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July 3, 2012
A simple word game starts with a word and repeatedly removes a single letter from the word, forming a new word, until there are no letters left. The act of removing a letter is called chopping and the resulting list of words is a chopping chain. For instance:
planet → plane → plan → pan → an → a
Your task is to write a program that takes a word and returns a list of all possible chopping chains that can be formed from the word, given a suitable dictionary. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
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Posts tagged how to be angry
Six students from the Freetown Elementary School in Maryland recently completed the How to Be Angry curriculum. They were kind enough to share with me their feedback on the activities, lessons, and games and gave me permission, in turn, to share it with you! Special thanks to Aimee Meyer, their teacher who led the lessons, and all of the kids who are such gracious and enthusiastic learners!
Most important thing I’ve learned so far …
- ”Bullies are not cool.”
- ”I learned how to use I messages instead of you messages all the time.”
- ”I learned about passive-aggressive behavior. That’s what I do.”
- When prompted for more information, the student said “You know, like when I mope around, shuffle real slow down the hall, soft-talk and work real slow or not at all. Now I know how to calm down better.”
- ”I learned that you don’t have to take things out on someone else all the time. I only knew how to do that.”
What I have enjoyed the most about these lessons …
- “I liked when we did the activity with putting magnets underneath the types of anger. The magnets told us what the types of anger looked like and what we could do when we feel these.”
- “I’m moving to different parts of the room when we gained our opinions to something. We learned how to respect others’ opinions and that it’s okay to have different opinions.”
- “I really liked the game where we lined up by our birthday but we couldn’t talk. It was hard and we had to use our hands, fingers and faces to do it. We learned about nonverbal communication. It’s important.”
- “I liked how there were a lot of games. There was one at the beginning of each lesson and they were pretty fun.”
If I could improve on this book in one way I would …
- “Add more games. They are a lot of fun and active.”
- “Give the kids a workbook so they each have their own.”
- “Add pictures and colors to the worksheets or a Kid’s Workbook.”
Note for Educators: Handouts for kids in How to Be Angry are reproducible! You may feel free to make kids their own workbook to use as you are conducting each session. The kids recommend it and so do I!
Thanks again, kids!
All the best– Signe
Through the wonders of Facebook, a friend of a friend of a 4th grader shared this pearl of wisdom about conflict resolution. Only wish I had the pleasure of knowing this elementary school student personally!
In conflict with another person, if you come in fierce like a tiger, you’ll have to win. So only you will be happy.
If you come in like a bunny, scared, the other person will win, so only that person will be happy.
If you come in like a bird, with your wings and your heart open, both people in the conflict will win, and both will be free.
Will be sure to use this during How to Be Angry workshops with kids!
Some days, arguing comes as naturally to my kids as breathing! I take heart, knowing that there are lessons to be learned. Please read on and share this link if you, too, spend a lot of your parenthood hoping that all of this bickering will actually benefit your little ones down the line…
Check out this newly released video from Relate, the UK’s largest provider of relationship support for couples, families, and kids. The Relate Talk to Us Campaign is designed to encourage parents to listen well to their kids and to understand the sources of the anger that are driving childrens’ needs for professional help.
Relate recently commissioned two surveys–one of counselors and one of young people–to find out what is really bothering our kids. Click here to read what professionals and kids are saying about the stressors in their lives.
I love, love, love these rules! If I had a “theme rule” for How to Be Angry, it would be Rule 9:
Teach your daughter that she has the right to get loud. Make sure she knows girls can get angry, they can have opinions and they can throw “lady like” behavior out the window if necessary.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were so overwhelmed with feelings of anger that you were at a loss for words? You had the presence of mind to know all of the things that you shouldn’t say, but weren’t quite sure how to express your true feelings without damaging your relationship. Adults often struggle with effectively communicating angry feelings. For children, this challenge is doubly difficult; kids don’t want to get in trouble for expressing themselves aggressively, but they often lack the skills for communicating assertively.
For three specific skills parents can teach kids to cope with angry feelings effectively, please check me out on Yahoo! Shine:
Or check out How to Be Angry: An Assertive Anger Expression Group Guide for Kids & Teens for even more kid-friendly strategies.
The Conflict Cycle™ is Life Space Crisis Intervention’s (LSCI) major paradigm for understanding the dynamics of escalating power struggles between adults and children. In our training courses for parents and professionals, we explain that in times of stress and conflict, kids can create in adults their feelings, and, if not trained, adults will mirror their behaviors. In the heat of the moment, when adults do what comes naturally–what thousands of years of evolution have prepared their bodies to do–they often only make matters worse. That is why understanding the LSCI Conflict Cycle is the first line of defense against fueling further conflict.
This clip from NBC’s Parenthood is a perfect example of how Kristina gets caught in a Conflict Cycle and inadvertently mirrors Max’s behavior, thus escalating their power struggle. Ultimately, both mother and son lose out. The look of defeat on her face at the end of the clip says it all.
For more information on the LSCI Conflict Cycle and training for parents and professionals, please visit the LSCI link above or visit www.lsci.org
From the time they are toddlers, children are often coaxed by adults to hide their feelings of anger behind a social smile. Worse yet, kids hear the explicit message, “Don’t be angry,” and are actively encouraged to deny this most basic of human emotions. When they act out—either through the tantrums of their earliest years or the rebellion of their teenage ones—they are reprimanded for all of the behaviors that adults do not want them to use.
Rather that hammering away at all of the things kids should not do when it comes to expressing their anger, parents and caregivers can effect lasting change in their kids anger-inspired behaviors by teaching them specific skills for how to be (more…)
It’s one thing to write about helping kids make smart choices when it comes to expressing anger — it’s another thing to watch an emotional situation play out right before your eyes and hope that your own child will make a good decision! Last weekend, I took my daughter and her friend to a pizza-n-games type of place. For them, making time for the delicious pizza buffet is like “having” to eat their veggies before they can enjoy dessert; wobbly crane machines and spinning prize wheels are the true delight of the restaurant. (more…)
I had the lovely, lively opportunity to chat with Todd and Laura Mansfield, hosts of Parenting Unplugged, about How To Be Angry and ways parents can teach their kids skills for managing intense emotions. Have 20 minutes? Have a listen…
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Seymour “Hiram” Hall was born in Barkersville, New York on September 26, 1835. Little is known of Hiram’s early life. With the outbreak of the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 state militia volunteers on April 15, 1861, Hiram would begin recruiting soldiers for the 27th New York Infantry. On May 21, 1861 he would be commissioned second lieutenant of Company G and be mustered into Federal service on June 15, 1861 in Elmira, New York. On April 25, he would be promoted to captain. He would lead his company at First Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, Seven Days, South Mountain, Antietam and Fredericksburg. The 27th New York would officially muster out of Federal service on May 31, 1863. The three year soldiers in the 27th would be assigned to the 16th New York Battalion, commanded by Hall.(i)
The 121st New York Infantry, often called Upton’s Regulars after their second commander, Emory Upton, had been decimated during the Chancellorsville Campaign while fighting in US Major General John Sedgwick’s VI Corps, at Salem Church. Upton, desiring to fill out his regiment requested all the able bodied three year men he could obtain. Knowing of the 16th New York Battalion, Upton petitioned VI Corps headquarters for the men. The men of the 16th were given the option of joining a Massachusetts battery, a Federal battery of the 121st. Most of the men chose the 121st. On June 16, 1863, Hall took command of Company F, 121st New York. While the VI Corps saw little action in the Battle of Gettysburg, they were engaged in the pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia during his retreat from Gettysburg. Seeing action during the Bristoe Campaign, from October 9–22, they would find themselves facing the Army of Northern Virginia, on opposite sides of the Rappahannock River, as winter approached.
Many of the soldiers believed Army of the Potomac commander, US Major General George Gordon Meade, would enter the winter months with no additional fighting. However, Meade had different ideas. Believing he could out maneuver Lee along the Rappahannock River line, he determined to push across the river. During the upcoming battle, Hiram Hall would provide his most valuable service to his country.
Robert E. Lee had constructed a strong bridgehead at Rappahannock Station with two artillery redoubts and connecting trenches, on the north bank. CSA Major General Jubal Early’s 2d Corps Division manned the works, with the rest of Lee’s army south of the river commanding all the major fords. He believed that any significant attack, by Meade, would require him to divide his forces. Lee’s plans proved quite prescient. On November 6, Meade ordered the I, II and III Corps to cross the Rappahannock River at Kelly’s Ford, while the V and VI Corps would push across at Rappahannock Station. They were ordered to move on the morning on November 7. Major General William French would command the left wing, while Sedgwick would command the right wing. Meade’s tactical plan was to have French’s wing push across the river, at Kelly’s Ford, in an effort to divert Lee’s attention from the main attack by Sedgwick.(ii) Once across, they would push west to join the rest of the army that had crossed at Rappahannock Station. From there, the Army of the Potomac would push south towards Brandy Station.
On the morning of November 7, the 121st New York, with the rest of the V and VI Corps pushed south from Warrenton. Emory Upton was commanding the Second Brigade of US Brigadier General Horatio Wright’s First Division. With Sedgwick commanding the right wing, Wright commanded the VI Corps and US Brigadier General David Russell commanded the First Division. Opposing them at Rappahannock Station were two brigades commanded by CSA Brigadier Generals Robert F. Hoke and Harry Hays. Hays’ Louisianans had earned the moniker, “Louisiana Tigers,” for their fighting prowess. Both brigades were seasoned veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia. Once Sedgwick had his forces in place he began to pound Early’s Confederates with artillery. He maintained this fire throughout the afternoon, causing much consternation, and many casualties at the bridgehead. Meanwhile, Upton’s brigade, consisting of the 121st New York, 5th Massachusetts, 95th and 96th Pennsylvania were joined by US Colonel Peter Ellmaker’s Third Brigade, consisting of the 6th Maine, 5th Wisconsin, 49th and 119th Pennsylvania. Commanded by David Russell, they were assigned the unenviable task of carrying the works manned by Hays’ “Louisiana Tigers” and Hoke’s North Carolinians. With dusk beginning to blanket the field, Russell’s division pushed out of the woods and towards the bridgehead. Partially protected by the railroad embankment, the division was able to get very close to the fortifications before they were engaged by Hays’ soldiers. Upton would detach companies B and D, as skirmishers. They were commanded by Captain John Fish. Upton was very clear in his orders to Fish, “When the line advances upon your right, you will advance – you will drive the enemy off that crest, you will use your judgment and act as if you had a separate command: but remember one thing – I want my brigade line to get there as soon as any of them.”(iii) Clinton Beckwith described the action, “We moved forward briskly and soon discovered the Rebel skirmish line. They waited a good while, an age I thought, before they fired on us, and I knew someone would get hit. Finally they let go and we started on a run after them, and they skedaddled. One fellow waited until Jack Marden, one of our boys, got close to him, and then fired and hit Jack. But the ball, striking something in Jack’s pocket, glanced off. The Rebel shouted, ‘I surrender,’ but Jack shot and wounded him badly….The artillery in the fort was now firing rapidly and the cannon shots flew over us and went after our fellows who were coming up behind. The Reb skirmishers kept falling back, but kept up a sharp fire.”(iv) Soon, Fish and his skirmishers, along with the rest of the 121st New York, were upon the works.
Hiram Hall’s Company F was part of the attacking column. Upon reaching the Rebel works, he was able to reform his lines. The fighting became hand-to-hand, with several casualties coming from bayonet wounds. With darkness quickly covering the battlefield, the action is described in “Upton’s Regulars,” by Salvatore Cilella: “(the Louisiana brigade remained) sanguine and defiant….Upton could see their colors in the gathering night, inscribed with “Cedar Run,” “Manassas Second,” “Winchester,” “Harpers Ferry,” “Sharpsburg,” “Fredericksburg,” “Chancellorsville,” and “Gettysburg.” Without waiting for Russell for further instructions, Upton sent Capt. Seymour Hall to tell Russell that he had accomplished his mission and had reformed his lines parallel to the rifle pits that were still crawling with rebel soldiers. He intended to attack again.”(v) Upton had advised his men, “Boys, or rather Old 121st, I am with you again. We are going to make a charge, and some of you will fall, but you will all go to heaven. And I am going with you over the works.” With that, Hall’s Company F, and the rest of the 121st New York stormed the rifle pits, performing a left face they rolled up the flank of the 6th, 54th and 57th North Carolina regiments. Many of the Confederates surrendered and the 121st New York was able to capture a regimental flag. All told, with the 5th Maine at their side, the 121st New York was able to capture seven Confederate flags, 103 officers, 1,300 enlisted men and 1,200 weapons. One captured Rebel asked how many corps were involved in the attack. When he was told only two regiments carried out the assault the “mortification” was “extreme.” After the battle Upton reported, “The success at Rappahannock had a most electrifying effect throughout the army.”(vi)
Hall would continue to lead Company F, 121st New York Infantry, through some of the most bloody battles of the Eastern Theater: The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna and Cold Harbor. In April 1864, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 43d United States Colored Troops. He would lead these men at the Battle of the Crater, Weldon Railroad, Boydton Plank Road, Hatcher’s Run and the Appomattox Campaign. He would receive a brevet promotion to brigadier general on March 13, 1865.
After the war, Hall would move with his wife, Augusta, to Carrollton, Missouri and finally to Kansas. She bore him five children: Clarence, Harry, John, Mabel and Augusta. Seymour H. Hall would die on July 1, 1908 in Kansas City, Kansas and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas.
For his bravery, and gallant leadership, Hall would receive two Medals of Honor on August 17, 1891 – one for his actions at Gaines’s Mill and the other for his heroism at Rappahannock Station. The official citation reads:
Although wounded at Gaines Mill, Va., he remained on duty and participated in the battle with his company. At Rappahannock Station, Va., while acting as an aide, rendered gallant and prompt assistance in reforming the regiments inside the enemy works.(vii)
Captain Seymour Hall is a true American HERO.
(i) Cilella, Salvatore G., Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War, published by the University Press of Kansas in 2009, Pg. 184.
(ii) Cilella, Salvatore G., Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War, published by the University Press of Kansas in 2009, Pg. 235.
(iii) Cilella, Salvatore G., Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War, published by the University Press of Kansas in 2009, Pg. 237.
(iv) Best, Isaac O., History of the 121st New York State Infantry, published by Lieut. Jas. H. Smith in 1921, Pgs. 100–101.
(v) Cilella, Salvatore G., Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War, published by the University Press of Kansas in 2009, Pg. 240.
(vi) Cilella, Salvatore G., Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War, published by the University Press of Kansas in 2009, Pg. 243.
(vii) R.J. (Bob) Pfoft, Editor, United States of America’s Medal of Honor Recipients, Fifth Edition, Pg. 883.
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| Working with the local resource of timber Joiner's Shop reduces the costs of the wooden buildings and ships. Also it slightly improves the trade but only during the winter, the peak logging season.
Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were rived and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw, using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a pit for the pitman who worked below. Sawing was slow, and required strong and enduring men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so that the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline.
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Other studies from this week's reading:
Joseph, Moses & David share something in common in that God planned for them to be great rulers, but they had to be trained up not according to the world’s ways but God’s. Joseph’s father Jacob had tried to spare Joseph from the responsibilities of work and treat him special, but God knew Joseph could never be the kind of ruler God wanted him to be until Joseph first learned to be a servant. God used a series of three types of discipline in Joseph’s life to prepare him to become the second ruler over all of Egypt, but according to God’s requirements that His leaders have a servant’s heart.
|1Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. 2The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. 3Now his master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand. 4So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge. 5It came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the Lord’s blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field. 6So he left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.||
Q: Why was such a fuss made over the “varicolored tunic” (Gen. 37:3) which Joseph’s father had given him?
A: It was a visible sign of rank and privilege, that although he was one of the youngest of all of Jacob’s sons, special attention was lavished upon him over the others.
Q: So how would his former appearance contrast quite differently than now?
A: In effect Joseph exchanged his favored coat for a common servant’s attire.
Q: Why was such a fuss made over Joseph’s dream? (Gen. 37:5)
A: It’s meaning revealed that Joseph would become greater than all the rest and that they would serve him.
Q: So how is his present circumstances quite a contrast to his dream?
A: Instead of being served, he is serving.
Point: God not only forced Joseph to learn how to work, but imposed upon him the lessons of humility and the importance of obeying orders. We can never demand from others what we ourselves are not prepared to do personally.
You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. 7It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.”
8But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. 9There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” 10As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her.
11Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. 12She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside. 13When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, 14she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. 15When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” 16So she left his garment beside her until his master came home. 17Then she spoke to him with these words, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make sport of me; 18and as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”
Q: What is the stark contrast between Joseph and his master’s wife when it comes to their earthly master?
A: The woman cared not for maintaining a faithful relationship, but Joseph did.
Q: What is the stark contrast between Joseph and his master’s wife when it comes to their heavenly master?
A: The woman cared only about living to please herself, Joseph lived to please the Lord.
Point: Faithfulness in earthly relationships is always directly tied to the quality of our faithfulness in spiritual relationships. Biblically we can never claim to love God if we don’t love others. We can never be faithful in our most important relationship with Christ if we’re unfaithful in the course of our earthly relationships with others.
Q: So how would you characterize this test?
A: If Joseph could not control himself, he would never be able to control others. If he could not control others as a servant, he would never be able to control others as a ruler.
Q: How did Joseph pass this test?
A: He lived to please God, specifically making no provision for the flesh.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
|19Now when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned. 20So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail. 21But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. 22The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s charge all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it. 23The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.||
Q: Joseph was obviously in control of his appetites, for he avoided committing sin when there was opportunity. What else is implied as being under Joseph’s control by the manner in which Joseph responded to the false charges against him?
A: Joseph does not appear to argue with anyone about the charges. Realizing the situation for what it is, Joseph’s spiritual discipline extends to being able to control his tongue.
Point: It’s worth noting that the righteous role models such as Joseph throughout all of Scripture have the sense that they’re not serving others but actually serving God. Likewise they have the sense that when hardship comes even in unjust circumstances that God is still sovereign and in control.
Q: So what actually happens to Joseph from a career point of view?
A: Whereas Joseph was overseeing a very large household, he is now actually taking on a much greater responsibility in overseeing an entire prison. God is actually grooming him for greater and greater responsibility. It’s an intermediate step toward ruling an entire kingdom.
Q: Now how do we know for sure that this was all a test from God? Are we reading too much into the text?
A: Actually it’s confirmed in Scripture.
He sent a man before them,
Q: Obviously suffering is never enjoyable, but what might be the important lessons learned from it?
Q: What do we know spiritual suffering to eventually turn into?
A: Just as in the case of Joseph, Moses, David, and Christ Himself, God one day turns it into glory.
Application: What we go through is not just discipline to achieve a right personal relationship with God, but to accomplish His works in the lives of all those around us. Suffering is never actually just about “me”.
How are these things at work/have been at work/still need to work in your life:
In working with others in the body of Christ, how well do you consider how these works are taking place in others’ lives? Do you realize that if you recognize where someone is spiritually along this process that you may best know how to pray for and encourage them?
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Water: Vessel Water Discharge
EPA and the Committee on the Marine Transportation System
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|Oceans, Coasts, & Estuaries Home Coastal Watershed Protection||Marine Pollution Prevention Monitoring and Assessment||Ocean & Coastal Partnerships Frequently Asked Questions||Coasts for Kids|
Top: Port of Jacksonville, Fla., portside loader and freighter at the dock.
Middle: Dundalk, Md., trucks, train tracks and loaders in the harbor.
Bottom: Crane loaders at Port of Jacksonville, Fla.
Ports and harbors are valuable links to domestic and international commerce and opportunity for recreation. We all use marine transportation to receive imports and ship out exports. Ports are home to recreational and commercial fishing fleets, as well as small boats, ferries and cruise ships.
Ports may be found along on our ocean coasts, the Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, and U.S. inland waterways. Because they are often sited in sensitive coastal and inland aquatic areas, America's ports and harbors play a vital role in protecting our valuable resources.
EPA and its partners have been working on several projects to examine and explain the impact of shipping, port locations and waste management, among other issues related to the marine transportation industry.
Dredged Material Management
EPA's Dredged Material Management Program supports environmentally responsible dredged material planning and management. Dredged material management includes development of environmental criteria, review of draft permits, testing dredged material to be disposed, consideration of alternatives to dredging and disposal options, site designations, and encouraging beneficial uses of dredged material.
Invasive Species and Ballast Water
One of the greatest threats to U.S. waters and ecosystems is caused by the uncontrolled spread of invasive species. Both terrestrial and aquatic invasive species can be harmful to our waters - some affect the water directly, while other species affect the land in ways that harm the water. Ballast water can contain living organisms taken up in a port half-way around the world, which can invade the area where the water is discharged.
Cruise Ship Water Discharges
EPA is assessing waste water discharges from cruise ships and reviewing regulatory options for control.
Uniform National Discharge Standards (UNDS) For Armed Forces Vessels
UNDS requires EPA and the Department of Defense to jointly establish uniform standards nationwide for discharges incidental to the normal operation of armed forces vessels.
EPA participates in the Committee on Marine Transportation System on environmental issues such as dredging and ship channel configuration, reducing pollutant sources during operations and cargo handling. EPA also works on ballast waster management to reduce invasions of non-indigenous species, and the management of discharges from cruise ships, armed forces, and recreational vessels.
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Official CPI: Does it accurately reflect inflation?
"The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices of goods and services that people buy. The CPI is a complex construct that combines economic theory with sampling and other statistical techniques and uses data from several surveys to produce a timely and precise measure of average price change for the consumption sector of the American economy. The CPI measures the change in the retail prices of approximately 80,000 specific goods and services, called the market basket. The goods and services fall into eight major categories: food and beverage, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other."
The CPI started being measured in 1919 but really caught on after WWII. For most of that time the BLS used a formula called the Laspeyres formula which measures the change in the cost of a fixed market basket of goods and services.
CPI is used as a basis for almost everything. It is the most widely used measure of inflation used to formulate monetary and economic policy. CPI is also used by business leaders and private citizens as a guide in making economic decisions.
"Social Security benefits and military and Federal Civil Service pension payments are all indexed by the CPI. The Food Stamp program uses the CPI for food at home, and changes in the CPI affect the cost of school lunches for children. In the private sector, many collective bargaining agreements tie automatic wage increases to the CPI. Some private firms and individuals use the index to keep rents, alimony, and child support payments in line with changing prices."
Definition of the Laspeyres Formula
"In this formula the quantities of the goods and services purchased by urban consumers during a base period serve as the weights for the prices, so that the value of the market basket represents the cost of purchasing the same items as were purchased during the base period. The CPI measures the current cost of the market basket relative to its cost during a reference period. In other words, the Laspeyres price index answers the question: What is the value of the base-period market basket in today's prices?"
That formula worked great for everyone until the Mid 90's, when the national debt started skyrocketing and the impending retirement of the Baby Boomers started making policy makers wonder how we would fund these expenses.
Here is where the important changes started that compromised the CPI as an accurate measure of Inflation.
"In December 1996, the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, commonly known as the Boskin Commission, recommended the use of the geometric mean formula for the aggregation of prices within all item categories in the CPI. This recommendation was based upon the belief that a geometric mean formula would help to correct what the Commission called substitution bias. The commission, using empirical evidence and the members' own judgments about the magnitude of these biases, concludes that the CPI overstates the true cost-of-living change by 1.1 percentage points per year. "
That last statement shows how the members of the commission want the CPI to reflect a "cost-of-living" change which is variable based on which generalized ideal behavior pattern the BLS expects everyone to follow.
The BLS's reasoning for changing the calculation method follows:
"Thus the index did not reflect the fact that consumers can and do, to some degree, insulate themselves from the impact of higher prices by adjusting their spending to favor relatively lower-priced goods or services. Consequently, the old version of the CPI(using the Laspeyres Formula), when compared with a measure that reflects this substitution effect, tends to overstate the rate of price increase consumers experience. " I admit that sometimes people will substitute one item for another based on price but not everyone substitutes say ground beef for steak if steak is too expensive. And not everyone substitutes every time they shop.
In their reasoning we again see their desire to use a generalized ideal behavior pattern, instead of a measure of the actual price changes of goods and services over time, for computing CPI. In 1999, when these new formulas started being used, the CPI's usefulness as a gauge of real price inflation was over.
Another insidious feature of the "geometric modelling" formula is how it weights goods that are rising or falling in price. The geometric formula automatically allocates less weight in the "market basket" to goods rising in price and more weight to goods falling in price. For example, if beef is rising in price and chicken is falling the formula assumes we buy more chicken and less beef. This is what I call generalizing an ideal behavior pattern. Undoubtedly, while doing their surveys the BLS comes across a percentage of consumers who do regularly change their normal shopping habits based on price everytime the shop but it just seems incredulous to assume that's how everyone behaves.
Another method the BLS started using in the 90's and expanded greatly in 99 is Hedonic Modelling. Here's their definition of how they use the formula for TV's.
"when a television model in the CPI sample improves in some way, the value of that change, as derived from the Hedonic regression estimates, will be deducted from the observed price change for that product. "
Nearly all new product prices are added to the CPI this way including Computers, Clothing/Apparel, Appliances, New Automobiles, and Furniture. For example, let's say 5 years ago you bought a refrigerator that costed $1K. Today you go out and buy a new Refrigerator that costs $1500. The economists at the BLS look at the how the new Refrigerator has an ice crusher and is more energy efficient than the old one so they deduct $350 off the price and say the New Refrigerator costs only $1150. even though you just paid $1500. for it. Do you think that kind of assumption is crazy? How could the CPI accurately measure inflation with Economists changing actual prices, based on some "value" assumptions no one could ever quantify, before adding them to the results.
The CPI was meant to be a tool to measure real inflation according to real price changes. Calculating the CPI based on what economists at BLS think people will do in response to higher prices or how those same economists change real prices on new products before adding them to the CPI gives us a measure of a generalized ideal behavior pattern rather than actual price reality . If the BLS wants to create a separate CPI to measure those "personal choice and benefit" factors that's great, but the CPI used to calculate policy and inflation and payments should measure the change in price on a fixed basket of goods compared to a fixed reference period, like it used to be calculated. How else can you accurately measure how much more or less something costs today than a year ago?
Now that you've made it this far you're wondering why all this is so important. It's better for the government in the long run to massage the CPI down so we won't go bankrupt, right? After all, with every Government payment and union wage tied to the CPI, manipulating that number is an easy way to not have to make hard choices about entitlement programs and still slow the rate of growth in those programs.
But, like most things in our government these days, the easy solutions only makes the problems worse. Intentionally distorting the CPI to reduce Federal Deficits allows irresponsible spending and unsustainable policy to continue. What the Boskin Commission should have stated is that the CPI measure is as good as it always was and the government should modify it's spending priorities based on the higher real inflation that the CPI was then showing. And in 1999, instead of further diminishing the usefullness of the CPI in predicting real inflation, the BLS again could have told Congress to alter their spending patterns and entitlement programs because of higher real inflation.
I applaud the BLS for their openness and honesty about how and why they changed their calculation of the CPI. They were probably under intense political pressure to do so. But now that we can look back and see the flaws in the current calculation and how it severely understates real inflation, we need to return to the original method of calculating the CPI. We already would have been reforming our programs and spending patterns for 8 years now if the BLS wouldn't have changed the formula in 99.
But , there is still time now for reform as well. But we need to act soon before it's too late. We need to return to the original real price inflation calculation method of measuring the CPI. Currently, it is still calculated by a few sources and is at 7% now compared to the Official CPI which is at 3.5%. Basing payments on the real inflation number would force Congress to reform the entitlement programs and spending priorities to account for this higher inflation. Social Security will run a $280 Billion surplus this year with surplusses extending out until 2017.(I'll discuss Entitlement Program trust funds in a future article). By saving that money every year for the next ten years in a global index fund instead of spending it, and writing IOU's to ourselves, and reforming other programs in similiar ways, and implementing spending cuts to offset the savings, we could honestly acknowledge and plan for higher inflation while actually restoring integrity to the Federal Budgeting process.
All of the infromation given here came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
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ST EM Conference | STEM Q&A
Stem Camp for 1st thru 8th Grade Students
Wheeling High School is a comprehensive high school with a STEM focus. STEM literate graduates are problem solvers, innovators and logical thinkers. Our STEM for ALL focus means that skills related to STEM such as problem solving, teamwork, scientific inquiry, technology and communication are purposely taught and reinforced throughout the curriculum. It means the skills and content delivered throughout has a broader context and facilitates the diagonal movement of students along a career program of study—occupational, technical, and professional—alongside the traditional academic pathway—preparatory, average, honors, and Advanced Placement. Wheeling High School’s STEM for ALL initiative provides a thematic framing for common experiences that incorporates all content areas including the arts, languages and humanities in an interdisciplinary approach, offering students the opportunity to transfer and apply knowledge and skills across the curricular spectrum, rather than solely within isolated disciplines, providing a foundation of knowledge applicable beyond the realm of math and science alone. Awareness of STEM related career fields is emphasized as part of our seminar program and reinforced through counseling with an expectation that all students—special education, at-risk, second language learners, average, and honors—will develop the prerequisite skill set to access career pathways in the new economy. In addition, it means we focus our investment of time and resources to expand student opportunities in career certifications, college partnerships, and technology training as an incentive and competitive advantage in preparing for and accessing post secondary opportunities.
STEM literacy in a knowledge-based economy is "The ability to adapt to and accept changes driven by new technology, work with others (often across borders) to anticipate the multilevel impacts of their actions, communicate complex ideas effectively to a variety of audiences and find measured, yet creative, solutions to the problems which are today unimaginable."
The STEM curriculum provides a strong academic foundation rooted in the knowledge used to solve complex problems. STEM-literate graduates have the ability to import this knowledge across all disciplines, both inside and out of the scientific and technological realms. They can intuitively leverage existing resources to accomplish tasks independently using STEM techniques.
STEM literacy refers to an individual’s ability to apply his or her understanding of how the world works within and across four interrelated domains:
⇒ Scientific Literacy—the ability to use scientific knowledge (in physics, chemistry, biological sciences and earth/space science) and processes to understand the natural world but to participate in decisions that affect it (in three main areas-science in life and health, science in earth and environment and science in technology).
⇒ Technological Literacy – the ability to use, manage understand and assess technology. Students should know how to use new technologies, understand how new technologies are developed and have skills to analyze how new technologies affect us, our nation and the world. Technology is the innovation, change or modification of the natural environment to satisfy perceived human needs and wants.
⇒ Engineering Literacy – the understanding of how technologies are developed via the engineering design process; lessons are project based and integrate multiple subjects, making difficult concepts relevant and tangible to students and tapping into the students’ natural interest in problem solving. Engineering Design is the systematic and creative applications of scientific and math principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes and systems.
⇒ Mathematical Literacy –the ability of students to analyze, reason, and communicate ideas effectively as they pose, formulate, solve and interpret solutions to mathematical problems in a variety of situations.
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Meeting the Needs of Latin America's Rural and Urban Populations
Point of View, Centerpoint, October 2010
There are two Latin Americas according to demographers. In one of the most urbanized regions of the world, the population of some countries remains highly rural. While countries like Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are close to 90 percent urbanized, much of Central America, as well as Ecuador, Paraguay, and Bolivia, are only about 50-60 percent urban.
Across the continent, Latin America's total fertility rate has fallen from almost six children per woman in the 1960s to 2.2 children in 2005. Population growth rates are projected to continue to decline from 1.5 percent in 2010 to roughly 0.75 percent by 2020. But less-urbanized countries continue to experience high population growth in their rural areas, particularly among their large indigenous populations, who are not experiencing the same shifts from high to low fertility.
For example, since 1990, communities surrounding Guatemala's Sierra de Lacandon National Park have grown by 10 percent each year, with birthrates averaging eight children per woman. These larger communities and households have led to agricultural expansion into the park, which has lost 10 percent of its forest canopy since 1990.
Rural-to-rural migration is also a key, but often overlooked, dynamic as migrants move to other rural areas in search of new land to farm. Between 1961 and 2001, Central America's rural population increased by 59 percent. This increased population was accompanied by a 15 percent increase in deforestation, totaling some 13 million hectares.
Although many rural areas of Latin America have high fertility rates and expanding populations, they also have a high unmet demand for contraception. Indigenous populations are particularly underserved by health providers for many reasons, including cultural barriers, language, and accessibility.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, an estimated 50 percent of indigenous women in the Ecuadorian Amazon do not want another child, yet 98 percent of them do not have access to a modern contraceptive method.
While reaching historically disadvantaged populations in rural communities is not easy, some programs have had considerable success—and saved money—by combining environmental and health efforts. For example, the Guatemalan NGO ProPeten trained more than 80 midwives and health promoters and developed a radio soap opera in both Spanish and Q'eqchi' to deliver health services and environmental education to the communities living near the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
Given links between rural population growth and agricultural expansion, expanding access to family planning may not only be a cost-effective way to help women reach their desired family size, but also a smart investment in forest conservation and climate mitigation—and perhaps a down-payment on a more secure future for all.
By Kayly Ober, Program Assistant, Environmental Change and Security Program
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Fuch's Corneal Dystrophy
Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy is a progressive disorder affecting the cornea, transparent layer situated in the front part of the eye and covering the anterior chamber, the iris and pupil. Quite uncommon and defined by a slow development of symptoms, this disorder manifests through the buildup of excess fluid within the cornea.
Affecting approximately 1% of people, this eye disease is more common in women and people aged 50 or older. Also, those with family history for eye diseases - especially endothelial dystrophy – are more prone to developing this ailment.
How does Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy appear?
This disorder appears when cells forming the endothelium or inner layer of the cornea get damaged or lose their function and die, as this layer is responsible for draining water out of the eyes. With no viable cells to remove excess fluid, the cornea gets swollen and loses its transparency, leading to cloudy vision and all the other specific manifestations of this ailment.
But what exactly alters the corneal layers? In a normal eye, water is secreted for maintaining the membranes properly moisturized, for allowing light to pass and ensuring normal vision. But in some people, a smaller or larger number of cells inside the cornea have genetic defects thus they can’t function properly. As a result, water builds up inside the endothelium and small excrescences called guttate lesions form between the corneal layers.
These bumps enlarge and alter the regular form of endothelial cells surrounding them, causing their death eventually. The remaining cells have to cover the resulting gaps, but most of the times they’re unable of draining all the fluid so the cornea gets swollen and cloudy and Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy occurs.
Besides these mechanisms, free radicals affecting the cells in the back of the eyes, heredity and nutritional deficiencies – especially the lack of fatty acids, antioxidants, zinc, vitamin B and selenium – can also trigger this eye disease.
What are the symptoms of this ailment?
As already said, Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy manifests through blurred vision appearing mostly on awakening and gradually clearing up throughout the day, tiny bumps or blisters formed on the cornea and generalized eye pain and discomfort. The cornea has a cloudy appearance, quite visible with the naked eye. Other symptoms experienced by people affected by this disorder are an increased sensitivity to light, distorted vision and difficulties seeing at night. In severe cases blindness can also occur.
Treatment options for Fuchs’ dystrophy
While the only real cure that permanently puts an end to vision problems caused by this ailment is surgery, there are some remedies that can help in temporary relieving the symptoms:
- Eye drops and specific eye ointments can stimulate fluid drainage, reducing corneal swelling. Most dehydrating ointments and eye drops contain sodium chloride and have to be used 4-6 times a day for proper results.
- Wearing soft contact lenses can reduce discomfort and improve vision.
- Applying warm compresses on the eyes can help reduce blisters and dry excess fluid. Also, drying the eyes with a hair dryer kept at arm’s distance may help in improving vision for some hours.
In what concerns the surgical treatment performed in patients with Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy, its purpose is to replace the damaged cornea with a new one, taken from a donor. The corneal transplant is called keratoplasty and manages to restore normal vision, keeping symptoms away for many years.
Depending on the severity of the ailment, the procedure can be performed for the entire cornea or only for the affected layers, in both cases the results being encouraging. Still, endothelial keratoplasty – the procedure during which only some of the corneal layers are replaced – is considered more convenient for the patient as it triggers minimal changes in glass prescription and the recovery process is faster.
Although very effective, this surgical procedure has its drawbacks:
- An increased risk of rejection, leading to eye sensitivity, pain and redness
- A limited number of available donors at a specific moment
- A sensation of discomfort right after the procedure
- The need of using eye drops for several weeks or months, until the eyes heal completely
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On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. While he was being sworn in he said, "I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone.” Neither the German people, nor the rest of world, had any idea that this day was the beginning of an incremental concentration of power that would later lead to the death of millions of people and catalyze World War II. The lesson the world learned from Hitler concerning the dangers of unchecked power should never be forgotten.
In the week following his oath of office, Chancellor Hitler convinced German president Paul von Hindenburg to do two things: dissolve parliament and authorize the Minister of the Interior and the police to prohibit public meetings and publications that might be considered a danger to public safety. The conditions that made this kind of anti-democratic move possible were economic depression, political instability (including the threat of revolution), and a widespread desire to regain national dignity following the shame of defeat in World War I.
The Nazis played on these fears and desires. On the night of Feb. 27, 1933, the Reichstag building, where parliament met, was set on fire. Whether the action was undertaken at the behest of the Nazi Party or was an independent act remains debatable, but that Hitler capitalized on the panic that ensued is certain. The next day Hitler urged Hindenburg to respond by issuing a new law that suspended sections of the German Constitution that protected individual liberties. In this “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State,” the German people were informed that “Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” In a later section of the decree, Hitler laid the foundation for abolishing the country’s federalist system and centralizing power in Berlin:, “If in a state [regional government] the measures necessary for the restoration of public security and order are not taken, the Reich Government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.”
In March 1933, through various political maneuvers, Hitler successfully suppressed Communist, Socialist, and Catholic opposition to a proposed “Enabling Act,” which allowed the Cabinet to introduce legislation without first going through parliament, thus by-passing Constitutional review. The act would give the executive branch unprecedented power. Hitler’s regime designed the act as a temporary measure requiring reauthorization by the Reichstag every four years. Once the Nazis were the majority, reauthorization became perpetual. On March 23, 1933, the day votes were cast for the act, all of the Communist deputies and 26 Socialist deputies were missing because they had either been arrested or had fled the country, according to Lucy S. Dawidowicz in The War Against the Jews: 1933–1945. When the vote was taken, 441 deputies voted in favor of the Act and all 94 of the Social Democrats present voted against it. Hitler now had legal authority for dictatorship. Five days later, with the announcement of a plan to silence complaints about Germany by Jews abroad, Hitler began his long-term campaign against the Jews, which began with the boycott of German businesses and later escalated to the murder of an estimated six million Jews.
Hitler’s rise to power is a sobering story of how a crisis and calls for quick solutions can tempt citizens and leaders to subvert the rule of law and ignore a country’s constitutional safeguards. Adolf Hitler swore to protect Germany’s constitution, yet he pursued expanded “temporary” executive power that circumvented due process for the sake of the “safety” and “protection” of the people. Germany’s descent into totalitarianism is yet another example of how calls to concentrate decision-making in the executive branches, as we now see all over the world, too easily set the stage for political, social, and moral evil. On this dark anniversary, it would serve us well to remember that among the best protections citizens have against tyranny and oppression is insistence that all, including politicians, be held accountable to the same laws and that due process is always honored. These guarantees should be part of a system where decision-making is dispersed, not concentrated, because, as Lord Acton reminds us, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.”
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Haiti's Tragic History Is Entwined with the Story of America
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Announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was.
In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.
However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
In the 1700s, then-called St. Domingue and covering the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti was a French colony that rivaled the American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the Western Hemisphere. Relying on a ruthless exploitation of African slaves, French plantations there produced nearly one-half the world’s coffee and sugar.
Many of the great cities of France owe their grandeur to the wealth that was extracted from Haiti and its slaves. But the human price was unspeakably high. The French had devised a fiendishly cruel slave system that imported enslaved Africans for work in the fields with accounting procedures for their amortization. They were literally worked to death.
The American colonists may have rebelled against Great Britain over issues such as representation in Parliament and arbitrary actions by King George III. But black Haitians confronted a brutal system of slavery. An infamous French method of executing a troublesome slave was to insert a gunpowder charge into his rectum and then detonate the explosive.
So, as the American colonies fought for their freedom in the 1770s and as that inspiration against tyranny spread to France in the 1780s, the repercussions would eventually reach Haiti, where the Jacobins’ cry of “liberty, equality and fraternity” resonated with special force. Slaves demanded that the concepts of freedom be applied universally.
When the brutal French plantation system continued, violent slave uprisings followed. Hundreds of white plantation owners were slain as the rebels overran the colony. A self-educated slave named Toussaint L’Ouverture emerged as the revolution’s leader, demonstrating skills on the battlefield and in the complexities of politics.
Despite the atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict, the rebels – known as the “Black Jacobins” – gained the sympathy of the American Federalist Party and particularly Alexander Hamilton, a native of the Caribbean himself. Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, helped L’Ouverture draft a constitution for the new nation.
But events in Paris and Washington soon conspired to undo the promise of Haiti’s new freedom.
Despite Hamilton’s sympathies, some Founders, including Thomas Jefferson who owned 180 slaves and owed his political strength to agrarian interests, looked nervously at the slave rebellion in St. Domingue. “If something is not done, and soon done,” Jefferson wrote in 1797, “we shall be the murderers of our own children.”
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the chaos and excesses of the French Revolution led to the ascendance of Napoleon Bonaparte, a brilliant and vain military commander possessed of legendary ambition. As he expanded his power across Europe, Napoleon also dreamed of rebuilding a French empire in the Americas.
In 1801, Jefferson became the third President of the United States – and his interests at least temporarily aligned with those of Napoleon. The French dictator was determined to restore French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson was eager to see the slave rebellion crushed.
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Framework for Environmental Protection in the Antarctic Treaty System
Environmental Protection and Conservation in the Antarctic Treaty System
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 and came into force in 1961. At this time, environmental issues were not as important as they are now. However, the Treaty went some way towards protecting the environment by banning nuclear explosions, radioactive waste disposal and the establishment of military bases. During the forty years since the Antarctic Treaty came into force, four additional conventions and protocols have been agreed by the Antarctic Treaty nations creating what is now called the Antarctic Treaty System. All of these agreements relate to the conservation of the environment, and Antarctica is now one of the best-protected areas in the world. The conventions are:
- The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991)
- The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) (1982)
- The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS) (1972)
The Antarctic Treaty has been a tremendous international success and has been signed by 46 different countries, of which 28 undertake major scientific research activities in Antarctica and so have voting status at Antarctic Treaty meetings.
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Solar Powered VHF Repeater
Bird Island, South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands are all home to research stations run by the British Antarctic Survey. These stations house a small number of staff who carry out scientific experiments on and around the islands. The need for effective communication equipment in such a hostile environment is very important.
The stations currently use Marine VHF radios to keep in contact. Due to the mountainous terrain of the islands, VHF radio waves are quickly absorbed creating many blackspots from which radio contact is non-existent. The requirement was for a VHF repeater to work on one of the International Marine duplex channels (e.g. channel 1 or 18). The repeater system was to be self-contained with its own power source. It needed to be light enough to be carried to its final position and to be rugged enough to withstand Antarctic winters.
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King David was a lad! The famous Jewish king was, in the most Irish sense, a lad. It may come as a surprise to many, perhaps an unwelcome surprise, but, red hair is an ancient Jewish tradition. It began with the grandson of Abraham, Esau, twin brother of Jacob.
At the birth of the two brothers, “the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment.” (Genesis 25:25.) “And they called his name Esau. In Biblical Hebrew, עשו(‘é-sâv) means rough, to the touch, referencing the thick hair. It almost sounds like a case of hypertrichosis, or perhaps hirsutism. Superstition of course associated this malady with lycanthropy, or the werewolf condition. Esau, we must observe, was said to be a great hunter.
To our knowledge, there is no other Mesopotamian tale, myth, or god, which features red hair. The Greek poet Xenophanes (ca. 570-475 BC) described the Thracian people as blue-eyed, with red hair, but that’s half a millennium after the text of Samuel (depicting David as a red head), and depending on when one dates the text Genesis, nearly a millennium later. Of course, to take Genesis to be reality, Esau’s time would have been somewhere in the 19th century BC. Homer’s Iliad describes Menelaus and Achilles as red headed, but this is only 8th century BC.
Laura, with her babies. Ain’t it a beaut!
In modern times, red haired hypertrichosis was featured in portraits of Georg Hoefnegel in the late 16th century AD. He painted the family of Petrus Gonsalvus of the Canary Islands. Gonsalvus had come to Paris, for social refinement. His case was temporarily studied by Dr. Felix Plater in Basel. Gonsalvus had two children, both of whom inherited his condition (and were portrayed by Hoefnegel as well).
Petrus Gonsalvus, a later portrait. First
Hoefnegel sketches date back to 1582.
Red hair results from a recessive gene, certainly, melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), to be graphic about it, on chromosome 16. The pigment pheomelanin gives red hair its distinctive colour. It comes through an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance.
Esau also came to be called Edom, or ‘rosey,’ ruddy or reddish–because he craved some red pottage (lentils) his brother had cooked. The descendants of Esau are named in Genesis 36. They dwelt to the southeast of Palestine, or Cana’an.
David was born about 1030 BC. He was “ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to” (I Samuel 16:12). Ruddy means more than a rosey-cheeked boy. The Hebrew is ארמים (‘admônîy), meaning red, or reddish, of the hair or complexion. Clearly, David was a spectacular specimen. Something odd, or perhaps even freakish. Certainly, he stood out. (Perhaps this is part of the reason his family had hidden him away out in the sheep fields. When we are introduced to him, he is but eight or nine years old.)
Even today, but 1 to 2% of the human population has red hair. It is an anomaly. It is usually associated with the Celtic peoples, particularly the Irish. Linguistically, least, this includes the Gauls. Now, considering the red heads found among the mummies of the Takla Makan desert of western China, we have to say, this Celtic race got around!
Red headed woman, ca. 1000 BC, Takla Makan tombs,
discovered in the late 1980′s.
The white race is understood to have descended from Noah’s son, Shem (see, Genesis 10:22-32). Of course, the term “Semite” is derived from the name Shem. A “shemite” would be a descendant of Noah’s son Shem, as opposed to the other two sons, Japeth and Ham (traditionally understood to have fathered the Mogoloid and Negroid races respectively).
Now, we can’t say the Irish are Jewish, but, we might say that the ancient Hebrews were the originators of red hair. It happened in them first, as far as any records anywhere show. The argument of red hair is a powerful one, but, as far as I know, has not been used to support the ‘anti-Semitic’ notion that the Celts are the true Hebrew people, and the people Hitler tossed in the ovens were some mistaken pretenders. This business is better known as the Khazar theory, rejected by today’s Jews, of course.
We can’t say for sure that the Irish are the real Jews, but, we can say that the real Jews ‘invented’ red hair. The latter is a lot more likely. Until anthropologists, mythologists, and scholars can find evidence that red hair was distinguished first in some ancient culture other than Hebrew, the Jews have it. Red hair belongs to the grandson of Abraham, Esau.
And to think, Baruch Halpern’s eminent work, David’s Secret Demons (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), the most current scholarship on the text of Samuel, doesn’t even mention the red hair! (See, pp. 18, 19.)
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India has had to face foreign invaders many more times than most other nations. The majority of these came through the Khyber pass in the North West of India. These invaders were lured either by riches of India, zeal to convert people to their beliefs or world domination through force. Th Afghans were among the last to come across the Khyber. By the late 1700s Afghans has set up small city states all over Punjab and North West. Rohillas of Awadh (UP), Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Nawab of Malerkotla, Multan, Kashmir all were ultimately descended from the invaders. The Afghans wrecked havoc on local population in their territories. Rapes and forced conversions were commonplace in the Afghan ruled territories. Children born out of forceful marriages and rapes were given a special caste of "Ranghars". And Ranghars were specially targeted by Maulavis to fill them a zeal of Islam, in order to make them fighters of Islam.
The Sikhs opposed these Afghan landlords and were able eventually to wrest control of the biggest city in Punjab, named Lahore, under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Sandhu. In an attempt to bring the North West under their rule the Sikhs sought to sweep away isolated pockets of Afghan power. In his enterprise Maharaja Ranjit Singh Sandhu was helped by his many generals. Hari Singh Nalwa was the most illustrious of them all.
Hari Singh Nalwa
Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa was born to Gurdial Singh Uppal and Dharam Kaur at Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) in the year 1791. Gurdial Singh was an officer in Ranjit Singh 's army. He died during a campaign fighting Afghans in 1798, when Hari Singh was only seven years of age. Hari Singh eventually assumed the responsibility of supervising the affairs of his father's lands. Hari Singh presented himself before Maharaja Ranjit Singh in his open Durbar. The Maharaja was so impressed by the feats of chivalry shown by him that he was taken in the royal service as a personal khidmatgar or an attendant.
Maharaja commissioned him into the army in 1804 by granted him a command of a cavalry of 700 men and horses with the honor of Sardar. Hari Singh Nalwa named his regiment 'Sher-Dil-Rajman'. Hari Singh earned a reputation for bravery quite early on. During the course of hunting expedition he happened to be a victim of a sudden attack of a tiger. The attack was so subtle and unexpected that he did not gain time to pull out his sword. Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa faced the crucial situation with such boldness that he managed to catch hold of the jaw of the beast forcefully with his hands and pushed it away with the prowess of arms arranging thus to kill it with his sword. Baron Charles Hugel says he was called Nalwa for 'having cloven the head of a tiger who had already seized him as its prey'.
The Sikhs passing established themselves as the pre-eminent power in Punjab following their defeat of Ahmad Shah Abdali's governor at Lahore in 1765. But their mode of fighting then was hardly suited to the requirements of a well organized state. Maharaja Ranjit Singh out of these Sikhs became leader of whole Khalsa (Sarbat Khalsa). He built up a strong, centralized and efficient military system by drawing the best elements in foreign with the best elements found in the indigenous fighting systems.
After some major campaigns of Multan and Kasur where Hari Singh Nalwa's regiment fought with distinction, Maharaja turned towards Kashmir. Hari Singh Nalwa's regiment "Sher-Dil-Rajman' was in forefront in campaign to get back Shah Shuja from the Governor of Kashmir, Shah Shuja's wife Wafa Begum had promised Kohinoor Diamond for Maharaja if her husband was to be freed from prison of Kashmir. In 1814 A.D., Hari Singh routed the Kashmiri forces. Shah Shuja gave Ranjit Singh kohinoor Diamond, from that day on till his death Maharaja Ranjit Singh wore that Diamond on his right shoulder. Meanwhile, through political means, Ranjit Singh installed his own governor (Jahan Dad Khan) in Peshawar.
In 1821, Dost Mohammed Khan and Yar Mohammed Khan, two Afghans were able to expel the Maharaja's nominee Jahan Dad Khan from Peshawar and thus an expedition was undertaken by Ranjit Singh's Army. A large army under illustrious commanders was dispatched to rectify the situation in Peshawar (Cavalry commanded by Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa, Infantry by Dhanna Singh Malwai, and Jagat Singh Attariwala, Artillery by Mian Ghaus Khan). Dost Mohammed Khan managed to reconcile by paying a handsome nazarana to Maharaja and by accepting the submission to Khalsa kingdom rather than to kingdom of Kabul.
Battle of Naushera
Ranjit Singh's forces at this time were divided into regular and irregular infantry, regular and irregular cavalry and artillery. Regular forces were directly under Lahore Sultanate of Ranjit Singh, irregular forces were supplied by allies or by those kingdoms that were bound by treaties. Artillery was completely under state control and was led by Mian Ghaus Khan and General Allard. Ranjit Singh employed several foreigners in his military services. Famous ones were General Allard leading an artillery regiment and General Ventura leading a regiment made up of Poorbia (Bihar, Bengali, and UP) soldiers. Both Allard and Ventura had earlier fought in the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Ranjit Singh's motive to include foreigners in his army was to modernize his forces.
In 1822 Fakir Azizudeen, Maharaja Ranjit Singh's "foreign officer" was sent to Peshawar to collect annual tribute. He was well received by Yar Mohammed, who ordered the city to be illuminated in the Fakir's honor. Yar Mohammed paid the tribute in cash and horses. Then Fakir Azizuddin returned to Lahore well satisfied with his mission. This incident lowered the prestige of Yar Mohammed Khan among his people.
Mohammed Azim Khan who then ruled Kabul taunted Yar Mohammed for paying tribute to Sikh infidels. Azim Khan marched out of Kabul and the cry of jihad echoed at Khyber. Over forty-five thousand Khattaks and Yusufzai tribesmen under the leadership of Syed Akbar Shah of Balmer volunteered to fight. Yar Mohammed abandoned Peshawar and went into hiding. And once more Maharaja Ranjit Singh ordered his army to move north towards Peshawar. Prince Sher Singh, Misr Dewan Chand and General Ventura were led the battalions of infantry. Hari Singh Nalwa, Phula Singh, Fateh Singh Ahluwalia, Desa Singh Majithia and Attar Singh Sandhawalia led the cavalry, while artillery was commanded by Mian Ghaus Khan and General Allard. Recently trained and incorporated battalions of Purbia (Bihari soldiers) and Gurkha Soldiers were also sent. These were led by General Ventura and General Balbhadra (Gurkha General). A grand total of about 25,000 men moved to defend the Sikh kingdom.
In December 1822 orders were given to march out of Lahore and Prince Sher Singh, younger son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh led the march with his battalions of Cavalry and Infantry. Hari Singh Nalwa whose Sher-e-Dil Rajaman battalion was replenished by additional soldiers making it the largest Cavalry regiment of about 5000 men and horses in the Lahore Darbar's army closely followed Prince Sher Singh. These advance columns of Lahore Durbar reached Attock river a month ahead of other forces. They crossed the Attock river using a pontoon bridge and occupied the Sikh fort of Jehangiria. Mohammed Azim Khan and his Afghani Jihadis soon surrounded the fort of Jehangiria. Other men helping Mohammed Azim to lead their 45,000 forces of Mujahdeen were his brothers, Dost Mohammed (who had more than once paid tribute to Lahore), Sayyid Akbar Shah and Jabbar Khan, the ex-governor of Kashmir. They destroyed the pontoon bridge over river Attock so that Sikh forces could not cross and started pounding the fort with their guns. Hari Singh Nalwa and Prince Sher Singh with much grit and determination held the fort with their total of less then 10,000 men. Since this fort was right on the banks of a river, there was no shortage of water or other supplies. Hari Singh Nalwa led his cavalry in numerous sorties outside fort destroying two of the invaluable guns of Afghanis.
Meanwhile, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and rest of the Khalsa force which was following his advance columns leisurely arrived in January to find the only pontoon bridge across the river destroyed. To make matter worse next day there was a heavy snowfall. The Maharaja was being informed through his network of intelligence of the rapidly rising force of the enemy but decided to wait for his heavy guns to arrive which were due by mid-day (March 14, 1823) But, that morning Sikh a Gurmata (Resolution) was passed that the Afghans would be attacked before their forces could gather greater strength and irrespective of whether the heavy guns arrived or not. Fortunately, the artillery also arrived in time for the attack.
Hari Singh Nalwa and Prince Sher Singh had already taken on the enemy earlier crossing the river before the bridge was destroyed and capturing the fort of Jehangiria. They were exerting powerful pressure on the enemy but badly needed reinforcements which had arrived on the other side of that river, but could not wait for the bridge to be constructed under the threat of enemy fire. Ranjit Singh one early morning leading himself riding on his white horse he dipped in the freezing water to cross the river. Whole force followed but in this exercise much of the equipment was lost, that included much needed guns. Akali Phoola Singh's suicide squad who was following Ranjit Singh, now took the lead, and, without a moment's thought, plunged their horses in the swollen and turbulent river. How could the others stay behind ? Every one followed suit, but before they crossed over, the enemy had taken flight from Jehangiria leaving even their dead or dying in the battle-field and saying in despair:—" Toba, Toba,Khuda Khud Khalsa shud." (God forbid, but it appears, God himself has turned a Khalsa ! )." It was believed that no one could cross the river at its full fury.
Thus catching the enemy by surprise Ranjit Singh and his forces broke open the cordon massacring more than 1,000 Afghans. The Afghanas who were from the Khattak and Yusufzai tribes, fled and entrenched themselves nearby a city then called Pir Sabak (this later became the British cantonment of Naushera, which is currently one of the major bases of Pakistan Army). This put a gap between the main Afghan force under Azim Khan's brothers and the column of tribal Jihadis. A small but swift stream called Landai put a further obstacle between the two Afghan armies. And he Sikhs were determined to maintain the initiative. Consequently, whatever was left of Sikh artillery was sent to the bank of the Landai to forestall any attempts by the two Afghan columns to link up. Meanwhile when news of the disaster reached Azim Khan he made a dash from Peshawar to join his brothers on the bank of the Landai river. They could not cross the stream because of constant firing by Durbar guns. Azim Khan and his brothers then decided to launch an attack early morning when Punjabi guns were being rested. However, the Sikh Army decided to wipe out the tribal column before Azim Kahn could strike. As a result, the Gurkha and Purbia battalions were dispatched to deal with Pir Sabak Hill where tribal mujahids were resting. And though the Tribal column fought desperately they were overwhelmed by the Gurkhas and Purbias. General Balbhadra of Gurkha Infantry lost his life during this action in the midst of some of the fiercest to hand-to-hand fighting.
Meanwhile, seeing their comrades getting killed all Afghanis came together in a desperate effort to hold the attack by Darbar's army. Darbar's forces surrounded them from all sides. Both Hari Singh Nalwa and Akali Phula Singh from one end lead the cavalry charge while Gurkhas who were leaderless after martyrdom of General Balbhadra and Purbias under General Ventura and Punjabi soldiers under General Dewan Misr Chand holding their positions. Hari Singh Nalwa pressed on his cavalry deploying with precision and raising war cries of Bole So Nihal Sat Sri Akal from time to time, Hari Singh Nalwa and his disciplined soldiers emptied their muskets on Jihadis. A wave of about 50 soldiers on their horses would charge at Jihadis, firing their muskets and then sending more to meet their creator through their bayonets as they gallop across the battlefield. Hari Singh Nalwa and Akali Phula Singh with their cavalry regiment of Sher-Dil-Rajman and Nihangs as Khushwant Singh succinctly puts it gave them "coup de grace." They drove the Khattaks and Yusufzais from Pir Sabak Hill. Heavy artillery on the land surrounded the Jihadis and opened up a barrage to complete the slaughter.
While Hari Singh was leading his Sher-Dil-Rajman attacking Jihadis from one end, from other side Akali Phula Singh and his Cavalry of Nihangs, or the "Crocodile Sikhs who fight till death" were performing similar feat. Jihadis were surrounded by Gurkha Infantry at one end, General Ventura soldiers at other end, while waves of Cavalry charges were attacking from the one side. Jihadis changed their tactics and decided to go for the leaders in order to demoralize the Khalsa forces. General Bhalbhadra was shot, General Ventura was injured and Akali Phula Singh's horse was shot. This angered Akali Phula Singh and he made a grave mistake by getting on an elephant. Now Akali Phula Singh's towering torso was seen from all over the battlefield. Ghazi Jihadis saw the Khalsa General on top of an elephant and immediately trained their muskets on him. Akali Phula Singh's body was riddled with bullets, he collapsed in his howdah exhorting the Nihang Sikhs to not to give way. Akali Phula Singh through his dashing feats had inspired other Sikh commanders his martyrdom renewed the vigor to fight. Mohammed Azim Khan watched the massacre from the other side of the stream without being able to help his tribesmen brother. He did not had the will to fight till death. By the day's end, Four thousand tribesmen were left dead on the field. Probably two times that number were injured and left dying at the battlefield. It was a crushing defeat for Afghanis. Hari Singh Nalwa whose ideal was Akali Phula Singh, chased the remaining Afghans deep into their territory killing hundreds more.
Mohammed Azim was too ashamed to face the people of Peshawar and he returned to Afghanistan, where he died in couple of months. This battle proved the effectiveness of organized military. Death of a General Akali Phula Singh at this battle was the biggest loss of the campaign for Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Azim Khan's Jihadis had lost heart and abandoned their zeal for Jihad in complete disorder. 14 large and 18 small guns were captured by the Sikhs. It showed them the effectiveness of organized artillery and cavalry regiments as well as old tactics of Guerilla warfare. In this battle not all of Ranjit Singh's forces took part, some regiments just waited for their turn which never came. General Allard and Ventura's participation in this battle with their divisions and trained army of Lahore kingdom with Akali division of the army had absolutely no match for untrained militia who although surpassed in sheer numbers, Afghans after a great massacre submitted and Naushera was captured. Albeit, the Lahore troops lost an indispensable commander. Hari Singh Nalwa played a conspicuous role first by inflicting a crushing defeat upon the enemy and secondly by pursuing the enemy after the defeat in order to be sure about the victory of the Lahore troops. The battle of Naushera made it evident to the frontier tribesmen that the Afghan militia was weaker than those of Lahore troops. This battle sealed the further prospects of Muhammad Azim of Kabul and established the Sikh supremacy over Peshawar.
"Akali Phula Singh's memorial still stands intact there. For Ranjit Singh as much as for others, the joy of a superb victory was marred by this sad and heart-rending event. This monument (now situated in the Frontier Province of Pakistan) on the bank of the river Kabul was endowed wish a Jagir by Ranjit Singh and a Gurdwara was also built on the site. Sardar Gurbaksh Singh. well-known Punjabi writer and editor of Preet Lari", settled there in early thirties of this century. and tilled the farm attached to this monument. The place is still called Samadh Akali Phoola Singh."
"Three days later the Maharaja entered Peshawar the head of his victorious troops. The citizens welcomed him and paid him homage with nazarana (gifts). The Maharajah's sojourn was, however, not a peaceful one. what the tribesmen could not achieve in open combat, they tried to gain by the cold-blooded murder of Punjabi soldiers under cover of darkness."
Ranjit Singh knew about the tactics of these tribesmen. A few days later both Yar Mohammed and Dost Mohammed presented themselves at court and sought the Maharajah's pardon. He forgave them readily and accepted their tribute of presents and horses. Yar Mohammed was reinvested governor of Peshawar on promising an increased annual revenue of Rs.1,000,000 to the Lahore Durbar. This was first time that Afghanis were totally beaten and humiliated in their own country by their former subjects. Ranjit Singh made this possible through his able generals and brilliant military tactics. So huge was this victory that it caused apprehensions in British circles. British realized that sooner or later showdown with Ranjit Singh was inevitable. In particular, they realized that the Durbar's conquests had reached the furthest geographical limits of the Punjab in the north and north-west. Beyond were impassable mountains and inhospitable, unprofitable regions.
In order to pacify his new conquests Ranjit Singh ordered Hari Singh Nalwa and Prince Sher Singh to remain in North West Frontier province at the end his campaign. He also ordered them to construct series of small forts all along the highway leading to Khyber pass. He correctly had assessed the importance of Khyber pass, and thus organized the defenses of his frontier around Kabul.
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Battle of MonmouthArticle Free Pass
Having evacuated Philadelphia, the British under Sir Henry Clinton were marching through New Jersey to Sandy Hook. After a 40-hour halt at Monmouth Court House, the army moved out, leaving a small covering force. In order to strike a vigorous blow at the retreating enemy, American general George Washington ordered Charles Lee, commanding the advance guard, to attack the British rear. When Lee attempted to surround the small force at the courthouse, he was surprised by the arrival of Lord Cornwallis’s rear guard, which Clinton had ordered back to resist the attackers. Rather than risk fighting a delaying action on difficult terrain, Lee ordered a retreat but was tardy giving Washington notice. When Washington arrived, he was therefore surprised and indignant to find his Continental forces retreating in much disorder. He immediately rallied the troops and checked the British advances. Cornwallis fell back and withdrew undetected at night, joining the main British army on safe ground. Washington did not follow.
Having about equal forces, both sides claimed to have won victory, but the British claim seems more valid since Clinton was able to complete his march without molestation. Washington presently marched to the Hudson River to join the Continental Army there, while Clinton’s forces returned to New York. The combatants thus resumed the positions held two years before.
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...Humphry Davy experimented on combustion, including measurements of flame temperatures, investigations of the effect on flames of rarefied gases, and dilution with various gases; he also discovered catalytic combustion—the oxidation of combustibles on a catalytic surface accompanied by the release of heat but without flame.
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On the cover: In 1974, Olins and Olins (Science 183: 330–332) and Kornberg (Science 184: 868–871) were working to unravel the mystery of DNA packaging and observed that DNA was wrapped around repeated units of “spherical chromatin particles.” These “particles on a string” were nucleosomes, made up of an octamer of histones, and were determined to be the first step in the complicated process of condensation of linear DNA into chromatin. Although nucleosomes were initially thought to serve only as a means of DNA packaging, in 1988, Han and Grunstein reported initial in vivo evidence that the nucleosome was also involved in transcription regulation (Cell 55: 1137–1145). The image shows a 2.8 Å X-ray crystal structure of 146 base pairs of DNA wrapped around the nucleosome core (Nature 389: 251–260). The histone-protein main chains are represented by the different colored ribbons at the center of the circle of DNA. Adapted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature 389: 251–260, copyright 1997. Special thanks to Dr. Timothy Richmond, ETH Zurich, Institut für Molekularbiologie und Biophysik, for the image.
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On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress. See an image of the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives.
As always, this most American of holidays will be marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the nation. In 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly-independent nation was 2.5 million. This year, the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau estimate is 313.9 million.
For fascinating figures on the Fourth’s fireworks, flags, fanfares, firings (grills) and more, see the Census Bureau’s Facts for Features.
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Eva Sargent, Southwest Program Director
Mexican gray wolves, according to science and common sense, are the most endangered wolf in the world. We should have a new count in a couple of weeks, but last year there were fewer than 60 wild Mexican wolves in the entire world. They are all offspring of the emergency captive breeding effort that saved the species from extinction – an Endangered Species Act miracle, really. But what’s happened since then, since the first captive-bred Mexican gray wolves put their paws on the wild ground in 1998, is more frustrating.
Because the entire population is derived from only seven wolves (a brush with extinction that no critters should come close to), they didn’t have a great deal of genetic diversity. That is, they didn’t have a large number of different traits carried in their genes. A high amount of genetic diversity is the engine of adaptability – it allows populations to change their biology when conditions change, and that’s key to survival. The captive population has been carefully managed to preserve genetic diversity, but this only goes so far. From the beginning, geneticists knew that in order to overcome their limited genetic heritage, the Mexican gray wolves would need to rapidly expand their numbers beyond what was possible in captivity. They needed to get out of the zoos that had taken such care to save them and really take off in the wild. By reproducing quickly in the wild, they would express every ounce of genetic diversity they had in their genes. The wolves did their part immediately – pairing up, denning up, eating elk and having puppies.
Unfortunately, humans haven’t held up their part of the deal, and the population has never expanded fast enough to preserve their genetic diversity. Overzealous management and a lack of political will have kept the numbers low. Now, nearly 15 years after the first wolves were released, the Mexican gray wolf is facing a genetic emergency that could keep them from ever recovering. Already, it seems that a lack of genetic diversity is causing lower litter sizes. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t act soon to release more wolves, this and other effects of a small gene pool could doom the species, no matter how hard we try in the future to recover them.
Many opportunities to improve the genetics of Mexican gray wolves have been squandered. Instead of supporting stable, reproducing packs, wolves are captured and moved around because they get into trouble, or cross the invisible boundaries of their small recovery area in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Until recently, many were sent back to captivity, and some were killed, for eating livestock. These removals were indiscriminate – it didn’t matter if the suspected cattle-eater was a mom with pups, or a genetically valuable dad. With the future of the species relying on so few individuals in the wild, we – joined by several other conservation groups – went to court over this issue, and as part of the settlement, this disastrous removal policy was ended. But its effects linger – there are still too few wolves, and too few with the best genes to keep the species on the road to recovery.
There are other pressures too; despite their protected status, illegal killing is the largest source of dead wolves. But the window is closing on fixing the genetic issue, and one solution is amazingly simple: Release more wolves from captivity, and do it now.
The last time a wolf from captivity was released was in 2008. Since then, there have been roadblocks and reasons and excuses, but no one has demonstrated the gumption necessary to get the job done. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for recovering Mexican gray wolves, has waited with an absurd amount of patience for agreement from the states before acting, and all at the wolves’ expense. Opportunities have been lost, and they won’t be regained. Finally, last week, they decided to release a single male wolf in hopes that he will pair with a female of the Bluestem pack, whose mate was illegally shot and killed last year.
Of course all of us who work on Mexican gray wolf recovery are grateful for this small step in the right direction, and we hope this new male gets right down to business saving the species. But much more needs to be done, and soon, or it will be too late. The geneticists who have spent years sounding the alarm haven’t stopped, and Defenders won’t stop, until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implements an emergency genetic rescue plan for the Mexican gray wolf. Such a plan would entail selective breeding in captivity, perhaps even using in vitro fertilization, to recreate the genetic makeup of the founding wolves. Still, one of the easiest steps this plan would include is to release more wolves into the wild. We’ll keep you posted on our progress with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Meanwhile, stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed for an increase in the 2012 count, due in a few weeks. More wolves from the same old breeding pairs won’t solve the genetic issue, but it will improve the outlook for the most endangered wolf on the planet.
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Rheumatism: Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment
Summary: Rheumatism refers to a chronic inflammation of the body’s joints, muscles, tendons and bones and leads to perpetual pain and discomfort in the patient.
Rheumatism is basically of three types: local, regional or general. Tendinitis and bursitis are types of localized rheumatism while regional rheumatism includes pain in the chest wall, inflammation of the tempero-mandibular joint and subsequent pain. Fibromyalgia is the main form of generalized rheumatism.
The main symptoms of rheumatism include swelling and pain in all or particular joints of the body and stiffness of limbs that restrict movement. The skin around such stiff joints may also turn red and the stiffness is usually felt in the morning after hours of immobility brought about by daily sleep. The stiff joint also feels warm to the touch.
Rheumatismcan be diagnosed by your family physician or a qualified orthopedic surgeon who will first ask if there is a history of the disease in the family. A physical examination is then conducted as also X-rays taken of the joints that have turned stiff. These will reveal fluid collection around the affected joint or even a certain degree of bone erosion or extra bone growth that usually causes the pain. Joint deformity is also reported in certain patients with severe forms of the disease if left untreated. Checking of ESR levels in the blood is done to determine the degree of inflammation and other forms of infection, if any. The fluid may be tapped using a needle and sent for microscopic evaluation if bone malignancy is suspected.
The treatment of rheumatism hinges largely on reducing pain, improving mobility and preventing further joint erosion or damage. The disease, however, is incurable. Lifestyle changes like regular exercising, walking an dieting are advised to reduce weight if the patient is obese or over weight. Exercise helps relieve stiffness, reduces fatigue and pain while also improving bone and muscle strength. However, over exercising is not advisable as it can do more damage to the tendons than good.
The exercise regimen for this condition includes low-impacts aerobics, motion exercises that increase flexibility and strength training to increase muscle tone. Physiotherapy is also often recommended and this may be through hot or ice treatment, application of splints to strengthen, support and improve joint positions, massage and water therapy
The right quantities of sleep of about eight to ten hours per day helps prevent flare-ups and the patient is also advised not to remain in one position for long. Extra caution should be taken not to stress sore joints and grab or support bars should also be set up in the homes of those severely affected by the disease and with severe mobility problems. Pain reducing medication and joint replacement surgery is also advised in severe cases of Rheumatism but isn’t always the best step to take for everyone.
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BMI Children & Teens Body Mass Index
(BMI for kids is calculated differently)
BMI Calculator using pounds and feet/inches
Body Mass Index (BMI) FAQS
What is Body Mass Index (BMI)?
Body Mass Index, or BMI, is a tool doctors use to identify potential weight problems in adults, by comparing an individual's BMI to the rest of the population. It is based only on your height and weight, and so is an easy screening tool. Although it is an indirect measurement, it has been shown to correlate closely in most cases to more direct measurements of body fat.
What Does My Body Mass Index (BMI) Mean?
Use your BMI to determine whether you are at a healthy weight. The chart below gives the ranges for underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese. If you find yourself in any category besides "normal" you should consult your doctor about ways to improve your health.
Standard BMI tables apply only to adults age 20 and older. The weight categories do not depend on age or gender. ( See the BMI Children & Teens Calculator for kids)
The Body Mass Index (BMI) Formula - How to Calculate BMI
BMI Formula and Calculation
kilograms and meters
BMI = weight (kg) ÷ [height (m)]2
With the metric system,
BMI equals weight in kilograms divided by height in
meters squared. If height is measured in
centimeters, divide height in centimeters by 100 to obtain
height in meters.
Example: Weight = 68 kg, Height = 165 cm (1.65 m)
Calculation: 68 — (1.65)2 = 24.98
Is Body Mass Index (BMI) Reliable?
Although there is a strong correlation between body fat and the BMI calculation, there are some other considerations to take into account:
For a given BMI, women usually have more body fat than men, and older adults have more than younger people.
Althletes sometimes have a high BMI because of increased muscle mass.
Also, waist circumference is an important measurement since abdominal fat is a risk-factor for obesity-related diseases.
What Are the Health Risks Associated with Obesity?
Being obese or overweight increases your risk of:
Type 2 diabetes
Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)
Coronary heart disease
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
Dyslipidemia (high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol,
or high levels of triglycerides)
WIth all of these potential health problems associated with being overweight, body mass index (BMI) can be an important tool in assessing health risks.
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The most common cause of fish stress is poor water quality. Fish can also stress due to sudden changes in pH or temperature, breaks in their routine, and a host of other causes. To spot stress, you need to observe your fish regularly. Your fish may be sluggish or swim erratically, have less than vibrant color or tattered fins, become thin, or lack an appetite. Other clues might be more subtle. For example, fish may suspend near the surface or hold their fins close against their body.
Stress causes physical or mental discomfort resulting in the release of stress-related hormones. In simplest terms, when your fish get upset, for any reason, their immune systems are put to the test.
Even though you may be feeding a high quality diet, it may not have enough vitamins and minerals for times of high stress. This is the time when supplements are needed most.
Vitamins & Minerals
Vitamins and minerals promote a healthy metabolism, and are especially important to young, growing, or spawning fish. Deficiencies can result in poor food conversion, poor skeletal growth, anemia, cataracts, and more. Supplements like
TetraPond Koi Vital enhance water quality and make key elements readily available for absorption through fish gills and skin.
Pure, all-natural evaporated seawater economically reduces fish stress and adds essential electrolytes. It improves gill function, protects fish against nitrite toxicity, and is milder than medications.
Added to your pond daily or weekly, Montmorillonite Clay can provide up to 64 minerals and trace elements vital for all life of koi and goldfish.
Most fish suffering from a deficiency will not recover overnight. It may take several days, weeks, or even months for them to return to complete health.
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WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:
- Abdominal paracentesis is a procedure that removes abnormal fluid buildup in your abdomen called ascites. Your abdomen is a cavity (space) that holds many organs, such as your stomach, intestines (bowels), and liver. Liver diseases, such as cirrhosis (scarring and swelling of the liver), are the most common causes of ascites. Other causes of ascites include cancer, heart failure, kidney disease, tuberculosis, and problems with your pancreas. Ascites may cause you to have stomach or chest pain, discomfort, and shortness of breath. You may have nausea (upset stomach) and vomiting (throwing up), and you may not feel like eating. The fluid buildup may make it hard for you to move around.
- During abdominal paracentesis, a needle is inserted into your abdomen to drain the ascites fluid. To learn the cause of your ascites, your caregiver may remove a small amount of the fluid for tests. To treat your symptoms, your caregiver may remove most, or all of the fluid from your abdomen. Abdominal paracentesis may help you and your caregiver learn the cause of your ascites and choose the best treatment. Abdominal paracentesis may improve your symptoms, such as stomach pain and shortness of breath. Abdominal paracentesis may help you move better and return to your daily activities.
- Keep a current list of your medicines: Include the amounts, and when, how, and why you take them. Take the list or the pill bottles to follow-up visits. Carry your medicine list with you in case of an emergency. Throw away old medicine lists. Use vitamins, herbs, or food supplements only as directed.
- Take your medicine as directed: Call your primary healthcare provider if you think your medicine is not working as expected. Tell him about any medicine allergies, and if you want to quit taking or change your medicine.
- Diuretic: This medicine is often called a water pill. Diuretics may help your body get rid of extra fluid. They may help prevent getting ascites again. Diuretics may also decrease your blood pressure. You may urinate more often when taking them.
Ask for information about where and when to go for follow-up visits:
For continuing care, treatments, or home services, ask for more information.
Do not drink alcohol:
Some people should not drink alcohol. These people include those with certain medical conditions or who take medicine that interacts with alcohol. Alcohol includes beer, wine, and liquor. Tell your caregiver if you drink alcohol. Ask him to help you stop drinking.
Caring for your wound at home:
Ask your caregiver when it is safe to remove your bandage, and how to care for your wound.
Eat a low-salt diet:
Eating a diet low in sodium (salt) may help prevent the ascites from coming back. You should try to eat about 1.5 to 2 grams of sodium each day, but not more. Do not add salt to your food. You should cook your own food and avoid eating ready-made foods from the store. Always read the labels on the foods you buy to find out how much sodium is in them. Ask your caregiver how much sodium you can eat, and if you need to be on a special diet.
Limit the amount of liquid you drink:
If you have problems with your kidneys, you may need to limit the amount of liquid you drink. Your caregiver may tell you to drink one liter or less of liquid each day. Limiting your liquid can help prevent getting ascites again. Ask your caregiver how much liquid you can drink each day.
Returning to your normal activities:
Ask your caregiver what activities are safe for you to do after your procedure. Ask your caregiver when you can return to your normal daily activities.
CONTACT A CAREGIVER IF:
- You have chest pain or trouble breathing that is getting worse over time.
- You have pain in your abdomen. You may also have swelling in your abdomen.
- Your legs and ankles get swollen.
- Your wound becomes swollen or red, has pus coming from it, or is leaking fluid.
- Your symptoms from ascites return, such as decreased appetite for food and shortness of breath. You may gain weight for no known reason.
- You have questions about your procedure, condition, or care.
SEEK CARE IMMEDIATELY IF:
- You are urinating very little or not at all.
- You feel confused and more tired than usual.
- You have a fever.
- You have nausea or vomiting.
- You have new and sudden chest pain. You may have more pain when you take deep breaths or cough. You may cough up blood.
- You have sudden or very bad pain in your abdomen.
- You suddenly feel lightheaded and have trouble breathing.
Copyright © 2012. Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Information is for End User's use only and may not be sold, redistributed or otherwise used for commercial purposes.
The above information is an educational aid only. It is not intended as medical advice for individual conditions or treatments. Talk to your doctor, nurse or pharmacist before following any medical regimen to see if it is safe and effective for you.
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According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes mellitus continues to rise.
Type 2 diabetes results from an impairment of the body’s system to use insulin, known as insulin resistance, which leads to elevated and potentially toxic levels of sugar in the bloodstream. While there are many factors influencing risk for this disease, including family history of the illness, the rising prevalence seems related to the obesity epidemic in the United States.
Present statistics suggest that nearly 26 million Americans suffer from Type 2 diabetes and that nearly one-fourth of these remain undiagnosed.
The symptoms of diabetes mellitus include tiredness, vision blurring, excessive thirst and urination (including nighttime urination), weight loss and frequent infections. Because the factors lead to diabetes develop over time, many suffer abnormal blood sugar without obvious symptoms.
Recent changes in clinical recommendations have made the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus easier. Often all that is required is a simple non-fasting blood test called hemoglobin A1c that measures recent average blood-sugar levels. For those with risk factors such as obesity or family history of the disease, screening permits early diagnosis and may enhance treatment options.
Evidence now exists to support the understanding that insulin resistance exists well in advance of the onset of Type 2 diabetes. The disease process often takes years to manifest as various mechanisms exist initially to compensate for insulin resistance while maintaining normal or near-normal blood-sugar levels.
The recognition that minor blood-sugar abnormalities may precede the onset of diabetes by several years has resulted in criteria for diagnosing so-called pre-diabetic conditions known as impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance.
People with pre-diabetes constitute the group with highest risk for developing diabetes, as these conditions represent a step in the direction of the disease.
The good news from studies such as the Finnish diabetes prevention study and the U.S. diabetes prevention program is that the progression to Type 2 diabetes mellitus can be delayed or possibly prevented through lifestyle modification. This reinforces the importance of screening and early detection among those at highest risk.
People with pre-diabetes may be able to reduce their risk by almost 60 percent during three years through a program of intensive lifestyle modification. There is some evidence that a common and safe diabetes medication, known as metformin, may contribute to diabetes prevention when combined with lifestyle changes.
The most beneficial lifestyle changes combine weight-loss goals with important dietary and exercise habits. Moderate physical activity – at least 150 minutes weekly – is advised. Dietary changes including a reduction in total daily caloric intake as well as reduction in consumption of concentrated sweets and fats are geared toward the goal of a 7 percent average weight loss. This is often best accomplished through referral to a structured diabetes-prevention program.
People at the highest risk for developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus, such as those with pre-diabetes, should be screened yearly for the disease.
Dr. Matthew A. Clark is a board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics practicing at the Ute Mountain Ute Health Center in Towaoc.
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Unit 4: Early Asian Civilizations
The Ancient World Web
The Ancient World Web, created by Julia Hayden, is a master index to Internet sites
"discussing, spotlighting, or otherwise considering the Ancient World." Each link is
organized by both subject and geographic area and is accompanied by a short description.
This excellent resource is updated weekly and includes breaking news items of historical interest.
Discover the remains of the city of Harappa, located northeast of Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley. This site has fascinating photographs and movies, a slide tour of Harappa with an essay on the city, and an interactive history of the Rohri Flint Quarries, a large manufacturing site in the ancient Indus Valley. You can also take a virtual tour of Mohenjo-Daro and look at Harappa in 3-D.
Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library
This site is a master index to resources related to the cities, countries, and regions of Asia. Links are indexed by region and country, and range from virtual tours to scholarly documents.
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People Who Need Antibiotics to Prevent Endocarditis
If you have a normal heart, you have a low risk for endocarditis. But if you have a problem with your heart that affects normal blood flow through the heart, it is more likely that bacteria or fungi will attach to heart tissue. This puts you at a higher risk for endocarditis.
If you have certain heart conditions, getting endocarditis is even more dangerous for you. These heart conditions include:
If you have any of these heart conditions, you may need to take antibiotics before you have certain dental or surgical procedures that could put bacteria or fungi into your blood. The antibiotics lower your risk of getting endocarditis. If you do not have these conditions, antibiotics are not likely to help you.
For more information, read about what procedures may require antibiotics to prevent endocarditis.
Talk to your doctor or dentist
Your doctor can tell you whether you need to take antibiotics. Before you have any medical, dental, or surgical procedures, tell all other health professionals who may treat you that you are at risk for endocarditis.
Your doctor can issue you a special card to carry in your wallet if you require preventive antibiotics before certain dental or surgical procedures. Your condition and specific antibiotic requirements are outlined on this card, which is signed by your doctor.
Why not everyone should use antibiotics
Although antibiotics are useful in minimizing the risk of endocarditis, your doctor may not always recommend them, in order to protect your health. The medical community has several reasons for not advising all people with valve problems to take antibiotics:
Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria (such as those that cause endocarditis) have the ability to resist drugs that were previously able to kill them. Although antibiotic resistance is most common in situations that involve improper, unnecessary, and incomplete use of prescription antibiotics, resistance can also occur through correct antibiotic usage.
Antibiotic resistance is dangerous, because one type of bacteria can acquire the ability to survive certain drugs and then exchange this ability with other types of bacteria. When resistance to a particular medicine is widespread, the antibiotic becomes ineffective. Then scientists must find an adequate replacement. Since the only way for bacteria to develop resistance is through exposure to these antibiotics, doctors try to use these drugs only when appropriate and necessary, reducing the chances of resistance.
Always try to prevent antibiotic resistance, since resistant bacteria are more dangerous to your valves. This can be done by:
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To learn more visit Healthwise.org
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Find out what women really need.
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Keeping Children Safe From Drowning in Flooded Areas
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
This is an important message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As the cleanup process begins after a natural disaster, there may be areas of flooding. Constantly watch your children to prevent playing in or around water. It doesn't take long and it doesn't take much water for young children to drown. In many cases, children who drowned had been out of sight less than five minutes and were in the care of one or both parents at the time. To learn more, call CDC at 800-CDC-INFO.
Related TV Crawls for News Media
Prevent child drownings. Keep kids from playing in or around flood water. For more information: 800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) or http://go.usa.gov/bGa
Text Messages for Mobile Devices
Prevent child drownings. Keep kids from playing in or around flood water. More info from CDC 800-232-4636 or http://go.usa.gov/bGa
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Glossary of Manufacturing Terms
One of the most widely used definitions of advanced manufacturing involves the use of technology to improve products and/or processes, with the relevant technology being described as “advanced,” “innovative,” or “cutting edge.” For example, one organisation defines advanced manufacturing as industries that “increasingly integrate new innovative technologies in both products and processes. Examples include processes within Medical Device and Aerospace manufacturing.
An Application Programming Interface is an interface that is used by one application program to communicate with programs of other systems. ERP vendors provide API’s for integrating other applications with their ERP systems.
ArchestrA is an Invensys Wonderware comprehensive automation and information software architecture designed to integrate systems by leveraging the latest, open industry standards and software technologies, this can also help and extend the life of legacy systems. ArchestrA ‘industrialises’ Microsoft .NET and other Microsoft technologies in order to provide an even more productive toolset for building critical operations management software solutions for manufacturing, production and facilities operations. The result exposes services needed by manufacturing and industrial infrastructure such as common name space, object management, industrial security, high availability and redundancy, plant connection, enterprise connection, client interface, web portal and systems management. Utilizing ArchestrA technology, applications can be rapidly assembled using software objects rather than being “programmed”. Templates can be created for almost any purpose then used to build new applications simply through the reassembly and slight modification of these templates – saving time and lowering development costs.
Is the quality management standard specifically written for the aerospace industry.The current version of AS9100 aligns the standard with ISO 9001:2008 and has extra requirements regarding Regulatory Compliance and aerospace-sector specific requirements.
Thousands of customers rely on batch management software solutions to perform repeatable and consistent execution of batching processes across all industries. This can be as electronic batch records (EBR) system in regulated industries, paperless operated production environments or automated recipe management for supervisory systems. Batch management usually complies with the ISA 88 (S88) standard.
BOM (Bills of Material)
A list of the materials and quantities that will be required to manufacture something, the term spans all industrial sectors and is an operational stage at the interface between ERP and MES.
‘Bolt-on’ is a colloquial term for a software application that performs specific tasks and that interfaces with an ERP system. Examples of bolt-on’s that interface between Internet solutions and ERP systems include Manufacturing Execution Systems and Warehouse Management Systems. (See “MES” and “WMS”.) A bolt-on implies that the software is modular and can be readily integrated to another core piece of software or more currently to a unified platform (one that has core functionality that underpins many modules or ‘bolt-ons’)
A Corrective & Preventative Action tracking software system is the crux of any quality system. It is a regulatory requirement that FDA / global regulatory inspectors and ISO auditors consider critical. When implemented properly, a Corrective Action (CAPA) software system improves product quality and safety, increases customer satisfaction, and more importantly, ensures FDA and ISO compliance.
Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once, it is recommended to plan incrementally as benefits from a first stage can fund subsequent stages. Processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.
Continuous improvement is sometimes seen as part of the 'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer are evaluated against organisational goals. The fact that it can be called a management process does not mean that it needs to be executed by 'management'; but rather merely that it makes decisions about the implementation of the delivery process and the design of the delivery process itself.
Condition monitoring or condition-based maintenance is a combination of advanced technologies designed to increase the effectiveness of production assets with minimum costs by monitoring the condition of plant. CM utilises techniques such as vibration sensing, thermal imaging and oil analysis to detect faults and pinpoint potential failures before they cause unplanned downtime.
Modular software packages that track maintenance, prioritise tasks, assign work based on the availability of necessary parts and labour and analyse equipment failures in order to implement appropriate preventive maintenance measures. CMMS provides fully-featured document management capabilities that streamline maintenance and regulatory functions with sophisticated workflow capabilities that help organisations synchronise their entire operation.
An EmsPT work method which provides customers with an extensive range of services and products enabling them to reach their manufacturing performance goals. The Programme is made up of five stages: D – Discover
, R - Return on Investment
, I – Implementation
, V – Value
, E - Enable and Evaluate.
DRIVE starts with our initial visit and involves staying engaged until the customer sees beneficial value and is making sustainable gains in manufacturing performance. DRIVE is a field proven methodology that maximises the value of investments.
Enterprise Resource Planning represents the current evolution of manufacturing resources planning systems (see “MRP”). ERP is being positioned as the foundation and integration of enterprise-wide information systems. Such systems will link together all of a company’s operations including human resources, finance, manufacturing and distribution, as well as connect the organisation to its customers and suppliers.
Finite Capacity Scheduling
Finite Capacity Scheduling is a feature of automated scheduling software that takes into account that resources are not unlimited. Automated scheduling means that complex ‘what if’ scenarios can be modelled, assisting in continuous improvement and schedule adherence. Automated scheduling is usually also designed for integration with other software such as ERP, MES, Data collection, Forecasting, Demand Planning and OEE applications. In manufacturing, finite capacity scheduling is an approach to understanding how much work can be produced in a certain time period, taking limitations on different resources into consideration. The goal of finite capacity scheduling is to ensure that work proceeds at an even and efficient pace throughout the plant. Software applications for determining the best way to schedule work are called 'decision support tools.' Finite scheduling tools contrast with infinite capacity scheduling tools. Infinite scheduling tools, which are simpler, cannot account for limitations on systems that occur in real time.
Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) is both a technical subcommittee of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and a set of guidelines for manufacturers and users of automated systems in the pharmaceutical industry. The Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) Guide for Validation of Automated Systems in Pharmaceutical Manufacture describes a set of principles and procedures that help ensure that pharmaceutical products have the required quality. One of the core principles of GAMP is that quality cannot be tested into a batch of product but must be built into each stage of the manufacturing process. As a result, GAMP covers all aspects of production; from the raw materials, facility and equipment to the training and hygiene of staff. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are essential for processes that can affect the quality of the finished product. See also Batch Management
A term used alternatively for traceability, this is frequently confused with tracking. The requirement for manufacturing traceability is driven both by regulation and by business risk strategies. Genealogy (or traceability) is a record of what, who, when etc that is accrued preferably automatically during a manufacturing process (usually by batches). The record can be accessed quickly (immediately in some cases) and allow ‘internal recalls’ to be implemented e.g. when an incorrect mix has taken place, or some form of contamination has been detected. If an external recall is experienced then genealogy/ traceability records will identify the lowest possible safe recall, mainly owing to its fine resolution data.
ANSI/ISA-95, or ISA-95 as it is more commonly referred, is an international standard for developing an automated interface between enterprise and control systems. This standard has been developed for global manufacturers. It was developed to be applied in all industries, and in all sorts of processes, such as batch processes (see S88), continuous and repetitive processes. The objectives of ISA-95 are to provide consistent terminology that is a foundation for supplier and manufacturer communications provide consistent information models, and to provide consistent operations models which is a foundation for clarifying application functionality and how information is to be used.
S88, shorthand for ANSI/ISA-88, is a standard addressing batch process control. It is a design philosophy for describing equipment, and procedures. It is not just a standard for software, it is equally applicable to manual processes. It was approved by the ISA in 1995 and updated in 2010. S88 provides a consistent set of standards and terminology for batch control and defines the physical model, procedures, and recipes. The standard addresses the following challenges: lack of a universal model for batch control, difficulty in communicating user requirement, integration among batch automation suppliers, difficulty in batch control configuration
Lean is an improvement technique that has been broadly adopted by manufacturing and non-manufacturing businesses. Care must be taken in projecting long term sustainable benefits if a manufacturing organisation is reliant upon manual data collection and spreadsheet data processing. Beyond a certain point automatic data acquisition, automatic data processing and reporting will be not only beneficial but critical to ongoing sustained improvement.
Legacy systems are existing systems and technology, which often represent a considerable investment which may also be entrenched in the organisation; they are often critical systems which are unsupportable and hardware dependent. ‘legacy’ implies that they have been superseded by more efficient and supportable technology. Some systems have been in place for many years; some are considered old or inadequate technology; many are host based with terminal emulation. Customers may be trying to replace or merely update legacy systems. There are many techniques to overcome this from new hardware that has legacy characteristics, virtualisation and following investigation with demonstrable ROI a complete root and branch replacement.
Manufacturing Execution Systems use network computing to automate production control and process automation. By downloading “recipes” and work schedules and uploading production results, MES bridge the gap between business and plant-floor or process control systems.
Manufacturing Operational Excellence
defines the "Rules of the Road" that can help you cut costs, increase cash flow and become more responsive to changing market conditions. Each of these "rules" can be accomplished with the implementation of an IT system for manufacturing operations excellence, commonly referred to as a Manufacturing Operations Management, or "MOM" system. This IT investment can be accomplished in phases to bring a quick return on investment, putting you in the fast lane for improved manufacturing operational excellence. See DRIVE
Maintenance, repair and operations are responsible within the manufacturing enterprise for maintaining and repairing plant. Traditionally seen as a cost centre to be targeted for budget cuts, modern predictive maintenance techniques such as condition monitoring (see “CM”) now mean MRO is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to maximise availability of production systems and so increase RONA.
Materials Requirements Planning covers the phases in the development of computerised methods for planning the use of company resources, including scheduling raw materials, vendors, production equipment and processes.
Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the predicted elapsed time between inherent failures of a system during operation. The MTBF is typically part of a model that assumes the failed system is immediately repaired (MTTR), as a part of a renewal process. This is in contrast to the mean time to failure (MTTF), which measures average time to failures with the modelling assumption that the failed system is not repaired (infinite repair rate). MTBF should be considered as a projection of likely failure, useful for component selection, but MTTR will directly affect downtime recovery (see OEE Availability). Terminal Services is frequently sold on the basis of reduced MTTR.
Open Database Connectivity is Microsoft’s strategy for open database interface. Part of the Windows Open Services Architecture (WOSA), ODBC makes it possible to access both relational and non-relational database management systems (DBMS) in a diverse PC environment where minicomputers are linked to a mainframe. Defined by the SQL Group, a standards group made up of database vendors.
Is the internationally recognised standard for occupational health and safety management systems. It gives you a framework to identify, control and reduce the risks associated with health and safety in your workplace.
On Time Delivery in Full, a key goal for customer satisfaction and one that is facilitated by integrating scheduling functions with shop floor manufacturing processes. High OEE will assist this, but schedule adherence will be critical.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness
is a single measure showing how much of a product has actually been produced as a percentage of how much could have been produced.It combines all the standard performance measures - including availability, performance and quality. It should be thought of as the top measure in a cascade of measures. 85% is thought to be world class (according to definition). OEE is a harsh measure so do not aim too high, better to use it as a measure of improvement rather than an absolute numerical goal. The OEE Calculation
= Availability% x Performance% x Quality%
The immediate availability of data to an information system as a transaction or event occurs. Typical examples are SCADA, HMI, Historians and associated reports, some SQC packages also run in real time.
SC21 (21st Century Supply Chains)
SC21 is a change programme designed by ADS (Aerospace, Defence and Space Group) to accelerate the competitiveness of the aerospace & defence industry by raising the performance of its supply chains. International competition, together with the challenges posed by the defence industrial strategy, necessitates rapid improvement in the effectiveness of our supply chains. At the same time, industry must ensure that it delivers competitive solutions for customers whilst maintaining profitable business growth. For more information please visit http://www.adsgroup.org.uk/
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition is often blurred with HMI (Human Machine Interface). SCADA operates usually above the machine level, such as a line controller, and provides visualisation of the process through graphical displays and trend graphs, with alarm and event lists. SCADA is often augmented with an historian to provide time series compressed data storage for high fidelity recall, for example to assist in line commissioning and optimisation and to diagnose root fault cause.
Schedule Adherence is a key measure that is directly linked to customer satisfaction. Schedule adherence can be improved by integrating scheduling with the shop floor ‘reality’ making adherence achievable and schedules realistic.
Serialisation is to mark each product with its own unique identity, ideally this being scanned at a point or sale or a point of use. The scanned data typically being fed back to cloud-based solutions to verify that the product that has been sold (in particular been dispensed) is a legitimate product and not counterfeit.
A stock-keeping unit or SKU is a number or code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store or earlier in the supply chain. An SKU is a unique identifier for each distinct product and service that can be purchased. The usage of SKU is rooted in data management, enabling the company to systematically track its inventory or product availability, such as in warehouses and retail outlets. They are often assigned and serialized at the merchant level. Each SKU is attached to an item, variant, product line, bundle, service, fee, or attachment.
Successful inventory management systems assign a unique SKU for each product and also for its variants, such as different versions or models of product or different bundled packages including a number of related products.
Statistical process control (SPC) is the application of statistical methods to the monitoring and control of a process to ensure that it operates at its full potential to produce conforming product. Under SPC, a process behaves predictably to produce as much conforming product as possible with the least possible waste. While SPC has been applied most frequently to controlling manufacturing lines, it applies equally well to any process with a measurable output. Key tools in SPC are control charts, a focus on continuous improvement and designed experiments. Integration of a test laboratory with operations through SPC produces a very effective solution to conformant product with least waste. SPC and SQC are frequently interchangeably used. Purely speaking SPC is more about the process; SQC is more about product quality.
The use of information technology to give automated intelligence to a network of vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and a host of other trading partners. The goal is for each player in the supply chain to conduct business with the latest and best information from everyone else in the chain, guiding supply and demand into a more perfect balance. Effective management of the supply chain enables a company to move product from the point of origin to that of consumption in the least amount of time at the smallest cost.
Work In Progress is usually referred to as a negative as it implies inefficient use of cash. Reduction of WIP is a frequent goal for continuous improvement and lean manufacturing.
Warehouse Management Systems comprise software that integrates mechanical and human activities with an information system to effectively manage warehouse business processes and direct warehouse activities. These systems automate receiving, put away, picking and shipping in warehouses, and can prompt workers to carry out inventory cycle counts. Most support radio-frequency communications, allowing real-time data transfer between the system and warehouse personnel. Not to be confused with WCS (Warehouse Control Systems) which concern the automation systems within a warehouse.
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Shock incarceration programs, frequently called boot-camp prisons, are short-term prison programs run like military basic training for young offendersdult and youthful felons (MacKenzie & Parent, 1992). Boot-camp prisons were first established in Georgia and Oklahoma in 1983 and since then all states and many counties have adopted this type of program. Boot-camp prisons have proved controversial over time, as critics argue that this type of regimen does not reduce recidivism (the tendency to return to crime). In the late 1990s, allegations of misconduct and abuse by boot-camp prison staff members against their juvenile inmates have led to criminal investigations and the closing of facilities. Nevertheless, this type of "tough love" approach remains a popular option for correctional officials.
Those sentenced to boot-camp prisons are required to arise early each day to participate in a rigorous schedule of physical training, military drill and ceremony, and hard labor. While they are in the boot camp, participants are separated from other prisoners. They are allowed few personal possessions, no televisions, and infrequent visits from relatives on the outside.
The correctional officers in the programs are referred to as drill instructors and are responsible for seeing that the inmates obey the rules and participate in all activities. When speaking to staff, inmates must refer to themselves as "this inmate" and they must proceed and follow each sentence with sir or madam as in "Sir, yes, sir." Disobedience is punished immediately using summary punishments, frequently in the form of some additional physical activity, such as pushups or situps. More serious rule violations may result in dismissal from the program.
BOOT-CAMP PRISONS AS INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS
The boot-camp prisons were developed during the 1980sn part, in response to the phenomenal growth in the number of convicted offenders. Correctional jurisdictions faced severe prison overcrowding, and probation caseloads grew so large that many offenders received only nominal supervision during their time in the community. Officials searched for ways to manage the offenders. There were two optionsither they were sent to prison or they were supervised in the community on probation. Neither option was entirely satisfactory for the large number of young offenders. Alternative sanctions or intermediate punishments such as intensive community supervision, house arrest, or residential-community corrections centers were proposed as solutions to the problem. These options provided more control than a sentence to probation but less than a sentence to prison. Boot-camp prisons were one relatively inexpensive alternative sanction that became particularly popular.
The first boot-camp prisons were begun in 1983, in Oklahoma and Georgia. These two programs attracted a great deal of attention and other jurisdictions soon began developing similar programs. By 1999, more than fifty boot camps housed about 4,500 juveniles. Additional facilities house adult felons and other programs have been started in local jails and in juvenile-detention centers. Although the majority of the boot camps have male participants, some programs admit women into the boot camps with the male offenders. Other states have developed completely separate boot-camp prisons for women. The Federal Bureau of Prisons developed one boot camp for males and a separate program for females. However, by 2000 several states had either ended their programs or drastically scaled back the size of the programs.
ENTERING AND EXITING
Since most boot camps have strict requirements about who is eligible for the camp, inmates are carefully evaluated prior to being sent there. Most programs require participants to sign an agreement saying they have volunteered. They are given information about the program and the difference between a boot-camp prison and a traditional prison. The major incentive for entering the boot camp is that the boot camp requires a shorter term than a traditional prison sentence.
The first day of the boot camp involves a difficult intake process, when the drill instructors confront the inmates. Inmates are given rapid orders about the rules of the camp, when they can speak, how they are to address the drill instructors, and how to stand at attention. The men have their heads shaved; the women receive short haircuts. This early period of time in the boot camp is physically and mentally stressful for most inmates.
The programs last from 90 to 180 days. Those dismissed prior to graduation are considered program failures. They are either sent immediately to a traditional prison to serve a longer term of incarceration or they are returned to court for resentencing.
Offenders who successfully complete the boot camp are released from prison. After graduating, offenders are supervised in the community for the rest of their sentence. There is usually an elaborate graduation ceremony when inmates demonstrate the military drills they have practiced. Many programs encourage family members to attend the graduation ceremony.
A DAY IN BOOT CAMP
On a typical day, the participants arise before dawn, rapidly dress, clean their living quarters, and march in cadence to an exercise area. There they will spend an hour or more doing calisthenics and running. They march back to their quarters for a quick cleanup before breakfast. As they do at every meal, they march to breakfast and stand at parade rest while waiting to be served. They stand at attention until ordered to sit and eat without conversation. Following breakfast they may work six to eight hours. This is usually hard physical labor such as cleaning state parks or public roads. They return in the late afternoon for additional physical exercise or practice in drill and ceremony. After a quick dinner, they attend rehabilitation programs until 9P.M. when they return to their dormitories. In the short period before bedtime, they have time to be sure their shoes are shined and their clothes are clean and ready for the morning.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
All the boot-camp prisons incorporate the core components of military basic training, with physical training and hard labor. Most target young offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes such as drug, burglary, or theft. Participation is limited to those who do not have an extensive past history of criminal activity.
Other than these similarities, the programs differ dramatically. Some focus only on work, military drill, and exercise. In other boot camps, offenders spend a great deal of time each day in rehabilitation programs. The camps also differ in the type of the therapeutic programming provided. Some emphasize academic education, others focus on group counseling or treatment for substance abuse.
The boot camps also differ in the ways offenders are managed after release. Some programs intensively supervise all offenders who successfully complete the boot camp; others are supervised as they would be in traditional probation caseloads. Program officials worry about the difficulty the graduates have in making the transition from the rigid structure of the boot camps to the community environment. For this reason, some boot camps developed aftercare programs to help them make the change. These aftercare programs do more than increase the surveillance over the activities of the graduates. They are designed to provide drug treatment, vocational counseling, academic education, or short-term housing to boot-camp graduates.
DRUG TREATMENT IN THE BOOT CAMPS
The earliest boot camps focused on discipline and hard work. More recently, they have begun to
As happened with other aspects of the programs, the type of treatment and the amount of time devoted to substance-abuse treatment varied greatly among programs. The 90-day Florida program included only 15 days of treatment and education; in contrast, in the New York program all offenders received 180 days of treatment. Most programs reported that drug use was monitored during community supervision; however, the schedule and frequency of this monitoring varies greatly.
New York's Therapeutic Community Boot Camps.
In the boot camps that include substance-abuse treatment as a component of the in-prison phase of the program, there are large differences in the way it is delivered. The boot-camp programs, developed by the New York Department of Correctional Services, use a therapeutic-community model for the program. All offenders are given a similar regimen of drug treatment while they are incarcerated (New York Department of Correctional Services, 1994). Each platoon in the boot camp forms a small community. They meet daily to solve problems and to discuss their progress in the shock program. They spend over 200 hours during the six-month program in substance-abuse treatment activity. The treatment is based on the ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (AA) and NARCOTIC ANONYMOUS (NA) models of abstinence and recovery. All boot camp inmates participate in the substance-abuse treatment regardless of their history of use and abuse.
Illinois's Boot Camp with Levels of Treatment.
Like New York, the Illinois boot camp also targets substance abusers. However, the delivery of treatment services is very different. In Illinois, counselors at the boot camp evaluate offenders and match the education and treatment level to the identified severity level of the offender (Illinois Department of Corrections, 1992). Three different levels of treatment are provided. Inmates identified as level-one have no substance-abuse history, therefore they receive only two weeks of education. Level-two inmates are identified as probable substance abusers. They receive four weeks of treatment in addition to the drug education. The treatment consists of group therapy focusing predominately on denial and on family-support issues. Inmates identified as level-three are considered to have serious drug addictions; they receive ten weeks of education and treatment. In addition to the drug education and group therapy, they receive group sessions on substance-abuse relapse, CODEPENDENCY, behavioral differences, family addiction, and roles within the family.
Texas's Voluntary Participation Model.
A third model is represented by the Texas program (MacKenzie, 1994). In the boot camp, all participants receive five weeks of drug education. During this phase, inmates may also receive individual counseling and attend Twelve-Step fellowship meetings. More drug treatment is available for those who volunteer (the substance-abuse counselors in this program believe that treatment should be voluntary). These volunteers receive approximately four hours per week of treatment in the form of group therapy. The meetings are held during free time, so inmates are not released from work to attend. The group sessions focus on social values, self-worth, communication skills, self-awareness, family systems, self-esteem, and goal setting. Some inmates also receive individual counseling.
As occurs in many drug-treatment programs, boot camps may have high dismissal rates. Depending upon the program, rates vary from 8 percent (Georgia in 1989) to as much as 80 percent (Wisconsin in 1993). Offenders can be dismissed from the boot camp because of misbehavior or, in some boot camps, they can voluntarily ask to leave. Those who are dismissed will either be sent to a traditional prison, where they will serve a longer sentence than the one assigned to boot camp, or they will be returned to the court for resentencing. Thus, in both cases there is the threat of a longer term in prison for those who do not complete the boot camp.
There is very little information about how drug-involved offenders do in boot camp prisons. One study of the Louisiana boot camp examined the dismissal rates of drug-involved offenders and compared these rates to offenders in the boot camp who were not identified as drug-involved (Shaw & MacKenzie, 1992). Two groups of drug-involved offenders were examined: (1) those who had a legal history of drug-involvement (an arrest or conviction for a drug offense); and those who were identified as drug abusers on the basis of self-report. In this program, offenders were permitted to drop out voluntarily or they could be dismissed for misbehavior. Surprisingly, in comparison to other offenders, the drug-involved offenders were less likely to drop out of the program.
In another study of the Louisiana boot camp, 20 percent of the participants were identified as problem drinkers on the basis of their self-reported alcohol use and problems associated with use (Shaw& MacKenzie, 1989). The problem drinkers were no more likely to drop out of the book-camp prison than were the others.
In interviews, offenders who are near graduation from boot camp report that they are drug free and physically healthy (MacKenzie and Souryal, 1994). Unlike offenders incarcerated in conventional prisons, boot-camp participants believed that their experience had been positive and that they had changed for the better. They also reported that the reason they entered the boot camp was because they believed they would spend less time in prisonot because of the treatment or therapy offered.
PERFORMANCE DURING COMMUNITY SUPERVISION
Studies have compared the performance during community supervision of graduates from the boot-camp prisons to others who served a longer time in prison or who were sentenced to probation. In most cases, there were no significant differences between these offenders in recidivism rates or in positive social activities (MacKenzie & Souryal, 1994). However, boot-camp graduates in Illinois and Louisiana had fewer revocations for new crimes. Research examining New York offenders found mixed results. Graduates had fewer new crime revocations in one study (New York Correctional Services, 1994) and fewer technical violations in another study (MacKenzie & Souryal, 1994).
All the boot-camp prisons had a military atmosphere with physical training, drill and ceremony, and hard labor. If this atmosphere alone changed offenders, we would expect all the graduates to have lower recidivism rates and better positive adjustment. The inconsistency of the results suggests that the boot-camp atmosphere alone will not successfully reduce recidivism or positively change offenders. Some other aspects of the Illinois, New York, and Louisiana programs, either with or without the boot-camp atmosphere, led to the positive impact on these offenders. After an examination of these programs, the researchers concluded that all three programs devoted a great deal of time to therapeutic activities during the boot-camp prison, a large number of entrants were dismissed, the length of time in the boot camp was longer than other boot camps, participation was voluntary, and the in-prison phase was followed by six months of intensive supervision in the community. Research as of the mid-1990s cannot separate the effect of these components from the impact of the military atmosphere. Most likely, a critical component of the boot camps for drug-involved offenders is the therapy provided during the program and the transition and aftercare treatment provided during community supervision.
Performance of Drug-Involved Offenders.
Shaw and MacKenzie (1992) studied the performance of drug-involved offenders during community supervision in Louisiana. In comparison to offenders who were not drug-involved, those who were drug-involved did poorer during community supervision. This was true of those on probation, parolees from traditional prisons, and parolees from the boot camp. The boot-camp parolees did not do better than others. During the first year of supervision, the drug-involved offenders were more likely to have a positive drug screen.
Problem drinkers who graduated from the Louisiana program were found to perform better, as measured by positive activities during community supervision (Shaw& MacKenzie, 1989). Their performance was, however, more variedndicating that they may need more support and aftercare than other offenders.
In contrast to the Louisiana findings, research in New York indicated that those who were returned to prison were more apt to be alcoholics (New York Department of Correctional Services, 1994). In both Louisiana and New York, offenders who were convicted of drug offenses did better than self-confessed alcoholics during community supervision.
THE FUTURE OF BOOT-CAMP PRISONS
Boot-camp prisons are still controversial. By the late 1990s, skepticism rose about the effectiveness of this approach. Studies conducted for the U.S. Justice Department found that the national recidivism rate for boot camps ranged from 64 to 75 percent. This compared to recidivism rates from 63 to 71 percent for those who served their time in traditional detention centers. Though juveniles often responded well while in the camps, they returned to the same neighborhoods where they first got into trouble. Colorado, North Dakota and Arizona ended their programs and Georgia, where boot-camp prisons started, is phasing out its camps.
People are concerned that inmates' rights will not be observed and that they are being coerced to do something that is not good for them (Morash & Rucker, 1990). These critics argue that the summary punishments and the staff yelling at offenders may be abusive for inmates; that participants may leave the boot-camp prison angry and damaged by the experience; that the military atmosphere designed to make a cohesive fighting unit may not be appropriate for these young offenders. These concerns became public in the late 1990s, as state and federal prosecutors investigated allegations of abuse and misconduct by prison camp staff. Maryland fired its top five juvenile-justice officials in 1999 after state officials investigated reports of systematic assaults at three boot-camp prisons.
Advocates of the boot camp say that the program has many benefits. In their opinion, these offenders lack the discipline and accountability that are provided by the program. Furthermore, they argue, the strong relationship between the offenders and the drill instructors may be helpful to the inmates. Also, there may be some aspects of the boot camps that are particularly beneficial for drug-involved offenders. Although controversy exists about the boot-camp prisons, they remain a popular alternative sanction.
(SEE ALSO: Civil Commitment; Coerced Treatment for Substance Offenders; Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act; Prisons and Jails; Treatment in the Federal Prison System; )
ANGLIN, M.D., &HSER, Y-I. (1990). Treatment of drug abuse. In M. Tonry & J. Q. Wilson (Eds.), Drugs and crime: Vol. 13, Crime and justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. (1991). Overview of the Illinois Department of Corrections impact incarceration program. Springfield, IL: Author.
MAC KENZIE, D. L. (1994). Shock incarceration as an alternative for drug offenders. In D. L. MacKenzie & C. D. Uchida (Eds.), Drugs and crime: Evaluating public policy initiatives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
MACKENZIE, D. L., & PARENT, D. G. (1992). Boot camp prisons for young offenders. In J. M. Byrne, A. J. Lurigio, & J. Petersilia (Eds.), Smart sentencing: The emergence of intermediate sanctions. London: Sage Publications.
MAC KENZIE, D. L., & SOURYAL, C. (1994). Multi-site evaluation of shock incarceration: Executive summary. Report to the National Institute of Justice. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
MARKS, A. (December 27, 1999). States fall out of (tough) love with boot camps. The Christian Science Monitor.
MORASH, M., & RUCKER, L. (1990). A critical look at the ideal of boot camp as a correctional reform. Crime and Delinquency, 36, 204-222.
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES AND THE NEW YORK DIVISION OF PAROLE. (1993). The fifth annual shock legislative report. Albany, NY: Unpublished report by the Division of Program Planning, Research and Evaluation and the Office of Policy Analysis and Information.
SHAW, J. W., & MAC KENZIE, D. L. (1992). The one-year community supervision performance of drug offenders and Louisiana DOC-identified substance abusers graduating from shock incarceration. Journal of Criminal Justice, 20, 501-516.
SHAW, J. W., & MAC KENZIE, D. L. (1989). Shock incarceration and its impact on the lives of problem drinkers. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 16, 63-97.
SOURYAL, C., & MAC KENZIE, D. L. (1994). Shock therapy: Can boot camps provide effective drug treatment? Corrections Today, 56(1), 48-54.
WEST, W. (April 3, 2000). Civilian boot camps lack intended kick. Insight on the News v16 i13 p.48.
DORIS LAYTON MACKENZIE
REVISED BY FREDERICK K. GRITTNER
Did this raise a question for you?
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Networking 101: Understanding the Internet Protocol
Best of ENP: If you want to understand most networking, you have to understand the Internet Protocol and how it works.
Welcome back! This edition of Networking 101 will give you the IP knowledge required to understand routing issues. Most everything on the Internet uses IP, and unlike Ethernet, knowing this protocol is pivotal to understanding how networking works with regards to the big picture. In upcoming articles, Networking 101 will explore TCP and UDP, routing theories, and then delve into the specific routing protocols. It's going to be a wild ride.
Internet Protocol (IP) sits directly on top of layer 2, and is responsible for getting datagrams to their destination. Originally defined in RFC 791, IP has changed and been clarified a few times since, but the fundamental design remains the same. The IP layer does not provide any type of flow-control or sequencing capabilities—that's left to the upper layers. We'll be using "datagram" to refer to an entire IP message, and "packet" to identify an individual IP packet.
IP sends and receives packets to and from IP addresses, but doesn't promise reliable delivery. There is no concept of "retries" in the IP layer. For various reasons, packets may be lost, corrupted, duplicated, delivered out of order or otherwise delayed. IP is also responsible for dealing with IP options and giving feedback in the form of ICMP error and control messages, explained last week in our look at ICMP.
The IP header, 20 bytes long, comes immediately after the layer 2 header (because IP is layer 3). The IP data portion holds everything else, including a TCP or UDP packet in its entirety, as shown in the table below. Also note that the IP header can exceed 20 bytes, if IP options are used.
Data (TCP, etc)
IP is pretty straightforward, in that IP's goal is simple: get a datagram to the destination, and don't worry about anything but sending it to the next hop router. In reality, IP is more complex; else the header wouldn't have so many fields. Sorry for this, but scrutinizing the IP header is important. The fields, starting at the top (first bit) are:
- Version: The version of IP being used. As expected, an IPv4 packet will have this field set to "4."
- Header Length: Specifies the length of the header in 4-byte multiples. Options are rarely used, so you can expect to see a value of 5 here, meaning the header is 20 bytes long.
- Type of Service: Rarely used, but theoretically this field is designed to give routers hints about how they should queue the IP datagram. Mainly for quality of service purposes, hosts may choose to set various options, such as: low delay, high throughput, or high reliability. These options are ignored by most routers.
- Total Length: Specifies the length of the entire IP packet, including header, in bytes. Because this is a 16-bit number, IP packet length is limited to 65KB. This number represents the IP packet in question, not the entire IP datagram.
- IP Datagram ID: Sometimes called the Fragment Identifier, this is an identifier used to check what IP datagram a specific IP packet belongs to. This field is necessary if IP hopes to combine individual IP packets back into a single datagram.
- Flags: The Don't Fragment (DF) bit lives here, and is used to instruct routers to not fragment an IP packet. More Fragments (MF) is also available.
- Fragment Offset: The offset of this fragment in the original datagram, in 64-bit blocks.
- TTL (Time to Live): The number of hops remaining in an IP packet's life before it is destroyed. The TTL is what keeps undeliverable IP packets from floating around on the Internet forever.
- Protocol Type: Specifies the next protocol, i.e. the header that will be encountered in the IP packet's payload.
- Header Checksum: A checksum of the header, but not the data.
- IP Source: The IP address of the host that originally sent the IP packet.
- IP Destination: The IP address of the host the IP packet is destined for.
- IP Options: Things such as loose source routing can be added to the end of an IP header.
When a router receives an IP packet it will first check the packet's destination. If the router has a route to the destination, it will decrement the TTL, recalculate the checksum and then ship the packet on its way. If something went awry, the corresponding ICMP error will be sent, and the packet will get discarded. In its simplest form, that's how IP operates: It just repeats those steps for every packet it encounters.
IP fragmentation is really the key to IP functionality, and exploring fragmentation is also educational: It gives real meaning to those header fields. Not every network passing an IP packet around is capable of sending the same sizes of packets. Various layer 2 frame formats allow different amounts of data to be sent at once. The largest MTU (define) allowed is 65KB, and the smallest is 68 bytes. RFC 1122 says that all hosts must be able to reassemble datagrams that are up to 576 bytes, but should in fact be able to reassemble datagrams that are the size of the interface's MTU.
When shipping an IP datagram over the Internet, you have no idea what the MTU will happen to be along every layer 2 link. Your ISP might be connected via Ethernet to a tier 1 ISP, but the remote site you're trying to access could be on an ISDN link. Therefore, your IP packets will have to be fragmented before the last hop. Fragmentation can happen many times, too. If we wanted to send a 2000 byte packet to a remote site connected via ISDN, we would originally fragment the packet to fit on our 1500 byte link. We will still send an IP packet larger than 576 bytes (ISDN's MTU), so the last router before the ISDN link will have to fragment it as well.
Also recall that IP is not a reliable protocol, so if any IP fragment gets lost along the way, the entire datagram must be resent. IP has no way to request the missing portion, so when something bad happens the result can be a large increase in traffic because of the retransmissions that will likely happen. Sometimes congested routers will have to drop a packet, and if that packet happens to be part of a 65K datagram, then entire thing must be resent. The upper protocol, TCP or other, will normally know if an entire datagram is missing, and can request a retransmission. However, TCP cannot tell if a fragment is missing, since the IP datagram will be incomplete and never sent upstairs to TCP. If TCP never receives the packet, it will eventually be resent. It is clear that the loss of a small portion of a 65K packet doesn't help alleviate a congested link, but rather contributes to more traffic. UDP applications commonly don't exceed 576 bytes for the sending size, and this helps two things. First, there aren't many links with MTUs smaller than 576, so it is likely that the IP datagram will not be fragmented. Second, remember that 576 is the magical number for all end systems speaking IP: they all must be able to reassemble datagrams up to this size. Devices with limited memory may have trouble with anything larger, so this is actually worth considering.
Let's pretend we're a host, and we'd like to send an IP datagram of 1550 bytes (1530 data + 20 header), but our MTU is 1500 bytes. We'll have to send two fragments, and the relevant IP headers will look like this:
fragment 0, offset = 0, size = 1480, MF bit set.
fragment 1, offset = 1480, size = 50
The IP ID and IP addresses in the fragments are always the same as the original IP datagram, but the header checksum, offset, and length fields will definitely change. When the other end gets the first packet and sees that it is a fragment, it will wait to get the rest, reassemble them, and then pass them up the stack to the next protocol.
After this is sent, we won't hear anything more about it, assuming the DF bit isn't set in the IP flags. But what happens if somewhere along the link the MTU is 400 bytes? Before the 1480 byte packet can be sent, the router on this link will fragment it too. Path MTU, discussed last week, is used to get around the problem of intermediate routers having to fragment packets. Fragmentation takes time and precious resources on routers. The main reason we want to avoid excessive fragmentation is simply because of the extra delay that's inevitably introduced.
Reassembly is always done at the final destination, so intermediate routers don't need to store IP datagrams. This also means that IP packets can be routed independently, over different paths without cause for concern. This is an important concept to understand--it makes IP very versatile. No matter what order the receiver gets the packets, it will be able to reassemble them based on the offset field in the IP header.
And now that we understand fragmentation, we find that it begs the question "does IP really hide the link-layer?"
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Above-average rainfall is needed in the U.S. Midwest and Great Plains to replenish soil parched from last year’s drought and ensure adequate harvests, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center said.
Since Oct. 1, precipitation has broken the worst drought since the 1930s in eastern parts of the Corn Belt, while dryness continues to grip more westerly grain-growing areas, Mark Svoboda, the University of Nebraska-based climatologist, told reporters today in Washington. Unlike last year, when crops had some reserve moisture from 2011 to draw upon, fields have a deficit heading into planting season, he said.
“We need a big spring, that’s the bottom line, because we don’t have the carryover going into 2013 we had going into 2012,” Svoboda said.
While last year’s drought, which reduced corn yields to their lowest since 1995, has eased in some regions, it is still a major concern for farmers and ranchers. As of March 12, 53.3% of the contiguous U.S. was affected by moderate to exceptional drought, down from 54.2% a week earlier, according to the government’s Drought Monitor report. Exceptional drought, the most severe category, was at 5.5% for the second week.
Dry pastures have forced cattle ranchers to reduce herds to the smallest in 61 years, government data show. Still, agriculture may post a record $128.2 billion in profit this year as growers expand output and rebuild inventories, assuming a return to normal yields and production, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said last month.
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Collagen vascular disease refers to a group of diseases that affect your connective tissue. Collagen is a protein-based connective tissue that forms a support system for your skin. The connective tissue holds bones, ligaments, and muscles together. Collagen vascular disease is sometimes also called connective tissue disease.
Some disorders classified as collagen vascular diseases affect your joints, skin, blood vessels, or other vital organs. Symptoms vary according to the specific disease.
Examples of collagen vascular disease include:
- rheumatoid arthritis
- temporal arteritis
Collagen vascular disease is an autoimmune disease. This means that your immune system mistakenly attacks your body’s healthy tissue. The attacks are usually in the form of inflammation. In this case, your immune system causes inflammation in the collagen and nearby joints.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the cause of the attacks is not known (NIH, 2011).
Several collagen vascular diseases, including lupus, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis, are more common in women than men. This group of diseases usually affects adults in their 30s and 40s. According to the Mayo Clinic, children as young as 15 can be diagnosed with lupus (Mayo Clinic, 2011).
Each type of collagen vascular disease has its own set of symptoms. However, most forms of collagen vascular disease do share some of the same general symptoms (NIH, 2011). People with collagen vascular disorders typically experience:
- muscle weakness
- body aches
- joint pain
- skin rash
Symptoms of Lupus
Lupus is a collagen vascular disease that causes unique symptoms in each patient. Additional symptoms can include shortness of breath, chest pain, headaches, and dry eyes. People with lupus may have long periods of remission without symptoms. Symptoms can flare up during times of stress or after prolonged exposure to sunlight.
Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis affects about 1.3 million adults in the United States, according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS, 2009). Inflammation of the connective tissue between the joints causes pain and stiffness. Some patients have chronic problems with dry eyes and a dry mouth. Some people with this form of collagen vascular disease also have an inflammation of the blood vessels or of the heart’s lining.
Symptoms of Scleroderma
Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that can affect the skin or other organs, including the heart, lungs, or digestive tract. Symptoms include thickening and hardening of the skin, rashes, or open sores. Your skin may feel tight as if it is being stretched, or feel lumpy in areas. Systemic scleroderma can cause coughing, wheezing, and breathing difficulties. Diarrhea, acid reflux, joint pain, or numbness in the feet are also possible symptoms.
Symptoms of Temporal Arteritis
Temporal arteritis is another form of collagen vascular disease. People with temporal arteritis have an inflammation of the large artery in the head. Symptoms are most common in adults over the age of 70, according to the Southern California College of Optometry (SCCO). Symptoms can include scalp sensitivity, jaw pain, headaches, and vision loss.
Treatment for collagen vascular disease varies according to your individual condition. However, corticosteroid and immunosuppressant medications commonly treat many connective tissue diseases.
Corticosteroids reduce inflammation throughout the body. This class of drugs also helps normalize your immune system. Corticosteroids can carry major side effects in some people, including weight gain and mood changes. Some people may see a rise in blood sugar while taking corticosteroid medications.
Immunosuppressant medication works by lowering your immune response. When your immune response is lower, your body will no longer attack itself as much. However, having a lowered immunity can increase your risk of becoming sick at times. Protect yourself from simple viruses by staying away from family and friends with colds or flu.
The outlook for collagen vascular disease varies in each person, and really depends on the specific disease. However, they do have one thing in common: all autoimmune diseases are chronic conditions. They have no cure, and you must manage them throughout your life. Luckily, there are effective treatments to help keep even severe symptoms at bay.
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by Sarah C.P. Williams
An unusual type of amino acid acts as a growth signal in bacteria.
The amino acid alanine in its L- and D-forms, mirror images of one another.
Amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—are chiral molecules, which means they can exist in two mirror forms. While L-forms of amino acids are predominantly found in nature, the D-forms are less abundant and little is known about their biological function. But new research shows that the few D-amino acid outliers play a vital role in regulating cell wall growth in bacteria.
Matthew K. Waldor, an HHMI investigator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, was studying how Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera, gets its characteristic rod shape. His lab identified a mutant that became spherical when cultured overnight. Waldor's team suspected that something was accumulating in the culture that affected the mutant bacterium's shape. They analyzed the chemicals floating in the soup around the bacteria and found a plethora of right-handed, or D-amino acids.
“This was really amazing,” says Waldor. “No one even knew that bacteria make these types of D-amino acids, and not only were they there, they were there in high concentrations.”
The cell wall of most bacteria, including V. cholerae, consists of a complex of molecules called peptidoglycans and is separated from the watery cytoplasm of the cell by an inner membrane. Scientists have puzzled over how the inside of the cell coordinates growth with the cell. Waldor's group found that D-amino acids are chemical signals that can downregulate cell wall metabolism when bacteria slow their growth.
His lab group pinpointed an enzyme, called a racemase, that V. cholerae uses to create certain D-amino acids and mutated it to test the effects. Without D-amino acids, the cell wall's growth was uncoordinated with the cell's inner growth. The team's findings were published in Science on September 18, 2009.
Illustration: Chemical Design Ltd. / Photo Researchers, Inc.
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Feb 6 2013
Chemicals in green tea and red wine may block the brain damage caused by Alzheimer's disease, an early-stage study suggests.
Scientists targeted a process that allows harmful clumps of protein in the brain to kill off neurons.
Using purified extracts of the chemicals EGCG in green tea and resveratrol in red wine, they were able to stop nerve cells from being harmed. The findings, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could pave the way for new drugs to treat Alzheimer's, say the researchers.
Lead scientist Professor Nigel Hooper, from the University of Leeds, said: "This is an important step in increasing our understanding of the cause and progression of Alzheimer's disease. It's a misconception that Alzheimer's is a natural part of ageing; it's a disease that we believe can ultimately be cured through finding new opportunities for drug targets like this."
Alzheimer's is characterised by a build-up of amyloid-beta protein in the brain which clumps together to form toxic, sticky balls. The amyloid balls latch on to molecules called prions on the surface of nerve cells. As a result, the nerve cells start to malfunction and eventually die.
"We wanted to investigate whether the precise shape of the amyloid balls is essential for them to attach to the prion receptors, like the way a baseball fits snugly into its glove," said Dr Jo Rushworth, another member of the Leeds team. "And, if so, we wanted to see if we could prevent the amyloid balls binding to prion by altering their shape, as this would stop the cells from dying."
Previous research had shown that the red wine and green tea compounds are able to reshape amyloid proteins. When they were added to amyloid balls in a test tube, the toxic clumps of protein no longer harmed human and animal brain cells.
"We saw that this was because their shape was distorted, so they could no longer bind to prion and disrupt cell function," said Prof Hooper. "We also showed, for the first time, that when amyloid balls stick to prion, it triggers the production of even more amyloid, in a deadly vicious cycle."
The next step for the team is to uncover exactly how the amyloid-prion interaction destroys neurons. Prof Hooper added: "I'm certain that this will increase our understanding of Alzheimer's disease even further, with the potential to reveal yet more drug targets."
Dr Simon Ridley, from the charity Alzheimer's Research UK which part-funded the study, said: "Understanding the causes of Alzheimer's is vital if we are to find a way of stopping the disease in its tracks. While these early-stage results should not be a signal for people to stock up on green tea and red wine, they could provide an important new lead in the search for new and effective treatments. With half a million people affected by Alzheimer's in the UK, we urgently need treatments that can halt the disease. That means it's crucial to invest in research to take results like these from the lab bench to the clinic."
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America also put a great deal of effort into rocket research. By the spring of 1945, the US Navy alone had 1,200 factories that worked on rocket production. However, America’s acquisition of Wernher von Braun and his input into America’s post-war rocket development, has tended to overshadow the work done by America during the war.
Probably the most successful rocket developed by the Americans was the bazooka. Development on the bazooka started in December 1940. The scientists brief was to develop a weapon that could take out a tank but that did not have the inherent problems that bedevilled any weapon that fired an armour-piercing shell – high recoil. The missile fired by the bazooka developed its speed during the flight – not when it was fired. Therefore it was far easier for an infantry soldier to use this in combat rather than a weapon that had potentially damaging recoil. The missile fired by a bazooka weighed 3˝lbs, was 21 inches in length and fired from a 7-inch tube.
In war the bazooka was a formidable weapon. It could destroy a tank at 200 metres and a stationary target, such as a machine gun post, could be destroyed from 750 metres. Larger versions were developed for planes. As the war progressed, the 20-tube ‘whizz-bang’ and the 24-tube ‘grand slam’ were used by planes. In the Far East, a 120-tube rocket launcher, the ‘Woofus’, was fitted to landed craft. The rockets that were fired were slow (125 mph and had a range of just 200 metres) but they were highly effective. They were used to bombard a beach as the landing craft approached, thus giving the soldiers who were landing more protection against Japanese defenders.
An interesting American rocket development involved rocket attacks on submarines. It was far too easy for an attacking plane to overshoot its intended target – a submarine – so that its bombs failed to hit the target. The US Navy used a retrorocket on its bombs to slow down the speed of descent of its bombs thus making them far more accurate and deadly. The last submarine to be sunk in World War Two was on April 30th, 1945, in the Bay of Biscay – by one of these bombs.
The Americans also developed the ‘Bat’, pictured above, which was a long range guided missile that was nearly 12 feet in length and capable of 3,000 mph. It had a range of 20 miles. However, it came into production too late in the war to have any major impact.
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Other mussels have inspired synthetic polymers that have been made into versatile adhesives and coatings, explained J. Herbert Waite, senior author and a professor in UC Santa Barbara's Marine Science Institute. They all rely on proteins that contain an amino acid called "Dopa," (identical to the Dopa used to treat Parkinson's disease) and have been studied extensively by Waite and his research group.
Waite learned that the green mussel, Perna viridis, relies on an alternative to the common "Dopa" chemistry, based on an elaborate modification of the amino acid tryptophan in the green mussel's adhesive protein. Its adhesive chemistry is much more complicated than that of mussels previously studied. It took Waite and his team six years to unravel the story.
The green mussel's sticky adhesiveness has the potential to help form strong bonds in wet surfaces, including teeth and bones. In addition, the adhesive could be used to repair ships that have developed cracks while at sea and must be repaired in a wet environment.
Waite was first alerted to the complicated adhesive of the green mussel when a Japanese group contacted him to comment on their research on the animal. He then learned of an infestation of green mussels in Tampa Bay, Fla.
On further study, he learned that the aggressive green mussel had moved from India's Sea of Bengal to many locations around the world, including the coasts of Japan, Australia, Korea, China, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Additionally, many Pacific Islands and the coasts of some countries surrounding the Gulf of Mexico have been invaded. "People are interested in how they invade, adapt, and spread so easily," said Waite.
Waite asked the U.S. Geological Survey and Florida Sea Grant to send him frozen specimens from Tampa Bay, as this is the only way that California would allow the green mussel to be shipped into the state. The feet were severed from about 100 freshly shucked mussels. After thawing, they were placed in a tissue grinder and then centrifuged for study.
"One aspect that is kind of scary is that the green mussel is more successful than other kinds of mussels at living in polluted water," said Waite. Coastal power plants that flush warm seawater into the ocean provide an ideal environment for the mussels. "Once they get a foothold, they stay."
The other authors on the paper are Hua Zhao of the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences, part of the contract research corporation A*STAR in Singapore, Jason Sagert and Dong Soo Hwang of the Marine Science Institute at UCSB.
Issued: 8/27/09; Corrected: 9/15/09
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|Sunday, Jan 27, 2013 - 11:00 PM
"The Abolitionists, Part Three"
During his raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown is captured, then executed, becoming a martyr for the cause. Abraham Lincoln is elected president in 1860; war breaks out in 1861. On New Year's Day 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation is announced; African-American men may now enlist in the Union forces, and two of Frederick Douglass' sons go to war. In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, banning slavery in all states. G
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Producing plentiful, high-quality food in a sustainable fashion is the vital first step toward food and nutrition security. But production is not enough to attain optimum nutrition for all. All people must have access to the right quantity and quality of foods, and to foods that are safe and culturally acceptable. The Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division (PHND) formerly Food Consumption and Nutrition Division (FCND) takes the lead at IFPRI in research to reduce household poverty and ensure food and nutrition security among the world’s poor. Research within PHND explores far-reaching questions, including:
- How can programs and policies best help families rise out of poverty and help them achieve food and nutrition security?
- With over-nutrition and obesity on the rise in developing countries where millions still go hungry, how can policies and programs encourage healthy diets and facilitate a transition from hunger to health?
- How might food and nutrition policies and programs help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and mitigate its impacts?
PHND research and outreach activities are organized into five research programs, each conducting studies in a number of countries.
formerly Food Consumption and Nutrition Division (FCND)
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|Division Brochure (Spanish)||369.94 KB|
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Second patriarch; son of Abraham and Sarah. He was the child of a miracle, for at the time of his birth his mother, hitherto childless, was ninety years old, and his father a hundred. By the command of God the child was named "Isaac" (; in poetical language = "laughter"), because Abraham had, covertly, laughed in incredulity when, a year previously, he had received the promise of God that a son would be born to him by Sarah (Gen. xvii. 17); so also did Sarah as, standing at the door of the tent, she heard the promise reiterated by the angel (Gen. xviii. 12). Isaac was circumcised when he was eight days old, and at his weaning the parents manifested their joy by giving a great feast. As a solicitous mother Sarah urged Abraham to send away Ishmael, his son by the servant-maid Hagar, whom she had seen mocking Isaac. At first Abraham hesitated, but at the command of God he complied with the wish of his wife; Isaac was thus declared the sole heir of his father.Birth of Jacob and Esau.
A critical event in Isaac's life occurred when God's command came that he should be offered as a sacrifice on a mountain in the land of Moriah (Gen. xxii. 2). Isaac showed himself in this trial to be worthy of his father. Without murmuring he suffered himself to be bound and laid upon the altar. But Abraham was prevented by God from consummating the sacrifice, and a ram that happened to be near was offered instead. At the age of thirty-six Isaac lost his mother. Abraham then charged Eliezer, his steward, with the mission of selecting a wife for Isaac from among his (Abraham's) own people. After a series of providential coincidences, Eliezer returned with Rebekah, whom Isaac, then forty, married (Gen. xxv. 20). For twenty years they were childless; at last Isaac's prayers were heard, and Rebekah gave birth to the twins Esau and Jacob. As the children grew the gentle and good-natured Isaac came to prefer the boisterous and adventurous Esau, who gratified his father withthe choicest spoils of the chase, while the quiet and less adventurous Jacob was an object of special regard to Rebekah: a division of feeling which became later a source of jealousy and hatred between the two brothers.
A famine compelled Isaac to leave his abode "by the well of Lahai-roi." On this occasion he had his first vision. God appeared to him in a dream and warned him not to go down to Egypt, but to remain within the boundaries of Palestine, promising him great prosperity and numerous descendants. Isaac therefore settled among the Philistines at Gerar, where, fearing lest Rebekah's beauty should tempt the Philistines to kill him, he had recourse to a stratagem that had been used in similar circumstances by his father; he pretended that she was his sister. The Philistine king, however, was not long in finding out the truth, and, after rebuking Isaac for his deceit, adopted stringent measures for the protection of husband and wife.Persecuted by Philistines.
In his new home Isaac devoted himself to husbandry, and succeeded so well that he incurred the envy of the Philistines. They commenced a petty persecution against him, stopping up the wells which his father had dug, and which Isaac's servants had reopened. The peace-loving Isaac submitted patiently to these persecutions until Abimelech enjoined him to remove from Gerar. Isaac then pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, shortly afterward settling at Beer-sheba, where God appeared to him for the second time and blessed him. An altar was built by Isaac on the spot where he had had the vision, and his servants dug a well. While living there Isaac received a visit from Abimelech, king of the Philistines, and Phichol, the chief captain of his army, who came to court his alliance.
Isaac's old age was not a happy one. He was assailed by infirmities, and became totally blind. To this was added the enmity between his two sons. With prevision of his death, Isaac recommended his son Esau to bring him some venison and receive his blessing. At the instigation of Rebekah, Jacob, profiting by the blindness of his father, presented himself in Esau's stead, and received the blessing intended for the latter. This infuriated Esau to such an extent that Jacob had to seek safety in flight. Isaac died at Hebron, at the age of 180, shortly after the return of Jacob and his family from Mesopotamia, and was buried by his two sons in the cave of Machpelah, beside Abraham and Sarah.—In Rabbinical Literature:
According to the Rabbis, Isaac was born in the month of Nisan, at noon, when the spring sun was shining in all its glory (Rosh ha-Shanah 10b; Gen. R. liii.). At that hour the sick were restored to health, the blind recovered their sight, and the deaf their hearing; the brightness of the sun and of the moon was intensified (Tan., Gen. 37); a spirit of justice began to prevail in the world: hence the name , a compound of and (= "Law was issued"). In the numerical value of each letter of the name there is an allusion: thus, the י (10) alludes to the Decalogue; the צ(= 90), and the ק(= 100), to the respective ages of Sarah and Abraham at the birth of Isaac; the ח(= 8) refers to the day of circumcision (Gen. R. liii.). Notwithstanding, there were slanderers who maintained that Abraham and Sarah had picked up a foundling, or, according to another haggadah, had taken a son of Hagar and pretended that he was their son. To silence these slanderers Abraham prepared a great feast on the occasion of the weaning of Isaac, whereat, by a miracle, Sarah was enabled to nurse all the sucklings that had been brought by the women invited to the feast. As there was no longer any doubt as to Sarah's maternity, the slanderers questioned Abraham's paternity. Then God imprinted on the face of Isaac the features of Abraham, and the likeness between father and son became so great that one was often mistaken for the other (B. M. 87a; Yalḳ., Gen. 93). According to some Ishmael committed the crime of attracting Isaac to the fields and there casting at him arrows and balls under the pretext of play (), but in reality to get rid of him (Gen. R. liii.): for this reason Sarah insisted on Ishmael and his mother being dismissed.The Sacrifice of Isaac.
A fertile subject in the Haggadah is the attempted sacrifice of Isaac, known as the "'aḳedah." According to Jose ben Zimra, the idea of tempting Abraham was suggested by Satan, who said: "Lord of the Universe! Here is a man whom thou hast blessed with a son at the age of one hundred years, and yet, amidst all his feasts, he did not offer thee a single dove or young pigeon for a sacrifice" (Sanh. 87b; Gen. R. lv.). In Jose ben Zimra's opinion, the 'aḳedah took place immediately after Isaac's weaning. This, however, is not the general opinion. According to the Rabbis, the 'aḳedah not only coincided with, but was the cause of, the death of Sarah, who was informed of Abraham's intention while he and Isaac were on the way to Mount Moriah. Therefore Isaac must then have been thirty-seven years old (Seder 'Olam Rabbah, ed. Ratner, p. 6; Pirḳe R. El. xxxi.; Tanna debe Eliyahu R. xxvii.). Not only did he consent to the sacrifice, but he himself suggested it in the course of a discussion that arose between him and Ishmael concerning their respective merits. Ishmael asserted his superiority to Isaac on account of his having suffered himself to be circumcised at an age when he could have objected to it, while Isaac underwent the operation on the eighth day after his birth "Thou pridest thyself," replied Isaac, "on having given to God three drops of thy blood. I am now thirty-seven years old, and would gladly give my life if God wished it" (Sanh. 89b; Gen. R. lvi. 8).
While he was on the way to Mount Moriah Isaac was addressed by Satan in the following terms: "Unfortunate son of an unfortunate mother! How many days did thy mother pass in fasting and praying for thy birth! and now thy father, who has lost his mind, is going to kill thee." Isaac then endeavored to awaken the pity of his father (Gen. R. lv.). According to another haggadah Isaac rebuked Satan and told him that he was not willing to oppose the wish of his Creator and the command of his father (Tan., Gen. xlvi.). While Abraham was building the altar Isaac hid himself, fearing lest Satan should throw stones at him and render himunfit for a sacrifice. The same fear caused him to ask to be bound on the altar; "for," said he, "I am young and may tremble at the sight of the knife" (Gen. R. lvi. 8).The 'Aḳedah in Jewish Liturgy.
The 'aḳedah is especially prominent in the Jewish liturgy. The remembrance of the incident by God is believed to be a sure guaranty of His forgiveness of the sins of Israel; hence the numerous 'aḳedah prayers, a specimen of which is found in the Mishnah. See
To Isaac is attributed the institution of the "Minḥah" prayer (Ber. 26b). Like Abraham, he observed all the commandments, and made proselytes. He was one of the three over whom the Angel of Death had no power; one of the seven whose buried bodies were not devoured by worms; one of the three upon whom the "yeẓer ha-ra'" (the seducer) had no influence (B. B. 17b). He caused the Shekinah to descend from the sixth to the fifth heaven (Gen. R. xix.).
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November 28, 2012
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been traveling the Saturnian system in a set of inclined, or tilted, orbits that give mission scientists a vertigo-inducing view of Saturn's polar regions. This perspective has yielded images of roiling storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the center of Saturn's famed north polar hexagon.
These phenomena mimic what Cassini found at Saturn's south pole a number of years ago. Cassini has also seen storms circling Saturn's north pole in the past, but only in infrared wavelengths because the north pole was in darkness. (See http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2008-192 .) But, with the change of the Saturnian seasons, the sun has begun to creep over the planet's north pole.
This particular set of raw, unprocessed images was taken on Nov. 27, 2012, from a distance of about 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from Saturn.
More raw images are available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/index.cfm .
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Steve Mullins 720-974-5859
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
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Wet Tropics Africa
The great tropical rainforests of Africa are some of the most species-rich natural habitats in the world. Powered by sunlight, heat, and abundant rainfall, these ancient, complex ecosystems teem with life, providing homes to a unique assemblage of plants, animals, and fungi, most of which are found nowhere else on earth.
Kew's special area of expertise is the rainforests of western Cameroon, where most of our current research projects and co-operative ventures are based.
The Cameroon link goes right back to 1861, when Kew's first director, Sir William Hooker, sent a botanist to explore and collect in the Gulf of Guinea. Since then, the herbarium at Kew has built up an unrivalled reference collection of Cameroon plants – some 50,000 which are now databased – that has provided the source material for regional floras, botanical accounts, inventories, and practical guidebooks. This wealth of knowledge is now being shared with a new generation of Cameroon biologists keen to continue researching, monitoring, and conserving the extraordinary biodiversity of their rainforest heritage.
Kew's main partner in Cameroon is the National Herbarium at Yaoundé, with which we have jointly secured project funding that has enabled the training of new staff through workshops, new computer and e-mail access, and essential logistical support. We have also had a long association with the Botanic Garden at Limbé, involving not only Kew's botanists but horticulturists as well, helping redevelop their important nineteenth century gardens and associated herbarium.
We are delighted to acknowledge the help and support of Earthwatch for substantial funding of field trips and for enabling over 100 African botanists and conservationists from fourteen different countries to join us in training programmes in Cameroon since 1995. Additional funding for specific projects has come from the Darwin Initiative, BAT and the Global Environment Facility.
The following pages provide an introduction to the main project areas where Kew scientists and staff have recently been involved in biodiversity and conservation studies. Maps and images show some of the scenery, plants, and interesting new discoveries. Additional pages include a list of books and scientific publications produced as a result of this work, a file of locally distributed posters on threatened plant species, plus brief biographies of Kew's current research team.
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Eczema is a non-contagious inflammatory skin condition characterized by redness, irritation, and dry or moist lesions. Otherwise known as dermatitis, eczema affects adults and children, and can appear on any part of the body but is typically found on the face, hands, legs, and in skin folds. Often itchy or painful, this condition can worsen over time leading to dry, cracked or blistered skin.
Eczema tends to flare-up upon exposure to certain triggers. Dry or cold weather, chemical irritants in skin care and household cleansers, food allergies, emotional stress, heat and sweating, and infections are all sources of irritation.
Diet is a good place to start when working toward a solution for eczema. Dairy and wheat can produce symptoms, as can eggs, citrus, nuts, and foods that are highly-processed or preserved. Become aware of which foods seem to trigger flare-ups and avoid eating and coming into contact with them. You may only need to eliminate the culprit from your diet for a few months to get skin under control.
Skin care is another important step in managing eczema. Chemical perfumes and dyes are known to cause skin irritation and are best avoided in those with eczema. Propylene glycol (commonly used to help a product retain moisture, i.e. skin moisturizers and hair conditioners) has also been found to cause skin sensitivity by rupturing skin cell membranes, even when used in small doses. Products containing harsh detergents, petro-chemicals, and Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) should all be avoided.
While conventional treatments for eczema can provide temporary relief symptoms usually return, often more severe than prior to treatment. Corticosteroids and other anti-inflammatory medications simply relieve the symptoms, failing to address the source of the problem.
Follow these tips for effectively treating eczema:
- Cleanse skin with a mild, Fragrance-free cleanser
- Use skin care products made with pure natural plant oils. Evening Primrose oil is rich in gamma linolenic acid, an essential fat research shows those with eczema are low in, and is especially beneficial
- Keep skin moisturized. Eczema often causes dry, cracked skin which can Lead to scarring and infection
- Avoid washing with very hot water and never scrub irritated skin
- Reduce your exposure to household chemical cleansers
- Maintain a healthy diet
- Manage stress
Managing eczema with natural skin care products, careful diet choices and a healthy lifestyle will address the root cause of the irritation, offering long-term relief.
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July 8, Haystack Butte
waking to a clear frosty dawn after their first night back in U.S. territory since late the preceding August of 1805, Lewis and his party of eleven men hit the trail at 6:00 a.m. on a course North 25° West (335° True North). In about an hour they crested a hill from which,
Lewis reported, "we saw the Shishequaw mountain about 8 ms. distant imediately before us." He described it as "a high insulated [isolated] conic mountain standing several miles in advance of the Eastern range of the rocky mountains." Perhaps obedient to instructions given him by the Nez Perce guides who had escorted the party across the Bitterroots, he and his men immediately left the road that kept near the mountains and proceeded for a considerable distance through the "extencive leavel and butifull bottom," before striking the 20-yard-wide stream he named Shishequaw Creek (today called Elk Creek). After dining at that point they paralleled the creek for 2 more miles to its confluence with the Sun River,1 which they followed for another 8 miles to a large island where they camped for the night, having covered 28 ˝ miles that day.
Collected by Gilbert Wilson about 1913-15. Length, 10.25 in.; diameter, 4.5 in.
Lewis's instant recognition of this landmark and road sign by name, as if he knew exactly what to look for, is exceptional insofar as he gave no clue as to where, when, or from whom he had learned of it. Shishequaw was Lewis's phonetic spelling of shishiquoi, a French Canadian transliteration of zheesheegwun, which was an Algonkian noun meaning rattle. A shishiquoi could be conical in shape (see photo above), which may account for the Indian name of the mountain.2
Shishequaw Mountain: Lewis's View
his view of the landmark Lewis identified as Shishequaw Mountain was taken from approximately the point where he may have first caught sight of it.
Lewis must have told Clark that from this perspective the road appeared to lead directly to it, which may account for the dotted line Clark drew from the point where Lewis said he left the Indian road and headed toward the Sun River. The road undoubtedly went around the mountain on one side or the other, for it must have been a segment of the Old North Trail, a loose network of north-south roads that paralleled the Rocky Mountain Front and extended all the way to Mexico, which had been worn into the earth by the feet of millions of aboriginal travelers over a period of perhaps 15,000 years.3
Shishequaw Mountain Seen from the North
his photo was taken from the vicinity of the Old North Trail at a point approximately 5 miles northwest of Shishequaw Mountain. Lewis and his party did not see it from this angle. The summit of Shishiquaw Mountain reaches 6,712 feet above mean sea level, or approximately 2,000 feet above the surrounding prairie.
n his paraphrase of the Lewis and Clark journals (1814), Nicholas Biddle included Lewis's brief description of this landmark, but more than likely the first settlers — cattle ranchers — who arrived in the upper Sun River Valley in the 1870s weren't aware of that, and never heard it called Shishequaw. They had no need to use the Old North Trail and thus would not have seen it often from the north or south.
After thousands of head of cattle died of starvation in the deep snows of 1886-87, the tradition of open-range grazing came to a sudden end. Ranchers prudently fenced their land to confine their herds where they could be fed whenever necessary.4 From 1890 on, hayfields and haystacks proliferated in river valleys throughout the West, changing this ancient landmark's visual significance. Just when the name first appeared on a map is not known, but Elliott Coues referred to it in his 1893 annotation of Biddle's paraphrase of the journals.5
Haystacks are seldom seen in the Sun River Valley today. In this photograph, faintly discernable next to a red barn at left of center, is a stack of common square bales weighing approximately 75 pounds each. Several persons are needed to load them, one at a time, onto a wagon, then unload and untie them at the feeding site. In the nearer hayfield are many large round bales that are five feet in diameter and five feet long. They weigh at least 1,200 pounds each, but are more economical for a large operation than square bales, as they can easily be moved by one person operating a specially equipped tractor. Hay was not mechanically baled until the end of the 19th century. Instead, it was stacked loose in high piles in a fenced feedlot where cattle could be driven to eat directly from the haystack.
The French word butte was not in the English dictionaries of Lewis and Clark's time.6 In the early 1840s, however, explorer John Frémont found that in the West, butte was broadly applied to "detached hills and ridges which rise abruptly, and reach too high to be called hills or ridges, and not high enough to be called mountains."7
Another Indian Name
Pass cursor over image to read details.
Detail from Nicholas King's Map, 1803.
nother Indian name for the eminence Lewis knew as Shishequaw Mountain was Is se cut to yis, or "The Pap"--that is, nipple.8 In 1801 a Siksika (Blackfeet) Indian named Ac ko mok ki (Old Swan), drew a map of the Rocky Mountains for Peter Fidler, a Hudson's Bay Company surveyor and trader, and highlighted the five landmarks shown above on the Rocky Mountain Front near the Old North Trail. "The King" is now called Chief Mountain, and is a prominent feature in Glacier National Park; "The Heart" is Heart Butte, south of the town of Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation; the "Battle Hills" are Square Butte (Lewis and Clark's "Fort Mountain"), Shaw Butte and Crown Butte (shown much too far north of their actual location); "Bears Tooth," still known by that name, towers above the place Lewis named "the gates of the rocky mountains," northeast of Helena.
The noted British cartographer Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) incorporated Fidler's information in his 1802 map of "New Discoveries of Interior Parts of North America," a copy of which Jefferson provided to Meriwether Lewis. Arrowsmith's map was the major source drawn upon by the American cartographer and surveyor Nicholas King (1771-1812), for the composite map he created on orders from Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin expressly for the expedition.9 It is remarkable, considering the chain of information involved, and the different standards of measurement — Indian days of travel ("sleeps") versus Euro-American leagues and miles — that The Pap is shown so close to its actual location — approximately two degrees of longitude too far west, but less than one degree of latitude too far north.10
At Fort Mandan during the winter of 1804-05 the captains had time to study the maps they had brought with them, and reconcile them with information freely given by friends such as the Mandan chief, Sheheke (see Clark's 1805 map). The result of this work was a new map by Clark that summarized what they expected to encounter, and where, when they set out westward on April 7, 1805. Clark showed and labeled The King, The Heart, and Battle Hills. He located the river they would name for Secretary of War Dearborn in about the right place. He labeled an extensive stream "The River which scolds at all other rivers," which later would prove to be two separate drainages, the Marias and the Sun. Two forks of it bracket "The Tooth," which could have been yet another name for Shishequaw Mountain, although it is more likely he confused it with "Bears Tooth," which he omitted. There was a lot yet to be learned.
On the map that accompanied Nicholas Biddle's paraphrase (1814) of Lewis and Clark's journals, Shishequaw Mountain is shown but not named; Shishequaw River is drawn (unnamed) as the Sun River tributary now called Elk Creek, with its source southwest of the butte instead of northwest, as it was in Clark's first draft of Lewis's route.
--Joseph Mussulman, 07/05
1. The explorers also learned that the Hidatsa called it Mah-pah-pah, ah-zhah, and the Nez Perce Cal la mar-Sha mosh. (Moulton, 3:367-68, 7:343.) Clark concluded (June 20, 1805) from Hidatsa information that the Medicine River took its name from the " unaccountable rumbling Sound" often heard in its vicinity, "which like all unacountable thing[s] with the Indians of the Missouri is Called Medicine."
2. Lewis & Clark Lexicon of Discovery (Pullman, Washington: WSU Press, 2004), 160. We are indebted to the author of that book, Alan H. Hartley, for calling attention to the etymology and definition of shishequaw. Elijah Harry Criswell, in Lewis and Clark: Linguistic Pioneers, University of Missouri Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1940), either overlooked or ignored the word. It occurs in the journals of various travelers in Canada, including the elder Alexander Henry (1763), Alexander Mackenzie (1801), and Daniel Harmon (1820). See also Rattle Riddle.
3. Walter McClintock, The Old North Trail; or, Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1910), 434-40; Peter Stark, "The Old North Trail," Smithsonian, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1997), 56-66; Marcella Sherfy, "The Old North Trail: America's Earliest Highway, Heritage Education (Spring 2004), 12-17. James Alexander Philp, "An Historical Geography of the Sun River Watershed, Montana," Ph. D. dissertation, Geography, 3 vols., The University of Montana, 1997; 2:197-208, 226-28.
4. Philp, 2:276-77, 281-83, 289-91, 298-99.
5. Elliott Coues, History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Reprint (New York: Dover, 1893), 3:1079n. Coues noted that on the Stevens Railroad Survey map of 1856 Haystack Butte was misnamed "Heart Mountain." Furthermore, Old Swan's "The Heart" (presently Heart Butte), which is approximately 60 miles northwest of Haystack Butte, is absent from the Stevens map. It is somewhat difficult to account for the confusion, since Stevens had Biddle's paraphrase of the journals with him, and the description of Lewis's route--which Stevens himself retraced in part--is clear enough to be helpful today. Nevertheless, Stevens's error continued to be copied onto every new map, effectively standing in the way of anyone trying to locate Shishequaw Mountain, much less understand its meaning, until Coues reported that "Heart mountain of Stevens' large map" was "now [in 1893] known as Haystack Butte."
6. There are three instances in the journals, two fairly clear, the other somewhat questionable. Lewis, in the list of mineralogical specimens sent back from Fort Mandan, wrote that the second item was "Found just above the entrance of the cannon Ball river, the butt[e] is principally composed of this sand." (Moulton, 3:473). The second occurrence is in Whitehouse's journal entry for July 28, 1804: "we Came to a hi CLift or Buut one hun[dred] feet." The third may be in a remark by Clark on May 22, 1805, in which Thwaites (II, 1:61) omitted an ampersand and interpolated two emendations: "I walked out after dinner and assended a but[te] a few miles [off] to view the countrey." Moulton transcribes the sentence verbatim: "I walked out after dinner and assended & but a few miles to view the Countrey," implying that with the ampersand Clark merely started to write something else but changed his mind and wrote that he only "walked out" a few miles. In view of the word's history, and the absence of any other uses of butte by the journalists, even in references to Fort Mountain (Square Butte), the latter reading is preferable. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806, 8 vols. (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904-1905).
7. Charles C. Frémont (1813-1890), Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1842-'44 (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Season, 1845), 145. Or, as an essayist in the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1882 (Vol. 24, p. 510) wrote, rolling his eyes between parentheses, "(Everything in the way of hill, rock, mountain, or clay-heap is called a butte in Montana.)" Some modern definitions specify that buttes have flat tops rimmed by steep escarpments that slope toward the surrounding plain. (For a classic illustration see Square Butte.) However, geologists' current usage is broader than that, closer to Frémont's and the original French: "rising ground; knoll, mound, or hillock." See Alan H. Hartley, Lewis & Clark Lexicon of Discovery (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2004), 30-31.
8. Theodore Binnema, "Old Swan, Big Man, and the Siksika Bands, 1794-1815," Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 1 (March 1996), 22-24.
9. Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with Related Documents, 1783-1854 (2nd ed., 2 vols., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). It is not known for certain whether the captains received the map before the expedition left camp on Wood River on May 14, 1804. This issue is discussed in John Logan Allen, Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest (New York: Dover, 1975), 97-98.
10. One degree of latitude equals about 69 statute miles; a degree of longitude at this latitude equals roughly 47.25 statute miles.
Credits: Alan H. Hartley, linguistics, Detroit, Michigan; Robert N. Bergantino, geologist, Western Montana School of Mines and Geology; Marilyn Hudson, Curator, Three Tribes Museum, Newtown, North Dakota; Jack Lepley, manager, Museum of the Northern Great Plains, Fort Benton, Montana; David Alt, Professor Emeritus, Geology Department, The University of Montana, Missoulla.
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The Miller cycle was developed by Ralph Miller in the 1940s. With the introduction of turbocharging to the 4 stroke diesel engines, the Mean Effective Pressure and thus the power output of 4 stroke engines rose by 50 - 60%. However this was about the limit; If the inlet air pressure was increased further, then the charge air reached excessive pressures and temperatures on compression causing burning of the LO film and thermal stressing.
Miller challenged the thinking of the day by closing the inlet valve before the piston reached bottom dead centre. This had the effect of lowering the cylinder pressure as the piston continued downwards, as well as dropping the temperature of the air (Boyles and Charles' Law). Although the engine is still doing work as the piston is descending on the inlet stroke, there is a saving in work during the compression stroke, and the maximum air temperature and pressure is reduced on compression. The timing of the inlet valve of Miller's engine was governed by a mechanical link arrangement, and varied automatically with engine load. Miller's engine doubled the MEP of the engine when compared with a naturally aspirated engine.
Advances in design and materials led to more efficient turbochargers, higher compression ratios and more efficient cooling of marine diesel engines. However, with the introduction of MARPOL VI, manufacturers had to look more closely at lowering NOx and smoke emissions.
One of the methods used is to reintroduce the Miller cycle using variable inlet closing, so that at full load, the maximum cylinder temperature is reduced. (NOx formation occurs at temperatures in excess of 1200°C). This is combined with higher compression ratios and slightly later fuel injection timing.
Miller relied on mechanical methods to vary the timing. Modern methods linked to a computer controlled engine management system use a hydraulic push rod.
By increasing the compression ratio, giving a higher air temperature the ignition delay is reduced. Later injection over a shorter period combined with improved fuel atomisation and combustion space design result in lower NOx formation.
Supercharged petrol engines also make use of a form of Miller cycle in which the inlet valve is left open during the first part of the compression stroke, so that compression only occurs during the last 70% of the compression stroke. Over the entire compression range required by the engine, the supercharger is used to generate low levels of compression, where it is most efficient. The air is then cooled in the air cooler. Then, the piston is used to generate the remaining higher levels compression, operating in the range where it is more efficient than a supercharger. Thus the Miller cycle when used in a petrol engine uses the supercharger for the portion of the compression where it is best, and the piston for the portion where it is best. In total, this reduces the power needed to run the engine by 10% to 15%.
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Framework at the top of a window.
Also called a yoke, it's the upper horizontal finish member in a window frame.
Joint between the ends of two masonry units.
Also called a wall plate, this horizontal structural piece is anchored to a masonry wall. Other structural pieces may be supported from it.
Maximum amount of pressure against which a pump can move fluid.
1. A beam running perpendicular to the studs or joists to which joists are nailed in framing of stairways, chimneys, etc.
2. Top horizontal piece, often made of boards nailed together, which serves as the top section of a window or door.
3. Horizontal framing member to which the ends of the joists are nailed.
4. A short section of brick or a brick laid so the end is to the wall surface.
5. Also, a masonry unit that ties together different vertical masonry sections.
Brick header that is concealed.
Also referred to as false header, brick is cut, up to half its size, to set up a pattern.
Course of brick which is set with the end of the bricks facing outward.
Exposed header, which is painted noticeably darker than the others.
1. Any amount of vertical clearing.
2. Space or clearing overhead, as in a doorway, etc.
1. A bearing or support for a revolving or moving part of a machine.
2. The part of a lathe, which supports the spindle, which holds and turns the work.
A formal procedure, with issues of fact or law to be tried, in which parties have a right to be heard. Similar to a trial with the possibility of a final order. Hearth The stone or floor of a fireplace, which often extends into the room and is either flush with the floor or raised. Hearth Stone 1. The stone that forms the hearth of a fireplace. 2. A soft stone or powdered composition, which is used for cleaning a hearth, steps, etc. Heartshake Disintegration and splitting, which forms across the growth rings of a log whenever rot, exists at the center of the log.
The wood of a tree that reaches from the pith (the soft core or center) to the sapwood (where cells have hardened). This wood may contain phenoloic compounds, gums, resins, etc. making it darker and more decay resistant. Redwood is an example of a wood that is used specifically for its durable qualities.
Window and skylight glass that contains iron to absorb heat, thus reducing the heat transmitted through the glass.
Also referred to as a solar collector or solar panels, it collects heat from the sun, which is turned, into energy that is used most commonly to heat water for the home or pool. There are different forms of collectors.
Apparatus, which transfers heat from one fluid to another in cooling or heating systems. Air conditioners use both a condenser and an evaporator. Steam and hot water radiators are heat exchangers, which are used to produce heat.
Device, much like a hair dryer, which changes electricity to heat with a blower to aim that heat at a surface, to soften paint for removal or to accelerate drying.
Heat needed to melt a particular solid. For example, gold becomes liquid at about 2,000 degrees F and iron at 2,730 degrees F.
Heat needed to turn a liquid into a gas.
Apparatus that can heat but also cool by changing its cycle and using a refrigerant, a compressor and heat exchanger.
Often used in electronics where it is necessary to keep heat from sensitive circuit parts during soldering, this metal shape has good heat conductivity to draw heat away from an area.
Heat movement from one object, one place or fluid to another.
Enhancement of a material by use of heating and cooling rates.
Heating process, which can fuse plastic pipes and fittings together or to seal roofing membranes together.
Heating unit installed along the baseboard.
Cable, often in a plaster ceiling, used to generate heat by use of electrical resistant, which occurs when an electrical current passes through a conductor with high resistance to the flow of current, which converts the electrical energy into heat.
Regulation of temperatures, through heating and cooling, inside of residential and commercial building.
1. To raise or lift with effort or to cause to be lifted.
2. The extent of horizontal displacement caused by a fault in the earth.
Use of heavy timbers, connected with bolting and metal plates at their intersections, for main structural pieces in construction. The heavy timbers carry the structural load so that studs are added to form partitions and not for weight bearing.
Used for radiation shielding, the concrete is made dense by addition of a heavy aggregate. Regular concrete weighs approximately 150 pounds per cubic foot while heavyweight concrete weighs 400 pounds per cubic foot.
A measurement, equaling 2.471 acres or about 107,637 square feet or 10,000 square meters.
Metric unit of weight, which equals 100 grams or 3.527 ounces.
Metric unit of volume, which equals 100 liters or 26.4 gallons.
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Geothermal is Hot!
In this time of economic difficulty, many of us are looking for ways to save money on our utilities. This includes not only the homeowner, but also businesses and government entities. Heating and cooling has long been a major expense to all of us and something we strive to curtail through increased energy efficiency. Some have turned to renewable energy with the thought that the wind and sun are free sources of power; however, when we do the math, the cost of infrastructure may outweigh the savings.
A system that has come to the forefront, as both energy efficient and cost effective, is the geothermal heat pump. Geothermal heat pumps use the constant temperature of the earth to exchange heat. According to Energy Star, they are the most environmentally safe and efficient heating and cooling option available. Rather than using underground heat, geothermal heat pumps capitalize on the steady temperature of the ground or deep water wells. In effect, they treat the earth like a giant energy savings bank, depositing or withdrawing heat depending on the time of year. During the summer, the systems pump indoor heat underground and draw on the lower temperatures of the earth to cool a building. In colder months, the same process works in reverse, with heat from the ground being used to warm indoor air. However, they are more costly to install than conventional systems. Much of this cost is the drilling fees. But that investment can be recouped in five to ten years, according to consumerenergycenter.org, and we have witnessed this first-hand at MVEA.
Several area schools and public buildings have opted for the geothermal system. As we reported last year, the new Palmer Ridge High School in Monument installed the largest geothermal system in the state. The decision to use this type of system was made after the District 39 administration building had been retrofitted and proved to be very successful in cost savings. Other schools have followed suit. Calhan School recently completed their retrofit to geothermal and Miami-Yoder School is in the process of starting their project. The new Falcon Public Library decided on a geothermal system for their new facility which is opening on September 19. And, of course, the new MVEA Falcon Operations Center is heated and cooled by geothermal.
As you can see from this list of facilities, it is not only a new building that can benefit. Miami-Yoder and Calhan schools are older buildings. What makes it even more attractive to purchasing this type of system is the energy efficiency credits paid to help offset the cost. Both MVEA and Tri-State G&T, MVEA’s power supplier, pay rebates according to the size of the project. In the case of Calhan School, administrators also worked on getting grants to help defray the cost.
Calhan School, in their quest for energy efficiency, also did a retrofit of their lighting. Even their gym was refitted with T-5 fluorescent bulbs covered by wire guards. These lights come on instantly compared to the old halogen bulbs that took so long to warm up that the game could be over by the time they came on! A little exaggeration. The new lights allow different areas of the gym to be lit and are much more energy efficient and bright. The school also received energy efficiency credits from MVEA and Tri-State to offset this portion of their project.
MVEA currently has 50 geothermal systems installed in residences throughout our system. Recent surveys from consumerenergycenter.org have found that homeowners using geothermal heat pumps rate them highly when compared to conventional systems. Figures indicate that more than 95 percent of all geothermal heat pump owners would recommend a similar system to their friends and family.
If you are interested in installing a geothermal system, be sure to do your homework. Even though heat pumps and geothermal space conditioning has been around for a while, it is still considered a new market and as such, there are not nearly enough contractors and engineers who are experts in this field. At MVEA’s website at www.mvea.org, you can review what rebates are available and see if this is a cost effective alternative for you.
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Gifted Learners and the Middle School: Problem or Promise?
National Association for Gifted Children
1707 L Street, NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20036
ERIC EC Digest E535
Author: Carol Ann Tomlinson
Historically, tension has existed between gifted education and middle school education (Tomlinson, 1992), leaving some advocates of each educational practice suspicious of the other, and leaving middle school students who are advanced in one or more dimensions of learning in a sort of educational no-man's-land. While some legitimate areas of disagreement are likely to persist, there are enough areas of shared belief to bridge the practice between gifted education and middle school education. This digest provides an overview of (1) some areas of agreement between the fields, (2) some areas of tension, and (3) some promising directions that could engage educators in mutual planning of appropriate services for all middle school students, including those we sometimes call "gifted."
Shared Beliefs of Gifted Education and Middle School Education
There are at least three areas of common concern shared by gifted education and middle school education.
First, when it comes to articulated beliefs about what constitutes appropriate instruction for early adolescents, both groups are proponents of instruction that: (1) is theme based, (2) is interdisciplinary, (3) fosters student self-direction and independence, (4) promotes self-understanding, (5) incorporates basic skills, (6) is relevant to the learner and thus based on study of significant problems, (7) is student-centered, (8) promotes student discovery, (9) values group interaction, (10) is built upon student interest, (11) encourages critical and creative exploration of ideas, and (12) promotes student self-evaluation (e.g., Currier, 1986; Kaplan, 1979; Maker & Nielson, 1995; Stevenson, 1992).
Second, few educators of the gifted would argue with the core tenets set forth in Turning Points (Carnegie Task Force on the Education of Young Adolescents, 1989) that middle school programs should: (1) create small communities of learning within larger school settings, (2) teach a solid academic core, (3) ensure success for all students, (4) enable educators closest to students to make important decisions about teaching and learning, (5) staff middle schools with teachers trained to work effectively with early adolescents, (6) promote health and fitness, (7) involve families in the education of learners, and (8) connect schools with communities.
Third, both groups of educators share a deep concern for the cognitive and affective welfare of early adolescent learners. Both groups also understand that there is great variability in the academic, social, emotional, and physical development of the early adolescent group. Both also subscribe to the reality that early adolescents are subject to change, including spurts in physical growth, new interests, and intellectual awareness. And both believe that all middle school students should take part in challenging learning experiences.
Gifted Education and Middle School Education: Problems and Promise
The following issues have concerned educators in gifted education and middle level education. But emerging dialogue offers promise and some evident next steps for moving ahead into a more collaborative future (Clews, 1995).
Excellence vs. Equity
Gifted education exists to foster development of high-end excellence. It therefore stresses practices that are most likely to promote "expertise" in learners with advanced performance and/or potential. Middle school education, on the other hand, views education through an equity lens, where all students have an equal opportunity to succeed. In a country that has struggled with the competing values of equity and excellence throughout its history (Gardner, 1961), it is not surprising that both groups continue to struggle with mechanisms for balancing the belief that all people should have equal opportunity with the belief that each individual should be assisted in developing his or her maximum capacity. The tension is heightened in the face of scarce resources for education.
- Understand the advantages of emphasizing both equity and excellence.
- Plan for both personal excellence and equity of access to advancement for all learners who are at risk, including those who are gifted.
- Emphasize raising the floors and eliminating the ceilings of educational performance.
- Emphasize both personal excellence and "apex" or "high-end" excellence.
Emphasis on Heterogeneity
Because middle school educators emphasize the negative impact of homogeneous grouping on at-risk learners, heterogeneity has become a hallmark descriptor of "good" middle schools (Carnegie Task Force on the Education of Young Adolescents, 1989). But educators of the gifted value the benefits of ability grouping for advanced learners. The availability of some forms of homogeneous grouping for these learners has been strongly advocated by proponents of gifted education (Allan, 1991). Educators of the gifted are also concerned about a lack of emphasis on differentiated instruction for academic diversity in heterogeneous classrooms in the literature of middle school, and reject a one-size-fits-all approach to educating students as varied as those who inhabit middle schools.
- Abandon practices that permit or encourage one-size-fits-all instruction.
- Replace exclusive services with more inclusive ones.
- Emphasize appropriately differentiated instruction in heterogeneous classrooms.
- Use heterogeneous teams, but group and regroup within a team and across teams for instructional purposes.
- Offer a variety of classes that allow for student choice.
- Emphasize use of gifted/talented resource specialists as part of interdisciplinary teams.
Use of Labels
Middle school advocates often reject labeling students as "learning disabled" or "gifted" (George, 1993). Such labeling, they believe, favors some students and stigmatizes others. Advocates of gifted education believe that identifying high potential and performance is necessary if awareness of and planning for talent development is to occur (Coleman & Gallagher, 1995).
Promising Directions :
- Develop ways to identify and address students' needs without overt labeling.
- Work to balance emphasis on student differences and student similarities.
- Use the term "gifted" as part of a phrase that describes students as gifted in mathematics, science, writing, visual arts, music, etc.
Ambiguity About Appropriate Middle School Curricula
For much of its 30-year history, middle school education has attended more to issues such as student affect, scheduling, detracking, teaming, and school climate than to what constitutes effective and appropriate curricula in middle school classes (Beane, 1990). Educators of the gifted, who place strong value on challenging opportunities for advanced learners in their area(s) of strength, have been concerned about middle level education, including a basic skills approach to instruction. On the other hand, middle school educators argue that what has been called "gifted education" (e.g., enrichment, high level thinking, problem-solving) is good education for all learners, and should not be reserved for any single group of middle school students. They believe that energies of educators should be focused on establishing that sort of "good education" in heterogeneous classrooms and that the proliferation of such classrooms would serve all middle school students well.
- Disavow theories that present middle school students as incapable of high level thought and complex learning.
- Abandon practices that couch middle school as a place for drill and skill.
- Collaborate in establishing complex, problem-based, student-centered curricula, differentiated for student readiness, interest, and learning style.
- Articulate differences between "good education" and "good gifted education."
- Ensure that services restricted to gifted students are taught at a pace, level of complexity, and level of abstractness that is consistent with their abilities and instructional needs.
Use of Cooperative Learning as an Instructional Strategy
Middle school educators promote cooperative learning as a prime means of establishing effective heterogeneous communities of learning (Slavin, 1980; Toepfer, 1992). Educators of the gifted find that overuse of some cooperative learning strategies, particularly those focused on learning of basic information and skills, results in a lack of challenge for advanced learners, inordinate use of these learners as "junior teachers," and inappropriate pressure for these learners to solve instructional problems (Robinson, 1990).
- Acknowledge the appropriateness of collaborative learning for early adolescents.
- Emphasize problem-based cooperative strategies rather than skill-focused cooperative strategies.
- Move away from cooperative learning as a "savior" strategy.
- Teach and balance cooperation, independence, and healthy competition.
- Use various grouping patterns in cooperative groups, based on instructional purpose.
Affective Needs of Early Adolescents
Middle school educators stress development of school environments in which early adolescents can belong to a nurturing group and have consistent access to adults who know and care about them (George & Shewey, 1994). Most educators of the gifted have concerns that affective experiences of advanced learners, which sometimes take on "a different spin," are overlooked in middle schools where advanced learning is deemphasized and where few teachers are trained to understand advanced learners. For example, peer pressure to conform may be experienced in a somewhat different context by many academically talented females and minority students than by other agemates (Ford, 1994; Kerr, 1985).
- Recognize that early adolescents share common affective needs, but experience them in differing ways.
- Plan for both achievement and belonging for advanced learners, with special emphasis on females and culturally diverse learners.
The result of strongly held and often divergent views about educating early adolescents has led to some tension between the two groups of educators. Leaders of each group have not always attempted to build bridges. Publications, conferences, team meetings, and informal dialogues among educators have only recently begun to break ground in listening and attempting to find solutions.
- Acknowledge strengths and contributions of both practices.
- Use constructive language when discussing the issues.
- Communicate, cooperate, and collaborate at every level of educational practice.
Allan, S. (1991). Ability grouping research reviews: What do they really say to the practitioner? Educational Leadership, 48(6), 60-65.
Beane, J. (1990). A middle school curriculum: From rhetoric to reality. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Carnegie Task Force on the Education of Young Adolescents. (1989). Turning points: Preparing American youth for the 21st century. Washington, DC: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development.
Clews, V. (Producer), (1995). In balance: Gifted education and middle schools (film). Reston, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children.
Coleman, M., & Gallagher, J. (1995). Middle schools and their impact on talent development. Middle School Journal, 26(3), 47-56.
Currier, L. (1986). A declaration of independence. A creed for middle school educators. Middle School Journal, 17(2), 4-6.
Ford, D. (1994). Nurturing resilience in gifted black youth. Roeper Review, 17(2), 80-85.
Gardner, J. (1961). Excellence: Can we be equal and excellent too? New York: Harper & Row.
George, P. (1993). Tracking and ability grouping in the middle school: Ten tentative truths. Middle School Journal, 24(4), 17-23.
George, P., & Shewey, K. (1994). New evidence for the middle school. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Kaplan, S. (1979). Inservice training manual: Activities for developing curriculum for the gifted and talented. Ventura, CA: National/State Leadership Training Institute.
Kerr, B. (1985). Smart girls, gifted women. Columbus, OH: Ohio Psychology Publishing Company.
Maker, J., & Nielson, A. (1995). Teaching models in education of the gifted. Austin, TX: Pro-ed.
Robinson, A. (1990). Cooperation or exploitation: The argument against cooperative learning for talented students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14(1), 9-27.
Slavin, R. (1980). Cooperative learning. Review of Educational Research, 50(2), 315-342.
Stevenson, C. (1992). Teaching ten- to fourteen- year olds. New York: Longman.
Toepfer, C. (1992). Middle level curriculum: Defining the elusive. In J. Irvin, (Ed.), Transforming middle level education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Tomlinson, C. (1992). Gifted education and the middle school movement: Two voices on teaching the academically talented. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 15(3), 206-238.
Carol Ann Tomlinson is Assistant Professor, Curry School of Education,
ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge your source. This publication was prepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, under contract no. RR93002005. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI or the Department of Education.
The University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
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HOCKEY STICK GRAPH HAS TEAMS FEUDING
February 15, 2005
The latest debate over global warming focuses on a well-publicized graph depicting temperatures over the past 1,000 years, but some observers argue the graph, which is known as the "hockey stick," is inaccurate.
Created by Dr. Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, the graph indicates fairly stable temperatures up until the 20th century, and a sharp acceleration over the last century, graphically depicting the shape of a hockey stick.
However, Stephen McIntyre, a minerals consultant from Toronto, first disputed the calculations behind the graph, and his skepticism now has scientists questioning its accuracy as well. According to McIntyre and other skeptics:
- Dr. Mann's mathematical technique in drawing the graph is prone to generating hockey-stick shapes even when applied to random data, therefore, McIntyre argues, it proves nothing.
- Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada, a government agency, says he now agrees that Dr. Mann's statistical method "preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data."
- The graph pays little emphasis to the "medieval warm period" around A.D. 1000 and a 15th century "little ice age," and it relies too heavily on tree ring data from a small number of trees.
- According to scientist Hans von Storch of Germany's GKSS Center, the graph sharply underestimates previous variations in temperature, suggested that the 20th-century jump in temperature is not as drastic as depicted on the graph.
Other researchers, including Mann argue that even if the mathematical method used in producing the graph is a little off, the end results are the same: major global temperature increases are correlated with the 20th century.
However, each side accuses the other of playing politics. McIntyre argues that Kyoto supporters are pushing the hockey-stick graph to further their cause, despite the skepticism that abounds.
Source: Antonio Regalado, "In Climate Debate, the "Hockey Stick" Leads to a Face-Off," Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005.
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| 3.637333 |
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The Moon Is Thought To Have Formed Closer To The Earth Than It Is Now
Mon Nov 14 03:29:45 GMT 2011 by Gary Thomas
IMHO, they were referring to radial velocity, not orbital speed as the two vary inversely. The faster an orbiting object moves, the farther from the gravitational center and the longer it takes to complete an orbit.
| 3.275666 |
|Molar mass||78.11 g/mol|
|Density and phase||0.8786 g/cm³, liquid|
|Solubility in water||1.79 g/L (25 °C)|
|Melting point||5.5 °C (278.6 K)|
|Boiling point||80.1 °C (353.2 K)|
|Viscosity||0.652 cP at 20 °C|
|Dipole moment||0 D|
|EU classification||Flammable (F)
Carc. Cat. 1
Muta. Cat. 2
, , , ,|
|Flash point||−11 °C|
|Autoignition temperature||561 °C|
|Except where noted otherwise, data are given for
materials in their standard state (at 25°C, 100 kPa)
Benzene (also known as benzol or -annulene) is a colorless, flammable, sweet-smelling liquid. It is a natural constituent of crude oil but is usually synthesized from other compounds present in petroleum. Chemically, it is classified as an aromatic hydrocarbon, which is a group of organic compounds. Its chemical formula is C6H6. If inhaled or ingested in relatively large amounts, it can cause serious health problems, including cancer, and may even lead to premature death. On the other hand, through years of patient effort, scientists have found that it is a valuable solvent and an important precursor in the production of a wide range of materials, including drugs, plastics, synthetic rubber, and dyes.
Benzene has been the subject of studies by many famous scientists, including Michael Faraday and Linus Pauling. In 1825, Faraday reported its isolation from oil gas and gave it the name bicarburet of hydrogen. In 1833, Eilhard Mitscherlich produced it by the distillation of benzoic acid (from gum benzoin) and lime (calcium oxide). Mitscherlich named the compound benzin. In 1845, Charles Mansfield, working under August Wilhelm von Hofmann, isolated benzene from coal tar. Four years later, Mansfield began the first industrial-scale production of benzene, based on the coal-tar method.
Scientists who were familiar with the chemical formula of benzene (C6H6) were mystified about its molecular structure. They knew that each molecule of benzene contained six carbon atoms, but the substance did not behave as though each molecule was an open-ended chain. Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz is usually credited with being the first to deduce the ring structure of benzene, in 1865. It is reported that after he had spent a long time mentally wrestling over the matter, he had a dream of a snake swallowing its own tail. This image inspired him to think of a ring structure for benzene.
When Kekulé made his formal claims, they were well-publicized and accepted. It now appears that a lesser known scientist, Josef Loschmidt (1821-1895), had posited a cyclic structure for benzene in a booklet published in 1861. Whether Kekulé actually had the dream or whether he borrowed from Loschmidt's publication are matters of debate. It is entirely possible that the two scientists thought of benzene's ring structure independently—a type of occurrence that is not unusual in science. The cyclic nature of benzene was finally confirmed by the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale.
Benzene presents a special problem in that, to account for all the bonds, there must be alternating single and double covalent bonds between carbon atoms, which may be represented as:
Using the technique known as X-ray diffraction, researchers discovered that all the carbon-carbon (C-C) bonds in benzene have the same length (140 picometers (pm)). The length of each C-C bond is greater than that of a double bond (134 pm) but shorter than a single bond (147 pm). The bond length of 140 pm, which is intermediate in length, is explained by the concept of "electron delocalization": the electrons for C-C bonding are distributed equally among the six carbon atoms. (One representation is that the structure exists as a superposition of two "resonance structures," rather than either form individually.)
This delocalization of electrons is known as aromaticity, which gives benzene great stability. This enhanced stability is a fundamental property of a class of molecules called "aromatic molecules," differentiating them from molecules that are not aromatic. To reflect the delocalized nature of the bonding, benzene is often depicted with a circle inside a hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms (which are not labeled):
Substituted benzene derivatives
Many important chemicals are derived from benzene, wherein one or more hydrogen atoms are replaced with other functional groups. Examples of simple benzene derivatives are phenol (C6H5OH, or PhOH), toluene (C6H5CH3, or PhMe), and aniline ((C6H5NH2, or PhNH2). The linking of two benzene rings gives biphenyl (C6H5-C6H5). When two or more aromatic rings are "fused" together, (that is, when a side of one ring is shared with another), the resultant compounds are called fused aromatic hydrocarbons, such naphthalene (with two fused rings) and anthracene (with three fused rings). The limit of the fusion process is the hydrogen-free material graphite.
Some aromatic compounds are called heterocyclic. In these cases, one or more carbon atoms in the benzene ring are replaced with other elements. The most important heterocyclic derivatives are rings containing nitrogen atoms as well as carbon atoms. Examples of heterocyclic compounds are pyridine (C5H5N) and pyrimidine (C4H4N2). (Two other heterocyclic compounds, pyridazine and pyrazine have the same chemical formula as pyrimidine, but the relative positions of the two N atoms in each ring are different.)
Up until World War II, benzene was produced mainly as a byproduct of coke production in the steel industry. In the 1950s, however, as the demand for benzene increased, especially from the growing plastics industry, necessitating its production from petroleum. Today, most benzene comes from the petrochemical industry, with only a small fraction being produced from coal.
The industrial production of benzene relies on three major chemical processes: catalytic reforming, toluene hydrodealkylation, and steam cracking. Another process, called toluene disproportionation, may be used when the goal is to produce aromatics called xylenes (there are three types of xylenes) along with benzene.
In catalytic reforming, a mixture of hydrocarbons with boiling points between 60-200 °C is blended with hydrogen gas, exposed to a catalyst (such as platinum chloride or rhenium chloride), and heated at 500-525 °C at pressures between 8 and 50 atmospheres (atm). Under these conditions, aliphatic hydrocarbons form rings and lose hydrogen to become aromatic hydrocarbons. The aromatic products are extracted from the reaction mixture with any of a number of solvents, such as diethylene glycol or sulfolane, and benzene is separated from the other aromatics by distillation.
In the method known as toluene hydrodealkylation, toluene (C6H5CH3) is converted to benzene. Toluene is mixed with hydrogen, then passed over a catalyst (of chromium, molybdenum, or platinum oxide), at 500-600 °C and 40-60 atm pressure. Sometimes, higher temperatures are used instead of a catalyst. Under these conditions, toluene undergoes dealkylation according to the chemical equation:
The typical reaction yield exceeds 95 percent. Sometimes, xylene and heavier aromatics are used in place of toluene, with similar efficiency.
If benzene and xylenes are needed, then the method known as toluene disproportionation (TDP) may be an attractive alternative. During the reaction, some toluene molecules lose their methyl groups to produce benzene molecules (as above), while other toluene molecules gain methyl groups to produce xylene molecules (each of which has two methyl groups).
Steam cracking is the process for producing ethylene and other olefins ("unsaturated hydrocarbons") from aliphatic hydrocarbons. Depending on the feedstock used to produce the olefins, steam cracking can produce a benzene-rich liquid byproduct called pyrolysis gasoline. The latter may be blended with other hydrocarbons as a gasoline additive, or distilled to separate it into its components, including benzene.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, benzene was used as an after-shave lotion because of its pleasant smell. In addition, prior to the 1920s, benzene was frequently used as an industrial solvent, especially for degreasing metal. As its toxicity became obvious, benzene has been supplanted by other solvents.
In 1903, Lugwig Roselius popularized the use of benzene to decaffeinate coffee. This discovery led to the production of Sanka (-ka for kaffein). This process was later discontinued.
As a gasoline additive, benzene increases the octane rating and reduces engine knock. Consequently, before the 1950s, gasoline often contained several percent benzene. Thereafter, tetraethyl lead replaced benzene as the most widely used antiknock additive. With the global phaseout of leaded gasoline, benzene has made a comeback as a gasoline additive in some countries. In the United States, concern over the negative health effects of benzene and the possibility of it entering groundwater have led to stringent regulations regarding the benzene content of gasoline—the values are now typically around one percent. European petrol (gasoline) specifications now contain the same one percent limit on benzene content.
Current uses of benzene
Today, benzene is mainly used as an intermediate to make a variety of other chemicals.
- The most widely produced derivatives of benzene include:
- Smaller amounts of benzene are used to make some types of rubbers, lubricants, dyes, detergents, drugs, explosives, and pesticides.
- In laboratory research, toluene is now often used as a substitute for benzene. The solvent properties of the two are similar, but toluene is less toxic and has a wider liquid range.
Reactions of benzene
Benzene can participate in several types of reactions, some of which are given below.
- A general method of derivatizing benzene is known as "electrophilic aromatic substitution." The benzene ring attracts cations, so that hydrogen atoms on the ring can be replaced by acyl or alkyl group to produce substituted derivatives. A generalized reaction is shown on the right, where "Y+" is the cation form of the acyl or alkyl group, and "B" is a base that eventually extracts H+ from the ring.
- A method called Friedel-Crafts acylation is a specific example of electrophilic aromatic substitution. In this reaction, an "acyl" group replaces a hydrogen atom on the benzene ring. The reaction is carried out in the presence of a catalyst such as aluminum chloride.
- Likewise, in the method called Friedel-Crafts alkylation, an "alkyl" group replaces a hydrogen atom on the benzene ring (or other aromatic ring). The reaction is carried out with an alkyl halide in the presence of a catalyst.
- Nitration: When benzene is warmed with a combination of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acid, the reaction produces nitrobenzene (C6H5NO2). This reaction, called nitration, is another example of "electrophilic aromatic substitution." It involves the action of "nitronium" ions (NO2+).
- Hydrogenation: Benzene and its derivatives can be converted to cyclohexane (C6H12) and its derivatives by treatment with hydrogen at high pressures. The reaction, called hydrogenation, involves the addition of hydrogen atoms to the aromatic ring.
- Benzene is an excellent ligand in the organometallic chemistry of some metals. Important examples include the sandwich complex, Cr(C6H6)2, and half-sandwich complex, [RuCl2(C6H6)]2.
Benzene exposure has serious health effects. Breathing high levels of the substance can result in death, while low levels can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness. Eating or drinking foods containing high levels of benzene can cause vomiting, stomach irritation, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, rapid heart rate, and death.
The major effect of benzene from chronic (long-term) exposure is on the blood. Benzene damages the bone marrow and can cause a decrease in the production of red blood cells, leading to anemia. It can also cause excessive bleeding and may depress the immune system, increasing the chances of infection.
It has been reported that some women who breathed high levels of benzene for many months had irregular menstrual periods and a decrease in the size of their ovaries. It is not known whether benzene exposure affects the developing fetus in pregnant women or fertility in men.
Animal studies have shown low birth weights, delayed bone formation, and bone marrow damage when pregnant animals breathed benzene.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) classifies benzene as a human carcinogen. Long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in the air can cause leukemia, a potentially fatal cancer of the blood-forming organs. In particular, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) may be caused by benzene.
There are several tests to indicate whether a person has been exposed to benzene. One of these is a breath test, which must be done shortly after exposure. Another test measures benzene in the blood; but because benzene disappears rapidly from the blood, measurements are accurate only for recent exposures.
Once benzene enters the digestive system, it is metabolized, and certain metabolites can be measured in the urine. This test, like the others, must be done shortly after exposure. It is not a reliable indicator of how much benzene a person has been exposed to, because the same metabolites in urine may be derived from other sources.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set the maximum permissible level of benzene in drinking water at 0.005 milligrams per liter (0.005 mg/L). EPA requires that spills or accidental releases into the environment of 10 pounds (4.5 kg) or more of benzene should be reported to the agency.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit of 1 part of benzene per million parts of air (1 ppm) in the workplace during an 8-hour workday, 40-hour workweek.
In March 2006, the official Food Standards Agency in Britain conducted a survey of 150 brands of soft drinks. It found that four contained benzene at levels higher than the limits specified by the World Health Organization. The affected batches were removed from sale.
In recent history, there have been many examples of the harmful health effects of benzene and its derivatives. For instance, in 1981 in Madrid, people who had ingested benzene-contaminated olive oil suffered from toxic oil syndrome, which caused localized immune suppression. In addition, chronic fatigue syndrome has been highly correlated with people who eat "denatured" food that has been treated with solvents to remove fat, or food that contains benzoic acid.
Workers in various industries that make or use benzene may be at risk of exposure to high levels of this carcinogenic chemical. Industries that involve the use of benzene include rubber manufacturers, oil refineries, chemical plants, shoe manufacturers, and gasoline-related industries. In 1987, OSHA estimated that about 237,000 workers in the United States were potentially exposed to benzene, and it is not known if this number has substantially changed since then.
Water and soil contamination are important pathways for the transmission of benzene. In the United States alone, there are approximately 100,000 different sites that have benzene contamination in the soil or groundwater. In 2005, after an explosion at the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) factory in Jilin, China, benzene leaked into the Songhua River. As the river supplies water to the city of Harbin, with a population of almost nine million, water supply to the city was cut off.
- Couper, Archibald Scott. 1858. On a New Chemical Theory. Philosophical Magazine 16:104-116.
- Lonsdale, Kathleen. 1929. The Structure of the Benzene Ring in Hexamethylbenzene. Proceedings of the Royal Society 123A:494.
- Lonsdale, Kathleen. An X-Ray Analysis of the Structure of Hexachlorobenzene, Using the Fourier Method. Proceedings of the Royal Society 133A:536.
- McMurry, John. 2004. Organic Chemistry. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. ISBN 0534420052.
- Morrison, Robert T., and Robert N. Boyd. 1992. Organic Chemistry. 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-643669-2.
- Solomons, T.W. Graham, and Fryhle, Craig B. 2004. Organic Chemistry. 8th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. ISBN 0471417998.
- Associated Press. May 19, 2006. FDA: Too Much Benzene In Some Drinks. CBS News. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
All links retrieved January 21, 2013.
- Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Benzene Toxicity – ATSDR.
- Benzene Material Safety Data Sheet
- NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards
- Dept. of Health and Human Services: TR-289: Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of Benzene
|Chemical class: Alcohol • Aldehyde • Alkane • Alkene • Alkyne • Amide • Amine • Azo compound • Benzene derivative • Carboxylic acid • Cyanate • Ester • Ether • Haloalkane • Imine • Isocyanide • Isocyanate • Ketone • Nitrile • Nitro compound • Nitroso compound • Peroxide • Phosphoric acid • Pyridine derivative • Sulfone • Sulfonic acid • Sulfoxide • Thioether • Thiol • Toluene derivative|
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More consolidated efforts to combat the threat of climate change and counter its ripple effects on global food security are needed amid an intensifying global drought and increasing temperatures worldwide, the United Nations declared during the week.
“Climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts, with impacts on many sectors, in particular food, water, and energy,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud in a press release. “We need to move away from a piecemeal, crisis-driven approach and develop integrated risk-based national drought policies,” he added.
According to the news release, the WMO and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), along with other UN agencies, are intensifying efforts to establish a more coordinated and proactive strategy for managing drought risk to fill existing policy vacuums in countries around the world. As a result, a High Level Meeting on National Drought Policy has been scheduled from 11 to 15 March 2013.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva earlier today, Dr. Mannava Sivakumar, Director of the WMO Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch underlined the severity and reach of the current drought and its potential impact on global food prices.
He noted that one quarter of the United States was experiencing exceptional drought while the entire country was facing its longest 12 month period in a drought since 1895. Dr. Sivakumar also emphasized that the effects of the drought on the United States’ soybean and corn harvests was having “a major impact on food prices.”
Meanwhile, pointing to the situation in India, he told reporters that the Asian country was similarly experiencing very serious droughts with countrywide rainfall 17 per cent below normal. In Punjab, India’s breadbasket, rainfall was 70 per cent below normal, he said.
According to the WMO, severe drought also developed in parts of East Africa in late 2010 and continued through most of 2011 with the most severely affected areas encompassing the semi-arid regions eastern and northern Kenya, western Somalia, and southern border areas of Ethiopia.
“The 2010 drought-induced famine in the Greater Horn of Africa, the ongoing crisis in the Sahel region and the extensive drought in the USA show that developing and developed countries alike are vulnerable,” said Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD. “Effective long-term solutions to mitigate the effects of drought, and address desertification and land degradation urgently need to be mainstreamed in national development plans and policies,” he added.
In 2009, international climate experts gathered at the International Workshop on Drought and Extreme Temperatures in Beijing released their climate projections for the 21st century, forecasting an increase in the frequency of severe droughts in the continental USA and Mexico, the Mediterranean Basin, parts of northern China, across southern Africa and Australia and in parts of South America.
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Adult Literacy and Essential Skills
| How does the NWT Literacy Council Support Adult Literacy in the NWT? |
| What is Workplace Literacy? | What are the Essential Skills? |
| Adult Literacy and Essential Skills Resources | Adult Learners' Week | Links |
To be literate means that you have the skills to understand what you read, communicate with others and engage fully and confidently in life’s activities and opportunities – at work, at home and in the community. (ABC Life Literacy Canada)
Adults with low literacy skills often attend adult literacy programs. Adult literacy can involve both informal and formal learning. Informal learning is when we learn outside the classroom at home, at work or in the community. Learning from Elders, or going out on the land, would be considered informal learning. Formal learning is classroom based or through a formal program. Adult upgrading or trades programs would be considered formal learning.
Essential skills are the skills needed for work, learning and life. They provide the foundation for learning all other skills and help people in their jobs adapt to workplace change.
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Evaluate Energy provide detailed and dedicated coverage of unconventional oil and gas production, includes shale gas, oil sands and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) this covers production, project data, news and financial data from all those in the industry. Please Contact Us for more infomation.
What is Fracking?
Two major drilling techniques are used to produce shale gas. Horizontal drilling is used to provide greater access to the gas trapped deep in the producing formation. First, a vertical well is drilled to the targeted rock formation. At the desired depth, the drill bit is turned to bore a well that stretches through the reservoir horizontally, exposing the well to more of the producing shale.
Hydraulic fracturing (commonly called “fracking” or “hydrofracking”) is a technique in which water, chemicals, and sand are pumped into the well to unlock the hydrocarbons trapped in shale formations by opening cracks (fractures) in the rock and allowing natural gas to flow from the shale into the well. When used in conjunction with horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing enables gas producers to extract shale gas at reasonable cost. Without these techniques, natural gas does not flow to the well rapidly, and commercial quantities cannot be produced from shale. (Source EIA)
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The ‘Anglian’ region is the driest area in the UK. The East of England recycles or composts the highest proportion of household waste in England.
The ‘Anglian’ region of the former National Rivers Authority (NRA) covers the majority of the East of England as well as parts of the East Midlands. It has the lowest regional rainfall in the UK, averaging 600 millimetres a year during the period 1971 to 2000. In 2011 the estimated annual rainfall was 440 millimetres, 73 per cent of the long-term average.
The region had the highest household recycling and composting rate, 48.9 per cent, in England in 2010/11. A higher proportion of local authority collected waste was sent to landfill, 47.3 per cent, compared with the England figure of 43.3 per cent.
More than 15,000 permanent dwellings were completed in the East of England in 2010/11, a 4.6 per cent decrease compared with 2009/10. A lower than average proportion of new dwellings were built on previously developed land in 2010, 68 per cent compared with 76 per cent in England as a whole.
Between 2001 and 2011, the total stock of dwellings in the region increased by 9.2 per cent, the second highest increase among the English regions.
The East of England had one of the highest average daily motor vehicle flows on major roads in rural areas, at 18,100 vehicles per day in 2010, compared with the England average of 13,700. However, the region had one of the lowest urban major road vehicle flows, at 17,700 per day, compared with England at 20,100.
The East of England produced 7.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per resident in 2010, one of the lowest of the nine English regions. At local authority level this varied from 4.4 tonnes per resident in Castle Point near Southend to 14.2 tonnes in St Edmundsbury.
Source: Office for National Statistics
Notes and sources:
Rainfall data are from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology based on Met Office records.
Waste and recycling data are from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Numbers of dwellings built on previously developed land, including conversions of existing buildings, are from the Department for Communities and Local Government based on Ordnance Survey records. Estimates for 2010 are provisional.
Total housing stock estimates between 2002 and 2011 will be adjusted once the 2011 Census dwelling count is available. Dwelling stock and house building data are from the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Average daily motor vehicle flow is annual traffic divided by road length and number of days in the year. Data are from the National Road Traffic Survey, Department for Transport.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are measured according to the point of energy consumption. CO2 emissions data are from the Department for Energy Climate and Change.
Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/index.html or from the Media Relations Office email: [email protected]
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Does your child like
to go on treasure hunts? Did you know that treasure hunts are a great
way to build early math skills? Whether you are using a map or a
series of clues to lead your child to the “treasure,”
your child uses skills that lay the foundation for doing geometry
later in life. She also learns to follow directions, another
important skill that she’ll need when she starts school. And,
most important of all, she’ll have a lot of fun while building
these essential skills!
Being able to describe an object’s
position in space relative to other nearby objects is a basic math
concept that your child will apply when she does geometry later in
life. It is not too early to begin laying the foundation for
understanding this concept by helping your child learn vocabulary
that describes an object’s position or location. These are
words and phrases such as between, under, over, next to, above,
Geometry and spatial skills, following directions
3-6 year olds
Hunting for Treasure Up, Down, All Around
Take It Further
Talk with your child about where
things are relative to where she is standing. Ask her questions such
as What do you see
behind you? What is
in front of
you? When you
look up, what do you see
above your head?
and What is
under your feet?
- Box or bag to be as a “treasure chest”
- Small objects (e.g., toys, books, candies, pack of crayons) to be the “treasure”
- Marker or pen
How to Do It:
- Create a
“treasure” by putting a collection of small, inexpensive
objects into a box or bag.
- Hide the
treasure in your house or backyard.
- Write a series
of five or six clues that will lead your child to the “treasure.”
Place the clues in different locations. The first clue will lead to
the first location, where the child finds the next clue, and so on.
Each clue should contain position vocabulary to direct the child.
For example: You’ll find the next clue under the table in
the dining room or The next clue is behind the coffee pot in
the kitchen. Be sure the coffee pot is not on! If your child is
not old enough to read, you will have to read the clues to her.
Other examples of position words and phrases are on top of,
inside, next to, above, in front of, and between.
Play a simple
“location” game with your child by asking questions such
as What can you see under the table?; What do you see on top of
the refrigerator?; I see something next to the fireplace. What is
it?; What is on the bottom shelf of the bookcase?;
or Can you
name something you put inside the refrigerator?
Play the Deep Sea Follow Me game on PBS KIDS
Above and Below by Tami Johnson
Over Under by Marthe Jocelyn; illustrated by Tom Slaughter
| 4.221516 |
(Grades 1-6) A Practical Approach to Teaching Pitch and Rhythm - Kodály in the Classroom is a series of children's songs and teacher lessons sequentially organized to teach the basics of pitch and rhythm through singing and games for elementary students. The song material consists of American folk and well-known children's songs. Teacher lessons are easy to follow and do not require previous training in Kodály methodology. Also included are reproducible singer sheets and activities.
Intermediate (Set I) - 20 songs for upper elementary students including: Cape Cod Girls · The Old Brass Wagon · Land of the Silver Birch · Love Somebody · Button You Must Wander · Long-Legged Sailor and more!
| 3.12206 |
Keeping your Bird Healthy
General health care
You can tell if your bird is feeling poorly by watching out for these signs:
- Ruffled or dirty feathers – ruffled feathers can conceal weight loss and are a sign all is not well with your bird. Birds are naturally very clean so dirty feathers can be a symptom of an underlying illness.
- Unusual droppings – any change in your bird's usual droppings can indicate a potential health problem.
- Discharge on their beak – your bird's nostrils are called nares and are located on their beak. If the nares are inflamed, red or runny this is a symptom of illness.
- Cloudy eyes – your bird's eyes should be bright and clear. Cloudy eyes could be the sign of a cold or respiratory problem.
- Open beak breathing / panting – respiratory problems can cause your bird to breathe with their beak open. This could be very serious and you should contact your vet immediately.
- Changes in their calls / singing – if your bird is unusually quiet this could be an indication that they are unwell.
- Loss of appetite – if your bird stops eating, suffers from loss of appetite or loses weight this could be a symptom of impaction (blocked crop).
- Tail bobbing – frequent and unusual tail bobbing can be a sign of a respiratory infection as your bird may be struggling to breathe.
- Loss of feathers – Moulting is a natural process with birds and normally happens in the summer. Moulting tonics are available to help them grow back their new feathers. If moulting occurs at other times then this could be a sign of a cold or respiratory infection.
- Feather plucking – bird can sometimes pluck out their own feathers and this is can caused by boredom, stress, lack of exercise, lack of stimulation and attention or a poor diet.
- Overgrown beak or claws – An overgrown beak can be prevented by providing a high quality dry bird food, toys and cuttlebone for your bird to peck at. Contact your vet to have your bird's beak trimmed. If your bird's claws become too long they can catch on the cage wire and injure your bird. Contact your vet to have your bird's claws trimmed.
- Mites - Red mites are the most common bird parasite. They feed on your bird’s blood, causing irritation and weight loss. Mites are difficult to see so to check if your bird has them place a white cloth in the cage in the evening and check it the next morning. If your bird has mites you will red spots on the cloth. Mites can easily be dealt with by spraying your bird with mite treatment, which is available in store.
- Call Vet Clinic at Petstop
- Visit our products section for our range of bird health and well-being products
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
| 3.126657 |
Cockroach insect information & pictures
The Roaches are widely known, at least by reputation. Tere are over 1000 different kinds.
Except for the extreme South and West of the U.S. the following key to certain families may suffice:
At least the hind femora with several distinct marginal spines beneath. BLATTIDAE (Large. Seventh ventral abdominal segment of female divided) and PSEUDOMOPIDAE (Or Blattellidae; incorrectly called Phyllodromiidae. Smaller, That segment not divided).
Middle and hind femora without marginal spines beneath, although there may be bristles or apical spines. Seventh abdominal segment not enclosing terminal ones. A terminal tarsal pad. - PANCHLORIDAE. One genus, Panchlora, includes rather pretty, green roaches that come to us from the Tropics in bunches of bananas. The eggs of at least some species hatch in the female's body. Pycnoscelus is native in the Southeast.
BLATTIDAE - The front wings of both sexes of Periplaneta extend beyond the abdomen. They do not in Blatta (terminal tarsal pad, if present, not half the length of the claws) and Eurycotis (this pad relatively longer). In fact, the wings of the female B. orientalis are mere pads, although the male is better equipped. This rather common arrangement among insects does not seem quite fair as it means that the lady must walk when she wishes to establish her family in a new place.
A nickname for the Oriental Roach is Black-beetle! Like most roaches directly associated with man, it is now cosmopolitan.
E. floridana is said to be "one of the most ill-smelling insects" in America. Periplaneta is occasionally brought to our attention by the large, trim P. americana from the U.S. South or by P. australasiae, not so elongate and wearing yellow shoulder-stripes lengthwise of its front wings. There are several other species.
PSEUDOMOPIDAE - Blattella is represented by New York City's famous Croton Bug. Linnaeus called this species germanica many years ago. As a matter of fact, this household guest probably accompanied our ancestors when they moved from Asia to Europe. It got the name Croton Bug in America because it first attracted general attention in New York about the time the Croton aqueduct was built.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is the way the mother carries around her package of eggs sticking out of the hind end of her body. Those who go afield find numerous species of Ischnoptera, Parcoblatta, and other genera under loose bark. These roaches are independent country folk that never live in towns.
Contrary to general opinion, it usually takes roaches a year or more to reach breeding age.
Seek a professional Cockroach Pest Control company for advice if you have cockroaches in your home.
Read more on Cockroaches at: Cockroach Pictures
| 3.142987 |
Details: This poster shows a shooting comet in space, near Planet Earth.
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma (a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere) and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles, ranging from a few hundred meters to tens of kilometers across. Comets have been observed since ancient times and have historically been considered bad omens.
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