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New research shows that dolphins can stay awake for at least 15 days in a row without experiencing fatigue, or other negative side effects. To put this in perspective, human research subjects have been able to stay awake for only eight to 10 days, and all experienced progressive deterioration in concentration, motivation, perception and other mental processes as the period of sleep deprivation increased. Dolphins can stay awake for this long because they sleep with only half of their brain at a time. This process, called unihemispheric sleep, was thought to have evolved as a way to allow dolphins to continue breathing at the surface while resting. Brian Branstetter from the National Marine Mammal Foundation and colleagues studied two bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), one male and one female, and found that they could use echolocation with “near-perfect accuracy” for up to 15 days. Both dolphins showed no signs of fatigue for five days, and the female continued other tasks for 10 additional days. “These majestic beasts are true unwavering sentinels of the sea. The demands of ocean life on air breathing dolphins have led to incredible capabilities, one of which is the ability to continuously, perhaps indefinitely, maintain vigilant behavior through echolocation” said Branstetter. The research was published in the journal PLoS ONE on October 17: Dolphins Can Maintain Vigilant Behavior through Echolocation for 15 Days without Interruption or Cognitive Impairment. Copyright © 2012 by Marine Science Today, a publication of Marine Science Today LLC.	3.773589
The sky's the limit for 3D printing. Two students at the University of Virginia 3D-printed and assembled a plane. When it successfully took off, their unmanned plane became just the third 3D-printed drone to ever fly. 3D printing is a revolutionary technology, which some speculate could have an impact similar to that of the personal computer. In fact, new potential applications for 3D printers seem to be appearing every week. Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman, two third-year engineering students at University of Virginia for the MITRE Corporation, a federally funded research and development center, designed and assembled the plane this summer. The result of their work is a 6.5-foot wingspan drone, entirely built with 3D-printed parts. The students proved that 3D printing can bring manufacturing cost down and still deliver a quality product. "To make a plastic turbofan engine to scale five years ago would have taken two years, at a cost of about $250,000," David Sheffler, a U.Va. Engineering School alumnus and 20-year veteran of the aerospace industry who helped the two students, told UVAToday. "But with 3D printing, we designed and built it in four months for about $2,000." What do you think of this exciting project? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below. Image courtesy of University of Virginia.	3.398793
Seasonal Affective Disorder Sorry no news is found ... Your search criteria may have been too narrow. You can quickly re-sort the news in different ways by clicking on the tabs at the top of this page. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression, winter blues, summer depression, summer blues, or seasonal depression, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer, spring or autumn year after year. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), SAD is not a unique mood disorder, but is "a specifier of major depression". Although experts were initially skeptical, this condition is now recognized as a common disorder, with its prevalence in the U.S. ranging from 1.4 percent in Florida to 9.7 percent in New Hampshire. The U.S. National Library of Medicine notes that "some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually clear up." The condition in the summer is often referred to as reverse seasonal affective disorder, and can also include heightened anxiety. SAD was formally described and named in 1984 by Norman E. Rosenthal and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health. There are many different treatments for classic hormones (winter-based) seasonal affective disorder, including light therapy with sunlight or bright lights, antidepressant medication, cognitive-behavioral therapy, ionized-air administration, and carefully timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin. This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. Latest Spotlight News You're standing near an airport luggage carousel and your bag emerges on the conveyor belt, prompting you to spring into action. How does your brain make the shift from passively waiting to taking action when ... 26 minutes ago \| not rated yet \| 0 \| Widely available in pharmacies and health stores, phosphatidylserine is a natural food supplement produced from beef, oysters, and soy. Proven to improve cognition and slow memory loss, it's a popular treatment for older ... 50 minutes ago \| 5 / 5 (1) \| 0 \| (Medical Xpress)—Native peoples in regions where cameras are uncommon sometimes react with caution when their picture is taken. The fear that something must have been stolen from them to create the photo ... 1 hour ago \| 3.5 / 5 (2) \| 0 \| Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes. 1 hour ago \| 4.5 / 5 (2) \| 0 \| Researchers at Emory University have identified a protein that stimulates a pair of "orphan receptors" found in the brain, solving a long-standing biological puzzle and possibly leading to future treatments for neurological ... 1 hour ago \| not rated yet \| 0 \| The level of immunity to the recently circulating H7N9 influenza virus in an urban and rural population in Vietnam is very low, according to the first population level study to examine human immunity to the virus, which was ... 1 hour ago \| not rated yet \| 0 \| In a striking, unexpected discovery, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in laboratory culture. The finding ... 1 hour ago \| 5 / 5 (1) \| 0 \| In a remote fishing community in Venezuela, a lone fisherman sits on a cliff overlooking the southern Caribbean Sea. This man –– the lookout –– is responsible for directing his comrades on the water, ... 3 hours ago \| 4 / 5 (1) \| 0 \| Over the past few decades, scientists have developed many devices that can reopen clogged arteries, including angioplasty balloons and metallic stents. While generally effective, each of these treatments ... 5 hours ago \| 5 / 5 (3) \| 0 \|	3.427514
A tree, usually growing in moist land, and belonging to the genus Alnus. The wood is used by turners, etc.; the bark by dyers and tanners. In the U. S. the species of alder are usually shrubs or small trees. This wood is very durable in water and not so durable in dry conditions. Historically it was used a lot in pumps, piles and sluices. Durable wood native to northern Europe which polishes to a flesh-colour, knotty finish. It is an easy wood to turn, and was used in the 18th and 19th centuries for country furniture, occasionally for the turned members of Windsor chairs. Hard, strong wood that seasons easily, works well, is easily stained to imitate walnut and mahogany. It has a maple-like figure Leppä Al Alnus (Alnus glutinosa) Orangey brown, turns and finishes well. A druid sacred tree. A whistle made of Alder is the basis for the old superstition of whistling up the wind. wood of any of various alder trees; resistant to underwater rot; used for bridges etc north temperate shrubs or trees having toothed leaves and conelike fruit; bark is used in tanning and dyeing and the rot-resistant wood a tree or a shrub, depending on which part of the world it's growing in A hard strong wood resembling maple, easily stained to imitate darker woods. Alnus Katsuratree Cercidiphyllum a deciduous shrub or tree of the birch family, with toothed leaves, growing in a cool climate Any shrub or small tree of the genus Alumnus, of the oak family. a wood sometimes used in making chairs of common variety; it grows in England on swampy ground and is of orange yellow colour. The bark is used for dyeing. Strong hard, wood similar to maple, readily accepts stains imitating darker woods. Any of several species of large rough shrubs belonging to the genus Alnus. Two of the most common of North Woods shrubs are Green Alder ( Alnus crispa) and Speckled Alder ( Alnus incana). From the Old English alor,aler. Wadôp in the Ojibwe. Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants (Alnus) belonging to the birch family (Family Betulaceae). The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate zone, and in the New World also along the Andes southwards to Chile. The leaves are deciduous (not evergreen), alternate, simple, and serrated.	3.318077
To the untrained ear, monkeys of a certain species may all sound the same, but Japanese researchers have found that, like human beings, they actually have an accent depending on where they live. The finding, the first of its kind, will appear in the December edition of a German scientific journal, Ethology, to be published on December 5, the primate researchers said on Tuesday. “Differences between chattering by monkeys are like dialects of human beings,” said Nobuo Masataka, professor of ethology at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute. The research team analysed voice tones of two groups of the same species of primates, the Japanese Yakushima macaque—also known as Macaca fuscata yakui—between 1990 and 2000. One group was formed by 23 monkeys living on the southern Japanese island of Yakushima, and the other group comprised 30 descendants from the same tribe moved from the island to Mount Ohira, central Japan, in 1956. The result showed that the island group had a tone about 110 hertz higher on average than the one taken to central Japan. Monkeys on Yakushima Island have an accent with a higher tone because tall trees on the island tend to block their voices, Masataka said. “On the other hand, monkeys on Mount Ohira do not have to gibber with a high tone as trees there are low,” he said. “Each group adopted their own accent depending upon their environment.” This suggests differences in voice tones are not caused by genes, Masataka said, adding the results “may lead to a clue to the origin of human language”.—Sapa-AFP.	3.544431
After participating in this activity, students will be able to: - Describe the difference between herbivores, carnivores, and producers. - Answer questions about the interdependence of herbivores, carnivores, and producers as members of a food chain. - Answer questions about how pollution affects food chains. All living organisms depend on one another for food. By reviewing the relationships of organisms that feed on one another, students begin to see how all organisms—including humans—are linked. If students understand the relationships in a simple food chain, they will better understand the importance and sensitivity of these connections, and why changes to one part of the food chain almost always impact another. A food chain is a simplified way to show the relationship of organisms that feed on each other. It’s helpful to classify animals in a simple food chain by what they eat, or where they get their energy. Green plants, called producers, form the basis of the aquatic food chain. They get their energy from the sun and make their own food through photosynthesis. In the Great Lakes, producers can be microscopic phytoplankton (plant plankton), algae, aquatic plants like Elodea, or plants like cattails that emerge from the water’s surface. Herbivores, such as ducks, small fish, and many species of zooplankton (animal plankton), eat plants. Carnivores (meat eaters) eat other animals and can be small (i.e, frog) or large (i.e, lake trout). Omnivores are animals (including humans) that eat both plants and animals. Each is an important part of the food chain. In reality, food chains overlap at many points—because animals often feed on multiple species—forming complex food webs. Food web diagrams depict all feeding interactions among species in real communities. These complex diagrams often appear as intricate spider webs connecting the species. See: Unit 1, Lesson 2 This lesson demonstrates that changes in one part of a food chain or web may affect other parts, resulting in impacts on carnivores, herbivores, and eventually on producers. An example of this might be the harmful effects of pollution. The point that should be made is that when something disrupts a food web, humans should try to understand and minimize the disturbance. Students should also come to recognize that humans, too, are part of this complex web of life.	4.295923
It's normal for some female monarchs to develop eggs in the winter along the Gulf coast, south Atlantic coast and California coast even in locations where there is no milkweed. These females desperately want to find milkweed to lay their eggs on. Intentionally depriving them of milkweed (via cutting the milkweed down to the ground) will cause them alot of stress and they will end up dying without breeding. Providing these females with milkweed (any kind of milkweed) will give their offspring a chance to survive and contribute to the growth of future generations of monarchs. Paradoxically, some of the same people who think its cruel for commercial butterfly breeders to ship monarchs to the northern states in the early Spring because there is no milkweed for them that early in the year, think its beneficial for home gardeners along the gulf coast to cut tropical milkweed to the ground in the late fall and winter even though the consequences are just as cruel: the females will frantically look for milkweed and die without breeding. Another irony is that far from harming the migratory instincts of the monarchs, the monarch migrations in Australia and New Zealand are actually 100% dependent on a evergreen tropical milkweed (Asclepias fruticosa) because that's the only kind of milkweed that grows at temperate zone latitudes in those countries. So monarch conservationists in those countries would never dream of cutting tropical milkweed down to the ground in the late fall and winter.	3.036885
By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News The populations of the world's common birds are declining as a result of continued habitat loss, a global assessment has warned. The survey by BirdLife International found that 45% of Europe's common birds had seen numbers fall, as had more than 80% of Australia's wading species. The study's authors said governments were failing to fund their promises to halt biodiversity loss by 2010. The findings will be presented at the group's World Conference in Argentina. The State of the World's Birds 2008 report, the first update since 2004, found that common species - ones considered to be familiar in people's everyday lives - were declining in all parts of the world. In Europe, an analysis of 124 species over a 26-year period revealed that 56 species had declined in 20 countries. Farmland birds were worst affected, with the number of European turtle-doves (Streptopelia turtur) falling by 79%. In Africa, birds of prey were experiencing "widespread decline" outside of protected areas. While in Asia, 62% of the continent's migratory water bird species were "declining or already extinct". "For decades, people have been focusing their efforts on threatened birds," explained lead editor Ali Stattersfield, BirdLife International's head of science. "But alongside this, we have been working to try to get a better understanding of what is going on in the countryside as a whole." By consolidating data from various surveys, the team of researchers were able to identify trends affecting species around the world. "It tells us that environmental degradation is having a huge impact - not just for birds, but for biodiversity as well," she told BBC News. While well-known reasons, such as land-use changes and the intensive farming, were causes, Ms Stattersfield said that it was difficult to point the finger of blame at just one activity. "The reasons are very complex," she explained. "For example, there have been reported declines of migratory species - particularly those on long-distance migrations between Europe and Africa. "It is not just about understanding what is happening at breeding grounds, but also what is happening at the birds' wintering sites." She said the findings highlighted the need to tackle conservation in a number of different ways. "It is not enough to be looking at individual species or individual sites; we need to be looking at some of the policies and practices that affect our wider landscapes." The global assessment also showed that rare birds were also continuing to be at risk. One-in-eight of the world's birds - 1,226 species - was listed as being Threatened. Of these, 190 faced an imminent risk of extinction. The white-rumped vulture, a once common sight in India, has seen its population crash by 99.9% in recent years. An anti-inflammatory drug for cattle, called diclofenac, has been blamed for poisoning the birds, which eat the carcasses of the dead livestock. "That has been a really shocking story," Ms Stattersfield said. The world is failing in its 2010 pledge to achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biodiversity Dr Mike Rand, BirdLife International's CEO "Four years ago, we were not even sure what was responsible for the dramatic declines. It happened so suddenly, people were not prepared for it. "Since then, the basis for the decline is well understood and measures are being taken to remove diclofenac from veterinary use in India. "However, it is still available for sale and there still needs to be a lot more work to communicate the problem at a local level. "But it demonstrates that we can get to the bottom of the reasons behind declines." The plight of albatrosses becoming entangled in long-line fishing tackle has also been the subject of sustained campaigning, attracting high-profile supporters such as Prince Charles and yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur. About 100,000 of the slow-breeding birds are estimated to drown each year as a result of being caught on the lines' fish hooks. But fisheries in a growing number of regions are now introducing measures to minimise the risk to albatrosses. Ms Stattersfield said these examples showed that concerted effort could investigate and identify what was adversely affecting bird populations. But she quickly added that prevention was always better than finding a cure. "We don't want to have to react to problems that come about from bad practice. "What we are trying to do with this report is to be as clear as possible about what are the underlying causes, and then present a range of conservation measures that can preserve birds and biodiversity." BirdLife International will use the report, which is being published at its week-long World Conference in Buenos Aires and on the group's website, to call for governments to make more funds available for global conservation. "Effective biodiversity conservation is easily affordable, requiring relatively trivial sums at the scale of the global economy," said Dr Mike Rands, BirdLife's chief executive. He estimated that safeguarding 90% of Africa's biodiversity would cost less than US $1bn (£500m) a year. "The world is failing in its 2010 pledge to achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biodiversity," he warned. "The challenge is to harness international biodiversity commitments and that concrete actions are taken now."	3.121943
Despite their collective efficiency and order, beehives are often plagued by scourges that would rival a medieval city. Varroa mites, deformed wing virus, and intestinal fungi are just a few of the worst. Now researchers have identified a new enemy that ought to strike fear in the hearts of honey bees: A tiny fly that lays its eggs in the bee abdomen, giving rise to maggots that wiggle out near the victim's head. So far, the infection rate does not appear to be high enough to cause problems for hives, but experts are casting a wary eye on the fly. "It's certainly worth a lot more attention," says Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland, College Park. The parasitism was discovered by accident. In 2008, John Hafernik, an entomologist at San Francisco State University in California, was looking for insects to feed to praying mantises he had collected for a class. He scooped up some dead honey bees that were lying under a light outside his building on campus and left several of the corpses in a vial on his desk. About a week later, Hafernik noticed maggots in the vial. "I knew there was something strange going on," he recalls. After the maggots matured into flies, entomologist Brian Brown from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California identified the insects as Apocephalus borealis, a kind of scuttle fly. The flies are native to North America and were known to parasitize bumble bees, but they had not been seen afflicting honey bees. When Hafernik and his students collected more dead bees under the light outside the building, they found that the vast majority had been parasitized by the scuttle fly. In a clear plastic box in the lab, they observed the flies chasing live honey bees and laying eggs in them. After a week, up to a dozen larvae squirmed out near the bee's head. In the wild, as the larvae grow inside them, infected bees abandon the hive at night, head for bright lights, and then die stumbling on the ground. The problem was not unique to the campus; the researchers found fly-parasitized bees in three out of four honey bee hives sampled in the San Francisco Bay Area, they report online today in PLoS ONE. The good news is that when Hafernik's group examined a hive that had been set up near the entomology building a few years ago, only about 5% to 15% of the forager bees were infected—not a level that would threaten the hive. For individual bees, of course, being parasitized is bad news. "It's a death sentence," Hafernik says. "We don't find bees that are surviving." In addition, the flies appear to be able to transmit deformed wing virus, which is fatal, and the deadly fungus Nosema ceranae, which causes bee diarrhea. It's not clear when or how the fly might have jumped from bumble bees to honey bees. Because the fly is present across the continent, the next step is to figure out where it is parasitizing honey bees. DNA analysis of commercial hive samples suggests that the flies are present in South Dakota and the Central Valley of California. (Honey bees are trucked between these two locations.) The distribution of the flies in Europe or Asia is unknown. "Extensive surveys are now needed on the distribution of the flies in the global honey bee population," says bee pathologist Elke Genersch of the Institute for Bee Research in Hohen Neuendorf, Germany, who was not involved in the study. The parasites conceivably might play a role in colony collapse disorder (CCD), the sudden abandonment that has been resulting in the loss of 7% of hives a year in the United States. "Anything that further stresses the bee population and increases bee losses can contribute to CCD," says Eric Mussen of the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the study. But given the infection rate observed in the San Francisco State University hive, the parasite "does not appear to be a dominant factor," he says. The situation could change if the flies are able to reproduce within bee hives and thus easily parasitize many bees, Genersch says. "Such a high host density might allow the fly population to explode."	3.234575
Will The Earth Stop Rotating? Date: 1999 - 2000 Will the earth stop rotating? Yes, but not for a long long long time. (If I remember correctly, it is currently slowing down by about half a second per century.) As the earth rotates it gets stretched and squeezed by tidal forces. The energy required to do this work comes from the earth's rotation. The simple answer to this is No. It is believed that the Earth's day will be twice as long as it is now, in about 5 thousand million years time, but there is too much momentum in the Earth to stop it from rotating. By the way, at the moment the Earth is rotating its fastest since the late 1920s, having lost approximately 0.63 milliseconds per day in the last 12 months (to June 28, 2001) against atomic time, based on preliminary International Earth Rotation Service data; compared with 3.13 milliseconds per day in 1972, and 3.89 milliseconds per day in 1912. The Earth GAINED on atomic time in 1929 by 0.35 ms/day. Because of tidal friction.... yes it will. In fact, it is slowing as we ride on it now. Actually, it will not stop, but rather the period of rotation will equal its period of revolution. I do not have the number at hand, but I seem to recall that each (solar) year is .00024 seconds slower than the year one century earlier. The number may not be correct, but the concept is. In the same way that the moon has rotates around the earth, the earth will eventually rotate around the sun... if the sun does not supernova first! There is a small tidal drag on the earth caused by the gravitational forces of the moon and sun which have a small effect on the earth's rotation, but the effect, while measurable, is exceedingly small. On the other hand, the reason the moon always presents the same face to the earth it is believed was caused by tidal drag of the earth on the moon, which is much greater because the mass of the moon is so much smaller than that of Click here to return to the Astronomy Archives Update: June 2012	3.166827
Formatting marks in a Word document. Imagine that you have typed a few paragraphs. The paragraphs seem very far apart, and the second paragraph starts farther to the right than the first paragraph. You can see what's going on in your document by looking at the formatting marks that Word automatically inserts as you type. These marks are always in documents, but they are invisible to you until you display them. For example, a dot appears every time you press the SPACEBAR, such as between words. One dot is one space; two dots are two spaces, and so on. Normally there should be one space between each word. Word inserts a paragraph mark ( ) each time you press ENTER to start a new paragraph. In the picture, there are two paragraph marks between the two paragraphs, which means that ENTER was pressed twice. This creates extra space between paragraphs. One arrow ( ) appears each time TAB is pressed. In the picture there is one arrow before the first paragraph and two arrows before the second paragraph, so TAB was pressed twice in the second paragraph. To see formatting marks, go to the ribbon, at the top of the window. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Show/Hide button ( ). Click the button again to hide formatting marks. Note: These marks are just for show. They won't be on printed pages, even when you see them on the screen.	4.115998
From Ohio History Central The Progressive Movement was a widespread reform effort to cure the many social and political ills in America after the advent of the Industrial Revolution. During the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the United States of America underwent tremendous change. One of the principal changes was the shift from a predominantly agricultural economy to a much more industrialized one. This change also brought stark social changes to the United States. Now millions of Americans relied on other people -- business owners -- for their livelihood. Oftentimes, the employers reinvested profits back into the company, rather than paying workers a fair wage. These business owners also had tremendous power within the federal government. Many Americans believed that the business owners had undue influence over the government and that the employers had no desire to relinquish any power to middle and working-class Americans. By the 1890s, a group of reformers, known as the Progressives, emerged to combat some of the ill effects of these changes. Most Progressives came from middle-class backgrounds. Many of them were college educated. Progressives generally believed that industrialization was good for the United States, but they also contended that human greed had overcome industrialization's more positive effects. They hoped to instill in Americans moral values based upon Protestant religious beliefs. The Progressives wanted employers to treat their workers as the bosses wanted to be treated. They also hoped that, if working conditions improved, Americans would not engage in immoral activities, like drinking and gambling, to forget the difficulties that they faced. Progressives sought better pay, safer working conditions, shorter hours, and increased benefits for workers. Believing that only education would allow Americans to lead successful lives, Progressives opposed child labor, wanting children to attend school rather than working in mines and factories. They supported Prohibition and succeeded in enacting a ban on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol with the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. Progressives also sought to reclaim government from the business owners and corrupt politicians partly by supporting the direct election by the people of United States Senators. The Progressives succeeded in attaining this reform with the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913. Other reforms included Initiative, which allowed voters to pass legislation on their own, Referendum, which allowed voters to repeal laws that they did not support, and Recall, which allowed voters to remove elected officials from office. Many Progressives supported women's suffrage, helping women secure the right to vote through the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. Progressives also battled against city bosses, including Cincinnati, Ohio's George Cox, by hiring city managers. While Progressives enacted numerous positive reforms, some of their goals were questionable. They did seek to make the United States government more democratic and to protect American workers, but they also sought to force their social and political beliefs on others. Progressives opposed immigration and enacted several immigration restrictions during the 1920s. Progressives also tried to force immigrants to adopt Progressive moral beliefs. One way they tried to accomplish this was through settlement houses. Settlement houses existed in most major cities during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. They were places where immigrants could go to receive free food, clothing, job training, and educational classes. While all of these items greatly helped immigrants, Progressives also used the settlement houses to convince immigrants to adopt "American" or Progressive beliefs, causing the foreigners to forsake their own culture. During the 1920s, many Progressives also joined the Ku Klux Klan, a self-proclaimed religious group that was to enforce morality -- based on Progressive beliefs -- on other people. Due to such the Progressives' participation in Prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration restrictions, many Americans stopped supporting the Progressive Movement. While aspects of its beliefs remain today, as a functioning and clearly identifiable group, the Progressive Movement began to weaken by the late 1920s and the early 1930s.	4.519305
What is OPEC? OPEC is an acronym for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC was formed in 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq with five founding member countries. Currently OPEC is a cartel composed of 11 oil producing countries. Current member countries include: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC's stated purpose is said to serve three main functions: - Help stabilize world oil prices - Ensure oil producers achieve a reasonable rate of return on production - Ensure a stable supply of crude oil for consumer use. OPEC has a current goal of $27 US per barrel of oil. How much crude oil do the OPEC countries produce? Collectively these countries hold approximately 77% of known world crude oil reserves. In terms of daily crude oil production OPEC countries currently produce about 41% (24.2 million barrels per day) of the world's crude oil. The oil exported by the OPEC countries accounts for 55% of all oil traded internationally. OPEC countries also represent about 15% of total world natural gas production. How does OPEC set oil prices? OPEC does not "set" oil prices. OPEC manipulates the free market price of crude oil by setting caps on the oil production of its member countries. Twice each year, ministers from each OPEC country meet in Vienna, Austria to review the status of the international oil market and to forecast the future oil demands in order to agree upon an appropriate crude oil production level.	3.164766
The history and tradition of Patna go back to the earliest dawn of civilization. The original name of Patna was Pataliputra or Patalipattan and its history makes a start from the century 600 B.C. The name Patna has undergone many changes at its earliest stages like Pataligram, Kusumpur,Patliputra, Azimabad etc., ultimately terminating to the present one. Chandragupta Maurya made it his capital in the 4th century A.D. Thereafter the city lost its importance until Sherkhan Suri rose into power in the early 16th century A.D. Another version that comes to focus is that there existed a village named Pattan or Patthan, which later turned into Patna.It has been said that Pataliputra was founded by Ajatashatru. Patna, therefore, has become inextricably bound up with the ancient Pataliputra. The ancient village was named ‘Patali’ and the word ‘Pattan’ was added to it. Greek history mentions ‘Palibothra’ which perhaps is Pataliputra itself. Ajatashatru had to adopt certain security measures in order to protect Patna from the repeated Lichchavi invasions. He had got a natural riverine fort protected by three rivers. Ajatashatru’s son had moved his capital from Rajagriha to Pataliputra and this status was maintained during the reign of the Mauryas and the Guptas. Ashoka the Great, administered his empire from here. Chandragupta Maurya and Samudragupta, valliant warriors, they took Pataliputra as their capital. It was from here Chahandragupta sent forth his army to fight the Greeks of the western frontier and Chandragupta Vikramaditya repelled the Shakas and the Huns from here. It was there that the Greek ambassador Megasthenes stayed during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya. The famous traveler Fa-Hien in the 3rd century and Hiuen-Tsang in the 7th century inspected the city. Many noted scholars like Kautilya stayed here and works like ‘Arthashastra’ were written from this place. This city was the fountainhead of the spring of knowledge and wisdom in ancient times.	3.206891
Although it’s what many people on the Kenai Peninsula associate it with, Memorial Day weekend isn’t just about fishing and barbecues. It’s a time to remember those who have died in battle for this country. Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers. In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, declared Waterloo, N.Y., the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo — which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866 — because the town made Memorial Day an annual, communitywide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. Today, Memorial Day is celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery with a ceremony in which a small American flag is placed on each grave. Also, it is customary for the president or vice president to give a speech honoring the contributions of the dead and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Communities across the country, including those on the Kenai Peninsula, take part in annual events to commemorate the day. Memorial Day observances, will be held in Kenaiand Soldotna this year. In Kenai, the Avenue of Flags begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Kenai City Cemetery and a memorial service will take place at Leif Hansen Memorial Park at 1 p.m. In Soldotna, a memorial is planned for 1 p.m. at the Soldotna Community Memorial Park on West Redoubt. Our fallen soldiers have fought for so much throughout the years, and their dedication has given us the freedoms we enjoy today. We encourage you to take a moment to remember them and the reason for this holiday.	3.073114
Jerusalem, The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore February 2, 2012 by Bob Livingston The fact that Jerusalem is the center of the spiritual world for so many people seems to make politics there frighteningly complex and deadly. Consequently, if you have any interest in understanding why the area in and around Jerusalem is such a contentious piece of real estate, Jerusalem explicates, in exquisite historical detail, the thousands of years of fighting over a piece of ground that so many people want to possess. Sometimes, the details supplied by Montefiore are a bit overwhelming. But the historical tidbits, footnotes, archeological gossip and descriptions of what we know or think we know about what historical figures did to each other in this part of the planet are never less than fascinating and illuminating. Near the beginning of the book, Montefiore describes a time when Jerusalem was ruled by a confederation of tribes who were challenged by the Philistines, “part of the Sea Peoples, who originated in the Aegean (Sea).” The Israelites led first by Saul and then by David beat them back. As king, David established his stronghold at Jerusalem because it was a demilitarized zone between the northern and southern tribes. Later on, though, rulers of the various kingdoms in and around Jerusalem would periodically invade and kill many of the local inhabitants, making off with gold from the city’s temple. And then, in between invasions and sieges, members of the ruling class would battle with each other for power, brothers killing each other in order to take control, children killing parents, in-laws plotting each other’s doom and generals using assassinations and bloodbaths to establish their own dynasties. At the same time, the ruling Jewish kings twice built magnificent temples in Jerusalem (each eventually destroyed), filling them with golden treasures (all eventually looted) and established the city as a living, holy shrine. But the battles never stopped. In one typical period, as the Assyrians invaded, Israel’s King Ahab joined with Judah and Syria to repel the would-be conquerors. But soon, the three anti-Assyrian partners began to war with each other, civil wars broke out and King Ahab was killed by his own troops. In the power vacuum, a general named Jehu decided it was time to do away with the rest of the royal family. He stacked the heads of Ahab’s 70 sons in a gruesome pile at the one of the city’s gates, killed the new king who was trying to succeed Ahab and, for good measure, murdered the visiting king of Judah. Ahab’s wife, Queen Jezebel, was unceremoniously thrown out of a palace window, “pulverized” by chariots and fed to the dogs. But Ahab’s family was soon in control again. One of Jezebel’s daughters, Athalia, took power, killing every prince she could get her hands on (all of whom were her own grandchildren). She made Baal the state religion and set up idols in the Temple. Athalia, though, was eventually murdered, as were her priests. This kind of back-and-forth killing was typical. Eventually, the Assyrians came back for more booty, and the Egyptians took a turn invading the area. When those empires backed off, the Babylonians arrived for their share. A couple of hundred years later, the Persians took out the Babylonians, followed by the Greeks and later the Romans. Destruction And Conflict Soon after Jesus was crucified, relations between Rome and the Jewish rulers of Jerusalem reached a tipping point. Roman legions marched into the city, looted it, burned it to the ground and slaughtered most its residents, hauling many of the survivors back to Rome as slaves and unwilling participants in bloody shows at the Coliseum. For a time, the city was a camp for Roman soldiers. Later, when the Romans eventually left, the city settled down into relative obscurity, lapsing into low level anarchy before being invaded by European Crusaders. Today, of course, Jerusalem is in the center of the controversy between Palestinians and Israelis, each group claiming that they should control the area. After reading Jerusalem, you won’t wonder that the city and the area around it is a continual source of conflict. You may wonder why it isn’t worse. Montefiore warns, “… there have always been two Jerusalems, the temporal and the celestial, both ruled more by faith and emotion than by reason and facts.”	3.044711
Closing in on the Planck constant Sep 25, 1998 Physicists in the US have made the most accurate measurements ever of the Planck constant, h. Edwin Williams and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, measured h by comparing the voltage needed to control the velocity of a coil moving vertically in an magnetic field, with the current that has to be passed through the coil to balance gravity in the same magnetic field. The measurement could lead to a new reference stand for the kilogram (Phys. Rev. Lett. 81 2404). The kilogram is currently defined by a platinum-iridium alloy maintained at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) in Paris and six official copies. However, the official mass of the standard kilogram has been known to vary with time, hence the interest in defining the kilogram is terms of fundamental constants like h. The highly stable magnetic field needed for the experiment is generated by a superconducting magnet that has been cooled to 4 Kelvin. The experiment also uses two induction coils: the lower coil is fixed to the support structure of the experiment, while the upper coil can move. This upper coil is also attached to a wheel balance above the experiment. In the first stage of the measurement, the mass balance is empty and a small force is applied to the upper coil, forcing it to move at 2mm/s. The researchers found that this generated a voltage of 1.018 ± 0.001 V across the moving coil. In the second stage of the experiment, a 500 g countermass is balanced by a - 10.18 mA current in the induction coil. Both stages were repeated over many months to obtain a value of 6.62606891(58) x 10-34 Joule seconds for the Planck constant. This result - which corresponds to an accuracy of 9 parts in 108 - is a factor of 15 better than previous measurements. The team hope to improve on this result by another factor of 10 by modifying their experiment.	3.842773
Ultrafast electron microscope makes movies Dec 8, 2006 Physicists have created a new form of electron microscopy that can make "movies" of atoms as they undergo ultra-rapid chemical or structural transitions. Ahmed Zewail and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in the US have used coincident electron and laser pulses to follow vanadium and oxygen atoms as they rearranged themselves on a vanadium oxide surface over the course of several picoseconds. The researchers say that the technique could also be used to study a wide range of ultrafast biological and physical phenomena. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103 18427)). Electron microscopes have better resolution than optical microscopes because high-energy electrons have a much shorter wavelength than light. The resolution can be further improved by using coherent electron wavepackets, which can contain as few as one electron. The wavelengths of these packets are much smaller than the space between individual atoms and can be brought to a very sharp focus, allowing objects to be imaged with atomic-scale resolution. The packets are of extremely short duration and this can be exploited to take “snapshots” of atoms as they undergo structural or chemical transitions. In 2005, Zewail and colleagues used coherent electron packets to take single snapshots of a number of materials and biological samples. Now the researchers have further refined their technique to take a time sequence of images that allowed them to watch vanadium and oxygen atoms rearrange themselves in a process that can take as little as 100 femtoseconds ( 10-13 seconds). The timing sequence is generated by femtosecond laser pulses as illustrated in the figure "Ultrafast microscope". Each pulse is split into two pulses – one is used by the microscope to create the electron pulse and the other is used to heat the sample. According to Zewail, the crucial and most difficult part of the technique is coordinating the arrivals of the laser and electron pulses at the sample with an accuracy of just a few femtoseconds. This is particularly difficult because the laser pulse travels at the speed of light, while the electron pulse lags behind at about two thirds the speed of light. The coincident laser pulse is used to heat the sample and drive a transition from a low-temperature crystal structure to a high-temperature structure. By changing the delay between the laser and electron pulses in regular time steps, the researchers were able to take snapshots of the atoms at different sample temperatures. Zewail and colleagues found that vanadium oxide undergoes a “first-order” phase transition from a low-temperature “monoclinic” phase to a high-temperature tetragonal “rutile” phase at around 67°C. This result is a breakthrough in itself because the precise nature of this transition has been a mystery since the material was discovered almost a century ago. The team now plans to try their technique on other materials; “the scope is very wide from semiconductors and metals to organics and biological assemblies,” says Zewail.	3.618972
Puzzle pageIssue 37 Mystery Christmas theft Where's that missing coin? As a last treat before the start of the busiest period of the year, Santa Claus and Rudolph the Reindeer decide to go out for a meal. The Easter Bunny comes along for company. They feast on scrumptious food and mulled wine, which makes Rudolph's nose glow redder than ever. At the end of the night the bill totals 30 North Pole Pounds, and the three decide to share it evenly, each paying 10 Pounds. The waiter takes the money and walks over to the til, where he meets the proprietress of the restaurant. She tells him that for these very distinguished guests the last bottle of mulled wine is on the house. That bottle was 5 Pounds, so now the bill only comes to 25 Pounds. She gives the waiter 5 Pound coins in change. But the waiter, not being a very honest sort and still holding a grudge about an undelivered present, slips two Pounds into his pocket and only returns 3 Pounds, 1 Pound to each of the three guests. Now each has paid 9 Pounds, making 27 in total. The waiter stole 2 Pounds, making 29. But Santa, Rudolph and the Easter Bunny paid 30 Pounds in total! What happened to the missing Pound?	3.170474
Individual differences \| Methods \| Statistics \| Clinical \| Educational \| Industrial \| Professional items \| World psychology \| - For a non-technical introduction to the topic, please see Introduction to genetics. Genetics (from Ancient Greek γενετικός genetikos, “genitive” and that from γένεσις genesis, “origin”), a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the process of inheritance, only began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century. Although he did not know the physical basis for heredity, Mendel observed that organisms inherit traits in a discrete manner—these basic units of inheritance are now called genes. Genes correspond to regions within DNA, a molecule composed of a chain of four different types of nucleotides—the sequence of these nucleotides is the genetic information organisms inherit. DNA naturally occurs in a double stranded form, with nucleotides on each strand complementary to each other. Each strand can act as a template for creating a new partner strand—this is the physical method for making copies of genes that can be inherited. The sequence of nucleotides in a gene is translated by cells to produce a chain of amino acids, creating proteins—the order of amino acids in a protein corresponds to the order of nucleotides in the gene. This is known as the genetic code. The amino acids in a protein determine how it folds into a three-dimensional shape; this structure is, in turn, responsible for the protein's function. Proteins carry out almost all the functions needed for cells to live. A change to the DNA in a gene can change a protein's amino acids, changing its shape and function: this can have a dramatic effect in the cell and on the organism as a whole. Although genetics plays a large role in the appearance and behavior of organisms, it is the combination of genetics with what an organism experiences that determines the ultimate outcome. For example, while genes play a role in determining a person's height, the nutrition and health that person experiences in childhood also have a large effect. - Main article: History of genetics Although the science of genetics began with the applied and theoretical work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-1800s, other theories of inheritance preceded Mendel. A popular theory during Mendel's time was the concept of blending inheritance: the idea that individuals inherit a smooth blend of traits from their parents. Mendel's work disproved this, showing that traits are composed of combinations of distinct genes rather than a continuous blend. Another theory that had some support at that time was the inheritance of acquired characteristics: the belief that individuals inherit traits strengthened by their parents. This theory (commonly associated with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck) is now known to be wrong—the experiences of individuals do not affect the genes they pass to their children. Other theories included the pangenesis of Charles Darwin (which had both acquired and inherited aspects) and Francis Galton's reformulation of pangenesis as both particulate and inherited. Mendelian and classical geneticsEdit The modern science of genetics traces its roots to Gregor Johann Mendel, a German-Czech Augustinian monk and scientist who studied the nature of inheritance in plants. In his paper "Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden" ("Experiments on Plant Hybridization"), presented in 1865 to the Naturforschender Verein (Society for Research in Nature) in Brünn, Mendel traced the inheritance patterns of certain traits in pea plants and described them mathematically. Although this pattern of inheritance could only be observed for a few traits, Mendel's work suggested that heredity was particulate, not acquired, and that the inheritance patterns of many traits could be explained through simple rules and ratios. The importance of Mendel's work did not gain wide understanding until the 1890s, after his death, when other scientists working on similar problems re-discovered his research. William Bateson, a proponent of Mendel's work, coined the word genetics in 1905. (The adjective genetic, derived from the Greek word genesis - γένεσις, "origin" and that from the word genno - γεννώ, "to give birth", predates the noun and was first used in a biological sense in 1860.) Bateson popularized the usage of the word genetics to describe the study of inheritance in his inaugural address to the Third International Conference on Plant Hybridization in London, England, in 1906. After the rediscovery of Mendel's work, scientists tried to determine which molecules in the cell were responsible for inheritance. In 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan argued that genes are on chromosomes, based on observations of a sex-linked white eye mutation in fruit flies. In 1913, his student Alfred Sturtevant used the phenomenon of genetic linkage to show that genes are arranged linearly on the chromosome. <span id="molecular" /> Although genes were known to exist on chromosomes, chromosomes are composed of both protein and DNA—scientists did not know which of these was responsible for inheritance. In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered the phenomenon of transformation (see Griffith's experiment): dead bacteria could transfer genetic material to "transform" other still-living bacteria. Sixteen years later, in 1944, Oswald Theodore Avery, Colin McLeod and Maclyn McCarty identified the molecule responsible for transformation as DNA. The Hershey-Chase experiment in 1952 also showed that DNA (rather than protein) was the genetic material of the viruses that infect bacteria, providing further evidence that DNA was the molecule responsible for inheritance. James D. Watson and Francis Crick determined the structure of DNA in 1953, using the X-ray crystallography work of Rosalind Franklin that indicated DNA had a helical structure (i.e., shaped like a corkscrew). Their double-helix model had two strands of DNA with the nucleotides pointing inward, each matching a complementary nucleotide on the other strand to form what looks like rungs on a twisted ladder. This structure showed that genetic information exists in the sequence of nucleotides on each strand of DNA. The structure also suggested a simple method for duplication: if the strands are separated, new partner strands can be reconstructed for each based on the sequence of the old strand. Although the structure of DNA showed how inheritance worked, it was still not known how DNA influenced the behavior of cells. In the following years, scientists tried to understand how DNA controls the process of protein production. It was discovered that the cell uses DNA as a template to create matching messenger RNA (a molecule with nucleotides, very similar to DNA). The nucleotide sequence of a messenger RNA is used to create an amino acid sequence in protein; this translation between nucleotide and amino acid sequences is known as the genetic code. With this molecular understanding of inheritance, an explosion of research became possible. One important development was chain-termination DNA sequencing in 1977 by Frederick Sanger: this technology allows scientists to read the nucleotide sequence of a DNA molecule. In 1983, Kary Banks Mullis developed the polymerase chain reaction, providing a quick way to isolate and amplify a specific section of a DNA from a mixture. Through the pooled efforts of the Human Genome Project and the parallel private effort by Celera Genomics, these and other techniques culminated in the sequencing of the human genome in 2003. Features of inheritanceEdit Discrete inheritance and Mendel's lawsEdit - Main article: Mendelian inheritance At its most fundamental level, inheritance in organisms occurs by means of discrete traits, called genes. This property was first observed by Gregor Mendel, who studied the segregation of heritable traits in pea plants. In his experiments studying the trait for flower color, Mendel observed that the flowers of each pea plant were either purple or white - and never an intermediate between the two colors. These different, discrete versions of the same gene are called alleles. In the case of pea plants, each organism has two alleles of each gene, and the plants inherit one allele from each parent. Many organisms, including humans, have this pattern of inheritance. Organisms with two copies of the same allele are called homozygous, while organisms with two different alleles are heterozygous. The set of alleles for a given organism is called its genotype, while the observable trait the organism has is called its phenotype. When organisms are heterozygous, often one allele is called dominant as its qualities dominate the phenotype of the organism, while the other allele is called recessive as its qualities recede and are not observed. Some alleles do not have complete dominance and instead have incomplete dominance by expressing an intermediate phenotype, or codominance by expressing both alleles at once. When a pair of organisms reproduce sexually, their offspring randomly inherit one of the two alleles from each parent. These observations of discrete inheritance and the segregation of alleles are collectively known as Mendel's first law or the Law of Segregation. Notation and diagramsEdit Geneticists use diagrams and symbols to describe inheritance. A gene is represented by a letter (or letters)—the capitalized letter represents the dominant allele and the recessive is represented by lowercase. Often a "+" symbol is used to mark the usual, non-mutant allele for a gene. In fertilization and breeding experiments (and especially when discussing Mendel's laws) the parents are referred to as the "P" generation and the offspring as the "F1" (first filial) generation. When the F1 offspring mate with each other, the offspring are called the "F2" (second filial) generation. One of the common diagrams used to predict the result of cross-breeding is the Punnett square. Interactions of multiple genesEdit Organisms have thousands of genes, and in sexually reproducing organisms assortment of these genes are generally independent of each other. This means that the inheritance of an allele for yellow or green pea color is unrelated to the inheritance of alleles for white or purple flowers. This phenomenon, known as "Mendel's second law" or the "Law of independent assortment", means that the alleles of different genes get shuffled between parents to form offspring with many different combinations.(Some genes do not assort independently, demonstrating genetic linkage, a topic discussed later in this article.) Often different genes can interact in a way that influences the same trait. In the Blue-eyed Mary (Omphalodes verna), for example, there exists a gene with alleles that determine the color of flowers: blue or magenta. Another gene, however, controls whether the flowers have color at all: color or white. When a plant has two copies of this white allele, its flowers are white - regardless of whether the first gene has blue or magenta alleles. This interaction between genes is called epistasis, with the second gene epistatic to the first. Many traits are not discrete features (eg. purple or white flowers) but are instead continuous features (eg. human height and skin color). These complex traits are the product of many genes. The influence of these genes is mediated, to varying degrees, by the environment an organism has experienced. The degree to which an organism's genes contribute to a complex trait is called heritability. Measurement of the heritability of a trait is relative - in a more variable environment, the environment has a bigger influence on the total variation of the trait. For example, human height is a complex trait with a heritability of 89% in the United States. In Nigeria, however, where people experience a more variable access to good nutrition and health care, height has a heritability of only 62%. Molecular basis for inheritanceEdit DNA and chromosomesEdit - Main article: DNA The molecular basis for genes is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA is composed of a chain of nucleotides, of which there are four types: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). Genetic information exists in the sequence of these nucleotides, and genes exist as stretches of sequence along the DNA chain. Viruses are the only exception to this rule—sometimes viruses use the very similar molecule RNA instead of DNA as their genetic material. DNA normally exists as a double-stranded molecule, coiled into the shape of a double-helix. Each nucleotide in DNA preferentially pairs with its partner nucleotide on the opposite strand: A pairs with T, and C pairs with G. Thus, in its two-stranded form, each strand effectively contains all necessary information, redundant with its partner strand. This structure of DNA is the physical basis for inheritance: DNA replication duplicates the genetic information by splitting the strands and using each strand as a template for synthesis of a new partner strand. Genes are arranged linearly along long chains of DNA sequence, called chromosomes. In bacteria, each cell has a single circular chromosome, while eukaryotic organisms (which includes plants and animals) have their DNA arranged in multiple linear chromosomes. These DNA strands are often extremely long; the largest human chromosome, for example, is about 247 million base pairs in length. The DNA of a chromosome is associated with structural proteins that organize, compact, and control access to the DNA, forming a material called chromatin; in eukaryotes, chromatin is usually composed of nucleosomes, repeating units of DNA wound around a core of histone proteins. The full set of hereditary material in an organism (usually the combined DNA sequences of all chromosomes) is called the genome. While haploid organisms have only one copy of each chromosome, most animals and many plants are diploid, containing two of each chromosome and thus two copies of every gene. The two alleles for a gene are located on identical loci of sister chromatids, each allele inherited from a different parent. An exception exists in the sex chromosomes, specialized chromosomes many animals have evolved that play a role in determining the sex of an organism. In humans and other mammals, the Y chromosome has very few genes and triggers the development of male sexual characteristics, while the X chromosome is similar to the other chromosomes and contains many genes unrelated to sex determination. Females have two copies of the X chromosome, but males have one Y and only one X chromosome - this difference in X chromosome copy numbers leads to the unusual inheritance patterns of sex-linked disorders. - Main article: Asexual reproduction When cells divide, their full genome is copied and each daughter cell inherits one copy. This process, called mitosis, is the simplest form of reproduction and is the basis for asexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction can also occur in multicellular organisms, producing offspring that inherit their genome from a single parent. Offspring that are genetically identical to their parents are called clones. Eukaryotic organisms often use sexual reproduction to generate offspring that contain a mixture of genetic material inherited from two different parents. The process of sexual reproduction alternates between forms that contain single copies of the genome (haploid) and double copies (diploid). Haploid cells fuse and combine genetic material to create a diploid cell with paired chromosomes. Diploid organisms form haploids by dividing, without replicating their DNA, to create daughter cells that randomly inherit one of each pair of chromosomes. Most animals and many plants are diploid for most of their lifespan, with the haploid form reduced to single cell gametes. Although they do not use the haploid/diploid method of sexual reproduction, bacteria have many methods of acquiring new genetic information. Some bacteria can undergo conjugation, transferring a small circular piece of DNA to another bacterium. Bacteria can also take up raw DNA fragments found in the environment and integrate them into their genome, a phenomenon known as transformation. These processes result in horizontal gene transfer, transmitting fragments of genetic information between organisms that would be otherwise unrelated. - Main article: Chromosomal crossover The diploid nature of chromosomes allows for genes on different chromosomes to assort independently during sexual reproduction, recombining to form new combinations of genes. Genes on the same chromosome would theoretically never recombine, however, were it not for the process of chromosomal crossover. During crossover, chromosomes exchange stretches of DNA, effectively shuffling the gene alleles between the chromosomes. This process of chromosomal crossover generally occurs during meiosis, a series of cell divisions that creates haploid cells. The probability of chromosomal crossover occurring between two given points on the chromosome is related to the distance between them. For an arbitrarily long distance, the probability of crossover is high enough that the inheritance of the genes is effectively uncorrelated. For genes that are closer together, however, the lower probability of crossover means that the genes demonstrate genetic linkage - alleles for the two genes tend to be inherited together. The amounts of linkage between a series of genes can be combined to form a linear linkage map that roughly describes the arrangement of the genes along the chromosome. - Main article: Genetic code Genes generally express their functional effect through the production of proteins, which are complex molecules responsible for most functions in the cell. Proteins are chains of amino acids, and the DNA sequence of a gene (through RNA intermediate) is used to produce a specific protein sequence. This process begins with the production of an RNA molecule with a sequence matching the gene's DNA sequence, a process called transcription. This messenger RNA molecule is then used to produce a corresponding amino acid sequence through a process called translation. Each group of three nucleotides in the sequence, called a codon, corresponds to one of the twenty possible amino acids in protein - this correspondence is called the genetic code. The flow of information is unidirectional: information is transferred from nucleotide sequences into the amino acid sequence of proteins, but it never transfers from protein back into the sequence of DNA—a phenomenon Francis Crick called the central dogma of molecular biology. The specific sequence of amino acids results in a unique three-dimensional structure for that protein, and the three-dimensional structures of protein are related to their function. Some are simple structural molecules, like the fibers formed by the protein collagen. Proteins can bind to other proteins and simple molecules, sometimes acting as enzymes by facilitating chemical reactions within the bound molecules (without changing the structure of the protein itself). Protein structure is dynamic; the protein hemoglobin bends into slightly different forms as it facilitates the capture, transport, and release of oxygen molecules within mammalian blood. A single nucleotide difference within DNA can cause a single change in the amino acid sequence of a protein. Because protein structures are the result of their amino acid sequences, some changes can dramatically change the properties of a protein by destabilizing the structure or changing the surface of the protein in a way that changes its interaction with other proteins and molecules. For example, sickle-cell anemia is a human genetic disease that results from a single base difference within the coding region for the β-globin section of hemoglobin, causing a single amino acid change that changes hemoglobin's physical properties. Sickle-cell versions of hemoglobin stick to themselves, stacking to form fibers that distort the shape of red blood cells carrying the protein. These sickle-shaped cells no longer flow smoothly through blood vessels, having a tendency to clog or degrade, causing the medical problems associated with this disease. Some genes are transcribed into RNA but are not translated into protein products - these are called non-coding RNA molecules. In some cases, these products fold into structures which are involved in critical cell functions (eg. ribosomal RNA and transfer RNA). RNA can also have regulatory effect through hybridization interactions with other RNA molecules (eg. microRNA). Nature versus nurtureEdit Although genes contain all the information an organism uses to function, the environment plays an important role in determining the ultimate phenotype—a dichotomy often referred to as "nature vs. nurture." The phenotype of an organism depends on the interaction of genetics with the environment. One example of this is the case of temperature-sensitive mutations. Often, a single amino acid change within the sequence of a protein does not change its behavior and interactions with other molecules, but it does destabilize the structure. In a high temperature environment, where molecules are moving more quickly and hitting each other, this results in the protein losing its structure and failing to function. In a low temperature environment, however, the protein's structure is stable and functions normally. This type of mutation is visible in the coat coloration of Siamese cats, where a mutation in an enzyme responsible for pigment production causes it to destabilize and lose function at high temperatures. The protein remains functional in areas of skin that are colder—legs, ears, tail, and face—and so the cat has dark fur at its extremities. Environment also plays a dramatic role in effects of the human genetic disease phenylketonuria. The mutation that causes phenylketonuria disrupts the ability of the body to break down the amino acid phenylalanine, causing a toxic build-up of an intermediate molecule that, in turn, causes severe symptoms of progressive mental retardation and seizures. If someone with the phenylketonuria mutation follows a strict diet that avoids this amino acid, however, they remain normal and healthy. - Main article: Regulation of gene expression The genome of a given organism contains thousands of genes, but not all these genes need to be active at any given moment. A gene is expressed when it is being transcribed into mRNA (and translated into protein), and there exist many cellular methods of controlling the expression of genes such that proteins are produced only when needed by the cell. Transcription factors are regulatory proteins that bind to the start of genes, either promoting or inhibiting the transcription of the gene. Within the genome of Escherichia coli bacteria, for example, there exists a series of genes necessary for the synthesis of the amino acid tryptophan. However, when tryptophan is already available to the cell, these genes for tryptophan synthesis are no longer needed. The presence of tryptophan directly affects the activity of the genes—tryptophan molecules bind to the tryptophan repressor (a transcription factor), changing the repressor's structure such that the repressor binds to the genes. The tryptophan repressor blocks the transcription and expression of the genes, thereby creating negative feedback regulation of the tryptophan synthesis process. Differences in gene expression are especially clear within multicellular organisms, where cells all contain the same genome but have very different structures and behaviors due to the expression of different sets of genes. All the cells in a multicellular organism derive from a single cell, differentiating into variant cell types in response to external and intercellular signals and gradually establishing different patterns of gene expression to create different behaviors. As no single gene is responsible for the development of structures within multicellular organisms, these patterns arise from the complex interactions between many cells. Within eukaryotes there exist structural features of chromatin that influence the transcription of genes, often in the form of modifications to DNA and chromatin that are stably inherited by daughter cells. These features are called "epigenetic" because they exist "on top" of the DNA sequence and retain inheritance from one cell generation to the next. Because of epigenetic features, different cell types grown within the same medium can retain very different properties. Although epigenetic features are generally dynamic over the course of development, some, like the phenomenon of paramutation, have multigenerational inheritance and exist as rare exceptions to the general rule of DNA as the basis for inheritance. - Main article: Mutation During the process of DNA replication, errors occasionally occur in the polymerization of the second strand. These errors, called mutations, can have an impact on the phenotype of an organism, especially if they occur within the protein coding sequence of a gene. Error rates are usually very low—1 error in every 10–100 million bases—due to the "proofreading" ability of DNA polymerases. (Without proofreading error rates are a thousand-fold higher; because many viruses rely on DNA and RNA polymerases that lack proofreading ability, they experience higher mutation rates.) Processes that increase the rate of changes in DNA are called mutagenic: mutagenic chemicals promote errors in DNA replication, often by interfering with the structure of base-pairing, while UV radiation induces mutations by causing damage to the DNA structure. Chemical damage to DNA occurs naturally as well, and cells use DNA repair mechanisms to repair mismatches and breaks in DNA—nevertheless, the repair sometimes fails to return the DNA to its original sequence. In organisms that use chromosomal crossover to exchange DNA and recombine genes, errors in alignment during meiosis can also cause mutations. Errors in crossover are especially likely when similar sequences cause partner chromosomes to adopt a mistaken alignment; this makes some regions in genomes more prone to mutating in this way. These errors create large structural changes in DNA sequence—duplications, inversions or deletions of entire regions, or the accidental exchanging of whole parts between different chromosomes (called translocation). Natural selection and evolutionEdit - Main article: Evolution Mutations produce organisms with different genotypes, and those differences can result in different phenotypes. Many mutations have little effect on an organism's phenotype, health, and reproductive fitness. Mutations that do have an effect are often deleterious, but occasionally mutations are beneficial. Studies in the fly Drosophila melanogaster suggest that if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, this will probably be harmful, with about 70 percent of these mutations having damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial. Population genetics research studies the distributions of these genetic differences within populations and how the distributions change over time. Changes in the frequency of an allele in a population can be influenced by natural selection, where a given allele's higher rate of survival and reproduction causes it to become more frequent in the population over time. Genetic drift can also occur, where chance events lead to random changes in allele frequency. Over many generations, the genomes of organisms can change, resulting in the phenomenon of evolution. Mutations and the selection for beneficial mutations can cause a species to evolve into forms that better survive their environment, a process called adaptation. New species are formed through the process of speciation, a process often caused by geographical separations that allow different populations to genetically diverge. The application of genetic principles to the study of population biology and evolution is referred to as the modern synthesis. As sequences diverge and change during the process of evolution, these differences between sequences can be used as a molecular clock to calculate the evolutionary distance between them. Genetic comparisons are generally considered the most accurate method of characterizing the relatedness between species, an improvement over the sometimes deceptive comparison of phenotypic characteristics. The evolutionary distances between species can be combined to form evolutionary trees - these trees represent the common descent and divergence of species over time, although they cannot represent the transfer of genetic material between unrelated species (known as horizontal gene transfer and most common in bacteria). Research and technologyEdit Model organisms and geneticsEdit Although geneticists originally studied inheritance in a wide range of organisms, researchers began to specialize in studying the genetics of a particular subset of organisms. The fact that significant research already existed for a given organism would encourage new researchers to choose it for further study, and so eventually a few model organisms became the basis for most genetics research. Common research topics in model organism genetics include the study of gene regulation and the involvement of genes in development and cancer. Organisms were chosen, in part, for convenience—short generation times and easy genetic manipulation made some organisms popular genetics research tools. Widely used model organisms include the gut bacterium Escherichia coli, the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), and the common house mouse (Mus musculus). Medical genetics researchEdit Medical genetics seeks to understand how genetic variation relates to human health and disease. When searching for an unknown gene that may be involved in a disease, researchers commonly use genetic linkage and genetic pedigree charts to find the location on the genome associated with the disease. At the population level, researchers take advantage of Mendelian randomization to look for locations in the genome that are associated with diseases, a technique especially useful for multigenic traits not clearly defined by a single gene. Once a candidate gene is found, further research is often done on the same gene (called an orthologous gene) in model organisms. In addition to studying genetic diseases, the increased availability of genotyping techniques has led to the field of pharmacogenetics—studying how genotype can affect drug responses. Although it is not an inherited disease, cancer is also considered a genetic disease. The process of cancer development in the body is a combination of events. Mutations occasionally occur within cells in the body as they divide. While these mutations will not be inherited by any offspring, they can affect the behavior of cells, sometimes causing them to grow and divide more frequently. There are biological mechanisms that attempt to stop this process; signals are given to inappropriately dividing cells that should trigger cell death, but sometimes additional mutations occur that cause cells to ignore these messages. An internal process of natural selection occurs within the body and eventually mutations accumulate within cells to promote their own growth, creating a cancerous tumor that grows and invades various tissues of the body. DNA can be manipulated in the laboratory. Restriction enzymes are a commonly used enzyme that cuts DNA at specific sequences, producing predictable fragments of DNA. The use of ligation enzymes allows these fragments to be reconnected, and by ligating fragments of DNA together from different sources, researchers can create recombinant DNA. Often associated with genetically modified organisms, recombinant DNA is commonly used in the context of plasmids - short circular DNA fragments with a few genes on them. By inserting plasmids into bacteria and growing those bacteria on plates of agar (to isolate clones of bacteria cells), researchers can clonally amplify the inserted fragment of DNA (a process known as molecular cloning). (Cloning can also refer to the creation of clonal organisms, through various techniques.) DNA can also be amplified using a procedure called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). By using specific short sequences of DNA, PCR can isolate and exponentially amplify a targeted region of DNA. Because it can amplify from extremely small amounts of DNA, PCR is also often used to detect the presence of specific DNA sequences. DNA sequencing and genomicsEdit One of the most fundamental technologies developed to study genetics, DNA sequencing allows researchers to determine the sequence of nucleotides in DNA fragments. Developed in 1977 by Frederick Sanger and coworkers, chain-termination sequencing is now routinely used to sequence DNA fragments. With this technology, researchers have been able to study the molecular sequences associated with many human diseases. As sequencing has become less expensive and with the aid of computational tools, researchers have sequenced the genomes of many organisms by stitching together the sequences of many different fragments (a process called genome assembly). These technologies were used to sequence the human genome, leading to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. New high-throughput sequencing technologies are dramatically lowering the cost of DNA sequencing, with many researchers hoping to bring the cost of resequencing a human genome down to a thousand dollars. The large amount of sequences available has created the field of genomics, research that uses computational tools to search for and analyze patterns in the full genomes of organisms. Genomics can also be considered a subfield of bioinformatics, which uses computational approaches to analyze large sets of biological data. - Animal breeding - Animal mate selection - Animal strain differences - Assortive mating - Behavioural genetics - Blood groups - Family resemblance - Genetic counselling - Population genetics - Genetic disorders - Genetic engineering - Human accelerated regions - Hybrids (biology) - Instinctive behaviour - Reproductive technology - Selective breeding - Sexual reproduction - Species differences - Translocation (chromosomes) - ↑ Genetikos, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus - ↑ Genesis, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus - ↑ Online Etymology Dictionary - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 1 (Genetics and the Organism): Introduction - ↑ Hartl D, Jones E (2005) - ↑ Weiling F (1991). Historical study: Johann Gregor Mendel 1822–1884. American Journal of Medical Genetics 40 (1): 1–25; discussion 26. - ↑ Lamarck, J-B (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica Online on 2008-03-16. - ↑ Peter J. Bowler, The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergency of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989): chapters 2 & 3. - ↑ 9.0 9.1 Mendel, GJ (1866). Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden. Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn 4: 3–47. (in English in 1901, J. R. Hortic. Soc. 26: 1–32) English translation available online - ↑ genetics, n., Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. - ↑ Bateson W. Letter from William Bateson to Alan Sedgwick in 1905. The John Innes Centre. URL accessed on 2008-03-15.. Note that the letter was to an Adam Sedgwick, a zoologist at Trinity College, Cambridge, not "Alan", and not to be confused with the renown British geologist, Adam Sedgwick, who lived some time earlier. - ↑ genetic, adj., Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. - ↑ Bateson, W (1907). "The Progress of Genetic Research". Wilks, W (editor) Report of the Third 1906 International Conference on Genetics: Hybridization (the cross-breeding of genera or species), the cross-breeding of varieties, and general plant breeding, London: Royal Horticultural Society. - Initially titled the "International Conference on Hybridisation and Plant Breeding", Wilks changed the title for publication as a result of Bateson's speech. - ↑ Moore JA (1983). Thomas Hunt Morgan—The Geneticist. American Zoologist 23 (4): 855–865. - ↑ Sturtevant AH (1913). The linear arrangement of six sex-linked factors in Drosophila, as shown by their mode of association. Journal of Experimental Biology 14: 43–59. PDF from Electronic Scholarly Publishing - ↑ Avery OT, MacLeod CM, and McCarty M (1944). Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III. Journal of Experimental Medicine 79 (1): 137–158.35th anniversary reprint available - ↑ Hershey AD, Chase M (1952). Independent functions of viral protein and nucleic acid in growth of bacteriophage. The Journal of General Physiology 36: 39–56. - ↑ Judson, Horace (1979). The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology, 51–169, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. - ↑ Watson JD, Crick FHC (1953). Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Nature 171 (4356): 737–738. - ↑ Watson JD, Crick FHC (1953). Genetical Implications of the Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Nature 171 (4361): 964–967. - ↑ Sanger F, Nicklen S, and Coulson AR (1977). DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Nature 74 (12): 5463–5467. - ↑ Saiki RK, Scharf S, Faloona F, Mullis KB, Horn GT, Erlich HA, Arnheim N (1985). Enzymatic Amplification of β-Globin Genomic Sequences and Restriction Site Analysis for Diagnosis of Sickle Cell Anemia. Science 230 (4732): 1350–1354. - ↑ 23.0 23.1 Human Genome Project Information. Human Genome Project. URL accessed on 2008-03-15. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 2 (Patterns of Inheritance): Introduction - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 2 (Patterns of Inheritance): Mendel's experiments - ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 3 (Chromosomal Basis of Heredity): Mendelian genetics in eukaryotic life cycles - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 4 (Gene Interaction): Interactions between the alleles of one gene - ↑ Richard W. Cheney. Genetic Notation. URL accessed on 2008-03-18. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 2 (Patterns of Inheritance): Human Genetics - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 4 (Gene Interaction): Gene interaction and modified dihybrid ratios - ↑ Mayeux R (2005). Mapping the new frontier: complex genetic disorders. The Journal of Clinical Investigation 115 (6): 1404–1407. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 25 (Quantitative Genetics): Quantifying heritability - ↑ Luke A, Guo X, Adeyemo AA, Wilks R, Forrester T, Lowe W Jr, Comuzzie AG, Martin LJ, Zhu X, Rotimi CN, Cooper RS (2001). Heritability of obesity-related traits among Nigerians, Jamaicans and US black people. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 25 (7): 1034–1041. Abstract from NCBI - ↑ Pearson H (2006). Genetics: what is a gene?. Nature 441 (7092): 398–401. - ↑ Prescott, L (1993). Microbiology, Wm. C. Brown Publishers. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 8 (The Structure and Replication of DNA): Mechanism of DNA Replication - ↑ Gregory SG et al. (2006). The DNA sequence and biological annotation of human chromosome 1. Nature 441: 315–321. free full text available - ↑ Alberts et al. (2002), II.4. DNA and chromosomes: Chromosomal DNA and Its Packaging in the Chromatin Fiber - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 2 (Patterns of Inheritance): Sex chromosomes and sex-linked inheritance - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 7 (Gene Transfer in Bacteria and Their Viruses): Bacterial conjugation - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 7 (Gene Transfer in Bacteria and Their Viruses): Bacterial transformation - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 5 (Basic Eukaryotic Chromosome Mapping): Nature of crossing-over - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 5 (Basic Eukaryotic Chromosome Mapping): Linkage maps - ↑ Berg JM, Tymoczko JL, Stryer L, Clarke ND (2002). Biochemistry, 5th edition, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. I. 5. DNA, RNA, and the Flow of Genetic Information: Amino Acids Are Encoded by Groups of Three Bases Starting from a Fixed Point - ↑ Crick, F (1970): Central Dogma of Molecular Biology (PDF). Nature 227, 561–563. PMID 4913914 - ↑ Alberts et al. (2002), I.3. Proteins: The Shape and Structure of Proteins - ↑ Alberts et al. (2002), I.3. Proteins: Protein Function - ↑ How Does Sickle Cell Cause Disease?. Brigham and Women's Hospital: Information Center for Sickle Cell and Thalassemic Disorders. URL accessed on 2007-07-23. - ↑ Imes DL, Geary LA, Grahn RA, Lyons LA (2006). Albinism in the domestic cat (Felis catus) is associated with a tyrosinase (TYR) mutation. Animal Genetics 37 (2): 175. - ↑ MedlinePlus: Phenylketonuria. NIH: National Library of Medicine. URL accessed on 2008-03-15. - ↑ Brivanlou AH, Darnell JE Jr (2002). Signal transduction and the control of gene expression. Science 295 (5556): 813–818. - ↑ Alberts et al. (2002), II.3. Control of Gene Expression – The Tryptophan Repressor Is a Simple Switch That Turns Genes On and Off in Bacteria - ↑ Jaenisch R, Bird A. Epigenetic regulation of gene expression: how the genome integrates intrinsic and environmental signals. Nature Genetics 33 (3s): 245–254. - ↑ Chandler VL (2007). Paramutation: From Maize to Mice. Cell 128: 641–645. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 16 (Mechanisms of Gene Mutation): Spontaneous mutations - ↑ Kunkel TA (2004). DNA Replication Fidelity. Journal of Biological Chemistry 279 (17): 16895–16898. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 16 (Mechanisms of Gene Mutation): Induced mutations - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 17 (Chromosome Mutation I: Changes in Chromosome Structure): Introduction - ↑ Sawyer SA, Parsch J, Zhang Z, Hartl DL (2007). Prevalence of positive selection among nearly neutral amino acid replacements in Drosophila. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 (16): 6504–10. - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 24 (Population Genetics): Variation and its modulation - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 24 (Population Genetics): Selection - ↑ Griffiths et al. (2000), Chapter 24 (Population Genetics): Random events - ↑ Darwin, Charles (1859). On the Origin of Species, 1st, 1, John Murray.. Related earlier ideas were acknowledged in Darwin, Charles (1861). On the Origin of Species, 3rd, xiii, John Murray. - ↑ Gavrilets S (2003). Perspective: models of speciation: what have we learned in 40 years?. Evolution 57 (10): 2197–2215. - ↑ Wolf YI, Rogozin IB, Grishin NV, Koonin EV (2002). Genome trees and the tree of life. Trends Genet. 18 (9): 472–479. - ↑ The Use of Model Organisms in Instruction. University of Wisconsin: Wisconsin Outreach Research Modules. URL accessed on 2008-03-15. - ↑ NCBI: Genes and Disease. NIH: National Center for Biotechnology Information. URL accessed on 2008-03-15. - ↑ Davey Smith, G, Ebrahim, S (2003). ‘Mendelian randomization’: can genetic epidemiology contribute to understanding environmental determinants of disease?. International Journal of Epidemiology 32: 1–22. - ↑ Pharmacogenetics Fact Sheet. NIH: National Institute of General Medical Sciences. URL accessed on 2008-03-15. - ↑ Strachan T, Read AP (1999). Human Molecular Genetics 2, second edition, John Wiley & Sons Inc..Chapter 18: Cancer Genetics - ↑ Lodish et al. (2000), Chapter 7: 7.1. DNA Cloning with Plasmid Vectors - ↑ Lodish et al. (2000), Chapter 7: 7.7. Polymerase Chain Reaction: An Alternative to Cloning - ↑ Brown TA (2002). Genomes 2, 2nd edition.Section 2, Chapter 6: 6.1. The Methodology for DNA Sequencing - ↑ Brown (2002), Section 2, Chapter 6: 6.2. Assembly of a Contiguous DNA Sequence - ↑ Service RF (2006). The Race for the $1000 Genome. Science 311 (5767): 1544–1546. - Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, and Walter P (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th edition. - Griffiths AJF, Miller JH, Suzuki DT, Lewontin RC, and Gelbart WM (2000). An Introduction to Genetic Analysis, New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. - Hartl D, Jones E (2005). Genetics: Analysis of Genes and Genomes, 6th edition, Jones & Bartlett. - Lodish H, Berk A, Zipursky LS, Matsudaira P, Baltimore D, and Darnell J (2000). Molecular Cell Biology, 4th edition. \|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).\|	3.955366
Individual differences \| Methods \| Statistics \| Clinical \| Educational \| Industrial \| Professional items \| World psychology \| Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) describes a continuum of permanent birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy, which includes, but is not limited to Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Over time, as it became apparent through research and clinical experience that a range of effects (including physical, behavioral, and cognitive) could arise from prenatal alcohol exposure, the term Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, or FASD, was developed to include Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) as well as other conditions resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure. There are a number of other subtypes with evolving nomenclature and definitions based on partial expressions of FAS, including Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (PFAS), Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder (ARND), Alcohol-Related Birth Defects (ARBD), and Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAE). The term Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders is not in itself a clinical diagnosis but describes the full range of disabilities that may result from prenatal alcohol exposure. Currently, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the only expression of prenatal alcohol exposure that is defined by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems and assigned ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnoses. Since the original syndrome of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was reported in 1973, four FASD diagnostic systems that diagnose FAS and other FASD conditions have been developed in North America: - The Institute of Medicine's guidelines for FAS, the first system to standardize diagnoses of individuals with prenatal alcohol exposure, - The University of Washington's "The 4-Digit Diagnostic Code," which ranks the four key features of FASD on a Likert scale of one to four and yields 256 descriptive codes that can be categorized into 22 distinct clinical categories, ranging from FAS to no findings, - The Centers for Disease Control's "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Guidelines for Referral and Diagnosis," which established general consensus on the diagnosis FAS in the U.S. but deferred addressing other FASD conditions, and - Canadian guidelines for FASD diagnoses, which established criteria for diagnosing FASD in Canada and harmonized most differences between the IOM and University of Washington's systems. Each diagnostic system requires that a complete FASD evaluation include assessment of the four key features of FASD, described below. A positive finding on all four features is required for a diagnosis of FAS, the first diagnosable condition of FASD that was discovered. However, prenatal alcohol exposure and central nervous system damage are the critical elements of the spectrum of FASD, and a positive finding in these two features is sufficient for an FASD diagnosis that is not "full-blown FAS." Diagnoses are described in a following section. Key features of FASDEdit Each of the key features of FASD can vary widely within one individual exposed to prenatal alcohol. While consensus exists for the definition and diagnosis of FAS across diagnostic systems, minor variations among the systems lead to differences in definitions and diagnostic cut-off criteria for other disgnoses across the FASD continuum. (The central nervous system (CNS) damage criteria particularly lack clear consensus.) A working knowledge of the key features is helpful in understanding FASD diagnoses and conditions, and each are reviewed with attention to similarities and differences across the four diagnostic systems. In terms of FASD, growth deficiency is defined as significantly below average height, weight or both due to prenatal alcohol exposure, and can be assessed at any point in the lifespan. Growth measurements must be adjusted for parental height, gestational age (for a premature infant), and other postnatal insults (e.g., poor nutrition), although birth height and weight are the preferred measurements. Deficiencies are documented when height or weight falls at or below the 10th percentile of standardized growth charts appropriate to the patient's population. Criteria for FASD are least specific in the IOM diagnostic system ("low birth weight..., decelerating weight not due to nutrition..., [or] disproportional low weight to height" p.4 of executive summary), while the CDC and Canadian guidelines use the 10th percentile as a cut-off to determine growth deficiency. The "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" allows for mid-range gradations in growth deficiency (between the 3rd and 10th percentiles) and severe growth deficiency at or below the 3rd percentile. Growth deficiency (at severe, moderate, or mild levels) contributes to diagnoses of FAS and PFAS, but not ARND or static encephalopathy. Growth deficiency is ranked as follows by the "4-Digit Diagnostic Code:" - Severe - Height and weight at or below the 3rd percentile. - Moderate - Either height or weight at or below the 3rd percentile, but not both. - Mild - Either height or weight or both between the 3rd and 10th percentiles. - None - Height and weight both above the 10th percentile. In the initial studies that discovered FAS, growth deficiency was a requirement for inclusion in the studies; thus, all the original patients with FAS had growth deficiency as an artifact of sampling characteristics used to establish criteria for the syndrome.[How to reference and link to summary or text] That is, growth deficiency is a key feature of FASD because growth deficiency was a criterion for inclusion in the original study that determined the definition of FAS. This reinforces assertions that growth deficiency and FAS facial features are less critical for understanding the disability of FASD than the neurobehavioral sequelae to the brain damage. FAS facial featuresEdit Refinements in diagnostic criteria since 1975 have yielded three distinctive and diagnostically significant facial features known to result from prenatal alcohol exposure and distinguishes FAS from other disorders with partially overlapping characteristics. The three FAS facial features are: - A smooth philtrum - The divot or groove between the nose and upper lip flattens with increased prenatal alcohol exposure. - Thin vermilion - The upper lip thins with increased prenatal alcohol exposure. - Small palpebral fissures - Eye width shortens with increased prenatal alcohol exposure. Measurement of FAS facial features uses criteria developed by the University of Washington. The lip and philtrum are measured by a trained physician with the Lip-Philtrum Guide, a 5-point Likert Scale with representative photographs of lip and philtrum combinations ranging from normal (ranked 1) to severe (ranked 5). Palpebral fissure length (PFL) is measured in millimeters with either calipers or a clear ruler and then compared to a PFL growth chart, also developed by the University of Washington. All four diagnostic systems have agreed upon this method for determining FAS facial feature severity rankings. Ranking FAS facial features is complicated because the three separate facial features can be affected independently by prenatal alcohol. Central nervous system damage Edit Central nervous system (CNS) damage is the primary key feature of any FASD diagnosis. Prenatal alcohol exposure, a teratogen, can damage the brain across a continuum of gross to subtle impairments, depending on the amount, timing, and frequency of the exposure as well as genetic predispositions of the fetus and mother. While functional abnormalities are the behavioral and cognitive expressions of the FASD disability, CNS damage can be assessed in three areas: structural, neurological, and functional impairments. All four diagnostic systems allow for assessment of CNS damage in these areas, but criteria vary. The IOM system requires structural or neurological impairment for a diagnosis of FAS, but also allows a "complex pattern" of functional anomalies for diagnosing PFAS and ARND. The "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" and CDC guidelines allow for a positive CNS finding in any of the three areas for any FASD diagnosis, but functional anomalies must measure at two standard deviations or worse in three or more functional domains for a diagnoses of FAS, PFAS, and ARND. The "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" also allows for an FASD diagnosis when only two functional domains are measured at two standard deviations or worse. The "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" further elaborates the degree of CNS damage according to four ranks: - Definite - Structural impairments or neurological impairments for FAS or static encephalopathy. - Probable - Significant dysfunction of two standard deviations or worse in three or more functional domains. - Possible - Mild to moderate dysfunction of two standard deviations or worse in one or two functional domains or by judgment of the clinical evaluation team that CNS damage cannot be dismissed. - Unlikely - No evidence of CNS damage. Structural abnormalities of the brain are observable, physical damage to the brain or brain structures caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. Structural impairments may include microcephaly (small head size) of two or more standard deviations below the average, or other abnormalities in brain structure (e.g., agenesis of the corpus callosum, cerebellar hypoplasia). Microcephaly is determined by comparing head circumference (often called occipitofrontal circumference, or OFC) to appropriate OFC growth charts. Other structural impairments must be observed through medical imaging techniques by a trained physician. Because imaging procedures are expensive and relatively inaccessible to most patients, diagnosis of FASD is not frequently made via structural impairments except for microcephaly. When structural impairments are not observable or do not exist, neurological impairments are assessed. In the context of FASD, neurological impairments are caused by prenatal alcohol exposure which causes general neurological damage to the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system, or the autonomic nervous system. A determination of a neurological problem must be made by a trained physician, and must not be due to a postnatal insult, such as a high fever, concussion, traumatic brain injury, etc. All four diagnostic systems show virtual agreement on their criteria for CNS damage at the neurological level, and evidence of a CNS neurological impairment due to prenatal alcohol exposure will result in a diagnosis of FAS or PFAS, and functional impairments are highly likely. Neurological problems are expressed as either hard signs, or diagnosable disorders, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific neurological impairments, or symptoms, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination, or sensory integration dysfunction. Many soft signs have norm-referenced criteria, while others are determined through clinical judgment. When structural or neurological impairments are not observed, all four diagnostic systems allow CNS damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure to be assessed in terms of functional impairments. Functional impairments are deficits, problems, delays, or abnormalities due to prenatal alcohol exposure (rather than hereditary causes or postnatal insults) in observable and measurable domains related to daily functioning, often referred to as developmental disabilities. There is no consensus on a specific pattern of functional impairments due to prenatal alcohol exposure and only CDC guidelines label developmental delays as such, so criteria (and FASD diagnoses) vary somewhat across diagnostic systems. The four diagnostic systems list various CNS domains that can qualify for functional impairment that can determine an FASD diagnosis: - Evidence of a complex pattern of behavior or cognitive abnormalities inconsistent with developmental level in the following CNS domains - Sufficient for a PFAS or ARND diagnosis using IOM guidelines - Performance at two or more standard deviations on standardized testing in three or more of the following CNS domains - Sufficient for an FAS, PFAS or static encephalopathy diagnosis using 4-Digit Diagnostic Code - General cognitive deficits (e.g., IQ) at or below the 3rd percentile on standardized testing - Sufficient for an FAS diagnosis using CDC guidelines - Performance at or below the 16th percentile on standardized testing in three or more of the following CNS domains - Sufficient for an FAS diagnosis using CDC guidelines - Performance at two or more standard deviations on standardized testing in three or more of the following CNS domains - Sufficient for an FAS diagnosis using Canadian guidelines Ten Brain DomainsEdit A recent effort to standardize assessment of functional CNS damage has been suggested by an experienced FASD diagnostic team in Minnesota. The proposed framework attempts to harmonize IOM, 4-Digit Diagnostic Code, CDC, and Canadian guidelines for measuring CNS damage viz-a-viz FASD evaluations and diagnosis. The standardized approach is referred to as the Ten Brain Domains and encompasses aspects of all four diagnostic systems' recommendations for assessing CNS damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure. The framework provides clear definitions of brain dysfunction, specifies empirical data needed for accurate diagnosis, and defines intervention considerations that address the complex nature of FASD with the intention to avoid common secondary disabilities. The proposed Ten Brain Domains include: - Achievement, adaptive behavior, attention, cognition, executive functioning, language, memory, motor skills, sensory integration or soft neurological problems, social communication The Fetal Alcohol Diagnostic Program (FADP) uses unpublished Minnesota state criteria of performance at 1.5 or more standard deviations on standardized testing in three or more of the Ten Brain Domains to determine CNS damage. However, the Ten Brain Domains are easily incorporated into any of the four diagnostic systems' CNS damage criteria, as the framework only proposes the domains, rather than the cut-off criteria for FASD. Prenatal alcohol exposureEdit Prenatal alcohol exposure is determined by interview of the biological mother or other family members knowledgeable of the mother's alcohol use during the pregnancy (if available), prenatal health records (if available), and review of available birth records, court records (if applicable), chemical dependency treatment records (if applicable), or other reliable sources. Exposure level is assessed as Confirmed Exposure, Unknown Exposure, and Confirmed Absence of Exposure by the IOM, CDC and Canadian diagnostic systems. The "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" further distinguishes confirmed exposure as High Risk and Some Risk: - High Risk - Confirmed use of alcohol during pregnancy known to be at high blood alcohol levels (100mg/dL or greater) delivered at least weekly in early pregnancy. - Some Risk - Confirmed use of alcohol during pregnancy with use less than High Risk or unknown usage patterns. - Unknown Risk - Unknown use of alcohol during pregnancy. - No Risk - Confirmed absence of prenatal alcohol exposure. Amount, frequency, and timing of prenatal alcohol use can dramatically impact the other three key features of FASD. While consensus exists that alcohol is a teratogen, there is no clear consensus as to what level of exposure is toxic. The CDC guidelines are silent on these elements diagnostically. The IOM and Canadian guidelines explore this further, acknowledging the importance of significant alcohol exposure from regular or heavy episodic alcohol consumption in determining, but offer no standard for diagnosis. Canadian guidelines discuss this lack of clarity and parenthetically point out that "heavy alcohol use" is defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as five or more drinks per episode on five or more days during a 30 day period. "The 4-Digit Diagnostic Code" ranking system distinguishes between levels of prenatal alcohol exposure as High Risk and Some Risk. It operationalizes high risk exposure as a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) greater than 100mg/dL delivered at least weekly in early pregnancy. This BAC level is typically reached by a 55kg female drinking six to eight beers in one sitting. For many adopted or adult patients and children in foster care, records or other reliable sources may not be available for review. Reporting alcohol use during pregnancy can also be stigmatizing to birth mothers, especially if alcohol use is ongoing. In these cases, all diagnostic systems use an unknown prenatal alcohol exposure designation. A diagnosis of FAS is still possible with an unknown exposure level if other key features of FASD are present at clinical levels. Confirmed absence of exposureEdit Confirmed absence of exposure would apply to planned pregnancies in which no alcohol was used or pregnancies of women who do not use alcohol or report no use during the pregnancy. This designation is relatively rare, as most patients presenting for an FASD evaluation are at least suspected to have had a prenatal alcohol exposure due to presence of other key features of FASD. While the four diagnostic systems essentially agree on criteria for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), there are still differences when full criteria for FAS are not met. This has resulted in differing and evolving nomenclature for other conditions across the spectrum of FASD, which may account for such a wide variety of terminology. Most individuals with deficits resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure do not express all features of FAS and fall into other FASD conditions. The Canadian guidelines recommend the assessment and descriptive approach of the "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" for each key feature of FASD and the terminology of the IOM in diagnostic categories, excepting ARBD. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or FAS is the only expression of FASD that has garnered consensus among experts to become an official ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis. To make this diagnosis or determine any FASD condition, a multi-disciplinary evaluation is necessary to assess each of the four key features for assessment. Generally, a trained physician will determine growth deficiency and FAS facial features. While a qualified physician may also assess central nervous system structural abnormalities and/or neurological problems, usually central nervous system damage is determined through psychological, speech-language, and occupational therapy assessments to ascertain clinically significant impairments in three or more of the Ten Brain Domains. Prenatal alcohol exposure risk may be assessed by a qualified physician, psychologist, social worker, or chemical health counselor. These professionals work together as a team to assess and interpret data of each key feature for assessment and develop an integrative, multi-disciplinary report to diagnose FAS (or other FASD conditions) in an individual. Other FASD diagnosesEdit Other FASD conditions are partial expressions of FAS, and here the terminology shows less consensus across diagnostic systems, which has led to some confusion for clinicians and patients. A key point to remember is that other FASD conditions may create disabilities similar to FAS if the key area of central nervous system damage shows clinical deficits in two or more of the Ten Brain Domains. Essentially, growth deficiency and/or FAS facial features may be mild or nonexistent in other FASD conditions, but clinically significant brain damage of the central nervous system is present. In these other FASD conditions, an individual may be at greater risk for adverse outcomes because brain damage is present without associated visual cues of poor growth or the "FAS face" that might ordinarily trigger an FASD evaluation. Such individuals may be misdiagnosed with primary mental health disorders such as ADHD or Oppositional Defiance Disorder without appreciation that brain damage is the underlying cause of these disorders, which requires a different treatment paradigm than typical mental health disorders. While other FASD conditions may not yet be included as an ICD or DSM-IV-TR diagnosis, they nonetheless pose significant impairment in functional behavior because of underlying brain damage. Partial FAS (PFAS)Edit Previously known as Atypical FAS in the 1997 edition of the "4-Digit Diagnostic Code," patients with Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome have a confirmed history of prenatal alcohol exposure, but may lack growth deficiency or the complete facial stigmata. Central nervous system damage is present at the same level as FAS. These individuals have the same functional disabilities but "look" less like FAS. - Growth deficiency - Growth or height may range from normal to deficient - FAS facial features - Two or three FAS facial features present - Central nervous system damage - Clinically significant structural, neurological, or functional impairment in three or more of the Ten Brain Domains - Prenatal alcohol exposure - Confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder (ARND)Edit Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder (ARND) was initially suggested by the Institute of Medicine to replace the term FAE and focus on central nervous system damage, rather than growth deficiency or FAS facial features. The Canadian guidelines also use this diagnosis and the same criteria. While the "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" includes these criteria for three of its diagnostic categories, it refers to this condition as static encephalopathy. The behavioral effects of ARND are not necessarily unique to alcohol however, so use of the term must be within the context of confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure. ARND may be gaining acceptance over the terms FAE and ARBD to describe FASD conditions with central nervous system abnormalities or behavioral or cognitive abnormalities or both due to prenatal alcohol exposure without regard to growth deficiency or FAS facial features. - Growth deficiency - Growth or height may range from normal to minimally deficient - FAS facial features - Minimal or no FAS facial features present - Central nervous system damage - Clinically significant structural, neurological, or functional impairment in three or more of the Ten Brain Domains - Prenatal alcohol exposure - Confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE)Edit This term was initially used in research studies to describe humans and animals in whom teratogenic effects were seen after confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure (or unknown exposure for humans), but without obvious physical anomalies. Smith (1981) described FAE as an "extremely important concept" to highlight the debilitating effects of brain damage, regardless of the growth or facial features. This term has fallen out of favor with clinicians because it was often regarded by the public as a less severe disability than FAS, when in fact its effects can be just as detrimental. Alcohol-Related Birth Defects (ARBD)Edit Formerly known as Possible Fetal Alcohol Effect (PFAE), Alcohol-Related Birth Defects (ARBD) was a term proposed as an alternative to FAE and PFAE The IOM presents ARBD as a list of congenital anomalies that are linked to maternal alcohol use but have no key features of FASD. PFAE and ARBD have fallen out of favor because these anomalies are not necessarily specific to maternal alcohol consumption and are not criteria for diagnosis of FASD. The Canadian guidelines recommend that ARBD should not be used as an umbrella term or diagnostic category for FASD. - ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 Astley, S.J. (2004). Diagnostic Guide for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: The 4-Digit Diagnostic Code. Seattle: University of Washington. PDF available at FAS Diagnostic and Prevention Network. Retrieved on 2007-04-11 - ↑ Ratey, J.J. (2001). A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-375-70107-9. - ↑ Clarren, S.K. (2005). A thirty year journey from tragedy to hope. Foreword to Buxton, B. (2005). Damaged Angels: An Adoptive Mother Discovers the Tragic Toll of Alcohol in Pregnancy. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1550-2. - ↑ Jones, K.L., Smith, D.W, Ulleland, C.N., Streissguth, A.P. (1973). Pattern of malformation in offspring of chronic alcoholic mothers. Lancet, 1, 1267-1271. PMID 4126070 - ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Clarren, S.K., & Smith, D.W. (1978). Fetal alcohol syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine, 298, 1063-1067. PMID 347295 - ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 Institute of Medicine (IOM), Stratton, K.R., Howe, C.J., & Battaglia, F.C. (1996). Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. ISBN 0309052920 - ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Guidelines for Referral and Diagnosis (PDF). CDC (July 2004). Retrieved on 2007-04-11 - ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 Chudley A, Conry J, Cook J, et al (2005). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: Canadian guidelines for diagnosis. CMAJ 172 (5 Suppl): S1–S21. - ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Clinical growth charts. National Center for Growth Statistics. Retrieved on 2007-04-10 - ↑ Jones, K.L., & Smith D.W. (1975). The fetal alcohol syndrome. Teratology, 12(1), 1-10. - ↑ Astley, S.J., & Clarren, S.K. (1996). A case definition and photographic screening tool for the facial phenotype of fetal alcohol syndrome. Journal of Pediatrics, 129(1), 33-41. - ↑ Astley, S.J., Stachowiak, J., Clarren, S.K., & Clausen, C. (2002). Application of the fetal alcohol syndrome facial photographic screening tool in a foster care population. Journal of Pediatrics, 141(5), 712-717. - ↑ Lip-philtrum guides. FAS Diagnostic and Prevention Network, University of Washington. Retrieved on 2007-04-10 - ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 FAS facial features. FAS Diagnostic and Prevention Network, University of Washington. Retrieved on 2007-04-10 - ↑ Astley, Susan. Backside of Lip-Philtrum Guides (2004) (PDF). University of Washington, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Diagnostic and Prevention Network. Retrieved on [[2007-04-11] - ↑ West, J.R. (Ed.) (1986). Alcohol and Brain Development. New York: Oxford University Press. - ↑ 17.0 17.1 FADP - Fetal Alcohol Diagnostic Program - ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 Lang, J. (2006). Ten Brain Domains: A Proposal for Functional Central Nervous System Parameters for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis and Follow-up. Journal of the FAS Institute, 4, 1-11. Can be downloaded at http://www.motherisk.org/JFAS_documents/JFAS_5012_Final_e12_6.28.6.pdf - ↑ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Tenth special report to the U.S> Congress on alcohol and health: Highlights frfom current research. Washington, DC: The Institute. - ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Streissguth, A. (1997). Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Guide for Families and Communities. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing. ISBN 1-55766-283-5. - ↑ Malbin, D. (2002). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Trying Differently Rather Than Harder. Portland, OR: FASCETS, Inc. ISBN 0-9729532-0-5. - ↑ Smith, D.W. (1981). Fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology, 3, 127. - ↑ Aase, J.M., Jones, K.L., & Clarren, S.K. (1995). Do we need the term FAE? Pediatrics, 95(3), 428-430. - ↑ Sokol, R.J., & Clarren, S.K. (1989). Guidelines for use of terminology describing the impact of prenatal alcohol on the offspring. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 13(4), 597-598. - SAMHSA Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Center of Excellence - U.S. Congressional Caucus on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders - NOFAS-UK \|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).\|	3.790938
Linguistik-Klassifikation: Grammatikforschung / Grammar research Grammatical relations typology - Traditionally, the term "grammatical relation" (GR) refers to the morphosyntactic properties that relate an argument to a clause, as, for example, its subject or its object. Alternative terms are "syntactic function" or "syntactic role", and they highlight the fact that GRs are defined by the way in which arguments are integrated syntactically into a clause, i.e. by functioning as subject, object etc. Whatever terminology one prefers, what is crucial about the traditional notion of GRs is (a) that they are identified by syntactic properties, and (b) that they relate an argument to the clause.	3.221474
The Kaveri River also spelled Cauvery in English, is one of the major rivers of India, which is considered sacred by Hindus. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu district in the Western Ghats in the state of Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the southeastern lowlands, emptying into the Bay of Bengal through two principal mouths. The river is considered to rise at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri hills in Kodagu, though there is not a flow at this point all year round. The river Kaveri – one of the seven sacred rivers (sapta sindhu) of India – is one of the most important rivers in south India. Just as the monsoon was breaking, we visited Anandadhama Retreat near Sangama on the banks of river Cauvery, amidst virgin Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and in the vicinity of renowned Shantidhama -- a unique gurukul (an ancient way to schooling). The monsoon skies and the moods of the river are to be seen to be believed!	3.172407
Training to Compete Develop the Engine The Player - SPECIALIZES The players in this stage are generally around 16 - 19 years old for boys and around 15 - 18 years old for girls Players are more likely to have committed themselves to rugby as their chief sport. They are more willing to invest a significant amount of time and energy to become successful. They are driven and are fiercely competitive with a greater capacity for all game related competencies. Players pay more attention to developing themselves as positional specialists in order to undertake their functional roles. Players at this stage are capable of independent thinking and of taking greater responsibility while also contributing more toward problem solving. The Coach - FACILITATES Since players have the capacity for greater input, the role of the coach shifts towards facilitation. Allowing opportunity for opinions and problem solving is critical if players are to develop confidence and relative autonomy. The coach will still need to employ teaching, challenging and guiding skills where appropriate. The emphasis should be on developing players’ ability to navigate rather than replicate. The Game - OUTCOMES The game becomes fiercely competitive with positional specialists influencing games, mini units and units well are synchronized and team play concentrates on reducing errors and maximizing success. The focus is on achieving desired outcomes with respect to attacking and defensive goals (team, unit, mini-unit).	3.114495
Save the Clean Air Act to Fight Global Warming Scientific consensus is clear: We must reduce the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million (ppm) or below to avoid global catastrophe. Unfortunately, pending climate legislation isn't going to get us to 350 ppm -- but the Clean Air Act could. To reach 350 ppm, carbon pollution from the United States and other developed countries must be reduced by 45 percent or more below 1990 levels by 2020. But the Senate climate bill would reduce emissions by just 4 percent below those levels. (The House bill sets even weaker targets.) Clearly, the road map to 350 ppm won't be found in pending legislation. Rather, the path to achieving 350 ppm must utilize the Clean Air Act, which provides indispensable tools for reducing pollution from smokestacks and other big polluters, and also requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set a science-based national pollution limit for greenhouse gases. - Under the Act, the EPA is required to set a limit on the amount of carbon pollution that different sources, such as coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, and cement factories, may emit. - The Act requires each new or modified source of carbon pollution to show that the proposed facility will use the best available carbon control technology before it can be built. - Finally, the Act requires the EPA to use the best available science and set a national limit -- such as 350 ppm -- on the total amount of carbon pollution that may exist in the ambient air. EPA has not yet set that limit, and will be prevented from ever doing so if the current climate bill becomes law. The Clean Air Act is a comprehensive system of pollution control with a proven track record of saving the public money and protecting our planet's health. It can work immediately to curb carbon pollution, either by itself or in conjunction with new climate legislation. Now, more than ever, is the time to enforce the Clean Air Act -- not to gut it. We need you to stand with us to save the Clean Air Act today. - If you haven't yet written to your senators urging them to save the Clean Air Act, click here to send them a message now. - Please call your senators and urge them to save the Clean Air Act -- the entire Clean Air Act. Personal calls from constituents make a big difference. Call (202) 224-3121 and ask for your senators' office, or visit https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/getLocal.jsp to look up your senators' contact information. - Visit your senators' district office. If you live in California, Oregon, Vermont, Nevada, or New Mexico, please join Center for Biological Diversity staff in meeting with your senators’ district office staff to save the Clean Air Act. Space is limited; to reserve a spot or get more information, contact Climate Campaign Coordinator Rose Braz at [email protected] or (415) 436-9682 x 319. And if you don't live in these areas, contact us for talking points to set up and conduct a meeting yourself. Coal plant photo by J.C. Willett, USGS.	3.323248
Louis XV and science: the most beautiful instruments Authors: Engineer: Claude-Siméon Passemant (1702-1769); Clockmaker: Louis Dauthiau (1730-1809); Sculptors and bronze artists: Jean-Jacques and Philippe Caffiéri (1725-1772) Date: Presented to the Royal Academy of Science on 23 August 1749, presented to the king in 1750. Mechanism: 1749; bronze: 1753 Characteristics/Origins: Gilt bronze, enamel, steel, copper and glass. Versailles, musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon © château de Versailles, Christian Milet The extraordinary astronomical clock was added to the clock cabinet in January 1754. Engineer Claude-Siméon Passemant designed the timepiece, clockmaker Louis Dauthiau crafted the mechanism and sculptors and bronze artists Jacques and Philippe II Caffiéri made the case. It shows the date, real time, average time, phases of the moon and movements of the planets according to Copernicus. A moving sphere crowns the exceptional rocaille work, which measures over two metres tall. A bronze globe features all the countries engraved with the main cities. It is amidst rocks and waterfalls serving as the universal horizon. The Academy of Science examined and approved the clock in August 1749 before the Duc de Chaulnes presented it to Louis XV at Choisy on 7 September 1750. The king acquired it that year. It was put in the clock cabinet, attesting to Louis XV's interest in the mechanical arts and clocks; the room actually got its name because of the large astronomical clock dials in the wainscoting showing the sunrises and moonrises every day. The king's scientific interests led him to amplify that daily experience by having the Passemant clock installed in this room. Video in French	3.392086
For one AES is built for three key sizes 128, 192 or 256 bits. Currently, brute-forcing 128 bits is not even close to feasible. Hypothetically, if an AES Key had 129 bits, it would take twice as long to brute-force a 129 bit key than a 128 bit key. This means larger keys of 192 bits and 256 bits would take much much much longer to attack. It would take so incredibly long to brute-force one of these keys that the sun would stop burning before the key was realized. That's a big freaking number. That's how many possibly keys there are. Assuming the key is random, if you divide that by 2 then you have how many keys it will take on average to brute-force AES-256 In a sense we do have the really big cipher keys you are talking of. The whole point of a symmetric key is to make it unfeasible to brute-force. In the future, if attacking a 256bit key becomes possible then keysizes will surely increase, but that is quite a ways down the road. The reason RSA keys are much larger than AES keys is because they are two completely different types of encryption. This means a person would not attack a RSA key the same as they would attack an AES Key. Attacking symmetric keys is easy. - Start with a bitstring - Decrypt ciphertext with that bitstring. - If you can read it, you succeeded. - If you cannot read it then increment the bitstring Attacking an RSA key is different...because RSA encryption/decryption works with big semi-prime numbers...the process is mathy. With RSA, you don't have to try every possible bit string. You try far fewer than 2^2048 bitstrings...but it's still not possible to bruteforce. This is why RSA and AES keys differ in size. To sum up everything and answer your question in 1 sentence. We don't need ridiculously big symmetric keys because we already have ridiculously big symmetric keys. 256 bit encryption sounds wimpy compared to something like a 2048 bit RSA Key, but the algorithms are different and can't really be compared 'bit to bit' like that. In the future if there is a need to longer keys then there will be new algorithms developed to handle larger keys. And if we ever wanted to go bigger on current hardware, it's simply a time tradeoff. Bigger key means longer decryption time means slower communication. This is especially important for a cipher since your internet browser will establish and then use a symmetric key to send information.	3.739564
The coral is at the mercy of natural circumstances like water quality and starfish population, but can be aided by human intervention. The first step to take will be decreasing population and CO2 emissions. Coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef has dropped by more than half over the last 27 years, according to scientists, a result of increased storms, bleaching and predation by population explosions of a starfish which sucks away the coral’s nutrients. At present rates of decline, the coral cover will halve again within a decade, though scientists said the reef could recover if the crown-of-thorns starfish can be brought under control and, longer term, global carbon dioxide emissions are reduced. “This latest study provides compelling evidence that the cumulative impacts of storms, crown-of-thorns starfish (Cots) and two bleaching events have had a devastating effect on the reef over the last three decades,” said John Gunn, chief executive of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Coral reefs are an important part of the marine ecosystem as sources of food and as protection for young fish. They are under threat around the world from the effects of bleaching, due to rising ocean temperatures, and increasing acidification of the oceans, which reduces the corals’ ability to build their calcium carbonate structures. The Great Barrier Reef is the most iconic coral reef in the world, listed as a Unesco world heritage site and the source of $A5bn (£3.2bn) a year to the Australian economy through tourism. The observations of its decline are based on more than 2,000 surveys of 214 reefs between 1985 and 2012. The results showed a decline in coral cover from 28% to 13.8% – an average of 0.53% a year and a total loss of 50.7% over the 27-year period. The study was published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal (subscription). Two-thirds of the coral loss has occurred since 1998 and the rate of decline has increased in recent years, averaging around 1.45% a year since 2006. “If the trend continued, coral cover could halve again by 2022,” said Peter Doherty, a research fellow at the institute. Tropical cyclones, predation by Cots, and bleaching accounted for 48%, 42%,and 10% of the respective estimated losses. In the past seven years the reef has been affected by six major cyclones. Cyclone Hamish, for example, ran along the reef, parallel to the coast for almost 930 miles (1,500km), leaving a trail of destruction much greater than the average cyclone, which usually crosses the reef on a path perpendicular to the coast. The starfish problem was first recorded in 1962 at Green Island off Cairns. “When we say outbreaks, we mean explosions of Cots populations to a level where the numbers are so large that they end up eating upwards of 90% of a reef’s coral,” Gunn said. “Since 1962 there have been major outbreaks every 13-14 years.” The evidence suggests that outbreaks of Cots start two or three years after major floods in northern rivers. In September, scientists at the International Union for Conservation of Nature announced that Caribbean coral reefs are on the verge of collapse, with less than 10% of the reef area showing live coral cover. The collapse was due to environmental issues, including over-exploitation, pollution and climate change. David Curnick, marine and freshwater programme co-ordinator at the Zoological Society of London, said many of the most endangered coral species around the world were also under severe pressure from the aquarium trade. “Corals are notoriously hard to propagate in captivity and therefore the trade is still heavily dependent on harvesting from the wild.”.” He said the results of the Great Barrier Reef survey were not surprising and the challenge for conservationists was to limit the localised threats to give reefs a chance to recover and develop resilience against the effects of climate change. “This is challenging but entirely achievable and there are many community-led projects around the world demonstrating this.” Corals can recover if given the chance. But this is slow – in the absence of cyclones, Cots and bleaching, the Great Barrier Reef can regrow at a rate of 2.85% a year, the scientists wrote. Removing the Cots problem alone would allow coral cover to increase at 0.89% a year. Reducing Cots means improving water quality around the rivers at the northern end of the reef to reduce agricultural run-off – high levels of nutrients flowing off the land feed and allow high survival of Cots larvae. Another option is some form of biological control of populations – Gunn said there were promising results from research on naturally occurring pathogens that could keep Cots in check, but it was not ready to be applied in the field. He said the future of the Reef lay partly in human hands. “We can achieve better water quality, we can tackle the challenge of crown-of-thorns, and we can continue to work to ensure the resilience of the reef to climate change is enhanced. However, its future also lies with the global response to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The coral decline revealed by this study – shocking as it is – has happened before the most severe impacts of ocean warming and acidification associated with climate change have kicked in, so we undoubtedly have more challenges ahead.”	3.897699
Posted on August 4, 2012 by Bob Berwyn Parts of the Cascadia subduction zone may be overdue for a large earthquake. Map courtesy USGS. New research documents timeline of Pacific Northwest fault activity By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — The Pacific Northwest could be due for a monster earthquake sometime in the next 50 years, with Oregon’s southern coast pinpointed as the most vulnerable area, according to Oregon State University researchers who recently finished studying the pattern of historical quakes in the region. The comprehensive analysis of the Cascadia Subduction Zone confirms numerous earthquakes during the past 10,000 years and estimates that a new quake could approach the intensity of the Tohoku quake that devastated Japan in March 2011. “The southern margin of Cascadia has a much higher recurrence level for major earthquakes than the northern end and, frankly, it is overdue for a rupture,” said Chris Goldfinger, a professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and lead author of the study. “That doesn’t mean that an earthquake couldn’t strike first along the northern half, from Newport, Ore., to Vancouver Island. (more…) Filed under: world news \| Tagged: Cascadia subduction zone, earthquakes, Oregon, Oregon State University, Pacific Northwest \| Leave a Comment » Posted on June 23, 2012 by Bob Berwyn Western snowy plover. PHOTO COURTESY USFWS. Settlement may partially protect breeding plovers from encroaching sea level rise By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — Slowly but surely, federal biologists are undoing some of the most egregious decisions by the Bush administration with regard to endangered species. In a settlement announced this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated about 38 square miles of critical habitat for western snowy plovers in Washington, Oregon and California. Snowy plovers were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1993, when the coastal population dropped to 1,500 birds. The listing enabled the population to recover to more than 3,600 adults by 2010. (more…) Filed under: biodiversity, endangered species, Environment \| Tagged: California, Center for Biological Diversity, endangered species act, Oregon, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, Western Snowy plover, western snowy plover critical habitat \| Leave a Comment » Posted on April 13, 2012 by Bob Berwyn Research links ocean acidification with stunted larval growth If you enjoy fresh oysters, eat up, because global warming and ocean acidification are taking a toll on the reproduction of the popular shellfish. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. SUMMIT COUNTY — An Oregon oyster farm may have to shut down because increasing increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in sea water has stunted larval growth, making the operation “non-economically viable.” Researchers found that the sea water is becoming more corrosive, inhibiting larval oysters from developing their shells and growing at a pace that would make commercial production cost-effective. As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, the Oregon oysters may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine for other ocean acidification impacts on shellfish, according to Oregon State University scientists. (more…) Filed under: biodiversity, climate and weather, Environment, global warming \| Tagged: climate, global warming, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Netarts Bay, ocean acidification, Oceanography, Oregon, Oregon State University, oysters \| Leave a Comment » Posted on March 9, 2012 by Bob Berwyn Cultural shift needed to ensure safety of coastal residents Tsunami flooding on the Sendai Airport runway. PHOTO COURTESY U.S. AIR FORCE. By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — The one-year anniversary of the devastating tsunami in Japan offers some sobering lessons for parts of the U.S. that could one day face a similar disaster. The fact that 90 percent of the coastal region’s residents and visitors evacuated effectively is a tribute to planning and community drills, said Patrick Corcoran, an Oregon State University education and outreach specialist, who just returned from a disaster symposium at United Nations University in Japan. If the same magnitude earthquake and tsunami hits the Pacific Northwest, the death toll will be much higher because of the lack of comparable preparation, he said. That 90 percent rate could be the number of victims, not survivors. (more…) Filed under: world news \| Tagged: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan, Japan tsunami anniversary, Oregon, Oregon State University, Pacific Northwest \| 3 Comments » Posted on November 26, 2011 by Bob Berwyn Gray wolf. PHOTO COURTESY USFWS. Sanctioned Oregon killings on hold pending appeals court review of state wildlife laws By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — As a species, we humans like to think we’ve progressed in the last 100 years or so, but some things haven’t changed all that much, including an irrational fear and hatred of wild predators like wolves that still rears its ugly head. That was proven once again last month, when at the behest of the ranching industry, wildlife officers in Oregon set out to decimate a wolf pack in the eastern part of the state. The wolves targeted for killing included the alpha male and a yearling wolf of the Imnaha pack, the state’s first pack in nearly 65 years and one of only four statewide. The pack is the first to raise pups in Oregon since the animals began their fragile recovery in the state more than a decade ago. (more…) Filed under: biodiversity, endangered species, Environment, Summit County news \| Tagged: biodiversity, Environment, Imnaha wolf pack, Oregon, wolves \| 7 Comments »	3.04622
What Is the TOEIC? The TOEIC or Test of English for International Communication, is a standardized, paper-and-pencil test given to non-native English speakers. Who Uses TOEIC Results? - Corporations and government agencies recruiting new hires - Educational institutions establishing placement in English classes. The traditional TOEIC only tests two skills: Listening and Reading. However, ETS, the makers of the TOEIC, have added this test, the TOEIC Speaking and Writing exam, to its English Language Test repertoire. Here's what you can expect to see on the computer-based TOEIC Speaking and Writing Test: How Long is the TOEIC Speaking and Writing Test? - About 1 ½ hours - 20 minutes for TOEIC Speaking - 60 minutes for TOEIC Writing How's your ability to speak English? The TOEIC Speaking Test measures your ability to use English in your own life and throughout the course of your career. Anyone can take the test – it's designed so that people highly skilled with the English language and others not so skilled can both perform. You'll have 11 different tasks during this test, but will spend only about 20 minutes on it. Again, the TOEIC Writing Test examines testers newly writing in English all the way through proficient English writers. Here, you'll have 8 tasks to complete and about an hour to spend working on them.	3.147314
\|Francisco Vasquez de Coronado\| The First Thanksgiving in the New World was held at Palo Duro Canyon on Ascension Thursday, May 23, 1541. On that day, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his men held a day of thanksgiving after "Coronado's expedition had left Mexico in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, but instead of a mythical city of gold, Coronado and his men found the Llano Estacado, where there were no cities, no trees and very little water." (from homepages.vvm.com)The rest of that story can be found here. This series of events has been verified by historians the world over, so this is the first instance of Thanksgiving as we know it in the New World. On April 21, 1598, another Thanksgiving took place in Texas. That story can be found here. Now we have two "Thanksgivings" quite a few years before the Pilgrims celebrated their own day of thanks at Plymouth Rock. I know this story may ruffle a few turkey feathers, but history is history. I don't bring this up to in any way diminish the importance of the Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in 1621 as it was certainly one of the most historic days of the American story. Three groups of people came to the New World for various reasons and independent of each other by miles and by years, found a reason to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving in what is now the United States of America, long may She live.	3.510812
On this day in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter and his financer Lord Carnarvon became the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years. Carter had been working in the Valley of the Kings for many years, but on 4th November 1922, Carter’s water carrier found the steps leading to Tutankhamun’s tomb and Carter wired Carnavon to come quickly. On 26th November, Carter made the famous “tiny breach in the top left hand corner” of the doorway, and was able to peer into the antechamber (see picture) by the light of a candle and see that many of the gold and ebony treasures were still in place. When Carnarvon asked “Can you see anything?”, Carter replied: “Yes, wonderful things.” In the following months, Carter and his team gained access to the antechamber, and began the excavation of the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found. The first item was removed from the tomb on December 27th and on February 16th 1923, the Burial Chamber was oficially opened, where the team found the sarcophagus and the mummified remains of Tutankhamun.	3.762534
Motifs using characters, creatures, and settings from classic Fairy Tales to represent characters or ideas, for example, a love interest being equated with a Knight in Shining Armor . Modern day Cinderella stories commonly mine this fairy tale trope as well. Many of them are, in fact, Dead Unicorn Tropes . Dragons, unicorns, fairies, and knights are in fact exceedingly rare in fairy tales. For tropes actually found in fairy tales, see Fairy Tale Tropes Fairytale Motifs are used to add romance to a story, especially one set mainly in the grim and gritty real world. The fact that most people have read the fairy tales means that the symbolism isn't likely to be lost. Fairytale Motifs differ slightly from Mythological Motifs. While the former features specific fairy tale characters — such as Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty — it also includes general, archetypal examples, usually a "species" rather than one particular person/animal. The latter tends to use specific characters belonging to a recognizable mythology. For example, most people recognize a unicorn when they see one, but the creature itself has a rather vague history and there is no named unicorn who was the "first of its kind." Therefore, it's a Fairytale Motif. Pegasus, the winged horse, on the other hand, is one specific character from Greek myths with a Canon history , making it a Mythological Motif. Some fairytale motifs include: - Dragons: Western dragons can be used to represent very strong or fierce characters, where as eastern dragons are more likely to be wise. - Fairies: The more popular versions of the fairy are carefree, innocent creatures, usually associated with little girls. May indicate a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, since "away with the fairies" is another way to say "constantly daydreaming" or "slightly crazy." The fairies taken from older traditions, such as Celtic Mythology, aren't quite so cutesy — in fact they're downright malevolent at times. Modern literature increasingly employs this version of the fairy-folk, usually as Tricksters. - Knights: Often, a very noble character, akin to the Knight In Shining Armor, however, the symbolism linked to a knight could easily be used for a Knight Templar character as well (perhaps due to the association in the trope name). - Royalty: Generally used to represent power, wealth or prestige. These are often used in High School settings to refer to "the popular kids". - Princess: Often the Alpha Bitch, however, a wealthy or popular girl of any sort will often be equated to a princess (for an example of this comparison, look no farther than this site). A Queen will often refer to the same stereotype, especially if there is a corresponding? - King: Generally the leader of a group or organization or the reigning champion of something (i.e. "The King of Table Tennis"). In the aforementioned High School settings, the king will often be a Jerk Jock. - Unicorn: The mythological "horse with a horn," although many different descriptions of them exist. Usually pure, gentle and noble, although subversions do exist. Being able to draw a unicorn's attention is generally a Virgin Power. Strongly associated with chastity, and often a motif for young girls. - Wolves: While the wolf's image has been getting better in recent times, increasingly being seen as a "spirit of the wild," people can't quite get over "Little Red Riding Hood". While the wolf is an animal motif at the same time, the wolf as a threat to young girls/ sexual predator seems to have its roots in the fairy tale. - In Germanic countries, the wolf is (or was historically) the equivalent of the Devil - they even have an expression about them that's interchangable with "Speak of the Devil". open/close all folders Anime and Manga - Revolutionary Girl Utena uses a Fairytale Motif in order to deconstruct the romance fairytale of the Prince as male love interest saving the Princess. - Skip Beat!! 's Kyouko seems to believes that fairies are real, and very often acts following Cinderella-like Fairy Tales tropes, seeing the (mostly villainous) characters she interprets as princesses under a curse. There is not Wrong Genre Savvyness, just a girl whose life has been so horrible she just prefer to believe she could be rescued and become a Real Princess, even if she knows it isn't. Pity nobody had informed her how The Fair Folk and the Old Fairy Tales truly are... - Princess Tutu mixes Magical Girl tropes and fairy tale motifs with references to specific stories and ballets. The first season mostly plays the typical fairytale structure straight (outside of the fact that the princess is saving the prince), only to deconstruct it in the second season when the characters rebel against their assigned fairy tale roles as the prince, princess, villain and knight and decide to (literally) rewrite the story. - Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade draws on (and quotes) the more traditional darker version of "Little Red Riding Hood" for its story of a relationship between a young terrorist girl, and a 'wolf' from the elite Kerberos Panzer police. The anime film makes the point that such relationships are always fated to end badly. - Monster uses a fairy tale (or several) to foreshadow the antagonist's modus operandi. - Cowboy Bebop uses the tale of Urashima Taro as a constant recurring motif and theme, with most of the characters having connections to it, most literally Faye. - Prétear, plain and simple. Although, considering it's based on "Snow White", maybe that's not really surprising. - Cyber Team In Akihabara invokes many fairy tales motifs, but the main one is the wish of 13 year old protagonist Hibari for meeting and falling in love with a fairy tale prince and live Happily Ever After with him. Her Character Development is essentially to get rid of that mindset, usually via Be Careful What You Wish For. - AR∀GO: City of London Police's Special Crimes Investigator uses a great many motifs from fairy tales and mythology in general, and it tends to go with the older versions of the stories. - Gaba Kawa actually follows the theme/basic plot of "The Little Mermaid", becoming more obvious about it in the final two chapters. - Puella Magi Madoka Magica follows the theme/basic plot of "The Little Mermaid" in Sayaka's arc, to tragic conclusion. The other motif is Faust, but that's most definitely not a fairytale. - Mawaru-Penguindrum has had allusions to various fairytales involving apples, but so far the most prominent motif seems to be the resemblance of the siblings' lives to an in-universe fairytale about a man named Mary and his three little lambs offending a goddess. - Alice from Mahou Tsukai No Yoru possesses magic which revolves around fairy tales. - The manga Akagami No Shirayukihime is based on the tale of "Snow White". (The title literally means "Red-haired Snow White".) The first chapter in particular has a lot of tributes to the original story. Live Action Television - Homestuck In SBurb, all players are given a particular class and aspect that determines their powers. The classes are themed around typical High Fantasy character types such as 'prince', 'witch', and 'knight'. Then there's the kingdoms of Derse and Prospit who double up this trope with Chess Motifs, as well as the fact that all Sburb players are considered to be princes or princesses of one or the other. Then there's Terezi loving dragons and Tavros liking fairies (and since god tier trolls possess wings, they're sort of fairies as well) and Feferi being an actual princess. Of course, all the fantasy elements are mixed with a good deal of science fiction and technology as well. - The "Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On" arc of Roommates has both general fairy tale motifs and more specifically Swan Lake allusions in it's dream sequences to symbolically communicate information to the main character (Jareth)note . The fair folk don't do simple.	3.032382
The Chateauesque is based on the monumental 16th century chateaus of France. The style combines Gothic elements with the 16th century’s fashionable move to Renaissance detailing. In the United States, the style was popularized by Richard Morris Hunt, the first American architect to study at France’s prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. Due to the Chateauesque style’s requirement of massive masonry construction and elaborate detailing, the style was unsuitable for vernacular adaptation and remained a rare and architect-designed fashion. Identifying features include a steeply pitched hipped roof, a busy roof line with intricate and multiple vertical elements, such as spires, pinnacles, turrets, gables and shaped chimneys, multiple dormers extending beyond the cornice line and walls of stone masonry. Turrets and towers typically have steep candle-snuffer roofs, whereas dormer roofs are usually steep, parapeted gables. Ornamental metal cresting is sometimes observed along roof ridges and above the cornice. Windows, doors and façade elements are often decorated with shallow relief carving or Gothic tracing. Windows are typically divided into narrow vertical panels by stone mullions with smaller transoms above. Windows and doorways are typically arched in a characteristic Gothic basket shape.	3.421372
exactly located (exactlyLocated) The actual, minimal location of an Object. This is a subrelation of the more general Predicate SUMO / BASE-ONTOLOGY Related WordNet synsets - the precise location of something; a spatially limited location; "she walked to a point where she could survey the whole street" Agar obj is partly located in region, to yah kuch subobj nahin, ki subobj is a part of obj aur subobj is exactly located in region. (partlyLocated ?OBJ ?REGION) (part ?SUBOBJ ?OBJ) (exactlyLocated ?SUBOBJ ?REGION)))) Agar obj is exactly located in region, to yah kuch otherobj nahin, ki otherobj is exactly located in region aur otherobj is not equal to obj. (exactlyLocated ?OBJ ?REGION) (exactlyLocated ?OTHEROBJ ?REGION) (equal ?OTHEROBJ ?OBJ)))))) "thing ki jagah time tha" is equal to region agar hai thing is exactly located in region during time. (WhereFn ?THING ?TIME) (exactlyLocated ?THING ?REGION)))	3.342184
The Missouri River remained swollen through parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas in early August 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the top image on August 2, 2011. For comparison, the bottom image shows the same area one year earlier, on August 3, 2010. Both images use a combination of visible and infrared light to increase contrast between water and land. Water is navy blue. Vegetation is green. Clouds range in color from off-white to pale glue-green. Compared to the previous year, the Missouri River is substantially swollen in 2011, especially along Nebraska’s eastern border. The river has also pushed over its banks in parts of Kansas and Missouri. On August 5, 2011, the Advanced Hydrological Prediction Service (AHPS) of the U.S. National Weather Service reported major flooding in St. Joseph, Missouri. The AHPS also reported moderate flooding in the Kansas communities of Atchison and Leavenworth; in the Missouri community of Napoleon; and in the Nebraska communities of Blair, Omaha, Plattsmouth, Brownville, and Rulo. High-resolution imagery acquired on August 1, 2011, shows flooded agricultural fields around Blair, Nebrasa. - National Weather Service. Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service. Accessed August 5, 2011.	3.102401
The Budapest you'll see today is the result of many years of rich history, with traces of inhabitation dating back as far as the second millennium BC. Hungarian tribes arrived at the end of the ninth century and the Hungarian Kingdom was established in 1000. The city as we know it today was formed through the joining of Buda, Pest and Old Buda, back in 1873. Follow the Budapest History time line below to see the many events leading up to the city's formation. Archaeological finds indicate that the first settlement in the location of present-day Budapest was built by Celts. The Romans occupied this town in the first century BC. 1st century BC to 5th century AD – Western Hungary is part of the Roman Empire. Aquincum is founded and quickly becomes the largest town and one of the capitals of Pannonia. 5th century to 9th century – The Roman era ends in the 5th century and the age of Huns begins. Attila, King of the Huns, builds a city for himself here according to later chronicles. Following the Huns several tribes (Lombards, Avars and Slavs) pass through Hungary until the arrival of Magyars. Arrival of the Magyars: The Hungarian tribes arrived to the Carpathian Basin in 896. Árpád, leader of the Magyars, settled on Csepel sziget, an island in the southern part of Budapest. 1000 – St. Stephen is crowned; he becomes the first king of Hungary. Hungary converts to Christianity and becomes an independent kingdom. 1046 – Bishop Gellért dies at the hands of pagans on present-day Gellért Hill in the fight against Christianity. 12th century – The development of Buda and Pest starts thanks to the French, Walloon and German settlers who migrate here and work and trade along the banks of the Danube. 1241-42 – The Mongolian invasion destroys both cities. 1248 – King Béla IV builds the first royal castle on Castle Hill in Buda and city walls surround Pest. 14th century – The Angevin kings from France established Buda as a royal seat, building probably the largest Gothic palace. 1458 – The noblemen of Hungary elect Matthias Corvinus as king. Under his reign, Buda becomes a main hub of European Renaissance. It is truly an age of prosperity. He dies in 1490, after capturing Vienna in 1485. 1541 – The beginning of the Turkish occupation. Multiple mosques and baths are built in Buda; churches (such as Matthias Church) are converted. The Turkish occupation lasted almost 150 years. 1686 – Buda and Pest are re-conquered from the Turks with Habsburg leadership. The Habsburg rule begins. Both towns are destroyed completely in the battles. 1773 – Election of the first Mayor of Pest. 1777 – Maria Theresa of Austria moves the first University to Castle Hill. 1783 – Joseph II places the acting government to the city of Buda. 1825 – Pest becomes the cultural and economic centre of the country. The first National Theatre is built, along with the Hungarian National Museum and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge (Lánchíd). 1838 – The year of the biggest flood in recent memory. The entire Pest side is under water. 1848-49 – Revolution and War of Independence. Pest replaces Bratislava as the new capital of Hungary and it becomes the seat of the first prime minister, its government and the Parliament. 1849 – The Austrians occupy the city and the Habsburg army captures the two towns. Lajos Batthyány, the first Hungarian Prime Minister is executed on the present-day Szabadság tér. 1867 – The Austro-Hungarian Compromise, beginning of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, followed by unprecedented civic development, resulting in the style of present day Budapest. 1873 – The former cities Pest, Buda and Óbuda are united, and with that the Hungarian capital is established with the name of Budapest. 1896 – Year of the Millennium, celebrations are held all over the city. The Millennium Underground is inaugurated, and the Franz Josef Bridge (today's Liberty Bridge) is opened. 1910 – According to census the population of Budapest is 880,000 1918 – World War I ends the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the development of Budapest is slowed down by political upheavals. Budapest in the 20th Century: 1918-19 – Revolution in Budapest and the 133 days of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. This was the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. 1919-44 – Status quo was restored by a charismatic leader in the person of Admiral Horthy a self-appointed regent for the exiled King Karl IV. Hungary was a kingdom without a king. 1920 – The Trianon Treaty re-sized Hungary. Three-fifth of the country was assigned to surrounding successor states. 1924 – the Hungarian National Bank is founded. 1941 – Entry into World War II as an ally of Germany. 1944 – Budapest is occupied by the Germans. At the time of the occupation, there were around 200,000 Jews in the city. Fewer than half of them survived the following 11 months. Dec. 1944 - Feb. 1945 – Soviet and Romanian troops besiege Budapest. The retreating Germans destroy all Danube bridges. The Buda castle falls. World War II took the lives of close to 200,000 Budapest residents and caused widespread damage to the buildings in the city. 1945-48 – Hungary is declared a republic, practicing a multi party parliamentary democracy. 1948 – A Soviet friendly Communist government takes over and Hungary is declared a People's Republic. Oct. 1956 – The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 breaks out, ending in the invasion of a large Soviet force, killing civilians and damaging buildings in Budapest (traces of the gunfire can still be seen on the façades of several buildings). 1956-58 – Revenge and forceful restoration of Soviet power. 1960s – Conditions normalize; reforms create a so called 'Goulash Communism' in Hungary, a Communism with elements of free market and improved human rights. Wartime damages are largely repaired; the Elizabeth Bridge is finished in 1965. 1970-72 – Construction of the East-Western Subway line (M2) begins. 1982 – Construction of the North-Southern Subway line (M3) begins. 1987 – Buda Castle Hill and the banks of the Danube are added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 1989-1990 – The 'changes', transition to free elections and a democratic government. Hungary's changeover to a Western-style democracy was one of the smoothest among the former Soviet bloc. 1990 – According to census the city is home to 2,000,000 residents. Present day Budapest: 2002 – Andrássy Avenue is added to the World Heritage Sites, along with the Millennium Underground Railway, Heroes' Square and City Park. 2002 – Inauguration of the new National Theatre. 2004 – Hungary joins the European Union. 2008 – According census, Budapest is home to 1,700,000 residents. 2010 – Inauguration of Budapest’s ‘Mainstreet’ (a Belváros Főutcája), a project that re-shapes a 1.7-km stretch of downtown Pest from Kálvin tér to Szabadság tér. 2011 – Margaret Bridge reopens after extensive renovations. Present – Construction of the fourth subway line (M4) is underway. Finally, if you like infographics, you can find out some quirky facts about Hungary, our language, history and more here: Let’s talk a bit about Hungary	3.430255
Jean de Court, Marguerite de France as Minerva painted enamel, Limoges, 1555 (IIIF253) In this remarkable portrait, Marguerite de France (1523-1574), daughter of François 1 (d. 1547) and sister of Henri II (d. 1559), is depicted as Pallas/Minerva, classical goddess of war and wisdom. This alludes to her role as protectress of contemporary French culture against ‘le vilain monster Ignorance’, the mantle bestowed upon her after she defended Pierre Ronsard’s poetry against attack in 1549. Poets referred to Henri II’s court as the ‘Nouvel Olympe’ and to Marguerite as ‘la nouvelle Pallas’. Limoges was the principal centre producing painted enamels in the 16th century. The bust of Henri d’Albret (no.24) is typical of mid-century portraits. D’Albret was married to Marguerite’s aunt, the authoress Marguerite d’Angoulême. Marguerite’s head is after a drawing attributed to François Clouet, now at Chantilly, which may have been the official image of the princess. Portraits in enamel were often modelled on drawings attributed to Clouet’s workshop and may have been incorporated into panelling. Marguerite’s costume and attributes as Pallas/Minerva are derived from a print by René Boyvin after Luca Penni. The armillary globe alludes to Marguerite’s fame and to her motto, ‘Wisdom, guardian of the world’. As goddess of war, she wears a breastplate, holds a spear and her shield decorated with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, and has a plumed helmet at her feet. As goddess of wisdom, Marguerite’s foot rests on some books surmounted by an owl. Dramatised portraits were an established form of selfpropaganda, but examples in enamel are rare. The portrait is painted in opaque and translucent enamel colours on a copper base. Silver foil below translucent blue enriches Marguerite’s costume. The image was built up in successive kiln firings at diminishing temperatures. For the first firing, both sides of the metal were coated with enamel. Enamelling the back equalises the stress between the metal and the enamel on cooling, minimising distortion. Firing fuses the enamels to the base and produces their vivid colours and glossy surface. The gold, fusing at the lowest temperature, is applied last. This is the only fully signed and dated enamel by Jean de Court, about whom little is known. Art historians have long speculated as to whether he might have had some involvement with a workshop or workshops inscribing enamels ‘I C’ and ‘I D C’ (nos. 12, 13, 14 and 15).	3.012314
Meter is the organization of speech rhythms (verbal stresses) into regular patterns, in terms of both the arrangement of stresses and their frequency of repetition per line of verse. Poetry is organized by the division of each line of verse into "feet," metric units which each consist of a particular arrangement of strong and weak stresses. The most common metric unit is the iambic foot, in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one (as in the words "revrse" and "compse"). Here is a table of meters and their names. Meter is also determined by the number of feet in a line. A line with five feet is called pentameter; thus, a line of five iambs is known as "iambic pentameter" (the most common metrical form in English poetry). The most common line lengths are: trimeter: three feet tetrameter: four feet pentameter: five feet hexameter: six feet (an "Alexandrine" when iambic) heptameter: seven feet (a "fourteener" when iambic) Naturally, there is a degree of variation from line to line, as a rigid adherence to the meter results in unnatural or monotonous language. A skillful poet manipulates breaks in the prevailing rhythm of a poem for particular effects. John Donne, for example, rarely held to the meter of his lines for more than a few feet at a time. These lines from his Holy Sonnet 14 (1633) are written in iambic pentameter, but the stress patterns vary a great deal: That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.	3.651464
Failure-to-thrive is when a child is not growing as expected. It does not include children who are small for their age. The exact definition is not completely agreed upon. Children grow quickly in the first few years of life. A child with failure-to-thrive will have a height and weight that is well below other children of their age. Your child may have also had a normal growth pattern that began to slow down. Initially the child has similar height and weight than their peers but at follow-up appointments the child's height and weight does not keep up with their peers. In general, failure-to-thrive means that a child: - Is at or below the 3rd to 5th percentile for height and weight. T - Has failed to grow as expected. This is shown by dropping two growth percentiles. For example, the child goes from the 75th percentile to below the 25th percentile. Failure-to-thrive is split into several types according to the cause. Types include: - Organic failure-to-thrive—caused by some other medical condition - Nonorganic failure-to-thrive—occurs in children with no known medical condition - Mixed failure-to-thrive—occurs when the child has features of both organic and nonorganic failure-to-thrive Gastrointestinal disease may make it difficult for your child to eat or absorb food. This may include: - Reflux —stomach acid backs up into the throat. This can make it uncomfortable to swallow. - Pyloric stenosis —valve on the stomach can not close properly, this can lead to reflux. - Cleft lip and/or palate —birth defects of the lip and roof of the mouth, this condition can make it difficult to eat solid foods. - Hirschsprung's disease —a condition that can cause a blockage in the intestines - Hepatitis —liver disease that can cause general fatigue and ill feeling - Cirrhosis —liver disease that can cause general fatigue and ill feeling - Pancreatic insufficiency—pancrease helps digestion of fats, if there is a problem, food may not be properly absorbed into the body - Malabsorption—general problem in the intestines ability to absorb food - Milk protein intolerance—inability for the baby to digest proteins found in milk, even if the baby is taking in enough milk it is not getting to the body Kidney disease—can decrease your child's appetite and impair growth - Urinary tract infection - Kidney failure - Diabetes insipidus Heart and lung disease—can decrease your child's appetite and impair growth Mucus Blockage in Lungs and Pancreas Due to Cystic Fibrosis-Contributes to Failure to ThriveCopyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc. Endocrine disease—can decrease your child's appetite or how the body processes food - Thyroid problems - Pituitary disease - Growth hormone deficiency - Infectious disease—can decrease your child's appetite and impair growth - Breastfeeding difficulties including insufficient milk supply syndrome - Chromosomal birth defects - Fetal alcohol syndrome - Lead poisoning - Child abuse or negligence - Parental ignorance Factors that may increase your child's risk of failure-to-thrive include: - Untreated medical conditions - Poverty, including lack of available food - Poor parenting skills - Depression in the parent - Severe family stress - Slowed growth in a young child, including height and weight - Slowed development, including late rolling, sitting, crawling, standing, walking, and talking - Small muscles - Weakness, low energy - Hair loss - Loose folds of skin - Other symptoms related to an underlying medical condition Failure-to-thrive is diagnosed based on following a child's growth. The doctor will plot your child's weight, height, and head circumference on standard growth charts. If the child falls below a certain weight range or drops two percentiles on the growth chart, the doctor will evaluate the child further. If a medical condition may be the cause, the doctor will order further tests. The type of tests will depend on the condition. Sometimes, a child must be hospitalized for a period of time to find the cause of failure-to-thrive. During this time the doctor will: - Monitor the relationship between parent and child, paying particular attention to their behavior around feeding - Set up a feeding schedule with an adequate amount of calories - Make sure that an appropriate feeding technique is used If the child can gain weight under these circumstances, this supports the diagnosis of nonorganic failure-to-thrive. Treatment may include: Treating a Medical Condition Treating the underlying medical condition may correct failure-to-thrive. Providing Extra Calories Children who are malnourished may need liquid supplements. They can help to boost their weight and nutrition. When a child is hospitalized for diagnosis, the hospital staff can also provide treatment. Nurses can teach parents appropriate feeding techniques. They may also show how to best interact with their child. If the child isn't hospitalized, parents can still have training sessions with a nutritionist or a nurse. Parents and children who are having difficulty with their relationship may benefit from counseling. To help prevent failure to thrive: - Take your children to the doctor regularly to have their growth checked. This helps detect and treat failure-to-thrive before it becomes severe. - Develop a good relationship with your child's doctor. - Ask the doctor about proper parenting and nutrition for early in a baby's life. - Your doctor may recommend parent-training sessions. - Reviewer: Michael Woods - Review Date: 09/2012 - - Update Date: 00/91/2012 -	3.555131
What are the risks of connecting to a hidden network? A hidden network is a wireless network that is set to not broadcast its name (or service set identifier (SSID)). Normally, wireless networks broadcast their name, and your computer “listens” for the name of the network that it wants to connect to. Since a hidden network doesn’t broadcast, your computer can't find it, so the network has to find your computer. For this to happen, your computer must broadcast both the name of the network it's looking for and its own name. In this situation, other computers “listening” for networks will know the name of your computer as well as the network you’re connected to, which increases the risk of your computer being attacked. Whenever possible, always connect to wireless networks that are set to broadcast and have some form of security. For more information, see How do I know if a wireless network is secure?.	3.065622
2 entries found for shout. To select an entry, click on it. Main Entry: 1shout Function: verb 1: to utter a sudden loud cry <shouted for joy> 2: to utter in a loud voice <shouted out the answers> - shout·ernoun synonymsSHOUT, SHRIEK, SCREECH mean to utter a loud cry. SHOUT suggests any kind of loud cry that is meant to be heard either far away or above other noise <we shouted to them across the street>. SHRIEK suggests a high-pitched, shrill cry that is a sign of strong feeling <the children shrieked with excitement>. SCREECH suggests a drawn-out shriek that is usually without words and is very harsh and unpleasant <the cats fought and screeched>.	3.331668
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence" - S: (n) skim (a thin layer covering the surface of a liquid) "there was a thin skim of oil on the water" - S: (n) skim, skimming (reading or glancing through quickly) - S: (v) plane, skim (travel on the surface of water) - S: (v) skim over, skim (move or pass swiftly and lightly over the surface of) - S: (v) scan, skim, rake, glance over, run down (examine hastily) "She scanned the newspaper headlines while waiting for the taxi" - S: (v) skim, skip, skitter (cause to skip over a surface) "Skip a stone across the pond" - S: (v) skim (coat (a liquid) with a layer) - S: (v) skim, skim off, cream off, cream (remove from the surface) "skim cream from the surface of milk" - S: (v) skim, skim over (read superficially) - S: (adj) skim, skimmed (used of milk and milk products from which the cream has been removed) "yogurt made with skim milk"; "she can drink skimmed milk but should avoid butter"	3.36615
Where on Earth...? MISR Mystery Image Quiz #8 Here's another chance to play geographical detective! This Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) image covers an area measuring approximately 297 kilometers x 221 kilometers, and was captured by the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera on April 12, 2001. A large river flows from the left side of the image, below center, and traverses the image, angling northeast toward the upper right. It then makes a hairpin turn and continues to flow in a generally southward direction near the right-hand side of the image. Below are eight statements about this river, only some of which are true. Use any reference materials you like, and mark each statement true or false: 1. Within the image area, the river flows across an international boundary into an area where over 100 species of orchids grow. 2. The river's name in a particular language means "pacifier" in English. 3. Sedimentary rocks containing mineral grains that record changes in the orientation of Earth's magnetic field have been found north of the river. 4. At least one expert kayaker has perished attempting to navigate a deep gorge of the river. 5. The two highest named peaks within the image area are situated on opposite sides of the river; each has a maximum elevation of nearly 4000 meters. 6. The description of a mythical place in a 1930's British novel is thought by some explorers to have been inspired by a location on this river. 7. Scientists believe that 100 million years ago the region through which the river flows was farther from the equator than it is today. 8. In the 1920's, an expedition along the river searched for and successfully encountered a legendary 30-meter-high waterfall. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. A new "Where on Earth...?" mystery will appear periodically. The image also appears on the Earth Observatory, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ , and on the Atmospheric Sciences Data Center home pages, http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/ , though usually with a several-hour delay. Credit: Image credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. << RETURN TO GALLERY	3.74861
Romanticism, Poe, and The Raven The era of Romanticism spans from the late 1700's to the mid 1800's following the French Revolution; therefore, "Romanticism" encompasses characteristics of the human mind in addition to the particular time in history when these qualities became dominant in culture. Romanticism depicts an artistic movement which emerged from reaction against dominant attitudes and approaches of the 18th century. Romanticism established realism in literature through creativity, innovation, exploration, and vivid imagery. By expanding beyond the definition of love, Romanticism, accented by mystery, delves into the strange and fantastic aspects of human experiences. "To escape from society, the Romantics turned their interests to remote and faraway places; the medieval past; folklore and legends, and nature and the common man." Edgar Allen Poe is noted as one of the few American "Romantic" poets. Poe's poem "The Raven" portrays Romanticism as characterized by emotion, exotica, and imagination. A friend of Edgar Allen Poe, R. H. Horne, wrote of "The Raven", "the poet intends to represent a very painful condition of the mind, as of an imagination that was liable to topple over into some delirium or an abyss of melancholy, from the continuity of one unvaried emotion." Edgar Allen Poe, author of "The Raven," played on the reader's emotions. The man in " The Raven" was attempting to find comfort from the remembrance of his lost love. By turning his mind to Lenore and recalling how her frame will never again bless the chair in which he now reposes, he is suddenly overcome with grief, whereby the reader immediately feels sorry for the lonely man. The reader pities the man's state of mind. In addition to an emotional characteristic, Poe also portrays the exotic. Exotic means "unnatural". Exotic means a raven that speaks only one word. Exotic means a bird that refuses to leave and insists in staying in one place. Finally, exotic means a life of torment of the speakers soul. The man is drawn to the bird to seek an answer to the monotonous reply of " Finally, "The Raven: is characterized by imagination. The man imagines that a raven is a godsend, intended to relieve him of his anguish. The man imagines that like all other blessings of his life, the bird will leave. The man's imagination rebukes the bird. The man calls the bird a " thing of evil". The reader imagines a lonely, frightened, old man who has suffered a great loss. "The Raven is a poem written during the Romantic Era. Romanticism doesn't mean that a literary work has to be about love. Ironically, "The Raven" is both "romantic" and from the "Romantic" period. Poe's poem is about a man's "lost love". The man's emotions causes him to become exotic (shouting like a maniac for the bird to take its leave) and finally to imagine all sorts of weird things (a raven that refuses to leave and speaks only one word; "Nevermore"). Partner sites: French Bulldog, Spanish school in Quito, and Wedding Speeches	3.810064
(PDF 151 KB) In recent years, scientists working at the intersection of two historically well-developed fields, retinal physiology and circadian biology, upended the conventional view of retinal organization with the confirmation of a nonvisual ocular photoreceptor system. The fact that the eye has functions beyond image perception holds the potential to explain why a significant proportion of patients with progressive degenerative ocular disease suffer from sleep disturbances. An understanding of these non-rod/non-cone photoreceptors might also explain seasonal affective disorder (SAD), jet lag and depression in the blind. It has the potential to influence intraocular lens selection for cataract patients. “The shocker is, you don’t need rods and cones to synchronize your circadian clock to the local light-dark cycle,” said Russell N. Van Gelder, MD, PhD. “There’s this whole other photoreceptive system lurking in the retina entraining your circadian system.” Dr. Van Gelder is professor and chairman of ophthalmology at the University of Washington in Seattle. The Eye Is a Camera, and Clock, Too The notion of a parallel ocular universe began more than 80 years ago with the observation that blind mice continued to show pupil constriction in response to light.1 Over time, researchers at about a dozen labs worldwide pursued the idea that the circadian and classical visual systems process light information in different ways. Russell G. Foster, BSc, PhD, chairman of both circadian neuroscience and ophthalmology at Oxford University, noted that by 2001, scientists had established the existence of a subset of photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (referred to in the literature as either pRGCs or ipRGCs, intrinsically photosensitive RGCs) that regulate a variety of different responses to environmental brightness, including sleep propensity. This small subpopulation of RGCs responds directly to light and relays information along the nonvisual pathway to the brain’s circadian pacemaker, located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, Dr. Foster said. They do this by employing the photopigment melanopsin, which is believed to set the circadian clock and initiate other nonimage forming visual functions. Dr. Foster has shown that loss of melanopsin in the pRGCs attenuates circadian responses to light.2 Circadian drift. “All of this suggests that diseases that kill melanopsin-using photosensitive retinal ganglion cells will result in behavioral changes that are manifested as sleep disorder problems or difficulty adjusting to changes in the light/dark cycle,” said Dr. Van Gelder. This research expands an understanding of the circadian clock, which governs the human habit of sleeping at night and waking in the morning. That clock, said Dr. Van Gelder, does not naturally have a 24-hour period. “It requires a daily light signal to stay synchronized to the outside world. Without that, the body’s clock will drift on its own.” Consider, he said, two patients with ocular disease. John has ganglion cell disease and Jane has outer retinal disease. On January 1, both of their internal clocks tell them to awaken at 7 a.m. On January 2, Jane’s clock sees the sun rise and awakens at the same time. But John’s clock can’t see the light signal, so he wakes up closer to 7:30. On day three he wakes up around 8. By day 24, John’s inner clock awakens him a full half-day later, at 7 p.m., while Jane is still rising at 7 a.m. Counting sheep won’t help. The discovery of photosensitive RGCs may explain why John’s sleep cycle is perturbed, while Jane remains on schedule. “We suspect that sleep health and circadian health are probably dependent on the health of the optic nerves,” Dr. Van Gelder said. If the pRGCs are injured, it appears harder to keep the body’s clock synchronized. “They’re the only cells in the retina that encode brightness.” If you were to place a mouse retina in a dish and expose it to light, from relatively dim to bright, the retina will respond linearly, functioning like a camera light meter, he explained. “This light meter controls at least three different aspects of physiology: circadian clock synchronization, pupillary light response and sleep. That is, it directly drives sleep and wakefulness in mice,” he said. “The obvious question is: What is the effect on human health if these cells are sick?” Studies link glaucoma and sleep problems. One possible answer to that question comes out of a study conducted by Dr. Van Gelder himself, linking optic nerve disease to sleep disturbances.3 His study, which monitored sleep patterns in a population of blind children, found that optic nerve disease is predictive of increased daytime napping in young visually impaired subjects. “We saw kids with end-stage glaucoma who had a hard time adjusting to the wake/sleep cycle of the outside world,” Dr. Van Gelder said. “If you’re blind from an optic nerve disease, you’re nine times more likely to have significant daytime sleepiness than if you are blind from other causes.” A study by other researchers found that melanopsin-using cells in rats died after researchers induced an increase in IOP. “The results,” the researchers write, “suggest that serious attention should be paid to the function of the nonimage forming system in glaucoma patients in the future.”4 Implications and Applications The discovery of novel photoreceptors within the eye is leading researchers down a number of new paths. Here are three areas they’ve been looking at. IOL SELECTION. Cataract surgery has been associated with improvement in the sleep/wake cycle, possibly because the pRGCs are maximally sensitive in the “blue” (480 nm) part of the spectrum, while the yellow discoloration of a cataractous lens may reduce transmission of available photons to the retina. This has implications for what Dr. Foster called “the general global move toward implanting yellow, blue-filtering lenses.” The impact of blue-filtering lenses is a question worth pursuing, he said, noting that circadian rhythms might be affected if these lenses reduce the amount of blue light available to the melanopsin pigment. SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER. Ignacio Provencio, PhD, a professor of biology at the University of Virginia, studies the genetics of circadian rhythms and has discovered that a mutation in a gene that codes for melanopsin may play a role in causing seasonal affective disorder (SAD).1 This finding, said Dr. Van Gelder, could suggest that depression, common in the blind, may be a form of SAD. “Blindness,” he said, “may be like the effect of living in chronic winter.” NONVISUAL LIGHT PERCEPTION. After ablating all rods and cones in mice, Dr. Foster and colleagues found that the mice were still fully able to constrict their pupils under bright light conditions.2 “These findings raise some important clinical considerations regarding the diagnosis of ‘complete’ blindness,” Dr. Foster said. “Clearly, any such diagnosis should take into account both visual and nonvisual elements, that is, the health and function of both the rod and cone and pRGC photoreceptive systems.” Dr. Foster advised that blind individuals who are found to be light sensitive should expose their eyes to sufficient daytime light to maintain normal circadian entrainment and sleep/wake rhythms. 1 Roecklein, K. et al. J Affect Disord 2009;(114)279–285. 2 Foster, R. G. et al. J Comp Physiol 1999;169:211–220. How to Help Patients Dr. Van Gelder advised ophthalmologists to be mindful of the potential interplay of certain ocular diseases and these novel RGCs. “We, as ophthalmologists, should expect that patients with advanced optic nerve disease may have difficulty synchronizing their lives with the light/dark cycle.” Ask some questions. Therefore, he said, when physicians see patients who have a bilateral optic nerve disease, such as glaucoma, anterior ischemic optic neuropathy or optic atrophy, they should ask relevant questions: How’s your sleep? Do you feel in synch with day and night? Do you find yourself awake at inopportune hours and sleepy during others? Consider a referral. Dr. Van Gelder advised referring patients who have trouble sleeping to a sleep disorder clinic. “This is a treatable disorder,” he said, citing the work of Alfred J. Lewy, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health & Science University, who has been treating blind patients with melatonin for some 20 years.5 Though melatonin is available over the counter, Dr. Van Gelder cautioned ophthalmologists not to prescribe it without a referral to a sleep clinic because there are well-established treatment protocols. Melatonin will shift the clock, and shifting at the wrong time can actually make things worse, he said. The point, said Dr. Van Gelder, is attending to those patients who suffer from sleep disorders. “We would never look at a patient with optic nerve hypoplasia without thinking they might have a systemic disease. But we don’t see a patient with end-stage optic nerve disease and immediately think that this person is at risk for sleep disorders. We should.” 1 Keeler, C. E. Am J Physiol 1927;81:107–112. 2 Foster, R. G. and M. W. Hankins. Curr Biol 2007;17:R746–R751. 3 Wee, R. and R. N. Van Gelder. Ophthalmology 2004;111(2):297–302. 4 Wang, H. Z. et al. Chin Med J 2008;121(11):1015–1019. 5 Lewy, A. J. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 2007;72:623–636.	3.276032
created 08/26/97; revised 08/12/00, 07/22/03, 07/22/09 This chapter discusses how to multiply a vector by a real number (called scaling), and how this is used to construct unit vectors. Unit vectors are used to show direction in 3D space, and are essential for 3D graphics. Change the elements of this column matrix: (3, 4)T so that the vector it represents is twice as long and remains pointing in the same direction. (Officially you don't know how to do this. Take a guess.)	3.813954
The number of children infected globally with HIV has decreased by more than a quarter (26%) between 2009 and 2011, however more than 90 percent of the 3,4-million children living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa. Released yesterday (WED), the annual UNAIDS report revealed that there were 34,2-million people living with HIV in 2011, more than ever before, which they ascribed to the life-prolonging effects of antiretroviral therapy. An estimated 23,5-million of these people were living in sub-Saharan Africa, including 3,1-million children. UNAIDS reported a number of other achievements including: - An increase of 20 percent in just one year of people accessing ART (8-million); - A 20 percent reduction in the number of people newly infected with HIV (2,5-million); - A 24 percent decline since the peak in 2005 in the number of people who died from AIDS-related causes in 2011 (1,7-million). Tuberculosis remained the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, despite it being a preventable and curable disease. Young people aged 15 to 24 years accounted for almost half (40%) of all new adult HIV infections. Globally, infection rates in young women 15 to 24 years old are twice as high as among men of the same age with a young woman acquiring HIV infection every minute. There is agreement that this is mainly due to their lower economic and sociocultural status in many countries where women and girls are disadvantaged in negotiating safer sex and accessing HIV prevention information and services. The statistics are: - HIV is the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age wordwide; - Only one female condom is available for every 36 women in sub-Saharan Africa; - More than one third of women aged 20-24 years in low- and middle-income countries marry before they are 18 years old; - Approximately 40 percent of pregnancies worldwide are unintended; - Globally, less than 30 percent of young women have comprehensive and correct knowledge on HIV; - Two thirds of the world’s 796-million illiterate adults are women; - Between 11 and 45 percent of adolescent girls reported that their first sexual experience was forced. A failure by many countries to implement and scale up some of the basic programmes that aim to reduce HIV transmission, was cited as a reason for the high rates of infection among those 15 to 24 years. These programmes include voluntary medical male circumcision, behavioural change programmes, condom promotion and key programmes for those populations at higher risk of HIV infection such as teenagers, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users. Some achievements were also reported in sub-Saharan Africa where nearly 6,2-million people are receiving ART, up from just 100 000 in 2003. The most dramatic progress was in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. In 2011, at least 300 000 people in South Africa were newly enrolled in treatment. The report cautions that as more people start ART, concerns are growing about the possible increase in HIV drug resistance. Low to moderate levels of transmitted drug resistance have been observed – increasing from one percent in 2005 to three percent in 2010. Recent surveys reported that among those initiating treatment in low- and middle-income countries, about five percent had drug resistance. South Africa is listed in the report as one of eight countries showing a rapid decline in new HIV infections among children – 49 percent. The majority of adult HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa resulted from unprotected sexual intercourse, including paid sex and sex between men. The report also makes a case for treatment interventions to become increasingly community based. A systematic review of treatment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa reported that, on average, 70 percent of people receiving ART from specialist clinics were still receiving treatment after two years. On the other hand, a Community ART Group model initiated by people receiving ART in Mozambique, to improve access and retention on treatment and decongest health services, resulted in 97,5 percent of people still receiving treatment after 26 months.	3.344575
Biodegradable Transistors -- Made from Us Wednesday, March 7, 2012 Award-winning TAU research uses self-assembling blood, milk, and mucus proteins to build next generation technology Silicon, a semi-conducting element, is the basis of most modern technology, including cellular phones and computers. But according to Tel Aviv University researchers, this material is quickly becoming outdated in an industry producing ever-smaller products that are less harmful to the environment. Now, a team including Ph.D. students Elad Mentovich and Netta Hendler of TAU's Department of Chemistry and The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, with supervisor Dr. Shachar Richter and in collaboration with Prof. Michael Gozin and his Ph.D. student Bogdan Belgorodsky, has brought together cutting-edge techniques from multiple fields of science to create protein-based transistors — semi-conductors used to power electronic devices — from organic materials found in the human body. They could become the basis of a new generation of nano-sized technologies that are both flexible and biodegradable. Working with blood, milk, and mucus proteins which have the ability to self-assemble into a semi-conducting film, the researchers have already succeeded in taking the first step towards biodegradable display screens, and they aim to use this method to develop entire electronic devices. Their research, which has appeared in the journals Nano Letters and Advanced Materials, recently received a silver award at the Materials Research Society Graduate Student Awards in Boston, MA. Building the best transistor from the bottom up Netta Hendler, Elad Mentovich, and Bogdan Belgorodsky One of the challenges of using silicon as a semi-conductor is that a transistor must be created with a "top down" approach. Manufacturers start with a sheet of silicon and carve it into the shape that is needed, like carving a sculpture out of a rock. This method limits the capabilities of transistors when it comes to factors such as size and flexibility. The TAU researchers turned to biology and chemistry for a different approach to building the ideal transistor. When they appled various combinations of blood, milk, and mucus proteins to any base material, the molecules self-assembled to create a semi-conducting film on a nano-scale. In the case of blood protein, for example, the film is approximately four nanometers high. The current technology in use now is 18 nanometers, says Mentovich. Together, the three different kinds of proteins create a complete circuit with electronic and optical capabilities, each bringing something unique to the table. Blood protein has the ability to absorb oxygen, Mentovich says, which permits the "doping" of semi-conductors with specific chemicals in order to create specific technological properties. Milk proteins, known for their strength in difficult environments, form the fibers which are the building blocks of the transistors, while the mucosal proteins have the ability to keep red, green and, blue fluorescent dyes separate, together creating the white light emission that is necessary for advanced optics. Overall, the natural abilities of each protein give the researchers "unique control" over the resulting organic transistor, allowing adjustments for conductivity, memory storage, and fluorescence among other characteristics. A new era of technology Technology is now shifting from a silicon era to a carbon era, notes Mentovich, and this new type of transistor could play a big role. Transistors built from these proteins will be ideal for smaller, flexible devices that are made out of plastic rather than silicon, which exists in wafer form that would shatter like glass if bent. The breakthrough could lead to a new range of flexible technologies, such as screens, cell phones and tablets, biosensors, and microprocessor chips. Just as significant, because the researchers are using natural proteins to build their transistor, the products they create will be biodegradable. It's a far more environmentally friendly technology that addresses the growing problem of electronic waste, which is overflowing landfills worldwide. For more technology news from Tel Aviv University, click here.	3.095983
Climate Change May Lead to Fewer -- But More Violent -- Thunderstorms Tuesday, July 10, 2012 Number of flash floods and forest fires could increase with temperature, says TAU researcher Researchers are working to identify exactly how a changing climate will impact specific elements of weather, such as clouds, rainfall, and lightning. A Tel Aviv University researcher has predicted that for every one degree Celsius of warming, there will be approximately a 10 percent increase in lightning activity. This could have negative consequences in the form of flash floods, wild fires, or damage to power lines and other infrastructure, says Prof. Colin Price, Head of the Department of Geophysics, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University. In an ongoing project to determine the impact of climate change on the world's lightning and thunderstorm patterns, he and his colleagues have run computer climate models and studied real-life examples of climate change, such as the El Nino cycle in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, to determine how changing weather conditions impact storms. An increase in lightning activity will have particular impact in areas that become warmer and drier as global warming progresses, including the Mediterranean and the Southern United States, according to the 2007 United Nations report on climate change. This research has been reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research and Atmospheric Research, and has been presented at the International Conference on Lightning Protection. From the computer screen to the real world When running their state-of-the-art computer models, Prof. Price and his fellow researchers assess climate conditions in a variety of real environments. First, the models are run with current atmospheric conditions to see how accurately they are able to depict the frequency and severity of thunderstorms and lightning in today's environment. Then, the researchers input changes to the model atmosphere, including the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (a major cause of global warming) to see how storms are impacted. To test the lightning activity findings, Prof. Price compared their results with vastly differing real-world climates, such as dry Africa and the wet Amazon, and regions where climate change occurs naturally, such as Indonesia and Southeast Asia, where El Nino causes the air to become warmer and drier. The El Nino phenomenon is an optimal tool for measuring the impact of climate change on storms because the climate oscillates radically between years, while everything else in the environment remains constant. "During El Nino years, which occur in the Pacific Ocean or Basin, Southeast Asia gets warmer and drier. There are fewer thunderstorms, but we found fifty percent more lightning activity," says Prof. Price. Typically, he says,we would expect drier conditions to produce less lightning. However, researchers also found that while there were fewer thunderstorms, the ones that did occur were more intense. Fire and flood warning An increase in lightning and intense thunderstorms can have severe implications for the environment, says Prof. Price. More frequent and intense wildfires could result in parts of the US, such as the Rockies, in which many fires are started by lightning. A drier environment could also lead fires to spread more widely and quickly, making them more devastating than ever before. These fires would also release far more smoke into the air than before. Researchers predict fewer but more intense rainstorms in other regions, a change that could result in flash-flooding, says Prof. Price. In Italy and Spain, heavier storms are already causing increased run-off to rivers and the sea, and a lack of water being retained in groundwater and lakes. The same is true in the Middle East, where small periods of intense rain are threatening already scarce water resources. For more environment and ecology news from Tel Aviv University, click here.	3.314555
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes Challenging conventional history, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression that devastated America in the early part ... Show synopsis Challenging conventional history, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression that devastated America in the early part of the twentieth century. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great by forgetting the men and women who sought to help themselves. In this illuminating work of history, Shlaes follows the struggles of those now forgotten people, from a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal, to Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, and Father Divine, a black cult leader. She takes a fresh look at the great scapegoats of the period, from Andrew Mellon to Sam Insull of Chicago. Finally, she traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers themselves. Authoritative, original, and utterly engrossing, The Forgotten Man reveals how those dark years shaped both current political challenges and the strong national character that helps Americans to confront them.	3.088824
God's Creatures Ministry By Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D. November 6, 2006 Not only do animals benefit from our compassion and concern -we, too, benefit by becoming more sensitive and more humane, as Jews and people. Jewish worshipers chant every Sabbath morning, "The soul of every living being shall praise God's name" (Nishmat kol chai tva'rech et shim'chah). Yet, some come to synagogue during the winter months wearing coats that required the cruel treatment of some of those living beings whose souls praise God. To decide whether the use of fur is a significant Jewish issue, we should consider several related questions: Judaism and Animals Judaism has beautiful and powerful teachings with regard to showing compassion to animals. The following are a few examples: Moses and King David were considered worthy to be leaders of the Jewish people because of their compassionate treatment of animals, when they were shepherds. Rebecca was judged suitable to be a wife of the patriarch Isaac because of her kindness in watering the ten camels of Eliezer, Abraham's servant. Rabbi Yehuda the Prince, the redactor of the Mishna, was punished for many years at the hand of Heaven for speaking callously to a calf being led to slaughter who sought refuge beside him. Many Torah laws mandate proper treatment of animals. One may not muzzle an ox while it is working in the field nor yoke a strong and a weak animal together. Animals, as well as their masters, are meant to rest on the Sabbath day. The importance of this concept is indicated by the fact that it is mentioned in the Ten Commandments and on every Sabbath morning as part of the kiddush ceremony. The psalmist indicates God's concern for animals, stating that "His compassion is over all of His creatures" (Psalm 145:9). And there is a mitzvah (precept) in the Torah to emulate the Divine compassion, as it is written: "And you shall walk in His ways" (Deuteronomy 28:9). Perhaps the Jewish attitude toward animals is best expressed by Proverbs 12:10: "The righteous person considers the soul (life) of his or her animal." The Torah prohibits Jews from causing tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, any unnecessary pain, including psychological pain, to living creatures. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, an outstanding 19th century philosopher, author, and Torah commentator, eloquently summarizes the Jewish view on treatment of animals: The Pain of Fur-bearing Animals Fur is obtained from animals who are either trapped or raised on ranches. Both involve treatment of animals that appears to be far from the Jewish teachings that have been previously discussed: Animals caught in steel-jaw leg hold traps suffer slow, agonizing deaths. Some are attacked by predators, freeze to death, or chew off their own legs to escape. It has been said that one can get a "feel for fur" by slamming your fingers in a car door. A Canadian Wildlife service report gives an idea of the terror that trapped animals face and their efforts to escape: Over 100 million wild animals are killed for their pelts every year. Many species of animals killed for their furs have become endangered or have disappeared completely from some localities. Millions of animals not wanted by trappers, including dogs, cats, and birds, die in traps annually and are discarded as "trash animals." Many trapped animals leave behind dependent offspring who are doomed to starvation. Treatment of animals raised on "fur ranches" is also extremely cruel. Confined to lifelong confinement, millions of foxes, beavers, minks, ocelots, rabbits, chinchillas, and other animals await extinction nothing to do, little room to move, and all their natural instincts thwarted. The animals are simply a means to the maximizing of production and profit, and there is no regard for their physical, mental, or emotional well being. Because of the enforced confinement and lack of privacy, naturally wild animals often exhibit neurotic behaviors such as compulsive movements and self mutilation. The animals finally suffer hideous deaths by electrocution by rods thrust up their anuses, by suffocation, by poisoning, which causes painful muscle cramping, or by having their necks broken. According to the International Society for Animal Rights, Inc., to make one fur garment requires 400 squirrels; 240 ermine; 200 chinchillas; 120 muskrats; 80 sables; 50 martens; 30 raccoons; 22 bobcats; 12 lynx; or 5 wolves. Is Fur Necessary? Judaism puts human beings on a higher level than animals and indicates that animals may be harmed and even killed if an essential human need is met. However, is the wearing of fur truly necessary for people to stay warm during wintry weather? There are many non-fur coats and hats, available in a variety of styles, that provide much warmth. Imitation fur is produced at such a high level of quality that even among Chasidim there is a small but growing trend to wear synthetic "shtreimlach" (fur-trimmed hats). Based on the prohibition of tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Halevy, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv issued a p'sak (rabbinic ruling) in March, 1992, indicating that Jews should not wear fur. Rabbi Halevy asked: "Why should people be allowed to kill animals if it is not necessary, simply because they desire the pleasure of having the beauty and warmth of fur coats? Is it not possible to achieve the same degree of warmth without fur?" In his book, The Jewish Encyclopedia of Moral and Ethical Issues, Rabbi Nachum Amsel, a modern Israeli educator, states: "If the only reason a person wears the fur coat is to "show off" one's wealth or to be a mere fashion statement, that would be considered to be a frivolous and not a legitimate need." Rabbi Amsel also points out that hunting for sport is prohibited because it is not considered a legitimate need (Avodah Zarah 18b). The Talmud teaches that Jews are "rachamanim b'nei rachamanim," compassionate children of compassionate ancestors (Beitza 32b). One has to wonder if the wearing of fur is consistent with that challenging mandate. Are the words of Isaiah valid today if we fail to show compassion to animals? Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. (Isaiah 1:12-15) What kind of lesson in Jewish values are young people getting when they see worshippers coming to synagogue in fur coats on the Sabbath day? Not only do animals benefit from our compassion and concern -- we, too, benefit by becoming more sensitive and more humane, as Jews and civilized human beings. Return to Articles Your Comments are Welcome Fair Use Notice: This document may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners. We believe that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. God's Creatures Ministry is committed to spreading God's compassion to all He has made based on The Scriptures. Although we are a Christian Ministry, we encourage all to have their own animal welfare committee in their community. We extend our resources to those who would like to learn more or begin their own God's Creatures Ministry as an extension of us. God created us to have a vegetarian diet and commissioned us to protect His animals. Instead, we have exploited them for our entertainment, fashion, appetite and useless, torturous research. These creatures have the right to live as they were created to live. Because we live IN this world, but are not OF this world, we strive to bring God's mercy and justice to all. We live in God's Kingdom now where Jesus, The Sacrificial Lamb, The Prince of Peace, The Lion of Judah reigns. We look forward to that day when all of creation will be 'set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God' (Romans 8:21) where a little child will lead and guide God's creatures (see Isaiah 11:5-9). This site is hosted and maintained by: The Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman Family Foundation Thank you for visiting all-creatures.org.	3.012133
April 1957 \| Volume 8, Issue 3 Five successive Benjamin Harrisons created a private empire of tobacco and trade and a great Virginia plantation One of the very first plantations settled in the New World, Berkeley evolved out of the wilderness to become the demesne of the Harrisons—Presidents of the United States, governors of Virginia, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and an ancestor of Robert K. Lee. The Harrisons helped shape their immediate region into one of the most powerful and fabled sections of Virginia. Their home place sat between the Westover of William Byrd and the Shirley of the Hills and Carters; President John Tyler lived nearby, and when he was William Henry Harrison’s Vice President it was probably the only time in the country’s history that a President and Vice President had grown up in the same neighborhood. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson came to that section for their wives, and Lee’s mother was born there. The aristocratic pattern which was to characterize the Old South was created in that region, and the first democratic form of government on the continent was introduced there. The men were America’s first Indian fighters, first patrician grandees, and first rebels, fighting the power of England a hundred years before the successful revolution. Underlying all things, they were the country’s first planters. The southern plantation seems remote today, almost legendary, intertwined with the half-romantic and half-barbarous myths of the ante-bellum South. In these myths of the slaveholding South, the plantation seems always to have existed in some perpetual and semi-tropical feudalism, where time ceased in the slumberous heat, the seasons never changed, and the cast of characters in the white-columned mansions, identical on each plantation, were as impervious to the mutations of life as the characters in a familiar play. The protagonist was always Old Massa. Ridden with debts and vice and high personal honor, always booted and spurred, with a whip in one hand and julep in the other, this highborn and arrogant wastrel kept a harem of mulattoes, a stable of blooded horses (on which he repeatedly ruined himself by betting), and, when he wasn’t out duelling under the live oaks, he was entertaining friends with prodigal lavishness. Actually, for this composite image, many gentlemen in the South would contribute aspects to the whole. Some were debt-ridden (as William Byrd III), some were always booted and spurred (as John Randolph even in the halls of Congress), some were addicted to drink and some to horse racing (as President Andrew Jackson), some were impoverished by hospitality (as Thomas Jefferson), and some had Negro mistresses (or there would be no mulattoes). Certainly all held a high sense of personal honor, and duelling in protection of personal honor was an established custom, though actual duels were few. But plantations were neither developed nor maintained by men who embodied all these traits or only these traits. They were built by men who, with whatever weaknesses of the flesh, combined the qualities which have made for success throughout the ages-ambition and energy, self-discipline and resourcefulness, and the power to conceive boldly. Stripped of romantic connotations, the plantation was both a large-scale agricultural operation and a commercial center. In Virginia, where plantations were first established, the money crop was tobacco. For this operation, the virgin forests were cleared, the seeds planted, the plants tended, the leaves cut, stripped, and hung; then packed into hogsheads made on the place and shipped to England from the private wharf. Besides marketing their own crops, the big plantation owners bought tobacco from the small planters, shipped it for export and brought in English goods beyond their own needs, which they handled as importers. In addition to tobacco, the planter raised food for his own people, who might number as many as 1,000. Some river plantations baked hard biscuits which they sold to ships’ crews, as on the plantation of the Berkeley Harrisons’ kinsmen. Artisans made the clothes from cotton and wool, tanned hides, built the outbuildings and sometimes boats, as at Berkeley Hundred. Kroni their sawmills the planter sold planks and clapboards to England. The plantation master was also responsible for every detail in the total group life of his microcosmic world: he represented law and order, the Church, and the courts. The mayor, judge, sheriff, and preacher combined would not be so powerful as he. In combination with other planters, he formed the ruling bodies of his immediate country, and his state; and from their ruling class the planters sent their own chosen representatives to London or, later, Washington. If you accused the planter of not being democratic, he would look at you in surprise and say, “Of course not. I am an aristocrat.” For all his aristocratic manner and belief, however, the planter was not the firstcomer to Tidewater Virginia; others had preceded him. First to come and settle Jamestown in 1607 were 105 “Gentlemen” and “men of the common sorte,” picaresque characters all, all of them in search of gold and adventure. Led by the resolute John Smith, they found nothing of the former and rather more of the latter than they had bargained for, together with disease, starvation, and danger from Powhatan’s powerful Indians. Successive waves of adventurers, some stockholders in the Virginia Company, many indentured to pay their passage, made up the depleted ranks, but Virginia did not even begin to show signs of lasting until a sturdier breed arrived, of whom John Rolfe is a good example. Rolfe made himself a romantic place in history by marrying Powhatan’s tempestuous daughter Pocahontas, but a more significant one by experimenting with tobacco, which turned out in the end to be the real wealth of the new El Dorado. Soon, maintaining an uneasy peace with the remarkable Indian leader, the colony spread out beyond the palisaded fort at Jamestown, and small holdings spread up the lazy James River, which became a sort of watery Main Street for the colonists. Now appeared in 1619 a boatload of indentured wives, sturdy but anonymous ladies from whom, apparently, no one in Virginia is today descended, but a welcome sign of permanence in their own time. And there was established this same year a kind of popular government, the House of Burgesses. This self-governing body would give England trouble later, but no more, certainly, than was foreshadowed for this new land by the arrival, also in the notable year 1619, of a shipload of black slaves from Africa. It was in 1619 that Berkeley Hundred was founded as a private venture by a small group of English investors, headed by one John Smythe, Esq., of Nibley. To stave off failure, the Virginia Company had begun chartering settlements known as “hundreds” (either because a hundred acres was the basic grant for a share of stock or because 100 was the ideal number of settlers). At Berkeley, 38 settlers arrived after two and a half months on the ship Margaret, to build their settlement on a tract of 8,000 acres, stretching for three miles along the north bank of the James River. The next spring found the colonists living in split-log houses and experimenting with mulberry trees for silk and grape vines for wine, as well as with tobacco, while the English backers impatiently waited for the colony to become self-supporting. At this and neighboring hundreds, though the dream had shifted from gold to tobacco, the methods had not been discovered for the big killing. Probably the British financiers would never have discovered the way to colonial riches. As it happened, they were not given the opportunity. The blow from which the Virginia Company and its proprietors never recovered occurred on Good Friday morning, March 22, 1622. By then the great Powhatan had died, and his brother, ferocious Opechancanough (Opie-can-canoe) did not feel bound to the truce. With the kind of wiliness that used to be associated only with the savage, he encouraged the whites to believe in the Indians’ friendship until he had them set up, off guard, for the stroke designed to annihilate the colony. At breakfast time, at practically every holding in Virginia, groups of friendly Indians drifted in without weapons. At Berkeley Hundred they were received warmly and invited to sit down in the assembly hall for a breakfast of gruel. No white man or woman saw a signal given, but as if by some group impulse, the unarmed Indians suddenly snatched up the muskets which the unsuspecting settlers had propped in corners. The men fought hard for their lives but the records list eleven Berkeley settlers as “slayne.” Many of the plantations were virtually wiped out. Small family units perished and their holdings were reclaimed by the brush. The college recently founded at the new city of Henricus, south of the river, and the iron works nearby were destroyed beyond repair. Only Jamestown was saved. A converted Indian warned an adventurer on the mainland, and this Richard Pace, with no poet to make a Paul Revere of him, rowed at daybreak to the island and saved the colony from destruction. As it was, 347 of the 1,200 inhabitants were killed in America’s greatest massacre. Stored corn was burned in the crude barns, cattle and hogs were run off, and the wholesale disaster—just when the colony seemed to have turned the corner—was more than the Virginia Company could absorb. James the First, impatient for gain from this genesis of empire, withdrew the charter in 1624 and made colonizing the business of the Crown. With this change, the age of the yeomanry began to supersede that of the adventurer. During the age of the yeomanry, half a century long, Virginia had her only approach to a classless society. Her citizens, in a soundly growing colony, formed what later became the stalwart middle class. Yet, even while the yeomanry enjoyed its hour, the men of the future were settling in Virginia. These were people of substance who dreamed of acquiring in the New World the positions of rank and privilege pre-empted at home by kinsmen. These were the embryonic plantation masters, who came with the baronial dream. Of the first Benjamin Harrison only the barest facts are known. He evidently arrived in Virginia some time after the massacre and settled south of the James River. Of somewhat more substance than the average yeoman, he did not adventure to the colony with the means of, say Richard Lee and some of the later large landowners. He did, however, possess at least sufficient education to become clerk of the Council, he enjoyed sufficient standing in his locale to he elected to the House of Burgesses, and he laid the foundation on which his family was to rise into the ruling class. The year following his occupancy of the clerk’s job Harrison bought 200 acres outright—a good average holding in that day of the yeomanry’s small agricultural operations—and at an unrecorded date he married a woman whom history can only know as Mary. She was illiterate, signing an X for her name, though this was typical for the times. Perhaps through his salary, more than through his small holding, Harrison prospered sufficiently to buy in 1643 a 500-acre grant on the south side of the James River, across from Jamestown. In 1645 his wife bore a son, and shortly after, on an unknown date and at an unknown age, this sire of Presidents died. The second Benjamin Harrison came into the world with the arrival of the Cavaliers to Virginia. These elegant gentlemen, followers of the late King Charles I, came to Virginia as refugees from the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Virginians, loyal to the Crown and shocked at the King’s execution, welcomed the Cavaliers; the colonial governor, Sir William Berkeley, made them at home in his Green Spring estate, the first great house in the New World. The Cavaliers had a graciousness of manner, and a flair for fashion, which sonic of the natives admiringly noticed, and a taste for good living that was welcomed by those long exposed to the harshness of a dangerous frontier. The second Benjamin Harrison’s world was influenced by these courtly Cavaliers and the elegant life they lived in Virginia during the harsh years of Cromwell’s Protectorate. But it was shaped even more decisively by the impact on Virginia of the Restoration of King Charles II. That irresponsible monarch, whose reign brought ease and gayety to England, brought disaster to the yeoman economy of Virginia. Viewing the colonies simply as a means of fattening the royal purse, Charles imposed restrictions on the tobacco trade which drove prices down to a penny a pound and ruined the small growers. The big planter could by volume operate on a smaller margin of profit. To Benjamin Harrison II, growing into young manhood during these dynamic changes, the pattern of the big planters determined the course of his own ambitions. In his late teens, when Charles’s Navigation Act began to crush the small planter, Harrison was, in practical terms, among the relatively small himself—except that he did not think as they thought. In any emergency for the many there is opportunity for the few. Harrison was among those men, of all ages, who can turn a time of crisis into personal advantage. Since profit depended on volume and volume depended on workers, he must get more workers: further, since profits from small acreage were insufficient for the purchase of new indentures or slaves, he must find another way to cash profit. He found it in trading and began to operate a river-front store. A planter’s “store” was something of a combination wharf, tobacco warehouse, and importing storage house. Harrison had small boats built and he plied the bark creeks to take on the tobacco hogs-heads of small planters. In London, the tobacco would be credited against goods which he imported, and from his store some of the goods would be taken by the small planters in exchange for their tobacco. Some he sold for cash. He profited both from a charge on handling their tobacco and a markup on the goods. By these manipulations he established favorable credit balances with his British factor and could sell his own tobacco for cash—to buy more people and get more land. His operation would grow bigger, and he would be recognized as a planter of substance—“discreet,” as the coldly sagacious were called—worthy to share the honors and the burdens of the ruling group. Except for the few who came well endowed to the colony, this is the way they all got to be Old Maassa. Harrison was still a young man when the yeomanry made its last stand against the domination of the planters in the affair known as Bacon’s Rebellion. Harrison appears to have stood outside that struggle, but two years after the rebellion was over he had done well enough to be given the profitable and honorable steppingstone of sheriff of his county. In 1680 he was sent to the House of Burgesses from Surry County. Once in the government, Harrison showed himself to be as astute a politician as he was a planter. After serving five terms over a period of eighteen years, Harrison was established among the political rulers even before he was tapped for the Council at 53. As councilors were the recognized royalty of Virginia’s untitled nobility, Benjamin Harrison II had gone as far as there was to go. He had won the top position himself in a life of steady, unobtrusive acquisition. Building soundly lrom the first 500 acres, and then his river-front store, he paid quit-rent on 2,750 acres in several working plantations, in addition to land settled on his sons. Though he seems to have tended less to conspicuous consumption than some of his more lavish-minded friends, he made the standard investments in silver and books and furnishings from England. He wanted of all things to do well by his children, and this he most certainly accomplished. Benjamin Harrison II had married a lady named Hannah, whose last name, as with his mother, has remained undiscovered by the most diligent genealogists. Evidently she belonged to the class of his birth and not to the well-recorded ruling class to which her husband was striving. With her children it would be a different story. Hannah Harrison’s children were trained for the large responsibility—to their estate, their class, their country (Virginia). They were born too late to remember the frontier. They matured as aristocrats with an inherited sense of privilege, a position of rule, and a dedication to sustain the existing order. One daughter married Philip Ludwell’s son, himself a Councillor, and from their union came an ancestor of Robert E. Lee. Another married “Commissary” Blair, commissioner of the Church to Virginia (unofficial bishop, as the Church never established Virginia as a diocese), founder and first president of William and Mary College, and long president of the Council. Benjamin Harrison III married the daughter of another Councillor, Colonel Lewis Burwell, who had done extremely well in land and indenture speculation. In sterner times the purpose of training was not to postpone a child’s assumption of responsibility but to hasten it. The early growth was particularly developed on plantations. At his father’s river store—that combination of wharf, warehouse, and trading post—young Ben learned his ciphering and practical balancing of books. The knowledge of planting he also acquired in the same way, by observing and doing under tutelage. He had to know how tobacco plants needed to be guarded from suckers and worms and weeds, how the tobacco stem had to be cut in a single strong stroke downward and sliced off at the bottom, how the leaves were hung and graded as they cured in the sheds, and how the sizes were arranged for packing in hogsheads. It was not intended that young Harrison should ever work in the hot fields or roll a hogshead to the boat, but he must be able to judge tobacco and know when others were working poorly. Reversing the English procedure, Benjamin III, the oldest son, left the home place, and established his line of the family on the north side of the river at Berkeley Hundred. He might have been sensible of the ghosts of the early settlers who tried to farm those acres before the Indian massacre, but the source of his attraction was that three-mile river front with a landing where “the big boats could ride.” When Benjamin Harrison III was 27, he was given the special assignment of acting attorney general for the prosecution of criminals on trial, with the title of “His Majesty’s Council at Law.” He went up very fast. Within five years of his special appointment, he became treasurer of the colony, while already Speaker of the House of Burgesses. His Berkeley Hundred house was commodious and well built, but neither pretentious nor designed for the ages. Around the time when William Byrd II became Benjamin Harrison’s neighbor, the big planters were just beginning to envision great houses as the crowning glory of their baronies. The Governor’s Mansion in Williamsburg perhaps inspired the idea of the splendor that was to come later. Then, too, as the planters began to buy slaves for the house as well as the fields, the families acquired the servants necessary to maintain a large establishment. Benjamin Harrison III had the servants before the great house. Along with his wharf and shipping enterprises, he worked eighty slaves at Berkeley plus twenty at his south-side holdings. The broadly based sufficiency of his operations enabled his home plantation to run with such outward blandness that, on the surface, his life could appear to illustrate the idyll of the legend. Place him in one of those typical paintings of a life in thrall. There, with family and friends, playing cricket of a warm afternoon, the group figure would be frozen in time, as graceful and as lifeless as a pageant. The frame would contain the broad, shaded lawn, the background of the tidal river and a cloudless sky. To one side of the happy cricket players would stand a sleek, saddled horse, held by a brightly liveried Negro, and on the other side, to balance, little Ben Harrison IV, born in 1700, would be caught in some moment of childish grace with a fat Mammy beaming over him. Squarely in the center a Negro butler, with starched front, would stand smiling with a vast silver tray containing decanters and goblets. In the foreground the master, in silver knee breeches, blue silk-lined coat with silver buttons and linen neckpiece, would stand transfixed forever with a mallet in his hand while the sun, breaking through a willow tree, would fall like a nimbus upon his head. Like the legendary image of the Old Massa, all these components existed, though scarcely in such idyllic arrangement. The composite picture would fail to suggest what existed beyond its frame—the wharf and warehouses, tobacco fields and sheds, sawmill and stock barns, and the countless small buildings where wool was carded, hides were tanned, bread was baked, and hogsheads made. All that was outside the picture constituted the life of Benjamin Harrison far more than the idle hours passed on the shaded lawn. Though no routine was fixed in Benjamin Harrison’s fluid pattern (except for going to nearby Westover Church on Sunday morning), his mornings usually started early with a conference with his overseers and an inspection tour of his fields. Some planters began the day by reading Greek or Hebrew, some by making love to their wives (as recorded in diaries); some ate a light breakfast and some ate heartily; none by record began the day with a hooker of rum or brandy, and all began the day very early—between five and six. The long mornings were the least likely to be interrupted by visitors, and if house guests were around they amused themselves. After Harrison assured himself that his planting and subsidiary operations were moving as they should, he went to his wharf and shipyard, where masts for his boats were cut from nearby virgin timber. The buying of tobacco and selling of imports were closely under his own supervision, as was the shipping on the boats which he either owned or had interest in. His shipping of other planters’ tobacco was so extensive that his plantation came in time to be popularly called “Harrison’s Landing.” Harrison had put in something close to an eight-hour day when, around two o’clock, the family gathered for the midday dinner. Unless they were entertaining specially, wine was not likely to be served, though before a heavy meal the master might take a hot rum toddy in the winter or a cooled punch in the summer. This main meal was the time for casual visiting with intimates. In the afternoons, unless his visitors tarried, Harrison settled down to his greatest time consumer—letters to London and what amounted to bookkeeping. He, like other planters, engaged in constant wrangles with British factors, who regarded Virginia planters as existing entirely to be milched by English businessmen. Factors showed endless ingenuity in finding new charges for handling tobacco and imports, and, to be blunt, they cheated all except the most wary. For his young son, Benjamin Harrison provided a school at Berkeley, to which planters in the neighborhood sent their boys of Ben’s age. Young Ben was still a boy when his father died suddenly at 37, leaving him heir to Berkeley. Benjamin Harrison IV entered William and Mary, to become the family’s first college man. “The College,” established at the new capital, Williamsburg, taught him rhetoric, logic and ethics, physics, metaphysics, and mathematics. It was some time after he returned as master of Berkeley that he married Anne, daughter of Robert “King” Carter, the richest man in Virginia, owner of 330,000 acres, one thousand slaves, and large sums of cash. Although he neither needed position nor had an interest in politics, Benjamin Harrison IV accepted his class responsibilities as a member of the House of Burgesses. Now in this generation, the dream of the private principality was completed with the erection of the baronial mansion to serve as the symbol and center for the new dynasties. The money was there; it no longer needed to be earned. When the Harrisons’ neighbors built on either side, at Shirley and Westover, the new houses were erected near the site of the old, close to the river. From the living room at Shirley, you look right into the water. At Westover, the classically beautiful house is back about fifty yards on a broad lawn, so that the river, shaded lawn, and house form an open court of slumberous tranquillity. The Harrisons abandoned the old site of Berkeley closer to the river and built the new house on a slight elevation nearly a quarter of a mile back, which gave to their foreground (it was not all lawn) a vast and impressive sweep. During the Civil War all of McClellan’s army—one hundred thousand men with animals, guns, and wagons—camped there between the house and the river. At Berkeley, the walls, three feet thick, were laid in English bond below the water table and Flemish bond above. The unknown journeyman architect enclosed the top story with the first heroic pediment roof in Virginia, which he presumably copied from a bookplate of James Gibbs’s church at Derby, England. The house at Berkeley was, in brief, an advanced representation of the greatest architectural flowering ever in an American colony. When Anne and Benjamin moved into their new house in 1726, the design of the baronial life of the Virginia planter was completed. They were, as far as they knew, as integrated in time as the country life of the British aristocracy on which they modeled themselves. Harrison’s nearest neighbor, William Byrd, writing to a friend in England, described the planter’s life: “Like one of the patriarchs I have my flocks and my herds, my bond-men and bond-women, and every sort of trade amongst my own servants, so that I live in a kind of independence on everyone but providence. … My doors are open to everybody … and a half-crown will rest undisturbed in my pocket for many moons together … we sit securely under our vines and figtrees … [and] can rest securely in our beds with all doors and windows open, and yet find everything exactly in place the next morning. We can travel all over the country by night and by day, unguarded and unarmed….” Though Byrd might have been trying to sell himself on “the advantages of a pure air,” his description evoked the aura of the perfected plantation life in the age of the aristocrat when, on the surface, there was not even threat of internal conflict or whisper of change. Byrd had said that they were independent of everyone but Providence, and it was an act of Providence that ended the idyll for Benjamin Harrison IV. In the summer of his forty-fourth year, a violent electric storm lashed Tidewater Virginia. Harrison was not alarmed by the storm, only mindful of the rain driving through the open windows on his imported furniture. Since no house servant was handy, the master went upstairs to close a bedroom window. He had been playing at the time with two of his daughters and took them along, one in his arms. Perhaps he was telling them there was nothing to fear as he approached the window. In the instant that he stood there, a bolt of lightning struck, and Harrison and his two little girls were killed instantly. Benjamin Harrison V was an eighteen-year-old student at William and Mary College when his father’s death made him master of Berkeley. Tall and handsome, without the great weight that years would add to his frame, he moved with ease, grace, and the air of a born aristocrat. A genial good humor was the quality which his fellows most remarked in him, then as later. For this fifth of the line, the plantation offered small challenge. From the beginning of his career, when he entered the House of Burgesses, he found politics his most absorbing interest. These were the years when the young Washington, whose marriage to Martha Custis made him a brother-in-law of Harrison’s wife Elizabeth Bassett, was making his reputation in the war with the French on the Allegheny frontier. In the political events of that struggle, and later in the growing contest with England, Benjamin Harrison found a natural field for his talents. Harrison was a man of the committees. While others harangued across the green-covered table in the House of Burgesses wing, Harrison lounged at ease in the small rooms where a few men worked at the serious business of preparing bills to be presented. To the give-and-take of committee work, he brought a bluff equanimity, a forthrightness that gained force by his good nature. With his uncomplex nervous system insulated within his huge frame, Harrison smiled through wrangles that caused his friends to shout and sulk and grow damp under their tailored wigs. When business got snarled in personality clashes, Harrison broke the tension with a spontaneous line of bawdy humor. For a man who seemed to move so indolently, he was very quick verbally, especially in terms of humor. However, when business reached the point of decision, he was immovable in his firmness, and supported his position with a soundly practical intelligence. Harrison was one of the class whose members, said a visitor, “are jealous of their liberties, impatient of restraint, and can scarcely bear the thought of being controlled by any superior power.” That was true enough. But despite his own imperiousness, cheerful Harrison believed that matters could be worked out with England so that he would be free of intruding control. By the time the political struggle with England came to a crisis, Benjamin Harrison was a man of substance, heavy in body and broad in face, with a habitual expression of humorous benevolence. Neither political theorist nor rabble-rousing orator, the master of Berkeley Plantation was more typical than Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson of the men of estate who moved slowly in the decade from the Stamp Act protest to the formation of the extremely effective Committees of Correspondence between the colonies. His cousin, Richard Henry Lee, originally a conservative, took a bigger jump and joined Henry and Jefferson in forming the potent committee. But Benjamin Harrison, though he participated in the activist committee, was operating from the manor house of a dynasty of which he was the titular head as his cousin was not, and he was weighted with personal responsibilities that Henry never had and Jefferson never fully assumed. When Virginia responded to the call for a Continental Congress, Harrison was chosen a delegate. In the hot August of 1774 he set out in his own fine planter’s coach, with two men on the box, for the long trip to Philadelphia. In the three years that followed, Harrison had plenty of chance to observe the North and his northern associates to observe him. An acquaintance recorded the impressions Philadelphia made on Harrison and his friends: “They allow the City to be fine, neat and large … but they complain of the small rooms, uniformity of the buildings, and several other like faults. They call the inhabitants grave and reserved; and the women remarkably homely, hard-favored and sour!” Harrison personally offered to give a guinea for every handsome face found in Philadelphia, if anyone else would give a copper for every face that was not comely. For their part, the northerners had some reservations about Harrison. He was, wrote John Adams in his diary, “an indolent, luxurious, heavy gentleman, reported to be … at home … a cornerstone in which the two walls of party meet.” Though certainly Adams did not mean this as a compliment, the description of Harrison’s function in revolutionary times would describe a very useful citizen, and his fellow Virginians so regarded him. Even Adams conceded Harrison’s “many pleasantries” that steadied rough sessions of the Congress, and the big Virginian was almost continually made chairman of the Committee of the Whole, second in importance only to the presidency. It was Harrison, replacing John Hancock in the president’s chair, who solemnly read to the Congress the words of the Declaration of Independence. “When the time of hanging comes,” the large Harrison said to small Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, “I shall have the advantage over you. It will be all over with me in a minute, but you will be kicking in the air for half an hour after I am gone.” More than three years had passed since the Signer’s carriage had first carried him northward across the far Pennsylvania countryside. Now, as he started home, the cushions in the carriage were worn, the lamps no longer polished, and the homeward-bound planter, wrapped in a greatcoat against the winter’s chill, did not look—and probably did not feel—any part of the legendary master of a plantation. No Harrison clan head had ever so diverted his attention from planting and mercantile enterprises. His long stretches away from home had made Berkeley almost an absentee-owned plantation, and the marks of neglect were visible. The planter, despite the later-day Virginian’s scorn of trade, was a trader and Harrison’s trading markets were cut off. He was living off capital. Harrison understood this but it was too late in the day for him to do anything about it. In the war years the radical party of Henry and Jefferson had won political ascendancy at Williamsburg over the conservative party of Washington and Harrison. Jefferson believed that a landed aristocracy long entrenched in power grew stultified and protective of its own interest, without regard to the welfare of the commonwealth. Under his influence the Virginia legislature passed measures which shrewdly undermined those supports which had sustained the oligarchy in power. It liberalized the land-owning restrictions on the voting franchise to increase the popular vote; it abolished the English-inherited laws on entail and primogeniture; it separated Church from State in a Statute of Religious Freedom, which broke the community power of the Episcopal vestries. In the traditional revolution, the aristocrat was destroyed by the people; in the American Revolution the Virginia aristocrat destroyed himself. In order to sustain his society, Benjamin Harrison had been led, step by step—often reluctantly, sometimes protestingly—into his present situation where, if his society were sustained at all, its idyllic quality was lost; and within the broken idyll his family had lost security. Along the way, there was nothing he could have done to change events. When issues he had fought became facts, he had adapted to the necessity and given of his time, talents, and fortune. He was Speaker of the House of Delegates when, in 1778, the military situation in Virginia grew seriously ominous. Two thousand British regulars, commanded by the traitor Benedict Arnold, landed by boat at the mouth of the James River and began a campaign of ravagement along both sides of the river. With the lion among them, the Virginians hastily dispatched Harrison to Philadelphia to plead with Congress for troops to defend them. It was Washington who made the painful decision to hold his army outside New York, to immobilize Clinton, and not come to the rescue of his countrymen. Before leaving Virginia, Harrison had taken the precaution of moving his family from the exposed river plantation of Berkeley to the less accessible plantations of other members of the family. It was fortunate for the girls that he did. On January fourth, Arnold’s hard-bitten force disembarked at the foot of the wide lawn of Westover, where the shade of elegant William Byrd strolled in the evening, and pushed across to neighboring Berkeley by the path that the Byrds and Harrisons had so often followed when visiting in the olden days. Arnold did not miss the chance to hurt a Signer of the Declaration and a close friend of the man he had betrayed. As a fellow American, he recognized the sensitive point of a Virginia aristocrat, and there was a subtlety in his cruelty which would touch Harrison without destroying his plantation’s future usefulness. He removed all the portraits from the walls and placed them on a bonfire in front of the mansion. That not only hurt the Signer’s family—for the planters spent heavily on journeymen artists to preserve their likenesses into earthly immortality—but also future historians seeking portraits of the Harrisons. The festivities of the portrait fire incited the idling soldiers to practice target shooting on Harrison’s cows while frightened Negroes gathered in the nearby quarters. Since the Berkeley slaves belonged to Washington’s friend, Arnold directed his men to herd along forty of the likeliest and unknowingly dealt Benjamin Harrison a deadlier blow than the hurt to his pride. This capital loss (one third of his active slaves) was more than the fading fortunes of Berkeley could absorb. By the end of the war, Berkeley had drifted into a state of muted splendor which characterized the older plantations of Virginia from the upheaval of the Revolution to the destruction of the Civil War. It was during this period that plantation life, observed by northern visitors when already in decline, assumed its mythical character. At Berkeley an outsider would find the hot land and the crops, the great manor house and outbuildings, the gardens and the river-bordered lawn, grazing animals and playing children, and the Negroes, wearing bright-colored cotton and speaking in soft, liquid voices, but the scene began to hold the hushed, slightly decayed quality of the legend. No boats were built on the fortune-making docks, and few ocean-going trading vessels rode the swells of the tidal river. The gristmill and sawmill, the blacksmith shop, and what they called “merchant mills” still operated, but on the lackadaisical schedule of overseers. Produce was grown for the plantation’s people, providing that lavish self-sufficiency which gave plantation life its air of indolent abundance. After Yorktown Benjamin Harrison was elected first governor of the independent republic of Virginia. In a period of painful readjustment the governor’s job was a hard, inglorious one, but the men who had made the Revolution did not feel that in conscience they could quit until the task was finished. Unlike Washington, whose years on the national scene had committed him to the cause of a strong union, Harrison still thought as a Virginian and, despite his great friend’s entreaties, opposed the Constitution that was drafted at Philadelphia. Yet when there was talk of a new revolution against the Constitution, it was Harrison who rose to the floor, his face red and puffy, his heavy body held with effort in its customary erectness, to urge them against any effort to overthrow the union that he himself had opposed. It was the gouty old gentleman’s last outstanding act for his country. Within three vears he was dead. That genetic drive to plantation mastery which spanned four generations in Virginia faltered in the fifth, and Benjamin Harrison’s three sons did not want to work at planting, nor did any of his four sons-in-law. They still wanted to work, for they were not yet the idle generation, but the plantation was no longer a challenge to them. It was a home to support; a way of life rather than a career. The youngest boy aspired to be a doctor, the middle boy became a lawyer, and the eldest, Benjamin Harrison VI, heir to the home plantation, was an unstable young man who failed in a mercantile business he started at Richmond and returned to live at Berkeley. There, free at last to indulge his true gift for fine living, he revived high style in the manor house, as if land and slaves could be sold off forever. To him Berkeley owes the lovely Adam woodwork with which, in a gesture of gallantry, he replaced the sturdier and simpler paneling deemed adequate by his vastly rich grandparents. Berkeley was never more splendid than during his brief reign. The younger sons of Virginia with energy and resourcefulness began to leave the state. Among those who migrated to a totally new area, the most representative—with typical Harrison adaptiveness—was the youngest of the Signer’s sons, William Henry, who became President of the United States and grandfather of another President. William Henry Harrison was an eighteen-year-old medical student in Philadelphia when his father died and left him a tract of land in the original Berkeley Hundred. There was in the slim, well-made six-footer a strong strain of self-reliance. A child at home during the impoverishing dislocations of the Revolution, he had heard from his mother the tales of his ancestors’ greatness, and had formed early the ambition to excel on his own. The physical tumult of the Revolutionary fighting on his own land also exerted an influence on the impressionable boy, who at the age of eight had seen Benedict Arnold’s redcoats. Nothing would indicate more keenly the fading glory of the plantation than the choice of the son of the master of Berkeley to migrate west of the Alleghenies—the dividing line between civilization and the wilderness. With a commission as an ensign in the Army obtained for him in 1791 by Washington, young Harrison rose fast in what Virginians called “the West” and won national fame for his victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe. He had inherited his father’s cheerfulness, generosity, and forthrightness, and it was simple to express his innate courtesy in the plain manners of the frontier. Too self-assured for snobbishness, he quickly put others at their ease. All of this caused him to be accepted as a simple son of democracy. As in the day of the big planters his ancestors became the biggest, in the day of the plain man William Henry became the plainest. It was Harrison’s folksiness that the powers in the new Whig party seized upon as a campaign asset when they nominated him for President in 1840. The son of Virginia’s plantation aristocracy thus became “Old Tippecanoe,” the log-cabin candidate, and beat poor, foppish Martin Van Buren, who was born over a saloon, to the tune of: And lounge on his cushioned settee. Content with hard cider is he. On his way to Washington, William Henry made a sentimental journey to his birthplace. He perhaps knew that Berkeley would not be much longer in the family. His 54-year-old nephew, Benjamin Harrison VII, had deeded the remnants of the plantation to the Bank of the United States for a twenty-thousand dollar debt, the top loan that could be made on the deteriorated property. The Signer’s grandson was living on in such fashion as he could sustain in the manor house he no longer owned. Berkeley’s fortunes were beginning a long decline in which the land would change hands many times and the great house would fall into disrepair, its fine chairs split up for kindling by McClellan’s Union army and its beautiful old brick painted over with red barn paint. Not until another century dawned would the house at last fall into hands that would restore it with loving care as a relic of a distant past. By then the Harrisons’ last tie with Berkeley would have long since been cut and the name of Benjamin Harrison would have been made more famous than ever by William Henry’s grandson, a Republican and an abolitionist, whose rise to the White House began with his command of a Union brigade in Sherman’s campaign of devastation through the South. All this lay in the future when William Henry Harrison, in February of 1841, returned to the great-roomed house and went into his mother’s bedroom, where he was born. From there he could look across the idle land to Westover, where the Harrisons and Byrds had walked together in other years, and where Benedict Arnold’s redcoats made their landing. From the shelves in that eastern room he took down the books he had studied in his youth and marked the classic quotations with which he loved to fill his speeches. Then, in the ancestral home that was fast becoming as remote from the pattern of American life as it was from his own later years, Berkeley’s most famous son sat down to write his inaugural address as ninth President of the United States.	3.184007
Advanced Placement Economics - Macroeconomics : Student Activities - ISBN 1561835676 Advanced Placement Economics: Teacher Resource Manual - ISBN 1561835668 The Council for Economic Education envisions a world in which people are empowered through economic and financial literacy to make informed and responsible choices throughout their lives as consumers, savers, investors, workers, citizens, and participants in our global economy. Some of the areas in K-12 education we publish in include: - Establishing and building credit - Managing personal finances - Understanding economics on a local, national, and global level - Using economics in other subject areas: Social Studies, Geography, History, etc.	3.072673
Edward Lear’s natural-history illustration won him scientific credibility. Now his nonsense verse may do the same “How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,” begins one of Edward Lear’s poems. His bicentennary last year helped many people know him better, with multiple exhibits of his natural-history paintings and drawings. Lear gained acclaim as an illustrator at age 19 for his work on parrots. Shortly thereafter, The Earl of Derby invited Lear to his estate near Liverpool to make portraits of specimens in his vast collection of exotic animals and plants. “Lear was somewhat lonely at Knowsley Hall,” says Robert Peck, a Lear scholar and senior fellow of Drexel University’s Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. “He was overwhelmed at times by the English social class structure.” To overcome this, he began making drawings and verses for the Earl’s grandchildren. Later he published the verses, but he used a pseudonym for many years. “He was concerned that the frivolous nature of his limericks would undercut his credibility as a scientific illustrator,” Peck says. Those verses have recently come to seem a bit less frivolous. Margaret Wallace Nilsson, now a Ph.D. candidate in history at Linnaeus University, took up the question of how Lear’s poems might help children learn. “All children like repetitive rhyme sounds,” she says. “I thought, why not apply this to Swedish students of English? It might help them improve their pronunciation and, later on, be able identify new words with the same phonetical patterns.” In a 2011 master’s thesis for the School of Teacher Education at Kristianstad University in Sweden, Nilsson taught a control group of fourth graders a list of vocabulary words taken from Lear’s Nonsense ABC. An experimental group was asked to learn verses from it. “The children in the second group not only learned to recognize the phonetical sounds of the verses, but actually started to spontaneously rhyme other English words,” she says. When tested, students in the second group remembered words from the verses better. Nilsson thinks nonsense poems may help adult language learners as well. And she’s not alone in her interest. In 2012, Juliette Smeed of New Zealand Tertiary College in Auckland published an essay in He Kupu, an early childhood education journal, describing types of nonsense verse and discussing strategies for responding to children’s nonsense play. Lear’s poetry and sketches often employed the scientific knowledge he cultivated for his “serious” work. Peck points to Lear’s “Nonsense Botany” series. “He’s playing with the Linnaean binomial nomenclature, the form of the flower and people’s love of flowers,” Peck says. “He could take this very serious scientific world in which he traveled and turn it literally upside down and make it fun for kids—and for everyone.” If Nilsson and others are right, Lear’s upside-down world may have more to offer than just fun. Thanks to Harvard University's Houghton Library, we have a slide show featuring Lear's nonsense botanicals and other drawings. You can find it here.	3.109474
Solar storms active, but normal Illustration showing blasts of particles and magnetic field from the Sun that impact the magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble around the Earth (courtesy NASA). Outbursts observed on the sun last week do not portend new problems for GPS reception or other systems as solar flares and eruptive events known as coronal mass ejections fire up during an increasingly active phase, said a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space weather expert. Widespread reports of last week’s solar activity, following a very tranquil period, may have created an impression that solar storms were unusually powerful, the expert said. Magnetic fields on the sun’s surface have intensified, showing up as increased sunspots and generating eruptive activity as a quiet portion of a well-known 11-year sunspot cycle ends. “We have come out of such a quiet period that it’s pretty interesting from that point of view,” said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “The last outbreak was back in 2006. The sun has been pretty dormant.” A ball of hot gas, the sun does not rotate as a rigid body. Turbulent effects of that uneven rotation can produce explosive results on the surface, Kunches said. The recently noted outbursts featured a coronal mass ejection measured at Level 3 on a 1 to 5 scale for solar storms. Putting that in context, Level 3 events occur approximately 200 times during the 11-year cycle, with most outbursts clustered near the cycle’s peak, Kunches said. Although a solar flare’s “lightning-bolt-like quick indication” can be the earliest evidence of a sudden release of energy on the sun, Kunches said, a more subtle development scientists monitor is whether a portion of the sun’s outer mass--its corona--has been blown off into space. Such coronal mass ejections are “very directional,” sending a cloud of charged particles hurtling away from the sun. When a coronal mass ejection is observed “right in the middle of the sun,” watch for a plasma cloud to head for the earth, taking between 30 and 72 hours to arrive. “Last week we had three eruptions from the center,” he said. “Some time later we felt the effects of those plasma fields that disturbed and energized the earth’s magnetic field.” Spaceweather.com reported that an Aug. 9 flare emanating from sunspot 1263 was followed by brief disruption of communications “at some VLF and HF radio frequencies.” The potential for GPS interference exists because atmospheric noise generated by a coronal mass ejection can drown out the GPS signal, which may be unable to “punch through this mush of electrons.” Or, a GPS unit may seem to be working properly, but its indications are off by up to 50 meters, Kunches said. He consults this real-time map to monitor electron activity in the atmosphere. Perhaps it was a combination of the solar cycle and the news cycle that generated the interest in solar activity, which, he said, “just wasn’t that big a deal last week.” On Aug. 10, the Space Weather Prediction Center’s three-day report of solar and geophysical activity reported high solar activity for Aug. 8 and 9, but predicted low to moderate activity for the following three days as an active area rotated around the sun’s west limb. August 10, 2011	3.161283
What is a poster? A poster is a “public” piece of paper conveying information through text (words) and/or graphic images (symbols or pictures). It’s usually designed to be displayed vertically on a wall or window and is large enough to be seen and read from a relatively short distance. Its main target audience is the person walking by. A poster must convey its message with immediacy and purpose, because people on the street are often in a hurry. Posters are sometimes huge and can be seen from a long distance and may appear along highways (on bill boards) or on the sides of buildings. Posters may also appear in much smaller versions, sometimes like a postcard, and are called handbills. Whatever the size or shape, posters have a job to do and that is to convey information. Posters carry many kinds of information: - they may call the population to rally, revolt or celebrate (e.g. political or propaganda posters) - they may alert citizens to health hazards or the presence of other dangers in the community (e.g. educational posters) - they may announce the coming of a wonderful theatre, music or dance performance (e.g. marketing posters) All effective posters must: - grab your attention - entice you to read the information they display - present the information clearly and fully, so that you understand what the poster wants to say - convince you to rally, revolt, take part, take precautions, be on the lookout or buy a ticket. The marketing poster is an important tool in most campaigns to sell arts events to the public.	3.669522
Understanding Children Who Have Been Affected by Maltreatment and Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Both maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure result in lifelong impairments that significantly affect multiple developmental processes of school-age children, including language, social communication, social cognition, and executive functioning. This program provides a framework for the creation of more effective assessment and intervention processes for this population by speech-language pathologists and audiologists. You will be able to: - discuss the brain structures and functions that are affected by complex trauma and prenatal alcohol exposure and the relative effects on the developmental functions of attachment, affect regulation, and information processing. - recognize sensory modulation difficulties in children with the potential to have maltreatment and/or prenatal alcohol exposure. - use a framework appropriate for assessing the social communication of children who have been affected by maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure. - discuss connections among emotional competence, alexithymia, and communication and language impairments. - recognize cultural issues involved in appropriately identifying the occurrence of maltreatment. - enumerate various ways the child welfare system affects the lives of the children and families who have been affected by maltreatment and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). View the Table of Contents [PDF] 6/17/2012 to 5/3/2015	3.179695
What can we learn about land stewardship from The Lord of the By John Amodeo, ASLA Build me an army worthy of Mordor,” commands Sauron in The Fellowship of the Ring. With a maniacal greed for power, the easily corrupted Saruman turns his cavernous lair beneath Isengard into a frenzied factory of orcs and armor, fueled by burning the region’s trees, which he clear-cuts with reckless abandon. When an orc reports to Saruman, “The trees are strong, my lord; their roots grow deep,” Saruman barks, “Take them all down,” and down they come. Thus J. R. R. Tolkien draws the lines of evil in his wondrous tale, The Lord of the Rings. Since the trilogy’s initial publication in 1954, many have analyzed, debated, and deconstructed Tolkien on the topics of linguistics, history, anthropology, sociology, mythology, and war, but rare is the discussion on Tolkien’s environmental commentary, though all the signs are there. Although Tolkien, who died in 1973, vehemently discouraged using his books as an allegory for real events, he favored use of them in ways that are applicable to readers’ own thoughts and experiences. Looking beneath the fun, the action, and the mysticism of Tolkien’s fantastic creation, landscape architects need only observe the ways in which the forces of good and evil treat Mother Earth to discover that Tolkien wove a conservationist morality tale within its pages (evident in the films as well) that resonates strongly in the society in which we practice. .To read the entire article, subscribe to LAM! \| Annual Meeting	3.197571
logging in or signing up Robot Arm aSGuest58216 Download Post to : URL : Related Presentations : Share Add to Flag Embed Email Send to Blogs and Networks Add to Channel Uploaded from authorPOINT lite Insert YouTube videos in PowerPont slides with aS Desktop Copy embed code: Embed: Flash iPad Copy Does not support media & animations WordPress Embed Customize Embed URL: Copy Thumbnail: Copy The presentation is successfully added In Your Favorites. Views: 1039 Category: Product Traini.. License: All Rights Reserved Like it (0) Dislike it (0) Added: August 02, 2010 This Presentation is Public Favorites: 0 Presentation Description No description available. Comments Posting comment... Premium member Presentation Transcript Build Your Own Robot Arm : Build Your Own Robot Arm Trinidad September 2008 Nico Beute What will we do today? (1) : What will we do today? (1) We will build a robot arm from simple materials The arm would pick up a plastic cup from a distance of 45cm Lift the cup to a height of at least 15cm Bring the cup back to rest and release it You cannot get too close… : You cannot get too close… Cup Student Robot Arm 45cm You cannot get any closer than 45cm to the cup at any time What will we do today? (2) : What will we do today? (2) Lift and release the cup when it is upside down Lift and release the cup when it is full of candy Do not spill Use the same design (possibly with a modified end effector) to lift a pen Why is this experiment useful to teachers and students? : Why is this experiment useful to teachers and students? It teaches technological design It requires mathematical calculations for design It relates to the studies of motion and force It requires communication in writing (design) and orally (explaining the design principles) Principles & Standards for School Mathematics : Principles & Standards for School Mathematics Geometry: Use visualization, spatial reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve problems Analyze characteristics and properties of two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and develop mathematical arguments about geometric relationships Problem Solving: Recognize and apply geometric ideas in areas outside of the mathematics classroom Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies Communication: Communicate mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others Outline and Procedures : Outline and Procedures Divide into teams of two (2) Review the requirements Discuss a solution and create a sketch of your design Build a model of your design with given materials Test your model Redesign after testing : Redesign after testing Discuss and agree upon a redesign If needed after testing, or to enhance the previous design Rebuild your robot arm Retest your model Answer reflection questions as a team Reflection Questions : Reflection Questions What was one thing you liked about your design? What is its main weakness? Are there algebraic and physical principles that can be applied to this activity? What is one thing you would change about your design based on your experience? How would you modify the instructions to create a better experience for the participants? Design requirements : Design requirements The arm would pick up a plastic cup from a distance of 45cm Lift the cup to a height of at least 15cm Bring the cup back to rest and release it Lift and release the cup when it is upside down Lift and release the cup when it is full of candy Use the same design (possibly with a modified end effector) to lift a pen You do not have the permission to view this presentation. In order to view it, please contact the author of the presentation.	3.412246
\|Avesta -- Zoroastrian Archives\|\|Contents\|\|Prev\|\|history3\|\|Next\|\|Glossary\| THE IDEA OF GOD IN THE MILLENNIUM Yahweh, the only God of the Hebrews. We have already seen the eclipse of the old gods and the rise of the new ones in India during the millennium that opened with Zarathushtra and ended with the advent of Jesue. The monotheistic idea greatly developed during this period among the Jews who were a subject race under the Persians and whose religion was influenced by Zoroastrianism. As Judaism later gave much to Christianity and Mohammedanism, the knowledge of the belief in the godhead among this people is of great interest, and we shall discuss it in brief. A race of sturdy nomads of Semitic stock tending their flocks from times immemorial in the Arabian desert, of handsome features with prominent aquiline nose, is seen settling down in Palestine about thirteen centuries before the Christian era. Many of their kinsmen had laboured and suffered as slaves in Egypt, until Moses brought them deliverance. The Hebrews, as the people are known to history, found their new settlement already populated by the civilized Canaanites. The new-comers intermarried with them and adopted their civilization. They succeeded later in founding a kingdom, and under the heroic ruler David, Jerusalem became the centre of Jewish religious life and the sanctuary of their national God Yahweh. During the period of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel prophetic literature of great value arose and enriched human thought. The kingdom of Israel ended in 721 B.C., and Judah met with her destruction in 586 B.C. The Persians brought the Jews deliverance and allowed them to restore the temple of Jerusalem that was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. They flourished under the tolerant Persian rule, codified their religious laws, collected and copied the sermons and teachings and songs and ancient writings that they stilt possessed. Thus in a few centuries more there came into being the scriptures known as the Old Testament, the most precious legacy of the Hebrews to mankind. When they had lived in small groups, each tribe had its God, whom the people worshipped. Gradually a more powerful God from among these won the universal respect of the race. He was Yahweh, worshipped in the earlier stages in the form of a brazen serpent, until the idol worship gave place to a purer form of godhead. His dominion over men was contested by Baal of Tyre who received devotion from the people side by side with him both in Israel and Judah. Yahweh ultimately came out successful and remained the only God of the Hebrews. The prophet Amos (760 B.C.) raised him to monotheistic grandeur and spoke as the mouth-piece of Yahweh. Hosea and Isaiah preach against idolatry and the prophets are incessantly enjoining upon the people not to make idols or graven images and they exhort them not to worship any other God but Yahweh. It is said that Yahweh is a jealous God and brooks no homage but to him. The children of Israel had suffered in Egypt where they were in bondage. God heard their groaning and had compassion on them. He appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire, burning in a bush, and said that he had come down to deliver the suffering children of Israel from bondage to a place flowing with milk and honey. He gave him ten commandments for the guidance of the people. Therein he demands that man shall fear him, walk in his ways, cleave unto him, obey him, love him, and serve him with all his heart and all his soul. He has chosen Israel unto himself above all people as a beacon of light and righteousness to mankind. Consequently, he demands that they shall serve him faithfully, and transgress not his commandments. If people walk in the Lord's statutes and keep his commandments, he gives them seasonal rains, full crops, protection against the attacks of animals and men, victory and offspring. He goes with the armies of Israel to the battlefield and fights for them against the enemies. But when they transgress his commandments, worship idols or other gods or turn apostates, he breaks the pride of their power, lets loose their enemies over them, and chastises them by visiting their country with plagues and pestlences, famines and droughts, desolation and death. It was for the inequities of his wayward children that Yahweh sent Tiglath-Pileser as his scourge to punish them and put them under the Assyrian yoke. The prophet Isaiah tells the people that Yahweh uses Assyria as his rod to punish them. Those who seek Yahweh, find him. He does not fail or forsake them. But when they forsake him, and provoke him to anger, he casts them away forever. But even then if people repent, humble themselves before him, fall down on their faces, rend their clothes, and weep, he relents, forgives them, comes back to them, takes them under his protecting wings, helps them, and prospers them. The Psalms and Prophets are replete with higher ethical sentiment and aim at reforming the motives of conduct rather than regulating it by ceremonial observances. They are full of fervent expressions of religious emotion. God is depicted here as the compassionate Father who looks to all as his children. Judaism prepares the way for a nobler type of godhead that was to be preached by Jesus. Taoism and Confucianism. Animism and ancestral worship ministered to the spiritual needs of the people in China from the earliest times. As in the other parts of the world, the higher conceptions of gods or of some one supreme principle like Heaven as God were gradually evolving among the sages. Tradition places the Golden Age of China in about 3000 B.C. But the authentic historical records do not go beyond a millennium before the Christian era. It is in this period that great religious and social ideals were preached that have shaped the Chinese life for all time. The country was harassed by feudal warfare, and famine and pestilence worked havoc, adding to the misery of the people. Perplexed at the visitation of misfortunes and calamities, wail goes up to Heaven from a poet in the eighth century B. C. complaining that Heaven is unjust and merciless in its dealings with mankind. Such complaints are however drowned in the chorus that Heaven does not will evil. It is man's own fault, in consequence of which he suffers. Man is born good, it is said, but when he goes astray from the path of goodness, he brings calamity on his head. When there were strife and chaos stalking the earth, the sages felt that peace and harmony reigned above in heaven. Perfect was the Way or Heaven or the Tao or the one universal principle, the ultimate reality. Happiness would fall to the lot of mankind, if it followed faithfully the Way. The imitation of the Way or Heaven was therefore the ideal of earthly conduct. It was virtue and virtue brought happiness. Man's duty was to cultivate the Way and the sages undertook to teach it to mankind. The Way was one which to all thinkers looked alike, but the methods of reaching it as taught by them were different. Lao-tze, a great mystic born in 601 B.C., is the founder of Taoism. He teaches quietism. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) is the man of the world and teaches a moral code of personal conduct. His relgion is a discipline of life and his system is a reaction against Taoism. AHURA MAZDAAhura, Mazda, and Ahura Mazda. The name of God still retains its two elements separate. These have not yet coalesced into one word. In the metrical sections of the Younger Avesta the two elements are sometimes used apart from each other, or either one of the terms may be used to designate the Supreme Being, but in the prose compositions the collocation Ahura Mazda generally occurs as a compound phrase. In the formation of compounds, however, either Ahura or Mazda alone is used for the sake of convenience. The Ahura compounds such as Ahura-dhâta, 'created by Ahura,' Ahura-tkaesha, 'of the faith of Ahura,' or the adjectival form âhuiri, 'of Ahura,' invariably represent the divine lord Ahura Mazda. Similarly, the Mazda element in the compounds Mazda-dhâta, 'created by Mazda,' Mazda-yasna, 'worshipper of Mazda,' Mazdo-frasasta, 'taught by Mazda,' Mazdo-fraokhta, or Mazdaokhta, 'spoken by Mazda,' invariably stands for Ahura Mazda himself. \|Ahura Mazda is the highest object of worship. Ahura Mazda still holds sovereign sway over both the worlds; his authority in the world of righteousness is undisputed, and his imperial right is unchallenged. He is the greatest and the very best of the angels.1 The Old Persian Inscriptions speak of him as the greatest of the divinities.2 The archangels and angels dutifully carry out Mazda's orders. Reverence for him has never abated, and adoration of him does not languish with the advent again of the old Indo-Iranian divinities. Like the dual divinities Varuna-Mitra who received joint invocation during the Indo-Iranian period, Ahura-Mithra or Mithra-Ahura are invoked together. Ahura generally takes precedence and Mithra stands second in the compound,3 but in the Nyaishes composed in honour of Hvare Khshaeta or the sun and Mithra, as also in the Yasht dedicated to Mithra,4 the order is reversed and we have then Mithra-Ahura. He is yet the sublimest goal of human aspiration. The best of all sacrifices and invocations are those of Mazda.5\|\| 1. Y16.1; Yt17.16. 2. Dar. Pers. d. 1; Xerx. Elv. 1; Xerx. Van. 1. 3. Y1.11; 2.11; 3.13; 4.16; 6.10; 7.13; 17.10; 22.13. 4. Ny1.7; 2.7, 12; Yt10.113, 145. The faithful acknowledge their indebtedness to Ahura Mazda and devoutly offer to him their homage and sacrifice.6 They worship him with the very life of the body,7 and they long to reach him through the medium of fire, through the Good Mind, through Righteousness, and through the deeds and words of wisdom, as well as through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.8 Ahura Mazda, in fact, is implored to be their very life and limb in both the worlds.9 It is through the Best Righteousness that the true in heart aspire to behold the Lord to approach him, and to associate with him.10 The attainment of the companionship and the Kingdom of Ahura Mazda is the pious wish of the supplicant.11 8. Y36.1, 4, 5. 11. Y40.2; 41.2, 5, 6. Mazda's titles. The Yasna sacrifice opens with the praise of Ahura Mazda and enumerates the following divine titles: maker, radiant, glorious, the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, the most firm, the most wise, of the most perfect form, the highest in righteousness, possessed of great joy, creator, fashioner, nourisher, and the Most Holy Spirit.12 He is all-pervading. There is no conceivable place where he is not. Closer than the nose is to the ears, or the ears are to the mouth, is he to all that which the corporeal world thinks, speaks, and does.13 He is the greatest temporal and spiritual lord.14 He is the absolute ruler.15 He is the most mighty and righteous.16 He is benevolent.17 He is the maker, the most holy, the most wise, and the best one to answer when questioned.18 His is the omnisscent wisdom.19 He is undeceivable.20 He is omniscient and never sleeping.21 Radiant and glorious are the most frequent epithets with which the texts open the invocation to the divinity. Above all Ahura Mazda is the spirit of spirits.22 This essential trait stands intact through all changes in the concept of God. He is not invested with any anthropomorphic chracter, and his multifarious epithets are truly the figurative expressions of human language used by man in his feeble attempt to give vent to an outburst of the feelings of devotion and reverence for his Heavenly Father. Ahura Mazda is synonymous with light, even as his opponent is identical with darkness, and the sun is spoken of as his most beautiful form.23 Just as the Rig Veda speaks of the sun as the eye of Mithra and Varuna,24 so do the Avestan texts call the sun the eye of Ahura Mazda.25 Speaking about the nature of Ahuta Mazda, Plutarch well remarks that among objects of sense the Zoroastrian godhead most of all resembles the light.26 The star-spangled heaven is his garment;27 the holy spell is his soul.28 Many are the names by which mankind have learnt to know him. The first Yasht, which is dedicated to him, enumerates seventy-four of these attributes. They are all descriptive of his wisdom, far-sightedness, power, righteousness justice, and mercy.29 13. TdFr. 58, 59. 14. Y27.1; Vr11.21. 18. Vd18.7, 13, 66. 21. Yt12.1; Vd. 19.20, 26. 23. Y36.6; 28.8. 24. RV. 1.115.1; 6.51.1; 7.61.1; 63.1; 10.37. 25. Y1.11; 3.13; 4.16; 7.13; 22.13. 26. Is. et Os. 46. 29. Yt1.7, 8, 12-15. Only the world of righteousness is created by Ahura Mazda. As the antithesis between the Deity and the Evil Spirit is now most strongly marked in the Later Avesta, the godhead is expressly described as the creator of everything that is good,30 evil being the counter-creation of Angara Mainyu. Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu in the younger texts are described as creating good and evil in turn. The archangels are Mazda's creations;31 so also are the angels and men, the animals, sky, water, trees, light, wind, and earth.32 In the various enquiries which Zarathushtra addresses to Ahura Mazda in the Vendidad, the divinity is portrayed as the creator of corporeal world. Ahura expressly says to Zarathushtra that he has created everything in the world, and yet nothing in his creation comes up to the level of man, who is the greatest and the best of all creations.33 Through the wisdom of Ahura Mazda the world has come into being, and through his divine wisdom it will come also to an 32. Y1.1, 2, 12; 2.12; 12.7; 17.12; 37.1; 38.3; Vr7.4; Vd19.13, 16, 35; 21.4, 8, 12; Aog. 30. 33. Aog. 30. SPENTA MAINYUBelief in an intermediary spirit between God and the world. From the days of Thales (about 600 B.C.), the head of the school of Miletus, the Greek thinkers were in touch with the Orient. The Ionians were in close contact with the Persians. Pythagoras, we have seen, was believed by the classical writers to have been the pupil of Zoroaster, though several centuries intervened between them. Numenius of Apamea says that Pythagoras and Plato reproduce the ancient wisdom of the Magi and Brahmans, Egyptians and Jews. Alexandria became later a cosmopolitan seat of learning, and the intellectual East and West met there. It was here that Judaism and afterwards Christianity were Hellenized. The wisdom of the East was held in high esteem at Alexandria. Persian influence, it seems, had been felt in Greece in the early formative period of its philosophy. Zarathushtra, we have noticed, postulated a quasi-independent spirit intermediary between the godhead and the universe, Anaxagoras calls it nous, acting between God, and the world as the regulating principle of existence. Plato says in his Timaeus that the universe becomes an organism through the universal World-Soul that is created by the Demiurge, the Supreme Deity. The Old Testament refers to the Spirit of Yahweh.1 Philo Judaeus unites the Greek and Jewish ideas about Logos and says that Logos is the first-born Son of God and acts as a viceregent of God between God and the world. He is the prototypal Man after whose image all men are created. Logos is something more than Plato's Idea of the Good, because, like Spenta Mainyu, he is creatively active. In common with Spenta Mainyu, Logos is not a personal being, and like Spenta Mainyu again, he appears sometimes as identified with God and at other times seems to be an attribute of God. The Avestan texts refer to Spenta Mainyu and his adversary Angra Mainyu as thworeshtar or the fashioners or cutters and, speaking about the work of Logos, Philo speaks of him as Tomeus, 'the cutter,' employing the word of the same meaning. Again as Spenta Mainyu or the spirit of light is shadowed by the opposite spirit of darkness, so Logos, says Philo, is the Shekinah or Glory or Light of God, but he is also the darkness or shadow of God. This is so because, he adds, the creature reveals only half the creator and hides the other half. In the Book of Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, identical with the Greek Logos, is the divine essence, living a quasi-independent existence in God and side by side with God. She works as the active agent of god in the creation of the world. In Mithraism, Mithra held the position of the Mediator between God who was unknowable and unapproachable and mankind. He fashioned the world as Demiurge. The intermediary Spirit of God occurs throughout the New Testament. Numenius of Apamea, writing in the second century, says that God has bestowed divine qualities upon a second god who acts in the world as the power for good. The Supreme God or the First principle, he adds, works in the spiritual world, whereas the activity of the second god extends to the spiritual as well as material world. Origen, writing shortly after him, says that God created Logos or the Son. His relation to the Father is the same as that which exists between Ahura Mazda and Spenta Mainyu. The Son or Logos, says Origen, is co-eternal and co-equal with the Father, but the Son is lesser than the Father. Clement of Alexandria says that Logos, represents the will, power, and energy of God. He is the creator on behalf of God. He has introduced harmony in the universe and conducts its affairs as the pilot. \|\|1. Genesis 1.2.\| \|The relation between Ahura Mazda and his Holy Spirit. It remains as subtle in the Younger Avestan texts as it was in the Gathas. We have already seen in the treatment of this highly abstract concept, as it is portrayed in the Gathic texts, that the term Spenta Mainyu either designated Ahura Mazda as his divine attribute, or occurred as a being separate from the godhead. The Later Avestan texts, it seems to us, lead us to the idea that Spenta Mainyu has no independent existence apart from Ahura Mazda, in other words, as shown above, he is not a personal being. The Later Avesta, moreover, as we shall see in the subsequent pages, teaches that all earthly and heavenly beings, belonging to the Kingdom of Goodness, including Ahura Mazda himself, have their Fravashis, or Guardian Spirits. Spenta Mainyu alone in the realm of the good is without his Guardian Spirit. Furthermore, Spenta Mainyu does not receive homage and invocation from man, as do Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas, and the Yazatas. In one passage the faithful dedicate their thoughts, words, deeds, and all to him.2 Spenta Mainyu, therefore, may be taken as an attribute of Ahura Mazda which is either conjointly used with the godhead as his distinguishing epithet, or occurs alone by itself to designate the Supreme Being. In this latter use, it may be said, Spenta Mainyu represents Ahura Mazda, in the same manner as the royal title 'His Majesty' is frequently used as a substitute for the name of a king.\|\|2. Y58.6.\| \|In contradistinction to the evil creation of Angra Mainyu, or the Evil Spirit, the Avestan texts speak of the good creation as belonging to Spenta Mainyu, the Holy Spirit.3 He maintains the sky, the waters, the earth, the plants, and the children to be born.4 The stars also are spoken of as the creatures of the Holy Spirit.5 He created Mithra's chariot, inlaid with stars and made of heavenly substance.6 He is spoken of as the holier of the two spirits.7 He struggles with Angra Mainyu to seize the Kingly Glory [khwarrah].8 Characteristic or the highly developed type of dualism of the Younger Avestan period, we find that the two rival spirits divide their sphere of influence in regard to the wind, or Vayu. The moderate wind that is conducive of good is called the wind of Spenta Mainyu,9 and only to this good part of Vayu are the faithful to offer sacrifice.10 Snavidhka, a tyrant foe of the Iranian hero Keresaspa, haughtily exclaims that if he ever grew to manhood he would make the heavens his chariot, convert the earth into a wheel, bring down Spenta Mainyu, or the Holy Spirit, from the shining paradise, and make Angra Mainyu, or the Evil Spirit, rush up from the dreary hell, and compel them to draw his chariot.11 In a couple of instances Ahura Mazda is depicted as speaking of the Holy Spirit as a part of himself. Speaking about the great work of the Fravashis, or the Guardian Spirits, Ahura Mazda says that had not the Ftavashis helped him, the wicked Druj would have smitten the good creation, and it would never have been possible for Spenta Mainyu to deal a blow to Angra Mainyu.12 Ahura Mazda sacrifices unto Vayu and asks from this angel of wind a boon, that he may smite the creation of Angra Mainyu but that none may smite the creation of Spenta Mainyu.13\|\| 3. Y1.16; 8.6, 11.13; 17.2; 57.17; Vr12.4; Yt6.2; 8.48; 11.11; 13.76; 15.3, 43, 44; Vd3.20; 5.33; 13.1, 2, 5, 6, 16. 4. Yt13.28, 29. 5. Y1.11; 3.13; 4.16; 7.13; 22.13; Yt12.32. 9. Y22.24; 25.5. 10. Yt15.5, 42, 57, 58; S1.21; 2.11. 11. Yt19.43, 44. 12. Yt13.12, 13. 13. Yt15.2, 3. The superlative forms, Spentotema Mainyu,14 or Spenishta Mainyu, meaning the Most Holy Spirit; are spoken of as Ahura Mazda's 14. Y1.1; 37.3. 15. Y19.1; Yt1.1; 14.1, 34, 42; Vd2.1; 7.1; 9.1; 10.1; 14.1; 18.14; A4.4. AMESHA SPENTASThe archangels. The higher celestial beings that had not expressly acquired a distinguishing name of their own in the Gathas are now designated as the Amesha Spentas, or 'Holy Immortal Ones.' They are thus addressed for the first time in the Haptanghaiti, or the Yasna of Seven Chapters, the earliest prose composition of the Avestan period, though still made in the Gathic dialect.1 They are all created by Ahura Mazda.2 Plutarch and Strabo refer to them in their works.3 With the godhead at the pinnacle they form a heptad and are henceforth mentioned as the seven Holy Immortal Ones.4 Severally they are both male and female.5 Vohu Manah, Asha Vahishta, and Khshathra Vairya are conceived of as masculine beings, though neuter in grammatical gender; Spenta Armaiti is pictured as a feminine concept; and Haurvatat and Ameretat are treated as masculine beings, though their grammatical gender is feminine. In a paramount degree they are all of one thought, one word, and one deed; their father and lord is the creator Ahura Mazda.6 They look into one another's soul;7 and they each have their special Fravashi.8 Garonmana [garothman], the highest heaven, is their dwelling-place, and there they occupy the golden seats that belong to spirits in the realm supernal.9 Their sacred names are the most mighty, most glorious, and the most victorious of the spells.10 To utter their name is synonymous with efficacy and power. Yasht 2 is devoted to their praise. 1. Y39.3; 42.6. 3. Is. et Os. 47; Strabo, p. 732; Thomas, Strabo and the Ameshaspands in J. J. Madressa Jubilee Volume, p. 173-176. 4. Yt2.13; 13.83; 19.16; For seven Babylonian Igigis and seven Elamite deities, see Gray, The Foundations of the Iranian Religions, p. 17. 5. Y4.4; 24.9; 39.3; Vr9.4. 6. Yt13.83; 19.16. 7. Yt13.84; 19.17. 9. Vd19.32, 36. Their attributes. The Amesha Spentas are the ever-living and the ever-helping ones;11 they are the wise ones, and good rulers.12 It is they that are the shining ones; of efficacious eyes, exalted, mighty, valiant, imperishable, and righteous.12 They are the makers, rulers, fashioners, guardians, protectors, and preservers of the creation of Mazda,14 and Mazda has given them 11. Y4.4; 39.3; Vr9.4; 11.12. 12. Y2.2; 4.4; 6.1; 24.9; 25.4; 35.1; 58.5; 70.1; Vr8.1; 11.12; Vd19.9. 13. Y26.3; Yt13.82. 14. Y58.5; Yt19.18; Vd19.9. Their work. The archangels hold their celestial councils on the heights of the heavens.16 From there they come down to the seven zones into which the world was divided according to the Avesta,17 and rule over the realms of earth.18 They are naturally invited to the sacrifice,19 and offerings are placed by the devout for them to accept.20 The faithful pray that the Amesha Spentas may visit and enjoy sacrifices in their houses,21 for shining is the path by which they descend to earth to receive the libations offered in their honour.22 Even Mithra as a God-like embodiment sacrificed unto them,23 and for him they have made a dwelling.24 They are of one accord with the sun;25 and they gather together the light of the moon and pour it down upon the earth.26 They are the divine ones who help in bringing about the final restoration of the world.27 Each of them will smite his opponent at the time of the resurrection.28 17. Y57.23; Yt11.14. 22. Yt13.84; 19.17. 25. Yt10.51; 13.92. Zarathushtra the first among mortals to sacrifice unto the Amesha Spentas. Mazda asks his prophet to invoke the Amesha Spentas, even though he could not behold them with his eyes.29 Zarathushtra follows Mazda's behests; and he is the first man to invoke them.30 a spiritual predecessor having been Sraosha. For that reason the faithful sacrifice unto the Amesha Spentas with love and joy,31 and pray to them for help and protection.32 Their praise and sacrifice form one of the cardinal articles of faith.33 Hence it is that we find in the oft-repeated formulas of the Later Avestan texts that sacrifice, invocation, propitiation, and glorification are offered to them for the furtherance of prosperity in the world of righteousness.34 Nor must it be forgotten that in his benedictions upon King Vishtaspa the prophet invokes upon his royal patron the blessings of brightness, glory, riches, swift horses, and good sons that come as a benign gift from the archangels.35 The ceremonials performed in honour of the Amesha Spentas by unholy priests delight them not;36 on the other hand, distress and harm flee from that worshipper whose homage has reached them.37 When their loving votary performs his devotions and finds his spirit inflamed by their love, he forthwith dedicates to them the very life of his body and all his earthly possessions.38 31. Y15.1; Vr6.1. 36. Yt10.139; 24.12. 38. Y11.18; 14.1, 2; Vr5.2. His place in the Later Avesta. As the first in the creation of Ahura Mazda, Vohu Manah retains his pre-eminent position in the Later Avestan period. He occupies his seat next to Ahura Mazda in the celestial council. The other archangels live in him.39 In some cases Vohu Manah does not stand as the name of the archangel, but simply connotes its ordinary meaning good mind or thought. In fact, as in the Gathas, there is a subtlety of meaning that makes it difficult to decide in translation whether the concept or the archangel is intended. In Vd19.20, 23-25 the term designates a good man or even clean clothes. \|\|39. Y4.4; Vr11.12.\| Vohu Manah guards wisdom. Vohu Manah's khratu, or wisdom, which occurs in the Gathas, is now classified in the later texts into two distinct types, âsna khratu, 'innate wisdom,' and gaoshosruta khratu, 'acquired wisdom.' These two types of knowledge are spoken of as objects worthy of sacrifice and propitiation.40 Ahura Mazda accordingly asks Zarathushtra to seek knowledge all the night long,41 because the true priest and his disciples work by day and by night for the increase of knowledge.42 Vohu Manah rejoices in man's endeavour to wrest from nature her secrets. 40. Y22.25; 25.6; Yt2.1; S1.2, 29; 2.2, 29. 42. Vd4.45; 18.6. \|His Work. When the Evil Spirit first attacked creation Vohu Manah came to its succour.43 Zarathushtra asks Ahura Mazda to teach him the laws of both the worlds, so that men following his precepts may act in such a way that Vohu Manah may come to them.44 It is through his medium that the devout can aspire to reach Ahura Mazda;45 and on that account he is implored to further bodily life.46 It is said, moreover, that he is more a possession of the hard-working man of the world, who has married and toils for his family, than of the celibate or the ascetic.47 Vohu Manah's function of guarding the animal kingdom is not emphasized in the Avestan texts.\|\| 43. Yt13.77, 78. \|Vohu Manah welcomes the righteous souls to paradise. When the blessed ones cross the great bridge and come up to the gates of heaven, this premier angel rises from his golden throne and in gracious words receives the new-comers.48\|\|48. Vd19.31.\| In the final conflict between the hosts of the rival powers, he will smite his adversary Aka Manah.48a The formation of the name. The Younger Avesta, in conformity with the Gathas, calls this archangel Asha and adds the epithet vahishta or 'best' to the name. The variant stem arta is, however, found as an element of Astvatereta, the name of the renovator [soshyant].49 It is also met with in the proper names during the Achaemenian period. We have, for example, Artakhshathra, Artadata, Artapata, and Artafarnah. Its forms areta, 'proper,' and anareta or anaretha, 'improper,' are likewise found.50 A righteous person is called ashavan which is equivalent to the Vedic rtâvan. In the use of Avestan ashahe khâ and Vedic khâ rtasya, 'source of righteousness,' we have an interesting instance of the common words employed by both.51 49. Yt13.110, 117, 128, 129; 19.92, 95. 50. Y12.4; 65.9; Vr1.2; 2.2. 51. Y10.4; RV2.28.5. \|His righteousness remains the basic doctrine of Zoroastrianism during the Later Avestan period. Ahura Mazda is the righteous lord of righteousness.52 Among the many names by which Ahura Mazda is invoked in the hymn dedicated to him, the fourth is Asha Vahishta or Best Righteousness.53 Ahura Mazda has created Asha Vahishta, or Best Righteousness,54 who is the greatest, best, fairest, the radiant, the all-good archangel.55 In one instance he is called by the Indo-Iranian epithet bagha, 'divinity.' He it is who smites disease, death, fiends, sorcerers, noxious creatures, and his adversary Druj, Deceit or Wickedness.56 Zarathushtra for that reason proclaims the glory of Asha Vahishta, through whom the way to the abode of the archangels, paradise, becomes easy.57 The souls of the dead, who are the Fravashis of the righteous, dwell in the shining realm of Asha Vahishta.58 This celestial personification gives joy to the souls of the righteous dead.59 It is through him that the devotee aspires to behold and reach Ahura Mazda.60 He offers homage and adoration to him along with Ahura Mazda.61 Emphasizing Zarathushtra's dictum in the Gathas, the Younger Avesta affirms that there is one path alone that leads to the eternal life, and that is the Path of Righteousness.62 The Vedas likewise allude to the Path of Rta.63 The Achaemenian kings refer to the Right Path in their rock inscriptions.64 Buddha embodies his teachings in his noble Eightfold Path.65 During the same period Lao-tze interprets his philosophy in the Tao or the Way in China. Shinto or the Way of the gods appears in the national cult of Japan. The prophets and seers reveal the Path or Way of life to mankind and Jesus calls himself the Way, a thousand years after Zarathushtra. The faithful invoke the holy waters of Ahura Mazda for the attainment of this path which is the most upright and which leads to the paradise of the righteous.66 Atar, the genius of fire, leads to this straightest path all those who lie not unto Mithra.67 Referring to the guilty persons who have undergone punishments for the crime of assaulting other persons, the Vendidad68 admonishes sinners to walk in the path of righteousness in future. Darius likewise exhorts men not to leave the path which is right.69\|\| 55. Y13.8; 37.4; 59.32; 60.13; Yt1.22; 2.7; 13.91, 92; S1.3; 2.3. 59. TdFr. 72-74. 64. Naksh-i Rustam a. 6. 65. Mahâvagga, 1.6.18. 69. NR. a. 6. Zarathushtra was the first among mortais to praise this embodiment of holiness;70 and King Vishtaspa, by adopting the new faith, helped to open the way for righteousness in this world.71 The faithful beseech Ahura Mazda to bless them with intelligent men who embrace righteousness;72 Good, thoughts of the mind, good words of the tongue, and good deeds of the hand make man ashavan, or righteous.73 He obtains purity when he cleanses his own self with them.74 The friendship of Asha in this world and the next is the most coveted boon for all time.75 It is easy to understand why Asha is invoked to enter the house of the faithful to smite the wicked Druj.76 The excellence of religious thoughts, words, and deeds, which is ordained by Ahura Mazda, and nourished by Vohu Manah, is furnished by the righteousness of 71. Yt13.99; 19.93. 73. TdFr. 57-59; see Nariman, Buddhist parallels to Humata, Hukhta, Hvarashta in Dastur Hoshang Memorial Volume, p. 311-316. 75. Y40.2; 41.6. 77. Vr12.3, 4. Righteousness is the highest riches. Man, we are told, pines for the riches of the earth and often strives to obtain the boon of wealth even by unlawful means. On the contrary, he should rather aspire to a store of righteousness, which is the real and permanent wealth. When a man starts on a journey, he takes provisions and stores with him.78 He takes care to provide himself with more goods than are his actual requirements.79 How sad it is, then, that he should not furnish himself now, while it is time, with the spiritual stores of righteousness for the great journey which he will have one day to undertake and from which he will never return.80 In the end cattle are dust; gold and silver are dross; even the body of man mingles with clay. Righteousness alone does not mingle with the dust, but survives the bodily death of man.81 There comes a day or there comes a night, when the master leaves his cattle, when the cattle leave their master, and the soul leaves the body.82 But righteousness, which is the greatest and the best of all riches, accompanies the soul after death.83 Riches and fortune one cannot have for oneself, nor can one maintain form and beauty of body forever at will; but everyone can embrace righteousness and make it his own in this world.84 The best man is the righteous man. He is not heroic who is not heroic in righteousness, he is not valiant who is not valiant in righteousness.85 Life in departing leaves the richest empty in the midst of his abundance, if he lacks righteousness. 78. Aog. 41. 79. Aog. 42-44. 80. Aog. 46-47. 81. Aog. 84. 82. Aog. 51. 83. Aog. 52. 84. TdFr. 95-98. 85. TdFr. 103, 104. The world of righteousness, as against the world of wickedness. The universe is divided into two hostile camps. The righteous form a distinct world by themselves, and they are the favourite ones of Ahura Mazda. The men who have chosen to naturalize themselves as citizens of the Kingdom of Wickedness form a separate world of their own. The texts in the Later Avesta speak of the ashaono sti, 'the world of the righteous man,' as opposed to the drvato sti, 'the world of the wicked fiend,' The sorcerers and the wicked destroy the world of righteousness.86 It is the faithful that work for the furtherance of the one, and for the destruction of the other.87 The man that is holy rejoices in the prosperity of the former, just as he exults in the adversity of the latter.88 He who does not gladden a righteous person who comes within his gates has no lasting or true joy. To be charitable to such a one is to attain paradise.89 But again, he rejoices not who helps a wicked person that clamours for help. To help such an evil one is equivalent to hindering righteousness, inasmuch as he is wicked who is a source of goodness to the wicked.90 A gift bestowed upon a righteous man is the best of all libations,91 but not so when it is made to a wicked one. Refusing food to a demon-worshipper or a wicked one does not make one guilty.92 The faithful pray that a righteous king may rule over them, but that a wicked one may be baffled and defeated.93 89. TdFr. 107-109. 90. Y71.13; TdFr. 110-112. Bodily purity contributes to righteousness. Next to life the second best good for man is purity.94 This is the dictum of the Gathas, and it is most consistently developed throughout the entire subsequent literature. It is the favourite theme on which, the Zoroastrian theologians are never tired of expatiating. Purity of body is the most salient feature in the life of a Zoroastrian. It is rated higher than anything else. The problem of cleanness and uncleanness, purity and impurity, has evoked an extensive literature. The tenets of the faith in this respect have been worked out into a science of health. Bodily purity is indispensable to purity of mind. Cleanliness of body is an essential requisite for saintliness. The clean in body find it easy to be pure in mind, and the pure in heart have just a step to take to be holy in spirit. Asha Vahishta comes to be regarded as the healing spirit of bodily diseases. As the many kinds of healers restore bodily health by herbs and drugs, and remove the tumours and cancers by knife and implements, so there are healers that heal through righteousness or by the holy spell. We shall speak later on, in its proper place, of the art of healing by means of the holy spell. The Yasht which receives its name after Asha Vahishta is in fact mostly consecrated to Asha Vahishta's associate Airyaman, the guardian genius of human health. Of all the healers, the Avestan texts announce, the spiritual healer is the best one; it is he that heals the faithful through his own righteousness by means of the utterance of the holy spell.95 \|\|95. Yt3.6; Vd7.44.\| Asha Vahishta's relation to fire. We have seen in the Gathas Asha's dual association with the universal order prevailing everywhere and fire. We find these early Zoroastrian conceptions reflected in the writings of the Greek philosophers of the period. Heraclitus, who flourished at Ephesus, near the end of the sixth century B.C., postulates fire as the first principle from which everything that exists has come. It is working as reason or Logos and reveals the stable, divine law in the eternal flow of things in the universe. Heraclitus left a deep impression on Greek philosophy and his conceptions appear in later thinkers.96 \|\|96. See also Carnoy, Zoroastrianism in ERE 12. 866.\| In the Avestan liturgy Asha Vahishta is invoked together with Atar; the genius of fire.97 Angra Mainyu, as the devil, exclaims that Zarathushtra burns him with Asha Vahishta as with molten metal.98 This allegory of burning and annihilating the Evil Spirit through righteousness is taken literally in the later period of Zoroastrianism, Where Asha Vahishta is identified at times with the household fire on the hearth. Such identification in the realms of matter and of spirit serves only to bring more into prominence the main tenets of Zoroaster's teachings in regard to Asha. 97. Y1.4; 2.4; 3.6; 4.9; 6.3; 7.6, 17.3; 22.6; 59.3; Yt4.9; Sr1.7; 2.7; Afr. 4.2; G.2, 9, 12. The change that the concept undergoes. The Gathic Khshathra now takes Vairya, 'desirable,' as its standing epithet, and hence both the terms combine to form the name of this archangel. This archangel of Ahura Mazda99 gradually loses the abstract side of his nature in the Avestan texts. In the Gathic prose text of the Yasna Haptanghaiti the abstract idea of the Divine Kingdom occurs but once. In this solitary passage the devout long for the everlasting Kingdom of Ahura Mazda.100 Throughout the Younger Avestan texts this abstract idea of the spiritual kingdom recedes into the background, or rather is entirely lost sight of. True, Khshathra Vairya is still occasionally invoked by name along with the other celestial beings, but his higher function as the genius of the sovereign power in the abstract entirely falls out. \|Khshathra Vairya as the genius of earthly wealth. Materially Khshathra Vairya is the genius of metal, and his activity is now limited to guarding this concrete creation of God. He is not spoken of as the genius of the celestial riches of the Divine Kingdom of Ahura Mazda. Khshathra Vairya and the molten metal are invoked side by side.101 In fact he very soon loses even this trait of his work; he is identified with metal and just becomes metal itself.102 Thrita, the first reputed healer of the bodies of mortals, received from him a surgical instrument for healing.103\|\| 101. Vr20.1; Yt2.7; Sr1.4; 2.4. 102. Yt10.125; Vd9.10; 16.6; 17.6, 8. As the genius of metal, Khshathra Vairya is the lord of earthly riches. He generously bestows his possessions on the poor. He is sometimes invoked in company of marezhdika, 'mercy,'104 who is styled the protector of the poor. We can trace this relation of Khshathra Vairya as the merciful helper of the poor to the Ahuna Vairya [Ahunwar] formula. \|\|104. Yt2.7; Sr1.4; 2.4.\| Her position in the Avesta. As devotion personified on the abstract side, and as the genius of the earth on the concrete side, Spenta Armaiti, 'Holy Devotion,' retains her dual nature in the Younger Avesta. Through the medium of Devotion the faithful aspire to approach Ahura Mazda,105 and in the Confession of Faith the pious follower of Zarathushtra chooses Devotion, and yearns to make her his own.106 Upon lifting up his devotional prayer the house-lord prays that she may enter his house and thus rout heresy.107 The malice and harm of the wicked could be averted through her help.108 She is the daughter of Ahura Mazda and as the genius of devotion is the mother of Ashi Vanghulti, or the genius of Good Piety,109 while Rata, the guardian spirit of generosity, is invoked with her.110 105. Y13.6; 39, 5. 109. Yt17.16; Vd19.13, 16. 110. Sr1.5; 2.5. Armaiti as earth. From her position as the female genius of the earth,111 Armaiti very soon becomes the earth herself. She is now more frequently spoken of as the earth than as the genius of the earth.112 She wears the star-studded sky as her 112. Y16.10; Yt24.50; Vd2.10, 14, 18; 18.51, 64. HAURVATAT AND AMERETAT \|The dual archangels. These two Amesha Spentas are closely united to each other and generally occur together side by side.114 Haurvatat has a Yasht consecrated to him, being invoked as the lord of seasons and years.115 Ahura Mazda created Haurvatat for the help, joy, comfort, and pleasure of the righteous ones.116 The man who invokes the name of Haurvatat as one of the archangels is able to smite the legion of demons.117 The two, Haurvatat and Ameretat, together form the reward of the righteous after death,118 while fire is invoked to grant the blessings of Haurvatat and Ameretat to its supplicants for help and joy.119 The two archangels together will smite the demons of hunger and thirst during the final conflict between the forces of good and evil.120\|\| 114. Y1.2; 3.1; 4.1; 6.17; 7.26; 8.1; 58.7; 70.2; 11.12; Vr9.5; Yt1.15; 10.92. 115. Yt4.0; S1.6; 2.6. Instances where the two archangels materially personify water and plants are not found in the Later Avestan texts. Examples, however, are not wanting, as is well known, in which they occur as meaning specifically water and plants in their healing effect on mankind.121 \|\|121. Y3.1; 4.1, 3; 7.1, 20; 8.1.\| The Zoroastrian angels. Next in rank to the Amesha Spentas come the Yazatas, literally meaning the 'adorable ones.' We find the corresponding Skt. word Yajata in the Rig Veda, but it does not play any conspicuous part there. If the Amesha Spentas are the archangels in Zoroastrian theology, the Yazatas are the angels. They are numbered by hundreds and by thousands,1 by tens of thousands and by hundreds of thousands, nay even more.2 About forty only, however, are mentioned in the extant Avestan text. Plutarch refers to twenty-four.3 The prominent Yazatas mentioned by name in Y16.4-6; Sr1.8-30; 2.8-30, closely correspond to the number mentioned by the Greek writer. Several of the Yazatas have individually consecrated to them a Yasht, or hymn of praise, which narrates the doings and functions of its respective genius. Besides the Yashts that form a special biographical literature of these minor divinities, the whole Iranian literature is filled with the record of their achievements. Ahura Mazda himself is a Yazata,4 even as he is an Amesha Spenta. He is the greatest and the best Yazata.5 Zarathushtra himself is spoken of as a Yazata.6 2. Vr8.1; for a list of minor divinities see Gray, The Foundations of the Iranian Religions, p, 221-224. 3. Is et Os., 47. 5. Y16.1; Yt17.16. 6. Y3.21; 7.21. History of the Yazatas. Some of these Yazatas are, as we have already seen, pre-Zoroastrian and go back to the Indo-Iraniam period; but with the exception of Sraosha, Atar, and Ashi, they do not appear in the Gathas, though frequent enough in the Later Avesta. In fact, they permeate all the later texts, and form an indissoluble part of the Zoroastrian pantheon. We shall group them under two headings and distinguish those that are common to the Indians and the Iranians from those that are Indo-lranian: Mithra, Airyaman, Haoma, Verethraghna, Parendi, Rata, Nairyosangha, Apam Napat, Ushah, and Vayu. Iranian: Atar, Ardvi Sura Anahita, Hvarekhshaeta, Maonghah, Tishtrya Drvaspa, Sraosha, Rashnu, Raman, Daena, Chisti, Erethe, Rasanstat, Ashi Vanghuhi, Arshtat, Asman, Zam, Manthra Spenta, Damoish Upamana, and Anaghra \|Characteristics of the Yazatas. Like their celestial elders, the Amesha Spentas, the Yazatas impersonate abstract ideas and virtues, or concrete objects of nature. Many of them preside over both spiritual and material phenomena. The nature Yazatas Hvarekhshaeta, Mithra, Maonghah, Ardvi Sura, Atar, and others personify the sun, light, moon, water, and fire. At times their names designate merely the objects of nature that they personify. This simultaneous treatment of the dual aspect of these angels is frequently found in one and the same paragraph and makes it difficult to distinguish the actual impersonations from the personified objects. Very often praise and sacrifice are offered more to the sun, light, moon, water, and fire as such than to the Yazatas presiding over them. We learn from Herodotus that the Persians sacrificed unto the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and winds.7\|\|7. Herod. 1.131.\| Instances are not wanting in which a Yazata begins his career as the personification of some one particular virtue or an object of nature, but with the lapse of time either substitutes for it some other or widens his sphere of activity and takes some new virtue in the abstract or some new object of nature under his guardianship in addition to his original duty. Some of the Yazatas are lacking in real individuality. The functions of the Yazatas. Various are the boons that the Yazatas give unto man.8 By hundreds and by thousands they gather together the light of the sun and pour it upon the earth.9 Men invoke them with sacrifices10 and in return they help men, They have a share of invocation and sacrifice offered unto Ahura Mazda, who is not jealous of the oblations thus dedicated to his subordinates. They are the holy, mighty, beneficent ones,11 full of glory and healing.12 Apart from the general work which the Yazatas perform as a class of spiritual beings, they are severally allotted different functions, which we shall notice under their respective headings. 8. Y65.12, 14. 9. Yt6.1; Ny1.11 11. Y25.8; 65.12, 14; G2.6. Offerings and sacrifices to the Yazatas. Libations of milk and Haoma, of the Draonah [dron], or wafer-bread, and of meat are the objects generally dedicated to the angels, who always demand that man shall not forget their invocation and praise. They are ever eager to protect and help man in peace or war, provided that man propitiates them with offerings and sacrifices. To Anahita as celestial guardian of the waters, to Drvaspa, who protects cattle, and to Vayu, the wind, a hundred horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand sheep are consecrated in sacrifice by some of the early kings and heroes. We shall turn to this subject later. Division of the Yazatas according to their grammatical gender. The Yazatas are both males and females, or rather the personifications of virtues and ideas that are in gender masculine and feminine. There is no distinction between these male and female divinities. Both of them are on the same level, occupy the same place of honour, and receive the same amount of homage. The gentle work becoming to the fair sex is allotted to female angels, and they are as powerful and awe-inspiring in their own sphere of activity as their fellow-workers of the opposite sex are in theirs. The female angels are: Ushah, Zam, Ardvi Sura Anahita, Drvaspa, Daena, Chisti, Arshtat, Erethe, Rasanstat Ashi Vanghuhi, Parendi, and Rata. All others are the male sex. Group Yazatas. The usual manner of sacrificing unto the angels is to invoke each one separately by his name, or in company of his comrades and co-workers, or in joint pairs. On this last point we shall speak anon under a separate heading. Sometimes all the angels are invoked in a group under the comprehensive title of vispe Yazata, "all Yazatas,"13 closely corresponding to the Vedic vishve Devâh, 'all Divinities.' In fact an entire book of the ritual is dedicated to the various spiritual lords under the title Visperad, literally meaning 'all lords.' \|\|13. Y1.19; 2.18; Yt11.17; 17.19; WFr. 5.1.\| Dual Yazatas. A particular feature common to the Avestan and Vedic religions is the arrangement of certain divinities in pairs, who are revered together. As some of the Yazatas guard more than one abstract virtue or impersonate more than one natural phenomenon, it is not uncommon to find one Yazata entering into partnership with various Yazatas according to the nature of his work. For instance, Mithra, as the sovereign lord of wide pastures, forms a pair with Ahura; as the lord of light, he works in consort with Hvarekhshaeta, the genius of light; as the lord of truth, he works in company with Rashnu; and as the lord of plenty and prosperity, he enters into a comradeship with Raman. The more prominent of the dual divinities are Ahura-Mithra,14 Hvarekhshaeta-Mithra,15 Mithra-Rashnu,16 Mithra-Raman,17 Rashnu-Arshtat,18 Raman-Vayu,19 Daena-Chisti,20 Ashi Vanghuhi-Parendi,21 and Asman-Zamyat.22 Sometimes a special attribute of one Yazata is extended to his associate, and they share the characteristic qualities and functions of each other. 14. Y1.11; 2.11; Ny1.7; 2.12; Yt10.113, 145. 15. Yt6; Ny1.2. 16. Vr7.2; Yt13.47, 48; 14.47; 24.52; Vd4.54. 17. Y2.3; 25.4; Vr2.9; Vd3.1; G1.2, 7, 8; S1.16, 2.16. 18. Y1.7; 2.7; Yt10.139; 12.40, S1.18; 2.18. 19. Y16.5; S1.21; 2.21. 20. Ny1.8; 2.8; S1.24; 2.24. 21. Y13.1; Yt8.38; 10.66; 24.8; S1.25; 2.25. 22. Yt1.16; 16.6; 42.3. \|Classification of the Yazatas. The Avestan texts generally speak of two distinct orders of the Yazatas. They are mainyava, 'spiritual or celestial,' and gaethya, 'material or terrestrial.'23 We are not, however, informed what particular Yazatas are grouped under each of the two classes. A very recent gloss in the Pahlavi version of the Avestan Litany Khurshid Niyayesh explains that the terrestrial angels are such as Fire, Ardvi Sura's Waters, the Wind, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. These are so called, adds the commentator, because they can be seen by man with his eyes, whereas the celestial ones cannot thus be seen.24\|\| 23. Y1.19; 3.4; 7.4; 16.9; 22.27; 25.8; 71.5; Yt6.3, 4; 10.13; 19.22; S1.30; 2.30; Ny1.9; G2.6; Vd2.21; 19.30; WFr. 1.2. 24. Cf. Dhalla, Nyaishes, p. 35, New York, 1908. In the following tabulation we shall class the Yazatas under two main divisions. Those Yazatas who commonly work for one and the same virtue, or preside over some one particular phenomenon, will be classed under the sub-titles of such a virtue or a phenomenon common to them. Thus, for example, all the Yazatas that guard rectitude will be treated in one group, and those that preside over 1ight will be dealt with together. In cases where a Yazata presides over more than one virtue, we shall class this particular angel under the most prominent and characteristic of his virtues. Religion deified. One of the least personified Yazatas is Daena, even though she is a female divinity of religion. Very little is known of her personality more than the fact that she is the genius of the Holy Law of Mazda. She has a Yasht assigned to her which is called after her name; and yet even this is entirely consecrated to Chisti, who is her usual associate. The offerings are made to her companion, and various boons are asked from her. Daena has no share in this. She is simply mentioned by name in invocation along with Chisti. Even here she is assigned a secondary place, for Chisti takes precedence over her. Throughout the Avestan texts in which the two are mentioned together, Daena stands second in the order of invocation.25 Ashi Vanghuhi, or Good Piety, is her sister and Sraosha, Rashnu, and Mithra are her brothers.26 The twenty-fourth day of every month is dedicated to her.27 25. Y22.24; 25.5; S1.24; 2.24; Ny1.8; 2.8. 26. Yt17.15, 17. The names of the religion. It is called the daena vanghu Mazdayasnya, 'the good Mazda-worshipping religion,'28 or daena Mazdayasna, 'the Mazda-worshipping religion.'29 It is named conjointly with Ahura and Zarathushtra and called Âhuirya Zarathushtri, 'the Ahurian Zarathushtrian.'30 It is further named dâta Zarathushtri, 'the Law of Zarathushtra.31 It is also spoken of without associating it with Ahura Mazda or Zarathushtra as hu-daena, 'good religion.'32 The religion in standing opposition to the Mazda-wotshipping religion is always called daevayasnya, 'the daeva-worshipping religion.' The preliminary short prayers, the Gahs, the Niyayeshes, the Yashts generally begin with a short confessionary formula in which the reciter says he is the worshipper of Mazda, a Zarathushtrian, he is against the daevas, and he is of Ahurian faith, Ahura-tkaesho. One of the Nasks, the Vendidad in its original form, vi-daeva-dâta, means 'the Law against the daevas or demons'.33 This religion of the demons is called aka-daena, 'evil religion';34 or duzh-daena, 'evil religion.'35 The man who follows the same religion is hâmo-daena, 'the co-religionist.'36 The man of other religion is of anya-tkaesha or anya-varena.37 27. Y16.6; S1.24; 2.24. 28. Y1.13; 2.13; 9.26; 11.16; 16.6; 22.24, 25; 25.5, 6; 70.3; Vr6.1; Yt2.13; 16.20; S1.24; 2.24; Ny1.8; 2.8; Vd19.6, 7, 13, 16. 29. Y8.1, 3; 22.25; 25.6; 71.4; Vr12.3; Yt8.23, 29; 10.68, 126, 127; 11.3; 16.17; 18.8; 19.2; 24.52; G2.7; Vd2.42; 3.30, 31, 41, 42; 5.21; 9.2, 47, 52; 10.18. 30. Y12.9; 60.3; Yt13.99; Vd2.1, 2. 31. Y1.13; 2.13; 22.25; 25.6; Yt11.3; Vd5.25; 19.16. 32. Vr3.3; Yt4.10; 19.95; 22.18; G4.8. 33. Y1.13; 2.13; 22.25; 25.6; 71.5; Yt11.17; Vd5.22; 19.16. 35. Y65.6; Yt5.109; 9.31; 19.47, 87; 22.36. 37. Y16.2; Vd12.21; 15.2. \|The excellence of the Mazda-worshipping religion. The angel Sraosha is the teacher of the religion.38 Arshtat, the genius presiding over rectitude, is once identified with Daena.39 Ahura Mazda brought for Haoma the heavenly made star-bespangled girdle and the good Mazda-worshipping religion.40 He asked Yima to be the bearer of his religion to mankind, but the illustrious king pleaded his inability to undertake such a mighty task.41 Zarathushtra then became the prophet of Ahura Mazda, and brought his religion to the world. The Kingly Glory clave unto king Vishtaspa and he thought and spoke and acted according to the religion.42 He became the arm and support of the Ahurian Zoroastrian religion.43 He found her fettered in chains and made her widely known.44\|\| 38. Y57.24; Yt11.24. 41. Vd2.3, 4. The Ahurian Zoroastrian religion, We are told, is the greatest, best, and fairest of all religions that are and that will be.45 She is as much higher in greatness, goodness, and fairness than others as the Vourukasha is above all waters, or a great river, flowing swifter than a rivulet, or as a great tree overshadowing small plants, or as the heaven compassing the earth.46 She is beautiful and spread far and wide.47 As dissensions-dispelling, she causes weapons to be laid down.48 She rejoices, protects, and guards the righteous man.49 She takes away the sins of those who confess their wrongs and removes their evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds, as the powerfully blowing wind cleanses the plain.50 The Mazdayasnian religion gives all good things of life.51 She gives purification to him who cleanses his self with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.52 The place where the faithful pray and sacrifice according to religion is happy.53 Hard work and industry are prime Zoroastrian virtues. Agriculture is the staple industry of the people and the texts say that sowing corn again and again feeds the Mazda-worshipping religion, it makes her walk with a hundred men's feet and suckles her with a thousand women's breasts.54 The householder prays for the long-enduring excellence of the religion in his house.55 Priests going afar for the propagation of religion, pray for a good memory and the soundness of the body.56 He is not an athravan who has not girded his loins for religion.57 The white colour, it is said is symbolic of the Mazda-worshipping 50. Vd3.41, 42. 52. Vd5.21; 10.18. 54. Vd3.30, 31. \|Divinity of religious wisdom. Unlike her partner, just mentioned, Chisti, divinity of religious wisdom, has a personality that is sharply defined. Her standing epithets are 'good' and 'most upright.' She is the most upright, holy, bearing libations, wearing a white garment as her emblem.59 Zarathushtra longs to own her and devoutly implores her to grant him, among other things, the clearest vision.60 The prophet's noble consort Hvovi, as well as the itinerant priests and the lords of the country, are among her supplicants, asking various boons, which she grants to those who are pure in heart.61 The faithful long to approach Ahura Mazda through the deeds of Chisti.62\|\| 61. Yt16.15, 17, 19. The word chisti is often used to denote spiritual wisdom. The eighth name of Ahura Mazda is chisti or wisdom, and the ninth is 'possessed of wisdom.'63 The world first came into being through Ahura Mazda's understanding and wisdom.64 Haoma makes the mind of the poor exalted with wisdom.65 63. Yt1.8, 9. His personality. Sraosha is one of the few angels whose prominence increases with the lapse of time. Two Yashts are dedicated to him. The latter of which occurs also in the Yasna. He is the angel whose name has reached afar and whose very body is the holy spell.66 Sraosha occupied a conspicuous place in the Gathas, and was associated with Ahura Mazda and his six abstract figures that have now become a corporate body of the seven Amesha Spentas. His close connection with them is remembered by the composers of the Later Avestan texts. We are told that he was the first in the entire creation to worship Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas. and the two protectors.67 He chanted the five holy Gathas of Zarathushtra in order to propitiate the archangels.68 From his battles against the demons, he returns victorious to the celestial assembly of the archangels.69 His dwelling is supported by a thousand pillars, is self-lighted from within, and star-spangled from without.70 He drives forth in a heavenly chariot drawn by four white shining horses that are fleeter than the winds, fleeter than the rain, fleeter than the winged birds, and fleeter than the well-darted arrow.71 They overtake all, but none can overtake them, when Sraosha drives towards Hapta Hindu or the land of seven rivers in India.72 The sacred formula Ahuna Vairya [Ahunwar] and the other consecrated spells are his weapons.73 His sisters are Ashi and Daena, and his brothers are Rashnu and Mithra,74 and unto him Haoma offered sacrifice.75 Owing to his victorious courage and wisdom the archangels come down to the seven zones.76 66. Y3.20; 4.23; Yt13.85; Vd18.14. 67. Y57.2, 6. 71. Y57.27, 28. Sraosha's attributes. His standing epithets are: holy, well-shapen, victorious, ad world-increasing. He is the strongest, the sturdiest, the most active, the swiftest, and the most awe-inspiring of youths.77 He is the word incarnate, the valiant wielder of the club, which is levelled against all demoniacal powers, especially against the fiendish Druj.78 He is courageous, mighty, swift, powerful, terrible, and heroic.79 He is a formidable foe to the wicked. He is not afraid or anyone, but the demons tremble at his sight and flee to the region of darkness.80 His mace does havoc on them. He is the warrior of the strong arms, who breaks the skulls of the demons.81 Himself unconquerable, he is the conqueror of all. 78. Y3.20; 4.23; 57.1, 33; Yt11.0, 23; Sr1.17; Vd18.14. 79. Y57.3, 11, 12, 13, 23. 80. Y57.18; Yt11.13. 81. Y57.34; Yt11.9. \|The work of Sraosha. Mazda has revealed his religion to Sraosha, who now teaches it to the world of humanity.82 This was the prime function, as we have seen above, that the Gathas allotted him. The Younger Avestan texts speak more of his all-absorbing work of combating the demons. In the Gathas he preached devout submission to Mazda's mandates; in the Later Avesta he does the fighting with the rebels that revolt against divine authority. He, the exalted one, comes down to the creation of Mazda, with loins girt up to fight the demons.83 Sleep has forsaken his eyelids since the two spirits Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu created the world.84 Ahura Mazda has created him to withstand the demon Aeshma.85 With an uplifted club he guards the world after sunset from the onslaughts of Aeshma, his constant rival, and against all the forces of wickedness.86 Three times during the day and three times during the night the holy Sraosha descends on earth to smite the evil spirit Angra Mainyu, Aeshma, the demons of Mazandaran, and all other demons.87 Just as the shepherd dog guards and protects cattle against harm, so does Sraosha protect men; and the faithful, therefore, yearn with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds to live under his constant guardianship.88 The fire of the hearth calls Sraosha for help in the third part of the night, for the demon Azi threatens to extinguish his life.89 Sraosha, thereupon, wakes up the cock Parodarsh, his ally, who lifts up his voice to rouse the world of humanity, and warns it against the mischief of Bushyansta, who lulls it to sleep.90 With his terrible mace levelled at the head of Druj, he enters into controversy with her, extorts from the demoness her secret devices,91 and smites her.92 As the teacher of religion unto men he moves about spreading religious lore at his will over the whole material world.93\|\| 82. Y57.24; Yt11.14. 84. Y57.17; Yt11.11, 12. 86. Y57.10, 16; Yt11.10, 11. 87. Y57.31, 32. 90. Vd18.23, 24. 92. Y57.15; Yt11.3, 10. The master of rituals takes his name from Sraosha and is called Sraoshâvarez.94 Parodarsh is called the Sraoshâvarez of Sraosha.95 The implement of administering stripes to the criminals is called Sraoshocharana.96 94. Vr3.1; Yt24.15; Vd5.25, 57, 58; 7.17, 18, 71; G3.5. 95. Vd18.14, 15. 96. Vd3.36, 37; etc. Sraosha's gifts. He is implored to give strength to the spans of the warriors' steeds in battle, soundness of body, and power to meet the adversary.96a He is like a firmly built house unto the poor, who look to him for support.97 The faithful entreat him to guard them in both the worlds.98 The householder invokes him to smite disobedience in his family.99 He smites Kunda.100 The Mazdayasnians are asked to sacrifice unto him.101 Evils of all kinds vanish from the house, clan, town, and country, wherein the righteous man thinking good thoughts, speaking good words, and doing good deeds, welcomes and sacrifices unto Sraosha.102 The faithful pray for all the houses protected by Sraosha, wherein he is friendly, beloved, and honoured.103 They beseech him to come to their help.104 97. Y51.10; Yt11.3. 103. Y57.35; Yt11.20. His place in the Avestan pantheon. Of all the Indo-Iranian divinities that have found their place in the Zarathushtrian theology, Mithra is the most prominent figure. As an associate of Varuna, Mithra's individuality was eclipsed during the Indo-Iranian period. After the separation of these two groups of the Aryan people, Mithra rose to great eminence, and was the premier divinity in Western Iran, when Zarathushtra preached his religion. During the period of syncretism after the passing away of the prophet, Mithra became the most conspicuous angel of the Younger Avestan period. The longest Yasht, which is eight times longer than the Yasht composed in honour of Ahura Mazda, celebrates his greatness. He is the most masculine, exacting, implacable, and relentless of all the Yazatas. Ahura Mazda has created him the most glorious of the spiritual Yazatas,105 as worthy of sacrifice and prayer as himself.106 The description of him in the Yasht that is dedicated in his honour gives a vivid picture of the character of the pre-Zarathushtrian divinities that came to be worshipped in Iran. Mithra was the most eminent of the primitive Ahuras, as he was conjointly worshipped with Ahura Mazda.107 The writer who consecrated Yasht 10 in his honour was conversant with the past greatness of this divinity, whose cult had struck so deep a root in the popular mind. He certainly was unsparing in eulogizing the work of this genius in the universe. The texts sometimes speak of Mithra in terms that are usually applied to Ahura Mazda, and the latter himself is represented in this particular Yasht as having sacrificed unto Mithra.108 The heptad of the Amesha Spentas having been already complete, Mithra is not raised to the rank of these higher beings. but is assigned a place among the Yazatas. The Old Persian Inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings mention a very limited number of the celestial beings. Mithra occupies a prominent place among these divinities. Artaxerxes Mnemon and Artaxerxes Ochus invoke Mithra for help and protection.109 105. Vd19.35; Ny1.7. 107. Y1.11; 2.11; Yt10.113, 145; Ny1.7; 2.12. 109. SUS. a; Ham. b; Pers.4. Mithra's attributes. Of all the Yazatas that rule over this earth, Mithra is the strongest, the most sturdy, the most active, the most swift, and the most victorious.110 Ahura Mazda has created him the most glorious of all the spiritual Yazatas.111 The composer of the Yasht who sings to his favourite divinity applies to him the same honorific epithets as are applied to the godhead. Mithra is called omniscient, which is strictly speaking the epithet of Mazda alone.112 He is the greatest of the Yazatas, with body shining like the moon, and face (ainika), as brilliant as Tishtrya.113 It is interesting to note that the Rig Veda uses the correspording Skt. form (anika), and says that Varuna's face is as shining as that of Agni.114 He is the strongest of the strong the sturdiest of the sturdy, the most intelligent among the divinities, victorious, glorious, heroic, and the undeceivable one, deep, courageous, weal-giving, propitiated when invoked, exalted, skilful, with a body made of spells, and a warrior of powerful ,arms, the leader of hosts, of a thousand devices, lordly, ruling, the all-knowing one, the one of good renown, of good form and glory, granting boons and pastures at his will, the giver of good, of ten thousand spies, heroic, and the all-knowing.115 He is ever afoot, watchful, valiant, a dominating figure in the assembly, causing the waters to flow, listening to appeals, causing the trees to grow, ruling over the district full of devices, a creature of wisdom.116 He is the swiftest among the swift, generous among the generous, valiant among the valiant, chief among the chiefs of assembly, increase-giving, fatness-giving, flock-giving, son-giving, life-giving, felicity-giving, joy-giving, glory-giving, kingdom-giving, and piety-giving.117 Mithra is highly merciful, foremost, and peerless.118 He is the protector and guardian of an creatures.119 He is the most fiend-smiting among all the Yazatas.120 He is both good and bad for men and nations, Peace and War between nations are from him.121 With his wide knowledge, he furthers the creation of Spenta Mainyu.122 The sixteenth day of a month and the seventh month of a year are sacred to Mithra. 110. Yt10.98, 135. 112. Yt10.24, 35. 113. Yt10.142, 143. 114. RV. 7.88, 2. 115. Yt10.24, 25, 27, 31, 35, 46, 56, 60, 63, 69, 82, 141, 143. 117. Yt10.16, 65. 120. Yt10.98, 135. Mithra's associates. Among those who work in unison with Mithra, Ahura Mazda stands first; Mithra-Ahura ate invoked together as a couple. Their union is pre-Zarathushtrian and corresponds to the Vedic Mitra-Varuna. A detailed account of their joint activity is not found in the Avesta, but they are called the two exalted, imperishable, and holy ones,123 and are invoked for special help.124 Mithra is again jointly invoked with Hvarkhshaeta, the angel presiding over the sun. This is natural, because one of the chief Iunctions of Mithra is to work as the guardian of light. Of the five Zoroastrian Nyaishes, or litanies, two are consecrated to the sun and Mithra, and these two are always recited together.125 On the moral side Mithra protects truth. Consequently at an early date he is associated with Rashnu, who is the chief genius of truth.126 They are united as two friends.127 One of the principal attributes of Mithra is that he is the lord of wide pastures. In this capacity he joins in partnership with Raman Khvastra, who is essentially the angel that gives good pastures and happy dwellings, together with full joy of life.128 123. Y1.11; 2.11; Ny1.7; 2.2; Yt10.113, 145. 125. Ny1.2; Yt6. 126. Vr7.2; Yt13.47, 48; 14.47; 24.52; Vd4.54. 127. Yt10.79, 81. 128. Y2.3; 25.4; Vr2.9; Vd3.1; G1.2, 7, 8; S1.16; 2.16. Mithra, the genius of light. On the material side Mithra presides over light, especially over the light that radiates from the sun with the radiance of which he is identical on the physical plane. As the harbinger of light and herald of the dawn, Mithra precedes the rising sun on the summits of mountains, and from there watches all Aryan settlements, nay more, even all the seven Zones of the world.129 The great vault of heaven is therefore Mithra's garment.130 Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas, being in one accord with the sun, have built up for Mithra a dwelling as wide as the earth in this material world, on the great mountain Hara Berezaiti (Alburz) where neither night nor darkness, nor cold wind, nor hot wind, nor sickness, impurity; death and clouds can ever reach.131 From this elysian abode Mithra surveys the whole universe at a glance.132 Sleepless and ever wakeful, he watches and spies the doings of men, like Vedic Mitra-Varuna, as an infallible sentinel of heaven. He has posted eight of his comrades as scouts on the celestial watch-towers to spy upon men's doings.133 After the sun has set, Mithra traverses the world all around, and surveys all that is between earth, and the heavens.134 Ahura Mazda consequently has ordained that Mithra should watch from on high over the entire moving world.135 The heat of Mithra it is, accordingly, that gives warmth and life to the plant world and bestows fertility upon this earth. Mithra, as a guardian genius in the celestial realm, superintends the vast expanse of the universe. Varuna has a thousand eyes,136 and Mithra is constantly spoken of as having a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The brilliant sun is the lord of yonder heavens, who with his infinite rays of light pervades the whole world, Mithra furthermore receives in the Avesta the standing epithets dainghu-paiti, 'the lord of countries,' and vourugaoyaoiti 'of wide pastures.' His light is the dispeller of darkness and of all the sin and evil concomitant with it. Nothing is secret from Mithra's penetrating gaze. Mitra-Varuna have a thousand-eyed spies (spasah), who descend from heaven and traverse the world, watching the doings of mankind. Mithra, as we have seen, has ten thousand spies (spaso), who work as his messengers. 129. Yt10.13, 15; Vd19.28. 131. Yt10.44, 50, 51. 136. RV. 7.34.10. \|Mithra, the inveterate foe of falsehood. Yet after all, the greater and more important work of Mithra lies in the abstract sphere. At a very early date Mithra was styled the warder of truth. Light is synonymous with truth, as darkness is with falsehood. Mithra being primarily the lord of light, it was but a step from the physical to the moral sphere that he should be depicted impersonating truth. From the divine activity of Mithra, as portrayed in the Avestan texts, we gather more information of his aggressively active crusade against falsehood than of his work in upholding truth. In his warring capacity of lord of hosts, Mithra works more than all else to deal a destructive blow to the demon of falsehood, thereby strengthening the realm of truth.\| To speak untruth was a henious sin. Truth Was a paramount among the ancient Iranians. It was regarded as everything, it was religion. On this very account we see human evil reflectively focussed in the Avesta as the druj, 'Lie,' which corresponds to drauga in the Old Persian Inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings, a conception almost like that of the devil. Herodotus writes that one of the first things that every Persian child was taught was to speak the truth.137 Lying unto Mithra brings the offender the sin of being a deceiver of Mithra. The faithful is exhorted never to lie, for Mithra is unforgiving toward liars. Sad is the abode wherein live those that lie unto Mithra, for they are childless, and even their cattle stray along the road shedding tears over their chins.138 Neither the lord of the house, nor the lord of the clan, nor the lord of the town, nor the lord of the country should ever lie unto this celestial being.139 He is the protector and guardian of these lords, only so long as they lie not unto him.140 If, however, they commit such a sin, Mithra is offended and angered, and destroys house, clan, town, and the country, along with their masters and nobles.141 Nor can these culprit lords escape him, for he overtakes them, no matter how swiftly they may run.142 The man of little faith who thinks that he can evade Mithra and indulges in falsehood is mistaken;143 but Mithra thinks in his mind that were the evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds of the earthly man a hundred times worse, they would not rise as high as the good thoughts, good words, and good deeds of the heavenly Mithra.144 Or again if the innate wisdom of the earthly man were a hundred times greater, it would not rise as high as the heavenly wisdom of the Mithra; or if the ears of the earthly man could hear a hundred times better, he would not hear so well as the heavenly Mithra who with a thousand devices of his, hears well and sees every man that tells a lie.145 To such a one Mithra gives neither strength nor vigour, glory nor reward,146 but on the contrary, he inflicts dire punishment. Into the hearts of all such he strikes terror, taking away the strength of their arms, fleetness from their feet, the sight from their eyes, and the hearing from their ears.147 It is he that hurls down their heads as he deals death.148 Mithra keeps back harm and death from him who lies not unto him.149 Neither the wound of the well-sharpened spear nor that of the well-darted arrow harm him whom Mithra comes to help.150 137. Herod. 1. 136\| 147. Yt10.23, 48, 63. Mithra the guardian of contracts. Ahura Mazda enjoins upon Zarathushtra not to break the contract that is entered into with the righteous or with the wicked, for Mithra stands for both the righteous and the wicked.151 In his role of genius of light he guards the sanctity of oaths, and the word mithra in the Avesta is frequently used as a common noun, meaning 'contract.'152 For that reason, he who violates the oath, whether it be with a believer or a non-believer, feels the visitations of the stern angel's wrath. The crime of the one who thus violates a contract is called Mithra-druj, 'deceiving Mithra.' Such a criminal is heavily punished, and his guilt falls upon the shoulders of his kinsmen for years in the next world, making them answerable for it by punishment.153 The ethics of thus holding a man's family and kinsmen responsible for his guilt seems to be a relic of the primitive type of group morality. 152. Yt10.116, 117; Vd4.2-16. Mithra as a war divinity. Incidental allusion has been made above to Mithra as the lord of hosts. For that reason it is easy to comprehend the fact that warring nations invoke Mithra for help before going into battle; and the lord of hosts sides with that army which excels in offering sacrifice.154 When Mithra marches out amid the hostile armies on the battlefield, he throws confusion into the camp of the enemy that has offended him, binds the hands of his offenders, covers their eyesight, takes away their power of hearing, deprives their feet of movement,155 and breaks asunder their lines of battle, striking terror in their entire array.156 Though the enemy use arrows and spears, swords and maces, they nevertheless miss the mark in every case,157 and, all the while, Mithra rushes destructively from a thousand directions against the foes.158 The adversaries who have lied unto him he kills by fifties and hundreds, by hundreds and thousands, by thousands and tens of thousands, by tens of thousands and myriads.159 Confusing their minds, he shatters their limbs and breaks their bones asunder,160 at the same time as he throws down their heads161 he enters the battlefield in person, and levels his club at both the horse and the rider.162 155. Yt10.48, 63. 156. Yt10.36, 41. 157. Yt10.39, 40. 160. Yt10.71, 72. Mithra’s chariot. Mithra goes forth on his daily round through the heavens and upon the earth driving in a celestial car that rolls upon one golden wheel, evidently the sun, with a shining axle.163 Ahura Mazda made his chariot of heavenly substance and inlaid it with stars.164 Like Sraosha's vehicle it is drawn by four white stallions that eat celestial food and are are undying, shining, and spiritual.165 When Mithra drives on aloft over the seven zones he is escorted on the left and the right, in front and from behind, by Sraosha, Nairyosangha, Ashi Vanghuhi, Parendi, Nairya Ham-Vareti, Kingly Glory, the Sovereign Sky, Damoish Upamana, Rashnu, Chisti, Atar, Verethraghna, and the Fravashis.166 With bows and arrows, spears and clubs, and with swords and maces placed by thousands in his chariot, this divine war lord plunges, mace in hand, into the field of battle, smiting and killing the wicked that have been false to him.167 Even Angra Mainyu and the fiendish demons flee away in terror before Mithra.168 After smiting the demons and the men who have lied unto him, he drives forward through the seven Zones.169 165. Yt10. 68, 125. 167. Yt10.96, 102, 112, 127-132. 169. Yt10. 133. Mithra’s wrath. Mithra bemoans with uplifted hands before Ahura Mazda the disregard and negligence of men who do not invoke him by his name, even though he protects and guards them.170 If he were invoked by men, he says, as other angels are, he would come at the appointed time for help to the righteous.171 He looks, therefore, for votaries who will sacrifice unto him, so that in his might he may shower gifts upon them. Happy indeed is the man who thus gains the good-will of Mithra, for this divine angel henceforth bestows upon him radiance and glory, soundness of body, riches and weal, offspring and sovereignty.172 But woe is to him that is sparing in Mithra's invocation. For such a Wight calamity is in store, as Mithra is terrible to deal with when his righteous wrath is kindled. Mithra, when angered or disregarded in worship, inflicts poverty and wretchedness, sickness and death upon the offender, depriving him also of his offspring and power.173 The house, clan, town, and country in which an insult is offered to Mithra are levelled to the ground.174 He deprives the evil countries of their greatness and glory and victory, and renders them helpless.175 The wise therefore pray that they may never come across Mithra's wrath,176 and invocation is the best means of appeasing the vengeful angel.177 170. Yt10.53, 54. 172. Yt10.108, 109. 174. Yt10.28, 87. 176. Yt10.69, 98, 135. Sacrifices to Mithra. Varuna sits on the strewn grass at the sacrifice.178 Similarly, the faithful devoutly invoke Mithra by his name with libations, and implore him to come and sit at the sacrifice, to listen to the invocation, to be pleased with it, to accept it, and to place it with love to their credit in paradise.179 Ahura Mazda himself offered a sacrifice unto him in the shining Garonmana.180 Zarathushtra is asked to offer sacrifices unto Mithra and so are the Mazdayasnians asked to sacrifice unto him with cattle and birds, along with Haoma and libations.181 The faithful who desires to drink the holy libations consecrated in honour of Mithra is required to undergo certain penances. He has to wash his body for three days and three nights and undergo thirty stripes, or he might wash his body for two days and two nights and undergo twenty stripes, as the occasion requires. Anyone who has no knowledge of the ritual is prohibited from partaking of the sacred libation.182 In these observances we can recognize the beginnings of the later Mithraic rites and mysteries for which the cult of Mithra, centuries afterwards, became famous. Mithra demands that his sacrifice shall be performed with out-and-out devotion. Ahura Mazda says unto Zarathushtra that if a sacrifice is offered unto Mithra by a holy and righteous priest, Mithra will be satisfied, and will straightway come to the dwelling of the supplicant, but if it is performed by an unholy priest, it is rejected, no matter how long has been the sacrifice, nor how many bundles of the sacred twigs are consecrated.183 Mithra promptly comes to help when he is satisfied.184 He brings sovereignty for him who has piously offered him libations,185 and gives him a good abode with desirable possessions.186 He is to be offered sacrifices around and within countries, in and above countries, under and before and behind countries.187 178. RV. 1.2.64; 5.72.2. 187. Yt10.144; Ny2.11. Mithra's boons. He is constantly spoken of as giving happy and joyful abode, to the Aryan peoples. Many indeed are the boons asked for from Mithra by his votaries, who always approach him with love, homage and sacrifice. He is generally invoked to come to the faithful for help, freedom, joy, mercy, healing, victory, well-being, and sanctification. The masters of the house, clan, town, and country invoke him for help, so do the poor, when wronged, look to him for the redress of their grievances.188 The husbandman solicits that rich pasture may never fail him. Horsemen sacrifice unto him even from on horseback and beg swiftness for their teams, vigour for their bodies, and might for overthrowing their adversaries.189 Neither the spear of the foe nor his arrow hits the man whom Mithra helps,190 for he guards and protects man from behind and in front.191 furthers the possessions of man, he gives flocks of cattle, male offspring, chariots, spacious mansions, and prosperity192 he is therefore entreated to grant riches, courage, victory, good name and fame, felicity, wisdom, and strength to smite the adversaries.193 The worshipper prays that just as the sun, rising beyond the Alburz, reaches the height, so may he, with his ascending prayer, rise above the will of Angra Mainyu and approach Mithra.194 Mithra's help, it may be added, is invoked for both the worlds.195 188. Yt10.83, 84. 193. Yt10.33, 34, 58, 59. \|Personification of truth. This angel is preeminently genius of truth. His standing epithet is razishta, 'most upright'. To adopt the phraseology of the Younger Avestan texts, Rashnu is the most holy, the most well-shaped, exalted, courageous, most knowing, the most discerning, the most fore-knowing, most far-seeing, the most helping, the greatest smiter of thieves and bandits.196 He is as bright as the fire.197 Zarathushtra blesses king Vishtaspa that he may be of right faith like Rashnu.198\|\| 196. Yt10.126; 12.5-8. 197. Vsp. 16.1. The eighteenth day of the month is consecrated to him.199 \|\|199. Y16.5; Sr. 1.18; 2.18.\| \|Rashnu presides at the ordeal court. The twelfth Yasht consecrated to Rashnu deals mainly with the preparation of the ordeal; and his presence at such trials is deemed indispensable.200 In fact he is the chief celestial judge who presides at the ordeal. No specific habitat is assigned to Rashnu. The officiating priest has to invoke him to come to the ordeal from whatever part of the world he happens to be in at that time, whether in one of the seven zones of the habitable world, or on the great waters or on some part of the wide earth, or on the high mountains, on the stars and the moon and the sun, or in the endless light, even in paradise.201 The man who lies at the ordeal offends both Rashnu and Mithra, and is consequently punished.202\|\| 200. See Dhalla, 'The Use of Ordeals among the Ancient Iranians,' in Le Museon, vol. II, p. 121-133, Louvain, 1910. We have already seen how Rashnu is often invoked in company with Mithra, and likewise with Sraosha; in a similar manner, as noted in the next paragraph, we generally find Arshtat the female personification of rectitude, invoked alongside of Rashnu.203 \|\|203. Y1.7; 2.7; Yt10.139; 12.40; Sr.1.18; 2.1.8.\| \|Divinity of rectitude. Arshtat or Arshti is the female genius of truth. She does not play any prominent part in the Younger Avestan period. She co-operates with Mithra, Sraosha, and Rashnu in the judgment of the dead. Although the 18th Yasht is dedicated to Arshtat and bears her name, there is not in it a single mention of her by name; the entire hymn treats only of the Aryan Glory. In two Sirozah passages (1.26, 2.26) Mount Ushidarena literally meaning 'the keeper of intelligence,' is invoked in company with Arshtat; and tradition points to this mountain at the place where Zarathushtra retired to meditate on the eternal problems of life and commune with the divine. As noted above, Arshtat is generally invoked with Rashnu;204 and she is called the world-increasing and the world-profiting.205 In one instance she is identified with the Mazdayasnian religion.206 The faithful invoke her excellence.207\|\| 204. Y1.7; 2.7; Yt10.139; 12.40; Sr. 1.18; 2.18. 205. Y1.7; 2.7; Vsp. 7.2; Yt10.139; 11.16; 13.18; Sr. 1.26; 2.26 206. Vsp. 7.2 As conjectured by Foy,208 and established by Jackson,209 after a careful examination of the Old Persian Inscription on the Behistan rock,210 the name of this angel occurs in the very short list of Zoroastrian divinities known to the Achaemenian kings. The twenty-sixth day of the month is sacred to her.211 208. KZ. 35.45; ZDMG. 54.364, n. 1. 209. Persia Past and Present, p. 203-205, New York, 1906. 210. Bh. 4.64. 211. Y16.6; Sr. 1.26; 2.26. ERETHE AND RASANSTAT \|Minor divinities of truth. By the names of Erethe and Rasantat are designated two minor female angels presiding over truth. Nothing is known about them excepting that they are invoked by name along with Chisti and Ashi Vanghuhi.212 They are given the epithet 'good.' Erethe is once called courageous.213\|\| 212. Y1.14; 3.16; 4.19; Vsp. 9.4; Sr. 1.25. 213. Vsp. 9.4. \|The angel of victory. Verethraghna belongs to the Indo-Iranian divinities. He is one of the most popular divinities of the Iranian cult. Indra's most distinctive epithet in the Rig Veda is Vrtrahan, 'the slayer of Vrtra.' Its Avestan corresponding word is Verethraghna which, however, is not used as an epithet of some angel, but is the name of a powerful angel. Verethraghna impersonates victory and he has preserved this trait throughout the various epochs of Iranian religious thought. The Yasht bearing his name celebrates his exploits. As the genius of victory, and created by Ahura Mazda, Verethraghna is the best armed of the spiritual angels.214 He is the most courageous in courage, the most victorious in victory, the most glorious in glory, the most abounding in favours, the best giver of welfare, and the most healing in health-giving.215 He is the giver of manliness, inflicting death, maker of a new world, resolute, and self-willed.216\|\| 215. Yt14.3, 7, etc. 216. Yt14.28, 30, 32. King Vishtaspa is blessed by Zarathushtra that he may be a conqueror of his enemies like Verethraghna.217 The twentieth day of the month is dedicated to him.218 His constant associates are Ama, 'Courage,' and Vanainti Uparatat, 'Dominating Excellence.' 217. AZ. 7. 218. Y16.5; Sr. 1.20; 2.20. The patron angel of the Iranian countries. Verethraghna is one of the national divinities of the Aryans. If the nation sacrificed unto Verethraghna with libations, and the sacred twigs, and consecrated cooked repast of cattle, either white or of some other colour, no hostile hordes, no plague, nor evil of any kind would enter the Aryan lands.219 The sacrifice is to be offered through righteousness, and none but the righteous should partake of the holy food dedicated to Verethraghna. Untold calamity would befall the Aryan countries if the wicked should have a share in the sacred feast. In such an event plagues and foes would devastate the country and the Aryans would be smitten by their fifties and their hundreds, by their hundreds and their thousands, by their thousands and their tens of thousands, by their tens of thousands and their myriads of myriads.220 219. Yt14. 48-50. Verethraghna's work. The armies that meet on the battlefield invoke Verethraghna for victory. He favours that army which first seeks his help.. The army that secures his aid is sure to conquer and not to be conquered, it smites and is not smitten.221 He breaks asunder the columns of the enemy, wounds them, shakes them, and cuts them to pieces.222 He brings illness and death into the army that has lied unto Mithra, binds their hands and feet, and deprives them of their eyesight and hearing.223 He destroys the malice of the malicious demons and men, sorcerers and fairies, the willfully blind, and the willfully deaf. 224 Zarathushtra sacrificed unto Verethraghna, imploring from him victory in thought, victory in word, victory in deed, victory in addressing. and victory in replying.225 Verethraghna imparts to the prophet the excellence of uprightness, the strength of the arms, the health of the body, the strength of the body, and the powerful vision of the eyes.226 221. Yt14.43, 44. 225. Yt14.28, 30, 32. His metamorphoses. Verethraghna, along with Dahma Afriti and Damoish Upamana, imports a peculiar aspect into the Iranian pantheon, that of assuming various shapes and manifesting his individuality in many forms. As the lord of victory he is ever ready to help those who invoke him, and comes down to his votary under different guises. Ten of such forms of Verethraghna are mentioned, when he appeared to Zarathushtra. The divinity successively assumes the form of the wind, a bull, a horse, a camel, a boar, a youth, a raven, a ram, a he-goat, and finally of a man.227 He escorts Mithra in the shape of a boar to smite those that have lied unto the guardian of truth.228 He causes the joy of life. Another instance of a hymn consecrated in name to one Yazata, but wholly devoted to the praise and glorification of another, is furnished by Ram Yasht (15). Raman is merely invoked by name along with Vayu at the beginning and the end of the Yasht. Vayu, the genius of wind, is the co-labourer of Raman, and the Yasht treats of his achievements. Raman Khvastra is the genius of the joy of life. The joy that he imparts is not the joy of the spirit, and does not convey any spiritual significance. It is the joy or pleasure pertaining to this life. Raman's joy makes man full of zest for life. Good abodes and good pastures that bring comfort and happiness in the present life are Raman's gifts. Savouriness of food is from him. Rich harvest, fertile fields, wide pasture, abundant fodder, and thick foliage, are the boons of Raman and his associate divinities, like Mithra and Vayu.229 In fact it is Mithra and Tishtrya who impart this joy to the abodes of the Aryan nations.230 The waters of Ardvi Sura Anahita are likewise invoked to grant joyful dwellings for the worshippers of Mazda.231 Zarathushtra wishes King Vishtaspa the joy of Raman.232 We have already seen that Zarathushtra's joyful outlook on life pervades the Younger Avesta. Gaiety of spirit and cheerfulness of nature characterize the people of the period. 229. Y1.3; 2.3; 22.23; 25.4; Vsp. 1.7; 2.9; Yt10.146. Yt15; Sr. 1.21; 2.21; Vd. 3.1; G. 1.7. 230. Yt8.2; 10.4. 232. Yt23.7; 24.6. \|Physical and mental inequality leads to economic inequality. Providence does not distribute the physical and mental gifts to man on the basis of equality. Some are born with agile, robust, and healthy bodies, whereas others are burdened with sluggish, weak, and sickly bodies. Mankind has contributed considerably by its vice of ages to the deformity of body and derangement of mind. Men and women are born with unequal physical and mental strength. The strong and strenuous, cunning and resourceful, vigorous and adventurous mercilessly overthrow the weak and slow, simple and dull, timid and indolent in the fierce scramble for the good things of life. The unequal distribution by nature of the gifts of body and brain, aided by selfishness and greed on the part of man bring about economic inequality. The disparity of poverty and wealth has appeared on the face of the earth ever since society took to settled life and, with the division of labour, embarked upon earning means of livelihood by different kinds of work. The strong have exploited the labour of the weak and forced them to slave like beasts of burden with their eyes raining tears of sorrow. The fear of starvation has hovered over millions of huts like vultures. The poor have generally lived in squalor and sickness and died like flies. Countless persons have not experienced a full and satisfied stomach from birth to death. Kindly mothers have eaten only half the bread that their children may have the other half. Multitudes of children have lived with wasted cheeks, sunken eyes, and emaciated bodies among the dregs of life. Men and women have sweated and starved and grown gray before their time. Physical sufferings have rendered many the shadows of themselves, made them live two years in one and age fast. Many have found it hard to equate the income and expenses, and earned a precarious living. The people whose tragedy it has been to be poor have always outnumbered the rich in the world.\| \|When life has thus denied many the barest necessities of life, it has loaded others with abundance. Men of industry and enterprise have amassed riches, others have inherited wealth, still others have filled their coffers by foul means. Some have been parasites fattening upon the sweated toil of the tillers of the soil and have wrung from them the fruits of their labour. They have revelled in superfluous riches. They have lived in spacious halls with frescoed walls, and velvet hangings looped with golden tassels. They had a retinue of servants at their beck and call and lounged away their time upon luxurious divans. They had sumptuous tables laden with a dozen courses and sparkling wines and fed themselves to early death. Others gave themselves up to gaiety and licentiousness. Many have indulged in ostentatious and extravagant luxury when the vast numbers of the poor have clothed themselves in rags and their children have suffered from malnutrition. The insolence and hauteur, the cold behaviour and thinly concealed slights have stung the helpless poor to the quick.\| The poor took the counsels of contentment given by the wise to heart and resigned themselves to the inscrutable will of God. Moreover, there have always been noble souls everywhere who have come forward to father society's orphans and destitutes. They have acted on the principle that wealth was not given them for their selfish use, and that the rich were the stewards of their wealth given them by God for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. When some have not given anything from their abundance, many have always given something, and the few have given up their all. Charity personified. The female genius of charity, grace, or alms-giving is Rata, the companion of Spenta Armaiti, with whom she is conjointly invoked in the hymns of praise.233 Through her Ahura Mazda gives reward,234 for he has spoken of her with express sanction to Zarathushtra, and in obedience the prophet has introduced her to humanity.235 The faithful pray that they may win Ahura Mazda's favours through Rata.236 She nourishes the poor.237 Sraosha is the best protector of the poor.238 He shelters poor men and women in his mansion.239 Haoma exalts the mind of the poor.239a With uplifted hands do the ill-treated poor call Mithra for help.240 The faithful fervently pray that the spirit of charity of the religious devotee241 may drive away the demon of stinginess from the house. If one of the faith approaches another seeking goods, or a wife, or knowledge, the man of means should help him with goods, he should arrange for the marriage of this poor coreligionist, he should pay for his instruction in religious matters.242 It is in every man's power to practise charity, either in thoughts, or in words, or in deeds. 233. Sr. 1.5; 2.5. \|The angel of peace. This female divinity is peace personified, but even though perfectly clearly recognizable as such, she is very obscurely outlined as to traits. She is invoked in company with Vohu Manah, or Good Mind,243 for nothing can break the inner peace in which the spirit of a man of good thoughts reposes. Akhshti is usually called victorious.244\|\| 243. Yt2.1; Sr.1.2; 2.2. 244. Vsp. 7.1; Yt2.1, 6; 11,15; 15.1; Sr. 1.2; 2.2. The term Akhshti occurs also as a common noun. This peace as well as war lies in the power of Mithra to bring upon the country.245 The rulers invoke Chisti to procure peace for their countries,246 and the faithful pray that peace and concord may drive out discord and strife from their abodes.247 The spirit of the spells. The Gathas spoke of the mânthra, the sacred formula, or inspired utterance of great spiritual potency, but did not personify it. The Avestan texts do so, however, under the name Manthra Spenta, or Holy Formula. The manthras generally indicate the spells of magical charms in the Younger Avesta. Manthra Spenta, the embodiment of the holy spell, is invoked along with Daena, the genius of religion, and Vohu Manah's wisdom.248 As an angel presiding over the formulas of the faith he wards off evil, exorcises those possessed of the demons, and heals the sick; he is consequently invoked to heal the ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine diseases created by Angra Mainyu.249 He is efficacious and the most glorious one,250 and like every other angel, Manthra Spenta has his Fravashi.251 The twenty-ninth day of the month is sacred to him.252 248. Sr. 1.29; 2.29. 249. Vd. 22.2, 6. 250. Y1.13; 2.13; 25.6; Vsp. 21.2; Vd. 22.2, 6. 251. Yt13. 86. The potency of the spells. The collocation manthra spenta occurs more frequently in its ordinary meaning than as the name of the angel presiding over the holy spells. The term mânthra without its appellative spenta is also freely used to designate the sacred texts. It is also used for the magical spells of various degrees of efficacy. These spells are interspersed in the Avestan texts, especially in the Yashts and the Vendidad. Their conjuring efficacy is very great. They are supposed to have inherent mysterious power of their own, and the mere recital of these magical charms produces marvellous effects. The mystical compositions, as such, are credited with some kind of spiritual efficacy, some superhuman power; and through the recitation of them man can avert the baneful influence of the demons. Such spells are awful, efficacious, victorious, healing.253 The recital of the holy spell gives easy delivery at birth, and helps in the growth of the child.254 He who heals by the recital of the holy spells is the best healer, for he best drives away sickness from the body.255 These magical incantations are mostly used to drive away the demons of defilement, disease, and death. The holy spell is the very soul of Ahura Mazda.256 Whoso pronounces the names of Ahura Mazda by day and by night, on leaving his bed, or while retiring for sleep, or upon leaving his home or his town, is able to withstand the attacks of the demons, and will receive as much succour and help as a thousand men could jointly give to one man. 257 254 Vd. 21.6, 10, 14. 255 Yt3.6. Vd. 7.44. 256 Yt13.81; Vd. 19.14. The chief spells. Some of the most excellent, the most mighty, the most efficacious, the most smiting, the most victorious, the most healing, the greatest, and the best of the spells are the Ahuna Vairya formula, the Airyaman Ishya prayer, the names of Ahura Mazda and of the Amesha Spentas.258 The Airyaman Ishya is the greatest, best, fairest, most fearful, most firm most victorious, and the most healing of all spells.259 Saoshyant and his companions will recite the Airyaman Ishya prayer at the time of the renovation of the world. Through its intonation Angra Mainyu and his evil crew shall be hidden in the earth, the dead shall rise up, and Ahura Mazda shall rule according to his divine will.260 There are other sacred formulas of great importance, such as the Ashem Vohu and Yenghe Hatam. These are composed in the Gathic dialect and are of rare merit. They are next in importance only to the most sacred formula of all, the Ahuna Vairya, which is spoken of in the following paragraph. 258 Yt1.1-3; 3.5,6; 11.3; WFr. 4.1. 260 WFr. 4. See Haas, An Avestan Fragment on the Resurrection, with translation and notes in Spiegel Memorial Volume, p. 181-187, Bombay. 1908. \|Ahuna Vairya. The greatest of all the spells, the Word par excellence of the Zarathushtrian theology, which is constantly on the tongue of the faithful, is the Ahuna Vairya. It is made up of twenty-one words, every one of which corresponds to one of the twenty-one Nasks which make up the complete Holy Writ of the Zoroastrians. It is the quintessence of the entire scriptures. In reply to the prophet's inquiry about the origin of this sacred formula, Ahura Mazda says that before the heavens, before the waters, before the earth, before the animals, before the trees, before the fire, before men, before the archangels, before the demons. and before the entire material existence, Ahuna Vairya was.261 Ahura Mazda pronounced it when the world was not.262 One correct recitation of it without any omission is worth the chanting of a hundred Gathas,263 and will enable the devout to reach paradise.264 Of all the sacred formulas that have ever been pronounced or are now recited, or which will be recited hereafter, this word that the Lord God has announced to the holy prophet is the best.265 It gives courage and victory to the soul and conscience of man.266 Humanity would redeem itself from the death by embracing it in the fullness of faith.267\|\| \|Zarathushtra chants aloud this Word when the demon Buiti seeks his death, and he puts the fiend to flight by the mere recital of it.268 With the same word does the prophet repel the Evil Spirit himself, when he comes to tempt him.269\|\| 268 Vd. 19.2. 269 Vd. 19.9. The value of the recitation and the intonation of the formula is greatly impaired when it is inattentively chanted with errors and omissions.270 Ahura Mazda prevents the careless soul that makes such mistakes from entering paradise.271 The number of times that the spells are recited. The tenth Fargard or chapter, of the Vendidad gives a list of the Gathic stanzas which are to be repeated twice, three times, and four times at the beginning of the spells to repel evil. The Airyaman Ishya prayer is generally repeated four times. The most frequently occurring formulas that are repeated in various numbers, as the occasion demands, are the Ashem Vohu and the Ahuna Vairya. They are generally used at the opening or at the close of all prayers. The number of times which they are recited varies from one to a hundred thousand, or to be precise, the following specific numbers are found among the references to the different prayers: one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, ten, twelve, twenty-one, one hundred, two hundred, twelve hundred, and a hundred thousand. Those privileged to recite the spells. Manthrans, or chanters are those who are privileged to recite the spells.272 Whoso seeks wisdom with pious intent is to be taught the holy spells.273 The knowledge of the secret formulas is to be zealously guarded, it is to be imparted only to the veriest few in the closest circle.274 The potency of such spells greatly lies in their careful and accurate recitation, without omitting any part of the prescribed formulas, or without violating the rigid rules of the manner of chanting. This requires that the reciter should be well versed in the art of exorcising, of healing, or in any other function he undertakes to perform with the help of the sacred spells. Teaching a manthra to an infidel is equivalent to giving a tongue to the wolf.275 272 Y7.24; 41.5. 273 Vd. 4.44. 274 Yt4.10; 14.46. 275 TdFr. 3; Nr. 17. She personifies the power of benediction. Each time that a righteous person offers sacrifices unto this personification of a divine blessing, she comes to him in the shape of a camel.276 She is beautiful and friendly, she fills the empty to over-filling and restores the sick to health.277 When the collocation is used as a common noun it means the blessings of the pious. A healer takes his fees from persons whom he heals. But when he cleanses or heals a priest he has to do so for just the ‘blessing of the pious' that the priest can give.278 276 TdFr. 64; 65. 277 Vd. 22.5,12,18. 278 Vd. 7.41; 9.37. He personifies the power of anathema. This embodiment of the power to utter an awful malediction upon an offender against righteousness is generally mentioned alongside of Mithra.279 When Mithra goes forth on his crusade against the demons and their followers throughout the seven zones, this angel, with the dread power of uttering fatal imprecations, Accompanies him in the shape of a ferocious boar. 280 This sharp-toothed and sharp-jawed frightful animal symbolizes the terrible power of the curse for injury to the wrong-doer. Furthermore, when Ahura Mazda, the supreme heavenly judge, comes down to attend the ordeal court, Damoish Upamana is one of those to join among the number of his co-adjutors.281 The contending parties were here put to self-imprecatory oaths. Divine wrath fell upon him who swore falsely and the dreadful boar that typified the awful potency of Dami Upamana's curse fell upon him and killed him at a stroke. He is also seen moving in the company of the Fravashis when they go out to the battlefield to help their favoured army.282 The sacrificing priest invites him to attend the Yasna-sacrifice.283 279 Yt10.9, 66, 68, 127. 283 Y1.15; 2.15. \|The genius of health. This Indo-Iranian divinity originally conveys the idea of comradeship and occurs in the Vedas as a groomsman at the wedding rites and casually in the Avesta in connection with the wedding rites. The Fifty-fourth chapter of the Yasna is consecrated to Airyaman. He is invoked to come down to the wedding for the joy of the faithful.284 In regard to attributes given to Airyaman we may add in this connection that his standing epithet is 'the beloved one.'\|\| But Airyaman plays a more prominent part in the Iranian literature as the genius of health. He is an acolyte to Asha Vahishta, and is invoked together with him.285 The third Yasht, which bears the name of Asha Vahishta, is, in fact, mostly devoted to Airyaman. Ahura Mazda created this earth immune from any sickness and disease, but the Evil Spirit introduced therein ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine diseases.286 Ahura Mazda accordingly sends his messenger Nairyosangha to Airyaman with the request to go to the world with his healing remedies. Airyaman quickly obeys the divine command and begins his work.287 He smites and drives away all kinds of sickness and death, magic and sorcery.288 Airyaman does not heal by means of herbs and drugs, medicine and surgery, but by the holy spells. In fact one of the greatest of such sacred formulas, the Airyaman Ishya, as we have already seen, bears his name and is used to smite all manner of disease and death.289 At the recital of the magic formula flee sickness and death, demons and infidels, the two-legged brood of wolfish and serpentine nature, pride and scorn, slander and strife, falsehood and evil eye, courtezan and sorcery. 290 It is employed to rout sorcerers, fairies, and the progeny of evil.291 285 Sr. 1.3;2.3. 286 Vd. 22.2,9, 15. 287 Vd. 22.7-20. 289 Vd. 20.11, 12. 291 Vd. 20.9-12; 21.18-21. \|The divinity of joint Indo-Iranian fame. One of the most distinctive features common to the Indo-Iranian peoples before their separation is the Haoma-Soma cult. The Avestan Haoma is identical with Vedic Soma, and both refer to the sacred drink prepared from a special plant and partaken of as a part of the ritual service. Haoma has secured a prominent place in the later Avestan theology and forms an essential part of the Zoroastrian liturgy. Haoma primarily is a plant of this world, from which the drink was quaffed as a religious act, but the idea soon evolves into an angel of the same name presiding over this plant. The two concepts are so closely interwoven that it often becomes difficult to ascertain whether the Haoma occuring in a certain passage is the genius of the plant of that name, or the plant itself. The same difficulty is witnessed with reference to Soma in the Vedas. The anthropomorphic character of both Haoma Soma is little pronounced. Three chapters of the Yasna and a Yasht mostly composed of excerpts from the Yasna are dedicated to Haoma. More than 120 hymns are devoted to Soma in Rig Veda.\| Ahura Mazda brought for Haoma the star-bespangled spiritual girdle, that is, the Mazdayasnian religion. Girt with this he dwells on the top of the mountains,292 and from these heights he sacrifices unto Drvaspa, Sraosha, Mithra, and Ashi Vanghuhi.293 293 Y57.19; Yt9.17, 18; 10.88; 17.37, 38. Haoma pleads the greatness of his cult. He is anxious that his cult, which has been in vogue for centuries, be given a due place in the new faith and receive the sanction of the prophet. The poet depicts him as approaching Zarathusbtra for this particular purpose. One morning, we are informed, Haoma came to the prophet as he was chanting the sacred Gathas before the fire-altar and asked him to seek his favour by consecrating the Haoma juice for libations and to praise him as the other sages had praised him.294 Vivasvant, Yama, and Trita Aptya were the first to sacrifice unto Soma. The Avestan texts speak of the same persons who first offered sacrifices unto Haoma. In reply to Zarathushtra’s inquiry Haoma proceeds to give instances of some of the greatest of his celebrants. The first among the mortals to sacrifice unto the angel Haoma by pounding the Haoma plant for libation was Vivanhvant, and the great benefit he derived there from was that the glorious Yima was born unto him.295 Athwya, Thrita, and Pourushaspa, the father of the prophet himself, were among the other prominent men who sacrificed unto Haoma. Their reward was that illustrious sons were born unto them. Thus Zarathushtra himself was born unto Pourushaspa because the latter praised Haoma.296 Zarathushtra, the poet says, thereupon paid homage to the angel, and proclaimed his cult as the most praiseworthy.297 295 Y9.3, 4. 296 Y9. 6-13. Haoma’s titles. The standing epithet of Haoma is 'far from death.’ He is the powerful one, and rules according to his will.298 He is the lord of knowledge and possesses good wisdom.299 He is the healing one, beautiful, lordly, and of golden eyes.300 299 Y9.27; 10.2. 300 Yt9.17; 10.88.17.37. His gifts. Zarathushtra invokes Haoma and asks from him intelligence, courage, victory, health, increase, prosperity, vigour of body, and power to rule at will, and to smite the wicked that he may vanquish the evil done by the wicked men and demons.301 The prophet further prays to him for health of the body, long duration of life, the all-shining abode of the righteous, the realization of his wishes on earth, a complete triumph over the wicked and a foreknowledge of the evil intents of the wicked:302 Haoma bestows these boons upon him, Haoma in like manner gives knowledge to the aspiring students, husbands to the ripening maidens, beautiful offspring and righteous progeny to women, and paradise to the righteous.303 The devout worshipper, in return, dedicates his very body to him.304 Piety accompanied by joy enters the house in which Haoma dwells. 305 301 Y. 9.17, 18. 303 Y9.22,23; 11.10. 304 Y10.14; 11.10. Haoma implored to rout the wicked. This angel is invoked to guard the faithful from the harm of the wicked, to take away the power of their hands and feet and to confuse their minds, so that they cannot behold the universe with both their eyes.306 He is besought to hurl his weapons at the skulls of the wicked for the protection of the righteous,307 and to crush the thought of the maligner.308 Haoma's due. Haoma is to be propitiated with sacrifice. Among other objects animals were sacrificed in the Zoroastrian ritual unto the angels, and the different parts of the consecrated flesh were allotted to the various Yazatas. The Pahlavi books elaborately treat the question of reserving particular parts of the animal for the various Yazatas. We are told that Ahura Mazda has set apart for Haoma as his share in the sacrifice the jaw-bone, the tongue, and the left eye of the immolated animal.309 In general this is also in accordance with the statement of Herodotus310 regarding the Persian acts of sacrifice in worship. 310 Herod. 1.132. Haoma's curse. Haoma does not give good children of priestly virtues to the woman who wrongfully partakes of the sacred cake consecrated to him.311 Whosoever deprives Haoma of his portion in the sacrifice, displeases him, and the penalty he pays for this slight to Haoma is that a priest, a warrior, or a husbandman is not thereafter born in his house.312 The faithful is exhorted to propitiate him with his due portion, lest the offended angel should bind him with heavy iron chains as he bound Franrasyan.313 Haoma pronounces his curse of being childless and of evil name and fame against those who, like thieves, rob him of his legitimate portion in the sacrifice.314 He hurled down the arrogant Keresani from his 312 Y11.5, 6. Haoma, king of plants. Haoma is the sovereign lord of all plants among both the Indians and the Iranians. Physically it is the plant that grows on the highest summits of Mount Hara Berezaiti, the modern Alburz.316 According to the Vedic texts, it grows on the mount Mujavat. The birds carried it from there in all directions.317 An eagle brought it down, says the Veda.318 The nourishing earth is its mother where it grows in vales and dales, spreading sweet perfume all around.319 It is of golden hue, say both, and the celestial drink prepared from its branches is most invigorating and profitable for the soul of man.319a Indulgence in intoxicating beverages causes wrath and strife, quarrel and confusion, but the drink of Haoma is accompanied by righteousness and piety.320 It confers immortality. It is the source of righteousness.321 Haoma grows in abundance when it is praised by man. The pounding of the Haoma juice for sacrifice is tantamount to the destruction of the demons by thousands.322 Misery vanishes and happiness and health enter the house in which Haoma is prepared.323 The exhilarating drink gives inspiration and enlightenment to his supplicant and makes the beggar's mind as exalted as that of the rich.324 The faithful pray that the healing remedies of Haoma may reach them for the strength of their bodies.325 There is a close affinity between the Haoma-Soma cults and the rituals performed to celebrate them have great resemblance to each other. We shall notice it in our chapter on rituals. 318 RV. 3.43.7; 4.26.6, etc. 320 Y10.8; Yt17.5. Physically she stands for plenty, morally for piety. On the physical side Ashi Vanghuhi, or Good Sanctity, is the guardian of earthly riches. She fills the barns of men with grain and with cattle, their coffers with gold, the fields with foliage, the chests of virtuous women with ornaments and their boxes with fine garments.326 She brings happiness, cattle, fodder, and protection to him to whom the Glory cleaves.327 On the ethical side she personifies sanctity and thus represents spiritual riches. She is also the giver of the mental riches unto men, that is, the bright understanding and the innate wisdom.328 Ahura Mazda is her father and Spenta Armaiti, the embodiment of holy devotion, is her mother. The archangels, as well as Sraosha, Rashnu, and Mithra, are her brothers, and Daena, the genius of the holy faith of Zarathushtra, is her sister.329 As the genius of plenty she joins Mithra, who increases pastures and fodder.330 The seventeenth Yasht is dedicated to her. Parendi, Chisti, Erethe, and Rasanstat are invoked in her company.331 331 Yt17.62; Sr. 1.25. Ashi's attributes. She is bright, exalted, well-formed, well worthy of sacrifice, possessed of the bright chariot, courageous, giver of weal and health.332 She is beautiful, shining with joy, and far-reaching through radiance.333 She, the exalted one, is well-made and of noble origin; she rules at her will and is possessed of glory in her body.334 She, the courageous one, carries all desirable things in her hands.335 She is the protector, guardian, helper, healer, smiter of the malice of the demons and of the wicked men, the giver of good gifts, blessings, and success, and the bestower of the greatest, best, and the fairest reward unto men.336 She comes in the shape of a well-built, beautiful, tall, high-up girded maiden of noble birth.337 332 Y2.14; 57.3; Yt17.1; Sr. 2.25. Her supplicants. Haoshyangha, Yima, Thraetaona, Haoma, Haosravah, before Zoroaster, as well as the prophet himself and King Vishtaspa, his royal patron and helper in the propagation of the new faith, are among the most illustrious of her supplicants. These worshippers severally offered her sacrifices and asked for various boons from her, which she granted in answer to their prayers.338 The most favoured among her votaries is Zarathushtra himself; for him her loving regard is great.339 This is because the prophet himself is the visible embodiment of sanctity on earth and the promoter of righteousness among men. 338 Yt17.24-26, 28-31, 33-35, 37-39, 41-43, 45-47, 49-52, 61. Her work. She is ever ready to help the faithful. She leads to rectitude.340 She goes to those who invoke her from near or afar with pious libations.341 The house which Ashi graces with her presence becomes full of perfume.342 Happy indeed is the man whom Ashi attends, for riches, abundance, and prosperity spring in his house. The kings whom she favours have kingdoms rich in snorting horses, sounding chariots, flashing swords, large tributes, and an abundance of rich food.343 Happy indeed are they whom Ashi attends, for they come by well-furnished houses wherein live righteous persons, rich in cattle, who have well-adorned beds, with rich cushions, and with feet inlaid with gold.344 Their wives and daughters have square bored earrings and necklaces of gold.345 And the men on whom Ashi, the genius of fortune, smiles have hoards of silver and gold and rich garments and swift and loud neighing horses and chariots, and large-humped, fiery camels, and weapons of war.346 Glory is his whom she, in her goodness, attends.347 The devout pray and implore her not to turn her face from them and withhold her kindness from them.348 That Ashi may not quit their houses, is the fervent prayer of the faithful;349 and the Fravashis are invoked by the righteous to bring the blessed Ashi into their abodes.350 The householder prays that she may come and stay in his house.351 She follows the generous man who causes joy unto the righteous poor by his liberal gifts, and the moment she puts her one foot in the house, it is filled with a thousand fold flocks and horses and virtuous offspring.352 Zarathushtra asks Ashi to bestow her gifts upon King Vishtaspa.353 The twenty-sixth day of the month is sacred to her.354 341 Yt17. 2. 345 Yt17. 10, 11. What offends Ashi most. She is grieved at the sight of maidens who remain unmarried for a long time.355 She does not accept the libations offered by sterile persons and wicked courtesans.356 As the zealous guardian of the sanctity of matrimony, she abhors the wife who is untrue to the nuptial tie, the woman who violates the law of chastity, and the adulteress who sells her body for profit or pleasure.357 Three times does she raise her wailing at such a shameful display of unchastity and longs either to flee to the heavens or sink into the earth, whereupon Ahura Mazda consoles her and leads her to his celestial abode.358 357 Yt17; 57, 58. Ashi's associate. Parendi, as the female genius of riches, plenty, and activity, is identical with the Vedic Puramdhi, the goddess of plenty. She is the constant companion of Ashi Vanghuhi, and is invoked with her.359 She is active in thought, active in word, and active in deed, and gives activity to man's body.360 She moves about in a light chariot.361 As the impersonation of earthly riches Parendi accompanies the celestial car of Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, or again she attends Tishtrya. the genius of rain, in furthering the prosperity of the earth.362 Zarathushtra invokes her to enrich King Vishtaspa.363 359 Y13.1; 38.2; Yt8.38; 10.66; Sr. 1.25; 2.25. 360 Vsp. 7.2. 361 Yt8.38; 24. 9; Sr. 1.25; 2.25. 362 Yt8.38: 10.66. The female genius of cattle. She is a female genius of the animal world. As the guardian of herds, she is invoked in company with Geush Tashan and Geush Urvan.364 A Yasht (9) is consecrated to her and bears her name, or more familiarly that of Gosh or Geush Urvan. Drvaspa moves about in her own chariot of sounding wheels. Mazda has made her heroic and righteous. She is the bestower of health upon the cattle and kine. She watches well from afar, gives welfare and long continuing friendship. She is nourishing, courageous, well formed, possessed of weal, giver of health, and powerful helper of the righteous.365 364 Sr. 1.14; 2.14. Her sacrificers. The Yasht gives a list of her supplicants who have asked her to grant them various boons. They are the same persons that invoke Ashi Vanghuhi and pray for the same boons that they ask from her. The only difference between the forms of invoking Drvaspa and Ashi is that no offering is made to Ashi by any of her supplicants, whereas in the case of Drvaspa we see that with the exception of Haoma and Zarathushtra the other heroes, Haoshyangha, Yima. Thraetaona, Haosravah, and Vishtaspa, bring to her offerings of a hundred horses, a thousand oxen, ten thousand small cattle, and the libations.366 366 Yt9.3-5,8-11, 13.15, 17-19,21-23,25-27,29-32. GEUSH TASHAN AND GEUSH URVAN Drvaspa’s associates. We have seen above in the Gathas among the impersonations of the animal world two distinct beings Geush Tashan, Geush Urvan. Gav Azi represented the joy-giving cattle. In the later Avestan texts Geush Tashan appears about six times.367 We do not hear anything more definite regarding him than the fact that he is invoked by name along with other tutelary divinities. It may indeed be emphasized that he is entirely unknown from the time of the Pahlavi period onward. Geush Urvan is invoked in company with Geush Tashan and Drvaspa.368 Gav Azi occurs but once. The master of a house is enjoined to give a gav azi, or a three-year-old cow, to the cleanser who imparted him bodily purification.369 Verethraghna, the angel of victory, complains before Zarathushtra that the mischief of the demons and their worshippers increases upon earth because men do not offer sacrifices to Geush Urvan.370 367 Y1.2; 39.1; 70.2; Vsp. 9.5; Sr. 1.14; WFr. 6.1. 368 Y1.2; 39.1; 70.2; Vsp. 9.5; Sr. 1.14; 2.14. 369 Vd. 9.37. \|The sun deified. Hvarekhshaeta is the shining sun as well as the genius presiding over him. The sixth Yasht and the first Nyaish are consecrated to him; but in fact the first two Nyaishes celebrate Hvarekhshaeta and Mithra conjointly. These two litanies, moreover, are always recited together during the day time. The treatment of the sun-Yazata, like that of Surya, the sun in the Rig Veda, and the physical sun as a phenomenon of nature is so complicated that it is difficult in many instances to distinguish the one from the other. It is not so much Havarekhshaeta in the capacity of an angel that figures here, as does Hvarekhshaeta, the sun itself. The writer of the hymn in honour of Hvarekhshaeta is more interested in depicting the movements of the sun itself as the orb of day than in giving account of the Yazata, or presiding genius of the sun. We have a vivid picture of the sun's movements, its rising and setting, its power to rout the fiends of uncleanness and impurity, but we have hardly anything which treats of the spiritual personality behind this great luminary of nature. The worship of the brilliant sun must have preceded the period of its deification, and the poet cannot quite rid himself of the fascination of the primitive form of nature-worship. The physical phenomenon of the sun is always present before the mind of the writer; and there is very little attempt to address the presiding genius through his visible image, the concrete representative being the direct object of praise and glorification. The sun rises up above the mountain Hara Berezaiti and enters upon his daily career.371\|\| 371 Yt10.118; Vd. 21.5. \|Hvarekhshaeta is invoked by his name, and his standing epithets are 'the imperishable, radiant, and the swift-horsed.' Ovid attests that a horse was consecrated to the sun for the reason that the sun itself was swift moving like the horse.372 Several classical writers write about the homage and sacrifice offered by the Persians to the sun. A white horse of the best Nisaean breed was selected for the sacrifice to the sun.373 A white chariot, covered with garlands was sacred to the sun.374 A temple consecrated to the sun, with a priestess of the royal family at its head, is mentioned.375\|\| 372 Fasti, 1.385, 386. 373 Gray, op. cit., p. 85, 86; Fox and Pemberton, op. cit., p. 16,41,67, 69,84. 374 Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 8.3.12; Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, 36, 39. 375 Flavius Vopiscus, Aurelianus, 5.5. \|The Amesha Spentas are all of one accord with the sun.376 When the sun warms with its light, a hundred and a thousand spiritual Yazatas gather its glory and distribute it upon the earth for the furtherance of the world of righteousness.377 When the sun rises up, purification comes unto the earth and unto the standing and flowing waters and unto the waters of the wells and seas, and unto the righteous creation of the Holy Spirit.378 If indeed the sun were not to rise high up, the demons would destroy all things that are in the seven regions. Not even the spiritual angels would find means to withstand and repel them.379 The offering of sacrifice unto the Sun in order to withstand darkness and demons, thieves and robbers, sorcerers and enchantresses, is equivalent to sacrificing unto Ahura Mazda, Amesha Spentas, the Yazatas, earthly and heavenly, and one's own soul.380 The demons who, in the darkness of night, come out by the million from the bowels of the earth, glide away as soon as the sun mounts the sky and the world is ablaze with its. light. Though they feast in the night time, as darkness is congenial to their nature, they fast during the day, for light is destructive to their being. When the light of Hvarekhshaeta breaks through the darkness of night, it drives away, not only darkness, but defilement, disease, and death. Like the moon and the stars, it grieves the sun to shine upon a defiled person.381 Ahura Mazda has the sun for his eye.382 In the Vedic literature, the sun is similarly spoken of as the eye of Mitra Varuna.383 In the Litany to the sun, homage is paid to the two eyes of Ahura Mazda,384 which are evidently the sun and the moon. The heavens bathed in the light of the sun form his garments.385 The eleventh day of the month is sacred to him.386\|\| 377 Yt6.1; Ny1.11. 378 Yt6.2; Ny1.12. 379 Yt6.3; Ny1.13. 380 Yt6.4; Ny1.14. 381 Vd. 9.41. 382 Y1.11; 3.13; 4.16; 7.13; 22.13; 68.22. 383 RV. l.115.1; 6.51.l; 7.61.1,63.1; 10.37.1. 385 Yt13. 3. Leprosy is especially regarded as a consequence of sinning against the sun, and Herodotus tells us that persons affected with the disease were not permitted to enter a town.387 387 Herod. 1.138. \|The moon personified. Herodotus writes that the moon is the tutelary divinity of Persia.388 The case of this nature divinity is analogous to that of the sun. Maonghah is at one and the same time the moon and the personification of the moon. The seventh Yasht and the third Nyaish are dedicated to this divine personage. Here also we find throughout the description of the waxing and the waning of the moon, the periods of the new and the full moons, and the benefit that the light of the moon imparts to the world. We hear much of the concrete moon, but very little of the abstract person of the angel. The sole-created Bull, the progenitor of the animal world, is invoked along with the moon.389 The moon waxes and wanes through Ahura Mazda.390 The Amesha Spentas gather the glory of the moon and distribute it upon the earth.391 When the moon warms up with its light, the golden coloured plants grow up from the earth during the spring.392\|\| 388 Herod. 7.37. 389 Sr. 1.12; 2.12. 390 Yt7.2; Ny3.4. 391 Yt7.3; Ny3.5. 392 Yt7.4; Ny3.6. The moon is constantly spoken of as the possessor of the seed of the Bull.393 The moon is furthermore described as the bestower, radiant, glorious, possessed of water, possessed of warmth, possessed of knowledge, wealth, riches, discernment, weal, verdure, good, and the healing one.394 The twelfth day of the month is dedicated to the moon. 395 393 See Gray, in Spiegel Memorial Volume, p. 160-168. 394 Yt7.5; Ny3.7. \|Deification of the endless light. Anaghra Raochah means the Endless Light. It is the celestial light as opposed to the earthly light.396 In the order of naming the various kinds of heavenly lights, Anaghra Raochah comes after the stars, moon and the sun.397 Like the stars, the moon, and the sun, this supreme light stood without motion until the Fravashis or the Guardian Spirits showed it its path of movement.398\|\| 397 Y71. 9; Yt12.35; 13.57; G. 3.6. Anaghra Raochah is personified as a Yazata, being invoked at the sacrifice,399 and the thirtieth day of the Zoroastrian calendar bears his name. In a couple of instances we find Paradise and the Bridge of Judgment, likewise Apam Napat, Haoma, Dahma Afriti, and Damoish Upamana, invoked along with Anaghra Raochah.400 It is the name of the highest paradise.401 399 Y1.16; 16.6; 71.9; Sr. 1.30; 2.30; Vd. 19.35. 400 Sr. 1.30; 2.30. Firmament deified. In its original meaning Asman means the sky; it is later personified as the genius of the sky, and invoked as a Yazata.402 He is shining, exalted, and powerful. Asman and Vahishta Ahu, or Paradise, are invoked together,403 and the twenty-seventh day of the Zoroastrian month is called after the name of Asman. 402 Y1.16; 16.6; Sr. 1.27; 2.27. 403 Sr. 1.27; 2.27. The female divinity of dawn. Ushah is identical with the Vedic Ushas, and is the female divinity of the dawn in both religions, thus coming down from the common Indo-Iranian period. It is she who announces as the first glimpse of light, to creation, the approach of dawn. Ushah's personality is very faintly pronounced both in the Rig Veda and in the Younger Avestan texts. The Vedic poets have, however, produced most exquisite lyric poetry in praise of the dawn in about twenty hymns. There is only a short Avestan hymn in prose composed to celebrate the dawn and even this has but six lines devoted to the subject of the composition. Here she is described as beautiful, resplendent, possessed of bright steeds, blessed, and heroic; and her light illumines all the seven zones.404 Auxiliaries to Ushah are Ushahina and Berejya and Nmanya. In fact Ushahina, who is also a male personification of dawn, is the name of the fifth period of the day, and the prayer consecrated to Ushah bears his name. The priest at the sacrifice undertakes to propitiate Ushahina by sacrifice, if he has in thought, word, deed, or will offended him.405 404 Yt5.62; Vd. 18.15, 23; G. 5.5. The star genius directs the rain. Next in importance to the sun and moon, among the heavenly luminaries, are the countless stars. Among the stars that are personified as objects of praise and reverence, the most prominent is the radiant and glorious star Tishtrya. He is the star Sirius in the constellation of Canis Major. The Yazata who impersonates this brilliant star bears naturally also the same name. The Tishtrya Yasht (8) sings the glory of the twofold work of Tishtrya, both as star and as the Yazata that presides over it. Tishtrya is, therefore, the rain-star, and the Yasht gives a lively picture of his movements in producing clouds and rain and sleet, and distributing them over all the world. Tishtrya's constant companions are the starYazatas, named Vanant, Satavaesa, and Haptoiringa, as guardian spirits of different regions of the heavens.406 The thirteenth day of the month406a and the fourth month of the year are sacred to him. 406 Sr. 1.13; 2.13; cf. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, p.23. Tishtrya's attributes. His standing epithets are 'the radiant' and 'the glorious.' He is the giver of fertility to the fields,407 the giver of happy and good abode unto men, the white, shining, seen from afar, the healing, and the exalted one.408 He is possessed of the seed of the waters, the valiant, the courageous, far reaching, the efficient,409 and of sound eyes.410 Ahura Mazda has appointed Tishtrya as the lord of all other stars, even as he has ordained Zarathushtra as the spiritual lord of all mankind.411 The creator has made him as worthy of sacrifice, as worthy of invocation, as worthy of propitiation, and as worthy of glorification as himself.412 According to Plutarch he is established as a scout over all other stars.413 410 Yt8.12; Ny1.8. 412 Yt8.50, 52. 413 Is. et Os. 47. \|The sacrificial offerings enable Tishtrya to work with added vigour and strength. Tishtrya smites the wicked fairies.414 Like Verethraghna, he takes upon himself successive forms when he goes out for active work. He moves forward in the heavens for the first ten nights of the month in the form of a young man, for the next ten nights in the form of a bull, and then for the last ten nights in the shape of a white beautiful horse.415 In accordance with the will of Ahura Mazda and the archangels, he traverses the most distant parts of the earth,416 and the Iranian countries long for his advent, for it is through him that the country will witness a year of plenty or of drought.417 Men and beasts, the waters and all, look eagerly to the rising of the star Tishtrya, as he will send a flood of rain to fertilize their waste lands with water and bestow riches upon the earth, if the righteous faithfully offer him praise and worship.418 The farmer yearns for a few drops of Tishtrya's rain to moisten his parched fields, the gardener longs for a shower to brighten the foliage. The land smiles with rich harvests as a result of his fertilizing waters.\|\| 414 Yt8.8, 39,40,51-55. 415 Yt8.13,16,18; Vd.19.37. Tishtrya complains before Ahura Mazda about the indifference of men who do not sacrifice unto him. When invoked with sacrifice, as are the other angels, he is willing to hasten to the help of the righteous, whether for a single night, or two or fifty nights, or even a hundred nights.419 Tishtrya affirms that owing to his power to further righteousness, he is worthy of sacrifice and invocation, and if people will offer him libations and Haoma in sacrifice, he will grant them heroic children, and purity unto their souls, the riches of oxen and horses.420 He pours down water in abundance upon the earth, brings prosperity unto the whole creation, when he receives the offering of a sacrifice and is propitiated, rejoiced, and satisfied.421 Never, in that event, would the hostile horde invade the countries, nor would any calamity or evil of any kind befall them.422 Yet in spite of all this, the bounteous kindness of Tishtrya grants boons to his votary whether he prays for them or not.423 His fight with the demon of drought. Tishtrya is opposed in his work of producing rain by his adversary Apaosha, the demon of drought, who keeps back the rain. The Tishtrya Yasht gives a picturesque account of the struggle between them. In the combat with the fiend that holds the world in clutch through famine and drought, Apaosha, who appears in the form of a terrifying black horse, assaults his opponent and in their opening combat succeeds in forcing Tishtrya to retreat. Worsted by the fiend, Tishtrya mourns his defeat and complains that men do not sufficiently sacrifice unto him as they do unto other celestial powers, for had they not been sparing in their invocation, he would have been able to bring a further strength of ten horses, of ten camels, of ten oxen, of ten mountains, and of ten rivers to his side. Ahura Mazda himself, thereupon, offers a sacrifice unto Tishtrya and thus imparts new strength to him. Thus emboldened, he now, with renewed vigour, attacks his rival for the second time, and after a fierce struggle overcomes him. His triumph is hailed as the triumph of the waters, plants, and the religion of Mazda, for Tishtrya is now in a position to bring prosperity to the country.424 Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas, as well as Mithra, Ashi Vanghuhi, and Parendi, are among those that help Tishtrya in this war of the elements for the benefit of mankind425 A star-Yazata. The other important star-Yazata besides Tishtrya who is classed among the spiritual beings is Vanant. The twentieth Yasht is composed in his honour. Tradition assigns to him the special work of guarding the gates of the great Alburz round which the sun, moon and the stars revolve, and accounts him as the leader of a constellation in the western heavens in the war against the planets. In the Avestan Yasht bearing this star-Yazata's name, Vanant is specially invoked to give help to smite the noxious creatures of Angra Mainyu.426 Some spells to this effect, composed in the Pazend language, are later appended to this particular Yasht. It is elsewhere stated in the Avesta that Ahura Mazda has created him,427 and that the faithful ask him for strength and victory to enable them to remove distress and tyranny.427a 427 Yt8.12; Ny1.8. An acolyte of Tishtrya. The star Satavaesa is also personified, but his individuality is very faintly pronounced. He has no Yasht or hymn composed to glorify him. As an acolyte of Tishtrya, he causes the waters of the sea Vourukasha to flow down to the seven zones for the nourishment of plants and animals, and for the fertility and prosperity of the Aryan nations.428 428 Yt8.9; 13.43; Sr. 1.13; 2.13. Another acolyte of Tishtrya. This constellation, Ursa Major, is also raised to the position of a lesser divinity. Ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Fravashis watch over this stellar cluster.429 The genius of this star is invoked to enable mankind to oppose the evil caused by the sorcerers and fairies.430 430 Yt8.12; Sr. 2.13. The deification of the wind. Vayu, or Vata, is the Indo-Iranian impersonation of wind. The terms Vayu and Vata are variously used to represent either the wind or the genius of wind in both the Rig Veda and in the Avestan texts. Yet Vayu is chiefly the personification of the wind. As we have already seen, the whole of the Ram Yasht treats of the exploits of Raman's comrade Vayu. Vayu's wind is divided into two parts, the good and the evil. The wind is productive of good, but it also causes harm. That part of Vayu which is supposed to be the source of harm is branded as evil, and classed among Angra Mainyu's creations. Hence the faithful take care to sacrifice unto that part alone of Vayu which is the creation of Spenta Mainyu.431 The twenty-second day of the month is named after Vayu.432 431 Y22.24; 25.5; Yt15.5,42,57; Sr. 1.21; 2.21. Vayu’s attributes. The genius of wind is most frequently called 'working on high.' He strikes terror among all, and fearlessly enters the deepest and the darkest places to smite the demons.433 He is high-girt, of strong stature, of high foot, of wide breast, of broad thighs, and of powerful eyes.434 He wears a golden helm and a golden crown, a golden necklace, and golden garment; he has golden shoes and a golden girdle; and armed with golden weapons he rides in a golden chariot rolling on golden wheels.435 A fine image this, to immortalize Vayu in a golden statue! The poet gives a long list of the names of Vayu, and is very prolific in ascribing high attributes to him. In this the ancient composer follows the Yasht dedicated to Ahura Mazda. In fact Vayu is the only angel who is known, like Ahura Mazda, by many names. The text enumerates about forty-seven of such titles. Almost all of these attributes of Vayu are derived from the function of Vayu as wind, rather than from his activity as the genius of wind. They pertain to the atmospheric phenomenon more than to the abstract ideas about the angel. Some of the more important of the names of Vayu are as follows: the overtaker, the all-vanquishing, the good-doer, the one going forwards and backwards, the destroyer, smiter, usurper, the most valiant, the strongest, the firmest, the stoutest, the vanquisher at one stroke, the destroyer of malice, the liberator, the pervading one, and the glorious.436 Those who offer sacrifices unto Vayu. The recital of his names has a great efficacy, and Vayu asks Zarathushtra to invoke these names in the thick of the battle, or when the tyrant and heretic threaten him with their havocking hordes. The man in heavy fetters finds himself freed upon the recital of these names.437 Vayu is the greatest of the great and the strongest of the strong. The text briefly describes how some of the most illustrious personages invoked Vayu and begged of him various boons, and in this connection we may recall that Herodotus438 mentions the fact that the Persians sacrificed to the winds among other divine forces in nature. The list of Vayu's supplicants in Yasht 15 is headed by Ahura Mazda himself, who desired the boon that he may smite the creatures of Angra Mainyu, but that none may smite the creation of Spenta Mainyu.439 Among the kings, renowned heroes. and other personages who sacrificed unto Vayu, and to whom the angel granted their boons, are Haoshyangha, Takhma Urupi, Yima, Thraetaona, Keresaspa, Aurvasara, Hutaosa, and such maidens as are not yet given in marriage.440 Even the wicked Azhi Dahaka begged also of him a boon, but Vayu rejected his sacrifice.441 Men sacrifice unto Vayu with libations and prayers and ask for strength to vanquish their adversaries.442 Vayu asks Zarathushtra to invoke him, in order that neither Angra Mainyu, nor the sorcerers, nor the demons may be able to injure him.443 438 Herod. 1.131. 440 Yt15.7-17, 23-41. \|The fire cult in Iran. The cult of the sacrificial fire goes back to the Indo-European period. The Skt. word agni, 'fire,' has for its equivalent Latin ignis and Slavonic ogni. The most prominent divinity after Indra in the Vedas is Agni and more than 200 hymns and several stray passages are devoted to his glorification. The Iranian word for fire as well as for the Yazata presiding over fire is Atar. Among both the Indians and the Iranians fire occupies the central position in all rituals. The priest who tended the fire is known by a common name among both the peoples. Among the Indians he is atharvan and among the Iranians âthravan, literally meaning, 'one who tends fire.’ A litany is composed in honour of Atar and he is celebrated many other passages. The ninth month of the year and the ninth day of the month are named after Atar.444\|\| Atar, or Fire, is most frequently called the son of Ahura Mazda in the Younger Avestan texts. The devout hunger in heart to reach Mazda through him as a mediary.445 Asha Vahishta’s association with the fire continues and they are often together. As the most holy symbol of his faith, the house-lord prays that the sacred element may ever burn in his house.446 We have already seen that the Avesta speaks of some fires consecrated by the pre-Zoroastrian kings in Iran. The Avestan works refer to the dâitya gâtu, 'proper place,' for the fire and the Old Persian Inscriptions speak of the âyadanâ as the places of worship.447 The bas-relief sculpture at Naksh-i-Rustam over the royal tomb shows an altar with fire on it. Herodotus, the earliest of the Greek writers on Persia, however, informs us that the Persians did not erect temples in his days, but sacrificed unto the elements sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and wind on the summits of mountains.448 Dino, the contemporary of Alexander, does not mention the fire-temples and says that the Persians worshipped in the open air.449 It may be that the early writers did not come across temples in Iran, in the Greek sense of the term. But there must certainly have been some kind of structures to protect the sacred fire from being extinguished. Strabo450 for the first time mentions in Cappadocia places dedicated to fire, and speaks of enclosures with fire altars in the centre. No sacrifices, we are told, were offered to any divinity without the accompaniment of the invocation of fire. These altars, we are further informed by Strabo, were filled with ashes over which the sacred fire burned day and night. The Magi, he adds, tended the holy flames, and with Baresman twigs in their hands daily performed their devotions for about an hour.451 Pausanias (A.D. 173) corroborates this statement from his personal observation in Lydia.452 Xenophon and Curtius Rufus acquaint us with the practice of carrying fire on portable altars in religious processions.453 446 Y62.3; Ny5.9. 447 Bh. 1,14. 448 Herod. 1.131. 449 Cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, Protreptica, 5. 65.1. 450 60 B.C. 451 Strabo, p. 733. 452 Pausanias, 5.27.5,6. 453 Cyropaedia, 8. 3. 11-13; History of Alexander 3. 3. 9; see Edwards, Altar (Persian) in ERE. 1. 346-348. Atar is both the genius of fire and the element fire itself. As the fire dwells in every house, he is constantly spoken of in the Rig Veda as the lord of the house. The Yasna in the manner calls him the lord of all houses.454 He is the great Yazata.455 He is the most bountiful,456 of renowned name457 the beneficent warrior, and full of glory and healing.458 Besides being the angel that presides over fire, Atar is also fire as such. The two concepts are often so mixed up together that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the blazing fire burning upon the altar and the angel that personifies it. The difficulty is still more increased when we see the fire on the hearth conceived of as speaking and blessing as a person. The householders pray that the fire may ever burn and blaze in their houses.459 In the Vedas, Agni is a friend of the man who entertains him as a guest and feeds him with fuel.460 The fire of Mazda, likewise, solicits devotional offerings from those persons for whom he cooks the evening and the morning meal, he looks at the hands of all passers-by, to see if they bring some present for him or not, even as a friend for a friend. When the faithful bring to him fuel, dry and exposed to the light, he is propitiated, and in the fulfillment of his wish blesses the votary with a flock of cattle and a multitude of men, an active mind and an active spirit, and a joyous life.461 During the three watches of the night Atar wakes up the master of the house, the husbandman, and calls Sraosh for help.462 Here also it is not so much the angel Atar that acts, as it is the fire itself, for the master of the house and the husbandman are asked to wash their hands and bring fuel to it, lest the demon Azi should extinguish it.463 The man who responds with alacrity, and is the first to wake up and tend the fire with dry wood, receives Atar's blessings.464 The man who sacrifices unto fire with fuel in his hand, with the Baresman in his hand, with milk in his hand, with the mortar for crushing the branches of the sacred Haoma in his hand, is given happiness.465 Phoenix of Colophon (280 B.C.), cited in Athenaeus, speaks of the fire ritual of the Magi and mentions the Baresman.466 In the litany to the fire, the faithful are enjoined to feed the fire with fuel that is dry and well exposed to the light,467 and Strabo tells us that the fire-priests fed the sacred fire with dry wood, fat, and oil; and he further adds that some portions of the caul of the sacrificed animal were also placed on it.468 457 Vsp. 9.5. 458 Ny5.6; Sr. 1.9; 2.9. 459 Ny5.8, 9. 460 R.V. 4.2.6; 4.10. 461 Y62.7-10; Ny5.13-16. 462 Vd. 18. 18-22. 463 Vd. 18.19-21. 464 Vd. 18.26, 27. 465 Y62.1; Ny5.7. 466 Athenaeus, 12. p. 530. 467 Y62.10; Ny5.16. 468 Strabo, p. 732. Atar’s boons. Atar is invoked to grant well-being and sustenance in abundance, knowledge, holiness, a ready tongue, comprehensive, great, and imperishable wisdom, manly valour, watchfulness, an innate offspring worthy to sit in the assembly and work for the renown of his house and village, town and country, and for the glory of his country, name and fame in this world, as well as the shining, all-happy paradise of the righteous.469 Whoso does not treat the fire well displeases Ahura Mazda.470 Zarathushtra blesses King Vishtaspa that he may be as resplendent as the fire.471 469 Y68.4-6; Ny5.10-12. 470 TdFr. 22,23. \|His work. When Mithra goes on his usual round in his golden chariot, Atar drives behind him along with the other divine personifications.472 Like Agni who knows the paths leading to the gods,473 Atar shows the most upright path to those who lie not unto Mithra.474 When Angra Mainyu breaks into the creation of righteousness, Atar in company with Vohu Manah opposes the malice of the Evil Spirit.475 When Yima, reft of his senses through the Kingly Glory, revolts from Ahura Mazda, the Glory departs from him and he falls to destruction.476 It can well be imagined that the monster Azhi Dahaka should strive to capture the departed Glory, but Atar intervenes and vanquishes him.477\|\| 473 RV. 10.98.11. 476 Yt19.34-36, 38. What causes grief to Atar. Angra Mainyu has created the inexpiable crime of burning or cooking dead matter,478 and the Vendidad enjoins capital punishment for those who commit it.479 We are informed that the Persians considered it a mortal sin to defile fire by blowing it with the mouth, or by burning dead matter over it.480 The Achaemenian monarch Cambyses roused the indignation of his countrymen when he burnt the corpse of King Amasis at Sais.481 It is, therefore, a crime to bring back fire into a house in which a man has died, within nine nights in winter and a month in summer.482 Highly meritorious is the deed of bringing to the fire altar the embers of a fire desecrated by dead matter, and great shall be the doer's reward in the next world, when his soul has parted from his body.483 Elaborate rules are accordingly laid down for the purification of the fire defiled by the dead.484 There is no purification for the man who carries a corpse to the fire.485 In the case of every pollution of the pure element. Atar is inexorable. 478 Vd. 1.16. 479 Vd. 8.73, 74. 480 Strabo, p. 732; Ctesias, Persica, 57; Nicolas Damascenus, Frag. 68; FHG. 3.409. 481 Herodotus, 3.16. 482 Vd. 5.43,44. 483 Vd. 8.81,82. 484 Vd. 8.73-80. 485 Vd. 7.25-27. Mazda's celestial herald. Nairyosangha corresponds to the Vedic Narashamsa, generally applied to Agni as his epithet. He is expressly spoken of as a Yazata,486 and is well-shaped.487 Like Agni who is often called the messenger of gods between heaven and earth, Nairyosangha is the messenger of Ahura Mazda.488 When the Evil Spirit introduces disease and death in the world, Ahura Mazda dispatches him as his envoy to Airyaman to come with his healing remedies.489 He is invoked along with Atar, for he is Atar's associate. He is termed the offspring of sovereignty490 and as such he is entitled to go in Mithra's chariot with Sraosha.491 He has his Fravashi.492 488 Vd. 19.34. 489 Vd. 22.7, 13. 490 Y17.11; Ny5.6. 491 Yt10. 52. 492 Yt13, 85. ARDVI SURA ANAHITA \|The angel of waters. Ardvi Sura, who bears the standing epithet anâhita, 'undefiled,' is the name of a mythical river as well as that of the female divinity of the waters. She resides in the starry regions.493 This deity of the heavenly stream gets recognition of the Achaemenian kings, and is included in the extremely short list of the Iranian divinities expressly mentioned in their inscriptions.494 Classical writers speak of her sanctuaries founded at Pasargadae, Ecbatana, Kangavar and other places.495 At a very early date her cult migrates to distant countries and is there assimilated to Artemis, Aphrodite, Athene-Minerva, Hera, Magna Mater, Ishtar, and Nanaia.496 She overleaps the barriers of Mount Alburz and gains her votaries in the far-off lands of East and West, where occasionally her cult degenerates into obscene rites. Herodotus who confuses her with Mithra says that her cult came to Iran from the Semites of Assyria and Arabia.497\|\| 493 Yt5.85, 88, 132. 494 Art. Sus. a; Ham. 495 See Gray, op cit., p. 57, 58; Fox and Pemberton, op. cit., 34-39, 58, 66, 68, 79. 496 Gray, ib., p. 57. 497 Herod. 1.131. She is celebrated in one of the longest Yashts and In 65th chapter of the Yasna. She is described as the most courageous, strong, of noble origin,498 good, and most beneficient.499 Ahura Mazda has assigned to her the work of guarding the creation, like a shepherd guarding his fiock.500 The eighth of the year and the tenth day of the month are named after waters of Ardvi Sura.501 499 Yt5.130, 131. 500 Yt5.6, 89. Her image in words found in the texts, corresponds with her statue in stone. The text gives a fine descriptive image of the female deity. She is a maiden of fair body, well-shaped, pure, courageous, tall, bright, beautiful, and glorious. Upon her head she wears a golden crown studded with a hundred stars and beautifully adorned, square golden earrings adorn her ears, a golden necklace decorates her neck, she wears a golden mantle, she has tightly girded her waist so that her beautiful breasts come out prominently, her white arms graced by elegant bracelets are stouter than a horse, she wears golden shoes, a rich garment of gold or of the skin of the beavers.502 Pliny says that a statue made of solid gold was set up in the temple of Anaitis.503 We have already seen on the authority of Berosus that Artaxerxes Mnemon (B.C. 404-358) introduced the worship of the images of Anahita among the Persians.504 502 Yt5.7, 15, 64, 78, 123, 126-129. 503 Historia Naturalis, 33, 4 (24) 82f. 504 Cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, Protreptica, 5, 65, 3; Jackson, Images and Idols (Persian) in ERE. 7. 151-155; cf. Cumont, Anâhita, in ERE. 1. 414, 415. Ahura Mazda heads the list of the sacrificers who entreat her for various boons. The Yasht dedicated to Ardvi Sura Anahita furnishes us with the names of those who have sacrificed unto her and begged of her various boons. The number of her supplicants exceeds that of any other angel. Ahura Mazda and Zarathushtra invoke her, with Haoma and Baresman, with spells and libations, whereas the majority of her other votaries severally offer her a hundred stallions, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand sheep. Haoshyangha, Yima, Thraetaona, Keresaspa, Kavi Usa, Haosravah, Tusa, Vafra Navaza, Jamaspa, Ashavazdah, the son of Pourudakhshti, and Ashavazdah and Thrita, the sons of Sayuzhdri, Vistauru, Yoishta, the members of the Hvova and Naotara families, Vishtaspa, and Zairi-vairi are all granted their diverse boons. These ask for sovereignty over all countries, victory on the battlefield, power to smite the adversaries in battle, to rout the sorcerers and fairies, the fiends and the demons; they pray likewise for bodily health, wisdom to answer the riddles of heretics, and for riches and swift horses.505 The boon that Ahura Mazda seeks is that he may win over Zarathushtra to think after his reljgion, to speak after his religion, and to act after his religion; the prophet in turn begs of her that he may gain to his side the mighty King Vishtaspa as a patron to embrace his religion.506 The rulers and chiefs invoke her that they may defeat their enemies and smite the demons, sorcerers, and fairies, the warriors beg of her swift horses and bodily health and glory, the priests and their disciples pray for knowledge, the maids beseech her to grant them strong husbands.507 Ardvi Sura Anahita bestows fruitfulness to women; she purifies the seeds of all males and the wombs of all females for bearing. Shes, as a divine bestower, gives easy childbirth to all females, and gives them right and timely milk.508 Ardvi Sura likewise grants boons unto all, because it lies in her power to do so. The sacrificing priest implores her to come down from the stars to the sacrificial altar, and to grant riches, horses, chariots, swords, food, and plenty to men.509 She gives health and increases flocks, possessions, and wealth.510 505 Yt5.21-27, 33-39, 45-55, 61-83, 98, 108-114. 506 Yt5.17-19, 104-106. 508 Y65.2; Yt5.2, 87; Ny4.3; Vd. 7.16. 509 Yt5. 130-132. 510 Y65.1; Yt5.1. She refuses to concede the wicked persons their wishes. Azhi Dahaka wickedly besought her to grant him a boon that he may make all the seven zones empty of men, and the Turanian Franrasyan sought her favour to secure the Glory, and the sons of Vaesaka implored her to grant that they may smite the Aryan nation by tens of thousands and myriads; Arejat-aspa and Vandaremainish craved for the defeat of King Vishtaspa, Zairivairi, and the Aryan nation; but Ardvi Sura Anahita refused to grant the evil wishes to these national foes of Iran.511 511 Yt5.29-31, 41-43, 57-59, 116-118. The offerings of libations. Ardvi Sura Anahita desires that men invoke her with libations and Haoma;512 these libations are to be drunk by the priest who is well versed in religious lore, and not by any wicked and deformed person.513 The faithful are to bring libations unto her at any time between the rising and the setting of the sun. Those brought to her after sunset do not reach her; on the contrary, they go to the demons, who revel in these misdirected offerings.514 We are informed that the man who dedicates these libations before sunrise or after sunset does no better deed than if he should pour them down into the jaws of a venomous snake.515 Besides invoking Ardvi Sura Anahita as the Yazata of water, the waters themselves are collectively invoked to grant boons. Zarathushtra is asked to offer a libation to the waters and to ask from them riches, power, and worthy offspring,516 a happy and a joyful abode in this world and the next, accompanied by riches and glory.517 The faithful pray that these waters may not be for those of evil thoughts, evil words, evil deeds, and evil religion, neither for the tormentors of their friends, neighbours, relatives, and priests.518 Nor may they be for their evil-wishers,519 nor for thieves and robbers, murderers and sorcerers, buriers of the dead, jealous and niggard, and heretics and wicked persons.520 512 Yt5.8, 11, 123, 124. 513 Yt5.92, 93. 514 Yt5.94, 95; Nr. 68. 515 Nr. 48. 517 Y68.13, 14, 21. Animal sacrifices to Anahita. Strabo relates the mode of sacrificing to the waters. The sacrificial animal, we are told, is taken to the bank of a river or a lake; a ditch is formed into which the animal is killed. The pieces of meat are then placed on myrtle or laurel, and holding tamarisk twigs in his hands, the priest pours oil mixed with honey and milk on the ground and chants the sacred formulas. Great care is taken that no drop of blood falls into the water while the animal is being immolated; nor must the mixture of oil, honey, and milk be poured into water.521 This precaution is taken lest the waters be defiled. 521 Strabo, p.732. Any defilement of the waters evokes Ardvi Sura's displeasure. It is sinful to contaminate the waters. Such an act incurs great displeasure on the part of the genius of waters. Those who wilfully bring dead matter to the waters become unclean for ever and ever.522 If a man while walking or running, riding or driving, happens to see a corpse ftoating in a river, he must enter the river and go down into the water ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, nay even a man's full depth if need be, and take out the decaying body and place it upon the dry ground exposed to the light of the sun.523 Herodotus informs us that the Persians do not make water, wash or bathe in a river.524 524 Herod. 1.138. Ardvi Sura's chariot. Like some of the Yazatas, Ardvi Sura Anahita has a chariot of her own, in which she drives forth in majesty. She holds the reins in her own hands, and controls four great chargers who are all of white color, of the same stock, and who smite the malice of all tyrants, demons, wicked men, sorcerers, fairies, oppressors, as well as those who are wilfully blind and wilfully deaf.525 The text enables us to understand the allegorical statement regarding the steeds that are yoked to her chariot, for we are told that the four chargers of Ardvi Sura are the wind, the rain, the cloud, and the sleet; and it was Ahura Mazda who made them for her.526 525 Yt5.11, 13. His nature and work. This Indo-Iranian divinity of waters seems very early to have been eclipsed by Anahita, who remains the chief genius presiding over waters in the cult. Apam Napat's Vedic counterpart has an aqueous as well as an igneous nature. In the association of the Avestan Apam Napat with the fire angel Nairyosangha, Spiegel sees traces of this secondary nature.527 Apam Napat literally means 'the offspring of waters,' and, like the Vedic genius, lives beneath the waters.528 He is the exalted lord and sovereign, the shining one, and the swift-horsed.529 The waters are addressed as females. Apam Napat in the Vedas is nourished by females.530 The Avestan texts speak of him as the lord of females.531 He is the most prompt to respond when invoked,532 and co-operates with Vayu and distributes the waters on earth.533 He furthers the riches of the countries and allays misfortunes;534 and when the Kingly Glory escapes from the contest of Atar and Azhi Dahaka to the sea Vourukasha it is Apam Napat who takes and protects it.535 This Yazata is also credited with having made and shaped men.536 527 Arische Periode, 192, 193, Leipzig, 1887; see Gray, Apam Napat, in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, vol. 3, p. 18-51; and in The Foundations of the Iranian Religions, p. 133-136. 528 Yt19.52; RV. 8.43.9. 529 Y1.5; 2.5; 65.12; 70.6; Yt5.72; 19.51. 530 RV. 2.35. 3, 5. 531 Yt5.72; 19.52. 534 Yt13. 95. Another water genius. A female Yazata, though of no great importance, is Ahurani, corresponding to the Vedic Varunani. She impersonates the Ahurian waters.537 She is invoked in company with the sea Vourukasha and other waters.538 The faithful devotee prays that if he has offended her in any way, he is ready to expiate his sin by an offering of the libations.539 She is implored to descend in person and grace the sacrifice with her presence and be propitiated by it.540 She is likewise invited to come with her gifts of health, prosperity, renown, the enlightenment of thoughts, words, and deeds, and for the well-being of the soul.541 She is asked to give offspring that will further the prosperity of the house, village, town, and country and add to the renown of the country.542 Riches and glory, endurance and vigour of body, a long life and the shining, all-happy abode of the righteous are the boons that the devout ask from her.543 The libations offered her are the most excellent and the fairest, and are filtered by pious men.544 Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds also serve as her libations.545 The libations offered to Ahurani cause joy to Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas.546 541 Y68.3, 4. \|The earth deified. The Avestan term for earth is zam, from which the angel Zam, or Zamyat, derives her name. Her personality is very insipid as compared with Armaiti, who, as we have seen, has the earth under her care and is, in fact, a more active guardian genius of the earth than Zamyat. The twenty eighth day of every month is sacred to Zamyat.547 The poet who composed the Yasht in honour of Zamyat does not sing the glory of his heroine, but occupies himself rather with a description of the mountains of the world,548 and with the celebration of the Divine Glory that descends upon the Aryan race, symbolizing the greatness of the kings and the consecrated piety of the sainted souls.549 Cyrus, says Xenophon, sacrificed animals to the earth as the Magians directed.550\|\| 550 Cyropaedia, 8.24. \|Avesta -- Zoroastrian Archives\|\|Contents\|\|Prev\|\|history3\|\|Next\|\|Glossary\|	3.268073
Cell Cycle Pathway The cell cycle pathway is a unidirectional process that governs cell division. This process, which cannot be reversed once started, is critical for cell survival. The cell cycle typically involves four phases: S phase, in which DNA is replicated, M phase, in which chromosomes are separated and two distinct cells are formed, and G1 and G2 phases during which the cell is preparing for cell division. The majority of the cell cycle pathway is regulated by two classes of proteins: cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and cyclins. Cyclins and CDKs form complexes that enable CDKs to phosphorylate and activate specific cell cycle intermediates. In the initial stages of the cell-cycle signal, cyclin D will bind to CDK4 and this complex will phosphorylate the retinoblastoma (Rb) gene. During a quiescent state, Rb is bound to DNA and blocks the transcription of specific genes. After phosphorylation, Rb becomes unbound and genes necessary for the cell cycle are now accessible. The cell cycle pathway is a highly-regulated process that incorporates three major checkpoints. The first checkpoint is the G1 checkpoint, which determines whether or not a cell will enter into the cell division process. The second checkpoint, G2, will determine if the cell will enter into mitosis. Both the G1 and G2 checkpoints can be affected by the presence or absence of various growth factors, DNA damage, or replicative senescence. The final checkpoint, metaphase, ensures proper chromosome alignment prior to cell division. The cell cycle pathway is intrinsically linked to cell survival and cell death. For instance, failure of a cell to meet the requirements of the individual cell cycle checkpoints will result in the cell undergoing apoptosis. In cancer, the cell cycle checkpoints are often dysfunctional. Checkpoint proteins, such as Rb or p53, are often mutated or inactivated and this can result in cell division despite incomplete DNA synthesis and segregation errors. Inappropriate continuation of the cell cycle can lead to genomic instability, which is a common feature of malignant cells. 1. Nigg. 1995. Cyclin-dependent protein kinases: key regulators of the eukaryotic cell cycle. Bioessays. 17(6):471-80.	3.441973
A number of federal laws and ordinances protect U.S. employees from discrimination in the workplace. These laws are enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC is the main entity responsible for upholding and designating all employment laws in the United States, including federal job discrimination. Here's a look at federal job discrimination laws. Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). This act protects employees from job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. All aspects of employment are covered, including hiring, firing, promotion, wages, recruitment, training, and any other terms of employment. Equal Pay Act of 1963. This act ensures that employees receive the same pay, benefits, and opportunities as those employees of the opposite sex who perform the same work in the same establishment. Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. This act protects workers who are 40 years of age or older from job discrimination that favors younger workers. Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This act protects qualified workers with disabilities from job discrimination in the private and state and municipal sectors. Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This act protects qualified workers with disabilities who work for the federal government from job discrimination. Civil Rights Act of 1991. This act clarifies some of the ambiguous sections of Title VII, and provides monetary compensation for victims of federal job discrimination. If you think you are a victim of job discrimination If you think you are a victim of job discrimination under one of these federal laws, you can file a discrimination charge with the EEOC. In addition, a charge may be filed on your behalf by another person to protect your identity. You can file a charge by mail or in person at the nearest EEOC office. Importantly, you must file a claim with the EEOC within 90 days of the alleged discrimination before a private lawsuit can be filed. You must provide the following information in order to file a charge with the EEOC: - The complaining party's name, address, and telephone number - The name, address, and telephone number of the claim's respondent - The date and a short description of the alleged discrimination The EEOC will then investigate the claim. It will either dismiss the case, attempt to settle the case, bring the case to federal court, or issue the charging party a "right to sue," which allows the party to seek private counsel and bring suit upon the employer directly. Other job discrimination laws and agencies In addition to federal laws, many states and municipalities have their own laws that protect employees against discrimination. Workers and applicants who feel they are being discriminated against in regard to sexual orientation, parental status , marital status, political affiliation, and any other personal choice that does not affect their ability to do their job can research local and state ordinances to see whether they have legislative protection.	3.368186
By Dr. Aleksandra Drizo Dr. Aleksandra Drizo, PhosphoReduc LLC. CEO, 70 South Winooski Avenue; Burlington, VT, USA 05405. Corresponding author: [email protected] Phosphorus Pollution Problem Water eutrophication caused by excess nutrient loading from human activities has been recognized as one of the major water quality issues for several decades (1, 2). The World Resources Institute has identified 415 hypoxic coastal zones in the world. The situation is even more alarming for freshwater resources with 54% of lakes in Asia, 53% in Europe, 48% in North America, 41% in South America and 30% in Africa being identified as eutrophic (3). Although some environments are more greatly influenced by changing levels of nitrogen, addition of just 1 g of phosphorus promotes the growth of up to 100 g algae, and as such, represents the principal trigger of eutrophication and toxic blue-green algae blooms. The Effect of Algae Blooms These blooms can decrease the oxygen levels in the waters, resulting in fish kills and reduced biodiversity. They can also cause foul odors and tastes, diminishing the recreational appeal of the waters or their potential for use as a water supply source. Some species have even been found to release chemicals that are toxic to animals and humans. Sources of Phosphorus Pollution Given the magnitude of eutrophication worldwide, solutions for reducing phosphorus loading from municipal, agricultural, industrial, urban and rural point and nonpoint sources have been sought worldwide. While point source pollution is definable and thus controllable, nonpoint (diffuse) pollution originates from a variety of run-off sources, and consequently, controlling this type of contamination is even more complex, requiring an integration of technological, socio-economical and educational factors. Methods of Phosphorus Removal Methods for phosphorus removal from wastewaters and storm water runoff have emerged over the past few years. However, the current absence of the governmental regulations for phosphorus discharge limits, coupled with the extremely high costs of environmental technologies verification (ETV) programs impose insurmountable obstacles in phosphorus removal technologies applications. Current Regulatory Framework Despite the recognized need for phosphorus reduction worldwide (2-5), the current regulatory framework for attenuation of this type of contamination has been extremely limited. Phosphorus discharge criteria have been developed only for municipal wastewater treatment facilities (MWTF) and, in a very few developed countries. Moreover, the current phosphorus removal methods (either chemical or biological) used in MWWTF are complex, extremely expensive, consume large amounts of energy and generate large volumes of sludge that then must be appropriately disposed of (5). Phosphorus discharge criteria for other point and nonpoint pollution sources (agricultural, industrial, or residential onsite wastewater treatment systems (septic systems)), are not included in the current wastewater regulations. This situation is extremely alarming given the exponential growth of population, livestock and food production. For example, 30-40% of the population in developed countries rely on septic systems consisting of a septic tank and a drain field. A hundred years ago, soil drain fields were considered natural adsorbing materials for phosphorus. However, the phosphorus retention capacity of any adsorbing material is finite and once it’s reached, the material needs to be replaced. The situation is much more disturbing in developing countries, where peri-urban settlements are not approved by the local and national governments. As a result, many rivers in third world cities are being used as large open sewers. The lack of regulatory framework greatly diminishes funding and the aspiration for scientific advancements for phosphorus removal technologies. While there has been a growing interest in investigations on phosphorus sorbing materials that could be used in onsite wastewater treatment systems, this research has been mainly performed in university laboratories, while field testing and applications remain limited to the efforts by a very few scientist in Sweden and United States (6). The Road From Innovations to Applications The biggest obstacle to any environmental technology application is in the current costs and the time required by the Federal Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Programs. In the United States for example, the costs range from $120-140,000 per application, lasting 24-36 months. This means that a small business such is PhosphoReduc would have to invest a minimum of $360,000 to obtain ETV certification for the 3 types of wastewater, e.g. municipal, residential and agricultural effluents treatment. Individual State Permits do not require such large financial investments during the review process, however the process is also extremely lengthy, lasting 24-30 months from the moment of application. Moreover, as phosphorus discharge limits currently do not exist in the regulatory framework, most of the water governmental agencies either reject applications or require intensive permitting processes, consisting of two different permit types: one for beneficial use of water filtration material and the other for general use of technology. Each of the two permit processes require intensive water quality monitoring by accredited laboratories, thus an investment of at least $85-100,000. And without certifications it is impossible to implement systems and bring water quality improvements. PhosphoReduc Innovative Technologies I have dedicated over 20 years of my professional life to research and development of sustainable technologies for phosphorus pollution prevention and control. During my doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, UK, in the early 1990s, I have pioneered the research on use of various iron, aluminum and calcium based materials natural and industrial by-products that can be used as phosphorus sorbing materials in onsite treatment systems. As Research Professor at the University of Vermont, and the director of the University Constructed Wetlands Research Center (CWRC), along with my research team we have developed several suites of sustainable wastewater treatment technologies including: Integrated (multistage) constructed wetlands and phosphorus removal filter systems Phosphorus removal and sequestration “PRS-101” filters for the treatment of agricultural, municipal and residential wastewaters (point pollution sources) Simple “torpedo” filter systems for agricultural tile drain and urban storm water outflows (for capturing and treating phosphorus and solids pollution originating from nonpoint, diffuse pollution sources (Figure 1). These treatment technologies are efficient not only in phosphorus removal, but also in other pollutants reduction, including nitrogen, organic matter and suspended solids, pathogens and various metals and minerals. In addition, we have also shown that once the lifespan of the filter system is completed, the phosphorus retained by the filtration material can be re-used, instead of chemical fertilizer, to enhance soils used for agriculture, horticulture and forestry. In 2008, I applied for the Agricultural Innovation Fund to the University of Vermont College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Office for Technology Transfer (UVM TTO). I was awarded the seed start-up funding that enabled me to establish my business PhosphoReduc LLC (www.phosphoreduc.com). The seed funding also provided necessary funding for patent applications. We currently have patents pending for the two of our technologies, one for phosphorus removal from point pollution sources and the other for phosphorus removal from agricultural and urban drain outflows. Our filtration systems are passive systems consisting of one or more filter units filled with iron (Fe) and/or calcium (Ca) based filtration material, modified steel slag, a recyclable by-product from the steel industry. The filtration media is packed, arranged and engaged with one another in specially-designed modules so as to form a modular composite filter, according to the method developed by PhopshoReduc LLC. To date, we have demonstrated that PhosphoReduc filter systems reduce phosphorous, suspended solids and pathogens (E. coli) loads from sewage, agricultural and urban point and nonpoint pollution sources by 70 – 100 percent by systems implemented in a variety of climatic regions, on 4 continents. The examples of Phosphoreduc applications include: 1. Agricultural Runoff Treatment: a simple cartridge system installed to reduce phosphorus and solids from agricultural tile drains collecting water from 30 acres in Vermont achieved reductions averaging 72% and 75%, respectively (Figure 1). Currently, there is no agricultural practice designed to reduce phosphorus loading from agricultural tile drains. We have showed that phosphorus concentrations measured in 6 different agricultural drains over 10 spring storm events exceeded critical 0.1-0.2 mg/L P concentrations for incipient eutrophication in each rain event. feed bunks (silage leachate) runoff treatment, known as one of the most toxic waste streams on farms. Currently, the vegetative treatment area (practice code 635) is the major “best management practice” recommended by the US Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and widely implemented to treat silage leachate runoff on farms in the US (7). While it cannot achieve more than 20% phosphorus reduction efficiency, the current cost of this practice implementation is in order of $15,220 per acre. The results from a 2 year investigation by our research team has shown that the implementation of an innovative “treatment train” consisting of a PhosphoReduc filter, and a vegetative trench could achieve up to 90% phosphorus reduction at half the cost of the currently recommended 635 practice (8). 2. Urban Stormwater Treatment PhosphoReduc filter installed in Columbus, OH to treat a golf-course stormwater pond achieved an average of 85% reduction efficiency. Several follow up installations are planned in 2012. 3. Sewage Treatment PhosphoReduc filter has been implemented in southern Taiwan to test system efficacy in sewage wastewater treatment originating from the university student residences. This system showed nearly 100% reductions in dissolved and total phosphorus and suspended solids over 10 months of investigation (9). Following successful treatment in Taiwan, two filter installations are currently planned to reduce phosphorus loading originating from a mixed sewage and urban runoff effluent and causing eutrophication of Tubarao lagoons in Vitoria State, Brazil. The Future of Innovative Phosphorus Removal Technologies Despite all of the above obstacles, during the past two years PhosphoReduc technologies started to gain interest among governmental agencies in the US and internationally. We have contributed to eutrophication prevention and water quality improvements in over 40 laboratory, pilot, demonstration and full scale projects across 5 continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, New Zealand). In Sweden, professor Gunno Renman developed polonite based systems for phosphorus removal from residential septic systems. However, polonite filtration material is made from the natural calcium rich material found only in Poland, which restricts systems applications beyond these two countries. In any future research and development of Phosphorus removal technologies we ought to keep in mind the fact that as a key component of fertilizers, phosphorus is fundamental for the world’s food supplies, and an irreplaceable and essential element of life with its sole source as phosphate-bearing rocks (10-11). Phosphorus resources are non-renewable with global reserves estimated to reach their peak in the next 50-100 years (10). The current rate of phosphate extraction is reported at 167 million tonnes per year with a growing demand that accounts for a 2% annual increase. With continuing decline of global phosphate reserves, the impacts are likely be immense, particularly in terms of rising food prices, growing food insecurity and widening inequalities between developed and developing countries (10-11). Thus, not only should we continue research, development and implementation of phosphorus removal technologies but we have to invent the ways of phosphorus re-use as a soil amendment in agriculture, forestry, acid mine reclamation and horticulture. Sweden is the first country in the world that has established regulatory requirement to recycle phosphorus from municipal wastewater treatment effluents by 2016. It enabled professor Renman and I to start developing processes for phosphorus re-use from our phosphorus removal treatment systems. (1) Ryther, J.H. and Dunstan, W. M. (1971). Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Eutrophication in Coastal Marine Environments. Science 171: 1008-1013. (2) Conley, D.J., Paerl, H.W., Howarth, R.W., Boesch, D.F., Seitzinger, S.P., Havens, K.E., Lancelot, C. and Likens, G.E. (2009). Constrolling Eutrophication: Nitrogen and Phosphorus. Science 323: 1014-1015. (3) World Resources Institute (2012). Eutrophication and Hypoxia: Nutrient Pollution in Coastal Waters. url: http://www.wri.org/project/eutrophication (4) US EPA (2012). Water: Pollution Prevention and Control. url: http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/ (5) Jiang, F., Beck, M.B., Cummings, R.G., Rowles, K. and Russell, D. (2005). Estimation of Costs of Phosphorus Removal in wastewater Treatment Facilities: Adaptation of Existing Facilities. Water Policy Working Paper #2005-011. url: http://aysps.gsu.edu/WP2005011estimationofcosts.pdf (6) Westholm, Johansson, L., Drizo, A. and Renman, G. (2011). The Use of Blast Furnace and Electric Arc Furnace Steel Slag in Water Pollution Control. Ferrous Slag - Resource Development for an Environmentally Sustainable World. EUROSLAG Publication No.5. pp 103-11. url: http://www.euroslag.org/about-us/history/conferencesdetail/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=19&cHash=ae437d3893598f2b5faf16f5edf6a16c. (7) USDA NRCS (2008). Vegetative Treatment Area Practice 635. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service―Practice Code 635. url: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_026548.pdf (8) Drizo, A., Liang, K. and Gorres, J. (2011). Phosphorus and E.Coli Reduction from Silage Leachate via Innovative PhosphoReduc Filtration. Final Report to the Conservation Innovations Grants Program, submitted December 2011. University of Vermont Grant Agreement Number : 69-3A75-9-121. (9) AUTM, the Association of University Technology Managers (2011). Academic Filtration Innovations Aim to Solve What Ails a Perishable Resource: Water. Published in the 2011 Edition of a Better World Report. Respond, Recover, Restructure: Technologies Helping the World in the Face of Adversity, pp 78-83. www.betterworldrpoject.net (10) The Broker (2009). Peak Phosphorus- The next inconvenient truth. The Broker online 15, August 2009. url: http://globalpnetwork.net/resource/peak-phosphorus-next-inconvenient-truth (11) Yoshida, H., van Dijk, K., Drizo, A., Vanginkel, S., Matsubae, K. and Buehrer , M. (2011). Chapter 6: Phosphorus Recovery and Reuse. In: Dijk, K. and Yoshida, H. (ed.). Phosphorus, Food and Our Future. Frontiers in Life Sciences. In review.	3.338281
E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. Os Sacrum. (See LUZ.) A triangular bone situate at the lower part of the vertebral column, of which it is a continuation. Some say that this bone was so called because it was in the part used in sacrifice, or the sacred part; Dr. Nash says it is so called because it is much bigger than any of the vertebræ; but the Jewish rabbins say the bone is called sacred because it resists decay, and will be the germ of the new body at the resurrection. (Hudibras, part iii. canto 2.)	3.359662
The Walking Liberty half dollar has won many praises and criticisms in its time. Adolph Weinman’s Walking Liberty design was more than an attempt to beautify the half dollar. It represented a concerted effort to revitalize the denomination and to get half dollars back into circulation in again. The Mint was able to churn out plenty of Walking Liberty half dollars in the design’s first year. Of the first years mintage couldn’t compare to the numbers that were minted in the 1940s. Adolph Weinman was better known as a sculptor and medal designer. As such he won the competition to design the new half dollar. The Mint began producing the new Walking Liberty design in November, 1916. However it was January 2, 1917 before any of these dated half dollars entered into circulation. The new half dollars debut soon brought many praises and some criticisms. The Jan 23, 1917, issue of the Elyra, Ohio Evening Telegram is quoted as stating the Walking Liberty half dollar was more “elaborate” than the old Barber half dollar. And that both half dollars shared one thing in common—they both seemed to have been inspired by some French coin designs. For what ever reason, Weinman managed to work the American flag into the Walking Liberty half dollar design, which does seem to set it apart and gave it a more national character than other coin designs. Weinman had his own comments on the symbolism in his design: “The design of the Half dollar bears a full-length figure of Liberty, the folds of the Stars and Stripes flying to the breeze as a background. Progressing in full stride toward the dawn of a new day, carrying branches of laurel and oak, symbolic of civil and military glory. The hand of the figure is outstretched in bestowal of the spirit of liberty.” “The reverse of the half dollar shows an eagle perched high upon a mountain craig, his wings unfolded, fearless in spirit, and conscious of his power. Springing from a rift in the rock is a sapling of Mountain Pine, symbolic of America.” Many bird experts were amused at the design of the eagle displayed on the half dollar. It was quite unlike any other eagle pictured on other U.S. coins. One leading ornithologist remarked the eagle looked like a “turkey.” Very little was said about the branch of Mountain Pine. It did add a very dramatic touch to the design and is probably the coin’s most distinctive feature. The Walking Liberty is definitely the most distinctive half dollar created. In time the Walking Liberty half dollar gave way to the Franklin half dollar in 1948.	3.352237
Kids do not understand the dangers of fire and smoke and the havoc they can create if not used properly. Kids consider most of the things which can trigger fire like match-boxes and sticks, lighters, electrical equipment to be toys and like playing with them. It is very important to teach children about the impacts of these things at a young age. Educating children and making them aware about certain safety measures will make them responsible in the future as well. There are some basic safety tips which should be followed by children in order to keep themselves fire safe. The first and foremost thing is to tell them not to play with anything that can cause fire. They may take a match-box and lighter very lightly, but it is the parentâ€™s duty to make them aware about the consequences of these things if not used properly. During any festivals it is important for the parents to stay along with their children in case they play with firecrackers. Children should never remain unattended during such festivals. Tell the children not to use a candle when no adult person is around them. Children in the process of growing up find certain things very interesting and try experimenting with them. Lighting paper to see whether it catches fire is one such thing which majority of the children tries during their growing up years. It is necessary for the parents to be aware of such facts and tell their children beforehand not to resort to such things. It is also important to make them aware that fire can get out of control in seconds and hence, a simple experiment can cause an outbreak of fire. If children are made aware of the cause and effects of fire right from the beginning, they will take good care and precaution so that such incidences do not occur.	3.465398
What is Iron Deficiency? If you feel like your energy levels are low, you’re lacking motivation and you could fall asleep at your desk everyday, don’t blame your job right away. Instead, take a close look at the signs and symptoms of iron deficiency. Iron deficiency is the most prevalent nutrition deficiency in the world. It occurs when the body’s stores of iron are low (the stage prior to anemia), and, it may or may not cause any symptoms. Iron deficiency disproportionately affects those in developing countries but it is also prevalent in industrialized countries. Iron deficiency anemia develops when low iron stores persist for a period of time and the body cannot make enough healthy red blood cells to deliver oxygen throughout the body. In the United States, the largest nationwide survey, the National Nutrition and Health Examination Surveys (NHANES) found that approximately 16% of teenage girls aged 16-19 and 12% of women aged 20-49 are deficient in iron. These numbers are staggering in a country with an abundant food supply and an array of multivitamin and iron supplements. - Stoltzfus RJ. Defining iron-deficiency anemia in public health terms: reexamining the nature and magnitude of the public health problem. J Nutr 2001;131:565S-7S. - Micronutrient deficiencies. Iron deficiency anaemia. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ida/en/index.html - Iron Deficiency Anemia. National Anemia Action Council. http://www.anemia.org/patients/faq/#ida - Iron Deficiency. MMWR Weekly. CDC. 2002;51(40):897-899. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5140a1.htm#tab1 - Institute of Medicine. Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium and Zinc. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001. - Monson ER. Iron and absorption: dietary factors which impact iron bioavailability. J Am Dietet Assoc. 1988;88:786-90. - Tapiero H, Gate L, Tew KD. Iron: deficiencies and requirements. Biomed Pharmacother. 2001;55:324-32. - Pronsky ZM. Food Medication Interactions, 10th edition 1997. - Hemoglobin. Medline Plus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003645.htm - Hematocrit. Medline Plus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003646.htm	3.526689
Dread Nought Biography Biography Dread Nought , was launched in 1912]]The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship of the 20th century. The revolutionary HMS Dreadnought of 1906 adopted an 'all-big-gun' armament and steam turbine propulsion; her impact was so great that battleships built after her were referred to as 'dreadnoughts' and earlier battleships became known aspre-dreadnoughts.The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years prior to Dreadnought's construction, and the Imperial Japanese Navy had even begun work on an all-big-gun battleship in 1904.Gibbons, p. 168 The arrival of the dreadnoughts sparked a new arms race, principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial symbol of national power.Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with rapid changes in armament, armor, and propulsion, meaning that ten years after Dreadnought's commissioning much more powerful ships were being built. These more powerful vessels were known as super-dreadnoughts. The only pitched battle between fleets of dreadnoughts was the Battle of Jutland, an indecisive clash that reflected Britain's continuing strategic dominance. Most of the dreadnoughts were scrapped or scuttled after the end of World War I, though some of the most advanced super-dreadnoughts continued in service through World War II.The term "dreadnought" gradually dropped from use after World War I, as the pre-dreadnoughts and the first generations of dreadnoughts were scrapped. However, all battleships built since then shared the characteristics of the dreadnought. "Dreadnought" can also be used to encompass battlecruisers, the other type of ship resulting from the dreadnought revolution.Mackay R. Fisher of Kilverstone, p.326, for instance 's Satsuma; the first ship designed as an 'all-big-gun' battleship]]The distinctive all-big-gun armament of the dreadnought was developed in the first years of the 20th century as navies sought to increase the firepower and range of their battleships. Most pre-dreadnoughts had a main armament of four heavy guns of 9.4-13.5 inch (24-34 cm), a secondary armament of six to eighteen quick/rapid-firing guns of 4.7-7.5 inch (12-19 cm), supplemented by a range of smaller weapons. Some American designs had an intermediate battery of four, later eight, 8-inch (20.3 cm) guns. By 1903, however, serious proposals for an all-big-gun armament were circulated in several countries.All-big-gun designs were begun almost simultaneously in three navies. The Imperial Japanese Navy authorised Satsuma, designed with twelve 12-inch guns, in 1904, and she was laid down in May 1905Jentshura, Jung, Mickel p.22-3. Evans & Peattie p.159. The Royal Navy began the design of HMS Dreadnought in January 1905 and she was laid down in October 1905Sumrall, p.15. The United States Navy gained authorisation for USS Michigan, carrying eight 12-inch guns, in March 1905Sumrall, p.15 and she was laid down in May 1906Sondhaus, p.199.The exact reasons for the move to an all-big-gun design are still a matter of some controversy. The newest, fast-firing 12-inch guns had more long-range firepower than a gun of 10-inch of 9.2-inch calibre.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development.It is often stated that mixed-calibre guns prevented accurate fire control because of the potential for confusion between shell-splashes of different calibre. However, more recent work suggests that shell-splashes and salvo firing were not of much importance in decision-making.Fairbanks, C The Dreadnought Revolution, International History Review 1991: this debate is also expanded on below The pre-dreadnought battleships combined heavy-calibre ship-killing guns, typically of 12 in calibre, with a secondary and tertiary armament that could generate a hail of fire destroying the less protected parts of enemy ships. At the Battle of the Yalu River and the Battle of Santiago de Cuba (1898], this hail of fire destroyed most of the vessels of the defeated side. At Santiago, none of the four US battleships present scored a single hit with their 12- and 13-inch guns.The Naval War Between China and Japan and Lesson From the War in the East, pages 90-143, The Naval Annual 1895.Naval Aspects of the Spanish-American War, pages 123-174, The Naval Annual 1899 These were short-range engagements. At the Battle of the Yalu River, the victorious Japanese did not open fire until the range had closed to 3,000 yards; naval guns were still too inaccurate to score hits at a longer range.By the early 1900s, British and American admirals expected that in future battleships would engage at considerably longer ranges.This was an Anglo-American trend. French battleships had been expecting to engage at 7-8,000 yards since the mid-1880s. They would need to do so, because torpedo ranges were increasing; "The addition of a gyroscope to the torpedo guidance mechanism in 1896, an invention perfected by 1900, overnight transformed the existing torpedo from a weapon accurate only at ranges up to 600 yards into one that could hit at three times this distance." Page 77, Lambert, Nicholas A. Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution, pub University of South Carolina, 1999, ISBN-1-57003-277-7; for example, in 1903, the US ordered a torpedo effective to 4,000 yardsPage 53, Friedman, US Battleships. Both British and American admirals concluded that they needed to engage the enemy at longer ranges. In 1900, Mediterranean Sir John A. Fisher commanding the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet ordered gunnery practice, with the 6-inch guns, at a range of 6,000 yards.Lambert, Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution. By 1904, the US Naval War College was considering the effects on battleship tactics of 7-8,000 yard range torpedoes.At the short ranges expected for combat in the 1890s, lighter guns had good accuracy; combined with their high rate of fire, this produced the lethal 'hail of fire' effect. As ranges increased, the accuracy of light and medium-calibre guns declined more rapidly than that of heavier weapons. Lighter projectiles have a lower ratio of mass to frontal surface area, and so their velocity is reduced more quickly by air resistance. If all things are equal, higher velocity means higher accuracy. "Moreover at long ranges gunners had to 'spot' the fall of shot to correct their aim... The longer the range, the lower the maximum theoretical rate of spotted fire."Page 52, Friedman, US Battleships.The early years of the 20th century saw the effective range of heavy guns increase. This was established on gunnery ranges by 1904, and proven in action at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. "By 1904, the gunnery of the largest weapons had improved to the point where decisive hits could be made at the greatest ranges. This conclusion was confirmed by battle experience in the Russo-Japanese War, but serious planning for all-big-gun ships came considerably earlier in the major navies, based on peacetime gunnery experiments."Friedman US Battlships p.52 All-big-gun mixed-calibre ships , an all-big-gun mixed-calibre ship of the Lord Nelson class. She carried four 12-inch and ten 9.2-inch guns.]]One approach to making more powerful battleships was to reduce the secondary battery, and substitute additional heavy guns: typically 9.2- or 10-inch. These ships, described as 'all-big-gun mixed-calibre' or later 'semi-dreadnought', included the British King Edward VII and Lord Nelson classes, the French Danton class, and the Japanese battleship Satsuma. The design process for these ships often included discussion of a pure, 'all-big-gun one-calibre', alternative.The June issue of Proceedings of the US Naval Institute contained an article by US Navy's leading gunnery expert Prof P.R Alger proposing a main battery of eight 12-inch guns in twin turrets. The future chief constructor David W Taylor responded suggesting that battleships of the future would be powered with steam turbines. Page 51, Friedman, Norman, US Battleships, an Illustrated Design History, pub Naval Institute Press, 1985, ISBN 0-87021-715-1 In May 1902, the Bureau of Construction and Repair submitted a design for the Mississippi class battleship with twelve 10-inch guns in twin turrets, two at the ends and four in the wings. Lt. Cdr. H. C. Poundstone submitted a paper to President Roosevelt in December 1902 arguing the case for larger battleships. In an appendix to his paper, Poundstone suggested a greater number of 11-inch and 9-inch guns was preferable to a smaller number of 12-inch and 9-inch. "In an appendix he argued, as had Signor, that there was little point in retaining the 8-inch gun. Better to replace the existing mix of 12- and 8-inch guns with 11 and 9 inch; better, too, to save weight and gain numbers by using the smallest possible heavy-calibre weapon. Poundstone's paper was not published by the Proceedings until the June and September 1903 issues." Page 52, Friedman, US Battleships. The Naval War College and C&R developed these ideas in studies between 1903 and 1905. War game studies begun in July 1903 "showed that a battleship armed with twelve 11- or 12-inch guns hexagonally arranged would be equal to three or more of the conventional type."Pages 53-58, Friedman, US BattleshipsIn the British navy the same trend occurred. A design had also been circulated in 1902-03 for "a powerful 'all big-gun' armament of two calibres, viz. four 12-inch and twelve 9.2-inch guns."Page 426, Parkes, quoting an I.N.A. paper of 9 April 1919 by Sir Philip Watts. However, the Admiralty decided to build three more King Edward (with a mixture of 12-inch, 9.2-inch and 6-inch) in the 1903-04 programme instead.Page 426, Parkes. The concept was revived for the 1904-05 programme, the Lord Nelson class. Restrictions on length and beam meant that the midships 9.2-inch turrets became single instead of twin, thus giving an armament of four 12-inch, ten 9.2-inch, and no 6-inch. The constructor for this design, J.H. Narbeth, submitted an alternative drawing showing an armament of twelve 12-inch guns, but the Admiralty was not prepared to accept this. Page 451-2, Parkes. Part of the rationale for the decision to retain mixed-calibre guns was the need to begin the building of the ships quickly because of the tense situation produced by the Russo-Japanese War.Breyer, S. Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, p.113. The switch to all-big-gun designs The replacement of the 6-inch or 8-inch guns with weapons of 9.2-inch or 10-inch calibre improved the striking power of a battleship, particularly at longer ranges. However, making the move to a uniform calibre of heavy guns offered a number of benefits.A uniform heavy-gun armament offered advantages for logistics and damage control. When the US were considering whether to have a mixed-calibre main armament for the South Carolina class, For example, Sims and Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace wounded gunners.Friedman, US Battleships, p.55.A uniform calibre of gun meant streamlined fire control. The designers of Dreadnought prefered an all-big-gun design because it would mean only one set of calculations about adjustments to the range of the guns."Additional advantage is gained by having a uniform armament. A mixed armament necessitates separate control for each type; owing to a variety of causes the range passed to 12-in. guns is not the range that will suit the 9.2in. or 6-in. guns, although the distance of the target is the same." First Addendum to the Report of the Committee on Designs, quoted in Mackay R. Fisher of Kilverstone, p.322 It is often argued that a uniform calibre was particularly important because the risk of confusion between shell-splashes of 12-inch and lighter guns, which is held to make accurate ranging difficult. More recent investigation suggests that fire control in 1905 was not advanced enough to use the salvo-firing technique where this confusion might be importantFor the detail of this debate, see Fairbanks C. The Dreadnought Revolution, International History Review 1991 Vol 13 Part 2, in particular p.250; confusion of shell-splashes does not seem to have been a concern of those working on all-big gun designsIn Britain: "Fisher does not seem to have expressed interest in... the ability to hit an adversary at long range by spotting salvoes. It is also very diffficult to understand just when this method was first officially understood"; Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p.322. And in America: "The possibility of gunnery confusion due to two calibres as close as 10 and 12 inches was never raised. For example, Sims and Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace wounded gunners. Friedman, US Battleships, p.55. Nevertheless, the likelihood of engagements at longer ranges was important in deciding that the heaviest possible guns should be adopted as standard; hence 12-inch rather than 10-inch. "In October W.L Rogers of the Naval War College wrote a long and detailed memorandum on this question, pointing out that as ranges became longer the difference in accuracy between even 10- and 12-inch guns became enormous" Page 55, Friedman, US Battleships; "The advantage at long range lies with the ship which carries the greatest number of guns of the largest type", Report of the Committee on Designs, quoted in Mackay Fisher of Kilverstone p.322Furthermore, the newer designs of 12-inch gun mounting had a considerably higher rate of fire, removing the advantage previously enjoyed by smaller calibres. In 1902, a 12-inch gun might fire two rounds per minute; in 1895, one round every four minutes was more likelyFriedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.98. In October 1903, the naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti published a paper in Jane's Fighting Ships entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy", which called for a 17,000 ton ship carrying a main armament of twelve 12-in guns, protected by 12-inch armour, and having a speed of 24 knots (44 km/h).Cuniberti, Vittorio, "An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet", All The World?s Fighting Ships, 1903, pp.407-409. Cuniberti's idea - which he had already proposed the idea to his own navy, the Regia Marina - was to make use of the high rate of fire of new 12-inch guns to produce devastating rapid-fire from heavy guns to replace the 'hail of fire' from lighter weapons.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development 1905-45, p.98 Something similar lay behind the Japanese move towards heavier guns; Japanese shells contained a higher than normal proportion of high explosive, and were fused to explode on contact, starting fires rather than piercing armour.Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p.63 The increased rate of fire overcame the principal objection to 12-inch guns and laid the foundations for future advances in fire control. Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.98 Building the first Dreadnoughts In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903-4 Programme were in fact the first to be laid down as all-big-gun designs, with eight 12-inch guns. However, the design had armour which was considered too thin, meaning a substantial redesignBreyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, p.331; the financial pressures of the Russo-Japanese War and the short supply of 12-inch guns which had to be imported from Britain meant that these ships were completed as the with a mixed-calibre 10-inch and 12-inch armament. The 1903-4 design also retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p.159The dreadnought breakthrough occurred in Britain in 1905. The new First Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher had long been an advocate of new technology in the Royal Navy and had recently converted to the idea of an all-big-gun battleship.Fisher first firmly proposed the all-big-gun idea in a paper in 1904, where he called for battleships with sixteen 10-inch guns; by November 1904 he was convinced of the need for 12-inch guns. An 1902 letter, where he suggested powerful ships 'with equal fire all round', might have meant an all-big-gun design. Mackay, RFisher of Kilverstone p.312Fisher is often credited as the creator of the Dreadnought type and the father of Britain's great dreadnought battleship fleet, an impression he himself did much to reinforce. However, it is now seriously suggested Fisher's main interest was in developing the battlecruiser and not the battleship.Sumida, J. Sir John Fisher and the Dreadnought, Journal of Military History Vol.59 No.4; p.619-21 One of Fisher's first actions on coming to office was to set up a Committee on Designs to consider future battleships and armoured cruisers.The Committee's first task was to consider a new battleship. The specification for the new ship was a 12-inch main battery and anit-torpedo-boat guns but no intermediate calibres, and a 21-knot speed (two or three knots faster than existing battleships).Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, p.115 The initial designs intended twelve 12-inch guns, though difficulties in positioning these guns led the chief constructor at one stage to propose a return to four 12-inch guns with sixteen or eighteen 9.2-inch. The Committee settled on a design carrying ten 12-inch guns as her main armament, along with twenty-two 12-pounders (3 inch, 76 mm) as her secondary armamentBreyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, p.115. The Committee also took the adventurous step of giving Dreadnought steam turbine propulsion. This was unprecedented in a large warship. The greater efficiency of the turbines meant that the 21-knot design speed could be achieved in a smaller and cheaper shipBreyer, p.46, p.115Construction took place at a remarkable rate; her keel was laid on 2 October 1905, she was launched on 10 February 1906, and she was completed on 3 October 1906?an impressive demonstration of British industrial might.Sumrall, p.15 The new ship was named Dreadnought; the previous Dreadnought, having been stricken from the effective list in 1905.Page 10, The Naval Annual 1905The first US dreadnoughts were the South Carolina class. Detailed plans for these were worked out in July-November 1905, and approved by the Board of Construction on 23 November 1905.Page 62, Friedman, US Battleships However building progress was slow; specifications for bidders were issued on 21 March 1906, and the two ships were laid down in December 1906, after the completion of the British Dreadnought.Page 63, Friedman, US Battleships The design of dreadnoughts, like that of any warship, was a difficult struggle to provide as much protection, mobility and firepower as possible on a ship of a realistic size and costFriedman, N. Battleship Design and Development, p.19-21. The characteristic of a dreadnought was an 'all-big-gun' armament. Dreadnoughts also carried thick armour, principally in a thick belt around the waterline, though also in one or more armoured decks which became thicker over time. Protection against torpedoes, secondary armament, fire control and command equipment also had to be crammed into the hull.The inevitable consequence of demands for ever greater speed, striking power and staying power meant that the displacement and hence the cost of dreadnought designs tended to increase. Dreadnought size was only eventually limited by the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, when an upper limit of 35,000 tons was agreed; in subsequent years a number of treaty battleships were commissioned designed to build up to this limit. Once war came on the horion again, however, the race towards bigger and bigger battleships resumed. showing the armament distribution of a typical early British dreadnoughts; main battery is in twin turrets, with two on the 'wings'; secondary battery is clustered around the superstructure.]]The defining characteristic of the dreadnought was the 'all-big-gun' armament: a large number of very heavy guns. The number and size of guns in the main battery could vary. Dreadnought herself mounted ten 12-inch guns; 12-inch armament had been standard in the pre-dreadnought and this continued the first generation of dreadnought battleships, though the German Navy continued to use 11.1-inch guns in its first class of dreadnoughts, the Nassau class.Breyer, p.54, 266As dreadnoughts developed, there were continuing demands for more firepower in the main battery to match or outpace the likely enemy. This meant either more powerful heavy guns, a greater number of such guns, or an arrangement which meant the same number of guns could be better used. Position of Main Armament The effectiveness of the guns depended in part on the layout of the turrets. Dreadnought, and the British ships which immediately followed her, carried five turrets: one ahead and two astern on the centreline of the ship, and two in the 'wings' next to the superstructure. This allowed three turrets to fire ahead and four turrets to fire broadside. Nassau and the first few classes of German dreadnoughts adopted a 'hexagonal' layout with one turret fore and aft and two wing-turrets on each side of the superstructure; this meant that more guns were mounted in total, but the same number could fire ahead or broadside as with Dreadnought.Dreadnought designs experimented with different layouts of turrets. An alternative was to mount the centre turrets en echelon. The British Neptune class staggered the wing turrets, so all ten guns could fire on the broadside, a feature copied by the German Kaiser class. This, however, risked blast damage to parts of the ship which the guns fired over, and put great stress on the ship's frame.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.134The solution which imposed the least stress on the ship's hull was to put all the turrets on the centreline. This meant that every heavy gun could easily fire on the broadside, but fewer could fire end-on. It also meant the hull would be longer, and that the armoured belt would be heavier or thinner; the deep, heavily-armoured magazines which served each turret also interfered with the distribution of boilers and engines.Freidman, N. Battleship Design and Development, p.132 Agincourt carried fourteen 12-inch guns in seven centreline turrets, more heavy guns than any other dreadnought, but was not considered a success for these reasons.Breyer, p. 138An improved centreline layout involved raising some turrets so they could fire over a turret immediately forward or astern of them. The U.S. Navy adopted this feature with their very first dreadnoughts, the South Carolina class. Other navies were slower to do so, because of fears about the impact of the blast of the raised guns on the lower turret. Raised turrets also raised the centre of gravity of the ship, potentially reducing stability; for this reason it was impossible for more than two turrets to superfire, one fore and one aft.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development p.134 The most common superfiring arrangement was eight guns, with two turrets forward and two aft, allowing four guns to fire on either end and eight on a broadside. This was adopted as early as the South Carolinas, spread to the Royal Navy with the Orion class, and could be seen as late as the World War II designs like Bismarck and Vanguard.The alternative to more turrets was to put more guns into each turret. Economising on the number of turrets means the ship could be shorter or could devote more space to machinery. On the other hand, it meant that a higher proportion of the main battery could be put out of action by a single lucky enemy hit. The first nation to adopt the triple turret was Russia, with their first dreadnoughts of the Gangut classBreyer, p.393-6; first seen in the U.S. Navy in the Nevada class, triple turrets only became popular elsewhere during and after World War I.For instance, the British G3 and N3 designs of 1921; the first German triple-turreted capital ship was Scharnhorst. Several later designs used quadruple turrets, for instance the King George V.Fitzsimons, Volume 15, p.1635, and Volume 24, p.2587, "Washington". The quadruple turrets, however, often suffered from technical difficulties - most famously HMS Prince of Wales in her engagement with the Bismarck.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.132 Main armament Power and Calibre used on super-dreadnoughts]]Another way to increase the sriking power of a dreadnought was to increase the power of each gun. This could be done by increasing either the calibre of the weapon and hence the weight of shell, or by lengthening the barrel to increase muzzle velocity. Either of these offered the chance to increase range and armour penetration.Both methods offered advantages and disadvantages. As guns fire, their barrels wear out, losing accuracy and eventually requiring replacement. At times, this became a problematic; the U.S. Navy seriously considered stopping practice firing of heavy guns in 1910 because of the wear on the barrels.Friedman Battleship Design and Development, p.129 The higher the muzzle velocity, the more pronounced the problem of gun wear. Heavier shells are also affected less by air resistance, and so retain greater penetrating power at long range. The disadvantages of heavier guns were twofold: firstly, the guns and turrets required weighed much more; and secondly, heavier and slower shells needed to be fired at a higher angle for the same range.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.130Different navies approached the decision of calibre in different ways. The German navy, for instance, generally used a lighter calibre than the equivalent British ships, e.g. 12-inch calibre when the British standard was 13.5-inch. However, because German metallurgy was superior, the German 12-inch gun was superior to the British 12-inch in terms of shell weight and muzzle velocity; and because the German guns were lighter than the British 13.5-inch, German ships could afford more armour.Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.130On the whole, however, the calibre of guns tended to increase. In the Royal Navy, the Orion class, launched 1910, used ten 13.5-inch guns, all on the centreline; the Queen Elizabeth class, launched 1913, used eight 15-inch guns. In all navies, the calibre of guns increased and the number of guns tended to decrease to compensate. The fewer guns needed meant distributing them became less of an issue, and centreline turrets became entirely the norm.A further step change was planned for battleships designed and laid down at the end of World War I. The Japanese Nagato class in 1917 carried 16-inch guns, matched by the US Navy's Colorado class. Some designs went still further: the British "N3" class would have carried nine 18-inch guns, and the Japanese planned an un-named class, also with 18-inch armament. However, the Washington Naval Treaty meant these mammoth battleships never got off the drawing board.The trend towards larger calibres was arrested by the Naval Treaties. The Washington Naval Treaty limited battleship guns at 16-inch (406 mm) calibreBreyer, p.72. Later treaties preserved this limit, though reductions of the limit to 11-inch, 12-inch or 14-inch calibre were proposed.Breyer, p.73. The only battleships to break the limit were the Japanese Yamato class, begun in 1937, which carried 460-mm (18.1-inch) main gunsBreyer, p.84. By the middle of World War II, Britain was making use of 15-inch guns built as spares for the Queen Elizabeth class to arm the last British battleship, Vanguard.Breyer, p.82A number of World War II-era designs were drawn up proposing another move towards gigantic armament. The German H-43 and H-44 designs proposed 508-mm (20-inch) guns, and there is evidence that Hitler wanted calibres as high as 609-mm (24-inch)Breyer, p.214; the Japanese 'Super Yamato' design also used 508-mm gunsBreyer, p.367. None of these proposals went further than very preliminary design work. shows a typical dreadnought protection scheme, with very thick armour protecting the turrets, magazines and engine spaces tapering away in less vital areas; also note the subdivided underwater compartments to prevent sinking.]]Dreadnoughts were protected by thick steel armour around their most vital areas. An armoured warship like a battleship was only of any use in a pitched battle if it could withstand seveal hits from the heaviest weapons it was likely to face and still be able to fight. The critical areas to defend were the engines, main armament and magazines; a hit to the magazines could result in the ship blowing up, while damage to the engines could stop the battleship in the water, making it tactically useless and a sitting duck for further attacks. The question dreadnought designers faced was how to get the most effective protection for their vessels without the weight of armour critically slowing the ship.The earliest dreadnoughts were intended to take part in a pitched battle against other battleships at ranges of up to 10,000 yards. In such an encounter, shells would fly on a relatively flat trajectory. For this reason, the early dreadnoughts' armour was concentrated in a thick belt around the waterline; this had a thickness of 11 in in Dreadnought. Behind this belt were arranged the ship's coal bunkers, to further protect the engineering spaces. To protect the innards of the ship from fragments of shells which detonated on the superstructure, much thinner steel armour was applied to the decks of the ship. Dreadnought carried a total f 2.5 in of deck armour on two decks.The final element of the protection scheme of the first dreadnoughts was the subdivision of the ship below the waterline into several watertight compartments. If the hull was holed - by shellfire, mine, torpedo, or collision - then, in theory, only one area would flood and the ship could survive. To make this precaution even more effective, many dreadnoughts had no hatches between different underwater sections, so that even a surprise hole below the waterline need not sink the ship. However, there were still a number of instances where flooding spread between underwater compartments.During the evolution of the dreadnought, armour schemes changed to reflect the greater risk of plunging shells from long-range gunfire, the increasing threat from both bombs dropped by aircraft and the need to protect battleships more adequately from torpedoes and mines.The threat of plunging fire and bombing meant a greater thickness of steel on the armoured deck, and the amont of protection devoted to the deck increased much more rapidly than did the amount in the main belt. For instance, the Japanese superbattleship Yamato carried a 16.5 in main belt, as opposed to Dreadnought's 11 but a deck as thick as 9 in against Dreadnought's 2 in. The main belt itself was increasingly angled inwards to give a greater effective thickness against low-angle shells.The greatest evolution in dreadnought protection came with the development of the torpedo bulge and torpedo belt, both attempts to protect against underwater damage by mines and torpedoes. blades, in this case from the Polish destroyer Wicher]]Dreadnoughts were propelled by two to four screw propellors. Dreadnought herself, and all British dreadnoughts, had screw shafts driven by steam turbines. However, the turbine was a very experimental technology; the first generation of dreadnoughts built in other nations used the slower triple-expansion steam engine which had been standard in pre-dreadnought battleships. Within a few years, the turbine was standard for new battleship construction.Turbines were more powerful and more reliable than the older steam engine. They were, however, less fuel-efficient at slower, cruising speeds. To address this, some navies adopted the turbo-electric drive where the steam tubine genereated electrical power whcih then drove the propellors; and ultimately the geared turbine which used mechanical means to get greater efficiency at higher speeds. Turbines were never replaced in battleship design.The first generation of dreadnoughts used coal to fire the boilers which fed steam to the turbines. Coal had been in use since the very first steam warships, but had many disadvantages; it was labour-intensive to pack coal into the ship's bunkers and then feed it into the boilers, which became clogged with ash; coal produced thick black smoke which gave away the position of a fleet. In addition, coal was very bulky and had comparatively low thermal efficiency, meaning navies had to have numerous coaling stations at strategic points around the globe; control of these could, and did, provoke naval battles. The alternative, oil, had many advantages for naval architects and officers at sea alike. It reduced smoke, making ships less vulnerable. It could be fed into boilers automatically, rather than by hand. And it had had higher thermal efficiency and less bulk than coal. For comparable range, much less oil was needed, saving space; using the same volume, much more oil could be carried (much greater bunkerage, technically), providing significantly greater range. The only problem with oil was, every nation except the USA had to import it, a strategic concern which meant oil was only gradually adopted through the First World War and after. Oil's advantages outweighed its drawbacks, and it was not long before all battleships were oil-fired.Interwar, another advantage of oil would appear: it could be more easily transferred between ships, making underway refuelling much simpler, paving the way for the carrier task force, which would replace the battle line. In 1897 the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and of 50 over Germany,The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p.209. and nations as distant (and unlikely to be met in combat) as Brazil could (in theory) match the best Britain had. In November 1906, Dreadnought had the field to herself; there were no challengers. The new class prompted an arms race with serious strategic and economic consequences. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts to catch up with the United Kingdom. Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power, but as with nuclear weapons today, represented a nation's standing in the world. Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; and second-rank powers including Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards.The First World War, John Keegan, ISBN 0-7126-6645-1, p.281. The Anglo-German arms race See also: Causes of World War IBritain and Germany had for some years been locked into a strategic struggle, as Germany asserted herself as a colonial as well as a European power. It was this threat which prompted the building of Dreadnought and made a naval arms race between the two nations inevitable.While Fisher's reorganisation of the Navy in 1904 and 1905 actually cut the Naval Estimates,The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p. 218. the pressing need for more and better ships to ensure naval superiority caused friction in the British government. The costs of maintaining the Royal Navy at a level capable of taking on the next two navies at the same time were immense.Greger, René, Schlachtschiffe der Welt, pp.11 & 15.The first German response to Dreadnought came with the Nassau-class, laid down in 1907, followed by the Helgoland-class in 1909. Together with two battlecruisers — a type for which the Germans had less admiration than Fisher, but which could be built under authorisation for armored cruisers, rather than capital ships — these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. While the British ships were somewhat faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, a 12:10 ratio fell very short of the 2:1 ratio that the Royal Navy wanted to maintain.In 1909, the British Parliament authorised an additional four capital ships, holding out hope Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty about battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise solution meant (when taken together with some social reforms) raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis in Britain in 1909-10.In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four Orion-class super-dreadnoughts, and augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period of time, Germany laid down only three ships, giving Britain a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve demonstrated by their construction programme led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. While the Admiralty's new target of a 60% lead over Germany was near enough to Tirpitz's goal of cutting the British lead to 50%, talks foundered on the question on whether British Commonwealth battlecruisers should be included in the count, as well as non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of her ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.The pace of the dreadnought race stepped up in both nations' 1910 and 1911 budgets, with Germany laying down four capital ships each year and Britain five. The tensions came to a head following the German Naval Law of 1912. This proposed a fleet of 33 German battleships and battlecruisers, outnumbering the Royal Navy in home waters. To make matters worse, the Austro-Hungarian Fleet was building 4 dreadnoughts, while the Italians had four and were building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. Britain was faced with a choice of building more battleships, withdrawing from the Mediterranean, or seeking an alliance with France. Further naval construction was unacceptably expensive at a time when social welfare provision was making calls on the budget. Withdrawing from the Mediterranean would mean a huge loss of influence, weakening British diplomacy in the Mediterranean and shaking the stability of the British Empire. The only acceptable option, and the one taken by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, was to overturn a hundred years of splendid isolation and seek an alliance with France.The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p. 224In spite of these important strategic consequences, the 1912 Naval Law had little bearing on the battleship force ratios. Britain responded by laying down ten new super-dreadnoughts in her 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, which introduced a further step change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, focusing resources on the Army. U.S. Navy dreadnoughts The American South Carolina-class battleships were the first all-big-gun ships to be completed by one of Britain's rivals. The planning for the type had begun before the Dreadnought was launched, perhaps aided by secret briefing by sympathetic Royal Navy officials. Construction began in 1906, after the completion of the Dreadnought, and the type had no turbines.Smaller than Dreadnought at 16,000 tons standard displacement, they carried eight 12-inch (305 mm) guns in four twin turrets arranged in superfiring pairs fore and aft along the centerline of the keel. This arrangement gave South Carolina and her sister Michigan a broadside equal to Dreadnought's without requiring the cumbersome wing turrets of the first few British dreadnought classes. The superfiring or superimposed arrangement had not been proven until after South Carolina went to sea, and it was initially feared the weakness of the previous Virginia-class would recur. Half of the first ten U.S. dreadnoughts used the older and less efficient reciprocating engines rather than turbines, which made many U.S. battleships slower than their British counterparts, but gave them much greater range, something of great importance in the Pacific. With the defeat of the Russians, the Japanese navy became concerned about the potential for conflict with the USA. Japanese theorist Sato Tetsutaro developed the concept of a fleet at a minimum 70% of the U.S.'s. This would enable the Japanese navy to win two decisive battles, the first early in a war, against the US Pacific Fleet, and the second against the US Atlantic Fleet which would inevitably be despatched as reinforcements. Evans and Peattie, KaigunJapan's first priority was to refit the pre-dreadnoughts she had captured from Russia, and to complete Satsuma and Aki. Like the South Carolinas, the Satsumas were designed before Dreadnought, but gun shortages in Britain (which supplied them) delayed her completion and resulted in her carrying a mixed armament, so she was known as a semi-dreadnought. These were followed by a modified Aki-type: Kawachi and Settsu, which were laid down in 1909 and complete in 1912, and were armed with four 12-inch/50, eight 12-inch/45, ten 6-inch/45, and eight 4.7-inch/40. "Although nominally dreadnoughts, these ships did not have a really uniform main battery, since the guns differed in length, and therefore in performance, particularly at very long range."Page 229, Gardiner, Robert and Gray, Randal (ed) Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906 - 1921, Conway Maritime Press, London, 1982. ISBN 0-85177-245-5. This would have made fire control very difficult. Dreadnoughts in other countries , a Bretagne-class battleship.]]Compared to the other major naval powers, France was slow to start building dreadnoughts, instead finishing the planned Danton-class of pre-dreadnoughts, laying down five in 1907 and 1908. It was not until September 1910 the first of the Courbet-class was laid down, making France the eleventh nation to enter the dreadnought race. The dreadnought race saw France drop from second to fifth in terms of naval power; however, the closer alliance with Britain made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.Even though Cuniberti had promoted the idea of an all-big-gun battleship in Italy well before Dreadnought, it took until 1909 for Italy to lay down one of her own. The construction of Dante Alighieri was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian dreadnought building. A further five Dreadnoughts of the Cavour- and Andrea Doria-class followed as Italy sought to maintain its lead over Austria-Hungary. These ships remained the core of Italian naval strength until World War II. The subsequent Caracciolo-class were cancelled on the outbreak of WWI.In January 1909, Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four dreadnoughts. However, a constitutional crisis in 1909-10 meant no construction could be approved. In spite of this, two dreadnoughts were laid down by shipyards on a speculative basis, and later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all Tegetthoff-class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships, but these were cancelled on the outbreak of World War I.In June 1909, the Russian Empire laid down four dreadnoughts of the Gangut-class for the Baltic Fleet and in 1911 three more Imperatritsa Mariya-class dreadnoughts for the Black Sea.Gibbons, p.205 Taking lessons from Tsushima and influenced by Cuniberti, they ended up more closely resembling Fisher's battlecruisers than Dreadnought and proved badly flawed.Fitzsimons, Bernard, editor. "Gangut", in The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Weapons and Warfare, Volume 10, p.1086.Spain commissioned three dreadnoughts of the España-class, laying the first down in 1909. The Españas were the lightest dreadnoughts ever built. While built in Spain, the construction was reliant on British assistance.Gibbons, p.195Brazil managed the remarkable achievement of being the third country with a dreadnought under construction, laying down two in British shipyards in 1907. This sparked off a small-scale arms race in South America, as Argentina and then Chile commissioned dreadnoughts. Argentina placed orders in American yards and Chile in Britain, meaning that both of Chile's two battleships were purchased by the British on the outbreak of war. One of them was later returned to the Chilean government.Turkey ordered two dreadnoughts from British yards which were seized by the British while Greece's, ordered from Germany, was taken over by the Germans. The main armament, ordered in the United States, consequently equipped a class of British monitors. Greece in 1914 purchased two pre-dreadnoughts from the United States Navy, renaming them Kilkis and Limnos in Royal Hellenic Navy service.The seizure of the two Turkish dreadnoughts, Reshadiye and Sultan Osman I(HMS Erin and Agincourt) nearing completion in 1914 in Britain, resulted in far-reaching international repercussions. The Turks were outraged by the British move and the Germans saw an opening. Through skillful diplomacy and by handing over the battlecruiser Goeben and the cruiser Breslau, the Germans maneuvered the Ottoman Empire into the Central Powers.Greger, René: Schlachtschiffe der Welt, p. 252 in line]]Even after Dreadnought's commission, battleships continued to grow in size, guns, and technical proficiency as countries vied to have the best ships. By 1914 Dreadnought was obsolete.The arrival of super–Dreadnoughts is not as clearly identified with a single ship in the same way that the Dreadnought era was initiated by HMS Dreadnought. However, it is commonly held to start with the British Orion-class, and for the German navy with the König. What made them "super" was the unprecedented jump in displacement of 2,000–tons over the previous class, the introduction of the heavier 13.5inch (343 mm) gun, and the distribution of all the main armament on the centreline. Thus, in the four years between the laying down of Dreadnought and Orion, displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled.British super-dreadnoughts were joined by other nations as well. In Japan, two Fuso-class super-dreadnoughts were laid down in 1912, followed by the Ise in 1914, with both classes carrying twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns. In 1917, the Nagato-class was ordered, the first dreadnoughts to mount guns, possibly making them the most powerful warships in the world. All were increasingly built from Japanese rather than imported components. In France, the Courbets were followed by three super-dreadnoughts of the Bretagne-class; another five Normandie were cancelled on the outbreak of World War One.The later super-dreadnoughts, principally the Queen Elizabeth-class, dispensed with the "Q" turret amidships, so weight and volume were freed up for larger, oil-fired boilers. Oil had many advantages as a fuel over coal. It had more energy density than coal, and its liquid form vastly simplified refuelling arrangements; oil required no stokers, and emitted much less smoke, aiding gun laying and making the ships less visible on the horizon. The new 15 inch gun (381 mm) gave greater firepower in spite of the loss of a turret, and there was a thicker armour belt and improved underwater protection. The class had a 25 knot (46 km/h) design speed and they were considered the first fast battleships.The design weakness of super-dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-World War I designs, was armor disposition. Their design placed emphasis on vertical protection, needed in short range battles. These ships were capable of engaging the enemy at 20,000 metres, but were vulnerable to the high angle ("plunging") fire at such ranges. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm) of deck armor to defend against this. The concept of zone of immunity became a major part of the thinking behind battleship design. Lack of underwater protection was also a weakness of these pre-World War I designs which were developed only as the threat of the torpedo became real.The United States Navy's "standard"-type battleships, beginning with the Nevada-class, or "Battleship 1912", were designed with long-range engagements and plunging fire in mind; the first of these was laid down in 1912, five years before the Battle of Jutland taught the dangers of long-range fire to European navies. Important features of the standard battleships were "all or nothing" armor and "raft" construction, a philosophy under which only the parts of the ship worth giving the thickest possible protection were worth armoring at all, and enough reserve buoyancy should be contained within the resulting armored "raft" to keep afloat the entire ship in the event the unarmored bow and stern were thoroughly riddled and flooded. This design was proven in battle at the Battle of Guadalcanal, when an ill-timed turn by USS South Dakota silhouetted her to Japanese guns. Though she suffered a terrible battering and her bow and stern were riddled and thoroughly flooded, her "raft" remained untouched and she remained both afloat and fully operational at the end of action. during World War I]]The First World War was almost an anticlimax for the great Dreadnought fleets. There was no decisive clash of modern battlefleets to compare with the Battle of Tsushima. The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia; and it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic, the battle between German submarines and British merchant shipping.By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in the North Sea with relative ease. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British Dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would result in a British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on favourable terms: either inducing a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly fields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds.The First World War, John Keegan, ISBN 0-7126-6645-1, p. 289The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and Battle of Dogger Bank and raids on the English coast. In the summer of 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland: an indecisive engagement.Ireland, Bernard: Jane's War At Sea, pp. 88-95In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea, Russian and Turkish battleships skirmished, but nothing more. In the Baltic, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by British and French blockading fleets. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli.The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the U-boat threat to capital ships was demonstrated by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine U-9 in less than an hour. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-Dreadnought Audacious struck a mine. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the North Sea had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.Massie, Robert. Castles of Steel, London, 2005. pp127-145 While Jutland was the only major clash of battleship fleets in history, the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers.For the German part, the High Seas Fleet determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were more needed for commerce raiding, the fleet stayed in port for the remainder of the war.The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Paul Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, pp. 247-249 Other theatres equally showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying Dreadnoughts. The two Austrian Dreadnoughts lost in 1918 were the casualties of torpedo boats and of frogmen. After World War I The great dreadnought fleets came to an end a few years after World War I. The German dreadnought fleet was scuttled in its entirety Scapa Flow by its crew in 1919. Britain, the USA and Japan planned another bout of naval expansion including bigger and more powerful battleships than ever before: 'N3', Kii, and South Dakota classes.Instead of this cripplingly expensive expansion programme, the major naval powers concluded the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922. The Treaty laid out a list of ships, including most of the older dreadnoughts and almost all the newer ships under construction, which were to be scrapped or otherwise put out of use. It furthermore declared a 'building holiday' during which no new battleships or battlecruisers were to be laid down. The ships which survived the treaty, including the most modern super-dreadnoughts of all three navies, formed the bulk of international capital ship strength through the 1920s and 1930s and, with some modernisation, into World War II.From this point on, 'dreadnought' became less widely used. The pre-dreadnought battleships, long obsolete, were almost without exception scrapped in the 1920s to comply with the Washington Treaty, so the term 'dreadnought' became less necessary. Many capital ships, both battleships and battlecruisers, were rebuilt as 'fast battleships'. While still sometimes referred to as dreadnoughts, these ships were the battleships which came to be used in World War II. All text is available under the terms of the 0 Dread Nought Biography	3.749993
They are both nest-building social insects, but paper wasps and honey bees organize their colonies in very different ways. In a new study, researchers report that despite their differences, these insects rely on the same network of genes to guide their social behavior. The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Honey bees and paper wasps are separated by more than 100 million years of evolution, and there are striking differences in how they divvy up the work of maintaining a colony, said University of Illinois entomology professor Gene Robinson, who led the study with postdoctoral researcher Amy Toth. "Honey bees have a sharp division of labor between queens, which reproduce, and workers, which care for the brood and forage for food, while among paper wasps social roles are much more fluid," he said. "And yet the same genes can be used by these different organisms to do similar kinds of things. This is the genetic toolkit idea: The same genetic elements are used for different types of division of labor." A genetic toolkit already has been found for physical traits, such as the development of eyes, said Robinson, who is also a professor in the Institute for Genomic Biology. For example, the same gene, called PAX-6, is involved in eye development in mammals and insects, even though it is virtually certain that these structures did not evolve from a similar structure in a common ancestor. For the new study, the researchers compared the activation of genes in the brains of four groups of female paper wasps (Polistes metricus) that have different roles in the nest, with some more active in reproduction and others more active in provisioning the brood. The purpose of the study was to determine if differences in brain gene activity between the wasps rely on the same networks of genes that in the honey bee (Apis mellifera) drive their division of labor. A previous study of paper wasps by Robinson, Toth and their colleagues obtained a partial sequence of the wasp genome and looked at the expression of 32 genes. That analysis, published in Science in 2007, showed that – as in honey bees – most of the targeted genes are activated differently in different groups of paper wasps. But those genes were hand-picked because they were important to honey bees, Robinson said. For this reason, the team wanted to take a second look at the broad array of genes in the wasp – to be sure that the pattern they had identified was indeed special to wasps as well as bees. Crop sciences professor Matt Hudson, the team's bioinformatics expert, used a computer algorithm to mine the sequencing data from the previous study to design a microarray. The microarray allowed the researchers to simultaneously measure those genes that were most active in the paper wasp brain. "We expect that Polistes has got somewhere in the range of 10,000 genes, and we expect that at least half of them, but not all of them, would be expressed in the brain," said Hudson, who also is a professor in the Institute for Genomic Biology. The effort identified more than 4,900 genes that were active in the wasp brain. The new analysis confirmed that the same genes and gene regulators that are important to the division of labor within a honey bee hive also are used by the wasps as they take on different roles in the nest.	3.65956
Observations on zugunruhe in spring migrating Eared Grebes. \|Abstract:\|\|About 200 North American Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis californicus) at Tule Lake Refuge in northern California were observed engaging in successive waves of mass pattering and pattering flights on 25 May 2011. Most grebes present in a part of a canal were involved in this activity. Counts of grebes on the morning of 26 May suggest an important portion of the Eared Grebes seen in pattering could have left the area over night. The behavior was characterized as zugunruhe. Directed mass pattering of Eared Grebes may contribute to synchronization of the onward migration of the birds involved.\| Migratory birds (Research) Animal flight (Research) \|Publication:\|\|Name: The Wilson Journal of Ornithology Publisher: Wilson Ornithological Society Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Biological sciences Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Wilson Ornithological Society ISSN: 1559-4491\| \|Issue:\|\|Date: March, 2012 Source Volume: 124 Source Issue: 1\| \|Topic:\|\|Event Code: 310 Science & research\| \|Geographic:\|\|Geographic Scope: United States Geographic Code: 1USA United States\| North American Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis californicus) are seldom seen in flight, except when they migrate (Bent 1919, Gaunt et al. 1990). The migration of the species has been well studied (Storer and Jehl 1985, Gaunt et al. 1990, Jehl 1997, Cullen et al. 1999, Jehl and McKernan 2002, Jehl and Henry 2010). Cullen et al. (1999) indicate migration flights begin around dusk and end before dawn. Jehl and Henry (2010) note strict correspondence of departure with near-total darkness. Grebes tend to gather as the time for departure nears (Jehl and McKernan 2002). Predeparture activities include group diving, and submerging and surfacing in near unison. A unique call is given as grebes prepare to depart and immediately before actual take-off (Jehl and Henry 2010). Daytime flights are possibly observed only when grebes rebuild their flight muscles prior to migration when they may perform one or two short practice flights (Jehl and Henry 2010) or race across the surface in short practice flights, often in small groups (Jehl and McKernan 2002). I was surprised to observe a mix of pattering and flight by larger groups of Eared Grebes in Northern California during daylight conditions. I describe these common pattering flight maneuvers and discuss their possible meaning. A study of courtship of Eared Grebes was undertaken at Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, and Lower Klamath Refuge and Tule Lake Refuge, both in northern California, from 14 to 27 May 2011. This region is known to support thousands of Eared Grebes each year for nesting, water levels permitting. The California refuges hosted 7,397 and 3,700 nests, respectively, in 2003 and 2004 (Shuford et al. 2006). Fieldwork was from 0700 to 1700 hrs each day using a car as a blind. The car was parked at suitable places along roads near bodies of water and remained immobile for up to 3 hrs. The behavior and displays of grebes were documented either by photograph, video film or immediate voice recording. All observations of pattering flights are from Tule Lake Refuge, part of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, an artificial water impoundment of mostly open water covering ~5,200 ha at an altitude of 1,200 m and surrounded by croplands. The observations were in an area called the English Channel (41[degrees] 51' 202 N, 121[degrees] 29' 727 W) in the central part of the wildlife tour into the refuge. This is an L-shaped canal, <50 m in width. It opens at its northern end into large sump lA, an open and shallow area of the lake. It takes a left turn after ~1.6 km in a straight line from north to south (NS canal or NS part of the English Channel) and continues east for another 0.5 km (EW canal or EW part of the English Channel) until ending at a dam-levee that separates it from the adjacent larger sump 1B (Fig. 1). The entire canal is devoid of emerging vegetation. I differentiate between pattering (a grebe with flapping wings runs with paddling feet or even partially glides over the water surface, but remains in constant contact with the water), pattering flight (after an initial pattering, a grebe is airborne for a distance limited to a few meters during which it does not touch the water surface), and real flight (the distance covered while airborne exceeds 10 m). It is well established that Eared Grebes use pattering in the retreat display and during escape/pursuit or more generally during aggression (McAllister 1958, Cullen et al. 1999); these occurrences are not included. My objectives in this paper are to provide a full description of pattering and pattering flights by larger numbers of grebes, and to discuss possible reasons for their occurrences. Observations in the southern English Channel on 25 May started at 0900 hrs. Over 200 Eared Grebes were scattered partially in loose groups all over the EW part of the English Channel around midday when about three quarters of them engaged in pattering. The grebes did so in consecutive waves, all into a western direction towards the connection to the NS canal. The sudden take-off by one or two grebes seemed to cause others in their immediate vicinity and on their way to move in the same direction. Groups of 10-30 birds pattered over a short distance (20-30 m), some briefly loosing contact with the water surface in a pattering flight. Grebes getting briefly airborne possibly did so to avoid collision with conspecifics that remained stationary on the water surface. Grebes landed ahead of others that started similar maneuvers in their wake, perhaps carrying along some of those that had just stopped pattering. A few additional waves of pattering were launched. Some birds dived after landing; others elevated their necks, remained alert, and looked around without changing their westward orientation. Most of the population, including subgroups closer to the NS canal which were not observed to patter, was swimming in the direction of the NS canal. The eastern and central parts of the EW canal were rather empty of Eared Grebes after some 2-3 rain, leaving only a few Westem (Aechmophorus occidentalis) and Clark's grebes (A. clarkii) and a few ducks remaining. Fewer than 100 Eared Grebes were still swimming in the western part of the EW canal towards the connection with the NS canal when they encountered about 40 birds swimming in a group to reenter the EW canal. A rough count less than 10 min later indicated that >200 Eared Grebes had again spread over this canal. Pattering and pattering flights started anew only ~20 min after the start of the first general movement by the Eared Grebes. Take-off by one or two Eared Grebes incited others in their surroundings to join as before. The birds moved westward in several waves and continued swimming into the same direction after landing. More grebes left the EW canal where only about 30 remained, all towards its western end. A first group of swimming grebes returned ~1 min later. It was followed by other loose groups. I counted 130 grebes 5 rain later and soon >240 birds were again present inside the EW canal. A longer period without group pattering, but with continuous calling, occasional displays and much surface feeding on phantom midges (Chaoborus crystillinus) followed until ~1400 hrs. Individual grebes performed feeding dives, but no group diving, or submerging and surfacing in near unison was observed. The general pattering in waves and westward swimming towards the connection with the NS canal started again and most Eared Grebes finally left the EW canal. The first grebes had turned and swam to return to the EW canal when a sudden simultaneous eastward pattering of >50 re-entering grebes occurred. Two or three more waves by other groups followed immediately. Five minutes later, 232 grebes were counted inside the EW canal. Only the continuous and contiguous calls of the birds were heard for ~20 min. Ten birds then initiated a fourth round of pattering in waves. This time, the grebes had no common general direction. The grebes more in the central part of the observed area moved towards the dam, those already closer to the eastern end pattered into a more southwestward to westward direction. The population present divided into two groups. About 100 grebes were clustered near the dam and another 100 were scattered over the upper western third of the EW canal. The space in between both groups remained mostly empty. The western group started immediately to swim eastward while the eastern group slowly dispersed. The groups soon melted and spread over the empty space that had separated them. Perhaps five additional pattering flights of up to 4-5 grebes were observed in between the different mass pattering and pattering flights. It was not known whether these were premature attempts to initiate a wave or whether they were unrelated to the mass movements. The observations ended at ~1700 hrs and 257 grebes were counted in the EW canal (26 in the connecting corner square to the NS canal), 65 were present in the lower half of the NS canal and 347 in the upper half. Only five additional Eared Grebes were detected at the mouth to sump 1A. Other parts of the sump close to the English Channel were empty of Eared Grebes. A count of the birds at 0700 hrs on the following day totaled exactly 400 individuals, 269 less than the previous count. Only 77 grebes were observed inside the EW canal (28 in the connecting corner square) while the NS canal had 323 grebes. Three hours later, 126 Eared Grebes were recorded in the EW canal and 337 in the NS canal. The two counts on 26 May revealed quite differing numbers of grebes. The EW canal held 131 to 180 grebes less and the entire English Channel held 206 to 269 grebes less than on the afternoon of 25 May. Eared Grebes had arrived at Tule Lake Refuge in the course of the previous 2-3 weeks. I assume that shortly after arrival, their wing muscles were still in good flight condition on 25 May and intense practicing could not have explained the mass pattering. Most birds were actively courting, but the group pattering did not appear to be related to pair bonding. There is also no reason to believe the grebes tried to divert an aerial predator with common flight activity as several instances of Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) appearing in flight over the grebes or even trying a catch in the canal did not trigger much reaction. Birds pattering to escape a pursuing conspecific or to flee possible danger incited alarm at the most to a handful of other Eared Grebes in their immediate vicinity. The generalized pattering by larger groups of Eared Grebes observed appeared unrelated to courtship, aggression, fear or predator presence. A similar or comparable behavior by Black-necked Grebes (P. n. nigricollis) in Europe has not been reported. There is comparable agitation in Silvery Grebes (P. occipitalis) during migration towards breeding areas. Fjeldsa (1982) noted that Silvery Grebes show high restlessness and form long lines that move back and forth on a lake from where, in the subsequent night, at least part of the population departed. He termed this pre-migratory restlessness. Movements of a group of 70 Silvery Grebes at Laguna Las Encadenadas, Argentina, in December 2006, were not limited to swimming, but included sudden quasi-simultaneous take-offs of individuals more at the rear end of the line. Some flew up, reaching a height of ~2 m, possibly to avoid collision with the birds preceding them. They landed again in front of the group that was moving in one direction. The grebes at the rear end acted similarly. The group changed direction as it approached the shore, but continued swimming in a line, and pattering and flying from the back to the front (Konter 2009). Eared Grebes at Tule Lake Refuge all swam actively into the same direction, although they did not form one line. They showed pattering and pattering flights in waves and repeated the directed group movements. A priori the comparison of total counts of grebes inside the English Channel on the following day strongly suggests at least a major portion of the population had left the area. Zugunruhe seems an appropriate characterization for the Eared Grebes' behavior. Additional pre-departure activities at Tule Lake Refuge including group diving, submerging and surfacing in near unison as reported by Jehl and Henry (2010) were not obvious. The grebes' diving and swimming seemed to be predominantly related to feeding, except the dives after mass pattering involved only a minority of a group. Active vocalization may have helped group cohesion, but it could not be distinguished from advertising by solitary birds or from contact calling by partners momentarily separated. It is not known to where the departing grebes flew and whether they targeted breeding areas in the region or flew a long distance. Eared Grebes can move to other sites used for breeding, even after arrival in a breeding area, or emigrate from the region (Cullen 1998). It is also unknown whether the grebes departed in flocks from the English Channel and whether they headed in one or different directions. I assume they were migrants and the extent of their pattering flight maneuvers suggests an eagerness to move on. The counts of 25 and 26 May show that not all Eared Grebes had left the English Channel over night. Grebes present in the NS part were not observed on 25 May and they may not have engaged in group pattering. The first count on 26 May showed that low numbers of grebes were present inside the EW canal and the higher later count suggests that new grebes were continuously settling there. Over 200 Eared Grebes left the English Channel during the night and this number corresponds as an order of magnitude to the numbers involved in the group pattering. Thus, most pattering grebes could have left over night and it is likely their zugunruhe contributed to a simultaneous departure. They were gradually replaced by conspecifics moving into the EW canal on the following day. Eared Grebes often do not arrive within a short lapse of time inside a breeding region where numbers generally build up over several weeks. They synchronize, however, nest establishment (McAllister 1956, Boe 1994). In this context, it is of interest to further investigate how a conspicuous pre-migratory group pattering as observed at Tule Lake Refuge may contribute to a coordinated onward flight inside a breeding region that would facilitate simultaneous colony establishment by large numbers of pairs. Unfortunately, the data from Tule Lake Refuge do not permit any conclusion to be drawn. I am grateful to Michele Nuss from the Tule Lake Refuge Headquarters who was of great help in the preparation of my fieldwork. I thank J. R. Jehl Jr and C. E. Braun for critical review and constructive comments on the first draft. Received 13 July 2011. Accepted 19 September 2011. BENT, A. C. 1919. Life histories of North American diving birds, Order Pygopodes. U.S. National Museum Bulletin 107:1-47. BOE, J. S. 1994. Nest site selection by Eared Grebes in Minnesota. Condor 96:19-35. CULLEN, S. A. 1998. Population biology of Eared Grebes in naturally fragmented habitat. Thesis. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. CULLEN, S. A., J. R. JEHL, AND G. L. NUECHTERLEIN. 1999. Eared Grebe. The birds of North America. Number 433. FJELDSA, J. 1982. Some behaviour patterns of four closely related grebes, Podiceps nigricollis, P. gallardoi, P. occipitalis, and P. taczanowskii, with reflections on phylogeny and adaptive aspects of the evolution of displays. Dansk Ornithologisk Forenings Tidsskrift 76:37-68. GAUNT, A. S., R. S. HIKIDA, J. R. JEHL JR., AND L. FENBERT. 1990. Rapid atrophy and hypertrophy of an avian flight muscle. Auk 107:649-659. JEHL JR., J. R. 1997. Cyclical changes in body composition in the annual cycle and migration of the Eared Grebe Podiceps nigricollis. Journal of Avian Biology 28:132-142. JEHL JR., J. R. AND A. E. HENRY. 2010. The postbreeding migration of Eared Grebes. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 122:217-227. JEHL JR., J. R. AND R. L. MCKERNAN. 2002. Biology and migration of Eared Grebes at Salton Sea. Hydrobiologia 473:245-253. KONTER, A. 2009. Observations on diving times, on pre-migratory restlessness and on some displays of Silvery Grebes Podiceps occipitalis. Regulus Wissenschaftliche Berichte 24:67-71. MCALLISTER, N. 1958. Courtship, hostile behavior, nest-establishment and egg laying in the Eared Grebe (Podiceps caspicus). Auk 75:290-311. SHUFORD, W. D., D. L. THOMSON, D. M. MAUSER, AND J. BECKSTRAND. 2006. Abundance and distribution of nongame waterbirds in the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California from comprehensive surveys in 2003 and 2004. PRBO Conservation Science, Petaluma, California, USA. STORER, R. W. AND J. R. JEHL JR. 1985. Moult patterns and moult migration in the Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis. Ornis Scandinavica 16:253-260. Andre Konter (1) (1) Museum of Natural History, 25, rue Munster, Luxembourg L-2150, Luxembourg; e-mail: [email protected] \|Gale Copyright:\|\|Copyright 2012 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.\|	3.154201
Before 1680 the ancient towns and villages now absorbed in Greater London were rarely considered important enough to be mapped in their own right. From the 1680s, as the villages became socially and economically integrated into the London region, this changed. They were shown like stars surrounding the central sun of London, which had previously been depicted only with the villages of Middlesex, north of the Thames. Road surfaces improved considerably from the late 18th century. Coaches began to run regularly between the centre of town and the outlying villages and it became possible for businessmen to live permanently in their country villas with their families and commute on a daily basis. Nevertheless, despite their increasing integration with London, most villages were still surrounded by fields in 1850. Click the pins on the Google Map above or follow the links below to view some of the key maps from this period in our Online Gallery. Survey of the Parish of Islington, 1735 Plan of a proposed Turnpike road from Marylebone to Finchley, 1824 Plan of the Fitz Roy Farm and Highgate Estate, 1840 View of the Highgate Archway Road, 1813 View from Hampstead looking towards London, 1800 of sight: the East End	3.482908
How machine learning can help to understand brain signals If a neurotechnological prosthesis should act upon commands from the brain, these have to be interpreted correctly. It is a challenging task because the amount of data is huge and the signals that the brain emits also change over time. Computer scientists therefore want to leave it to learning machines to solve this ever-changing puzzle. \|Gunnar Grah talked to Martin Riedmiller, Machine Learning Lab\| The usual way to make a computer do something goes like this: You decide what problem the machine is supposed to solve for you, then you write a programme that does exactly this. Modern washing machines work that way. They have been told exactly what to do at what moment. This approach works very well for clearly defined problems, like getting dirt out of laundry. But there are many problems where solutions are not obvious, and the point of departure might always be a little bit different and require different solutions. In this case, computer scientists opt for letting the computer figure out the optimal solution for itself, an approach that is called “machine learning”. The human as trainer, not programmer Machine learning resembles somewhat how humans acquire new skills, i.e. through examples, the structuring of a problem, and gaining experience. If, for instance, a computer is supposed to learn the different appearances of a broad-leaved tree and a conifer, a human “trainer” would provide the learning machine with examples of both classes, telling it in each case which class the tree on the picture belongs to. After some time, the computer will be able to correctly classify the presented trees, even though no human ever provided it with an actual list of things to look out for in order to master the task. If a problem requires not only a classification, but learning a complex procedure, like a robot walking on two legs without falling over, a trainer will at first be required to tell the machine whether an approach was “good” or “bad”. After sufficient training, the machine will master the problem and show some robustness in its solution, even if the situation varies slightly. Also, a trained machine will be able to solve a new situation – e.g. the robot carrying something and therefore changing its weight distribution – faster than if it was starting from scratch. Learning from the brain The secret of machine learning lies in the nature of the software that is at work at its base. A solution to a problem does not exist as specific lines of code that govern how the input from the environment is dealt with in order to reach a desired outcome. Instead, it employs an “artificial neural network”. This is a kind of programme that took its inspiration from the structure of the brain, where many individual items (the nerve cells) solve relatively simple problems (like adding or multiplying values), but are able to tackle much more complex tasks by being connected and existing in large numbers. An artificial neural network takes this concept into the realm of bits and bytes, but plays by the same rules. Learning, just as in the real brain, manifests itself in the change of connections between individual neurons. These connectivity patterns between a multitude of mathematically represented nerve cells are where the solution to a given problem is stored. In consequence, there exists no neat equation that provides the solution, even though the final answer that the machine provides to a given problem is simple. The biological brain has acted as an inspiration, but computer scientists take this metaphor only as far as it is useful to them. To date, making the individual artificial neuron more and more complex, and thus ever more life-like, has not provided any real advantages, and software engineers therefore tend to go for what works best, not necessarily what comes closest to a real nerve cell. In terms of the general architecture however, natural evolution has led to time-tested concepts that are being exploited. Machine learning programmes that analyse images, for instance, draw upon the structure of the visual cortex and the way how it breaks down the task into extracting individual features from a scene. Using artificial networks to understand real ones Within BrainLinks-BrainTools, the task is a formidable one: Machine learning is destined to help analysing signals recorded from brain activity. There is no intrinsic connection though that makes this link between a real and an artificial neural network something special: Neither is machine learning the only approach to make sense of the activity of billions of nerve cells, nor is it less suitable to analyse completely different sets of data, like stock market developments. Ultimately, machine learning should make it possible to read out movement commands from the brain’s surface. These could then be sent to a prosthesis or an assistive device like a robot – the use-case which the strategy “LiNC” within the cluster aims for. So far, it is an open question what kind of commands could actually be discriminated within the patterns of signals that electrodes can read out from the brain’s surface. Could machine learning reliably identify the difference between different grasp movements, for instance as they are necessary to grab either a pen or a bottle? Will the computer look for individual movements, or will it be able to extract whole intentions like “I want to put the bottle back into the fridge”? Such higher concepts would be an elegant way to steer a prosthetic arm. The user would not have to think all commands in the right order and with the right extent, but could leave it to the autonomously planning prosthesis to figure out the best way after sending a general command. However, there is a pitfall: In abstract concepts, it might become even more difficult to know what the activity pattern actually stands for. We might find an activity pattern that appears every time that the person thinks “fridge”, but it might actually stand for an association that the person makes, like “cold”. Between the infinite number of possible thoughts and possible connections, this will be an ambitious challenge for data analysis by machine learning. Furthermore, it remains to be seen how many activity patterns are identical between individuals. Ideally, a patient should not have to go through lengthy training sessions to teach the system all manners of different movements from scratch, but the device should arrive with some pre-installed knowledge of the most basic patterns. Even then, there would be enough that the system would have to learn in order to adapt to the individual patient. After all, no two brains – not even those of twins – are identical. And it is very likely that the same holds true for the brain’s activity patterns. But computer scientists are optimistic that these training sessions would not take too long – rather minutes or hours than days and weeks. But machine learning is not only a useful tool on the user’s end. Likewise, artificial neural networks could come in handy to help a robotic arm or other assistive device to execute movements and find the ideal action to reach a certain goal. What makes machine learning an attractive candidate for this task it that its artificial neural network learned the solution to a problem and wasn’t spoon-fed a singular answer. Therefore, the system is able to dynamically handle changes in the task or the environment in which it has to be executed.	3.15547
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review. features of Mars ...in a drawing of Mars of that date by Christiaan Huygens. It is an extensive regional slope elongated north to south that drops 4 km (2.5 miles) from its western boundary (Aeria) to its eastern edge ( Isidis). Assiduously observed for more than a century because of its seasonal and long-term variability, especially near its eastern boundary, Syrtis Major was first considered a shallow sea. Later... What made you want to look up "Isidis"? Please share what surprised you most...	3.445882
KingaroyArticle Free Pass Kingaroy, town, southeastern Queensland, Australia, in the South Burnett area. It originated in 1886 as Kingaroy Paddock, deriving its name from the Aboriginal term kingerroy, meaning “red ant,” and was proclaimed a shire in 1912. The area’s rich, red soils yield an important peanut (groundnut) crop, and the state peanut-marketing board is in Kingaroy. Other local products are grains, soybeans, dairy foods, and beef cattle. Agricultural machinery is made in Kingaroy, which is linked to Brisbane (100 miles [160 km] southeast) by rail and air and by the Bunya Highway. The nearby Bunya Mountains, which rise to 3,727 feet (1,136 metres) at Mount Kiangarow, were important to the Aborigines as a source of bunya pine nuts and have now been included within Bunya Mountains National Park. Pop. (2006) local government area, 12,222. What made you want to look up "Kingaroy"? Please share what surprised you most...	3.130776
Thomas ArcherArticle Free Pass Thomas Archer, (born c. 1668—died May 23, 1743, Whitehall, London, Eng.), British architect and practitioner of what was, for England, an extraordinarily extravagant Baroque style, marked by lavish curves, large scale, and bold detail. Archer, the son of a Warwickshire squire, was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and then spent four years abroad. After receiving several lucrative royal appointments, he bought the manor of Hale, Hampshire, in 1715 and rebuilt the house and church. Archer’s dynamic work borrowed much from the 17th-century Italian architects Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. Although he was not as original as some of the prominent English architects of his time, he was considered important. Most of his designs were executed from 1705 to 1715, including the north front of Chatsworth House (c. 1705) in Derbyshire, Heythrop House (1707–10) in Oxfordshire, a garden pavilion at Wrest Park (1709–11) in Bedfordshire, Roehampton House (c. 1712) in Surrey (now in Wandsworth, London), and the churches of St. Philip (c. 1710–15) in Birmingham, St. Paul (1712–30) in Deptford, and St. John (1713–28) in Westminster. The last two resulted from his appointment in 1711 as a commissioner for the building of 50 new churches. What made you want to look up "Thomas Archer"? Please share what surprised you most...	3.13141
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review. history of Bono The kings of Bono are said to have played a major role in the gold-mining industry; both Obunumankoma (flourished c. 1450–75) and ʿAlī Kwame (flourished c. 1550–60) are thought to have introduced new mining techniques from the western Sudan to the Akan fields, and Owusu Aduam (flourished c. 1650) is reported to have completely reorganized the industry. From... What made you want to look up "Obunumankoma"? Please share what surprised you most...	3.020487
stressArticle Free Pass stress, in physical sciences and engineering, force per unit area within materials that arises from externally applied forces, uneven heating, or permanent deformation and that permits an accurate description and prediction of elastic, plastic, and fluid behaviour. A stress is expressed as a quotient of a force divided by an area. There are many kinds of stress. Normal stress arises from forces that are perpendicular to a cross-sectional area of the material, whereas shear stress arises from forces that are parallel to, and lie in, the plane of the cross-sectional area. If a bar having a cross-sectional area of 4 square inches (26 square cm) is pulled lengthwise by a force of 40,000 pounds (180,000 newtons) at each end, the normal stress within the bar is equal to 40,000 pounds divided by 4 square inches, or 10,000 pounds per square inch (psi; 7,000 newtons per square cm). This specific normal stress that results from tension is called tensile stress. If the two forces are reversed, so as to compress the bar along its length, the normal stress is called compressive stress. If the forces are everywhere perpendicular to all surfaces of a material, as in the case of an object immersed in a fluid that may be compressed itself, the normal stress is called hydrostatic pressure, or simply pressure. The stress beneath the Earth’s surface that compresses rock bodies to great densities is called lithostatic pressure. Shear stress in solids results from actions such as twisting a metal bar about a longitudinal axis as in tightening a screw. Shear stress in fluids results from actions such as the flow of liquids and gases through pipes, the sliding of a metal surface over a liquid lubricant, and the passage of an airplane through air. Shear stresses, however small, applied to true fluids produce continuous deformation or flow as layers of the fluid move over each other at different velocities like individual cards in a deck of cards that is spread. For shear stress, see also shear modulus. Reaction to stresses within elastic solids causes them to return to their original shape when the applied forces are removed. Yield stress, marking the transition from elastic to plastic behaviour, is the minimum stress at which a solid will undergo permanent deformation or plastic flow without a significant increase in the load or external force. The Earth shows an elastic response to the stresses caused by earthquakes in the way it propagates seismic waves, whereas it undergoes plastic deformation beneath the surface under great lithostatic pressure. What made you want to look up "stress"? Please share what surprised you most...	4.214642
Hittite, 14th-13th century BC Probably from Anatolia (modern Turkey) This beautiful figurine of a young Hittite girl is made of ivory. Her hair is drawn back and hangs in a pig-tail down her back. She stands in a formal pose with her hands by her sides. The proportions of the figure, lacking curves, show her youth. The treatment is naturalistic except for the stylized ears and the triangles indicating the knees. The pubic triangle was originally inlaid, and other parts of the ivory may have been covered in precious metal. The function of the figurine is unknown, but ivory was widely used in the ancient world to decorate furniture The dowel hole in the square base of the figure suggests it was once attached to something. From around 1650 BC a Hittite king rebuilt Hattusa (modern Bogazköy) and made it his capital. Between about 1400 and 1200 BC the Hittites established one of the great empires of the ancient Near East, extending into western Anatolia and south into Syria. They adopted many of the traditions of Syria and Mesopotamia, including the cuneiform writing system, and vied with the Egyptians for control of the wealthy Canaanite cities on the coast. D. Collon, Ancient Near Eastern art (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)	3.667568
Published by Bupa's Health Information Team, October 2011. This factsheet is for people who are having a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, or who would like information about the procedure. A bone marrow or stem cell transplant is where stem cells from a person's bone marrow are destroyed and replaced with new ones, either from themselves or from a donor. You will meet the doctor or nurse carrying out your procedure to discuss your care. It may differ from what is described here as it will be designed to meet your individual needs. Bone marrow is a spongy substance in the centre of your bones. Your bone marrow contains stem cells, which are a type of cell from which other cells in your body can develop. The stem cells in your bone marrow mature into three types of cells. These are: The cells are then released into your bloodstream. Although it's often called a bone marrow transplant, this procedure is really a transplant of your bone marrow stem cells. If you have a bone marrow transplant, your unhealthy bone marrow will be replaced with healthy stem cells. The healthy stem cells are fed into your blood through a drip and find their way to your bone marrow to make new cells. The stem cells can come from another person (a donor) – this is called an allogeneic transplant. Alternatively the cells can come from your own bone marrow – this is called an autologous treatment. However, this can only happen if the stem cells were removed at a time when they were healthy. If you have stem cells from another person, they can come from the bone marrow or the blood of the donor. When they come from the blood, this is called peripheral stem cell harvest. If they come from the bone marrow, your donor will usually be a close relative because they are likely to have the best match. After a blood test, your doctor will compare both of your blood cells to see how well they match. This is called tissue typing. Sometimes, doctors can find a matching donor who isn't related to you through the National Blood Service or a charity, such as the Anthony Nolan Trust. Stem cells can also come from babies' umbilical cords, although this treatment is only suitable for children and small adults, and is still being tested. Bone marrow transplantation is used to treat conditions that stop your stem cells working. You may have a bone marrow transplant if: Doctors usually consider a bone marrow transplant only if other treatments don’t work or aren’t suitable for you. A bone marrow transplant is a very intensive treatment. Your doctor will take your age and general health into consideration when deciding whether it's right for you. If you’re having a stem cell transplant from a donor, you generally need to be under 55. Doctors are researching new, alternative treatments to a bone marrow transplant. Mini transplants involve giving a standard dose of chemotherapy because the person isn't fit enough or young enough for a high dose. It's given over five days and then donor stem cells or bone marrow are transplanted. Tandem transplants are when high-dose chemotherapy is given followed by a stem cell transplant, which is then repeated after several weeks or months. Your doctor and nurse will discuss with you what will happen before, during and after your transplant. This is your opportunity to understand what will happen, and you can help yourself by preparing questions to ask about the risks, benefits and any alternatives to a bone marrow transplant. This will help you to be informed, so you can give your consent for the procedure to go ahead, which you may be asked to do by signing a consent form. You may need to have chemotherapy, and possibly radiotherapy, before a bone marrow transplant if your cancer or leukaemia isn't in remission. This is because the cancer needs to be at the lowest possible level for a bone marrow transplant to work. The first step is to collect, or 'harvest', the stem cells. The exact process depends on whether the stem cells are coming from a donor or from you. Peripheral blood stem cell harvest You or your donor will be given injections of growth factors for around four days. These help the bone marrow to make lots of stem cells for harvesting. Growth factors can also help your stem cells to make blood cells more quickly to help you recover from the transplant. Harvesting the stem cells from blood takes three to four hours. You or your donor will lie down on a bed and have a drip connected to each arm, or sometimes an arm and a leg. Blood is taken from one arm and goes through a machine called a cell separator. This separates out the stem cells from the other blood cells. It will keep the stem cells and return any other blood cells to the bloodstream through the drip in the other arm or leg. Sometimes the stem cells are cleaned or 'purged' to kill off any last cancer cells, although this is a new treatment and is still being tested. The stem cells are then frozen until you have had your high dose of chemotherapy. Harvesting stem cells directly from the bone marrow Stem cells can also be harvested by taking them out of the bone marrow through a needle inserted into your own or your donor's pelvic bones, or sometimes breast bone. You will have usually have a general anaesthetic or an epidural before this procedure, and will feel sore for a few days afterwards. If you have a general anaesthetic, it means you will be asleep during the procedure. You will then have a high dose of chemotherapy to completely destroy your own bone marrow and any remaining cancer cells in your body. This treatment may take several days and can make you feel sick or vomit, and generally unwell. Your doctor or nurse will give you medicines to help relieve this. A day or more after chemotherapy, your own or your donor's stem cells are fed through a drip into your bloodstream. It will take between two and four weeks before there are enough new stem cells in your bone marrow to start making new blood cells. While your levels of blood cells are low, you will need blood and platelet transfusions. You will also need to take antibiotics to protect you from infection because of a lack of white blood cells. You may need to stay in hospital until your blood cells have gone back up to a safe level. Autologous treatment usually causes fewer side-effects than a donor (allogeneic) transplant, because your body is less likely to reject stem cells that have come from your own body. Donor stem cell transplants are physically and emotionally demanding. You may need to stay in hospital for four to six weeks and you will probably feel very ill for some of the time. You will have your own room to help protect you from infections. Once the levels of your blood cells have returned to a safe level, you will be able to leave the hospital. You will have regular outpatient appointments afterwards. Your doctor will tell you symptoms to look out for, such as fever, which may be a sign of a complication. As with every procedure, there are some risks associated with bone marrow transplantation. We have not included the chance of these happening as they are specific to you and differ for every person. Ask your doctor or nurse to explain how these risks apply to you. Side-effects are the unwanted, but mostly temporary, effects you might get after having the procedure. Straight after a bone marrow transplant, the levels of blood cells in your body will be very low. Side-effects of this include: Complications are when problems occur during or after the procedure. One possible complication of receiving bone marrow cells from a donor is graft versus host disease. This happens when the white blood cells of the donor attack the tissues of your body. You will be given medicines to prevent this so usually the symptoms are mild, although in some people they may be more serious. The new stem cells that have been fed into your blood may not produce enough blood cells. If this happens, you will need another stem cell transplant. For answers to frequently asked questions on this topic, see FAQs. For sources and links to further information, see Resources. The bone marrow is a spongy substance in the centre of your bones. Your bone marrow contains stem cells, which are the most basic kind of blood cell. These stem cells in your bone marrow mature into three types of cells. These are: The cells are then released into your bloodstream. Bupa can offer NHS and private patients professional cancer care and support at home including IV and oral chemotherapy via our Chemotherapy at Home Service. Already a member? Find a Bupa approved cancer unit near you including breast, bowel and gynaecological specialist units. This information was published by Bupa's Health Information Team and is based on reputable sources of medical evidence. It has been reviewed by appropriate medical or clinical professionals. Photos are only for illustrative purposes and do not reflect every presentation of a condition. The content is intended only for general information and does not replace the need for personal advice from a qualified health professional. For more details on how we produce our content and its sources, visit the About our Health Information page. Publication date: October 2011	3.428919
by Michael F. Potter, Extension Entomologist University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Paper wasps, hornets and yellowjackets are a potential health threat to Kentuckians. Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people in the United States die each year from allergic reactions to the venom of these insects. Wasps, hornets and yellowjackets are more dangerous and unpredictable than honey bees and should be treated with respect; nests should be eliminated with great care and in a specific manner. Paper wasps, hornets and yellowjackets construct nests of a paper-like material which is a mixture of finely chewed wood fragments and salivary secretions of the wasps. Paper wasps typically build their umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and ledges. These wasps are not as aggressive as yellowjackets or hornets, and can be eliminated rather easily with a wasp and hornet spray sold at most grocery and hardware stores. These formulations have an added advantage in that they often spray as far as 20 feet. Treatment of wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets is best performed at night; paper wasps can be eliminated during the daytime provided you do not stand directly below the nest during treatment. Most wasp and hornet sprays cause insects to drop instantly when contacted by the insecticide. Standing directly below a nest increases one's risk of being stung. Following treatment, wait a day to ensure that the colony is destroyed, then scrape or knock down the nest. This will prevent secondary problems from carpet beetles, ants and other scavenging insects. Hornets are far more difficult and dangerous to control than paper wasps. The nests resemble a large, inverted tear-drop shaped ball which typically is attached to a tree, bush or side of a building. Hornet nests may contain thousands of wasps which are extremely aggressive when disturbed. The nests are often located out of reach and removal is best accomplished by a professional pest control firm. A full wasp suit sealed at the wrists, ankles and collar is recommended when disposing of a hornet nest. Treatment can be accomplished by applying a wasp freeze-type, aerosol insecticide or dust formulation (Sevin, or Ficam,) directly into the nest opening. Hornet nests have a single opening, usually toward the bottom, where the wasps enter and exit. It is essential that the paper envelope of the nest not be broken open during treatment or the irritated wasps will scatter in all directions, causing even greater problems. Following treatment, wait at least a day before removing the nest to ensure that all of the wasps are killed. If hornets continue to be observed, the application may need to be repeated. Experienced pest control operators will sometimes remove a hornet nest which is attached to a branch by slipping a plastic garbage bag over the intact nest and clipping it at the point of attachment. This technique should not be attempted by anyone else and should only be done at night with a wasp suit. Yellowjackets are another dangerous wasp encountered around homes and buildings. Nests are often located underground in an old rodent burrow, beneath a landscape timber, or in a rock wall or wall of a building.If the nest can be located, it can usually be eliminated by carefully applying a wasp spray insecticide into the nest opening. Sevin (tm), or Ficam (tm), dust is also very effective provided a handduster or similar type applicator is used to dispense several puffs of the insecticide dust in to the nest opening (an empty, dry liquid detergent bottle, filled no more than halfway with dust and shaken before dispensing works well). Treatment should be performed late at night after all yellowjackets are in the nest and less active. It's best to pinpoint the nest opening during the daytime so you will remember where to direct your treatment after dark. Approach the nest slowly and do not shine the beam of the flashlight directly into the nest entrance as this may startle the wasps; instead, cast the beam to the side to illuminate the nest indirectly and place the light on the ground rather than in your hand. Similar to hornets, yellowjackets are extremely aggressive when the nest is disturbed. It may be prudent to call a professional pest control company, particularly when access to the nest is difficult. An Alternative Solution If the nest is located away from high traffic areas, another option is to wait and do nothing. In Kentucky, wasp, hornet and yellowjacket colonies die off naturally after the weather turns cold, and the paper carton disintegrates over the winter months. People Who Are Allergic to the Venom Wasp, hornet and yellowjacket stings can be life-threatening to persons who are allergic to the venom. People who develop hives, difficulty breathing or swallowing, wheezing or similar symptoms of allergic reaction should seek medical attention immediately. Itching, pain and localized swelling can be somewhat reduced with antihistamines and a cold compress. CAUTION! Pesticide recommendations in this publication are registered for use in Kentucky, USA ONLY! The use of some products may not be legal in your state or country. Please check with your local county agent or regulatory official before using any pesticide mentioned in this publication. Of course, ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW LABEL DIRECTIONS FOR SAFE USE OF ANY PESTICIDE!	3.457674
upper house of Tennessee's General Assembly is called the Senate. The state is divided into 33 senatorial districts, from each of which one senator is elected. Senators are elected to four-year terms with those from even-numbered districts being elected in the same general election, and those representing odd-numbered districts being elected two years later. Thus, about half of the 33 senators are standing for election at the same time. Re-election to the Senate is constitutionally permissible, as it is in the House, and there is no limit on the number of terms a legislator may serve. To qualify for election to the Senate, one must be 30 years old, a U.S. citizen, a state resident for three years and a resident of the district in which he is elected for one year immediately preceding his election. The leader of the Senate, or speaker, is also the state's lieutenant governor. The speaker of the Senate is elected by the Senate at each organizational session of the General Assembly. The lieutenant governor stands in immediate succession to the governorship if such is necessary. Other leaders in the Senate include the speaker pro tem, deputy speaker and the majority and minority leaders, who are the primary spokesmen for their respective parties concerning Senate matters. Two other key Senate officers are the Democratic and Republican caucus chairmen, who preside over meetings of their political parties to consider and formulate party policy. The Senate has certain powers and obligations that are different from those of the House of Representatives. The Senate is given the power to try impeachment proceedings initiated by the House. Any officer of the state may be impeached, but two-thirds of the Senate must concur before removal from office occurs. Political makeup of the Senate of the 108th General Assembly is 26 Republicans and 7 Democrats. The 108th General Assembly will convene on January 8, 2013.	3.611079
More than 1 billion people—one-sixth of the world's population—suffer from one or more Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). NTDs are a group of infectious diseases that are the source of tremendous suffering because of their disfiguring, debilitating, and sometimes deadly impact. They are called neglected because they have been largely wiped out in the more developed parts of the world and persist only in the poorest, most marginalized communities and conflict areas. Social stigma is a major consequence of NTDs. In addition to causing physical and emotional suffering, these devastating diseases hamper a person's ability to work, keep children out of school, and prevent families and communities from thriving. Image: Nigerian children at-risk of infection with NTDs. Credit: CDC photo, Sonia Pelletreau.	3.932346
What Can I do to Help Prevent Traumatic Brain Injury? There are many ways to reduce the chances of sustaining a traumatic brain injury, including: - Buckling your child in the car using a child safety seat, booster seat, or seat belt (according to the child's height, weight, and age). - Rear-facing child safety seat. For the best possible protection, infants and children should be kept in a rear-facing child safety seat, in the back seat buckled with the seat’s harness, until they reach the upper weight or height limits of their particular seat. The weight and height limits on rear-facing child safety seats can accommodate most children through age 2, check the seat’s owner’s manual for details. - Forward-facing child safety seat. When children outgrow their rear-facing seats (the weight and height limits on rear-facing car seats can accommodate most children through age 2) they should ride in forward-facing child safety seats, in the back seat buckled with the seat’s harness, until they reach the upper weight or height limit of their particular seat (usually around age 4 and 40 pounds, many newer seats have higher weight limits-check the seat’s owner’s manual for details). - Booster seat. Once children outgrow their forward-facing seats (by reaching the upper height and weight limits of their seat), they should ride in belt positioning booster seats. Remember to keep children in the back seat for the best possible protection. - Seat belts. Children should use booster seats until adult seat belts fit them properly. Seat belts fit properly when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs (not the stomach) and the shoulder belt fits across the chest (not the neck). When adult seat belts fit children properly they can use the adult seat belts without booster seats. For the best possible protection keep children in the back seat and use lap-and-shoulder belts. - All children younger than 13 years should ride in the back seat. Airbags can kill young children riding in the front seat. Never place a rear-facing car seat in the front seat or in front of an air bag. Know the Stages - Wearing a seat belt every time you drive or ride in a motor vehicle. - Never driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. - Wearing a helmet and making sure your children wear helmets when: - Riding a bike, motorcycle, snowmobile, scooter, or all-terrain vehicle; - Playing a contact sport, such as football, ice hockey, or boxing; - Using in-line skates or riding a skateboard; - Batting and running bases in baseball or softball; - Riding a horse; or - Skiing or snowboarding. - Making living areas safer for seniors, by: - Removing tripping hazards such as throw rugs and clutter in walkways; - Using nonslip mats in the bathtub and on shower floors; Installing grab bars next to the toilet and in the tub or shower; - Installing handrails on both sides of stairways; - Improving lighting throughout the home; and - Maintaining a regular physical activity program, if your doctor agrees, to improve lower body strength and balance.1,2,3 - Making living areas safer for children, by: - Installing window guards to keep young children from falling out of open windows; and - Using safety gates at the top and bottom of stairs when young children are around. - Making sure the surface on your child's playground is made of shock-absorbing material, such as hardwood mulch or sand.4 - Judge JO, Lindsey C, Underwood M, Winsemius D. Balance improvements in older women: effects of exercise training. Physical Therapy 1993;73(4):254–265. - Lord SR, Caplan GA, Ward JA. Balance, reaction time, and muscle strength in exercising older women: a pilot study. Archives of Physical and Medical Rehabilitation 1993;74(8):837–839. - Campbell AJ, Robertson MC, Gardner MM, Norton RN, Buchner DM. Falls prevention over 2 years: a randomized controlled trial in women 80 years and older. Age and Aging 1999;28:513–518. - Mack MG, Sacks JJ, Thompson D. Testing the impact attenuation of loose fill playground surfaces. Injury Prevention 2000;6:141–144.	3.786183
evidence suggests that life originated in extreme environments, for example, at high temperatures. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has initiated a program called Life in the Extreme Environment (LExEn) that is dedicated to finding new and exciting organisms that live in harsh environments. The Extreme 2000 research expedition, at hydrothermal vent sites in the Sea of Cortés, is led by marine scientists George Luther and Craig Cary from the University of Delaware and Anna-Louise Reysenbach from Portland State University. Their chief objective is to make real-time chemical measurements at the vents using microsensors developed by Dr. Luthers group, which will guide the microbiologists and molecular biologists in Dr. Carys and Dr. Reysenbachs groups in finding organisms that are descendants of early Chemical Detective Work at the Bottom of the Sea hydrothermal vents home to the closest relatives of the oldest life on Earth? Using special tools housed in a wand on the sub Alvin, researchers will be testing the chemistry of vent water in search of microscopic organisms. The wand houses a thermometer, an apparatus called the Sipper to collect small water samples, and a super-sensitive The analyzer is like a sophisticated underwater snooper. It can be used near the vents and, from its chemical readings, tell scientists what kind of microbes might live there. While our food chain is based on energy from the sun, the suns rays never reach the deep sea. There, organisms must rely on a different energy source: the chemicals that rocket out of the vents. During a previous expedition, the Extreme 2000 scientific team found that the presence of two compounds hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and iron monosulfide (FeS) may be an important indicator of the oldest microscopic vent life. These compounds react to form the mineral pyrite (fools gold) and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen provides the energy that these microbes need to grow. With the analyzers help, marine scientists may be able to track down the nearest descendants of the first life on Earth, and perhaps on other planets. Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, is covered in ice. However, recent findings suggest that portions of the ice move, which is strong evidence that liquid water lies beneath the ice. The water may be maintained in its liquid state by hydrothermal vents. If hydrothermal vents exist on Europa, theres a possibility that ancient microbes could live	3.985518
An ambulatory electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) records the electrical activity of your heart while you do your usual activities. (Ambulatory means that you are able to walk.) Ambulatory monitors are referred to by several names, including ambulatory electrocardiogram, ambulatory EKG, Holter monitoring, 24-hour EKG, or cardiac event monitoring. Many heart problems become noticeable only during activity, such as exercise, eating, sex, stress, bowel movements, or even sleeping. A continuous 24-hour recording is more likely to detect any abnormal heartbeats that occur during these activities. Many people have irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias) from time to time. The importance of irregular heartbeats depends on the type of pattern they produce, how often they occur, how long they last, and whether they occur at the same time you have symptoms. Because arrhythmias can occur off and on, it may be hard to record an arrhythmia while you are in the doctor's office. There are several different types of ambulatory monitors. Your doctor will choose the type that is most appropriate for you and is most likely to help diagnose your heart problem. Why It Is Done Ambulatory EKG monitoring is done to: - Look for and record irregular heartbeats that occur intermittently or during certain activities. - Find out what is causing chest pain, dizziness, or fainting. These are symptoms of possible heart problems. - Look for poor blood flow to your heart muscle (ischemia). - Check to see if treatment for an irregular heartbeat is working. How To Prepare Many medicines may change the results of this test. Be sure to tell your doctor about all the nonprescription and prescription medicines you take. Since an EKG is often used to monitor a preexisting heart condition, such as an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia), make sure that your doctor has copies of any previous EKG results. Take a shower or bath before the discs are put on. You will not be able to get the discs wet during the test. Wear a loose blouse or shirt. Do not wear jewelry or clothes with metal buttons or buckles, because these can interfere with the recording. Women should not wear an underwire bra for the same reason. If your doctor asks you to keep a symptom and activity diary, be sure you have a method. In this diary, you will record activities and symptoms and the times they occurred. The accuracy and usefulness of your test depend on how carefully you keep this record. If you are getting a monitor implanted under your skin, you will receive instructions on how to prepare for the procedure. Talk to your doctor about any concerns you have regarding the need for the test, its risks, how it will be done, or what the results will mean. To help you understand the importance of this test, fill out the medical test information form(What is a PDF document?). How It Is Done Continuous recorders are the most common type of ambulatory electrocardiogram monitor. This type includes the Holter monitor. A continuous recorder provides a 24- to 72-hour record of the electrical signals from your heart. A standard EKG monitors only 40 to 50 heartbeats during the brief period you are attached to the machine. A continuous recorder monitors about 100,000 heartbeats in 24 hours and is likely to find any heart problems that happen with activity. For this test, you wear a lightweight, battery-operated tape recorder (monitor) on a strap over your shoulder or around your waist. The recorder is connected by wires to small metal discs (electrodes) taped to your chest. The electrodes detect the electrical signals from your heart. A clock is connected to the recorder so you can note what time it is when you have any symptoms. See a picture of a Holter monitor. You will be fitted with the recorder and electrodes by a technician in a doctor's office or hospital room. - Several areas on your chest may be shaved and cleaned, and then a small amount of electrode paste or gel will be applied to those areas. - The electrode pads will then be attached to the skin of your chest, with thin wires connecting the electrodes to the monitor. - You may be hooked up briefly to a standard EKG machine to ensure that the electrodes are working properly. While wearing the continuous recorder, you will also be asked to keep a diary of all your activities and symptoms, including the type of activity you were doing and the time your symptoms started. In the diary, write down the exact times when you exercise, climb stairs, eat, urinate, have a bowel movement, have sex, sleep, get emotionally upset, take medicine, or perform other activities. If you have any symptoms of heart problems, such as dizziness, fainting, chest pain, or palpitations, push the event-marker button on the recorder to mark it and write down the exact time and how long the symptom lasts. For example, you might write: "12:30 p.m. Ate lunch. 1:00 p.m. Argument with boss, had chest tightness for several minutes." When you sleep, try to stay on your back with the recorder carefully positioned at your side so that the electrodes are not pulled off. If one of the electrodes or lead wires comes loose, a light on the monitor will flash. Press on the center of each electrode to see if you can restore the contact. Call your doctor if one of the electrodes comes off and you can't get it to stay on. While you are wearing a monitor, try to stay away from magnets, metal detectors, high-voltage areas, garage door openers, microwave ovens, and electric blankets. Do not use an electric toothbrush or shaver. Signals from these types of electronic equipment can sometimes interfere with the recording. At the end of the recording period (usually 24 to 72 hours), you will return to the doctor's office or hospital to have the electrodes removed, or you may be able to remove the electrodes yourself. You will return the Holter monitor to your doctor's office or hospital. The recorded tape will be read by computer to provide information about your heart rate, the frequency of your heartbeats, and any irregularities. Your doctor will also look at your records of activities and symptoms and times they occurred. Your doctor will compare the timing of your activities and symptoms with the recorded heart pattern. Implantable continuous recorders Another type of continuous recorder can be implanted under the skin of the chest. This recorder can be kept in your chest for more than a year to record the electrical signals from your heart. Another kind of ambulatory EKG monitoring is the intermittent recorder, which is used when symptoms of an abnormal heart rhythm do not occur very often. An intermittent recorder can be used for a longer time than a continuous recorder. The information collected by an intermittent recorder can often be sent over the phone to a doctor's office, clinic, or hospital. You may be instructed to call your doctor, clinic, or hospital while you are having symptoms or soon after you record your heart rhythm so that the information on the monitor can be analyzed right away. The procedure for intermittent recording depends on the type of monitor used. Loop recorder. A loop recorder constantly records your heartbeats. This recorder lets you indicate when you have symptoms. Loop recorders also save a small amount of information about how your heart was beating when you pressed the recording button (presymptom recording). This feature is especially useful for people who lose consciousness when their heart problems occur and can press the button only after they wake up. - Electrodes will be attached to your chest in the same way as a continuous recorder. When you have symptoms, you press a button on the monitor to record your heart rhythm. If you pass out, you should start the recorder as soon as you wake up. Also, be sure a friend or family member knows how to start the recorder if you pass out. - An implantable form of the loop recorder can be worn for several weeks and may be a good choice for people who have symptoms that occur rarely, such as once every 6 months. It is surgically placed under the skin of the chest. The recorder might automatically start recording when it detects an arrhythmia. Or, you might use a handheld device to start the monitor when symptoms occur. Event monitor. This small device records your heartbeats only when symptoms of the heart problem occur. You are not attached to the machine. There are two types of event monitors. - One type is worn on the wrist like a watch. When symptoms occur, you press a button to start the EKG recording. - The other type is a device that you carry where you can reach it easily, such as in your purse or pocket. When symptoms occur, you press the back of the device against your chest and then press a button to start the recording. The back of the device has small metal discs that work like electrodes. These handheld monitors can be very small (some are about the size and shape of a credit card). The event monitor records heart signals only when you are holding it against your chest. How It Feels If you have electrodes placed on your skin, the electrode sites may itch slightly during the ambulatory EKG recording, and the skin on your chest may look or feel irritated when the electrodes are removed. The recording unit is very lightweight, so carrying it usually is not uncomfortable. There is no risk from ambulatory EKG monitoring. The electrodes placed on your skin detect only the electrical signals from your heart. No electricity is sent through your body, and there is no possibility of receiving an electric shock. An ambulatory electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) is a test that records the electrical signals that control your heartbeat while you do your everyday activities. No abnormal heart rhythms are found in the EKG information collected by the recorder. Your heart rate may go up when you are active and go down when you are sleeping. Many kinds of irregular heartbeats can be detected by ambulatory monitoring. The results of ambulatory heart monitoring are compared with your medical history, symptoms, and other test results. You may need to have the test repeated if the results aren't clear. What Affects the Test You may not be able to have the test or the results may not be helpful if: - You do not keep a detailed diary of your daily activities and symptoms. The intermittent recorder will give accurate results only if you remember to start the recorder when symptoms of possible heart problems occur. - The electrodes are not in the right spot. Ambulatory heart monitoring is most effective when you are able and willing to carefully follow instructions throughout the monitoring period. If you tend to pass out from a heart problem, your doctor will choose a monitor that will record these episodes. The continuous recorder and the loop recorder work best for people who pass out when they have symptoms of a heart problem. The loop recorder is not useful if you lose consciousness for more than a few minutes or if you are so confused when you wake up that you are unable to start the recorder. What To Think About - Many people have irregular heartbeats from time to time. What this means depends on the type of pattern these heartbeats produce, how often they occur, how long they last, and whether they occur at the same time you have symptoms. Irregular heartbeats that occur at the same time you have other symptoms, such as dizziness or chest pain, may mean that the irregular heartbeats are causing your symptoms. - Because a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG) is safe, inexpensive, and provides valuable information, your doctor will try it first before using an ambulatory monitor to test your heart function. A continuous recorder generally has 5 leads and provides less complete information than a 12-lead EKG. But a continuous recorder is more effective than a standard EKG for evaluating heart symptoms that occur intermittently. For more information, see the topic Electrocardiogram. Other Places To Get Help \|American Heart Association (AHA)\| \|7272 Greenville Avenue\| \|Dallas, TX 75231\| Visit the American Heart Association (AHA) website for information on physical activity, diet, and various heart-related conditions. You can search for information on heart disease and stroke, share information with friends and family, and use tools to help you make heart-healthy goals and plans. Contact the AHA to find your nearest local or state AHA group. The AHA provides brochures and information about support groups and community programs, including Mended Hearts, a nationwide organization whose members visit people with heart problems and provide information and support. \|Heart Rhythm Society\| \|1400 K Street NW\| \|Washington, DC 20005\| The Heart Rhythm Society provides information for patients and the public about heart rhythm problems. The website includes a section that focuses on patient information. This information includes causes, prevention, tests, treatment, and patient stories about heart rhythm problems. You can use the Find a Specialist section of the website to search for a heart rhythm specialist practicing in your area. \|National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)\| \|P.O. Box 30105\| \|Bethesda, MD 20824-0105\| The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) information center offers information and publications about preventing and treating: - Fischbach FT, Dunning MB III, eds. (2009). Manual of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests, 8th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. Other Works Consulted - Chernecky CC, Berger BJ (2008). Laboratory Tests and Diagnostic Procedures, 5th ed. St. Louis: Saunders. - Fischbach FT, Dunning MB III, eds. (2009). Manual of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests, 8th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. - Pagana KD, Pagana TJ (2010). Mosby’s Manual of Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests, 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby Elsevier. \|Primary Medical Reviewer\|\|Rakesh K. Pai, MD, FACC - Cardiology, Electrophysiology\| \|Specialist Medical Reviewer\|\|George Philippides, MD - Cardiology\| \|Last Revised\|\|December 9, 2011\| Last Revised: December 9, 2011 Author: Healthwise Staff To learn more visit Healthwise.org © 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.	3.299297
\|Tests and Services Inhalation Therapy Instruction What is a peak flow meter? A peak flow meter (PFM) is a device used to measure how well your child's asthma is under control. The device measures air flowing out of the lungs, called peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR), as a child with asthma forcefully blows into the device. A peak flow meter, when used properly, can reveal narrowing of the airways well in advance of an asthma attack. Used mainly by children with moderate to severe and persistent asthma, peak flow meters can help determine: Why should a peak flow meter be used? - when to seek emergency medical care. - the effectiveness of your child's asthma management and treatment plan. - when to stop or add medication, as directed by your child's physician. - what triggers the asthma attack (such as exercise-induced asthma). The PFM removes a lot of guesswork out of managing your child's asthma. It can provide you, your child's physician, or even the school teachers with information about how open the airways are in your child's lungs. The PFM can detect small changes in the large airways before your child starts to wheeze. Using a PFM every day will let you know when your child's peak flows are starting to drop. This allows you to make early changes in your child's medication or routine to help prevent your child's asthma symptoms from getting worse. The PFM can also identify the value at which you will need to call your child's physician or go to the emergency room. How to use a peak flow meter: What are peak flow zones? - Use the PFM once daily and whenever your child is experiencing early warning signs. Always use the PFM before taking reliever medication. - Hold the PFM by the handle. - Before each use, make sure the pointer is reset to zero. - Have your child stand up straight. Remove chewing gum or any food from your child's mouth. - Have your child take a deep breath and put the mouthpiece in his/her mouth. Seal his/her lips and teeth tightly around the mouthpiece. - Let your child blow out as hard and as fast as he/she can. Remember a fast blast is better than a slow blow. - Note the number where the pointer has stopped on the scale. - Reset the pointer to zero. - Repeat this routine three times. You will know your child has done the technique correctly when the numbers from all three tries are close together. - Record the highest of the three readings on a graph or in a notebook. Do not average these numbers together. This is called your peak flow. - Use the peak flow meter once a day. Measure peak flows about the same time each day. A good time might be when your child first wakes up or at bedtime. Peak flow zones are based on the traffic light concept: red means danger, yellow means caution, and green means safe. These zones are different for each person. Your child's physician will help determine your child's peak flow zones. The three peak flow zones include: The goal of the peak flow zones is to help recognize when the asthma may start to become uncontrolled. - Green: This is the GO zone! This zone is from 80 to 100 percent of your child's highest peak flow reading. This is the zone your child should be in every day. This is a signal that air moves well through the large airways and that your child can do the usual activities and go to sleep without trouble. When the peak flow readings are in this zone, your child should: avoid asthma triggers. - use controller medications every day. - use the reliever medications 15 to 20 minutes before exercise if your child has exercise-induced asthma, as directed by your child's physician. - Yellow: This is the CAUTION or SLOW DOWN zone! This zone is from 50 to 80 percent of your child's highest peak flow reading. This is a clue that the large airways are starting to narrow. Your child may begin to have mild symptoms. Your child may be coughing, feeling tired, feeling short of breath, or feeling like his/her chest is tightening. These symptoms may keep your child from his/her usual activities or from sleeping well. To keep your child's peak flow numbers from getting worse and get your child's asthma back under control, you will need to: continue to use the controller medication as your child's physician has ordered and avoid asthma triggers. - use the reliever medication as ordered by your child's physician. - make sure you are using the proper technique with your child's metered-dose inhaler and spacer. Red: This is the STOP zone! This zone is less than 50 percent of your child's highest peak flow reading. Readings in this zone are a medical emergency and you will need to get help right away. This means severe narrowing of the large airways has occurred. Your child may now be coughing, very short of breath, wheezing both when breathing in and out, or having retractions. Your child may also have problems walking and talking. Have your child take his/her reliever medication now and call your child's physician. How is a personal best peak flow measured? Each child's peak flow zones are based on his/her personal best peak flow number. To establish your child's personal best peak flow, have your child take his/her peak flow measurement each day at the same time for two to three weeks, when the asthma is under control. After recording your child's peak flow measurements for two to three weeks consistently, your child's physician may also measure the optimum lung function with a spirometer (a device that can check lung function by measuring both the amount of air expelled and how quickly the air was expelled). The spirometer measurement may then be compared with the peak flow meter record to help set up an asthma management and treatment plan. Your child's personal best peak flow measurement may change over time. Consult your child's physician as to when to check for a new personal best peak flow measurement. When should a peak flow meter be used? Peak flow meters should be used regularly to check how well the asthma is being controlled. In addition, the peak flow meter may be a valuable tool during an asthma attack, because it can help determine how well the short-term, quick-relief asthma medication is working. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recommends measuring lung function during the following times: The peak flow meter is a tool to help collect information. The key to successful asthma management is communicating this information (the peak flow meter recordings, the severity of your child's symptoms, and the effectiveness of your child's medications) to your child's physician. - every morning, before taking asthma medications - during asthma symptoms or an asthma attack - after taking medication for an asthma attack - other times as recommended by your child's physician How can I obtain a peak flow meter? Consult your child's physician about obtaining a peak flow meter and for step-by-step instructions on how to use the device. If you are using more than one peak flow meter, be sure they are the same brand. What are oximeters? An oximeter is a small machine that measures oxygen saturation (the amount of oxygen) in your child's blood. To get this measurement, a small sensor (similar to an adhesive bandage) is taped onto your child's finger or toe. When the oximeter is on, a small red light can be seen in the sensor. The sensor is painless and the red light does not get hot. What is a spirometer? A spirometer is a device used by your child's physician that assesses lung function. Spirometry, the evaluation of lung function with a spirometer, is one of the simplest, most common pulmonary function tests and may be necessary for any of the following reasons: After taking a deep breath, your child forcefully breathes out into the spirometer as completely and forcefully as possible. The spirometer measures both the amount of air expelled and how quickly the air was expelled from the lungs. The measurements are recorded by the spirometer. - to determine how well the lungs receive, hold, and utilize air - to monitor a lung disease - to monitor the effectiveness of treatment - to determine the severity of a lung disease - to determine whether the lung disease is restrictive (decreased airflow) or obstructive (disruption of airflow) The normal, healthy values measured by the spirometer for the amount of air exhaled vary from child to child. Your results are compared to the average expected in someone of the same age, height, sex, and race, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). However, if the values fall below 85 percent of the average, it may indicate a lung disease or other airflow obstruction. If a child has abnormal spirometer measurements, he/she may be referred for other lung tests to establish a diagnosis. Hand-Held Nebulizer Treatments A nebulizer is a type of inhaler that sprays a fine, liquid mist of medication. This is done through a mask, using oxygen or air under pressure, or an ultrasonic machine (often used by persons who cannot use a metered-dose inhaler, such as infants and young children, and persons with severe asthma). A mouthpiece is connected to a machine via plastic tubing to deliver the medication. The medications used in nebulizers help your child by loosening the mucus in the lungs so it can be coughed out more easily, and by relaxing the airway muscles so that more air can move in and out of the lungs. Breathing the medication straight into the lungs works better and faster than taking the medication by mouth. Nebulizer treatments take about 15 to 20 minutes to give the medication. Giving a treatment: The following steps are recommended when giving a treatment to your child. However, always consult your child's physician for specific instructions. After each treatment: Gather supplies needed, including: - medication to be nebulized - nebulizer set (nebulizer cup, mouthpiece or mask, tubing to connect to nebulizer machine) - Find a quiet activity to do while your child sits up for the treatment (i.e., reading a book or playing a quiet game). - Place the nebulizer on a flat surface (i.e., table or the floor). - Plug the unit into a wall outlet. - Connect the air tubing to the nebulizer machine. - Put the medication into the nebulizer cup and screw the cap on securely. - Connect the other end of the air tubing to the nebulizer cup. - Connect the mouthpiece or face mask to the nebulizer cup. - Turn the machine on. - Check to make sure a fine mist of medication is coming through the face mask or mouthpiece. - Place the mouthpiece in the child's mouth with the lips sealed around the mouthpiece. - Encourage your child to take slow deep breaths in and out of their mouth. The mist should disappear with each breath. - Place the mask over your child's mouth and nose. The adjustable elastic band may be used to hold the mask in place. - Encourage your child to take deep breaths in and out for the duration of the treatment. - Encourage your child to continue slow, deep breaths until all the medication in the nebulizer cup is gone. You may need to tap the sides of the nebulizer cup to ensure all medication is given. - Turn the nebulizer off. - If the child's treatment plan orders peak flow measurements, obtain these before the treatment starts and after the treatment is completed. Notes for parents: - Disconnect the nebulizer cup from the tubing. - Open the cup and wash all pieces in a mild dish soap and water. (Do not wash or rinse the tubing.) - Rinse all pieces. - Air dry on a clean towel. - Store the dried nebulizer cup and tubing in a plastic bag. - Once a week rinse the nebulizer cup in a vinegar/water solution, as directed by you physician, after washing. - Stay with your child throughout the nebulizer treatment. - If your child should vomit or have a severe coughing spell during the treatment, stop the treatment, let the child rest for a few minutes, then resume the treatment. - Check the filter on the nebulizer machine once a week. When it becomes discolored, replace with a new filter. - Always keep a spare nebulizer kit at home. When you are down to your last two kits, contact your medical equipment company to deliver more. What medications are commonly used for children with asthma? The use of medications in children is highly individualized, based on the severity of the child's symptoms, the age of the child, and the ability of the child to take inhaled medications. The following are the most commonly used medications: Inhalation Therapy Instruction - Departments & Programs - Children's National Medical Center These medications are used to help open the narrowed lungs and may relieve coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, or difficulty in breathing. These are usually considered rescue medications for acute attacks of asthma. Types of bronchodilators are beta-agonists, theophylline, and anticholinergics. These medications come inhaled, in pill form, liquid, or injectables. The short-acting bronchodilators are used as needed as symptoms occur. Longer acting bronchodilators may be used for maintenance or on a daily basis to help control flare-ups from occurring. - anti-inflammatory medications These medications help to decrease the inflammation that is happening in the airways with asthma. These include two types of medications: - nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) Cromolyn and nedocromil are two types of nonsteroidal medications that are usually inhaled by the child. These medications can be given in a variety of ways. Some of them are inhaled, while others may be taken as a pill or liquid, or even as an injection. The steroids taken by mouth can have more side effects than those that are inhaled. Inhaled steroids are safe and effective controller medications and should be taken every day. Consult your child's physician about the best choice for your child. These are a relatively new type of medication being used to help control the symptoms of asthma. These medications help to decrease the narrowing of the lung and to decrease the chance of fluids in the lungs. These are usually given by mouth.	3.517614
ADOLESCENT MEDICINE :: Orthopaedic Problems What is scoliosis? A normal spine, when viewed from behind, appears straight. However, a spine affected by scoliosis shows evidence of a lateral, or sideways, curvature, and a rotation of the back bones (vertebrae), giving the appearance that the person is leaning to one side. The Scoliosis Research Society defines scoliosis as a curvature of the spine measuring 10 degrees or greater on x-ray. Scoliosis is a type of spinal deformity and should not be confused with poor posture. Four common types of curve patterns seen in scoliosis are: What causes scoliosis? In most (80 to 85 percent) cases, the cause of scoliosis is unknown - a condition called idiopathic scoliosis. Scoliosis is more common in females than males. According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, three to five out of every 1,000 children develop spinal curves that are considered large enough to require treatment. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, in cooperation with the Scoliosis Research Society, describe three different types of scoliosis that can occur in children - congenital (present at birth), neuromuscular, or idiopathic. Other causes of scoliosis may include: What are the symptoms of scoliosis? The following are the most common symptoms of scoliosis. However, each adolescent may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include: Back pain, leg pain, and changes in bowel and bladder habits are not commonly associated with idiopathic scoliosis. A adolescent experiencing these types of symptoms requires further medical evaluation by a physician. The symptoms of scoliosis may resemble other spinal conditions or deformities, or may be a result of an injury or infection. Always consult your adolescent's physician for a diagnosis. How is scoliosis diagnosed? The physician makes the diagnosis of scoliosis with a complete medical history of the adolescent, physical examination, and diagnostic tests. The physician obtains a complete prenatal and birth history of the adolescent and asks if other family members are known to have scoliosis. The physician will also ask about developmental milestones since some types of scoliosis can be associated with other neuromuscular disorders. Developmental delays may require further medical evaluation. In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, x-rays (a diagnostic test which uses invisible electromagnetic energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones, and organs onto film) are the primary diagnostic tool for scoliosis. In establishing a diagnosis of scoliosis, the physician measures the degree of spinal curvature on the x-ray. The following other diagnostic procedures may be performed for nonidiopathic curvatures, atypical curve patterns, or congenital scoliosis: Early detection of scoliosis is most important for successful treatment. Pediatricians or family physicians, and even some school programs, routinely look for signs that scoliosis may be present. Treatment of scoliosis: Specific treatment of scoliosis will be determined by your adolescent's physician based on: The goal of treatment is to stop the progression of the curve and prevent deformity. Treatment may include: According to the Scoliosis Research Society, there is no scientific evidence to show that other methods for treating scoliosis (i.e., manipulation, electrical stimulation, and corrective exercise) prevent the progression of the disease. Long-term outlook for an adolescent with scoliosis: The management of scoliosis is individualized for each adolescent depending on his/her age, amount of curvature, and amount of time remaining for skeletal growth. Scoliosis will require frequent examinations by your adolescent's physician to monitor the curve as your adolescent grows and develops. Early detection is important. If left untreated, scoliosis can cause problems with heart and lung function. Click here to view the It is important to remember the health information found on this website is for reference only not intended to replace the advice and guidance of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately. © Children's Hospital of Orange County	3.871552
Since African Americans fought for freedom from slavery in the 19th century, many have called for reparations–financial compensation for the years of chattel slavery. Although former slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule to help them rebound from being enslaved, the program was short-lived, and many have been wondering if African Americans–like their Jewish counterparts–would ever see proper compensation for suffering such heinous atrocities in this country. While we will probably never see financial compensation for slavery, many have argued that blacks in America should receive reparations in the form of a free college education or student loan debt forgiveness, while other still hold fast to the “40 acres and a mule” philosophy and want land. In June, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) is holding a conference to examine why African Americans should still be granted reparations more than 150 years after slavery ended. “After the passage of the 13Th and 14Th amendments, laws were passed to re-enslave people of African descent through Jim Crow laws. The New Jim Crow is a result of the low-intensity war against the Black community under the guise of a ‘War on Drugs,’ in addition to ongoing discrimination, and an extension of the slavery experience for Black people,” NCOBRA writes. NCOBRA’s reparations conference takes place in Philadelphia June 22-24. What are your thoughts on reparations? Do you think African Americans will ever see some form of reparations by the U.S. government?	3.283206
The success of a concurrent system depends on well designed hardware, flexible software that controls the hardware, and clear marketing vision. To adapt the changing marketing requirement, hardware and software need to have flexible architectures. This article is focused on software development issues, and discusses concurrency design at application layer as opposed to concurrency inside the Operating System. Any multi-threaded system can be considered a concurrent system; for example, a lengthy task can be implemented as a background thread so that it will not block the graphical user interface. Here, we are discussing concurrent systems which can be characterized by the following traits: - System input and output can be clearly identified. - System internal consists of system resources, such as hardware modules, which are used to process system input and generates system output. - One or more execution steps are needed for a system input to be processed by system resources and to become a system output. - The system resources and their relationship are identified by system analysis. The concurrency properties of system resources determine the constraints between execution steps, which ultimately define the system concurrency behavior. The above description can be illustrated in figure 1. The system consists of three resources: 2 inputs and 2 outputs. Each input needs to go through two steps to become output. Resources 1 and 2 are independent and can be parallel. The output of resources 1 and 2 are the input of resource 3, which is independent of 1 and 2. Figure 1. A Sample Concurrent System Most concurrent systems have these design goals: - Have an easy to understand software architecture so that the desired concurrency can be implemented and verified quickly. - Have a solid system concurrency kernel to adapt system environmental changes such as inconsistent hardware responses, and still achieve high system reliability. - Have a good scalable architecture to adapt new requirement changes. - System concurrency and throughput are well understood by all teams involved in the system specification and design, not just by a few key software engineers. Therefore, the concurrent software should expose how the current system internally works with minimum cost, so that the team communications can be conducted effectively. - Different system concurrencies can be achieved with different execution configurations without major interruption to the system reliability. For a complex concurrent system, the design cost to achieve such goals could be very high for inexperienced engineers. Most systems end up with only a few engineers who can understand and maintain the fragile concurrent kernels. What is needed to meet the concurrent system design goal from a management perspective? - To have the capability to quickly understand the marketing or hardware concurrency requirement, and to provide a clear road map on how to achieve the desired software system concurrency at an early stage of development, not when delivering the alpha or beta product. This requires the software engineer to have a clear understanding of the system resource concurrency at the very beginning. - To shorten the cycle of turning the desired concurrency into a real functioning software system. - To communicate the achievable concurrency goal to other teams frequently, and to adjust the concurrency accordingly based on new marketing input, or new resource constraints improvements or limitations, such as hardware. The followings are common issues found in a concurrent software design: - The software team member is not very experienced in concurrency design. Most teams have engineers knowing threads, critical sections, semaphores, and events. But, this usually does not guarantee achieving the design goals listed above. - The understanding of system concurrency is very slow. The software engineer could not present a full picture of how the system concurrency design is going to be working until the alpha or beta stage. Therefore, nobody will question how the system concurrency is designed since there is no good method to communicate the software design. The engineer usually gives you his/her understanding of the system concurrency on small pieces, which is hard to convince the software team manager or other teams that the software team has fully understood the system and will be able to deliver on schedule. - The marketing group has a wrong system throughput assumption and commitment at the beginning of a project, with false understanding of the system resource constraints, or the complexity for available engineers to achieve the desired high throughput without sacrificing software system reliability. The marketing group might assume that software engineers could just achieve it, but have no way to verify it during the process until it is too late. - Almost all designs do not have a clear distinction between the code controlling the system resource operation and the code performing the system resource concurrency. This architecture makes it very hard to enhance upon new concurrency requirements. By simply using a synchronization object, such as a critical section, event, or semaphore from the Operating System, it's almost impossible to perform such a partition without a major investment on the system architecture design. Unfortunately, most applications do not separate the two domains and let one engineer handle all of them, who is already overwhelmed by the concurrency choreography. The software manager usually does not understand the importance of such a design, or they don't have the time to spend on infrastructure building, and just want to see something is beginning to work. The result is that more time will be wasted during debugging and the feature enhancement period. - The fragile concurrency architecture is hard to understand. It is almost impossible for new engineers to take over the design, except to abandon the old one, and then propose a "better architecture" which usually goes through the same design cycle and delays the schedule. The software manager usually is not aware of the engineer's redesign approach except to accept it, since both the engineer and manager have no choice to improve the old architecture. - The manager and software engineer mistakenly think that object oriented analysis of the concurrent hardware modules will guarantee a good concurrent software design which delivers a flexible concurrent software architecture. Most OOA just help engineers to identify objects in a system without concurrency analysis, and engineers have to use a synchronization object in the Operating System to address concurrency. If this approach is used, it will not help achieve the concurrent system design goals listed above. Unfortunately, most systems are designed with such approach. - Engineers begin to experience an unexplained hang, and begin to put a sleep function somewhere to solve weird timing problems, simply because the understanding of system resource concurrency is not complete at the beginning, and the design can not adapt to a different running environment. When switching to different platforms, such as a faster machine, software needs major retest, or a possible overhaul. And the engineer and the manager begin to hide facts from the upper manager. The development cost goes up, and the software always needs major "improvements" to adapt to a new hardware with a newly tuned concurrency, which should not happen if it is well designed at the beginning. - Typically, the design of a system concurrency is architected by a senior person in a team, and it is very hard for other people to challenge the delicate design. System maintenance and enhancement for the concurrency part is a major issue with such a design approach. How to Address Those Issues The cost of making a complex concurrent system flexible and reliable is extremely high for average engineers who simply use the Operating System's critical section, semaphore, event, and thread. To address the above problems, we need to develop a platform to help engineers in modeling a concurrent system with an easily understood object model, communicating the design by a user friendly graphical user interface, and verifying the internal concurrency of the design quickly by simulation. - A simple concurrent object model is needed. An object oriented analysis method based on the model should be easy to perform. - An inter-task communication mechanism is provided based on the object model to allow task synchronization. - A design development toolkit is needed to support the object oriented analysis, and helps software engineers to spend more time on understanding the system concurrency, and system resource controlling during implementation, instead of struggling with multithreaded code that is implemented with Operating System synchronization objects such as critical sections, semaphores, and events. - The design platform provides a graphic presentation of the system concurrent execution status that helps software engineers to present and to validate a design effectively. Eventually, it will help the whole team, even different groups, to understand the system concurrency internals. - The object model and its development toolkit allow separation of the code performing system resource concurrency and the code performing system resource control. In figure 1, the code controlling Resource 1 is a resource control domain. The code controlling independent Resources 1 and 2 to operate in parallel is a system resource concurrency domain. This architecture helps the manager to partition the concurrent system design work into two domains so that it can be assigned to different engineers to improve team productivity and product reliability. Usually, a manager will not offer a resource to implement above the environment to help the design long term, since it is very time consuming and no immediate results can be seen. JEK Platform is designed to address these issues with the above concurrent system design goals, and makes concurrent problems easier to model for software engineers. JEK SDK automatically turns a modeled application job into a concurrent execution engine. The object model also separates the resource synchronization code and the resource control code, so that the engineer can spend more time understanding system concurrency, instead of dealing with Operating System synchronization objects, which is used by most software engineers. It will also help the engineer to spend more time communicating their understanding of the system concurrency within a team, or with other teams. Here, two samples are presented (please go to www.jekplatform.com/CodeProjectSamples.htm to get the source code) to demonstrate how the JEK Platform works: - Sample 1: Philosophers dining problem. - Sample 2: Automated coffee machine. Sample 1. Philosophers Dining Problem The philosophers dining problem is five philosophers sitting around a table doing what they do best: thinking and eating. In the middle of the table is a plate of food, and in between each philosopher is a fork. The philosophers spend most of their time thinking, but when they get hungry, they reach for the two forks next to them and start eating. A philosopher cannot begin eating until he has both forks. When he is done eating, he puts the sticks down and continues thinking. To solve the problem with JEK Platform, five routes are defined to represent the actions of five philosophers. Each route has two tasks: eat and think. Obviously, eat task of each philosopher's route can not be active at the same time because of resource constraints. A Mutex synchronization resource is used to restrict the eat task of each philosopher. The resource allocation scheduling algorithm in the JEK Kernel has an important feature to avoid a deadlock in this sample: if one philosopher gets a fork and finds another is already taken, it will release the one and notify other tasks in other routes so that other philosopher can continue to eat. The following diagram, figure 2, illustrates the philosopher dining job execution engine's timing diagram. The application code is pretty simply since it does not need to handle threads and thread synchronization that is handled in the JEK SDK, but simply describes the resources (forks) and tasks (philosophers' actions). Figure 2. JEK Studio monitors the philosophers dining job execution In figure 2, JEK Studio GUI has four components illustrated by four yellow bubbles: - The task matrix presents the application engine internal structure and the real-time execution activity status. - The task timing diagram presents a more detailed real-time execution status for tasks, which helps developers to understand and to validate concurrent system behavior quickly. - The activity resource matrix presents real-time task activity resource status. - The synchronization resource matrix presents real-time task occupy status. - The task trace window displays log status, which is also saved in a log file. In JEK Studio, five routes are shown in the task matrix. Its execution is shown in the task execution timing diagram. The four blue bubbles are explained as follows: - Blue bubble 1. Job execution engine starts to execute job. Philosophers 1 and 4 start to eat. - Blue bubble 2. Philosophers 3 and 5 start to eat at the same time. Philosophers 1 and 4 start to rest at the same time. The reason that philosopher 3 and 5 can start to eat at the same time is because the application code is configured so that the eat time for all philosophers are the same. The rest times are also the same for all philosophers. - Blue bubble 3. It's interesting to observe the job execution status after a few loops. Philosophers 1, 2, 4 are resting. Philosophers 3 and 5 are eating. If observed carefully, philosophers 3 and 5 are not starting to eat at the exact same time. Philosophers 1, 2, 4 do not rest at the same time. - Blue bubble 4. This is another interesting job execution status. Only one philosopher, #2, is eating at this moment. Philosophers 1, 3, 4, 5 are all resting. The reason, the resting times of all philosophers are longer than eating times. - Another observation is that fairness is not guaranteed for each route. It's unpredictable which philosopher will get a chance to eat next time based on the scheduler used. - Route starvation is possible. In other words, some philosophers might never get a chance to eat. This is not demonstrated in the graph since the result is random. You can try to start the engine a few times and the results could be different each time. If not using simulation, it is very hard for a software engineer to answer: if scenarios marked by the blue bubbles 3 and 4 are possible. Sample 2. Automated Coffee Machine An automated coffee machine mixes milk, sugar, and coffee into a cup, and serves the cup to customer when it is done. Figure 3. Coffee machine model analysis The coffee machine has five robots: - Platform robot. It holds the coffee cup, so that milk, sugar, and coffee can be poured into it and gets mixed. After the coffee is mixed, it moves the cup with the mixed coffee to a customer. - Cup robot. It puts an empty cup onto the platform robot. - Milk robot. It pours milk into the coffee cup on the platform robot. - Sugar robot. It pours sugar into the coffee cup on the platform robot. - Coffee robot. It pours coffee into the coffee cup on the platform robot. Coffee machine operating procedure: - All robots are in initial positions. - Cup robot puts an empty cup onto the platform cup. - Milk robot pours milk into cup. - Sugar robot pours sugar into cup. - Step 3 and step 4 can be parallel. - Coffee robot pours coffee into cup. - Platform robot moves mixed coffee to customer. Important operating requirements of the coffee machine are as follows: - Above operating procedures have to be followed. Otherwise, the robot's positions might be in wrong places, and results in robot damages. - Milk and sugar need to be poured into the cup before coffee, so that the coffee can be mixed properly without requiring adding a coffee stir robot that increases the complexity of the machine. To solve the problem with JEK Platform, two routes are defined. One route is designed to control the cup robot and the platform robots. Another route is designed to control milk, sugar, and coffee robots. The reason to define these routes is that the task steps inside each route are sequential. The synchronization resource between routes is the platform robot. For detailed analysis and code, please go to http://www.jekplatform.com/CodeProjectSamples.htm to download the complete JEK Platform and to look for sample section 7: Machine Control. Figure 4 is the coffee machine execution timing diagram implemented with the JEK SDK and presented with the JEK Studio. X axis is time. Y axis is tasks. A bar is the execution time for a task. Tasks within one route are displayed with one color. Different tasks in one route are displayed with different Y axis values. Multiple bars in the same Y axis represent the same task executed at different times. Route 1 controlling milk, sugar, and coffee robot (orange color) has three tasks from bottom to top: - Task1_1: control milk robot to pour milk. - Task1_2: control sugar robot to pour sugar. - Task1_3: control coffee robot to pour coffee. Route 2 controlling cup robot (blue) has two tasks from bottom to top: - Task2_1: control cup robot to put cup onto platform robot. - Task2_2: control platform robot to serve mixed coffee to customer. The six blue bubbles in figure 4 are explained as follows: - Blue bubble 1. Task2_1 puts a cup onto the platform robot. - Blue bubble 2. Task1_1 and Task1_2 pour milk and sugar into an empty cup at the same time. - Blue bubble 3. Task1_2 finishes pouring sugar and Task1_1 is still pouring milk. - Blue bubble 4. Task1_3 starts pouring coffee. - Blue bubble 5. Task2_2 controls the platform robot to serve mixed coffee. - Blue bubble 6. Repeat the same process. Figure 4. Coffee machine execution status of solution 1 This robot is not very efficient. Route 1 is idle after blue bubble 5. To increase the throughput, another independent platform robot is added to make route 1 as busy as possible. The position of platform robot 1 is different from that of platform robot 2. Therefore, the control code for pouring milk, sugar, and coffee is different in context, but have the same structure. Figure 5 is a new robot diagram. Figure 5. Platform 2 robot is added Route 3 (burgundy red color) is added to serve second cup, which is presented as red in figure 6. It has identical tasks as defined in route 2. Since a new platform robot is added, route 2 and 3 are redefined as follows: Route 2 controlling cup robot (blue) has two tasks: - Task2_1: control cup robot to put cup onto platform robot 1. - Task2_2: control platform robot 1 to serve mixed coffee to customer 1. Route 3 controlling cup robot (burgundy red) has two tasks: - Task3_1: control cup robot to put cup onto platform robot 2. - Task3_2: control platform robot 2 to serve mixed coffee to customer 2. Figure 6. Solution 2 coffee machine has two platform robots The five blue bubbles in figure 6 are explained as follows. - Blue bubble 1. Task3_1 puts the cup onto platform robot 2. Both routes 2 and 3 are started at the same time, but only one route can use the cup robot. It is random that route 2 gets the cup robot. - Blue bubble 2. Task1_1 and Task1_2 pour milk and sugar into an empty cup at the same time after a cup is put on platform robot 2. Note: the execution context of route 2 is platform robot 1 since it has a different location than platform robot 2. In other words, the control code is different when the context is different. - Blue bubble 3. Task2_1 starts to put a cup on platform robot 1. Coffee robot uses task1_3 to pour coffee into the cup on platform robot 1. Both tasks are started at the same time. - Blue bubble 4. Platform robot 2 uses task3_2 to serve mixed coffee to customer 2. Task1_1 and Task1_2 pour milk and sugar into an empty cup on platform robot 1. The route 1 execution context (pouring milk, sugar, and coffee into which platform robot) is not visible from the timing diagram. It is only visible from the trace window or log file. - Blue bubble 5. Task1_3 pours coffee into platform robot 1. Comparing figures 4 and 6, route 1 is almost busy all the time. Therefore, the throughput of the coffee machine with two platform robots is increased. But, if looking carefully, the machine with two platform robots can be even faster. The reason is that the coffee robot can serve another platform robot while milk and sugar robots are serving one platform robot, if the time of putting one cup on the platform is shorter than the time of pouring coffee by the coffee robot. To increase the speed of the coffee machine, an engine design with different route configuration is used. Route 1 represents the actions of serving sugar, milk, and coffee to platform robot 1. Route 2 represents the actions of serving sugar, milk, and coffee to platform robot 2. The design of route 3 and 4 are the same as before. Figure 7 is the timing diagram of a new coffee machine. Figure 7. New concurrency of higher system throughput for the coffee machine with 2 platform robots The five blue bubbles in figure 7 are explained as follows: - Blue bubble 1. Task4_1 puts cup onto platform robot 1. - Blue bubble 2. Task1_1 and Task1_2 pour milk and sugar into empty cup at the same time to the cup platform robot 1. The cut robot starts to put a cup on platform 2 since it is free at this time. - Blue bubble 3. Task2_2 starts to add sugar into cup 2 on platform robot 2. The reason that this action can happen is that the sugar robot just finishes adding sugar for cup 1 on platform robot 1. It is also clear that the milk robot is still busy pouring milk into cup 1. Therefore, cup 2 only has sugar for now. - Blue bubble 4. Task2_1 starts to pour milk into cup 2 since it just finishes pouring milk for cup 1 on platform robot 1. Coffee robot begins to add coffee into cup 1 on platform robot 1. - Blue bubble 5. Cup robot begins to serve cup 1 to customer since coffee is done for cup 1. It is obvious that the choreography of this new coffee machine is different from that of the previous coffee machine. It appears to a user that its robots are smarter and works more intelligently since it starts to do the next job more promptly. The above three samples demonstrate the following: - It is easy to model and to analyze the concurrency of machine control with the JEK Platform. - To adapt to a new hardware configuration, the JEK SDK helps achieve new system concurrency with minimum code changes. - JEK Studio can visually identify system throughput potential quickly so that better throughput can be achieved. - The samples demonstrated in these solutions have a pretty simple architecture (see downloaded code). If not using the JEK Platform, can we solve the problem quickly? A few questions are raised here. - If several teams, such as marketing, hardware, and software, are working on the product, they might stop when solution 2 is working. Do they know that solution 3 is the best solution? Can they figure it out quickly? - Team members might be satisfied when they see that robots are working in parallel. If it is found that improvements can be made, how much code change is needed from solution 2 to solution 3 if implemented with synchronization objects in the Operating System? - How much competitiveness a company would gain to have a more efficient and reliable machine? How to Get the Two Samples Please go to http://www.jekplatform.com/CodeProjectSamples.htm to download the complete JEK Platform which includes the two samples.	3.212391
This multimedia lesson for Grades 7-10 explores the physical forces that act in concert to create snowflakes. Students build an apparatus that creates conditions similar to a winter cloud and produce their own snow crystals indoors. By watching the snow crystals grow, they learn about how snowflake size and shape is determined by the forces that act on water molecules at the atomic and molecular levels. Digital models and snowflake photo galleries bring together a cohesive package to help kids visualize what's happening at the molecular scale. Editor's Note: This lab activity calls for dry ice. See Related Materials for a link to the NOAA's "Dry Ice Safety" Guidelines, and for a link to snow crystal images produced by an electron microscope. Lewis structures, VSEPR, condensation, covalent bond, crystals, electron sharing, ice, physics of snowflakes, snow formation, valence electrons, valence shell Metadata instance created January 2, 2013 by Caroline Hall January 2, 2013 by Caroline Hall AAAS Benchmark Alignments (2008 Version) 4. The Physical Setting 4B. The Earth 6-8: 4B/M15. The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace amounts of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases. 4D. The Structure of Matter 6-8: 4D/M1a. All matter is made up of atoms, which are far too small to see directly through a microscope. 6-8: 4D/M1cd. Atoms may link together in well-defined molecules, or may be packed together in crystal patterns. Different arrangements of atoms into groups compose all substances and determine the characteristic properties of substances. 6-8: 4D/M3cd. In solids, the atoms or molecules are closely locked in position and can only vibrate. In liquids, they have higher energy, are more loosely connected, and can slide past one another; some molecules may get enough energy to escape into a gas. In gases, the atoms or molecules have still more energy and are free of one another except during occasional collisions. 9-12: 4D/H2. The number of protons in the nucleus determines what an atom's electron configuration can be and so defines the element. An atom's electron configuration, particularly the outermost electrons, determines how the atom can interact with other atoms. Atoms form bonds to other atoms by transferring or sharing electrons. 9-12: 4D/H7a. Atoms often join with one another in various combinations in distinct molecules or in repeating three-dimensional crystal patterns. 12. Habits of Mind 12C. Manipulation and Observation 6-8: 12C/M3. Make accurate measurements of length, volume, weight, elapsed time, rates, and temperature by using appropriate devices. <a href="http://www.compadre.org/precollege/items/detail.cfm?ID=12568">WGBH Educational Foundation. Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010.</a> Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? (WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston, 2010), WWW Document, (http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/). Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. (2010). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from WGBH Educational Foundation: http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ WGBH Educational Foundation. Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010. http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ (accessed 21 May 2013). Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010. 21 May 2013 <http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/>. %T Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? %D 2010 %I WGBH Educational Foundation %C Boston %U http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ %O application/pdf %0 Electronic Source %D 2010 %T Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? %I WGBH Educational Foundation %V 2013 %N 21 May 2013 %9 application/pdf %U http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.	3.987314
Function Sponsored by Tony O’Lenick explores the difference between germicidal and conditioning quats. Quat is surfactant jargon for a quaternary ammonium compound. This class of compounds includes nitrogen-containing materials in which the nitrogen has four nonhydrogens surrounding them. Quats by virtue of their fatty group and their cationic group are substantive to hair, skin and cell walls of bacteria. These substrates are fatty in nature and generally have a negative charge, the result of oxidation of sulfur-bearing amino acids. The nature of the interaction between hair, skin and bacteria cell walls is critical to the function of the quat at the surface. If the quat coats the hair and skin with minimal penetration, it is mild and conditioning. If the quat is made to maximize the disruption of the bacteria cell wall, it will be antimicrobial.	3.001326
Jordan Table of Contents Figure 5. Population of the East Bank by Age and Sex, 1987 Source: Based on information from Jordan, Department of Statistics, Statistical Yearbook, 1987, Amman, 1988, 18. Figure 6. United Nations Relief and Works Agency Camps in Jordan, 1989 Source: Based on information from United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Jordan. Official Jordanian statistics gave a 1987 population figure of 2,896,800 for the East Bank. A 1982 population of 2,399,300 thus indicated an annual growth rate of between 3.6 and 4 percent. United Nations statistics projected a peak in the annual growth rate at 4.11 percent in the period from 1990 to 1995, followed by a steady decline to 2.88 percent in 2020. Rapid development in the provision of health care services during the 1970s and 1980s led to a decline in the crude death rate from 17 per 1,000 population in 1965 to 7 per 1,000 population by 1986 (see Health and Welfare , this ch.). During the same period, the infant mortality rate, a major indicator of a country's development and health status, dropped from 115 to 46 per 1,000 live births. In 1986 life expectancy at birth was sixty-five years (sixty-three for males and sixty-seven for females). The lowered death rate, a high birth rate, and lowered infant mortality rate combined to generate a major demographic problem in the late 1980s. At the end of the decade, more than half Jordan's population was below fifteen years of age (see fig. 5). This situation strained the country's already limited resources, and employment for the burgeoning group of young people became increasingly difficult to provide. Accurate demographic figures were difficult to compile because of the substantial number of Jordanians residing and working abroad and the continuous flow of West bank Palestinians with Jordanian passports back and forth between the East and West banks. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, about 224,000 people were admitted to UNRWA refugee camps in the East Bank immediately after the June 1967 War. In 1986 UNRWA cited 826,128 registered refugees living on the East Bank, of whom about 205,000 were living in refugee camps. The exact number of Palestinians living on the East Bank was unknown. Estimates usually ranged from 60 to 70 percent of the total population. Official government statistics did not distinguish between East Bank and West Bank Jordanians (see Palestinians , this ch.). The government did not have an officially articulated population policy or birth control program. Rather, in 1979 it adopted a "child spacing program" that was designed to improve the health of mother and child, and not specifically to lower the fertility rate. This noninterventionist approach considered family planning to be one component of an integrated maternal-child health and primary health care program. Government clinics and private medical services delivered family planning services upon request and contraceptives were widely available at low cost. In 1987 there were 116 maternal-child health care centers--up from 93 in 1983-- providing prenatal and postnatal care and a wide range of birth control information. Jordan's high population growth can be attributed primarily to high fertility rates. In 1986 the World Bank (see Glossary) calculated this rate as 6.0 births for each woman over the span of her reproductive years, one of the highest fertility rates in the region. This rate was projected to decline to 4.2 births by the year 2000. The fertility rate varied, however, between women residing in rural and urban areas and according to educational attainment. Educated women tended to marry at a slightly older age than uneducated women, and this delay contributed to a lower fertility rate. Urban women achieved lower fertility rates through modern methods of contraception, particularly the pill. Fertility rates were lowest in Amman, higher in smaller urban areas such as Irbid and Az Zarqa, and highest in rural areas. In rural areas modern contraceptive usage was lower, although breast-feeding, which serves to delay the return of fertility, was extended for a longer period than in the cities. World Bank data indicated that 27 percent of married women of child-bearing age were using contraception in the 1980s. A woman was expected to have to bear five children, including at least two sons, in fairly rapid succession. Women gained status and security in their marital household by bearing children. According to a study conducted in the early 1980s by Jordanian anthropologists Seteney Shami and Lucine Taminian in a poor, squatter area in Amman, reproductive behavior was subject to several factors. If a woman had given birth to two or more sons, she might begin to space her pregnancies or stop bearing children for a while. Household structure--nuclear, extended, or multiple family--also appeared to be a crucial factor in determining fertility. The presence of other women in a household encouraged women to bear more children to improve their relative position in the household. The overall population density for the East Bank in 1987 was established at about thirty persons per square kilometer. There was wide regional variation and the rate of urbanization was high. East of Al Mafraq, in an area encompassing almost two-thirds of the country, no towns had a population of more than 10,000. The bulk of Jordan's population was centered in the governorate of Amman and the smaller urban areas of Irbid, As Salt, and Az Zarqa. The 1987 population totals of the eight governorates ranged from 1,203,000 in Amman to 101,000 in the Maan Governorate. According to World Bank figures, about 70 percent of the population lived in urban areas. The nation's capital, Amman, accounted for more than one- third of the total population. Rapid urbanization appeared to be the result of a high fertility rate and rural-urban migration. If urbanization continued at the high annual rate of 4 to 5 percent, it was estimated that by the year 2000, nearly three-fourths of the population could be living in Amman, Az Zarqa, Irbid, As Salt, and Ar Ramtha. The remainder of the population resided in villages scattered in an uneven pattern throughout Jordan. The nomadic and seminomadic population was very small, at most 2 to 3 percent of the population. The clearest concentrations of villages were in the fertile northwest corner and the Jordan Valley. Village size varied markedly from region to region. At one time, size related to the productive capacity of the surrounding farmland. Larger villages were located in the more fertile, generally irrigated regions where family members could reach their fields with relative ease. While village populations continued to grow, rural-urban migration drained off a steady stream of young men and sometimes whole families. Villages provided little employment for their residents, and agriculture as a way of life had declined precipitously since the 1950s. Camps of nomadic and seminomadic beduins still existed in the late 1980s. Nomadic tribes were found mainly in the desert area east of a line from Al Mafraq to Maan. The area, about 400 kilometers long and 250 kilometers wide, is known as the badiya (pl., bawaadi, meaning desert or semidesert). Seminomadic beduins were located in the Al Ghawr and near Irbid. These seminomads descended to the Jordan Valley in the winter because of its warm climate and grazing ground for their herds. Traditionally, many of these seminomads also farmed plots of land in the valley. In the summer, they moved their herds up into the hills to avoid the intense heat. The native inhabitants of the Jordan Valley are known as Al Ghawarna, or people of Al Ghawr. Prior to the June 1967 War, the valley was home to about 60,000 people engaged in agriculture and pastoralism. In 1971 the population had declined to 5,000 as a result of the June 1967 War and the 1970-71 conflict between the Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian armed forces (see The Guerrilla Crisis , ch. 1). By 1979, however, the population had reached 85,000 as a result of government development efforts designed to attract people to settle in this area. Refugee camps emerged in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. The original refugee settlements were tent camps, but in most places tents were replaced by rows of galvanized steel, aluminum, and asbestos shelters. There were initially five refugee camps-- Irbid, Az Zarqa, Amman New (Al Wahdat), Al Karamah (later dismantled), and Jabal al Hussein-- but six additional emergency camps were established for refugees from the June 1967 War--Al Hisn, Suf, Jarash, Baqah, Talbiyah, and Marka. Most of the camps were located near major cities in the northwest (see fig. 6). Data as of December 1989 Jordan Table of Contents	3.087673
Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary Places Reflecting America's Diverse Cultures Explore their Stories in the National Park System Walnut Canyon National Monument The rugged terrain in the Flagstaff, Arizona area was home to the Ancestral Puebloans from whom the present day Hopi are descended. Known by their descendants as Hisatsinom, meaning people of long ago, the Hopi ancestors lived in this region for more than 800 years. Although they were not the first to inhabit the Flagstaff area, the Hopi ancestors were the first residents to establish permanent dwellings in a 20-miles long, 400-feet deep, and ¼-mile wide canyon. Walnut Canyon National Monument preserves these cliffside homes, which tell the story of the Ancestral Puebloans of Flagstaff and their influence on Hopi culture today. Believed to have lived in the Flagstaff area from 600 until 1400 AD, the Hopi ancestors were an innovative people who managed to sustain their community in an arid region. Archeologists named this group of Ancestral Puebloans the Sinagua, meaning without water, to embody their lifestyle and stand as a testament to the culture’s exemplary agricultural skills. Like many Pueblo communities of the American Southwest, the Sinagua employed dry-farming techniques to harvest corn, squash, and beans in volcanic terrain. Otherwise known as the “three sisters,” these crops were drought-resistant and ideal for dry farming, since corn can tolerate the sun and shade its lower growing sister crops, squash and beans, which do not require direct sunlight in order to thrive. To irrigate these crops in the semi-arid climate, the Sinagua built terraces and small rock check dams that allowed them to conserve rainwater. They also collected water from Walnut Creek, but this source of water was not reliable since the creek did not flow all year. Although the crops grown on the canyon rims provided most of their food, the Sinagua also took advantage of the region’s wild life and natural resources. To add protein to their diet, the Sinagua hunted deer, bighorn sheep, and several smaller animals that lived within and around Walnut Canyon. They also ate wild grapes, berries, yucca, and the Arizona black walnut. Other plants used for food and medicinal purposes grew on the canyon rims, where they cultivated their crops and established the first Sinagua homes. When the Ancestral Puebloans first settled the region in about 600 AD, the Sinagua people around Flagstaff lived in pithouses and freestanding pueblos scattered along the canyon rims. Eventually, as the community expanded, Sinagua pithouse architecture changed. By the 1100s, the Sinagua were living in alcoves below the canyon rim, where the women constructed unique cliff dwellings still visible throughout the canyon today. Using limestone rocks cemented with golden colored clay, the women formed walls around the eroded limestone caves and reinforced their doorways with wooden beams. Traditionally, they located most of their dwellings in the southern and eastern parts of Walnut Canyon to take advantage of the sunlight, but some were also on the north and west sides for use during warmer periods. Although the Sinagua only lived in these alcoves for approximately 125 years, the Walnut Canyon cliff dwellings are the most visible ruins of the National Monument’s 232 prehistoric sites. When the Sinagua moved to nearby villages in 1250, they left behind over 80 dwellings with three to four rooms each. Together, the six meters long by three-meter deep enclosures house up to 300 rooms, but only 25 of these cliff dwellings are visible to tourists traveling along the canyon footpaths, since pothunters in the 1880s dynamited the cliff dwellings in search of Sinagua possessions. This resulted in the loss of some Sinagua artifacts, but the surviving cliff dwellings, pithouses, and finds from archeological excavations throughout Flagstaff offer great insight into the Sinagua farming community’s life in Walnut Canyon. Visitors may begin their tour of Walnut Canyon National Monument at the visitor center, where native artifacts and museum exhibits are on display. The bookstore is also at the visitor center, and in the lobby, visitors can enjoy the panoramic views of the canyon and distant mountains. To tour the canyon, visitors can follow the Island and Rim trails, two paved footpaths that begin at the visitor center. The Island Trail is a mile long loop to the Sinagua cliff dwellings, and the Rim Trail is a self-guided tour that takes visitors on a half hour trip along the canyon’s perimeter and through the Ponderosa forest. On the Rim Trail, visitors will also see two canyon overlooks, a pithouse, and other pueblo ruins.Walnut Canyon National Monument also offers two ranger-guided hikes, which require reservations. The Ledge Hike lasts four hours, and the Ranger Cabin Walk is a two-hour hike. Visitors can also picnic in designated areas, but no camping is available in the park. Information on nearby lodging and campgrounds, including the Bonito Campground at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, is available on the Walnut Canyon National Monument website.	3.969621
(BPT) - The start of the school year is a time of great anticipation for parents and kids alike. New teachers. New classes. New and old friends. It's a time for fun and learning. Parents expect schools to be safe havens, but the reality is that children face a host of dangers all day long. Bullying, taunting and teasing are only some of the hazards that kids must deal with it every day at even the best schools in America. About 30 percent of middle and high school students say they've been bullied. Among high school students, one out of nine teens reported they had been pushed, shoved, tripped or spit upon during the last school year, according to a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research study. FindLaw.com, the nation's leading website for free legal information, offers the following tips on how to keep your children safe at school: * Talk to your kids about school safety. Talk about bullying and make sure your child understands what is and is not acceptable behavior. Also discuss when and how to report bullying. * Go to the bus stop. If your schedule allows, go to the bus stop with your child and get to know the other kids and parents, along with the bus driver. * Get to know your kids' teachers. Send your child's teacher an email to introduce yourself and regularly check in on your child's academic and social progress. Learn how his or her teacher approaches bullying and other issues that may distract from the school's learning environment, such as the use of cell phones and iPods. * Read the school's policy on bullying. Become familiar with school policies about bullying - particularly the protocols for identifying and reporting bullying behavior. Pay careful attention to policies regarding cyberbullying, which can take place outside of school. * Watch and listen for the cues. Many kids don't want to reveal to their parents that they're being bullied, taunted or teased by other kids. If your child is withdrawn, not doing homework, sick more often than normal or demonstrating other out-of-the-ordinary behavior, talk about what seems to be bothering him or her. * Know where your kids are at. Sometimes bullying and other unsafe situations take place outside of school grounds, such as at other students' houses. Telling your kids that you want to know where they are and that they need permission to visit a friend's house shows them you care. It also reassures them that they can contact you if they need help. * Monitor Internet use and texting. Put the home computer in a public place and don't allow your kids to use a computer in their bedroom by themselves. * Talk to other parents. You may learn that their children also have been bullied or have been involved in activities on and off school grounds that you should be concerned about. You stand a much better chance of obtaining changes and creating a safer environment for your student by acting together rather than alone. * Put it in writing. If you suspect your child is being bullied or sexually harassed by another student (or a teacher or staff member), ask for a face-to-face meeting with the school's principal. If the principal does not act, hire an attorney and escalate your complaint to the superintendent and school board. Putting your complaint in writing about the specific types of negative behavior affecting your child is necessary if you need to litigate the complaint in court. * Take appropriate action when bullying becomes assault. If your child is physically assaulted on the bus, in school or on school grounds, contact the local police department, particularly if there is a school liaison officer assigned to the school, about whether a police report or assault charges should be filed. Do not wait to let the school handle the situation. For more information about how to keep your kids safe at school, visit FindLaw.com.	3.54668
Invasive species are a natural disaster waiting to happen. In some cases, there is a very real danger to humans, such as the Burmese Python in South Florida. In many cases, the threat to humans is indirect, yet no less important, such as Saltcedar's ability to drain waterways. In all cases, the biggest risk is to wildlife habitats, as invasive species are experts in pushing out native plants and animals. Especially in the last couple of decades, many invasive species have made headlines, warning the public to watch for and help prevent their spread, from the Emerald Ash Borer to the Zebra Mussel to the Asian Carp. All the while, another species has been stealthily avoiding this radar, spreading to all but three of the mainland states, and keeping mostly out of sight until their local populations grow larger than the available food sources. Feral hogs are the cockroach of the wilderness, multiplying quickly, highly destructive, disease-carrying, and resilient to control efforts. Conservation and agricultural experts alike are calling for more attention to this mostly silent invader of the nation's woodlands, including those in parts of South Dakota and Nebraska. "There are only three states that list these things [wild or feral hogs] as game animals," said John Mayer, environmental services manager at the U.S., Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., and the nation's leading expert in feral hogs. "Typically, these things are listed as an invasive species." When people think of feral hogs, what comes to mind is the wild hog - usually the Eurasian Wild Boar - which is common in the Southern United States, but the feral hogs that are more likely to cause problems here are domesticated pigs that either escaped or were released into the wild and have adapted to living without human influence. Wild boar and feral pigs also readily breed, creating hybrids that grow larger than the typical wild boar but with the same notorious mean streak. In South Dakota, there have been reports of a feral pot-bellied pig population at Big Stone Lake on the Minnesota border. Usually kept as a pet, pot-bellied pigs can grow as large as 300 pounds and the males will grow tusks. There is also an incident of a lone feral pig shot near Madison. In Nebraska, both wild-hybrid and feral hogs have been a problem in various central and southern counties. According to the University of Georgia's National Feral Swine Mapping System, the largest populations of wild or feral hogs are in Texas, California, Florida, Oregon, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kansas. But wild or feral hogs have been spotted in all of the mainland states except Delaware, Rhode Island, and oddly Wyoming. Wyoming is particularly concerned about feral hogs migrating into the state from the Platte River, but Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's control efforts have so far been adequate. Thirty-six states have verified breeding populations. "They are so adaptable to environments, from cold Canada to the hot, humid southern forests to downtown cities like Fort Worth [Texas]," Mayer said. Wild hogs were first introduced to the United States by European settlers, but the rapid spread occurred in the 20th century when zoo stock was sold to wild game ranches in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Ranches in Michigan imported stock from Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. According to Mayer, wild boar is among the most popular big game species in the United States, second only to whitetail deer. "As we all know, wild boar is hard to hold and these ranches were all leaking wild boar through the fences," Mayer said, adding that by 1990, there were 2 million wild hogs nationwide. "Basically, they're taking over the country." Feral hogs can quickly get out of hand once they become established in an area. They are gregarious, living in small family groups although groups of 100-plus hogs have been reported if there is easy access to food; aggressive, able to inflict injury or even kill animals and humans in their four-square-mile home range; and opportunistic omnivores, meaning that they eat mostly plants but, at times, animals. "Basically, if they can get their mouth around it, they will eat it," Mayer said. "They have been known to kill lambs, rummage through garbage cans, and eat sticks. All kinds of objects have been found in their stomachs." Feral and wild hogs are also prolific breeders, raising two litters of six to 12 piglets a year. They are able to get pregnant as young as three months of age, and to breed again when still nursing a litter. "You hear in the literature that they can double their population in four months and triple it in a year," Mayer said. "Mathematically that may be possible, but there's a lot more mortality in the wild. Piglets are the most vulnerable. Once they reach two years of age, they're good unless they run across a hunter." From an agricultural standpoint, they can greatly damage property, particularly crops, and are a harbor to a number of diseases that affect domestic swine and other livestock as well as humans. According to The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Okla., feral hogs have been known to carry and transmit: · Tuberculosis, the same bacteria that infects cattle and humans; · Anthrax, a soil-borne bacteria that is often fatal if contracted by humans; · Tularemia, a bacteria that is often transmitted to humans through tick bites or improperly cooked wild game; and	3.47035
When a major earthquake strikes, seconds count. In the devastating 2011 Japan earthquake, a sensor embedded in the ground detected the first signs of movement and immediately sent out an alert at the speed of light. Within seconds, text messages warning of impending shaking went out to roughly 50 million people. Many people in Tokyo, 200 miles away from the epicenter, knew the quake was coming before they felt the shaking about 30 seconds later. Trains were able to slow down or stop, and not a single car derailed. FOR THE RECORD: Earthquake warning system: An article in the Jan. 29 Section A about a proposal to create an earthquake early warning system in California said that a study published in January was the latest to predict a catastrophic quake on the San Andreas fault. The study did not make that prediction, but it did raise the possibility that a quake along that fault line could be large enough to be felt across the entire state. Join our live video discussion here at 3 p.m. PT On Monday, a group of California's top geophysicists and seismologists announced an $80-million plan to create a similar earthquake early warning system in California. It would be the first such network in the United States and marks an ambitious new safety initiative by some of California's top state and federal earthquake experts. The U.S. is behind Japan as well as Mexico, Taiwan, Turkey and even Romania in creating early alert systems. Last year, residents in Mexico City were warned shortly before the shaking from a 7.4 quake that began near Acapulco arrived. State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is proposing legislation to create the statewide network. California already has hundreds of ground sensors measuring earth movement, but experts said another $80 million is needed to expand and upgrade the monitors. They said the system could be up and running in two years if funding is found. An early warning system could be particularly beneficial in Southern California, which is at risk of a major temblor on the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas is located far enough away from metropolitan Los Angeles that officials believe residents would have a one-minute warning of the huge quake. If a temblor erupted near the Salton Sea, for instance, underground sensors along the San Andreas would send off an alert to points north and west, covering population centers in Los Angeles and San Diego. Experts said this would give time to shut off utilities, prepare emergency response personnel and slow trains. A study released in January was the latest of many to predict a catastrophic quake on the San Andreas. This report, for the first time, raised the possibility of a mega quake across the entire fault line that would be felt from San Francisco to San Diego. Padilla said it's time for California to build its own system, adding that $80 million is a bargain compared with the billions of dollars in damage the system could prevent. "Think of the lives we could save. The injuries we can reduce. And the billions upon billions of damage.... If we can just reduce that by a small percentage, or a fraction, the system would more than pay for itself," Padilla said. At a demonstration Monday at Caltech, seismologists showed how the system would work. The simulation recreated the 1933 Long Beach quake off the coast of Huntington Beach. A person in Pasadena, 40 miles away, would have about 18 seconds to prepare if an alert was issued. In the demonstration, scientists showed the earthquake waves moving toward Pasadena from Orange County as an alarm sounded with a computerized voice repeating: "Earthquake! Earthquake! Earthquake!" Officials said the idea would be for people to install a quake warning program on their computers and mobile devices. If a large earthquake occurred, the warning would take over the screen. Alerts would also be tied to automatic systems that could tell elevators to stop, open firehouse doors and flash notifications on freeways. The early warning system would build upon the existing California Integrated Seismic Network that produces online maps after quakes showing their epicenter. Officials said California already has almost 1,000 earthquake sensors across the state, but the network needs an additional 200 machines and upgrades to 400 stations for the system to work.	3.397981
A study led by researchers at the University of Colorado has determined that the pace of planet warming in the first decade of this century was slowed by volcanic activity, and not by industrial activity in Asia, as was previously believed. Previous research in 2009 had suggested that an increase in stratospheric aerosols tied to a 60 percent increase in sulfur dioxide emissions over China and India had negated about 25 percent of the global warming that scientists attribute to greenhouse gas emissions. That cooling effect occurs when sulfur dioxide emissions rise 12 to 20 miles to the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere. There, chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back into space. Now, research led by study author Ryan Neely, conducted as part of his doctoral thesis at CU, has shown that global warming from 2000 to 2010 was tamped down by sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions, not industrial emissions in China and India, where such activity has greatly increased in recent years. "It's good to know this is coming from volcanoes; its a natural thing, and it's not something we're doing as a planet," said Neely, who is now a post-doctoral fellow in the advanced study program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The 10-year window addressed by the study did not see massive activity on the scale of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which erupted in 1991 in the second-largest volcanic event of the 20th century. Still, there was sufficient volcanic activity in the 2000s from the tropics to Alaska that made an impact in the stratosphere. The new research piggybacks on a 2011 study led by Susan Solomon, a former scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which showed that stratospheric aerosols -- without isolating their source -- offset about one-quarter of the greenhouse-effect warming of Earth in the past 10 years. To determine what was contributing to that, Neely said he realized, "You couldn't do it from observations alone. It's all intermingled, and you can't separate the two sources easily. It was going to take a very specialized model that no one has done before." CU's Janus supercomputer was pressed into service to conduct seven computer runs, each of them simulating 10 years of atmospheric activity linked to both coal-burning activities in Asia and to volcanic emissions around the world. Each run required about a week of computer time, utilizing 192 processors, enabling the team to isolate coal-burning pollution in Asia from aerosol contributions tied to volcanic eruptions. Neely said the work would have taken a single computer about 25 years to complete. The fact that the emissions from industrial activity on the other side of the planet is not affecting temperature fluctuations tied to particulates in the stratosphere, Neely said, does not mean that all those human-caused emissions are good for the environment. "A lot of people would take it that way," he said, "but it's bad for other reasons -- for acid rain reasons, and just for putting pollution into the atmosphere, and not to mention all the carbon dioxide they're emitting, when they burn all the coal," he said. In a news release, study co-author and CU professor Brian Toon said, "The biggest implication here is that scientists need to pay more attention to small and moderate volcanic eruptions, when trying to understand changes in Earth's climate. "But overall, these eruptions are not going to counter the greenhouse effect. Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up." Contact Camera Staff Writer Charlie Brennan at 303-473-1327 or [email protected].	3.331965
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2013 Our country’s cultural richness stems from the many immigrant and native legacies which bind us as one Nation from many peoples. Our strength as a Nation resides in the hearts and minds and spirit of our people, united in preserving freedom and justice, and in our willingness to work hard to earn our own way. Asian and Pacific Islander Americans have contributed enormously through language, the arts, music, literature, science, and medicine, adding their own hopes and dreams, to the countless threads that give color and resilience to the fabric that is America. Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month commemorates both the arrival of the first immigrant Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, linking our Nation’s east and west coasts. So many Chinese immigrants were instrumental to this uniting of the continent. And so many Asian and Pacific Islander Americans since have likewise served and sacrificed for our country. More than 292,000 of them have defended this Nation. Over 67,000 men and women of Asian and Pacific Islander descent currently serve on duty in our Armed Forces around the world. America is safer, and our democracy is stronger, because of their service in uniform. These Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, from the first brave immigrants to today’s generation of vibrant Americans, have made positive and lasting contributions to the greater good of our society. Their impact has been truly significant—from operating small businesses to leading multinational corporations; from teaching in our most rural classrooms to lecturing in our greatest universities; from volunteering to care for the sick and homeless to commanding the formations which defend us, preserving peace in a dangerous world. Asian and Pacific Islander Americans are fully interwoven into every aspect of American life, bringing with them the hopes and dreams to build an ever-greater America. On behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is a privilege to celebrate the rich histories of all Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, including over 22,000 of our co-workers, during this month which honors their heritage. Eric K. Shinseki	3.26407
Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, the latest operating system and Windows makeover, were released in fall 2012. For programmers, many new APIs were included in the features added. Several of the new features focus on the venerable sockets interface, the basic network paradigm first introduced in Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX in the early 1980s. Sockets still form the basis for networking on all of the major platforms including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, and Android. You might want to consider these new Windows socket APIs for your next project when writing new apps or refactoring older applications for Windows. New Windows 8 features for sockets programming are found at both ends of the network spectrum: - Window Runtime (WinRT) sockets: Used for low-level networking in Windows Store apps. - High-performance sockets: Used in writing network servers for desktop apps that need low network latency and the highest performance. - WebSockets: The other new networking APIs are socket-related, at least in name; these are extensions to the HTTP protocols for the creation of a special Web socket that is fully bidirectional once the connection is established, either endpoint can initiate or send packets. Herein I provide a brief introduction to these new networking socket features available on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The focus will be more on WinRT sockets, since these will appeal to a larger set of developers. Sockets and Windows The original Berkeley socket implementation developed in 1983 was very simple, based on the design of UNIX file I/O. A network socket became a special type of file handle. BSD networking functions were basic: socket (open or create), connect (for TCP), close. Several types of sockets were supported including TCP (stream), UDP (datagram), and later UNIX domain sockets. For TCP servers and applications receiving UDP packets, the listen functions would bind to a network address and listen for incoming packets. For use with UDP, there were the recvfrom functions. A few other functions were provided for getting and setting socket options, getting a host by name or address; and there were the poll functions to check on the state of a socket. With the adoption of Windows Sockets (Winsock) in 1993, Microsoft added support for sockets to Windows. The initial Winsock 1.1 API was relatively modest with calls similar to BSD UNIX plus a number of Windows-specific extension functions. Over time, the Winsock API has grown larger and larger. The current reference documentation for Windows Sockets for desktop apps lists more than 140 functions and 80 structures along with several hundred IOCTLS and socket options. This doesn't include functions used by the Winsock Service Provider Interface (SPI). The existing Winsock API has become very large, complex, and challenging for new users. The new socket APIs introduced with Windows 8/Windows Server 2012 provide much simpler, stripped-down APIs for sockets programming closer to the spirit of the original BSD sockets. Windows 8: Two for the Money Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 introduce a new graphical user interface (GUI) that represents a major redesign of the Windows user experience. The changes are targeted primarily for touch-enabled devices, with tiles used to represent apps and new system navigation features (charms, settings, etc.). On traditional Intel/AMD x86/x64 hardware, Windows 8 can be thought of as an operating system for two different types of apps: - Windows Store apps: New apps that run on Windows 8 only. These apps are limited to using the WinRT APIs and a few other APIs (some classes from the .NET framework along with a few desktop functions) that are exposed for use by Windows Store apps. - Windows desktop apps: Traditional Windows apps that provide developers access to all of the Windows APIs except the WinRT APIs (unless the WinRT class has a special DualApiPartitionAttribute). These represent the traditional applications that ran on Windows 7 and older versions of the OS. If you use new Windows 8 desktop APIs, then the app will only be able to run on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 or later versions. On ARM-based hardware (in the original Microsoft Surface tablet, for example), Windows 8 has been stripped down so only Windows Store apps can be installed and used. Windows 8 apps using WinRT are installed by purchasing and downloading them from the Microsoft App Store (many apps are free). Windows and app upgrades are also downloaded and installed from the Microsoft Store. Sideloading apps on these WinRT-based devices is mostly restricted, except when Visual Studio 2012 is installed. Sideloading allows developers to test apps they write before submitting them for publication on the Windows App Store. (Note: The Windows App Store is not the Microsoft.com online store that sells versions of Windows, Office, other Microsoft software, and some hardware. There is also a separate Windows Phone App Store for purchasing and downloading apps for Windows phones.) Windows Runtime and Sockets The WinRT APIs used by Windows Store apps provide a set of managed APIs that are designed for several different languages and presentation schemes: - C#/VB.NET with XAML: Designed for existing C#/VB.NET developers and others using managed code (Java developers). - C++ with XAML: Designed for core C++ desktop and COM developers as well as others using similar languages (Objective-C developers). Developers are free to choose whatever language and presentation they prefer. In fact, the same app can be written in any of these languages. Microsoft provides downloadable samples for Windows Store apps, many of which are implemented in multiple languages for illustration. For example, the downloadable StreamSocket sample and the DatagramSocket sample are implemented in all three language combinations.	3.08366

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