the spent fuel from Pilgrim by 2062, there's a chance that waste could remain at Pilgrim (or rather, the former Pilgrim) indefinitely, a silent monument to the nuclear age. This segment aired on May 30, 2019. Support the news	<urn:uuid:6abcac66-a749-4af2-8653-f0a39f4ed04f>	CC-MAIN-2020-29	https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2019/05/30/plymouth-nuclear-plant-decommissioning?fbclid=IwAR0bcH0hObrrtAMNaaPEf6be-Z94aSiTye8R-90oIi8jkLKcchAQuPxhpgg	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655896374.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20200708031342-20200708061342-00189.warc.gz	en	0.957142	2,307	2.71875	3	3.011859	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Your mornings may be hectic, the alarm may not go off, or the kids may not seem hungry first thing after waking up. Whatever your reasons may be, skipping breakfast puts your kids at a distinct disadvantage. And while you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, approximately 40 percent of children donâ€™t eat breakfast on a regular basis. Why do kids need breakfast? What are some fast, easy, and healthy foods to serve your family in order to get them ready for a good day? Keep reading to find out. The Morning Necessity Breakfast provides the fuel that is needed by all bodies to start the day. When your child wakes in the morning, his or her tank is empty and it is time to â€œbreak the fastâ€ so to speak. Food gives the energy needed to function mentally and physically. Donâ€™t believe it? Consider this: Studies have shown that children who eat breakfast before school perform better on their reading and math scores, have longer attention spans, visit the school nurse less frequently, and are better behaved in class. As if improved school performance werenâ€™t reason enough to get your kids into eating breakfast, kids who eat a healthy breakfast are better able to get the daily nutrients they need. They are more likely to eat recommended levels of essential vitamins and minerals such as calcium; magnesium; phosphorus; riboflavin; folate; iron; and vitamins A, C, and B12. Breakfast-consuming children also have lower cholesterol levels. Some kids, especially teenagers, skip breakfast because theyâ€™d rather sleep in or because they think skipping breakfast will help them lose weight. Unfortunately, skipping breakfast to lose weight is a myth. In fact, those who donâ€™t eat breakfast are more likely to have a greater body mass index (BMI) than those who do, since skipping breakfast makes kids so hungry they eat extra calories later in the day to make up for their skipped morning cuisine. Easy, Healthy Options Why arenâ€™t your children eating a healthy breakfast each day? If itâ€™s because your family is too rushed in the morning or you think you donâ€™t have extra time to make them a homemade nutritious meal, itâ€™s time to change your thinking. There are plenty of easy, fast, healthy foods to have readily available for your kids to grab and eat on the way. Any food is better than no food for breakfast, but healthy foods give your kids the energy they require to make it until lunch. A great way to knock out breakfast is to handle it the night before by hard-boiling some eggs. Hard-boiled eggs are a great source of protein and are fast and easy in the morning. You can also keep some small yogurt containers in the refrigerator for your kids to grab on the go. And of course, keep whole-grain bread, English muffins, or bagels on hand to toss in the toaster. You can also warm up microwavable oatmeal or let the kids eat cereal bars in the car. Keep whole-grain, low-sugar cereals on hand that kids can eat with low-fat milk or yogurt. And lastly, keep fresh fruit such as apples, bananas, and pears readily available to eat on the go. These are all nutritious options that are easy for moms or even kids to make themselves. So before rushing out the door tomorrow morning, make sure to give your kids a good start to the day. Fuel them up with a quick, healthy breakfast. They may not thank you, but their stomachs, minds, and teachers will. Healthy eating goes hand in hand with maintaining a consistent and challenging exercise program. Call or email me today to get started on one of my programs that will get you feeling younger and more energetic than you thought possible. Donâ€™t wait â€“ call me at 508.579.6064 or e-mail me at [email protected] to get started.	<urn:uuid:4014f44a-3f3f-435a-82ad-4a568faf0f9e>	CC-MAIN-2018-09	https://nationalcybersecurity.com/kids-breakfasts-a-very-important-meal/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891812938.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20180220110011-20180220130011-00272.warc.gz	en	0.957063	843	3.015625	3	1.746071	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Chapter 11 The Giant Planets 11.6 Questions and Exercises 1: What are the main challenges involved in sending probes to the giant planets? 2: Why is it difficult to drop a probe like Galileo? How did engineers solve this problem? 3: Explain why visual observation of the gas giants is not sufficient to determine their rotation periods, and what evidence was used to deduce the correct periods. 4: What are the seasons like on Jupiter? 5: What is the consequence of Uranus’ spin axis being 98° away from perpendicular to its orbital plane? 6: Describe the seasons on the planet Uranus. 7: At the pressures in Jupiter’s interior, describe the physical state of the hydrogen found there. 8: Which of the gas giants has the largest icy/rocky core compared to its overall size? 9: In the context of the giant planets and the conditions in their interiors, what is meant by “rock” and “ice”? 10: What is the primary source of Jupiter’s internal heat? 11: Describe the interior heat source of Saturn. 12: Which planet has the strongest magnetic field, and hence the largest magnetosphere? What is its source? 13: What are the visible clouds on the four giant planets composed of, and why are they different from each other? 14: Compare the atmospheric circulation (weather) of the four giant planets. 15: What are the main atmospheric heat sources of each of the giant planets? 16: Why do the upper levels of Neptune’s atmosphere appear blue? 17: How do storms on Jupiter differ from storm systems on Earth? 18: Describe the differences in the chemical makeup of the inner and outer parts of the solar system. What is the relationship between what the planets are made of and the temperature where they formed? 19: How did the giant planets grow to be so large? 20: Jupiter is denser than water, yet composed for the most part of two light gases, hydrogen and helium. What makes Jupiter as dense as it is? 21: Would you expect to find free oxygen gas in the atmospheres of the giant planets? Why or why not? 22: Why would a tourist brochure (of the future) describing the most dramatic natural sights of the giant planets have to be revised more often than one for the terrestrial planets? 23: The water clouds believed to be present on Jupiter and Saturn exist at temperatures and pressures similar to those in the clouds of the terrestrial atmosphere. What would it be like to visit such a location on Jupiter or Saturn? In what ways would the environment differ from that in the clouds of Earth? 24: Describe the different processes that lead to substantial internal heat sources for Jupiter and Saturn. Since these two objects generate much of their energy internally, should they be called stars instead of planets? Justify your answer. 25: Research the Galileo mission. What technical problems occurred between the mission launch and the arrival of the craft in Jupiter’s system, and how did the mission engineers deal with them? (Good sources of information include Astronomy and Sky & Telescope articles, plus the mission website.) Figuring for Yourself 26: How many times more pressure exists in the interior of Jupiter compared to that of Earth? 27: Calculate the wind speed at the edge of Neptune’s Great Dark Spot, which was 10,000 km in diameter and rotated in 17 d. 28: Calculate how many Earths would fit into the volumes of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 29: As the Voyager spacecraft penetrated into the outer solar system, the illumination from the Sun declined. Relative to the situation at Earth, how bright is the sunlight at each of the jovian planets? 30: The ions in the inner parts of Jupiter’s magnetosphere rotate with the same period as Jupiter. Calculate how fast they are moving at the orbit of Jupiter’s moon Io (see Appendix G). Will these ions strike Io from behind or in front as it moves about Jupiter?	<urn:uuid:b256db31-e4d9-4ea8-ac08-24060912f977>	CC-MAIN-2021-43	https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/astronomybc/chapter/11-6-questions-and-exercises/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585121.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20211017052025-20211017082025-00663.warc.gz	en	0.941126	853	3.8125	4	2.675171	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
STUFFED with passengers and piled high with luggage, our minivan careened down a twisting mountain road, descending across northern Laos. The spot where I got carsick, I later learned, was precisely where the unfinished French colonial road had reached its westernmost end in 1932. That year, an archaeologist named Madeleine Colani took refuge at the road works encampment there, where a Monsieur Ruffet presided over the construction of Route 7, which would run from Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina, to the royal city of Luang Prabang on the Mekong River. Though Monsieur received Mademoiselle and her crew amiably, troubles awaited them at his camp that far exceeded my own temporary discomfort. “The few laborers we had with us ran away one by one without even asking for their wages,” Colani later wrote in her 1935 book, “The Megaliths of Upper Laos.” “Dengue reigned at the site; my sister, my Laotian interpreter and some of the faithful laborers took ill. ... It was May, season of the first strong storms; it was urgent to get back to the Plain of Jars before the route was cut off.” I too wanted to get to the Plain of Jars, though at the moment mainly so that I could be released from our lurching vehicle. I didn’t have to worry about bad weather leading to an inaccessible route, but I did wonder, as we banged in and out of yet another pothole, if the road had been improved at all in the eight decades since M. Ruffet left.Continue reading the main story The Plain of Jars is an area of the Xieng Khouang plateau of Laos scattered with thousands of megalithic stone jars that are about 2,000 years old. They are grouped into clusters that range from just a few to hundreds. The tallest jars reach nearly 10 feet high. Colani, who was born in France but spent years conducting archaeological surveys in Southeast Asia, was, in more ways than one, the reason I was here. First, she is the source of most of what is known about the jars and their makers. There are local legends about their origin — one says that a tribe of giants used them as wine chalices to celebrate a great victory. But after many months of fieldwork, Colani suggested convincingly that they were used in funerary rites, intended to hold cremated remains. For decades beginning in the 1940s, the region was ravaged by war; archaeologists started to build on her work only in the ’90s. Since then, they have had to tiptoe around the unexploded bomb parts that still litter the landscape from American carpet bombing in the late ’60s, when the United States and Vietnam fought a proxy war there. Relative to other Iron Age civilizations, the jar makers remain mysterious, and I was attracted to this hole in the historical record. But I had become just as intrigued by Colani herself, the woman who tried to fill in the blanks. Who was this Frenchwoman who had withstood actual hardship — as opposed to the kind a dose of Dramamine can fix — to solve an ancient riddle? Diminutive and partial to all-black attire, Colani explored the jars under the auspices of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient, a French scholarly institute dedicated to the study of Asian civilizations. Its director, Georges Coedès, called her “the doyenne of Indochinese geological and prehistoric studies” in his obituary of her for the weekly newspaper Indochine. She was born in Strasbourg in 1866 and, at 32, traveled to Indochina, where she taught high school. She earned a doctorate back in France, and in her 60s began the archaeological work for which she would become most famous. She died in 1943 in Hanoi at the age of 76, five months after the death of her sister and assistant, Eléonore. “I know few men in the prime of their lives who would be capable of redoing under the same conditions what these two valiant women accomplished,” Mr. Coedès wrote. Before setting out on my trip, I obtained “The Megaliths of Upper Laos,” Colani’s great contribution to archaeological literature. It is hands down the best guide to the jars — that is, if you don’t mind carrying around a 719-page, two-volume hardcover available only in French. Though it is packed with scientific detail and richly informed theory, it was the introduction, where she shares glimpses of her own adventure, that I found most captivating. On one expedition she set out chasing a tip that there was a single field of 1,000 jars: “Abominable voyage, on tracks that often followed the summits, hardly trodden ... frequent violent storms,” she wrote. “At night, with little or no village, it was necessary to sleep in hastily raised shelters made of banana leaves.” THE minivan deposited us in Phonsavan, the modern provincial capital, where rebar from unfinished buildings sprouts above rice paddies and one of the primary local industries is bomb clearance. Another is tourism — I was easily able to hire a guide and driver at the front desk of one of the hotels on the dusty main drag, where Route 7 runs through town. Three of the larger jar sites that Colani surveyed in 1931 are accessible by car, one of them via a paved road. It was a far cry from her travels on foot, and I feared that my adventures would somehow always be diminished compared with those of my predecessors. Even this place that had seemed remote on the map was not all that hard to reach. The next morning at Site 1, we were among the first visitors of the day, and so I explored the more than 300 stone vessels that spread over the undulating land in silence. Here and there the natural gradient was interrupted by a perfectly symmetrical bomb crater, grown over with the same dry grass that covered everything else. The smallest jars barely came to my thighs, but the biggest, locally known as the King’s Cup, was more than eight feet tall. The jars seemed to have individual personalities, leaning this way or that, some sociably clustered and others off alone, with gaping maws in different shapes and sizes. “When we found ourselves in front of these countless barrels of stone, whole or broken, emerging more or less from a tangle of wild grasses, we were greatly puzzled,” Colani wrote of her arrival at Site 1. The heaviest jars weigh more than six tons, and Colani, along with later archaeologists, determined that they hadn’t been quarried where they stood. And so, an obvious question: How had they been moved? Colani postulated racks made of tree trunks, though a definitive answer is still elusive. From Site 1 we drove to Muang Khoune, where Colani based herself when she wasn’t in the field. An ancient crossroads town, it was in her time the provincial capital and home to a few French officials. Today, historical scars are evident. A 16th-century Buddhist stupa stands over 80 feet tall, but lists a little thanks to a 19th-century ravaging by Chinese invaders. A sitting Buddha from the same era looms over the town’s main street, its damaged face set in a complacent smirk; the original monastery around it was destroyed by American bombings. Though little from the colonial era remains in Muang Khoune, I imagined Colani sitting on one of the dark hardwood balconies, poring over her notes, perhaps sketching one of the many maps or diagrams that would appear in her book. I retreated to the more modern Phonsavan that night, sleeping on clean sheets instead of under banana fronds, as Colani so often did. She made her last visit to the Plain of Jars in 1940 at the age of 74, not long before her own government’s hold on the region would begin to crack. By then she had come to certain conclusions about the jar makers — that they were sedentary farmers, for instance, who traded with neighboring civilizations. “To cut all the jars,” she wrote of Site 1, “it took laborers, numerous laborers, disciplined, well led, perhaps over centuries.” But in her book, even as she sums up, she raises unanswered questions: How old was this culture exactly? Might there have been other burial methods too? Did what she’d learn on the Plain of Jars reveal anything about other parts of the world? It was mysteries like these that drove Colani. And yet, enticed by mystery, I felt grateful that some things remained unknown. A picture caption last Sunday with an article about the Plain of Jars in Laos and the archaeologist, Madeleine Colani, who wrote a book about the jars, misstated the year of publication of the book, “The Megaliths of Upper Laos.” As the article correctly noted, it was published in 1935, not in 1835.	<urn:uuid:bf92b21b-4a89-473c-bfa8-53f8500b52a9>	CC-MAIN-2017-17	http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/travel/in-laos-the-lady-and-the-jars.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123632.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00492-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.979334	1,940	2.515625	3	2.897249	3	Strong reasoning	History
Search by topic, solution type or region To nutritiously and sustainably feed the planet, healthy and diversified diets need to be made available. By implementing a climate smart agroforestry approach that integrates food trees providing nutrient-dense foods, this solution expands smallholder farmer communities’ diets and livelihood options in East Africa. As a result of population growth and changing diets, the demand for meat and milk is rising quickly in East and Southern Africa. This increase presents new opportunities for livestock producers but also means increased greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of the climate-smart dairy system is to improve forages and feeding strategies that increase the incomes and resilience of smallholder farmers. By introducing the Juncao species of grass in Fiji, the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University enabled smallholder farmers to greatly improve their incomes. Juncao can be used as feed for livestock during dry seasons and as a medium for cultivating edible and medicinal mushrooms. Farmers across the Global South can learn from agroecological solutions presented by their peers via Access Agriculture’s online video platform. While thousands of organizations and rural service providers have freely downloaded and shared these videos from Africa, Asia and Latin America, farmers have become the largest occupational group signing up for Access Agriculture. At least sixty million farmers have seen Access Agriculture videos. Mechanized raised-bed (MRB) irrigation is a field-configuration technology that enhances water use efficiency in dryland conditions. This technology, along with improved crop varieties and agronomic practices, is part of a MRB production package that improves farm productivity and income. For wheat in Egypt, MRB led to an average 25 percent increase in yield, more than 60 percent increase in water productivity and about 20 percent in farming cost reduction. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) promotes cactus pear as a crop that millions of farmers in semi-arid and dry areas can use to improve their nutrition and incomes. Cactus is a multifunctional crop, mitigating drought and combating desertification. In South Asia as well as Middle-East and North Africa (MENA), the cultivation of cactus pear increases the economic viability of small and medium-sized farms of low-income farmers Supplemental irrigation provides higher and more stable yields, a lower risk of crop failure and much higher crop water productivity, which together significantly improve farmers' incomes. Supplemental irrigation helps mitigate inconsistent seasonal rainfall, which is intensifying because of climate change. Already, frequent droughts cause substantial crop losses. When properly managed, conservation agriculture can benefit both farmers and the environment. Conservation agriculture refers to the use of technologies and practices that enhance crop productivity while improving resource-use efficiency and soil health. As an alternative to conventional tillage for rainfed drylands, it not only saves time and labour, but also conserves water and nutrients in the soil to make crop production more resilient to climate change. The Sustainable Rangeland Management (SRM) toolkit, tested in Tunisia, lays out a scalable, holistic and multidisciplinary approach for addressing the biophysical and socio-economic trade-offs among different land uses. The toolkit helps communities, policymakers and development actors apply key sustainable rangeland management practices to targeted regions. It can play a major role in achieving a neutral level of land degradation, increased forage production and enhanced ecosystem services.	<urn:uuid:829448a0-7925-4f8b-a8e2-25faca3b9a13>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://ruralsolutionsportal.org/en/solutions?p_p_id=org_ifad_sstc_portlets_SearchPortlet_INSTANCE_RIiOkXUCu3U5&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_r_p_resetCur=true&p_r_p_categoryId=39583335	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100489.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20231203062445-20231203092445-00797.warc.gz	en	0.900245	690	3.03125	3	2.874898	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
Retinal Implant Research The Possiblility of Artificial Vision by Yu-Chong Tai and Wolfgang Fink Blindness is the second most-feared disease next to cancer. Each year there are about 100,000 people newly diagnosed with blindness due to Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP, an inherited condition in which all photoreceptors are eventually lost) and Age-related Macular Degener-ation (AMD). Both diseases primarily affect only the photoreceptors of the retina. Unfortunately there still is no medical cure for either RP or AMD. However, over the past ten years there has been investigation into the possibility of creating a retinal prosthesis that mimics the biological function of the photoreceptors in stimulating downstream neurons in the retina. It has been demonstrated that such a prosthesis, called an epi-retinal multi-electrode array, can allow patients to “see” again through electrical stimulation from a 4 x 4 electrode array placed directly on the surface of the macula (the precision vision region of the retina). This technology is similar to the cochlear implant which uses a small number of electrodes to mimic lost function in the auditory system. A 4 x 4, or 16-pixel array, however, cannot produce the useful ambulatory vision needed for a blind patient to use their visual system in an autonomous manner. Thus, this epi-retinal implant technology has to improve dramatically. A healthy retina has over 100 million photoreceptors. A retinal implant that enables ambulatory vision would need thousands, if not tens of thousands, of stimulating electrodes. My lab at Caltech has developed a flexible “smart skin” technology that may just be the answer. The flexible smart skin is made by MEMS technology and is only tens of microns thick. The flexibility of the skin is important because the device can be folded and inserted surgically into the eye through a small, quick-to-heal incision. Furthermore, the skin can conform to the curved surface of the retina to provide intimate contact to the target neurons. Moreover, the skin is integrated with silicon integrated circuits and numerous sensors such that the extension of this technology can provide as many channels as needed for the retinal implant. As a result of the natural extension of this smart skin technology to the retinal prosthesis, a close collaboration between my lab and Dr. Mark Humayun’s lab at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (Doheny Eye Institute) has been formed (part of the NSF-funded USC/Caltech/UCSC Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems Engineering Research Center). The long-term goal for my lab is to produce a totally integrated retinal prosthesis that contains a power-delivery secondary coil, a power-and-signal management system-on-a-chip (SoC), and a flexible high-density retinal electrode array. Although this project is just in its initial stages, there have already been two major advancements. The first is the completion of a biocompatibility experiment in which unmodified parylene, the major component of the proposed retinal prosthesis, was placed in the intraocular space of an eye for six months. Our experiments showed that parylene did not cause an immune or foreign-body response for the duration of this implantation. The second is that we have successfully produced flexible gold/parylene 16 x 16 electrode arrays that are currently undergoing soak tests in saline solution. Dr. Mark Humayun and his team at USC recently reached an important milestone on the clinical side, with the implantation of an active stimulating epi-retinal device in a blind human. The patient had reported vision loss for 50 years from RP and had documented no light perception in the eye before implantation of the device. When a 16-electrode device (4 x 4 matrix) was activated one week after implantation, the patient saw spots at all 16 electrodes. Further testing demonstrated spatial discrimination between two electrodes that allowed the ability to discern gross movement of objects in the field of the patient’s camera. These results are major advancements towards producing a clinically viable, intermediate-density retinal implant in the near future. Yu-Chong Tai is Professor of Electrical Engineering. Wolfgang Fink is Visiting Associate in Physics. Visit Yu-Chong Tai’s Micromachining Lab at: http://touch.caltech.edu/ Learn more about Wolfgang Fink’s Research at: http://www.wfbabcom5.com/wf3.htm	<urn:uuid:afae5d6d-3783-4e1d-b334-40efc224d63b>	CC-MAIN-2020-29	http://eas.caltech.edu/engenious/5/research_note	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593657140337.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20200712211314-20200713001314-00125.warc.gz	en	0.921507	953	3.078125	3	2.874604	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
An Inconvenient Truth, the new movie centered on former vice-president Al Gore's famous global warming slide show, will open in select theaters on May 24th. The movie trailer warns: "If you live on this planet: If you love your children: You have to see this film." Gore declares that man-made global warming "is really not a political issue so much as it is a moral issue." At the conclusion the words "Nothing is scarier than the truth" appear on screen and then Gore portentously intones: "Our ability to live is what is at stake." Gore is correct that the scientific consensus is that humanity is causing global warming. Earlier this month, a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded: Global-average temperature increased at a rate of about 0.12 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.16 degrees C per decade since 1979. In the tropics, temperature increased at about 0.11 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.13 degrees C per decade since 1979. Gore warns that melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could lead to a sea level rise of twenty feet inundating Florida, Bangladesh, Shanghai, and New York City. But there is a lot less certainty than he implies in such scenarios. For example, a 2005 computer modeling study in Geophysical Research Letters found that Greenland is losing ice which is contributing annually about 15 millimeter to the rise in global sea levels. However, another 2005 study published in Science found that Greenland's ice sheet was growing in the interior while melting along the edges, perhaps resulting in some net accumulation of ice. And then in February 2006, yet another study in Science finds that glaciers in southern Greenland are flowing faster into the sea. And scientific knowledge about what is going on with Antarctica's ice sheets is similarly uncertain. For example, a perspective article in the June 25, 2005 issue of Science found that on balance Antarctica's ice cap is thickening and thus reducing sea level rise. A new study based on satellite measurements that detect minute differences in gravity found that Antarctica is losing ice. But others conclude from those measurements that melting ice from Antarctica may not be contributing to sea level rise. Researchers generally project that the complete melting away of the Greenland ice sheet caused by global warming would take between 500 and 1000 years. A new modeling study suggests that if the average temperature increases by 4 degrees centigrade, we could see a rise in sea level of 20 feet by 2100. Keep in mind that 4 degrees centigrade is at the high end of projected average increases in global temperatures. The trends in the NOAA study cited above suggest that temperature increases over the next century will be at the low end of the projections. In any case, while there is wide agreement that man-made global warming is happening, what to do about it is very much contested. Having seen only the movie trailer at this point, I don't know exactly what Gore's latest plan is, but I suspect that he favors schemes for reducing greenhouse gases emitted by humanity, given his support for the Kyoto Protocol. If the goal is to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then emissions will have to be cut by 70 percent. What will be cut? The use of fossil fuels which have powered a 20-fold increase in world gross domestic product from $2 trillion in 1900 to over $40 trillion today. It may well be possible to shift to other energy sources to fuel humanity's future, but some argue that global warming is not the main problem that faces the bulk of humanity—poverty is. In an attempt to counter the media blitz that will accompany the release of An Inconvenient Truth, the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, based in Washington, DC, is launching a campaign today featuring two television spots proclaiming that the chief greenhouse gas "CO2 Is Life." The first ad, titled "Energy," properly reminds viewers that fossil fuels "freed us from a world of back-breaking labor" and are used "to create and move the things we need." The ending voiceover declares, "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution; we call it life." The second spot entitled "Glaciers" points out the scientific uncertainties about how global warming is affecting glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland. The "Glaciers" spot also makes the point that the media tend to headline findings that portend doom, while overlooking less alarming scientific results. Neither of CEI's TV spots denies the existence of man-made global warming, but they do call attention to the enormous benefits that people have gained from fossil fuels and point to significant scientific uncertainties. CEI's spots are not subtle (hard to do in 60 seconds of video), but neither is the trailer for the movie about Gore's crusade. In both media presentations, CEI and Gore are ignoring scientific evidence that cuts against their views. In the end, the debate over global warming and its obverse, humanity's energy future, is a moral issue. Global warming may well harm humanity by disturbing the environment, but forcing the world's poorest people (2 billion of whom have never even turned on a light bulb) to use more expensive and technically challenging fuels would also cause great harm. In a sense, Gore is right: What is at stake is our ability to live. Disclosure: I was the 1993 Warren Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and I have been the editor of three CEI volumes on environmental policy and science. I also dine and go drinking with CEI staff members from time to time and we usually split the check.	<urn:uuid:9e47cab2-2fc0-4150-928e-546768c4bfff>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://reason.com/2006/05/17/inconvenient-uncertainties-and/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100448.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202172159-20231202202159-00220.warc.gz	en	0.94608	1,142	2.625	3	2.961238	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
"I want to make the world a better place. I want to inspire other people like myself, who've faced adversity and persevered and continue to pursue their dreams," said senior Francelina Morillo.Read More UAlbany Scientists Study Past Climate Variability and its Effect on Monsoons in South America According to the new study, when monsoons to the south of the equator were weak and conditions dry, not only were the northern monsoons strong and carrying abundant rainfall, but regions adjacent to the southern monsoons were also affected by heavy rainfall. ALBANY, N.Y. (February 23, 2009) -- University at Albany Assistant Professor Mathias Vuille, and Postdoctoral Fellow Hanh Nguyen, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, have collaborated on a new study that reveals monsoons in South America were more far-reaching than previously thought. The study indicates that when monsoons to the south of the equator were weak and conditions dry, not only were the northern monsoons strong and carrying abundant rainfall, but regions adjacent to the southern monsoons were also affected by heavy rainfall. Researchers have known for years that when monsoons north of the equator (India and Asia) were strong, monsoons south of the equator (Australia and South America) were weak and drought conditions prevailed. However, researchers had not been aware that regions surrounding the monsoons were equally affected. The study, published in the March issue of Nature Geoscience, was a collaboration among researchers at the University at Albany; University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil; University of Minnesota; the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany; and the Instituto do Carste, Brazil. Researchers used two approaches to reproduce past climate variability in South America: speleothem analysis, providing the spatial and temporal changes in climate in South America, and model simulations, indicating how the climate system works. "Studying monsoon climates is extremely important because so many people live in those regions and depend on it for agriculture, drinking water and sanitation," said Vuille. "Our climate observations in these regions do not go back very far, so itís important to attempt putting current climatic and environmental conditions in a longer temporal perspective." Researchers used two approaches to reproduce past climate variability in South America: speleothem analysis, providing the spatial and temporal changes in climate in South America, and model simulations, indicating how the climate system works. The innovative use of both approaches allowed researchers to use data from the speleothem analysis to test the modelsí ability to accurately reproduce past climate variability in South America. "Projections of how climate will change in the next 100 years or so due to global warming rely almost exclusively on the exact same type of model we used," said Vuille. "It is therefore very important to test these models and make sure they can accurately simulate past climates." For more news, subscribe to UAlbany's RSS headline feeds Educationally and culturally, the University at Albany-SUNY puts "The World Within Reach" for its 18,000 students. An internationally recognized research university with 58 undergraduate majors and 128 graduate degree programs, UAlbany is a leader among all New York State colleges and universities in such diverse fields as public policy, nanotechnology and criminal justice. With a curriculum enhanced by 300 study-abroad opportunities, UAlbany launches great careers. For more information about this globally ranked University, visit www.albany.edu. For UAlbany's extensive roster of faculty experts, visit www.albany.edu/news/experts.shtml.	<urn:uuid:c85da05b-e53d-49d2-91cd-a257945fe995>	CC-MAIN-2017-17	http://www.albany.edu/news/release_5600.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121153.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00404-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.950965	766	3.171875	3	2.946392	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Kokeshi Dolls Lesson Plan 1. Lesson Overview A Lesson for Students Ages 6 to 10, Grades 3 & 4 Designed by Loren Fawcett, Education Assistant, Allen Memorial Art Museum are made of wood and have no arms or legs. There are many different styles, but all are simple in their design with a head and a body—a sphere and a cylinder or another sphere. They are usually very small, just a few inches tall, but may be larger. The original dolls were always female. (Modern kokeshi dolls can be male) In the Tokugawa era kokeshi dolls were used as souvenirs given to the tourists of hot spring resorts in the Tohoku region. Academic Content Standards - Students will become familiar with the Japanese holiday Hina Matsuri and its traditions and celebration. - Students will learn about the cultural significance of Kokeshi dolls. - Students will learn about the history of Kokeshi. - Students will study the map of Japan and learn about its prefectures. - Visual Arts - NA-VA.K-4.1: Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes - NA-VA.K-4.3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas - NA-VA.K-4.4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures Ohio State Standards - NSS-USH.K-4.4: Understand selected attributes of societies in Asia - Visual Arts - Benchmark 1A: Connect various art forms and artistic styles to their cultural traditions. - Benchmark 1B: Compare and contrast art forms from different cultures and their own cultures. - Benchmark 1C: Identify artworks from their communities or regions and communicate how they reflect social influences and cultural traditions. - Benchmark 2A: Demonstrate skill and expression in the use of art techniques and processes. - Benchmark 3A: Identify and describe the visual features and characteristics in works of art. - Benchmark 4A: Apply basic reasoning skills to understand why works of art are made and valued. - Economics: Explain why entrepreneurship, capital goods, technology, specialization, and division of labor are important in the production of goods and services. Japan's Doll Festival; on this holiday. families with young daughters set up a display of dolls inside the house, prepare rice paddies and other food, and pray for the healthy growth and happiness of the girls. Traditional Japanese dolls originally from northern Japan A machine tool used in woodworking which spins a block of wood so that when abrasive or cutting tools are applied to the block it can be shaped to produce an object with rotational symmetry. an administrative district, similar to a county in western society; Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. Continue to: 2. Lesson Materials	<urn:uuid:a094f6b8-9d16-4739-9db7-3d741d16deab>	CC-MAIN-2016-22	http://www2.oberlin.edu/amam/asia/kokeshi/Default.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464051002346.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524005002-00208-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.894686	604	4.25	4	2.201931	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
Intensified archeological activity in the Holy Land in the first decades of the 20th century prompted the need for a dignified venue to store and exhibit the finds. American philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, donated $2 million for building, equipping and maintaining a museum, and the British mandatory government also provided a subsidy. Rockefeller stipulated that the museum bearing his name be an archeological, not a natural science museum, and that the museum’s exhibits should shed light on the part played by the peoples of the Holy Land in world history. The building was to be located opposite the northeast corner of Jerusalem’s Old City walls. After 1948, when the area came under Jordanian rule, the museum was administered briefly by an international council, but, recognizing its tremendous value, the Jordanian government soon nationalized it. Since 1968, the Rockefeller Museum has been an integral part of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. History of the Rockefeller Musuem In the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, at the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, British, American, French, and German archaeological expeditions began exploring the ancient sites of the Holy Land. Despite the difficult conditions, poor roads, and the distance from their homelands, these pioneers embarked on the first excavations with great enthusiasm and energy. In 1919, one year after the end of the First World War, the British Mandate in Palestine and Transjordan began. The British, with their renowned tradition of excavating and handling archaeological finds, devoted much effort to cultivating archaeology in the land and in 1920 established the Mandatory Department of Antiquities. The department was responsible for supervising all archaeological activity in Palestine and for protecting the ancient sites. A few years later, in 1925, James Henry Breasted, founder and director of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, visited Palestine. Upon arriving in Jerusalem he was surprised by the city's lack of a proper archaeological museum. Encouraged by Lord Plumer, the British High Commissioner, Breasted approached American philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for a donation that would help realize the construction of such a museum in Jerusalem. Rockefeller agreed to contribute toward the project the sum of two million dollars - at that time an astonishing amount. A short while later, a site was chosen for the building - Kerem el-Sheik - a hill located just outside the northeastern corner of the Old City walls. The design of the museum was assigned to Austen St. Barbe Harrison, the chief architect of the Mandatory Department of Public Works, who planned a magnificent structure, integrating in it eastern and western architectural elements. The cornerstone of the new museum was laid on June 19, 1930. Although its official name was "The Palestine Archaeological Museum," from the very outset, the building was most commonly known as the "Rockefeller Museum" after its benefactor's name. On January 13, 1938 the museum opened its doors to the public. In May 1948, shortly before the termination of the British Mandate in Palestine, the High Commissioner founded an international board of trustees, consisting of twelve members representing scholarly institutions around the world, to be responsible for the museum's management. This board continued to function until 1966, when the museum was nationalized by King Hussein of Jordan. Just a few months later, at the close of the Six Day War in the summer of 1967, the Rockefeller Museum was transferred to Israeli hands. The management of the building and its contents was entrusted to two institutions: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (later renamed Israel Antiquities Authority). The former was put in charge of the exhibition halls and the latter was given responsibility for the remaining wings (storerooms, archive, library). In recent years much effort has been devoted to updating existing wall panels, to adding additional ones in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and to the preparation of temporary exhibitions on a variety of topics. Sunday , Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 10 am - 3 pm Saturday and Holidays 10 am - 2 pm Tuesday, Friday - closed The Rockefeller Museum Sultan Suleman Street (Near the Flower Gate)	<urn:uuid:657718f1-914d-4832-a563-d95b331122c5>	CC-MAIN-2018-47	https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-rockefeller-archaeological-museum	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742483.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20181115033911-20181115055224-00030.warc.gz	en	0.953988	852	3.671875	4	2.852846	3	Strong reasoning	History
Vortiporius or Vortipor (Old Welsh: Guortepir, Welsh: Gwrdeber, sometimes misspelled as Gwerthefyr) was a king of Dyfed in the early to mid-6th century. He ruled over an area approximately corresponding to the modern Pembrokeshire. As a legendary king in Geoffrey of Monmouth's treatment of the Matter of Britain, he was the successor of Aurelius Conanus and was succeeded by Malgo. Records of this era are scanty, and virtually nothing is known of him or his kingdom. The only contemporary information about the person comes from Gildas, in a highly allegorical condemnation from his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (English: On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain). At the time the work was written (c. 540), Gildas says that he was king of Dyfed, that he was grey with age, that his wife had died, and that he had at least one daughter. He is not mentioned in the Historia Brittonum attributed to Nennius. His name is attached to a character in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical account of the rulers of Britain, the Historia Regum Britanniae. Vortiporius appears in the Irish genealogy given in the 8th-century work, The Expulsion of the Déisi, with his name given as Gartbuir. The pedigree given in the Harleian MS. 5389 (written c. 1100) is nearly identical, with his name given as Guortepir. In the Jesus College MS. 20 he is Gwrdeber. The genealogy in Expulsion says he was a descendant of Eochaid Allmuir (English: Eochaid the Foreigner [literally (from) Overseas]), who is said to have led a sept of the Déisi in their settlement of Dyfed c. 270, though this date is considered to be too early for the arrival of the Déisi in Wales. A memorial stone was discovered in 1895 near the church of Castell Dwyran in Carmarthenshire, bearing a Christian cross and with inscriptions in both Latin letters and ogham. Dedicated to 'Voteporigis' (in the Latin inscription; rendered 'Votegorigas' in the Ogham), it was immediately assumed that this referred to Vortiporius. However, the assumption is refuted by modern linguistic analysis, which notes that the missing 'r' in the first syllable of 'Voteporigis'/'Votegorigas' is significant, and so the stone must be dedicated to a different person. In his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (English: On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain), written c. 540, Gildas makes an allegorical condemnation of 5 British kings by likening them to the beasts of the Christian Apocalypse as expressed in the biblical Book of Revelation, 13-2: the lion, leopard, bear, and dragon. In the course of his condemnations, Gildas makes passing reference to the other beasts mentioned in the Apocalypse, such as the eagle, serpent, calf, and wolf. Vortiporius is called "the spotted leopard" and the "tyrant of the Demetians", where Demetia is the ancient name of Dyfed. Gildas restricts his attention to the kings of Gwynedd (Maelgwn Gwynedd), Dyfed (Vortiporius), Penllyn (probable, as its king Cuneglasus/Cynlas appears in royal genealogies associated with the region), Damnonia/Alt Clud (Constantine), and the unknown region associated with Caninus. These are all Welsh kingdoms except for Alt Clud, which had a long and ongoing relationship with Gwynedd and its kings. The reason for Gildas' disaffection for these individuals is unknown. He was selective in his choice of kings, as he had no comments concerning the kings of the other British kingdoms that were thriving at the time, such as Rheged, Gododdin, Elmet, Pengwern/Powys, or the kingdoms of modern-day southern England. Gildas claims outrage over moral depravity, but neither outrage nor a doctrinal dispute would seem to justify beginning the condemnation of the five kings with a personal attack against the mother of one of the kings, calling her an "unclean lioness". Of Vortiporius Gildas says little other than offering condemnation for "sins" and providing the few personal details previously mentioned. He is alleged to be the bad son of a good father. Perhaps for good measure, Gildas also attacks his daughter, calling her "shameless". Possible monument stone A c. 5th-6th century monument bearing both Latin and Irish ogham inscriptions is known from Castell Dwyran, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Its Latin inscription reads Memoria Voteporigis Protictoris (English: Monument of Voteporix Protector). The ogham inscription carries only the Goidelic form of his name in the genitive: Votecorigas. Protector (spelled here Protictoris, in the genitive) in the Latin inscription may imply a Roman-era honorific bestowed upon his ancestors, retained as a hereditary title into the 6th century. However, linguist Eric Hamp questions whether this is truly a title, suggesting that Protector may rather be a Latin translation of Uoteporix (which has essentially the same meaning as the Latin), a "sort of onomastic explanatory gloss". The ogham inscription in Goidelic shows that the Irish language was still in use at that time, and had not yet died out in South Wales. The stone's original location at the church is next to a meadow known locally as Parc y Eglwys. Local tradition carries the admonition that plowing must not be done near the church. Examination of the meadow showed evidence of large hut-circles. There remains a substantial question as to whether the stone refers to Vortiporius or to a similarly named individual, 'Voteporigis', as the 'r' in the first syllable would give the name different meaning. Rhys argued that the two individuals were the same person, saying that the 'r' had been added at a later date, and offering several suppositions as to how this might have happened. However, he was working before the twentieth century advancements in the study of ancient Celtic languages, and his philological conclusions are suspect. More recently, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that the two names cannot refer to the same individual due to differences in their etymologies, adding that dating the stone to the time of Vortiporius may not be valid because it relies on the inexact dating of manuscripts and their transcriptions. Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey's mention of Vortiporius is contained in a brief chapter titled "Uortiporius, being declared king, conquers the Saxons". He says that Uortiporius succeeded Aurelius Conan, and after he was declared king, the Saxons rose against him and brought over their countrymen from Germany in a great fleet, but that these were defeated. Uortiporius then ruled peacefully for four years, beings succeeded by "Malgo" (Maelgwn Gwynedd). Geoffrey's fertile imagination is the only source of this information. The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, an early 19th-century collection of Welsh histories, repeats Geoffrey's account, referring to him as 'Gwrthevyr' (though Vortiporius' proper Modern Welsh spelling is Gwrdebyr; here the name has been confused with that of Vortimer, the son of Vortigern). In his Brittanicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, James Ussher also repeats the account, attributing the information to Geoffrey. - Vortimer, also known as Gwrthefyr in Welsh sources - Giles 1841:27–28, De Excidio, section 31 (in English) - Giles:246–279, De Excidio, section 31 (in Latin) - Meyer 1901:112–113, The Expulsion of the Dessi. The Irish form is given as "Tualodor mac Rigin maic Catacuind maic Caittienn maic Clotenn maic Naee maic Artuir maic Retheoir maic Congair maic Gartbuir maic Alchoil maic Trestin maic Aeda Brosc maic Corath maic Echach Almuir maic Arttchuirp". Meyer's translation is "Teudor son of Regin, son of Catgocaun, son of Cathen, son of Cloten, son of Nougoy, son of Arthur, son of Petr, son of Cincar, son of Guortepir, son of Aircol, son of Triphun, son of Áed Brosc, son of Corath, son of Eochaid Allmuir, son of Artchorp". - Phillimore 1888:171, Harleian MS. 3859, "... Teudos map Regin map Catgocaun map Cathen map Cloten map Nougoy map Arthur map Petr map Cincar map Guortepir map Aircol map Triphun ...". - Phillimore 1887:86, Pedigrees From Jesus College MS. 20. "... Teudos M. Gwgawn M. Cathen M. Eleothen M. Nennue M. Arthur M. Peder M. Kyngar M. Gwrdeber M. Erbin M. Aircol lawhir M. tryphun M. Ewein vreisc M. Cyndwr bendigeit ...". Ewein vreisc is given here for Áed Brosc given elsewhere, and Erbin is inserted between Gwrdeber and Aircol, where he is not listed elsewhere. - Dictionary of the Irish Language, Compact Edition, Royal Irish Academy, 1998; allmuir, p. 37, column 289, line 078 - Meyer, Kuno (1896), "Early Relations Between Gael and Brython", in Evans, E. Vincent, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, Session 1895–1896 I, London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, pp. 55–86 - Miller, Mollie (1977), "Date-Guessing and Dyfed", Studia Celtica 12, Cardiff: University of Wales, pp. 33–61 - Coplestone-Crow, Bruce (1981), "The Dual Nature of Irish Colonization of Dyfed in the Dark Ages", Studia Celtica 16, Cardiff: University of Wales, pp. 1–24 - Laws, Edward (1895), "Discovery of the Tombstone of Vortipore, Prince of Demetia", Archaeologia Cambrensis, Fifth Series XII, London: Chas. J. Clark, pp. 303–306 - Sims-Williams, Patrick (2003), The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: Phonology and Chronology, c. 400 – 1200, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 342, 346–347, ISBN 1-4051-0903-3 - *Anonymous (1884), "Revelation 13-2", The Holy Bible, New York: American Bible Society, p. 219 — "And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority." (underlining added) - Lloyd 1911:133, A History of Wales, Vol. I - Giles 1841:24–25, De Excidio, sections 28 and 29 (in English) - Giles:244–245, De Excidio, sections 28 and 29 (in Latin) - Hamp, Eric P."Voteporigis Protictoris", in Studia Celtica, 30, 1996, p. 293. - Lloyd 1911:132–133, A History of Wales, Vol. I - Rhys, John (1895), "Notes on the Inscriptions on the Tombstone of Votipores, Prince of Demetia", Archaeologia Cambrensis, Fifth Series XII, London: Chas. J. Clark, pp. 307–313 - Sims-Williams, Patrick, The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: Phonology and Chronology (Oxford, 2003), pp. 346-47. - Giles, John Allen, ed. (1848), "Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History", Six Old English Chronicles, London: George Bell and Sons (published 1900), pp. 89–294 - Jones, Owen; Morganwg, Iolo; Pughe, William Owen, eds. (1801), "Brut G. Ab Arthur", The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (Prose) II, London: Jones, Morganwg, and Pughe, p. 359 - Ussher, James (1639), "Caput IV", in Elrington, Charles Richard, Brittanicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates (caput XIV-XVII), Dublin: Hodges and Smith (published 1847), p. 56 - Davies, John (1990), A History of Wales (First ed.), London: Penguin Group (published 1993), ISBN 0-7139-9098-8 - Giles, John Allen, ed. (1841), The Works of Gildas and Nennius, London: James Bohn — English translation - Giles, John Allen, ed. (1847), History of the Ancient Britons II (Second ed.), Oxford: W. Baxter (published 1854) — in Latin - Lloyd, John Edward (1911), A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest I (2nd ed.), London: Longmans, Green, and Co (published 1912) - Meyer, Kuno, ed. (1901), "The Expulsion of the Dessi", Y Cymmrodor XIV, London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, pp. 101–135 - Phillimore, Egerton, ed. (1887), "Pedigrees from Jesus College MS. 20", Y Cymmrodor VIII, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, pp. 83–92 - Phillimore, Egerton (1888), "The Annales Cambriae and Old Welsh Genealogies, from Harleian MS. 3859", in Phillimore, Egerton, Y Cymmrodor IX, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, pp. 141–183 \|Unknown\|\|King of Dyfed early to mid 500s \|King of Britain\|\|Succeeded by	<urn:uuid:36f47dd2-274c-4d7d-8e92-6b0fea8902e2>	CC-MAIN-2015-40	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortiporius	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736680773.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215800-00044-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.90601	3,197	2.625	3	3.047847	3	Strong reasoning	History
Elementary is designed to display widgets in an attractive layout. It has a number of containers for this very purpose. When coding, you will most probably want to display widgets onscreen in a specific order. In the Form Tutorial, for example, the user information is arranged vertically. This basic container is called a box. There is no theme for a box layout. It is simply a linear method for arranging widgets horizontally or vertically. A conformant is a container widget that accounts for the space taken by the indicator, virtual keyboard, and softkey windows. The content area of the conformant is resized and positioned based on the space available. When the virtual keyboard is displayed, the content area is not resized. The Gengrid widget is based on the same concept as genlist. It aims to display objects in a grid, rendering only the visible ones. Callbacks are called upon item creation or deletion with genlist. This widget is an offshoot of the layout widget and uses the scroller interface. This means you can use both scroller and layout functions with Gengrid. A Gengrid may display items in a horizontal or vertical layout. For horizontal layouts, items are displayed in columns from top to bottom. New columns are created when all the space in the current column is filled. For vertical layouts, items are set in rows from left to right. Genlist is a widget that displays a scrollable list of items. It can manage large numbers of entries efficiently and has a low footprint as only visible items are allocated in memory. In a grid, each objects is placed at a specific fixed positions, which is expressed as a percentage of the full width and height of the grid. By default, grid size is 100 x 100 pixels. A layout is a container widget that takes a standard Edje design file and wraps it very thinly in a widget. Layouts are the basis of many graphics widgets used in Elementary. An Edje design file describes how the elements of the User Interface (UI) are positioned and how they behave when you interact with them. For more information, see the Edje guide. A mapbuf widget is a container widget which uses an Evas map to hold a content object. This widget is used to improve the performance of complex widgets when moving and resizing . The content object is treated as a single image by the Evas map. If you have a content object containing several child objects, moving the mapbuf widget will be faster than doing the same with the content object. The mapbuf widget inherits all the functions of the container class. A naviframe widget consists of a stack of views. New views are pushed on top of previous ones. Only the top-most view on the stack is displayed. The previous views are not deleted. A previous view is displayed when the view on top of it is popped. Transitions can be animated on a push or a pop, depending on the theme applied to the widget. A panes widget adds a draggable bar between two sections of content. The sections are resized when the bar is dragged. A scroller holds (and clips) a single object. This means that the user can use a scroll bar or their finger to drag the viewable region across the object, moving through a much larger space than is contained in the viewing area. The scroller will always have a default minimum size that is not limited by its contents. The scroller widget inherits all the functions of the Layout Container. A table is like a box in that it uses the same APIs but also has 2 dimensions. An item inside the table can span multiple columns and rows, and even overlap with other items. Tables can be raised or lowered accordingly to adjust stacking if there is any overlap.	<urn:uuid:49fc088e-362d-439d-ac97-8607b2cd47d8>	CC-MAIN-2023-06	https://www.enlightenment.org/playground/containers.md	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500126.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20230204110651-20230204140651-00155.warc.gz	en	0.920109	777	2.96875	3	1.594002	2	Moderate reasoning	Software Dev.
5 Ways Parents Can Improve Their Child's Vocabulary The 'This' and 'That' of Improving Your Child's Language The other day I went on vacation. We went over THERE. I enjoyed it because we did THIS and THAT. There was one activity where my son caught the THING and did THIS to it. We couldn’t stop laughing, but eventually we helped him get THAT over THERE. Unfortunately my daughter will be too young to remember our trip over THERE. My question to you is...what in the world am I talking about? Our children’s vocabulary is very important, and if we use words such as “this” and “that,” we lose out on opportunities to teach our kids new words. I took a course recently that said that children between the ages of 4 and 5 demonstrate the most significant growth in vocabularies. A child the age of 4 has a vocabulary of about 1,200 words, but a child the age of 5 has a vocabulary of 5,000 words. That is a HUGE growth in words. Your child's vocabulary is so important. Think of each skill your child develops as building blocks. Starting from infancy, your child begins by cooing, which turns into babbling that then turns into words and eventually sentences. Research shows that children with higher vocabulary results in better decoding abilities. All that to say that their reading skills will benefit from having better vocabulary. So what can I do to help my child? 1.Be specific when talking to your children. If I changed the story above to something more like this, it would all make sense….. The other day I went on vacation. We went to South Padre Island. I enjoyed it because we went parasailing and fishing. My son caught a fish but his line got tangled with someone else’s. We couldn’t stop laughing, but eventually we helped him untangle the line and get it on the boat. Now isn’t that so much better. 2. Try teaching your child new words or even different variations of the same word. For example: “The elephant is big” can turn into “The elephant is gigantic.” or even “The elephant is enormous.” 3. Use the same word in many different ways. Think about the word “run." The dog ran fast. I ran next to him, but I could not run as fast. My brother tried to run, but he fell down. After I ran, I was really tired. Running is fun. 4 .Make learning new words fun. Instead of doing flash cards (snooze), find something that is interesting to your child and think of words based on the activity. If your child likes playing with farm animals, think of several words you could teach your child involving farm animals. As you play, introduce those words you wrote down. 5. Read books to your child. Books offer so many new and wonderful opportunities for learning words. You don’t have to necessarily read all the words, just talk about the pictures. Try thinking of words you can use multiple times throughout the book. Vocabulary development is critical for children. It helps with building sentences and it’s important for reading as well. Markus Zusak put it well when he said, “The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn’t be any of this." Get to know Jonathan Suarez Jonathan Suarez is a speech pathologist at Cook Children's. Speech/language pathologists focus on oral motor, speech, language and communication skills to enhance development, restore function and to prevent disability from pediatric conditions, illness or injury. Evaluation, treatment and home programming are available for children with: - Feeding and swallowing disorders - Articulation, voice, resonance and fluency disorders - Receptive and expressive language disorders - Aural rehabilitation/ auditory verbal therapy for hearing loss or cochlear implant - Evaluation for augmentative communication devices To learn more about making an appointment, click here, or call 682-885-4063.	<urn:uuid:ac9ed2ab-2de1-4326-a518-d6f0753510d2>	CC-MAIN-2023-06	https://www.checkupnewsroom.com/5-ways-parents-can-improve-their-childs-vocabulary/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500357.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206181343-20230206211343-00363.warc.gz	en	0.968691	859	3.28125	3	2.174971	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
As people age they may develop more. Sometimes they seem to erupt during pregnancy, following hormone replacement therapy or as a result of other medical problems. They are most likely hereditary and not caused by sun exposure. They often are found on the trunk and on the face where the facial skin meets the scalp. They may be oval spots less than a fraction of an inch across, or may form long Christmas tree like patterns on the torso. Clothing rubbing against them may irritate and make them grow larger. Alpha-hydroxy lotions and mild steriod creams may help this. If they get very itchy, irritated, or bleed easily they should be removed. When a seborrheic keratosis turns black, it may be difficult to distinguish it from a skin cancer without a biopsy. Removal is often done using liquid nitrogen (cryosurgery). Another treatment done (as they are superifical–"pasted-on") consist of scraping off the lesion with a curette (ED&C). This is more useful when only a few need to be done or when one spot needs a biopsy (as the scrapings can be sent to the lab). Sometimes they are burnt off with an electric needle or laser. Liver or age spots are solar lentigines. They are benign lesion that occur on sun-exposed areas of the body. The backs of the hands and face are the most common areas. They tend to increase in number with age. They can vary in size from 0.2 to 2 cm. Lenigines are flat, dark lesions that usually have discrete borders and may have an irregular shape. They are are caused by a marked increase in the number of pigment cells (melanocytes) located in the superficial layers of the skin. Lentigines are benign and no treatment is necessary. For cosmetic purposes, some are treated with cryotherapy, hydroquinone preparations (bleaching creams), retinoids, chemical peels or lasers. Preventive measures include avoidance of excessive sunlight. If a lesion develops a highly irregular border, changes in pigmentation, or changes in the thickness, then a biopsy should be done to rule out cancer. Actinic keratosis, unlike seborrheic keratoses (AK’s), are from sun damage. They are also called solar keratosis, sun spots, or precancerous spots. They appear as a scaly or crusty bump on the skin surface. They range in size from as small as a pinhead to over an inch in diameter. AK’s may be light or dark, tan, pink, red, a combination of these, or the same color as the skin. They may be flat or raised in appearance. They may disappear only to reappear later. Half of all keratosis will go away on their own if one avoids all sun for a few years (difficult to do). AK’s appear on sun exposed areas: face, ears, bald scalp, neck, backs of hands and forearms, and lips. Actinic keratosis can be the first step in the development of skin cancer. They are pre-cancer. It is estimated that 10-15 % of active lesions will progress to squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The presence of AK’s indicates that sun damage has occurred. This increases the likelyhood of any kind of skin cancer, not just SCC, can develop. People with AK’s are more likely to develop melanoma also. Sun exposure is the cause of almost all actinic keratoses. So use your sunscreen. Don’t forget the lip balm with sunscreen. Wear your hats, perferably wide brimmed. Cryosurgery freezes off the lesions through application of liquid nitrogen. This is done with a special spray device or cotton-tipped applicator. It does not require anesthesia and produces no bleeding. The longer the spot is frozen the better the chance it will never come back. Longer freezes can result in hypopigmented areas. Curettage scrapes the lesion off and may be used as a biopsy specimen. Bleeding is controlled by cautery (application of an acid or heat produced by an electric needle). Shave Removal utilizes a scalpel to shave the keratosis (provides a specimen). As with curettage, the base of the lesion is destroyed and the bleeding stopped by cauterization. Chemical Peels make use of acids (Jessners solution and /or trichloroacetic acid) applied over the area. The top layers of the skin are "peeled" off by controlled burning (done by the acid strength used and time left on the skin). It may take up to seven days for the area to heal. Redness and soreness associated with the peel usually disappear after a few days. Topical creams used to treat keratoses is an effective solution when there are numerous lesions. Aldara works by stimulating the body’s immune system to "recognize" these precancerous lesions and treat them. This ointment is applied to the affected areas twice weekly for 6-12 weeks. 5-fluorouracil (Efudex, Carac) cream works by directly attacking the precancerous cell. This ointment is applied once or twice daily for 2-4 weeks. Treatment leaves the affected area temporarily reddened and raw. The more raw and inflamed the skin becomes, the better the end result. Solaraze gel is a non-steroidal medication that also works fairly well on AK’s. This ointment is applied twice daily for 90 days.	<urn:uuid:8893501a-ed0c-409d-bd71-08a69ef609da>	CC-MAIN-2015-32	http://www.rlbatesmd.blogspot.com/2007/07/seborrheic-keratosis-solar-lentigines.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042988311.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002308-00275-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.935857	1,179	2.921875	3	1.768403	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Tree Lore: Beech Beech - Phagos - Beech groves have been found in and near important places of power; Avebury and Cerne Abbas to name two. They maybe have been used for food as much as their majestic presence. They have been said to have inspired the building of Cathedrals; the high vaulting arches mimic the high arching branches of the Beech Grove. Beech is thought of as The Mother of the Woods. Beech is also known as the Beech Queen who's consort is the Oak King. Beech is known for her generosity of spirit, she gives both protection and nourishment, as she fans her branches out into a broad canopy that is useful for shelter and her beech nuts used to be a valuable food source. People once relied upon her beech nuts to keep themselves from starvation, and collecting them helped strengthen the bonds between the community or clans. Beech was also used as a good luck charm, and pieces of it were thought to bring good fortune to the wearer. Many legends talk of serpents and Beech trees and the poet Tennyson referred to the ‘serpent-rooted Beech tree’; good examples of such are to be found at Avebury. Gods and Goddesses: Saturn, Chronos, Old Father time, Ceridwen as Henwen, the great white ancient sow, was said to possess great wisdom from eating nuts from the sacred Beech tree which for Druids symbolised ancient knowledge and tradition (Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm— Druid Animal Oracle). In Greek legend Helen of Troy was supposed to have carved her lover’s name upon a beech tree, as many other lovers had done before her. Jason built the Argo with Beech in preference to Oak. The Irish god Ogma, a leading warrior of the Tuatha de Danaan, who was credited with the writing of the Ogham Alphabet, wrote upon Beech. Ruling Planet is Saturn (Chronos) Gaelic/Irish name: Phagos Beech is linked with time, wisdom and knowledge but especially written wisdom, as the Beech was used in thin slices to write upon and form the very first books. This is corroborated by the fact that Beeches were called 'Boc' by the Anglo-Saxons, which later became book. Even today the Swedish word 'Bok' means both book and beech and in German 'Buch' means book and 'Buche' means Beech. Whatever material words were inscribed, took on the power and magic of the gods which is why the Beech tree was held in such awe. Writing made knowledge manifest into the physical world and therefore allowed that wisdom to be passed on to future generations. Beech can help us make wishes, by scratching your wish upon a piece of Beech and then burying it. Say a simple spell or prayer as you are giving it back to the earth and then it will begin to manifest in your life. In The Bach Flower Remedies Beech is used against mental rigidity, fault finding, intolerance, arrogance and lack of sympathy. Meditation with the Beech helps us relax and let go of fixed ideas, which hinders us and our development. The tree will helps get in touch with our ancestors, their knowledge passed down through time and the deep wisdom within, which can help us see ways forward for the future.	<urn:uuid:0c0507e1-d8a6-45b0-b953-a37311f8bdd1>	CC-MAIN-2016-22	http://www.druidry.org/library/trees/tree-lore-beech	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464051196108.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524005316-00058-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.976822	712	2.90625	3	2.650482	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
NOW HIRING! Math instructors and Cognitive Trainers/Reading Coaches. 865-257-5322. Some definitions tell us nothing at all. Others use so many words we can't tell what causes or constitutes a learning disability. Check out a few definitions that are popular today: “A condition giving rise to difficulties in acquiring knowledge and skills to the level expected of those of the same age, especially when not associated with a physical handicap.” — Google Search “A learning disability is a neurological disorder. In simple terms, a learning disability results from a difference in the way a person’s brain is “wired.” — LD Online One rule of thumb that's widely accepted when defining a Learning Disability is, "A Two-year Discrepancy Between Age and Achievement." What Areas Does a Learning Disability Effect? While Learning Disabilities can interfere with basic skills like reading, writing, and math, they can also interfere with higher-level skills like organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long and short term memory, and attention. On this topic, The Learning Disability Association of America states the following, “It is important to realize that learning disabilities can affect an individual’s life beyond academics and can impact relationships with family, friends, and in the workplace.” Learning Disabilities are not only known to affect relationships, but they can also mask students who are gifted. We have worked with many students whose true achievement levels and mental ages are much higher than their biological age and academic ability. We have found that while a "two-year discrepancy between age and achievement" may be common practice in schools, it doesn't address the help a student might need who is performing at an average level but is actually a gifted, exceptional student. These are the students who may make decent grades but are acutely aware of their struggles and underperformance in some areas. In fact, gifted students are often among our high school dropouts — it's estimated that 50% of dropouts are gifted. Go figure! According to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), the definition of a specific learning disability is as follows: “A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to: This includes conditions such as: *Disabilities are not limited to those shown above. These are only a few examples. If psychological processes are so basic, why is there not more remedial emphasis placed on them? The IDEA definition refers to the psychological processes measured on IQ subtests. These include areas such as: These areas represent umbrellas over a multitude of subskills, which are selectively tested using specialized methods. Areas of psychological processing are also collectively known as cognitive processing skills. The most common are auditory processing and visual processing. Research has found that these skills, once thought to be cemented in place by a certain age, are responsive to therapeutic procedures for growth and development. Brain plasticity is the new buzzword for this relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, we can help your child improve underperforming processing skills through cognitive processing skill therapy. This method forms the basis for the PACE program we offer at Learning Dynamics, LLC, our Learning Disability Center in Knoxville. PACE stands for “Processing & Cognitive Enhancement.” Research shows that enhancing cognitive processing skills can be the key to increasing learning skills! To diagnose a Learning Disability, we test to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in cognitive processing skills and academics. Among these critical skills are, as mentioned previously: At our Knoxville Learning Center, we use the Gibson Cognitive Skills test, which is a standardized, normed test. We prefer to use the paper and pencil version because of the valuable information we can gain by observing. These observations would otherwise be missed by a computer. 1. Complete a Skills Test to identify your child's areas of strengths and weaknesses in cognitive processing skills and academics. 2. Enroll your Child in PACE our Processing and Cognitive Enhancement program. This program is designed to help your child gain stronger abilities in the underdeveloped areas we identify during testing. PACE also helps areas of strength become even stronger 3. Enroll your child in one of our academic training programs to build necessary neurological connections for reading or math. These programs help your child build a better understanding of language and number systems and are known for having accelerated results compared with traditional tutoring. Learning Dynamics, LLC exists to help children and adults who struggle with a learning disability find the help they need. Here's a little more information about how we do that: We test for cognitive (neurologically based) processing skill areas of strength and weakness. After you or your child completes a test, we will consult with you about the test results and correlate them with any other previous testing you or your child has completed. Our results are shown in an easy to understand bar graph. If we find areas of weakness in any of the critical cognitive abilities, we may recommend one or more of our interventions. PACE COGNITIVE SKILLS TRAINING We offer research-based, custom-designed programs with proven results. Our primary tool for intervention is the PACE program, which stands for Processing and Cognitive Enhancement. This program effectively and efficiently targets all areas of cognition with mental workouts and a personal learning coach. Have you heard of runners who train for marathons by using ankle weights and practicing at high elevations to develop strong lungs and muscles? The PACE program operates using the same idea. PACE loads the brain to push itself at multi-tasking activities designed to use specific parts of the brain simultaneously to grow and develop the neurological connections which we have found to be lacking. As a result, students learn to take in higher amounts of input; process, use or analyze that input; and, retain for later retrieval. The PACE program requires a minimum of 60, one hour sessions to strengthen and develop the base neurological systems for learning. After completing PACE, a student may begin diagnostic re-teaching in academics to identify and fill in learning gaps, which are the result of weak cognitive skills. ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS FOR TARGETED RESULTS We also offer other programs, like Master the Code, to hone in on a specific skill set you or your child is struggling with. Master the Code is one of the most popular programs that we offer. It's our reading and spelling program that works as a companion program to PACE. Master the Code is based on leading research in reading education and industry best practices. It is designed to continue to strengthen and challenge the brain using similar exercises as those we use in PACE. Within one year, we have seen students improve their reading ability by years! We have found PACE and Master the Code to also help with dysgraphia (writing) and speech. We have a few spots left for fall 2021. Our summer program is full with a waiting list. Summer usually fills up by February. Contact us soon if you are in need of help for your child or yourself.	<urn:uuid:51e13cd4-6adb-44bf-a655-30c4811d0daa>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://learningdisabilityknoxville.com/disabilities	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991413.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20210512224016-20210513014016-00314.warc.gz	en	0.948201	1,479	4	4	2.615368	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Social distancing has become a new norm due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, officials have urged all the citizens to keep a distance of six feet from each other to reduce the risk of coronavirus. This is because infected individuals can transfer the virus into healthy people within seconds, social distancing at the workplace or public places has become indispensable. The world as we know it is changing rapidly due to social distancing. Recently, we have observed that shopping malls, offices, and buildings are never going to be the same with new social distancing rules. With new rules and standard operating procedures to safeguard people’s health, technology has also played a crucial part in improving the social distancing experience. Due to growing lockdowns and COVID-19 cases, society’s dependency on technology and the Internet is increasing. As more and more US institutions are shutting their doors to comply with social distancing rules, it’s making more and more people rely on technology to stay connected. Since millions of individuals are forced into isolation every day, the World Wide Web and digital technology open a new window for them to look into the outside world. People are attending online social events and engaging with friends over social media. The new normal reminds us how much we have to rely on technology to survive and thrive amidst the pandemic. Technology has a Huge Impact on Social Distancing The world can use technology in myriad ways during the pandemic and social distancing. One example is that it can help to improve social distancing in buildings. Engineers and employers can use software and apps to streamline their teams’ behaviors. Proximity apps and software are also used by companies to show how people are interacting with each other while complying with social distancing rules. Technology is also helping architects to design new buildings from a future perspective. For example, to ensure social distancing in buildings, technology is used to create spatial awareness in new and existing buildings. Personal distancing systems (PDS) are also being used in the United States that generate a proximity warning to help people keep a distance. Moreover, these apps and gadgets can be tied to workers’ belts working at construction sites. Technology also supports social distancing with wristbands and smartwatches. Such devices produce an alarm or vibrate when people don’t keep an appropriate distance. Technology can also be useful at shops, warehouses, and logistics sites. It allows people to work in a highly digital environment to focus on the work targets and let the digital software handle the social distancing measures. The entrepreneur states that technology has also changed the future of building management. Software tools can help people understand how they can optimize the available space efficiently. Technology is also assisting building management and environmental sustainability. The innovation of smart sensors for buildings helps engineers to detect the number of individuals in space. That limits too many people to gather in one place. Social Distancing and the Growing Role of Social Media Social distancing is also elevating the role of social media in our lives. Massive attention is turning to social media platforms and networking sites to keep people informed and engaged with others. People have always used social media for entertainment in the past; however, amidst the global pandemic, with changing routines, everyone is relying on social media unprecedentedly. For example, according to Forbes, the next era of digital marketing is here with social media marketing taking over traditional marketing amidst the pandemic. Organizations and small businesses are posting innovative content on social media at a dizzying pace to attract customers. More content on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube is also helping communities to reach out to new clients. Instagram Live is also changing the way businesses communicate in the current era. For instance, as a business owner, you must have noticed a spike in Instagram Live notifications. If you are relying on Instagram or Twitter for your business promotion, you are not alone. As companies are working from home, there are more people on Instagram than ever to reach out to their followers. Similarly, Facebook live meetings and streams are also gaining popularity. It is quickly becoming a platform of choice to gain more likes and rankings. A great thing live streaming offers is no barrier to entry; anyone can create a Facebook account and go live without wasting time. The platform provides options for multiple users to actively engage in conversations and join hands to boost their profits. Therefore, social media is also helping several communities to come together and enhance their followings. Another honorable mention is TikTok. With a growing user base of Gen-Z, TikTok content has increased significantly in recent months. With parents, siblings, and grandparents all involving in this endeavor, video challenges are becoming popular with many people involved in dancing and singing. What better way to entertain yourself than TikTok when you are bored due to social distancing? The global pandemic and social distancing rules have increased the role and effectiveness of technology in the lives of the masses. Another popular technology that is becoming important in this era of digitization is video-communication apps. These apps have become important for both individuals and businesses. Facebook live, Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber offer innovative ways to stay in touch with your loved ones. Ever since the social isolation started in 2020, entrepreneurs are eager to maintain their connections with stakeholders using communication apps. For example, in 2020, Zoom had more than two million downloads. The utilization of the app has increased significantly to assist people with communication. Finally, the rise of smartphone monitoring apps such as Xnspy has surged significantly due to this new normal. With more managers, entrepreneurs, and leaders concerned about the progress of their organizations, employee monitoring software has become a necessity in global firms. For instance, managers have more control over employees’ social media activities with Xnspy allowing them access to social media chats, calls, and multimedia. Workplaces are thriving as a result of improved employee monitoring with Xnspy.	<urn:uuid:36c7c6b8-9049-474e-a77c-792601405b1b>	CC-MAIN-2021-49	https://xnspy.com/blog/how-social-distancing-has-increased-dependence-on-technology.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964362923.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20211204003045-20211204033045-00120.warc.gz	en	0.957209	1,236	3.609375	4	2.672368	3	Strong reasoning	Software
Information and a selection of bumblefoot photos for reference. Put together with input by Hobbyfarmfun. Bumblefoot Also called: staphylococcosis, plantar pododermatitis. Affects the foot pad, progression is chronic.Symptoms : in maturing birds, especially in males of heavy breeds: lameness, reluctance to walk, inflamed foot (one or both), hot, hard, swollen, or pus-filled abscess or dark black scab on bottom of foot, resting on hocks; sometimes sores appear on hocks and bottoms of toes. It's a painful condition. Sometimes there is a small black scab. Sometimes the injury that allowed the entry of the bacteria has healed and there's no sign of a scab at all. Also note that in some cases there is no limp or signs of ill health and it's worth doing regular checks on your birds to ensure their feet are healthy. Advanced bumblefoot is a necrotizing abscess on the plantar surface of the foot. Depending on the location and chronicity of the abscess, infection may or may not extend to neighboring joints, tendon sheaths and bones. Mortality : up to 50% if left untreated.Postmortem Findings : pus or cheesy material in foot pad; sometimes hock joints filled with grayish white fluidCause : Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, present wherever there are chickensTransmission : Bacteria enters foot through injury caused by splinters, sharp roosts, jumping from roost on to hard or rocky ground, housing on wire, irritation due to improper litter management.Prevention : practice good sanitation; provide deep, dry litter that does not pack; avoid high perches; round off edges of perch and sand off splinters; feed vitamin supplement (especially vitamin A); do not breed susceptible chickens to avoid getting more of the sameTreatment: In very mild cases, cleaning the foot well by soaking in saline and scrubbing it, then applying some type of topical antiseptic and a bandage for a number of days can work. Some members use Centrigen spray. In established infections more vigorous treatment is necessary and healing can take many weeks. While it is possible for some more severe cases to heal without antibiotics it does take successive cleaning and rebandaging treatments. There are no guarantees, however, and the best course is always a trip to the vet for prescription antibiotics. Chicken Health Handbook : difficult to cure; inject swollen area with 0.5cc penicillin/streptomycin; if abscess is large, wash foot, cut open abscess, squeeze out cheesy core, rinse well with hydrogen peroxide, pack with Neosporin, wrap foot with gauze bandage or strip of clean cloth, and tape; confine bird on deep litter and dress foot every 2 or 3 daysPoultry Diseases – Jordan : Control – Birds in the early stages of infection and disease may respond to treatment but those with well established lesions are unlikely to respond. S. Aureus in inherently a rather resistant organism. Penicillin, streptomycin, tetracyclines, erythromycin, novobiocin, sulphonamide, lincomycin, spectinomycin and fluoroquinolones have all been used with some success, but antibiotic resistance is common. Reduced exposure to immunosuppressive viruses and avoidance of stress and aggression are likely to be beneficial. Avian Medicine: Principles and Application. Richie, Harrison & Harrison The goals of advanced bumblefoot treatment are to reduce inflammation and swelling, ensure an adequate diet, establish drainage if needed, begin an antibacterial therapy to eliminate underlying pathogens, manage the wound and address any dietary deficiencies. Treatment for advanced lesions must be vigorous and prognosis is guarded. For less advanced cases, options may include changing the diet, changing the perches and litter, applying topical meds for minor cracking and scaling, bandaging.Some practical advice from BYP members:Opening the infected area to remove the pus - Sometimes Bumblefoot doesn’t have a puss filled pad, check before you cut. If your going to do anything to the bird, it is always a good idea to have a helper with you, but you can do it yourself, just make sure the bird is unable to move about, if you have a stretch bandage, then wrapping this around the birds wings, will certainly help. Before you start, put on a pair of disposable gloves, you don’t want the staph infection getting into you, if you have any small nick in your skin it can and will get in to your system. Wash the leg and foot, gently scrub with betadine until clean at least 30 seconds. If you can soak the foot until the scab is soft, do that and then pull off the scab. Lance the pad with the needle or scalpel and squeeze out the pus. There will be some bleeding. If there is a lot of bleeding, hold pressure with a sterile 2x2 pad until stopped or under control. Sometimes it's possible to work the core of the infection loose and with a cotton bud. You may apply some hydrogen peroxide. If its a staph it should bubble furiously destroying the staph in the process. But be careful because the peroxide is pretty corrosive and should not be over used. Another alternative is Betadine or iodine. Apply Neosporin or one of the creams based on Chlorhexadine (such as savlon) to the site. Apply a sterile gauze pad 2 x 2s for padding. You can either use a stretch bandage or wrap the foot firmly with tape. Wrap so the toes and spur are exposed. Don't wrap so tight that you cut off circulation. Change the dressing in 2-3 days. Keep the chicken confined until the pad is well healed so that it won't open up when they go back to free ranging. Once the wound has been cleaned out (if necessary) an alternative topical antiseptic is Manuka Honey. This is a medicinal quality honey that is available from most pharmacies. Manuka Honeys are rated using a UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) rating, and the optimal UMF rating for therapeutic use is between 10-18. This has been proven to have antibacterial activity that is not present in any other type of honey. Manuka has been proven as another option for treating staph infections particularly in chronic wounds.Human Health Risk Superficial skin infection (impetigo); wear plastic gloves when treating a bird, wash hands afterward, gather blister contents in paper towel and dispose by burning or deep burial.Sources – Collated and paraphrased from:The Chicken Health Handbook 1994 Gail Damerow Poultry Diseases 6th ed Jordan 2008 Avian Medicine: Principles and Application, abridged ed. – Ritchie, Harrison & Harrison 1997 Photos from BYP members showing possible cases of Bumblefoot This is Helenchook's bird and if you wish to read the thread here it is: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7971176&hilit=%3Cspan Another case owned by Hobbyfarmfun - A previously cleaned out abscess that needed to be soaked, recleaned and redressed. The swelling was hot and inflamed. This wound was opened at three different points. It's worth noting that this bird was not given antibiotics - just regular cleaning and bandaging and has healed up well over a couple of months. The affected foot appears slightly larger than the other one, probably due to scar tissue. Dressing on bumblefoot. Gauze underneath with a small trimmed piece of vetwrap over the top. That stays on well and you don't need a lot of it. Here's a picture from elsewhere showing the cheesy core removed from the abcess in quite a nasty case. Sometimes the infection can create a lump or lumps between the toes: A vet consult and treatment is obviously the best way to go, but if that's not possible it is worth trying to assist the bird yourself. Even though it doesn't always work, there are many success stories, and it's definitely worth making the attempt.	<urn:uuid:e0bd7796-7362-4c31-bb88-5ef8cd1b6978>	CC-MAIN-2016-50	http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7983344	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698542828.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170902-00452-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.918011	1,711	2.625	3	2.35601	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
4.2. X-ray luminosities and luminosity functions The number of clusters per unit volume with X-ray luminosities in the range Lx to Lx + dLx is defined as f(Lx)dLx, where f(Lx) is the X-ray luminosity function. In general, the luminosity function will depend on the method used to select the clusters. One can begin with a statistically complete catalog of optically detected clusters (such as the 'statistical sample' of Abell clusters; see Section 2.1), which is surveyed for X-ray emission. Alternatively, a complete catalog of X-ray sources can be examined optically to determine which sources are associated with clusters of galaxies. In addition to reproducing the observed statistics of X-ray cluster identifications, the X-ray luminosity function is subject to the additional constraints that the total number of X-ray clusters not exceed the total number of all clusters, and the total emissivity of X-ray clusters not produce a larger X-ray background than is observed. Most data on cluster luminosities have been fit to either an exponential or a power-law form of the luminosity function. Thus we define \| (4.1) \| All luminosities in this section are given for the photon energy range of 2 - 10 keV. It is convenient to define L44 Lx / 1044 ergs / s. Schwartz (1978) derived an estimate of the luminosity function for a sample of 14 Abell clusters in distance class 3 or less, which were detected with the Uhuru, Ariel 5, or SAS-C satellites. More distant clusters are used only to give an upper limit to the luminosity function at high luminosities. This sample is only expected to be complete for 1 L44 10. Schwartz found that the best fit exponential luminosity function has Ae = 4.5 × 10-7 and Lxo = 2.0 × 1044 h50 ergs / s, although a power-law with Ap = 7.9 × 10-7 and p 2.45 would also fit the data if suitably truncated at high and low luminosities. McHardy (1978a) derived an X-ray luminosity function from the Ariel 5 fluxes for Abell clusters of distance class 3 or less; he argued that the Uhuru fluxes are unreliable for weak sources. While he did not fit his numerical luminosity function to any analytic expression, a suitable fit is given by a power law with Ap = 2.5 × 10-7 and p 2 for 0.2 L44 20. The HEAO-1 satellite provided a much more extensive data base for determining the luminosity function of clusters. Both the A-1 and A-2 experiments were used to survey the Abell clusters. A luminosity function was derived for a significant portion of the statistical sample of Abell clusters (Section 2.1), using the A-1 data by Ulmer et al. (1981). Exponential and power-law fits to these data gave Ae = 0.49 × 10-7, Lxo = 2.9 × 1044 h50 - 2 ergs / s, and Ap = 1.1 × 10-8, p = 1.7, respectively. When the sample was extended to all Abell clusters and luminosities, the normalization Ae and the characteristic luminosity Lxo both were roughly doubled. The HEAO-1 A-2 data were used to derive a luminosity function both by surveying the Abell clusters (McKee et al., 1980; Hintzen et al., 1980) and by identifying a complete sample of X-ray sources in a flux-limited survey at high galactic latitude (Piccinotti et al., 1982). The Abell cluster survey included all richness classes and all distance classes less than five. The luminosity function could be fit adequately with either an exponential or power-law form, and the coefficients in equations (4.1) and (4.2) were Ae 2.5 × 10-7, Lxo 1.8 × 1044 h50 - 2 ergs / s, Ap 3.8 × 10-7, and p 2.2. The cluster luminosity from the high latitude survey was not well represented by an exponential; a power law fit gave Ap 3.6 × 10-7 and p 2.15, which agrees well with the A-2 Abell survey result. Bahcall (1979b) has attempted to predict the X-ray luminosity function of clusters from their optical luminosity function by assuming a one-to-one correspondence between the optical and X-ray luminosity of clusters. She predicts that clusters have a luminosity function that can be represented by two intersecting power laws with p 2.5 for L44 1 and p 1.3 for L44 1. While the HEAO-1 data do not show any clear evidence for a change in the slope of the luminosity function at L44 1, they are probably not inconsistent with such a change because they do not extend much below this luminosity. One important application of cluster luminosity functions is in determining the contribution of clusters to the hard X-ray background (see Field, 1980, for a review of its properties). From the estimates of the luminosity function of clusters discussed above, it appears that clusters probably provide only about 3 to 10% of the X-ray background in the 2 - 10 keV photon energy band, assuming they do not evolve rapidly with time (Rowan-Robinson and Fabian, 1975; Gursky and Schwartz, 1977; McKee et al., 1980; Hintzen et al., 1980; Piccinotti et al., 1982; Ulmer et al., 1981).	<urn:uuid:15d5d73e-f354-477e-b6fb-490bc240bae8>	CC-MAIN-2015-14	http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Sarazin/Sarazin4_2.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-14/segments/1427131303523.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20150323172143-00125-ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.903588	1,211	2.71875	3	2.965261	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
The Balance Sheet, The Income Statement, The Cash flow statement, Importance of financial components, Importance of Accurate Financial Statements for Organizations Financial statements provide the display of the financial health of a corporation at a particular point which gives insights into the company's performance, operations, cash flows, and overall conditions. Shareholders need them to make important decisions about their investments. The information provided in financial statements is the foundation of corporate accounting. The information is reviewed by management, investors, and lenders for the purpose of assessing the company's financial position. Data available in the balance sheet, the income statement, and cash flow is crucial to calculate in important financial ratios. Together these three statements give a comprehensive portrayal of the company’s operating activities. There are a variety of tools to analyze the evaluations in these statements such as debt ratios, efficiency ratios, and price ratios, profitability ratios, liquidity ratios The Balance Sheet: A Balance sheet is a financial statement which reports the company's assets, liabilities, and shareholders' equity. ( Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders’ Equity ) Assets: Things the company owns, Liabilities: Borrowed Money, Shareholders' equity: taking it from investors Generally, investors analyze the comprehensive view of the balance sheet. For example, analysts look at the total capital of the firm which predicts the liabilities and equity together. On the asset side of the balance sheet, analysts will typically be looking at long term assets and how efficiently a company manages its receivables in the short-term. Importance of the Balance Sheet The balance sheet displays the financial position of the company and provides the curative details of investments and also the debt and equity levels. These capital details help the investors and creditors to understand the position and the companies performance. The Income Statement: An income statement is one of the three crucial factors for reporting a company's financial performance. The income statement is also known as the profit and loss statements, typically presenting annually or quarterly. The income statements allow the businesses to compare the trends in income & expenses over time. Net Income = (Total Revenue + Gains) – (Total Expenses + Losses) An income statement provides valuable insights such as the company’s operations, the efficiency of its management, underperforming sectors, and its performance relative to industry peers. Importance of Income Statement: The balance sheet is just an overview of the companies’ assets, liabilities, equity, and debt but; does not show what actually happened in the period that caused the company to the current position. Therefore, profit figures on the income statement are crucial to the investors. The income statement format contains sales, expenses, losses, and profit. Statements can be used to help the investors evaluate the companies past performance and determine the future cash flows The Cash flow statement: The Cash Flow Statement provides a view of a company's overall cash liquidity flow by showing the cash transaction activities. It includes all the cash inside and outside flows. Cashflows statements are divided into three parts: operating, investing, and financing. Importance of Cash Flow Statement: The cash flow statement gives an overview of the cash liquidity flowed both: inside & outside. This gives the investors an idea if the company is stable or not, has enough funds to pay for its expenses and purchases. Importance of Accurate Financial Statements for Organizations: Even the smallest figures on the balance sheet can have a huge impact on the companies. Assets never perceive the same value before they purchased. A percentage has to be deducted from their value for depreciation. Evaluate Tax Liability Corporate tax rates are quite high than in other fields. When companies make a lot of profit, the taxes are equally high. The owners often get shocked by how little they get once they pay off the paid taxes to the government. Can they reduce their tax burden? If yes, they will need the most accurate numbers in the report. Why financial report is very essential because it also mitigates the costly mistakes or internal wrongdoing in business. If anyone wants to catch the illegal activities taking place in the companies, financial reports are the best channel to catch it. Companies spent a lot of time analyzing their accounts and checking every entry to find if anyone has tampered with any part of the business or an accounting error has been made.	<urn:uuid:89dee221-171f-4587-89da-5cbef3094ce5>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://bounyang365.com/business-finances-how-financial-statement-is-important-for-any-organization-to-mitigate-their-finances/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991537.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20210513045934-20210513075934-00086.warc.gz	en	0.935843	896	3.515625	4	2.309781	2	Moderate reasoning	Finance & Business
THE terrene’s most powerful X-ray laser send has been used to create a slender microscopic “black maw”. The machine uses extremely burnished, fast flashes of light to obtain atomic-level snapshots of any of nature’s fastest processes. SWNS:Southward West News Service The X-ray newsbreak knocks so many electrons out of the element atom (right) such that it tow in the electrons of the methyl group (remaining) like an elecetromagnetic version of a melanise hole A single pulse stripped-down all but a few electrons out of one atom from the interior out. This left a void that started propulsion in electrons from the rest of the whit – like a black trap gobbling a spiralling disk of argument. It’s hoped the breakthrough faculty lead to advanced ultra-high-pitched-res images of viruses and bacteria – and the advancing of better drugs. An creator’s impression of star junk that has fallen toward a ebony hole and collected into a clogged, chaotic disk of hot gas Staff person Sebastien Boutet, of Stanford Lincoln’s SLAC National Gas Laboratory, said the X-ray pulses are approximately a hundred times more burning than focusing all Earth’s rise sunlight “onto a rough.” The experiment was carried out using the Calif.-based lab’s Linac Well-organized Light Source (LCLS) – the near powerful x-ray laser in the world. Inside 30 femtoseconds – millionths of a one-billionth of a second – the molecule gone astray more than 50 electrons, far exceeding than expected. Then it blew up. Physicist Academician Daniel Rolles, of Kansas Submit University, said: “For any genre of experiment you do that focuses deep X-rays on a sample, you want to be aware how it reacts to the X-rays. “This weekly shows that we can understand and replica the radiation damage in small molecules, so now we can forecast what damage we will get in over-the-counter systems.” The Coherent X-ray Imaging apparatus (CXI) delivers X-rays with the maximal possible energies achievable and writes down data from samples in the moment before the laser pulse raze them. The study published in Description used special mirrors to core the X-ray beam into a spot scarce over 100 nanometres in width – a thousand times small than the width of a human curls. They looked at three sort of samples: individual xenon atoms, which annex 54 electrons each, and two class of molecules that each include a single iodine atom, which has 53 electrons. The exceedingly intense X-ray flash knocked so assorted electrons out of the iodine atom that it pulled in electrons from neighboring carbon and hydrogen atoms – previously finally spitting them out. The scientists aforementioned it was like an electromagnetic version of a livid hole. Creator’s depiction of a black yap in interstellar space pulling in gas and junk that start to heat Kinda than losing 47 electrons, as would be the contingency for an isolated iodine atom, the element in the smaller molecule lost 54, including the ones it grabbed from its neighbors. This was a level of damage and disturbance that’s not only higher than would usually be expected, but significantly different in humor. LCLS director Mike Dunne aforementioned: “This has important advantage for scientists wishing to achieve the maximal resolution images of biological molecules – for lesson, to inform the development of better pharmaceuticals. “These test also guide the development of a adjacent-generation instrument for the LCLS-II advance project, which will favor a major leap in capability due to the augmentation in repetition rate from 120 pulsing per second to 1 million.”	<urn:uuid:146964dc-bcda-4a84-b011-7e89dcb7083f>	CC-MAIN-2018-05	http://woridnews.com/scientists-create-molecular-black-hole-in-laboratory-using-worlds-most-powerful-x-ray-beam.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084891530.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20180122173425-20180122193425-00660.warc.gz	en	0.907657	799	2.71875	3	2.755894	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Dark Matter Goes Missing in Oddball Galaxy Galaxy was expected to contain 400 times more dark matter than observations show. Grand, majestic spiral galaxies like our Milky Way are hard to miss. Astronomers can spot these vast complexes because of their large, glowing centers and their signature winding arms of gas and dust, where thousands of glowing stars reside. But some galaxies aren’t so distinctive. They are big, but they have so few stars for their size that they appear very faint and diffuse. In fact, they are so diffuse that they look like giant cotton balls. Observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of one such galaxy have turned up an oddity that sets it apart from most other galaxies, even the diffuse-looking ones. It contains little, if any, dark matter, the underlying scaffolding upon which galaxies are built. Dark matter is an invisible substance that makes up the bulk of our universe and the invisible glue that holds visible matter in galaxies — stars and gas — together. Called NGC 1052-DF2, this “ghostly” galaxy contains at most 1/400th the amount of dark matter that astronomers had expected. How it formed is a complete mystery. The galactic oddball is as large as our Milky Way, but the galaxy had escaped attention because it contains only 1/200th the number of stars as our galaxy. Based on the colors of its globular clusters, NGC 1052-DF2 is about 10 billion years old. It resides about 65 million light-years away. The full story Galaxies and dark matter go together like peanut butter and jelly. You typically don’t find one without the other. Therefore, researchers were surprised when they uncovered a galaxy that is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. An invisible substance, dark matter is the underlying scaffolding upon which galaxies are built. It’s the glue that holds the visible matter in galaxies — stars and gas — together. “We thought that every galaxy had dark matter and that dark matter is how a galaxy begins,” said Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, lead researcher of the Hubble observations. “This invisible, mysterious substance is the most dominant aspect of any galaxy. So finding a galaxy without it is unexpected. It challenges the standard ideas of how we think galaxies work, and it shows that dark matter is real: it has its own separate existence apart from other components of galaxies. This result also suggests that there may be more than one way to form a galaxy.” The unique galaxy, called NGC 1052-DF2, contains at most 1/400th the amount of dark matter that astronomers had expected. The galaxy is as large as our Milky Way, but it had escaped attention because it contains only 1/200th the number of stars. Given the object’s large size and faint appearance, astronomers classify NGC 1052-DF2 as an ultra-diffuse galaxy. A 2015 survey of the Coma galaxy cluster showed these large, faint objects to be surprisingly common. But none of the ultra-diffuse galaxies discovered so far have been found to be lacking in dark matter. So even among this unusual class of galaxy, NGC 1052-DF2 is an oddball. Van Dokkum and his team spotted the galaxy with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a custom-built telescope in New Mexico they designed to find these ghostly galaxies. They then used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to measure the motions of 10 giant groupings of stars called globular clusters in the galaxy. Keck revealed that the globular clusters were moving at relatively low speeds, less than 23,000 miles per hour. Stars and clusters in the outskirts of galaxies containing dark matter move at least three times faster. From those measurements, the team calculated the galaxy’s mass. “If there is any dark matter at all, it’s very little,” van Dokkum explained. “The stars in the galaxy can account for all the mass, and there doesn’t seem to be any room for dark matter.” The researchers next used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii to uncover more details about the unique galaxy. Gemini revealed that the galaxy does not show signs of an interaction with another galaxy. Hubble helped them better identify the globular clusters and measure an accurate distance to the galaxy. The Hubble images also revealed the galaxy’s unusual appearance. “I spent an hour just staring at the Hubble image,” van Dokkum recalled. “It’s so rare, particularly these days after so many years of Hubble, that you get an image of something and you say, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’ This thing is astonishing: a gigantic blob that you can look through. It’s so sparse that you see all of the galaxies behind it. It is literally a see-through galaxy.” The ghostly galaxy doesn’t have a noticeable central region, or even spiral arms and a disk, typical features of a spiral galaxy. But it doesn’t look like an elliptical galaxy, either. The galaxy also shows no evidence that it houses a central black hole. Based on the colors of its globular clusters, the galaxy is about 10 billion years old. Even the globular clusters are oddballs: they are twice as large as typical stellar groupings seen in other galaxies. “It’s like you take a galaxy and you only have the stellar halo and globular clusters, and it somehow forgot to make everything else,” van Dokkum said. “There is no theory that predicted these types of galaxies. The galaxy is a complete mystery, as everything about it is strange. How you actually go about forming one of these things is completely unknown.” But the researchers do have some ideas. NGC 1052-DF2 resides about 65 million light-years away in a collection of galaxies that is dominated by the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1052. Galaxy formation is turbulent and violent, and van Dokkum suggests that the growth of the fledgling massive galaxy billions of years ago perhaps played a role in NGC 1052-DF2’s dark-matter deficiency. Another idea is that gas moving toward the giant elliptical NGC 1052 may have fragmented and formed NGC 1052-DF2. The formation of NGC 1052-DF2 may have been helped by powerful winds emanating from the young black hole that was growing in the center of NGC 1052. These possibilities are speculative, however, and don’t explain all of the characteristics of the observed galaxy, the researchers said. The team is already hunting for more dark-matter deficient galaxies. They are analyzing Hubble images of 23 other diffuse galaxies. Three of them appear similar to NGC 1052-DF2. “Every galaxy we knew about before has dark matter, and they all fall in familiar categories like spiral or elliptical galaxies,” van Dokkum said. “But what would you get if there were no dark matter at all? Maybe this is what you would get.” The team’s results will appear in the March 29, 2018, issue of the journal Nature. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C. Donna Weaver / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514 [email protected] / [email protected] Pieter van Dokkum Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut	<urn:uuid:dab73ebf-5940-4824-9e2b-110eee4bffd9>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://www.univearths.fr/en/2018/04/17/dark-matter-goes-missing-in-oddball-galaxy/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224654097.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20230608035801-20230608065801-00660.warc.gz	en	0.927951	1,719	3.65625	4	2.983426	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
From super crops to better medicines, biotechnology from plants could make a big difference in our lives. Here’s how. What have plants ever done for us? Well, a colossal amount of things. Throughout human history, they have fed us, made medicinal compounds, given us clothes, produced oxygen and much more. However, what if there were plants that did these things better, such as containing more vitamins, or growing medicines cheaply? In a recent conference held by the UK’s Society of Experimental Biology in Florence, I spoke to biotechnologists that had assembled to show off their research regarding this question. Their grand aim is to improve human nutrition and health using plant biotechnology. Many are familiar with Golden Rice, a transgenic rice designed to supplement Vitamin A in our diet. Even more ambitiously, a group in the University of Lleida, Spain, have developed Carolight, a transgenic maize that provides a whole cocktail of essential nutrients, including iron, folic acid and vitamins A, C and E. “Our target demographic is the poor population in developing countries,” explained Paul Christou, who leads the group. “These people suffer from multiple vitamin deficiencies so this will provide them with their essential nutrients in one simple package.” This exciting new crop is now awaiting regulatory approval in South Africa, a complicated process that could take several years. Christou wants to stay independent from corporate backers, instead relying on funding from the taxpayer: “Demonstrating that we are not in the hands of multinationals helps to dispel misconceptions about our fundamental aim: to provide the poor with crucial nutrients.” Another complicated job that takes years is making oilseed fishy. Johnathan Napier from Rothamsted Research Centre, UK, has painstakingly reproduced the genetic pathway for synthesizing fish oil in transgenic Camelina. Why fish oil? “Fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are very good for our cardiovascular health and much more,” answered Napier. Confusingly, fish do not in fact produce fish oil. They instead obtain it from the marine food chain, meaning that the booming fish-farming industry must feed them the oil (often through feeding them wild fish) to provide these oils to their stocks. Having now successfully grown the transgenic Camelina in the field, Napier aims to have this crop approved for growing in South America. “This transgenic plant contains up to 30% fish oils,” he enthused. “It is crucial because it allows us to relieve fisheries and to provide these healthy oils to a growing global population.” Could you imagine a world in which clinical treatments for illnesses such as cancer grew on trees? Professor Julian Ma of St George’s, University of London, UK, is doing just this: growing antibodies – proteins made by the immune system to target pathogens – in transgenic tobacco plants. “Traditionally, protein pharmaceuticals, or biopharmaceuticals, are manufactured in vats using bacteria or yeast, which is an expensive process and a limitation to developing countries. Using plants reduces the costs of investment, manufacture and storage, making it all more scalable,” he said. This manufacturing technique, called molecular pharming, has been in development for 20 years, but regulatory hurdles have only recently been overcome. Now, molecular pharming facilities worldwide are growing regulatory-standard biopharmaceuticals using robotic automation. “The commercialization of Molecular Pharming is already in progress,” continued Ma. “The company Medicago is completing Phase III clinical trials for a plant-produced influenza vaccine; it will likely be on the market within a few years.” One key disadvantage of biopharmaceuticals, such as insulin in diabetes, is that they cannot be administered orally because the large molecules are digested and cannot cross the intestinal wall. Henry Daniell of the University of Pennsylvania, US, uses capsules of freeze-dried transgenic lettuce to sneak biopharmaceuticals past this formidable barrier. “By expressing these proteins inside chloroplasts, the intracellular site of photosynthesis in plants, we can use the indigestible plant cell wall to protect the protein from digestion in the stomach, and we add an extra protein ‘tag’ to get the biopharmaceutical past the gut lining,” he explained. Daniell hopes to receive FDA approval to launch clinical trials within several years. “This is achievable because major pharmaceutical companies like Bayer are helping to fund this work; it allows them to enhance their own existing biopharmaceutical products as well as making production cheaper.” It is easy to forget the critical role of plants in our lives, yet they are the powerhouses of many industries. These new advances showcase the potential of plant biotechnology to change the way people eat and treat illnesses. The main hurdles for these technologies are as much regulatory as technical, meaning that we still have years ahead before they can be used on a large scale. Until then, it will be worth keeping an eye on new plant biotechnologies emerging from the undergrowth. Images via Shutterstock	<urn:uuid:948fa6bf-0987-42d6-831c-8edfd0df358e>	CC-MAIN-2022-27	https://www.labiotech.eu/in-depth/plants-biotech-better-food-medicines/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656104240553.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220703104037-20220703134037-00763.warc.gz	en	0.948984	1,078	3.359375	3	2.981639	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Am I Pregnant?Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - 13:50 While a missed period is one of the biggest clues that a woman is pregnant, it's usually not the first sign. Some women suspect they are pregnant before their menstrual cycle is late. Symptoms that might indicate you are pregnant include: - Tenderness of the breasts and nipples - Fatigue (1-6 weeks after conception) - Frequent urination (6-8 weeks after conception) - Nausea, queasiness, vomiting (first half of pregnancy) - Food cravings (entire pregnancy) When a woman suspects that she is pregnant, she should visit a doctor to confirm her condition as soon as possible. - Laboratory blood tests can verify pregnancy as soon as 6 or 7 days after conception. - A urine test may detect pregnancy as early as 10 days after conception. The blood and urine test both measure the level human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone that is only produced in a woman's body when she has placental tissue growing there. The The Importance Of Prenatal Care One of the most important things you can do for yourself and your baby is to seek proper prenatal care. Prenatal care consists of: - Regular appointments starting early and continuing throughout the pregnancy - Laboratory testing for potential problems with the developing baby or yourself - Monitoring for problems such as abnormal changes in blood pressure, blood chemistry, urine chemistry, and weight - Getting plenty of exercise and eating properly - Giving up bad habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol, or using street drugs. It is also important for a woman to alert her doctor immediately if anything unusual occurs during pregnancy, such as: - The baby's movement is greatly reduced or stops. - She experiences vaginal bleeding or cramping. - She develops swelling of her hands and face, or persistent headaches. - She leaks amniotic fluidfrom her vagina. - She develops pain in her abdomen. Improved technologies and more accurate prenatal tests now make it possible to spot complications earlier and take appropriate action in time to save the fetus and/or the mother. Things To Avoid During Pregnancy A woman's habits greatly influence the health of her unborn child. When pregnant, a woman should avoid the following: - Alcohol. Consuming alcohol while pregnant can cause birth defects and other problems. Consistent alcohol use during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, a permanent and lifelong condition. - Cigarettes. Smoking is linked to low birth weight, premature birth, miscarriageand other complications. Nicotine causes blood vessels to constrict. That means the baby won't get the proper oxygen and nourishment it needs to grow. - Medications. Many over-the-counter (OTC) and prescribed medications can harm an unborn child. Your physician can give you a list of which medications you can take safely during pregnancy. - Narcotics. Illegal drugs, such as cocaine, can deprive developing babies of vital oxygen and nourishment. This can lead to birth defects, or cause addictions in newborns. - Caffeine. Discuss with your doctor how much caffeine, if any, you can have during your pregnancy. Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, colas, and other products - Contact with cat feces. A serious disease that can be contracted from cleaning cat litter boxes is toxoplasmosis), which is spread by a microbe that causes lymph-node and nervous-system problems. In pregnant women, this parasite can cause birth defects, stillbirths and miscarriages. Facts About Pregnancy	<urn:uuid:af83c0d5-6ee6-4116-b2b8-ce6bb32742f6>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://yourmedicalsource.com/content/am-i-pregnant	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991693.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20210512004850-20210512034850-00121.warc.gz	en	0.937363	754	2.734375	3	1.692376	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Kidneys: the original self-cleaning system Every day, the kidneys filter about 120 to 150 quarts of blood to produce about 1 to 2 quarts of urine, composed of wastes and extra fluid. This natural flushing helps to keep levels of electrolytes stable, such as sodium, potassium, and phosphate.The kidneys make red blood cells and also make hormones that help to regulate blood pressure, and help bones stay strong. Unfortunately, there are times when one or both of the kidneys may not be up to the task. Common signs of early-stage kidney problems can include: - puffy eyes, hands, and feet (edema); - high blood pressure, fatigue, shortness of breath; - weight loss; - a yellowish-brown tint to the skin; and - urine that is cloudy or tea-colored. Common causes of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are diabetes and hypertension or a family history of kidney failure. That is why control of diabetes and high blood pressure are the most important things to do to prevent or slow the development of kidney disease. If kidney disease gets worse, wastes can build to dangerously high levels in the blood. Complications such as high blood pressure, anemia, weak bones, nerve damage, and heart and blood vessel disease could occur. Early detection is key There are several different forms of kidney disease, and patients should seek medical attention whenever symptoms are persistent, such as if the kidney suddenly worsens, if there is protein or blood in the urine, if blood pressure cannot be controlled by two blood pressure medications, or if the patient has kidney stones. In situations like these, immediate consultation with a nephrologist is in order. If kidney disease progresses, it could lead to kidney failure and require dialysis or a kidney transplant to maintain life. Dialysis artificially removes waste products and extra fluid from the blood; in a kidney transplant, a healthy donor kidney is surgically implanted into the body, and anti-rejection drugs are necessary for the rest of the patient’s life. Early detection can help prevent the progression of kidney disease to kidney failure. If a kidney stone is suspected, you should see a nephrologist to do a 24-hour urine study to determine what kind of kidney stone you have and determine the treatment. Most people with kidney stones are able to pass them on their own within 48 hours. If a kidney stone is too big to pass, a urologist may need to remove the blockage. Prolonged blockage as a result of the kidney stone can cause permanent damage to the kidney and lead to chronic kidney disease. Adopt a kidney-healthy lifestyle There are currently 26 million American adults living with CKD, and millions of others are at increased risk. There are things you can do to help lower your risk of developing CKD or kidney stones through dietary changes and exercise: - Eat a diet low in fat, salt, and animal protein. - Eat foods rich in oxalate: including fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, grains, legumes, chocolate, and tea. - Drink plenty of water throughout the day. This is the best way to help prevent most types of kidney stones. Health care providers recommend that a person drink two to three liters of fluid a day. - Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity most days of the week. - Avoid tobacco usage. - Limit alcohol consumption. To learn more about kidney care at NewYork-Presbyterian or to find a nephrologist, call 877-697-9355.	<urn:uuid:eb3f7137-1e50-4d18-811b-00c62ee27b85>	CC-MAIN-2024-10	https://www.nyp.org/patients-and-visitors/advances-consumers/issues/kidneys-the-original-self-cleaning-system	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476374.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20240303111005-20240303141005-00529.warc.gz	en	0.938211	745	3.65625	4	1.822189	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
If your favorite activity is lying motionless on the ground, you'd better make sure hungry animals can't find you. Snakes and other creatures that hunt by ambush, waiting for their prey to wander past, often have impressive visual camouflage. But at least one type of viper seems to disguise itself in another way, too: its smell is undetectable to predators. Puff adders (Bitis arietans) are big, fat vipers that move around very little while they wait for prey. They're widespread in Africa. Despite carrying powerful venom, these sluggish snakes often become meals for other animals. Ashadee Kay Miller, a graduate student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, decided to investigate the smelliness of puff adders because of some strange observations her coauthor Graham Alexander had made in the wild. Alexander spent a lot of time tracking these snakes in South Africa, and noticed that other animals were often oblivious to puff adders. He saw dogs and mongooses, with their noses to the ground and actively sniffing, walk right over the snakes. These animals would have been happy to eat a puff adder if they'd found it. Similarly, here's a porcupine waltzing over a puff adder that's lying in ambush: https://youtu.be/MfyN8ZzMLzo Miller wondered whether these snakes camouflage themselves not just in looks, but in smell. She and her coauthors began their study by training four dogs to detect snake scents. After sniffing a cloth that had touched a certain snake, the dogs would seek out a matching smell, then sit or lie down in front of it. In tests, a dog sniffed a sample, then was presented with a set of six lidless glass jars. One held a scent sample from the same snake it had just smelled. Two jars held totally clean controls. Three more held scent samples from the snake's environment—they might smell like the terrarium or vegetation, but not the snake itself. The researchers tested the dogs on five different species of "active foraging" snakes—animals that hunt by slithering around, rather than by staying in one place like the puff adder does. The dogs had little trouble picking out the scents of these snakes from the smell lineups. Their accuracy was better than 80 percent. But both wild and captive puff adders stumped the dogs. When the dogs tried to find matches for these scents, they may as well have been guessing. The researchers tried the experiment again, this time with captive meerkats. (Unlike dogs, which were rewarded with toys and food treats during their training, the meerkats got rewards of mealworms or cockroaches. Miller notes that the meerkats were remarkably easy to train. They learned the task in just two months, compared to three months for the dogs. And, Miller says, she often had a hard time convincing a meerkat to leave the scent-matching apparatus when its turn was over.) The meerkats sniffed tubes of scent and scratched when they found one that matched what a researcher had given them. Like the dogs, the meerkats could accurately match the smell of an active-foraging snake. But they couldn't tell the scent of the puff adder apart from the environmental scent samples. "The whole experiment surprised me, really," Miller says. All the earlier research she had read suggested that living, metabolizing animals have to be smelly. Their bodies give off odorous molecules as an unavoidable side effect of being alive. Yet the results of Miller's study seemed clear. Dogs and meerkats—both skilled sniffers that hunt their meals by scent—could sniff out other snakes but not the puff adder. It would make sense for these snakes to have evolved an odor disguise. Since their lifestyle makes them so vulnerable to predators, any change that made a snake slightly harder to detect would give it an advantage. The researchers speculate that snakes like the puff adder might have extra-slow metabolisms that release fewer smelly compounds into the air. Their body temperatures could also affect how easy they are to smell. The puff adder might not be unique. Maybe other snakes that hunt by ambushing their prey have also evolved undetectable scents, the scientists say. It would be a great evolutionary strategy—no matter how many porcupines stepped on your head. Images and video courtesy of Ashadee Kay Miller. Miller AK, Maritz B, McKay S, Glaudas X, & Alexander GJ (2015). An ambusher's arsenal: chemical crypsis in the puff adder (Bitis arietans). Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 282 (1821) PMID: 26674950	<urn:uuid:6f67baf8-3130-451c-a1a5-dc331955e597>	CC-MAIN-2020-29	https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/unsmellable-snake-camouflages-its-scent	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655889877.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200705215728-20200706005728-00280.warc.gz	en	0.968357	981	3.5	4	3.002377	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
\|THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY\|\|HOME\|\|TEACHINGS\|\|MESSAGES\|\|RELIGIONS\|\|DISCOURSE\|\|SAINTS\|\|SWAMI SIVANANDA\| This article is a chapter from the book "Bliss Divine". SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA How Sin Originates What Is Virtue ? What Is Sin ? Eternal Damnation - An Ungodly Doctrine In the din and noise of the world, in the midst of sensual pleasures, the mind is led astray. Temptation forms the ground-work of all sins. Ignorant men yield to temptations and commit sins. Those who put on the appearance of righteous men are more sinful than the unrighteous. They will have to undergo great miseries. Sinning and evil have become so much a habit with man that he never feels that he is committing them, even though day and night he is doing so constantly. Think not lightly of sin. Just as a pot is filled with water by the constant falling of drops of water, even so, the ignorant man fills himself with evil and sin little by little. HOW SIN ORIGINATES Sin is an evil deed. Sin is willful violation of the laws of morality and religion. It is transgression of the Law of God. Vice issues as sins and crimes. Vice is a stain of character. It is a flaw of character. It is a blemish or fault. Vice issues in evil deeds which are called sins. Anger, lust, sorrow, loss of judgment, an inclination to injure others, unkindness, and fear are very powerful enemies of all creatures. These approach men and tempt them from all sides. They goad and afflict a careless or a foolish man. They attack him powerfully, like a tiger jumping upon its prey. From these originate all sorts of grief and sin. It is selfishness that prompts a man to do evil acts. A selfish man injures others, robs their property, and does many sinful actions to satisfy his selfishness. Selfishness is the devil incarnate in every man. It is a sin to be pleased with oneself. By shutting out the possibility of progress, self-inquiry, and introspection, the process of degeneration sets in. Egoism is the greatest sin. The wrong notion, "I am the body", is the real, original sin. This one thought - the 'I' thought - has wrought all mischiefs. This one thought has multiplied into thousandfold thoughts. This one thought separated man from God. This self-arrogating ego is the real, hereditary sin of human nature. All evil Vrittis are hanging on this little ego. WHAT IS VIRTUE? WHAT IS SIN? Papa is sin. Punya is virtue. Remember the motto always: "Do unto others as you wish others do unto you". This is the Kasoti or test for virtue and sin. You do not wish to be hurt by others. So do not hurt another person. You wish to be helped by others. So help others. You do not wish to be robbed by others. So do not rob others' property. When you enter the compartment in a train, you wish that others should give you a seat. They should not drive you to another compartment. So, when anyone enters your compartment, give him a seat. Do not drive him away. Hurting another is sin; non-hurting is virtue. Selfishness is sin; helping others is virtue. Robbing others' property is sin; doing charity is virtue. Driving a man from the compartment is sin; giving a seat to a man in your compartment is virtue. That which elevates you is virtue; that which pulls you down is vice or sin. That which takes you to the Goal is virtue; that which makes you a worldly man is sin. That which helps you attain God-head is virtue; that which hurls you down in the dark abyss of ignorance is sin. That which gives you illumination is virtue; that which causes intoxication is sin. That which purifies your heart is virtue; that which taints your heart is sin. That which gives you peace, joy, satisfaction, exhilaration, expansion of heart, is virtue; that which brings restlessness, dissatisfaction, depression, and contraction of heart, is vice. Service of humanity and Guru is virtue; mischief-mongering is sin. Faith in God, in the scriptures, in the words of the spiritual preceptor, is virtue; doubting is sin. Loving all is virtue; hating others is sin. Unity is virtue; separation is sin. Independence is virtue; dependence is sin. Brahmacharya is virtue; lust is sin. Truthfulness is virtue; falsehood is sin. Generosity is virtue; miserliness is sin. Oneness is virtue; duality is sin. Knowledge is virtue; ignorance is sin. Strength is virtue; weakness is sin. Courage is virtue; cowardice is sin. To behold the One Immortal Self everywhere is virtue; to see diversity is sin. That which you are ashamed to do in public is a sin. That which you dare not admit before your Guru is a sin. Learn to discriminate between virtue and sin, and become wise. The Antaryamin will guide you rightly; hear Him. Sin is expiated by self-punishment such as fasting, Japa, penance, meditation, and repentance with a contrite heart. Even a wicked man can have communion with God through repentance, prayer, and meditation. The confession of evil deeds is the first beginning of good deeds. Be not ashamed to confess that you have been in the wrong. If you confess your evil actions, you now have more sense than you had before, to see your error. If you confess your sins, you begin your journey towards emancipation. He who is sorry for having done evil actions mends himself and improves quickly. Repentance is a divine streamlet for sinners to wash their sins. Repent with a contrite heart. God will forgive you. If you commit a wrong on a certain occasion, you should not commit it again. There should be no wrong over wrong. You may claim forgiveness, if you are resolute to do the evil thing no more. A woman was charged with adultery. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to pronounce the Mosaic verdict of stoning her unto death. Lord Jesus quietly said, "Let him that is without sin among you, cast the first stone on her". This powerful utterance of the Lord at once turned the gaze of each one there within himself. Who could be without sin ? Introspection revealed their own defects. One by one, the people hung their heads down and left the place. "Where are they ?", Lord Jesus asked the woman, "Did no man condemn thee ?" "No, my Lord", said she. "Neither do I condemn thee. Go thy way, and sin no more", said the Lord, summing up in this beautiful incident the very essence of His divine message. Contrition, change of heart, is the only condition for God's forgiveness of human sin. Confess your sin. Repent for your sin. Turn away from sin. Do not repeat it again. Pray. Do Japa. Meditate. Practice Pranayama. Do expiatory acts. All your sins will be washed away. You will shine with lustre and brilliance. Hear the words of assurance of Lord Krishna in the Gita: "Even if the most sinful worshipeth Me with undivided heart, he too must be accounted righteous, for he hath rightly resolved". There is great hope even for a cut-throat, if he makes a strong determination and takes up the spiritual path. Sin is a mistake committed by the ignorant Jiva during his journey towards the Satchidananda abode. Every mistake is your best teacher. One has to evolve through sins or mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable. Some people become a prey to thoughts of sin. They ever brood: "We are great sinners. We have committed great sins". This is a great blunder. Do not brood too much on the past events. Learn the lesson and forget the past. Once you make up your mind to tread the path of Truth, all sins will be destroyed. ETERNAL DAMNATION--AN UNGODLY DOCTRINE There is no such thing as eternal damnation or eternal hell-fire for the sinners. It cannot be. It is a theory that has long been exploded. Eternal damnation is an ungodly doctrine, a terror and nightmare for ages. To make people desist from doing wicked actions, a terrifying description of hell is given. It is a Bhayanaka-Sabda. God has not created men to become everlasting fuel to feed the flame of hell. This is not certainly His purpose in His creation. If God be such, no one will pay homage to Him. Who then can be saved ? How many spotless men are there in this world ? Who is of such untainted character as to receive a direct passport to heaven ? Everybody has his secret sins. Few are born saints. No person is found on earth who shines with all the excellent qualities. No one is wise at all times, and no one is a fool always. The sinner of today is the saint of tomorrow. Hate the sin, but not the sinner. A rogue is not an eternal rogue. A prostitute is not an eternal prostitute. Put these people in the company of saints. They will be newly moulded, and will be transmuted into saints with virtuous qualities. The transformation of Ratnakar into Valmiki is an epic example of this truth. It is never too late to mend. A good, resolute start in virtuous life will give you peace and happiness. Do it now. Leave off evil ways. Follow the good. Be pure in life. You will attain God-realization. Steadily resist the promptings of your lower nature. Gradually, it will lose its power over you. You will gain strength. The spirit may pull in one direction and the flesh in the opposite direction. Be firm and courageous. Yield not to flesh. Be strong. Be positive always. Think and feel: "I can do everything if I will. There is nothing that I cannot do". Never give up the hope of realizing God. Watch every action. Allow not any impure action to stain your body. When anything pricks thy conscience, abandon it. Fight against the tempting power of self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. Overcome anger by love, lust by purity, greed by generosity, pride by humility, falsehood by truth. Lose the sense of I-ness and mine-ness. Control the mind. Repeat the Lord's Name. Purify every part of yourself. Paropakarah Punyaya; Papaya Parapidanam: Service of others brings on virtue; harming others is sin. Therefore, serve others. Purify your heart by selfless and humble service of the poor and the afflicted, and make it a fit abode for God to dwell. Every day is a fresh beginning. Forget your past mistakes and failures. Enter a new life of victory. March on and on. Exert. Purify. Approach the saints. Abandon all anxiety, fear, and worry. Rest in your Centre. Sing Om. Meditate on Om. Realize the Self. Last Updated: Sunday, 17-Oct-2004 09:35:32 EDT Mail Questions, Comments & Suggestions to :	<urn:uuid:8182469e-eb37-4cda-b115-5bd2618ece7a>	CC-MAIN-2014-49	http://www.dlshq.org/messages/sin.htm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931012025.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155652-00141-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.942917	2,423	2.5625	3	2.666822	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
Christianity is a faith with a long and detailed history, with numerous events of lasting significance occurring throughout the ages. Each week brings the anniversaries of great milestones, horrid tragedies, amazing triumphs, telling tribulations, inspirational progress, and everything in between. Here are just a few things that happened this week, June 24-30, in Church history. They include the birth of the author of “Dark Night of the Soul,” the First Crusade advancing into Asia Minor, and the Lutherans presenting the Augsburg Confession. Lutherans Present the Augsburg Confession – June 25, 1530 This week marks the anniversary of when the early Protestants presented their confession of faith before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Comprised of 28 Articles and primarily authored by Philipp Melanchthon, the Augsburg Confession chiefly served as an explanation of Lutheran theology and a refutation of misrepresentations of Protestant teachings. “Lutherans sought to show that their faith was not only drawn from Scripture, but had been the basic teachings of the Christian Church throughout the ages. It was only later that the medieval Church had corrupted the true faith through unbiblical and uncatholic innovations,” explained theology professor Jack D. Kilcrease. “With a few exceptions, most of the reforms proposed by Melanchthon involve rolling back changes that had been made to Church teaching and practice in the eleventh century by Pope Gregory the VII and his followers during a period often called the ‘Gregorian Revolution’ by Church historians.” John of the Cross Born – June 24, 1542 This week marks the anniversary of the birth of influential Spanish Catholic mystic and saint, John of the Cross, author of the famous “Dark Night of the Soul.” A native of Fontiveros, Spain, John became a Carmelite monk in 1563 and later an ordained priest in 1567. He was made a saint by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. His most enduring work is a poem titled “Dark Night of the Soul,” which was defined as a sense of perceived spiritual abandonment that ultimately leads to unity with God. “The dark night that St John describes is not abandonment by God but special consideration from Him for those who desire to purify and perfect their souls,” explained one book analyzing the poem. “By accepting the desolation and difficulty of this process, the soul cooperates with God and opens itself to receiving and revealing more perfectly God’s glory.” Crusaders Invade Asia Minor – June 26, 1097 This week marks the anniversary of when the Christian armies of the First Crusade entered Asia Minor, days after taking the strategically important city of Nicaea. Begun less than a year earlier in Western Europe, the Crusaders laid siege to Nicaea from May 14 to June 19, eventually taking the city despite heavy losses. A week after Nicaea was taken, the various armies comprising the First Crusade set out in two large groups across the large peninsula, defeating Islamic forces on their way to Antioch. “For the next four months, the crusaders made their way across Anatolia under horrible conditions. The heat was brutal, water scarce, and food scarcer,” noted about-history.com. “Repeatedly, the enterprise seemed doomed, yet in each case something allowed it to continue, if only just a little farther. For the crusaders, these were the miracles that God performed for those who marched to the land of his Son.”	<urn:uuid:cbcf5a8a-b812-48ea-b933-b9c6e5373f5f>	CC-MAIN-2018-47	http://livebytheword.blog/augsburg-confession-first-crusade-john-of-the-cross/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039750800.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20181121193727-20181121215727-00459.warc.gz	en	0.963228	741	2.78125	3	2.801975	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
by Staff Writers Manchester, England (UPI) Feb 14, 2012 British mathematicians say a theoretical "cloaking" device that would be "invisible" to movement rather than light could protect buildings from earthquakes Researchers at the University of Manchester said by cloaking components of structures with pressurized rubber, powerful waves produced by an earthquake would not "see" the building and would simply pass around the structure and thus prevent serious damage or destruction. This "invisibility" could be vital safeguarding key structures such as nuclear power plants, electric pylons and government offices from destruction from natural or terrorist attacks, the researchers said in a university release Tuesday. While research into cloaking from light waves began some years ago, very little work has been done on waves such as those produced by earthquakes and their affect on solid bodies, they said. "Five or six years ago scientists started with light waves, and in the last few years we have started to consider other wave-types, most importantly perhaps sound and elastic waves," Manchester mathematician William Parnell said. "We showed theoretically that pre-stressing a naturally available material -- rubber -- leads to a cloaking effect from a specific type of elastic wave," he said. "Our team is now working hard on more general theories and to understand how this theory can be realized in practice." Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes A world of storm and tempest Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login. Quake hits eastern Japan: nuclear plant stable Tokyo (AFP) Feb 14, 2012 A powerful earthquake rocked eastern Japan Tuesday, but no tsunami warning was issued and no damage was reported at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The US Geological Survey said the 6.0 magnitude quake, with an epicentre 10 kilometres (six miles) deep, was centred 166 kilometres east-northeast of Tokyo, where correspondents said buildings swayed. Japan's meteorological agency also ... read more \|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement\|	<urn:uuid:65a76a3b-da3d-495e-9c93-cc4770a09248>	CC-MAIN-2017-30	http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Buildings_may_be_cloaked_from_earthquake_999.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424090.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20170722182647-20170722202647-00500.warc.gz	en	0.934777	541	3.078125	3	2.879561	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
"During this process, the system is always in thermal equilibrium with the surroundings." Does this statement means the process is adiabatic? Since the temperature of both systems is the same, there will be no heat exchange. Not necessarily, just because two systems have the same temperature does not mean there is no heat flow. This just means there is no net flow of heat. They are talking about a reversible process. In any process, the temperature of the system always matches the temperature of the surroundings at the interface. However, in an irreversible process, even though the temperatures at the boundary may match, there are temperature gradients within the system, and the temperature varies with distance from the boundary (i.e., the temperatures within the system are not uniform). This results in a heat flux at the boundary. In a reversible process, the process is carried out very slowly, so that the temperature gradient at the boundary is very low. This means that, to transfer a significant amount of heat, the process has to take place over a much larger time span. So there is finite heat transfer in the reversible case too, but it occurs a very long time (approaching infinity). The reversible process is thus not necessarily adiabatic. Of course, if the boundary is insulated (adiabatic process), the temperature gradient at the boundary is going to be zero, and no heat transfer will occur. Your question is an excellent one because you have identified what seems to be an inconsistency. Heat is defined as energy transfer due to temperature difference. As @Chester Miller points out the highlighted statement is talking about a reversible process. A reversible process is an idealization in which the temperature difference approaches zero in the limit so that the process can be reversed returning both the system and its surroundings to their initial states. But in order to be heat transfer, there must be a temperature difference. This simply tells us that all REAL processes are irreversible. So you might ask, what is the usefulness of a so-called reversible process if it can never be realized. The answer is it sets an upper limit to the maximum possible efficiency (that of the Carnot cycle) of any thermodynamic process against which to judge real processes involved in cycles by. Hope this helps. No! In fact, in order to maintain constant temperature in the system some heat will have to flow between system and surroundings. Here is an example: Suppose we compress a gas. If we conduct the process adiabatically, the gas will heat up. To keep its temperature constant then, we must cool it, i.e., remove some heat and pass it to the bath. In practice we would have to conduct the expansion slowly to give enough time for the gas temperature to equalize with the bath. The misconception that gives rise to your question comes from the intuitive expectation that heat only flows between systems with finite $\Delta T$ between them. It is possible, however, in the limiting sense, to transfer heat between two systems whose temperature difference is $dT>0$, i.e., a vanishing differential, as long as this differential is positive.	<urn:uuid:bb0c25bb-78ff-496d-8f75-2921f619bd8d>	CC-MAIN-2019-47	https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/443829/thermodynamic-process	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496665809.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20191112230002-20191113014002-00437.warc.gz	en	0.954223	639	2.953125	3	2.878288	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
The NHS published findings by Bazin from one of the largest studies in the UK. They found that of the 800,000 participants, people who spent all day sitting at a desk had: - 112% increase in risk of diabetes - 147% increase in cardiovascular events - 90% increase in death caused by cardiovascular events - 49% increase in death from any cause With ⅘ adults working a desk job, the health risks are shocking for the majority of the UK. In response, official health guidelines have been released which suggest we should: - Break up long periods of sitting time with shorter bouts of activity for one or two minutes - Take an active break from sitting every 30 minutes Now if you’re thinking, “I go to the gym every night so this doesn’t apply to me”, sadly you are mistaken. Unfortunately, even if you go for a run every morning and to the gym every evening, if you sit at a desk all day, you are still considered to have a sedentary lifestyle. Being active all day is now the focus of maintaining good health as well as regular exercise. There are ways you can combat this, though. By being more active throughout the day you can improve your health and reduce the risk of developing conditions later in life. How Can I Exercise While Sitting? There are lots of ways to get some exercise and movement in, even if you are chained to your desk all day. Chair Squat to Sit Stand up off your chair, push it back slightly and then imagine you are sitting back down. Squat until your bum taps the seat and then stand back up. Keep your head lifted, back straight and try to keep your shoulders, hips and knees in line, parallel like train tracks. The sit to rising test is often used a quick judge of flexibility and it was found that people who could complete 10 reps lived longer than those who couldn't. Turn and face away from your desk, place your palms on the desk and get ready to burn those triceps! Lower yourself by bending your arms until they reach a 90° angle and then drive up and extend your arms until they straighten. The further out you take your feet when you’re dipping, the harder the exercise becomes, as your triceps are forced to move more of your bodyweight. Desk Push Ups These are accessible to all, even if you can’t manage a regular push up. Place both hands on your desk and walk your feet back until your body reaches a 45° angle, try not to hunch over your shoulders or arch your back whilst bringing your chest down towards the desk and then driving back up. Exercise At Your Desk It's important to stay active as much as possible. At Sundried, we believe that being healthy is just as important as getting your work done. We have lots more articles on staying active at work with more exercise ideas and ways to make the most of your lunch break.	<urn:uuid:3fb6c912-bfb1-4e38-8a10-8e5a16a4bda2>	CC-MAIN-2018-51	https://www.sundried.com/blogs/training/tagged/desk-job-exercises	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376829115.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20181217183905-20181217205905-00458.warc.gz	en	0.962393	614	2.625	3	1.885203	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
What They Found Inside The Sunken Remains Of A 150-Year-Old Steamboat Is Still Edible In 1856, the Steamboat Arabia left the banks of Kansas City on a routine supply trip up the Missouri River. On board were two hundred tons of precious cargo en route to 16 different towns along the frontier. Steamboats were common in those days, as they were the best method of traveling up and down America's river systems. These boats were a big business at the time and were absolutely essential for trade and commerce. Unfortunately for the Steamboat Arabia, a fallen walnut tree was waiting just below the surface of the water, hidden from sight thanks to the glare on the water from the setting sun. The impact instantly tore the hull and the boat sank in minutes. Thankfully, everyone on board was able to swim to safety, except for one poor mule who was tied to the deck and forgotten in the chaos. The soft river bottom quickly engulfed the boat in mud and silt and in just a few days, it was swept away entirely due to the force of the river. Over time, the river shifted course and for the next 132 years, the Arabia was lost to the world until it was discovered in the 1980s, 45 feet deep underneath a Kansas farm. Legend of the sunken ship had been passed on through the generations in the area and inspired local Bob Hawley to find it in 1987. He and his sons used old maps and sophisticated equipment to eventually find the boat half a mile away from the present-day river. The farmers who owned the land agreed to let them dig it up - as long as they were done in time for the spring planting season. All manner of heavy equipment was brought in, including a 100-ton crane. 20,000 gallons of water had to be removed into 65-foot-deep wells. After two weeks of excavation, the first parts of the boat appeared - the remains of the left paddlewheel and this small black rubber shoe that was lying on the deck. They also recovered fine china, fully preserved along with its yellow packing straw. It had all been preserved perfectly thanks to the airtight mud. On November 26, 1988, the full boat was uncovered along with its 200 tons of buried treasure. With no air to cause spoilage, thousands of items were recovered completely intact. Jars of preserved foods were still totally edible. One brave excavator even tested it out by eating a pickle from one of the jars and found it to still be fresh. Today, the artifacts are all housed in a museum in Kansas City called the Steamboat Arabia Museum. One of their displays is the fully preserved skeleton of that poor mule. All manner of clothing was found. Much of it could still be worn today. The ship also had over 4,000 shoes, all packed up and ready for delivery. Some shoes were even lined with buffalo hair for extra warmth. Source: Steamboat Arabia Museum	<urn:uuid:95332ee3-b9b4-46f9-b81d-56a825a011ea>	CC-MAIN-2019-22	http://www.mastermariners.org.au/stories-from-the-past/2673-when-they-dug-up-this-old-sunken-steamboat-they-couldn-t-believe-what-they-found	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232260358.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20190527005538-20190527031538-00376.warc.gz	en	0.983676	612	3.296875	3	2.55174	3	Strong reasoning	History
I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shown and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds ’till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.-Excerpt from an article attributed to Benjamin Franklin originally published in The Pennsylvania Journal, 12 December 1775. Click here for the full letter. The rattlesnake’s warning is distinctive. If you hear it, you know to stop, to look around, and to go the other way if possible. The rattlesnake is a fearsome creature, but he is not mean by nature. Instead, he is quite considerate. Compared to the other poisonous animals in the world, he is the only one to give you a warning. He says, “Think carefully before you tread on me. I don’t want to bite you, but I will if you force me to it.” For centuries, the British were one of the dominant powers on this planet. They felt they could go wherever they wanted, rule where the profits were greatest, and generally walk all over everybody else. The American colonies didn’t prefer the British tyranny and responded by raising the Gadsden Flag. It was a symbol and a warning: If you tread on us, we will bite. If we choose to be no more than clods of clay, then we shall be used as clods of clay for braver feet to tread on.Marie Corelli The world has changed considerably since those days in the late 1700’s. Does this mean people have changed? There are still those who think the world is theirs for the taking. They have no qualms trying to control those they deem inferior. And if we allow it, then we are no more than clods of clay for their feet. Like the early Colonials, we are faced with a choice. Do we passively surrender our freedoms, or do we do as the rattlesnake? If we choose freedom over tyranny, then we must sound the warning and let the oppressors know we can bite. We can fight back.	<urn:uuid:24b883a6-15d5-4910-b4fa-8346786f4d0e>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://tonyfine.blog/tag/dont-tread-on-me/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224653930.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20230607143116-20230607173116-00420.warc.gz	en	0.970622	580	3.015625	3	2.772626	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
Children and teens with MS, and their families, face many challenges. Here are some of the issues they may face, and some tips on how to cope. MS is rare in children and teens, so there are fewer people of the same age who can understand what they're going through. Joining a support group or a web-based social networking program can help kids and teens with MS get in touch with each other. The MS Society of Canada, together with the National MS Society, offers a program called "Young Persons with MS: A Network for Families with a Child or Teen With MS." It provides a support network for children with MS and their families. People with MS often "look fine" even though they are experiencing MS symptoms. This, combined with the disease being rare, makes some people think that young people with MS are pretending to be sick. Educating people in the child's life, such as friends, teachers, and other caregivers, may help get rid of this misconception. MS symptoms may make it harder for children and teens to do the same activities as other people their age. But there are ways for children and teens with MS to stay involved. Young people can tell good friends about the condition, so they will understand why they may be feeling too tired to go out or are unable do a certain activity. Young people can also use assistive devices to help keep up regular activities as much as possible. If there are certain things the child or teen has trouble doing because of MS, encourage them to find another activity that is easier but still lets them see their friends and keep up their social life. People with MS may be more likely to have depression or anxiety. This can happen to children and teens too. MS is an unpredictable disease, which can make things worse by causing feelings of uncertainty about the future. Family and friends can help by being supportive and reassuring, and offering a sense of security. They can encourage the child or teen with MS to discover who they are and not let the condition define them. MS treatment often involves medications given by injection. Younger children may have trouble learning how to self-inject. In this case, parents or other family members can learn how to give the injections. If the child or teen is living away from home, for instance at camp, they may have trouble self-injecting in front of their friends. Let one of the camp supervisors know about the child's condition, and encourage the child to talk to their friends about their condition so that the experience is less frightening. On the positive side, many young people say that they have learned a lot from MS. The condition has taught them to be stronger, more compassionate, more flexible, and more mature. With help and support from their loved ones, children and teens can rise to meet the challenge of MS. All material copyright MediResource Inc. 1996 – 2020. Terms and conditions of use. The contents herein are for informational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Source: www.medbroadcast.com/healthfeature/gethealthfeature/MS-in-Children-and-Teens	<urn:uuid:57a3dee8-8470-4a2c-bf41-fb7d01c276f5>	CC-MAIN-2020-29	https://www1.pharmaprix.ca/en/beauty/real-shave/essence-articles/how-can-ms-affect-the-life-of-a-child-or-teen	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593657163613.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20200715070409-20200715100409-00199.warc.gz	en	0.972618	652	3.390625	3	2.424275	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
"Great, very proud of you! But, so what? What does this have to do with my kids getting a job?" OK fine, perhaps I could have made my point with fewer lines up above but I had to explain the multi-month aspect of this discovery2 of mine. Now completing my 4th month (December) of this experiment, I am sold on the idea of Micro-Resolutions rather than committing to a longer and less realistic annual marathon goal. A child's attention span can be estimated based on their age. With the length of time increasing as we get older. My extensive (Google) research produced the following chart: - 2 years old: four to six minutes - 4 years old: eight to 12 minutes - 6 years old: 12 to 18 minutes - 8 years old: 16 to 24 minutes - 10 years old: 20 to 30 minutes - 12 years old: 24 to 36 minutes - 14 years old: 28 to 42 minutes - 16 years old: 32 to 48 minutes (applied to adults too) I added adults here at the bottom to the 16 year old row as the ranges I could find for adults went from 12 seconds (!) to 20 minutes as an average. While there is likely much debate that can be had here I am more interested in the differences and inferring a longer "goal" attention span from this chart. After some fiddling3 with the numbers and adjusting using 30 days as the average for 16 to adult we get the following chart: - 2 years old: 3 days - 4 years old: 7 days - 6 years old: 11 days - 8 years old: 15 days - 10 years old: 18 days - 12 years old: 22 days - 14 years old: 26 days - 16 years old: 30 days (applied to adults too) Research has uncovered many key aspects of goal setting theory and its link to success (Kleingeld, et al, 2011). Setting goals is linked with self-confidence, motivation, and autonomy (Locke & Lathan, 2006). A 2015 study by psychologist Gail Matthews showed when people wrote down their goals, they were 33 percent more successful in achieving them than those who formulated outcomes in their heads.We want our kids to be confident. Confident kids do better in interviews and are more willing to try new things and take on new challenges in school, work and life. Goal-setting (and goal-achieving) is an inescapable part of work-life. No matter what kind of career your child gets into they will be better off if they can set goals and work towards them. The idea of this article is to make it less overwhelming. If we as adults can't handle anything more than 30 days then let's set proper expectations with our kids. For a 4 year old, doing something everyday for a whole week may seem like forever! To build confidence our kids need to challenge themselves over and over again and learn that 1) trying something new will not kill them, 2) if they put some effort into it they have a decent chance of succeeding and 3) if they fail the first time but keep trying they will almost certainly succeed! I suspect that goal-setting is a lot like this. It sounds like a nice idea but it is a bother and a risk to actually commit to something. To make it a habit, a positive feeling needs to be associated with it. If we start early with our kids, working on achievable targets we can help to build that confidence and a habit of goal-setting. Using the time chart above, try some different goals with your kids. Make it visible as well. A colorful 3 day chart on the refrigerator for your 2 year old will give them something to check off each day. Don't be afraid to set a reward for achievement. As January 1st sneaks up on us and we all contemplate what impossible challenges we will set for ourselves (exercise more, eat less, get organized, spend less, etc) set yourself (and your kids) up for success instead of failure. Assuming you are an adult, give yourself a January Resolution and stick to it. Best of luck and Happy New Year! 1 I first wrote "prattering" here and my spellchecker kept telling me to change it to "pattering" which is what rain sounds like on a tin roof, not what my brother sounds like talking about nutrition and exercise. A little help from dictionary.com and I self-educated! The -ing form of prater is prating!↩ 2 Perhaps I was not the first to discover this (see this article on CNN). But it was a discovery for me.↩ 3 I first took the average for each row. Interestingly, the average jumps by 5 minutes for each age gap of 2 years. I then set 30 days as the long average for the oldest group and through trial and error came up with a number that when added to the previous row eventually comes to 30. In this case 3.75. But since that is an awkward number I then rounded everything down because I figured that in general, it is easier to do something for a shorter amount of time as opposed to a longer... ↩	<urn:uuid:69eb631f-ab9e-403b-ba7a-3fd90f5f5d2d>	CC-MAIN-2020-05	http://www.headhunterdad.com/2019/12/my-january-resolution-no-not-my-new.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250606872.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20200122071919-20200122100919-00131.warc.gz	en	0.962152	1,076	2.515625	3	2.612815	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
The post I wrote on growing potatoes in containers last September is currently attracting quite a bit of traffic, reminding me that I promised to round up the advice of bloggers who'd had a go at growing 100 lbs of potatoes in a 4 foot square container. Just to recap, the idea is to earth up potatoes as they grow, with the idea that the plant will continue to produce stolons (and therefore potatoes) along the length of the stem, filling the container with potatoes at all levels. Results have been, almost without exception, disappointing, with potatoes at the bottom of the container, where the seed potato was placed, and a lot of empty soil above. But... Let's revisit Phillip Cairns at Mudsongs. He had a go three years running, honing his methods but without great success. Last September he wrote to me: "If we don't get good results this year, we're done trying. We'll update the page on our website if the mini potato tower is successful (though we have our doubts)." Well, go and have a look! Against his expectations, he harvested 33 lbs (15kg) of potatoes, double his previous year's yield. He says: Many of the potatoes we harvested from our mini tower this year grew near the top of the tower just below the surface of the soil (and most of them were large potatoes), which seems to indicate that the potato tower hilling process actually works. So, it seems that it just might be possible, despite expert opinion. Now, quite obviously I should have written this a month ago, when the maincrop potatoes generally get planted, but if you have a few tubers lying around and fancy attempting a large harvest from a few potatoes, then here's some of the advice from those who have tried it. Above all, you must earth up. As the stem emerges from the ground, it's no use leaving it for a few days, then earthing up to the top of the stalk again. It must be done as the stalk emerges. As Phillip Cairns says: The key is to cover the stalks while they’re still soft. If the stalks have a chance to get hardened by the sun, they won’t transform into roots and the extra potatoes won’t develop. So if you plan to go away for a week while the plants are still growing, it’s game over. And Sinfonian agrees: I think I got lazy in hilling my potato plants... Sometimes I would let them get to be 8 or so inches tall and jungle-like before dumping more dirt in and covering the stems. I now know that causes the plant to become a stem rather than a root, stopping growth. So, if you don't earth (or hill, in American) up, you don't stand a chance of getting a crop that fills your tower. Now, here's a round-up of other conclusions from Mudsongs, Landshareco, Sinfonian's Garden Adventure, and ne Straw Rob. Do visit their websites, if you haven't already, as you'll get a good idea of what they did and how they did it. - Use potatoes that you know grow well in your climate. - Choose a late-season (maincrop) potato, so that they have a long growing period. - Avoid any lime in the soil, as potatoes arent' keen on it. - Earth up. - Ensure potatoes are well watered and that drainage is good. General impressions are that the potato towers retain water well, but you want to ensure that the soil at the bottom remains damp but not waterlogged (otherwise the potatoes may rot). - Experiment with different cultivars. Some seem more prone than others to produce roots along the stem, so it's worth having a couple of cultivars, but best to plant one cultivar per container, as different growth rates can, says One Straw Rob, make earthing up difficult. - Don't make your potato tower too tall: 20-24 inches seem to be all you need. - Don't harvest too soon. Leave until the foliage dies back. - And, finally, don't forget to earth up. If you have a go, please come back and tell us how you did. My suspicion is that you can force a bumper harvest from a potato plant, but that it takes the right cultivar and assiduous attention. Catch up with previous posts:	<urn:uuid:ef9c5f1e-26fd-43f2-b35a-69ad37eb520c>	CC-MAIN-2015-40	http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2012/05/bloggers-tips-on-growing-potatoes-in-containers-to-produce-a-high-yield.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443738099622.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001222139-00123-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.966885	927	2.515625	3	2.744626	3	Strong reasoning	Home & Hobbies
5.0 Goals and Policies The Board of Managers has developed the following general goals and policies to guide development and implementation of this Plan revision as well as other planning and management activities. The eleven subwatershed plans include an evaluation of these goal areas specific to the unique conditions within these management areas. These general goals and policies are developed in more detail in each of the eleven subwatershed plans. Goal 1 - Abstraction/Filtration Promote abstraction and filtration of surface water where feasible for the purposes of improving water quality and increasing groundwater recharge throughout the watershed. - Promote abstraction as the preferred method of stormwater management wherever feasible and appropriate. - Develop methods to facilitate abstraction and infiltration, minimize risk and create awareness of its benefits. - Discourage the creation of impervious surface adjacent to surface waters or in areas where infiltration is particularly ideal. - Encourage the conservation of green space within development and creation of green space within redevelopment. Goal 2 - Ecological Integrity Promote activities which maintain, support and enhance floral, faunal quantity and ecological integrity of upland and aquatic resources throughout the watershed. - Increase the ecological integrity of the environmental resources within MCWD. - Incorporate considerations of ecological integrity into decision making and land use planning. - Manage water quality and quantity to meet the needs of the ecosystems and water resources of MCWD. - Utilize the best available scientific data to conserve high quality habitat and improve degraded habitat through projects and programs. Goal 3 - Water Quality Conserve, maintain and improve aesthetic, physical, chemical and biological composition of surface waters and groundwater within the District. - Establish individual water quality goals for water resources based on both the realistic potential for the individual resource as well as its historic use to meet human and natural resource needs. - Evaluate water resources using appropriate parameters to gauge progress towards meeting the established goals. - Manage the impacts from land use, development and stormwater runoff to meet the established goals. Goal 4 - Public Health Minimize the risks of threats to public health through the development of programs, plans and policies that improve the quality of surface and groundwater resources. - Manage water resources to meet the requirements of their designated use. - Incorporate considerations of public safety and health into decision making. Goal 5 - Water Quantity Maintain or reduce existing flows from drainage within the watershed to decrease the negative effects of stormwater runoff and bounce from existing and proposed development as well as provide low flow augmentation to surface waters. - Establish individual hydrograph and water quality goals for subwatersheds based on both the realistic potential for that resource as well as its historic use in order to meet both the human and natural resource needs of the waterbody. - Manage resources to achieve balance between excessive flow and insufficient flow volumes. - Maintain vigilance with regard to flooding, minimizing impacts to low flow while protecting the public from dangers of flooding. Goal 6 - Shorelines and Streambanks Preserve the natural appearance of shoreline areas and minimize degradation of surface water quality which can result from dredging operations. - Preserve and enhance the natural appearance and function of shorelines and streambanks. - Preserve and enhance wildlife, fisheries, and recreational resources of surface waters. - Surface water quality and ecological integrity of the riparian environment should not be compromised as a result of stabilization practices. - Assure that improvement of shoreline and streambank areas to prevent erosion complies with accepted engineering principles in conformity with Department of Natural Resources construction guidelines. - Encourage and foster the use of bioengineering, lakescaping and conservation of natural vegetation as preferred means of stabilizing shorelines and streambanks. - Discourage the use of beds and banks of waterbodies for the placement of roads, highways, and utilities. Goal 7 - Navigation Maintain the hydraulic capacity of and minimize obstruction to navigation without compromising wildlife habitat in water courses and preserve water quality and navigation appearance in shoreland areas. - Encourage the coordination of various government agencies in maintaining the minimal required capacity for historical and safe use of watercraft on priority resources. - Regulate the application of dredging as a tool for navigation to minimize impacts to the environment and consider alternatives to dredging wherever possible. Goal 8 - Best Management Practices Improve water quality by promoting best management practices (BMPs) requiring their adoption in local plans and their implementation on development sites. - Promote site design associated with land disturbing activities which minimizes impacts to water resources. - Require stormwater management facilities to be included in land development projects where practical and effective. - Manage stormwater and snowmelt runoff on a regional or subwatershed basis throughout the watershed to: a) promote effective water quality treatment, where feasible, prior to discharge to surface waters; b) limit developed peak rates of runoff into major surface waters to less than or equal to existing peak rates; and c) promote infiltration of both precipitation and runoff. Goal 9 - Education and Communications Enhance public participation and knowledge regarding District activities and provide informational and educational material to municipalities, community groups, businesses, schools, developers, contractors and individuals. - MCWD will develop, approve and maintain a strategic education and communications plan which will be reviewed and evaluated annually. - Effectively inform the general public, legislators, County Commissioners, and City officials in the eleven subwatersheds of MCWD about water resources management issues as well as MCWD projects, programs and rules using the most effective communications tools and tactics available. - Target groups in which education can change behavior and positively affect the habits and activities of individuals in the watershed community. - Use science-based information for discussions with communities about water resource issues and MCWD programs, projects and rules. - Promote the most appropriate Best Management Practices (BMPs) for use within each subwatershed and communicate strategically about how to put them into practice. - Continue to inform the general and community news media about programs, capital projects, issues, rules, controversies and crises with appropriate news releases, graphics and media relations. Goal 10 - Public Ditches Maintain public ditch systems within the District as required under Statutory jurisdiction. - Regularly inspect the public ditches of MCWD and maintain as needed to adjust for changes within the regulatory scope and authority under Statute. - Evaluate, consider, and where feasible incorporate ecological benefits into the improvement of public drainage systems. - Upstream storage, detention and infiltration will be preferred to and evaluated in comparison to restoring drainage capacity relative to drainage maintenance or repairs. - Drainage improvements and maintenance with localized benefits will be funded through assessment to the benefited properties and in most cases require a petition signed by the majority of the benefiting property owners. - MCWD will seek to abandon ditches where appropriate and redefine ditches within the watershed as streams where natural conditions dominate in the context of State Law. Goal 11 - Wetlands Preserve, create and restore wetland resources and maximize the benefits and functionality of wetlands to the watershed. - Achieve no net loss in the quantity, quality, and biological diversity of existing wetlands in the watershed. - Increase the quantity, quality, and biological diversity of MCWD wetlands by restoring or enhancing diminished or drained wetlands. - Avoid direct or indirect impacts from activities that destroy or diminish the quantity, quality, or biological diversity of wetlands. - Mitigate historical impacts to wetlands by replacing or providing substitute wetland resources or environments as feasible. - Promote competent administration of the Wetland Conservation Act within the watershed. Goal 12 - Groundwater Protect and maintain existing groundwater flow, promote groundwater recharge and improve groundwater quality and aquifer protection. - Protect groundwater resources through coordinated efforts among appropriate agencies. - Encourage infiltration as a preferred method of stormwater management in a manner consistent with source well protection areas; and avoid infiltration where such action may pose a threat to public health. - Protect groundwater flow regimes and their relationships to surface water resources. - MCWD will take groundwater quality impacts into consideration in its decision making. Goal 13 - Floodplains Reduce the severity and frequency of flooding and high water by preserving and increasing the existing water storage capacity below 100-year flood elevations on all waterbodies within MCWD. - Preserve existing water storage capacity below 100-year high water elevations on all waterbodies in the watershed to minimize the frequency and severity of high water. - Minimize development below 100-year high water elevations that will unduly restrict flood flows or aggravate known high water problems. - Mitigate historical losses in floodplain volume and promote the conservation and restoration of floodplain habitat where feasible. - Promote uniform and consistent application of floodplain regulation throughout the watershed. - Promote the natural functions and benefits of floodplains. Goal 14 - Recreation Promote the recreational use, where appropriate, of surface waters within MCWD by providing recreation opportunities for citizens by promoting the use and enjoyment of water resources with the intent of increasing the livability and quality of life within the watershed. - Coordinate with entities that manage parks and recreation to facilitate environmentally appropriate use of surface waters within MCWD. - Sponsor activities, where appropriate, that promote the awareness and use of surface waters. - Cooperate with other agencies in minimizing the spread of harmful exotic species. Goal 15 - Erosion Control Control temporary sources of sediment resulting from land disturbance and identify, minimize and correct the effects of sedimentation from erosion-prone and sediment source areas. - Minimize, in area and duration, exposed soil and unstable soil conditions. - Minimize disturbance of natural soil cover and vegetation. - Protect receiving waterbodies and wetlands by retaining sediment at its source. - Retain sediments from disturbed areas on site. - Minimize off-site sediment transport related to land use. - Minimize work in and adjacent to waterbodies and wetlands. - Maintain stable slopes. - Avoid steep slopes and the need for high cuts and fills. - Minimize disturbance to surrounding soils, root systems and trunks of trees and shrubs adjacent to site activity that are intended to be left standing. - Minimize the compaction of soils. Goal 16 - Regulation Promote effective planning to minimize the impact of development and land use change on water resources as well as achieve watershed District Goals. - Conserve the water resources of the District by assuring compliance with District Rules in the performance of activities which affect water resources. - Develop and apply regulatory standards that focus on results that assist MCWD in fulfilling its mission, goals and defined objectives. - Require land use and development methods that minimize impacts to the environment and water resources. Goal 17 - Public Input Solicit input from the general public with the intent that policies, projects and programs will address local community values and goals as well as protect historic and cultural values regarding water resources; strive to manage expectations; base decisions on an educated public; foster an educated and informed public within the watershed. - Allow citizens to voice their opinions or concerns for the record within the context of a public hearing or meeting; the MCWD Board of Managers will consider these opinions and concerns in its decision making. - Appoint and utilize the MCWD Citizens Advisory Committee as a body representative of the general populace and sensitive to the desires and needs of the citizens within the MCWD. - Take measures to engage communities and seek participation in District activities.	<urn:uuid:cbd92d78-16f5-4bf6-a01d-1f7c87935ea2>	CC-MAIN-2017-13	http://minnehahacreek.org/minnehaha-creek-watershed-district-comprehensive-water-resources-management-plan/50-goals-and	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189802.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00385-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.901565	2,388	2.671875	3	2.997398	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Real world economists and the economics curriculum Keynes’ attempt to re-shape the world order in the 1940s highlighted the need of an international currency system that might only work by means of a “wide measure of agreement”, that is, by means of the creation of a new international convention. In Keynes’ time, this convention would rely on multiple needs: an international currency, a stable exchange rate system, redistribution of international reserves, stabilizing mechanisms, sources of liquidity, besides a central institution to aid and support other international institutions related to the planning and regulation of the world economic life. In our times, new convention-conducing institutions could foster financial regulation. As global finance has subordinated the outcomes of social reproduction, the main question is, as Hyman Minsky warned, Who will benefit? The recent global crisis has indicated that the structure and dynamics of current global finance, as a historical set of institutions, products, procedures, behaviors and policies have potentially materialized the risk of collapse of the financial system with deep negative consequences for the real economy and society. In order to support sustainable development, it’s time to stimulate students to rethink global finance, as well as its policy agenda about global and corporate governance, prudential regulation and supervision of systemic risk. Considering the current global scenario, we need real world economists to re-conceptualize financial problems. The understanding of these financial challenges requires new perspectives regarding knowledge, abilities and attitudes in order to rethink alternatives. As the organization of economic and social institutions helps to define policy goals and outcomes, students should reflect on how to promote a new relationship between the financial and industrial spheres, which is required to promote growth and income distribution. Here, the economic agenda involves aggregate demand (fiscal and monetary) and income policies besides the articulation of financial flows in both credit and capital markets. Under this perspective, the role of monetary policy could be highlighted through the participation of central banks in redirecting flows of credit. It is necessary to articulate the flows of credit within the framework of industrial and labor policies that would search for alternatives to the market power of global corporations. It is also time to think about capital controls that might reduce the effects of sharp reversal short-term capital flows. In fact, any transformation in economic curriculum needs to look forward to search for more coherence in the approach to the relationship between finance and sustainable development both in micro and macro courses. This approach must emphasize a historic understanding of business dynamics, since economic decisions are based on conventions that in turn are based on trust. Indeed, trust is a conventional concept related to the level of confidence built in a society around the legal, regulatory, political and economic setting. In other words, trust has a social and historical nature. It’s time for explicitly introducing this discussion in the economics curriculum.	<urn:uuid:3f9c9b3e-e914-4bd2-8892-63c846865061>	CC-MAIN-2019-26	https://forwardeconomics.net/2015/10/13/economics-and-finance/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627998913.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20190619043625-20190619065625-00029.warc.gz	en	0.939466	568	2.8125	3	3.025573	3	Strong reasoning	Finance & Business
Compaction from the eukaryotic genome in to the confined space from the cell nucleus have to occur faithfully throughout each cell routine to retain gene appearance fidelity. control inside the framework of three-dimensional nuclear framework. The rapid price at which details on NSC 23766 nuclear framework is certainly unfolding brings problems to compare latest observations with historical findings. Within this review we discuss experimental breakthroughs which have influenced how exactly we understand and explore the powerful framework and function from the nucleus and how we can incorporate historical perspectives with insights acquired from your ever-evolving improvements in molecular biology and pathology. and are required to package histone H3 (H3.3) to the paternal genome. Loss of HIRA or YEM prospects to an irregular paternal pronucleus and the subsequent loss of the paternal genome (Bonnefoy et al. 2007 Orsi et al. 2013 Fertilization is usually then followed by the process NSC 23766 of embryo blastogenesis the early stages of embryogenesis that is marked by formation of the blastula. The blastula contains cells of the inner cell mass populace that harbor the ability to differentiate into numerous cell types. These non-differentiated pluripotent cells are characteristically more de-condensed than differentiated cells (Bartova et al. 2008 In normal somatic cells chromosome regions are not homogenously compacted. Interphase chromosomes exist as highly compacted “closed” heterochromatin and less compacted “open” euchromatin. These regions are very unique and were NSC 23766 first visualized cytologically where heterochomatin stained with higher intensity (Heitz 1928 Consistent with these observations improvements in electron microscopy through the early 1960s uncovered that heterochromatic locations could possibly be visualized NSC 23766 by even more electron thick nuclear domains (Davies 1967 Goodman and Spiro 1962 Hay and Revel 1963 Euchromatin and heterochromatin may also be recognized by how delicate these are to enzymatic digestive function by DNase I micrococcal nuclease or mungbean nuclease. Differentiation-dependent genomic NSC 23766 redecorating was noticed and hypothesized in early stages to become concomitant using the reprogramming from the pluripotent cell towards a terminally differentiated cell fate. Among the initial demonstration of the procedure was the rearrangement and condensation of chromatin through the procedure for myogenesis (Chaly et al. 1996 Additionally through the retinoic acidity induced differentiation of individual embryonic stem cells chromosomes 6 and 8 are proven to condense around 30% and 54% of their preliminary amounts respectively (Bartova et al. 2008 However the genome-wide rearrangement of chromosomes NSC 23766 most likely set up the cell for correct transcriptional control the useful dependency from the 3-dimensional nuclear firm on cell fate and identification continued to be underexplored. Compartmenting energetic and silent genes It really is still unclear if the useful concern for nuclear firm is certainly to efficiently small and decompact the genome during mitosis in a way that transcriptionally silent locations stay in heterochromatic expresses. Although this hypothesis provides yet to become directly tested there is certainly ample proof to claim that chromosomes are folded in three-dimensional space to attain compaction efficiency. For instance chromosomal conformation analyses claim that connections among linearly proximal sequences occur more often than those among distal sequences (Lieberman-Aiden et al. 2009 Yaffe and Tanay 2011 Unlike this idea the clustering ISG20 of heterochromatic locations on the nuclear periphery and localization of euchromatic locations towards the inside from the nucleus (Cavalli and Misteli 2013 argues that occupancy in three-dimensional space is essential for gene legislation. In mammals and flies particular genomic locations physically associate using the nuclear periphery on the nuclear lamina a proteins network that resides on the internal nuclear membrane (illustrated in Fig. 2 and analyzed in Guelen et al. 2008 Kind and truck Steensel 2010 Generally in most cell types the nuclear envelope is certainly lined with heterochromatin formulated with gene-poor or transcriptionally silenced locations. Transcriptional.	<urn:uuid:4f323f3c-a2ff-4f4d-902b-f84c649c339b>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://cell-metabolism.com/2016/05/26/compaction-from-the-eukaryotic-genome-in-to-the-confined-space-from/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679102469.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20231210123756-20231210153756-00544.warc.gz	en	0.915727	856	2.515625	3	2.926409	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
by Katie Navarra Grazing livestock have the potential to maximize or exceed their daily intake requirements ultimately leading to increased production than if fed stored forages. “Well-managed pastures are generally higher in quality than any other forage,” Karen Hoffman, Resource Conversationalist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, said. Livestock allowed to graze consume the plant when it is in the vegetative stage of growth before it sends out a seed head. “The plant will be lower in fiber, which means it is more easily digested by the animal, with the help of bacteria in the rumen of the animals that have one,” she added. Pastures also tend to be higher in protein and energy than other forages due to the stage of plant growth. Furthermore, grazing animals are outside and able to absorb natural vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin D. Grazing can allow the farmer to reduce the cost of feeding animals. “They (the animals) do the work of harvesting, it’s high quality, and generally doesn’t need to be supplemented with expensive feeds,” Hoffman said. High-producing dairy animals are an exception. “It is recommended that some supplemental energy be fed as pasture can’t meet their energy needs alone,” she added. Providing pastures for grazing has the potential to reduce feed costs, but “it all depends,” said Mick Bessire with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, “to make grazing as profitable as possible you have to keep costs under control and have a process of evaluation.” Management and operating practices play an important role to making grazing a more efficient and more profitable endeavor. “I have seen farms with 100 cows and 500 acres that can’t make it; however, I have seen farms with 150 cows and 250 acres do very well,” he said. How much pasture do I need? Successful grazing requires daily monitoring of the animal’s health, body condition score, fluids intake and productivity. “(Farmers) need to be particularly mindful of/familiar with the animal’s body condition score,” Bessire explained. The animal’s health should be monitored on a daily basis. The pastures should also be checked daily for the amount of forage available to ensure the animals have enough to eat. The animal’s age and stage of development will require different amounts of forage. “Yearlings or those in lactation take more forage than a dry cow,” he said. For example, a dry cow requires 2.5 percent of its body weight in forage whereas a yearling needs 3 percent and lactating animals need 3.5 percent. The soil type and the type of forage available play a critical role in determining how many animals a pasture can support. “Up to 30-40 percent clover is the best option,” he said, “clover supports more animals than straight grass and it provides nitrogen fixation to help fertilize the soil.” In general, the ratio of animals to pasture land is determined using animal units. Each animal unit is equal to 1,000 pounds of body weight. Pastures with decent soil and good forage coverage should be able to support one animal unit per acre. Bessire said, “horses eat an awful lot and are actually equivalent to 2 1/4 animal units meaning it takes 2 1/2 acres for one horse.” Pasture health critical A pasture’s nutritional value is directly related to its soil type, pH and fertility. Soil types are measured on a scale of 1 to 8. “A type 1 soil is capable of producing 5 to 6 tons of dry matter per acre,” Bessire explained, “a type 3 is only able to produce between 3 to 3.5 tons of dry matter per acre.” A Soil Survey Handbook is available and includes charts by county that indicate the tonnage of dry matter the soil will likely produce under optimum conditions. “If the soil is good and at optimum fertility and pH that is a good start,” he said, “but some sort of harvest is needed (i.e. hay) is the only sure way to measure.” The pasture’s viability is also based on how fertile the soil is and its ability to absorb nutrients. Soil that has been neglected may be short on micronutrients. “(You) need to look at the micronutrients as part of the tool kit these days in convention and organic agriculture because we have not been putting these back into the soil and it is out of balance,” he added. Soil pH is an important part of the pasture’s ability to produce high-quality forage. “This part of the world (Columbia and Greene County, NY) is naturally acidic,” he said. Grasses and legumes do well with a pH of 6.2-6.5. If pH is too low or too high prevents plants from picking up other nutrients in the soil. Soil samples can be taken to local Cooperative Extensions for testing. “Know your soil and what’s in it and amend it,” he emphasized. A plant that is not receiving adequate nutrients will pass the lack of nutrition onto the animal leading to poor nutritional health for the animal or the need to supplement with grain or hay to keep the animal well fed. Getting started with grazing Incorporating grazing into the feeding routine requires planning and preparation. Infrastructure and acreage are important considerations. Newly converted lands or leased lands may require fencing and a water source. “If you are leasing land make the agreement for a long enough period of time to make it worth the infrastructure investment,” Bassire said. Tax breaks and other incentives are available to land owners who consider leasing property to farms. “There is a lot of land that is under-utilized, especially in New York,” Bessire said, “I get calls every day from people looking to lease out under-utilized land.” Funding is available through the Soil and Water Conservation Districts, the USDA and NRCS. Ultimately, neighbor relations is key. Liability and infrastructure can be stumbling blocks to connecting landowners with livestock owners, but developing solid relationships with neighbors go a long way in smoothing this over. Once pastures are established, create a grazing management plan. “Rotational grazing can produce almost double the amount compared to continuous grazing,” Bassire explained. In a rotational system the animals are allowed to graze 1-3 days and are then moved to another pasture. The vegetation is given enough time to rebound and regrow. The length of the rest period varies based on the season. In the spring it averages two weeks, but can be as many as four to six during the middle of the summer. In conventional grazing, the livestock prefer the young tender grass rather than taller grasses. An overgrazed root system contracts and cannot take up nutrients to sustain growth. The growth slows down and turns into fodder. “Determine how many acres are needed, and how often to rotate the animals through the pastures/paddocks,” Hoffman concluded, “It’s a balance between forage supply and forage demand and making sure there’s enough pasture for the amount of time they are in the paddock.” by Katie Navarra	<urn:uuid:5ed2ef8c-99b6-4f3a-9b6a-02408e3af509>	CC-MAIN-2014-42	http://countryfolks.com/grazing-livestock/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507447660.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005727-00164-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.949737	1,595	3.5	4	2.837293	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
Landfills are not a bottomless resource for human trash. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated in a study that only 27.8% of ferrous metals were recycled out of the 10.5 million tons of steel sent to landfills in 2018. That’s why it is important to keep recycling such durable and noncompostable materials. What Is Ferrous Steel? Ferrous steel metals have a large amount of iron in them making them more durable. They are best used for the construction of buildings and bridges, and many other architectural and industrial structures. Read More» Copper has been the top recycled industrial metal for several years. Copper is 100% recyclable. Moreover, the material is versatile and can be used to make different products, from electronics to piping. That makes copper a highly demanded material for industrial processes. For this reason, you should consider recycling copper from your business. Copper recycling offers numerous benefits to your company and the surrounding environment. Here are the benefits that copper recycling brings. Read More» When completing major renovations and overhauling a business, IT equipment often needs to be replaced. This equipment is usually tossed in dumpster bins and ends up in landfills. This has changed, and there are options to recycle computers and electrical equipment. How can you benefit from recycling your old IT equipment when overhauling your business? 1. Remove and strip all old wires and cables Start preparing the old computers and electronics by disconnecting the wiring. Read More» You, like many people, probably have old and no-longer-functioning electronics around the house. The laptop you meant to get repaired but eventually replaced. The old cell phone you intended to use as a backup if you needed one but now is so old you’re not sure it’ll even turn on. The printer you’ve mostly been using as a scanner because it insists there’s a paper jam, but you haven’t been able to find it, and now you have two printers. Read More» When your computer finally gives out or you’re simply ready to trade it in for another one, don’t just toss it in the dump. Believe it or not, you can actually recycle computers, including both desktop PCs and laptops. And, though recycling your computer might feel like a bit of a hassle, it is definitely worthwhile and comes with a great many benefits. Avoid Contributing To Landfills In many areas, you are actually not allowed to toss your computer into the dumpster. Read More»	<urn:uuid:4f88134c-635e-436f-89e0-a6ae34de9680>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	http://euskalauto.com/page/2/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652184.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605221713-20230606011713-00244.warc.gz	en	0.945549	529	2.703125	3	2.034582	2	Moderate reasoning	Industrial
The quantitative contribution of tropical estuaries to the atmospheric CO2 budget has large uncertainties, both spatially and seasonally. We investigated the seasonal and spatial variations of carbon biogeochemistry downstream of Ho Chi Minh City (Southern Vietnam). We sampled four sites distributed from downstream of a highly urbanised watershed through mangroves to the South China Sea coast during the dry and wet seasons. Measured partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) ranged from 660 to 3000 μatm during the dry season, and from 740 to 5000 μatm during the wet season. High organic load, dissolved oxygen saturation down to 17%, and pCO2 up to 5000 μatm at the freshwater endmember of the estuary reflected the intense human pressure on this ecosystem. We show that releases from mangrove soils affect the water column pCO2 in this large tropical estuary (~600 m wide and 10–20 m deep). This study is among the few to report direct measurements of both water pCO2 and CO2 emissions in a Southeast Asian tropical estuary located in a highly urbanised watershed. It shows that the contribution of such estuaries may have been previously underestimated, with CO2 emissions ranging from 74 to 876 mmol m−2 day−1 at low current velocity (< 0.2 m s−1). Corresponding gas transfer velocities k600, ranging from 1.7 to 11.0 m day−1, were about 2 to 4 times of k600 estimated using published literature equations. Biogeochemistry – Springer Journals Published: Apr 27, 2018 It’s your single place to instantly discover and read the research that matters to you. Enjoy affordable access to over 18 million articles from more than 15,000 peer-reviewed journals. All for just $49/month Query the DeepDyve database, plus search all of PubMed and Google Scholar seamlessly Save any article or search result from DeepDyve, PubMed, and Google Scholar... all in one place. Get unlimited, online access to over 18 million full-text articles from more than 15,000 scientific journals. Read from thousands of the leading scholarly journals from SpringerNature, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press and more. All the latest content is available, no embargo periods. “Hi guys, I cannot tell you how much I love this resource. Incredible. I really believe you've hit the nail on the head with this site in regards to solving the research-purchase issue.”Daniel C. “Whoa! It’s like Spotify but for academic articles.”@Phil_Robichaud “I must say, @deepdyve is a fabulous solution to the independent researcher's problem of #access to #information.”@deepthiw “My last article couldn't be possible without the platform @deepdyve that makes journal papers cheaper.”@JoseServera	<urn:uuid:7dfa0c37-d0cb-4297-8433-07dcd8b5c854>	CC-MAIN-2021-10	https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer_journal/carbon-biogeochemistry-and-co2-emissions-in-a-human-impacted-and-TKHkRqJfWU	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178376206.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20210307074942-20210307104942-00406.warc.gz	en	0.915859	614	2.671875	3	2.728501	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
The Germans did not cut corners. Three of four tank groups participated in the offensive on Moscow, codenamed "Typhoon". Before the offensive, Hitler's speech was read to German units, telling them, in part, of the beginning of the last and greatest decisive battle of 1941. Unlike a lot of Hitler's promises, these one turned out true. However, this battle was not decisive in the way he expected. The position of the Red Army before the offensive was not enviable. The pre-war mechanized corps with their hundreds and thousands of tanks were lost, sacrificed in the first months of the war to stop the German advance. There was not enough vehicles to restore them, nor were there enough competent commanders and staff officers capable of directing such units. Nevertheless, tanks played a pivotal role in the battle for Moscow. Drang nach Moskau At dawn on September 30th, Guderian's 2nd tank group moved out. On October 2nd it was joined by Hermann Hoth's 3rd tank group and Erich Hoepner's 4th, tasked with destroying Soviet West and Reserve Fronts. The Red Army was not the only one suffering from equipment shortages. The Panzerwaffe was not what it used to be on June 22nd. For instance, Hoepner's tank regiments from the 6th and 7th tank divisions had to be consolidated into one tank brigade. More than 300 tanks attacked in two echelons on a 2 km front. The density of German guns was equally impressive, 100 cannons per kilometer. The sky was filled with dive bombers from Wolfram von Richtofen's 8th air corps. Soviet infantry only learned to withstand attacks of such magnitude two years later, at Kursk. In the fall of 1941, German tanks cleaved through the defenses of ragged Soviet infantry like a sword through plywood. The only hope was on Soviet tanks. Counterattacks: Kholm, Mtsensk, Maloyaroslavets Lieutenant-General I.V. Boldin's operative group was formed from reserve units of the Western Front. It was composed of three tank brigades, and one each of infantry, cavalry, and motorized divisions. Overall, the unit had over 200 tanks, but they were largely outdated T-26 and BT tanks. Deployment lagged behind. When Hoth's tanks reached the shores of the Dniepr on October 4th, only the 128th Tank Brigade was ready to oppose them. The Germans remembered this battle for a long time. Hermann Hoth wrote in his memoirs that the stubborn Russians fought to the death to stop the advance of German tanks. According to German data, they knocked out 28 Soviet tanks at a cost of 26 of their own, a ratio rarely seen in German documents in 1941. Sadly, Boldin's counterattack only held back one wedge that was driving through the Soviet front. Guderian's 2nd tank group achieved a much more dangerous penetration. Having covered 200 km over several days, the 4th tank division reached Orel by October 3rd. At the time, the city was considered deep in the rear; even the streetcars were still running. There were no serious defenses between Orel and Moscow. Dmitriy Lelyushenko's 1st Guards Infantry Corps was hurriedly formed to plug the gap, but it was still in the process of moving out to the front. A single battalion of soldiers from the 201 Airborne Brigade landed on the Orel airport, already under enemy fire. The paratroopers gave their lives to delay German tanks for another day. On the evening of October 4th, the advance guard of Katukov's 4th Tank Brigade reached the outskirts of Orel. Soon the Germans realized that the time of easy and rapid marches was over. The 35 km from Orel to Mtsensk took an entire week to cover. For these battles, Katukov's brigade became the 1st Guards. Many of its soldiers received medals, six of Katukov's men received the Order of Lenin, one of the highest Soviet honours. Among them were future tank aces D. Lavrinenko and A. Burda. Guderian's subordinates from the 4th tank division clenched their teeth and wrote reports on "absolute dominance" of new Soviet tanks. The value of these battles is highlighted by the fact that in November of 1941, a commission including Ferdinand Porsche and future Tiger designer Erwin Aders was sent to examine the tanks between Orel and Mtsensk. While Guderian's division was wasting time and tanks in their mad dash to Moscow, their comrades were closing their jaws around the Bryansk, West, and Reserve Fronts. However, the Germans lacked the strength to both maintain a solid encirclement and continue their offensive. The attempt to achieve both anyway ended poorly. Firstly, many encircled units managed to break out. Secondly, the few tank and mechanized units allocated to advance to Moscow did so along main roadways. As a result, Soviet high command, lacking the strength to restore a solid front line, could concentrate on building anti-tank defenses in most obvious directions. The main components of these defenses were tank brigades and anti-tank guns. For instance, the 17th Tank Brigade was a key part of defending Maloyaroslavks. Here is what the German 57th motorized corps wrote: "The Russians are sitting in nearly every village on both sides of the road, sometimes in small numbers, sometimes large, and fiercely defend...The enemy is fortifying the front lines today...His advantage: tanks that fight in formation, and fight fiercely and skilfully." A good defense is the key to success At Ilyinskoye, near Maloyaroslavets, the Germans saw first hand what a well organized defensive line looks like. At about 1:00 pm, 15 German tanks moved out of Cherkassovo, accompanied by an infantry company. The soldiers were riding on the tanks, as well as APCs and motorcycles. The tanks were in two groups, the first one composed of 8 vehicles, the second one of 7. At Sergeevka, the infantry was "swept" off with machinegun fire. The tanks tried to reach Ilyinskoye, but two were knocked out. The German infantry deployed to fight without seeing the enemy. Tanks from the second group pulled up. The offensive continued, but in a disorganized fashion. A portion of the tanks rushed forward, some were stuck on the road. One drove into a ditch. Soviet machinegun fire pinned down infantry. This attack resulted in numerous photos of a burned out tank column and a small cemetery near the road. By the end of October it was clear that the "rapid dash" to Moscow failed. Instead of a march across highways, the Germans paid a heavy price for every kilometer they drove eastward. Now the results of the battle depended on who had that last battalion in reserve. Article author: Andrei Ulanov. Andrei Ulanov is an historian and an author of books and articles on the Great Patriotic War. His most prominent works are "Order in Tank Forces" and "First T-34s" (co-authored with Dmitriy Shein). Currently, he is working on books on AT measures of Soviet infantry and combat use of T-34 tanks in 1942. - CAMD RF documents. - NARA documents. - H. Hoth, Tank Operations - L.N. Lopukhoskiy, Vyazemskaya katastrofa 41 goda - Defense of Moscow: 17th Tank Brigade, http://konkurs.senat.org/notabene/17TBR.html - Fragment from "Geschichte des Panzer-Grenadier-Regiments 73", http://www.eco-kovcheg.ru/ilinskie_rubezhi-04.html.	<urn:uuid:5106a820-3bc4-4ff6-89c9-a57a67e372bb>	CC-MAIN-2017-09	http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2014/10/world-of-tanks-history-section-battle.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170609.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00609-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.979327	1,667	3.15625	3	2.964639	3	Strong reasoning	History
By Mackenzie Allen 6th Grade, Siskiyou County Grenada Elementary School - Debbi Hoy, Teacher "Hey, what do you think you will turn into?" asked Douglas. He was hearing the loggers, machines and the log trucks coming to do their jobs. "What do you mean?" asked all the other trees. They were not paying attention to what was happening around them. "I mean... Whoa, holy leaves, I am being cut down, YEAH!" exclaimed Douglas. He was so excited, as he had heard great things about what logs turn into from the old timers who were very wise. They seemed to know a lot for trees that had never been cut down. But only a select few of the other trees in the forest would get chosen to be cut down. "Now what are they going to do to us?" asked the other trees in the forest, who never seemed to listen. "Do I need to go through the whole process of logging again?" Douglas sounded tired. "I think you young seedlings need to pay more attention to the old timers." "Would you mind, please?" whimpered the smaller trees. So Douglas started to tell them about the logging process "Trees are harvested mechanically by a big machine called a feller buncher. It has a long boom with a saw attached to the end. It can grab the tree, cut it and lay it down all by the push of some buttons by the operator sitting in the cab of the machine. Most feller buncher's can cut trees up to 24 inches in diameter. Then the logs will stay on the ground until a skidder drags them to the landing. Once piled up in the landing, another machine called a loader will load the logs onto a log truck. The log truck will then haul the logs to a sawmill." Douglas replied. "Wait, before you go on, what is the machine called that is taking off my branches?" asked Ponderosa, one of Douglas' friends. "Oh, thanks for reminding me," said Douglas. "That machine is called a delimber. It takes the tree and with its big boom, strokes the tree, taking off the limbs. It can cut one long log into smaller logs. Some of the really tall trees can have up to two or three logs cut out of if." "Once we are piled up in the landing, we wait to be loaded onto the log trucks. Since we are close to the top of the pile, we will probably get loaded on the second or third log truck." Douglas loved the idea of being in the process of logging and talking about it also. "Hey, we are being loaded," shouted Douglas, as he and five other trees swung through the air in the leader's grapples and were being placed down on the log truck. "I'm getting squished down here!" yelled a log from the bottom of the pile. Douglas continued to tell the other logs about what was going to happen next. As the logs traveled down the bouncy, dirt road out of the forest, Douglas told the other logs about going to the sawmill. Once they got to the mill, they would be unloaded and then sorted by whatever species or sometimes what size each log was. They would then be put into other separate piles and hopefully would turn into something very useful. When they got to the mill, everyone was indeed separated. Some stayed in the same pile for a year, while others were cut and made into boards, plywood and panel sheets. Douglas was happily turned into boards, which were used to build a house. He loves everyday he is there and reminds himself once in a while about that wonderful day when he was cut down and going through the logging process and everything that happened that day. He wonders sometimes if the other trees are happy with what they turned out to be. "I will never forget that day!" Douglas said proudly and he probably never will.	<urn:uuid:ddc31fb5-05dd-4932-8e1b-d1708045c6d6>	CC-MAIN-2014-35	http://learnaboutag.org/imaginethis/2005/forestfriends.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500825010.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021345-00278-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.982526	821	3.375	3	2.125562	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
Transcript: getting to know a slide presentation Tips in Creating Presentation 5. A Microsoft Office PowerPoint template is a pattern or blueprint of a slide or group of slides that you save as a .potx file. Templates can contain layouts, theme colors, theme fonts, theme effects, background styles, and even content. It uses graphical approaches to presentations in the form of slide shows that accompany the oral delivery of the topic. What is Microsoft PowerPoint? 1. Task pane in powerpoint is found on the right of powerpoint presentation and displays so many option like getting started, powerpoint help, slide, new presentation, design templates, color schemes, animation schemes.Task Pane can be added using 'View -> Toolbars -> Taskpane' from the menu bar. Its HISTORY It is originally designed by the Macintosh and its first release is called the PRESENTER. This is developed by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin of Forethought, Inc. In 1987, it is renamed into PowerPoint due to the problem of trademarks. 2. A PowerPoint template is a pattern or blueprint of a slide or group of slides that you save as a .potx file. Templates can contain layouts, theme colors, theme fonts, theme effects, background styles, and even content. You can create your own custom templates and store them, reuse them, and share them with others 4.Web PowerPoint template is a light free template for PowerPoint presentations that you can download for web projects or Internet projects as well as Internet PowerPoint presentations. The Parts of MS PowerPoint It is a program designed in creating presentations. It is debated to be beneficial for it is widely among different industries especially in both business and academics. And it is the most effective tool in lectures and seminars. 1. New Presentation Task Pane 2. Design Template 3. Templates with suggested content 4. Template on Web 5. Microsoft.com Template The Microsoft Power Point 3. A TE000127939 has all the elements of a design template plus a suggested outline for the presentation. You apply a content template when you first create a presentation, through the AutoContent Wizard. What are its elements? All About Power Point By this program, it allows user to choose the type of layout content in creating Presentations Familiarize the usages of the program Allow yourself to operate rather than letting others do it for yourself. In making presentations, choose slide designs that will make your viewers be interested on your topic Transcript: Innovation IDEAS Communication Welcome Milena Flament Creating The Culture A Support Structure Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before Public Service Reform Agenda Public Service Reform Agenda Proponent of the "Flipped" Classroom An Innovation Space [email protected] Will you join us? Building Skills 82 Recognition Winners –Q4 Transcript: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Help current students grow their Business (Business Plan seminars/Shark Tank Event) Create a platform for innovation through events (Hackathons, Panelist & Workshops) Increase relations with organizations looking to make sustainable efforts (Net Impact) Small Business David Brier (Incubator) Mike LaRosa Raising Capital Cherian Thomas (Spotluck CEO) Sean Chrysostom (Banker) Mat Levine - Entrepreneur Social & Economic Forum Dina Porter (HR4SMBIZ) Stevens Cadet (Architect Industries) Building a Sustainable Tomorrow Nanotechnology - Graphene, Buckypaper, Carbon Nanotubes Robotics - Creating Artifically Intelligent Robots for everyday use Autus Lab Entrepreneurship Club Architect Industries Transcript: Artifact: The Hunger Games created in 2012 Setting: The Hunger Games takes place in Panem (North America). In Panem, there are 12 districts, each providing resources for the capitol and the people of Panem. The actual hunger game is taking place in an arena just inside the capitol. Circumstances: Suzanne collins was watching Reality TV and a war channel and she then blended them together, including young people in her plot, the hunger games was created. Artifact: The song "revolution radio" by Green Day Released: October 7, 2016 Circumstances/Setting: the whole album is meant to reflect the current state of violence in the United States. Historical: also meant to show the affect of shootings around the United States. Theme: People can rebel in many different ways 1984: Every generation after World War II, because it has lots of allusions and relations to World War II and the Nazis, and it helps to spread lght on the dnagers of that time. The Hunger Games:Young adults/teens, because it targets violence and drama, but it is not for adults or for little kids. Revolution Radio: Teenagers/adolescents who listen to punk rock, adults who listened to Green Day growing up. These were targeted because Green Day appeals to the younger generations sense of anarchy and chaos, while they kept most of their same sound to appeal to the older generation that listened to them growing up. Occasion: Audience Purpose Occasion The theme means that people can rebel in many different ways including physical rebellion, but also things including thoughts or beliefs against the people or thing in charge. 1984: 1984 was written by George Orwell to inform others. He informs them of totalitarianism, and he informs them of his stance against it, because he has experienced it first hand. The Hunger Games: No purpose, just late night television inspiration. revolution Radio: The song was written to reflect the mass shootings in America and the narcissistic media coverage. 1984 Theme Triangle Occasion: Example: Winston not only rebels physically by having sex with Julia, he also commits thought crime against the party by writing in his journal. === Artifact: 1984 created in 1949 Setting: the fictional country of Oceania some time in the future. Orwell, having written the book in 1948 project this future as the year 1984. Oceania is one of three world powers; the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia. War with one or the other world power is constant. Circumstances: The events of World War 2 led to the creation of 1984 Era/Historical Context: This book was written during World War 2, so it takes some direct concepts out of the time period. Transcript: huddle Mrs. Rossi huddle to crowd together crowd huddle separate Transcript: Nobody knows babies like we do! Quality products . Good Customer service. Every Kid really loves this store.. BABYLOU ABOUT US About Us BabyLou was established in 2004. It has been more than a decade since we started, where we have ensured to take care of every need and want of every child and infant under one roof, true to the caption “NO BODY KNOWS BABIES LIKE WE DO”. Our benchmark is to provide 100% customer service and satisfaction and continue to deliver the same with a wide range of toys, garments and Baby Products. Play and Create We Are Best 01 02 03 Block games Building Blocks help Kids to use their brain. PLAY TO LEARN in Crusing Adventures Our Discoveries Enjoy a sunny vacation aboard a luxury yacht with the LEGO® Creator 3in1 31083 Cruising Adventures set. This ship has all the comforts you need, including a well-equipped cabin and a toilet. Sail away to a sunny bay and take the cool water scooter to the beach. Build a sandcastle, enjoy a picnic, go surfing or check out the cute sea creatures before you head back to the yacht for a spot of fishing. Escape into the mountains Disney Little Princes in Also available for your Babies..... Also... Out of The World… Our reponsibility BABYLOU…. Our Responsibility All children have the right to fun, creative and engaging play experiences. Play is essential because when children play, they learn. As a provider of play experiences, we must ensure that our behaviour and actions are responsible towards all children and towards our stakeholders, society and the environment. We are committed to continue earning the trust our stakeholders place in us, and we are always inspired by children to be the best we can be. Innovate for children We aim to inspire children through our unique playful learning experiences and to play an active role in making a global difference on product safety while being dedicated promoters of responsibility towards children. Transcript: Your template Fresh look! New theme Flow& Spring Use a new theme* to give your template* a fresh look! Transcript: Between 2003 and 2013, 1,863 enterprises were based in the 15 Innovation Centres. By the end of this period, 621 of these were current OI customers and 1,242 had graduated. A typical business in an IC is small, recently formed and operating in professional services, computer or IT services. Amazing! Business survival rates of OI customers compared with the national averages Presented to information appears here Todays date here Oxford Innovation manages 21 Business and Innovation Centres across England. For our clients, both public and private sector building owners, we offer management services that create financially sustainable Centres with real economic outputs. Have an annual turnover of less than £100k Presentation title appears here We are here! Oxford Centre for Innovation (Head Office) Profile of a Typical Customer Description: Storytelling is at the heart of great service. Use this stunning, customizable business presentation template to highlight employees who do exceptional work or position your customers as the heroes of your business. Description: Add some color to your quarterly business review with this vibrant business presentation template. The bold visuals in this business template will make your next QBR a memorable one. Description: The sky’s the limit. Boost your new sales initiative into orbit with an engaging and compelling SKO presentation. This template features a effective sales kickoff theme that makes it easy to be engaging. Like all Prezi SKO templates, it’s fully customizable with your own information. Description: Catch the eye and engage the imagination with this cool-looking Prezi proposal template. The bold, bright design and highly dynamic theme all but guarantee success for your next sales or marketing proposal. All Prezi presentation templates are easily customized. Now you can make any subject more engaging and memorable	<urn:uuid:4eb50809-faca-4c43-8599-24d902c069ad>	CC-MAIN-2021-17	https://prezi.com/l/innovation-theme-powerpoint-template/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618039508673.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20210421035139-20210421065139-00290.warc.gz	en	0.91258	2,091	2.734375	3	2.173136	2	Moderate reasoning	Finance & Business
E-learning courses are looked upon as a costly option, that require huge resources and finances. Budget constraints is an important factor that puts off institutions and organizations looking for alternate training options. People usually have a misconception that we cannot create effective e-learning courses with a tight budget. That is not true. It is a fact that simple and effective e-learning courses can be using a few tricks and following a few tips can be developed even under shoe-string budgets. There might be a few limitations on the usage of complex interactivities or gamification methods, however, we can still create effective and engaging courses within limited budget also. Proper estimation of budgets and use of right resources will help deliver quality-based e-learning outputs. Here are five tips that will help you create amazing e-learning courses within a limited budget. 1. Show only “Need to Know” content Visualizing and showing all content that the client has provided in inputs will increase costs of production. So, we have to first analyze the learning outcomes of the module and decide upon the essential content that the learner has to know to achieve those objectives. This will help us decide the content that should be visualized and shown onscreen. Once the ‘need to know’ content is decided we can show the rest of the information either in the form of resources or links. 2. Create Bite-Sized Modules Creating courses that run for 30 mins or more takes a long time for development that can significantly increase the cognitive overload on learners. We can therefore create small bite-sized modules of 8-10 minutes’ duration wherever possible. This helps in reducing development costs and time taken without impacting the quality of learning. Moreover, small bite sized modules help the learner retain information longer. 3. Use In-house Narrator Audio recording with professional narrators is costly often increasing the budgets of e-learning courses. We can have a few house narrators to develop cost-effective courses. A few audio samples of in-house narrators can be sent to clients letting them choose their preferences. This helps in reducing audio costs without compromising the quality of the course. 4. Reuse Existing Templates A standard template library of existing templates can be created and templates can be used wherever necessary. Creating a new template each time you get a new project is time consuming and increases development costs. A library consisting of various templates suiting particular topics; subjects and most preferred by organizations and institutions ensures that IDs can simply access the already prepared models for creating new sets and courses. 5. Select Cost-effective Tools Choosing the right authoring tools also plays a major role in reducing costs. We have many rapid authoring tools that can help us create courses quickly. We need to select the tool that best fits the project based on requirements. For instance, Articulate Storyline has many built-in characters and quiz templates that can save a lot of development time. For a simulation based course Captivate can help create alternatives quickly and allows you to Publish the course in any format (Laptop, IPad etc.) Whatever is the budget of the project, the ultimate goal is to give a wonderful learning experience to the learner. Having limited budget doesn’t mean that we compromise with the quality of the learning. The five tips mentioned in this post can help deliver effective course to the learner. If you have any additional tips to add, please do share it.	<urn:uuid:b5e4c393-a7c7-4dfc-aee4-34ef1b382c41>	CC-MAIN-2018-39	https://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/developing-elearning-courses-on-tight-budget	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267164925.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20180926121205-20180926141605-00104.warc.gz	en	0.922249	710	2.53125	3	2.118415	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
By Myra Lee Adams Goff The Verein zum Schütze Deutsche Einwanderer in Texas (Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas), or Adelsverein, formed a stock company in Germany to purchase land in Texas to settle German immigrants. They chose Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels to lead this project. When the prince arrived in Texas, he learned that the Adelsverein had already purchased a 3,000,000 acre tract from Henry Fischer and Burchard Miller. After consulting with Ranger Jack Hays in San Antonio, Solms learned that this tract of land was 200 miles inland and the Comanche presence was a problem. Solms knew he needed a way-station so he purchased the Comal Tract from the Veramendi family. Even in this area, there was much evidence of Indians, but mostly Tonkowa. Prince Carl’s plan was to protect the emigrants and develop cordial relations with the Indian tribes. The Republic of Texas felt that a ten-man special company of rangers was sufficient to protect its citizens and no special provision was made for the German emigrants as they made their way from the coast to the interior. Prince Carl recognized this potential problem. In his first report to the Adelsverein in Germany, he asked that weapons be sent so that “I shall be able to make an impression on the Indians”. He asked the society members to send arms that were no longer serviceable in Europe to be sent to Texas. He reported that every man in Texas must be mounted with a rifle of medium length, a sword, leather accoutrements, cartridges and powder. He himself had donated two cannons and a howitzer. In his second report, he told the Society that the Comanche who were numerous and brave, inhabited the region and that the lack of soldiers was a problem. In November and December 1844, the first emigrants arrived at Indianola. In January 1845, when the colonists were to make their move inland, Prince Carl organized a military company of 20 men. The rest of the men (108) were organized into a reserve company and militia body. The military force was not to be used for aggression, but for protection against the Indians exclusively for the settlers. Most historians agree that the firing of a cannon at sunset for the purpose of striking fear into the Indians had the effect of keeping the Indians at a safe distance, whether it was needed or not. The last time that Indians were mentioned by Prince Carl was in his 10th report after he had chosen the land to be purchased in NB. In this report he describes the Indians in the area. When civilization moved in, the noise of the ax moved the Indians away. As another protection, a stockade or palisade was built on the edge of a forty-foot bluff on the south bank of Comal Creek where the present Sts. Peter and Paul Church complex is located. The stockade was called the Zinkenburg after Nicolaus Zink, the Adelsverein’s surveyor. Also on a hill about 30 feet above the flat land on which NB was built, a large blockhouse called the Sophienburg was built for the protection of citizens. Records show that the cornerstone of the Sophienburg was laid on Apr. 28, 1845, but this cornerstone has never been located. Every evening and morning before daybreak, the mounted patrol was sent out. Sentinels stood guard around the Zinkenburg. While Prince Carl was commissioner general, he claimed that not a single person entrusted to his care was killed by Indians, nor a horse stolen. (Other written records tell a different story about the theft of horses) Five months after Prince Carl left in May, 1845, two Germans, Capt. Friedrich von Wrede and Lt. Oscar von Claren were killed and scalped as they returned to NB from Austin at Live Oak Springs. A third party, Wessel, escaped and two days later he led a detachment of Rangers to the scene of the scalping, but no Indians could be found. This incident lead to the decision by Gov. J. Pinckney Henderson to send Rangers to protect the emigrants leaving NB to found Fredericksburg in April of 1846. John Meusebach took Prince Carl’s place as commissioner general and led the group to Fredericksburg. He subsequently in 1847 made a treaty with the Indians and the danger ceased. Now the Llano area could be inhabited. Did this treaty end the attack by Indians? No, but these incidents in the predominately German communities was small in comparison to the rest of Texas. Cordial relations existed between the Indians and the counties of Comal, Gillespie, Kendall, Mason and Llano. Prince Carl and John Meusebach were responsible for these good relations.	<urn:uuid:f29627d9-e0dd-4956-94d5-f7ebc5f23b8d>	CC-MAIN-2020-40	https://sophienburg.com/germans-successful-negotiating-with-indians/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600401604940.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20200928171446-20200928201446-00699.warc.gz	en	0.977811	1,005	3.484375	3	3.014264	3	Strong reasoning	History
President Donald Trump’s announcement on October 20 that he intends to pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was, if nothing else, appropriately timed. On that date exactly 56 years before, President John F. Kennedy abruptly cut short a midterm campaign trip to Illinois because, the White House said, he had a cold. In fact, Kennedy was returning to Washington to address the Cuban missile crisis — the closest humanity has ever come to obliterating itself with a nuclear war. The INF treaty was signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It required both countries to forgo any land-based missiles, nuclear or otherwise, with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. In concrete terms, the treaty was a huge success. The U.S. destroyed almost 1,000 of its own missiles, and the Soviets destroyed almost 2,000 of theirs. But arms control treaties are never about weapons and numbers alone. They can help enemy nations create virtuous circles, both between them and within themselves. Verification requires constant communication and the establishment of trust; it creates constituencies for peace inside governments and in the general public; this reduces on both sides the power of the paranoid, reactionary wing that exists in every country; this creates space for further progress; and so on. The long negotiation of the INF treaty, and the post-signing environment it helped create, was part of an extraordinary collapse of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1980s. When Reagan took office, the Soviets genuinely believed that the U.S. might engage in a nuclear first strike against them. This, in turn, led to two separate moments in 1983 in which the two countries came terrifyingly close to accidental nuclear war — closer than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, the INF treaty was part of an era of good feelings that contributed to one of the most remarkable events of the past 100 years: the largely peaceful implosion of the Soviet Empire. Empires generally do not go quietly, and the dynamics of imperial collapse often contribute to huge conflagrations. Think of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and World War I; or the British Empire and World War II. The Soviet fall was an incredible piece of good fortune for the world; if it had happened in the early 1980s, instead of a few years later, it plausibly would have been catastrophic. It is almost certainly these more diffuse effects that concern the smarter members of the Trump administration, such as national security adviser John Bolton, who’s yearned for decades to decommission the treaty. Russians may be cheating on the treaty in a modest way, while China is not bound by it at all and is developing intermediate-range missiles. But it’s hard to see how this will affect legitimate U.S. security interests. On the other hand, exiting the treaty will do more than just lead to an arms race in which all three countries throw themselves into building new weapons. It will also create an atmosphere in which any rational modus vivendi between the U.S. and Russia, or the U.S. and China, will be far more difficult. This is the prize for Bolton and his allies, who can imagine only one world order: One in which they give orders, and everyone else submits. Bolton has the standard self-perception of his genre of human: In his memoir, “Surrender Is Not an Option,” he explains that he cares about “hard reality,” in contrast to the “dreamy and academic” fools who support arms control. But in fact, it is Bolton who is living inside of a dream. The hard reality is that our species almost committed suicide on October 27, the most dangerous moment of the Cuban missile crisis, later dubbed Black Saturday by the Kennedy administration. Even with comparative doves in charge of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, we came close to ending human civilization, thanks to mutual incomprehension. And we avoided it, as then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later said, not by talent or wisdom, but pure luck. Then, we created a false history of what happened, one which allows terrifying fantasists like Bolton to reach, and thrive within, the highest levels of power. There is a standard story about the Cuban Missile Crisis, at least for those who remember it at all: The perfidious Soviet communists, bent on intimidating the U.S. into submission via the superior power they wielded as a result of the missile gap, sent nuclear weapons to Cuba, from where they could strike the U.S. in minutes. But Kennedy stood tall, refusing to make any concessions to the Russian bullies. Kennedy went toe to toe with the Soviets, and demonstrated that he was tough enough to risk nuclear war. Finally, the other side blinked first and surrendered, taking the missiles out of Cuba. America won! The hard reality, however, is that everything about this is false, both in its specifics and implications. It is, as James Blight and janet Lang, two of the top academic specialists on the crisis, have put it, “bullshit.” The even harder reality is that October 27 was a far more petrifying moment than U.S. and Soviet participants understood at the time — and they were terrified. Blight and Lang estimate that if the crisis were run under the same conditions 100 times, it would end in nuclear war 95 times. We are living in one of the five alternate universes in which humanity survived. The roots of the Cuban missile crisis can be found in three main factors: America’s overwhelming nuclear superiority; the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961; and the stationing of U.S. intermediate nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey early on during the Kennedy administration. During the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy attacked the Eisenhower administration for allowing the development of a “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. There was indeed an enormous gap in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles possessed by each country — but in favor of the U.S. As of 1962, the Soviets only had 20, and they were of such poor quality that they might not have managed to accurately reach the U.S. The U.S. had hundreds. This made the Soviets believe a nuclear first strike by the U.S. — something genuinely supported by factions of the U.S. military and hard right — could leave them unable to retaliate. The Soviets did have missiles, however, that could reach the U.S. mainland from Cuba. The Soviets were also motivated to send the missiles to Cuba because they believed they would deter another invasion attempt. Finally, the Soviets reasonably saw it as leveling the playing field. The American nuclear missiles in Turkey could hit Moscow in 10 minutes. Now, the Soviet missiles in Cuba could do the same to Washington, D.C. The U.S. did not perceive it this way when American reconnaissance discovered the Cuban missiles on October 14. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended an immediate invasion of Cuba. Kennedy instead chose to blockade the island. But by October 26, he had come to believe that only an invasion could remove the missiles. The administration began planning for a replacement government in Cuba. All the while the U.S. was acting in the dark, with the CIA concluding that Soviet nuclear warheads had not yet arrived in Cuba to arm the missiles. They had. Shortly after midnight, in the early morning of Black Saturday, the U.S. informed NATO that it “may find it necessary within a very short time” to attack Cuba. At noon, a U-2 flight over Cuba was shot down, killing the pilot. On all sides, war — potentially nuclear war — seemed likely, if not inevitable. But that night, Kennedy made the most important presidential decision in history: He accepted an offer from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to remove the U.S. missiles in Italy and Turkey in return for the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. But the U.S. part of the bargain was kept secret from Americans. The administration maintained that Kennedy had forced the Soviets to give in, giving them nothing. That was, of course, more than frightening enough. But here’s the rest of the story. On October 27, a U.S. Navy ship participating in the blockade dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine. It was only discovered years later that not only was the submarine armed with nuclear torpedoes, but also was out of radio contact with the Soviet government and believed that the war had begun. The captain wanted to use the torpedoes, which almost certainly would have led to the U.S using nuclear weapons in response. However, according to Soviet protocol, the torpedoes could only be launched with the approval of all three officers aboard. One of them refused. The U.S. also had no idea that in addition to the missiles, the Soviets had brought tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba and the troops on the ground had received permission to use them against a U.S. invasion without further authorization from Moscow. This, too, would have led to a U.S. nuclear response and Armageddon. McNamara first learned this when attending a Havana conference organized by Blight and Lang in 1992, on the 30th anniversary of the crisis. McNamara had also come to believe by Black Saturday that an invasion might be necessary. Blight and Lang report that McNamara turned pale and was temporarily speechless as he listened to an aged Soviet general describe the existence of the tactical nuclear weapons. When he spoke, it was to ask the translator to repeat himself. Castro, too, had his preconceptions shattered at the conference. He had come to believe that the Kennedy administration was determined to invade Cuba again, nuclear weapons or not, and this time crush its young government and society. Cuba’s only choice was either to accept its destruction, or be destroyed and take America with it. Castro had therefore written a telegram to Khrushchev that arrived on October 27, beseeching him to use the Soviet Union’s full nuclear might against the U.S. if an invasion took place. But this was all wrong, McNamara told Castro: After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy had decided that another invasion attempt was foolish. So in the end, we’re not here to think about the 56th anniversary of Black Saturday because of our overweening military might, or because we forced our adversaries to bend to our will. It’s just the opposite, plus an extraordinary run of serendipitous flukes. But what we can be sure of is that if people like Trump and Bolton had been in charge in 1962, then today there would be no discussion of the INF treaty — because there would be no treaty and no one to discuss it. It’s also certain that on our current trajectory, the day will come when the world will face a similar crisis. That time we won’t get the same roll of the dice. The hard reality of the Cuban missile crisis is that, as Blight and Lang put it, “either we put an end to nuclear weapons, or they will put an end to us.”	<urn:uuid:b28b6465-fcd9-49db-8339-6e9d22b1a77a>	CC-MAIN-2022-05	https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/trump-inf-treaty-cuban-missile-crisis-nuclear-war/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320302715.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121010736-20220121040736-00123.warc.gz	en	0.971311	2,336	3.03125	3	3.001031	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
Carbon capture, the technology widely deemed vital to saving the planet from a climate disaster – but frustratingly slow to gain traction – could have a friend in geothermal power. It appears that, when Arctic permafrost melts, it can release carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere much faster than previously thought. It's the wild card in the renewables vs. fossil fuels debate: What price to put on carbon dioxide, which exacts social costs that escape capture by the free market? It isn't all solar panels, wind turbines and algae oil, people. Human beings pumped out three percent more carbon dioxide last year than the year before, to reach an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes. Methanol isn't new as a fuel – late in the 20th century it gained some traction, especially as a blend-in in gasoline, but it's faded since then as a transportation option. Inconsistency of supply is one of the biggest drawbacks of renewables such as wind and solar. Put simply: the wind doesn't blow all day, and the sun doesn't shine at night. Algae are a large, diverse group of simple microorganisms that have lived on Earth for billions of years. Engineers have found a way to cut the CO2 and energy footprint of cement by 97 percent - and the recipe's much cheaper, too. We have manmade global warming to thank for the fact that we're not all shivering in an ice age, according to research from Cambridge University that's likely to prove highly controversial. Scientists say they've found a better, cheaper way to remove carbon dioxide from smokestacks and other sources, including the atmosphere. The appearance of the Antarctic ice sheets was triggered by a massive fall in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide, new research has found. North American forests might be more use than expected at slowing the pace of climate change. The global uptake of carbon by land plants could be much higher than previously thought, meaning that the carbon cycle models used to predict climate change could be wrong. There's been a sharp rise in global CO2 emissions over the last ten years, despite reductions by industrialized countries. Good news, for once: new research indicates that, for polar sea ice at least, there's no 'tipping point' from which recovery is impossible. Breeding deeper-rooted crop plants could dramatically lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere, a University of Manchester scientist claims. After 10,000 fire-free years, the Arctic tundra is again experiencing wildfires, and they're contributing significantly to the world's carbon dioxide levels. As carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the soil releases ever more of two other potent greenhouse gases, new research has found. Hydrogen could end up playing a big role in the world’s future energy production.	<urn:uuid:c59a7428-ed2e-4129-b531-3094aceecb87>	CC-MAIN-2016-26	http://www.tgdaily.com/tag/co2	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.952304	584	3.71875	4	2.928046	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Financial statement helps to determines the key facts and figure of the company financial statement. Balance sheet, cash flow statement and income statement are the three primary financial statements which company prepare and publish at the end of each accounting year. The financial statement is also known as the company annual report. The financial report prepares and published by the organization at the end of each accounting year helps several users to get the exact ide about the company financial health for the current year and thus help the users to prepare a strategy whether to invest or not on the company to evaluate the company overall ability to perform for the coming year. Financial statement analysis helps the company to determine the overall identification of the given items for the given annual report of the company for the given fiscal period. The trends lines related to the key items included in the financial statement overall a multiple time frame which help to throw light on the company ability or performance (Appannaiah, Reddy and Putty, 2010). The trend line helps to throw light on the company revenues, gross margin, net profit cash and other key facts which are responsible for the company financial growth or debacles. The financial statement helps to provide detailed information about the company financial position in the market and thus help the company to get a clear idea about the current issues and loopholes lies in the company and spate measure need to be taken to accomplish the goal and objective of the company. The financial statement analysis consists of the three basic elements which include income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. Users of Financial Statement Analysis The users of the financial statement are many with a common goal or aim to determine and identify the company financial health which eventually helps to them to take effective decision regarding company. The users are as follows, - Creditors : Creditor are the individuals who lent fund to a firm with a motive to get a return levied with interest, therefore the company cash flows measure is determined in order to get a clear idea about the company ability to pay back its borrowed fund. - Investors: Investors are the individuals who are both new and prospective investor asses the financial statement which help them to provide an idea about the company ability to continue providing dividends or to generate capital flow or to grow as per the past year financial performances (Britton and Waterston, 2013). - Management: the firm controller generates and prepare several analyses on the annual report prepared and released at the end of each accounting year which are related to the performance metrics which are not authorized to external stakeholders or users. Methods of the Financial Statements The two methods that are used in the analysis of the financial statements are vertical and horizontal analysis. The horizontal analysis shows the comparison of the financial information during a period of time and vertical analysis is the refer to the proportional analysis of the financial statement in which the items are listed in percentage. It means that the items in the income statement are depicted as the percentage of the gross sales and items on the financial position statement are depicted as percentage of the total assets (Helb?k, Lindset and McLellan, 2010). The horizontal analysis shows the results on the multiple periods of time and the vertical analysis shows the proportion of the accounts within a single time period. The second method to analyse the financial statements is estimating the financial ratios. The ratios are used to estimate the value of one number in comparison to another. The ratios can be compared with the ratios calculated in the previous year which based on the industry average. Most of the financial ratios would be within expectations in the typical financial statement analysis with minimum issues attracting the attentions of the users. The financial ratios are as follows: The liquidity ratios help to determine and examine the ability of the corporation to pay the all the liabilities. It consists of most significant ratio which help to estimate the financial health of the organization. Current ratio: The current ratio measures the ability of the corporation to pay the short term obligations. The ratio below one indicates that it will be difficult for the corporation to pay the obligations and the ratio above one implies that the company is not efficiently using its assets resources (Parrino, 2015). Quick ratio: The quick ratio is same as current ratio but it does not count inventory. Debt to equity ratio: Debt to equity ratio shows the debt level of the company. The increase in the value of the ratio means the high level of debt and low value means decrease in the value debt level. Profitability ratios: The profitability ratios show how well the organization can generate the profit. Profit margin: The increase in the value of the profit means increase in the profitability and decrease in the value means decrease in the profitability. Gross profit margin: The gross profit margin depicts the sales revenues deducted from cost of goods sold which shows the gross profit of the organization. Return on equity: The return on equity ratio shows the ability of the company to generate returns from the shareholders’ funds. Return on the assets: The return on the assets resources shows the ability of the organization to utilize all the asset resources. The high value means the company utilizing the asset resources. Return on the operating assets: The return on the operating assets shows the ability of the company to generate returns from the business operations. The increase in the value means the company is generating returns from the business operations. Activity ratios: The activity ratio shows the efficiency of the organization during a specific period of time. Account payable ratio: The ratio shows how much time the company is taking to pay the suppliers. Account receivable ratio: The ratio shows how much time the organization is taking to collect all the due amounts (Powers and Needles, 2012). Fixed turnover ratio: The ratio shows the ability of the company to generate returns from the fixed assets. Inventory turnover ratio: The inventory turnover ratio shows that the inventory is required to support the sales of the products. Issues with the Financial Statement Analysis The financial statement analyse is a significant tool and there are many issue that can interfere in the interpretation of the financial results. The issues are as follows: - Comparability between the periods: The organizations preparing the financial statements can change accounts in which the financial information is stored. This can lead to the different in the in the results from one period to another. - Comparability between the organizations. The analysts compare the financial ratios of different organizations to determine the values of the company. However, each organization can aggregate the financial statement information differently and the results of the ratio many not be compared appropriately. Elements of Financial Statements Balance sheet helps the company to provide an accurate value of the company assets and liability for the current fiscal year. The balance sheet helps the organization to determine the key facts and figure related to the several significant issues lies in the company overall working condition and thus help to find the issues which obstruct the overall growth of the organization from the asset and liability side. The financial position statement of the company helps to throw light on the solvency and liquidity aspect of the company which help to determine the ability of the company to pay off their liability with the available resources. Short term liability and current liability of the company is determined by the current ratio and quick ratio provides significant information about the company’s ability to debt and equity differences. Balance sheet helps to provide company key ability to pay off their debt as per the calculated balance sheet ratio which include the company current ratio, debt to equity ratio, quick ratio and financial leverage (Weil, 2017). The company key ratio helps to examine the company financial strength and weakness and thus help the organization to prepare a strategy to overcome the key issues determined from the company financial statement. Balance sheet of the company help to analyses the account payable, account receivable, asset turnover ratio, debt equity ratio, financial leverage ratio etc. which help the company to determined and identify the key loopholes and issues resides in the company and thus help to utilize the resources fully which eventually have fruitful impact on the company financial profit part. Balance sheet of the company helps to provide a clear understanding of the key facts and figure related to the asset or resource utilization in the most appropriate way. Income statement is considered to be financial statement primary element which helps to throw light on the company profit or loss incurred for the given fiscal year. Income statement is the statement which helps to determine the expense incurred or expense done during the accounting period. The company income statement consists of the income and expense incurred for the given fiscal year. The income statement helps to estimate the key financial ratio which helps to provide clear and precise idea about the company financial growth for the given fiscal year. The company depreciation expense is measure with the help of the profit and loss statement. The key financial ratio which is calculated with the help of the profit and loss statement are gross profit margin, earning per share, profit margin, return on stockholder’s equity and times interest earned which is calculated after tax. Gross profit margin helps to throw light on the percentage of sales which is available for expense and profit after the overall cost of the product is deducted from the sales. The gross profit margin differs between the companies with the same segment operating. The incomes statement helps to throw light on the organization key facts and figure which is determined the company ability to earn profit for the given fiscal year. Cash Flow Statement Cash flow statement is the differences between the cash inflow and cash outflow for the given fiscal year. The three basic activities of the cash flow statement are investing activities, operating activities, and financing activities. The cash flows from operating activities is the net incomes which is deducted with the expense incurred from the depreciation, increase in the account receivable, decrease in the inventory and decrease due to the account payables. Finally the cash left is the cash provided or used in the operating activities is calculated. Cash flow from the investing activities consist of the cash expenditure which is added with the proceed from the sale of property (if any), the cash calculated by deducting the above with the later provide the cash provided by the investing activities. The cash flow from the financing activities is considered to be vital as it is calculated based on the burrowing of long term debt which is deducted with the two other element which are cash dividends and purchase of the treasury stock which give the cash provided by the financial activities (Parrino, 2015). The cash flow of the statement helps to determine and identify the cash inflow and outflow for the given fiscal year. Appannaiah, H., Reddy, P. and Putty, R. (2010). Financial accounting. Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House. Britton, A. and Waterston, C. (2013). Financial accounting. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Helb?k, M., Lindset, S. and McLellan, B. (2010). Corporate finance. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education. Parrino, R. (2015). Corporate Finance. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons. Powers, M. and Needles, B. (2012). Financial accounting. [Mason]: South-Western, Cengage Learning. Weil, R. (2017). Financial accounting. [Place of publication not identified]: Cengage Learning.	<urn:uuid:92565757-c1e3-4f55-bb7b-edb5f7ec3141>	CC-MAIN-2020-40	https://essayhub.net/essays/accounting-corporate-finance-assignment	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400202007.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20200921175057-20200921205057-00543.warc.gz	en	0.938114	2,284	3.078125	3	2.386745	2	Moderate reasoning	Finance & Business
In vitro fertilizer is a system by means of which people with infertility issues can also give birth. It is one of the greatest thing’s science has gifted us. HOW IT WORKS It is a process in which the eggs from female ovary are extracted and reacted with the sperm of the male in labs. The process is called in vitro because it is conducted outside the human body. The embryo is then also transferred to the uterus. There is various other way to this such as gamete intrafallopian transfer and zygote intrafallopian transfer. There are a few basic steps to IVF, they are broken down into simpler ones to get a closer look into the work. There are some fertility medicines that are prescribed to the patient by the doctor. These are given to stimulate the egg. - Blood tests are taken to check the hormone balance. - Eggs are than retrieved through a minor surgery. - Medication is given to remove physical pain and discomfort. - The male is asked to produce a sample of his sperm. - Then this sample is than mixed. Insemination, is the process in which the sperm and egg is mixed and kept in the laboratory. The embryos are then transferred into the female. MAIN SIDE EFFECTS There are some side effects of the process that include: - Breast tenderness is a common side effect. - Mild bloating might be caused - Mild cramping also can occur - Constipation will also be common. - COMMON SYMPTOMS - There are some very common symptoms that are - Vaginal bleeding would be a problem now and then. - Pelvic pain might occur. - Blood in urine might also be a cause. - She might have high fever up to 103degree centigrade MEDICATIONS WITH SIDE EFFECTS The medications may also have some side effects: The female under the treatment would have the urge to vomit. She might faint also. Shortened breathe must also be a side effect. Severe stomach ache would occur coherently. If the fertility process by the IVF treatment is successful the results are visible within four to 8 weeks. Until than the patient must constantly stay in touch with the preferred doctor in order to keep in balance and check of her health and keep updated get more information. Various ultrasounds and blood tests are conducted.	<urn:uuid:1095ad7d-9967-4348-93a2-662f3b24b8f4>	CC-MAIN-2020-45	https://www.mavorsrants.com/health-and-medical/ivf-is-a-blessing-to-many/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107906872.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20201030003928-20201030033928-00683.warc.gz	en	0.966969	500	2.65625	3	1.209101	1	Basic reasoning	Health
Seeking to mend ties with the West, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons — a move that brought him in from the cold and helped end decades of isolation. Olli Heinonen, head of nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide for the U.N. atomic watchdog until mid-2010 and now at Harvard University, said Libya’s uranium enrichment program was subsequently taken apart. Sensitive material and documentation ranging from nuclear weapons design information to centrifuge components were also confiscated, Heinonen said in an online commentary. Libya’s highly-enriched uranium, which was used to fuel the Tajoura research reactor on Tripoli’s outskirts, took longer to remove but the last consignment of spent fuel was flown out of Libya in late 2009. But “nuclear security concerns still linger,” said Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tajoura continues to stock large quantities of radioisotopes, radioactive waste and low-enriched uranium fuel after three decades of nuclear research and radioisotope production, he said. “While we can be thankful that the highly enriched uranium stocks are no longer in Libya, the remaining material in Tajoura could, if it ended up in the wrong hands, be used as ingredients for dirty bombs. The situation at Tajoura today is unclear.” A so-called dirty bomb can combine conventional explosives such as dynamite with radioactive material. Experts describe the threat of a crude fissile nuclear bomb, which is technically difficult to manufacture and requires hard-to-obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, as a “low probability, high consequence act” — unlikely but with the potential to cause large-scale harm to life and property. On the other hand, a “dirty bomb,” where conventional explosives are used to disperse radiation from a radioactive source, is a “high probability, low consequence act” with more potential to terrorize than cause large loss of life. After the fall of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003, looting of nuclear and radioactive material storage took place at the Tuwaitha nuclear research center near Baghdad, Heinonen said. “Most likely due to pure luck, the story did not end in a radiological disaster,” Heinonen wrote, adding the rebel Transitional National Council would need to be aware of the material sitting around Tajoura. Once a transition of power takes place, “it should assure the world that it accepts its responsibility and will take the necessary steps to secure these potentially dangerous radioactive sources,” he said.	<urn:uuid:861818fa-4975-46a3-a0b0-a6064f30a47c>	CC-MAIN-2015-35	http://www.knuj.net/2011/08/ex-iaea-official-warns-of-libya-dirty-bomb-material/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644064263.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00061-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.937329	565	2.78125	3	2.973816	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
Raising pigs is one of the most cost-effective ways of putting pork in your freezer. Not only will it save you money, but you can make some extra cash on the side if you’ve got some spare pigs to sell. Raising your own pigs means you’re in control of what they eat, and the additives that go into their bodies, so you can guarantee healthy food for you and your loved ones. Pigs have gained an unfair reputation for being dirty when this is far from the truth. If you’re planning on raising pigs on your homestead, there are a few things you’ll need to know, and you can find all the information you’ll need right here! How Much Space do They Need? Not much! In general, pigs don’t require a lot of space; but whether you’re planning on housing them inside or outside will determine the size of their living quarters. Experts recommend approximately 8 square feet per pig. They don’t need a lot of space because they’re not the most active animals, pigs sleep, eat, and root. However, you’ll need a bit more space (10,890 square feet), if you can’t give them indoor shelter. The space is not so much for the pigs, but to manage pasture, and spread manure. What Type of Food Should Pigs Eat? Pigs are omnivores, they eat anything! But on a farm, they don’t have this luxury, they are fed a diet that helps them reach butcher weight the quickest. Typically, their meals consist of corn with alfalfa or soy up until the last one or two months. After that, depending on the breed, you can feed them barley to improve the meat marbling and fat quality. What Type of Food Should Pigs Avoid? In general, pigs have very good digestive systems, but there are some foods and plants that can poison them. Pigs are smart animals, and they instinctively know what foods to stay away from. Here are some foods and plants that are toxic to pigs: - Leaves of apricot trees, plums, pears, and apples - Green potatoes - Potato stems and leaves - Rhubarb leaves - Avocado pit and skin - Tomato leaves and vine How Much Food do Pigs Need? Feed your pigs 1 pound of food for each month in age every day. But don’t feed them anymore than 6 pounds per day, or your pigs will become overweight. The only time you should feed them more than this is if you’re feeding lactating sows. You should also pay attention to the length of time it takes your pigs to eat. Ideally, the food should be gone within 20-30 minutes, if not, it’s a sign they’re not that hungry. The remedy for this is to reduce the amount of feed, and slowly add more as their appetite increases. On average, you can expect it to take six and a half months to get a weaner ready for slaughter, assuming you got it at eight weeks old. During that time, you can expect one pig to consume 380 kg of feed. Pigs also need plenty of water, they typically drink between 2 to 4 gallons per day. Root a tub into the ground so that the pigs don’t knock it over, and fill it with water several times throughout the day. How Easy is it to Raise Pigs You will often hear homesteads say that pigs are on the list of the easiest farm animals to raise; here are a few reasons why: - They Are Clean: As mentioned, pigs have developed a terrible reputation for being dirty. Well, the reason why they look dirty is because they need to protect their skin from the sun. Pigs are more or less bald, and if they’re not covered in dirt, they get sunburned which is very uncomfortable for them. When you see a pig rolling in the dirt, that’s their way of putting on sunblock. It’s also important to know that pigs don’t pant or sweat, so during the summer months, they spend the day in mud or shallow water to keep cool. - They Will Stay Fenced in: You are not going to find a pig trying to escape. To start, they like hanging around other pigs because they’re herd animals. As long as they’ve got food, water, land, and their piggy friends, they’ll remain where they are. Pigs are also easy to contain because they’re intelligent. When a visual boundary has been erected, no matter how flimsy it is, a pig won’t violate it. - Raised Quickly: You can turn a piglet weighing less than 20 pounds into a 300-pound giant hog within four months by feeding it hog feed, hay, scraps, pasture, and milk. If you get your pigs in the spring, you’ll have them ready by fall. - Land Clearance: Pigs make the best land clearers; if you’ve decided on a plot but it’s filled with briars, weeds, grass, and other unsightly items, you can put some pigs on the land, erect a fence and they’ll have it cleared, rooted, and fertilized in record timing. - Plenty of Food For You: Pigs probably provide more variety in their meat than any other farm animal. You’ll get ribs, ham steaks, pork steaks, pork chops, ham, sausage, bacon, and much more. It’s simply amazing that all these textures and flavors all come from one animal! Pigs will also give you a lot more meat than other animals; when you kill a lamb or cow, only around half of their meat is edible, the rest is waste. With a pig, you get approximately 70 percent as food for you and your family. If you’re not a fussy eater and don’t mind things like neck bone, and head cheese, you can get even more edible products. Extra Tips For Raising Pigs Although pigs are easy to raise, you can make life a lot easier for yourself, and your pigs if you have as much information as possible about raising them. Here are some additional tips to get you started: Buy Older Piglets The industry standard age for selling piglets is six weeks, but research suggests that when they remain with the sow for an additional two weeks, they don’t need starter feed, and their immune systems are stronger. When piglets have been nursed longer, they are slightly more expensive, but it’s worth the additional cost. Get More Than One Pig Pigs don’t enjoy being alone; like humans, they are happier, and healthier when they get to socialize with their own kind, and they have strong relationships. By nature, you are going to get attached to your pigs, and this can make the slaughtering process very difficult. You may have pigs on your homestead for different reasons, some you might be planning to keep as pets, and others that are destined for the freezer. You will need to do your best to make sure you don’t get too close to them, and a good tip is to name the pigs you plan on eating as food such as ham, bacon, sausage, etc. Give the pigs you are planning on keeping regular names, in this way, you’ve made a clear distinction between the pets and the meat, and hopefully, you’ll treat them accordingly. How are you going to process your pigs? Will you do it yourself, or do you intend on getting a butcher to do it? If you are going to hire a butcher, you will need to book early because they are typically very busy, and don’t have availability for months at a time. If you do it yourself, make sure you know what you’re doing, learn about the type of equipment, supplies, and tools you’ll need. One last thing, as sweet and cute as pigs are, they can be dangerous. At 100 pounds, you can expect some damage if one runs into your legs. You don’ want to get bitten by one either. Keep sorting boards nearby to guide pigs back into their pens if they get out of control. Sorting boards are large pieces of wood in a rectangular shape. You can either make your own, or you can purchase them at feed stores. You may also like:	<urn:uuid:0393e5d9-2926-46f4-b38b-5bd161451687>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://selfsufficientprojects.com/pig/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711360.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20221208183130-20221208213130-00617.warc.gz	en	0.961163	1,827	2.78125	3	1.866921	2	Moderate reasoning	Home & Hobbies

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