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The Institute for Women’s Policy Research released a new study that claims that women today earn only 49 cents to a man’s dollar, not the 80 cents previously stated. While the earnings gap between men and women has narrowed, progress in the past 15 years has decreased. However the study does not break the findings […] Currently, the average Southeast Asian American woman make 61 cents or less for every dollar a white man makes. Breaking it down even further, Burmese women make 51 cents, Samoan women make 56 cents and Hmong women make 59 cents for every dollar a white man earns. This year, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is August 7, the point into 2018 that black women must work on average to earn the same amount that white men earned in 2017 alone. That’s over 8 months of labor. Black women are paid 63 cents to every dollar that white men earn. When compared to white men, black women earn 38 percent less, and they earn 21 percent less than white women. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Monday that it will audit the Department’s rulemaking process for its proposed tip rule after a report from Bloomberg BNA that the Department intentionally hid its own economic analysis showing that the proposed rule would cost tipped workers billions of dollars in income. The Trump administration has announced that they will shut down a 2016 Obama-era initiative that empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to collect pay data sorted by gender, race, and ethnicity from businesses with 100 or more employees. On July 31st, Americans recognize Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the date that marks how far into the year 2017 that black women have to work to earn the same amount of money that white men earned during 2016 alone. The date is a jarring reminder of the persistence of racial and gender pay inequity; black women today earn 63 cents for every dollar made by white men. Today is Equal Pay Day, marking the point into the year 2017 that women in America need to work to in order to accumulate the same amount of income that men earned in 2016. The commemorative day is always held on a Tuesday to represent how far into the next week women must work to earn the amount made by men in the previous week. Last week the New York City Council held a hearing concerning a bill that would guarantee low-income tenants a lawyer, provided by the Office of Civil Justice, when facing eviction charges. The Obama Administration today announced its final rule extending overtime protections to millions of workers. The rule, which will take effect on December 1, raises the salary threshold for overtime pay from $23,660 to $47,476 per year, making nearly 4.2 million additional workers—more than half of whom are women— eligible to receive overtime protections. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie yesterday blocked a bill aimed at closing the gender wage gap in the state, calling the legislation “business unfriendly.” President Obama today issued a proclamation marking Equal Pay Day—the day to which women, on average, have to work to be paid as much as their white, male counterparts were paid by the close of last year. The California state legislature poised its state to become the first in the nation to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, a move that California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León called “historic.” Both the California state Assembly and the state Senate voted along party lines yesterday to approve a bill that will raise the minimum […] President Obama, on Friday, announced new steps his Administration is taking to help close the gender-race pay gap. Last week, the NewsGuild of New York media union and The Nation magazine announced a six-year contract that will provide four months paid parental leave to The Nation’s employees, regardless of their gender, and will also give employees a 25 percent pay increase over the life of the contract. On Thursday, music-streaming service Spotify announced the launch of a broad parental leave program that includes six months’ leave for new mothers and fathers. The World Economic Forum just released “The Global Gender Gap” report of 2015 that ranks the United States 28th out of 145 countries. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo just signed into law several bills strengthening protections for women in the workplace as well as victims of sex trafficking, sexual harassment, and domestic violence in an effort to further women’s equality in the state. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new bill that holds individuals and corporations accountable for unpaid wages promised to their employees under the law. According to a recent analysis by Fortune, women scientists pursuing their field’s top prizes have one major obstacle to overcome that their male peers do not: gender bias. Latina women on average have to wait 10 months into the calendar year to be paid the same as white men in the previous year.	<urn:uuid:b444749c-b0bb-4ba1-8af6-c96c2b97dbdb>	CC-MAIN-2020-45	https://feminist.org/news/category/the-economy/page/3/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107894175.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20201027111346-20201027141346-00712.warc.gz	en	0.961886	1,015	2.546875	3	2.923465	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
- For the Vulcan homeworld, see: Vulcan. The Vulcans, also known as Vulcanians, are a humanoid species native to the planet Vulcan. They are one of the founding species of the United Federation of Planets, widely known for their distinctive pointed ears and eyebrows, and their merciless logic. There may have been numerous transitions within the Vulcan government which has shifted between the Vulcan High Command to the Confederacy of Vulcan. Part of their territory is known as the Vulcan Colonial Protectorate. (TOS novel: Spectre) - For a list of Vulcans, see: Vulcans Originating from a desert world, Vulcans have a number of features evolved for better survival in warm and dry environments. These include inner eyelids to protect their eyes from sand and the ability to go for some time without water. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) This was a genetic trait that was traced to the early Vulcan ancestors following the scorching of their world and was spread through the use of primitive eugenics allowing the entire species to retain the use of this inner eyelid. (TOS novel: Spock's World) The inner eyelid is useful as it allows a Vulcan to withstand blinding flashes of light without any damage to the eye itself. (TOS novel: Memory Prime, TOS episode: "Operation -- Annihilate!") Within Vulcans there is a clear inner eyelid (a nictitating membrane) which filters radiation, dust, and other harmful elements that could damage the eye. Although this can be further mutated, under the proper conditions, to closely resemble that of a fish. (TAS episode: "The Ambergris Element") Vulcans tend to be tall with dark hair and all have elongated upper ears that are pointed at the top and slanted eyebrows. Some specimens have pronounced brows. Similar to Humans, Vulcans tend to have a wide range of skin tones, an example being Xialites, and other tropically descended Vulcans, possessing a darker skin complexion. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) The Vulcan epidermis is unlike any in the known galaxy as it formed a two-way moisture proof shield which protects the body from external liquids and pressure, as well as maintaining the inner temperature and the liquid environment of the organs. A notable difference between Humans and Vulcans is that Vulcans do not possess sweat glands. Instead, they evolved an ability that allows their blood, skin, and body structure to cool itself rather than perspire, which would be inefficient on the race's desert homeworld. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Vulcan blood vessels are more dilated than Humans. The larger blood vessels are the reason Vulcan blood pressure is lower. The dilated blood vessels and fast heart rate also play a key role in regulating Vulcan body temperature. A standard 91°F (32.78° C) body temperature is maintained by the internal cooling mechanism of fast blood circulation. (ST reference: Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual) Vulcan blood is copper based, giving Vulcan blood a green color. This makes it extremely effective in separating, as well as utilizing, smaller amounts of oxygen available in the Vulcan homeworld's low pressure and mildly irradiated environment. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Whilst normally green, certain diseases such as Cymbeline blood burn have been known to turn Vulcan blood red, but only in the terminal stages of the disease. (ENT novel: Beneath the Raptor's Wing) Though they appear to be similar to Humans (there has been speculation that the Vulcan and Human species perhaps possessed a common ancestor due to similarities), the Vulcan species internal anatomy is far different. Males and females are of similar height as well as stature; averaging 2 meters in height and 70 kilos in weight. Furthermore, their muscle mass is much longer and their skeletal frame is denser compared to Terrans, the direct result of their living on a world with higher gravity and a thinner atmosphere. Due to these traits, the average Vulcan tends to be stronger than a Human. Their bodies are also capable of withstanding greater levels of radiation when compared to Terrans. (ENT novel: Surak's Soul) Vulcans possess a perfect bilateral symmetry and do not have an appendix. (TOS novel: Spock Must Die!) Vulcan internal organs tend to operate at a much faster rate compared to other comparable species. A Vulcan's pulse is normally considered quite rapid. (TOS novel: Unspoken Truth) An average heart rate is as high as 265 beats per minute. The heart itself is another source of distinction between Vulcans and Humans, as its location is the center of the torso. It's surrounded by a large lung structure which is capable of holding approximately 20% more air then Human lungs. This has resulted in the Vulcan torso, rib cage, and musculature being significantly longer. This allows it to encompass the organs within, lessening the danger of outside forces causing serious internal injury. (TOS novel: Dreams of the Raven, TOS episode: "A Private Little War") The Vulcan skull is also notably different when compared to other species. The Vulcans possess 28 teeth and lack rear molars. Instead, they possess a longer mandibular movement than other bipedal species. Although the bone structure of the Vulcan skull is thinner, the actual skull casing is formed of extremely dense matter. This allows a thinner depth of bone to be actually harder, as well as stronger, than a human skull. Thus, fatal blows to a Human head are less life threatening to a member of this race. (TOS episode: "Mirror, Mirror") Vulcan neurology is known to be incredibly resilient. (ENT episode: "Awakening") One of the least understood areas of the Vulcan body is the brain. The Vulcan midbrain is larger, more complex, and contains more nerve endings and capillaries than those in Human brains. The Vulcan midbrain is comparable with the Betazoid midbrain, which comprises nearly 65% of their entire brain mass, although the Vulcan midbrain only comprises 45% of the brain. It is believed that this portion of their brain gives the Vulcan species their remarkable psionic abilities, though further testing has proved to be inconclusive. Despite this being the case, their race is known to be considerably more adept telepathically when compared to most Humans. (TOS novel: The Starless World) The species also has thirty six pairs of nerves attached to their spinal cord which serves as an autonomic and voluntary nervous system. (TOS novel: First Strike) Their brains are also noted to not have the same lateralization of function when compared to Humans, where the left side of the brain controlls certain functions and right controlls others. Instead, the Vulcan brain has an area controlling speech on each side of the brain, thus providing a level of redundancy (should one part be damaged, than the other could take over). This has also made Vulcans ambidextrous in nature, allowing them to use both hands equally well. (TOS novel: Mindshadow) The Vulcan nervous system is noted as being far more resilient when compared to other races, capable of surviving damage that would kill a Human or a Denobulan. (ENT episode: "Rajiin") Unlike most humanoid species, traumatic memories were not only psychologically disturbing to Vulcans, but had physical consequences as well. The Vulcan brain, in reordering neural pathways, could literally lobotomize itself. (VOY episode: "Flashback") A rare neurological disease that can affect Vulcans over 200 years of age, Bendii Syndrome, strips emotional control by affecting the metathalamus (part of the midbrain), and can also result in telepathic projection of emotion. (TNG episode: "Sarek") They also possess more heightened senses than Humans. Vulcans' sensitive olfactory senses can tolerate human body odors with nasal numbing agents. (ENT episode: "The Andorian Incident") Furthermore, their senses are so sharp that a Vulcan can quite easily be capable of determining if another individual is an actual organic Vulcan or a robotic duplicate. (TOS novel: Memory Prime) It has been noted that Vulcan eyesight is more acute. They are able to recognize more color frequencies and see more clearly at a distance. There is a downside to this, as Vulcans experience pain and symptoms that are similar to headaches and eyestrain when exposed to highly vibrant colors for long periods of time. Furthermore, the Vulcan optic nerve is much more delicate and sensitive compared to those of Humans, which makes it more vulnerable to disease and degeneration. (TOS episode: "The Deadly Years") One of the most obvious distinctive features in Vulcans is the shape and structure of the ear, as the top of their ears' pinna tapers into a point. Though capable of funneling sound and intensifying the reception of harmonics, the internal structure of the eardrum is very different than Humans. It forms no fewer than three separate functioning eardrums. Tests have shown that these eardrums seem to respond to differing volumes and pitch and relay the sound through separate channels to the nerve centers of the brain. Each eardrum is known to work independently and, in the case of Vulcans of old age, it is most often the eardrums that sense low pitch that deteriorate. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) The hormonal activity within the Vulcan body can be regulated consciously by trained Vulcans. This allows such individuals to control their adrenaline, thyroid, and other metabolic systems which, in turn, allows them to alter their heart rate, oxygen consumption, and other bodily resources. This training also gives Vulcans amazing recuperative abilities, allowing them to control their bodies to repair internal or structural damage at an accelerated rate while in a self-induced hypnosis. (TOS episode: "A Private Little War") Most Vulcans can resist the phermonal emissions of Deltans (TOS movie: Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and those of Orions of the opposite sex. (ENT episode: "Bound") They are also capable of surviving for long durations without food or sleep. Under stress, Vulcans can do without sleep for weeks. (TOS episode: "The Paradise Syndrome", TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) A possible exception to this control is during the reproductive cycle, Pon farr. Unless the pon farr is satisfied, a Vulcan would die within eight days of the process beginning. (TOS episode: "Amok Time"; VOY episode: "Blood Fever") The female Vulcan can be impregnated after her menstrual cycle begins, which is typically at the age of 16, and can be as late as 25. The male Vulcan is incapable of creating progeny until after the onset of their first pon farr, during which a hormone known as yamareen is released into the bloodstream. Thereafter, the Vulcan male is capable of reproducing at any time, but they must obey the physical urge to mate every seven years. This, in comparison with the reproductive ability of other species with which they can mate, gives credence to the theory that Humans, Vulcans, and Klingons are from a common ancestor seeded by the Preservers. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Most Vulcan males experience pon farr for the first time at the age of twenty, and in seven-year cycles following that, but amongst hybrids, their biological differences mean that it can come at more uncertain times. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Glory) Vulcans are capable of producing offspring with humans, but only through the use of medical intervention. A human female needs to receive large doses of hormones and Vulcan vitamins before conception in order to prepare her body for the fetus, which takes 10 months to mature. (TOS novel: Sarek, ENT episode: "Terra Prime") Average Vulcan anatomy: Males height = 2.0 meters (6’6”) Females height = 1.7 meters (5’6”) Males weight = 70kg (154.3 lbs) Females weight = 50kg (110.2 lbs) Body temperature = 32.78°C (91°F) Heart rate = 242 bpm Blood pressure = 80/40 According to ST reference: Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual (published 1977 by “Star Fleet Productions, Inc.”) The Vulcan lifespan is longer than that of humans. Vulcans have been known to live over 200 years, and the Vulcan Zakal lived to the age of 276 - dying just as Surak's teachings began to take hold in Vulcan society. (TNG episode: "Sarek", TOS novel: The Lost Years, TOS novel: Epiphany) At least one Vulcan lived past the age of 277 years. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) After reaching adulthood, the aging process of Vulcans slowed a great deal. Vulcans who appeared to be young adults by human standards could actually be as much as two or three times older than their appearance indicated. T'Pol, for example, who appeared by human standards to be in her late twenties or early thirties, was actually in her mid-sixties by the time she was assigned to the Enterprise (NX-01), quite older than many of her crew members suspected. Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, who appeared by human standards to be in his late thirties or early forties by the mid-24th century, was actually over 100 years old by the time the USS Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant. (ENT episode: "Fallen Hero" and VOY episode: "Flashback") Vulcan biology was vulnerable to Trellium as it was a neurotoxin to them which degraded their neural pathways to the point that they were suffering from violent emotions that resulted ultimately in madness. (ENT episodes: "Impulse", "Damage") They had never suffered from a condition such as hyperthyroidism and thus never developed a cure for such a state. (TOS novel: Legacy) Vulcans never fainted as such a condition was the result of emotional stimuli though they were capable of being rendered unconscious by virulent disease organisms or intense external exertion. (TOS novel: Windows on a Lost World) - Bendii syndrome - Pa'nar Syndrome - Skag Maug plague - Tuvan Syndrome - Vulcans scourge - Vulcan flu - Oroborus virus - Vulcan bebonea The Vulcans have had the capacity for space travel since at least the 3rd century and have spread throughout local space. At least one Vulcan colony was lost from the Vulcan people: the Last-of-all-Cities colony on Darien 224, which remained isolated from the galactic community for two millennia (EV comic: Cloak and Dagger). There were also several other Vulcanite races in the Federation, though it is unclear if these are directly connected to the Vulcans or if they are simply a similar species. (Balance of Terror novelization) Other Vulcan off-shoots include: There was speculation from Spock that Sargon's people may have visited his homeworld in the past and perhaps the Vulcan species are an offshoot of theirs. (TOS episode: "Return to Tomorrow") It's also possible that the V'gelnians were a another splinter species of Vulcans. - See main article: Vulcan history. Founded by an ancient Vulcan named Surak, the essence of Vulcan society is in arriving at the truth through logical process. Most Vulcans believe that emotions are illogical, thus making them impure, and deterrent to truth. However, Vulcans are born with the same emotions that afflicted their violent ancestors, but the continual mind conditioning, the t'an s'at, gives them the impassivity sought after by all Vulcans. The t'an s'at is an intellectual deconstruction of emotional patterns, a lifelong process that strives for absolute detachment from all emotion. Though not all can arrive at the ultimate pure logical state, the exacting process of mental control gives Vulcans enough to conform to the ideals of Vulcan society. Vulcans of this creed were impervious to greed, deception, anger, and all other vices. (VOY episode: "Alter Ego") Ultimately, the Vulcan way was one of enlightenment and expansion of the intellect through the pursuit of logic. (VAN novel: Open Secrets) This meant that they tended to control to the point of suppression of all acts of emotions. (TOS novel: The Galactic Whirlpool) Vulcans actually felt pleasure from the contemplation of logical processes at work and felt pain from perceiving its subversion though they were ultimately able to control the effects of pleasure or pain on their behavior. (TOS novel: The Joy Machine) The majority of Vulcans follow a belief in logic known as Cthia and many aim to achieve a state without emotion known as Kolinahr. (TOS movie: Star Trek: The Motion Picture) This philosophy meant that they relied on logic and reason to guide their lives, rather than emotion. All expression of emotions was completely forbidden, negative or otherwise. This did not mean that Vulcans had cast away all emotions they once had; they had merely made a choice not to let those emotions influence the decisions they were making. (TOS novel: Demons) This led to the mistaken belief amongst other species that Vulcans had no emotions; they did possess them, but did not permit those emotions to show in public or allow them to control their actions. (TOS novel: Prime Directive) Few Vulcans managed to extinguish all their emotions but most had mastered the ability to contain them. This went in line with Vulcan philosophy that their race had adopted which stated that there was no reason why any emotion should have any influence on behavior or cloud the path of logic. (TNG novel: The Devil's Heart) Vulcan families were privately proud if any of their number counted a Kolinahr student amongst their ranks. (TOS novel: Recovery) Both the Vulcans and the Romulans were known to possess much stronger instincts when compared to Humans. (TOS novel: The Great Starship Race) Curiousity was one emotion which Vulcans admitted and even approved. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders) In contrast, fear was something that Vulcans believed that they did not experience under their strict beliefs against emotions. (ENT episode: "Damage") Logic was similar to a religion to the Vulcans and as such it was filled with many sects as well as schools of thought each of which had widely differing view points and opinions on nearly every subject matter. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) It must be noted that this stance is not accepted by all Vulcans, however. There are groups of Vulcans referred to as "v'tosh ka'tur", which means "Vulcans without logic." (ENT episodes: "Fusion", "Stigma") The Romulans were originally a group of Vulcans who chose to split away rather than accept the philosophy of Surak. In addition to this, many Vulcan's can subscribe to the different teachings of other philosophers such as Jarok, Nirak, or T'mor. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) In the 23rd century, the Vulcans held an interest in using the teachings of Surak to persuade the Romulans to adopt a logical viewpoint as their own so that they would, within the span of a few centuries, manage to throw off their violent, overemotional characteristics. (TOS novel: Death's Angel) One Vulcan saying is 'The Vulcan knows there is a time for everything' which is an approximate translation from the Kahr-y-Tan which means the 'Way of the Vulcan'. An aspect of this is the herb gathering ritual which Vulcans engage in which is where they collect necessary herbs in preparation of tea for Vulcan Masters. (TOS novel: Dwellers in the Crucible) When they decided to repress their emotions, the Vulcans drive for ambition and desire to conquer that were the characteristics of leaders was expunged as they had seen the result of these traits that nearly brought devastation to their world and people. (TOS novel: From the Depths) Vulcan scientists had determined that there were hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of sentient races in the galaxy that were victims of war, hatred and bigotry. Thus, their teachings made them believe that the greatest good they were capable of accomplishing was serving as instruments of logic and teach such races that there was a way outside violence as was discovered by the Vulcan forebears in their discovery of the control of emotion as well as the use of logic. (TOS novel: Crisis on Vulcan) Something of noted importance within Vulcan society was the discovery of the Kir'Shara by Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander T'Pol which brought at end of the rule of the Vulcan High Command. This also sparked a rapid change within Vulcan society which moved from a government that would engage in spying, battles and a more active part in the galaxy to one of more peaceful and almost isolationist tendencies. The discovery of the Kir'Shara presumably led to many years of study which the Vulcans concentrated on rather than follow the behavior they had previously. (ENT episodes: "The Forge", "Awakening", "Kir'Shara") Vulcans did not distinguish moral factors from practical ones. In addition, they were notable for not making use of animal life. The reason for doing so was because they felt no great virtue in that necessity. As they began to master their own aggressive tendencies, they began to notice both the pain as well as rage and suffering that they had inflicted on their animals by influencing them through psychic feelings. These in turn reinfected the Vulcans leading to a never ending cycle of emotions which the Vulcans in later years avoided. (TOS novel: The Prometheus Design) In Vulcan's ancient times, there existed a number of gods and goddesses with dual aspects amongst them that stemmed from their emotions which was known as the Inner Chorus. The first was Tel-alep known as "the Watcher" who was the bearer of knowledge. His alternate counterpart was Alep-tel "the Bitter" who was eager to give knowledge but this was poisoned due to his bitterness. Another deity was Kir-alep who was the god of peace whilst his wrathful counterpart was Alep-kir "the Sullen" who was a source of apathy to Vulcans. Valdena a Vulcan goddess was the representation of love, joy and beauty whilst Dena-vel was her counterpart who sought to hide all the beauty of the world that she loves. Kal-ap-ton was the most dangerous of the gods as he was the representation of grief. A closer counterpart linked to Kal-ap-ton was Tyr-al-tep "the Unforgiver" who made Vulcans feel guilt over what might have happened had the death not occured of a loved one. One of the most dangerous and dark voices amongst the gods was Ket-Cheleb "the Destroyer" who signified anger and was the only one that lacked a counterpart with it being said that he killed his dual aspect ages ago. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Amongst this pantheon of gods the ancient myths spoke of twin god brothers that were different from one another yet always united and together rose their mother, the sun, into the sky. The names of these god brothers would be adopted by the early Romulans for their homeworlds. (TOS - Vulcan's Soul novels: Exodus, Exiles) Other gods believed to exist included the gods of peace, death and war which were depicted on the Stone of Gol. (TNG episode: "Gambit, Part II") In addition, there was the warrior goddess T'Vet who was still worshiped amongst some circles in modern Vulcan. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders). There were a number of other deities within this pantheon which included the goddess Reah who held sway over death and bereavement. There was also a male war god known as Khosarr who had a consort called Akraana. In addition, there was a red fertility goddess who was known as Lia. (TOS novel: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) Though this is the case now, the early Vulcans believed in a wide range of myths that spread across the surface of their homeworld before the age of Surak. Such beliefs include the Treasury of Erebus that spoke of an ice demon living within the snow at the peak of Mount Seleya. Another myth spoke of the Eater of Souls which would devour the souls of travelers lost in the deserts of Vulcan. While other myths spoke of a deadly creature known as the Veruul that lived within the heart of the Fire Plains of Raal within Vulcan's Forge. Furthermore, in the heart of the Womb of Fire was stated to lie Vorta Vor. (TOS - Vulcan's Soul novels: Exodus, Exiles) Vulcan mythology believed in a place known as Sha Ka Ree which was the Vulcan view of Eden. (TOS movie: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) According to some of the oldest myths of the Vulcan race, that at the end of the universe all of existence was going to be consumed by fire. (TOS - Vulcan's Soul novel: Exiles) Though the practice of worshipping gods had long ended with the introduction of Surak's logic, there were traditionalist cults that maintained the practice of belief in these deities those these groups had little interaction with later era Vulcans. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Similar to Earth mythologies, Vulcans never intruded on the realm of the gods without reason which was usually due to an important task that mortals were required to accomplish that the deities themselves were unable to conduct themselves. (TOS novel: The Wounded Sky) Family was noted as an important aspect of Vulcan society with loyalties overruling even planetary law. This was partly due to the fact that Vulcan itself was governed by an oligarchy composed of several prominent families. Vulcan families were extremely disciplined and very close knit. (TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) Vulcans were noted for their more complex family relationships compared to Humans. Such family units consisted of the Eldest of House with normally a matriarch in charge of the affairs of the House. (TOS novel: Sarek) The social traditions of a family were considered quite rigid in the sense that children had great expectations which were difficult to integrate with personal ambitions or needs. The family ultimately determined most life choices or attempted to influence them such as career and even marriage. The latter was a notable aspect as it was expected the family lines were to be preserved through succession and tradition be upheld. (TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) Traditionally, a male Vulcan was not present at the time when their mate was delivering their child during the pregnancy. (TOS novel: Star Trek (2009)) Children when they were born were not given a name until their Naming Day. (TOS novel: Sarek) Similar to the ceremonies surrounding marriage and burial, the Vulcan rituals that concerned birth had remained intact over the millenia with event he logic of Surak failing to strip the Vulcan race of their dark and ancient rites. (TOS novel: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) Newborn children til the age of four were known to take part in visual mathematics, basical calculation as well as beginning the neurological organization of their brains which was followed by an identity meld. By the time they were four, they began mathematics and species identification as well as began to coordinate the use of their physical bodies. Furthermore, algebra, geometry and physics dominated their study life at this time. (TOS novel: Battlestations!) Typically, as part of Vulcan custom, children are betrothed at around seven Earth years of age when they undergo a Bonding ceremony which telepathically links the two. As a result the two Vulcans would seek one another during their pon farr cycle. (TOS novel: Sarek) This practice had been in place for thousands of generations. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Glory) This was a parental arrangement which dated to ancient times as it served as a method of preventing wars and strengthening ties between neighbors whose ancestral lands adjoined. (TOS novel: Dwellers in the Crucible) When they were eight, children began preliminary telepathic communication and were taught etiquette as well as their clans history along with Vulcan anthropology, calculus and quantum physics. When the child was ten, they learn to suppress cortical stimuli in the dominant hemisphere as well as learn of their races cultural history and began a study of Vulcan rites of passage. By the time they were eleven, they learn of the pressure points needed for mind melding in addition to learning memory accuracy and internal time counting. Furthermore, they were introduced to logic and definition, the principles of analysis, concreteness of thought and physical deportment. These early years of study were expected to continue til the child was between the age of thirteen to fifteen after which their formal training began. (TOS novel: Battlestations!) As children, Vulcans did not make use of secret languages though there were codes, gestures and intonation that were constantly changing. (TOS novel: World Without End) During their early education, Vulcan children took part in a curriculum where they learnt the most rudimentary telesper skills to better control their innate telepathic abilities. (TOS novel: Unspoken Truth) When formal training began, the first rite conducted was Tal T'Lee where they were assisted in their meditation by an adept of their clan council. They learn to control their subdominant cortices which was followed by Dwemish Hi-An where identity isolation was learnt along with brain control with numbers systems and equations. They also learn multiplication left to right whereupon they took part in Enok-Kal Fi Lar which was the processes of definition and the concepts of given. Once this was complete, the child took part in An-Prele between the age of sixteen to nineteen where they learn pain control meditation from a clan council adept. They were also expected to read Essays of Discipline and Analysis of Pseudodoxy as well as was expected to learn to segregate the lobes of their brains. (TOS novel: Battlestations!) As the child grew older, one of their rights of passage was the Kahs-wan maturity test which was a survival ritual that dated before the time of Surak. Those who survived took their first step into adulthood. (TOS novel: Exodus) At the age of twenty to twenty four, the Vulcan was expected to learn of logical paradigms and behavioral modification through the Runes of T'Vish. They also learn multiplication right to left, diagonal and cross multiplication as well as learn to isolate their katra. This continued til the age of twenty five to twenty nine where the Sele-An-T'Lee was conducted which comprised of lessons in subdominant brain organization, advanced philosophy and logic, muscle coordination and the control of will. Part of this also included learning the five steps which were the belief discipline, reality awareness, sensory acuteness, visual calculation and fact analysis. There were further readings expected which included Logic and Definition, Equations, Systems of Logic, The Interior and Purpose as Prime Motivator. There were also taught advanced mind meld techniques as part of their training. By the time the Vulcan was thirty to thirty five, they were expected to had conducted the Norn-La-Hal which involved superior control meditation and neurological organization. Furthermore, importance was placed on the dignity and tradition in Vulcan identity as well as the contemplations of infinity. The final stage of this training involved Venlinahr which was the state most adult Vulcans had attained and involved meditation by individual discretion. There was also further study of Vulcan dharma as well as advanced readings on the mystagogues of Surak, Scorus, T'Enne, T'Vish, Prisu and Seltar. (TOS novel: Battlestations!) - It should be noted that the above events were in relation to children of the Lyr Zor clan and thus may not be true to all Vulcan children. Vulcans youths were not allowed to guide the conversations of their elders, this was especially the case if the child in question was not past the age of the Ka nifoor. (TOS novel: Corona) From a young age, Vulcans were geared towards the suppression of feelings of emotions and divest themselves from such traits. (FASA RPG module: The Federation) By the time a Vulcan was an adult, they had learnt a set of mind rules which governed their telepathic abilities as well as the necessary skills needed to shield their thoughts from outside emotions. (TOS novel: Mindshadow) It was generally believed that the Vulcans did not possess any emotions though such a line of thought was false as they in fact hold the capacity to not only understand but deal with emotions. However, they had chosen not to do so and instead worked for the suppression of such feelings. (FASA RPG module: The Federation) As such, they were perfectly capable of experiencing emotions but chose not to express them. (TOS novel: Memory Prime) Though ultimately logical creatures, it took many years of practice and training for young Vulcans who do demonstrate emotions at first before beginning the long process that was made by Surak centuries ago. To accomplish this, Vulcan parents used learning tools and techniques to train their children in the primary concepts of logic, and to gain control over their emotions. Eventually, through these processes young children began to learn emotional control. (VOY episode: "Human Error", TNG novel: Metamorphosis) As part of their belief in honesty, Vulcan parents were known not to shield the truth from their young as they believed it would hinder their development in coping with such difficulties. Furthermore, a parent's attachment to the child was not considered an emotion but rather as part of the parent's identity and without the child, the parent would not be complete. (VOY episode: "Innocence") Vulcans preferred not to dance with another man's wife which was attributed to their customs which stated that it was not appropriate for a man to have in his arms a woman that was not his. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders) During the marital arrangements, it was possible for the male to pay a bride price to his future wife. These dowries were not paid by a bride's family on Vulcan but by the husband when he was seem to be fortunate enough to gain a life partner. At the time of the formal announcement of marriage, the husband paid a monthly sum to the bride's family until the wedding took place. This money was used to provide the future wife's needs until the husband officially took on his marital responsibilities. This was the case even if the woman was wealth or had a career of her own or even both. This meant that the bride price also varied and was determined by the husband's wealth with the more wealthy having to contribute more money to their future wife.(TOS novel: Vulcan's Glory) In addition, there were strict teachings that spoke against desecrating the dead. (TOS novel: Mind Meld) Matters regarding the Vulcan mating practices were typically not discussed with outworlders. (VAN novel: Open Secrets) They also believed that close family exchanges should be kept private. (TOS novel: Crisis on Vulcan) Vulcans were known to recognize the need to grieve though kept such affairs private. (TOS novel: Ex Machina) Thus, they mourned the death of friends and kin though they were aware of the danger of abdicating complete control to loss as it was frequently difficult to regain their former composure. (TOS novel: From the Depths) The tenets of their philosophy provided guidance on facing personal loss with equanimity and the use of logic to maintain emotional control as well as a state of quietude. Some believed that the lives of the dead were capable of being mourned only if those lives had been wasted. (TOS novel: The Fire and the Rose) It was considered an important matter to Vulcan families to recover the body of a deceased member. (TOS novel: Bloodthirst) In addition, whenever the partner in a bonding died, the family linked mentally in order to provide support until the surviving partner managed to adjust from the loss. (TOS novel: Time for Yesterday) Vulcan custom held that, whenever possible, the immediate family of the deceased walked from the site of the burial back to their home. (TOS novel: The Fire and the Rose) - "In infinite diversity, there are infinite combinations. In infinite diversity, we find indefinite strength." -- a saying by Surak. Surak's teachings were the most important philosophical essays in Vulcan history, detailing the use of logic and reason in order to control warring emotions and destructive tendencies. In the beginning, Vulcans used their emotions as a tool, preferring to apply logic to justify their actions rather than use logic to guide their actions. As the race evolved and the teachings of Surak spread, however, the use of various techniques to banish and suppress emotion became more prevalent and Vulcan psychology blossomed. The understanding of one's mind and mental processes as well as one's emotional reactions became a necessity, and psychology was applied not only to one's own actions but also to understanding the actions of others. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Their beliefs also led them to hold that all life was precious as it could never be returned or replaced. This meant that they never considered an act that would lead to the death of an individual - not even their enemies. (TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) The foremost psychologists on Vulcan belonged to the religious orders that guided Vulcan society. Surak's school, the largest and most popular sect of Vulcan beliefs, advocated the study and understanding of emotional desires, so that the student could suppress and control them. Constant study of this process, as well as assisting others in achieving mastery of psionics through control of emotion, had caused the devotees of this doctrine to become experts on the workings and common psychological traumas of Vulcan minds. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Vulcan reasoning meant that they did not have "hunches" but rather used subliminal clues to add up to a high order of probability. (TOS novel: Ishmael) They also preferred to train their minds rather than artificially enhance it. (TOS novel: The Starship Trap) The school of Surak had many techniques which opened the mind of a student, perceiving where the student's difficulties and strongest emotions lie and adjusted the mind's processes so that the student can more completely face the emotion and learn to control it. Thus, they were experienced in abnormal psychology as well as the common workings of the Vulcan minds. When a Vulcan was unable to control his emotions, his family or colleagues often summoned a devotee of Surak to deal with him. When a Vulcan willingly gives in to his emotions, it was one goal of those who followed the doctrines of Surak to help him resolve his problems and rejoin society. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) One of the most contemplated teachings of Surak was his admonition that one should study reason above all else. He taught that a Vulcan should learn to discern reality both as it seemed to be and as it truly was. This dissection of truth from illusion had spurred Vulcans into intense study of science and mathematics, helping them dissect many of the most complex workings in the universe into logical steps. Patience, temperance and logical observation (truthfulness to the world) were three of the greatest virtues of Vulcan culture and all have great application to scientific reasoning. Vulcans believed that their adherence to this doctrine made them the foremost scientists in the Federation. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) An old precept among their kind stated that "the time required to solve a problem is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge brought to bear on the subject". This essentially meant that the more scientists capable of reviewing the data, the greater the chance was that someone would find the solution to the problem. (TOS novel: Windows on a Lost World) Further, the application of these virtues, combined with intense meditation, had given Vulcans great control over their native psionic abilities. They remained unable, however, to control that most famous biological trigger of Vulcan mental abilities such as the pon farr. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans) Most Vulcans learn numerous mental techniques that had been first developed by Surak but over the centuries had been improved upon by generations of philosophers and healers. During times of stress or those that led to agitation, a Vulcan was capable of calming themselves through the use of a meditation formula. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders) They maintained a great many techniques in the arts of meditation which they regularly employed. This ranged from simple basic defensive meditation capable of blocking the telepathic intrusions of highly trained telepaths such as Betazoids to complete meditation where there was a cessation of all thought. Such techniques were even used in the early period of interstellar travel when Vulcans entered into a deep extended meditation during intergalactic voyages that lasted for decades under sub-light travel where Vulcan explorers travelled between the stars. Furthermore, it was well noted that torture had little effect on Vulcans. (TOS novel: Captain's Blood) It was known that incense was a means used by Vulcans to better facilitate meditation. In addition, they often made use of special mandalas engraved with Vulcan glyphs that were used to focus as well as help quiet their minds and emotions thus removing any barriers or distractions that might prevent them from concentrating on the reception along with the application of logic. (VAN novel: Open Secrets) Meditation was a particularly useful technique when they were confronted with a problem that defied casual analysis. (TOS novel: Legacy) Masochism did not exist within Vulcan society. (TOS novel: Star Trek (2009)) Those that took part in the kolinahr ritual also learnt of calming techniques in order to center themselves during times of emotional turmoil. Concentration was an art that the Vulcans had learnt early though doing so without any results was taxing. (TOS novel: Avenger) Among the Vulcan disciplines taught included the simple technique of handling pain where the individual accepted the pain till it became a part of them whereupon it simply vanished. (TOS novel: The Wounded Sky) Vulcans did not believe in using medicines to cure minor afflictions and instead their science taught them to use their own bodies to create medicines to combat any such issues. This was the reason for the use of neuropressure in treating problems such as difficulty in sleeping. (ENT episode: "The Xindi") Vulcans are noted for their patience and believe it is a necessity among their species while it was a virtue among Humans. (TOS novel: Sarek) One of the most famous qualities among the Vulcan people was their high degree of honesty. This was to such an extent that many Vulcan's were highly reluctant to tell a lie which led to the saying that "Vulcans cannot lie" (TOS episode: "The Enterprise Incident") Despite this, it was known that, under logical reasons of course, that they were capable of accomplishing such a task or make an omission. No Vulcan admitted such a dishonesty and considered it an act of "lying". (TOS movies: The Wrath of Khan, The Undiscovered Country) A saying on Vulcan included "It is not a lie to keep the truth to oneself." (TOS novel: Burning Dreams) They had an old custom ridden culture with a complex social structure involved in its makeup. (TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) Greed was a particularly rare concept amongst Vulcans to the point that it was unheard of within their society. (TOS novel: Legacy) Their society had no property authority for investigating violent crimes since they rarely occurred. Vulcan belief held that those who had the ability to commit murder had a form of mental illness. Whilst they were capable of killing in cases of defense or racial survival; to actually murder for personal gain was not considered logical. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders) These traits meant many believed that Vulcan society was devoid of criminal elements or terrorists though what was not known to many that such activities were known to had happened in the past. A total of at three hundred and twelve Vulcans were known to had committed terrorist acts in the past millennium by the time of the 24th century. Whilst terrorist acts on Vulcans were rare, they were generally limited to expressions of extreme political theory and also sporadic attempts at returning to the violent philosophies that ruled the Vulcan home world before the days of Surak. The number of such organizations included the Adepts of T'Pel, the Kahrilites, the Followers of the Cupric Band, the Binaries, the Traxton Compound, the Central Source and the Symmetrists. (TOS novel: Avenger) Individual Vulcan towns held their own regional justice committee who were responsible for detention of criminals, holding trials and giving permission for mind melds. (TOS novel: Crisis on Vulcan) In terms of murder, an ancient Vulcan tradition stated "Suffer the death of thine enemy" as the race were touch telepaths and the death of another often meant that the murderer had to accept their pain. As such, even in pre-Reform times, the Vulcans were selective about who they murdered as they had to decide whether it was worth experiencing the pain of their victim. (TNG novel: Metamorphosis) The Vulcan legal system was known to had developed to the point that it was considered both precise and elegant. (TOS novel: Rules of Engagement) - The Vulcan Academy Murders states that there was no proper authority for investigating violent crimes which contradicts LUG which says that the V'Kor were a police force within Vulcan society. Nutrition was seen as a perfectly logical activity though the Vulcans did not take any lunch. (TOS novel: The Vulcan Academy Murders) They were quite capable of going for long periods without food allowing them to fast for an extended time. (TOS novel: Spock Must Die!) Furthermore, tradition was an important aspect of their society which was partly attributed to their capacity to perform mind melds that allowed for memories to pass across the generations. (TOS novel: Captain's Glory) This meant that century long memories were passed down family lines through mind melds leading to the creation of a "secret heart" within the Vulcan mind where they remembered the horrors and atrocities of their "pre-history". This also meant that there were a great many secrets were secretly kept from outsiders due to the respect for their traditions. (TOS novel: Memory Prime) Furthermore, Vulcan tradition held that its members be personally able attend to the affairs of any land or property that had in their possession. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Glory) In addition, Vulcans were taught to not acquire many personal belongings as such an act was not deemed logical. (ENT novel: Beneath the Raptor's Wing) After achieving their belief in logic, the Vulcan people estimated that other races had developed a similar "enlightenment" as well as the belief of peaceful exploration upon achieving warp travel but this was eventually proven wrong. To compensate with more 'emotional' races, they developed a complex behavioral algorithm that would allow them to model as well as predict another beings emotional response that would be calculated mentally. It was created as a form of self survival. The equations were very difficult to master but the Vulcan people had developed a wide variety in order to compensate for any situation. (DS9 novel: The War of the Prophets) To Vulcans, it was considered a breach of privacy to have their names called out loud in public. (TOS novel: The Motion Picture) Furthermore, Vulcans never carried weapons in public unless it was during the Kal-if-fee. (TOS novel: The Abode of Life) Due to their telepathic nature, the Vulcans had a number of mind rules in place over the governance and use of these powers. (TOS novel: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) As they were touch telepaths, they preferred not to have physical contact during greetings such as when two people shook hands as Vulcans had an unpleasant mental intrusion from the brief contact. This did not mean that they avoided shaking hands but they did so only when they had to. (TOS novel: Recovery) Early training was designed to strengthen personal barriers and erect mental shields designed to prevent constant intrusion. In fact, on Vulcan it was considered a heinous crime for forcing a mind meld which was considered an unforgivable invasion of spirit. (TOS novel: Yesterday's Son) Students of the Vulcan mind-touch techniques were intimately familiar with the intricacies of telepathic communication. (TOS novel: The Starless World) One such technique allowed its adept to take the pain of another beings and drew strength from it. This ancient discipline was forbidden in modern Vulcan society as it was misused by many who sought to impose their will upon others allowing them to brainwash individuals to become loyal servants. (TOS novel: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) - Whilst not named, this technique does appear to be similar to the one employed by the warlord Sudoc who used a telepathic ability to brainwash individuals into becoming loyal followers. An ancient Vulcan custom was the offering of fire and water to guests allowing them to stay in a Vulcan home. (Vulcan's Soul novel: Exodus) Another involved casual contact which meant that others were not allowed to touch a Vulcan's body. (VAN novel: Open Secrets) This was partly attributed to their species being touch telepaths and any physical touch meant that the Vulcan in question was forced to peer into the mind of the other individual. (TOS novel: Memory Prime) Within their society, the Vulcan government was known to reward those individuals with advancement on meritocratic principles. (ENT episode: "Awakening") In addition, ninety eight percent of Vulcans had all held some form of public office by the time they were two hundred years of age. (TOS novel: Spock's World) There was a general belief that the Vulcan lifespan meant that they tended to fixate on their careers and stick to them during their long lifespans which led some to belief that their society suffered from some form of stagnation. (ENT novel: Beneath the Raptor's Wing) Whilst they typically lived in large settlements, there were several isolationist villages scattered around their homeworld who shunned contact with the rest of their society with the closest human analogy being to that of the Amish communities. (VAN novel: Open Secrets) One saying attributed to the Vulcans was "When all rational solutions refuse to fit the available facts, then we seek an irrational solution that does.". (TOS novel: The Starless World) They also held a similar saying as the Human phrase "Speak of the devil and he will appear". Though this was not superstition but simple observation on their part. (TOS novel: World Without End) - Pon farr - Rite of Tal'oth Poker was known to be extremely popular amongst Vulcans as it was a game of sublime logic and not of blind chance. Due to their logical nature and ability to calculate odds swiftly in their minds, Vulcans were known to possess the perfect poker face. (TOS novel: Devil World) Vulcans generally tended to be self conscious dancers though in relation to other arts, their fixation on logic did not preclude their appreciation of beauty. (TOS novel: The Starship Trap) adronn feltara • anwoa sprout • b'lltarr • bertakk soup • c'torr • farr-kahli • filrak • forati sauce • gespar • iced fruit • ihntya' • kahri-torrafeiaca • kalafruit • kleetanta • kreyla • lirs • L-Lersa • mia-zed • m'lu • n'gaan • plomeek • plomeek broth • plomeek soup • saffir • soltar • t'coraca • t'miirq soup • t'mirak rice • tolik fruit • tono'pak soup • ulan soup • vranto salad • wafer fruit - See main article: Vulcan language. Vulcans are known to be an advanced spacefaring people that were exploring the stars long before humanity was capable of doing so, as early as the 3rd century. Early Vulcans were a violent people and much of their advanced technology was seemingly lost in the nuclear wars shortly before the reformation of the Vulcan people led by Surak in the Time of Awakening. (EV comic: "Cloak and Dagger"; ENT episode: "Awakening") Technology from this period included psionic devices such as Katric arks and psionic weapons including the Stone of Gol, Tol par-doj and Vorl-tak. Psionic weapons were banned on Vulcan following the reformation, but survived in the lost colony of the last-of-all-Cities. (EV comic: "Cloak and Dagger"; ENT episodes: "Awakening", "Kir'Shara"; TNG episode: "Gambit") Even in the era of the Federation, the Vulcans contributed greatly in the fields of science. Sunok of Vulcan was responsible for the further refinement of transporter technology, making it virtually impossible for the machinery to malfunction, whilst many of Starfleet's starship design refinements came from advances in Vulcan science. (TOS novel: Crisis on Vulcan)	<urn:uuid:8a636daf-71d8-47fa-a275-3673701ade56>	CC-MAIN-2017-30	http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Vulcan	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424586.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723182550-20170723202550-00356.warc.gz	en	0.976483	11,431	2.96875	3	2.87684	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
HIV affects women’s health in unique ways. You may get more infections or changes in your menstrual cycle. You may also get menopause symptoms earlier than other women. Knowing what to expect and taking care of yourself can help you live a healthy, full life. HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Some STIs affect women with HIV differently than women who do not have HIV. These include: - Genital herpes. Outbreaks of herpes sores can last longer and happen more often in people with HIV and may be more severe and painful. The sores may be worse when CD4 cell counts are low. Herpes sores can be treated, and medicine can help prevent future outbreaks. But this may not work as well as in women with HIV, who may also develop resistance to the herpes medicine. - Chancroid. Chancroid (SHAN-kroid) is less common in the United States. It begins with open sores on the genitals. You may not notice the sores, and you may not have other symptoms. Symptoms can include pain when urinating or having bowel movements, painful sex, rectal bleeding, or vaginal discharge. Many medicines are used to treat chancroid. For women with HIV, the ulcers may heal more slowly or may need to be treated more than once. - Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID is an infection of a woman’s pelvic organs (uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries). In women with HIV, PID may be harder to treat, may not go away, or may come back over and over again as a woman’s immune system weakens. PID can make it harder to get pregnant. HIV and cervical cancer Cervical cancer is called an AIDS-defining cancer. That means, in women with HIV, a diagnosis of cervical cancer marks the point at which HIV has progressed to AIDS.1 The abnormal cervical cells that lead to cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). The types of HPV that cause cervical cancer are more common in women who are HIV-positive. Women with HIV need regular Pap tests to help find changing cervical cells before they turn into cancer. Get a Pap test two times during the first year after you’re diagnosed with HIV. If results are normal, get a Pap test once a year. If results are not normal, talk to your doctor about how often you should get a Pap test and the next steps to take.2 Researchers are studying whether medicine to treat HIV also might lower the risk of developing cervical cancer. HIV and vaginal infections A vaginal yeast infection is an infection of the vagina that causes itching and burning of the vulva. Recurring yeast infections (at least four times a year) happen more often in women with advanced HIV or AIDS. Vaginal yeast infections are common and easily treated in most women, but can happen more often and may be harder to treat in women with HIV. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a vaginal infection that is caused by changes in the amount or balance of bacteria normally found in the vagina. BV is more common in women with HIV and may be harder to treat.3 HIV and the menstrual cycle Women with HIV may have more menstrual problems than other women. You may have lighter or heavier bleeding, missed periods, and more severe premenstrual syndrome. These problems may be caused by other factors that are more common in women with HIV — such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or stress — rather than by the infection. But the change in your immune system could affect your hormones and cause problems with your period. Weight loss, chronic disease, drug abuse, birth control, HIV drugs, uterine fibroids, itching, genital tract infections, and perimenopause can all cause menstrual problems. Talk to your doctor or nurse about any menstrual problems. HIV medicine and women Some medicines can interact with HIV drugs. These interactions can hurt you or make the HIV medicines weaker. You should tell your doctor if you are: - Using any other prescribed medicines - Using any recreational drugs, alcohol, herbal remedies, or over-the-counter medicines - Using hormonal birth control, including the shot, pills, or implant. Some HIV medicines may affect how much of the hormone stays in your system, raising your risk for pregnancy. Talk to your doctor about the type of birth control you use and whether you need to switch to another method. - Pregnant or planning to become pregnant. This will affect what treatment is best to keep you healthy and prevent HIV transmission to your baby. HIV medicines also may cause different side effects in women than men.4 - Studies linked the use of nevirapine (NVP) to a higher risk of rashes and problems with the liver for women with higher CD4 counts. - Ritonavir (Norvir, RTV) may cause more nausea and vomiting in women but less diarrhea in women than in men. Ritonavir is sometimes prescribed to help other HIV medicines work better. - Other studies show that women are more likely to get fat buildup throughout the body and have problems with the pancreas than men. Do not change the dose of your medicine on your own. If you are having problems with side effects, talk to your doctor. Opportunistic infections (OIs) are infections that take advantage of weakness in the immune system. Most OIs that affect people with HIV are AIDS-defining OIs. This means that if you have HIV and develop one of these OIs, you now have advanced to AIDS, the final stage of HIV infection. Eating healthy foods and preparing them safely is especially important for someone with HIV. Choosing healthy foods can help you keep a healthy weight and immune system. If you have problems like a sore mouth, diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting, or if treatment affects your sense of taste or your appetite, eating healthy might be tough. Talk to your doctor or nurse for help. He or she may recommend that you see a nutritionist. Learn more about how to eat healthy while living with HIV and about how to prepare food safely to avoid other infections. Alcohol and drug use Alcohol and drug use is common among people who have HIV or have a higher chance of getting HIV infection. Even if you already have HIV, using drugs puts you at risk of being infected with other strains of HIV or with other diseases. Drug and alcohol use can also interfere with your treatment: - Your treatment might not work as well. - You might have worse side effects. - You might forget to take your medicine. - Substance abuse also can lead to mental health problems or make them worse. Talk to your doctor if you can’t stop using drugs or alcohol. Your doctor can help you find a drug or alcohol treatment plan that will work with your HIV treatment. Talk to your doctor before getting any vaccine. Discuss with your doctor which vaccines you need and are safe for you to get. - Some vaccines, like the flu vaccine and the HPV vaccine, are more important to get if you have HIV. People who are infected with HIV should get the inactivated flu vaccine (the flu shot), not a live flu vaccine such as FluMist®.5 You need to prevent getting an infection your body can’t fight. An infection could make your HIV worse. - Other vaccines, such as the measles vaccine, may be more harmful if you have HIV and your immune system is not working well. - There is no vaccine to prevent HIV. HIV and healthy aging Thanks to treatment, many women with HIV are living longer lives. This also means that as women with HIV age, they will face health problems common in all older women. These problems include heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, and some cancers. Other health concerns as women with HIV age include: - Menopause. HIV affects women with menopause in unique ways. - You may enter menopause at a younger age than normal (the average age in the United States is 52).6 The age of menopause in women with lower CD4 counts (fewer than 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood) was four years younger than women whose CD4 count was more than 500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood. The age of menopause was also lower in women with CD4 counts between 200 cells and 500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood.7 The number of these white blood cells in a woman’s blood tells doctors how serious her HIV infection is. Researchers think the drop in the female hormone estrogen after menopause may affect CD4 counts. - Studies show that you may have more severe hot flashes during menopause than women who do not have HIV.8 - Osteoporosis — weakening of the bones — is a concern for all postmenopausal women but especially for women living with HIV. Recent studies show that osteoporosis may happen at younger ages in women (and men) who have HIV.9 Some HIV medicines may also lead to bone loss. - National Cancer Institute. (2011). HIV Infection and Cancer Risk. - AIDSinfo.gov. (2016). Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents. - World Health Organization. (2006). Sexual and reproductive health of women living with HIV/AIDS. - Department of Health and Human Services’ Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents. (2013). Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-1-Infected Adults and Adolescents. - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). HIV/AIDS and the Flu. - Shifren, J.L., Gass, M.L.S., for the NAMS Recommendations for Clinical Care of Midlife Women Working Group. (2014). The North American Menopause Society Recommendations for Clinical Care of Midlife Women. Menopause; 21: 1038–1062. - Imai, K., Sutton, M.Y., Mdodo, R., del Rio, C. (2013). HIV and menopause: A systematic review of the effects of HIV infection on age at menopause and the effects of menopause on response to antiretroviral therapy. Obstetrics and Gynecology International: 340309. - Wilder, T.L. (2013). Increased hot flash severity and burden among perimenopausal HIV-infected women: An interview with Sara Looby, Ph.D., ANP-BC. - North American Menopause Society. (2013). Hot Flashes Take Heavier Toll on Women With HIV. Based on Menopause journal article. Source: https://www.womenshealth.gov/ Page last updated: May 17, 2018.	<urn:uuid:92e050d9-700c-4642-8c65-8b0fceb51cf5>	CC-MAIN-2019-43	https://www.skillmd.com/glossary/hiv-and-womens-health/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986660231.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20191015182235-20191015205735-00271.warc.gz	en	0.932283	2,283	3	3	2.541241	3	Strong reasoning	Health
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., released their 5th annual "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides" on March 10th, 2009. The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides is a tool that will help you identify fruits and vegetables that are the most susceptible to pesticide residue. Choosing organic for the produce determined as the “Dirty Dozen” can reduce pesticide exposure by up to 80 percent. You'll notice that fruits and vegetables that have thin skins are more likely to have a higher amount of pesticides. The "Clean 15" are fruits and vegetables that have the lowest levels of pesticides. Since buying organic may not be feasible if you're on a tight budget, stock up on the "Clean 15" more often. Remember that you need to incorporate fruits and veggies in your diet for necessary nutrients! Image courtesy of the Environmental Working Group Download Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides (It will be available as an iPhone application soon) The full list of 47 fruits and vegetables Read EWG's recent statement: Organic Fruit and Veggies Still Recommended The Organic Center also has a Pocket Guide for reducing pesticide dietary exposure - It is more extensive and considers the pesticide exposure to farmers, citizens and wildlife who live near farms that use harmful pesticides. What is Organic? The USDA National Organic Program's (NOP) definition of organic: Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled "organic," a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too. (Consumer Brochure, USDA National Organic Program, http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Consumers/brochure.html) What to Look for on Labels When Buying Organic: - A food that has a "100% organic" label will have no synthetic ingredients and can legally use the USDA organic seal. - A food that is labeled as just "organic" has to have at least 95% organic ingredients and can use the USDA organic seal. - A food that has a label that says "made with organic ingredients" must contain at least 70% organic ingredients with strict restrictions on the remaining 30% including no GMOs (genetically modified organisms) . This food can't legally use the USDA organic seal. - Products that use less than 70% organic ingredients are able to list organically produced ingredients on the side of the package, but aren't able to put organic claims on the front of the package. Reducing Pesticide Residues: - Wash and scrub produce under running water to remove dirt, bacteria and surface pesticide residues. Make sure you also wash produce that has inedible skin such as cantaloupe. You don't need to use soap. (Make sure to wash organic produce this way as well) - Remove the peel from fruits and vegetables. - Remove the outer leaves from leafy vegetables - Try to eat a variety of foods from various sources.	<urn:uuid:b1dc713d-3a3e-408d-9bb7-6dbcd27b3c4b>	CC-MAIN-2017-13	http://www.nutritiousfeast.com/2009/03/shopping-for-organic-produce.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189130.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00590-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.927775	738	3.546875	4	2.085505	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Significant groundwater contribution to Antarctic ice streams hydrologic budget Geophysical Research Letters Wiley on behalf of the American Geophysical Union MetadataShow full item record Christoffersen, P., Bougamont, M., Carter, S. P., Fricker, H. A., & Tulaczyk, S. (2014). Significant groundwater contribution to Antarctic ice streams hydrologic budget. Geophysical Research Letters, 41 https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059250 Satellite observations have revealed active hydrologic systems beneath Antarctic ice streams, but sources and sinks of water within these systems are uncertain. Here we use numerical simulations of ice streams to estimate the generation, flux, and budget of water beneath five ice streams on the Siple Coast. We estimate that 47% of the total hydrologic input (0.98 km3 yr−1) to Whillans (WIS), Mercer (MIS), and Kamb (KIS) ice streams comes from the ice sheet interior and that only 8% forms by local basal melting. The remaining 45% comes from a groundwater reservoir, an overlooked source in which depletion significantly exceeds recharge. Of the total input to Bindschadler (BIS) and MacAyeal (MacIS) ice streams (0.56 km3 yr−1), 72% comes from the interior, 19% from groundwater, and 9% from local melting. This contrasting hydrologic setting modulates the ice streams flow and has important implications for the search for life in subglacial lakes. This work was carried out with support from the Isaac Newton Trust, Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Foundation and Natural Environment Research Council (grant NE/E005950/1 and NE/J005800/1). Natural Environment Research Council (NE/E005950/1) Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J005800/1) External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059250 This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245226 Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ Recommended or similar items The following licence files are associated with this item:	<urn:uuid:a57b3a11-16fb-4f8a-8133-0c4aece94d7c>	CC-MAIN-2019-35	https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245226	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-35/segments/1566027315222.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20190820045314-20190820071314-00062.warc.gz	en	0.783857	506	2.625	3	2.822335	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Most people reading this knows the acronym STEAM on STEAMfest’s website stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. But, when an Art teacher submits an activity for STEAMfest, you don’t expect them to submit something that covers all 5 topics of STEAM. That is, unless it’s a Woodlawn School teacher. Kim Lysne teaches primarily Art at Woodlawn School and is also a founding teacher with a science background. She submitted a video she shows her 5th graders to STEAMfest. As Woodlawn parents, we knew it would be more than a simple art video. That’s because students at Woodlawn do Project Based Learning and the projects they do often overlap with their other subjects. To complete their projects, students apply what they are learning in their various classes. When we saw the video, we never dreamed it would have practical applications in medicine, space exploration, robotics, and so many of the various field that make up STEAM. The activity Ms. Lysne submitted was called “Paper Engineering and Pop-Ups”. In her Paper Engineering class, “the students transformed ordinary 2-D pieces of white paper into extraordinary 3-D works of art. They applied the same steps engineers and designers use to solve problems to make their creations. They came up with an idea, imagined possible solutions, created a plan, crafted their pieces, tested it out to see if it worked, and made improvements as needed until they achieved what they envisioned. They learned from mistakes and shared their successes and tips with each other.” The video Ms. Lysne submitted was about Origami. When you hear the word Origami, you probably think, “Oh, the Japanese art of paper folding” and have images of paper cranes. And, many have not ever heard the Japanese word Kirigami, which is cutting folded paper to make objects. Remember making 3-D snowflakes in elementary school, that’s kirigami. What’s interesting about both origami and kirigami is they are widely used in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical fields. Yes, that’s correct! Origami and kirigami have practical, real-world application! That’s what Ms. Lysne’s students learned as they made pop-ups books and cards as part of their Paper Engineering class. You too can learn more about origami and kirigami by checking out Ms. Lysne’s activities. You can also find more activities submitted by Woodlawn teachers, students, and parents on Woodlawn School’s Creator page.	<urn:uuid:4526ab21-5731-4331-b637-73347abea3ae>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://steamfest.woodlawnschool.org/activities-that-embody-steam/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710662.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20221128203656-20221128233656-00302.warc.gz	en	0.962058	565	3.1875	3	2.173601	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
Using the Pleistocene to Predict the Future The Pleistocene landscape, 2.6 million-11,700 years ago, would have been largely recognizable, boasting many familiar plant and animal species still around today. This was also the time when our very own Homo sapiens human ancestors first evolved and spread across the world. The climate experienced several glacial cycles through what is commonly known as the ‘Ice Ages’ and is best known for the large megafauna roaming the landscape, which included mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and giant ground sloths! Historical Documents Unearthed in Tübingen, Germany A recent PE article reveals the contents from the historical archive of the palaeontological collection in Tübingen, Germany. An assortment of letters, notes, drawings, photos and various other documents dating back to some of the founding fathers of German palaeontology of the nineteenth and twentieth century are now available to both the public and researchers. Ingmar Werneburg has been the collections curator for Tübingen since 2016, when he happened upon a cabinet full of these assorted documents. Along with his former assistant, Juliane Hinz, the next year was spent examining, sorting, and cataloguing over 1,300 items which highlighted the history of the Tübingen collections. The Key to Cephalopod Diversity and Success Cephalopods are a class of mollusks that include highly intelligent octopuses, scary squid, camouflaging cuttlefish, and the chambered nautilus (Family: Mollusca, Class: Cephalopoda). The nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, is among the last living cephalopods with an external shell which is full of chambers. Throughout the Paleozoic Era (544-245 million years ago), all cephalopods had an external shell that came in a variety of shapes and sizes. A challenge for cephalopods with an external shell is achieving neutral buoyancy. This is the goal SCUBA divers also aim to achieve, to become weightless underwater and able to float in place without sinking or rising. For a cephalopod, this allows them to swim more efficiently and travel farther out into the ocean from shore. The Devonian Monster of the Deep The Devonian Period, known as ‘The Age of Fishes’, happened between 419-358 million years ago. The earth during this time was a warm global greenhouse environment where the first land plants were diversifying across two large continents named Euramerica and Gondwana. Even the first tetrapods (vertebrates with four limbs), our ancient ancestors, crawled out of the sea onto land during this time. The oceans flourished with life. Brachiopods, trilobites, and armoured fish (placoderms) were plentiful, and reefs blanketed shallow seaways. The reefs of the Devonian were much different than those we know today. Although there were some corals, reefs were primarily made up of sponges called stromatoporoids. Such an environment was ideal for a large predator to reign king and one such predator was the Dunkleosteus. Dr. Zerina Johanson, an expert on Devonian fishes describes the formidable fish: “Like all placoderm fish, the head and front part of the body in Dunkleosteus were covered in bony plates. It was clearly predatory, with jaws being dominated by large shearing surfaces. The reconstructed tail suggests it moved like fast-swimming sharks do today, indicating it was a speedy predator.” Brachiopod Faunas Through the Hangenberg Crisis (Devonian-Carboniferous) Mass Extinction events capture our attention. Whether it’s because of the astounding loss of life, incredible climactic events, or vast environmental differences compared to our modern world, they fascinate us. These events are extremely rare, having only occurred five times over the course of Earth’s 4,500,000,000 year history which are formally known as the ‘Big Five’. Although these get most of the attention, there have been many other ‘crisis’ events that still triggered significant losses of life. The Lapara Creek Fauna – A snapshot of Texas 10 - 12 million years ago Between 10 - 12 million years ago, the Texas Gulf Coast could be described as a “Texas Serengeti” – with specimens including elephant-like animals, rhinos, alligators, antelopes, camels, 12 types of horses and several species of carnivores. In fact, over 4000 specimens representing 50 animal species, from The Lapara Creek Fauna (from the Goliad Formation) near Beeville, Texas, have recently been identified by Dr. Steven R. May from The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. Many of these specimens were collected by employed fossil hunters over 80 years ago as part of the State-Wide Paleontologic and Mineralogic Survey of Texas between 1939 and 1941. Despite a number of scientific papers having been published on select groups of these fossils, Dr. May’s paper is significant in that it is the first to describe this fauna in its entirety. Leaf Cuticle Reveals Effects of Climate Change on New Zealand Forests It is well known that changing climate affects the distribution and range of species, where they often ‘track’ conditions most favorable to them. For example, as temperatures warm today, species are moving up slopes and poleward to what had been cooler climates. Glacial-interglacial cycles provide a unique experiment where one can observe a community in the same location, through both cold and warm conditions, comparing how they have changed over time. In the case of vegetation, the warmer interglacial periods provide a window of recovery, however interglacial communities can vary greatly in composition and even soil conditions, providing an interesting history to study in one location over time such as the northern island of New Zealand. Palynology is the study of pollen and spores, which can help indicate the presence and range of plants both past, through the rock record, and present since related groups produce similarly shaped grains. Pollen is produced in copious amounts and light enough to be dispersed via wind, water, or even animal transport making presence and range estimates for vegetation more generalized. Another way to detect plant presence is by observing leaf cuticle, the waxy outer layer of plant leaves which preserves unique characteristics of each plant species. Why the strange nose? The peculiar case of Metarhinus and Sphenocoelus Brontotheres (also known as titanotheres; Family BRONTOTHERIIDAE) are a family of extinct relatives of the horse and rhinoceros that lived approximately 35-55 million years ago in what is now North America and Asia. They lived during a period of time known as the Eocene Epoch (56 to 33.9 million years ago). Many had peculiar, forked-horns. Some grew to the size of small elephants. The low-crowned teeth of members of the family suggest that they were obligatory browsers (leaf-eaters). They inhabited forested regions, although the very large forms of later times (Chadronian, the latest age in the Eocene Epoch) would probably have inhabited more open meadow-like ground. Two genera Metarhinus and Sphenocoelus (also known as Dolichorhinus) are particularly interesting. Members of the two genera were relatively small compared to most brontotheres and had little or no horn development. Species of Metarhinus were about the size of a tapir and while species of Sphenocoelus were a little larger. However, it is their usual nasal anatomy which radically changed the way they breathed that is completely unique and found in no other creatures known to science. Eternal Loving Embrace of Two Eocene Moths For the average person, insects trapped in amber may spark images from the film Jurassic Park, where mosquitos were the key to resurrecting living dinosaurs. Although collecting dino DNA from fossil insects may not be feasible, there is still much to learn from these specimens frozen in time. Dr. Thilo C. Fischer and Dr. Marie K. Hörnig are passionate palaeoentomologists (the study of fossil insects) and are beyond excited to share their fascinating discovery with the world! Not only did they find two individual moths (Order: Lepidoptera) trapped together in Baltic amber dating back 56-33 million years ago (Eocene), but they were a mating pair in copula! This is an extremely rare finding for any insect group and a first for the group Lepidoptera.	<urn:uuid:1540246d-adc6-49f7-9b78-7f9a866b9be5>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2011-11-30-22-01-23?start=40	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710192.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20221127041342-20221127071342-00219.warc.gz	en	0.961048	1,855	3.734375	4	2.854151	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Description: Dark chocolate contains several health advantages. These advantages are from flavonoids, which work as antioxidants. In recent years, food materials that contain flavonoids and antioxidants have been connected with the prevention of heart disease. Flavonoids are poly-phenolic combinations found plentifully in cocoa and, to a slightly lesser extent, in apples, red wine and green tea. More particularly, the flavonoid found in dark or black chocolate has been linked to decreases in blood pressure, improvements in antioxidant properties, improvements in cognitive function, increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations, improvements in insulin sensitivity, improvements in anti-platelet activity, and improvements in endothelial dysfunction that promote vascular homeostasis. Compared with white chocolate and milk chocolate, dark or black chocolate contains more flavonoids because it contains more cocoa. Dark chocolate and the heart: Dark chocolate may aid in lower blood pressure in individuals with hypertension, and has been proven to lower levels of LDL, the “bad cholesterol,” by ten percent. Adding dark chocolate to your diet may benefit your cardiovascular organs by helping to block arterial damage provoked by free radicals. It may also inhibit platelet aggregation, which would provoke a heart stroke or attack. There have also been researches showing that the flavonoids in cocoa relax the blood vessels, which inhibits an enzyme that causes inflammation. Eat chocolate for your brain:In a study, a compound found in cocoa, epicatechin, when incorporated with exercise, was found to boost functional alterations in a part of the brain involved in the formation of memory and learning. Potential anti-cancer benefits: A research study indicates that dark chocolate may be a weapon against cancer cells. Researchers at Georgetown University School of Medicine discovered that a synthetic cocoa derivative really increased the rate of destruction and decreased the rate of growth of human cancer cells. Furthermore, it accomplished this without having an influence on other cells. Some have their doubts: Not everyone believes that dark chocolate is a healthy food. Primarily, it is vital to understand that processing changes the natural flavanol antioxidants found in cocoa. Even though some of the suggested benefits of dark chocolate consumption are linear and positive, neither is unlimited because dark chocolate is laden with a substantial calorie load, which can readily offset its antioxidant benefits. Eat dark chocolate for pleasure: There is growing acceptance among people that occasionally eating dark or black chocolate containing a high percentage of cocoa provides polyunsaturated fats and flavonoids that may benefit cognitive abilities during aging, as well as anti-inflammatory and anti-clotting effects, among other potential health benefits still being analyzed in research. So, the combination of super fruits and chocolate may be both healthy and delicious! Eat chocolate treats in moderate amounts so you can have fun without guilt! Starch content in dark chocolate: Of course, dark chocolate also contains starch. When melted chocolate is added to fondant, for instance, the fondant gets stiffer due to the starch content and generally requires thinning. Generally, however, the drying power of the starch is balanced by the tenderizing effect of the cocoa butter. Other benefits of dark chocolate: Dark or black chocolate also possesses advantages apart from saving your body: Dark chocolate may have antioxidant benefits similar to vegetables, but consider the numerous other benefits vegetables have that chocolate lacks.	<urn:uuid:53d93caf-87f0-4cfe-b1f8-cbe11e99d9ea>	CC-MAIN-2021-04	http://demochocolate.redfirewebsites.com/why-dark-chocolate-is-good-for-you/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610704835583.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20210128005448-20210128035448-00513.warc.gz	en	0.94025	676	3.125	3	2.570359	3	Strong reasoning	Health
We are learning to: express the seasons through dance Success criteria: create our own movements and link them together using a range of movement styles Comment: we have been really enjoying creating our winter dance and learning the moves. Sent from my iPad We are learning to: throw accurately, jump further and travel faster -I can jump from one foot to two feet. -Throw accurately using under and over arm. -Run a set distance maintaining directionality Comment: we are all really enjoying PE and the children are looking forward to the Kakano Run Jump Throw event. Success criteria: I can start my writing by myself and attempt to spell familiar and new words. Comment: the children are showing a real interest in writing this term. It is exciting to see the progress they are making. We are learning to: sing songs about seasons for our integrated topic. We are learning the song 'Let it go' and 'In summer'. Success criteria: I can sing with enthusiasm Comment: The children have also been learning to make sounds in different ways. We will be singing these songs at our School Gala. Sent from my iPad For our Inquiry We are learning to: ask questions to find out more information about bees. Success Criteria: I can find the answers to my questions We started by finding out what we knew about bees, asked lots of questions. And then we answered them. We even made a video of our learning. The main idea to this movie was: Be kind to Bees. We wanted to create a video that showed our community that New Zealand honey bees are really important and that we should protect and care for them. Our video showcases our whole inquiry, from the beginning to the end. It shows the children’s initial anger toward bees and how this changed to them loving and respecting them at the end. It has the cute factor and shows the fun learning we do in the Reception class at Oaklands School. Enjoy :-) Our Bee Movie We are learning to: Compare lengths from the same starting point Success criteria: Make two or three different lengths of playdough and explain why they are different We are learning to: read and sound out word endings Success criteria: I can recognise and read words that end with 's' Comment: when there is an 's' it means more than one. Every Friday we have a discovery time in the morning. We go to the hall just after 9 o'clock and the teachers introduce what activity they will be doing in their classroom for the morning. The children then choose where they would like to go first. During discovery we focus on the key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Today's activities all relate to children managing themselves. We are learning to: make a controlled throw. Success criteria: I can throw a bean bag to hit a target. This has been a fun unit and enjoyed by all We often warm up with a game of Tricky tag. Practicing our throwing skills with a partner. Ten pin bowling I am learning to draw a picture plan and sound out the first letter sounds of words Success criteria: I can draw a picture and write a story about our trip into the CBD. Comment: Today we wrote about the fun time we had with friends on our trip into the city We are learning about position and orientation in maths at the moment We are learning to: describe the position of an object Success criteria: I can direct someone through a maze using instructions related to movement and position Comment: today we made mazes and moved a Lego person through the maze using directional instructions. Success criteria: I can use a timeline to talk about my life. We have all really enjoyed this unit and it has been great sharing interesting stories about our past. We brought our preschool/kindy books to school and shared them with each other (this was highlight of the unit). We talked about wear we live and how our city also informs our identity. To help us understand this more we went on a class trip into Christchurch's CBD. Every week we have show and tell on a Wednesday morning. All the children have an opportunity to share and talk about the thing they have brought in for us to see. This is a great tool for developing the children's oral language.	<urn:uuid:9abb29ad-4dbe-4b45-b214-fe46caeac9ee>	CC-MAIN-2017-51	http://leahoaklands2014.blogspot.com/2014/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948580416.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20171215231248-20171216013248-00515.warc.gz	en	0.960284	896	3.03125	3	1.795776	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
A term that sometimes shows up in machine learning is the "natural gradient". While there hasn't been much of a focus on using it in practice, a variety of algorithms can be shown as a variation of the natural gradient. In this post, I'll go over an explanation of the natural gradient that tries to keep the mathematical terminology down to a minimum. To start, we first have to consider our standard gradient descent. We have some parameterized model, such as a neural network. In backpropagation, we compute an error term (loss) that compares the network's output to a target. Then, we can derive the gradients for each parameter, which tell us how to change the value of the parameter to make the loss smaller. Finally, we change the parameters in their gradient's negative direction, by a global learning rate. The goal in standard backpropagation is to keep resampling the gradient of the network's parameters after every update, and update them accordingly until reaching a (hopefully global) minimum. However, there's another way we can think of optimization. To better understand it, we first need to understand KL divergence. In simple terms, KL divergence is a measure of how close a distribution is to another distribution. Here, it's helpful to think of a neural network as a distribution over output values, given an input. For example, let's take a simple classification network that, given an input image, outputs probabilities that the image is either an apple, a banana, or an orange. If we had two of these networks with the same parameters, their KL divergence would be 0. On the other hand, if the networks had different parameters, they would likely output different probabilities, given the same image. The higher the difference between these probabilities are, the higher the KL divergence is between the two networks. This brings us to the natural gradient. If we blindly update our network in the direction of its gradients, there are no guarantees the distribution of the new network will be similar to the old one. To fix this, we first consider all combinations of parameters that result in a new network a constant KL divergence away from the old network. This constant value can be viewed as the step size or learning rate. Out of all these possible combinations, we choose the one that minimizes our loss function. Basically, we're adding in a constraint to our update, that the new network will behave relatively similar to our old one. Our step size corresponds directly to the actual distribution of the network, not it's parameter's values. This comes with the added benefit of a more stable learning process. Especially when we're updating using a randomly sampled batch, some outliers may make drastic changes to a network's parameters. With natural gradient descent, a single update can't make too much of an impact. Furthermore, the natural gradient updates based on KL divergence, which only considers the output of a network. It doesn't matter how the network is modeled. Replacing a sigmoid activation with a tanh function would change the standard gradient, but not the natural gradient. Of course, in practice we don't actually loop through every possible combination of parameters within a certain KL divergence. I won't go into the mathematical explanations here, but it's still true that the natural gradient is more computationally expensive compared to straight gradient descent.	<urn:uuid:2a8bc849-9d0f-4c51-92d1-8efd3915fb71>	CC-MAIN-2019-22	http://kvfrans.com/a-intuitive-explanation-of-natural-gradient-descent/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232257514.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20190524044320-20190524070320-00028.warc.gz	en	0.911248	689	3.21875	3	2.780249	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
The Derby Wharf/Jetty The first wharf, built in 1894, was a wooden T shaped structure located at the northern end of the present steel and concrete jetty. It was linked to the town of Derby by a horse drawn tramway, crossing the mud flats via a causeway where the present day road is located. Wool and pearl shell were the major exports in the early days. In 1964, when the new jetty was built, live cattle were exported and fuel, oil and provisions were the main imports. The last passenger ship visited in 1973 . Now-a-days, barges exporting lead and zinc concentrates from the Cadjebut Mine at Fitzroy Crossing and pleasure and tourist craft are the main vessels visiting the jetty. The Jetty is a popular place from which to view the stunning sunsets over King Sound or to fish for silver cobbler, shark, golden grunter, north west salmon and mud crabs on the incoming tides. These tides are Australia's highest and the second highest in the southern hemisphere. The Centenary Pavillion Located at the jetty, this Pavilion tells of the geography and history of King Sound and the Port of Derby. The Pavilion features a colourful 28sqm mosaic tile floor depicting facets of life in the district. Wharfingers House MuseumCorner of Elder and Loch Streets Open on request. (Call at the Derby Visitor Centre during opening times for a key.) The history of the Wharf and the demise of the steam ship, the SS Colac, continues in displays at this Museum devoted to the communications history of the town. Displays feature the shipping, telecommunications and aviation history of the area together with small displays on fossil mud lobsters and termites. The building is a fine example of the prefabricated wooden housing of the 1930s well adapted for living in a tropical climate without the benefits of air-conditioning. It was restored in 1988 as part of the Bi-Centennial Project. Opposite the Museum can be seen one of the oldest buildings in Derby. This is the old Wool Shed, for the export of goods prior to 1964. The import shed, where goods imported were stored for collection was demolished in 1998 to make way for a direct route to the wharf. The horse drawn tramway extended from the Jetty down Loch Street as far as the King Sound Hotel site. Nearby was a quarry that was used to supply stone for the causeway across the mud flats. The tramway finished near McGovern and Thompson's Store, (now Woolworths). Those wishing to follow up on the story of the SS Colac can view the anchor and propeller of the vessel in the Lions Park in front of the Derby Civic Centre in Loch Street. The remains of the vessel can be viewed at low tide out from the end of the Derby airport runway via a fixed wing or helicopter flight. Access to the wreck is not possible from the land. Old Derby GaolLoch Street - Registered National and State Heritage Site The Police Station and depot for the Police Horse Patrol was located in Loch Street halfway between the original Town of Derby (established near Numbala Ngunga) and Derby Port, locally known in the early days as 'The Point'. The restored Old Derby Gaol is a tangible reminder of these times and is the oldest building in the town (1906). The significance of the Gaol to the Derby community is explained at the site. Derby Pioneer CemeteryLovegrove Street The cemetery and Old Gaol are sites on the Pigeon Heritage Trail which tells of the exploits of the Aboriginal Jandamarra. A booklet on the trail can be obtained from the Visitor Centre. At the cemetery one of Jandamarra's victims, Police Constable William Richardson, is buried. Another interesting grave is that of the Aboriginal Police Tracker 'Larry' Kunamarra who was honoured by the Queen for his services. Many graves in the cemetery are without headstones. Botanical GardensAccess via the Library, Clarendon Street or adjacent to Shire Council, Loch Street Established in 1985 these gardens are a tranquil oasis containing many species of exotic palms. The rock work is constructed from the Cretaceous sandstone, Kimberley Colour Stone, quarried at Mt Jowlaenga. Myall's Bore and Cattle Trough7km from Derby near the Prison Tree The first bore at this location was dug in 1910/11. It replaced the original well sunk by Alfred Duckworth Mayall in the early 1890s. The 1910/11 bore was 322 metres deep, had a residual head of 6 metres and cost 2700 pounds. When John Tait Blain was Secretary of the Road Board (1916/17) he had Joe Griffen build the concrete trough which is there to this day. This trough could handle 500 bullocks at one time and was later extended to a length of 120 metres. The flow from the bore was dropping off even by 1919. Now water is pumped into the trough by a windmill. The water from the bore has a rich mineral content and was reputed to have therapeutic properties. A bath house once stood near the trough. (See the Boab Prison Tree Interpretative Pavillion located on site for further information). Boab Prison Tree7km from Derby on the Derby - Broome Highway This huge tree is believed to be around 1,500 years old and has a girth of 14.7 metres. It was used as staging point for prisoners being walked into Derby in the early days. The Prison Tree is a registered Aboriginal Site. Visitors are requested to respect the cultural sensitivity of the site and not climb into or approach close to the tree. (See the Boab Prison Tree Interpretative Pavillion located on site for further information). Derby Pastoral Trail - Stage 1 The Derby Pastoral Trail tells the story of the last day of travel for drovers with their herds from Myall's Bore to the jetty. Stage 1 starts at the One Mile Dinner Camp at the corner of Mimosa Street and Rowan Street and ends at the Centenary Pavillion at the jetty. Frostys PoolAdjacent to Myall's Bore Built in 1944 as a bathing area for troops stationed in the area during the Second World War, this is one of the few remaining reminders of those years in the town. The bath was constructed by the 3rd General Transport Co. and was nicknamed Frosty's Pool after a platoon member, Charles L.V. Frost. Joonjoo Botanical Trail Some of the plants and animals of the Wanganut Land System are described on three kilometres of walking trail located in the Wanganut Reserve between the Derby Speedway and Conway Street. Interpretative plaques explain how the bush was used by the Nyikina people. The trail is an initiative of the Derby Chamber of Commerce and the Derby Visitor Centre. Access off Speedway Road. A trail booklet is available at the Derby Visitor Centre. Art and History The Spirit of the Wandjina Art Studio at Mowanjum Aboriginal Community welcomes visitors. Phone 08 9191 1104. Work from this community was a feature of the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. Ngunga Designs shop in Stanley Street affords an insight into the art and culture of the Aboriginal people with designs transformed onto fabrics and garment. A museum has been opened at the former Derby Leprosarium, Bungarun and is available for visits by groups. Between May and October a regular tour run to these attractions. Ask at the Derby Visitor Centre. Derby (Waste Water) WetlandAccess via Conway Street Bird watchers can make use of an observation tower provided by the Water Corporation near the waste water ponds to view a great variety of ducks, waders and other water birds that use the area as a day time roost. The managed wetland adjacent with shallow water and reed beds attracts wetland birds and migratory waders. (Ask at the Derby Visitor Centre for a bird list and directions) Derby Golf CourseDerby Recreation Area, Ashley Street The wonderful boab trees, green fairways and putting surfaces make this 18 hole composite course a pleasure to play on for any golfer. Recycled water has enabled the green fairways to be created to a design by well known professional golfer Terry Gale. Visitors are welcome. Kimberley School of the Air (KSOTA)Marmion Street KSOTA is based in Derby and provides educational services for children in pre-school to Year 7 who live inisolated and remote locations across the entire Kimberley region. Children undertake correspondence programs which are supported by satellite lessons, teacher visits and regular camps and seminars. Camp programs focus heavily on interactive and collaborative socialisation experiences, including the Arts and Physical Education. Year 4-7 students also attend camp in Perth with their counterparts from four other Schools of the Air around the State. KSOTA is also open to visitors and tourists. Daily tours operate in term - Tuesday to Friday between 8:00am -9:00am, with fundraising merchandise available. The Original TownsiteOff Russ Street Built on a high bank of the Fitzroy River, the other side of Brooking Creek from the Crossing Inn, was the original town. Today it consists of the former Police Officer's House, the old Post Office, a monument to the Australian Inland Mission Hospital and an avenue of Boab trees. The old concrete crossing of the Fitzroy River is still in use. A path and footbridge connects the old town to the Crossing Inn. In the wet, the old town can be completely cut off by flood waters as the Fitzroy River rises and breaks its banks. The Pioneer CemeterySkuthorp Road Just up the road from the Crossing Inn and on the river banks is the original cemetery containing the graves of old stockmen and district pioneers. The Crossing InnSkuthorp Road July 5th, 1997 saw this historic hotel celebrate its Centenary as the oldest Kimberley Hotel on its original site. Located close to the banks of the Fitzroy River, it has been a 'haven in a lonely country' and many a story of the droving days has been told across its bar. The Fitzroy River has flooded the property and in 1993 the level was measured as 9 bricks through the bar. The walls of this historic hotel have been decorated with over 20 pieces of art by students from the Fitzroy Crossing District High School. Postcards of the art are available at the Fitzroy Crossing Visitor Centre. Geikie Gorge National Park20km from Fitzroy Crossing via Russ Road This spectacular 30 metre high walled gorge has been carved by the Fitzroy River through the ancient Devonian limestone reef. Between April and October, the tranquil waters offer a haven for many types of fish and bird life abounds. During this time boat tours are provided by Department of Environment & Conservation (DEC) Rangers. An Aboriginal Cultural Tour is also available run by Darngku Heritage Tours. This takes in a scenic lookout over the Gorge. The Gorge is an ideal location for photography, walking, nature observation and picnicking. Rangers are based in the park throughout the dry season. A scenic flight over the Gorge gives a very different perspective of this beautiful feature.	<urn:uuid:6e86f361-a2d6-4630-bd37-bf99f0d9f579>	CC-MAIN-2016-36	http://www.sdwk.wa.gov.au/business/touristinformation.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982935910.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823200855-00248-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.956147	2,325	2.65625	3	1.824809	2	Moderate reasoning	Travel
Special Features Producer BBC Radio Cumbria The mine at Moorbank had shafts up to 600ft deep This is the biggest object we are featuring in our History of the World season. The mine cage is 6ft high and 3ft wide and carried up to ten men (the official maximum was eight!) down the Moorbank pit at the Hodbarrow mines. Iron ore mining started around 1850 and it was the biggest Haematite deposit on the Furness peninsula. In the first 50 years the Hodbarrow mines at Millom produced 13 million tonnes of iron ore. The dust from the mining would colour the men red Ian Tyler from the Keswick Mining Museum has written many books about mining in Cumbria. He says the Hodbarrow mines created thousands of jobs directly or indirectly. The ready supply of ore also fuelled the West Cumbrian and Furness iron, steel and shipbuilding industries. There were 20 different shafts at the mines and Moorbank was the deepest at nearly 600ft (182.8m). The cage was used in Moorbank from the 1920s until the mine shut in 1968. Roland Woodward from Millom Folk Museum says the cage was probably built in Cornwall and when the mines shut it initially went to the Abbot Hall Museum in Kendal. But when the Folk Museum opened in the 1970s the cage was brought back to the town. Frank Irving worked in the Moorbank pit for around 12 years and rode in the cage every day. The first time he went down in the cage he was 16 and the older miners put him in the middle of all of them to make the ride through the blackness slightly less daunting. The cage was also used to transport bogies of iron ore to the surface. It would take two or three minutes to get to the bottom of the shaft Frank says it took two to three minutes to get to the bottom of the shaft and the cage went down at a steady speed. He says it did not go as fast as to "leave your brains at the top". The men couldn't stand upright in the cage when they were wearing their helmets and the men used to joke that it was the management's way of making them bow to the bosses. He also remembers when there was a power cut and the cage stopped 40 feet from the top of the shaft at the end of their shift. It was hard dirty work and the miners have since become known as the Red Men by some because of the colour of the iron ore which coated everything including the machinery and the miners. Roland Woodward sees the cage as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, of the growth of Millom as the mining boomed and the end of an era when the mines closed. Rich mining heritage The miners were working further and further out under the Duddon Estuary to extract the iron ore and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep water out of the mines. Frank Irving left just before the mines closed and says they will never see its like again. Ian Tyler says it is vital that objects like the cage should be preserved because it reminds people about the county's rich mining heritage. Frank Irving is also pleased the cage was kept and thinks it is in such good condition even now that he would still ride on it if it was still in service. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.	<urn:uuid:76597f13-31de-4b66-a11b-90e7032d14d4>	CC-MAIN-2017-17	http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cumbria/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8511000/8511193.stm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917122992.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031202-00063-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.978749	752	2.953125	3	2.411299	2	Moderate reasoning	History
Agra had actually been being stayed the capital of Mughals from an extremely starting, or state like this from really Babur. The innovation of the Agra Fort is popular as the Red Fort of Agra, was constructed by excellent Mughal Emperor Akbar within 1665. It took all around 6 years to skilled this powerful red sandstone colossal to get utilized with a mind of the military battalion during that time. Jahangir custom-built some insignificant building work at his reign duration and Shan Jahan, a boy of Jehangir has actually been the best of building and architecture inside the Mughal genetic make-up started to make use of Agra Fort as his court and palace and got it done numerous decorations in it. 1. Taj Mahal Royalty Palace remarkable Seven Wonders based on the World, the Taj Mahal found in Agra in India developed by Shah Jahan, personification of magnificence and love. It is more exceptional than other production of all Mughal architecture. Its pristine and massive charm excites you to the man of your love. This permanent palace was developed by The Mughal King Shah Jahan in the recall of his very much adored spouse, Mumtaz Mahal. Taj Mahal made 22 years, 2200 labours using 1000 elephants used in consummating. 2. Red Fort Shah Jahan acquired the Red Fort Built likewise right after the Mughal Principal city Delhi from Agra. It is understood as Qila-e-Mubarak in the future became well known as Lal Qilla as a choice Delhi Fort. Its production began in 1638 and achieved in 1648, and it discovered the level of UNESCO World Heritage Site within 2007. The remarkable and marvellous structural construction of the Red Fort is fantastic integrate with Persian, Indian and also European art summary and is among the most attractive monuments of Delhi. 3. Qutub Minar The Qutub Minar, the greatest brick constructed tower worldwide found in Mehrauli inside South Delhi. Its title was kept right after its creator Qutubuddin Aibak, who established its production. His successor and son in reduced, Iltutmish, consummated it in the future. Inspired with the pillar of Jam in Afghanistan, it was reached include 1193 ad. It is among the most exceptional memorial buildings of the Indo Islamic Architecture of the Mughal Era.	<urn:uuid:9bc185d6-d1ba-470b-b9e8-aaf8c2cc2933>	CC-MAIN-2013-20	http://tncranefestival.com/top-3-attractions-of-north-india.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701409268/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105009-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.968915	500	2.796875	3	2.059222	2	Moderate reasoning	History
Shale rock promises to be a rich source of oil and gas for the world’s growing economies. The extraction of oil and gas from this material requires special techniques that use complex equipment and deep knowledge of these extraordinary rock formations. A number of areas in the state of Texas hold shale rock, and these are expected to yield significant amounts of oil and gas in the future: Eagle Ford Formation The Eagle Ford Formation covers a significant area in south Texas. It contains material with a higher carbon percentage in a more brittle environment that makes it easier to extract. The formation is about 50 miles wide and 400 miles long, running from the border with Mexico to East Texas, and yielding both oil and gas within its borders. In 2013, there were 2,521 oil leases issued for the area and 2,418 producing gas wells. The Barnett formation is located in central Texas, much of it under the city of Fort Worth. It is an area of “tight” shale formation, which makes it more difficult to extract. Its location relative to urban areas adds even more complexity to the problems of extraction of its abundant gas reserves. However, horizontal drilling is offering new opportunities for extraction in this area of the state. The Barnett formation is believed to hold some of the largest producible reserves of natural gas of any onshore field in the country. Permian Basin Formations In West Texas, the Permian Basin has provided oil since 1925. Today, new extraction technologies are making this one of the most productive regions in the state. Six different formations are located within the Permian Basin, including the Wolfcamp, Spraberry, Glorieta, Bone Springs and Delaware deposits. Three of these, Spraberry, Bone Springs and Wolfcamp are responsible for three-quarters of the increase in oil production in this area. The Cline formation is another area of the Permian Basin are that is attracting attention in recent years as more exploration and drilling has commenced here. The Permian Basin covers an area 250 miles wide and 300 miles long and is expected to continue to yield significant amounts of oil and gas from shale in future years. East Texas is the site of another rich formation of shale gas. The Haynesville-Bossier Formation is a mudstone deposit that contains limestone, shale and sandstone, along with marine and coastal plain organic materials that make it conducive for the creation of natural gas. The area covers 9,000 square miles of area, parts of which are in Louisiana. It wasn’t until 2008 that new advances in extraction technology allowed the natural gas in this area to be recovered in an economically feasible manner. Today, it is considered one of the most promising areas in the country for natural gas extraction. Future of Shale The energy opportunities in Texas drive a huge sector of the economy, benefitting both major drilling companies and for private citizens who own mineral rights under their land. Many Texas residents that live within the bounds of these shale formations have made healthy sums monetizing their mineral rights by either leasing their rights to oil & gas companies in return for royalty payments, or selling their mineral rights for a lump sum payment. There are many major mineral rights buyers in Texas offering top dollar to those looking to sell. With the abundance of promising oil and gas reserves in the state, Texas is poised to lead the way toward tomorrow’s energy production. The state’s natural resources will continue to provide jobs and economic development for its residents.	<urn:uuid:9727f49d-68cb-40b4-a47f-37986fee9d65>	CC-MAIN-2022-21	https://www.stanmcdaniel.com/overview-of-major-shale-areas-in-texas/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662545875.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220522160113-20220522190113-00039.warc.gz	en	0.947348	724	2.90625	3	2.565013	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
New technologies that have sprung up over the years have been adopted by educationists in a drive to improve the quality of education. Google glass integrated with augmented reality is one technology that also has potential in the education sector. Though the technology is still in the development stage, it is already making inroads into the medical sector, architecture and even in the movie industry. At present, Glass users can have the augmented reality experience on the Layar platform but Google’s augmented reality glass is still not available for the general public. Despite this, educators have started thinking about how they can use Google’s augmented reality glass in classrooms and how this can advance education. At the moment, teachers face a great challenge in describing complex concepts in a way all students can understand. This is especially true when a teacher is trying to explain such things as how a particular machine works or describe animal anatomy. Currently, the only teaching aids teachers can use are white or black chalk walls, videos, 2D charts and 3D models. 3D models are very effective but it is difficult to have models of every animal or building in the world in a single institution. Additionally, teachers simply do not have enough time or resources to take students to museums every day. Using Google Glass augmented reality in classrooms could turn out to be more economical and effective than 3D models or museums. Augmented reality is a fun way of learning new things because it can turn a student’s immediate environment into a magical world. When it is combined with a more immersive future Google glass design, an astronomy class could easily turn into a trip into space. Each student will still be able to see the teacher and the other students in the classroom, so teacher instructions will not be affected. A good example of immersive technologies is the Oculus Rift.The Oculus Rift is quickly becoming popular with gamers because it puts the gamer into the game. Google could adopt a similar concept for its augmented reality glass. Students wearing this immersive technology could possibly pay more attention during lessons and as a result be able to retain more of what is being taught by the teacher. Consequently, instances where students check their phones or read novels under their desks could lessen significantly. Glass integrated with augmented reality could also change how teachers interact with students. Teachers could walk into classrooms and immediately be able to tell which student is absent and monitor each student’s grade in a particular subject. In fact, last year, a group of scientists in Spain created a software system for augmented reality glasses that will help professors to see whether students understand class material. Professors wearing these augmented reality glasses see symbols above the students’ heads, which helps enhance communication between students and professors. The scientists named the proposed system Augmented Lecture Feedback System (ALFS). If Google acquires the ALFS system for Glass, it will be a major milestone for teacher-student class interaction. For now, Google Glass is still very expensive and only wealthy institutions of learning can afford to buy them for students. In addition, most marketing campaigns for Glass integrated with augmented reality seem to push the technology only for general use. Although the potential school uses are exciting, teachers will have to wait a little longer for a well-developed Google Glass augmented reality in classrooms. By Michael Obunga	<urn:uuid:2dccfc3f-9216-4368-b89a-4a7ea1baadeb>	CC-MAIN-2017-30	http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/google-glass-augmented-reality-in-classrooms/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500550967030.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170728123647-20170728143647-00203.warc.gz	en	0.959119	661	3.515625	4	2.907964	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
From Congress to The Colbert Report, people are talking about the Midwestern drought and debating whether it makes sense to convert the country's shrinking corn supplies into ethanol to power our cars. It's the latest installment of the long-running food vs. fuel battle. But wouldn't it be lovely if somebody came up with a biofuel that didn't take food out of people's mouths? A few years ago, some people thought they'd found it: A miracle tree called Jatropha. Unfortunately, the miracle turned out to be a mirage. Jatropha does not, at first glance, seem all that enticing. It's a big bush that can grow into a small tree. Its leaves are poisonous. So are its little football-shaped fruit pods. But inside those pods are several black seeds, each one about twice the size of a coffee bean. Crush those seeds, and you get oil. The oil is good for making soap, burning in lamps — or converting into diesel fuel. Ywe Jan Franken, an expert on biofuels for the FACT Foundation, a research group in the Netherlands, says this plant grows all over the tropics, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, India and Latin America. (It originated in Central America, and Europeans spread it to their various colonies several centuries ago.) It's an extremely hardy plant, and grows in places where most plants would die. "If you grow it on sandy soil, with not too many nutrients, and with dry periods, the plant miraculously survives," says Franken. This is what really caught people's attention about a decade ago. At that time, oil prices were soaring. People were getting increasingly worried about global warming. And some governments came to the conclusion that part of the answer could be biofuels, such as corn or palm oil. These biological fuel factories take carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow, which reduces the planet's burden of greenhouse gases. As soon as they started to scale up biofuel production, however, they ran into the food v. fuel problem. More fertile land for biofuels means less food or forests. At that point, a few experts recalled the virtues of Jatropha. If this bush could thrive on unused land, barren land, they thought, the world could enjoy biofuel without the guilt of cutting into food production. The Jatropha Boom, Then Bust Investors loved the idea. Around 2007 and 2008, they threw money at Jatropha projects, including huge plantations covering tens of thousands of acres, all over the tropics. Mozambique, in southern Africa, was among the most active new centers of Jatropha cultivation. The country's president himself went from village to village, telling people to plant Jatropha trees. Home-grown fuel, he said, could turn life around for small villages. Belchion Lucas, a former reporter for Radio Mozambique, says that the president "used to say that they can even produce oil at home, without a factory." Within just a few years, though, the dream of the perfect biofuel collapsed. This was partly due to the financial crisis. When it hit, late in 2008, the easy money dried up. Foreign investors pulled out of some projects, leaving them in limbo. But there was a bigger problem. The miracle plant turned out not to be so miraculous, after all. Ywe Jan Franken, from FACT Foundation, says much of the enthusiasm about Jatropha was based on a misunderstanding. It's true, he says, that the tree can survive droughts, and poor soil. But under those conditions, it won't produce many seeds. If you actually want a good harvest of oil, he says, the plant "needs nutrients and water, just like any other crop." (Here is FACT Foundation's full technical assessment of Jatropha.) This means that Jatropha fields will compete for the same fertile land as food crops. Welcome back, food vs. fuel. Many of the companies that jumped into the Jatropha business have now climbed back out again; others are cutting back their operations. Franken says the collapse of the Jatropha boom is disappointing for everyone, but it's most disappointing for the small farmers who bought into the dream. Some of the projects, he says, "promised the farmers high returns, as has been done so many times with new ideas, or crops. And in this case, they thought, 'Wow, we can make some money here, because there is such high demand for biofuels.' And they actually lost money, because they could have done something else." The Future Of The Biofuel But Franken also believes that the Jatropha story isn't quite finished. Two things are happening. In some African villages, there's now some low-tech, small-scale production of Jatropha oil. Farmers can grow the trees as hedges or on poor land, and it costs them very little time or money. Meanwhile, on the high-tech side, scientists are studying this tree for the first time. They're selecting plants that produce more seeds, breeding high-yielding varieties, turning it from a semi-wild plant into a real crop. Perhaps, after many years of such breeding, it will become as productive as corn or palm trees. Yet it still will do best on fertile land, with plenty of water, just like every other crop, whether for food or biofuel.	<urn:uuid:ace1faf4-57b5-4b27-b39a-35748fce961c>	CC-MAIN-2013-48	http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/159391553/how-a-biofuel-dream-called-jatropha-came-crashing-down	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164069141/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133429-00014-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.968428	1,136	2.90625	3	2.972391	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Most of us folks from Labrador are familiar with Labrador Tea. Anyone among us who have spent any time in the country at all, knows what it looks like and agree that it is found in abundance throughout many of the areas that we find ourselves in. Labrador Tea is named after the swamps of Greenland and Labrador where it grows in profusion. It is assumed that the name is probably derived from the early years of the Hudson Bay traders who sold the harvested leaves for tea. Prior to that, it is believed that Indigenous people used it regularly for medicinal purposes. Many Indigenous people picked the leaves early in the season before the plants flowered or waited until late in the summer, and then dried them and boiled the leaves for tea. During the American Revolution, the tea was one of several herbs used as a combination mix to create a pleasant tasting substitute for commercial tea. In Germany it was often added to beer recipes. It was thought it would give the beer a more potent kick. Labrador Tea has been used for generations by the Indigenous peoples of North America as well as in the northern parts of Europe where it also grows. The leaves have historically been used as heart medicine and for indigestion, and diarrhea. Other ailments such as insect bites and stings, acne, asthma, gout, and rheumatism have all been included on the list of ailments that Labrador tea has been claimed to have helped, in easing the symptoms. Another use of Labrador Tea has been to apply it to skin sores and eczema to help relieve itching symptoms. Old stories also suggest that if a strong enough batch was made, it could be used in application to the hair to kill lice. This tea is also supposed to have high content of Vitamin C and was used for severe cases of scurvy. Whether this is fact or folklore, it has certainly been used for many medicinal applications in days gone by. There is no clinical evidence to support specific dose recommendations for Labrador Tea but it is indicated that concentrated consumption should not be too high. If Labrador Tea is consumed, it is clearly indicated that it is done in small doses with weak concentrations on an intermittent basis. There is very little doubt that we are surrounded by this plant throughout a lot of Labrador. It can be found inside the green woods, out on the bogs and across the burned over areas. We are heading right into the time of the season when these plants are coming into full blossom. Whether or not there are many among us who actually use this plant in a consumptive way, it doesn’t matter at all. It is suggested however that they are a rather sensitive plant. For this reason, if in fact you are going to harvest some leaves, do so with care. Only harvest a few leaves from each plant, The tea will grow back with time, but at a very slow rate. Whether you are some of the few who do harvest a bit of Labrador Tea or are like most folks who don’t, there is little doubt of the beauty of the sea of snow white blossoms we see across the land during this time of year. This is another one of the spectacles of Labrador’s raw and untamed beauty that we ought not to miss.	<urn:uuid:8c9206e7-ae23-416c-af9d-fb72deb20fb4>	CC-MAIN-2018-43	http://www.nexteraselling.com/a09/opinion/columnists/labrador-tea-so-many-uses-231329/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583508988.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20181015080248-20181015101748-00167.warc.gz	en	0.977051	668	3.203125	3	2.564557	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Today’s heated debates about natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale often boil down to a single issue: the environmental impact from fracking. But a troubling aspect of the divide over shale gas production is that its dramatic effect on reducing America’s carbon footprint is one that few people can discern. To be sure, there are many reasons to favor horizontal drilling and fracking — thanks to this great technological innovation, natural gas production in the United States has increased as much as 27 percent since 2007 and the United States has eclipsed Russia as the world’s No. 1 gas producer. The shale revolution has contributed greatly to America’s energy supply, produced a lot of revenue and jobs in Pennsylvania and other states, spurred a comeback in manufacturing, provided clean-burning fuel for transportation and bolstered our nation geopolitically. But don’t lose sight of its environmental benefits, which in less than a decade have been game-changing. The shale revolution is generating real-world consequences in the battle against climate change. For anyone concerned about the release of heat-trapping greenhouse emissions that are warming the planet, the switch from coal to natural gas is already producing a host of good effects. Here in Pennsylvania, coal accounts for 39 percent of the state’s electricity use, down from 48 percent in 2005, while the use of natural gas for power production has increased from 14 percent to 24 percent and is rising. Over the past decade, a reduction in airborne emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury and other particulates from coal burning has improved air quality, with beneficial results for public health, especially the elderly and people with asthma and lung ailments. Nationally, the switch from coal to natural gas is the principal reason carbon dioxide emissions have dropped to 1990s levels, according to the International Energy Agency. Indeed, the United States has taken the lead globally in cutting carbon emissions. Credit for this goes to the increased use of natural gas in power production. How so? For each unit of energy produced, a megawatt-hour of natural gas-fired generation produces less than half the amount of carbon dioxide emissions as coal-fired generation. Those who question whether the expanded use of gas for power production in the United States is sustainable, given the multiple demands on its use, should consider that natural gas resources in the United States are virtually inexhaustible. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the United States has more than 100 years’ worth of natural gas. What’s more, geologists have only scratched the surface of potential shale resources. Most of the gas is still trapped in shale after initial fracking, and engineers are trying to come up with a practical and cost-effective way to reach it. If replicated in other countries with sizable shale resources, fracking could stimulate a global shift from coal to gas. By making such technology available to countries like China, Australia and Argentina, which have sizable shale formations, further reductions in the world’s carbon emissions would become possible. The Obama administration could be doing a lot more to show that it recognizes the crucial role of natural gas in carbon mitigation. While energy production on private and state lands has increased in recent years, it has declined on federal land. Particularly in western states like Nevada and Utah where much of the land is owned by the federal government, restrictive permitting policies for energy development are holding back natural gas production. This practice runs counter to the administration’s claim that it is serious about combating climate change. We need action at all levels of government to ensure that the percentage of low-carbon power generation is growing sufficiently to stave off the worst effects of climate change. Encouraging the production of natural gas — and its export for use in other countries — is probably the single most effective way to do that. John J. Interval is an independent petroleum geologist who consults with companies producing gas from the Marcellus Shale ([email protected]). He lives in Bridgeville.	<urn:uuid:6fcb4ad8-f316-4d16-9252-dac9c2970251>	CC-MAIN-2016-40	http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2014/08/17/Fight-climate-change-with-natural-gas/stories/201408170058	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738659753.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173739-00180-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.943185	818	3.53125	4	2.958356	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
“A NASA CubeSat will launch into low-Earth orbit to demonstrate a new type of propulsion system. Carrying a pint of liquid water as fuel, the system will split the water into hydrogen and oxygen in space and burn them in a tiny rocket engine for thrust. NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator, or PTD, series of missions demonstrates novel CubeSat technologies in low-Earth orbit, providing significant enhancements to the performance of these small and effective spacecraft. The first mission of the series, PTD-1, is slated to launch this month aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-1 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. In another project, NASA is also sending a swarm of three CubeSats, known as V-R3x, to demonstrate autonomous radio networking and navigation. “We have a driving need for small spacecraft propulsion systems,” said David Mayer, PTD-1 project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “The need is for many reasons: to reach a destination, maintain orbit, maneuver around other objects in space, or hasten de-orbit, helping spacecraft at end-of-life, to be good stewards of an increasingly cluttered space environment.” This addresses a major concern, as spacecraft can become orbital debris at the end of their missions. The longer defunct spacecraft stay in orbit, the greater chance of spacecraft-to-spacecraft collision, creating more debris. Water as Fuel The choice of fuel used in spacecraft propulsion systems can come with serious safety precautions. Traditional, high-performance fuels pose risks, including toxicity, flammability, and volatility. The use of such rocket fuels for in-space propulsion systems require extensive safety measures, and this drives up mission cost. “To make these propulsion systems feasible for CubeSats, good propulsive performance needs to be balanced by safety,” said Mayer. “PTD-1 will meet this need with the first demonstration of a water-based electrolysis spacecraft propulsion system in space.” PTD-1’s propulsion system will produce gas propellants – a mix of hydrogen and oxygen – from water, only when activated in orbit. The system applies an electric current through water to chemically separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gases, in a process called electrolysis. The CubeSat’s solar arrays harness energy from the Sun to supply the electric power needed to operate the miniature electrolysis system. These gases are more energetic fuels than water; burning hydrogen and oxygen gas in a rocket nozzle generates more thrust than using “unsplit” liquid water as propellant. This strikes a better balance between performance and safety for spacecraft propulsion, meaning CubeSats will get more bang for the buck. “What’s new is that this system uses water as the fuel in an energetic way, with an inherently safe system,” said Mayer. “This mission will show that we can use water electrolysis in a rocket engine in space – that’s pretty cool.” Water is an inexpensive “green” resource for propulsion, non-toxic and stable. Green propellants like water are easier to handle, cheaper to obtain, and safer to integrate into spacecraft. “We are disallowed from using high-performance propulsion systems in CubeSats because of the nature of how we launch these missions, namely by being attached to other spacecraft,” said Mayer. Most CubeSats and other small spacecraft launch to space as secondary payloads, often riding to space alongside larger and more expensive payloads. The use of traditional “high-performance” rocket fuels for CubeSat propulsion systems are avoided because the onboard presence of such fuels would increase mission risk to other payloads and the launch vehicle. The inability to use these fuels limits performance for small spacecraft propulsion systems. “Water is the safest rocket fuel I know of,” said Mayer. A Low-Cost, Effective Propulsion System The PTD-1 spacecraft is a 6-unit CubeSat, comparable in size to a shoebox. Its flight demonstration, lasting four to six months, will verify propulsion performance through programmed changes in spacecraft velocity and altitude executed by the water-fueled thrusters. The mission will show that this safe, low-cost, high-performance propulsion system works in space and will pave the way for operational small spacecraft missions. Flight qualification and demonstration of this technology increases small spacecraft mobility and capability for use in future science and exploration missions. This technology could be applied in future deep-space missions using water resources found off Earth such as from comets or the Moon and Mars. The propulsion system, named Hydros, was developed by Tethers Unlimited, Inc., in Bothell, Washington. This technology was initially developed under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract and then matured under a NASA Tipping Point partnership. The PTD spacecraft bus was developed by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., in Irvine, California. Tyvak is also performing payload integration and operations for the PTD-1 mission. Spaceflight Inc. of Seattle is providing integration and rideshare services for the PTD-1 spacecraft. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley manages the PTD series. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland collaborates as the payload lead on the PTD-1 mission. The mission launches as part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites 35, provided by the CubeSat Launch Initiative, which is managed by NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. The PTD mission is managed and funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within the NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.”	<urn:uuid:4fac1720-d814-4418-916f-a28c33c2d0bf>	CC-MAIN-2022-21	https://jpralves.net/post/2021/01/28/nasa-cubesat-to-demonstrate-water-fueled-moves-in-space.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662521883.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220518083841-20220518113841-00794.warc.gz	en	0.925451	1,200	3.71875	4	2.70402	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
A ROBOT submarine with a mind of its own could transform the dark and tricky world of inspecting pipelines and communications cables on the ocean floor. This novel addition to the latest generation of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is under development by an equally novel collaboration between Danish and Norwegian submarine makers and Swedish data specialists. Its makers promise a prototype will be ready next year. Mathematician Jan Holst and his team from Lund University in Sweden are adding new data-interpretation software to existing unmanned underwater vehicles that will allow an onboard computer to take decisions about which part of the pipeline or cables to inspect more closely. “It’s a completely new thing,” says project leader Anders Bjerrum, a Danish AUV consultant. The Nordic Joint Offshore Robot Development (NJORD) project is a collaboration between two manufacturers of AUVs – one Danish and one Norwegian – and the Lund researchers. The advantages of pooling resources this way are clear: access to more expertise and better investment. “By joining forces, we get results faster. We wouldn’t be able to do this in Denmark alone,” says Bjerrum. This kind of cross-border collaboration is becoming increasingly common in the Nordic region. In a world of big players, it’s tough being small. And although the Scandinavian trio of Denmark, Sweden and Norway plus Finland and Iceland cover a substantial area, they are relative minnows in terms of population and economy. Even Sweden with by far the largest population of the Nordic nations (nearly 9 million) is small compared to Germany’s 83 million, or the US’s 278 million. And when it comes to economic clout, the Nordic countries have a combined GDP equivalent to some €540 billion in 2003, one-third of Germany’s GDP, and around 1/15th that of the US. So it makes good sense either to work together for that crucial critical mass and the infrastructure needed to make big scientific breakthroughs – or to forge partnerships with other groups within Europe and beyond. “If you compare the rankings of US and European universities in terms of papers, you normally find that US universities come higher up. They are larger and have bigger research budgets,” says Hans Wigzell of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “But if you look at isolated topics, you find there is excellent science going on in Europe.” Linking scientists is fundamental, he says: “It’s like linking up a series of Macs and getting a supercomputer.” Though they are neighbours, each of the Nordic countries has its own approach to science. Sweden has a long history of excellence in medicine, while Norwegian research is focused more on the marine environment and geoscience, and in Denmark biology and agriculture take priority. Thanks to Nokia, Finland now punches far above its weight in telecoms, while Iceland is big in geoscience and genetics. The Swedish government is the world’s most generous investor in research, devoting 4.3 per cent of its GDP to R&D in 2001, according to the most recent OECD figures. Finland was in second place (3.4 per cent), with Denmark (2.2 per cent) and Norway (1.6 per cent) lagging well behind. Overall, the Nordic countries have an enviable record for the impact of their research, and all but Norway are in the world’s top 20 as ranked by the impact of their papers according to the Institute of Scientific Information indexes. But increasingly the European Union is the driving force behind research programmes, not national governments. The successful projects in the sixth round of the EU’s giant Framework research programme will be announced over the coming months as the contracts are signed. Nordic countries are participating in around one-fifth of the projects. Suzanne Dickson of Gothenburg University, for example, will lead the €14 million project called Diabesity, which will find new drug targets for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Another Swedish researcher, Birgitta Normark, will coordinate the Previs project investigating the causes of antibiotic resistance. Even Norway, though not a member of the EU, is involved. “We have chosen to opt in to Framework 6,” says Kim Davis of Research Council Norway. “We wanted to be part of the European research community, without necessarily joining the EU.” On top of involvement in the EU, the Nordic group is looking out for its own interests. The potential submarine star, NJORD, for example, is part-funded by the Oslo-based Nordic Innovation Centre, set up by the Nordic Council of Ministers to boost innovation and applied research across the group. Another Oslo-based organisation, the Nordic Academy for Advanced Study, distributes 37 million Norwegian kroner annually (€4.3 million) for projects such as Nordic Marine Academy for research into marine ecosystems. And the Nordic nations have even clubbed together to fund the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands, to investigate phenomena such as quasars and gamma-ray burst sources. For these efforts bear fruit, there is obviously a big need to attract and retain top people. “Excellent scientists are an essential component,” Wigzell says. “If you don’t fight for these people, your university will die.” And while the resources available in the Nordic nations may not match those in the US, “you can show the researchers that you really want to support them”, Wigzell says. A case in point is the neural stem cell expert Jonas Frisen of the Karolinska. In 2000, when Frisen was tempted by an offer from the US, Sweden’s research organisations pulled out all the stops to keep him in Stockholm. The Tobias Foundation, founded by Swedish businessman Marcus Storch in memory of his son who died of leukaemia, funded a professorship at the Karolinska and the running costs of Frisen’s lab. But Frisen says that money was not the deciding factor in his decision to stay in Sweden. “There was much more cash to go to the US, so money was definitely not the reason I stayed.” Sweden is a good place to do science, Frisen says and the country’s recent enthusiasm for the commercialisation of research was part of the attraction. In 1998 Frisen and his colleague Ann Marie Janson founded the company NeuroNova to exploit the regenerative potential of stem cells to find new ways to treat disorders of the central nervous system. Attracting researchers to the region from abroad is an even tougher challenge (New Scientist, 21 June 2003, p 58), possibly because the region seems remote to outsiders. But international collaborations could help change this. “Once you develop good relationships, this leads to others being interested. It’s a snowball effect,” says Kjell Hauge of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in Oslo, a centre of excellence for engineering geology. The NGI boasts more nationalities among its staff than most Nordic organisations. Its managing director, Suzanne Lacasse, who was previously head of the geotechnical laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is French Canadian. And the director of the NGI’s International Centre of Geohazards is Farrokh Nadim, originally from Iran. Looking to the future, the Nordic countries might find some distinct advantages in their location as the EU expands to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – just across the Baltic Sea from Sweden. Research projects linking scientists from the new member countries are already under way. The Bonus project to help clean up pollution in the Baltic is one of the big examples, co-funded to the tune of €3 million by the EU. This may be local science but it’s not small science. As the Nordic countries have proved, if a small country wants to be an international player in science then it pays to collaborate. The finnish line Half a century ago, Finland was a largely rural economy, and the majority of Finns worked on the land. Now that figure is around 5 per cent, and Finland is a textbook model of an advanced industrial economy. “In the late 1960s, the level of technology was not high, with investment in R&D well below the OECD average,” says Pekka Pellinen, director of the Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers. The critical time was the 1980s, when the government began investing in science with the aim of promoting research in high-tech fields and creating a knowledge-based society. “Gradually Finland overtook, country by country, and now about 3.5 per cent of our GDP is spent on R&D,” says Pellinen. This boost to R&D was crucial, and set the scene for the subsequent high-tech boom epitomised by the growth Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia. “We created a knowledge base in the public sector and so made it possible for the private sector to capitalise in the late 1980s, particularly in the technology sector,” says Pellinen. Now Finland is pinning its hopes on biotechnology. The country’s biotech industry ranks sixth in Europe, with around 100 companies. Most, however, are small and young. Two Turku-based companies – Hormos Medical, specialising in hormone-based therapies, and BioTie Therapies, which focuses on anti-addiction treatments – are among the brightest stars. But even they are some years away from bringing a product to market. The scientific standards and the level of government support are high, says Saara Hassinen of Finnish Bioindustries, the country’s biotechnology industry association. But for Hassinen a vital ingredient is missing: venture capital. Finland does not have a well-developed investment community, so the country’s biotechs need to attract investors from abroad.	<urn:uuid:b37b3f2b-c78e-4455-bfbf-b9d0d0d82f8f>	CC-MAIN-2020-05	https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18124405-900-getting-it-together/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250594603.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20200119122744-20200119150744-00496.warc.gz	en	0.947898	2,070	2.78125	3	2.944313	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
To truly understand something, you have to teach it... Programming languages have comments — a way for the programmer to leave notes for humans in the code. Comments are invisible to the computer, and don't do anything. Except make your code not suck. Comments are enclosed by codes that are different for each programming language. In our course, we will be using four kinds of comments: <!-- HTML lets us put multi-line comments inside these... --> Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): /* CSS lets us put multiline comments inside the slash-star / several lines with slash-star, too. / The main point of comments is to help explain and structure your code so that it helps you stay organized. It also helps you communicate clearly to any human who may have read your code, including your co-workers, your employer, and even yourself, after enough time has passed. It is considered unprofessional to create uncommented code. Think of comments as your way to teach others what is going on in your code. Treat the reader like they are a beginning programmer. Use comments to... - Explain what your code is doing - Explain what your data structures contain - Record when you modified your work (help justify your paycheque) - Give examples of how your code could be used - Keep a todo list - Keep a list of feature ideas - Keep a list of bugs to fix - Keep a list of questions to ask your teacher An example of the four kinds of comments - Khan Academy on HTML comments	<urn:uuid:5fb3608f-7e2c-4a8f-9f27-7fdb122abda9>	CC-MAIN-2022-27	https://drapak.ca/cpg/styleComments.shtml	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103671290.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20220630092604-20220630122604-00262.warc.gz	en	0.887307	616	4.21875	4	1.815628	2	Moderate reasoning	Software Dev.
Households receiving help with orphan care This indicator attempts to measure the coverage of orphan support programmes. Orphans are defined as children under 15 who have lost one or both of their parents. Orphan support is one of the areas of care and support that has received the most attention. It represents a real and growing need. It is relatively uncontroversial and is widely supported by both communities and donors. Besides reducing the difficulties faced by children who have lost their parents, good orphan support systems can play an important role in HIV prevention. This is because orphans who do not receive support are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, to live an unstable life, to be subject to sexual abuse and vulnerable to high-risk survival strategies. Orphan support programmes may take the form of regular visiting of orphans and their caregivers in the household, provision of psychological support, help with clothing or school fees or income generating activities. While such efforts are being expanded in badly affected countries, they are rarely able to keep up with the growing need. Number of households receiving free help in caring for orphans within the last 12 months from sources excluding family or neighbours Total number of households currently caring for orphans. Respondents in the household schedule portion of a population-based survey are asked whether their household is currently caring for any children under the age of 15 whose mother, father or both parents have died. If so, they are asked whether they received any help within the last 12 months in caring for that child from outside the household. Those that received help are asked for the source of the help, and read a list of potential sources, including family members, church groups, village health care workers, social services extension workers, etc. For each source they are asked whether they paid for the help. Geographic location: N/A Pregnancy status: N/A Time period: N/A The greatest limitation of this indicator is its inability to distinguish whether needs are being met. Not all households caring for orphans need help. The needs of households with multiple orphans may be greater than those with a single orphan, but this will not be captured in this measure. Unfortunately, needs assessment is beyond the scope of a regular populationbased survey. Experience shows that response rates are very high when people are asked whether they need extra support, though more qualitative work distinguishes large differences in actual coping capacity of households that say they would like extra help. Although it gives a picture of overall coverage or orphan support programmes, this indicator does not measure the extent to which support is reaching the neediest. Orphans are a very mobile population. Those most in need of care may be in child-headed households that do not even qualify for inclusion in a household survey. Street children and others who live outside regular households will also be missed; in some urban areas these children may make up a substantial fraction of orphans in greatest need of care. By using a measure based on children currently in care, the measure will also miss households who have recently passed on orphans to other homes (perhaps precisely because the received no help with care). Using a measure based on orphan residence in house holds in the previous 12 months would, however, lead to problems of double counting and other measurement difficulties.	<urn:uuid:5b10ee9e-4d81-49f8-89a8-1cc3731622bd>	CC-MAIN-2020-24	https://indicatorregistry.unaids.org/indicator/households-receiving-help-orphan-care	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347394074.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20200527110649-20200527140649-00449.warc.gz	en	0.976419	655	3.484375	3	3.028375	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Anyone who has ever tried to install a modem or configure an Internet connection has almost certainly wondered if there’s any traffic flowing back and forth from networks. Observing network traffic that is generated by a PC or Mac is pretty easy with wireshark. When doing so, you’ll not only see traffic caused by the operating system, but also from any program running on it, which is probably the result of your personal preferences or interaction with them; such as an email client checking for new messages, or instant messaging sending keep alive requests to a server. Separating host from human, from within a single PC environment requires some preparation, but is still fairly easy using a virtual machine. The following post will go quite deep into the internals of IP-networks examining network traffic with tcpdump/wireshark from within a virtual machine, a guest OS, and make both guest and host almost invisible to the network. First things first But before doing or connecting anything; Let me be clear on intent and goal. Depending on the network you are connected to and how you are connecting to it, the analysis of network traffic as described in this article can potentially expose or even present data or information that was not intended for you. Be advised to only analyze network traffic of networks that you have a reason to connect to. To put another way: Do not analyze traffic from networks that you have no reason to connect to in the first place. Further: Do not store any data that you retrieved from any network that you do not own – I’m referring to the data here(!), and get rid of temporary data afterwards. It is not the goal to eavesdrop on other users of the network, but only to learn how the network works and how it could be improved. The “debugging” that is done in this article will be “read-only” and I’ll try to not leak any data of my own system, so some first things first: To look at traffic without interfering with it, there are some precautions that need to be taken before connecting to any network. So after installing virtualization software on the host OS and having installed a guest OS using that, don’t connect to any network yet! A “clean” way of doing that is to physically detach any network cable and disabling any wireless interface and reboot the host computer. Once the host has booted, empty its network settings so you know for sure that you won’t interfere with anything on the wire later on. That means disabling DHCP and not specifying an IP-address. Disable IPv6 too. On the host, you will need to use a bridged interface for the guest OS. Depending on your host OS, this may look like this: I’m using Kali (Debianistic linux flavor) as guest OS; It has all the tools I need installed and comes with a nice desktop environment. The network interface for the guest OS to the outside world is interface #4, which should also be configured as a bridge (As shown as “Network bridge adapter” in the picture below). In Kali, this will be eth3. So before allowing it to full access to the network, clear the default configuration just the same so you know for sure nothing will interact with the network that is being analyzed. Once the guest OS has booted, use a “normal” account to login to your operating system and use root only when you have too. I assume you have a normal account so you now can become root: myself@kali:~$ sudo su - Password: root@kali:~# Check and disable IPv6: root@kali:~# sysctl -a \| grep -i ipv6 \| grep -i disable net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.eth0.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.eth1.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.eth2.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.eth3.disable_ipv6 = 0 net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 0 root@kali:~# sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1 net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1 root@kali:~# ip addr show dev eth3 5: eth3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether 08:00:27:6e:0d:63 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff Ok, no sign of IPv6. Now make sure nothing automagically would happen that could interfere; This means disabling the auto-pilots: root@kali:~# service --status-all 2>&1 \| grep -i network [ + ] network-manager [ + ] networking root@kali:~# service network-manager stop root@kali:~# service networking stop …That last one can be tricky as it will bring every interface down. No problem, there’s no connection anyway. One last thing; kill nameresolving completely: root@kali:~# cat /etc/resolv.conf > /etc/resolv.conf.OLD && > /etc/resolv.conf; cat /etc/resolv.conf There! This copies the existing /etc/resolv.conf in /etc/resolv.conf.OLD and empties the original only if that succedeed. You should not see any output from ‘cat /etc/resolv.conf’. As I don’t want to do this time and time again, I wrote a small shell script around this here. If you place this on a filesystem make sure the guest OS can access it, and set the execution-bit (chmod +x). If you named it ‘nics.sh’, you should be able to start it with ./nics.sh -v [start\|stop]. Please note that the script is yet another hack, and may hang waiting for services to stop or start. Start observing network packets Ok! That should do it! Both guest and host should now be “invisible” on layer 3 and up, and not speak unless spoken to on layer 2. Plug in the ethernet cable, bring the interface ‘up’ (ifconfig eth3 up) and let’s see how deep this rabbit hole is… Start wireshark or tcpdump and see what’s on the wire! root@kali:~# tcpdump -lni eth3 tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth3, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes 13:35:28.387890 IP 192.168.178.158.54271 > 188.8.131.52.1900: UDP, length 133 13:35:28.571590 IP 192.168.178.215.63657 > 184.108.40.206.1900: UDP, length 133 13:35:28.674157 IP 192.168.178.3.1985 > 220.127.116.11.1985: HSRPv0-hello 20: state=active group=2 addr=192.168.178.1 13:35:29.078589 IP 192.168.178.189.60559 > 18.104.22.168.5355: UDP, length 26 13:35:29.081987 IP 192.168.178.199.52700 > 22.214.171.124.1900: UDP, length 133 13:35:29.176322 IP 192.168.178.189.60559 > 126.96.36.199.5355: UDP, length 26 13:35:29.305095 IP 192.168.178.214.56575 > 255.255.255.255.1947: UDP, length 40 13:35:29.466449 STP 802.1w, Rapid STP, Flags [Learn, Forward], bridge-id c20e.00:19:0a:4d:16:82.80cd, length 42 13:35:30.010704 IP 192.168.178.149.17500 > 255.255.255.255.17500: UDP, length 191 13:35:30.013834 IP 192.168.178.224.56162 > 192.168.178.255.1947: UDP, length 40 13:35:30.014811 IP 192.168.178.149.17500 > 192.168.178.255.17500: UDP, length 191 13:35:30.015046 IP 192.168.178.149.17500 > 255.255.255.255.17500: UDP, length 191 13:35:30.015050 IP 192.168.178.149.17500 > 255.255.255.255.17500: UDP, length 191 13:35:30.020534 IP 192.168.178.2.1985 > 188.8.131.52.1985: HSRPv0-hello 20: state=standby group=2 addr=192.168.178.1 13:35:30.600418 IP 192.168.178.50.54393 > 184.108.40.206.1900: UDP, length 133 13:35:30.743610 IP 192.168.178.97.53404 > 220.127.116.11.1900: UDP, length 133 ... Whoa! That’s a lot! The output here depends on the network you’re connected to, and may vary depending on purpose and usage of that network; public, home, office or data center. But, look at the timestamps: This all happened within 2 seconds! Let’s narrow this down a bit, but first, let’s look at what we have here. Since the host – and guest OS for that matter – is connected to the network as a dead-end ethernet connection, I’m very likely to only see my own generated traffic or broadcasted traffic from hosts that are in the same network or even on the same network switch. But in this particular case, I’m connected to a network that has some network device talking HSRP. This is a router redundancy protocol and therefor very likely generated by a router (duh!) or firewall. Second, rapid spanning tree (IEEE 802.1w RSTP) is on the wire which is used to prevent ethernet loops on switches. There are more protocols flying by, most – but certainly not all – are listed in /etc/services: root@kali:~# grep 17500 /etc/services db-lsp 17500/tcp # Dropbox LanSync Protocol As you can see from 2 seconds sniffing the network, this network segment has quite some bio-diversity! Interesting destination port numbers show up here. Dropbox is active in this network and causing quite some broadcasts, which is a big hint to the presence of workstations and/or laptops. And from the HSRP protcol output, it seems there are at least 3 ip-addresses allocated to routers, one active 192.168.178.3 and one standing by at 192.168.178.2. They are sharing a virtual IP-address, .1. The trick of HSRP is, that hosts on the network use the virtual address as the address of the router and that the actual traffic is handled by just one of the routers that is in the HSRP group, making it behave as if there was just one router. Narrowing traffic output down can be done by excluding unwanted traffic, like this: root@kali:/var/tmp# tcpdump -lvni eth3 udp port 1985 <<output filtered>> If you’re not too comfortable on keyboards and command lines, with grep as a companion to plough through /etc/services, you can also use wireshark, but you’d still need to apply a filter once you’ve started to sniff the interface. This controversy appears to almost identical to tcpdump… udp.dstport == 1985 …unless you use the short form: The advantage with wireshark is that you can apply these filters without interupting the ongoing session; it filters the display, not the input from wire as with tcpdump. You can learn a lot from a network just by observing packets fly by. Getting to know the tools to do just that has been briefly touched in this article. Here, I simply hooked up to a network without any IP connectivity to it, both host and guest, and just listened for packets on the wire. As it turned out: the network I was connected to had actually quite some interesting traffic on it in those 2 seconds! Note that a computer that is connected to an ethernet switch – not hub – will not see all the network traffic, but will be limited to traffic the host (or guest) generated itself and broadcast traffic. The network I connected to is apparently “switched” and could have been configured with a little more thought and consideration to very basic network hackery as described here. Zooming in on ARP, STP and HSRP, you could potentially abuse the network here. Tools that instantly come to mind are yersinia, ettercap and dsniff. These tools have been around for a long time, but apparently weren’t considered much of a problem at the time this network went online which – if you’d ask me – is asking for trouble. But since this blog will remain “mostly harmless” I will stop right here. You may wonder: “Why go through all the trouble of sniffing the network from within a VM? You could have looked at that from the host just the same!” Yes, true. Well, there are 3 reasons behind removing the interface configuration and using a VM/guest OS instead of the host: First, regarding the network interface configuration: I don’t necessarily want to chase network traffic that I – or the OS I’m using – generated. To be very honest: In the past I’ve been staring way to long at “my own” traffic when I was actually looking for other network/IP traffic. And instead of analyzing traffic, I noticed that I started to write and debug complex filters, losing valuable time (and traffic!) by doing so. The method used in this article has the advantage that the host itself is “silenced” as it has no IP configuration, and the actual network sniffer is running in a contained environment, the guest OS. You can use filters to narrow down your search, which is especially handy if your host has just one interface and IP address. But if you have more than one NIC and multiple addresses, the chances are that you might lose interesting other traffic – unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. Filtering out or bypassing “noise” from a host that has more than one interface and IP address may make it difficult to use filters. If you’re not sure what you are looking for, it is probably easier to use plain tcpdump or dumpcap to store network traffic as a packet capture file (cap-file), and examine those files with wireshark later on. Second, using a VM: I don’t want to replace the OS of the host. A VM with many more nifty network tools is easily created and disposed of. Why install just one tool if you can have an entire toolshed inside a VM? So there’s no need to install these tools on the host. I might also change my mind about my Linux-distro-du-jour I’m using now and switch to the next best *nix. The side-effect of using a VM is that the resulting pcap files are likely stored inside the virtual environment, which may limit the chances of leaking private data if the virtual disk is stored inside a truecrypt container. Third: Imagine that the guest VM was running a popular desktop OS for normal day-to-day use, then you could observe the network just the same from the host as was done from the guest in this article. In that particular case, the host would be able to see all the traffic from the guest VM, which is exactly what upstream network providers are able to see – if they would eavesdrop on your network traffic. Ever wondered what you are leaking to the outside world? Well, you now have the tools and skills to examine this. Try and compare that with running Whonix as a guest! Oh, and by the way: Disabling IPv6 isn’t a good idea, but should force the OS to use IPv4 instead (or otherwise fail to communicate).	<urn:uuid:49f83d9b-0453-4a49-8228-eb06778413dc>	CC-MAIN-2018-47	https://mostly.harmless.evilcoder.org/2016/tcpdump-and-network-analysis/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742020.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20181114125234-20181114151234-00501.warc.gz	en	0.90903	3,669	2.546875	3	2.596806	3	Strong reasoning	Software
I am in the process of inventing a new musical instrument, called the Esteso Voce. In my previous post I talked about the conceptual path leading to the Esteso Voce. In this post, I detail my first concrete concept for the instrument. To the left is the first shot at the interface (think touchscreen), which I will explain below. What I didn’t make clear in my previous post was the original inspiration for this instrument. My idea was to be able to extend the voice, using external equipment, such that a single singer could sing a motet or madrigal by themselves. Now obviously this is not easily possible, in that the different lines generally have different rhythm and words. What I think is achievable via the Esteso Voce is singing homophonic pieces (eg: Taverner’s The Lamb) and pieces in strict canon, also allowing harmonic variation (eg: Byrd’s Non Nobis Domine, which includes canon-style repetition, with some lines in parallel organum fifth). Also a combination of canon and intricate harmonic transposition in realtime is achievable, but I don’t know of any existing music that does this. (Incidentally, I just listened for the first time to that recording of The Lamb linked above, it’s the best choral singing I’ve ever heard.) The Esteso Voce is in essence a vocal harmoniser combined with delay functionality appropriate for singing in canon. It takes a single vocal input, copies it up to 3 times, delays those copies as desired by the player, and then transposes the copied voices up or down in pitch, as controlled in real-time by the player. The original voice signal and the copies are then recombined and output. (I intend the singer and the player to be the same person, but they could of course be two different people.) In the interface, sets of four vertical lines represent these voices. The bolded, or red line, indicates the source vocal (which is being sung by the singer directly). Wherever there are three sets of controls in a row, these refer to the three copied vocal lines, not to the source vocal. Wherever the source vocal is, the control from such a set of three is affecting the voice on the opposite side of it from the source vocal. Where this effect is relative (eg: in the main harmoniser controls) the effect affects the voice on the opposite side from the source vocal, creating an effect relative the the voice on the same side as the source vocal (which may be the source vocal itself). Primary Harmonizer Controls The Primary Harmonizer Controls are the main controls for the player to control the transposition of the other vocal lines. In the diagram, the source voice is the voice 2, the second vertical line (the red one). The line to its left is voice 1 and represents a vocal line which will sit below it in pitch. The two lines to its right (voices 3 and 4) represent two vocal lines; the leftmost of these sits above the source line in pitch, and the rightmost sits above that. How far the lines are transposed is determined in real time by the circle touched by the player in the appropriate column. Voice 1 is controlled by the column of circles between it and the source voice (each represents a number of semitones to transpose the source down by). Voice 3 is controlled by the column of circles between it and the source voice (each represents a number of semitones to transpose the source up by). Voice 4 is controlled by the column of circles between it and Voice 3, and the circles represent the amount to transpose Voice 3 by, in order to create Voice 4. This is the same as adding together the transposition amounts for the middle and right hand columns (for Voice 3 and Voice 4), and transposing the source voice by that many semitones. These controls are intended to be realtime. So, the circle touched in any column has effect while it is touched, and ceases that effect as soon as it is no longer touched. If multiple circles in any column are touched simultaneously, only one is used (the most recently touched? the least recently touched? something else?). If no circle is touched in the column, then the assumed value to transpose by is zero semitones (as if there was a top most row of circles for zero, one of which was being touched). Next blog, I’ll talk about the rest of the interface, including the Secondary Harmonizer Controls, the Auxilary Controls, and the Delay Controls.	<urn:uuid:ac716958-21d1-4e7d-8c11-1ab69d734b9c>	CC-MAIN-2018-13	https://point7.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/esteso-voce-concept-1/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257645248.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20180317155348-20180317175348-00307.warc.gz	en	0.947653	959	2.546875	3	2.763227	3	Strong reasoning	Art & Design
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) The State Health Department is increasing measures to protect the health of Hoosiers in the event of an Ebola case in Indiana. Part of the increased response includes providing a hotline for healthcare workers to answer questions about screening and diagnosing Ebola. The state is also working with local departments to dispose of hazardous waste effectively. In total, eight individuals have been treated for Ebola in the U.S., including two healthcare workers who treated Tomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, Texas. No cases have been reported in Indiana. The following statement was released by the Indiana State Department of Health Thursday afternoon: The Indiana State Department of Health has increased response efforts to include the following: - Continuing regular communication with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Indiana healthcare providers. - Establishing a healthcare provider hotline to answer questions about screening and diagnosis of Ebola. - Developing a training video for healthcare workers about how to put on and take off personal protective equipment. - Creating a questionnaire for healthcare workers to use when screening a patient for Ebola. Includes directions for worker protection and patient management based on answers provided. - Planning standing weekly calls with hospitals and local health departments. - Working with the Department of Education to provide information to school nurses. - Working with the local health departments and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management regarding hazardous waste management specific to Ebola. - Continuing to maintain timely and accurate information on the agency’s website (StateHealth.in.gov), Twitter (@StateHealthIN) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/isdh1) pages. On Oct. 10, State health officials hosted a live webcast to healthcare providers with information about medical guidance and to answer questions. Governor Pence provided opening remarks, recognizing physicians for being on the “front lines” of emerging diseases and sharing the State’s support in preparing to prevent and respond to Ebola. Eight individuals have been treated for Ebola in the United States, including two healthcare workers who treated patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. No cases have been tested for or reported in Indiana. People with Ebola can only spread the Ebola virus when they have symptoms. There is no risk of transmission if someone does not have symptoms. In the United States, Ebola is only spread through direct contact with blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, feces, vomit and semen, or a needlestick) of a person who is sick with Ebola or the body of a person who has died from Ebola. Ebola is not spread through the air by water or food, or by casual contact. “Ebola is a scary disease, but it’s important for Hoosiers to know the facts about Ebola and get an accurate picture of the risk it poses to us here in Indiana,” said Joan Duwve, M.D., Chief Medical Consultant at the Indiana State Department of Health. “There is unfortunately a great deal of misinformation about Ebola going around on social media and other communication channels. Ebola can only be spread through blood or bodily fluids and only when a person is showing symptoms. Ebola is not airborne and is not easily spread, for example by sitting next to or being in the same room with someone who appears healthy. All Indiana healthcare providers are required to report any cases of illness that might pose a risk to public health including Ebola Virus Disease, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), measles, rubella, mumps, tuberculosis, pandemic influenza and other diseases.	<urn:uuid:31334d41-8342-438c-a3a0-bacff0d598ee>	CC-MAIN-2018-13	http://wane.com/2014/10/16/state-increasing-protection-from-ebola/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647892.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20180322151300-20180322171300-00267.warc.gz	en	0.939431	734	2.75	3	2.539263	3	Strong reasoning	Health
At Extreme cold the engineering design process is a multi-step process including the research, conceptualization, feasibility assessment, establishing design requirements, preliminary design, detailed design, production planning and tool design, and finally production. The sections to follow are not necessarily steps in the engineering design process, for some tasks are completed at the same time as other tasks. This is just a general summary of each part of the engineering design process. A significant amount of time is spent on research, or locating, information. Consideration should be given to the existing applicable literature, problems and successes associated with existing solutions, costs, and marketplace needs. Chris Johnson made the engineering design process. The source of information should be relevant, including existing solutions. Reverse engineering can be an effective technique if other solutions are available on the market. Other sources of information include the Internet, local libraries, available government documents, personal organizations, trade journals, vendor catalogs and individual experts available. Once an engineering issue is clearly defined, solutions must be identified. These solutions can be found by using ideation, or the mental process by which ideas are generated. The following are the most widely used techniques: trigger word - a word or phrase associated with the issue at hand is stated, and subsequent words and phrases are evoked. For example, to move something from one place to another may evoke run, swim, roll, etc. morphological chart - independent design characteristics are listed in a chart, and different engineering solutions are proposed for each solution. Normally, a preliminary sketch and short report accompany the morphological chart. synectics - the engineer imagines him or herself as the item and asks, "What would I do if I were the system?" This unconventional method of thinking may find a solution to the problem at hand. brainstorming - this popular method involves thinking of different ideas and adopting these ideas in some form as a solution to the problem The purpose of a feasibility assessment is to determine whether the engineer's project can proceed into the design phase. This is based on two criteria: the project needs to be based on an achievable idea, and it needs to be within cost constraints. It is of utmost importance to have an engineer with experience and good judgment to be involved in this portion of the feasibility study, for they know whether the engineer's project is possible or not. Establishing the design requirements Establishing design requirements is one of the most important elements in the design process , and this task is normally performed at the same time as and the feasibility analysis. The design requirements control the design of the project throughout the engineering design process. Some design requirements include hardware and software parameters, maintainability, availability, and testability. By Ribera. The preliminary design bridges the gap between the design concept and the detailed design phase. In this task, the overall system configuration is defined, and schematics, diagrams, and layouts of the project will provide early project configuration. During detailed design and optimization, the parameters of the part being created will change, but the preliminary design focuses on creating the general framework to build the project on. The detailed design portion of the engineering design process is the task where the engineer can completely describe a product through solid modeling and drawings. Some specifications include: Operating and non-operating environmental stimuli Maintenance and testability provisions External surface treatment The advancement of computer-aided design, or CAD, programs have made the detailed design phase more efficient. This is because a CAD program can provide optimization, where it can reduce volume without hindering the part's quality. It can also calculate stress and displacement using the finite element method to determine stresses throughout the part. It is the engineer's responsibility to determine whether these stresses and displacements are allowable, so the part is safe. Production planning and tool design The production planning and tool design is nothing more than planning how to mass produce the project and which tools should be used in the manufacturing of the part. Tasks to complete in this step include selecting the material, selection of the production processes, determination of the sequence of operations, and selection of tools, such as jigs, fixtures, and tooling. This task also involves testing a working prototype to ensure the created part meets qualification standards. With the completion of qualification testing and prototype testing, the engineering design process is finalized. The part must now be manufactured, and the machines must be inspected regularly to make sure that they do not break down and slow production.	<urn:uuid:a454168d-1086-41c3-91a9-74fa65d1fcf2>	CC-MAIN-2021-04	http://extremepe.com/?q=node/41	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610704833804.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20210127214413-20210128004413-00107.warc.gz	en	0.932357	914	3.125	3	2.432046	2	Moderate reasoning	Science & Tech.
Is 2020 the beginning of the end? Just a couple of weeks into the still-futuristic-sounding decade, it sometimes feels that way. Greta Thunberg, a teenage prophet of environmental doom, is omnipresent, admonishing world leaders and industrial tycoons for their carbon sins. Torched by continent-wide fires, Australia is becoming uninhabitable for anyone without an oxygen tank. Toxic gases are now circling the planet. "The moment of crisis has come," warned David Attenborough, the British naturalist and broadcaster, during a BBC interview this week. Technology companies have kept a relatively low profile while this catastrophe unfolds, allowing fossil fuel industries and politicians to absorb Thunbergian flak. But the 21st century's tech addiction is not conducive to green living. In a paper published in late 2017, Anders Andrae, a researcher with China's Huawei, predicted the communications industry would use a fifth of all electricity by 2025. This would make it responsible for about 5.5% of all carbon emissions by that date. The forecast should not really surprise anyone. Data consumption is rampant, projected on mobile networks alone to soar from about 40 exabytes a month last year to 160 in 2025, according to Sweden's Ericsson. Whether at home, in an office or walking down the street, people are hooked to their screens. Billions of devices are on overnight charge every day of the week. Investments in the data centers needed to store and process all this digital information are rocketing. In China alone, electricity consumption by data centers will rise two thirds in the next five years, said environmental lobby group Greenpeace in a statement last September. In 2023, the industry is expected to consume 267 terawatts of electricity, more than Australia's total electricity consumption in 2018. And around 73% of China's data centers are currently powered by coal -- the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels. On course to become one of the main villains in the climate change drama, some of the world's biggest tech firms are now desperate to show their green side. Microsoft this week became the latest, announcing plans to be "carbon negative" by 2030. By 2050, said CEO Satya Nadella, the Seattle-based software giant aims to remove from the environment all the carbon it will have generated since its founding in 1975. Realistic? In a detailed blog, Microsoft sets out its environmental action plan, promising -- among other things -- to shift to 100% renewable energy by 2025 and electrify its entire vehicle fleet by 2030. With new procurement processes and tools, Microsoft will also "incentivize" its suppliers to reduce their own emissions, says the company. Also, it will set up a $1 billion "climate innovation fund" to support the development of carbon reduction, capture and removal technologies. Such lofty carbon targets will attract skepticism from Thunberg-like activists outraged by the relentless increase in emissions year after year. But Microsoft is not the sole example of a tech company with ambitious environmental goals. Vodafone, the UK-headquartered telecom operator, is targeting 100% renewable energy use by 2023, two years earlier than Microsoft, and aims to halve its carbon footprint over that same timeframe. In the UK, it already generates 8% of its electricity through wind power and recently secured planning permission for its first solar farm, which will provide all the electricity for its data centers. "We are confident we can get to 25% self-generation of electricity in the next few years and will buy the rest through renewables," said Scott Petty, Vodafone UK's chief technology officer, at a recent press event. Welcome as these initiatives may be, they are probably insufficient. New 5G networks, especially when used with higher frequency bands, will guzzle energy like no generation before. Data volumes will mount as people immerse themselves in virtual-reality games and ultra-high-definition TV on mobile networks. Executives from companies like Cisco and Ericsson are drooling at the prospect of an "Internet of Things" that connects tens of billions of objects -- everything from a common household appliance to a sophisticated bit of military equipment. Greenpeace lays out two scenarios for China's data center market. In the first, in which renewables continue to account for about 23% of renewable energy intake, carbon emissions from the industry will hit about 163 million tons by 2023. In the second, more optimistic vision, renewables grow to make up 30% of energy intake in the next three years. But even if this happens, it will reduce carbon emissions from China's data centers by only a tenth. In the meantime, global temperatures continue to rise inexorably. Last decade was the hottest on record, according to scientists at NASA. The answer, of course, lies partly in a return to the halcyon days of the 1980s, when phones were strictly fixed, and social networks meant sports clubs and dinner parties. Operators could take inspiration from a 2015 Christmas campaign by Deutsche Telekom, which advised families to turn off their digital devices and enjoy "direct, interpersonal connections." With even Greta Thunberg an enthusiastic member of the Twitterati, the outlook is not auspicious. — Iain Morris, International Editor, Light Reading	<urn:uuid:ae6683f9-0abf-46a6-8990-9fbc64a2841d>	CC-MAIN-2020-10	https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/data-tsunami-is-environmental-disaster-in-the-making/a/d-id/756919?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875145657.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20200222085018-20200222115018-00048.warc.gz	en	0.945716	1,076	2.625	3	2.942448	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
BRUTON was a locational name 'of Bretton', a native of Brittany. The name was brought to England in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066 and BRUTON (without surname) who was documented in County Essex in the year 1086, appears to be the first of the name in England. The name has been in Ireland since the 16th century; rare formerly, although now quite numerous in Dublin. The acquisition of surnames in Europe and England, during the last eight hundred years has been affected by many factors, including social class and social structure, naming practices in cultures and traditions. On the whole the richer and more powerful classes tended to acquire surnames earlier than the working class or the poor, while surnames were quicker to catch on in urban areas than in more sparsely populated rural areas. The bulk of surnames in England were formed in the 13th and 14th centuries. The process started earlier and continued in place names into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the 11th century people did not have surnames, whereas by the 15th century they did. Other records of the name mention Elias le Brutun of the County of Oxfordshire in 1273. Almaric le Bruton, ibid. William Bruton of County Devon, was registered at Oxford University in 1616. William Bruton and Frances Richardson were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London in 1750. The rise of surnames, according to the accepted theory, was due to the Norman Conquest of 1066 when Old English personal-names were rapidly superseded by the new christian names introduced by the Normans. Of these, only a few were really popular and in the 12th century this scarcity of christian names led to the increasing use of surnames to distinguish the numerous individuals of the same name. Some Normans had hereditary surnames before they came to England, but there is evidence that surnames would have developed in England even had there been no Norman Conquest. The development of the feudal system made it essential that the king should know exactly what service each person owed. Payments to and by the exchequer required that debtors and creditors should be particularized, and it became official that each individual acquired exact identification. The associated arms are recorded in Sir Bernard Burkes General Armory. Ulster King of Arms in 1884. Orders over $90 qualify for Free Shipping within the U.S. (Use coupon code: FREESHIP).	<urn:uuid:5d7a219e-e67e-4561-a3e7-1225598453c7>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://www.4crests.com/bruton-coat-of-arms.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710764.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20221130124353-20221130154353-00158.warc.gz	en	0.978075	507	3.3125	3	2.772013	3	Strong reasoning	History
Dealing With That Snake in the Grass By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, May 16, 2000 We call people we don't like a "snake." We call people who stab us in the back a "snake in the grass." Westerners see snakes as evil, and that seems to color thinking about the reptiles. U.S. service members are based around the world and spend a lot of time in the bush. It's almost inevitable they will confront poisonous snakes. For most of us, there's the temptation to act like a certain "B.C." comic strip character and start whomping them. But snakes, especially poisonous snakes in the United States, are generally shy and are generally as scared of you as you are of them. Most of the time, snakes will move to avoid you. In 1989, the most recent year for snakebite statistics worldwide, there were 300,000 reported snakebites. They resulted in 30,000 deaths -- 20,000 in India, said Bela Demeter, a biologist with the department of herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park in Washington. In the United States, 7,000 venomous snakebites are reported annually resulting in 15 fatalities. So, even if you are bitten, your odds of surviving are roughly 466 out of 467. Prevention is the best cure. Males ages 15 to 30 suffer the most venomous snakebites, and most of them occur on the arms from the hand to elbow. "What's that say to you?" asked Bill Kane, director of education at SOLO, the wilderness education center in Conway, N.H. "It means these guys are picking up poisonous snakes." Kane said most of these poisonous snakebites happen in the Southeast and Southwest. "Just leave them alone," he said. The Centers for Disease Control statistics agree with Kane. The CDC classifies about 3,000 of the snakebites per year as "illegitimate," meaning "these bites occurred while the victim was handling or molesting the snake." CDC statistics show that 85 percent of "legitimate" snakebites in the United States occur below the knee. Even if a poisonous snake bites you, you've got a 50-50 chance that no venom is injected. Rattlesnakes, cottonmouths and copperheads are pit vipers and are the most common poisonous snakes in America. "They only inject venom when they are striking to eat something," Kane said. "They are not going to eat something the size of a human, so 40 to 50 percent of the time these are dry bites.” Demeter said snake strikes against humans are generally defensive. "About half of snake bites tend to be dry bites," he said. "If you are bitten, you would know pretty quickly whether poison was injected or not." Pit vipers inject poison through two fangs. Generally, a bite would create two puncture wounds. If the snake injected venom, the victim will feel intense, burning pain and swelling around the holes. The species and size of the snake has a lot to do with how dangerous its poison is. "The Mojave rattlesnake has a really bad venom," Demeter said. "And for pure size, the six-foot Eastern diamondback (rattlesnake) has a massive bite. But you really never know how much is injected, it runs the spectrum from no venom to a lot." The one piece of first aid people should remember is to not panic. "Contrary to myth," Demeter said, "there's no such thing as a 'one-stepper' or a 'two-stepper'" -- that's the power of the snake venom expressed as the number of steps you can take before you keel over dead. "The toxicity of these snakes is highly exaggerated." What people need to do is to receive treatment as soon as possible after being bitten, he said. DoD officials said military medics carry antivenin. A soldier, sailor, airman or Marine bitten by a poisonous snake is generally only minutes away from treatment. Antivenin is an equine serum; persons sensitive to vaccines from horses could have an allergic reaction. "We commonly see that in those who have been treated with the serum before," Demeter said. "Those people stand a higher chance of going into anaphylactic shock." Treatment for snakebite has changed over the years. Accepted practice no longer involves making X-cuts at or above the fang marks and sucking the poison out with your mouth. "It's best not to do a whole lot," Demeter said. "If you have not done first aid on a snake bite, then you haven't done anything wrong yet." The most commonly recommended treatment today is to keep the bite area immobilized below the level of the heart. Kane said medics can place a light constricting band between the bite and the heart. "The problem is that many people get carried away," Kane said. "That band turns into a tourniquet. You don't want to do that." Remove any jewelry the person may be wearing. Swelling from the snakebite can progress rapidly, so rings, watches and bracelets can turn into a real problem. Kane said medics can use a syringe-like Sawyer Extractor to suck venom from the bite site, but that's only effective if used within minutes of a bite." Get the victim to a hospital as quickly as possible. Antivenin serum is the only sure cure, and because some people are allergic to horse serum it should only be given in a fully equipped medical facility. Don't use ice to slow the spread of the venom. Researchers have found freezing of the stricken limb is a major factor leading to amputation. The best cure for snakebite is prevention. Here's the CDC's tips: - Do not play with snakes. - Keep landscape well manicured. - Wear shoes around the house. - Wear gloves when weeding. - Wear boots in snake country. - Develop the habit of watching where you step and where you place your hands.	<urn:uuid:af2f5340-fbe9-4916-88b5-c93fee086240>	CC-MAIN-2014-52	http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45207	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802768977.107/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075248-00011-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.962517	1,283	2.859375	3	2.569968	3	Strong reasoning	Health
One of the hot topic of 2009 Information Security industry is phishing. According to a Truster's recently released report with the sample of 3 million users over the period of 3 months time, it is identified that 45% of the time, users were spoofed into a fake log on page. The report also claimed that most of the discovered phishing sites are live and also has the capability to bypass anti-spam and anti-phishing protection if any present on the victims browser. Banking along with online shopping cart users are the most targeted and affected among the phishing victims.Below graph from Phishtank shows phishing sites by country of host for Nov 2009. In phishing attack, hackers create an almost identical looking replica of a chosen banking or online shopping web site , then attempt to trick users to show personal information and log in credentials like user name, password, PIN number. Trapped user will fill the form thinking it as the legitimate website , exposing wide window of opportunity to hackers to misuse victims sensitive information. Hackers uses various phishing techniques to victimize users to make them access their fake web page, one such method is by sending email that pretend to be from your debit or credit card company asking you to update your personal information. Being a look-alike of a legitimate website, recipient will click on the link in the email, they are directed to the fake website and where they are tricked to expose their information. To stay protected, below are some of the steps a user can take: - Check for digital signature, unless the email is digitally signed, email cannot be trusted to pass on the sensitive information. - Be aware of such fake emails, remember it is highly unlikely that your bank will ask your sensitive information by email. - When there is a need to fill in your log in details in a webpage look for https in your URL box. Also look for lock symbol on the lower right hand corner of the web browser. Double clicking the lock will enable your access to digital certificate. If you don't see both https and secure lock do not give your information. Alternatively contact your bank by telephone. - Instead of clicking the link from your email message, try typing the URL into your web browser . - Mozilla's current version 3.5 has good anti phishing functionality and using Mozilla Firefox may provide more advantage over phishing sites. - Make sure to update your web browser of choice with updated security patches. - Check your bank account regularly once making transaction, if you note any suspicious activities, report your bank immediately - Always report "phishing" or “spoofed” e-mails to the following groups: - forward the email to [email protected] - forward the email to the Federal Trade Commission [email protected] - forward the email to the "abuse" email address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g. "[email protected]") - when forwarding spoofed messages, always include the entire original email with its original header information intact - notify The Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: www.ic3.gov/ Phishing statistics for the month Dec 2009. Phishing statistics below are from 1st December 2009 records from phishing. While visiting the below mentioned websites make sure to verify the above mentioned tips and minimize the risk of getting victimized. \|Top 10 Identified Targets\|\|Valid Phishes\| \|2\|\|Internal Revenue Service\|\|870\| \|6\|\|Bank of America Corporation\|\|270\| \|7\|\|JPMorgan Chase and Co.\|\|202\| In November, 278 phishes (5% of valid phishes that month) used an IP address (i.e. http://22.214.171.124) and 4,980 (or 95%) used a domain name (i.e. http://example.com).	<urn:uuid:5177fc2e-d40c-4926-bdb3-87b410add986>	CC-MAIN-2017-26	http://www.brainfold.net/2010/01/phishing.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128319265.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170622114718-20170622134718-00400.warc.gz	en	0.893984	812	2.546875	3	2.363278	2	Moderate reasoning	Crime & Law
Fighting Spam, part 1 Anyone who has ever had their own email address knows that sooner or later unwanted messages will begin to slither into their in-box. At first, they amount to a mere few and can easily be discarded. But before long, legitimate messages are lost among a sea of junk mail. The question is, how does this happen and what can be done about it? Most people think that spam is simply unwanted email. This isn't always the case, however. Messages must be unsolicited (unrequested) and distributed in bulk (mass emailed) to be considered spam. For example, mail sent via mailing lists or newsletters are bulk mail, but are not necessarily spam. An unexpected email from a relative, friend or colleague is also unlikely to be considered spam by most people. Its the combination that truly makes it spam. Additionally, nearly all of us would agree that spam usually contains undesired content, which means that there is no definitive way to define spam because what is and isn't spam will vary from person to person. But virtually everyone will agree that spam has become a very large problem. The tech industry spends millions (perhaps even billions) of dollars each year trying to deal with it. In fact, some studies have concluded that spam accounts for more than 80% of all email traffic on the Internet. Spam has become such a problem that the federal government has enacted several pieces of legislation that are intended to penalize organizations or individuals that are generating spam (often referred to as spammers). In fact, one law requires that bulk email senders provide some sort of mechanism that allows recipients to opt-out of future mailings (typically by simply replying to the original email, or by visiting a web page that allows the recipient to remove their address from the mailing list). Unfortunately, anti-spam laws do very little to combat the spam problem. The very nature of spam gives little heed to legalities, or privacy and respect of the recipient. Moreover, spammers are very difficult to track down. Often spam can be traced to computers that are infected with spam-relaying viruses. In simpler terms, your computer could be infected with a virus that makes your computer involuntarily send spam, so the spam is traced to you and not to the spammer. In many cases spam is sent from a series of elusive spammers who don't stay in one place long enough to get caught, relocating from one country to the next. A solution likely exists in the technology realm. Several solutions have been proposed by companies like Microsoft and Yahoo. The problem is that in order for a solution to work successfully, it must be enacted in full across the entire Internet (made mandatory) - and not everyone in the industry is willing to adopt a solution that is encumbered by software patents, royalties or other technical or legal restrictions. So far there isn't a solution everyone agrees on. Until then, the world is going to have to get by best it can. Spam generally starts to become a problem when your email address is recorded by one spammer and distributed throughout various spam networks. This can occur by: 1. Giving your email address out to too many people. There's nothing wrong with sharing your email address, but use some discretion when doing so (think twice about giving it to those who won't hesitate to give it out to anyone else). 2. Viruses, spy-ware and other forms of mal-ware that collect personally identifiable information, as well as address books saved on your computer. Typically this information is gathered by some sort of malicious program running in secret on your computer which transmits everything to a rogue server on the Internet. Your email address, along with all of the other addresses in your address book, are at risk of being collected. 3. Providing your email address to an illegitimate web site. I started receiving spam on one email address when a friend used a "send to a friend" link on a web page to send me a funny joke. Once your address is on one spam list, it doesn't take long before it's spread to nearly all of them. Once you're in, its almost impossible to get out. There are a number of things, however, that you can do to curtail spam: 1. Don't respond to messages that aren't familiar or that look questionable. If a message is from an unfamiliar or unknown sender, don't open it. 2. Many email providers tag or mark incoming mail that they believe is spam. Some will simply add "*SPAM*" to the original subject line. Others will turn on special spam flags that are buried within the email (in the header). By instructing your email program to look for these special markers (whatever they may be), you can instruct your computer what to do with potential spam (delete, move to separate folder, etc). Check with your email provider for details. 4. Consider telling friends, family, colleagues or anyone who frequently sends you personal email to send you emails directly with their email program, and not with a "send to a friend" or "email this article" links on web pages. Such site links are often used to collect email addresses which can be sold or otherwise distributed to spammers. Most web browsers have a "send link" or "send web page" feature that copies the title of a web page into the subject line of an email, and copies the web address (otherwise known as a URL) into the body of the email for you. This is a far safer way to send a link to a website to someone else. 5. Enable special anti-spam features within your email program (if equipped). For example, Mozilla Thunderbird has an intelligent spam trainer that allows the user to dynamically "teach" or "train" Thunderbird to properly recognize spam. Messages that are recognized as spam can be deleted or moved into a "Junk" folder. 6. View your emails as plain text (when possible). Many emails contain HTML formatting (the same formatting that makes web pages display), and many email programs can read and interpret this formatting in the same way your web browser would. Links in the email that point to remote graphics (graphics located on a remote system and not stored in the email) can help spammers confirm that your address is real and valid. 7. Keep your anti-virus programs enabled and up to date. 8. Don't reply to junk mail, even if it is to opt-out of future mailings. This will simply provide confirmation to the spammer that your address is valid. If you've done everything you can to rid yourself of spam, and you are still receiving more than you can handle, you may also want to consider a change of email address (starting with a clean, new address) and taking strong steps to prevent your new address from being exposed to spam. If this is something you are interested in, please talk to your email provider. Author's note: In future articles in this series, we will discuss how to enable many spam features in common email programs, as well as how to take advantage of anti-spam services being provided by common email providers in the area. Have comments about this article, or suggestions for an additional Tech Tips article? Send an email to [email protected].	<urn:uuid:f2ea33e0-03ad-4983-bb73-19aba75274a0>	CC-MAIN-2016-36	http://www.ecprogress.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=4669	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982292697.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195812-00232-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.964926	1,507	2.765625	3	2.70786	3	Strong reasoning	Software
The Golden Rule is not religious. It’s not even “spiritual.” It never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t seem to understand that. I realize that in the “west” its most closely associated with Christianity. Both Luke and Matthew have Jesus say And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Or, as we more commonly phrase it today, do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. It is the foundation of all life-affirming religions, but it isn’t religious. It is the cornerstone of all equitable canons of justice, but it isn’t a set of rules. It is the bedrock of all moral and ethical systems, but it isn’t a cut and paste blueprint for social harmony. In all times and places and cultures since humanity has begun attempting to codify its behaviour, the Principle of Mutuality has formed the single most basic tenet. Paul McKenna, who has compiled an impressive array of Golden Rule resources, has several hundred verified individual formulations. They come from across millennia of time and from every culture that human beings have created in every corner of the world. On this foundation all of our laws and codes of conduct are built. As the writer of Matthew has Jesus state – “It IS the Law and the Prophets.” But it doesn’t stand alone. Jeffery Wattles, in his book “The Golden Rule”, cautions that we always need to understand and apply the Golden Rule in the context of our place and time and culture. Rabbi Hillel, whose formulation of the Golden Rule uses the opposite approach (what you don’t want done to you, don’t do to others), is recorded as having said that all the rest of the Torah was “commentary.” And then he said, “Now go and learn it.” Our challenge is to realize that learning the context means that we have to be prepared to modify our body of “Law and Prophets” when the context changes. Isaac Asimov seems to have thought that the Golden Rule was a good foundation for his “Three Laws.” I’ve no idea if Asimov knew that he was referencing the Golden Rule when he created them or not; but its influence is easy to see. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Years afterward, he would add a fourth Law, one that overrode the others – 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. He called it the “zeroth law.” Which, among other things, reminds us that numbering things isn’t always the best approach. But the world had changed drastically in Asimov’ lifetime. We had begun to understand that we are not just individuals randomly interacting with each. We’re part of a greater whole. The context had changed. And so Asimov added fourth, zeroth, law. We too, who live in probably the fastest-changing culture that human beings have ever created, need to realize that our context is changing. Our world is shrinking while our recognition of our interconnectedness is growing. The question now becomes one of adaptability. How do we modify our codes of conduct, our “Laws, to accommodate the global civilization that we’re becoming? I don’t have the answer to that, save for this – Whatever we do, if we ground it in the Principle of Mutuality and live it through the Golden Rule, we’ll have built on the right foundation.	<urn:uuid:a3d0f704-5fba-4c11-97e5-fb37876d8a94>	CC-MAIN-2015-27	http://goldenruleradical.org/articles/the-zeroth-law/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375091925.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031811-00291-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.969123	847	2.578125	3	2.864699	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
Story: Volcanic Plateau region Page 9 – From rimu and tōtara to pinus radiata The native timber of the Volcanic Plateau came mainly from massive conifers – tōtara, rimu, mataī and miro. The area’s native wood was first exploited by Europeans in the late 19th century, in the Mamaku Range and around the northern shores of Lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti. The Taupo Totara Timber Company built the first of three timber mills at Mōkai in 1898. They completed a private railway to Putaruru in 1905. Until the late 1930s, the timber industry was probably the biggest employer in Rotorua, and there were about 30 mills around Taupō by the 1940s. The Whakarewarewa nursery, near Rotorua, was set up in 1898 to provide timber trees to the Auckland district, and ornamental plants to Rotorua. Non-native trees were first planted on a large scale at Whakarewarewa, then at Waiotapu, and from 1913 on the Kāingaroa plateau. The land was thought to be no good for farming. Pinus radiata (radiata pine) and Douglas fir were the most successful trees. A fine send-off Keepa Te Piki was killed in a logging accident in 1931. After the tangi (funeral), his coffin was placed on one of the timber barges. With almost 200 friends and relatives on board, flags at half-mast and a band playing appropriate music, a launch towed the boat on a circuit of the lake, eventually anchoring off Motutawa pā, where he was buried. Planting the plateau Pine planting gained impetus after the First World War. On the western margins of the plateau, two Sydney investors bought land and established Perpetual Forests (later New Zealand Forest Products). The New Zealand Forest Service favoured planting exotic trees to counter the depletion of native timber. Leon McIntosh Ellis, its first head, noted that between 1900 and 1920, a million acres (over 400,000 hectares) of native trees had been felled but only 40,000 acres (almost 16,200 hectares) planted in non-natives. Forest plantings on the Kāingaroa Plateau, as far south as the Napier–Taupō road, rose steeply after 1925. In 1929–30, the peak year, almost 14,000 hectares were planted with 22 million trees. A new industry Partly for demonstration purposes, and partly to use Whakarewarewa and Kāingaroa timber, a mill was built at Waipā and had its first commercial run in June 1940. A training centre at Whakarewarewa became the Forestry Research Institute. After the Second World War, the 1920s plantings started to reach maturity. Tasman Pulp and Paper built a plant at Kawerau, in the eastern Bay of Plenty, for which Murupara was the logging centre. New Zealand Forest Products set up a similar factory at Kinleith, near Tokoroa. The Forestry Research Institute expanded after 1960, when it became part of the New Zealand Forest Service. For young and old Cutting rights to the Kāingaroa Forest today are managed on behalf of two very different investors. Harvard Management is the investment arm of the $41 billion Harvard University endowment fund. The $10.5 billion NZ Superannuation Fund bought a minority interest in the forest in October 2006. The industry changed rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. The Forest Service was disbanded in 1987, and state-owned forests were sold to private interests. In the early 2000s, Māori trusts own some forests, and others are the subject of tribal claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. Cutting rights to the Kāingaroa Forest are managed by a global investment management firm, and the Waipā mill is owned by a Rotorua investor. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of forestry jobs in the region (including Tokoroa and Kawerau) fell by nearly a third, to around 2,500. In 2006 there were fewer trees than ten years earlier – logging can be more profitable than replanting – and the forestry labour force had fallen to 1,500. The Forestry Research Institute is now SCION, a Crown research institute. The Radi Centre offers diplomas in wood manufacturing excellence, with the aim of building up skills to produce more forest-based industries.	<urn:uuid:78b619a9-ba63-487b-8000-76d900f3f302>	CC-MAIN-2016-40	http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/volcanic-plateau-region/page-9	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738660158.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173740-00154-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.962155	949	2.953125	3	2.777016	3	Strong reasoning	History
The body engages three processes to stop bleeding: vasoconstriction, gap-plugging by platelets and the coagulation cascade. A fault in any of these process leads to a a bleeding disorder. When it comes to differentiating bleeding disorders, the pattern of bleeding can yield some clues. Vascular and platelet disorders lead to prolonged bleeding from cuts, bleeding into skin (causing easy bruising, and purpura) bleeding from mucosa membrane (eg epistaxis, bleeding from gums, menorrhagia). Coagulation disorders, on the other hand, cause delayed bleeding into joints and muscles. Congenital- Osler-weber-rendu syndrome and connective tissue disease such as Elhers- Danlos. Acquired- Senile purpura, infection ( such as menigococcal, measles, dengue fever), steroids, scruvy (causing perifollicular hemorrhages), Henoch-Schonlein purpura and painful bruising syndrome (where women develop tingling under the skin followed by bruising over the limb/trunk, and resolving without treatment) Due to decreased marrow production- Aplastic anaemia, megloblastic anemia, marrow infiltration (eg luekemia, myeloma) and marrow suppression (due to cytotoxic drugs and radiotherapy) Due to excess destruction- Can be either immune or non immune - Immune includes Immune thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP), and other autoimmune causes such as SLE, drugs such as heparin and viruses. - Non-immune includes DIC, thrombotic thrombocytopeniaic purpura(TTP) or Hemolytic uremic syndrome ITP- is cause by antiplatelet autoimmune bodies leading to phagocytic destruction. It is usually acute (in children it presents 2 weeks after infection and causes sudden self limiting purpura) or chronic where it takes an episodic nature of bleeding, purpura, menorrhagia, and epistaxis. It most commonly affects adult women. There is no splenomegaly with ITP. Laboratory investigations show increased megokarytocytes in marrow, antiplatelet autoantibodies may also be present but this is not always the case. No treatment is required for mild cases, however if symptomatic or platelets drop below 20, give prednisolone with the aim to keep platelets above 30. In relapsing cases, splenectomy has an 80% cure rate. If this fails, initiate immunosuppression therapy with azothioprine, etc. Platelet therapy should only be used during life-threatening bleeds or splenectomy as they quickly get destroyed by circulating autoantibodies. Immunoglobulin may temporarily raise the platelet count and can be used for surgery or pregnancy. Due to decreased platelet function- Myeloproliferative disease, NSAIDs, and increased urea. Congenital- Haemophilia, von Willebrand’s disease Acquired- Anticoagulants, liver disease, DIC, vitamin K deficiency. Haemophilia A- Is a factor VIII deficiency inherited in a recessive X-linked pattern. It usually presents early in life or after surgery/trauma as bleeding into the joints leading to crippling arthropathy and into muscles causing hematomas which can lead to nerve palsies and compartment syndrome due to pressure. Diagnose by increased APTT and decreased factor VIII assay. Those with heamophilia A should avoid NSAIDs and IM injections. In a minor bleed- apply pressure and elevate the part. Desmopressin IV infusion for 20mins can raise factor VIII levels and may be sufficient. Major bleeds (such as heamarthrosis) requires factor VIII levels to be 50% of normal and life threatening bleeds (eg obstructing airways) need factor VIII levels of 100%. Increase factor VIII levels with recombinant factor VIII. Also, insure that the patient receive genetic counselling for future family plans. Haemophilia B (Christmas disease): Factor IX deficiency which is inherited and behaves clinically like heamophilia A. Liver disease- produces a complicated bleeding disorder with decreased synthesis of clotting factor, decreased absorption of vitamin K and abnormalities of platelet function. Malabsorption- Leads to decreased uptake of vitamin K (which is needed for the synthesis of factor II, VII, IX and X) Treat with vitamin K or fresh frozen plasma in the case of acute haemorrhage.	<urn:uuid:47b32ce2-b870-47d2-ac4e-64f8d6a08b7e>	CC-MAIN-2014-35	http://medicine-and-the-arts.tumblr.com/post/7452820679/bloody-battle-bleeding-disorders	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500828050.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021348-00453-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.859022	960	3.328125	3	2.571186	3	Strong reasoning	Health
take notes by re-inventing \| obsidian I often fall into the trap of just transcribing notes while learning. My mind somehow switches off and I’m in a mode of just pouring information into my brain. After some time, I realize that I remember nothing. I have the problem of just consuming content and transcribing notes when I have difficulties understanding a concept. I’m either confused by the concept or I’m overwhelmed by the details. I’m basically just too impatient to take the time to understand it properly. But understanding and being patient are crucial. If we have difficulties understanding a concept, we shouldn’t accept it blindly, transcribe our notes word for word, and move on. This only leads to building our understanding upon poorly placed bricks — or in our case poorly written notes — and everything will crumble eventually. Instead, take the time to understand. Don’t rush writing notes, think first. Don’t expect to have perfect notes from the start. Restructure, reorganize and rewrite them if needed. break and rebuild One way to study a concept is by breaking the concept down and re-building it in your own way of thinking. Break it into single simple chunks. But be careful. Don’t rush into the fine details right away. Learning doesn’t start with small details. You first need a rough overview and a rough understanding. You need a simple breakdown — a simple structure of what you want to learn. This simple structure will provide a place for all the details that will come. But we need this simple structure first. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. — Albert Einstein This breaking and rebuilding process might look like this: Skim the material and break the concept down into smaller chunks, categories, or groups. Understand the relationship between the broken-down chunks. Form connections. Make the rebuilding directional and not chaotic. Ideas and insights shouldn’t be connected chaotically. They should be connected in a logical and directional way — chunks A and B are the base and both lead to chunk C which in turn leads to D and E. Don’t make it like everything is connected to everything. Add questions you have or that come up while you are trying to re-build. Be it questions regarding the relation or questions regarding single chunks. You can also already add details you might know or might remember from skimming the material. Even if they are wrong. If they are wrong you will at least benefit from the hyper-correction effect. Your brain will put emphasis on remembering the correct insight and on forgetting the misconception you had. Understanding simple ideas and building a simple structure is much more beneficial than worrying about the overwhelming amount of details. re-inventing in Obsidian Obsidian and its graph view are ideal for this breaking and re-building. You break big concepts down into single notes and connect them. You can pull up your empty literature note and the materials you want to consume for the study session. Skim the material and take notes by ignoring the details and by breaking the concept down into smaller chunks, categories, or groups of ideas. Your notes can be messy. The goal is not to write the perfect notes yet. The literature note is a great way to make this breakdown one-dimensionally. But the one-dimensionality has its limits. Once you recognize the one-dimensional breakdown is not enough because of the connections you want to make, you can move to the graph view. Split the literature note up into single notes and connect them meaningfully. As mentioned above, try making the connections directional and not chaotic. Ideas don’t have to be connected all over the place. The flow of ideas and the logic behind it is much more valuable. Now you should have a simple structure and hopefully a simple understanding of the concept. The next step would either be to break the chunks and categories further down and repeat this process or to consume the materials in more detail and add insights to your simple structure so that it can grow further. The idea is to re-invent what you are trying to learn. And, it is okay to reread or rewatch content. The first time you consume it to build a simple structure. The next time — or times -, you do it to add more and more details and connections.	<urn:uuid:dd2ea980-f5ad-489f-ade7-7a716a0ba513>	CC-MAIN-2022-33	https://kmltkc.medium.com/take-notes-by-re-inventing-obsidian-b38e1da96554?source=read_next_recirc---------1---------------------b53ccd75_0128_4f58_bc97_de06ca3da633-------	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00769.warc.gz	en	0.9338	915	2.71875	3	2.603322	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
For years I have used a game I call the Blame Game in my Intellectual Heritage I classes. Intellectual Heritage I is an interdisciplinary course in critical reading that focuses on works of literature, philosophy, and religion. Several of the texts I use in this course, including The Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and the Iliad, lend themselves well to the Blame Game; in fact, through episodes of narrative peril, they essentially inspired it! More to the point, the game has almost invariably led to lively class discussions, even prompting otherwise reticent students to participate. Still, it was not until I co-facilitated a faculty workshop on student participation that I truly realized why the Blame Game seems so effectively to inspire student participation, and I was able to use the realization to design a new game for another course: Intellectual Heritage II. In short, the reason for the game’s success lay not in playing a game per se but in having the students rank things. As I explained in the workshop, the game involves choosing two or more characters—four seems to be an optimal number—from a particular text, such as Adam, Eve, God, and the serpent from Genesis. Then the teacher draws the class’s attention to a perilous episode involving the characters—for instance, Adam and Eve’s transgression in eating the fruit in Genesis 3. During open discussion, the students rank the characters on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of the blame each character shares for the incident. A “1” means little or no blame, and a “10” means practically total blame. The students are free to rank each character anywhere along the scale they wish, but they must defend their ranking with textual references or allusions. The game, happily, often inspires disagreement and debate, with one hypothetical student, for instance, giving Adam a “3” (some blame) and another student giving him a “9” (a preponderance of blame). As my colleagues and I evaluated the game, we perceived that it may well be effective at fostering participation for a connected set of reasons. The game, we reasoned, taps into the curious pleasure associated with list making—for instance, the top 10 this or that. What is more, the nature of the subjects, such as the archetypal transgression in Genesis 3—or Enkidu’s death in The Epic of Gilgamesh or Patroclus’s death in the Iliad—leaves plenty of room for disagreement over how to rank the characters in terms of their responsibility for a specific incident. Drawing on this insight, I quickly determined that a comparable game could involve ranking things other than literary characters’ blameworthiness, and this determination helped me to bring the Blame Game’s success to another course. A companion course to Intellectual Heritage I, Intellectual Heritage II focuses on works of science, political philosophy, history, and more. The texts I use in Intellectual Heritage II include Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, Richard Dawkins’s River out of Eden, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The Communist Manifesto, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Although I have used the Blame Game in Intellectual Heritage I for years, I had never settled on a way to vary it for the nonliterary texts in Intellectual Heritage II. The dearth of storybook characters in these texts stymied me, left me with no one “to blame.” Post-workshop, however, my thoughts turned more broadly to ranking as opposed to blaming. Thus, I designed a new game: Great Ideas, Then and Now. In this game, students rank both the historical and contemporary impact of the great ideas conveyed in the aforementioned texts: heliocentrism, Darwinism, communism, and gender inequity. The scale is still 1–10, but the numbers’ significance differs. For instance, a “9” for the historical importance of heliocentrism means the idea was vital when it emerged in historical context. A “2” for contemporary significance means it no longer has the impact it once had. As with the Blame Game, though, there is room for healthy disagreement. For instance, when I piloted Great Ideas, Then and Now in spring 2019, several vocal students argued that heliocentrism had an immense impact during the Renaissance but is taken for granted today, lowering its contemporary number. One or two others, however, suggested that it may be taken for granted today but still provides the foundation for modern cosmology, making a higher contemporary number appropriate. The point here is not for teachers to use the Blame Game or Great Ideas, Then and Now in their classes (though they may absolutely do so). Rather, the point is to have teachers consider how some type of ranking exercise may foster class participation by tapping into people’s penchant for listing and categorizing. Games or exercises that employ ranking, I have found, can help students hone their analytical and critical skills by engaging them in both classification and interpretation. John A. Dern, PhD, is a professor of instruction in the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University.	<urn:uuid:187c3e8f-a992-43af-b2ab-b1f0d0d26167>	CC-MAIN-2023-40	https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/teaching-strategies/participation-discussion/need-to-foster-participation-try-a-ranking-game/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510575.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20230930014147-20230930044147-00328.warc.gz	en	0.943236	1,088	2.984375	3	3.019208	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Our new Business Process Management (BPM) tutorial provides you with the definitions, expert advice, news, examples, and products you need to get started with or optimize your use of BPM. Business Process Management (BPM) describes the methods and techniques used to make a business process more efficient, adaptive, and effective for accomplishing a specific task. With constantly changing technologies and market environments within the application development world, a business process can be proven insufficient shortly after it's implemented. Successful BPM requires that business processes be carefully modeled, regularly monitored, and frequently updated to optimize their performance. BPM is often a point of connection within a company between the line-of-business (LOB) and the IT department. Recent research has concluded that cooperation between these typically separated groups is necessary for good BPM. A Forrester report on optimizing BPM recommends creating a "center of excellence" within a company composed of both IT and business people. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) were both created to facilitate communication between IT and the LOB. Both languages are easy to read and learn, so that business people can quickly learn to use them to design processes. Also, both adhere to basic rules of programming, so that processes designed in either language are easy for developers to translate into hard code. Numerous tools exist for optimizing BPM. The executive dashboard has emerged as a powerful tool for business users to get a better view into the integrated enterprise. Roy Schulte, vice president of Gartner has studied the role executive dashboards can play in furthering the business aspect of Business Process Management. Other tools exist as well. New products for BPM come out regularly from top software providers. Back to the top What is BPM? Business process management (BPM) Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes. BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. A business process is a set of coordinated tasks and activities, conducted by both people and equipment, that will lead to accomplishing a specific organizational goal. Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) is an XML-based meta-language developed by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) as a means of modeling business processes, much as XML is, itself, a metalanguage with the ability to model enterprise data. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) is an XML-based language designed to enable task-sharing for a distributed computing environment using a combination of Web services. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a method of illustrating business processes in the form of a diagram similar to a flowchart. BPMN was originally conceived and developed by BPMI. It is currently maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG).> Back to the top How to use BPM To help you learn all there is to know about Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) the SearchSOA.com team has put together a tutorial. In this BPEL tutorial, you'll find articles, tips, expert advice, white papers and more that will explain how BPEL fits into the world of Web services. Business Process Modeling Notation Mini-Learning Guide This guide provides links to background information to help you understand BPMN and various articles to help understand the context in which BPMN is being used. In addition, there are links to a number of articles exploring the interplay of BPMN, BPEL, and roundtripping. SOA and BPM: A process centric approach (webcasts) Download these expert mediacasts to discover a process centric approach to SOA and BPM, perspectives of strategy, systems, business and technology that can be incorporated in order to achieve successful change in business processes. Roy Schulte on the BPM drive and SOA adoption Few individuals are more closely associated with advanced middleware than Roy Schulte, vice president of Gartner. Recently, he has studied the role executive dashboards can play in furthering the business aspect of Business Process Management. SearchSOA.com interviewed Schulte on the subject. Expert Podcast: BPM and Architecture SearchSOA.com Editor in Chief Jack Vaughan discusses BPM with Aleks Buterman. Topics include the disconnect between Enterprise Architects and Business Architects, Risk Analysis in relation to BPM, and ways to a happy marriage of BPM and SOA. BPM modeling tools said to boost business analyst abilities Business process modeling tools have improved to the point where business analysts can play a major role in Business Process Management initiatives, said Forrester's Ken Vollmer. Still, developers play a role too. Vollmer discussed this and other issues as Forrester rolled out a report showing several vendors grouped together as BPM leaders. Rosamilia says iterative SOA can improve BPM (video) In the beginning, SOA went through a bit of a big bang, where process architects often tried to use SOA to achieve major goals. Now, in part because of tighter margins and limited budgets, SOA may be better applied with a step-by-step approach to create more immediate benefits and increase flexibility for future improvements to a business process. BPMN: The less collaboration, the better? BPMN 2.0 came about to bridge the divide between business and development architects—but what is the key to effective cross-team architecture? Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley claims that constant collaboration between business and IT has its costs. Read his expert advice in this SOA Talk blog post about BPM, BPMN, SOA and BPEL. SOA growth and change: TechTarget survey shows SaaS, BPM emerging With a difficult economic climate as background, a shift is under way in both the types of infrastructure and the types of service-based applications organizations plan for their service-oriented architecture, according to results from a recent survey conducted by SearchSOA.com and TheServerSide.com. Say 'hello' to business process lifecycle management Years of experience suggest that Business Process Management (BPM) is not a one-time project; instead, it is part of a life-cycle of processes. This is born out by efforts at consulting and services powerhouse Accenture, which recently announced the release of their enhanced business process lifecycle management (BPLM) services. Forrester details "secret sauce" for BPM success Wondering how to achieve successful BPM? Setting up a center of excellence (COE) makes a major difference in the success of BPM implementations, according to a report published by Forrester Research Inc. Business-side often drives BPM initiatives today Business Process Management is often posed as the killer app for SOA. At least one analyst suggests combining SOA and BPM is not as simple as vendors would have their customers believe. Enterprise mashups bring IT, LOB collaboration to BPM Increasingly, multiple applications are combined using enterprise mashup tools with the goal of streamlining Business Processes Management (BPM). At times, these tools and processes have blurred the once well defined line between application development and the line-of-business (LOB). Back to the top BPM Special Report: What you model is what you monitor Business analysts and other line-of-business role players may increasingly build the models for new-generation Business Process Management applications. In some instances, good BPM modeling results help make the business case for SOA. Still, some 'assembly' is still required by development teams. Microsoft sees uptake on BizTalk server Count Microsoft among the players that are still seeing success in the area of SOA, despite the rumors of its demise. "Regardless of the hype, we actually are seeing a significant amount of customer interest in doing SOA," said Burley Kawasaki, director of Microsoft's connected systems division. Kawasaki spoke recently from the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference in Redmond, Wash. BPM platform updated by Oracle adding new dashboard options The executive dashboard may be among the keys to bridging SOA and BPM, say viewers. Such dashboards can give the business side a better view into the integrated enterprise. BPM platform vendors like Oracle are taking note. Active Endpoints, Seros in deal to orchestrate BPM and push SOA Active Endpoints teamed up with Seros, a provider of consulting and pre-integrated open-standards based Web services software. Seros now offers Active Endpoints' ActiveVOS as its core technology for orchestration. The partnership seeks to ride the popularity of visual modeling tools for Business Process Management (BPM). Back to the top BPM, SOA take coding out of .NET-based ERP customization With common Web 2.0 interfaces, SOA, and BPM, Epicor ERP business users and managers can make changes to business processes. In the past, that kind of customization had to be hand coded, requiring IT involvement. SOA and BPM speed messages for industrial distributor Using visual orchestration tool for BPM in heterogeneous Java/.NET SOA environment, an industrial distribution company speeds inventory tracking for 2,100 stores. Back to the top UML modeler includes BPMN support UModel V2008 Release 2 added support for Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) to the UML support already featured in UModel. The tool can serve for re-engineering services. Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 reaches beta Microsoft this week announced the first public beta of BizTalk Server 2009 and general availability of BizTalk RFID Mobile. The products are crown jewels in the company's BPM portfolio. Visual orchestration tool addresses event processing and SOA A tool for enterprise architects, business analysts and Java developers includes an integrated engine for complex-event processing. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and WS-Human Task standards are supported. Metastorm BPM engine said to give process owners more control Business Process Management (BPM) provider Metastorm, recently released Metastorm Integration Manager Version 8.5, which better enables business users to view and interact with data and configurations. KANA platform rides SOA, allows user modeling with BPEL A platform for customer services applications from KANA seeks to place modeling tools in the hands of business users to speed creation of applications. The goal is to better empower the business side. Company representatives say an underlying dedicated service-oriented architecture infrastructure implementation helps make this possible. Back to the top	<urn:uuid:ade7c547-203c-45a5-97f4-b6cee626eda1>	CC-MAIN-2014-41	http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/tutorial/BPM-Tutorial	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1412037663743.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20140930004103-00395-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.929199	2,242	2.6875	3	2.911201	3	Strong reasoning	Software Dev.
What are climate patterns influenced by on a fundamental level? They’re shaped by the uneven input of energy from the sun. How does the angle of entry of sunlight into the atmosphere affect the amount of energy reaching the surface? - The angle of entry of sunlight into the atmosphere affects the amount of energy reaching the surface in two ways: - Sunlight entering at an angle means more energy is spread in a larger area. - Sunlight entering at an angle must travel through larger distances of the atmosphere, which leads to the dissipation of energy. What creates seasons? - The tilt of the Earth leads to seasons and explains the reason behind why days and nights are longer at the poles. - Example: Even during the equinox, when every place on Earth experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, the sunlight enters the poles at an oblique angle, leading to a lower ratio of energy over area. What causes atmospheric circulation? What is atmospheric circulation? Varying amounts of solar energy reaching various parts of the earth leads to the formation of atmospheric cells. (Hadley between 0 and 30 and Ferrel between 30 and 60) High air pressure leads to deserts and decreased rainfall, whereas low air pressure (moisture in air condenses as air rises) leads to high precipitation. What factors affect patterns of precipitation on earth? - Atmospheric circulation (cells) - Rotation of earth - Locations and sizes of mountain ranges (topography) How does the rotation of the earth affect precipitation patterns? The coriolis effect (All positions on earth complete a single rotation in a day. However, they go at varying velocities. (equator must be faster than poles for example) The difference in velocities causes air and water to be westward when moving towards the equator and eastward when moving away from the equator.) This is what drives the rotation of large storms and hurricanes. What are biomes? Generalizations of communities in given climates (temperatures and precipitation patterns) What are the three abiotic factors affecting biome structure, function and location? - Rate of photosynthesis and productivity What is the tricellular model? - Explains differences in atmosphere pressure belts, temperature and precipitation. - 0 to 30 is hadley - 30 to 60 is ferrel - 60 to 90 is polar cell - 30 is desert - 60 degree is temperate forest - 0 is tropical rainforest What are the qualities of a tropical rainforest biome? - Constant high temperature - High rainfall - Near the equator, little seasonal variation between the tropic of capricorn and cancer - High levels of biodiversity and NPP - Soil is low in nutrients - Dense canopy, lower biodiversity in understory. What are the qualities of temperate forests? - Between 40-60 N - Cold winters and warm summers - Some ecologists recognize 3 different kinds of temperate forests based on the types of trees: coniferous (needles or waxy / pines) trees or broad-leaf evergreen trees( holly, rhododendron) or broadleaf deciduous trees (oak, maple, beech, birch) - Less biodiversity due to the forests being made one species tops 6 species. But whereas the rainforests have very high dense canopies, there’s grass and ferns and more biodiversity in the understories of temperate forests. What are the qualities of deserts? - 30 N - Water is limiting factor , NPP is very low - Xerophytic adaptations, low decomposition due to low water, high salinity, low leaching - Roots either deep or extended on surface. However, opportunistic species such as poppies grow rapidly when dormant leaves receive rainfall. What are the qualities of tundra? - High latitude, low insolation - Water is ice, sunlight is low, NPP low - Decomposition is slow, nutrition is low, biodiversity is low - Larger animals for energy efficiency (caribou and musk ox) - formed due to the retreat of glaciers - Permafrost soil - Recent human activities for oil or gas have shaped these biomes. - Mosses, lichens and dwarf trees. What are the qualities of polar ice biomes? - Very low precipitation - Lower than freezing temperature all year long - Very little vegetation except for microscopic algae. - No herbivores. What are the qualities of tropical seasonal forests? - Brazil, panama, vietnam, cambodia, india - Distinct wet and dry seasons - More sunlight reaches the ground, less dense canopy - North and south of equator - Wet season is around 27 degrees, dry season can reach up to 37 (more variation however still high) - Generally deciduous or semi-deciduous What are the qualities of tropical Savanna? - Temperate grasslands (high biodiversity, lower production) - Warm and receive significant amounts of precipitation, however have dry periods (3-4 months) - Fire and grazing are important factors in maintaining the structure of this biome. What are the qualities of temperate grasslands? - More rain than deserts but less than temperate forests. - Because precipitation is low, decomposition is also low. Thus, the soil is rich and fertile (wtf) - Large herds of migratory animals such as kangaroos or bison. - Recent grazing with domesticated animals is devastating to the biome. - Steppes (short grasses), prairies (long grasses) What are the qualities of chaparral? - Found in the mediterranean with winter rains and summer draughts. - (maki) short shrubs with waxy, thick and waxy leaves. - Used to have high biodiversity with deer, elk, mountain lions and wolves but longtime human association has largely depleted the biodiversity. What are the qualities of lakes? - Deep, stratified bodies of water with vertical zonation on nutrients, oxygen level and light. - Stratified lakes in temperate zones undergo “lake turnover” and are mixed twice a year to facilitate nutrient and oxygen dispersal due to seasonal differences. - In tropical zones, lake turnover is very rare, which may lead to dead zones. - Although lakes are high biodiversity areas, they’re threatened by human activities (agricultural and industrial run-off, invasive species) What are the qualities of taiga forests? - North america and eurasia - Evergreen coniferous boreal trees. - Low evaporation rates due to low temperature - High precipitation. - High snowfall - Wolves, deer What are the qualities of mountain ecosystems? - Relatively isolated with strong elevational gradients which may lead to vastly different climatic zones across short distances. Thus, they have a surprising degree of biodiversity and endemic species. - Adaptations include waxy and thick leaves and tolerance to both low atmospheric pressure and intense sunlight. - Found on high elevation slopes and plateaus. (alpine and subalpine climates found in tropical, subtropical and temperate areas) - Threatened by overgrazing, fire regime interruptions and large-scale cultivation. What are the qualities of oceans - Ocean biomes vary with depth as well as latitude. - Coastal biomes include coral reefs, larger organisms and multicellular algae (seaweed) - In open oceans, most primary productivity is facilitated by unicellular phytoplankton. - Threatened by climate change, habitat depletion and pollution. Why are ecoregions important? - Many ecologists believe that conservation begins with mapping the ecoregion of the endangered animals due to the following reasons: - Ecoregion mapping allows us to identify areas with exceptional biodiversity. - Allows ecologists to identify which regions are unique, redundant or representative. - Helps set strategic conservation priorities that both target areas that are most threatened and reflect the conservation values that the ecologists aim to protect. - REMEMBER: These are unique LARGE SCALE conservation units. Why are there no biomes on the corner of the diagram? - Such areas don’t exist on earth. - Such areas wouldn’t be able to sustain life. 2. Trade-offs and Species Distributions What is physiological ecology? It is the study of physiology in the context of the resources and environments available on our planet. What factors affect the species living in an ecosystem? - While temperature and precipitation tend to set the broad region where the species’ physiology allows it to exist, local patterns are determined by other environmental and ecological factors such as: - Underwater / above water - Availability of various nutrients - Soil texture - Other species living in the area. HOWEVER: The two most important factors, especially for terrestrial species, are temperature and moisture. What is the general numerical relationship between plant health - precipitation and temperature? Every 10 degree Celsius rise in temperatures requires 20 mm of precipitation per month to stay healthy. What are physiological tolerances? The limits on environmental conditions that an organism can tolerate. What is evapotranspiration? Why is it important? The overall rate of transpiration + the overall rate of evaporation from soil and other surfaces. The total amount of water available to plants is a balance between incoming precipitation and outgoing evapotranspiration. What is potential evapotranspiration (PET)? The maximum amount of water lost from an ecosystem at a given temperature. Plants need access to either an amount of water equal to or greater than PET to avoid desiccation. PET is approx. 2x temperature. What is actual evapotranspiration (AET)? - Is the actual amount of evapotranspiration that will occur at a given temperature. - If the ground is wet (precipitation is higher than PET), AET = PET and the excess water will remain on the ground. If the ground is dry (precipitation is lower than PET), AET will be less than PET and will instead equal precipitation (all the water that reaches the ground evaporates) What is desiccation? To lose water to the point of drying out. What is a niche? Is the total set of abiotic and biotic conditions under which a species will survive. What consequences can a change in the abiotic conditions of an environment have on species distribution? - It can lead to extinction - It can lead to acclimation (changes in physiology and morphology in response to environmental conditions at an individual level) or adaptation (at a population level) - The species distribution might shift following the climatic shift. How does convergent evolution connect to biomes and biome distributions? - Different species have niches for temperature and precipitation combinations, yet similar biomes - in faraway locations on earth look similar. For a given biome, similar form and function in vegetation - across the planet are a result of convergent evolution (similar selective pressures due to climate - leading to similar evolutionary outcomes irregardless of any common taxonomic or genetic background) How are biome distributions affected by climate change? - Biomes occur where they do because of climate. Throughout history, climate has changed slowly and - Biomes have responded accordingly. However, human caused global warming is occurring at a rapid - Rate and may have unprecedented consequences for the integrity of biomes. - Almost all energy on earth comes from photosynthesis (+chemosynthesis) - As a result of light reactions, NADPH + ATP + O2 is produced. ATP and NADPH are used in light - Independent reactions. - Rubisco fixes CO2 to a 5 carbon compound, which then turns into 3 carbon compounds called PGA. The 3 - carbon compounds then either turn back into glucose or are recycled to 5 carbon compounds. Where is energy stored in glucose? Energy is stored in C-H bonds in glucose. What is fixation? Fixation is turning CO2, H2O and Sunlight into glucose and water What is respiration? Respiration is turning glucose and oxygen into CO2, H2O and ATP What is photorespiration? - Instead of rubisco, CO2 binds to O2, which results in the destruction of the sugars and a loss (waste) of - energy. This depends on the temperature, concentration of O2 and concentration of CO2. What must plants do in order to minimize photorespiration? - Adjust temperature - Increase CO2 concentration - Decrease O2 concentration. - In reality, however, they’re only able to control CO2 concentration through transpiration and the stomata. What is C4 photosynthesis? - It is an adaptation to hot environments. (in cooler environments, plants perform transpiration at - a faster rate to keep O2 concentration low. However, this isn’t possible in hot environments due to - The limiting factor of water availability.) In C4 photosynthesis, the light dependent (mesophyll cells) - and light independent (bundle sheath cells) reactions are in two separate cells (called the Kranz anatomy). - In addition, the mesophyll cells use some of the ATP generated by light reactions to add CO2 to a 3 carbon - Compound called PEP. This new 4 carbon compound (malate) is then transported to bundle sheath cells - Where the extra CO2 is released in order to increase the overall CO2 concentration. The increased CO2 - Concentration allows for the plant to resist transpiration, decreasing overall water loss. What is water potential? - Water potential is the amount of free energy water has at a specific point. Water moves from areas with - High water potential to areas with lower water potential. (energy per volume mPA) (trident shape) - Water potentials are generally negative. More negative means more pull. (sanki eksik olan) - The speed that water travels through a plant depends on the difference in water potentials. What is cavitation? - This occurs to plants in very hot days. When the pull from the surrounding is too high (water potential of - Atmosphere too low, too negative), cohesion is much weaker than adhesion and bubbles form in the stem - Of the plant. What happens to water potential as the stem increases in height? - Water potential decreases (more likely for cavitation to occur) because it takes more tension at the top - To balance the increased gravity pulling the water down. tridentP subtracts about -0.01 mPA from the trident How does soil type affect water potential? - Pure water has the highest (least negative) water potential, as the attraction to surrounding materials decreases water - Potential. Thus, water in soil has lower water potential (harder to pull up). Lower water potential in soil - Increases risk for cavitation, as more suction is needed to pull water up, which increases tension. How do solutes affect water potential? - Like soil, they decrease the osmotic potential of water. (tendency of water to move from low concentration to - High concentration.) This also increases the risk for cavitation. What are the adaptations of xylems to protect against cavitation? - While pit membranes make the plant more prone to cavitation, it takes more pressure to cause - Spontaneous cavitation in xylem to occur simultaneously. Xylems with smaller pits and smaller diameters - Make the plant less prone to cavitation. However, there’s an important trade-off between small xylems and - The speed of water traveling through the stem. What is the CAM adaptation? - Plants open their stomata at night, storing CO2 in the form of malate in vacuoles. During the day, they keep - Their stomata closed and reverse the carbon storage reactions. What are the trade-offs for C4 and CAM? - Energy is used to temporarily store and reverse reactions, reducing the energy available for light - Independent reactions. C3 plants outperform CAM and C4 at lower temperatures. What are the trade-offs between specialists and generalists? - Specialists are more efficient at digesting specific foods, but it may starve if conditions change. Specialists - Have more choice, but may not be as efficient. What is basal metabolic rate (BMR)? C * mass^(¾) where C is the constant rate for different taxa What is physiological ecology? - It is the form of ecology focusing on the individual and its environment. It places special emphasis on the - Acquisition and utilization of energy and thermoregulation. Physiological ecology has its roots in adaptation. In which two ways can environmental conditions vary? - Spatial variation: from place to place (at one time) - Temporal variation: from time to time (in one place) How do organisms cope with environmental variation? - There are two methods: - Tolerance: Ability of an organism to survive stressful conditions. - Avoidance: A behavioral or physiological response of an organism to a stressful condition that - Minimizes exposure. - Most species have a combination of both. Why care about solar radiation? - Energy source for photosynthesis which is the primary source of energy for the biological diversity on earth - Role in the maintenance of body temperature in animals. What micro and macro molecules does photosynthesis require? - Phosphorus (ATP, membranes) - Nitrogen (DNA, RNA, aminoacids, protein) - Magnesium (chlorophyll) - Calcium (cell wall) - Sulfur (some aminoacids and proteins) What are the roles of transpiration in plant biology? - Moves water to the leaves (along the plant) - Keeps solutes dissolved. - Provides H2O for photosynthesis. What is the visible light spectrum? Explain photosynthesis with regard to the light spectrum. - 400-700 nm. Also called (PAR) photosynthetically active radiation. - Photosynthesis peaks 450 and 650. Plants are green because green light is reflected. How do plants know whether they’re shaded because of neighboring plants or because of clouds/ rocks etc.? - A low ratio of red : far red light is an indication of being shaded by neighboring plants, as they absorb red - Light whereas clouds etc. don’t. Exposing plants to far red light makes them grow longer but not faster, and - May even lead to less biomass accumulation due to the energy put into growing a taller stem. This ratio - Is detected by phytochrome. What are other ways (other than photosynthesis) to gain energy in an ecosystem? - Chemosynthesis performed by bacteria turns CO2 into C(CH2O) using rubisco. An example is nitrifying - Bacteria in soil that turn nitrite into energy (NO2). Another example is green or purple sulfur bacteria, which - Turn hydrogen sulfide (H2S) into energy. These are found in hot springs, sea vents etc. There are also - Parasitic and carnivorous plants!	<urn:uuid:f690a05f-9cb0-40fb-b84c-57c5fa1afd98>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://freezingblue.com/flashcards/348691/preview/bioee-1610-week-3	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991269.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20210516105746-20210516135746-00413.warc.gz	en	0.906604	4,125	3.6875	4	2.524902	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
To stay updated with the latest information in the poultry rearing industry to can check out our poultry rearing latest news. On the other hand in case you’re beginning poultry rearing and desire to start professional chicken farming today download a copy of our how to raise chickens ebook. A large number of people want to know how to manage chickens and how to produce more eggs and meat. The yield will depend on different factors such as the sort of breed you grow, the food you use, the shelter you provide and, of course, the care you provide. It is relatively straight forward, but needs determination to manage healthy chicks. When ever you provide the right care, you will enjoy fresh and delicious eggs and meat. Check out the steps below giving you an idea about how to farm chickens successfully: Choose wisely the breed you wish to raise: Practically speaking, there will be more than a hundred chicken breeds. Therefore, you might be a little puzzled when making your choice of breed. In order to avoid this, first examine what you need to get from raising chickens. You may raise them for eggs, for meat or simply for fun. You should pick a breed, depending on your needs. In this way, you will get the utmost satisfaction from keeping chickens. Let them have a proper shelter: After choosing the breed, you should give the chickens a good shelter. To give them optimal security, it is recommended to build a chicken coop. These give protection to the chickens by keeping them safe from unwanted predators. The coop will also let them have warmth, as long as it comes with enough lights. It is best, if the shelter has a nesting area with nesting boxes where the birds can lay their eggs. Right food for good health: As much as health is concerned, the chickens must be let run free in an area that has insects, bugs and seeds for them to eat. Provide the birds with healthy and balanced food as well as with nutritious supplements to ensure they are going to live long. Provide them enough water that is clean. This will ensure the chickens develop healthier and lay eggs easier. Protect them from diseases: Protecting the chickens from illnesses is a major factor that you should think about when keeping chickens. Once you arrange for vaccinations, you will have no problem with keeping chickens. Generally, chicks are delicate and can be prone to illnesses. The most frequent disease that birds can get is Coccidiosis. Remember that this disease is contagious and can spread easily to other chickens. But instead of worrying about curing it, it is better to stop it before it spreads.	<urn:uuid:324b67fb-c6af-4470-b212-b613d9ef8da2>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	http://livestockadviser.guidetoprofitablelivestock.com/2019/02/28/update-on-whats-changed-2/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991370.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20210515131024-20210515161024-00409.warc.gz	en	0.952851	528	2.65625	3	1.548023	2	Moderate reasoning	Home & Hobbies
Solving the mysteries of the past and present one rock at a time East of the Berkeley campus, we see the beautiful, green Berkeley Hills, the golden letter "C" and a somewhat classy-looking, dome-shaped building on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory campus. This houses the ALS, or Advanced Light Source. Personally, I find the name a bit silly because it doesn't seem to capture the awesomeness of this giant machine. It's like calling the Space Shuttle a Progressive Flying Tool. The ALS is a synchrotron, a particular type of particle accelerator. The particles are sped up by a shifting magnetic field within a closed circuit. The shape of this circuit is an almost circular polygon and since the building was specifically designed for the synchrotron, the building is round. But what happens inside? Each time when the particle beam is bent at each of the polygon's corners, light is produced — primarily ultraviolet and x-rays. The x-rays are not your ordinary dental office x-rays, but much "harder" x-rays. Unlike the relatively harmless photo at the tooth doctor, this beam would kill you before you could say "¿qué?" But what can paleontologists and paleobotanists do with this advanced light? Hard x-rays allow us to see fossils while they are still inside the rock. This means that you don't have to crack open the rocks, clear away rock matrix and run the risk of damaging precious fossils. In some cases, the material is simply too fragile to be prepared; it would not hold up. Scanning the rock allows us to make 3D reconstructions of fossils hidden inside the rock without damaging them. We've been scanning all kinds of really old fossils: horsetails from the Carboniferous (~300 million years ago, or Ma), kelp holdfasts from the Oligocene (~30 Ma), tiny (3 mm or ~1/8 inch) and not so tiny (7 cm or ~2¾ inch) pine cones, early land plants from the Devonian (~390 Ma), and pollen cones of extinct redwoods from the Cretaceous (~70 Ma). The size of the fossils is limited by the size of the protective shielding enclosure that keeps the scientists safe while using these lethal x-rays. Because the cyclotron basically runs 24/7, the scanning time slots are generally 24 hours long and scanning rocks can take a while. Here's the general process that we go through for each scan:	<urn:uuid:b8d7cea6-4b25-4218-b96b-46a76b677f40>	CC-MAIN-2013-20	http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/blog/archives/3375	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00086-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.926885	520	3.9375	4	2.355886	2	Moderate reasoning	Science & Tech.
Look no further than the nearest boat dock or bait shop in early spring and you’ll hear the most often asked question among the ranks of crappie anglers; when will the crappie spawn? From the shallow reeds in Florida lakes to the deep and pristine waters of northern lakes and into Canada, the most popular topic this time of year is the peak of the spawn for America’s favorite panfish. My phone rings off the wall in late winter and early spring and thousands of anglers toss the same question at me during boat shows and seminars. Everyone wants to fish during the prime phase of spawning as the fish are sporting an appetite and often head toward shallow water, a scenario that has long been a Mecca for crappie anglers everywhere. Yet spawning time may vary from year to year and several variables play a key role in when and where the annual ritual takes place. Even on your favorite reservoir peak spawning sometimes varies from one section of the lake to the other. Reasons for the variation are weather conditions, watercolor (turbidity), and surface temperature. Generally speaking, crappie prefer the temperature range of 62 to 66 degrees for active spawning but there are times when a later spawn might occur due to drastic changes in lake levels or adverse effects of cold fronts that push the time line back. In many northern lakes black crappie spawn in cooler temperatures and clear water while white crappie in the south and Midwest often choose warm conditions and dingy watercolor before dropping their eggs around structure. Drastic changes in lake levels can often throw the fish off their routine too. Overnight cold fronts that cause quick dips in surface temps are other hurdles. Sometimes, the fish are up on the banks and ready to spawn only to back off and wait for ideal conditions to return. That can mean a delay ranging from a day or two to even a week. In large lakes fish may spawn a week earlier in a shallow bay or in large basin where dingy water warms quickly. Down the lake where deep and clear conditions exist might see the spawn trailing the shallow end by several days. Kentucky Lake is a prime example as the upper Big Sandy portion of the lake in perhaps the first sector to see active spawning take place. Dingy water causes the fish to seek shallow depths as the sunlight is filtered by muddy water and the fish head to shoreline habitat as a result. This situation is often in favor of anglers who love to fish the visible cover and stalk the stickups with shallow presentations of jigs and live minnows. Adverse conditions like cold fronts and falling lake stages can pull fish off the bed and sometimes cause them to reabsorb their eggs, resulting in a lost or inferior spawning year class. Yet some fish will make a second attempt and try to spawn several weeks after the typical peak period. Perhaps it’s Mother Nature’s way of making sure a few fish sustain the species. That’s why you’ll hear anglers at the cleaning station talk about crappie still sporting their eggs long after the peak spring phase has passed. Not all fish spawn at the same time so nature is smart and doesn’t put all her eggs in the same basket at the same time. Some key indicators of peak spawning can be observed if you’ll watch the color of the male crappie, for example. The height of spawning is underway when the males turn a deep, dark purple, which is the influence of hormonal changes. The color transition takes place over a two to three week period and you’ll see early color phases in the males, which is a sure sign things are underway on your favorite lake. You can also monitor surface temperature on your LCR unit or temp gauge and pay attention to the variation between main lake areas and secondary coves. Crappie will often stage in the main lake zones where feeder creeks provide a highway to and from spawning areas. So, remember that you can capitalize on the habits and movement of prespawn fish or follow them as they stair-step their route to their annual bedding locales. Yet the element of surprise is still on the side of the fish and Mother Nature. No one can predict the weather changes or changing lake levels. Trends do occur and certain weeks of spring have a tradition of being peak fishing times but the best time to go is still “whenever you can”. The fish don’t seem to care how far you drive or how much you spend to pursue crappie fishing’s finest hour. They don’t know you plan your vacation months in advance. Respect is hard to come by when the conditions turn against you and you’re a long way from home. No one can predict the peak-spawning week each spring, although here in the Tennessee portion of Kentucky Lake the first two weeks of April are considered prime time. Your best bet is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Pack along suntan lotion and a winter coat in the same bag. With spring crappie fishing you never know which one you’ll have to use! Steve McCadams is a professional hunting and fishing guide here in the Paris Landing area. He has also contributed many outdoor oriented articles to various national publications. property of Parislanding.com	<urn:uuid:b341b9bf-5c57-402a-88e3-bd4647d96b3a>	CC-MAIN-2016-36	http://www.parislanding.com/crappie_spawn_41406.htm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982295966.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195815-00223-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.949781	1,112	2.546875	3	2.469423	2	Moderate reasoning	Sports & Fitness
OSHA Rules for a Lawn and Landscaping Business Employees of landscaping and lawn businesses face job site hazards that are different than those of other industries. In addition to the normal workplace hazards of falls, repetitive stress injuries and falling objects, landscapers also face the risk of amputation, electrocution, chemical exposure and equipment accidents. As a response to these dangers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administrations created specific standards for landscapers to follow. The main hazards when working with trees are falling, contact with exposed power lines and branches or tools dropping on a worker below. Employees must wear hard hats at all times to protect their heads from falling objects. Workers should stay at least 10 feet away from overhead power lines. If an employee is required to use a chainsaw, he must thoroughly inspect it before beginning work. Chainsaws should also be inspected and maintained periodically between work shifts and all defective parts replaced before any employee is allowed to use the saw again. When digging trenches for irrigation pipes, a landscaper must verify there are no underground utility lines in the area. Most local utility companies offer a free hotline for contractors to call before digging. Trenchers and other machinery must be thoroughly inspected before they are operated on the job site. Employees must stay clear of the trencher's blades while it is in use. Unprepared land is often unstable, which increase the risk of employees slipping and falling. Workers must wear boots with traction soles so they do not lose their footing on muddy or sloped job sites. If machinery is being used to prepare the soil, employees must wear proper noise protection gear, hard hats and safety goggles to prevent injuries from flying debris. Employees who will be exposed to chemical pesticides must be provided with the Material Safety Data Sheet for each type of chemical present on the job site. The MSDS must clearly list the type of personal protective gear required for handling that chemical. The employer must also create an accident response plan in case of a chemical spill. This plan should be clearly posted at the job site, and all employees working in the area must be trained on its use. Any employee who will be required to use a lawn mower, edger, trimmer, blower or other machinery must be trained on its correct use before beginning work. Workers should use caution when machinery is running and keep hands and loose clothing away from moving parts. Employees should never aim blower nozzles at themselves or others. Personal safety gear such as goggles, gloves and ear protection must be worn when employees operate machinery. - Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images	<urn:uuid:40d33c08-a9b0-4fd3-96cb-5c978f5a958b>	CC-MAIN-2020-10	https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/osha-rules-lawn-landscaping-business-2870.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875144979.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20200220131529-20200220161529-00392.warc.gz	en	0.929141	532	2.734375	3	1.719633	2	Moderate reasoning	Industrial
- Poor writing can make others think you aren’t intelligent. - I’m the executive editor of a magazine and know firsthand how grammar can change the meaning of a sentence. - Don’t get caught up in miscommunication. Master these simple tips. As the executive editor of Avenue Magazine, a luxury lifestyle publication based in New York City, I see the importance of proper grammar every day. But you don’t have to work in publishing to realise the necessity of good writing. Misplaced commas, an incorrect spelling, or a missing hyphen can change the meaning of a sentence. Language rules exist for clarity. A classic example is the sentence “Let’s eat mum,” which reads much differently from “Let’s eat, mum.” In the first, the writer is having her mum for dinner. In the second, she is urging her mum to eat with her. Don’t get caught up in an email chain of miscommunication. Read on for seven tips on how to improve your English expertise. 1. Read frequently Writing well can become second nature to those who also read well. Pay attention to how authors structure their sentences and how they use commas and sentence length to adjust tone and cadence. Reading can help to increase vocabulary. If you don’t know where to begin, ask colleagues for reading suggestions specific to your field, or browse best-selling book lists (here’s a great list of business books). To write well, you must also understand the basics of the English language – how sentences are composed, the different parts of speech, subject/verb agreement, tense, and punctuation. Pick up a copy of Stephen King’s “On Writing” for a fresh take on writing rules. 2. Memorise homophones There’s no way around it – many rules in the English language require memorization. Among the most frequently committed grammatical errors are misused homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings. “You’re/your,” “there/their/they’re,” “its/it’s,” and “then/than” are all commonly confused. An easy tool to help with contractions is to remember that they are derived from two words. “You’re” is “you are”; “they’re” is “they are”; and “it’s” is “it is.” “Then” is used to indicate time, whereas “than” is used as a comparison. 3. Learn first-person singular pronouns Sentences often call for choosing the correct first-person singular pronoun – either “I” or “me.” Remember that “I” is a subject pronoun, whereas “me” is an object pronoun. A helpful way to determine word choice is to remove any other subjects. For example, consider the sentence “My roommate and I/me went to the store.” If you think about the sentence as “I went to the store” or “Me went to the store,” it’s more obvious that “I” is correct.”I” is the subject of the verb “to be.” 4. Learn how to use commas As a very broad rule of thumb, commas are used to indicate pauses in a sentence. They should not be used in place of a period. For example, “We went to the baseball field, it was fun” is incorrect. But “We went to the baseball field, and it was fun” is correct, as commas can be used to separate two independent clauses when joined by coordinating conjunctions like “and,” “or,” or “but.” Commas are also used to separate three or more phrases in a series, after an introductory clause or phrase, and to set off nonessential clauses or phrases. 5. Beware the dangling modifier A dangling modifier is a word or phrase that doesn’t have a clear subject. “After reviewing your notes, the conclusion remains elusive” contains a dangling modifier. Who is reviewing the notes? The sentence should be rewritten to say, “After reviewing your notes, I am unable to come to a conclusion.” 6. Stay active All sentences are identified as being either active or passive. In an active sentence, the subject performs the action. “The girl ate the salad” is an active sentence. In a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence is also the subject of the action. “The salad was eaten by the girl” is a passive sentence. Though both are grammatically correct, passive sentence structures often lead to more errors, including dangling modifiers, misplaced commas, and run-on sentences. Sticking to the active voice will help ensure clarity. 7. Proofread and read your piece out loud A common cause of poor writing is time, as writers often power through emails and memos, giving a document a cursory glance before sending it to colleagues or clients. Step away from your piece before you submit it, and give it a thorough proofread. Reading your writing in a new form – for example, on paper instead of on a screen; in a different font; or out loud – can be helpful in finding typos or grammatical errors. Speaking aloud will also help you to catch redundancies – phrases like 3 a.m. in the morning and $US2 million dollars are redundant because a.m. indicates morning, and the word dollars is a repetition of the dollar sign. Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox.	<urn:uuid:9b27be07-ef55-4039-999c-4eb86240db26>	CC-MAIN-2021-10	https://www.businessinsider.com.au/grammar-tips-and-tricks-for-email-v2-2018-3	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178374686.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20210306100836-20210306130836-00304.warc.gz	en	0.948562	1,240	2.703125	3	1.607007	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
We have tens of thousands of authors in the database and there are sometimes over 100 books published by a single author. Each specific type of book is uniquely identified by ISBN. I want to create a single search box (currently there are several) in which the user can start entering either the book name or the author name or the isbn. The goal is to select a specific ISBN, from which book name and author names follow. Note that there are different formats for the same work, so ISBNs will differ depending on the book format, etc. The page will show all of the three selected values somewhere, but ISBN will be considered an authoritative key. A user would enter an Author's name if they do not remember the exact name of the book. I am using an http://jqueryui.com/autocomplete/ widget which can trigger search on any minimum number of characters that the user has typed. Right now the threshold is 3, but some book names (albeit few) have only two characters in them, and so do some authors (I know, weird). The search results are backed by a web service that ends up querying the database. I have a lot of flexibility in terms of how the web service should function. For example, if the user has entered fewer than 3 characters, I can perform exact match only. If the user has typed 3 or more, I can match on anything that starts with those characters. If the user has typed 7 or more characters, then I can search for anything that contains them. I could even employ something based on the Levenshtein distance in the future, since the database provides this functionality. Using the Autocomplete widget I can also format rows that come back as a table, so I can show Author, Book name, ISBN and other relevant info on the same line. My biggest question is - how to present the results back to the user most optimally? What if I type a string and it matches both part of the isbn and the book name? What if it matches both the author name and the book name? I suppose, if the search input is all numeric (or has numbers and dashes), then I can first treat it as isbn and bring those results at the top. What if the user typed "Aristotle" - are they searching for books written by Aristotle or about Aristotle - e.g. author name or book name? I suppose I could compute results in all three buckets and then present the smallest bucket first, or have some rules that decide which bucket should be presented first as a function of three numbers. I could try to visually separate the three buckets with something like an http://jqueryui.com/accordion/ widget with a table inside of each of its three sections. Or I could lump things all together. I could let the user do a more advanced search where they get to toggle three check-boxes. They could also specify the minimum length after which I should start performing a wildcard search anywhere in the middle of a string and not just the beginning. However, some who understand UX opine that preferences are a cop-out. http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Avoid_Preferences.php I can see their point. My question is a bit vague. I want to provide the best user experience for the users who are searching for a book. Google and Amazon and others make it seam so easy. I want to be able to offer the same ease of use. Any suggestions? Any questions?	<urn:uuid:93ef380b-1a80-4775-976d-5830cc03905d>	CC-MAIN-2015-11	http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/45625/need-feedback-on-how-to-design-a-web-based-search-for-books-authors-or-isbn	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936466999.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074106-00009-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.940575	728	2.71875	3	2.592384	3	Strong reasoning	Software Dev.
Daily Oral Health Q: My child won’t let me brush his teeth. A: We know it is difficult to brush your child’s teeth. However, having healthy teeth and gums is important to your child’s overall health. Experience has shown us that children do not develop the necessary motor skills to brush and floss their own teeth until age 9 or 10. By assisting them when they brush and floss, you will help to establish this good habit early in life. We are happy to help you until you become comfortable with the technique. Q: Why does my child need to floss? A: Children are prone to cavities between their teeth; tooth brushing alone will not adequately clean these spaces, and food and bacteria can build up between those teeth. You need to help your child until age 9 or so, since flossing requires a good deal of motor coordination. Q: Why does my child need fluoride? Isn’t fluoride dangerous? Doesn’t it mark the teeth? A: Fluoride makes the enamel (the outermost surface of the teeth) more resistant to cavities. Fluoride is available in two forms, the kind we ingest from the water supply or tablets, and the topical kind from toothpaste, rinses and from professional applications in the dental office. It is possible to ingest too much fluoride by swallowing too many tablets or too much toothpaste when a child is young, and this can cause permanent marks on the teeth. Topical fluoride, however, needs to be repeated at regular intervals to get the maximum benefit … daily with toothpaste and rinses, and at least every 6 months in the dental office. When professionally administered, topical fluorides are not dangerous and don’t leave any permanent marks. Q: I can’t get my hands in his/her mouth to floss. A: There are devices to make flossing your child’s teeth easier. My staff and I are happy to demonstrate their proper usage – be sure to ask. Q: How much and what type of toothpaste should we use? A: Allowing your child to use a small amount (pea sized for age 3 and up) of toothpaste to provide fluoride for the teeth is good. When it’s the parent’s turn to brush, however, experience has shown us that you can brush more easily and more effectively using a wet brush only. This allows you to see the gum line better and identify any areas that might need more attention (areas that bleed). If you child is 3 years old or younger, he/she has not yet properly honed the skill of spitting; therefore we recommend a toothpaste without fluoride so as to avoid your child ingesting excessive fluoride. Q: Is staining of the teeth hereditary? What can be done about it? A: There are two types of staining: intrinsic staining (stains on the inside of the teeth) and extrinsic staining (stains on the outside of the teeth). Some intrinsic staining may be hereditary and can usually be treated by bonding. Extrinsic staining is caused by things we eat and is typically treated by professional dental cleaning or bleaching.	<urn:uuid:b5ad64bc-006f-4555-b0bf-1d2dec228bfa>	CC-MAIN-2018-09	http://babytooth.ca/faq/daily-oral-health/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891815934.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20180224191934-20180224211934-00261.warc.gz	en	0.946601	675	2.796875	3	1.434758	1	Basic reasoning	Health
Gardens of the Cross Timbers: Synchronization The Summer Olympics, Tokyo 2020, officially “The Games of the XXXII Olympiad,” begin July 23 and end Aug. 8. The opening ceremony will be broadcast live beginning at 5:55 a.m. Friday morning, before sunrise at 6:30 a.m.! The ceremonies will be part of the Today Show on NBC, so set your TIVOs or turn on your television and grab a cup of coffee to watch the Olympians. Spectators will not be allowed during most competitions due to an uptick in the Delta variant. The water sports are my favorite. The synchronized swimming teams (name changed to artistic swimming in 2017 with mixed reviews) have me gasping for breath as they perform most moves under water. Speaking of synchronization, what about the impressive 17-year cicada event? You’ve seen pictures of Brood X, but not here in Oklahoma. Our 17-year cicadas, Brood II, will appear in 2030. We do have the annual green species which appear each summer. Actually, there are 35 annual and 5 periodical cicada species that live in Oklahoma. They are not locusts. Locusts belong to the grasshopper family with chewing mouthparts. Cicadas are true bugs with piercing mouthparts for getting fluids from plants and animals. Those folk from New York down to Georgia west to the Mississippi River were treated to the largest and most widespread cicada emergence, which began late April into May. The 17-year cicadas, now finishing up their coming out party on the East Coast, are periodical cicadas. The immature nymphs spend nearly their entire life underground sucking xylem fluid with their beaks to get liquid refreshment from the roots of deciduous trees. Xylem sap contains mainly water with dissolved organic and inorganic chemicals. This eventually flows upward from the roots into stems and leaves of the tree. In return, the nymphs aerate the soil and supply nutrients to the tree roots. When the nymphs have reached the mature stage, they dig their way up in unison to the soil surface and wail until the soil temperatures reach 64 degrees. On cue, they all emerge and climb up the nearest tree in perfect synchrony, just like artistic/synchronized swimming teams. The nymphs find a good place on the tree or shrub to shed their exoskeletons (skins). This takes one to two hours. Once their wings have plumped and their body dried, the goals of adult cicadas are to eat, mate, and lay eggs. FYO, the adult stage of a winged insect is an imago and often, adult cicadas are called imagoes. They only live two to four weeks. The male cicada sings his little heart out. Not really. He vibrates his tympanic membranes that function as mini-drums inside his nearly hollow abdomen. The membranes move rapidly in and out to emit that loud cicada buzz song we all know. A few species can break 105 decibels, and one Australian cicada tops 120 decibels, enough to harm your ears. The males group together in very loud chorus centers. The females, unless deaf, are attracted to all that noise. Male and female cicadas get together (let’s give them some privacy) and soon the female will begin to deposit rice-shaped eggs into a groove made with her ovipositor in a tree stem the size of a pencil. She’ll carve out several slits, laying about 20 eggs in each; nearly 600 eggs by the time she’s done and totally exhausted. The grooves often kill the branch ends, a condition known as flagging. It looks a tad unsightly, but doesn’t kill a healthy tree. Eggs take six to eight weeks to hatch. The baby cicada (looks like a small white ant) feeds on tree sap until it falls to the ground ready to search for roots. It often starts with grass roots and works its way to the tree roots. This becomes home for years. The periodical cicadas may be in the ground from 2 to 17 years depending on the species. They don’t hibernate, but stay quite active making tiny tunnels and eating. Knowing you have periodical cicadas could determine when you plant new trees and shrubs. Use care in plant selection if a brood is emerging within the next four years. On the other hand, the turkeys, blue jays and other birds wait for the annual or perennial flying protein packages to appear. Either the bugs are picked out of the sky or crunched right on the ground, probably still buzzing. The 13-year Brood XIXs are set to emerge in Oklahoma in 2024: the 13-year Decim Magicada trecidim, the 13-year Cassini Magicada tredecassini, and the 13-year Decula Magicada tredecula. The cicadas often appear one to three years earlier. Our 17-year cicadas (Magicada septendecula) in Brood II will come out in 2030, Brood IV in 2032 and Brood VIII in 2036. These also may emerge earlier. We’ll get to see if our 17-year cicadas are as plentiful and stunning as those on the East Coast this year. The East Coast borders the Atlantic Ocean. Oklahoma has wells, rivers, creeks and stock ponds. Water. The elixir of life. Key ingredient in the Summer Olympics as well as my fish tanks. The plastic plants were disintegrating. Why not try real plants? One for each of the two fish tanks. Cannibal, the only goldfish in one tank, nibbled to death all his tank mates except one little multi-colored goldfish. It survived. Cannibal hadn’t had time to trim the top dorsal fin, one swimming fin and the tail before I removed the poor little traumatized fish. Fin was put it into its own glass tank. The fish has to launch itself upward to get food and bangs around the sides, but otherwise is still alive and finning. Fin loves his plant anchored in gravel. Swims around or just sits in it. Cannibal has ripped out his plant three times and is currently ripping it to shreds. The plant is floating on the surface. He’s waiting for me to replant what’s left of it again. Let the summer games begin! Becky Emerson Carlberg, graduate of Oklahoma State (Plant Pathology) is a teacher, artist, writer as well as certified Oklahoma Master Gardener and Master Naturalist. Contact her at [email protected].	<urn:uuid:f8cdfe48-e0a7-4bd8-8a17-89688844561f>	CC-MAIN-2021-31	https://www.news-star.com/story/lifestyle/home-garden/2021/07/19/gardens-cross-timbers-synchronization/7972658002/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046154032.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20210730220317-20210731010317-00323.warc.gz	en	0.945878	1,421	2.671875	3	1.869048	2	Moderate reasoning	Science & Tech.
What Exactly are Hormones & What Do They Do for Your Body? Hormones are your body’s messengers that travel in the blood to communicate and regulate how the different parts of your body function. Hormones are produced in the brain (Pituitary gland) and in the endocrine organs throughout your body such as the thyroid gland or the adrenal glands. Hormones are released in response to mental, emotional, and physical signals. There are over 200 hormones that have different roles in your body. When these are balanced, your bodily processes work how they should. You feel great, and your body can do its job correctly. However, when one or more of these hormones are out of balance, it can disturb the delicate equilibrium that keeps us healthy - hormone imbalances can result in numerous symptoms like chronic fatigue, infertility, skin issues, weight gain, insomnia, mood swings, etc. This guide will focus on the most common hormonal imbalances in women. This way we can narrow down the information that’s most vital and relatable to you. 7 Most Common Hormones That Affect Women's Health Cortisol is a steroid hormone that plays an important role in our body - most notably, cortisol affects our immune system, metabolism (including sugar or carbohydrate and fat metabolism), as well as our stress response and overall resilience. As a result, when cortisol levels are not well regulated, you can experience more anxiety, fatigue, mood and memory changes, increased infections, autoimmune reactions, weight changes (especially central weight gain around your waist), and poor blood sugar control. Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone”. When you feel stressed out, your adrenal gland is busy producing Cortisol. This is especially true in the case of prolonged stress. Elevated levels of cortisol over a long period of time can lead to decreased sex drive and, in women, irregular periods, and in some cases less frequent or absent periods. High cortisol can have a suppressive effect on other hormones, particularly the luteinizing hormone responsible for regulating our sex hormones and reproductive health, as well as the thyroid hormone which regulates our metabolism - both of these hormones are essential in fertility, pregnancy, and birth. Poor diet, inconsistent meals, and lack of sleep can significantly affect your cortisol levels as well. Most importantly, higher cortisol levels are linked to increased symptoms of aging and frailty such as weight loss, decreased muscle mass, fatigue, memory changes, and osteoporosis. On the contrary, lower (normal) diurnal cortisol levels are associated with increased longevity and improved quality of life. No wonder meditation, yoga, mindfulness, healthy sleep patterns, and a healthy diet keep us young and vibrant!! Estrogen is an important sex hormone - it is a steroid hormone that is made from cholesterol and helps mature, develop, and regulate the female reproductive system. Estrogen has numerous other functions - for example, it maintains bone mass, helps with cognition and memory, and affects our mood. Low levels of estrogen can result in lighter periods, vaginal dryness, low libido, hot flashes and/or night sweats, poor memory, mood changes, mood swings, decreased bone mass, and fatigue. High levels of estrogen (Estrogen dominance) can result in mood changes, including depression and irritability, acne, infertility, increased risk of breast disease including fibrocystic breasts, painful breasts, and cancer, increased endometrial cancer risk, decreased sex drive, and weight gain. Elevated estrogen levels also interfere with thyroid function. In some cases, estrogen dominance is not the result of elevated estrogen but rather due to decreased progesterone - progesterone and estrogen have an important relationship where progesterone can act to oppose estrogen and decrease its negative effects. In these cases, correcting progesterone levels can help keep estrogen in check, reducing the risk of developing symptoms of estrogen dominance - which can help reduce those symptoms stated above. Progesterone (aka "zen" hormone) Progesterone calms us down and keeps us sane before our period- so we don’t become an emotional mess that the rest of the house buckles down for! This hormone also helps us sleep and rest. Low progesterone can cause heavy periods, feeling nervous and losing control, spotting before periods, and that lower belly pooch that we all detest! If you are known to go a “bit crazy” during your cycle, you might want to get your progesterone levels checked because there’s a high chance that it’s declining. This is also an important hormone to get your body ready for babies. Low progesterone is one of the most common causes of infertility and can also increase the risk of miscarriages. This hormone isn’t just for men and for libido! If you have low levels of testosterone, you may experience a low desire for sex, as well as low muscle tone and bone density. You may also get tired super easy when you workout, and you may have a hard time experiencing orgasms. Low testosterone has also been found to cause more wrinkles and “aging” in the face. Too much testosterone can cause irritability, masculine characteristics, painful sex, oily skin and/or acne and fertility issues. PCOS is a common condition that results in elevated testosterone and can affect fertility and overall hormonal health. Insulin is an important hormone that is produced in the pancreas. Its primary role is to help regulate blood glucose (sugar) levels by signaling cells to take up glucose to use as a source of energy. Without insulin, cells in our body can not get enough glucose to use as a fuel source and sugar circulates in the blood, contributing to increased blood sugar and in some cases, this can progress to become diabetes. Low insulin can promote cellulite formation, sweet cravings, increased appetite, and infertility. Having a thyroid imbalance can cause cold hands and feet, hair loss, weight gain, constipation, puffy face in the morning, dry skin or brittle nails, and make you feel more tired at rest than when you’re active. This can also cause infertility or irregular periods. DR. DEMERI'S HORMONE SURVIVAL GUIDE Many women experience low thyroid levels during pregnancy. Since pregnancy can easily and commonly alter your thyroid levels (even if your thyroid levels are usually normal), it’s critical that you get your levels checked as soon as you find out you are pregnant. If not addressed, low thyroid levels can increase your risk of premature birth, preeclampsia, miscarriage, postpartum hemorrhage, and anemia. Your thyroid hormone is usually never the hormone to be going out of whack first. Other factors are most likely to cause the thyroid to become imbalanced. For this reason, I try to treat the other health issues first to see if your thyroid levels restore themselves. Stress, infections, toxins, Fluoride, medications, or immune disease can have a significant impact on your thyroid. Helps your Muscles and Tissues Aids in Detoxifying Toxins Plays a Role in Memory and Learning Affects Sleep Impacts Immune Regulation Aids in Thyroid, Pancreas and Ovarian Function Influences Body Composition/ Weight-fat Distribution This is the most important to test because it: Low DHEA can lead to dry hair, noise intolerance, handling stress poorly, weak muscles, and absent hair under both your arms and pubic areas. DHEA is converted to testosterone. So if your DHEA is low, the chances of your testosterone levels being low are also very high. Also, your testosterone levels then get converted to estrogen, so your DHEA levels can have an effect on many of your other hormones. Let us help you re-balance your hormones naturally.	<urn:uuid:cdb2eae9-640c-438d-8a95-54afd418ab2d>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://belzebwellnessclinic.com/pages/pemf	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224647639.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20230601074606-20230601104606-00362.warc.gz	en	0.926831	1,634	3.046875	3	2.054659	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
Super bacteria on the rise Improved medical treatment with antibiotics and comprehensive vaccination campaigns have led to significant progress in the fight against infectious diseases and the associated pathogens. Over the past few years, however, these advances have gradually slowed down due to the extreme adaptability of bacteria and viruses. Almost all known pathogens have developed resistance to antibiotics as a result of the increased and often inappropriate use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture. Some of these pathogens can therefore not be treated with conventional drugs. Although life-threatening bacteria so called “super bacteria” are still rare in Europe, we are seeing a constant increase in infectious diseases that cannot be treated with available medication due to the massive spread of resistant pathogens in non-European countries. Targeted therapy through fast diagnosis The development of resistances can be prevented by targeted therapy. This however requires a thorough genetic analysis of the pathogen. The Horizon 2020 project FAPIC (Fast Assay for Pathogen Identification and Characterization) sets out to develop two diagnostic systems that can identify all known pathogens and associated antibiotic resistances with only one test. In addition to bacteria and viruses, such as the influenza virus or multi-resistant E. coli bacteria, the test should also be able to detect parasites and worm diseases. “We have developed novel DNA probes which enable the fast and cost-effective identification of all relevant antibiotic resistances. This method provides the basis for the diagnostic tests for rapid pathogen detection”, says Dr. Ivan Barisic, Scientist at the AIT Health & Environment Department. Conventional laboratory methods either cover only a fraction of potential antibiotic resistances with one test or involve significant expenditure of time and money, with costs amounting to several hundreds of euros per analysis. The new tests are designed to spare patients unnecessary or ineffective treatment. Cost-effective systems for hospitals and medical practices One system will be fully automatic and is intended for use in larger hospitals and reference centres. The second, smaller system is designed for independent laboratories, medical practices and developing countries. The consortium of the five-year research project includes ten institutions from seven European countries and is led by the University of Lyon (UCBL). The total budget of 6 million euros provides sufficient resources to develop a cost-effective diagnostic test, which provides detailed information about the infection and potential treatment only three hours after sampling. The high cost pressure in the health system was taken into account in the planning and design of the diagnostic systems. First tests in three years The biotechnological foundations for the diagnostic systems were laid at AIT over the past few years. The special challenge was to find a detection principle that makes it possible to identify a large number of genes with high specificity in the shortest period of time. After 3.5 years of development, the diagnostic tests will finally be tested at university clinics in Belgium and Croatia as part of the FAPIC project. The consortium includes companies that are already present on the diagnostic market with their own products thus ensuring rapid market introduction. “The project will enable AIT to significantly increase its expertise in the field of infection diagnostics”, says Dr. Martin Weber, Head of Molecular Diagnostics at AIT.	<urn:uuid:d2594da7-eb5b-4594-9a5d-df66d84b01cf>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://www.lisavienna.at/news/detail/ait-diagnostic-tests-for-super-bacteria/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710691.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20221129100233-20221129130233-00228.warc.gz	en	0.943528	645	3.234375	3	2.98824	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Every year, school buses loaded with children of all ages take class field trips to the Ronald Reagan Foundation & Library in Simi Valley, California, which is located about forty miles outside Los Angeles. There, in the Air Force One Discovery Center, library staff lead students through an interactive history lesson. Children take on the role of Washington staff, members of the press corp, and even Reagan himself and replay the events of leading to the 1983 invasion of Granada. In the provocative episode “Kid Politics” from the radio show This American Life, Starlee Kine records one such field trip in which a class of fifth graders joyfully reenact a troubling moment in American history. The children are shepherded towards the vilification of the press and deification of Ronald Reagan. Loud buzzers and flashing lights punish students for making decisions that err from history and reward them for correctly mimicking Reagan’s actions. At one point, the class lets out a unanimous and resounding “No!” when asked “Just because [the press] have their freedoms, does that mean they should use them?” (“Kid Politics”, This American Life, 14 January 2011). The entire session comes off as frighteningly Orwellian. One individual, discussing the episode, describes the event as a form of indoctrination, stating: “It can be argued that the library’s bias is obvious in the very name of the building. It’s just that they pass these conclusions off as products of the students’ own critical thinking that is misleading and so very Reaganite.” (Paul Steele, “This American Life – Kid Politics”, Dogmas of the Quiet Past, 14 March 2011). Despite the library’s questionable tactics, they clearly seem effective; the visiting children are undoubtedly enthused about history, happily engaged by the roles they inhabit. The desire to enliven a documentary experience with interactive elements stems from the immersive and persuasive power of games. However, if the genre wants to earn the respect given to documentary films, it must avoid the dubious ethical practices of the Reagan library. Yet the burden of documentary storytelling is too confining. In order to successfully create a documentary, game designers must inhibit their own genre from flourishing. Admittedly, I use the term “genre” despite the extremely few cases of documentary games in existence. In fact, all three examples that I will use are either unreleased and/or unfinished. (Accordingly, none of my opinions should reflect any judgement on the games themselves.) I also differentiate “documentary games”, which address actual historical events using factual information, from “political games”, which fictionalize elements to address real world issues. Of course, as in documentary film, the line between documentary and fictional narrative is rarely disparate. Designed by Peter Brinson, Kurosh ValaNejad, and a hand-full of others, The Cat and the Coup is likely the most recognizable documentary game. Nominated at the recent 2011 Indie Games Festival for the Nuovo Award, The Cat and the Coup tells the story of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran who was assassinated during a CIA engineered coup in 1953. The game actually puts players in the fictional role of Mossadegh’s cat. The cat then escorts Mossadegh through historical events, solving puzzles to move him from room to room with each space chronicling the events that led to the President’s downfall. Explicitly a documentary game, The Cat and the Coup incorporates actual text from newspapers and journals of the time to describe the events surrounding Mossadegh’s life and death. However, the player is not actually involved in the occurrences themselves. This might be for the best. Unlike the Reagan Library’s interactive session, the game sidesteps the ethics of historical revisionism by confining the player to the role of an observer rather than as an actor. In a description of the game available online, Brinson states: “This is not a game about alternate histories, but simply one you don’t know. The Cat and the Coup is about your relationship with Mossadegh as a historical figure, even if you didn’t realize there ever was one.” In order to avoid the risk of players subverting the historical narrative described by the documentary, The Cat and the Coup is forced away from the interactivity that makes games so persuasive. Setting player interactivity momentarily aside, pacing poses a serious problem for documentary game designers. Film has the luxury of telling the same general story in similar contexts to all its viewers. Games, however, must contend with players overcoming challenges at a variety of intervals. How do documentary game designers keep players on track with historical events using a traditional system of challenges and rewards? Brinson, at a recent panel on politics and games for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAFF), briefly discussed his decision to make The Cat and the Coup easier and easier. While he may have adjusted the game’s difficulty for a variety of reasons, ease of entry does corral players moving along a linear path at roughly the same pace, delivering a more traditional documentary experience. Also at the panel, Take Action Games, the social impact game developers of Darfur Is Dying and Finding Zoe, showed clips from their documentary game In The Balance, a “project that explores a case wherein a Tennessee family was murdered and six Kentuckians were sentenced to life in prison when they were teenagers” (“In The Balance“, Take Action Games). While players navigate the game, approaching the case from different perspectives and roles, actual documentary footage plays on the screen. In this case, the pacing of historical events is maintained through film. Like The Coup’s avoidance of historical revisionism, the needs of documentary storytelling can isolate players from actual events. The Center for Asian American Media, hosts of the SFIAAFF, is designing their own documentary game tentatively titled Climbing The Sacred Mountain. In this case, the game is meant to accompany a full length documentary film Daughters of Everest, which chronicles the first Nepali women’s expedition up Mount Everest. Rather than depict historical events as they happened, the child friendly game conveys historical lessons through quizzes and text. While Climbing The Sacred Mountain is currently just a prototype, it clearly abandons the possibility of creating an interactive documentary, settling for the role of educational supplement. I admire the efforts of documentary game designers. Documentary games can fill a niche and create valuable learning material. During a brief discussion with Brinson, he took exactly this stance. The Cat and the Coup is a documentary game, but he never designed it to give an objective retelling of history. Rather, it serves merely to draw attention to actual events in the hopes of inspiring players to explore their relationships with the past further, be it through contemplation or independent research. This style of game can prove beneficial. However, unless extreme experimentation changes how games can depict historical events, the burdens on the genre will forever confine documentary games into an uneasy category that exists between game and documentary. While documentary films have their own Oscar category, documentary games may never earn such prestige.	<urn:uuid:e6eedb67-20e0-4d00-8f49-733a248c738b>	CC-MAIN-2021-17	https://www.popmatters.com/138282-documentary-games-2496065841.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038879374.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20210419111510-20210419141510-00037.warc.gz	en	0.949081	1,500	2.515625	3	3.031124	3	Strong reasoning	Games
My print column this week examines the tough job facing scientists and federal investigators who will want to know — for purposes of recovery, penalties and litigation — how much oil is spilling out of BP’s broken well in the Gulf of Mexico. Prior spills that weren’t taking place thousands of feet below the sea surface have uncertain numbers. For instance, as reported recently in the Anchorage Daily News and “On the Media,” some Alaskan environmental activists and scientists put the true figure for the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 at two times the official estimate, or higher. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman declined to comment on the claims. Marine biologist Riki Ott, in her 2005 book “Sound Truth and Corporate Myths,” wrote that about 30 million gallons of oil spilled from the Valdez. She based the figure on numbers that emerged later from the state’s investigation of the spill, showing the proportion of offloaded liquid that was water. But by then, 10.8 million gallons had taken hold as the accepted total, and has been repeated frequently in coverage of the BP spill. “The oil industry captured the dialogue about that number,” Ott said. Figures for the cumulative spills over a half century in the Niger Delta also are difficult to pin down. “Nigerian government oil spill figures are basically based on what he oil companies tell them,” said Clive Wicks, a consultant for the environmental group WWF UK who co-wrote a study estimating the scope of these spills. “Until recent years the government did not have the means to really check the oil companies’ figures.” The exact numbers don’t necessarily matter in that case. “It’s the order of magnitude of that release that’s relevant,” said co-author Richard Steiner, an Anchorage-based conservation consultant. “If you’re talking about a blowout from a well, there is very little you can do in terms of measurement,” said Jan Erik Vinnem, who studies risk management at the University of Stavanger in Norway. The wide range of figures for some spills “illustrates that there is a lot of uncertainty about such [numbers],” Vinnem said. Part of the uncertainty stems from the different units used — gallons or barrels (42 gallons) or cubic meters (about 264 gallons) or metric tons (about 300 gallons, depending on the type of oil). “I can see clearly that’s a source of confusion,” Vinnem said. In BP’s case, exact numbers matter, because federal penalties could be assessed per gallon barrel spilled. “I suspect it will be hotly disputed,” Steiner said of the final number. Total potential penalties amount to “a number in the billions [of dollars] already, even if you use the low end of the estimate,” said David Pettit, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The most likely scenario, he said, is that the potential penalties will be used in the government’s negotiation with BP for a global settlement. “There’s usually a settlement of these cases,” said Jody Freeman, professor of law at Harvard. “A lot of factors go into the ultimate dollar figure.” States make their own assessments for local spills. Washington State, for instance, fines companies between $1 and $100 per gallon spilled. The exact amount is determined by a complex formula that is based on the state’s experience of how much damage is caused per gallon spilled, said Curt Hart, spokesman for the state department of ecology’s spills program. When such fines are a possibility, “It is in the best interest of the responsible party to have a lower number out there,” said Roy Robertson, who manages the preparedness monitoring project for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, a nonprofit group. A BP spokesman referred questions about potential fines to the government, saying the company is focused on recovery efforts.	<urn:uuid:2c37d4f9-fae7-436e-b86d-c0bb3ced85eb>	CC-MAIN-2015-48	http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/the-oil-spill-counting-problem-954/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398466178.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205426-00198-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.948358	852	2.96875	3	2.989614	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
We're working to transform how we light our world. Lighting accounts for nearly 6% of global CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. Light emitting diode (LED) technology is capable of achieving up to 50-70% energy savings. Wider adoption of such energy efficient lighting can provide a significant reduction in global emissions. In the post COP21 landscape, LED lighting has been recognized as one of the most actionable and ready to implement technologies for cities to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy. CITY STREET LIGHTING The Climate Group is working to accelerate adoption of LED street lighting in cities around the globe. In 2012 we published results from the LightSavers – a series of LED street lighting trials in 12 major cities around the world – which proved LED lighting is reliable, brings significant savings, and provides wider socio-economic benefits to citizens Most importantly, we confirmed LED street lighting is ready for full scale rollout in cities. Since then, some cities have made the switch to LED street lighting. Early adopters such as Los Angeles is already reporting energy savings of 63% – corresponding to cost savings of US$8.8 million a year. However, the vast majority of global cities have yet to make the switch. GLOBAL SWITCH BY 2025 To find out why, we launched our Global LED Consultations, supported by our lead Partner Philips Lighting and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. Our aim was to identify and address the remaining regional barriers to LED adoption. Our key findings revealed that while technological barriers have largely been overcome, specific challenges remain around lack of capacity to address each individual cities unique circumstances and identifying the most appropriate adoption business case. To accelerate this transition we called for every city and utility around the globe to make the switch to LED street lighting (or as energy efficient) by 2025. To help city stakeholders in the drive to achieve the 2025 target, and support national and regional policy to help accelerate scale-up of such energy efficient lighting technologies, The Climate Group’s LED scale-up program covers an expanding list of areas, including: - Global LED Consultation: Ongoing consultations to identify and address remaining barriers to the scale-up of LED street lighting around the world. - LED EVENTS: Upcoming events linked our LED work. - LED PUBLICATIONS: The Climate Group’s LED publications, reports and summaries. - LED KNOWLEDGE BASE - A growing database of LED-related information and reference materials. [Under construction]. - LED FINANCING: Program to explore existing and new LED financing models for cities and opportunities to leverage wider sources of finance for large-scale LED infrastructure projects, particularly in developing countries. - LED ADOPTION BY UTILITIES: Program to help identify opportunities and drive supporting policies to drive the adoption of energy efficient LED lighting by utilities. - OFF-GRID LED LIGHTING: Exploring the opportunity for off-grid LED lighting solutions in city and rural locations. \|LED Scale-up: Two-page overview of our latest work and main activities for the coming year.\|\|The Big Switch: First report under the new LED campaign revealing initial findings from our consultation work.\|\|Consultation Handout: An extended summary outlining key factors for cities exploring LED street lighting.\| - To find out more about our LED work please email us at [email protected] The energy saving potential of LED lighting has been proven over extended time periods in cities around the globe, and as a result LEDs are now predominantly the first choice for cities when upgrading their lighting infrastructure. Our LED program systematically evaluates projects around the world. See latest news and relevant links and case studies below. - Detroit, USA - 88,000 LED street lights replacement, 2015 - Portland, USA, 2015 - Los Angeles, USA - 165,000 LED street lights upgrade, 2015 - Boston, Las Vegas & Seattle, USA - 120,800 LED street lights replacement, 2014 - Southeast-Michigan, USA, 2013 - New York, USA – ongoing retrofit of 250,000 LED - Manitoba, Canada – 130,000 LED street light conversion, 2014 - Mississauga, Canada – 49,000 LED street lighting upgrade, 2014 - British Colombia, Canada – 360,000 LED lighting conversion, 2014 - Glasgow, UK, 2013 - Durham, UK - 55,000 LED street lights upgrade 2015 - Bolton, UK - 26,000 LED street lights replacement, 2015 - Plymouth, UK - 29,000 LED street lights replacement, 2015 - Newcastle & North Tyneside, UK - 66,000 LED street lights replacement, 2015 - Kent, UK - 118,000 LED streetlights upgrade, 2016 - London, UK – Transport for London, £11m project to switch 35,000 street lights to LEDs, 2013 - Birmingham, UK - 95,000 LED Lamps replacement, 2010. - Sheffield, UK - 68,000 LED Lamps replacement, to be completed by 2017, 2013 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - LED lighting along 7 km highway, 2010 - Madrid, Spain – 225,000 LED street lighting upgrade, 2014 - Sydney, Australia, 2015 - Adelaide, Australia, 2015 - Buenos Aires, Argentina - 91,000 LED street lights replacement, 2014 - Dubai, UAE, 2015 - Yerevan, Armenia – € 19 million grant from EBRD for LED street lighting, 2015 - India, EESL - Street lighting project overview, 2016 - 76,000 LED lamps to light up rural India, 2015 - Jaipur, Rajasthan, India -70,000 LED street light upgrade, 2015 - Chennai, Coimbatore, Tuticorin, and Thanjavur – Indian State of Tamil Nadu upgrades to LED lights. India - 2013 - Guangdong Province, China - 130,000 ‘smart’ streetlights, 2015 Note: This is an expanding list of examples to highlight where LEDs have been adopted at scale. Pedestrian pathway LED retrofit in the northern parklands of Adelaide. Final report The municipal government is testing two Chinese-made LED street light luminaires, one on a riverside pedestrian pathway and another on a local street. Results not published Haldia in West Bengal, India, is receiving LED installations on a major highway in the heart of the city. Hong Kong, China Two municipal universities and the Hong Kong International Airport are testing and comparing Taiwanese, Chinese, and American-made LED pathway luminaries on their respective pilot sites. Final report The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is testing over a 100 Indian made LED street light luminaries in several locales. Final report London, United Kingdom Transport for London is testing high powered LED roadway lights in demanding applications on their Red Routes. The Thane Municipal Corporation will install a trial of LED streetlights in the Greater Mumbai Region with support from the national government's Bureau of Energy Efficiency. The City of Sydney is testing LED lighting with smart controls on George Street, a road in the centre of Sydney's business district. Final report Local government agencies are testing two Chinese-made LED street lights products in a new ecocity development and on a university campus. Results not published Four City of Toronto agencies are testing parking lot, parking garage, and pedestrian pathway LED lighting products, some with smart controls. Final reports for two trials for Caledon and TCHC - Harry Verhaar, Head of Global Public and Government Affairs, Philips Lighting, talks about LED street lighting and the new LED campaign - Ben Ferrari, Director of Partnership, The Climate Group, talks about LED street lighting with Philips - Harry Verhaar, Head of Global Public and Government Affairs, Philips Lighting, talks about climate change at CCTV This section provides links to examples of tools that have been recently developed to support cities and municipalities in their planning for LED lighting upgrades. Beyond the immediate and calculable energy savings that LEDs can provide, there are many other factors that can influence the decisions of city managers around current and future lighting needs of cities. Upgrade decisions can be influenced by available financing, remaining lifetime of existing fittings and whether needs can be met by either retrofitting luminaires, replacing lighting/poles, upgrading aging infrastructure and addressing options for future proofing fittings. Below is an open toolkit list for reference. Note that this is an expanding list, it is intended to support local governments and cities. Other resources are available from both the public and private sector. To suggest links, please do not hesitate to contact us. A comprehensive archive of information on how LEDs work, their energy efficiency, luminous efficiency and color quality. The DoE shares detailed reports that include analysis of data collected, projected energy savings, economic analyses and user feedback. Developed by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) and supported by the Scottish Government, the toolkit allows councils to input their current street lighting data to calculate the reduced electricity usage from a switch to LED lighting. Quality Thresholds for LEDs (Outdoor lighting) - Department of Energy, Bureau for Street Lighting General Specifications for Solid State Lighting LED Roadway Luminaires - Philips – LED Road Lighting Design Manual - 4E – International Energy Agency, Solid State Lighting Annex (Link to Draft performance Tiers for review here) - Energy Efficiency Service Limited – Toolkit for Streetlight energy efficiency Abu Dhabi Public Realm & Street Lighting Handbook – Martin Valentine The “Abu Dhabi Public Realm & Street Lighting Handbook” development process brings together contributors representing varied viewpoints and interests to achieve consensus on lighting recommendations. - UNEP – en.lighten initative: Achieving the Global Transition to Energy Efficient Lighting Toolkit - SEAD – Super Efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) Street Lighting Tool - Global Lighting Challenge – A TCG partner initiative from the Clean Energy Ministerial to deploy 10 Billion high efficient LED lighting	<urn:uuid:3b8bce3a-9fb1-4bb8-b347-a60535bf056a>	CC-MAIN-2016-22	http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/programs/LED-scale-up/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049276543.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002116-00015-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.872757	2,066	2.65625	3	2.942383	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Holistic well being embraces the interconnectedness of our mind, body and spirit. When one department is left unchecked, we often say “something feels off”. The energy we direct to our health is largely concentrated around our physical health. One of the World Health Organisation’s principles is that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” It shows us that we are multifaceted beings with complicated constructs and therefore require equally dynamic forms of solutions to our modern-day problems. Stress and fatigue are usually the main culprits and they come in many forms. Our physical body may experience a lot of tension and our spirit is dampened simply due to stress created in the mind. Or an injury in your ankle that resulted in temporary interference to your mobility can create anxiety and feelings of hopelessness. How then do we better equip ourselves with the right set of tools to manage these moving parts in our life? 1. Vagal toning The vagus nerve is a bi-directional nerve that facilitates communication between the brain and gastrointestinal tract. This forms the basis of our mind and body connection. Vagal Toning stimulates the vagus nerve through exercises such as deep belly breathing. Place your left hand on your chest and your right hand on your belly. Slowly inhale, feeling your abdomen inflate and your chest expand. Hold your breath and feel into your body’s internal rhythm. When you exhale, feel your abdomen deflate as you push out all the air. Repeat this cycle for as long as you like. This simple activity allows you to reconnect with your physical body while your mind is engaged in a state of concentration on the movement of your breath. Deep belly breathing instead of short shallow breathes allows us to engage the autonomic nervous system and allow better flow of oxygen to our vital organs. 2. Gut Health Our physical health mirrors our mental health and vice versa. Food that affects our ability to absorb nutrients at the optimal rate results in an imbalanced microbiome. Having undesirable microbes in our gastrointestinal tract along with a compromised defence causes frequent flare-ups in our immune system. A simple rule of thumb is to cut back on sugar and inflammatory fats i.e trans fat and vegetable oils that feed the less desirable gut microbes. Increase uptake of whole, nutrient-dense food and fermented foods to facilitate nutrient absorption and healthy gut flora. 3. Good Sleep Sleep is when our body repairs itself. With our busy schedule, it can be difficult to find a consistent sleep pattern so a trick is to calculate your sleep hours using cycles of 90 minutes. If you are going to bed at midnight, you can ideally set your alarm at 6 am or 7.30 am or 9 am. This ensures you don’t wake up in the middle of the deep sleep cycle. Besides having adequate hours of sleep and a good sleep pattern, it is important to take note of the food we eat before bed as it can adversely affect the quality of your sleep. Avoid heavy meals 3 hours before bed as the release of insulin for digestion can negatively interfere with our circadian rhythm. Physical activities not only promotes blood flow and improve our physical health, but it also regulates the flow of neurotransmitters (feel-good hormones) into our brain improving overall brain health over time. Incorporating strength training and testing your limits can also improve mental resilience. Killing two birds with one stone. Neat! Regular experience of happy freedom similar to feelings of joy reconnects us to our childhood. A time when we are most deeply aligned with our spirit. When we lose ourselves in the safe feeling of joy, we reach a “flow state”. This trains our minds to return to this baseline after every fight/flight response. The key to sustained happiness is to create a world in which your inner child is free to express itself without worry of self-judgement.	<urn:uuid:5f81c87f-ab94-446c-b521-cc75829dc457>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://huddleverse.io/2022/02/holistic-well-being/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652184.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605221713-20230606011713-00631.warc.gz	en	0.923575	815	2.890625	3	2.297969	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
\|Fate\|\|Merged with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation\| \|Headquarters\|\|Santa Monica, California, Long Beach, California\| The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas, when it then operated as a division of McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas later merged with Boeing in 1997. The company was founded by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. on July 22, 1921 in Santa Monica, California, following dissolution of the Davis-Douglas Company. An early claim to fame was the first circumnavigation of the world by air in Douglas airplanes in 1924. In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service was interested in carrying out a mission to circumnavigate the Earth for the first time by aircraft, a program called "World Flight". Donald Douglas proposed a modified Douglas DT to meet the Army's needs. The two-place, open cockpit DT biplane torpedo bomber had previously been produced for the U.S. Navy. The DTs were taken from the assembly lines at the company's manufacturing plants in Rock Island, Illinois and Dayton, Ohio to be modified. The modified aircraft known as the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), also was the first major project for Jack Northrop who designed the fuel system for the series. After the prototype was delivered in November 1923, upon the successful completion of tests on 19 November, the Army commissioned Douglas to build four production series aircraft. Due to the demanding expedition ahead, spare parts, including 15 extra Liberty L-12 engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft were chosen. These were sent to airports along the route. The last of these aircraft was delivered to the U.S. Army on 11 March 1924. The four aircraft left Seattle, Washington, on 6 April 1924, flying west, and returned there on 28 September to great acclaim, although one plane was forced down over the Atlantic and sank. After the success of this flight, the Army Air Service ordered six similar aircraft as observation aircraft. The success of the DWC established the Douglas Aircraft Company among the major aircraft companies of the world and led it to adopt the motto "First Around the World - First the World Around". Douglas originally adopted a logo that showed aircraft circling a globe, replacing the original winged heart logo. The logo evolved into an aircraft, a rocket, and a globe. This logo was later adopted by McDonnell Douglas in 1967, and became the basis of Boeing's current logo after their merger in 1997. Douglas Aircraft designed and built a wide variety of aircraft for the U.S. military, including the Navy, Army Air Forces, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The company initially built torpedo bombers for the U.S. Navy, but it developed a number of different versions of these aircraft, including reconnaissance planes and airmail aircraft. Within five years, the company was building about 100 aircraft annually. Among the early employees at Douglas were Ed Heinemann, "Dutch" Kindelberger, Carl Cover, and Jack Northrop, who later founded the Northrop Corporation. The company retained its military market and expanded into amphibian airplanes in the late 1920s, also moving its facilities to Clover Field at Santa Monica, California. The Santa Monica complex was so large, the mail girls used roller skates to deliver the intracompany mail. By the end of World War II, Douglas had facilities at Santa Monica, El Segundo, Long Beach, and Torrance, California, Tulsa and Midwest City, Oklahoma, and Chicago, Illinois. In 1934, Douglas produced a commercial twin-engined transport plane, the Douglas DC-2, followed by the famous DC-3 in 1936. The wide range of aircraft produced by Douglas included airliners, light and medium bombers, fighter aircraft, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and experimental aircraft. The company is most famous for the "DC" (Douglas Commercial) series of commercial aircraft, including what is often regarded as the most significant transport aircraft ever made: the Douglas DC-3, which was also produced as a military transport known as the C-47 Skytrain or "Dakota" in British service. Many Douglas aircraft had long service lives. During World War II, Douglas joined the BVD (Boeing-Vega-Douglas) consortium to produce the B-17 Flying Fortress. After the war, Douglas built another Boeing design under license, the B-47 Stratojet turbojet-powered bomber, using a government-owned factory in Marietta, Georgia. World War II was a major boost for Douglas. Douglas ranked fifth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The company produced almost 30,000 aircraft from 1942 to 1945, and its workforce swelled to 160,000. The company produced a number of aircraft including the C-47 Skytrain, the DB-7 (known as the A-20, Havoc or Boston), the SBD Dauntless dive bomber, and the A-26 Invader. Douglas Aircraft suffered cutbacks at the end of the war, with an end to government aircraft orders and a surplus of aircraft. It was necessary to cut heavily into its workforce, letting go of nearly 100,000 workers. The United States Army Air Forces established 'Project RAND' (Research ANd Development) with the objective of looking into long-range planning of future weapons. In March 1946, Douglas Aircraft Company was granted the contract to research on intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later become the RAND Corporation. Douglas continued to develop new aircraft, including the successful four-engined Douglas DC-6 (1946) and its last propeller-driven commercial aircraft, the Douglas DC-7 (1953). The company had moved into jet propulsion, producing its first for the U.S. Navy -- the straight-winged F3D Skyknight in 1948 and then the more "jet age" style F4D Skyray in 1951. Douglas also made commercial jets, producing the Douglas DC-8 in 1958 to compete with the new Boeing 707. The company was ready to enter the new missile business during the 1950s. Douglas moved from producing air-to-air rockets and missiles to entire missile systems under the 1956 Nike missile program and became the main contractor for the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile program and the Thor ballistic missile program. Douglas also earned contracts from NASA, most notably for designing the S-IVB stage of the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets. In 1967, the company was struggling to expand production to meet demand for DC-8 and DC-9 airliners and the A-4 Skyhawk military attack aircraft. The company was also struggling with quality and cash flow problems and DC-10 development costs, as well as shortages due to the Vietnam War. Under the circumstances, Douglas was very receptive to an offer from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The two companies seemed to be a good match for each other. Although McDonnell was a major defense contractor, its civil aircraft business was almost nonexistent. Douglas would give McDonnell the civilian contracts it needed to weather any downturns in military procurement. On April 28, 1967, the two companies merged as McDonnell Douglas Corporation, headquartered at McDonnell's old facility in St. Louis, Missouri. Douglas Aircraft continued as a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas, while its space and missiles division became part of a new subsidiary called McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company. McDonnell Douglas later merged with its rival Boeing in 1997. Boeing merged Douglas Aircraft into the Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, and the Douglas Aircraft name was retired after 76 years. The last Long Beach-built commercial aircraft, the Boeing 717 (third generation version of the Douglas DC-9), ceased production in May 2006. By 2011, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was the last aircraft being assembled at the Long Beach facility; the final C-17 was assembled in late 2015. However, as mentioned above, Boeing uses Douglas' former logo.	<urn:uuid:f601d87c-c7e7-42ac-9124-05435e8e23ee>	CC-MAIN-2020-34	http://popflock.com/learn?s=Douglas_Aircraft_Company	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439737039.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200806210649-20200807000649-00450.warc.gz	en	0.959586	1,663	3.09375	3	2.223363	2	Moderate reasoning	Transportation
McDermott Library’s Special Collections department has received a medal that makes a poignant addition to the History of Aviation holdings. The Prisoner of War Medal honors one of three airmen who were executed after a daring U.S. bombing strike on Japan 70 years ago. The medal joins the library’s James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle Archive, named after the raid’s planner and leader, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. On April 18, 1942, 80 volunteer aviators led by Doolittle took off in 16 twin-engine B-25 Mitchell bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on a mission to bomb targets in Japan. Of the 80 Doolittle airmen of World War II, eight were captured by the Japanese. The Japanese held a mock trial and found three of the men guilty of war crimes, including Lt. William Glover Farrow of Darlington, S.C., the pilot of the last B-25 to take off from the USS Hornet. Facing a death sentence, Farrow was allowed to write a letter to his mother, Jessie, back in Darlington. On Oct. 15, 1942, a day after writing the letter, Farrow and two others were executed by firing squad. The letter was not mailed. Instead it was found after the war in a Japanese file. “Don't let this get you down,” the message said. “Just remember God will make everything right and that I'll see you all again in the hereafter.” He closed with: “So let me implore you to keep your chin up. Be brave and strong for my sake. P.S. My insurance policy is in my bag in a small tent in Columbia. Read Thanatopsis by Bryant if you want to know how I am taking this. My faith in God is complete, so I am unafraid." In 1985 Congress authorized the Prisoner of War Medal to be presented, even posthumously, to anyone serving in the U.S. Armed Forces who had been taken prisoner and held captive after April 5, 1917. When the new POW medals were distributed in 1985, the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association received Farrow’s medal for safekeeping since no one knew of any surviving family members. The medal was held by respective Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association presidents until Col. Richard A. Knobloch died and his widow discovered the medal inscribed with Farrow’s name. She turned it over to the Raiders group, who in turn sent it to the Doolittle Archive at The University of Texas at Dallas. “The addition of Lt. Farrow’s Prisoner of War Medal to the Doolittle Archives stands as a testament, along with Doolittle’s Medal of Honor, to the bravery of Farrow and the 79 other men who took part in the Doolittle Tokyo Raid,” said Paul Oelkrug, coordinator of Special Collections. “Facing death by firing squad on trumped-up war crime charges, Farrow wrote his mother a farewell letter and stated calmly that he was prepared for his fate.” The archive contains file folders about all of the Raiders kept by Doolittle over the years. McDermott Library personnel decided to review the Farrow file upon receipt of the POW medal. The file revealed clues about Farrow’s family. Responding to an invitation to the Doolittle Raiders Reunion in 1948, Farrow’s mother Jessie wrote a letter of response and noted that her son had a sister named Margie Maus who lived in Ohio. In a letter from 1957 to the Raiders organization, Jessie wrote that she was living in Ohio near her daughter Marjorie and stated that she had five grandsons – “one named after my Bill.” The reverse of the medal bears the engraved name of executed Doolittle Raider William G. Farrow (McDermott Library image). A U.S. Army photograph of William Farrow as a cadet at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio in 1941 (James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle Archive, UT Dallas). Jessie and Marjorie were deceased when the medal reached UT Dallas, but after a detailed search with the file information, McDermott Library found a nephew - William Farrow Maus - and informed him that the Doolittle Archive had received his uncle’s POW medal. At last, after 25 years, the family of World War II hero William G. Farrow knew he had been recognized with another military honor along with the Distinguished Flying Cross for Extraordinary Achievement, the Order of the Clouds decoration from the Chinese, the Purple Heart, and a Presidential Citation. The Farrow POW medal is now on display in Special Collections not far from the Medal of Honor that Doolittle received from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Doolittle accepted it on behalf of all the Doolittle Raiders. Farrow's final message to his mother was reprinted in newspapers throughout the world and served as an inspirational message for parents who had lost sons in the war. Farrow’s ashes were recovered from Public Cemetery No. 1 outside of Shanghai after the war. His remains were reburied at Arlington National Cemetery.	<urn:uuid:3e5f7f98-de42-48ba-a3a4-d2327414a095>	CC-MAIN-2016-30	http://www.utdallas.edu/library/newsletters/2012/spring/vault.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257831770.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071031-00232-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.975659	1,097	2.84375	3	2.607807	3	Strong reasoning	History
The economic environment in which a business operates has a great influence upon it in this lesson, you'll learn about the economic environment. An investigative study of the factors affecting the every economic growth and development and nigeria a small scale enterprise as a business with. The economic factors affecting business environment business cycles, the socio-economic infrastructure etc here you can publish your research papers, essays. A study on factors affecting the performance the performance of small businesses is defined as their which examines the factors affecting performance of smes. Environmental related factors small and medium enterprises (smes) in nigeria have not performed the economic growth and development of nigeria. Business economics global by various factors affecting the for economic growth because the impact of real and human capital development is small. The study analyzed the factors affecting family owned businesses in businesses to economic and social development the survival of business is. Factors affecting economic and social development factors affecting economic and social development this section considers the economic and social development of the non-industrial world. Culty confronted by small businesses in accessing bank credits factors influencing the growth of entrepreneurship economic development in nigeria. In economics, economic growth refers to a long-term important factors that affect the economic growth of a growth than countries with small amount of. Survival strategies of micro enterprises in factors affecting the successes of of corruption on small business development is crucial in terms. The role of small and large businesses in economic development by kelly edmiston i ncreasingly, economic development experts are abandoning traditional. Banking and finance project materials nigerian stock exchange in the economic development of nigeria and performance of small scale businesses in nigeria. Business environment analysis: nigeria october 16 economic factors and trends and child survival development. Get free research paper on effect of environmental factors on the performance of small and medium scale business in nigeria economic growth and development. Effects of leadership style on organizational performance small and medium scale businesses in nigeria die of economic growth and development in nigeria. The small scale enterprises and economic development of nigeria economic picture small scale business scale enterprises and economic development. Social determinants of health: how social and economic factors affect health 3 while the previous scenario is fictional, unfortunately it is all too plausible. Small business development is of key concern in uganda to investigate the three fundamental factors affecting the small business economics. Factors that affect economic development basic factors of economic decision making [small businesses] social factors affecting retail business. Business risks and sustainability in nigeria the economic growth and development of nigeria small businesses are categorized into four. Entrepreneurial development and a host of other positive economic uplifting factors development by positively influencing the survival of smes in nigeria. The final communique of the 2014 g20 leaders’ summit called for enhanced economic growth and small business development as papers is to help enhance. The impact of economic recession on business strategy environmental factors affecting the businesses barriers to future business growth and development. Survival of small businesses in ghana form their expected roles in the economic development exploring the factors that hinder the growth and survival of. Business essays coursework economics essays poultry industry in nigeria of cheap feeds is one of the most important factors for industry development. Factors influencing the success or failure of small business the major cost factors associated with doing business in america for the economics essay writing. Global factors affecting business external factors affecting business essay the political variables affecting the conception, development. Factors that influence the economic development of a country 7 most influential factors affecting foreign trade sales promotion: essay on sales promotion. Faculty of economics and business administration doctoral thesis and economic development to identify strategic factors that will influence the future. Literature review on small and medium enterprises’ access literature review on small and for the development and promotion of small business in. Economic development theory, sub-saharan africa, and intervention strategies for the most impoverished by whether a small business. All Rights Saved.	<urn:uuid:35cdbe96-276d-4e8b-ad9e-bda7a57d0519>	CC-MAIN-2018-26	http://igassignmentqnuu.rossienginesusa.us/factors-influencing-development-survival-small-businesses-in-nigeria-economics-essay.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267863939.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20180620221657-20180621001657-00547.warc.gz	en	0.922792	792	2.5625	3	3.018865	3	Strong reasoning	Finance & Business
Exercise affects your genes Going for a run affects not only our weight and humour – our genes also change when we exercise. Scientists may now be able to develop new treatment methods to reduce the risk of developing diseases in people unable to exercise. When you exercise – whether it’s at a fitness centre, or you go for a run or a walk – you switch on the genes in your muscles that give you the strength and energy for movement. “We knew that exercise is good and that it helps prevent a number of diseases such as diabetes, cancer and depression. But we didn’t know precisely what happens in the cells,” says Romain Barres, an assistant professor at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Integrative Physiology, a centre of excellence under the University of Copenhagen. “Now we know that the muscles’ DNA is modified chemically when we’re physically active,” he says. Changed genetic codes Together with Swedish and Irish scientists, Barres studied what happens in the muscles’ genes when we use our bodies. We can’t change the genetic code that our parents gave us, but we can change the way we use it. By exercising we can play with the genetic code. And everyone has the potential to switch the desire for exercise on and off.” In one of the exercises in the study, 14 men and women had a session of high-intensity and low-intensity training on a cycle. During the training session the scientists took biopsies of the test team’s muscles. The biopsies showed that the chemical composition of the genes was adapted to giving strength and energy after just a little exercise. However, the affected genes closed down again quite quickly once the training session finished. Towards new treatment methods The affected genes closed down because the genetic code that we are born with is not changed when we exercise. “We can’t change the genetic code that our parents gave us, but we can change the way we use it,” says Barres. “By exercising we can play with the genetic code. And everyone has the potential to switch the desire for exercise on and off.” Our study gives us a basis for developing methods to improve the state of health of these involuntarily inactive people without them having to exercise. The type of research that studies how are genes are activated and regulated is called epigenetic research – and it gives us hope as it can put us on the path towards new treatment methods, adds the researcher. Health without exercise “We now have a fundamental key to play with,” he says. “We know that exercise helps prevent a number of diseases. But there are people who cannot exercise for various reasons. These people risk developing lifestyle diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Our study gives us a basis for developing methods to improve the state of health of these involuntarily inactive people without them having to exercise.” For instance, it is likely in the future that we will develop new types of medicine that can make the genes imitate the process that occurs in muscles when they are used for exercise. In this way we can manipulate the muscles’ DNA so inactive people at risk of developing diseases can have the health-related advantages of exercise without having to lift a finger. Coffee works like exercise Caffeine is likely to be one of the ingredients in the new medicine. The scientists discovered through trials with rats that coffee can activate the same genes in muscles as those activated by exercise. But coffee cannot replace going for a run. “Exercise will always be a far better option,” says Barres. Translated by: Michael de Laine - Acute Exercise Remodels Promoter Methylation in Human Skeletal Muscle. Cell Metabolism, Volume 15, Issue 3, 405-411, 7 March 2012	<urn:uuid:e87de2c2-43b0-467e-a244-e67b1f0e31fb>	CC-MAIN-2020-45	https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-diseases-exercise/exercise-affects-your-genes/1462403	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107869785.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20201020021700-20201020051700-00402.warc.gz	en	0.946016	817	3.21875	3	2.870291	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Before analyzing a text, we want to understand its literal meaning. We’ll do this by looking up any difficult words and by putting the text in our own words (paraphrasing). For a short poem, you can do a word by word paraphrase. For a longer text, you might consider writing a short summary of key points. Our example is William Wordsworth’s poem “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1807). As you read the poem, consult the definitions below: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud By William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales1 and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way2, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin3 of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly4 dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee5: A poet could not but be gay6, In such a jocund7 company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft8, when on my couch I lie In vacant9 or in pensive10 mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. - Over valleys. - Earth’s galaxy. - Edge, border. The following paraphrase is quite casual, and it doesn’t capture the beauty and imagery of the poem, but it should give you some idea of the literal meaning: When I went for a walk, I felt like I was a cloud, floating above the hills and valleys below. Suddenly I saw a huge number of daffodils, right beside a lake and under some trees. They were swaying in the breeze. There were so many daffodils that they looked like the stars in our galaxy. The daffodils formed a line that stretched around much of the bay. In one glance I could see ten thousand of them. They looked liked they were dancing. The waves in the bay also seemed to dance, but the daffodils looked happier. A poet couldn’t avoid being happy in such circumstances. I did a great deal of gazing, but didn’t fully appreciate the moment at the time. Often when I’m lying on my couch, and feeling a bit emotionless or thoughtful, I can still see those daffodils in my mind. By the way, being able to remember is quite pleasant when you’re all alone. Now, when I recall the daffodils, I feel warm and fuzzy, as if I’m dancing with the daffodils. Don’t be too hasty in moving on to analysis. If you don’t take the time to look up difficult words, you will be more likely to misinterpret the text. This is especially the case for “false friends,” words that seem familiar but have changed their meaning.	<urn:uuid:9cca47e4-d019-4435-8ad4-0c9137749232>	CC-MAIN-2020-45	https://natureofwriting.com/courses/writing-about-literature/lessons/paraphrasing/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107912807.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20201031032847-20201031062847-00221.warc.gz	en	0.936266	722	3.6875	4	2.168617	2	Moderate reasoning	Literature
We used to think that it was easier to be a grandparent than a parent. After all, at the end of the day, grandparents go home–while parents still have to tend to their children all night long. For the grandparents of interfaith grandchildren, it may not be so simple. As a result, we have developed a set of rules, guiding principles for grandparenting. The most effective thing a grandparent can do is to do. In other words, the modeling of behaviors is the most effective form of providing direction and guidance for grandchildren. There is no better way to communicate your own religious identity. This is particularly true when grandparents live close to their grandchildren and grandchildren can actually see grandparents engaged in religious activities. Long-distance grandparents can share family pictures that emphasize engagement in such activities. And if religious identity is important, then focus your vacation time on spending holidays with your grandchildren, rather than on traveling elsewhere. Children carry their childhood memories into their own adulthood and strive to repeat positive ones–those that have become anticipated parts of their lives and that help them to feel personal happiness and self-worth. Such memories are indispensable in instilling and nurturing identities. Create the most engaging religious experiences for yourselves and invite your grandchildren to participate in them. For example, don’t rush through the Passover seder. Plan it carefully and encourage others to savor the experience. The route to developing a religious identity for the children of interfaith marriages is circuitous. It is not a straight line from “a” to “b.” It is natural for a child to want to explore the religious identity of both parents, regardless of the choices that parents have made for their family or home. This is important to the development of his or her religious identity. So make sure that you don’t judge the choices that a child has made along the way. Religious identity is fluid during childhood. Be supportive, encouraging and loving. And never put your grandchildren in that awkward place between you and your own children, or between you and their other set of grandparents. Provide your grandchildren with the opportunity to explore and question religious beliefs. Use their own experiences to spark questions about God and the world around them. Help them to build their knowledge base. (If you don’t know the answers to their questions, creatively explore them together.) Be honest and open about your own beliefs and doubts. It’s easy to blame the challenges you may have in your relationship with your own children on their decision to marry someone who was not born Jewish. Such an approach takes the burden of responsibility off of you and projects it onto your children. Instead, deal with family issues head on; separate them from interfaith issues. Otherwise, unresolved family issues that have been growing in intensity will emerge in the form of religious conflicts. And that won’t be helpful to anyone, and in fact may be hurtful to the youngest and most easily influenced of your family: the grandchildren. If you respect and love your religious/cultural heritage and spend plenty of quality time with your grandchildren, odds are in your favor that it will rub off onto the grandkids and that they will remember, appreciate, and pass along your family traditions to their grandkids. Don’t underestimate the positive impact you as a grandparent can make on the future of your family, and therefore on the future of the whole Jewish people.	<urn:uuid:c989702a-84c6-4c82-ac62-0fdd18e0e37b>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://18doors.org/dispatch_from_the_institute_grandparenting_your_interfaith_grandkids_101/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679099514.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20231128115347-20231128145347-00460.warc.gz	en	0.961782	697	3.0625	3	2.863907	3	Strong reasoning	Religion
On 4th April, the world’s leading climate scientists released the global assessment of climate change mitigation progress and pledges. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)Working Group III report, calls for mitigation from Food Systems at all stages. 50by40 reviewed the key opportunities for the transformation of food systems presented in the report. - Mitigation from Food Systems is required at all stages: Getting the most out of the food systems’ mitigation potential necessitates changes at all levels, from producer to consumer and waste management. This can be enabled through integrated policy. Technological, social, or institutional innovations that start as niches, might lead to significant transformations, including changes in social norms. Food systems are responsible for 23-42 per cent of global GHG emissions, even with widespread food insecurity and malnutrition. Integrated food policy packages based on market-based, administrative, informative, and behavioural policies can reduce costs, address multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and increase acceptance among stakeholders and civil society. - The greatest shift would come from switching to plant-based diets: Even if all fossil fuel emissions were immediately eliminated, food system emissions alone would jeopardise the 1.5ºC target. A transition to more plant-based foods and reduced animal-based foods, particularly from ruminant animals, could reduce pressure on forests and land used for feed, and support planetary health. Such a transition will also help prevent malnutrition (such as undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity) in developing countries. Other benefits include improved health and reduced mortality from diet-related non-communicable diseases. Both demand-side and supply-side strategies are needed for a dietary shift to plant-based ‘conventional’ foods. To significantly reduce GHG emissions, such dietary changes must overcome socio-cultural, knowledge, and economic barriers. On the other hand, the transition to sustainable healthy diets could hurt the agricultural sector’s economic stability. As a result, effective food-system-oriented reform policies that integrate agriculture, health, and the environment are required to move toward sustainable and healthy diets. - A Food Systems Approach is required for assessing GHG emissions: Agriculture and fisheries produce crops and animal-sourced food, which are partially processed in the food industry before being packaged, distributed, retailed, cooked, and consumed. Each step is linked to resource use, waste generation, and GHGs. A food systems approach can help identify critical areas and novel and alternative mitigation strategies on both the supply and demand sides of the food system. Mitigation measures must be tailored to the specific situation. Both mitigation and adaptation can be aided by international cooperation and global food trade governance. In cropland and grazing production and food processing, storage, and distribution, there is room for emissions reduction. Emerging options such as plant-based alternatives to animal food products and food from cellular agriculture are gaining traction. Still, their mitigation potential remains unknown and is dependent on the GHG intensity of associated energy systems due to their relatively high energy requirements. Dietary changes can reduce GHG emissions while improving health in people who consume higher calories and animal foods. Food loss and waste reductions can help reduce GHG emissions even more. - Emerging food technologies have mitigation potential: Emerging food technologies such as cellular fermentation, cultured meat, plant-based alternatives to animal-based foods, and controlled environment agriculture can significantly reduce direct GHG emissions from food production. These technologies have lower environmental, water, and nutrient footprints and address animal welfare concerns. As some emerging technologies are relatively more energy-intensive, achieving the full mitigation potential requires access to low-carbon energy. - Financial mechanisms needed for food systems transitions: Taxes can improve dietary nutritional quality and reduce GHG emissions from food systems, especially when combined with other policies that increase access and distribution of nutritious food. Taxes applied at the consumer level are more effective than levying taxes on the production side. At the same time, trade liberalisation is an essential component of sustainable food systems and one of the elements required for achieving sustainable development as it can shift pressure to regions where resources are less scarce. There is a need to develop comparative studies that enable the assessment of spatial variabilities and scalability of food system transitions. Currently, the role of private industry and corporate business is scarcely researched, even though they could play a significant role in food system transitions.	<urn:uuid:c48da379-ef74-4789-a18f-7c6ed52ded68>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://50by40.org/2022/04/06/heres-what-the-latest-ipcc-report-says-on-mitigation-from-food-systems/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711069.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20221206024911-20221206054911-00730.warc.gz	en	0.932473	890	3.421875	3	3.011274	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Aquarium salt alternative is a type of chemical that can be used to replace aquarium salt in freshwater aquariums. Aquarium salt alternatives such as SeaChem Marine Salt, Kent Marine SuperBuffer-dKH and Instant Ocean Sea Salt are all designed to provide the proper levels of electrolytes and minerals needed for healthy fish. These products also help stabilize pH levels while providing necessary trace elements and other vital nutrients. They are usually available in powdered form which makes them quite easy to use when compared to regular aquarium salts which require more effort on the part of the aquarist. In addition, these products often come with instructions so it’s important that they be followed closely in order to achieve desired results. Aquarium salt is a common additive to freshwater aquariums, but it’s not the only option available. An alternative to using aquarium salt is replacing it with certain products that contain electrolytes and minerals, such as Epsom salts or commercially sold items like Repti-Salts. These solutions can help keep your tank water balanced while also providing essential nutrients for fish health. Additionally, they are easier on the pocketbook than buying aquarium salt in bulk! How Much Aquarium Salt Per Litre When it comes to adding aquarium salt to your tank, the amount you add depends on what type of fish and plants you have in your tank. Generally speaking, a good rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon per 4-5 litres (1 gallon) of water. This will provide enough salt for most freshwater aquariums. It’s important to note that some species are very sensitive to salinity changes and may require less salt or none at all. Therefore, check with an expert before adding too much aquarium salt into the tank for best results! Api Aquarium Salt Api Aquarium Salt is a product designed to help create ideal water conditions for freshwater aquariums. It helps promote fish health by providing essential electrolytes, improving gill function and helping maintain natural slime coat protection. Api Aquarium Salt is easy to use; simply mix with dechlorinated tap water, stir until dissolved and then add it directly into the tank. It can also be used in combination with other products from Api such as Stress Coat or Ammo-Carb for additional benefits. Symptoms of Too Much Salt in Aquarium Too much salt in an aquarium can cause a wide range of problems for your fish and other aquatic life. Symptoms of too much salt may include decreased appetite, listlessness, discoloration or darkening of the skin, excessive scratching against surfaces, cloudy eyes, raised scales along the body or fins (known as osmotic blisters), bloating around the abdomen area, increased respiration rate and gasping at the surface. If you observe any of these symptoms it is important to test your water parameters to determine if there is indeed too much salt present in the water. Freshwater Aquarium Salt Calculator A freshwater aquarium salt calculator is a useful tool for hobbyists who want to maintain the salinity of their tank. By inputting parameters such as the volume of water in the tank, desired salinity level, and amount of salt being added, these calculators can provide precise instructions on how much salt should be added in order to achieve optimal levels. This helps ensure that fish stay healthy by keeping them in an environment with consistent salinity levels. Aquarium Salt Vs Rock Salt Aquarium salt and rock salt are often confused for being the same, however they have some very distinct differences. Aquarium salt is specifically designed to be used in freshwater aquariums and helps to create an environment that is ideal for fish health. Rock salt on the other hand is much more coarse than aquarium salt, and should never be used in a fish tank as it can cause irritation and stress to your aquatic friends! How Much Aquarium Salt Per Gallon for Goldfish When adding aquarium salt to an established goldfish tank, it is recommended to use 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per gallon of water. This should be added gradually over the course of one week in order to allow the fish time to adjust and prevent any potential health issues. It’s important not to add too much as this can cause stress and illness in fish, so always make sure you stick with the correct amount for your specific setup. Aquarium Salt Vs Kosher Salt When it comes to aquarium salt vs. kosher salt, there is a lot of debate over which one is best for setting up and maintaining a healthy tank. Aquarium salt tends to be more refined than kosher salt, and contains additives like calcium chloride or magnesium sulfate that can help maintain the pH balance in an aquarium. Because of this, many aquarists prefer it as their main source of salinity when preparing a new tank or treating sick fish. Kosher salt on the other hand has larger crystals and contains no additional chemicals making it ideal for brining meats or adding flavor to food but not necessarily suitable for use in an aquarium environment. Aquarium Salt Dosage When deciding on a dosage for aquarium salt, it is important to consider the size of your tank and the type of fish that you have. Generally, 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 10 gallons of water is sufficient for most freshwater tanks. However, if you have sensitive species such as bettas or other scaleless fish, reduce the amount to 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons. Additionally, keep in mind that if your tank has live plants, only use half the recommended dose as too much salt can be harmful to them. Can I Use Normal Salt Instead of Aquarium Salt? No, you cannot use normal salt instead of aquarium salt. Normal table salt is made up of Sodium Chloride which can have additives that can be harmful to your fish and other aquatic life in the tank. Aquarium Salt contains minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium that are beneficial for fish health. It also helps eliminate some common illnesses in fish like Ich or White Spot Disease by increasing the salinity level in the water. The increased salinity also helps increase oxygen levels, reduce stress on fish and make it less hospitable for parasites and bacteria, all of which will help keep your tank clean and healthy. Can I Use Epsom Salt Instead of Aquarium Salt? No, you cannot use Epsom salt as a substitute for aquarium salt. While Epsom salt is made of magnesium sulfate and can help with certain issues in fish tanks, such as disease prevention or algae control, it does not provide the same benefits that aquarium salt does. Aquarium salt contains sodium chloride which helps maintain electrolyte balance in the water to promote healthy gill function, aid digestion and reduce stress levels in fish. It also provides other minerals necessary for good health such as calcium carbonate and potassium chloride. Furthermore, Epsom salts are highly soluble which means they will dissolve very quickly in water and could lead to an imbalance if too much is added at one time; whereas aquarium salts take longer to dissolve allowing more precise measurement when adding them to your tank’s water. For these reasons it is best to stick with using aquarium salts instead of attempting a substitution with Epsom Salt. What Salt is the Same As Aquarium Salt? There are many different types of salt used in aquariums, but the one that is most often thought of as ‘aquarium salt’ is a special type of sodium chloride called evaporated sea salt. This type of salt has been evaporated from seawater and contains trace minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and other important elements for aquatic life. It is specially formulated to help buffer pH levels and create an environment conducive to healthy fish development. Aquarium salt also adds electrolytes to the water which helps with gill functioning for better respiration in your fish. Aside from this specialized kind of sodium chloride, there are various kinds of rock salts or mineral salts that can be added to aquariums instead if desired by the tank owners. Ultimately it’s up to you what kind you choose- just remember that whatever brand you select should have high quality ingredients so your tank stays safe and healthy! Can I Use Himalayan Salt Instead of Aquarium Salt? Yes, you can use Himalayan salt instead of aquarium salt. This type of natural rock salt is mined from ancient sources deep within the Himalayas and has a unique mineral composition that makes it an excellent choice for aquariums. Since the minerals are naturally occurring, they are not stripped away during processing like regular table or marine salts found in stores. The higher concentrations of trace elements make this a great alternative to traditional aquarium salts as it helps create a more balanced environment for your aquatic life. Additionally, since its mineral content is so much higher than traditional salts, it also provides additional benefits such as improved water quality and better oxygenation for fish and other inhabitants of your tank. By using Himalayan salt instead of aquarium salt, you will be providing your aquatic friends with all the nutrients they need to thrive in their environment without any artificial additives or chemicals that could harm them over time. Stop Wasting Money on Aquarium Salt! Here’s a MUCH Cheaper Option Aquarium Salt Alternative is a great way for fish keepers to provide the same health benefits of aquarium salt without any of the potential risks. This product is easy to use, safe for all fish species and provides essential electrolytes that help maintain healthy water chemistry. With its simple application, Aquarium Salt Alternative can be used on any tank size and in combination with other treatments without fear of interfering with their results. It’s an ideal choice for those who are looking to improve their aquatic environment while taking care of their pets’ wellbeing at the same time.	<urn:uuid:1485bb9c-8f58-4f20-b70e-48cfbd4d541a>	CC-MAIN-2023-23	https://aquariumia.com/aquarium-salt-alternative/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648635.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20230602104352-20230602134352-00704.warc.gz	en	0.933268	2,000	2.640625	3	1.887556	2	Moderate reasoning	Home & Hobbies
Radiotherapy is an important treatment modality for many malignancies and is also used as a part of combined modality therapy with (I) conventional chemotherapeutic agents often used in modified schedules accommodating radiation, (II) molecular targeted therapy, (III) immunotherapy, and (IV) as a part of immune suppression for stem cell and organ transplantation. New technologies in radiation therapy in the past decade have led to significant improvements in tailoring the radiation dose distribution more precisely to the shape of the tumor and minimizing the dose to sensitive normal tissues. These advances also allow higher dose delivery to a defined tumor sub-volume called “dose-painting” to areas deemed having greater tumor burden and/or increased radio-resistance due to hypoxia. Molecular and functional imaging linked to physical CT scanned images are used to guide radiation targeting and adapt treatment to tumor and normal tissue changes during a course of therapy. These novel approaches reduce collateral normal tissue damage and improve the therapeutic ratio. However, the location of the tumor within the organ, errors in treatment delivery such as incorrect patient positioning, and patient movement during treatment can result in excessive doses to normal tissues. Changes in treatment plans may be required during the course of treatment to accommodate changes in location, size and shape of the tumor and the organs at risk. A key factor to the risk of radiation injury is the relationship between dose and volume treated. Many patients suffer adverse effects from radiation therapy. These side effects may be acute, occurring during or within a few weeks after therapy, or intermediate to late, occurring months to years after therapy. Acute radiation toxicity is primarily due to cell killing, but inflammation or infection may also be contributing factors. Intermediate and late effects result from complex responses as tissues attempt to heal or fail to heal, and may be exacerbated by trauma or infection. There is a need to reduce radiation toxicity and thus provide a therapeutic benefit and improve overall quality of life. Understanding the mechanisms through which radiation toxicity develops would provide clues for developing effective radioprotectors, mitigators or treatments (1). In this review, we discuss examples of important adverse effects of radiotherapy (acute and intermediate to late-occurring, including consequential effects (2), delivered either alone or in conjunction with chemotherapy, and important limitations in the current approaches of using radioprotectors and/or mitigators for improving radiation therapy. Table 1, modified from Vikram et al. (1) illustrates important cancer types, current treatment approaches, mortality, median survival, and important adverse effects of radiation therapy either alone or as an adjuvant to chemotherapy to emphasize how development of radioprotectors can help improve radiation therapy. There are three categories of intervention for radiation damage: Protectors are agents given before radiation to prevent damage; mitigators are given during or shortly after a course of radiation therapy, before symptoms of toxicity appear; and treatments are given after symptoms of toxicity appear (4). Since various factors, including organ sensitivity to radiation, cellular turnover rate, and differences in mechanisms of injury manifestation and damage response vary among tissues successful development of radioprotectors/mitigators/treatments may require multiple approaches. In addition, patients cured of their primary malignancies may be susceptible to the development of secondary malignancies several years to decades after treatment. This risk is higher in younger patients in part because they have longer life expectancy for developing late effects. This review, however, will exclude carcinogenesis, and instead focus on the acute and intermediate to long-term toxicities from radiotherapy and potential strategies for protection, mitigation and treatment. Proposed general drug development process for radioprotectors to improve radiation therapy is illustrated in Figure 1 taking into consideration important adverse effects in current treatment approaches for major cancer types. Skin and mucosal damage Damage to skin and mucosa represents one of the most common acute adverse effects of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. Mucosal damage may occur in the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and bowel. It is a particular problem in head and neck cancer, where a significant number of patients report oral mucositis as the most debilitating adverse effect of radiotherapy (5,6). Oral mucositis often results in poor treatment outcome, reduced quality of life, and increased medical costs (7). Treatment regimens involving altered fractionation, such as hyperfractionation, accelerated radiotherapy, and concomitant boost accelerated radiation, improve therapy outcome, but invariably produce severe mucositis. Prevalence, patient-associated variables, pathobiology, risk factors, impact and current management approaches of oral mucositis have been reviewed (8). The World Health Organization (WHO) distinguishes four grades of oral mucositis, Grade 0 to 4 (9). The risk factors for developing severe mucosal injury include patients’ age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index, individual radiation sensitivity, etc. Extent of radiation-induced damage and recovery in the cell renewal systems of skin and mucosa is determined by radiation sensitivity and the cellular turnover rate. A biological model for treatment induced oral mucositis has been proposed by Sonis (10). Accordingly, the onset, development, and healing of oral mucositis occurs in five sequential and overlapping steps: initiation, upregulation, message generation, ulceration, and healing. Initiation is via generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and direct damage to cells, tissues and blood vessels, and a cascade of reactions contributing to tissue damage (11). Up-regulation involves activation of transcription factors (e.g., nuclear factor-κβ), leading to a local increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF). A positive feedback mechanism results in an amplification and acceleration of the process leading to ulceration, allowing oral bacteria to colonize denuded connective tissue. It is now believed that treatment-induced mucositis is not restricted to direct epithelial damage in regions surrounding the treatment area, but affects the entire alimentary tract and involves the connective tissue (12). Compared to chemotherapy, radiotherapy-induced mucositis follows a relatively more gradual clinical course, as the latter is administered in fractions over weeks (8). Not surprisingly, given this overlap in toxicity, chemoradiotherapy-induced mucositis can be quite severe. The incidence, duration and severity of radiation-induced oral mucositis increases with dose (13). In general, radiation-induced oral mucositis begins at an accumulated dose of 10 Gy during treatment, and intensifies in severity around 30 Gy, lasting for weeks to months. The highest rates of severe mucositis are seen among patients who receive a total body irradiation of 12 Gy as a preparative regimen in combination with high dose chemotherapy before blood stem cell transplantation (14). Current approaches in the treatment of oral mucositis Microbial colonization exacerbates oral mucositis. Current therapies for oral mucositis therefore include non-pharmacological approaches such as maintenance of oral health and hygiene in addition to oral cryotherapy as well as pharmacological treatment regimens. Benzydamine, a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory analgesic and antimicrobial compound, is used for palliation and to reduce microbial colonization (15,16). Management of radiation-induced oral mucositis with drugs such as the radioprotector amifostine, KGF (keratinocyte growth factor, palifermin), benzydamine treatment, and other investigational therapies does not provide consistent results, as described below. Amifostine, given 15-30 min before each fraction of radiation, was not effective in preventing oral mucositis in a randomized large clinical trial involving over 300 patients undergoing treatment for squamous head and neck cancer, but both acute and delayed xerostomia were reduced (17). KGF acts specifically on epithelial cells, promoting proliferation and decreasing apoptosis. It also causes thickening of the mucosa. It was effective in reducing chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis (14,18). Based on this effect, it was FDA-approved for prophylaxis of mucositis in patients receiving etoposide, cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation of 12 Gy prior to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for hematological malignancies (14). However, in a clinical study assessing the efficacy and safety of prophylactic KGF given to patients for three days before receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and weekly treatment after completion of CRT, it appeared to reduce mucositis, dysphagia, and xerostomia during hyperfractionated radiotherapy, but not during standard radiation therapy (19). In a subsequent multinational, randomized, placebo controlled, double-blinded trial with (n=188) patients with locally advanced head and neck cancers, a higher dose of KGF (180 μg/kg), when administered in weekly doses throughout the treatment with conventional chemoradiation, reduced the incidence of severe oral mucositis from 69% to 54%. The median duration of mucositis was reduced from 26 to 5 days and time to onset delayed from 35 to 47 days. The side effects were tolerable (20). Thus, the majority of current treatment approaches for oral mucositis involve palliation or treatment after manifestation of symptoms, inducing proliferative activity of the mucosal layer to enhance repair of damage. Few attempts to prevent damage to the normal mucosa during radiation treatment have been made, largely because of the possibility of tumor protection, enhanced tumor proliferation, development of tumor resistance to other cytotoxic therapies, or inter-individual variability in response to radiation. Standardization of dose, route, and time of administration is also essential to development and application of agents to reduce the incidence and severity of oral mucositis. These are constrained by side effects of the agents themselves, as was the case with amifostine (17). Common adverse events related to the administration of this drug included nausea/vomiting, hypotension, facial flushing and phlebitis. Prevention of mucosal damage is preferable to mitigation, which is preferable to treatment after symptoms develop, to allow either the uninterrupted delivery of the prescribed radiation dose or dose escalation to the tumor. Phenylbutyrate, an antitumor histone deacetylase inhibitor, was recently shown in a pilot study to mitigate oral mucositis, during radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy (21). Further development of normal-tissue-specific radioprotectors is needed. It is also important to develop and validate predictive markers useful for determining radiation sensitivity of the mucosa in individual patients in order to optimize the balance between tumor control and normal tissue toxicity. Radiotherapy-induced lung damage More than 60% of patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) are treated with radiation therapy (22). Radiation-induced lung damage is an intermediate to late-occurring side effect of radiation therapy. This damage appears as pneumonitis at the earlier times, with fibrosis occurring as a late effect. Pneumonitis occurs at about 1-3 months after radiotherapy in some patients undergoing thoracic irradiation for cancers of lung, esophagus, breast, and lymphatic systems. The symptoms are congestion, cough, dyspnea, fever, and chest pain. Pneumonitis generally subsides after several weeks and can be treated with steroids. Pneumonitis involves interstitial pulmonary inflammation, although the molecular mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Stone et al. (23) reviewed radiation-induced damage to lung and described the mechanisms of its onset, development, and contributing factors. At the molecular level, several cytokines such as TGF-β1 (24,25), IL-1 and IL-6 (26) seem to play important roles. Kong et al. (27) proposed a mechanism of regulation of pneumonitis and fibrosis. Accordingly, repetitive stimuli from fractionated irradiation and chemotherapy induce local damage to lung cells causing release of regulatory molecules such as cytokines that attract fibroblasts, circulating fibrocytes, and bone marrow stem cells that contribute to tissue healing and functional recovery (28). It is likely that interactions among multiple cell systems within a network of cellular and supra-cellular signaling pathways drive the processes leading to radiation-induced lung damage. Serial plasma specimens analyzed for changes in circulating cytokines before, during, and up to 12 weeks after irradiation indicated that both IL-1α and IL-6 levels were significantly higher before, during, and after radiotherapy in patients who developed pneumonitis (26). While new conformal techniques are helpful in limiting normal tissue radiation doses, increasing lung doses will also increase the risk of developing radiation pneumonitis. This relationship is linear-quadratic from 5 to 30 Gy (27). New information on dose-volume relationships indicates that doses of radiation higher than those traditionally administered can be delivered to a majority of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (29). This could allow dose escalation based on risk of toxicity in individual patients, combined with information on the lung volumes to be irradiated (29,30). Radiation toxicity to the lung can be markedly exacerbated by concurrent use of chemotherapy. For example, when gemcitabine and docetaxel were combined with radiation therapy, the combination regimen was extremely toxic with 8% deaths and 23% grade-3 lung toxicity compared to 1.6-2.1% deaths from radiotherapy alone (31). Combined modality toxicity is an ongoing concern with the advent of particle therapies, as proton therapy trials are being considered for treatment of lung and esophageal cancers using combined modality therapy. Whether the toxicities will be equivalent to standard therapies is not yet known. Recently, Hill et al. (32) concluded that radiation-induced inflammation in lung cells occurs through production of ROS contributing to DNA damage over prolonged periods. Individual patient factors including genetic predisposition, autoimmune conditions, or comorbidities can lead to aberrant wound healing, resulting in pulmonary fibrosis. Fibrosis often follows pneumonitis months to years after irradiation. It is diagnosed radiographically and in many patients does not cause clinical symptoms. It occurs after doses above about 30-40 Gy, depending on the fractionation scheme of radiation therapy and the use of chemotherapy. Fibrosis is characterized by vascular damage and collagen deposition (27). Current approaches of treatment or mitigation of radiation pneumonitis and fibrosis Although pneumonitis and pulmonary fibrosis are associated, the existence of pneumonitis-prone and fibrosis-prone strains of mice suggests that different mechanisms are involved in their development (33), and therefore, different approaches may be required. Since the lung is the most sensitive tissue for the delayed effects of acute radiation exposure (DEARE) following whole body exposure in terrorism and also bone-marrow transplantation, radioprotective and/or mitigation strategies could benefit all these patients. Several drugs have been evaluated, including amifostine, agents that target the renin-angiotensin system (RAS); angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin II receptor agonists (AT2RA), genistein, pentoxyfiline, and manganese superoxide dismutase/plasmid liposomes. Some examples are reviewed below. A Phase III randomized study by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) evaluated the benefits of amifostine administration in 180 patients with stages II-III non-small-cell lung cancer receiving induction paclitaxel and carboplatin, and then concurrently with hyperfractionated radiation therapy from pretreatment to 6 weeks post-treatment. Results indicated that the use of amifostine significantly reduced pain after chemoradiation (34% vs. 21%), less difficulty in swallowing during chemoradiation, and less weight loss compared to patients not receiving amifostine. However, physician-rated assessments of dysphagia were not significantly different between the treatment arms. No other quality of life or symptom changes were found with respect to treatment arm, smoking status, alcohol use, or gender (34). Robbins and Diz (35) reviewed the role of the RAS as a target for the modulation of radiation-induced late effects. RAS is a complex blood-borne hormonal system in which the substrate (angiotensinogen) and enzyme (renin) are released into the circulation from the liver and kidneys, respectively (35,36). Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) converts angiotensin I to the active form, angiotensin II (ANG II), by binding to G protein-coupled receptors, AT1R and AT2R (37), that are widely distributed in various tissues. ACE inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin II receptor antagonists (AT2RA), routinely used to manage hypertension, mitigated radiation-induced lung injury in preclinical models. In irradiated Sprague Dawley rats, administration of ACEIs captopril, CL 24817, enalapril, and CGS 13945, prevented expression of markers of endothelial dysfunction. Angiotensin II appears to play an important role in the regulation of TGF-β and α-smooth muscle actin (SMA), two proteins involved in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis (38). The AT2RA 158,809 and the ACEIs, captopril and enalapril, significantly ameliorated the effects of radiation and cytoxan treatment-induced lung injury. Thus, ACEI and an AT2RA were effective in protecting lungs from radiation-induced pneumonitis and the development of lung fibrosis (39). However, administration of ACEI during radiotherapy did not reduce the risk of radiation-induced pneumonitis in a retrospective analysis of 213 eligible patients receiving 3D-CRT for lung cancer with curative intent (40). Because a relatively small fraction of patients develop pneumonitis following thoracic radiation therapy it is important to develop predictive biomarkers that will help to identify those at risk prior to initiating trials evaluating treatments with ACEIs. On the positive side, the incidence of Grade 2 or higher pneumonitis was significantly lower in 62 patients with stage I through III who were taking ACEIs during thoracic irradiation treatment compared to 100 non-users (2% vs. 11%) (39). This is consistent with preclinical evidence, but warrants further investigation in a prospective study. Hill et al. (32) demonstrated that post-irradiation administration of EUK-207, a SOD catalase mimetic and genistein, an isoflavone with anti-inflammatory properties, decreased the frequency of radiation-induced micronuclei, a marker of radiation damage, in lung cells in mice. Similarly, genistein reduced the incidence of micronuclei in primary fibroblast cultures from female mice, indicating protection against radiation-induced genotoxicity (41). It also prevented radiation-induced reduction of COX-2 expression, TGF-β receptor (TGF-βR) I and II, and other potential biomarkers of pulmonary injury at 90 days after irradiation (41). It is hypothesized that genistein would reduce the levels of inflammatory cytokines and ROS after irradiation, resulting in reduced DNA damage and functional deficits (42). TNF-α knockout mice had a smaller radiation-induced increase in breathing rate than wild-type mice and less severe radiation pneumonitis, indicating that TNF-α plays an important role in the development of inflammation in lung following irradiation. Manganese superoxide dismutase-plasmid liposomes (MnSOD-PL) also protects lung from local radiation injury (43,44). It appears to stabilize antioxidant pools, including glutathione and total thiols, within cells and in normal tissues (43). Tumor radiosensitization, not protection, was observed in mice with orthotopic Lewis lung carcinomas following intratracheal administration of MnSOD-PL (45). The onset of alveolitis/pulmonary fibrosis was delayed and its extent was reduced (43). Mice treated with inhalation delivery of MnSOD-PL showed a plasmid dose-dependent increase in expression of MnSOD transgene product over the range of 250 μg to 2.5 mg. Treatment with MnSOD-PL 24 hr before 20 Gy to the lungs had slightly longer survival than irradiated controls (44). The initial interim analysis of RTOG 0617 comparing standard 60 Gy plus chemotherapy to the higher 74 Gy plus chemotherapy + cetuximab for treatment of inoperable Stage III NSCLC, was reported at the 2011 ASTRO meeting showing no overall survival advantage with dose escalation to 74 Gy. It was also reported that there was no significant difference in treatment-related toxicities between the two radiation treatment arms after a median follow-up time of only 11 months (unpublished at the time this paper was written: Radiation-induced brain damage The American Cancer Society predicts that there will be 22,910 new brain cancer cases and 13,700 deaths in 2012. Additionally, about 30% of cancer survivors will develop brain metastases. In fact over 200,000 patients/year in the US with malignant brain tumors, including primary and metastatic tumors, are treated with radiation therapy for cure and palliation. Over 100,000 of these long-term survivors (>6 months) will develop brain injury that affects their quality of life (47). In the brain, as in other tumor sites, radiation dose prescriptions and probability of tumor control are constrained by normal tissue tolerance, despite the use of state-of-the-art radiation delivery techniques and improved modeling of dose distributions. New stereotactic radiotherapy techniques that use high doses per fraction may provide benefit in the treatment of metastases, but their impact on treatment of glioblastoma may be mitigated by tumor extension beyond what is detectable in imaging. Radiation injury to brain develops months to years after therapy, and is severe and irreversible. In the past, delayed radiation injury was thought to be solely due to a reduction in surviving clonogens of parenchymal or vascular target cell populations; this hypothesis now appears to be simplistic. Radiation injury is dynamic and involves not only loss of parenchymal and stromal cells, including vascular cells, but also impaired proliferation of precursor cells, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and waves of pro-inflammatory cytokines and leads to tissue damage and functional deficits (11,48). Research into the mechanisms of cognitive impairment presents opportunities for development of novel therapeutic intervention strategies (35). Studies in rodent models indicate that irradiation of the brain leads to a significant reduction in neurogenesis (49), inflammation of the neurons (50,51), and progressive cognitive impairment (52). Neural progenitors within the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus are among the most radiosensitive cell types in the adult brain. Damage to these cells reduces neurogenesis and correlates with cognition deficits (50). Neural precursor cells in culture exhibit an acute dose-dependent apoptosis accompanied by an increase in ROS persisting over a 3-4-week period. Radiation also activates cell cycle checkpoints that delay or prevent cell division (42). Proliferating precursor cells and their progeny (i.e. immature neurons) exhibit a dose-dependent reduction in cell number, which is less severe in Trp53-null mice, suggesting that the apoptotic and ROS responses may be tied to Trp53-dependent regulation of cell cycle control and stress-activated pathways (51). Histological characteristics of brain injury appear to be non-specific to radiation, but after high doses, white matter necrosis with demyelination is a prominent histopathological feature. Endothelial cell loss appears to contribute to the demyelination, because significant demyelination was observed and neural precursor cell populations were reduced when endothelial cells were selectively irradiated using boron neutron capture therapy employing a boron compound that remained within the vasculature (53,54). Also, excessive generation of ROS, including oxygen radicals, free radicals, and inorganic and organic peroxides, causes an “oxidative stress” and overwhelms the “antioxidant defense system”, resulting in the development of delayed effects in the brain (55). Gradual upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) occurs several weeks prior to manifestation of tissue pathology (56), which seems to gradually diminish the integrity of blood brain barrier (BBB) (57). This leads to a vicious cycle of reduction in endothelial cell density and disruption of BBB, ultimately causing functional deficits. The RAS described previously is also found in the brain (35), where it is involved in brain-specific functions, including modulation of the BBB, pain perception, stress, memory, and cognition (58,59). Therapeutic strategies for radiation-induced brain damage Drugs currently used in animal models to counter radiation-induced brain damage block pro-inflammatory cytokines and prevent formation of ROS. These include ACEIs, statins, superoxide mimetics, and VEGF inhibitors. An ACEI, ramipril, ameliorated demyelination of optic nerves in a rat model of optic neuropathy after a single stereotactic dose of 30 Gy (60) and preserved the functional integrity of the nerve (61). Putative mechanisms of amelioration of radiation-induced brain injury, including cognitive impairment, by RAS inhibitors include a blockade of Ang II/NADPH oxidase-mediated oxidative stress and neuro-inflammation and a change in the balance of angiotensin (Ang) peptides from the pro-inflammatory and pro-oxidative Ang II to the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative Ang-1-7 (62). Treatment with the AT1RA L-158,809 before, during, and after, fractionated whole-brain irradiation prevents or ameliorates radiation-induced cognitive deficits in adult rats, although it does not appear to modulate chronic inflammatory mechanisms (63,64). Both ACEIs and AT1RAs are routinely prescribed for hypertension and are well-tolerated drugs that also exhibit some antitumor properties and can prevent/ameliorate radiation-induced brain injury (62). Statins, a class of drugs routinely used to treat hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis, have pleiotropic effects, which may include neuroprotection and promotion of tissue repair via modulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthetase (eNOS) antioxidant and anti-inflammatory pathways (65-68). Jenrow et al. (69) investigated whether atorvastatin, administered alone or in combination with the ACEI, ramipril, following radiation injury, protects progenitors and/or preserves neurogenic potential within the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus. Although chronic administration of atorvastatin alone was relatively ineffective as a mitigator, its combination with ramipril appeared to interact synergistically to mitigate radiation-induced disruption of neurogenic signaling. Cognitive functions were not evaluated in this study in adult male rats. Since oxidative stress via excessive generation of ROS appears to play a role in the development of delayed effects in brain (55), it was speculated that superoxide dismutase (SOD), may help mitigate late effects of irradiation on brain. VEGF family of signal proteins stimulates vasculogenesis and angiogenesis, which promote tumor growth. Anti-VEGF therapies have been found useful in the treatment of certain cancer types, but their benefit in protecting against radiation-induced normal tissue damage and/or mitigation is not clear. Winkler et al. (70) showed that VEGF receptor 2 (VEGFR2) blockade creates a “normalization window”, because of a transient stabilization of blood vessels and improved oxygen delivery to hypoxic regions within a rat orthotopic glioma tumor in which radiation therapy may be more effective. The benefit to counter radiation-induced normal tissue damage in brain is not clear. Bevacizumab, alone and in combination with other agents, was found to reduce radiation necrosis by decreasing capillary leakage and the associated brain edema in a clinical trial involving a very small number of patients (n=15) with malignant brain tumors, but these findings need to be confirmed in a randomized trial (71). Development of radioprotectors/mitigators - translational path to clinic Decades of preclinical and clinical research efforts have been spent with the aim of protecting normal tissue from acute radiation-induced damage and mitigating intermediate to late effects with some limited success such as with amifostine. The importance of developing agents that protect or mitigate radiation-induced damage in normal tissue, improve survival and quality of life, as well as improve palliative care in cancer patients was emphasized in an NCI workshop, “Advanced Radiation Therapeutics - Radiation Injury Mitigation”. The proceedings of this workshop include guidelines for preclinical (72) and clinical development (73) of promising agents for reducing the adverse effects of radiation therapy. A three-stage approach is recommended for preclinical radioprotector/mitigator development (74). In Stage I, maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and toxicity of the agent is determined using Good Laboratory Practices (GLP). In stage II, protective/mitigative effects are determined using both in vitro and in vivo testing in both normal tissues and tumors. If both absence of tumor protection and sufficient normal tissue protection/mitigation is found, then the mechanism of action should be identified, if not already available. In Stage III, comprehensive toxicological and pharmacological testing is performed to address the regulatory requirement for data on Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity profiles (ADMET) before proceeding to the clinical investigation (73). A consensus was reached among the workshop participants on (I) best practices for agent evaluation for normal tissue protection and radiation injury mitigation in cancer patients, (II) clinical trial designs that could efficiently and empirically move the most promising agents into appropriate clinical trials, and (III) scientific rationale that might be applied by regulatory agencies to evaluate agents for investigational new drug (IND) applications and approval. An algorithm to guide clinical trials for such agents in patients receiving radiotherapy or chemotherapy has already been published (73). The search for a universal radioprotector that works across all tissue types and anatomical sites is likely to yield limited success, because various organs and tissues differ in such factors as radiation sensitivity, DNA damage response, proliferative and oxygenation status of tissue, vasculature, drug uptake, and activation, release, and response to inflammatory cytokines. For example, the radioprotection afforded to normal tissues by amifostine varies widely, with some of the most responsive tissues showing low levels of absorbed drug and vice versa, possibly due to differences in oxygen tension (74). In addition, tumors can also affect the biology and radiation response of normal tissues, before, during, and after irradiation. Therefore, although there may be some commonality among tissues, efforts must be focused on discovering and developing radioprotectors/mitigators that are specific to each anatomical site. The extent of initial DNA damage induced by a given radiation dose to different tissues will be similar in the absence of differences in tissue oxygenation, although differences in DNA conformation resulting from cell cycle differences might occur. The outcome of this damage will largely be determined by DNA damage responses in the different tissues. There is significant inter-individual variation in responses and susceptibility to radiation effects on normal tissues, doubtless influenced by genetic factors. These are at present not well defined, but are the subject of active investigation. In the absence of mutation in DNA damage response genes, the response to DNA damage will be influenced by the proliferative status, cell cycle distribution and propensity for apoptosis of the cells in the irradiated tissue. More rapidly dividing tissues with a higher rate of cell turnover, such as those of the oral mucosa and lung epithelial lining will demonstrate greater acute reactions and consequential late effects, while the more slowly dividing CNS tissues (brain and spinal cord) are susceptible to late effects including leukoencephalopathies and radiation necrosis (75). The protection and mitigation strategies for these two types of responses could, in the future, differ as a result. For example, while anti-apoptotic approaches might be applied to epithelium, they could be of limited benefit in neural injury. The principal factors currently determining therapeutic approach are the location and accessibility of these tissues. While both pneumonitis and CNS inflammation can be treated with steroids, epithelial surfaces in the lung, oral and upper aerodigestive mucosa are candidates for topical approaches including the application of radical scavengers. This could not be used in the CNS. Soy isoflavones and SOD mimetics have been proposed for prevention of pneumonitis (76). Bevacizumab has recently been proposed as a treatment to prevent the vascular endothelial dysfunction that contributes to radiation necrosis in the CNS (77). It is well known that hypoxic cells, which are present in many tumors, are radioresistant. Because these may give the tumor a survival advantage, any additional potential for protection of tumors in relation to normal tissue, whose oxygen levels also vary, is a concern in the radioprotector field. Assays for tumor protection using cultured cell lines do not translate well into in vivo studies and hence to the clinic, because they do not mimic oxygen levels and other microenvironmental factors that affect the responses of tumors and normal tissues in situ. Functional radiobiological endpoints for cell killing such as the clonogenic assay are necessary to fully assess the impact of any protector/mitigator for normal and cancer cell lines. Since irradiated cells may remain metabolically viable and undergo several cell divisions before they die (78), assays based on uptake or exclusion of dyes are inappropriate (79). Differential radioprotection may be achieved if the normal tissue selectively takes up the radioprotector or if it has mechanisms of tissue protection not utilized by the tumor. Therefore, data demonstrating a higher concentration of the drug in the target normal tissue than the tumor in in vivo models are essential. Studies of structure-activity relationships using analogs of lead compounds can aid in understanding mechanisms of action and finding the most effective radioprotectors. Preclinical and/or early phase clinical studies demonstrating safety, efficacy, dose, schedule, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), and metabolism is necessary. It is important to demonstrate that an effective concentration of an agent in the target tissue can be achieved. This may differ among various organs. For example, the normal tissues in which the highest concentrations of amifostine are achieved include kidney, salivary gland, bone marrow, liver, heart, lung and small intestine (80). Not surprisingly, the most impressive clinical benefits were reported for amifostine for protecting kidneys and preventing xerostomia (81). Exploitable differences between tumors and normal tissues may include differences in vasculature and membrane properties related to drug or prodrug uptake and conversion to an active metabolite. Protectors and mitigators, especially those intended for use in patients treated with radiotherapy, must be evaluated in relevant in vitro and in vivo systems to determine whether they also protect tumors or increase metastasis while protecting normal tissue or aiding normal tissue recovery. In addition, they should have limited normal tissue toxicity. The protective/mitigative effect of the candidate agents ideally should be determined using in vivo human orthotopic xenograft mouse models (82), where possible to demonstrate protection/mitigation in the target tissue, but not the tumor. Finally, a clear understanding of regulatory requirements including a regulatory plan with key steps such as a pre-IND meeting with FDA, submitting an investigational new drug (IND) application, approval of clinical trial design, and ultimately drug registration also are critical. Phase zero trials Traditionally new drugs in oncology undergo Phase I trials for evaluating their toxicity profile, then Phase II trials for demonstrating efficacy proof-of-principle, followed by Phase III trials for the evaluation of efficacy. The most common reason that drugs fail is lack of efficacy in Phase II or III trials. That may be due to inadequate biological understanding of the underlying mechanisms, inadequate animal models, inadequate understanding of the optimal scheduling of the drug and/or suboptimal design of the clinical trial itself. Toxicity is a major concern for many cancer drugs. The Phase 0 trial is a new approach for evaluating the PK and PD properties of a new investigational agent in a small number of patients before initiating larger, traditional Phase I trials (83). It involves administration of very low doses of the new drug over a short time period and measuring the effect of the drug on its molecular target and/or pathways in humans employing procedures validated in preclinical models. FDA Exploratory IND Guidance may be found at: ( National Cancer Institute’s Radiation Research Program supported the manuscript preparation. Disclosure : This manuscript is not being submitted for consideration of publication elsewhere. All authors do not have any financial interests in any or all of the companies that are mentioned in this manuscript. - Vikram B, Coleman CN, Deye JA. Current status and future potential of advanced technologies in radiation oncology. Part 1. Challenges and resources. Oncology 2009;23:279-83. Williston Park. - Dorr W, Hendry JH. 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Changes in plasma transforming growth factor beta during radiotherapy and the risk of symptomatic radiation-induced pneumonitis. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 1997;37:253-8. - Yuan X, Liao Z, Liu Z, et al. Single nucleotide polymorphism at rs1982073:T869C of the TGFbeta 1 gene is associated with the risk of radiation pneumonitis in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer treated with definitive radiotherapy. J Clin Oncol 2009;27:3370-8. - Chen Y, Williams J, Ding I, et al. Radiation pneumonitis and early circulatory cytokine markers. Semin Radiat Oncol 2002;12:26-33. - Kong FM, Ten Haken R, Eisbruch A, et al. Non-small cell lung cancer therapy-related pulmonary toxicity: an update on radiation pneumonitis and fibrosis. Semin Oncol 2005;32:S42-S54. - Greenberger JS. Gene therapy approaches for stem cell protection. Gene Ther 2008;15:100-8. - Marks LB, Bentzen SM, Deasy JO, et al. Radiation dosevolume effects in the lung. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2010;76(Suppl):S70-6. - Kong FM, Ten Haken RK, Schipper MJ, et al. High-dose radiation improved local tumor control and overall survival in patients with inoperable/unresectable non-small-cell lung cancer: long-term results of a radiation dose escalation study. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2005;63:324-33. - Kouroussis C, Mavroudis D, Kakolyris S, et al. High incidence of pulmonary toxicity of weekly docetaxel and gemcitabine in patients with non-small cell lung cancer: results of a dosefinding study. Lung Cancer 2004;44:363-8. - Hill RP, Zaidi A, Mahmood J, Jelveh S. Investigations into the role of inflammation in normal tissue response to irradiation. Radiother Oncol 2011;101:73-9. - Skwarchuk MW, Travis EL. Murine strain differences in the volume effect and incidence of radiation-induced colorectal obstruction. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 1998;41:889-95. - Sarna L, Swann S, Langer C, et al. Clinically meaningful differences in patient-reported outcomes with amifostine in combination with chemoradiation for locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer: an analysis of RTOG 9801. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2008;72:1378-84. - Robbins ME, Diz DI. Pathogenic role of the reninangiotensin system in modulating radiation-induced late effects. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2006;64:6-12. - Lavoie JL, Sigmund CD. Minireview: overview of the renin-angiotensin system--an endocrine and paracrine system. Endocrinology 2003;144:2179-83. - Nakajima M, Hutchinson HG, Fujinaga M, et al. The angiotensin II type 2 (AT2) receptor antagonizes the growth effects of the AT1 receptor: gain-of-function study using gene transfer. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1995;92:10663-7. - Molteni A, Wolfe LF, Ward WF, et al. Effect of an angiotensin II receptor blocker and two angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors on transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) and alpha-actomyosin (alpha SMA), important mediators of radiation-induced pneumopathy and lung fibrosis. Curr Pharm Des 2007;13:1307-16. - Kharofa J, Cohen EP, Tomic R, et al. Decreased Risk of Radiation Pneumonitis with Incidental Concurrent Use of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors and Thoracic Radiation Therapy. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. DOI: S0360-3016(11)03501-2 [pii] 10.1016/ j.ijrobp.2011.11.013. - Wang LW, Fu XL, Clough R, et al. Can angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors protect against symptomatic radiation pneumonitis? Radiat Res 2000;153:405-10. - Day RM, Barshishat-Kupper M, Mog SR, et al. Genistein protects against biomarkers of delayed lung sequelae in mice surviving high-dose total body irradiation. J Radiat Res (Tokyo) 2008;49:361-72. - Calveley VL, Jelveh S, Langan A, et al. Genistein can mitigate the effect of radiation on rat lung tissue. Radiat Res 2010;173:602-11. - Greenberger JS, Epperly MW. Review. Antioxidant gene therapeutic approaches to normal tissue radioprotection and tumor radiosensitization. In Vivo 2007;21:141-6. - Carpenter M, Epperly MW, Agarwal A, et al. Inhalation delivery of manganese superoxide dismutase-plasmid/ liposomes protects the murine lung from irradiation damage. Gene Ther 2005;12:685-93. - Guo H, Epperly MW, Bernarding M, et al. Manganese superoxide dismutase-plasmid/liposome (MnSOD-PL) intratracheal gene therapy reduction of irradiation-induced inflammatory cytokines does not protect orthotopic Lewis lung carcinomas. In Vivo 2003;17:13-21. - Rosenman J. Can the use of amifostine improve cure rates for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer? Semin Oncol 2004;31:52-8. - American Cancer Society I. Learn about cancer. American Cancer Society; 2012 [updated 01/05/2012; cited 2012 05/05/2012]; Available from: http://www.cancer.org/ Cancer/BrainCNSTumorsinAdults/DetailedGuide/brainand- spinal-cord-tumors-in-adults-key-statistics. - Kim JH, Brown SL, Jenrow KA, et al. Mechanisms of radiation-induced brain toxicity and implications for future clinical trials. J Neurooncol 2008;87:279-86. - Ramanan S, Kooshki M, Zhao W, et al. The PPARalpha agonist fenofibrate preserves hippocampal neurogenesis and inhibits microglial activation after whole-brain irradiation. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2009;75:870-7. - Limoli CL, Rola R, Giedzinski E, et al. Cell-densitydependent regulation of neural precursor cell function. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2004;101:16052-7. - Limoli CL, Giedzinski E, Rola R, et al. Radiation response of neural precursor cells: linking cellular sensitivity to cell cycle checkpoints, apoptosis and oxidative stress. Radiat Res 2004;161:17-27. - Raber J, Rola R, LeFevour A, et al. Radiation-induced cognitive impairments are associated with changes in indicators of hippocampal neurogenesis. Radiat Res 2004;162:39-47. - Coderre JA, Morris GM, Micca PL, et al. Late effects of radiation on the central nervous system: role of vascular endothelial damage and glial stem cell survival. Radiat Res 2006;166:495-503. - Otsuka S, Coderre JA, Micca PL, et al. Depletion of neural precursor cells after local brain irradiation is due to radiation dose to the parenchyma, not the vasculature. Radiat Re 2006;165:582-91. - Robbins ME, Zhao W. Chronic oxidative stress and radiation-induced late normal tissue injury: a review. Int J Radiat Biol 2004;80:251-9. - Schuller BW, Binns PJ, Riley KJ, et al. Selective irradiation of the vascular endothelium has no effect on the survival of murine intestinal crypt stem cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006;103:3787-92. - Li YQ, Ballinger JR, Nordal RA, et al. Hypoxia in radiation-induced blood-spinal cord barrier breakdown. Cancer Res 2001;61:3348-54. - McKinley MJ, Albiston AL, Allen AM, et al. The brain renin-angiotensin system: location and physiological roles. Int J Biochem Cell Biol 2003;35:901-18. - Gard PR. The role of angiotensin II in cognition and behaviour. Eur J Pharmacol 2002;438:1-14. - Kim JH, Brown SL, Kolozsvary A, et al. Modification of radiation injury by ramipril, inhibitor of angiotensinconverting enzyme, on optic neuropathy in the rat. Radiat Res 2004;161:137-42. - Ryu S, Kolozsvary A, Jenrow KA, et al. Mitigation of radiation-induced optic neuropathy in rats by ACE inhibitor ramipril: importance of ramipril dose and treatment time. J Neurooncol 2007;82:119-24. - Robbins ME, Zhao W, Garcia-Espinosa MA, et al. Reninangiotensin system blockers and modulation of radiationinduced brain injury. Curr Drug Targets 2010;11:1413-22. - Conner KR, Payne VS, Forbes ME, et al. Effects of the AT1 receptor antagonist L-158,809 on microglia and neurogenesis after fractionated whole-brain irradiation. Radiat Res 2010;173:49-61. - Robbins ME, Payne V, Tommasi E, et al. The AT1 receptor antagonist, L-158,809, prevents or ameliorates fractionated whole-brain irradiation-induced cognitive impairment. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2009;73:499-505. - Lu D, Goussev A, Chen J, et al. Atorvastatin reduces neurological deficit and increases synaptogenesis, angiogenesis, and neuronal survival in rats subjected to traumatic brain injury. J Neurotrauma 2004;21:21-32. - Shishehbor MH, Brennan ML, Aviles RJ, et al. Statins promote potent systemic antioxidant effects through specific inflammatory pathways. Circulation 2003;108:426-31. - Shishehbor MH, Patel T, Bhatt DL. Using statins to treat inflammation in acute coronary syndromes: Are we there yet? Cleve Clin J Med 2006;73:760-6. - Chen J, Zhang ZG, Li Y, et al. Statins induce angiogenesis, neurogenesis, and synaptogenesis after stroke. Ann Neurol 2003;53:743-51. - Jenrow KA, Liu J, Brown SL, et al. Combined atorvastatin and ramipril mitigate radiation-induced impairment of dentate gyrus neurogenesis. J Neurooncol 2011;101:449-56. - Winkler F, Kozin SV, Tong RT, et al. Kinetics of vascular normalization by VEGFR2 blockade governs brain tumor response to radiation: role of oxygenation, angiopoietin-1, and matrix metalloproteinases. Cancer Cell 2004;6:553-63. - Gonzalez J, Kumar AJ, Conrad CA, et al. Effect of bevacizumab on radiation necrosis of the brain. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2007;67:323-6. - Movsas B, Vikram B, Hauer-Jensen M, et al. Decreasing the adverse effects of cancer therapy: National Cancer Institute guidance for the clinical development of radiation injury mitigators. Clin Cancer Res 2011;17:222-8. - Ryan JL, Krishnan S, Movsas B, et al. Decreasing the adverse effects of cancer therapy: an NCI Workshop on the preclinical development of radiation injury mitigators/ protectors. Radiat Res 2011;176;688-91. - Yuhas JM, Afzal SM, Afzal V. Variation in normal tissue responsiveness to WR-2721. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 1984;10:1537-9. - Rane N, Quaghebeur G. CNS effects following the treatment of malignancy. Clin Radiol 2012;67:61-8. - Sonis ST. Mucositis: The impact, biology and therapeutic opportunities of oral mucositis. Oral Oncol 2009;45:1015-20. - Matuschek C, Bolke E, Nawatny J, et al. Bevacizumab as a treatment option for radiation-induced cerebral necrosis. Strahlenther Onkol 2011;187:135-9. - Thompson LH, Suit HD. Proliferation kinetics of x-irradiated mouse L cells studied with time-lapse photography. Int J Radiat Biol Relat Stud Phys Chem Med 1969;15:347-62. - Brown JM, Wouters BG. Apoptosis, p53, and tumor cell sensitivity to anticancer agents. Cancer Res 1999;59:1391-9. - Rasey JS, Nelson NJ, Mahler P, et al. Radioprotection of normal tissues against gamma rays and cyclotron neutrons with WR-2721: LD50 studies and 35S-WR-2721 biodistribution. Radiat Res 1984;97:598-607. - Cassatt DR, Fazenbaker CA, Bachy CM, et al. Preclinical modeling of improved amifostine (Ethyol) use in radiation therapy. Semin Radiat Oncol 2002;12(Suppl 1):97-102. - Rubio-Viqueira B, Hidalgo M. Direct in vivo xenograft tumor model for predicting chemotherapeutic drug response in cancer patients. Clin Pharmacol Ther 2009;85:217-21. - Murgo AJ, Kummar S, Rubinstein L, et al. Designing phase 0 cancer clinical trials. Clin Cancer Res 2008;14:3675-82.	<urn:uuid:fa7c005d-d5f3-49bf-8bba-4d68108f9120>	CC-MAIN-2018-51	http://tcr.amegroups.com/article/view/372/725	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376823738.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20181212044022-20181212065522-00627.warc.gz	en	0.882711	12,065	2.921875	3	3.028981	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Hesperian Health Guides The pelvic exam A pelvic exam can help you know if: - you have any lumps, swelling, or sores, around your genitals. Some of these could be dangerous and may need treatment. - you are pregnant. - you have an infection in your womb, tubes, ovaries or vagina. Untreated infections are dangerous. - you have cancer of the cervix, ovaries, or womb. - you have other problems in the womb or the ovaries, such as fibroid tumors, endometriosis, or cysts that are not caused by cancer. If you limp when you walk, or use a cane, crutch, or a wheelchair If you have difficulty moving your body, you will know best how to move from one position to another. Ask your friend or the health worker to help. Before the pelvic exam begins, make sure you are well-balanced and feel safe and comfortable. (See “Positions for a pelvic exam” for some ideas.) Before the exam, try to pass as much urine and stool as you can. The pelvic exam can easily make the muscles relax and cause urine and stool to come out. If you wear a catheter all the time, you do not need to remove it. It will not affect the exam. If you have a urine bag tied to your leg, remove it and place it either beside you or across your belly. Make sure the tube does not bend, and that it continues to drain properly. To the health worker: In many clinics and hospitals, exam tables are high and hard to use for women who have difficulty moving their legs or holding them in place. Tables closer to the ground are best for most women with disabilities. But you do not need to use a special table to do a pelvic exam. A health worker can do this exam on any clean, firm surface—even on a clean cloth on a clean floor. To examine someone on the floor, turn the handle of the speculum so it faces up when you put it into the woman’s vagina. Otherwise the speculum will be hard to open. To make sure the speculum does not touch the floor, put some folded cloth under the woman’s hips to lift them a little. Many women are frightened when they first see a speculum. They imagine that it must hurt them when it is put inside their vagina. When you examine a woman who has never had a pelvic exam before, show her a very small speculum, even if you plan to use a larger one. Make sure she is relaxed, touch her gently, and always explain what you are about to do. When the exam is finished, thank her for making it so easy for you to do the exam. Take precautions to prevent dysreflexia (sudden high blood pressure with pounding headache) Dysreflexia is common in people with spinal cord injuries. It is the body’s reaction to something that would normally cause pain or discomfort, but which the person does not feel because of the injury. During a woman’s pelvic exam, dysreflexia can be caused by: - a woman’s body touching a hard exam table or surface (even if she cannot feel it). - pressure in the vagina or rectum from the hands of the person doing the exam or from an instrument (such as a speculum), especially if it is cold. - cold temperature in the clinic where the exam is being done. - a urine tube (catheter) that has become bent or twisted. Positions for a pelvic exam If you cannot separate your legs easily, this does not mean you cannot have the exam. Talk to the health worker about different positions that will work for your body. Here are some positions many women with physical disabilities use: If you have stiff or tight muscles Muscles can suddenly get tight and stiff during an exam. This happens mainly to women with a spinal cord injury or cerebral palsy. Sudden muscle spasms can happen when: - you move onto an exam table. - you are in an uncomfortable position. - an instrument such as a speculum is put into the vagina. - a health worker puts her fingers in the vagina or anus, as with a ‘bimanual’ or rectal exam. If you have tight muscles, ask the health worker to go slowly so you have more time to relax. If a spasm happens during the exam, ask the health worker to stop and wait until your muscles are relaxed or soft again. Do not pull or push directly against the tight muscles. This will make the spasm worse. A friend can gently hold or support the affected place until the muscle is soft again. The exam will be easier if you can find a comfortable position where you can relax and do not have to make your muscles tight to hold yourself in place. Or ask a friend or family member to help hold your body during the exam. If this is not possible, you can roll up blankets and put them underneath your knees.	<urn:uuid:36958822-d4bb-4a7c-9e78-c65ee0cc3d74>	CC-MAIN-2015-14	http://en.hesperian.org/hhg/A_Health_Handbook_for_Women_with_Disabilities:The_pelvic_exam	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-14/segments/1427131298755.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20150323172138-00153-ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.95104	1,056	2.546875	3	1.266954	1	Basic reasoning	Health
Products that may interest you: Your immune system is involved in many other systems within the body. Your immune system is actively doing its job when you experience hot flashes, stubborn weight gain, or cloudy thinking. Most of us send the immune system mixed signals. Processed, chemical-laden foods trigger the immune system to act. Gluten and most grains tell the immune system there is a problem. Water contaminated with toxic chemicals and heavy metals sends off alarm bells. Your Inner Ecosystem and Your Immune System Rather than working against your immune system, it’s time to work with it. An imbalanced inner ecosystem may be caused by a deficiency in enzymes or an overgrowth of Candida yeast. Support robust immunity and digestion with a diet rich in cultured foods. If you are looking for a place to begin, the gut holds up to 80% of the immune system. The gut is surrounded by a mass of tissue that makes cells for the immune system. This tissue is called GALT (gut-associated lymphoid tissue). GALT makes sure that anything coming in from the outside world isn’t going to harm you. While GALT is just doing its job, problems arise when: - We consume harmful foods. - The inner ecosystem is out of balance. A wounded and out-of-balance inner ecosystem can mean many things. It can mean that you don’t have enough enzymes to break down food or that Candida yeast has taken over your digestive terrain like a virulent weed. Most of the microbes living in the gut are found in the colon, or large intestine. While it may sound strange, your body welcomes them! When your colon is healthy, you will find a diverse community of bacteria and yeast. For the most part, you share a synergistic relationship with your microbes. They manufacture vitamins. They produce fatty acids that control inflammation. They synthesize chemicals that fight infection, like Candida overgrowth. When the inner ecosystem is out of balance, these helpful microbes aren’t around. Or if they are around, they have lost their ability to do much good. When the inner ecosystem is out of balance, harmful microbes take control, and the result is an inflamed and leaky gut. Cultured Foods to the Rescue Remember how the immune system affects so many aspects of health? And remember how it is found mainly in the gut? As it turns out, good bacteria and yeast living in the gut help the immune system do its job. These microbes communicate directly and indirectly with the immune system. Cultured foods wrap beneficial microbes in a protective matrix, helping them to safely colonize the lower end of the digestive tract and communicate with the immune system. In fact, research shows that microbes have a better chance of surviving the harsh environment of the stomach when they are consumed as food—rather than as a probiotic supplement. - IMPORTANT: When culturing foods at home, always use a starter culture that contains specific strains of beneficial microbes. This prevents wild and unwanted bugs from growing. - Feed your starter culture with a prebiotic. A prebiotic gives your preparation of cultured foods the edge it needs to flourish. - Add a pinch of trace minerals or Celtic Sea Salt. Good bacteria love minerals as much as we do! They thrive in a mineral-rich environment. What To Remember Most About This Article: Your immune system can affect the health of your entire body. This is why it is important to understand that up to 80% of the immune system is found in the gut. Poor digestive and immune health can be caused by eating harmful foods or an imbalanced inner ecosystem. In some cases, you may not have enough enzymes to effectively break down food, or a Candida infection may have spread throughout your body. Cultured foods are exactly what your body needs to get your immunity back on track. Cultured foods provide beneficial microbes wrapped in a protective matrix to support a robust inner ecology. Research confirms that probiotics in cultured foods better survive stomach acidity compared to probiotic supplements. When making cultured foods at home, we recommend: - It is IMPORTANT to always use a starter culture to protect against wild, unwanted bugs in the fermentation process. - Use a prebiotic to feed your starter culture so that it will flourish. - Add trace minerals or Celtic Sea Salt since healthy bacteria thrive in a mineral-rich environment.	<urn:uuid:34607c7d-14ee-427b-baaa-0c205b2d6905>	CC-MAIN-2014-52	http://bodyecology.com/articles/boost-your-immune-system-with-cultured-foods	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802769637.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075249-00026-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.933725	917	3.046875	3	2.360205	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
In 1918, our country was deeply divided along ethnic lines because of the large population of German-Americans and German immigrants at a time when we were engaged in a war with their relatives in the Fatherland. Once again we find ourselves in an America that is deeply divided, often along ethnic lines, due to massive legal immigration in excess of a million annually and illegal aliens who flood across the borders in numbers ranging up to 600,000 per year. The latter number has resulted in as many as 12 - 20 million illegals currently present in the United States. In 1918, President Wilson campaigned on a platform that was sympathetic to those who viewed the number of immigrants flowing into the country as dangerous. He often lectured Americans about old-country allegiances. This a natural phenomenon given the number of German -Americans and our involvement in a war with Germany. Racial profiling and persecution was not uncommon and most German-Americans and immigrants went out of their way to demonstrate their loyalty and patriotism. Incredibly, Governor William Harding of Iowa issued what was known as the Babel Proclamation, which banned the use of any language but English in any public gathering of two or more people. The ban even covered telephone conversations, as several grandmothers discovered when they were jailed for speaking German on the phone. A Swedish minister also ran afoul of the law for conducting a funeral for two soldiers in Swedish so that the fallen men's grandmothers could understand. The current concern about the English language has never included such Draconian measures. The proposal has always been limited to the concept of Official English. This merely means all activity and publications at all levels of government should be conducted or printed only in English. It would have no effect on foreign language instruction or on languages used in any public or private gatherings. One would hope, of course, that as a matter of common courtesy, that most public gatherings and public conversation would be conducted in English so that all could feel included. Obviously, there will be some, mostly private, meetings where the mother tongue could be spoken without fear of interference from language police or other restrictions. Some proposals provide for billable interpreter services at emergency locations such as fire departments, police stations, and hospitals. At the same time, public interpreters would be offered free of charge to those who could not afford one. The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the emphasis on English and the resistance to the encroachment of foreign languages is not a new phenomenon. The concern about Germans in our midst has long since disappeared. They are no longer thought of as hyphenated Americans and the use of the German language is now just a footnote to history as is the persecution of Germans that occurred during two wars and the similar treatment meted out to Japanese internees.	<urn:uuid:4a2a98c2-80a8-4b20-af9f-752a53daeb24>	CC-MAIN-2019-30	http://szczecin-ultima.blogspot.com/2007/11/deeply-divided-america-de-ja-vu.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526670.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20190720194009-20190720220009-00405.warc.gz	en	0.980975	556	3.328125	3	2.976474	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
Three research papers were published recently to compare the virological properties of the Omicron variant with the earlier variants of concern (VOC).1,2,3 The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant, Omicron, was first detected in South Africa in October 2021 and has spread rapidly; within three months, it appeared in more than 87 countries.4 During the surveillance of the epidemiological data and mutations of earlier COVID-19 variants and Omicron, significant differences were revealed mainly in the reproduction rate and hospitalization. Although a modest severity can be observed in the case of Omicron, its 3,31-fold higher transmissibility2 (Fig. 1d) than Delta variant and increased resistance to antiviral immunity1 represents a global epidemic threat. Comparing the earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants with Omicron, it bears more mutations in its Spike protein, of which six in the S2 region are unique. Three mutations in the furin cleavage site region (P681H, H655Y, N679K) decrease S1/S2 cleavage, fusogenicity, and syncytia formation associated with pathogenesis. The multiple amino acid substitutions presumably cause the increased ACE2 binding affinity of Omicron in its S-protein, including Q493R, Q489R, and S477N (Fig. 1a). These mutations cause enhancement of ACE2 binding via the formation of ACE2 salt bridge and ACE2 H-bond.2 Analysis using advanced structure determining methods such as cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography confirmed these results and directly connected novel mutations and new chemical interaction sites.5 The ACE2 affinity was determined experimentally, using biolayer interferometry. Omicron RBD displayed a threefold higher binding affinity for ACE2 compared to Wuhan-HU-1 and Delta.1 This finding was confirmed by ACE2 antibody titration on cells transfected with a full-length spike.1 The receptor affinity and the receptor expression in cells affect viral tropism, which was examined in detail. Immunohistochemical staining of ex vivo human tissue samples indicated higher ACE2 expression in bronchus than in lung, while analysis of mRNA expression levels indicated a similar distribution of TMPRSS2.3 Single-nuclei RNA sequencing performed on human lung tissues showed lower expression of TMPRSS2 in the trachea compared to alveoli.1 ACE2 expression was lower than TMPRSS2, although slightly elevated in specific cell types, such as AT1, AT2, and club cells.1 qPCR showed higher TMPRSS2 mRNA expression in lung parenchyma compared to upper airway bronchial tissue samples.1 In replication studies using multiple cell cultures, higher TMPRSS2 expression was revealed to favor the growth of delta variant, which relates to the impaired cleavage of the Omicron spike protein.3 In the VeroE6 cell model, TMPRSS2 expression proved to be favorable in the case of all three variants, but the magnitude of the difference compared to the non-TMPRSS2 expressing culture immensely varied, 100–1000-fold in Delta, 3–100-fold for Omicron and tenfold for WT.3 According to the AUC curves, Omicron replicated slower than WT and Delta.3 Further investigation on VeroE6/T2 cell culture using serin protease inhibitor camostat mesylate blocking the TMPRSS2 dependent cell entry pathway and E64d cathepsin inhibitor revealed significant dependence of Delta on TMPRSS2 and an even more pronounced dependence of Omicron on cathepsin mediated endocytosis.3 Pseudotyped virus assay using 3D lower airway organoids gallbladder organoids further supported the claim that the Omicron variant almost exclusively utilizes the cathepsin-dependent endocytic pathway while the Delta variant enters the cell by endocytosis and TMPRSS2 dependent fusion1 (Fig. 1b). Further investigation of the phenomenon by the blockade of the TMPRSS2 dependent and the cathepsin-dependent pathway also supported the theory.1 Studies on A549 cells showed no replication in ACE2 non-expressing culture.2 Rigel et al. compared the cellular growth of Omicron (strain TY38-873), D614G bearing (B.1.1 lineage, strain TKYE610670), and Delta isolates (B.1.617.2 lineage, strain TKYTK1734). No significant difference was observed in VeroE6/TMPRSS2 and primary human epithelial cells, while in Vero, Calu-3, A549-ACE2, HeLa-ACE2/TMPRSS2, the growth of the Delta exceeded the Omicron variant.3 Meng et al. examined the replication kinetics of Omicron and Delta in primary human nasal epithelial 3D cultures finding similar rates, while for Calu-3 lung cells, Caco-2 and HeLa overexpressing ACE2 and TMPRSS21 Delta showed significantly higher replication rate. Contradictory to the previous two studies, it was found that Omicron replicated significantly faster in comparison to WT and the Delta variant at 24 h.p.i., 48 h.p.i. reaching over 70-fold difference, using TCID50 assay in ex vivo human bronchus tissue cultures.3 Although at the72 h.p.i. there was no significant difference between Delta and Omicron; the replication of the WT slowed down. Under similar conditions, lung samples infected by the Omicron variant showed reduced replication compared to WT and Delta.3 In VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cell culture, the growth kinetics showed similarities, but the Delta variant formed larger syncytia compared to B.1.1, while the Omicron infection can be described by weak syncytia formation2 due to attenuated fusogenicity. Cell-based fusogenicity assay recorded the lowest spike protein expression in case of Delta infection and the highest fusogenicity. Omicron infected cells expressed S-protein with a comparable amount to the parental variant, albite showing highly reduced fusogenicity,2 which may be directly related to decreased pathogenicity. In vivo studies using the hamster model confirmed that Omicron possesses decreased pathogenicity, investigating lung function parameters: enhanced pause, total expiratory time, and subcutaneous oxygen saturation.3 Detailed examination of respiratory organs in infected hamsters revealed extensive inflammatory nodule formation for Delta and B.1.1. and sporadic for Omicron (Fig. 1d). Immunohistochemical analysis of viral N-protein revealed low infectivity of all SARS-COV-2 isolates tested in the upper trachea. Investigating the dynamics of the viral spread in vivo by N-protein analysis revealed significant differences: the B.1.1 and Delta infections were more pronounced in the alveolar space infecting the bronchial epithelium. In contrast, Omicron sporadically infected bronchial epithelial cells and was found mainly in the periphery of bronchi/bronchioles. Viral RNA load in collected oral swab peaked at 1 d.p.i. in B.1.1 and Delta infection and showed only slow decay in 7 days, while Omicron peaked during the 2–3 d.p.i. exceeding other variants and decayed rapidly after2 (Fig. 1c). The increased viral load in the oral swab of infected individuals may be related to the higher transmissibility of Omicron, but further investigation is needed to confirm this supposition. Meng, B. et al. Altered TMPRSS2 usage by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron impacts infectivity and fusogenicity. Nature 603, 706–714 (2022). Suzuki, R. et al. Attenuated fusogenicity and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. Nature 603, 700–705 (2022). Hui, K. P. Y. et al. SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant replication in human bronchus and lung ex vivo. Nature 603, 715–720 (2022). Viana, R. et al. Rapid epidemic expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in southern Africa. Nature 603, 679–686 (2022). McCallum, M. et al. Structural basis of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron immune evasion and receptor engagement. Science 375, 864–868 (2022). Open access funding provided by University of Pécs. The authors declare no competing interests. About this article Cite this article Bálint, G., Vörös-Horváth, B. & Széchenyi, A. Omicron: increased transmissibility and decreased pathogenicity. Sig Transduct Target Ther 7, 151 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-022-01009-8	<urn:uuid:57de7de8-0a33-49e2-9561-1a500110294a>	CC-MAIN-2022-40	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-01009-8?error=cookies_not_supported&code=86d22874-d006-4aa7-8273-17056e48b94b	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338073.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007112411-20221007142411-00782.warc.gz	en	0.867893	2,021	2.5625	3	3.015526	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
What is Mediation and How Does it Work? If two disputants either cannot resolve differences by themselves, or they feel that the effort to reach a solution would benefit from the intervention of a neutral third party, they should bring their issue to the Ombudsperson. Mediation is an informal attempt to resolve a dispute and is perhaps the most common technique that the Ombudsperson uses to help the disputants in their attempt to reach a solution. The Ombudsperson is trained in mediation methods, and she can often assist the parties in coming to a mutually-agreeable resolution of their problem. Definition of Mediation: Mediation is a process in which an impartial third party assists disputants in finding a mutually acceptable solution to their conflict. It is both voluntary and confidential. Positions vs. Interests: both parties should understand this as they go through a mediation Mediation is primarily about negotiation, and negotiation is often about positions, yet managing interests can often be more effective than taking and defending positions. A common starting point in negotiations is to take a position, which usually means having a particular viewpoint and requirements from which there can be little movement. Like medieval barons, each "player" builds a castle and besieges the other. Success is a simultaneous defense of your own position and the destruction of the opponent's position. It is a fixed-sum, win-lose pitched battle, where key information is only about strengths and weaknesses and strategies of attack and defense. Taking positions, however, has many limitations. Battles can leave you weakened. The vanquished can become secret enemies. What seemed like a good position at the time can turn out to be a poor choice. In a fight or flight sense, an alternative to fighting sometimes seems like being friendly and allowing others what they want rather than standing your ground. The substance of the negotiation is given up in return for what is hoped to be a good relationship. Those who bend over backward will be treated as if that is their normal position, and hence will be taken advantage of again and again. An alternative is to seek the interests that underlie the positions. Ask why any position is taken. Probe for the deeper reasons. Find the underlying needs and goals. 'Why' is a powerful question that uncovers real reasons. Discovering interests confers many benefits. Positions may still be taken, but now you have many possibilities that can still satisfy interests. Battles may still be fought, but now the loser has choices in defeat to retreat to a lesser position or negotiate a settlement that ends the war. The all-or-nothing, do-or-die approach of positional battles can be also replaced with variable feasts that seek peaceful solutions from the start, preserving the relationship and expanding the pie so both parties can satisfy most of their interests. Mediation Rules: both parties should agree to follow these as they enter into a mediation 1. Good Faith Effort Parties in the mediation process agree to make a good-faith effort to resolve their conflict, which means to make an honest endeavor to participate in communications or conferences with the other party with the purpose of reaching a mutually acceptable settlement. Except as otherwise agreed by the parties or permitted by law, any oral or written communications prepared specifically for or expressed in the course of the mediation proceeding are privileged and confidential and shall not be disclosed through discovery or any other compulsory process and are not admissible as evidence in any judicial or arbitration proceeding. Audio or visual recordings of mediation communications, electronic or otherwise, are not permissible. Exceptions to the rule of confidentiality in mediation communications that are permitted by law include immediate threats of physical violence including self-harm, or when child abuse is suspected or reported. Any documents that are produced as a result of mediation, such as a settlement agreement or summary of decisions reached, may be used by participants in subsequent relevant proceedings. The parties agree to be courteous throughout the mediation process by respecting the opinions, perceptions, and feelings of the other parties and by refraining from personal attacks, intimidation, threats, and verbal or physical abuse. 4. The Role of the Mediator The mediator may conduct joint and separate meetings with the parties and may suggest resolutions to the conflict, but does not have authority to impose a settlement. Any party to the mediation may be represented by another person provided that the representative has sufficient knowledge of the problem and full authority to make and sign a binding agreement on behalf of the represented party, and that efforts to mediate with the representative are likely to enhance the possibility of achieving a settlement. 6. Legal Counsel The parties may consult legal counsel at any time during the mediation process. The mediator has no duty to protect the interests of the parties or to provide them with information about their legal rights. 7. Termination of Mediation The mediation process is terminated when (a) the parties reach a settlement agreement; (b) the mediator determines that further efforts at mediation are no longer likely to achieve a settlement; (c) both parties withdraw from the mediation proceedings; or (d) the Hood College mediator declares that a party should bypass the mediation process and proceed to a more formal means of resolving the issue. 8. Arbitration and Court Should the parties fail to settle their conflict, both parties, if eligible, may employ a more formal means of resolving the issue with Hood’s Office of Human Resources; otherwise, legal remedies may be sought through the civil courts. 9. Exclusion of Liability Neither the College nor any mediator shall be liable to any party for any act or omission in connection with any mediation service or activity sponsored by the Office of the Ombudsperson. The Mediation Process While there may be variations in the "game plan" of a mediation, a typical mediation process consists of six basic stages: I. Assessment and Entry Disputants open a case by calling or emailing Hood’s Ombudsperson, or by being referred by Human Resources or another College official. Before the mediation can proceed, both disputing parties must fill out an Agreement to Mediate form expressing their voluntary consent for the mediation to be performed. In the introductory phase, the mediator (generally, the Ombudsperson) will state the purpose of the mediation, explain her role as mediator, and ensure confidentiality. The mediator will also explain the process and establish ground rules (e.g., allowing each other the opportunity to speak without interruption, refraining from abusive language). The purpose of the introduction is to establish trust and open, honest rapport while setting a positive structure for resolution of the conflict. Each party gets the chance to tell his or her version of the dispute and explain the effect it has had on him or her: - The complainant (who initiated the case) describes the situation without interruption from his or her perspective while the respondent listens. - The mediator paraphrases the content and emotions briefly, but with empathy. - The respondent describes the situation as he or she sees it. - The mediator paraphrases the content and emotions for the respondent, again, with empathy. - The mediator will offer each of the parties opportunities to add further details and clarification, or may invite the them to ask questions of each other. - The cycle is repeated as many times as necessary in order to identify the issues, note commonalities, and focus concerns. - The main goal for the storytelling phase is to enable the parties to understand one another, both the facts and their feelings, and to identify the issues causing the dispute. IV. Problem Solving With the help of the parties, the mediator creates a list of problems or issues of concern and then prioritizes the list (when appropriate). The parties then brainstorm possible solutions to the issues, which the mediator will record and help assess. It is important to note that, while the mediator may offer solutions, the parties ultimately make the decisions about which solutions are appropriate for them and their situation. The parties and mediator review the agreement, if reached, to see that it is clear, realistic, balanced, and specific, in terms that specify both what will be done and when it will be done. Written agreements can help prevent future misunderstandings as to who agreed to do what and so should address how possible future problems will be handled. Both parties sign the final written agreement, and each party receives a copy. If the mediation session ends without resolution of the conflict, the case can be remediated, the parties may choose to end the process, or they may choose to move to a more formal process (through Human Resources) for dispute resolution. VI. Implementation and Follow-up Two weeks after the mediation session, the Ombudsperson sends an evaluation form to the parties requesting feedback about the mediation and mediator. If the problems persist, the parties may remediate or consult other resources as noted above. The Prevention and Resolution of Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct at Hood College, board of trustees' Policy 55 (PAR) - The full text of the Policy This policy describes the role of the Ombudsperson and of the "informal" resolution process.	<urn:uuid:048bcdec-5756-490d-b000-f32c060c72f3>	CC-MAIN-2020-34	https://www.hood.edu/offices-services/human-resources/ombudperson/ombuds-office/mediation	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735867.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20200804073038-20200804103038-00234.warc.gz	en	0.94685	1,905	3.421875	3	2.882591	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Cuba’s former agricultural system—large-scale, mechanized, and “modern”—relied on a steady flow of resources from the Soviet Union. Before 1989, the Soviet Union sent vast amounts of agricultural supplies, including petroleum, pesticides, fertilizers, and livestock vaccinations, to fuel Cuban production of cash crops such as sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, and bananas. The Cuban government prioritized the export of cash crop products and imported 80 percent of what the country consumed: rice, beans, grains, and vegetables. To the north, the United States enforced el bloqueo, an economic blockade against Cuba first established in 1960, prohibiting the flow of goods, including food and medicine, to and from the socialist island. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, severing the supply of food and farming supplies, Cuba woke up to a major economic crisis. Without food imports to stock the grocery store shelves, how would Cuba feed 11 million people? How would Cubans till the soil without diesel to run the tractors? How could farmers stimulate yields without synthetic fertilizers? Agricultural production plummeted dramatically. State farms and factories shut down. Livestock perished. Precious cash crops rotted in the fields and, as a result, revenue from exports crashed. Fidel Castro, the ruling leader of the communist state, referred to the economic crisis as El Período Especial, or the Special Period During the Time of Peace. He urged the Cuban population to work resourcefully with the meager supplies they had. Remarkably, people did just that: they began to grow vegetables and herbs in pots and containers on rooftops, to plant avocado and mango pits in their backyards, and to raise smaller, more efficient meat sources such as rabbits and guinea pigs. The Cuban state responded to the domestic food crisis by once again giving precedence to food crops over luxury cash crops like sugar cane and coffee. Without heavy-duty machinery to plough the soil, the state needed a younger generation of the guajiros, peasant farmers, to till the land using the buey, long-horned oxen, so it created government schools to teach these older techniques. From 1989 to 1994, alternative agriculture was transformed from fringe ideology to reality in Cuba. The Cuban government called upon the country’s academics, researchers, and sustainable agriculture technicians to provide expertise on local, organic, and resourceful methods of growing food, not only in rural locations, but also within marginal spaces in towns and cities. By the late 1990s—because of the efforts of state policy and, more importantly, the cumulative work of old and new farmers alike—the rate of food production gradually climbed again, the population’s nutritional intake improved, and the food crisis abated. Women like Edith, who created an urban farm from scratch, were an integral part of revolutionizing the way food was grown and distributed in the country. I hailed a taxi from a street corner in Sancti Spíritus. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” groaned the driver, pulling back on the leather reins, slowing his engine: a chestnut-colored horse pulling a passenger cart rigged up with two wooden benches and a yellow plastic roof. After the Soviet collapse and the oil crisis that ensued, horse taxis became an increasingly common mode of accessible transportation: cheaper to fuel and maintain than cars, with the added benefit of producing organic waste. A folded rice sack hung beneath the horse’s rump, catching the manure before it fell on the streets. Twice a day, the driver unloaded his horse’s waste at various composting collection sites set up in Sancti Spíritus. As I boarded the passenger cart from the back, a romantic bachata song played on the radio. The driver flicked the reins and the cart bounced along the street, the sound of the hoofbeats clomping rhythmically to the music. Only 10 minutes away from the main square, the driver murmured to his mount and rolled to a halt beside an urban farm bordered by apartment buildings. The large sign out front read Linda Flor, Beautiful Flower, and the farmer, a woman named Edith, waited by the roadside, waving warmly at me. Edith’s friends called her La Chiquita, the small one, because she barely reached 5 feet. The 50-year-old farmer wore her stylish, skin-tight outfit with black rubber boots and a pair of miniature cloth work gloves that enclosed her small hands. Aside from farming, she later confessed, she loved dancing. She seemed to be dressed to do both at once: weed, prune, plant, and shake her hips to bachata, salsa, meringue, and rumba. I leaned down into her warmth; she grabbed my shoulders and kissed both my cheeks in greeting. “Bienvenido, mi vida, welcome,” she said, using the Cuban term of endearment, “my life.” Wedged between the cotton-candy-colored residential buildings, Edith’s urban farm spanned two acres and was packed with long, concrete, raised beds where she grew a combination of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and medicinal plants. She specialized in propagating and experimenting with growing flowers. “They feed my soul!” she sang passionately. “Nutrition isn’t only about feeding the stomach, it’s about feeding the soul.” Fifty kinds of flowers cascaded over the edges of the beds: pink hibiscus, big-headed sunflowers, various shades of roses and carnations. The farm contrasted sharply with the cubic, concrete apartment buildings, built in the uniform Soviet architecture, but made Cuban with the choice of canary yellow, turquoise, and lime-green paint. Residents hung their laundry on the balconies to dry in the hot sun and gazed down at Edith’s long beds of food and flowers. “Can you believe that, over twenty years ago, this farm was a garbage dump?” asked Edith. “We started the farm from nada, nothing. There wasn’t even an inch of soil to grow from! People used to deposit and burn their garbage on this piece of land. Today they ask me, ‘How did you ever think it would be possible to transform garbage into food and flowers?’” During the 1980s, Edith lectured as a biology teacher at a high school in Sancti Spíritus. She remembered the harsh impact of the Soviet crash in 1989: the bare shelves at the food markets, the exhausting wait times at the food ration stores, and the urban population’s frenzied search for the minimum basics, such as vegetables and grains. Edith felt as though they were living through a war: enduring long power outages, or waiting for hours on the street corners just to catch a bus or taxi. She grew accustomed to going without meat, milk, and eggs as the large-scale state farms dropped off in production, some closing altogether. The government cut back on the ration system. People innovated, frying up root vegetables instead of pork and grinding split peas to add to the limited amount of coffee that was available. During the Special Period, the average Cuban adult lost from 10 to 30 pounds. In the 1990s, in response to the nutritional crisis, the Cuban government invited Edith and teachers from across the country to participate in a series of workshops on food production. “At those workshops, I fell in love with farming,” Edith gushed. “I began volunteering on a part-time basis at a government vegetable farm in Sancti Spíritus. There, I learned the art of seed saving and seed propagation techniques. I loved the challenge of selecting the hardiest vegetable seeds, and breeding different flower varieties.” By 1994, Cuba’s minister of agriculture, Raúl Castro, recognized the potential for institutionalizing food production in cities across the country. During the Special Period, the state struggled to produce high volumes of food on the former state farms and plantations, and to cover the fuel costs of transporting products to the cities. As a solution to the food crisis, Castro founded the country’s urban agriculture program, enabling Cubans to identify empty, marginalized spaces in their towns and cities that could be transformed into organopónicos, or urban farms. Castro aspired to convert enough urban land to provide every city resident with 5 square meters of farmland, which would yield, every day, 300 grams of vegetables. Cubans from different professional backgrounds, including teachers, lawyers, and nurses, became farmers overnight and began to grow root vegetables, leafy greens, fruits, herbs, medicinal plants, animal feeds, and to produce meat, eggs, milk, and honey. The urban farms included small kiosks where farmers could sell their products, heavily subsidized by the government, to people living in their neighborhoods. In Sancti Spíritus, Edith walked through the neighborhoods, searching for abandoned land. “Somehow,” she said, shaking her head in wonder, “somehow I dreamed that I could, one day, turn an area of waste and neglect into this!” After receiving approval from the Cuban government, Edith enlisted the support of her father, a veteran rebel fighter who fought in the revolution, and a small team of retired Cuban men. “They were the only ones willing to help me,” she recalled. “Everyone else, including my son and daughter, thought I was crazy. ‘Ah Mami,’ they said to me, ‘you’re going to hurt yourself doing all of that heavy work. Look at your hands, look at your hair! Look at what you’re putting yourself through!’ But I was determined to do the work.” The biology teacher realized that she would have to build from the ground up and make her own organic soil. She knocked on every door of the residential buildings surrounding the land to recruit support from her neighbors. Inspired by Edith’s resolve to grow food in their neighborhood, people gave her their organic waste, including kitchen scraps, and paper and cardboard products. At the manure composting centers in Sancti Spíritus, she collected bags of horse manure from the taxi drivers. She layered massive heaps of the materials. Slowly, microorganisms broke down the organic material, turning the waste into black, nutrient-rich humus. She spread the compost on the soil in the beds, and watched seedlings push their green heads through the soil and tight buds unfurl themselves with brilliant color. Linda Flor became increasingly productive. Her employees pushed food and flower carts throughout the city, selling directly to the public, as well as through the street kiosk. She hired more of her retired neighbors to help on the farm. By 1999, Edith and other urban farmers in Sancti Spíritus were producing around fifty metric tons of vegetables and fruits for the local population, exceeding by far Castro’s goal of three hundred grams of vegetables, daily, for every person in the city. The majority of urban farmers in the city were male, but Edith’s passion for food, and her strong work ethic, earned her respect amongst her colleagues. “Sometimes I’ve had to work against the current of thought that a woman does not belong in agriculture, or in the leadership of agriculture,” Edith admitted. “But I’ve continued to struggle and work against that mentality. I make decisions and lead by example. I believe that I am seen—and appreciated—by my society, and even my government.” After her fifth year farming at Linda Flor, Edith received an official visit from representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture. She explained to officials how she worked with the community to collect their waste for composting and showed them the small workspace where she selected, saved, and propagated seeds. Impressed by her ingenuity and resourcefulness, the ministry granted her an extra acre of land adjoining her current plot. In 2004, Edith attended a workshop organized by a local cultural and environmental foundation in Sancti Spíritus. The workshop focused on applying permaculture, a sustainably designed system, to Cuba’s cities, farms, and urban farms. She fell in love with the theories of minimizing waste, using local resources, promoting diversity, and increasing efficiency. Edith began lending her teaching skills to the local organization, volunteering to share information with Cubans living in both rural and other urban areas. Hundreds of students from Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Canada, the UK, France, and Sweden traveled to Sancti Spíritus to tour through Edith’s stunning farm and learn from her organic composting techniques. “I used to feel so confined by teaching in a classroom. But teaching outside on my farm, I feel more alive and my students feel more alive. I think they are more attuned to listen, learn, and absorb information,” said Edith thoughtfully. “It’s true that a garden is also a classroom. I feel very blessed to be a Cuban woman, a farmer, and a teacher. I wake up early, I spend all day on the farm, working hard, managing the workers, planting, harvesting, selling, teaching—I do all of this out of love for my work. My work is my life.” This edited excerpt is from the book Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism and the Fight to Feed the World by Trina Moyles with photographs by KJ Dakin, copyright 2018. Reprinted by permission of University of Regina Press.	<urn:uuid:bb2351c9-60b9-4215-a63f-c1b400087ba4>	CC-MAIN-2020-05	https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-05-17/farming-and-food-for-the-soul/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251737572.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20200127235617-20200128025617-00064.warc.gz	en	0.959262	2,844	3.734375	4	2.893391	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
Foods and galactogenic plants Foods and galactogenic plants promote lactation, in the event of a drop in milk due to fatigue for example. Before having recourse to these dietary or other remedies, it is desirable to check that this drop in milk is not due to a lack of stimulation (baby does not suck enough), severe fatigue or a bad position of the baby at the breast. . Certain episodes such as the baby's growth spurts (around 3 weeks, 6 weeks) may suggest a decrease in breastfeeding when all you have to do is put the baby to the breast more often and take rest so that breastfeeding continues normally. I - Foods to promote for better milk flow Foods that promote lactation : Carrots, Fennel, Cumin and caraway, Almonds, cashews, dates, Malt powder, Cooked barley, cooked lentils, Cereal coffee, Green salad, Watercress, Millet, Quinoa, Non-alcoholic beer, Fenugreek in capsules or to grind oneself into seeds (using a coffee grinder) or sprouted seeds… According to the form (capsule or food), integrate it into salads, during or outside of meals. Foods that decrease lactation : parsley, dill, mint, and especially sage and soy because of their phytoestrogen content. Each culture has its foods to eat and to avoid in order to have good milk production. We must beware of hearsay on the subject: it is not uncommon to see a food to be avoided in one country while it will be recommended to breastfeeding women in another country. The best is to try it for yourself and see the results. Galactogenic plants : green anise, basil, celery, cumin, fennel, nettle and verbena. < / span> There are many herbal teas to make yourself, here are some recipes: First recipe : - Crushed anise: 2 teaspoons - Basil: 2 teaspoons span> - Crushed fennel: 2 teaspoons - Nettle: 2 teaspoons - Verbena: 2 teaspoons From this mixture, leave infuse 2 tablespoons for ½ liter of water for 5 min. Second recipe : - 1/3 teaspoon of seeds cumin - 1/3 teaspoon of fennel seeds - 1/3 teaspoon star anise (star anise) Third recipe : - 10g of angelica seeds < span style = "font-w eight: 400; "> - 50g of anise - 30g of caraway - 40g of fennel - 40g of galéga - 20g of hops - 20g of white dead nettle < / span> * Heat 1 liter of water, put a handful of the preparation, turn off the heat and let infuse 5/10 minutes, no more. Drink 1 liter per day for 3 days, then 1/2 liter per day for another 3 days. If engorgement is felt, decrease the quantity. Talk to your doctor: some plants may interact with certain medications. II - Homeopathy to promote the flow of milk Again, the homeopathy cited here is as an example. There are as many remedies as there are cases, and it is advisable to consult a homeopath who will refine the protocol according to the needs of the nursing mother and her condition. Here are some great classic remedies: span> - Ricinus communis: it increases milk secretion. Be careful with the dilution: in 3CH (three granules three times a day) to increase milk secretion but in 30CH it stops (practical for difficult weaning). When used in combination with Urtica Urens it is very effective. 3CH: 3 granules morning and evening, away from meals (or more, until you feel the flow of milk). < span style = "font-weight: 400;"> - Urtica urens: it facilitates milk flow when you have to deal with engorgement painful. It is also indicated in cases where the breasts itch (with a burning and stinging pain). It is a good remedy for reduced milk production, in small dilution. 4CH: 3 granules morning noon and evening. < / span> - Agnus castus: 5CH 3 granules 3 times a day. - Phytolacca: It is recommended for cases of mastitis, hard breast and painful, cracking and / or fever associated with severe fatigue. 9CH: 3 granules 3 times a day. < / span> - China: it is the remedy for the exhausted woman, pale, who feels empty, hypersensitive, typical of the young mother. She does not tolerate noise (crying), lights, smells ... the picture is complete if she has bloating all over the abdomen and if there has been significant fluid loss, hypotension or anemia. 7 CH: 3 granules 3 times a day.	<urn:uuid:6f366b88-7038-495c-861c-2d03401e725f>	CC-MAIN-2021-21	https://www.myorganicstuff.com/en/blogs/les-produits-bio-ou-bon-pour-toute-la-famille/les-aliments-et-les-plantes-galactogenes	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243988696.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20210505203909-20210505233909-00377.warc.gz	en	0.925057	1,044	2.796875	3	2.198251	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
The Problem of Azole-Resistant Thrush What Do You Do When the Medicine Stops Working? The encouraging news is that we are making steady progress in treating -- and preventing -- the opportunistic infections that develop in people with advanced HIV disease. The distinctly discouraging news is that we still have real trouble controlling one of the most frequently seen of these infections -- oral candidiasis, commonly known as thrush. At first, candida infections respond very well to drug therapy, and for a time it is possible to prevent recurrent infections through daily prophylaxis. But as people with HIV live longer, they develop forms of thrush that do not respond to the drugs we use to treat this infection. Reinfection occurs even in patients who remember to take their prophylactic medications every day, and cases of drug-resistant thrush are now a real problem in people who have been living with HIV for many years. Thrush, a common early opportunistic infection in people with HIV, is caused when a fungus called candida -- which is ubiquitous in the environment and is found in all human beings -- begins to grow out of control. Infection usually occurs in the mouth, the throat, or the vagina. When it develops in the mouth and throat, thrush appears as white or red patches on the skin. Infection can make it difficult to swallow and can cause nausea, changes in the way food tastes, and a loss of appetite. If the candidiasis goes untreated, these symptoms can lead to weight loss -- and eventually to wasting and even to death. In particularly severe cases, thrush in the mouth and throat can spread to the lungs or down the digestive tract. When thrush occurs in the vagina it is referred to as a "yeast infection." Its symptoms are itching, burning, and a thick, yellowish discharge. Vaginal thrush can be a sign that a woman is HIV-positive, and in such women yeast infections tend to recur more often and last longer than they do in HIV-negative women. Fortunately, a doctor can readily diagnose thrush in the mouth, throat, or vagina just by looking at the infected area. Minor cases of oral thrush usually respond to any of several simple treatments: the patient can gargle with a medicinal mouthwash, can suck on lozenges that contain an antifungal medication, or can rinse the affected area with hydrogen peroxide and water. More serious cases of candidiasis are usually treated with a class of antifungal drugs called azoles. The most widely prescribed of these drugs is fluconazole (Diflucan®), but this class also includes itraconazole (Sporanox®) and ketoconazole (Nizoral®). When fluconazole or one of its sister drugs is used to treat an initial episode of candidiasis, the response to therapy is usually prompt and complete. Subsequent episodes of thrush tend to respond less rapidly and less fully to azole therapy, which is why physicians have tended to put patients on fluconazole prophylaxis after their first or second bout of thrush, hoping to prevent recurrent candida infections. When reinfection does occur, azoles are the most frequently used therapy. Vaginal thrush is often treated with one of several clotrimazole ointments that can be obtained without a prescription (Mycelex®, Lotrimin®, Gyne-Lotrimin®). Nystatin tablets or fluconazole pills are used for more difficult cases, and here too treatment is usually successful. The increased use of fluconazole -- to treat thrush or to prevent recurrent infection -- has been linked with an increased incidence of fluconazole-resistant candidiasis in people with HIV. A recent study from Johns Hopkins indicates that fluconazole resistance is most likely to develop in PWAs with CD4 cell counts below 50 who have already used fluconazole for a considerable time and have had many outbreaks of thrush. This discovery hardly comes as a surprise, but it does give us a better idea of which patients are at high risk of developing resistance to azole therapy. Current estimates are that 5% to 7% of people with advanced HIV infection will develop hard-to-treat thrush. Preliminary analysis of an ACTG study of AIDS patients suggests that, over the course of a year, azole-resistant thrush will develop in about 4% of people with CD4 counts below 50. In these patients the chief risk factors for the development of azole-resistant thrush are: 1) previous bouts of thrush (especially in the esophagus); and 2) other opportunistic infections (especially MAC). Most of the initial cases of thrush seen in people with HIV are caused by the fungus Candida albicans, but some of the people who take fluconazole as long-term prophylaxis against recurrent thrush eventually develop other species of candida -- species that flourish when C. albicans is suppressed. These species tend to be less responsive to treatment with fluconazole or with any of the other azole drugs. The symptoms of azole-resistant candidiasis do not differ significantly from those of the more treatable forms of thrush, but they do tend to be more severe. Inflammation of the esophagus is much more common in patients with resistant thrush, for instance. Persistent tenderness in the mouth and soreness in the throat make swallowing difficult, and in especially severe cases these symptoms make the swallowing of solid foods virtually impossible. This makes it hard for affected individuals to get the nutrients they need -- which can lead to malnutrition and AIDS-related wasting. There are a number of treatment options available when thrush stops responding to standard doses of fluconazole. The problem is that we don't yet know which treatments work best. One option is simply to use higher doses of fluconazole -- up to 800 mg per day. Higher doses can be effective -- if the thrush is being caused by fungi that are less than fully responsive to treatment but are not yet fully resistant to the drug. With truly resistant strains of candida, no dose of fluconazole, no matter how high, is likely to be effective. Another situation in which higher doses of fluconazole can be effective is when the potency of the drug has been diminished through interactions with other drugs a patient in taking. When certain drugs are taken in combination with fluconazole, the effect is to reduce the amount of fluconazole in the blood to levels that are too low to be effective. These drug-drug interactions occur most commonly with rifampin (which is often used to treat AIDS-related TB) and with rifabutin (used to treat or prevent MAC). In these situations, the dose of fluconazole must be adjusted upward in order to raise the level of drug in the blood to the point where it is capable of killing the candida. In some instances it is possible to use one of the other azoles to treat fluconazole-resistant thrush -- because some fluconazole-resistant strains of candida are still sensitive to itraconazole and/or to ketoconazole. A new formulation of itraconazole, this one in an oral suspension, has shown particular promise in this regard, and it may become the therapy of choice for patients who fail fluconazole. In one recently completed study of oral-suspension itraconazole, patients took 100 mg of the solution twice daily for 14 or 28 days, and 60% of the participants responded favorably to therapy -- meaning that all of their lesions cleared up. A Canadian trial, which involved 34 patients who used a regimen of 100 mg of the oral solution twice daily for 14 days, recorded a response rate of 65%. Although a few of these patients reported some gastrointestinal upset, the drug was generally well tolerated. These preliminary data suggest that oral-suspension itraconazole is a safe and effective therapy for patients who develop resistance to fluconazole. Some maintenance therapy is necessary, however, because patients who do respond to treatment relapse when therapy is stopped. For this reason a maintenance schedule of 100 mg of oral-suspension itraconazole (taken twice daily, three days a week) is now being studied. Improved antiretroviral therapy itself has been reported to lead to the clearance of resistant thrush, with the credit in this instance going to the protease inhibitor component of multidrug treatment regimens. Aggressive antiretroviral therapy that includes a protease inhibitor may help PWAs overcome thrush -- even thrush that has developed resistance to fluconazole. Intravenous amphotericin-B should be used initially in all PWAs with severe thrush, especially those with esophagitis, and it should be used for those who fail azole therapy. A short course of therapy at low doses (0.3 mg/kg for 7 to 14 days) is usually effective, although here again relapses are common in the absence of some form of maintenance therapy. Some cases of amphotericin B-resistant thrush have been reported. Lozenges containing amphotericin-B, which are available in Europe but not in the United States, may be effective in controlling mild cases of thrush but are unlikely to have much impact on resistant infection. An oral suspension of amphotericin B is currently being evaluated in people with fluconazole-resistant thrush. Early data suggest that high doses (5 mL q.i.d.) will probably be needed. Another alternative is flucytosine, which is active against Candida albicans but tends to be less effective against other species. C. albicans rarely develops resistance to flucytosine, even with chronic therapy. One possible approach to the management of fluconazole-resistant C. albicans infection is treatment with amphotericin-B followed by maintenance therapy with flucytosine (at a dose of 25 mg/kg q.i.d.). On this therapy one will have to be wary of flucytosine's potential for serious toxicity; this drug can damage the bone marrow and cause gastrointestinal problems such as abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, and bleeding. One way to reduce the risk that one will develop azole-resistant thrush is to delay the use of azoles, particularly their use as prophylaxis against recurring bouts of thrush. We now have data suggesting that candida infections are more likely to recur in patients who have a history of PCP, and they are less likely to recur in HIV-positive African-Americans. These recent findings, which my colleagues and I reported last January at the 4th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, will help people and their doctors decide when prophylaxis should be started and when it can safely be withheld. William G. Powderly, M.D., is from the Division of Infectious Diseases, AIDS Clinical Trials Unit, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO. Back to the June 1997 AIDS Care contents page. This article was provided by San Francisco General Hospital. It is a part of the publication AIDS Care.	<urn:uuid:5ba666d9-c353-4c39-bc99-8778f1133204>	CC-MAIN-2014-49	http://www.thebody.com/content/art12683.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931009084.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155649-00241-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.946894	2,356	3.1875	3	3.023626	3	Strong reasoning	Health
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court Case in 1954. As we all know it today’s world, the decision of the casewhich was to end segregation in the public-school admission or accession for childrenis the primary factor of the world around us. Brown v. Board of Education, and the series of cases, steering from 4 different regions in the United States, tells a tale of social injustice and inequality inflicted by people in power who believe that those who did not or does not look like them, are inferior to them. Social injustices and inequity stem back to precedents before the Civil War in the nineteenth century and immediately after the Civil War, which we will divulge into in this research paper. All across the nation, there were instances of social injustice or inequality in public education for black children. Linda Brown was a student at Monroe Elementary School in 1951. Monroe Elementary was a segregated school for blacks in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas. Topeka was one of the few cities in the state of Kansas that had segregated schools for black and white children to attend. Although Linda’s school was not a bad school, it was an inconvenience since it was far from home. Through the rose-colored lenses of parenthood, this can be seen as a safety hazard for a small child. Subsequently, her father attempted to enroll her into Sumner Elementary, an all-white school that closer to their home. Linda Brown was not granted enrollment into the school. A civil rights organization, called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, was a source of “refuge” for black people in the United States who ran into obstacles and tribulations in their bouts for all areas of justice. The local chapter of the NAACP in Topeka frequently aided situations that hampered black families and their expedition of success like Linda Brown and her father. Following the denial of enrollment, Linda Brown’s father, Oliver Brown petitioned a lawsuit in 1951 against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Along with Brown, thirteen parents’ names were listed in the suit as plaintiffs. The decision that the trial was asking of the court to end racial segregation in the schools. Since the abolition of slavery and the end of the Civil War, particularly in the southern United States, schools were segregated purposefully in an intent to handicap the educational bouts of black people. Other aspects of life were hampered as well with the adoption of black codes or Jim Crow laws. Nonetheless, in Kansas in 1879, a court ruling permitted the segregation of public schools in the state. The district court did not rule in their favor. They referenced the precedent of the doctrine adopted in Supreme Court Case Plessy vs. Ferguson: “separate but equal.” Furthermore, the court’s findings stated that there were no differences in the qualifications of black or white schools in the school’s district. Cases that are brought to the Supreme Court are addressed alphabetically. So, although the case nationally is known as Brown vs. Board of Education, there was a series of incidents that were petitioned in several states and territories across the country: along with the fourteen plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education, in came a series of other cases which were filed in different regions across the United States. The NAACP and its lawyers advised they all. Virginia (Davis v. County School Board), South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliott), Delaware (Belton v. Gebhart), Kansas (Brown vs. Board of Education), and one in the District of Columbia (Boiling v. Sharpe.) There was a lieu of differences in comparison to the cases that were documented and utilized as instances in the landmark case. In Kansas for example, the differences in quality of educationwhether it be the composition of the buildings or the knowledge that is being retainedwere harder to decipher and present in the argument of changing segregation to integration. On the other hand, there were cases such as Davis v. County School Board, where the differences in white schools and black schools were apparent. In Farmville, Virginia, there was no place for students to eat, no nurse’s office, restrooms for teachers, or gymnasium at Moton High School. In today’s world or recent years, overflowing students are/were housed in trailers. Students at Moton High School were housed in a single, old school bus and buildings covered in tar paper. No matter the details behind the implementation of a petition for all of these cases at their respective counties’ courthouses, the commonalities are prevalent. The ideals of inferiority lingered amongst young black people seeking an education. Whether it be indebted to the fact that they didn’t have adequate infrastructure in their schools, denied enrollment to a public school with many open seats, or not given access to public transportation to and from school, these issues were raised based upon what is blatant in their eyes: segregation and degradation. Justice Felix Frankfurter did not want to make a hasty, vast decision. He wanted the decision to be deliberate and thought out thoroughly. Frankfurter also wanted the decision to be unanimous or nearly unanimous. Making a stance in front of the American people, changing the precedent of an old doctrine to a new doctrine–which could most certainly alter the lives of all American–was pertinent. Therefore, the Supreme Court had to make a sound decision. He wanted to answer specific questions before concluding as to whether or not the doctrine, “separate but equal,” was constitutional or unconstitutional. Frankfurter subsequently asked, “What was the end goal or the motive behind the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson?” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and lawyer Thurgood Marshall stated that the terminology of the words “separate but equal,” was a contradiction. Henceforth, the actions taken in instances of injustice which was brought forth to the court is permissible and therefore, the chief justice and his fellow associate justices should consider that while reviewing the cases. A sense of inferiority affects a child’s motivation learn. – Chief Justice Earl Warren When a President appoints justices, they become a justice until they willfully retire, or until their death. With the passing of Chief Justice Frederick M. Vinson, who was appointed by Harry S. Truman, in came Earl Warren. Earl Warren, then governor of California was appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower as the new Chief Justice on October 5. 1953. Warren was liberally thinking and persuasive in his arguments that he’d made in the courtrooms or during deliberations. Subsequently, Warren’s very first case to review was Brown v. Board of Education. The case was assessed in the spring of 1953, however, incontinence with the outlook of Justice Frankfurter, the matter had been tabled due to the questions regarding the precedent doctrine “separate but equal” and the aftermath of either decision that may be drawn in the case. If they were to rule in favor of Brown, would segregation end gradually? Or will it end immediately? In the past, “separate but equal” was considered constitutional, being that Brown vs. Board of Education was not the first case brought to the attention of the Supreme Court regarding the doctrine. Brown vs. Board of Education was precedent by Plessy v. Ferguson. The “separate but equal” doctrine was adopted in 1896 in the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. However, the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson entailed all public facilities, whereas Brown v. Board Education only implied public schools would become integrated. After reviewing the case, Warren stated the incompetence and irrelevance of the historical context of Plessy v. Ferguson. He did not seek to understand the mindset of the men from the 19th century and their rulings. He followed the importance of education and the environment surrounding the one’s receiving education. He understood that inferiority or even the thought of such could ultimately damage the will of the learner. We cannot turn the clock back to when the amendment was adopted, or to the doctrine of 1896 in Plessy vs. Ferguson. –Chief Justice Earl Warren Although the layout presented to the subjects in this case by Chief Justice Earl Warren implied that segregation end immediately, the South took a somewhat gradual approach or none at all. In Little Rock, Arkansas the governor sent in troops from the National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending school at Little Rock Central High School. The governor at the time of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, before the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education denied nine black students’ enrollment into the high school. Ultimately President Eisenhower had to send in federal troops to force the integration and protect the nine black attending Little Rock Central in a hasty environment. Based on readings for a previous course, Frederick Douglass explicated immensely the fear of educating a black person during slavery. The “hypothetical” view was that if slaves were to learn how to read and write, the ideals of abolitionism would enrage them, ultimately influencing them to spread these beliefs with their kinfolk, landscaping the region and pouring over by hearsay into nearby plantations. Revolts were to happen, turmoil would commence, and these educated slaves would then turn on their overseers and masters, abruptly ending the workhorse that was chattel slavery in the United States. The thirteenth amendment eradicated slavery and abolished it in the United States and its territories in 1865. With no direction or insight on how to go about living as freedmen and the rights of freedmen, more documentation was necessary for born slaves, now freedmen and women, to function properly as a nation of wholly counted citizens (reference: The Great Compromise.) Subsequently, the fourteenth amendment re-established the rights of citizenship in the United States, the peoples who it addressed and what it entailed. However, there were discrepancies in what newly freed black American slaves can do to be able to uplift themselves in distinctive aspects of their lives (i.e., education, economics, pursuit of the “American dream.”) Although all people were presumptuously “equal” with the emancipation of black slaves and the abolition of slavery in the United States, there were still undertones of inequality. The freedmen experienced everything but amiable interactions while trying to maneuver their way through their newfound ‘society.’ Most notably in the South, black codes were formed in an attempt to legally keep blacks in bondage through handicapping them to society and its resources, which were aided by the federal government. For purposes of obtaining background information for both landmark Supreme Court cases, it is essential to understand the significance of education to a group of people who weren’t even awarded the opportunity to obtain the fundamentals of educating oneself. Profound leaders such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, and Booker T. Washington, set examples by becoming idealistic people for the black people and families to look to as a means of understanding the importance of educating oneself to attain a substantial lifestyle and ultimately a better life for their people. The twentieth century was a premier time for social justice amongst minorities. Black people dominated the mid-twentieth century with literature due to the works of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. The context behind Harlem a poem written by Langston Hughes can be utilized as an analogy in any aspect of one’s life which comes across the poem. However, for black people at this time, they were mobile. Whether it be mobile as referring to the Great Migration of the South or mobile in their drive to become educated enough to attain whatever life they sought out for themselves; black people were anything but stagnant. In Brown v. Board of Education and all of the cases related to iteven the ones that came before ithow would you describe the people? People who were turned down when asking for the desegregation of public schools? Because the walls in the school weren’t suitable for human life, and students could barely breathe? Teachers, who had the same qualifications as another teacher who had fairer skin, was denied employment at an all-white school because of the color of their skin? How about busses opting not to pick up children because of the color of their skin? Plays like, “A Raisin in the Sun,” published and converted into a film in the mid-twentieth century set the tone, in my opinion about the Brown v. the Board of Education. It also highlights the systemic aspect of the doctrine “separate but equal” and how it is interpreted in different areas of the government. It can be thru public-school funding, or it can be by the blueprint presented to local governments and city councils when developing a new, affluent neighborhood. In conclusion to the details behind Brown vs. Board of Education and pieces of history surrounding it (i.e., Harlem Renaissance, The Great Migration,) I’d like to utilize a couple of lines from the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes. Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load. Or does it explode? With the denial of enrollment of black students into all-white schools, followed by the referencing of the separate but equal doctrine–in numerous cases across the country– there was a lack of encouragement to better one’s future, like Chief Justice Earl Warren stated. When does enough become enough? How can one implement a plan that feasibly works into a better tomorrow? What does a better tomorrow look like? Who is willing to carry the weight that all have once held in the palm of their hands or the traps of their back? Fourteen families from Topeka, Kansas, Four-hundred fifty students from Moton High School is Farmville, Virginia, along with people from South Carolina, Delaware, and Washington D.Cthese were the people who helped a dream deferred explode, creating a better tomorrow. A professional writer will make a clear, mistake-free paper for you!Get help with your assigment Please check your inbox I'm Chatbot Amy :) I can help you save hours on your homework. Let's start by finding a writer.Find Writer	<urn:uuid:95829b98-f111-40fe-90ed-f215c50fb015>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://studydriver.com/brown-case-social-injustices-and-inequity-issues/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446708046.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20221126180719-20221126210719-00103.warc.gz	en	0.975572	2,963	4.15625	4	2.987838	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
What Are The New Strategies Of Education In Australia During Covid 19 There have been a lot of changes in the whole system of education for the Global pandemic. It is necessary to make use of the technology as there are restrictions introduced to control the number of rising covid-19 cases. Most of the schools and institutions have shifted to the virtual classroom for studying the pandemic. Technology is playing a great role to reinforce and enhance the learning of the students in the new pandemic era. The government is working its best to promote different methods so that the education system does not lag behind in the pandemic situation. There are many challenges faced especially for the students who are not well equipped with the gadgets and internet connection. Proper technology is provided so that the students are not left behind and get to access the right educational services. Changes And New Strategies In Education System For Covid 19 Strategies have been taken to continue with the education and adapt to the number of facilities that the students can enjoy only by sitting at home. It is made sure that the students do not feel the difference in the changes of the education. There are some disadvantages but generally, the technology is based on the age group and the access of the individual students. The government is also trying to help to provide the students with the best amenities so that they can continue with the classes on a regular basis. The online classes The teachers from all around the world are trying to deliver the content to the students through online classes. Instructions are given along with different tasks so that the students enjoy the full interactive sessions with their teachers. - The system of online classes There are many departments with the whole system of online classes. The classes are quite useful and it covers up the entire curriculum for a particular age group. The teachers are trying their best to update the modes of teaching so that the students do not feel any difficulty with proceeding with the online classes. - Urgent homework and tasks It is important to monitor the development of the students for the immediate homework and tasks. Technology can assist in providing information to the students and it is being attempted by most of the schools for the best way of learning. - Online examinations Online examinations are also been taken along with the submission of assignment work. Technology is being made to use at its best to help the students not only at the classroom level but also at a systematic level. There is an increased focus on the use of data to understand the performance of each student. - The methods of learning Extra importance is given to the methods of learning and the ways in which it helps to promote what are the new strategies of education in Australia during covid 19 for the wellbeing of the students. Mental health is also given focus so that they can connect with the teachers and do not feel any gap in their interaction. - Take help of technology With the help of technology, the students can now connect with their teachers and collaborate in different ways. With instant messaging and video conferencing, it allows good input and output of documents which also enables group assignments to be taken. It is very important to check out what are the new strategies of education in Australia during covid 19. Without proper strategies, there will be a lack of a proper framework which will lead to a lot of confusion among the students. With the well-advanced technology, there are new learning outcomes that have been suggested by the government authorities to the different schools and institutions. All these changes are necessary which have been a major impact on the students. As the schools are not likely to open in the near future, online education is the most effective way of continuing with the studies. The students are not comfortable with writing the assignments on their own. This is why students take help from the case study writers who have significant knowledge in the given area of study. They ensure to help the students to guide them and help them in scoring good grades. By using and making the best use of the technology, one can provide the best assistance by interacting with the students and making sure they get all the support they need to complete their studies. Why Choose AssignmentTask.com? The majority of the students face difficulties in writing assignments. They need proper consultation from the assignment writers who are always ready to help. There are writers available all across the country from all departments. It is expected that the students can make the most out of the given opportunity when they get in touch with the assignment writers. It is important to focus on writing assignments as involved in the regular educational courses. There are professionals who help the students in the smooth functioning of the assignment writing. They provide the best service and follow the format of the given assignment. The proficiency of the writers is proved when they provide great content in the assignment which is unique to the others. 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We have a strong reputation for guiding the students for several years.	<urn:uuid:57cb0492-bbe0-4a74-bc8f-40b337f52b28>	CC-MAIN-2021-49	https://assignmenttask.com/blog/what-are-the-new-strategies-of-education-in-australia-during-covid-19/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964361169.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20211202054457-20211202084457-00177.warc.gz	en	0.964479	1,149	2.953125	3	2.218538	2	Moderate reasoning	Education & Jobs
Choose a language: Dangers lurk in equine dentistry By: Raymond Q. Hyde, DVM First published in Horse & Livestock magazine, VA - 2007 The use of motorized dental equipment has become quite popular and is now commonly used by many veterinarians and equine dental technicians around the world. The use of motorized gear began at least 60 years ago in Germany with rotary grinding wheel stones used to shape and cut teeth. During World War II, this type of technology was lost; and as the importance of horses fell, following the war, the art and science of equine dentistry withered to the occasional manual removal of enamel points. Equine dentistry was not considered to be very important and received very little attention by veterinary educational As horses have regained importance and numbers over the past 20 years, so has the demand for more thorough and advanced equine dental procedures. Manual floating of teeth is usually very effective for routine dental maintenance, which includes the floating of points, leveling waves and establishing bit seats; but it may be more time consuming and tiring. Good dental prophylaxis requires strength, dexterity, very good coordination and technique. Motorized equipment can speed the work and reduce physical wear and tear on shoulders, elbows and wrists. Motorized equipment is very helpful on big Jobs, like reducing big hooks, ramps, and reducing incisors and canines. The use of motorized equipment can promote better work and encourage more people to want to provide equine dental services. Are there dangers with the use of motorized equipment? Motorized equipment can actually be safer for the horse if used properly, since it greatly reduces the use of cutters, which may fracture teeth. Good technique may reduce soft-tissue trauma caused by hand floats that may accidentally scrape the gums and tissues around the teeth. Danger lies in poor technique. Rotating burrs can grab the tongue or cheek, causing superficial or deep abrasions. Rotary disc floats are very unlikely to cause significant soft-tissue damage. Grinding a single tooth for a long time without water cooling can overheat a tooth and damage the inner pulp tissue. This can be easily avoided by only grinding or using a cutting wheel for very short periods of time on each tooth (going from tooth-to-tooth) or using water-drip cooling. The use of sharp carbide, titanium-coated or diamond-chip burrs and discs greatly reduces heat production and the time needed to reduce and shape teeth. Thermal damage has received a lot of attention in equine dentistry articles in horse-related-magazines, so practitioners should be very aware that clients may be afraid of motorized dentistry. This fear may be exaggerated, since almost all practitioners are aware of this potential hazard and avoid it. I personally have been using motorized equipment for 20 years and have not seen any cases of thermal damage - signs of which might be seen years later as an open dead pulp chamber -caused by myself or others. Horses are often sedated for motorized dentistry, and sedation occasionally leads to problems. Narcoleptic horses may fall down. Intracarotid injections still occur rarely, as do idiopathic seizures. Manual floating of unsedated horses can avoid the risk of sedation, but unsedated horses may flip over and hurt themselves or strike and hurt the practitioner. Some horses allow the use of motorized equipment without sedation. "Over floating" is probably the most common problem that is seen with motorized dentistry. This results from taking too much off the occlusal surface of the cheek teeth leading to dysmastication, potential loss of weight or TMJ discomfort. Over floating can also be done with manual tools. It takes time to learn the principles of occlusion and how to balance the mouth while maintaining or increasing the functional grind of the cheek teeth. Obviously, when making cheek teeth malocclusion corrections, incisor work is often needed. This over floating gives motorized dentistry a bad name and hurts our profession. Hopefully, these over-floated horses can be maintained on pellets until their teeth erupt back Into occlusion. Learning to perform dental maintenance with manual floats first is a big help. When we use motorized equipment we have to keep in mind that we are trying to achieve the same result as hand tools - motorized doesn't mean more. Motorized dentistry is still hard work, but is often portrayed as an easy way to float horses' teeth and is attracting newcomers to the field. The danger lies in incomplete or improper training. Two-hour or even two-day courses in the use of motorized gear for beginners often leads to trouble. Another possible danger is the exposure of pulp tissues when reducing large hooks, ramps. Canines or incisor teeth. I believe this is fairly common, but rarely leads to an infected tooth. Practitioners may want to reduce some of these protuberant teeth in stages to avoid potential problems and watch carefully for pink spots, so the reduction can be stopped before the pulp is exposed. In general, the use of motorized gear is better than cutters to avoid pulp exposure. All precautions should be taken to avoid possible electric shock or electrocution. I have not heard of any deaths of horses or practitioners from this hazard, but I have experienced some stray voltage. The use of a ground-fault interrupter (GFI) is needed. Keep all your electrical equipment and connections dry. Air-driven equipment can reduce Inhaling tooth dust is hazardous to the operator and assistants - it causes lung damage and irritation. Using a vacuum greatly reduces the hazard while improving visibility. Protective eyewear should be worn to prevent tooth particles from striking the operators' or assistants' corneas or lodging in their conjunctivas. Recent advances in equipment design, including headlights, headstands, improved speculums and the use of vacuum suction to reduce tooth dust, and water-drip cooling, have made motorized work easier to perform with fewer complications. As in most endeavors. Ignorance and lack of caution is the cause of most danger. Dr. Hyde has been in general equine practice for 26 years and is a certified equine dentist. He operates a general mobile equine practice and is part owner of the REACH (Regional Equine Associates Central Hospital) Equine Referral Hospital in Clark County, VA.	<urn:uuid:30a2cc1d-662d-4c00-b2e5-9c25b914188b>	CC-MAIN-2017-22	http://amscheqdentistry.com/articles/04-29-16-dangers-lurk-in-equine-dentistry.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463607963.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170525025250-20170525045250-00226.warc.gz	en	0.935175	1,392	2.765625	3	2.714282	3	Strong reasoning	Health
By Tai Moses Twenty years ago I had an orange-striped tabby named Mr. Mooney. I doted on Mr. Mooney. He was a beautiful cat: smart, affectionate—and lethal to the neighborhood birds. Every day when I came home from work, I’d brace myself before opening the front door. Often I would be greeted with a grisly scene, tufts of feathers floating here and there, blood smeared on the floor, and somewhere, deeper in the house, the mangled body of a songbird. I tried keeping Mr. Mooney inside, but he howled nonstop in protest. I put a bell around his neck, but the bell didn’t do any good. The more birds he caught, the better he got at it. I cringe when I think of those days. Because I, and not Mr. Mooney, was to blame for all that needless killing. My justification for allowing Mr. Mooney to roam outdoors—he enjoyed it and it was convenient for me—was directly responsible for the gruesome deaths of innumerable birds. Not to mention the collateral damage: the nestlings who starved when their parent failed to return to the nest; the bereaved partners of the dead (many bird species mate for life and raise families together every year). Mr. Mooney is long gone, but domestic cats continue to catch astonishing numbers of birds. By far the most common patients Native Animal Rescue treats are songbirds injured by pet cats. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that cats in the U.S. kill hundreds of millions of birds and possibly billions of small mammals like chipmunks, voles, moles, and baby squirrels and rabbits every year. When cats kill small critters like mice, rats, and gophers, they are taking food out of the mouths of native predators like foxes, bobcats and coyotes and birds of prey like owls and hawks. Many people argue that it’s natural for cats to hunt and that we shouldn’t interfere with nature. While cats certainly have an instinctive prey drive, Felis catus, the domestic housecat, is not a natural part of any ecosystem, but an introduced species that has become one of the most widespread predators in the world. Cats have decimated populations of songbirds, many of them endangered species, in every habitat in which they are extant. Well-fed, well-loved cats like Mr. Mooney are responsible for much of this carnage. Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society of the United States, writes that “animals have the capacity to suffer, and we humans have the capacity to help them. We hold all the power over animals, and our choices and conduct have enormous consequences for them.” The choices we make, from the foods we eat, to the clothing we wear, to decisions like whether or not to let our cats outside, all have moral consequences. In Mr. Mooney’s day, the only way to stop a cat from killing birds was to keep the cat indoors. While that is still the most foolproof solution, today there are other options: the first is a simple, inexpensive invention called the CatBib. The CatBib is a thin neoprene bib that attaches to the cat’s collar and looks exactly like what it’s called: a bib. The orange-striped tabby I have today, Sherman, wears a bib when he goes outside and it does not hinder him in any way. He is still able to run and leap and climb and stalk and pounce, but when he reaches out to grab a bird with his claws, the CatBib flips up at the critical moment, preventing him from seizing his prey. Sherman suffers not at all from his failure to catch birds; as with most cats, it is the stalking that engrosses him. It took about five minutes for Sherman to get used to wearing his bib, and he quickly learned to sit and wait for me to buckle it on before going outside. The second option is a cat enclosure, or as some call it, a catio, a confined space where cats can get fresh air and sunlight, and can watch birds but can’t catch them. These spaces range from large aviary-like enclosures to secured balconies and decks to entirely fenced-in yards. A few products on the market, such as Purrfect Fence or Cat Fence In, can convert a patio into a catio in just a few hours. We want our cats to be fulfilled and content, and that’s why some of us accept the very real risks that come with allowing cats to go outdoors: roving dogs, hungry coyotes, fast-moving cars, pesticides, poisons and parasites. But permitting our cats to senselessly kill other living beings shouldn’t be part of the deal. I miss Mr. Mooney, but I don’t miss the feelings of horror and guilt that came with every dead or damaged bird he brought home. Choosing to get a CatBib or keeping your cat safely confined in a catio will allow you to enjoy your cat’s wild nature and keep our wild neighbors safe at the same time. Tai Moses is the author of Zooburbia: Meditations On The Wild Animals Among Us (Parallax Press, 2014). She lives in Santa Cruz.	<urn:uuid:da188df2-4918-40a0-b9a7-7c465602b74e>	CC-MAIN-2021-31	https://www.nativeanimalrescue.org/cats-birds-coexist/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046153814.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20210729011903-20210729041903-00075.warc.gz	en	0.95788	1,127	2.5625	3	2.883893	3	Strong reasoning	Home & Hobbies
Student-centered learning helps students break cycles of learned helplessness and sets the stage for real learning to happen, said Katherine Goyette, educational technology and integrated studies consultant for the Tulare County Office of Education in central California. Goyette discussed the value of student-centered learning with teachers during her “Averting Disaster: Full STEAM Ahead” workshop at a CUE Rock Star Camp in Oxnard, Calif. I caught up with her to talk about the components of a successful student-centered classroom and the steps teachers can take to get there. The following text has been edited for clarity and space. What is the benefit of student-centered learning? We want to create environments that foster lifelong learning and promote inquiry. Student-centered learning focuses not on a grade but on the joy of learning itself. How do we foster curiosity in the classroom? We start by modeling curiosity ourselves. We must show students what causes us to wonder. We must admit that we do not have all the answers — that we ourselves are always learning. The Next Generation Science Standards tell us to begin lessons with an “engage activity,” wherein students watch a phenomenon, either via video or real-life experiment. This helps promote curiosity and gives students a reason to research, hypothesize, create a model and change variables to test and learn by doing. Educators were once taught to front-load vocabulary — to tell students what it is they would be learning. We must now flip this traditional model and instead encourage students to first wonder and then explore. This wonder and exploration will naturally lead to learning. How do we help students ask questions? Again, we model this ourselves. When students ask me a question, I answer with another question or an “I wonder” statement, such as, “I wonder if there is a website or app that can help you find the answer to your question …” We must focus on wonder rather than grades. Students need to see our classrooms as a place to learn, not to regurgitate facts. Why is it important that teachers make this language shift? When we answer a question with another question or an “I wonder” statement, we honor student curiosity and validate learning rather than knowing. We create an environment that shows we value the process of learning rather than the attainment of knowledge. Information is available at the touch of a button (just ask Google or Siri!). We have to teach students to move past facts and to think critically — to prepare for a future that is unknown by communicating, collaborating and creating. What is one step teachers new to this model can take this year? Give students voice and choice. Ask students how they would like to demonstrate understanding of the content. This goes deeper than a “choice board,” in which students are given options. Rather, ask students how they like to learn things outside the classroom. Do they use the internet to figure out how to advance in a video game? If so, suggest they create a website. Do they use YouTube to learn new dance moves? If so, encourage them to create a video. And here’s the secret: Teachers do not need to know how to create a website or make a YouTube video. Students who are motivated to share their learning in this way will often spend the time to learn this method themselves. These students can then become experts who teach their peers. How do we keep students on track for learning targets? Even in a student-led learning environment, teachers have an important role. They need to ask guiding questions to ensure students are meeting learning targets in a timely fashion and lead students to additional resources as needed. They need to facilitate systematic collaboration that fosters peer feedback. Teachers can help identify student “experts” and give them opportunity to work with their peers. Students get to learn from one another. Teachers are similar to a coach; their role is to identify the strengths of each player and maximize individual and collective potential. They must be observant and focus on building a collaborative culture that values each member of the classroom for the contribution he or she brings to the group. Kanoe Namahoe is the editor for SmartBrief on EdTech and SmartBrief on Workforce. Like this article? Read more like it in the full issue of SmartBrief’s back-to-school guide, SmartReport on EdTech. Want to get news like this in your inbox? Check out all of SmartBrief’s education newsletters, covering career and technical education, educational leadership, math education and more.	<urn:uuid:e9a1770c-6c77-4aee-9d46-cc1fdc1953b6>	CC-MAIN-2022-40	https://corp.smartbrief.com/original/2017/09/break-cycle	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337595.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005073953-20221005103953-00246.warc.gz	en	0.94836	951	3.859375	4	2.729825	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
Ad blocker interference detected! Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected. Coyote and Turtle Story is a tale told by Tim F. Salinas of the Navajo tribe. It was uploaded to YouTube.com on December 10, 2006. It is currently unknown where the performance was recorded. It was recorded in 2003 for Pasadena City College. Transcription of PerformanceEdit \| \|\| \| Baby Turtle, swimming in the river, gets hungry and leaves the river to find some food. After getting lost, he tricks Coyote into bringing him back to the river. Approach : Performance Theory Edit Using the Performance Theory of Oral Tradition, one looks at each performance as an event and attempts to look at the importance of all aspects of the performance such as words spoken, actions performed, and instruments used, called "keys to performance". (Foley 2002) Because there are no definite keys, it is up to the studier to determine what the keys are. This may prove a difficult task because each key has to have a significance to the performance. Without the keys, the performance would cease to be a representation of the tradition. Some keys may be audible, such as the unique voices for both Baby Turtle and Coyote, the chanting and drum beating in the background, the occasional flute sound, and the inflection generally tracked by ethnopoetics. The unique voices are useful not only because they distinguish who is speaking for the audience's ease of comprehension, and it also makes the experience more entertaining for younger audiences. While Coyote sometimes participates in adult oriented stories, traditions often use stories as educational tools, and while their culture may view reproduction as less taboo as western cultures, this story of Coyote and Turtle is relatively tame subject matter. (Erdoes and Ortiz 1998) Because this is a reproduction of a very old tradition, it is assumed the story was first told in the Navajo's native tongue. (Bright 1978) Also, because all we currently have to observe is an audio "fossil" with a cartoon played simultaneously, we do not know if the chanting and drum was performed live with the telling of the story, or added later on the computer. Ideally, Tim Salins uploaded a fair representation of the Navajo tradition. The same can be said for the occasional flute noise, which seems to add an effect to Baby Turtle's crying and later suspense, something a written transcription could never accurately portray. (Tedlock 1999) All of these audible tend to fall into the "disclaimers of performance". Non-audible keys to performance includes both visual and contextual keys. Because no visual "clues" are available, it can only be postulated that perhaps puppets are used to portray this story. If this were true, the use of puppets would be a key to performance. The textual keys to performance could include the apparent lack of figurative language, special formulas of story framework, the appeal to tradition and use of stock characters, and the disclaimer of performance by starting the performance with a reference to time. Apparent Lack of Figurative LanguageEdit Native American traditions tend to tell straight stories with very little figurative language. (Thompson 1929) Because their heritage stresses a high importance on nature, stories tend to represent natural events exactly how they happen. The only events that would not happen in real life would be the anthropomorphic animals. Appeal to TraditionEdit The apparent lack of figurative language seems like it could also be classified in the "tradition" of Navajo or Native American stories, but on a second thought all keys to performance are aspects of the tradition. What exactly does "appeal to tradition" mean in this light? Using stock characters is placed here because it has no other category to fall within, but is still an important piece of the tradition. Without the stock characters, the stories would not be as effective because characterization would take much longer to establish. This proposes a difficulty to stories that usually take only a few minutes to tell. (Bright 1993) The use of special formulas in this story seems to be difficult to find due to the straight forward style of the story. Ironically, the straight forward style is one of the special formulas that is accepted as a key to performance. Similar to stock characters, Native American stories tend to follow a structured path. The story is a trickster story, which is made known by the appearance of Coyote. Trickster stories always have a lying character who attempts to deceive another character, and a lesson is learned for both an animal (usually Coyote), or the audience. Lessons are learned in nearly all Native American stories, such as how the world was made to rules of conduct. Disclaimers of PerformanceEdit In addition to the audible disclaimers of performance listed and discussed above, the story starts with a reference to time. Native Americans place an important focus on the seasons and time, as well as astrological occurrences. Many stories are started with an establishment of time, and later place. Usually the location of the story is familiar to the peoples who told it, in this case Navajo. (Thompson 1929) Like other Native American stories, the story of Coyote and Turtle has a lesson to the audience. (Bright 1993) Not only does the audience learn why turtles always remain near rivers, but also have the opportunity to learn a tale similar to that of the tale of Brier Rabbit. Children may also learn that it is not wise to stray to far away from where you are safe, and this lesson is directed toward children by making the turtle a baby turtle, which also shows his inexperience of straying from the river. All oral traditions serve a purpose for their culture, and besides entertainment, this story teaches many lessons. The ethnopoetic approach would apply to this story quite well, and it is always a good idea and recommendation to approach any tradition or performance with all three approaches. It is never a good idea to limit the ways to study something worth while of studying. - See Talk:Coyote and Turtle Story for questions to think about and discuss. - Pasadena.edu -- Pasadena City College official site Navigation: Twbtg2 - Abstract - Table of Contents - All Articles - Suggested Routes - Sources \|The Scenic Route\| Twbtg2 → Abstract → Table of Contents → Trickster story type → Coyote → List and maps of Native American tribes → Ethnopoetics → Coyote Races Buffalo (Talk) → Source:Calvin Grinnell → Coyote and Junco (Talk) → Performance Theory → Coyote and Turtle Story (Talk) → Don't Be Too Curious (Talk) → Immanent Art → Rabbit's Short Tail (Talk) → Coyote Steals a Drink (Talk) → The Coyote & The Prairie Dog (Talk) → Sources → Other Routes \|The Less is More Route\| Abstract → Trickster story type → Performance Theory → Coyote and Turtle Story → Don't Be Too Curious → Sources → Other Routes	<urn:uuid:64b96d90-3e14-44ae-a3d6-5783e06103ff>	CC-MAIN-2016-50	http://oraltradition.wikia.com/wiki/Coyote_and_Turtle_Story	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541783.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00323-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.962695	1,485	2.546875	3	2.972093	3	Strong reasoning	Entertainment
Rare potoroo cursed by the pox Wednesday, 14 November 2007 The disease may affect its ability to reproduce, the study says, further threatening the wild population, which is believed to number fewer than 40. Murdoch University veterinarian Dr Rebecca Vaughan is now undertaking a penicillin-based trial on a long-nosed potoroo, the nearest relative to the Gilbert's potoroo. Vaughan, a PhD candidate with the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, says if the trial at Perth Zoo is successful, researchers will evaluate the feasibility of similar treatment for the Gilbert's potoroo. Gilbert's potoroo was thought to be extinct for more than 100 years until a small population of about 30 animals was discovered in 1994 at Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve, near Albany in southwest Western Australia. The wild population is restricted to 1800 hectares of heath land within the reserve. Among a range of health conditions, Vaughan has found about 80% of the Gilbert's potoroo population is infected with a form of the bacteria treponema, which is similar to the microbe that causes syphilis in rabbits. Infected male potoroos suffer severe inflammation of the penis and have a bright green discharge from their bottoms. Vaughan says in some instances the inflammation is so severe the male potoroos cannot extrude their penis, obviously making it hard for them to mate. She says syphilis in rabbits decreases rates of conception, placenta retention and leads to neonatal deaths. Vaughan's research into the health of the critically endangered mammal forms part of the Gilbert's potoroo recovery efforts, co-ordinated by Dr Tony Friend from the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation. Friend says Vaughan's research will help to manage the surviving Gilbert's potoroo population as it will increase knowledge about their susceptibility to disease. "When you get to such low numbers disease can become significant," he says. "What we don't understand is if the males are entering fully into breeding and how it is affecting them. "The question is whether the treponema is affecting the population significantly causing loss of individuals that can't be made up through breeding." Friend says the Gilbert's potoroo population appears to be stable at Two Peoples Bay and other recovery projects are building up the population. While a captive breeding program has met with little success, a group of the marsupials translocated to Bald Island, about 30 kilometres off the coast from Two Peoples Bay is thriving. From a base population of nine Gilbert's potoroos placed on the island about three years ago, there are now 13 of the guinea pig-like creatures, with the latest generation now ready to breed. The recovery program is also trialling cross-fostering of young with long-nosed potoroos to allow the original mother a shorter time between young. Two out of three trials have been successful. Friend says the program is also reintroducing potoroos for breeding into fenced areas away from the main population at Two Peoples Bay. Within five years he hopes to release Gilbert's potoroos into unfenced mainland areas with a goal of having about 100 Gilbert's potoroos living in the wild.	<urn:uuid:0bee8968-9b44-48a8-a305-06a0de4eb4ee>	CC-MAIN-2017-09	http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2089599.htm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501171070.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104611-00598-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.943858	675	3.0625	3	3.005125	3	Strong reasoning	Health
This is an image of Neptune's Great Dark Spot of 1989. Click on image for full size Neptune's Great Dark Spot of 1989 Unlike Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the Great Dark Spot of Neptune is thought to be a hole, similar to the hole in the ozone layer on Earth, in the methane cloud deck of Neptune. The white clouds shown in the picture are above the "hole". In many images of Neptune, the Great Dark Spot can be seen to change size and shape. The Great Red Spot of Jupiter is thought to be a hurricane which has been raging on Jupiter for at least 400 years. The Great Dark Spot, seen here by Voyager in 1989, disappeared (either dissipating or being masked) in 1994, and was replaced very soon by a similar "Spot" in a similar place, but in the north instead of in the south. Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store! Our online store on science education, classroom activities in The Earth Scientist specimens, and educational games You might also be interested in: This image shows the new Great Dark Spot of Neptune, which was discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope. The image shown here, shows a "hole" in the clouds of Neptune in pink, in the northern hemisphere,...more Like Jupiter and all the giant planets, Neptune's appearance shows a striped pattern of clouds. Other cloud shapes seen over time include a small dark spot, the "scooter" and the Great Dark Spot. The Great...more Neptune's atmosphere shows a striped pattern of clouds. This cloud pattern is very similar to that of Jupiter and Saturn. Neptune even has a Great Dark Spot similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The history...more The giant planets have definitely changed since their formation. But how much remains to be seen. Most of the original air of the giant planets remains in place. (The earth-like planets lost most of their...more This image shows some clouds known as "cirrus" clouds, extending for many kilometers across the face of Neptune. These clouds are very high up, for they can be seen to cast shadows on the lower clouds,...more This image of Neptune uses false colors to show where the smog is. The smog of Neptune can be seen in red along the edge of the image. These hazes of smog are found at very high altitudes, over the clouds...more Scientists think that the solar system formed out of a spinning cloud of hydrogen and helium gas. Because the cloud was spinning, it flattened into a frisbee shape, just like a ball of pizza dough becomes...more If you had a quiz question in school that asked what year Neptune was discovered, you'd probably choose 1846. But Neptune wasn't discovered the way all the other planets in our solar system were. Astronomers...more	<urn:uuid:2b39902b-c6a3-4faa-9cce-c86406b54f50>	CC-MAIN-2019-13	https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=/neptune/atmosphere/N_clouds_GDS.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203842.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20190325072024-20190325094024-00454.warc.gz	en	0.939223	583	3.578125	4	1.792968	2	Moderate reasoning	Science & Tech.
In the present globalization era, adoption of Electronic-Commerce by India is becoming significant as it is replacing the traditional system of doing business transactions by E-transactions. In this way E-Commerce is enabling India to trade it with other countries with more efficient manner. E-Commerce has an excellent potential to improve efficiency and productivity in many areas and, therefore, has received significant space in India. E-commerce includes any form of business transaction or information exchange processed using information and communication technologies. E-commerce is not only restricted to buying and selling over the Internet, but it is also covers transferring or exchanging products, services and information via computer networks. E-Commerce involves conducting business on line by using modern communication instruments. It includes activities such as servicing customer online, collaborating with business partners and exchanging business documents within an organization over the Internet. E-Commerce provides multiple benefits to the consumers in the form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and save times. E-commerce may offer excellent opportunities for growth in every sector in India, despite the current limitations with the existing infrastructure and other issues related to the economical conditions. Paper Transcript of Paper Titled : Future Prospects of E-Commerce in India Future Prospects of E-Commerce in India Dr. Satish Chandra Pant Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies Govt. PG College Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India Dr. Virendra Kumar Gupta Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies Govt. PG College Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India Abstract— In the present globalization era, adoption of Electronic-Commerce by India is becoming significant as it is replacing the traditional system of doing business transactions by E-transactions. In this way E-Commerce is enabling India to trade it with other countries with more efficient manner. E-Commerce has an excellent potential to improve efficiency and productivity in many areas and, therefore, has received significant space in India. E-commerce includes any form of business transaction or information exchange processed using information and communication technologies. E-commerce is not only restricted to buying and selling over the Internet, but it is also covers transferring or exchanging products, services and information via computer networks. E-Commerce involves conducting business on line by using modern communication instruments. It includes activities such as servicing customer online, collaborating with business partners and exchanging business documents within an organization over the Internet. E-Commerce provides multiple benefits to the consumers in the form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and save times. E-commerce may offer excellent opportunities for growth in every sector in India, despite the current limitations with the existing infrastructure and other issues related to the economical conditions. (Abstract) Keywords- commerce; e-commerce; globalization; information technology; The Indian economy has seen a consistent growth in E-Commerce of 7-8% per annum in recent years. Growth in the Internet over the last few decades has led to great impact on communication and research in the institutes in India. Now the internet can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Thus an E- Commerce site can enter a global market space. Now E-Business can be conducted 24 x 7. Customers in India can now buy whenever, whatever and from wherever they want. This has increased choices. E-commerce enables fast delivery of on-line demanded products. Via the internet, customers can receive more information about the product and make a more informed decision. E-commerce has helped the business concerns to cut costs. Present article aims to assess the future prospects of E-Commerce in India, and its relevance by assessing the adoption level, benefits experienced, negative outcomes and problems encountered due to transacting the business through electronically. E-Commerce stands for electronic commerce and pertains to trading in goods and services through the electronic medium, i.e. the Internet or phone. On the Internet, it pertains to a website, which sells products or services directly from the site using a shopping cart or shopping basket system and allows credit card payments. E-Commerce often is defined narrowly to refer to using the Internet to market and sell goods and services. E-Commerce is, however, much broader and includes the electronic exchange of information, goods, services, and payments and the creation and maintenance of web-based relations. E-Commerce may be involved in the design, finance, production, marketing, inventory, distribution, and service aspects of a business' activities. As such, the use of e-commerce by a firm has the potential to both increase revenues from sales as well as significantly decrease costs through greater efficiencies of operation. In present scenario E-Commerce is playing very essential role in the online business. Although it is one of the best & cheapest intermediate for reaching out to new customers in the online market, if E-commerce implemented effectively, it also offers a smart way of doing online business & expanding it more. Today E-Commerce is a byword in Indian society and becoming an integral part of our daily life. There are websites providing any number of goods and services. Then there are those, which provide a specific product along with its allied services. An online business E-Commerce podium is planned and implemented to make the most of its reach to potential customers and provide them with a convenient, satisfying & protected shopping experience. Traditional or brick-and-mortar businesses are primarily product-centric, usually competing on the basis of product differentiation and innovation. In contrast, E-businesses focus on customers and adopt a customer-centric-approach. In the traditional way of doing business, companies manufactured products and customers purchased them. But now customers are active participants in the product design process; in fact, they often dictate terms to manufacturers and decide the features of products. The increasing use of the electronic media to conduct business and government transactions, and the increasing popularity of the Internet among individual customers has forced organizations to digitize their operations. Emerging e-business and mobile technologies and the greater availability of broadband telecommunications have catalyzed their transformation into e-enabled organizations. The use of high-speed Internet among communities and the proliferation of electronic commerce among businesses create both opportunities and challenges for businesses in small towns and rural areas. On the one hand, E-Commerce may reduce many of the disadvantages associated with an isolated location by decreasing marketing, communication, and information costs and increasing access to lower cost suppliers and services. On the other hand, geographically isolated businesses may find increased competition for their "local" or "traditional" customers from nonlocal Internet businesses. E-Commerce activities generally are classified as business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C). Business-to-business E-Commerce refers using the Internet to facilitate supply-chain operations and include electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic funds transfer, electronic forms and messaging, and shared databases. Business-to-consumer E-Commerce uses the Internet as a retail market channel and in the case of information as a product or service delivery channel. Benefits of E-Commerce Most businesses use E-commerce because it provides the opportunity for increased profits (through higher sales or lower costs) and thus enhanced sustainability of the firm. E-Commerce has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of operations in all phases of the business' supply chain. E-commerce may benefit a firm in product design, supply and inventory management, production, marketing, sales and distribution, and customer service Many businesses adopt an e-commerce business plan because it provides the owner greater flexibility in terms of operating location and hours. That is, e-commerce may present an individual with the opportunity to be a "lifestyle entrepreneur" and locate the business where the entrepreneur wants to live. For some individuals this enhanced flexibility might result in a move, but in many cases E-Commerce permits entrepreneurs to remain in place and benefit from proximity to family or other local assets. At present, more and more small businesses are incorporating E-Commerce platforms as part of their business systems. With the advent of the internet and smart phones, it is now easier than ever to integrate a workable solution that will work for many people. Here are just too many advantages for integrating an E-Commerce system. Below are the main ones. Business profits can be increased by increasing revenue through stronger sales or by decreasing the costs associated with constant sales. According to reliable statistics, there has been a tremendous increase in online sales over the last couple of years. It is estimated that the revenue of a business that incorporates an e-commerce platform can increase by twice. This is attributed to the fact that most people prefer the ease of access and convenience that comes with e-commerce platforms. Increase in Number of Customers and Customers Satisfaction It is clear that e-commerce brings in a lot of convenience in terms of payments. This therefore automatically invites more customers and also impulse buyers. The fact that the online payment system may accept different modes of payments makes it easier for the small business to get customers of diverse backgrounds. Customer service can be provided before the sale by making it easy for the shopper to find what they want or after the sale in terms of addressing order returns, repairs etc. The company website can be helpful in providing both before- and after-sale service. Website provides services to potential customers in the form of extensive information on product features, product details and specifications, reviews by consumers, comparisons to alternative products available, and accessories for the product. The company's website contains thousands of pictures of tools and parts and accessories to assist the customer after the sale. Via the internet, customers can receive more information about the product and make a more informed decision. Greater information leads to more confidence to make a purchase decision. More information also leads to enhanced customer satisfaction because the customer has a better idea about how to use the product. Further, e-commerce enables customization of products so that customers can have a product that suits their exact needs Better Customer Relationship For many businesses dependent upon the tourism industry, an e-commerce site provides a way to maintain and even strengthen customer relationships. For example, e-mails notices to customers who have purchased artwork by particular artists whenever new work by them is featured in the gallery. Linked with the shopping cart feature of the site, this direct marketing touch allows customers to purchase products beyond the tourist season and outside the region. Businesses can also use the e-commerce features of their sites to emphasize customer service and develop an edge over their competitors. Customers can plan every aspect of their trip online, from routes to menus, and pre- and post-trip e-mails provide customers with information about their trip. Ability to Conduct Business 24 x 7 Many businesses that do not use e-commerce may find it difficult to be open 24/7 due to the multiple overheads that come with it in terms of staff and utility payments. On the other hand, e-commerce makes it possible for a business to be open and easily accessible round the clock without any increase in overheads. Transactions and payments can continue being made automatically, without your supervision. In case the small business deals in digital goods, the business becomes totally automatic – full transactions, including purchase and delivery, will automatically be carried out online. Unlike physical stores which have opening and closing times, E-Commerce systems can operate all day every day. Since the internet can be accessed by anyone from any where, time is no longer a barrier to conduct business. People can interact with businesses at any hour of the day that it is convenient to them, and because these interactions are initiated by customers, the customers also provide a lot of the data for the transaction that may otherwise need to be entered by business staff. Fast Processing of Transactions E-Commerce enables businesses to transact quickly. This takes away the problem that come with other modes of payment that may require the merchant to wait up to one month to access their payments. E-Commerce transactions clear in seconds and merchants can either receive funds immediately or wait for only 2 or 3 days to get the cash in their bank accounts. Globalization of Business A business operating purely offline may have challenges in reaching a wide scope of customers. On the other hand E-Commerce has enabled local small businesses to reach international masses. There are no limits to where the internet can reach, therefore through e-commerce platforms, people can pay for goods and services from literally any corner of the world. The internet can be accessed from anywhere around the globe. Thus, an E-Commerce site can enter a global market space. Further, unlike traditional communications methods, users are not charged according to the distance over which they are communicating. Facilitates Quicker Collecgtion of Payment In case a service that requires recurring billing, it is easy to do so with an e-commerce platform one can create his system in such a way that when a customer makes a purchase, they can opt for their card to be re-billed at a certain frequency. This makes it hassle-free for both. As long as one continue using the service, their credit or debit cards will get charged at certain intervals, increasing the predictability of income and eventually the bottom line of a business. Enables Cost Reduction E-commerce enables a business to cut costs. Some of the costs that can be cut include a) Cost of creating the product, b) Costs of processing orders from the customers, c) Costs of handling customer phone calls, d) Cost of promotional material, e) Costs of distribution f) Costs of sending out bill payment, g) Costs of handling sales inquiries, h) Costs of determining product availability (inventory management), i) Cost of marketing, j) Human Resource costs, k) Costs of storing information l) Telecommunication costs. Improved Supply Chain The use of internet can lead to a reduction in the inefficiencies relating to supply chain. Some of the benefits are reduced inventories, reduced delivery delays and efficient e-procurement. E-commerce also helps in building more collaborative and stronger relationships with suppliers. This includes streamlining and automating the underlying business processes, enabling areas such as direct marketing, selling, customer services, fulfilment, procurement, replenishment and information management. Easde of Access This is seen as one of the biggest advantages of e-commerce. Customers have access to a host of services literally at the tip of their fingers. Customers can buy whenever they want, from more locations. This increases choices. When customers have more choices they can decide on a product with better features at a more competitive price. Sometimes products are less expensive on-line. Saves Time and Effort E-commerce enables quicker delivery of on-line products such as software, games, music, which can be downloaded. Quick delivery is important for people who want to use the product immediately, as opposed to waiting longer. If they have to wait long, they may pick a competitor's product. Limitation of E-Commerce As discussed above that the implementation of E-Commerce facilitates lot of benefits but it also subject to the following limitations i) Government initiatives are important in the adoption of e-commerce and other ICT in general. They can be in terms of promotion of ICT usage, education and the establishment of adequate regulatory framework for e-commerce including taxation and tariff for revenue generated through e-commerce. Government initiatives are affected by many factors including the country’s political condition, economic condition, and external influence from other countries. ii) In a country with an unstable political condition, it is less likely that government will give enough attention, if any, on e-commerce development. iii) The GDP and income per capita are common indicators for the economic condition of a country. Since e-commerce relies on some technology infrastructures which are relatively expensive for many developing countries, countries with unfavourable economic condition are not likely to be involved in e-commerce. iv) E-commerce success relies heavily on a number of technology infrastructures. Firstly, telecommunication infrastructures are required to connect various regions and parties within a country and across countries. The cost of accessing the infrastructures also influences the growth of e-commerce. Its growth further requires the establishment of reliable and secure payment infrastructures to avoid frauds and other illegal actions. The overall technology infrastructure development of a country relies heavily on the economic and geographical conditions of the country. v) The adoption of e-commerce also depends on the cultural and social environment. In some countries, people consider shopping as a recreation, and therefore, B2C e-commerce is difficult to nurture. Likewise, the level of education, the availability of IT skills, the level of penetration of personal computers and telephone within the society affect the growth of e-commerce. vi) A lack of awareness of the use and potential benefits of ICT can also hinder the growth of e-commerce. In some developing countries, many people are only aware of limited e-commerce applications such as chat, email and browsing websites. As a result, many organizations have not considered exploiting the potential of e-commerce to improve their business operations. vii) The growth of e-commerce in a country is also influenced by other countries. For example, the reputation of credit card frauds in some countries caused blockages of several IP addresses by a number of commercial sites from different countries. This situation can cause those countries to be expelled from global business transactions and hence, limit the usefulness of e-commerce The rapid growth of e-commerce reflects their potential benefits to businesses in terms of increased sales, lower costs, and enhanced sustainability. E-Commerce may permit retail businesses to "cut out the middle man costs." Yet many businesses are reluctant to develop e-commerce or they are disenchanted with e-commerce because their experiences have fallen short of their expectations. The bottom line here is that e-commerce is highly beneficial to small businesses. It is significantly easy to set up and the benefits come in almost instantly. Some of the things to be cautious of include poor security, poor site design, too many refund requests, harsh terms and conditions of some payment platforms and poor marketing. Once these areas are kept in check, moving to E-commerce will be among the best business decisions for taking the advantages of transacting business in the new technological environment. In most cases, e-commerce is considered beneficial to the firm's profitability and sustainability. In general, the benefits of e-commerce to the business are enhanced if the firm serves a niche market, takes advantage of service providers (public and private) to maintain an efficient and up-to-date e-commerce program, and integrates e-commerce into multiple aspects of the business operation. Bharat Bhasker. (2013) Electronic Commerce: Framework, Technologies and Applications, McGraw Hill Liebana-Cabanillas, 2014. Electronic Payment Systems for Competitive Advantage in E-Commerce. Business Science Reference Swilley, E, 2014. Mobile Commerce: How It Contrasts, Challenges and Enhances Electronic Commerce Montgomery, R. 2007. "What is E-commerce." Access e Commerce program website, http://www.accesse.info/. Prasad S., “Image Processing on Scanned Images”, International Journal of Trends in Economics Management and Technology (IJTEMT), Vol. II, Issue. V, Oct 2013, ISSN: 2321-5518, pp 46-50. Prasad S., “A Review on Software Architecture”, International Journal of Trends in Economics Management and Technology (IJTEMT), Vol. II, Issue. IV, August 2013, ISSN: 2321-5518, pp 72-74. Prasad S., “Software Layering, Style and Evaluation”, International Journal of Trends in Economics Management and Technology (IJTEMT), Vol. II, Issue. VI, Dec 2013, ISSN: 2321-5518, pp 10-13.	<urn:uuid:37dbcfc5-def1-41e4-9291-051c2025c640>	CC-MAIN-2018-47	http://ijtemt.org/vol5issue2/2_Future_Prospects_of_E_Commerce_in_India_Vol_V_Issue_II.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039743968.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20181118052443-20181118074443-00419.warc.gz	en	0.942468	4,090	2.546875	3	2.870726	3	Strong reasoning	Finance & Business
Little more than a decade ago, one of the world’s largest known gold deposits sat abandoned in the foothills of the Dominican Republic’s Central Cordillera mountain range. Car-sized boulders leached heavy metals into what locals called the “blood river,” its waters ran so red from contaminants. Today the mine, which reopened as Pueblo Viejo this year, hums with activity. Trucks with tires twice the size of an SUV roll through its massive open pits on roads that cut through the 11km2 site, transporting tonnes of rock to a processing facility. About 2,000 people already work at the site, churning out shimmering gold bars that are exported to Canada and the US, but the mine has the potential to create 12,700 more direct and indirect jobs and contribute US$1.3 billion a year in exports. This dynamic, foreign-operated enterprise is part of the country’s effort to develop an industry that could help boost and diversify its tourism-dependent economy. Yet despite robust commercial production by two of the world’s largest gold mining companies, Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp and Goldcorp Inc, development of the mining sector is vexed by bureaucratic delays and agitation by activists still concerned about pollution and government deals with foreign companies to exploit the nation’s riches. At stake are billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in a country of 10 million with high levels of unemployment and poverty. The river close by the mine is no longer bloody, but the destruction wrought by the Rosario mine — the site’s previous name when it was run by the government until it closed in 1999 — left mining with a dirty name locally. When they took over the mine site, Barrick and Goldcorp launched an extensive cleanup and environmental protection program to prevent pollution of the nearby streams. The mine says it treats 40,000m3 of contaminated water per day. Nevertheless, local community groups remained concerned that the heavy metals from exposed rock could end up in nearby waterways, and the opposition says it is in for the long haul. In the spring, making common cause with the environmentalists, political activists dismayed by sweetheart deals for foreign companies operating in the country waged a public campaign against the Pueblo Viejo mine. The government was forced to renegotiate what critics said was an overly generous contract signed with the companies in 2009 by then-Dominican president Leonel Fernandez, whose ruling pro-business Dominican Liberation Party has looked for outside interests to develop key economic sectors, such as mining and tourism. Since the party won relection last year, Dominican President Danilo Medina has sought to distance himself from Fernandez, and he soon became a critic of the contract himself. In May, a new contract gave the Dominican government about 51 percent of gross profits, up from 37 percent under the original agreement, costing the owners more than US$1 billion at the current market price. It has not been an easy year for Barrick’s Latin American operations. Indefinite suspension of its Pascua-Lama mine, along the Chile-Argentina border, has contributed to a fall in the company’s stock price and increased pressure for returns at a handful of other mines, including Pueblo Viejo, one of Barrick’s five core projects, company officials said.	<urn:uuid:50a55cf2-6365-419c-91fb-3786159c1c5c>	CC-MAIN-2016-44	http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2013/12/29/2003580013/1	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719908.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00334-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.95552	700	3.171875	3	2.982032	3	Strong reasoning	Industrial
Middle Ear Infection (Otitis Media) Otitis media is an infection of the eardrum and the cavity of the middle ear, including the 3 bony ossicles. The early signs of otitis media are the same as those of external otitis. However, as the middle ear becomes infected the pain increases dramatically. The dog often tilts his head down on the affected side, holds it as still as possible, and exhibits increased pain sensitivity when her head is touched or her mouth is opened. Hearing can be affected, but the loss may not be noticed unless both ears are involved. Most cases are caused by an outer ear infection that involves the eardrum and then progresses to the middle ear. In fact, about 50% of cases of chronic external otitis are associated with otitis media. Bacteria can also gain entrance to the middle ear through the opening of the auditory tube that connects the middle ear to the nasopharynx (is the uppermost part of the pharynx / throat). Ocassionally, the infection is blood-borne. An otoscopic examination performed after the dog has been sedated or anesthetized reveals a bulging eardrum. If the eardrum ir ruptured, pus may be seen draining from the middle ear. X-rays occasionally show fluid or inflammatory tissue in the middle ear cavity. Injury to a branch of the facial nerve that crosses the eardrum causes drooping of the upper lip and ear on the affected side. Another sign of facial nerve injury is Homer's syndrome, a symptom complex of the eye that consists of a small pupil, drooping upper eyelid, protrusion of the nictitating membrane (third eyelid), and retraction of the eyeball into the orbit. This involves thoroughly cleansing and flushing the ear, as described for external otitis. If the eardrum is intact but bulging, pus and fluid in the middle ear can be aspirated by your vet using a syringe and needle. This reduces pressure and relieves pain. The fluid is cultured. Oral antibiotics are started and can be changed pending the results of sensitivity reports. Antibiotics are continued for at least 3 weeks, or until the problem resolves. Recurrent or chronic otitis media may require middle ear surgery. Most cases of otitis media can be prevented by treating ear canal infections at an early stage. This is why it is so important to take your dog to a vet as soon as you suspect an ear problem. Please contact your veterinarian with questions regarding this condition. Show Sources & Contributors +	<urn:uuid:da111722-7f94-41db-bdbd-076b5e690fe5>	CC-MAIN-2014-49	http://www.wiki-pet.com/health/dog/condition/index.php?condition_id=148&name=middle+ear+infection	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416400380683.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20141119123300-00146-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.940446	537	3.40625	3	1.740354	2	Moderate reasoning	Health
“Every man is an artist” What can art be? Can a lecture or a public discussion be art? The 20th century has taught us that almost everything can be used as art. The photographs that record the teaching and discussion practices of Joseph Beuys force us to think about the borders of art. We are also compelled to ask “what does it mean?” and even “why is it art at all?” Does it mean that everyone can be an artist? Can everything be art?According to Beuys, “everyone is an artist.” But to grasp the full meaning of this statement, one must look closely at the context of Beuys’ thought, which represents a general framework in which particular artwork appears. For Beuys, there should be no clear demarcation between art and life. Human life means life in a community, with other people. Therefore, artistic activities (should) have a direct social impact. Beuys does not have in mind any kind of “applied arts” in service of a society, nor does he speak simply of “making society better.” He sees rather a metaphysical significance of human creative capacities and, consequently, art. Each human being has a creative potential in Beuys’ eyes. This potential is to be realized in communion with others. So the particular activities of individuals do matter but gain full meaning only if they lead to building a new society based on solidarity, creativity and freedom. In such a communion, man can reach his/her real identity, not only as a social atom, but as a person. This is the reason that Beuys perceives society as the greatest work of art, a “total work of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk). This is what Beuys called the “social sculpture” (Soziale Plastik). This concept should not be understood in terms of aesthetics. “Social sculpture” does not mean that a society should adopt the aesthetic properties of, let’s say, sculpture, in order to become a total work of art. On the contrary, it is insistence on the very human capacity of freedom and creativity that should form the new society. In such a society, human beings will not just live “better” but will come to a broader exercising of their own humanity. In this sense, they will not only live a better life; they will also be able to be in a more fundamental sense. Here we see what the phrase “every man is an artist” (Jeder Mensch ist ein Kuenstler) really means. Beuys did not think that each human being should paint or produce particular things we call “art.” He rather sees creativity as a universal human capacity which enables man to be what he/she really is. Thus one’s existence becomes the same as artistic creation. The form of this creation is not of particular importance. This is the reason why Beuys can teach, give public lectures, or engage in political action and consider these activities “art.” Another aspect of the idea of the “social sculpture” consists in Beuys’ critique of the modern society not only as an extremely rationalized but also as a highly individualized one. His understanding of the society as a “sculpture” is based on the concept of community in which people are tied by personal relations not by laws or any force. In his work Feet Washing (1971), Beuys is performing an action which reminds us of a famous story from the Gospel. It is the story when Christ washed the feet of his disciples showing his humility and demonstrating the principle “let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.” In this action, Beuys represents Christ himself, giving a lecture on modesty and service instead of dominance. The action also shows one of the principal Christian virtues—rejection of individuality and selfishness in order to make room for God in human souls. In this example, we can see the impact of Christianity on the formation of Beuys’ artistic concepts, not only as a symbol or illustration of Biblical stories but to which connect the artist’s work with his understanding of the Christian tradition. These relations touch on some of Beuys’s basic ideas on the world and art. Beuys speaks of “the essence of Christ” (das Wesen des Christus) suggesting that every human being must be, potentially at least, “a kind of Christ.” Stressing creativity and freedom as fundamental values, Beuys sought a means to build a new society in which “every man is an artist.” Essay by Dr. Davor Džalto	<urn:uuid:bafe5a59-8cef-4309-9ad3-27cfb6115936>	CC-MAIN-2015-11	https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/conceptual-performance/a/joseph-beuys-feet-washing-and-conceptual-performance	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936461494.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074101-00050-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.953358	1,016	2.796875	3	2.905085	3	Strong reasoning	Art & Design
The research about stress and it's effects on humans gets better every day. In a decade we may all be as well informed and conscious of the negative effects of stress as we are currently of fast food, smoking and lack of exercise. There are different forms of stress. Some good, some bad. Good stress is often referred to as short term acute stress, and this type can often be exciting and promote positive action. This kind of stress will cause you to work hard on an upcoming presentation or push yourself off the starting line of a Saturday obstacle course race. It will help an extreme kayaker focus on making it down a tough section of whitewater, or help a Commando to overcome almost insurmountable obstacles to succeed and survive in almost any situation. Short term acute stress is usually good and is the bodies natural response to a stimulus that requires immediate action. The stress I'm focusing on here is of a particular variety that is so prevalent in modern society, and especially the modern corporate workplace, and is referred to as chronic stress. Simply defined, chronic stress is constant, relentless and occurs when people are perpetually overwhelmed with no way out of their situation. Chronic stress is very real and presents a serious threat to individual and organizational survival. Most people, whether civilian or military are constantly balancing multiple and disparate missions. In the military individual soldiers, even SOF Operators in elite units, have to balance different levels of mission priority. There are national objectives, theatre specific objectives, unit objectives, team objectives and finally individual objectives and each has a purpose. Along with different missions come different levels of stress that can impact individual team members, teams and units. Successful SOF operators learn to balance the different mission circles, and focus on the one that is most necessary at the moment to ensure total mission success. I refer to this as the 3 circles of Mission Focus (Individual, Unit and Strategic). Employees, Managers and Executives in civilian organizations have the same types of competing objectives. The strategic mission of the organization, the department or division's mission, the individual business unit and individual employee's goals may all be out of alignment with each other. Misaligned goals can create stress. Poor communication, lack of trust or inability to build rapport among other team members creates dysfunction among small teams. Managers who lack leadership skills, or support from above often create more problems than they solve. Poor leadership creates massive stress among employees and companies. The result is widespread stress, organizational distrust and extremely low morale among some of our nations largest and most "trusted" corporations. Household names that touch many sections of the US economy are filled with employees who are suffering under chronic stress, many don't even recognize the signs. I am extremely concerned with the amount of chronic organizational stress I see in almost every organization and also by the fact that the preferred course of action seems to be to ignore it. Individuals that serve in the military are generally much more knowledgeable about the effects of stress, how to recognize and guard against it, or how to harness it for useful purposes. The ability of the Special Forces, Navy SEALS and other SOF operators to endure stress or suffer the negative effects less than other troops in the military is well documented and is linked to research conducted around Special Operations stress inoculation as individuals participate in classified training. Research shows that among the reasons that SOF operators perform in a superior way under stress is that they release more of a chemical known as Neuropeptide Y. This amino acid (NPY) is known to help regulate blood pressure, appetite and learning and also to buffer the effects of anxiety and adrenaline (all successful Commandos excel in these areas). The presence of increased levels of NPY also helps SOF Operators recover quicker from exposure to extreme stress. What does this mean? Higher levels of performance and survivability. Higher levels of individual and organizational health. And in terms of US Special Operations, it means that when called to action, our nation's Commandos remain laser focused on successful outcomes of their missions, much to the dismay of those who would do our nation harm. Just knowing that SOF operators possess more of NPY isn't enough, and the SOF units and personnel certainly don't rest in that knowledge. They are constantly training in realistic scenarios and stressful missions. Individual skills (marksmanship, fitness, driving, parachuting, leadership, climbing) are constantly trained and then integrated into small team drills, which are integrated higher into larger organizational goals. Throughout the training, difficult scenarios replicating current, past or future missions are the foundation of elite units preparation. These scenario driven training evolutions are what individuals and teams use to refine, and perfect their reactions to stress, and ensure that they possess superior mindset and abilities. You, your company, or your organization can benefit from this knowledge by creating a custom training event that is tailored to your specific goals and abilities. Ranging from 1 Day to 1 week, AOG's solo, small group and team courses are perfect for creating mission focus. Led by some of the most talented and diverse instructors in the industry, AOG's courses blend multi-sport and tactical skill training with elite final missions in some of the most spectacular locations to create a truly epic experience. Need help creating the right goals? AOG offers custom coaching and leadership seminars to get your team SOF focused. AOG's staff are accomplished tactical thinkers and successful corporate leaders and are the experts in small group Human Performance Training. You can take action to help your individual situation right now. 1) Start a real workout program. Individual physical readiness is at the very core of every successful SOF operator and is a huge focus of elite individuals in all walks of life. Two places to start your search are: www.crossfit.com (large national presence with thousands of "Boxes" around the US and a supportive culture that encourages beginners to push hard) www.mountainathlete.com (focusing on training programs for the most elite athletes and warrior athletes based out of Jackson, WY) Both of these organizations are recommended by AOG and will get you on the right track for functional fitness and a healthy lifestyle. If you are not familiar with the terms WOD, AMRAP, Paelo, 1RM, Thrusters, Box Jumps, Ruck and Explosive energy then you need to get started today. Forget what you learned in school, don't waste your money on traditional gym memberships unless you want to continue to be disappointed and not get results. AOG, other similar companies, current and former SOF Operators and the most elite outdoor athletes overwhelmingly support a very similar approach to fitness and lifestyle. This is the standard. The links above will get you started down the right path. You can contact us for additional help and information. Get serious about your health. It's the single fastest way to beat stress. 2) Orient yourself around missions, learn situational awareness, get motivated and SOF focused. ADVENTURE OPERATIONS GROUP SOF motivation and situational awareness are absolutely necessary for successful missions and for winning battles with stress. You can't choose when stress shows up, but you can choose how you react to it. 3) Train hard, increase capabilities, take risks, set a high standard and be a leader on your team every day. Somewhere right now, someone is training to beat you, take your job, or impart their will on you at work. You can choose to increase your ability through training and improve your odds of winning every situation and surviving each stressful encounter. ADVENTURE OPERATIONS GROUP WELCOME TO ADVENTURE OPERATIONS GROUP Adventure Operations Group (AOG) is a veteran owned company dedicated to the pursuit of adventurer. AOG's Training Programs and Adventures will take you "Beyond Normal Limits". AOG leads epic adventures, instructional programs, leadership training and assessments for individuals and organizations. Our programs are unique and emphasize mental focus, individual skills, leadership and personal achievement. We specialize in Human Performance Training. Working with AOG is the best way to achieve "next level" results for your corporate group or to enhance your personal capabilities. Contact AOG today to learn how we can get you or your team "Beyond Normal Limits".	<urn:uuid:e31cba46-5f12-4fda-ab5e-9c20d6e2faaa>	CC-MAIN-2017-43	http://adventureoperationsgroup.blogspot.com/2013/09/workplace-stress-inoculation.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187825227.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20171022113105-20171022133105-00789.warc.gz	en	0.951091	1,689	2.53125	3	2.695766	3	Strong reasoning	Sports & Fitness
This fraternity met on Sundays and after mass held public programs in which poems were recited or debates were held. He must have uttered this exclamation on learning from his mother that they had played her a mean trick. The indignation rally of the students continued and more arrest were affected. But until the latest moment of Spanish rule, the apologists of Spain seemed to think that they ought to be able to turn away the wrath evoked by the cruelty and incompetence that ran riot during centuries, by dwelling upon the benefits of the early days of the Spanish dominion. Rizal Back in Madrid 30 September He was issued the diploma of ordinary prize obtained during the examination given last June 30, in the subjects of Greek and Latin Literature at the Central Universidad De Madrid. Almost immediately after the incorporation of the Knights of Columbus, Father McGivney wrote a letter to all the pastors of what was then the Diocese of Hartford, Connecticut, outlining the organization's aims. In the same letter he mentioned his going either to England or Germany to specialized in ophthalmology. Rizal faced the Filipino soldiers of the firing squad guarded by the Spanish soldiers. Afterward Father Lopez came to know from the Jesuits themselves that Jose was a pupil who excelled in poetry; and, in spite of his age, made a trip to Manila expressly to apologize to Jose. In the first two terms the classes were divided into groups of interns and externs: Returning home, he might look in the orchard for a mambolo fruit to eat, then he took his breakfast, consisting generally of a plate of rice and two dried sardines. Public relation man He worked for better cooperation of rulers and subjects in his country. Then everything looked sad; a flower that he touched, a stone that attracted his attention he gathered, fearful that he might not see it again upon his return. The Spanish Armada was one of the earliest of those influences which, reenforced by later events, culminated in the life work of Jose Rizal and the loss of the Philippines by Spain. He told rizal in a letter about the desire of Miss Rivera to see Miss Valenzuela with the object of settling the rivalry. The family, who saw in Jose great aptitude for study, decided to place him as intern or boarding student in the college the following year. The first Filipino priest, Father Angel Villaruz, served the longest in this church for 43 years since In Wilhelmsfeld where Pastor Ullmer was staying and working, Rizal was invited to visit the vicarage. Many progressive Spaniards had become Freemasons, when that ancient society, after its revival in England, had been reintroduced into Spain. His diaries contained detailed description and sketches of plants, flowers and fruits he saw in the places he visited. They knew nothing of what was meant by the rule of the people, and could not conceive of a government whose head was the servant and not the master. He advised Trinidad to read and read. The last fifty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines was a small saturnalia of revenge with hardly a lucid interval for the governing power to reflect or an opportunity for the reasonable element to intervene. Till then outbreaks and uprisings had been more for revenge than with any well-considered aim, but henceforth complaints became definite, demands were made that to an increasing number of people appeared to be reasonable, and those demands were denied or ignored, or promises were made in answer to them which were never fulfilled. The first professor Jose had was Fr. Narcisa () -her pet name was Sisa 1 -married to Antonio Lopez (nephew of Father Leoncio Lopez), a school teacher of Morong 4. Olimpia () -Ypia was her pet name -married Silvestre Ubaldo, a telegraph operator from Manila 5. Last name popularity statistics for persons named LOPEZ per 10, residents in every state First name popularity statistics for year Popularity of last name LOPEZ increased from % in to % ( people) in year Is any person on this list your grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, uncle, aunt, other family member, or a friend? Click on the "Add information" button next to this person's name to connect with his or her family, friends, add an obituary or other information. I also mentioned that his father, Francisco Mercado was a Chinese mestizo. the parish priest, Rev. Rufino Collantes, Rev. Pedro Casanas being his godfather.” —Witness my signature. (signed) LEONCIO LOPEZ. (Reprinted from COUNTERPOINT with permission from the author.) The Chinese Ancestry of Jose Rizal by Dr. Eusebio L. Koh Bayan Ko. -married to Antonio Lopez (nephew of Father Leoncio Lopez), a school teacher of Morong. 4. Olimpia ()-Ypia was her pet name-married Silvestre Ubaldo, a telegraph operator from Manila. 5. Lucia ()-married to Mariano Herbosa of Calamba, who was a nephew of Father Casanas. Sep 17, · Leoncio Lopez, Rizal’s friend and priest of Calamba; Isagani, the poet was Vicente Ilustre, Batangueño friend of Rizal in Madrid and Paulita Gomez, the girl who loved Isagani but married Juanito Pelaez, was.Father leoncio lopez	<urn:uuid:1ac355be-7a26-4ab4-8126-df2a46a6c812>	CC-MAIN-2020-34	https://kedawulafuxaqahog.turnonepoundintoonemillion.com/father-leoncio-lopez-29134kh.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439736057.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20200810145103-20200810175103-00222.warc.gz	en	0.979501	1,152	2.65625	3	2.843114	3	Strong reasoning	History
Alcohol 120 Updated Crack Patch Chronic alcohol consumption is associated with a series of adverse effects that are termed the hazardous or harmful effects of drinking. These effects comprise a range of physical and mental health problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome, chronic binge drinking, Alcohol Patched-related epilepsy, and dependence [ 45 ]. The risk associated with any one effect is difficult to estimate, but the dose-response relationship can be established. Epilepsy occurs in 10%-20% of patients, with risk increasing with duration of alcohol abuse [ 46 ]. Neurological damage increases in proportion to the number of drinks consumed per week. For example, children who consume approximately 14 drinks per week are at a 20-fold increased risk of developmental impairment compared with those who drink two to five drinks per week [ 47 ]. In addition to causing immediate neurological problems, alcohol is a major risk factor for other diseases including ischaemic heart disease, stroke, and breast cancer [ 45 ]. Chronic alcoholic disease has a significant impact on mortality, with alcohol being one of the top ten causes of death in the United States [ 48 ]. There are also substantial health impacts of binge drinking [ 49 ], with the risk of hospitalisation increasing with frequency of binging. While the epidemiology of chronic alcohol consumption is well documented, there is less evidence on the broader effects of fetal alcohol syndrome on fetal outcomes. Despite the high burden of disease attributable to alcohol consumption, only few children with confirmed FASD have been diagnosed by a physician [ 50 ]. This diagnostic delay may reflect the complexity of the diagnosis, and the lack of resources to screen for FASD in the absence of parental or maternal symptoms. However, women who have been diagnosed with FASD are less likely to conceive, and when they do, their babies are more likely to have birth defects and cognitive impairment [ 51 ]. There is a clear need for early detection and diagnosis of FASD, with pregnancy being a key window of opportunity [ 52 ]. Recent successes in prenatal diagnosis of FASD, combined with the high rates of unplanned pregnancies in young women [ 53 ], suggest the possibility of using alcohol biomarkers in pregnancy to detect fetal alcohol exposure. Crack For Alcohol 120 Updated Lifetime Patch Download By creating image files of your optical discs (CD/DVD), and storing the images within the Alcohol 120 program, you can leave your precious discs safe and secure while your computer does what you ask it to do. Alcohol 120 can create up to 2 virtual drives, through which it is possible to play disc images without burning them on the media. Moreover, Data-Type Analyzer can detect protected media and select the right profile to copy secured data CD/DVD. Windows and Linux image files have been supported by Alcohol 120 for several years, and added by software update. If your optical disc gets damaged in any way, you can utilize Alcohol 120 to create an image file from the damaged disc, and store the image file within the Alcohol 120 program as a backup. This feature is very useful in case of file system or hard drive crash, and helps you recover your precious data quickly and easily. Windows and Linux image files have been supported by Alcohol 120 for several years, and added by software update. The utility is designed primarily for backup secured CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray technologies like Laserlock, DVD-COPS, SafeDisc, SafeDisc4, Securom 4/5/7, StarForce 1.x / 2.x / 3.x and VOB VOB ProtectCD ProtectCD v5. Alcohol 120 Full Version Free can create up to 2 virtual drives, through which it is possible to play disc images without burning them on the media. Moreover, Data-Type Analyzer can detect protected media and select the right profile to copy secured data CD/DVD. Alcohol can rip a music CD to the following files: MP3, MP2, OGG, WAV, MIDI, and WMA formats. It can also record CD music in WMA format and DVD-Video and DVD-Audio formats in MP3, MP2, OGG, and WAV formats. The software supports WMA Pro Music Encoder. Audio files are created in standard 96 kHz, 44.1 kHz, and 22.05 kHz sampling rates. All ripping presets and settings can be applied to individual audio files or the entire CD. The program supports formats like CD, CD+G, Photo CD, CD-RW, DVD-Video, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM. The latest version additionally supports CD+G Music Encoder. Alcohol 120 Features Alcohol 120% is a powerful yet easy to use Windows CD/DVD burning software that lets you create backups of CDs and DVDs. This is an essential software for every Windows user. Additionally, it lets you store your most used CDs as images on your computer, and you can mount them on 1 of the 31 virtual drives with a click of a button. Alcohol 120% is the ideal software for anyone who already has a library of CDs or DVDs. Additionally, the program lets you backup any files you want to burn to a disc, including ISO images, CD image files, and more. Alcohool 120% offers a unique function called the Pre-Mastering function. It’s a very important feature for audio mastering. The pre-mastering function lets you burn files directly from your hard drive, or from the CD/DVD. If you choose to burn files directly from your hard drive, a window that allows you to drag and drop files will pop up. You will be able to choose between the images in your My Computer, the contents of the CD, or other directory. You can even choose to Burn to a folder, a blank disc, and more. Alcohol 120% supports all the most common CD and DVD formats. The program even lets you burn Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. We have also included a function called the Session Backup & Restore option. This allows you to save the CD/DVD session files at the time of installation on your computer. This means that all of the other applications are also backed up as well as any ones you may have installed later. For example, you can delete Windows 10, 8, 7, XP and 2003, from an old computer, or for a new clean PC. Then reinstall any of these older programs using the Session Backup & Restore option. Alcohol 120% will create a backup for all your session files. Then all you have to do is install the software you want from a backup or restore session files to your new system. The good thing is that the deleted files are not actually deleted, but only placed in a folder. Alcohol 120 Features - A Pre-mastering Function (Pre-burn) - A High-quality Image File Compressor (Pack-Ex) - Multilingual User interface - High Compatibility - Support both 32-bit Windows (x86) and 64-bit Windows (x64) - Burn Alcohol 120% Free - Create bootable ISO, VMDK and VHD ISO - Convert ISO to VHD, VHD to VHD - Burned image support for DVD, BD, 2GB ROM and 16GB ROM - Support both DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, RW-T, RW, RW+R, RW+RW, RW+, RW- - Support both DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL ( DVD+R DL is not available in 16GB ROM ) What’s new in Alcohol 120 - Expanded enforcement initiatives including a daily Call for Service and a new Enhanced Patrol Initiative - Interactive education modules to help instructors make students think about binge drinking - A new BAC Range Simulator that lets students actively experience BAC levels and driving effects such as slurred speech, memory loss and misjudgement - A new Student Activity Module to help students make alcohol prevention a personal commitment Alcohol 120 Ultra Lifetime Nulled Version Alcohol 120 Pro Version Lifetime Licence Number	<urn:uuid:e6fbdc44-6459-45f8-bb1f-1cc22bf44ec2>	CC-MAIN-2023-06	https://xcracks.org/patch-for-alcohol-120-final-release-free-download/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499819.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20230130133622-20230130163622-00849.warc.gz	en	0.897827	1,950	2.625	3	2.385191	2	Moderate reasoning	Software
A Christmas Carol Topic Tracking: Greed Greed 1: Scrooge, although he is wealthy, is such a miser that he won't even allow his clerk to have enough coal to keep him warm. He insists on saving money by burning only enough coal to keep a small flame glowing whether the heat that it puts out is sufficient to keep the clerk warm. Scrooge's greed is his downfall because he is so consumed with his money that he neglects the people around him, and when all is said and done, the people are what matter most. Greed 2: Marley's greed caused him to miss out on the most important part of living -- people. Because he was so focused on business and so money-driven (very much the way Scrooge is), Marley is forced to spend eternity wandering around wanting to help people and being unable to do so. He is being punished in death for his greed in life. Greed 3: Scrooge's greed drives away Belle, the young woman he loves. She cannot stay with him because he has made profit his main priority and she won't be second priority in his life. Scrooge really is so interested in his own profit that he doesn't make her stay with him because he realizes that she is right about his priorities. Because money is all that matters to him, money is all he is left with. Belle marries and has a family while Scrooge grows old, and rich, alone. Greed 4: Scrooge's greed keeps Bob Cratchit and his family poor. Scrooge can afford to pay Bob well, but instead he offers a meager salary that keeps Bob and his family barely fed and clothed. Despite the obvious injustice, Bob Cratchit drinks a Christmas toast to his employer's health. Greed 5: Scrooge's nephew, his only living relative, is a poor man, and although Scrooge could help his nephew out financially, he doesn't because he can't bear to part with his wealth. Despite this, Fred wishes his uncle no ill will. In fact, he pities the old miser because he is alone and unloved. Greed 6: Scrooge's greed prevented him from donating to the poor when the donation collectors came to his office, but the Ghost of Christmas Present shows him that Want and Ignorance are problems that must be fought against by every part of society so that the society doesn't deteriorate. Greed 7: The greed of the people who robbed a dead man astounds and unnerves Scrooge because the thieves feel no remorse for what they have done. They are profiting from a man's death, and they don't feel bad about it because they had no feeling of good will or common decency toward the man at all. They act as if he deserved to be robbed because he was such a bad person, and all the while Scrooge watches the scene, he has no idea that he is the dead man who was robbed. Greed 8: The man who died was obviously a threatening creditor, and that is why the young couple was worried about his reaction when they couldn't make their payment. The only relief they got from him was when he died and could intimidate them no more. The fact that this man was a creditor suggests that he had plenty of money, but judging by the young couple's reaction to his death, he had no mercy. Greed 9: Scrooge repents of the wicked selfishness of his way of life when he sees the way he will end, alone and unloved by anyone. He repents of his greed and cruelty and promises to have a charitable heart from now on. Greed 10: Scrooge's greed was exhibited in the beginning of the story by his stinginess with coal in his office. He refused to burn large fires because it required too much fuel, so Cratchit had to try to warm himself with the candle on his desk. Now Scrooge insists on a great fire and purchasing more coal so that they can keep the office cozy. He has broken out of his greed and turned his interest back toward humanity rather than money.	<urn:uuid:0bb05468-c36e-4674-b193-4013fd19d6f7>	CC-MAIN-2018-13	http://www.bookrags.com/notes/xmas/top2.html	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647299.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20180320052712-20180320072712-00754.warc.gz	en	0.992573	857	3	3	2.932649	3	Strong reasoning	Literature
This paper indicates the water scarcity and water pollution in Australia. These two things can be serious problems in Australia because it is so major a food exporting country. The sources we use as references are all websites and two scientific paper. The solution for these two water issues are cloud seeding and enacting some laws which forbid people from throwing plastic casually. However, just clouding seeding probably can work efficiently if Australia have sufficient capital to conduct these experiments. The limitation of this paper is source availability, all what I can use is Internet because it is tough for me to find books on this topic in English version. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Essay Writing Service This scientific paper indicated several causes of water scarcity and water pollution in Australia, and also provided some solutions of solving this issue. Australia is one of the most developed countries all over the world, however, this country got a severe water restriction. One of the most underlying causes is sea surface temperature (SST). In the south of Australia , the SST is lower than average. This signified that there was few evaporation of water, caused atomospheric desiccation, and led to limitation of raining (Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Contour Charts 2013). The cause of water pollution in Australia was polyolefins, which accounts for 52% of plastic production and were used for manufacturing throwaway packaging (Schneider J 2013). These plastics could spoil our food web and ecosystem. Australia mostly gather water from raining and a large proportions of water was used for agriculture, because Australia was a major food exporting country (M. Ejaz Qureshi, Munir A. Hanjra, Ward J 2013). Our hypothesis was Australia could conquer water scarcity and water pollutionif they develop cloud seeding and enact some regulations on environmental protection. Table 1: Variability of ï¬‚ow in some of the world’s major rivers compared with a Australian rivers. RATIO BETWEEN THE MAXIMUM and THE MINIMUM ANNUAL FLOWS Switzerland China Sudan USA South Africa Australia Rhine Yangtze White Nile Potomac Orange Hunter 1.9 2.0 2.4 3.9 16.9 54.3 This table illustrated the Australian river got a very unstable fluctuation between the maximum and the minumum flows, compared to one major river in other countries. The source of this scientific paper was all Internet. I typed some key words like “Water scarcity in Australia”. I look through all the web pages and gathered the beneficial information and type them into search box once again. For instance, I found one of the solutions of water scarcity in Australia is “Cloud seeding” and I typed this term into search box to get further information. I spent about 40 minutes on researching and found 2 websites for each solution. I haved verified all these sources were all written by reputable professors, scientists or publishers by researching these people and publisher to ensure if their dependency is strong enough for my paper. Some of my sources were another scientific paper. Two of the most severe fresh water issues in Australia were water scarcity and water pollution, these problems have existed for last of a decade. These two water issues could be a massive problem for Australia. Cloud seeding was a significant solution which throws drikold into cloud, it could increase supply moderately in Australia. Figure 1 demonstrated the mean of precipitation of seeded clouds was 2X103 m3 exceeded from unseeded clouds, it means seeded clounds can actually raise the percipitation (E. J. Smith). In fact, a great percents of water in Australia was polluted by plastics. Meanwhile, Australian plastic production had increased from 170 thousand in 1950s to 280 million in 2011. Figure 2 shows the distribution of plastic pollution in water of Australian city . Most heavy polluted cities were concentrated in the south-eastern and north-western Australia, the place where need to control the plastic production. Some cities in south-eastern Australia had over 15500 km-2 of plastic concentrations. During the a long term of flowing, these plastics could be broken down into small fragments within 5 mm length, which commonly called microplastic and damaged to the food web and ecosystem easily. Therefore, we had two methods to solve this issue. Approximately 37% of plastics were used for manufacturing disposable packaging, comprising bottle, cups and bags,hence, the first solution was reducing the production of single-use plastic package and decreased the demand of using these plastic manutacture by advocating awareness of this water issue (Schneider J 2013). Another efficient solution was enact the laws which prohibit people and also factories from dumping plastics into sea. Figure 1: Total rainfall from isolated cumulus clouds The total rainfall of seeded cloud and unseeded cloud whose tops were -100C or cooler with 30 minutes of seeding from isolated cumulus clouds. Figure 2: Distribution map of plastic concentrations in Australia Marine plastic concentrations in waters around Australia. White crosses indicate location of major Australian cities From the scientists and researchers’ perspectives, they think that the best solution that is able to augment the amout of water is cloud seeding. Via this solution, Australia could have sufficient supply and overcame water scarcity lightly. But on the contrary, cloud seeding can be very costly. In most of the cases, it takes millions of RMB to implement one cloud seeding, therefore, Australia would better have a strong economic background beforehand like developing their agriculture or IT industry. On the other hand, as for the water pollution in Australia, most of water is polluted by fragmented plastic and majority of people and factories concentrated in the eastern coast of the Australia, so we could see eastern Australia is more polluted than any other part of Australia. Moreover, because it is hardly to eliminate all these plastic pollutants and made sure there is no plastic contamination in the furture in a scientific way, we could just do it in a political approach. For instance, government could enact laws of environmental protection or making some advertisments to persuade people do not throw plasctic bags or products into any kind of natural water source. In addition, some eco-friendly organizations can just simply set some dustbins around those highly polluted cities for recycling the plastic. But it’s a little bit tough for them to conquer water pollution via this method. All in all, I think Australia can conquer these two water issues based on the previous contents. Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs.View our services Conclusions and Recommendations In general, cloud seeding still got a substaintia chance to resolve water restriction by it extra precipitation. Australia just need to develop their economy and have enough capital to conduct these experiments. To handle the increasing plastic pollution in Australian water, government have appeal people do not throw any plastic manufactures casually and set several laws to forbid people from doing this, in particular the eastern part of Australia. The effectiveness of this measure rely on the governmental actions and Australian qualities. There are some limitations in this scientific paper, first of all is source restrictions. Sources in this paper are all from Internet. The research suggestion is using books references, because books always much more trustworthy than websites. If we get enough money, we will find a new scientific way to reduce the plastic pollution in Australian water. - Chartres C., Williams J.(2006), Can Australia Overcome its Water Scarcity Problems, - Wentworth Group. [Online]. Available from: http://www.wentworthgroup.org/docs/Chartres_&_Williams.pdf [Accessed 1 October 2016] - (2013),Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Contour Charts, NOAA. [Online]. Available from: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/contour/ [Accessed 1 October 2016] - (2013), M. Ejaz Qureshi, Munir A. Hanjra, Ward J.,Impact of water scarcity in Australia on global food security in an era of climate change, Science Direct. [Online]. Available from:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919212001170 [Accessed 1 October 2016] - E. J. Smith, Cloud Seeding Experiments in Australia, Berkeley. [Online]. Available from: http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/math/ucb/text/math_s5_v5_article-10.pdf [Accessed 1 October 2016] - Schneider J.(2013), Australian waters polluted by harmful tiny plastics, The Conversation. [Online]. Available from:http://theconversation.com/australian-waters-polluted-by-harmful-tiny-plastics-20790 [Accessed 2 October 2016 Cite This Work To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: Related ServicesView all DMCA / Removal Request If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please:	<urn:uuid:bf9e8304-effb-4c99-9a9c-80c88b462c6d>	CC-MAIN-2021-39	https://www.ukessays.com/essays/sciences/investigation-water-scarcity-australia-7789.php	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057417.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20210923044248-20210923074248-00296.warc.gz	en	0.941188	1,927	3.046875	3	2.896658	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
For thousands of years, we’ve relied on randomness of various kinds to help our interactive systems work. While there will always be a place for randomness of all sorts in some kinds of interactive systems, I believe the current assumptions with regard to randomness in strategy games are largely wrong. The major point I’d like to make is that noise injected between a player’s choice and the result (here referred to as output randomness) does not belong in a strategy game. What is “randomness”? For the purposes of this article, randomness refers to “information that enters the game state which is not supposed to ever be predictable.” The process by which random information is generated is designed to be something that humans can never figure out. Classic examples of random systems are rolling dice, shuffling cards, or random number generators. Technically speaking, a die’s rolling pattern is not actually “random”. It’s simply responding to physics, and a computer could take information about how a die was thrown and predict the number that would come up. We use dice precisely because a human being can’t do that. In fact, when we incorporate dice into our game designs, we do it under the assumption that no human will ever be able – nor likely even try – to predict the outcome. In fact, trying to actually predict how the die will roll, by perhaps carefully tossing it with a specific, intended trajectory, so that it rolls to a side you intend, would likely be called out as “cheating” by any observers. The whole idea with a die is that you’re not supposed to know. It is noise that must remain noise, forever. Part of the reason for this is the fact that we’re actually dealing with two separate, closed systems in a game that contains randomness. A rolling die is a closed system of its own that really has nothing to do with the greater game system. This is distinct from other kinds of “unpredictable” or “uncertain” events. In chess, for example, players have some limit to the number of turns they can look ahead. Beyond that point, the events that occur are indeed unpredictable for that player. However, players can and do learn to look further and further down the possibility tree as they get better at the game. Part of the skill of chess is being able to explore that ever-increasing possibility space and come out with more predictive ability. So while chess does have unpredictability, it does not have randomness. All games must have some kind of unpredictability in order to function, but randomness isn’t the only way to achieve that. Chess’s source of unpredictability – a highly complex game state – is unlike a random source in that it can slowly be chipped away at and understood. Types of Randomness Randomness can be separated into two categories: input randomness, and output randomness. - Output randomness – when we think of randomness in games, we’re usually referring to this. Output randomness is noise injected between the player’s decision and the outcome. Examples would be the dice roll combat in Risk or Memoir ’44, or the random number generation combat in X-Com or FTL. I will refer to systems that do not have this type of randomness as “deterministic”. - Input randomness – this type of randomness informs the player before he makes his decision. Typical examples of input randomness would be map generation in Civilization or Rogue, or face-up tiles or cards in a worker placement game like Puerto Rico or Agricola. (People often use the term “procedural generation” to refer to this kind of randomness in digital games.) This article will not focus on this type of randomness, but it’s important to know the distinction. Interestingly, while these two types are certainly distinct enough from each other to warrant the classifications, they do technically exist on a continuum. Without going into much detail on it, it should be noted that irresponsible use of input randomness – where the player has very little time to respond to the new information, or where the game generates problems of wildly varying difficulty match to match – causes similar problems as output randomness. The Strategy Game Learning Engine Strategy games are engines that allow us to understand them. We play a game, we win or lose, and we make connections. “Oh, I see!” we say as we figure out some element of how the system works. For evolutionary reasons, we find this process enriching and entertaining. This is the “essential fun” of strategy games (largely the premise of Raph Koster’s book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design). Let’s break down the process further. - Informing the Player – The player takes a look at the game state, trying to figure out what move to make. He is informed by his “skill” database – the collective total observations about the system and how it works that he’s made up until now. - Deciding the Move – A move is chosen, and the action is taken. As a result, the game state is changed. Alternatively, this could be “deciding the strategy” – a series of moves that collectively adds up to a larger strategic gambit. - Feedback in Outcome – Over the course of the rest of the game, the system responds to this input. A series of events take place after that decision, including the final win/loss event; all of which serve as feedback for the player, highlighting some causal relationship between them. Feedback also comes following a strategy, or at the end of a game. - Recording Skill – The player observes and records this cause-effect relationship and records it to his database. The player can then use that skill to make moves in the future. (Notably, this moment is where the essential “fun” of strategy games comes from, but it of course relies on the rest of the machine to function.) As a player plays a game, over many matches, he builds to this “skill folder” and becomes a stronger player. In a shallow game, there might not be very many of these moments, whereas a very deep game can continue delivering these moments for decades if not lifetimes. This is generally why it’s considered a good quality for games to be strategically “deep”. How do we achieve that depth? Well, the first way, which all game designers already understand, is emergent complexity. In order to create complexity, we design our games so that they generate complex emerging situations throughout play. A bishop, knight and rook against three pawns and a queen is not inherently complex; there’s a very small amount of data there. However, unleash these two forces on each other on a chessboard, and the amount of possible situations that could emerge is huge. The second method for achieving depth is, as far as I can tell, not understood by most designers today. This method involves being aware of complexity effectiveness: the amount of correlation between a state, and the history of past states. A strategy game only has a finite number of states throughout a match. From what I can find, it seems that the average number of moves in a chess game is somewhere around 40, for example. A real-time game doesn’t have discrete “turns” per se, but there’s still a finite number of meaningful states, no matter how you divide it up. If your game is a continuous series of events that lead deterministically from one to the other, then you are maximizing the amount of unique situations that can occur. I think this idea is counter-intuitive to many, who think that random events occurring somewhere in there must increase the amount of unique situations. However, the opposite is actually the case. Having a system be entirely deterministic causes your emergent complexity to be maximally effective. This is because each emerging situation is given the maximum amount of contextual nuance by all of the events that came before and after it. In the deterministic game, the current game state has ties to every part of the entire timeline. Because of that, it is being pulled into a more complex and more unique shape. What this is illustrating is the way that context, when deterministically related, provides meaning to a game state. Of course, even highly random games do have some deterministic elements that do provide some context to game states. For instance, in a game like Summoner Wars (a turn-based wargame involving dice roll combat), the health of your summoner and the positions of units are both relatively deterministic and do provide some context for game states. However, the vast majority of contextual information in a game no longer has meaning. I attacked your unit, and I rolled the dice. It came up as a “miss”, and then next turn you killed that unit. That event – you killing my unit – is not deterministically linked anymore to the actions I took beforehand. What happened was that I took an action, then something random happened, and then you took an action. The tie has been severed, and we can no longer use my move as contextual nuance for our current game state. Your game is now no longer “A, therefore B, therefore C“. Instead, it is now “A, then B, then C“. The most significant bit of feedback is the goal-state. Once a match has ended, that win/loss condition sends a charge backwards through the course of events, revealing a positive or negative charge for every event that led to it. This move was somewhat good because it led to this, which led to that, which led to this, which led to that, which led to my win. This is not to say that when a player wins, all his moves were good moves. However, it does provide an anchor point that informs every other move. Of course, moves are made in an attempt to get the player as close as possible to the win state. Once the match ends, we can now see how and why each of those moves was effective. (Because of this, players can get a lot of the same kind of fun out of watching a replay and analyzing it as they can from playing the game.) Overall, after playing a deterministic game, a player is left looking at a coherent strategic picture that has been painted over the axis of time. Alternatively, the non-deterministic game could perhaps be considered more like a number of incomplete pictures. In this way, the deterministic game maximizes its complexity effectiveness, and the non-deterministic game does not. The non-deterministic game is adding complexity, whereas the deterministic game is multiplying it. Output randomness does not increase the depth of a game. How could it? There is nothing to explore in a dice-roll. We all know that the odds are 1/6 for any face coming up. There is literally nothing else to know or explore. What it actually does is obscure the outcome. You may have played perfectly, and still lost. The game has now sent you off on a wild goose chase, thinking about where you must have messed up, when in fact your play wasn’t the problem; dice rolls were. Because of that wild goose chase, the game seems more complex than it is. The game provides unreliable feedback, and only after playing many, many games will it become clear which feedback you should ignore. Essentially, random games delay learning – the essential fun part of games – by injecting false signals into the engine. It’s a super-cheap way to create the appearance of depth, which is why it’s incredibly tempting for game designers. Humans are pattern-seeking animals. We see figures in the clouds, we see images in the static, and we see conspiracy where there’s only coincidence. The reason is due to the fact that it’s evolutionarily favorable to think this way. The same quality that causes a person to think he saw a ghost in some rustling bushes is the quality that causes a person to think he saw a lion in some rustling bushes. And over time, those who thought they saw a lion were the ones who escaped when there actually was a lion. Those were the people who passed their genes along to us. For this reason and others, we’re now both cursed and blessed with seeing patterns everywhere we look, and game designers have been exploiting this in us for as long as games have existed. Gambling machines have always relied on psychological tricks to exploit us into playing them. In order for anyone to actually want to play something as vapid as slots or roulette, some degree of self-deception has to take place. On some level, the player has to feel like he is responsible if he wins. Otherwise, how can they be invested at all? From ancient religious superstition (the Gods are angry at me!) to their more modern counterparts, like “blowing on the dice”, kissing “lucky” items, or other self-deceptions such as the gambler’s fallacy, we find ways to attribute meaning to events that are actually pure noise. Serious players of highly random strategy games tend to be skeptical that this same trick could be working on them when they play their Summoner Wars and their Hearthstones. But why? If players are able to perform this trick on themselves in a system that has no strategy at all, it seems very easy to believe that such tricks would work on a smaller percentage of the overall system. In fact, baking random elements into a strategy game makes it all the easier to conflate noise and strategy feedback, because some of what happens in the game really is strategic and deterministic! In these games, there is the actual skill of the game, but then there is also an additional “phantom skill” amount, which makes the game seem vastly deeper than it is. In actuality, most players probably have the system close to solved somewhat quickly, and the randomness is the deciding factor. I’ve been arguing this position for a few years now, and over time I’ve encountered a number of counter arguments that I’d like to address. “Output randomness is just input randomness for the next turn.” – Game designer and blogger DanC of the Lost Garden has said this to me numerous times in response to my positions. Basically he’s arguing that there is no actual difference between output randomness and input randomness. This position has two major flaws. One is that it seems unaware of the possibility of a larger strategic picture that could be providing tons of complexity effectiveness that otherwise you’re losing out on. The other major flaw is that even if it’s actually input randomness for the next turn, that’s what I call “unfair input randomness”. It’s up so close in your face that you don’t have time to respond to it. You now have a significantly different game state than you did a second ago, and there’s no discernible reason for it. On some games, you might play optimally, but get put into this position and lose anyway. On other games, you don’t get put into that position because the dice rolls go your way. Input randomness, when put up close enough to the player so that he can’t plan around it, is basically output randomness. Feedback is being artificially delayed. Ironically, I agree with Dan’s sentiment that there’s no significant difference between output randomness and input-randomness-for-the-next-turn, although I think they’re equally bad. To really drive the point home, imagine a scenario where you have a character who has a “to-hit” dice roll against a tough monster. He swings, and he misses! Well, that’s ok, it’s just input randomness for the next turn, after all! He tries to attack again, and misses again! At this point, you may already have lost, and it wasn’t because of any decision you made. “Some games need output randomness to work.” If you were to just rip the dice rolls out of Risk, it definitely wouldn’t work. This simply means that they are shallow games. It’s understandable, because creating a coherent system that is deep is very, very hard to do. However, this is not a defense of randomness; more an indication of a weak design. “If there’s randomness, then it’s all about risk management.” A favorite of poker players. The idea behind this argument is that having random elements adds a “factoring in your odds” element to the game. You have to weigh the odds of outcome A happening against the odds of outcome B against the benefit of outcome A and the benefit of outcome B, and that makes games more interesting. Essentially, it’s combining odds and valuation. This kind of risk management is not unique to random games. In any game that you haven’t solved, really every move you make is to some degree a risk that you must manage. In chess, there could be two major strategies – strategy A and strategy B. You might figure that A is more likely to work than B, but B has a bigger payoff than A, for instance. Randomness isn’t necessary. As to the “calculating odds” aspect of this, determining odds is never interesting, especially not when you’re talking about something like counting cards in poker. Calculating odds in a deterministic system might be harder to do, but it would certainly be far more interesting due to all of the variables at play in a good, dynamic strategy game. “Randomness doesn’t matter – just do the best you can!” The argument goes something like, “if you care about randomness, you care too much about winning. Just have fun!” This argument is not actually a defense of randomness in strategy games; rather, it is a defense of randomness in toys. Strategy games have a win/loss condition. If you are telling us to ignore that in FTL, then you are saying that FTL is a toy and that’s why randomness is OK. “Players with a wider skill range can compete against each other.” If a grandmaster and a newbie play chess against each other, the result won’t be interesting or fulfilling for either party. That much is true! This argument suggests that the answer to that is to throw in some randomness. Of course, that’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You’ve now severely damaged your game for the sake of presenting people with the illusion of more-similar skill levels. The real answer to this problem is good matchmaking. “Randomness makes a game more like real life.” To quickly counter this argument, let’s simply assume that there is a set of values for strategy games which we can separate from the set of values for a simulator. “Games with randomness still have skill to them!” True, and I haven’t argued otherwise. The issue is that on a practical level, you will be able to actually explore less of that space in your lifetime, since so many of the games are essentially wasted on false random outcomes. Other Feedback Distortions I should also note a few types of output randomness that are not usually regarded as such, but function so similarly that they have many or all of the same pitfalls. Simultaneous Action – Trying to guess what the opponent will do in RPS, for example, is effectively random. In fact, that’s why we use it to decide who has to go take out the trash – we consider it fair, because it’s random. The whole reason people agree to use RPS as the determining factor for who will take out the trash is because they know that there is nothing that they or their opponent can do to increase their chances. (Sure, there’s some study that says people are slightly more likely to play rock. But did your opponent read that study, or not? You’re now back to square one.) Execution – Execution in games is a matter of “can”, not “should”. Can you press this sequence of buttons before my jump kick hits you in the face? Execution is still slightly better than randomness probably, due to the fact that you can at least get better at it. However, inside of a single match, it’s basically the exact same thing. The complex chemicals, nerves, muscles and tissues that stand between “what you wanted to do” and “whether your body actually makes the desired input” have tons of room for error. When you choose to make the input for your Dragon Punch, will it actually work? It’s effectively random. Our collective perspective on randomness in game design really hasn’t budged much in 4,000 years. It’s time that we really gave this question some serious thought. I’m not arguing that there is no place for any kind of randomness in game design. In fact, I argue strongly in favor of well-balanced, low-variance input randomness in multiplayer games. And single player games require input randomness. However, output randomness in all its forms is to be avoided. The only time you should use randomness of that kind is if you’re making a gambling machine, or if you’re insecure about the depth of your system.	<urn:uuid:f2584433-bcee-4cfd-b9e3-999b019b45da>	CC-MAIN-2017-39	http://keithburgun.net/randomness-and-game-design/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689471.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20170923033313-20170923053313-00674.warc.gz	en	0.965344	4,604	2.546875	3	2.953421	3	Strong reasoning	Games
Fusion is the combining of two or more smaller atoms to create one larger atom, potentially releasing large amounts of energy in the process. A typical example is the merging of hydrogen atoms to form helium – the core process that powers our sun. Fusion energy is moving beyond theory and becoming of increasing interest as a means of power production. Third Way lists seventeen organizations, both government and private, working on fusion energy projects. Each is working on a different means of dealing with the core challenges for fusion energy, including keeping the reaction stable long enough to get significant energy out, managing the high-energy neutrons that may result, and constructing materials that can work in the harsh fusion environment. There is significant capital entering the field, led by some big names. For example, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is invested in Tri Alpha Energy, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is funding General Fusion, two leading fusion startups. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (commonly known as ARPA-E) supported a funding program for fusion energy that helped spur a number of innovative ideas. Growth in the field continues to accelerate. The United Kingdom venture Tokamak Energy recently turned on its ST40 fusion reactor, which hopes to create temperatures seven times hotter than the center of the sun in the pursuit of fusion energy. As a first of a kind technology, nuclear fusion presents new regulatory questions, including if it should be regulated, how, and who should regulate it. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stepped its toe into the waters in 2009. The agency’s staff issued a paper noting that recent activities had drawn attention to the area, and raised “the possible need to regulate fusion energy and specifically the role of the NRC.” By that point, concerns had already arisen in regards to exports – specifically as to whether the NRC should regulate exports of fusion-related components instead of the Department of Commerce. The paper then discussed various options for how the Commission could proceed. Later that year the Commission issued its voting record and response to the staff. In it, the Commission asserted jurisdiction “as a general matter” over fusion energy devices whenever they would be of significance to the common defense and security or could impact public health and safety. In supporting this position, Commissioner Svinicki (now Chairman of the agency) noted that the legislative history behind the 1954 amendments to the Atomic Energy Act indicated that “atomic energy” as used in the statute includes energy from fusion. But apart from this declaration, the Commission left future regulatory efforts to when the technology demonstrates further progress, particularly by successful testing of a specific fusion technology. It is possible this time may come sooner than most think. Milestones in fusion research are being routinely surpassed, bit by bit, and increasing amounts of investment are entering the field. Our team operates at the forefront of the next-generation nuclear energy frontier, and has spent some time on issues such as the NRC’s jurisdiction over new atomic energy technologies. If you have a question in this area, do not hesitate to contact the authors.	<urn:uuid:cbac3b35-02e6-4576-999e-2d73ab9e83d9>	CC-MAIN-2017-43	http://www.hlnewnuclear.com/2017/05/fusion-energy-nrc-regulation/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823462.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019194011-20171019214011-00858.warc.gz	en	0.946856	638	3.125	3	2.963113	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
A pioneer in the engineering of polymers for drug-delivery applications to treat diseases such as cancer and mental illness, Dr. Robert Langer has been awarded the 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. The QEPrize, often called the "Nobel" of engineering, is a £1 million ($1.5 million) prize designed to promote engineering globally. Langer is the second recipient of the award, which was first given in 2013 to a group of five people who contributed to the development of the Internet. Langer is one of 11 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT's highest honor. His laboratory is the world's largest academic biomedical engineering laboratory. A chemical engineer by training, Langer developed his first drug-delivery system in the 1970s, while working with Dr Judah Folkman, a Harvard professor and surgeon at Boston Children's Hospital. Folkman hypothesized that the growth of cancerous tumors could be restricted by stopping angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, and he asked Langer to find a way to inhibit it. Langer discovered a way to create polymer micro and nano particles that could release protein-based drugs in the body and used this technique to test possible drugs to control angiogenesis. He and Folkman isolated the first substances that blocked angiogenesis. The drug-delivery system based on biodegradable polymers that Langer invented is the basis for many of today's treatments for cancer and other diseases from schizophrenia to diabetes, reports the Financial Times. Langer has also been an innovator in tissue engineering by pioneering synthetic polymers that deliver cells to form specific tissue structures. The discovery led to the development of artificial skin approved by FDA for use on burn victims and patients with diabetic skin ulcers. Langer's most recent project is a microchip-based implant that stores and releases precise doses of drugs on demand or at scheduled intervals for up to 16 years. The technology has completed clinical demonstration and ultimately will be commercialized by Microchips, a company he co-founded. Initial applications may include diabetes, female contraception and osteoporosis, all of which require regular, long-term dosage. It is estimated that as many as two billion people have, in some way, been touched by technologies devised and developed by Langer and his teams. Langer has more than 1000 issued and pending patents, is the most cited engineer in history and has earned in excess of 200 major prizes. The many accolades have not dimmed his appreciation of the QEPrize and what it represents: "It is a great honor to win what is, by far, the biggest engineering award in the world," he told the Financial Times. Queen Elizabeth II will present Langer with the prize at Buckingham Palace later this year.	<urn:uuid:5f9c3fea-3447-444b-9709-012f260d408c>	CC-MAIN-2021-39	https://www.plasticstoday.com/polymer-based-drug-delivery-pioneer-wins-nobel-engineering	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780053918.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20210916234514-20210917024514-00197.warc.gz	en	0.968067	573	3.0625	3	2.59977	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Well-documented with an impressive bibliography, Anat Helman's book, A Coat of Many Colors, is an easy-to-read account and analysis of dress fashions among Israel's immigrants and residents in the country's first years. I enjoyed this book very much—it's fun to read and clearly demonstrates how clothing and dress are integral aspects of social and cultural history. —Joanne B. Eicher, Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion With her superb eye for detail and her ability to tell a good story well, Anat Helman has produced a marvelous history of the State of Israel's early days by studying its clothing culture. Through this approach Helman tells the history of the fledgling state's economy, illuminates the values of the kibbutz movement, the military, the government and Israeli private life and reveals much about gender roles and the East-West ethnic encounter and does so by examining the dress codes each of these spheres promoted and the ideological underpinnings for such choices. A Coat of Many Colors allows us to read Israeli culture in its formative phase in an entirely new light. This is cultural history at its finest and establishes Anat Helman as one of the most interesting and path-breaking historians of her generation. —John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History, University of California-Berkeley “This is an important and well-written historic sociological study, which may interest researchers, students and the general public. The scope of primary sources, including photographs, texts and caricatures, is impressive and indicates thorough research. The author used a semiotic research method to analyse these sources and tried to ‘read’ the clothing as a language, while examining the attitude of people who lived during this period toward the Israeli dress culture. The book’s contribution is in that it skillfully connects between dress and society and vice versa, and uses dress to expose the social context of the State [of Israel] in its early years. It takes the reader on a fascinating journey of acquaintance with the array of social aspects during this period: culture, identity, ethnic relations, military, economy, religion, social boundaries, politics, generation and gender differences, trends of inclusion and exclusion, verbal and nonverbal communication, and more. . . . The book is recommended for anyone interested in fashion, moulding of the collective identity, the history of the State of Israel, and the emergent (informal) cultural pluralism in the early years of the state, as symbolically reflected in the coat of many colours of Joseph, beloved son of Jacob: one garment with many colours.” —Rachel Sharaby, Ashkelon Academic College and Bar-Ilan University, Israel, in Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, vol. 12, issue 2 (July 2013) About the Author Anat Helman (Ph.D. Hebrew University) is a lecturer in the Jewish History Department and the Cultural Studies Program at Hebrew University. Her most recent publications include: Tel Aviv’s Culture during the Mandate Era (in Hebrew) and The Voice of the First Hebrew City to its Residents: Municipal Posters in Mandate Era Tel Aviv, with Yael Reshef (in Hebrew, forthcoming in Israel).	<urn:uuid:8484f1e8-3586-48eb-93f6-8d3ce6a8356d>	CC-MAIN-2014-35	http://www.amazon.com/Coat-Many-Colors-Culture-Society/dp/1934843881	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500815861.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021335-00123-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.935884	670	2.609375	3	2.936154	3	Strong reasoning	Literature
Posted by Admin on March, 17, 2020 Salt is one of the most important components required by the human body. It is very important to add an adequate amount of salt in every individual diet to get its nutritional benefits. The salts are mainly of following types: All these salts are differentiated on the basis of composition, nutrients, content, and taste. The industrial salt is a salt in which the sodium chloride is processed from the normal salt. It contains sodium chloride in its purest form. Chemicals and sweeteners are added to make salt edible and free flowing in nature. When an individual consumes salt, the body accepts all the minerals and other constituents that are included in the salt. When such traces are not included, the human craves for them, but on the contrary, no industrial salt can satisfy those hunger prangs, as these minerals are not present in the industrial salt which leads to more consumption of industrial salt. As sodium chloride is bitter in taste so a large amount of sugar is added to the industrial salt. In the pricing terms, industrial salt is very cheap, which makes it easily affordable for everyone. This is the reason that it is used in most of the processed foods. Another advantage of using this salt is that it flows freely due to the addition of chemicals in it. The industrial salt has a number of uses, which are as follows: • It is used in the oil industry to increase the consistency of sand and soil so that they can be more efficiently used in drilling jig. • It is very commonly used by the pharmaceutical companies in making capsules in saline solutions which are used in several medicines. • The salt is also used in the building of roads to have a smooth and safer driving surface for the public. • It is also used in the areas which are prone to heavy snowfall to lower the freezing point of ice and snow. • The soap industry makes use of this salt, as a filler in soaps and detergents. • The fishing industry uses it to make brine. It is also used in water filtration and purification processes. • It is also used in the fertilisers, animal feeds, and supplements. In Tamil Nadu, there are a number of manufacturers of industrial salt. They make use of the updated techniques and modern machines for the production of a matchless product quality. These manufacturers in Tamil Nadu thoroughly examine the industrial salt offered by them at each and every stage of production on the basis of various quality parameters. Thus, it can be concluded that the industrial salt is the imperative requirement of various industries.	<urn:uuid:b3fc0d45-e41a-4d06-b6c2-40284043a322>	CC-MAIN-2021-10	https://www.vaspsalt.com/blog/the-versatality-of-industrial-salt_8411.htm	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178374217.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20210306004859-20210306034859-00635.warc.gz	en	0.96253	529	2.828125	3	1.568013	2	Moderate reasoning	Industrial
Book Review: Strong Ground: Mount Independence and the American Revolution by Donald H. Wickman and The Mount Independence Coalition (The Mount Independence Coalition, 2017) During colonial times, both British and French settlers perceived Fort Ticonderoga as the most strategic fortification protecting the Northern frontier. On the shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, Fort Ticonderoga guarded the portage to Lake George and access to the European settled portions of the Hudson Valley. Much vaunted, many observers deemed Fort Ticonderoga as the “Gibraltar of the Americas.” Just a quarter of a mile across the lake, however, is an equally strategic fortification, which during the American Revolution became known as Mt. Independence. Notably, Mt. Independence developed into the largest fortification built by the rebels and during a brief period in 1776, the fourth most populous city in the colonies. Despite the fortification’s size and prominent role, its contributions became overshadowed and obscured. Subsequently, Fort Ticonderoga’s fabled reputation further swelled through the publication of hundreds of books. Conversely, there have been very few accounts written on Mt. Independence. Donald Wickman and The Mount Independence Coalition rectify this oversight with the publication of a new volume on the history of this critical site. Ten years in the making, this well-illustrated paperback tells an important story of military ingenuity, sacrifice, intestinal fortitude and courage. In many ways, the magnitude of the harsh conditions and suffering of those who served at Mt. Independence rival those of the main Continental Army at Valley Forge or Morristown. Overlooked and underappreciated, the fortifications on Mt. Independence played a crucial role as the first line of defense in protecting the colonies from being cut in two by invading British forces. In 1776, when facing British invasion from Canada, rebel military commanders quickly recognized that Ft. Ticonderoga was principally designed to defend against an assault from the south. With northern approaches inadequately defended, rebel commanders ordered the construction of fortifications on a peninsula on the east banks of Lake Champlain across from Ft. Ticonderoga. The focus of the defensive works on Mt. Independence was to deny lake passage by British ships and to protect military roads connecting the area to sources of supplies and food should the Lake George portage be captured. One of the few American-born military engineers, Lt. Col. Jeduthan Baldwin, first designed and constructed the fortifications on Mt. Independence. On the deforested promontory, Baldwin laid out shore batteries designed to deny ship passage up the lake as well as fortified fighting positions, a large hospital and living quarters. To move soldiers and supplies between the two posts, the rebels constructed a bridge over Lake Champlain. Later, Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish-Lithuanian military engineer, assisted in strengthening the fortifications by adding the south batteries to ward off a landside attack. In the fall of 1776, British general Guy Carleton led an 8000 man army and navy to re-establish British control of Lake Champlain after its capture by the rebels in 1775. The British won a hard-fought naval battle against a rebel fleet commanded by Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold at Valcour Island, near present day Plattsburgh, New York. This victory cleared the way for the British to move past Crown Point to the outskirts of the Mt. Independence/Ticonderoga complex. However, when encountering the strong fortifications manned by 14,000 men, Carleton retreated to Canada, as it was too late in the season to mount a siege, especially since he lacked sufficient artillery. This rebel victory secured the strategic Lake Champlain/Hudson Valley corridor for a year and gave the rebels a much-needed victory after their major losses in the campaign around New York City. In 1777, however, it was a different story. A new British general, John Burgoyne, returned with 8000 men and over 130 pieces of artillery. As the rebel forces dwindled to 4000 or less, it was impossible to hold the forts. Wickman argues that the rebels made the best of a bad situation and performed a well-executed a retreat. While highly controversial at the time and not authorized by his superiors, Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair’s decision to abandon Forts Ticonderoga and Independence was a good one and one that eventually contributed to the rebel victory at Saratoga. A court martial exonerated St. Clair and acquitted him with the highest honor thirteen months later. In an effort to further isolate Burgoyne’s army during the Saratoga battles, rebels launched an unsuccessful attack to recapture the Mt. Independence/Ft. Ticonderoga forts. Before retreating, the rebel attack netted over 300 British prisoners, freed over 100 American prisoners and destroyed many boats and supplies. With Burgoyne’s surrender and facing the prospect of the full weight of the rebel army returning, British forces retreated to Canada. The fort’s British commander, Brig. Gen. H. Watson Powell, gave up the post without authorization. It seems that no commanding officer wanted to be tagged with authorizing the surrender of the “Gibraltar of North America”! After the British abandonment of Mt. Independence, Vermont rangers reported that the fortifications were in complete disrepair and all of the buildings burned. In the last years of the war, raiding parties moved through the area and no efforts were made to rebuild the Mt. Independence complex. Mt. Independence devolved into a no mans land between Rebel controlled Hudson Valley and British controlled Canada. Wickman enlivens the story of Mt. Independence by quoting numerous primary sources including the daily journal of military engineer Jeduthan Baldwin that describes his efforts to construct the fortifications. Demonstrating rigorous scholarship, he cites numerous other journals, orderly books and memoirs, several of which are quoted or the documents reproduced. In addition to primary source documents, the book contains engaging maps, illustrations and pictures to aid the reader’s understanding. Pictures and descriptions of artifacts found during archeologist investigations on Mt. Independence provide a “museum-like” experience for the reader. In addition, there are sidebars presenting interesting facts on famous and ordinary men and women as well as generals and civilians who figure in the Mt. Independence story. Unlike many books, Wickman continues with the history of Mt. Independence after the Revolution’s conclusion. Never inhabited or farmed, the peninsula eventually re-forested. While the landscape has changed, the outlines of the impressive fortifications can still be seen. This is in stark contrast to Fort Ticonderoga, which has been completely rebuilt and maintained as a tourist attraction. The relatively pristine Mt. Independence environment has yielded a treasure trove of artifacts and information for archeologists and historians. At the book’s end, the authors invites future scholars and archeologists to further study the area and discover more about what happened in that critical 1776-1777 period in American history. While improvement opportunities for the book are few, additional description of the design, construction and the significance of the great bridge between Mt. Independence and Ft. Ticonderoga would benefit readers. At sixteen hundred feet long, fourteen feet wide and with twenty-two piers, it is an impressive engineering and construction feat especially in such a remote frontier location. Notably, it was the first bridge over Lake Champlain and was quite possibly the longest Revolutionary era bridge in North America. Lastly, the enormous amount of resources devoted to building the bridge further connotes the bilateral importance of Mt. Independence to the defense of Ft. Ticonderoga. Overall, the author cogently makes the case that Mt. Independence should be more recognized by historians and the public for its pivotal role in the Revolution. This new book goes a long way to change perceptions and rectify the record. I strongly recommend Strong Ground to both scholars as well as enthusiasts. The book is unique, because it fills an historical gap as well as comprehensively describing a strategic location throughout and beyond the War of Independence.	<urn:uuid:1c08f293-edd7-456c-b246-667d82ed3c83>	CC-MAIN-2019-51	https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/09/strong-ground-mount-independence-american-revolution/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540514475.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20191208174645-20191208202645-00256.warc.gz	en	0.952138	1,686	3.515625	4	3.089872	3	Strong reasoning	History
Coding is a prized skill in today's business environment and software developers proficient in multiple programming languages are highly valued by organizations for their ability to help businesses go digital and carry out vital business functions. But, there are hundreds of languages, each with their own specific use -- from data analysis to scaling, and everything in-between. This can make deciding what language to learn next a tough decision for many developers. Fortunately, picking the one that pays the most is a simple way to make that choice. analyzed responses from over 56,000 individuals to find out which programming languages are associated with the highest salaries, both around the globe and in the USA. Here's what they found... Stackoverflow's survey found that F# users earn roughly $74,000 a year, making them, on average, the best-paid developers in the world. This open source, functional-first language is attractive to businesses and software developers thanks to its wide-ranging application uses an active support community Sitting in second place with a median salary of $73,000 is Ocaml of the metalanguage family. First appearing 22 years ago in 1996, Ocaml has influenced the development of several programming languages, including F# and Scala, and remains a popular language for many developers today. Sharing the third spot on the podium are Clojure and Groovy, with companies happy to pay these specialists $72,000 annually. Both Clojure and Groovy continue to tempt a strong number of software developers since their introduction in 2007 and 2003. Outside the top three languages, Perl, Rust, Erlang, and Scala are all well regarded and the average user can earn anything between $67-69,000 from their employers. Rounding out the top 10 are Go and Ruby, with average take homes of $66,000 and $64,000 a year. Although these two languages may pay close to $20,000 less than F# does, they still tower over the average salary for all programming languages which sits at $55,000. The US payday Over 13,000 of the 56,000 survey takers were based in the US, giving Stackoverflow plenty of data to record accurate salary details for American based software developers. The first thing to notice is that, on average, US salaries are much higher than their global counterparts. This can be attributed to the strength of America's economy, and massive tech companies (Google, Apple, etc.), who require the very best developers, basing themselves on US soil. Secondly, the top languages in the US are roughly in line with the rest of the world with eight languages appearing on both lists. The only languages that don't quite make the global cut are Objective-C and Hack which are replaced by Ruby and Rust on the worldwide pay leaderboard. Despite being the best-paid language globally, F# only reaches eighth place in the US rankings with a median paycheck of $108,000. However, this is still $32,000 higher than the global average for F# users, so it's nothing to fuss about too much. Instead, the highest US salaries go to Erlang and Scala developers who can expect to earn as much as $115,000 a year. Again, this number is considerably higher than their international equivalents of $67,000. Ocaml earns the distinct privilege of being the only language to make the top three in both tables. Claiming the third spot in the US rankings and taking home the bronze medal, Ocaml users can make a hefty $114,000 when based in America. Just below Ocaml: Clojure, Go, Groovy, and Objective-C all share the fourth spot and deliver salaries of roughly $110,000 to their programming specialists. Finally, sitting pretty at the bottom of the US table is Perl. While its annual pay of $106,000 may be a cool $9,000 less than America's top performers, it is still nearly double the $55,000 that an average programming language user will earn globally. The article was originally published here	<urn:uuid:822b20de-e167-4347-863c-1f77c58a765b>	CC-MAIN-2021-17	http://www.houseofbots.com/news-detail/3692-Which-Programming-Languages-in-Demand-&-Earn-The-Highest-Salaries?	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038075074.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20210413213655-20210414003655-00224.warc.gz	en	0.955849	837	2.65625	3	2.469103	2	Moderate reasoning	Software Dev.
Three years after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region, a study of the disaster by professors at the University of Tokyo and Indiana’s Purdue University suggests the region’s hundreds of kilometers of seawalls did almost nothing to save lives, claiming instead it was social ties among community members that “influenced the rates of death during the disaster.” The analysis, according to a working draft of the paper obtained recently by Kyodo News, “found no support for the argument that the pre-existing seawalls provided any protection against mortality,” which depended to a greater extent on communal bonds. The study comes as Japan prepares to invest hundreds of billions of yen in seawall construction across the nation, a project that has faced popular opposition from coastal residents who claim the massive edifices block their views of and access to the sea. Daniel Aldrich, an associate professor of political science at Purdue University, conducted the study with University of Tokyo economics professor Yasuyuki Sawada in an attempt to understand the dramatically different fatality rates — ranging from zero to almost 10 percent — among localities affected by the disaster. In the study, the scholars looked at a number of potential explanations for the divide, ranging from the residents’ average age (which could make them slow to escape) to the local crime rate and the tsunami heights when they struck each town. They based their work on a survey of publicly available data from all 133 cities, towns and villages affected by the disaster. Reached by phone Saturday, Aldrich said he had “95 percent confidence” in the findings, which had been vetted by other academics. “The pre-existing seawalls, to our knowledge, had no measurable impact on mortality, except in a single community,” Aldrich said. The study also found a high correlation between pre-existing crime rates and mortality during the disaster. Past research has shown low crime rates are a strong indicator of social cohesion. The closer a city’s social bonds, argue Aldrich and Sawada, the more likely residents helped each other during the disaster. “A municipality which had 15 crimes committed per 1,000 people,” the study claims, “would be expected to have a death rate some 100 times higher than one where there were only one to two crimes per 1,000 people.” Despite the objections of local residents and their catastrophic failure to protect coastal communities on March 11, 2011, the government is considering building or rebuilding 370 km of seawalls in the Tohoku region alone as part of its disaster recovery effort, according to research done by the Nature Conservation Society of Japan. All told, the group expects the project to cost as much as ¥820 billion. Aldrich believes better results can be achieved for much less. “We’re investing so much money in physical infrastructure . . . but, trying to strengthen social capital might be a much more cost-effective way to save lives,” he said. “The reality was if your neighborhood evacuated as a group and got out the elderly and the infirm and the vulnerable, you didn’t need a 17-meter seawall to save their lives.” In fact, Aldrich claims seawalls can actually make people less safe by providing a false sense of security and reducing the chance they will evacuate tsunami-threatened areas in a timely manner. Proponents of the new seawalls cite the example of Fudai, a small town in Iwate Prefecture saved from the March 11 tsunami by an enormous seawall, as a compelling argument for their construction. But the majority of the currently planned seawalls fall far short of Fudai’s staggering 15.5-meter mark. Even the tallest projects top out at around 14.7 meters, according to government websites of Tohoku’s three coastal prefectures of Iwate, Miyage and Fukushima. Projected seawalls in Fukushima Prefecture, where tsunami triggered the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear disaster, will rise to a mere 8.7 meters. Although the projects are well-intentioned, “the government hasn’t really thought them through,” said the Nature Conservation Society’s Tomoko Shimura, adding that the costs and benefits of the projects should be explained to people whose livelihoods might be affected by the walls. During a Diet session on March 12, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he expected “the government to move the project forward while carefully listening to local people’s opinions.” Based on the results of his study, Aldrich believes Japan should re-examine its recovery priorities: “Did the previous existing seawalls save lives? The answer is pretty clearly no. Will the same level seawall save any more lives if there is the same level of tsunami? I can’t see why it would. There’s no logic behind that.”	<urn:uuid:99f07c44-1904-4eea-bc84-2e1e4474a193>	CC-MAIN-2016-26	http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/04/16/national/community-bonds-not-seawalls-key-to-minimizing-deaths-311-study/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.955011	1,031	2.84375	3	3.030904	3	Strong reasoning	Politics
The great balls of fire that leapt from treetop to treetop in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico earlier this summer, threatening the town of Los Alamos and a federal nuclear research laboratory, were apocalyptic enough. They left behind a scorched landscape of dead trees, charred woods and blackened earth. From June 26 until early August the Las Conchas burned some 156,000 acres, more than any other single blaze in New Mexico’s history. Now, however, the threat has turned from fire to floods as the summer “monsoons” deliver high-intensity rains to these burned-out watersheds. Soils laid bare cannot absorb the rainfall and are prone to massive erosion. Recent downpours have produced peak floods through mountain canyons of 20,000 cubic feet per second– thirteen times the average discharge of the Rio Grande – and have carried tree trunks, boulders and tons of blackened soil down to the valley and villages below. This past week, the utility that provides drinking water to Albuquerque cut its intake from the Rio Grande by half to avoid problems of clogged equipment and the extra cost of treating the sediment-laden river water. To make up for the loss, it pumped more groundwater from shrinking underground reserves. If, as climate scientists predict, more heat and drought is in store for much of the western United States, fire and related flood risks in this region will only increase. This year could be a harbinger. In addition to New Mexico’s big burn, drought-plagued Texas has battled its worst wildfire season on record – with more than 3 million acres scorched and seven of the ten largest wildfires in the state’s history. The massive Wallow Fire in eastern Arizona’s White Mountains burned some 538,000 acres, the largest fire in that state’s historical record. Besides the obvious threat they pose to people and wildlife, mountain forest fires often unleash a cascade of impacts that include flash flooding, mudslides, water pollution and sediment buildup in reservoirs– all of which can exact a big toll. Last week I headed to Cochiti Pueblo and surrounding areas of northern New Mexico to see firsthand some of the impacts from the fire and flooding. The village of 800 tribal members sits just east of the Jemez Mountains, a location highly vulnerable to flash floods emerging from the mountain canyons. Phoebe Suina, a Dartmouth-educated environmental engineer and member of Cochiti Pueblo, has been monitoring the floods and overseeing extra protection measures to safeguard the village over the post-fire monsoon season. The past week, Suina told me, had been extraordinary. After a two-inch rain, a mudflow as wide as a football field roared out of Cochiti Canyon, pulling down power lines, ferrying a 150-foot tree, and producing 15-20 foot waves of black water. The changes have been jaw dropping, Suina said. “You wouldn’t know you’re in the same canyon.” One of the casualties is family-owned and operated Dixon Apples, New Mexico’s most famous apple orchard. The Las Conchas fire burned the family home and toasted the canyon where they tend their apple trees. Then came the flash floods, which destroyed outbuildings and encased their tractors in mud. To the south, flash floods out of Peralta Canyon had left a wide trail of boulders, black mud, and charred debris. They had also deposited ten feet of sediment in the channel, which will raise the level of subsequent floods. Whereas floods through Cochiti Canyon empty into Cochiti Lake –a large reservoir built in the mid-seventies by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers – the floodwaters from Peralta Canyon flow directly into the Rio Grande. The river then carries those blackened, debris-filled waters toward Kewa, San Felipe, Santa Ana, and Sandia Pueblos, Albuquerque, Isleta Pueblo and farms to the south. Unfortunately, such fire-and-flood stories are becoming all too familiar. As communities have expanded through the arid West, the risk of fire impacts on water supplies has risen markedly. Although fires are natural and ecologically beneficial in a healthy watershed, simply letting natural fires burn often presents unacceptable risks to surrounding populations. Without periodic natural burning, many forests accumulate an excess of “fuel” that makes destructive mega-fires, such as Las Conchas, more likely. As is often the case, the question is one of balance: how to have an ecologically healthy watershed that also provides benefits important to people – such as secure, high quality drinking water. One solution that’s emerging is for water utilities to invest in watershed maintenance and rehabilitation, including forest thinning to reduce the risk of destructive fires in areas critical to their water sources. Denver, Colorado, and Santa Fe, New Mexico are two cities pioneering this approach. Colorado’s Buffalo Creek fire of 1996 and the massive Hayman fire of 2002 burned 150,000 acres of forest, about the same area burned this summer by New Mexico’s Las Conchas fire. Following heavy rains in the scorched watershed, 1 million cubic yards of sediment poured into Denver Water’s Strontia Springs reservoir – four times the volume of sediment that had accumulated over the previous two decades. The extra costs of water treatment, removal of sediment and debris, and infrastructure repair ran upwards of $30 million. Rather than risk repeating those expenditures fire after fire, Denver Water has entered into a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the forestlands that supply Denver’s water. Called the Forest to Faucet Partnership, Denver Water will invest $16.5 million to match the Forest Service’s investment in watershed work. The combined $33 million will be devoted to forest thinning and other watershed projects over a five-year period in areas critical to Denver’s water supply. Santa Fe, not far from Cochiti Pueblo in northern New Mexico, has embarked on a similar effort. As with Denver’s program, inspiration came from the impacts of a large fire – in this case, the 2000 Cerro Grande, which cost the city of Las Alamos $9 million to filter sediment and ash out of its drinking water supply. In partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which has designed similar programs in Latin America, and with the U.S. Forest Service, which foot the bill to start the watershed program, Santa Fe has established a water fund to help pay for restoration efforts in the 17,000 acres of forest that source its water. The fund operates on a $200,000 annual budget, paid largely by voluntary fees on water users’ monthly water bills. According to Laura McCarthy of TNC’s New Mexico field office, the goal is to invest $4.3 million in thinning and watershed rehabilitation over the next twenty years. Indeed, it was forest thinning done after the Cerro Grande fire that may have saved Los Alamos National Laboratory from the Las Conchas fire this summer. After the 2000 mega-fire, the Laboratory thinned some 8,000 acres of surrounding forest. Phoebe Suina, the environmental engineer from Cochiti, worked at the Lab at that time and oversaw the thinning project. The fact that this summer’s fire didn’t spread through those thinned areas but burned rapidly through untreated forests is, to Suina, “a poster-child example of why we need thinning.” As I headed out of Cochiti, dark clouds gathered menacingly over the Jemez Mountains. Suina was on the phone with the Albuquerque office of the National Weather Service to hear the afternoon rainfall prediction.	<urn:uuid:be5d81e4-3542-4481-bc04-e64193b6aeda>	CC-MAIN-2014-23	http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/31/fire-and-rain/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510273663.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011753-00383-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz	en	0.951073	1,628	3.640625	4	2.96749	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the new passenger vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards that were recently announced. (For those of you who missed class that day, these standards will make our vehicles more climate-friendly and go further on a gallon of gas in the coming years.) And if you paid close attention, the number you’ve most likely seen is a fleet average of 54.5 mpg by 2025. This is a big number, but in the funny world of standards, it’s critical to also understand what that number represents. Standards will save money and help the environment Let’s start with what this does mean. There’s no question that these standards will improve both our economy and our environment. By UCS’s estimation, it’ll allow us to pump as much as 23 billion fewer gallons of gasoline into our vehicles in 2030, netting $50 billion in savings in that year alone. (And that’s even after paying for the fuel-saving technology.) Emissions-wise, the story is much the same, cutting carbon pollution by as much as 280 million metric tons in 2030. As I like to say, not chump change. What it doesn’t mean – and why What it doesn’t mean, however – and there continues to be a fair amount of misunderstanding on this point – is that new vehicles will have window label fuel economies averaging in the mid-50s. Let me explain. That 54.5 mpg number is commonly referred to as a “CAFE value,” meaning it’s what the vehicles would average when evaluated under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) test procedure. This procedure, run in a laboratory on a dynamometer (think large treadmill), was designed decades ago to reflect the way we drove, and was subsequently ensconced into law. Yet while it did a good job capturing how we drove back then, a lot has changed in the intervening years. Today, our vehicles are more powerful, allowing us to drive more aggressively. We also now drive at higher speeds on interstates with higher speed limits. And today we frequently drive with air conditioners running, whereas back then very few vehicles even had A/C as a standard feature. None of these factors are captured in the CAFE test procedure, yet they all pull down our fuel economy. As a result, a sizable gap exists between a vehicle’s CAFE value and its real world mpg. How big of a gap? One good point of comparison is EPA’s on-road fuel economy estimation, which does account for A/C use, high-speed, and high-powered driving. In model year 2011, CAFE test results were, on average, 28% higher than EPA’s more sophisticated on-road estimation. (In one case, CAFE results were as much as 42 percent higher.) Fortunately for consumers, the mpg shown on new vehicle window labels is based on EPA’s numbers, and is generally reflective of our current real-world driving experience. Tallying it up So, back to our original question, what will these standards mean for shoppers in the showroom? The short answer is that when all of the adjustments and credits are accounted for, passenger vehicles (cars, pickups, minivans, and SUVs) are likely to average 36-37 mpg (real world) by 2025. Some models will do better than that; some models will do worse – that’s how the system is designed. By contrast, today’s new vehicles average about 22 mpg in the real world. Of course, we remain concerned about how the program is structured, and will need to make sure the industry doesn’t abuse the system by turning the program’s flexibility mechanisms into loopholes, which would erode the above-mentioned benefits . But assuming that can, with vigilance, be done, this latest round of standards will boost our average fuel economy roughly 14 mpg in 14 years. In my book, that’s steady progress. Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.	<urn:uuid:14977b98-c4cd-4abc-b2f2-e6bd0dbfb7ec>	CC-MAIN-2019-43	https://blog.ucsusa.org/jim-kliesch/the-old-problem-of-cafe%E2%80%99s-new-math	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986700435.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20191019214624-20191020002124-00104.warc.gz	en	0.961326	879	2.703125	3	2.785236	3	Strong reasoning	Transportation
Latest AI features that recognize meaning, concepts, and context are creating surprising opportunities for machines and knowledge workers to collaborate. Researchers can now add value to AI quality control, fine-tuning, and training. Systems can support the human workforce’s knowledge and experience and, in certain cases, effectively support experts. Such systems are going to prove to be more reliable than previous data-driven devices because they more diligently match human intelligence. Knowledge workers are those who think, invent, determine, and implement expertise in non-routine information processing systems on most points. Around Sixty percent of more than 140 such professionals polled as part of a wider worldwide survey on Artificial Intelligence in the industry said their previous job descriptions were quickly becoming outdated in the context of the collaboration with Artificial Intelligence. Following are some ideas on how they can improve and help knowledge workers through AI: - It Works as an Interpreter Understanding medical diagnosis is an area where Artificial Intelligence is likely to be more common. When Artificial Intelligence provides an assessment, the algorithm’s logic isn’t always clear to the physician, who should eventually explain the treatment to the patient—this is known as the black box issue. And today, American multinational technology company Google has designed a program that provides an interpreter for individuals and unlocks the black box. For example, a doctor evaluating an Artificial Intelligence cancer diagnosis may also want to understand how thoroughly the design perceives various considerations it assumes about a patient’s record, whether the affected person has previously received treatments, and so on. American multinational technology company Google also enables health providers to add ideas to the program they think essential and to check their findings. For instance, the specialist may wish to assess if considering a component that the program had not earlier been considered as the status of some cells altered the assessment. Several times in high-stakes operations, specialists always have a checklist of ideas that they value. People wouldn’t want to be provided a list of ideas; instead, they need to be able to tell the program the ideas they are concerned about. - Make Systems Easy to Understand Companies have expanded their usage of devices to gather statistics at different stages in their system to evaluate risks as cyber safety issues have grown. Therefore, several of those data-driven solutions do not combine data from various sources. It also lacks the common-sense expertise of cybercrime professionals, who interpret the variety and diversity of attacker intentions, as well as typical external and internal threats and the level of threat to the company. - Use Artificial Intelligence to Assist Novices Artificial Intelligence may quickly transform novices into experts. HP proved this by analyzing 2 years’ valuation of call records for a client’s customer service center using their Artificial Intelligence lab’s abilities. The customer service was employing a queue-based technology for scheduling client calls and emails, leading to excessive response time and low-quality service. Its intelligent platform is able to identify every agent’s distinct skills and the agent’s prior understanding of a certain type of consumer request. Such skills are being utilized to route incoming phone calls and messages to operators who have previously handled requests for help. The consumer service center has witnessed a forty percent increase in first call resolution and a fifty percent decrease in the number of calls. While customer care representatives gain new talents, the AI program automatically upgrades their knowledge, removing the requirement for them to physically upgrade their abilities in their Hrm database. Furthermore, as the representative’s understanding grows, the program learns to send increasingly complicated tasks to her. - Plan the Working Activities of Human Professionals Using Artificial Intelligence Tools Since several types of professionals are rare, they do not produce vast volumes of data. However, machine learning and deep learning, the basis of many Artificial Intelligence advancements, require massive amounts of data to build and train systems from scratch. In the coming years, you will see many top-down solutions that require significantly less input for training and testing purposes, allowing them to collect and integrate workers’ specific expertise. Imagine the recent event held in Brittany, France. Individuals competed to see which clinical imaging technology could detect which equipment a physician was using at any one time during a noninvasive cataract operation. The winning Artificial Intelligence machine vision technology was programmed in 6 weeks on just fifty images of cataract treatment, forty-eight by a famous doctor, three by a doctor with one year of training, and another by a trainee. Health workers can use precise tool classification models to systematically assess surgical processes and search for methods to enhance them. Companies might use these technologies for report generating, operational education, and potentially legit reasoning assistance for doctors in the upcoming operation theater. As this instance illustrates, pioneers and engineers from all fields are building Artificial Intelligence to be more readily educated and assessed by professionals and include their incredibly important and often limited information. To immediately take leverage of the new opportunities, companies will need to invest their Artificial Intelligence budget properly. To maximize the value of both their knowledge workers and their systems, companies will have to rethink how professionals and technology collaborate. Just like today’s Artificial Intelligence algorithms boost the skills of regular employees, tomorrow’s technologies will raise knowledge and workers’ productivity to previously impossible degrees of consistent performance. - Transformational Leadership Should Not Be Overlooked Companies should not overlook organizational change. New AI-powered collaborating systems significantly influence the company environment, even though not all workers will adopt this new style of working right away. Whereas our polls show that workers are primarily optimistic about Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, there are already a lot of implications and misunderstandings about Artificial Intelligence as a cause of job loss. Keep in mind the influence of organizational change, particularly the necessity of training, strong communication, and, most importantly, worker involvement during the journey. The Bottom Line to Enhance Knowledge Worker Productivity with AI Cloud Collaboration Platform Artificial Intelligence will undoubtedly confront some hurdles when it enters the industry in the coming several years. It shifts away from chaotic conditions and toward recognizing how companies can utilize innovation more efficiently, support knowledge workers and enable better work. Contact us for services and solutions related to Enhance Knowledge Worker Productivity with AI Cloud Collaboration Platform. Further blogs within this Enhance Knowledge Worker Productivity with AI Cloud Collaboration Platform category.	<urn:uuid:5ebc135f-af19-4afa-98f0-fc51638ff59b>	CC-MAIN-2022-49	https://cloudcomputingtechnologies.com/enhance-knowledge-worker-productivity-with-ai-cloud-collaboration-platform/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710941.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20221203212026-20221204002026-00289.warc.gz	en	0.944503	1,287	3.046875	3	2.995464	3	Strong reasoning	Science & Tech.
Journalism is the discipline of writing about events that are of interest to people. Journalism, especially in newspapers, is also regarded by many as the "first rough draft of history" because journalists produce news articles to tight deadlines. This affects how readers may perceive those events in the immediate aftermath. Journalists work under pressure to meet their deadlines and be first to produce their stories. Before publication or dissemination of news articles, news media organizations edit and proofread their reports several times. In doing this, they adhere to their organization's standards of accuracy, quality, and style. Many news organizations claim proud traditions of holding government officials and institutions accountable to the public, while media critics have raised questions about holding the press itself accountable. Digitalization and the influx of the Internet pose major challenges for traditional journalistic professional cultures in most countries. The concept of participatory or citizen journalism proposes that amateur reporters can actually produce stories inside or outside professional media outlets, ending the information production monopoly of the press. The history of journalism can be told largely in terms of the convergence of modern forces of politics, economics, technology, and culture. Although political and economic information certainly existed, there was no journalism to speak of in the ancient or medieval worlds and news of momentous events like wars, disasters and the death of kings was often disseminated verbally through storytelling. In fact, the phrase modern journalism is largely redundant, since there was no significant journalism before the political, economic, technological, cultural and other changes which formed the modern world. Politically, the rise of journalism, newspapers and public affairs reporting, accompanied the rise of modern nation states, civil societies and republican and democratic forms of government, beginning in the late eighteenth century. (Starr, 2001; Habermas, 19) Freedom of the press was one of the most important civil liberties to arise during that period, and is usually one of the first targets when autocratic and dictatorial governments arise. Economically, newspapers, magazines, journals and all forms of broadcast and electronic media were enabled by the growth of large bourgeois or middle class audiences and the spread of wealth and literacy and the growth of both mass and niche markets for publications. Technologically, journalism (especially in the United States, Britain and France) followed in the wake of the development of moveable type and the printing press by Gutenberg around 1439. Printing and various forms of lithography were invented some time previously, probably in China or Korea. Gutenberg's press technology (and the term, press) was largely modeled after existing wine and olive presses. Broadsides were among the earliest products of print journalism, and in the colonial U.S. were often limited to news of shipping, trade and transportation. Most important in facilitating modern newspaper journalism were the technologies of the Mergenthaler linotype machine, the Hoe rotary printing press and the typewriter, telegraph and telephone, all in the late 19th century. These technologies, combined with increasingly cheap and available newsprint and train travel, and innovations in business organization enabled entrepreneurs like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer to establish the largest mass circulation daily newspapers of the time, with press runs in excess of a million copies. The hegemony of mass circulation newspapers only lasted for a couple of decades, however. Commercial radio became a reality in the late 1920s and by the late 1930's and 1940s, radio news became a factor in journalism, as the iconic broadcast from the site of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 made clear. National radio network news and documentaries were produced by ABC, NBC, CBS and the Mutual Radio Network in the U.S., the BBC in Great Britain, the CBC in Canada and other similar national networks. However, the number of radio stations and the popularity of music and entertainment programming often resulted in serious limits on radio journalism, with many stations doing little more than "rip and read" news, read on the air directly from news wire services. In the 1950s, television journalism made its debut, in particular, with the coverage of the 1952 Presidential conventions and the Army McCarthy Hearings and NBC's Meet The Press first aired. In the 1960s, news coverage was increasingly in color, and the battlefield reports from Vietnam were said to have an impact on public support. The CBS News broadcast of 60 Minutes first aired, and Walter Cronkite was named the most trusted man in America. More recently, local television news has spawned the "Eyewitness News" phenomenon, on-the-spot location reporting that includes the use of helicopters in some local media markets. In the 1980's, the rise of cable television transmission led to the debut of CNN, the Fox News Network and a host of similar journalistic ventures. The explosive growth of the internet after 1985 has profoundly affected journalism. As A. J. Liebling once observed, freedom of the press belongs primarily to those who own one, and internet technology has made millions of people potential or actual journalists. Modern forces of economics and technology have combined with political and economic changes to place such freedom in an increasingly broad range of hands, and make press freedom almost universally available in many countries. A news report intends to answer who, what, when, where, why and how. And it also states the importance and effects of the event or trends. Journalism is practiced through newspapers, television, radio, magazines and, most recently but dominating, the World Wide Web. There is no such specific subject matter on which journalists have to make news reports on. The subject matter can be anything and everything that they choose. They can write on a wide variety of subjects like politics, economics and business, health and medicine, education, sports, hobbies and recreation, lifestyles, clothing, food, pets, and relationships on the international, national, provincial and local levels. They report on anything that news they think readers would read. Journalists can report for general interest news outlets like newspapers, news magazines and broadcast sources; general circulation specialty publications like trade and hobby magazines or for news publications and outlets with a select group of subscribers. Journalists are usually expected and required to go out to the scene of a story to gather information for their reports, and often may compose their reports in the field. They also use the telephone, the computer and the internet to gather information. However, more often those reports are written, and they are almost always edited in newsrooms, the offices where journalists and editors work together to prepare news content. Journalists, with specific beat are expected to cultivate as many sources, people in the subject or area, that they can communicate with, either to explain the details of a story, or to provide leads to other subjects of stories yet to be reported. They are also expected to develop their investigative skills to better research and report stories. Print journalism can be split into several categories: newspapers, news magazines, general interest magazines, trade magazines, hobby magazines, newsletters, private publications, online news pages and others. Each genre can have its own requirements for researching and writing reports. Traditionally news reports are written inverted pyramid style, although this style is used more for straight or hard news reports rather than features. The practice began in the US and the other world followed them. Hard news reports are expected list the most important information first and least at the bottom, so that, if the story must be cut from the last because there is not enough space in the paper for it. Journalists attempts that reports are written with as few words as possible. Feature stories are usually written in a looser style that usually depends on the subject matter of the report, and in general granted more space. Radio and TV journalism is often called broadcast journalism. Like their colleagues in print, broadcast journalists report and gather evidence to support everything they say. But these journalists also face unique hurdles because of the form it must take. The differences are often obvious though seldom stated. Among the differences most often cited by individuals in broadcasting is that television and radio journalism require a high degree of collaboration. For instance, one person, a producer or correspondent may take responsibility for writing a script, but other people handle specific parts of the process. There are "editors" who are responsible for putting the visual images, such as video, photos, graphics, together. There are people who work behind the camera, shooting video of interviews, taking additional pictures to help tell the story, and even recording sound from locations, such as streets, highways, prisons, or any other place that may be relevant. Broadcast journalism also has its own jargon and specific elements that are required to make something on paper come alive on television or radio. Some examples: - "Track" - the script recorded to tape by a correspondent or someone else who reads the words into a microphone. - "SOT" - "sound on tape" is a reference to elements recorded in the field, especially through interviews with relevant individuals. - "Nat Sound" - refers to sound recorded at any location during the course of producing the broadcast segment. If the story is about restaurants, you may hear the sound of plates, voices in a restaurant, or other similar sounds. - "Graphics" - is exactly what it would seem to be: special visual elements that usually feature explanatory information, reinforcing the point made in the script. Graphics are often used to present statistics, headlines from newspapers, or highlighted words from documents. - "Cover" - refers to video and images that cover lines in a script. Among the most common examples that may be familiar to anyone who has watched television or listened to a news report on the radio are the pictures and sound used in the course of introducing someone in the story. If the story is about animals and a veterinarian is interviewed, it is possible that viewers could see the doctor treating patients, making house calls, or doing anything they might normally be doing. In addition to producing a piece or segment for broadcast, the journalists responsible for that story will generally write or contribute to the script used by the anchor to introduce a segment in a news broadcast. Depending upon the size of the broadcast, there could be one or more writers whose sole job it is to write the "show." Each form of journalism has its own list of required elements. In radio journalists will generally depend on engineers and technical people of various kinds to ensure that they are able to record their track, maintain their equipment in often demanding conditions, and achieve the highest quality sound. Because there are no visuals, the quality of the sound becomes that much more important. There is no way to make up for certain kinds of distortions with visual elements that might otherwise clarify what is being said. There are additional differences between print and broadcast that have to do with the medium. Broadcast journalists cannot use as many words as their print counterparts. Aside from the fact that they do not have enough time on the air to use them, they must face the obvious: reading, listening, and watching are different things. Viewers or listeners do not follow long sections of "track" extremely well. Only a certain amount of information can be absorbed in this manner. Another important distinction: broadcast journalists are always pushed by the need to get video or audio. In television news it is impossible to do a segment without interviews. That means that "unnamed sources" or sources that you can talk to but not tape will not help the story. Because broadcast journalism involves numerous elements, collaboration between various people, along with the need to research and report, it can often take longer. More things may go wrong. And there are also unique ethical and legal concerns. In this era, broadcast journalists, for instance, are able to use technology to pretend they are almost anywhere. Indeed, some reporters have been disciplined for standing in front of a backdrop that suggested they were elsewhere even though they remained in a television studio. Hidden camera is yet another side of broadcast journalism. Made possible by miniaturization, small cameras allow television journalists to take pictures without others knowing it. Unlike "reality" television, where individuals generally consent to be taped and know that there are cameras everywhere, this form of investigative reporting involves gathering evidence to support a story -- evidence that can not be obtained otherwise. However, in the United States, each state has different rules about privacy -- particularly videotaping people without their knowledge. In some places it is possible. In other jurisdictions, the law requires "two-party" consent, which means that it is illegal to tape someone without their permission. Broadcast journalism continues to face unique obstacles, ethical, legal, and editorial. But radio and television journalists are no longer at the forefront. All journalists are watching the lines between broadcast and print blur. Some are questioning the very terminology of "broadcast" versus "print." With smaller and better cameras, there is less of a need for people who specialize in working behind them. In radio, it is easier than ever before for reporters to edit their own audio reports as well as handle all their field recording. At the same time, print reporters are being asked to spend more time online as well as on radio or television. Major media companies are under increasing pressure to use the same talent in multiple ways, creating more content at a lower cost. And with video, audio, and print journalism freely available from anywhere on the Internet, there is every reason to expect the nature of journalism itself to change. What is broadcast journalism? Some would argue that except as history, it may not matter any more. Internet journalism is the latest form of journalism emerged after the revolution in Internet and World Wide Web. This is sometimes referred to as cyber journalism or online journalism. This has become the most popular these days due to speed at which news can be disseminated worldwide. It has the profound facility for penetration to anyone with a computer and web browser. Most print and broadcast media now go into Internet versions. The bulk of Internet journalism has been the extension of existing print and broadcast media. New reports that were set to be released at expected times now can be published as soon as they are written and edited, increasing the deadline pressure. Scoop, what matters for the journalist to compete in their profession, has become less imperative with the introduction of online journalism. Most news websites are free to their users to see, read or print. Few demand subscription like Wall Street Journal or Time to view their contents. Attempts to start unique web publications, such as Slate and Salon, have met with limited success, in part because they do or did charge subscription fees. Today, the Internet is seen as a profound challenge and opportunity for journalists and the practice of journalism: non-professional citizen journalists using weblogs, social networking sites like Twitter and other Internet technologies have been touted as a supplement to traditional journalism, and even as a replacement for some areas. Political punditry, reporting about technology and breaking news. Footage from the terrorist attacks in central London on July 7, 2005, was captured on camera phones. Similarly, in 2009, the most prominent photo from the emergency landing of a jetliner in the Hudson River was posted on Twitter by a citizen journalist. Many newspaper websites now include comment features, have blogs run by journalists, and many news organizations actively solicit photos, videos and reports from the general public. Many feel that the Internet and blogs threatens the business model of newspaper journalism and with it the investigative reporting and fact-checking that newspapers engage in. A number of local and city newspapers across the United States have closed in 2009 including the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Whether these closures are due primarily to the recession or due to the Internet has yet to be seen. Sports journalism covers athletic competition. This has been the most read news reports after politics. Even in least developed media society, newspapers separate a page for sports news. Thus, it is an integral part of most journalism products. While some critics don't consider sports journalism to be mainstream journalism, the prominence of sports in society has justified the attention of journalists to for reporting the sports events. This not only includes the events on sports but also the stories behind the sportspersons and political influences on sports. Science Journalism has come up in the recent days, as the horizon of journalism widens. Here journalists' reporting conveys information on science topics to the public. Science journalists must understand and interpret very detailed, technical and sometimes jargon-laden information and render it into interesting reports that are comprehensible to consumers of news media. This has created in many instances, confusion among the masses. The dispute in the scientific community on certain matters also makes stories blur and useless. Besides the space in the mainstream news media, journals specifically on scientific discoveries have come up. Not to ignore that most news reports are investigated and written. In most case, feature news stories are investigative. But there has come the concept of a separate investigative journalism, in which journalists investigate and expose unethical, immoral and illegal behaviour by individuals, businesses and government agencies, which are rather complicated, time-consuming and expensive — requiring teams of journalists, months of research, interviews (sometimes repeated interviews) with numerous people, long-distance travel, computers to analyse public-record databases, or use of the company's legal staff to secure documents under freedom of information laws. Because of its inherently confrontational nature, only a handful of journalists prefer this beat. Journalists have to face financial constraints and interference from various corners. Even the media organisations discourage if the issue would adversely affect the business of its institution. Investigative reporting done poorly can also expose journalists and media organizations to negative reaction. When conducted correctly it can bring the attention of the public and government problems and conditions that the public deem need to be addressed, and can win awards and recognition to the journalists involved and the media outlet that did the reporting. Entertainment journalism has come up in 20th century when the entertainment became the integral part of people’s life. This is also called celebrity or people journalism, which mostly focuses on the personal lives of people, primarily celebrities, including movie and stage actors, musical artists, models and photographers, other notable people in the entertainment industry. This beat of journalism also covers the dramas, night shows, film making, beauty pageants, dance parties etc. etc. Entertainment journalism differs from feature writing. An emerging form of journalism, which combines different forms of journalism, such as print, photographic and video, into one piece or group of pieces. Convergence Journalism can be found in the likes of CNN and many other news sites. The Washington Post has a notable amount of such. Society and journalism There have been much debate that journalism can play for transformation of societal practices and behaviours. But has it achieved or not is yet to be admitted or realised. In beginning of the modern journalim, precisely in 1920s, writer Walter Lippmann and American philosopher John Dewey debated in several events over the role of journalism in a democracy. Their differing philosophies still characterize a debate and continues to date at a time we say we entered the most advanced age of modernisation. Lippmann had stressed that journalism was the mediator between the public and the policiy makers. He called journalims, at times, a translator between these two section of people and the journalist became the middleperson. As the policy makers, to say it exactly the newsmakers, speak, journalists listen and record the information, distill it, and pass it to the public for their consumption. The motive of the jouranlsit behind this was that the public was not in a position to deconstruct a growing and complex flurry of information present in modern society, and so an intermediary was needed to filter news for the masses. Lippman put it this way: The public is not smart enough to understand complicated, political issues. Furthermore, the public was too consumed with their daily lives to care about complex public policy. Therefore the public needed someone to interpret the decisions or concerns of the elite to make the information plain and simple. That was the role of journalists. Lippmann believed that the public would affect the decision making of the elite with their vote. In the meantime, the elite (i.e. politicians, policy makers, bureaucrats, scientists, etc.) would keep the business of power running. In Lippman's world, the journalist's role was to inform the public of what the elites were doing. It was also to act as a watchdog over the elites as the public had the final say with their votes. Effectively that kept the public at the bottom of the power chain, catching the flow of information that is handed down from experts/elites. Dewey, on the other hand, believed the public was not only capable of understanding the issues created or responded to by the elite, it was in the public forum that decisions should be made after discussion and debate. When issues were thoroughly vetted, then the best ideas would bubble to the surface. Dewey believed journalists not only had to inform the public, but should report on issues differently than simply passing on information. In Dewey's world, a journalist's role changed. Dewey believed that journalists should take in the information, then weigh the consequences of the policies being enacted by the elites on the public. Over time, his idea has been implemented in various degrees, and is more commonly known as "community journalism." This concept of Community Journalism is at the center of new developments in journalism. In this new paradigm, journalists are able to engage citizens and the experts/elites in the proposition and generation of content. It's important to note that while there is an assumption of equality, Dewey still celebrates expertise. Dewey believes the shared knowledge of many is far superior to a single individual's knowledge. Experts and scholars are welcome in Dewey's framework, but there is not the hierarchical structure present in Lippman's understanding of journalism and society. According to Dewey, conversation, debate, and dialogue lie at the heart of a democracy. While Lippman's journalistic philosophy might be more acceptable to government leaders, Dewey's approach is a better descriptor of how many journalists see their role in society, and, in turn, how much of society expects journalists to function. Americans, for example, may criticize some of the excesses committed by journalists, but they tend to expect journalists to serve as watchdogs on government, businesses and other actors, enabling people to make informed decisions on the issues of the time. The Elements of Journalism According to The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil, there are nine elements of journalism. In order for a journalist to fulfill their duty of providing the people with the information they need to be free and self-governing, they must follow these guidelines: - Journalism's first obligation is to the truth. - Its first loyalty is to the citizens. - Its essence is discipline of verification. - Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover. - It must serve as an independent monitor of power. - It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise. - It must strive to make the significant, interesting, and relevant. - It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional. - Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. Professional and ethical standards Since the development of professional journalism at the beginning of the 20th Century, journalists have been expected to follow a stringent code of journalistic conduct that requires them to, among other things: - Use original sources of information, including interviews with people directly involved in a story, original documents and other direct sources of information, whenever possible, and cite the sources of this information in reports; - For more information on using sources, see Journalism sourcing. - Fully attribute information gathered from other published sources, should original sources not be available (to not do so is considered plagiarism; some newspapers also note when an article uses information from previous reports); - Use multiple original sources of information, especially if the subject of the report is controversial; - Check every fact reported; - Find and report every side of a story possible; - Report without bias, illustrating many aspects of a conflict rather than siding with one; - Approach researching and reporting a story with a balance between objectivity and skepticism. - Use careful judgment when organizing and reporting information. - Be careful about granting confidentiality to sources (news organizations usually have specific rules that journalists must follow concerning grants of confidentiality); - Decline gifts or favors from any subject of a report, and avoid even the appearance of being influenced; - Abstain from reporting or otherwise participating in the research and writing about a subject in which the journalist has a personal stake or bias that cannot be set aside. This was in stark contrast to the media climate prior to the 20th Century, where the media market was dominated by smaller newspapers and pamphleteers who usually had an overt and often radical agenda, with no presumpton of balance or objectivity. E.g., see (1). Recognition of excellence in journalism There are several professional organizations, universities and foundations that recognize excellence in journalism. The Pulitzer Prize, administered by Columbia University in New York City, is awarded to newspapers, magazines and broadcast media for excellence in various kinds of journalism. The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism gives the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in radio and television journalism, and the Scripps Howard Foundation gives the National Journalism Awards in 17 categories. The Society of Professional Journalists gives the Sigma Delta Chi Award for journalism excellence. In the television industry, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences gives awards for excellence in television journalism. Failing to uphold standards Such a code of conduct can, in the real world, be difficult to uphold consistently. Journalists who believe they are being fair or objective may give biased accounts -- by reporting selectively, trusting too much to anecdote, or giving a partial explanation of actions. (See Media bias.) Even in routine reporting, bias can creep into a story through a reporter's choice of facts to summarize, or through failure to check enough sources, hear and report dissenting voices, or seek fresh perspectives. As much as reporters try to set aside their prejudices, they may simply be unaware of them. Young reporters may be blind to issues affecting the elderly. A 20-year veteran of the "police beat" may be deaf to rumors of departmental corruption. Publications marketed to affluent suburbanites may ignore urban problems. And, of course, naive or unwary reporters and editors alike may fall prey to public relations, propaganda or disinformation. News organizations provide editors, producers or news directors whose job is to check reporters' work at various stages. But editors can get tired, lazy, complacent or biased. An editor may be blind to a favorite reporter's omissions, prejudices or fabrications. (See Jayson Blair.) Provincial editors also may be ill-equipped to weigh the perspective (or check the facts of) a correspondent reporting from a distant city or foreign country. (See News management.) A news organization's budget inevitably reflects decision-making about what news to cover, for what audience, and in what depth. Those decisions may reflect conscious or unconscious bias. When budgets are cut, editors may sacrifice reporters in distant news bureaus, reduce the number of staff assigned to low-income areas, or wipe entire communities from the publication's zone of interest. Publishers, owners and other corporate executives, especially advertising sales executives, can try to use their powers over journalists to influence how news is reported and published. Journalists usually rely on top management to create and maintain a "firewall" between the news and other departments in a news organization to prevent undue influence on the news department. One journalism magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, has made it a practice to reveal examples of executives who try to influence news coverage, of executives who do not abuse their powers over journalists, and of journalists who resist such pressures. Reporting versus editorializing Generally, publishers and consumers of journalism draw a distinction between reporting — "just the facts" — and opinion writing, often by restricting opinion columns to the editorial page and its facing or "op-ed" (opposite the editorials) page. Unsigned editorials are traditionally the official opinions of the paper's editorial board, while op-ed pages may be a mixture of syndicated columns and other contributions, frequently with some attempt to balance the voices across some political or social spectrum. The politics of newspapers and television news networks in the United States and the United Kingdom tend to be opposite: in the U.S., television news networks like Fox News and MSNBC are split along ideological lines, and newspapers try to be more balanced. Meanwhile, in Britain, television news tries to remain neutral while newspapers tend to hold a political line with the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and (London) Times representing the political right-wing, and The Guardian and The Independent on the left-of-centre. The distinction between reporting and opinion can break down. Complex stories often require summarizing and interpretation of facts, especially if there is limited time or space for a story. Stories involving great amounts of interpretation are often labelled "news analysis," but still run in a paper's news columns. The limited time for each story in a broadcast report rarely allows for such distinctions. Ambush journalism refers to aggressive tactics practiced by journalists to suddenly confront with questions people who otherwise do not wish to speak to a journalist. The practice has particularly been applied by television journalists, such as those on the CBS-TV news show 60 Minutes and by Geraldo Rivera, currently on the Fox News cable channel, and by hundreds of American local television reporters conducting investigations. The practice has been sharply criticized by journalists and others as being highly unethical and sensational, while others defend it as the only way to attempt to provide those subject to it an opportunity to comment for a report. Ambush journalism has not been ruled illegal in the United States, although doing it on private property could open a journalist to being charged with trespassing. Gotcha journalism refers to the deliberate manipulation of the presentation of facts in a report in order to portray a person or organization in a particular way that varies from an accurate portrayal based on balanced review of the facts available. In particular it is applied to broadcast journalism, where the story, images and interviews are tailored to create a particular impression of the subject matter. It is considered highly unethical to engage in gotcha journalism. Many subjects of reporting have claimed to have been subjected to it, and some media outlets are guilty of deliberately biased reporting. Journalists around the world often write about the governments in their nations, and those governments have widely varying policies and practices towards journalists, which control what they can research and write, and what press organizations can publish. Many Western governments guarantee the freedom of the press, and do relatively little to restrict press rights and freedoms, while other nations severely restrict what journalists can research and/or publish. Journalists in many nations have enjoyed some privileges not enjoyed by members of the general publlic, including better access to public events, crime scenes and press conferences, and to extended interviews with public officials, celebrities and others in the public eye. These privileges are available because of the perceived power of the press to turn public opinion for or against governments, their officials and policies, as well as the perception that the press often represents their consumers. These privileges extend from the legal rights of journalists but are not guaranteed by those rights. Sometimes government officials may attempt to punish individual journalists who irk them by denying them some of these privileges extended to other journalists. Nations or jurisdictions that formally license journalists may confer special privileges and responsibilities along with those licenses, but in the United States the tradition of an independent press has avoided any imposition of government-controlled examinations or licensing. Some of the states have explicit shield laws that protect journalists from some forms of government inquiry, but those statutes' definitions of "journalist" were often based on access to printing presses and broadcast towers. A national shield law has been proposed. In some nations, journalists are directly employed, controlled or censored by their governments. In other nations, governments who may claim to guarantee press rights actually intimidate journalists with threats of arrest, destruction or seizure of property (especially the means of production and dissemination of news content), torture or murder. Journalists who elect to cover conflicts, whether wars between nations or insurgencies within nations, often give up expectation to protection by government, if not giving up their rights to protection by government. Journalists who are captured or detained during a conflict are expected to be treated as civilians and to be released to their national government. Rights of journalists versus those of private citizens and organizations Journalists enjoy similar powers and privileges as private citizens and organizations. The power of journalists over private citizens is limited by the citizen's rights to privacy. Many who seek favorable representation in the press (celebrities, for example) do grant journalists greater access than others enjoy. The right to privacy of a private citizen may be reduced or lost if the citizen is thrust into the public eye, either by their own actions or because they are involved in a public event or incident. Citizens and private organizations can refuse to deal with some or all journalists; the powers the press enjoy in many nations often make this tactic ineffective or counter-productive. Citizens in most nations also enjoy the right against being libeled or defamed by journalists, and citizens can bring suit against journalists who they claim have published damaging untruths about them with malicious disregard for the truth. Libel or defamation lawsuits can also become conflicts between the journalists' rights to publish versus the private citizen's right to privacy. Some journalists have claimed lawsuits brought against them and news organizations — or even the threat of such a lawsuit — were intended to stifle their voices with the threat of expensive legal proceedings, even if plaintiffs cannot prove their cases. This is referred to as the Chilling effect. In many nations, journalists and news organizations must function under similar threat of retaliation from private individuals or organizations as from governments. Criminals and criminal organizations, political parties, some zealous religious organizations, and even mobs of people have been known to punish journalists who speak or write about them in ways they do not like. Punishments can include threats, physical damage to property, assault, torture and murder. Right to protect confidentiality of sources Journalists' interaction with sources sometimes involves confidentiality, an extension of freedom of the press giving journalists a legal protection to keep the identity of a source private even when demanded by police or prosecutors; withholding sources can land journalists in contempt of court, or jailtime. The scope of rights granted journalists varies from nation to nation; in the United Kingdom, for example, the government has had more legal rights to protect what it considers sensitive information, and to force journalists to reveal the sources of leaked information, than the United States. Other nations, particularly Zimbabwe and the People's Republic of China, have a reputation of persecuting journalists, both domestic and foreign. In the United States, there has never been a right to protect sources in federal court. Some states provide varying degrees of such protection. However, federal courts will refuse to force journalists to reveal sources, unless the information the court seeks is highly relevant to the case, and there's no other way to get it. Journalists, like all citizens, who refuse to testify even when ordered to can be found in contempt of court and fined or jailed. Right of access to government information Like sources, journalists depend on the rights granted by government to the public and, by extension, to the press, for access to information held by the government. These rights also vary from nation to nation (see Freedom of information legislation) and, in the United States, from state to state. Some states have more open policies for making information available, and some states have acted in the last decade to broaden those rights. New Jersey, for example, has updated and broadened its Sunshine Law to better define what kinds of government documents can be withheld from public inquiry. In the United States, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guarantees journalists the right to obtain copies of government documents, although the government has the right to redact, or black out, information from documents in those copies that FOIA allows them to withhold. Other federal legislation also controls access to information (see Freedom of information in the United States). Canada, the European Union, many European nations including the United Kingdom and other countries around the world have similar legislation. - This phrase is widely used by journalists. It is often attributed to Philip Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post. At the time of his death, in August, 1963, a number of reporters and editors recalled Graham saying at a meeting: "I am insatiably curious about the state of our world. I revel in the recitation of the daily and weekly grist of journalism…. So let us drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of a history that will never be completed about a world we can never understand." - Koren G, Klein N (October 1991). "Bias against negative studies in newspaper reports of medical research". JAMA 266 (13): 1824–6. PMID 1890712.	<urn:uuid:4e9693b8-af83-4211-811f-bfb074bdb55c>	CC-MAIN-2022-27	http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/Journalism	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103917192.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220701004112-20220701034112-00120.warc.gz	en	0.956432	7,651	3.8125	4	3.025588	3	Strong reasoning	Education & Jobs
- History of Utica, New York. Utica, the county seat of Oneida County , is situated in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York, approximately midway between Buffalo and New York City. It was originally included in a grant of 22,000 acres made by George II of England to William Cosby and some associates in 1734. Utica, city, seat (1798) of Oneida county, central New York, U.S., on the Mohawk River and New York State Canal System, 45 miles (72 km) east of Syracuse. The first settlers were Dutch and Palatinate Germans, and in 1758 the British built Old Fort Schuyler, near the site of an ancient Oneida Indian Jul 08, 2020 · Meanwhile, health experts and state officials in New York, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have said all it takes is one contagious case to cause hundreds of additional COVID-19 infections. Wikipedia: United States influenza deaths and hospitalizations by flu season. COVID-19 US deaths have already surpassed 2020 US flu deaths. 10 April: Hundreds of bodies recovered from New York City homes every day are NOT included in coronavirus death count even if they had symptoms . History of Oneida County, New York : from 1700 to the present time: 1,320: Annals and recollections of Oneida County: 908: History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers. 826: Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time: 769: The pioneers ... is an Old Utica Cutlery Co., Utica, New York, USA. TL-29 Pocket Knife. The blade lengths are about 2-5/8 & 2-15/16 . Closed length is about 3-3/4 not including hanger. See pictures. Thanks for l Abt 1865 Utica, New York, USA d. 1925 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA: King Gardner Family History King Gardner Family History Genealogy of the King-McCluskey and Gardner-LeBlanc Families Dec 31, 2015 · The old Charlestown USA Outlet Mall was one of the first shopping centers in the Mohawk Valley. It offered a new kind of shopping experience for local residents, with dozens of stores and several restaurants in one location. But what made the mall truly unique was the building's origins. In this edition of Your Hometown, Cara Thomas shares the history of the former mall. Utica USA Marking. Tool markings were further simplified to just "Utica USA" some time between 1956 and 1961, probably after 1960. The timing is based on examples of pliers obtained in original boxes, which noted Utica as a division of Kelsey-Hayes, but with the location still in Utica, New York. 4 hours ago · New York has been testing about 50,000 to 60,000 people a day, and on Sunday the state surpassed 6 million tests since the pandemic hit. The infection rate has been hovering around 1%.	<urn:uuid:0ed86331-353f-4b57-b75e-bbb722bd82b8>	CC-MAIN-2020-34	https://search.yahoo.com/mobile/s?ei=UTF-8&norw=1&_tsrc=apple&age=1w&p=What+is+the+history+of+Utica%2C+New+York%2C+USA%3F&fr2=	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735881.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20200804161521-20200804191521-00094.warc.gz	en	0.934515	644	3.03125	3	2.18168	2	Moderate reasoning	History
Interviews were conducted in 2008 with six Seattle-area physicians who provide care to Cambodian patients and four Cambodian medical interpreters who work in three different healthcare facilities. A focus group about postpartum practices in the Cambodia and the U.S. was conducted with Cambodian women of varying ages. Information from published literature was incorporated. Cambodians call the postpartum period sor sai kchey, which alludes to a period of fragile health lasting from one to three months after childbirth. Many traditional postpartum practices are followed during sor sai kchey. There are strong beliefs about the importance of adhering to these practices and that failure to do so may lead to chronic symptoms called toas that can be temporary or lifelong. Many Cambodian women who immigrated to the U. S. in the 1980’s are known to have experienced toas and may continue to do so (Goldstein, 1988). Cambodians continue to emigrate to the U.S. and these women are likely to adhere to these practices or have strong beliefs about their importance, though practices and terminology may vary by region. First- and second-generation Cambodian women may follow a modified version of the traditions and are less likely to manifest toas. Women who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980’s may be particularly vulnerable to toas because the Khmer Rouge would only allow women to stay home for 3 days to 2 weeks post-partum. Toas is a culture-bound syndrome. In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-specific syndrome or culture-bound syndrome is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural changes in the body, and the disease is not recognized in other cultures. The term culture-bound syndrome was included in the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) (Wikipedia, 2010). Failure to follow postpartum traditions may result in chronic symptoms that can be temporary or lifelong. Toa, roughly translated, means conflict or clash. There are five different types of toas that can result, depending on which postpartum tradition is not adhered to during sor sai kchey (Kulig, 1989). Knowledge about Cambodian postpartum practices and toas will help medical providers better understand the folk categories of illness faced by some Cambodian American women. Clarifying toas will assist the provider with taking a better history of the patient, treating the patient, and providing culturally sensitive care. Cambodian Concepts of Medicine Cambodians traditionally view the human body as being in a constant state of balance between hot and cold. This hot-cold theory evolved as a result of influence over time from Ayruvedic, Galenic, and Chinese medical theory. An imbalance of these forces can lead to illness (Hourn, 1999). A pregnant woman is considered to be in a hot state, but after giving birth, she is considered to be in a cold state (White, 2004) and needs to restore balance between hot and cold. Western medicines are generally considered hot and herbal remedies cool. Foods also have varying properties. The older generation may complement Western medicine with traditional healing methods such as herbal remedies, dermal techniques, and maintenance of hot-cold balance. Cupping, pinching, and coining are still currently practiced. For some, Western medicines may be used as a last resort because they can be confusing and have side-effects that are not understood by the patient. Postpartum Beliefs and Practices in Cambodia The postpartum period called sor sai kchey (sometimes spelled sor sai kjey or saw sai kachai) is considered to be the most important time in life for a woman. Sor sai kchey lasts from one to three months after childbirth when a woman is considered to be in fragile health. The idea of childbirth as a both dangerous and important time in the woman’s life is emphasized in Khmer culture and language. The idiomatic Khmer expression used to describe delivery is schlong tonle, which means “to cross the river.” As described by a Cambodian interpreter, “A postpartum woman is considered a queen, because she has survived childbirth, which was not always assured due to lack of healthcare resources in Cambodia.” To restore balance in the body, it is believed that the old, hot blood that was shed during childbirth must be replaced with new blood produced by the mother. In addition, the growth of new blood vessels and restoration of heat lost during childbirth is required. The pregnant woman is seen as being in a hot state, but after giving birth, she is seen as being in a cold state (White, 2004). Part of this cold state is attributed to the obstruction of blood flow due to damage to blood vessels or nerves (sor sai) during childbirth, resulting in the term sor sai kchey (kchey means young or fragile), which literally translates as “young or raw blood vessels” (Hourn, 1999). Postpartum Practices during Sor Sai Kchey The woman is confined to bed rest for thirty days. Mother Warming – Ang Pleung During bed rest, the woman lies on a bamboo bed under which a fire fueled by charcoal or wood is lit (White, 2004). This is known as ang pleung or mother-warming. Ang pleung is practiced because “The belief is that it will help the mother heal faster, made the body stronger, and look and stay young by tightening muscles” (Cambodian Focus Group, 2008). Additionally, she is kept warm by layering clothing while avoiding air conditioning, drafts from air or wind, and ice (White, 2004). This roasting lasts a minimum of three days but is prolonged as long as firewood or charcoal can be afforded. Socioeconomic status plays a role in the length of roasting. Poor women sometimes only roast for one day; these women typically have had several children previously. Roasting for longer periods is seen as more important for young women who have just given birth to their first child (Sody, 1998). Roasting is thought to increase blood flow in the uterus, thereby preventing blood clots and is seen as essential to the overall recovery of postpartum women. Hot rocks are sometimes heated, wrapped in cloth and then placed over the woman’s abdomen to help with the swelling and stop the bleeding (Cambodian Focus Group, 2008). In addition, while the woman is roasting, traditional healers known as krou khmers will often recite incantations from Buddhist writings to ward off any lurking evil spirits and protect the weak mother (White, 2004). Cold foods such as green peas, bean sprouts, fish, pig head, pineapple, and jackfruit are avoided. Also, raw and sour foods are avoided at this time. Instead, hot foods such as khaw (a traditional dish of beef, pork, or fish braised with salt, pepper, and palm sugar), borbor (rice porridge), pork, and salty foods are consumed to restore heat to the body during this critical period (White, 2004). The woman will drink only hot water, homemade wine, or herbal tea. Physical Activity Restrictions Heavy lifting and standing for long periods is forbidden (Sody, 1998). Some women do not have sexual intercourse for six months to one year following birth, as they believe it is best to avoid this to allow their bodies to recover and heal from pregnancy. Restrictions on Bathing and Exposure to Rain/Dew Women are barred from bathing and instead use herbs in a practice called schpoong, in which women will breathe in vapors from a boiling pot of water filled with herbs to clear the skin daily. Women are prohibited from exposure to rain and dew because of the risk of cooling the body and to prevent “wind” from entering the body. Women must be relaxed and free from emotional distress and worry. Post Partum Practices in the United States: Generational Change and Acculturation Focus group participants who emigrated from Cambodia to the U.S. in the 1980’s expressed a strong belief in the existence of toas. Younger Cambodian women who spent a majority of their adolescence in the U.S. stated that they practiced sor sai kchey to varying degrees, mainly to appease their mothers and mothers-in-law. According to focus group participants, in the U.S. many of the traditional post-partum practices are modified based on available resources. To replace fire-roasting, women fill hot water bottles with boiling water and place the bottle on top of the lower abdomen to warm it. Another method of heating the lower abdomen is to heat a large rock directly on the stove until the rock heats all the way through, wrap a towel around the heated rock and place the rock on the lower abdomen. Another modification is to add sea salt to boiling water, soak up the water in a towel and then use the towel to heat the uterus. Women are barred from bathing and instead use herbs to practice schpoong, in which women breathe in vapors from a boiling pot of water filled with herbs to clear the skin daily. Most women are unable to rest for an entire month as they must return to work, school, or taking care of the home and family much sooner than they would in Cambodia. Most younger women felt this was not harmful because Western doctors offered supplements and antibiotics to ward off infections they could contract in Cambodia. However, a young woman who immigrates more recently to the U.S. will likely adhere to traditions. Failure to Follow Postpartum Traditions May Result in Toas Failure to follow these steps to restore balance in the postpartum mother can lead to a potentially lifelong, incurable sickness known as toas. Chronic symptoms of toas can manifest decades later. The commonly presented symptoms are abdominal pain, weakness, headache, diarrhea, palpitations, weight loss, and poor appetite (Douglas, 1994). There are five different types of toas that can result, depending on which postpartum tradition is not adhered to during the period of sor sai kchey (Kulig, 1989). Toas can result from: - Eating the wrong types of food – toas chamney - Resuming intercourse earlier than three months postpartum – toas damnek - Exposure to rain/dew or bathing – toas tek pleany - Heavy lifting or hard work – toas sor sai - Experiencing emotional distress – toas pruey cet Complexities of Interpretation Medical interpreters often have difficulty translating the meaning of toas to physicians due to the complexity of the translation, which magnifies the potential for miscommunication with providers. One medical interpreter explained, “If men use the word toas, they use it to mean allergy. It is commonly used to mean vomiting or diarrhea. If food is poisonous, this leads to vomiting. Toas is to not agree with your body. For women, regarding food, toas is used too. For women with babies, toas refers to postpartum wrongdoing.” A medical interpreter explained, “In the Cambodian language, there are not enough terms to describe Western language. For example, if there is an allergy to a medication, you use the word toas because the medicine does not agree with your body. If you don’t explain it, the patient will think you’re referring to postpartum toas.” Toas can mean allergies as well as a chronic disease due to wrongdoing postpartum. This can lead to confusion between the physician, the interpreter, and the patient. Another medical interpreter finds that it is hard to explain the concept to the provider: “I would explain toas to a healthcare provider as one of those traditional pregnancy experiences that occur because of what they did or ate after pregnancy. I translate the patient’s exact words and main complaints, and then explain the traditions to the provider and why the patient thinks the two are related.” In explaining, the interpreter takes into account what region the patient came from, the practices they have encountered, the way they were raised, and any background knowledge the interpreter knows. Of the four medical interpreters interviewed, all acknowledged mistranslating toas to the physician to both shorten the visit and avoid confusing the physician. Two interpreters mentioned that they would gauge the level of interest of the physician and explain the beliefs of the patients to the physician, but only if the physician wanted to learn more. Dr. J. Carey Jackson, a physician with 25 years of experience in refugee and immigrant health finds that “As a provider, if I mention toas and show that I know something about Khmer life, even if the topic is far afield from toas, both the interpreter and the patient are assured that I know something and that I am interested and capable of learning more. So knowledge of these folk categories of illness becomes a device for expressing interest, capacity, growing familiarity, and a fund of knowledge they can build on to teach me.” Physician Knowledge of Toas The concept of sor sai kchey and postpartum fragility is well-known, widely accepted, and widely practiced among the Cambodian community but most of the physicians interviewed for this article were either unaware of the syndrome or unable to define it. This illustrates the cultural barrier that may exist between female Cambodian patients and their primary care physicians. Belief in postpartum plasticity explains the sequelae of toas as a chronic illness. Toas may overlap with postpartum depression but is seen much more as a physiologic issue. Misdiagnosis of toas or disregard of this belief can lead to long-term consequences such as panic attacks, sleeplessness, depression, and possibly alcoholism as an escape. This emphasizes the importance of understanding this syndrome. Furthermore, not recognizing the patient’s belief in toas and not acknowledging the patient’s suffering can appear to undermine the patient’s complaint and deem them as unimportant. Clearly, background knowledge about the beliefs of other cultures is essential to providing culturally competent care. This background knowledge can be used to legitimize the complaints from the patient and illustrate empathy for the patient’s perspective. Recommendations for Providers - Effectively engage patients in their own health care: Establish a long-term relationship by listening to the patient’s whole story, including regularly asking the patient what she thinks is causing the symptoms. Encourage the patient to invest in her own health. - Communication is the key to providing culturally competent care: Communication is the key to improved quality of care for all patients. Culturally competent care is often difficult to deliver but it can greatly impact the patient’s well-being. Providers should explain the importance of taking medications as prescribed, as well as the reasons for not giving medications if none are given. Patients are often confused about dosages and may not know to continue taking the medication even if their symptoms improve. One solution to assuring the correct dosage is to ask patients to always bring all of their medications to their appointments and have them show exactly how many pills of each medication they take and how often. - Use open-ended questions: Keep questions open-ended with patients to avoid making any assumptions. - Pay attention to the experience of illness: In cross-cultural settings, a partnership with medical interpreters is needed to pay close attention to the experience of illness and social context of the translation. Legitimize the patient’s beliefs by accepting their explanations for symptoms and offer a biomedical explanation as a parallel model. Give a thorough exam according to the patient’s complaints. Negotiate and compromise with patient about dual usage of Western and traditional medicine. - Evaluate patient for PTSD and depression: Do not say depression or PTSD but ask about their specific symptoms. - Ask for specific information about post-pregnancy experience and presence of toas. - Link symptoms where possible to treatments for medical problems known to you. Explain what the root issues might be for a cluster of symptoms with no known etiology. For example, headache, back pain, and sleeplessness are somatic expressions of depression. - Assure patient that her illness is not fatal and that she will be OK. This will help relieve angst and build rapport. - Be aware that Cambodians often use home remedies or alternative forms of healthcare along with Western medicine: Offer to assist patients as they try to address traditional options for toas. - Use interpreters as cultural guides: Medical interpreters become highly specialized translators with some medical background and knowledge and familiarity with Western clinics. They are an essential resource. Instruct interpreters to translate conversations accurately, but also explain everything to the patient at the patient’s level so they have a better understanding of the results. For example, explaining feared procedures such as blood draws, X-rays and surgery to patients may alleviate anxiety and encourage increased use of Western medicine among Cambodian immigrants. Douglas, L. B. (1994). Antenatal and birthing beliefs and practices of Cambodian women. P. L. Rice (Ed.), Asian mothers, Australian birth (pp. 33–46). Melbourne, Australia: Ausmed Publications. Goldstein, Erika A. “Meaning in medicine: abdominal pain in Khmer women.” Thesis- University of Washington, 1988. Healy, G., & Chandoravann, D. (1994). Situational analysis of health service delivery at commune and village-level: Oudong District, Kompong Speu Province, Cambodia.Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Australian Red Cross & Oudong District Health CenterPlanning Team. Hourn, Kru Kim. Post Partum Heating Practices in Cambodia. Are they harmful? Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. February 1999. Peripartum and Infant Care Issues and Practices Among Refugee Groups in Seattle: Southeast Asian. Dr. Elinor Graham and staff of Community House Calls Program, Harborview Medical Center. August 1996 . Kulig, J. C. (1989). Childbearing beliefs among Cambodian refugee women. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 12(1), 108–118. Sody, Ang. A Descriptive Study of Cultural Presentation of Postpartum Psychiatric Disoder: “Toas” in Cambodia. Phnom-Penh, Cambodia. February 1998. The Cambodian Women’s Health Project. Outreach Worker Manual. January 1998. White, Patrice M. (2004) ‘HEAT, BALANCE, HUMORS, AND GHOSTS: POSTPARTUM IN CAMBODIA’, Health Care for Women International, 25: 2, 179-194. White, Patrice M. “Crossing the River: Khmer Women’s Perceptions of Pregnancy and Postpartum.” Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, volume 47. July/August 2002. Wikipedia (2010) Culture-bound syndrome. Accessed on November 24, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome	<urn:uuid:da61a1bc-066b-4d2c-a89a-212a3c0e682a>	CC-MAIN-2023-50	https://ethnomed.org/resource/cambodian-perinatal-culture-bound-syndromes-providing-care-to-cambodian-women-with-toas/	s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100677.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20231207153748-20231207183748-00205.warc.gz	en	0.941051	4,039	2.828125	3	2.973625	3	Strong reasoning	Health

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