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Mr. Peters and His Walker
Mr. Peters is an elderly resident of an assisted living center. He was quite healthy and had good mobility until he became dizzy and fell down recently. He has to use a walker now because he can bear his weight but needs support on both sides. Mr. Peters is stubborn and doesn’t like to use his walker yet even though he values his independence.
Today his CNA Tina says, “Mr. Peters, why don’t we go down to the TV room? I think it’s almost time for your favorite local news show.” Mr. Peters continues to read and says he’s not feeling well. Tina knows that she must encourage Mr. Peters to use his walker as his physical therapist suggested. Mr. Peters loves to watch TV with other residents, so she decides to use that information to help persuade him to use his walker. Smiling warmly, she says, “I think you’d really like spending some time watching TV with your friends, Mr. Peters.”
Mr. Peters sets his book on his nightstand. “Oh, all right. Just to see how my friends are doing.” He attempts to get up from his chair but is too unstable to stand. Tina reaches for his walker, but Mr. Peters shakes his head and angrily waves his hand at it.
Wheeling the walker directly in front of him, Tina says, “Remember, your physical therapist said that the walker will help you keep your balance and independence.” Mr. Peters tries to stand again and relies on Tina to steady him. He grasps his hands onto the walker in front of him, and Tina watches to make sure he uses it correctly as he puts it down about six inches in front of him and steps into it.
Tina says, “The walker is here to help you with your mobility. Now, let’s go find your friends.” She leads him slowly down the hallway, closely watching in case he requires assistance. Mr. Peters walks safely to the TV room.
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Entertainment
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Revision rhinoplasty is a follow-up surgical procedure to the nose after a previous rhinoplasty surgery. The first nose operation is commonly referred to as primary rhinoplasty.
Although most people are happy with their primary rhinoplasties, sometimes, for a variety of reasons, they seek revision surgery. This sometimes occurs even with people who are satisfied with the aesthetic outcomes of the first surgery.
Aesthetic concerns, functional issues or, in many instances, both, drive the need for a revision rhinoplasty. The more common issues from primary rhinoplasty have to do with having too much removed from the nose structure or having too little taken off. Symmetry is another common issue. Unusually, excessive scarring may also lead to problems requiring a revision procedure.
What a revision rhinoplasty can do for you
As with primary rhinoplasty, revision nose surgery is a procedure that helps improve the shape, contours and function of the nose. Revision surgery is essentially a follow up to a previous operation, intended to make or correct aesthetic or functional issues that may have cropped up since the primary rhinoplasty.
Sometimes the original procedure may not have produced the precise results expected, either by the surgeon or by the patient. In such cases revision rhinoplasty involves minor corrections and tweaking to fine tune the results of the previous operation.
In other instances, functional issues that did not previously exist arise after the surgery. This is possible because rhinoplasty is considered to be one of the most difficult cosmetic surgical procedures to master. Any change in form can cause a related change in function.
Common aesthetic corrections during revision rhinoplasty
Some of the common issues that are corrected during revision rhinoplasty include:
- Asymmetry of the nose tip or a pinched appearance
- Pointy, uneven or unnatural appearance of the nose tip, commonly due to cartilage protrusion
- Nose bridge crooked, irregular or off–centre
- ‘Saddle nose’ deformity, when the bridge looks scooped out
- ‘Polly-beak’ deformity, when the upper bony bridge is over-resected and the lower cartilaginous part of the bridge is not proportionally low enough
- An ‘inverted V’ look to the sides of the nose, which happens when too much of the middle third cartilage has been removed. This can make nasal obstruction worse.
Common functional problems corrected during revision rhinoplasty
Often the revision rhinoplasty has to correct both aesthetic and functional issues at the same time.
The most common functional issue we correct during revision rhinoplasty is nasal obstruction. Nasal obstruction can be the result of a number of factors, including a deviated nasal septum, the thin wall that separates the two sides of your nose. Many people have deviated nasal septa without knowing it. When the septum is deviated, the two sides of the nasal cavity are different, and the smaller cavity is prone to obstruction. When nasal obstruction is serious, a deviated septum can be the main reason for needing a primary rhinoplasty.
Changes that are made to the nose during a primary rhinoplasty can result in making the deviation problem worse—if it was not considered serious before—creating nasal obstruction where none previously existed.
Other causes of nasal obstruction include excessive internal scarring and nasal valve collapse due to excessive tissue removal during the previous rhinoplasty procedure. Each of these issues needs to be dealt with in a different way during revision surgery.
The nose is a delicate organ, and even minor changes can result in changing its functional or aesthetic aspects. This is why rhinoplasty has very high revision rates compared to other types of cosmetic surgery.
Revision rhinoplasty requires skilful blending of science and art. Good outcomes require a surgeon with extensive knowledge as well as wide-ranging experience —not merely qualifications. Dr Marcells is a master of rhinoplasty, highly skilled and experienced in performing both primary and revision procedures.
Before and after pictures
You can view the before and after photos of real patients who have undergone revision rhinoplasty procedures with Dr Marcells in the Nose Gallery of this website. All the gallery photos are those of real patients of Dr Marcells.
- Female revision rhinoplasty gallery
- Male revision rhinoplasty gallery
- Check out the entire Nose Gallery
Clicking on each gallery image will take you to a page with photos of each patient, taken from multiple angles and showing details of the changes made during nose surgery.
What revision rhinoplasty can’t do
As with any surgery, your expectations from revision nose surgery should be realistic. Do not expect a complete transformation after surgery. Revision nose surgery essentially tweaks existing aesthetics or corrects impaired function. It will enhance your appearance somewhat and, in many cases, help you feel better about yourself and your appearance. But although you may see vast improvements, the changes are often completely unnoticed and unremarked by others. If you think about it, this is a good result.
Are you a candidate for revision rhinoplasty?
Revision rhinoplasty is performed on adult men and women who have already undergone at least one previous nose surgery procedure. Candidates should proceed with surgery with realistic goals and expectations for improving the function or appearance of the nose.
It is essential that you have healthy facial tissue and muscles and no life-threatening conditions at the time of surgery.
For your own safety, inform Dr Marcells at the initial consultation if you have any medical conditions, including disorders of the thyroid, circulatory disorders such as heart disease or high blood pressure, and diabetes.
If a surgeon other than Dr Marcells performed your previous rhinoplasty, it would be ideal to provide details and records of the previous operation, including medical records, image tests and before and after photos. The more comprehensive the information you can bring to the initial consultation the better. Because your nose is a delicate organ, what exactly has been done to it previously is essential knowledge.
At the initial consultation, Dr Marcells will conduct a physical exam of your nose.
Would you like more information?
How revision rhinoplasty is performed
After conducting the initial examination, speaking to you and studying your records, Dr Marcells will explain how the problem has occurred and discuss potential solutions with you. You will learn what needs to be done to rectify the situation. Obviously, what is required depends on your specific needs.
For both primary rhinoplasty and revision surgeries Dr Marcells prefers the open nose technique, because he knows from experience that this technique produces the longest lasting results. Open surgery exposes the nose structure for better visibility and improved manoeuvrability. As opposed to alternative techniques, which only require incisions to be made inside the nose, open rhinoplasty involves an incision underneath the nose, at the bottom of the wall that separates the two nostrils.
For reinforcing the bone or cartilage, Dr Marcells only uses tissue taken from the patient’s own body—such as the ear, or in some cases, the ribs—to rule out the risk of allergic reactions or rejection. Both these are possibilities when material from external sources are used to reinforce the nose structure.
Revision rhinoplasty, like primary rhinoplasty, is performed under general anaesthesia.
How much time is needed to complete a revision rhinoplasty depends on the extent of work that is needed.
Preparing for your revision rhinoplasty
The preparation process for a rhinoplasty involves taking a number of tests. Currently Dr Marcells is involved in studies that gauge long term results of rhinoplasty operations. As part of these studies there will be several tests that measure the nasal peak flow rate, which are particularly useful for patients with collapsed noses. Such tests help support better diagnosis, because they can help separate the patients with nasal collapse from those who are having issues of blockage due to allergies or other conditions. Similar tests will be taken six months, one year and two years after the operation to measure the outcomes of surgery.
It may be necessary to have certain imaging tests as well. You may also need to take specific medications or adjust the medications you are currently taking.
Dr Marcells will give you a set of instructions about preparing for your revision rhinoplasty. Follow those instructions closely. If you have any questions or need clarification of the instructions, we will be glad to help.
Among other things, giving up smoking well ahead of the surgery helps make your recovery fast and uneventful.
You will be asked to stop taking aspirin, anti-inflammatory drugs and certain other medications. Following this instruction and avoiding herbal supplements during this time helps control the risk of excessive bleeding.
After the surgery
You will most likely find a splint or plaster cast taped to your nose to hold it in place, protect it and help it heal correctly. Sometimes soft internal splints or cotton pads are packed inside the nose. These must remain in the nose for at least a week following the surgery, until your nose has stabilised.
You will be asked to stay in bed for a while after surgery. Your head must be kept raised above the level of your chest to help reduce bleeding and swelling. Your nose will be congested due to swelling as well as with cotton stuffing.
As with primary rhinoplasty, it is normal to experience a little bleeding and drainage of old blood and mucus from your nose for a few days after the operation. This can also happen after removing the dressing. A small gauze drip pad taped below the nostrils will control this discharge. You will be shown how to change the pad. It may be necessary to do a nasal wash with saline every few hours for a few weeks. This helps ensure that debris does not collect inside the nose, blocking it up.
You will be given instructions to further reduce the chances of bleeding and swelling. Following them will help your nose heal faster. You must avoid jogging, aerobics and other strenuous activities for some time after a revision rhinoplasty. You should not swim until your nose is fully healed. Avoid blowing your nose, chewing heavy food and expansive facial expressions such as smiling or laughing, especially until the bleeding subsides. Brushing your teeth carefully to limit movement of the upper lip is another point to remember. Before the surgery, have on hand clothing that fastens in the front. Avoid pulling shirts, tops and sweaters over your head, as it may knock the nose. Avoid resting sunglasses or spectacles on your nose for at least a month following surgery because they put pressure on the nose. Instead, use cheek rests or tape the glasses to your forehead.
After any type of rhinoplasty it is natural to experience some bruising around the eyes, including on the eyelids. You may also feel numbness in this area. Both typically subside within two weeks. In some people, it may subside in as little as three days; in rare cases it may last up to six months. You may use ice packs or cold compresses to reduce swelling and discolouration around the eyes. Beyond this, there may still be some subtle, barely noticeable swelling.
Most people undergoing rhinoplasty are able to enjoy their enhanced appearance within a month after surgery, but in some cases the healing process can be extremely slow. Recovery times, naturally, vary from person to person. In some cases, swelling, especially in the nose tip, may not subside for as long as six months. The last swelling to go away will be on the tip of your nose. In rare cases, the swelling will take a year to subside and for full healing to occur. Only then will the final shape of the nose become apparent. Your recovery period depends on the extent of changes that have been made and the way your body heals.
Most people are able to resume normal social activities two to three weeks after revision rhinoplasty.
Revision rhinoplasty is usually an outpatient procedure, so you will need someone to drive you home after the surgery. Make sure to also have someone there to stay overnight.
During your recovery, follow the postoperative instructions given to you by Dr Marcells. If anything appears to be out of line or unexpected, call us immediately.
Your instructions will include contact numbers to use in an emergency. Do not hesitate to use those numbers. Having your mind at rest is important for uneventful and speedy healing. If a call can put your mind at rest, go ahead and make that call.
Potential risks and complications
Every surgical procedure carries some level of risk, including the risk of infection and adverse reactions to anaesthesia.
Potential risks and complications that can arise from a revision rhinoplasty include:
- Recurring nosebleeds
- Difficulties in breathing through the nose
- Numbness in the nose and in the surrounding area
- Uneven or asymmetrical results
- Persistant pain, discolouration or swelling
Dr Marcells will discuss how these risks specifically apply to you.
‘Revision’ essentially means that something has not gone completely according to plan in the initial operation and needs to be fixed. If primary rhinoplasty offers only limited scope to a surgeon, revision surgery, with so much less tissue to work with, offers even less scope. This is why your choice of revision rhinoplasty surgeon is an extremely important decision. It is equally important to check accreditation status of the facility used for the operation. Making these two choices wisely and ensuring that you have a thorough discussion of your medical records prior to surgery can help avert a lot of unnecessary risk. It is, however, impossible to entirely eliminate risk in surgical procedures, and revision rhinoplasty is no exception.
Now it’s your call
People undertake revision rhinoplasty to correct aesthetic issues and/or functional issues arising out of a previous rhinoplasty operation.
Unless your operation is considered a medical necessity, as in the case of reconstructing collapsed noses, revision rhinoplasty is considered to be an elective cosmetic surgery and is not typically covered by Medicare Australia or by private health insurance companies.
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Meet Dr Marcells
MBBS (Syd), FRACS (ORL-HNS)
Past President – Australasian Academy of Facial Plastic Surgeons
Dr George Marcells is known for excellence in facial plastic surgery and is considered a true master of rhinoplasty. He performs advanced surgical techniques to restore balance and harmony to the face and can also resolve functional issues such as breathing difficulties.
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We have constantly said that although October is Bullying Prevention Month, we also consider it Cyberbullying Prevention Month, we have to continuously discuss awareness and educate our communities on curbing this type of cruelty - both offline and online 365 days a year.
The fact is bullying is no longer limited to our playgrounds, school hallways, bathrooms or even the cafeterias - these bullies follow your kids home electronically through their devices.
This is why it is imperative to continue to learn as much as you can about online abuse as well as offline.
This past October we had some great experts, advocates and educators that contributed to helping parents, students and others learn more.
I want to share some of my favorites here, as well as some that I have written for this month... there are many others, be sure to continue to share them on Twitter with me at @SueScheff or on Facebook.
How Empathy, Kindness and Compassion Can Build Belongingness and Reduce Bullying - Cyberbullying Research Center
Want to Know About Cyberbullying? Ask A 6th Grader - by Diana Graber
10 Strategies for Stopping Cyberbullying - by Signe Whitson
10 Ways to Help Kids Deal With Digital Friction - by Toni Birdsong
31 Difference Makers for School Bullying Prevention Offline and Online - Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI Training)
Keep Your Child Cyber-Safe, There Is No Rewind Online - CPI Training
Cyberbullying Fact and Other Student Safety Concerns That Will Astound You - Gaggle
11 Possible Signs of Cyberbullying - Dr. Michele Borba
Practice What You Preach: Stop Bullying for Kids AND Adults - CPI Training
Bystander Revolution #MonthOfAction was extremely inspiring! Check out their site, and challenges. If you can instill some of their ideas in your life, you will be making a difference - both online and offline.
Your Daughter's Safety On YouTube - Bright Girls Company
Upstanders On the Rise - Cyberwise.org
Cyberbullying: It's Not Just for Kids - Connect Safely
#Kindness Wins Challenge - #SeeTheGood - by Galit Breen, These Little Waves (Galit is the author of Kindness Wins. In the month of October she shared the most amazing stories of people that gives you faith in humanity today. Take the time to read her website and her posts - they are so inspiring).
Your Child's Online Behavior Is A Reflection of Offline Parenting - Education Nation
Facing Reality: Cyberbullying Is Not A Fad, It's A Trend
What It's Like to Become A Halloween Costume - by Monica Lewinsky
As October came to a close, I read an article that Monica Lewinsky wrote. She writes, "..there's a fine line between clever and cruel."
Isn't that what online harassment sums up to be in many situations? Sometimes people think they are being funny - it's only a joke, but do they forget that there is a human, breathing person connected to the other side of the screen. We all matter - and we all have feelings - it hurts.
Let's all try to curb cruelty with a touch of kindness. Cyberbullying is not going away, we can slow it down, we can take accountability for our own actions and most importantly, we can start off by becoming a cyber-advocate and/or cyber-mentor for someone you care about. A sibling, friend, family member - maybe even your grandparent. Be there for them not only offline - but be their extra eyes online too.
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The Brazilian State and the Chinese state are two vastly different entities. While one has a history of military rule the other owes a lot to Maoist ideology. Today Brazil has a democratic form of Government whereas China’s government for over half a century has been composed of members from the same party, the Communist Party of China. But what impact has each of these states had on economic development? Is one form of state better than the other in ensuring greater economic development? These are the two main issues that will be addressed by taking a look at some key growth drivers in each of these economies and examining the role the state has played in these aspects.
Industrial Policy as a driver of Economic Growth
Brazil’s industrial sector contributes 26.9% of the country’s GDP. Historically the Brazilian Government following the Great Depression realized the importance of import substitution to lower dependence on external imports that were completely wiped out due to a lack of export earnings during the Depression. But the inefficiencies in this system were seen with public sector enterprises racking up huge debt causing the 1980s financial crises in Brazil. Learning from these lessons, the government of late has played an active role in promoting efficiency and protecting Brazilian industries by creating a spate of anti dumping policies mainly aimed to restrict the sudden spurt of Chinese made products in their country. The industrial base set up prior to the 90s although inefficient has played a major role in providing momentum to the Brazilian economy. Hence industrial policy has been really important in the development of Brazil. A large amount of attention in Brazil is given to this particular sector because of its contribution to growth. With an ever strengthening Real the Government itself has entered the market for industrial goods with its “Buy Brazil” policy which involves buying locally made goods at higher prices by the government. However there still remain some deeper issues that the Brazilian government still hasn’t been able to solve. These are largely structural issues that have been prevalent in the Brazilian Economy for decades. This goes to show how lackluster the Government’s role in Industrial policy framing has been. Brazilian manufacturers have been struggling to cope due to the strong currency (leading to lower exports), high interest rates, high taxes, poor infrastructure and a poorly educated workforce.
The Chinese Government on the other hand has been a lot more effective and innovative with its industrial policies. Its innovative policy of promoting rural industries has helped the country’s small and medium industries to flourish within rural areas which nullified the need to instantly urbanize, something that was seen in Brazil following their industrialization policy which created a lot of imbalances in the Brazilian economy and also caused social issues. Setting up of SEZs was the main instrument through which the government aimed to promote industrialization in urban areas which had the supplementary effect of creating adequate urban infrastructure as well. These SEZs were the main drivers of Chinese value added exports as the cheap prices of labour in these SEZs attracted a large number of MNCs to set up their production chain in China. Hence China has been able to promote a very successful industrialization policy that has aligned itself among the most industrialized nations in the world and this factor has been a major contributor to China’s rapid growth. The industrial sector contributes the highest to the GDP in comparison to other sectors (46.6%). The only negative perhaps in China’s industrial policy in comparison to Brazil would be its lack of attention to domestic demand.
Trade policies as a driver of Economic Growth
The fact that China became Brazil’s largest trade partner pits these two states directly against each other in the international trade framework. Both of these nations have been highly dependent on trade but the composition of trade for both countries is quite different. While China’s trade policy involves generating large current account surpluses by providing cheaper products to the world market this has come at the cost of other countries’ domestic products. Brazil being one of them. Due to the high demand for cheap Chinese products in Brazil such as Chinese cars, China today can dictate a large number of terms to Brazil because of its hold in the Brazilian market. This has been seen with increasing discontent among the Brazilian polity. The Brazilian government has been imposing increasingly protectionist measures specially targeted against Chinese imports. Recent measures such as a 30% increase in tax on cars with less than 65% percent local content shows how seriously the Brazilian government is taking this issue. Even after having a trade surplus with China the Brazilian government realizes that they would still need to transform their exports to China which are now mainly composed of raw materials such as soya beans, crude oil, iron ore etc. Still, currently the only viable measure to ensure economic development of Brazil is by imposing protectionist measures to foster domestic industries. The Chinese government on the other hand has benefited to a large extent because of their policies to make their products competitive on the global stage, something that the Brazilian government hasn’t been able to do instead depending on protectionist measures and exports of raw materials. Hence to conclude one could say that China’s trade policies have made them more independent in the Global trade arena whereas due to Brazil’s composition of trade, its dependence on others is quite high.
Influence of Monetary Policy on Growth
The Brazilian economy today owes a lot to its monetary policies. After the Latin American crisis, Brazil had to undertake a large number of monetary measures to make its currency stable again and to reduce inflation that reached a peak of 2477% in 1993. While its system of “heterodox shocks” to boost up the economy quickly in the 1980s was a huge failure, the policy of creating a new currency called the Real through the carefully implemented system known as the Unidade Real de Valor in the mid 1990s effectively curtailed the dual problems of inflation and currency instability. The careful transition from a dollar pegged Real to a floating Real has certainly has helped in a very big way in making the Real a competitive currency that it is today. (Hol, D., A Barbosa, 1999). China’s monetary policy on the other hand has been quite independent and immune from outside shocks given its high current account surpluses and hence hasn’t had much of an influence on growth. But the American Recession did have an impact on its exports and the monetary policy response of giving away loans at cheap rates gave rise to Shadow Banking, a problem that is hampering domestic financial development in China. (Qi, 2003)
Hence having examined some of the policies undertaken in these key growth drivers of the Brazilian and Chinese Economy we can notice vast differences in the policies undertaken by both of these states. Keeping the above factors in mind if we assess the focus on welfare by the state we see marked similarities. China being a Socialist state has inherently had a high focus on welfare and development. A reduction of the poor to total population ratio by 11.4% within 5 years goes to show the importance given to welfare. Brazil on the other hand is currently led by the Workers Party which has introduced a large number of welfare programmes especially during the Presidency of Lula da Silva. Programmes such as the Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) and Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) have had a large impact on development in Brazil.
One could right from the outset say that the Chinese state has played a much better role in Economic Development as compared to Brazil’s which is clearly seen by the current Economic standing of both of these countries. But this judgement shouldn’t be taken at face value as this form of governance has come at a huge cost to the people of China in the form of restricted freedoms and rights. The fact that China’s government is anything but democratic is a strong constraint to personal growth and hence welfare. Hence a value judgement about what form of Governance is beneficial to economic development cannot be narrowed down to just policies concerning economic growth. We need to examine both the rule of law and democratic accountability which guide governance to determine how strong the state needs to be to further economic and development progress of a nation.
Ashwin Nair is a 2nd Year student pursuing a Masters in Applied Economics at Centre for Development Studies, JNU.
1. Qi, L. (2013). China’s Shadow Bankers Seek Their Place in the Sun. Wall Street Journal, 17th September.
2. Hol, D., A Barbosa, F. and O (1999). Economic Development: The Brazilian Experience. Development Strategies in East Asia and Latin America, 11.
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2D semiconductor 'Moiré crystal' may contain thousands of single-photon emitters
Two slightly misoriented semiconductor bilayers may naturally form hexagonal arrays of thousands of single-photon emitters.
|When two atomically-thin sheets of MoSe2/WSe2 are rotated slightly with respect to each other, a moiré pattern appears. This feature appears to enable Li's new material to act as a series of single-photon emitters. (Credit: University of Texas at Austin)|
Single-photon emitters are essential for photonics-based quantum information technology, including quantum computing and quantum cryptography. Now, researchers led by University of Texas at Austin physics professor Xiaoqin Elaine Li have created a material that could have thousands of single-photon emitters naturally positioned within it.1
By stacking two different semiconductor bilayers (here, molybdenum diselenide/tungsten diselenide, or MoSe2/WSe2) on top of each other and slightly rotating them relative to each other, the scientists created an artificial crystal with a regularly spaced pattern of atoms. Such a pattern is known as a moiré crystal, which localizes electrons into a tight space on the order of a nanometer.
The new material absorbs energy from photons and emits new photons in such a way that the researchers interpret the material to contain thousands of identical single-photon emitters. If confirmed, the novel light source could be used in quantum information systems. Other researchers have created single-photon emitters, but no previous technology has produced an array of thousands of identical ones.
"This is a longstanding goal in quantum information science that has never been demonstrated before," Li says. "Our studies suggest that this goal may be achievable in this new material."
The researchers have strong experimental and theoretical evidence that their new material forms a checkerboard array of thousands of single-photon emitters, but the resolution of their equipment has not yet allowed them to prove it conclusively. As next steps, Li and her team will collaborate with other researchers to verify that they are, in fact, forming single-photon emitters, while continuing to improve the material's quality.
The paper's co-first authors are Kha Tran, a physics graduate student at UT Austin, and Galan Moody, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and former UT Austin postdoctoral fellow. Other key contributors at UT Austin are Allan MacDonald, professor of physics; Emanuel Tutuc, professor of engineering; Nanshu Lu, associate professor of electrical engineering; and Sanjay K. Banerjee, professor of engineering.
1. Kha Tran et al., Nature (2019); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-0975-z.
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Strong reasoning
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(Photos) Get To Know The World's Largest Cave, Located in Southeast Asia
Stone formations with stalagmites and stalactites, underground rivers and lakes, together with delicate flora and fauna have made mammoth Son Doong Cave in the central province of Quang Binh one of the world’s most captivating destinations, reported Vietnam News Agency.
Located in the heart of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, the cave, which is more than 200 metres in width, 150 metres in height and approximately 6.8 kilometres in length, was explored by the British Cave Research Association during 2009-2010 and it has been open to the public since 2013. It is believed to have been formed two to five million years ago.
Son Doong Cave has been recognised as the largest of its kind in the world by three international record-keeping organisations – Guinness, the Association World, and Worldkings.
It has recently been ranked third among the worldwide bucket-list trips for 2019 by Lonely Planet, a prestigious travel guide magazine.
The cave attracted 243 tourist arrivals from 34 countries and territories across the world who joined 32 pilot tours “Conquering Son Doong – the world’s largest cave”, operated by the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park management board and Oxalis Adventure Tours in 2013. It generated over 15 billion VND (US$645,600) for local tourism in the eight-month trial period.
The tours created stable jobs for 40 locals, with average income of 6 million VND (US$258) per month at that time. Taking the cue from the adventure tours, local tourism services have been developed as well.
Besides, the Son Doong tours have helped popularise the UNESCO-certified Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park as well as the province’s tourism to the world.
Holding important scientific values in terms of geology, geomorphology and ancient climate, the cave has been favoured by many scientists and science channels worldwide.
The ecosystem inside Son Doong is as unique as it is large, and it even has its own localised weather system. Rare limestone cave pearls are scattered in dried pools, and the largest stalagmite ever found stands 80 metres tall.
Collapsed ceilings have created openings known as dolines, allowing foliage plants to grow inside the cave. Microscopic organisms thrive in the darkness.
According to an initial study from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, besides 161 species of flora found inside Son Doong, the cave is home to 300-million-year-old coral fossils which are valuable for the analysis of geological layer changes through times.
Source : Vietnam News Agency
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Moderate reasoning
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Travel
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According to most packaging on store-bought tests, they are 99% accurate. However, the accuracy depends on how well you follow the instructions. Timing is everything also, if you test too soon you may not get accurate results. To determine how well pregnancy tests work we must look at how they work and the reasons behind the false readings.
How Do Pregnancy Tests Work
There are two types of pregnancy tests
, blood tests, and urine tests. Blood tests are a little pricier and can only be done in a doctor’s office. Urine tests can be done in a doctor’s office and at home. There are some cases where a blood test is the better option, especially for those who have a history of pregnancy complications. When you become pregnant, your body produces something called human chorionic gonadotropin. It is released in your urine thus allowing urine tests detect HCG. Blood tests can detect HCG levels in the blood and will help determine Pregnancy 1 to 2 weeks earlier than most urine tests.
False Positive on a Pregnancy Test
False positives can occur for a few reasons, one being that you have recently miscarried. This is because your urine still carries traces of HCG from your previous Pregnancy. A recent abortion within the last two months will also cause a false positive too. A chemical pregnancy is when a fertilized egg plants itself in your uterus but doesn’t develop, and you then end up getting your period a few days late. If you test before you get your period most likely, you will get a false positive. Finally, if you are taking a fertility drug that contains human chorionic gonadotropin the test will pick up the HCG and give a positive result. This is because this fertility drug contains human chorionic gonadotropin.
Pregnancy Test False Negative Result
A false negative can be the result of testing too soon. Most tests recommend waiting until after you have missed a period. It is best you wait at least one day after your missed period. Although there are a few tests out there that claim results up to a week before your missed period, you will be better off waiting until that missed period to guarantee the best results. Some medications can also interfere with the tests. It’s best to get further testing especially if you are experiencing pregnancy symptoms or you feel pregnant.
So, are pregnancy tests accurate and how accurate are they? Pregnancy tests are accurate when used correctly, but many factors will lead to inaccurate results. If there are human chorionic gonadotropin levels in your urine, a test will pick it up. If there are other factors such as those that could lead to a false positive or negative, such as medication and complications, you will have to consider that when testing. Take note of any current medications including fertility drugs that could lead to a false reading. For best results test as soon as 1 to 5 days after your missed Period. If you are following directions accordingly, you should get the most accurate results from your pregnancy test.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Introduction to Module Nine: African Economies
This module, comprised of nine learning activities, is one of the longest in Exploring Africa! The completion of all the activities in this module may take three to four 50-minute class periods. Teachers may choose to teach the entire module or select from among the learning activities.
PURPOSE: This module will introduce students to the economics of Africa. In accomplishing this goal, the learning activities will illustrate and increase student understanding of economic concepts that have been introduced in prior social studies classes.
Economics is the study of the production and distribution of wealth. Wealth is created by the production and distribution of goods and services. Economics can be studied at various levels or locations, for example, family/household, local community, state/province, nation, and global levels. The learning activities in this module will examine economic processes; that is, the production and distribution of goods and services, at the local, national, regional, and continental levels, and will emphasize Africa’s economic global connections.
In addressing economic processes and practices in contemporary Africa, three underlying themes will be featured. First, economic systems and practices in Africa are historically situated. That is, to understand current economics students have to understand the historical contexts in which economic practices and relationships developed. Secondly, there is a great deal of economic diversity in Africa. And thirdly, Africa’s economies are closely linked to the global economy.
A Note on Photographs.
Throughout this lesson numerous photographs will be used. It is important to remember that photographs do not represent the “ways things are.” A photograph of a farmer plowing in a Zambia is not representative of all farmers in Africa. Such a photograph is just one among many possible representations of farming in Africa, just as a photograph of you playing your favorite game gives only one snapshot of American adolescents at play.
Photos are used in this lesson to help illustrate economic activities and practices in Africa, and they do not represent a uniform way in which people engage in the economic process.
In this module students will be introduced to a number of unfamiliar economic terms and concepts. We have developed a glossary of economic terms used in the module. When unfamiliar words and concepts are used for the first time they will be italicized and underlined. By clicking on the underlined word students will linked to the glossary.
- How are basic needs and wants met in African economies?
- What are the main modes/methods of production in Africa?
- How did innovations in agriculture and food production lead to economic specialization and diversification in Africa?
- What role did trade play in the development of African kingdoms?
- What was the economic impact of the slave trade on Africa?
- How did colonialism change economic practice in African countries?
- How has Globalization effected African economies?
After completing this module the students will have:
- A clearer understanding of the diversity of economic practices in Africa.
- An appreciation of the importance of history in forming economic practice.
- A better understanding of Africa’s position in the global economy.
- The ability to think more critically about economic practices and relationships.
Begin this module with Activity One or go to one of the other activities in the module
- Activity One: Wants and Needs
- Activity Two: Food Production
- Activity Three: Case Study: Yoruba
- Activity Four: Economics of Colonialism
- Activity Five: Transportation
- Activity Six: Case Study: Zambia/Northern Rhodesia
- Activity Seven: Case Study: Mali/Sudan
- Activity Eight: Post-Colonial Economies
- Activity Nine: Globalization and Africa Economies
- Activity Ten: Summary
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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Born in 1828 in Stockholm, (see maps) Julius was the oldest child of Carl Abraham and Carolina, and is primarily known as a military historian and Swedish politician. He was educated at the school of St. Klarakyrka where his father was organist and the New Elementary School, where CA was a music teacher. His was interested in music and painting, however he wanted to join the military. In 1847 Julius began his military career in various regiments (Svea, Gothenburg, Värmland) moving up from sergeant to sub-lieutenant, to captain, serving until 1874, when King Oscar II became king. Because his radical views led to conflicts with his military superiors, Julius never advanced higher than the rank of captain.
During his years in the military he also wrote books and essays about military histories in Europe, including Sweden. His views didn’t always put the Swedish military in the best light. According to a translation of the Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon Julius wrote a “history of the skärgård (island archipelago east of Stockholm) fleet, and how to best use the fleet in case of a war with Russia. He argued that the skärgård fleet should be divided from the rest of the Navy. The work was published anonymously and generated a lot of discussion.” By 1866 the naval minister carried out his plan, but under the new King Oscar II, the fleet was reunited in 1873.
According to the Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, Julius
“wrote articles on the structure of the military, arguing for the arming of the citizenry. He also wrote about Sweden’s fortifications, arguing for the fortification of Stockholm and the centralization of the army there. He gave strategic advice during the Polish uprising of 1863 and the Crimean War. During this war he was captured by the Austrians and held for a few days.”
Julius wrote several books on military history including an illustrated book about uniforms, and one book about Finnish military history. He contributed to a book on the military history of Sweden, 1500-1814. He wrote a positive essay about King Karl XII and his military leadership. He wrote critical essays about King Gustavus Adolphus who died in battle during the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648). Because of these essays many people, including King Oscar II, criticized his work.
As to his political activities and views, Julius was active in the workers’ movement and helped develop the New Liberal Society in 1867. Julius was a Stockholm city councilman beginning in 1866, where he tried to put an end to wasteful spending. In 1869 he was elected to the lower house of the Riksdag (Parliament or legislature) where he again attempted to implement his ideas. During the elections of 1869-1871 he supported the Farmers’ Party. He “opposed the reunification of the skärgård fleet with the rest of the Navy, argued for the abolition of property taxes in favor of income tax, fought for the right to vote, and opposed the death penalty.”
Following the elections of 1872, the Swedish political scene moved in a more conservative direction and Julius was not reelected to parliament, though he remained a spokesman for the Farmers’ Party. In 1882 he was elected to the upper house of the Riksdag, but he wasn’t comfortable with their conservative politics, so in 1890 he returned to the lower house. There he “proposed a business program, and was a leader in the fight for voting rights. However, he became isolated within the party.”
Swedish historian Victor Lundberg (Swedish Doctor of Philosophy in History) has researched the political life of Julius Mankell. In 2006 Mr. Lundberg gave a presentation (pdf file) at a conference with the theme: "Political Outsiders in Swedish History." Here is the opening paragraph of his essay "Captain Julius Mankell's Vision: Arming the People in Struggle for Democracy":
The aim of this presentation is twofold. On the one hand, I will introduce you to the Swedish army Captain Julius Mankell (1828-1897) and his life and lifework. On the other hand, I will use him to illuminate a rather hidden and/or forgotten radical tradition in the political history of Sweden. Because in a wide context, Captain Mankell is interesting as spokesman for a fallen ideological alternative in the political formation process of modern Sweden.Victor Lundberg continues his research on the life of Julius Mankell and his politics.
Julius Mankell married twice, first to Maria Albertina Coghen from Poland in 1863. She died in 1878. His second wife was Ebba Charlotta Lindvall who he married in 1880. Two children were born to Julius and Ebba. Julia was born in 1881; Julius Abraham was born in 1887. Julia married Gustaf Knochenhauer. Descendants include Bengt Knochenhauer in Stockholm and the Ek family (some live in Copenhagen).
Military historian and politician Julius Mankell died in Stockholm on 23 February 1897. As noted in the Warren Sheaf, (Warren MN) dated January 28, 1897, Julius resigned as President of the Swedish suffrage society only a few weeks prior. He is buried at Stockholm's Norra Begravningsplatsen cemetery in the family plot. This plot also includes his wives Maria and Ebba, his children and members of the Ek and Knockenhauer families. The Willmar Tribune in Kandiyohi County MN (and other newspapers) published a weekly "Scandinavian News" section. Julius death was noted in the March 23, 1897 issue.
Julias [sic] Mankell, for a long series of years the liberal party in Sweden, died in Stockholm at the age of 60 years. "The sacrifices which the warm hearted leader made for a cause of his discouraged people shall never be forgotten, but they will not be properly appreciated until the history of the suffrage movement is written with the pen of the victors. The old, venerable Mankell on account of his sacrifices, was subjected to infinite scorn by his adversaries, but he bore everything manfully and cheerfully, knowing that he was waging a noble war by defending the vital interests of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, and that he staked the best part of himself in the struggle."Other information in the Willmar Tribune regarding Julius included a notice that "a silver wreath from the liberal society of Norway was placed on the coffin of Captain Mankell of Stockholm". (article dated March 30, 1897). An article in the newspaper (dated August 17, 1897) stated that "a monument on the grave of Julius Mankell, the great liberal leader, was dedicated July 16" .
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Strong reasoning
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History
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According to the World Health Organization, approximately 280 million people worldwide live with depression. About two-thirds of those with depression have suicidal ideation, and 25% attempt suicide. Suicide is also one of the leading causes of death in 15–29-year-olds, with nearly 50% of suicides occurring in people with depression. However, conventional antidepressants produce effects only after weeks of daily dosing and do not alleviate all disease symptoms. Furthermore, 30% of patients with depression don’t respond to current antidepressant therapy.
In a study published in the journal Science, the labs led by Dr. WANG Sheng at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Dr Cheng Jianjun at the iHuman Institute, ShanghaiTech University reported for the first time a structure-based strategy to design novel rapid-acting antidepressant compounds, a discovery that could accelerate the discovery of non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogues.
Over the past ten years, many researchers and clinicians have come to believe that psychedelic pharmacology may represent a new era in psychiatric therapeutics. Most clinical studies described during this time have focused on psilocybin, a compound found in the Psilocybe genus of mushrooms, some of which were used for healing and spiritual purposes by the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mesoamerica.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted psilocybin ‘breakthrough therapy’ status for the treatment of major depressive disorder and drug-resistant depression in 2019. The results of a phase II clinical trial showed that psilocybin can greatly improve the symptoms of patients with depression within one day after dosing, and the effect can last for more than three months. However, the hallucinogenic effects of these drugs remain a concern, and scientists have been unsure whether hallucinations are therapeutically important or just a side effect.
Psilocybin is converted in the liver to pharmacologically active psilocin, which then acts on serotonin 2A receptors (5-HT2AR) in the brain. In this study, scientists produced six new crystal structures of 5-HT2AR that bound to compounds including psilocin, lysergic acid diethylamide (i.e., LSD, one of the most potent psychedelics), serotonin, and non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogues. They found that psilocin displayed an unexpected binding mode known as the extended binding pocket (EBP) mode, which is regulated by lipids. They also found that compounds that occupied more EBP than orthosteric binding pocket (OBP, the usual site for receptor binding) were associated with anti-depressive activity in test animals without triggering hallucinations. Thus, scientists designed several new psychedelic analogues they thought would favor EBP binding over OBP binding.
Scientists then repeated the behavioral tests on mice receiving these compounds and found that two compounds, dubbed IHCH-7079 and IHCH-7806, did not trigger head twitch behavior, which has long been seen as indicative of hallucinations. However, the mice displayed standard behavioral measures suggesting the compounds were effective antidepressants.
These findings provide a solid foundation for the structure-based design of safe and effective non-hallucinogenic, rapid-acting antidepressants. It should be pointed out that the compounds reported in this work are not approved drugs, and further preclinical and clinical studies are needed to verify their safety and antidepressant effects in humans.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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Laboratory Activity: Teacher Notes
Activity 2: Percent Composition of Magnesium Oxide
Major Chemical Concept
The activity illustrates the importance and usefulness of the Law of Definite Composition, emphasizes the mole concept, and involves calculations of empirical formulas.
Initial emphasis is on calculating percent composition; this is relatively easy for students to understand and calculations are straightforward. The determination of empirical formula and illustration of the utility of the mole concept are both clearer when pooled data for the entire class are used. Students calculate moles Mg and moles O from their experimental data. A plot of moles of Mg vs. moles of O for class data gives a graph with the expected slope of about 1.
General and honors. Also possibly basic, with enough teacher guidance.
Expected Student Background
Students should be able to calculate simple percent values and deal with molar mass. They should be familiar with standard laboratory procedures. Additional background is optional, such as applications of oxidation-reduction concepts to this laboratory activity.
This activity can be completed in one period if the pre-laboratory briefing is provided in a previous class period. If time becomes a concern, you can do the final weighing for students or save the final weighing until the next day, particularly if you have a drying oven to keep crucibles dry.
Read the Safety Considerations in the Student Version.
Materials (For 24 students working in pairs)
- Balance (to nearest 0.001 g if possible)
- 12 Burners
- 12 Clay triangles
- 12 Crucibles and lids
- 12 Crucible tongs
- 12 Graduated cylinders, 10-25 mL
- 12 Ringstands
- 12 Rings 12 Strikers (or other means to ignite the gas)
- 12 Wire gauze
- Distilled water, optional
- Magnesium ribbon, Mg, 2.4 to 4.8 g
- All equipment should be readily available to students. Having needed equipment in plain view at laboratory stations saves considerable student work time. In general, check equipment ahead of time.
- Remove the oxide coating from the Mg ribbon by slightly sanding. Cut it in lengths with masses between 0.200 g and 0.400 g before the activity begins.
- Check the balances to insure they work properly.
- If distilled water is used, consider providing it in water bottles at each station.
- You may wish to pose some problems (e.g., percent composition, mole problems, etc.) for students to solve during the time samples are cooling.
- Demonstrate any procedural skills students have not seen before, such as proper handling of crucibles with tongs and the lighting of a burner. It is important to show the set up so students will be able to quickly assemble it themselves.
- Give students thorough instructions regarding safety. Warn students that cool and hot porcelain look the same; encourage caution when handling the crucibles. Holding a piece of wire gauze under the crucible when moving it from place to place will save some crucibles from rapid increases in entropy.
- Explain that under the conditions of this activity magnesium reacts with nitrogen gas in air as well as with oxygen gas. The contents should be as free as possible of magnesium nitride, Mg3N2 . This is accomplished by adding water to convert magnesium nitride into ammonia and magnesium oxide. A faint odor of ammonia, NH3 , may be detected by some students:
- Students should be asked about procedure details such as opening the lid [to allow more air in]. They should also be asked why it is necessary to heat the Mg ribbon strongly until the clay triangle and possibly the crucible itself glow red hot [to insure complete reaction and to dry the MgO after addition of water] .
- Insure that students understand how the collected data relate to the calculations they will perform.
- You may decide to supply problems for students to solve or provide some other activity to keep students busy during the time samples are cooling. If so, explain the nature of the assignment during the pre-laboratory orientation.
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Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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A technical session at the 2017 IEEE EMC+SIPI Symposium made it clear that EMI engineers will be constantly fixing interference problems as...
I hereby declare that IoT stands for “Interference of Things.” Anything else you may have heard is just marketing hype.
While a relatively few connected gadgets will use wireline communications, the bulk of these devices—ranging in applications from farming to medical to toasters to pets— will connect wirelessly over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular. Some will be designed to limit EMI emissions to the proper channels and reject out-of-band power, but many won’t. That became abundantly clear at a technical session held August 9 at the EMC for IoT session of the IEEE EMC+SIPI Symposium.
At four-hour session, attendees learned that many connected devices won’t be designed well enough to withstand outside EMI. Price, power, and size pressures will cause some companies to sell products that work just well enough to pass minimum requirements, if that. Problems will occur from the devices’ intentional radiators. In some cases, “dirty” transmitters will emit excessive out-of-band energy. Conversely, some receivers will contain little or no filtering to reject out-of-band energy.
The European Radio Equipment directive states:
Equipment which intentionally emits or receives radio waves for the purpose of radio communication or radiodetermination makes systematic use of radio spectrum. In order to ensure an efficient use of radio spectrum so as to avoid harmful interference, all such equipment should fall within the scope of this Directive.
Note the phrase “avoid harmful interference.” Many products will undergo EMI immunity tests at certified labs to ensure that they comply with the Directive and applicable standards. Other connected devices will undergo self-certification, some of those products would likely fail compliance tests due to excessive adjacent channel power from their transmitters (Figure 1) of insufficient receiver selectivity, or both.
Figure 1. Some power from this CDMA signal spills over into adjacent channels.
The CDMA signal in Figure 2 has adjacent channel power that’s below the noise floor with the exception of two low-level peaks.
Figure 2. A clean CDMA signal fits within its 5 MHz channel.
Remember that Wi-Fi uses the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band, which covers 2500 MHz to 2690 MHz. The aeronautical radio navigation and radio location band starts at 2700 MHz, leaving 100 MHz as a band gap. Some power from cheap wireless devices could spill over across the gap. In his presentation “Vulnerability of Wireless Systems to (Intentional) EMI, Dr. Frank Leferink of the University of Twente Enschede and Thales Netherlands explained the penalty for ensuring that devices and systems won’t interfere with each other is power, size, and price. “Engineers want to eliminate filters,” said Leferink. “Some software defined radio (SDR) designers use no filters at all, thinking that can eliminate EMI problems in software alone.”
“Superheterodyne receivers work best,” he continued, “but they cost money and use power to many devices use heterodyne receivers instead. They are inexpensive and use less power.” Because heterodyne receivers are more sensitive, they are more likely to succumb to interference from Jammers than superheterodyne receivers. Although jammers, according to Leferink, are illegal to use outside of the military, you can buy them for $500 in Shenzhen. He envisioned burglars using jammers to interfere with home and automotive security systems, giving the intruder access to premises or to steal a car.
In another technical session, Bill Young of NIST cited an issue where devices equipped with 4G/LTE communications spilled power into the adjacent GPS band, interfering with a GPS receiver’s ability to “fix” onto satellites. Young’s presentation, Shared Spectrum Metrology: Measuring the Impacts of Adjacent-band LTE Waveforms on GPS Receivers, focused on an automated test method that let NIST engineers gather enough data for regulators to use in deciding how to handle the issue.
As connected wireless devices become more popular, it’s clear that the interference they cause and fail to reject will keep EMI engineers employed for many more years.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Meaning – the Holy Grail of Learning
“Simply put, there is no memory without meaning.”
– JW Wilson, Advanced Learning Institute
In this Element we will focus on one of the main tenets of the Learning Code: There is no learning without meaning. Here we will see through the eyes of science what we have intuitively known: We remember what is meaningful to us and forget almost everything else. Personal meaning is the criterion by which virtually all information is selected into our long-term memory banks. From the viewpoint of biology, genetics, and neuroscience, meaning and learning are joined at the hip. Personal meaning is the holy grail of learning and memory because it is the primary key to unlocking the Learning Code. (see “We Learn Through Selection Not Instruction“).
Read on to learn more about why meaning is the holy grail of learning and why the Meaning Network must be stimulated
Looking at learning through the lens of science brings with it a fortunate dividend. We are able to answer the question that has been asked for centuries: Where does meaning comes from? In the other Elements that refer to meaning, the reader will also discover that the brain has a “Meaning Network,” a group of neurological structures that must be stimulated before new information can be selected into our long-term memory. If these structures are not stimulated by incoming information, we remember very little. And in the Elements Addicted to Meaning, The Motivational Problem, and Breeding Out Personal Meaning by Extrinsic Motivation, we find that authoritarian learning systems, which rely primarily on reward and punishment to impose learning, create a neurological climate that not only inhibits learning but may breed out our ability to create personal meaning in our lives. What we hope to convey in these Elements is a deep understanding from the scientific perspective of how wasteful it is to deliver information without first touching what is personally meaningful to the learner.
Man’s Search for Meaning
From the minute we exit the womb until the day we take our last breath, our very existence is driven by making meaning out of the matter and energy our world presents to us. Each human on earth is continually striving each second of every day to stimulate the large preexisting networks that hold what is personally meaningful to us, which, in turn, prompts the production of neurochemicals that allow us to have focus, fulfillment, and pleasure in life. When we are not able to pursue what is personally meaningful, a neurological climate is produced that makes our lives boring, unfulfilled, and joyless.
The individual given credit for focusing the eye of research on the value of personal meaning is one of the 20th century’s most influential psychiatrists, Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, an Austrian who was a prisoner in a concentration camp during World War II. In the 1950s, Frankl’s profound book, Man’s Search for Meaning, was first published in America. In this small book, which is considered by many to be one of the most powerful books ever written, Frankl used his personal experiences and research to show that, not only are our behaviors driven by the search for meaning in life, but that the very survival of the individual is dependent on personal meaning being maintained. Frankl discovered that those prisoners who were unable to find meaning in these desperate camps were the ones who did not survive, while those who did find meaning in their dismal surroundings lived to tell their stories. In contrast to the behaviorist psychological view, which was becoming dominant at the time, Frankl maintained humans’ main drive in life “is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain, but rather to see meaning in … life.”
Frankl’s work allowed experts in many diverse fields to begin to recognize that the primary motivational force in human existence was not whether one got a carrot or stick from an authority figure but instead was driven by what one found intrinsically meaningful. Philosopher Susan Langer found a basic and pervasive human need is “to invent meanings and invest meaning into one’s world” and “to search for and find significance everywhere, to transform experience constantly to uncover new meanings in everything.” The well-known physicist David Bohm looked at the topic through the eyes of quantum physics and concluded meaning is the essence of life and the primary factor by which all energy and matter are organized.
Margaret Wheatley, who uses research into complexity and chaos theories to develop and analyze effective management techniques, writes in Leadership and the New Sciences, “Meaning … serves as a point of reference. As long as we keep purpose in focus in both our organizational and private lives, we are able to wander through the realms of chaos, make decisions about what actions will be consistent with our purpose, and emerge with a discernible pattern or shape to our lives.” Two brain-based researchers who have looked long and hard at the value of meaning in education, Renate and Geoffrey Caine, write, “If we want students to use their minds more fully, we have to teach for meaningfulness.” The experts echo a central tenet of Piaget’s work, that is, human beings are continually engaged in making meaning from stimuli presented to them in their environments. In the end, without meaning, our brain has no focal point around which to organize its structure or functions.
In the book Cracking the Learning Code and in future newsletters you will discover:
How, if the brain selected all the billions of bits of audio, visual, tactile, taste, and smell information presented to it each second, your head would be as big as a blimp.
How, in order for your head not to be as big as a blimp, the brain must have a filter by which it selects only the most valuable bits of information. That filter is personal meaning.
How the brain tissues that represents what is personally meaningful to you are continually searching our world asking, “What’s in it for me?”(WIIFM).
The answer to the questions “Where does personal meaning come from?”
Why, in the process of creating efficient long-term memory, mnemonic tricks, such as peg systems, acronyms, and mental imaging, cannot hold a candle to the brilliant power of personal meaning.
Why all biological systems, from antibodies to the brain, must learn by selecting new information based on meaningful knowledge that already exists within the system.
Why your Meaning Network acts like a magnet, becoming larger and more effective as it snags more and more bits of information that harmonize with what already exists in its structures.
How meaningful information activates the neurochemical cascade that leads to effective long-term memory formation (see “What Is Learning“).
Why learning new meaningful information is the neurochemical pathway to joy and fulfillment in your life.
Why learning meaningful information can immediately place us in the “flow state” of optimized learning and accomplishment.
Why the search for personal meaning is source of intrinsic motivation.
How activating your networks that code for meaning causes your brain to physically grow new connections.
Why school and work become boring, unfulfilling, and stressful if they do not activate your Meaning Network.
How using personal meaning to create “hot” networks in your brain can accelerate the efficiency of learning up to 400 percent.
How metaphors make networks hot and create personal meaning where no personal meaning previously existed.
How to use the disarmingly simple “wrapping” technique to take advantage of these hot networks, thus speeding up memory formation, improving reading proficiency, and even overcoming learning problems such as dyslexia.
How one study of memory found that the intensity of meaning that the passage had for a student was an astounding 3,000 percent more important than how readable it was.
Why schools waste much of the 13,000 hours spent in classrooms because they miss the “meaning mark.”
How, by ignoring the personal world of the learner, corporate and scholastic educators actually inhibit the effective functioning of the brain.
How individuals who were coerced into following paths that lacked meaning for them suffered disastrous consequences.
How to stimulate the structures of your Meaning Network, so that your life becomes more successful, joyful, and fulfilling.
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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Burnet pioneers technique of growing influenza in chick eggs, still used today to make flu vaccines.
In countless laboratories around the world today, scientists are working with chicken eggs to research flu viruses using a technique pioneered by Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet almost 70 years ago.
The technique, Burnet’s first major contribution to the field of virology, paved the way to mass-produce vaccine.
Burnet's technique, improved but fundamentally the same, has allowed easier, cheaper and higher volume production of flu virus vaccine globally and remains the gold standard for this.
Burnet first attempts to grow animal viruses in fertile hen’s eggs at the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead, London, where he is on leave from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute on a two-year fellowship in 1932-3.
He uses a method developed by American scientist Ernest Goodpasture who had grown fowl pox and other viruses on the chorioallantoic (CAM) membrane of chick embryos. Burnet’s wife Linda has a favourite story of how Burnet borrowed an egg from her larder and a nail file one day to have a go at exposing the membrane – before enlisting the help of a dentist with a dental drill.
Improving infection growth
Once back at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in 1934, Burnet improved on the CAM method, ‘dropping’ the membrane to create an air space between it and the shell. The exposed membrane could then be inoculated with virus and the opening of the shell covered. The viruses produce a small white pock or clone of infected cells. Pocks could then be counted or ‘titrated’, allowing a valuable new way of measuring virus activity. It was cheap, robust and required little attention.
Burnet, who takes great pride in his expert handling of eggs, writes a monograph on the technique, published by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain in 1936. The Journal of the American Medical Association the following year accurately predicts that the method could have ‘great future importance’ in research work and, practically, in prevention and treatment.
Great future importance
At the time, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute has the only virus research unit in Australia and a headstart on laboratories overseas in using the technique. To Burnet, “The world was our oyster.”
By 1940, Burnet can claim that the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have cultured more than 10 viruses for the first time (allowing for two viruses that had their preliminary tests at Hampstead) . These include several viruses that attacked animals, including myxomatosis, three strains of influenza and herpes simplex.
Drawing on the discovery by George Hirst in America in 1941 that the flu virus agglutinated – or clumped – chicken red blood cells, institute researchers find that large quantities of virus could be grown in, and easily collected from the allantoic fluid surrounding the chick embryo. Growing the virus allantoically later helps antigen studies and research into immunity.
Making flu viruses
Burnet’s technique, improved but fundamentally the same, has allowed easier, cheaper and higher volume production of viruses globally and remains the gold standard for the production of flu viruses.
Around 90 per cent of influenza vaccines are made using egg-based technology.
Melbourne-based biotechnology company CSL manufactures season flu vaccine in Australia. CSL sources more than one million eggs every week.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
The process whereby a person, through commission of Fraud, unlawfully pays less tax than the law mandates.
Tax evasion is a criminal offense under federal and state statutes. A person who is convicted is subject to a prison sentence, a fine, or both. The failure to file a federal tax return is a misdemeanor, but a consistent pattern of failure to file for several years will constitute evidence that these failures were part of a scheme to avoid the payment of taxes. If this pattern is established, the violator may be charged with a felony under section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 63 S. Ct. 364, 87 L. Ed. 418 (1943), ruled that an Overt Act is necessary to give rise to the crime of Income Tax evasion. Therefore, the government must show that the taxpayer attempted to evade the tax rather than passively neglected to file a return, which could be prosecuted under section 7203 as a misdemeanor. A person who has evaded taxes over the course of several years may be charged with multiple counts for each year taxes were allegedly evaded.
According to the Supreme Court in Sansone v. United States, 380 U.S. 343, 85 S. Ct. 1004, 13 L. Ed. 2d 882 (1965), a conviction under section 7201 requires proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt as to each of three elements: the existence of a tax deficiency, willfulness in an attempted evasion of tax, and an affirmative act constituting an evasion or attempted evasion of the tax.
An affirmative act is anything done to mislead the government or conceal funds to avoid payment of an admitted and accurate deficiency. Affirmative behavior can take two forms: the evasion of assessment and the evasion of payment. Affirmative acts of evasion include evading taxes by placing assets in another's name, dealing in cash, and having receipts or debts paid through and in the name of another person. Merely failing to pay assessed tax, without more, does not constitute tax evasion.
The keeping of a double set of books or the making of false invoices or documents can be proof of tax evasion. In some cases the mailing of a false return may constitute the overt act required under section 7201.
Mertens, Jacob, Jr. 1996. Mertens Law of Federal Income Taxation. Rochester, N.Y.: Clark Boardman Callaghan.
n. intentional and fraudulent attempt to escape payment of taxes in whole or in part. If proved to be intentional and not just an error or difference of opinion, tax evasion can be a chargeable Federal crime. Evasion is distinguished from attempts to use interpretation of tax laws and/or imaginative accounting to reduce the amount of payable tax.
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Strong reasoning
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Crime & Law
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What a time, eh? After an absolute whirlwind of a launch, Raspberry Pi Picos are starting to land through people's letterboxes and a lot of folks who've not had much to do with microcontrollers before are looking for a place to start figuring out what to do with them. Welcome! Now is the perfect time to get onboard the microcontroller train - you're going to love it.
In this guide, we're going to give a brief, beginner friendly primer on the Pico and show you the steps necessary to get it set up and ready for programming with MicroPython. We'll also cover what you need to do to be able to play with various Pimoroni add-on boards. We'll have more specific content for individual boards in the future, but hopefully this guide will be just enough to get you started experimenting with your Pico.
We're not going to go into huge detail about everything the Pico can do here - for a comprehensive, beginner friendly guide with lots of fun experiments to do with physical hardware we'd recommend the excellent Getting Started with MicroPython on the Raspberry Pi Pico book. If you're after technical detail we'd suggest checking out the resources on the Raspberry Pi site, including the extensive Pico datasheet. If you know how to program a microcontroller already you can find function references for our boards and suchlike in our Pico Github repo.
Raspberry Pi Pico is Raspberry Pi's first microcontroller board, designed around their very own microcontroller chip - the RP2040. A Pico is not a replacement or upgrade for a Raspberry Pi - they're very different beasts! A Raspberry Pi is a Single Board Computer that runs Linux, to which you can connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse and interact with via a terminal prompt or a graphical user interface such as the Raspberry Pi OS desktop. You can run many different Linux applications on a Raspberry Pi and it has a ton of processing power and RAM.
While Raspberry Pis are champion multi-taskers, microcontrollers shine in projects where they have one job and need to do it well. Because they're programmed from another computer and don't need to run a full OS, they have greatly reduced power consumption compared to SBCs and are ideal for powering from batteries. Programs on microcontrollers just start running once they're powered up, so there's no boot up time, and you usually don't need to shut them down safely. Focusing on just one thing means that microcontrollers are typically more stable and predictable, making them perfect for using as the brains of projects that need to Just Work, like industrial machines, coffee makers or emergency zombie defence turrets.
Interfacing with hardware is also more straightforward with microcontrollers, and Raspberry Pi Pico is specifically geared towards physical computing (AKA connecting it to interesting stuff that lights up, moves or makes noise). Unlike a Pi, Pico has inbuilt Analog to Digital Convertors (ADCs) so you can connect it to a wider range of sensors and inputs. It also has Programmable IOs (PIOs) which are used behind the scenes in our libraries, outsourcing simple bits of programs to run in the background and freeing up the majority of the Pico's CPU to concentrate on the trickier parts. If you're interested in the possibilities of PIOs check out our Unicorn Pack page, where we describe how we managed to get 14 bits of resolution from the LED drivers on the Pico version (meaning improved rainbows!)
A USB cable - you'll need a microB USB cable to plug your Pico into your computer to be able to program it. You may well have one already, from an old phone, a Pi Zero or a micro:bit but you'll need it to be capable of transmitting data over USB as well as power. All the cables we sell are data-capable.
Header pins - to be able to plug your Pico into our Packs and Bases (or a breadboard) it will need to be equipped with header pins. We'll cover how to solder them to your Pico later in this guide. You'll also need soldering supplies - a soldering iron, solder and tip cleaner. A breadboard is handy for keeping your pins in place while you solder.
A computer to program your Pico from (the software you'll need, Thonny, is free and available for Raspberry Pi, PC, Mac or Linux).
One (or more!) of our Pico addons - you can browse them all here.
You can program Pico with MicroPython (a version of Python especially for microcontrollers) or the C/C++ SDK (you might be familiar with C/C++ if you've had anything to do with Arduinos) - we have code examples and libraries for both! It's also possible to use CircuitPython (Adafruit's version of MicroPython) on the Pico but Pimoroni boards may not currently be easily compatible if you go down this route.
This guide is going to use MicroPython as it's super simple to get going with our custom firmware, and you can use Thonny to program your Pico from a PC, Mac or even a Raspberry Pi.
If you're planning on using one of our Pico addons, you'll need our custom build of MicroPython which comes with our libraries baked in. You can find it in our Pico Github repository, on the releases page - make sure to download the most recent version of the .uf2 file.
To be able to copy this file on to your Pico, you'll need to put it into bootloader mode. To do this, hold down the BOOTSEL button whilst plugging the USB cable into your computer - it should now show up as a drive called RPI-RP2. Here's what it looks like in Windows:
Copy the downloaded .uf2 file across to this new drive. Your Pico will now reboot, and after a few seconds it will be running pirate-brand MicroPython (you probably won't notice any difference, but it's actually singing sea shanties very quietly to itself).
Thonny is a Python IDE (an Integrated Development Environment). It's the software you'll install on your computer to program your Pico.
If you're programming your Pico from a Raspberry Pi running the desktop version of Raspberry Pi OS, Thonny should be installed already. You may need to update it to the most recent version to get the Pico specific options, you can do this by opening up a terminal (find it in the menus, or hit Ctrl-Alt-T) and typing
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
and pressing enter.
You can download Thonny in Windows, Mac or Linux flavours here. Once it's installed, open it up!
You'll need to select 'MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico)' as your interpreter - you can do that by clicking on the box at the bottom right. Thonny might offer to install MicroPython for you, you don't need to do this as you should already have our variant of MicroPython installed.
With your Pico connected to your computer with the USB cable (no need to hold down the button this time, you don't want to be in bootloader mode), click on the bottom 'Shell' box, so you get a flashing cursor. By typing instructions into this box you can give commands to your Pico directly, one command at a time (this is called REPL, or Read-Eval-Print Loop).
and pressing enter. See how it parrots
hello world right back at you? Your Pico is talking back to you via the serial console and it can tell you all sorts of useful things - error messages and anything you
Of course, you will probably want to queue up more than one line of instructions to make up a program- that's what the top box is for. Here's a basic program you can try to test out your Pico is working properly, before soldering anything to it. You can either copy and paste it into Thonny or type it in. If you're typing it in, make sure the bottom two lines have four spaces in front of them to indent them (indents are used here to denote when code is part of a loop).
import machine import utime led = machine.Pin(25, machine.Pin.OUT) while True: led.toggle() utime.sleep(2)
Once you're ready to transfer the program to your Pico, press the green 'run current script' button in the top toolbar. You'll be prompted to give it a name - you can use any name you like, but if you save the file to your Pico as
main.py it will run automatically when the Pico is connected to power, you won't need to start it in Thonny. This is useful if you want to make a battery powered project that won't be connected to a PC!
Note that when using MicroPython you won't be able to copy code that you've written to your Pico by holding the button down to put it into bootloader mode and copying the file across - you'll always need to transfer it using Thonny.
To plug in our addon boards or to plug your Pico into a breadboard, your Pico will need to have headers soldered to it, with the pins sticking out of the back. Soldering headers is not hard with modern PCBs and we'd encourage you to give it a go (but if you'd rather skip the soldering, we should have pre-soldered Picos available very shortly).
Your headers might come pre-separated into two 20 pin lengths, or in one long length. If it's the latter, you can separate them in to two lengths with side cutters (it's also possible to break them apart with sturdy scissors, or even your thumbnail).
You'll need to solder your headers so that the pins are sticking out of the back of the Pico, with the long pins sticking out of the side with the labels and the soldering itself on the side with the button. The pins should be at right angles to the Pico so that they can plug into things nicely. Using a breadboard to hold the pins in place while you solder is a good way of making sure things remain square while soldering, but you can also use a large blob of blu-tack or similar to hold things together (or even a helping hand, if you're fancy).
Poke the long ends of your two lengths of header into your breadboard, the same width apart as the two rows of holes on your Pico.
Place your Pico on top of the short ends with the button and the raspberry facing upwards.
Make sure your workspace has adequate ventilation and consider wearing eye protection as solder can sometimes behave unexpectedly. Once you're ready to start soldering, make sure to tin the end of your iron - wait until it's up to temperature, melt a little bit of solder onto the tip and then clean off the excess using your tip cleaner. You're ready to go!
You'll want to position your soldering iron so it's applying heat evenly to the header pin and the pad on the board, and then hold it in place for a few seconds. You can then feed a little bit of solder into the place where the pad, the iron and the header pin meet - don't go overboard with the solder, you only need a tiny bit and you can always add more later. The solder should flow satisfyingly down the iron and form a joint between the pad and the pin.
We'd suggest soldering one pin at each end, and then checking again to make sure the headers are square. You can adjust them at this point if you need to, but you won't be able to later. Once you're satisfied that everything is 90°, go ahead and solder the rest of the pins.
When you're done, check your solder joints from all angles. A good joint should surround the pin on all sides, and ideally should be shaped like a squat little cone. If you have joints that don't quite surround the pin, heat up the solder again to reflow it, and hopefully it will fill the gaps. If it doesn't, you can add a bit more solder (but try reflowing the solder on its own first). You'll also want to check for solder joints that touch and bridge two pins - if you have any of these you can fix them by holding your iron to the middle of the unwanted join for a second or two, which should make the two blobs separate.
When removing your Pico from the breadboard we'd suggest holding on to the long edges and rocking it gently from side to side whilst pulling upwards slowly - try to avoid putting too much pressure on the pins at the ends as these are most liable to bend. If they do get bent you can bend them back, but doing this too many times can cause metal fatigue.
Once your Pico has headers attached, it's fully equipped for plugging into one of our Packs or Bases. All our Pico addons have markings that should make it obvious which way round you need to plug it in - here is a upside down Display Pack, ready for plugging in to a Pico (the surfaces shown in the photo below will be on the inside of the Pico+Pack sandwich).
Double check you've got the male and female headers lined up, and push on the edges of the board to join them together (if you're using a Display Pack, take care not to apply pressure to the screen).
Pico landing areas on Bases are similarly marked, just match up the markings on the PCB to figure out which way round the Pico should go.
If you need to remove your Pico from a base or pack, hold on to the long edges of the boards and wiggle them gently from side to side whilst slowly pulling the boards away from each other. The headers can grip on quite securely so it's best to hold onto the edges of the PCBs while you're separating them, don't pull on the Pico's USB port or any of the components on your Pack or Base.
Once everything's assembled we'd suggest checking out our example code - you can find the MicroPython examples here. Once you've found the .py file for the demo you want to try, you can copy and paste it into Thonny and run it in the same way as you ran the blink example (if you click on the 'Raw' button it will strip out all the Github formatting, making it easier to copy and paste).
We should have more code examples and starter projects coming soon, as more functions get added to MicroPython and as we learn more about what the Pico is capable of!
My Pico doesn't show up as a drive when I connect it to my computer!
Unlike some other microcontroller boards, you'll need to hold down the BOOTSEL button whilst plugging it in to your computer for it to show up as a drive. If you're doing that and it's still not showing up, you might be using a power only USB cable - try a different one!
I get an ImportError in Thonny when I try and flash my code!
If you get an error that looks something like
ImportError: no module named 'picodisplay' then you probably have the vanilla Raspberry Pi MicroPython .uf2 installed instead of the Pimoroni one. Scroll back up to the 'Installing the Custom Firmware' section for instructions on how to download and install the correct firmware.
I get a 'Device is busy' error in Thonny when I try and flash my code!
If you get this error when you press the 'run current script' button to send code to your Pico, press the red 'stop/restart backend' button first to stop it from doing whatever it's doing.
How do I factory reset/delete files from my Pico?
If you need to delete all your programs from your Pico's flash memory and start again from scratch, you can do that by downloading this special .uf2 file and copying it to your Pico whilst it's in bootloader mode. We found this useful when we had a malfunctioning main.py which was locking up the Pico to the extent that it could longer communicate with Thonny. You'll need to copy the MicroPython image across again afterwards.
Need something for this project? You can use the links below to add products to your Pimoroni Shop basket for easy checkout.
Raspberry Pi Pico
Board Only £3.60
Raspberry Pi Pico
Pre-soldered Headers £6.00
USB A to microB cable - Black
USB A to microB cable - Black
USB A to microB cable - Black
USB A to microB cable - Black
USB A to microB cable - Black
Pico Header Pack
TS80P USB-C Smart Soldering Iron
Antex Lead Free Solder 2m
Soldering Tip Cleaner
Breadboard (400 point)
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Moderate reasoning
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Hardware
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Ticks are disgusting, but don’t take my word for it. Aristotle, Cato, and Pliny all referred to ticks as “disgusting parasites”. Unfortunately, they pose a greater risk than making you feel like you have things crawling on you. They are a public health risk because they can transmit several diseases, including Lyme disease.
With this in mind, I always conduct a careful tick check from head to toe after spending time outdoors. After finding two ticks, one adult and one, well, not an adult, I knew it was worth my time. I was eager to get the small one under a microscope to see if I had found a larva, as they are not capable to passing along any diseases. Alas, it was a nymph, meaning that it had already taken a blood meal and was a possible disease carrier. You can understand my confusion, as it is half the size indicated on the New York State Tick ID Card!
Daily tick checks are the best way to protect you and loved ones from ticks and the diseases they carry. The TickEncounter Resource Center has a nifty application that shows which ticks will most likely be found on different parts of your body. The tick species, sex, and age matter! Another handy app is TickClick, a comprehensive, educational application designed to help you identify ticks, have a safe plan of action should you be bitten by a tick, assess disease risk if bitten, and prevent tick bites altogether.
By the way, don’t depend on swimming or showering to remove ticks. They can survive being submerged. Ticks can even survive a trip through the washing machine. (A hot dryer, however, will do them in after 15 minutes. It is best to throw clothes in the dryer prior to washing.)
If you find one embedded in your skin, tweezers are best! Use fine-pointed tweezers to grab the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull straight up until the tick releases. Grab it too high, or using other methods such as matches, nail polish, or petroleum jelly, could irritate it, causing it to regurgitate its disease ridden stomach contents directly into your blood stream. Need a video?
Awareness and a little precaution can help you steer clear of tick-borne illness and the discomfort of being bitten by ticks. See our Understanding and Managing Ticks – A Guide for Schools, Child Care and Camps fact sheet for more information on ticks and how to manage them.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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( Originally Published Early 1900's )
(Land Ways Give Place to Sea Ways)
CHRISTIANITY AND POPULAR EDUCATION
JUDGED by the map, the three centuries from the beginning of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century were an age of recession for Christendom. These centuries were the Age of the Mongolian peoples. Nomadism from Central Asia dominated the known world. At the crest of this period there were rulers of Mongol or the Kindred Turkish race and nomadic tradition in China, India, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, the Balkan peninsula, Hungary, and Russia. The Ottoman Turk had even taken to the sea, and fought the Venetian upon his own Mediterranean waters. In 1529 the Turks besieged Vienna, and were defeated rather by the weather than by the defenders. The Habsburg empire of Charles V paid the Sultan tribute. It was not until the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the battle in which Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, lost his left arm, that Christendom, to use his words, "broke the pride of the Osmans and undeceived the world which had regarded the Turkish fleet as invincible." The sole region of Christian advance was Spain. A man of foresight surveying the world in the early sixteenth century might well have concluded that it was only a matter of a few generations before the whole world be came Mongolian-and probably Moslem. Just as today most people seem to take it for granted that European rule and a sort of liberal Christianity are destined to spread over the whole world. Few people seem to realize how recent a thing is this European ascendancy. It was only as the fifteenth century drew to its close that any indications of the real vitality of Western Europe became clearly apparent.
Our history is now approaching our own times, and our study becomes more and more a study of the existing state of affairs. The European or Europeanized system in which the reader is living, is the same system that we see developing in the crumpled-up, Mongol-threatened Europe of the early fifteenth century. Its problems then were the embryonic form of the problems of to-day. It is impossible to discuss that time without discussing our own time. We become political in spite of ourselves. "Politics without history has no root," said Sir J. R. Seely; "history without politics has no fruit."
Let us try, with as much detachment as we can achieve, to discover what the forces were that were dividing and holding back the energies of Europe during this tremendous out-break of the Mongol peoples, and how we are to explain the accumulation of mental and physical energy that undoubtedly went on during this phase of apparent retrocession, and which broke out so impressively at its close.
Now, just as in the Mesozoic Age, while the great reptiles lorded it over the earth, there were developing in odd out-of-the-way corners those hairy mammals and feathered birds who were finally to supersede that tremendous fauna altogether by another far more versatile and capable, so in the limited territories of Western Europe of the Middle Ages, while the Mongolian monarchies dominated the world from the Danube to the Pacific and from the Arctic seas to Madras and Morocco and the Nile, the fundamental lines of a new and harder and more efficient type of human community were being laid down. This type of community, which is still only in the phase of formation, which is still growing and experimental, we may perhaps speak of as the "modern state." This is, we must recognize, a vague expression, but we shall endeavour to get meaning into it as we proceed. We have noted the appearance of its main root ideas in the Greek republics and especially in. Athens, in the great Roman republic, in Judaism, in Islam, and in the story of Western Catholicism. Essentially this modern state, as we see it growing under our eyes today, is a tentative combination of two apparently contradictory ideas, the idea of a community of faith and obedience, such as the earliest civilizations undoubtedly were, and the idea of a community of will, such as were the primitive political groupings of the Nordic and Hunnish peoples. For thousands of years the settled civilized peoples, who were originally in most cases dark-white Caucasians, or Dravidian or Southern Mongolian peoples, seem to have developed their ideas and habits along the line of worship and personal subjection, and the nomadic peoples theirs along the line of personal self-reliance and self-assertion. Naturally enough under the circumstances the nomadic peoples were always supplying the civilizations with fresh rulers and new aristocracies. That is the rhythm of all early history. It was only after thousands of years of cyclic changes between refreshment by nomadic conquest, civilization, decadence, and fresh conquest that the present process of a mutual blending of "civilized" and "free" tendencies into a new type of community, that now demands our attention and which is the substance of contemporary history, began.
We have traced in this history the slow development of larger and larger "civilized" human communities from the days of the primitive Palaeolithic family tribe. We have seen how the advantages and necessities of cultivation, the fear of tribal gods, the ideas of the priest-king and the god king , played their part in consolidating continually larger and more powerful societies in regions of maximum fertility. We have watched the interplay of priest, who was usually native, and monarch, who was usually a conqueror, in these early civilizations, the development of a written, tradition and its escape from priestly control, and the appearance of novel forces, at first apparently incidental and secondary, which we have called the free intelligence and the free con-science of mankind. We have seen the rulers of the primitive civilizations of the river valleys widening their area and extending their sway, and simultaneously over the less fertile areas of the earth we have seen mere tribal savagery develop into a more and more united and politically competent nomadism. Steadily and divergently mankind pursued one or other of these two lines. For long ages all the civilizations grew and developed along monarchist lines, upon lines of absolute monarchy, and in every monarchy and dynasty we have watched, as if it were a necessary process, efficiency and energy give way to pomp, indolence, and decay, and finally succumb to some fresher lineage from the desert or the steppe. The story of the early cultivating civilizations and their temples and courts and cities bulks large in human history, but it is well to remember that the scene of that story was never more than a very small part of the land surface of the globe. Over the greater part of the earth until quite recently, until the last two thousand years, the hardier, less numerous tribal peoples of forest and parkland and the nomadic peoples of the seasonal grasslands maintained and developed their own ways of life.
The primitive civilizations were, we may say, "communities of obedience" ; obedience to god-kings or kings under gods was their cement; the nomadic tendency on the other hand has always been towards a different type of association which we shall here call a "community of will." In a wandering, fighting community the individual must be at once self reliant and disciplined. The chiefs of such communities must be chiefs who are followed, not masters who compel. This community of will is traceable throughout the entire history of mankind; everywhere we find the original disposition of all the nomads alike, Nordic, Semitic, or Mongolian, was individually more willing and more erect than that of the settled folk. The Nordic peoples came into Italy and Greece under leader kings; they did not bring any systematic temple cults with them, they found such things in the conquered lands and adapted as they adopted them. The Greeks and Latins lapsed very easily again into republics, and so did the Aryans in India. There was a tradition of election also in the early Frankish and German kingdoms though the decision was usually taken between one or other members of a royal caste or family. The early Caliphs were elected, the Judges of Israel and the "kings" of Carthage and Tyre were elected, and so was the Great Khan of the Mongols until Kublai became a Chinese monarch. Equally constant in the settled land do we find the opposite idea, the idea of a non-elective divinity in kings and of their natural and inherent right to rule.As our history has developed we have noted the appearance of new and complicating elements in the story of human societies ; we have seen that nomad turned go-between, the trader, appear, and we have noted the growing importance of shipping in the world. It seems as inevitable that voyaging should make men free in their minds as that settlement within a narrow horizon should make men timid and servile.But in spite of all such complications, the broad antagonism between the method of obedience and the method of will runs through history down into our own times. To this day their reconciliation is incomplete.
Civilization even in its most servile forms has always offered much that is enormously attractive, convenient, and congenial to mankind; but something restless and untamed in our race has striven continually to convert civilization from its original reliance upon unparticipating obedience into a community of participating wills. And to the lurking nomadism in our blood, and particularly in the blood of monarchs and aristocracies, we must ascribe also that incessant urgency towards a wider range that forces every state to extend its boundaries if it can, and to spread its interests to the ends of the earth. The power of nomadic restlessness that tends to bring all the earth under one rule, seems to be identical with the spirit that makes most of us chafe under direction and restraint, and seek to participate in whatever government we tolerate. And this natural, this temperamental struggle of mankind to reconcile civilization with freedom has been kept alive age after age by the military and political impotence of every "community of obedience" that has ever existed. Obedience, once men are broken to it, can be easily captured and transferred; witness the passive rôle of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, the original and typical lands of submission, the "cradles of civilization," as they have passed from one lordship to another. A servile civilization is a standing invitation to predatory free men. But on the other hand a "community of will" necessitates a fusion of intractable materials; it is a far harder community to bring about, and still more difficult to maintain. The story of Alexander the Great displays the community of will of the Macedonian captains gradually dissolving before his demand that they should worship him. The incident of the murder of Clitus is quite typical of the struggle between the free and the servile tradition that went on whenever a new conqueror from the open lands and the open air found himself installed in the palace of an ancient monarchy.
In the case of the Roman Republic, history tells of the first big community of will in the world's history, the first free community much larger than a city, and how it weakened with growth and spent itself upon success until at last it gave way to a monarchy of the ancient type, and decayed swiftly into one of the feeblest communities of servitude that ever collapsed before a handful of invaders. We have given some attention in this book to the factors in that decay, be-cause they are of primary importance in human history. One of the most evident was the want of any wide organization of education to base the ordinary citizens' minds upon the idea of service and obligation to the republic, to keep them willing, that is; another was the absence of any medium of general information to keep their activities in harmony, to enable them to will as one body. The community of will is limited in size by the limitations set upon the possibilities of a community of knowledge. The concentration of property in a few hands and the replacement of free workers by slaves were rendered possible by the decay of public spirit and the confusion of the public intelligence that resulted from these limitations. There was, moreover, no efficient religious idea behind the Roman state; the dark Etruscan liver-peering cult of Rome was as little adapted to the political needs of a great community as the very similar Shamanism of the Mongols. It is in the fact that both Christianity and Islam, in their distinctive ways, did at least promise to supply, for the first time in human experience, this patent gap in the Roman republican system as well as in the nomadic system, to give a common moral education for a mass of people, and to supply them with a common history of the past and a common idea of a human purpose and destiny, that their enormous historical importance lies. Aristotle, as we have noted, had set a limit to the ideal community of a few thousand citizens, because he could not conceive how a larger multitude could be held together by a common idea. He had had no experience of any sort of education beyond the tutorial methods of his time. Greek education was almost purely viva-voce education ; it could reach there-fore only to a limited aristocracy. Both the Christian church and Nam demonstrated the unsoundness of Aristotle's limitation. We may think they did their task of education in their vast fields of opportunity crudely or badly, but the point of interest to us is that they did it at all. Both sustained almost world wide propagandas of idea and inspiration. Both relied successfully upon the power of the written word to link great multitudes of diverse men together in common enterprises. By the eleventh century, as we have seen, the idea of Christendom had been imposed upon all the vast warring miscellany of the smashed and pulverized Western empire, and upon Europe far beyond its limits, as a uniting and inspiring idea. It had made a shallow but effective community of will over an unprecedented area and out of an unprecedented multitude of human beings. Only one other thing at all like this had ever happened to any great section of mankind before, and that was the idea of a community of good behaviour that the literati had spread throughout China.
The Catholic Church provided what the Roman Republic had lacked, a system of popular teaching, a number of universities and methods of intellectual intercommunication. By this achievement it opened the way to the new possibilities of human government that now became apparent in this Outline, possibilities that are still being apprehended and worked out in the world in which we are living, Hitherto the government of states had been either authoritative, under some uncriticized and unchallenged combination of priest and monarch, or it had been a democracy, uneducated and uninformed, degenerating with any considerable increase of size, as Rome and, Athens did, into a mere rule by mob and politician. But by the thirteenth century the first intimations had already dawned of an ideal of government which is still making its way to realization, the modern ideal, the ideal of a world-wide educational government, in which the ordinary man is neither the slave of an absolute monarch nor of a demagogue-ruled state, but an informed, inspired, and consulted part of his community. It is upon the word educational that stress must be laid, and upon the idea that information must precede consultation. It is in the practical realization of this idea that education is a collective function and not a private affair that one essential distinction of the "modern state" from any of its precursors lies. The modern citizen, men are coming to realize, must be in-formed first and then consulted. Before he can vote he must hear the evidence; before he can decide he must know. It is not by setting up polling booths, but by setting up schools and making literature and knowledge and news universally accessible that the way is opened from servitude and confusion to that willingly co-operative state which is the modern ideal. Votes in themselves are worthless things. Men had votes in Italy in the time of the Gracchi. Their votes did not help them. Until a man has education, a vote is a useless and dangerous thing for him to possess. The ideal community towards which we move is not a community of will simply; it is a community of knowledge and will, replacing a community of faith and obedience. Education is the adapter which will make the nomadic spirit of freedom and self-reliance compatible with the cooperations and wealth and security of civilization.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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As a member of the 2014 Parks Canada-led Victoria Strait expedition which discovered Sir John Franklin’s flagship HMS Erebus, I remember thinking now that we have Erebus, HMS Terror, based on historic accounts, would be found crushed and scattered on the seafloor off the west coast of King William Island. So two years, later when Terror was discovered, it came as a surprise to hear that the ship was intact and off the south coast of King William Island, ironically resting at the bottom of Terror Bay.
The fascination with Terror only intensified during the early morning of 28 August when Parks Canada released never-before-seen images and video footage of the ship, summarising the 2019 field season on the ship. This was a season that focused on the 3D structural mapping of Terror and exploring the interior of the wreck using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). The ROV, during seven dives, was able to enter 20 compartments and/or cabins and take clear photographs of over 90 per cent of the lower deck. The footage is stunning, showing, as an example, shelving lined with intact bottles, glasses, bowls and plates from what is believed to be the officer’s pantry and separately the common sailor’s living area, clearly providing a glimpse into the Royal Navy’s social hierarchy during the mid-Victorian era.
That same August afternoon, through a satellite link, we were able to speak with Ryan Harris who was aboard the Parks Canada’s research vessel RV David Thompson at the Terror site. Harris is a Parks Canada underwater archaeologist and the project director for Erebus and Terror.
He began by talking about what tantalising discoveries could be found in Captain Francis Crozier’s desk that would shed further light on what happened to Franklin’s expedition. ‘When we look at Crozier’s desk, we see that all the drawers are closed and there’s a drift of protective sedimentation over the desk,’ he said. ‘That all suggests a very high level of preservation for the contents of those drawers. We can speculate on the sort of things that we might find inside and the potential for written materials to survive with water temperatures hovering around zero degrees Celsius and the general state of darkness due to the ice cover for much of the year this tends to slow down the aerobic processes of degradation.’ Harris’ hope is that with the sediment covering and the closed drawers, there is a sufficient anaerobic environment that delicate materials such as textiles and paper might survive.
‘Written materials on the ship could shed all kinds of light on what transpired,’ he continued, ‘with a chronology of events of the late stages of the expedition, perhaps shedding light on where the two ships parted company and how they got to their final locations from the point where they were abandoned northwest of King William Island in 1848.’
Unlike the research seasons of 2016 and 2017 – when water clarity was poor – and last year when ice interfered with the expedition, this year’s dive conditions and remarkable water quality permitted Parks Canada underwater archaeologists to make 48 dives down to Terror and clearly observe the ship’s hull.
For the first time divers were able to observe that the ship’s propeller was in its operating position, a significant find as it suggests, along with other clues, that Terror was likely re-manned after being initially abandoned in Victoria Strait and was in operating trim when it unexpectedly sank. ‘The wrecking was not particularly violent as it settled almost vertically on the seafloor,’ said Ryan.
With plans to bring Parks Canada’s dive support barrage to the Terror site next year, we may only be one research season away from recovering documentation that finally fills in the details of Franklin’s ill-fated expedition and one of the world’s most enduring polar expedition mysteries.
Joseph Frey, a member of the 2014 Victoria Strait expedition, is a governor of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and is a former director and vice-president of The Explorers Club, New York City. He has since participated in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Battle of the Atlantic expedition mapping German submarine U-576, as well as with the US National Park Service’s search for the Spanish pirate-slave ship Guerrero.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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You should read this book if you…
Want to raise children who are great in God’s eyes and not merely successful by the world’s standards.
“In a nut shell”…
Kimmel is writing to parents who believe in God and the truths found in the Bible and challenging them to raise children to have a life defined by true greatness: attitudes of humility and gratefulness, and actions of generosity and a servant attitude.
- If we are aiming to raise successful children, we are aiming too low – we should aim for true greatness and to do this, we must teach children to be servants.
- The pursuit of success as defined by the world (fame, power, wealth, beauty) will never allow our children to have the significant impact that God intends for them.
- Grace is the basis of true greatness and we need to model this for our children
- As parents we need to prepare our kids for true greatness by helping them answer three critical questions:
- Who will be their master? (Who will I live for?
- Who will they spend their lives with? (Who is my mate going to be?)
- What will be their mission in life? (What am I going to do with my life?)
- 5 qualities of a great mission
- Be other oriented – clear focus o needs of others – make them feel loved and valued
- Trustworthiness – maintain high standard of values, regardless of what everyone else is doing
- Tenacity – don’t give up
- Courage – follow through even if you are scared
- Compassion – seeing people’s needs and doing everything you can to help them out
- Model for my children what authentic faith in God and true concern for others looks like.
- Teach them to give back to life much more than they take.
- Help your children to think abundantly – all good things in life are unlimited – this causes kids to focus outward and towards helping others to live for greatness
- When answering the first question, keep in mind that everyone lives for someone or something, so it is our choice if we are going to let God be in charge of our life or let the world system be in charge
- For the second question, keep in mind that the best thing you can do to help them choose the best mate for them is to surround their childhood with grace and help them to develop into the kind of person they would want to marry.
- For the third question, we need to encourage our kids to know how to make a great life, not just how to make a good salary.
- “Isn’t it ironic that as a nation we worship those who are successful, but when tragedy strikes, our survival depends on those that are great.” Pg 12
- “If you aim your children at anything less than greatness, you’ll set them up to miss the whole point of their lives. But, if you instill in them this higher calling (greatness)…you’ll do something that will guarantee that their reason for existing will outlive you.” Pg 14
- “When we don’t need all that the earth has to offer, it becomes far more pleasing to live here”. Pg 57
- “God has not called us to raise safe kids; He has called us to raise strong ones.” Pg 72
- “God wants our children’s lives to be an utterly amazing story – sustained with a secure love, driven by a significant purpose, and supported by a strong hope.” Pg 117
- “The key to making this decision (who to marry) well is not so much in finding the right person who can complete us, but in becoming the kind of person who automatically makes the one we marry much more valuable.” Pg 137
- “Character glows in the dark. It is not hard to notice it” Pg 181
Statistics and Interesting Facts…
This book has a “Ten Ways…” list at the end of each chapter that I love! They give practical tips in several areas. One area is, Ten Ways to Be a Great Member of the Family:
- Everybody helps everybody…always, in whatever ways are needed
- Be upbeat, positive, and encouraging
- Remember, “please” and “thank you” are not just good manners; they’re the calling cards of a grateful heart
- Have a lot of fun, just not at the expense of anyone else
- Each week, do your best to eat as many meals as possible together as a family. You’ll cut the chance of your kids using tobacco and drugs in half and double the chances they’ll bring home A’s on their report cards!
- Respect one another’s space and stuff. Ask, and it most likely will be given unto you
- Guard family traditions, and do your best to celebrate all birthdays, holidays, and major milestones
- Guard the morals and integrity of everyone around you. Be sensitive about how you communicate, what you view, and whom you bring into the family circle
- Be quick to rally around a family member who is down, whether it’s a result of sickness, injury, failure, rejection, or discouragement
- Assume that the Lord Jesus is an ex officio participant in every detail of your family. Make sure He always feels at home and comfortable with what’s going on
How this has changed my parenting…
It has readjusted my focus. We live in such a competitive society, and we feel/expect our kids to do well and be successful. This has helped to take my focus off comparison and helped me define what I want more than anything for my children—for them to be great in God’s eyes!
Book Title | Raising Kids for True Greatness
Author | Tim Kimmel
Year of Publication | 2006
Publisher | W Publishing Group
Pages | 220
Author’s Website | www.familymatters.net
© Copyright 2017, BookBridges, International, All Rights Reserved.
Please use the BookBridges, but do not copy or reproduce them for your personal benefit without acknowledgment of source.
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Strong reasoning
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Religion
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Points, lines, angles, curves, two- and three-dimensional shapes, volumes and proportions form the basics of home design as well as geometry. The living space of homes contains a wealth of three-dimensional geometry, including square and rectangular cubes, pyramids, cylinders and spheres as well as two-dimensional shapes, such as windows. Many architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, first explored geometric ideas and building design while playing with building blocks as children.
Video of the Day
Building Block Geometry
Children frequently design houses out of blocks, creating structures ranging from simple single-story homes to elaborate multistory constructions. The dean of American architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, said that his kindergarten experiences with wooden blocks taught him about how to combine geometric components to create buildings. Wright commented that he could still "feel" the blocks in his fingers and that "form became feeling," thus implying that the activity gave him a nearly innate understanding of the interplay of shapes and volumes. Wright became famous for his residential and commercial designs.
When architects design a home, one of their first geometric considerations is how to angle buildings on their sites. The direction of sunlight at various times of day and the shape of a lot affect choices, such as turning the house diagonally on the site to create a more interesting look. The slopes of the site, whether flat or angled in various parts, affect choices such as whether to build a garden-level, walk-out or below-grade basement.
Shapes and Volumes
Rooms and hallways in houses are like cubes of varying sizes and lengths that overlap, intersect, connect or stack on top of each other. The ceilings of some rooms may be low and flat whereas others, such as in attics, may slope toward outside walls lending themselves to dormers that can be thought of as smaller blocks poking out of the roof.
Uncomplicated roofs of small houses may look like triangular prisms. Larger houses may have a number of intersecting roof lines -- a collage of peaks at varying slopes and turned in different directions. Sometimes there is no peak, because the roof is a mansard that can be likened to a rectangular block with angled sides.
When all these different shapes and angles work well together, people sometimes jokingly say, "Nice pile!" as if the house were a harmonious grouping of toy blocks.
CAD and Computer Rendering
Most houses are now designed on computers. Although architects need to understand geometry, they don't manipulate formulas that computers can calculate more rapidly.
Computer-aided design (CAD) and rendering programs are based on geometric principles. They allow architects to create flat images of buildings as well as perspective drawings that provide a three-dimensional look. Designers use CAD for flat depictions of facades and floor plans. It offers ways to set proportions and manipulate a variety of geometric shapes, including lines, circles, curves, squares, rectangles, triangles and irregular polygons. It also performs geometric functions, such as rotating, sliding, flipping and repeating -- tessellating -- planes. Rendering programs, which are more complicated, create photo-realistic facades and give viewers the sense of walking around inside and outside structures.
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Strong reasoning
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Art & Design
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Designing an application is by no means an easy process. It involves lots of brain storming, analysis, experimentation, testing, and all sorts of creativity. But in the process choosing a color scheme and making creative graphic elements sometimes prove to be very tough steps until and unless the designers has a complete idea about what they are going to decorate using these elements. Therefore most application developers nowadays first create a visual diagram of the application that highlights the basic features elements of the application. This diagram is mainly in the form of a black and white line diagram with text and thus is called Wireframe.
Wireframing is a highly important step and facilitate developers and designers to plan the whole application layout. It also highlights how users will interact with the application. Think of it like a black and white blueprint of your application. Based on this blueprint developers will build the actual application.
Creating a wireframe is not a very difficult task and involves around 6 basic steps :
Step 1 : User Research, Requirement Analysis, and Inspiration
Analyze the requirements, find out more about the user for whom you are building the application, and then checkout other application that are like yours or have some similar features. Until you know what you are going to make and what features you are going to put in it you can’t create a wireframe.
Step 2 : Choose Your Tools
There are hundreds of different tools available for creating wireframes. You can use any tool which you feel comfortable with. Most professional designers prefer Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator but there are many other tools that are dedicated to creating wireframes such as:-
Step 3 : Setting a Wireframe Grid or Layout
In this step I am assuming the fact that you have perfectly clear idea about the devices that you are going to target and the technology that you are going to use. The next step in creating a Wireframe is to create a grid layout based on the device and technology. For example if you are going to create a website, you can create desktop screen shaped layout and a 12 column or 9 column grid depending upon your requirements. Since responsive application is the way to go nowadays, restricting you application, or wireframe, to rigid dimensions is not advised.
Step 4 : Create Feature Layouts
Most features of an application such as menus, input boxes, buttons etc are made in basic shapes. Therefore you can easily represent your features through boxes. And even if the feature is special, it’s not difficult to create custom shapes in most wireframing tools. So start creating boxes in your grid. In wireframes and even in final designs the size of the boxes clearly distinguishs individual design features. Therefore keep this thought in mind while determining box sizes.
Step 5 : Content and Typography
Content is the king. Start filling those boxes with necessary content. Choose your fonts carefully. The more important the text, the more unique should be its size and font style.
Step 6 : A Wireframe into a Visual
Most designers stop the wireframing at the above step. However there is still scope to improve the wireframe. You can add logo and basic design elements to highlight branding, you can add grayscale shadings or colors to highlight images or other features, and there are other million ways that you can polish the final wireframe. This polishing is what distinguishes an amateur from a professional. In some designing circles it’s considered a useless step, but since presentation is the key, this step may actually impress your client and help you in the long term.
Some parting words
In all, creating a wireframe is not a very difficult process. Once you have a clear idea about what features you want to incorporate and what feature should go where, creating a wireframe becomes an instinctive process. The only difficult step is to decide the size of the features and how to highlight a specific feature or text. Another point to note is that if you wish to implement a solid UX, you should get this wireframe itself tested by your end users to get their feedbacks for improvements. It may save a lot of time and effort in subsequent processes.
If you are interested to take free expert advice, please visit https://www.algoworks.com/contact-us/ or make a call to Algoworks at +1-877-284-1028(TOLL FREE).
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Moderate reasoning
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Software Dev.
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Holy Pilgrimage - "Temples dedicated to Jagannath"
Jagannath Temple, Puri, Odisha
The Jagannath Temple in Puri is a famous Hindu temple dedicated to Jagannath and located in the coastal town of Puri in the state of Odisha, India. The name Jagannath (Lord of the Universe) is a combination of the Sanskrit words Jagat (Universe) and Nath (Lord of). and also, the word "Jagannatha" is evolved from "Jagati" (as an elevated platform or "Ratnabedi" on which the wooden form of Jagannatha, Balabhadra and Subhadra are worshiped on or the temple or its precincts inside the "Narendra Pokhari" ) and "Natha" (means "Lord"). The temple is an important pilgrimage destination for many Hindu traditions, particularly worshippers of Krishna and Vishnu, and part of the Char Dham pilgrimages that a Hindu is expected to make in one's lifetime . The temple was built in the 11th century atop its ruins by the progenitor of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, King Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva. The temple is famous for its annual Rath Yatra, or chariot festival, in which the three main temple deities are hauled on huge and elaborately decorated temple cars. Since medieval times, it is also associated with intense religious fervour.
The temple is sacred to the Vaishnava traditions and saint Ramananda who was closely associated with the temple. It is also of particular significance to the followers of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism whose founder, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was attracted to the deity, Jagannath, and lived in Puri for many years
Origins of the temple
Ritual chakra and flags at the top shikhara of Puri temple of Jagannatha also related to Sudarsana chakra. The red flag(12 hand or 14 Feet denotes that Jagannath is within the building....According to recently discovered copper plates from the Ganga dynasty, the construction of the current Jagannath temple was initiated by the ruler of Kalinga, Anantavarman Chodaganga Dev. The Jaga mohan and the Vimana portions of the temple were built during his reign (1078 - 1148 CE). However, it was only in the year 1174 CE that the Oriya ruler Ananga Bhima Deva rebuilt the temple to give a shape in which it stands today.
Jagannath worship in the temple continued until 1558, when Odisha was attacked by the Afghan general Kalapahad. Subsequently, when Ramachandra Deb established an independent kingdom at Khurda in Orissa, the temple was consecrated and the deities reinstalled. Perhaps in light of Chodaganga Deva's Chola Dynasty ancestry, the customs, ritual and architecture of the temple follows a style syncretised with the Dravidian of South India and points to tribal Dravidian origins of the deity. Portuguese Catholic priest and author Fernão de Quieroz described it in the late 1600s as frequented by as many pilgrims as Rameshwaram, Tirumalai-Tirupati, Kilvelur, Kanchipuram, Vaijayanti in Bengal, but surpassed by Koneswaram temple, Trincomalee.
Legendary account as found in the Skanda-Purana, Brahma Purana and other Puranas and later Oriya works state that Lord Jagannath was originally worshipped as Lord Neela Madhaba by a Savar king ( tribal chief ) named Viswavasu. Having heard about the deity, King Indradyumna sent a Brahmin priest, Vidyapati to locate the deity, who was worshipped secretly in a dense forest by Viswavasu. Vidyapati tried his best but could not locate the place. But at last he managed to marry Viswavasu's daughter Lalita . At repeated request of Vidyapti, Viswavasu took his son-in-law blind folded to a cave where Lord Neela Madhaba was worshipped.
Vidyapati was very intelligent. He dropped mustard seeds on the ground on the way. The seeds germinated after a few days, which enabled him to find out the cave later on. On hearing from him, King Indradyumna proceeded immediately to Odra desha Orissa on a pilgrimage to see and worship the Deity. But the deity had disappeared. The king was disappointed. The Deity was hidden in sand. The king was determined not to return without having a darshan of the deity and observed fast unto death at Mount Neela, Then a celestial voice cried 'thou shalt see him.' Afterwards the king performed a horse sacrifice and built a magnificent temple for Vishnu. Sri Narasimha Murti brought by Narada was installed in the temple. During sleep, the king had a vision of Lord Jagannath. Also an astral voice directed him to receive the fragrant tree on the seashore and make idols out of it. Accordingly the king got the image of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Chakra Sudarshan made out of the wood of the divine tree and installed them in the temple.
Indradyumna's prayer to Lord Brahma
King Indradyumna put up for Jagannath the tallest monument of the world. It was 1,000 cubits high. He invited Lord Brahma, the cosmic creator, consecrate the temple and the images Brahma came all the way from Heaven for this purpose. Seeing the temple he was immensely pleased with him. Brahma asked Indradyumna as to in what way can he (Brahma) fulfill the king's desire, since was very much pleased with him for his having put the most beautiful Temple for Lord Vishnu. With folded hands, Indradyumna said, "My Lord if you are really pleased with me, kindly bless me with one thing, and it is that I should be issueless and that I should be the last member of my family." In case anybody left alive after him, he would only take pride as the owner of the temple and would not work for the society.
The episode of the Lord's grace during a war with Kanchi
At one time, a king of Kanchi in the down south remarked that the king of Orissa was a chandala (a man of very low caste or status) because, he performs the duties of a sweeper during the Car Festival. When this news reached the ears of the king of Orissa, he led an expedition to Kanchi. Before that, he implored the mercy of Lord Jagannath. The soldiers of Orissa marched towards Kanchi from Cuttack (then capital city of Orissa, located on the banks of Mahanadi, at a distance of 30 km from Bhubaneswar . It so happened that when the soldiers, headed by the king Purusottam Dev, reached a place near the Chilika lake, a lady, who was selling curd (a milk preparation, sour in taste) met him (the king) and presented a golden ring studded with precious gems and submitted. "My Lord, kindly listen to me. A little earlier, two soldiers riding over two horses (white and black in colour), approached me and said we are thirsty give us curds to drink.' I gave them curds. Instead of giving me money, they gave me this ring and said,'the king of Orissa will come here, after some time, on his way to Kanchi. You present it to him and he will pay you the money.' So my Lord, you take it and give me my dues.
It took no time for the king to know that the ring belongs to Lord Jagannath. He was convinced that Jagannath and Balabhadra were proceeding to the battle field ahead of him to help him there. To perpetuate the memory of this great incident, the king founded a village in the Chilika lake area. As the name of the lady was Manika, the name given to the village was Manika Patana. Even to this day, the curds of this village are famous.
Legend surrounding the Temple OriginThe traditional story concerning the origins of the Lord Jagannath temple is that here the original image of Jagannath (a deity form of Vishnu) at the end of Treta yuga manifested near a banyan tree, near seashore in the form of an Indranila nilamani or the Blue Jewel. It was so dazzling that it could grant instant moksha, so the god Dharma or Yama wanted to hide it in the earth, and was successful. In Dvapara Yuga King Indradyumna of Malwa wanted to find that mysterious image and to do so he performed harsh penances to obtain his goal. Vishnu then instructed him to go to the Puri seashore and find a floating log to make an image from its trunk.
The King found the log of wood. He did a yajna from which god Yajna Nrisimha appeared and instructed that Narayana should be made as fourfold expansion, i.e. Paramatma as Vasudeva, his Vyuha as Samkarshana, Yogamaya as Subhadra, and his Vibhava asSudarsana. Vishwakarma appeared in the form of artist and prepared images of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra from the tree. When this log, radiant with light was seen floating in the sea, Narada told the king to make three idols out of it and place them in a pavilion. Indradyumna got Visvakarma, the architect of Gods, to build a magnificent temple to house the idols and Vishnu himself appeared in the guise of a carpenter to make the idols on condition that he was to be left undisturbed until he finished the work.
But just after two weeks, the Queen became very anxious. She took the carpenter to be dead as no sound came from the temple. Therefore, she requested the king to open the door. Thus, they went to see Vishnu at work at which the latter abandoned his work leaving the idols unfinished. The idol was devoid of any hands. But a divine voice told Indradyumana to install them in the temple. It has also been widely believed that in spite of the idol being without hands, it can watch over the world and be its lord. Thus the idiom.
Buddhist OriginsSome archaeologists theorize that there existed a Buddhist stupa named Dantapura at the site of the present one, which may have housed the tooth relic of the Buddha before it was transported to its present location in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Around that period Buddhism was imbibed within the Vaishnava fold, whence Jagganath worship gained popularity. This was before the tenth century, during the reign of the Somavamsi kings of Orissa. It has been suggested that the temple was actually the spot where Buddha attained enlightenment
Restrictions on EntryTemple security is selective regarding who is allowed entry. Practicing Hindus of non-Indian descent are excluded from premises, as are Hindus of non-Indian origin. Visitors not allowed entry may view the precincts from the roof of the nearby Raghunandan Library and pay their respects to the image of God Jagannath known as Patitapavana at the main entrance to the temple. There is some evidence that this came into force following a series of invasions by foreigners into the temple and surrounding area. Buddhist, and Jain groups are allowed into the temple compound if they are able to prove their Indian ancestry. The temple has slowly started allowing Hindus of non-Indian origin into the area, after an incident in which 3 Balinese Hindus were denied entry, even though Bali is 90% Hindu.
Cultural IntegrityShrikshetra of Puri Jagannath, as is commonly known, can verily be said to be a truthful replica of Indian culture. To understand this culture, one has to have some idea of the history of this land, which again is different from that of other countries of the world.
Starting from Lord Jagannath himself, history has it that he was a tribal deity, adorned by the Sabar people, as a symbol of Narayan. Another legend claims him to be Nilamadhava, an image of Narayana made of blue stone and worshipped by the aboriginals. He was brought to Nilagiri (blue mountain) or Nilachala and installed there as Shri Jagannath in company with Balabhadra and Subhadra. The images made of wood are also claimed to have their distant linkage with the aboriginal system of worshipping wooden poles. To cap it all the Daitapatis, who have a fair share of responsibilities to perform rituals of the Temple, are claimed to be descendants of the aboriginals or hill tribes of Orissa. So we may safely claim that the beginning of the cultural history of Shrikshetra is found in the fusion of Hindu and Tribal Cultures. This has been accepted as a facet of our proud heritage. The three deities came to be claimed as the symbols of Samyak Darshan, Samyak Jnana and Samyak Charita usually regarded as Triratha (of the Jain cult), an assimilation of which leads to Moksha (salvation) or the ultimate bliss...
Lord Jagannath is worshipped as Vishnu or Narayana or Krishna and Lord Balabhadra as Shesha. Simultaneously, the deities are regarded as the bhairava (Shiva the formidable) with Vimala (the bhairavi or the consort of Shiva) installed in the campus of the temple. So ultimately we find a fusion of Saivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism of the Hindu religion with Jainism and up to an extent Buddhism in the culture of Jagannath and the cultural tradition so reverently held together in Shrikshetra.
Acharyas and Jagannatha PuriAll of the renowned acharyas except Madhvacharya have been known to visit this kshetra. Adi Shankara established his Govardhana matha here. There is also evidence that Guru Nanak, Kabir Tulsidas Ramanujacharya, Nimbarkacharya had visited this place. Sri ChaitanyaMahaprabhu of Gaudiya Vaishnavism especially stayed here for 24 years and established that love of god can be spread by chanting Hare Krishna mantra. Even Srimad Vallabhacharya was his great admirer and met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and joined Sankirtana of Lord Jagannath. His sitting place of Bhajan is still famous as "baithakji" is evident as his visit to Puri. .
The temple is one of the holiest Hindu Char Dham (four divine sites) sites comprising Rameswaram, Badrinath, Puri and Dwarka. Though the origins are not clearly known, the Advaita school of Hinduism propagated by Sankaracharya, who created Hindu monastic institutions across India, attributes the origin of Char Dham to the seer. ] The four monasteries lie across the four corners of India and their attendant temples are Badrinath Temple at Badrinath in the North, Jagannath Temple at Puri in the East, Dwarakadheesh Temple at Dwarka in the West and Ramanathaswamy Temple at Rameswaram in the South. Though ideologically the temples are divided between the sects of Hinduism, namely Saivism and Vaishnavism, the Char Dham pilgrimage is an all Hindu affair. There are four abodes in Himalayas called Chota Char Dham (Chota meaning small): Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri - all of these lie at the foot hills of Himalayas The name Chota was added during the mid of 20th century to differentiate the original Char Dhams ] The journey across the four cardinal points in India is considered sacred by Hindus who aspire to visit these temples once in their lifetime. Traditionally the trip starts at the eastern end from Puri, proceeding in clockwise direction in a manner typically followed for circunambulation in Hindu temples.
1. Deula, Vimana or Garba griha (Sanctum sanctorum) where the triad deities are lodged on the ratnavedi (Throne of Pearls). In Rekha Deula style;
2. Mukhashala (Frontal porch);
3. Nata mandir/Natamandapa, which is also known as the Jagamohan (Audience Hall/Dancing Hall), and
4. Bhoga Mandapa (Offerings Hall).The main temple is a curvilinear temple and crowning the top is the 'srichakra' (a eight spoked wheel) of Vishnu. Also known as the "Nilachakra", it is made out of Ashtadhatu and is considered sacrosanct. Among the existing temples in Orissa, the temple of Shri Jagannath is the highest. The temple tower was built on a raised platform of stone and, rising to 214 feet (65 m) above the inner sanctum where the deities reside, dominates the surrounding landscape. The pyramidal roofs of the surrounding temples and adjoining halls, or mandapas, rise in steps toward the tower like a ridge of mountain peaks.
Other EntrancesApart from the Singhadwara, which is the main entrance to the temple, there are three other entrances facing north, south and west. They are named after the sculptures of animals guarding them. The other entrances are the Hathidwara or the Elephant Gate, the Vyaghradwara or the Tiger Gate and the Ashwadwara or the Horse Gate.
Minor TemplesThere are numerous smaller temples and shrines within the Temple complex where active worship is regularly conducted. The Bimala Shaktipeeth considered one of the most important of the Shaktipeeths marks the spot where Sati's feet fell. It is located near Rohini Kund in the temple complex. Until food offered to Jagannath is offered to Goddess Bimala it is not considered Mahaprasad. The temple of Mahalakshmi has an important role in rituals of the main temple. It is said that preparation of naivedya as offering for Jagannath is supervised by Goddess Mahalakshmi. The Kanchi Ganesh Temple is dedicated to Uchhista Ganapati. Tradition says the King of Kanchipuram in ancient times gifted the idol, when Gajapati Purushottama Deva married Padmavati, the kanchi princess. There are other shrines namely Muktimandap, Surya, Vimala, Saraswati, Bhuvaneshwari, Nrsimha, Ramachandra, Hanuman and Eshaneshwara.
Daily Food Offerings
1. The offering to the Lord in the Morning that forms His breakfast and is called The Gopala Vallabha Bhoga. Breakfast is a seven item treat - Khua, Lahuni, sweetened coconut grating, coconut water, and popcorn sweetened with sugar known as khai and curd and ripe bananas.
2. The Sakala Dhupa forms his next offering at about 10 O’ clock in the morning Sakala Dhupa. This generally consists of 13 items including the Enduri cake & Mantha puli.
3. Bada Sankhudi Bhoga forms the next repast & the offering consists of Pakhala with dahi and Kanji payas. The offerings are made in the bhog mandapa, about 200 feet from the Ratna Vedi. This is called Chatra Bhog and was introduced by Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century to help pilgrims share the temple food.
4. The Madhyanha dhupa forms the next offering at the noon.
5. The next offering to the Lord is made in the evening at around 8 o’clock it is Sandhya Dhupa.
6. The last offering to the Lord is called the Bada Simhara Bhoga.The Mahaprasad of Lord Jagannath are distributed amongst the devotees near the Ratnavedi in side the frame of Phokaria which is being drawn by the Puja pandas using Murujexcept for the Gopal Ballav Bhog and Bhog Mandap Bhoga which are distributed in the Anabsar Pindi & Bhoga Mandap respectively.
The Temple Kitchen & Mahaprasada
There are elaborate daily worship services. There are many festivals each year attended by millions of people. The most important festival is the Rath Yatra or the Chariot festival in June. This spectacular festival includes a procession of three huge chariots bearing the idols of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra through the Bada Danda meaning the Grand Avenue of Puri till their final destination the Gundicha Temple
The annual shodasha dinatmaka or 16 day puja beginning 8 days prior to Mahalaya of Ashwin month for goddess Vimala and ending on Vijayadashami, is of great importance, in which both the utsava murty of lord Madanmohan and Vimala take part.
- Pana Sankranti: Also known or Vishuva Sankranti and Mesha Sankranti: Special rituals are performed at the temple
In Akshaya Tritiya every year the Chandan Yatra festival marks the commencement of the construction of the Chariots of the Rath Yatra.
Main article: Snana YatraOn the Purnima of the month of Jyestha the Gods are ceremonially bathed and decorated every year on the occasion of Snana Yatra.
Anavasara or AnasaraLiterally means vacation. Every year, the main idols of Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra & Sudarshan after the holy Snana Yatra on the jyestha purnima, go to a secret altar named Anavasara Ghar where they remain for the next dark fortnight (Krishna paksha). Hence devotees are not allowed to view them. Instead of this devotees go to nearby place Brahmagiri to see their beloved lord in the form of four handed form Alvarnath a form of Vishnu. Then people get the first glimpse of lord on the day before Rath Yatra, which is called 'Navayouvana. It is said that the gods fall in fever after taking a huge bath and they are treated by the special servants named, Daitapatis for 15 days. During this period cooked food is not offered to the deities.
Main article: NabakalevaraOne of the most grandiloquent events associated with the Lord Jagannath, Naba Kalabera takes place when one lunar month of Ashadha is followed by another lunar month of Aashadha. This can take place in 8, 12 or even 18 years. Literally meaning the “New Body” (Nava = New, Kalevar = Body), the festival is witnessed by as many 8,00,000 people and the budget for this event exceeds $500,000. The event involves installation of new images in the temple and burial of the old ones in the temple premises at Koili Vaikuntha. The idols that are currently being worshipped in the temple premises were installed in the year 1996.
Niladri BijeCelebrated on Asadha Trayodashi Niladri Bije is the concluding day of Ratha yatra. On this day deities return to the ratna bedi. Lord Jagannath offers Rasgulla to goddess Laxmi to enter in to the temple.
Gupta GundichaCelebrated for 16 days from Ashwina Krushna dwitiya to Vijayadashami. As per tradition, the idol of Madhaba, along with the idol of Goddess Durga (known as Durgamadhaba), is taken on a tour of the temple premises. The tour within the temple is observed for the first eight days. For the next eight days, the idols are taken outside the temple on a palanquin to the nearby Narayani temple situated in the Dolamandapa lane. After their worship, they are brought back to the temple.
The name Purushottama Kshetra and Its Significance
Culture and Tradition of PuriPuri is one of the fascinating littoral district of Orissa. The Cultural heritage of Puri with its long recorded history beginning from third century B. C till present day, The monuments and religious sanctity, way of life of the people with their rich tradition possess emphatically to be the cultural heart of Orissa. Indeed Puri is considered cultural capital of Orissa. The culture here flourished with its manifold activities.
The District has the happy conglomerate of different religions, sects and faith in course of history, Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina, Muslim, Christian, Sikh found here in the District.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, an incarnation of Lord Krishna, appeared 500 years ago, in the mood of a devotee to taste the sublime emotions of ecstasy by chanting the holy name of Krishna. Stalwart scholars of Puri like Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya (a priest & great Sanskrit pandit) and others followed His teachings. Even kings and ministers of His period became His disciples. Especially King Prataparudra became His great admirer and ardent follower.Thus all cultures and religion became one in Puri after his teachings were given to all with no consideration of caste and creed.
SecurityThe security at the 12th century Jagannath Temple is beefed up ahead of Ratha Yatra, the homecoming festival of the deities of Jagannath temple. In the wake of terror alert on 27 June 2012, the security forces were increased to ensure smooth functioning of the crowded Ratha Yatra and Suna Besha.
It is situated on the Bay of Bengal, 60 kilometres (37 mi) south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar
Puri railway station is amongst the top hundred booking stations of Indian Railway
Jagannath Temple, Delhi
The Jagannath Temple in New Delhi, India is a modern temple built by the Oriya community of Delhi dedicated to the Hindu God Jagannath. The temple located in Hauz Khas is famous for its annual Rathyatra festival attended by thousands of devotees.
Address: C-Blk, Sufdarjung Deplopment Area, Bhagwan Jagannath Mg, Hauz Khas Vill- Rd, Hauz Khas, Delhi - 110016
Direction - from Green Park Metro Station to jagannath temple (1.3KM) Walk South approx 1 km. Turn Right Walk west approx 300meter
Jagannath Temple, Ranchi, Jharkhand
Jagannath Temple in Ranchi, Jharkhand State, India was built by king of Barkagarh Jagannathpur Thakur Ani Nath Shahdeo, during 1691. It was completed on 25 December 1691. It is located about 10 km from the main town, the temple is on top of a small hillock near to a place called Firayalal chowk (The temple is not located near Firayalal Chowk) or (Albert Ekka chowk) in Ranchi
Similar to the famous Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha, this temple is built in the same architectural style, although smaller. And similar to the Rath Yatra in Puri, an annual fair cum rath yatra is held at this temple in the month ofAashaadha, attracting thousands of tribal and non-tribal devotees not only from Ranchi but also from neighbouring villages and towns and is celebrated with much pomp and vigor
The temple has been built on a hill top. To reach the top visitors can climb the stairs or take the vehicle route. There are many steps and the climber needs to rest intermittently before resuming. People also take the vehicle route leading directly to the top . To facilitate the arduous climb to the top the management of the temple have made provisions for fresh water and the shade of a huge tree that many tourists generally make use of once they reach the top. The view of the city from the top is breathtaking.
The temple collapsed on 6 August 1990. With the active participation of the then State Government of Bihar, and some devoted patrons the reconstruction of the temple started on 8th February 1992 and has now been fully restored. The temple has regained back its former glory. And devotees and ardent worshippers make a beeline to the temple every year.
TransportRanchi is well connected via Rail, Air and Road routes.
Om Tat Sat
(My humble salutations to the great devotees , wikisources and Pilgrimage tourist guide for the collection )
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Distribution of usage frequency for the most common synonyms of the noun advancement:
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Definition of the noun advancement
What does advancement mean as a name of something?
noun - plural: advancements
- encouragement of the progress or growth or acceptance of something
- the act of moving forward (as toward a goal)
- lexical domain: Acts - nouns denoting acts or actions
- synonyms of advancement: advance / forward motion / onward motion / procession / progress / progression
- more generic words: motion / move / movement = the act of changing location from one place to another
- more specific terms:
- gradual improvement or growth or development
- example: advancement of knowledge
- lexical domain: Acts - nouns denoting acts or actions
- synonym of advancement: progress
- more generic word: development = act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining
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Alternative definition of the noun advancement
- The act of advancing, or the state of being advanced; progression; improvement; furtherance; promotion to a higher place or dignity; as, the advancement of learning.
- An advance of money or value; payment in advance.
- [legal] Property given, usually by a parent to a child, in advance of a future distribution.
Advancement is a common law doctrine of intestate succession that presumes that gifts given to a person's heir during that person's life are intended as an advance on what that heir would inherit upon the death of the parent. For example, suppose person P had two children, A and B. Suppose also that P had $100,000, and gave $20,000 to child A before P's death, leaving $80,000 in P's estate. If P died without a will, and A and B were P's only heirs, A and B would be entitled to split P's estate evenly. If the doctrine of advancement were not applied, then each child would receive half of the remaining $80,000, or $40,000. However, if the doctrine of advancement is applied, then the $20,000 already given to A would be considered part of P's estate advanced to A. Thus, the estate would still be valued at $100,000, and each heir would be entitled to $50,000, with the $20,000 already given to A being counted as part of his share. Of the remaining $80,000, A would take $30,000 and B would take $50,000.
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- association for the advancement of retired persons
- Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Printed dictionaries and other books with definitions for Advancement
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An advancement is an irrevocable gift by a parent to a child in anticipation of such child's future share of the parent's estate.
by Alan Price
Advancement is a positive move from one state to another that acts as a foundation for further advances. Fundamental to structural advancement is the ...
by William Clark
If the profile improves with the mandible advanced, this is a clear indication that functional mandibular advancement is the treatment of choice. Clinical diagnosis has the advantage of providing an accurate prediction of the threedimensional ...
Man! Know thyself (1954)
by Sant Kirpal Singh
of the teachings; whereas the actual demonstration given to develop and achieve inner advancement is the practical part, called meditation or Satsang ( internal). Conscientious practice brings fruit within days or weeks and it is not necessary ...
Public Finance (2008)
by S.N. Chand
A necessary requisite for its advancement is the general development as also its own progress. In the process of general economic development, agriculture also contributes a lot. It is, therefore, necessary and useful to acquaint ourselves with ...
by Michael W. Ross, Sue J. Dyson
An important recent advancement is the ready availability of user-friendly computer programs to acquire, analyze, store, and process images. Systems based on Apple, Windows, and Unix are currently available and are straightforward. Motion ...
Insights from the NIH-University-Industry Relationship by Wendy H. Schacht
The federal involvement in R&D stems, in part, from the understanding that technological advancement is a key element in economic growth. Many of the innovations that stimulate technological progress are rooted in basic research. However ...
equal sharing in power and decision making; creation of strong mechanism to promote the advancement of women; promotion of women's human rights; equality in access to, and participation in, the media; equality in the family and society; ...
Nursing AAAHC: Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care AAAI: American Association for Artificial Intelligence AACE: Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education AAFP: American Academy of Family Physicians ...
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Machine in an abandoned brickworks in Northern Italy
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- Plexus Compensation Plan and Rank Advancement Explanation
Plexus Compensation Plan and Rank Advancement Explanation.
- Advancement Meaning
Video shows what advancement means. The act of advancing, or the state of being advanced; progression; improvement; furtherance; promotion to a higher ...
- Everquest - AA (Alternate Advancement) Video Explanation
- Thesis Advancement Review: A Framework for Shared Meaning
Bridging the gap between Business and Design. Let's empathize and understand each other enough to establish a shared meaning and let that be the ...
- Paradigm Advancement and Definition - Final Fantasy XIII (HD) Gameplay!
PS3 Final Fantasy XIII (HD) Gameplay! Twitter: @ZeitgeistReview Game Reviews, Screen-Shots, Game-play...
- 2014-04-05 Kaden Vocabulary - Master Lee's Taekwondo Belt advancement Test
- 2014-04-05 Tanner Vocabulary - Master Lee's Taekwondo Belt advancement Test
- Weifu vs Chakki | Group A Advancement Match | ESL Legendary Series Finals Season 1
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- SilentStorm vs Savjz | Group A Advancement Match | ESL Legendary Series Finals Season 1
G1: 6:47 | G2: 17:56 | G3: 24:10 | G4: 43:20 | G5: 56:08 | Interview: 1:16:15 ESL Legendary S1 Finals Playlist...
- PinPingHo vs Chakki | Group B Advancement Match | ESL Legendary Series Finals Season 1
G1: 5:03 | G2: 17:14 | G3: 22:18 | Interview: 38:34 ESL Legendary S1 Finals Playlist...
- Modern Language Advancement Interactive Tour
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Cher Gunderson, Owner of Master Your Accent, interviews Polina Mesechova, Chemist and Nutrition Consultant at...
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See also the pronunciation examples of Advancement!
Quotes about Advancement
After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement. (Norman Thomas)
more quotes about advancement...
Scrabble value of A1D2V4A1N1C3E1M3E1N1T1
The value of this 11-letter word is 19 points. It is included in the first and second editions of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
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Go to the usage examples of Advancement to see it in context!
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CC-MAIN-2017-47
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http://www.omnilexica.com/?q=advancement
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en
| 0.895923 | 1,864 | 3.015625 | 3 | 2.10142 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Literature
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Nitrogen is an element of Group 15 (by the outdated classification – the main subgroup of the fifth group) in the second period of the periodic table of chemical elements, with atomic number 7. The element is denoted by N (Latin Nitrogenium).
Nitrogen is a simple substance (CAS-number: 7727-37-9). Under normal conditions, it is rather an inert diatomic gas without color, taste, and smell (formula N2), which make up three-quarters of the earth’s atmosphere.
In 1772, Henry Cavendish carried out the following experiment: several times, he pushed the air over hot charcoal, and then processed it with alkali. As a result, he received a residue, which Cavendish named phlogisticated air. From the standpoint of modern chemistry, it is clear that in the reaction oxygen is combined with carbon dioxide, which is then absorbed by alkali. This residue gas is represented mostly by nitrogen. Thus, Cavendish identified nitrogen, but failed to understand that this was a new simple substance (chemical element). In the same year, Cavendish said of this experience to Joseph Priestley.
At that time, Priestley conducted a series of experiments, which were also intended to combine the oxygen in the air and discard the carbon dioxide, also receiving nitrogen. However, being a supporter of the ruling at the time the phlogiston theory, he completely misinterpreted the results (in his opinion, the process was the opposite – no oxygen was removed from the gas mixture, and vice versa, by burning, the air was saturated with phlogiston. He called the remaining air (nitrogen) phlogiston saturated, that is phlogisticated. It is obvious that Priestley, though able to isolate nitrogen, failed to understand the essence of his discovery, and therefore is not considered a pioneer of nitrogen.
Simultaneously, Carl Scheele conducted similar experiments with the same result.
In 1772, nitrogen as a simple substance was described by Daniel Rutherford, he published a master’s thesis, which described basic properties of nitrogen: does not react with alkalis, does not support combustion, is unbreathable. Therefore, it is then Daniel Rutherford, who is considered a pioneer of nitrogen. However, Rutherford was a supporter of the phlogiston theory too, and therefore also could not understand what he had isolated. Thus, it is impossible to define clearly the nitrogen discoverer.
Subsequently, nitrogen was studied by Henry Cavendish (interesting is a fact that he was able to combine nitrogen with oxygen using electric current, and after the absorption of nitrogen oxides in the residue he received a small amount of a very inert gas. However, as in the case of nitrogen, he could not understand that he had isolated a new chemical element – the inert gas argon).
If you are to write a research proposal on the subject, you might want to consider free sample research papers topics on nitrogen fixation, which, if properly written, are one of the greatest sources of relevant information.
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https://usefulresearchpapers.com/research-paper-on-nitrogen/
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en
| 0.971451 | 746 | 3.765625 | 4 | 2.682857 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Last week we had a great time propagating at the station (hmm, perhaps a comment more worthy of London Road Station’s slightly naughty alter ego @LRBstation).
It’s a great way to ensure a stock of plants for the next season because it’s free. We’ve done it before, but this time, we’ve recorded our demonstration of propagating techniques – probably the first time it’s ever been done at the station! Click here to view.
Summary of the basic steps
Softwood cuttings – for tender perennials and shrubs
- First, get your sprigs from the ‘mother’ plant. Choose – preferably – a non-flowering healthy-looking shoot of around 8-10cm. Cut above a leaf node so that the ‘mother’ plant grows on happily.
- Prepare your cuttings. Cut just beneath a leaf node because this is where the growing hormones are concentrated. Remove any lower leaves which might rot as the plantlet tries to establish itself. Place cutting in a pot of water while you prepare potting compost and hormone rooting powder.
- Prepare pots of compost. Fill 9cm or 7cm pots with either sowing and potting compost or multipurpose compost mixed with perlite/vermiculite. Make three holes around the edge of the pot – ‘dibbing‘ – to stick the cuttings in.
- Dip in hormone rooting powder and plant. Dip the end of the wet cutting in the powder and shake off any excess. Stick the cutting in the hole and pat compost around it.
- Water with a fine rose – just enough to get the compost moist and bring the compost around the cutting.
- Place in propagator. Now seal the pots in a propagator with the lid on to preserve the moisture and place out of direct sunlight in a warm place such as a greenhouse. You can cover pots with plastic bags, it’s the same principle.
- Wait – it’s a good idea to ventilate the plantlets from time to time by lifting off the propagator lid for 10 minutes or so at least twice a week. This is to stop them rotting but you also need to conserve moisture to stop them shrivelling up. When the plantlets start to look happy, you can increase ventilation or remove the lid altogether. My cuttings have often had to survive out of the propagator in a cold greenhouse or even outside.
- Look for signs of growth: new bright green buds and leaves at the top, white roots at the bottom of the pot. Getting a good root system established can take between 6-10 weeks. When it’s clear that the plantlets are growing, you can pot on – i.e. remove the three rooted plantlets from their collective home and give each one an individual pot to grow on …
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https://londonrdstationpartnership.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/propagating-the-video/
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en
| 0.925108 | 604 | 2.71875 | 3 | 1.912684 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Home & Hobbies
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Theme: The pain of tragedy and betrayal and how acting in violence can perpetuate the pain.
Once in a poor village there lived a young woman. Hers was the greatest beauty of all the maidens in the village, and all the young men of the village for her hand in marriage. But she was a very proud young woman, and no man in the village was to her liking. She told them no, and she remained firm in her resolve to wait for the right man to marry.
One day a Spanish soldier, an officer, came to the village. He was the commander of a group of soldiers sent from Mexico City to assist the settlers in that region. As he rode into the village, sitting high upon his shiny, black horse, he appeared like a god to the people. He was a man of the world and easily commanded the respect of all the people in the village. To the young women in the village, he was the handsomest and most noble man they had ever seen.
The Spanish officer was immediately drawn to the young woman. Her beauty and proud manners intrigued him. He made it clear to all the maidens in the villaged that she was the one for him. He courted her, and over time, the maiden and the Spanish soldier fell in love. They were soon blessed with two children. The children were the most precious thing in the world to the woman.
The soldier often was away for long periods. When he was away the children would long for his return. Their mother would reassure them, saying their father was away doing important work for the people of their village and he would soon return to them. He would always return with stories of his great adventures.
One day, after an especially long journey, he returned to the village in a carriage. In the carriage beside him was a Spanish señorita, a young Spanish woman. His wife ran up to the carriage and asked who was the woman by his side. The Spanish soldier said she was the woman he was soon to marry.
The woman asked how he could marry another when he was already married to her. The Spanish soldier said that a marriage between a woman and a Spanish soldier was not a true marriage. When the woman asked how he could do this to his children, he told her that they were illegitimate and that no child of a woman could ever be the heir of a Spanish gentleman.
The woman was overcome with anger and grief. She thought of the cruelest way that she could get back at the Spanish soldier.
In a moment of rage and madness, she took the two children of the Spanish soldier and blindly hurled them into the river. As soon as she had thrown them into the river, she realized her terrible mistake. She jumped into the river and tried to save them, but it was too late. Both children had drowned in the river.
Overwhelmed with sadness she began to cry and wail for her two lost children. For days and nights she walked along the banks of the river, crying for her children to return to her. Her mournful and anguished wailing could be heard throughout the village. The people of the village took their own children into their houses when they heard the cries of La Llorona, the crying woman, because the feared that she would take their children to replace her two tragically drowned children.
For all eternity she is doomed to walk by the banks of the river, searching for her children. On many a cold and dark night you can hear her crying and calling for her children. Her long, loud, mourning cry of grief often comes disguised as the sound of the wind by the river.
So all of you children who hear this story, take care. Mind your parents and be good boys and girls. Because if you are not careful, La Llorona, the weeping woman, will take you to replace her two beloved lost children.
The reasons stories work so well in prevention is that the adversity of life is communicated in a safe way, since it doesn’t seem real, but merely a story. This story, even though grim, taps into to issues of abandonment, the conquest and conquering of the people in Mexico, death of children, and the pain that people live with through their lives when they have done the unthinkable.
We recommend having students do some sort of drawing after the story, and then you can open it up to questions and comments.
This is also a great way to teach thinking skills, of what they might have done in this situation or what they think of the actions, or what is happening around them that might be similar. How do they create their lives so they are not in the situation of La Llorona? The discussion also can look at the character traits of the officer and La Llorona. What got them both into trouble? (Vanity, disrespect of other people, etc.)
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https://wheelcouncil.org/la-llorona/
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en
| 0.990964 | 998 | 3.328125 | 3 | 2.909929 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Literature
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June 18 is marked in Azerbaijan as Human Rights Day, according to a decree on the annual celebration of the date signed on June 18, 2007 by President Ilham Aliyev.
The measure was preceded by the approval of the state program on the protection of human rights on June 18, 1998 by Azerbaijani National Leader, former President Heydar Aliyev. Since then the support of human rights became one of the main priorities of state policy and June 18 has been marked as Human Rights Day in the country.
Human rights are interdependent and indivisible rights inherent to all people regardless of their nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or any other status. Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.
Azerbaijan is one of the countries where human rights and freedoms are deemed the highest value of mankind. The protection of basic human rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan is one of the integral parts of the government's political course. Azerbaijan's transformation into a country where human rights are protected at the highest level is the biggest achievement attained in the post-independence period.
The first achievement in the protection of human rights was the development and approval of the first Constitution of the independent Azerbaijan on November 12, 1995.
The third chapter of Azerbaijan's Constitution consisting of 48 clauses is entirely in line with the spirit of respect for a human being, his dignity and rights. Article 71 of the Constitution envisages the observance of human rights and freedoms. It instructs the legislative, executive and judicial powers to protect and maintain these rights and freedoms.
One of the important issues in democratic societies is the protection of freedom of speech and press. Article 47 of the Constitution of Azerbaijan envisages safeguarding these values. Censorship was abolished in Azerbaijan as well.
Naturally, the main right of a human being is his right to life. From the democratic point of view it is inhumane to deprive someone of life for his committing a grave crime. From the religious point of view, it is considered to be against God's will. In 1998 the death penalty was abolished in Azerbaijan.
The accession to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is also one of the achievements in the period of Azerbaijan's independence. According to this document, human rights cannot be considered an internal affair of any country. Azerbaijan acceded to this document on April 16, 1998, on the eve of its 50th anniversary. Independent Azerbaijan announced its joining the international concepts by signing more than 210 documents dealing with human rights.
The establishment of the Ombudsman Institute was another important step taken on the path of creating new efficient human rights protection mechanisms.
Establishment of the Institute of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Azerbaijan for the first time was reflected in the Presidential Decree "On the Actions in Provision of Human Rights and Freedoms" dated February 22, 1998.
On December 28, 2001 the Constitutional Law "On the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan" was adopted by the Milli Majlis (the Parliament of Azerbaijan). Logistics and legal framework were created for the establishment and activity of the Ombudsman Institute.
Azerbaijan's first Ombudsman was elected on July 2, 2002 by the parliament among three candidates put forward by the President with 111 out of 112 votes.
Thanks to all these measures Azerbaijan was recognized as an independent, legal and democratic country in the world where the protection of civil rights and freedoms was appreciated as a result of the wise policy.
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CC-MAIN-2014-35
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http://www.today.az/news/society/123694.html
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en
| 0.962367 | 773 | 3.453125 | 3 | 2.676682 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Newsletter for the Section on Statistical Education
Volume 4, Number 1 (Winter 1998)
When I first walk into my Introductory Statistics courses, I have two main goals: give the students a flavor for the course and introduce them to the practice of statistics through examples. I don't feel giving a simple definition of "statistics" is meaningful, and instead want them to discover what the subject involves through recent examples of uses and misuses. I also want them to know from the beginning that this course won't be only about number crunching, but will also emphasize reading numerical discussions, writing technical arguments, and reasoning statistically. To accomplish these goals, first I present a series of myths to the students and then we discuss some more realistic viewpoints of the course. Then I present a series of misuses, mostly from the news. By having students identify the errors in the arguments, they begin to develop their own statistical intuition and understanding of statistical practice. Finally, to ensure they believe that not all statistics are lies I present examples of a few effective uses.
Examples of Myths Students Have Entering the Course
To give students an idea of what I will expect from them in the course, I discuss a series of myths they may hold entering the course:
I try to emphasize to the students that since computers can now do the numerical calculations so well, our role in studying statistics has changed to being able to tell the computer the right thing to do and then interpreting the output. I also stress that students will need to be able to justify their answers since multiple interpretations are quite possible. (A good example here is two different newspaper headlines based on the same study with opposite implications.) I also try to convey that statistics will not only be important no matter what career they choose, but also just for evaluating information in the newspaper. To study the material, I encourage them to approach it like a foreign language: immersing themselves in the use of the terms, and constantly practicing "talking statistics" with other students. Also, since the students taking my course are so diverse, I encourage them to work with others to share their distinct perspectives. Finally, I tell them my first goal of the course is for them to examine statistics with a critical eye (instead of accepting whatever numbers they hear) and to become intelligent consumers of statistical arguments.
Examples of (Mis)uses of Statistics
I present the following points on overheads and have the class explain to me how they feel about the statements - if they feel they are effective uses of information and convincing arguments. Most of these examples are borrowed from Chapter 3, Section 4 of Statistics: Concepts and Controversies by David Moore, 3rd edition. Moore has an excellent discussion of how to "look at data intelligently". I also try to accompany these points with recent newspaper headlines illustrating the same misuses.
Discussing this list enables students to develop a list of questions to ask when evaluating any numerical argument: What comparisons are being made? Is the information complete? Are the numbers plausible? Are the definitions clear? Are the right numbers being looked at? What is the source of the information? How was the sample selected? Does the conclusion follow? Are the generalizations valid? I remind them how even the experts have made some serious mistakes (Challenger Accident, Dewey Defeats Truman) and such misuses of statistics should not be taken lightly. Good Uses of Statistics To reassure the students that there are plenty of good uses of statistics, I cite some recent studies that are quite informative. I also share some projects I've been involved with (motivated by Bentley, D. (1994), "My First Day's Lectures: Past and Present" presented at Joint Statistical Meetings) to show them how accessible the questions are to them and the broad variability of disciplines asking the questions. For example, I tell students about my recent work with projects involving
I have found these ideas effective at motivating student interest in the course from day one, as well as aligning their expectations of the course with my own. These ideas are reinforced by their first homework, to identify and evaluate uses of statistics in "the news", and throughout the course.
University of the Pacific
Stockton, CA 95211
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<urn:uuid:fe9daa93-eca5-4a8f-bc14-393c148e9e40>
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CC-MAIN-2016-22
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http://www.amstat.org/sections/educ/newsletter/v4n1/Chance.html
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en
| 0.953613 | 858 | 2.515625 | 3 | 2.931989 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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|FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2002
|HHS Press Office
"The federal government makes a clear recommendation to women on mammography: If you are 40 or older, get screened for breast cancer with mammography every one to two years," Secretary Thompson said. "While developing technology certainly holds the promise for new detection and treatment methods, mammography remains a strong and important tool in the early detection of breast cancer. The early detection of breast cancer can save lives."
The USPSTF published two earlier breast cancer screening recommendations, in 1989 and 1996, that both endorsed mammography for women over age 50. The USPSTF is now extending that recommendation to all women over age 40, but found that the strongest evidence of benefit and reduced mortality from breast cancer is among women ages 50-69. The recommendation acknowledges that there are some risks associated with mammography (false-positive results that lead to unnecessary biopsies or surgery), but that these risks lessen as women get older.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has also reaffirmed its support for mammography. "Early detection of cancer saves lives and we continue to recommend mammography for women in their 40s and older," said Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., director of the NCI. "While we seek improved methods of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, today mammography remains an important part of our effort to save lives through early detection."
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States. In 2001, an estimated 192,200 women were diagnosed with breast cancer, and 40,600 women died from the disease.
In addition to age, other factors may increase a woman's risk of breast cancer. The strongest risk factors are a family history of breast cancer in a mother or sister, having already been diagnosed with breast cancer, or having had a previous breast biopsy showing atypical hyperplasia (an irregular pattern of cell growth).
"Mammography is an important tool for detecting breast cancer," said Janet Allan, Ph.D., R.N., vice chair of the USPSTF. "Clinicians and women should discuss individual risk factors to determine when to have a first mammogram and how often to have them after that."
Today's USPSTF recommendation results largely from the review of eight randomized controlled trials of mammography (four of mammography alone and four of mammography plus clinical breast examination) that have reported results with 11 to 20 years of follow up. These studies have all been published since the task force last addressed this issue in 1996.
The USPSTF also noted that there remains insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine clinical breast examination alone as a screening tool for breast cancer and insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routinely teaching or performing routine breast self-examination. While these techniques detect some additional cancers, there were not enough data to determine whether they reduced deaths from breast cancer.
The USPSTF, the leading independent panel of private-sector experts in prevention and primary care, is sponsored by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and conducts rigorous, impartial assessments of scientific evidence for a broad range of preventive services.
BACK TO SUBMISSION
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CC-MAIN-2024-10
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https://mount-tutu.co.nz/US_Department_of_Health_&_Human_Services.htm
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en
| 0.963772 | 668 | 2.84375 | 3 | 2.880452 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Health
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Sow Market Information
Describing the Cull Sow and Cull Hog Market Networks in the US: A Pilot Project
Benjamin Blair and James Lowe
What is the range of locations of sows that enter a slaughter plant? How many stops along the way do they make? How long do they remain the slaughter channel? Currently there is little data to investigate such questions allowing the industry and regulators to make informed decisions about how to respond to an animal disease outbreak. This project set out to collect data from a harvest plant to see if such information could lead to answers to those questions allowing the industry and animal health officials to better make decisions to prevent and control animal health emergencies.
The Marketing Journey of Cull Sows and Secondary Market Pigs
The swine industry continues to deal with the threat of emerging new diseases. Post production pig movement plays an important role in the transmission of these diseases. While the marketing journey for the movement of top hogs from farm to harvest is well understood, the marketing journey for cull sows, boars and secondary market pigs is more complex. The swine industry has indicated a need to better understand this industry and to determine the impact these issues have on disease proliferation.
The sale of secondary growing and finishing pigs, cull sows, and boars plays an important role in economic pork production. However, as animals are collected and mixed, these channels can be a source of disease transmission. Biosecurity and biocontainment can be very difficult when trucks, animals and people are regularly flowing in and out of these markets as they do business.
In the short-term, there can be risk to swine health from these markets concentrating multiple sources of endemic pathogens and transferring them to the next buying station or back to farms. In the longer term, these markets could become a risk either by helping to distribute foot and mouth disease (FMD), or another foreign animal disease, or by hindering the eradication of it after it is introduced into the U.S. Either of these scenarios could risk the viability of these markets and damage efficient and economic pork production.
To determine how to address these short- and long-term risk scenarios, more must be known about the movements of pigs in these market channels and the interconnections of these markets. The Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) requested a review and description of these market channels and the movement of swine in these cull and secondary markets.
SHIC would like to focus on the sale and movement of cull sows and boars from farm to packing plants and on the movement of secondary or light weight pigs on their way to market. The objective of this assessment is to gather information on the scope of these markets to better design surveillance, biocontainment or other risk mitigation protocols that may be used in the future.
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<urn:uuid:8395c5f2-da4d-411b-a837-b483f91417b7>
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CC-MAIN-2019-39
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https://www.swinehealth.org/sow-market-information/
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en
| 0.949988 | 570 | 2.671875 | 3 | 3.108135 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Industrial
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Since the holidays strategy and present-offering ensues, id safety becomes important. StopCreditFraud.org requested John Mills, senior supervisor at Experian’s ProtectMyID, how university students may avoid id theft this Christmas.
Stop Credit Fraud: Are students targets for id thieves? Why?
John Mills: Yes. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 comprise the greatest percent of identity theft casualties, based on Federal Trade Commission information. Many university students have small credit rating, creating them a favorite target for id thieves.
SCF.: What exactly are a few common strategies that thieves use to steal identities?
JM: Most id theft still does occur in ordinary, nontechnical manners, just like a pocket book being stolen from the drawer or even a bag taken with an unlocked dorm-room.
SCF.: Which are the indications of getting an undermined identity?
JM: Signals of the undermined identity contain mystifying charges for your credit or check card for buys you didn’t make, unexplained dings within your personal credit history or getting notifications for modifications inside your accounts and monthly statements which you didn’t request. In order to avoid identity theft, follow our Id Theft Checklist and Identification Fraud Checklist.
SCF.: Do you know the quick- and long term outcomes of getting a stolen id? So what can occur if it’s perhaps not taken good care of at once?
JM: The results go beyond monetary damage. Untrue criminal records or delinquent reports indicate too little obligation and trustworthiness for sufferers who are trying to find a job. Other sufferers lose the chance to get wishes come true. They might not be able get funding for a house, vehicle or instruction because identity theft destroied their credit ratings. In rare instances, sufferers might even be arrested for offenses they didn’t commit.
SCF.: How could you get your own life back to be able following your identity was stolen?
JM: With regards to the intricacy and severity of id theft, there can be varying levels inside the problem of clearing your report. A purloined credit card is much easier to manage than a person who’s using your Ssn to work , and it has filed a bankruptcy together with your name. Solving the harm of identity theft can be a burdensome job. Sufferers must show that they didn’t start the accounts, create the costs, dismiss the late-payment notices or courtroom notices or get the health providers which represent fraud. Here are a few Identity Retrieval Hints for 11 distinct varieties of fraud.
SCF.: What are strategies to safeguard your identity while building your credit?
JM: Acquiring a credit card may be a wonderful means to begin building credit, but never finish a bank card application at a dining table or booth on-campus. Instead, have the charge card firm’s secure web site or get in touch with your bank before going to school.
Other safeguards which should be taken contain never supplying your credit card info to associates for example room mates. If purchasing on-line ensure you are creating buys off a secure site. Likewise, make sure significant files, like a Social Security card, are saved in a secure and safe place.
SCF.: What are the web sites or workshops which help youths guard their identities and create credit?
JM: Contemplate registering for a credit monitoring plan , like TrustedID, to accomplish the items you can’t do yourself, including scanning the Net everyday to your info and alarming you to over 50 indexes of fraud that might be a signal your identity was undermined. In today’s electronic earth, a man’s credit standing can alter on the dime, and recognizing unauthorized task rapidly might be key to stopping identity theft.
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CC-MAIN-2017-51
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https://www.stopcreditfraud.org/protect-your-identity-during-the-holidays/
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Moderate reasoning
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Crime & Law
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Friday, March 13, 1998
Geologic Disposal Not Acceptable to PublicAfter $7 million and nearly a decade, an independent panel assessing a plan to bury nuclear fuel waste deep in the Canadian Shield has handed the issue back to the government.
Panel chairman Blair Seaborn said yesterday the plan conceived by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) appears technically sound, but the Canadian public is not buying the concept.
In 1978, the government of Canada and Ontario directed the AECL to develop the concept of deep geological disposal. Three years later, a statement was issued saying that a disposal site could not be selected until after full public hearings. In 1988, the federal government referred the concept to public review and in 1989, Seaborn's panel was appointed.
- "As it now stands, the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support."
- "The concept in its current form does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada's approach for managing nuclear waste."
Nuclear Not a Solution
According to a U.S. study, every dollar invested in energy efficiency displaces seven times as much CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions as the same dollar invested in nuclear power (Keepin and Kats study). In addition, the Royal Society of Canada found that "improved energy efficiency is the key to stabilizing energy-related CO2 emissions over the next two decades" (the COGGER Report: Committee On Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions). Nuclear power is not even mentioned in the Royal Society study as a viable alternative energy source to fossil fuels.
Irene Kock of the Nuclear Awareness Project stated, "Nuclear power is not a solution for climate change. It is a cynical gambit on the part of the global nuclear power industry to save itself from being phased out. In addition to the risk of catastrophic accidents, nuclear power is hazardous because of pollution from day-to-day operations. All stages of the nuclear fuel chain, including uranium mining, processing, refining, fuel fabrication, reactor operations and nuclear waste handling, emit radioactive, carcinogenic pollutants."
[ Radioactive Waste Sub-Directory ] [ COMPLETE DIRECTORY ]
Since March 27th 1996, there have been over
100,000 outside visitors to the CCNR web site, plus
(counter reset July 2nd 1998 at midnight)
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Written by Veronica Kassatly
I am grateful for the help of Jaanus Vosu ([email protected]), Walter Antezana, and Mauricio Nunez Oporto.
After silk, alpaca is the second most vilified fiber in the sustainable apparel industry. Alpacas are camelids — long-necked herbivores that thrive in dry and hostile environments. Not surprisingly, as with sheep for the Navajo, and silkworms in India and China, the wonder of a creature that can turn inedible vegetation, often in an inhospitable landscape, into food and clothing, has endowed alpacas with mystical status amongst the indigenous peoples of the Andes. The Alpaqueros – alpaca farmers – of the Andes “don’t divide man and animals, our animals also have feelings“. To them, alpacas are children, siblings, parents, and to them, we are the guilty party: “the western world taught us to separate the elements of nature, when it is a matter of seeing the ecosystem as a unified whole“.
In a series of 3 articles, we examine the history and significance of alpaca farming in Peru and unravel the truth about who benefits from characterizing alpaca farming as environmentally harmful.
Part 1: Alpaca – More Prized Than Gold by the Incas, Still Scorned by the West?
In Part 1, we take a close look at what alpaca are, why they are so well-suited to the Peruvian altiplano, where sustenance is scarce and the indigenous inhabitants have few options, and we price check alpaca against other fibers – it’s expensive. As discussed in my previous articles on silk, this means that there is an economic incentive for brands and their funded initiatives to portray alpaca as environmentally harmful. Do they? And if so, is it justified?
Part 2: Fibs, Lies, and Falsehood
In Part 2, we examine how alpaca fiber ranks in terms of environmental impact using the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) and the Kering Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) account. We look at the shortcomings of these measurement tools in assessing alpacas’ cultural, social, and economic value to indigenous peoples. Finally, we dig into the competing interests in the mining industry for land use in Peru.
Part 3: When PETA Strikes, Certifications Follow
In the third and final article, we take a closer look at the claims for alpaca made by the ‘sustainable’ apparel sector. I walk through how these claims prioritize a global north perspective that diminishes the most disadvantaged, those in the global south who are producing the fiber. We conclude with an understanding of how the claims of ‘environmental harm’ are contributing actual harm to the livelihoods of small-scale alpaca farmers.
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Strong reasoning
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Industrial
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System actions are controlled by the muscular procedure, with these muscle mass currently being connected to bones by way of tendons (Adams, 2004).
Stimulation of these muscle tissue by the nervous method leads to contraction and the ensuing motion of bones to which they are connected. A variety of involuntary muscle tissues guarantee the respiratory and circulatory techniques continue with contraction of the heart and lungs (Adams, 2004). The coronary heart is central to the circulatory process and acts as to pump blood by way of arteries, veins and capillaries. The circulatory method is responsible for providing vitamins and oxygen to cells as perfectly as taking away waste products and aiding the immune process by the circulation of white blood cells (Jacab, 2006).
The immune system is comprised of lymph organs, such as the essay writing spleen and thymus, and the pores and skin, all of which are responsible for protecting the entire body versus invading pathogens (Parham, 2005). The circulatory method and the respiratory method are carefully interconnected with the latter bringing new oxygen into the entire body as a result of the alveoli of the lungs (Johnson, 2004). The respiratory technique is intently linked with the excretory system as it is accountable for the removing of carbon dioxide and other squander gases by means of exhalation.
The excretory process eradicates each reliable and liquid wastes in addition to these gaseous items, and is created up of a selection of expert tissues alongside with the big intestine, bladder, kidneys, rectum, lungs and skin (Sherwood, 2007). The physical and chemical breakdown of meals into vitality is carried out by the digestive technique. This program commences with the mouth, tooth and salivary glands then passes via the oesophagus to the belly and little intestine for digestion. The liver, pancreas and big intestine are also concerned, through the creation of digestive enzymes and bile and the processing of nutrition (Windelspecht, 2004).
The nervous procedure is accountable masters thesis for sending messages to and from the brain by way of neurons. The anxious method controls all bodily functions by sending electrochemical signals by means of the neural network (Llamas, 1998).
The endocrine technique functions as a conversation community but takes advantage of hormones as chemical messengers which vacation by the bloodstream (Klosterman,The terrorist attacks on September 11 still left a stunned America in hither to unchartered territory. A traumatised nation woke up to the point that it experienced occur under devastating beneath from an unidentified enemy. For all the pontificating given that by teachers, journalists and stability organisations the specific inspiration of the bombers is not genuinely identified, nor is the leadership at the rear of the group – this would make coming to terms with the tragedy even extra difficult for American leaders and their individuals alike. What has transpired is that the US govt has lookedtowards the M >Don’t squander time! Our writers will make an authentic “The intervention by the United States in the Middle East ideal just after the occasions of September 11” essay for you whith a fifteen% discounted.
This dissertation analyses US foreign coverage towards the Center Eastin the wake of the 9/11 attacks and irrespective of whether US intervention in theregion has been proper. Working with mainly a safety methodology, the dissertation will seem in certain at the rationale guiding themilitary interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Chapter two will glimpse at American overseas policy in the Middle Eastprior to nine/11 and how some of its previous actions have impacted on insurance policies publish-9/11. The US has been closely included in the Center Eastsince Entire world War II and this chapter will analyze how procedures about earlier a long time may perhaps have to start with contributed toward the nine/eleven attacks and next shaped US plan in the intervening time period.
Chapter three examines the doable motivations for the assaults on nine/11. The question ‘why do they despise us so a great deal?’ is one particular that has been questioned across America considering that nine/11 and this chapter will attempt to look at to motivations of the attackers and teams such as Al Qaeda while examining how a great deal of an understanding there is in The united states for the hostility felt to it in the Center East.
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CC-MAIN-2020-50
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http://www.soldobrasilenergia.com.br/blog/persuasive-essay-alexander-the-great/
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| 0.941815 | 876 | 2.953125 | 3 | 2.669725 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Changing climates ... the polar vortex played havoc with Niagara Falls (and much of the rest of North America too). Photo: Rick Warne / EPA.
The 'pre-Holocene' climate is returning - and it won't be fun
16th August 2014
A string of events earlier this year provided a sobering snapshot of a global climate system out of whack, writes Peter Fisher. Could it represent the end of a rare 10,000 year island of stability in global climate? If so, we had better get used to it. The Earth may never be so comfortable again ...
The calm and tranquil Holocene has now been replaced by the Anthropocene - heralding a return to a volatile and destructive climate. Truly, we have woken an angry beast from its slumber.
A string of events earlier this year provided a sobering snapshot of a global climate system out of whack.
These happenings give us an idea of what life must have been like in the lead-up to the Holocene Epoch, living on the brink of seismic change, amid a series of abrupt climate shifts.
The beast awakes
As the archaeologist Steven Mithen wrote in his book After the Ice:
"People were thin on the ground and struggling with a deteriorating climate ... massive ice sheets had expanded across much of North America, Northern Europe and Asia. The planet was inundated by drought, sea level had fallen to expose vast and often barren coastal plains.
"Human communities survived the harshest conditions by retreating to refugia where firewood and foodstuffs could still be found."
Since then, we have been lulled into a false sense of security by the ensuing 10,000-odd years of peaceful, stable climate during the Holocene itself. This has allowed us to tame crops and livestock, and to come together to form communities, villages and, ultimately, cities.
From ice age to rapid warming
When the last ice age began to teeter 14,700 years ago, meltwater began to pour into the oceans, raising levels by up to half a metre per decade. The sea moved inland like a slow tsunami.
But after a hesitant couple of millennia of warmer conditions, the cold was back with a vengeance, turning western Asia and Europe into ice empires. This event, dubbed the Younger Dryas, derived from the collapse of the ice walls on Lake Agassiz in North America, sending freshwater flooding into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
As a result it cut back the Gulf Stream, returning the planet to cool and dry conditions in a matter of decades, with the average Northern Hemisphere temperature plummeting by 7C.
These cold conditions lasted for about 1,400 years. Then, just as rapidly, the warm and wet conditions returned, marking the beginning of the Holocene about 11,700 years ago.
Since then, the world's climate has remained remarkably stable - boring, even. The relatively static shorelines have made farming, fishing, towns and cities possible.
Humans have got used to thinking that this is a natural state of affairs. But, as James Hansen has declared, "it's our relatively static experience of climate that is actually exceptional."
Of course, there have been divergences from the norm, although these have thankfully been few and far between. One was 5000 years ago, when the Sahara went from a land of hippos and giraffes to desert in a mere 100-200 years.
That event was caused by gradual changes to the Earth's orientation towards the Sun. It shows us that even when the forces are gradual, the climate may not always respond gradually but instead can move in juddering, unpredictable shifts.
At about the same time, seismic change was happening in our own midst, with the eruption of Mount Gambier sending an ash plume up to 10 km high - an event that would have partially obscured the Sun.
Eruptions like this were the main cause of climate variability in the Holocene, causing cooler, drier episodes such as the 'Mediaeval little ice age'.
Things are different now
Now, however, carbon dioxide has reached levels not seen for at least 3 million years, and fossil fuel emissions have become the dominant driver of the changes to our climate. In a world potentially several degrees warmer than the one that spawned our civilization, we had better ready ourselves for some surprises.
This isn't alarmism; it's just sensible risk management. Retired US Navy Rear Admiral David Titley, now head of Penn State's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, pointed out that governments still spend money on defence, despite the declining number of people killed worldwide in war.
He told the US Congress that "we rightly invest in our security and defence as one component of hedging against unknown or unlikely security risks". Inaction on climate change violates that same fundamental risk-management principle.
What's nature ever done for us?
Of course, nature will carry on regardless, albeit savaged. As the MIT physicist and humanities professor Alan Lightman has noted, "tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants."
Yet if we turn our backs on nature, while at the same time climbing the population hill to nine billion, we will create a horrid future for humanity's survivors, with ongoing wild species extinctions and a world polluted by human-invented chemicals.
Some have predicted that, within just two or three centuries, we could be alone except for pets, chickens, livestock, and an unknown suite of microbes and freeloaders such as mice and cockroaches.
For a sneak preview of this 'biosimplification', look no further than the swathes of European countryside where there has been a crash in bird populations - no songs, no glimpses of plumage, just an eerie silence - as a result of the wholesale ripping up of hedgerows, draining of wetlands and ploughing over of meadows robbing farmland birds of their homes and sustenance in order to boost farming production.
That would leave us living in a drab, crummy landscape where surviving native plants cower in small niches away from the weeds; zoos exhibit a lost fauna; and biophilia is reduced to watching carp.
It's surely a trajectory that's worth getting off.
Peter Fisher is Adjunct Professor, Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Using this website means you agree to us using simple cookies.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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The northern box turtle generally refers to the northern spotted box turtle. This turtle is a subspecies of the spotted box turtle. It is also called the Klauber’s spotted box turtle or the Klauber’s box turtle.
As with other box turtles, the T. n. klauberi turtle has a highly domed carapace and can completely encase itself within its shell. This offers the turtle a lot of protection from predators.
The wild population of this turtle is limited to the Sierra Madre Occidental in montane regions. The northern spotted box turtle is most populous in the northern portion of the species geographic range.
Also, the eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) has sometimes been referred to as the northern box turtle.
Northern Box Turtle Facts
- Experience Level: Advanced
- Family: Emydidae
- Scientific Name: Terrapene nelsoni klauberi
- Other Names: Northern Spotted Box Turtle, Klauber’s Box Turtle
- Average Adult Size: 6 inches (15 cm)
- Average Lifespan: 27 years in captivity
- Diet: Omnivorous
T. n. klauberi is a moderately sized turtle with an average carapace length of 6 inches. Their weight should be around 450 grams (16 oz).
T. n. klauberi has bright yellow patterns on both their carapace and their limbs. These spots give them their common name. The older the turtle, the fainter these spots are. The background color of the carapace is dark brown to black.
Although they possess a domed carapace, it isn’t as prominent as other box turtles.
Natural Habitat & Geographic Range
T. n. klauberi is a North American turtle that is endemic to northern Mexico. The subspecies can be found in Sonora Chihuahua and northern Sinaloa. However, they can also be found in southern Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Nayarit.
The turtle is endemic to the Sierra Madre Occidental. They can be found across states within which the Sierra Madre Occidental is found, in particular the montane regions of their geographic range.
They can be found at an elevation of 450 m (1476 ft) to 1640 m (5381 ft) above sea level.
This turtle isn’t known to live close to water bodies. However, they do rely on the monsoons of the Sierra Madre Occidental to provide them with the water and humidity needed to thrive.
The lifespan of these turtles is difficult to determine as little is known about the species. However, a living captive specimen cared for at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum was at least 27 years old in 2011.
However, these turtles most likely live to over 100 years in the wild just like other box turtles closely related to the species and subspecies.
All North American box turtles are omnivorous and eat a wide range of food. The Northern spotted box turtles should be no different. Since only one captive s[pecimen has been documented, the foods they eat in captivity aren’t well documented. They eat vegetation and other smaller animals and insects.
The wild spotted box turtle has been observed to eat organ pipe cactus.
Adult box turtles have few predators as their tough shells provide them with top-notch protection. Juveniles and hatchlings on the other hand are prone to attacks from birds of prey such as owls and crows, foxes, coyotes, snakes, chipmunks, raccoons, and many more. Their eggs are also preyed on.
If you decide to keep this turtle as a pet, know that many animals will try to attack and prey on it. Animals such as dogs and cats have been known to attack box turtles. Other animals such as raccoons and opossums will also attack the turtle.
As such, they need to be well protected.
These turtles mate when humidity levels are very high. They mate after heavy rains. Also, they lay eggs when there is heavy rain. As such expect them to mate and nest in the rainy season. Eggs are laid around June and July and eggs hatch in late summer.
The clutch size is small with an average of 2.7 eggs. They usually lay 1 to 4 eggs. Gravid box turtles can lay eggs several years after mating.
Northern Box Turtle Care Guide
These turtles have been successfully kept in captivity as such captive care is possible. However, because these turtles are rare, it is very uncommon to need the care guide of the subspecies and by extension the species.
Box turtles are best kept outside. This gives them more room as well as providing the turtle with natural warmth, and sunlight. Both of these elements are important for the survival of the turtle.
When kept indoors, you need to artificially stimulate warmth and sunlight. You would need to provide UVB and UVA radiation and warmth. You may even need to produce vitamin D3 supplementation. This isn’t needed if the turtle is kept outdoors and is exposed to the sun.
For an outdoor pen, the enclosure should be at least 64 ft² in size. The walls of the pen should be about a foot tall. This should prevent the turtle from climbing out. The wall also needs to be 1 foot deep. This should prevent the chelonian from burrowing under the wall.
The walls can be constructed from untreated wood or cinder blocks. You can cover the enclosure with hardware cloth to protect the turtle from predators such as birds of prey and raccoons.
Reptiles are cold-blooded. This means that a lot of work needs to go into making sure that the temperatures within the enclosure are just right. You need to create a temperature gradient. This allows the turtle to regulate its body temperature by moving between the cool and warm ends of the enclosure.
The warm end of the enclosure should be above 90 degrees in temperature. The cool end of the enclosure should be below 75 degrees in temperature.
The air temperature should be 80 degrees to 85 degrees during the day and 70 degrees to 75 degrees during the night.
During the night, you can allow the temperature of the entire enclosure to fall to at least 70 degrees.
If nighttime temperatures fall below 70 degrees, you will need to provide a night heat lamp or a ceramic heat emitter. These are also effective at providing warmth during the day.
I recommend heat lamps that don’t produce light. These can also be used during the night if temperatures get too low. There are two choices available and these are the ceramic heat emitter and the night heat lamp.
Ceramic Heat Emitters
These effectively provide infrared heat in a uniform pattern. The heat penetrated the scales and kept the turtle active and warm. They produce zero visible light and as such can be on even at night if needed.
For large enclosures, I recommend 100 watts ceramic heat lamps. I also recommend using the ceramic heat emitter with a thermostat. This prevents the heat lamp from overheating the enclosure.
Night Heat Lamps
These are also excellent at providing warmth. They are called night heat lamps as they provide very little visible light. That way they do not interfere with the turtle’s day-night cycle.
These should also be used in conjunction with a thermostat to prevent overheating.
Thermostat and thermometer
It is very difficult to determine whether or not the temperature ranges created are right for the turtle or not. To help with this, you need a thermometer.
Additionally, since you aren’t going to be watching the enclosure/thermometer 24/7, you need a thermostat to regulate the heat being provided by the heat lamp.
The enclosure needs to be well-light during the day and dark during the night. This is a must. Leaving the lights on longer than needed is detrimental to the health of the box turtle. A timer can be automated to turn the lights off when it is night.
The turtles also require UVA and UVB in adequate amounts.
If you must get light from your local pet shop or hardware shop, I advise that you get a fluorescent lamp. These do not produce heat and as such won’t influence the temperature gradient you establish within the enclosure.
A UV meter/tester such as REPTI-ZOO UV Tester can check if the lamp provides adequate UV radiation. These can be expensive so you can just change the bulb every 6 months.
Box turtles like to burrow so a substrate is a must. A mix of topsoil and play sand is an excellent bedding choice for the chelonian. Other beddings you can provide are coco coir (such as Exo Terra Coco Husk) or bark bedding (such as Jurassic Fir Bark Bedding).
Make sure that any bedding used is sterile and void of fertilizer.
The substrates mentioned help maintain an adequate humidity level for the chelonians.
Humidity levels need to be high when it comes to box turtles. A relative humidity of about 70% should be adequate.
If humidity levels are lower than 60%, you can use a spray bottle to mist the enclosure.
The turtle also needs clean drinking water which is free of chlorine. The water bowl needs to be sturdy and large enough for the turtle to enter.
Feeding the Northern spotted box turtle
If you manage to keep this chelonian as a pet, they should accept leafy greens such as kale, herbs such as cilantro and parsley, insects such as crickets. And nightcrawlers and of course pinkie mice. All of these foods have been successfully fed to the spotted box turtle.
Breeding and Availability
These turtles haven’t been successfully bred yet. Similarly, they are not available on the pet market.
That is not to say that they cannot be found, just that they are extremely difficult to be found. This can change in the future but since the demand for this chelonian is low, this is unlikely to happen.
This turtle faces the same health issues as other box turtles. Signs of health problems include diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, change in routine, swellings around the ear, excessive tiredness, and discharge from the ears, nose, mouth, or eyes. A soft shell in juveniles, subadults, and adults is also a bad sign.
Respiratory Infections. This is very common among captive box turtles. This is caused by dryness and a lack of vitamin A. Box turtles require high humidity levels. If it is too dry, they can develop respiratory infections. Likewise, if there isn’t enough vitamin A in the reptile’s diet, it can develop a respiratory infection. Symptoms include difficulty breathing and wheezing. An ill turtle may also refuse to eat and become lethargic.
Parasites. Parasitic infections are common among wild spotted box turtles. Almost every single wild box turtle has parasites such as flagellates. However,This this usually isn’t a problem as they are in low numbers. It is only an issue when the numbers are high.
Symptoms of an infection include diarrhea, presence of worms in stool, loss of body mass, and indigestion evident by the passing of undigested food.
Metabolic bone disease. We cannot talk about turtle health issues without mentioning MBD (Metabolic bone disease) in particular nutritional metabolic bone disease. This is caused by vitamin D and/or calcium deficiency. Symptoms include deformed body parts such as limbs and shells. If corrected early while the turtle is still a juvenile, the turtle may not suffer lasting damage. However, if the turtle is already an adult by the time it is treated, the disfigurement will be permanent.
There is no information on the conservation status of this turtle as it is yet to be evaluated.
Box turtles are long-lived and can grow to over 25 years. The oldest recorded member of the subspecies being discussed today is at least 27 years.
The subspecies can possibly live for over 100 years. However, little research has been done on this turtle, so this is unknown.
These turtles are not pets. Very few have been documented as being kept in captivity, and most of them didn’t live beyond 6 years with just one living to be over 25 years.
The northern spotted box turtle is best not kept as a pet. It is advisable to find a different species.
The northern spotted box turtle is a north American turtle that is endemic to northern Mexico. The subspecies can be found in Sonora, Chihuahua, and northern Sinaloa. However, they can also be found in southern Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Nayarit.
The turtle is endemic to the Sierra Madre Occidental. They can be found across the states within which the Sierra Madre Occidental is found, in particular the montane regions of their geographic range.
They can be found at an elevation of 450 m (1476 ft) to 1640 m (5381 ft) above sea level.
These turtles are moderately sized turtles, do not expect one to reach 12 inches long in carapace length. They reach a moderate length of 6 inches. And they can reach weights of 500 grams (17.6 oz).
These turtles aren’t aggressive and can be easily picked up and handled. I advise against doing this unless it is Thisnecessary as this can be stressful for the turtle.
The northern spotted box turtle is one of the rarest box turtles in North America. In fact, this is one of the rarest turtles in North America. Few have been discovered, and fewer have been kept as pets. While it is possible to come across them, this is unlikely.
If you wish to identify the species, look for the tiny yellow spots on their carapace and skin.
Caring for this turtle shouldn’t be more difficult than other box turtles, however, only one specimen has been documented to live over 25 years. The rest lived to be anywhere from 3 months to 6 years.
If you have any questions about this turtle, kindly leave a comment.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Dogs are known as man’s best friend, beloved for their loyalty, companionship, and ability to bring joy to any household. However, just like humans, dogs can also suffer from various disorders that affect their overall well-being. Among these disorders, one stands out as the most common in canines. Whether you are a dog owner or simply curious about the health and well-being of our furry friends, understanding the most prevalent disorder in dogs is crucial in ensuring their happiness and longevity.
In this article, we will explore the most common disorder in dogs and delve into its causes, symptoms, treatment options, and preventive measures. Through a comprehensive analysis of this condition, we aim to provide you with valuable insights and a deeper understanding of your dog’s health. So, if you want to learn more about the leading disorder affecting dogs and how to care for your canine companion, continue reading as we explore each section in detail.
What is the Most Common Disorder in Dogs? Exploring the Prevalence and Impact
The most common disorder in dogs refers to the frequent health condition that affects a significant number of canines worldwide. This disorder often manifests in various symptoms, causing discomfort and distress to our beloved furry friends. To delve deeper into understanding this prevalent issue, let’s explore the different types of common disorders in dogs and their potential impact on their well-being. Read on to gain insights into the symptoms, causes, and preventive measures associated with the most common disorder in dogs.
What is the most common disorder in dogs?
Dogs are susceptible to a wide range of health issues, just like humans. However, when it comes to the most common disorder in dogs, there is one condition that stands out: dental disease.
Dental disease, also known as periodontal disease, affects the majority of dogs. According to data from the American Veterinary Dental College, over 80% of dogs over the age of three are affected by dental disease. This statistic highlights the prevalence of this condition among our furry friends.
The impact of dental disease
Dental disease can have a significant impact on a dog’s overall health and well-being. It typically starts with the buildup of plaque and tartar on the teeth, which, if not addressed, can progress to more serious conditions such as gingivitis and periodontitis.
As dental disease advances, it can lead to tooth loss, tooth root abscesses, and even bone infections. In addition to the physical discomfort, untreated dental disease can also affect a dog’s appetite and ability to eat properly, leading to weight loss and malnutrition.
Causes of dental disease
There are several factors that contribute to the development of dental disease in dogs. The primary cause is poor dental hygiene, including lack of regular brushing, inadequate dental care, and a lack of professional dental cleanings.
Other factors that can contribute to the development of dental disease include genetics, age, diet, and certain medical conditions. Small dog breeds and brachycephalic breeds (e.g., Bulldogs, Pugs) are particularly prone to dental disease due to overcrowded or misaligned teeth.
Preventing and managing dental disease
Preventing and managing dental disease in dogs is crucial for their overall health. The following are some essential steps to take:
- Regular brushing: Brushing your dog’s teeth daily or at least a few times a week helps remove plaque and prevent its buildup.
- Dental-friendly diet: Feeding your dog a diet specifically designed to promote dental health, such as dental chews or specialized dental food, can help reduce plaque and tartar.
- Professional dental cleanings: Regular visits to the veterinarian for professional dental cleanings are essential to address any underlying dental issues and remove stubborn tartar.
- Monitor oral health: Regularly check your dog’s mouth for signs of dental disease, such as bad breath, red or swollen gums, and loose teeth, and seek veterinary care if any abnormalities are noticed.
- Regular dental exams: Schedule routine dental exams with your veterinarian to detect and address any dental issues early on.
By taking these preventive measures and prioritizing your dog’s dental health, you can significantly reduce the risk of dental disease and ensure your furry companion’s overall well-being.
In conclusion, dental disease is the most common disorder in dogs. Over 80% of dogs over the age of three are affected by this condition. It is essential for dog owners to prioritize dental care to prevent and manage dental disease and promote their dog’s overall health.
FAQs about the Most Common Disorder in Dogs
1. What is the most common disorder in dogs?
The most common disorder in dogs is dental disease, specifically periodontal disease.
2. How common is dental disease in dogs?
Dental disease affects around 80% of dogs by the age of three, making it extremely common.
3. What are the signs of dental disease in dogs?
The signs of dental disease in dogs include bad breath, yellow or brown buildup on the teeth, swollen or bleeding gums, difficulty eating, and loose teeth.
4. Is dental disease in dogs preventable?
Yes, dental disease in dogs is preventable through regular dental care routines, including brushing their teeth and providing dental treats or toys.
5. Can dental disease in dogs lead to other health problems?
Yes, dental disease in dogs can lead to other health problems such as infections, abscesses, and even organ damage if bacteria from the mouth enter the bloodstream.
6. How often should I brush my dog’s teeth?
It is recommended to brush your dog’s teeth at least 2-3 times a week for optimal dental health.
7. Are certain dog breeds more prone to dental disease?
Yes, certain dog breeds are more prone to dental disease, including small breed dogs such as poodles, Yorkshire terriers, and Chihuahuas.
8. Can diet affect a dog’s dental health?
Yes, diet can affect a dog’s dental health. Feeding a balanced diet, avoiding sticky and sugary foods, and offering chew toys or dental treats can help promote good dental hygiene.
9. Are professional dental cleanings necessary for dogs?
Yes, professional dental cleanings under anesthesia are necessary to remove tartar and plaque buildup that cannot be addressed through regular brushing alone.
10. What should I do if my dog shows signs of dental disease?
If your dog shows signs of dental disease, it is important to take them to a veterinarian for a dental examination and appropriate treatment, which may include professional cleaning, extractions, or antibiotics.
In conclusion, canine obesity is the most common disorder in dogs, affecting a significant number of them around the world. It is primarily caused by excessive caloric intake and lack of physical activity, and it can have serious health consequences for our furry friends. Obesity puts dogs at a higher risk of developing various health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and respiratory problems. Pet owners should be mindful of their dog’s diet and ensure they are providing a balanced and nutritious meal along with regular exercise to help prevent and manage obesity.
Another prevalent disorder in dogs is dental disease, which often goes unnoticed but can significantly impact a dog’s overall health. Poor oral hygiene can result in gum inflammation, tooth decay, and eventually, tooth loss. Dental disease can also lead to more severe health problems as bacteria from the mouth can enter the bloodstream and affect vital organs like the heart and kidneys. It is crucial for dog owners to maintain good oral hygiene practices by regularly brushing their dog’s teeth and providing them with appropriate chew toys to help reduce plaque buildup.
In conclusion, obesity and dental disease are the most common disorders in dogs, and both can be prevented with proper care and attention. Being aware of these disorders and taking proactive steps to prevent or manage them will go a long way in ensuring the overall health and well-being of our beloved four-legged companions.
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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What is a hip fracture?
A hip fracture is a break in the thighbone (femur) of your hip joint.
Joints are areas where two or more bones meet. Your hip joint is a "ball and socket"
joint, where your thighbone meets your pelvic bone. The ball part of your hip joint
is the head of the thighbone. The socket is a cup-like structure in your pelvic bone.
This is called the acetabulum. Hip fracture is a serious injury and needs immediate
Most hip fractures happen to people older than age 60. The incidence of hip fractures
increases with age, doubling for each decade after age 50. Caucasians and Asians are
more likely to be affected than others. This is primarily because of a higher rate
of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis (loss of bone tissue) is a disease that weakens bones.
Women are more prone to osteoporosis than men; therefore, hip fracture is more common
among women. More than 1.5 million Americans have fractures each year because of osteoporosis.
Either a single break or multiple breaks can happen in a bone. A hip fracture is classified
by the specific area of the break and the type of break(s) in your bone.
The most common types of hip fractures are:
Femoral neck fracture. A femoral neck fracture happens 1 to 2 inches from your hip joint. This type of fracture
is common among older adults and can be related to osteoporosis. This type of fracture
may cause a complication because the break usually cuts off the blood supply to the
head of the thighbone, which forms the hip joint.
Most hip fractures fall into these two categories in relatively equal numbers. Another
type of fracture, called a stress fracture of the hip, may be harder to diagnose.
This is a hairline crack in the thighbone that may not involve your whole bone. Overuse
and repetitive motion can cause a stress fracture. The symptoms of this injury may
mimic those of tendonitis or muscle strain.
What causes a hip fracture?
A fall is the most common reason for a hip fracture among the elderly. A few people
may have a hip fracture happen spontaneously. If you are younger, a hip fracture is
generally the result of a car accident, a fall from a great height, or severe trauma.
Hip fracture is more common in older people. This is because bones become thinner
and weaker from calcium loss as a person ages. This is generally due to osteoporosis.
Bones affected by osteoporosis are more likely to break if you fall. Most hip fractures
that older people get happen as a result of falling while walking on a level surface,
often at home.
If you are woman, you lose 30% to 50% of your bone density as you age. The loss of
bone speeds up dramatically after menopause because you make less estrogen. Estrogen
contributes to maintaining bone density and strength.
Who is at risk for hip fracture?
You are at risk for a hip fracture if you have osteoporosis. Older age also puts you
at more risk. Other things that may raise your risk include:
Excessive alcohol consumption
Lack of physical activity
Low body weight
Poor nutrition, including a diet low in calcium and vitamin D
Thinking problems such as dementia
Medicines that cause bone loss
Living in an assisted-care facility
Increased risk for falls, related to conditions such as weakness, disability, or unsteady
There may be other risks, depending on your specific health condition. Discuss any
concerns with your healthcare provider.
What are the symptoms of a hip fracture?
The following are the most common symptoms of a hip fracture:
Hip pain or pain that you can feel in your knee
Low back pain
Inability to stand or walk
Bruising and swelling
Foot turned out at an odd angle, making your leg look shorter
The symptoms of hip fracture may seem like other medical conditions. Always see your healthcare
provider for a diagnosis.
How is a hip fracture diagnosed?
In addition to a complete medical history and physical exam, diagnostic procedures
for hip fracture may include the following:
X-ray. Invisible electromagnetic energy beams produce images of internal tissues, bones,
and organs onto film.
MRI. A combination of large magnets, radio waves, and a computer make detailed images
of organs and structures within your body.
CT scan. This is an imaging test that uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed images of
the body. A CT scan shows details of the bones, muscles, fat, and organs. CT scans
are more detailed than standard X-rays.
How is a hip fracture treated?
A fracture of your hip is generally treated with surgery. Your surgeon may use metal
devices to strengthen and stabilize your joint. In some cases, they may do a partial
or total hip replacement. The type of surgical repair will depend on the type of hip
fracture. Your surgeon will determine the best procedure for you, based on your situation.
The goal of treatment is to provide relief from pain and enable you to resume your
normal activity level. Hip surgery usually requires an in-hospital stay. While in
the hospital, you start doing physical therapy exercises to regain strength and range
of motion in your hip. Physical therapy will continue at home or on admission to a
What are possible complications of hip fracture?
Serious complications can result from a hip fracture. Blood clots can happen in the
veins, usually in your legs. If a clot breaks off, it can travel to a blood vessel
in your lung. This blockage, called a pulmonary embolism, can be fatal.
Other complications can include:
Muscle atrophy (wasting of muscle tissue)
Nonunion or improper union of your bone
Mental deterioration after surgery in older patients
Bedsores from lying in the same position with minimal movement
With some fractures, blood can't circulate properly to the head of the thigh bone.
This results in a loss of blood supply to this area. This is called femoral avascular
necrosis. This complication may happen, depending on the type of fracture and the
anatomy of your blood supply to the head of the thigh bone. This is more common with
femoral neck fractures.
Most people spend 1 to 2 weeks in the hospital after a hip fracture. The recovery
period may be lengthy and may include admission to a rehabilitation facility. If you
were previously able to live independently, you will generally need help from home
caregivers or family, or need the services of a long-term care facility. Hip fractures
can result in a loss of independence, reduced quality of life, and depression. This
is especially true for older people.
What can I do to prevent a hip fracture?
Preventive measures include taking enough calcium every day.
If you are a woman at menopause, you should consider having a bone density test. This
measures your bone mineral content and the thickness of your bone. This measurement
can indicate decreased bone mass. This is a condition in which your bones are more
brittle and more prone to break or fracture easily. A bone density test is used primarily
to diagnose osteoporosis and to determine fracture risk.
Women make less estrogen when menopause starts. Most people do not know they have
osteoporosis until they have a fracture.
Another way to help prevent hip fracture is to do regular weight-bearing exercise,
such as walking, jogging, or hiking. Exercise programs such as tai chi help promote
strength and balance.
Other preventive measures may include:
Taking medicines as prescribed by your healthcare provider to prevent bone loss
Eating a diet rich in vitamin D and calcium, including milk, cottage cheese, yogurt,
sardines, and broccoli
Not drinking too much alcohol
Keeping objects, such as electrical cords, off the stairs and floors to prevent falls
Using slip-resistant rugs next to the bathtub, and installing grab bars in the tub
Positioning night lights from the bedroom to the bathroom
Using rug pads or nonskid backing to keep rugs in place
Not using unsteady furniture or step ladders to stand on
Visiting an ophthalmologist every year to have vision checked and vision loss treated
Key points about hip fracture
Most hip fractures happen to people of older age.
A fall is the most common reason for a hip fracture among elderly adults.
Hip fracture is more common among women.
Osteoporosis and advancing age are the major risk factors.
A fracture of the hip is generally treated with surgery.
Serious complications can result from a hip fracture.
Women at menopause should consider having a bone density test.
Regular weight-bearing exercise helps to prevent a hip fracture.
Tips to help you get the most from a visit to your healthcare provider:
Know the reason for your visit and what you want to happen.
Before your visit, write down questions you want answered.
Bring someone with you to help you ask questions and remember what your provider tells
At the visit, write down the name of a new diagnosis and any new medicines, treatments,
or tests. Also write down any new instructions your provider gives you.
Know why a new medicine or treatment is prescribed and how it will help you. Also
know what the side effects are.
Ask if your condition can be treated in other ways.
Know why a test or procedure is recommended and what the results could mean.
Know what to expect if you do not take the medicine or have the test or procedure.
If you have a follow-up appointment, write down the date, time, and purpose for that
Know how you can contact your provider if you have questions.
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Basic reasoning
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Health
|
Fire In-Depth is design for students who want to learn more about fire.
- Cultural Interpretations
- Different Ecosystems
- Fire Behavior
- Fire and Ecosystems
- Fire Classifications
- Fire Ecology
- Fire Effects Monitoring
- Fire Engines
- Fire Management Personnel
- Fire Monitors
- Fire Spread
- Fire Suppression
- Fire Triangle
- Fire Watches & Warnings
- Fireline Construction
- Hazardous Fuel Reduction
- Historic Fires
- Human Uses of Fire
- Incident Command System (ICS)
- Incident Command System Levels
- Preparedness Levels
- Prescribed Fire
- Prevention History
- The Effects of Fire
- Understanding Fire Danger
- Wildfire Causes
- Wildland Fire Evaluation
Fire Effects Monitoring Program
Research on the effects of fire has been occurring for years in the national parks. It is an important basis of decision-making for park and fire managers.
Why does the National Park Service monitor?
Fire is a powerful and enduring force that has had, and will continue to have, a profound influence on National Park Service (NPS) lands. Restoring and maintaining this natural process are both important management goals for many NPS areas. Therefore, information about the use and effect of prescribed fire on park resources is critical to sound, scientifically based management decisions. Using results from a high quality monitoring program to evaluate a park’s prescribed fire management program is the key to successful adaptive management. By using monitoring results to determine whether management objectives are being met, managers can verify that the program is on track, or conversely, provide clues as to what may not be working as planned so that appropriate changes can be made.
The fire monitoring program allows the National Park Service to document basic information, to detect trends, and to ensure that parks meet their fire and resource management objectives. From identified trends, park staff can articulate specific concerns, develop hypotheses, and identify specific research projects to develop solutions to problems.
The Goals of the Program
- Document basic information for all wildland fires, regardless of management strategy
- Document fire behavior to allow managers to take appropriate action on all fires that either have the potential to threaten resource values.
- Are being managed under specific constrains, such as a prescribed fire or use fire
- Document and analyze both short-term and long-term prescribed fire effects on vegetation
- Establish a recommended standard for data collection and analysis techniques to facilitate the sharing of monitoring data
- Follow trends in plant communities where fire effects literature exists, or research has been conducted
- Identify areas where additional research is needed
Monitoring the effects of fire on park ecosystems is an important part of the Wildland Fire Program. Fire managers need to accurately predict fire behavior under varying weather conditions, and predict how fire will affect fuel loads, plant populations, and tree regeneration. The Fire effects crew monitors prescribed fires and hazard fuel treatment areas to ensure that management objectives are met and that harmful effects are not occurring. The crew also studies natural ignitions to better understand the role of lightning-caused fire and how management may balance the natural fire regime with visitor safety and resource protection.
Standard data collected include:
- Shrub and herbaceous vegetation composition and abundance
- Tree density, diameter and health by species and size class
- Fuel load by size class (1 hr, 10 hr, 100 hr and 1000 hr fuels)
- Litter and duff depth
- Average scorch height (Post-burn)
- Percent Crown scorch (Post-burn)
- Burn Severity (Post-burn)
- Visual changes at permanent photo points
The Process and Results
Vegetation is sampled prior to burning or mechanical treatment, immediately after, and at 1, 2, 5, and 10 year intervals. After collection, the data are entered into a database and stored for analysis. The data allow resource managers and scientists to compare pre- and post-burn vegetation composition and fuel loadings and assess whether burn objectives were met, and to track long-term ecosystem changes due to fire.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
|
What is Contract? : A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties. It may be oral or written. A contract is essentially a set of promises regularized by both parties mutually or under the superision of third party. Typically, each party promises to do something for the other in exchange for a benefit. The business environment is full of agreements between businesses and individuals.
While oral agreements can be used, most businesses use formal written contracts when engaging in operations. Written contracts provide individuals and businesses with a legal document stating the expectations of both parties and how negative situations will be resolved. Contracts also are legally enforceable in a court of law. They often represent a tool that companies use to safeguard their resources. Businesses frequently use contracts like; rental agreement with the help of rental agreement template, to ensure that a certain level of service is maintained or that competing companies do not have access to specific economic resources.
The main advantage of legal contracts to minimize liabilities is that it reduces the risk that the company issuing the contracts will be sued. By making sure that all parties agree on the terms of a particular agreement and making everyone sign a contract attesting to this, this strategy reduces the chance that one party will have grounds for legal action later on. Legal contracts provide more certainty for both parties than verbal contracts. They clearly set out the details of what was agreed. Matters such as materials, timeframes, payments and a procedure to follow in the event of a dispute, can all be set out in a contract. If a contract is legal, it will give you more certainty and minimize your business risks and enhance your business life.
Legal contracts have many benefits to your business life. They provide proof of what was agreed between you and the hirer, help to prevent misunderstandings or disputes by making the agreement clear from the outset, give you security and peace of mind by knowing you have work for how long and what you will be paid. Legal contracts clarify your status as an independent contractor, reduce the risk of a dispute by detailing payments, timeframes and work to be performed under the contract, set out how a dispute over payments or performance will be resolved. Legal contracts set out how the contract can be varied and serve as a record of what was agreed.
Legal contracts are changing business life in a positive way and are highly important for the business because they ensure that all parties to the agreement understand what they are agreeing to. For example, if you rent space you make sure that you understand the terms of the lease. If you have a vendor, your agreement would be regarding the costs and other terms of buying items from the vendor. Legal contract are useful for the business because they have consideration. Consideration is giving something of value in return for something else. For example, if you are buying a car, you give the seller a certain amount of money and the seller gives you the car. When you enter into an employment contract, you agree to give service for a specific amount of salary.
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Moderate reasoning
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Finance & Business
|
Tea plantation workers in Assam have endured deplorable working and living conditions for decades. The tea industry is the pride of the state, but the workers who are the backbone of that industry have been living in abject poverty. One cause of workers’ poverty is their shockingly low wage. Earning a meager INR 137 per day, plantation workers get barely half the State-mandated minimum of INR 250. Low wage, along with dire working and living conditions, are why international media have been shaming the Assam tea industry in recent years – and rightfully so.
But this year a window of opportunity has arisen to right the scales of justice. On 15 September 2017, the Government of Assam constituted a Minimum Wages Advisory Board to re-fix the minimum wage for tea plantation workers.
The Advisory Board has been set up under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (MWA), which requires state governments to set and regularly review the minimum wage for industries such as the tea industry. The law allows state governments to appoint committees to provide advice on what the wage should be. By law, such advisory committees must consist of equal numbers of government, industry, and employee representatives, as well as independent persons not to exceed one-third of the members. The committee may call witnesses to inform on issues relevant to wage.
Critically, the advisory committee must recommend a wage that complies with applicable laws and regulations such as the MWA, the 15th Indian Labour Conference minimum wage guidelines (ILC Guidelines), and the Plantations Labour Act, 1951 (PLA). The state government must then consider the advice of the advisory committee to set the minimum wage.
For the Assam tea industry, the previous advisory committee was established on 12 December 2014. On 29 July 2015, the committee issued a draft notification recommending a daily wage increase to INR 177.19. At the time, workers were paid just INR 115. However, before the draft notification could be Gazetted, the Assam Tea Planters Association and others challenged the draft and thereafter deadlocked the issue in a legal battle, stalling an overdue wage increase for thousands of workers.
This year, although the Assam Government has taken the right step forward by setting up the Minimum Wages Advisory Board, the Board’s composition and procedures leave much to be desired. For one, the Board lacks representation of women, let alone Adivasi women, who constitute over 60 percent of the industry’s workforce. Once again, women have not been included in a key decision-making forum. Women’s participation is particularly important because Assam has some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country. Mortalities are highest on tea plantations, due to poor living and working conditions and lack of facilities particularly for women. The Board should consider these issues as it advises on setting the minimum wage. Another shortcoming is the Board has no independent representatives, of which at least some should be civil society experts on wage and benefits issues. Additionally, the Board has not transparently publicised its activities and timeline for revising the minimum wage.
The Government and the Board should resolve these concerns by taking the following steps in respect of the Board’s composition and functioning:
- Ensure adequate participation by women in the Board’s discussions;
- Invite independent experts from the Adivasi Community and/or Adivasi civil society organizations with expertise in tea wage and benefits issues;
- Ensure transparency in the Board’s identification of witnesses; and
- Ensure transparency in the Board’s discussion by announcing in advance the dates of meetings and promptly publicizing meeting minutes.
A Board that is representative, informed, and transparent can use the upcoming wage discussions as an opportunity to ensure tea plantation workers receive a fair and decent wage. Workers have Constitutional rights to a legal minimum wage, health, food, education, and social security. The Board must follow legal guidelines to recommend:
- Workers are paid for 3 consumption units instead of 1.5, in accordance with the ILC Guidelines;
- Workers are paid the rest day wage in accordance with the PLA and Assam State Rules;
- Statutory entitlements are not deducted from the wage in violation of the Constitution of India and the PLA;
- The revised wage takes into consideration the cost of living index for tea plantation workers;
- Tea pickers are classified as semi-skilled instead of unskilled labourers in accordance with a Central Government directive; and
- The revised wage is fixed as per the Supreme Court decision in Workmen Represented by Secretary v. Reptakos Brett & Co. Ltd, 1992 AIR (SC) 504, which explicitly states that the financial hardship of an employer is not a ground to deny workers the legal minimum wage.
In recent months, newspapers have reported widespread, peaceful demonstrations and Dharnas by tea plantation workers in Gauhati and across Assam. Workers are voicing their dissatisfaction with the current wage structure and calling upon their government to heed its legal responsibilities and set a decent wage of Rs 350. A study by civil society in Assam has found that meeting the legal requirements of the ILC Guidelines and the Supreme Court would require a wage for workers of at least Rs 385. The Advisory Board should take these asks into account in advising the Government.
The Board should pave a new way forward for sustainable change in the socio-economic conditions of tea plantation workers. That will make the industry one of which the State can truly be proud.
(This article was first published at Assam Tribune)
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Strong reasoning
|
Politics
|
The world’s first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexican desert — a result of a highly secretive effort code-named the Manhattan Project, whose nerve center lay nearby in Los Alamos. Just 49 months later, the Soviets detonated a nearly identical device in Central Asia, and Washington’s monopoly on nuclear arms abruptly ended.
How Moscow managed to make such quick progress has long fascinated scientists, federal agents and historians. The work of three spies eventually came to light. Now atomic sleuths have found a fourth. Oscar Seborer, like the other spies, worked at wartime Los Alamos, a remote site ringed by tall fences and armed guards. Seborer nonetheless managed to pass sensitive information about the design of the U.S. weapon to Soviet agents.
The spy fled to the Soviet Union some years later; the FBI eventually learned of his defection and the espionage, but kept the information secret.
His role “has remained hidden for 70 years,” write Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes in the current issue of Studies in Intelligence, the CIA’s in-house journal; their article is titled “On the Trail of a Fourth Soviet Spy at Los Alamos.” In separate interviews, the sleuths said they were still gathering clues regarding the exact character of Seborer’s atomic thefts.
Klehr is an emeritus professor of politics and history at Emory University, and Haynes is a former historian for the Library of Congress. Both have written books on Soviet spies and American communism, often together. Their tale has an eerie resonance at a time when Russian intelligence agencies are again at the center of American life.
Code name: Godsend.
Seborer was born in New York City in 1921, the youngest child of Jewish immigrants from Poland, according to the study by Klehr and Haynes and a CIA document they cited. He attended City College of New York, studied electrical engineering and worked at Los Alamos from 1944 to 1946.
In July 1945, the study reported, he was “part of a unit monitoring seismological effects” of the first detonation of the atomic device. His Soviet code name was Godsend, and he came to Los Alamos from a family of spies.
In 1951, Seborer fled the United States with his older brother Stuart, as well as his brother’s wife and mother-in-law, and defected to the Soviet Union, where, in 1964, he received the Order of the Red Star, a prestigious military award. He died in Moscow in April 2015 under the assumed surname Smith. The study reported that the funeral’s attendees included an agent of the Russian internal security service.
The sleuths were uncovering the story of Godsend even as the decorated spy was being laid to rest.
A mole in New Mexico.
From an examination of archival materials from the KGB, the Soviet Union’s main intelligence agency, Klehr and Haynes learned about a shadowy group of moles in the United States known as the “Relative’s Group.” Three of the faction’s members — code-named Relative, Godfather and Godsend — were brothers. According to the study, the archival documents said that Godsend was at Los Alamos and that he was providing secret information on “Enormous,” the KGB’s code name for the U.S. project.
In 2012, Klehr obtained newly declassified FBI files on informants who had successfully penetrated the Communist Party of the United States. Suddenly, he started seeing references to the Seborers, and major parts of the atomic puzzle fell into place: Oscar was Godsend, Stuart was Godfather and their older brother Max was Relative.
“It was fun to do,” Klehr said of the CIA article. He noted, however, that he and Haynes still await the declassification of government files in the United States that promise to shed more light on the exact nature of Seborer’s atomic thievery.
“We concluded we might be dead before it’s all released,” he said, and the two scholars decided they “had enough to write the article.”
Mark Kramer, the director of Cold War studies at Harvard, said the study cast new light on “how widespread espionage was in the Manhattan Project.” It helps to reframe a long debate, he added, on the relative importance of U.S. spies and Russian scientists to Moscow’s 1949 atomic breakthrough.
In an interview, Kramer said that the news of Seborer’s spying, combined with the known atomic thefts, “makes clear that Soviet weapon scientists were receiving a great deal of valuable information. Espionage, by pointing them in the right direction and avoiding false leads, helped them a lot more than they were willing to acknowledge.”
The identities of the other three Los Alamos spies have long been known. Klaus Fuchs, a physicist, was arrested in early 1950, shortly after the first Soviet detonation. His testimony led to a second spy, David Greenglass, a machinist, who was also taken into custody. Not until 1995 was the third spy, Theodore Hall, the youngest physicist at Los Alamos, identified publicly. By then he had moved to England and was never convicted of espionage.
In pursuing the fourth spy, Klehr and Haynes uncovered the secret life of an electrical engineer whose “family was part of a network of people connected to Soviet intelligence,” the historians wrote.
Their study for the CIA journal reported that Seborer joined the U.S. Army in October 1942 and was assigned to the Oak Ridge complex in Tennessee, a giant industrial arm of the Manhattan Project that became its headquarters. He was transferred to Los Alamos in 1944.
The FBI in 1955 learned that Seborer had defected to the Soviet bloc, the study said, but kept the information under tight security. The bureau’s information about the defector had come from infiltrators of the Communist Party of the United States, and the bureau worried about their possible exposure. The name of the undercover operation was Solo.
‘He handed over the formula.’
Declassified files on the Solo operation bristle with fascinating hints of Seborer’s espionage for the Soviets but offer few details, according to the study. It quotes another member of the “Relative’s Group” as telling an informant, “He handed over to them the formula for the ‘A’ bomb.”
In their article, the two scholars noted that, “as of early 2019,” they had received little information under the Freedom of Information Act “about Oscar’s Los Alamos career or the FBI’s investigation of his work there.”
In an interview, Haynes, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, near Los Alamos, said he hoped that new files released in the future under FOIA to the scholars would “fill in a whole bunch of gaps.” The FBI, he added, “takes its own good time in these matters.”
Klehr said more research in Soviet archives might help clear up a deep mystery in the case: whether Seborer worked for the KGB or its rival military agency, then known as the GRU and today as the Main Directorate. Circumstantial evidence points to the military tie, he said.
“The GRU was forced to turn over atomic sources to the KGB,” he said. “So it’s quite possible that the KGB files don’t reveal the spying’s full extent.”
Other clues may lie in Moscow, where Oscar Seborer and his brother Stuart lived for at least six decades. The two scholars have sought to learn about the brothers’ lives as Muscovites. The study said that Oscar did engineering research and Stuart did scientific translations; little is known about the activities of Max, who remained in the United States.
In 2018, Kramer, the Harvard scholar, was in Moscow and tried to assist the two historians in tracking down Stuart, who conceivably was still alive, as no records of his death could be found. Stuart Smith (formerly Seborer) had a listed telephone number. The calls went unanswered.
Kramer went to Stuart’s last known apartment and rang the doorbell. Nothing. He talked to neighbors and showed them a photograph. Little could be learned.
There is still much to know about an atomic spy who helped change the world, Kramer said, including the possibility that Stuart aided his brother in the espionage. He called it “an open question.”
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History
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The Maharaja of Travancore constituted the Sri Mulam Popular Assembly (Praja Sabha) of Travancore (Sri
Moolam Praja Sabha), on October 1, 1904, to provide for increased participation of the people in
the administration. It was not to be a law making body.
Membership was limited to representatives of landlords and merchants. The objective was "solely to give the people an opportunity of bringing to the notice of the Government their requirements, wishes or grievances on the one hand, and on the other, to make the policy and measures of the Government better known to the people so that all possible grounds of misconception in regard to the action of Government may be removed."
The members of the Assembly were chosen by the Division Peishkars (District heads) from among landholders who pay an annual land revenue of not less than Rs. 100 and landholders or traders whose net annual income was Rs. 6000 or above. Each taluk got two representatives..
The first meeting of the Assembly took place at 11 a. m. on October 22, 1904 at the Victoria Jubilee Town Hall in Thiruvananthapuram better known as the VJT Hall. Subsequent meetings were to be held in the Capital every year soon after the Maharajan's birthday.
A landmark change took place a year later when more than two thirds of the representatives were elected from among the people. The regulation granting the people the privilege of electing their representatives was issued on May 1, 1905. Of the 100 members, 77 were to be elected and rest nominated.
However, franchise was limited to persons who paid on their account an annual land revenue of not less than Rs. 50 or whose net income was not less than Rs. 2000. Graduates of recognised university with not less than ten years of standing and having their residence in the taluk were also eligible to vote. There were general and special constituencies for this purpose.
The historic meeting of the Assembly took place on October 21, 1905.
The Assembly became a forum to vent the popular feelings and grievances about the administration. Soon members started demanding right to elect a fair proportion of non-officials to the Legislative Council and and a larger role for the Council in terms of strength, powers and functions.
Sri Mulam Popular Assembly of Travancore (1904-05)
Term of member: one year.
Enlarged Popular Assembly with elected representatives.
Total members : 100
Elected : 77
Nominated : 33
First Meeting: October 21, 1905
Each member could bring forward two subjects for representation during the sessions.
Previous: Legislative Councils-- the beginnings
Next: Changing Profile
|Previous: the Beginnings Next: Changing Profile
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Moderate reasoning
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Politics
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Mexican War Of Independence And Early Republic 1810-50
Women generated and had been affected by all of those long-term processes in methods informed by shifting gender norms concerning women’s place at work and in the public sphere. From la Adelita to the suffragette, from la chica moderna to the factory girl dressed in purple shirt and black skirt—the colors of the anarchist—women’s mobilization in the midst of Mexican Revolution was, to a large degree, rooted of their workforce participation. The evolution of gendered occupational segregation of the workforce, sex-typing of occupations, and gendered wage differentials marked women’s experiences and the way they organized to take management of their lives and to form working conditions and politics.
Human Rights Activists
While women’s employment nationwide contracted in the course of the interval 1890–1930, it was nonetheless a moment of serious cultural change in the recognition of ladies’s work exterior of the home. Women shifted public debates over their right to work and mobilized around the problems with maternity leave, equal pay for equal work, and respect for seniority. Across the workforce, women fought for the applying of the rights afforded by the Mexican Constitution and then, in the Nineteen Thirties, by federal labor law. The government reported that at least 720 women have been murdered in the first quarter of the 12 months and 244 women had been victims of femicide, where a woman is killed due to her gender.
Women Intellectuals, Journalists, And Writers
In 2016, the primary Latin American country to name for one was Argentina, protesting violence in opposition to women, after seven were killed in a single week. On October eight, 2017, there was a similar “Day Without Women” in the United States, and the initiative was adopted in Germany, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, England, France, South Korea, and Spain. The march, which was timed to International Women’s Day, coincided with female-led protests around the world. Seething anger over an increase in lethal violence against women in Mexico spilled into the streets of the nation’s capital on Sunday as tens of thousands of feminine demonstrators marched to demand that the government do extra to protect them.
Women within the Mexican Drug War (2006–present) have been raped, tortured, and murdered within the battle. Mexican women have made vital advancements in the subject of structure. A variety of Mexican actresses have reached prominence outside Mexico, together with Salma Hayek and María Félix. Yalitza Aparicio, an indigenous woman from Oaxaca, starred in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 movie Roma. A variety of women have been energetic in various kinds of human rights movements in Mexico.
‘This Is Our Feminist Spring’: Millions Of Mexican Women Prepare To Strike Over Femicides
Her follow has largely centered on sustainable design and social housing. Bilbao was born in Mexico City right into a household of architects, and she studied structure at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Bilbao is a strong advocate of architectural social justice, and plenty of of her initiatives have sought to create low-price housing to handle Mexico’s affordable housing crisis.
In August 2019, after the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a bunch of cops north of Mexico City, protesters rallied in Mexico City in the so-referred to as “glitter revolution.” Demonstrators marched to the lawyer basic’s office, smashing some windows. Claudia Sheinbaum, the pinnacle of government of Mexico City and a well known AMLO ally, denounced the protestors, prompting additional backlash. Eventually, Sheinbaum’s office and the AMLO administration agreed to make femicide and gender-primarily based crimes a priority, and Mexico City and 19 Mexican states declared a gender violence alert. Protests in opposition to gendered violence grew earlier this 12 months, with hundreds of thousands of Mexican women staying house from work during a nationwide strike in March, a day after a sequence of protests throughout the nation for International Women’s Day. In 2020, activists called for a one-day strike by women on March 9, the day after International Women’s Day (March eight).
Nellie Campobello was one of many few women to write down a first-particular person account of the Mexican Revolution, Cartucho. Born a Nahua, or an Aztec, Marina was bought into slavery by her own people to the Mayans and finally was given to Cortés as a cost of tribute. To Cortés, Doña Marina was a valuable asset in overthrowing the Aztec empire based in Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) and was all the time seen at his side, even throughout battles with the Aztecs and Mayans.
According to the OCNF, in 2019, there were three,825 registered assassinations of ladies, of which 1,006 have been investigated as femicides. The circumstances have proven in the eyes of many feminists and victims’ members of the family that the native and nationwide authorities response is insufficient and negligent in facing the crisis click for more of violence unfolding in Mexico. Fátima Cecilia Aldrighetti, 7, from Mexico City, was found murdered after several days lacking. A 7-yr-old Mexico City girl whose brutal homicide has generated nationwide outrage was buried as capital officers pledged to tighten guidelines for kids leaving authorities colleges on their own.
For women at risk of their properties, there need to be clearer, higher-funded avenues to support women and youngsters fleeing violence, enabled by neighborhood support. Mexican women do attain out for assist—if they’re requested to stay in their homes to cease the unfold of a dangerously contagious virus, authorities should guarantee they are not exposing them to higher vulnerability.
The encyclical Rerum Novarum, issued by Pope Leon XIII in 1891, had raised the legitimacy of addressing “the worker question,” and by the Nineteen Twenties Catholic organizations and industrialists alike centered on nonwage advantages for employees. Members like Señorita Sofía del Valle established connections with employers who welcomed Catholic organizers into the office.
By the late Twenties the male-dominated CROM increasingly stifled espresso sorters’ feminist stance and sought to marginalize women from jobs and leadership positions. In 1932 a splinter group left the CROM-allied Sindicato de Obreras Escogedoras de la Ciudad de Córdoba. The Constitution of 1917 also guaranteed a minimal wage, however it was defined in a method that excluded women. Congress also passed protecting labor laws that restricted women’s work at night and in “harmful” occupations. The Constitution did guarantee equal pay for equal work, regardless of intercourse.
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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In the original Beowulf epic, Grendel displays nothing, except the most primitive human qualities. Well, he’s a temperamental and intelligent monster, capable of rational thought and irrational outbursts of emotion. Throughout the novel, Grendel often seems as human as the folks observed by him. Grendel’s history backs this ambiguous characterization. Just as a descendant of the biblical Cain, Grendel shares a basic lineage with people. However, rather than drawing Grendel and humanity closer together, the shared history sets them in perpetual enmity. In this regard, the monster recalls the nineteenth-century literary convention, utilized in novels, including Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where monsters are employed to help us to examine what it meansto be human. Really, apart from Grendel’s scary appearance as well as nasty eating habits, very little separates him from people. His outstanding brutality doesn’t appear to be unique, as Gardner stresses man’s inherent violence. Furthermore, Grendel’s philosophical quest turns to be very human.
The novel follows the monster through three stages of his life. As you might have guessed, the first stage deals with his childhood. During this period, Grendel explores his confined world, untroubled by the outside universe as well as philosophical questions. The monster’s discovery of the lake of firesnakes and also the realm beyond it turns to be his first introduction to the larger world, stuffed with danger and possibility. Crossing the lake turns to be an important step for the monster in his move toward adulthood. The second step, that entirely makes him an adult, takes place when the bull attacks Grendel, thus prompting him to realize that the world is very chaotic, following no pattern and also governed by no discernible reason. The given realization helps the question, shaping Grendel’s adult quest, maybe the greatest philosophical question of the twentieth century: how should one live his life? In the second, adult stage of Grendel’s life, the monster make an attempt to answer this question by simply observing the human community, that fascinates him because of its ability to create patterns and after this impose them on the world, thus creating a sense that the world follows an ordered, coherent system. The third and final stage of the monster’s life encompasses his fatal battle with Beowulf as well as the weeks leading up to the battle. The encounter provides rather a violent resolution to the monster’s quest.
In the original Beowulf epic, Grendel displays nothing, except the most primitive human qualities. Well, he’s a temperamental and intelligent monster, capable of rational thought and irrational outbursts of emotion. Throughout the novel, Grendel often seems as human as the folks observed by him. Grendel’s history backs this ambiguous characterization.
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Strong reasoning
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Literature
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Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American engineer, businessman, and politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. Prior to serving as president, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the 3rd U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, he grew up in Oregon. Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company after graduating from Stanford University in 1895. After the outbreak of World War I, he became the head of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration, and Hoover became known as the country’s “food czar”. After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the inhabitants of Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Hoover’s war-time service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 presidential election.
After the 1920 election, newly-elected Republican President Warren G. Harding appointed Hoover as Secretary of Commerce; Hoover continued to serve under President Calvin Coolidge after Harding died in 1923. Hoover was an unusually active and visible cabinet member, becoming known as “Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments”. He was influential in the development of radio and air travel and led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election, and decisively defeated the Democratic candidate, Al Smith. The stock market crashed shortly after Hoover took office, and the Great Depression became the central issue of his presidency. Hoover pursued a variety of policies in an attempt to lift the economy, but opposed directly involving the federal government in relief efforts.
In the midst of an ongoing economic crisis, Hoover was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. Hoover enjoyed one of the longest retirements of any former president, and he authored numerous works. After leaving office, Hoover became increasingly conservative, and he strongly criticized Roosevelt’s foreign policy and New Deal domestic agenda. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hoover’s public reputation was rehabilitated as he served for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in various assignments, including as chairman of the Hoover Commission. Nevertheless, Hoover is generally not ranked highly in historical rankings of presidents of the United States.
Herbert Hoover was born on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa.[a] His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner of German, Swiss, and English ancestry. Hoover’s mother, Hulda Randall Minthorn, was raised in Norwich, Ontario, Canada, before moving to Iowa in 1859. Like most other citizens of West Branch, Jesse and Hulda were Quakers. As a child, Hoover consistently attended schools, but he did little reading on his own aside from the Bible. Hoover’s father, noted by the local paper for his “pleasant, sunshiny disposition”, died in 1880 at the age of 34. Hoover’s mother died in 1884, leaving Hoover, his older brother, Theodore, and his younger sister, May, as orphans.
In 1882, Hoover spent a year living at the Osage Agency in Pawhuska, Oklahoma with his aunt Agnes (Minthorn) Miles and uncle Laban J. Miles who was a U.S. Indian Agent. And in 1885, Hoover was sent to Newberg, Oregon to live with his uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman whose own son had died the year before. The Minthorn household was considered cultured and educational, and imparted a strong work ethic. Much like West Branch, Newberg was a frontier town settled largely by Midwestern Quakers. Minthorn ensured that Hoover received an education, but Hoover disliked the many chores assigned to him and often resented Minthorn. One observer described Hoover as “an orphan seemed to be neglected in many ways.” Hoover attended Friends Pacific Academy (now George Fox University), but dropped out at the age of thirteen to become an office assistant for his uncle’s real estate office (Oregon Land Company) in Salem, Oregon. Though he did not attend high school, Hoover learned bookkeeping, typing, and mathematics at a night school.
Hoover entered Stanford University in 1891, its inaugural year, despite failing all the entrance exams except mathematics.[b] During his freshman year, he switched his major from mechanical engineering to geology after working for John Casper Branner, the chair of Stanford’s geology department. Hoover was a mediocre student, and he spent much of his time working in various part-time jobs or participating in campus activities. Though he was initially shy among fellow students, Hoover won election as student treasurer and became known for his distaste for fraternities and sororities. He served as student manager of both the baseball and football teams, and helped organize the inaugural Big Game versus the University of California. During the summers before and after his senior year, Hoover interned under economic geologist Waldemar Lindgren of the United States Geological Survey; these experiences convinced Hoover to pursue a career as a mining geologist.
When Hoover graduated from Stanford in 1895, the country was in the midst of the Panic of 1893, and he initially struggled to find a job. He worked in various low-level mining jobs in the Sierra Nevada mountain range until he convinced prominent mining engineer Louis Janin to hire him. After working as a mine scout for a year, Hoover was hired by Bewick, Moreing & Co., a London-based company that operated gold mines in Western Australia. Hoover first went to Coolgardie, then the center of the Eastern Goldfields. Though Hoover received a $5,000 salary (equivalent to $153,660 in 2019), conditions were harsh in the goldfields. Hoover described the Coolgardie and Murchison rangelands on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert as a land of “black flies, red dust and white heat.”
Hoover traveled constantly across the Outback to evaluate and manage the company’s mines. He convinced Bewick, Moreing to purchase the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, which proved to be one of the most successful mines in the region. Partly due to Hoover’s efforts, the company eventually controlled approximately 50 percent of gold production in Western Australia. Hoover brought in many Italian immigrants to cut costs and counter the labour movement of the Australian miners. During his time with the mining company, Hoover became opposed to measures such as a minimum wage and workers’ compensation, feeling that they were unfair to owners. Hoover’s work impressed his employers, and in 1898 he was promoted to junior partner. An open feud developed between Hoover and his boss, Ernest Williams, but company leaders defused the situation by offering Hoover a compelling position in China.
Upon arriving in China, Hoover developed gold mines near Tianjin on behalf of Bewick, Moreing and the Chinese-owned Chinese Engineering and Mining Company. He became deeply interested in Chinese history, but quickly gave up on learning the language and, like many of his contemporaries, viewed the Chinese people as racially inferior. He made recommendations to improve the lot of the Chinese worker, seeking to end the practice of imposing long-term servitude contracts and to institute reforms for workers based on merit. The Boxer Rebellion broke out shortly after Hoover arrived in China, trapping the Hoovers and numerous other foreign nationals until a multi-national force defeated Boxer forces in the Battle of Tientsin. Fearing the imminent collapse of the Chinese government, the director of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company agreed to establish a new Sino-British venture with Bewick, Moreing. After Hoover and Bewick, Moreing established effective control over the new Chinese mining company, Hoover became the operating partner of Bewick, Moreing in late 1901.
As operating partner, Hoover continually traveled the world on behalf of Bewick, Moreing, visiting mines operated by the company on different continents. Beginning in December 1902, the company faced mounting legal and financial issues after one of the partners admitted to having fraudulently sold stock in a mine. More issues arose in 1904, after the British government formed two separate royal commission to investigate Bewick, Moreing’s labor practices and financial dealings in Western Australia. After the company lost a suit filed by the former director of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company, Hoover began looking for a way to get out of the partnership, and he sold his shares in mid-1908.
After leaving Bewick, Moreing, Hoover worked as a London-based independent mining consultant and financier. Though he had risen to prominence as a geologist and mine operator, Hoover focused much of his attention on raising money, restructuring corporate organizations, and financing new ventures. He specialized in rejuvenating troubled mining operations, taking a share of the profits in exchange for his technical and financial expertise. Hoover thought of himself and his associates as “engineering doctors to sick concerns”, and he earned a reputation as a “doctor of sick mines”. He made investments on every continent and had offices in San Francisco, London, New York City, Paris, St. Petersburg (Florida), Florida, and Mandalay, Myanmar. By 1914, Hoover was a very wealthy man, with an estimated personal fortune of $4 million (equivalent to $102.1 million in 2019).
He co-founded the Zinc Corporation to extract zinc near the Australian city of Broken Hill. The Zinc Corporation developed the froth flotation process to extract zinc from lead-silver ore, and operated the world’s first selective or differential flotation plant. Hoover worked with the Burma Corporation, a British firm that produced silver, lead, and zinc in large quantities at the Namtu Bawdwin Mine. He also helped increase copper production in Kyshtym, Russia, through the use of pyritic smelting. He also agreed to manage a separate mine in the Altai Mountains that, according to Hoover, “developed probably the greatest and richest single body of ore known in the world.”
In his spare time, Hoover wrote. His lectures at Columbia and Stanford universities were published in 1909 as Principles of Mining, which became a standard textbook. The book reflects his move towards progressive ideals, as Hoover came to endorse eight-hour workdays and organized labor. Hoover became deeply interested in the history of science, and he was especially drawn to the De re metallica, an influential 16th century work on mining and metallurgy. In 1912, Hoover and his wife published the first English translation of De re metallica. Hoover also joined the board of trustees at Stanford, and led a successful campaign to appoint John Branner as the university’s president.
Marriage and Family
Hoover’s wife, Lou Henry, circa 1930
During his senior year at Stanford, Hoover became smitten with a classmate named Lou Henry, though his financial situation precluded marriage at that time. The daughter of a banker from Monterey, California, Lou Henry decided to study geology at Stanford after attending a lecture delivered by John Branner. Immediately after earning a promotion in 1898, Hoover cabled Lou Henry, asking her to marry him. After she cabled back her acceptance of the proposal, Hoover briefly returned to the United States for their wedding. They would remain married until Lou Henry’s death in 1944. Though his Quaker upbringing strongly influenced his career, Hoover rarely attended Quaker meetings during his adult life. Hoover and his wife had two children: Herbert Hoover Jr. (born in 1903) and Allan Henry Hoover (born in 1907). The Hoover family began living in London in 1902, though they frequently traveled as part of Hoover’s career. After 1916, the Hoovers began living in the United States, maintaining homes in Palo Alto, California and Washington, D.C.
World War I and Aftermath
Relief in Europe
World War I broke out in June 1914, pitting the Allied Powers (France, Russia, Britain, and other countries) against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and other countries). Hoover and other London-based American businessmen established a committee to organize the return of the roughly 100,000 Americans stranded in Europe. Hoover was appointed as the committee’s chair and, with the assent of Congress and the executive branch, took charge of the distribution of relief to Americans in Europe. Hoover later stated, “I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life.” By early October 1914, Hoover’s organization had distributed relief to at least 40,000 Americans.
The German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 set off a food crisis in Belgium, which relied heavily on food imports. The Germans refused to take responsibility for feeding Belgian citizens in captured territory, and the British refused to lift their blockade of German-occupied Belgium unless the U.S. government supervised Belgian food imports as a neutral party in the war. With the cooperation of the Wilson administration and the CNSA, a Belgian relief organization, Hoover established the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). The CRB obtained and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs for the CNSA to distribute, and helped ensure that the German army did not appropriate the food. Private donations and government grants supplied the majority of its $11-million-a-month budget, and the CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. A British official described the CRB as a “piratical state organized for benevolence.”
Hoover worked 14-hour days from London, administering the distribution of over two million tons of food to nine million war victims. In an early form of shuttle diplomacy, he crossed the North Sea forty times to meet with German authorities and persuade them to allow food shipments. He also convinced British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George to allow individuals to send money to the people of Belgium, thereby lessening workload of the CRB. At the request of the French government, the CRB began delivering supplies to the people of Northern France in 1915. American diplomat Walter Page described Hoover as “probably the only man living who has privately (i.e., without holding office) negotiated understandings with the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian governments.”
U.S. Food Administration
U.S. Food Administration poster
The United States declared war upon Germany in April 1917 after Germany engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare against American vessels in British waters. With the U.S. mobilizing for war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration, which was charged with ensuring the nation’s food needs during the war. Hoover had hoped to join the administration in some capacity since at least 1916, and he obtained the position after lobbying several members of Congress and Wilson’s confidant, Edward M. House. Earning the appellation of “food czar”, Hoover recruited a volunteer force of hundreds of thousands of women and deployed propaganda in movie theaters, schools, and churches. He carefully selected men to assist in the agency leadershipAlonzo Taylor (technical abilities), Robert Taft (political associations), Gifford Pinchot (agricultural influence), and Julius Barnes (business acumen).
World War I had created a global food crisis that dramatically increased food prices and caused food riots and starvation in the countries at war. Hoover’s chief goal as food czar was to provide supplies to the Allied Powers, but he also sought to stabilize domestic prices and to prevent domestic shortages. Under the broad powers granted by the Food and Fuel Control Act, the Food Administration supervised food production throughout the United States, and the administration made use of its authority to buy, import, store, and sell food. Determined to avoid rationing, Hoover established set days for people to avoid eating specified foods and save them for soldiers’ rations: meatless Mondays, wheatless Wednesdays, and “when in doubt, eat potatoes”. These policies were dubbed “Hooverizing” by government publicists, in spite of Hoover’s continual orders that publicity should not mention him by name. The Food Administration shipped 23 million metric tons of food to the Allied Powers, preventing their collapse and earning Hoover great acclaim. As head of the Food Administration, Hoover gained a following in the United States, especially among progressives who saw in Hoover an expert administrator and symbol of efficiency.
World War I came to an end in November 1918, but Europe continued to face a critical food situation; Hoover estimated that as many as 400 million people faced the possibility of starvation. The United States Food Administration became the American Relief Administration (ARA), and Hoover was charged with providing food to Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to providing relief, the ARA rebuilt infrastructure in an effort to rejuvenate the economy of Europe. Throughout the Paris Peace Conference, Hoover served as a close adviser to President Wilson, and he largely shared Wilson’s goals of establishing the League of Nations, settling borders on the basis of self-determination, and refraining from inflicting a harsh punishment on the defeated Central Powers. The following year, famed British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in The Economic Consequences of the Peace that if Hoover’s realism, “knowledge, magnanimity and disinterestedness” had found wider play in the councils of Paris, the world would have had “the Good Peace.” After U.S. government funding for the ARA expired in mid-1919, Hoover transformed the ARA into a private organization, raising millions of dollars from private donors. He also established the European Children’s Fund, which provided relief to fifteen million children across fourteen countries.
Despite the opposition of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans, Hoover provided aid to the defeated German nation after the war, as well as relief to famine-stricken Bolshevik-controlled areas of Russia. Hoover condemned Bolshevism, but warned President Wilson against an intervention in Russia, as he viewed the White Russian forces as little better than the Bolsheviks and feared the possibility of a protracted U.S. involvement. The Russian famine of 1921-22 claimed six million people, but the intervention of the ARA likely saved millions of lives. When asked if he was not helping Bolshevism by providing relief, Hoover stated, “twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!” Reflecting the gratitude of many Europeans, in July 1922, Soviet author Maxim Gorky told Hoover that “your help will enter history as a unique, gigantic achievement, worthy of the greatest glory, which will long remain in the memory of millions of Russians whom you have saved from death.”
In 1919, Hoover established the Hoover War Collection at Stanford University. He donated all the files of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the U.S. Food Administration, and the American Relief Administration, and pledged $50,000 as an endowment (equivalent to $737,332 in 2019). Scholars were sent to Europe to collect pamphlets, society publications, government documents, newspapers, posters, proclamations, and other ephemeral materials related to the war and the revolutions that followed it. The collection was renamed the Hoover War Library in 1922 and is now known as the Hoover Institution. During the post-war period, Hoover also served as the president of the Federated American Engineering Societies.
Hoover had been little known among the American public before 1914, but his service in the Wilson administration established him as a contender in the 1920 presidential election. Hoover’s wartime push for higher taxes, criticism of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s actions during the First Red Scare, and his advocacy for measures such as the minimum wage, forty-eight-hour workweek, and elimination of child labor made him appealing to progressives of both parties. Despite his service in the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson, Hoover had never been closely affiliated with either the Democrats or the Republicans. He initially sought to avoid committing to any party in the 1920 election, hoping that either of the two major parties would draft him for president at their respective national convention. In March 1920, he changed his strategy and declared himself to be a Republican; he was motivated in large part by the belief that the Democratic candidate would have little chance of winning the 1920 presidential election. Despite his national renown, Hoover’s service in the Wilson administration had alienated farmers and the conservative Old Guard of the GOP, and his presidential candidacy fizzled out after his defeat in the California primary by favorite son Hiram Johnson. At the 1920 Republican National Convention, Warren G. Harding emerged as a compromise candidate after the convention became deadlocked between supporters of Johnson, Leonard Wood, and Frank Orren Lowden. Hoover backed Harding’s successful campaign in the general election, and he began laying the groundwork for a future presidential run by building up a base of strong supporters in the Republican Party.
Secretary of Commerce
After his election as president in 1920, Harding rewarded Hoover for his support, offering to appoint him as either Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Commerce. Secretary of Commerce was considered a minor Cabinet post, with limited and vaguely defined responsibilities, but Hoover decided to accept the position. Hoover’s progressive stances, continuing support for the League of Nations, and recent conversion to the Republican Party aroused opposition to his appointment from many Senate Republicans. To overcome this opposition, Harding paired Hoover’s nomination with that of conservative favorite Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury, and the nominations of both Hoover and Mellon were confirmed by the Senate. Hoover would serve as Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1929, serving under Harding and, after Harding’s death in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge. While some of the most prominent members of the Harding administration, including Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall, were implicated in major scandals, Hoover emerged largely unscathed from investigations into the Harding administration.
Hoover envisioned the Commerce Department as the hub of the nation’s growth and stability. His experience mobilizing the war-time economy convinced him that the federal government could promote efficiency by eliminating waste, increasing production, encouraging the adoption of data-based practices, investing in infrastructure, and conserving natural resources. Contemporaries described Hoover’s approach as a “third alternative” between “unrestrained capitalism” and socialism, which was becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Hoover sought to foster a balance among labor, capital, and the government, and for this he has been variously labeled a corporatist or an associationalist.
Hoover demanded, and received, authority to coordinate economic affairs throughout the government. He created many sub-departments and committees, overseeing and regulating everything from manufacturing statistics to air travel. In some instances he “seized” control of responsibilities from other Cabinet departments when he deemed that they were not carrying out their responsibilities well; some began referring to him as the “Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments.” In response to the Depression of 1920-21, he convinced Harding to assemble a presidential commission on unemployment, which encouraged local governments to engage in countercyclical infrastructure spending. He endorsed much of Mellon’s tax reduction program, but favored a more progressive tax system and opposed the treasury secretary’s efforts to eliminate the estate tax.
Radio and travel
Herbert Hoover listening to a radio receiver
Between 1923 and 1929, the number of families with radios grew from 300,000 to 10 million, and Hoover’s tenure as Secretary of Commerce heavily influenced radio use in the United States. In the early and mid-1920s, Hoover’s radio conferences played a key role in the organization, development, and regulation of radio broadcasting. Hoover also helped pass the Radio Act of 1927, which allowed the government to intervene and abolish radio stations that were deemed “non-useful” to the public. Hoover’s attempts at regulating radio were not supported by all congressmen, and he received much opposition from the Senate and from radio station owners.
Hoover was also influential in the early development of air travel, and he sought to create a thriving private industry boosted by indirect government subsidies. He encouraged the development of emergency landing fields, required all runways to be equipped with lights and radio beams, and encouraged farmers to make use of planes for crop dusting. He also established the federal government’s power to inspect planes and license pilots, setting a precedent for the later Federal Aviation Administration.
As Commerce Secretary, Hoover hosted national conferences on street traffic collectively known as the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. Hoover’s chief objective was to address the growing casualty toll of traffic accidents, but the scope of the conferences grew and soon embraced motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control. He left the invited interest groups to negotiate agreements among themselves, which were then presented for adoption by states and localities. Because automotive trade associations were the best organized, many of the positions taken by the conferences reflected their interests. The conferences issued a model Uniform Vehicle Code for adoption by the states, and a Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance for adoption by cities. Both were widely influential, promoting greater uniformity between jurisdictions and tending to promote the automobile’s priority in city streets.
With the goal of encouraging wise business investments, Hoover made the Commerce Department a clearinghouse of information. He recruited numerous academics from various fields and tasked them with publishing reports on different aspects of the economy, including steel production and films. To eliminate waste, he encouraged standardization of products like automobile tires and baby bottle nipples. Other efforts at eliminating waste included reducing labor losses from trade disputes and seasonal fluctuations, reducing industrial losses from accident and injury, and reducing the amount of crude oil spilled during extraction and shipping. He promoted international trade by opening overseas offices to advise businessmen. Hoover was especially eager to promote Hollywood films overseas. His “Own Your Own Home” campaign was a collaboration to promote ownership of single-family dwellings, with groups such as the Better Houses in America movement, the Architects’ Small House Service Bureau, and the Home Modernizing Bureau. He worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote the new long-term home mortgage, which dramatically stimulated home construction. Other accomplishments included winning the agreement of U.S. Steel to adopt an eight-hour workday, and the fostering of the Colorado River Compact, a water rights compact among Southwestern states.
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke the banks and levees of the lower Mississippi River in early 1927, resulting in the flooding of millions of acres and leaving 1.5 million people displaced from their homes. Although disaster response did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department, the governors of six states along the Mississippi River specifically asked President Coolidge to appoint Hoover to coordinate the response to the flood. Believing that disaster response was not the domain of the federal government, Coolidge initially refused to become involved, but he eventually acceded to political pressure and appointed Hoover to chair a special committee to help the region. Hoover established over one hundred tent cities and a fleet of more than six hundred vessels, and raised $17 million (equivalent to $250.21 million in 2019). In large part due to his leadership during the flood crisis, by 1928, Hoover had begun to overshadow President Coolidge himself. Though Hoover received wide acclaim for his role in the crisis, he ordered the suppression of reports of mistreatment of African Americans in refugee camps. He did so with the cooperation of African-American leader Robert Russa Moton, who was promised unprecedented influence once Hoover became president.
Presidential election of 1928
Hoover quietly built up support for a future presidential bid throughout the 1920s, but he carefully avoided alienating Coolidge, who was eligible to run for another term in the 1928 presidential election. Along with the rest of the nation, he was surprised when Coolidge announced in August 1927 that he would not seek another term. With the impending retirement of Coolidge, Hoover immediately emerged as the front-runner for the 1928 Republican nomination, and he quickly put together a strong campaign team led by Hubert Work, Will H. Hays, and Reed Smoot. Coolidge was unwilling to anoint Hoover as his successor; on one occasion he remarked that, “for six years that man has given me unsolicited adviceall of it bad.” Despite his lukewarm feelings towards Hoover, Coolidge had no desire to split the party by publicly opposing the popular Commerce Secretary’s candidacy.
Many wary Republican leaders cast about for an alternative candidate, such as Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon or former Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. However, Hughes and Mellon declined to run, and other potential contenders like Frank Orren Lowden and Vice President Charles G. Dawes failed to garner widespread support. Hoover won the presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1928 Republican National Convention. Convention delegates considered re-nominating Vice President Charles Dawes to be Hoover’s running mate, but Coolidge, who hated Dawes, remarked that this would be “a personal affront” to him. The convention instead selected Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas. Hoover accepted the nomination at Stanford Stadium, telling a huge crowd that he would continue the policies of the Harding and Coolidge administrations. The Democrats nominated New York governor Al Smith, who became the first Catholic major party nominee for president.
Hoover centered his campaign around the Republican record of peace and prosperity, as well as his own reputation as a successful engineer and public official. Averse to giving political speeches, Hoover largely stayed out of the fray and left the campaigning to Curtis and other Republicans. Smith was more charismatic and gregarious than Hoover, but his campaign was damaged by anti-Catholicism and his overt opposition to Prohibition. Hoover had never been a strong proponent of Prohibition, but he accepted the Republican Party’s plank in favor of it and issued an ambivalent statement calling Prohibition “a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.” In the South, Hoover and the national party pursued a “lily-white” strategy, removing black Republicans from leadership positions in an attempt to curry favor with white Southerners.
Hoover maintained polling leads throughout the 1928 campaign, and he decisively defeated Smith on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote and 444 of the 531 electoral votes. Historians agree that Hoover’s national reputation and the booming economy, combined with deep splits in the Democratic Party over religion and Prohibition, guaranteed his landslide victory. Hoover’s appeal to Southern white voters succeeded in cracking the “Solid South”, and he won five Southern states. Hoover’s victory was positively received by newspapers; one wrote that Hoover would “drive so forcefully at the tasks now before the nation that the end of his eight years as president will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement.”
Hoover’s detractors wondered why he did not do anything to reapportion congress after the 1920 United States Census which saw an increase in urban and immigrant populations. The 1920 Census was the first and only Decennial Census where the results were not used to reapportion Congress, which ultimately influenced the 1928 Electoral College and impacted the Presidential Election.
Inaugural parade ticket
Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by encouraging public-private cooperationwhat he termed “volunteerism”. He tended to oppose governmental coercion or intervention, as he thought they infringed on American ideals of individualism and self-reliance. The first major bill that he signed, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, established the Federal Farm Board in order to stabilize farm prices. Hoover made extensive use of commissions to study issues and propose solutions, and many of those commissions were sponsored by private donors rather than by the government. One of the commissions started by Hoover, the Research Committee on Social Trends, was tasked with surveying the entirety of American society. He appointed a Cabinet consisting largely of wealthy, business-oriented conservatives, including Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. Lou Henry Hoover was an activist First Lady. She typified the new woman of the post-World War I era: intelligent, robust, and aware of multiple female possibilities.
On taking office, Hoover said that “given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” Having seen the fruits of prosperity brought by technological progress, many shared Hoover’s optimism, and the already bullish stock market climbed even higher on Hoover’s accession. This optimism concealed several threats to sustained U.S. economic growth, including a persistent farm crisis, a saturation of consumer goods like automobiles, and growing income inequality. Most dangerous of all to the economy was excessive speculation that had raised stock prices far beyond their value. Some regulators and bankers had warned Coolidge and Hoover that a failure to curb speculation would lead to “one of the greatest financial catastrophes that this country has ever seen,” but both presidents were reluctant to become involved with the workings of the Federal Reserve System, which regulated banks.
In late October 1929, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred, and the worldwide economy began to spiral downward into the Great Depression. The causes of the Great Depression remain a matter of debate, but Hoover viewed a lack of confidence in the financial system as the fundamental economic problem facing the nation. He sought to avoid direct federal intervention, believing that the best way to bolster the economy was through the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads. He also feared that allowing individuals on the “dole” would permanently weaken the country. Instead, Hoover strongly believed that local governments and private giving should address the needs of individuals.
Though he attempted to put a positive spin on Black Tuesday, Hoover moved quickly to address the stock market collapse. In the days following Black Tuesday, Hoover gathered business and labor leaders, asking them to avoid wage cuts and work stoppages while the country faced what he believed would be a short recession similar to the Depression of 1920-21. Hoover also convinced railroads and public utilities to increase spending on construction and maintenance, and the Federal Reserve announced that it would cut interest rates. In early 1930, Hoover acquired from Congress an additional $100 million to continue the Federal Farm Board lending and purchasing policies. These actions were collectively designed to prevent a cycle of deflation and provide a fiscal stimulus. At the same time, Hoover opposed congressional proposals to provide federal relief to the unemployed, as he believed that such programs were the responsibility of state and local governments and philanthropic organizations.
Hoover had taken office hoping to raise agricultural tariffs in order to help farmers reeling from the farm crisis of the 1920s, but his attempt to raise agricultural tariffs became connected with a bill that broadly raised tariffs. Hoover refused to become closely involved in the congressional debate over the tariff, and Congress produced a tariff bill that raised rates for many goods. Despite the widespread unpopularity of the bill, Hoover felt that he could not reject the main legislative accomplishment of the Republican-controlled 71st Congress. Over the objection of many economists, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law in June 1930. Canada, France, and other nations retaliated by raising tariffs, resulting in a contraction of international trade and a worsening of the economy. Progressive Republicans such as Senator William E. Borah of Idaho were outraged when Hoover signed the tariff act, and Hoover’s relations with that wing of the party never recovered.
By the end of 1930, the national unemployment rate had reached 11.9 percent, but it was not yet clear to most Americans that the economic downturn would be worse than the Depression of 1920-21. A series of bank failures in late 1930 heralded a larger collapse of the economy in 1931. While other countries left the gold standard, Hoover refused to abandon it; he derided any other monetary system as “collectivism.” Hoover viewed the weak European economy as a major cause of economic troubles in the United States. In response to the collapse of the German economy, Hoover marshaled congressional support behind a one-year moratorium on European war debts. The Hoover Moratorium was warmly received in Europe and the United States, but Germany remained on the brink of defaulting on its loans. As the worldwide economy worsened, democratic governments fell; in Germany, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler assumed power.
By mid-1931, the unemployment rate had reached 15 percent, giving rise to growing fears that the country was experiencing a depression far worse than recent economic downturns. A reserved man with a fear of public speaking, Hoover allowed his opponents in the Democratic Party to define him as cold, incompetent, reactionary, and out-of-touch. Hoover’s opponents developed defamatory epithets to discredit him, such as “Hooverville” (the shanty towns and homeless encampments), “Hoover leather” (cardboard used to cover holes in the soles of shoes), and “Hoover blanket” (old newspaper used to cover oneself from the cold). While Hoover continued to resist direct federal relief efforts, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York launched the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration to provide aid to the unemployed. Democrats positioned the program as a kinder alternative to Hoover’s alleged apathy towards the unemployed.
The economy continued to worsen, with unemployment rates nearing 23 percent in early 1932, and Hoover finally heeded calls for more direct federal intervention. In January 1932, he convinced Congress to authorize the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which would provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads, and local governments. The RFC saved numerous businesses from failure, but it failed to stimulate commercial lending as much as Hoover had hoped, partly because it was run by conservative bankers unwilling to make riskier loans. The same month the RFC was established, Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, establishing 12 district banks overseen by a Federal Home Loan Bank Board in a manner similar to the Federal Reserve System. He also helped arrange passage of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932, emergency banking legislation designed to expand banking credit by expanding the collateral on which Federal Reserve banks were authorized to lend. As these measures failed to stem the economic crisis, Hoover signed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, a $2 billion public works bill, in July 1932.
National debt as a fraction of GNP up from 20% to 40% under Hoover. From Historical Statistics US (1976)
After a decade of budget surpluses, the federal government experienced a budget deficit in 1931. Though some economists, like William Trufant Foster, favored deficit spending to address the Great Depression, most politicians and economists believed in the necessity of keeping a balanced budget. In late 1931, Hoover proposed a tax plan to increase tax revenue by 30 percent, resulting in the passage of the Revenue Act of 1932. The act increased taxes across the board, rolling back much of the tax cut reduction program Mellon had presided over during the 1920s. Top earners were taxed at 63 percent on their net income, the highest rate since the early 1920s. The act also doubled the top estate tax rate, cut personal income tax exemptions, eliminated the corporate income tax exemption, and raised corporate tax rates. Despite the passage of the Revenue Act, the federal government continued to run a budget deficit.
Civil rights and Mexican Repatriation
Hoover seldom mentioned civil rights while he was president. He believed that African Americans and other races could improve themselves with education and individual initiative.[page needed] Hoover appointed more African Americans to federal positions than Harding and Coolidge had combined, but many African-American leaders condemned various aspects of the Hoover administration, including Hoover’s unwillingness to push for a federal anti-lynching law. Hoover also continued to pursue the lily-white strategy, removing African Americans from positions of leadership in the Republican Party in an attempt to end the Democratic Party’s dominance in the South. Though Robert Moton and some other black leaders accepted the lily-white strategy as a temporary measure, most African-American leaders were outraged. Hoover further alienated black leaders by nominating conservative Southern judge John J. Parker to the Supreme Court; Parker’s nomination ultimately failed in the Senate due to opposition from the NAACP and organized labor. Many black voters switched to the Democratic Party in the 1932 election, and African Americans would later become an important part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition.
As part of his efforts to limit unemployment, Hoover sought to cut immigration to the United States, and in 1930 he promulgated an executive order requiring individuals to have employment before migrating to the United States. With the goal of opening up more jobs for U.S. citizens, Secretary of Labor William N. Doak began a campaign to prosecute illegal immigrants in the United States. Though Doak did not seek to deport one specific group of immigrants, his campaign most strongly affected Mexican Americans, especially Mexican Americans living in Southern California. Many of the deportations were overseen by state and local authorities who acted on the encouragement of Doak and the Department of Labor. During the 1930s, approximately one million Mexican Americans were forcibly “repatriated” to Mexico; approximately sixty percent of those deported were birthright citizens. According to legal professor Kevin R. Johnson, the repatriation campaign meets the modern legal standards of ethnic cleansing, as it involved the forced removal of a racial minority by government actors.
On taking office, Hoover urged Americans to obey the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, which had established Prohibition across the United States. To make public policy recommendations regarding Prohibition, he created the Wickersham Commission. Hoover had hoped that the commission’s public report would buttress his stance in favor of Prohibition, but the report criticized the enforcement of the Volstead Act and noted the growing public opposition to Prohibition. After the Wickersham Report was published in 1931, Hoover rejected the advice of some of his closest allies and refused to endorse any revision of the Volstead Act or the Eighteenth Amendment, as he feared doing so would undermine his support among Prohibition advocates. As public opinion increasingly turned against Prohibition, more and more people flouted the law, and a grassroots movement began working in earnest for Prohibition’s repeal. In January 1933, a constitutional amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment was approved by Congress and submitted to the states for ratification. By December 1933, it had been ratified by the requisite number of states to become the Twenty-first Amendment.
According to Leuchtenburg, Hoover was “the last American president to take office with no conspicuous need to pay attention to the rest of the world”. Nevertheless, during Hoover’s term, the world order established in the immediate aftermath of World War I began to crumble. As president, Hoover largely made good on his pledge made prior to assuming office not to interfere in Latin America’s internal affairs. In 1930, he released the Clark Memorandum, a rejection of the Roosevelt Corollary and a move towards non-interventionism in Latin America. Hoover did not completely refrain from the use of the military in Latin American affairs; he thrice threatened intervention in the Dominican Republic, and he sent warships to El Salvador to support the government against a left-wing revolution. Notwithstanding those actions, he wound down the Banana Wars, ending the occupation of Nicaragua and nearly bringing an end to the occupation of Haiti.
Hoover placed a priority on disarmament, which he hoped would allow the United States to shift money from the military to domestic needs. Hoover and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson focused on extending the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which sought to prevent a naval arms race. As a result of Hoover’s efforts, the United States and other major naval powers signed the 1930 London Naval Treaty. The treaty represented the first time that the naval powers had agreed to cap their tonnage of auxiliary vessels, as previous agreements had only affected capital ships.
At the 1932 World Disarmament Conference, Hoover urged further cutbacks in armaments and the outlawing of tanks and bombers, but his proposals were not adopted.
In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, defeating the Republic of China’s military forces and establishing Manchukuo, a puppet state. The Hoover administration deplored the invasion, but also sought to avoid antagonizing the Japanese, fearing that taking too strong a stand would weaken the moderate forces in the Japanese government and alienate a potential ally against the Soviet Union, which he saw as a much greater threat. In response to the Japanese invasion, Hoover and Secretary of State Stimson outlined the Stimson Doctrine, which held that the United States would not recognize territories gained by force. The 1931 photo illustration to the right highlights a goodwill visit by Japanese Royal family representatives who sought to maintain goodwill between the U.S. and Japan. The brother of Emperor Hirohito, Prince Takamatsu and his recent bride are being escorted down Pennsylvania Avenue in the U.S. Capital by President Hoover.
Thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, DC, during June 1932, calling for immediate payment of bonuses that had been promised by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in 1924; the terms of the act called for payment of the bonuses in 1945. Although offered money by Congress to return home, some members of the “Bonus Army” remained. Washington police attempted to disperse the demonstrators, but they were outnumbered and unsuccessful. Shots were fired by the police in a futile attempt to attain order, and two protesters were killed while many officers were injured. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur to the protests. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a Communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. Though Hoover had not ordered MacArthur’s clearing out of the protesters, he endorsed it after the fact. The incident proved embarrassing for the Hoover administration, and destroyed any remaining chance he had of winning re-election.
1932 re-election campaign
By mid-1931 few observers thought that Hoover had much hope of winning a second term in the midst of the ongoing economic crisis. Nonetheless, Hoover faced little opposition for re-nomination at the 1932 Republican National Convention, as Coolidge and other prominent Republicans all passed on the opportunity to challenge Hoover. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential nomination on the fourth ballot of the 1932 Democratic National Convention, defeating the 1928 Democratic nominee, Al Smith. The Democrats attacked Hoover as the cause of the Great Depression, and for being indifferent to the suffering of millions. As Governor of New York, Roosevelt had called on the New York legislature to provide aid for the needy, establishing Roosevelt’s reputation for being more favorable toward government interventionism during the economic crisis. The Democratic Party, including Al Smith and other national leaders, coalesced behind Roosevelt, while progressive Republicans like George Norris and Robert La Follette Jr. deserted Hoover.
Hoover’s detractors wondered why he did not do anything to reapportion congress after the 1920 United States Census which saw an increase in urban and immigrant populations. The 1920 Census was the first and only Decennial Census where the results were not used to reapportion Congress; which ultimately influenced the 1928 Electoral College and impacted the Presidential Election.
Hoover originally planned to make only one or two major speeches, and to leave the rest of the campaigning to proxies, as sitting presidents had traditionally done. However, encouraged by Republican pleas and outraged by Democratic claims, Hoover entered the public fray. In his nine major radio addresses Hoover primarily defended his administration and his philosophy of government, urging voters to hold to the “foundations of experience” and reject the notion that government interventionism could save the country from the Depression. In his campaign trips around the country, Hoover was faced with perhaps the most hostile crowds ever seen by a sitting president. Besides having his train and motorcades pelted with eggs and rotten fruit, he was often heckled while speaking, and on several occasions, the Secret Service halted attempts to kill Hoover by disgruntled citizens, including capturing one man nearing Hoover carrying sticks of dynamite, and another already having removed several spikes from the rails in front of the president’s train.
Hoover’s attempts to vindicate his administration fell on deaf ears, as much of the public blamed his administration for the depression. In the electoral vote, Hoover lost 59-472, carrying six states. Hoover won just 39.7 percent of the popular vote, a reduction of 26 percentage points from his result in the 1928 election. Roosevelt’s performance in the popular vote made him the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the presidency with a majority of the popular vote since the Civil War.
Opposition to New Deal
Hoover departed from Washington in March 1933, bitter at his election loss and continuing unpopularity. As Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, and Taft had all died during the 1920s or early 1930s, Hoover was the sole living ex-president from 1933 to 1953. Hoover and his wife lived in Palo Alto until her death in 1944, at which point Hoover began to live permanently at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. During the 1930s, Hoover increasingly self-identified as a conservative. He closely followed national events after leaving public office, becoming a constant critic of Franklin Roosevelt. In response to continued attacks on his character and presidency, Hoover wrote more than two dozen books, including The Challenge to Liberty (1934), which harshly criticized Roosevelt’s New Deal. Hoover described the New Deal’s National Recovery Administration and Agricultural Adjustment Administration as “fascistic”, and he called the 1933 Banking Act a “move to gigantic socialism.”
Only 58 when he left office, Hoover held out hope for another term as president throughout the 1930s. At the 1936 Republican National Convention, Hoover’s speech attacking the New Deal was well received, but the nomination went to Kansas Governor Alf Landon. In the general election, Hoover delivered numerous well-publicized speeches on behalf of Landon, but Landon was defeated by Roosevelt. Though Hoover was eager to oppose Roosevelt at every turn, Senator Arthur Vandenberg and other Republicans urged the still-unpopular Hoover to remain out of the fray during the debate over Roosevelt’s proposed Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. At the 1940 Republican National Convention, Hoover again hoped for the presidential nomination, but it went to the internationalist Wendell Willkie, who lost to Roosevelt in the general election.
World War II
During a 1938 trip to Europe, Hoover met with Adolf Hitler and stayed at Hermann Gring’s hunting lodge. He expressed dismay at the persecution of Jews in Germany and believed that Hitler was mad, but did not present a threat to the U.S. Instead, Hoover believed that Roosevelt posed the biggest threat to peace, holding that Roosevelt’s policies provoked Japan and discouraged France and the United Kingdom from reaching an “accommodation” with Germany. After the September 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany, Hoover opposed U.S. involvement in World War II, including the Lend-Lease policy. He rejected Roosevelt’s offers to help coordinate relief in Europe, but, with the help of old friends from the CRB, helped establish the Commission for Polish Relief.
During a radio broadcast on June 29, 1941, one week after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hoover disparaged any “tacit alliance” between the U.S. and the USSR, stating, “if we join the war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more communism on Europe and the world… War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy.” Much to his own frustration, Hoover was not called upon to serve after the United States entered World War II due to his differences with Roosevelt and his continuing unpopularity. He did not pursue the presidential nomination at the 1944 Republican National Convention, and, at the request of Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, refrained from campaigning during the general election.
Post-World War II
Following World War II, Hoover befriended President Harry S. Truman despite their ideological differences. Because of Hoover’s experience with Germany at the end of World War I, in 1946 Truman selected the former president to tour Germany to ascertain the food needs of the occupied nation. After touring Germany, Hoover produced a number of reports critical of U.S. occupation policy. He stated in one report that “there is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a ‘pastoral state.’ It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it.” On Hoover’s initiative, a school meals program in the American and British occupation zones of Germany was begun on April 14, 1947; the program served 3,500,000 children.
In 1947, Truman appointed Hoover to a commission to reorganize the executive departments; the commission elected Hoover as chairman and became known as the Hoover Commission. The commission recommended changes designed to strengthen the president’s ability to manage the federal government. Though Hoover had opposed Roosevelt’s concentration of power in the 1930s, he believed that a stronger presidency was required with the advent of the Atomic Age. During the 1948 presidential election, Hoover supported Republican nominee Thomas Dewey’s unsuccessful campaign against Truman, but he remained on good terms with Truman. Hoover favored the United Nations in principle, but he opposed granting membership to the Soviet Union and other Communist states. He viewed the Soviet Union to be as morally repugnant as Nazi Germany and supported the efforts of Richard Nixon and others to expose Communists in the United States.
Hoover backed conservative leader Robert A. Taft at the 1952 Republican National Convention, but the party’s presidential nomination instead went to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who went on to win the 1952 election. Though Eisenhower appointed Hoover to another presidential commission, Hoover disliked Eisenhower, faulting the latter’s failure to roll back the New Deal. Hoover’s public work helped to rehabilitate his reputation, as did his use of self-deprecating humor; he occasionally remarked that “I am the only person of distinction who’s ever had a depression named after him.” In 1958, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 yearly pension (equivalent to $221,540 in 2019) to each former president. Hoover took the pension even though he did not need the money, possibly to avoid embarrassing Truman, whose precarious financial status played a role in the law’s enactment. In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy offered Hoover various positions; Hoover declined the offers but defended Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs invasion and was personally distraught by Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
Hoover wrote several books during his retirement, including The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, in which he strongly defended Wilson’s actions at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1944, he began working on Freedom Betrayed, which he often referred to as his “magnum opus.” In Freedom Betrayed, Hoover strongly critiques Roosevelt’s foreign policy, especially Roosevelt’s decision to recognize the Soviet Union in order to provide aid to that country during World War II. The book was published in 2012 after being edited by historian George H. Nash.
Hoover faced three major illnesses during the last two years of his life, including an August 1962 operation in which a growth on his large intestine was removed. He died on October 20, 1964 in New York City following massive internal bleeding.Though Hoover’s last spoken words are unknown, his last known written words were a get well message to his friend Harry Truman, six days before his death, after he heard that Truman sustained injuries from slipping in a bathroom: “Bathtubs are a menace to ex-presidents for as you may recall a bathtub rose up and fractured my vertebrae when I was in Venezuela on your world famine mission in 1946. My warmest sympathy and best wishes for your recovery.” Two months earlier, on August 10, Hoover reached the age of 90, only the second U.S. president (after John Adams) to do so. When asked how he felt on reaching the milestone, Hoover replied, “Too old.” At the time of his death Hoover had been out of office for over 31 years (11,553 days altogether). This was the longest retirement in presidential history until Jimmy Carter broke that record in September 2012.
Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the United States Capitol rotunda. Then, on October 25, he was buried in West Branch, Iowa, near his presidential library and birthplace on the grounds of the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. Afterwards, Hoover’s wife, Lou Henry, who had been buried in Palo Alto, California, following her death in 1944, was re-interred beside him.
Hoover Presidential Library located in West Branch, Iowa
A plaque in Pozna honoring Herbert Hoover
Medal depicting Herbert Hoover by Devreese Godefroi.
Hoover was extremely unpopular when he left office after the 1932 election, and his historical reputation would not begin to recover until the 1970s. According to Professor David E. Hamilton, historians have credited Hoover for his genuine belief in voluntarism and cooperation, as well as the innovation of some of his programs. However, Hamilton also notes that Hoover was politically inept and failed to recognize the severity of the Great Depression. Nicholas Lemann writes that Hoover has been remembered “as the man who was too rigidly conservative to react adeptly to the Depression, as the hapless foil to the great Franklin Roosevelt, and as the politician who managed to turn a Republican country into a Democratic one.” Polls of historians and political scientists have generally ranked Hoover in the bottom third of presidents. A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Hoover as the 36th best president. A 2017 C-Span poll of historians also ranked Hoover as the 36th best president.
Although Hoover is generally regarded as having had a failed presidency, he has also received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official. Biographer Glen Jeansonne writes that Hoover was “one of the most extraordinary Americans of modern times,” adding that Hoover “led a life that was a prototypical Horatio Alger story, except that Horatio Alger stories stop at the pinnacle of success.” Biographer Kenneth Whyte writes that, “the question of where Hoover belongs in the American political tradition remains a loaded one to this day. While he clearly played important roles in the development of both the progressive and conservative traditions, neither side will embrace him for fear of contamination with the other.”
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located in West Branch, Iowa next to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. The library is one of thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration. The Hoover-Minthorn House, where Hoover lived from 1885 to 1891, is located in Newberg, Oregon. His Rapidan fishing camp in Virginia, which he donated to the government in 1933, is now a National Historic Landmark within the Shenandoah National Park. The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, built in 1919 in Stanford, California, is now the official residence of the president of Stanford University, and a National Historic Landmark. Also located at Stanford is the Hoover Institution, a think tank and research institution started by Hoover.
Hoover has been memorialized in the names of several things, including the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and numerous elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States. Two minor planets, 932 Hooveria and 1363 Herberta, are named in his honor. The Polish capital of Warsaw has a square named after Hoover, and the historic townsite of Gwalia, Western Australia contains the Hoover House Bed and Breakfast, where Hoover resided while managing and visiting the mine during the first decade of the twentieth century. A medicine ball game known as Hooverball is named for Hoover; it was invented by White House physician Admiral Joel T. Boone to help Hoover keep fit while serving as president.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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BETHUNE, NORMAN, physician and medical educator; b. 13 Aug. 1822 in Moose Factory (Ont.), son of Angus Bethune*, an NWC and HBC fur trader, and Louisa McKenzie; m. first 1851 Janet Ann Nicolson, and they had three sons and four daughters; m. secondly Helen King, the widow of Dr Winer of Hamilton, Ont.; d. 12 Oct. 1892 in Toronto.
Norman Bethune’s father, a successful fur trader, had family connections through his brothers with the social and political élite of Upper Canada. In 1840 he brought his family to Toronto and enrolled Norman in Upper Canada College. From 1842 to 1845 Bethune studied for an arts degree at King’s College in Toronto and then entered the college’s medical school in 1845–46. Like many ambitious young men he went to London, England, to attend King’s College and Guy’s Hospital, graduating as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1848.
When he returned to Toronto after a trip to Hudson Bay in 1849, Bethune joined four other doctors in setting up the city’s third medical school: the Upper Canada School of Medicine. (The other two were John Rolph*’s Toronto School of Medicine and King’s College.) He was thus introduced to educational politics. The secularization of King’s College, which was renamed the University of Toronto in 1850, so enraged Bishop John Strachan* that he undertook the creation of a Church of England university as an alternative to the “godless” education provided by the government-controlled institution. As staunch Anglicans, Bethune and his colleagues Edward Mulberry Hodder*, James Bovell*, Henry Melville, William Hallowell, and Francis Badgley* offered to make their school the medical faculty of the new college, Trinity; classes began in the fall of 1850. Bethune taught anatomy and physiology, and would serve as dean in 1855–56. He also contributed to the Upper Canada Journal of Medical, Surgical and Physical Science, published by his colleagues at Trinity between 1851 and 1854.
Controversy dogged Toronto’s medical schools during the decade. In 1853 the medical faculty of the University of Toronto was abolished, leaving the medical faculty of Trinity College and the Toronto School of Medicine [see William Thomas Aikins] in competition. As a proprietary school, the Trinity faculty was dependent on student fees for professors’ salaries, supplies, and the rental or construction of facilities. In 1856 the staff agreed to advertise that they would teach “occasional students” who would not be required to subscribe to Anglican religious tests in order to graduate. Led by Bishop Strachan, Trinity’s council called the doctors to account. As dean, Bethune responded to the criticism and on 2 July delivered the faculty’s mass resignation.
Like most of his colleagues, Bethune joined the Toronto School of Medicine, which ended its affiliation with Victoria College, Cobourg, that October [see John Rolph]. He taught descriptive anatomy there in the late 1850s before going with his family to Edinburgh, where he practised surgery after qualifying as a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1860. The previous year he had spent some time studying in Strasbourg, France, and after the battle of Solferino (Italy) assisted in caring for the wounded. By 1869 he had returned to Toronto and joined the medical faculty of Victoria College as professor of the principles and practice of medicine. He supported the negotiations to re-establish Trinity’s medical school provided that no religious barriers were imposed. When this condition was met and the school reopened in 1871, he accepted the post of professor of surgery, which he held until 1881.
Little is known of the final decade of Bethune’s life except that in 1888 he is listed as a consulting physician for the Toronto General Hospital. Both his eldest son and his second wife died during these years, and he and his family moved frequently. His career had spanned the period of the separation of religion and science and the gradual shift from proprietary to government-supported medical education, which culminated in the re-establishment of the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine in 1887. His grandson Henry Norman Bethune*, also a physician, would achieve renown for his work in pneumothoracic surgery and for his service in China with the army of Mao Tse-tung in 1937–39.
AO, MU 3023, W. B. Geikie, history of Trinity Medical College, 1906. NA, RG 31, C1, 1881, Toronto. Trinity College Arch. (Toronto), Council minutes, 24 June 1856; Geneal. file, Bethune family. Canada Lancet (Toronto), 3 (1870–71): 337. Canadian album (Cochrane and Hopkins). Canadian almanac, 1859–60. Toronto directory, 1850–89. Trinity Medical College, Announcement (Toronto), 1871–81 (copies at Trinity College Arch.). William Canniff, The medical profession in Upper Canada, 1783–1850 . . . (Toronto, 1894; repr. 1980). Hist. of Toronto, 2: 9. G. W. Spragge, “The Trinity Medical College,” OH, 58 (1966): 63–98.
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Strong reasoning
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History
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- For decades now a quarter of Jerusalem’s sewage has flowed openly in the Kidron valley.
- The stream runs back and forth between land under Israeli and Palestinian administration, making a fix hard to find.
- But finally it seems a solution has been reached.
There is a foul smell coming from the biblical Kidron Valley.
It’s so bad that King David and Jesus, who are said to have walked there thousands of years ago, would today need to take a detour to reach Jerusalem.
For decades now a quarter of Jerusalem’s sewage has flowed openly in the Kidron valley, meandering down the city’s foothills and through the Judean desert to the east. At its worst, the pollution leaks into the Dead Sea.
The stream runs back and forth between land under Israeli and Palestinian administration, making a fix hard to find. But finally it seems a solution has been reached.
Authorities on both sides have agreed to drain the valley of sewage. According to the plan, a pipeline will be constructed carrying the wastewater directly to new treatment facilities. Each side will fund and build the section that runs through its territory.
Until that happens, however, about 12 million cubic meters of sewage continue to flow through the valley each year.
“Of course it’s damaging the environment and the ecological system,” said Shony Goldberger, director of the Jerusalem district in Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry.
“It’s dangerous and hazardous to the health of the people in many ways.”
Added to Jerusalem’s sewage along the stream’s 30 km (19 mile) descent through the occupied West Bank is effluent from Bethlehem and nearby Arab villages.
Plants grow anomalously in what should be a dry wadi, animals come to drink, and mounds of baby wipes flushed down thousands of toilets sporadically coagulate along the banks. Sewage seeps into the earth, risking contamination of ground water.
Toward the end of the journey it gathers in a makeshift collection pool and much is used to irrigate date trees, which have a high tolerance for pollutants. But every so often gravity pulls the refuse toward the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea.
“It’s like a brown stain,” Goldberger said. “It stays disconnected from most of the salty water of the Dead Sea.”
With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an impasse, projects that require even minor cross-border coordination seldom get done. Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war, but under interim peace deals the Palestinians exercise limited self-rule in part of the territory.
“After decades of not being able to solve the problem, for a thousand and one reasons, professional and political, we reached an agreement for building a pipeline in the valley,” Major General Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities in the West Bank, told Reuters.
The Palestinian Water Authority said the agreement was reached out of an “interest to clean the area,” but emphasized the two sides were working separately.
While they are both are optimistic, some scepticism remains, since similar plans in past never gained traction.
“We were talking about it, planning it, every time it took two, three, four years. You think you have it, and then the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a truck coming at you,” said Goldberger.
“I hope this solution will reach the stage where it is built.”
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Decorative Style - The Empire
( Originally Published Early 1900's )
The French Revolution made a tremendous change in the production of beautiful furniture, as royalty and the nobility could no longer encourage it. Many of the great artists died in poverty and many of them went to other countries where life was more secure.
After the Revolution there was wholesale destruction of the wonderful works of art which had cost such vast sums to collect. Nothing was to remain that would remind the people of departed kings and queens, and a committee on art was appointed to make selections of what was to be saved and what was to be destroyed. That committee of " tragic comedians " set up a new standard of art criticism; it was not the artistic merits of a piece of tapestry, for instance, that interested them, but whether a king or queen dared show their heads upon it. If so, into the flames it went. Thousands of priceless things were destroyed before they finished their dreadful work.
When Napoleon came into power he turned to ancient Rome for inspiration. The Imperial Caesars became his ideal and gave him a wide field in which to display his love for splendor, uncontrolled by any true artistic sense. It gave decoration a blow from which it was hard to recover.
Massive furniture without real beauty of line, loaded with ormolu, took the place of the old. The furniture was simple in construction with little carving, until later when all kinds of animal heads and claws, and animals never seen by man, and horns of plenty, were used to support tables and chairs and sofas. Everywhere one turned the feeling of martial grandeur was in the air. Ormolu mounts of bay wreaths, torches, eagles, military emblems and trophies, winged figures, the sphinx, the bee, and the initial N, were used on furniture, and these same motives were used in wall decoration. The furniture was left the natural color of the wood, and mahogany, rosewood, and ebony, were used. Veneer was also extensively used. The front legs of chairs were usually straight, and the back legs slightly curved. Beds were massive, with head and foot-board of even height, and the tops rolled over into a scroll. Swans were used on the arms of chairs and sofas and the sides of beds. Tables were often round, with tripod legs; in fact, the tripod was a great favorite. There was a great deal of inlay of the favorite emblems but little carving. Plain columns with Doric caps and metal ornaments were used. The change in the use of color was very marked, for deep brown, blue and other dark colors were used instead of the light and gay ones of the previous period. The materials used were usually of solid colors with a design in golden yellow, a wreath, or a torch, or the bee, or one of the other favorite emblems being used in a spot design, or powdered on. Some of the color combination in the rooms we read of sound quite alarming.
Since the time of the Empire,France has done as the rest of the world has, gone without any special style.
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Strong reasoning
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Art & Design
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“We wanted to create an individual space, a safe space of sorts,” says Chateauguay Valley Regional High School vice-principal Mélissa Larocque, of a year-long project that led to the creation of the Indigenous Resource and Education Centre for Indigenous students within the school.
There are currently around 15 Indigenous students at CVR, including several from Kahnawake, and others from off-reserve communities and northern communities as well. The school applied for various government measures to secure funding to create and furnish the centre, which features a collection of books, beads, and other culturally significant items.
CVR also received funding to provide support for its Indigenous students. Isabelle Arsenault, who was already working there, was hired to support the Indigenous student population. The New Frontiers School Board’s Indigenous consultants, Dwayne Stacey and Curran Jacob, have also been instrumental in ensuring the project is a success.
“The room is really coming to life,” says Larocque. “It is becoming really rich,” she adds, while admitting the hallway leading to the room did nothing to draw attention to the space that was being created. “There was this ugly beige wall,” she says, explaining how they settled on painting a mural to enhance the area. “We needed something to bring attention to this space.”
The school reached out and found Megan Kanerahtenha:wi Whyte, a Mohawk First Nations art therapist and artist, who worked with eight Indigenous students over two days to design and paint the visually stunning and symbolic mural. “It was really beautiful. I would have never thought it could have been this amazing,” says Larocque, of her experience watching the students bring their vision to life.
The mural was created to acknowledge, honour, and memorialize the Indigenous children who attended Indian Residential School and Indian Day schools. With Whyte’s guidance, the images, colours, and narrative were decided upon by the students. In the process of making the mural, discussions focused on identity, trauma, growth, and empowerment.
The mural was the subject of a recent post on CVR’s social media account written by Whyte. She notes that “It is important to continue the conversation and awareness-building about the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous people, because the long-term effects in families are still present. Indigenous students and their families are continuing to reclaim their identity and culture. They are continuing to work through multigenerational trauma so that they can empower themselves to become who they are meant to be.”
“It has been a really nice and motivating project to be a part of,” says Larocque of the centre, who admits it is still a work in progress. “I am confident [the space] is still evolving,” she adds, saying that even though she will be moving on from CVR to fill a new position, the school will re-apply for all the same measures to ensure the important work that was started can continue.
Recognition and reconciliation
Beyond the Indigenous Resource and Education Centre, much work is being done at CVR in terms of recognition and reconciliation. A new territorial acknowledgement was read in both French and English to open the Class of 2023 graduation ceremonies on June 17. The text acknowledges the unceded Kanienʼkehá꞉ka territory on which the school is located. “As a part of the greater Haudenosaunee Confederacy, they succeeded due in part to a union of all voices, women and men. As caretakers of the soil, they protected and farmed this land long before we did. We want to move forward spreading awareness and appreciation for the Iroquois Nations. We can’t change the past, but we can determine the future as we honour them.”
History teacher Lisa Evans and last year’s Grade 10 history students reworked the land acknowledgement. “They worked on it relentlessly,” says Larocque, who suggests it was fitting that the new version was read at their graduation.
This year’s ceremony also featured a Thanksgiving address, which was read in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) by a graduating Indigenous student. The address had been read for the first time at the school during the September 30 assembly marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. “I thought it was a nice addition,” says Larocque; “a needed addition.”
A grant for professional development allowed a contingent of 20 teachers, staff members, and administrators to go to Kahnawá:ke in June to learn about appropriately integrating the Indigenous world into their classrooms and the school. Seven staff members are also travelling at the end of June to the Mohawk Valley region in the United States for an overnight visit and professional development experience.
Larocque says the efforts being made for CVR to be more inclusive run deep. “It is a small rural community, and it is becoming more diverse,” she says, suggesting CVR will only continue to evolve in the coming years.
The story behind the mural
In a post to the school’s social media account, artist and art educator Megan Kanerahtenha:wi Whyte explains the story behind the mural that was recently completed at CVR.
As an Indigenous Way of Knowing, we often share our teachings through story, and the story of this mural is one of them. In our story, we meet three young people around a sacred fire. Fire connects us to Spirit, the energy that connects all life, and to Creator.
Two youth, living in the present, sit with a spirit of a young person taken by the Residential School system. They grieve this young person, whose grave may be unmarked or lost, and grieve how this history impacts their families and themselves. But they also sit with wisdom, knowing that Spirit keeps us connected and our culture connects us to who we are.
Around them lies the power of this connection, from the land to the sky and to animals. The moon cycle reminds us that change is a normal cycle in life, and that we can continue to grow through our own changes. The roots remind us that we are resilient even if we are still trying to reconnect with who we are. The spirit animals remind us of our individual gifts and the teachers we have outside the school walls. They remind us that we are never alone, and that healing will happen in connection.
Our young artists have signed this image with a handprint to honor themselves and their resilience, gifts, and wisdom. This story reminds of why Every Child Matters, because there was a time when Indigenous children did not. It is also a reminder that we, as a community, a school, a society, have work to do to make culturally safe spaces; spaces that are trauma-informed and understand the unique healing needs of Indigenous children today.
As Métis leader Louis Riel once said: “My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.” The spirit of our young artists were indeed present.
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Here’s our process.
Edema refers to visible swelling caused by a buildup of fluid within tissues. When an indentation remains after the swollen skin is pressed, this is called pitting edema. The effect may also be noticeable after taking off a tight shoe or stocking.
Anyone can have pitting edema, but because some causes are more dangerous than others, it is often a good idea to consult a doctor.
In this article, we describe who is at risk for pitting edema. We also explore accompanying symptoms, treatments, and prevention techniques.
This condition is most common in the lower body, particularly in the legs, ankles, and feet.
Swelling caused by edema will usually make the skin feel tight, heavy, or sore. Other symptoms depend on the cause, but they can include:
- tingling or burning sensations around the swelling
- pain and aching in the swollen areas
- skin that feels puffy or stiff
- skin that is warm or hot to the touch
- water retention
- unexplained coughing
- fatigue or decreased daily energy
- chest pain
- shortness of breath and difficulty breathing
People who experience chest pain, shortness of breath, or swelling in only one limb should seek immediate medical attention.
Pitting vs. non-pitting edema
Edema occurs when fluid that accumulates in tissues leads to swelling. When pressure is applied to a swollen area, it may leave a pit, in the skin.
In non-pitting edema, the skin will return to its swollen shape once the pressure has been removed.
A variety of factors can lead to pitting edema, including:
Alternatively, any of the following conditions may be responsible:
- high blood pressure
- psoriatic arthritis
- kidney problems
- lung diseases
- liver diseases
- deep vein thrombosis, which involves a blood clot, often in the leg
- chronic venous insufficiency, which occurs when the veins are inhibited
- complications of the heart valve
- congestive heart failure
Pitting edema may also be a side effect of medications such as:
Pitting edema can affect anyone, though certain factors can increase a person’s risk.
In most cases, a doctor should determine the cause of pitting edema and, if necessary, refer a person to a specialist.
Some accompanying symptoms require urgent care. Anyone experiencing shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chest pain, or swelling in a single limb should seek immediate medical attention.
When leg pain and swelling persist after a person has been sitting for several hours, this may indicate deep vein thrombosis. This occurs when a blood clot develops deep in the leg. Anyone who suspects this should seek urgent medical care.
Pitting edema during pregnancy
Pregnancy can cause pitting edema, and it usually resolves as the pregnancy ends.
However, it is a good idea to discuss every new symptom with a doctor, who can test to rule out serious conditions linked with edema, such as very high blood pressure or preeclampsia.
Pitting edema is often diagnosed with a physical exam. The doctor may apply pressure to the swollen skin for about 15 seconds to check for lasting indentation.
Because some associated conditions are more dangerous than others, it is important to find the underlying cause of the edema. This may require thorough testing. The edema will usually resolve once the cause has been treated.
To properly identify the underlying cause, a doctor may take a detailed medical history and ask about medications. They may then refer the person to a doctor who specializes in issues concerning the veins or circulatory system.
Tests that can aid in a diagnosis of pitting edema include:
- a physical exam
- imaging tests, such as X-rays, which can show fluid retention and problems in the lungs
- blood tests
- urine tests
- an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound scan of the heart
Pitting edema is classified based on the depth and duration of the indentation. The following scale is used to rate the severity:
Grade 1: The pressure applied by the doctor leaves an indentation of 0–2 millimeters (mm) that rebounds immediately. This is the least severe type of pitting edema.
Grade 2: The pressure leaves an indentation of 3–4 mm that rebounds in fewer than 15 seconds.
Grade 3: The pressure leaves an indentation of 5–6 mm that takes up to 30 seconds to rebound.
Grade 4: The pressure leaves an indentation of 8 mm or deeper. It takes more than 20 seconds to rebound.
Understanding the severity of edema can help a doctor to identify the underlying cause and best course of treatment.
This involves addressing the underlying cause of the edema. A range of treatments correspond with the range of causes, but common methods include:
- elevating the swollen limbs above the level of the heart
- wearing compression stockings to encourage circulation. Compression stockings are available for purchase online.
- undergoing vascular surgery
- increasing blood protein levels
- taking diuretics to flush out excess fluid
When the underlying cause has been successfully treated, edema is unlikely to recur.
Some adjustments to lifestyle and diet can reduce the likelihood of developing edema, particularly if a person has a high risk.
These changes may include staying active, avoiding sitting or standing for long periods, and doing gentle exercises to reduce swelling.
Pitting edema is a common symptom. It is usually not a cause for concern in itself, but many underlying conditions require treatment, sometimes urgently.
Edema should not cause any long-term complications. After working with a doctor, many people find lasting relief from the symptom.
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CC-MAIN-2022-33
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Glen Matthews is a developer at a well-known Canadian software company, where he has been occupied with implementing a commercial version of SSH. He can be reached at [email protected].
Given the growing need for secure and private data transfer, the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) offers a robust and flexible solution to the problem of protecting your communications. A major component of such a solution involves authentication of the client and in the best of all worlds, the server. Part of the flexibility of SSH is that it supports a variety of authentication methods. Of particular interest for large enterprises is authentication using the Kerberos protocol, not only because of the single sign-on capability, but also because it has a potential to preclude classic man-in-the-middle attacks on the SSH protocol. Because Kerberos is the primary authentication mechanism for Windows (postWindows 2000) and because it is supported on all UNIX-like platforms, Kerberos provides these capabilities today.
SSH is a complicated protocolthe Secure Shell IETF Working Group web page lists 16 Internet drafts (and as of this writing, no RFCs). The result of this complexity is a rich set of capabilities. In what follows, I describe how Kerberos authentication can be done using both the standard GSSAPI (Generic Security Services Application Programming Interface) and Microsoft's SSPI (Security Support Provider Interface).
To run the SSH protocol, you do the following:
- (a) Negotiate encryption.
- (b) Authenticate the user.
- (c) Open and use channels.
Steps (a) and (b) result in an encrypted and authenticated tunnel, which is a container for the communications. Step (c)repeated within the tunnel as many times as desiredresults in a channel. Channels run within an encrypted tunnel and carry the traffic that would normally be carried on a standard TCP/IP socket. I won't go into communications over channels because the focus of this article is really on step (b)the authentication of the user of the tunnel.
The SSH Protocol: A Bird's Eye View
SSH provides an encrypted and authenticated communications tunnel between a client and server, usually on different machines. Within this tunnel, any number of virtual links called "channels" can be created. Although the initial purpose was to provide remote secure shells, other types of channels can be opened, including X11 channels, file transfer channels, and socket forwarding channels (port forwardingboth inbound and outbound).
To support all of this, SSH uses a packetized binary protocol on the wire. The basic structure of an encrypted SSH packet consists of a short header, followed by the message type, followed by the payload, and finally followed by some Message Authentication Code (MAC) bytes (see Figure 1). The payload encapsulates the traffic of the protocols previously mentioned, similar to how IP encapsulates other protocols. Of course, SSH packets themselves are usually encapsulated within TCP/IP packets.
As part of negotiating the tunnel encryption keys between client and server, the server's public key is exchanged with the client. This key (and the associated private key) enables public key cryptography such as digital signatures to be performed between the two parties. At this point, the SSH protocol is most vulnerable. If an attacker is positioned in between the client and the server, the attacker can pose as the server to the client using some bogus key, and the client machine might not be able to tell the difference; the attacker would simply relay messages between the server and the client, pretending to each side to be the other side (see Figure 2). In a sense, the attacker would be acting as a malicious proxy. This is the classic man-in-the-middle attack.
In order to continue, you must determine if the server's private key is correct. If the client machine has the key available through some mechanism (possibly a previous connection), then it can be compared and the authenticity of the server can be determined. If not, you are customarily asked to decide whether to accept the key or not. Unfortunately, you have little upon which to base such a decision for first-time connections, and so you customarily reply "yes."
The reason for this weakness is that when the SSH protocol was first described, public-key infrastructures were poorly deployed. Although this was a logical place to embed some means of server authentication, there was nothing practical available. I'll come back to this point shortly.
Once the server key has been negotiated, user authentication is then negotiated and carried out. In the case of a password authentication (for example), the client would send a login ID and password within an authentication packet, and the server would respond with either success or failure.
This is a logical place to do authentication using Kerberos. "GSSAPI Authentication and Key Exchange for the Secure Shell Protocol" is an Internet draft Request for Comments (RFC) describing an authentication mechanism using Kerberos based on the GSSAPI. Using the same SSH protocol packets, Microsoft's SSPI can be called because one of the (several) security packages that it supports is Kerberos.
A very interesting option described in this draft RFC is that of authenticated Diffie-Hellman key exchange. This mechanism performs a Kerberos-authenticated key exchange at the step above where the server key would be negotiated. The client first authenticates itself to the server via Kerberos. If mutual authentication (an option) is selected, then the server authenticates itself to the client (note that this is more than simply comparing keys). This allows a first-time connection to a new server to be completely safe from the man-in-the-middle because only the server can satisfactorily authenticate itself to the client via Kerberos. An interesting side effect is that the actual user authentication then becomes a formality because the user has already been authenticated in the key exchange step.
Kerberos Authentication: Another Bird's Eye View
In order to understand how the man-in-the-middle attack is defeated with mutual authentication, I need to review how Kerberos authentication is carried out. Kerberos deals with binary objects called "tickets"and the name is suggestive of the role that they play.
As a client, you need to acquire a ticket-granting ticket (TGT) initially by authenticating yourself to the Kerberos KDC (Key Distribution Center) using a KRB_AS_REQ (Kerberos Authentication Service Request) message. (Note that the KDC holds all of the user and server private keys in order to encrypt tickets using these keys.) Later, during the acquisition of service tickets, the TGT proves to the KDC that you have authenticated yourself when it is presented. A service ticket is like a letter of introduction in that it automatically authenticates you to the network service for which it was acquired, without needing to provide other credentials. Most importantly, the software that you are using (such as SSH) can acquire these subsequent service tickets automatically on your behalf, assuming that you have a previously acquired TGT.
The reply back from the KDC contains a generated session key, as well as a separate message (the TGT) containing this key, and your authorization data, encrypted with the KDC's master key. Only the KDC can decrypt the TGT. The entire reply is encrypted with your private key, so that only your client software can decrypt this message. The client software on your machine stores your session key as well as the TGT into a local cache.
To request a service ticket for some service, such as a login session for a remote host, you send a KRB_TGS_REQ (Kerberos Ticket Granting Service Request) message to the KDC. Included in that message is the TGT that you have obtained. The KDC's encrypted reply contains your service session key (the key that you will use to encrypt messages between you and the service) and a ticket for sessions with that service encrypted with its private key. The service key and ticket are also cached locally.
To establish your session with the login service, you now send a KRB_AP_REQ (Kerberos Application Request) message. This contains your service ticket, an authenticator containing a timestamp that is encrypted with the service session key, and a flag indicating whether mutual authentication is desired. When the login service receives this message, it decrypts the service ticketonly it can do this. It then decrypts the authenticator (which can only be done if it can decrypt the service ticket!) and checks the authentication data and timestamp to authenticate you (or not). If the mutual authentication flag is set, it encrypts the timestamp from your authenticator message using the service session key and sends this back in a KRB_AP_REP (Kerberos Application Reply) message. Finally, when you receive this message, your client software decrypts this, and if the timestamp is the one you originally sent, then the server has authenticated itself to you: Mutual authentication is then complete.
This cleverly defeats the man-in-the-middle attack because the information used for mutual authentication is encrypted using the session key, known only to the client and server. Of course, if the attacker has obtained this key by breaking into the KDC and monitoring your network traffic, then all bets are offand you'll likely have larger problems!
SSH Authentication Using Kerberos
By now it should be clear that Kerberos authentication is a very desirable feature. In SSH, this authentication proceeds by way of the GSSAPI or the SSPI interface. There are two methods of authentication: One runs over the SSH User Authentication protocol and the other runs over the SSH Transport protocol (this is the authenticated Diffie-Hellman key exchange previously mentioned).
"GSSAPI Authentication and Key Exchange for the Secure Shell Protocol" describes a sequence of packets that must be sent when authentication starts. The data that is put in these packets comes from the output of the GSSAPI or SSPI function callsthose calls will be discussed later.
If you are authenticating using SSH User Authentication protocol, you would first send the SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST message (see Figure 3). When this message is sent, requesting Kerberos authentication (gssapi-with-mic is the protocol name for it), a list of supported objects called "mechanism OIDs" (Object Identifiers) is included; see the sidebar "OIDs, GSSAPI, and SSH."
The Kerberos mechanism OID (1.2.840.1135126.96.36.199) is required. The GSSAPI call gss_indicate_mechs() returns a list of the OIDs of the supported security mechanisms. However, SSPI doesn't have an equivalent to this call. The returned packet from the SSPI InitializeSecurityContext() call contains the mechanism OID. "RFC 2743: Generic Security Service Application Program Interface, Version 2, Update 1" (Section 3.1: Mechanism-Independent Token Format) explains the formatting of this packet. The data of interest is at the beginning:
This can be decoded as follows:
- 0x60TAG for packet type.
- 0x8Xindicates the length of the entire packet is > 128 bytes.
- 0xX2indicates the length of the following byte count; here it's 2.
- 0x04BEthe length of the packet.
The remaining data of interest to us is: 0x'06092A864886F712010202'. This decodes as follows:
- 0x06Tag for OBJECT IDENTIFIER.
- 0x09OID length.
- 0x2A 86 48 86 F7 12 01 02 02encoded OID bytes (see sidebar).
In this manner, the correct mechanism OID can be acquired. (The alternative is to hard-code the value.)
The server then replies with SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_GSSAPI_ RESPONSE, in which it lists the mechanisms that it knows about. What follows then is a sequence of SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_GSSAPI_ TOKEN pairs, first from the client and then from the server, until the client receives GSS_S_COMPLETE from GSSAPI (or SEC_E_OK from the SSPI). You then send SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_GSSAPI_MIC and should receive SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS.
If you are using the authenticated Diffie-Hellman key exchange, then the process is similar, but the data transmitted is sent with different message numbers (see Figure 4). There are several differences. First, there is no negotiation of the mechanism OIDthis is implicit in the name of the key exchange algorithm. Second, the sequence of message pairs SSH_MSG_KEXGSS_CONTINUE ends with the server sending the last message. Third, the Message Integrity Code (MIC) message is sent later, under the SSH User Authentication protocol.
Establishing a Security Context
The first step for both GSSAPI and SSPI is to load the code into memory. In the case of the GSSAPI, the required file is gssapi32.dll while in the case of SSPI, the file is security.dll. Once loaded, GetProcAddress() can be called against the GSSAPI library to create a dispatch table. SSPI has a built-in call, InitSecurityInterface(), which does this for you. This step ensures that your code is not tightly bound to a particular version of either interface.
The next step is to generate the service principal name. A principal may be a user, a program, or a machine. In this case, the service principal is the computer account corresponding to the service to be accessed. In the GSSAPI, names of principals are stored in a gss_name_t object. The string format thus needs to be imported via gss_import_name(), using code similar to that in Listing 1.
pAddr is a pointer to the structure filled in via GetProcAddress() calls as mentioned earlier. Note that the value of ServiceName contains "host" as a literal string. This represents the service principal; the full service principal name is in the format:
The Kerberos realm is the collection of machines that have service entries in the KDCit usually corresponds to domain names but is not required to do so.
When using the SSPI, the client can generate the DNS format of the server principal name by issuing the Active Directory function DsGetDcName(). Names in the SSPI are passed as strings (see Listing 2).
Once the mechanism OID has been negotiated as previously described (either via the SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST message or via the key exchange method name), the next thing to do is send token output to the server from either the InitializeSecurityContext() or gss_init_security_context(). The packets that are sent are either SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_GSSAPI_TOKEN or SSH_MSG_KEXGSS_ INIT and depend on which method is used for authentication.
The GSSAPI call is shown in Listing 3. min_stat is a secondary return code. The initial credential handle parameter (the second parameter) is set to GSS_C_NO_CREDENTIAL, indicating the default credential because it is assumed that the user has acquired credentials, either via login or some other mechanism (for example, kinit.exe). gss_context is the context handle, set initially to GSS_C_NO_ CONTEXT, and set to a buffer address by the routine if successful. target_name contains the imported service principal name, while OID contains the Kerberos OID. req_flags can contain a number of flags: The one of interest here is GSS_C_MUTUAL_FLAG (which requires mutual authentication between the server and the client, and which is the mechanism that eliminates the man-in-the-middle attack). Skipping over the next two parameters, there is input_token_ptr (the input token from the server). This is not available on the first call, but is on subsequent callson the first call, it is set to a null value. stok is the output value from gss_init_security_context(). ret_flags are flags returned by the GSSAPIfrom this the client can tell if mutual authentication is allowed.
The SSPI call is shown in Listing 4. Unlike the GSSAPI, some initial credentials are neededthe AcquireCredentialsHandle() call can be used to get OUTBOUND credentials (no user interaction requiredthis would have been acquired at login). For the first call, the handle of the partially formed context (the second parameter) does not need to be supplied. szMSServicePrincipal is an ANSI string containing the service principal name. Unlike the GSSAPI, there is no need to import this into an internal format. grfContextRequirements contains flags as in the GSSAPImutual authentication is requested. SECURITY_ NETWORK_DREP requests network data representation (network byte order). sbdi is the pointer to the input buffers (NULL on the first call). hctx receives the new context handle if the call is successful. sbdo points to the output buffers and contains the token to be sent to the server. ulCtxAttrs contains the output flags, as in the GSSAPI. Finally, Expiry receives the lifespan of the context.
When the first token is received, it is sent to the server, which then replies with a message. The token in this message is passed back into InitializeSecurityContext() or gss_init_security_context() depending on the interface being used. Once the return code indicates that the authentication is complete, almost everything is done. Otherwise, the process is repeated until complete or until authentication fails.
What remains is to send a message containing a signed cryptographic hash of several string values, both static and dynamic, computed during the authentication process. gss_get_mic() (GSSAPI) or MakeSignature() (SSPI) are used to do this.
The GSSAPI code for this is shown in Listing 5. micdata is of type gss_buffer_desc and has a value and length component. Using the GSS context (gss_context) and the data in micdata, gss_get_mic() returns the signed message in msg_token. This is then sent to the server as the final step in the authentication process.
Likewise, the (more complex) SSPI code is displayed in Listing 6. Here the same basic steps as in the GSSAPI case are being followed, except that MakeSignature() requires a more complicated setup with the SecBuffer array of structures. QueryContextAttributes() gives us the size of the output buffer used for MakeSignature(). The output from this routine is in pSignature, with the returned length in rgsb.cbBuffer. (The SecBuffer and SecBufferDesc typedefs are included for claritynormally they would be included from a header file.)
In the SSH User Authentication protocol, the message SSH_MSG_USERAUTH _GSSAPI_MIC is used to send this signed hash. When using authenticated key exchange, it is the actual SSH_MSG_USERAUTH _REQUEST message that contains thisthe user has already been authenticated and this then is the final step.
I won't discuss other API calls in the GSSAPI and the SSPI. Table 1 illustrates a subset of the available calls and shows the mapping between them. One point to mention is that once authenticated, the GSSAPI or the SSPI can be used for encryption and decryption of messages via the respective pairs of routines gss_wrap()/gss_unwrap() or EncryptMessage()/DecryptMessage(). However, in the SSH protocol, these are not needed because separate encryption algorithms are negotiated via the protocol itself. The context can be discarded once authentication has been completed.
Kerberos authentication in SSH is a very useful capability that closes a well-known, albeit accepted, weakness in the protocol. It has the added advantage of enabling a single sign-on capability with respect to SSH connections on Windows platforms, because the underlying Windows authentication model is Kerberos. For complete working examples of the GSSAPI client and server applications, look at the MIT Kerberos distributions. A modified version of this sample code that uses the SSPI is included in the Windows 2000 SDK under samples\WinBase\ security\win2000\GSS.
(Note: Some of these drafts, and in particular numbers and , may soon become RFCs. When this occurs, they should be available via a lookup at http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html. The SSH Transport Layer Protocol draft is slated to become RFC 4253, and the SSH Authentication Protocol draft is slated to become RFC 4252.)
- IETF Secure Shell Working Group (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/secsh- charter.html)contains references to all Secure Shell Internet Draft documents.
- SSH Transport Layer Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-transport-24.txt.
- SSH Authentication Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-userauth-27.txt.
- GSSAPI Authentication and Key Exchange for the Secure Shell Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-gsskeyex-10.
- RFC 2743: Generic Security Service Application Program Interface, Version 2, Update 1.
- RFC 2744: Generic Security Service API Version 2: C-bindings.
- RFC 4120: The Kerberos Network Authentication Service (V5).
- RFC 4121: The Kerberos Version 5 Generic Security Service Application Program Interface (GSS-API) Mechanism: Version 2.
- GSS-API Programming Guide, Sun Microsystems, Santa Clara, CA, 2002.
- The Security Support Provider Interface, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, 1999.
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Software Dev.
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Skill Acquisition in Sport
This article attempts to provide simplistic insight into the concept of Skill Acquisition in sport, and specifically what actions coaches and teachers need to be conscious of to help ensure their athletes are presented with the best possible chance of achieving excellence.
In an effort to effectively develop talent and impart learning, coaches need to be aware of the proposition offered by Sports scientists that denotes the journey any young performer passes through on their route to expertise, consists of three distinct stages. Simplistically, these are referred to as the Cognitive Stage, Associative Stage and Autonomous Stage of Skill Acquisition. Skill Acquisition is the science that underpins movement learning and execution and is more commonly termed motor learning and control (Williams & Ford, 2009). Each stage embodies unique characteristics relative to an athlete’s level of performance of a skill or activity. All of which, are affected by a range of environmental constraints that can include factors such as: level of instruction, quality and frequency of feedback, opportunity to make decisions, type and frequency of practice, exposure to other sports, organismic factors and socio-economic/cultural limitations (Ericsson & Lehman, 1996; Fairbrother, 2010; Magill, 2009; Newell, 1986 & Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2004).
The Cognitive stage is affiliated with a performer’s introduction to a skillset or activity and as such; awkwardness, errors and confusion/disorientation are to be expected. Beyond this, however, it is important for practitioners to recognize what types of exercises and coaching behaviors are most conducive to providing athletes’ with the best possible foundation for growth whilst embedded in this stage. Continuous feedback that is both informative and positive in nature is essential in facilitating both confidence in and an understanding of, a task (Magill,1998, Schemmp, McCullick and Mason, 2006). Furthermore, tasks should be structured to ensure that a high degree of early success is witnessed ensuring a performer’s feelings of their own inherent competence grows (Mitchell,1996). To supplement this, coaches must be cognizant of the benefit that appropriate demonstrations can bring within this stage of development. Painting the correct picture of how a skill or task is to be completed, whilst not overwhelming the child is an integral coaching/teaching tool within this phase (Bailey, 2001, Stafford, 2011).
Lastly, when discussing a performer’s ability to graduate out of this stage there is perhaps no greater focus point than ensuring a platform of functional movement skills is appropriately provided. This can be achieved through engagement with a range of: tasks, sports, games and exercises. Functional Movement Skills (Locomotor, Non Locomotor & Manipulative) provide the base from which Sport Specific movements later grow and therefore, their importance cannot be underestimated. This is specifically critical for coaches and teachers of those from less socially fortunate backgrounds to understand, considering Newell’s (1986) claim that Environmental factors have the ability to significantly impact a person’s ability to acquire physical literacy skills considering their lack of exposure to practice opportunities.
Borrowing from the work of a range of researchers who have sought to understand how elite athletes are grown and developed – such actions equate to those suggested in the: Sampling Years (Cote & Hay 2002), the Fundamental Movement Skills of Gallahue and Ozman (1995) and the FUNdamental stage of Balyi and Hamilton’s (2004) Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model. Steel, Harris, Baxter and King (2013) summarize the importance of such an introduction to sport by suggesting that multidisciplinary backgrounds provide for a more resilient and effective performer.
The duration for which a performer stays embedded within the Cognitive Stage is dependent upon a multitude of factors. Some may simply never graduate from it. What is acknowledged however, is that when a performer seems to be displaying an understanding and execution of a skill void from conscious mechanical thought their journey to the Associative Stage of learning has begun.
Embodied by an emphasis on practice, the Associative Stage of Skill Acquisition is the second step on the journey to expertise. The learner having acquired an understanding of what the skill is needs to repeat the movement to enhance the synchronization of their mind and muscles. This concept of myelination is fast becoming the most commonly associated difference between those that excel and those that do not.
Each time the brain completes a skill an impulse/message is sent between the brain and the functioning body part. The more purposeful this action and the more times it is repeated the thicker the layer of insulation (Myelin Sheath) surrounding the message is. The thicker the Myelin Sheath is – the faster an impulse travels from the brain to the moving muscle thus increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the action and reducing the time taken for the skill to be completed (Coyle, 2009).
This phase can still embody some of the error strewn characteristics of the Cognitive stage however, these instances are now less frequent and importantly the value of feedback, reflection and adjustment should now be inherently apparent. The constant attention to detail and correction required to complete the skill efficiently and effectively is being learned and as such, the value of such specificity cannot be overlooked. In his research into the Development of Expertise, researcher Anders Ericsson offered the contention that it would take an athlete 10,000 hours of Deliberate Practice to achieve Excellence. The deliberate practice framework developed by Ericsson and colleagues suggested that it is not sufficient to simply practice skills. Engagement must also be characterized by effort and attention with the aim of improving performance rather than gaining immediate social gains, i.e., practice should be work-like (Farrow, Baker, & MacMahon, 2008). Note here, the link to the growth and development of Myelin referred to earlier. We want the body to fire very specific impulses and messages when attempting to complete a skill. As a result, the depth and detail of the feedback provided by coaches and the technical nature of the practices they put forth are essential.
In order for a skill to be autonomous the performer must have correctly refined all of the inherent sub routines and building blocks required for efficient execution. From a physical literacy perspective, athletes must be able to now combine the simple movements learned in the Cognitive stage into sport specific, complex sequences in aesthetically pleasing fluency. The highly specific technical points within a skill such as striking a soccer ball now must be unconsciously attended too. The transition to automaticity means that the performer is now able to effectively and efficiently execute the type of skill or action in a context and environment that now demands decisions to be proactively made (e.g. a game). As a result, one’s focus and attention is now on a range of visual cues that will influence said decision. Here is where the transition to Expert and Elite is found.
Naturally, the types of activities an athlete is engaged in, and exposed to at this level differ significantly from those offered at the introductory levels. It is expected that an athlete’s investment in their chosen sport is now significant and as such the specificity of practice is essential.
Stratton, Ward and Smeeton (2003) provided the diagram below to demonstrate the changing nature of skills as performers pass through respective development models.
Cote and Hay
Gallahue and Ozmun
Balyi and Hamilton
Regardless of the Development Model followed, what is evident is that the nature of practices evolves as the level of investment in a sport evolves and as the skillset of the performer evolves. This evolving nature of practice is what ensures skill and performance levels continue to develop. As discussed earlier, it is here the value of deliberate practice, deep practice and the subsequent production of myelin become important.
In his book The Talent Code, Dan Coyle discusses the concept of Deep Practice as the first of his three pillars towards achieving skilled performance. In order to both achieve and remain in the autonomous stage performers must be consistently challenged by coaches. Once the early success and understanding of a skill is achieved a paradigm shift is unleashed that almost sees the effortless completion of a skill and demonstration of talent as a negative thing. “Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways – operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes-makes you smarter. We think of effortless performance as desirable, but it’s really a terrible way to learn” (Coyle, 2009 pg. 18). Conventional wisdom suggests the longer one practices the better they will become. However, if that practice is not purposeful, not challenging, not laden with precise and ever evolving decisions to make a performer will not develop. They will not reach autonomous execution.
To conclude, the journey a performer passes through in order to achieve the level of skill acquisition required for expert performance is an arduous one influenced by an abundance of factors. Those factors however, must be purposefully planned for in order to generate the foundation upon which skilled performance can be displayed.
Coaches must attend to the need for athletes to develop the physical literacy required for multiple sport specific actions. Subsequently, exposure to a range of games, sports and activities is suggested in their early years. Beyond this, see their progression as you would a practice session. Activities should begin simple with a high degree of success and proficiency and build to ones more complex in nature. Instruction and feedback should be detailed and informative and facilitate an understanding of the intricacies required for the successful performance of a skill. As skilled performance becomes more common and less conscious, the athlete/s should be guided to invest in the concept of constant reflection and adjustment in the hope of further understanding what it feels like to perform optimally. When this is achieved the coach furthers the challenge presented by requesting that practice performances are now performed under the constraints of continual decision making ensuring the athlete has to attend to environmental cues before choosing how or when to perform a skill or technique. The key is simply to keep practice purposeful and learning deep.
Many performers never reach the autonomous stage of skill acquisition. Can you be a coach that helps your athletes get there?
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Strong reasoning
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Sports & Fitness
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Chronic bronchitis is an inflammation of the main airways in the lungs that continues for a long period or keeps coming back.
Bronchitis - chronic
Cigarette smoking is the main cause of chronic bronchitis. The more a person smokes, the more likely it becomes that the person will get bronchitis and that the bronchitis will be severe.
Secondhand smoke may also cause chronic bronchitis. Air pollution, infection, and allergies make chronic bronchitis worse.
- Cough that produces mucus (sputum), which may be blood streaked
- Shortness of breath aggravated by exertion or mild activity
- Frequent respiratory infections that worsen symptoms
- Ankle, foot, and leg swelling that affects both sides
Exams and Tests
To be diagnosed with chronic bronchitis, the cough and excessive mucus production must have occurred for 3 months or more in at least 2 consecutive years and not be due to any other disease or condition.
Tests to diagnose chronic bronchitis include:
- Pulmonary function tests
- Arterial blood gas
- Chest x-ray
- Pulse oximetry (oxygen saturation testing)
- Complete blood count (CBC)
- Exercise testing
- Chest CT scan
There is no cure for chronic bronchitis. The goal of treatment is to relieve symptoms and prevent complications. It is crucial to quit smoking to prevent chronic bronchitis from getting worse. Any other respiratory irritants should be avoided.
Inhaled medications that dilate (widen) the airways and decrease inflammation may help reduce symptoms such as wheezing.
Antibiotics may be prescribed for infections as needed.
Corticosteroids may occasionally be used during flare-ups of wheezing or in people with severe bronchitis that does not respond to other treatments.
Physical exercise programs, breathing exercises, and patient education programs are all part of the overall treatment plan. Oxygen therapy may be needed in severe cases. In very severe cases, a lung transplant may be recommended.
For organizations that provide support and additional information, see lung disease resources.
Mild or moderate cases of chronic bronchitis may often be controlled well with medicine and pulmonary rehabilitation. Advanced chronic bronchitis is more difficult to treat.
Early diagnosis and treatment and stopping smoking significantly improve the odds of a good outcome.
When to Contact a Medical Professional
Call your health care provider if respiratory infection or unexplained symptoms develop, or you are short of breath, wheezing, or coughing up blood.
Early recognition and treatment may prevent the progression of the disease in people who also stop smoking.
Reviewed By: David A. Kaufman, M.D., Assistant Professor, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.
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Basic reasoning
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Health
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This was inspired by the life of Hypatia, who lived in the 4th and 5th centuries C.E. She was a real person and brilliant mathematician. Often she is the only woman mathematician mentioned in books on the history of math. The character writing is fictitious, but the events are true.
A Day in Alexandria
I arrived in Alexandria as the sun was going down. The trip from Cyrene had been a rough one and I was glad to have my feet on solid ground again. My teacher and mentor, Synesius, had corresponded with her for years. He raved about her brilliance, her inventions, her ability to teach others, and her original mathematical work. Hypatia! Finally, I would hear for myself. Little did I know what horrors I would witness and how the world would change from this year on.
This was my first trip to the great city of Alexandria. I planned to be here for a while to take advantage of the magnificent library (at least what was left of it) and many great teachers. I would eventually find a place to stay, but for now, I had a letter of introduction to a friend of my mentor. He very kindly invited me into his home and gave me a meal and place to sleep for the night. The political climate is very tense these days. It is the year 415 (A.D.) and the Christians are gaining strength in many places. They have very little tolerance for beliefs different from theirs. Cyril, the church patriarch, considers anyone of the neo-Platonic school of thought to be a heretic. But, there are still many of us who are members of this school, including Hypatia.
As we sat down to a simple meal, or rather reclined in the Greek fashion, my host began to tell me a little more about the city and Hypatia.
“You know her!”, I cried.
“Actually, I’m a friend of the family. More her father’s friend.” He replied.
“Please tell me. Are all the stories I hear of her true?”
He laughed, “Actually, many of them are, but what in particular are you interested in knowing?”
“They say she inspires great devotion in her students and anyone interested in learning.”
“She does. She’s a magnificent orator, devoted to teaching, and to the truth. I make sure that I hear her often and read most of what she writes. She has done quite a bit of original work in mathematics, written commentaries and built on the works of some of the greats – Diophantes, Apollonius, among others. ”
“And she is a scientist as well,” I added. “My mentor, Synesius, has been particularly interested in her inventions, such as the astrolabe and the planesphere for studying astronomy.”
“I know nothing of that field, but am told that she has a number of inventions that have added to it. I am more familiar with her writings in mathematics, although, she is very learned in many fields. Her father, Theon, my friend, was determined to produce the ‘perfect human being’ as he says. Many think that he has. Of course, he is a professor of mathematics at the university as well, so he had access to many resources and took charge of her education. I’m sure she picked up the love of mathematical elegance from him, but he didn’t stop there. She learned it all – astronomy, astrology, mathematics, religion. And he didn’t neglect the body. She is accomplished at rowing, swimming, horseback riding . And yes, she is very beautiful as well, even now in her mid 40s. She has also traveled extensively and basically made a name for herself.”
“Did you say she studied religion?”
“Yes, as in ALL religions, rather than one. Theon was particularly concerned that she NOT be caught up in any one religion to the exclusion of new truths. He feels that all dogmatic religions are false. If we can’t be open to new ideas, we have cut ourselves off from the truth. Hypatia has been raised to be very discriminating in her thoughts and acceptance of new ideas. As Theon frequently says, ‘Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.’ . . . It hasn’t made it easy for her in the current climate. She is a close personal friend of Orestes, the prefect. I think that is one reason that her popularity is tolerated. But, ever since 412, when Cyril became patriarch, things have become more and more tense. Sometimes I fear for her and others who are seen as champions of other ways of thought.”
“She must be an amazing person. Is she married?”
“She is very beautiful, but no, she has never married. She has had opportunities, but always says that she ‘is married to the truth.’ But, I think you’re a little young for her,” he teased.
I was embarrassed, but still had to ask. “Do you think I could meet her?”
“Hmm . . . I think she has a gathering at her home tomorrow night. Her students often gather there and anyone is welcome. Right now though, it is getting late, and her lecture is the first of the day tomorrow. I had planned to go with you, but won’t be able to if I can’t get any sleep.”
I was the one who had trouble sleeping that night because of my excitement. I was up with the sun and after a brief meal, we set out toward the university. It was a beautiful day as we walked along the bay. The sun was bright and the colors were vivid. It was a perfect complement to what I felt inside. We followed the coast for just a short period before we turned to go up to the main thoroughfare that led to the University of Alexandria. As we approached, it became noisier and more crowded as I expected. When we got closer, however, it seemed to be more of a mob than the usual crowds of a city.
“What is happening?” I asked my new friend.
“I’m not sure. This is unusual. I have friends who live here. Let’s go in and see if we can go up to the roof to get a better view.”
We were allowed entrance by one of the slaves who recognized my host and told us that the master was already on the roof observing. As we joined him, I could see that the street was crowded by an angry mob. In the center of the mob was a woman in her chariot. The crowd had brought the horse to a stop and was attacking the woman, hitting her, grabbing her hair, and throwing stones. I could already see where a clump of her hair had been pulled out. She was fighting back, but it was useless against so many. Someone yelled above the crowd, “to the church, to the altar.” At that point, strong hands grasped the woman and she was carried into the nearby Christian church.
“The poor woman, what can we do? Do you know who she is?”
“That,” whispered my host, “is Hypatia. . . I doubt we can do anything against that mob to help her, but we can try. I know a back way into the church.”
As we raced to the door, fear seized my heart for this woman I had never met, but heard so much about. The mob of people, mostly men, were obvious as Christians by the way that they dressed. I understood that they didn’t favor her teachings, but this anger seemed extreme.
We were unable to get through the door until it was too late. When we did, the extent of their depravity was overwhelming. The mob, whom I later learned was a group of monks from a monastery in the desert, had stripped her and peeled away her skin with bits of tile and pottery. Her limbs had been torn from her body. Her voice was silenced.
I couldn’t stay in Alexandria after that. It wasn’t really safe for a non-Christian foreigner, and besides, I didn’t have the heart for it. I heard rumors later about what had happened. Some said that Hypatia’s limbs were put on display in different parts of the city; some said her body was burned. Orestes fled and Cyril finally had what he wanted – power. I went to Athens to continue study, but everywhere things were changing.
Note: Although partially destroyed in 391 C. E. the library in Alexandria would be completely destroyed a few years after Hypatia’s death and the western world would be plunged into a period that has come to be known as the dark ages.
Hubbard, Elbert. Little journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers. Vol.23. New York. The Roycrofters. 1808.
Mlodinow, Leonard. Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace. New York. Simon and Schuster. 2001.
Osen, Lynn. Women in Mathematics. Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press. 1974.
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If you were to look at tire track markings left in dirt, the distinctive patterns may remind you of a shoe print. And, just like comparing the prints left by winter boots and summer shoes, you can work out which are snow tires, and which are summer tires. Along with other tire features, the unique patterns designed for winter tires influence your vehicle’s traction, grip and brake performance – especially on ice, wet surfaces and in snow. In this article we’ll investigate why tire patterns are so distinct and why tread is especially important for winter tires.
In harsh winter conditions, a tire’s tread pattern enhances a vehicle’s grip and handling on icy roads. It is formed from four main divisions:
While these four main divisions help form a tire’s pattern, there’s a fifth element that makes all the difference for winter tires – the tire compound. Winter and all-season tires are made from a specially formulated natural rubber compound that is softer and more flexible than summer tires. It means, they’re able to offer much better grip and traction in lower temperatures. The winter tire tread design offers its benefits especially on roads covered with snow or mud. The snow gets pressed into the wider and deeper tread grooves and by this it utilizes the effect of shear forces on snow for additional grip. The wider grooves can also absorb more slush contrary to summer tires and ensure more contact to the road surface.
You can learn more about the differences between summer and winter tires here. Overall, these 5 elements work together by interlocking and biting into snow and ice to provide additional traction and improved braking.
As mentioned above, winter tire patterns have larger, deeper grooves and additional thin channels known as sipes. This combination allows greater brake control, traction and safety when driving in snow or icy and muddy road surfaces. Additionally, when snow gets compacted into the deep grooves, this helps create further traction.
The performance of an all-season or winter tire depends largely on the tread depth. As tire tread wears down over time, its ability to maintain grip on frosted roads reduces. To ensure optimum driving performance and more importantly driving safety, your tires should always have sufficient tread. Always consider the legal regulations of your country and take into account that tire performance decreases with tread depth, especially in winter conditions.
You should aim to check you tire tread depth at least every two weeks, along with your tire pressure. You can do this is two different ways:
Use a tread depth gauge, inserting the probe into the groove and pushing the shoulders down to the surface of the tire. Do this across several sections of the tire and ensure the tread depth meets the legal requirements in the country you are driving in. If it's below this measurement, it's time for new winter tires. In a pinch, you can also use a coin to check your tread.
Check your tread wear indicators, sometimes referred to as wear bars. All tires are manufactured with a series of small rubber bars embedded in a section of the tire grooves. Once the tread is worn down, these bars are flush with the level of the tread pattern. This means the tire has reached its limit of winter suitability and it is now time for new tires. Note: you may need to rotate your tire a few times to find the wear bars.
When checking your winter tire tread, look for any damage such as unusual bulges, small scoops and divots in the tire. They could indicate that your tires are misaligned or that there may be other problems with your vehicle. If you do find any damage, visit your local tire specialist as soon as possible for a thorough check. You should also closely check the conditions of your winter tires when you prepare your vehicle for the cold season.
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Moderate reasoning
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Transportation
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Teachers who take on the task of teaching English to refugee children put themselves into a very unique situation, facing challenges that they would probably never be exposed to otherwise. Unlike the average ESL classroom, this environment demands a variety of special considerations that can have much bigger and more permanent consequences on the individuals concerned. One major fact to consider is the likelihood that the children have experienced an interruption not only in their lives but also in their education, if they had one previously. It is important to find out as much background information about your students as you can, as assumptions just won’t cut it here. Never receiving a formal education is a concept that most Westerns cannot truly understand, but it is an unfortunate reality that occurs in many other places in the world. Imagine attending a lesson for the first time- and it’s in a foreign language. It’s a lot to digest and is certainly high on the list considerations teachers must make.
Adapting to Educational Background and Setting
Other challenges stem from the changing educational environment, as well, and teachers would do well to note them. As a teacher, one of your main tasks is obviously to teach the language. However, there is a chance that you’ll have to start from the alphabet and Latin writing system. If you are teaching in a school setting (as opposed to a specific English language institute), there will be even more necessity to try to help them catch up with the curriculum. Behavioral expectations will need to be explained and, in many cases, this will be the most difficult part of teaching refugees. Cultural differences, traumatic past experiences, fear, and/or a general unknowing of how to behave in this setting will all be present, and consequences need to be very clearly thought through. Fights amongst students and outbursts can have quite a significant meaning and must be addressed and dealt with with care.
Overcoming Culture Shock
Culture shock is another condition to consider when working with refugee students, and it can emanate from either (or both) side(s) of the dynamic. Both students and their teachers can experience culture shock, and the effects are often exacerbated in situations where the students’ new environment is so vastly different from that of their home. This ties back to the cultural experiences and skills that I mentioned above. Picture a situation in which a student has lived through great atrocities and struggles- truly a survivor- but doesn’t know how to color with crayons or sit through a 40 minute lesson. Situations like this are not few and far between. In fact, they are often even more complex than this article can detail. What strategies can ESL teachers utilize in order to mitigate and deal with such circumstances, creating and ensuring a comfortable learning environment for all of their students?
Overcoming the Challenges
The first emphasis should be on creating an educational space that your students recognize as safe. While the students are trying to adapt to their confusing new environment, your job is to facilitate as smooth of a transition as possible. Often times, an ESL class is smaller than that of a regular school, allowing each child to receive more attention and form a deeper, more personal bond with their children, which in turn gives teachers the opportunity to take on a special role: one as a mentor and advocate. This naturally makes the classroom an extremely important place for refugee students, complete with added responsibility (and rewards) for teachers. You must develop the skills to anticipate potentially unsettling events (such as parties, fire alarms, field trips, and anything outside of routine) and learn to assist students in navigating issues themselves. A natural way to start is when language frustrations present themselves. The tools that students learn in these scenarios will help them to cope with other issues outside of the classroom, as well.
In order to adequately support your special-circumstance students, you must train yourself to become an ‘active listener’. This involves periodically restating what you have heard and interpreted to the speaker. Using expressions like, “Let me see if I understand” and “Do you mean ____?” helps to clarify what the student means and make them feel understood, all while practicing language and comprehension skills. Furthermore, this presents a great opportunity for students to practice their own listening skills, as well, promoting problem solving and shared understanding.
While providing a safe haven for learners is at the forefront of the list of responsibilities for an ESL teacher, he/she must also consider the importance of integration. Teachers must take care to balance the aims of the environment. Integrating into their new society is a challenging, yet critical, part of a refugee child’s life, and classroom standards are a great way to ease the process in a less stressful manner. While ‘regular’ classrooms facilitate difficulties, such as bullying, the ESL classroom can utilized as a place to practice inclusion and foster a sense of togetherness. I’ve found organizing and/or participating in community events to be a great vessel by which to promote integration. Remember, this process takes time, effort, patience, and compassion, so do not rush or impose; rather, offer support, guidance, and reassurance.
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Strong reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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(Alternate Nostril Breathing)
If you don't do anything else, this
is a simple yoga breathing exercise that can be done virtually anywhere, anyplace. You
will be glad you did. It is simply dynamic!
The name alternate nostril breathing is due to the fact that we alternate between the
two nostrils when we do the breathing. Yogis believe that this exercise will clean and
rejuvenate your vital channels of energy, thus the name nadi sodhana (purification of
nadis or channels).
With this exercise, we breathe through only one nostril at a time. The logic behind
this exercise is that normal breathing does alternate from one nostril to the other at
various times during the day. In a healthy person the breath will alternate between
nostrils about every two hours. Because most of us are not in optimum health, this time
period varies considerably between people and further reduces our vitality. According to
the yogis, when the breath continues to flow in one nostril for more than two hours, as it
does with most of us, it will have an adverse effect on our health. If the right nostril
is involved, the result is mental and nervous disturbance. If the left nostril is
involved, the result is chronic fatigue and reduced brain function. The longer the flow of
breath in one nostril, the more serious the illness will be.
- The exercise produces optimum function to both sides of the brain: that is optimum
creativity and optimum logical verbal activity. This also creates a more balanced person,
since both halves of the brain are functioning property.
- The yogis consider this to be the best technique to calm the mind and the nervous
The Scientific Confirmation of
Alternate Nostril Breathing
Medical science has recently discovered the nasal cycle, something that was known by
the yogis thousands of years ago. Scientists have recently found that we don't breathe
equally with both nostrils, that one nostril is much easier to breathe through than the
other at any particular time and that this alternates about every three hours. The yogis
claim that the natural period is every two hours, but we must remember these studies were
done on people who do not have an optimum health level.
Scientists also discovered that the nasal cycle corresponds with brain function. The
electrical activity of the brain was found to be greater on the side opposite the less
congested nostril. The right side of the brain controls creative activity, while the left
side controls logical verbal activity. The research showed that when the left nostril was
less obstructed, the right side of the brain was predominant. Test subjects were indeed
found to do better on creative tests. Similarly when the right nostril was less obstructed
the left side of the brain was predominant. Test subjects did better on verbal skills.
Medical science has not quite caught up with the ancient yogis yet. The yogis went one
step further. They observed that a lot of disease was due to the nasal cycle being
disturbed; that is, if a person breathed for too long through one nostril. To prevent and
correct this condition, they developed the alternate nostril breathing technique. This
clears any blockage to air flow in the nostrils and reestablishes the natural nasal cycle.
For example, the yogis have known for a long time that prolonged breathing through the
left nostril only (over a period of years) will produce asthma. They also know that this
so-called incurable disease can be easily eliminated by teaching the patient to breathe
through the right nostril until the asthma is cured, and then to prevent it recurring by
doing the alternate nostril breathing technique. The yogis also believe that diabetes is
caused to a large extent by breathing mainly through the right nostril.
- Close the right nostril with your right thumb and inhale through the left nostril. Do
this to the count of four seconds.
- Immediately close the left nostril with your right ring finger and little finger, and at
the same time remove your thumb from the right nostril, and exhale through this nostril.
Do this to the count of eight seconds. This completes a half round.
- Inhale through the right nostril to the count of four seconds. Close the right nostril
with your right thumb and exhale through the left nostril to the count of eight seconds.
This completes one full round.
Start by doing three rounds, adding one per week until you are doing seven rounds.
Alternate nostril breathing should not be practiced if you have a cold
or if your nasal passages are blocked in any way. Forced breathing through the nose may
lead to complications. In pranayama it is important to follow this rule: under no
circumstances should anything be forced. If you use the nostrils for breath control they
must be unobstructed. If they are not, you must practice throat breathing.
Go To: Surya-Bhedana (Right-nostril breathing)
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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Doctor insights on:
Boost your antibods: If you did have a case in the past the vaccine would just boost the antibodies you already have. ...Read more
Caused by the varicella-zoster virus, chicken pox results in a blister rash that starts on the stomach, back, and face and spreads throughout the entire body. These small itchy blisters eventually scab over. Associated symptoms include itching, fatigue, malaise, and a fever. The most effective method to prevent spreading of the varicella virus is ...Read more
What could happen if I already had the chickenpox but forgot, and then got a chickenpox vaccine anyway?
Absolutely: The risks of the vaccine include fever, rash, and occasional discomfort. It does not cause pneumonia or seizures. The disease can cause death, not seen at all with the shot. And with an experience of over 30 years, it does not appear to increase the risk of adult infection. These are the facts. ...Read moreSee 2 more doctor answers
14month old exposed to chickenpox at creche.No chickenpox vaccine.Is this dangerous?No sign of being sick yet.What symptoms should I watch out for?
Chickenpox: The incubation time for chickenpox is 14-21 days from exposure, so you may not have seen symptoms yet if that time has not passed. Usually the child starts out with a very low grade fever and is slightly fussy, then within the next 24 hours develops the classic chickenpox rash. The rash starts out as tiny red spots that quickly enlarge over about 1 day, then develop vesicles and finally scab over. ...Read more
See below:: Most common side effects include: •injection site reactions (such as redness, pain, or swelling) -- in up to 32.5 percent of people •fever -- up to 14.7 percent •a chickenpox-like rash -- up to 5.5 percent. Most people tolerate the vaccine quite well. If side effects do occur, in most cases, they are minor and either require no treatment or can easily be treated by you or your doctor. ...Read more
Does the chickenpox vaccine contain sulpher ? I have been told if you have a sulpher allergy you cannot have it ?
Untrue: Sulphonamides are not used in the production of the vaccine. ...Read more
Chickenpox vaccine: It used to be one vaccine, but now they added a second one. It would be a good idea to ask the doctor to do whats called a titer, all they need to do is get a small tube of blood from you from the lab and that is to see if your body has made it's own antibodies so that you will not get the chicken pox. If your counts come back low, then you will need a second vaccine to be fully immunized. ...Read moreSee 1 more doctor answer
Latin word for cow, vacca, because of the smallpox/cowpox work of edward jenner, vaccination is the administration of a substance, live organism or otherwise, that stimulates the immune response to prevent a specific disease. Primarily a preventative procedure, some vaccines can ...Read more
- Talk to a doctor live online for free
- Vaccines for chickenpox
- Vaccines chickenpox
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- Ask a doctor a question free online
- When is chickenpox vaccine given
- Contagiousness of the chickenpox
- Mmr and chickenpox vaccine
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- Talk to a pediatrician online
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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During Holy Week, it is Christian tradition to trace the pathway which Jesus took towards Jerusalem, sometimes following the stories recounted in Mark 11-14. In the city of Jerusalem, Jesus was arrested, crucified and died; in this city, for untold years, pilgrims had gathered in festive celebration, to remember, to retell the stories, to nurture their faith, to seek the Lord.
In Jewish tradition, the pilgrims travelling towards the city would join in songs—some of which are included within the book of Psalms in Hebrew Scripture and Christian Bibles. On their journey towards the city, according to this tradition, the pilgrims would sing Psalms 120—134. These are known as The Songs of Ascent, for they were sung as the pilgrims climbed higher towards the city, and then higher still towards the Temple at the highest point in the city.
This series of blogs use these ancient songs as the focus for reflecting, to envisage what that journey was like for Jesus and his followers, travelling as pilgrims to the city to celebrate Passover.
It was during that week that everything came to a head.
A gathering of friends and family; a joyful occasion, with exuberant celebration, meeting up after months or years in our own villages. We had walked with other pilgrims, heading towards the city, climbing the road, singing the psalms, looking forward to the festival.
Each step closer to the city was a step that brought us closer to the heart of our faith. Each step along the way was a step that brought us higher, nearer to the holy mount. Each stage along the way was matched with a psalm of ascent, singing with joy as we drew near to the holy place.
So we sang, together: Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore. (125) In the silence, reflect on Psalm 125
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. (126) In the silence, reflect on Psalm 126
And then, we were at the foot of the holy place, the Temple first built by Solomon, then rededicated and rebuilt in the time of Herod; the Temple where the Lord God dwelt, where he dwelt in the Holy of Holies.
So we sang: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. (127) In the silence, reflect on Psalm 127
A gathering of friends and family; a joyful occasion, with exuberant celebration. We had walked with other pilgrims, heading towards the city, climbing the road, singing the psalms, looking forward to the festival.
Each step closer to the city was a step that brought us closer to the heart of our faith. Each step along the way was a step that brought us higher, nearer to the holy mount. Each stage along the way was matched with a psalm of ascent, singing with joy as we drew near to the holy place. So we stepped out, full of faith, on our journey to Jerusalem.
It was during that week that everything came to a head.
Water is on our mind, on the east coast of Australia, at the moment. Widespread flooding has occurred. Houses and businesses in many seaside locations, as well as in inland flood plains beside rivers, have been inundated by rising waters. People have been evacuated, some were stuck away from home, some now have no home to return to amd live in.
The power of water has been on display all around us. Constant sheets of wind-driven rain have fallen across hundreds of kilometres on the eastern coast of Australia. Surges of creek and river waters created currents that moved vehicles—even houses—and spread across flood plains, invading domestic and industrial spaces in towns and suburbs. Crashing ocean waves menaced beaches and cliff-faces, and currents swirled fiercely in the ocean.
We stand in awe and trepidation before the power of water—just as, a little over a year ago, we stood in awe and trepidation as roaring fires swept through bushland, invaded towns and suburbs, and wrought widespread and long-lasting damage. Then, we pondered, as now, we reflect on what this manifestation of “Nature, red in tooth and claw” means for us, as people of faith. (See https://johntsquires.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-faith-amidst-the-firestorms/)
Is this a demonstration of divine power in the pouring rain and rising floodwaters? Is this, somehow (as some would maintain), God declaring judgement on human beings, for our sinful state and rebellious nature?
I have been looking at a range of public commentary on the floods. One church website (not Uniting Church) includes these statements: “[These] devastating floods are not to be considered as an act of judgement upon our world, but instead, a warning to repent. Whether it’s drought, bushfire, flood or pandemic, these disasters are an important time for us all to consider Christ in the crisis. As we pray for the recovery of our land from these devastating floods, let us also pray that through this disaster might be a fresh opportunity for people to find eternal comfort and security in Christ Jesus.”
This appears to understand the floods as God seeking to make human beings respond with an act of faith in Jesus. Whilst ancient understandings may have made this kind of immediate connection between an event in nature and the intentions of God, we cannot make such a simple link. It’s much more than just “flood—warning—repentance—faith”. We need to reflect more deeply.
Water in our bodies helps us to form saliva, regulate body temperature through sweating, contribute to the brain’s manufacturing of hormones and neurotransmitters, lubricate our joints, and enable oxygen to be distributed throughout the body. Water facilitates the digestion of food, and the waste that is produced in our bodily systems is regularly flushed out as we pass urine. And we use water every day, to wash away solid bodily waste, to clean our hair and skin, to wash our clothes and keep our kitchen utensils clean.
Water is also a source of enjoyment: sitting on the beach, watching the powerful rhythmic surge of wave after wave; sitting beside the babbling brook, appreciating the gentle murmuring of running water; sitting beside the pool, listening the the squeals of delight as children jump into the water, splashing and playing with unrestrained glee.
The power of the ocean, of course, has often drawn the attention of human beings. We are reminded of this when swimmers are caught in rips and transported rapidly out into the ocean, or towards the jagged rocks at the edge of the beach. Sadly, the son of a friend was caught in a rip one day a few years ago. His two companions were rescued; the body of our friend’s son has never been found. The power of the ocean, whipped up by the wind, can be intense and unforgiving.
Water makes regular appearances in the Bible. It is a key symbol throughout scripture. It appears in the very first scene, when the priestly writer tells how, “in the beginning … the earth was without form and void … and a wind from God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:1-2).
It also appears near the very end of the last book of scripture, where the exiled prophet reports that “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Rev 22:17).
Water flows throughout the scripture as a central image, appearing another 720 times in the intervening pages of scripture. Water enables healings to occur, for instance (Namaan, commander of the army of the king of Aram, in 2 Kings 5; the man by the pool at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, in John 5).
To the people of Israel, as they retold their foundational myth of the Exodus and the subsequent forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the gift of water was a sustaining grace. Parched by desert thirst, the Israelites cried out for water, Moses struck the rock, and water flowed (Exod 17:1–7; Num 20:2-13). Rivers flowing with water then provided food for the people living in the land—the fish of the waters (Deut 14:9; Lev 11:9), alongside the beasts of the land and the birds of the air (Ezek 29:3-5; Deut 14:3–20; Lev 11:1–45).
Flowing water—“living water”—is one of the images adopted in John’s account of Jesus, to explain his role within the society of his day: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37–38).
The precise scriptural quote is unclear—commentators suggest that the reference may be to Prov 18:4 (“the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook”), or Zech 14:8 (“living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem”), or Psalm 78:16 (“[God] made streams come out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down like rivers”), or Rev 22:1–2 (“the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city”). The uncertainty as to the precise reference alerts us, however, to the many instances where “living water” is mentioned.
The imagery of water was used, in addition, in earlier stories in this Gospel. To the request of the woman of Samaria at the well, “give me some water”, Jesus replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:7–10).
To the crowd beside the Sea of Galilee, who asked, “Sir, give us this bread always”, Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:34–35). Water is powerfully creative, restorative, empowering.
Water also threatens destruction: witness the paradigmatic stories of the Flood (Gen 6:1–9:17) and the Exodus from Egypt (Exod 14:1–15:21, retold in Psalms 78 and 105). The destructive power of massive flows of water is evident in both of these stories: water falling from the heavens (Gen 7:4, 12) in one version of The Flood story, water rising from The Deep in an alternate version (Gen 7:11, 8:2).
Although (as we noted above), the gift of water was a sustaining grace to the people of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness, from the time of settlement in the land of Canaan, the Great Sea to the west of their lands (what we know as the Mediterranean Sea) was seen as a threat. In the sea, Leviathan and other monsters dwelt (Ps 74:13-14; 104:25–26; Isa 27:1).
The Exodus was made possible because the waters of the Red Sea had caught and drowned the Egyptian army (Exod 14:23–28); this unleashing of destructive divine power was celebrated by the escaping Israelites in victory songs (Exod 15:2–10, 19–21), in credal remembrance (Deut 11:2–4; Josh 24:6–7), and in poetic allusions in psalms (Ps 18:13–18; 66:6; 77:18–20; 78:13, 53; 106:8–12; 136:10–16).
In like manner, the waters in The Flood caused almost compete annihilation of living creatures on the earth (Gen 6:12–13, 17); only the family of Noah and the animals they put onto the Ark were saved from the destructive waters (Gen 6:19–21 indicates “two of every sort”, whilst Gen 7:2–3 refers to “seven pairs of all clean animals … and a pair of the animals that are not clean”).
Both the creative power of water, and destructive capabilities of water, led the people of Israel to ascribe power to God over the seas and the rivers. The Psalmist affirms of God that “the sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed” (Ps 95:5).
Accordingly, the Lord God, who “made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them (Ps 146:6), was seen as able to “rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them” (Ps 89:9). God’s power over creation is also expressed through flooding: “The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the LORD!” (Ps 93:4).
In our current context, such words are deeply troubling. Can it be that God is exercising divine judgement through the increased rainfall and rising floodwaters currently being experienced? There are two problems with this point of view, both with an inherently theological note to be sounded.
The first relates to the nature of God, and how God interacts with the created world. The ancients had a view that God was an interventionist God, directly engaging with the created world. When something happened “in nature” (like a birth, a death, a flood, a fire, and earthquake, etc), it was seen to be directly attributable to God. It simply happened “to” human beings.
Contemporary scientific and sociological views, however, would provide much more room for human agency. When things happen, what contribution does the human being (or an animal of some kind) have in the process? We would want to say that events that take place do not “just happen”; they are shaped by the actions of human beings in history, by our intention and interaction.
So, the second element I see as integral to understanding the current situation, theologically, is the contribution that human beings have made to the current environmental situation. Why are floods occurring more regularly, and with more intensity, in recent times? The answer is, simply, that we are seeing the effects of climate change right around the earth.
We human beings know this. We have known it for some decades, now. Yet policy makers bow to the pressures and enticements they receive from vested interests in business, pressing and bribing to ensure that their businesses can continue—even though it contributes the greatest proportion to the rise in temperature.
For every one degree Celsius that temperature rises, the atmosphere holds 7% more water. Given the right atmospheric conditions (such as we have seen develop in the last week), that water will get dumped somewhere—in recent times, that has been over much of the east coast of Australia, in massive amounts.
And it is obvious to thinking human beings, that how we have lived, how we have developed industries, how we have expanded international travel, how we have expanded the transportation of food and other goods around the globe, how we have mined deeper and wider to find fossil fuels to sustain this incessant development, has all contributed to that rise in temperature.
Certainly, a fundamental human response to the tragedies we have seen unfolding around us through the rainfall and flooding, is one of compassion. Compassion for the individuals who have borne the brunt of the damage that has occurred.
Compassion and thankfulness for the emergency services personnel and others who have spent countless hours in assisting those caught by the floods. Compassion and careful listening provided by Disaster Recovery Chaplains in many evacuation centres.
Compassion, practical support, and prayerful support for all who have been affected by these events, is fundamental.
Yet whilst the massive rainfall and the high floods are the processes of nature at work around us, we know that we have intensified and exacerbated them. And we see tragic results in the rivers that have surged and flooded in recent days—just as the same instability in the earth’s system has generated more intense and more frequent cyclones, created more intense and more frequent fires, warmed the oceans and melted the edges of the polar caps, and caused other observable events around the world.
This past week, there have been two opportunities for us to remember what we are doing to the planet—opportunities to commit to a different way of living in the future. The first was Australia’s Overshoot Day, on 22 March. This is the day that Australia has used up its yearly allocation of the earth’s resources. What should have taken 365 days has taken Australians 81 days. You can read about this at https://www.insights.uca.org.au/overshoot-day-and-a-theology-of-creation/
So, in the midst of the increased and more intense cyclones, and more regular meltings, and bleachings of coral, and eruptions of fire storms, and flooding of plains, God is communicating with us: the world cannot go on like this, the planet can not sustain our incessant disregard for its natural ways.
So let’s not blame God for dumping all that water and flooding all those homes and businesses. Let’s look closer to home, and consider how, in the years ahead, we can adjust our lifestyle, reduce our carbon footprint, live more sustainably, and treat God’s creation with respect and care.
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Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. ISFDB catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of ''If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.
The stories span approximately one thousand years of future history, from the first human explorations of the Solar System to the colonization of dozens of nearby systems. Late in the series, Known Space is an irregularly shaped "bubble" about 60 light-years across.
Within the Tales of Known Space, the epithet "Known Space" refers to a relatively small region in the Milky Way galaxy, one centered on Earth. In the future that the series depicts, spanning roughly the third millennium, humans have explored this region and colonized many of its worlds. Contact has been made with other species, such as the two-headed Pierson's Puppeteers and the aggressive felinoid Kzinti. Stories in the Known Space series include events and places outside of the region called "Known Space" such as the Ringworld, the Pierson's Puppeteers' Fleet of Worlds and the Pak homeworld.
The Tales were originally conceived as two separate series, the Belter stories set roughly from 2000 to 2350 CE and the Neutron Star/Ringworld stories set in 2651 CE and later. The earlier, Belter period features solar-system colonization and slower-than-light travel with fusion-powered and Bussard ramjet ships. The later, Neutron Star period features faster-than-light ships using "hyperdrive". Niven implicitly joined the two settings as a single fictional universe in the short story "A Relic of the Empire" (If, December 1966), by using background elements of the Slaver civilization from the Belter series as a plot element in the faster-than-light setting. In the late 1980s—having written almost no Tales of Known Space in more than a decade—Niven opened the 300-year gap in the Known Space timeline as a shared universe, and the stories of the Man-Kzin Wars volumes fill in that history, bridging the two settings.
- 1 Overview
- 2 Stories in Known Space
- 3 Playground
- 4 References
- 5 External links
In the process of exploring space, humankind encounters several intelligent alien species, including the following (in alphabetical order):
- Bandersnatchi: Colossal slug-like creatures, originally created by the Tnuctipun as a food source for the Thrintun. Believed by the Thrintun to be unintelligent, the Bandersnatchi (known to the Thrintun as Whitefoods) were engineered by the Tnuctipun to be highly intelligent spies for their war on the Thrintun. At one time found on every Thrint estate throughout the Thrintun empire, the only known survivors in Known Space are on the planet Jinx, though they are later found on the Ringworld and on a forested planet called Beanstalk (in the Man-Kzin Wars story "Hey Diddle Diddle"). The Bandersnatchi were the only intelligent species which were immune to the Thrint mental power.
- Chunquen: A slave species of the Kzinti, remarkable to their captors for the sentience of both sexes. ("They fought constantly.") Their homeworld is watery; they resisted the Kzinti invasion with missiles fired from submarine ships. Apparently they were exterminated before the Kzinti first encountered humans.
- Grogs: Sessile sentient creatures, shaped like furry cones. They are eyeless, earless, and have a prehensile tongue. They can also control animals telepathically. The Grogs are thought by some to be the descendants of the Thrintun species, after 1.5 billion years of atrophy.
- Gw'oth: Starfish-shaped beings inhabiting the ice moon of a gas giant. GW'oth possess the ability to link their neural tissue and form incredibly powerful and efficient biological supercomputers, called Gw'otesht. GW'otesht typically exist in collections of individual Gw'oth in multiples of 4, the largest known comprising 16 entities. GW'otesht are capable of running many millions of complex simulations in a short amount of time, giving them the ability to plan ahead in great detail by analyzing every possible outcome. Evolving to sentience from colonies of carnivorous tubeworms living beneath the ocean of an ice moon similar to Europa, the Gw'oth broke through the ice and first experimented with fire only two generations previous to mastering nuclear fission. The Gw'oth continue to advance rapidly without need for trial and error learning. They know nothing of other intelligent beings in the universe until first encountering Humans and Pierson's Puppeteers in Fleet of Worlds. Though superficially similar to the Jotoki, they are unrelated.
- Jotoki: Sentient starfish-shaped beings formed by the joining of the lobes of five non-sentient eel-like life forms into a single brain. Former rulers of an interstellar empire, they used Kzinti as bodyguards and mercenaries, but the Kzinti took over the Jotoki empire and built their own upon it, making the Jotoki slaves and food animals. Though superficially similar to the Gw'oth, they are unrelated.
- Kdatlyno: A slave species of the Kzinti until humans freed them, although some are still legal Kzinti slaves. Kdatlyno are huge, 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) bipeds with long arms. They have a thick brown hide, curved claws at knees and elbows, and retractable claws on the knuckles of their hands. Their heads are eyeless and noseless, with a gash of a mouth. Above that is a goggle-shaped tympanum (eardrum), which allows them to "see" by way of sonar. Kdatlyno create 'touch sculptures' as an art form. Other species need to touch this art, rather than look at it, to appreciate it properly.
- Kzinti: Large and very aggressive felinoid aliens with whom humans fight several brutal interstellar wars. Kzinti tactics are somewhat cat-like in nature, "scream and leap" being the primary mode of declaring a challenge. The first Man-Kzin War ended when the humans obtained the faster-than-light drive (FTL) from the Outsiders, after which the Kzinti ships stood no chance against the FTL warships. Throughout the rest of the wars with man, the Kzinti tended to always attack before they were ready, and subsequently lost all of them. As a result of this most of their empire was lost; in the peace treaties that resulted, colonies and slave planets were ceded to man or given independence. In Ringworld it is revealed that this was in part due to clandestine meddling by the Pierson's Puppeteers. They saw in the aggressive Kzinti a major threat, and orchestrated the events that led to the humans getting FTL ships and thereby ensuring the human victory of the first war. Each of these Kzinti defeats eliminated the most aggressive individuals from the Kzinti gene pool and thus made the Kzinti more "manageable" from a Puppeteer point of view. By the time Ringworld takes place, Kzinti are able to deal with other races diplomatically, rather than by attacking and enslaving them. Female Kzinti are not sapient, although among the archaic Kzinti found on the Ringworld some are. The protagonist Louis Wu thinks this indicates the Kzinti in Known Space have bred intelligence out of their females.
- Niven himself wrote little about the Man-Kzin Wars, although many of his stories refer to them having taken place in the past. The Man-Kzin Wars short-story collections were primarily written by other authors. The Kzinti "crossed-over" into the Star Trek universe in the animated episode "The Slaver Weapon", which was written by Larry Niven and is adapted from Niven's own short story "The Soft Weapon".
- In the Man-Kzin Wars novel Destiny's Forge, it is revealed that the Black Priests, a powerful cult within the Patriarchy whose members all have completely black pelts, have been responsible for the breeding program to isolate the telepath gene and preserve kzinrret subsapience. Kits are tested while young; a female who displays too much intelligence is taken away and killed, and a male who displays knowledge they could not have gotten except by telepathy is taken away and addicted to sthondat lymph to become a Telepath. On Kzinhome, however, the czrav and forest nomad prides, outcasts from mainstream Kzinti culture, never accepted the Black Priests, and in consequence have fully sentient kzinrretti, although this fact is a carefully held secret.
- Martians: Primitive but intelligent humanoids who lived beneath the sands. Martians burst into flames when brought in contact with water. Martians killed many of the early human explorers on Mars, principally because they concealed their existence, and they weren't suspected. In the novel Protector, the Martians were wiped out when Jack Brennan caused an ice asteroid to crash into the surface of Mars, raising the average humidity of the atmosphere. Some Martians still exist on the "Map of Mars" on the Ringworld.
- Morlocks: Semi-sentient humanoid cave dwellers on Wunderland. They, like humans, descended from a failed attempt by Pak Protectors to colonize Sol and nearby star systems. Named by humans for the creatures in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.
- Outsiders: very advanced, fragile aliens shaped like cats o' nine tails that, according to Ringworld, probably evolved on a cold, low gravity world resembling Nereid. Most of them live on big ships, crossing interstellar space at sublight velocities and trading in information and technology. According to A Gift From Earth, they find hyperspace vulgar. In the Fleet of Worlds books it is suggested that hyperspace might actually be lethal to them, as their body chemistry relies on real or artificial sunlight. Because of the nature of their 'ships' this light would be absorbed by the 'blind spot' that manifests in hyperspace. They possess inertial dampers and planetary drives. It was the Outsiders that sold humans the FTL drive, on a stop in the solar system of the human colony called We Made It. The Outsider ships' follow starseeds. The starseeds are gigantic, non-sentient space-dwelling animals that travel from the galactic core to the rim by their solar sails. At the rim they lay their eggs, then travel the 50,000 light-years back to the core. In the Fleet of Worlds books it is suggested that the Starseeds might carry Outsider 'spores' on which the species relies to replenish its numbers.
- Pak: Interstellar ancestors of humanity (actually Homo habilis) whose life-cycle mimics the stages of human aging. Pak live through three stages of being: Child, breeder, protector. A Pak breeder who reaches 30 to 45 years of age will feel an irresistible urge to eat the sweet-potato-like root of a plant, Tree-of-Life, that is found throughout the Pak homeworld. A virus found in tree-of-life initiates the transformation into a protector. Protectors lose all sense of gender and reproductive desire, and exist solely to defend their clan bloodline. They are xenophobic, violent, hyper-intelligent and driven only by the fierce instinct to protect their descendants. This powerful instinct drove them to commit genocide on several planets where they tried to establish colonies, since every other sentient species was considered a potential threat. It also led to relentless internecine wars whenever two familial lines wound up with goals in conflict. When the Protectors reappear in The Ringworld Engineers and its sequels, it is strongly indicated that they constructed the Ringworld. A Pak colony failed on Earth 2.5 million years ago due to the soil's lack of thallium, which allowed Tree-of-Life to flourish but not the virus within its roots. As a result several million Pak breeders spread across the Earth, eventually evolving into Homo sapiens sapiens and all other primate life on the planet. Likewise, every hominid species found on the Ringworld is descended from Pak breeders, and all are susceptible to the virus of Tree-of-life. A protector-stage Homo habilis is more intelligent than a breeder-stage Homo sapiens, and a protector stage Homo sapiens is even more intelligent. In the Man-Kzin stories it has been suggested that the ancestors of the Pak were genetically modified by the Tnuctip to be smarter so that they would serve as better slaves to the Thrint. The Protector 'phase' was actually designed to create a warrior the Thrint would be unable to control with their telepathy because of its unusual mind buildup. They are apparently also the source of the Tnuctip's technological creations. (this material is debatable as it conflicts with Niven's earlier Known space stories)
- Pierin: A slave species of the Kzinti. At the time of their conquest, they occupied several planets near p Eridani. No description is given, but the Ringworld RPG suggests they resemble horned birds and that their homeworld has low gravity. Presumably freed by humans, but this is not attested.
- Pierson's Puppeteers: A technologically advanced race of three-legged, twin-necked herbivores descended from herd animals, and noted for their so-called cowardice. Their commercial empire directly and indirectly controls events throughout Known Space and beyond, and Puppeteer plots are behind many of the larger events in Known Space. The name "Puppeteer" is purportedly derived from the twin "heads" (not enclosing brains) which perform as both mouths and hands, which strongly resemble sock puppets. The Puppeteer voice range is far greater than the human one, but for speaking to humans they adopt the tone of a very seductive female. It is also suggested that the "Puppeteer" name may derive from their social tendency to be very manipulative. The species were depicted in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials
- Thrintun: An ancient species that ruled a large empire, including the region of Known Space, through telepathic mind control about 1.5 billion years ago. A technology created by one of their slave races was the stasis field, which makes its contents impervious to harm and provides indefinite suspended animation, which has figured in several Known Space stories. Thrintun were small (approximately 1.25 meters tall), highly telepathic but not particularly intelligent (with their mind control, they did not need to be), reptilian, with green scaly skin, pointed teeth, and a single eye. The species were depicted in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials
- Tnuctipun: An apparently extinct ancient race of extremely intelligent small carnivores contemporaneous with and enslaved by the Thrintun. They were known for their technological prowess, especially in genetic engineering. They secretly planned and executed the revolution to overthrow their Thrintun masters using many of their creations. When it appeared that the revolt would succeed, the Thrintun elders built and used a psychic amplifier that forced every sentient being in the galaxy to commit suicide, the signal repeating for centuries. The Thrintun that survived the revolt died out when all their slave races were dead.
- Trinocs: Named for their three eyes; they also have three fingers on each hand and a triangular mouth. They are described as 5-foot-tall (1.5 m) bipedal humanoids, with long legs, short torsos, and improbably flexible neck vertebrae. An unconfirmed source states that they breathe a "primordial reducing atmosphere" mainly composed of methane and ammonia, and are culturally paranoid, at least by human standards. First encountered by Louis Wu in the short story "There is a Tide".
- Whrloo: Meter-tall insectoids with long eyestalks, their homeworld has low gravity with a thick, dense atmosphere. They never saw the stars until they were enslaved by the Kzinti.
Also figuring in some stories are dolphins and other intelligent cetaceans, and various offshoots of Homo sapiens including the associate lineage of the hominids of the Ringworld. Most life in Known Space shares similar biochemistries, since they evolved from the Thrintun practice of seeding barren worlds with food yeast which they used to feed their slaves. Over a billion years, the Thrintun food yeast evolved into the different life forms in Known Space.
One aspect of the Known Space universe is that most of the early human colonies are on planets suboptimal for Homo sapiens. During the first phase of human interstellar colonization (i.e. before humanity acquired FTL), simple robotic probes were sent to nearby stars to assess their planets for habitation. The programming of these probes was flawed: they sent back a "good for colonization" message if they found a habitable point, rather than a habitable planet. Sleeper ships containing human colonists were sent to the indicated star systems. Too often, those colonists had to make the best of a bad situation.
- Earth, the human homeworld, is oppressively ruled by the United Nations, which wields its power by means of the ARM, a global police force. For centuries, due to the perfection of organ transplant technology, all state executions were done in hospitals to provide organ transplants, and to maximize their availability nearly all crimes carried the death penalty, including such offenses as multiple traffic tickets or tax evasion. This period ended when Jack Brennan, who had consumed the Tree-of-Life root and become a human version of the Pak Protector, used his superior intelligence to engineer social change in medical technology and social attitudes that eventually reduced the use of organ banks to reasonable levels. Part of Brennan's manipulation was the development of a science known as "psychistry". Psychistry was used to "correct" all forms of "mental aberration" - the populace is extremely docile. To combat overpopulation (one estimate is 18 billion people), a license is required to procreate, only available after exhaustive testing has determined that a prospect is free of "abnormalities"; unlicensed procreation is a capital crime. This policy, in addition to the existence of the transfer booth and a one-world language and economy, has led to the populace eventually becoming fairly genetically homogeneous. To prevent the development of new WMDs, all scientific research is regulated by the government and potentially dangerous technology is suppressed. Due to such suppression, Earth has had fewer real breakthroughs in science than would be expected. A common title for people born on Earth is "Flatlander"; having been born and raised in the only environment in Known Space to which humans are well-adapted, they are considered naïve and a bit helpless by humans from colony worlds.
- The Moon is a separate entity, but is under the control of the same government as Earth. It, however, has its own distinct culture. Humans native to the Moon are called "Lunies", and tend toward tall, lean body types regularly reaching eight feet in height. They are frequently referred to as looking much like Tolkien's Elves due to their physiques and alien allure.
- Mars, fourth planet in our solar system and the first planetary colony in Known Space. Native "Martians" were exterminated by the Brennan Monster. No one goes there, as resources are easier to mine in the Belt and Jovian moons. Earth ultimately colonized Mars specifically to study the descent landing pod used by Phssthpok the Pak in 2124 AD and the research colony was still in existence in 2183 when the Martians were exterminated by Brennan. The colony expanded greatly during the first Man-Kzin war 2367-2433.
- The Sol Belt possesses an abundance of valuable ores, which are easily accessible due to the low to negligible gravity of the rocks containing them. Originally a harsh frontier under U.N. control, the Belt declared independence after creating Confinement Asteroid, a habitat with spin gravity that permitted safe gestation of children, and Farmer's Asteroid, the Belt's primary food source. Almost immediately a lively competition began between the fiercely independent "Belters" and the technology police of the U.N. Several years of tension and economic conflicts followed, but soon settled into a relatively peaceful trade relationship as the Belt has so many resources that the UN and the Earth need.
- Mercury is also a colony world with a small number of inhabitants, used mainly for mining and as a gravitational anchor for orbiting solar power stations which beam power to the more remote colonies using gigantic lasers. At the time of the First Man-Kzin War, human society is so pacifistic that no weapons exist; those who are able to even contemplate killing another sentient being or constructing a weapon for that purpose are regarded as mental aberrations and must take drugs to control their thoughts. However, an enormous laser, whether constructed as a weapon or not, makes a highly effective one, and it's strongly implied that the existence of the Mercury power satellites is a large part of what enabled Sol System to hold off the Kzinti in the early part of the war.
- Down is the home world of the Grogs and a former Kzinti colony. It orbits "L5-1668", a faint, cool M-type star, significantly redder and cooler than Sol and 12.3 light-years from it. Down is made habitable in part because of its large moon, Sheila. Grogs, though friendly, are feared by humanity, due to their telepathic ability to control the minds of animals (and possibly sentient species as well). Because of this fear, humans have placed a Bussard ramjet field generator in close orbit around Down's sun, thus enabling them to destroy the Grog population should they ever take hostile action against any sentient species.
- Jinx, orbiting Sirius A, is a massive moon of a gas giant (simply called Primary), stretched by tidal forces into an egg shape, with surface gravity at the habitable areas near the limits of human extended tolerance. The poles lie in vacuum, the equatorial regions are Venus-like (and inhabited only by the Bandersnatchi); the zones between have atmosphere breathable by humans. Jinx's poles become a major in vacuo manufacturing area. Jinxian humans are short and squat, the strongest bipeds in Known Space. But they tend to die early, from heart and circulatory problems. There is a tourist industry which provides substantial useful interplanetary trade credits for the Bandersnatchi, who allow themselves to be hunted by humans under strict protocols.
- Wunderland is a planet circling Alpha Centauri, and was the earliest extra-solar colony in Known Space's human history. It has a surface gravity of 60% that of Earth's and is hospitable to human life. Wunderland was invaded and its population enslaved by the Kzinti during the first Man-Kzin War. It was freed near the end of the First War by the human Hyperdrive Armada from We Made It. The system has an asteroid belt in the shape of a crescent, which gives it its name—the Serpent Swarm. The capital asteroid, Tiamat, houses one of the largest Kzin populations in Known Space.
- We Made It, orbiting Procyon A, got its name because the first colony ship crash-landed. Gravity is about three-fifths Earth's. The planet's axis is pointed along the plane of its ecliptic (like Uranus), creating ferocious winds on the order of 500 mph (800 km/h) during half of the planet's year, forcing the people to live underground. Natives are known as "Crashlanders", tend to be very tall, and many are albinos. Their capital, which was the site of their colony ship's landing, is called Crashlanding City. We Made It also has viscous, algae-choked "oceans" and a big icy moon, ironically named Desert Isle.
- Plateau in the Tau Ceti system is Venus-like, with a plateau (called Mount Lookitthat), half the size of California, rising high enough out of the dense atmosphere to be habitable. Inhabitants ("Mountaineers") are divided into two rigid hereditary castes, the "crew" and the "colonists", depending on whether their ancestors piloted the colonizing vessel. The crew are the upper caste, and hold power through their monopoly on organ transplantation and control of the police. The original colonists signed the "Covenant of Planetfall", agreeing that this outcome was just recompense for the labors of the crew during the voyage; that they signed at gunpoint as they were awakened from hibernation is kept secret from later generations, and also that those who refused, died. This repressive system is overthrown in A Gift From Earth, and the former inequality and caste system appears to have disappeared by the time The Ethics of Madness takes place.
- Home orbits the star Epsilon Indi, about 12 light years from Earth. The planet received its name because of its remarkable similarity to Earth; its day is nearly 24 hours long and its surface gravity is a comfortable 1.08 g. Oceans, mean global temperature, seasons, and moon (Home's moon is called Metaluna, but is often referred to as "the Moon" by Homers) are also similar. According to Protector, the original colonists had planned to call their world "Flatland" as a sort of joke, but once settled on Home they had changed their minds — "a belated attack of patriotism", Elroy Truesdale of Protector muses. The entire population of Home is secretly destroyed as a consequence of Brennan's and Truesdale's war with the Pak — Brennan turns the entire population into human Protectors to create an army to fight the Pak invaders. Home is resettled quickly though, since another ramjet with colonists is already on its way when the colony "fails". In Procrustes and other later stories, Home is once again presented as a vibrant colony.
- Canyon was once an uninhabitable Mars-like world known as Warhead. It is the second of seven planets around p Eridani A, 22 light-years from Earth. It was used as a military outpost by the Kzinti, until the planet was hit by a weapon called the "Wunderland Treatymaker" during the Third War. The attack tore a long, narrow, kilometers-deep crater into the crust approximately the size of the Baja Peninsula. The air and moisture in the thin atmosphere gathered at the bottom of this artificial canyon, creating a breathable environment, complete with a sea at the bottom. The planet was then renamed for the crater, and settled by humans in a huge city running up the crater wall. Archaic (hyper-aggressive and intractable) Kzinti were entombed in stasis field shells during the attack and are still beneath the lava, and someday, somebody will have to deal with them. The attack by the Wunderland Treatymaker is detailed as a part of Destiny's Forge by Paul Chafe, a part of the Man-Kzin Wars shared universe.
- Gummidgy is a jungle world popular with hunters. It is home to the Gummidgy Orchid-Thing, a sessile carnivore which hangs from trees and is a popular trophy for the wealthy. It orbits CY Aquarii, a blue giant SX Phoenicis variable star; due to the resulting high levels of ultraviolet light, most humans (except Jinxians) require melanin-boosting medication to venture outdoors.
- Fafnir is a former Kzin colony covered almost entirely in water. When under Kzinti control it was called Shasht, a Kzin word meaning "burrowing murder." It was captured by humans during the Man-Kzin Wars. Humans and Kzinti now cohabitate. The humans prefer to live on the coral islands while the Kzinti prefer the single large continent which they continue to call Shasht.
- Margrave is a late addition to the family of Human colonies. In the Ringworld era it is still a frontier world, and is home to enormous birds the inhabitants have dubbed "rocs". It orbits Lambda Serpentis (27 Serpentis), a G0 star 34.7 light-years from Earth. It is named after its discoverer, J. Margrave Julland.
- Silvereyes is, at the time of Ringworld, the furthest Human world from Earth (21.3 light-years, 60 days at Quantum-I hyperdrive speeds), orbiting Beta Hydri. In Niven's obscure story The Color of Sunfire it has entire continents covered with Slaver sunflowers (bred as defense for Thrint manors, they focus sunlight using silver leaves as parabolic reflectors), giving it an appearance from orbit of having "silver eyes". The Man-Kzin Wars books, conversely, have it entirely covered by a world ocean, with groves of sunflowers growing up from the bottom of the ocean. The Ringworld Roleplaying Game describes it as an ocean planet dotted with island shield volcanoes.
- The Fleet of Worlds is the five (at one point six, as detailed in Fleet of Worlds) planets that are home to the Puppeteers (see above), presently being moved in formation at sub-light speeds out of the galaxy to avoid destruction as the wave of radiation from an explosion of the galactic core sweeps towards the outer reaches of the galaxy. They orbit about each other in a Klemperer rosette.
- Hearth is the homeworld of the Pierson's Puppeteers with a population of around one trillion and is covered by arcologies, most over one mile tall. Its industries and population generate so much waste heat it no longer requires a star for warmth (the four other "farmworlds" use artificial orbital lights to grow food).
- Kobold was a tiny artificial world created in the outer Sol System by Jack Brennan, a human Protector, composed of a small sphere of neutronium in the center ringed by a larger torus. Gravity generators facilitated movement between the two sections and were used in games and art. Brennan destroyed Kobold just prior to leaving for his war with the Pak Protectors.
- The Ringworld is an artificial world structure with three million times the surface area of Earth, built in the shape of a giant ring orbiting its sun, a million miles wide and with a diameter of 186 million miles. It was built by the Pak, who either abandoned it, or more likely died out much as the Earth Pak did, due to a lack of a key yamlike root which produces the conversion to Protector-stage Pak (which required a very specifically targeted soil chemistry to grow). It is inhabited by a number of different evolved hominid species, and includes representative samples of Bandersnatchi, Martians and Kzinti, and possibly other alien races that existed at the time of its construction.
- Sheathclaws is a planet colonized by humans aboard Angel's Pencil and descendants of a rogue Kzin telepath. It orbits an as-yet-unspecified star 98 light-years from Earth, and kept its existence secret for several centuries. The Patriarchy would dearly love to capture the entire population of potential Telepaths and press them into service.
- "Kzin" translates as "Home-of-the-Kzinti" or "Kzinhome" in the Hero's Tongue. It orbits 61 Ursae Majoris and has higher gravity than Earth and more oxygen in the atmosphere. It has two moons, known as the Hunter's Moon and the Traveler's Moon.
- Cue Ball is an uninhabitable ice world orbiting Beta Lyrae.
The series features a number of "superscience" inventions which figure as plot devices. Stories earlier in the timeline feature technology such as Bussard ramjets, Drouds (wires capable of directly stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain) and explore how organ transplantation technology enables the new crime of organlegging (as well as the general sociological effects of widespread transplant technology), while later stories feature hyperdrive, invulnerable starship hulls, stasis fields, molecular monofilaments, transfer booths (teleporters used only on planetary surfaces), the lifespan-extending drug boosterspice, and the tasp which is an extension of the wirehead development which works without direct contact.
The impact of inventions and technology on society is a recurring, if not central theme in Niven's work: for example, addiction to electric brain stimulation resulting in "wireheads", or the secondary and tertiary effects of an invention such as teleportation on social behavior, problems, and mores.
The milieu can be viewed as representing the last gasp of Campbell-era science fiction, as the iconoclastic, counterculture influences of "new wave" science fiction of the sixties play no part in most of the stories. However, there are notable exceptions in the Gil the ARM stories; and Jigsaw Man first appeared in Harlan Ellison's landmark "new wave" anthology, Dangerous Visions.
Boosterspice is a compound that increases the longevity and reverses aging of human beings. With the use of boosterspice, humans can easily live hundreds of years and, theoretically, indefinitely.
Developed by the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx, it is said to be made from genetically engineered ragweed (although early stories have it ingested in the form of edible seeds). In Ringworld's Children, it is suggested boosterspice may actually be adapted from Tree-of-Life, without the symbiotic virus that enabled hominids to metamorphose from Pak Breeder stage to Pak Protector stage (mutated Pak breeders were the ancestors of both Homo sapiens and the hominids of the Ringworld).
On the Ringworld, there is an analogous (and apparently more potent) compound developed from Tree-of-Life, but they are mutually incompatible; in The Ringworld Engineers, Louis Wu learns that the character Halrloprillalar died when in ARM custody after leaving the Ringworld, as a result of having taken boosterspice after having used the Ringworld equivalent. Boosterspice only works on Homo sapiens, whereas the Tree-of-Life compound will work on any hominid descended from the Pak.
Faster Than Light (FTL) propulsion, or hyperdrive, was obtained from the Outsiders at the end of the First Man-Kzin War. In addition to winning the war for humanity, it allowed the re-integration of all the human colonies, which were previously separated by distance. Standard hyperdrive covers a distance of one light-year every three days (121.75 x c). A more advanced Quantum II Hyperdrive introduced later is able to cover the same distance in one and a quarter minutes (420,768 x c).
In Niven's first novel, World of Ptavvs, the hyperdrive used by the Thrintun required a ship to be going faster than 93% of the speed of light. However, this is the only time that Hyperdrive is described this way.
In the vast majority of Known Space material, hyperdrive requires that a ship be outside a star's gravity well to use. Ships which activate hyperdrive close to a star are likely to disappear without a trace. This effect is regarded as a limitation based on the laws of physics. In Niven's novel Ringworld's Children the Ringworld itself is converted into a gigantic Quantum II hyperdrive and launched into hyperspace while within its star's gravity well. Ringworld's Children reveals that there is life in hyperspace around gravity wells and that hyperspace predators eat spaceships which appear in hyperspace close to large masses, thus explaining why a structure as large as the Ringworld can safely engage the hyperdrive in a star's gravity well.
One phenomenon travellers in hyperspace can experience is the so-called 'blind spot' should they look through a porthole or camera screen, giving the impression that the walls around the porthole or sides of the camera view screen are expanding to 'cover up the outside'. The phenomenon is the result of hyperspace being so fundamentally different from 'normal/Einstein' space that a traveller's senses can not truly comprehend it, and instead the observer 'sees' a form of nothingness that can be hypnotic and dangerous. Staring too long into the 'blind' spot can be insanity inducing, so as a precaution all view ports on ships are blinded when a ship enters hyperspace.
The Puppeteer firm, General Products, produces an invulnerable starship hull, known simply as a General Products Hull. The hulls are impervious to any type of matter or energy, with the exception of antimatter (which destroys the hull), gravitation, and visible light (which pass through the hull). While invulnerable themselves, this is no guarantee that the contents are likewise protected. For example, though a high speed impact with the surface of a planet or star may cause no harm to the hull, the occupants will be crushed if they are not protected by additional measures such as a stasis field or a gravity compensating field.
In Fleet of Worlds, the characters tour a General Products factory and receive clues that allow them to destroy a General Products hull from the inside using only a high-powered interstellar communications laser. In Juggler of Worlds, the Puppeteers, attempting to surmise how this was done without antimatter, identify another technique which can be used to destroy the otherwise invulnerable hulls, one which does suggest some potential defense options.
On Earth in the mid 21st century it became possible to transplant any organ from any person to another, with the exception of brain and central nervous system tissue. Individuals were categorized according to their so-called "rejection spectrum" which allowed doctors to counter any immune system responses to the new organs, allowing transplants to "take" for life. It also enabled the crime of "organlegging" which lasted well into the 24th century.
A Slaver stasis field creates a bubble of space/time disconnected from the entropy gradient of the rest of the universe. Time slows effectively to a stop for an object in stasis, at a ratio of some billions of years outside to a second inside. An object in stasis is invulnerable to anything occurring outside the field, as well as being preserved indefinitely. A stasis field may be recognized by its perfectly reflecting surface, so perfect in fact that it reflects 100% of all radiation and particles, including neutrinos. However one stasis field cannot exist inside another. This is used in World of Ptavvs where humans develop a stasis field technology and realize that a mirrored artifact known as the Silver Statue must be actually an alien in a stasis field. They place it with a human envoy, who is a telepath, and envelop both in field. By doing this, they unleash the last living member of the Slaver species on the world.
Stepping Disks are a fictional teleportation technology. They were invented by the Pierson's Puppeteers, and their existence is not generally known to other races until the events of The Ringworld Engineers.
The stepping disks are an outgrowth and improvement of the transfer booth technology used by humans and other Known Space races. Unlike the booths, the disks do not require an enclosed chamber, and somehow can differentiate between solid masses and air, for example. They also have a far greater range than transfer booths, extending several Astronomical Units.
Several limitations to stepping disks are mentioned in the Ringworld novels. If there is a difference in velocity between two disks, any matter transferred between them must be accelerated by the disk accordingly. If there is not enough energy to do so, the transfer cannot take place. This becomes a problem with disks that are a significant distance apart on the Ringworld surface, as they will have different velocities: same speed, different direction.
Transfer Booths are an inexpensive form of teleportation. They are similar in appearance to an old style telephone booth: one enters, "dials" one's desired destination, and is immediately deposited in a corresponding booth at the destination. They are inexpensive: a trip anywhere on Earth costs only a "tenth-star" (presumably equivalent to a dime). Introduced by one of Gregory Pelton's ancestors, apparently bought from and based on Puppeteer technology.
Some individuals in the stories display limited paranormal or "psionic" abilities. Gil Hamilton can move objects with his mind using his phantom arm, which he gained after losing an arm in an asteroid mining accident. When he finally had the arm replaced from an organ bank on Earth, the ability persisted. "Plateau Eyes" (introduced in A Gift From Earth) is an ability to hide in plain sight, by causing others not to notice you. Population control is tight on Earth, but these abilities can gain the possessor a license to have more children. The Pierson's Puppeteers engineer a lottery for child licenses on Earth to increase the occurrence of Luck, which they think is a paranormal ability humans have that has enabled them to defeat races such as the Kzinti. In Ringworld, the character Teela Brown is said to be the ultimate expression of this ability.
The ARM is the police force of the United Nations. ARM originated as an acronym for "Amalgamation of Regional Militia", though this is not a term in current usage by the time of the Known Space novels. An agent of the ARM, Gil Hamilton, is the protagonist of Niven's sci-fi detective stories, a series-within-a-series gathered in the collection Flatlander (Confusingly, "Flatlander" is also the name of an unrelated Known Space story.)
Their basic function is to enforce mandatory birth control on overcrowded Earth, and restrict research which might lead to dangerous weapons. In short, the ARM hunts down women who have illegal pregnancies and suppresses all new technologies. They also hunt organleggers, especially in the era of the "organ bank problem". Among the many technologies they control and outlaw are all trained forms of armed and unarmed combat. By the 25th century, ARM agents were kept in an artificially induced state of paranoid schizophrenia to enhance their usefulness as law enforcement officials, which led to them sometimes being referred to as "Schizes". Agents with natural tendencies toward paranoia were medicated into docility during their off duty hours, through the aforementioned science of psychistry (see Madness Has Its Place and Juggler of Worlds).
Their jurisdiction is limited to the Earth-Moon system; other human colonies have their own militia. Nevertheless, in many Known Space stories, ARM agents operate or exert influence in other human star systems through the "Bureau of Alien Affairs" (see In the Hall of the Mountain King, Procrustes, The Borderland of Sol, and "Neutron Star"). These interventions begin following the Man-Kzin Wars and the introduction of hyperdrive, presumably as part of a general re-integration of human societies.
Stories in Known Space
The Tales of Known Space were first published primarily as short stories or serials in science fiction magazines. Generally the short fiction was subsequently released in one or more collections and the serial novels as books. Some of the shorter novels (novellas) published in magazines were expanded as, or incorporated in, book-length novels.[a] Due to the large number of stories, it is particularly difficult for a completionist fan to read every story in the series. There are also two or three short stories which share common themes and some background elements with Known Space stories, but which are not considered a part of the Known Space universe: One Face (1965) and Bordered in Black (1966) —both in the 1979 collection Convergent Series— and possibly The Color of Sunfire, published online and listed here.
In the Known Space stories, Niven had created a number of technological devices (GP hull, stasis field, Ringworld material) which, combined with the "Teela Brown gene", made it very difficult to construct engaging stories beyond a certain date — the combination of factors made it tricky to produce any kind of creditable threat/problem without complex contrivances. Niven demonstrated this, to his own satisfaction, with Safe at Any Speed (1967). He used the setting for much less short fiction after 1968[a] and much less for novels after two published in 1980. Late in that decade, however, Niven invited other authors to participate in a series of shared-universe novels, with the Man-Kzin Wars as their setting. The first volume was published in 1988.
|"The Coldest Place"||1964 (Dec)||Worlds of If||Tales of Known Space|
|"World of Ptavvs"[c]||1965||Worlds of Tomorrow||—|
|"Becalmed in Hell"||1965||The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction||Tales of Known Space, All the Myriad Ways, Playgrounds of the Mind|
|"Eye of an Octopus"||1966||Galaxy Magazine||Tales of Known Space|
|"The Warriors"||1966||Worlds of If||Tales of Known Space, Man-Kzin Wars I|
|"Neutron Star"||1966||Worlds of If||Neutron Star, Crashlander|
|"How the Heroes Die"||1966||Galaxy Magazine||Tales of Known Space|
|"At the Core"||1966||Worlds of If||Neutron Star, Crashlander|
|"A Relic of the Empire"||1966||Worlds of If||Neutron Star, Playgrounds of the Mind|
|"At the Bottom of a Hole"||1966||Galaxy Magazine||Tales of Known Space|
|"The Soft Weapon"||1967||Worlds of If||Neutron Star, Playgrounds of the Mind|
|"Flatlander"||1967||Worlds of If||Neutron Star, Crashlander|
|"The Ethics of Madness"||1967||Worlds of If||Neutron Star|
|"Safe at any Speed"||1967||The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction||Tales of Known Space|
|"The Adults"[d]||1967||Galaxy Magazine||—|
|"The Handicapped"||1967||Galaxy Magazine||Neutron Star|
|"The Jigsaw Man"||1967||Dangerous Visions||Tales of Known Space|
|"Slowboat Cargo"[e]||1968||Worlds of If||—|
|"The Deceivers" (later titled "Intent to Deceive")||1968||Galaxy Magazine||Tales of Known Space|
|"Grendel"||1968||(collection only)||Neutron Star, Crashlander|
|"There is a Tide"||1968||Galaxy Magazine||Tales of Known Space, A Hole in Space|
|World of Ptavvs[c]||1966||(novel)||—|
|A Gift From Earth[e]||1968||(novel)||—|
|"Wait It Out"||1968||Futures Unbounded||Tales of Known Space|
|"The Organleggers" (later titled "Death by Ecstasy")||1969 (Jan)||Galaxy Magazine||The Shape of Space, The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, Flatlander|
|"Cloak of Anarchy"||1972||Analog Science Fiction||Tales of Known Space, N-Space|
|"The Defenseless Dead"||1973||(collection only)||The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, Playgrounds of the Mind|
|"The Borderland of Sol"||1975||Analog Science Fiction||Tales of Known Space, Crashlander, Playgrounds of the Mind|
|"ARM"||1975||Epic||The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton|
|The Ringworld Engineers||1980||(novel)||—|
|The Patchwork Girl||1980||(novel)||Flatlander|
|"Madness Has Its Place"||1990||(collection only)||Man-Kzin Wars III, Three Books of Known Space|
|"The Color Of Sunfire"||1993||online (collection only in print)||Bridging The Galaxies|
|"Ghost"||1994||(collection only, as frame story)||Crashlander|
|"The Woman in Del Rey Crater"||1995||(collection only)||Flatlander|
|The Ringworld Throne||1996||(novel)||—|
|"Choosing Names"||1998||(collection only)||Man-Kzin Wars VIII|
|"Fly-By-Night"||2002||(collection only)||Man-Kzin Wars IX|
|"The Hunting Park"||2005||(collection only)||Man-Kzin Wars XI|
|Fleet of Worlds
(Edward M. Lerner and Niven, coauthors)
|Juggler of Worlds
(Lerner and Niven)
|Destroyer of Worlds
(Lerner and Niven)
|Betrayer of Worlds
(Lerner and Niven)
|Fate of Worlds
(Lerner and Niven)
- The 1968 and 1975 collections Neutron Star and Tales of Known Space contain 21 distinct stories, 19 of which were among those 22 in the series that were originally published by the end of 1968. The three other early stories had been expanded into books published by 1973. The 1975 collection contains two post-1968 stories (as well as some 1975 nonfiction) and a fourth novel, Ringworld (1970), was "original" beyond the published stories. See ISFDB.
- Many of the stories appeared in more than one subsequent collection, which may not all be listed here. See ISFDB.
- "World of Ptavvs" (Mar 1965) was expanded as the novel World of Ptavvs (Aug 1966). See ISFDB.
- "The Adults" (Jun 1967) was expanded as the novel Protector (Sep 1973). See ISFDB.
- "Slowboat Cargo" (serial, Feb–Apr 1968) was expanded as the novel A Gift From Earth (Sep 1968). See ISFDB.
Niven has described his fiction as "playground equipment", encouraging fans to speculate and extrapolate on the events described. Debates have been made, for example, on who built the Ringworld (Pak Protectors and the Outsiders being the traditional favorites, but see Ringworld's Children for a possibly definitive answer), and what happened to the Tnuctipun. However, Niven also states that this is not an invitation to violate his copyrights, so fans should try to avoid publishing works that are too obviously based in the Known Space universe without Niven's given permission.
Niven was also reported to have said that "Known Space should be seen as a possible future history told by people that may or may not have all their facts right."
The author also published an "outline" for a story which would "destroy" the Known Space Series (or more precisely, reveal much of the Known Space background to be an in-universe hoax), in an article entitled "Down in Flames". Although the article is written as though Niven intended to write the story, he later wrote that the article was only an elaborate joke, and he never intended to write such a novel. The article itself notes that the outline was made obsolete by the publication of Ringworld. "Down in Flames" was a result of a conversation between Norman Spinrad and Niven in 1968, but at the time of its first publication in 1977 some of the concepts were invalidated by Niven's writings between '68 and '77. (A further edited version of the outline was published in N-Space in 1990.)
- "Tales of Known Space – Series Bibliography". Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB). Retrieved 2014-08-15. Select a title to see its linked publication history and general information. Select a particular edition (title) for more data at that level, such as a front cover image or linked contents.
- Larry Niven, "The Warriors", Tales of Known Space (Del Rey, 1985), 261.
- Hal Colebatch, "Catspaws", in Man-Kzin Wars XI.
- Barlowe, 76.
- Barlowe, 100.
- Paul Chafe, Destiny's Forge.
- John Hewitt, et al., Larry Niven's Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch, Chaosium Inc., 1984.
- The front cover illustration of Tales of Known Space: The Universe of Larry Niven, Del Rey, 1975 (at least 10 printings), has this as "L5-1665".
- This is almost certainly a corruption of BD+05 1668 (a.k.a. LHS 33), another name for Luyten's Star.
- Larry Niven, Protector (Ballantine Books, 1973), 183.
- Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner, Destroyer of Worlds (Tor Books, 2009), 284.
- Oddly, the Ringworld Roleplaying book places it around Fomalhaut instead, in contradiction with primary sources such as Niven's Grendel short story.
- "The Color of Sunfire". Known Space: The Future Worlds of Larry Niven. Larry Niven (larryniven.net). Retrieved 2014-08-16.
- "Bibliography: One Face" (Note). ISFDB. Retrieved 2014-08-16.
- "1970 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
- "1971 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
- "1974 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
- "1981 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
- "Future Histories", The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Summer 1989, Vol. 23 #2, issue 104.
- Wayne Douglas Barlowe, Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature, Workman Pub Co, 1979.
- Known Space: The Future Worlds of Larry Niven (official)
- Encyclopedia of Known Space
- The Incompleat Known Space Concordance
- Timeline of the Known Space universe
- Marc Carlson's Timeline of the Known Space universe
- Website for the Man-Kzin Wars novel Destiny's Forge
- Homepage of MKW author Paul Chafe
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_Space
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Strong reasoning
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Literature
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Biologists often identify and describe cells based on the molecules they express. The expression of certain genes can be used to separate a stem cell from a neuron, a cancerous cell from a healthy one. However, as cells grow and adapt, they change not just the types of genes they express but the amount of that expression. David Levens, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Investigator in CCR’s Laboratory of Pathology, and Rafael Casellas, Ph.D., Senior Investigator with the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and Adjunct Investigator in CCR’s Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics, came together to study genome-wide transcriptional regulation in B cells from two very different vantage points. Together, they are discovering that global transcriptional amplification is a uniquely regulated process.
Electron microscopic image of human lymphocyte, which consists of T cells and B cells (Image: National Cancer Institute)
Over the last 20 years, David Levens and his colleagues have learned a lot about the regulation of a single gene: myc. But, myc’s well-known importance as a critical regulator of cellular growth, both during development and in cancer, was not Levens’ chief concern. “I stayed out of studying myc function for a long time,” said Levens. “I was more interested in the mechanisms of gene regulation. Myc seems to have one of the most complicated promoters around. And no one had a comprehensive model of how a cell decides how much myc to make and when.”
As a result of their investigations, Levens’ laboratory has put together a fascinating and unusual story of transcriptional regulation. Among the many regulators of myc expression, they found proteins that were not binding to classical double-stranded segments of DNA (dsDNA). Instead, they traced the action of these factors to a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) element in the promoter region, the Far Upstream Sequence Element (FUSE).
Molecular forces predispose DNA to adopt the famous Watson-Crick double helix when its bases are appropriately paired: adenine (A) with thymine (T), guanine (G) with cytosine (C). But that seemingly static picture changes with transcription. As DNA is screwed through the active site of enzymes that travel along it—DNA polymerases, RNA polymerases, helicases—rotational forces are transmitted through the DNA. “We saw that at particular sites on the DNA, the dsDNA would essentially buckle, popping open like the threads of a rope unfraying at particular sites.” This turned out to be important for myc regulation.
Levens hypothesized that FUSE regulation was occurring once other transcriptional initiation events had been precipitated. “The cell can sense how much myc isbeing made—not how much has already been made,” said Levens. “The element senses in real time how much Myc is being made and allows the cell to respond to that.” This mechanism differs from feedback regulation, which relies on the actions of the end-product feeding back on the production process and which occurs widely in cellular signaling pathways, but suffers from inevitable delays. “For the FUSE mechanism to evolve, rapid fluctuations in Myc must be deleterious to the cell,” said Levens.
Based on their work with the myc promoter, Levens began working on a way to assess how broadly such changes in DNA structure occur. “I don’t really believe there are principles that apply to a single gene,” said Levens. “When Nature develops a useful trick, she uses it over and over again, modifies it, plays with it, and finds new ways to exploit it.”
“…we needed an unimpeachable gold standard to test whether the new method was working. We picked transcription bubbles.”
“One of our lab’s main interests is to understand B-cell activation during the immune response. When I joined the NIH 10 years ago I decided to approach this problem from a nuclear standpoint,” said Rafael Casellas. Casellas’ laboratory uses genomics approaches to study mouse B-cell development.
B cells first arise in the bone marrow. They then migrate to the periphery, where they remain quiescent until encountering antigens, at which point they rapidly proliferate and differentiate into cells with more specialized immune functions to respond to the threat. Major changes in the quantity and quality of gene expression occur during these different phases.
Rafael Casellas, Ph.D. (Photo: NIH-IRP)
“Rafael is a very courageous scientist. He is unafraid to take big steps into new areas,” said Levens. “When he heard that we were developing a method to study DNA structure on a genome-wide level, he wanted to apply it.”
The method they developed was based on potassium permanganate (KMnO4), which oxidizes nucleotides if they are not base-paired, disrupting the DNA structure so it cannot refold. In theory, therefore, it could be used to signal the presence of alternative DNA structures. “The problem is that the average base pair in DNA is flipping in and out of a double helix about 100 times per second, for only a fraction of a microsecond. That’s enough for permanganate to react with them,” said Levens. So his team introduced an enzymatic step to the process in which only DNA that had multiple bases oxidized within a small region would be cut across both strands, reducing the impact of random events.
Getting this method to work required a thorough appreciation of the fundamentals of nucleic acid chemistry, biochemistry, and biophysics. “I’ve had some great teachers for nucleic acid structures and chemistry, and I’ve had a lot of experience—when I was in grad school, there were no kits,” said Levens. He and his colleagues were confident in their success in developing the technique, but they needed to test it. “Because there had been so few studies of ssDNA conformations in living cells that had been both characterized and accepted, we needed an unimpeachable gold standard to test whether the new method was working. We picked transcription bubbles.”
Transcription bubbles form when RNA synthesis is initiated. After initiation, RNA polymerase begins the process of elongation, traveling along the DNA and locally unwinding or “melting” it to allow focal RNA hybridization within the enzyme. Levens and his colleagues found that they could detect this melting in a Burkitt’s lymphoma cell line with their assay.
Unmelted promoters help to limit transcription in resting B cells (left), whereas in activated B cells promoters are melted and transcription has progressed further downstream to support higher levels of expression (right). (Image: F. Kouzine, CCR)
“David’s laboratory had put together a biochemical assay to measure promoter DNA melting in live cells,” explained Casellas. “Conversely, our laboratory had used deep-sequencing protocols to create genome-wide maps of more than 40 chromatin modifications, polymerase recruitment, and RNA synthesis, so we decided to complement these datasets by mapping ssDNA in the entire genome.”
Moving away from their initially encouraging results in Burkitt’s lymphoma cells, Casellas wanted to test resting B cells. To their disappointment, they saw practically no promoter melting whatsoever. “That shouldn’t happen,” said Levens. “We thought it hadn’t worked.” But repetition confirmed the results, as did a comparison with activated B cells.
In a paper published in Cell earlier this year, Levens and Casellas described their overall findings. They found that resting B cells have very low basal gene expression, but are poised for a massive increase in gene expression, dependent on promoter melting. Approximately 90 percent of the promoters for genes that will be expressed once the B cell is activated are already loaded with RNA polymerase, but unmelted. Concurrently, these same promoters lack virtually all subunits of the transcription factor IIH (TFIIH) complex, which spurs promoter melting and transcriptional elongation. Basal gene expression levels therefore remain low until the cell is activated, at which point the TFIIH complex is recruited to the gene promoters and gene expression increases 10 to 15 fold.
“If you are a little cell and you want to become big rapidly, how do you do that?” asked Levens. “What’s the switch you have to throw to make everything bigger? When you look at a resting cell, it expresses largely the same genes as fully active cells.“ TFIIH is part of that story, but only one part.
“We thought it hadn’t worked.” But repetition confirmed the results, as did a comparison with activated B cells.”
In a separate line of investigation, Levens’ laboratory was venturing into functional studies of myc. “The literature made it sound as if myc was some kind of master decision maker, setting precise levels of gene expression. These studies weren’t dealing with the integration of myc regulatory mechanisms with its function,” said Levens. Most of the literature was based on work in which myc was overexpressed stably or induced at highly unphysiological levels for prolonged periods of time. Levens’ team created knock-in mice in which normally regulated Myc was tagged with the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). Casellas offered his expertise in activating myc in specific cell populations.
“The two projects advanced in parallel originally; we didn’t realize they would reinforce the same point about transcriptome amplification,” said Levens.
Given the vast literature on the topic, it may be surprising that myc targets are not well enumerated. Myc is a basic helix-loop-helix leucine zipper (bHLH-Zip) transcription factor, which conventionally means that it dimerizes with a partner Max to bind preferentially to DNA sequences known as E-box motifs.
Fedor Kouzine, Ph.D., David Levens, M.D., Ph.D., and Zuquin Nie, Ph.D. (Photo: R. Baer)
Working with Keji Zhao, Ph.D., Senior Investigator in Laboratory of Epigenome Biology of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the inventor of the ChIP-Seq method for genome-wide analysis of chromatin modifications, Levens and his colleagues analyzed genome-wide binding of EGFP-tagged Myc. Their results were consistent with reports that Myc prefers specific to nonspecific binding sites by 200:1. “That sounds like it could be reasonably specific, until you realize that the lac repressor has up to a million-fold preference for specific versus nonspecific binding. 200x is enough to bias, but not to determine targeting,” said Levens.
In activated and resting B cells, they compared the genome-wide distributions of myc, gene expression levels, RNA polymerase II binding, and chromatin modifications.
“Putting everything together, it seemed to me that you could make almost all the problems of the myc literature go away by positing that it is amplifying expression, not determining gene expression. When you turn myc on, everything goes up,” said Levens.
“I think some scientists still have reservations about Myc playing an amplifying role in transcription. One would expect such a reaction when a long-established idea is displaced by a new finding,” said Casellas. “At the same time, because the new model explains the data better, a large fraction of the community has accepted the idea.”
One reason that gene expression amplification may have gone unnoticed in previous studies is the way experiments are conducted. Gene expression is usually normalized when comparing cell populations, meaning that the same amounts of mRNA are typically compared between, for example, resting, and activated B cells.
“The most important unanswered questions in biology have not changed that much in the past 25 years,” said Casellas. “What has changed is how we approach them and bioinformatics has definitely revolutionized the way we do it. At the same time, the greatest challenge now is to obtain a holistic view of the cell.”
Bioinformatics has played a critical role in these studies, particularly in analyzing the ssDNA assay data. “In our first data sets, Fedor Kouzine spent three days looking at chromosome 22—the smallest chromosome—by hand. We could see interesting features in the data, but we didn’t have dense enough sampling. It became a computational problem to identify DNA structures,” said Levens.
“…because the new model explains the data better, a large fraction of the community has accepted the idea.”
Levens was co-chairing a trans-NIH search committee for the Tenure-Track Earl Stadtman Investigators program, when he met committee member, Teresa Przytycka, Ph.D., Senior Investigator in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. “One day I turned to her and asked if she knew anyone who might be interested in helping us and she said, ‘How about me?’ I was delighted,” said Levens.
Having succeeded with transcription bubbles, the collaborators are now venturing further into uncharted waters to survey other alternative DNA structures. A vast biophysical literature provides numerous examples of structures that do not conform to the Watson-Crick double helix, including the left-handed double helix (Z DNA) and quadraplex structures, in which one DNA strand folds up on itself. Many are likely not to be biologically significant. “The best-understood examples have occurred in bacteria; the literature is less cohesive, although considerable in mammalian cells,” said Levens.
“When we started this work, certainly back when we started working on alternative DNA structures—there was no funding agency in the world that would have not considered this too outside the box to fund. Here, we were able to get together and share resources without petitioning for money up front. The hardest part was the three of us coming together,” said Levens.
To learn more about Dr. Levens’ research, please visit his CCR Web site at http://ccr.cancer.gov/staff/staff.asp?name=levens.
To learn more about Dr. Casellas’ research, please visit his CCR Web site at http://ccr.cancer.gov/staff/staff.asp?name=rcasellas.
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| 0.955998 | 3,181 | 2.953125 | 3 | 2.980151 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Watkins Woolen Mill
At one time in our nation’s history there were 2,400 woolen mills in operation, many of them in the Midwest.
In 1834, Waltus Watkins and his wife, Mary Ann, moved to a piece of land he had purchased in Clay County, Missouri. It was near what is now the city of Lawson. On that land Waltus built a house and a woolen mill. Both buildings were built from his own handmade bricks, and supported by timber from his property. In 1860, he opened the woolen mill which stayed in operation until 1890. Today, that mill is open as a museum and a tribute to the American woolen mills of the 19th century. It is considered one of the best examples we have of our country’s early woolen mills.
Recently, my husband and I went to visit the mill. It was our second visit. We had been there in the summer of 2011, and now we were visiting on a cold day in January. The historic buildings are part of Watkins Woolen Mill State Park and Historic Site, located about forty miles northeast of Kansas City, MO. You can learn more about the park, and its operation, by going to its website at http://www.mostateparks.com/park/watkins-mill-state-park.
Our first tour was of the home which the Watkins built on the property. We had the tour guide all to ourselves, and were able to ask many questions. Here are a few pictures we took at the house…
Our next tour was of the woolen mill. Again, we had a tour guide all to ourselves!
When Waltus Watkins opened his mill, he had more than fifty textile machines shipped to the mill by railroad from the east. Fortunately, those machines are the ones you will see when visiting the mill. They are no longer powered up, but the guides are very knowledgeable, and provide a good explanation of the purpose of each machine.
The mill kept busy during much of the Civil War, providing the wool for soldier’s uniforms. Following the war, the mill processed 40-60,000 pounds of wool into fabric, yarn, batting, and other items each and every year.
Watkins Woolen Mill State Park has a lake where we stopped on our way out of the park this January. At this time of year there are hundreds of Canada Geese in residence on the lake. It was fun to hear all the noise they make!
While at the park store, I purchased a cookbook of recipes from the era of the Watkins family. Many of the recipes are from the Watkins family, while others are from cookbooks of that era. It is a fabulous collection of recipes. The Watkins Mill Cookbook, edited by Ann M. Stigar, and published by the Watkins Mill Association, can be obtained from the association at their website, http://watkinsmill.businesscatalyst.com/books/the-watkins-mill-cookbook
This chocolate cake, circa 1875, is absolutely delicious. My husband says it is the best chocolate cake he has ever had. I think it is all the butter! Here is the recipe, slightly adapted.
A Seriously Good Chocolate Cake
- 3/4 cup butter
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa
- 1 1/4 tsps. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/3 cups water
Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla. Beat until the mixture is very light and creamy. This beating of the mixture will take between 3-5 minutes, depending on the power of your mixer.
Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredienets alternately with the water to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
Pour into a greased and floured 9″x13″ pan and bake at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Be sure to check on the cake after 20 minutes; you do not want to over-bake the cake. It is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cake before icing.
- 8 Tbsps. butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup cocoa
- 2 Tbsps. vanilla
- 2-3 Tbsps. cream
Cream the butter and add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, alternating with the cocoa. Add cream one tablespoon at a time to keep the frosting creamy. Add the vanilla after the first tablespoon of vanilla to guard against the icing becoming too thick.
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Moderate reasoning
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History
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Ho'ao a'a and
Marriage and the Family
In ancient Hawaii, marriage between a man and a woman,
called ho'ao pa'a, was a lasting relationship. A man
did not leave his wife nor the wife her husband. This
form of marriage in which each took a single mate originated
as a command from the god to Hulihonua and his wife
Keakauhulilani and lasted for 27 generations. The parents
of the boy and the parents of the girl discussed the
idea of marriage and then asked the couple if that suited
them. If so, the couple began a period of preparation
for marriage, learning skills and the value of work
to prepare them for living together. When that was completed,
the parents of the boy and girl commanded them to take
care of each other, they embraced (honi), and they became
husband and wife.
Sometimes marriages were arranged for a boy and a girl
who lived in different places. Gifts of feathers, ivory,
pearls or other valuable gifts were sent to the girl
and her parents by the boy's parents. Likewise the girl's
parents sent similar gifts to the boy and his parents.
These gifts were called lou (hooks) or lou 'ulu (breadfruit
hooks), which symbolized a binding marriage.
Wakea introduced the "sin" (hewa) of mating
with many women when he took three wives, and his wife
Papa in revenge took eight husbands. After this time
unions took two forms, one in which men and women took
many mates and one in which they had only one mate.
It was primarily the chiefs and wealthy people who took
In old Hawaii, life revolved around the extended family
and the clan; it was an 'ohana' (family) society (a
group of both closely and distantly related people who
share nearly everything: land, food, children, status,
and the spirit of aloha.) Hawaiians viewed family as
relatives as well as people who they loved or people
who joined them in cooperative actions. They had a great
deal of respect for their elders. There was no such
thing as an unwanted child within this system. In old
Hawaii children were told that they were bowls of light,
put here to shine spirit greatness. A kupuna (grandparent)
carved a bowl for each keiki (child). Children were
expected to put a rock (pohaku) in that bowl whenever
their behavior would dim the light of that bowl. This
was self-directed and done on an honor-basis. Pohaku
represented an experience that could be used as a lesson
for living. Regularly keike brought their bowls to meet
with the kupuna to review their conduct.
Hawaiians loved their children, but had a different
view from whites in raising them. Hawaiians believed
children were given for enjoyment, and they allowed
them all the freedom of action which the adults wanted
Children were raised by, not only their parents, but
by grandparents and other relatives. Hanai was the kanaka
maoli custom whereby a family adopts a child given by
someone else and raises that child as a family member.
No written records were necessary. (In old Hawaii there
was no writing.) No stigma was attached to being "hanai."
The practice of hanai was used to ensure that the Hawaiian
culture was passed on to the younger generation. The
claim of the grandparents upon their grandchildren took
precedence over the claim of the parents who bore them.
The parents could not keep the child without the grandparents'
permission. A male child was offered to the parents
of the father, and a female child was offered to the
mother's parents. Parents would offer their children
out of respect, as a gift of the greatest possible value.
If the child were not offered, the grandparents would
ask for the hanai privilege; they could not be refused.
This practice extended into the community so that if
the biological parents were unable to adequately provide
for the needs of the child, someone else would be chosen
to be the hanai parents. Children were also passed on
to relatives or friends who had no children.
Hanai was practiced by the alii too. Liliuokalani was
the hanai child of chiefs of higher rank than her parents.
In her biography she reports that hanai "is not
easy to explain... to those alien to our national life,
but it seems perfectly natural to us. As intelligible
a reason as can be given is that this alliance by adoption
cemented the ties of friendship between the chiefs."
Later on, when other nationalities took up residence
on the islands, there was ready acceptance of non-blood
"kin." John Young, an English boatswain of
a small American fur trading vessel, and Isaac Davis,
a member of the crew, were hanai into Kamehameha's family.
The custom of hanai was strongly condemned by the missionaries.
They couldn't understand the looseness of natural family
ties. They were influenced by their concept of the "immediate
Hanai exists today, but not always for the purpose
of maintaining the Hawaiian culture. Kailua-Kona "Mother
of the Year 2002" had five children, three adopted
children, six hanai children, twelve grandchildren,
and two great-grandchildren. I have heard of a person
who was brought into a Hawaiian family at the age of
50, a definite expression of aloha. The term "hanai"
is still common today; you may hear people referring
to their "hanai Mom" or their "hanai
sister." Listen. Would you want to become a hanai
child of a warm Hawaiian family?
may submit editorial comments to any of our stories
by sending an email to [email protected].
We would be happy to attach your comments and feedback
to anything we publish online. Thank you for your interest."
appeared originally in Coffee Times print magazine and
appears online for archival purposes only. Any use or
reprinting of these stories without the expressed written
consent of the author is prohibited.
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| 0.979105 | 1,346 | 3.765625 | 4 | 2.783492 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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History
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Turkey country presentation , with valuable information and useful for anyone who wants to make a presentation about Turkey country .You will find here the way of the presentation easily and will find interesting information and detailed about the Turkey country through Turkey country presentation .
Turkey country presentation
Hello my name is (your name) I will make a presentation today about the State of Turkey I hope you like it. I will show you some illustration pictures and I hope that anyone who has any question will ask and I will answer all the questions.
Officially known as the Republic of Turkey.It is located in the Middle East between Asia and Europe.Its capital is Ankara.Its population reached 74.7 million at the end of 2011.The vast majority of them are Muslims.
Its area is 783 million square meters and its democratic parliamentary system , The language of which is the Turkish language, and is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Group of Twenty, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the flag was adopted for the first time on the 29 of May 1936, It is red in color, with a crescent and a star For white color.
Turkey is surrounded by three seas:
The Mediterranean from the south, the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean Sea to the west and the Marmara Sea to the north-west, which made it one of the first tourist destinations in the world.It has a nice atmosphere.
The countries bordering Turkey on the four sides are Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia to the east.Bulgaria and Greece from the west. Russia, Ukraine from the north. Syria and Iraq from the south.
The most important cities:
Of the most important cities in Turkey, the most in terms of population:
Ankara is the capital of Turkey, with a population of about 5.150,072 in 2014.
Istanbul: Turkey’s largest city, inhabited by about 12 million people, also contains many tourist and historic sites.
Izmir: adjacent to the coast of Izmir Bay, with a population of about 4,061,000 inhabitants in 2004.
Bourse: Located in the north-west of Turkey, specifically between Istanbul and Ankara, the population is about 1.2 million people for the year 2010.
Adana: It has a population of about 2125,981 people and is located on the northeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
The origins of the population:
All its inhabitants are protected by Turkish law, with different origins:
Turks: 70%. Kurds: 20%.
Caucasus and Arabs: they are close to the ratio, which is 2.2%.
Persians, Azerbaijan: and others: not more than 1%.
Turkey is a peninsula, because of its location surrounded by the sea as mentioned above, and it contains plains, which rise above the surface of the earth by 1500 m, and the most important plains are: Black and Mediterranean plains.
The waterfalls include: the Korchunolo waterfall, Antalya city for 20 minutes, and the Manavgat waterfall, which is about 75 km from Antalya.
It has many mountains including :
the Black Sea Mountains, and Taurus.
From the plateaus in it:
The Anatolian plateau of Armenia.
Turkey is a tourist destination attracting visitors from all over the world, for reasons including: the right climate.The distinguished historical monuments of the Byzantine era, as well as Ottoman.Large markets, diverse gardens.Investing in it, as it is intended by many investors.
Leisure activities and adventures for its visitors such as mountain climbing, cave exploration, theaters, sports, children’s various games, diving, water skiing and fishing.
Thank you for your kind attention and I hope that the topic has impressed you. I will be happy to answer your questions.
In this way, we have presented a Turkey country presentation ,and you can read more through the following section:
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Basic reasoning
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History
|
National and regional story (Belgium) - Increased transport flows and no room for new transport infrastructure
Flanders is an urbanised region with an extensive transport infrastructure. ’Flanders in Action’ is the main Flemish policy plan looking forward to 2020.
The Flemish region has a relatively small surface (13 522 km²), but belongs to one of the most populated (455 inh/km² in 2008) regions in Europe. A gradual population increase is estimated together with further ageing. Furthermore, the composition of households is changing towards singles and smaller families. The demographic trends have an impact on consumption patterns, mobility, accommodation and energy needs.
The Flemish territory is heavily urbanised and is composed of a chain of smaller and larger urban areas. This ‘suburbanisation’ combined with the spread of economic activity is an important spatial characteristic of Flanders. The built-up area (26,2 % in 2009) increases yearly. In several zones this leads to heightened competition between different land uses and an increasing fragmentation of open spaces.
Flanders is a productive and industrialised region. In 2008, GDP per capita exceeded the EU 27 average by 20 %. The Flemish economy is strongly focused on the export of goods due to its central position within western Europe. However, freight transport is growing faster than the regional GDP in Flanders.
Emissions related to the production of goods have a strong environmental impact. Belgian resource and energy use can to a large extent be allocated to the Flemish region. Flanders succeeded in the decoupling of the emissions of a lot of pollutants from economic growth. However, the need for resources and the trends in energy consumption match the GDP-evolution (where only relative decoupling is apparent). The regional energy intensity is among the highest in the EU, due to the presence of energy-intensive chemical, iron and steel sectors and the high-energy use of buildings.
Flanders has a very extensive transport infrastructure, which makes it an easily accessible region. The Flemish seaports contribute to the Flemish GDP for nearly one-tenth. The density of roads (5.15 km/km² in 2007) and railroads (0.13 km/km² in 2007) is among the highest in Europe. Several airports are available on Flemish territory or within close proximity.
The use of this infrastructure for the transport of passengers and goods has increased. In the period 1995-2008 road transport flows (vehicle kilometres) increased by 19 %. Globalisation and the open European borders led to an increase in foreign freight transport by road. Further increases are expected for passenger and freight transport.
Flanders hardly has space to spare for new transport infrastructure. Thus, better use must be made of what already exists by changing transportation modes – both for the conveyance of passengers and goods. The relentless volume of road traffic has several disadvantages: congestion, unacceptably high numbers of traffic victims, too much traffic noise, and excessive emissions of pollutants (CO2, VOS, NOx and particulate matter) into the atmosphere. Flanders needs to promote more environmentally friendly transport modes, especially within the urban areas. Therefore, it encourages public transport and carpooling and stimulates the installation of diesel particulate filters on older diesel vehicles (Euro 3 standard).
Flanders has the ambition to become a genuine intelligent pivot for transport and logistics in Europe (‘Smart logistics Europe’). The authorities, industry, and research institutes are collaborating in this respect to design ICT applications for traffic management and for citizens and businesses. Traffic management is integrated into a broader approach for a more efficient mobility. Attention is given to ’multi-modal junctions-, places where passengers can switch from one mode to another or where goods (containers) can be transferred to another mode. Intelligent road pricing can also contribute to a more efficient use of transport infrastructure.
More details can be found in the programme of the Flemish government ’Flanders in Action’ in which Flanders is looking forward to 2020 with the aspiration of becoming one of the best performing European regions.
The environmental profile shows the contribution of the transport sector to the environmental pressure in Flanders. The ten biggest shares in the use of natural resources and emissions are shown.
For references, please go to www.eea.europa.eu/soer or scan the QR code.
This briefing is part of the EEA's report The European Environment - State and Outlook 2015. The EEA is an official agency of the EU, tasked with providing information on Europe's environment.
PDF generated on 27 Aug 2016, 09:15 PM
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| 0.923029 | 961 | 2.875 | 3 | 2.865543 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Transportation
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Dairy Day, 1995; Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station contribution; no. 96-106-S; Report of progress (Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service); 742; Radiotelemetry; Pressure sensors; Estrus; Heifers; Heat Detection
In Experiment 1, the effectiveness of two estrus-detection methods (visual observation vs radiotelemetric, pressure-sensitive, rumpmounted devices [HeatWatch®]) were compared in heifers. A pressure sensitive device containing a battery-operated radio transmitter was affixed to the tailhead rump area of each of 41 heifers. Activation of the sensor sent a radiotelemetric signal to a microcomputer via a fixed radio antenna. Heifer identification, date, time of day, and duration of standing events were recorded. Estrus was synchronized, and heifers were observed visually for signs of estrus. Number of standing events during estrus, determined by the radiotelemetric device, averaged 50.1 ± 6.4 per heifer, with the duration of estrus ranging from 2.6 to 26.2 hr (average = 14 ± .8 hr). Number of standing events and duration of estrus were greater, but duration of standing events was similar, for heifers identified in estrus by both methods compared to those identified by the radiotelemetric device alone, indicating that heifers with a limited number of standing events and estrus of shorter duration were missed by visual observation. In Experiment 2, the average number of standing events during estrus was greater when estrus was induced early (days 6 to 9) in the cycle by PGF compared to those 2a induced later (after day 10) in the cycle. Regardless of when injections of PGF2α occurred during the cycle, duration of standing events and duration of estrus were unaffected. Radiotelemetric devices are useful in identifying a greater proportion of heifers in estrus (increased efficiency) compared to visual observation with similar accuracy.; Dairy Day, 1995, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 1995;
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Smith, M.W.; Hoffman, D.P.; Lamb, G.C.; and Kobayashi, Y.
"Observations with heatwatch to detect estrus by radiotelemetry in cattle,"
Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports:
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| 0.920449 | 511 | 2.84375 | 3 | 2.966397 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Book of Mormon/Olive horticulture
The description of olive horticulture in the Book of MormonSummary: Does the Book of Mormon's account of olive culture in Jacob 5 match what we know about this subject? The Book of Mormon provides a remarkably accurate portrait of olive horticulture. There are two points at which the allegory/parable deviates from the known principles of growing olives; in both cases, the allegory's characters draw the reader's attention to these deviations with some amazement. Thus, these 'mistakes' play a dramatic role in demonstrating the allegory/parable's meaning.
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Question: Is the Book of Mormon's account of olive horticulture in Jacob 5 accurate?
The Book of Mormon provides a remarkably accurate portrait of olive horticulture
Does the Book of Mormon's account of olive culture in Jacob 5 match what we know about this subject?
Jacob 5 is a virtuoso performance by Joseph Smith in his role as translator. He presents an intricate, accurate account of olive horticulture, and uses variances from the "proper" technique as a teaching tool. It should be noted that there was (and is) no olive culture done in New England. Furthermore, the original manuscript exists for part of this chapter — Jacob 5:46-48, 57-61, 69-70, and 77. Only one word is altered after dictation: "diged" in "digged about" of verse 47. Thus, Joseph produced this material by dictation, with no revision.
The Book of Mormon provides a remarkably accurate portrait of olive horticulture. There are two points at which the allegory/parable deviates from the known principles of growing olives; in both cases, the allegory's characters draw the reader's attention to these deviations with some amazement. Thus, these 'mistakes' play a dramatic role in demonstrating the allegory/parable's meaning.
Accurate olive culture information
Information from unless otherwise specified.
|Wild vs. tame olives||
There are many species [at least 35-40] of olive trees, but only one, Olea europaea, is domestic. Domestic olives have larger fruits and a higher oil content, having been bred for these desired characteristics. Wild olives often have thorns, which make handling them less pleasant.
|Interbreeding wild and tame olive||Olea europaea L. is interfertile with some wild olive species.|
|Wild olive reproduction||The olive is the seed of the tree. One could plant the olive seed, but this has a disadvantage: seeds are produced sexually (through the union of male and female genetic material). Thus, they may not have all of the desired characteristics of a given parent tree, since one cannot always control which other tree fertilizes a given seed.|
|All wild olive trees reproduce only by seeds.||Thus, even trees with desired characteristics will tend to produce offspring that "revert" to wild, since genes get mixed and combined with seed reproduction.|
|Growing new olive trees||Fortunately for olive growers, tame olive trees (i.e. domestics) can reproduce asexually [i.e. without sexual reproduction, or the mixture of genetic material — somewhat like a bacteria which splits in half, making a perfect copy of itself), and this is also faster than growing from seeds.|
This asexual reproduction involves a tree sending out shoots or runners, which can be trimmed off and simply "planted" into the ground, where they will grow as a genetically identical tree — a clone, in genetic terms, an exact copy of the parent (with all its good characteristics).
This may suggest what the gospel is to make the reader — a clone of Christ, as it were, in behavior and character.
|Using wild olives as "rootstock"||The wild relative of the domestic olive, Olea oleaster can be used as part of the reproduction by "runner" described above. A shoot can be grafted into a non-domestic (“wild”) tree for nutrition, yet will continue to produce olives according to its own genetics. (This is the pattern that is broken when the wild branches begin to produce tame fruit — see below.)|
This is often done to get the benefits of a certain rootstock (resistance to disease, ability to get by with less water, etc.) with a certain desired kind of domestic branch’s crop characteristic.
|Olive trees are valuable||They live for hundreds of years. Starting a new olive grove was a major investment anciently, since no production could be hoped for before 40 years. It's no wonder olive trees were a common feature of civilization: one needed a stable, settled society to even think about growing them. [In fact, olives were considered by the Greeks to be a gift from the goddess Athena. This was common thinking in the ancient world — olive oil was good for light, medicinal purposes, cleaning or adorning the body, and for food. Olives were the key lipid (fat) source in early Eurasian agriculture, and a major economic driving force for the Greeks and the Roman empire (among others).]|
|Pruning is important||Fruit size varies with environmental conditions; sometimes excess fruit must be trimmed away so that the remaining fruit will grow larger, increasing the yield of oil.|
Fruit only grows on two-year-old branches of trees, so older branches must be pruned away as needed so as to concentrate the tree’s "efforts" on the productive branches. [One can't cut too many off at once, as the allegory says, or this won't leave enough leaves for photosynthesis, etc.]
|Why is the Lord always threatening to burn the vineyard?||Olive trees will usually grow back after being burned, producing suckers from the old roots. This is often more time-effective than trying to start a completely new crop of trees from scratch.|
|Why are branches cut off and then burned?||This destroys any disease or parasite that may have caused the bad fruit, and prevents it from infecting the rest of the vineyard. Olive wood on the ground would also get in the way of the dunging, plowing, etc. needed to take care of the valuable trees.
The old wood is also knotted, twisted, and brittle: it is "good for nothing", one might say, except for burning.
|Dung is an important fertilizer||5-10 tons per hectare every 1-2 years is needed in dry climates; half as frequently in wet areas.|
|Why the digging about the trees?||This aerates the soil, and lets minerals like potash and phosphates reach the feeder roots (since upper soil layers often bind these nutrients). Deep plowing is generally called for, and this needs to be done twice a year.|
|Olive trees do not need constant care||These trees have been called the "Cinderella" of agriculture, since one can leave them for a while and come back during the "off season" when there is no other crop work to do. This fits with the allegory, where the Lord and servant will leave for a while, and then come back and see how things are going.|
|Is "loftiness" a bad thing?||Yes. Olives can easily reach 15-20 meters in height. This makes it
This is likely why the Lord of the vineyard "plucks off" [as opposed to "pruning"] the trees — every few years one must cut off all the undesired growth, to keep the trees smaller and more productive/manageable.
|How are laborers typically paid?||It was typical to provide the hired help with money wages. The offer to share the crop and its profits "should probably be understood as being very generous". |
|Why does the Lord always go "down" to the vineyard?||A few Roman manuals on olive culture (prepared for Roman citizens who were newly made "farmers" on lands which had been seized by the empire — sort of a Latin Olive Farming for Dummies) are extant.
These manuals always recommended that the villa (farmhouse) be placed uphill from the crop areas and animals: and, not surprisingly, upwind from the manure pile!
Unusual olive culture information
|"Deviation" from Biology||Relevance for Interpretation|
|1. Grafted branches do not "take on" the genetic and fruit-bearing characteristics of the trunk to which they are grafted, despite the claim in Jacob 5.||This does not happen with "real" olive trees, but Christ and His Gospel can transform one's very nature when a believer becomes "grafted in.” The parable author knows that he's stretching the truth here — the servant (who knows something about olive growing) is amazed, and calls the Lord: "Behold, look here; behold the tree." (verse 16). This is astonishing, and it is meant to be — it is a miracle, just as every transformation of sinner to saint is a miracle that cannot be explained, yet cannot be denied when one "tastes the fruits."
Likewise, tame fruit does not "become wild" in a genetic sense, though it may well take on the "wild" fruit aspects of being smaller, more bitter, and having less oil content because of poor farming, disease, nutritional or environmental problems, etc.
|2. Trees grown in poor ground will not, as claimed, do as well as trees in good ground if given the same care and attention.||The servant, once again, clearly knows his olive culture. He asks the Lord just what he's thinking of: "How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard." (verse 21) The Lord's reply is "Counsel me not" — I know what I'm doing here. He's the Lord of the vineyard, and producing fruit (purified souls) is His business. Mankind's trials, sufferings, disadvantages, and tribulations are key in that process — see Ether 12, 2 Corinthians 12. The believer ought not to seek to "counsel" the Lord on these issues: He knows them already. The believer ought, rather, to trust His skill in the vineyard of souls.|
- Royal Skousen (editor), The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon : typographical facsimile of the extant text [Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, Vol. 1] (Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2001),200–203. ISBN 0934893047.
- See the exhaustive Multiple Authors, "All," in Stephen D. Ricks & John W. Welch (editors), Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5 (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Co. ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1994), 1. ISBN 0875797679. GL direct link
- Dennis L. Largey (editor), Book of Mormon Reference Companion (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 2003),618–621. ISBN 1573452319.
- WM Hess, DJ Fairbanks , JW Welch, JK Driggs, "Botanical Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5," in Stephen D. Ricks & John W. Welch (editors), Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5 (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Co. ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1994),484–562. ISBN 0875797679. GL direct link (unless otherwise indicated).
- Hess et al., 529.
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Strong reasoning
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Religion
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Name of tool: Image Processor
Alternate name: Sandin Image Processor, I.P., Analog Image Processor
Inventor/Designer: Daniel J. Sandin
Date of design: 1973
In the late sixties, Daniel Sandin studied the plans for the Moog Analog Synthesizer
, developed in 1964 by Robert Moog, and was inspired to design the structure of a tool for processing video signals. He then attempted to adapt the different modules of the Moog
to a system suited for video data and display of resulting images on an NTSC monitor. Sandin also hoped to design a video tool that artists well-versed in electronics could build themselves inexpensively. He eventually met Philip Morton, a man who played a key role at every design stage of the Image Processor.
Morton drew up the plans and helped Sandin to solve several technical problems before the prototype was built. Thanks to a grant from Kent State University (Kent, U.S.), Sandin completed the first version of the Image Processor
around 1972. This version was presented to the public in a performance titled “Inconsecration of New Space: A Color Video Collaborative Process” at the University of Illinois (Chicago, U.S.) on January 26, 1973. In the mid-seventies, a colour encoder (see Operating Mode) was added to the black and white signal processing modules. During the same period, Sandin distributed a manifesto titled “Distribution Religion,” which encouraged artists to obtain free plans of the Image Processor
so they could build their own copy (and even modify its components). He set out a single condition for this exchange: artists had to convey the results of these modifications in any way they wished (photographs of the altered modules, videotapes made with this device, and other manifestations of its use). The Experimental Television Center at the State University of New York (Binghampton, U.S.) still possesses a functional copy to this day.
Description of the tool
The Image Processor
consists of a series of boxes that contain modules. As the original plans for the device are often freely interpreted by those who build a copy (see Historical Notice), the number and configuration of the modules may vary.
Brief list of materials
Modules of electronic components on processing rack.
List of components
General input module or camera processor/sync stripper; mixing and keying module or adder/multiplier; comparator; amplitude classifier; differentiator; function generator; reference module; oscillator; RGB colour encoder; NTSC colour sync generator; power supply; cables.
The Image Processor
is an analog computer designed to control the black and white signal generating the video frame. The Image Processor
fixes the voltage level of the signal by way of functions programmed in its modules. Each of the modules includes panels where cables are plugged to route the signal from one point to the other in the module and between the modules. When the signal passes between different modules, the functions combine and create a range of often random effects, which enhance the programmed effects. In addition to these many processing modules, the Image Processor
features an encoding component translating the luminance scale into coded values for the colour image. The general input module or camera processor/sync stripper is a set of components that represent the first entry point to the processing modules of the Image Processor.
The mixing and keying module or adder/multiplier allows for the juxtaposition, inversion, mixing and keying of two video sources (for example, the image from a camera or a tape recorder). The adder can shift the polarity of the sources. The multiplier juxtaposes the sources linearly: one control knob lets you shift directly from one signal to the next, another knob provides a mixing effect, and a third knob generates a cross-fade. The comparator is a high gain amplifier that replaces one video source with another and generates a clear cut between areas of the image while keying. The amplitude classifier consists of a series of voltage level comparators measuring the inputted signal in a scale of dark and light values. The outputted signal is displayed as eight areas delineated in the image, which correspond to eight levels of luminance (from black to white) controlled by knobs assigned to each delineated plane. The differentiator gives a unique luminance value to the ground and the figure, delineating the edges of these shapes. The function generator produces effects similar to photographic solarization, shifting from the positive to the negative and displaying three scales of luminance (white, grey, black) controlled separately by knobs. The reference module consists of nine potentiometers with input areas that route the electrical current to enable certain modules. The oscillator or waveform generator creates a sine and triangular waveform whose time of interplay on the video signal is dependent on the horizontal or vertical synchronization. Built from the colour encoder of a Sony camera, the RGB colour encoder translates the scale of luminance in RGB areas in the image. The dark values are coded in three colours (red, green, blue) and the brighter values are then displayed in complementary colours (it is possible to reverse the polarity and hence produce the opposite effect). The NTSC colour sync generator gives the appropriate shape to the image (horizontal and vertical synchronization signals, etc.). Finally, the Image Processor
is hooked up to a power supply equipped with a bus (a component dispatching various operations in the same circuit), which routes the electrical current to the different modules.
Controlling the black and white signal generating the video frame; keying; colouring the black and white signal.
Vasulka, Woody. — [Interview with Dan Sandin]. — 28 p. — Manuscript. — Transcription.
The Dan Sandin Image Processor. — [s.d.]. — p. — Technical description. — Included in the file entitled "Morton, Phil".
Sandin, Daniel J. — Distribution religion. — [s.d.]. — p. — Note. — Included in the file entitled "Morton, Phil".
[Morton], Phil. — Notes on the aesthetics of copying an image processor. — [s.d.]. — p. — Notes. — Included in the file entitled "Morton, Phil".
[Image Processor (IP) : integrated circuits]. — [s.d.]. — p. — Diagrams. — Included in the file entitled "Morton, Phil".
Vasulka, Woody ; Vasulka, Steina. — Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt : Pioniere der Elektronischen Kunst = Pioneers of electronic art. — Artistic direction by Peter Weibel, edited by David Dunn. — Santa Fe : The Vasulkas ; Linz : Ars Electronica Center, 1992. — 240 p. Also available on the Internet : http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_Eigenwelt/Eigenwelt.htm [ref. September 23, 2003].
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Strong reasoning
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Hardware
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Does your child experience constipation?
Like gas, constipation is a pretty common health issue, but another gut-related problem most people, especially kids, don’t like talking about.
More than 18 percent of toddlers and about 14 percent of kids ages 4-18 face problems with constipation, based on recent research.
Some signs your child has issues with chronic constipation — bowel movements occurring no more than twice a week or soiling (unintentional leakage of stool or liquid on the underwear) due to a buildup of stool — are pretty apparent.
Some less noticeable problems kids experience include:
- Pain in their stomach or while having a bowel movement.
- Hard-to-pass bowel movements.
- Holding in stools that can cause complications.
You may be surprised to learn your child’s picky eating habits could explain his/her constipation problems too.
Underlying sensory issues experienced by preschool-age kids who are developing normally may be playing a key role in chronic constipation, according to a recent study appearing in The Journal of Pediatrics.
“In many cases, chronic constipation might be the first hint that the child also has some sensory issues and could benefit from occupational therapy,” says senior author Dr. Mark Fishbein, a pediatric gastroenterologist and associate professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Dr. Fishbein and his team of scientists in Chicago and Miami compared the health of 66 children (ages 3-5) dealing with chronic constipation with an equal number of control subjects with no health issues.
Part of their attention focused on how picky eating showed up in how kids responded to sensory stimuli.
Researchers soon learned that a heightened sensitivity to tastes, odors and textures in foods was the most important factor in predicting a child’s tendency to avoid the bathroom or becoming constipated.
The link between sensory sensitivity and constipation may not be apparent to the naked eye, says Dr. Fishbein. “However, increased sensory sensitivity can create discomfort and lead to avoidance, and we see that response in both food refusal and in the toileting behaviors of children with chronic constipation.”
Because these sensory problems are really common among children, Dr. Fishbein warns that it’s best to address this issue when kids are young, ideally before age 5, before these behaviors become harder to solve.
What parents can do
Treating your child’s constipation will take some time, persistence and patience on your part, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel — literally — if you follow these tips:
- Monitor your child’s daily intake of water (give them more) and milk (give them less).
- Work with your daughter or son to make regular visits to the toilet (make it fun).
- Feed your child foods containing dietary fiber, especially fruits and veggies (more is better).
- Don’t overdo the dosage of any laxative suggested by your child’s pediatrician (too much can be dangerous).
Have you considered giving your child a probiotic for constipation too? A recent report featured in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology found probiotics increased the number of times kids pooped each day, which goes a long way toward solving the constipation problem.
EndoMune Jr. Advanced Probiotic Powder (for children up to age 3) and EndoMune Jr. Advanced Chewable Probiotic (for children from ages 3-8) are multi-strain probiotics that contain four key strains of beneficial bacteria and a prebiotic that can work wonders in treating constipation.
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Strong reasoning
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Health
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Estonian Fauna - The Lynx - First Day Cover
Estonian Fauna - The Lynx - First Day Cover for only GBP £1.15
The lynx or the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a species belonging to the Felidae family. Lynxes are medium-sized and have long legs; they weigh up to 30 kg. The largest lynx caught in Estonia weighed 40 kg. They are predators whose main prey are roe deer and hares. Their only natural enemy is the wolf. Lynxes have superior hearing thanks to the tufts of fur on their ears, which have an average length of 2 cm (up to 4 cm in the winter). The ear tufts are black and prominent. The fur of lynxes is greyish; their pigment varies from rust-coloured to yellowish and the ends of their tails are black. They prefer to live in out-of-the-way spruce forests which are difficult to access and help them shed their winter coat in the spring. They make their dens into coppices. The lynx usually wakes an hour before dusk and goes out to hunt. If the hunt is successful, the lynx rests until the morning and then goes to hunt again or takes a walk around its premises. Lynxes prefer to always move along the same trails and hunt in certain areas. There are several females living on every male’s territory. Even though each male lynx has several ‘wives’, the father takes part in raising the kittens and teaches, nurtures, and feeds them. Lynxes usually have 1–3 kittens per litter. Newborn lynx kittens weigh 200–300 grams, are blind, and do not have ear tufts. They gain sight when they are 12 days old; ear tufts only become noticeable by the 40th day of their life. Lynx kittens stay with their mother for several years and only separate due to food shortage. The lynx moves elegantly and skilfully even on difficult terrain, trying to catch its prey in just a few decisive leaps. If this does not work, the lynx will not chase its prey. They generally do not follow their prey for more than 20–30 metres. Lynxes can purr like cats, growl, and hiss. Unlike domesticated cats, lynxes like to swim and get in the water even in the winter. Lynxes have several subspecies. Only the Eurasian lynx lives in Estonia; Estonia has one of the most dense populations of Eurasian lynxes in Europe. There are about 1,000 lynxes in Estonia, but very few people are lucky enough to see one in real life. The lynx is the biggest feline in Europe and is under protection.
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Basic reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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What is an Accounting Cycle?
You may perceive the accounting cycle as a series of events which play an essential role in determining, documenting, and analysing the information about the transactions a company has made. When each accounting period has ended, the accountant of the company should aggregate those transactions into the company’s financial statements (Also see How Do Accountants Carry Out the Accounting Process?). Keep in mind that the accounting cycle is the main event the accounting department needs to deal with always. In this article, the main focus will be on the main parts of the accounting functions, which comprises the accounting cycle.
Determining the activity that results in a transaction
In the accounting process, this is the first thing you should do, and it involves determining the things that caused the transaction. As an instance, the activities which cause a transaction includes offering services to customers, selling products to customers, purchasing materials (Also see Accounting for Expenses), as well as receiving payments.
Preparing the business documents about the transactions
These business documents may include supplier invoices, customer invoices, petty cash voucher, cash receipts, and so on (Also see How to Differentiate Invoice and Receipt?). As these documents provide you with the initial information about those transactions, they play a role as the source documents.
Determining the accounts that the transactions have affected
As what the double-entry bookkeeping system has stated, a single transaction will affect at least two accounts. Hence, before the accountant records the transaction, they need to determine which accounts the transactions have affected.
Documenting the transactions into the suitable documents
At this stage, the accountant needs to document the accounting details in the particular journals, for example, sales journal, cash receipts journal, cash disbursement journal and so on, Then, they need to transfer these records to the company’s general ledger (Also see What are the Differences Between a Trial Balance and a General Ledger?) later. Also, you may post these transactions into the general ledger directly.
Preparing the preliminary trial balance
When an accounting period has ended, you have to generate the preliminary trial balance. In this process, you should list the debit balances in the left column whereas, in the right column, you should list down the credit balances. Keep in mind that the sum of the debit and credit sides should be the same.
Preparing the adjusted trial balance
After getting the preliminary trial balance done, you have to check if there is any mistake (Also see Errors That You May Commit When Recording Business Transactions), and if there is, you should do corrections by using the adjusting entries. The adjusted trial balance should be able to show the financial position and the results of the operations of the company.
Preparing the financial statement by using the adjusted trial balance
When you have done the adjusted trial balance, you can generate your company’s financial statements now, which include:
- Balance sheet
- Profit and loss statement
- Statement of retained earnings
- Statement of cash flows
- The required accompanying disclosures
Closing the books for the reporting period
At this stage, you need to transfer all the balances in the temporary accounts into the income summary account, followed by the retained earning accounts of your company.
If you have an in-depth understanding of the accounting cycle, then you can make sure that you or your accountant have completed all the required accounting tasks efficiently. Another choice you may consider is to use a bookkeeping service in Singapore so that the professionals can solve these problems for you.
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Moderate reasoning
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Finance & Business
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As society contemplates going to the moon or Mars, there’s a rising debate as to whether it’s worth spending billions of dollars to send humans to other planets if a robot or rover can perform the necessary science.
I think NASA needs to send both humans and machines. Let me explain why.
I started off my 28-year career at NASA as an engineer on the shuttle training aircraft – an airborne simulator of the space shuttle. During my 17 years as an astronaut, I flew on three space missions. Two of those were shuttle missions, STS-117 and STS-119, to the International Space Station.
The main goal of both of these missions was to build the actual ISS, leaving little time for actual experiments. However, our mission was fulfilling because we were building a science laboratory in space. During my third mission, ISS Expedition 39 and 40, I spent five and a half months on the ISS.
While we were on board, my crewmates and I performed more than 300 different experiments. Some we did not touch, like the alpha magnetic spectrometer that scans the universe for antimatter. Others we set up and the mission controls then took over. For other experiments we set them up and performed the experiment. In some, we astronauts were the guinea pigs.
Hence, we used our time to squeeze the most science out of our ISS visit by collaborating with the scientists on the ground. Through this mix of human and automated experiments, NASA increased the amount of science being conducted on the ISS.
Apollo 17 versus Curiosity
To try to compare scientific output between a crewed and a robotic mission, let me contrast the Apollo 17 – the last moon mission of December 1972, in which Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent 75 hours on the lunar surface – with the Mars Curiosity rover with respect to three variables: distance traveled, cost and soil samples taken. While these two missions are distinctly different – the former being lunar and the latter on Mars – there are similarities that help us compare their productivity.
When it comes to distance covered, the humans won. The two Apollo 17 astronauts drove a distance of 35 kilometers on the moon in the span of three days – that’s approximately 11.6 kilometers per day. As of February 2019, Curiosity had traveled 20.16 kilometers on Mars - an average of 9 meters per day since it began its journey on Mars in August 2012.
Now I’m not knocking Curiosity or its team. But executing a task is extremely difficult when dealing with a rover 55 to 400 million kilometers away, depending upon the relative positions of Earth and Mars in their orbits. If the Earth-based Curiosity team issues the wrong commands to the rover, it could jeopardize or even end the mission. Hence, they have to move slowly and verify every step. That means that something a human could accomplish in a couple of hours – like taking multiple rock samples – make take a robot weeks.
During Apollo 17 the astronauts collected 741 rock and soil samples, including a deep-drill core sample 3 meters long. This amounts to 247 samples each day. I had some difficulty finding the equivalent information for Curiosity. What I did discover was that as of Jan. 15, 2019, Curiosity had drilled 19 sites and had taken two samples without drilling. So Curiosity has taken at most 30 soil samples while on Mars. That is, on average, 0.013 soil samples per day – which shows how difficult it is to operate a piece of machinery remotely. When equipment such as a drill malfunctions, which it has on Curiosity, there is nobody there to repair it. So the team must find workarounds to the problems for them to continue to get science.
Cost of Apollo versus Curiosity
In 2015 dollars, each of the seven lunar Apollo missions cost about US$20 billion. The cost of Curiosity was about $2.5 billion in 2015.
Yes, I am comparing a lunar mission to a Mars mission, which isn’t exactly fair. So, let’s use an estimate of what a human mission to Mars is expected to cost – the number ranges from around $100 billion to $500 billion per mission. I imagine it is going to be closer to the $500 billion or more given that the ISS alone cost more around $150 billion.
If we assume $500 billion per mission – a figure that would hopefully decrease with multiple missions – then a manned mission would yield a better return on the investment. From the ballpark estimates above, we can say a crew of four would be at least 500 times more productive in performing science than a rover, although the cost would be about 200 times greater.
Space exploration needs both
Now I admit there is a large margin of error in these quick calculations. However, I’m trying to underscore the benefits from human involvement. Consequently, I think the most cost-effective solution is to use humans and rovers together. This is how we boosted science output on the ISS.
For Mars we could have teams at mission controls around the world running the experiments using rovers as they do now – but the teams could do the science much more quickly. That’s because there would always be a human nearby to help out if the rover got stuck or malfunctioned.
Yes, it is more expensive to send humans to space than probes and rovers, but we can’t disregard that humans can rapidly adapt to unanticipated situations and repair and modify equipment, which in the end boosts the likelihood of success.
A human perspective
There is also so much we can learn about a new world that sensors just can’t tell us. What does it feel like? Look like? Smell like? This is how most people on Earth will relate to space exploration. So having this human perspective is vital for generating enthusiasm.
For example, one of the first questions I get from people when we talk about space is simply, “What was it like?” And they wanted to know all the details, from brushing your teeth to doing a spacewalk. I would always add that we never knew how our day was going, because most of our tasks, be it science or maintenance, ran into problems that needed a human fix.
I agree the rovers on Mars have done wonders and helped get people excited about planetary exploration, but I’m sure the excitement of humans going to Mars would be much greater.
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CC-MAIN-2023-23
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https://theconversation.com/are-astronauts-worth-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-in-extra-costs-to-go-to-mars-111348
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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A strange geographical phenomenon makes the reputation of Yucatán. Cenotes are water-filled cavities that can be fresh water, or sometimes a surface layer of fresh water and a lower layer of sea water if they communicate with the ocean. They are natural wells or pools that can reach several dozen or even hundreds of meters deep. They are not just caves filled with water; they are underground water systems that gradually join the ocean.
Many cenotes can be found in the surroundings of Merida. Detailed below are some of our favorites. But when you’re out and about, don’t hesitate to ask locals in the village if their village has a cenote. If it does, they may just point you in the direction of one of the most amazing natural phenomena you’ve ever set your eyes on. (We’re not exaggerating.)
The word “cenote” comes from the Maya dz’onot meaning “sacred well”. Cenotes were considered by the ancient Mayans as a means of communication with the “underworld” and they threw offerings to the gods of Xibalba, gods of death and diseases.
That said, the cenotes are incredible ecosystems and home to a wide variety of plants, trees and fish. Take care when visiting to not swim with sunscreen.
Dzombakal and X-batun Cenotes
The cenotes of San Antonio de Mulix are close and easily accessible. Covered with water lilies, the cenotes of X-batun, is open air. It is a cenote which seems to be in the middle of the jungle between vines and palm trees, where locals come to shoot videos of weddings. The water is shallow, so you can swim without wondering what lies below. Here, there is a small shop at the entrance to buy some snacks.
At 0.5 mile away, is Dzombakal. Even though it’s small in a cave, it has magnificently crystal clear water with small fish. Few people visit this cenote. It costs 50 pesos per person to get to both two cenotes and it is only a one-hour drive to the south of Merida. It’s easy to get there, you can drive right to the cenotes.
Nah Yah and Noh Mazon Cenotes
These two cenotes are near the village of Pixya, a fifty-minute drive from Merida. If you want to access the first one, once you arrive, it is a 15-minute walk. Nah Yah cenote Is perfect for the divers with its clear water. IT’s about 10 meters deep. You should bring your own diving equipment and your diving certification. Plus, if you want to swim, don’t use sunscreen or creams, as it can harm the fragile ecosystem of the cave. It costs 30 pesos to get in and it’s open from 8am to 5pm.
For the second cenote, you need to drive forty minutes further, but it’s worth the drive with its hanging vines. It is surely one of the least known cenotes of the Yucatan. It is ideal if you like quiet activities with few people around. To get there, you drive to the end of the village and turn left at the crossroads, next to the old hacienda. Then, follow the small road, then turn right, take the dirt and pebble path to the end, for 3 miles. You will also have several fences to open along the way, remember to close them behind you. It is open from 9am to 5pm and it costs 35 pesos. If you don’t know which road to take, ask the locals, they will help you.
It is accessible by a dirt road and is located about an hour drive south of Merida. At the end of the road, you’ll run into local people who are there to collect the entrance fees, there is always someone to keep an eye on the cenote. Then to access the cenote, you must go down a wooden staircase and you’ll discover the clear water and a stalactite ceiling. There is a small diving platform. If you wish, you can swim in the lightly cool turquoise water that is 3 to 55 meters deep. Motmots or the tick-tock birds’ nests can be found here. The access costs 30 pesos, there are shower and toilet facilities.
This cenote is particular. It is in the middle of the city of Valladolid, a two-hour drive from Mérida. Between restaurants, hotels and supermarkets, this corner of nature contrasts with the more urban atmosphere of the city. The water is deep and darker than the other cenotes shown above, but fish can be seen. On the covered side of the cenote, there is access to a cave that you can visit. There is an opening in the middle of the path to make jumps over 5 meters high. It is located at the corner of calle 36 and calle 37 and it costs 30 pesos, but it is free if you are a client of the restaurant.
Just like the one described above, this cenote is in the middle of the city, but this time in Merida. It is a cavern-type cenote and unlike the others, you can’t swim there. The cenote vault is dimly lit but enough to see the beauty of the water. It is located at Calle 42, Industrial in Merida and is open from 9am to 5pm.
There are many, many other cenotes around Merida, we have only listed here our favorites. These cenotes, unique in the world, are a true source of natural richness for the Yucatan as well as Mexico. They are not only tourist attractions, or swimming holes, they are ancient places of worship, sacred and precious.
Tell us which ones you liked the most, we would be delighted to hear your opinions.
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Basic reasoning
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Travel
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by Dr. Jessica Nagelkirk
Each winter, the influenza virus wreaks havoc on our ability to work, learn, and play. Common symptoms of flu include fever, sore throat, fatigue, muscle aches, headache, runny nose, and cough. The conventional approach to flu prevention includes vaccination, but there are many natural ways to boost your immune system this flu season that can be done in addition to, or instead of the flu vaccination.
The influenza virus is remarkable for its high rate of mutation, so your body never really gets a chance to build immunity to the virus. Scientists use their best guess as to which new variants will appear and include them in the vaccine each flu season. The effectiveness of the vaccine therefore depends on the scientists’ ability to match the virus. Some years it’s very effective, and some years less so.
More than ninety percent of influenza-related deaths occur among people over sixty years of age. A new study shows that influenza vaccination in older patients is associated with a reduced risk for hospitalization and almost fifty percent reduction in fatality. Flu vaccination is recommended in adults over age 65, persons with chronic pulmonary, cardiovascular, kidney, or liver disease, diabetes, intellectual disability, neurologic disorders, immunosuppression, women who are pregnant or up to two weeks post-partum, and residents of nursing homes. Both healthy individuals who opt out of a flu vaccine and those at risk who do receive a vaccine can increase their chances of making it through the flu season unscathed using some natural therapies to enhance the immune system.
Vitamin C has been shown to inactivate the influenza virus and can aid in the prevention of influenza as well as shorten the duration and severity of infections already contracted. Vitamin C can cause diarrhea and is usually dosed in acute situations “to bowel tolerance.” Dosage can be repeated every few hours. You might test out 500 mg. at a time to start.
Zinc plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood cell function. Taken at 30 mg doses for short periods may help white blood cells fight infections. Taking zinc for longer periods, such as more than one month, leads to depletion of other important minerals so please see your physician if you need to take zinc long-term.
Vitamin A is associated with white blood cell function and maintains the integrity of mucus membranes – the front line of our defense against microscopic invaders. Do not take vitamin A supplements if you are pregnant as high doses can cause birth defects.
Sambucol is a proprietary preparation of black elderberries and raspberries that has been shown to inhibit replication of influenza virus. These berries contain vitamin A, vitamin C, and many flavonoids, all of which boost immune function.
Eupatorium perfoliatum, commonly called Boneset, contains immune polysaccharides that show significant immune-stimulating effects on white blood cells. The homeopathic preparation is the recommended form unless given by a physician.
Steam inhalations with essential oils can also be helpful, especially when the upper respiratory system or sinuses are affected. Oregano and thyme top the list for anti-viral, anti-microbial, and anti-fungal steam inhalations. Use 2-3 drops only, a little goes a long way in this case.
Sleep is essential for keeping the immune system functioning optimally. Adults need seven to nine hours of sleep per night to rejuvenate for the next day. Interestingly, the timing of going to sleep is just as important as the duration. Aim for going to bed between 9pm and 11pm for the best sleep.
Diets rich in fruits, vegetables, and quality protein are the foundation for healthy immune systems. Avoidance of sugary or processed foods is also important for avoiding the flu and other infections. During times of acute infections, eating simple is best. Try the recipe for Bieler broth in the previous post.
Stress is a part of everyday life, but excessive stress can decrease our immune system’s function. Make a point to incorporate stress management techniques into daily life, especially during flu season. Try meditation, yoga, or deep breathing. There are plenty of local or free online resources out there, use them!
Most over-the-counter (OTC) flu medications only treat the symptoms of the virus and don’t strengthen your immune system. If you do take OTC medications, make sure you are also supporting your body’s natural defenses. Talk to your doctor about the best choices for you this flu season.
*For additional tips and tricks such as the warming socks treatment and homeopathic options, check out the Health & Happiness U.P Magazine website, healthandhappinessupmag.com or Dr. Jessica’s blog, Modern Naturopath.
Dr. Jessica Nagelkirk graduated this past spring from the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon as a Naturopathic Physician (ND) and is part of its 2012 – 2013 faculty.
*Learn more about Dr. Jessica Nagelkirk on our Writers page.
This article was reprinted with permission from the Winter 2012 – 2013 issue of Health & Happiness U.P. Magazine, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
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CC-MAIN-2017-34
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https://healthandhappinessupmag.com/category/cold-flu-prevention/
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Moderate reasoning
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Health
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This week in stories likely to be overshadowed in the United States by the fiscal cliff, football, online shopping, the holidays, and any other untold number of topics: climate change.
That's nothing new, of course, but it's worth pointing out given the U.N.'s latest round of climate talks began in Doha, Qatar, on Monday morning. The international negotiations are likely to generate few headlines in the United States, something that is partly because the climate/energy conversation at home has been swallowed whole by the the current focus on the budget, and partly because, well, the talks themselves have never really come close to producing the type of breakthrough that would be needed to curb global greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.
Three years ago in Copenhagen, for example, negotiators failed to agree on a climate change treaty despite an 11th-hour appearance by President Obama. Last year, the most negotiators could come together on was an agreement to try again for one by 2015—which would then in theory go into effect in 2020.
As the Associated Press explains, with a major agreement seemingly still out of reach, this year's talks are going to focus instead on getting together a stopgap extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty that the United States never signed on to that is set to expire next month.
At the current talks, the United States is already taking some heat for the Bush administration's decision to pull out from the Kyoto Protocol and the nation's larger reluctance to make a major climate commitment in the years that followed. Here's what the American delegate Jonathan Pershing said in defense (via the AP):
"Those who don't follow what the U.S. is doing may not be informed of the scale and extent of the effort, but it's enormous ... It doesn't mean enough is being done. It's clear the global community, and that includes us, has to do more if we are going to succeed at avoiding the damages projected in a warming world."
As the Guardian notes, global emissions are still climbing overall despite the reduction of emissions by many of those countries following the Kyoto Protocol. In other words, such an agreement doesn't really work unless enough countries sign on to it. And as the failure of the Copenhagen treaty illustrated, a more meaningful climate change agreement would have to tackle the tensions between developing and developed nations. Bjørn Lomborg goes into that tension in more detail in his summary of last year's talks.
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CC-MAIN-2017-30
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/26/qatar_climate_change_talks_u_n_holds_talks_to_negotiate_kyoto_protocol_extension.html
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Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) October 27, 2013
During the 2013-14 school year, over 20,000 elementary students and adults in the Ventura and LA Water Districts will learn about the importance of wise water use from the most educational (and funniest) cast of pirates you’ll ever meet. The Water Pirates of Neverland: Oceans 3 1/2 is a multimedia program – based in live theatre – that actively engages students and their parents on important concepts in water conservation. The program is being sponsored by the California American Water Company and enables schools to sign-up for the performances and curriculum completely free-of-charge.
Produced by The National Theatre for Children (NTC), The Water Pirates of Neverland uses a unique combination of interactive learning techniques that include an entertaining all-school assembly performed by professional actors, classroom curriculum, digital educational games and homework assignments. It teaches elementary students and their families about the importance and uses of water, how water gets polluted and what each person can do to save and conserve water. “It’s the combination of live theatre, student workbooks and educational games that makes this program so effective," says Kimberly Smith, Conservation Specialist at California American Water. “The classroom activities get students thinking intellectually about how they can use water wisely. And seeing someone playing a funny “pirate” who’s giving them real tips on what they can personally do? That’s golden. It grabs them on an emotional level and really solidifies our conservation message in their minds.”
And the message doesn’t stop at the classroom door. The students take their activity workbooks home and share them with their families, helping build good household habits around water usage. “Obviously, as a water utility company, this is really important to us,” emphasizes Smith. “It [water conservation] is a very serious matter. But with NTC, we’re able to put these fun, funny characters, performed by great actors, right on stage in front of the students to deliver the important information in a way that’s really memorable.”
Using a variety quick costume changes, the two professional actors who perform The Water Pirates of Neverland play a multitude of characters from the inept pirate “Captain Doorknob” to the wise denizens of the deep “Pierre Cleauseau” and “Toni the Flipper.” Each performance is action-packed with high energy comedy and hilarious audience interaction. “The world is changing at ninety miles per hour, but we maintain that live theater is still and always will be a powerful teaching tool,” affirms Ward Eames, president of NTC, an organization that has been bringing programs with important environmental messages to U.S. schools for over 35 years.
About California American Water
California American Water, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Water, provides high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to more than 600,000 people throughout California. Founded in 1886, American Water is the largest investor-owned U.S. water and wastewater utility company. With corproate headquarters in Voorhees, NJ, the company employs more than 7,000 dedicated professionals who provide drinking water, wastewater and other related services to approximately 16 million people in 35 states and Ontario and Manitoba, Canada. Our professionals are committed to customer service, operational excellence and the delivery of high-quality, reliable drinking water, safe and effective wastewater treatment and release and other water-related management services. More information can be found by visiting: http://www.amwater.com/caaw.
About The National Theatre for Children
NTC is the largest touring educational theatre company in the world. Since 1978, NTC has successfully tackled one important issue after another including: financial literacy, electrical safety, water conservation, health care, smoking prevention, recycling, wise energy use, renewable energy, nutrition, and bullying prevention, (to name a few). Our educational outreach programs are entirely underwritten by corporate, non-profit and governmental sponsors who want to be associated with delivering healthy-living messages to students and their families. NTC performs approximately 7,000 times a year throughout the country, actively engaging 2.8 million students and parents through its programming. http://www.nationaltheatre.com
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CC-MAIN-2014-15
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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11270465.htm
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en
| 0.949437 | 894 | 2.75 | 3 | 2.216746 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Education & Jobs
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The Greater Ashland Beacon
Veterans Day gives every American the opportunity to not only celebrate but also honor the bravery and sacrifice of all U.S. veterans who have both served and are currently serving our country. Veterans Day is perhaps one of the greatest days we have to celebrate because, without the sacrifice and dedication of those that choose to serve our country, we would not be the great country that we are today. Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States of America once said, “We remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give, and we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty.” Without our veterans, we would not be the greatest country in the world. Many people celebrate Veterans Day without actually knowing its true origins.
Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, was originally proclaimed a legal United States holiday in 1938, to honor the end of World War I, which occurred Nov. 11, 1918. It wasn’t until 1954, after having been through both World War I and the Korean War that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the 83rd United States Congress amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and replacing it with the word “Veterans.”
The approval of this new legislation took place June 1, 1954, and thereafter Nov. 11 became a day to remember and honor all American veterans of all branches of the military.
Things you may not know about Veterans Day is that we write the word “Veterans” without the use of an apostrophe for a good reason. The lack of use of this punctuation mark has a deliberate and definite meaning. According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, “Veterans Day is not a day that belongs to veterans, it is a day for honoring veterans directly in front of us now.” Another interesting fact surrounding Veterans Day is that the United States Marine Corps celebrates its service birthday and Veterans Day with a 96-hour liberty. November 10 marks the United States Marine Corps birthday, which is typically an event that is celebrated with a traditional ball and cake-cutting ceremony. Because these two momentous days fall so closely together, many Marines celebrate both holidays together with what is known as their 96-hour liberty period.
Did you know that the name Veterans Day was once not accepted by a small group of Americans led by Francis Carr Stifler of the American Bible Society? Stifler’s group had proposed that Veterans Day, formally known as Armistice Day, should be renamed “Mayflower Day” because the signing of the Mayflower Compact took place on Nov. 11, 1620. The group argued that “Mayflower Day” would be a far more appropriate name since the Mayflower Compact was the cornerstone upon which the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights stood.
Veterans Day is often confused with Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a day of appreciation just like Veterans Day, but the difference is that on Memorial Day we mourn the loss of those who lost their lives in service to this great country by honoring and remembering them on this special day. Veterans Day is a day set aside to say, “THANK YOU!” to the people who have served and are still currently serving. Both days are of equal importance and demand the same amount of respect.
“On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free.”- Dan Lipinski
Photo by Sasha Bush
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http://ashlandbeacon.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2681:the-history-and-importance-behind-veterans-day&catid=2&Itemid=101
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Moderate reasoning
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History
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The 3D LED Cube is a really cool device that enables you to see in three dimensions, get some depth perception and has 512 LED’s or 512 pixels. It is based on an Arduino Uno which is an Atmel AVR microcontroller on a development board with some standard interfacing pinouts that allow you to quickly assemble prototypes.
Step 1: 3D LED Cube Hardware
The best way to look at the hardware system is to break it up into subsystems:
- The LED Matrix
- Control electronics for Columns
- Control electronics for Layers
The LED Matrix
By addressing the appropriate layer and column in the LED matrix, it is possible to switch a particular LED on or off or vary its intensity. For each of these sets of controls, we have an interface to the brain which is an Arduino Uno running an Atmel AVR microcontroller. The Arduino Uno is programmed via a USB port from a PC. The Arduino Uno brain (or AVR brain) contains standard interfacing pins which allow connection to the outside world and external devices.
Step 2: 3D LED Hardware – Control Electronics For Columns
Control electronics for Columns
To the interfacing pins on the Arduino Uno brain, we connect two PWM shields which are cascaded together in a long chain. Each of these PWM shields provides up to 32 pulse modulated outputs so these are the brightness controls for 64 columns in total (2 shields with 32 LED controls each). To light up a particular LED, we switch on that column and that layer at the same time to pinpoint an LED. Using this idea we can light up an entire column.
The PWM shield is designed to sync current so to turn on an LED, the PWM shield expects to be connected to the negative or cathode connection of the LED. However because of the way this cube has been wired, this chip has to interface with the positive or anode connection of each LED. In order to do this, you need to assemble an interposing transistor board. Using PMP transistors and sizing the current reference resistor on each PWM shield appropriately to compensate for transistor gain, we can provide a current source rather than sync to each column. The column will source or supply the current via the positive anode to the LED and the common cathode layer will be sunk to ground using MOSFET
Step 3: 3D LED Hardware – Control Electronics For Layers
Control Electronics for Layers
To switch to layers we use a hardware d-multiplexer. We have three pins coming out of the Arduino Uno that are a binary coded decimal representation of the layer address. When you convert the binary coded decimal to a decimal you have 3 inputs into the d-multiplexer and 8 outputs on 0 – 7. Out of the hardware d-multiplexer we run a Darlington buffer which provides the current to quickly charge the gates of the MOSFET devices. Each power MOSFET (8 in total) controls a layer and each layer has the potential of up to 1.6 amps of current so MOSFETS are the high power devices.
For more detail: Make A 3D LED Cube Using Arduino
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<urn:uuid:6b874a1d-33f8-4dce-986a-4226cc0ec694>
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CC-MAIN-2023-14
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https://duino4projects.com/make-a-3d-led-cube-using-arduino/
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en
| 0.874606 | 658 | 3.015625 | 3 | 2.133161 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Hardware
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Cassini in Safe Mode After Saturn Flight
LOS ANGELES – The international Cassini spacecraft went into safe mode this week after successfully passing over a Saturn moon that was the mysterious destination of a deep-space faring astronaut in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Cassini flew within 1,000 miles of Iapetus on Monday and snapped images of its rugged, two-toned surface. As it was sending data back to Earth, it was hit by a cosmic ray that caused a power trip. The spacecraft was not damaged, but had to turn off its instruments and relay only limited information.
Mission controllers recently sent commands for Cassini to resume normal transmission and the spacecraft could be fully functional by week’s end.
Iapetus, the third-largest Saturnian moon, gained science fiction fame in Clarke’s mind-bending novel “2001: A Space Odyssey,” that was developed in concert with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie by the same name.
Clarke, who lives in Sri Lanka, surprised the Cassini team with a five-minute video played Tuesday during an internal meeting at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. In it, Clarke told scientists he looked forward to viewing photos from the flyby.
Even before Clarke’s taped greeting, scientists waxed poetic about Cassini’s encounter with Iapetus and the fictional Discovery spaceship’s rendezvous with Japetus, as the Saturn moon is known in Clarke’s book.
“From time to time, you would hear references to the novel. People would say, ‘I wonder if Cassini will see the monolith,’” he said.
The monolith refers to a galactic slab on Japetus that swallows the hero astronaut David Bowman and transforms him into an immortal. Kubrick dropped Saturn from the script and made Jupiter’s moons the destination instead to prevent confusion among moviegoers about how the spaceship can slingshot from one planet to another.
It’s the second time Cassini has flown by the walnut-shaped Iapetus, but the latest images are the crispest yet. The spacecraft focused on a jagged ridge surrounded by mountains near the equator that look geologically old. Scientists hope to find out what forces caused the ridge to form and how long it has been in existence.
“Iapetus is really a time machine. We’re looking back at a really old surface,” said Cassini scientist Torrance Johnson of JPL.
Associated Press Writer John Antczak contributed to this report.
On the Net:
Cassini mission: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
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<urn:uuid:749dc103-591c-4443-b2fe-602ca3d5eb69>
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CC-MAIN-2015-14
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http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1064447/cassini_in_safe_mode_after_saturn_flight/
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en
| 0.940773 | 579 | 2.6875 | 3 | 2.470407 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Quieter flight partnership
High profile public campaigns and protests by local residents around airports across Europe against aircraft noise have forced competitive government agencies to enforce night flight ban in many of the European airports. UK and German governments among the European Union lead in imposing such bans which extends from 11 pm to 5 am. Night flight bans have put enormous pressure on airlines and airports to rearrange their schedules and the economic impact has been even more. A recent Oxford Economics study on the impact of night flight ban at London’s Heathrow Airport estimates that it would reduce UK GDP by £178 million per annum and jobs by 2,800. Therefore, the industry veterans are turning to aircraft manufacturers for technology innovations to address this social problem which they think will only become louder and more popular not just in Europe but even to other cities where airports are located.
In a recent unique partnership Airbus, British Airways (BA), Heathrow Airport (LHR) and NATS (the main air navigation service provider in the United Kingdom) have launched a programme to study and develop operational procedures to reduce the number of people affected by noise around London’s Heathrow. The study will use British Airways’ A380. The A380 is recognised as one of the quietest aircrafts today.
According to a press release by Airbus the project utilises the capabilities of the A380 and looks at how the aircraft manufacturer, airline, airport and air navigation services provider can further reduce the noise impact of flight operations for local communities. The partners have announced a three-stage ‘Quieter Flight’ project. The first stage identifies the operational improvements that are possible. These include for departures for example, reducing thrust and optimising the height at which the aircraft is flown. Changes to these departure procedures have the potential to significantly reduce noise levels. The second stage will see the testing and training of procedures in a British Airways flight simulator. Once all the project stages are complete, the partners expect to bring all the operational improvements together into a series of demonstration flights with the A380, starting from early next year. These procedures will then be made available to other operators and airports around the world.
“The A380 is the ideal aircraft to conduct the “Quieter flights” because it has the latest state of the art technologies that allow optimised paths to be flown very precisely. The A380 is able to further reduce the noise of what is already the quietest aircraft of its type,” said Christopher Buckley, Airbus’ executive vice president for customer affairs. Captain Dean Plumb, British Airways’ environment strategy manager also acknowledged the fact that A380 is the ideal aircraft for this project. “It has unique operational capabilities that can be adjusted to reduce noise during take-off and landing. The next step for the Quieter Flight Partnership is to train our pilots to use the optimised noise procedures in the simulator and then to test these improvements in flight trials,” said Plumb.
Apparently environmental sustainability is a top priority for various stakeholders of the aviation industry, particularly airlines, airports and aircraft manufacturers. “We are really pleased to be working closely with industry partners on this project. Heathrow is at the forefront of international efforts to tackle aircraft noise and collaborations such as this form part of our long term commitment to do this whilst also safeguarding the connectivity and growth that Heathrow provides,” said Matt Gorman, Sustainability Director for Heathrow.
The partnership is a demonstration of the seriousness of the issue and Quieter Flight project brings together the expertise of the whole industry. “When combined with the wide range of other initiatives we are working on, this project will help make a difference to those people living under the flightpath,” said Ian Jopson, NATS head of environmental and community affairs.
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Strong reasoning
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Transportation
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KALLANA - THE GUARDIAN OF THE TEMPLE
Not everyone who visit East Fort would notice the granite elephant resting in the shade of a huge banyan tree on the banks of the Padmatheertham. The vendors who line the sides of the narrow street are the only friends of the elephant. Among the cluster of the hawkers who rest in the shade of the banyan tree, one finds it difficult to spot the elephant, though it hasn’t moved a bit in the last few centuries. A street hawker leans to the belly of the elephant for an afternoon nap, another man sits on top of it, and the elephant sits silent as ever; a silent witness to the many historic events of Travancore.
|The 'kallana', in the shade of the banyan tree - Photograph taken by the author.|
The figure of an elephant, carved in a single piece of granite and known to the locals as ‘kallana’ (meaning ‘stone elephant’ in Malayalam) has a mystery surrounding it. Like the great Sphinx who guards the Pyramids, this small elephant sits under the cover of the old tree, with his gaze fixed to the towering gopuram of Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple. Some are of the opinion that the elephant was installed there during the reign of Karthika Thirunal Rama Varma, the famed Dharma Raja (1724-1798) during whose reign the fame of the State spread far and wide. It was Dharma Raja who completed the renovation works of the temple which was initiated by his predecessor Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma (1729-1758). The Gopuram (temple tower), the Sheevelipura (circumambulatory path) and the famed Ottakkal and Kulashekara mandapas bear testimony to the craftsmen who have participated in the renovation works of the temple. According to popular belief, the elephant was also carved during the same time. However, the skill of the craftsmen exhibited in the intricate works of the temple fail to make its mark on the elephant. Was the work done by an unskilled apprentice, or is it the ravages of time that had rubbed away the details? No one seems to have an answer.
Sri. C.V. Raman Pillai, the author of historic novels like Marthanda Varma (1891), Dharma Raja (1913) and Rama Raja Bahadur (1918) was a person who knew every nook and corner of the capital city. The kallana finds a place in his novel Rama Raja Bahadur, where one of the characters in the novel named Azhakan Pillai hides behind the elephant. The mention of kallana in this famous novel might be the reason why most of the Travancoreans relate it with Dharma Raja, the main character.
Like any other historic object/structure inside the fort, kallana too have some intriguing stories associated with it. Uma Maheshwari, the author of the biography of the present Maharaja Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, an expert on the history of the fort and the royal family is of the opinion that the kallana has much longer history than we often attach to it. According to Uma, the elephant was made perhaps during the period when the foundation stone for the gopuram was laid, during the reign of Aditya Varma (741 ME-1566 AD.). But what was the association of the elephant with the construction works of the temple? Well, according to Uma there is a long standing tradition to offer prayers to Ganapathy (the elephant headed God) -before executing a major work, thus an elephant was installed before commencing the work for laying the foundation for the gopuram. If this version of the story is true, then the kallana is more than four centuries old.
However, there is one thing about the elephant that always perplexed me; a keen observer will surely notice that one half of the sculpture is more embellished than the other. What was the reason for it? Was it due to the wear and tear the sculpture faced in all these years? It might be possible, if one takes into account its age and condition, unlike an exhibit inside a museum, the elephant has been exposed to the elements of nature. But why one side of the elephant suffered much more than the other? Did the craftsmen who were engaged in the work left the work in half way?
Uma is of the opinion that the turbulent political scenario that followed the stone laying would have affected the fate of the kallana too. Records say that the construction works of the gopuram was stalled due to the conflict between the King and the madampimar, so the kallana was also rendered unfinished. Later Veera Ravi Varma Kulashekara (1592-1609 A.D.) gave orders to reconstruct the nalambalam and balikalpura using stone, however, the work that commenced in 781 M.E. (1606 A.D.) ended abruptly with his death in 1609 A.D. The later rulers also carried on the construction works. Finally the temple was reconstructed to its present form during the reigns of Marthanda Varma and his successor Dharma Raja.
Two years back while doing a project on Thiruvananthapuram I came across many local people who narrated to me a wonderful story about the kallana, linking it with the ‘evergreen’ villains of the kingdom, the Ettuveettil Pillamar. According to the elders, long back in history when the madampimar wielded more power than the royals, one of the prominent members of the madampi clan named Ramanamadham Pillai had his house constructed on the banks of Padmatheertham. In those days the sacred pond was much smaller in spread. The powerful madampi also constructed a small shrine on the banks of the pond, dedicated to Lord Shiva, his family deity. According to the story, during the clash between the Ettuveettil Pillamar and the King, the madampimar were finally vanquished and all their property was confiscated to the royal treasury. The King, in order to fulfill his vengeance ordered his soldiers to demolish the houses of the Pillamar and excavated ponds in their place. In the case of Ramanamadhom Pillai’s property, the house situated on the banks of the pond was demolished and instead of making a new pond, the existing Padmatheertham was expanded, however, the small temple was left untouched. The final twist to the story came when a senior member mentioned about the kallana which was actually a part of the sopanam of the house. According to him the kallana had a similar counterpart and both of them adorned the two sides of the main steps leading to the palatial mansion. And to my amazement he went on saying; “Have you closely observed the elephant?” he asked. “Only one of its side is carved, the other side is left unfinished as that part would not be visible when the steps where there”. So, where is the other elephant? The old man is of the opinion that it might have been destroyed by Marthanda Varma’s soldiers.
|Padmatheertham pond and the temples and mandapams around it - the small shiva temple can be seen in the left.|
The above mentioned story may answer some of my doubts, but is it a true story? Dr. S. Hemachandran Nair, Superintending Archaeologist of the State Archaeology Department rules out the story as a mere local legend associated with Marthanda Varma and the Pillamar. “In Thiruvananthapuram everyone has a story connected to Marthanda Varma and the Pillamar”, says Hemachandran; “These stories seem to be true when we hear it for the first time, however, when we look for details there are discrepancies and lack of records to prove them”. According to Hemachandran there are no records to prove the above mentioned story and once again the kallana pulls over the veil of mystery.
Before coming to conclusions one should go through the ‘mathilakam records’ chronicling the history and day to day activities of the temple, there we may find the true story of the kallana, until then history/stories can be made and undone in the mind of the people. Even the street vendor who now curls beside the kallana will have his own version of ‘history’!
Important Mathilakam Records, Published by Ulloor S. Parameshwara Iyer, 1941, Document no. 211, Curuna 1719, Ola 34.
For more information:
Sharat Sunder Rajeev
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Strong reasoning
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History
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Inspired by the Polar Boot Camp, which just concluded at the University of Minnesota’s Polar Geospatial Center, and my previous post, which discussed mapping the Arctic, Cryopolitics will now run a weekly feature discussing a satellite image of an area in the Arctic or sub-Arctic. Today’s post looks at a Landsat 8 image of the diamond mining city of Mirny, in the Sakha Republic (also known as Yakutia), located in eastern Siberia, Russia. The big hole in the image above is what was once one of the world’s biggest diamond mines: the now-defunct open-pit Mir (peace) mine. The mine makes for a visually arresting site from space given that it sits smack-dab in the middle of Mirny, a city of 40,000 people whose existence is wholly due to the discovery of diamonds. The river seen cutting across the image on an east-west parallel is the Irelyakh River.
The Sakha Republic comprises approximately 20% of Russian territory. If the region were a country, it would be the eighth largest on earth by size, just below India. But by population, with only 959,000 inhabitants, it would rank 159th, below East Timor. That makes Sakha one of the least densely populated places on earth, with only Greenland, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and the Falkland Islands ranking below it. 45% of the population are Yakuts, a Turkic people who were traditionally semi-nomadic and raised horses, cattle, and reindeer.
Though there aren’t many humans in the Sakha Republic, it is chock-full of minerals. Diamonds, gold, and tin are some of the principal resources, and there are also extensive oil, gas, and coal reserves. It’s the colorless crystals, however, that really drive the economy. Economist John Tichotsky calls the region “Russia’s diamond colony” in his book by the same name. 99% of all Russian diamonds and a whopping 25% of the world’s diamonds come from this remote region in the Russian Far East. Diamond-rich, volcanically-created kimberlite pipes underlie much of Sakha – a similar geology, in fact, to the area of the Northwest Territories, Canada, where the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines operate in Arctic conditions.
At 62.5° N, Mirny sits a few degrees below the Arctic Circle. Construction on the mine, which at 525 meters deep and 1,200 meters across is said to be the world’s second-largest man-made hole in the ground, began under Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev in 1957. Describing the unimaginably harsh conditions of the mine construction, I.S. Plotnikov remarks, “The winter temperatures were so low that car tires and steel would shatter and oil would freeze.” After producing some $17 billion worth of diamonds over its 44 years of operations, the so-called “pipe of peace” ceased operations in 2001.
Mir was operated by state-owned mining company Alrosa, which claims to produce over a third of the world’s diamonds – thanks in no small part to its other existing operations in Sakha. In addition, Alrosa runs production sites in Arkhangelsk, also in the Russian Arctic, and the African nations of Angola and Botswana. Many of Sakha’s diamonds are sent to the world diamond capital of Antwerp, Belgium, which also happens to be Sakha’s biggest foreign trade partner.
The view from above
You can see from the image at the top of this post, taken by NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite, that the pit seems almost equal in size to the built-up area of the city. Landsat 8 is one of NASA’s newer satellites and was launched in 2013. The satellite has 11 bands, each of which senses different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. Mapbox has a great description of the satellite’s capabilities. The data is freely available for anyone in the world to download on a number of websites; I find the U.S. Geological Survey’s EarthExplorer the easiest to use. The image of Mirny was produced from Landsat 8’s panchromatic Band 8, which takes images just as a black-and-white camera would at a 15-meter resolution. This means that each pixel measures 15×15 meters. Band 8 is the highest-resolution band the satellite offers, as all other bands work at 30-meter resolution. While it’s possible to produce true-color images at 15-meter resolution from Landsat 8 by combining different bands and then sharpening them, since the image of Mirny was taken in winter, it would still appear close to black and white. You’ll also notice in the Landsat image that there are two other pits, highlighted by red arrows. I’m not sure if operations are active at either one, though it appears that open-pit operations at Alrosa’s International Mine, on the bottom left, has closed, but underground mining might still be active.
Zooming around on Google Earth (below images) gives another sense of the scale of the open pit at Mir. Big chunks of ice are even visible in the Irelyakh River to the west of the city.
As Moscow directs diamond extraction in the Sakha Republic, unsurprisingly, aside from those directly employed by the mines, the region’s people have not benefited from the industry. Anthropologists Julie Cruikshank and Tatiana Argounova write in their (firewalled) paper on indigenous identity in Sakha:
“While such resources may give the region slightly more economic stability than the rest of Siberia, close observers point out that Moscow has an interest in holding the foreign currency-generating Yakutia on a short leash, and that as wages rise rapidly for Russian workers in diamond mines, the predominantly agricultural Sakha economy is being bankrupted (Vinokurova 1995:69, 71).”
It’s the people of Sakha, too, who have had to suffer the detrimental effects of open-pit and underground diamond mining. Historian David Marples explains in his (also firewalled) paper on environmental and health problems in the republic:
“The geography of the areas used for open-pit mining has been likened to a moonscape, adorned with great craters, radioactive waters (presumably residue from the nuclear explosions), and soil and water pollution so toxic that it continues to inhibit re vegetation long after mines are no longer in use (Trofimova, 1996).”
I had the opportunity to meet a native of Mirny, St. Petersburg State University professor Nadezhda Kharlampieva, at the Arctic in the Anthropocene summer institute in Potsdam, Germany earlier this summer. In an upcoming post, for the view from the ground, I’ll talk about her work and the Yakut people living in the Sakha Republic. For now, enjoy the view from space.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Among the 14 used GD & T symbols in the category of Location Tolerances there are 3 types.
- 1. The Position Tolerance
- 2. The Concentricity Tolerance
- 3. The Symmetry Tolerance
From these 3 tolerance types, only the Position Tolerance is often used as it is also easy to measure. The other 2 are in general replaced using a combination of other easy to measure tolerances such as Form Tolerances (Straightness, Flatness) or Direction Tolerance (Perpendicularity, Parallelism) or Position Tolerance itself.
But however, in some cases is usefull to specify the Concentricity or the Symmetry tolerance, even if an very accurate measurement of both is not always easy do to. In this article let’s have a look at SYMMETRY Tolerance.
The Symmetry tolerance is similar with (coaxiality) Concentricity tolerance, both are a special case of the position. Concentricity corresponds to a rotational or point symmetry to a reference axis, while simple symmetry is a mirror symmetry with a reference plane, line or point.
Symmetrical components are very common: The symmetry tolerance is important because the usual dimensioning does not contain any symmetry tolerance, not even with the Envelope principle. A lack of symmetry or information about coaxiality are a major cause, which is why around 80% of the drawings are incomplete in practice. Symmetry is much like Concentricity, except that it controls rectangular features and involves 2 imaginary flat planes, much like parallelism.
Definition: GD&T Symmetry is a 3-Dimensional tolerance that is used to ensure that 2 features on a part are uniform across a datum plane. An established “true” central plane is established from the datum and for the symmetry to be in tolerance, the median distance between every point on the 2 surface features needs to fall near that central plane. Each set of points on the reference features would have a midpoint that is right between the 2. If you take all the midpoints of the entire surface, this must lie within the tolerance zone to be in specification.
Symmetry is not a very common GD&T callout since it has very limited functional uses (centering location is done with Position) and the verification and measurement of symmetry can be difficult (See: Final Notes below).
The Symbol represents a long line symmetrically placed between 2 shorter ones (as shown in figure 1.) This symbol is specified in the left compartment of the feature control frame and it is used to describe measurements from derived median plane as opposed to 2 surfaces.
The Tolerance call out: Symmetry = Toleranced and datum elements are in general 2 planes or 2 lines at a distance of tsy as symmetry tolerance specified in the fearture control plane, which means that tolerance arrow or reference triangle are always on the coresponding dimension arrow.
A Symmetry tolerance is specified using a feature control frame displaying the characteristic symbol for either “concentricity” (two concentric circles) or “symmetry about a plane” (three stacked horizontal bars). The feature control frame includes the symmetry tolerance value followed by 1, 2, or 3 datum references. There’s no practical interaction between a feature’s size and the acceptable magnitude of lopsidedness. Thus, material condition modifier symbols, MMC and LMC, are prohibited for all symmetry tolerances and their datum references.
Recalling the basics for position tolerance, much of what I said about concentricity and some characteristics of position tolerance can be applied to symmetry as well. In summary the symmetry characteristics as the following:
- Datum and toleranced features are often midplanes or lines. However, it can also be axes (e.g. of transversal holes) or real planes;
- Tubular tolerance zones are rare, but if that’s the case then the limit deviation is equal to half of symmetry tolerance tsy/2
- The Symmetry tolerance includes the parallelism of the toleranced element and its straightness, and in the case of a tolerated plane also the flatness.
How does it work?
The Math Standard describes in detail how symmetry tolerancing works. Generically, a symmetry tolerance prescribes that a datum plane or axis is extended all the way through the controlled feature.
We usually think of symmetry as the 2-fold mirror-image sort of balance about a center plane shown in Fig. 3 (a) and (b). There are other types as well. A 3-lobe cam can have symmetry, both the obvious 2-fold kind about a plane as shown in Fig. 3(c), and a 3-fold kind about an axis as shown in Fig. 3(d). The pentagon shown in Fig. 3(e) has 5-fold symmetry about an axis. GD&T’s symmetry tolerances apply at the lowest order of symmetry—the lowest prime divisor of the number of sides, facets, blades, lobes, etc., that the feature is supposed to have. Thus, a 27-blade turbine would be controlled by 3-fold symmetry. For a hexagonal flange (6 sides), 2-fold symmetry applies. By agreement, a nominally round shaft or sphere is subject to 2-fold symmetry as well.
As shown in See Fig. 4 which also applies to concentricity, from any single point on that datum within the feature, vectors or rays perpendicular to the datum are projected to intersect the feature surface(s). For common 2-fold symmetry, 2 rays are projected, 180° apart. From those intersection points, a median point (centroid) is constructed. This median point shall lie within a tolerance zone that is uniformly distributed about the datum. If one of the construction rays hits a small dent in the surface, but an opposite ray intersects a uniform portion of the surface, the median point might lie outside the tolerance zone.
Thus, symmetry tolerancing demands that any local “low spot” in the feature surface be countered by another “low spot” opposite. Similarly, any “high spot” must have a corresponding “high spot” opposite it. Symmetry tolerancing primarily prevents “lopsidedness.”
As you can imagine, inspecting a symmetry tolerance is no simple matter. Generally, a CMM with advanced software or a dedicated machine with a precision spindle should be used. For an entire feature to conform to its symmetry tolerance, all median points shall conform, for every possible ray pattern, for every possible origin point on the datum plane or axis within the feature. Although it’s impossible to verify infinitely many median points, a sufficient sample (perhaps dozens or hundreds) should be constructed and evaluated. At the ends of every actual bore or shaft, and at the edges of every slot or tab, for example, the terminating faces will not be perfectly perpendicular to the symmetry datum. Though one ray might intersect a part surface at the extreme edge, the other ray(s) could just miss and shoot off into the air. This also happens at any cross-hole, flat, keyseat, or other interruption along the controlled feature(s). Obviously then, unopposed points on the surface(s), as depicted in Fig. 6 below, are exempt from symmetry control. Otherwise, it would be impossible for any feature to conform.
Parallel Planes on equal sides of a central datum plane. The median points of the symmetrical surfaces must all lie within this zone.
Datums for Symmetry Control Symmetry control requires a DRF (Datum Reference Frame). A primary datum plane or axis usually arrests the 3 or 4 degrees of freedom needed for symmetry control. All datum references shall be RFS (Regardless of Feature Size).
Symmetry Tolerance about a Datum Plane
In Fig 6, from any point on the datum plane between the controlled surfaces, two rays are projected perpendicular to the datum, 180° apart (colinear). The rays intersect the surfaces on either side of the datum. The midpoint between those two surface points shall be contained between two parallel planes, separated by a distance equal to the symmetry tolerance value. The two tolerance zone planes are equally disposed about (thus, parallel to) the datum plane. All midpoints shall conform for every possible origin point on the datum plane between the controlled surfaces. As the rays sweep, they generate a locus of midpoints subtly different from the derived median plane. The symmetry rays are perpendicular to the datum plane, while the derived median plane’s construction lines are perpendicular to the feature’s own center plane.
It’s not clear why the methods (for concentricity vs. symmetry) differ or whether the difference is ever significant. Symmetry tolerancing about a plane does not limit feature size, surface flatness, parallelism, or straightness of surface line elements. Again, the objective is that the part’s mass be equally distributed about the datum. Although a symmetry or concentricity tolerance provides little or no form control, it always accompanies a size dimension that provides some restriction on form deviation according to Rule #1.
According to ASME Y14.5M-1994, the Rule #1 decrees that: “Where only a tolerance of size is specified, the limits of size of an individual feature prescribe the extent to which variations in its form—as well as in its size—are allowed”
When is the Symmetry tolerance used?
When you want to make sure that the center plane of 2 symmetric features is always held exactly center AND has even form along the surface of the part. This symbol only has specific uses for mass balance and form distribution. However, in most cases it is better to avoid using it since this is a very difficult callout to measure and can easily be replaced with a Position tolerance.
Symmetry Tolerancing of Yore (Past Practice)= Until the 1994 edition, Y14.5 described concentricity tolerancing as an “axis” control, restraining a separate “axis” at each cross-section of the controlled feature. A definition was not provided for axis, nor was there any explanation of how a 2-dimensional imperfect shape (a circular cross-section) could even have such a thing. As soon as the Y14.5 Subcommittee defined the term feature axis, it realized 2 things about the feature axis:
1st- it’s what ordinary positional tolerance RFS (Regardless of Feature Size) controls, and 2nd-it has nothing to do with lopsidedness (balance).
From there, symmetry rays, median points, and worms evolved. The “Symmetry Tolerance” of the 1973 edition was exactly the same as positional tolerance applied to a noncylindrical feature RFS. (See the note at the bottom of Fig. 140 in that edition.) The 3-horizontal bars symbol was simply shorthand, saving draftsmen from having to draw circle-S symbols. Partly because of its redundancy, the “symmetry tolerance” symbol was cut from the 1982 edition.
When Do We Use a Symmetry Tolerance? Under any symmetry tolerance, a surface element on one “side” of the datum can “do anything it wants” just as long as the opposing element(s) mirrors it. This would appear to be useful for a rotating part that must be dynamically balanced. However, there are few such assemblies where GD&T alone can adequately control balance. More often, the assembly includes setscrews, keyseats, welds, or other attachments that entail a balancing operation after assembly. And ironically, a centerless ground shaft might have near-perfect dynamic balance, yet fail the concentricity tolerance because its out-of-roundness is 3-lobed.
Symmetry example of use: If you had a rotating U-Joint, a groove that needed to always have even balance, you would need to make sure that the mating part is always located to fall into the center of the groove and that the surface form is properly balanced. Instead of widening the groove causing the conncetion to be loose, you could constrain it with symmetry.
The part would then need to be measured to ensure that all the median points of the sides of the latch block are symmetrical about the central axis. The part would have to be measured in the following way:
- Measure the width and location of both sides of the block reference by datum A (40mm) and determine where the exact median plane is located to establish our tolerance zone.
- Side 1 and Side 2 of the part are scanned for their actual profiles
- Using a program, the median points of the Side 1 and Side 2 scans are laid over the virtual tolerance zone planes and determined if they are in tolerance.
Let’s see now some of the most frequent examples of use for symmetry tolerance:
Example 1. – Groove related to parallel surfaces
In FIG 8 a) The center plane of the groove is tolerated & the reference datum is the median plane of the parallel inner surfaces. The reference datum can be specified in 2 ways. Either as i) datum reference with the triangle on the dimension arrow and additional geometrical tolerances specified or as ii) separate designation of reference planes ‘equivalent with i), but without additional tolerances.
The simples way, is to specify the reference datum with the triangle on the dimension line of the feature of 50mm, the same as done when axes must be identified. The reference plane is then the middle plane of the 2 parallel planes that are free from outside play and free from constrains, for instance like the jaws of a test vise. The tolerated middle plane of the groove on the other hand is determined point by point by the opposite surfaces from the groove. All these points must lie between boundary planes at a distance of ±tsy/2 = ±0,1 from the reference plane.
Example 2. – Hole related to groove centers
In FIG 8 b) The reference plane is formed by the 2 grooves; but in this case coresponding problems appear the same as for common axes from 2 holes. The hole axis may deviate from the reference plane by up to ±0,02mm on both sides.
Example 3. – Cross hole (related to an axis) in a cone
In FIG 8 c) The tolerance zone is delimited by two planes at a distance of ±0.1mm from the axis of the cone, which can be rotated freely around the axis.The axis of the cross hole may therefore not pass the taper axis by more than tsy/2 = 0.1 mm.
Example 4. – Symmetry tolerance of a feather key
As shown in FIG 8 d) In order for a feather key to carry the load sufficiently equal, the groove must be parallel along the axis of the shaft extension and “align” with the axis in the cross section. Both deviations are included in the tolerance zone for symmetry. This tolerance can be rotated around the reference axis A. The central plane of the keyway may deviate from the axis direction by tsy = 0.03 mm in the longitudinal direction, while in the cross-section it can pass at a distance a from the reference axis by a maximum distance a on both sides.
Note 1: The parallelism to the axis is particularly important for the function of the feather key, while the distance a is unimportant. Any plastic deformation of the feather key in the vertical direction is also only determined by the symmetry tolerance tsy, but not by distance a. However in case that distance a is used, then it calculates itself sufficiently accurate as: a = tsy*r/ h
Note 2: For the feather key, simply specifying a parallelism tolerance is not enough, because this only affects the longitudinal direction and not the cross section. On the other hand, it can make sense to tolerate parallelism in addition to symmetry if the parallelism tolerance is smaller than the symmetry tolerance.
Special cases of symmetry tolerancing
Not all functional requirements can be covered with the means of DIN EN ISO 1101 alone, therefore it may be necessary to meaningfully transfer the standardized information. In doing so, we should always start from the tolerance zone and pay attention to clarity (if necessary, also by means of additional information). FIG 9 shows 3 such symmetry tolerance examples.
Example 5. – Intersection of 2 axes + the tolerance zone
In FIG 9 a) If the intersection is outside the toleranced hole, DIN EN ISO 1101 does not offer a solution. The reference axis A can be extended as desired, but the tolerated axis can only be extended over a projected tolerance zone. Since this is only an intersection point, the dimension marked with (P) (meaning Projected tolerance) for the length of the tolerance zone shrinks to 0 and is therefore not entered as a number (as a suggestion). Yet the tolerance zone is at the intersection of the axes, symmetrical to the reference axis A.
Example 6. – Cylindrical tolerance zone + the complete reference frame
In FIG 9 b) The ideal location for the hole is perpendicular to the main surface A and in the middle of the two pairs of outer surfaces B and C. In this location cylindrical tolerance zone is also possible – analogous to the position tolerance.
Example 7. – Alignment of 2 real surfaces
So far all examples of symmetry tolerance refered to exclusivelly derived form elements; yet in this example, the 2 involved elements are real surfaces. In FIG 9 c) The reference datum A is determined from the reference plane using the LMC (Least Material Condition). The tolerance zone delimited by 2 planes at a distance of ±0,05 mm, limits the location, the paralellism and the flatness of the tolerated surface. This tolerancing should NOT be applied if the median spacing of the surfaces is significantly bigger than the length of the reference elements. In general for such surfaces, preferably is used a Flatness tolerance on Common Zone (CZ).
Gauging / Measurement
As stated before, symmetry is very difficult to measure. Due to its tolerance zone being constrained to a virtual plane, you cannot have a gauge to properly measure this feature quickly. Usually, to measure symmetry, a CMM is set up to calculate the theoretical midpoint datum plane, measure the surfaces of both required surfaces, and then determine where the midpoints lie in reference to the datum plane. This is a complex and sometimes inaccurate method for determining if a part is symmetrical.
However the symmetry measurement can be done in 2 ways:
Using an analog caliper or micrometer to check the symmetry. This is useful for repeated measurements of single items thanks to its simple, quick usability. Both calipers and micrometers come in various types, which are selectively used depending on the location and form to be measured.
DISADVANTAGES = The accuracy of measured values and speed of measurement rely on the skill level of the operator in addition to the measurement error of the individual instrument. Furthermore, while size can be measured as these instruments measure the length between two points, geometric tolerance (form) is difficult to measure. Additionally, the measurement data needs to be handwritten for recordkeeping.
Using a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) – The reference element (plane) set-up and the deviation from the target element (plane) can be quickly and accurately measured by anyone just by putting the stylus on each measurement point.
The measurement result is recorded in the measuring machine.
Relation to other GD & T Symbols
Symmetry is the non-circular version of concentricity.
While concentricity really is a focus of symmetry around a datum axis, The Symmetry Symbol is a focus on symmetry over a datum plane. Both symbols focus on the theoretical center datum being constrained within a specific limit to ensure that the entire structure is uniform.
Symmetry should be avoided in most cases due to its specific functional requirements and measurement difficulty.
With flatness, parallelism and true position, you can locate the exact same constraints on the part, albeit with more callouts and measurements required. However since true position can be measured with a gauge (if MMC is used), and flatness is automatically controlled by the size dimension & directly measured off the surfaces, these can be controlled within a process and do not require timely CMM measurements.
FAQ: Could a note be added to modify the concentricity tolerance for a cylinder to 3-fold symmetry?
FAQ: Can I use a symmetry tolerance if the feature to be controlled is offset (not coaxial or coplanar) from the datum feature?
A: Nothing in the standard prohibits that, either. Be sure to add a basic dimension to specify the offset. You may also need 2 or even 3 datum references.
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Strong reasoning
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Science & Tech.
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Thursday, 22 January 2015
She was a film-star in the most glamorous era of
between the 1930s and 1950s, and was hyped by the MGM studio head Louis B.
Mayer as ‘the most beautiful
woman in the world’, but Hedy Lamarr was definitely not just a pretty face. Hedy earned her place on this blog because of her pioneering work on anti-torpedo
systems. Like Alan Turin, Hedy wanted to
use her flair for science and invention to help the US Navy in the anti-Nazi
war-effort of the 1940s. Alan Turin’s
achievement in developing pioneering computer systems to crack the Enigma code
is now well-known; largely thanks to the recent block-buster film The Imitation Game. Hollywood
Sadly for Hedy Lamarr and the US Navy, her ideas, though way ahead of their time, were not taken seriously, and were ignored during the war years. In fact she was advised by National Inventors’ Council that she would better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. How condescending!
Her ideas were finally taken up in the 1960s, and were implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Her invention concerned radio-controlled torpedoes, which were used by the Germans during World War II and wreaked havoc among the allies. She realised that it would be possible to send the destructive missiles off course by jamming the radio signals that were guiding them. The idea was to transmit interference at the same frequency as the missile guidance system.
In collaboration with the technologically-minded composer George Antheil, a friend and neighbour of Lamarr, she developed and patented the ingenious concept of ‘frequency-hopping’. This was partly inspired by Antheil’s musical know-how, and deployed a piano roll mechanism from a player-piano (aka Pianola) to change the frequency of the interference in an unpredictable way. The piano roll allowed them to use 88 different frequencies relating to the 88 keys on a piano: - too many frequencies for the enemy to scan.
Lamarr's talent for invention didn't stop with the frequency-hopping idea. She also came up with "bouillon" cubes designed to turn plain water into a Coke-like drink. Sadly this was a bit of a flop as it tasted disgusting. There was another idea for a "skin-tautening technique based on the principles of the accordion" which was no doubt inspired by the need to maintain her good looks for the sake of her movie career. This was a sad pre-shadowing of her disastrous experiences with plastic surgery, which left her disfigured and reluctant to leave the house at all in her later years.
Little is known about her early life and education in
and I wonder what it was that inspired her interest in technology. By the age
of seventeen she was already starring in her first film role, so she cannot
have had a huge amount of scientific education.
Maybe it had something to do with her first marriage to Friedrich Mandl,
who was chairman of a leading Austrian armaments company founded by his father.
Whatever the cause, her interest was more than just a passing fad. According to her biographer, Richard Rhodes, Austria
She set aside one room in her home, had a drafting table installed with the proper lighting, and the proper tools - had a whole wall in the room of engineering reference books
During her lifetime Hedy never received any recognition for her scientific ideas, and didn’t make a penny out of her frequency-hopping patent, which was signed over to the US Navy for free in the 60s. There has been a lot of interest in the patent in recent years, and Lamarr and Antheil were inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2014, 14 years after her death. The important legacy of their idea is that it helped to create a foundation for the current boom in IT and communications, such as Blue-tooth, CDMA and COFDM.
Thursday, 27 November 2014
Far below lies a snowy winter landscape with lights twinkling around the village green. Inside the houses the children have gone to bed but are too excited to get to sleep.
That is the traditional image, but it looks set to change. This year is going to be the biggest year yet for online Christmas shopping. It is convenient and easy, but it has led to a massive increase in road traffic as an army of independent delivery companies vie for the lucrative business. Most of the time the system works well. I live in the middle of nowhere, but the van drivers are happy to deliver to my door. On one or two occasions I have placed an online order at 9:00 in the evening, and been woken up at 8:00 the next morning as the parcel is delivered. That is great service.
Now online retail giant Amazon is upping the ante. It is already way too easy to purchase goods on Amazon, and they are dedicated to making it even easier for us customers and much more profitable for them. The latest idea is to replace the road-bound vans with a fleet of high-tech unmanned flying delivery drones.
The vision for the new service, called Amazon Prime Air, is to get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less, and Amazon wants to roll it out to all their customers worldwide as soon as possible. Unbelievable as it may sound, the technology to do this is not Science Fiction. It already exists, admittedly primarily for military purposes at present, and the biggest obstacles to bringing it online as a commercial enterprise will be to overcome security and safety issues and persuade governments and aviation authorities around the world to grant operating licences.
The drones are also known as SUAs, or Small, Unmanned Aircraft Systems. In the
Congress and the Federal Aviation Authority
want to see them integrated into the existing national airspace system and
operating commercially as soon as possible. Amazon has a research laboratory in USA, which is working
on turning the vision into reality. Seattle
According to Paul Misener, Amazon’s Vice President of Global Public Policy in an open letter to the FAA, advances made there over the last year include
According to Paul Misener, Amazon’s Vice President of Global Public Policy in an open letter to the FAA, advances made there over the last year include
- Testing a range of capabilities for our eighth and ninth generation aerial vehicles, including agility, flight duration, redundancy, and sense and avoid sensors and algorithms
- Developing aerial vehicles that travel over 50 miles per hour, and will carry 5 pound payloads, which cover 86% of products sold on Amazon
- Attracting a growing team of world-renowned roboticists, scientists, aeronautical engineers, remote sensing experts, and a former NASA astronaut.
Currently, due to FAA rules and regulations, Amazon Prime Air is limited to testing their drones indoors or outside of the
and they are seeking permission to have these rules relaxed. This is a bit worrying, given recent reports
I have seen in the USA
press of near-collisions and other dangerous encounters caused by drones. According to the US Post Washington
Since June 1, commercial airlines, private pilots and air-traffic controllers have alerted the FAA to 25 episodes in which small drones came within a few seconds or a few feet of crashing into much larger aircraft
Now Amazon is moving some or its Prime Air R&D operations to the
If you happen to be an experienced flight test engineer or a research scientist living in
area, there are job opportunities for you.
If you are an innocent passer-by: wear a safety helmet! Santa and his
reindeer are not the only air traffic that you are likely to encounter as you
stagger home from the pub on Christmas Eve. Cambridge
|Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!|
Thursday, 7 August 2014
What has Happened to the Bees?
There has been a lot of anxiety about bees lately. Rightly so, because, although they may look small and insignificant, the human race could not get on without them.
Bees are responsible for pollinating three quarters of the world’s most important crops, and now they are under threat. Back in the 1970s, bee-keepers around the world started to report that honey bees were abandoning their hives en masse, for no apparent reason.
From 2006 this phenomenon, now know as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, started to increase at a truly alarming rate. North America and the
especially badly affected. UK
With a fast-growing human population world-wide, it is becoming increasingly challenging to find ways to feed everybody. If the bees were to disappear, things would get even worse; the crops would not be pollinated, and soon there would be no fruit and vegetables. As things stand at the moment, we have no feasible man-made solution to replace or replicate what the pollinating insects do for us. With current technology, it is estimated that it would cost
£1.8 billion a year to pollinate their crop without bees. UK
Some Amazing Facts About Bees
- Honey bees must visit some 2 million flowers and travel 55,000 miles to make one pound of honey
- The average honey bee flies between 12 and 15 miles per hour and flaps its wings about 12,000 times per minute
- Bees are sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field and can use it
to navigate between nectar sources and the hive
- Bees communicate with one another using a complex language based on dancing waggling and shaking. Using these movements honey bee scouts can report back to the rest of the hive about the exact location of the best nectar sources, giving directions accurate to within 15 feet
Causes of Colony Collapse Disorder
Theories about the cause of CCD abound, and include parasites, GM crops, insecticides and radiation, but the truth is that nobody truly understands the cause, and until we do, we cannot be sure how to stop it happening. The most likely culprit for the phenomenon is the proliferation of intensive farming methods, especially the use of certain pesticides. According to the Soil Association:-
There is strong evidence that neonicotinoids – a class of pesticide first used in agriculture in the mid 1990s at exactly the time when mass bee disappearances started occurring – are involved in the deaths. Another major factor is intensive agriculture – monoculture's and the widespread use of pesticide and herbicide contribute to a loss of habitat and food for bees.
Some Practical Things we Can All do to Help the Bees and Combat CCD
You don’t have to be a farmer to make a difference: you can use bee-friendly, organic techniques in your own garden. For example, try and create bio-diversity by planting a wide variety of flowers, trees and shrubs: the greater the variety the better! Don’t be too tidy: leave wild flowering plants in place. Many so-called ‘weeds’, provide an important source of late season winter food for bees. You could even plant a specific garden for bees, including flowers like rosemary, geraniums, lavender, poppies and sunflowers. It goes without saying that the most important thing you can do is to avoid the use of pesticides in your garden.
There is a ray of hope on the horizon. I am a keen plants woman, and spend a lot of time out of doors in my own garden and on my allotment, and although this is not a hard, scientifically demonstrable fact, this summer I have noticed a distinct increase in the local bee population. Here in the
we have just experienced a
couple of years of warm summers and mild winters. Maybe this is only a local
phenomenon, but it is likely that the recent good weather is one factor that has played its part in
helping the bees. The whole truth is likely to prove a whole lot more complicated. We have been relying on bees, cultivating and studying them for hundreds of years, but there is still a lot for us to learn about CCD and the fascinating life of the hive. UK
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
The World’s Fair of 1964 was a spectacular showcase of mid-twentieth Century culture and technology, and the third such event to be held in the city of
It ran for two six-month seasons, April–October 1964 and April-October 1965.
Admission cost $2 for adults and $1 for children. 1964 was the height of the
Cold War between East and West, and so it was fitting that the theme of the
Fair was ‘Peace through Understanding’. It also came at a time in the history
of the New York
when the economy was booming, post-war consumerism was on the up and up, the
Space Race was just getting off the starting blocks, and US citizens were
hungry for consumer goods, technology and gadgetry. More than 51 million people attended the fair,
and one of them was the author Isaac Asimov. US
|The World's Fair, 1964|
Asimov was a professor of biochemistry at
, and a
successful and popular author, who in his lifetime wrote over five hundred
books. He was best known for his science
fiction works including the Foundation
and Robot Series, and for his
influential ideas about the future of society. Boston
For the purposes of this blog, I think we can safely say that qualifies him as a Geek.
On August 16, 1964 the New York Times published an article by him based on his visit, called Visit to the World’s Fair of 1964, in which he makes some interesting predictions about the year 2014. His predictions were largely inspired by the General Electric Pavilion, which had exhibits showing what life was like in 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960. They got him wondering how things would be another fifty years in the future, in 2014. It is now 2014; we are living in the future imagined by Isaac Asimov. What was his vision and did he get it right?
1. The Home Environment
His first prediction was a general withdrawal from Nature, with mankind using technology to manipulate the environment to suit himself. He thought that houses would be built underground to protect them from the vicissitudes of the weather; pollution could be filtered out, and the temperature and light levels would be artificially controlled. The inhabitants of 2014, he thought, would be freed from tedious routine jobs by machines and household gadgetry, including a fully-automated kitchen that would prepare all your food for you. Hmm, well, I do have some gadgets in my kitchen, like a dishwasher and a Magimix, but I am not entirely sure that they are actually labour-saving devices, and my 21st Century life is definitely not free from household drudgery.
2. Robots and Computers
I think I probably have a better chance at training my feckless better half to do something useful than of getting a household robot. Robots would be around, Asimov thought, but he predicted they would not be very good or very common. He was right there: think about lawn-mowing robots and the production line in a 21st Century car factory, for instance. He noted that IBM had a stand dedicated to computers, and rightly speculated that in the future they would be much smarter and much smaller.
I would give him full marks for saying that increased use of high-performance batteries will mean that electrical appliances will not need electric cords. Tick! Energy: fusion power would still a long way off, he correctly thought. He was also correct in predicting the increasing importance of solar power, imagining large solar power stations springing up in desert and semi-desert regions such as
Arizona, the Negev and Kazakhstan.
Regarding transportation, he did not quite get it right. He envisaged that the car and other wheel-based modes of transport would be gradually phased out, and that the vehicles of 2014 would hover above the land or the sea, making traffic snarl-ups a thing of the past. If only he had been right on that one, my rush-hour commute to work would be a lot easier and would feature robot-driven cars and moving sidewalks. In 2014 compressed air tubes would carry goods and materials over local stretches, he said. Has Amazon thought of this one yet? Last thing I heard they were contemplating unmanned drones for their parcel delivery system, a truly terrifying prospect!
He had a glimpse of the power and proliferation of mobile devices, predicting that phones will be visual as well as audio, and that people will be able to use their phone screen for reading books, studying documents and viewing photos as well as for tele-visual phone calls. Nice one Isaac. He thought we would be able to use the new-style phones to contact the colonies on the moon: wrong! Although, to be fair, if the US space program had continued with its lunar exploration and gone on to create colonies there, I am pretty sure we would have found a way to use our mobile phones to keep in touch with them.
6. Population Growth
He was right to predict that there would be a huge increase in world population levels (from around three billion in 1964 to well over seven billion today) but wrongly thought that this would force mankind to seek to colonise desert and polar regions, even under the oceans.
7. Social Inequality
He correctly predicted that the advanced technology of 2014 would not be available to most of the world’s poorer inhabitants. In his own words:
Although technology will still keep up with population through 2014, it will be only through a supreme effort and with but partial success. Not all the world's population will enjoy the gadgetry world of the future to the full. A larger portion than today will be deprived and although they may be better off, materially, than today, they will be further behind when compared with the advanced portions of the world.
8. The Rise of Technology
He thought that technology would be so important that it would become the most important subject of study in schools:
Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction. Part of the General Electric exhibit today consists of a school of the future in which such present realities as closed-circuit TV and programmed tapes aid the teaching process. It is not only the techniques of teaching that will advance, however, but also the subject matter that will change. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation").
He was right: technology is given pre-eminence in our schools, but I think he failed to see how easy it would be to use computer technology. For many of us it has become a fundamental and indispensable part of our everyday lives, even though most of us have not the slightest inkling about binary arithmetic or computer language such as FORTRAN.
9. Enforced Leisure and Boredom
His greatest concern was that all that technology would make the people of the future unhealthy, lazy and bored:
Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
Indeed, the most sombre speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!
Sorry Isaac; I can’t agree with you there: I have plenty of things to do with my leisure time that have nothing to do with robots, computers or gadgets, and there is still a lot more to 21st Century life than machine–tending, though I must admit I spend a lot of time worrying about keeping my Smartphone, Kindle and camera batteries charged up.
Nor did he predict the social and creative aspects of computer technology. Think about all those social networks, all that photo-shopping, blogging and sharing: today we are obsessed with journalising, photographing, commenting, tweeting and sharing our lives, and today there are more outlets for human creativity than ever. I must say, he was dead right about the predominance of psychiatric medicine, though happily this is more because of increased awareness of the importance of mental and emotional well-being than because of boredom.
Thursday, 17 April 2014
The Gaia Hypothesis was based on Lovelock's own ideas and observations, but was originally lacking a thorough scientific explanation. Times change however, and these days it is a different story. By the time of the second Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis, held at
in June 2000, concerns about environmental and ecological issues looming large, Lovelock's ideas were being taken more seriously, and there was a huge interest in the developing science of Bio-geophysiology. Spain
|The Earth seen from Apollo 17|
Think about it: Hurricane Katrina, Tsunamis, the Fukushima Disaster, flooding in the
droughts, the melting of the Polar ice-caps, El Nino, the mudslide in . Global warming, climate change, rises in
ocean levels and the increasing frequency of terrifying extreme weather events
in recent years mean that there is now an urgent need to seriously, scientifically and holistically address issues of climate
change, environmental destruction and global pollution. We have all been forced
to think more deeply about our home planet and how human intervention is
affecting the global environment. Gaia Hypothesis and its holistic approach to thinking about the Earth is now being taken extremely
seriously and is used in subjects such as geophysiology, Earth system
science, biogeochemistry, systems ecology, and climate science. Washington State
Lovelock’s huge contribution to science has been widely recognised and rewarded. As well as being created Companion of Honour and Commander of the Order of the
he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974 and in 2006 the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock its highest honour, the Wollaston
Medal, largely for his work on the Gaia theory.
You can learn more about Lovelock and his
pioneering ideas at the
Science Museum in . This year (April 2014 – April 2015) they are
staging an exhibition about him. Among
the highlights of the exhibition, called Unlocking Lovelock, are his laboratory notebooks, drafts of
his papers and equipment from the laboratory in his back garden, where some of
his most important work was done. The exhibition also features tools used by
Lovelock to build many of his inventions, including a watchmaker’s lathe and
the home-made gas chromatography equipment that journeyed to the Antarctic and
back and proved crucial to scientists’ current understanding of global
atmospheric pollution. London
Books About Gaia by James Lovelock
1979 Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
1988 The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth
1991 Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine,
2000 Homage to Gaia : The Life of an Independent Scientist (Independent Voices)
2006 Medicine for an Ailing Planet
2007 The Revenge of Gaia
2010 The Vanishing Face of Gaia: a Final Warning
2014 A Rough Ride to the Future
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
If you have never heard of it before this mathematical curiosity will blow your mind.To be quite honest though, maybe it only blew MY mind because of my lamentable lack of spatial awareness. Being a typical girl, I cannot parallel park and I cannot turn a cartwheel. (Though now in my 50s I am a rather elderly girl and have pretty much given up on that one). I must also admit that, as a student, I was no mathematical genius. Always more of a words than a numbers person, I only managed to scrape a reasonable GCSE grade thanks to the unbelievable patience and remedial efforts of my lovely maths teacher Miss Williams. Nearly 40 years ago she had the dubious honour of trying to instill a basic grasp of the rudiments of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry into my thick skull, and she is still receiving therapy for that today. That poor woman deserves a medal.
|Mobius Strip with Ants, by Escher|
Nonetheless, although I am no mathematician, I can safely say I am a true Geek. That is to say, I am curious about the world around me and take a keen interest in all sorts of subjects, whether or not I am any good at them. I was reminded of this intriguing phenomenon just last week when the cold English winter drove me out to the shops to look for a cosy winter scarf, and I found one in the form of a Mobius Strip. The paradox of the Mobius Strip made a big impression on me when I first learned about it, and I hope you will find it interesting too.
Sometimes also known as the Mobius band, the Mobius Strip was discovered in 1858 by August Ferdinand Möbius and also (coincidentally and independently) by Johann Benedict Listing, both German mathematicians. Like many of the best ideas, the basic concept is simple, and childishly easy to demonstrate. By the way, for anyone with young kids, this is a good way to get them interested in mathematics. It’s never too early to start training a Geek!
All you need to do this is some paper and glue or sticky tape. Start by making a long paper strip: it doesn’t particularly matter how long or how wide you make it, but say 5 cm wide by 30 cm long, for example. Now take your glue or a bit of sticky tape. You are going to stick the two ends together, but before you do that, just put a half-twist in the band of paper, et voila! You have a Mobius strip.
By introducing that simple half-twist you will find that your two-sided strip of paper has now miraculously become a single-sided strip. It is no longer possible to take two coloured pencils and colour the strip differently on either side. Don’t believe me? Just try it. Now you have made your Mobius strip, you can start playing.
Some Mobius Strip Experiments
Now take a pair of scissors and cut along the middle of your Mobius strip lengthways, along the line you have just drawn. You will find that is stays in one piece, twice as long as the original.
Draw a new line on your strip, about a third along its width. Once again, you will find the line eventually joins up to the point you started from.
Now cut along your newly drawn line. What do you think is going to happen? I bet you didn’t guess that you would end up with two linked loops!
Mobius Strips in Literature
If you enjoy reading classic American authors and humorists like Mark Twain, Damon Runyon and Bill Bryson you should check out William Hazlett Upson. Back in the 1940s and 1950s he wrote a series of short stories for the Saturday Evening Post newspaper about Alexander Botts, a salesman for the Earthworm Tractor Company. In A Botts and the Mobius Strip the eponymous hero thwarts his boss by restitching a factory conveyor belt into the form of a Mobius Strip, thus preventing the outside of the belt from being painted a different colour from the inside. TBH, I have not actually read this yet. I got as far as visiting the Amazon store, and found a copy of the Alexander Botts Earthwork Tractors collection priced at £1,539.65. I was naively hoping for a free download for my Kindle, but no such luck!
Moving to the world of Sci-Fi, in The Wall of Darkness by Arthur C Clarke, the universe is re-imagined as a Mobius Strip, and in A Subway Named Mobius by AJ Deutsch the Boston underground network becomes so huge and complex that the system starts to behave according to some mysterious mathematical principles, causing trains to disappear. Also worthy of mention in this context are John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse, Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift, and the movie Donnie Darko.
Finally, a Mobius Strip Joke
Why did the chicken cross the Mobius Strip? To get to the same side, of course.
FootNote: Some Related phenomena for you to Google and introduce in your geeky maths lessons:-
Thursday, 9 January 2014
He was a mathematical genius and computer science pioneer, but also a gay British man back in the days when homosexuality was against the law. Tragically, publicly humiliated after a criminal conviction, and suffering from deep depression, he committed suicide on June 7, 1954 at the age of 41. On that day one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century, a patriot who had played a key role in defeating the Nazis and saving thousands of lives in the Second World War, was lost forever.
Who was he? To be honest, twenty years ago I would probably not have heard of him myself, but today he is one of my heroes. In case you have been living on a desert island for the last ten years, perhaps I should mention that I am talking about Alan Turing, Englishman, a mathematics professor, a World War II code-breaker, and a pioneer of computer science.
In the 1930s
worked at Cambridge University in the UK
and at Princeton University
in the .
At this time he developed the idea for a proto-computer known as a Turing
Machine, a hypothetical device not intended for practical use, but which was
key to helping computer scientists understand the possibilities of mechanical
His knowledge and love of mathematics led to a fascination with cryptography, and he was recruited to work part-time for the British Secret Service at the Government Code and
. During the war he became a key member
of staff at the top-secret Cypher School establishment, and led
the team that in 1939 developed the code-breaking electro-mechanical machine
known as Bombe. Bletchley
|The Bombe Code-Breaker|
This invention gave the British government an enormous advantage over
and the Axis relatively early on in the war. The German military establishment
was using an ingenious machine called Enigma to encrypt their military
So confident were they that the Enigma Code could not be broken, they used it for all sorts of communications on the battlefield, at sea, in the sky and, significantly, within their secret services. In fact, thanks to Turing’s Bombe, the British were able to read and understand these vital messages; an advantage which is thought to have shortened hostilities by years, and saved may lives.
He later played a vital role in the development of Colossus, the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computer, which was designed by engineer Tommy Flower, and also used by the
code-breakers. Bletchley Park
The British Official Secrets Act meant the Alan Turing and
story was kept under
wraps until many years later. At the end of the war, much of the Bombe and Colossus equipment and their blueprints was destroyed on
Winston Churchill’s orders. It was only in the 1970s that its work was finally made
public. In fact, during the Second World
Park Bletchley Park,
near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, was the site of the 's
main decryption establishment. United Kingdom
The people who worked there all signed the Official Secrets Act, swearing never to talk about the site and the sensitive intelligence activities which were planned there, and most of them took the secret to the grave. At the time, to most of the staff it was simply known as ‘BP’, although the Wrens (Women's Royal Naval Service personnel) stationed there referred to it as HMS Pembroke V. These days
Bletchley Park has
been turned into a museum, but one of its cover names, Government
Communications Headquarters, still lives on in the present-day British
intelligence centre GCHQ at Cheltenham.
The Post-War Era
In the years following the war Turing's security clearance was withdrawn: homosexuals were considered a bad security risk as they were vulnerable to blackmail, so he could no longer work for British Intelligence. Eventually, in 1952, he was arrested and tried for homosexuality, then a criminal offence. To avoid prison, he submitted to a year-long regime of oestrogen injections, a process popularly known as ‘chemical castration’, which was intended to neutralise his libido.
Then the tide began to turn. Social attitudes changed over time, gradually becoming more liberal. The law against homosexual acts in the
was repealed in 1967 by
The Sexual Offences Act. Late in 2013 Alan Turing
received an official royal pardon. That is fine as far as it goes, but
since homosexuality is no longer an offence, why should he be pardoned?
Surely it would be far more appropriate if Alan Turing’s family, friends and
supporters could find it in their hearts to pardon the British government for
unjustly criminalising him in the first place! UK
Sir Alan Turing?
I know, I know, the ‘royal pardon’ is a legal formality, and maybe it does have a value in publicly ‘wiping the slate clean’. I am only happy that we now live in a more open and enlightened society where people are not marginalised, hounded and barred from fully participating in society due to their colour, creed, gender or sexual orientation. That’s the theory, anyway.
Now, not content with the pardon alone, many of Alan Turing’s admirers and supporters are now campaigning for him to be given a posthumous knighthood. Many years ago I worked as an Analyst Programmer, and Alan Turing is the most inspiring role model I can think of for anyone working in IT. Since 1966, the Turing Award has been given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery for technical or theoretical contributions to the computing community. It is widely considered to be the computing world's highest honour, equivalent to the Nobel Prize. I am very proud to include him here in my roll-call of honorary Geeks.
Benedict Cumberbatch will play the role of Alan Turing in a forthcoming bio-pic called The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum with screenplay by Graham Moore, due to be released in 2014.
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New-style classes were introduced to Python with the release of Python 2.2. And with these new-style classes came descriptors and properties. This article will introduce the descriptor protocol, descriptors, and properties.
New-style classes were introduced to Python with the release of Python 2.2. A new-style class is any class that is derived from the object base class. New-style classes give Python programmers many new (and initially confusing) features. One such feature is the descriptor protocol, and more specifically descriptors themselves.
Descriptors give Python programmers the ability to easily and efficiently create “managed attributes”. Managed attributes can be thought of as attributes that are not accessed directly. Instead their access is “managed” by something else, generally a class or a function.
If you haven’t come across this before you are probably wondering why one would want to manage attribute access? One reason might be that you don’t want people to be able to delete the attribute. Another reason may be that you need to ensure that your attribute data is always valid. Or perhaps attribute x is based on attribute y, so every time the value of y changes you want to update the value of x. From these few examples you can see the many possible cases where you might want to control access to certain attributes.
For those of you familiar with other programming languages, this type of access is often referred to as “getters and setters”. In many language, implementing “getters and setters” means using private variables and public functions that get and set the variable’s value. Since Python doesn’t (really) have private variables, the descriptor protocol is basically a built-in and Python-ic way to way to achieve something similar.
This article will introduce you to the descriptor protocol, descriptors, and properties. It will focus on demonstrating how to use them to create managed attributes. Since the descriptor protocol requires new-style classes, all of the examples in this article require Python 2.2 or newer.
I just wanted to re-point out the fact that there are some forums associated with this blog. There’s not much happening there, and recently they have become a haven for spammers, but I’m trying to clean them up and if other Python programmers read this blog maybe the forums could actually become useful!
GUI programming, like many other types of programming, can sometimes prove exhausting because you must repeat yourself over and over again. AVC is one tool available to Python GUI programmers that attempts to simplify things by synchronizing application data and GUI widgets.
Every once in a while I find myself browsing the Internet trying to find out what’s new and exciting in the Python world. Sometimes I browse to find topics for this article; other times mere curiosity draws me across the web. While I was browsing the other day, I stumbled across AVC: the Application View Controller. I was immediately intrigued by it because its’ name is so similar to the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern. Being familiar with the Model View Controller pattern, and admittedly having struggles with it in the past, I decided to check out AVC to determine if it might be a viable alternative.
After reading about AVC I was intrigued for several reasons. The main reason was the promise of “a multiplatform, fully automatic, live connection among graphical interface widgets and application variables.” This means that graphical widgets can be connected to variables and automatically synchronized. One of the (many?) problems with Graphical User Interface (GUI) programming is that you often find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. One of the things that you end of doing over and over again is setting the contents of a widget based on the value of a variable, and then subsequently, setting that variable’s value based on the current state of the widget. Whenever someone promises me an automatic connection between GUI widgets and my variables, I’m interested.
Edit: Due to popular demand (well a couple of comments) I’ve decided to allow multiple answers to the poll. This should make everyone that uses two versions happy.
With two major versions of Python available to us Python programmers (2.X and 3.X) I thought it would be interesting to see which version the readers of this blog are using and targeting.
Personally I’m still using 2.5 on my Debian box because it’s the default, and 2.6 on my Windows PC. While I have used 3.X and have it installed, I’ve remained on the 2.X branch largely because many of the modules that I play around with are still focused on the 2.X branch so that’s where my focus has remained.
I voted 2.5 since I do that majority of my programing on my Debian box. So now what about you:
Which version of Python do you use?
2.6 (65%, 700 Votes)
3.1 (17%, 187 Votes)
2.5 (17%, 182 Votes)
2.7 (4%, 48 Votes)
2.4 (3%, 32 Votes)
3.0 (2%, 20 Votes)
2.3 (0%, 5 Votes)
2.1 (0%, 3 Votes)
1.5 (0%, 2 Votes)
2.2 (0%, 1 Votes)
2.0 (0%, 1 Votes)
1.6 (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,084
If you want to explain your choice leave a comment below.
Over the past few years Google has expanded it’s services beyond those of a normal search engine. One of those new services is the Google Calendar. This article will provide an introduction to working with the Google Calendar using Python.
As many of you know, Google has branched out and started offering more services besides their ubiquitous search engine. You have email, calendars, documents, spreadsheets, photos, maps, videos, source code hosting, and the list goes on. Fortunately for us Python programmers, Google released the Google data Python Client Library on March 26th, 2007, giving Python programmers easy access to some of these services.
Of all the tasks assigned to programmers, commenting code and writing documentation are among the most disliked. This article introduces you to Python’s documentation strings. While they won’t make commenting your code any more enjoyable, they will provide a systematic approach to doing it, as well as access to additional tools for documentation generation and testing.
Iterators, iterables, and generators are features handled so wall by Python that people programming in other languages cannot help but drool over. Fortunately for us, creating iterators, iterables and generators is a relatively simple task. This article introduces the concepts of iterators, iterables, and generators and illustrates how easy it is to add them to your code.
So just to prove that I’m a masochist and that the Dodger Editor is not dead (even though I don’t think that anyone has been using it) I thought I’d post a quick update. No the editor is not dead and no neither am I.
I’m still writing for Python Magazine and working on the editor in some of the free time that I get. I just added a selection cursor mode to the editor which makes it easier for me to use. You can see it in the second row of the pallet in the following screen shot.
If anyone is at all interested in this project, whether it’s using or helping to develop, or just some suggestions please let me know. I’m always open to opinions. If I get the time I’d like to work on a short post showing you how you can use the Dodger Editor to create the level files for a game, when that will be I don’t know but hopefully soon.
It’s been a long time since I worked on TextWidget at all, but since someone posted a question about it I decided to fix the issue and re-release the source. But since I didn’t want to simply update the blog post I decided to give the project a proper home on google code: http://code.google.com/p/textwidget/
The project is really simple and meant as an easy way for you to create “text buttons” for your PyGame projects. It’s not meant to be the definitive way to do this, just a simple solution for people that just want to drop a class in and have working “text buttons”. It’s LGPL so you can use it in whatever way you want. If you do decide to use it please drop me an email and let me know.
For more information on how to use the project please take a look at the initial blog post.
Note: This article was first published the December 2007 issue of Python Magazine
While the command line will never cease to be useful, nothing will impress your friends more than your latest python masterpiece wrapped up in a slick cross-platform Graphical User Interface (GUI). This tutorial will show you how to create a simple GUI in Python using PyQt4.
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Software Dev.
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Scientists have explained that color does not exist though we perceive it, rooted in our own limited physicality. Einstein’s “Spooky Action At A Distance” and recent discoveries in quantum physics further confirm that our perceptions of reality are not reality itself. Is reality really interpretive?
I believe that Socrates [Plato?], in the Phaedo, points out the root of the confusion here. Socrates explores the very different questions ‘how’ and ‘why’. Thus if someone asks ‘why’ Socrates is sitting in a prison cell, the answer cannot be (paraphrasing) because his body is made in such a way that it bends at the joints and thus rests in a sitting pose. That is ‘how’ he sits. The answer to ‘why’ he sits: Socrates rejected a chance to escape prison and flee to another city. He chose to honor his social contract with Athens, and drink the hemlock. Similarly, if asked why I write to you, I cannot say, “by typing on my computer.”
Materialistic science (and not science in general) seeks to conflate the ‘how’ and ‘why’ question, in a clear attack on any form of metaphysical teleology. Thus in answer to, “Why is the sky blue?”, one explains ‘how’ the sky is blue.
If for the sake of argument, we hypothetically restore teleology and assume a creator, then atmospheric science, qua atmospheric science, has no idea whatsoever as to why the sky is blue. Scientists only know how the sky is blue. Let us consider a further example.
Consider a painting by Renoir. Who understands it best — an accomplished art historian or a paint chemist? The paint chemist may claim that the ‘colors’ on the canvas are actually a bunch of molecules with no color at all. But in fact, the painting is teleological: Renoir wanted it to look a certain way to the eye of a worthy observer. Thus rather than subordinating consciousness to dead matter and claiming that paint chemistry tells us more about Renoir than the art historian, we may privilege developed consciousness over dead matter and say that the colors, textures, shapes, and composition on the canvas are the whole purpose of the painting. On this view, the conscious experience of the art is the highest meaning and reality of the painting.
By analogy, Krishna/God makes the sky blue as a work of art. The blue color exists in a single seamless experience composed of observer, observed, and act-of-observation. To claim otherwise is to radically subordinate living consciousness to dead matter, an act that will struggle to find a serious philosophical justification.
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I am Dr. Mahesh Pandey. I am a Hematologist and Oncologist at St. Mary’s. I shall be writing about the new exciting developments in cancer treatment. While cancer care remains a big challenge, new developments in diagnosis and treatment have changed the course of some diseases. Better understanding of disease mechanisms and developments of targets to treat changes that are responsible for development of a cancer has led to some breakthrough developments.
One such treatment is the medication Gleevec or Imatinib. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a cancer of the white cells in which the cells in different stages of development pack up the bone marrow and cause a high white blood cell count, enlarge the spleen, give the sensation of being full after eating small amounts of food, and weight loss. This starts as a gradual disease but untreated, goes into a rapidly progressive phase and eventually transforms into an acute leukemia.
Traditionally the only treatment known for this disease was a bone marrow transplantation, which even in healthy young adults has a death rate of 15%. Additionally, there are longstanding complications even after a successful transplantation. The chemotherapy that was used to treat this disease had a lot of side effects. It was toxic and only palliated this disease for a while and eventually the disease took its course. Another treatment called hydroxyurea only controlled the white cells for a while but did not change the course of the disease at all.
In 1960, a genetic abnormality called Philadelphia chromosome was discovered by Peter Novell in the city of Philadelphia (thus the name of this chromosome) in this disease. The Philadelphia chromosome occurs when a broken piece chromosome number 9 joins with a broken piece of chromosome number 22 and causes uncontrolled proliferation of white cells.
Initially treatment of cancers was focused on treatment of the different stages of the cell cycle. As new chemotherapy agents known to target different stages of cell cycle, attempts were then made to combine chemotherapies that targeted growth of cancer cells at different stages of the cell cycle. Some rapidly growing cancers such as ALL in children, testicular cancer and some aggressive lymphomas can be treated with curative intent with a multi-agent chemotherapy regimen, and the idea was that the different chemotherapy agents each attack the cancer cells at a different stage of cell growth and were able to kill the cancer cells completely in these different diseases and we the cancer could be cured. This approach does not work in majority of cancers since in most cancers only some cells are in the actively dividing phase and most of the cancer cells are in the dormant phase, so chemotherapy is not completely effective. In lymphomas or testicular cancer vast majority of the cells are rapidly dividing so chemotherapy is highly effective.
Now, we are in a new era of targeted therapy. Even though we have known about the Philadelphia chromosome since the 60s, a drug to target the changes caused by Philadelphia chromosome wasn’t discovered until the 1990s. That drug, called Gleevec won FDA approval in 2001. Now, patients with CML that have the Philadelphia chromosome, can be successfully treated. Studies have shown the Gleevec not only normalizes blood count and spleen size, but the changes caused by the Philadelphia chromosome can be removed from the bone marrow (so called molecular response or cytogenetic response). With just the use of Gleevec, patients with CML are now living normal lives. At this point we do not know how long people should stay on the drug but the current standard of care is to maintain patients on Gleevec indefinitely. In terms of side effects, they include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, swelling, and skin rash. In general, Gleevec is very well tolerated and the side effects are manageable. The only caveat is that 5% of patients with CML do not have the Philadelphia chromosome and, therefore, cannot be treated with Gleevec.
With development of one target Gleevec, better targets against the Philadelphia chromosome have been developed such as new sister drugs Dasatanib and Nilotinib. Now we have more targeted treatment in our arsenal against what was previously thought to be the fatal disease chronic myeloid leukemia.
Gleevec can also act against certain targets on a rare cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor or GIST. GIST is known to be a fatal disease if untreated. In its localized form surgery is curative, but in high risks cases, Gleevec adds to the curative intent when used for a year after surgery. In patients where GIST has spread, Gleevec is known to shrink the disease considerably and often completely. Although not curative, it has provided patients with some longevity and quality of life.
Stay tuned for more exciting developments in treatment of cancer.
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Peel And Stick
Peel And Stick was posted at October 16, 2017 at 5:46 am. It is uploaded under the Floor category. Peel And Stick is tagged with Peel And Stick, Peel, And, Stick..
Peelpeel1 (pēl),USA pronunciation v.t.
- to strip (something) of its skin, rind, bark, etc.: to peel an orange.
- to strip (the skin, rind, bark, paint, etc.) from something: to peel paint from a car.
- [Croquet.]to cause (another player's ball) to go through a wicket.
- (of skin, bark, paint, etc.) to come off;
- to lose the skin, rind, bark, paint, etc.
- to undress.
- (of a malleable iron casting) to lose, or tend to lose, the outer layer.
- keep one's eyes peeled, [Informal.]to watch closely or carefully;
be alert: Keep your eyes peeled for a gas station.
- peel off:
- to remove (the skin, bark, etc.) or be removed: The old skin peeled off.
- [Aeron.]to leave a flying formation of aircraft with a banking turn, usually from one end of an echelon.
- [Informal.]to turn off or leave (a road): We peeled off the highway onto a dirt road.
- to remove (clothing) in a swift upward or downward motion.
- the skin or rind of a fruit, vegetable, etc.
- the presence of a brittle outer layer on a malleable iron casting.
Andand (and; unstressed ənd, ən, or, esp. after a homorganic consonant, n),USA pronunciation conj.
- (used to connect grammatically coordinate words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with;
as well as;
in addition to;
moreover: pens and pencils.
- added to;
plus: 2 and 2 are 4.
- then: He read for an hour and went to bed.
- also, at the same time: to sleep and dream.
- then again;
repeatedly: He coughed and coughed.
- (used to imply different qualities in things having the same name): There are bargains and bargains, so watch out.
- (used to introduce a sentence, implying continuation) also;
then: And then it happened.
- [Informal.]to (used between two finite verbs): Try and do it. Call and see if she's home yet.
- (used to introduce a consequence or conditional result): He felt sick and decided to lie down for a while. Say one more word about it and I'll scream.
on the contrary: He tried to run five miles and couldn't. They said they were about to leave and then stayed for two more hours.
- (used to connect alternatives): He felt that he was being forced to choose between his career and his family.
- (used to introduce a comment on the preceding clause): They don't like each other--and with good reason.
- [Archaic.]if: and you please.Cf. an2.
- and so forth, and the like;
et cetera: We discussed traveling, sightseeing, and so forth.
- and so on, and more things or others of a similar kind;
and the like: It was a summer filled with parties, picnics, and so on.
- an added condition, stipulation, detail, or particular: He accepted the job, no ands or buts about it.
- conjunction (def. 5b).
Stickstick1 (stik),USA pronunciation n., v., sticked, stick•ing.
- a branch or shoot of a tree or shrub that has been cut or broken off.
- a relatively long and slender piece of wood.
- a long piece of wood for use as fuel, in carpentry, etc.
- a rod or wand.
- a baton.
- [Chiefly Brit.]a walking stick or cane.
- a club or cudgel.
- something that serves to goad or coerce: The threat of unemployment was the stick that kept the workers toiling overtime.Cf. carrot (def. 3).
- a long, slender piece or part of anything: a stick of candy; sticks of celery.
- any of four equal parts in a pound of butter or margarine.
- an implement used to drive or propel a ball or puck, as a crosse or a hockey stick.
- a lever, usually with a handle, by which the longitudinal and lateral motions of an airplane are controlled.
- a mast or spar.
- See composing stick.
- the sticks, any region distant from cities or towns, as rural districts;
the country: Having lived in a large city all his life, he found it hard to adjust to the sticks.
- a group of bombs so arranged as to be released in a row across a target.
- the bomb load.
- See stick shift.
- a marijuana cigarette.
- an unenthusiastic or uninteresting person.
- a portion of liquor, as brandy, added to a nonalcoholic drink.
- short or dirty end of the stick, the least desirable assignment, decision, or part of an arrangement.
- to furnish (a plant, vine, etc.) with a stick or sticks in order to prop or support.
- to set (type) in a composing stick.
Peel And Stick have 7 images it's including 2.6' X 2.3' Peel And Stick 3D Wall Panels White Brick Wallpaper For TV, Peel&Stick Mosaics Grey Mist Linear Mosaic Composite Wall Tile, A17014P6 - Art3d Peel And Stick Kitchen Backsplash Tile 12in X 12in Pack Of 6 Sheets, Peel And Stick Brown Tiles For Bathroom Floor, Bathroom Ideas, Flooring, Tile Flooring, A17026P6 - Peel And Stick Backsplash Tiles Vinyl Kitchen Backsplash Sticker, 12, Trailer Remodel With Peel-and-Stick Vinyl Flooring, Nu 18' X 20.5" Reclaimed Wood Plank Natural Peel And Stick Wallpaper. Below are the attachments:
Not many could agree that there's something. Every human eye is educated to get surfaces that are usual in any bathroom no-matter how superior the appearance is.
Today, using the use of mirrors becoming an increasing number of common, decorating suggestions are increasingly critical. The more mirrors about the wall, the greater the appearance and experience of the bathroom that offers picture of the place that is little to a richer.
What sort of Peel And Stick is available today? There are lots of infinite ideas in regards to decorating bathroom walls. Designing the surfaces of this type can be carried out simply by artwork having a unique style that may produce the space look larger than it really is.
The surfaces generally of well-maintained bathrooms are simple and generally plain or occasionally hidden with beautiful hardwood decorations around the ceiling. In creating a great expertise, this together with the proper mixture of bathroom roof lamps will help.
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Depression: roots and symptoms
Written by listed counsellor/psychotherapist: J. Nick McCubbin MBACP MBPsS
17th September, 20130 Comments
What is depression?
Depression can affect any type of person at any stage of life. You could be introverted or extroverted, young or old, rich or poor. Whatever type of person you may be it is possible to be affected by depression. This means that, although you may sometimes feel alone in your struggle against low mood, you are not on your own. In fact, it is estimated that 1 in every 4 people experiences depression at some time in their life. So remember, low mood is a common experience and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling the way you do.
There can be some confusion over exactly what DEPRESSION means, as it is an everyday word used to describe a number of feelings including sadness, frustration and disappointment. However, in this article we are going to assume that the term DEPRESSION is referring to more than these everyday ‘down’ periods. We will assume that compared to regular low mood your depression is:
- More intense
- Have lasted longer
- Have had more of a debilitating effect on day to day functioning.
Roots of Depression
When people experience low mood it is a natural reaction to wonder why this may be happening to them. Some people may think it is something they have done; others will think it is a biological problem and others may believe it is simply bad luck. It is actually fairly unlikely that depression is ever caused by one thing, but is normally a combination of biological and psychological factors, the exact combination, of course, varying from person to person.
There are many factors in play here, but factors that may affect depression include:
Brain Chemicals - Cells in the brain communicate using specific chemical systems. It is thought that during depression there is reduced activity in one or more of these systems resulting in symptoms of depression.
Hormones - Research has shown there are hormonal changes during depression. This can result in the over or under production of certain hormones, which can affect mood.
Genes - Depression often runs in families, suggesting a genetic link.
Once again there are a large number of possible psychological factors that may affect depression. These factors may include:
Loss - Sometimes people experience loss, be that loss of a person, loss of face, loss of an opportunity, loss of relationship. These loss experiences can lead to feelings of depression.
Stress - The accumulation of stressful experiences may contribute to depression. These experiences may include financial worries, difficulty in relationships or physical illness.
Sense of Failure - Many people can stake their happiness on the achievement of a specific goal, such as achieving exam results, earning a certain amount of money, or progressing a certain distance in their career. If for some reason they do not achieve this goal, they may believe they have failed in some way. This sense of failure can increase the likelihood of experiencing depression.
Symptoms of Depression
Depression is made up of a number of different symptoms that can affect our emotions, our behaviour and also our physical state. You may find that you experience all or some of these symptoms. There are many individual differences as to the number and intensity of the symptoms experienced. The next section will give further details on symptoms of depression:
Mood - Depression is considered to principally affect mood. The level of depression determines the extent of the impact on mood. It can range from a feeling of gloom that may be lifted when positive events occur, to a constant low mood that does not seem to be lifted even when pleasant things happen. Low mood may fluctuate during the day depending on where you are, who you are with and what you are doing. It can be useful to start to get an idea of a pattern of your low mood, so you can begin to plan to try and intervene.
Thinking – If we are feeling depressed we tend to find ourselves thinking in certain ways. It is very common that when we feel depressed we may notice we are seeing things in a negative light. We may notice our self-esteem and self-confidence have taken a knock. We may find we are dwelling on how bad things feel, how the world feels like a terrible place, and how gloomy everything is. This style of thinking is a major component of depression and is an area we will be working on as the programme progresses.
Physical – Many people experience depression in a physical as well as emotional way. The physical symptoms can include:
- Changing Sleep Patterns: Some people find it hard to get to sleep, others find themselves waking regularly during the night and some find they are sleeping much more than normal.
- A Change in Appetite: Some find their appetite decreases and they lose weight, others experience the reverse.
- Sexual Interest: People experiencing depression often find that their sexual interest decreases.
- Energy Levels: It is quite common to experience a decline in energy and in motivation to do things when experiencing depression.
Interpersonal – The final symptom of depression we will discuss here is the interpersonal aspect. Many people who experience depression find that they are increasingly concerned about their personal relationships. They often feel dissatisfied with their family or others close to them. They may feel anxious when they are with other people, especially in a group. People experiencing depression can also feel lonely and isolated, but unable to reach out to those around them.
As was pointed out at the beginning of this article there is great individual difference in terms of symptoms between those who experience depression. The better we understand our own depression, the less alone we feel, and the more able we become to address it.
Related articles from our experts
- Will I ever feel better?
Jacqueline Karaca M.Sc. Hons Counselling Psych; MBACP Reg.1st December, 2016
- Why FOBTs are dubbed the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’
Noel Bell BA (Hons), MA, PG Dip Psych, UKCP29th November, 2016
- Lifting depression
Sally Klinkenborg, (MNCS (Acc.), Ad Prof Dip PC, MBACP29th November, 2016
- The gifts of being emotionally intense
Imi Lo: Psychotherapist, Art Therapist, Supervisor (MMH,UKCP,HCPC,MBPsS)11th July, 2016
- Bipolar disorder/manic depression
Sally Klinkenborg, (MNCS (Acc.), Ad Prof Dip PC, MBACP11th February, 2016
- Life on a swing: Sharing life with the bipolar disorder
Ilaria Tedeschi21st May, 2015
Counselling Directory is not responsible for the articles published by members. The views expressed are those of the member who wrote the article.
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Harris, Smith, and Harris offer a personal, accessible account of all aspects of standardized testing. Readers are forced to reconsider many commonly held beliefs about high-stakes tests and how they are used to measure students in schools. The authors weave their experiences with testing throughout the book, along with thoughts about testing from experts in the field, to personalize and strengthen their message. Their numerous arguments against standardized testing and the way these tests are used to measure students are logical and easy to follow. When using specific terms or acronyms germane to education, the authors take the time to briefly explain so that all readers can understand. This important book forces readers to consider other ways to assess students, especially by using more direct measures of progress. The authors offer ideas about the kinds of schools that are needed, and the accountability system that would best benefit students. In addition, they offer a guide for parents to foster positive interactions with their children's teachers in regard to testing. A resource guide is included to facilitate the reader in finding out more. Summing Up: Recommended. (CHOICE)
In the era of No Child Left Behind, the number of books decrying the reliance on standardized testing has ballooned....Here, Harris (executive director, Assn. for Educational Communications & Technology), Bruce Smith (former editor in chief, Phi Delta Kappan), and award-winning elementary school teacher Joan Harris intersperse their own personal experiences with testing among the book's chapters, which detail their evidence on the failures of standardized tests. The final two chapters contain recommended alternative accountability schemes for evaluating the success of students and schools. The book also includes a glossary of terms and a resource guide that lists research centers and organizations that focus on the topic of improving schools and education policy. Thought-provoking reading for educators and parents. (Library Journal)
Just imagine if half the politicians, administrators, and journalists in this country, so many of whom confuse higher test scores with better schooling, were to read this book. In friendly, accessible prose, Harris, Smith, and Harris examine—and explode—each of the assumptions that underlies standardized testing. The more you learn about the tests themselves, as well as how the results are interpreted and used, the more skeptical you become. And The Myths of Standardized Tests is an excellent way to learn, regardless of whether you’re an educator who’s already knowledgeable . . . or a test-score-citing official who clearly needs to start from scratch. (Alfie Kohn, author of The Case Against Standardized Testing and The Schools Our Children Deserve)
Reader-friendly, this book explains what parents and teachers and concerned citizens need to know to work for the survival of public education for democracy. (Susan Ohanian, author of What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?)
This book is true like a plumb line. With clarity and insight, it drops us right into the heart of the most central emergency we have in public education today—the unrelenting obsession with standardized testing. The authors are extremely well-informed, easy to read, and not afraid to take a stand. What a breath of fresh air! (Ken Jones, University of Southern Maine)
This book takes this thorny topic of standardized testing and covers everything in a sophisticated, nuanced, and lively way. The best on the subject I've yet to come across. (Deborah Meier, NYU Steinhardt)
Question: How can a book about educational testing be a “page-turner?” Answer: When it’s written by a trio of smart, test-savvy authors who make a reader want to learn everything treated in this engaging expose of standardized testing’s foibles. Ultra-timely, this book should be mandatory reading for all educators—and everyone else! (W James Popham, professor emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles)
About the Author
For 27 years, Bruce M. Smith was a member of the editorial staff of the Phi Delta Kappan, the flagship publication of Phi Delta Kappa International, the association for professional educators. He retired as editor-in-chief in 2008. He holds degrees from M.I.T., the University of New Hampshire, and Indiana University.
Joan Harris has taught first, second, and third grades for more than 25 years. In 1997, she was recognized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children as the outstanding teacher of the year.
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The rise in autonomous vehicles is happening faster than many people think. NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, says that fully automated vehicles will be on our roads by 2022, while Scott Keogh, Head of Audi America has promised that Audi would have its first self-driving cars ready to purchase by as early as 2020.
So, with the rapid acceleration of the autonomous vehicle (AV) market, what are the main challenges we face as urban designers? And how will autonomous vehicles affect the urban fabric of our cities?
Towards a New Autopia?
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, our urban and suburban environments have been primarily designed for private car use. However, there has been a recent reduction in the ownership of private vehicles. Thanks to on-demand ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft, and specific vehicle demand management policies.
Drivers of change
The reduced number of vehicles on our roads has already begun to shape the fabric of the city. Projects like Berges de Seine Paris and Rhone River Bank Lyon show how spaces in the city that were once dominated by the automobile can be converted to public open spaces that serve the city and its inhabitants.
This is a trend set to continue. As any technology (and its associated manufacturing techniques) develops it becomes cheaper. This will drive the demand for AVs as more consumers and companies will be able to afford the technology. Some experts predict that sales of AVs will pass 33 million a year by 2040 (representing one-quarter of all car sales).
Rethink (a think tank focused on the future of technology) believes that private car ownership will reduce in favour of on-demand services where massive fleets of AVs are owned by private companies. However, the recent tragic events of Uber’s fatal autonomous vehicle accident has spread skepticism among the media.
Finally, the policy on how AVs may be driven in our cities is somewhat behind the technology and implementation. The Global Survey of Autonomous Vehicle Regulations notes that only 33 US states have legislation covering self-driving cars on public roads, and other countries like the UK, Netherlands and Sweden only have fully enacted legislation covering the testing of autonomous vehicles. Many other countries have no legal framework covering AVs.
Updating the hardware to meet new software
If by 2030 some 25% of cars on the road will be AVs, we should be adapting our cities now to accommodate this change and preparing for the time when all cars will be autonomous.
Currently, AVs use LiDAR to scan the road ahead. This technology is best at reading the road ahead at between 100-200 m. However, by incorporating roadside sensors along the length of a road, information about road condition, weather, and unexpected events can be relayed to all cars simultaneously. It is likely we shall need to accommodate some form of sensing equipment along our streets in the future. A key challenge is how this is incorporated into the streetscape and could mean the difference between an ugly retro-fitted solution, and a properly integrated system that augments the built environment.
One benefit of better connected AVs is the opportunity to give higher priority to pedestrians. The present car-centric design of our cities means that pedestrians are forced to walk to the nearest road junction or underpass to safely cross the road. With cars being driven by computers with faster reaction times, truly shared surfaces can be used throughout the city. A walkable city with a more attractive environment for pedestrians can have dramatic effects including lower crime, physically and mentally healthier citizens, and increased property prices.
With reduced numbers of cars comes reduced spatial requirements. Even if numbers of cars do not fall dramatically, some experts predict that efficiencies in automating traffic flows mean vehicles will be able to drive at higher densities. Roads will, therefore, be able to be narrower, with fewer lanes. In existing urban areas this means wider sidewalks that can accommodate other functions such as linear parks, sustainable urban drainage systems and dedicated drone delivery lanes.
When 100% of vehicles are self-driving, there will no longer be a need for vehicular road signage and traffic lights. This presents an opportunity to de-clutter our streetscapes and come up with innovative new solutions to allow AVs to communicate with each other. Pedestrian wayfinding will remain a consideration, but without the need to display signage for motorists, we can rethink how people navigate the city.
Parks instead of parking
The use of shared on-demand vehicles will reduce the redundancy of cars as they are in use for longer periods of time. Real-time relaying of information directly to AVs will reduce the time spent searching for parking places. Self-driving cars will be able to drop off their passengers at their destination, and then leave to either pick up a new passenger or find a centralized parking and charging location. The reduction in localized car parking facilities will free up more space in the city for parks such as at Tongva Park in Santa Monica by James Corner Field Operations.
On a smaller scale, the reduced ownership of cars will result in private homes not requiring dedicated garages and driveways. This will affect housing design allowing for the development of a higher density within cities and the suburbs.
For the last 60 years or so, the private car has dominated urban design. But the rise in autonomous vehicles presents some unique challenges and opportunities to reassess how our cities are designed.
The increase in on-demand driverless vehicles will result in more space in our cities for green infrastructure. Areas that were once dominated by localized parking lots can be converted into pocket parks. Wide boulevards and urban highways can be repurposed into pleasant greenways. Roads can become narrower, allowing for better sustainable urban drainage systems and blue infrastructure. Higher priority can be given to pedestrians in truly walkable cities that will benefit our mental and physical health.
The technology behind autonomous vehicles is progressing at a fast pace. While policy and infrastructure design might be slightly behind the technological advances, it is time designers started to think about the changes that will come and plan for a future in which the car is no longer.
Lead Image: Hämeenlinnanväylä kaupunkibulevardina by Mikko Uro c. Helsinki City
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Belly fat is associated with many health issues and diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Specifically it's the deepest layer of belly fat that poses health risks. That's because these "visceral" fat cells actually produce hormones and other substances that can affect your health. There are many dangerous and ineffective gimmicks about how to lose belly fat. While there is no "magic bullet" that will target abdominal fat in particular, this article will explain what causes an expanding waistline and how you can make that spare tire go away.
A University of Michigan study found that lab rats who nommed on a diet enriched with powdered blueberries had less abdominal fat after 90 days than rats who ate a standard diet. The researchers suspected that blueberries are so good at targeting belly fat because of their high levels of phytochemicals, a naturally occurring antioxidant. FYI, blueberries are also an excellent source of fibre.
Instead of satisfying your sweet tooth with some refined sugar, turn to berries and enjoy a slimmer waistline in no time. Berries are loaded with antioxidants, which can help reduce inflammation throughout the body, and research from the University of Michigan reveals that rats given a berry-rich diet shaved off a significant proportion of their belly fat when compared to a control group. Berries like strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries are also loaded with resveratrol, an antioxidant pigment that has been linked to reductions in belly fat and a reduced risk of dementia, to boot.
Florida's Get Fitness health club centers provide memberships and fitness centers all over Florida including Largo, Seminole, Indian Rocks Beach, Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay; we look forward to serving you! Get Fitness is currently expanding centers to new areas. Please go to our locations link for more club membership information for Get Fitness gym or health club near you.
In a way, moderate-intensity physical activity is that "magic pill" a lot of people are looking for, because the health benefits go beyond keeping your waistline trim: Not only can it reduce your risk of cancer, stroke, diabetes and heart attacks, but studies have shown that physical activity can significantly improve the moods of patients with major depressive disorders.
1. Bicycle Crunches are a great ab exercise and work the abs from every angle. It’s a combination of the regular crunch, a side-to-side motion that hits the oblique muscles and a reverse crunch that targets the lower abs. You can change the difficulty level by increasing or decreasing the range of motion used and the speed of movement as well as the intensity of the crunch by holding and squeezing.
You don’t have to go low-carb to ditch those extra pounds around your waist in a short period of time. In fact, opting for more whole grains might just get you there faster. Researchers at Tufts University have linked eating three or more daily servings of whole grains to as much as a 10 percent reduction in visceral body fat, the kind that ups your risk for chronic diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
Skimp on fluids, and your body will release an antidiuretic hormone that leads to water retention that could affect the scale, Dr. Setlzer says. While this sneaky effect is one reason why the scale is a poor measure of body mass loss, you can outsmart it by drinking more—particularly if you fill your glass with water or non-calorie alternatives like unsweetened coffee and tea.
Get FIT consists of Start FIT, Get FIT I, and Get FIT II. Most individuals start in Get FIT I. Start FIT is designed for those with more physical limitations. Get FIT II is designed for those who have graduated from Get FIT I or are already physically active. The FIT staff will help you determine if Start FIT, Get FIT I, Get FIT II is right for you.
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Health
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TO MITIGATE HURRICANE RISK
And Fully Address All Our Cities’ Climate, Energy and Social Challenges.
Only “PERMANENT long-lasting SOLUTIONS” will justify that investment.
This proposal resist any climate extreme, it improves future living conditions and offers new opportunities to enhance the local economy. It will meet everyones objectives, including extreme environmentalists and pragmatic developers. It accommodates ALL city challenges: physical, social and financial, ie. from: “normal daily life continues as hurricanes rage” to “ownership incentives help lift people out of dependency.” It uses reliable, proven solutions. Flexibility allows continual refinement and new systems. It meets a growing housing market, combining the best of rural suburbia with urban convenience. It reduces housing costs the same way Europes’ housing has for hundreds of years in permanent structures. It will save money, lives and cities.
WHAT’S the REAL DISASTER?
Nature or What We Have Built?
(This is a proposal for the first comprehensively sustainable human habitat offering the ultimate in survivability and livability.Over centuries its flexibility and efficiency allow occupants to continually refine it as needs and technology change. It offers the most affordable, immediate, and permanent-climateproof rebuild after our recent fires, hurricanes and floods!
What we typically build is INADEQUATE because it doesn’t protect us from natural recurring conditions! We should not allow the future to be trapped by city concepts with inefficient buildings along streets! Money spent to repair and replace is totally wasted if real improvements are too small and homes remain vulnerable. Climate is not the only problem. This concept addresses all the many other challenges that are impossible to solve with typical urban and suburban housing.
Our cities have never been designed to solve the kinds of modern challenges we recognize today! Our basic city concepts grew out of Roman military encampments based on street patterns over the last 2000 years. Whatever causes continually changing climates, hot and cold extremes, these are not temporary current issues. About 400-AD climate disrupted crops; over 50% of Rome starved. Ice core charts over 450,000 years clearly show 5-degree spikes and 20-degree drops in temperature lasting hundreds of years. Crops suffered from low solar activity, the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715). Every possible climate condition already is happening somewhere on Earth. We have the technology and experience to build a new more livable city infrastructure that can meet any type of challenge: extreme climate, earthquake, flood or fire.
Never before has the combination of our technology and in-depth historic social understanding so uniquely existed together!
This new concept comprehensively applies all that new knowledge in concert to this entire city concept. Typically a building industries research only focuses on their limited area. No other concept so completely and simultaneously addresses all the challenges of cities as effectively as this proposal. All that considered, but imagining starting from scratch, as if never having seen a city or house, allowed us to discover an entirely new kind of human habitat.
Everyone today is more aware of the challenges, this is the perfect time to invent and build an entirely new city prototype. We must not be encumbered with any preconceived limitations or solutions. Much of the necessary government research and policy work has been done. Policies based on out typically inefficient outdated traditional city concepts can be revised. Laws, policies and regulations alone will never overcome the physical limitations of existing city concepts. We need new physical solutions. This new concept proposes an entirely new physical city infrastructure. This is the first comprehensive solution that has simultaneously considered and allowed arrangements for the historically proven and practical features all cities require. The infrastructure design is ready.Think of it as a new kind of raw land on 3-D platforms. Private, like on a hillside in the country, not spread across the land. In it people build whatever they want, use ordinary local materials or lift a complete kitchen, bath and room module into place. Easily make improvements, add components for a room on a weekend, gain ownership equity. It’s amazing how many energy, environmental, and social objectives can be inherently solved by this physical design approach.
Basic human habitat challenges and desires are universal. The flexibility of this physical city infrastructure allows solutions for any site and condition anywhere in the world. The market opportunity is a huge. In some locations, the need for an infrastructure and protection like this is already desperate. To start, four or five prototype neighborhood modules (with 96 building-sites each) need to be built so normal people can see all that it offers. It will satisfy the objectives of the extreme environmentalist and the most pragmatic developer. It is so flexible people simply build with local construction techniques in its framework. Its partial weather protection, utilities and ownership incentives-to-improve make it the most practical long-term solution for any type of housing condition in any culture.
Basic Procedure and Overview to Replace Disaster-Prone Housing with Permanent Cities
This concept has many advantages. Everything can start quickly and simultaneously.
Local authorities will form a group that would be identified here as the Client Group. The developers of this concept will be retained as consultants to that Client Group. They will assist in selection of sites and consultants for the various stages.
Immediate Shelter and Temporary Housing:
Local authorities will select what types of interim housing Is needed until the infrastructure is complete. There are a variety of possibilities. A selection factor, temporary housing units will have permanent value because they can be moved into the new city infrastructure. Many companies have housing units ready for purchase.
Immediate Start on Site Work:
Local authorities and the Client Group will determine the best locations for the new city infrastructure. The infrastructure’s schematic designs are sufficiently complete to immediately begin preliminary site drawings. Site planning will be designed to fit local site conditions, requirements and objectives. Under certain conditions, preparatory site work can begin almost immediately.
Immediate Start on Permanent Infrastructure:
The size of the Building-sites in the new infrastructure will be determined by the Client Group. The consultant team for coordinating the infrastructure and surrounding area will be retained. Based on the infrastructures schematic designs, construction proposals will be invited. Fast-Track-Construction approaches can be utilized.
Move-In-Prep, Housing-Modules Plus:
As each neighborhood infrastructure is being built, buyers will purchase their future building-site. Buyers can design and build a new home. To reduce cost and for quicker occupancy buyers can move their temporary housing units into their new building-site. They can add more rooms, or build a duplex, four-plex or even a family business. All this flexibility with ownership options, encourages new dreams, allows sweat-equity and incentives to enhance individual lives and the community.
Please open the video address below to get a quick understanding of this entirely new city concepts’ remarkable basic features:
Current designs of towns are based primarily on the needs of cars and what people make, sell or buy.
Livability is secondary.
A new paradigm, this town concept is designed primarily for people. Cars have a convenient but separate place. Its permanent infrastructure is planned and financed for the long term, which makes housing affordable and encourages planning for higher quality long-term investments. It provides for comprehensive inherently sustainable livability, technical systems and farmland. No other current housing or town concept can satisfy all these objectives. This may be the first comprehensive attempt to invent a town for today.
On first impression, without any depth of understanding, it may appear impractical or futuristic. However, while different, it uses standard construction, more fully meets people's needs and can be built now. This research grows out of 40 years of designing, building, master planning, cost control, and real estate development experience. During that time social, historic, environmental and technical systems research was conducted specifically for this objective.
The BOOK, A Town Primarily For People describes the desirable future and historic features of this entirely new type of town; it satisfies everyone's objectives within a format that allows the highest dreams and expertise of the environmentalist, landowner and developer to be combined. With drawings and text the book describes how it can be done, and how it reduces impacts on water, air, transportation and farmland; even within existing historic downtowns. The town actually functions in harmony with nature, like a living organism.
Features of a typical current General Plan are compared with this concept in the last paragraphs below. For several pages of general information and images, the link to the original website is: http://www.sprawlalternatives.com
For general architecture designs by L.Gene Zellmer, AIA please visit the website: http://www.genezellmer.com
YOU ARE INVITED to be a contributing author for ANOTHER BOOK. Anyone with ideas that relate to or might function as an integral part of this town concept is encourage to submit proposals. Each author would be identified and the lengths of the chapters may vary depending on the contribution. All ideas or comments are encouraged. Please indicate your particular interest by sending an email to [email protected].
The HURRICANE-PROOF potential of this concept makes it suitable for replacement of housing and towns along the GULF COAST and in NEW ORLEANS. The lower levels are for parking or other easily moved uses. All the shops and housing are above flood levels.
Below the following images is an outline of its Hurricane-Proof potential and its possible application for new housing in New Orleans and also in Iraq.
|The first image above is an aerial view of a town based on this new concept. What appear as hillsides actually are trees in the backyard of each home. This is not a hill, the inside is hollow. The top is open below the X-structures along the ridge. Running continuously inside is Main Street. The front porch of each home overlooks this street.
The image above is a typical backyard of an individual home. Being totally private it can be any design. Views overlooking the countryside from every yard are like being on your own hillside in the country.
Below the book cover is a view of Main Street. It can be any design based on needs and the local neighborhood culture. The entire extened neighborhood of 96 home sites and its section of Main Street is visable from each front porch. They act together as a visual and functional unit.
|NEW POTENTIALS OF THIS CONCEPT
For the first time in history we have the experience and knowledge to build towns that can efficiently do more than any previous concepts. With this concept human habitats can integrate with nature as efficiently as a daisy or as habitats of other supposedly less intelligent life forms.
While primarily for the physical and social needs of people, it can meet the objectives of the most ardent environmentalists and profit-oriented developers; a TURNING POINT all of us can make together.
As other examples of its potential, outlined below are main features for:
GULF COAST APPLICATION:
- MANUFACTURED HOMES can be built immediately and located where needed.
- Concurrently a PERMANENT 3-D INFRASTRUCTURE is built; when complete, the
SAME manufactured homes are inserted in long-term Home-Sites.
- AFFORDABLE, – each Home-Site loft space allows individual flexibility to meet changing budgets and needs, a single-family home or a 4-plex and sweat equity.
- Potentially HURRICANE-PROOF, plus flood level is parking, open space or easily moved uses.
- CONTINUAL USE for hundreds of years is more efficient than any recycling.
- BEST FINANCING, -bonds, 70% of total home cost is permanent construction.
- COMPARABLE TOTAL COST, typical cost of streets, floors, sidewalls, roofs, etc. is enough to build the permanent infrastructure.
- ENERGY use is one-fourth of current housing spreading across the land.
- Adds MINIMUM to global warming, ADAPTABLE for an ice age.
Appropriate features from list above, plus:
- As the future HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON designed with today’s most advanced technology.
- A MONUMENT TO THE PEOPLE, -home-sites built just for them.
- FREEDOM to build homes with traditional methods, easily changed over time.
- ADAPTABLE to their climate.
- A SYMBOL of our interest in a new future for the people.
BOOK: A TOWN PRIMARILY FOR PEOPLE, The Five-Hundred Year Plan
The BOOK is NOW AVAILABLE. It is 8"x10" and contains 230 pages with 150 images. The cost is $23.99 and $7.95 for shipping and handling. Shipping is reduced for 2 to 5 copies. For reduced prices on more than five books or for questions and comments please contact us by email: [email protected]
To order one to five books click on this button:
|This New Concept Town Could Eliminate General Plan Conflicts?
Our current concepts for housing may never allow us to solve the conflicts between people’s needs, agricultural and responsibility to the natural environment. After fighting over planning issues, spending much time and money, everyone is usually forced to accept less than satisfactory compromises. Over decades, it happens again and again.
Without better concepts, conflicts and impacts will only become worse as centuries pass.
There is an entirely New Concept Town (NCT) that may actually be able to satisfy everyone’s objectives. Examples for comparison:
(1). The General Plan intends the rural 3500 acres northeast of the county seat for 62,000 people.
NCT can provide the same population but also; on the same land have 1700 acres for farming, plus 800 acres for natural and recreational open space.
(2). The General Plan allows 40-acre parcels in agricultural areas to have three homes, and farm buildings. Along with the roads, that could use 10% or more of the land.
On only 15% of the land (just 5% more), NCT provides the same number of homes as if 100% of the land was covered with General Plan type housing developments.
NCT uses the remaining land (85%) for some recreation, but mostly for farming as an integral part of NCT’s sustainable self-contained water and waste recycling eco-system.
(3). NCT can turn less than desirable land into high quality farms, potentially adding farmland while still doubling the population.
(4). The General Plan cannot make new developments be compact enough for efficient local or regional transit. Most will still need to provide alignments, distances and spaces based on the needs of cars.
Every NCT home will be within a 5-minute walk of NCT‘s own self-supporting transit system. This transit systems convenience and efficiency makes for maximum use and minimum impact on existing surrounding areas or streets.
(5). Rather than typical backyards viewing fences and neighbor’s houses, all NCT homes have private backyards overlooking hundreds of acres of open space, like being away on a hillside in the country.
(6). Rather than typical front rooms viewing houses, often empty streets and parked cars, all NCT homes have front rooms and porches overlooking an immediate neighborhood play area, neighbor’s porches close enough to wave greetings, plus views of Main Street with shops, sidewalk cafes, parades, and no cars. Interesting activities encourage more front porch use, making for safer neighborhoods and a real feeling of community.
(7). NCT home’s can be built to meet any owner’s budget and needs. Each home could start as a one-room house for a young couple, grow to a complete four-bedroom house, empty nesters could retreat into a one-bedroom portion and rent the rest for retirement income. Total flexibility for all ages, future generations and extended families encourages wonderful neighborhoods and new approaches for affordability.
(8). NCT reduces all environmental impacts: water, energy and construction material use, -for centuries.
(9). NCTs fundamental principal is that towns are for people, everything is within a short walk. Cars have a convenient but separate place.
The absence of cars will improve livability for homes, neighborhoods and their special section of Main Street as well as it has for Italy’s Venice or its Hill Towns, and our shopping malls with cars parked out-of-sight.
(10). NCT is based on the principal that continual long-term use is more efficient than recycling or reuse. NCT is designed so at least 75% of each home’s initial cost is permanent, protected and near maintenance-free. Those durable elements of construction are paid for only once but designed to last hundreds of years. That will allow long-term low cost financing, another approach improving affordability.
All this may sound unbelievable, futuristic, or simply impractical. Be assured, every element in this concept has been successfully done before. Spatial arrangements may be new, some only subtly changed, but the way people will use them is very old and basic. The structure is straightforward typical construction.
Long-term thinking can change the entire way we design and plan. Many of those great places in the world we love to visit are hundred’s, many are over a thousand, years old. A lot of people would be without affordable housing if not for so many very old stone structures. General Plans for 25 or 50 years, -that’s a very short time. Did anyone plan for Rome to be there a thousand years? Probably not, but it suggest even our less permanent towns will make some kind of a long-term mark.
NCT can easily be included as a special section of any new General Plan. It will eliminate car-oriented limitations, allowing a more imaginative future, and provide an alternative that could resolve typical General Plan conflicts.
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Strong reasoning
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Home & Hobbies
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Marking a new leap in reactor technology, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator or nuclear fusion reactor has started working under high-quality magnetic fields, matching the complex design of the device.
This was confirmed by Sam Lazerson of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the United States along with his German counterparts.
W7-X, based in Greifswald, Germany is considered the largest and most sophisticated stellarator in the world. The PPPL, run by the U.S. government's department of energy operates at Princeton University's in Plainsboro, N.J and is the principal U.S. collaborator in the project.
Other collaborators on the U.S. team include Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The findings of the experts were published in the Nov. 30 issue of Nature Communications.
Built by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, the stellarator in Germany was completed in 2015 with a vanguard design.
What It Means?
The successful operation of W7-X means that fusion energy research has hit a new frontier and moved past the early decades' tokamak concept. The progress made by stellarators also means the new concept has gained traction in line with advances in plasma theory and computational power.
The W7-X success means the earlier weaknesses of the reactor concept has been duly addressed.
According to PPP sources, the margin of error in W7-X was minimal with the error field or deviation from the configuration being one part in 100,000.
The excitement over W7-X success is too high because it could herald stellarators as the future models of fusion reactors.
How It Functions?
In terms of function, stellarator works by compressing hot gas known as plasma, and fuel in a fusion reaction forming 3D or twisty magnetic fields that are different from the symmetrical or 2D fields created by legacy tokamaks.
The twisty configuration puts stellarators in better control of the plasma.
Wendelstein 7-X is ahead because it can continuously hold super-hot plasma for more than 30 minutes at a time. The key to all reactor designs has been the ability to contain super-hot plasma for longer periods as an inexhaustible source of power.
W7-X uses two kinds of hydrogen atoms — deuterium and tritium. They are injected into a containment vessel with energy added to take out electrons from host atoms to form ion plasma for releasing huge amounts of energy.
In W7-X, the strong magnetic fields keep the plasma away from the walls produced by superconducting coils around the vessel from the electrical current running through the plasma.
The conventional design concept of reactors used to be Tokamak, which is a donut-shaped hollow metal chamber where the fuel is heated to temperatures above 150 million°C for making the hot plasma.
|
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CC-MAIN-2021-39
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https://www.techtimes.com/articles/188069/20161208/the-future-of-nuclear-fusion-world-s-most-advanced-stellarator-germany-s-wendelstein-7-x-confirmed-to-work.htm
|
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|
en
| 0.939615 | 608 | 2.765625 | 3 | 2.702923 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
|
Science & Tech.
|
Language is one of the most important determinants of cultural and political identity of a nation. The language of national majority is commonly associated with the language of the nation-state, the idea of rights and duties oppose the community in fact predated the territorial concept of the modern nation-state. It is important to bear in mind that citizenship has never only been about nationhood. There have always been contrasting uses of the term, which have not drawn upon such territorial factors.
The USA is multicultural society consisting of different nationalities and ethic groups which co-exist in one community. Thesis By making English the official language of the USA, we are socially discriminating non-English speaking residents. Making English an official language of the USA, state officials deprive many national minorities a chance for cultural self-determination and expression. In cultural context, Hispanics is the nation’s largest ethnic minority which constitutes 13,7% of the entire population (Hispanic Americans By the Numbers. 2006).
The main Hispanic groups include Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Latin Americans, and African Americans. Another largest racial group is Asian population including Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Arabs, etc. It is important to note that national culture is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down because it embodies different frames of reference and traditions. Most people come to identify with a particular ethnic group through their primary socialization with parents, other family members and friends, and, of course, with peers and teachers.
Socialization refers to the practices through which children acquire social identities, and for this reason derived a chance to master their own language at school form early years, these groups are discriminated forced to use English as the only official language of the USA. Language policy has figured prominently in the political sphere, but in America it has generally had a low profile, mostly because those in power do not wish to implement change that might challenge American national homogeneity (Brisk et al 2004). American culture represents a unique mixture of different languages and religions, races and nationalities.
Cultural factors exert the major influence on behavior of people as it is the fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Culture is shared by members the American society and the behavioral traits of which it is comprised are manifested in a social institutions and artifacts. Still, by making English the official language of the USA, the state limits opportunities and cultural freedom of non-English citizens. Today, many bi-racial families face with the problems caused by educational segregation of their children, right violation and neighbors’ hostility.
American culture represents a mixture of different historical backgrounds (Hispanic and African, Jewish and Asian population, etc), structure, and functioning. It determines how its artifacts and institutions developed to cope with the environment; and the effects of the geographical environment on the culture, acculturation, and assimilation. On the other hand, a single official language discriminates these cultural groups depriving them a chance to express their uniqueness and social significance.
To some extent, one official language obliterates cultural differences and national peculiarities. In general, socialization comes about through a combination of direct instruction, modeling, feedback, and other-generated experiences. Importantly, these various forms of socialization practices all take place through the native language of the home and community. This means that native language becomes a crucial element of what constitutes ethnicity for many individuals (Brisk et al 2004).
Critics state (Jackson II 1999) that perceivers not only rely on observable associations to infer the presence of some profound reality common to all group members, but also use their naive theories about the inherent nature of people to generate surface links among the members. Usually, the surface characteristics that are associated with the group members are both the antecedent and the result of the beliefs that people entertain about any given social group. The inclusion of participation in any such definition seems at first hand to betray the assumption of a relationship between citizenship, power and language.
Such a relationship needs some clarification, as power and language is itself a complex term. Despite this, he would agree that even the construction of the most local, or national, of political identities is itself a rich source of information about the emergence of a new form of citizenship. People construct their sense of citizenship in accordance with multiple factors. Taking into account present day situation, it is evident that many American citizens are discriminated, because they have no chance to construct their national identities through the native language.
Following Jackson II (1999) the identity is constructed through the language and cultural identity as a political action. Theoretical approaches to the study of language as construction of national identity cannot be easily divorced from their nation-state foundations. However, the significance of social contract theories in the study of citizenship cannot be overstated. Researchers identify a relationship between the idea of identity and power and the language. Also, there is a link between the state language and the self-development of the ethic group.
Some critics speak about conflicts between English language and national identity as the outcome of perceived or real injustice. Bilingual education allows many national groups to preserve their uniqueness and cultural identity. Local politics often affect economic decisions regarding programs for bilingual students. Schools that believe in the economic advantages of knowing more than one language and adequately preparing all students for the demands of the future will see fit to meet the needs of bilingual students.
On the other hand, schools that perceive bilingual students as an economic burden unconsciously or consciously renege on their commitment to these students. “As a cultural phenomenon, language of course, is learned,” Rich explained, “It is culturally induced and developed, and as such, reflects the values of the culture. language enculturates the individual by predetermining how [s]he sees the world” (Andrea Rich 1974, 130 cited Jackson II 199, 39)”
Following Blot and Briggs (2004) well – organized bilingual education can result high levels of school achievement in long run at no cost to English acquisition, among students from disempowered groups. Teaching bi-language can helps students to overcome poverty, family illiteracy and social stigmas associated with minority status. The ruling in Lau v. Nichols (1974) by U. S. Supreme Court made the onus on the government to offer appropriate language accommodations to preserve fundamental rights of minority’s ethnic group.
Advocates for bilingual education stress that students need to study mathematics, science and social studies in their own languages to understand the subject matter and absorb it quickly and they base their views to a research which reveals that students learn English better if they first gain literacy in their own language. “The White-dominated system encourages Blacks to be White, and simultaneously convinces Blacks that they will never become White, and the best they will ever be is a good Negro” (Jackson II 1999, 16). As the population of U. S continues to change, transforming into a nation of non- English speakers, the role of the field of English as a second language has gained more recognition.
Some researchers (Brisk et al 2004) advocate that by making English only as an official language is the reasonable way to handle over 300 languages spoken in the U. S. Some studies disclose that immigrant learn English slower when they are sustained by their native language. As multilingual government services support the growth of linguistic enclaves, this enable the U. S to segregate into separate linguistic groups because of ethnical and racial conflicts. Many also believe that official English can save money from the replication of government services in multiple languages. It is not to be expected from U. S government to offer services in the 300 languages used in the country. Individual should take responsibility to develop the English knowledge proficiency if they do really want to mix with American culture (Blot, Briggs 2003).
In general, choice in education must attempt to ensure that use of a particular language as medium of instruction does not imply condemnation of other languages to low positions in a hierarchical linguistic ordering or the exclusion of particular groups from access to power and resources. A first step might be to break with the pattern of schools being defined as educating children through the medium of language (Afrikaans, English, etc. ), when the goal for such learners must be high levels of competence in these languages.
A choice between native and English is unfair when English language has much higher status than all others and when parents cannot be expected to know what consequences will follow from an uninformed assumption that greater use of English will necessarily bring success (Blot, Briggs 2003). To assume that a language is necessarily associated with its native speakers is an American way of looking at linguistic identity, one that is remote from the reality of many non-Americans for whom multilingualism is the norm. It seems to be inspired by a notion that a language is bonded with a specific culture and worldview.
It looks at the purposes served by, for instance, linguistic or ethnic mobilization for consolidating a nation or for resisting oppression. To some extent, language and ethical differences permit people great liberty to entertain whatever culture they wish in their private lives but heavily constrain the exercise of religiously inspired values in the public arena. In free society, the democracy has acquired remarkably strong emotive overtones. Its use is often as much designed to provoke a favorable attitude towards a political regime, as it is to describe particular features of it.
Democratic procedures are special sorts of political procedures which are designed to involve the “people” in decision-making and the making of laws, in the way that monarchical or autocratic procedures are obviously not. In contrast to constitutionally grated rights, liberal rights and freedom are allocable to only the English-speaking individuals. In spite of positive effects of the cultural mix, at the beginning of the new millennium, American society is still faced with the problems of inequalities and rejection of minority groups (Brisk et al 2004).
By making English the official language, the state discriminate non-English speaking residents because democracy gives all citizens the right to participate regardless of any differences: age, sex, religion, etc. In sum, one official language deprives many American citizens a chance to be equally treated by the state. The rich, diverse linguistic potential of many ethic groups therefore remains largely untapped, most languages being deprived of resources and rights. The majority of citizens in America are governed in a language that they do not speak.
In this case, it is crucial to change current social policies and ‘grant’ national and ethical minorities a right to participate in social issues and cultural life of the country. Democracy requires full participation from those allowed to, so in any democratic society, all citizens should have a right to participate in ruling of the state, making amends and propose new laws with wider approval base. Current social politics does not take an ethical stance. Only through language personality and self-identity could express unique set of values of a community membership.
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CC-MAIN-2020-16
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https://tbf-sa.co.za/by-making-english-the-official-language-of-the-united-states-we-take-away-the-political-power-of-the-non-english-speaking-residents-of-this-country/
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en
| 0.946467 | 2,219 | 3.671875 | 4 | 2.9994 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Politics
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Design Patterns in Haskell
Attention Conservation Notice. A listing of how Gang of Four design patterns might be equivalently implemented in Haskell. A phrasebook for object-oriented programmers dealing with functional programming concepts.
In their introduction to seminal work Design Patterns, the Gang of Four say, "The choice of programming language is important because it influences one's point of view. Our patterns assume Smalltalk/C++-level language features, and that choice determines what can and cannot be implemented easily. If we assumed procedural languages, we might have included design patterns called 'Inheritance,' 'Encapsulation,' and 'Polymorphism.'"
What is easy and what is hard to implement in a functional programming language? I decided to revisit all 23 original Gang of Four design patterns under that lense. My hope is that these results will be useful to Object Oriented Programmers seeking to learn the ways of Functional Programming.
Strategy. First class functions and lambdas. Any extra data that might be placed as class members is traditionally implemented using closures (which stash the data in a lambda function's environment) or currying (which create implicit closures for function's arguments). Strategies are also powerful because they are polymorphic; type synonyms for function types can play a similar role. Java has recognized anonymous functions as a good idea, and have added facilities for anonymous classes, which are frequently used in this capacity.
Abstract Factory, Builder and Bridge. Type classes and smart constructors. Type classes are capable of defining functions which creating instances of themselves; all a function needs to do to take advantage of this is to commit itself to returning some value of type TypeClass a => a and using only (constructor et alia) functions that the type class exposes. If you're not just constructing values but manipulating them with the general type class interface, you have a Bridge. Smart constructors are functions built on top of the basic data constructor that can do "more", whether this is invariant checking, encapsulation or an easier API, this can correspond to more advanced methods that a factory provides.
Adapter, Decorator and Chain of Responsibility. Composition and lifting. Function composition can be used to form a pipeline of data between functions; a foreign function can be sandwiched between two functions that convert to and from the type the function expects, or a function can be composed with another to make it do more things. If the signature stays the same, one or more of the functions was endomorphic. If the functions have side effect, it may be Kleisli arrow composition (more plainly spoken as monadic function composition.) Multiple functions can handle the same input using the Reader monad.
Visitor. Equational functions. Frequently foldable. Many functional languages favor grouping the same operation on different data constructors together, in a mathematical equational style. This means similar behaviors are grouped together. Traditional grouping of behavior by "class" is implemented with type classes. Visitors typically collapse the data structures they operate on into smaller values, this is seen in the fold family of functions.
Interpreter. Functions. Frequently circumvented with an embedded domain specific language. Algebraic data types make light-weight abstract syntax trees easy to formulate. Just as Visitor is often used with Interpeter, you'll probably write your interpreting functions with pattern matching. Even better, don't come up with another data type; just use functions and infix operators to say what you mean. Closely related to...
Command. Monads. See also algebraic data types, frequently generalized (GADT). A pure language will not run your IO until main touches it, so you can freely pass values of type IO a without fear of actually causing the side-effect, though these functions are difficult to serialize (a common motivation behind Command). Parametrization of the action to perform is once again achieved through higher-order functions. GADTs are a little more bulky, but can be seen in places like the Prompt monad (PDF), where a GADT is used to represent actions that another function interprets into the IO monad; the type gives a statically enforced guarantee of what operations in this data type are allowed to do.
Composite. Recursive algebraic data types. Especially prominent since there's no built-in inheritance.
Iterator. Lazy lists. Iterators expose an element-by-element access of a data structure without exposing it's external structure; the list is the API for this sort of access and laziness means we don't compute the entirety of the stream until it is necessary. When IO is involved, you might use a real iterator.
Prototype. Immutability. Modification copies by default.
Flyweight. Memoising and constant applicative forms (CAF). Instead of calculating the result of an expression, create a data structure that contains all of the results for all possible input values (or perhaps, just the maximum memo). Because it is lazy, the result is not computed until it is needed; because it is a legitimate data structure, the same result is returned on successive computations. CAFs describe expressions that can be lifted into the top-level of a program and whose result can be shared by all other code that references it.
State and Memento. Unnecessary; state has an explicit representation and thus can always be arbitrarily modified, and it can include functions, which can be changed to change behavior. State as a function (rather than an object or an enumeration), if you will. The encapsulation provided by Memento is achieved by hiding the appropriate constructors or destructors. You can easily automatically manage past and future states in an appropriate monad such as the Undo monad.
Singleton. Unnecessary; there is no global state except in a monad, and the monad's type can enforce that only one instance of a record is present; functions exist in a global namespace and are always accessible.
Facade. Functions. Generally less prevalent, since function programming focuses on input-output, which makes the straight-forward version use of a function very short. High generality can require more user friendly interfaces, typically implemented with, well, more functions.
Observer. One of many concurrency mechanisms, such as channels, asynchronous exceptions and mutable variables. See also functional reactive programming.
Proxy. Wrapped data types, laziness and garbage collector. See also ref monadic types (IORef, STRef), which give more traditional pointer semantics. Laziness means structures are always created on demand, garbage collection means smart references are not necessary. You can also wrap a data type and only publish accessors that enforce extra restrictions.
Mediator. Monad stacks. While it's not useful to talk about interactions between objects, due to a preference for stateless code, monad stacks are frequently used to provide a unified interface for code that performs operations in a complex environment.
Comments and suggestions appreciated; I'll be keeping this post up-to-date.
|
<urn:uuid:0591790d-d0ad-447e-956f-d1ac490e3770>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-07
|
http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/05/design-patterns-in-haskel/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701162903.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193922-00334-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.907326 | 1,440 | 3.234375 | 3 | 2.765723 | 3 |
Strong reasoning
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Software Dev.
|
What is Yoga?
Yoga is a holistic therapy that aims to unite the mind, soul and body. Most yoga styles are derived from hatha yoga, a type of yoga that focuses on the body and breath and aims to develop control of the body through poses (or asanas). Hatha represents the two sides of life – the yin and the yang, the dark and the light – and aims to bring these two sides into harmony and balance.
How Does Yoga Work & What Are Its Benefits?
All styles of yoga balance the body, mind and spirit but how they do so may differ. Some styles focus on the poses, while others may focus on breathwork, alignment or the flow of movement.
Breathing is very important in yoga as the breath signifies your vital energy. In yoga, being able to control your breath can help you to control your body and your mind. No matter which style of yoga you choose, there are many classes available and the health benefits are many. Practising yoga not only helps you achieve a toned, flexible body and a clear mind, but it also keeps all sorts of ailments and diseases at bay.
Conditions That Yoga Can Help With
Yoga is not called a mind-body medicine for nothing. The poses, meditation techniques and breathing exercises involved in the practice relax the mind, hence producing positive physiological responses that aid in the healing of various health conditions, including:
- Headaches and migraines
- High blood pressure
- Chronic pain
- Heart disease
- Poor concentration
- Eating disorders
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
Where to Go for Yoga or Who Provides It
Gyms and yoga studios run by certified yoga teachers offer a variety of yoga classes to fit every person's fitness level and health condition. Although a yoga mat is basically what you need in most classes, there are yoga classes that require specialised equipment like a heated room for Bikram yoga. Some classes, such as those for laughter yoga, are ideally held outdoors like in parks.
Different Yoga Styles
There are many different styles of yoga that you can learn and practise. Here below are some of the common styles that can make massive changes to your physique and support your mental wellbeing.
- Anusara Yoga is a style of hatha yoga that focuses on postures that follow the universal principles of alignment, to bring your physical and spiritual wellbeing into harmony.
- Ashtanga Yoga refers to the eight limbs of yoga. It consists of deep breathing techniques and a series of postures to promote equanimity.
- Bikram Yoga consists of 26 poses and two breathing exercises which are done in a hot room. Besides detoxification, it also helps with weight loss.
- Corporate Yoga is conducted in an office as part of a company's employee wellness package. It reduces stress levels, calms the mind and allows employees to shift gears so that they can be more productive.
- Hatha Yoga is the most common type of yoga that trains you to hold postures longer to develop endurance, flexibility and strength.
- Iyengar Yoga consists of precise postures for alignment and includes different kinds of props, such as blocks, chairs and ropes, which make each posture easier to carry out. It's ideal for people with injuries or physical limitations.
- Kundalini Yoga is described as the yoga of awareness that involves breathing exercises, chanting, movement and meditation to stimulate the meridian points in the body and shift consciousness.
- Laughter Yoga is a unique concept of yoga wherein laughter and deep breathing techniques are used to release stress and improve circulation.
- Pregnancy Yoga relieves aches and pain that are associated with pregnancy and connects the expectant mum with her inner self and growing baby.
- Raja Yoga is a relaxing form of yoga that calms the mind and shifts negative thoughts through meditation techniques.
- Satyananda Yoga is a system of yoga that aligns the head, heart and hand to increase awareness and bring balance and harmony to one's personality.
- Vinyasa Yoga, also known as flow yoga, consists of a sequence of postures which you carry out with the breath.
Regardless of what yoga style you go for, practising it regularly will give you more control over your thoughts and the power to regulate your stress and emotional responses. You don't have to be in a yoga studio to experience its many benefits. You can sign up for a class in yoga online and start cultivating your mind and body awareness in the comfort of your home.
Available Courses in Yoga
If you want to learn how to achieve a better version of yourself and realise your purpose in life, it pays to study the different systems of yoga. Scientific evidence shows that yoga does more than improve physical health; it shifts thoughts and emotions and allows people to exceed their limitations.
If you're hoping to become a certified instructor of yoga - all yoga courses recognised by the relevant yoga associations will lead to that - it's of paramount importance that you embrace the practise as a whole. Start your journey with the philosophy of yoga and its eight limbs before progressing to the physical postures or asanas.
Securing a yoga teacher training certificate is the minimum requirement to teach yoga. This qualification may also be used to obtain a diploma-level qualification. Your learning experience need not be confined in the four walls of a classroom as there are many yoga schools in Australia that provide online courses. You may check out the Natural Therapy Pages' complete list of course providers so that you can weigh your options and find the most suitable training program.
What to Expect From Yoga
Yoga is unlike typical exercises that focus on the physical aspect of health. It reconciles your mind and body so that you can see and experience life as a complete human being. It's dubbed a mind-body medicine because it has the ability to connect you with your core self and, ultimately, change your genetic makeup so that you can achieve optimal health and your fullest potential.
To gain a deeper understanding of yoga and what it can do for you, you may visit the Natural Therapy Pages' full listing of Australia's renowned yoga practitioners and instructors.
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CC-MAIN-2022-21
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https://www.naturaltherapypages.com.au/yoga
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662515466.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220516235937-20220517025937-00237.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944264 | 1,294 | 2.6875 | 3 | 1.585777 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
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Health
|
Judging from the level of education, there are three stages of education in the US. The three are elementary school/intermediate school, middle school / junior high school, and high school /senior high school. That quietly describes how education works in America. There is also a preschool, but that is just a beginning and does not count as the main school. In another way, America’s traditional educational path starts from compulsory, higher, to vocational education, and those are a process of getting a graduation degree in college.
Three-phase that has been prepared for students before they all enter the world after school (job applicants). And from these levels, we all knew that terms of quality knowledge, skills, etc. mostly are better when you have a graduation degree in college than just stopping at the senior high school.
Those degrees from the college have their arrangements. In this article, we’re going to find out more pieces of information related to the degree in college.
Types of Degree in College
Generally, there are four types of graduate degrees in the U.S., and all four have different kinds of characteristics in the process of study.
The first one is the associate degree, which has at least 2 years or even more of length in the process of study. With a total of approximately around 60 credits, the associate degree teaches basic knowledge and technical skills, as well as transferable skills before students enter the workforce, or continue their education to the next level. These degrees are provided by community colleges, technical colleges, vocational schools, and some other colleges, as well as at some universities. Usually, this program is taken by students who are working while studying, and not a few companies are interested in using the services of this degree.
- This degree is also divided into 4 parts, namely:
- AS (Associate of Science)
- AA (Associate of Arts)
- AAA (Associate of Applied Arts)
- AAS (Associate of Applied Science)
A degree that has at least 4 years of study, consists of 120 credits and it’s provided by private and public colleges and universities. This program provides insight and knowledge that is useful as a provision in certain fields depending on each student’s choice (Science, Art, Social, engineering, etc.) and contains both theory and practice in approximately 4 years of study. In simple terms, this program is prepared more intensely (than the associate degree) for students as a requirement to continue to the next undergraduate or work in a company.
There are several types of bachelor’s degrees.
- Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS)
- Bachelor of Arts (BA)
- Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
- Master’s Degree
A Master’s Degree means an academic qualification awarded at the postgraduate level to individuals who have completed high-level studies in a particular field of study or field of professional practice. In a nutshell, this degree is a reinforcement of the previous level. Having the length of study in about 1-2 years, this degree is having approximately 30-40 credits.
To apply for this program, a student must finish a bachelor’s degree first. For information, this program is combining more than just theories and practice, but also the research requirement, coursework, and projects.
Last but not least, a doctoral degree is the highest level of education among these four types. It has a deadline of 2-10 years and a varying number of credits to achieve this degree. Similar to a master’s degree, the student must have those degrees to apply for this degree. For some specific jobs, it needs a doctoral degree as a requirement.
The Differences Among Them
|Types of degree||Associate||Bachelor||Master||Doctoral|
|Length||1-3 years||3-5 years||1-3 years||2-10 years|
|Number of Credits||60||120||30-40||Varies|
|Basic Requirement||Finished the Senior High School with a certain score||Finished the Senior High School with a certain score||Having a bachelor’s degree with a certain GPA||Having a master’s degree with a certain GPA|
Which One is Better? All Those are Worth it?
When you’re talking about the quality of all those four degrees, it may come to your mind that the doctoral has the best quality rather than the rest of the three. Indeed, it is true that the doctoral degree may have the highest position with its component. You may notice that a student with an associate degree could not apply to a job that needs require a master’s or even doctoral degree. But the thing is, not everyone could afford the cost of those degrees. Some people could only afford the associate due to limited cost and time; some people could afford a bachelor’s degree only without continuing to master’s or doctoral.
Well, from this case I can say that the rest of the two degrees is quite special because compared to associate and bachelor’s, it’s much more complicated and not easy to apply for. That is why the cost and the other stuff of this are more expensive rather than the rest of the two. It is a good thing if you have the desire and money to continue your study to the next level. Otherwise, you could look for scholarships to make it easier for you.
Can A Degree Determine the Type of Work in the Future?
From the explanation above, generally, an educational degree can indeed determine the type of work in the future. As I mentioned before, you may notice that a student with an associate degree could not apply to a job that needs require a master’s or even doctoral degree. The reason is that all those kinds of jobs require a higher degree in that aspect. So, it is not possible that you will get accepted without completing that particular requirement.
Anyway, in other cases that happen nowadays, some prominent companies such as Google and Apple are hiring employees who have the skills required to get jobs done, with or without a degree. You don’t need a doctoral degree or even an associate degree to apply for this job as long as you have skills that are needed as the requirement.
In conclusion, systematically it is an associate’s and a bachelor’s degree that comes first in college due to its requirement, followed by the master’s and doctoral degrees. As you can notice the requirement of that two first degrees is to finish your senior high school with a certain score. The differences are only in the length of the study. After finishing the bachelor’s degree, you can proceed to the next stages which are master’s and doctoral degrees.
The thing is, you have to make sure what are you going to study, or the purpose you take those educational degrees. Whether it’s for work, being an expert, or just wanting to have those degrees. No matter what your degree is, you still have to master some other skills in this modern era.
|
<urn:uuid:cb5aba3e-27f2-4dc9-91bb-39dd418eac7b>
|
CC-MAIN-2022-33
|
https://collegeaftermath.com/college/which-degree-comes-first-in-college/
|
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|
en
| 0.960191 | 1,492 | 3.171875 | 3 | 1.954869 | 2 |
Moderate reasoning
|
Education & Jobs
|
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